The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

On this day in 1789, the first Congress passed the Bill of Rights — 12 amendments to the Constitution designed to protect the basic rights of U.S. citizens. Only the last 10 of the original 12 were ratified by the states, including the First Amendment, which includes freedom of religion, speech, the press, and public assembly.

It's the birthday of sportswriter Walter Wellesley Smith (books by this author), known as Red Smith, born in Green Bay, Wisconsin (1905). He majored in journalism at Notre Dame, and he had no special interest in sports writing; he just wanted to be a reporter. At his second newspaper job, for the St. Louis Star, the editor had to fire half of the sportswriters when he found out they were taking bribes. Desperate to fill the missing positions, the editor moved Smith over to the sports desk, and Smith had a knack for it. He went on to write a sports column for the New York Herald Tribune for 20 years, and was considered one of the best sportswriters in the country. When the Herald Tribune folded, Smith moved over to The New York Times, and wrote a column until four days before he died.

He said: "Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection."

On this day in the fictional world of the book The Caine Mutiny, the WWII warship the U.S.S. Caine runs aground. Lieutenant Commander Queeg blames his mistake on his helmsman to avoid the responsibility, but it is the first in a series of mistakes and miscalculations that cause his crew to lose respect for him. Eventually, they convince one another that Queeg needs to be relieved of his command: mutiny.

The novel, published by Herman Wouk (books by this author) in 1951, was based on Wouk's own experience at sea during the war. The book won a Pulitzer Prize and was made into a film starring Humphrey Bogart as the undermined Navy captain.

It's the birthday of Shel Silverstein, born in Chicago (1932) (books by this author), a cartoonist for Stars and Stripes during the Korean War, and then Playboy magazine. He came out with his first children's book in 1963, Uncle Shelby's Story of Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back. A year later, he wrote The Giving Tree, about a tree that sacrifices itself for a growing boy's happiness. His 1974 book, Where the Sidewalk Ends, has sold more than a million copies in hardcover.

Shel Silverstein wrote:

"Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
'Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before."

It's the birthday of the poet and translator C.K. (Charles Kenneth) Scott-Moncrieff (books by this author), born in Stirlingshire, Scotland (1889). He's best known for translating the work of Marcel Proust into English. He published the first volume of his translation, Swann's Way, in 1922, a few weeks before Proust's death. It was wildly successful in England, and the translation was hailed as one of the greatest translations of all time.

It's the birthday of novelist William Faulkner (books by this author), born in New Albany, Mississippi (1897). He started off writing poetry, influenced by the Romantic poets. He wrote about flowers, birds, and clouds. He moved to New Orleans, where he met the novelist Sherwood Anderson. Before that, he had never considered making a living as a writer. Anderson worked in the mornings, and in the afternoons, they walked together down the streets of New Orleans. In the evenings, they sat together over a bottle of whiskey until past midnight, while Anderson talked and Faulkner listened. The next morning, Anderson was back at writing. Faulkner said, "I thought that if that's the sort of life being a writer was then that's the life for me, that I would become a writer." So he began his first novel, Soldier's Pay (1922), which Anderson recommended to his own publisher. Five years later, Faulkner wrote his first book set in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, the setting for many of his best-known novels. He said: "I'm trying to say it all in one sentence, between one Cap and one period. I'm still trying to put it all, if possible, on one pinhead. I don't know how to do it. All I know to do is to keep on trying in a new way."

The Sound and the Fury (1929) begins: "Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting." Light in August (1932) begins: "Sitting beside the road, watching the wagon mount the hill toward her, Lena thinks, 'I have come from Alabama: a fur piece. All the way from Alabama a-walking. A fur piece.' " Absalom, Absalom (1936)begins: "From a little after two o'clock until almost sundown of the long still hot weary dead September afternoon they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father had called it that — a dim hot airless room with the blinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers because when she was a girl someone had believed that light and moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler, and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side of the house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes which Quentin thought of as being flecks of the dead old dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blinds as wind might have blown them."