G-L-O-R-I-A

SO, a few days ago I wrote of my Advice-Quest into the West. Let me say that the issue in question was the unseemly, most necessary (in this busy world), but still uncomfortable business of promoting oneself. Ay-yi-yi. LOOK AT ME! NOTICE ME - no, wait: Not ME, (except when I want you to), but rather my BOOKS and once thou hast done so, dear PUBLIC, i.e. WORLD AT LARGE, those of you who are as yet with a few spare dollars, part with them on behalf of my lovely, educational, far-out, historical books. No foolin' - they really are neat, but is this ICKY or WHAT?! Yes, it's supremely icky to Always Be Marketing, an endeavor with which no lady should involve herself. Still, I concede that one must blow one's trumpet, but for now, for this Sunday morning in cruel, tender April, let me change the subject.

'Twas on this day in 1983 that Gloria Swanson (no stranger to the rewards of publicity and marketing), died. Left the building. Got her ticket punched. Kicked the bucket and turned in her dinner pail. Ended her earthly sojourn as screen diva. I'd post a picture here of her; she was lovely & all, but I don't know how & have no patience just now to learn how.

Dr. Martin Luther King, man of great heart and mind, was blasted out of this vale of tears and into the Blue Beyond, on this day in 1968.

And, on this day in 1841, only one month after his cold, blustery Inauguration Day, 68-year-old William Henry Harrison, 9th U.S. President, died of pneumonia. Sigh.