Thursday

                     Musings and History

Quote of the day:

When introducing Jerry Lewis he said:

“Jerry, you look like you combed your hair with the Exxon Valdez.”

                                             Don Rickles

I guess it must have been a full moon this last weekend. A lot of strange things happened.

Over in Spartanburg, SC 26 year old Julius Cox was not happy with what his girlfriend was cooking for him and began beating on her. She headed for the bedroom and began gathering up her clothes to leave under a barrage of blows from her boyfriend. The cops finally arrived and put a stop to it and took Julius to the joint for criminal domestic violence. I don’t get it. If Julius was not happy with what she was cooking he could have went to Church’s Chicken, for crying out loud. Now he is eating some food that is barely edible and not much of it at that. I was always raised that if someone cooked for you, you ate it no matter what. It is a southern tradition. Obviously Julius is a Yankee.

Then over in the nearby town of Cowpens, 34 year old Earline Gowdy got mad at her husband for unknown reasons. She broke a leg off of and end table and hit him in the head three times opening severe gashes. When the cops arrived the husband was standing in the doorway bleeding like a stuck pig and yelling at the top of his lungs as was Earline. Earline was arrested for assault and battery and criminal domestic violence. Her husband was arrested for criminal domestic violence and taken to the Mary Black Hospital to have his head sewn up.

On a remote beach in New Zealand 58 pilot whales beached themselves and stayed that way for 12 hours before being discovered. Rescuers descended on the beach and began trying to re-float those that were still alive. They were able to get 11 of them headed back to sea with 7 of them appearing to be fit enough to travel and 4 seemed to be struggling. All the rest were dead. This is not the first time this has happened. Back in 2006 76 pilot whales beached themselves on this very same beach and none of them survived. No one knows why these whales choose to commit suicide like this.

This Date in History August 25

1944 A few days before the hard fighting French 2^nd Armored division, General Jacque-Philippe LeClerc commanding, approached the German occupied city of Paris, France from the north while the American 4^th Infantry is approaching Paris from the south. The liberation of that great city was at hand. The 2^nd Armored took a beating from the German artillery but when LeClerc heard that the 4^th Infantry was approaching the center of Paris he found a surge of energy and they swept the west side of Paris while the 4^th Infantry swept the east side. The German Commander in Paris was General Dietrich Von Choltitz. When Choltitz told Hitler that Paris was lost and would soon by occupied by the French and Americans Hitler ordered him to destroy all of the famous places in Paris like the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles palace, etc and then burn Paris to the ground. Choltitz thought about that about 3 minutes and then said to his staff “I will not go down in history as destroying the the greatest city in Europe.” So none of the pre-set explosives installed by the Germans was detonated and Paris was saved when Choltitz signed an official surrender to the Allies. There was about 20,000 German troops stationed in Paris but when they found out that they were trapped in a pincer movement and the Free French insurgents came out and began an attack on the troops out in the open, the German troops melted away. On this date a gigantic parade with the 2^nd Armored, the 4^th Infantry and The Free French march in victory down the Champs d’Elysses with General LeClerc and Charles DeGaulle in the lead. It was a great day for freedom.

1864 The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General R.E. Lee commanding, is under siege in and around Petersburg, Virginia by the Army of the Potomac, General Ulysses Grant commanding. The majority of supplies coming into the Confederates were coming in via the Weldon Railroad from the south. Grant ordered his 2^nd Corps led by General Winfield Hancock to go down and destroy the railroad. Hancock was successful in destroying 8 miles of railroad track but the Confederates simply stopped the train south of the destroyed rails and brought the supplies up by wagons. Lee got fed up and sent General A.P. Hill and his infantry supported by General Wade Hampton’s cavalry down to restore the railroad. The Confederate and Union troops met at a railroad depot named Ream’s Station. The Union soldiers had build a revetment out of soil but they did not build it tall enough and the Confederate artillery easily crossed over and fell into the huddled troops on the other side. The troops under the command of US General John Gibbon were green and inexperienced. When the artillery shells began falling, those troops broke and ran with Hampton’s cavalry in hot pursuit. It was a rout. This was not easy for US General Hancock to witness because he was the hero of Gettysburg and was known as a leader that would stand his ground. Not this time. Hancock and Gibbon blamed each other for the debacle so Grant got fed up with the squabbling and transferred them both out of the 2^nd Corps.

Born today:

1836 US writer Bret Harte. He said “A big vice in a man is likely to keep out many smaller ones.” It works for me, Bret.

1850 US humorist Bill Nye. He said “I have heard that Wagner’s music is a lot better than it sounds.”

1889 US writer William Feather. He said “Flattery must get pretty thick before anyone objects to it.”

1912 US cartoonist Walt Kelly. He said “Women are not as mere as they used to be.” Walt gave us the comic strip “Pogo”. Pogo gave us the immortal phrase “We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.”

1918 US composer Leonard Bernstein. He said “To achieve great things two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.”

1919 Former Governor George Wallace. He said “I may not look like a black man, but my heart is as black as anyone here.” How is that again, George?

1942 Scottish guitarist David Russell. He said “We live in a Newtonian world of Einstein physics ruled by Frankenstein logic.”

1949 US musician Gene Simmons. He said “Walk among the natives in the daylight, but in your heart be Superman.”

1613 English writer Richard Crashaw. He said to his wife “It is daylight, my sweet. Not from the east but from thine eyes.” All you married guys need to remember these words.

         Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow