Boo Radley, I Almost Forgot All About You.

You been holed up in that house, that fallin' down house for so long I forgot you was there. But thank you, Mr. Radley. Thank you for rustling those blinds this morning to remind me.

So almost my bad today. I almost missed the Fiftieth Anniversary of To Kill A Mockingbird. What kind of Lit Blog is this anyway when an event like that is almost overlooked?

So here's what Garrson Keillor has to say in The Writer's Almanac:

Fifty years ago today, Harper Lee's only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was published, the story narrated by six-year-old Scout Finch in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. It was an immediate best-seller, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and an instant American classic. It continues to sell incredibly well, with 30 million copies still in print.

The book's title appears in a scene in chapter 10, where Scout remembers something her dad, Atticus, has said and asks her neighbor Miss Maudie about it.

"I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.

"Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

Harper Lee, it's reported, hasn't given an interview since 1964. She's living in Monroeville, Alabama. That's entirely ok.

If she were passing us on the street, we'd stand up to honor her. We remember this, "Jean Louise. Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing."