The Blaisdell Blog

On this day in 1912 the people on board the RMS Titanic were enjoying a speedy and trouble-free journey across the Atlantic Ocean.   They were on board a pristine ship well on its way to setting a speed record for a transatlantic crossing.   None anticipated their collision with an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. that night, and the sinking of the ship that would just 2 ½ hours later.   Our lives turn on a dime.   The RMS Titanic, an “unsinkable” ship, went to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, taking 1500 people to their deaths.    The ship was built to be the final word in luxury and modern opulence.   Yet she made her real money in transporting hundreds of immigrants in steerage class.   Catering to the wealthy, the Titanic sought to muscle through on style and hubris instead of substance and careful planning.   That never works.   Four days into the crossing and 600 miles south of Newfoundland, the Titanic hit an iceberg, flooding five of...

  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 , ...