Al's
Most Recent
Quote
of the day:
From
a Men's
Rules list
sent to me.
“If
you come to us with a problem we will try to resolve it, that is what
we do. If you want sympathy go to your girlfriends, that is what
they do.”
It
is pretty cold here in the piney woods of northwestern South
Carolina, I even saw a couple of snow flakes. A long time ago when I
was living in Pensacola two friends of mine from Greenville, SC
called and said that they were tired of the cold and were heading
south to find 70 degrees and they said they were coming to pick me
up. They did come and off we went. We found 70 degrees in Coral
Gables, Fl. and decided to keep going to Key West. By the way, they
had brought a bass boat with them. We decided to stop in Big Pine
Key and go fishing. Going east into the Atlantic ocean in a bass
boat was out of the question so we went west into “the backside”
which means going into the Gulf Of Mexico and miles of grass
flats. There was markers to keep you from running aground but it was
pretty freaking shallow. We were out of sight of land very quickly
and fished for a while and did catch some in spite of the fact that
we did not have a clue how to fish out there. Like a dumb ass I
decided to get out of the boat and wade, the water was about waist
deep. Before I had taken a step a felt something brush my leg...it
was a shark about 8 feet long. I was back in the boat in one leap.
Like I have said before, I am very lucky to be alive and whole after
all of my outdoor adventures.
I invite you to look
up the “Spanish Inquisition” in the middle of the 15th
century led by a representative of the Catholic Church named Bishop
Tomas Torquemada. This man was very inventive when it came to
dealing with those that were not followers of the Pope. His
philosophy was to drag people before him and ask them if they were
sinners. If they answered yes, he would say that they needed to be
tortured to rid them of their sins. If they answered no, he would
say that no mortal is sinless and this person would get a double dose
of torture for being a sinner AND lying about it. Do not get me
wrong, I am not anti-Catholic or any other religion, I am just a
historian relaying what I have found. And finally, I also invite you
to look into what happened to the Knights Templar and why.
By
the way, the phrase “saw the handwriting on the wall” came from
the book of Daniel in the Bible. Daniel and his people were captives
in the city-state of Babylon where Nebuchadnezzar was king. Daniel
was the official interpreter of dreams. At a large feast and a
ghostly finger appeared and wrote something on the wall. No one
could understand what it meant so Daniel was called. Daniel took one
look and told the king that it said that his kingdom is doomed. That
night Babylon was invaded and sure enough.....
I
was reminded of when I was an air traffic controller in Pensacola
which is the home of the Blue Angels. On one occasion the Angels
were out over the Gulf of Mexico practicing and an accident occurred
killing one of the pilots. The next day one of our secretaries had
been a secretary for the Blue Angels and was very sad and morose.
One of our guys told her “That man chose the glory and accepted the
danger, don’t be sad he died doing exactly what he wanted to do.”
I
received quite a bit of feed back about humans feeding wildlife.
Wild animals do not have “friends” and “mentors”. They run
in herds or packs because it is safer that way. They are not
appreciative and grateful for you feeding them, it is just more
convenient. They DO NOT think like humans.
Not
long ago a 60+ year old woman living up in the remote mountains near
Burnsville, NC contacted her daughter in Asheville, NC and told her
about 4 black bears (probably a female and three cubs) that she had
been feeding near her house. She said that she would go out on her
porch about the same time every day and throw them scraps and said
that none of them ever made an aggressive move. She called them her
“pets”. One day she was supposed to take a car ride to see her
daughter but never showed up and never called. Her daughter notified
law enforcement and guess what they found. They found the woman's
car in her yard with the driver's side door open and her partially
devoured corpse a few yards away back up in the woods. There were
drag marks leading from the car to the corpse. The bite marks were
from black bears. Law enforcement guessed that the bears were
waiting for her to throw them food at the usual time. When she did
not do that and went to her car instead they went to Plan B. They
had been fed at this time every day and when it didn't happen they
went hunting and she was the closest prey. They did NOT gather in a
little group and say “We can't harm this little old lady...she is
our friend.” What they DID say was “Let's eat”.
This
Date in History February 10
1779
On this date a band of 350 Patriots led by General Andrew Pickens,
Colonel Robert Dudley and Lieutenant Colonel Elijah Clarke left South
Carolina headed for Wilkes County, Georgia. They were after a group
of 200 British/Loyalist commanded by British Colonel John Hamilton at
Carr’s Fort. The Patriots arrived at the site and battle ensued.
Just when the Patriots are about to wrap up this battle, General
Pickens called for withdrawal and they headed out toward another
column of British/Loyalist headed for North Carolina with recruits
gathered up from the city of Augusta, Ga. by Loyalist Colonel Robert
Boyd. They set up an ambush for Boyd’s column near Kettle Creek,
When the Loyalists are in the right position, Pickens sprung the trap
and all but annihilates the column of recruits. British Colonel
Colonel Boyd was killed instantly. Both of these events occurred in
Wilkes County, Georgia named after the British revolutionary John
Wilkes who raised much hell in English Parliament in the behalf of
the colonies that he was arrested and jailed for his fiery speeches.
Some American colonists sent him money for his defense.
1962
Earlier an America spy pilot for the CIA named Gary Francis Powers
launched a spy mission from a secret base in Pakistan and is to fly
across central Russian to a secret spy base near Buda, Norway. He
was flying the infamous U-2 spy plane. At the same time Russian spy
Rudolph Abel is gathering information for the Soviets in New York and
Washington. About half way through his mission, Power’s U-2
aircraft lost power and descended to an altitude that can be reached
by Russian fighters and ground-to-air missiles. Normally the U-2 is
at such a high altitude that nothing can reach them, but not this
time. Powers is shot down and captured alive. Meanwhile Russian spy
Rudolph Abel is also captured. After a while the Russians and the US
decided to swap Powers and Abel so on this day Gary Francis Powers
and Rudolph Abel passed each other walking in opposite directions on
a bridge to freedom for Powers and suppression for Abel.
1920
Unfortunately for silent actress Theda Bara, she opened in San
Francisco in a play named “Kathleen Mavoureen”. The play made
fun and ridiculed the Irish immigrants. The majority of the men in
the audience were Irish immigrant miners and railroad workers that
had moved out west to work in the gold and silver mines near San
Francisco. After it became apparent that the play was making fun of
the Irish, the Irishmen got out of their seats and tore the joint
apart. The moral of the story is the Irish have no sense of humor
when they are the focus of a joke.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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