Tuesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Your best friend is the one who lifts you up when the wings of your heart forget how to fly.”

                                                   Golda Meir

Here is something to think about: There is evidence of Mayan villages on the Mexican Pacific coast that are about 2,700 years old. These villages and others like them further inland were agrarian societies mostly farming a few small animals and plants like dogs and chickens, maize (corn), beans, yams, squash and gathering fish and shellfish. The variety of their take increased throughout history but all of a sudden they started building stone edifices that would challenge those in Egypt. They did NOT have any kind of metals, draft animals, engineering skills, knowledge of basic machinery including the compound pulley, transits, theodolites, squares and most surprisingly, they did not have the wheel. There is no evidence that they exchanged technical information with anyone from one area to another like the Egyptians yet they constructed gigantic pyramids by beating one rock with another harder rock to the point that they fit together so tightly that a sheet of paper will not go between and mortar is not required. Not only that, they were able to divert rivers, construct fishing weirs, build irrigation canals, remove trees and jungle to make large avenues and plazas not to mention sports arenas with seating for hundreds. They had a sport similar to soccer. Remember they did all of this without draft animals and metal. Also remember that 1,000 miles south people in the Amazon River basin people were/are living in grass shacks, killing game with snares and pointed sticks used as spears and were/are cannibals. Then 1,000 miles north for the most part the native Americans were living a nomadic existence chasing the migration of the bison and other game. There were a few agrarian societies but few and far between. I do not believe that one day a Mayan farmer down in central Mexico raised up and said “Hey y'all, even though we do not have draft animals, metal nor the wheel lets erect some four sided buildings that are bigger at the bottom that at the top and etch images on the sides of the stones that emulate our kings, Gods and important events.” On top of that they were expert astronomers. Their calender was the most accurate ever created for a thousand years. They predicted eclipses of the moon and sun among other celestial events not to mention hieroglyphics that operated as a written language. They erected some building that were obviously celestial observatories that seemed to be focused on “Orion's Belt” (Little Dipper) and the “Pleiades” (Seven Sisters). They oriented their buildings within a degree or two of true north, south, east and west. Their system of mathematics was based on 20 and included the concept of zero. I would like to see a show of hands of those that believe the Mayans did all of that totally on their on. That's what I thought...me neither.

For some reason I remembered an event while I was an air traffic controller here in Greenville, SC many years ago. I got word that a private aircraft was in trouble over the Smoky Mountains somewhere west of us. I do not remember exactly how but I finally got in radio contact with the pilot. He said that he was in the clouds, not instrument rated and lost. I found him on radar about 40 miles west. He was not holding a steady heading and this means that it is a very dangerous situation. The pilot was not using his instrument to stay straight and level and might stall and spin into the ground. That ain't the worst part. Every time he spoke on the microphone I could hear women and children crying and screaming in the background. He finally said that he had his family with him and they were panic stricken. I told him to put me on a speaker and I literal yelled for everybody to calm down that the pilot and I would get them out of this. I kept telling the pilot to pay attention to the artificial horizon, directional gyro (compass), needle, ball and airspeed. All of these instruments would tell him what he needed to keep flying. He finally was holding a fairly steady heading and altitude but was heading southwest putting him deeper into the mountains. After giving him a few minutes to calm down a I told him to start a gentle left turn to the east and I would tell him when to level off. After a few minutes of making the turn the aircraft disappeared from my radar and I lost radio contact with the pilot. It was getting dark and as I recall it was in mid-September. I marked the place on my radar screen where I last saw the aircraft and my supervisor contacted Air-Sea Rescue. After several days of searching nothing was found. The bad part is that if a plane goes down nearly vertical (like in a spin) there would be no path of broken tree limbs and debris.  With it being in Autumn the wreckage would be covered with leaves very quickly. The wreckage was found the next Spring and as you might suspect...there was no survivors. This one bothers me to this day.

This Date in History July 28

1976 On this date the most powerful earthquake in modern history occurs in Shantung Province, China. The quake occurred at 3:50a while all were asleep. The earth shook for 23 seconds and the city was leveled. As you might suspect, the buildings were light years from being earthquake proof and collapsed and crushed the people inside to the tune of an estimated 500,000 killed. Not only that, the earth rose and fell and ruptured many natural gas lines and enormous fires erupted and thousands were incinerated. The strange thing was that the people reported that a few days before the quake, large packs of rats ran panic stricken through the streets in broad daylight. They reported that they saw multi-colored lights and bright flashes in the sky and wells would overflow and then the water would go so deep that their rope and bucket would not reach it. Offers from all over the world offered assistance and medical supplies but the arrogant Chinese government refused saying that they would take care of their own. They certainly were not prepared for a disaster of this magnitude but they were not going to admit to the world that the Communist Chinese government was not perfect. Thousands of Chinese died from the lack of medical treatment and supplies. Shantung has been rebuilt and the greater majority of the buildings were rebuilt using earthquake proof technology. But even this disaster cannot hold a candle to another earthquake that also occurred in China in about 1760 that took the lives of over 800,000.

1973 On this date the bullet riddled, blood soaked Ford V8 in which Bonnie Parker and Clyde barrow were killed was auctioned off to a collector from Nevada for the tidy sum of $175,000. When the Ford V8 first came out the gangster’s in America went across the countryside looking for them. The car was the replacement of the immortal Model A. After a couple of years, gangster/killer John Dillinger sent a letter to Henry Ford extolling the ability of the V8 to outrun any “cop car” out there. Not to be outdone, Clyde Barrow also sent a letter to Henry saying about the same thing. But both of them were blown away by gunfire from law enforcement officers. The car did not help them then. I wonder where they are today.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow