Monday

                               Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Life is meaningless only if we allow it be. Each of us have the power to give life meaning…to make our time and our bodies and our words into instruments of love and hope.”

                                                     Tom Head

Trivia question of the day:

What major league baseball player was in the most All-Star games? Answer at the end of the blog.

This is a horror story…be aware.

A while back two year old Rodricus Williams was reported to have fallen over the railing at the “Battery” in Charleston, SC and disappeared in Charleston harbor. A lot of people went searching for him. No corpse was found. The State Law Enforcement Department (SLED) received a tip about the location of little Rodricus and began a search in Bowman, South Carolina. A block of concrete with a human body encased was found in a trash bin. There is little doubt that is little Rodricus but the block is being sent to the Medical University of South Carolina for confirmation. Rodricus’ father Roger was arrested. This monster has four outstanding warrants for his arrest and he had custody of Rodricus for the last two months during a bitter custody battle. God help us.

           This Date in History   July 9

1877 On this date the first tennis tournament was held in Wimbledon, England which was then a small suburb of London. The tournament was sponsored by the All-England Lawn Tennis Club. The game was played indoors earlier and it wasn’t played on the lawn very long before the first tournament. This first one had a purse of 20 guineas and there were only 21 men participating in the “Gentlemen’s event” which was the only event. Tennis began as a French game in the 13^th century and was played without a racquet. They knocked the ball back and forth across the net with the palms of their hands. Over the years the game, athletes and equipment improved to what it is today.

1850 On this date the President of the United States Zachary Taylor died from cholera and is succeeded by Millard Fillmore. Taylor had the nickname of “Old Rough and Ready” because of his dress and demeanor. Taylor was born in the backwoods of Kentucky and had no, and I mean no, experience in politics, he was a pure warrior. From the time he was thirteen, he fought against the Indians and many other enemies of his country. It was from his military notoriety that got him nominated and elected president. After becoming president he fell under the influence of the powerful Whig senator William Seward. It was Seward that influenced Congress into buying Alaska from the Russians. It was also Seward that pushed through Congress the infamous Wilmot Proviso what stated that any lands gained in the war with Mexico would be slave free. Well, the slave holding states, of which there were plenty including Missouri, Delaware and Maryland, raised hell but it didn’t help, the bill became law. But this bill just increased tensions that erupted into Civil War in 1861.

1918 On this date future author William Faulkner joined the Royal Air Force. It seems that the love of his life, a woman named Estelle, had married another man. Upon receiving this news, Faulkner left his home town of Oxford, Mississippi and went to Canada and signed up. He never saw combat because a truce was reached and the war was over before he reached Europe. He eventually returned to Oxford and began to write poetry. His first book of poetry was financed by one of his neighbors. One good thing happened for him, he found Estelle had divorced her husband with her having custody of the two children. William and Estelle married and began restoring a ruined ante-bellum mansion. He published four superb books in a very short period of time in The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August and Absalom, Absalom. The reading public was slow to understand the depth of Faulkner’s books but once they caught on his star rose like a meteor. In the meantime he was a screenwriter to earn money to feed his family. He screen wrote the blockbuster films To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep both from books written by Raymond Chandler and both starring Humphrey Bogart. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1949 for a book of short stories he titled Collected Stories which included the famous Bear. He died of a heart attack at the age of 55. As the saying goes, the good die young and leave beautiful memories. Indeed.

1846 On this date an American ship Captain captured a small Mexican village named Yerba Buena. This village was on the very northern edge of the Mexican empire. It was the site of present day San Francisco. Since the mid 1700’s, several Spanish explorer/conquistadors sailed by the opening of San Francisco bay without seeing it. It took a Mexican land force to discover it and recognize its importance. The English established a small village a few miles east of Yerba Buena but it did not last. In 1835 the United States offered to buy San Francisco Bay from the Mexicans but they refused. That was a bad move because a few years later the Mexican war broke out and on this date the United States sent a warship commanded by Captain John Montgomery sailing into San Francisco Bay and the good captain sent a company of US Marines into Yerba Buena and claimed it for the United States. When the US defeated Mexico in 1848 they gained the majority of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and southern and central California, including Yerba Buena. I know it sounds crude, but the majority of these United States, except for the Louisiana Purchase, was gained by military conquest. Think about it. The eastern coastal tribes, the Cherokees and Creeks in the Appalachians, the plains Indians, the southwestern tribes, the tribes in the great northwest and finally, the Mexican lands were all gained by military conquest. We ain’t perfect, y'all.

1941 On this date British mathematicians and code breakers finally crack the German secret code known as Enigma. It took them over two years but had they not succeeded it is unlikely the Germany could have been beaten, especially in the north Atlantic where the German submarine wolf packs were devastating Allied cargo ships that were keeping England and eastern Europe fed and armed against the most evil man yet born, Adolph Hitler.

Born today:

1866 French religious leader Earnest Dimnet. He said “Every now and then in this seething mass of humanity we find someone that seems to not need anyone. The contrast with us is stinging,”

Answer to the trivia question:

The MLB player with the most All-Star game appearances was Atlanta outfielder Hank Aaron

            Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow.