Al's
Most Recent
Quote
of the day:
"The
silence was absolute...alI I heard was the voice of the mountain...it
was like hearing the voice of God.”
Gerald
Tompkins when speaking of reaching pinnacle of Mount Everest.
Down
in the area of Gulf Shores, Alabama there was a murder trial under
way. The prosecution had charged ex-county commissioner Shephen
Nodine with the murder of his mistress 45 year old Angel Downs.
Angel’s corpse was found in the driveway of her Gulf Shores condo
with one bullet hole in her head. Her pistol was found nearby with
no one’s fingerprints on the weapon but hers. About 6 years before
Angel and Stephen met at the infamous Flora-Bama Lounge. Let me tell
y’all, I have been all over the world and Angel was in the top five
best looking women I have ever seen in person top to bottom, she had
everything. Angel and Stephen would come over to Pensacola Beach
(about 25 miles) on occasion and party. They would stop in my
favorite watering hole from time to time and conversations stopped
when she walked in the door. Their relationship was a rocky one,
however. They squabbled frequently. Regardless of that Stephen
spent many a night in her condo in spite of he being married and
having a passel of kids. At one time he was considered a rising star
in Alabama politics, not anymore. Angel had said more than once that
she wished Stephen would divorce his wife and marry her so they could
spend the rest of their days together but she eventually realized it
was not going to happen. She broke up with Stephen and dated at
least two other men. Just before she was found dead, Stephen had
stormed into the Flora-Bama screaming “Where is the whore!” This
blow up was witnessed by at least 100 people. Angel was not there
but was found dead a little while later. What really got Stephen’s
goat was a few nights before he walked in on Angel in bed with
another man. The man was a friend that had known Angel for 30 years
and she had asked him to stay with her that night because her front
door lock was broken and she was afraid. That is what the man
testified to. He said that Nodine walked into the bedroom
unannounced and threw a garage door opener at her and left in a huff.
The prosecution is claiming that Stephen killed Angel in a jealous
rage. Stephen’s defense is that Angel committed suicide because
her income had been cut in half in the last few years because of the
economy and she could not pay her bills. The impression I got is
that Stephen was a man of power in that area of the country and was
not used to not getting his way and being rejected. He was
acquitted.
This
Date in History December 17
1777
Earlier in October British General John Burgoyne had his butt handed
to him by Patriot General Horatio Gates and the Continental army at
the Battle of Saratoga, New York. The news of that victory reached
France and our minister to France, Benjamin Franklin, on December 24.
Franklin had been leaning on France to recognize the United Sates as
an independent nation. The king of France, Louis XVI had been
reluctant to openly recognize the United States until they had proven
they were capable of holding their own against the mightiest army in
the world, that being the British army and the victory at Saratoga
demonstrated that. France had secretly been sending supplies to the
United States for years. But on this date, Ben Franklin prevailed
and France officially recognized the United States as a free and
independent nation. This, of course meant war with England. France
had been smarting about the loss of the North American continent to
the British during the Seven Years War and the French and Indian War
and they saw this as a way of sticking it to the British in revenge.
Even though there was five more years of bloody conflict in our
future, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
1905
On this momentous day two bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio name
Wilbur and Orville Wright got a contraption that they had created to
fly on under its own power for the first time in the history on the
dunes of Kitty Hawk, NC. This airplane flew for 12 seconds for a
distance of 120 feet which is a little short of the wingspan of a
Boeing 747. Just think on it folks, just 11 years later World War I
fighter planes were flying 100 MPH for over an hour. There is no
need for me to go into how far we have come in the aviation field
since then. In the span of 100 years we have seen men on the moon
and have erected a manned space station. It boggles mind.
1996
“Operation Iceman” comes to an end with the arrest of Richard
Kuklinski in a truck stop on the New Jersey turnpike. A multiple
killer, Kuklinski was brought down by an undercover agent named
Dominick Pulitrone. It was believed that Kuklinski killed his
business partner in 1980 with a shot to the head and stuffed him into
a 55 gallon barrel and then froze it. He disposed of the body in
1983. He formed another partnership with two other men named George
Mallibrand and Louis Matheny. They were in an illegal business and
Kuklinski got nervous and decide to kill them both. He shot Matheny
and poisoned Mallibrand with cyanide. The undercover agent had made
friends with Kuklinski and asked Kuklinski the best way to kill
someone and Kuklinski answered with cyanide. He is right. The
physical evidence disappears almost immediately. It can kill with
ingestion and even a spray in the face. From this the ATF was able
to amass enough evidence to put Kuklinski away for life without
parole.
Birth
and deaths:
1796
Canadian writer Thomas Halliburton is born, he said “Nicknames
stick to people, the more ridiculous, the more adhesive.” I have a
friend and mentor nicknamed “Pathwalker” or “PW”. He got
that name because he was in a local tavern within sight of his house
and when he decided to leave he thought it would be prudent to walk
home because he did not want a DUI. He was walking toward his house
through a park with defined paths when he was stopped by the cops.
They locked him up for public drunkenness...thus “Pathwalker”.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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