The first entry is a quote from President Truman, that plain spoken man from Independence Missouri who might be the 20th-century's forgotten president. He basically had two term, coming into office in 1945 after FDR passed away, and then running for election in 1948, defeating the bridesmaid Thomas Dewy, who lost to FDR in 1944, despite what I'm sure was barely a campaign by Roosevelt since he was already ailing.
In 1944 the war was still on, and I'm sure te American people were not about to change horses in the middle of the stream. So Truman steps in, is brought up to speed about what's been going on at Los Alamos, and is on the deck when the war ends.
In the '50s I remember the TV press trying to keep up with Truman as he was taking one of his "constitutionals," his walks. He was a peppery guy, walking briskly with a cane. I don't remember any of the questions, or the answers, but the lead outtake here is an example of Truman's forthrightness. It would be hard to imagine a U.S. present now, sitting, or former, calling the widow's family of a foreign leader that we backed with extensive military aid and money a "thief." Harry was a very popular president.
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Madame Chiang Kai-shek, a Power in Husband’s China and Abroad, Dies at 105
--NYT Obituary Headline, October 25, 2003
In her frustration, she [Madame Chiang Kai-Shek] publicly likened American politics to “clodhopping boorishness.” Coming after years of generous American support, that irritated Truman.
“They’re thieves, every damn one of them,” Truman said later, referring tho Nationalists leaders. “They stole $750 million out of the billions that we sent to Chiang. They stole it, and it’s invested in real estate down in São Paolo and some right here in New York.”
--Ibid, by Seth Faison
You know you’ve lived a long life if you pass away in 2003 and President Truman once called you and your family a bunch of thieves.
--Anonymous
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Warren Spahn, who in a career spanning 21 seasons won 363 games, the major league record for a left-handed pitcher, died yesterday at his home in Broken Arrow, Okla. He was 82.
Whitlow Wyatt, Spahn’s pitching coach at Milwaukee, once said: “He makes my job easy. Every pitch he throws has an idea behind it.”
--NYT Obituary, November 25, 2003, by Richard Goldstein
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In the middle of her splendid new cabaret tribute to Frank Loesser, Andrea Marcovicci quotes a character from Neil Simon’s “California Suite” as complaining, “You’re worse than a hopeless romantic: you’re a hopeful one.”
--Cabaret Review, NYT, November 21, 2003, by Stephen Holden
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Alone on the farm she acquired when her father died, Ada threatens to become a backwoods Blanche Dubois, pinning soulfully and starving slowly. But Ms. Kidman finds her energy (having never misplaced her beauty) shortly after the movie gets a badly needed jolt of it from the arrival of feisty Ruby, who promptly solves Ada’s protein deficit by wringing a rooster’s neck.
--Movie review of Cold Mountain, by Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, December 26, 2003
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“I had never ridden for Andre Fabre and didn’t know what he looked like,” Bailey recalled the other day. “The paddock was crowded so I went directly to the horse and met the traveling lads. They gave me instructions, but it was all in French and I didn’t understand a word of it. It reminded me of the South American riders who come here and get their orders in English.”
Bailey had ridden European horses before, and he knew they preferred to settle into stride and then come on in a sustained drive. He decided to ride that kind of race, put his horse on the rail upon reaching the backstretch, and saved as much ground as possible.
The favored Bertrando cut out a lively pace and led into the stretch with Arcangues directly behind him. At the sixteenth pole, Bailey sent Arcangues around Bertrando to score by a decisive two lengths. An audible gasp filled the warm air over Santa Anita as the 55,000 on hand realized the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic was going to pay $269.20.
Bailey rode Arcangues into the winner’s circle where he finally met a smiling Andre Fabre.
“He had a lot to say,” Bailey recalled, “but it was all in French. I gathered he was pleased.”
--At the Post, racing column by Joe Hirsch, DRF, October 25, 2003
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Action This Day R. Mandella His slow maiden win was timed with a calendar
--Name of the horse, trainer, and pre-race comments on his possibilities in the day’s Juvenile Breeders’ Cup race, October 25, 2003
--Result: Won by 2¼ lengths, paid $55.60 to win as the longest price of the day. Richard Mandella won four races on the 8 race Breeders’ Cup card.
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Bill Shoemaker, the 4-foot-11, 98 pound dynamo who was among horse racing’s most renowned figures and who rode the winners of 11 Triple-Crown races, died yesterday at his home in San Marino, California. He was 72.
He rode 40,350 horses, [times] won with 8,833 of them—surpassed by only Laffit Pincay’s Jr.’s 9,530 winners—ran second 6,136 times and finished third 4,987 times. That meant he won 22 percent of the time, and was in the money nearly half the time. At Santa Anita alone, he rode 2,544 winners during a career that started in 1949 and ended in February 1990.
He rode for Rex Ellsworth and Meshach Tenney at the peak of their days at the track, and he rode the great horses. Tenney, the trainer of Candy Spots, was asked once what he liked about Shoemaker as a rider, and replied, “The way he meets me in the winner’s circle.”
--Obituary, NYT, by Joe Durso, October 13, 2003
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In short, she never lost her work ethic. She believed the point of making money was to allow you to live comfortably enough to work some more, until you simply could work no longer.
--Kate Remembered, biography of Katherine Hepburn, by A. Scott Berg
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I stood up and dropped some money on the table. “You talk too damn much, I said, “and it’s too damn much about you. See you later.”
I walked out leaving him sitting there shocked and white-faced as well as I could tell by the kind of light they have in bars. He called something after me, But I kept going.
Ten minutes later I was sorry. But ten minutes later I was somewhere else.
--The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
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“Everything in this city is getting expensive. How are you supposed to live? Thank God I’m nearly dead.”
--NYT, May 7, 2003; Frank T. Cervatini, 77, retired shoemaker from the Bronx
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In response to the Jan. 16 editorial-page essay, “Flunking the Martha Stewart Test” by David Mills and Robert Weisberg, regarding the criminal charges against Martha Stewart...
However, it is clear that Ms. Stewart did not heed the warnings of the old law school professor: “Find the line, then stay away from it.”
--Ned Watts, Letters to the Editor, WSJ, January 24, 2004
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