179th day of 2009 - 186 remaining
Sunday, June 28, 2009
ROUTE 66 DAY
“Get your kicks...on Route...Six...Six” The words to the classic song made famous by Nat "King" Cole, The Manhattan Transfer, Rosemary Clooney and many others is remembered today, along with the TV show of the same name.
The 59-year-old highway of 2,200 miles of blacktop was decertified as a U.S. highway on this day in 1985. The highway that was a legendary part of Americana saw highway crews removing the classic roadway shield-markers that designated it as the highway west.
Route 66 started in Chicago, Illinois and continued into Santa Monica, California. Martin Milner and George Maharis took us for many spins on the famous highway through the TV series which aired in the early sixties. To travel from one end of Route 66 to the other, one would go through eight states and three time zones. Today, a very small portion of the highway is still open. In some places, grass and vegetation, as seen from the interstate highway or railroad tracks nearby, have all but obscured the once well-traveled Route 66. Some one-stop, out-of-the-way places such as gas stations and greasy-spoon diners are now nothing more than decaying shells of their once glorious past.
If you ever plan to motor west, travel my way, take the highway that’s the best. Get your kicks on route 66.
It winds from Chicago to L.A., More then two thousand miles all the way. Get your kicks on route 66.
Now you go through St. Louis, Joplin, Missouri and Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty. Now you’ll see Amarillo, Gallup, New Mexico, Flagstaff, Arizona, don’t forget Winona ... Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino.
Now won’t you get hip to this timely tip. When you make that California trip get your kicks on route 66.
Events
June 28
1894 - U.S. President Grover Cleveland signed an act of Congress, making Labor Day a federal holiday in the U.S. The first Monday of September is when Labor Day is celebrated as a salute to working men and women across the country.
1907 - The Washington Nationals stole 13 bases in a single baseball game against the New York Highlanders. The New York catcher, incidentally, fared far better as a baseball executive in later years. That catcher became baseball commissioner Branch Rickey.
1914 - World War I began. Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated while at (what is now known as) Sarajevo, Bosnia.
1919 - With the signing of The Treaty of Versailles, World War I ended - exactly five years after it began.
1919 - Elizabeth ‘Bess’ Wallace became Bess Truman when she married the future U.S. President, Harry S Truman.
1937 - In a poll conducted by a New York City newspaper, players for the Giants, Yankees and Dodgers said they opposed the proposed baseball players’ union.
1940 - As a summer replacement for blind, piano virtuoso Alec Templeton, The Quiz Kids was first heard on radio. The show continued on NBC until 1953.
1943 - The Dreft Star Playhouse debuted on NBC radio. Jane Wyman (the former Mrs. Ronald Reagan) starred in the first broadcast, titled Bachelor Mother.
1944 - The Alan Young Show debuted on NBC radio. It was a summer replacement for the popular Eddie Cantor. The show became a regular in the fall NBC lineup. Young, incidentally, made the switch to TV in 1961. He became a CBS star with a talking horse, of course, of course, named Mister Ed.
1948 - Football star Tom Harmon announced his retirement from professional football. Harmon later became one of the big names in sportscasting for ABC radio and TV.
1951 - An old favorite of radio audiences made the switch to TV. Amos ’n’ Andy moved to CBS-TV. Two years later, a protest by the NAACP forced the network to drop the show.
1976 - Detroit Tiger pitcher Mark ‘The Bird’ Fidrych was called “...the most interesting player since Dizzy Dean” on ABC’s nationally televised coverage of a Tigers-Yankees match-up. The 21-year-old rookie sensation led the Tigers past the Yankees and made the All-Star team two weeks after the TV appearance.
1976 - Women entered the Air Force Academy for the first time on this day. President Gerald R. Ford had actually opened the door by signed legislation [Oct 7, 1975] allowing women to enter the nation’s military academies. The first Air Force Academy class with women graduated in May 1980.
1979 - Billie Jean King defeated Linda Siegel with a first at the 102-year-old Wimbledon tennis championships. Not only did King defeat Siegel, but in an embarrassing moment, Siegel, wearing a plunging neckline tennis top became partly naked when the neckline plunged too far.
1981 - Jerry Pate won the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic after three years of disappointment on the men’s PGA tour. Pate celebrated with a birdie on the last hole. He was so excited, Pate handed his putter and his sun visor to his caddie and jumped into the lake that bordered the 18th green.
1981 - Variety, the movieland trade paper, reported that the biggest single weekend in box-office history saw American moviegoers spending a blockbusting $56,101,095 at the box office. The popular movies bringing in the bucks were Superman II with Christopher Reeve, Raiders of the Lost Ark with Harrison Ford and The Great Muppet Caper with Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.
1985 - A survey by the U.S. Transportation Department indicated that 42 percent of drivers polled said that they drove faster than the legal 55 MPH speed limit. Three motorists out of four confessed to driving faster on the nation’s interstate highways. Slow down and buckle up, please. I’m Chief Matthews. Now back to the show...
1987 - American League baseball hitters put their batting faces on as the league combined to hit a record 28 home runs in a seven-game day.
1988 - Founder Berry Gordy Jr. sold Motown Records to MCA Records and Boston Ventures, an investment firm, for $61 million.
1992 - A very strong earthquake shook the high desert of Southern California at 4:57 a.m. The M7.3 earthquake was centered on the eastern side of the San Bernardino Mountains near the town of Landers. The quake was the largest to strike California since the Kern County M7.7 earthquake in 1952. Vigorous rocking and rolling was felt 100 miles away in L.A. and the quake was felt as far away as Central California and Las Vegas, Nevada. Property damage: $56 million, including collapsed buildings, ruptured utility lines and widespread nonstructural damage. Human toll: One killed, 25 seriously injured, 372 treated for some sort of earthquake-related injuries, millions awakened with nightmares for weeks.
1994 - The U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) announced it would begin experimenting with a UV (ultraviolet) Index, “To enhance public awareness of the effects of overexposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays, and to provide the public with actions they can take to reduce harmful effects of overexposure, which may include skin cancer, cataracts and immune suppression.”
1996 - The Citadel, which had fought to keep one woman from enrolling as a cadet in its all-male military academy in 1993, abruptly ended its opposition to enrolling qualified female cadets. The change of policy happened after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a similar all-male policy at the Virginia Military Institute was unconstitutional. The court said the school could not refuse to accept women while receiving federal or state tax dollars. Had the Citadel decided to retain its 153-year-old men-only policy, it would have lost public tax dollars. As usual, money talked.
1997 - The headlines screamed: “Fight Bites into MGM Earnings,” “Bit Part for Tyson,” “Pay-Per-Chew Bout,” and the one that said it all, “Tyson Disqualified After Ripping Piece of Holyfield’s Ear.” Needless to say (but we will anyway), Evander Holyfield retained his World Boxing Association heavyweight championship after Mike Tyson was disqualified for biting Holyfield, not once, but twice. The Nevada Athletic Commission revoked Mike Tyson’s boxing license for a year and fined him $3 million.
Birthdays
June 28
1491 - Henry VIII
King of England [1509-1547]; Henry’s six wives: Catherine of Aragon [divorced], Anne Boleyn [beheaded], Jane Seymour [died], Anne of Cleaves [divorced], Catherine Howard [beheaded], Catherine Parr [survived]; plagued by illness brought on by overeating, Henry died Jan 28, 1547
1577 - Sir Peter Rubens
artist: Elevation of the Cross, Coronation of Marie de Medicis; died May 30 1640
1703 - John Wesley
religious leader: founder of ‘Methodism’ [forerunner of Methodist church]; writer: A Plain Account of Christian Perfection; died Mar 2, 1791
1712 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
French philosopher; died July 2, 1778
1876 - Clara Maass
nurse: victim of yellow fever medical experiments; died Aug 24, 1901
1902 - Richard Rodgers
Academy Award-winning composer: It Might as Well be Spring [1945]; half of Rodgers and (Lorenz) Hart and Rodgers and (Oscar) Hammerstein: The Sound of Music, Love Me Tonight, My Funny Valentine, The Lady is a Tramp, Oklahoma!, State Fair, The King and I, You’ll Never Walk Alone, Carousel, Getting to Know You, Some Enchanted Evening; died Dec 30, 1979
1905 - Ashley Montague
author, anthropologist: “Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof.”; died in 1999
1906 - Maria Goeppert Mayer
Nobel Prize-winning physicist [w/J. Hans Jensen & Eugene Wigner - 1963]: nuclear shell theory; 1st American woman to win Nobel Prize; died Feb 20, 1972
1909 - Eric Ambler
writer: The Dark Frontier, Journey into Fear; died Oct 22, 1998
1914 - Lester Flatt
country music entertainer: guitar: group: Flatt and Scruggs: Foggy Mountain Breakdown, The Ballad of Jed Clampett, Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms, Old Salty Dog Blues; died May 11, 1979
1923 - Pete (Walter) Candoli
musician: trumpet: Superman with a Horn
1924 - George Morgan
singer: Candy Kisses, Rainbow in My Heart, Room Full of Roses, Crybaby Heart, I’m in Love Again; DJ: WSM, Nashville; died in 1975; died July 7, 1975
1926 - Mel Brooks (Kaminsky)
director, actor: Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, The Producers; comedy writer: Your Show of Shows, Get Smart; Broadway producer: The Producers
1932 - Pat (Noriyuki) Morita
actor: Happy Days, Karate Kid, Babes in Toyland, Thoroughly Modern Millie; died Nov 24, 2005
1936 - Cathy Carr
singer: Ivory Tower
1937 - George Knudson
golf: champ: 5 CPGA titles, 12 PGA victories [1961-1972]; died Jan 25, 1989
1941 - Al (Alphonso Erwin) Downing
baseball: pitcher: NY Yankees [World Series: 1963, 1964/all-star:1967], Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics, LA Dodgers [World Series: 1974]
1943 - Gary Veneruzzo
hockey: NHL: St. Louis Blues
1945 - David Knights
musician: bass player: group: Procol Harum: A Whiter Shade of Pale
1946 - Bruce Davison
actor: Widow’s Kiss, It’s My Party, Six Degrees of Separation, Longtime Companion, The Ladies Club, The Gathering, Mother, Jugs and Speed, Mame, Ulzana’s Raid, Last Summer, Hunter, Harry and the Hendersons
1946 - Gilda Radner
Emmy Award-winning comedienne, actress: Saturday Night Live [1977-78]; Haunted Honeymoon [w/husband Gene Wilder]; died May 20, 1989
1948 - Kathy Bates
Academy Award-winning actress: Misery [1990]; Fried Green Tomatoes, Home of Our Own, Prelude to a Kiss
1949 - Don Baylor
baseball: manager: Colorado Rockies; California Angels MVP [1979]
1949 - Don Nottingham
football: Miami Dolphins running back: Super Bowl VIII
1949 - Clarence Davis
football: Oakland Raiders running back: Super Bowl XI
1950 - Chris (Edward) Speier
baseball: SF Giants [all-star: 1972, 1973, 1974], Montreal Expos, Minnesota Twins, SL Cardinals, Chicago Cubs
1954 - Alice Krige
actress: Star Trek: First Contact, Joseph, Sharpe’s Honour, Sleepwalkers, Barfly, Chariots of Fire, A Tale of Two Cities, In the Company of Spies
1960 - John Elway
football: Denver Broncos quarterback: Super Bowl XXI, XXII, XXIV, XXXII, XXXIII: MVP; car dealership tycoon
1964 - Mark (Eugene) Grace
baseball: San Diego State Univ, Chicago Cugs, Arizona Diamondbacks
1966 - John Cusack
actor: Money for Nothing, The Player, True Colors, Bullets over Broadway, The Grifters, Say Anything
1966 - Mary Stuart Masterson
actress: Kate Brasher, Heaven’s Prisoners, Radioland Murders, Funny About Love, Benny & Joon, Fried Green Tomatoes, Heaven Help Us
1967 - Gil Bellows
actor: The Shawshank Redemption, Ally McBeal
1969 - Danielle Brisebois
actress: All in the Family, Knots Landing, Annie, Mom, the Wolfman and Me
1971 - Tichina Arnold
actress: Little Shop of Horrors, Martin, Big Momma’s House
1972 - Alessandro Nivola
actor: Jurassic Park III, Face/Off, Timecode
Chart Toppers
June 28
1947I Wonder, I Wonder, I Wonder - Eddy Howard
Peg o’ My Heart - The Harmonicats
Mam’selle - Art Lund
It’s a Sin - Eddy Arnold
1955Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White - Perez Prado
Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley & His Comets
Unchained Melody - Al Hibler
Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young - Faron Young
1963Sukiyaki - Kyu Sakamoto
Blue on Blue - The Dovells
Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer - Nat King Cole
Act Naturally - Buck Owens
1971It’s Too Late/I Feel the Earth Move - Carole King
Indian Reservation - Raiders
Treat Her Like a Lady - Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose
When You’re Hot, You’re Hot - Jerry Reed
1979Hot Stuff - Donna Summer
Ring My Bell - Anita Ward
The Logical Song - Supertramp
Nobody Likes Sad Songs - Ronnie Milsap
1987I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston
In Too Deep - Genesis
Alone - Heart
Forever and Ever, Amen - Randy Travis
Happy Birthday David Knights of Procol Harum
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