Did You Know?…Noir Edition

During the editing of Ken Burns’s epic film, The Civil War, when they came to the part where Abraham Lincoln gets shot at Ford’s Theater, he and his colleagues sat there, not wanting to lay the track for the sound of Booth’s bullet, so they could keep Abe alive, a little while longer.

Elephants make friends, bury their dead, and travel for funerals. 

Beatle, George Harrison’s last words were,

LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

OJ Simpson, whenever he earns money, insists on being paid in cash, so he doesn’t have to pay the $58 million in damages awarded to the victim’s families who won a civil suit against him for the murders, of Nicole and Ron. 

Beneath Manhattan’s Washington Square Park built in 1871 over the city’s Potter’s Field, 20,000 bodies are buried, mostly dead from the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1795. For ID purposes, they’d  wrap you in a yellow blanket, so still on occasion, a Con Edison worker will find a shred of yellow, peeking from down below.  

When the late comedian, David Brenner, at the height of his fame ate at a restaurant, he’d often order a Chef’s Salad, because being besieged by autograph seekers, his food would get cold.

Anything left in remembrance at the Vietnam Wall, in Washington D.C., gets collected and archived, be it a Flag, Teddy bear or note from the grandchild he never knew.  

  Bruce Springsteen’s signature song, Born in the U.S.A., was about his anger towards the ill way we, at the time, were treating Vietnam Veterans.

Writers, W. H. Auden (66), Brendan Behan, age (41), Truman Capote (59), Raymond Chandler (70), F. Scott Fitzgerald (44), Patricia Highsmith (74), Jack Kerouac (47), Sinclair Lewis (65), Carson McCullers (50), O’Henry (47), Dorothy Parker (73), Edger Allan Poe (40), Dylan Thomas (39) and  James Thurber (66), all died from the effects of alcoholism. 

During William Tecumseh Sherman’s famous March to the Sea, his men mangled all the railroad tracks, coined Sherman’s neckties, so the starving south couldn’t get their food. 

William Howard Taft, 5’11, at 350 pounds, Grover Cleveland, also 5’11 weighing 275 pounds, and Donald Trump, 6’3 at 243 pounds, are listed as the three fattest U.S. Presidents to date, the weight of one and two, contributing to their demise.

In 1961, when the U.S. had a new glamorous First Lady, Gucci named a handbag after her called, The Jackie, becoming an instant bestseller, tripling in worth, after her death.  

 The late, great Carrie Fisher, often worked as a script doctor on other writer’s screenplays, including Steven Spielberg’s Hook, and Sister Act, starring Whoopi Goldberg.

Some still think, Walt Disney, who in 1966, at 65, died of lung cancer, was freeze dried in liquid nitrogen to be preserved till they found a cure, though there is no documentary evidence to be true. What is well documented, is what a first class prick the father of Donald, Goofy, Micky and Minnie was. 

What Joe Biden, Carol Burnett, Vanessa Bryant, Johnny Carson, Eric Clapton, Judy Collins, Jerry Lewis, Abraham Lincoln, Loretta Lynn, Mary Tyler Moore, Paul Newman, Sylvester Stallone, Mike Tyson and Gloria Vanderbilt have in common is, they all suffered the loss of children. 

John F. Kennedy was the only U.S. President to receive a Purple Heart.  

In 1948, when Babe Ruth died of cancer at 53, his two day wake was held at Yankee Stadium, where 100,000 fans came to pay their last respects to the Bambino, resting nobly, in his pinstripes.

This may be my favorite.

In 1963, 34 year-old, Jacqueline Kennedy, after replicating Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 funeral to honor her late husband, made the decision to walk behind his casket from the U.S. Capitol where he laid in state, to Saint Matthews Church where his funeral mass would be held.

The Secret Service, after just losing their Commander-in-Chief, on their watch, asked her not to, worried for the distinguished group of dignitaries who came to pay their respects, since they still had no idea, who had killed our President.

Mrs. Kennedy kindly but firmly said, “They can do whatever they want, but I’m walking behind my husband.”

When the likes of now President, Lyndon Johnson and French President, Charles de Gaulle, among others, were asked to ride in cars, collectively said…

if she walks, we walk…and they did, and a stirring sight it was.    

SB