That Day in History

 

It is February 22.  It was a cold and rainy all day in Chicagoland.  Everyone was worried about it turning into ice storm.  The trees by my home were glazed but not heavy with ice.  A half-hour’s drive north across the Wisconsin border it was just enough colder to be an ice storm.  A friend texted that they lost power but luckily only for a few hours.

This morning, I left at 6:15 to got to school.  I got there and realized my office key was at home in the pocket of the jacket I wore on Monday.  Unable to get into the School of Business and Nonprofit Management building, actually a house, and my office, I went directly to the classroom foregoing the morning espresso I would have made.

I was in the classroom by 7 and was checking emails.  When I finished catching up on my work emails, I checked my personnel account.  An email, This Day in History from the History Channel, caught my eye.  I get this email every day (duh) but I rarely open them.  Today, February 22^nd, I decided to open it due solely to a change in my routine.  There were 14 items in the email but only two and half got my attention.

First on their list was the Miracle on Ice in 1980 when the US Olympic Hockey Team upset the unbeatable Soviet Team in Lake Placid, New York.  It was an amazing game that most people think was the final but it was actually a semi-final game.  The US had to beat Finland to win the gold medal which the did a few days later.  That game against Finland, though important, was anti-climactic after the game against the USSR.  The USA-USSR game was an amazing and to this day probably the best sporting event I ever saw. 

This is the third time I am writing about this.  The first was in 2006, before this blog, when I was writing one letter a month and emailing to folks.  It was a segment in the February 2006 Letter in which I relived that moment.  Everyone I know around my age remembers where they were and with who they watched the game.  The second time was in was in February of 2010, Olympic Hockey, when I was comparing the 2010 made up of professional players and the glorious 1980 team of amateurs drilled and molded by the amazing Herb Brooks. 

The second item in the History Channel email shouldn’t have been a surprise but it was.  February 22^nd is the birthday of George Washington.  How did that slip my mind?  I always remember Lincoln’s birthday on Feb 12^th.  On June 28, 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act to move certain Federal Holidays to Mondays to create three-day weekends.  Included in the Act was the consolidation of Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays into one Monday holiday:  President’s Day.  I remember Lincoln’s birthday on the 12^th, then I believe when President’s Day comes around, I subconsciously think that is Washington’s Birthday.  Well… it’s a theory.

Back during my K-12 school years in Detroit and Livonia, we never got Lincoln or Washington’s birthdays off nor did we get President’s Day off after the Uniform Monday Holiday Act.  I never understood why.  When we moved to CT, the kids not only got President’s Day off but also the rest of the week.  It was called Winter Break.

At the beginning, I said that there were two and a half items that caught my interest in the History Channel email.  So, what was the half?  It was that the Battle of Buena Vista began on February 22.  The Battle of Buena Vista?  It took place on February 22-23, 1847.  The US troops led by future President Zachary Taylor invaded Mexico to face General Antonio López de Santa Anna’s much larger Army.  One source said the US won, another said both sides claimed victory.  The US had two heroes that went on to even more notable achievements.  Taylor earned the nickname “Old Rough and Ready” and was elected President in 1848.  The other was Jefferson Davis who became President of the Confederacy.  I read about the battle but never quite grasped why we initiated it what impact it had but helping Taylor get elected President.  Maybe, it was simply another chance to humiliate Santa Anna.

Fast forward, it is now March 4^th and I am just finishing this piece.  Why the delay?  All I can do is quote one of eloquent grandsons, “I dunno.”  If really pressed for an answer, I would say it was a combination of the schoolwork, the Persian Concert weekend for the University of Chicago Middle Eastern Ensemble, life in general, and a valley in my own biorhythm cycle.

On March 1^st, I did again read the This Day in History email.  There was only one item that caught my eye.  It was about grave robbers exhuming and stealing Charlie Chaplin’s body in Switzerland.  I was totally amazed that I had zero recall of what seems like a sensational event.  Chaplin died on December 25, 1977.  On March 1, 1978, two immigrants Roman Wardas, the 24 year old mastermind, and Gantscho Ganev, his 38 year old accomplice, stole Chaplin’s body and ransomed it for $600,000.  Of course, the family did not pay the ransom and the police apprehended the out of work destitute duo.  Wardas got four and a half years of hard labor while Ganev’s eighteen-month sentence was suspended due to his minimal role in the crime.  When I asked Google about what might have happened to Wardas and Ganev but whatever became of them happened off of the grid.

I wonder what gems are in the History Channel’s email today… all I have to do is open it and read.