Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

"Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end to human existence."

                                         Aristotle

Happy Ground Hog Day!

Here is a brief synopsis of how Ground Hog day came into existence. This peculiar event is celebrated in both the United States and Canada. The generally conceived headquarters for this is in central Pennsylvania and was brought there by German immigrants. The proposition is that a ground hog (woodchuck) is brought out into the sunlight on the morning of February 2 and if he does not see his shadow he does not return to his underground den because winter is over. If he does see his shadow he returns to his den because he knows that there is going to be 6 more weeks of winter. This ceremony closely resembles those of the medieval Catholic church and even all the way back to the time of the Celts who used this time as a turning point in their calendars. The difference is that we use a very docile woodchuck while the Celts used a badger. As many of you know a badger is not docile, their ferocity is well known. In fact, the English language contains a verb named for this very feisty beast.

I met my brother and sister-in-law at my niece's house for dinner last night. My niece had made a pot of vegetable soup and a pone of cornbread and a salad. It was delicious. My niece does not use as much salt as I am used to but that was easily resolved. The cornbread was identical to what my late mother, sister and grandmother made when they were still with us. I am a big fan of cornbread baked in a cast iron skillet and this one was no exception. Thanks Dooder.

By the way, a "pone" of cornbread is what my maternal grandmother called it and so will I.

I have changed my mind about global warming. After a day of research I have made this determination. About every 100,000 years, due to a slight change in the tilt of the Earth on its axis and various changes in the gravitational influence of the sun and other celestial bodies, the Earth's orbit changes from a perfect circle to an ellipse. This means that the apogee (farthest distance from the sun) increases twice a year bringing a cooling era. This is why our "ice ages" have disappeared and returned on a regular basis throughout the history of the Earth. We are in an "ellipse" period now. The Earth's weather should be gradually cooling but it isn't. It has been heating up on a gradual basis since the year 1900. The culprit is carbon dioxide. This gas traps the radiation from the sun onto the Earth's surface. If it continues the ice caps will melt and raise the tide lines of the oceans by 3 feet. This small deviation will be devastating to many coastal cities world wide. Long range melting could raise the surface of the oceans by as much as 20 feet. There is no need in me telling the devastation that would bring. Not only that, the conveyor belt of the different ocean currents (Gulf Stream, for instance) would change or end. The marine industry would come to a halt. It would be a tragedy, y'all. Be aware.

As most of y'all know, we in the upstate of South Carolina were smashed with an ice storm this past weekend making the roads nearly impassable. Sometime during the storm a man in the very northern part of Greenville county was walking down and icy road and apparently slipped and fell. A few hours later the driver of a pickup truck called the police and said that he had ran over a human body laying in the road. An investigation proved that the person was dead before the truck ran over him. Apparently in the fall the person hit their head and was killed. There is a chance that there will be another icy weekend coming on Friday. Obviously cracking your head in a slip and fall can be deadly. Just stay home and drink.

Here is a biography of a famous man in the history of this nation.

                                     Jean Lafitte

                                   Legendary Pirate

The exact place and date of birth of Jean Lafitte is not known for sure. The generally accepted year is 1776. Lafitte himself claimed Bordeaux, France as his birthplace while at the same time his brother Pierre claimed that their birthplace was Bayonne, France. At that time it would be advantageous to be a French citizen so as to not be subject to American laws. There are several documents out there that put Lafitte’s birthplace at many different places in the world including an island on the South Carolina coast. His biographer states that the best documentation puts his birthplace on the French possession island of Saint Domingue as it was known as then and is known as Haiti today. Jean’s father died and in approximately 1784 his mother moved him and his older brother Pierre to the Mississippi River Delta area which was a French possession also. Jean stayed with his mother and Pierre was raised by an extended family in other areas of Louisiana. Soon after their arrival Jean’s mother married a wealthy New Orleans merchant named Pedro Aubry. It is believed that as a young man Jean roamed the bayous and inlets from the Gulf of Mexico and became known as the most knowledgeable person alive about this area. Jean’s brother Pierre became a privateer for Saint Domingue and was carrying a Letter of the Marque. This meant that he was a pirate for Saint Domingue and would capture ships of the nation named in the “Letter” and split the booty with Saint Domingue in return for safe haven in Saint Domingue’s harbors. Jean began operating a warehouse and a store (probably on Royal Street) in New Orleans where he would distribute the booty brought to him by his brother to merchants in the New Orleans area. New Orleans and a hell of a lot more became American property with the Louisiana Purchase in 1804. This put a severe kink into the smuggling operation of the Lafitte brothers in New Orleans so they began looking elsewhere. They found a sparsely occupied island in Barataria Lake southwest of New Orleans. This lake was accessible only by a narrow channel between Grand Terre and Grand Isle that was easily defended and any ship approaching would be quickly detected and was a long way from American naval bases. Their business boomed once the privateers in the Gulf of Mexico found them. They would simply unload the ships and send the goods on barges up various bayous to New Orleans. Eventually the brothers got tired of being dry goods brokers and bought a boat, hired a captain and became privateers themselves. A few days later they made their first score. It was a Spanish ship with 77 slaves aboard. After selling the slaves (probably to Jim Bowie) and the other goods aboard they made about $18,000. They liked the boat and kept it also. A couple of days later they knocked over a Spanish brig and reaped about $9,000. They decided that this was a lot better than smuggling stolen goods. But they did not like this boat and chose to unload it and turn it back over to the original crew. The Lafitte brothers were renowned for good treatment of hijacked crews. A big turn of events occurred when England kept stopping American ships at sea and “Shanghaiing” American sailors. This means they would take American sailors off their ships and force them to serve on British ships. America finally got fed up and in 1812 declared war on England. During all of this the Lafitte brothers had gathered/swapped ships until they had three very fast sloops armed to the teeth. The British knew that The Americans did not have a viable navy and utilized pirates and privateers in their behalf so they approached Jean Lafitte and his small navy to join the British navy for pay. Jean believed that the Americans would win this war and wrote a letter to a member of the US congress telling him of the British offer. Previously Jean’s brother Pierre had been captured in a United States Navy raid and was imprisoned in New Orleans. Jean offered to join with the Americans in their war against Great Britain along with most of his crews if any criminal charges that were pending against he and his men would be dropped and Pierre would be released. The military person in command in this area was General Andrew Jackson and he balked at first but when three British warships showed up southwest of New Orleans he agreed. Jean Lafitte and his men were indeed present at the immortal Battle of New Orleans where the British had their asses handed to them even though they had the rag-tag army commanded by General Jackson out-numbered and out gunned. The British had 345 killed, including the British commanding General Packenham, and many wounded to 45 killed for the Americans. Lafitte knew that his operation at Barataria Bay was over and began looking for another location and found one in Galveston in what is now Texas. But at that time southern Texas was a Mexican property. Mexico was in the midst of a war for Independence with Spain. Both Pierre and Jean agreed to spy for Spain with Pierre in New Orleans and Jean on Galveston Island. Jean again established a base for smuggling on Galveston Island along with some pirating on his own. The US had passed a law that slaves could not brought in to the US unless they were captured off of a slave ship, then the slaves could be brought in to customs agents and be sold by them and half the profit going to the capturers so that told Jean and Pierre what their targets would be. They began a very profitable venture of capturing slaves, bringing them to New Orleans and letting the customs agents sell them to Jim Bowie at a reduced rate. Then they got an additional profit when Bowie sold them and gave the Lafitte brothers a commission. In 1821 the US Navy went to Galveston to run the Lafitte brothers out of the Gulf of Mexico. Jean agreed to leave without a fight and sailed down to Isla Mujeres off the northeast corner of the Yucatan peninsula Mexico and set up operations but it did not flourish like the others and his camp was nothing but a group of squalid huts. Later he became ill and moved onto a small village on the Mexican mainland and died a few days later died of a tropical fever. He was 47.

Much has been written about Jean Lafitte and his obvious gigantic collection of gold and treasure none of which has ever been found. Some believe it went down with his ship The Pride in the hurricane of 1826, some believe that he buried it in various locations around Barataria Bay with the prime location being a cotton/sugar plantation named The Destrehan Plantation. It is rumored that the ghost of Jean roams that plantation on nights with a full moon. Then again, others think he buried it in the shifting sands of Galveston Island. What we do know for sure is that he did not have any of it with him at Isla Mujeres and the location(s) of his treasure is a mystery to this date.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow