Thursday, November 11, 2021

Raise a Glass to Those Who Have Passed - November 11, 2010

 

Frank W. Buckles, the last
living veteran of World War I,
at the age of 16


On Tuesday, we noted Hedy Lamarr's sort-of unexpected patent of a communications system, but on this day in 1930, a scientist you'd expect to get a patent got one -- but for an invention you wouldn't associate with him. 

It's no surprise that Albert Einstein would be granted a patent, but what is surprising (to us, anyway) is that he and fellow physicist Leo Szilard (who devised the nuclear chain reaction that made the atomic bomb possible) were granted patent number US1781541 for a refrigerator. As you might expect, it’s a special refrigerator that uses no electricity, has no moving parts, and needs only a heat source to operate, but still – Einstein invented a fridge?

As we think about refrigerators, we’re reminded that we'd better start making room in our own for
Thanksgiving (and just how in the world did it get to be November already?). Contemplating Turkey Day, brings the pilgrims to mind, and today is the 290th anniversary of the Puritans sighting land off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Something that would have utterly baffled those pilgrims is
Pee-wee Herman, so we don’t expect to see any puritans at the Broadway opening of The Pee-wee Herman Show tonight. But Pee-wee's fan base being what it is, you never know ...

Someone we think might have appreciated Pee-wee, or, at least, appreciated his anarchic spirit, was novelist
Kurt Vonnegut, born on this day in 1922. Vonnegut used black humor and satire in such novels as Slaughterhouse-Five, Mother Night, and Cat's Cradle to eviscerate modern American society, politics, and organized religion.

We don't know if Mr. Vonnegut ever traveled
Route 66, the "Mother Road" that ran (according to Bobby Troup's song) "from Chicago to L.A.; more than 2,000 miles along the way." The highway was established on this day in 1926, and until its decommissioning in 1985, carried millions of travelers though the heart of America, allowing them (for the first time, in many cases) to see peoples they never would have met, eat strange local foods, and become more acquainted with the mosaic that was pre-war America. 

It's still possible to drive Route 66, but in many cases, the road is untended and in bad repair, and many of the small towns and businesses that thrived in its heyday shut their doors when the road was replaced by gleaming new interstate freeways.

The most notable events of this day are inextricably linked. In 1918, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,
World War I finally ended after more than four years of senseless battle, with 16 million soldiers and civilians killed and another 21 million wounded. Starting in 1919, November 11 has been designated either Armistice Day (in honor of the cause of peace) or Veterans Day (honoring all who have served in the armed forces).

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