Some Memories of Clawman Treefeller

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I wish you could have known Matt Coleman. Many did, but not enough. There was not enough time. “Matt’s heart was so big, it surrounded him,” one of his colleagues wrote in a memorial tribute.

I am grateful that I happen to think this about so many people that I have met, those sentences like “You ought to know so-and-so,” or “You should have met my friend, X,” but I am frustrated that I have not said it out loud often enough to the people about whom I thought this. Matt already knew most of my friends, anyway, and the one friend I introduced Matt to, well, Matt asked her out. Or she asked him.

A person’s end should not be what the world knows of them, though, and eleven years ago today, August 11, 2011, my friend Matt Coleman was murdered. No one’s death should fight for attention with the person’s life, so I will briefly give the end, and then we will celebrate a gorgeous life.

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Today in History: August 11

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves split a doubleheader 65 years ago today at Ebbets Field. It was a Saturday. At the conclusion of the day, the Dodgers were in first place by 13 games. (Over the next six weeks, the New York Giants played their way up the standings, into a three-game playoff against the Dodgers, and beat the Dodgers to play the New York Yankees in the World Series. “The Giants win the pennant!”)

WCBS-TV in New York broadcast the games on August 11 in color that year. These were the first-ever color broadcasts of a live baseball game. There were not yet many color television sets in private homes ready to receive the broadcast, but that day was coming. The ad above, for a CBS television set declares: “Color television is what you’ve been waiting for.”
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Today in History: August 10

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The Swedish warship Vasa (above) was immense: 226 feet long, 172 feet tall, festooned with decorative woodwork, and loaded with cannons. The king, Gustavus Adolphus, ordered that it carry 72 24-pound cannons, far more than any other warship. Ultimately, it was built to carry 64 cannons of various sizes, but on two gun decks. Even without loading the guns on board, two decks above the water line would make the ship top heavy. With the guns, the ship would certainly be top heavy. And if the ship actually needed to fire any of the weapons, the ship ran the risk of blowing itself onto its side with the recoil.

Vasa was launched on this date in 1628 with huge crowds along the waterfront in Stockholm to see it off. The moment that it unfurled its sails and was hit with any wind at all, the tall ship was knocked on its port side, water started rushing in through its open gun windows, and it sank, killing thirty sailors. Its maiden voyage lasted about one thousand feet.
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