This Day

Please to remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot ;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

This is Guy Fawkes Day. Guy Fawkes, with other Catholic conspirators, plotted to burn the houses of Parliament and bring down England. November 5, 1605, is the day the plot was discovered and brought to failure. The day has no significance for Americans, only for those who are part of the UK.

But I remember the poem because it appears early in Growing Up, the first volume of Russell Baker's autobiography.

The book opens with Baker's visit to his mother who, at age 80, has fallen and whose mind, after that, travels freely through the past but never seems to hit upon the present.

During the visit she does not know Russell, claiming Russell is only "this big," gesturing that he would be a small boy.

A doctor comes by to see her and begins quizzing her. (I guess that's what doctors do.)

"What day is this?" "Do you know where you are?" And so on. She fails the quiz "catastrophically," says Baker, until the doctor asks her birthday. "November 5, 1897." The doctor is amazed and asks how she knows this. "Because I was born on Guy Fawkes Day." Then she recites the poem Russell had heard many times in his growing up years.

Just a bit of trivia for you. I guess it's trivia. But the book is far from trivial. One of my favorites.