Herbs Archive 3.0


In doing some research today, I learned that Notre Dame was the first university in the land to be lighted by electricity. Also, when Notre Dame played its first football game in 1887, there were 38 United States. Grover Cleveland was president, the first Democrat to hold the office since before the Civil War. Chicago seemed ready to burst with over one million inhabitants. Los Angeles had fifty thousand inhabitants. The city of Miami, Florida did not exist. Even though Geronimo had just surrendered, Indian wars would continue for thirteen more years. Coca Cola and the Statue of Liberty were one year old. Daily railroad service to the Pacific coast was just starting. Mark Twain was fifty-four and working on a novel to be called "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." The most popular character in literary history was debuting in Beton's Christmas Annual, Sherlock Holmes. The average man worked six days a week, ten to twelve to sixteen hours a day, without vacations. Ladies remained at home where they did not smoke, drink, swear, wear makeup, or vote. The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs was eleven years old, and indoor baseball, now known as softball, was about to be invented. So were the Kodak camera and the ball point pen. But, so far as the Michigan football team at Notre Dame were concerned, the only interesting thing about to happen was the game with the Catholics. It didn't turn out to be much. Only one "inning" was played. The visitors slogged to an unsurprising 8-to-0 victory. For this they were given a hearty lunch and a cheering sendoff, and were packed onto horse-drawn carriages for a long ride to the Niles, Michigan train station. However, inauspiciously, under the mud and torn turf of that ragged senior campus field, the seed of Notre Dame football had been planted. I think you know into what it has grown.