Thursday

                      Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“I have outlived my penis.”

       Willie Nelson

A while back I had this for breakfast:

12 steamed shrimp, 12 raw oysters, 4 slices of raw yellow fin tuna marinated in Soy Sauce and lemon juice. 1 Seven-Up. (I like it better than coffee).

The next few paragraphs are from my last visit to Pensacola Beach.

Yesterday for lunch I went to one of my favorite restaurants in the world and that being “The Coffee Cup” on Cervantes Street. I had soft scrambled eggs, Nassau grits, fried Kielbasa, toast with Smucker's grape jelly, coffee and water. Nassau grits is regular grits mixed with Ro-Tel tomatoes, onions and bacon chips and green chilis. It is delicious, y’all. Of course the Kielbasa is just a type of Polish sausage where they cut about a 6 inch length, split it long ways and fry it like a regular sausage. It is delicious also.

I went out to visit with some of my trashy friends and we renewed old and exciting memories. The leader of our pack is “Mayor Bob” Merrimon. Bob is about 88 years old and is just as active as a man half his age. He suns himself on the beach three or four times a week and has a chestnut colored tan year round. He has been a fixture on this beach for over 50 years, y’all. There is very little he hasn’t seen. On the way home I stopped at Peg Leg Pete's and got a bowl of seafood gumbo.

Tomorrow I will have a light lunch at Sidelines (about a mile away) and have a heavy dinner at Lillo’s, a Tuscan Italian café (about 1 ¼ miles away). The owner of Lillo’s has an eye for beauty and his bartenders and servers show it. Then I will meet Bob and the rest of the clan at the Sandshaker for more tall tales, jokes and ale. I am sorry to report that there have been no drive-by shootings, gang activity, convenience store clerks shot or stabbed, etc. I guess all this spells boredom to some…but not this horse. The serenity, the beauty of the flora and fauna along with the slow pace of life is very, very palatable at this point in my life.

This Date in History October 20

1944 Earlier in 1942 the United States military commander of the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur had been kicked out by the invading Japanese army. Before leaving at the order of the United States President Franklin Roosevelt, he gave command to General Jonathon Wainwright knowing he was doomed to be killed or captured by the overwhelming Japanese forces. According to MacArthur he vehemently objected to being ordered to withdraw, he said he had rather stay with his troops no matter their fate. He made a short speech before he left stating that he was leaving but vowing that “I shall return”. On this date, General MacArthur did indeed return when he splashed ashore in the Philippines accompanied by a huge US army, Navy and Marine combination and ended up kicking out, killing or capturing all the Japanese soldiers on the archipelago. He did not find out the fate of General Wainwright until Wainwright was rescued from a Japanese prison camp in Mongolia by the invading Russians. This rescue was just a few weeks before the surrender of Japan on August 10. Wainwright was ordered by MacArthur to be present at the surrender ceremony aboard the battleship USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. When MacArthur first saw the severely emaciated Wainwright he broke down sobbing. War is hell.

1774 On this date the Continental Congress passed a bill called the Continental Association Act. The Continental Association Act forbade any of the colonies to do business of any sort with Great Britain. This bill was in response to an act passed by British Parliament that the Continentals called the “Intolerable Acts”. The so-called Intolerable Acts were passed in response to the Boston Tea Party and consisted of four parts and there were: 1. The port of Boston was closed to all shipping except the English. 2. The Massachusetts Government act made Great Britain in command of all town meetings and decisions as to the state of Massachusetts. 3. British officials would be immune from criminal prosecution. 4. The colonists must provide quarters to the British military on demand including individual homes. Can you imagine a government trying to push something like this on anyone? As you might suspect, almighty hell was raised by each and every colony, even the Loyalist bent state of Georgia. The following spring the Continentals got fed up with the damned Redcoats and opened fire on them at Breed’s Hill, better known as Bunker Hill and was called “the shot heard around the world”. The Revolutionary War began in earnest.

1944 Early this morning an employee of the East Ohio Gas company in Cleveland sees a stream of white vapor coming out of the side of a natural gas tank. This bad boy was 57 feet in diameter and had the capacity of 90 million cubic feet. One hour later a stupendous explosion rocked the Lake Erie waterfront. A fire of biblical proportions erupts and flames reach upward to 2,500 feet. Each and every fireman in Cleveland participated in the containing this fire. After the fire finally died the fireman found 130 bodies all burned beyond recognition and hundreds wounded. Two factories were leveled, 70 houses destroyed and 200 cars melted into puddles. The leak was caused by contraction. The natural gas is put into the tank at 210 degrees below zero which forces the tank to contract and a small split at a seam occurred. All existing tanks were upgraded and newer tanks were designed to overcome this design flaw.

1803 Earlier the fledgling United States realized that they needed another port on the Gulf of Mexico and thought that New Orleans would be ideal. At the time, New Orleans and a huge chunk of North America was owned by France having had that land ceded to them by Spain two years before. The United States sent James Monroe and James Livingston to France to try and purchase New Orleans from Napoleonic France. They met with Napoleon’s second in command Lord Talleyrand and requested a price for New Orleans. On this date, Talleyrand came into the office and said “What will you give me for all of it?” He meant the whole of the lands owned by France in North America that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. After Monroe and Livingston got through peeing in their pants, they requested a few days to come up with a figure. They came back to Talleyrand and offered $15 million which was accepted. They had overstepped their bounds by light years but knew they could not let this opportunity pass. It would take several months to sail back to America, meet with Congress, and then back to France and they did not want Napoleon to change his mind. The reason Napoleon wanted to do this was twofold. He needed money finance his war in Europe and he wanted to keep North America out of the hands of the British. Napoleon said that he wanted North America to be a “thorn in the side of England” as indeed it was. This purchase was known as the immortal Louisiana Purchase. By the way, Louisiana was named after French king Louis XIV.

Births and deaths:

1946 US writer Lewis Grizzard is born. He said “I have written a song titled “When My Love Comes Back From the Ladies Room, Will I Be Too Old To Care.”

                  Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow.