Friday

                          Musings and History

NOTICE: Soon I will discontinue the e-mail of my blog and will only publish it online. Here is the web site.

                                  bigalsdailyhistory.blogspot.com

Pay close attention to the item dated 1937 in the “history” section.

Quote of the day:

“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. Optimists invented the airplane and pessimists the parachute.”

                                      George Bernard Shaw

A while back a man was imprisoned for killing another man in a road rage incident. Recently this man was paroled and a couple of days ago he jumped out his car in Plant City, Fl. and charged back toward the car behind him. The driver of this car showed the man a pistol and yelled “I will use it” (verified by the driver behind). The attacker was not deterred and began pounding on the driver side window. The driver made good his threat and shot the attacker killing him instantly. Does the 2^nd Amendment apply here? The police chief of Plant City said the shooter will not be charged.

Speaking of this...I think we all saw what happened in Chicago a couple of days ago. There was 9 killings and 20 wounded in one day, mostly black and Latino. Where is BLM?

         This Date in History  August 12

1937 On this date at 2:30p a man-child was born in a “mill house” on the Mills Mill village near Greenville, South Carolina. The child’s mother was attended by a mid-wife to assist in the birth. His mother and father worked in the nearby cotton mill to make ends meet and when the child was five his father took a job as a welder with Bethlehem Steel in Baltimore building Liberty (cargo) ships during WWII. After the war the family moved back to Greenville with an addition to the family in a sister born in Baltimore. The boy went through a normal, but poor, childhood but he did not know he was poor and never recalled being unhappy. Later on there was another addition to the family in a brother. The boy grew up and graduated from high school and almost immediately joined the US Air Force and was trained and trained as as an Air Traffic Controller. After duty in San Antonio, Texas, Valdosta, Georgia, Greenville, Mississippi, North Pole, Alaska, Anchorage, Alaska and Tacoma, Washington he was discharged and soon went to work as an Air Traffic Controller for the FAA in Asheville, NC. He transferred to Greenville, SC and then to Pensacola, Fl where he ended his career as an Air Traffic Controller. He took several jobs, all unsatisfactory until his brother (an architect) persuaded him to look into an engineering branch called piping design. After going to two different schools he ended up as a piping designer with a very large engineering firm in Greenville, SC. A business downturn resulted in him being laid off and then he became a contract worker on the road. This meant that he took jobs in different parts of the country doing piping design. He finally became skilled in 3D piping design and road jobs became easier and a lot more lucrative. During all of this he had three unsuccessful marriages but had issue of three beautiful daughters. There came a time after he had lost his mother, father and sister in a span of 14 months in spite of giving his sister two bone marrow transplants, he decided that he no longer needed a full time job and began to work part time which is where he is today. That’s right folks, I am telling y'all about your truly. I hope you enjoyed it. Yes, today is my birthday.

1990 On this date fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson discovered three large fossilized bones jutting out of a hillside in the Black Hills near Faith, South Dakota. Further exploration showed that it was the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found. As you might suspect, as soon as the news got out about the discovery, the vultures came out of the woodwork wanting a piece of the action. Hendrickson had paid the Cheyenne tribe who owned the land $5,000 for right to dig on the property but the Cheyenne had sold that particular piece of property to avoid paying the taxes on it. Then the US Bureau of Land Management got involved. Finally the skeleton was sold at auction to the Chicago Field Museum for $8.25 Million which is where it stands today. The assemblers of the skeleton did not have to do much interpretation because the skeleton was 92% complete.

1676 On this date the so-called King Phillip’s War ends. Fifty years of peace with the Wampanoag in New England was beginning to deteriorate primarily because of the greed of the settlers. They wanted more and more of the Wampanoag’s lands and they asked for King Phillip’s warriors to surrender their firearms. King Phillip even agreed to this. The final straw was that the settlers executed three of King Phillip’s men because they had caught them stealing. This was against the treaty they had with King Phillip whereby if any Indian or settler committed a crime the perpetrator would be returned to the Indians if he was an Indian or back to the Pilgrims if it was a Pilgrim for punishment. After the Pilgrims executed the three warriors, King Phillip sent a group of his men to what is now Swansea, Massachusetts and they massacred everybody there. They did not stop there, the destroyed several other villages and the Pilgrims set out and destroyed several of the Wampanoag villages, but they destroyed a Narragansett village by mistake and then the Pilgrims had them down on their ass too. Then several other tribes joined with King Phillip and the Pilgrims had a full fledged war on their hands. They were able to suppress the Narragansett and sent an assassin to find King Phillip. The assassin (a paid Wampanoag) found King Phillip at his secret headquarters near New Hope, Rhode Island and killed him. The Pilgrims did the honorable thing when they drew and quartered King Phillip’s body and displayed his head atop one of their flagpoles. Our ancestors were very civilized, weren’t they?

1862 On this date the Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan captured a US arsenal near Gallatin, Tennessee. Morgan had been tasked with cutting the supply lines of US General Don Carlos Buell who was threatening Chattanooga, Tennessee. Morgan was not done yet. He made three more raids on the supply lines of General Buell by filling a railroad car with hay, setting it afire and rolling it into a tunnel where the flames set the bracing on fire and the tunnel collapsed putting severe crimp into Buell’s supply line. After this Morgan went to the western theater to fight with CSA General Kirby Smith. The CSA was blessed with superb cavalry officers in John Hunt Morgan, John Mosby, J. E. B. Stuart, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Wade Hampton III, etc..

1933 One of the foremost bank robbers in America Harvey “Old Harve” Bailey had been jailed for bank robbery but on this date he escapes. In an incredible stroke of bad luck, Harvey goes to the Shannon Ranch near Paradise, Texas to hide out and wait for things to cool off. When he walks in he sees and old friend named “Machine Gun” Kelly. Like Harvey specialized in bank robbery, Kelley specialized in kidnapping wealthy people for the ransom and Kelly was holding a very rich man for ransom. Well, Harvey had not been there but a very short time when the FBI and local law enforcement swept down and arrested everyone, including “Old Harve”. Even though Harve had no part of the kidnapping, he was charged with it anyway. While in jail for the kidnapping in Dallas, Texas, he escaped once again and made his way to Oklahoma before being captured once again. Harve served 30 years in Leavenworth for a kidnapping he had no part of. He was paroled in 1965 and spent the remainder of his 14 years on Earth in relative obscurity.

            Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow