“Harper Valley PTA”, a country song written by Tom T. Hall, was recorded and released in 1968 by the then relatively unknown singer Jeannie C. Riley. The song was an immediate hit, reaching #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. Riley thus became the first woman to hold the Number 1 spot on the pop and country charts with the same song, a feat that wasn’t duplicated until Dolly Parton’s 1981 hit “9 to 5”.
Harper Lee outlined and wrote portions of To Kill a Mockingbird while supporting herself as a ticket reservation agent for Eastern Air Lines and British Overseas Airways.
Astronaut Frank Borman went to space twice, on the Gemini 7 and Apollo 8 missions. He retired from the U.S. Air Force, and from NASA, in 1970, and joined Eastern Air Lines as their senior vice president for operations. By 1976, Borman had become Eastern’s chief executive officer, and chairman of the board.
When Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited the U.S. for its Bicentennial in 1976, among many other public appearances, they toured the USS Constitution in Charlestown, Mass. The Queen noted British royal arsenal marks on several of the sail frigate’s cannon, and joked to her husband, “We really must have a word with the Prime Minister about these foreign arms sales.”
During an official welcome ceremony on the White House lawn in 2007, President George W. Bush mistakenly said the Queen had helped celebrate the US bicentennial in 1776, when he meant 1976. Rather than take offense, she opened her speech the following night with a toast to the president and said: “I wondered whether I should start this toast by saying, ‘When I was here in 1776…’”
Searching for ‘US President verbal gaffes’ yields many results. Of course! Here are two results:
From ➜ Warning signs: a history of Joe Biden’s verbal slips | Joe Biden | The Guardian ■
1 March 2022: At his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill, Biden said “Iranian” when he meant “Ukrainian,” “America” when he meant “Delaware” and “profits” when he meant “prices”.
From ➜ Lost Track of Trump’s Weekend Verbal Gaffes? Here’s a Full List. | The New Republic ■
Over the last few months, Trump has repeatedly prided himself on “acing” a dementia test, insisted that immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border “don’t speak languages,” claimed that he would stop banks from “debanking” Americans, mixed up former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and his only remaining rival in the GOP race, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and described his plan for America’s missile defense system by going, “Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.… Boom. OK. Missile launch. Woosh. Boom.”
Joe Biden, Democrat of Delaware, is only the second President of the United States to be Catholic; the first was John F. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio, was raised in an evangelical Christian family but converted to Catholicism in 2019. He will be the second Catholic Vice President, after Biden himself.
Cyrus Vance Sr. was a lawyer and U.S. government official. He first began government work in 1957, when Senator Lyndon Johnson tapped him to work on the Senate’s Armed Services Committee. Vance then served in the Kennedy Administration as General Counsel for the Department of Defense, and later as the Secretary of the Army, in the Johnson Administration as Deputy Secretary of Defense, and in the Carter Administration as Secretary of State.
His son, Cyrus Vance Jr., served as District Attorney for New York County (i.e., Manhattan) from 2010 until 2022.
“Cyrus” is the Latin form, by way of Greek, of the name of Cyrus the Great of Persia, whose name in Old Persian was : 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 Kūruš.
Professional ballplayer Cy Young was born Denton True Young. His nickname came from the fences that he had destroyed using his fastball. The fences looked like a cyclone had hit them. Reporters later shortened the name to “Cy”, which became the nickname Young used for the rest of his life.
In the novel The Black Stallion by Walter Farley, the title horse competes against two other stallions, Cyclone and Sun Raider, in a match race at the climax.
The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float is an account by Farley Mowat about his travels and travails with a small leaky Newfoundland schooner that he bought in Newfoundland, sailed to St Pierre and Miquelon, and eventually took up the St Lawrence to Expo 67.
The boat was formally christened Happy Adventure after a pirate vessel, but at one point was sailing under an unpronounceable Basque name.
Although Nana the Dog in Disney’s animated film, Peter Pan, is identified as a St Bernard, author J. M. Barrie originally based her on his own dog, Luath, a Newfoundland.
The fictional character Peter Pan first appeared as a character in a 1902 novel for adults titled The Little White Bird, written by Scottish novelist J. M. Barrie. Two years later, Barrie put the character as the central character in his highly successful play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. It is believed that Barrie based the character on his older brother David, who died in an ice-skating accident the day before his 14th birthday.
The name Wendy long predated its use by J.M. Barrie for the name of the young heroine of Peter Pan in 1904, but it boomed in popularity for English girls afterwards.
Winnifred “Wendy” Torrance (played by Shelley Duvall) is the fictional wife of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining (1980). While the story is set in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the movie’s opening scene shows Jack Nicholson driving instead in Glacier National Park in western Montana on the scenic Going-to-the-Sun Road. A National Historic Landmark, Going-to-the-Sun Road was built in the 1920s and is widely considered to be one of the most scenic drives in the USA, if not the world. The Dangerous Roads site ranks it among the 15 best motorcycling roads in America.
➜ 15 Stunning American Roads Every Motorcyclist Needs to Experience ■
Oregon ski resort Timberline Lodge stood in for exterior shots of the Stanley Hotel in The Shining. The lodge hosts events involving its notorious side, including a “Family Fright Night” each Halloween. The lodge displays props (like Jack Torrance’s axe) and the gift shop sells merchandise connected to the movie.
Linus Pauling, Beverly Cleary, and Matt Groening were all born in Oregon.
We stayed there on our honeymoon some 22 years ago. It has beautiful insides, with all the old woodwork. Is nearly 100 years old, IIRC.
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On Star Trek: The Next Generation, Dr. Beverly Crusher served a stint in the office of the Surgeon General of Starfleet between assignments as Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D. The starship was under the command of her friend, sometime lover and (in some timelines, at least) future husband, Capt. Jean-Luc Picard.