Four Score

“I said four score and seven years ago

Oh sock it to ’em baby,

You’re sounding better all the time!”

    “Abie Baby/ Fourscore,” from “Hair”

Abraham Lincoln made the cover of Time and The Smithsonian, due in part to the upcoming Steven Spielberg movie that focuses on the President’s efforts to garner enough Congressional support to pass the Thirteenth Amendment.  Had the abolition of slavery not been accomplished while Southern states were in rebellion, success would have been far more difficult, if not impossible.  The Gettysburg Address, starting with the phrase “four score and seven years ago,” lasted only two minutes and received no applause, perhaps because of the somber occasion, honoring the thousands who died on that Pennsylvania battlefield. “Abie Baby” is irreverent satire, sung from a black man’s point of view, with the final lines being, “I’m not dying for no white man (Tell it like it is, baby).”

Exactly 160 years ago occurred the funeral of Daniel Webster.  Bostonian Richard Henry Dana wrote that the Massachusetts Senator was “a true product of New England, and on her most sacred spot, the home of the Pilgrims, was he to return.”  Thousands silently passed by the uncovered coffin, as “in it lay stretched, at length, in the full dress that he wore at his last speech, all that is mortal of Daniel Webster.”

I came across “Dinner at Eight,” a 1989 made-for-TV remake of the 1933 classic starring John Barrymore and Jean Harlow, which in turn was adopted from the 1932 Broadway hit written by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber.  Lauren Bacall as a worldly novelist and Marsha Mason as a social climbing society matron shine in an otherwise mediocre production.  John Mahoney, Frasier’s dad in the TV series, plays the male lead.  Bacall, 65 at the time, was Humphrey Bogart’s lover and sat on a piano in 1945 while then Vice President Harry Truman “tickled the ivories.”

Bacall in 1989 (above) and 1945

I kept an eye on the World Series and Notre Dame while playing bridge with Dick and Cheryl.  Punchless Detroit is in danger of being swept, while the Fighting Irish beat favored Oklahoma on the strength of its defense.

Woke up tired after dreaming of helping relatives move, only nobody else was taking furniture to the van.  Went one for four gaming Sunday at Dave’s, prevailing in St. Petersburg thanks to early Potemkin and Judge cards.  On the kitchen table were an array of Jack o’Lanterns carved by James and Becca.  Driving home, I mentioned to Tom that the Corolla engine seemed loud.  He agreed and speculated that it might be a compression problem.  It proved to be a wheel bearing.

Alissa and Josh dropped in on their way back from Madison, WI, where Alissa attended a conference.  The night before, they went to Second City Comedy Club, and enjoyed people-watching Chicago revelers in Halloween costumes.  They had planned to visit the Shedd Aquarium, but attendants wanted 50 bucks for parking because of the Bears game taking place nearby.  Josh and I watched last-second victories by both Chicago and the Colts (he lived in Indy growing up).

In “Broadway Empire” the diabolical Gillian (Gretchen Mol) needing a corpse resembling son Jimmy, lures her new lover into a tub and kills him with an overdose of heroin.  Giuseppe “Gyp” Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale) endures a meal with his tough-as-nails wife and sisters.  When he starts to eat without first crossing himself, she slaps him and says, “What are we, cats in an alley?”  Afterwards Gyp curses out God, slugs a priest, and steals from the church.  Still in this “Sunday Best” episode it was fun watching Nucky (Steve Buscemi) juggling balls at his brother Eli’s house for Easter dinner and WW I vet Richard falling for sweet Julia.

The third season of the HBO series is taking place four score and nine years ago (1923) when the Klan was rising, F. Scott Fitzgerald published “Tales of the Jazz Age,” Bessie Smith recorded “Downhearted Blues,” and President Warren Harding succumbed to congestive heart failure (although rumors developed that he had killed himself or that his wife had murdered him), saddling the country with pipsqueak Calvin Coolidge

Emma Balay, who had been working at a Halloween costume shop in L.A. has a new gig as Tinkerbell at Disney World.  She promised to send along a photo of her dressed in her green fairy outfit.

Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast.  Airplane traffic has come to a halt, and weathermen are labeling the monster blast “Frank-en-storm.”  Chuck Todd’s “The Daily Rundown” focused on how it is disrupting the campaign a week before the election.  Matt Lauer signed off speculating that “The Today Show” might not be on the air tomorrow.  When Hurricane Hazel came through eastern Pennsylvania in 1942, Fort Washington Ave. in front of our house became a swirling river that almost killed our dog Smokey.  Toni’s pet parrot disappeared when someone opened the front door unexpectedly.  Four score years ago occurred the election of FDR, which led to the flowering of liberalism.  Let’s hope 2012 does not lead to its dismantling.