Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

“Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”

                                    Robert Heinlein

The mighty University of South Carolina Gamecocks baseball team beat the hapless Clemson Tigers twice in consecutive nights to earn the right to play UCLA in a best two out of three for the national championship. They start tonight.

Zeke’s marina is located near the intercoastal waterway just outside Orange Beach, Alabama. It is the home of the 46 foot charter boat “Rookie” and the captain of this boat was 52 year old Allen Kruse. After the oil spill in the Gulf back in April Allen’s charter boat fishing business took a nosedive. He had been a charter boat captain for 25 years and now he was out of business. To make ends meet he hired his boat out to BP and was undergoing training on how to skim the oil off the water and to lay out floating booms. For the first time in 25 years he was not his own boss and had strangers yelling at him. He was exasperated at the snails pace operation and seeing the containment crews lounging around Zeke’s doing nothing. Last week he kissed his wife goodbye at his Foley, Alabama home and went to the marina. Allen climbed into the wheelhouse of his boat and blew his brains out. He said that life as he knew it would never be the same in his lifetime. It was more than he could bear.

Tropical storm Alex has crossed the Yucatan peninsula and is now in the Bay of Campeche headed west northwest gaining strength and headed for the area of Brownville, Texas....for now.

Here in the Greenville, South Carolina area the local newspaper is the Greenville News. They have a website where they post local and world news clips. They put out a notice last Thursday that after July 1 in order to access their website there would be a charge. The charge would be less if you subscribed to the newspaper. Their complaint was that their subscribers were becoming less and less because of information available on the internet so they had to initiate this action to survive. I have mixed emotions here. I want the paper to survive but charging for access to their website rankles me.

It has been reported that there are a lot more sharks in shallow water than normal up and down the northern Gulf coast because of the oil spill. That reminds me of when I lived in Pensacola and fished from the Pensacola Beach fishing pier frequently. The water is crystal clear out to about 12 feet deep. On many occasions I would be out on the pier and there would be surfers and bathers splashing around with hammerhead sharks just a few feet away and they never knew it. I think the sharks have been there all along but now people are watching the water more closely because of the oil spill.

BP has established a free boat washing station in Orange Beach, Alabama. It seems that boats coming in from offshore have crude oil on their hulls and are taking it with them to inshore waters that are not polluted. They will raise the boats on a lift and steam clean the hull. Like I say, what a freaking nightmare.

This date in history June 28

1836    James Madison died on his tobacco plantation in Virginia. He was a drafter of the Declaration of Independence, the chronicler of Continental Conventions, one of the authors of The Federalist Papers and the 4th President of the United States. Had it not been for him and others with the same zeal for freedom as he, we would not be what we are today. His chronicles of the Continental Convention are recognized as some of the most detailed and well phrased ever written. He sealed his chronicles and made them inaccessible until all involved were deceased. Madison started his rise to fame when he attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) and completed a four year curriculum in two. He helped form the American Whig Society which became the rival of the Cliosophic Society, both were literary and debate societies. He, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton were the authors of the Federalist Papers which were instrumental in keeping the public at large informed and fostered independence from England and persuaded the public that a central government could be sensitive to individual rights. I believe these writings were instrumental in the successful adoption of the Constitution. He became a rector at Thomas Jefferson’s beloved University of Virginia. In 1938 the Virginia State Teachers College in Harrisonburg changed to Madison College in his honor, it later became James Madison University. His wife Dolly Tate Madison was recognized as a superb first lady and host. It was she that saved the famous Gilbert portrait of George Washington from the British when she and James had to evacuate the White House from the British onslaught during the War of 1812. We need more like James and Dolly. By the way, James Madison is the only sitting US President to participate in combat. During the War of 1812 a British infantry unit was approaching Washington from Maryland. Madison crossed over into Maryland and took command of an artillery battery. It was during this time period that Dolly evacuated the White House and the British burned it to the ground.

1862    A brigand and adventurer named George Hollis joined the Confederacy and is given the rank of Colonel. Hollis hatches a plan to capture a civilian vessel on the Chesapeake Bay and use it against the Union warship USS Pawnee that was on constant patrol there. He enlists the help of Richard Zargona and they both go to Baltimore and hire a group of pirates to help them. They chose the passenger vessel St. Nicholas as their target. When the day of the attempt arrived, Zargona dressed up as a flirtaceous woman and got aboard in Baltimore. At the next stop, Hollis and the rest of the pirates got aboard as paying passengers. After the boat got out in the middle of the Bay, Hollis and the pirates went to Zargona’s cabin and mapped out their strategy. They then burst out of the cabin and catch the ships crew by surprise and do indeed capture the St. Nicholas. On their way to seek out the Pawnee, they happened upon a heavily laden freighter and being the adventurers and pirates that they were, they could not resist. They captured the freighter that was full of Brazilian coffee. They captured yet another freighter that was full of coal and ice. The cause for the Confederacy was forgotten for a while and they sold their booty for a tidy sum, the USS Pawnee be damned.

1964    On this date the employer of Jim Olive call the police and tell them that he has not shown up for work for several days and that was not like him. The Terra Linda, California police went to the home of Jim and Naomi Olive and find the house in disarray but no Jim and Naomi nor their teenage daughter Marlene. The next day Marlene showed up at the police department with a bizarre tale of the disappearance of her parents. She told several versions on the same theme from Naomi shot and killed Jim to Jim had shot and killed Naomi to the two were kidnapped by a group of Hell’s Angels. As you might suspect, the police did not believe her and finally she confessed. She had induced Jim to take her to the zoo and while they were gone Marlene’s boyfriend Chuck Riley, was to kill Naomi because she and Naomi did not get along. Marlene was using Riley as a source for her drugs by providing him sex in return. Once when Riley and Marlene went on a $6,000 shoplifting spree, Naomi found out about it threatened to tell the cops. It was then that Marlene decided that she had to go. Naomi was an acknowledged schizophrenic/paranoid. Anyway, Riley took a claw hammer with him and went in and started beating up on Naomi. That did not get the job so he resorted to a kitchen knife in the chest. While he was doing the stabbing Jim and Marlene walk in and Jim tried to intervene but Chuck shot Jim in the chest and he died also. Eventually Marlene and Chuck dragged the bodies out into the woods, dug a trench, put the bodies in and poured in several gallons of gasoline and lit it off. Marlene took the police to the site. Marlene got 20 years and Chuck got life without parole.

1969    The so-called “Stonewall” riot occurs on this day. The NYPD raided the gay bar known as “The Stonewall”. The police had cause because the bar was selling liquor without a license. The crowd that was present watched quietly as the owners and bartenders were herded up and put into a paddy-wagon but when the police arrested three drag-queens and a lesbian off the street, the crowd erupted and began throwing bottles and rocks at the cops. The cops had no choice but to retreat into the building and call for a riot squad to come and disperse the mob. It was later discovered that the NYPD raided the gay clubs almost three times as often as they did others. With this information in hands of the bar owners and bartenders the NYPD knew they had no chance and released all with no charges being made. Everyone has prejudices, they are guaranteed by the Constitution, but unequal enforcement of the law is not.

Births and Deaths:

1910    Scottish politico Lord William Whitelaw is born. When speaking of Prime Minister Harold Wilson he said “He is traveling around the country stirring up apathy.”

1926    US comic/actor/producer Mel Brooks is born. He said “If God had wanted us to fly he would have given us tickets.” He is a funny guy.

1946    US Comedienne Gilda Radner is born. She said “I can always be distracted by love, but eventually I get horny for my creativity.” And what a creative talent she was. She is gone and I miss her.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow