Today is Santa Claus Clearance Day

the day the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration usually clears Santa Claus for his annual flight.

History 101: December 22, 1783 George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Army and retires to his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Music History 101: December 22, 1969  Bernie Taupin begin cranking out songs with his new writing partner. His name was Elton John.

The 101 number one song of the day was written and performed by rock’s master storyteller who called his compositions “stories of ordinary people and cosmic moments of their non-cosmic lives.” He was the son of a jazz drummer who worked with Tommy Dorsey’s Band. He studied trumpet growing up and later formed a folk group with his brothers Tom and Stephen. He supported himself by working as a New York City cabdriver and in 1969 he produced a documentary about boxing, “The Legendary Champions” which was nominated for an academy award. After his musical career took off he performed about 200 concerts a year, half of them for charity. His biggest hit was suggested by his wife Sandy when he was touring and away from home when his youngest son was born. He remembered his own dad being on the road much of the time when he was growing up and that led to the song which was number one on December 22, 1974 for Harry Chapin – “Cat’s in the Cradle”