Musings and History

Quote of the day:
“For all the sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.”
                                            John Greenleat Whittier

From a long time ago:

I guess y'all saw about the Italian cruise ship “Concordia”. This ship lost its way in the Mediterranean Sea and impacted a sand bar and capsized off the coast of Tuscany, Italy. As of this writing there are 3 confirmed dead and 69 missing. How is that possible? All cruise ship have (or should have) the very latest in navigation and depth finding electronics. How is it possible for even a rank amateur to run aground with all that available information? They even have a radar screen that displays the surrounding terrain, other ships and the position of the ship its self. This includes a map of the area with your position shown on this map. It is unbelievable.

A while back my favorite actor was tooling around on his bicycle on Islamarado in the Florida Keys. It was 81 year old Gene Hackman and he was tapped in the rear wheel by a pick-up truck and fell off the bike. He was taken aboard a helicopter and flown the the Key West hospital. After a cursory examination he was released with just a few bumps and bruises. Gene won two Oscars in his career. One was for the best leading actor in The French Connection playing Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, He won best supporting actor for his role playing the sheriff, William “Little Bill” Daggett, in the epic western “The Unforgiven”. He is a dynamite actor. I liked him best in Mississippi Burning. He was beaten out for a third Ocsar by Al Pacino in his kick-ass performance in Scent of a Woman.

I told y'all about that woman down in Mount Pleasant, SC that was fined $480 for refusing to clean the debris out of her yard. She did not have the money for the fine so she was sentenced to jail for 10 days. She was released after 6 days and went home. She was a photographer by trade but the recent recession had put a stop to that. She took a job at a check-out counter at a local Harris-Teeter. The story of her plight with the downturn in her life has reached many others and what to her wondering eyes should appear when she got home was a contracting crew on her roof fixing the leaks plus a crew inside fixing other things. Also there was a landscaping crew on her front lawn removing the debris and adding plants, flowers and grass where needed. They also removed the fake pink flamingos and the fake snowy egrets. I think they made a bonfire with them and had marshmallows and hot dogs after it was all over. I don't know about y'all but this story makes me feel better.

Over in Jacksonville, NC a state trooper stopped a car driven by Michael Ward, a murder suspect from Atlanta. It took two cars to get him stopped and he and his female companion rolled up the windows, locked the doors and refused to open them. We all know what happened next. The cops broke out a window, tazed the hell out of both of them and then arrested them. They did a strip search of Michael and did not find anything in spite of making Michael do a “squat and strain” maneuver. The next morning they found a Smith and Wesson .38 Special, 6 shot
revolver with a 6 inch barrel lying on the floor. The pistol was not loaded but the cops checked it out and determined that it was operable. Michael had stuck the barrel of the gun up his anus and held it there. He will go back to the hospital to see if any damage was done by the front sight. I can assure you that the NCHP will be a hell of a lot more thorough in their body searches from now on. The gun could have been loaded and someone could have been killed, including Michael.


                 This Date in History January 17


1950 After nearly two years of “casing” the Brinks Armored Car Service main office in Boston, Massachusetts, career criminal Arthur “Fats” Pino decides it is time to knock it over. Fats went out and hired ten other career criminals and on this date they go in and commit one of the most successful and profitable robberies ever executed up until that time. They walked out of the building with $2.6 million dollars and left absolutely no clues. They were all wearing rubber Halloween masks, long black overcoats and hats similar to those worn by the Brinks armored car drivers. The only thing they left was a few strands of rope that they used to tie up the office personnel. Fats and the other robbers agreed to hide their share of the money and not touch it for 6 ½ years when the statute of limitations expired. One of the conspirators named “Specs” O’Keefe gave his share of the money to one of the others to hold for him while he went to prison to serve 6 years for another crime. All the criminals laid low for 6 years and just days before the statute of limitations ran out, Specs got cold feet and did not believe the guy he gave his share to still has it and wants proof or he will blow the whistle. Well, Fats ain’t going to sit still for that and sends a “hit man” to the prison to kill their compatriot. The “hit man” only wounds Specs and then he really does “blow the whistle” and the Boston PD begins rounding up the other conspirators. A couple had died in the interim but all of those that were left went to the slammer for a long stretch. Only a couple of thousand dollars of the take was ever found. It is legend that the rest of the money is hidden in the hills north of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, but who can tell.

1966 On this date a US Air Force B-52 that had been on patrol over the eastern Atlantic was attempting to hook up with a KC-135 tanker to re-fuel and head back its base in North Carolina. Something went wrong and the B-52 ran into the re-fueling boom and the incoming fuel ignited and the B-52 exploded killing all four of its crewmen. The explosion also destroyed the KC-135 but four of these crewmen were able to bail out successfully. The real downside was that the B-52 had four 70 kiloton nuclear bombs aboard and when the plane came apart the bombs fell to earth near Polamares, Spain. None of the bombs were armed but if the bomb comes apart, highly radioactive Plutonium escapes. Two of the bombs landed in an open field creating two craters and did indeed come apart spewing radioactive dust into the air. Another one of the bombs landed in a dry creek bed and the mud in the creek bed prevented that bomb from coming apart and it was retrieved almost intact. The fourth bomb fell into the ocean and was never found. Within a matter of hours Polamares, Spain was swarming with US Air Force personnel and nuclear specialists. The United States chose to scrape tons of soil from around the two craters until there were no more indications of radioactivity and hauled the dirt out of there. This was not the first nor will it be the last “Broken Arrow” incident. “Broken Arrow” means that a nuclear weapon had been lost or damaged. On another occasion another B-52 accidentally dropped its weapon is a bay near Wilmington, North Carolina and that puppy has never been found to this day. When I was in the Air Force I was based at Elmendorf, AFB near Anchorage, Alaska and before that I was stationed at Eielson AFB south of Fairbanks. Both of these bases had SAC units assigned meaning there were nuclear weapons close by. I was an air traffic controller at both places and you would not believe what went on while I was there. SAC had a “Recon” outfit at Eielson and their job was to fly up and down the Bering Straits (just a few miles from Russia, our sworn enemy at the time) and take “western movies” or photographs of Russian airbases. Because of the reaction of the SAC officers at Eielson at times, there was no doubt in my mind that there was some kind of encounter with the Russians, either one of our recon aircraft was shot at or shot down on more than one occasion. Satellites do that job for us now. Back then it would scare the hell out of you because the threat of nuclear war was just a hairsbreadth away.

1977 Earlier in 1972 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was a violation of the 8th Amendment because it was cruel and unusual punishment and was therefore banned.  In 1977 with almost 70% of the American public favoring the death penalty, the Supreme Court re-instated the death penalty. There was a man on death row in Utah named Gary Gilmore. Gary shot and killed an elderly couple because they would not loan him their car, for crying out loud. Gary had been sentenced to death by firing squad and on this date Gilmore was marched out to a post in the middle of a field inside the Utah prison grounds, tied to a post and was shot through the heart by twelve riflemen. Gilmore was the first person executed after the death penalty was re-instated. Gilmore was arrogant to the last. When the guards came to get him to take him out to the post, he said “Let’s do it”.

1781 Earlier the Commander of the Continental Army in the South, General Nathaniel Greene, decided to divide his army into two parts because this would force the British Forces in the area led by General Charles Cornwallis to fight on more than one front and it would be easier for these smaller units to feed themselves. The commander of one these Continental units was Colonel Daniel Morgan who was in command of about 1,000 troops. Morgan was assigned the task of kicking the British out of the Star Fort near the town of Ninety-Six, South Carolina. General Cornwallis smelled this out and sent the infamous Colonel Banastre Tarleton to intercept Morgan. On this date Morgan’s scouts detected the approach of Tarleton near the town of Cowpens, South Carolina. Morgan hid the majority of his troops into a bowl shaped forest. He instructed a few of his militia to skirmish with Tarleton’s troops for two shots and then run away through the center of the “bowl”. Tarleton’s troops believing it was a rout followed the troops into the center of the bowl then Morgan’s troops unleashed a deadly crossfire while the original skirmishers came back and joined their brethren adding to their killing efficiency. After this, Morgan brought in a cavalry attack on the flank of the hapless British/Loyalist troops. Tarleton ran like hell and came within a gnat’s ass of being captured. The British/Loyalists had about 700 of their number killed or captured. Morgan lost 12. After this battle and the Battle of Kings Mountain that came later in which the British/Loyalist were totally annihilated, Cornwallis knew that he had to get his ass and his army out the Carolinas and join up with the British army under General Sir Henry Clinton in New York. He didn’t make it.

Born today:

1860 Russian writer Anton Chekhov. He said “I do not know much about ballet, all I know is that during intermission the ballerinas smell like horses.” Thoroughbreds, I am sure.

1886 English writer Arthur Firbank. He said “In heaven the language is Hebrew, Spanish is seldom spoken.” Look at the date, ya’ll.

1899 US super criminal Al Capone. When asked if he had ever been to Canada he said “I don’t even know what street Canada is on.” Al, shut the hell up.

1931 Governor of Virginia Lawrence Wilder (black man) said “The first black president will be a black politician.” Larry, shut the hell up too.

Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow.