March 22, 2019
Dearest Readers,
Some good stuff for you today as On This Date visits with the namesake for the Americas as well as Karl Wallenda, Top of the Charts reviews today in music in 1975 and Philosophy 101 talks about being on the wire and why that is a good place to be, even though some avoid it.
Many thanks for reading,
xoxoxo
Kaitlyn
On This Date:
In 1508 – King Ferdinand II of Aragon appoints Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian mariner and cartographer of note, as chief navigator. Thanks mainly to various letters he either wrote or were attributed to him, a variation of his name was attached to the continents of the New World, now known as North and South America.
In 1978 – Karl Wallenda, a German-born naturalized American and patriarch of The Flying Wallendas, falls ten stories to his death while attempting to walk a tightrope between two buildings in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda was about halfway across and was lowering himself when he lost his balance and fell. Despite the high winds, his family said his fall was due more to faulty wires that were attached to the tightrope. Wallenda, 73, came from an old German circus family and had been performing since he was four-years-old.
Top of the Charts
#1 songs on this date in 1975:
Hot 100 – My Eyes Adored You…Frankie Valli (only week)
Soul Chart – Shining Star…Earth, Wind & Fire (1st of two weeks)
Country Chart – Before the Next Teardrop Falls…Freddy Fender (2nd and final week)
UK Singles Chart – Bye Bye Baby…Bay City Rollers (1st of six weeks)
Album Chart – Physical Graffiti…Led Zeppelin (1st of six weeks )
– Chart data courtesy of Billboard (US) and Official Charts Company (UK).
Numbers Racket
10,681: the continuous number of days the US has been at war.
22.142: the number of dollars, in trillions, of America’s national debt. – Source: usdebtclock.org
600: number of days until Election Day 2020.
Philosophy 101
Life is being on the wire; everything else is just waiting.
Rick Wallenda
We all have our wires waiting for us. The only question is whether we choose to cross them or not. Now, the wires that await us don’t necessarily have to be tightropes strung between buildings or over waterfalls. As we note here from time to time, we are all issued assorted talents at birth and not all of us have a knack for or an interest in being an acrobat.
But we all have talents. We all have certain things we can do well. The difference between those that get on in this world and those that, perhaps, are looking back on time squandered, is those that make something happen for themselves have accepted the challenge of making their time serve them and maximizing the talents they were issued at birth. They know the life they were meant to live, they have the courage to go and live that life every day and they have the patience to see their path through to the very end.
We can do no less; the talents we were born with are calling us, waiting with their own wires for us to cross. Are we going to accept the challenge? Are we going to choose to maximize the talents we were born with and live the life we were meant to live, or are going to squander that opportunity? I can’t answer that question for you and you can’t answer it for me. Each of us must look in the mirror every morning – where we will generally see our biggest obstacle – and decide for ourselves.
Attempting to cross the wire is life’s great challenge and crossing it is life’s great prize. It is there for everyone. All we have to do is know ourselves and follow our hearts and trust our instincts to lead us where we were meant to go.
Rick Wallenda is the grandson of Karl Wallenda, whose death is noted above.