“February made me shiver with every paper I’d deliver
” ... - Don McClean.
Everyone knows that February is a cold month with seemingly little to recommend it except for Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day. However, many famous people were born in February, and they have made memorable contributions to our civilization. Well, I’ll let you decide that for yourselves.
We all know that February is the month of presidents because of Washington and Lincoln, but William Henry Harrison and Ronald Reagan have February birthdays too.Among others born in February were:
Enrico Caruso, the Italian opera singer, so beloved by Americans in the 1920s, and Marion Anderson, the great American gospel singer - she sang “The Battle Hymnof the Republic” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial;
The composer Handel gave us the incomparable oratorio “The Messiah”; Felix Mendelsohn - his own music would have been enough, but it seems that he was responsible for the rediscovery of many masterful works by Bach. Rossini, the Italian composer is best known for the “William Tell Overture” and the opera “The Marriage of Figaro.” I once heard an intellectual defined as anyone who can hear William Tell and not think of the Lone Ranger;
Both Galileo and Copernicus independently put forth the theory that the earth orbits the sun, along with the development of the telescope and the idea that the earth is round;
Writers such as Charles Dickens wrote many great novels which exposed the injustices of the British class system: “Oliver Twist,” “A Tale of Two Cities” and “A Christmas Carol” among them;
Samuel Pepys, English diarist, gave us a glimpse into 17th century life among the upper classes; Jules Verne, the father of science fiction, best known probably for “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” (if you didn’t read the book, you probably saw the movie); Victor Hugo, theFrench author, wrote “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Les Miserables;”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of my favorite American poets, wrote “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere;”
Langston Hughes, an African American poet of more recent times wrote one of my favorite lines, “I will wrap you in a sky blue cloth to keep you from the too rough fingers of the world;”
Charles Lindbergh, the Lone Eagle thrilled the world with his solo conquest of the Atlantic; John Glenn, who was not born in February, but accomplished a similar feat when he orbited the earth Feb. 20, 1962; and
American artist Winslow Homer is famous for his portrayal of American life in New England, and Grant Wood from Iowa immortalized the American farmer and his wife in his defi nitivepainting “American Gothic.” I saw it in an art gallery in Chicago on my way to view bigger, more impressive works. It is a small painting, but it held me there mesmerized by the power of its truth and simplicity.
I am indebted to the World Book Encyclopediafor the bare facts given here. The comments, however, are my own, and I must bear the responsibility for them.
So perhaps February has something to recommend it after all. It’s here now, and we might as well strive to enjoy it. When February is good to us, it goes too quickly, and when it’s not so good at least, we know it will be over soon.
And that’s the view from Antioch Mountain.
Living, Pages 9 on 02/03/2010
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