Carry Moonbeams Home in a Jar

Would You Like to Swing on a Star? from the 1976 album Sunday Street by Dave Van Ronk. I would very much prefer it if you listen to this while you read about June 30th.

June 30th is the birthday of singer Lena Horne, musician Stanley Clarke, folk singer Dave Van Ronk; and Lithuanian poet Czesław Miłosz. Also born on June 30th: Engineer and inventor of the modern hot air balloon Ed Yost; magician Harry Blackstone Jr, and sports broadcaster Harry Wismer.

Dave Van Ronk at Newport Folk Festival, 28th July 1963. (Photo by John Byrne Cooke Estate/Getty Images)

Today I will just send my sincerest congratulations along with an anecdote about Wismer as told by sportswriter George Plimpton: “He was an odd man. He used to say ‘Congratulations’ to many people he met, on the grounds that they had probably done something they could be proud of.”^[18]

Raven Industries hot air sport balloons founded in 1956 in Sioux Falls, SD.

Publicity photo of sportscaster Harry Wismer. Public domain.

One For My Baby (and One More for the Road), Lena Horne, 1957