The Blaisdell Blog

  I once taught with a great woman who was Irish to the core.   She had asked me when I was going to put up my St. Patrick’s Day decorations and, was appalled when I asked her when St. Patrick’s Day was.   I knew it was coming up in March, but could never remember the date.   Everyone agreed that not being Irish didn’t make up for my blatant ignorance.               This brings to mind a much larger question.   Why does the whole country celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (March 17, as it turns out) but nobody celebrates St. Olaf’s Day (July 29)?   I am mostly Norwegian (though on St. Patrick’s Day I am allowed to be Irish through the use of large amounts of green and/or beer).   I know a little about St. Patrick, and a great deal more about St. Olaf and I can think of no reason for the lack of celebration for one and too much celebration for another except, maybe, good press.   ...

  March is Women’s History Month.   It coincides with International Women’s Day, which is celebrated March 8.   I was reminded of this when I was searching for a bread recipe.   I keep my cookbooks in a hall closet, along with two shelves of vintage books—one’s I have read and choose to keep for one reason or another.   Reaching for a cookbook I happened to see my biography of Baby Doe Tabor—the Silver Queen.             Baby Doe was not a paragon of womanly virtue.   In fact, she was a woman with a past, a questionable present and a fallen-from-grace future.   But she had true grit.   Tenacious, focused to the point of obsession and a die hard are the words that best describe this second, flamboyant wife of a Colorado silver mine baron.   Her life was marked by deprivation, soaring success, a precipitous fall and, finally, not just a return to deprivation, but a return to hopeless, lo...

  Presidents Day is celebrated on the 3 rd Monday in February.   Traditionally it was celebrated on February 22, the date of President George Washington’s actual birthday.   But specific dates on the calendar have a pesky habit of falling on every day of the week.   If what you want is not just to commemorate our first President, but to create a three-day holiday for the nation’s workers, you have to set not a date, but a day.   So, in 1971 the Uniform Monday Holiday Act was passed, and Washington’s Birthday became, “President’s Day.” Decades ago I read my first Presidential biography.   It was the life of Woodrow Wilson, and I have been hooked ever since.   I’ve covered 23 of our 44 Presidents so far.   I don’t read them in any particular order.   Travel, current events or a whisper on the wind will dictate which biography I start next.   Sometimes one biography leads to another.   After reading the spectacular book, Truman , ...

  In truth, I had forgotten about this anniversary until I saw the story in the paper.   In that instant my coffee cup was suspended before my lips, my eyes looked without seeing and I realized that, had I had my way, I would be looking at the anniversary of my death.              On January 28, 1986 the Challenger space shuttle lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 11:38 a.m.   Seventy-three seconds later it blew up in a starburst of destruction, killing all the crew members on board.   They did not die instantly, and were probably alive during the ever accelerating plunge toward the ocean.   It is the impact with the water that killed them—that would have killed me. On board was a crew as diverse as American itself.   Included in the group were America’s first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe, a 37-year-old teacher.   As far as I was concerned, she had taken my place.   I had ...