Book of Ages, the Last 50 Years

I have arrived at the end of Eric Hanson's A Book of Ages, which has earned its place in the Bathroom Books Hall of Fame. I've been reading it so long that it came out in paperback before I was finished with the hardcover.

Here are a few favorites from the entries about people (mostly) older than me:

Age 47: On Halloween 1954 W. H. Auden reviews a new book about a hobbit who inherits a magic ring and goes on an adventure. Auden likes the book very much and suggests it would make an excellent Christmas gift.

Best accompanied by:

Age 57: Sitting on a bed in his attic and typing with two fingers, Oxford professor J.R.R. Tolkien finishes The Lord of the Rings, 1949. The manuscript is more than half a million words and took seventeen years to write.

Age 56: In September 1957 Louis Armstrong breaks his long silence on the race issue in an interview to a young reporter for the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota. It comes as a shock to most Americans who are used to the trumpeter's ingratiating smile, but he is angry and has been angry for a long time. Two weeks ago black schoolchildren were barred from schools in Little Rock by National Guardsmen. And almost a century after Emancipation, Armstrong is the first black man to stay in Grand Forks' finest hotel.

Age 64: Karl Marx dies in poverty in London, March 14, 1883. Eleven people attend the funeral.

Age 67: Poet Marianne Moore has been hired by the Ford Motor company to help name their newest car-model, 1955. Among her suggestions are: Utopian Turtletop, Andante Con Tropo, the Anticipator, the Thunder Crester, the Silver Sword, the Regna Pacer, the Magigravue, the Turcotingo, the Pastelogram, the Varsity Stroke, the Mongoose Civique, the Intelligent Whale, and the Resilient Bullet. Ford decides to name the new car the Edsel, after Henry Ford's son and heir.

[I wonder what they paid her. Those are some terrible names.]

Age 71: In May 1962 retired president Dwight D. Eisenhower holds a press conference to criticize things that have happened since he left office. Current president John F. Kennedy says: "The thing I liked best was the picture of Eisenhower attacking medical care for the old under Social Security as 'socialized medicine'--and then getting into his government limousine and heading out to Walter Reed."

Age 74: H. G. Wells's name is put near the top of the list of persons to be immediately liquidated by the SS when the Nazis take over the government of Great Britain, 1940.

Age 100: Ida May Fuller, a classmate of Calvin Coolidge and the first person to receive Social Security in 1940, is still living in Ludlow, Vermont, 1974. She will die in 1975. In thirty-eight years of retirement, her Social Security benefits will total $22,888.92. A nice return. Miss Fuller paid in $24.75 during the last three years of her working life. She was a life-long Republican and never thought much of the New Deal.

Previous posts on Hanson's book:

Ages 13 - 44
J.D. Salinger, age 22
Ages 3 - 7