For all of you visitors to Louisville, why don’t you stay and extend the weekend? For you Louisvillians, you can extend the weekend too because the weather looks great for the next few days. A big fat area of high pressure will dominate. Lot’s sun for Sunday. Chilly start followed by a mild afternoon in the mid to upper 60’s. Low 70’s for Monday afternoon and then partly cloudy on Tuesday and mid to maybe upper 70’s. I’ve actually had people complain that I hurt the economy by telling people to take a day off and extend the weekend. I never knew that I was so powerful.
Good thing this Kentucky Derby was on the 3rd and not the 4th. The coldest Derby morning was 36 on May 4, 1940 and May 4, 1957. The coldest high for a derby was 47 May 4, 1957 and May 4, 1935. The coldest average temperature for the Derby was also May 4, 1957. Two years later on Derby Day on May 2, 1959 they doubled the 1957 high for the record Derby high of 94. I don’t think anyone mentioned global warming.
On This Date In History: In 1970, four Kent State students protesting the Viet Nam War were killed by National Guardsman. But I don’t want to talk about that. I already told you a few days ago about the Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago in 1886. President Lincoln was buried in 1865 and David Frost interviewed President Nixon in 1975, but I don’t want to talk about those items either. How about this:
For all of you who want to curtail various free trade agreements. On this date in 1930, 1028 economists petitioned Congress warning them against the Smoot-Hawley Act. America was reeling from the 1929 stock market crash and so President Hoover and other politicians thought it was a grand idea to put a huge tariff on imported goods with the idea that it would promote the sale of American goods domestically and help turn the economy around. The economists argued that high duties would effectively shut down foreign trade and create the exact opposite result intended. But, politicians often do what sounds good to the public rather than take the time to explain why what sounds good is often wrong-headed. Smoot-Hawley passed, foreign trade dried up and the result was the Great Depression. Nice going.
What I really wanted to talk about was Moe. Moe Howard departed this earth on this date in 1975. He was, of course, the ring-leader of The Three Stooges. Not only was he in charge on the screen but also in real life. His real name was Harry Moses Horwitz and was born on June 19, 1897. He teamed with older brother Samuel (Shemp) and younger brother Jerome (Curly) along with Larry Fine to form the stooges, an act that had its roots in vaudeville in the early 1920’s. Larry and Moe teamed with a rotating third stooge due to health issues and the ultimate death of Curly in 1952. But the act went on in various forms through the 1960’s and continues today in various mediums.
One of my favorite stories about the stooges regards Moe’s hair. Apparently his mother was so enthralled with his hair that she wouldn’t cut it and it often fell to shoulder length. Moe grew tired of being teased at school so he and a chum got a bowl and some scissors and performed surgery on his hair, leaving him with the mop that remained his style for the rest of his life.
The Three Stooges are a remarkable part of popular culture in that it transcended time. Throughout the 20th century there are probably very few entertainment acts that one could go to a kid from any time and ask if they knew who they were and what they did. If you could transport a kid, regardless of race, ethnicity or social status, from the 1930’s to the 1990’s one of the few things they would have in common would be that they knew the funny noises the Curly made or that Moe called everyone “Porcupine.” Given the rapid rate of change in culture, society and technology over that time span, it’s really something else if you think about it.
If you want to read more about The Three Stooges, here is a link. It’s even got a way to buy the poster of the photo above along with other trinkets!
