The last post was on Mark Twain and his prediction about his death, which got me to thinking about another famous death quote.
Do you know who said this: "The news of my death is greatly exaggerated."
Well, do ya?
Answer below.
W.C. Fields
***************************************
BUT!!!!
Mark Twain also reportedly said at one time: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
I Wonder? --CootTwainFields
The periodic comet known as Halley's Comet returns to earth's vicinity about every 75 years, give or take a little due to gravitational pull of the planets as it passes by them. Back in the 18th century, English astronomer Edmond Halley concluded that reports of a comet appearing in 1531, 1607 and 1682 actually referred to the very same comet returning at periodic intervals.
He then predicted it would return in 1758, though he died before it appeared again. Halley's comet was in the skies again when celebrated author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain was born November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri.
By 1909, 74 years had passed and Twain offered a prediction of when his life would end. It would coincide with the comet's reappearance. He was quoted as saying: "It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.' "
As it turned out, Mark Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, the day after Halley's Comet emerged from the far side of the sun.
The comet's appearance proved particularly spectacular that year for other reasons as well: It passed only about 13.9 million miles from Earth, about 1/15th the distance between the Earth and the Sun. So it was up real close. And, for the first time, its flight was captured on camera.
Halley's Comet most recently appeared in 1986, and is not expected back until 2061.
--Look Up Above!! --Cooter
In the summer of 1861, Wilmer McLean and his family were living on his wife's plantation near Manassas Junction, Virginia. As Union forces approached, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard took over the farm as his headquarters.
On July 21, 1861, Union and Confederate forces clashed in the first major battle of the Civil War along the small stream known as Bull Run, which ran through McLean's property. A second major battle, the Second Battle of Bull Run took place on the same ground in August 1862.
Probably tired of all the fighting, Wilmer decided to move away. By the end of 1863, they had relocated to the small hamlet of Appomattox Court House, some 120 miles southwest of Manassas Junction. McLean was supplying sugar to the Confederate Army, was in Appomattox on April 9, 1865, when Confederate Colonel Charles Marshal approached him for assistance in finding a suitable place for a meeting between Generals Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant.
That afternoon, Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Grant in McLean's parlor. The Union soldiers later essentially stripped that parlor for momentoes of the historic occasion. McLean put the "Surrender House" up for sale a year later.
He wanted to return to Manassas, which he did in 1867, though he never sold the Appomattox house. Instead, he defaulted on the property and it was sold at public auction in 1869.
Now operated by the National Park Service, the McLean House opened to the public in 1949.
--Cooter
3. ROBERT LINCOLN ON SCENE AT THREE PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATIONS
Robert Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's son and the man Edwin Booth saved in Philadelphia in 1863, was at his father's death in 1865. Less than a month later, he resigned from the Army and moved to Chicago with his distraught mother. He later married, had children and established a successful law practice.
He also remained involved in politics and became Secretary of War in President James A. Garfield's administration in 1881. That July, Lincoln was at a train station in Washington, ready to travel to New Jersey with Garfield (who had been in office less than two months). Before their train left the station, however, Charles Guiteau shot Garfield in the back. The president died from complications from the wound two months later.
In 1901, President William McKinley to Buffalo, New York, invited Robert Lincoln to attend the Pan-American Exposition. Lincoln arrived when the event was already in progress and was heading to meet the president when Leon Czolgosz fatally shot McKinley in the chest and abdomen in front of a crowd of well-wishers.
Lincoln, who was in the later part of his career, president of the Pullman Company, was said to have remarked that there was "a certain fatality about the presidential function when I am present."
--Cooter
From the August 29, 2015, History "6 famous coincidences" by Sarah Pruitt.
1. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died hours apart on the same day: July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of American independence.
James Monroe became the third U.S. president to die on July 4 in 1831. James Madison, Jefferson's close friend and Virginian came close to dying on Independence Day on June 28, 1836.
2. JUST A YEAR BEFORE JOHN WIKES BOOTH KILLED ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BOOTH'S BROTHER EDWIN SAVED THE LIFE OF LINCOLN'S ELDEST SON, ROBERT.
Edwin Booth was a solid supporter of the Union, unlike his brother. In late 1864, Robert Todd Lincoln fell on some railroad tracks and would have been mangles or killed had someone not saved him. Robert recognized his savior as being the famous actor Edwin Booth.
Edwin Booth only learned later who the man was he saved. His friend Adam Badeau, a colonel in the Union Army, wrote Edwin congratulating him for saving the president's son. At the time, Robert Lincoln was serving with Badeau on Gen. Grant's staff.
--Cooter
As the 80th anniversary of it approached in 2017, Werner Doehner told Associated Press that he and his parents, older brother and sister were returning from a vacation to Germany on the 804-foot-long zeppelin to Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey.
His father headed up to his cabin after using his movie camera to shoot some scenes of the station from the airship's dining room. That was the last time Doehner saw him.
As the Hindenburg arrived, flames began to flicker on the top of the ship. Hydrogen, exposed to the air, fueled the inferno.
"Suddenly the air was on fire," Doehner recalled.
Doehner said his mother threw him and his brother out of the ship before she left, too.
They suffered burns. He would remain in a hospital for three months before going to a hospital in New York in August for skin grafts.
Doehner was born in Darmstadt, Germany and grew up in Mexico City. In 1984, he moved to the United States to work for General Electric as an electrical engineer. He also worked in Ecuador and Mexico.
Quite an International Man and Quite a History.
From the November 17, 2019 Chicago Tribune by Kathy McCormack, AP.
The last remaining survivor of te Hindenburg disaster, Werner Gustav Doehner has died at age 90. He died on November 8 in Laconia, New Hampshire.
Doehner was the only person left of the 62 passengers who survived the May 6, 1937, fire that killed his father, sister and 34 others. He was just 8 years old at the time.
"He did not talk about it," his son Bernie Doehner said. "It was definitely a repressed memory. He lost his sister, he lost his dad."
Bernie said his father took him to visit the naval station years later, but not the Hindenburg Memorial itself.
Are you like me and get Generations X, Y and Z confused? And, who are these millennials who are so bearded, pierced, hair-colored and inked?
I know for a fact Baby Boomers and the Greatest Generation, but what about the others?
Maybe this will help:
BABY BOOMERS: Born 1946-1964 That's me.
GEN X: Born 1965-1981
GEN Y: (AKA, The Millennials) 1982-2000
GEN Z: (AKA The Centennials-hadn't heard this one) 2001 to present.
So, What Are You? --CootBoomer
From the March 15, 2021, Listverse by Estelle. Go to this site and get more information and a chance to hear the song.
10. SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO-- Clash
9. BORN TO BE WILD-- Steppenwolf
7. PROUD MARY-- Creedence Clearwater Revival
6. YOU SHOOK ME ALNIGHT LONG-- AC/DC
5. ROCK AND ROLL ALL NITE-- Kiss
4. LOVE BITES-- Def Leppard
3. I LOVE ROCK & ROLL-- Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
2. PURPLE HAZE-- Jimi Hendrix
1. RADIO GA-GA-- Queen
What? No Led Zepelin? What gives?
Name That Tune (from the above songs): "Get Your Motor Runnin' And Head Out To The Highway." Answer below. --RoadDog
"Born To Be Wild"
From the July 24, 2020, Chicago Tribune by Steve Megargee, AP.
Last season was Bob Uecker's 50th in the Brewer's broadcast booth.
And, he was facing his biggest challenge during that time, the pandemic. He broadcast the 2020 season's games at Miller Field, home of the Brewers and that included the road games which he watched on a monitor.
The 86-year-old announcer came back for his 50th season and 65th in baseball overall, including a six-year playing career with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies from 1962 to 1967. (Totals: Batting average: .200, 14 home runs, 74 RBI. Not exactly what you'd call amazing.)
But, he made fun of this. And, then there were those great commercials. Ever since April 2014, there has been a statue of Bob Uecker in the back row of Miller Field's nosebleed seats in homage to his 1980s Lite Beer commercial where he arrived at the park and says, "I must be in the front row."
Of course, I always enjoy it when he is at Wrigley Field and they have him do the 7th inning stretch "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and he always, I mean always yells "And it's root, root, root for the Brewers." Looks like the Cub front office would be aware of that bit of sacrilege.
--CootUeck
Eldorado
Dianne Feinstein
Garfield
Gratton
Jefferson
Francis Scott Key
Frank McCoppin
McKinley
Marshall
Monroe
Muir
Ortega
Sanchez
Junipero Serra
Sheridan
Sherman
Sloat
Stevenson
Sutro
Ulloa
Webster
Noreiga
Presidio
Stockton
--CootWokeHa
Here is the list of schools targeted for name changes:
Balboa
Lincoln
Mission
Washington
Lowell
Denman
Everett
Hoover
Lick
Presidio
Roosevelt
Lawton
Claire Lilienthal (both campuses)
Revere
Alamo
Alvarado
Bryant
Clarendon (elementary and JBBP
More. --DaCoot
Some of the proposed school name might surprise you.
Abraham Lincoln High School
George Washington High School
Dianne Feinstein Elementary
Roosevelt Middle School
Jefferson Elementary
Alamo Elementary
Lincoln was "listed" because of his treatment of Indians. Washington and Jefferson because they were slaveowners. Feinstein because, as mayor, she ordered a Confederate flag replaced after an early form of BLM destroyed one in a public display of flags of the United States.
One organization says that there are more than 240 schools across the U.S. named for a Confederate leader.
--CootAlamo
From the November 30, 2020, Los Angeles Times "San Francisco may rename 42 schools, including Lincoln Highand Dianne Feinstein Elementary" by Faith E. Pinho.
There were 42 schools recommended for renaming. For those of you counting, that's one third of their schools.
Some of the school's namesakes have already come under fire, including California missionary Father Junipero Serra and "Star-Spangled Banner" author Francis Scott Key.
Others, like Abraham Lincoln and Senator Dianne Feinstein, well, maybe the reasons are not so obvious.
Even the storied magnet school Lowell High is on the last. Its namesake James Russell Lowell was an abolitionist (Okay) but his writings.
--CootRidiculous
Black artist Hank Willis Thomas offered a giant Afro pick that tapered to a black power fist at the end of its handle. Titles "All Power To All People," the 800 pound aluminum-and-steel sculpture was provocatively placed near a bronze statue of Frank Rizzo, a former Philadelphia mayor and police commissioner who for many Philadelphians was a symbol of police brutality directed at Blacks and other people of color.
The discussion over history and monuments has continued into 2021, as San Francisco recently scrapped 44 school names.
The issue came to a head last July, when activists forcibly attempted to remove the prominent statue of Columbus in Grant Park, leading to violent clashes between police and protesters. Nearly a week later, Mayor Lightfoot took down Columbus statues in Grant Park and Little Italy. She later had a lesser-known Columbus statue in a South Chicago neighborhood removed.
Columbus has been condemned by activists around the country who point to the Italian explorer's treatment of Indians after he landed in the Americas in 1492.
Many Italians prize the statues of the explorer as an expression of their mainstream American identity.
--Cooter
However, there is a statue of black prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks that was unveiled on the South Side in 2018. And the Harold Washington Library Center contains multiple artistic tributes to Chicago's first black mayor. The city also renamed the Congress Expressway for black journalist Ida B. Wells in 2018.
Also, Chicago named several public housing projects after notable Blacks. The Robert Taylor Homes was named for black activist and first black chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority. There was also an Ida B. Wells Homes.
Other cities across the U.S. have used temporary sculptures to explore the issue of expanding representation.
Before 2017, Philadelphia's roughly 1,500 pieces of public art and monuments did virtually nothing to recognize to recognize people of color and real women (as opposed to mythological figures). Then two arts organizations, Mural Arts Philadelphia and Monument Lab mounted a temporary citywide exhibition of 10 works by local and internationally known artists that shook things up.
--Cooter
Even before then unrest sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, cities around the country were grappling with controversies over monuments that celebrate Columbus, Confederate leaders and other historical figures. Some have been marked with graffiti. Others have been pulled down.
Activists have urged that public art do a better job of representing a broad spectrum of American life, something the mayor says Chicago will accomplish.
As part of that, city officials said the Chicago Monuments Project seeks ideas from individual artists and community groups "for development of new monuments that rethink the place, purpose and permanence of monuments in our public places."
Throughout America, activists have criticized cities for not honoring women and people of color. In Chicago, women and minorities aren't altogether absent from the city's public art, but they are underrepresented.
--Cooter
Disputes over Chicago's Columbus statues erupted last summer between protesters and police, including a violent clash at Grant Park. I saw this one and if there has ever been an actual attack on police with intent to harm, this was one.
Chicago's Mayor Lightfoot had that Columbus statue and two others removed, saying it was going to be temporary but that the removal was for public safety.
In a public statement, Lightfoot said: "This project is a powerful opportunity for us to come together as a city to assess the many monuments and memorials across our neighborhoods and communities -- to face our history and what and how we memorialize that history.
"Given the past year and in particular the past summer that made clear history isn't past, it is essential that residents are a part of the conversation.
--Cooter
From the Feb. 18, 2021, Chicago Tribune "Columbus, Washington and Lincoln statues up for review" by Gregory Pratt.
Images on List of 41 Controversial Monuments in City. That would be Chicago.
It is bad enough that some of us have to live with the Confederadication Thing, but now this. I figured if they could now go after Confederate stuff that would open up attacks on a myriad of things and it sure has.
Statues of Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley, as well as the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, were among the 41 public statues in Chicago on a list from the mayor's administration that are in for further review as part of "a racial healing and historical reckoning project" started last summer.
Other ones on the list (well, let's call it what it is, a HIT LIST) include statues of President Ulysses S. Grant. a Benjamin Franklin statue, a police memorial tied to the Haymarket Riot and a statue of Leif Ericson at Humboldt Park.
--CootWoke? Don't Think So.
As we slowly melt out, and in my case, chop out, from the remnants of the Winter of '21, I am reminded of another major snow event, now ten years in the past.
There was an article about it in the January 31, 2021, Chicago Tribune "A freak of nature paralyzed Chicago" by William Lee.
"Ten years ago, a unique storm of extremes tested every crack in Chicago's infrastructure, halted most forms of transportation and humbled a city that prides itself on powering through any kind of weather.
"This wasn't the city's biggest blast of snow. Generations of kids were brought up on stories of then towering mounds of snow in the 1967 blizzard, which inspired author George R.R. Martin's iconic ice wall in "Game of Thrones" and the 1979 blizzard that swung a mayoral election, among others."
But this one was particularly mean. It hit hard and it hit fast. Lots of snow and lots and lots of wind. I mean lots of wind.
This one was also called "Snowpocalypse."
It comes in officially as Chicago's 3rd biggest snowstorm.
To see the Top Ten snowstorms in Chicago, click on the Chicago Blizzard of 1967 label.
--CootSnow
People tried all sorts of remedies, many of which were advertised in local newspapers and today sound atrocious as medical cures.
Menthoeze, for example, was widely sold in town and consisted of goosefat mixed with turpentine for an inhalation treatment. Quinine tablets along with an elixir derived from opium were highly recommended for fever and pain.
A children's concoction called California Syrup of Fig was sold by local pharmacies. Made up almost entirely of fig syrup, it also contained 25 percent Senna, an herbal laxative, as well as 6 percent alcohol.
It's a miracle that residents survived the treatments! But the point is, they did survive and despite large numbers of lives lost, Belvidere and Boone County (Illinois) eventually conquered the virus, not through horrific syrups, but through isolation, quarantine and protection.
By October 25, 1918, cases were down to three per day with very few deaths and Belvidere Mayor W.W. Ray petitioned the State Board of Health to have restrictions eased after weeks of closure and isolation.
So, it may seem like 2020 was the worst year ever, but we have come through bad times before.
--DaCoot
Like any communicable disease, case counts were higher in larger factories, institutions and residential facilities.
National Sewing Machine had hundreds out daily, with the highest number of sick employees at over 400 in one day. Most plants had similar numbers with over half of their workers out sick. The financial stress on businesses who had already suffered through fuel shortage closures earlier in the year was devastating.
Three Red Cross nurses were assigned to Belvidere to visit the sick in town regularly and driving services to transport the ill to and from medical services were provided free of charge.
With schools closed, local teachers were quickly trained in medical services and sent out to homes to supplement local care.
Sure Sounds a Whole Lot Like We Have Going On Right Now. --Cooter
Continued from February 6, 2021.
Well, I got tied up with some mighty interesting stories about Blacks for Black History Month. Lots of stuff I didn't know. I like anything dealing with history and sadly, didn't know much about the people I was writing about in February.
But since you-know-what is still with us, I will start this up again.
In Belvidere, Illinois, schools, churches and theaters were closed as the pandemic unfolded before even the state banned attendance at any public gathering effective October 18, 1918.
Once the ban took effect, funerals, weddings, lodge meetings, government meetings/councils and hospital visits were not allowed. Also the state mandated masks for anyone in contact with the public outside of their own families.
Belvidere took even a further step by banning bonfires and any sort of outdoor burning in town to ease the suffering of the sick. Anyone who coughed or sneezed in a Belvidere public establishment was ejected. Spitting in public was outlawed and spitters were arrested.
--Cooter
The U.S. 7th Fleet flagship USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19) transits the South China Sea, April 27, 2019.
The Blue Ridge is the oldest operational ship in the Navy and, as US 7th Fleet command ship, actively works to foster relationships with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific Region.
--Cooter
From the Paralyzed Veterans of America March 2021 calendar.
USS BLUE RIDGE (LCC-19)
General Characteristics
BUILDER: Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia
LAUNCHED: January 4, 1969
COMMISSIONED: November 14, 1970
DISPLACEMENT: Approx. 18,400 tons full load
LENGTH: 636.5 feet
BEAM: 108 feet
DRAFT: 26.9 feet
ARMAMENT: two 20 mm Phalanx CIWS, eight .50 cal. machine guns, 25 mm Bushmaster cannons
AIRCRAFT: All helicopters
--CootAhoy
