Today we honor Saint Cyril of Alexandria (died 444). We also note that today is Lottery Day, according to Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story “The Lottery”, and that it was on this date in 1957 when Hurricane Audrey made landfall in Eastern Texas and Western Louisiana.
Born about 376 in the small town of Theodosios, Egypt, near modern day El-Mahalla El-Kubra, Cyril was the nephew of Theophilus, who became the Patriarch of Alexandria in 385. Cyril was well educated, receiving the formal education standard for his day: he studied grammar from age twelve to fourteen, rhetoric and humanities from age fifteen to twenty, and finally theology and biblical studies. He became a monk and priest, and accompanied Theophilus to Constantinople in 403 where his uncle presided at the “Synod of the Oak” that deposed John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople. On the death of Theophilus in 412, Cyril became the next Patriarch / Pope / Archbishop of Alexandria, one of the great Christian centers of the world. Cyril was a scholarly archbishop and a prolific writer. In the early years of his active life in the Church he wrote several exegeses, including Commentaries on the Old Testament, Thesaurus, Discourse Against Arians, Commentary on St. John’s Gospel, and Dialogues on the Trinity. In 429 as the Christological controversies increased, his output of writings was that which his opponents could not match. His writings and his theology have remained central to tradition of the Fathers and to all Orthodox to this day. He also became noted in Church history because of his spirited fight for the title Theotokos for the Blessed Virgin Mary during the Council of Ephesus (431). Cyril is controversial because of his involvement in the expulsion of Novatians and Jews from Alexandria and the murder of the pagan philosopher Hypatia. Historians disagree over the extent of his responsibility for these events, but the Roman Catholic Church did not add his Feast to the Church Calendar until 1882; he is counted among the Church Fathers and the Doctors of the Church. Also, according to Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery”, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” The story was published in the June 26, 1948 issue of The New Yorker, and while it initially garnered a lot of negative criticism, it has been accepted as a classic American short story, subject to many critical interpretations and media adaptations, and it has been taught in schools for decades. Finally, on this date in 1957, Hurricane Audrey made landfall south of Sabine Lake on the Louisiana – Texas border, traversed the lake, and then passed over Bridge City, Texas. No one knows how strong the hurricane really was; some of the Audrey victims told reporters that winds were of Category 5 hurricane intensity. The wind gauge broke at 180 miles per hour at the KPLC weather station in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The victims had no warning of the hurricane; they had been told the storm would not make landfall for four more days, but the storm had rapid intensification with a sudden forward speed increase overnight, bringing a much stronger hurricane to the coast far earlier than expected. Damage in Louisiana was catastrophic; 60 – 80 percent of the homes and businesses from Cameron to Grand Chenier were either destroyed or severely damaged. In all, there were over 300 people killed in Louisiana, while 40,000 others were left homeless by the storm. (Richard’s mother was 7 1/2 months pregnant with Richard at the time of the storm, which took half the roof off of the house his family was living in.)
Upon waking up for work, I freshened up my casino shirt for today and tomorrow in the dryer, put a bag of aluminum cans out in the garage, and peeled my breakfast eggs; then we headed off to work. I spent my day at work being the Relief Dealer for Pai-Gow and Mini-Baccarat; for my first rotation, I broke the dealer on Let It Ride, and for the rest of the day, I broke that same dealer on a Blackjack table. On my breaks I worked at my Daily Update on WordPress for BlackBerry; I got stalled by a technical problem having to do with Opera Mini not working right on my WordPress Widgets page. On my last break, I talked to the people in Casino Scheduling (who think that Richard and I will be able to take our vacation when we had originally planned, starting on September 27; they said to check back in a week or two) and called in a prescription to the pharmacy.
Once we clocked out, Richard and I decided not to stop at the pharmacy for my prescription, since we will be there tomorrow anyway. (More anon.) We stopped at Champagnes for groceries, and once we arrived home I posted my Daily Update for yesterday, June 26, 2011. I also wrestled with my technical problem, and found out that I needed to “Enable Accessibility Mode” on the WordPress Widgets page. Having solved my problem with Opera Mini, I then ate my lunch salad while reading the Sunday papers from yesterday and today’s morning paper. I then got online and did a couple of Advance Daily Update drafts while doing the Weekly Computer Maintenance.
Just before 4:30 pm, I peeled my breakfast eggs for tomorrow; while Richard and I watched Jeopardy!, we ate our dinner of pork steaks (I always wonder why they always turn out an odd shade of red on the outside) and steamed broccoli. I then fixed my salads for tomorrow and Wednesday (or Thursday) and finished the Weekly Computer Maintenance. And now, having finished today’s Daily Update, I will get ready to go to bed.
Tomorrow is our Friday at work; after work, Richard will be having blood drawn for lab work prior to his doctor’s appointment next week. In the afternoon (unless I nap, and perhaps even if I do) I hope to get started in the filing of non-fiction books and to do my Hiking Medallion Project.
It is appropriate that on the same day we remember Hurricane Audrey, the worst storm to hit the western Louisiana coast in terms of loss of life (Hurricane Rita in 2005 caused much more property damage in the same area, but only one fatality), our Parting Quote comes to us from Gale Storm, American actress and singer. Born Josephine Owaissa Cottle in 1922 in Bloomington, Texas, she was raised by her mother when her father died when she was just seventeen months old. Having moved with her mother to Houston, she learned to be an accomplished dancer and became an excellent ice skater at Houston’s Polar Palace, and performed in the drama club in high school. When she was 17 years old two of her teachers urged her to enter a contest on Gateway to Hollywood, broadcast from the CBS Radio studios in Hollywood, California. First prize was a one-year contract with a movie studio; she won, and was immediately given the stage name Gale Storm, and her performing partner (and future husband) Lee Bonnell from South Bend, Indiana became known as Terry Belmont. After winning the contest Storm made several films for RKO Radio Pictures; her first was Tom Brown’s School Days (1940), playing opposite Jimmy Lydon and Freddie Bartholomew. She worked steadily in low-budget films released during this period. In 1941 she sang in several Soundies, three-minute musicals produced for “movie jukeboxes.” Storm acted and sang in Monogram Pictures’ popular Frankie Darro series, and played ingénue roles in other Monogram features with the East Side Kids, Edgar Kennedy, and The Three Stooges. Monogram had always relied on established actors with reputations, but in Storm the studio finally had a star of its own. She played the lead in the studio’s most elaborate productions, both musical and dramatic. She shared top billing in Monogram’s Cosmo Jones in The Crime Smasher (1943), opposite Edgar Kennedy, Richard Cromwell, and Frank Graham in the role of Jones, a character derived from network radio. American audiences warmed to Storm and her fan mail increased. She starred in My Little Margie on television from 1952 to 1955. The show, which co-starred former silent film actor Charles Farrell as her father, was originally a summer replacement for I Love Lucy on CBS, but ran for 126 episodes on NBC and CBS. Storm’s popularity was capitalized on when she served as hostess of the NBC Comedy Hour in the winter of 1956. That year she starred in another situation comedy, The Gale Storm Show (aka Oh! Susanna), featuring another silent movie star, ZaSu Pitts. The Gale Storm Show ran for 143 episodes between 1956 and 1960. She appeared regularly on other television programs in the 1950s and 1960s. She was both a panelist and a “mystery guest” on What’s My Line? Starting in 1956 she had a four-year recording career singing covers of popular songs; her first record, “I Hear You Knockin’,” a cover version of a rhythm and blues hit by Smiley Lewis, which was in turn based on the old Buddy Bolden standard “The Bucket’s Got a Hole In It,” sold over a million copies. Her acting career took a sharp decline following the demise of her second series in 1960. Most of her focus was placed modestly on the summer stock or dinner theater circuit, doing a revolving door of tailor-made comedies and musicals such as Cactus Flower, Forty Carats, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and South Pacific. It was later revealed that her disappearance from acting was triggered by a particularly vicious battle with alcohol. After her recovery in the 1970s she took up tap dancing to keep herself physically and mentally young. She made occasional television appearances in later years, such as in Love Boat, Burke’s Law, and Murder, She Wrote. Storm continued to make personal appearances and autographed photos at fan conventions, along with Charles Farrell from the My Little Margie series. She also attended events such as the Memphis Film Festival, the Friends of Old-Time Radio and the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. In 1981 she published her autobiography, I Ain’t Down Yet, which described her battle with alcoholism. She was also interviewed by author David C. Tucker for The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s Sitcoms, published in 2007 (died 2009): “My successes have certainly not been without problems. During the 1970s I experienced a terribly low and painful time of dealing with alcoholism…I thank God daily that I have been fully recovered for more than 20 years. During my struggle, I had no idea of the blessing my experience could turn out to be! I’ve had the opportunity to share with others suffering with alcoholism the knowledge that there is help, hope, and an alcohol free life awaiting them.”
From The Recamier 