Russell Baker

Being solemn has almost nothing to do with being serious . . . . [T]hough Americans talk a great deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who are serious. . . . Jogging is solemn. Poker is serious. Once you grasp that distinction, you are on your way to enlightenment.

From his 1980 collection of newspaper and magazine columns, So This Is Depravity.

Russell Baker, who wrote a nationally syndicated column for the New York Times from 1962 t0 1998, won two Pulitzer Prizes -- the first was for his columns, the second for his 1982 autobiography, Growing Up, which is a delightful book.

Baker was born on this date in 1925 in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Russell Baker