Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Those that find the most things wrong are the ones most afraid.”

                               The Bard of Timberidge

Yesterday afternoon I watched two “girly” movies and strangely I do not feel any different. They were Love is a Many Splendored Thing and the other was Peggy Sue got Married. I liked the first one because I was a fan of William Holden and the second because I am a fan of Kathleen Turner. Nicholas Cage was about 18 years old. Then I switched over and watched To Hell and Back” which was the bio of WWII Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy with Murphy playing himself. Murphy was a horrible actor and the bio was much enhanced but I liked it.

Unimaginably I was invited to an awards function for the chief magistrate of Greenville County, SC. I have known this magistrate on a personal level for several years. This lady is a good person and has been good to me. As you might suspect it was wall-to-wall attorneys and law enforcement. Strangely, I did not feel threatened, in peril or ill at ease.

Thoughts on our beginnings. According to how I understand the bible, the Garden of Eden was located at the confluence of five rivers. Civilization as we know it began in the land of Sumer and Ur. These places were at the northwestern end of the Persian Gulf. However there are only two rivers in that area, the Tigris and Euphrates. But if you go back to the last Ice Age about 13,000 years ago, there was so much of the worlds oceans frozen in Polar ice caps that the ocean levels dropped 200 to 300 feet. This means that there would have been no water in the Persian Gulf north of the Straits of Hormuz and dry land up to the present day northern limits of the Gulf. According to satellite surveys, there are three river beds in that area that have been covered by the Gulf. These three plus the Tigris and Euphrates makes the correct number. Perhaps there was a Garden of Eden that is now on the bottom of the Persian Gulf. This drop in the ocean level also allowed for the Bering Straits land bridge from Siberia to Alaska and this is supposedly the route that the first occupants of North America used. There is many, many cases with tangible evidence saying otherwise and I will touch on them later on.

This is a fun contest in the use of adjectives, adverbs and nouns. This happened at a local restaurant just a couple of days ago. A lady had eaten lunch and was walking toward the front door. All of a sudden her panties fell to her ankles...she just stepped out of them, kept walking and never looked back. Describe this event with one or two words. What comes to my mind right away is trolling.

Down in the central Congo there is a tribe that has a “coming of age” ceremony for the young male members. This involves a days long celebration with feasting and dancing...and then the boys are circumcised. As you might suspect some of the boys die of either blood loss or infections. The report said that a centuries old procedure is followed. I can assure you that an antiseptic and a scalpel is NOT involved. What a horrible thought.

Down in Haleyville, SC an 80 year old man that had lost both his legs to diabetes was moving down the road in his wheel chair. A pack of pit bulls attacked, pulled the man out of his wheelchair, killed and devoured parts of him. It was discovered that the “dogs of the devil” belonged to the next door neighbor. I hear a lot about how good pit bulls are as pets and companions but you never hear about beagles and many other breeds attacking anyone...it is always a rottie or a pit bull. Some of you may not know this but Dade County (Miami), Fl. and a couple of other counties have banned rotties and pit bulls because of repeated unprovoked attacks. They may be good companions but there is a chance that some of them will eat the face off of anybody at any given time...how do you know the difference?

This Date in History May 22

1843 On this date one of many wagon trains departed near Independence, Missouri headed for Oregon to take advantage of free lands. There were over 1,000 settlers and 1,000 head of cattle. They followed the Santa Fe Trail for about 40 miles and then turned right and followed the Platte River to Fort Laramie, Wyoming. From there they went through the South Pass across the Rocky Mountains. The South Pass was courtesy of that famous mountain man/explorer Jim Bridger who was shown this wide and shallow rising meadow by the Shoshone making it easy for heavily laden wagons. From there they stopped at Fort Hall in present day Idaho for a rest and supplies in preparation for the final push across the Cascades into Oregon. In October of this year they arrived in Oregon. It had taken them five months to make the 2,000 mile trip. This trail was used many times by several wagon trains until the advent of the coast-to-coast railroad. The last wagon train into Oregon was in the early 1870’s. There are wagon wheel ruts visible to this day along the famous Oregon Trail. What a thrill it would have been to make such a trip. Let me change that to an exciting trip because I would be crossing the lands of the ferocious Pawnee, Sioux, Cheyenne and Blackfoot among many others who did not take kindly to us honkies, or anyone else for that matter, encroaching on their lands. I went to Oregon a few years ago to do some salmon fishing in the breathtaking Rogue River near Medford and Apple Valley. The guys I met and provided guide service were rough and ready, y'all. They were just what I imagined the pioneer spirit to be like. Most of the guides that I met guided for salmon in the summer and elk in the winter. Let me put it this way. If a riot were to break out, I would want these men on my side, full beards, Bowie knives and .44 magnum revolvers included. These guys were ready for anything.

1781 On this date Patriot General Nathaneal Greene (Greenville, SC is named for him) attempted to take the British encampment of Star Fort in the village of Ninety-Six, South Carolina. Greene soon realized that he cannot take the Fort with an assault so on this date he surrounded the fort and began a siege. The Fort and 550 Loyalists were under the command of British Lieutenant Colonel John Crugar. Greene sustained the siege until he found out on June 18 that British reinforcements commanded by British Colonel Francis Rawdon were on the way. Greene tried one more assault which failed and he was forced to withdraw. Star Fort held great importance because it controlled most of northwestern South Carolina. But in response to this the other Patriot leaders in South Carolina, Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter captured five other British forts in South Carolina which isolated Star Fort. On July 1 the British pulled out of Star Fort of their own volition. Star Fort was the last Loyalist fort in South Carolina. This was the beginning of the end of British in America. The war was over two years later thanks to Greene, Marion, Sumter and thousands of other dedicated lovers of freedom. By the way, the name of the town of Ninety-Six has an interesting history and will follow a little later on.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow