Good
morning,
Quote
of the day:
“Imagination
is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited, imagination
encircles the world.”
Albert
Einstein
Here
is a continuation of my ancient road trip from Tacoma, Washington to
the east coast. I am sure there were several stops but the next stop
that was memorable was Boise, Idaho. We stopped at a motel on the
north side of town and asked the desk clerk where was a good place to
eat and a good watering hole. She told us a where to go get a steak
and a bar that had live music. The steak was indeed a memorable one
and the potato was way too big but after all we were in Idaho.
Afterward we went to the nearby bar that the desk clerk told us
about. It was as you might suspect. There was a hell of a lot
horns, antlers and animal heads hanging from the walls. You would
have thought the music would have western or country...wrong...it was
blues, y'all. I do not mean Johnny Winters or the Allman Brothers,
it was the Sonny Boy Williamson, Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy Waters,
etc. It was pure Delta Blues, y'all. I was flabbergasted and
enthralled. I do not remember the name of the band (s) but they were
dynamite. The evening gradually faded to gray amid a mixture of Jack
and Bud but the music was memorable. By the way, while we were in
the bar and the only ones in there without a cowboy hat, everybody
knew we were not local. We told them that we had just gotten
discharged from the Air Force and was on our way home to Florida and
South Carolina. After that word spread around, I do not remember
having to buy another drink. The next memorable stop was Rabbit Ears
Pass.
I
guess it must have been a full moon this last weekend. A lot of
strange things happened.
Over
in Spartanburg, SC 26 year old Julius Cox was not happy with what his
girlfriend was cooking for him and began beating on her. She headed
for the bedroom and began gathering up her clothes to leave under a
barrage of blows from her boyfriend. The cops finally arrived and
put a stop to it and took Julius to the joint for criminal domestic
violence. I don’t get it. If Julius was not happy with what she
was cooking all he had to do is to go to Church’s Chicken, for
crying out loud. Now he is eating some food that is barely edible
and not much of it. I was always raised that if someone cooked for
you, you ate it no matter what. It is a southern tradition.
Obviously Julius is a Yankee...make that a damned Yankee.
Over
in the nearby town of Cowpens, 34 year old Earline Gowdy got mad at
her husband for unknown reasons. She broke a leg off of and end
table and hit him in the head three times opening severe gashes.
When the cops arrived the husband was standing in the doorway
bleeding like a stuck pig and yelling at the top of his lungs as was
Earline. Earline was arrested for assault and battery and criminal
domestic violence. Her husband was also arrested for criminal
domestic violence and taken to the Mary Black Hospital to have his
head sewn up.
This
Date in History August 25
1944
A few days before the French 2nd
Armored division, General Jacque-Philippe LeClerc commanding,
approached the German occupied city of Paris, France from the north
while the American 4th
Infantry is approaching Paris from the south. The liberation of that
great city was at hand. The 2nd
Armored took a beating from the German artillery but when LeClerc
heard that the 4th
Infantry was approaching the center of Paris he found a surge of
energy and they swept the west side of Paris while the 4th
Infantry swept the east side. The German Commander in Paris was
General Dietrich Von Choltitz. When Choltitz told Hitler that Paris
was lost and would soon by occupied by the French and Americans
Hitler ordered him to destroy all of the famous places in Paris like
the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles palace, etc and then burn
Paris to the ground. Choltitz thought about that about 3 minutes and
then said to his staff “I will not go down in history as destroying
the greatest city in Europe.” So none of the pre-set explosives
installed by the Germans was detonated and Paris was saved when
Choltitz signed an official surrender to the Allies. There were
about 20,000 German troops stationed in Paris but when they found out
that they were trapped in a pincer movement and the Free French
insurgents came out and began an attack on the troops out in the
open, the German troops melted away. On this date a gigantic parade
with the 2nd
Armored, the 4th
Infantry and The Free French march in victory down the Champs
d’Elysses with General LeClerc and Charles DeGaulle in the lead.
It was a great day for freedom.
1864
The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General R.E. Lee
commanding, is under siege in and around Petersburg, Virginia by the
Army of the Potomac, General Ulysses Grant commanding. The majority
of supplies coming into the Confederates were coming in via the
Weldon Railroad from the south. Grant orders his 2nd
Corps led by General Winfield Hancock to go down and destroy the
railroad. Hancock is successful in destroying 8 miles of railroad
track but the Confederates simply stopped the train south of the
destroyed rails and brought the supplies up by wagons. Lee got fed
up and sent General A.P. Hill and his infantry supported by General
Wade Hampton III’s cavalry down to restore the railroad. The
Confederate and Union troops meet at a railroad depot named Ream’s
Station. The Union soldiers had build a revetment out of soil but
they did not build it tall enough and the Confederate artillery
easily crossed over and fell into the huddled troops on the other
side. The troops under the command of US General John Gibbon were
green and inexperienced. When the artillery shells began falling,
those troops broke and ran with Hampton’s cavalry in hot pursuit.
It was a rout. This was not easy for US General Hancock to witness
because he was the hero of Gettysburg and was known as a leader that
would stand his ground. Not this time. Hancock and Gibbon blamed
each other for the debacle so Grant got fed up with the squabbling
and transferred them both out of the 2nd
Corps.
1896
In 1858 William Doolin was born on a farm in Arkansas. At an
early age Bill moved to Oklahoma and became a ranch hand on the huge
ranch owned by Oscar Haskell. Oscar took a liking to the young
Arkansan and eventually Bill became a foreman. But for reasons known
only to Bill, he decided to engage in a little thievery. In fact he
joined up with the Dalton gang from time to time on bank and train
robberies. He was a very meticulous thinker/planner and he was
useful to the Daltons in the planning of a robbery. Bill was wounded
more than once in the robberies but none seriously. But he decided
to go to the mineral springs in Eureka Springs, Arkansas for rest and
recuperation. But he did not plan on one thing; he was being tracked
by the famous lawman William Tilghman. Tilghman was able to surprise
Doolin and captured him without a fight. Tilghman took Doolin to the
Guthrie, Oklahoma jail and soon thereafter Doolin escaped and eluded
the police for about 2 months. On this date, a posse of 12 men
trapped Bill Doolin in a house in Lawton, Oklahoma. They call for
Bill to surrender but he isn’t having any part of a long prison
term and came out the door guns blazing. All of the posse fire their
rifles and shotguns at the same time cutting Bill to ribbons. He was
38 years old.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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