Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

“Change is the essence of life. You must be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.”

                                      Mahatma Gandhi

I am back in Greenville after a fast and furious four days in Charleston, SC. We did not go farther than 8 miles from our hotel and had plenty to do every day. We went to Patriot’s Point Marina Saturday afternoon and watched a heart-stopping performance by the US Navy’s Blue Angels. The temperature was about 80 and the wind was 15 to 20 MPH making it very comfortable. I have seen the Blue Angels a number of times and each performance is as thrilling as the first time I saw them.

We went to a restaurant/museum named Queen Anne’s Revenge for a bite to eat. It is a museum whose theme is pirates and Edward Teach (Blackbeard) in particular and a high end restaurant. We ate outside on the deck with the typical gas lights and a musician playing and singing. It was not dark but getting there when all of a sudden my traveling companion yells “Look at that” and stood up and did started doing what I thought was a table dance and thought it was for my entertainment but when I looked around and saw the biggest rat I have ever seen heading our way realized that she was trying to avoid this beast. The table dance was very stimulating, though, I took a second look and it was not a rat, it was a Didelphia Virginiana, otherwise known as an opossum. The beast disappeared into the surrounding foliage. There is a substantial fence surrounding the deck with a solid concrete base under the entire fence so I could not figure out where the opossum went. The restaurant manager came out and said that this animal is well known and resides under the deck. It comes out to hunt at night which is why you see a lot of them as a road kill. Opossum is America’s only marsupial meaning they their young spend a substantial amount of time in a pouch on their mother’s belly and a lot of time clinging to their mother’s back once they get old enough. It was a little spooky.

After this we went to a famous biker bar named “Richard’s” to meet with some of my friends of yore. It was a pleasure to meet them again.

Sunday morning we went to the Slave Market once again and I waited in the “Noisy Oyster” once again. After the shopping trip we went to the Boone Hall Market for strawberries Boone Hall is a plantation site from the early 1700’s that has been converted to a truck farm. There are many, many acres of “you pick-em” strawberries, blueberries and blackberries all of which become ripe at different times of the year. We were going to pick some of them ourselves but the farm was such a zoo that we opted to buy them instead. The check-out girl at the Market said that the entire strawberry crop for the “self-pickers” was picked clean in an hour.

After about a four hour rest we decided to go get supper and opted for Italian and began a search. We looked on the web and the phone book. The one we selected was not open so I suggested an Italian restaurant named Andolini’s that I remember seeing near Shem Creek Inn. We found it and it was pizza and cannelloni only but went in anyway. I want to tell y’all, we got the “Andolini Special” and it was the most orgasmic pizza I have ever had in my short life. If y’all are ever near Mount Pleasant, South Carolina you need to give it a try. It is about 300 yards west of Shem Creek Inn.

We decided to spend the rest of Sunday evening resting by the pool…we needed it.

This date in history April 19

1993    Earlier in February agents from the Alcohol, Tax and Firearms attack the Branch Davidian Compound in Mount Carmel near Waco, Texas. The Branch Davidians were led by a charismatic man named David Koresh who taught that Armageddon was just around the corner and chaos would prevail meaning it would be cases of dog eat dog. Koresh felt that his flock needed to be heavily armed to protect themselves from this turmoil and indeed they were. There were many M-16’s, Glocks with plenty of ammo and fragmentation grenades. A delivery man was delivering a package to the compound and accidentally dropped it and grenades rolled out and he told the police about it. From then on the whole affair escalated with the FBI and the ATF taking command. The actual person in command was Attorney General Janet Reno. The FBI agents contacted Koresh and said that he would have to give up his weapons. Koresh said that he had a license for his weapons and indeed he did. That did not suit the FBI/ATF and they said they wanted to come in and inspect. Koresh read that as they were going to come in and take his weapons and refused them entry. The FBI/ATF tried an armed assault to get into the building and Koresh fought back which resulted in four agents being killed and six wounded. So the FBI/ATF backed off and set up a siege, cutting off the water and power to the compound. This did not bother Koresh too bad because in his preparation for Armageddon he included several thousands of gallons of fresh water and a diesel powered generator with an associated fuel tank. The FBI/ATF tried everything to get into that compound and nothing worked. So on this date they got a call from Janet Reno to put an end to it, they had spent too much money already. So they called in a US army tank with a grenade launcher and loaded it with tear gas canisters. The tank rolled in, poked a hole in the wall with its cannon and pumped in several tear gas canisters. The only problem here was that tear gas canisters in close quarters have a tendency to start fires and that is what happened here. The biggest problem was that on this day there was a forty mile and hour gale howling and the compound being made of wood went up in flames quickly and killed everyone inside, men, women and children. I cannot tell you what kind of shit was aimed at Janet Reno but to the credit of Janet, she said that “she was totally responsible, the buck stops here.”

1995    At about 9:00A a small moving van driven by a Timothy McVeigh, loaded with barrels of ammonium nitrate (fertilizer) mixed with fuel oil is parked in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. As ya’ll may or may not know, fertilizer and fuel oil is a volatile mixture and very explosive. McVeigh lit a fuse and split. A couple of minutes later a thunderous explosion occurs and blows off the total front section of the building immediately killing 100 including several children in the day care center there, not to mention those that were buried in the rubble. The final total was 168 dead and many, many injured. McVeigh was a survivalist who was extremely upset at the US Government for the killing of Randy Weaver’s son and wife by US agents at Ruby Ridge and the killing of over 80 innocents at The Branch Dravidian compound in Waco, Texas as a result of FBI/ATF actions. McVeigh was captured and was quickly convicted of 12 murders and sentenced to death. Soon thereafter McVeigh requested that the judge stop all appeals and allow the sentence to be carried out. In June, 2001 the 33 year old Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection in a Federal facility in Terre Haute, Indiana ending this the worst episode of terrorism in the United States up until that time. Three months later an even greater act of terrorism occurs in lower Manhattan, New York City.

1861    On this date the first blood is shed in the American Civil war and it did not occur on a battle field. The city of Baltimore was a hotbed of pro-Confederacy sentiments. The 6th Massachusetts Infantry was transferring from one train station to another in Baltimore on their way to Washington. There was a huge crowd of civilians yelling and jeering the soldiers including a shower of cobblestones. As we all know things will get out of hand at gatherings like this, shots rang out and after the smoke had cleared four soldiers and 12 civilians were killed and the Civil War was underway.

1824    George Gordon Byron, the 6th Baron Byron of Scotland dies in what is now Greece. Lord Byron led a very decadent life even though he was a gifted poet/writer. He was born with a club foot in1788 for which there was not cure in those days. He led a very difficult and impoverished life until the age of 10 when he inherited his great uncle’s fortune and title of Lord Byron. He attended Harrow and Cambridge and went into enormous debt by running hard with both women and men. It appears that Byron was seeker of fun as a bi-sexual. Byron had written two books of poetry both of which received uncomplimentary reviews. After he graduated with a master’s degree in 1809 he made trip to Portugal and on into the near east. Upon returning from this journey, he delivered some of greatest poetry ever written and was soon recognized world-wide for his talent. In 1815 he married Anne Mibanke and they had issue of one daughter. This girl proved to be a mathematical genius and was instrumental in the invention of the first computer by Charles Babbage. His marriage eventually collapsed and he was run out of England for allegedly having incest with his half-sister. He moved to Geneva and lived near Percy Bysse Shelly and his wife/lover Mary Wollenscraft. While there he sired a child out of wedlock with Mary’s sister. He then moved to Venice and began a life of wild debauchery that is legendary to this day. In 1819 he became involved with the Countess Marie Guiccioli the wife of an elderly Count. Byron and the Countess remained lovers for several years. Always a supporter of those fighting for independence, he moved to Greece to help in their fight for independence from Turkey. He helped train Greek troops until he died. He was 36 years old.

Born today:

1933    US actress Jayne Mansfield (mother of Marisa Hargitay of Law and Order SVU) she said “Men are creatures with two legs and eight hands.” She was a beauty.

1962    US racer Al Unser, Jr. He said “My father taught me everything I know. Unfortunately he did not teach me everything he knew.”

Quotable quotes:

“We live in a world of nuclear giants and moral infants.” US General Omar Bradley

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.