Al's
Most Recent
Quote
if the day:
“There
is a new Sex Museum in New York City. Guys finish the walk-through
in five minutes. It takes women 30 minutes…if they finish at all.”
Jay Leno
Here
is another dangerous adventure I experienced and again it was in
Alaska. There were three of us going duck hunting north of Anchorage
on the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet. Cook Inlet is a gigantic bay that
comes from the Pacific Ocean to Anchorage and beyond. It splits into
two “arms” at Anchorage, one of them is Knik arm and the other is
Turnagin arm. Knik goes north and Turnagin goes south east. The
road to Palmer, Alaska comes very close to Knik Arm and there is
about an 8 foot embankment from the road to the bottom of the bay. We decided
to hunt along the edge of the embankment where there was a lot of
vegetation to hide in. The sky was full of duck and geese of all
descriptions; it was September if my memory serves. After hunting
along the edge of the bay for about two hours and seeing the sky
black with game out on the mud flats we decided to walk out to a
hummock that we saw about 100 yards away out in the bay. I need to
mention here that the tide in Cook Inlet comes in three waves and it
turns from low tide to flood tide in about thirty minutes. We were
too stupid to even check high and low tide times we just wanted to
shoot ducks. I again was in “hip” waders which is rubber boots
that came up to my crotch. We took one step out onto that mud and it
quivered like Jello 5 or 6 feet out in front of us. Not only that,
if you wiggled your toes you immediately sank up to your ankles. We
got out about 30 yards and decided that this was too dangerous and
turned around. It was then that we saw a running stream of water
between us and high ground that was not there before and we realized
the tide was incoming and our drowning was very likely. The more we
struggled back toward the car the deeper the water became and sure
enough, we all got our waders about ¼ full of water adding an
enormous weight. I struggled and struggled and finally my hip and
leg muscles felt like they were on fire. I finally reached the
embankment which was covered with vegetation and I was able to pull
myself up to the high ground but my legs were so weak that I could
not walk and I could not get the waders emptied without help. I
started crawling on my hands and knees toward the car until finally
one of my buddies came to my rescue and lifted my legs vertically
which emptied the waders and I was able to get them off and walk to
the car and escape. If we had stayed out on that flat 10 minutes
longer it would have been Sayonara, y’all. I survived for a reason
yet unknown, except the birth of my girls...but maybe that is the
reason for me being here at all so they can make their contribution
to society. By the way, while I was resting after getting my waders
off a grizzly crossed the road behind the car about 20 yards away.
I
have never bought the premise that Moses and the Hebrews were lost
for 40 years in the deserts east and southeast of Egypt. The
Egyptians for centuries had been squabbling with the Assyrians
(present day Syria) or the Hittites (present day Turkey) for the
control of present day Israel, Lebanon, Syria and surrounding lands.
There is no doubt that the Hebrews knew of this during their Egyptian
bondage and knew that these lands were north of Egypt. North is easy
to find, y'all, all you have to do is see the sunrise, put the sun on
your right shoulder and you are facing north. Not only that, Moses
was a soldier in the Egyptian army and without a doubt knew where
these lands were. I read an explanation by a Hebrew scholar that
made sense. He maintained that Moses knew that it would be
imperative that they have a substantial army before beginning a
campaign to capture “The Promised Land”, present day Israel.
Right after the Exodus the Hebrews had no army at all, and if they
tried to invade, yes, invade, they would be slaughtered wholesale.
The scholar says that Moses camped in the desert 40 years to increase
the size of his army by a couple of generations, manufacture weapons
and train the army in combat and discipline. After this was
accomplished they began their campaign and was successful. Works for
me...Moses was no dummy.
This
Date in History January 6
1066
Earlier the King of England, Edward the Confessor, while on his
death bed had named Harold Godwinson as his successor to the throne.
Harold was from one of the most powerful families in England. On
this date Harold was crowned as Harold II, King of England. William
the Duke of Normandy, a cousin of Harold, denied this ceremony
claiming that Edward the Confessor had promised him the crown years
before. Harold was aware of this claim and gathered his army on the
channel and awaited William’s attack. Then another problem arose.
King Harold’s brother Tostig and the King of Norway, Harald III
Hardrarade decided the time was ripe for an attack and take the crown
from Harold for themselves and attacked England through Scotland
forcing Harold to leave the channel unprotected and meet the attack
coming down from the north. King Harold met the Tostig and Harald
III army and all but annihilated them at the battle of Stamford
Bridge and the survivors ran back to the Humber River and sailed back
to Norway never to return. All of this took place in September of
1066. Soon after this battle a courier found King Harold near the
battle site and told him that he had better get back to the channel
because the fleet of William of Normandy was on the horizon headed
for the beach near Hastings. But that is another story.
1777
Earlier General George Washington had delivered a severe
butt-kicking to the British forces at Trenton and Princeton and on
this date he retreated to his winter quarters in Morristown, New
Jersey. Washington had a problem with desertion because many of the
troops did not want to spend another winter in the field with all of
the privations experienced in the past. Another problem was many of
his troops whose enlistments had expired on December 31 had failed to
re-enlist. Fortunately for Washington he had gained much popularity
throughout the colonies and had increased the maximum punishment from
39 lashes to 100 lashes. The Continental Congress had decreed that
anyone enlisting for three years would receive a cash bonus and those
that would enlist for the duration of the war would receive a land
grant. All of this brought the Continental Army about 17,000 new
enlistments and with his present army of about 11,000 brought
Washington a substantial army.
Died
today:
1879
US minister Elias Beadle. He said “Half the work done in this
world is to make things appear as they are not.” Sounds like a
woman putting on make-up to me...just joking.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until
tomorrow
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