Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
“Eva
was considering opening her own tree nursery, then I heard her sing
“The Rose” and everything changed.”
Hugh Cassidy, Eva Cassidy’s father
Trivia
question of the day:
Who
played the mayor of Amity in “Jaws”? Answer at the end of the
blog.
I
saw a comedian that said he went to Iraq on a USO mission to
entertain
the troops. He went to Tikrit and back to Baghdad in a
C-130. He flew
around in an Apache combat helicopter. He was shot
at, saw mortar rounds
landing and machine gun tracers zooming by. He
made a good observation
when he said this: “Those people were not
interested in killing African
Americans, Asian-Americans,
Slav-Americans, German-Americans, Scots-
Americans. Irish-Americans,
European-Americans, American Indians, they
were just interested in
killing Americans. They did not differentiate, why
should we?”
This
Date in History December 1
1779
Patriot commander General George Washington and his rag-tag army
went into winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey. Fortunately for
Washington he was able to commandeer a fairly substantial house known
as Ford House
for the winter. His accommodations gave the General plenty
of room
and light to make plans for the next encounter with the
Loyalists/British/German mercenaries. His troops had to build about
1,000
log cabins on about 600 acres to withstand one of the worst
winters in
American history. This was going to be a winter of not
enough winter
clothes, not enough food and receiving no pay. It was
not much better for
the civilians because the Continental treasury
had all but collapsed and life
was hard for them also. With the
economy reduced by 40 per cent because
of the war and both the
Continental army and the English army raiding
farms for horses and
oxen to tow their artillery. This prevented the farmers
from being
able to till their crops which had a domino effect with the rest of
the community. Even with the defeat of British General Burgoyne and
the
capture of nearly 8,000 British troops, this added a hardship to
the colonies
because they had 8,000 more mouths to feed. Even though
Washington had
16,000 troops in the books, he had only 3,600 that
were standing for orders;
the rest had gone back to their homes. The
Continental Army was on the
cusp of dissolution. The British people
were in a similar frame of mind.
They did not share King George III
in his zeal for keeping the colonies. They
were fed up with the lack
of trade and an exponentially decrease in their
economy because of
the extra costs of the war. A war of attrition had now
become a war
of contrition. The United States exists because of the grit,
sacrifice, determination and an ocean of blood shed by our ancestors.
Let
us not ever forget that.
1955
On this chilly morning a black woman in Montgomery, Alabama name
Rosa Parks boarded a city bus for a ride across town. She and all
blacks
were ordered by law to sit in the back of the bus aft of the
rear door. That is
unless a white, man or woman, was found to be
standing and then one of
the blacks had to give up their seat to the
honky. Rosa was ordered by the
bus driver to give up her seat to a
white man that was standing. Rosa
refused and was arrested and
jailed. Rosa was a card carrying member of
the NAACP and when word
reached NAACP headquarters all hell broke
loose. The NAACP ordered a
boycott of the Montgomery bus system and it
was successful which
proved to be disastrous because the blacks
represented 70% of the bus
riders. This was the first time that the Rev.
Martin Luther King got
involved with a peaceful action against segregation.
The NAACP sued
the city of Montgomery because of the law that specified
segregation
on mass transit in the city. The US Supreme Court struck down
that
law as being a violation of the 14th
Amendment and 381 days after the
boycott began, blacks again began
riding the buses and sitting anywhere
they pleased. One of the first
riders on this day was Rosa Parks.
1958
On this date the grammar school named Our Lady of Angels in
Chicago is hit with a disaster. The school was run by the Sisters of
Charity
in an old building with no fire protection like sprinklers
and fire alarms. The
Sisters had never held a fire drill. A small
fire started in a trash pile in the
basement which quickly spread to
the floor of the first floor. The teachers
on the first floor
smelled smoke and took their students out to safety but
did not alert
the people on the second floor. The janitor discovered the fire
and
ran upstairs to pull the fire alarms but they apparently did not work
which meant that the students and teachers on the second floor were
trapped. Some of the students jumped out of windows to the awaiting
arms
of the firemen who had finally arrived. Many were injured,
including the
firemen. One improvising teacher told her students to
get under the smoke
and roll down the stairs and out the door to
safety but others just stayed
and awaited divine intervention. 90
students and three nuns were killed in
the inferno. What a damned
shame.
1884
A Mexican deputy sheriff named Elfego Baca arrests a gringo cowboy
named Charles McArthur for firing for or five shots at him in Frisco
(now
Reserve), New Mexico. On this day about 80 cowboys show up to
spring
good old Charlie from the slammer. It seems this group of
Texas cowboys
had been using this Mexican village for their own
personal entertainment by
riding in and brutalizing the residents,
raping the girls, etc so Baca was
assigned the duty to put a stop to
it and given the title of deputy Sheriff.
When the 80 cowboys rode
in Baca hustled the town’s people into the
church where they would
be safe and then ran to an old adobe house to
make a stand. Baca
opened up and killed one of the cowboys and wounded
several. The
cowboys responded with over 400 rounds into the flimsy
building. Not
hearing any response the cowboys thought Baca was dead.
But the next
morning they smelled beef stew and found out the Baca was
indeed
alive and cooking his breakfast. About then, two more lawmen
showed
up along with many of Baca’s friends and the cowboys retreated.
There was no more trouble from the Texas cowboys after that, Baca
went on
to become a hero in the Latino community fir standing up to
those gringos
and enjoyed a life of peace and notoriety.
Born today:
1945
American entertainer Bette Midler. She said “They arrested Helen
Reddy for loitering in front of an orchestra.” I didn’t like her
either.
Died today:
1964
English scientist John Haldane. He said “I have never met a
healthy
man who worried about his health or a good man that worried
about his
soul.” Tack onto that “or a drunken man who didn’t
think he is irresistible to
women.”
1987
US writer James Baldwin. He said “The price we pay for pursuing
an
art is calling in the familiarity of the ugly side of it.”
Baldwin was a chronicler of the so called “Beat Generation”.
“For
three years things were great, then she up and left me for a g
that didn’t cheat on her”
Jim Norton
Answer
to the trivia question: The mayor of Amity was played by Murray
Hamilton
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
