Musing
and History
Quote
of the day:
“Be
willing to sacrifice what you are for what you will become.”
Buddha
Trivia
question of the day:
What
was the deadliest natural disaster is United States history? Answer
at the end of the blog.
Sophistication
A
while back I was with a woman that had been dating a few weeks and we
were riding down the Main Street of Greenville, SC when we stopped at
a traffic light. She pointed to a large building on the corner and
said “Al, what is that building?” I said “It is the Peace
Center.” She said “What is it for?” I said “Well, they have
Broadway shows, operas, concerts and special events of all kinds.
Surely you know about it, it has been in the papers for almost a
year.” Then she said “Al, I can’t read.” Then it dawned on
me why she had always had me order for her at restaurants, she could
not read the menu. Needless to say, you could have knocked me over
with a feather. I apologized and mentally made a note to never
assume the level of sophistication in another person.
A
while back a 24 year old school teacher at the Chapin, SC elementary
school went to a famous series of watering holes in Columbia, SC
known as Five Points and dropped the hammer on several “Jack and
gingers”. He called a 21 year old female acquaintance and told her
that he was at Five Points drunker than Cooter Brown and needed for
her to come and get him and take him home. She refused. About an
hour later a cab pulled up in front of her house and guess who got
out and knocked on her door. That’s right, it was the man of Jack
and ginger fame from Five Points. She told him to hit the road but
he wasn’t buying. He kicked open the door, chased this woman into
her bedroom, pinned her to the bed and raped her. She was able to
escape and called the cops who showed up quickly and rapist was
thrown into the joint. The next morning a judge sentenced this king
of stupidity to sit in the joint until he is arraigned and put on
trial and if found guilty, continue his stay in the joint until
sentenced. Usually the amount of time from arrest until trial is six
months. The judge assured dumb-ass that there would be no bond.
This jackass’ life is ruined. He will have a felony on his record
until hell freezes over and will be on the sexual offenders list for
the same length of time. He should have stayed at Five Points passed
out and spent the night in the drunk tank. That would have been a
lot simpler and lot less expensive and he would have been free the
next morning. Like I said……stupid.
This
Date in History June 11
1944
As we all know five days before the Allies assaulted the Normandy,
France coast in five different locations covering about 60 miles.
Before the actually beach landings occurred, hundreds of United
States and British paratroopers and glider forces landed behind the
beaches the night before to suppress any attempt at a counter-attack
and destroy artillery covering the beaches. In spite of ferocious
resistance by the Germans, especially at Omaha Beach, all the goals
set for the assault troops were achieved but at a bloody cost. On
schedule, on this date a combined force of 330,000 Allied troops
joined up into a solid front, began a pivot toward the east and the
heartland of Germany. As I have said in the past, during this pivot
to the east over 20,000 German troops were trapped near the town of
Falaise, France and all but a handful were killed by the British VIII
army from the north and the American 3rd
Army from the south. It was a massacre, y'all. Just a few hundred
Germans escaped. Once the Allies had assembled this gigantic front,
the outcome of the war was assured even though many days of bloody
warfare were still ahead because, as General Eisenhower said, “The
German infantry dies hard”.
1864
Shortly after the Union army received a severe ass-kicking at Cold
Harbor, US General Grant sent US General Phillip Sheridan and his
cavalry unit out to destroy the Virginia Central Railroad. The
Virginia Central Railroad was the chief supply route to CSA General
Robert E. Lee and his troops in and around Petersburg. General Lee
had sent South Carolinian cavalry commander CSA General Wade Hampton
to protect this vital lifeline. Sheridan’s and Hampton’s troops
collided at Trevilliian Station near Charlottesville, Virginia. One
of Sheridan’s divisional commanders was Captain George Armstrong
Custer. As usual Custer charges in with a reckless abandon and
almost immediately had his unit surrounded. He formed his unit into
a triangle and fought a desperate battle and was eventually able to
escape. Sheridan’s troops were running out of ammo and so he began
to withdraw but General Hampton saw fit to launch an old fashioned
saber charge and Sheridan’s troops departed the area faster than
anticipated. The Yankees were able to tear up about five miles of
railroad track but the damage was minor and a repair was made by the
next afternoon. By the way, it was General Wade Hampton that became
Lee’s commander of the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia
after the death of CSA General J.E.B. Stuart at Yellow Tavern.
1963
On this date United States President John F, Kennedy issued
Executive Order 3542 forcing Alabama Governor George Wallace to
comply with a Federal Court order allowing five black students to
attend the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Wallace also knew
that the Executive Order carried with it the authority for the
President to order military forces out to enforce his order. Wallace
knew he had no choice but to comply but he was going make good his
promise that “he would stand in the front door of the University of
Alabama to prevent segregation.” Sure enough he stood in the front
door while the commander of the Alabama National Guard and a number
of armed troops stood to one side. Wallace still refused to stand
aside and Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach who was in
Tuscaloosa went to the campus and gathered up the black students and
walked up to Wallace face to face and asked if he was going to let
those students in to enroll. Wallace made a short speech about how
much the Federal Government was interfering with states rights and
then he stood aside and allowed the five black students to enter and
enroll. The days of “separate but equal” were circling the
drain.
Born today:
1880
US female politician Jeanette Rankin. She said “You can no more
win a war than you can win an earthquake.” Jeanette, listen to me.
The world has been full of despots and conquerors since before
recorded history. The only way to stop these animals from
indiscriminate murder and terror is to kill them before they can
complete their task. It is called war. A few are Atilla the Hun,
Ghenghis Khan, Temujin, Napoleon, Hitler, a variety of Roman
emperors, a variety of Viking kings, a variety of Vandal kings, etc.
The only way to stop them is with war, earthquakes not withstanding.
Answer
to the trivia question:
The
deadliest natural disaster in United States history was the hurricane
and tidal wave that struck Galveston, Texas in 1900. There were
between 6,000 and 12,000 killed primarily by drowning. The tidal
wave put 8 feet of water in downtown Galveston. Many of the corpses were never found because they were swept out to sea by the retreating tidal wave.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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