On New Year's Day 2013, author Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day turned out to be Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. That Sunday between Christmas and New Year's turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, prejudice, selflessness, coincidence, and startling moments of human connection, along with evocative foreshadowing of momentous events yet to come. Lives were lost. Lives were saved. Lives were altered in overwhelming ways. Many of these events never made it into the news; they were private dramas in the lives of private people. They were utterly compelling. This book took six years to research and write. It asks and answers the question of whether there is even such a thing as "ordinary" when we all lurch and stumble our way through the daily, daunting challenge of being human.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.