Daily history

Good morning,




Quote of the day:



“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

Dr. Seuss



It looks like Tiger Woods might lose his number one in the world ranking by the way he has been playing in the last two tournaments. There is little question that his well known”killer instinct” has left him and so has his concentration. A few years ago the same thing happened to Fred Couples after he went through a bitter divorce. It took Freddie five years to get back to normal. The sad part is that Tiger’s father Earl warned him about having a wife and kids while playing professional golf. Earl told Tiger that all of his attention needed to be on his game if he planned to be the best that ever was. As we all know Tiger did not listen and not only did he divide his attention between his game and his family, he chose to divide into even more segments with all of his girlfriends. Earl was right when he told Tiger to not do anything but golf until he decided to retire and then he could do whatever he wanted. He did not listen. Like many famous athletes he felt he was 10 feet tall and bullet-proof. He was wrong.



Officer Paul Russell of the Mount Pleasant, South Carolina Police department was sitting at home last Friday night when a relative called him from the Market Street Bar and Grill in North Charleston asking officer Russell to come and get him because he was too hammered to drive. Russell’s private car was being used by another member of the family so Russell retrieved his relative in his patrol car. Apparently this is a no-no in the eyes of the Chief of Police of Mount Pleasant no matter how noble the cause. The patrol car is not supposed to be used for anything except official police business and Russell has been disciplined. The form of discipline was not disclosed but I always thought the police were there “to protect and serve”, but what do I know.



Friday night I went to listen to a couple of female singers that have been in this town for several years. It was a good experience…The Jack Daniels was good too. Then I went to another venue to hear a solo female singer named Jean Calvert whose voice is smooth as silk and always very controlled. Jean always surrounds herself with superb musicians and her timing is immaculate. It is always a pleasure.



This date in history August 10



1846 In 1826 an Englishman named James Smithson died and his will stated that if his only nephew died without and heir, then all of his fortune would be bequeathed to the United States to be used to create a Smithsonian Institute dedicated to the collection and distribution of knowledge. Well, sure enough Smithson’s nephew James Hungerford did indeed die without an heir. The United States was at a loss as to how to proceed with this windfall. So in 1836 US President Andrew Jackson sent diplomat Richard Rush to England to negotiate for Smithson’s assets. Rush returned to America two years later with 11 cases of booty that was valued at $500,000 after the gold coins were melted down and formed into ingots. The US politicians were still squabbling about the gold and what should become of it (typical politicians) then US President James K. Polk signed the Smithsonian Institute Act and then there was no doubt what the gold would be used for. The strange part about this whole scenario is that Smithson had never set foot in America but today there are 11 buildings that are known as being part of the Smithsonian Institute all named in the honor of a man we never knew.



1821 On this date the territory of Missouri was admitted as the 24th state and the first one totally west of the Mississippi River. Missouri was named for one of the Indian tribes in the area as were many of our states. The admission of Missouri into the Union was delayed because Congress could not decide if Missouri would be admitted as a free state or as a slave state. Then Congress agreed to the so-called Missouri Compromise which stated that Missouri would enter the Union as a slave state but any other states north of Missouri’s southern border would enter the Union as Free states. This decision polarized Missouri into Pro-Confederate and Pro-Union factions upon the outbreak of the Civil War. There were many battles fought by these two factions all during the Civil War. One of the most famous was the guerilla group known as Quantrill’s Raiders. Jesse and Frank James were members of this group and continued to raid pro-Union groups after the war. Then they decided that raiding banks and trains was more profitable.



1977 On this date the NYPD arrest a beast named David Berkowitz. This animal had gained the nickname of “Son of Sam” from the signature on his writings during his year of terror administered to the people of New York City. He decided to start murdering people because his neighbor’s dog, a black Lab named Harvey, had told him that it was time for him to kill. The owner of the Lab was a man named Sam Carr and that is where Berkowitz got “Son of Sam” as a sobriquet. He was known to be responsible for at least 15 killings and that many more wounded. This seems very lucky because he used a .44 Magnum revolver. The NYPD organized a group of detectives known as the Omega Group whose sole purpose was to capture “Son of Sam”. The police got a break when a witness told the police that she saw a man similar to the description in the newspapers near the location of one of the shootings. She also said that she saw the police writing parking tickets there also. The police back tracked the parking tickets and came up with David Berkowitz whose car had been ticketed. It was just a day or two later that he was arrested. He happily admitted to the murders and when the police captured him coming out of his apartment, he said that he was on his way to kill some more. They found a 30.06 rifle and a .44 caliber revolver. Ballistics proved that it was his revolver that had fire at least six of the fatal shots. He was tried, convicted and given six twenty-five to life sentences. He will not see the light of day again. Like I have said in the past, let me designate the penalty for monsters such as this. I promise that crime would decrease precipitously.



1877 Earlier Amanda McFarland and her husband, a Presbyterian minister, had settled in the northwestern United States to minister to the Indians in that area, especially the Nez Perce. After a few years Amanda’s husband died leaving the relatively young Amanda in the wilderness alone. She made her way to the settlement of Seattle where she met another Presbyterian minister that had a church there. The minister told her that the Indians in what would later become southern Alaska had never heard about Christianity so Amanda decided to go there. She somehow made her way to the rugged Fort Wrangell and began a ministry. She achieved the trust of the natives there and became an important counselor to the different tribes in the area. Finally a male evangelist arrived at the Fort and assumed most of Amanda’s duties but she stayed and continued to befriend the natives. She died at the age of 80 in 1912 being highly revered by her friends.



1981 On this date the head of six year old Adam Walsh is found in a swamp in Florida. Little Adam had been kidnapped from a shopping mall about a week earlier. Two years later two career criminals named Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole confessed to and then recanted the murder of Adam. Adam’s father John became an advocate of anti-crime and initiated a TV show called America’s Most Wanted. As all of ya’ll know the show featured a variety of criminal that were on the loose or had escaped law enforcement. The show was very successful and was responsible for the capture of over 1,000 criminals at large including Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole. These two met in a soup kitchen in Jacksonville, Florida and drifted across the US randomly killing together or individually. They admitted to hundreds of killing but the police believe that they exaggerated but they also believe that they are responsible for about 100 murders. It is not known for sure if these two killed little Adam but they will never see daylight again. Again, I can assure you that some of the unspeakable methods of torture I read about during the Spanish Inquisition would be appropriate for these animals.



Born today:



1913 US Physicist Wolfgang Pauli. After reading a paper authored by a colleague he said “This isn’t right, it isn’t even wrong.” Wolfie would dance around on occasion.



1959 US actress Roseanna Arquette. She said “I have trouble even saying hu...hu...husband.”



1928 US singer Eddie Fisher. He said “Yes Debbie Reynolds (his ex-wife) is like the girl next door if the girl next door is selfish, self-centered, driven and an untruthful phony.”



Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow