Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Today I set a personal record for the number of days being alive.”

Anonymous

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that that lunatic that killed the people at Fort Hood, Texas has been sentenced to death and will be sent to Ft. Leavenworth to await his execution. The bad news is the military system of appeals is longer than most states. I don't know what method of execution will be but the last person that was executed by the military was capped by a firing squad...it was in 1944. His name was private Eddie Slovic and he refused to engage in combat when ordered. He was executed for cowardice. He appealed to General Eisenhower but this was just after the Battle of the Bulge where there were about 75,000 American casualties and Ike was not in a good humor. There was a movie made about this event titled “The Execution of Private Slovic”and starred Martin Sheen.

Apparently law enforcement in my community has awakened. Since the incident I mentioned about an armed robbery within sight of the ball park and a little over a block from the heart of the “restaurant” district in downtown not to mention a manicured park with a waterfall where muggings have recently occurred, the Chief of Police has chosen to add at least 30 cops to patrol downtown after dark until the wee hours. That is probably a wise decision because the restaurant district in owned and operated by some of the most wealthy and influential in the community. This area is also a place where the wealthy and influential come to eat, drink and play. Far be it from me to suggest that law enforcement is acutely aware of the monied and influential in this new south community...right? Adding police will help but the real answer lies in the home. Nearly all of the assaults here and many other places are done by teenagers. Respect and discipline is learned at home. There is myriad of reason for the obvious breakdown in the American family unit. I am no psychologist but I have several opinions as to the cause of all of this but I have no answers...except the golden rule.

When I was an air traffic controller in Pensacola I had an assistant chief that taught me a lesson. When we air traffic controllers ran across a technical problem we would go to him for a possible solution. All technical procedure changes required an approval of management. He would say “You guys are the experts, don't come to me with any problems without three possible solutions and I will select one of the three.” This, of course, was a back door approach for us to solve our own problems...not only that it the selected solution failed, we had no one to blame but ourselves.

Speaking of respect...I recently saw a program about the best hamburgers in New York City. One of the places has been in the same place and the same owner for about 50 years and the specialty is hamburgers and it is famous for them. The owner was interviewed and he said that he gave no one priority even though the “Kennedy brothers” and other well known personae came there regularly. He said that once Jackie Onassis and her sister Lee came in for a burger and he told them there would be a 15 minute wait. Lee turned to Jackie and said “Lets go”. Jackie said “Come on Lee, lets have a beer.” They headed to the bar and even though they were three deep at the bar, the people spread out like Moses and the Red Sea and allowed them a place at the bar. I do not think that would have happened in some of the places I have been to on the west side...or in Six Mile...well, maybe in it would have happened in Six Mile.

I was taking my afternoon nap after an early dinner of chicken lo mein and a vegetable spring roll and in that half awake, half asleep zone that we all have been in, I began thinking of the most memorable sights I have ever seen...other than the first look at the faces of my daughters. One of the first would be when I was standing outside on the south side of Fairbanks, Alaska at night waiting on a bus to go back to the air force base where I was stationed. The temperature was about zero but a couple of my friends and myself were not cold. In Alaska you learn to dress for the cold with a parka lined with goose down and mukluks. Mukluks is a pair of boots made of canvas with rubber soles. Anyway, the sight that night was the aurora or “northern lights”. They were so bright and moving it was breathtaking. You could even hear a soft crackling sound when a particularly bright wave came by. I remember it well.

Another one was when I was living in Pensacola I had a boat in which I would go offshore fishing fairly often. On one particular time I was out alone about three miles and the Gulf of Mexico was flat and calm as a lake. I had located a reef with a depth finder and was anchored down fishing for snapper and grouper. A bottle-nosed dolphin (porpoise) came up along side very slowly and very close. I dipped my hand into the water and it came over and touched my fingers...we looked each other in the eye for several seconds then it swam away...there was a message sent by both of us...it was a magical moment that I will never forget. By the way, the mukluks laced up to just short of the knees. You wore a pair of regular high top socks, high top heavy woolen socks and then a fairly thick felt bootie...then the mukluks. Actually, the mukluks just held the socks on your feet.. You could not wear them if there was a chance of your feet getting wet...if that canvas and your socks got wet it was bad news, as you might suspect. Close your eyes and imagine what the most memorable sight you can remember and see what shows up first...beside the first sight of your kids, of course.

Here is a trivia question. When Manhattan island was purchased from the Native Americans, what was the boundaries of the island? The obvious answer is the Hudson River and the East River...what other body of water made it an island? Shut up, Bob.

The members of the 4 o'clock club with whom I meet with regularly are mostly readers and we swap books occasionally. I have been asked why I do not read fiction and only read history. My response is that history is far more fascinating than what someone dreams up. Even I can write about my nightmares...Miley Cyrus for instance.

                   This Date in History August 29

2005    Earlier a small Category 1 hurricane named Katrina slipped out of the Caribbean Sea, took a swipe at the southern tip of Florida and then broke loose in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico on a northwest course. The warm waters of the Gulf pumped Katrina up to a Category 3 in short order. It looked like the hurricane was going ashore in Mobile, Alabama or maybe Pensacola, Florida. But on this date, the storm took dead aim at the Mississippi River delta and New Orleans. Early on this morning Katrina quickly expanded to a Category 4 and then briefly to a Category 5 and then back to a category 3 and stormed ashore in the Mississippi river delta packing winds of 140 MPH and a storm surge of 22 feet. The eye of the storm reached New Orleans intact and the excess water and wind quickly overwhelmed the levees holding back the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. From what I have read, the majority of Big Easy is at least 6 feet lower than the River and the Lake. Once the levees failed, the center of New Orleans was flooded with the 9^th Ward being the hardest hit. Hundreds upon hundreds of people were stranded on the roofs of their houses and just had to wait to be rescued by boats or helicopters. There were some areas that boats were not allowed because of downed power lines and the rescuers just had to try to block out the screams for help in those areas. As we have all seen, the semi-flooded areas of the commercial districts were subject to unobstructed looting whilst being observed by the NOPD. The next few days were a montage of events of pure bravery and further events of battles with gangsters trying to take control of the city by force. The arrival of the long suffering 82^nd Airborne and the Louisiana National Guard put a stop to this crap. But of those that evacuated 9^th Ward to the tune of at least 100,000, almost none have returned. I do not know the exact amount of evacuees that left their homes as a result of Hurricane Katrina including parts of Mississippi, but many, many remain in cities like, Atlanta, Houston, Austin and many others, there does not seem to be a desire to return to the Gulf Coast. It looks like they are no longer evacuees but settlers in new lands. It was the worst natural disaster in United States history. I do not remember any presence of the 82^nd Airborne or any looting during the recent flooding in central Iowa. What’s up with that?

1779    On this day the American Continental army commanded by Major General John Sullivan and Brigadier General James Clinton militarily engage a combined Loyalist/Indian army commanded by British Captain William Butler and Iroquois chief William Brandt. The engagement takes place near Chemung, New York which is Elmira today. Earlier George Washington had tasked Patriot General Horatio Gates with going to the Finger Lakes region and subduing the Iroquois Indians under Chief Brandt who are on constant attack of the new settlements. Gates refused the assignment so Washington assigns the task to Major General John Sullivan. Sullivan and company depart Easton, Pennsylvania and travel by the Susquehanna River to the area of conflict. The Patriot artillery was too much for the Indians and they fled leaving a small contingent of Loyalist which were killed or captured by the Patriot infantry. Sullivan ordered his troops to burn and destroy the Iroquois villages and supplies. His troops laid waste to 40 Indian villages and mountains of supplies which made the following winter a severe one for the Iroquois but it did not belay their spirit and the attacks continued at least for a while. Eventually Iroquois leader Charles Brandt saw that the Patriots were going to win the war and took his tribe into Canada to lands given to them by the British.

1885    On this date German inventor Gottfried Daimler invented the prototype of the modern motorcycle. The motorcycle was used extensively WWI by both sides as a messenger vehicle. The popularity fell between WWI and WWII but the motorcycle was again used extensively by both sides during WWII. After the war the returning veterans had developed a taste for them and the demand rose precipitously. The down side of the rise in motorcycle craze was led by a group of hardcore gangsters led by the leader of a San Bernardino group of bikers that organized themselves into a club named the “Hell’s Angels”. Their leader was Sonny Barger. From then many “Hell’s Angels” clubs and clubs like them were formed world wide fostering a wild, unfettered lifestyle. They wanted to project a tough, “Don’t mess with me image” and they indeed succeeded. But today the greatest majority by far, is middle class America that holds meets without the gangster types. For instance a motorcycle rally is held in Sturgis, South Dakota that over 500,000 motorcyclists attend, not to mention those rallies at Daytona Beach, Fla., Myrtle Beach, South Carolina among other places and they all seem to happen without a lot of trouble. I was a rider at one time. But I did not ride on the street that much, I preferred to ride a trail bike in the mountains up and down logging trails or make my own trails, the rougher the better. It was not a glorifying type of avocation but I enjoyed the hell out of it. I can’t do it now because of my age, but I miss the challenges.

1862    Earlier President Lincoln seeing that the commander of the Army of the Potomac, US General George McClellan was not going to follow through with his a attack on Richmond, sent a large portion of McClellan’s army to join with US General John Pope’s Army of Virginia. CSA General Robert E. Lee detected this movement and he also believed that McClellan has lost his nerve and sent “Stonewall” Jackson to the north to keep an eye on Pope. Pope headed for Manassas Junction and found out that Jackson and company are on the way and began a a search. Stonewall knew that Pope is looking for him and that Pope had him outnumbered three to one. Jackson dispersed his troops in the woods and bushes along Bull Run Creek. On this date, after Pope was unable to find Jackson, the rest of Lee’s army arrived on site and Jackson’s army emerges from the trees and bushes and joins up with Lee’s army and the combined force unleashes a devastating flank attack and envelopment of Pope’s army resulting in a total rout of the Army of Virginia. This was not the first victory by Lee at this location. This engagement was forever known as the Battle of Second Manassas.

Born today:

1915  Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman. She said “A kiss is a lovely trick used by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”

1876    US inventor Charles Kettering. He said “I am more interested in the future because that is where I am going to spend the rest of my life.” Kettering invented the electric starter for automobiles among other things.

                 Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow