When he was just 17 years old, he and a friend embarked on an expedition sponsored by the Minneapolis Star, from Minneapolis, Minnesota to York Factory on Hudson Bay. They canoed up the Minnesota River and its tributary, the Little Minnesota River to Browns Valley, Minnesota, portaged to Lake Traverse and descended the Bois des Sioux River to the Red River of the North which led to Lake Winnipeg, then went down the Nelson River, Gods River, and Hayes River to Hudson Bay, a trip of 2,250 miles. He was one of the original Murrow's Boys, at the forefront of broadcasting. He portrayed himself in The Right Stuff, .Countdown to Looking Glass and in an episode of Taxi in Tony Danza's character's fantasy. He appears in Philip Roth's novel Our Gang as "Erect Severehead."
Find his story at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Sevareid

Ham Loaf
2 lbs. smoked ham, ground
1 lb. ground pork
1/2 lb. ground beef
3 beaten eggs
1 green pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 c. cracker crumbs
1 c. tomato juice or V-8
Mix together, moistening with tomato juice, pouring some juice over the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. Marilyn Crawford, Des Moines artist, adapted The American Gothic Cookbook comp. by Joan Liffring-Zug

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Rudy Rosenberg Subject: quixotic The Belgian songwriter and actor Jacques Brel made quite a splash with the French version of the musical "Man of La Mancha". That is the reason why an exact replica of that statue of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza can be found overlooking the Grand Place in Brussels; Jacques Brel forever jousting with the world in his quixotic quest.
From: Phil Jans Subject: quixotic I've always thought the word should be pronounced "kee-ho-tik". Why would the word be Anglicized, but not the title of the book or the name of the character? Since Quixote is a name, we go with its native pronunciation (kee-HO-tay), however, quixotic is an English word so it takes its pronunciation on English language terms (qwik-SOT-ik). -Anu Garg
From: Norma Meyer Subject: katzenjammer My parents were German immigrants and we had the original Katzenjammer Kids book. They were Max und Moritz, die zwei beiden konnt das Artig sein nicht leiden. Loosely translated from 70 years ago... Max and Moritz, those two, couldn't abide acting behaved.
From: Ken Kirste Subject: katzenjammer My heart jumped for joy when I saw the word "katzenjammer" in A.Word.A.Day as we have a framed original "Katzenjammer Kids" Sunday strip from Nov 7, 1948 on our wall. While it is definitely the longest-running strip, the implication is that "The Katzenjammer Kids" has run continuously since December 12, 1897. In fact, the creator, Rudolph Dirks had suspended the comic for a short period in 1898 while he fought in the Spanish American war. Nor was the strip titled "The Katzenjammer Kids" for the entire time. During World War I, anti-German sentiment resulted in the strip's being renamed "The Shenanigan Kids", with Hans and Fritz becoming Mike and Aleck and a nationality shift to being Dutch. (These changes all reverted in 1920.) None of this diminishes the fact that this strip has entertained millions in three different centuries.
From: Julia Mills Subject: No el When I read this week's blurb about what the word adventure would be, I couldn't help but smile. My husband's family plays the No el game every year. His mother has ornamental letters that were meant to spell Noel, but they play hide the 'L' until it is revealed Christmas day (so literally there is no 'L'). You get to hide it if you get to it first, then only if you find it from its previous hiding spot. You let people know that it has been rehidden by rearranging the letters 'N', 'O', and 'E' into a different word than it was previously. And if you're the one to unearth it on Christmas day, because you were the last one to hide it and no one could find it, then you win!

Q: Who is Murphy from the saying "Murphy's Law"?
A: Air Force Capt. Edward A. Murphy Jr. is credited with Murphy's Law, but colleague Col. John Paul Stapp first said, "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong." Murphy, a rocket scientist, and Stapp, a physician, worked on a 1949 project at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., to learn the effects of sudden acceleration and deceleration on jet pilots. When a technician wired something incorrectly, Murphy supposedly said one of two things:
• "If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it."
• "If there are two ways to do something, and one of those ways will result in disaster, he'll do it that way."
Soon after, Stapp, who rode a rocket sled during tests, described for reporters how it felt to stop from more than 200 mph in about one second. He said the sled was safe because engineers kept in mind "Murphy's Law." Reporters asked, what's that? "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong," Stapp said. Some say Murphy's Law is actually "Sod's Law," an old English saying that "any bad thing that can happen to some poor sod (fellow) will." Various sources, Peter Mattiace.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/Dec/JU/ar_JU_122010.asp?d=122010,2010,Dec,20&c=c_13

Malcolm Moos, a journalist and academic, was a speechwriter for President Dwight Eisenhower. When Moos left the White House, in 1961, he donated some of his papers to the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, but he kept some, too. His son, Grant Moos, looked through the contents of the six boxes stored in a boathouse for decades, and came across a batch of folders marked “Farewell Address.” He looked up the Eisenhower Library, and sent the boxes off to Abilene. At first, the library did not know what it had. As archivists began to go through the papers, however, they discovered a trove of drafts, memos, and research materials that had long been missing from the record of one of the twentieth century’s most important speeches. For fifty years, Americans have regarded Eisenhower’s Farewell Address with a mixture of awe and bewilderment. Speaking three nights before the end of his Presidency, in 1961, Eisenhower warned of a “scientific-technological élite” that would dominate public policy, and of a “military-industrial complex” that would claim “our toil, resources, and livelihood.” Contrary to what some historians have speculated, it was not Moos or his assistant, Ralph Williams, who suggested a farewell address. On May 20, 1959, Moos was meeting with the President, when Eisenhower proposed an idea for “one speech he would like very much to make.” It was to be, Moos recorded, “a ten-minute farewell address to the Congress and the American people.” Moos deemed the idea “brilliant” and began making notes. Eisenhower was a rigorous editor. Major speeches such as the State of the Union might be refined ten or twelve times. Even by those standards, however, the Farewell Address was special. Eisenhower personally rewrote the opening passages, and his brother Milton overhauled the entire speech. It was batted back and forth for months; in the end, it underwent twenty-nine drafts (twenty-one previously unknown drafts were found in the boathouse papers). http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/12/20/101220ta_talk_newton