Wednesday

                                    Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Finding Nemo was the number on hit at the box office. It was based on a game President Clinton used to play with the White House interns. “

                                              David Letterman

Trivia question of the day:

In the TV series Golden Girls who played Blanche Devereaux? Answer at the end of the blog.

Here is a short bio of a madman:

1997 The body of 45 year old cemetery caretaker William Reese of Pennsville, New Jersey was found dead shot in the head with a Golden Saber .38 pistol. It was found that the murderer was Andrew Cunanan who killed Reese just for his pick-up truck. Cunanan was in the middle of a murder spree that began on the American west coast with Reese being the fourth victim. Cunanan was a homosexual that serviced elderly and wealthy homosexuals across the country. On the way to New Jersey he had killed three other homosexuals for reasons known only to him. Cunanan was featured of the famous TV show America’s Most Wanted several times. He spent a few days in New York City in Greenwich Village before heading to Miami. There he stalked the famous clothing designer Gianni Versace and on July 15 caught Versace on the front steps of his Miami mansion and blew his brains out. The police began scouring the countryside for the murderer believing that it was probably Cunanan. During the search, a caretaker at a Miami marina called the cops and told them that someone had broken into a houseboat moored at the marina. The Miami PD surrounded the houseboat and demanded anyone inside to come out. No one came out and finally a SWAT went inside and found the body of Andrew Cunanan dead from a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Too bad. It would have solved a lot of questions if he could have been interviewed so we could get a clue as to what was on this madman’s mind.

               This Date in History August 1

1966 On this date an ex-US Marine named Charles Whitman gathered arms and ammo and makes his way to the top of the 300 foot tall bell tower located on the University of Texas campus in Austin. Whitman also was an Eagle Scout, if you can believe that. In March of 1966 his mother had left his father for reason not known and Charles did not take it well. He began getting treatment from a psychiatrist complaining about a feeling of uncontrolled anger. He also told the doctor that he was thinking about going to the top of the bell tower and shooting people. This wonderful doctor blew it off and did not believe he meant what he said. On this fateful day Whitman walked into the base of the bell tower armed with several pistols and the rifle and killed the receptionist and two other visitors and made his way to the top. Before he went to the tower, he stopped by a sporting good store and bought plenty of ammo and a .30 caliber carbine, he even packed a lunch and dinner. Once he arrives at the top he opened fire with the sniper rifle. He is an expert marksman and is able to hit people at 500 yards. He ended up killing 16 and wounded 30. Oh, by the way, the night before he had stabbed and shot his mother to death and then went home and stabbed his wife to death. He left a note saying that after he died he wanted an autopsy performed on himself to see if there was a detectable brain disease. For an hour and a half the campus police and the Austin PD were at a loss as to how to deal with this maniac. They had their own marksmen but they could not get a good shot and realized that someone had make their way up there and cap this son-of-a-bitch. Finally two members of the Austin PD volunteered to go after Whitman. They charged up the stairs (300 feet, mind you) and Officer Ramiro Martinez got an open shot and capped Whitman ending this carnage.

1953 After the trials of WWII the American adults wanted more realistic movies rather than the Grade B movies like Hopalong Cassidy. On this date one of the greatest western movies ever made is released. The movie was Shane starring Alan Ladd and Van Heflin. It is a story about a gunfighter who is known only as Shane (Alan Ladd), came down out of the rugged Teton Mountains and stumbled upon a small ranch owned by Joe and Marian Starrett and their young son Joey. Shane wanted to give up the life of the gun and took a job as a ranch hand on the Starrett ranch. The problem was that the Starrett ranch was on a plot of land that was previously open range and used by a nearby cattle rancher to graze their cattle. The Starrett ranch and others like it was in the way. The cattle baron hired a gunfighter named Wilson (played by Jack Palance) to scare the settlers off their legally obtained lands so he can continue to graze his cattle unhindered. Wilson ended up killing one of the settlers and Joe Starrett strapped on a gun and headed to town to confront Wilson and the cattle baron. Shane knew that Joe would be killed and knocked him out and strapped on his own gun and went into town. He capped Wilson and several others employed by the cattle baron. Shane realized that the west is not ready for non-violence and rode off into the sunset with little Joey behind him yelling: “Come back, Shane”, what a great movie.

1943 The Japanese had been bombing the hell out of the US Naval installation on Rendova Island in the Solomon Islands. Rendova was a major PT boat base for the US Navy. The Japanese had to keep open a supply route to their combat troops in the area and the PT boats represented a definite threat. A PT boat is a small but very fast boat that was capable of sneaking in close to a ship and launching a torpedo at nearly point blank range. On this date, PT-109, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy commanding, was on patrol on this dark and murky night when a Japanese destroyer suddenly appeared close aboard and rammed the small plywood boat slicing it in two. Two crewmen were killed outright but 11 survived, including Lt. Kennedy. They swam to a nearby coral island hoping that someone would come after them. Other PT boats saw the debris the next morning and assumed that all of the crewmen were killed. At night Lt. Kennedy would swim out into the channel hoping to flag down a friendly boat but none came. Kennedy led the group in swimming to another larger island hoping that there would be detected by friendly forces. They met a couple of natives and Kennedy carved a message on a coconut as to their location and asked for help. The natives paddled away on their canoes and gave the coconut to a coast watcher and soon Kennedy and crew were rescued. Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Cross for gallantry. By the way, the coconut has a permanent home in the White House Oval Office.

Born today:

1819 US writer Herman Melville. Melville gave us the immortal novel Moby Dick. Melville said “It is better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.” I think I have slept with both, but not at the same time.

1881 English writer Dame Rose Macaulay. She said “It is a common delusion to believe you can make things better by talking about them.” That sounds like Rose knew my third ex-wife.

1942 Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. He said “Taking the lesser of two evils is still taking evil.” He must have known my third ex-wife too.

Answer to the trivia question:

In the TV series Golden Girls Rue McClanahan played Blanche.

           Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow