Nights Our House Comes to Life
by Matthew Brennan

Some nights in midwinter when the creek clogs
With ice and the spines of fir trees stiffen
Under a blank, frozen sky,
On these nights our house comes to life.
It happens when you’re half asleep:
A sudden crack, a fractured dream, you bolting
Upright—but all you can hear is the clock
Your great-grandfather found in 1860
And smuggled here from Dublin for his future bride,
A being as unknown to him then as she is now
To you, a being as distant as the strangers
Who built this house, and died in this room
Some cold, still night, like tonight,
When all that was heard were the rhythmic clicks
Of a pendulum, and something, barely audible,
Moving on the dark landing of the attic stairs.


Matthew Brennan, “Nights Our House Comes to Life” from The House with the Mansard Roof. © 2009 Matthew Brennan, published by The Backwaters Press, 2009. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

National Public Radio was officially incorporated on this day in 1970 when it replaced the National Educational Radio Network. In 1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the “Public Broadcasting Act” which sought to expand noncommercial broadcasting for educational purposes. Originally the act was called the “Public Television Act,” which distressed supporters of public radio who thought they were being left out. After much discussion, revisions, and a passel of Scotch Tape, the name was changed to “Public Broadcasting Act” and Johnson signed the bill, thus paving the way for television shows like Sesame Street and radio shows like All Things Considered, which debuted on NPR in 1971 with a conversation between poet Allen Ginsberg and his father about the legality of drugs.

Radio stations of the 1930s and 1940s were mostly entertainment: songs, comedy shows, plays, and lots of advertisements for products like Pepsodent and Ivory Soap. In the late 1940s, however, the Federal Communications Commission reserved the lower end of the FM band for noncommercial, educational stations, which is where you can find most public radio stations today. Two fellows by the names of Lewis Hill and E. John Lewis, both pacifists, were trying to found a station that would primarily focus on peace and education, without advertisements, an idea that a friend of theirs said was “like trying to teach nonviolence in the army.” They founded a nonprofit group called “Pacifica” (1946) in Berkeley, California. Most people think the name comes from the close proximity to the Pacific Ocean, but it really comes from the word “pacifism.” In 1949 the public radio station KPFA set up shop in Berkeley. It was entirely listener-sponsored.

When National Public Radio was incorporated in 1970 it was a partnership of journalists, 30 employees, and 90 public radio stations across the U.S. NPR launched the careers of journalists like Cokie Roberts, Linda Wertheimer, and Nina Totenberg, who once said that NPR had so many female journalists because they paid so little no man would work there. Totenberg is the legal correspondent for NPR. She’s covered the Supreme Court for longer than any justice has served. After she broke the Anita Hill case, in which Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of harassment, Totenberg was sure she’d be cited for contempt and burned her notes in her fireplace.

The very first broadcast of NPR in April of 1971 featured live coverage of the Senate hearings on the war in Vietnam. In 2003 the estate of Joan Kroc, widow of the founder of McDonald’s, gave National Public Radio $235 million, the largest gift ever to a cultural institution.

It’s the birthday of John George Nicolay (books by this author), born in Bavaria (1832). He would be instrumental in American history as President Abraham Lincoln’s private secretary and official biographer. Nicolay first immigrated to Cincinnati from Germany with his father in 1838. He then relocated to Illinois to pursue work as a newspaper editor, a profession that allowed him newfound prominence in the local political scene. He met Lincoln while working as assistant to the secretary of state of Illinois and immediately the two took a liking to one another.

Along with his childhood friend John Hay, Nicolay acted as one of Lincoln’s closest presidential advisors. Lincoln referred to them collectively as “the boys” — both Nicolay and Hay being in their mid-20s at the time — and treated them as sons. In return the pair idolized Lincoln as the defining political figure of the generation. Nicolay lived and worked on the second floor of the White House acting, along with Hay, as a blend of the modern day chief of staff, press secretary, and bodyguard.

Nicolay was of such similar mind to Lincoln that Nicolay often issued official orders and responses on behalf of the president without consulting him — such was his instinctive understanding of Lincoln’s priorities. Where he differed from Lincoln: Nicolay was known to be a bit curmudgeonly and forthright about his opinions, or as a colleague wrote, “decidedly German in his manner of telling men what he thought of them. … People who do not like him — because they cannot use him, perhaps — say he is sour and crusty, and it is a grand good thing, then, that he is.”

After Lincoln’s death both Nicolay and Hay made it their mission to pay proper tribute to Lincoln and his historical legacy. They collaborated on his official biography, which first appeared serially in The Century magazine between 1886 and 1890. The magazine’s publisher reportedly offered to give Nicolay and Hay 100 percent of the piece’s profit, saying: “We want your life of Lincoln. We must have it. … We will take it, and work it for nothing. It is probably the most important literary venture of the time.” The Century offered to publish the work as both a magazine series and later as a 10-volume set, offering an unprecedented $50,000 (or over $1.2 million today) for rights, plus royalties. The two spent 25 years researching and writing the volumes. The publishers of The Century were right in their estimation of the work’s importance. To this day their comprehensive efforts make up the definitive biography of Lincoln. It was Nicolay and Hay who through their biography crafted the modern vision of the 16th president —Lincoln as gentle leader, brilliant orator, and political sage.

Aside from acting as Lincoln’s advisor, Nicolay also served as the American consul in Paris, as editor of several newspapers, and as one-time marshal of the United States Supreme Court.

It’s the birthday of Fats Domino (1928), the American R&B singer and pianist whose mellow baritone helped him sell millions of records in the 1950s. Only Elvis Presley sold more. Domino is best known for his hits “Ain’t That a Shame” and “Blueberry Hill,” with its famously exuberant opening line, “I found my thrill / on Blueberry Hill.”

Today is the birthday of John Harvey Kellogg, doctor and cereal pioneer, born in Tyrone, Michigan (1852). He ran the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek Michigan to promote healthy living and eating. There he and his brother, Will, invented several grain-based foods, cooking the grain and forcing it through rollers to make dough. They were cooking wheat one day when they were called away, and when they returned, the wheat was apparently overcooked. They decided to put it through the rollers anyway, and cereal flakes were born.

President Woodrow Wilson established the Grand Canyon National Park on this date in 1919 after a 30-year opposition from ranchers, miners, and entrepreneurs. Today the Grand Canyon National Park covers more than 1,900 square miles; the canyon itself is 277 river miles long, 10 miles wide, and a mile deep. The park receives 5 million visitors every year.

In 1903, upon seeing the canyon for the first time, Theodore Roosevelt said:

"The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison — beyond description; absolutely unparalleled throughout the wide world. ... Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is. Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimit, and loveliness. You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see."

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.^®

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