Friday

                       Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life that you have imagined.”

                                   Henry David Thoreau

I recently had lunch at Jerry's Drive-In over in Pensacola. It is no longer a drive-in, it is just a local diner but it has an interesting history. It was founded right after WWII (about 1946) by two brothers who were just passing through. That makes it about 70 years old. The brother have long since passed but the aura of this place still exists. It has been acknowledged by Congress.

At one time they had a server that was in her 80's. I asked her why she was still working She said that the Pensacola Senior Citizens Center takes a bus load of them to Biloxi, Miss. once a month to let them fool around in the Casinos. They get there about 9:00a and the bus leaves coming back at 4:00p. She said that she likes to gamble and she worked about 20 hours a week to get some gambling money.

The weird part is about 200 yards away the original site of the Spanish settlement of 1559 was discovered. No one knew exactly where it was until a sharp eyed explored found some pottery shards, an occasional clay pipe stem and decorative beads that are without a doubt of Spanish design on a site behind Jerry's. The settlement did not survive because of the Indian's (Muskogeon) harassment along with a hurricane that came and destroyed the site along with wrecking all but one supply ship that had recently arrived. After this the site was abandoned.

The first European settlement in the United States was Pensacola (1559), the first permanent European settlement is St. Augustine (1565).

           This Date in History April 15

1783 On this date, after 8 years of blood, sweat and tears and plowing through two or three different types of government, the treaty signed by The United States and England in Paris in1782 is ratified by the United States Congress officially ending the American Revolutionary War making us an uncontested independent nation. It was a miracle y'all, it was a miracle. Great Britain ceded all lands east of the Mississippi to the US and granted US fisherman the rights to fish the fertile banks off the coast of Newfoundland. America agreed to return those lands captured by the US from the Loyalists. The United States and Great Britain were satisfied with the terms of the treaty but the western Indians damned sure were not. They fought in behalf of the British and had some of their lands ceded to the United States without compensation or consultation. The Indians did the honorable thing, they continued to fight and the Southern Indians also continued to fight the encroaching Georgians with help from the Spanish. North of the Ohio River the British continued to maintain their forts at Niagara and Detroit maintaining that the Americans had not handed back the lands previously owned by the Loyalists as specified in the Treaty of Paris in 1782. Not only that, The United States was freely trading with revolutionary France which scared the hell out of Great Britain so they openly gave supplies to those Indian tribes that were aggressive toward the United States. It took until 1795 for all of the British to leave American lands. The United States being friendly with revolutionary France paid off because in 1803 France offered to sell all of its lands in North America to the Americans for $11 million. Napoleon needed the money to continue his conquest of Europe. It was known as the Louisiana Purchase and nearly doubled the size of the United States.

1912 A couple of days earlier one of the two largest ocean liners in the world departed Southampton, England. The Titanic made a stop in Ireland and then headed for New York City across the North Atlantic. The ships designer was aboard this great ship for its maiden voyage. The Titanic was designed to be unsinkable and was the flag ship of the White Star Line.. The Titanic was designed to be the fastest ship of its kind also making the trans-Atlantic crossing in minimum time. When the ship was about half way to New York a large iceberg loomed up out of the dark sea. The Titanic was unable to maneuver out of the way with the speed it was making and on this night, this great ship struck the iceberg on its starboard side about 8 feet below the water line and ripped open 6 compartments in the hull. The ship was designed to handle only the flooding of 4 compartments. The Captain sent the ship's designer to assess the damage. The designer came back and told the Captain that, in spite of the “unsinkable” design, the ship was fatally wounded. There would be no way to stop the flooding of the hull. The Captain ordered the ship abandoned. The only problem was that there were not enough life boats and of those that were launched were only 30 to 50 percent occupied. The ship went down by the stern and broke in half as the ship approached vertical. 1,517 passengers went into the frigid waters and died. The survival time in water that cold is about four minutes. About an hour later the cargo ship Carpathian answered the Titanic S-O-S message and rescued 708 people in the life boats. The Captain of the Titanic, Edward Smith, went down with the ship. From this disaster the construction of passenger vessels and the associated safety issues were overhauled and present day ships are much safer, that is unless the ship strikes a reef like the Exxon Valdez. A ship/boat is only as safe at whoever is at the helm. In 1985 an exploration effort headed by Bob Ballard located the remains of the Titanic.

1947 On this date the color barrier in professional baseball was broken when a black man named Jackie Robinson stepped onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York. It took much courage for Jackie to agree to the contract offered by Brooklyn Dodger owner, Branch Rickey, and it took a lot of courage for Rickey to even offer it. There was a hell of a lot of prejudice in the fans of baseball against black players even in New York. Jackie proved him self on the field in several areas. His batting average was always exceptional as was his base stealing not to mention his defense. His jersey number of 42 was retired from each and every base ball team in his honor. No other player in history had ever received such an accolade.

Born today:

1452 Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci. He said “I have learned from an early age to abjure from the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals like they look at the murder of humans.”

1817 English educator Benjamin Jowett. He said “My child, you must believe in God in spite of what the clergy tells you.” Ben has his finger on the pulse of the clergy.

Died today:

1990 Swedish actress Greta Garbo. She said “Life is a wonderful thing if we just knew what to do with it.” We finally figure out to do with it late in life; that is the shame of it all.

Quotable quotes:

“A door is what a cat is consistently on the wrong side of.” Ogden Nash.                   That reminds me of Keegan the friendly cat.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow