On this day in 1933

 With the stirring notes of the William Tell Overture and a shout of “Hi-yo, Silver! Away!” The Lone Ranger debuts on Detroit’s WXYZ radio station.

The creation of station-owner George Trendle and writer Fran Striker, the “masked rider of the plains” became one of the most popular and enduring western heroes of the 20th century. Joined by his trusty steed, Silver, and Native American scout, Tonto, the Lone Ranger battled western outlaws and Native Americans.

Neither Trendle nor Striker had any connections to or experience with the cowboys, Native Americans and pioneers of the real West, but that mattered little to them. The men simply wanted to create an American version of the masked swashbuckler made popular by the silent movie actor Douglas Fairbanks in The Mark of Zorro, arming their hero with a revolver rather than a sword. Historical authenticity was far less important to the men than fidelity to the strict code of conduct they established for their character. The Lone Ranger never smoked, swore, or drank alcohol; he used grammatically correct speech free of slang; and, most important, he never shot to kill. More offensive to modern historical and ethnic sensibilities was the scout Tonto, who spoke in a comical Native American patois totally unrelated to any authentic Indigenous dialect.

Historical accuracy notwithstanding, the radio program was an instant hit. Children liked the steady stream of action and parents approved of the good moral example offered by the upstanding masked man. Soon picked up for national broadcast over the Mutual Radio Network, over 20 million Americans were tuning into The Lone Ranger three times a week by 1939. In an early example of the power of marketing tie-ins, the producers also licensed the manufacture of a vast array of related products, including Lone Ranger guns, costumes, books and a popular comic strip.

The Lone Ranger made a seemingly effortless transition from radio to motion pictures and television. The televised version of The Lone Ranger, starring Clayton Moore as the masked man, became ABC’s first big hit in the early 1950s. Remaining on the air until 1957, the program helped define the golden age of the TV Western and inspired dozens of imitators like The Range Rider, The Roy Rogers Showand The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok.

Source: History.com

Black bird birthday: 1845

 Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem “The Raven,” beginning “Once upon a midnight dreary,” is published on this day in the New York Evening Mirror.

Poe’s dark and macabre work reflected his own tumultuous and difficult life. Born in Boston in 1809, Poe was orphaned at age three and went to live with the family of a Richmond, Virginia, businessman. Poe studied at the University of Virginia but was expelled for gambling. He later enrolled briefly at a military academy.

In 1827, Poe self-published a collection of poems. Six years later, his short story “MS Found in a Bottle” won $50 in a story contest. He edited a series of literary journals, including the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond starting in 1835, and Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine in Philadelphia, starting in 1839. Poe’s excessive drinking got him fired from several positions. His macabre work, often portraying motiveless crimes and intolerable guilt that induces growing mania in his characters, was a significant influence on such European writers as Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme, and even Dostoyevsky.

Source: History.com

Here is the poem that I’m pondering on the occasion of my 5th chemotherapy session this morning

 

The Before Picture

BY MAGGIE SMITH

It’s complicated, my relationship status

with progress. I often prefer

the “before” picture. The future

is where I’m going only because

I have no choice, because time

moves in one direction, dragging

a bit of itself behind like meat.

An unseen hand keeps

tugging it—time’s rabbit leg,

time’s hunk of red venison—

just out of reach. Did I just describe

the future as bait? Am I strung

along? I know, when I arrive there,

it won’t be there. Won’t be that.

It’ll be now, the way it is

right now. And again. Refresh,

refresh, refresh. The befores

pile up behind me. It’s now again.

Notes: 

“The Before Picture” copyright © 2026 by Maggie Smith. From the forthcoming book A Suit or a Suitcase by Maggie Smith to be published by Washington Square Press/Atria Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.