Thursday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Marriage is like putting your hand in a sack full of snakes hoping you will pull out an eel.”

Leonardo da Vinci

In a previous edition I mentioned visiting the Rendezvous restaurant and Beale street in Memphis. I was stationed at Greenville AFB, Mississippi at the time. Greenville is on the Mississippi river south of Memphis about 150 miles. I did not have a car nor did most of us. There was one person that did have a car and two of us decided to ride with him up to West Memphis, Arkansas which is just across the river from Memphis. There were two night clubs in West Memphis that were renown pick-up places. They were Danny's Place and The Cotton Club. We went to Danny's Place and mingled. The place was packed. It got close to closing time and we started looking for our driver. He was no where to be found. We went outside and his car was gone so me and the other guy went out on the street and began hitchhiking. Needless to say, we were very angry. About 6:30a our driver pulled up and waited for us to get in. We asked him what the hell happened. He said that he had met a receptive girl and he went home with her. We told him to go to hell and continued hitchhiking. He should have had the courtesy to tell us what was happening rather than leaving us hanging in the wind. We finally got back to the base but it was dark when we got there. That was a lesson learned.

I am still reading the book “Germs, Steel and Germs”, a Pulitzer Prize winner. It is a book about why we are the way we are, animals included. The author surmised that there is a difference between being “tamed” and “domesticated”. Tamed means that an individual terrestrial mammal can be subjugated by humans to do their bidding, domesticated means animals being held together in herds for reproduction such as horses and cattle. He offers several reasons why of the 148 species of terrestrial mammals only 14 are domesticated. Here are a few of them: The Cheetah: It cannot be domesticated and the reason is the mating process. A group of brother cheetahs will begin a chase of the same female that will last for days and cover many miles. It also involved the female having several rough encounters with each of the brothers and finally settling on one of them. If this does not happen, the female does not ovulate. This obviously cannot happen in a cage or a small enclosure.

Bad attitude: Grizzly Bears. Even though the Grizzly offers a ton of meat when mature, their irascible, unpredictable and often lethal attitude makes them too hazardous to consider. Not only that, it takes too long for them to mature. There is a group of people in northern Japan that raise grizzly cubs to about 14 months and them slaughter and eat them. According to them after 14 months they are too dangerous to keep.

Tend to panic: The Gazelle, both African and Middle eastern. Once these animals determine that they are trapped they absolutely refuse to submit and will batter themselves to death on the fence or whatever the enclosure is made of trying to escape. Anyway, how are you going to contain an animal with this tendency that can leap 30 feet and run 50 MPH?

This is but a few of the instances covered by the author.

He said that it is those animals with a well structured herding instinct that are the easiest to domesticate and offers wild horses as an example. Wild horse herds are lead by a stallion then mares A, B, C, D, and E and their colts. Mare A submits only to the stallion and dominates mares B, C, D, and E. Mare B submits to the stallion and mare A and dominates mares C, D, and E. I think y'all see how this works. All humans have to do is replace the stallion with themselves and the rest of the herd will follow.

There are those animals that will reluctantly abide you individually but will not participate in a herd. Have you ever heard of a herd of cats?

                               This Date in History May 8

1864 Yesterday after completion of the bloody Battle of the Wilderness, US General Ulysses Grant headed for the important crossroads near the Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia in the hopes of gaining the lead ahead of CSA General Robert E. Lee toward Richmond, Virginia. General Lee again was able to sniff out Grant’s intentions and sent CSA General James Longstreet’s division under the command of CSA General Richard Anderson because Longstreet was wounded, on a forced march to reach Spotsylvania before Grant. On this date the Confederates did indeed reach Spotsylvania before Grant and was able to construct defensive breastwork before Grant arrived. This made it extremely difficult for Grant because of the determination and grit of the Confederate defenders. One of the top three bloodiest battles in the American Civil War ensued. The Union and Confederate soldiers fought each other without a break for 10 hours. The battle finally waned because of sheer exhaustion of the troop and the coming of night. But the next day it started all over again. At times the soldiers’ bayonets were touching across the breastwork. It was hell on earth, y'all. But again, Grant knew that he had more troops and artillery than Lee and kept pushing.

1945 On this date the United States and Great Britain announced that German soldiers everywhere they were to be found laid down their arms and surrendered to whatever Allies were close by. The war in Europe was over. They called it VE-Day for victory in Europe. Ever since 1939 and the invasion of Poland and the Balkans by the Germans, the devil incarnate in Adolph Hitler had ruled Europe. He had preached that the “3^rd Reich” would rule the world for a thousand years. They lasted six years.

1541 In 1539 the Spanish conquistador Hernan De Soto landed on the west coast of Florida with 600 troops and 200 horses, a pack of bloodhounds and began exploring the territory. As usual they were looking for silver and gold like they found in Central and South America among the native tribes. They headed north through North Florida, Georgia and South Carolina before turning west across the Appalachians where they went into north Alabama. They did not find any gold and silver but they did find some valuable pearls in north Georgia. As usual the Spanish took many Indians captive and treated them like hell using them to carry supply packs and as guides. However, the Indians set an ambush for De Soto and his troops near the Indian village of Mabilia (Mobile) and they barely got out without annihilation. De Soto’s troops wanted to head south and try to reach any Spanish ships known to be cruising the area. De Soto headed his troops north and then west through Arkansas and Louisiana and on this date, he reached the Mississippi River just south of Memphis. De Soto and his troops built rafts to cross the river but would only do it at night to avoid the ever patrolling Indians on both sides. De Soto and his troops went west a short distance when De Soto came down with malaria and died soon thereafter. His troops brought his body back to the Mississippi and buried in the river at night so the Indians would not know he was dead. De Soto had convinced the Indians that he was a God. Gods don’t die. The troops wanted to get home so they rafted down the Mississippi to the delta and followed the Gulf Coast across Texas and on down into Mexico. They reached Vera Cruz in late 1543 with only half of the troops the started with, but they were safe.

1792 On this date the United States Congress passed a conscription law stating “all able bodied men between the age of 18 and 45 will make themselves available to the military”. It was the beginnings of the draft. Nearly every major power in the world has drafted or conscripted troops at one time or another. In ancient Rome able bodied men were drafted for a 20 years tour...If I am not mistaken, able bodied women are also drafted into the Israeli army. Speaking of that, two of the most vicious military commanders in history were women. One was an early Britain name Boudicca and the other was a Viking name Freida, the daughter of Eric the Red.

1846 On this date US General Zachary Taylor engaged a Mexican army of nearly twice his size near the now Texas town of Palo Alto. General Taylor and the Americans delivered a severe ass-whipping. Not only that, the next day Taylor met them again near Resaca de la Palma and kicked their ass once again. Again, even though they were outnumbered, the Americans were much better trained and had superior weaponry. The Mexican War had not been officially declared but it might as well had been because Taylor had already been engaged in two battles.

1988 Earlier Stella Nickell of Seattle, Washington had decided to murder her husband. She took out a life insurance policy on her husband that had a rider stating that if her husband died an accidental death, she would get an extra $100,000. So she did some research and found out all she could about cyanide. She went into her husband’s bottle of Excedrin and took apart one of the capsules and replaced the contents with cyanide. A few days later her husband did indeed take the Excedrin and died. Believe it or not, an autopsy was performed and the coroner decided that Stella’s husband had died of emphysema making his death of natural causes not accidental as stated in the insurance policy. Stella panicked and in order to make his death appear as an accident, she went into two separate drugstores and replaced the contents of a few Excedrin capsules with arsenic and put them back on the shelf. This was the days before there was a seal over the top of the cap like it is today. A few days later, a woman named Susan Snow took a newly purchased capsule of Excedrin and died instantly. Stella had in mind that if this happened and the FDA investigated, there would be no doubt that her husbands autopsy would be done again and his death would be ruled as accidental giving her an extra 100K. But she was caught and convicted and given 90 years. She will be eligible for parole in 2018.

Born today:

1920 US writer Sloan Wilson. He said “Success in nearly any field depends mostly on drive and energy that it does intelligence.” That is why we have so many of stupid leaders.

1952 US writer Beth Henley. She said ”Writing is creating or spinning dreams for other people so they won’t have to do it themselves.” I hope that is the case.

                          Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow