Friday

                      Musings and History

Quote of the day:

After the 1^st and 5^th Marines among others had successfully fought for and taken control of the island of Saipan in WWII, news reporters came ashore to get interviews and take pictures. The battle for Saipan was one of most bloody and savage battles ever documented. The American combat troops on Saipan had been in a constant battle for six weeks. A news reporter saw a ragged Marine with a six weeks growth of beard and smelling like a garbage dump and went over and asked him if he knew where the headquarters of the 1^st Marines was. The Marine just looked at him and said “Mister, there ain’t no more 1^st Marines.” In this battle alone the Americans lost 14,000 killed while out of 40,000 Japanese defenders there was 700 survivors.

Here is a brief tavelogue.

Back in 2004 a lady friend from Charlotte and I decided we needed a vacation and began a scan of the internet.  We decided on a 16 days trip that included 3 days in London and 13 days aboard the Holland America ship Noordam cruising the English Channel.  This was the final trip for the Noordam, after this trip she was going to the scrap yard.  Also included was a trip to Omaha Beach for the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.  We flew from Charlotte to Newark and then to London.  We arrived at Heathrow about 9:00am and was driven (wrong side of the road, by the way) to the Millennium Bailey Hotel in Kensington (west London).  Our hotel room would not be ready until about 1:00p and and my friend amd I were exhausted.  The hotel bar was named Humphrey's  and they did not open unti 1:00p so she and I crawled under one of the tables and slept as best we could.  We finally were able to get to our room and slept for real.  That afternoon we went outside to look around and much to my surprise directly across the street was a bar named Stanhope Pub.  In front of the pub was a group of choppers and I knew this would be a place for me.  On the way to the hotel I had asked the van driver what is the best beer in England and he said it was London's Finest.  We went into the pub and what a great mixture of people were there.  The chopper riders were outside sitting around picnic tables but inside there was a wonderful montage of humanity.  Everyone was friendly and identified my heritage as soon as I opened my mouth saying things like "You are from the colonies, aren't you."  The most interesting person was a middle aged man wearing striped pants, a prince Albert cutaway coat, spats, highly shined shoes, a beautiful ascot tie and a derby hat.  I found out he was a member of Parliament.  I asked the bartender for a London's Finest.  He pumped a handle on a tap back and forth to fill the glass, the beer was very strong and at room temperature.  I drank it as best I could and asked if he had any chilled beer and he said all he had chilled was Budweiser and Fosters ...I had Fosters the rest of the evening.  I have further adventures if there is any interest.   

       This Date in History November 11

1918 On the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month an armistice was signed in a rail car near Compeigne, France ending four years of one of the bloodiest conflicts in the history of warfare called World War I. This war began in 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the apparent heir to the Austria-Hungary Empire. The Archduke was inspecting his uncle’s troops in Sarajevo, Bosnia when he and his wife were gunned down by a Bosnian Serb nationalist. There had been bad blood between Austria-Hungary and Serbia in the past and Austria-Hungary chose this opportunity to settle the issue once and for all. After Austria-Hungary had received assurances that Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany would support Austria-Hungary if they declared war on Serbia and Russia intervened, they declared war on Serbia and began shelling the capitol of Belgrade. Russia was an ally of Serbia and began mobilization to support Serbia and Germany began mobilization in support of Austria-Hungary. Well, the rest of Europe began taking sides and it eventually ended up being Europe (France, Belgium, England and eventually the US) against Germany combined with Austria-Hungary. The war cost the lives of over 9 million and 26 million wounded. Finally the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was signed which officially ended the conflict. The Treaty was so harsh to the German people that many German civilians died of starvation and disease afterward. All this did was to anger the German people and they almost immediately began seeking revenge. And sure enough, a German madman named Adolph Hitler said the right words In the early 1930’s and instilled a pride back into the German people and he also engineered the re-birth of the German military expertise and equipment in spite of the Treaty of Versailles and in 1938, they launched the most effective and deadly assemblage of military might the world had ever seen. But this time, they had control of the air over Europe, something never seen in WWI, WWII was underway.

1988 On this date the Sacramento, California police make a grisly discovery on the front lawn of Dorothea Puente. It was the corpse of an elderly woman. The police found out that Puente ran a residential home for the elderly. They also found six more buried corpses and not only that, she had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic years before. This bitch had previously done hard time for forging checks and going to bars and slipping drugs into people’s drinks and the robbing them. After she got out of prison she decided to open a residential home for the elderly, if y’all can believe that. A social worker had sent 19 people to stay with Dorothea and many of them just disappeared. Finally, the neighbors began smelling the aroma of rotting flesh which brought the police into the act. All of the corpses found on her property had been drugged with a sedative but the coroner could not name that as the cause of death nor could the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that good old Dorothea had even buried the bodies that were found there in spite of 3,100 exhibits. The prosecution had charged Puente with nine murders but she was convicted of just three. The police believed that she was responsible for the disappearance of 25 people that had been staying there. I wonder where she is today.

1933 On this day a sustained wind out of the west arrived in the farmlands of South Dakota. This was the beginning of one of the largest dust storms in American history. The Great Plains of American had been suffering from 6 year long drought that added to the misery of the Great Depression. This particular dust storm arising out of what was called the “Dust Bowl” lifted tons and tons of topsoil and took much of it as far east as Albany, New York. There were many factors that brought this misery to the fore. There was the drought of course plus the farmers plowing up nearly all of the prairie grasses and then planting a less hearty plant such as wheat or barley. They also had no clue as to contour plowing and other modern techniques. There was a story about a representative of the US Department of Agriculture that giving a seminar to the farmers in the Dust Bowl on how to farm more productively when one older farmer rose up and said “Sonny, You can’t tell me about how to farm. I have worn out three farms already.”

Born today:

1744 Wife of President John Adams, Abigail Smith Adams. She said “We have too many high sounding words and not enough action.” Abigail was not afraid to state her opinion, no matter who was listening. There is a country song that has the phrase “A little less talk and a lot more action”, that sounds like Abigail to me.

1885 US General (and my hero) George S. Patton. He said “No good decision was ever made from a swivel chair.” Hey George add to that “nor in committee meetings”.

1964 US actress Calista Flockhart. While on the David Letterman Show she said “I just want to take this opportunity to tell the press to KISS MY SKINNY WHITE ASS!” Good job, but you don’t have to prove your description to us, Calista.

1962 US actress Demi Moore. She said “There are a lot of people out there that think I am a bitch.” Yes Demi, there is.

           Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow