1568: Mary Queen of Scots was defeated at the Battle of Langside and immediately fled to North England.

1607: Jamestown founded.

1846: The United States formally declared war on Mexico after several days of fighting.

1938: Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded the New Orleans’s jazz classic, When the Saints Go Marching In, on Decca Records.

1940: Winston Churchill gave his first speech as prime minister: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

1958: VP Nixon attacked in Venezuela.

1973: Tennis male chauvinist Bobby Riggs defeated Margaret Smith Court, 6-2, 6-1 in front of a world-wide television audience. He would lose to Billie Jean King later that year.

1981: Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded by Mehmet Ali Agca as he drove through a crowd in St. Peter’s Square, Rome.

1985: MOVE cult building fire in Philadelphia.

Other birthdays:

1842: Arthur Sullivan

1882: Georges Braque

1907: Daphne Du Maurier

1914: Joe Louis

1926: Bea Arthur

1927: Clive Barnes

1930: Mike Gravel

1931: Jim Jones

1939: Harvey Keitel

1941: Ritchie Valens

1950: Stevie Wonder and Peter Gabriel

All in all, a pretty dull day in history.

I found the following “novel” in a box of childhood memorabilia. It appears to have been written in stages (often one sentence at a time) between September 13 and December 16, 1974. I was seven. Illustrations are credited to David Schrag, Erik Rosado, and Pike Porter, classmates of mine at the now-defunct Walden Elementary School at 88th and Central Park West.

Once upon a time there was an astronaut. This astronaut went to the moon. Suddenly he was surrounded by moonmen. He walked up to one of them. “Can you speak English?” he asked. “Xchyzpeaioulxbd!?”" said the mooonman. He walked up to the king. “Your man is dumb,” he said. Now, the king could understand English and when he heard the astronaut say those words he said “[meaningless, wordless, scribble].” Then two moonmen grabbed him off, you see what the king had said was in English “Take him to be brainwashed!”

In the brainwashing room there was a tape recorder and it kept saying “I am a slave I am a slave.” After a few hours the astronaut came out and fell down. Then he got up and said “I am a slave.” Then he fell down again. When he got up it was night. He stumbled in to the place where the moonmen were having coffee. He knocked down the king’s coffee. The king said (in English) “Now you are my slave! You must do what I tell you to!” Then the king and his men walked out of the room. Now the astronaut was all alone. He ran after the king but the king was gone.

Then the astronaut (or rather slave) lay down and went to sleep. In the morning the new “slave” woke up. Then he saw the king.

“Get up!” yelled the king. “It is time for you to marry my daughter! Here she is!”

“Yuk.” said the astronaut. “I don’t wanna marry her!”

“You will!”

“I won’t!”

“Will!”

“Won’t!”

“Will!”

“Will?”

“Will!”

“Won’t!”

“Look this is getting silly!” said the king. “I know,” said the slave. “If you marry my daughter,” said the king, “you shall have your freedom.”

“I will take …”

“Well?”

“Your daughter!”

“I was afraid of that,” said the king. “Mary! Take off your costume! Here is who you married.”

“And now I will take off my costume,” said the king.

Then, after the Royal Wedding the prince and the princess went back to Earth. When they landed the astronaut who started like an astronaut and returned like a prince became the most famous man in the U.S.

THE END

[The assignment was not graded, but the teacher commented: “I have thoroughly enjoyed your wonderful story. And I can’t wait to see what the next one will be. Would you like a new journal that doesn’t keep falling apart?”]

Moral: If your seven-year-old takes several months to produce an inane piece of literary garbage, don’t despair. He or she may one day grow up to write an inane blog.

In case you were wondering what they’ve got me doing to rehab my knee, this will give you a rough idea. I’m not perfectly in line with the protocol. I’m not doing any pool work, for example, and I was already on the exercise bike one week post-op instead of waiting until week four.

I feel like I’m ready to move to Phase II already, but I suppose if I rush things I risk reinjury, and we wouldn’t want that. I’ll have to be patient, I guess. (No pun intended.)

Kudos to Dr. Gomoll for what seems to have been an extremely successful procedure.

I turn 40 tomorrow. Others in my situation have celebrated by obtaining a new set of golf clubs, a sports car, or a mistress. I got myself a new blog and a facebook page. (I started with a MySpace page, but I was quickly informed by my sister Sarah that MySpace is for “pedophiles, stalkers, and twelve-year-old prostitutes.” So I went to facebook.com instead.)

I already have one blog, so why another? I’ve decided to focus my other one (The Schlog) on technology and other business issues related to my company, SCHRAG Inc. My reasoning is that most people who want to hear what I have to say about technology have no interest whatsoever in anything else that’s on my mind. I call this one The Schrug because, you know, whatever.

May has been and continues to be an eventful month here.

May 1: My aformentioned sister turned 18. (She’s off to Oberlin in the fall.)

May 4: I underwent surgery at the Faulkner Hospital to reconstruct my anterior cruciate ligament. I injured the ACL playing basketball four years ago, but it wasn’t until this past winter that I decided it was worth operating on. The surgery was performed by Dr. Andreas Gomoll, and as far as I can tell he did a great job. I’m already able to walk without crutches (albeit in a calf-to-thigh brace) and there has been very little pain.

May 5: My mother’s birthday. The first one without her. Emily Fenichel would have been 65. My stepfather maintains an on-line memorial.

May 11: My brother Zachary and his wife Rebecca celebrated the birth of my niece, Nora Emily Schrag. (I can only pray that Nora’s older brother Leonard will be nicer to her than I was to my younger brother Zach.)

May 13: Not only is it my birthday, but it is Mother’s Day as well. This was never a particularly noted event in the Schrag household when I was young, but this year it has additional poignancy. Additionally, my cousin Ariel Schrag’s book gets reviewed in the New York Times.

May 16: My maternal grandmother’s birthday. The first one without her as well. Sophie Davidson would have been 97. She died in her sleep last December.

May 17: My 10-minute play, Not On My Watch, premieres at the Devanaughn Theatre’s Dragonfly Festival in Boston. (For more details, see the announcement in The Schlog.)

May 20: Not On My Watch is featured at the Boston Theater Marathon. (For a description of both festivals, see this write-up in the Boston Globe.)

May 25: I travel to New Orleans for a conference on disaster preparedness for small businesses.

I’ll do my best to keep this space interesting going forward. Let me know if you have any special requests.