Daily Lesson

Good morning,


We have a high overcast and a north wind this morning meaning a break in the humid weather we have endured lately. It is suppose to get drier and cooler.

As most of you know by now the Mighty University of South Carolina Gamecocks football team beat the living crap out of a talented University of Kentucky Wildcats team.

Up in Greenville, SC a stepfather and his 15 year old stepson get into an argument and the 15 year old whips out a shank and buries it in his stepfather's neck. The stepfather was dead in a matter of minutes. The stepson claimed self defence because his stepfather was drunk and on the attack. Nonetheless, the kid is in Juvenile Hall until a determination can be made.

Over in Spartanburg, SC 24 year old Adrian Edwards drove into the Quick Stop convenience store to get some gas. Soon after getting out of his car, Dadrin Johnson pulled up on a moped and pumped four .40 caliber rounds into Edwards who dropped to the tarmac and died on the spot. Dadrin fired up his moped and tooled away. They know it was Dadrin because of all the surveillance cameras. How stupid can you be?

And finally, two men stagger into the Palmetto store in Spartanburg asking for help. One of them had been shot twice and the other one had been stabbed once and shot once. The cops are stilll sorting all this out.

Over in Mobile, Ala. the cops busted three houses for growing pot worth an estimated $100,000. Arrests were made on premises.

The Wal-Mart on I-65 and Dauphin street in Mobile, Alabama has hired mobile police to protect shoppers going and coming to their cars. Recently there have been nine car break-ins and five women abducted at gun point. That is bad for business, y'all.

Good news:

Cuban borne and naturalized United States citizen Goria Estefan is holding a concert and dance in Puerto Rico in mid-November. She recently found out that 17,000 native Puerto Ricans were going to be laid off on November 2 because of the recession. Gloria bought 2,000 tickets to the concert and dance and will raffle them off to those being laid off. Gloria had recieved a medal called The Ellis Island Medal of Honor for work she has done to help needy legal immigrants, especially the Hispanics.


This date in history October 11


1776    On this date a British fleet under the command of Sir Guy Carleton defeats 15 American gunboats on Lake Champlain. The American gunboats were commanded by Brigadier General Benedict Arnold. Arnold fought valiantly in delaying the British fleet to allow the defenses of New York to be completed. As we all know about the treasonable act perpetrated by Arnold later on. He was in command of the American fort at West Point, New York and offered it to the British for $20,000. He was discovered after his compatriot John Andre was arrested. No one really knows what precipitated this despicable act but the best rumor is that his new wife was from a privileged family and wanted the same lifestyle with Arnold and he did not have the means to accomplish this. So he tried to gather money by other means. But that is just a rumor.


1862    Earlier on September 17 the infamous battle of Antietam occurred which resulted in the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee commanding, having to retreat into Virginia to rest and recover from this struggle. On October 9 the Army of the Potomac, General George B. McClellan commanding, was still in camp near Antietam. He had no intentions in following Lee into Virginia remembering that his army was nearly cut to pieces by Lee the last time he was in Virginia in the Battle of the Seven Days. So while McClellan languished, Lee sent the brash but efficient cavalry officer General J.E.B. Stuart and 2,500 troopers on a raid into Pennsylvania to try to cut The Yankee supply lines. Stuart chose to go into Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and try to destroy a railroad bridge that was necessary for the transportation of goods into the Washington/Baltimore area. On this date Stuart and company rode into Chambersburg seeking the bridge. They found the bridge but were unable to destroy it because it was made of iron. So they head back toward Virginia gathering booty as they went including 2,000 horses. They were able to pass almost within sight of McClellan’s camp without being detected and crossed the Potomac to the safety of Virginia and the Army of Northern Virginia. It is a mystery to me how Stuart, 2,500 mounted troopers and an extra 2,000 horses could go anywhere undetected, but I ain’t J.E.B. Stuart.


1923    An attempt was made to rob a Southern Pacific railroad train in Oregon. The thieves chose to use an explosive charge to blow open a mail car. As the train entered a tunnel the thieves jumped into the engine and took the fireman and engineer captive and set off the explosive charge in the mail car. They had used way more explosive than necessary and blew the railcar to smithereens killing the Mail car attendant. In the following confusion, the thieves shot and killed the engineer, the fireman and the brakeman and fled. The local police only found a pile of clothes and a few scraps of paper and were at as loss for clues. They called in master detective Edward Heinrich. He examined the clothes and determined that the stains on the clothes were not grease as previously thought but it was pine and fir tar, which was typical of the lumberjacks in the area. One of the scraps of paper was a mail receipt that Heinrich back tracked and eventually discovered the three perpetrators. They were tried and convicted and given a life sentence thanks master detective Edward Heinrich.


1899    This is the first day of the so-called Boer War. The Boers or sometime called Afrikaners were the descendents of the original Dutch settlers in Southern Africa. In the Napoleonic War, Great Britain took control of the southern tip of Africa much to the chagrin of the independent minded Boers. But they decided to abide the hated Brits for the sake of peace. But in 1867 gold and diamonds were discovered on Boer land and greed raised its ugly head. Britain decided that they now needed Boer land and the Boers said “If you want this land, you will have to take it” and the war broke out between the Brits and the Boers. The fighting was ferocious at the beginning but the Boers could not stand up to British might and they descended into a guerilla type war. The Brits captured Boer city after city and then they did the honorable thing. They gathered up the families of the Boer guerillas and put them in a concentration camp. As you might suspect, the guerillas stopped fighting and ceded control of their lands to the Brits in a treaty that was signed in 1905. The present day Republic of South Africa has former Boers lands included.


1809      On this date one of the leaders of the Corps of Discovery, Meriwether Lewis, dies in a tavern on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee. By the way, the Natchez Trace is a trail from Nashville, Tennessee to the area of Natchez, Mississippi on the river. Anyway, Lewis had been given the governorship of the territory of Louisiana by his mentor, Thomas Jefferson. But Lewis was not politician and found out about crooked double dealings in short order. Also he had promised the details and maps that he and Clark had accumulated in that famous trip. Jefferson was disappointed that none of this had been delivered in three years. Lewis had stopped at Grinder’s Tavern to spend the night. Mrs. Grinder reported that she had heard Lewis pacing the floor and talking out loud. She finally heard two pistol shots and Lewis staggered out of his room and asked for help from Mrs. Grinder. She did not provide assistance because she said she was too scared. The next morning a few men go into Lewis’ room and find him slashing at himself with a razor and he eventually died. It is apparent that he tried to commit suicide with the pistols but failed and tried to finish himself off with the razors according to the story from Mrs. Grinder. But there is a theory that he was murdered by Mrs. Grinder’s accomplices. We will never know the truth. Lewis was 35 years old.


Born today:


1906    US industrialist Charles Revson, the founder of Revlon. He said “In the factory we make cosmetics, in the stores we sell hope.” It is a little known fact that during the Great Depression the only industry that showed a profit was cosmetics. Those women are going to have that lipstick no matter what.


1959    US Representative Bob Inglis (SC). He said “Asking and incumbent member of Congress to vote for term limits is like asking a chicken to vote for Colonel Sanders.” Bob swore to us that he would only stay in Congress for two terms. He is working on his fifth term as we speak.


Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow