Friday, April 20

     Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.

      It's the birthday in 1889 near Linz, Austria of that ultimate agent of evil, Adolph Hitler. The family moved from Austria to Bavaria when Hitler was three. Hitler was a good student at first, but conflicts with his father and the death of a younger brother changed his personality. He wanted to attend art school but his father forced him to attend a technical school where Hitler did poorly on purpose.
    When his father died suddenly, Hitler convinced his mother to support him in art school. After basic art school, he moved to Vienna, but was rejected at the fine arts academy. By this time his money had run out and he lived in homeless shelters and supported himself with odd jobs. He joined the army when WWI broke out and served as a messenger. He was injured during a battle and received a medal for bravery.
     He thought Germany lost the war because it was stabbed in the back by Jews and Marxists at home. This was the start of his violent anti-Semitism. A failed coup attempt led to a year in prison where he wrote his manifesto "Mein Kampf" in which he stated the need for genocide to cleanse Germany of it sub-human population.
     The Great Depression gave Hitler his opportunity to become dictator. He was a charismatic speaker and was able to play on people's grievances. He led Germany into war and had great success at first. After losing the air war over Britain, Hitler set aside his plan to invade Britain and turned towards Russia. His armies were successful at first, but Hitler's meddling in strategy led to disastrous losses. The U.S. entered the war in 1941, and it was mostly downhill from there. Historians have stated that the Russians did the bulk of the fighting and dying in  the war.
     Hitler shot himself on April 30, 1945 as Russian troops were shelling Berlin. It's estimated that over fifty million people died in the European part of the war.

     It's also the birthday of lots of good people: St. Rose of Lima, who cared for the poor in her city, Sister Angelica, who brought the good news to the poor of the deep South and George Takei, an all around nice guy, who played Captain Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the Enterprise on the Star Trek TV shows and movies.
    Takei was born in Los Angeles in 1937 of Japanese-American parents. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the family was interned for the duration of the war. Some of Takei's relatives back in Japan were killed in the bombing of Hiroshima.
     After high school, Takei studied acting at UCLA. His first job in Hollywood was doing English dubbing voice-over for Japanese monster movies. In 1965 he got his big break when he was cast as Captain Sulu. After Star Trek he got involved in Democratic politics and LBGT rights campaigns. He attends Star Trek conferences and has ten million followers on Facebook. He's considered by many to be "the funniest man on Facebook." Be sure to "like" him.

 


      Today's poem is by the dutch poet Martinus Nijhof who was born today in 1894.

Impasse

We’re standing in the kitchen, she and I.
All day long I’ve thought: you must ask her today.
But, because somehow I’m ashamed to say
it, I want her caught unawares and shy.

So now, seeing her bent busy over her task,
and having the chance I wanted to have
the most unprepared answer she can give —
‘What do you want me to write about?’ — I ask.

Just as the teakettle whistles out a jet
of steam, a cloud covering her until
it shoots up and fogs the kitchen window.

Then she answers, at the same time she lets

a string of boiling water slowly fall

spreading the smell of coffee: ‘I don’t know.’

 

 

       Come back Sunday for more squibs from @jmcdonnell123