Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“I have been married to a biker, a socialist and an ultra conservative and neither one of them would take out the garbage.”

Michele Lee

I do not understand Michele's problem, taking out the garbage is a mutually absorbed task...isn't it?

A while back I mentioned that a friend of mine and myself got discharged from the Air Force near Seattle and bought an old Chevy for sale on the side of the road with the intentions of driving to the east coast and seeing some of America along the way. The first stop was The Dalles, Oregon. After that the next memorable stop was in Pendleton, Oregon. We spent the night there and the next morning we went to a restaurant recommended by the desk clerk for breakfast. It was directly across the street from an arena where a famous rodeo called The Pendleton Roundup is held. Also in that town is where the well know Pendleton woolen apparel is made. When we went in to the restaurant we were the only people in there that did not have on a plaid flannel shirt, denim pants and a cowboy hat including both men and women. I ordered sausage and eggs, hash browns (no grits available) toast and coffee. When they brought our food out it was on a platter. The sausage covered the entire bottom of the platter with the eggs on top, the potatoes were on a side plate, not a saucer, a plate and each of us got six slices of toast. The coffee was strong enough float a battleship. It was by far the largest breakfast I have ever encountered. The sausage was also the best I have ever tasted. I guess those cowboys have to eat a lot to maintain their strength while doing all that hard work. Pendleton was a beautiful city. We stopped at several places but the next memorable stop was Boise, Idaho...more about this adventure later. 

I have been watching a series on the great white shark and their attacks on humans. As most of you know the great white is not peculiar to any one place in the world...they are found in nearly all oceanic waters worldwide. There is one thing that is common. All female great white sharks will travel from one section of their home water to another dependent upon the season. These sharks will stop at specific places during their travels, these places are known as anchor points. It appears that the reason for this behavior is the explosion of seals on the west coast in addition to an increase in “red tide” on the beaches between Los Angeles and San Francisco...Surf Beach in particular. Red tide stuns and kills small fish and make seals lethargic. The sea being full of dead and dying fish plus seals that are barely moving would attract nearly any predator fish, especially the great white. The last two fatal attacks were on Surf Beach, California and both were surfers. As I have said before, from below a human on a surf board with arms and legs hanging over the side looks amazingly like a seal. Look out.

                         This Date in History August 8

1942 Earlier Adolph Hitler had constructed a plan to send saboteurs into the United States to blow up bridges, refineries, dams, etc. in the hope of interfering with the well known production ability of America. On June 21 a German submarine left France with seven saboteurs aboard. A few days later the submarine surfaced off the shore of Long Island, NY during a heavy fog. The saboteurs rowed ashore in inflatable boats and were burying their explosives and other tools of war when they were discovered by a member of the United States Coast Guard walking the beach on patrol. The Germans offered the Coast Guardsman a bribe which he took. After the Germans had left the Guardsman ran back to his patrol headquarters and reported what he had seen. Two of the Germans turned themselves in because of being discovered by the Guardsman and they rolled on the other five who were living in a “safe house” in New York City. About the same time five German saboteurs were wading ashore near Saint Augustine, Florida and the two Germans rolled on them also. Well, within a matter of days all the German saboteurs had been rounded up. On this date, all but the two that had turned themselves in were executed as spies in Washington, DC by the electric chair. Those two spent seven years in prison and then were deported to Germany. See, terrorism is not a new concept.

1963 On this date 15 men carry out one of the best planned and executed robberies in history. On board a secret train going from Glasgow to London was a payroll of the equivalent of $12 million. The robbers had rigged the train signals that made the train stop at a particular bridge. While stopped, the robbers disconnected all the cars except for the car holding the cash and pushed them apart. They had already cut all the telephone and telegraph wires in the area so notification to the police was delayed until the robbers were long gone. Unfortunately for the robbers, their hideout was known to the police and when they found out the cops were on the way, the robbers fled. The police found many usable fingerprints at the hideout and all but two of the robbers were captured. One of the robbers was able to make his way to Montreal, Canada and lived there for four years before being discovered and sent back to Great Britain. The last of the robbers, Ronald Biggs, made his way to Brazil and was married and had issue of two children. He was found by British officials but Brazilian authorities do not allow parents to be extradited so good old Ronnie lived a free and easy life in Brazil. Even though he claimed he never had any of the train robbery money, he never struck a lick at a snake while in Brazil. Eventually Biggs had two strokes and was in descending health. He decided to turn himself in to the British authorities so he could go back to England to get the health care there he could not get in Brazil. On May 27, 2001 Biggs entered jail in England. Nearly none of the money from the robbery was ever recovered.

1939 On this date future US General Nelson Miles is born on a farm in Massachusetts. Unlike many future US officers, Miles was not raised in a family of privilege but had to work for everything he ever had. This type of life prejudiced him against graduates of military academies, West Point especially. At the outbreak of the Civil War Miles enlisted and immediately proved himself a gifted leader and tactician. But he unashamedly would take credit for successful actions that were the results of his staff’s decisions. He had no problem with climbing over people to gain notoriety. It was not until 1868 that he gained a full command of his own and was tasked with rounding up the hostile plains Indians and moving them onto reservations. Lt. Colonel George A. Custer was under General Miles’ command when the massacre at Little Big Horn occurred. Miles finally figured out that he could get the Indians to do his bidding more with kind treatment rather than force and was very successful in the distribution of the Plains Indians. It was Miles that was responsible for the capture of the Apache Geronimo and his small band of renegades and he took full credit for it but four years later when his troops unmercifully killed 200 unarmed and half-starved Indians at Wounded Knee, he denied responsibility. He was a vain bastard. After the end of the Indian Wars, Miles was assigned a series of different jobs in Washington. He eventually retired at the rank of Lieutenant General. He died in 1925 and was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

Born today:

1937 US actor Dustin Hoffman. He said “A good review by the critics is just a stay of execution.”

Died today:

1827 British Prime Minister George Canning. He said “I found with keen and discriminating sight, that black is not so black and white is not so white.”

2001 Daughter of Ronald Reagan, Maureen Reagan. She said “I feel that equality will be in full effect when a woman can be elected that is as equally incompetent as the man she is running against.” That ain’t far off Maureen.

Quotable quotes:

“Things cannot be so bad that they cannot be made worse.”                  

                             Humphrey Bogart

“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears that this is true.”

                                       James Cabell

“Philosophy is common sense in a tuxedo.”

                   Oliver Braston

“The neighbors love it when I play the piano because they throw rocks and break my windows so they can hear me better.”

                                           Les Dawson.

“A recent study shows that you are much more likely to get shot by a fat cop if you run.”

                                        Dennis Miller

“Policemen are numbered in case they get lost.”

                         Spike Mulligan

                             Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow