Tuesday OYSTERS

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Quote of the day:

“My ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower but they were there to meet the boat.”

           US Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Cheyenne

A while back up in Charlotte two gunmen burst into a Subway sandwich shop on Sugar Creek Road and attempted to rob the joint. The clerk behind the counter produced a weapon of his own and capped one of the thieves instantly and shot the other one who fled. The cops came and could tell from the blood trail that the one that fled was seriously injured. So they just went to the Carolina Medical Center and waited. Sure enough, a man showed up with a gunshot wound. The other dead one was carted off in a meat wagon. I have no sympathy. Everyone has to be held responsible for their actions or we will sink into anarchy. To hell with those people in St. Louis for raising hell because a cop shot an killed a man that was committing an armed robbery and took a shot at the cops. I suppose they thought the cop should have just wounded him.

I can assure you if I am under attack and decide that I have to shoot (.38 special) I will aim at the heart and lungs...a wounded person can still pull a trigger.

               This Date in History  January 19

1809  One of the greatest poet/writers this country has ever produced is born in Boston. Edgar Allen Poe was born on this day, but he had lost both of his parents by the time he was twelve he went to live with his Godfather John Allen, a wealthy tobacco dealer. Poe’s Godfather sent him to school in England for a while and then he came back and entered the prestigious University of Virginia. The trouble was that Poe was a player and made some major gambling debts and argued with his Godfather to bail him out. It did not happen and Poe was kicked out of UVA in 1826 after only eight months. Not only that, Poe was heavy into the sauce and would toke on opium from time to time. He joined the US Army serving two years and was offered an appointment to West Point. While in the army he was sent to Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island near Charleston, SC. While there he is to have supposedly written his first mystery novel The Gold Bug. There is a small tavern on Sullivan’s Island called Poe’s Tavern that is supposed to be the place that The Gold Bug was written, but that is just a legend. In any event, Poe’s Tavern is one of my most favorite watering holes on the planet. Poe did indeed attend West Point but had yet another falling out with his Godfather about money and at the same time he broke enough rules at West Point to get himself kicked out. During all of this time Poe had written a few credible poems which did not receive much attention. In 1836 while working as an editor for a newspaper in Richmond, Virginia this boy married his 13 year old cousin. Poe wrote his first full length work which was published in 1838. He lost his job in Richmond because he got heavy into the sauce again and he and his wife moved to Philadelphia.

He went to work for two magazines as a literary critic. His critiques were admired for being correct and concise. It was during this time that he gave us The Fall of the House of Usher and The Tell-Tale Heart, both of which are milestones of mystery novels to this day. Right after this he delivered The Murder at Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter which remains to this day the first of the detective novels. He then moved to New York and stunned the world with his poem the immortal The Raven which brought him eternal fame. Soon after this his wife fell ill from tuberculosis and died in 1847. This put Poe deeper into the sauce and opium but in 1849 he moved to Richmond and hooked up with an old flame and they decided to marry. He went to Baltimore to have a bachelor party with some of his trashy friends. After a while at the party Poe showed up missing but he was eventually found wallowing around in a gutter incoherent. His friends took him to a hospital, but he died on October 7, 1849 at the age of 40. What a waste of God given talent.

1822   The 23 year old Virginian Charles Bent decided to seek his fortune and headed to the Wild West. He joined in with the Missouri Fur Company. This company went down the toilet because of cutthroat competition of John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company. Bent decided to go into the mercantile business and opens a trading post in the Mexican owned city of Santa Fe in what is now New Mexico. He opened a second one on the Arkansas River in what is now Colorado and called it Bent’s Fort of which a replica is still with us. When the Mexican War began, Bent showed his true colors when he welcomed US General Stephan Kearny into Santa Fe with open arms much to the chagrin of the Mexicans. Kearny awarded Bent with the governorship of the new US territory of New Mexico and then Kearny and his troops left Bent on his own and headed for California. Kearny did leave a small contingent of troops for the protection of Bent. These troops openly showed their contempt for the Mexicans and the Indians in and around Taos which resulted a heated uprising. On this day in 1847 a mob of Mexicans and Indians went to a house that Bent was visiting in Taos, killed his bodyguards and killed and scalped Charles Bent. The mob wasn’t done yet. They dragged Bent’s body through the streets and killed and scalped an additional 15 honkies. Within two weeks US Colonel Sterling Price arrived in Taos and executed all of the ringleaders. In 1848 the Mexican War was over and Taos and Santa Fe came under American control even more. By the way, Colonel Sterling Price became a General for the Confederacy in 1861.

1806  On this date in Westmoreland County, Virginia a son is born to Revolutionary War hero Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee. Harry decided to name him Robert Edward Lee, or as he became known as Robert E. Lee. Robert was well educated in his teens and was given an appointment to West Point. He graduated not first in his class but went through the entire four years without a single demerit. Before the Civil War he returned to the Academy as Superintendent. After the Civil War he became the president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. This college eventually was titled Washington and Lee University in honor of Robert E. Lee. There is no use for me to expound on the leadership capabilities of this man for they are well known. Winston Churchill said of Lee “Never in the field of human conflict has one man been loved by so many.”

      Thanks for listening    I can hardly wait until tomorrow