Daily lesson

Good morning,



Quote of the day:


When describing Tina Turner she said "All legs and hair with a mouth that could swallow a hot dog stand" Laura Lee Davies


There is a young lady with a young mind that lives on Greenville's west side. She is sharp of wit and well spoken. She deservedly retired from the Greenville Hospital System recently but I do not know what she does to occupy her mind these days. The most important thing about her is still in place and that is her girlish charm. It is my cousin Carol. Happy Birthday, sweetie!


Good News:


I could not find any good news for the day that is worth of reporting. Most of it was way to hokey. So I am going to tell about one of my experiences and offer an opinion. I will be glad to send out any opposing viewpoints.


A while back I was sitting on a bar stool and this girl came in and sat down beside me. She looked very sad and so I asked her what her problem was. She said that her husband had just been thrown in jail for 18 months. I asked her what the charge was and she said "dealing drugs". I asked her how long she had been married and she said two years. Then I asked if he was "dealing" when she married him. She said "Yes, but I thought I could change him."


That is not the first time I have heard that imbecilic statement. People cannot change what they basically are. You have to accept them as is or not at all.


I have a theory about unsuccessful marriages. I think a lot of failures are a result of the wife indeed trying to mold their husbands into a preconceived image of a "perfect husband" probably described to them by their mothers. The husband bends and tries to re-shape his basic being to be what his wife wants him to be just to keep his wife happy and the bed hot. Eventually this builds resentment in the husband and he stews about not being the man he really is. It lowers his self-esteem because he puts up with it so he seeks solace where he can find it and ends up with a girl friend that accepts him as is and accepts any time he has for her gratefully. It is like a life ring that has been thrown at him, he grabs and holds on. You can go back through my statement and substitute "husband" for "wife" but the result is the same. They are not accepting their partners as is and are paying the price for their fantasies. Then again, some just get bored.



Greenpatch Grime:



A soldier in training at Fort Jackson near Columbia died two days ago. He was fairly close to graduating from basic training when he came down with a high fever and respiratory difficulties. He was sent to the Palmetto Health Richland where he died. It was diagnosed as pneumonia. No autopsy is planned. This is the first death during basic training in 2009. There were three deaths in 2008. The last one was during a march in August heat. The soldier died of heatstroke. Columbia weather can be brutal in the dead of summer.



Thousands of people gathered in Washington, DC to protest the orgy of spending by the Federal Government. We have no complaint. The Democratic Party is well known for the theory of "Tax and spend". We elected them, now we just have to lay in bed with them, shut the hell up and suffer.


This date in history  September 13




1899    The first fatality in an automobile accident occurs in New York on this day a stock broker was stepping off a southbound trolley at Central Park West and 74th Street when he was run over by an automobile traveling north. The stock broker was sent to the hospital where he died two days later. The automobile driver was arrested and fined $1,000 dollars. The upside of this unfortunate event was that it opened up a new and thriving business in the legal profession known at the “accidental death or injury lawyer”. It is a little known fact that these beasts and vampire bats are related.



1977    General Motors introduces a diesel engine powered automobile for the first time in their Oldsmobile 88 and 98. The diesel is reputed to be more fuel efficient and more durable. The down side is that the engine is noisy, not as quick as a gasoline burning engine, and puts out way more pollutants into the atmosphere. For these reasons the diesel in a car didn’t work out like GM had wanted. I believe diesels are available only in imported cars. They are still an option in American made trucks but they are noisy and stink like shit.



1965    Louis Armstrong wins a Grammy for his rendition of “Hello Dolly”. What can one say about Satchmo? He was one of the most internationally beloved members of the musical community in history. Born in poverty in 1901 in New Orleans, Louis went to a reform school at the age of 10 where he learned to play the cornet as was soon recognized for the talent he possessed. At the age of 15 he was playing locally for the King Oliver band on a regular basis. Oliver took his band to Chicago and when Louis was 17 Oliver asked him to come join the band. Louis did so and thus began the meteoric rise of this amazing talent. I miss him.



1862    While resting in a field that the CSA army had used two days before, two soldiers of the Union army found a document wrapped around 3 cigars lying on the ground. Upon examination the document was recognized to be Special Order 191 which was CSA Gen. R. E. Lee’s plans for what turned out to be the Antietam campaign. The document was sent up the chain of command toward that bastion of ineptitude US Gen.George B. McClellan. On its way to George, the document was examined by one of his staff and the signature on the bottom of the document was recognized as being that of Robert Chilton who R.E. Lee’s adjutant was making the document genuine. The Order described how Lee wanted to deploy his troops for the upcoming battle. George had Lee by the short hairs now and he knew it. But George in his typical inept way did nothing for 18 hours and finally formed up the army and sent them toward where he knew was the weakest point. Lee had his army spread out in 5 sections over a 40 mile area but smelled out that something wasn’t right and collected his army into one unit just in time for the Battle of Antietam and this turned out to be the bloodiest single day battle in American history.



1916    Roald Dahl is born in Wales. Roald had a very unhappy youth, his father mother and sister had died and he was abused in a foster home. As soon as he could Roald left on a life of adventure that many of us would have loved to experience. He went on exploratory trips to Newfoundland and Tanzania. At the outbreak of WWII he joined the Royal Air Force and became a fighter pilot and was a participant in several major engagements and was in fact shot down over Libya and was seriously injured. He used a piece of his femur that had to be removed as a paperweight in his office. I am telling you, this guy was something else. After he recovered he was sent to Washington as an attaché where he met the famous author C. S. Forester who told Dahl that he should write about his war experiences. This he did and was soon published in the Saturday Evening Post, a weekly magazine. Dahl had found his calling. In 1943 he wrote a book for Disney named The Gremlins among others. His most famous book was Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. He wrote several screen plays among them was Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory based on his book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Bond movie You Only Live Twice. He was a true talent.



1990    Russian Andre Chikalko is arrested and taken to Leningrad and charged with the killing and mutilation of at least 53 people making him one of the worst serial killers in history. The Russians denied this for a long time because they did not want the world to know that a monster such as Andre could exist in a communistic society. But history has proven that serial killers have existed in nearly every nook and cranny of the planet. They ain’t discretionary.



Born today:



1916    Welch writer Roald Dahl. He said “Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole around you because the greatest secrets are hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who do not believe in magic will never find it.” Roald, that kind of thinking would be well accepted by a person I know in Black Mountain, North Carolina.



1876    US writer Sherwood Anderson. He said “I go about looking at horses and cattle. They spend their days grazing, having sex, working when they have to and raise their children for less that a year. I am sick with envy of them.” Me too.



1938    US advice columnist Judith (Miss Manners) Martin. She received this request for advice “Please list some tactful ways of removing a man’s saliva from your face.” Miss Manners responded with “Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man’s saliva on your face.” I would have liked to heard the answer to that one.



1939    US press secretary Larry Speakes. He said “Those that don’t know what is going on are doing the talking and those that know what is going on are not talking.” Confusion reigns in politics, ya’ll.



             Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow