Archives for April 1, 2020

Aretha Franklin sings “Skylark,” by Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, on The New Steve Allen Show. This episode was originally taped on May 19, 1964, for syndicated telecast:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“Of course I knew I could rely on your sympathy. I am reconciled by the certainty that a continuance of life would have meant only a continuance of pain and suffering of which my wife had had too much before the final accident. (She fell and broke her hip bone.) We have had our share. For sixty years she made life poetry for me and at 88 one must be ready for the end. I shall keep at work and interested while it lasts—though not caring very much for how long.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., letter to Frederick Pollock, May 24, 1929