Free Republic

Patsy Cline was born on the 8th of September, 1932, in Winchester, Virginia. As her words attest, she is a country music great: “You want me to act like we’ve never kissed, you want to forget; pretend we’ve never met , and I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but I haven’t yet… You walk by, and I fall to pieces.” “I’m gonna walk a little bit of dog.” “Oh, I offended you with my opinion? You should hear the the ones I keep to myself.” “Carnegie Hall was real fabulous, but you know, it ain’t as big as the Grand Ole...

Anne Boleyn was a beautiful woman who died for an effectively polygamous man, Henry the VIIIth. In 1532, on September the first, he made Anne the Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry created this title for her. These words attributed to her suggest she was very much a woman who was ready for a man: “Seduce me. Write letters to me. And poems, I love poems. Ravish me with your words. Seduce me.” Anne married Henry but when he did not have a son by her to be heir to his throne he had her executed. She spoke...

Ruby Keeler was born into a catholic family in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, on this date in 1909. She worked hard in tough times: "Dancing in speakeasies was a job, and none of us knew for sure who were gangsters. No one told us, so how could we know? My mother used to come and take me home. We thought nothing of walking home together at two in the morning." She supported Eisenhower's campaign in 1952. In the movie “Dames”, Ruby Keeler’s character Barbara Hemingway said, “I’m free, white, and 21. I love to dance AND I’m going to dance.” Those...

In 1951, Swedish actress Ulla Jacobsson preceded Marilyn Monroe by three years in her free celebration of her female form on camera. In classical Latin her first name "Ulla" meant "any female". She died in Vienna on August 20, 1982. Jacqueline Susann, author "Valley Of The Dolls" and "The Love Machine" about fictional television producer Robin Stone, was born on August 20, 1918 in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. "Love shouldn't make a beggar of one. I wouldn't want love if I had to beg for it, to barter or qualify it. And I should despise it if anyone ever begged for my...

Sharpshooter Annie Oakley, born On August 13, 1860, Was A Very Tough Woman. In this century, Oakley, for me, is a beacon of deeply American and female toughness and freedom. She said: "God intended women to be outside as well as men, and they do not know what they are missing when they stay cooped up in the house." "I would like to see every woman know how to handle guns as naturally as they know how to handle babies." "Any woman who does not thoroughly enjoy tramping across the country on a clear frosty morning with a good gun...

Norma Shearer (121st birthday today on august 11, tomorrow, American time) said "A woman today is good, or she is bad, according to the way she does a thing - and not because of the thing itself." And “The morals of yesterday are no more. They are as dead as the day they were lived. Economic independence has put woman on exactly the same footing as man.” This is easy to disapprove of. And to be drawn to. Freedom works. Morality? Whose?