My column today begins with something touchy — the Confederacy. (In Mississippi, by gubernatorial decree, April is Confederate Heritage Month.) I go on with Irving Berlin, Norman Podhoretz, Hugh Grant, Pete Fairbanks . . . Who is Fairbanks, you ask? A relief pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays, and my new favorite baseball player. For this column, this Impromptus, go here.
Let’s get into some mail. In a column last Tuesday, I drew attention to Condoleezza Rice, who was at the Masters tournament — as she is a member of Augusta National. A reader writes,
Seeing former secretary of state Rice at Augusta, I can’t help thinking that in a better political world she would have been a serious candidate for president. What a gem.
A different view is expressed by a friend of mine:
She seems to know how to be happy. Hasn’t spent decades trying to get back into the White House or run for president or anything like that.
Also in that column, I wrote about Gabrielle Starr, the president of Pomona College, where students attempted to “occupy” a building. She handled the situation with . . . dispatch. A reader named Starr writes, “My only wish is that Gabrielle Starr were somehow related to me.”
In a column last Thursday, I discussed states (our union of 50). I said that I am missing four: Montana, Kansas, Oregon, and Hawaii. I’m pretty sure I’ve been to the 46 others. (I’m a little fuzzy on a few of them.) A reader writes,
I’m sorry to hear you’ve not been to Kansas. The K-State Dairy Bar makes great ice cream if you ever get here.
If I ever get to Manhattan (Kansas) — I’m making a beeline for that dairy bar.
Elsewhere in my Thursday column, I happened to mention Alan Jay Lerner, noting that he had been married eight times. A reader writes,
I was reminded of my late father, who loved a joke about Elizabeth Taylor: “What does she say every morning when she wakes up and has a good stretch? ‘I feel like a new man today!’”
(Liz was married eight times to seven men — twice to Burton.)
In recent columns — including today’s — I have been sharing pictures of New York, blooming in spring. A reader in Washington, D.C., writes,
It has been a magnificent spring for redbuds here. (Remember the Osborne Brothers’ song “Kentucky”? It mentions laurels and redbud trees and has some first-class harmonies.)
Separately, for cherry blossoms, one can skip the crowds around the Tidal Basin (and perhaps improve my commute?) and visit Glenwood Cemetery, where they are a magnificent sight among the mausolea.
(1) I had never seen “mausoleum” pluralized that way. (2) To hear the Osborne Brothers sing “Kentucky,” go here.
The brown creeper — a.k.a. the American treecreeper — is a tiny songbird, but one with a long curved beak and a long tail. These little creatures are not easy to spot and photograph. But Hans Goeckner, our camera-wielding physicist in Chicago, has done so. Bravo, Dr. G., and thanks. And thanks, too, to one and all readers.
