Good
morning,
Quote
of the day:
“We
are born wet, naked and hungry and then things get worse.”
George
Carlin
A
while back the Burris family in Boiling Springs, South Carolina had a
little trouble. It seems that 17 year old Kate Burris had been
abusing her use of a cell phone given to her by her parents. Her
parents gained possession of the cell phone and hid it from Kate.
The enraged Kate began pulling clothes out of dresser drawers,
silverware from kitchen drawers, etc. Her mother tried to restrain
her and Kate began beating her up. Kate’s father intervened and
Kate began beating up on him. He ended up with bruises, scratches
and one black eye. Kate was arrested and charged with assault but
was released after bail in the amount of $2,000 was paid.
The
above item is very disturbing to me. I would no more fight with
either of my parents because I know what would happen afterward and
I had too much respect for them both to do such a thing. I hear a
lot of chatter about corporal punishment being detrimental to
children. Here is something to consider...there is no question that
the “greatest generation” this young country has ever produced
was those that lived between about 1900 and 1955. They endured giant
dust storms, unparalleled poverty during the Great Depression,
stopped the Germans in WWI, stopped the Nazis and Japanese in WWII
and fought in Korea in addition to innumerable nasty skirmishes in
the attempt to preserve freedom. For bad behavior corporal
punishment was common and was expected. It did not scar their hearts
and souls...did it? Do we have more violent crimes then or now?
Mass murder was almost unheard of during those times and nearly
everyone was armed. To me it is clearly a general lack of respect
and discipline in present day. Where did that come from? You do the
math.
A
while back the Asheville, NC police department notified the
Anderson, South Carolina police to be on the lookout for forty year
old Charles Bennett, Jr. of Anderson. This jackass had been in an
internet chat room and solicited sex from what he thought was an 11
year old girl. The Anderson cops went on the chat room, found
Bennett and pretended to be the 11 year old girl and the cops set up
a meet and Bennett agreed. Bennett went to the meet only it wasn’t
an 11 year old girl, it was a couple of Anderson’s finest. Bennett
is looking at 20 years of hard time. I like it.
Last
Thursday Princes William and Harry were spotted going into a private
room in the Rendezvous restaurant, a world famous rib house in
Memphis, Tennessee. It is reported that they were there for a
friend's wedding. It has been a long time but I have visited the
Rendezvous. Back in those days I was not that familiar with pork
ribs and I was blown away when I first tasted them. Since then I
have tasted many ribs from different parts of the country and I have
developed a taste for them. There are a couple of rib houses here in
Greenville, SC that are super. Both smoke the ribs and offer a
variety of sauces. I prefer a mustard base sauce but the best
overall is Henry's Smokehouse and next is Bucky's Barbecue. On that
visit to Memphis I also paid a visit to Beale Street, one of the
locations of the beginnings of “Delta” blues. Delta blues is a
type of blues that was played almost exclusively by Africa-Americans
up and down the Mississippi River in the very early years. The true
capitol of Delta blues is Clarksdale, Mississippi. It is a small
town on the Mississippi River several miles south of Memphis. Morgan
Freeman has a large interest in a blues club in Clarksdale not to
mention a huge estate in Washington, Mississippi which is a short
distance from Clarksdale. I looked the estate up on Google Earth and
zoomed in on it...huge, y'all. My favorite blues artist is Muddy
Waters (real name McKinley Morganfield) who was born in Rolling Fork,
Mississippi but he made blues history in Chicago. His style of music
was unabashedly copied by the Rolling Stones. Muddy once said “Mick
Jagger stole my music but he made me famous.” I did research on
Muddy's life and was amazed at how many famous blues musicians he
performed with. Many are legends in Delta blues. The downside was
he signed a recording contract with the Chess brothers who
essentially robbed the hell out of him all of his life. They made
millions off of his recordings and paid Muddy a very modest salary
and bought him a new Cadillac every 3rd
year. It was the Caddy that dazzled Muddy but I guess everybody has
their own priorities.
This
Date in History May 6
1775
On this date William Franklin sent a note to William Legge, the 2nd
Earl of Dartmouth, that any further engagements like those at
Lexington and Concord would do nothing but never making it possible
for the reconciliation of the British and the Colonists. William
Franklin was the illegitimate son of Patriot Benjamin Franklin and
also was the Royal Governor of New Jersey. When Ben went to England
in 1757 he took little William with him and sent him to Oxford where
he studied law. Ben studied social climbing and chasing skank,
primarily. When William was a child he went everywhere with Benjamin
and was with him when he conducted many of his experiments. When it
was apparent that the colonies were going to rebel and seek
independence, Ben went home to provide his assistance to his
homeland. William decided to stay loyal to the British who, after
all, had taken this candle makers son and educate him to the point of
a Master of Arts degree from Oxford. Later on he was named as Royal
Governor of New Jersey. Neither Ben nor William ever changed their
stripes and Ben remained a colonist hell-bent of Independence and his
son stayed loyal to the crown. Benjamin and William grew further and
further apart and in 1782 after the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown,
William sailed to England never to return. Ben saw him once after
that when he stopped by for a visit on the way home from France. Ben
wrote William out of his will saying that had England had won the war
he would not have had anything left anyway. What a great man
Benjamin Franklin was and we were very fortunate to have him on our
side.
1876
The Thomas Gainsborough portrait of Georgia Spenser, better known
as The Duchess of Devonshire is auctioned off in London nearly 100
years after it mysteriously disappeared. Georgia Spenser was an
ancestor to Princess Diana. The public interest was aroused once
again when the painting was stolen from the Thomas Agnew & Sons
art gallery. It was stolen by master thief Adam Worth who needed it
to provide bail for his jailed brother. But his brother was able to
make bail on his own but Worth decided that he liked the painting and
would keep it. Adam Worth was the 19th
century’s most masterful criminal and was the model for writer A.
Conan Doyle‘s master criminal Mr. Moriarity in the Sherlock Holmes
series. Worth was born in Germany and raised in the United States.
He joined the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War and was
reported killed at the Battle of the Second Manassas. After this he
joined several different units, took the enlistment bonus and
promptly deserted. After the war Worth went to New York and joined
with a group of pickpockets. He was finally caught and sentenced to
three years in Sing Sing but escaped after just a few weeks and took
up bank robbery. Worth was very careful and in addition to robbing
banks he became very efficient in forgery and moved to England to ply
his trade. He still had possession of The Duchess of Devonshire
portrait. But he had two conspirators in the theft of the portrait
who felt they did not get enough money for helping in the heist and
went to the police. Worth refused to tell where the portrait was and
he was jailed but not on charges related to the portrait. While in
prison Worth decided that he would use the portrait as a bargaining
tool to get out of prison or at least have his sentence reduced. It
did not work and he served the entire four years and after his
release he moved back to America. After a change of heart he began
negotiation with the Pinkerton Detective agency for the return of the
portrait. An amount was agreed upon and the painting was finally
returned to England in 1901. US financier J.P. Morgan became
fascinated by the story and went to England and bought The Duchess of
Devonshire for $150,000. Worth did not get as much a ransom as he
thought and died penniless a few years later.
1940
On this date John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for
fiction for his book The Grapes of Wrath. This book was about a
family of poor dirt farmers from Oklahoma that were caught up in the
Great Depression along with the worst drought in hundred years and
were forced to pull up stakes and head for California to find work.
The book was about the trial and tribulations of this family on the
trip west and what happened to them once they arrived. The book was
a tremendous exercise in imagination. This was not the only well
acknowledged book written by this master. He gave us Cannery Row, Of
Mice and Men, Travels With Charlie among several others. In his
younger years he lived in the Salinas Valley in California but was
determined to be a writer and moved to New York where he became a
laborer and a part time journalist. While there he wrote two
unsuccessful novels. Then his father gave him a small house and
income back in Salinas County so he moved back home. His first book
after coming home was Tannery Row which was a critical and financial
success. After this, Steinbeck delivered one successful novel after
another. He wrote two successful movies in Viva Zapata and Forgotten
Village. He became very interested in marine biology and wrote The
Sea of Cortez to wide acclaim from marine naturalists and biologists.
His book Travels with Charlie was about him traveling around America
in company of his poodle named Charlie and the people he met during
his travels. This book earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1962. He died in New York in 1968 leaving a gap in American
literature that has yet to be filled. Larry McMurtry came close
until he was the screen writer for the movie Brokeback Mountain. In
my opinion any writer that was able to give us a saga like Lonesome
Dove and then writes Brokeback Mountain has sold out. There are so
many literary gems that he has written that there are too many to
mention here. I will dedicate a column to him in the future. This
one is about Steinbeck.
1937
On this date the German zeppelin Hindenburg after a successful
trans-Atlantic crossing from Germany, approached the landing mast at
Lakehurst, New Jersey. The zeppelin had to delay its landing earlier
because of a thunderstorm in the area. As the gigantic ship
approached the mooring mast, it all of a sudden burst into flame and
fell to the ground destroyed killing several people on the ground and
aboard the ship. The ship used flammable hydrogen rather than
non-burning helium, a serious error.
Born today:
1853
US Senator Philander Knox. When speaking to President Theodore
Roosevelt about the Panama Canal he said “Mr. President, do not let
so great an achievement suffer any taint of legality.”
1856
Moravian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. He said “I have found
little that is good about human beings. Most of them are trash.”
I wonder if Will Rogers ever met Sig.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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