Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

“We earn a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

                                 Winston Churchill

As we all know by now, the New Orleans Saints outplayed, outcoached and outran the hapless Indianapolis Colts on Sunday night. I was invited to a Super Bowl party by an old friend including some of her friends from work. She claimed to be a “born in Louisiana Saints fan” but I doubt if she saw three plays, she chose to “talk shop” the whole first half, and talk she did, y’all. I left in disgust at half time and went to another venue for the second half. Some people just cannot forget about work for even a few minutes and try to inflate their importance to their fellow workers. That cutie in Black Mountain knows who I am talking about.

A couple of days ago over in Oconee County, South Carolina a deputy sheriff got his car stuck out on a dirt road. He got out and walked around the car trying to figure out how to get the car out. All of a sudden the car slid forward and pinned the deputy against a tree killing him. He was found by a state trooper who was one of several out looking for the deputy. This event is so unlikely that it seems that it was preordained. It is spooky.

My normal source for “Good News” has sent us a message saying the she is snowbound and without power but promises to get back on line as soon as she can. She lives in Manassas, Virginia near Washington, DC.

For the second time in a week there has been a murder/suicide over in Pickens County, South Carolina. The first one was a man going through a divorce killed his wife’s attorney and then himself. The night before last 42 year old Frank Galloway and Tony Edens was in Frank’s single-wide knocking back a few shots of whiskey when an argument erupted as is normal when drunks are in close quarters. The argument elevated to a downright brawl and Frank pulls out a hog-leg and caps Tony. Frank realizes what he has done and blows his own brains out. I don’t know what lesson we can learn from these two events except to not get a divorce in Pickens County especially if you live in a single-wide.

It was Mark Twain that said “Everybody talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.” I cannot get over the bad weather those people that live along the I-40 corridor in Western North Carolina. They have had snow and ice on their roads for a month and it isn’t over yet. This Tuesday and Wednesday will see more of the same for those long suffering people. I live about forty miles south of I-40 and at an elevation about 1,100 lower. We get a little ice but nothing like what happens up there. It barely misses us. I heard that the various school boards in western North Carolina are worried that the students will not get enough school time and may have to go on Saturdays for a few months once the roads clear up. We are under the influence of the El Nino, a phenomenon which is usually bad news for the southern tier of the United States and indeed it is.

I recently found out that one of the members of the “Four O’clock Club” has a pickle canning business. We began talking about pickles and he brought me a jar of regular pickles and a jar of “hot” pickles. The hot pickles are just the regular pickles with a type of pepper added. He did not say what kind of pepper he added but the effect is similar to Cayenne. Quite simply these were the best pickles I had ever tasted. Once you get started, it is like eating potato chips or peanuts, they are addictive. The man’s name is Billy Wade and he is using the recipe given to him by his grandmother. He does not have a web site yet but he does have an e-mail address which is swtwilliampickle@aol.com. These pickles are definitely of the gourmet variety and are highly recommended by me.

This Date in History February 9

1942 In the late 1930’s the grandest ocean liner on the planet was built in France and named the Normandie. The ship had a revolutionary hull shape that made it very speedy and was able to cross the Atlantic in four days and was the first ship of that size to be able to do this. After the United States entered WWII in December of 1941, it became apparent that the American commercial fleet had enough ships to carry cargo but virtually no passenger vessels. In those times the luxury liners were English, Scottish or Dutch. England donated the liner Queen Mary to shuttle American troops worldwide. The French liner Normandie was seized while it was in port in New York and renamed the U.S.S. Lafayette. The ship fitters pulled the ship into dry dock and began transforming this ship from a luxury liner to a troop carrier. On this date a welder accidentally set fire to a large pile of life preservers and the fire spread quickly. The fire crews poured water into the ship at an enormous rate and finally the great ship capsized and burned into a lump of unusable steel. The ship was towed to a New Jersey and cut up for scrap. There was a rumor that President Roosevelt told the trade unions on American docks that a strike would not be tolerated for the duration of the war. Some of the more militant Union organizers ordered the Normandie destroyed as a sign that the trade unions would not be told what they could or could not do. But that is just a rumor.

1909    On this date the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was organized by Carl Fisher. Fisher and his investors hurried to finish the track because a major event was planned for August, 6 months later. The track was indeed finished but the racing surface was sub-par and it cost the lives of several racers. Fisher knew that he would have to put down another surface and chose bricks as being the most durable compound out there. From that day on Indianapolis was known as “The Brickyard” and as the saying goes, the rest is history. By the way, the Indianapolis 500 race is the most watched single day sporting event on the planet.

1960    On this date Adolph Coors is kidnapped while driving to work from his Morrison, Colorado home. Adolph was the grandson of the founder of Coors Brewery and was the chairman of the Golden, Colorado brewery. Almost immediately the police began looking for a man named Joe Corbett. Corbett was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Oregon and was headed for medical school. Then one night in 1951 he got drunk and got into a fight with an Air Force Sergeant, produced a pistol and shot and killed him. He does several years in San Quentin for that indiscretion then he was transferred to a minimum security prison where he escaped. Eight days after the abduction, a car was found on fire in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The forensic specialist took dirt samples from the car and matched them to the Morrison, Colorado area. Not only that, the fire did not destroy the engine numbers and the FBI was able to trace them to Corbett. Corbett’s yellow Mercury was seen near the abduction point for several days before the abduction. Not only that, a ransom note was found that was traced to Corbett’s typewriter. Seven months after the abduction, Adolph’s clothes were found in a dump near Sedalia, Colorado and his corpse was found nearby. The FBI put wanted posters out nationwide and in Canada for Corbett. They got “hits” on Corbett in Toronto and all the way across Canada to Vancouver where he was arrested. Even though Corbett did not testify at his trial he was indeed convicted and went to prison in 1961. He was released in 1978, for reason known only to the Board of Corrections.

1864    Earlier Elizabeth Bacon met a dashing young cavalry officer named Captain George A. Custer at a dance in Monroe, Michigan. Custer was smitten and began a campaign for the hand of Elizabeth. Her father was not happy with his daughter marrying a soldier, but when Custer was promoted to Brevet (temporary) Brigadier General for his fearlessness Elizabeth’s father conceded and Elizabeth and George were married on this date in Monroe, Michigan. After the Civil War Custer’s rank was reduced to and he was assigned duty out on the Great Plains attempting to subdue the Indians. We all know what happened at Little Big Horn in 1878. To this day, that massacre is acknowledged to be the fault of the recklessness of Custer, but Elizabeth defended her husband’s honor to her death.

Born today:

1773    President William Henry Harrison. He said “The Government that is the strongest is the one that is the most free”. He also made his hour and a half inauguration speech in sub-freezing weather with no coat on. He died of pneumonia 30 days later.

1865    Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Irish actress. She said “It doesn’t matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.” Mrs. Campbell must have known my third ex-wife.

1821    Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. He said “Realists do not fear the results of their study.”

1921    Irish writer Brendan Behan. He said “I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman would not make it worse.”

1945    US actress Mia Farrow. She said “I can match bottoms with anyone in Hollywood.” I don’t know about that, Mia, it looks kind of lean to me.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow