Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Robert Byrd is Dead


Robert Byrd is dead. That made me think of one of my favorite gems hidden in the depths of our store, the tag "white" on one of our shelves zoned for books on famous Americans. Not totally true, I mean, Obama has some books in there, but whatever. I think it's pretty funny.

Robert Byrd is dead. I didn't catch an article on his death in the paper, although I'm not sure I read the paper on Tuesday. I can't remember. I know that I checked my Yahoo email account, and that the headline on their page said something-perfect summer barbecue, blah, blah, and as one of my personal heroes Sam McPheeters pointed out on his blog (where I gleaned this information in the first place, sadly), that the news was a mere footnote even on CNN.com. Weird, right?

Robert Byrd is dead. Before he went though, he managed to have a biography written about him, as well as a penning a couple of texts of his own, the most recent of which was published in 2008 and entitled Letter to the New President: Commonsense Lessons for Our Next Leader. Sound curious? The guy saw from The Great Depression to the Dot Com Boom, a couple of World Wars and the Summer of Love. I'd imagine that it'd be full of fantastic suggestions- "A filibuster against Civil Rights may sully your rep a bit," for example. Or maybe, "Avoid spending nine years in the KKK, 'cause y'know what? That legacy is gonna' hang around your neck like a big dead seabird." Well, my interest is piqued. Another reason to peruse the American History section. Boy, what a crazy ride it's been!

2 comments:

Spiros said...
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Spiros said...

I was pondering the lack of color in our American History Biography section as I was closing the store on Tuesday night; in spite of having frequently done section work there, I had been oblivious of the emendation on that shelf label.