The elderly lady in this photo from You Bet Your Life program asks Groucho Marx to put out his cigarette in one of the funniest moments in the history of the show.
Julius Henry “Groucho” Marx was born October 2, 1890 in New York City. He appeared as a 15-year-old singer on stage in 1905 and had an excellent soprano voice.
Marx appeared in every entertainment venue , as he was in vaudeville, burlesque, radio, television and movies. He was part of the Four Nightingales singing group with his brothers. A performance in Nacogdoches, Texas would prove to be a turning point in their careers, when they started cracking jokes, which was better received by the audience than their singing.
The Marx Brothers became a major hit when they entertained at the Palace Theater which epitomized success in the vaudeville era.
It would be 1921, before the Marx Brothers made their first silent movie Humor Risk, which was so bad that it was only shown once. Eight years would pass before they appeared in Cocoanuts in 1929 and would be followed by Animal Crackers in 1930. Groucho would appear in his last movie in a brief cameo, when he appeared in The Candidate in 1972.
From 1921 to 1968 Groucho appeared in movies and also was heard in 379 episodes of various radio shows from 1933-1975 with his last five shows having no date shown for those broadcasts. His most famous show You Bet Your Life was on the air from 1947-1956.
Television would become the new home for the show, but it was being heard on radio and seen on television simultaneously from 1950-1957. Marx appeared in 84 episodes of the television show from 1950-1961, but very few episodes were filmed in any of those years.
The show included a quiz, but the show was best known for the humorous banter, between Groucho and his guests. The best way to appreciate the humor in the shows is to watch one of the shows on YouTube.
I can remember when going to summer school back in my high school days, that I would return home and watch the show.
One of my favorite memories of the show was when Groucho asked a girl from India, if she knew who was buried in Grant’s Tomb and she replied “Me??!!” which caught everyone by surprise. He was trying to ask her an easy question and she still missed it. Another easy question was “What color is the White House?” Groucho was one of the best ad-libbers in show business and his ability to ad lib is what made this show so much fun.
Groucho was the very first guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight show in 1962.
Some of Groucho’s quotes:
Marriage is a wonderful institution. But who wants to live in an institution?
While shooting elephants in Africa, I found the tusks very difficult to remove. But in Alabama, the Tuscaloosa…
The husband who wants a happy marriage should learn to keep his mouth shut and his checkbook open.
Even more quotes from Groucho:
The last years for Groucho were not happy ones, as his caretaker Erin Fleming treated him harshly, which is best described in this Wikipedia article:
Relationship with Groucho Marx
Fleming’s influence on Marx was controversial. Many close to him admitted that she did much to revive his popularity; these efforts included a series of one-man shows, culminating in a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall which was released on a best-selling record album and an honorary Academy Award he received in 1974. Also, some observers felt the apparent relationship with a young starlet boosted Groucho’s ego, adding to his vitality. Others, including Marx’s son, Arthur, described her in Svengali-esque terms, accusing her of exploiting an increasingly senile and frail Marx in pursuit of her own stardom.
In the years leading up to Marx’s death in August 1977, his heirs filed several lawsuits against Fleming. One allegation leveled against Fleming was that she was determined to sell Marx’s favorite car, a Cadillac, against his wishes. When Marx protested, it was said, Fleming threatened, “I will slap you from here to Pittsburgh.” Another allegation had her dancing nude around Marx, fondling herself and asking “Don’t you wish you could have some of this?” Many people close to Marx believed Fleming was abusive towards him. Arthur wanted temporary conservatorship of his father, and took Fleming to court. According to the book Raised Eyebrows by Groucho’s secretary Steve Stoliar, Fleming had several personal problems; he stated in his book that she used drugs, had mood swings, and was given to inappropriate outbursts, both in public and in private.
The court battles dragged into the early 1980s, but judgments were eventually reached in favor of Arthur Marx, ordering Fleming to repay $472,000 to the Marx estate.
Arrest
Fleming’s mental health deteriorated in the 1990s. She was arrested once in the Los Angeles area on a weapons charge, and spent much of the decade in and out of commitments to various psychiatric facilities.[citation needed] She was also reportedly impoverished and homeless in her final years, living on the streets of Hollywood and Beverly Hills.
Death
Fleming committed suicide in 2003 by shooting herself.]
Groucho Marx died on August 19, 1977 of pneumonia. His death wasn’t given much publicity, due to the fact that Elvis Presley had died three days earlier.
A bomb explodes near the finish line at the Boston Marathon on Monday.
The Boston Marathon is usually a cause of celebration, but two bombs exploding near the finish line turned the day into an unspeakable tragedy.
Earlier that day the Boston Red Sox had played the Tampa Bay Rays and the players heard the explosions as they left Fenway Park, after playing the traditional Red Sox game, that coincides with the Boston Marathon.
27,000 runners had converged on Boston to participate in the 117th running of the Boston Marathon. After the bombs exploded near the finish line nobody was even thinking of who won the race, but everyone was concerned about the three killed and 148 injured, according to the latest reports.
New York Times photo and overhead shot of where the two bombs exploded.
The mood of the crowd changed from euphoria as they cheered the runners crossing the finish line, to utter shock as two bombs exploded near the finish line. The reports of the injuries to those wounded in the bombings are too graphic to recount in this article. I heard some gruesome accounts of what witnesses saw in the aftermath of the bombing, but no need to detail their accounts, since the terrorists would enjoy hearing the gory details, of what pain and suffering was caused by the bombings.
Now the focus turns to who committed such a cowardly act, that led to loss of life and injuries that may force some of the injured to be crippled for life.
Is Anyone Really Safe?
This latest tragedy caused by terrorists once again reminds us of how fragile life is. People were having fun one minute and then utter chaos ensues after the bombs do their damage to innocent people, who only wanted to enjoy a day off from their work, only to have it end in such a tragic manner.
We don’t know whether international terrorists or national terrorists are responsible for yesterday’s tragedy, but we do know it was a terrorist act, whether by an organized group or one or two individuals.
There certainly was a state of fear on Boylston Street in Boston yesterday, when an idyllic day turned into a day that will never be forgotten, but never to be forgotten for the wrong reason.
United States has been the scene of terrorism in the last year or so, from those shot or killed at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater, to the students and teachers who lost their life in their school in Newtown, Connecticut and now this terrorist act on Boylston Street in Boston, Massachusetts.
Even though the theater and school murders were executed by lone gunmen they still were acts of terrorism in my book and while the bombings in Boston seem to be the work of organized terrorists we still don’t know for sure how many were involved.
What we do know is that theaters, classrooms and downtown streets are no longer safe. Is there really a safe place that can be regarded as terrorist free? The terrorists have answered that question with a resounding no.
I could point out the many places that invite terrorism, but why give terrorists ideas of how to inflict more loss of life. It is difficult to understand the mind of a terrorist, since most people may not like a situation they are in, but would never take the extreme measures, that terrorists take to inflict their will on their victims.
All we can do now is to hope that the government agencies can track down and arrest who were the masterminds, behind the tragic murders of innocent victims yesterday in Boston.
That doesn’t mean that other terrorists won’t continue to strike fear into American citizens, with other terrorist acts like the one, that was committed in Boston yesterday.
Twelve years have passed since 9/11, but the world is no safer than it was on that Tuesday morning, when terrorists ended the lives of thousands of Americans, who were on routine flights or had gone to work in downtown New York or in the Pentagon and the policemen and firemen who gave their life that day.
Life is very fragile and we learned that again, from what happened in Boston yesterday.
Diagram showing key landmarks involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 and the Dallas Police Headquarters, where Jack Ruby murdered Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24 of that year.
50 years since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have passed and yet there is still no smoking gun, that proves that the crime was a conspiracy. I have read a lot of books on the subject, but still have not read anything that proves there was a conspiracy.
I still think it was a conspiracy and think the Warren Commission Report was slanted, to make the American public think Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole person, that was involved in the assassination.
My personal opinion is that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was involved in the assassination. He had the most to gain, from the assassination of President Kennedy. Johnson was very unhappy being a figurehead in the Kennedy administration and had the most to gain if the president was dead. He knew he would instantly become president, if Kennedy were to be assassinated. There are many instances, in which Johnson seemed to be involved like it was said that Johnson is the one that insisted that the presidential limousine top be uncovered. The president became an open target to any assassin, once the limousine proceeded toward the killing zone.
There is a report that Johnson told a girlfriend the night before the assassination, that the Kennedys would never embarrass him again as mentioned in this article. The article is missing some photos, but the content of the article is what is important.
One of the key parts of the article is this paragraph, in which his girlfriend mentions that LBJ was on the brink of going to prison, because of hearings going on in Washington. This testimony was supposed to be given on the day of the assassination, but when LBJ became president the hearings were stopped and LBJ averted being sent to prison, now that he had the power of the presidency to protect him, from any further hearings.
“Had the assassination not happened the day that it did, Lyndon Johnson would have probably gone to prison, they would have gotten rid of him – he was so involved with some of this,” said Brown.
LBJ more than other person may be the reason, that no smoking gun has ever been found that would blow the lid off a LBJ conspiracy.
Mac Wallace, whose fingerprints were found on a box in the Texas School Book Depository is thought by some, to have fired the fatal shots that killed President John F. Kennedy. The following reader’s review after reading LBJ: The Mastermind Behind The JFK Assassinationconnects some of the dots that lead to LBJ as the mastermind behind the killing. I read the 658 page book last fall and it details how LBJ systematically got rid of his enemies using his hit man Mac Wallace to kill them. There are some that think Wallace enlisted Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby as part of the assassination and subsequent murder of Oswald. When E. Howard Hunt mentions on his death bed that LBJ was involved in the assassination, then it makes sense, that LBJ was involved in the assassination from the beginning to the end. The book mentions that when the presidential motorcade reached the killing zone, that LBJ ducked down to make sure he wasn’t shot, while leaving his wife and Senator Ralph Yarborough D-Texas exposed, while the assassination was in progress.
From first chapter to last, this is a beautifully written, intellectually captivating, and ultimately persuasive account of the role of LBJ in the assassination of JFK. I had more than 100 conversations with Madeleine Duncan Brown, one of his many mistresses but the only one who bore him a son. She, too, became convinced that Lyndon was profoundly involved in the death of his predecessor. On New Year’s Eve, six weeks after the assassination, they had a rendezvous at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, where she confronted him with rumors, rampant in Dallas at the time, that he had been involved, since no one stood more to gain. He blew up at her and told her that the CIA and the oil boys had decided that JFK had to be taken out. She wrote about it in her book, TEXAS IN THE MORNING. Her account has been reinforced by Billy Sol Estes, the Texas wheeler-dealer who made mountains of money for Lyndon, Connally, and their buddies, who explains in his book, A TEXAS LEGEND, how he became convinced that Cliff Carter, LBJ’s chief administrative assistant, and Malcolm “Mac” Wallace, his personal assassin (by whom Lyndon had a dozen or more persons terminated, including one of his sisters), had been personally involved. E. Howard Hunt, in his “Last Confessions” in ROLLING STONE, explained to his son, St. John, that LBJ, Cord Meyer, William Harvey, David Sanchez Morales, and others in the CIA had been involved in the assassination. For an overview, enter “John F. Kennedy: History, Memory, Legacy”, and download Chapter 30. Or visit [...], “Reclaiming History: A Closed Mind Perpetrating a Fraud on the Public”, and you will understand the context within which it took place. For a short course, try “Reasoning about Assassinantions” via google. I also recommend James Douglass, JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE. Both make profound contributions to the case.
I have no doubt that Jack Ruby was in the Dallas Police station the morning of Sunday, November 24th, with the backing of organized crime and cooperation from the Dallas Police Department.. Assuming there was a conspiracy, it became incumbent for those involved to prevent Oswald from talking any more to investigators or to be brought to trial.
National columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, who had interviewed Ruby was found dead and her notes about the Ruby interview were missing, when her body was found in her apartment on November 8, 1965. Her death came two weeks exactly short of the second anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.
Richard Kollmar the husband of Kilgallen was asked about his wife’s interest in the JFK assassination by a friend, but Kollmar said he would take that information to his grave.
Some interesting notes about some of the better known people, that had some connection with what happened that day in Dallas 50 years ago:
President John F. Kennedy - Was gunned down in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 at the age of 46. His death came 13 months after the Cuban missile crisis in October of 1962. His death also came one year and three months, after the death of Marilyn Monroe in August of 1962. Monroe reportedly threatened to tell the media about the sexual indiscretions by the president and Bobby Kennedy. We probably will never know if the Kennedy’s were involved in her death, but if she had disclosed the sexual escapades of the Kennedys, then John F. Kennedy would probably not have been assassinated a year later, because he probably would have been impeached.
John F. Kennedy may or may not have been involved in silencing Monroe, but at the same time he may have lived for many more years, even if he wasn’t president on the day of the assassination and would have no reason to be in Dallas that day. If Kennedy was still alive today he would be observing his 96th birthday on May 29.
President Lyndon B. Johnson – The members of the Kennedy administration were not happy, to be coerced into naming Johnson as the vice president at the 1960 Democratic Convention in 1960. Johnson chafed at being told what to do by the Kennedy staffers. So he had every motive to make sure President John F. Kennedy was erased from the American political scene. Johnson was 55 at the time of the assassination and would be 64, when he died on January 22, 1973. He would be 105 in August if still alive.
Lee Harvey Oswald – He is considered to be the lone gunman that assassinated the president on November 22, 1963. This is precisely the way President Lyndon B. Johnson wanted Oswald to be regarded. If Oswald was thought of as a lone conspirator, then it would protect President Johnson from being mentioned as a conspirator. Oswald was only 24 when he assassinated the president and on November 24, 1963, when he would be shot in a Dallas Police station two days later.
Jack Ruby who shot and killed Oswald ended any chance of Oswald telling anyone about any conspiracy, in a trial that would have been the trial of the century, if it had been held. Instead, Ruby made sure the American people would never know, if Oswald had been involved in a conspiracy. Oswald would have been 74 in October if still alive.
Officer J.D. Tippit – Jack Ruby not only prevented us from knowing more about the Kennedy assassination, but probably also prevented Oswald from telling his story, about what happened in the J.D. Tippit murder. Officer Tippit had joined the Dallas Police force as a patrolman 11 years before the day of the assassination of the president and his own murder. There are conflicting reports about who killed Officer Tippit. Some reports say two men were involved in his murder.
William Scoggins a taxi driver said he heard three gunshots, then saw Tippit fall to the ground. Scoggins said a man with a gun passed by him saying something akin to “poor dumb cop”. At least four witnesses identified Oswaqld in police lineups, which more or less makes it a sure thing that Oswald murdered Officer Tippit. The police tracked Oswald to the Texas Theater, where he was overpowered and apprehended by the Dallas Police. Tippit was 39 when he was murdered on November 22, 1963 and would be 89 if still alive.
Jack Ruby – On the day of the assassination Ruby was 53 years old. Ruby would be seen at Parkland Hospital, when President John F. Kennedy was taken there after being seriously wounded. He would be seen again at the Dallas Police station that night. Then on Sunday morning at 11:21 AM Dallas time, Ruby somehow gained entrance to the Dallas Police station, probably with inside help as the entrance he used was mysteriously left unguarded. When Oswald was being led to a vehicle, that was to take Oswald to another jail Ruby stepped in front of Oswald and shot and killed him. Ruby alluded to the fact that people in high places were involved with his murdering Oswald.
This makes me wonder if President Johnson was one of the officials in high places being mentioned. Ruby died on January 3, 1967. He was close friends to Sam and Joe Campisa who were associated with crime boss Carlos Marcello. Jimmy Hoffa reportedly said at one time, that Ruby was to make sure that Oswald was killed by Dallas police, while in their custody. When Ruby failed to insure that Oswald would be killed by the police, then he apparently took on himself to kill Oswald, since his own life could be in jeopardy if Oswald was not killed. Ruby would have been 102 if still alive on March 25.
50 Years Later
With the 50 year anniversary of the JFK assassination approaching in eight months we can only guess at what documents about the assassination may be released in the coming months. The fact that CIA is holding 1,171 top-secret documents about the JFK assassination tells me, that these documents could tell about any conspiracies that may have been involved during the assassination. This is only conjecture, but I think these CIA documents could tie President Lyndon B. Johnson to the assassination. Johnson has been dead for 40 years now, so can’t see any problem with documents being released, even if they connect a former president to the assassination.
I remain a conspiracy theorist, but think the government will continue to keep the JFK assassination documents sealed. The American people deserve to know everything now that 50 years have passed. My personal belief is that these documents lead straight to former President Lyndon B. Johnson and his henchmen.
Will the 50th anniversary come and go, without any documents being released? Even 10-year-old kids at the time of the assassination would be 60 this year. So a middle-aged adult between 30-49 would now be 80-99 years old, so should not be in a government position of power.
How much longer will these documents remain sealed? My only conclusion is that somebody has some dark secrets, that the government doesn’t want released in the near future.
I have no problems with any authors writing books that are pro-conspiracy or anti-conspiracy, but unless the government release these documents we have no hope, of finding out the rest of the story, about what happened in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.
Just when we thought it was safe to fly again, after the 9/11 tragedy 12 years ago weapons are being allowed aboard planes. Knives with two-inch blades will be allowed on planes, along with baseball bats and golf clubs on April 25, unless the change is rescinded, before being put into effect.
Ironically box cutters still will not be allowed on board planes, even though knives can be used as a weapon just like box cutters, against passengers and flight attendants. TSA apparently thinks hijackers will never be able to enter the pilot’s cabin, due to safety measures put into place since 9/11. However, that doesn’t protect the passengers and flight attendants from being cut by knives and attacked by bats and golf clubs.
Former Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley says he would also allow battle axes and machetes to be carried aboard planes. How could anyone feel safe flying, while knowing that the person in the seat next to them may be a terrorist, that is carrying a knife with them.
What will the TSA personnel checking the belongings of passengers say, when they see someone who looks like a terrorist carrying weapons? The TSA could then face discrimination charges, for not allowing possible terrorists to carry these weapons, then let other passengers board the planes with the same weapons.
I have flown only twice since 9/11 and with these lax rules on weapons I may never fly again. Have we forgotten the terror those airline passengers and crews went through on September 11, 2001? They had to helplessly watch as the terrorists used the planes, for battering rams against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon building. Those passengers met fiery deaths on those planes, when they exploded upon impact.
Allowing these weapons won’t speed up the check-in process at the security gates, since TSA officials will have to closely examine each knife, to see if it is two inches or less and to check the length of baseball bats, which can’t be longer than 24 inches.
Personally, I think the new rules are an invitation to disaster and that terrorists and criminals will take advantage, of the less stringent rules for bringing weapons aboard planes.
We can only hope the Transportation Security Administration thinks over the consequences, before implementing these changes and will rescind the changes before April 25.
Tiffany Hawk of CNN has filed this article with photos of what is allowed and what isn’t allowed under the new rules.
This five-year period is one of the most eventful of my life, in that I went to Vietnam and started working at Town Talk in 1966, met my first wife in 1969 and married her in 1970.
1966 – The previous year 1965 had seen a lot of activity at Schofield Barracks and there were rumors floating around, that we may be sent to Vietnam. On January 17,1966 the 25th Infantry Division boarded the USNS General Walker a troop ship on the way to Vietnam. The trip took 14 days, as we traveled 500 miles a day till we reached Vietnam. Will never forget how hot it was arriving in Vietnam and drank several Coca-Cola’s back to back.
We were flown to the 25th Infantry Base in Cu Chi, Vietnam, which I never left except for one night of guarding a Catholic church on guard duty. Thankfully, it was an uneventful night as nothing out of the ordinary occurred. I was in Vietnam only four months, so a lot happened in that short time. Our outgoing artillery fire sounded like it was going right over the post office tent and it made me jump, since I thought it was incoming artillery at first.
The only time that I was in any jeopardy was when a sniper started shooting at us. We were working in the post office at the time and we jumped in our foxholes, to get out of the line of fire. We could hear bullets ricocheting off the Conex containers behind us. The thing I most remember was that some of our soldiers were walking in front of us, caught between the sniper and our foxhole. It is a wonder we didn’t see someone killed right in front of our eyes that day. After the war I learned that the Viet Cong had an elaborate system of tunnels beneath our base, so that is how the sniper was able to shoot at us from inside our own perimeter.
One time we had to load dead bodies onto a helicopter and some of the soldiers were looking inside the body bags, but I wasn’t that curious to see a dead body.
My job consisted of sorting mail, delivering mail to company mail clerks who picked up the mail for their company and selling stamps and money orders and making sure packages for soldiers were delivered. I remember the heat of Vietnam and how I was so thirsty, that I drank two 46 ounce cans of apple juice in succession. Worked out there was a rumor that a Viet Cong soldier was in the area that night. Not a good combination to be sick, from drinking so much apple juice and having to search for a Viet Cong invader. However, nothing came of the rumor and was able to recover from imbibing too much apple juice at one time. 92 ounces of apple juice was just a little too much at one time, but that is what the heat did to us over there.
Since I had only four months left in the Army, when sent to Vietnam the Army tried to talk me into re-enlisting, which I declined after about five seconds of thinking it over. I was told if I had three months left that I would have stayed in Hawaii. What a difference that one month made.
Will never forget the day in May that I left Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base in Saigon, on the way back to the United States. I felt safer as the plane gained altitude, since it was too high to be hit by ground fire. The plane stopped at Japan for a short time, but we never left the plane. We finally landed in San Francisco and were taken to the Oakland Army Terminal. I will never forget the steaks we were served, along with some very cold milk. It was such a difference from what we had to eat and drink in Vietnam. We were processed and given our discharge papers and boarded a plane in the direction of Louisiana.
Can’t remember if I was flown all the way to Esler Airport in Pineville or if I had to take a bus from Dallas. The main thing was that I was home to stay after being in the Army for most of the three-and-half preceding years.
One of the soldiers I served with in the post office wrote me and told about a mortar shell hitting our post office, about two months after I left Vietnam. The worst part is that two were killed and seven were injured in the attack. The sergeant of our postal unit was among those injured and he was awarded another Purple Heart, to go with the one he received from being hit in Korea. The thing that really hit home was that the soldier, who had replaced me was one of the two that were killed.
August of 1966 was the month that I was hired by the Town Talk to work in the composing room. I was told that I would be making more, than most new employees, but later found out I was making the minimum wage of $1.40 an hour. That came out to about $55 a week or $220 a month. Town Talk was still using the hot metal composition at the time. My first job was to work on the type dump, where I would make any corrections to any type with errors, then turn the galley around where the page makeup people could take the type to the page and insert it. It wasn’t too long before I was a page makeup person and placed photos, type and ads into the pages.
1967 – The Town Talk started printing a Sunday paper in May of 1967 and now has had a Sunday edition for the last 46 years.
1968 - This was a turbulent year in the history of the United States, as Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated during the year. King would be assassinated on April 4, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray, who would be arrested two months later. The Kennedy assassination took place at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5 and Sirhan Sirhan was arrested and remains in prison 45 years later.
Denny McLain would win 31 games in 1968. No pitcher has won more than 27 games since then.
1969 – Went to see a major league baseball game at the Astrodome and saw Hall of Famers Joe Morgan, Tony Perez and Johnny Bench in the game. Pete Rose may be added to the list of Hall of Famers someday. I remember someone opening an umbrella inside the Astrodome, as there must have been a leak in the roof, from the downpour outside the enclosed stadium. Attendance was only 12,205 due to the heavy rain. The Astros won the game 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth when rookie Keith Lampard hit a walkoff home run to win the game. Ironically, the home run would be the only home run for Lampard, in his career and he would be out of baseball after the 1970 season.
Would meet my first wife a college student at Louisiana College that fall. A year later we were married and will write more about that in the 1970 post.
1970 - Would marry my first wife at College Drive Baptist Church in Pineville, Louisiana on September 26, 1970. There were six bridesmaids, since my wife had six sisters. Sadly my best man would die later, when he was hit by a car, while going to pick up his newspaper by the highway.
By 1970 had worked at the Town Talk for four years and was earning $3 an hour now, which totaled $120 a week and $480 a month. The rent for our house was $75, but since my pay was so low the landlord allowed us to pay in two $37.50 payments.
When the surgeon that performed my cancer surgery told me in November, that my duodenal cancer has a history of returning it reminded me of my immortality. It may have been negative news, but it also reminded me of many events of my 68 years of living, that were either positive and negative.
1944 – Was born on October 14, just four months after the D-Day landing and World War II would be over in Europe, about six and-a-half months later in April of 1945.
1950 – My first memory is of walking to school with my brother on the first day of school to Pineville Elementary. I remember Mrs. Price was my first grade teacher. School lunches were only 10 cents at the time.
1951 – This is the year I rode my last school bus in the second grade, when I accidentally got off the bus in Libuse, instead of five blocks from Louisiana College, so walked home that day from Libuse to Pineville. I never rode another school bus after that day.
1952 – We moved from Holloway Drive to Burns Street in February of 1952, moving from a small house to a very large house. The house payment was $55 a month, which was a bargain at the time.
1954- Think this is the year when my dad purchased our first television, when I was nine years old. He didn’t buy it for entertainment reasons, but because my sister had a lazy eye and a special screen was placed over the TV screen, that made her use her lazy eye. We bought it at L.B. Henry’s store on Main Street, when they were selling televisions. Our first TV was an Admiral.
This is also the year I really became interested in baseball and remember listening to the 1954 World Series between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians. Willie Mays made his famous catch in one of those games on a ball hit by Vic Wertz of the Indians.
1955 – Ray Kroc opened his first McDonalds fast food restaurant (the McDonald brothers opened the first eight, before selling out to Kroc.) Once after he bought the San Diego Padres they were playing so badly, that Kroc said over the public address system that his short order cooks at McDonalds could play better the Padres.
This was the first year I played Little League baseball. I went to a local hardware store to buy a baseball glove and wanted to buy a $6.50 glove. Only problem was that I only had $6, but the owner Mr. Brister let me have it for $6. It was a Nokona brand glove.
1956- My main memory of 1956 was when Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series. He recently sold his uniform from that game for $756,000 and is using part of the money to pay college education expenses for his grandchildren.
1957 – Elvis Presley buys Graceland for $100,000, since their last Memphis home had attracted too many fans, with no way of keeping them off the grounds. This was the year my baby sister was born on March 23. Three months later the worst hurricane to hit Alexandria-Pineville area in my memory hit the area, with full force when Hurricane Audrey hit. Audrey had earlier killed 500 people in Cameron, Louisiana. I remember Jim Gaines of KALB Radio telling, about the progress of the hurricane and the damage being done. We had a very tall pine tree fall in our yard, but was not close to the house.
August of 1957 would bring many memories when my dad, older brother and me took a road trip in our 1949 Packard, from Louisiana to Maine. We made the usual tourist stops like Rock City, Lookout Mountain, Mount Vernon and other tourist attractions. We visited the most tourist attractions in Washington, D.C. We visited the National Archives Building, Capitol building, White House (just saw it from the fence), Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of Mint and Engraving and watched the workers print sheets of currency.
We visited the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and saw a show at the planetarium, plus visited the site of the Liberty Bell. However, the main thing I remember from the Philadelphia visit was seeing my first major league game. The hometown Phillies were playing the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates in Connie Mack Stadium. I remember fans bringing paper bags with bottles in them to the game. I can only imagine what was in those bottles. I also remember the Phillies fans booing their own players. The highlight of the game was when Bill Mazeroski hit a home run that hit the tin roof over our heads, in the left field bleachers. Three years later Mazeroski would hit a walkoff homer that defeated the New York Yankees in the 1960 World Series Game 7.
Saw my grandpa for the only time in my life in the hospital. Not sure where the hospital was located. It was either New Jersey or Pennsylvania. My dad’s folks were living in Millville, New Jersey.
Will never forget my dad driving through the Bowery district in New York City and seeing men laying on the sidewalk. That would be the only time for me to visit New York. Then we went on to Beverly, Massachusetts and ate at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant, with the classic orange roof. My dad was in town for an American Chemical Society convention, then after the convention ended we went to Maine, to see my uncle and aunt and their family. It was the only time I saw my cousin alive, since he was piloting a helicopter in Vietnam, when he was shot down and killed.
Then we raced back to Louisiana, stopping only one night at Warsaw, Kentucky, then my dad drove almost non-stop since school started the next day at Pineville Elementary. The next month the Milwaukee Braves would win the 1957 World Series.
1958 – Played Pony League baseball in 1958, which would be my fourth and last year of playing baseball. One night when we were playing a game, someone hollered “That plane is going to crash” and we saw a plane plummeting to the ground, about two miles from the park. It crashed about a block or two off of Main Street near a National Cemetery, but not positive about the exact crash site.
This was also the year I entered Pineville High School. It is difficult to believe that this was 55 years ago. Finding classes was not easy that first day, since I wasn’t used to attending such a big school.
The Milwaukee Braves took a three games to one lead in the 1958 World Series, but would let the Yankee,s that they had defeated in 1957 come back to win the World Series.
1959 – I remember this being the year my older brother graduated from high school. February of 1959 would see Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper go down in an airplane crash in Iowa. The Big Bopper had appeared in Alexandria, Louisiana about 1958, at a KALB Radio record hop. 1959 was also the year the White Sox won the AL pennant but lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.
The highlight of 1959 was our trip in a Volkwagen Micro-bus, which took us to Missouri, Canada and back to Louisiana. My dad was taking classes at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, so we stayed mostly in Missouri at the 80 acre farm of my grandpa and grandma. They had only recently installed indoor plumbing in their home. I will never forget the huge console radio on the living room floor. The sound was great and I could hear the Kansas City Athletics baseball games on the radio. Saw Leave it to Beaver for the first time on their television. Don’t think it was on KALB TV in Alexandria, La., since it was on another network.
We spent part of the summer at the Chateau Cottages near Devils Lake in Wisconsin. We were on a tourist boat, when the captain asked me to pilot the ship. He sold souvenirs, while piloted the boat up the Wisconsin River. It was a relief when he took over the helm, since there were a lot of duckboats on the water.
Then after my dad finished the summer classes we drove to Chicago. It was amazing to look up at the tall buildings on the Loop and we went to a church in Berwyn, Illinois. Then we drove to Detroit and visited the Ford headquarters and also toured Post Cereals factory and can’t remember if we also toured the Kelloggs plant. We crossed into Canada at Windsor and journeyed to Brantford, Ontario where my mom had relatives. We then went to Niagara Falls and crossed back into the United States.
My dad was stopped by the Canadian Mounties, because our Volkswagen micro-bus resembled a vehicle they were looking for. At one point during our trip while driving in the United States a driver hollered “Governor Long” at us, when he saw the Louisiana license plate. This was the same year he managed to escape from a mental health institution, so Louisiana was in the news a lot that summer.
1960 – Nothing stands out about this year for me, except for the Pittsburgh Pirates defeating the New York Yankees in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. Bill Mazeroski, who I had seen hit the home run, in Philadelphia three years earlier hit a walkoff home run over the left field wall, that made Pirates the world champions of baseball.
I recently downloaded the Kindle book Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee, written by his son Captain Robert E. Lee. The Kindle edition is free and readers can start reading the 504 page book a minute, after it is purchased for free. The book is in the public domain, which is why it is free at Amazon.com.
General Lee was born on January 19, 1807 in Stratford Hall, Virginia. He graduated second in his class from West Point in 1829. He married Mary Custis the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington in 1831. He later would be he appointed Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1852.
General Robert E. Lee 1807-1870
Lee loved to communicate through letters and this book includes the text of many letters, that he wrote to his wife, sons and daughters and others he had contact with during his life. He wrote often even during the Civil War years of 1861-1865. When he wrote home he would ask his relatives to send socks for the Confederate troops, many of whom had neither shoes or socks. It had to be a real hardship for Confederate troops, to not have shoes and socks and even blankets during the winter months of the Civil War. He writes in 1862 about the death of his daughter, Anne Carter Lee who died of typhoid fever at the age of 23.
You could feel the compassion for his troops as he pleaded in his letters, for his relatives to send socks for the troops. He wrote about the death of General Stonewall Jackson and how he would be missed by the Confederate Army. He writes in one letter about how outnumbered the Confederate troops were before surrendering to General Ulyssses Grant at Appomatox. By surrendering Lee prevented the deaths of thousands of Confederate troops, who would have surely died at the hands of the Federal Army, who vastly outnumbered them.
His letters after the war relate how he was offered the presidency of Washington University, which was named Washington and Lee University in later years. His leadership was instrumental in making Washington University, one of the leading collegiate institutions of the south. His wife Mary who suffered from rheumatism often went to places with healing springs and these trips separated her from General Lee, who was living in Lexington, Virginia as the president of Washington University.
He often wrote his sons after the war and gave them advice, about how to be a successful farmer. He gave them money to help them acquire what they needed for their farms. He even told his son Robert Jr. that Robert needed to find a wife so he could settle down on a farm.
After reading these letters, a reader can tell how much family meant to General Lee and his concern for the welfare of his wife, sons and daughters and the confederate troops, who had served in the Confederate Army under his leadership. It is evident too how much his faith in God mattered to him.
Sadly, Lee only lived five years after the Civil War ended and died on October 12, 1870 in Lexington, Virginia at the age of 63 of heart disease. He is buried at Lee Chapel on the campus of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.
General Lee may have been a great general for the Confederate Army, but this book, doesn’t dwell on that as much, as it does on his character which is exemplified in his letters. Numerous books have been written about Lee, but due to his untimely death he was unable to write the memoirs of his life.
The entire book can be heard since there is an option to hear a reader read the book aloud. This book may not be a book Civil War buffs may want to read, since it is more about Robert E. Lee the person, rather than being about Robert E. Lee the Confederate general, but it is still a book worth reading.
Old time radio not only broadcast comedies, detective shows, thrillers and music programs, but also broadcast information programming like Biography In Sound, which consisted of one hour-long broadcasts about famous politicians and personalities in history.The show was broadcast from 1954-1958.
For instance you can listen to shows featuring the life of Babe Ruth, then listen to Franklin Delano Roosevelt life story. Right now I have a Connie Mack program lined up in my MP3 player to play.
Last week I listened to story of Ernie Pyle the war correspondent, who lived with American troops mostly in the European theater. The broadcast features people who remember him as a kid and as an adult.
The list of shows represents a large spectrum of authors, presidents, entertainers and even the elderly painter Grandma Moses.
Cavalcade of America was the longest running historical old-time radio show. It ran from 1935-1953. 741 episodes of the shows are available for purchase at otrcat.com
If you would rather just listen to a few free shows online you can enjoy listening to episodes like Here Is Your War, with James Gleason portraying war correspondent Ernie Pyle and telling the story of the American soldier in combat.
The list of shows at archive.org gives an idea of how many different topics are covered in the show that ran 18 years.
Mister President is a drama in which Edward Arnold portrayed a different president each week. The show ran from 1947-1953. Listeners asked to guess which president was being represented in each episode. Almost all the presidents in the series were in office in the 18th and 19th centuries.
I listened to the President James Polk episode last week and thoroughly enjoyed Arnold’s portrayal of President Polk.
Archive.org has this list of free shows to listen to. The shows can be downloaded, then uploaded into an MP3 player:
Gov. Robert F. Kennon was governor of Louisiana from 1952-1956.
It was almost 60 years ago when Louisiana State Police Superintendent Francis Grevemberg started making surprise raids on gambling establishments in the 50′s and seized and smashed slot machines, rendering them to the point of which they were completely useless.
Grevemberg and his associates made 1,000 raids and destroyed 8,229 slot machines during 1952-1956 when Gov. Robert F. Kennon was the governor of Louisiana.
Gangster Frank Costello was forced out of the slot machine business in New York City when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia destroyed the machines and pushed them into a watery grave in the 30′s.
Senator Huey P. Long sensing a chance to make some quick money offered Costello a deal, where he could set up his slot machines in Louisiana, with Long demanding ten percent of the profits.
That is how Louisiana became saturated with slot machines and Grevemberg was given the task of ridding the state of slot machines.
Former Louisiana governor, Edwin Edwards was a Crowley attorney at the time and argued that the slot machines were legal, since they were being taxed by the state. For more on the raids and the history of slot machines see this Eunice Today article:
Louisiana State Police Superintendent Francis Grevemberg shown smashing slot machines during a raid in the 50′s on a gambling establishment during the Gov. Robert F. Kennon administration.
Governor Earl K. Long took office in 1956 and ordered a stop to the destruction of slot machines. Little did Long or anyone else for that matter foresee that the gambling industry was down, but not down for the count.
Now it is almost 60 years later and slot machines are in operation, by the thousands in Louisiana casinos. There are now 22 casinos in operation currently in the state of Louisiana.
With the proliferation of casinos today in Louisiana, the chances of slot machines being destroyed are slim and none. The taxes from the casinos are pouring into Louisiana coffers and any opposition to gambling casinos is probably a waste of time.
So instead of smashing slot machines being smashed, they are kept in good repair, so the state of Louisiana can continue to reap tax dollars from their use.
Drugs have apparently taken the life of another music icon, with Whitney Houston dying on Saturday, on the eve of the Grammy Awards. From Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson and now Whitney Houston, we have seen how drugs can change lives of those who use them.
Houston was rumored to be a judge in the next season of X-Factor, just a day before her death. Simon Cowell has reportedly confirmed, that she was being considered as a judge for Season Two.
Amy Winehouse, also died in the last year to an apparent drug overdose.
Random Thoughts
I am beginning to wonder if Tony Bennett is becoming senile, after saying that drugs should be legalized soon after the death of Whitney Houston. That is problem now, since drugs are readily available in some form for those that use them. Their only problem may be the lack of cash to buy those drugs. Bennett is almost surely the last of the crooners left from the 30′s and 40′s.
When Bennett passes on it will signal the end to the era, that preceded Bill Haley and the Comets and Elvis Presley. Some of the crooners like Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin sang for many years, but now Bennett stands alone as a reminder of the crooner era.
It was interesting to find out that Houston has only recorded four studio albums in the last 25 years. Whitney Houston’s music is selling well, just like Michael Jackson’s albums sold well after his death.
The Grammy Awards tribute to the Beach Boys was not done well. The Beach Boys didn’t even sing until after two tribute songs. Then when they did sing, it was a repeat of Good Vibrations. They could have sung three songs instead of the tribute songs by the others. The Beach Boys deserved better, since they are one of the oldest groups in the music business having started in the early 60′s. It was good to see Brian Wilson, Al Jardine, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston on the stage together again, after having broken up into Wilson singing by himself, Love and Johnston touring together and Jardine appearing apart from the others.
Sports Notes
Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks did it again tonight, scoring a three pointer with nine seconds left to give the Knicks a 90-87 win over the Toronto Raptors. It will be interesting to see how much playing time Lin will receive, when Carmelo Anthony returns to action next week.
The Chicago White Sox signed Kosuke Fukudome to a $500,000 contract, which was a $14 million pay cut after being paid $14.5 million by the Cubs in 2011. Fukudome didn’t come close to living up to the hype after signing with the Cubs on a four-year contract. It will be like coming home for Fukudome, after spending part of the summer with the Cleveland Indians.
Politics
The GOP doesn’t seem close to having a candidate, that will lead the party to victory in November. We have seen wild swings in the voting during the primary and caucus season. Romney, Santorum or Gingrich should be standing on the platform at the GOP convention this summer, after winning the nomination but none of the three is a sure thing at this point, with the wild fluctuations we have seen this year. Gingrich seems to be out of it right now, but wait till the next primary at the end of this month. Gingrich has way too much baggage for the GOP hierarchy to give him their support. Gingrich has so many skeletons rattling around in his closet, that he only opens the closet in the dark, so his enemies can’t see all the skeletons.
Green Party candidate Roseanne Barr is not keeping the GOP candidates awake at night, worrying about her candidacy. She will do well to garner 500,000 votes on election night. It is difficult to take Barr serious after her rendition of the National Anthem at a baseball game a few years ago. Somebody in the front office had to be fired, for thinking it was a good idea for Barr to sing the National Anthem. It would be like someone letting Jaleel White to sing the National Anthem using his Steve Urkel voice. Whitney Houston put them all to shame when she sang the National Anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl.
Consumer Tips
Buyers need to be aware of buying electronics on QVC.com. I have seen their prices as much as $100 higher on some electronics and close to the highest prices. Priceblink.com provides a unique service to online buyers, since once you sign up to the free service, they will notify you of a cheaper price, than the price you see at a website. Priceblink.com can literally save a consumer hundreds of dollars.
1968 and 1969 were years defined by the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, American astronauts being the first to walk on the moon, anti-war protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the New York Jets and the New York Mets were surprise Super Bowl and World Series winners.
Super Bowl II would be won by the Green Bay Packers when they defeated the Oakland Raiders on January 14.
Mister Roger’s Neighborhood would be seen for the first time on February 19, 1968.
March 16, 1968 would be one of the low points of the Vietnam War when between 374-504 unarmed civilians were killed at My Lai by United States troops. 2nd Lt. William Calley was charged with 22 of the deaths and sentenced to life imprisonment, but only served three-and-a-half years of house arrest.
President Lyndon B. Johnson announced on March 31 that he would not be running for president in the 1968 election. His decision resulted in the Democrats only having one president elected in the next 24 years, when Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976. It would be 1993 before Bill Clinton took office as the 42nd president and he would become the first Democratic president to serve two complete terms since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
April 4, 1968 started a year of assassinations and demonstrations, when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated on the balcony of his Memphis motel room. Ironically only seven days later the Civil Rights Act bill was passed by Congress, which outlawed racial discrimination, which Dr. King had been fighting before his death.
Then only two months and one day after the assassination of Dr. King, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated while celebrating a win in California primary during his 1968 presidential bid. Sirhan Sirhan is arrested for the murder of Kennedy.
If Kennedy had lived to win the Democratic nomination, he may have defeated Richard Nixon in the 1968 election. Instead Nixon defeated Senator Hubert Humphrey by half a million votes.
The Yippies led by Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman would descend on Chicago and the streets of Chicago turned into a riot zone as the Yippies and other radical groups battled Chicago police, U.S. Army and National Guard, while the Democratic convention was being held.
The chaos on the streets of Chicago poured onto the Democratic Convention floor when Senator Abraham Ribicoff denounced the use of Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago. His remarks enraged Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago would could be seen yelling at Ribicoff.
Anti-war protesters in Chicago may have hurt their own cause. In retrospect they may have protested at the wrong convention since the Democrats were more on their side than the Republicans. The Republican convention in Miami was turmoil free, in contrast to the chaos in Chicago.
Richard Nixon would go on to defeat Senator Humphrey in the general election.
1969 was another year with many newsworthy events and January 12 of 1969 would see the New York Jets defeat the Baltimore Colts 16-7, after Jets quarterback Joe Namath had predicted the Jets would upset the Colts.
Richard Nixon would take office as the 37th president on January 20. The Beatles who had first sang in America almost five years ago would hold their last public concert on January 30.
Sirhan Sirhan admits assassinating Bobby Kennedy on March 3. Ironically seven days later James Earl Ray would plead guilty to assassinating Dr. Martin Luther King. Later that month former President Dwight D. Eisenhower died on March 28, 8 years after finishing his second term as president.
The first American troop withdrawals of the Vietnam War were made on July 8. Senator Teddy Kennedy would end any hope of becoming president, when he drove his car off a bridge on July 18, in what became known as the Chappaquiddick incident. Mary Jo Kopechne would die at the age of 28 in the submerged car.
Two days later on July 20, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon, when the lunar module Eagle landed on the moon. It had to be ranked as one of the biggest stories of the 20th century. The first flight by the Wright Brothers in 1903 would have been another major advance in the 20th century. Their flight led to commercial flights by airlines in later years.
August 9, 1969 was a day of violence as Charles Manson followers killed actress Sharon Tate and four others. The next day August 10, they would murder Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home.
August 15, 1969 will always be remembered as the day the Woodstock Music Festival kicked off on Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York. The promoters were expecting 50,000 fans, but those numbers were very conservative, considering 500,000 fans showed up.
August 17 would be another deadly day, this time because of Hurricane Camille which hit the Mississippi coast killing 248 people and causing damage of $1.5 billion.
The first ATM was installed in Rockville Centre, New York on September 2, while on the same day Ho Chi Minh, leader of North Vietnam died.
The Chicago Eight trial begin on September 24 in Chicago, but was changed to the Chicago Seven, when Bobby Seale a Black Panther was sentenced to four-year sentence for contempt of court.
Another New York sports team would win a championship, when the New York Mets defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. Seven years earlier the Mets had been the laughingstock of baseball when they posted a 40-120 record in 1962.
On a lighter note Sesame Street would be seen for the first time on the National Education Network on November 10.
While 250,000-500,000 demonstrators were protesting against the war in Washington, D.C. on November 15, Dave Thomas is busy opening the first Wendy’s in Columbus Ohio.
American astronauts would walk on the moon, only four months after the initial landing, four months prior to the Apollo 12 landing. Pete Conrad and Alan Bean would both walk on the moon.
With the year drawing to a close, a draft lottery was put in place on December 1 and would be the last major event of 1969.
A quick rundown of the events in 1968-1969:
1968
Dr. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy Assassinated
Unarmed Vietnamese Citizens Killed By U.S. Troops
President Lyndon B. Johnson Announces He Will Not Run For Presidency
Anti-war protesters riot during the Democratic National Convention
Richard Nixon is elected president in general election.
1969
Richard Nixon takes office of presidency
Withdrawal of Vietnam troops commences
Teddy Kennedy drives car off bridge in Chappaquiddick incident
Four astronauts become first men to walk on moon
Charles Manson followers kill seven in two days
500,000 anti-war protesters attend Woodstock Music Festival
Hurricane Camille kills 248 persons
First ATM installed in Rockville Centre, New York
Ho Chi Minh Dies
Chicago 7 Trial Begins in Chicago
250,000-500,000 demonstrate in anti-war protest in Washington, D.C.
Dave Thomas opens first Wendy’s
Sesame Street shown for the first time on National Education Network
Map depicting Civil War battles fought in Louisiana from Americancivilwar.com.
The March 14, 1864 battle at Fort DeRussy marked the beginning of a series of seven battles, between the Union and the Confederacy in the state of Louisiana. Union forces defeated the Confederate forces and opened the Red River to Alexandria.
It would be 25 days later before the Union and Confederates would battle next. The Battle of Mansfield was fought on April 8, 1964 after Union forces led by Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, who had traveled 150 miles up the Red River, encountered Major General Richard Taylor commanding the Confederate forces.
Banks Retreats Toward Alexandria
Taylor attacked the Union forces despite being outnumbered and Banks finally retreated back toward Alexandria. The battle marked the last victory for the Confederates in Louisiana and preceded five consecutive defeats by the Union troops, including a defeat at the Battle of Pleasant Hill on April 9, 1864.
Union troops had suffered 2,900 casualties at the Battle of Mansfield while the Confederate forces incurred had 1,500 casualties. The Confederate forces would have 2,000 casualties, which almost half the casualties of the Union forces, who had 1,100 during the Battle of Pleasant Hill.
Confederates Lose 200 Troops At Blair’s Landing
Union forces overwhelmed the Confederates at Blair’s Landing, with only seven casualties compared to 200 by the Confederates. Brigadier General Tom Green leading the Confederate forces lost his life in the battle.
Two weeks later in another crushing defeat on April 23,1864 in another battle at Monett’s Ferry, the Union forces would have 200 casualties while the Confederates suffered 400 casualties.
Banks Leads Union Forces To Victory In Mansura
It would be May 16, 1864 before the enemies encountered each other again in Mansura, where General Banks would lead a flank attack on Confederate troops that gave the Union another victory. Battlefield casualties are unknown.
The battle at Yellow Bayou would commence on May 18, 1864. The battle was the last of the Red River Campaign and ended with 360 Union casualties and 500 Confederate casualties. It was regarded as a strategic victory for the Union as their forces lived to fight another day.
For complete descriptions of every battle fought in Louisiana during the Civil War:
The following website has many photos of places in Central Louisiana, which had to do with the Civil War. There is also a possible explanation of why the Kent House survived the burning of Alexandria by Federal troops.
Burning of Alexandria
Retreating Union troops burned 90 percent of Alexandria on May 13,1864. Kent House and a Catholic church were the only prominent landmarks still standing after the savage burning of Alexandria. Father J.P. Bellier brandished a sword when federal troops attempted to burn the Catholic church, with them deciding to not kill Father Bellier or harm the church.
The federal troops helped themselves to anything they wanted, while the fires were burning. Cows ran through the streets of Alexandria along with chickens who had been scorched by the fire.
By the time the fire had subsided, there was no record of any legal transaction filed before May 13, 1864 that existed after the fire. It took 36 years before Alexandria would reach a population of 5,000 again.
For many more details of the burning of Alexandria:
1959 was not a good year for Governor Earl K. Long, the Democratic governor of Louisiana. Governor Long wanted to retain his position as governor, but was prevented from running again, since he was not allowed to succeed himself. So that problem, along with the return of his heavy drinking and taking up smoking again, combined to place him in a bad mental state. In addition he was taking pills to make him sleep, in combination with uppers and downers.
The situation was exacerbated when he was in a rage as he ranted during a legislative session. He later meant to apologize for his behavior, but instead flew into another rage instead.
The following short audio of Governor Long ranting in the legislature can be heard here:
Jesse Bankston, the Louisiana Director of Hospitals, thought that Long needed immediate treatment, so had him restrained for two days, while mulling over what to do next about the governor.
It was determined that it would be better to transport Governor Long to an out-of-state hospital, so that he could not use his power of governor, so he was sent to a Galveston, Texas hospital.
Taken to Galveston Hospital
He was strapped into a gurney and flown from Baton Rouge to Galveston and taken to John Sealy Hospital. Dr. Titus Harris had been informed that Governor Louisiana was there on his own volition, but found out that was not the case.
Governor Long filed papers to be released from the hospital, after threatening his wife Blanche with federal kidnapping charges, for having him transported across state line to Texas. He then made a deal with Blanche and Russell Long, that he would consent to be sent to Oschner Foundation Hospital in New Orleans.
However after one day there, he told Blanche wanted to Winnfield to rest. Blanche told him that he had promised to stay at Oschner, but Earl said that he didn’t say how long he would stay.
Blanche Long worried about what the governor might do next, had Chester Williams the coroner of Baton Rouge prepare the papers, to have Governor Long committed to a state mental institution. Meanwhile Long who had left Oschner Foundation Hospital in New Orleans, was intercepted by six sheriff’s deputies and taken to Baton Rouge.
This paragraph from Inside Northside Magazine describes the chaotic scene at the courthouse:
The deputies dragged the governor of Louisiana, kicking and screaming, out of the car. They punched him, knocked him to the ground, and put him in their car. He was examined by the coroner, who was not a psychiatrist, and by a psychiatrist who had never met him. The psychiatrist rendered a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, which was quite commonly used at that time to commit anyone for any reason.
He was taken to Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville, where he was admitted under the commitment order. While he was treated there, the acting director of the hospital, Dr. Charles Belcher, later indicated that they had not made any final diagnosis of his true condition.
Governor Long contacted Joe Sims to represent him in a habeas corpus hearing in Covington, Louisiana. The governor had a trick up his sleeve though. He called a meeting of the state hospitals board to meet before the hearing.
The governor had Jesse Bankston removed from office at the meeting, then appointed a friend of his as the new director. The new director then proceeded to fire Dr. Charles Belcher the superintendent of Southeast Louisiana Hospital. The new superintendent, then stated that there was no reason for Governor Long, to remain in the hospital and authorized his release.
Feared Being Poisoned
Governor Long was taken to the Green Springs Motel in Covington to eat breakfast, but refused to eat food off his plate, fearing it might be poisoned, so helped himself to the food on the plates of the others eating there.
He would spend the next few days at the Pine Manor Motel in Covington and while he was there Blaze Starr a stripper, from Bourbon Street in New Orleans paid him a visit on July 2, 1959. His romance with Starr seemed to be more of a revenge thing, after Blanche had him committed.
Long Garnered National Attention
Governor Long was in the national news that summer and we happened to be on vacation from Louisiana to Canada. One vehicle we encountered on the trip had someone holler “Hey Governor Long” at us. They probably couldn’t help themselves, when they saw the Louisiana license plates on our vehicle.
To read the complete article about him being committed the entire Inside Northside Magazine article, which is very lengthy can be read here:
53 years have passed since our governor went off the deep end and while researching today, have learned more about those days in one day, than what I have learned in the previous 53 years.
Runs For Lieutenant Governor
Governor Long was intent on becoming governor, but when he saw it wasn’t going to be allowed, he ran on the Noe-Long ticket with former governor of Monroe. The ticket came in a disappointing fourth place polling only 97,654 votes. They finished behind deLesseps Morrison with 278,956 votes, former governor Jimmie Davis with 213,551 votes and Senator Willie Rainach, who Long had ranted against in his legislature outburst received 143.095. The three candidates garnered 635,602 votes compared to the 97,654 votes for the Noe-Long ticket.
It looked like the political career of Governor Earl K. Long was dead in the water. But this is Earl K. Long we are talking about and he entered the race for the 8th Congressional District against incumbent Rep. Harold B. McSween. Surprisingly he won the election but died on September 5, 1960 at the age of 65, before he could take office.
The years 1959 and 1960 were turbulent years for Governor Long. It all started with his rant in the Louisiana legislature, then progressed to him being committed in two mental institutions, firing the administrators to be released. Then came his affair with the Bourbon Street stripper Blaze Starr, his loss as a lieutenant governor candidate in 1959, then he arose from the ashes to win the 8th Congressional representative seat, shortly before dying.
I only saw Governor Long once. He was at the Continental Trailways bus station making a speech on the stump, while handing out chickens to those, he hoped would vote for him.
Louisiana politicians were and are still known for taking their politics seriously and nobody took politics more seriously than Earl K. Long.
It is hard to comprehend that 48 years have passed, since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22, a Friday morning that will live forever in history. I was subbing for the company postal clerk, who was on vacation, for the 25th Administration Company of the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii on that date and was the first to tell the company commander about the president being shot, after hearing the news on the radio. Meanwhile the regular postal clerk was flying military standby back to the mainland. He was trying to make a connection to New York City, from California, but was routed to Dallas, Texas of all places, arriving there about the time of the assassination.
Reading Warren Commission Report
I had a copy of the Warren Commission Report, that I had never really read until this last week. President Johnson commissioned the report a week after the assassination.
President Johnson was eager to have the Warren Report released, as soon as possible, to avoid having it contain any conspiracy theories, that might create doubt among the American public.
There is plenty of circumstantial evidence, that makes it appear that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the rifle, from the six floor window, of the Texas Schoolbook Depository building. Some witnesses on the ground reportedly saw a figure holding a gun, but as far as I know, nobody identified that figure as being Oswald. It is doubtful anyone could see someone inside a sixth story window, then be able to identify that person, since only their arms and the gun would be seen.
I am not saying that Oswald didn’t fire the shots, that killed President Kennedy and also wounded Texas Governor John Connally. He just appeared to be the one most likely to have fired the shots.
Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait Of An Assassin
Lee Harvey Oswald had all the credentials of an assassin. He was a loner, that was an activist in liberal causes. He was a frustrated individual, who never really fit in with most political groups. He was living in Russia, thinking he had found a better way of living, but left when he saw their government didn’t care about the little people like him.
It wasn’t until after the assassination, that it was found out, that Oswald had attempted to shoot General Edwin Walker in his Dallas home on May 10, 1963. This shooting and the Kennedy assassination, proved that Oswald would just as soon shoot a conservative like Walker as well as a liberal like Kennedy.
By now everyone knows, that Oswald who never had a driver’s license told his co-worker Wesley Frazier, that he needed to go to Irving, Texas to pick up some curtain rods. He normally went to Irving on Fridays, but he needed those “curtain rods” for work on Friday, ostensibly to kill the president of the United States. Everyone also knows now, that those “curtain rods’ turned out to be the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found inside the sixth story window, of the Texas Schoolbook Depository building.
Why was Oswald in Mexico City two months before the assassination? It is still a mystery, to my knowledge, what he was doing in Mexico City. It is known that he was trying to secure a visa to Cuba through the Cuban embassy, but there is little record of what he was actually doing in Mexico City. There are even reports that another individual, had used Oswald’s name, during the time he was in Mexico City. If there was a conspiracy, this may have been where it was planned.
Patrolman M.L. Baker was in the Texas Schoolbook Depository, looking for the shooter, when he encountered Oswald in the lunchroom. Oswald from the reports I have read, showed no signs of being under duress, while Baker was holding a gun on him. His coolness in that situation sealed the fate of both Officer J.D. Tippit, who would be killed less than an hour later, when he stopped Oswald on a Dallas street. If Oswald had exhibited any fright or seemed to be in distress, it is likely that Patrolman Baker would have arrested him in the lunchroom.
Oswald would have been without a weapon and presumably would have been taken to the police station without incident. However, Oswald may have tried to take the policeman’s gun, which could have been deadly.
There are so many incidents that day that could have changed history. Officer Tippit could have just as easily killed Oswald, instead of being gunned down himself by Oswald. That would have prevented the circus that ensued at the police station, after Oswald was arrested at the theater. History would have changed if Officer Tippit had stopped Oswald before he had a chance to receive his gun from the North Beckley residence.
Oswald allegedly fired his first shot at President Kennedy at 12:30 PM Dallas time. He encounters Patrolman Baker in the lunchroom and is leaving the Texas Schoolbook Depository by 12:33 PM. The building is reportedly sealed at 12:48, enabling Oswald to make his getaway. President Kennedy arrives at Parkland Hospital at 12:38 PM. Dallas Police homicide chief, who is awaiting the arrival of President Kennedy calls at 12:51 to ask if Kennedy is still coming to the Trade Mart for the luncheon in his honor, but is told it is very doubtful and in reality, Kennedy was dead nine minutes later.
By 1:00 Oswald has killed Officer Tippit and is seen entering the Texas Theater, while President Kennedy is being pronounced dead at that same minute.
Dallas police car #207 honks horn twice outside the Oswald house. This doesn’t sound very believable, so may not have even happened. Since when do police warn a criminal that they are outside their house?
The following timeline gives an interesting look at the events of that day. However, it can’t be taken too seriously accuracy wise, as it has Oswald arriving at the Texas Theater, ten minutes before Officer Tippit is found dead in the street, which doesn’t sound right to me.
Rose Cheramie was en route to Dallas with some other criminal types and said this about her reasons for being in Dallas:
“She said she was going to, number one, pick up some money, pick up her baby, and to kill Kennedy.” (p. 9 of Fruge’s 4/18/78 deposition)
While at the hospital Cheramie predicted the precise moment the assassination would take place:
At the hospital, Cheramie again predicted the assassination. On November 22nd, several nurses were watching television with Cheramie. According to these witnesses, “…during the telecast moments before Kennedy was shot Rose Cheramie stated to them, ‘This is when it is going to happen’ and at that moment Kennedy was assassinated. The nurses, in turn, told others of Cheramie’s prognostication.” (Memo of Frank Meloche to Louis Ivon, 5/22/67. Although the Dallas motorcade was not broadcast live on the major networks, the nurses were likely referring to the spot reports that circulated through local channels in the vicinity of the trip. Of course, the assassination itself was reported on by network television almost immediately after it happened.) Further, according to a psychiatrist there, Dr. Victor Weiss, Rose “…told him that she knew both Ruby and Oswald and had seen them sitting together on occasions at Ruby’s club.” (Ibid., 3/13/67) In fact, Fruge later confirmed the fact that she had worked as a stripper for Ruby. (Louisiana State Police report of 4/4/67.)
There is reportedly no mention of Cheramie in the Warren Report. You would think someone who accurately predicted the moment President Kennedy would be shot, would be taken more seriously by the Warren Commission, but then that would back up the conspiracy theorists, which the Warren commission avoided at all costs.
It is not so much a matter if Oswald shot Kennedy but more of a matter, of was he aided by a conspiracy. Kennedy had a myriad of enemies, who wanted him dead. They included the unions, mobsters, Castro, KGB, possibly the CIA who were peeved at Kennedy for withdrawing air support for the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Even President Johnson has been mentioned as someone, who would like to see Kennedy dead, since he had the most to gain (the presidency). One online report even states that Oswald was seen at Johnson’s ranch in Mexico. That may be a false report, but worth looking into.
Jack Ruby Becomes Prosecutor and Jury, Killing Oswald
Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, showed up at the police station on the Friday night of the assassination, to see the Oswald press conference. Ruby became emotionally distraught over the death of Kennedy and decided the American people would never have the chance to know if there was a conspiracy, behind the assassination of Kennedy.
Ruby singlehandedly started a wave of books about the assassination, since Americans would never know about any conspiracies, since Oswald was dead and dead men tell no tales.
Hundreds of books have been written about the assassination. The Warren Commission Report has focused on proving that Oswald was the lone gunman in Dallas 48 years ago. They seemed to have glossed over any conspiracy theories. Oswald was a very shady character, who was all over the place and may have been covering up for some sinister group of conspiracists.
It is still a mystery of how Ruby was in the basement of the Dallas Police station on Sunday, November 24 and how he got in there. He reportedly arrived in the basement a couple of minutes before Oswald was to be moved to another facility.
Ruby said he killed Oswald, because he hated that Jackie Kennedy would have to return to Dallas for the trial of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Summary
I am not saying that the Warren Commission was a complete cover-up, but it seemed to be intent, on promoting the lone gunman theory. By not admitting a conspiracy was possible, it took a lot of the enemies of Kennedy off the hook, including the new president Lyndon B. Johnson, who was relegated to being a do-nothing vice president, until Kennedy’s death, propelled him to the presidency.
He was no longer the second banana to President Kennedy and his inner circle. The only reason Kennedy chose Johnson as a running mate, was so that he could garner some southern votes, attracted by Johnson being on the ticket as vice-president.
After 48 years, there is still no smoking gun that I know of that points to anyone besides Oswald being the assassin. I have heard for years about shots coming from the grassy knoll, but don’t think it is even mentioned in the Warren Report.
There are a lot of what-ifs that came into play on November 22, 1963:
What if it had rained that day and the bubble-top would have been down, ruining any chance of any assassin shooting the president?
What if Patrolman Baker would have arrested Oswald before leaving the schoolbook depository, which would have saved the life of Officer Tippit?
What if someone had walked in on the shooter from the sixth floor window seconds before the first shot?
What if the Dallas Police department had kept the crowds under control at the police station, during the interrogation of Oswald?
What if someone had stopped Ruby from entering the basement of the police station?
What if someone had taken Rose Cheramie seriously and prevented the assassination?
JFKLancer.com has some very interesting observations about what the Warren Commission Report failed to tell the American people:
Alger Hiss who was convicted of perjury in 1950 after a House Un-American Activites committee which included Richard Nixon sent the case to a grand jury and eventually led to his conviction.
Richard Nixon was a first term Republican congressman, from California, when he was appointed a member of subcommittee of three to investigate the Alger Hiss case. Nixon, Edward Hebert of Louisiana and John McDowell from Pennsylvania were given the job to determine whether Whittaker Chambers or Alger Hiss were giving truthful testimony.
They found enough evidence to bring the Hiss case to a grand jury, even though FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover had told them, he was told to not cooperate with the committee. The committee investigators unearthed enough evidence, to bring the case to the grand jury.
Alger Hiss had advanced into a high position in the U.S. government, serving as an assistant to Secretary of State Edward Stettinus. Hiss accompanied Stettinus,to the Yalta Conference in February of 1945. The purpose of the conference ,was for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill, to plan the defeat of Adolf Hitler, which came a couple of months after the conference.
Hiss would later be found to have given intelligence to the Russians as early as the 1930′s. The fact that reached such a high standing, in the American government is troubling. It was alarming at the support he received from top government officials during his trials.
Chambers would produce five rolls of micro-film, which would become known as the “Pumpkin Papers”, since Chambers had hidden them inside a pumpkin.
This website has extensive information about the Pumpkin Papers:
A grand jury indicted Hiss on two perjury charges, but he wasn’t charged with espionage, because of the statute of limitations. Hiss then went to trial on May 31, 1949 and ended in a hung jury on July 7 of the same year.
The case against Hiss seemed to take a turn for the worse, when the key government witness, Chambers admitted he had given false testimony in the past. Hiss had friends in high places, in President Harry Truman, who called the trial a “red herring” and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, who thought Hiss was innocent.
The second trial which started on May 17, 1949 ended on November 17, 1949 and it ended on January 21, 1950.
Typewriter Key Evidence
The key evidence against Hiss was that experts identified his typewriter, as the one which had been used to type stolen documents, then the top-secret papers were given to the Russians. Hess claimed until he died, that he had been framed and that the government, had committed forgery with his typewriter, to make it appear the documents, had been typed on his Woodstock typewriter.
Hiss Receives Five Year Sentence
Alger Hiss was convicted of two counts and sentenced to five years in prison, on January 25, 1960, on two perjury counts. He would be released 44 months later on November 27, 1954. Ironically, Hiss would be allowed to practice law in Massachusetts d on August 5, 1975. Hiss died on November 15, 1996 in New York City, claiming his innocence to the end.
Richard Nixon handout from his first Congressional election in 1946 in California which he won.
Nixon Rises to National Prominence
Richard Nixon made the most, of his first national exposure and would be elected a U.S. Senator from California in 1950. Two years later in 1952 he would be chosen to be the vice presidential candidate in the 1952 presidential election in which Dwight D. Eisenhower would become the first Republican president, since Herbert Hoover left office in 1929. Nixon would serve as vice president until 1961.
Checkers Speech
Nixon would make the headlines many times in the future. Nobody who was around back then, can forget his “Checkers” speech, when he addressed questions about his campaign finances.
Nixon Attacked in Peru, Venezuela
He would make news again when he confronted anti-American demonstrators in Peru, then his limousine would be attacked in Caracas, Venezuela, with both events in 1958.
Kitchen Debate With Khrushchev
Who can forget Nixon’s famous “Kitchen Debate” with Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev, over the merits of capitalism and communism in 1959?
Lost 1960 Presidential Election
Nixon would win the Republican nomination. in 1960, but after a poor performance in the first presidential debate, would lose the presidential election, to John F. Kennedy by a slim 120,000 votes.
Loses By 300,000 Votes in California Governor Race
Many wrote the obituary for Nixon’s political career, when he lost to Gov. Pat Brown in the 1962 gubernatorial race, by a margin of 300,000 votes.
Rises From the Ashes in 1968
After his loss in California, Nixon practiced law and supported 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, then supported 1966 congressional candidates. He was nominated to be the 1968 Republican candidate, while Senator Hubert H. Humphrey was nominated by the Democrats, at a tumultuous convention, in Chicago due to demonstrations, by anti-Vietnam war protesters in the streets of Chicago. Nixon wins by a half million votes over Humphrey.
Wins Overwhelming Victory in 1972
Nixon would win every state except Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, in an overwhelming victory over Democratic candidate George McGovern.
President Gerald Ford, Betty Ford, Pat Nixon and former President Richard Nixon walk toward helicopter, that would leave with them for the last time on August 9, 1974 after his resignation.
Watergate Ends His Political Career
Five men broke into the Democratic National Convention offices, in the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1972. There was no reason for the break-in as Nixon won the 1972 presidential election easily.
Nixon would use every political trick imaginable to cover up, White House involvement with the cover-up of the break-in. Nixon’s tactic was to deny, deny and deny some more, that the White House was involved. His own taping system in the White House came back to haunt him. We will never forget his famous “I Am Not A Crook” speech, but eventually admitted he was a crook by leaving office in disgrace, becoming the first president to resign from office. We can only imagine, what Nixon and his wife were feeling as the helicopter, left the White House grounds, for the last time.
Our nation was in a state of shock and disbelief, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Americans didn’t know if these attacks would be followed by other attacks.
Nobody really knew what to expect at the time. I don’t think anyone expected, that we would be safe from terrorist attack,for the next ten years.
When Osama bin Laden’s computer was seized after he was killed in Pakistan, it was found to mention upcoming terrorists attacks, that were to be carried out on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
So while we were commemorating the attacks, on the tenth anniversary, we were also wary of another attack ten years later, but it never happened.
The American intelligence community deserves praise for keeping our nation safe from terrorist attacks during the last 10 years. I am sure there have been some close calls, that were never revealed to the public, to avoid alarming our citizens.
We can never be complacent though, since the terrorists may strike again, if we revert to our lax security that was in place on 9/11. Airport security since 9/11 has been ratcheted up and has received some criticism, for being too invasive. However, as much as we dislike the stricter measures, taken by airport security, it does make it safer to fly.
It remains a mystery 10 years later to, how 19 hijackers could have boarded planes, in American airports the morning of September 11, 2001. If there had been patdowns, then the boxcutters may have been found, that they used as weapons aboard those flights.
However another mystery is how the box cutters got by airport security. It seems like they would have sounded the buzzer, at the checkpoint causing the boxcutters to be found.
We may be having to wait longer to get through the checkpoints, but it is much better than being on a plane, that has been hijacked and that is being flown into a building. It is questionable whether the passengers on those flights, should have been told by relatives and friends, that planes had already flown into other buildings.
It was bad in that the passengers had to be scared beyond belief, but on the other hand it is probably what saved Flight 93 from hitting the White House or the Capitol Building. We will never know if those were the next targets, but those were likely targets.
Nothing would have been more dramatic, than a plane hitting the White House with almost full tanks of jet fuel, especially if President Bush had been in the White House. If not for cell phones being widely used even back in 2001, the passengers aboard Flight 93 would not have known, that the other planes had already hit the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. That knowledge is what caused the passengers to storm the cockpit, causing the plane to crash in Pennsylvania.
We should have known when the terrorist pilots were attending flight schools, that for them not to be worried about landing the planes was a major red flag.
President Bush and President Obama both have been targets of criticism during their presidencies, but both presidents have put in place intelligence gathering agencies, that have prevented another 9/11 attack.
We must be ever vigilant though and plan on the terrorists planning future attacks. It may not be the same type of attacks, but we can’t be too careful, since good intelligence saves lives and bad intelligence puts our nation at jeopardy.
Mr. Acker Bilk playing Stranger on the Shore, the No. 1 hit of 1962.
I can remember the posters for American Graffiti, like the one pictured that asked the question Where Were You in 62′?
My memories of 1962 include walking the halls of Pineville High for the last times that summer, as I took English IV again in summer school so I could receive my diploma that September. It was my third and last encounter with summer school.
The class of 1962 will be celebrating our 50th reunion next April. Just the thought of 50 years passing since I walked out the door of Pineville High School for the last time as a student in 1962 tells me I am getting older much faster than I really wanted to.
It also reminds me that music has changed since then. Can you imagine a clarinet solo by Mr. Acker Bilk being No.1 on the Hot 100 chart today, like Stranger on the Shore was in 1962?
It even charted higher than the No.2 classic I Can’t Stop Loving You sung by the great Ray Charles.
Mashed Potato Time and The Loco-Motion charted No.3 and No.7, but No.9 The Twist by Chubby Checker is the song we will remember most from that year. Checker was 21 in 1962, but will be 70 next month.
Checker would also have the No.17 hit Slow Twistin’ in 1962. Many songs released in 1962 had the word twist or a variation of twist in the title including these songs:
No.23 Twistin’ the Night Away – Sam Cooke
No.25 Peppermint Twist – Joey Dee and the Starliters
No. 32 Dear Lady Twist – Gary and the US Bonds
No. 38 Twist and Shout – Isley Brothers
No. 87 Percolator Twist – Billy Joe and the Checkmates
No. 88 Twist, Twist Senora – Gary and the US Bonds
No. 89 Twistin’ Matilda and the Channel – Jimmy Soul
No. 92 Soul Twist – King Curtis
Ten songs or ten percent of the Top 100 songs, had to do with the new Twist craze.
It was a great year for ballads too with such standouts as Roses Are Red, Break It To Me Gently, Ramblin’ Rose, Love Letters, You Don’t Know Me and Town Without Pity.
The Beach Boys had one song in the Top 100 list which was Surfin’ USA at No.100, but it apparently had just been released, because it topped out at No.3 the next year. Surprisingly, the Beach Boys only had four No.1 hits during their career.
Ahab the Arab was the best known novelty song of the year, having been released by Ray Stevens.
Green Onions which was recorded by Booker T. and the MG’s to me was one of the best instrumentals ever to be released came out that year along with instrumentals, like Moon River by Henry Mancini and Walk on the Wild Side recorded by the great jazz organist Jimmy Smith.
The list below will take the readers down memory lane. It was a great year for music.
It was October 12 of 1962, when I started basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana. My first memory is of a soldier from Wardville a suburb of Pineville, Louisiana yelling out a second story window, to a sergeant below “Hey nutbrain”. The sergeant set a new record for climbing the stairs that day, telling the private in no uncertain terms, that that was not the proper way to address someone higher ranking than him. The infiltration course was the least fun of all, not to mention taking our gas masks off in a gas-filled room, so we would know what it was like to experience it.
If there was enough reason to take the basic training seriously before, there was even more now, because we were training during the middle of the Cuban missile crisis.
This is one of the songs we sang as we marched:
“I don’t know but I believe, I’ll be in Cuba by Christmas Eve”
The ten-mile hike and bivouac was not exactly a bed of roses either. It had been hot when we first arrived, but by the time the bivouac came around, it was brutally cold sleeping in a tent in December.
The best part about basic training was when the family visited one Sunday, having made the trip from Pineville to see me.
1962 had started with the final semester starting at Pineville High School in January, receiving my diploma in September, then starting basic training in October, which ended in December.
The year ended with me visiting home, for Christmas and New Year’s Day. 1963 would bring being stationed in Indianapolis, Indiana to start the year, staying there till April at the Adjutant General’s postal school. Then in May my three-year enlistment started, after deciding to re-enlist rather than go to Army Reserve meetings for several years.
Early in June of 1963, I arrived in the tropical paradise of Hawaii, not knowing that I would board the troop ship the USNS General Walker on a 14 day trip, to another tropical paradise in Viet Nam two-and-a-half years later. The only problem was that the inhabitants of this tropical paradise, didn’t appreciate visitors with M-14′s and tanks.
Jackie Kennedy with President John F. Kennedy in background.
Jackie Kennedy reveals in the book ”Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy,” that she wanted to die with her husband, President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. She said she would rather die with him, than to leave Washington for safety.
It was clear that Jackie was a devoted wife and mother, since she would rather the family die together, than being separated at death. Her statement also reflects the seriousness of the situation, during the Cuban missile crisis. Crisis is the right word, since nobody knew how the crisis would end, until Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered the missiles dismantled and returned to Russia.
The 400 page book published by Hyperion will be released on Wednesday, September 14 along with a 8 CD set of audio discs.It is already #4 in sales at Amazon, two days prior to the release.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. conducted the interviews with Jackie, starting in March of 1964, just a few months after the assassination of her husband. The taped interviews weren’t to be released for many more years. However, Caroline Kennedy, gave her consent for them to be published, in connection with this year being 50 years. since President Kennedy took office.
Jackie Calls Martin Luther King “Phony”
One of the revelations during the interviews, was that Jackie considered Martin Luther King a phony, since surveillance caught him contacting women for dates.
She had short descriptions for many other world leaders and politicians:
Charles DeGaulle, the French president: “That egomaniac”.
Indira Ghandi, future prime minster of India: “a real prune — bitter, kind of pushy, horrible woman.”
Reveals JFK’s Thoughts on LBJ, FDR
Jackie says that JFK thought of his vice president Lyndon B. Johnson this way, “Oh, God, can you ever imagine what would happen to the country if Lyndon was president?” And Mr. Kennedy on Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Charlatan is an unfair word,” but “he did an awful lot for effect.”
She had this to say of why women liked Adlai Stevenson: She suggests that “violently liberal women in politics” preferred Adlai Stevenson, the former Democratic presidential nominee, to Mr. Kennedy because they “were scared of sex.”
Of Madame Nhu, the sister-in-law of the president of South Vietnam, and Clare Boothe Luce, a former member of Congress, she tells Mr. Schlesinger, in a stage whisper, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were lesbians.”
It was quotes like the last one, that prompted these interviews to be kept secret for 47 years.
Assassination, Extramarital Affairs Not Mentioned
Not surprisingly, there is no mention of the assassination or any extramarital affairs, that her husband was involved in. Jackie does reveal that her husband shed tears, over the Cuban missile crisis. That is only natural, considering the magnitude of the crisis, that could have ended in a nuclear war, but instead ended with the removal of the missiles from Cuba.
Listen to Jackie Kennedy In Her Own Words
These tapes let you hear in Jackie’s own words what it was like during the Cuban missile crisis, telling how she convinced her husband the president to not send her to a safe place.
This book should sell well with the enormity, of the curiosity of both fans of Jackie and her husband the president, but also should receive interest from their enemies who may be mentioned in the book. Jackie Kennedy, however transcends partisan politics and this book should interest those,of all political persuasions.
A second plane prepares to hit the south tower of the World Trade Center while the north tower is already in flames from being hit earlier.
Ten years have passed since Americans felt the impact of terrorism in a way never experienced before. Most of us can recall where we were and what we were doing that Tuesday morning of September 11, 2001.
I had called the mechanic about the progress being made on our car, when he told me to turn on the television and it would stay on the rest of the day. Little did I know how many Americans would lose their lives that day at the hand of terrorists.
Five Hijackers Board Flight 11
The day started in Boston with Mohamed Atta and al-Omari boarding American Airlines Flight 11 at 7:35 AM travelling from Boston to Los Angeles. Five minutes later three more hijackers board the plane. The flight leaves Logan International Airport at 7:59 AM. The first evidence of a hijacking being in progress, was when orders to climb to 35,000 feet were ignored.
Betty Ong, a flight attendant on Flight 11 informs American Airlines that a hijacking is in progress at 8:19 AM. At 8:26 Flight 11 makes a 100 degree turn and is now travelling on a path to New York City.
Three More Planes Boarded By Hijackers
While Flight 11 was en route to New York City, hijackers boarded three more planes. United Airlines Flight 175 departs from Boston and is also originally headed for Los Angeles leaving at 8:14 AM with five hijackers aboard the flight. Six minutes later a third plane, American Airlines Flight 77 would leave Dulles International Airport in Washington for Los Angeles at 8:20 AM with five hijackers aboard.
At 8:42 AM the fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93 would depart from Newark International Airport with a original destination of San Francisco, with four hijackers aboard.
Flight 11 Hits North Tower
Two F-15′s were scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts to intercept Flight 11, but seconds later at 8:46 the plane hit the north tower at 446 MPH and loaded with fuel since it was headed to Los Angeles.
The impact of the plane and the burning fuel knocked three stairwells out, leaving those in the floors above hopelessly trapped with no way out.
As many as 250 or as few as 100 people jumped to their deaths, rather than being caught in the fiery inferno inside the burning building.
CNN is the first national network to break the story on the plane hitting the World Trade Center at 8:49 AM. Carol Lin the CNN anchor made this announcement:
This just in. You are looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. CNN Centerright now is just beginning to work on this story, obviously calling our sources and trying to figure out exactly what happened, but clearly something relatively devastating happening this morning there on the south end of the island of Manhattan. That is once again, a picture of one of the towers of the World Trade Center.
President Bush is appraised of the situation while visiting Emma E. Booker Elementary School, in Sarasota, Florida at 8:55 AM. This was before the second tower had been hit. He was probably told of the other flights still in the air that were being hijacked. However, presidential advisor Karl Rove told the president that the airplane was a small twin engine aircraft.
Calls like this which was made at 9:00 AM would be one of many, made by passengers to their loved ones that day:
9:00: Lee Hanson receives a second call from his son Peter, aboard Flight 175: “It’s getting bad, Dad. A stewardess was stabbed. They seem to have knives and Mace. They said they have a bomb. It’s getting very bad on the plane. Passengers are throwing up and getting sick. The plane is making jerky movements. I don’t think the pilot is flying the plane. I think we are going down. I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building. Don’t worry, Dad. If it happens, it’ll be very fast. My God, my God.” The call ends abruptly, as Lee Hanson hears a woman scream.[6]
At 9:02 Flight 175 hits the south tower at a speed of 590 miles per hour. The plane’s impact caused parts of the plane to fall to the ground, as many as six blocks away.
The president enters a classroom to read The Pet Goat, when Chief of Staff, Andrew Card informs him of a second building being hit at 9:05.
Osama bin Laden is mentioned as a probable suspect in a CBS News report at 9:17 AM. At 9:26 AM all civilian planes are forbidden to take off by the FAA.
Hijackers Take Over Flight 93
Flight controllers in Cleveland hear the Flight 93 cockpit being taken over by hijackers at 9:28. The tower supervisor at Reagan International Airport discloses to the Secret Service at the White House that a plane is heading their way and is not talking to the tower at 9:33 AM. A minute later the tower would call the Secret Service again, to inform them that the plane was now headed to the airport.
At 9:37 AM Flight 77 crashes into the western side of the Pentagon building killing 64 passengers and 125 Pentagon personnel.
Three of the hijacked planes had hit their targets from 8:46 when the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center to the Pentagon building being hit at 9:37.
Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers fought with hijackers.
Attention Focuses On Flight 93
With Flight 93 being the only one of the hijacked planes still in the air, its flight path was being watched closely. The gravity of the situation is shown by the White House and Capitol building being evacuated at 9:43 AM.
The following intelligence was gathered that made it almost a certainty that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks:
9:52: The National Security Agency intercepts a phone call between a known associate of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and someone in the Republic of Georgia, announcing that he had heard “good news”, and that another target was still to be hit.[17]
President Boards Air Force One
President George Bush leaves Sarasota-Bradenton Airport for an undisclosed location. With the uncertainty of not knowing what other attacks may be planned, it may have been best for the president to be in the air when his plane took off at 9:57 AM. Two minutes later at 9:59 AM the south tower collapses in New York City.
Meanwhile, the passenger revolt began on Flight 93 at 9:59 AM. The passengers now knew that their plane was going to be the next plane used to hit a building, so decided to rush the cockpit and gain control of the plane.
Flight 93 would crash at 10:03 apparently because of the fighting in the cockpit, between the passengers and hijackers. The flight crashed 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
We may never know for sure, what the target of Flight 93 was but it probably would have been either the Capitol building or the White House.
People fleeing from the collapse of one of the Twin Towers in New York City.
The north Tower collapsed at 10:28 AM 29 minutes after the south tower collapsed, even though the north tower had been hit 18 minutes, before the south tower had been hit.
The president arrives at Barksdale Air Force in Shreveport, Louisiana at 1:04 PM. He says in a statement, that the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for the attacks.
President Bush lands at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska at 2:50 PM and departs at 4:36 PM.
At 5:30 PM a third building the 7 World Trade Center would collapse. It was a 47 story structure.
The president lands at the White House at 6:54 PM.
The aftermath of 9/11
United States citizens were in a state of shock after the events of September 9, 2011. Churches noticed a surge in attendance immediately. Senior Pastor Ed Young of Fellowship Church in Dallas, Texas has this to say about the increased attendance:
“After 9/11 we had 20-some odd thousand people show up,” said Senior Pastor Ed Young. “The largest crowd in the history of Fellowship Church and when I walked on stage I looked around and said, ‘Where have you guys been? It takes something like this for you to show up to church?’”
But the pews were soon a bit roomier.
“I was disappointed somewhat that more didn’t stick because we dropped to 16 or 17 thousand the next weekend and then the weekend after that to about 14,500,” he said.
Young goes on further to say:
Young attributes the initial attendance spike to human nature. “I think when we are riddled with fear, when things fall apart around us especially when we are struck at the heart of who we are, people suddenly respond and they’re turning to God and asking those deep questions in an even deeper way,” he said.
“When things are going bad we want to turn to God and want to get right with him and we want to attend to church,” Young said. “When things level out we tend to forget the most important things and drift away.”
Survivors covered with dust walk away from the scene of 9/11 destruction.
Many Heroes on 9/11
There are no words to express thanks to the New York Fire Department and Police Department sufficiently for those that gave their lives that day trying to save others.
While others were rushing to safety down the stairs of the Twin Tower buildings, they were rushing up the stairs facing almost certain death. They may not have known it at the time, since the buildings were not expected to collapse.
Still they climbed up stairwell after stairwell to do what they could to save lives. Many personnel in the FDNY and NYPD died on 9/11 putting others ahead of their own personal safety, while jeopardizing their own lives.
Then after the buildings fell, the fire personnel began the slow agonizing process, of trying to find survivors, under the rubble of the World Trade Center.
Flight 93 Heroes
The passengers on Flight 93 who fought with the hijackers will always be regarded as heroes, since they may have died, but succeeded in preventing the plane from hitting the Capitol or White House, which were likely the next target of the hijackers.
They already knew what had happened with the other hijacked planes hitting buildings in New York City and Washington, D.C. They gave their lives knowing the odds were against them, but still made a charge at the cockpit to force the hijackers to lose control of the plane and crash.
Casualties of 9/11
2,606 died in World Trade Center connected deaths and 125 more died at the Pentagon crash site. 246 passengers died on the hijacked planes for a total of 2,977 deaths on 9/11. This is not an accurate count since we may never know how many died at the World Trade Center.
The New York Fire Department lost 341 personnel and 2 paramedics. The New York Police Department lost 23 officers on 9/11.
Thoughts on 9/11
When I think of 9/11 I think of those people jumping to a certain death, the families and friends that knew their loved ones were in the building and wondering if they would ever see them again. I think of fire personnel running up the stairs with many pounds of equipment as they saw those fleeing to safety coming down the stairs.
I think of the friends and families talking to their loved ones on the ill-fated flights that would lead to their deaths. The ones in the buildings and planes telling their loved ones that they loved them one last time.
I think of the ones that called in sick or were late to work that day at the World Trade Center and the ones who might have been called in to work on their day off.
I think of how many more lives would have been lost if the planes had hit in the middle of the buildings instead of toward the top, which would have sealed off 40 or 50 floors, preventing any chance to escape.
I think of those fleeing the scene when the buildings begin to collapse, looking back at huge clouds of billowing smoke. I think of the eerie scene after the buildings collapsed turning that part of downtown to into a dusty scene one thinks of in a disaster movie.
I think of those who suddenly turned to God in fear of what might be next, then think of those who returned back to their lives of making God second place in their hearts, once they thought they were safe again.
Osama bin Laden Won’t Be Around For 10th Memorial of 9/11
Thankfully, Osama bin Laden won’t be around to gloat 10 years after 9/11. He is the main reason 9/11 happened so I had no sympathy for him when he met a violent death himself, but even that can’t bring back the fathers, mothers, daughters and sons who were killed on September 11, 2001.
Lyndon B. Johnson shown with Jackie Kennedy taking the oath of office after President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated earlier that day in Dallas, Texas.
The long list of enemies assassinated President John F. Kennedy had at the time of his death showed he had made a host of enemies, while in office in two years and ten months of being president.
The following list may leave out someone unintentionally, because it is not easy to remember all of his enemies. Some people may not regard some of these people or organizations as JFK’s enemies, but to me they had reasons to have him assassinated.
President Lyndon B. Johnson – When Lyndon B. Johnson was defeated in the 1942 race for the U.S. Senate, he was losing in the vote count. However, 202 votes mysteriously turned up in alphabetical order with all the votes being for Johnson. The election judge admitted 35 years later in 1977 that the 202 votes were fraudulent. The voters whose names were on the fraudulent ballots were all deceased.
The reason I even mentioned the 1942 Senate race is that LBJ was not that happy being a second banana to the Kennedys, when he accepted the nomination to run for Vice President in 1960. The 1942 race also shows that LBJ would do whatever it takes to win an election.
I am not saying that LBJ orchestrated the assassination of JFK, but he had the clout to make it happen if he wanted. One obvious fact is that nobody profited more from the assassination of JFK than LBJ. He went from being a pawn in the Kennedy administration with little or no power, to becoming the most powerful man in the United States.
The following paragraph may or may not be true, but if it is true LBJ was in the middle of the planning of the JFK assassination:
There is no doubt that of all the individuals who personally benefited from the Assassination of JFK, Lyndon B. Johnson was highest on the list. Johnson is the answer to the proverbial question Cui bono or who benefited? Johnson is known to have attended a final pre-assassination meeting on November 21, 1963 at Dallas oilman Clint Murchison’s home. Two separate witnesses have independently verified that LBJ was present at the meeting including his former mistress Madeline Duncan Brown who stated on multiple occasions and in various venues that LBJ told her on the night of November 21, 1963 “after tomorrow those Kennedy boys will never make a fool of me again.” – JFK Assassination Conspiracy Update
Cuban Freedom Fighters – The invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba was doomed from the start because of news articles like this being printed:
JAN 10, 1961: The New York Times publishes a front page story entitled “U.S. Helps Train an Anti?Castro Force at Secret Guatemalan Air?Ground Base.” Written by Paul Kennedy, the article reports that “Commando?like forces are being drilled in guerrilla warfare tactics by foreign personnel, mostly from the United States.” – National Security Archive
This is tantamount to printing in the New York Times that the Allied Forces are preparing for an invasion at Normandy, France. This must be the fault of the CIA to have leaked this sensitive information so Cuba would be aware of the impending attack.
It must be noted that President Dwight D. Eisenhower was still in office when the plan to invade Cuba was instituted. Despite JFK”s eagerness to blame the CIA for the crushing defeat of the invasion force, the president is ultimately the one that must accept the blame.
By his failed invasion, JFK infuriated Fidel Castro and the Cuban Freedom Fighters who abandoned them as they fell into the clutches of Castro’s henchmen and many of them were executed.
Fidel Castro – It was a huge coincidence that on the same day JFK was assassinated, Rolando Cubela Secades an employee of Fidel Castro was handed a poisoned pen by CIA agents in Paris, for Secades to use to kill Castro.
Castro had to know of the assassination plots against them, so naturally he would assume that JFK was behind the plots. It was clear that Castro had caused JFK to go through the October missile crisis of 1962. The Russians finally blinked, but it was Castro who allowed them to set up their missiles, just 90 miles from our shore.
His ex-lover Marita Lorenz smuggled a cold cream container with poison pills inside. However, Castro discovered the plot and gave her a gun to shoot Castro, but she couldn’t pull the trigger.
Those were just some of the assassination attempts against Castro. If there was anyone that had reason to assassinate JFK, it would be Castro.
American Mafia – There were many angry mobsters not happy with the way Robert F. Kennedy was prosecuting Mafia chieftains. The two names I have heard mentioned the most were Sam Giancana and Carlos Marcello as the masterminds behind the JFK assassination.
Judith Exner was reportedly the mistress of President Kennedy and the girlfriend of mobster Sam Giancana.
Judith Exner was introduced to President Kennedy by Frank Sinatra. Exner’s activities were being watched closely by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who was using his knowledge of the affair to potentially blackmail the president to protect his job security. That explains why he was FBI director for so long, since he had blackmail material on every president he served.
Exner was a girlfriend of Giancana, so her affair with JFK may have been one more reason that Giancana reportedly conspired to kill JFK. It was 12 years after the assassination before Exner was publicly linked to JFK, but apparently Jackie Kennedy knew about the affair while JFK was still alive. The following paragraph from anusha.com infers that Jackie knew what was going on:
Exner has been treated unfairly by history. She never sought to capitalize off the fact that she was JFK’s mistress. She kept this hidden for years. Jackie knew about her, of course. Once, when Jackie found a woman’s pink panties in her pillow case, she turned to JFK in bed and said, “Would you find out who these belong to, because they are not my size?”
Louisiana mobster Carlos Marcello had a huge motive for assassinating JFK, since JFK’s brother Robert the attorney general, had Marcello deported to Guatemala.
Marcello made the following statement which shows that he was serious about having JFK assassinated:
In September 1962, Marcello told private investigator Edwin Nicholas Becker that, “A dog will continue to bite you if you cut off its tail…,” (meaning Attorney General Robert Kennedy.), “…whereas if you cut off the dog’s head…,” (meaning President Kennedy), “… it would cease to cause trouble“. Becker reported that Marcello, “clearly stated that he was going to arrange to have President Kennedy killed in some way“. Marcello told another informant that he would need to take out “insurance” for the assassination by, “…. setting up some nut to take the fall for the job, just like they do in Sicily”. – Wikipedia
The above statement shows that Marcello wanted JFK dead so his death would deter his brother from pursuing his vendetta against organized crime figures in the United States. The assassination played out just like Marcello mentioned in that a patsy named Lee Harvey Oswald took the fall, while the ones planning the job celebrated.It is just too much of a coincidence for me that Oswald was killed by Ruby who had close connection with the Chicago mobsters.
The FBI investigated Marcello after the assassination and came to this conclusion:
After Kennedy’s assassination, the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated Marcello. They came to the conclusion that Marcello was not involved in the assassination. On the other hand, they also said that they, “… did not believe Carlos Marcello was a significant organized crime figure,” and that Marcello earned his living, “… as a tomato salesman and real estate investor.” As a result of this investigation, theWarren Commission concluded that there was no direct link between Ruby and Marcello. – Wikipedia
It is ludicrous that the FBI would state that Marcello was not a significant organized crime figure. Even more preposterous is that they said he made his living as a tomato salesman and real estate investor. Then to cap it off the Warren Commission said that Jack Ruby and Marcello had no direct link.
FBI – The FBI may not have fired the shots that killed JFK, but J. Edgar Hoover had information about a plot to assassinate JFK just 13 days before the assassination, but apparently did nothing to act on that information. Retired FBI agent said that Joseph Adams Milteer had told William Somersett, a FBI informant on tape that the best way to kill JFK was to shoot him from an office building with a high-powered rifle. It is not surprising to me that Milteer is not even mentioned in the Warren Commission Report.
The FBI agent asks if there were plans to assassinate JFK and Milteer replied that they were in the works. Milteer was shown in the crowd at Dealey Plaza, the day of the assassination. Why would he be there to see JFK since he hated JFK? It tells me that he wanted to see for himself that JFK had been assassinated.
Adams also says he has information from FBI reports verifying that Lee Harvey Oswald, not only didn’t fire any shots from the Texas Schoolbook Depository Building, but was seen in the break-room at the exact time of the shooting.
Knowing that the FBI director Hoover, who was no fan of the Kennedys, had this information and sat on it tells me he was not intent on stopping the assassination. Why didn’t Hoover pass on this information to the Secret Service so they would be extra cautious on November 22, perhaps going so far as to leave the roof closed on the presidential limousine?
Hoover almost certainly knew about JFK”s connection with Judith Exner and Marilyn Monroe, but with Kennedy dead he didn’t have to use that information, since his job was safe.
CIA – The CIA had motive to assassinate JFK or let someone else assassinate him unimpeded, because only two years earlier JFK had vilified the CIA after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The president had said the air strikes were not vital, which doomed the invasion. However, he was intent on blaming the CIA, saying he wished he could shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces. Several high level CIA officials handed in their resignations, including CIA director Allen Dulles.
So now the CIA has the motive to assassinate JFK, because he showed he was mad enough at the CIA to possibly even dismantle the most secretive intelligence organization. If the CIA was involved in trying to assassinate Fidel Castro, it would not be surprising, that they would entertain thoughts of assassinating the president who had dissed them publicly.
Secret Service – There are some that think that the Secret Service was involved in the assassination and Roy Kellerman in particular. Kellerman reportedly turned around to the front after looking back and seeing JFK had been shot, rather than responding immediately. Conspiracy theorists also say Kellerman took JFK”s body from Parkland Hospital by force.
William A. Greer the Secret Service agent driving the limousine, slowed down and then brought the limousine to a stop. It is thought that the stopping enabled the killer or killers time to make the fatal head shots.
It is difficult to believe that the men hired to protect the president would play a part in his assassination. I can’t see why any of the Secret Service agents would have motive to assassinate the president. It is because of this fact, that I rule out any involvement of the Secret Service in the assassination.
KGB – Any list of possible conspirators would have to include the KGB, since Russia had been more or less forced to withdraw their missiles from Cuba only 13 months before the assassination. This had to be the main motivating factor for them to be a participant in his assassination.
There was no doubt that Khrushchev was angered at JFK for placing him in the position, where he had to withdraw Russians missiles from Cuba as can be seen in the following portion from scientciapress.com.
According to Ion Mihai Pacepa, at the time deputy director of foreign intelligence for Gheorghe-Dej’s Romania, in his book Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination [1], Dej was visiting Moscow at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Pacepa writes:
“According to Dej’s account, when Khrushchev finished reading that cable [from the KGB in Washington saying that Kennedy had ordered a naval quarantine of Cuba], his face was purple. He looked inquiringly at [KGB chief] Semichastny, and, when the terrified general nodded, Khrushchev ‘cursed like a bargeman’. Then he threw Semichastny’s cable on the floor and ground his heel into it. ‘That’s how I’m going to crush that viper,’ he cried. The ‘viper,’ Dej explained in telling the story, was Kennedy.
Goading himself on, Khrushchev grew increasingly hysterical, uttering violent threats against the ‘millionaire’s whore’ and his CIA masters.” – Scientiapress.com
Lee Harvey Oswald reportedly gave the Soviets the intelligence they needed to down the U-2 plane of Gary Powers in 1960. Powers himself said Oswald could have been the one that gave the Russians intelligence they needed to down his plane.
The KGB more than likely knew that Oswald intended to assassinate JFK, but did nothing to inform Washington of the impending assassination, since it removed JFK from the scene after JFK had shamed Premier Khrushchev the year before during the Cuban missile crisis.
Summary: This November 22 will be the 48th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It will be six more years till the last files pertaining to the JFK assassination will be released.
It is amazing that President Kennedy could have incurred the wrath, of so many enemies in less than three years after being elected.
The Warren Commission took the easy way out and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone on November 22, 1963, to kill the president of the United States.
Oswald’s own statements after being arrested, if they are considered to be truthful, imply that he was only a patsy, which inferred that there was at least one other person involved if not an entity like the CIA or FBI. Evidently, the Warren Commission did not think Oswald was being truthful, because they ruled out any conspiracy theory.
If Oswald was a patsy, he was perfect for the job. He had moved to Russia after being discharged from the Marines, which could have gave him access to the KGB. Even though the KGB was suspicious of Oswald, they knew he could be used to further their plans of assassinating President John F. Kennedy.
The fact that Oswald was in the Texas School Book Depository Building, by itself doesn’t mean he was the one that pulled the trigger that day. With the shooter surrounded by boxes, it was not likely the shooter was ever seen while shooting. It has been assumed all these years that Oswald killed Officer Tippett. He may have but after reading the following article, I am not so sure it was Oswald:
48 years have passed since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, but there are many who are not willing to accept the Warren Report conclusion that Oswald acted alone.
The fact that Allen Dulles, the former CIA director was on the Warren Commission, skewers the report beyond recognition considering he was there to steer the commission from probing too much into CIA documents related to the assassination.
Even President Lyndon B. Johnson said in this statement, probably without thinking that he was saying the Warren Commission Report was not completely truthful about Oswald acting alone.
Lyndon Johnson, president:“I’ll tell you something about Kennedy’s murder that will rock you…..Kennedy was trying to get Castro, but Castro got to him first.” - from How CIA Plot to Kill Castro Backfired, 2 Aug 1976, by Harry Altshuler, quoting Howard K. Smith interview of LBJ.
That statement tells me that he thought Oswald did not act alone, if he was blaming Castro for JFK’s assassination, since Fidel Castro wasn’t in the Texas School Book Depository Building the day of the assassination. LBJ is insinuating that Castro was involved and by doing that he is saying that some of Castro’s people may have planned the assassination of JFK with the Cuban government making sure Oswald had what he needed to assassinate President Kennedy.
The following Warren commission members later rejected the lone gunman theory:
Richard Russell, Senator and former Warren Commissioner:“We have not been told the truth about Oswald.” - Whitewash IV, by Harold Weisberg, p. 21.
Hale Boggs, Majority Leader and former Warren Commissioner:“Hoover lied his eyes out to the Commission – on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullets, the guns, you name it…” - Coincidence or Conspiracy?, by Bernard Fensterwald Jr. and Michael Ewing, p. 96. The quote comes from an unnamed aide to Congressman Boggs. The book also quotes Bogg’s wife Lindy, through a colleague, as saying “He wished he had never been on it [the Commission] and wished he’d never signed it [the Report].”
John Sherman Cooper, Senator and former Warren Commissioner:“On what basis is it claimed that two shots caused all the wounds?…..It seemed to me that Governor Connally’s statement negates such a conclusion. I could not agree with this statement.” - The Zapruder Film, by David Wrone, p. 247. Cooper was commenting on a draft of the Warren Report. Wrone is citing the papers of J. Lee Rankin, wherein Cooper’s written comments appeared.
This website has a wealth of information about the many different conspiracy theories:
History-matters.com also has a page that tells where the witnesses thought the shots were coming from and several said they came from the grassy knoll:
This page also from History-matters.com shows how the government and non-government witnesses differed on how many heard shots from the grassy knoll with non-government witnesses outnumbering government witnesses 143-73. However the non-government witnesses who thought there was gunfire from the grassy knoll was 44, while the government witnesses only 8 thought the gunfire came from the grassy knoll.
The Mary Fennelly Foundation website has the most complete archive of documents, phone calls, photos, essays, audio and video of any JFK assassination site I have seen:
There are so many conspiracy theories that we know that we know they can’t all be true. We may never know what actually happened on November 22, 1963 other than President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. However, we can formulate in our minds, from what we read, that we think happened.
This article has too much information to read at one time, so might be a good page to bookmark for future reference, especially to the links at the end of the article.
Puerto Rican nationalists being held by police after shooting five members of Congress.
Four Puerto Rican nationalists entered the U.S. Capitol on March 1, 1954, four years after other nationalists had tried to assassinate President Harry Truman at Blair House.
The nationalists proceeded to the gallery and started shooting at the members of the House of Representatives, from the gallery. They started firing at the representatives and five of them were injured including Alvin M. Bentley (R-Michigan), Clifford Davis (D-Tennessee), Ben F. Jensen (R-Iowa), George Hyde Fallon (D-Maryland) and Kenneth A. Roberts (D-Alabama).
Lebron only pointed her pistol at the ceiling, since she didn’t want to hurt anyone but eyewitnesses said she had problems holding the gun steady and it jerked upward, while Figueroa’s pistol jammed, so Miranda and Flores were the only two shooters to hit the representatives.
The four nationalists shooting at the representatives were Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero and Flores Rodriguez.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower commuted their death sentences, with each assailant being sentenced to 70 years in prison. Figueroa Cordero was the first released in 1978 due to having terminal cancer. President Jimmy Carter released the other three in exchange for Cuba releasing CIA agents being held in Cuba. However, Carter denied this which makes it a mystery why he would release the attackers after only serving 25 years of a 70 year sentence.
It is hard to believe that the four attackers could walk into the U.S. Capitol with firearms without being detected, but this was before it was common to have metal detectors in government buildings.
Cordero asked to be immediately executed after being brought to court, but that request was denied.
President Truman was living in Blair House when Puerto Rican nationalists tried to get past security guards to assassinate Truman.
President Harry S. Truman was living in Blair House in 1950 while parts of the White House residence of the president were being rebuilt due to structural problems.
It is clear to see in the photo above, that Blair House was not close to being a secure residence, like the White House. It was at this time that Puerto Rican nationalists were upset that Puerto Rico was a territory, while they advocated the independence of Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rican Nationalists Decide To Assassinate Truman
Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo were two activists in the nationalist movement. They had met in New York City and when Torresola’s sister (unnamed) and Elio the brother of Collazo was arrested in a failed uprising in Puerto Rico to gain independence for the nationalists.
This is when Torresola and Collazo decided to assassinate President Truman, in an attempt to spotlight attention on the Puerto Rican nationalist movement. They watched the activity around Blair House before making their assassination attempt.
Oscar Collazo walked up the steps and attempted to shoot White House Police Officer Donald Birdzell in the back, but he had failed to cock his handgun, pulled the trigger again and shot Birdzell in the right knee as Birdzell turned around to face Collazo. Secret Service Special Agent Floyd Boring and White House Police Officer Joseph Davidson joined the fray, opening fire on Collazo with their service revolvers.
Then Griselio Torresola, who was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue toward Blair House, spotted an officer Leslie Coffelt inside a guard booth and shot him four times with his German Luger pistol which would eventually kill Coffelt.
Torresola then saw Joseph Downs, a White House plainclothes policeman and shot him three times. Downs still was able to get inside Blair House and slammed the door preventing Torresola from entering Blair House.
Then Torresola saw his partner Collazo, about to be shot by Donald Birdzell, so he shoots Birdzell in his left knee, crippling Birdzell who had been shot in his right knee by Collazo.
President Truman Only 10 Yards From Shooter
President Truman awakened by the shooting from a nap, did an incredibly stupid thing, by opening his bedroom window. He was only 10 yards from Torresola at the time.
This assassination attempt has been more or less forgotten 61 years later, but for one day in November of 1950 the President of the United States could have easily been killed, if one of the shooters had noticed him looking out his bedroom window 10 yards from the shooter.
Officer Leslie Coffelt was shot and killed by Griselio Torresola but Coffelt would later kill Torresola before dying four hours later.
Officer Coffelt who had been shot earlier in the guard booth by Torresola fired and hit him killing him instantly. Coffelt died four hours later so Torresola and Coffelt killed each other.
Collazo was arrested and sentenced to death but President Truman commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. President Jimmy Carter commuted his sentence to time served and Collazo was returned Puerto Rico to live 15 more years before his death in 1994.
This assassination attempt has been more or less forgotten 61 years later, but for one day in November of 1950 the President of the United States could have easily been killed, if one of the shooters had noticed him looking out his bedroom window 10 yards from the shooter.
Richard Jewell went from being a hero for discovering a pipe bomb at the 1996 Summer Olympics and apparently saving lives of many by evacuating them, but was later looked on as a suspect by the FBI and the media.
Richard Jewell was a 33-year-old security guard for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
Next month will be the 15th anniversary of that day when a terrorist put his terrorist agenda ahead of the safety of innocent bystanders there to enjoy the 1996 Olympics.
However, Jewell was in the right place at the right time, or the death toll may have been much higher when the bomb left by the terrorist exploded shortly after midnight on July 27.
Life Changed Forever
Jewell’s life would be changed forever on July 27, 1996 when he discovered a backpack underneath a bench in Centennial Park. The backpack contained a pipe bomb.
He immediately alerted the Georgia Bureau of Investigation about his discovery and helped evacuate the area, even before Eric Robert Rudolph, who later admitted being the bomber had made his 911 call to warn about the impending bomb explosion.
One of the mysteries that day was how Alice Hawthorne was killed by the explosion and over a hundred were injured since the bomb didn’t explode till 13 minutes later. A cameraman also died while running to cover the situation.
Mystery Why So Many Bystanders Were Injured, One Killed
It may have been a case of spectators wanting to see what was going on with their curiosity getting the best of them, rather than getting as far away from the scene as possible. It seems like law enforcement officials and security guards could have made sure that the area was empty as possible, since they had 13 minutes to evacuate the bystanders.
Richard Jewell at first was regarded as a hero, but then the FBI and the media combined to make him the prime suspect in the bombing. Their theory was that he planted the bomb then alerted authorities so he would become a hero.
Never Formally Charged By FBI
Jewell was never formally charged by the FBI with the bombing. He even reportedly passed a lie detector test, which should have cleared him of any wrongdoing. His case was that of FBI profiling gone wrong. The FBI was so intent on proving that Jewell fit the profile of a lone bomber that they were focusing on the wrong man.
Piedmont College President Raymond Cleere and college spokesman Scott Rawles were sued by Jewell for giving false information to the FBI with Cleere describing Jewell as a “badge wearing zealot” when he called the FBI about Jewell.
Eric Rudolph admitted to bombing at the 1996 Olympics in a plea bargain which gave him life imprisonment in exchange for the Justice Department dropping their request for the death penalty which exonerated Richard Jewell.
It was 1998 before the FBI even made Eric Rudolph their main suspect in the bombing at Centennial Park. It would be five more years before he would be arrested in 2003 after hiding in the woods of North Carolina.
Rudolph agreed to a plea bargain in 2005 admitting his guilt for the bombing at Centennial Park in exchange for the Justice Department dropping their request for the death penalty.
Filed String Of Lawsuits
Once Jewell had been cleared of being the Centennial Park bomber, he filed a string of lawsuits against the media who had taken a FBI leak blaming Jewell for the bombing. That lawsuit ended with him receiving an undisclosed settlement.
His lawsuit against NBC and Tom Brokaw resulted in him receiving a $500,000 settlement. CNN also settled with Jewell, for an undisclosed amount.
Purchased Home For Mom With N.Y. Post Settlement
He also received a settlement from the New York Post. It was enough to pay his legal expenses, plus he bought a new home for his mother with the settlement.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was able to avoid paying Jewell a settlement in 2007 when Judge John R. Mather dismissed the case in December of that year. By then however, Jewell had died four months earlier.
Died Due to Natural Causes
His death on August 29, 2007 was due to natural causes. He died in Woodbury, Georgia at the age of 44.
It is bad enough when someone charged with a crime is tried in the media. But in Jewell’s case, he was never charged but still vilified by the media.
The last 11 years of Jewell’s life were a nightmare, since he was portrayed as a criminal by most of the media, without being charged.
Hopefully, the media learned their lesson from the Richard Jewell saga, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
George Wallace shown after being shot on May 15, 1972.
Governor George Wallace was shot on May 15, 1972 on a campaign stop in Laurel, Maryland when he was running for president. He had drawn 42 percent of the vote in the Florida primary earlier in the year, leading each county.
Arthur Bremer fired five shots into Wallace which ended the hopes of Wallace winning the presidency. Bremer had earlier been leading cheers for Wallace, which apparently was a ruse to get close enough to Wallace to fire the shots, including one which was lodged in his spinal column.
Governor Wallace was forced to live the rest of his life in a wheelchair after the shooting.
Bremer, who will be 61 in August received a 63 year sentence for the assassination attempt but it was reduced to 53 years and he only served 35 years of the sentence before being released in 2007.
Arthur Bremer shot Governor George Wallace five times forcing him to live in pain the rest of his life.
Arthur Bremer lived a troubled life as a youngster and was a loner who kept to himself in school. His story helped inspire the screenplay for the movie Taxi Driver as mentioned in this paragraph from Wikipedia:
Wikipedia gives an excellent background on Bremer which gives a detailed description of his troubled youth and how he never fit in with others during his lifetime.
Governor Wallace won the Maryland and Michigan primaries but eventually left the 1972 presidential race and made another attempt at the presidency in 1976 which did not go as well because of him being handicapped.
Despite being confined to a wheelchair Governor Wallace who was 53 at the time of the assassination attempt, would finish his term as governor and be re-elected to a third term that ended in 1979. He later would win the governorship again in 1982 and served from 1983-1987 for his fourth and final term.
Wallace would live 27 more years after the assassination attempt, dying at the age of 79 in 1998 in Montgomery, Alabama.
It is ironic that Elvis Presley wrote a letter to President Nixon, to set up a meeting at the White House, so the president could declare Presley a federal agent in the war against drugs.
The meeting was held on December 21, 1970 and Presley was designated a federal agent at large in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
The irony comes in, when Presley becomes a drug addict himself, which led to him dying in August of 1977 from an apparent drug overdose.
In the time between the meeting and his death Presley had become a drug addict of the worst magnitude.
After the meeting President Nixon thanks Presley for the gift of a Colt .45 in a letter written to Elvis. However, the president did not sign the letter but had his name stamped at the end of the letter.
Presley mentions in one of the documents that the Beatles came to United States, earning a lot of money, then returned to England taking an anti-American stand. It is clear that Presley disliked the Beatles from his comments about them. After all his career took a hit when the Beatles led the British invasion that changed the American music scene.
The following article from the National Archives documents the meeting between President Nixon and Elvis Presley. There are eight documents and 26 photos commemorating the meeting at this website:
After reading these documents, it is sad to think of what happened to both participants of this meeting. Less than four years later the Watergate scandal would threaten President Nixon with impeachment, thereby causing him to resign from the office of president in August of 1974.
Less than seven years later, Elvis would die at the young ago of 42. It is sad that Elvis instead of fighting drug use, became a user himself, ending his life way too soon.
Ryan Seacrest said we might be surprised at the voting results, but think most Idol fans expected Jacob Lusk to go home and he did on Thursday night’s show.
We might have been surprised that Lauren Alaina Suddeth was in the bottom two, her first time to be in the bottom group. She took it really hard, but she should be back as strong as ever next week. Jimmy Iovine who has been mentoring the Idol contestants this season, said she held back on a high note, during her rendition of Unchained Melody.
Scotty McCreery was put on the spot by Ryan Seacrest and did the right thing by refusing to join the group that he thought was staying, so Seacrest led him to the right group. I thought he did great on Wednesday night, but it was a case of Haley Reinhart and James Durbin singing a little better.
Haley who was constantly in the bottom three earlier this season seems to be gaining momentum. She seemed to be on the verge of going home every week there for awhile, but now she just might be in the final two.
Iovine criticized Durbin for being too emotional during his 60′s song, but I think his emotions made his version of Harry Nilsson’s Without You even better. Durbin has gone through a lot, having battled Tourette’s syndrome for many years, and being taunted for his uncontrollable movements. So if anyone deserved to sing with emotion, it is Durbin and he didn’t deserve the criticism of Iovine.
It was almost anti-climatic when Jacob was sent home, since it was totally expected. Jacob should make a living as an artist, but he wasn’t the best singer on American Idol this season.
And then there were four after the departure of Jacob. Anyone in the final four could be in the final two on Finale Night on May 25. The contestants will have to impress the judges and America more than ever next week, since James is in it to win it as Randy Jackson says.
I am afraid that Lauren Alaina Suddeth could be the one going home next week, unless she has the confidence to reach the highest notes in a song and goes for it, instead of backing off like she did Wednesday night.
Personally, I would like to see a Final Two of Scotty and Haley, but have a feeling right now it could James and Haley in the Final Two. James in my book is the best overall singer and will win American Idol barring any monumental mistakes the next three weeks.
If Lauren goes home next week, I look for Scotty to pick up a good portion of her votes. The worst case scenario for Scotty would be to have a Scotty and Lauren final, preventing him from picking up some of Lauren’s votes.
Casey Abrams asked his fans to vote for Haley and apparently that helped her avoid the bottom three this week.
The critiques of the judges will be more important than ever next week. A negative comment by all three judges could send someone home.
This time next week there will only be three contestants left.
Today’s poll asks again who will be the American Idol among the Final Four remaining contestants:
General Walker was in his home when Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to shoot him seven months before John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
General Edwin Walker was a controversial conservative who commanded combat troops in World War II and the Korean War.
He was arrested by the federal government after making some inflammatory remarks when James Meredith was the first black admitted to the University of Mississippi.
General Walker was charged with insurrection and sedition, plus two additional charges.
Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to kill General Walker on April 10, 1963, seven months and 12 days before he allegedly assassinated President John F. Kennedy during a motorcade in Dallas from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
The Warren Commission Report said Oswald was the sole killer of JFK, but Oswald never faced trial since he was killed two days after the assassination by Jack Ruby.
If Oswald had killed General Walker, he probably would have been apprehended and arrested, but he never was formally charged with the attempted murder of Walker.
We do know that Oswald admitted to his wife Marina that he did shoot at Walker. If Oswald had been behind bars on November 22, 1963, it is likely that John F. Kennedy would have lived to finish his first term and possibly be elected to a second term.
JFK was 46 at the time of his death and would be 94 this month if still alive. However, if there was a conspiracy and Oswald was only a patsy to take the blame for the assassination, while someone else did the actual assassination, it would not have mattered if Oswald was behind bars.
November 22nd of this year will be the 48th anniversary of the assassination. Though the Warren Report claims Oswald was the killer, I still not fully convinced that he acted alone.
Even an 18 year old that was in Dealey Plaza that fateful day will be 66 this year, while a 40 year old that day would be 88 this year. So time is running out on any witness that might refute the Warren Report and prove it was a contrived effort by the U.S. government point the finger at one man, rather than a government of any country.
Just a few of the people and organizations that have been mentioned as the ones behind the assassination are:
Lyndon B. Johnson (who didn’t like playing second fiddle to JFK)
Cuban refugees (who didn’t like the way JFK handled the Bay of Pigs invasion and reportedly asked for less air support which halved the 16 planes being used in support of the Cuban invaders down to eight planes. Then after the invasion failed JFK pointed at the CIA for being the reason the invasion didn’t work, while he was the one that wanted less air support for the invasion. He fired several top CIA officials, including the director Allen Dulles after the invasion failed.)
E. Howard Hunt of the CIA (who reports say was at the grassy knoll the day JFK was assassinated and also took part
Organized crime in general since Bobby Kennedy, the attorney general was fighting organized crime with a passion.
Ku Klux Klan
There is no doubt that JFK had a large list of enemies who were angry enough with him or his brother Bobby to celebrate the death of JFK.
It wouldn’t surprise me one bit for someone to point the finger at his own vice president Lyndon B. Johnson who knew he would take over the presidency if JFK was assassinated.
On the other hand 48 years have passed and no smoking gun has emerged yet. It will take a deathbed confession now, more than likely to ascertain who the killer was if it wasn’t Oswald.
These are just some of my memories of the good old days:
When the ice man brought ice to place in your icebox.
When milkmen brought your milk to the house with cream at the top of the bottles.
When attic fans were the only way of getting any air in a house.
When we would walk on the Murray Street Bridge and see the Red River below, when there were missing slats.
When we were hot and didn’t think about it being hot because it was all we knew since nobody had air conditioners then.
When television shows didn’t come on till 3:30 PM. Howdy Doody and Pinky Lee started the telecast day on KALB-TV in Alexandria, Louisiana in the 50′s.
When we listened to old time radio shows like Dragnet and Breakfast Club on the radio, while my mom listened to her soap operas like Just Plain Bill, Stella Dallas, Lorenzo Jones and Guiding Light.
When people would go to local appliance store at night and watch television through the display window at Jimmie Walker’s Appliances on Main Street in Pineville.
When we would come home from school and watch our cowboy heroes in action.
When nativity scenes could be seen in public places before ACLU raised such a fuss, that you can’t find one in a mall today.
When stores like Penneys, Sears and Montgomery Ward were located in free standing stores, before the advent of the shopping centers and malls.
When kids would trick or treat until 10PM at night, filling grocery bags full of candy, with no special Halloween bags.
When families went to drive-in movies together, while teenagers would sneak a extra kid in the trunk, to avoid paying for them.
When theatergoers would throw tomatoes at the movie screen if they were upset with a bad movie.
When Larry McHale of KALB – TV was advertising cigarettes and started coughing, but regrouped and said “Just thinking of those other brands makes me cough.”
When eating TV dinners were more popular than fast food.
When McDonald’s had 15 cent hamburgers.
When you could get a haircut for less than a dollar.
When it cost a dime to see a movie.
When it cost a dime for a school lunch in 1950 at Pineville Elementary in Pineville, Louisiana.
When kids collected baseball cards and put them in bicycle spokes.
When families would go on picnics at the city park, letting the kids play on the playground equipment.
When going to stores we would see white and colored water fountains. One black man tried both kinds and said they tasted the same.
When we watched No Time For Sergeants three times in a row at the movie theater. (One of the funniest movies ever, with Don Knotts being a dexterity expert, that became discombobulated by Andy Griffith’s character.)
When we used to drink Hawaiian Punch and Delaware Punch.
When we used to pay a nickel for a 6 ounce coke out of a machine. Now they charge over a $1.50 for a 20 ounce coke, when in the old days a 24 ounce coke would cost 20 cents.
When we walked a mile to school everyday for the entire 12 years of elementary and high school.
When there was no middle school back in the 50′s.
When Gov. Earl K. Long of Louisiana gave free chickens to voters during a gubneratorial election.
When going fishing meant taking a cane pole and not a expensive rod and reel.
When I bought a $6.50 Nokona baseball glove for $6.00 when the hardware store owner found out I didn’t have enough money to pay the full price.
When we celebrated Christmas by running around with sparklers.
When we would see the miniature church on the city square in Alexandria every Christmas.
When Christmas music was played downtown during the Christmas season.
When we used to play marbles in school.
When playing with a yo-yo was cool.
When hula hoops were the hot fad.
When high school kids rode bikes to school instead of driving cars.
When familes went to church together.
When families actually ate dinner together at a table, instead of in front of the television.
When kids made money by delivering newspapers on bicycle.
When we drank grapefruit juice at breakfast even though we didn’t like it.
When we ate Wheat Chex at breakfast even though we didn’t like it.
When we used to get excited about another school year starting.
When we went to special Christmas Eve services on a cold night in December and watching Christmas movies on television when we got home.
When we had a train set over our bed as a kid.
When we took a trip in 1957 and saw the Howard Johnson restaurants with the orange roofs.
When we got together as a family to hear mother read from the Bible.
When we used to listen to records on the record player.
When homemade ice cream was better than any ice cream bought in a store.
When pizza was delivered to the house the first time.
When mom and pop stores went out of business because of Wal-Mart.
When there used to be neighborhood groceries scattered around in residential neighborhoods.
With the average price of a gallon of gasoline close to $4.00, it is good to remember the good old days when gas was 18 cents in the 1950′s.
I can remember driving from Louisiana to Kansas in 1969 when I found gasoline price of 24 cents a gallon. It was during a gasoline price war in Texarkana, Arkansas.
A ten gallon tank would cost only $2.40 at the time. Today that same ten gallons would cost close to $40.00.
In addition to the low gasoline prices, you could have your tires checked, oil and water checked and have your windshield cleaned.
Today there very few full service gasoline stations remaining in the United States. Now you have to pump the gas and clean your own windshield, not to mention checking to see if you are running low on any of the fluids required to keep a car running well.
No convenience store clerk is going to be able to help you with any automotive problems, since they have to stay behind the counter to work the cash register.
We are in another high gasoline price cycle, but this time it may be longer lived than most cycles. We are hearing in the news about gasoline going to five dollars before the end of the year.
The amazing thing is that consumers continue to buy the huge gas guzzling SUV’s knowing they will have to pay $70-$80 for a tank of gasoline. That same tank full in the 1950′s would cost less between about five dollars.
The price of a barrel of crude oil is at the highest since 2008, yet nobody in Washington seems inclined to do anything about it.
The state of Texas is even considering raising the speed limit to 85 MPH on the interstates. A tank of gas won’t last long driving that fast.
We hear the same old rhetoric coming out of Washington about using the millions of gallons stored in storage tanks, but so far the government has done nothing to give relief to the consumer.
Unless something changes in Washington, this country will continue to be held hostage by foreign countries producing gasoline that is sent to the United States.
It was somewhat of a shock for the United States to become involved in Libya. It is a mystery why President Obama consented to the U.S. role, in Libya. I feel like his advisers pressured him to make this decision.
If Muammar Gaddafi maintains control of Libya, it will be a serious blow to the U.S. The results of the following polls should better clarify where Americans stand on the Libyan situation.
Protesters calling for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
Dictators all over the world have to be concerned after the protests in Egypt that led to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak. He stubbornly held onto power promising elections before finally caving in to the protesters and giving up his power.
Mubarak had been in power since 1981 when then President Anwar Sadat was assassinated.
Now we have Libya in a similar crisis with their leader Muammar Gaddafi desperately holding on to power with his Air Force bombing protesters. He has been in power since 1969, ruling the country for 42 years.
Iran is still dealing with protesters calling for the overthrow of President Ahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has only been in power for six years but has made many worldwide enemies. His threats to use nuclear weapons against his enemies have many nations concerned.
He survived one round of protests but with the wave of protests in many countries he may suffer the fate of Mubarak and possibly Gaddafi sooner rather than later. The world would breathe a sigh of relief, if Ahmadinejad were removed from power and a leader who would be less likely to use nuclear weapons was voted into the presidency of Iran.
Bahrain and Tunisia are also in disarray. Tunisia has already had two leaders this year with President Mohamed Ghannouci resigning on Feb. 27.
It makes me wonder how Cuban leader Fidel Castro would handle protests in Cuba, if protesters would fill the streets in Havana.
He has been in power since 1959 for 52 years. The fact that thousands have left Cuba in small boats since he took power tells me he is not that popular. However, he has dealt harshly with his enemies which probably deters his enemies from being too vocal.
The protesters in many cases in these countries are not asking for much. They want to be able to vote for who they want, not some despotic dictator who rules with an iron hand.
Each time a dictator is removed from office it will spur citizens of other countries who are governed by a dictatorship to try protests as a way of gaining free elections.
The economic effect of these protests has rocked the worldwide oil markets. Gas prices here are up as high as $3.37 a gallon after lingering below $3.00 for months.
Once again, the country is in another oil crisis. There will be talk of consumers needing to buy more fuel efficient vehicles but invariably when the crisis ends, if it ends the sales of larger gas burning vehicles will go back to where they were before the crisis.
Americans are being held hostage by the middle east countries who control the flow of oil to the United States.
We will know in the coming weeks if the current oil crisis will end or we will see increasing prices for all products since oil is needed to transport those products and the higher prices for oil will be passed on to the consumers.
We are at the mercy of the oil producing countries. For years the politicians have talked about developing other sources of energy besides oil but when an oil crisis ends the talk subsides.
What is it going to take for the politicians in Washington to actually do something about the oil situation? It looks like none of them care enough to do something about it since they can afford the higher oil prices. Meanwhile the people that are affected the most by the higher oil prices have to cut back on food and other expenses to be able to drive to work.
Archive.org will keep a reader entertained for hours.
Archive.org is probably the best source for audio and video online this side of YouTube. The home page for the website as I write this article has a link to an audio version of a Grateful Dead concert at Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum at New Haven, Connecticut on May 11, 1981.
The concert is only one of 803,305 audio recordings at the website. There are 2,214 old time radio related links to old time radio shows and magazines that were printed during the height of the popularity of old time radio.
One Roy Rogers episode has been downloaded 74,882 times showing that the website is available for downloading many of the old time radio shows we grew up with.
Old time radio fans will love looking at list after list of old time radio shows available for downloading including some of the more obscure shows which have very few episodes in existence.
The live music archive features 88,813 archives while the moving image archives total 451,934.
Avid readers will enjoy knowing that there are 2.694,639 texts including books and ebooks. The new Bookreader at the site includes Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin and is the example shown of how the Bookreader works.
There is an audio version of some books but the one I listened to was not of the best quality and seemed to be a computer generated voice which probably would be tiring to listen to for an entire book.
Most readers may not enjoy the voice and instead opt to read the books without sound. For those that like the audio they should enjoy the feature that highlights the portion of the book being read by the voice.
The Mega Reader iPhone app provides access to the 1.8 million free books at archive.org so they each iPhone user can have their own personal reader.
Each volume of the Warren Report investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is available to read.
The site is an excellent source of reading material for educators and students who are looking for books that are no longer copyrighted.
One word of caution: it could take hours just to look at what is available at archive.org. This website may have the most content of any website online and is worth going to the website to see for yourself what is available.
Tim McCoy and John Wayne seen in Two Fisted Law in 1932 in the first part of the movie. Wayne was 25 at the time of the filming and another veteran actor Walter “Real McCoys” Brennan was 38.
Tim McCoy was born on April 10, 1881 in Saginaw, Michigan as Timothy John Fitzgerald “Tim” McCoy. He was the son of an Union soldier and served in World War I and World War II.
McCoy appeared in 20 films during the silent movie era. 1927 would find him in five movies, six movies in 1928 and he made nine movies in 1932.
At one stretch from 1926 to 1936 he made 26 movies and was paid $4,000 for each movie. This was during the height of the depression earning $104,000 during that span.
The Internet Movie Database lists McCoy as having been in 91 movies during film career spanning from his debut in The Thundering Herd in 1925 till his last movie appearance 40 years later in 1965 in Requiem for a Gunfighter.
During various points in his career McCoy would appear in a circus and different wild west shows one which he had a financial interest in lost $300,000 according to McCoy.
He married Inga Arvad in 1945 after divorcing his first wife Agnes Miller in 1931. Arvad had a very controversial past before marrying McCoy.
Arvad who was a Danish journalist had been investigated for being a possible Nazi spy since she was seen with Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympics. She been married several times before their marriage.
She had enough connections with Hitler henchmen Hermann Goring and Joseph Goebbels to be the first to scoop the news of the wedding of Goring and arranged through Goebbels an interview with Hitler. In her article after the interview she stated about Hitler:
”You immediately like him. He seems lonely. The eyes, showing a kind heart, stare right at you. They sparkle with force.”
Her being shadowed because of her Nazi connections led to her being discovered that she was having an affair with John F. Kennedy in 1942. FBI director had the couple photographed and had hidden microphones installed in the bedroom but they apparently knew they were being taped since they would sometimes say “whoever is listening.”
It is a mystery of how a Danish journalist who had been seen with Hitler and had an affair with John F. Kennedy would wind up marrying a cowboy hero in Tim McCoy. She died of cancer in Nogales, Arizona in 1973.
Tim McCoy died on January 29, 1978 at the age of 86 in Fort Huachuca, Sierra Vista, Arizona.
McCoy was another of the early cowboy stars who appeared in both silent films and talkies. B-westerns.com has an excellent website with pages and pages of information and photos about Tim McCoy.
A young Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower is shown in the above photo as the Louisiana Maneuvers involving 400,000 U.S. soldiers took place north of Pineville, Louisiana in 1941. Four years later Col. Eisenhower would be a general commanding the D-Day invasion as the U.S. would enter the European theater of World War II on June 6, 1944. Less than a year later the war would be over in Europe when Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945. Three months later on August 15,1945 the Japanese would surrender.
The war was just part of 1940′s history but affected the daily lives of those who stayed home during the war. In 1943 automobile production was halted so those materials could be used in the war effort.
American citizens experienced rationing of food supplies in 1943. Travel was limited in order to make tires last longer and drivers were told to not drive over 35 MPH to extend the life of tires.
Interesting Facts From the 40′s
The U.S. population was 122 million in the 1940′s and is as of this moment at over 311 million an increase of 189 million since the 1940′s.
The national debt in the 40′s was $43 billion but the national debt today stands at over $14 trillion. The minimum wage was 43 cents an hour and in 1966 when I started work at the Alexandria Town Talk in Alexandria, Louisiana the minimum wage was $1.40 an hour an increase of about a dollar an hour over what American workers were earning in minimum wage in the 40′s. The minimum wage today is $7.25
Many Had No Indoor Plumbing
Only 55 percent of American homes had indoor plumbing in the 1940′s and outhouses were still being widely used.
The first commercial television stations went on the air in the 1940′s. The first digital computers weighed 30 tons.
Big Band Music Dominated
Big band music dominated the music scene during the 40′s as the bands traveled across the U.S. entertaining fans of big name bandleaders like Glenn Miller, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman.
The 1940′s would be the last decade in which old time radio ruled the airwaves as television began to convert radio listeners into television viewers.
1945 would see the development of the first TV dinner. At the end of World War II there were only 5,000 television sets in existence. In 1951 that number would increase to 17 million sets being used.
Window Air Conditioners Gained Popularity
Only 74,000 window air conditioners were sold in 1948 and that number increased to 1.45 million by 1953. We didn’t buy our first air conditioner till about 1967 so was 9 years old when we first bought a television and 23 when we bought our first air conditioner.
I don’t ever remember being hot though since that was all we knew and didn’t have anything to compare it with.
The following website has even more details about the 1940′s and the events and entertainment from that decade.
Back in the 1940′s the cell phone, MP3 players, HD televisions, DVD players, laptops, notepads and electronic readers were not yet in use leaving time for other activities. Life was simpler then with no ringtones being heard from a cell phone when a phone call or message was being sent.
The 40′s saw the birth of my oldest brother in 1941, my birth in 1944, the birth of a younger brother in 1947 and a younger sister in 1947.
No War at End of Decade
The decade ended without another major war but June of 1950 would see the start of the Korean War the war which has been more of a forgotten war except for the veterans of that war and their family members.
You seldom see any television documentaries about the Korean War while you can always find film from World War II and the Vietnam War on television programs.
The 1940′s ended 62 years ago but for those of us who lived during that decade it will be forever etched in our memories.
This video starts with some politicking by Huey P. Long who served as governor of Louisiana and United States Senator for only a total of seven years. His short speech is followed by female bandleader Ina Ray Hutton singing Every Man a King accompanied by her band the Melodears.
No wonder cities and states are broke with employees double dipping and our tax dollars being wasted. This article at msnbc.com has several examples of our tax dollars being wasted. One former police chief in Phoenix, Arizona received a one time payment of $562,000 then started drawing a $90,000 a year pension and went back to the trough for even more money by being hired as public safety manager at $193,000 a year.
This former police chief by himself in one year will have been paid $845,000.
In California one of the hardest hit states in the economic downturn there are government employees receiving pensions and going back to work and now are getting unemployment checks from the state of California.
With unemployment at the highest in years this is no time for city and state governments to let former government workers use our tax dollars for their financial gain.
There needs to be some fiscal responsibility but who is honest enough to see that it happens?
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed on June 19, 1953 for conspiring to commit espionage to aid the Soviet Union.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were born in New York City in 1918 and 1915 respectively and were the children of Jewish immigrants.
He met his wife Ethel Greenglass in 1936 when both were members of the Young Communist League. Julius was instrumental in obtaining thousands of top secret reports from Emerson Radio and those reports helped Russia develop a proximity fuze and that information was used to shoot down the U2 plane that Gary Powers was piloting in 1960.
Rosenberg recruited many individuals into the KGB. The Russian intelligence learned that Rosenberg’s brother in law David Greenglass was working at Los Alamos National Laboratory on the Manhattan Project which was a program to develop nuclear weapons. Rosenberg was asked to recruit Greenglass to obtain top secret information from the laboratory and Greenglass agreed after Rosenberg had Ruth Greenglass the wife of David Greenglass assist in recruiting Greenglass.
Ruth Greenglass contacted her husband in 1944 and Klaus Fuchs meanwhile had been giving the Soviets information about the Manhattan Project during World War II while working as a British operative there.
David Greenglass testified at the trial that Ethel Rosenberg had typed the reports he had given Julius Rosenberg. He had drawn a sketch of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki and gave it to Julius Rosenberg.
The U.S. Deputy Attorney General William Rogers said Ethel Rosenberg had called their bluff when they arrested her to put pressure on Julius to implicate others in the conspiracy. Neither of them would give names of additional conspirators.
The Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951 and were sentenced to death by the electric chair by Judge Irving Kaufman who said the Rosenbergs were responsible for all the deaths in the Korean War.
They were executed 26 months later on June 19,1953.
The Rosenberg children who are not identified by name in this photo but were named Robert and Michael.
The sons of the Rosenbergs were left as orphans after the execution and changed their last name to Meeropol and would be adamant in professing the innocence of their parents till 2008 when 91 year old Martin Sobell admitted he had spied for the Soviet Union and said Julius Rosenberg was part of the conspiracy but said Ethel’s only crime was being the wife of Julius.
There is much more information available online about the Rosenbergs and the second link is about the trial itself.
This video shows the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as she tries to learn more about her grandparents.
Edwin Newman has died at the age of 91 in Oxford, England. I can remember seeing Newman as he covered the political conventions. He covered seven national political conventions.
Newman was the first to announce on NBC radio that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas and the following video shows his commentary on the assassination of President Kennedy:
The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn that lasted from 1929 to 1940 in most countries. The U.S. stock market started falling on September 4, 1929 and culminated on Black Tuesday on October 29 when the stock market crashed.
Unemployment rose 607 percent from 1929-1932 in the United States. Investors could buy a $10 stock for only $1 at the time of the stock market crash and when the brokers requested the balance to be paid the investors didn’t have the money to pay the brokers.
The following photos tell the story of the Great Depression better than words could ever say:
August 29 will mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina which cost 1,836 lives due to the hurricane and floods which caused property damage of $81 billion and left thousands homeless.
It doesn’t seem like it has been five years since Hurricane Katrina hit the United States on August 29, 2005. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina left thousands of refugees without homes.
The refugees first went to the Superdome for safety but when the levees broke many of them had no homes to return to after the levees broke and water as high as 15 feet flooded the city in some places.
The hurricane did massive damage to the city but the flooding turned a bad situation into an even worse situation as stranded flood victims begged for someone to rescue them from the roofs of their houses.
While this was going on there were thousands at the Superdome and Civic Center who had no food or water for several days as the government was extremely slow in responding to the calls for food and water by the refugees.
I don’t know the timeline in Haiti as to how fast food and water arrived after the earthquake there but I have a feeling they may have been given food and water faster than those refugees in New Orleans who begged food and water for days before finally getting help.
President Bush told the television networks that Michael Brown was doing a great job as FEMA director while there were thousands of people begging for food and water to stay alive. While nobody was responding to the calls for help people were dying from the lack of food and water to sustain them.
How could government officials see the pain the people were in and not respond sooner is beyond me. I know it takes time to get the food and water to the refugees but there should have been a contingency plan that could have expedited the relief efforts.
I realize that it was not easy to get to the refugees because of the flooding but why wasn’t there some airdrops made that could have dropped pallets with food and water for the refugees.
The television networks documented the situation showing the need of the refugees yet it seemed like nobody in the government was doing anything to alleviate the situation. People were dying in the city because they were unable to get a bottle of water for each refugee.
Not only did the federal government fail the refugees but the state and local government did nothing till after refugees had died from lack of water and food.
Hopefully some lessons were learned by the different government entities that failed the refugees that will prevent another situation like was experienced by the refugees in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Thousands of the refugees who had no homes to return to boarded busses to different destinations taking them to an uncertain future in different parts of the United States. Many of them have never returned to New Orleans.
My son left New Orleans before the hurricane hit riding his bicycle and made better time than the motorists who were in long lines of cars exiting the city of New Orleans. We were living in Pineville, Louisiana which is 219 miles northwest of New Orleans at the time of the hurricane.
The hurricane didn’t affect us much since the hurricane hit the eastern side of the state. However we had an interest in what was happening to New Orleans since we had been there several times over the years.
Brian Williams of NBC made an interesting retrospective of what it was like when Hurricane Katrina hit and the aftermath on a recent Dateline NBC program that reminds us again of the suffering endured by the refugees of Hurricane Katrina.
Those who missed the broadcast and would like to see the program can find it in six parts:
This photo shows how the flooding covered part of the I-10 and I-610 interchange in the New Orleans area.
I was impressed by the sincerity of Brian Williams in the Dateline NBC program and his ability to tell what it was like to be there in the center of the storm and the aftermath in which our government was unable to respond to calls for food and water until several days after the hurricane had hit.
If the government doesn’t have a better contingency plan than we had in 2005 we are doomed to repeat history the next time a major hurricane hits the United States.
