A Trifecta . . .
Today was another lunch/shopping day, with lunch being at Yummy Yummy, our favorite local Chinese Buffet. Just as delicious as always.
Then it was on up to Webster for a WalMart/Sam’s/Costco trifecta. Actually a nice, easy day.
My next project kit came in from Amazon a couple of days ago, and hopefully I’ll have time to get to it sometime next week. It’s a new battery and the installation tools to replace the battery in my Galaxy Tab 4 10.1” tablet.
I’ve had it since 2014 and it’s been a real workhorse. But now the battery needs replacing, not because it’s not holding a charge, but because it’s starting to swell. Enough so that the case is starting to come apart.
This is actually a good thing because it means I won’t have to spend time getting the case apart myself. Overall though, it looks to be a pretty easy changeout.
Thought for the Day:
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened. – Douglas Adams
June 18, 2009
Plantations and Peacocks…
Today we did the Charleston tourist thing.
We started out at 10:30 am with a bus tour out to the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.
Magnolia Plantation was established in 1676 by the Drayton family and is still owned by their descendants today.
The first house stood from 1676 till 1810 when it accidentally burned down. The second house lasted until 1865 when it was burned to the ground by retreating Yankee troops.
The present house started out as a small cottage built on the old foundation and gradually added on to until the present day.
The plantation originally consisted of about 2200 acres. After the Civil War the family gradually sold off land to finance the rebuilding of the plantation. Today there is about 500 acres remaining.
And amazingly family members still live on the grounds, although not in the main house, which is open to the public.
After a 1 hour walking tour through the gardens and grounds, we had a 45 minute tram ride around the plantation itself.
We finished up with a 30 minute guided tour through the house itself.
Here are a few pictures.
They have a small petting zoo on-site, including ‘white’ peacocks.
This metal frame is all that remains of the first greenhouse built in North America circa 1690.
The view from the back porch
Baby Gator catching some rays
Mama Gator
Plantation Reflecting Pond
After we returned to Charleston about 2:45 pm, we hopped on another tour bus for a 90 minute tour of downtown Charleston.
It was interesting to find out that although the town itself dates from 1670, the oldest houses only date from the early 1700’s. This is because of several accidental fires sweeping the city in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, the Yankees burning part of the city in 1865, and then more recently, a devastating 7.5 earthquake in 1886.
And Hurricane Hugo in 1989 didn’t help things either.
There are only about 12 houses left from the 1700’s. Nothing earlier.
At the end of our tour it was almost 4:30 pm so we decided to have dinner at a nearby restaurant both tour drivers had mentioned called Jestine’s Kitchen.
This was good ole Southern cooking at its finest.
We started off with an appetizer of Fried Green Tomatoes and then Jan segued into the Fried Chicken with 3 cheese macaroni & cheese and green beans. I had the Pecan Crusted Chicken Breast with mashed potatoes and collard greens.
We then topped this off with Coconut Cream Pie for Jan and I dove into Blueberry/Peach Cobbler with ice cream.
Jan had so much chicken on her plate she brought half of it home, and we each brought home half of our desserts. Mmmmmm, leftovers!!!!!
After that we waddled back to the truck and headed home.
Tomorrow a Charleston Harbor tour is on the docket. We’ll see…
Upcoming Nuptials
June 18, 2010
Austin…almost…
Since we’re kind of near Austin, here’s Austin by Blake Shelton.
We left the Abilene KOA about 7:45 am heading to Burnet, TX about 190 miles away. We took a slight detour about 5 miles down the road to stop for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in nearby Albany, TX, the same one we ate at for dinner last night. Since the Cracker Barrel backs up to a WalMart parking lot we had no trouble parking the rig for a while. In fact when we got there we parked right next to another RV also eating at Cracker Barrel.
We were back on the road at 8:45 heading east on I-20 for about 50 miles before turning south on US 183. Like yesterday, the roads were good and we had no real problems.
The only noticeable thing was the wind, a lot of it. We took some pretty heavy gusts as we got further and further into the beautiful Texas Hill Country.
We arrived at the Inks Lake RV park about 12:30 pm. The park is kind of primitive in a way with gravel roads and a few trees. But it has all the necessary things for a good RV park for us – 50 amps, good water pressure, level sites, and a clear view for the satellite dish.
And the other big plus, especially for Jan, was animals, lots of them. They have six different kinds of deer, and llamas.
They’re all very tame, and most of them started moving toward the fence where I was taking pictures. I’m sure we’ll be checking them out further in the next few days.
About 2 pm I drove up the road a couple of miles to get a good cell signal so that I could finalize the wedding dinner plans at Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, TX about 20 miles southwest of Austin.
Just like the other day in Ft. Sumner, NM, I have pitiful cell phone service down in this valley where we’re parked, but my Verizon AirCard works just fine on the Internet.
About 4 pm we drove over to the lake house to meet our daughter Brandi and future son-in-law Lowell, our son Chris, daughter-in-law Linda, granddaughter Piper and her friend Ian.
Chris had brought up his speedboat and a JetSki, and quickly got them launched in Inks Lake so the kids hit the lake to get cool.
The rest of us sat around and just relaxed. It’s nice to know that we’ll be here for a week just gelling with our kids, and kids-to-be.
About 7:30 pm we all headed into Burnet to have dinner. The place we were originally headed was closed, so we ended up at Jardin Corona, a new Mexican restaurant that turned out to very good.
Next Friday, we’ll head about 80 miles south to Canyon Lake for 10 days before heading out on the road again.
Bend, OR
June 18, 2011
Kindle and the Pirates . . .
After coffee and bagels about 10, I started back on trying to get my new Kindle to connect to my Cradlepoint CTR-500 router.
I tried all the tricks I knew, including turning off DHCP and setting a static IP address, and updating the firmware on the router. I had already turned off all encryption so an incorrect password wouldn’t be a problem. And as before, my Blackberry and HP laptop still logged in to the router with no problems.
Finally about 12:15 I drove down to the park office to try their WiFi. Trying out their WPA2 encrypted signal, I was still unable to connect.
Bummer! But it is starting to look like the problem may be with my Kindle. The ranger said they also had an open signal down at the lodge, so off I went.
And lo and behold, I got connected! I was able to register the Kindle and download some books with no problems. So hoping that once I had been able to login and register the Kindle, it might work on my router.
Getting back to the rig, I wanted to see if I could now connect. And . .
Nope! Still no connection.
I’m starting to want to see how good a Frisbee the Kindle would make.
Finally I decided to call Kindle Support to see if they could offer any help. But unfortunately, I got Peggy from the credit card company, or at least her sister Paula. Paula was no help whatsoever, and kept telling me to do things that had absolutely nothing to do with my problem.
She then ask me what version of the software was on my Kindle. I told her “3.2.1”. She said I need to upgrade to the latest version, 3.1.
I asked her how 3.1 was newer than 3.2.1. She said it was and that she would send me a link to download the upgrade to my computer so I could upgrade directly.
And as I thought, the Kindle refused to upgrade to an older version.
By this time I wanted to try another WiFi hotspot, and since with the cloudy, overcast weather today, we had not done our Lava Butte visit, we decided to take in a movie and then try Starbuck’s WiFi afterwards.
We made the 3:30 show of Pirates of the Caribbean, which we both really liked, and then it was on to Baldy’s BBQ for another great meal. And some more good leftovers.
Leaving Baldy’s we drove down the block where I tried the WiFi signal at the Safeway/Starbuck’s.
And for the second time I was able to log in. And, although this was an unencrypted connection, it did require logging in through the built-in browser, and that worked too.
I guess I’ll give Cradlepoint a call on Monday and see if they have any ideas.
Coming home we dropped off a letter at the Post Office in Sunriver, and then filled up the truck with gas.
We got home a little after 8 pm and were in for the night. We’ll see how the weather is tomorrow for a possible Lava Butte visit.
Finally 3G
June 18, 2012
A Method to Their Madness . . .
or I’m not mad at Verizon anymore.
This just in . . . I now have 3G data service here at the Gate!
As I’ve mentioned before, our Verizon cell phone/data service comes from a tower a little over 19 miles away located along the I-37 corridor near Campbellton. Of course to get a signal this far I have to use a Wilson DB Pro 65 Antenna/Amplifier set up I brought on Amazon. The problem with this tower is that although I get 4-5 bars of cell service, I only got 1X data speeds.
Bummer!
At first I thought it might be a problem with my amplifier setup, but when I later drove down the Interstate near the tower, I found that the signal was indeed 1X only. There is a 3G tower in Pleasanton that’s actually about a mile closer, but because of some hills in between, I can’t get a signal from it. I might could if I went up another 10 feet on the directional antenna, but I’m already at 20 feet as it is, and really didn’t want to buy more antenna mast sections to have to haul around.
Besides being slow, the other thing that bugged me about the 1X speed is that it kept going away for hours at a time late at night before it would suddenly come back on. My cell phone signal was OK, just the data service kept going away. I do this blog around 2am, and several times I wasn’t able to post it until the next day because I had no data service.
In the back of my mind (Boy, it sure is dusty back here . . . and what’s that big black slimy thing in the corner . . . ah, never mind.), I was hoping that maybe they were upgrading the tower. But this off and on thing has been going on for the entire month we’ve been at this site, and I’d about given up hope. But right before I started this blog tonight, I checked the AccuWeather app on my cell phone and noticed something looked different.
Wait . . . there’s a big colorful 3G at the top of my phone screen, and not the pale dinky 1X that I usually see, and the cell signal is now a rock steady 5 bars. And even better the AccuWeather information just popped right in.
Checking with Speedtest.net I got 1.25 Mbps download and 700 Kbps upload, much better than the 200 Kbps / 150 Kbps I was getting with 1X.
Way to go Verizon. Now get to work on 4G. No resting on your laurels.
Several people asked for Jan’s Crockpot King Ranch Chicken recipe so here it is straight from Jan.
Here’s how I do my crockpot King Ranch:
First I put a crock pot plastic liner in the pot (what a timesaver later), then I tear up 4 or 5 corn tortillas and place them in the bottom of the pot.
Add a can of black beans (I drain just a bit of the liquid that’s at the top),
1 chicken breast (one that has already been cooked and I cut it up into bite size pieces)
Grated cheese
1 can of Rotel tomatoes (I use the hotter Habanero kind) mixed with a can of diced tomatoes.
I mix those together and add Cumin and Penzy spices plus Arizona Spice that has chipotle and other southwest spices in it.
Another layer of torn corn tortillas, another can of black beans, the rest of the tomato/Rotel spiced mix, then another chicken breast. Oh, and grated cheese (the cheddar Mexican cheese mix) then top it all with single corn tortillas. I cooked this for 7 hours on high in the crock pot
There you have it, and boy, is it good. Give it a try.
As I mentioned in the last blog, yesterday (Sunday) was our day off. We found a lady to work our gate from 1pm to 11pm while we spent the afternoon/evening San Antonio.
I think the best part was just being together, since although we eat our meals together, when one of us is on the gate, the other one is usually sleeping.
Anyway, we did some shopping and then just drove around for a while. Then about 4:30 we headed over to have dinner at the Magic Time Machine where we ate back in April before we got our first gate.
All the waiters and waitresses dress up like cartoon, movie, or book characters. Last time our waitress was Wonder Woman, this time it was the Mad Hatter(ess). Jan had a New York Strip and I had my usual Ribeye, both very good and big enough to have leftovers to take home.
After a nice, leisurely meal we drove around some more, before ending up at Starbucks for an after-dinner coffee. Then it was time to head over to the movie theater where we saw The Avengers, the latest in the Marvel comic book series.
We both really enjoyed the movie, and of course we use RunPee to tell us when was a good time to take a bathroom break (especially needed since this movie was 2 hours and 22 minutes long) What was funny was that at the Run Pee time recommended as the best one, several people got up besides Jan. First time we’ve seen this happen. Guess it’s getting more popular. RunPee also tells you what’s going on while you’re gone, but even better, they tell you if there are any extra scenes after the credits. And in this case there were two.
The first one, which pops up about two minutes into the credits, sets up the next Avengers movie, and the last one, at the very end of the credits, is a hilarious take on what superheroes do after a hard day of fighting evil.
Jan and I couldn’t believe how many people left without seeing these scenes. We did tell a few people around us and they stayed, but Jan wouldn’t let me shout it out to the entire theater when we saw everyone leaving. Spoilsport.
I’ve never had much trouble with allergies, but about three weeks ago, I started getting this tickle in the back of my throat that make me want to cough. No runny nose, no congestion, no cold or flu symptoms.
Just the tickle and the cough. And the cough got so bad sometimes it sounded like I had whooping cough. In fact I was coughing so hard it was hard to sleep and my chest muscles started to ache. So at Jan’s suggestion I decided to try Zyrtec
And boy did it work. By the next day the cough, and the tickle, were just gone. Being cheap, after I finished the 14 day supply of the name brand Zyrtec, I switched to the Wal-Mart house brand, which for a 90 supply was cheaper than my original 14 day supply. And the Wal-Mart brand seems to work just as well.
Check it out.
Jackson Hole and the Tetons
June 18, 2013
Going Back To Jackson, Jackson, Jackson . . .
Jan and I left for Jackson, WY about 12 noon, heading over Teton Pass’ 8500 foot summit and 10% grades. But the scenery was great.
The 24 mile trip over the mountain saves you about 60 miles from the long way around, taking US26. But it can be a long, slow climb with a lot of hairpin turns and switchbacks. But cresting out at the summit makes up for it.
From up here you can look out over the entire valley.
Finally coming down off the mountain, we turned north on Moose-Wilson Rd. for the drive up to Moose Junction. And almost immediately Jan let out a squeal, “MOOOSSSEE”.
At first all we could see were two females in a pond only about 20 feet off the road. It looked like one of them was trying to chase the other one off. They both took out running along the far edge of the pond bank and then disappeared into the trees.
Then from the other direction this baby appeared and seemed to be trying to figure out what happened to momma moose. The baby kept going back and forth getting more and more anxious.
But finally momma showed back up and the baby ran back into the trees.
Momma then crossed the pond and followed the baby out of sight.
After waiting a few more minutes with no more moose, we resumed our 15 mile drive up to the Visitor’s Center at Moose Junction. Jan wanted some more moosey things from the gift shop, and more importantly, we had seen moose in the river there when we were here two years ago.
Jan did get up close and personal with this big guy, but said he didn’t have a lot of personality. and as it turned out, he was the last moose we saw today.
The river by the Visitor’s Center bridge was too high and running too fast at this time for moose, so we moved on to our next surefire moose place about 25 miles up US89 heading toward Yellowstone.
Along the way we passed the Teton Village Ski area,
and a lot of beautiful mountain scenery.
For a while some dark clouds moved into the area, threatening rain, but it never showed up.
And our ‘surefire’ moose place didn’t pan out either. They were doing road construction right in that area and our access road to the pond was closed off. So we headed back to Jackson for dinner.
We did however get to see the large herds of buffalo grazing alongside the road.
Even got to see some calves.
Getting back into town we found more road construction that made it hard to even get to our dinner destination, Bubba’s BBQ. But we finally made it about 4:15.
We ate at Bubba’s several times when we were here two years ago and really liked it. And this visit didn’t disappoint either.
Before heading home, Jan bought some postcards and I stopped off at a Maverik’s for a cappuccino before we headed back over the mountain, getting home a little after 6pm.
Getting back in the rig, we discovered the power had gone off and back on while we were out. The only problem it caused was screwing up our DirecTV HD DVR. Everything was working fine and it had signals from the dome, but it said it couldn’t find any channels.
I tried both a Reset Button reset and an unplug the power reset with no luck. So I finally called DirecTV for help. We tried a bunch of different things, before the tech suggested unplugging both the power AND the satellite cables and then reboot. And that fixed it.
Tomorrow we’re driving back over to Idaho Falls for some shopping.
Photobombed
June 18, 2014
Walking the Wall . . .
Today was pretty much a rest-up day after yesterday’s all-day road trip. We thought about sitting outside with our coffee this morning, but the chairs were still wet from last night’s rain, so we gave it a pass.
I mentioned right before we left Houston that I was helping my beautiful great-niece’s Stahlie and Darby get their visas for a visit to China. And now they’ve been and come back, so we have pictures.
The Great Wall
This is Stahlie
And this is Darby.
Here’s Stahlie doing her ‘Praying Mantis’ karate move atop the Great Wall.
And this is Darby doing her scene from ‘Titanic’, or maybe James Cagney from ‘White Heat’
“Top of the World, Ma!”
The Forbidden City
But I think this one is my favorite.
How many other people can say they’ve been photobombed by a Chinese Communist soldier on The Great Wall Of China?
Looks like Stahlie and Darby had a great time, and Jan and I are glad they made it back safely. Hopefully we’ll see them in about six weeks.
Since we’re on family stuff, Brandi sent this photo of Landon making pizza at his daycare. (Landon says it’s not daycare. It’s SCHOOL!)
Doesn’t seem like he’s too enthused about the whole process.
Looks like we really dodged a bullet storm-wise this afternoon. Weather alerts were coming on saying there was a line of thunderstorms coming through the area, with 60 mph winds and quarter-size hail. Said to expect roofs being blown off and hail damage to vehicles.
But although we got the heavy rain for a while, it looks like the really bad stuff stayed north of us. Good.
Don’t have anything scheduled for tomorrow. Good.
June 18, 2015
Wrapping Up Here in Prescott . . .
We hope. We haven’t actually left yet, so there’s always a chance something else will go terribly wrong.
I was up at 9:30 expecting the tire guy at 10am. Of course he didn’t show up until about 11:30. I could have slept a while longer.
He was trying to figure where to put his jack to lift the front of the rig, but I told him I could lift it with the levelers with no problem. Strangely he’d never seen that done, even though he’d apparently worked on RV’s before. I’ve heard some people say you’re not supposed to do this, but Spartan, our coach’s chassis manufacturer, says no problem, and they do it all the time.
And then it took him almost two hours to change the tire, because he couldn’t the lug nuts off. They hadn’t been off since the tires were first mounted on the rig in January 2008. His 500 foot-pound impact wrench wouldn’t budge them, even after spraying them with penetrating oil. He also tried tapping them with a hammer, again with no luck.
I suggested that he try a breaker bar with a galvanized pipe extension, and was surprised he’d never heard of doing it that way, and didn’t have one on his truck
But when I went out a little later, I saw a big breaker bar and extension pipe on the ground, and all the lug nuts were off. Apparently he borrowed them from the shop here.
When you have a eight foot bar and put 200 pounds on the end, that’s 1600 foot-pounds, and that’s going to either break the nuts loose, or twist off the lug bolts. Hopefully, it’s the former, and not the latter.
Later I took a look at my patio light problem. Regular blog readers will remember that a while back I converted my patio lights to remote control using modules like these.
So the next thing I did was to get the ladder from the truck and disassemble the patio light. At first I was confused because I had 12 volts going to the light, but it didn’t work. Then I realized what the problem was.
The polarity of the 12 volts was wrong. Whoever had done the repair had swapped the positive and negative. But I really don’t blame them. As I discovered when I looked at the shredded wire harness after the blowout, the wires are not color-coded or marked. It’s a bundle of identical gray wires.
And if the patio light just used a regular light bulb it wouldn’t have made any difference. But my remote control module expects 12 volts on the positive line, and not on the negative line. So a quick flip of the wires fixed the problem.
Around 2pm I went around to the office to settle up on our $500 deductible, though actually I only had to fork over $109. This was because we had been credited with $391 for a new tire from the insurance company, but I have already paid the tire company for 6 new tires, so that just balanced out.
I also confirmed that I’m not allowed to drive the coach out from here. Instead one of their guys will drive it about 50 feet, and then I get to take over. Seeing as how there are no coaches between here and there, I’m not sure what the point is, except “It’s the way we’ve always done things.”
About 3:30 Jan and I headed for our last dinner here, and Jan chose Golden Corral. By getting there at 3:52, we got the Early Bird Meal at $7.59 including drink. Eight minutes later we would have paid $11.49 (senior discount) plus a $2.19 drink, for a total of $13.68. So for eating dinner a few minutes earlier we saved a total of $12.19.
Nice!
And it’s not like they bring out the Filet Mignon and the Crab Legs at 4pm. As far as I can see, the only difference is the price.
When we ate here last week, I mentioned how they weren’t doing a very good job keeping the buffet stocked, with quite a few empty dishes. But this time someone was walking around directing which dishes needed refilling, and keeping on top of things. Much better than last time.
We plan on heading out about 9:30 tomorrow, with our first stop at the Sam’s Club on the way. Diesel there has dropped another 6 cents, and is now $2.37. Here’s hoping for another drop tomorrow.
Then it’s a couple of more miles down the road to Alvarez Tires to have them all balanced and replaced. That will take a couple of hours, so Jan and I plan on having lunch at Origin Bistro one last time.
Then it’s on to the Verde Valley Thousand Trails for a couple of weeks. After that, who knows?
Pauls Valley, That Is
June 18, 2017
On To The Valley . . .
A really heavy thunderstorm roared through Bartlesville about 6am this morning. But by the time I went out about 9 it had all passed. But it did cool things off.
We were able to hitch up at our site so we pulled out about 10am and got on US75 south heading for Pauls Valley and the Pauls Valley City Lake RV Park a little over 200 miles away.
Just south of Tulsa we stumbled onto the I-44 Turnpike. I say ‘stumbled’ because in Oklahoma they seem to make a habit of springing toll roads on you without a lot of notice.
You’re just driving along and overhead you see a small yellow sign that says “Turnpike”, and now you’re caught. But $11.00 for 87 miles wasn’t bad at all.
Although we started out running the generator and the AC’s we realized that it was that hot and the AC’s were really running much, so we shut it off. The previous two days had been in the high (very high) 90’s, today was in the 70’s for most of the trip.
Very nice.
We pulled into the RV park and got set up about 3pm. Last time we were here it was $13/day for a 50amp FHU, but this time we only have 50am W/E. However since the guy hasn’t come around to collect yet, I don’t know how much it will be this time.
Jan’s happy again that we have satellite for the first time in 4 days. Yay!
We headed out about 4:30 to meet Sonja and Lendel, our son-in-law Lowell’s parents for dinner at the Happy Day’s Diner.
Really good food, and one of the best Chicken Fried Steaks I’ve had.
And the Fried Okra was great too.
Tomorrow Jan’s hemming some pants over at Sonja’s while I work on her computer, then dinner out.
I Was Nine!
June 18, 2020
R.I.P. Nancy Green . . .
Back in 2016 I wrote a blog called What If We Erase Our Past, a post that’s turned out to be very prophetic with everything that’s going on today.
Winston Churchill said, “I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”
In the last few days I’m sure you’ve heard about a number of companies dropping or modifying their long-time corporate symbols. One’s like Uncle Ben, Mrs. Butterworth, and several others.
And of course now, Aunt Jemima.
But there was a real person behind Aunt Jemima, a person who history should not be lost.
Nancy Green was a freed slave. She was born into slavery in Montgomery County, Kentucky, on November 17, 1834. Part of her experience included cooking for the family of a judge and serving as a nurse for his two sons.
Eventually she moved to Chicago where through the years she perfected her cooking talents.
She took her talent and created a cooking brand. R.T.Davis Milling Company bought her likeness almost a hundred years ago and created ‘Aunt Jemima’. It is currently owned by Quaker Oats. She passed away in 1923 as one of America’s first black millionaires.
Her career allowed Green the financial freedom to become an activist and engage in anti-poverty programs. She was one of the first African-American missionary workers. She used her stature as a spokesperson to become a leading advocate against poverty and in favor of equal rights for individuals in Chicago. She’s a hero and so is her brand.
You can read more about her story here, but why would anyone want to deny this?
So with all this, here’s a rerun of my article from back then.
November 19, 2016
What If We Erase Our Past?
George Santayana famously said,“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Or maybe you like Mark Twain’s version better when he said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
But you can’t remember the past if it’s disappearing right before your eyes.
Stalin’s Communist regime was probably the first modern government to make a consistent effort to erase the photographic past, as seen in this famous comparison.
Makes you really appreciate how much harder this was in the pre-Photoshop days.
In Stalin’s case, whole Cabinets, as well as top generals, would just disappear from history. I guess this is what they mean by “Out of sight. Out of mind.” Poof! You’re gone.
And it wasn’t just the Russian Communists, but the Chinese Communists too.
Bo Gu, a protégé and senior adviser to Mao Tse-tung, apparently got on Mao’s bad side, and Bo and bunch of other senior leaders died in a plane ‘crash’ in 1946. Almost immediately, Bo and the others, AND the plane crash pretty much disappeared from history.
Even Hitler got in on the act when he was mad at Joseph Goebbels about something. Goebbels also disappeared from official photographs for a while until he got the message.
At least Goebbels only disappeared from photographs, and not permanently as most did.
Even the ancient Egyptians were not above erasing a Pharaoh from history. Akhenaten, son of Amenhotep III, husband of Nefertiti, and father to King Tutankhamun, or King Tut, as Steve Martin calls him, tried to move the populous away from the many different gods they worshiped to a belief in only one supreme god, Aten, the sun god.
Akhenaten even built a great new city dedicated to Aten called Amarna. But it only lasted about 10 years until Akhenaten’s death. Then the people and the priests revolted, reinstalled their pantheon of gods, and did their best to rid history of any mention of Akhenaten and Aten. They tore down the temples to Aten, destroyed Amarna, and even removed Akhenaten from all official king lists, even going so far as to chisel his name from all monuments and stonework.
And we see the same thing happening in the same area today with ISIS, the Taliban, etc., destroying ancient Mesopotamian relics because they’re not mentioned in the Koran, so they can’t be allowed to exist.
And now we see this happening in America today.
There seems to be a concerted effort to erase the Confederacy, the South, and even the Civil War from present day knowledge, to the point of pulling down mountains. Or at least mountainsides.
There has been a call to remove this sculpture from the side of Stone Mountain outside Atlanta.
Depicting Confederate President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee and General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, at three acres it’s the largest high-relief sculpture in the world, even larger than Mount Rushmore. And some people want it dynamited or sandblasted to get rid of it.
And all over the South flags are coming down, and streets, parks, buildings, and even high school football teams are being renamed.
And on a somewhat more personal note, Vanderbilt University is spending $1.2 million to remove the word “Confederate” from “Confederate Memorial Hall” that’s on one of its buildings on the Peabody campus. I say ‘personal’, because I actually lived there for about six months.
In 1957 my mother went back to college to get her teaching degree, at the then Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, TN, one of the best schools in the south. At the time we lived down in Gulf Shores, AL, where my father was in the commercial shrimping business with seven of the big ocean-going shrimp boats. So my mother and I moved to Nashville for her school. We were supposed to be in family housing, but there was a delay due to a delay with new construction. So my mother, with the help of some college friends, snuck me into Confederate Hall.
I say ‘snuck’ because I wasn’t supposed to be there. You see, Confederate Hall was the women’s dorm – single female coed women. I kind of became a mascot, and the girls would help sneak me in and out to avoid being seen by the resident dorm ‘mothers’. And yes, I do remember seeing coeds in the hall in various states of undress.
Unfortunately I was NINE! But I digress.
Confederate Memorial Hall was built in 1933 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and donated to Peabody with the stipulation that it always bears the name “Confederate Memorial Hall”. In fact early on it was reserved for the female descendants of Confederate veterans who were able to live there free.
Well, some years later Vanderbilt University took over Peabody, and since 2002 they have been trying to change the name of Confederate Hall but that pesky ‘stipulation’ kept getting in the way. But finally this past August 2015, Vanderbilt paid the United Daughters of the Confederacy $1.2 million (the equivalent of the $50,000 the UDC paid for its construction in 1933) and gained the right to remove the word ‘Confederate’ from the building and just call it ‘Memorial Hall’. Ironically they had already been calling it that in all their literature for years. So they paid $1.2 million to chisel some stone off a building that didn’t really change anything.
Is it just me, or would it not have made more sense to use the $1.2 million for minority scholarships? Did they ask anybody, “Do you not want to see the word “Confederate” or would you like a free college education?”
Seems a pretty easy choice to me.
Finally I’m now waiting for someone to call for the renaming of Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. You see, the name Arlington comes from the ‘Arlington House’ estate which was passed down from George Washington’s family to the wife of Robert E. Lee.
Yeah, that one.
So at the beginning of the Civil War, the estate of Arlington House, and the present location of Arlington National Cemetery, was owned by Robert E. Lee.
Rename it quick before it offends.
So, are we becoming too Politically Correct? If we erase all the bad things from our past, how will we know what to avoid next time.
Time will tell, I guess.
Thought for the Day:
“I don’t know anything about music, In my line of work you don’t have to.” – Elvis Presley
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