Pick your cause for celebration — interesting list of birthday people for January 19:
- James Watt, improver or inventor of the steam engine, depending on your text, 1736
James Watt, back then – Image via Wikipedia
- Robert E. Lee, in 1807
- Edgar Allan Poe, born 1809 (just a few days before Lincoln and Darwin, both born that year on February 12)
- Robert McNeil, the journalist, 1931
- Janis Joplin, 1943
Janis Joplin, member of the “Dead at 27 Club” – Image via Wikipedia
- Dolly Parton, 1946 (same year as Linda Rondstadt, if I recall correctly)
Dolly Parton, a while ago – Image via Wikipedia
Seems odd to me to think of Dolly Parton younger than Janis Joplin, or the same age as Linda Ronstadt. But Parton was a star by the age of 14.
Irritates me still that Baltimore hasn’t figured out a good way to fund the Edgar Allan Poe House, which needs about $80,000 to avoid bankruptcy (again, if I recall correctly), in a city with an NFL team named after his most famous poem. Could they just pass a hat at a couple of games, asking each fan to throw in $1.00? Or pass the hat in the Ravens locker room?
Dolly Parton’s friends, Linda Rondstadt and Emmy Lou Harris, in a celebratory mood – Image by armadilo60 via Flickr
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 