by Peter Cates Julia Dent Grant Former First Lady #18 , Julia Dent Grant (1826-1902) hated to leave Washington when her husband Ulysses (1822-1885) decided enough was enough after his two terms in the White House. She wrote, “Dear Washington, how I love you, with your beautiful, broad, generous streets and blue skies! The sun […]
by Peter Cates Recently watched: John Wick is a 2014 film noir starring Keanu Reeves as a former, very skilled hitman for the Russian Mafia’s New York City kingpin. After one massive contract for his boss, he is allowed to retire to civilian life, since he had fallen in love (Blue Bloods actress Bridget Moynahan […]
by Peter Cates Andrew Johnson Seventeenth President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), by his own hard-working ethic and insatiable desire to honorably better himself, became the kind of speaker that one New York Times correspondent would write with grudging admiration how this individual “cut and slashed right and left, tore big wounds and left something behind to […]
by Peter Cates Dog Movies portraying the love of man’s best friend have been melting the hearts of cynics since the days of Lassie Come Home. Another perspective was achieved in this past February’s release, Dog. Channing Tatum portrays Briggs, a former army Ranger who has been removed from combat due to some brain damage. […]
by Peter Cates Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) first met Mary Todd (1818-1882) at a formal dance in Springfield, Illinois, in late 1839 where he had been practicing law for two years, while she had just recently moved in with an older sister from their home state of Kentucky. Despite their vast differences in background […]
by Peter Cates William Bradford Elected 30 times as Governor of the Plymouth Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1621 to 1656, William Bradford (1590-1657) began his massive history Of Plymouth Plantation in 1630 and abandoned further work by 1647. He wrote the following entry on the first Thanksgiving in 1621, one year after the Pilgrims arrived […]
by Peter Cates James Buchanan After the very sad four White House years of Franklin Pierce, that of former 15th President James Buchanan (1791-1868), with the help of his niece/hostess Harriet Lane (1830-1903), began with an inaugural ball described as follows by Christine Sadler in her 1963 America’s First Ladies: “Five thousand revelers danced the […]
by Peter Cates The Penguins I own a ten inch 78 (Dootone 348) containing two songs performed by the doo wop vocal group, the Penguins – Hey Senorita and Earth Angel. It was released in late 1954 and, in early 1955 in an ironic twist of commercial fate, side one’s Senorita, even though pleasant enough, […]
by Peter Cates Franklin Pierce The 14th President Franklin Pierce came from New Hampshire, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth having a father who was a big wig in state politics, started practicing law at 22, won a seat in the State House at 24, and became its Speaker of the House […]
by Peter Cates Al Martino Al Martino (1927-2009) became Capitol records answer to Columbia’s Jerry Vale and RCA’s Sergio Franchi, not to mention the ascendancy during the early ‘30s of Russ Columbo and the ‘40s with Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. I would include here the nowadays very underrated Tony Martin. Martino scored a major […]