Good morning,







Quote of the day:


“Joan Crawford is such a bitch. One day I am going to snatch out all the hair in her mustache.”
                                      Bette Davis




One thing I left out in the essay about “Flight 19” is that there are certain flight maneuvers a pilot can do that will tell a radar operator that you are lost or have an inoperative radio. The problem is I don't know if there was sophisticated “sweep” radar in use in that area at that time. There is now.






Over in Dublin, Ireland someone stole a religious object from the Christ Church Cathedral. The patron saint of Dublin is St. Lawrence O'Toole who was the archbishop here in the mid 1100's. After his death, he was canonized and made a saint on the word of many people that testified miracles occurred at his grave site. St. Lawrence's heart was removed and encased and attached to a wall in Christ Church Cathedral. The method of the attachment made it very difficult to remove it but the thieves were equal to the task. St. Lawrence's heart and the case is in the hands of the unknown in spite of security camera's on site. The police are still scrutinizing the films/CD's. St. Lawrence did his best work in negotiating settlements between Gaelic and Norman factions. In fact, St. Lawrence was in Normandy negotiating when he died. St. Lawrence was Roman Catholic but his heart went to Christ Church after the Reformation. Going a little further back in history, we find that about the 8th century Dublin was established as an outpost by the Vikings. The Gaels were there already but had not established a city in that location but felt they were being invaded as indeed they were. There were many battles between Gaelic and Viking armies but for the most part the Vikings stayed. The same thing happened over in England. The Vikings wanted to settle there also and many battle resulted. Nothing was really accomplished until the legendary King Alfred the Great was able to stem the advance of the Vikings and peace prevailed with the Vikings being allowed to settle peacefully. The Vikings also settled in France mostly in villages near the English Channel, but there were other places. The Vikings were also known as the Northmen since the were Scandinavian. Northmen eventually was corrupted to Norman and that section of France became known as Normandy, with which we are all familiar as related to D-Day in WWII. There is little question that those of us that have ancestry from western Europe have a drop or two of Viking blood flowing in our veins.






Just to show you that there really are some strange critters out there, there is a math teacher in a charter school in Washington , DC that ha been fired for introducing math problems such as these:


“I was sleeping one night and a vampire sucked 3,585 liters of blood from me and 1,865 liters from my little brother. How much blood did the vampire drink that night.”






And another:


“I took a nap in a swamp one day and woke up screaming. There were 3,796 leeches, 2,916 fleas and 1094 vampire bats on my head drinking my blood in ecstacy. How man bloodthirsty bloodsuckers were on my head?”






             How did this ghoul get a teaching job?






                This date in history March 7






1777 On this date Abigail Adams received three letters from her husband John and he received two letters from her. Exchanges of letters like this showed time and time again how dedicated they were to each other. John was complaining how much he disliked being in Baltimore taking care of Government business because The United States Congress had to leave Philadelphia because of the British army’s presence there. He complained that the residents in Baltimore were not as sophisticated as those in Philadelphia because Baltimore was full of those boring Quakers. Abigail was in Braintree, Massachusetts taking care of the farm and told John how adverse the weather was for the last few weeks. Y’all keep in mind that his was 140 years before women were allowed to vote. Albeit I have been accused of being a male chauvinist more than once, if it had not been for the support of the “women taking care of the farm” for our ancestors more than likely things would have turned out much differently.






1862 Earlier CSA General Sterling Price had to withdraw from Missouri and was being chased by US General Samuel Curtis. General Price and his army of 8,000 met up with CSA General Ben McCullough and another small army led by CSA General Earl Van Dorn and they combined into an army of 14,000 and turned to face General Curtis and his army of 10,000. General Earl Van Dorn was selected to be the battlefield commander. On this date the two armies met at Pea Ridge, Arkansas near the Elkhorn Tavern. Van Dorn sent Ben McCullough and his troops on a flanking maneuver early on but McCullough was killed and his troops were soon in disarray. After seeing this, US General Curtis launched a counter-attack and after prolonged bitter fighting the Confederates withdrew. This battle was a serious loss for the Confederates because they never again were a viable power in the state of Arkansas. By the way, CSA General Earl Van Dorn was literally caught in the saddle by a jealous husband and killed ending a brilliant military career.






1981 On this date 23 year old Karen Barnes is found dead in her San Francisco apartment with her skull crushed and stabbed 27 times in the face and neck. Earlier Karen had allowed Susan and James Carson to live in her apartment. Susan and James were children of privileged parent but decided to live a life on the dark side. Karen, James and Susan went for weeks walking around naked and all were arrested for indecent exposure and a variety of drug charges more than once. As you might suspect, James and Susan were no where to be found after the police found Karen. They had moved to small town in Arizona and into a mobile home with a man name Gary Ferguson. One night Gary said something that Susan considered an insult and James whipped out a pistol and capped Gary. In 1983 James and Susan end up out on the highway hitchhiking and were picked up by John Hillyer. Poor old John said something that Susan thought was offensive and James came to the rescue with his trusty sidearm and dispatches John with three shots to the head. The police finally catch up with these two jackasses and they are tried for the murder of Karen Barnes, Gary Ferguson and John Hillyer. Their defense was that all three of them were witches and the Bible and the Koran allows the killing of witches. Although a novel defense, the jury didn’t by it and sent them to prison for life without parole. It is too bad that they were tried in California. If it had been Texas or South Carolina they would have met their maker fried to golden brown, or maybe meet their mentor in a place a lot warmer.






1885 On this date the state of Kansas restricted cattle from Texas entering the state from March to December meaning that there would only be two months that the cattle would be allowed. The dairy farmers had been complaining that Texas cattle had been bringing tick fever and hoof and mouth disease into Kansas infecting their herds. The lowest time in the year for these diseases is January and February. The trouble was that the rail head cow towns like Abilene, Hays, Newton among others relied on the Texas cowboys for a great deal of their income from their cattle drives up from San Antonio, Texas by the Chisholm Trail. But Kansas had to make a decision. It was either cattle or agriculture and the powers that be knew it would be agriculture so they had to start weaning those cow towns from Texas money. It was a moot point a few years later when the railroads reached the center of Texas and Kansas became famous not for wild shootouts and Wild Bill Hickok but for horizon to horizon fields of grain.






Born today:






1934 TV personality Willard Scott. He said “Bryant Gumbel’s ego has applied for statehood. If it allowed it will be the fifth largest.” I agree totally. Bye the way, Bryant and his brother were born in Lake Charles, Louisiana.






1965 US opera star Denyce Graves. She said “Real poverty is the loss of imagination.” In that case I will never be poverty stricken.






Died today:






332BC Greek philosopher Aristotle. He said “Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.” Aristotle was the personal tutor to Alexander the Great.






1971 English writer Florence Smith. She said “If I had been the Virgin Mary, I would have said no”. I would venture to say this broad is a feminist.






1981 English writer Bosley Crowder. When speaking of Loretta Young he said “Whatever it was this actress never had, she still hasn’t got it.” I did not like her either.






1999 English filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. He said “I keep seeing lousy films and I say to myself, “I don’t know anything about making movies but I can do better than that.”






Quotable quotes:






A French military commander reported to King Charles the Bald that 20 to 30 Viking ships were headed up the Seine River from the English Channel. Charles responds with “We do not have to worry about a few Viking ships”. The commander said “Sire, when the leader of this group of Vikings is named Ragnar the Skull Splitter, we should at least be concerned.”






“It is not the length of life, but the depth of it.”


                  Ralph Waldo Emerson






      Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow