Are you ready to feel old? Monday is May 26th and some interesting things are represented by this date. Some you will remember with ease while others will remind you of just how old you (or your parents) really are! But well get to that in a moment. On May 26, 1977 a man named George Willig earned the moniker The Human Fly by scaling the World Trade Center in New York. He did this by attaching himself to the window washer mechanism and walking straight up to the top of the building where he was promptly arrested. It took him about three and a half hours to make the climb. The 27-year-old Queens, NY, man climbed the 1,350-feet (110 stories) of south tower. George Willig was a toymaker and mountain climber and spent months planning and designing his own gear. Mr. Willigs antics drew a huge crowd of spectators. Law enforcement including the Port Authority Police, NYC Police, NYPD suicide negotiator, FBI and building security worked to stop him at several floors along the way. He spoke to them but refused to stop his ascent. Once they determined he was nit a threat to himself or others, they determined it would be safer for everyone to allow him to complete the climb. Once arriving on the roof, he was none the worse for wear, except for blistered hands. Willig was greeted by policemen, who congratulated him, requested his autograph, then handcuffed him and served him with a summons for disorderly conduct, criminal trespass and scaling a building without a permit. It was announced that the city was going to sue Willig for $250,000 for the trouble and expense. The next day Willig met with Mayor Abraham Beame, who settled for a fine of $1.10—a penny for each of the towers 110 stories. In return, Willig readily agreed not to reveal the details of his climbing apparatus, to stop others from attempting similar climbs. I remember this event being on the evening news and in the papers when I was a sophomore in high school. I seem to recall a rash of these type of antics during this era; Daredevils jumping the Grand Canyon, motorcycles jumping buses or through flaming hoops, tight rope walkers walking between the World Trade Center towers, 69 year old Karl Wallenda broke a skywalk distance record of 1,800 feet at Kings Island Amusement Park in northern Ohio, and the next year he walked on a cable high above the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium between games of a double header. (AS A SIDE BAR: The Indians lost to the first game in1975 but fans stayed in their seats to watch the famous aerialist gingerly walk 570 feet from left field to right field 125 feet above the field. About halfway across, he stopped to do a headstand. Being a fan of the Tribe, and frequently going to games with my frugal grandparents, this was a must see event for them. For the price of a single ticket we could sit through two nine inning baseball games AND a circus show. Seven-plus hours of entertainment is a lot for even an enormous baseball/circus fan but when that fan is a 12 year old boy with a nun diagnosed attention deficit problem, I was probably a handful, to say the least. I dont remember much of the ball game but the wire walking memory has. Stayed with me vividly for the last forty or so years.) The media blitz was on for The Human Fly as Willig buzzed from tv show to tv show, talking to Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and others. Eventually he discovered that celebrity was a burden so he moved to California and out of mic’s way. He was on vacation in China in September of 2001 when he heard the news about the Sept. 11, 2001. Watching CNN in his hotel in China, his first response was a guilty sense that his escapade might have somehow helped turn the towers into a target. He later told CNN that was just an initial, emotional reaction and that he was still glad to have climbed the towers. Willig and his wife now lead a quiet life in an LA suburb. * * * * * On May 26th in 1907, John Wayne, actor and the epitome of the American West, was born as Marion Michael Morrison in Iowa. He went on to appear in nearly 250 movies and TV shows over fifty years. His first movie appearance was in 1928 and his credit was listed as Duke Morrison. After that, he was known as John The Duke Wayne. He was nominated for more than forty and won twenty five Academy Awards, Peoples Choice, Golden Globe, and other industry awards and recognitions. He died of stomach cancer in 1979, the grave, which went unmarked for twenty years, is now marked with a quote he gave in a 1971 interview: Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. Its perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes weve learned something from yesterday. His enduring status as an iconic American was formally recognized by the U.S. government when he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Naval Heritage Award, among others. His name is on many roads, buildings, bridges, parks around the country and even the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. Wayne is the only actor to appear in every edition of the annual Harris Poll of Most Popular Film Actors, and the only actor to appear on the list after his death. Wayne has been in the top ten in this poll for 19 consecutive years, starting in 1994, 15 years after his death. * * * * * Another birthday being celebrated on May 26th is rock singer Stephanie Lynn Stevie Nicks. She is SIXTY FIVE ! I hope I look this good at 65! I dont look this good now at fifty one! The singer-songwriter with Fleetwood Mac and a solo career producing over forty hits and sold over 140 million albums. She was called The Reigning Queen of Rock and Roll and earned a spot on the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time list by Rolling Stone Magazine. Nicks, along with her Fleetwood Mac band mates, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. She has won thirteen Grammy Awards. She joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975 and has toured constantly as a solo artist or with Fleetwood Mac nearly every year since. I have had the thrill of seeing Fleetwood Mac several times, in 1996 in Cleveland. Thanks to good friends and some charity work, Sue and I enjoyed a limousine ride to and from the arena and seats in the center of the eleventh row in front of the stage on the floor of Clevelands Gund Arena. We went to see them again on yet another reunion tour (it may have been the reunion tour of the anniversary tour of a reunion tour) and then saw them again in the summer of 2013 at Quicken Loans Arena. We also saw her on a solo tour with Rod Stewart in Pittsburgh at Consol Energy Center as part of The a Heart & Soul Tour. (NOTE: Rod & Stevies combined age on the day of that show was 132 years! You young people better hurry up and start making good music pretty soon. Our rock icons cannot do this heavy lifting alone much longer!) Nicks has started a charity foundation entitled Stevie Nicks Band of Soldiers which is used for the benefit of wounded military personnel. In late 2004, Nicks began visiting Army and Navy medical centers in Washington, D. C. While visiting wounded service men and women, Nicks became determined to find an object she could leave with each soldier that would raise their spirits, motivate, and give them something to look forward to each day. She eventually decided to purchase hundreds of iPod Nanos, load them with music, artists, and playlists which she would hand select, and autograph. I call it a soldiers iPod. It has all the crazy stuff that I listen to, and my collections Ive been making since the 70s for going on the road, when Im sick...Or the couple of times in my life that I have really been down, music is what always dances me out of bed, Nicks recently said. She now regularly delivers these tokens of her appreciation, bringing her closest friends along to share the experience. Those friends include Mick Fleetwood, Joe Perry, Steve Tyler, Rod Stewart, Taylor Swift and others. A rumor that has trailed Nicks through the years is that she is a witch and is heavily involved in Wicca. While she admits to having a high regard for the mythic and gothic, she denies any solitary dedication to Wicca or any one religion. She has called this witch claim erroneous many times over the years. * * * * * On May 26th in 1927, Henry Ford and his son Edsel drove the 15 millionth Model T Ford out of their factory, marking the automobiles official last day of production. The relatively affordable and efficient Model T was responsible for accelerating the automobiles introduction into American society. Introduced in October 1908, the Model T, with a 20-horsepower, four-cylinder engine, got about 20 miles per gallon of and could reach speeds of 45 mph. The car sold for around $850 fully loaded (around $20,000 in todays dollars), or as little as $260 (around $6,000 today) for the basic no-extras model. After production officially ended the following day, Ford factories shut down in early June, and some 60,000 workers were laid off. No car in history has had the impact, both actual and mythological, of the Model T Ford. * * * * * The first musical wave of a British Invasion was on may 26th in 1962. If youd told a randomly selected group of American music fans in the spring of 1962 that a British act would soon achieve total dominance of the American pop scene, change the face of music and fashion and inspire a generation of future pop stars to take up an instrument and join a band, what would they have pictured? Remember, The Beatles, were complete unknowns at this point. A man named Mr. Acker Bilk was a jazz clarinetist who performed dressed in the throwback garb of an Edwardian dance hall player. The pleasing sound of his song Stranger On The Shore fit very neatly within the spectrum of Percy Faith and Henry Mancini style of non-threatening pop that dominated in America prior to the arrival of the Beatles. His instrumental single provided the first hint of the British Invasion to come when it went to #1 on the Billboard Charts on May 26, 1962. As popular as it was however, the song that went to #1 on May 26, 1962, did not set off a prolonged period of Acker Bilk-mania. Stranger On The Shore proved to be the only significant hit for Him. The legacy of Acker Bilks is that he was THE VERY FIRST British artist to top the American charts, something that would happen 173 more times over the next 35 years.
Posted on: Mon, 26 May 2014 01:36:49 +0000
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