Good morning,







Quote of the day:


“Careful grooming and make-up can take twenty years off a woman's age, but you can't fool a flight of stairs.”


           Marlene Dietrich






The answer to the trivia question as to what married movie star couple both obtained an Oscar for best actor/actress and what movies...It is Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward...Joanne won an Oscar for the movie “The Three Faces of Eve” and Paul won an Oscar for “The Color of Money”.






I have been asked to give a short synopsis on my piping designer assignments in different locations foreign and domestic. I will start with Reading, Pa. which is about 40 miles west of Philadelphia. The actual office that I was assigned to was about 8 miles south of Reading heading toward the Pennsylvania Turnpike. There was a four lane freeway that went from Reading, by my office and then on down to the Turnpike. I chose to live in Morgantown, Pa. which is very near the turnpike in Amish country. The locals called it “Twin Valley” which was the name of the local high school. If you went west from Morgantown there was indeed two valleys between fairly high mountains with a ridge in between the valleys. The Amish farms in those valleys were like a post card. They were obviously well scrubbed, painted and unblemished. The down side was on Sundays. The Amish do not believe in modern equipment like automobiles, motorcycles, telephones, etc. meaning that after church on Sunday, the roads were choked with one horse wagons full of the Amish faithful coming home from church at about 4 MPH. The town of Morgantown had one traffic light, two restaurants (a steak house and an Amish restaurant) and two bars. My watering hole varied between the two bars. One was The Village Inn (steak house) and the Morgantown hotel. This hotel had about 25 rooms and the building was constructed about 1835. This meant that the heating system was fireplaces including the bar. I went on that job in January so y'all can imagine the amount of wood I saw consumed...but the building was charmingly quaint. About 2 blocks west of the hotel was a small creek and the remains of a very old log cabin. The locals said that the cabin was built by Daniel Boone. If that is true, it is not indicated in any of his bios. The non-Amish that I became acquainted with were pretty clanish and I was not readily accepted early on especially with my down home southern accent. As with many people that live north of the 37th parallel, they thought my accent indicated I was an ignorant “rube”. After they found out what I did and why I was there I was not ridiculed any longer. I never did make what I would call a friend while there but I gained several acquaintenances. For the most part, the men apparently felt that their masculinity was continuously in question and they had to prove it again and again. An example: One day after work I went into the hotel bar and it was so hot that I turned around and started to leave...there was a fire in the fireplace that would melt steel. Before I left I said: “What's up with that fire. It is so hot in here that no one can breath.” A man of about 50 years jumped up amd literally yelled “I built it...when I build a fire it is a real fire.” I said “I'll bet the owner of the bar is real happy with you trying to prove your manhood at his expense because nobody will stay in her with this heat.” This jackass took a few steps toward me but stopped his advance when he saw the look on my face and that I was not backing down. They talk loud too. Almost every day these two buffoons would sit at the bar facing each other and almost scream at each other about the Phillies...the Eagles or the Flyers. It was almost unbelievable that they felt they had to yell at each other to top the other persons comment about these teams while sitting 18 inches apart. Frequently the bartender (Jennifer) had to go over and tell them to be quiet. But perhaps I am just not used to the priorities of those critters north of the 37th parallel. On several occasions I asked a local about the Germantown or Brandywine Revolutionary War battle fields that had to be close by (about 25 miles). Most of them had no clue as to what I was talking about. I also asked about Gettysburg (about 90 miles away) and almost no one knew what was signifcant about it with the exception of the cashier in the Amish restaurant...she knew. That area had a sudden increase in the drug trade and drug related violence while I was there. It seems that Rudy Guiliani had put the heat on the drug dealers in New York city when he was mayor. They chose to cross over into the Allentown area and subsequently down into Reading area. Right across the street from the office there was an attempted assassination. Someone broke into a singlewide and pumped three rounds into the female resident. She did not die and was able to identify the shooter. He was captured a few days later. It was found that he was sent by a New York drug lord to cap this girl because of a drug deal gone wrong. I can't really complain, the drug trade has increased dramatically here in Greenville also. It is primarily due to the “Crips” (black gang) from the Los Angeles area moving here to establish an east coast outlet. The problem that they are having is the Latino drug lords that were already here are engaged in a young war with the Crips for the drug trade. Let them kill each other is what I say. The next synopsis will be about Kingston, Ontario, Canada...a hell of a lot different than Morgantown.






         This date in history March 9






1781 Earlier the Spanish army had been neutralizing British positions in Louisiana and Mississippi and on this date the Spanish navy sent Admiral Bernarde de Galvez with 40 ships and 3,500 men to dislodge the British garrison in Pensacola, Florida. Galvez and his armada swept into Pensacola Bay and anchored. They unloaded their men and supplies onto Santa Rosa Island and prepared to bombard the British embrasures which were about 1 ½ miles away across Santa Rosa Sound. In the meantime they had to weather a hurricane on April 23 while lying at anchor in the bay. April is early for hurricanes in Pensacola but they do happen on occasion. The British had to endure nearly non-stop bombardment after the Spanish got arranged. On May 12, Galvez was reinforced by 7,800 troops and upon seeing this, 18 years of British occupation of Pensacola ended with the surrender of the British garrison. There were only about 170 British casualties and less than 100 for the Spanish. Galvez captured about 1,100 British soldiers but allowed about 300 Britons to immigrate to Georgia if they promised to never enter the British military again. These were obviously Loyalists from Georgia that had joined the British army earlier. Pensacola and West Florida was not of tactical importance to the Spanish but they needed it as a bargaining chip to use with France for the control of Gibraltar. West Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana were important to France for trade.






1862 As stated in the previous lesson, the CSS ironclad Virginia had sailed out into the waters of Hampton Roads, Virginia and kicked ass with the US wooden warships attempting to blockade that area. Well on this date, the United States sailed out its own ironclad named the USS ironclad Monitor. These two peculiar looking vessels engaged in naval combat all morning showering each other with cannon balls with no effect on either one. Late in the afternoon both vessels retired and it was a draw. But it was the beginning of the end for wooden warships world wide.






1997 Six months earlier rapper Tupac Shakur was shot and killed in a drive by shooting in Las Vegas. Tupac was a famous recording artist that specialized in “Gansta Rap” but the problem was that there was friction between the west coast “rappers” and the east coast “rappers”. What I am telling ya’ll is the friction between these two genre got to the point of life-threatening. I do not know if the friction was caused by who was selling the most records or was it about the “truthfulness” of the songs themselves, if you want to call them songs. There is a blues guitarist that is a subscriber that maybe can clear that up for us. Anyway, on this date a rapper named Christopher Wallace using the stage name of The Notorious Mr. B.I.G. was shot and killed while waiting at a stoplight in Los Angeles. Tupac was a west coast “Gangsta Rapper” and Notorious Mr. B.I.G. was and east coast “Gangsta rapper”. Wallace’s murder was never solved. Some believe that the murder was arranged by Tupac’s record producer “Suge” Knight who was in the car with Tupac when he was killed in Las Vegas. Knight was wounded but only slightly. It was reported the Knight hired the Las Angeles gang “The Crips” to cap Wallace. I guess we will ever know.






1841 On this date the United States Supreme Court heard the case of the mutiny aboard the slave ship, the Amistad. You may need a little background here. In 1807 the United States and England agreed to pass laws outlawing any further slave trade and any person that could prove he/she was brought to the United States as a slave after 1807 got a free trip either back to Africa or to Canada. In 1838 a Cuban sloop was returning to Cuba from a slave gathering raid in West Africa when the slaves got loose and revolted. They found some sugar cane cutting machetes and chose to hack everyone to death and throw them over the side except the two Cubans that had bought them, Jose Ruis and Pedro Montes. The slaves instructed the Cubans to take them back to Africa post haste and the Cubans set a course for Africa. Except the Cubans would run east in the daytime and turn north all night. Finally the ship was sighted off Long Island, New York and was brought to shore in Connecticut by a US warship. Ruis and Montes were released and the Africans were jailed during an investigation of mutiny and murder. Ruis and Montes sued for the return of their “Cuban born” slaves. The Spanish government wanted the slaves returned to Cuba to stand trial for piracy and murder. A federal judge named Samuel Judson ruled that the Africans were brought to America as slaves as outlawed in the l807 statute and should be returned to Africa. Well, the s--t hit the fan y'all. President Martin Van Buren raised hell and did many others and the case was appealed to the US Supreme Court. The abolitionists became deeply involved as did most of the country. The United States Supreme Court rule in favor of the lower court decision that the Africans were indeed brought to the US as slaves and had the right to return to Africa. Two months later the US ship “Gentleman” sailed out of New London, Connecticut and took the slaves back home to Sierra Leone, Africa. This decision by the Supreme Court was a milestone in the dispensing of justice but the Court has not been that wise in all cases as we all know.






1945 on this night the United States Air Force, under the leadership of General Curtis Lemay, firebombed Tokyo for the first time, and it won’t be the last. 78,000 acres of Tokyo are disintegrated. After the capture of Iwo Jima, Guam, Saipan and Tinian the US Air Force could bomb mainland Japan almost with impunity. General LeMay was brought to task for these firebombing raids as being unnecessary as the war was approaching an end but LeMay countered with “War has to be fought totally or not at all.” And indeed WWII ended with the surrender of Japan in August after the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.






Born today:






1923 US publisher James Buckley. When visiting a McDonalds for the first time he was asked what he wanted to drink he said “I will take a glass of your house Chablis.” James has class, y'all






1993 British writer C. Northcote Parkinson. He said “It is a known fact that men enter politics to get away from their wives.” Perhaps he is talking about Bill Clinton, or maybe Hillary Clinton, or maybe both.






 Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow