Thursday

                             Musing and History

Quote of the day:

“Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what is right.”

                                             Mark Twain

Trivia question of the day:

In the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm King Gustav V of Sweden presented 2 gold medals to an American athlete and said “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.” Who was the athlete?

I don't understand what all the hullabaloo with Prince is about. What did he do that was so spectacular? How many hit songs has Willie Nelson authored? Mozart wrote and entire opera at the age of 8. What about Richard Rogers, Oscar Hammerstein, Moss Hart, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Hoagie Carmichael, the Gershwin brothers among many, many other songsmiths? These people wrote hundreds of songs, operas, operettas and Broadway shows, etc. with songs that we all know to this day. I do not know a word of “When Doves Cry” but I do know “I've Got You Under My Skin”, “On the Road Again”, “Your Cheatin' Heart”, “Ohhhhklahoma”and so do you.

                          This Date in History   June 7

1776 On this date Richard Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee submitted and encouraged the adoption of what was later known as the “Lee’s resolutions”. I cannot tell you how important these resolutions were to us. “Light Horse Harry” was the father of CSA General Robert E. Lee and his proposed resolutions were looked at with an interested eye by the other members Continental Congress. In fact, after the builders of this great country saw what Lee had rendered, they realized how close he had come to defining the soul of the United States. The first few line of our Declaration of Independence is almost word for word from Lee’s resolutions. A little more than a month later, after the Congress had named a panel to enhance the document into an acceptable level led by Thomas Jefferson (the most polished writer in America at the time) and others they delivered our most treasured and valued document of all time, our Declaration of Independence. It was a miracle, y'all, a miracle.

1942 Four days before the United States had deciphered the Japanese secret code and determined that in spite of the military demonstrations toward the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, the real target was the island of Midway. Midway is in the Pacific between Hawaii and the Solomon Islands. Because of the location of Midway, it was deemed very important to the security of the west coast of America. In my humble opinion, the ability of US Navy intelligence to break the Japanese code and the US Naval leadership on hand at the time was no accident. I believe they had divine guidance. The only aircraft carriers the United States Navy left over after the attack on Pearl Harbor were the Enterprise, Hornet and the Yorktown. They were sent north of Midway to await the arrival of the Japanese fleet. The Japanese arrived as advertised in two columns, one from the southwest and the other from the west but the Americans were waiting. The columns were discovered and an 18 plane torpedo bomber attack was launched. Each and every one of the 18 American aircraft and crewman was shot down and killed. Over the next three days the United States Navy launched more attacks by swarms of dive bomber and even more torpedo bombers. The end result was the Japanese lost four aircraft carriers, over 250 aircraft and 2,500 sailors and aircrew men. The United States lost one carrier and 360 sailors and crewmen. It was one of the most important victories in United States history. It sent the Japanese Navy scurrying back toward home to lick their wounds which gave the greatest manufacturing facilities on the planet time to crank out the tools of war.

1692 On this date a rare earthquake shakes the pirate haven of Port Royal, Jamaica. When I say shake, I ain’t kidding. The ground shook so hard and for so long that the sandy soil around the waterfront liquefied and the entire area slid into the Caribbean Sea. Then came the tsunamis that mopped up the entire town killing thousands. The misery was not over yet. The tsunamis brought 40 feet of water into the town which floated bodies out of graveyards which mixed with the freshly killed, not to mention wholesale looting island wide. What did you expect, Port Royal was the headquarters of every pirate in the western hemisphere. The British ship HMS Swan was washed inland and deposited on the top of a 40 foot tall building and became a relief headquarters for the survivors. Then soon thereafter, the exposed corpses began to disintegrate and epidemics of cholera broke out not to mention millions and millions of flies. The people of Jamaica learned their lesson and built another capitol off the beach and named it Kingston. If any of you have been to Kingston you will understand what I am about to say. Kingston is the most rotten and unpleasant gathering of the dregs of humanity I have ever seen. It is such a shame because just a few miles away are some of the finest five star resorts in the world. But if you take a cab from the resorts to downtown Kingston the cabdriver will insist that you not leave the cab, in fact they don’t even want you to unlock the door. If you see something you want, the cabbie will go get it for you. Even then little kids and even older people walk up to the window holding out their hands for coins. Paradise Lost, indeed.

1866 On this date chief Seattle (Seathl) died in his small village near the town named for him. His mother was of one tribe and his father was the chief of another tribe making Seattle well suited to be the Chief of both tribes. He was born in about 1790 in a village on Puget Sound and welcomed what few Anglos settled in the area. Most of the Anglo settlements were temporary ones dependent upon the game they were hunting. But eventually a permanent settlement was established after the timber industry burgeoned. The settlers decided to name the town after the Native American that had treated them with kindness and understanding and the mighty city of Seattle was born. By the way, if I am not mistaken the term “skid row” began in Seattle. It seems that the loggers would construct a wooden trough or “skid” to sent their logs down the mountainside into the city to be then loaded on ships. Later all the people that had no money would gather near the terminus of the “skid” to try to get a little money helping move the logs. While there they would build shacks to get out of the weather thus “skid row”.

Born today:

1848 French artist Paul Gaugin. He said “Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.” Paul was Vincent Van Gogh’s roommate at one time or another, I don’t know if it was before, during or after the time Vincent cut off his own right ear. But soon thereafter Gaugin moved to Tahiti.

1952 Irish actor Liam Neesom. He said “Here in Los Angeles you see people that jog for two hours and then think they are morally superior. That is when you want to choke people, you know.” I wonder if Liam has been to Daniel Island, South Carolina.

1958 US songwriter/singer Prince. He said “They named Michael Jackson’s album “Bad” only because there wasn’t enough room on the album cover to put “Pathetic”.

Answer to the trivia question:

The athlete King Gustav V was talking to was Jim Thorpe. BTW Jim Thorpe was a native American from Oklahoma.

               Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow