Daily history

Good morning,




Quote of the day:

“When Solomon said that there was a time and place for everything he had not encountered trying to find a parking place for an automobile in London.”

                                       Bob Edwards



As some of you know I had my driver’s license taken from me on Labor Day weekend after a series of unfortunate events and I refused to take any “tests.” I had decided to not hire an attorney and take care of it myself. But finally my friend “Yankee Bob” and several other friends nagged me into getting an attorney and I was able to acquire the services of a top notch attorney here in Greenville at a top notch price, I might add. We had an administrative hearing two weeks ago to settle the issue of my refusal to take the tests in this state of “implied consent” laws. This means that if you refuse to take any tests you are automatically charged with a DUI. My attorney, his private investigator, the arresting officer and I met with the administrative law judge. The arresting officer read his report to the judge to which my attorney must have objected at least 10 times. After the hearing my attorney was well pleased and said that he believed we had won that one because the arresting officer did not have a camera in his car, insisted that I try to do the choreography field sobriety test more than once in spite of the fact that I told him I was a diabetic and ALL diabetics have “numb” feet and a balance problem. The cop also admitted that when he asked me to “blow”, take a blood test or a urine test he was not certified to calibrate or operate the Data-master machine so any test he made would not have been valid. There was other issues that my attorney objected to (I think the cop forgot to Mirandize me when I was arrested) and it apparently had an effect on the judge because I got a letter from the DMV yesterday stating that the Administrative Judge ordered that all offenses, revocations, and suspensions against me will be voided and erased and my driving privileges are to be restored forthwith. I have been asked by others if it is best to take the tests or refuse and hire a lawyer. I my case it was in my best interest to hire a lawyer. If not, you are looking at a probability of a conviction meaning that you are required to buy SR-22 insurance for 3 years. My math tells me that that amount of money is about $7,000. Use your own judgment.



I have been asked why I refused the tests in the first place. It was because the arresting officer spoke to me with disrespect as I saw it. No one gets away with that. Then he tried to entrap me into deceit and outright lies. He was looking at my license and asked me where I lived. I pointed north (the direction to my house) and said “right over there”. He tried to make a big deal of that saying that my house was 3 miles away and that is not “right over there”. He asked several other questions that he already knew the answer to. Finally I told him my version of what happened which was not his version and he was not even present. He finally said “I am tired of you arguing with me.” That did it. I decided then that I was not going to cooperate. I finally found out that I was the first arrest this officer had ever made. I sort of felt sorry for him at the hearing…sort of. I realize that law enforcement is a tough and dangerous job. The real danger is they eventually become jaded and believe that everyone is a criminal or potential criminal. But it is their choice.



It reminds me of when I was an air traffic controller in Pensacola which is the home of the Blue Angels. On one occasion the Angels were out over the Gulf of Mexico practicing and an accident occurred killing one of the pilots. The next day one of our secretaries had been a secretary for the Blue Angels and was very sad and morose. One of our guys told her “Those men chose the glory and accept the danger, don’t be sad they are doing exactly what they want to do.”





This date in history February 10


1779    On this date band of 350 Patriots led by General Andrew Pickens, Colonel Robert Dudley and Lieutenant Colonel Elijah Clarke leave South Carolina headed for Wilkes County, Georgia and a group of 200 British/Loyalist commanded by British Colonel John Hamilton at Carr’s Fort. The Patriots arrive at the site and battle ensues. Just when the Patriots are about to wrap up this battle, General Pickens call for withdrawal and they head out toward another column of British/Loyalist headed for North Carolina with recruits gathered up by Loyalist Colonel Robert Boyd from the city of Augusta, Georgia. They lay an ambush for Boyd’s column near Kettle Creek and when the Loyalists are in the right position, Pickens springs the trap and all but annihilates the column of recruits. British Colonel Colonel Boyd is killed instantly. Both of these events occurred in Wilkes County, Georgia named after the British revolutionary John Wilkes who raised much hell in English Parliament in the behalf of the colonies that he was arrested and jailed for his fiery speeches, so the American colonists send him money for his defense.



1962    Earlier an America spy pilot for the CIA named Gary Francis Powers launched a spy mission from Buda, Norway and is to fly across central Russian enroute to a secret spy base in northern Alaska in the infamous U-2 spy plane. At the same time Russian spy Rudolph Abel is gathering information for the Soviets in New York and Washington. About half way through his mission, Power’s U-2 aircraft loses power and descends to an altitude that can be reached by Russian fighters and ground-to-air missiles. Normally the U-2 is at such a high altitude that nothing can reach them, but not this time. Powers is shot down and captured alive. Meanwhile Russian spy Rudolph Abel is also captured. After several months the Russians and the US decided to swap Powers and Abel so on this day Gary Francis Powers and Rudolph Abel passed each other walking in opposite directions on a bridge to freedom for Powers and suppression for Abel.



1992    On this day the nastiest man on the planet is convicted of rape and is sentenced to 6 years in prison. That’s right it was Mike Tyson that was convicted of raping Desiree Washington after a beauty contest in Indianapolis. Even though he was sentenced to 6 years he only did 3. What was this animal thinking? He is in the spotlight all the time and here he is leaning on an 18 year old girl for sex. He is as stupid and he is uncouth, on top of getting his brains knocked out on a regular basis. He isn’t human.



1861    On this date Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina are standing the rose garden on their plantation ”Brierfield” near Vicksburg, Mississippi when courier rode up with a telegram. Varina wrote that when Davis read the telegram he paled and said that he “felt he could be a General but not this”. Davis was a graduate of West Point and understood the military, but this telegraph named him as the President of the Confederacy. He readily admitted that he was not prepared to be a politician but would do the best he could in his elected position.



1920    Unfortunately for silent actress Theda Bara opened in San Francisco in a play named “Kathleen Mavoureen”. The play makes fun and ridicules the Irish immigrants. Well, the majority of the men in the audience were Irish immigrant miners and railroad workers that had moved out west to work in the gold and silver mines near San Francisco. After it became apparent that the play was making fun of the Irish, the Irishmen got out of their seats and tore the joint apart. The moral of the story is the Irish have no sense of humor when they are the focus of the joke.



1862    On this night poet Dante Rossetti and his pal Algernon Swinburne come home from a night on the town and find Rossetti’s wife dead from an overdose of Laudanum, an opium derivative. No one knows why his wife Elizabeth would do such a thing and Dante was devastated and buried all of his manuscripts with Elizabeth. Dante came from a family of exceptionally talented people and went just the opposite of the wished of his father that wanted Dante to enter politics but that wasn’t Dante’s calling. He knew from an early age that poetry was his forte and would pursue it when the time came. He had a book of poetry published when he was 18 years old. Later on Elizabeth’s body was exhumed and Dante retrieved his manuscripts which provided Dante Rossetti a living for the rest of his life.



1846    On this date The Mormon community in Nauvee, Illinois pulls up stakes and headed west under the leadership of Brigham Young. Their original leader was Joseph Smith who brought them from New York to Nauvee. For some reason, the good people around Nauvee did not like the Mormons and their leader Joseph Smith in particular and took Smith and his son aside and killed them. The probable reason was that Smith considered himself as a prophet of God and he allowed polygamy. I suspect the fine, young men of Nauvee were jealous of the Mormons because they were getting a lot more than them. But for whatever reason, he was killed. The evacuees of Naumee crossed the frozen Mississippi and set up camp near Sugar Grove, Iowa just below Council Bluffs. From there Young sent out scouts to find appropriate camping grounds and good water for his their trek westward. Young felt that he would never be at peace in the United States so he was trying to move west far enough to get out of the US. Eventually Young came upon the Great Salt Lake and by that time they had grown from 1,600 members to 12,000. Young declared that “This is the place”, and Salt Lake City was born and it was land that belonged to Mexico. The only down side of this for the Mormons was that The United States won the Mexican War and Mexico ceded what is now Utah, among others, to the United States so the Mormons found themselves Americans once again. Brigham Young lived to see the population of Salt Lake City reach 100,000.



Quotable quotes:



“My grandmother is 85 and still does not have glasses; she drinks right out of the bottle.”

                                      Henny Youngman



“An opera is a play where a guy is stabbed in the back and instead of dying, he sings.

                                       Robert Benchley



“There is a type of food that makes women give up oral sex, wedding cake.”

                                       Bill Maher



Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow