Today in History: May 19

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
 
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
 
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.—a section of Oscar Wilde’s poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”

No photo, no mugshot, was taken of Oscar Wilde when he was a prisoner at Reading Gaol, even though the prison did document its inmates with photos while Wilde was there, from November 23, 1895, till May 19, 1897.
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Getting By

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I never fooled myself into believing that I was indispensable, but did I have to prove it so often to the world at large?

* * * *
There is a phrase one hears in recovery circles: “Pulling a geographic.” While sharing their stories about the past and the inebriated life, many addicts and alcoholics learn that they have done similar things, like move across the country because they thought that a change would do them good.

One of the things that many of us did, many times, when we were trying to exert control over life was run from it. Move. Sometimes across town and sometimes cross-country. There was nothing so bad it couldn’t be fixed without filling out a change-of-address card.
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Today in History: May 18

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

At 8:32:17 a.m. PDT on May 18, 1980, an earthquake took place directly under Mount St. Helens, the only non-dormant volcano in the lower 48 states. It shook off the entire north face of the mountain. This was and remains the largest landslide in recorded history.

As the top of the mountain slid off, the molten rock and steam inside the volcano was exposed to cooler air; when this happened, the mountain exploded and a column of ash rose 80,000 feet in the air (about 15 miles) and mudslides reached 50 miles away. Because the volcano had started to become seismically active about two months before, a vast area around the mountain had been evacuated. Fifty-seven people perished nonetheless.
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