WELCOME  TO  MY  AUTHOR  PORTFOLIO

 

April is the cruellest month—so begins Thomas Stearnes Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land” …breeding Lilacs out of dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain…

 

Sadly, tragedy and April go hand in hand.  Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 as he and Mary Todd Lincoln enjoyed the play Our American Cousin  just five days after Lee surrendered to Grant.

 

There was the great San Francisco earthquake in 1906, believed to have been on the magnitude of 8.0 on the Moment Magnitude scale--which replaced the Richter scale in 1970. Forty seconds of terror at 5:12 in the morning. April 26 is National Richter Scale Day, celebrating Charles Francis Richter  although his eponymous scale is now out of favor.

 

There was also the sinking of the Royal Mail Steamer Titanic in 1912.

 

April was cruel to Manfred von Richthoven, known as the Red Baron. The WW I German ace was shot down on April 21, 1918 near Vaux-sur-Somme, a tiny village north of Paris. I think we all know who might have been responsible for that.

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Snoopy vs. the Red Baron was recorded in 1966 by The Royal Guardsmen. The song peaked at number 2 on the Hot 100 the last week in 1966, behind The Monkees' I'm a Believer.

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Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more
The Bloody Red Baron was rollin' up the score
Eighty men died tryin' to end that spree
Of the Bloody Red Baron of Germany

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In the nick of time, a hero arose
A funny-looking dog with a big black nose
He flew into the sky to seek revenge
But the Baron shot him down ("Curses, foiled again!")

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Now, Snoopy had sworn that he'd get that man
So he asked the Great Pumpkin for a new battle plan
He challenged the German to a real dogfight
While the Baron was laughing, he got him in his sight

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April is also the month in which the Masters Golf Tournament is played .