Mark Knows It All

By the time you read this, Prince William and Kate Middleton will have become man and wife in another “wedding of the century” at Westminster Abbey. All week long, cable news channels as well as channels like the History Channel, Lifetime, TLC, PBS, and Discovery have been running various specials relating to the royal wedding, including topics like Charles and Diana, the ghosts of Westminster Abbey, and what’s on the menu for the reception.  All of this being reported with gusto by questionable British reporters and American reporters who think it cute to say "cheerio"! All of this begs the question who cares! As Americans, we divested ourselves of the British monarchy in the late 1700’s with that American Revolution thing. Many of us try to act nonchalant about the whole thing. We cite the waste of money and the anachronistic nature of the Royals. We should have the problems those people have!!!! And that old lady Queen….what a puss!!! The British really ought to dump ...

Youngstown was at the heart of the American industrial revolution in the mid 1800’s. During World War I, more steel came from Youngstown than anywhere else in the world. It’s no wonder, then, that the area was home of some of the best of everything, including department stores. Strouss-Hirshberg and McKelvey’s were the Macy’s and Gimbels of northeast Ohio, and offered to local residents the best of what money could buy. Strouss will always hold a special place in the heart of this area. It is hard to believe that there are twenty somethings today that haven't heard of it, or go “huh?” when you mention it. I tried doing some research on its history. Believe it or not, it is hard to find. As near as I could figure, the Strouss Hirshberg Company was originally known as D. Theobald and Company. Isaac Strouss clerked there, and eventually bought the store in 1875 with his new partner Bernard Hirshberg. The store was incorporated in 1906. The Readers Digest version of the life of the ...

My Seraphim Chorus is doing a Summer of Love, Music of the 60’s concert in June. One of the concert selections is Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie’s folk song standard This Land Is Your Land. It is a boffo arrangement that elevates it more than a tad beyond some of the hokey versions many of us sang in our high school choir days. Sometimes a song has been performed badly for so long, to hear it done well is almost like a re-introduction. This is one of those songs. I was curious as to the song’s back story, so I did a little research. It was written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 as a backlash of sorts to Kate Smith’s version of God Bless America . He felt the Irving Berlin standard did not ring true to his vision of the spirit of America, and I suspect neither did Kate Smith. He put his lyrics to the tune of an old Baptist Gospel Hymn entitled Oh My Loving Brother and made famous by the 1930 Carter Family recording re-named When the World’s on Fire . You ...

April 12 marks the sesquicentennial of the beginning of the Civil War. 150 years ago, General Beauregard, commander of the Confederate forces in Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender of the Union garrison located on an island just off the coast. When Major Robert Anderson refused, the Confederates opened fire on the military installation. Two days later, Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter to the Confederacy. The war had begun. I find it amazing that nowhere is this being reported, considered, talked about…whatever you want to call it. The Civil War is the single biggest event in the history of this country. It formed who we are today. In 1861, the population of the United States was 35 million. 24 million lived north of the Mason Dixon line. 9 million lived in the south. Of the 9 million who lived in the southern states, 4 million were slaves, leaving a white population of about 5 million people. The industrial capacity of the entire South was surpassed by the indust...