February 3, 2019
Good morning friends, many thanks for stopping by today.
Today, On This Date has an aviation bent, the Top of the Charts investigates 1968 and Philosophy 101 has a quote from Saul Bellow to keep us thinking.
THE DAILY ALMANAC
On This Date:
In 1959 – Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens J.P. Richardson – better known as the Big Bopper – and their less-famous pilot are killed in a plane crash in north-central Iowa. The flight was en route from a show in Clear Lake, Iowa to another show in Moorhead, Minnesota. Country music legend Waylon Jennings, a member of Holly’s band, lost a coin flip to Richardson for a seat on the flight. Fares for the flight were $36 per person, a bit more than $300 in today’s dollars.
In 1961 – The US Air Force begins Operation Looking Glass, a program of round-the-clock flights designed to provide airborne command of US nuclear forces in the event ground command centers are inoperable. The plane is headed by a commanding general and a staff of about 20, not including aircraft personnel. The operation ceased continuous airborne operations in 1990, but remains on 24-hour alert.
Top of the Charts
#1 songs on this date in 1968:
Hot 100 – Green Tambourine…The Lemon Pipers (only week)
Soul Chart – Chain of Fools…Aretha Franklin (3rd of four weeks)
Country Chart – Skip a Rope…Henson Cargill (1st of five weeks)
Album Chart – The Magical Mystery Tour…The Beatles (5th of eight weeks)
– Chart data courtesy of Billboard.
Numbers Racket
10,635: the continuous number of days the US has been at war.
21.970: the number of dollars, in trillions, of America’s national debt. – Source: usdebtclock.org
646: days until Election Day 2020.
Philosophy 101
I almost never think of my calendar years. I’m forever hiking across the same plateau with no end in sight.
Saul Bellow
Ravelstein
It is very easy to think of our calendar years. Our need to reckon time is a fundamental part of human nature, so much so that we have names for each new day and these days are broken up into hours and minutes. Enough days and a week has passed and weeks make up a year and these years make up decades and centuries. Every year the anniversary of our birth awaits us, reminding us how much time we’ve spent on this planet and how much, or how little, we might have left. No one’s time on this planet is unlimited and unless there’s a death warrant with our name on it, we generally don’t know when or how it will end. Marking our days and years is a much a part of our human experience as eating.
It’s human nature to mark time, but how necessary is it? Those that get on this world generally do not pay too much attention to the passing of the years. They were meant to make their time serve them and not to merely stand around marking its passing and they work hard to get the most out of their time on this planet. They do this by cultivating and getting the most out of the talents they were born with and those who do this with dilligence and courage lead lives whose end, while a foregone conclusion, has no bearing on their present.
Our lives are, indeed, similar to a plateau whose end cannot be seen. Of course, the years pass and they will take their toll: hair will turn gray, our bodies will no longer the limber temples they were in earlier years. But if we are on our paths, if we are counting on our hearts to tell us where to go and our instincts to tell us how to get there – which they never fail to do – we may well find the years passing without reference from us.
Saul Bellow (1915-2005) was a Canadian and American writer. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976.
Many thanks for reading, and have a good day.
xoxoxo
Kaitlyn