Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

“I do not believe in reincarnation and I haven't believed in it ever since I was a cocker spaniel."

                                       Woody Allen

I am going to take a couple of days off, y'all. No lessons for a day or two.

To all of you that are followers of golf and scandal; it appears that Tiger Woods has not been affected by all the turmoil because he is definitely in the hunt in the Master's Golf Tournament down in Augusta, Georgia. Most of the women out there are disappointed by that.

Here is another adventure while fishing.

I was living in Pensacola, Florida and went off-shore frequently. On one occasion I went out with a friend in his 28 foot Thompson cabin cruiser. We were going to trolling for King Mackerel but would accept anything that bit. We had out two “cigar minnows” on downriggers and two 6 inch salt water Rebels (artificial minnow) a few feet under the surface. The difference between a salt water Rebel and a fresh water Rebel is the hooks. The hooks on a fresh water Rebel will bend but the hooks on a salt water Rebel are forged and will break before they bend. We got a strike on one of the Rebels and I reached the rod first and began the struggle to get one of these speed burners to the boat. It was indeed a King Mackerel. They are very aggressive and toothy critters and normally we use a “convincer” on them before we get anywhere near. A “convincer” is a two foot length of 1 ½” dowel with about 8 inches of lead poured into one end. This makes a substantial club which stuns the fish into submission. We had forgotten to bring one. We brought the fish aboard and cut off the Rebel and let the fish thrash around with the Rebel in its mouth for a while before we approached it. Keep in mind that a Rebel lure has three sets of treble hooks or nine individual hooks. After a while the fish was quiet and we decided to get the lure back. I bent over the fish with a pair of pliers and when I was close, the fish decided to thrash some more and put one of the hooks into the fat part of my left palm and kept thrashing to make sure the hook was in there solidly. My fishing partner grabbed the fish and squeezed the gills as hard as he could eventually killing the fish. He cut the hooks off the Rebel and there I was with a number 2 forged hook solidly embedded in my left palm. He took me back to the ramp and let me out and I drove myself to the Emergency room. The doctor was obviously from the Middle East (probably Pakistan) who had never addressed a problem like this. He gave me a couple of shots of Novocain and contemplated what the hell to do. We discussed it and I said the best thing to do was to push the point of the hook on through, cut off the barb and back it out. We could not do that because it was a treble hook. The next choice was to cut the hook out but he was opposed to that because he was afraid he would cut some tendons and I might lose the use of one or more of my fingers. The last choice was just to back it out as is. That is what he did and backed the hook out with tendons and tissue hanging from the barb. He snipped off the meat, gave me a tetanus shot, a prescription for a pain killer and sent me away. I never forgot the “convincer” again.

A few days ago over in Spartanburg, South Carolina a 37 year old man named Kenneth Moore pulled up beside a car containing his estranged wife and his wife’s parents. His wife’s name is Denise Fagan. There was an exchange of words and Moore pulled a gun and shot his wife’s mother twice killing her. Denise’s father jumped out of the car and ran to a nearby business asking for help. The cops were called and when the father went back outside Denise, Moore and Moore’s truck was missing. Moore had been on the run ever since, that is until Thursday night. Someone recognized Moore in a nearby Wal-Mart and went to the service desk and reported it. The cops were called and they cornered Moore in the men’s room. After a brief struggle Moore was arrested and taken to the joint. There was no mention of Denise. I wonder where she is?  They found her and arrested her for trying to set fire to Kenneth Moore's mother's house.  I guess she was upset because Kenneth shot and killer her mother.

This date in history April 11

1814    On this date Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates the throne of France and is exiled to island of Elbe in the Mediterranean. Napoleon began his rise to power right after the French Revolution of 1789. He was recognized for the military genius that he was during this period. He eventually was the virtual ruler of all of Europe by defeating every army on the Continent and declared himself as emperor of France. Napoleon thought that Russia and England were conspiring against him and invaded Russia to prevent this from happening. This expedition proved to be disastrous to Napoleon’s army just as it was to Hitler’s army during WWII. Napoleon invaded Russia with 500,000 troops and arrived back in France with less than 100,000. After this debacle he knew that his days as a military power in Europe was numbered and offered to turn the throne of France to his sons and this was rejected and that is when he abdicated. About a year later he escaped from Elbe and made his way back to France and quickly raised another army and began to kick-ass again all across the Continent. The difference this time was two of the best military commanders in Europe joined forces and were the equal of Napoleon’s army in both number and skill. They were Lord Wellington of England and the Prussian General von Blucher. The beginning of the end began when Napoleon met von Blucher about 20 miles from him meeting with Wellington and administered a substantial ass-whipping on the Prussian army. He then headed to meet Wellington near the town of Waterloo, Belgium. Napoleon made a serious tactical error when he did not attack immediately and waited until the field between the two armies had dried out somewhat from the rain the night before. This allowed Wellington to array his troops to the best advantage and allowed von Blucher to arrive at the scene and prepare his troops to attack the left flank of Napoleon’s army. It was early afternoon when Napoleon launched his attack and was initially successful but became overly concerned with the Prussians closing in from his left. Napoleon uncharacteristically mismanaged his troop movements and was defeated. This time Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena Island in the Central Atlantic where he died, probably from stomach cancer. He was 57 years old. This man was a brilliant military commander and was responsible to the enactment of a code of laws that many are in use today, especially in Louisiana, but he was also responsible for over a million deaths.

1951    The armies of North Korea had previously crossed the border in South Korea, this act of was a clear violation of the SEATO treaty and the nations of NATO had to respond and the Korean War began. The United States sent General Douglas MacArthur to be in command and the allies soon had the North Koreans on the run. The only problem was the Chinese border. The Chinese had warned the Allied forces to stay clear of their borders or expect retaliation. MacArthur felt they were bluffing and had expressed a desire to bomb the Chinese border with nuclear weapons to make that area safe from the marshaling of troop and even the launching a all out attack. MacArthur expressed displeasure when Harry (the hard ass) Truman order MacArthur to meet with him at Wake Island. At that meeting, President Truman relieved MacArthur and sent his young ass to the United States and replaced him with General Mathew Ridgeway. It is not of often that an officer of that rank is relieved of command, but this was one of those times and rightly so. Because MacArthur never understood that politicians make policy, not the military. Not long after this MacArthur died. I think because he had fulfilled his mission in this lifetime and it was time for him to move on to the next life.

1970    On this date Apollo 13 was launched from Cape Canaveral headed for a landing on the moon. When the spacecraft was about 200,000 miles for earth, the astronaut heard an explosion and immediately determined that they were seriously low on battery power water and oxygen to mention just a few things. The engineers in Houston had their hands full in figuring out how to save the crewmen, Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jim Sweigert. The tricky thing would that the master booster rocket would need to make two “burns”. One would be to put the spacecraft in the correct trajectory to go around the moon and the other would be to put the spacecraft in the correct trajectory to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere safely. Jim Lovell had to figure out this mathematically since the power loss left him without a computer. Not only that, the master space capsule did not have enough oxygen, power and water to last the three days it would take to return to earth so the engineers in Houston instructed Lovell to shut down the master space capsule and move into the Lunar Excursion Module or LEM which had its own power supply, oxygen and water but the LEM was made for just two men, not three. Anyway, Lovell made the rocket burn for orbiting the moon and the three moved into the LEM to wait it out. They were running the LEM at minimum power meaning the temperature was only 35 to 36 degrees. Anyway, when the time came the three moved back into the master capsule, discarded the LEM, made the “burn” and successfully returned to earth. It was a miracle ya’ll.

1945    During WWII the US 3rd Army, led by General George Patton, had broken out of the German perimeter around Omaha Beach and swept across France gathering German prisoners as he went. The 3rd army crossed into Germany and was running rampant across the land. On this date, lead elements of one of Patton’s tank Corp came upon a huge fenced in camp full of half-starved prisoners. It was Buchenwald, ya’ll, one of the most infamous concentration camps in history. The Americans discovered that it was a labor camp where hundreds if not thousands died daily from starvation, disease, beatings and gruesome medical experiments. Some were simply executed especially those with tattoos. The wife of the camp commander wanted tattooed human skin that she tanned and had them made into gloves and lampshades. Is there any wonder that when the Russians found such camps when approaching form the east, they went crazy with bloodlust and killed everything they could find on German soil? Anyway, the war was over soon thereafter and peace prevailed.....until 1950.

Born today:

1862    US Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. He said “When we lose the right to be different, we lose the right to be free.” Justice Hughes was a wise man.

1794    Harvard President Edward Everett. He said of a student application by a black person, “If he passes the application, he will be admitted. If the white students want to withdraw, we will use their tuitions to teach the black one.” Everett was ahead of his time.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow