Good Mornin’! Good Mornin’!
The second day of a new year.
The second day of a new decade. How’s it going? Now as I sit down to tap out this column, it’s Sunday night and the New Year hasn’t hit me flush in the face just yet.
The past decade as many others, seemed to have flown by so I decided to take a glance 100 years back to 1920.
The Cleveland Indians beat the Brooklyn Robins in the World Series. The Akron Pros “won” the AFPA (pre-NFL) with an 8-0-3 record. The NBA wouldn’t have a champion until 1947.
The League of Nations was formed.
No, it was not the first Avengers movie.
It was actually the pre-cursor to the United Nations established to foster peace around the world. The US never joined.
Also, in 1920, the US had a defacto woman president.
Yes, as Woodrow Wilson held the title and office of president, with a year and a half left in his term, he suffered a blood clot that led to paralysis, partial blindness and brain damage. His wife, Edith, controlled access to her husband and pretty much ran things. The first and only since but unofficially.
Women gained the right to vote as the 19th Amendment was approved. But before that, the 18th Amendment was passed and prohibition began.
It is said that it was the most ignored amendment ever.
After passing, drunk and disorderly arrests increased by 41% and drunk driving was up 81%. Federal prisons had their population increase by 366%. Yikes!
There was a guy named Ponzi who had a scheme.
Though he’s long gone, the scheme still lives on in variations.
But my favorite thing of 1920, radio was born. A fully licensed station first began broadcasting live election results. Giving folks breaking news was unheard of and it spread like wildfire.
Within two years, folks had bought 100,000 radios and by 1923 more than half a million radios had been sold. It was the birth of radio with generations to come.
What will happen in 2020 that will be as prevalent as radio and what version of Ponzi will be headlines?
Let’s hope for the best, work hard to achieve the most and keep doing a good turn daily and make 2020 memorable for all the right reasons.
