Today in History: May 9

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The story of the publication of the novel Watership Down is almost as beloved as the novel itself: Richard Adams, part of the U.K. Ministry of Housing and Local Government throughout the 1950s and ’60s (he rose to the rank of Assistant Secretary), began composing a story to tell his two daughters for each day’s drive to school.

Richard Adams is 96 today. He told the Telegraph in 2014, “The stories I told in the car had nearly always been shaped and cut and edited by myself for oral narration. When I was lying down to go to sleep in the evening I would think out the bit of story I was going to tell the girls the next day.” In 1972, at the age of 52, he typed up the story that he had been telling his daughters and sent it to literary agents and publishers. Four publishers rejected it, as did three agencies.
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A Stroll into the Past

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The child has few memories, so those he has are detailed.

We were in my hometown for some reason one summer Sunday afternoon a couple years ago and I said to my girlfriend that I wanted to show her where I grew up. (As if I have grown up.) We drove down roads I used to bike on, walk on.

I grew up in the suburbs, in upstate New York, in the 1970s and ’80s, a neighborhood without sidewalks, with kids biking across their neighbors’ lawns (well, I did) without fear of criticism. I remembered knowing which houses had dogs that were poorly restrained (avoid those lawns or else find a new speed in my pumping little legs) and which houses were simply scary for reasons no one could explain but everyone knew which houses simply seemed scary.

(Years later, in high school, I was fundraising or campaigning for something and I dared, out of my OCD-ish sense/need to knock on every single door in the neighborhood, I knocked on the door of one of the houses that I always thought was scary. The owner was as friendly and nice as could be. I felt like I had discovered something.)
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Today in History: May 8

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

In the United States and many other nations, today is Mother’s Day. Like many people, I have a mom (waves to the camera), and I love my mom very much. In much of the world, Mother’s Day is celebrated with the spring equinox or at the end of Lent.

As I have gotten older, I have involuntarily started saying “Mommy” when saying so long on a phone call or good night to her. And I am not 8.

To all the moms out there: you have my love and respect and admiration.

* * * *
Don Rickles is 90 today. He is still performing and even has an appearance scheduled for this week. His stand-up act is remarkable, for someone his age or any age, really: it’s unscripted. Yes, he knows what “insults” he will deploy “against” audience members, and he knows that somehow he will convey that he is on the audience member’s side and not punching down at them. “If I were to insult people and mean it, that wouldn’t be funny. There is a difference between an actual insult” and doing that, he often states.
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