General Lee Begins Flying Lessons

Most all of us know the tale of Robin Hood.  He’s a man (or a fox, if you know the cartoon version better) who lives in the forest with his friends, none of which has any money.  Outside the forest are some very unlikeable, greedy, rich people who love to hoard their wealth and never share it with anyone.  Robin’s job is “wealth redistribution”, which is code for taking that money from the rich and giving it to the poor.

At this point, I could go all kinds of directions.  I could discuss how Robin and his men, with all their good intentions and good deeds, are little more than thieves.  Maybe I would talk about how we warp the minds the little children when we tell them stories that glorify criminal behavior as long as it’s done for a noble reason.  Many might expect a transition to politics, as some think the government, on a grand scale, plays the role of the story’s hero, taking money from wealthy people (while making them feel guilty) and giving it to others.

But I’m not doing any of those things.  I’m going to talk about The Dukes of Hazzard.

Any kid from my generation (I was a teen in the 1980s) that had a television watched at least one episode of The Dukes of Hazzard.  I think it was on Friday nights at 7:00pm (right before Dallas maybe?) and the first episode aired on January 26, 1979.  The intro featured scenes from the show and a song by Waylon Jennings that we can all sing in our sleep.  The last line in the song indicates that the good ole’ boys that didn’t mean any harm were “Fightin’ the system like a true modern-day Robin Hood.”

The good ole’ boys were Bo and Luke Duke and, along with Uncle Jesse and cousin Daisy Duke, they took on the law (just like the opening song said they did).  Of course, the show really didn’t follow Robin Hood at all.  As you know, Robin Hood was about the “hero” stealing from the rich while the authorities tried to catch him.  With the Dukes, Bo and Luke were good guys that were constantly chased by the corrupt authorities (led by Hazzard Country strongman Boss Hogg) for crimes they didn’t commit.  Got that?

But the central character was a bright-orange Dodge Charger with a Confederate Flag on the top and “01″ on the doors.  It was called “The General Lee” and that car could pretty much do anything, whether it be jumping a river, jumping a police car, stopping off at the always-empty Boar’s Nest for some countrified dialogue, ripping over Hazzard County’s gravel roads, running Aunt Bea to Mount Pilot, or…wait, one of those things is not like the others.  It whistled Dixie when you pushed the horn button, and was truly the most entertaining character…if you don’t count Flash (Sheriff Coltrane’s hound).

Actually, I kid a little.  As hour-long television shows in the 80s went, it was actually alright.  And for a teenager just preparing to drive, the show was a hoot, what with all the car chases and wild driving and jumps and stuff.  And while it didn’t really fit the “Robin Hood” mold very well, the General Lee rocked!!

Looking for a Party? Check the Bank

Well, it’s been quite a while since I last put fingers to keyboard, but I’ve got a good excuse.  We took a vacation to Clearwater Beach, Florida.  I actually took the laptop with me, figuring I’d have time for a bit of work and maybe bit of typing.  Such was not the case.  The weather was absolutely perfect (bright sunshine, blue skies, beautiful beaches, and temperatures in the 70s), the condo was fabulous, and there were plenty of things to do.

I love to eat fish, and being on the Gulf meant there was plenty to be had…all of it was great.  But then we found The Gondolier, an East Coast chain that specializes in pizza.  Their food was outstanding…so good in fact that on our last evening, we simply went back there a second time.  Had we tried that place first, we may have eaten every meal there.  If we go back to Clearwater (and that’s a pretty serious possibility), we may do just that.

The long and short of it is that the laptop stayed mostly parked on the dresser.  But now we’re back to reality (and single-digit temperatures), so I’m hoping to get going this year.  Last year averaged fewer than eight pieces per month, so I’d like to improve on that.

“On January 20, 1791, a bill to charter the Bank of the United States for twenty years virtually breezed through the Senate.”

It’s a pretty simple statement taken from Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton, and one that’s easy to just gloss over because we’re so used to banks in the 21st century.  We have banks of every shape and size on nearly every corner.  We can bank online, at the teller window, in the lobby, at an ATM machine, or on a smartphone.  Banks are as common as grocery stores.

In the 18th century, that was not the case.  And while there are people today that don’t trust banks and bankers, 18th-century opinions against the banking system was almost violent.  For Founders like James Madison and John Adams, their political differences found common ground in their opposition to banks.  Jefferson wrote, “I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural…”  He would describe banks as “an infinity of successive felonious larcenies.”

For those against, banks were seedbeds of corruption and vice, turning honest men into money-hungry, money-grabbing monsters.  I think of a bank as a place to store our money safely and earn a bit of interest.  Men like our third President, through the lens of the 1780s, saw it as an oppressor of the poor and a creator of a class-based society…somewhat ironic considering Jefferson’s adherence to slavery despite his vocal abhorrence of the practice.

Some would say that Jefferson and Madison and Adams and those on their side were somewhat backwards in their stance.  Sure, America was largely agrarian now.  But was agriculture the only industry with a future in brand-new America?  Manufacturing and heavy industry, while not a major force at the time, would certainly increase in importance.  They required large amounts of capital to get started…the kind of capital only a bank could hold.  Furthermore, a national bank would help establish credit with other countries as well as manage and reduce the nation’s outstanding debt.

But for James Madison, it went beyond class and oppression and ended at the Constitution.  Alexander Hamilton had authored the idea of the bank using that most famous little piece of our founding charter…Article 1, Section 8.  We know it best as the “necessary and proper” clause.  It gave (and still gives) Congress the power to pass legislation “necessary and proper” to exercise its delegated duties.  Madison didn’t see a bank as “necessary”.  Nice?…maybe.  Convenient?…maybe.  Necessary?…absolutely not.

Madison had argued for the Constitution’s elasticity when writing pieces for The Federalist, but he believed a national bank pushed that elasticity beyond the breaking point.  Many agreed with him.  Hamilton had also argued for flexibility in the Constitution and believed the bank fit nicely under that clause.  And more Senators agreed with him than with Madison, so the bill passed the Senate.

Curious about the bank’s ultimate claim to fame?  How about the party system we enjoy (or loathe, depending on your bent) today?  Yep, it was along the banks of the “banking river” that political parties were born.

The Grand Canyon: Oh the Wonder of it All

I spent an afternoon at the Grand Canyon in the summer of 1986 and it was pretty awesome.  Of course, that’s akin to saying that I spent an afternoon in the Smithsonian.  Or maybe it’s like saying that I read the first five pages of The Lord of the Rings.  Or I flew over the Himalayas.

Not that I’ve done all those things…I’ve only done two of them.  It’s just that a half day was only a fleeting glance at one of the most incredible natural wonders, and that can’t possibly have allowed me to absorb all that is the Grand Canyon.  Even the name “grand” comes off as woefully inadequate.  “Stupendous” might be better, or maybe “phenomenal”, or maybe “awe-inspiring”.  But mentioning the Awe-Inspiring Canyon still wouldn’t give it the justice it deserves.

Then again, maybe just calling it “grand” is purposely meant to be an understatement.  You know, the whole “under-promise and over-deliver” thing.  It’s named “grand” so when you get there, you’re blown away by the unbelievable, indescribable, awesome incredibleness of the place.

President Theodore Roosevelt, a naturalist at heart who ventured all over the world and saw hundreds of examples of nature’s magnificent beauty, visited the Grand Canyon and was quoted as saying, “The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison—beyond description; absolutely unparalleled throughout the wide world…”

That’s pretty much my sentiment, too.  It is beyond description.  There is no way to, in human language, tell someone what the place is like.  There are millions of photos you could look at (I posted a reasonably nice example above), but no photograph, no matter how big or how many megapixels, could possibly capture the spectacle.  You simply have to go visit and be thankful for the two eyes that God gave you, so you can take it in visually.

It’s been a quarter century for me, and that’s a long time.  We’re planning on visiting our son again sometime in the spring (he lives in a Phoenix suburb), and we’ve talked about driving down.  If we do, a stop at the Grand Canyon will not only be suggested, it’s probably required.  It’s just a remarkable place.

Oh, by the way, the Grand Canyon National Monument came into being on January 11, 1908.  I, for one, am grateful for that.  I think there are millions of people who, every year, discover they agree with me.

The Misadventures of Mr. Bean

Maybe you’re a fan of Rowan Atkinson because he’s a car nut that has owned a McLaren F1 (one of the world’s rarest and fastest cars).  It could be that you know the man or grew up with him in England.  Or did one of the television shows in which he starred, like The Thin Blue Line or the darker Black Adder series, grab your attention?  He’s been in the movies Rat Race and Johnny English – and maybe others as well – so that might be your hook.  He’s published articles in Car and Evo, two well-known British car magazines (and ones which I always seem to leaf through at the Barnes and Noble magazine stand), maybe that’s your thing.

And maybe you still have no idea who Rowan Atkinson is.  Ok…he was born on January 6, 1955 and if you like birthdays, there’s always that.

But that’s you.  What about me?  Well, it could be a couple of those.  I’ve seen a couple episodes of The Thin Blue Line and Black Adder.  I love cars.  I own the movie Johnny English.  For me, however, it pretty much comes down to two words.

Mr. Bean.

Now maybe you know what I’m talking about.

Mr. Bean is sort of a one-man sketch comedy created and played by Atkinson.  He plays all kinds of characters, but generally it’s a socially inept guy, a kid in a grown-up’s body, who continually gets himself into zany situations, and then tries to extricate himself in the most oddball fashion.  The sketches feature little or no dialogue – and what little there is comes in a goofy low-register voice – but it would be completely superfluous anyways.  Atkinson is a master of facial gestures and his different looks and gazes pretty much tell the story.

And I think the stories are simply hilarious.

There’s one where he goes to the beach and has to put on his swimming trunks.  But he’s not alone and doesn’t want to go all the way back to his car.  His solution left me in stitches.  Speaking of swimming trunks, another sketch has him at the pool, trying to garner enough bravery to jump off the high diving board.  Yet another has him with his girlfriend at a slasher movie…that’s not how you eat popcorn!!

And throughout the sketches, there are these returning idiosyncrasies.  Mr. Bean walks with hands slightly askew, doing a little dance of their own.  There’s that blue three-wheeled car that often shows up, only to be turned on its side.  And of course, Mr. Bean himself always drives a Mini…and drives it very poorly.  There’s the girlfriend that makes occasional appearances, but Mr. Bean just doesn’t know how to act properly with a lady.  And there’s his stuffed teddy bear.

I have to say that the “beach” sketch is one of the better 3-minute escapes you’ll find, and all of them are really funny in their own fashion.  But my favorites are Mr. Bean’s lunch break when he makes a sandwich (“just popped out for lunch!”) and the Christmas episode.  The latter features a hysterical “play time” scene in the store, and another with him conducting the Salvation Army band in God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen…that alone is worth the purchase of the video.

I could go on and on, but suffice to say that you should watch a couple of sketches and see for yourself.

Happy Birthday, Mr. B…uh…Rowan Atkinson!!

Recommended Viewing:  Watch Mr. Bean in action.
Our son just bought a new TV…so did Mr. Bean. Watch him set it up.
Mr. Bean at the beach.
The funniest lunch break.
Christmas, Mr. Bean style.

The Nuremberg Trials by Fire

Happy New Year!!

I hope you all had a relaxing time between the holidays and will head back to work refreshed.  I ate way more than I should have, but fortunately for me, the weather remains relatively warm…30s and 40s.  That means I can ride my bike to work and burn off some of the extra calories I packed on.

If we had been around Nuremberg, Germany on January 2, 1945, New Year’s celebrations would not have been in order.  It was on this evening that more than 500 British Lancasters flew overhead and plastered the medieval city back to, well, the Middle Ages.

The attack itself wasn’t a huge surprise to the city’s population had experienced bombing before.  During the Second World War, Nuremberg was the headquarters of one of Germany’s military districts, which alone made it an allied target of some value.  Furthermore, there was some military production going on there, particularly aircraft and tank engines.

But Nuremberg was also something of a spiritual center of National Socialism.  The Nuremberg rallies of the 20s and 30s were a pretty big deal, and numerous other Nazi Party gatherings had been held there over the years.  Like Adolf Hitler’s desire to crush Leningrad (named after the first Bolshevist leader) and Stalingrad (named after the current leader), it’s at least plausible that Allied planners might consider making Nuremberg a target for more than just strictly military reasons.

Nuremberg, already damaged by previous attacks, was devastated.  The pathfinders were very accurate in marking their targets with the aid of a full moon, and the Lancasters (though not speedy, could carry a significant bombload) did their job with fiery efficiency.  Nuremberg’s center was almost completely destroyed.  Thousands of buildings were reduced to smoldering rubble, including age-old churches, homes, museums, and the like.  More than 100,000 townspeople were left homeless, and another 1,800 were left lifeless.

This was the age of area bombing, so discrimination between military and civilian targets was pretty badly blurred.  And for many other German cities, like Hamburg before and Dresden just a month later, this is how their wars would end.

Musical Crisis Ends with Silent Night

Well, I said I might be back.  But as we roll into Christmas, I will probably keep this really brief.

Silent Night is probably one of the more famous Christmas carols.  It’s been covered by hundreds of singers, from Annie Lennox (from the Eurythmics, that 1980s pop duo) to country songwriter Skip Ewing.  It’s probably been sung in every possible way, whether it be with a massive orchestra, a towering pipe organ, a single acoustic guitar, or simply acapella.  And it’s been sung in tons of places, like the Vatican, and Jerusalem, and on a street corner, in front of a church Nativity scene, and in your house.

Everyone may not know the entire song, but most folks could sing the first verse in their sleep.  Ok, I take it back…Silent Night is the most famous of Christmas carols.

It was penned in the small village of Oberndorf dei Salzburg, Austria by Father Joseph Mohr in 1816.  But without a melody, it was just poetry on a page.  It remained that way for two years until, as the story goes, Mohr’s church faced a Christmas Eve crisis.  The church’s pipe organ, which had provided music each Mass for time out of mind, suddenly ceased to work.

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

I suppose that, for Mohr, this caused a bit of panic.  The service needed music, and drums and guitars and synthesizers and “church bands” were still 150 years in the future.  So he turned to Franz Gruber, who lived nearby in the village of Arnsdorf and was a school teacher and the organ player at the church.  He trudged through the snow to Gruber’s home, showing him the lyrics and requesting music that someone could play on the guitar.

Silent night, holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ, the Saviour is born
Christ, the Saviour is born 

The two men sat down and Gruber put together the tune and the song Silent Night was born.  And that evening…Christmas Eve…December 24, 1818, the song was sung for the first time at the late Christmas Eve Mass.

Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love’s pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth

I hope you all have a wonderful, and very safe, Christmas!

Christmas Eve: A Book by the Fire

It contains more than 30,000,000 books.  It has more than 100,000,000 items from various collections.  Are you bilingual?  Good, this place has materials written in 460 different languages.  It houses invaluable music collections, including some of the first recorded sounds in existance.  It has one of the original Gutenberg Bibles.

Yep, the Library of Congress has just about anything you could want to read, watch, or listen to, and thousands of items swell the inventory every day.  In fact, a couple of weeks ago, it was announced that the Library of Congress had struck a deal with Twitter, allowing it to keep a digital record of Tweets.  Um…yay?  It spans four buildings, three of which are dedicated to our second, third, and fourth Presidents.

But in 1851, the Library didn’t have four buildings.  It had just one.  There were no Tweets.  And apparently, that building didn’t have a sprinkler system…or maybe it did, and it hadn’t been tested.  Regardless, on December 24, 1851, the Library of Congress caught fire.  Before the flames could be extinguished, more than 35,000 books had been destroyed.  By today’s standards, that’s a mighty small percentage of the total collection.  But 160 years ago, the Library contained just 55,000 books.

What makes the loss more painful to take is that much of Thomas Jefferson’s personal collection was among the charred remains.  If you recall, after the Library was burned for the first time (when the British sacked the capital during the War of 1812), Jefferson sold his books to the government to seed the new library.

Today, you can see what’s left of Jefferson’s collection somewhere on the Library of Congress’ 800+ miles of shelves (a few are shown above).  And I bet if you look up at the ceiling, you’ll see a bunch of sprinkler heads.

I may be back this evening, but if not, have a safe, wonderful Christmas Eve.

Joachim Peiper’s No Good Very Bad Day

Joachim Peiper was getting a bit frustrated, because he was getting further and further behind schedule.  Operation Watch on the Rhine (which we know so well as the Battle of the Bulge) had gotten off to a good start for him and his German compatriots.  Having achieved complete surprise with a 30-division offensive in the dead of winter in the Ardennes Forest, the Allied forces (comprised mostly of American troops in this area) were forced to retreat in the face of the onslaught.

The German objectives were simple.  Reach Antwerp, create a divide in the British and American forces, and hope for a peace deal.  Once that was accomplished, the German High Command could move all its arms and men eastward and try to slow down the Russians.

But the American troops hung in desperately, in many places fighting with a tenacity that surpassed even that of the desperate Germans.  And Peiper was seeing the results of that first-hand.  The offensive was just two days old, and already he was running late.  His final objective, the Meuse River, was taking too long to reach.

Peiper had lost time as he neared the village of Malmedy.  The next town on the road, Stavelot, had seen resistance slow him even more.  On December 18, 1944, he arrived at the village of Trois Ponts, which presented him with a chance to make up some lost time.  If he could cross the Ambleve River using the town’s three bridges (hence the name…Trois Ponts), there was good road ahead, which would allow his tanks to rip through the Belgium countryside and reach the Meuse in a just a couple of hours.

The Americans, however, had other plans.

As Peiper’s lead tanks rolled toward the bridges, they were met by opposing tanks.  The two enemies had barely begun their engagement when, to Peiper’s dismay, the sound of a blast and the rumble of a bridge falling into the Ambleve was heard.  Shortly after, the second major bridge at Trois Ponts was detonated.

This was disastrous.  The German commander now had to move his charges north to the bridge at Cheneux (a tiny village near La Gleize), which meant yet another delay and more precious fuel wasted.

An exasperated Peiper finally reached Cheneux in the last light of day.  He rounded the bend and watched in horror as, just two hundred yards away, the bridge (this time crossing the Lienne River) disappeared in a flash and a crash.

Joachim Peiper’s advance to the Meuse had been stopped.

The Battle of the Bulge, from a German perspective, was all about advancing and covering tons of ground in a very short time.  The German war machine had precious little fuel to use, so rapid movement and the capture of enemy depots was vital before the weather cleared and the Allies’ unbelievable advantage in the air could be used to its fullest.

The dedication of American engineers and sappers, like the ones Peiper faced, played a key role in blunting the German advance and eventually turning the German advance into a retreat and rout.

Recommended Reading: The Longest Winter

Major Quakes Cause Midwest Misery

The other night we watched yet another of those “disasters of the Apocalypse” shows that seem to pop up with almost absurd frequency these days.  It’s usually the Discovery Channel, or the History Channel, or the Learning Channel, but they’re on all the time.  I suppose it has something to do with the ominous approach of 2012, the year the Mayan calendar ends and a bunch of people believe “the big one” is going to go up.

Didn’t the Mayans live a thousand years ago?  Their calendar probably ended in 2012 simply because they found more entertaining ways to occupy their time.  Hopefully the weight that lots of people give to this nonsense is mostly just a figment of my imagination, because if it’s not, then there are a lot of people that haven’t (unlike the Mayans) found more entertaining ways to occupy their time.

But I digress.  Anyways, this show was one we hadn’t seen before and was narrated by Samuel Jackson.  It was sort of a countdown of the various ways lots of people could get killed by disasters.  There was a big rainstorm over California at Number 5.  Number 4 I can’t remember, but I’m sure it was worse than a container of duck toys spilling into the Pacific.  Numbers 2 and 1 were completely predictable.  Two was a massive tsunami caused by a volcanic eruption and landslide at La Palma island in the Azores…this has been described on a dozen different “what-if” shows.  And of course, Numero Uno was the mega-volcano erupting in Yellowstone, which would lay waste to most of the American existance.  Again, we are not surprised, as this potential disaster is also well-known.

It was Number 3 that most caught my attention…an earthquake.  To be more specific, an earthquake in the Midwest.  Earthquakes in this area aren’t nearly as famous as those occurring around the Pacific Rim and the corresponding Ring of Fire, because they’re so rare.  But when the bigger ones hit, they pack a powerful wallop.

The most famous of the “Midwest” quakes on record was a series of temblors that culminated in a tremendous quake in February of 1812.  Centered over southeast Missouri, northeast Arkansas, and western Tennessee, the biggest ones were felt over a 1,000,000 square miles and damage was recorded as far away as Maine.

But it all began 200 years ago today…December 16, 1811.

At 2:15 in the morning, people along the New Madrid Fault were thrown from their beds by a tremendous rumbling.  They scrambled out of their crumbling homes and got a night-time view of the apocalypse, as the landscape heaved and bucked like a drunken man, under the influence of a quake that would have registered close to 8.0 on the Richter Scale.  There were sand blows and landslides, soil liquifaction and, to hear the locals tell it, a brief reversal of the mighty Mississippi River.

Six hours later, another quake similar in scope struck the region again.  Too large to be an aftershock, it classifies as its own separate quake.  People all over the region were terrified, looking heaven-ward and awaiting the arrival of the Four Horsemen.  Damage was extensive, but deaths relatively light because the population was sparse.

For many years, scientists believed that major earthquakes struck along the New Madrid Fault every couple of hundred years.  And guess what?…we’re at exactly 200 years today.  But seismic activity along the fault has dwindled to a relative handful of very small shakers each year.  I read somewhere that geologists think the fault might be seizing up to a point where quakes no longer occur.

But for the millions of residents that live in St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, Chicago, and other large cities in the region, there is that small concern.  I live in central Iowa, several hundred miles from the fault, but I think about it all the time.  Homes in the Midwest are built with tornadoes (and in recent years, flooding) in mind, not earthquakes.

A repeat of the quakes that began two centuries ago would be cataclysmic.

Garrison “Wakes” Up and Lays One on the Enemy

Ususally, when we’re faced with a crisis, our first reaction is some degree of shock.  In a figurative (or maybe even literal) sense, we stand there, staring blankly and not really focusing on anything, with our arms hanging at our sides, not really knowing what to do.  Eventually, our wits return, and we can begin assessing our situation and reacting to it.

That’s kind of how things work.

At the time of the Japanese attacks in December of 1941, many in the U.S. military did much the same.  There was the initial surprise.  It was followed by the “thousand-yard stare”, as the Japanese rolled over objective after objective all over the South Pacific.  And then came the chance to respond, which really didn’t get underway until Doolittle and Midway several months later.

But during that time, there were many instances where soldiers in harm’s way put forth a super-human effort.  Over the years, we’ve discussed Bataan and Corregidor as places where our military men, facing terrible odds and no real hope of rescue, gave an incredible accounting for themselves.

The garrison at Wake Island is another example.

For the men stationed there, it must have been a pretty lonely existence.  The island measured a couple of square miles, so there wasn’t much to see.  It was situated in the middle of nowhere, about 1,500 miles from anything, so there wasn’t anywhere to go.

And as for defenses, well, they were pretty pathetic as well.  Some 5-inch guns from a deceased battleship comprised the big iron.  There were a couple of ancient 3-inch guns that didn’t fully function, some heavy machine guns, a handful of anti-aircraft weapons, and whatever small arms the 450 men (a Marine Defense Battalion and a smattering of others) carried on their hips.  Oh, and there was a Marine fighter squadron with a dozen F4F Wildcats.

Just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Wake was targeted by Japanese bombers.  They concentrated on the air defenses, destroying eight of the twelve aircraft (the other four were flying defense).  There were some subsequent attacks, but all of this was the prelude to the main action.

On December 11, 1941, a Japanese landing force arrived to take over.  It included three cruisers, a half-dozen destroyers, and a pair of troop transports carrying the invasion sortie of 450 soldiers.  The expectation was one of a fairly easy landing and occupation.

Wake’s defenders, however, had different ideas.  They met their unwelcome visitors with all the firepower they could muster.  The men manning the five-inchers succeeded in sinking a destroyer and heavily damaging a cruiser.  In the air, the remaining Wildcats dropped bombs and successfully blew the tail off another Japanese destroyer, sending her to the bottom with all hands.

All of a sudden, this little skirmish had turned into a crisis for the Japanese, and they were the ones staring in shock.  Hopelessly out-gunned, this little garrison was putting a pasting on a much larger invasion force.  And for the first time in the war, the Japanese withdrew from an objective to regroup.

For the men at Wake, it was an awesome sight to see a Japanese force falling below the horizon in retreat.  Commander Winfield Cunningham, when ordering a long list of supplies, humorously included more enemy soldiers to fight.  But as we know, the small atoll was under siege, and no supplies or reinforcements would arrive.  The Pacific belonged to the Japanese, so Wake was on its own.

But Wake would manage to hold out for another two weeks against overwhelming pressure…a pretty remarkable feat considering the circumstances.

Clark Air Base: The Pearl of the Philippines

We ate dinner last night with our son Andrew and his three boys.  It was his birthday last week, but he was out of town, so we celebrated it late.  He picked Uncle Buck’s as his restaurant, where the food is always good.  As we sat at the table, 5-year-old Teagan informed us that another word for delicious is “scrumptious.”  So my Cajun Catfish sandwich, which I always get and comes with about a pound of fish, was scrumptious.

Let’s tackle some history.

Saburo Sakai (who is no stranger to us) was a nervous pilot.  It’s not that piloting an airplane made him nervous, but rather the circumstances surrounding this particular flight.  He was part of the attack force heading for Clark Air Base in the Philippines.  It was December 8, 1941, and his was just one of many forces heading for targets all over the vast Pacific.

His buddies had struck a few hours before (and on the other side of the International Date Line) against the U.S. Navy parked at Pearl Harbor.  The 5th and 18th army divisions were landing along the coasts of Thailand and Malaya.  Three regiments were causing havoc in Hong Kong.  Wake Island was being bombarded, and Burma was being invaded by the Japanese 15th army.

Attacks were happening everywhere, but the timing of this particular mission, against General Douglas MacArthur’s center of command, was what caused Sakai’s concerns.  His squadrons had been scheduled to attack Clark at roughly the same time as the attacks on Pearl.  But some incredibly dense fog that settled on their base in Formosa had caused their flights to be delayed by hours, ruining any chance of surprise.

However, as Sakai approached Clark with the other pilots, it was they who were surprised.  Below were dozens of bombers and fighters parked neatly in rows, just waiting to be blown up.  They couldn’t believe their fortune.  Their timing had actually been perfect.  When word reached Clark of the attacks at Pearl Harbor, many of the planes had been sent aloft.  When the attacks didn’t come, the planes were brought back and parked so they could be refueled and the crews could eat.

And it was then that the Japanese arrived, and proceeded to demolish the place.

Like Hawaii, war had come to the islands of the Philippines.

Recommended Reading:  Tears in the Darkness – A must read.

Text Ya Later!

When I reached my teenage years, the words “text” and “message” were still strictly nouns.  Text was contained between the pages of a book and a message was something you left on one of those answering machines with the little cassette tapes.  And before all you kiddies start laughing, that wasn’t very long ago.  I was in my teens little more than twenty years ago.  Technology in the last two decades has advanced with breathtaking speed.

Today, those words are both nouns and verbs, and our dictionaries have changed because of cell phones.  We don’t just send texts (the noun), we text people (the verb).  The same holds true for messaging.  The text messaging craze is a decade-old invention…or is it?

If we look back into the annals of time, we’ll come to December 3, 1992.  And there we’ll see that the very first text message was sent.  It wasn’t a long message – just “Merry Christmas” – and it wasn’t even sent from a phone (having originated from a PC…probably one of those high-powered 33MHz Pentium 486s that were all the rage), but its destination was a phone, and so it qualifies.

Today, text messages are sent at the rate of billions per day, and “texting” is as natural as breathing for some people.  And while I still find breathing to be much easier, I send text messages now and again.  I think it’s a rather cold and impersonal form of communication, but we’ve used email for years and telephones for decades, and those methods are only slightly less impersonal than true face-to-face conversation, so maybe I’ll change my thinking as time goes on.

I bet if people had to use rotary phones for text messaging, they’d just talk more.

Dartmouth: The Tea Party’s First Guest Arrives

When the members of British Parliament debated the Tea Act, some were skeptical of the measure’s success.  William Dowdeswell stood up and said, “I tell the Lord Noble [the bill's author] now, if he don’t take off the duty, they won’t take the tea.”  He had little idea how accurate he would be.  The majority of Parliament’s members didn’t side with Dowdesdell, and the Tea Act of 1773 was passed in May.

Over the next few months, word of the Tea Act began trickling through the Colonies.  It was accompanied by a rumor that 300 chests of tea were headed for Boston Harbor in what appeared to be a test of wills.  Those opposed to the Act moved into high gear, working hard to convince their fellow citizens to abstain from British tea.  The Town Meeting of Boston met and, led by Samuel Adams, drafted a resolution reminding men of their freedoms and chastising the British for, once again, imposing legislation on the Colonies without consent.

Newspapers got into the act as well.  The Massachusetts Spy turned up the rhetoric and Ira Stoll’s biography of Samuel Adams gives the details.  The paper suggested that the (supposedly) incoming tea would likely be infested with disease-carrying insects.  It could not be sold in England, so it was being shipped to the Colonies.  The best remedy was simply to avoid the tea altogether.

On November 28, 1773, the rumor became reality when the Dartmouth arrived in Boston Harbor, carrying 114 chests of East India Company tea.  The Eleanor arrived on December 2nd with another 114 chests and the Beaver joined them on the 15th with her 112 chests.

The pieces were now in place for the most famous of all pre-Revolution events…The Boston Tea Party.

Recommended Viewing:  The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum website – Lots of great stuff, and an actual museum that’s currently under construction.

Howard Carter Discovers Gold in Egypt

When I was a junior high student, I maintained a somewhat modest fascination of King Tut.  Well, that may not be strictly true, as I knew (and cared) not at all about his short 20-year life.  His time as Egypt’s leader didn’t register, either.  The cause of his death?…not my concern.

Nope.

I was interested in all the super-cool gold things that were discovered in his tomb.  Our school library had purchased a book detailing much of Tutankhamun’s life, and I checked it out several times to gawk at the pictures.

Typical junior higher, I suppose.  Now that I’m older, things have changed…I’ve lost much of my fascination with King Tut.

However, that’s not to say I’d ignore an important day related to him or, as in this case, his discovery.

When Howard Carter first discovered what looked to be a stairway under some small ancient buildings in November of 1922, his pulse began to race.  He had been searching for a the tomb of a relatively unknown king named Tutankhamun for some time.  By the end of the day a complete staircase had been excavated and a sealed doorway had been found.  Excitement grew at the potential of finding a tomb untouched by robbers.

At this point, Carter stopped digging and sent word to his boss, Lord Carnavon, that an intact tomb of a to-this-point unknown person had been found.  Three weeks later (on November 24th, as transportation took some time in the 1920s) Carnavon arrived and the digging resumed.

By the end of the next day, there had been numerous discoveries.  There was a seal with Tut’s named on it.  Behind it was a long, sloping passageway also quickly cleared out.  And then there was another sealed door, also bearing Tut’s name.  The crew was breathless with anticipation as evidence for a significant find quickly grew.

On November 26, 1922, Carter punched a small hole in the upper left of the door with trembling hands, big enough for a candle.  He would later write, “At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle to flicker. Presently, details of the room emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold – everywhere the glint of gold.”

The pent-up anticipation gave way to jubilation.  A long-lost treasure had been found.  But what Carter, Carnavon, and the rest of the team couldn’t yet know was that the gold they saw in the flicker of the candlelight would pale in comparison to the gold they would utlimately find.

President Madison Loses his VP

It’s Thanksgiving Eve, and while it may not carry the same weight as Christmas Eve, it’s reason enough to keep things brief.

For President James Madison, 1814 had not been a particularly kind year.  The same could be said for most of the fledgling Union over which Madison served as Commander-in-Chief.  The war with Britain (the second of Madison’s life when you consider the War of Independence) was not going very well.  The nation’s capital was no longer smoking, but it was a ruin thanks to British torches.  War Secretary Armstrong had been summarily sacked by an irate Madison.

Politics was rearing its ugly head, with New England governors refusing to allow their state militias to be used for national defense.  The ballot box had not been Madison’s friend, either.  Mid-term elections had seen the Federalist Party, largely marginalized since John Adams left office, make significant gains.

Then there were the British who, in addition to the war itself, were working hard to sway the New England states to break away from the southern states (especially those pesky Virginians) and reestablish ties to the mother country.  Citizens were smuggling goods to the enemy and colluding with them.

And to add injury to all the insult, Madison was ill again.  The heat and humidity of Washington, D.C.’s summer and fall never agreed with the President.  He often spent much of that time back at home.  But this year had been different, and Madison was paying a physical price.

On November 23, 1814, the news got worse.  Vice President Elbridge Gerry had died of a lung hemorrhage while riding in his carriage to the Senate.  Gerry had been a member of the Second Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention.  And while he initially voted against the Constitution, he eventually became a strong supporter.  During his time as the governor of Massachusetts, he supported a redistricting bill that not only took on his name (gerrymandering), but also cost him re-election.  And now he was gone.

The rejuvenated Federalists smelled blood.  One of them would write, “If Mr. President Madison would resign now that Mr. Gerry is no more, a president of the Senate might be chosen, who would . . . do honor to the nation.”

Gerry’s death had transformed James Madison from the President to a Federalist target.

Lake Peigneur: A Volatile Mix of Oil and Salt

Last summer (the rain-drenched summer of 2010), Lake Delhi ceased to exist.  Located in eastern Iowa, the lake was kept in place by a dam.  In late July, a 24-hour period of intense rain (more than 10″ fell) simply overwhelmed the dam, collapsing it and sending millions of gallons of water downstream.

In general, I’m guessing this is the most common way lakes become “non-lakes”.  We’ve seen it in our stories of Johnstown, the St. Francis Dam, and the dam that held back Lawn Lake.  I’m sure there are more incidents like those…there are lots of dams in the world.

But Lake Peigneur wasn’t drained by a dam failure.  Lake Peigneur, located in southern Louisiana roughly 100 miles west of New Orleans, doesn’t even have a dam.  But back in 1980, it did have an active salt mine below it.  And then Texaco showed up, wanting to drill below the lake and search for oil.

And much like those old Reeses Peanut Butter Cup commercials – you know, the “you got your chocolate in my peanut butter” commercials – Texaco and the Diamond Crystal Salt Company got all mixed together.  On November 20, 1980, Texaco was drilling below the lake when it miscalculated and inadvertantly punched through one of the salt mine shafts.  It wasn’t a very big hole, and it was initally plugged by the drill.  But when the drill was reversed…well…when you fill your kitchen sink with water and then pull out the drain…you can pretty much figure out the rest.

Lake Peigneur began draining into the salt mine, sending more than 50 miners scrambling for the elevators and the safety of the surface.  And just like your kitchen drain, a whirlpool formed on the lake as it drained, first sucking down the oil rig (from which the workers had all scrambled as well), then barges, then land and trees from around the lake.

And what’s more, the lake’s outlet, which flowed down to Vermillion Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, was reversed.  This action served to pull salt water from the Gulf back into the lake, changing Peigneur’s composition from freshwater to saltwater.

Fortunately, there were no human fatalities (though I’m sure plenty of fish had a pretty rough go of it), but Texaco ended up paying a bundle of money in compensation.

Recommended Viewing:  Watch Lake Peigneur disappear.

Suchow Feels the Wrath of War

The Japanese capture of Shanghai in November of 1937 left the Chinese army retreating to the west.  Chiang Kai-shek’s forces had done what they could to protect the important Chinese port, but they were simply overmatched, if not in numbers, then in technology, organization, and firepower.

From the Japanese point of view, there were a couple of reasons to be angry, even in victory.  First, the enemy had successfully shot their timeline to pieces.  Three months had been spent in the effort to take Shanghai, which was the amount of time Japan’s military leaders believed it would take to capture all of China.  Second, as far as the Japanese soldier was concerned, the Chinese retreat was offensive to the Japanese code of bushido.  A fight to the death, even one’s own death, was the only honorable outcome in battle.  The Chinese departure from Shanghai robbed the Japanese victory (and by extension, the soldier) of honor.

After Shanghai, the Japanese forces split into three westward-moving branches, like tynes on a fork.  One went to the north, following the Yangtze River.  Another went south of Tai Hu Lake, heading toward Huchow.  And the third went straight down the middle, toward Suchow.  The ultimate goal was for all three tynes to meet in the vicinity of Nanking.  In her book The Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang writes, “Little was spared on the path to Nanking.  Japanese veterans remember raiding tiny farm communities, where they clubbed or bayoneted everyone in site.  But small villages were not the only casualties;  entire cities were razed to the ground.”

On November 19, 1937, that center tyne of the fork arrived at the city of Suchow (modern-day Suzhou).  Made up of the 9th Division and led by General Nakajima Kesago (described even by his biographer as a beast of a man), they entered the city in a driving rain.

Before the 19th, Suchow was a grand city of some 350,000 residents.  As one of China’s oldest cities, it was famous for its textiles and ornate temples.  Its many bridges had earned it the nickname “The Venice of China”.  After the 19th, it became a place of death and destruction.  For days, Japanese soldiers ran wild, killing citizens by the thousands, burning indiscriminantly, and laying waste to the city.

When the Japanese left Suchow and continued west toward Nanking, they departed a ghost town.  One Chinese newspaper reported that the city’s population had been reduced to 500 people.  How many were killed versus how many fled the city is not clear, but it’s safe to say that both numbers are significant.

Recommended Reading: The Rape of Nanking

Cape Ann Temblor Turns Citizens to Quakers

Several months back I got a smartphone.  I really didn’t have much interest in one at the time, but since our company was planning to build a mobile version of one of our websites, it kind of made sense (as one of the developers) to have one.  So now we’re developing the site, and it’s been pretty handy.  In the meantime, I’ve added a few free apps to the phone, which have made the fact that it’s bulkier than its predecessor a little more bearable.  One of the first apps I installed was one called “Latest Quakes” that allows me see when quakes occur anywhere in the world.  And this year, we’ve had plenty of them to view.

Back in 1755, smartphones didn’t exist.  Dumb phones didn’t exist, either.  But earthquakes did, and they could certainly be felt, whether seismographs were around or not.  And one of the largest quakes to hit the eastern seaboard occurred on November 18, 1755.  The quake has been estimated to be something greater than 6.0.  Now that doesn’t sound especially large in light of the quake that struck off Japan’s coast back in March, but apparently, the composition of the ground east of the Rockies means that earthquakes have a greater “punch per Richter number”.

This particular quake struck early in the morning off the coast of Massachusetts.  It was in the general vicinity of Cape Ann, so it’s been named the Cape Ann Earthquake, but the shaking wasn’t limited to Cape Ann.  It was felt as far south as South Carolina and well out into the Atlantic.  Damage in eastern Massachusetts was pretty extensive.  Since the Richter Scale didn’t exist back then, earthquakes were measured by the Chimneys-Knocked-Down Scale.  Jay Feldman quotes the Boston Weekly News-Letter in When the Mississippi Ran Backwards (which, by the way, is a completely fascinating read)  “The Convulsions were so extreme as to wreck the Houses in this Town to such a Degree that the Tops of many Chimnies…were thrown down…”.  Fences were reported knocked down and there was some soil liquifaction as well.

Many citizens pointed ominously to the sky and fingered the Hand of God as the cause of the quake, citing punishment for evil deeds and immoral behavior.  This led to something of a religious revival, as preachers took the opportunity to remind their congregations of the Almighty’s Powerful right hand.  It also led to a lot of employment opportunities for guys that knew something about brickwork.

Recommended Reading: When the Mississippi Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquakes – A super-intriguing tale. A little murder. A little earthquake. A Cape Ann mention.  I think you’ll like it.

Fire and Brimstone at Church in Coventry

For Richard Howard and Jock Forbes, this night would be a lot like preceding nights, and that meant little sleep, a lot of stress, and constant vigilance.  Howard was the provost of St. Michael’s Cathedral and Jock was the caretaker.  It was November 14, 1940, it was Coventry, it was England, and it was the middle of the Blitz.  And their job, along with a couple of other younger fellows, was to protect the church, now 600 years old.

British intelligence had received word that an air attack was coming.  A German prisoner had let it be known that aircraft would be bombing either Coventry, Wolverhampton, or Birmingham.  But for the inhabitants of Coventry, bombers and bombs were nothing new.  Since the Blitz had begun some months before, Coventry (with its many factories and other industry) had been a regular stop for the Luftwaffe.

And as it turned out, tonight would be no different.  So Howard and Jock would, once again, stand watch with their water hoses, ready to jump on any fire that threatened the church.

The early evening darkness was shattered when, shortly after 7:00pm, the air raid sirens began wailing.  As women and children headed for cover, those protecting St. Michael’s looked skyward.  The “pathfinder” aircraft (there were only a dozen or so) dropped their flares and a few incendiaries in order to light the path for the bomber force.

A short time later, the Heinkels of Luftflotte 3 began arriving.  They dropped their bombs, returned to their bases in France to rearm and refuel, and made the trip again.  The raid lasted most of the night and into the early morning hours.

The devastation from the bombs of more that 500 enemy aircraft was complete.

Henry Brooks has written a book for young adults called True Stories of the Blitz, and his description of the aftermath is worth plagairizing.  “There was no all-clear signal given on the morning of November 15.  The sirens had either been blasted to pieces or had no power supply for their electric motors.  The gas, water and electricity services for the city were in disarray.  Around 06:30, wardens began hurrying through the shell-holed streets, calling to people in their shelters that the raid was finally over. … They came up to the surface to find their beautiful city a smoking ruin. … The fires had consumed 70% of the city’s factories.  People described bizarre sights and smells in the aftermath of the blaze.  A cloud of cigar smoke hung around a charred tobacco stand; sides of pork and beef were stacked in a butcher’s shop, perfectly roasted.”

The known deaths in the attack numbered 568 and nearly 1,000 more were injured.  More than 60,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed, including, as Brooks mentioned, three quarters of the factories.

And St. Michael’s Cathedral?  She, too, was numbered with the victims.

The first fires that started in the church were quickly extinguished, but early in the attacks, the water supplies were disrupted and the hoses ran dry.  Richard Howard, Jock Forbes, and their helpers were quickly reduced to spectators as the fires returned, spread, and eventually consumed the aged church.  The morning light presented little more than a burned out shell (shown above) of the once-magnificent Gothic structure…a shell you can still visit today.

Recommended Reading:  True Stories of the Blitz – It’s one for the youngsters, but the stories are interesting enough for anyone to read.

Eliza: “Ever yours” – A H

“For Eliza Hamilton, the collapse of her world was total, overwhelming, and remorseless.  Within three years, she had had to cope with four close deaths:  her eldest son, her sister Peggy, her mother, and her husband, not to mention the mental breakdown of her eldest daughter.”

So begins the epilogue to Ron Chernow’s sweeping and masterful biography of Alexander Hamilton.  The first five years of the 19th century were hard for the wife of our nation’s first Treasury Secretary.  But her life was far from over, and the strength she displayed after the sudden death of Alexander more than matched that of her first forty-seven years.

She worked hard to preserve her husband’s legacy, particularly as the Federalist party faded from prominence and then disappeared altogether in the 1820s.  She gathered his notes and questioned his contemporaries extensively in an effort to keep his achievements alive.  When no one stepped forward to write a biography, she tapped her son John Church Hamilton to perform the arduous task.

She possessed a deep well of forgiveness for her husband’s disastrous affair with Maria Reynolds, but much less so for James Monroe, whom she blamed for leaking the story.  Thirty years after the fact, the former President paid her a visit, hoping that time had taken away the sting of her hurts.  Her cool response was, “Mr. Monroe, if you have come to tell me that you repent, that you are sorry, very sorry, for the misrepresentations and the slanders and the stories you circulated against my dear husband, if you have come to say this, I understand it.  But otherwise, no lapse of time, no nearness to the grave, makes any difference.”

But this devoutly religious widow did more than protect Alexander’s legacy.  She spent much time serving orphans and widows herself, cofounding (in 1806) the first private orphanage in New York, where for many years she was one of its directors.  She worked tirelessly to keep the orphanage funded and keep the financial records straight (a talent she may have learned from Alexander?).

Much of this good work was done while she had little means of support herself.  Alexander had died with a sizeable debt, which flew in the face of Anti-federalist accusations that he “stole from the government coffers” and had secret British-funded bank accounts.  In fact, as a veteran of the Revolution, Alexander Hamilton had refused not only the pension to which he was entitled as an officer, but also the parcels of land promised to officers.  He did this because, as a member of Congress, he wanted no one to accuse him of bias when he addressed the issue of veterans’ compensation.  Following his death, Eliza had received these allocations from President Madison as back payments.

She finally left the Grange and settled with her now-widowed daughter in Washington, D.C.  At 91, she still remained lucid and full of life.  She worked with Dolly Madison to raise money for construction of the Washington Monument, and enjoyed the company of many who stopped at her parlor to marvel at one of the last remaining witnesses to the American Revolution.

She kept her wits until the end, along with her strong faith and her love and devotion to Alexander.  And on November 9, 1854, this 97-year old wonder entered her eternal rest, as the nation her husband worked so hard to bring together catapulted itself toward fracture and destruction.

Eliza was laid to rest next to Alexander, who had departed more than a half century before.

Recommended Reading: Alexander Hamilton