Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

“The reason most people are not happy is because they see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is and the future less resolved than it will be.”

                                  Marcel Pagnol

I saw a recent picture of one of my favorite actors Dennis Hopper today and I almost did not recognize him. He was almost skeletal in appearance because prostate cancer is eating him alive. What a damned shame.

I was diagnosed with this illness a few years ago and went through 38 radiation treatments and year on hormones. After all of this my doctor tested me every 6 months for 2 years and on the last one he said that he could find no reason for me to come in anymore. When I walked out of the doctor’s office on that day there were tears in my eyes, y’all know why.

To all you sports fans that are tracking the NCAA basketball tournament, West Virginia beat Kentucky and Butler beat Kansas State, for crying out loud. The freaking sky is falling.


This is a notice to the “Four O’clock Club”. I will be taking a leave of absence until I achieve a goal that I have set for myself. This also means that you will have to elect another “scout”. The “Copper River” on Haywood Road has been suggested. There are several ways to get out of there and go north but all are a pain in the ass.

One of my favorite women is sponsoring a “Tea Party” in Harry “The Jackass” Reid’s home town in Nevada. That’s right y’all, it is Sarah Palin. I have not figured out what Sarah’s long term agenda is but I am sure it is something political. I wonder where she gets the money to do all this traveling, but with that body who cares?

Saturday afternoon down in Simpsonville, SC about 4:30p, a man not yet identified was knocking back a few at “The Zone Bar and Grill”. Evidently this loser had one too many and threatened to blow up the bar claiming he had plastic explosives and an M-16 rifle outside in his dog-s--t Ranger pickup. The owner immediately called the cops and the remainder of the bar customers “detained” this braggart until the cops arrived. The loser was screaming the whole time that everybody had better leave him alone because he had a “military” background, that is until the cops walked in with a police dog on a leash. All of sudden this loser became very timid. His Ranger was searched by the cops and the dog and nothing was found except a big pile of bulls—t. 10 minutes later the yellow cordon around the entrance to the bar was removed and the customers resumed their merry gathering.

                       This date in history March 28

1979    On this date began a comedy of errors resulted the worst nuclear accident in United States history at the recently built Reactor #2 at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant. This particular power plant was built on an island in the middle the Susquehanna River about 10 miles from the Pennsylvania capitol of Harrisburg. There was a slight overpressure in the reactor and a pressure relief valve opened as it was supposed to, the only problem was that it failed to close back and cooling water began to escape. The emergency relief pumps began to operate automatically as they were suppose to. If the plant operators had let this safety system work as designed, nothing would have happened. But the newly trained plant workers could not figure out what the hell was going on. With the cooling water leaking out onto the floor of the containment building the reactor core temperature began to rise. For reasons known only to the plant operators, they chose to shut down the emergency relief pumps. There is no need for me to tell you what happened to the core temperature. Pennsylvania Governor Thornburgh was between a rock and a hard place. After being appraised of the situation, he had to so something but he did not want to cause a panic. He sent out a notice that everyone with a 10 mile radius of Three Mile Island to stay indoors. Then the next day he advised that pregnant women should evacuate. Then word leaked out that radioactive steam had escaped and a small amount of radioactive water had leaked into the Susquehanna River. All of this was true but it was not that much of a risk but a panic began and over 100,000 people near the plant evacuated. By now the core had reached a temperature of 4,000 degrees which is within 1,000 degrees of a complete meltdown. Eventually experts from Metropolitan Energy and the reactor designer (Babcock and Wilcox) arrived and figured out what the problem was and the emergency pumps were restarted and the core temperature began to fall. In an attempt to lessen the panic, United States President Jimmy Carter went to the plant. Carter was a Naval Academy trained nuclear engineer and had dealt with damaged cores in the past. This was probably in a nuclear submarine. But he was not there to offer expertise but to restore the confidence of the population. Everyone thought the problem had been solved but two days later a hydrogen bubble was discovered in the top of the containment building and there had been a small explosion but the containment building held. It was determined that the hydrogen bubble was not a threat. By the way, it was an explosion of a hydrogen bubble that destroyed the Russian power plant at Chernobyl but the Russians did not use containment buildings over their reactors. The core had been damaged in reactor # 2 making it useless. During the crises, reactor # 1 had been shut down also. Reactor # 1 was not restarted until 1985 and reactor # 2 was sealed. Since this emergency the building of not one nuclear power plant has begun in the United States. There have been reports that those that stayed those few days after the initial accident have an increased incidence of leukemia and other cancers but it is not a proven statistic. There was one of the plant operators that put on a safe suit and went into the floor of the containment building where the water was about 18 inches deep trying to find out what the problem was. He had with him a flask of test water that began to effervesce like carbonated water very soon after he arrived. He saw this and got the hell out of there, and I don’t blame him. A lot of lessons were learned during this experience. That is the only upside I can find to this whole scenario.

1776    On this date Juan Bautista de Anza founds the city of San Francisco and has with him 247 settlers. Anza was born in Mexico and is the equivalent of Lewis and Clark, Kit Carson and John Colter when it comes to exploration. It was Anza that explored northwest out of Mexico City and discovered most of what is now the resort area of the west coast of Mexico. He blazed a trail all the way to northern California and established trading posts and helped locate several Spanish missions along the way. In spite of Spanish ships sailing up and down the west coast of North America for 200 years, they had never discovered San Francisco Bay and neither had the Russians. It took Anza’s exploration by land to discover it. This area remained under Spanish control until the Mexicans kicked them out and under Mexican control until they lost the Mexican War in 1848 to the United States.

Born today:

1868    Russian writer Maxim Gorky. He said “A man may be stupid and still be good. But a bad man needs brains.” Believe what you want, but Hitler was brilliant.

1890   US bandleader Paul Whiteman. He said “Jazz came to America 300 years ago in chains.” So did okra, the banjo and Gullah.

1942    English politician Neil Kinnock. He said “You cannot make one wit out of two half wits.” I know lots of them.

Died today:

1941    English writer Virginia Wolfe. She said “I have lost friends because of death and others for no other reason than the inability to cross a street.” I hope I never reach that point.

1957    US writer Christopher Morley. He said “A critic is a gong at a railroad crossing clanging wildly while the train passes by.” I cannot relate to this, ya’ll. Critique me all you want, I am very happy with me.

1958    US song writer W.C. Handy. He said “You never can tell what’s on a woman’s mind, and if she is from Harlem there’s no us trying.” Add Greenville to that, W.C.

1984    US educator Benjamin Mays. He said “Isn’t it a calamity that we died with unfulfilled dreams, but it is even a bigger calamity not to dream.” Ben was a wise individual.

Quotable quotes:

“I think the reason men like women in leather outfits so much is they smell

like a new car.”

                                   George Fara

“She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.”

                      Raymond Chandler

“Start every day with a smile and then get over it.”

                         W.C. Fields

       Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow