Thursday

Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“My ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower but we were there to meet the boat.”

Congressman William Nighthorse Campbell, Comanche

I am reading about a amateur naturalist named Timothy Treadwell. This man felt that he could connect with wildlife on a personal level and he and his girlfriend went to Katmai, Alaska. He set up camp at the intersection of two obvious trails used by the local grizzlys. Sure enough over a period of time the bears did not detect any fear or hostilities from Tim and they passed by on the way to the salmon creeks and rivers without a second glance. It was getting on toward fall and the the bears began stuffing themselves in anticipation of hibernation. One day a bear that was not a local showed up and headed to one of the salmon creeks and stumbled on Tim and his girlfriend. Tim and his girlfriend did not show up to meet a local bush pilot to take them back to Anchorage and then back home to Long Island, NY. A team of wildlife officers went looking for them and found just scraps of body parts. They were able to track down and kill the killer bear and found the rest of Tim and his girlfriend...what there was left of them.

Up in Charlotte over the weekend two gunmen burst into a Subway sandwich shop on Sugar Creek Road and attempted to rob the joint. The clerk behind the counter produced his own weapon and capped one of the thieves instantly and wounded the other one seriously who fled. The cops came and could tell from the blood trail that the one that fled was seriously injured. They just went to the Carolina Medical Center and waited. Sure enough, a man showed up with a gunshot wound. The other dead bastard was carted off in a meat wagon. I have no sympathy.

This Date in History January 19

1809 One of the greatest poet/writers this country has ever produced, Edgar Allen Poe, is born in Boston. He had lost both of his parents by the time he was twelve and went to live with his Godfather John Allen, a wealthy tobacco dealer. Poe’s Godfather sent him to school in England for a while and then he came back and entered the prestigious University of Virginia. The trouble was that Poe was a player and made some major gambling debts and argued with his Godfather to bail him out. It did not happen and Poe was kicked out of UVA in 1826 after only eight months. Not only that, Poe was heavy into the sauce and would toke on opium from time to time. He joined the US Army serving two years and was offered an appointment to West Point. While in the army he was sent to Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island near Charleston, SC. While there he is to have supposedly written his first mystery novel The Gold Bug. There is a small tavern on Sullivan’s Island called Poe’s Tavern that is supposed to be the place that The Gold Bug was written, but that is just a legend. In any event, Poe’s Tavern is one of my most favorite watering holes on the planet. Poe did indeed attend West Point but had yet another falling out with his Godfather about money and at the same time he broke enough rules at West Point to get himself kicked out. During all of this time Poe had written a few credible poems which did not receive much attention. In 1836 while working as an editor for a newspaper in Richmond, Virginia he married his 13 year old cousin. Poe wrote his first full length work which was published in 1838. He lost his job in Richmond be cause he got heavy into the sauce again and he and his wife moved to Philadelphia and he went to work for two magazines as a literary critic. His critiques were admired for being correct and concise. It was during this time that he gave us The Fall of the House of Usher and The Tell-Tale Heart, both of which are milestones of mystery novels to this day. Right after this he delivered The Murder at Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter which remains to this day the first detective novels. He then moved to New York and stunned the world with his poem the immortal The Raven which brought him eternal fame. Soon after this his wife fell ill from tuberculosis and died in 1847. This put Poe deeper into the sauce and opium but in 1849 he moved to Richmond and hooked up with an old flame and they decided to marry. He went to Baltimore to have a bachelor party with some of his trashy friends. After a while at the party Poe showed up missing but he was eventually found wallowing around in a gutter incoherent. His friends took him to a hospital, but he died on October 7, 1849 at the age of 40. What a waste of God given talent.

1983 On this day former Nazi Chief of Lyon, France, Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia for crimes against humanity 40 years earlier. While Barbie was the Nazi chief in Lyon, he sent thousands of French Jews and resistance worker to the deaths in interment camps in addition to personally torturing hundreds to get information. After World War II Barbie fled to Germany and joined an underground group to fight the Communists. The American Counter-Intelligence-Corps (CIC) broke up the group but hired Barbie to help gather information on the Communists by what ever means available. In 1949 the CIC felt that Barbie would serve the US well in Bolivia as a monitor of Communist activity in Central America and smuggled him into country. While there he also hired himself out to various military regimes especially the one headed by Hugo Banzer who came to power in 1971. Banzer was especially repressive and cruel and used Barbie to good advantage. About this time Nazi hunters Serge Klarsfield and Beatte Kunsel found out where Barbie was and came looking for him. As you might expect Banzer refused to extradite Barbie but four years later a more liberal regime came to power and agreed to extradite Barbie to France if the French government would aid the impoverished Bolivia. France agreed and “The Butcher of Lyon” was flown to France. In July of 1987 Barbie was convicted of 187 crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment, which is the highest penalty imposed in France. Barbie died of cancer in prison in 1991 at the age of 77. God works in mysterious ways.

1806 On this date in Westmoreland County, Virginia a son is born to Revolutionary War hero Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee. Harry decided to name him Robert Edward Lee, or as he became known as Robert E. Lee. Robert was well educated in his teens and was given an appointment to West Point. He graduated not first in his class but went through the entire four years without a single demerit. Before the Civil War he returned to the Academy as Superintendent. After the Civil War he became the president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. This college eventually was titled Washington and Lee University in honor of Robert E. Lee. There is no use for me to expound on the leadership capabilities of this man for they are well known. Winston Churchill said of Lee “Never in the field of human conflict has one man been loved by so many.”

2007 US Journalist Art Buchwald. He said “People are broad-minded. They will accept someone that is a drug addict, wife beater, alcoholic or even a newspaper man, but if they cannot drive a car they think there is something wrong with them.” That reminds me of the days when I was a “shagger” or a dancer of a style peculiar to the Carolinas. When we would go to the Myrtle Beach area twice a year for “SOS” which was a big, days long dance party, we would go to “home base” which was either “The Pad”, “Fat Harold’s” or “Ducks” (bars with big dance floors) and the people would gather in well defined groups based on the skill level of dancers, and they did not talk to other groups. I believe that if Ted Bundy walked in there and danced well enough, he would be accepted. They were/are pretty shallow, y’all.

         Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow