Friday

                           Musings and History

Quote if the day:

“There is a new Sex Museum in New York City. Guys finish the walk-through in five minutes. It takes women 30 minutes…if they finish at all.”

                                                         Jay Leno

Here is another dangerous adventure I experienced and again it was in Alaska. There were three of us going duck hunting north of Anchorage on the Knik Arm branch of Cook Inlet. Cook Inlet is a gigantic bay that comes from the Pacific Ocean to Anchorage and beyond. It splits into two “arms” at Anchorage, one of them is Knik arm and the other is Turnagin arm. Knik goes north and Turnagin goes south east. The road to Palmer, Alaska comes very close to Knik Arm and there is about a 7 foot embankment to the bed of the arm. We decided to hunt along the edge of the embankment where there was a lot of vegetation to hide in. The sky was full of duck and geese of all descriptions; it was September if my memory serves. After hunting along the edge of the bay for about two hours and seeing the sky black with game out on the mud flats we decided to walk out to a hummock that we saw about 100 yards away out in the bay. I need to mention here that the tide in Cook Inlet comes in three waves and it turns from low tide to flood tide in about two hours. We were too stupid to even check high and low tide times we just wanted to shoot ducks. I again was in “hip” waders which is rubber boots that came up to my crotch. We took one step out onto that mud and it quivered like Jello 5 or 6 feet out in front of us. Not only that, if you wiggled your toes you immediately sank up to your ankles. We got out about 30 yards and decided that this was too dangerous and turned around. We saw a running stream of water between us and high ground that was not there before and we realized the tide was incoming and our drowning was very likely. The more we struggled back toward the car the deeper the water became and sure enough, we all got our waders about ¼ full of water adding an enormous weight. I struggled and struggled and finally my hip and leg muscles felt like they were on fire. I finally reached the embankment which was covered with vegetation and I was able to pull myself up to the high ground but my legs were so weak that I could not walk and I could not get the waders emptied without help. I started crawling on my hands and knees toward the car until finally one of my buddies came to my rescue and lifted my legs vertically which emptied the waders and I was able to get them off and walk to the car and escape. If we had stayed out on that flat 10 minutes longer it would have been Sayonara, y’all. I survived for a reason yet unknown, except the birth of my children.

There is a person that I hold I very high esteem but we part company on our ideas from time to time. One of them is this person believes that someone that does hard time should receive help from the respective governments to help train them in a good profession so they won’t end up back in the joint. I personally disagree. It is true that the greater majority of felons end up back incarcerated but as I see it when they committed the first crime they gambled their freedom in return for what they gained from the crime. After what they gained from the crime has been redeemed, which is the sacrifice of their freedom, they get their freedom back. As far as I am concerned, that is all they deserve. They are trading crime for freedom and freedom for crime. It is even-steven as far as I am concerned. It is not up to the tax-payers to redeem those that prey upon the rest of us and go to jail. They suck our blood on purpose and are not deserving. To those that disagree, I suggest that you hire a recently released child molester as a baby sitter.

              This Date in History   January 6

1066 Earlier the King of England, Edward the Confessor, while on his death bed had named Harold Godwinson as his successor to the throne. Harold was from one of the most powerful families in England. On this date Harold was crowned as Harold II, King of England. William the Duke of Normandy called baloney on this ceremony claiming that Edward the Confessor had promised him the crown years before. Harold was aware of this claim and gathered his army and awaited William’s attack. Then another problem arose. King Harold’s brother Tostig and the King of Norway, Harald III Hardraade decided the time was ripe for an attack and take the crown from Harold for themselves. They attacked England through Scotland forcing Harold to leave the channel unprotected and meet the attack coming down from the north. King Harold met the Tostig and Harald III army and all but annihilated that bunch and the survivors ran back to the Humber River and sailed back to Norway never to return. All of this took place in August of 1066. Soon after this battle a courier found King Harold near the battle site and told him that he had better get back to the channel because the fleet of William of Normandy was on the horizon headed for the beach near Hastings. But that is another story.

1777 Earlier General George Washington had delivered a severe ass-kicking to the British forces at Trenton and Princeton and on this date he retreats to his winter quarters in Morristown, New Jersey. Washington had a problem with desertion because many of the troops did not want to spend another winter in the field with all of the privations experienced in the past. Another problem was many of his troops whose enlistments had expired on December 31 had failed to re-enlist. Fortunately for Washington he had gained much popularity throughout the colonies and had increased the maximum punishment from 39 lashes to 100 lashes. The Continental Congress had decreed that anyone enlisting for three years would receive a cash bonus and those that would enlist for the duration of the war would receive a land grant. All of this brought the Continental Army about 17,000 new enlistments and with his present army of about 11,000 brought Washington a substantial army to sally forth the coming spring.

1798 On this date Jedediah Strong Smith is born in Bainbridge, New York and became arguable the greatest trapper/explorer this country ever produced. It was Smith that discovered the famous “South Pass” across the Sierra Nevada Mountains which allowed heavily loaded wagons headed toward California and Oregon an easy passage. He found this path by his friendship with the Crow tribe who had known about this pathway for centuries. In 1822 he ran across a trapping party lead by William Ashley. Ashley had been depending on the Indians to provide the beaver furs that Ashley needed so he decided to hire his own trappers to provide beaver pelts and hired the knowledgeable Jed Smith as a guide/trapper. Smith did not disappoint and Ashley’s fur business flourished. Smith formed his own fur company and it flourished also. He was again hired to explore the Great Salt Lake area and was the first honky to explore many parts of California. After many close calls with different Indians he decided to retire to an easier life. He began guiding wagon trains from Saint Louis to Santa Fe and then on into California. On one occasion Smith led a wagon train out of Saint Louis and decided to take a short cut to save 200 miles. What he did not plan on was that there was no potable water on this route. About half way to Santa Fe the train was getting dangerously low on drinking water and Smith rode out looking for some. He never returned so the wagon train continued to Santa Fe hoping to find Smith there. He was not there but a Mexican trader was selling things that were known to belong to Smith. The trader had bought the items from a Comanche warrior. The warrior told the trader that he and four other Comanche had trapped Smith in a box canyon somewhere in the Texas panhandle near the Cimarron River and had tortured and killed him. His body was never found. He was 33 years old when he died. What a wonderfully adventurous but short life this man had.

                 Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow