It's 4 a.m. and I'm listening the NPR, reminded by "The Writer's Almanac" that today (Monday, January 28) is the day in 1986 that the Challenger space shuttle crashed.I remember exactly where I was sitting in my fourth grade class, when a runner from the main office came and whispered in the teacher's ear. Shortly after, a television was wheeled into the room so that we could watch the news. We watched as the coverage unfolded, as footage of the explosion played over and over. I was reminded of the experience as I sat, glued to my television, on September 11th, 2001.
But to the main point of this post. Garrision Keillor incorrectly credited Ronald Reagan with a quote from an aviator-poet of the Royal Canadian Air Force. As soon as he read the famous words, my fact checker mojo turned on. Not one to give Reagan a lot of credit, especially not for elegant prose, I looked up the original source.
Slipped the surly bonds of Earth ... and touched the Face of God belongs to John Gillespie Magee, Jr., not the Great Communicator.
3 comments:
I'm not so sure Reagan or NPR were implying that he wrote those words, though.
Are you nitpicking my nitpicking?
Keep up the good work.
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