Daily lesson

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

"Sunshine to a flower is like smiles are to humanity. These are trifles to be sure but scattered along life's pathways, the good they do is inconceivable."

                               Joseph Addison

The weather is partly cloudy, the temperature is 85 and the humidity is 72%. The wind is very light and from the Southwest when it blows at all. The Sound is serene.

Yesterday was a "do-nothing" day. I sat around and read more of my Dan Brown book "The Lost Symbol". The book has professor Langdon as a key character as he was in the other books by Brown. The evil character sounds more and more like Lucifer but I am not that far along yet. Brown has two very important events happening at the same time and jumps from one to the other. It holds your interest.
Well, another party legend here on the Gulf Coast has gone bankrupt. That's right, it is Ken "The Snake" Stabler. Snake agreed to use the proceeds from the sale of his mansion on Ono Island, Alabama to pay off $222,000 in past alimony plus unpaid income taxes for the year 1998 and 1999 thru 2007. He sold his house on Ono Island for $680,000. Ono Island is a high end gated community that parallels highway US-98 near the Florida/Alabama state line. His house was within a mile of the famous Flora-Bama Lounge. I met some of friends from Greenville at the Flora-Bama few weeks ago. It looks a lot different since Hurricane Ivan paid it a visit an couple of years ago.

81 year old Derry Dickenson retired from the railroad and move to Pensacola. Every day if the weather permitted Derry "Uncle Dave" would sit out in a cane bottomed chair leaned up against a pecan tree in the front yard of his Crescent Drive home. Uncle Dave had many visitors some he knew and some he didn't but he welcomed them all. Everyone looked for Uncle Dave as they passed his house...except Saturday morning. Uncle Dave was not in his usual location and the weather was good so his neighbors got worried and went to investigate. Uncle Dave had been murdered. Every body knew that Uncle Dave was on a small fixed income and had very little of anything else. The neighbors are furious. The police will not specify what killed Dave so they could use that information in interviews with "people of interest". Uncle Dave's neighbor said it best, "You just don't know people, you know of people." Indeed. There have been no arrests....yet.

Up in Simpsonville, SC 49 year old Terry Gregory had a disagreement with 20 year old Roger White and they agreed to meet out in the country and settle the dispute "man-to-man". So both men met at the appointed place and began circling each other. That sounds like an old fashioned duel to me. Anyway, the two finally engaged physically in a regular old fist fight. Terry Gregory finally had enough and whipped out a pistol and shot Roger in the neck. Roger bled out and died very quickly. Now 49 year old Terry Gregory will spend at least 25 years in prison after trying to prove he is a man. I don't feel I need to prove anything because I ain't worried about it.

Over in Panama City, Florida this past Saturday night the cops got into a high speed chase. The passengers threw liquor bottles out of the car along the way. Finally, the driver pulls the car over to the side and he and another adult jump out and run. The cops pursue for a short distance and then come back to the car only to find terrified 4 and 5 year old kids in the back seat. These brave adults in the car were speeding, drinking with these kids in the back seat and then abandon them. The kids were taken to DSS. It would not do for me to be the judge in this case.

Good news:

For the first time in nearly 90 years Turkey and Armenia appears to be on the cusp of an agreement to open relations with each other and have open borders to allow for more trade.The Armenians on Turkey's eastern border are desperate for a bigger flow of trade with the Balkans. United States Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has been deeply involved with the negotiations. It was she that recommended "football diplomacy". This meaning that the presidents of Turkey and Armenia will watch the World Cup soccer games between each country together. Games will be played in both Armenia and Turkey. The hatred between these two countries began just before and after World War I when thousands of Armenians were slaughtered by the Ottoman Turks. The Armenians want this event to be called an attempt at genocide but Turkey says that thousands of Turks were killed also during the fall of the Ottoman Empire. I don't get it, they are still fighting a war that has been over for at least 90 years. But at least they are considering peace.

This date in history October 13

1966 Secretary Of Defense Robert McNamara goes on his 8th fact finding mission to South Vietnam. Bob visits with General Westmoreland, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, South Vietnam Premier Ky and President Thieu and then goes back to Washington to a press conference and with his bare face hanging out declares that the war is proceeding satisfactorily. Then he goes to LBJ and secretly tells him that we are in deep doodoo over there. LBJ gets tired of McNamara’s vacillating and replaces him with Clark Clifford. He isn’t much better. That whole debacle was a disaster top to bottom from the git-go.


1792    The cornerstone of the White House is laid on this day. The Irish American architect James Hoban was hired to design the house and he used the Lienster House in Dublin as a model. The location for the house was made by George Washington and the first resident was President John Adams. The White House was burned by the British during the war of 1812 in retaliation for US guerillas burning the British Embassy in Canada but James Hoban was again hired to direct its restoration. The White House and the adjacent Lafayette Square are blocked off from vehicular traffic for security purposes. Over a million people a year visit the White House.


1943    26 year old poet Robert Lowell is given a one year jail term for refusing the draft because he is upset about the allies using “blanket bombing”. I wonder what Bob would have felt if he had seen what was going on at the German Auschwitz concentration camp. Anyway, Bob was born to privileged and wealthy parents and he received a good education. He wrote some very good essays and poems and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1959 for “Life Stories” which was an account of how he was dealing with his mental instabilities. In the early 60’s he read poet Allan Ginsberg’s “Howl” and was blown away by Ginsberg’s honesty and being down to earth. Bob was involved heavily in the opposition to the Vietnam War and was present at nearly all protest meetings/marches. Bob went to that great library in the sky in 1977.


1935    Doctor Buck Ruston is arrested for murder in Lancaster, England. The good doctor’s maid Mary Roberson and common law wife Isabella Van Ness had been missing for some time and an intense investigation had begun at the behest of the good doctor I guess to throw suspicion off him self. Well, investigate they did. A farmer in Scotland found several objects wrapped in newspaper on a river bank which turned out to be various body parts two of which was mutilated human heads from which all the teeth had been removed and the nose cut off one of them and had been disemboweled. All the fingertips on both had been removed also. Even though identification of the bodies was nearly impossible, Scotland Yard determined from the evidence the time of death and from the newspapers that they were issued in the good doctor’s home town. The searched the doctors home and found traces of human blood and human fat in the kitchen sink drain and therefore the doctor was tried and convicted of a double homicide. Just before going to the gallows the doctor stated that he had killed his wife in a quarrel and that the maid had walked in on him in the act and so he had to kill her too. Doctor Ruston went to meet his maker about 2 inches taller than he had been.


1845    Under the leadership of Sam Houston, the people of Texas approve a state constitution and ask that they be allowed to become a member of the United States. In 1836, again under the leadership of Sam Houston, the people of Texas had declared themselves independent of Mexico and became the Republic of Texas. The acceptance of Texas into the fold was delayed somewhat because it was to be a “slave” state and that was not palpable to some interests in the Northeastern US and Mexico had stated that if Texas became a state they would declare war on the US. Eventually Texas was admitted into the US and sure enough a war with Mexico ensued. It didn’t last long though.


Births and deaths:


1949 Rock start Sammy Hagar is born. Sammy once said “If Van Halen called me, I think I would puke”.


1959    Marie Osmond is born. Marie had seven brothers and no sisters. She and Donnie Osmond had a moderately successful TV career together.


1969    Ice skater Nancy Kerrigan is born. Nancy was famous for when one of Tonya Harding’s friends runs up to Nancy and pops her on the knee with a pipe so as to eliminate Nancy from the Olympic tryouts. Tonya believed that Nancy was her only competition and said so. Her friends took that as a request to stop Nancy from competing. It was proven that Tonya had no part of this attack. Tonya has dynamite legs, ya’ll.


1925    Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is born. She is known affectionately as “Iron Pants Maggie” for her hard nosed approach to problems. She is one of my favorite people. It was Maggie that said “If you have to keep telling people that you are a lady, then you aren’t one’.


1925    Stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce is born. Lenny told us “More and more people are straying from the church and getting back to God.”


1997    Movie actor Clifton Webb dies. Clifton once said “Barbara Stanwick is my favorite American lesbian”. Clifton was brutal.


Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow