Wednesday

                     Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Women shouldn't fake orgasms because we men don't care.”

                                   Kenneth Brennan

A friend from Baton Rouge called. This man is brilliant and among his assets he is a cartoonist along with being in commercial banking most of his life and is a graduate of LSU. We meet in Pensacola Beach on a regular basis. We discussed several things especially what happened last Sunday. He said that he is sad that someone from out of town (Missouri) chose his town for an act of terrorism. I did not pursue it because he said that he has been swarmed under by the local media wanting his take on it. This led us to the Black Lives Matter movement. We agreed that they no longer represent the oppressed because they obviously are being funded and are therefore the oppressor. They show up in force in towns that are not their home turf and stay for a couple of days at a time. Who pays for their transportation? Who pays for the places they stay, if any? Who feeds and waters them? And finally who the hell are they? I say they are the black version of the Aryan Brotherhood. Both sides are declaring their dedication to one race. Both sides represent a division that we do not need at this point in time. I am concerned as to our pathway...and so is my friend.

A friend of mine told me something sad about a mutual friend. There was a a couple of guys here in town known as “The Twins”, Gary and Guy. Gary died a few years ago of a cause that I have forgotten, Guy was a heavy smoker and had COPD. At the age of 61 he ended up in an assisted living facility carrying around an oxygen tank. The facility absolutely forbade smoking on their property, either outside or inside. Last month they caught Guy smoking for the third time and kicked him out. His daughter from Atlanta came and got him and took him to her house...but she does not allow smoking on her property either. Living on an oxygen bottle and still smoking...I don't get it.

This Date in History July 20

1889 Earlier a barroom girl named Ella Watson met up with a barkeep named James Averill in a saloon down in Kansas. James had 320 acre homestead up in Wyoming. Ella and James decided to move onto the homestead unmarried, this would allow Ella to homestead her own 320 acres. They were legally within their rights to homestead this treeless grassland but the cattle barons were reluctant to give “their” lands to settlers. It really wasn’t all their land; many, many acres belonged to the United States Department of the Interior who was trying to bring people to settle the west. The only problem with Ella and James was they settled on land that cattle baron James Bothwell considered “open range” and wanted that land to graze his cattle. He had no legal way to kick them out so he did the next best thing. He accused Ella and James of rustling. On this date Bothwell and company captured the two and hanged them. Bothwell went to court but the “cattle man friendly” jury acquitted him. The American west was going through a transition from open range to barbed wire fenced ranches. The old-timers did not like it but it came anyway.

1969 “Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed”. On this day those immortal words were uttered by astronaut Neil Armstrong upon the landing of the lunar excursion module (LEM) on the moon. This was known as the Apollo 11 mission. After taking a rest and getting into his space suit, Neil opened a hatch, crawled down a ladder and stepped onto the moon surface. He then gave us another immortal phrase in “That’s one small step for man and a giant leap for mankind.” We don’t do anymore manned lunar exploration now-a-days, but I remember Armstrong and Aldrin walking around on the moon and how thrilling it was. By the way, Buzz Aldrin claims to have seen a UFO.

1780 On this date US General Anthony “Mad Anthony” Wayne is tasked with capturing a British blockhouse located about 12 miles north of Hoboken, New Jersey. Wayne assembled two brigades of Pennsylvania militia and headed out. The blockhouse is defended by 70 Loyalists (Americans fighting for the British). Wayne ordered the attack but it was repulsed as was two additional attacks. So Wayne says “to hell with it” and withdraws. Wayne got his nickname when he ordered an attack on a British encampment late at night. He ordered his men to use bayonets only and they killed 94 British soldiers by bayoneting them in the throat and they died without making a sound. It takes all kinds.

The Saga of Cynthia Ann Parker

She was born in Crawford County, Illinois in 1826. When little Cynthia was seven years old, her family moved to east Texas to the headwaters of the Navasota River near present day Groesbeck, Texas. By 1834 the extended Parker family had completed Fort Parker. When Cynthia Anne was ten years old a large party of Comanche warriors swept down on the fort and after killing 5 men, the Comanche kidnapped two women and three children. The kidnapped children were Cynthia Anne, her brother John and a cousin named James Plummer. I cannot find out what happened to John and James but Cynthia Anne spent nearly 25 years with the Comanche. Her Comanche name was Naduah (Someone found) and she married a Comanche warrior named Pohtocnocony or as the white man called him, Peta Nocona. Cynthia and Peta Nocona had two sons, Quanah (Fragrant) and Pecos (Peanuts) and one daughter named Topsannah (Prairie Flower). Cynthia’s husband, Peta Nacona, was eventually named chief of the tribe. In December of 1860 a troop of Texas Rangers, led by Captain Sullivan Ross, surrounded and captured a group of Comanche near the Pease River. Included in this group were Cynthia and her infant daughter Prairie Flower. After interviewing Cynthia many of the Rangers told Captain Ross that they thought it would be best for Cynthia to be allowed to rejoin her adopted Native American family because she had spent so much time with them that they did not believe she could adapt to life with the whites. But Captain Ross had heard so many complaints about white children being kidnapped by the Natives that he thought it would be best for all concerned if they tried to rehabilitate her. Cynthia and Prairie Flower were sent to Camp Cooper where Cynthia was identified by an uncle named Isaac Parker. Isaac took Cynthia and Prairie Flower to his ranch near Birdville, Texas. The Texas legislature granted Cynthia a league of land which is equal to 428 acres and a pension of $100 per year for five years. Incidentally, most land grants given by the Mexican Government to the Anglo settlers was a “labor and a league”. A labor was 177 acres that had water frontage and a league was land without water frontage. They also named her uncles Isaac and Benjamin Parker as her guardians. It did not help. Cynthia was terminally homesick and tried to escape several times. In 1862 Cynthia went to live with her brother Silas in Van Zandt County, Texas. Silas was also named as her guardian. After Silas was mustered in the Confederate Army, Cynthia went to live with her sister Olrena. Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, the Parker family was in negotiation to send Cynthia back to live with her adopted family in west Texas but unfortunately the war got in the way. To make things much worse, in 1864 Prairie Flower died of influenza. This was bad enough but what made Cynthia so unhappy was that she missed her sons and did not know what had happened to them. Anyway she wasted away and died in 1870 of malnutrition at the age of 44 because she refused to eat. After several movements of her body she was finally put to rest beside her son Quanah and her daughter Prairie Flower in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Her son Quanah became a legend in the history of the American Indians and I will do a biography on him in the near future. The city of Quanah, Texas was named for him and the city of Nocona is named for Cynthia’s Comanche husband.

                     Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.