Yearly Archives 2022

Roger Craig was an avuncular figure in the sometimes rough-and-tumble, sometimes over-sentimentalized world of major league baseball. He was a better-than-his-record starting pitcher mid-20th century, enjoying a 12-year career and four World Series appearances before staying in the game first as a scout and coach and then through a successful decade-long run as a manager.

It was during his eight-season run (1985-92) managing the San Francisco Giants in that cosmopolitan city that the slightly drawling Durham, North Carolina native became known and celebrated for a down-home phrase to keep his players’ spirits up, especially when they were leaving the clubhouse after a tough loss, or worse, several losses in a row.

“Don’t let your daubers down,” he would tell them, employing that delightful, if somewhat mysterious-origin word “daubers” to here mean their spirits, confidence and passion for the game.

One ne...

   ***

1. It was the only time in American history a president refused the peaceful transfer of power.

2.  It was the only time in American history a president refused the peaceful transfer of power.

3. It was the only time in American history a president refused the peaceful transfer of power.

4. It was the only time in American history a president refused the peaceful transfer of power.

5. It was the only time in American history a president refused the peaceful transfer of power.

6. It was the only time in American history a president refused the peaceful transfer of power.

7. It was the only time in American history a president refused the peaceful transfer of power.

8. It was the only time in American history a president refused the peaceful transfer of power.

9. It was the only time in American history a president refused the peaceful transfer of power.

10...

Before she died in 2014, Maya Angelou had for decades enjoyed oil wells pumping in her living room, gold mines spewing riches in her backyard, and for a nice sexy touch, she appeared to keep diamonds at the meeting of her thighs. (No word on whether they came from a diamond mine in her bedroom…)

We know this because she described these mighty assets in her 1978 volume from Random House, “And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems,” one selection simply dropping the “And” to make “Still I Rise” the near-title poem in the collection. (The poem is printed in full below.)

Angelou was a seeming force of nature over the course of her 50+ year career as a memoirist, essayist, poet and civil rights activist. Morally serious, unafraid, measured and eloquent, her voice resounded both on the page and into microphones, making her compulsively listenable.

She was a kind of James Earl Jones of the literary set, giving nothing aw...