Friday

                        Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep but I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”

                                          Alexander the Great

Another event during my trip to the Rogue river came to mind. At one point during one of our “drifts” my guide's wife was in the boat with me and one other fisherman along with the guide, my friend Wayne. She was in the front of the boat. In a drift the guide is in the middle of the boat standing up manipulating the oars...that's right, a drift boat is only oar powered. We were approaching an area close to a road and a lot of people were fishing from the bank. I kept seeing Wayne taking his clothes off and throwing them in front of his wife and assumed he was getting warm. Finally his wife saw his underwear come over her head and realized that Wayne was nude to entertain all the people on the bank. She turned around and yelled “What the hell are you doing, Wayne?” However, Wayne being nude and standing up and she was sitting down, her turning around facing Wayne was not to her advantage The crowd on the bank yelled and clapped in appreciation. What a trip.

                 This Date in History   April 14

1865 A few months before a famous stage actor named John Wilkes Booth met with two other men and they made plans to save the Confederacy. Booth was born in Maryland in 1838 and became a vehement supporter of the Confederacy after the outbreak of hostilities. He remained in the north in spite of his opinions. When it became obvious that the Confederacy was falling apart, Booth took it upon himself to hatch a plan that would save it. His first plan was to kidnap Abraham Lincoln and take him to Richmond but Lincoln did not show up at the place he was supposed to be with Booth and six of his fellow conspirators laying in wait. Then Booth came up with another plan. He found out that Lincoln was going to attend the play “Our American Cousin” at the Ford Theatre in Washington on April 14. He called another meeting with his conspirators, Lewis Powell and George Atzeroldt. The plan was to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward simultaneously thereby eliminating the chain of succession for the Presidency causing much turmoil in the Federal Government. At that time the third in line was the Secretary of State, now the third in line is the Speaker of the House. I suspect the reason is that the Congress wanted the chain of succession to be elected officials rather than selected officials. Anyway, Booth took Lincoln, Lewis Powell took Secretary Seward and Atzeroldt was assigned Vice-President Johnson. On this night Booth sneaked into Lincoln’s box seat at the Ford theatre and shot Lincoln point blank in the head with a .41 caliber derringer. Powell burst in on Seward and shot him and several other that were there with him. Seward was severely wounded but survived. Atzeroldt got right on top of Vice-President Johnson but lost his nerve and ran away. Booth and the others hatched this plan in the boarding house of one Mary Seuratt. Booth was killed when he was surrounded and refused to surrender. The others were publicly hanged, including Mary Seuratt who was not a conspirator but had the misfortune of owning the boarding house and the officials felt that she should have known about the conspiracy and alerted the police. The whole of the Federal government was thirsting for blood, and they got it.

1986 Earlier various United States intelligence agencies and others world-wide had discovered that Libyan President Murammar Quaddafi had been engineering acts of terrorism on non-Moslem countries. The final straw came when a United States warship was fired upon while cruising in the Gulf of Sidra in the Mediterranean. Quadddafi considered the Gulf of Sidra as Libyan waters but no one else in the world did. After this President Ronald Reagan ordered an air strike against Quaddafi. The strike consisted of 14 US Navy A-6 bombers and 18 F-111 fighter/bombers. The Intruders flew off an American aircraft carrier cruising in the Mediterranean and the F-111’s flew out their home base in England. The US Navy provided air cover for the operation. Now listen to this. The United States Air Force requested permission from France to fly from England directly to Libya across French airspace and was refused. This meant that the F-111’s had to fly down to Gibraltar, then hang a left into the Mediterranean, execute the strike and re-trace their steps back to England. This added about 3,000 miles to the mission plus one additional in-flight refueling. The French are damned fine people, aren’t they? It reminds me of the trip I took to Omaha Beach and the American cemetery there with Christian Crosses and Stars of David going to the horizon. Yes, it indeed reminds me. Anyway, the strike went off without a hitch. Our guys bombed the hell out of Quaddafi’s houses killing two of his sons and injuring many. The Libyan Air force sent up fighters, French made fighters at that, two of which were immediately shot down by our US Navy air cover and the others ran for cover. But it is very likely that the Pan-Am jumbo jet that was bombed out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland was engineered by Libyan agents or at least they were responsible for planting the bomb on the aircraft in Frankfort, Germany. We have a lot of enemies primarily because they are jealous of our freedom. It doesn’t come free, ya’ll, it doesn’t come free, we have to fight for it.

1988 On this date officials from the USSR, Afghanistan, the United States and Pakistan meet and arrange for the withdrawal of all USSR troops from that meat grinder called Afghanistan. Ten years before the USSR had sent in troops to support the puppet government they had set up a year before. The Russians did not count on the fierceness and combat savvy of the Afghani guerillas. They fought for ten years and the Russians did not gain a damned thing but lost over 80,000 soldiers. Hey, isn’t the United States military in Afghanistan right now?

Born today:

1866 US educator (primarily Helen Keller) Annie Sullivan. She said “The truth is not wonderful enough for the newspapers; so they enlarge upon it and invent ridiculous embellishments.” Nothing has changed, has it?

1925 US actor Rod Steiger. He said “Man is a greater miracle than any god he ever invented” Rod sounds like an atheist to me, but I know he was born Jewish.

1935 US country singer Loretta Lynn. She said “My attitude toward men who mess around is simple. If you find them, kill them.” Damn Loretta, lighten up.

1941 US baseball player Pete Rose. He said “All I want is for my case to be heard by an “impractical” decision-maker.” I think he meant “impartial”. Nobody ever said that you have to have an elemental vocabulary to play baseball.

1957 US comic Richard Jeni. He said “I think that’s how Chicago got started. A bunch of people in New York said “I like the crime and poverty but it isn’t cold enough, lets move west.” I spent a week in the O’Hare airport one afternoon.

1977 US actress Sarah Michelle Gellar. She said “I don’t understand why James Bond has to be a man all the time, after Pierce Brosnan retires, why not one of us? “ Sarah, shut up.

Died today:

1951 English statesman Ernest Bevin. He said “You open that Pandora’s Box; there is no telling what Trojan horse will jump out.” Ernest, you shut up, too.

             Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow