Autumn In Springfield — Here are some autumn pictures of Springfield, Delco, Pa.
Top is the First Presbyterian Church from Cascade Road.
Beneath it is the driveway in Veterans Memorial Park.
Autumn In Springfield
Category: Holidays
Stories concerning holidays and seasons
Celebrate Columbus, Ignore Zinn
Celebrate Columbus, Ignore Zinn –Let us today, this Columbus Day ignore Howard Zinn, who was after all a very bad historian, and celebrate the guy who, for all intents and purposes, discovered America.
Vinland, after all, never really took.
Howard Zinn was a socialist who wrote “A People’s History of the United States” which used to be able to be read for free at a site, appropriately enough regarding Zinn, called HistoryIsAWeapon.com. It no longer seems to be available there, however.
Zinn claims that America has always been ruled by oppressors — the 1 percenters who own a third of the wealth and keep control by fermenting dissent among the 99 percent who are the rest of us — and starts his claim with Columbus who he says committed genocide on the residents of the West Indies.
It seems to be the theme pushed by the hipster crowd in the twenty-teens.
Well, the truth is the Spanish were pretty rough on the native peoples of the Caribbean, something we know from Spanish sources, but the cruelty was obviously not done at the direction of Spanish authorities as steps were taken to stop it when complaints reached them. Further, the native peoples of the Caribbean were not without their flaws either. The name for the Caribbean comes from the Carib tribe, from whence we also get the word cannibal.
And while Columbus was far from perfect he does not appear to be the gratuitously cruel tyrant Zinn and our hipster friends claim him to be. In Columbus’ own words this is what he says about the Lucayan peoples of the Bahamas who Zinn et al alleges he mutilated and slaughtered: “They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal… . Your Highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people … they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are always laughing.”
It seems the revisionists are getting their signals crossed, which is understandable as Zinn is a rather bad historian.
America is a place that allowed tens of millions of Europeans and Asians to escape the feudalism that infected their homelands and her discovery only deserves to be celebrated. Even Africans should celebrate. Slavery existed in Africa — it wasn’t Europeans doing the slave catching — before the trans-Atlantic slave trade and it was only after the founding of the United States did the push begin to end it. Pennsylvania was one of the first recognized governments in in history, to ban slavery which happened in 1780 in the middle of the Revolutionary War.
Hipsters ironically want a day named for Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas and there is a point to that as the Bishop is one of history’s good guys. On the other hand, he was the one who suggested that the labor lost due to the death of Indians be replaced by Africans and some credit him with the start of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
History is a bit more nuanced than Zinn and the hipster crowd make it out to be.
One more bit of irony: Zinn’s work was popularized by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck who grew up near Zinn and were family friends. Damon and Affleck are now part of the one-percenter crowd. They have yet to give most of their money to the rest of us, and certainly have not led any crusades to end the tax breaks for performing artists who receive mega millions per film.
Celebrate Columbus, Ignore Zinn
Autumn 2024 Starts Now
Autumn 2024 Starts Now — The 2024autumnal equinox is right now 8:44 a.m., EDT, Sept. 22 according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac as the sun crosses the celestial equator. Fall has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, and the days are now shorter than the nights and will continue to be so until the spring equinox.
The celestial equator is a circle concentric with the actual equator that extends infinitely to space. As the Earth has a 23 degree tilt the the northern half tilts towards the Sun during half its orbit and away the other half. The equinoxes occur when tilt switches.
Autumn 2024 Starts Now
Remembering Dad, Happy Father’s Day
TR And Flag Day And Baseball
TR And Flag Day And Baseball
By Joe Guzzardi
In 1904, the United States was booming under President Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.’s dynamic leadership. Roosevelt took over as president after a Polish anarchist assassinated President William McKinley in Buffalo. The populace loved Roosevelt who had been the Rough Riders’ leader, an author, an outdoorsman, a rancher and the New York governor. No city was thriving more than New York with its immigrant-fueled population growth and its flourishing economy. New York was big enough to support three professional baseball teams, the National League’s Giants, the American League’s Highlanders, and Brooklyn’s Superbas. The Highlanders and the Superbas eventually became the Yankees and the Dodgers. Immigrants loved baseball, in part because some of their fellow first- and second-generation immigrants excelled on the diamond. Among the most outstanding were Pittsburgh Pirates’ shortstop Honus Wagner, an eight-time batting champion and the Baltimore Orioles’ third baseman John J. McGraw, who ranks third in career on base percentage, .466, just behind Ted Williams, .481 and Babe Ruth, .474.
Opening Day 1904 at Hilltop Park, a single-deck, wooden structure also known as “The Rockpile,” matched the Highlanders against the Boston Americans, the Red Sox forerunners. Hilltop, built in Manhattan’s Washington Heights section, had a spectacular view. To the northwest lay the Hudson River and the Palisades; look in the opposite direction and the Long Island Sound and the Westchester Hills were visible.
Heavy snow fell during April 14’s morning hours but when the 3:30 game time rolled around, the weather was dry and bitterly cold. The nasty weather did not deter the 69th Armory Band from entertaining the spectators which included former National League star Cap Anson, .331 career average and injured Giants catcher, Roger Bresnahan, the catcher who designed shin guards and the batting helmet.
As the 15,842 fans filed in, attendants issued each of them a small American flag which they waved enthusiastically at the game’s most dramatic moments. When a bouquet of American red roses was presented to Highlanders’ manager Clark Griffith, the flags came out in unison, a reflection of the nation’s love for baseball and the patriotism Roosevelt instilled in citizens and new immigrants alike. When Americans’ leadoff hitter Patsy Dougherty stepped into the batter’s box, the band struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and fans jumped to their feet to excitedly wave their flags again. Although “The Star-Spangled Banner” was a popular tune, playing the song at a baseball game was highly unusual. Not until 1931 did a congressional act make the song officially the National Anthem.
The bugs, 1900s baseball-speak for fans, saw an entertaining game, marked by memorable performances by all-time greats. New York bested Boston, 8-2. But the 37-year-old Americans’ losing hurler Denton True “Cy” Young went the distance. By the time Young hung up his spikes, he notched 511 career wins, a record that no pitcher will ever equal. And neither will any pitcher ever match winning hurler “Happy Jack” Chesbro’s 1904 season—51 games started, forty-eight completed, and forty-one victories. Wagner, McGraw, Bresnahan, Griffith, Anson, Young and Chesbro are in the Hall of Fame. 1904 was the first 154-game season, a standard that lasted until 1961 when the leagues expanded into divisional play. When the season ended, the Americans edged out the Highlanders by 1-1/2 games.
Roosevelt’s term ended in 1909 but still a youthful forty-nine, he remained active politically and advocated for “New Nationalism,” a program that promoted labor over capital and banned corporate political contributions. Although defeated in his 1912 effort to regain the White House, Roosevelt remained a staunch patriot and promoted the American flag’s significance until his 1919 death. Nine months before his passing, Roosevelt wrote to economist and American Defense Society board member Richard Hurd. With World War I over, Roosevelt wrote, a continued fight to protect “Americanism” and the U.S. flag should forever remain the U.S.’s top priority.
Happy Flag Day.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers’ Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com
TR And Flag Day And Baseball
And Even More Photos From Ardmore Memorial Day Parade 2024
And Even More Photos From Ardmore Memorial Day Parade 2024 –Here are even more photos of the Ardmore Memorial Day Parade from the perspective of the Merion Fire Co. of Ardmore sent to us by Marikate Venuto.
And Some More Photos From Ardmore Memorial Day Parade 2024
And Some More Photos From Ardmore Memorial Day Parade 2024 –Here are even more photos of the Ardmore Memorial Day Parade from the perspective of the Merion Fire Co. of Ardmore sent to us by Marikate Venuto.
More Photos From Ardmore Memorial Day Parade 2024
More Photos From Ardmore Memorial Day Parade 2024 –Here are some more photos of the Ardmore Memorial Day Parade from the perspective of the Merion Fire Co. of Ardmore sent to us by Marikate Venuto.
Ardmore Remembers The Fallen
Ardmore Remembers The Fallen — Some of the participants of the Ardmore Memorial Day Parade which started at 10:30 a.m. on Greenfield Avenue in Lower Merion.
Thank you all for your service and we will never forget the fallen.
Photo by Sharon Devaney
Origin Of Memorial Day
Origin Of Memorial Day Courtesy of Patricia Keevil from here
On May 5, 1868, the Grand Army of the Republic established Memorial Day or Decoration Day as the national day to decorate the graves of the Civil War soldiers with flowers. Major General John A. Logan appointed May 30 as the day to be observed. Arlington National Cemetery had the first observance of the day on a grand scale. The place was appropriate as it already housed graves of over 20,000 Union dead and several hundred Confederate dead. Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant presided the meeting and the center point of these Memorial Day ceremonies was the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion. Speeches were followed by a march of soldiers’ children and orphans and members of the GAR through the cemetery strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves. They also recited prayers and sang hymns for the dead.
Even before this declaration, local observances for these war dead were being held at various places. In Columbus, Miss., a group of women visited a cemetery on April 25 1866, to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers and the Union soldiers whop fell at the battle of Shiloh. Many cities in the North and the South claim to be the first to celebrate Memorial Day in 1866 but Congress and President Lyndon Johnson officially declared Waterloo in New York as the ‘birthplace’ of Memorial Day in 1966. It was said that on May 5, 1866, a ceremony was held hereto honor local soldiers and sailors who fought in the Civil War,businesses were closed for the day and residents furled flags at half-staff. It was said to be the first formal, community-wide and regular event.
In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by the Congress,who designated the last Monday in May as the day for its observance. Many states observe separate Confederate Memorial Days. Mississippi observes it on the last Monday of April, Alabama on the fourth Monday of April, North and South Carolina on May 10 and Tennessee on June 3. In Tennessee, the day is named as’Confederate Decorations Day’ while Texas observes ‘Confederate Heroes Day’ on January 19.
Origin Of Memorial Day
