Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“I have noticed that when an American turns 65 years of age their left turn signal comes on and stays on the rest of their lives. It may be a law, I don't know.”

                                               James Gregory

Yesterday I mentioned the migration from Siberia to Alaska during the last Ice Age. There apparently was an ice free corridor down the west coast until the immigrants got clear of the polar Ice cap in the vicinity of central Oregon. From there they scattered and went various directions. The proof of this is a beautifully tooled stone spear point that was found near Clovis, New Mexico and it was determined to be about 13,000 years old. There is a problem here however. Recently there have been almost identically tooled spear points found in the Chesapeake Bay area. They were about the same age as the Clovis point. How is this possible? Who was here on the east coast at the same time with the same tool making skills? A paleontologist from the Smithsonian said that it would be possible to sail from Europe and follow the face of the ice cap to America. I am not sure there were sailing vessels capable of that voyage 13,000 years ago. But in reality I am not sure we know anything positively about our ancient history.

The past revisited:

Yet another series of tornadoes struck Oklahoma City proper. The town of Moore, OK. Is a suburb of OKC, about 12 miles south. We know what happened in Moore. The tornado that struck OKC this past Friday was not the strength of the Moore monster and it hit a more lightly populated area. Nine people were killed and many more were injured. There was a report of cars on the interstate going out of OKC was packed and one car with a mother and her child was lifted off the ground, the mother and child were sucked out of the car and killed. What a horrible thought. Here is a bit of advise for all of you. All, and I mean all tornadoes in the USA move in an easterly direction. It may be northeast (most often) or southeast (very rare) but it has a easterly movement. The safest thing to do is go underground or into a very safe structure as fast as you can and/or drive to the south or southwest once the exact location of the tornado is known. The Interstate where the woman and baby were killed ran east and west. I suspect the traffic jam caused her to come to a stop and the storm caught up with her. I have heard people here in this area say “All our bad weather comes from Atlanta.” If you people would look at a map your would see that Atlanta is southwest of Greenville and weather (cold fronts) normally move northeast. The storms are not born in Atlanta...They are born in the Pacific or the central plains and are guided to us by the circulation of the Earth (Coriolis effect) and the jet stream. I have also heard that we don't get as much bad weather because of the Blue Ridge Mountains that protect us. That also is incorrect. Some monstrous storm systems come ashore on the American northwest coast and batter areas in the north central plains and then into the northeastern US. These storm systems cross the Cascades and the Rocky Mountains intact. The Blue Ridge Mountains are mere papooses when compared to the Rockies and the Cascades.

Here is a trivia question. What individual song has earned the most money in history? It is not “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby. It is not “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by Gene Autry. It is “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffet and his Coral Reefers Band. Many years ago I met Jimmy at the immortal Flora-Bama Lounge on the Florida/Alabama Gulf Coast during early days of the “Mullet Toss”. This is a contest to see who can throw a dead mullet the farthest but it really is just a reason to party. The first few contests were won by Ken “The Snake” Stabler who lived within sight of the Flora-Bama. That particular Flora-Bama was taken to Arkansas in pieces by hurricane Ivan. But the present one is much bigger and better than the old one. It is so big that they have three bands going at once and swarms of bikini clad ladies. A while back I had a friend contact me about coming to the “Bama” for that years “mullet toss” and I was in Pensacola Beach which is about 30 miles from the Flora-Bama. I had a health problem and could not attend...dammit! By the way, Jimmy Buffet was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi and raised in Mobile, Alabama.

This Date in History June 5

1968 On this date at 1:00AM in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Senator Robert Kennedy was making a short victory speech for winning the Democratic primary in California. Robert Kennedy is the younger brother of President John Kennedy who was shot to death in Dallas, Texas in 1963. After the speech he headed for an exit through the hotel kitchen amid a throng of admirers, or as everybody thought were admirers. Suddenly three shots ring out and Robert hit the floor with blood pooling under his head. There was a dazed look in Robert’s eyes and there is a big scuffle behind him. Robert had two or three bodyguards with him most of the time one of which was Roosevelt Grier. Rosie (his nickname) was a giant of man over six foot six and about 320 pounds. He formerly was a lineman for the Rams. Anyway, Rosie was about the first person to get a hold of the jackass with the smoking .22 caliber pistol. It was reported that Rosie broke this maniac’s thumb getting the pistol out of his hand. You will never guess who this guy was. It was a middle-eastern Arab guy named Sirhan Sirhan. As far as I know, no one knows to this day why this towel head shot Robert. Robert knew he was mortally wounded and asked for a rosary as he was Catholic. He fought for his young life (he was 42) for 24 hours before he died. There were six other people that were wounded in the shooting, none fatally. Robert was buried on June 8 in Arlington National Cemetery near his brother’s grave site.

1944 It was on this date that the surprise invasion of Europe by the Allies was supposed to have occurred. I am talking about the D-Day landing on the Normandy coast of France, but with the ships loaded with 156,000 troops and associated necessities, US General Eisenhower delayed the attack for one day because of bad weather in the English Channel. Things were getting pretty damned tense because Eisenhower knew he could not keep those troops stacked on those ships for more than two days and if he delayed again they would have to disembark the troops to re-fuel the ships. The next time the tide and moonlight would be right would be June 19 and Ike knew that the longer the wait the greater the possibility of discovery of the plan.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow