Tuesday OYSTERS

                                            Al's Most Recent

Quote of the day:

“Indecision may or may not be my problem.”

                             Jimmy Buffett

What if:

What if the President of the United States was either Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, or Ronald Reagan, would ISIS be as powerful as they are now? Would there be as many terrorist attacks on US soil?

The first Confederate cavalry super star was a Virginian named Turner Ashby. His father fought in the War of 1812 and his grandfather fought for freedom in the American Revolution. Here a tale about this man.

Colonel Ashby had several of the finest examples of horse flesh in the Confederacy. His favorite was a pure white stallion that was alleged to be the fastest horse alive...if not the smartest and best trained. Colonel Ashby delighted in allowing himself to be seen by the Union cavalry and wave his egret feather plumed hat at them and simply trot away and do the same thing again and again. There was no horse in the Union cavalry that could match Ashby's mount...or so it seemed. On one occasion a Union cavalry officer had a mount that was the equal in sheer speed. Ashby took off at a gallop with the Union officer and his large bay mare close aboard. Ashby took one shot with his pistol but missed and drew his saber. The larger Union officer caught Ashby's saber hand with one hand and his luxuriously long beard with the other and dragged them both to the ground uninjured. Ashby's mount stopped immediately. The rest of the Union cavalry came up and Ashby was captured. They were escorting Ashby aboard his mount back to the Union lines when Ashby pressed a knee into the horses side. It bolted to the left, jumped a very tall fence and disappeared into a forest with Ashby aboard. In addition to sheer speed the white stallion could also jump. There were no “jumpers” in this group of Union mounts. A short time later that Union cavalry unit saw a rider in dressed in gray on a distant hill aboard a white stallion. The rider removed a plumed hat, swept it down almost to the ground put it back on and disappeared...it was....well, you know.

               This Date in History   December 22

1984 On this date a 45 year old white man named Bernard Goetz is surrounded by four young black men on a New York subway car. The thugs demanded money from Goetz. Instead Goetz whipped out a .38 caliber revolver and opened fire wounding three of them and the fourth was cowering in a doorway when Goetz said “You don’t look too bad, here’s another” and shot him in the back severing his spinal cord. This eighteen year old black man was named Darrell Cabey who was paralyzed from the waist down and had brain damage. Goetz fled the scene but turned himself in eight days later at a police station in New Hampshire. In the subsequent interview that was videotaped Goetz admitted that he was scared and when the four smirked at him he wanted to “kill them all” but felt he has just protecting himself and pled innocent to attempted murder at his arraignment. Goetz’s actions was racially motivated according to the District Attorney but many people in New York and around the country agreed with Goetz and money flowed in for his defense. Goetz’s act was very divisive to the city of New York where racial tensions were very high at the time. In 1987 Goetz went to trial and was acquitted of attempted murder and assault but was convicted of a violation of New York’s Sullivan Law that forbids unlicensed firearms in the city. He served a little over eight months in prison for that indiscretion. After his release he was sued in a civil suit by Darrell Cabey for damages to the tune of $14 million. Goetz promptly declared bankruptcy and disappeared into the woodwork. If this happened to me, I would shoot first and take whatever heat comes next. I will not be mugged by some undisciplined jackasses that had rather rob someone than work.

1978   On this date a man named John Wayne Gacy confessed to murdering 24 young men and boys and burying their bodies under his suburban Chicago house. Law enforcement officials did indeed find the bodies. Gacy was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Gacy spent 14 years on death row where he painted pictures of clowns that sold for thousands of dollars. The money went to charity, a person cannot benefit from a crime. Gacy was a clown in charity events from time to time, if you can believe that. Finally after all of his appeals were exhausted he was executed by lethal injection in the prison in Joliet, Illinois and hell rejoiced at the new arrival. For a while Gacy was the worst serial killer in American history until Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River Killer, was caught and convicted of killing over 48 women that were mostly prostitutes in the Pacific Northwest. He admitted to killing over 100 women. He is visiting John Wayne Gacy as we speak.

1884   Earlier a mover and shaker in the old west John Chisum is born in Tennessee in 1824. When he was six, his family moved to Paris, Texas. After he grew up he became involved in construction for a while then he decided that he wanted to raise cattle and started a cattle ranch on the Pecos River in Lincoln County, New Mexico. Chisum was very successful and was soon running over 80,000 head. The problem was that running a herd that large over such a wide range invited cattle rustlers and it soon became apparent that Chisum was losing about 10,000 head a year to rustlers. Chisum found that this unacceptable and tracked down the culprits. The culprits were a group running a mercantile establishment known as “The House” in Lincoln County, New Mexico. The House was really not a mercantile business; it was a clearing house for rustled cattle that were sold to the US Cavalry under exclusive contract meaning that Chisum and the other large ranchers were undercut by The House. Tensions flared and one of the employees of Chisum shot and killed one of the employees of The House. This shooter was Billy the Kid. After this shooting a war broke out between the large ranchers and The House forever known as the Lincoln County War. The war raged for several months but it became apparent that The House would prevail because they had the backing of the US Cavalry and the war ended. Devastated by the Lincoln County War and the continued loss of cattle, John Chisum moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas to retire. He died three months later on December 23, 1884. Even then he left an inheritance of over $500,000 which was an enormous amount at the time.

                 Thanks for listening  I can hardly wait until tomorrow