Daily Lesson

Good morning,



Quote of the day:


"Love is not what makes the world go 'round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile."

                                   Franklin P. Jones

This morning's air has a bite to it, Fall is in the air. The sky is Crystal clear, the air as clean and fresh, the wind is from the northeast at about 7 MPH. The surface of Santa Rosa Sound has a light chop to it. Yet another day in paradise. I will be going to Panama City, Beach on Friday to have dinner at a fine restaurant called The Boar's Head and listen to a couple of sets by singer/guitarist Pat Scott.


Good News:


A group of Chicago teens were sent to Morocco to help in a community development project. What they found was absolute squalor and the residents had little or no self esteem. There was one family that was living in a 7' X 7' X 7' box and had to sleep in shifts because there was no room for all at the same time. So rather than attack the living conditions they started by try to beef up the children's self esteem as best they could. They succeeded in one family by gaining the confidence of one family member who was determined to be very intelligent. The eventually got this girl a scholorship in a university majoring in chemistry. All it took was to convince the girl that she could do it and she did the rest. It is a good lesson for us all.


I indulged myself for lunch on Wednesday. At the restaurant right down the street known as Peg Leg Pete's oysters are only 35 cents each on Wednesdays. So I went in and had a dozen on the half shell and the most orgasmic sandwich in the hemisphere. It is called a Grouper Supreme. It is a grilled filet of grouper, topped with sauted strips of bell pepper, onions and mushrooms. Then they add a big slab of melted Monterrey Jack cheese and lettuce and tomato. All of this goes on a big Kaiser roll. I declined the french fries and had cole slaw instead. I could feel myself getting sleepy as I was finishing it up and came home and headed for the leather couch. It was good eating, y'all. I am still nibbling on the steamed shrimp I got a day or two ago also.


This date in history October 1


1908    The first model T Ford automobile is introduced. After months of struggling with trying to invent a car that is cheap and reliable, Henry Ford and his engineering staff finally arrived with design number 20 which was the model T for the 20th letter of the alphabet. Ford was able control the cost of the car by controlling the cost of the material needed and a production assembly line which was unknown up until that time. He also controlled the cost by having the car in one color only and that being black. The downside of Henry was that he hired Harry Bennett as his “Personnel Director”. Harry’s assignment was to suppress any attempts at unionization and complaints from the employees. Harry did this by hiring a bunch of thugs and named them the “militia” and when union organizers came anywhere near his plant and a crowd of his workers gathered Harry would send out the “militia” to break it up by beating the shit out of anyone that resisted leaving. Henry Ford II came to be president of Ford, the first thing he did was fire Bennett.


1958    On this day the Kraft Television Theatre is discontinued. The weekly show began in 1947 and was a program with comedy or dramatic plays and a different cast for every show. Among those that were actors in these plays were Grace Kelly, James Dean and Paul Newman among others. Later on Richard Boone had his own TV show that had a different play every week but with the same repertoire of actors and actresses. I made it a point to watch this show every week as there were some dynamite plays and/or performances. The problem was that Boone had hired renowned playwright Clifford Odets to write the plays and one day Clifford dropped dead and so did the show. Isn’t there something about eggs and a basket?


1864    Confederate spy Rose Greenhow drowns off Cape Hatteras N.C. When the civil war broke out Rose was living in Washington, D.C. and being a Confederate sympathizer quickly became a spy for the Confederacy. Rose had a lot of parties at her house and invited politicians and military men for the soul purpose of gathering information. After the war CSA Gen. Beauregard testified that the reason he was able to rout the Union army at 1st Manassas was that Rose had forwarded him information about Union Gen. McDowell’s plans for troop movements. Bye the way, Gen. Beauregard and R. E. Lee were past superintendants at West Point. The US was able to track down Rose as being a spy and put her under house arrest but this didn’t stop Rose so they put her in prison. After a while in prison she was released but was exiled to the southern states. She then went to England and France and stayed 2 years trying to gather support for the Confederacy. She was aboard a British blockade runner on the way home when the ship was intercepted by a Union warship and forced onto a shallow shoal where the ship floundered. Rose demanded to board a small boat that was ferrying passengers to the beach. The boat capsized in the rough surf and Rose went to the bottom like an anvil and drowned because she was carrying $2,000 in gold on her person. Her body washed up on the beach the next day. Rose was buried with honors in Wilmington, N.C.


1944    Homosexual prisoners at Buchenwald, a German concentration camp are being castrated as an experiment. This wasn’t the only medical experiment tried at these dens of horror. Prisoners were intentionally given typhus, typhoid and smallpox among other diseases to see if test vaccines would work. The worst animal there was the camp commandant’s wife Ilsa Koch. It seems that Ilsa had a penchant for lampshades and gloves made of tattooed human skin. After the war Ilsa was tried and sentenced to life. After 16 years in prison she hangs herself. I wonder where she is today.


1890    Yosemite National Park is founded. The Park was named for the battle cry of the local Indians and that being “Yo-che-ma-te” meaning “There are killers among us”. The local honkies didn’t pay any attention to all of this and continued to rape the land as they saw fit as usual. It wasn’t until naturalist John Muir testifying in congress that the locals were running sheep on the land and the sheep were no more that four legged locusts that the US got serious about the stewardship of this magnificent Park and formed a group to oversee it and that being the US Park Service. Bye the way, cows bite off grass, sheep pull it up by the roots. Locusts indeed.


Born today:


1799    US Senator Rufus Choate. He said “Happy is he that has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune, a genuine and passionate love of reading.” Reading opens up an ocean of adventure for the reader. For me it is like eating a piece of strawberry cheesecake.


1889    US religious leader Ralph Sockman. He said “The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.” See above.


1935    English actress Julie Andrews. When speaking of gossip columnist Joyce Haber she said “She needs open heart surgery, they should go in through her feet.”


1963    US baseball player Mark McGuire. He said “I mean, it’s unheard of for someone to hit 70 home runs, so I’m somewhat in awe of myself right now.” Hey Mark, it ain’t any mystery to me and I am not in awe. Everybody including the Pope knows you pumped yourself up with illegal steroids and human growth hormones. What a damned scam you ran on everybody. You disgust me.


1964    US baseball player Roberto Kelly. When asked about changing his name to Bobby he said, “It is permanent, for now.” Roberto/Bobby, shut the hell up.


Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow