"America's best girl" ...The older we get, the more nostalgic we become over some of the sublime things that have happened along the way and will never happen again. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Way up near the top of that list has to be those exhilarating 10 years between 1920 and 1930 that have been accepted as the Golden Age of Sport. It had been an incubating period for the young and talented in literature, entertainment, and especially sport. How those glorious names used to shake down the thunder from the sky: Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Red Grange Harold Edward (Red) Grange (June 13, 1903 – January 28, 1991) was a professional and college American football player. He was a charter member of both the College and Pro Football Hall of Fame. Early life Grange was born in Forksville, Pennsylvania. , Johnny Weissmuller Johnny Weissmuller (June 2 1904 – January 20 1984) was an American swimmer and actor who was one of the world's best swimmers in the 1920s, winning five Olympic gold medals and one bronze medal. He won fifty-two US National Championships and set sixty-seven world records. , Bill Tilden William Tatem Tilden II (February 10, 1893 – June 5, 1953), often called "Big Bill", was an American tennis player who was the World No. 1 player for 7 years, the last time when he was 38 years old. , Tommy Hitchcock, Sonja Henie, Charlie Paddock, Bobby Jones, and Paavo Nurmi. Icons all, who would never be for-gotten by anyone who had ever seen them perform or had just read about them. All of their records have been surpassed, but the memories linger on. Still, we almost went into shock when on December 1, 2003 a head-line jumped out and smote us right between the eyes: "Gertrude Ederle dies at 98!" Gertrude Ederle, for God's sake! We thought she had vanished with all the other heroes and heroines of the Golden Age, but it appeared that she had lingered on, living the sad, lonely life of a forgotten icon. There she was in the photo that accompanied the obituary: a smiling, 20-year-old swimmer, swabbed in heavy grease over a two-piece bathing suit, just moments before she was going to attempt the most grueling feat of her time--swim the English Channel. Only five men had ever accomplished it. On August 6, 1926, the modest young lady from New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. slipped into the Channel at Cape Gris-Nez, France, and set out for Kingsdown on the English coast. It was 21 miles away as the crow flies, but actually 36 miles away in the mean, choppy sea with unreadable tides. Despite all the extra distance she had to travel, she managed to swim the Channel in world-record time. The world went berserk ber·serk adj. 1. Destructively or frenetically violent: a berserk worker who started smashing all the windows. 2. . Gertrude Ederle came home to New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of to a ticker-tape parade with two million people lining the sidewalks and stuffing the windows of all the skyscrapers, showering her with streamers Streamers is a play by David Rabe. The last in his Vietnam War trilogy that began with The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Sticks and Bones and chanting, "Trudy! Trudy!" The President of the United States The head of the Executive Branch, one of the three branches of the federal government. The U.S. Constitution sets relatively strict requirements about who may serve as president and for how long. , Calvin Coolidge, invited her to the White House and called her "America's best girl." Nothing of any great consequence ever happened to "America's best girl," who had clearly deserved a whole lot more out of life. But she had never asked for attention and never complained. "I have no complaints about life," she would say. "I am not a person who reaches for the moon as long as I have the stars." Every Golden Age must have a leading lady. Gertrude Ederle was the star of hers. |
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