Daily history

Good morning,






Quote of the day:


“One of the best temporary cures for pride and affectation is seasickness. A person about to vomit does not pretend.”


                        Josh Billings






I can hardly wait to tell y’all what our crack state House of Representatives has introduced and was passed. They proposed that anyone legal to carry a concealed weapon may do so WITHOUT having to have a special license or training. It looks like the state Senate is favorable to this proposal and so am I. Their rock solid logic is that they cannot keep guns out of the hands of the criminals so the private citizen should have the same advantage. They believe that this measure will have a chilling effect on violent crime. So it is back to the days of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Wild Bill Hickok here in the land of moonshine, fast cars, slow speech and slower women.






Back in February of 1947 here in Greenville a taxi cab was sent to pick up a fare in the “black” community. The fare wanted a ride to the Liberty area (about 10 miles). About an hour later the cab driver was found beaten, robbed and stabbed. He was hustled to the hospital but died anyway. The cops tracked footprints from the crime scene to the home of Willie Earle, a black man. Inside the home they found money with blood stains, a jacket with blood stains and a hunting knife with blood stains. Willie was arrested and taken to the Greenville County Jail and charged with first degree murder. Very soon the jail was surrounded by about 28 taxi drivers screaming for Willie’s head. The Greenville cops hustled Willie out of the jail and secretly (supposedly) took him and adjacent county jail for his safety. Very soon the same cab drivers showed up at the Pickens County Jail and assured the jailer that if he did not surrender Willie it would cost him his life. The jailer did indeed surrender Willie. The next morning Willie was found in a power line right-of-way. He was dead from a beating, stabbing and a shotgun blast to the head. The same 28 taxi drivers were arrested and tried for murder. All the taxi drivers pointed to each other claimed “they” did it. This meant that the jury had no idea who the shooter really was and acquitted all concerned. This is the last known fatal lynching in the Palmetto State.






Libyan dictator Qadhafi has lost control of the Libyan military so he hired a load of mercenaries. He has Moroccan foot soldiers, Chechnya tank crews and Ukrainian fighter/bomber pilots. These guys have no allegiance to anyone except money. It has been reported that each mercenary is paid between $30,000 and $40,000 a week for their services. The only problem here is if someone else offers more money they would have no problem with capping Qadhafi.






I went to a local buffet for lunch this past Sunday. I had a piece of ham, chicken stew over cornbread dressing, black-eyed peas over rice, turnip greens and unsweetened tea. The guy across from me had nine (9) fried chicken legs, half a plate three inches deep of turnip greens, the other side of the plate was three inches high in steamed cabbage, followed by two overfilled bowls of vanilla ice cream. He was not that big either.






Then a big crowd of people came in and they were clearly attendees of the Tremont Avenue Church of God. I knew that because my mother and father attended the same church. This church is one step forward of the Amish. The women wear no make-up, no finger nail or toe nail polish, their hair is always at least down to their shoulders, the men wear clothing that is out of style but that is their choice. Don’t get me wrong, they are fine people, they just have a different outlook on the world and what is good and what is bad.






This date in history February 28






1784 On this date John Wesley established the first Methodist church in America in colonial Georgia. Wesley was a devout Anglican but after the defeat of the British during the American Revolutionary War the Anglican Church abandoned the United States and Wesley felt that he had to replace the Anglican Church so he devised the Methodical Anglicans or Methodists. While in Georgia he became involved with a religious sect mostly from Germany called the Moravians. This was a turning point in Wesley’s life because he admitted that for the first time that he felt the presence of God was at one of those meeting that he attended. While keeping touch with the Moravians he sought the advice of fellow Cambridge graduate George Whitefield. While at Cambridge Wesley and his brother Charles had founded the “Holy Club”. John Wesley’s teachings were not allowed in any Anglican Church so he preached out in the open and over a period of years he had gathered a large following. He finally realized that there had to be more evangelicals than himself along with an administrative staff. His only problem was that his new church had no bishops. He was still used to the Anglican way of things where a minister must be ordained by the”laying on of hands” by a bishop. So John decided that he would ordain the ministers himself and the first two were Dr. John Coke and Francis Asbury and as the saying goes, the rest is history.






1864 US Cavalry Commander Hugh Judson Kilpatrick and Colonel Ulrich Dahlgren are tasked with riding into Richmond and freeing the Union prisoners of war. It was Dahlgren’s job to release the prisoners while Kilpatrick provided cover. They had one additional job and that was to tell every Johnny Reb they met that President Lincoln had offered amnesty and restoration of property to those that would lay down their arms and swear allegiance to the United States. To provide a diversion two divisions of cavalry one led by General John Sedgwick and the other led by Colonel George A. Custer would made raid into the western parts of Virginia. On this date Sedgwick, Custer, Kilpatrick and Dahlgren parted company and went about their assignments. Dahlgren was supposed to approach Richmond from the west and Kilpatrick from the northwest. Kilpatrick arrived of March 1st with CSA General Wade Hampton III and his howling, wild-eyed Confederate Cavalry hot on his tail. Kilpatrick knows he is danger of annihilation and turns his young ass back north which leaves Dahlgren cut off. In the mean time Dahlgren had hired a local guide to take his cavalry to the shallowest part of the James River for crossing into Richmond. The guide instead leads him to the deepest and swiftest current part of the river. The infuriated Dahlgren hanged the guide on the spot. Dahlgren had no choice but to backtrack out of there knowing the Confederates knew he was there. Not only that, by now he had found out that Kilpatrick had been routed and he was on his own. Dahlgren’s cavalry was ambushed time and time again on their way out and they were nearly cut to pieces. There is no record of a Confederate soldier taking Lincoln’s offer of amnesty and restoration. They were a hard-headed bunch.






1993 Earlier a squabble occurred between two people trying to organize the Mount Carmel Church. One of the squabblers was Vernon Howell who claimed to be God and therefore his children would be children of God. The other guy said that to prove who should lead the church would be the one that could dig up a corpse from a graveyard. Howell nixed that idea and in fact went to the police and told them that the other guy was out digging in graveyards. The police did not want anything to do with a religious disagreement. Finally, the two settle it the Christian way, they had a gun fight and Howell wins so it must be God’s will. Howell changed his name to David Koresh and called his church the Branch Dravidian. They then buy a compound outside Waco, Texas. One day a delivery man going to the compound drops a package and out rolls hand grenades. The deliveryman goes to the local police who then notified the Alcohol, Tax and Firearms division. Well, the ATF try to talk Davis Koresh into giving up his considerable stash of weapons and Koresh refuses saying he has the right to bear arms. On this date, the ATF organizes a raid of the compound in which 4 ATF agents are killed along with 6 of the faithful inside. The ATF back off and a two month siege ensues. Finally on one very windy day, a US Army tank rolls up to the buildings, pokes its cannon through the wall and pumps in a hell of a lot of tear gas. The only problem here is that the tear gas canisters can, and very often do, cause a fire. The building catches on fire and in that brisk wind it burns to the ground in minimum time killing 80 of the occupants, men, women and children. There were 11 that escaped the inferno. US Attorney General Janet Reno accepted full responsibility for the disaster because it was she that told the commander of the forces surrounding the compound to get it over with, “We have spent too much money on it already.” Indeed, Janet, indeed.






1953 On this date Cambridge scientists Francis Crick and James Watson area able to isolate and identify a strand of DNA and determine how it is constructed. From this day on law enforcement made a giant leap forward but so did the ability to clone. We one day could have another Adolph Hitler or Attila the Hun. But then again we could have another Albert Schweitzer or Isaac Newton. I hope it is the later.






1881 A section of the US Great Plains had been occupied by Utes, Arapahoes and Cheyenne Indians with virtually no Anglos for centuries. Then gold was discovered near Pike’s Peak in what is now Colorado. Then one of many gold rushes was underway. The gold near Pike’s Peak played out early and so the gold seekers kept moving west to the Rocky Mountains and there they found more gold and silver. On this date, the US Government decided that a new state was needed and they took a piece of Kansas, Utah and New Mexico and came up with a rectangular state and called it the Territory of Colorado.






Born today:






1940 US race car driver Mario Andretti. He said “If everything seems to be under control, you aren’t going fast enough.” That sounds like my third ex-wife.






1976 US actress Ali Larter. She said “I hate all the pretty-boy types. I had rather have one with a pot belly than one who is in the gym all the time and watches what he eats.” I think I love this girl.






Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow