Daily History

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

“I don’t want to hear that we are ‘holding our position’. We are not holding anything. We will let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and not hold on to anything except the Germans. We are going to hold him by the nose and kick him in the ass.”

                            US General George S. Patton

I am not sure that this situation happens anywhere but in Dixie. On occasion a person (I have seen both men and women) will set up camp on a street corner and begin preaching whether he has an audience or not. If a pedestrian passes by, most of the time the preacher will try to stop the pedestrian and quiz him/her about their association with God. They are very insistent and will walk with the person for as long as the person acknowledges their conversation. Local police see this as being a nuisance and will stop the preacher from shadowing the pedestrian. A few of these “concrete evangelists” have filed suit claiming that labeling them as violating the “nuisance statute” interferes with their 1st amendment rights, meaning freedom of speech. I put this situation in the same category as “your right to swing your arm ends at the tip of my nose”. I also am very sensitive to the exercise of an individual’s United States Constitutional rights because so much blood, sweat and tears were shed to give it to us, but to interfere with my normal stride down the street is indeed a nuisance. I do not know how this issue can be resolved legally but maybe it can be resolved with a right uppercut to the chin. The evangelists should be willing to suffer such a small sacrifice for their cause, or they could just get out of the way.

I finished two books this weekend. One of them was “Hand Picked By the King” and the other was “Teaching the Pig to Dance”. I met the author of “Hand Picked By the King” (Frieda Stroble) when she had a table set up in the lobby of my favorite watering hole which is a pretty fancy-schmantzy restaurant with a small bar. She and I talked a while and I took one of her books home. It was not what I had expected. This woman is a half Lumbee Indian from the cotton and tobacco belt of South Carolina. She and her family suffered incredible racial intimidation and discrimination most of her formative years. They were denied many things simply because they were dark skinned. Before the tenet of “separate but equal” was struck down by the Supreme Court, there were signs everywhere in the Dillon, South Carolina (the closest city to their farm) area say “White Only” and that included Indians as well as blacks. She finally was able to go to a “white” high school and essentially was ostracized for the entire time and it scarred her life. The book was about her time as a hair dresser in a “retirement home”. My Mom and Dad spent a time in a retirement home and it was not a happy time for either them or the rest of the family, especially me. The author wrote a series of vignettes about her trying to make those men and women in the home happier. The title of the book “Hand Picked by the King” is the author’s belief that God had hand picked her to be a hair dresser for the elderly making their lives more enjoyable. She is very religious and almost every page made reference to her religion and even included verses from the Bible. In my opinion this distracted from the ebb and flow of the sequence of events and it hinted the she felt herself an evangelist and can read the mind of God. When I spoke with her in person she was very amiable and charming, pretty too. But as most writers know, your soul shows itself when you write. The book was not the type of book that I normally read but I read it in one sitting. I am sorry Frieda, but I must call them the way I see them.

“Teaching the Pig to Dance” was written by former presidential candidate and actor, Fred Thompson. It is the history of Fred’s youth in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. Fred’s father was a truck driver/used car dealer and the book was again a series of vignettes about his youth and the association with his father and the rest of his family. Frankly, even though I am a fan of Fred Thompson, this book appeared to be written as an afterthought or to fulfill a contract with a publisher. It was very frothy and without a lot of substance. The title came from a quote Fred made about learning Latin in high school. He said “Trying to teach me Latin would be like teaching a pig to dance. It would be exasperating for the teacher and be irritating to the pig.” Stay to acting and politics, Fred…Literature ain’t your bag.

We here in South Carolina and the 4th district in particular are voting in a series of run-off elections today. The most important of these is for Governor, Nikki Haley vs Gresham Barrett, Haley is favored, and for South Carolina 4th district United States Congressman, Trey Gowdy vs incumbent Bob Inglis, Gowdy is favored. Get out there and vote y’all.

This date in history June 22

1609    Two years earlier English navigator Henry Hudson had set sail from England aboard his ship Discovery having been tasked by Dutch merchants with finding a northwest passage to the Pacific ocean and the Orient without having to sail around the toe of South America known as Cape Horn. A passage around this headland was a major undertaking in any season. It was always stormy and very dangerous. Hudson sailed into New York, Delaware and the Chesapeake bays seeking a passage west. It was Hudson that was the first European that sailed up the river that bears his name to this day. No passage was found and when he tried the present day Hudson Bay in Canada he realized that he could not stay in this environment through the winter. His exit from the river back into the Atlantic became blocked with ice so he did the next best thing and anchored his boat as far south as he could and prepared to wait for spring. Henry and his crew were on the cusp of freezing and starving to death all winter long. As you might suspect the crew got really pissed and decided to mutiny when it got warmer and the ice began to melt. They set Henry, his son and seven loyal crew members adrift in a small boat none of which were ever seen or heard from again. It was Henry’s voyage up the present day Hudson River that gave the Dutch claim to that part of the New World and the English a claim to Hudson Bay. Once the crew reached England they were captured and tried for mutiny but were not executed because their knowledge of the New World was immeasurable.

2006    On this date the second trial of Andrea Yates began. Yates was the mother that drowned her three children in the bathtub of her Texas home. She had drowned her two sons aged 7 and 5 plus her 6 year old daughter. At her trial in 2001 she had given a not guilty plea by reason of insanity. During this trial the prosecution had gotten a conviction for 1st degree murder and had presented a psychiatrist as an “expert witness” and later it was discovered that his credentials were false and her conviction was thrown out. In this trial there was no doubt that his bitch was crazy as a loon. She had been taking many types of psychiatric drugs and even had attempted suicide three times in the past. How could this lunatic be allowed to be a caretaker of little children? In this trial she was acquitted of first degree murder but convicted of murder but not aware of the consequences of her acts. In other word, she was crazy as a shit house mouse. With this conviction she could not be given a life sentence in a correctional facility but there is no doubt in any Texan’s mind that this beast will be is a nut house for the rest of her days. I read a little about her first trial and she said that the 7 year old by fought hard but she overpowered him and he went underwater screaming “No, Momma, no!” Yates claimed that the Devil was inside her and she was afraid he would get into her children. She was partially right.

1941    On this date, against the advice of his Generals, Adolph Hitler orders the launch of “Operation Barabarrosa” which was the invasion of Russia. The invasion army consisted of 3 million troops divided in nearly equal numbers in three units. They also sent 3,500 tanks, 2,500 aircraft and 7,000 pieces of artillery. But his Generals had told him that if the operation could not be started by May 1 then it should not be started at all. The reason was that if the German army was not able to totally defeat the Russians by September the weather would become a factor. The Russian winters are notorious for being very severe and the German army was not prepared for such a turn of events. Hitler was sure that the total defeat of Russia would be just a matter of weeks. He was wrong. The Russians were never totally defeated and the Germans were caught out in the open during one of the worst winters in fifty years. It got so cold that mechanical devices would not work and German soldiers died by the thousands from exposure and literally freezing to death. During their rush across Russia the Germans had slaughtered 26,000,000 Russian civilians and soldiers. When the Russian army finally broke the German siege and started pushing the Germans back west toward their own country, their bloodlust was insatiable and their slaughter of the German Army was complete, especially after they had liberated the German concentration camps, including the worst of the worst in Dachau.

Born today:

1786    English artist Benjamin Haydon. He said “When man is no longer anxious to do more than well, he is done for.” Well said, Ben.

1898   German writer Erich Remarque. He said “You may turn into an archangel, a fool or a criminal and no one will see it. But if you are missing a button, everyone will see it.” That depends on where the button was, Erich.

1906    US movie director Billy Wilder. He said of Audrey Hepburn “I could worship the ground you walk on, Audrey...if only you lived in a better neighborhood.” That sound like all the girls I met in Oklahoma City.

1949    US actress Meryl Streep. She said “You cannot get spoiled if you do your own ironing.” Tack on to that “or take out your own garbage.”

1912    US first lady Pat Nixon. She said “Being the first lady is the hardest unpaid job in the world.” I would have thought it would have been going to bed with Richard Nixon every night.

1918    Advice columnist Ann Landers. She said “Do not accept your dog’s admiration as proof that you are wonderful.” Are you listening, Michael Vick?

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.