tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16254399458532482652024-03-17T23:03:30.212-04:00Cedar Posts and Barbed Wire Fences"He had a different way of looking at the land, the trouble at hand or any circumstance that might just come along .... and he measured his life in cedar posts and miles of barbed wire fence”.Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.comBlogger3022125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-3681245863855872872024-03-12T10:29:00.006-04:002024-03-13T11:22:19.870-04:00A True Fisherman<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Mrs. Cedar lost a client very unexpectedly. He went in for a routine outpatient surgery and within five days developed an infection went in to septic shock and died. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I did not know this man and my wife had only talked to him by phone. But she felt compelled to attend his funeral because he was always so kind and gracious.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The poem below was given out at his funeral and I thought this was a pretty thoughtful tribute to someone I didn't know. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But also it seems fitting and true of many friends and family members I've lost over the years as well:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">A </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">true fisherman</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>knows when and where</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">the fish are biting.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">He rises up early in the morning,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><i><b>plying the water for that</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>elusive catch,</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">waiting in the stillness for a nibble</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>A slight twitch in the line,</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">expertly he reels it in -</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>A good fisherman</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">knows a keeper when he sees one,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">he knows when to toss one back,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>and when to head for home.</b></span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXManz47cZNFQqmu1Y3D5g2LAwEqejlhmufFGtlxq-dL5cirOvfY0ls5sLkrsH_YDxpEu9KsoyzUAsscG8zil4yB1ujqeOXN4HEbDWwTGA-gwC9_7ssi-x41Nwaxp25XiVul22oz3RIDUEgOK3mi8Gb8achUEYhao532gT9iBAHSWZ1dtoM6CrLsdFJWI/s4032/Tunk%20Pond%20Maine%2007.05.2021.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXManz47cZNFQqmu1Y3D5g2LAwEqejlhmufFGtlxq-dL5cirOvfY0ls5sLkrsH_YDxpEu9KsoyzUAsscG8zil4yB1ujqeOXN4HEbDWwTGA-gwC9_7ssi-x41Nwaxp25XiVul22oz3RIDUEgOK3mi8Gb8achUEYhao532gT9iBAHSWZ1dtoM6CrLsdFJWI/w415-h312/Tunk%20Pond%20Maine%2007.05.2021.jpg" width="415" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Stewart Hill was 60.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I wish we had met, perhaps we will meet one day.</span></p></div><br /><p><br /></p>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-90957818647618291962024-03-08T17:56:00.003-05:002024-03-08T17:56:40.476-05:00Paige Spiranac Golf's Newest "It Girl" Redux<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is pretty funny as far back as 2015 Paige Spiranac was on my radar. This post from July of 2015 shows and yeah she's still got it.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">If you follow CP's tweeter feed you may have noticed Paige has been the subject of a few, ok more than a few tweets. Yes, apparently she can indeed play golf. Need more Paige? Just click the photo below. </span></div>
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Even more Paige from Esquire's Q&A this month which is <a href="http://www.esquire.com/sports/interviews/a36728/paige-spiranac-interview/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>
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CP Bonus: I married an East Carolina (ECU Pirates) Graduate with a single digit handicap that she carries to this day. So we're paired up with these two doctors from DC at the Greenbrier's Old White Course a few summers ago with 7:30 tee time. <br />
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The caddies saw her on the driving range the day before so they are wise to her game. Doctors offer to let her play the reds, but I speak up saying she'll just pick it up if she can't carry the distance. <br data-reactid=".0.0.2.0:$986719321358523_987337341296721.$right.0.$left.0.1.0.0.$end:0:$text1:0" /><br data-reactid=".0.0.2.0:$986719321358523_987337341296721.$right.0.$left.0.1.0.0.$end:0:$text3:0" /><span data-reactid=".0.0.2.0:$986719321358523_987337341296721.$right.0.$left.0.1.0.0.$end:0:$text4:0">Doctors go first, then my wife smokes it off the tee box into the mountain's morning fog. She's got 20 yards on them. I hit left just to the edge of the fairway about 50 yards behind the docs. </span><br data-reactid=".0.0.2.0:$986719321358523_987337341296721.$right.0.$left.0.1.0.0.$end:0:$text5:0" /><br data-reactid=".0.0.2.0:$986719321358523_987337341296721.$right.0.$left.0.1.0.0.$end:0:$text7:0" /><span data-reactid=".0.0.2.0:$986719321358523_987337341296721.$right.0.$left.0.1.0.0.$end:0:$text8:0">Caddie looks at me "You gonna pick that up right?"</span></span>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-41787216770880919232024-03-08T01:00:00.001-05:002024-03-08T17:36:55.022-05:00Thank you for flying Aira Italia Airlines<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Traveling to America from Rome the man is flying on a four engine 747 over the ocean. A few minutes into the flight, the captain comes over the intercom:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Welcome aboard Alitalia Airlines. This isa you Captain speaking. We gotta beautiful day for flying. We gonna be a cruising at about 45,000 feets and it looka like we gotta smooth sailing. So sitta back and enjoy you flight.”</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1wijbM36QkObrAwSGjLbQEUvFwcn71nmLruaxdwd3GaGMWc5WI-oeJnFyKb8xbcvas6yOQxvdjxHlW6HLy0EApiHg_ZprhOr7ShpTt-OrlEg2fBDRDUkclZrFlit42puJpFWTsmUIzkrXSRKzsNCSxQvDkNAX-ZdHSys5EmA8Cbx4Ibdc1uTaEt4EQw/s1228/Alitalia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="812" data-original-width="1228" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1wijbM36QkObrAwSGjLbQEUvFwcn71nmLruaxdwd3GaGMWc5WI-oeJnFyKb8xbcvas6yOQxvdjxHlW6HLy0EApiHg_ZprhOr7ShpTt-OrlEg2fBDRDUkclZrFlit42puJpFWTsmUIzkrXSRKzsNCSxQvDkNAX-ZdHSys5EmA8Cbx4Ibdc1uTaEt4EQw/w414-h274/Alitalia.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>A few minutes later, the captain is once again on the intercom:</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Ladies and gentleman, this isa you Captain speaking. It looks like we’re having some-a trouble with the number one ah engine. But it’s a nothing to worry about. We gotta three other engines and we gonna be fine. Justa relax, and enjoy the rest of you flight.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The passenger relaxes into his seat. About 30 minutes later, a voice comes back over the intercom:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Ladies and gentleman, this isa you Captain speaking. It looks like we’re having some-a trouble with the number two ah engine. But it’s a nothing to worry about. We gotta two other engines and we gonna be fine. Justa relax, and enjoy the rest of you flight.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Hello?! This isa you Captain speaking, again. We have lost the number three engine, but don’t you worry, we gotta nother one on the left side that will get us where we going. It’s a no problem. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But as a precaution, we wanna ask every body who knows how to swim to move to the right side of the plane, and those who <b><u>no</u></b> can swim, go to the left side of the plane. It’s a no big deal, it’s just a precaution. Have a some wine and enjoy the rest of you flight.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Shortly after that there was a loud noise and again the voice came over the intercom:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“April Day! April Day!” oh so sorry wrong button OK? </span><span style="font-family: arial;">“This isa you Captain speaking again. We lost the last engine and it looks like we are gonna have to make a splash landing in da water!"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">'So looka here, those of you on the right side of the plane who knows how to swim, don’t you worry. When we hita the water, we gonna do it nice and easy then you a make a you way to the exit signs and jump in the water, and swim straight ahead. We are only about a mile or so from land."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">"OK? Those of you who are onna da left side of the plane ……. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We want to a thank you for flying Alitalia Airlines."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-75655433990585964732024-03-03T17:54:00.004-05:002024-03-06T12:46:44.348-05:00Magical Negro<p><span style="font-family: arial;">The Magical Negro is to many people a tried trope in American cinema, television, and literature. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In the movies from the United States, the Magical Negro is a supporting stock character who comes to the aid of white protagonists in a film.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Magical Negro characters, often possessing special insight or mystical powers, have long been a tradition in American fiction. The old-fashioned word "Negro" is used to imply that a "magical black character" who devotes himself to selflessly helping whites. Many claim this is a throwback to racist stereotypes such as the "Sambo" or "noble savage".</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The term was popularized in 2001 by film director Spike Lee during a lecture tour of college campuses, in which he expressed his dismay that Hollywood continued to employ this premise. He specially noted the films The Green Mile and The Legend of Bagger Vance, which featured "super-duper magical Negro" characters.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I suspect that Tarzan's Samuel L Jackson would qualify as well. In fact Barrack Obama had all the qualities of a Magical Negro. However while in film the "Magical Negro" might be the hero, in real life as with Obama, he is often a disappointment. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Perhaps only in literature and the movies does the real Magical Negro really live. Jim Mark Twain's character in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and its adaptations. Then there is "Red" in Stephen King's Shawshank Redemption.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Even Spock in Star Trek has all the qualities of a "Magical Negro".</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">However if it is a real event and not of film or fiction, does the magical negro still exist?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Some of the Cedar Posts stories have a strong Magical Negro equivalence. Should I "fix" them in the name of DEI? Perhaps not describe them but rather just say a person? Does the color matter? Perhaps not. But in each of these stories the skin color is the context. Just as in film the story line is not altered by race, but it is defined by race, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://cedarposts.blogspot.com/2024/02/international-harvester-boardrooms.html">International Harvester Willie Simpson</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://cedarposts.blogspot.com/2023/10/everett-wilson-halloween-tale.html" target="_blank">Everett Wilson A Halloween Tale</a></span></p><p><a href="https://cedarposts.blogspot.com/2022/11/carl.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial;">Carl</span></a></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Old Joe</u></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I have enjoyed Spike Lee's films particularly Boyz in the Hood. No wait that was John Singleton. Well I'm sure there are some films by Spike that I've enjoyed. That film with John Travolta Pulp Fiction no that was the Tarantino guy. I need to think on this some. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So back to the "magical negro" years ago I was maybe 22 when I was nearly killed during load out OPS while moving "A" Containers. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">An "A" Container is big as in the entire width of the aircraft and rounded to fit tight against the cabin ceiling. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlPn6MBG9H5e5vHK4iT9VyLiln9Sh3HgBEUVKDP-kLrPVpsZamvY0tS-UzsNbShyphenhyphenw-IOzY0NiIbuveJ4Sk0shuk1ehejV1Xphh5d-EucZ3psnN3dgOW9-pTmvtl5AOCgUdGHumYa-u8o0HlXVmMltQYBjL9TQo0L12bwoX-wG2xCoRmk9DpfzJDpgBxF4/s1864/Movie-Cargo-Plane-Interior.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1166" data-original-width="1864" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlPn6MBG9H5e5vHK4iT9VyLiln9Sh3HgBEUVKDP-kLrPVpsZamvY0tS-UzsNbShyphenhyphenw-IOzY0NiIbuveJ4Sk0shuk1ehejV1Xphh5d-EucZ3psnN3dgOW9-pTmvtl5AOCgUdGHumYa-u8o0HlXVmMltQYBjL9TQo0L12bwoX-wG2xCoRmk9DpfzJDpgBxF4/w506-h316/Movie-Cargo-Plane-Interior.jpg" width="506" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: arial;">While working at night, walking in the interior of which might have been a C-137 that's an old 707 at the time. Somehow I slipped my leg wedged between the floor rollers and deck of the aircraft floor as the "A" container rolled towards me. Out of nowhere this massive hand grabbed me and pulled me up and out of the way of 8,000 pounds of crunch. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The hand belonged to a Chief Petty Officer and being magical he was a Black man.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">He saved my leg and likey my life. He was not part of my detail and to this day I do not know his name or his duty station. He was not the aircraft loadmaster. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">He appeared out of nowhere pulled me to my feet checked me over asked "you're good?" I nodded and he was gone. He simply had vanished.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">To this day I owe him a thank you for saving my scrawny 140 pound ass that night on the ramp. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Magical Negro Thank You Brother.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Recalling this story it makes me thing about all the other "Magical Negros" I've known.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Johnsey Marks</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Ben at Queens Texaco</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Leroy at the Johnson Building in Charlotte</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Mr. Mosley at the Greenbrier Hotel</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-24081003840864264922024-02-29T08:34:00.013-05:002024-02-29T16:50:10.171-05:00International Harvester Boardroom Willie Simpson<p><span style="font-family: arial;">During the late 1950’s there was widespread fear of Russia (U.S.S.R.). American manufactures were considered prime "Cold War" risks and many of their executives targets for bribery or abduction.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Labor wars, a looming conflict in Vietnam, an aggressive China and the feared spread of communism made headlines daily.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The United States having been caught "flat footed" by Japan's unprovoked attack a little more than a decade prior would not be unprepared again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>My grandfather used to tell this story - </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It had been more than a year that a negro International Harvester employee named Willie Simpson had been shining board member's shoes during executive meetings. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The man dutifully went about his task in silence, often under the mahogany boardroom table while executives discussed production, labor strategies, government contracts and post war supply issues. Many items discussed were not meant for the ears of outsiders, competitors, or communists. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">My grandfather liked Willie, and they often traded fishing stories and reminisced about their Southern backgrounds and upbringing. They became friends as much as White and Black men could be back in the days before the civil rights era. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">One afternoon Willie told my grandfather he wanted to say a personal goodbye and that he enjoyed how "Mister Mac" had always treated him. Willie said he was honored to shine the shoes of a man who had worked his way up from sweeping shop floors to the International Harvester boardroom.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When my surprised grandfather pressed him as to where he was going and why, Willie said he wasn't permitted to discuss his transfer. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Outraged my grandfather exclaimed "Transfer? By whom? Adding, I'll speak to Harvester management right away!". </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Willie quietly took my grandfather aside and said "I'm sorry sir my real name is not Willie Simpson and I'm not employed by International Harvester". And with that he showed "Mister Mac" his badge and ID then folded it back and placed it in his secret vest pocket, explaining that he was a Special Agent with the FBI and that he'd appreciate it if he'd not discuss their conversation with anyone. My grandfather agreed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>And that was it.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We as grandchildren were left to assume that this story, while well-meaning, was of course pure fiction. A fable to encourage acceptance of all people regardless of skin color and a lesson never to assume you know everything about someone. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A lesson I accepted as did my siblings. A story told often by my grandfather then forgotten until retold again. In fact, my uncle told the story at my father's funeral in December of 2023, to which we all laughed and smiled, accepting the old man's tale just as we would have done had my grandfather told it for the first time at that very moment.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Pretty funny, a Black FBI Special Agent from the south in the late 1950s, working under cover. We accepted it as fact though we knew it was just a fun tall tale. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>This week the FBI El Paso Field Office posted this on "X":</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Feb 27, 2024</span></p><p><b><i><span style="font-family: arial;">In January 1956, Leo James McClairen became the newest special agent in </span><span style="font-family: arial;">@FBIMiamiFL</span><span style="font-family: arial;">. His selection was quietly historic: McClairen was the first Black agent in the Deep South. </span></i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcFn8GdvCO41bjF5ekAclPpAOhCY3etsmawSlYyF9tMnlMSG-Pfv-QXQYPwcs-c0zBylwrdqsms87suEMzSnmKumPQyaIzsOSITtaKUvPZuMjoqa_TxPZKFlPzNTKHkH7X7aQbd97_dVrfedoWWpKaYSnsOKAOi_P_0t_bC01g5kFdF-qLnEKuBJlIeeE/s815/Leo%20James%20McClairen.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="815" data-original-width="702" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcFn8GdvCO41bjF5ekAclPpAOhCY3etsmawSlYyF9tMnlMSG-Pfv-QXQYPwcs-c0zBylwrdqsms87suEMzSnmKumPQyaIzsOSITtaKUvPZuMjoqa_TxPZKFlPzNTKHkH7X7aQbd97_dVrfedoWWpKaYSnsOKAOi_P_0t_bC01g5kFdF-qLnEKuBJlIeeE/s320/Leo%20James%20McClairen.jpg" width="276" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Leo James McClairen </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">aka Willie Simpson?</span></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-91783539307247338182024-01-22T10:20:00.002-05:002024-01-22T10:21:39.967-05:00Saved By Jesus<p><span style="font-family: arial;">My grandmother once claimed Jesus pushed her car out of a snowdrift.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When asked what he looked like she said "I didn't see his face, but he was wearing a Carhartt jacket."</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA4ZGxcf-JKQaByh5O1XSVWimBtjdxab3if5nDR9UVmQekpQQ6W7ydO1x6T1aVPiAVgv7xRECPy3i9EFY7QRYJpH23Dk39CAiseIZtNsr-hzwkUUnEWxqEgjaOMFKqa2D3rqsO-LTcMLX9s3LUQeAuPf2Tj-HAc3uPOi82T7PMCWq_MGvfLEnEe-GmXDg/s1940/Yukon_Active-Jac-1940x1293.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1293" data-original-width="1940" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA4ZGxcf-JKQaByh5O1XSVWimBtjdxab3if5nDR9UVmQekpQQ6W7ydO1x6T1aVPiAVgv7xRECPy3i9EFY7QRYJpH23Dk39CAiseIZtNsr-hzwkUUnEWxqEgjaOMFKqa2D3rqsO-LTcMLX9s3LUQeAuPf2Tj-HAc3uPOi82T7PMCWq_MGvfLEnEe-GmXDg/w460-h306/Yukon_Active-Jac-1940x1293.jpg" width="460" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>When pressed how she knew it was Jesus she said: "It was 10 degrees blowing snow, the car was buried up to the wheelwells, and he didn't</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> charge me a penny. Who else would it be?"</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><br /></p>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-84857644711425041522024-01-17T08:59:00.003-05:002024-01-19T17:08:58.465-05:00Possibilities - America's Small Businesses Struggle Under Joe Biden<p><span style="font-family: arial;">In 1933 Mrs. Cedar’s Great Uncle founded <b><a href="http://lincoln.mainememory.net/page/1859/display.html" target="_blank">Carney’s</a></b>, a clothing store in <b>Lincoln Maine</b>. The town of <b>Lincoln </b>located in the North Woods was a thriving Mill Town, known often by the unfortunate moniker <b>“Stinkin Lincoln”</b>. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr40wh6LxfsAILi2deLu3QBiHKK1rrVUBrJvwGLRG3Io3SkQwfH7m_DSfS7HZ1p5OKgv6TewJ6lxuxgT1lqBySuqilYA-ic-_VlLDz-Ssrub8gE6DL1J8IttylZExEh-4YXqBcgMqcjt91DhX3W90cN2lwqB9zH3jd0N17GztXRf6oILrQ66Ozxf4osqg/s250/Carney's.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="169" data-original-width="250" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr40wh6LxfsAILi2deLu3QBiHKK1rrVUBrJvwGLRG3Io3SkQwfH7m_DSfS7HZ1p5OKgv6TewJ6lxuxgT1lqBySuqilYA-ic-_VlLDz-Ssrub8gE6DL1J8IttylZExEh-4YXqBcgMqcjt91DhX3W90cN2lwqB9zH3jd0N17GztXRf6oILrQ66Ozxf4osqg/w328-h222/Carney's.jpg" width="328" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Carney's Circa 1998</span></b></div></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The mill is gone and so is the “stink”, but with the loss of the mill the population also declined. To some degree the mill and associated businesses have been replaced by tourism. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>The Lincoln Lakes Region</b> brings nature lovers to the area for hunting, fishing, hiking and water sports in the summer and snowmobiles and cross-country skiing in the winter.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The Carney family sold the store in 1998 but Mrs. Cedar’s fond memories linger on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Fast forward twenty-five years and the store remains as <b>“Possibilities”</b> an eclectic mix of gifts and home goods, art and flowers. Mrs. Cedar and I are both huge fans of the business and frequent the store often during our summers in Maine.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Because of all of this we are both sharing this open letter from the owners of <b>Possibilities</b> to their customers and friends. This is the reality of Joe Biden’s policies and the effect on American Small Business:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>We keep full transparency with our customers, also known as our friends. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>We like to keep it real and always give you our true pure self. That’s the beauty of our brand. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>In the 25-year history of Possibilities, the original founders closed for parts of the winter. Their successors closed for the month of February and then we closed for the month of January. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>This year is a bit different as we restructure, adapt, and pivot, to allow us to continue navigating in this constant changing economy and business environment. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>We will be closing this Saturday January 13th with a grand reopening for the 2024 season on May 1st.</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Possibilities has always operated in the red for the first quarter of the year. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Possibilities tucks away funds through the busy tourist/summer season to purchase inventory for Christmas and then the profits from Christmas carry the business through the down months in the first quarter. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>In 2023 Maine’s tourist industry was largely impacted by a large amount of rainfall that kept the limited amount of tourists who could afford a vacation in this economy to stay home. This limited our purchase power, layered with less money in everyone’s pocket this year for Christmas gifts. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>We even had to change the items we sell due to the inflation driving the cost of goods up to a cost that our customers would never pay. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>When we purchased Possibilities in 2019, we had no idea that we would experience a global pandemic, shipping crisis, multiple ongoing wars, geopolitical shifts, and the world splitting into two economies. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>We have overcome and worked tirelessly to keep Possibilities on Main Street as we promised to the previous owners at purchase and for the community we serve. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>It’s been a rugged road that has suffered a large decline in sales every year. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>A large percentage of small businesses in America have closed their doors and filed for bankruptcy. Multiple home decor gift shops in the greater Bangor area have closed their doors. We are still here, paying debts and re-investing every dime back into Possibilities, in hopes of being here for a very, very, long time. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>This winter we will be living in Hawaii with our daughter, son in law, and grandson. We will be working full time jobs that pay five times the amount of jobs in Maine to make the funds necessary to keep Possibilities alive. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>A 40-hour work week is a slow week for us. With our free time we will be emerging ourselves into the art community of the island while working on our own personal art. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>We will even tackle our to do list that gets put aside due to daily demands in the shop. We will utilize this time to come back ahead of the game and stronger.</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>This decision was not easy but is what must be done to have a sustainable luxury goods business model in rural Northern Maine in 2024 and beyond. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>As we adjust our sails, we will have all of you in our hearts. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Thank you for all your continued support and encouragement. We would have never made it thus far without you and we will not make it to our completed vision of Possibilities Floral Studio & Designs without you. We will miss you. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn.</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>The Owners of Possibilities January 2024</b></i></span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">(Edited for grammar and clarity)</span></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-30587423491226570182023-12-24T00:00:00.006-05:002023-12-25T09:23:56.380-05:00My Christmas Message<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Years ago I penned this and it now seems like such a long time ago. But the events that provided the basis for this "Christmas sermon" and as fresh as new fallen snow. I've not spent Christmas in Charleston now for three years. This Sunday you'll find me on the left about the tenth row at The Little Church on the Lane in Charlotte and not at the pulpit. But one day I'll give my Christmas message with profound feeling and conviction. Until then ......</span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Last
year as I sat in 1st pew during our Christmas Eve Service, I listened to our
well liked and highly regarded senior pastor, whose long winded sermon on
Christmas was making its final dizzying lap which is always preceded by
"in closing..." and I thought to myself, I could surely write a
better Christmas Eve sermon.</span><br />
<br />
I've got to tell you it's harder than I thought to write a
good sermon, even more so when it's about Christmas. But here it is, my
Christmas Message.<br />
<br />
As I look out upon this cheerful sea of faces, taking in all
that is Christmas, the hymns, the holly and evergreens, the candles and the
many colorful Christmas sweaters and ties, I am so very moved by the wonder of
the moment.<br />
<br />
Christmas is a wondrous time, a glorious moment that comes
once each year in our Christian lives.<br />
<br />
If you attended the children's Christmas Pageant on Sunday
you experienced part of this moment and were no doubt moved to tears.
Especially when one of the tiny shepherds, tripped over one of the many sheep
and they both nearly toppled off the stage.<br />
<br />
The hours of labor that go into preparing the sanctuary for
Christmas are countless, without the many volunteers none of this festive
grandeur would be possible and I thank each one of you.<br />
<br />
The youth group, boy scouts and altar guild sold Poinsettias
and Christmas trees again this year, raising money to support our food bank and
to provide all of the wonderful flowers, greenery you see here this evening.<br />
<br />
In our church as it is in homes, businesses and even places
of our government, we celebrate the season with trees, songs, lights, and
candles some of the many symbols of Christmas.<br />
<br />
But with all of the grand and often spectacular physical
attributes of Christmas we often overlook the spiritual side.<br />
<br />
So it is time to ask yourself, is Christmas on your mind
because Christ is in your heart? Or are you just caught up in the moment?<br />
<br />
I recall the story of a little boy who in his purest of
innocence understood the meaning of Christmas in his own way.<br />
<br />
When asked what was the most important thing about Christmas
he replied “having Jesus in your heart”.<br />
<br />
Asked how he knew that Jesus was in his heart, the boy, not
more than three years old, announced "I know he's in my heart because when
I put my hand right here, I can feel him doing a lot of banging I guess because
he’s trying to get out".<br />
<br />
The other night I was doing a little Christmas shopping along
King Street in Charleston, and as I walked among the fog wrapped light posts, I
could hear echoes of a Salvation Army bell ringer nearly a block away, muffled
in the nighttime dampness.<br />
<br />
Despite the weather, and the reports of slower than usual
retail sales, the street was crowded with shoppers. A hired Santa with a real
beard, stood in front of a jewelry store, his laugh was true, and both his
"Merry Christmas" and "Ho Ho Ho" were sincere. He was
ringing a bell with one hand and nursing a fresh cup of steaming Starbucks in
the other. I suspect people who look like Santa Claus year around have Christ
banging inside their heart as well.<br />
<br />
Around the corner on Queen Street, a young couple sang
"over the river and through the woods" as they made their way arm and
arm up the wooden steps of Poogan's Porch.<br />
<br />
In contrast, down the alley and up under the end of the
parking garage stood Charles. He's not someone who you would notice, neither a
panhandler nor criminal, Charles keeps to himself. He's one of a dozen or so
Charleston homeless men I see from time to time, who call the streets, parks,
and parking decks their home.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Charles is a veteran of the First Gulf War and other than
being homeless he's just like most of us. He is a father and calls his children
when can; he graduated high school and even attended college. Since he left the
service he has worked in construction and several odd jobs, 2008 has been a tough
year for Charles because he is homeless again.<br />
<br />
When I think of Charles I'm reminded that I'm more or less
just one paycheck away from being homeless myself and given the current
economic crisis perhaps a good percentage of Charleston is not so different
from Charles.<br />
<br />
But we shun Charles; we look the other way, walk a little
faster, even cross the street to avoid contact with him. As I pass Charles he
smiles and gives me a bold and joyful Merry Christmas!<br />
<br />
Why would a man who is so down on his luck, whose heart must
be filled with despair say Merry Christmas?<br />
<br />
Because, Charles has Christ in his heart as well, and despite
the fact that this moment finds him homeless his heart is still filled with the
joy of Christmas.<br />
<br />
The other day I noticed someone had given him a new coat, no
doubt a random act of kindness which was just paid forward with, a Merry
Christmas!<br />
<br />
And as I walk home, I smile because who among us could not
notice it's Christmas.<br />
<br />
But years ago, Christmas was not such a moment, it was not
nearly such a big event, unless you happened to be a shepherd.<br />
<br />
In the stillness of the night, with a star filled sky above
them, several shepherds were stunned when a bright star completely engulfed
them in light.<br />
<br />
The Gospel according to Luke:<br />
<br />
“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby,
keeping watch over their flocks at night.<br />
<br />
<i>An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the
Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them,
"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all
the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is
Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in
cloths and lying in a manger."</i><br />
<br />
Here tonight in this building that we call a church we’re
protected from the rain and kept warm from the cold and here among family and
friends we celebrate that moment that is described in the Gospel of Luke, a
moment in time we now call Christmas.<br />
<br />
But outside this fine shelter made of stone, gleaming marble
and polished wood the cold wind blows and rain skirts the Palmetto trees and
dampness finds its way into every open doorway and even past tightly closed
windows, just as despair and loss can find its way into mankind’s heart.<br />
<br />
With all we do to celebrate the moment that we call
Christmas, the one thing that matters most needs you to make it happen.<br />
<br />
This Christmas Eve, long after the stores along King Street
have closed, about the time the bells at St Michael’s ring out across the
Peninsula just shy of midnight, imagine yourself as a shepherd out in the
stillness of the night and remember all that is Christmas comes down to the one
moment in time, more than 2000 years ago that changed the course of history
forever, the birth of Christ.<br />
<br />
It is up to each of you tonight and every night to spread the
word of hope, peace and joy that this moment is all about, tell everyone.<br />
<br />
Merry Christmas!</span><o:p></o:p></p>Merry Christmas!</span></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-91106880436637099242023-12-22T00:00:00.007-05:002023-12-22T10:06:19.092-05:00Remembering Al Rousso at Christmas<p><span style="font-family: arial;">This story was written a few years back but the "tradition" of shopping at the last minute continues.... </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">My parents have been married now for more decades than I can count and every Christmas my father does “his” Christmas shopping at the last minute. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Times may have changed; he has even embraced online shopping with packages arriving throughout the year via the Brown UPS Truck. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But Christmas for Dad has always meant a last-minute dash to the jewelry store.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Several years have passed but for the longest time there was the annual Christmas Eve trip to Brownlee Jewelers in the Johnston Building on South Tryon Street in Uptown Charlotte. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">One year, I was privileged enough to witness an event that had been occurring every Christmas Eve since at least the early 70’s. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The familiar jingle of a bell held over the door announced our entrance. Despite several customers crowded into the small store, the owner Al Rousso immediately spotted my father. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Calling him by name: “Good to see you, I’ve been expecting you.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A warm smile sprang to his face. “Come on in I got something I want to show you.” Al offered, as he opened the small half swing door that separated the customers from the other side of the glass counters and the jewelry salesmen. As we were quickly swept into the back office, Al looked around, obviously checking for anyone within earshot. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“I’ve been saving this just for you, something I know your wife (he knew her name as well) will really enjoy.” My mother would have been happy with red and white Christmas potholders, the one’s with a reindeer on one side and a sleigh on the other. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But my father always gave her something that sparkled and came in a small box. Mr. Rousso reached down, opened a safe and withdrew a small six-inch-long box covered in navy blue velvet. He looked around again playing his role with exaggerated movements and came closer to my father and me. He opened the box just for the briefest of moments and immediately closed it. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQDuII5a3ckqNUnBukhDhsIc5DvaDjTu4zZdYJengFpEPEOm8g8CET1gIrEtdcm7FJHQqBf2CONKPCCJgRK2gDs1HxXHxXNKa3F3KxAwhyUyclSxnV4HLb0qW8q3sxNQcMFLahvJMk169qUsstQeksu01oeMNFbul7V7_tePpHNOenqlp2IcXDbZX0Kis/s400/Picture1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="118" data-original-width="400" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQDuII5a3ckqNUnBukhDhsIc5DvaDjTu4zZdYJengFpEPEOm8g8CET1gIrEtdcm7FJHQqBf2CONKPCCJgRK2gDs1HxXHxXNKa3F3KxAwhyUyclSxnV4HLb0qW8q3sxNQcMFLahvJMk169qUsstQeksu01oeMNFbul7V7_tePpHNOenqlp2IcXDbZX0Kis/w412-h121/Picture1.jpg" width="412" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>“Well, what do you think?” Al asked. “Wow! …. Oh My! …. honey you shouldn’t have?” he questions. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">My father nods in agreement. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">With a faux look of suspicion and glancing past us toward the other employees busy with customers, he tells my father: “I’ve been fighting them off for weeks but this I told them is for someone special.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Nervously he looks around and opens the box again. You would have thought we were about to buy a stolen gem the size of your fist. A back alley deal so good we should be arrested on the spot. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“And the price?” My father asks. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Al looks at the bottom of the box and hands it to my father, who shows it to me. Al interrupts by asking us to keep it out of sight for what he is about to do the other customers will most likely riot and all his employees might just quit without notice. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“The price is blank but for you …. (a lingering pause) blank” My father looks like a deer in the headlights, no doubt the price is well beyond what he had in mind. After a long painful pause Al concedes “But since its Christmas blank less blank”… and adds “please I beg you don’t tell anyone what a good deal I’m giving you.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">My father smiles and with a quick signature on a small 3-part carbon sales bill it is added to my father’s account. The yellow customer copy neatly folded and placed into his wallet and the gift slipped into his suit coat pocket. We all shake hands then the jingle above the door announces our departure, as Mr. Rousso and my father shout Merry Christmas to each other. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Down the glimmering marble lobby and through the heavy brass doors we step back out onto the street, a brisk wind at our backs. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And that was it, in less than ten minutes our Christmas Eve mission was accomplished. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And so, I was left to assume that the interchange between the Jewish jewelry store owner and my father the Christian buying a gift for his wife on Christmas Eve had repeated itself many times before and perhaps years after that. A simplistic ritual, nearly as old as time itself, merchant, and client. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Al Rousso passed away in 2001 at the age of 76, and the small store at 212 South Tryon Street relocated to the Overstreet Mall but closed in 2020 due to riots, COVID and Uptown crime.</i></b></span></p><p><b style="font-family: arial;"><i>But elsewhere around Charlotte the Rousso family continues the tradition of Brownlee Jewelers. Though I truly doubt it is with the level of theater and salesmanship I witnessed on Christmas Eve so long ago.</i></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Merry Christmas, and thank you Al Rousso</span></p><p><br /></p>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-78823484974176954212023-12-19T13:38:00.002-05:002023-12-19T14:02:58.387-05:00Christmas Letter From Mississippi<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcY1tri3a89tAdpwckHuRUG5ko1BndHXVzinMdvfT23B1xDBMX0lDWp8KQxC6xr4U3VO87hG3Whzyuw-VFF4_8-VHETlavGiGZo3AV9goTQxh2IMzW86B6PDrnV3eCxjssyZ4CDHdzUFs/s1600/Miss+State.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1600" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcY1tri3a89tAdpwckHuRUG5ko1BndHXVzinMdvfT23B1xDBMX0lDWp8KQxC6xr4U3VO87hG3Whzyuw-VFF4_8-VHETlavGiGZo3AV9goTQxh2IMzW86B6PDrnV3eCxjssyZ4CDHdzUFs/w400-h250/Miss+State.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Another year has come on gone, and what a year is has been, certainly not without challenges but still we are blessed. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">As I told you last year at this time I had to have both hips replaced. So in January I got through that. My goodness that wasn’t easy but I managed with Jim and the Lord’s help to pull through. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Jim had knee replacement surgery in April before he got the COVID. He was up and around in no time. He’s such a stud. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">That was until he went to the dentist, seems he has a bad tooth that needed some work, he’s so cheap he told the dentist he didn’t need no Novocain because he was on a budget, says he’ll not make that mistake again. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Pat and Tim are doing great, rain made the planting days drag on for a month but he managed to do ok. Used some of the extra money to buy the Anderson property they’d been wanting for about ten years. He’ll have it in the crop rotation by next fall. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Winter rye is in doing well thanks in part to God’s Grace and Mother Nature plus some late fall hurricanes in case y'all missed the news. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Grand-daughter Kaylee has a job at the Ole Miss Chick Fil A on Campus. Now this is a problem because she really likes working at Chick-Fil-A, says it is more fun that going to classes for her nursing degree. I wished she’d gone to State instead. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Junior has a way with cars and trucks, he’s always finding some old broken truck and fixing it up selling it and making a pretty good profit on it. He found a 1974 Ford F-100 bought it for $500 and sold it for $5,000 says he put about $2,500 in it and about 30 hours of work. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Nana hasn’t driven in years, given she’s blind in her left eye. But Junior though it would be ok if she had a safe car to drive to Sunday meetings and such, so he found a nice Toyota, low mileage and bright yellow in color so you can see her coming.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Now the DMV was a little hesitant but Pat knows some folks and with the promise of daytime driving only they passed her. So she now has a state of Mississippi driver’s license. If you see her coming you might best pull over, Lord help us all. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Katherine took a job at Walmart in Grenada they must like her cause they said she could go fulltime after the holidays if she likes. This is all great news, her first real job outside of homemaker, after all she’s 35 and the three kids are all grown. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Justin works for the State of Mississippi and Katy is working at a pre-school. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Bill and Arleen are doing well, Bill junior is at boot camp in South Carolina Fort Jackson I believe. He’ll graduate soon, smart boy, good looking and more girlfriends than he can name.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The COVID virus tossed a wet blanket on our fall family reunion years back so this year most everyone showed up. Which means we sold out the local Baymont Inn. But folks from Memphis didn’t feel safe staying there since it's not a "corridor hotel" you know room doors on the inside?. Now I'm not a smart person by any stretch of the word but they live in the murder capital of the nation, yet want to tell me don't feel safe at a Baymont Inn in the middle of nowhere? Them two just ain't right.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">No one got sick, we all stayed outside and had a great time. All in all we had about twice of the number from last year. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Eddie got out of the state prison in Jackson he admits he messed-up. Been clean since he got arrested 4 years ago. So he was out about 3 months met some girl at a bar took her back to the halfway house that he was assigned to for his first 120 days out of prison. So he then had her climb in through his bedroom window. T</span><span style="font-family: arial;">his was long about October this year</span><span style="font-family: arial;">. Y'all know his luck well I guess she lied said she was 18 turned out well she wasn't. He'll be spending Christmas in the lockup but his public defender says he's seen worse and but added stupid isn't a good defense. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Hard to believe it has been a year since Bert’s passing. We are still cleaning out the house. We miss his jokes, well most of them. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">All said, things are good here in Gore Springs. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">We wish you and yours the best for the coming year.
With God’s Grace and never ending Love we will carry on. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Christmas blessings to you and May Christ’s light bring you joy throughout the year. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Love Y'all </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Roxy</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Cedar's Note: It doesn't get more real than family Christmas Letters. The names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty. </i></b></span></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-49327373440373554932023-12-17T10:20:00.003-05:002023-12-17T10:20:35.945-05:00A Christmas Tree Story (Redux)<span style="font-family: arial;">Every year cable television provides us with endless hours of touching Christmas Stories.<br /><br />Jimmy Stewart learns the value of friends and family, the Grinch discovers that perhaps "Christmas is just a little bit more" than shopping and dinner parties and while Snoopy embraces commercialism, Charlie Brown and friends come together to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.<br /><br />Well, this is a different story. In fact, a true story, but since my memory is hazy I'll hope Anderson Cooper won't call me out about the details.<br /><br />Years ago in the north woods of Maine lived a large family in a small town.<br /><br />Now folks who live in Maine are a different breed of people. They actually call themselves Maniacs and for good reason. You have to be crazy or at least pretty resilient when you live in a place where the average high temperature on Christmas day is only 18 degrees.<br /><br />Over the years the family prospered and the town grew. For nearly 100 years they called the small town home, ran a dry goods store, a couple of restaurants, taught in the local schools even coached the local high school football team to a state championship.<br /><br />Back in the early 1960's a young member of the family planted a sapling Christmas tree at the town square, where all of the people in the town could enjoy the tree. The tree grew and every year the tree was decorated by the family Dry Goods Store and the young man who planted the tree.<br /><br />Years went by and the Christmas tree grew and grew. It survived ice storms and even a couple of hit and run drivers. It was a wonderful Christmas tree. Nearly 20 feet tall, the tree was healthy and strong, enjoyed by all and it was real!<br /><br />One summer the local town decided to build a park around the lake behind the Christmas tree. They paid thousands of dollars to hire a consultant and architect to design the park and even built a gazebo to overlook the lake. With park benches and sidewalks it was a wonderful park. But people soon complained that with so much money spent on the gazebo and the water front park it was a shame that no one could see it because of that tree that was in the way.<br /><br />The argument raged for weeks with supporters for and against. The city took the position that since the tree represented Christmas perhaps the tree should be removed. After all, the gazebo was a huge investment and they were very proud of it, and the tree was just a tree.<br /><br />The young man who planted the tree objected but his voice was not heard for by now he was old and old people don't know anything about progress.<br /><br />Then it was suggested, that if they were going to have a Christmas tree maybe it should be somewhere else, some place where it wouldn't block the view of the lake and the nice gazebo. They had to make a decision, because soon Christmas would be upon them.<br /><br />The Dry Goods store that had always decorated the tree had closed a few years before, after a Wal-Mart came to town. The store just couldn't compete with boots and jackets made in China. But the once young man still enjoyed decorating the tree, the last of his family's traditions that he was able to keep alive.<br /><br />The arguing became unpleasant, as the tree was called ridiculous, an eyesore and even a traffic hazard. This of course made the once young man feel bad, that perhaps he had made a mistake long ago by planting the tree.<br /><br />So on Thanksgiving day when the once young man would normally string the lights and decorate the tree, he simply took out a chainsaw and cut the tree down. Then he laid it on a long trailer and took it away.<br /><br />The next day the town's people were in dismay. Someone stole their Christmas Tree they cried and police were sent to investigate. A town meeting was called and everyone attended including the once young man.<br /><br />With the entire town gathered, he told them that it was just a tree. That it once meant a lot to him, but when everyone began fighting about the tree it had lost it's purpose; which was to add joy and to bring the Christmas spirit to all who passed by. So rather than have everyone fight about the tree he simply ended the argument.<br /><br />With that he silently walked away.<br /><br />Today the town will erect a "cut tree" in the parking lot down the street from where the live tree stood for so many years. The view of the park and the gazebo are no longer blocked by the once proud and very large "real" Christmas Tree.<br /><br />The fire department does a very good job of securing the tree to keep it from falling over in the often strong winter winds. But somehow it's just not the same as a live tree.<br /><br /><br /></span><p align="center"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img height="202" src="http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/motoryachtsoco/07christmastree.jpg" style="height: 198px; width: 253px;" width="405" /></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br />Even now, several years' later people still ask…. "Whatever happened to the really big tree?"<br /><br />So the moral is simple, take care of what you have, and take nothing for granted, for it may not be there next Christmas.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>Cedar Update: Last year Lincoln Maine erected a "faux" tree of just wires and lights. This year 2023 they just did without the tree altogether. </i></b></span></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-36563900037421440702023-11-23T08:41:00.003-05:002023-11-23T08:41:22.316-05:00A Thanksgiving Story (Redux) <span style="font-family: arial;">Sometimes Cedar Posts stumbles upon something that just puts life into perspective, something I think we all need from time to time.<br /><br />In this case as I look around the large table that holds family members who have come from near and far and think to myself, we'd have a pretty nice family if we'd just kill a couple of these people, and I know I need perspective.<br /><br />And so on this Thanksgiving Day I offer writer Jeffery Rudell's story of family Thanksgiving lore.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj89NmeMUH3Lq_nDLGKrdT1I0LNCT0yUkqVf3cXdOj2xPCGgHxkOGgm4fuNn1h2p51KOuEBu86toPLn_rC-r6u2SqtFepVJ6VmJ0IPaUZhOU-mmpnSyRPMBIeefFPl8g6YNyotTTuk0-t-Sq9k5gqAgxkcA42G1nyGN4Pgq5TJPSnTih9kFlEnuL8V8yKU/s4032/IMG_9424.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj89NmeMUH3Lq_nDLGKrdT1I0LNCT0yUkqVf3cXdOj2xPCGgHxkOGgm4fuNn1h2p51KOuEBu86toPLn_rC-r6u2SqtFepVJ6VmJ0IPaUZhOU-mmpnSyRPMBIeefFPl8g6YNyotTTuk0-t-Sq9k5gqAgxkcA42G1nyGN4Pgq5TJPSnTih9kFlEnuL8V8yKU/w440-h330/IMG_9424.JPG" width="440" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><em>So my last Thanksgiving ended at exactly 5 minutes after 5 pm on the fourth Thursday of November 34 years ago.<br /><br />Let me explain.<br /><br />Both of my parents were lower middle class people with upper lower class educations. My father was a foreman in a paper mill; my mother was a bank teller. We lived in a split-level house in a subdivision that went bankrupt shortly after they bought into it. Inexplicably, in January of 1974, my father came home and announced to my mother that he had sold everything and bought a farm 60 miles away.<br /><br />The farm turned out to be 80 acres of untilled clay, a heap of rusting equipment and two Holstein cows. They argued until my mother agreed to pack up everything and move — everything, including her prized set of chartreuse colored Russel Wright crystal.<br /><br />Within a month, my father had built a chicken coop, gotten the tractor fixed and purchased a bull. The bull arrived and went straight to work. Now, the next nine months went as you might expect, which is to say farming is not for amateurs. So any mistakes that could be made were made, beginning with breeding cows in March.<br /><br />Our first cow went into labor and calved on Thanksgiving at 4 o'clock in the morning. This being Michigan, and a particularly cold season in our unheated barn, it died less than an hour later.<br /><br />Now, seeing his assets frozen on the barn floor drove my father to take desperate steps to sort of protect his remaining investment. So he covered the floor of our family room with a large plastic tarp, put down a bed of straw and brought the remaining cow into the house to have its calf. By noon, both mother and calf were warm and sleeping in the room next to our kitchen. My father put a bale of straw in front of the doorway between the two rooms to keep them in place.<br /><br />Now, while we were tending to the calves, my mother was in the kitchen banging pots and pans and muttering about it being a family room, not a maternity ward, sort of thing.<br /><br />Now, every Thanksgiving it was my mother's custom to remove from her china cabinet one small pale green crystal cordial glass into which she would pour a single jigger of sherry to sip while she cooked. At no other time did my mother drink and to the best of my knowledge no other piece of crystal was ever used. Now, she loved this crystal. She used to brag that her crystal was the only thing she had that wasn't second rate or secondhand.<br /><br />So. The afternoon goes on. Relatives arrive. My grandmother makes a comment about, "What is that awful smell?" but a sharp glance from my mother is enough to keep her from making it a second time.<br /><br />At 5 o'clock exactly, turkey is put on the table. We all sit down to dinner and my grandfather says grace. Now, while God is being distracted by my grandfather, a lesser spirit overcomes the calf and it leaps over the bale of straw and comes charging into the kitchen and crashes into the table.<br /><br />What happens next happens really fast. My mother screams, she grabs her cordial glass, stands up, knocking over her chair in the process. My father, more startled by my mother's screams than anything, sort of half stands, half lunges at the calf, which by now has its nose in his plate.<br /><br />I will never forget that slow motion look of horror on my mother's face as she watches my father rise a little bit and reach for — but not quite reach — equilibrium before falling backward into the china cabinet.<br /><br />Somehow, my father escaped injury but every single piece of crystal shattered. Everything save the one glass in my mother's hand. Now, for a child watching all of this unfold, it was fantastic. But that was our last Thanksgiving together, and for the remainder of their marriage that glass sat on my mother's dressing room table with her wedding ring in it.<br /><br />For all the years in-between — on the 4th Thursday of every November, my mother took great pleasure in preparing a dinner of roasted veal.</em></span></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-18583527262912343072023-11-21T11:24:00.000-05:002023-11-21T11:24:08.069-05:00The Next Great Novel Starts Now!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPQnHzR32BGaLhusG3FZPtE2PI5NGtkircfr6Ir7b4Za2tUm8q6vut3RWXLqDLAFSVfu8Pt6QL4ex7JJNlPXt0Dz8l3SjbNabPjfCJiB_lXWkkuBI-uVzGuy-hbMnm2U8XLMZhXJRDA_YPPEQWtxCLiLws6EpqKZl0itMatvmO853nO1eNW1bgjJ15XBE/s4032/IMG_E1604.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPQnHzR32BGaLhusG3FZPtE2PI5NGtkircfr6Ir7b4Za2tUm8q6vut3RWXLqDLAFSVfu8Pt6QL4ex7JJNlPXt0Dz8l3SjbNabPjfCJiB_lXWkkuBI-uVzGuy-hbMnm2U8XLMZhXJRDA_YPPEQWtxCLiLws6EpqKZl0itMatvmO853nO1eNW1bgjJ15XBE/w446-h335/IMG_E1604.JPG" width="446" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-86293008497846894322023-11-09T13:51:00.004-05:002024-03-08T17:37:49.295-05:00Just So You Know<p><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm proud to say that I'm “American by birth, Southern by the grace of God” and I'm truly sorry if your not.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnwyeuNgaVmEvoYnsvG5493zfpTOqWyMz0qxINqx5HPmKt6PiiYVB_9Rs_tuoG_VnwbqNE4HW2X1BAKOTttyp5gu2Rom6tLz9Dq0Dc5Qp2TCNTrUu024xOpliyAnRyNNbPfhyphenhyphenCbOdI1pQCi3xx2WXyH4z0VVD6w46zz1PGfG49IAqxRP10VRtuli-QRB8/s3264/IMG_6450.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="3264" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnwyeuNgaVmEvoYnsvG5493zfpTOqWyMz0qxINqx5HPmKt6PiiYVB_9Rs_tuoG_VnwbqNE4HW2X1BAKOTttyp5gu2Rom6tLz9Dq0Dc5Qp2TCNTrUu024xOpliyAnRyNNbPfhyphenhyphenCbOdI1pQCi3xx2WXyH4z0VVD6w46zz1PGfG49IAqxRP10VRtuli-QRB8/w441-h248/IMG_6450.JPG" width="441" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span>Henry Clay Duty home he's seated 3rd from the right and my grandfather Ernest Lynn Duty standing 6th from the right. Circa 1915</span></div></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Now as a Southerner with family roots in the Carolinas since at least 1740, and in later years Georgia and Alabama, and as someone who was raised in the north during my "formative years" of 5-15 yet, for the past 50 years has lived in the South, </span><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm going to tell you that the true even though truth is no longer politically</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> correct. At this point freedom of thought and speech is still legal unless you happen to attract the attention of the Biden justice department.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span>John A. Edmonds my mother's great grandfather, Enlisted for the Confederate Cause on October 3, 1861. Wounded at Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862. Recovered and returned. Captured at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. Received at Fort Delaware on July 6. Transferred to Point Lookout on October 22, 1863 where he joined U. S. service on January 29, 1864. He joined Captain Ahle's battery. Filed for Federal Pension October 17, 1898 in Fayette County, Alabama and later moved to Natural Bridge, Winston County, Alabama. He died there on November 7, 1910 and is buried at Concord Baptist Church Cemetery in Natural Bridge.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVM_K3vABkED-7Dhw3QCdco-NDk5skRyDLFSA_oDLUd2X4xTGkDU2olYvCDWZWI1KHgqWqi4XuYe8EOZM_xfeYBVPOTBKAYhao8azYy1_h-ATzsmPMaIpEC3VIxe6eMxJDPweGNKwIgZV9TMR8qp1S3UGfIlnDc0ZLhDLdSoM97WPnGIMERDbKBSJjMZ0/s1024/John%20A.%20Edmonds%20Marker%20Large.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVM_K3vABkED-7Dhw3QCdco-NDk5skRyDLFSA_oDLUd2X4xTGkDU2olYvCDWZWI1KHgqWqi4XuYe8EOZM_xfeYBVPOTBKAYhao8azYy1_h-ATzsmPMaIpEC3VIxe6eMxJDPweGNKwIgZV9TMR8qp1S3UGfIlnDc0ZLhDLdSoM97WPnGIMERDbKBSJjMZ0/s320/John%20A.%20Edmonds%20Marker%20Large.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>John A. Edmonds </span></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Neither Edmonds or Duty owned slaves, and while they owned farms they raised hogs, and cattle and the expense of human labor beyond family was not economical. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>So permit me to ponder – while pondering is still permitted in our Reunited States.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">To many living elsewhere in our great nation The South is a total embarrassment, for it is the land of deplorables and knuckle draggers. The home of treasonist traitors and insurrectionists. We are especially despised by those smarter people living on our nation's two opposite coasts. Notice I say opposite because they are definitely not opposing coasts. The East and the West Coast are as similar are they can be and they are not the Gulf Coast were kind and considerate people live.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Now, brace yourselves my northern friends because until 2020 confederate veterans and/or their spouses or children were paid a veterans pension. That's right those treasonous redneck Confederate battle flag waving racists were actually paid a pension even though they lost the the war. Believe it or not the last recipient of a pension payment from the US Department of Veterans Affairs was Irene Triplett of (wait for it) North Carolina. Yep, until 2020 your tax dollars paid a pension to the daughter of a confederate veteran.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Now indeed, we talk funny. We’re slow and dumb and backwards and always conservative. We cling to our Bibles and our Guns. We got Donald Trump elected. <i>That alone should make our separated brethren in the Disunited States to want to retroactively secede from us. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Typically, our kids say “sir” and “ma’am” and, shockingly, we treat men and women differently, and we hold comically to the long-since discredited fantasy that only women can bear children. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We still put flags and flowers on our ancestral graves – especially those of our our veterans – which is apparently why some folks who come South for the winter in their black socks and sandals, wagging their heads, and honking nasally and incredulously: “Look Martha, these people are still fighting the civil war.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Apparently, we are not Enlightened and Educated like our neighbors from the Better Regions. We don’t read the New Yorker. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">We don’t listen to NPR and watch CNN. We don’t care what Whoopi and Joy have to say on the View. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We don’t realize that we hate our "Black" next door neighbor (whom we are so deluded as to believe that we actually like) on account of our persistent and systemic ‘white privilege.’ In fact it is so systemic and persistent that we don’t notice it. And we don’t know this because we are ignorant, for our children don’t go to Yale, or Harvard or even Stanford. In fact, most of us dropped out of school in the third grade, when the booklearnin’ began to exceed our cerebral potentiality.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It seems that we go about in bare feet and overalls. We spit tobacco all over the place and drop our R’s and final G’s. We marry our cousins – but only after asking our uncles for their hand in marriage. Moreover, we eat roadkill and still have outhouses. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In North Carolina, we either speak mountain hillbilly redneck or a coastal shrimp boat dialect known as bubba speak. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> In that sense, we are apparently better than the people of South Carolina who apparently eat sand. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There are experts in the field of judging groups of people and rating them according to their human worth. This is apparently called “Intersectionality” and is taught at Columbia and Stanford and apparently studies have concluded that the sum total of our worth is zero.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course, they don’t mind when Bubba pulls off to the side of the road to help them change a tire, or when thousands of Billy Bobs join the military and fight America’s wars.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Just so long as we and our filthy kids with mullets don’t move next door to them with our truck on blocks and our dog on a chain blaring our country music and slaughtering our chickens in our backyards, it all good right?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A little history is in order, you Yankees had a golden opportunity to be rid of us in 1861 without firing a single shot or spending a dime. You people hate us, but wouldn’t let us leave! And you’re supposed to be the smart ones?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Well now, you’re stuck with us. You created an ‘indivisible union,’ and hence you are joined at the hip with the very people that make you roll your eyes in disgust, the ones that cost Hillary Clinton her destiny, the impediments to Progress, the ones who make you cry and shriek at the sky and dye your hair various and sundry shades of magenta. Yep. We did that. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And now, in spite of the largely successful program to vilify our region, our culture, and our ancestors, to destroy our monuments, rewrite our history, amnesiate even the memory of our memories – here we are again, people even in the belly of the beast of the People’s Republic of California are once again speaking the forbidden word, thinking the unthinkable thought, dreaming the impossible dream, and considering the inconsiderable consideration: secession. And so, you might just yet get rid of the people you loathe. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But in spite of all y’all’s vitriol and opprobrium, we’re still always and ever hospitable to all who come to visit. We will gladly share some possum stew with y’all, but only after we all gather around the old table, rise for prayers, and sing Dixie.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I have shocking and scandalous news to deliver to my perhaps soon-to-be ex countrymen, so I do hope you like the smell of irony in the morning: Guess What? We’re all Southerners now.</span></p>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-11864432325816420562023-11-05T01:00:00.017-04:002023-11-05T01:00:00.150-04:00Veterans Day 2023<span style="font-family: arial;">This week we will mark Veterans Day.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">One of our lesser holidays that we note each year, but always seem to forget the real purpose behind as it is often </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">confused with Memorial Day but without the Monday Federal Holiday. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This year Veterans Day is Saturday November 11th.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Veterans Day is "Officially" a Federal Holiday, one of eleven in 2023, with Thanksgiving and Christmas (Friday Before This Year) to follow. It is observed in all 50 states except Wisconsin all US Territories and the District of Columbia. <br />
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<span>So here's the refresher:</span><br />
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<span>Remember, Memorial Day honors those members of the armed forces who died in the service of our country, whereas <b>V</b></span></span><em style="font-family: arial;"><strong>eterans Day is a U.S. legal holiday dedicated to American veterans of all wars. In 1918, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany in World War I, then known as “the Great War.” Commemorated in many countries as Armistice Day the following year, November 11th became a federal holiday in the United States in 1938. In the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, Armistice Day became legally known as Veterans Day.</strong></em></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Cedar's uncle, Dr. Richard Brown was one of many veterans in our family. Dr. Brown served in a MASH Unit during the Korean war. He shipped out in 1952 within weeks of marrying my aunt and graduating from medical school. His photo is below. </span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">After the war he returned to the states and continued his medical career as the only doctor in the small town of Spencer West Virginia. Dr. Brown is a West Virginia native who graduated from University of West Virginia and was a fraternity brother of actor comedian Don Knotts. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Richard W. Brown, MD Circa 1951 Korea</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "arial";">Dr. Brown retired to Florida in 1990 but will always remained a Mountaineer, Dr. Brown and his wife Lois celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in 2017.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Dr. Brown passed away on May 23, 2018 aged 93.He was buried with full military honors in his hometown of Princeton West Virginia. <br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">And so we say thank you to all the thousands of men and women who like Dr. Brown who have served in our armed forces. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The following is an outtake from the book "MASH - An Army Surgeon in Korea" by Otto F. Apel, Jr. MD, a follow medical doctor who served during the same time as my uncle. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "arial";">Just a reminder than its never too late to say thank you to a veteran or in this case a fellow veteran. His book was published 2 years before his death on November 9, 2000.</span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>Korea was a long time ago. </strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>Korea was a mountainous country far away and the war there happened a long time ago. Even now, time and distance separate us. Korea was far from my mind on a recent autumn evening as I drove from my office in the Ohio River town of Portsmouth, out the rural roads into the hills and farms and communities, to my house back up a country road away from everything. </strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>In the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio in the fall, when the leaves turn colors and the weather cools and the geese flock south, the mushrooms are out in the fields. As I turned up the country road toward home, I was followed by a man and a woman in a pickup truck. My wife Joan, saw them too. Neither of us said anything. </strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>We left the gravel road and eased into our own lane, and the truck followed us. The lane nearly a half of mile of new gravel, rolled over the hills and up to the house. We stopped and the truck stopped about fifty yards behind us. I watched cautiously in the rear view mirror. The man got out, grasped a strand of barbed wire fence, pushed it down, and stepped through into the field. He was a tall, slender, clean cut man with thin threads of graying hair slicked straight back, and he wore a faded old army field jacket. He sauntered into the field. He stopped and searched the ground, strolled on, stopped and searched some more. He looked up at us. We looked at him. He dropped his gaze to the ground and continued his slow, deliberate about the field.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"Who is that?" Joan asked.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"I don't know," I said.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>I put my car in reverse and eased back towards him. Several yards away, I stopped and stepped out. The man glanced up, unsurprised. He was a handsome man who appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties, I looked at the truck and saw the woman starting at us. The man's clear eyes searched the ground as he ambled on over to the fence. He clutched something in his clean lean fingered hand.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"Can I help you?" I said. While standing cautiously on the other side of the fence.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"Naw, I don't need no help. I'm just out here looking for mushrooms.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"I don't know whether there are any mushrooms out there", I said. I glanced involuntarily to the fading green pasture.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"This your property?" he asked.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>I said it was. Joan watched from our car. </strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>He came a little closer until he stood several yards from me but still on the other side of the fence. Beneath the old, torn army field jacket he wore a plaid shirt and overalls.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"You Dr. Apel?" he asked.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>I said I was.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"You the surgeon?"</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>I nodded. "Can I help you with anything?" I asked.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"You the one I read about in the paper a couple of months ago? The one who was in the MASH unit in Korea?"</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>I nodded.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>He looked over his shoulder and quickly back to me. He smiled "You remember me?"</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>I searched his face. "I don't think I do."</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>He said his name and it did not ring a bell.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"I lived on Fourth Street all my life. Grew up there, went to high school four of five years behind you. I lived there all my life. </strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>I could see that he held a mushroom in this hand; he pulled it up close to his face and studied it. He turned it, pinched it open as if he were dissecting it. Without looking up from his mushroom, he told me when he worked. </strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"I worked there ever since I got back from Korea," he said proudly.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>In the silence of the evening , a tractor engine roared slowly over the field. A distant car with its lights on pushed down the country road.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>You still don't remember me?"</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>For the life of me, I could not place him.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"I was in your MASH unit back in 1951. I was with the 17th Infantry, 7th Division. Was hit in the should near the Hwachon Reservoir. They brought me in and I seen you working there and asked if it was you. I said to the nurse, Is that man from Ohio?" And the nurse, she looked and said you was."</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>He lobbed the mushroom underhand out into the field.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"I was there in 1951 and '52," I said.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"I know you was," he said quickly. "You worked on me and next thing I knew I was back in Japan in one of them hospitals. I never got to say thanks, to you. Hadn't been for you, they tell me I woudla been dead."</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>I had to smile.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>He scrunched his face. "Yeah, ever since I got back, I been meaning to come out here and say 'thanks' to you."</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"That was fifty years ago," I said.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"Yeah," he said with a sheepish grin. I guess time just gets away for you, don't it? I been meaning to come out here and just never got around to it. Kept meaning to come out sooner or later. I thought today's as good a time as any."</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>I laughed warmly. "I appreciate it."</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"Anyway," he said, "thanks for all you done."</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>We stood for a moment in silence. The cicadas screeching in the trees.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"Well," he said, "can't keep the wife waiting."</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>And with that, he turned and sauntered back toward his truck. I watch as he walked slowly, grasped the barbed wire, opened a place and crawled through. He hopped across the gully to the pickup and stepped in. The engine started with the roar of the rusted-out muffler, and he went on down the road. In a moment her was out of sight.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>"You're welcome," I said.</strong></em></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><em><strong>Korea and the MASH were a long time ago. I have not been back since 1952 - except frequently when I have involuntarily jerked at a loud noise that sounded like artillery or when I have cried out in the darkness from a deep and vivid dream. Now even the thoughts and the dreams are less frequent. But all this time I have intended to go back. I have wondered what that was about and what we were doing there. I know it is a part of us and a part of me, and all these years I have intended to go back.</strong></em></span> <br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">You can purchase Dr. Apel's book on Amazon in both hardback and electronic editions </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/MASH-Otto-F-Apel-M-D-ebook/dp/B0078XFQLU" target="_blank"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">here. </span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;">We are proud of our family of veterans:</span><br /></b>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>John MacEntyre</b>, <i>Continental Army 1776-1778</i></span><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Samuel Studdard</b> <i>South Carolina Militia 1812-1814 Horseshoe Bend, Battle of New Orleans </i></span><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Nathan Edmonds</b>, <i>US Army Georgia Volunteers Seminole Indian Wars 1818</i></span><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Samuel MacEntyre</b>, <i>US Army KIA 1863 Battle of Kennesaw Mountain</i></span><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>John Edmonds</b>, <i>CSA 26th Alabama Captured Battle of Gettysburg US Army 1861-1864</i></span><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Ernest Lynn Duty</b>, <i>US Navy WW I 1914-1916</i></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>William O. Durham,</b><i> US Army WW I 68th Infantry Division 1914-1918<br /></i>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Donald Dufalt</b>, <i>US Marine Corps KIA 1942 Iwo Jima Battle of Midway WW II</i></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Teman Wilhite</b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">, </span><i style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">US Marine Corps WW II, Navy Cross, Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple Heart Battle of Midway 1942</i></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Wallace Edmonds</b>, <i>US Army 1941-1943 Germany WWII</i></span><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Simon Henry</b>, <i>US Army WW II and Korea</i></span><i><br /></i>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>John Geiger</b>, III, <i>US Army Air Corps Germany, WW II</i></span><i><br /></i>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Milton Carney</b>, <i>US Marine Corps WW II, Korea</i></span><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Richard W. Brown</b>,<b> MD</b> <i>US Army MASH 1951-1952 Korea </i></span><i><br /></i>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Robert Brown</b>, <i>USAF Panama </i></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Un-Named Family</b><i>, US Army Cold War 1968-1972</i><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;"><b>Peter Carney</b>, <i>US Navy Iraq Afghanistan</i></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Un-Named Family, </b><i>US Navy US Air Force Reserves Iraq Afghanistan </i><br /></span>
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</div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-89023294341512955632023-10-29T01:00:00.001-04:002023-11-12T09:36:50.396-05:00Injun Summer 1907 By John T. McCutcheon<span style="font-family: arial;">In 1907 these two cartoon panels debuted in the Chicago Tribune. This artwork and accompanying story written in 1900's simple folk speak was the formal declaration of fall and all that was magical about the season:</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Yep, sonny this is sure enough Injun summer. Don't know what that is, I reckon, do you? </i></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Well, that's when all the homesick Injuns come back to play; You know, a long time ago, long afore yer granddaddy was born even, there used to be heaps of Injuns around here—thousands—millions, I reckon, far as that's concerned. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Reg'lar sure 'nough Injuns—none o' yer cigar store Injuns, not much. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">They wuz all around here—right here where you're standin'. </span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Don't be skeered—hain't none around here now, leastways no live ones. They been gone this many a year.</i></span></div><div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYEvE2G418NMIRmWHBg9EPOOp28FaIuq6qZsH3WnRlqECizSYxNJ6pBKMFpe-jtTsuW1h_QzVbQl4xsV_nPOx4McfY5u9LAIzii198-puloYBrVAIIFI_Xb-FPvkfqnCi-DJI8LcdWpNKG/s1600/InjunSummerA.jpg" style="font-family: arial;"><img alt="" border="0" height="196" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534150980337803490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYEvE2G418NMIRmWHBg9EPOOp28FaIuq6qZsH3WnRlqECizSYxNJ6pBKMFpe-jtTsuW1h_QzVbQl4xsV_nPOx4McfY5u9LAIzii198-puloYBrVAIIFI_Xb-FPvkfqnCi-DJI8LcdWpNKG/w490-h196/InjunSummerA.jpg" style="cursor: hand; height: 160px; width: 400px;" width="490" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>They all went away and died, so they ain't no more left. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial;">But every year, 'long about now, they all come back, leastways their sperrits do. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">They're here now. You can see 'em off across the fields. Look real hard. See that kind o' hazy misty look out yonder? Well, them's Injuns—Injun sperrits marchin' along an' dancin' in the sunlight. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">That's what makes that kind o' haze that's everywhere—it's jest the sperrits of the Injuns all come back.
They're all around us now.</span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpp-FfdJiL7BmSRV1mveKDoznm7EAkZCW6CWpezNLzJovvLhOEvye6tkpoO5uA4ihcDTj0M7R305XdBxXMxYqiX6QBZDTqROo8jIGCnFde7Pc8kmTCjhlmKf3DiN4mybqedRCd0Dn9ING/s1600/InjunSummerB.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534151529086853266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpp-FfdJiL7BmSRV1mveKDoznm7EAkZCW6CWpezNLzJovvLhOEvye6tkpoO5uA4ihcDTj0M7R305XdBxXMxYqiX6QBZDTqROo8jIGCnFde7Pc8kmTCjhlmKf3DiN4mybqedRCd0Dn9ING/s400/InjunSummerB.jpg" style="cursor: hand; height: 176px; width: 400px;" /></a> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><i><span style="font-family: arial;">See off yonder; see them tepees? They kind o' look like corn shocks from here, but them's Injun tents, sure as you're a foot high. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">See 'em now? Sure, I knowed you could. Smell that smoky sort o' smell in the air? That's the campfires a-burnin' and their pipes a-goin'. </span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Lots o' people say it's just leaves burnin', but it ain't. It's the campfires, an' th' Injuns are hoppin' 'round 'em t'beat the old Harry. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>You jest come out here tonight when the moon is hangin' over the hill off yonder an' the harvest fields is all swimmin' in the moonlight, an' you can see the Injuns and the tepees jest as plain as kin be. You can, eh? I knowed you would after a little while. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Jever notice how the leaves turn red 'bout this time o' year? That's jest another sign o' redskins. That's when an old Injun sperrit gits tired dancin' an' goes up an' squats on a leaf t'rest. Why I kin hear 'em rustlin' an' whisper in' an' creepin' 'round among the leaves all the time; an' ever' once'n a while a leaf gives way under some fat old Injun ghost and comes floatin' down to the ground. See—here's one now. See how red it is? That's the war paint rubbed off'n an Injun ghost, sure's you're born. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Purty soon all the Injuns'll go marchin' away agin, back to the happy huntin' ground, but next year you'll see 'em troopin' back—th' sky jest hazy with 'em and their campfires smolderin' away jest like they are now. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Cedar's Take:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>O</i>n every Sunday before Halloween up until the 1990's the Chicago Tribune ran Injun Summer by Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist John T. McCutcheon on the front page and in later years on the front cover of their Magazine section. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It was a Halloween tradition as much as the Night Before Christmas was to December 24th. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I suspect that if you are over forty it was a part of your Halloween as well since papers across the country usually found the column inches to print the generations old story. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But the tradition of running the story on the Sunday before Halloween ended in 1992. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">According to the Tribune:
"The "Injun Summer" era ended on Oct. 25, 1992, when it appeared for the last time. The drawings may be timeless, but the text had outlived its day. Complaints had been voiced for several years about its offensiveness to Native Americans. Wisps of smoke have continued to rise from those smoldering leaves, however. Every fall, some readers complain that they miss it."
You can read more from the Tribune about McCutcheon's "Injun Summer" <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-injunsummer-story,0,643335.story">here</a>.</span></div></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Throughout my life, American Indian folklore has played a substantial part. I'm married to girl from Maine where nearly everything from the county Penobscot, to the mountain Katahdin has Indian significance. I have marveled at the lands once held by the famous Indian tribes out west the from the Badlands of South Dakota named Mako Sica by the Lakota Indians to Mesa Verde in Colorado, and Gila Cliffs in New Mexico.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">As a boy scout, from my first introduction it was a given that Indians, their ways and stories where important and offered endless knowledge and understanding. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Today wokeness has removed most of Indian culture from our classrooms. All references to the old stories have been washed away as insensitive. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Their names like the mist and smoke in McCutcheon's story, have vanished from text books.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Ask a fifth grader about who was Red Cloud, or Sacagawea you'll get a puzzled look. Mention Tecumseh and they think go-cart engines. But say </span><span style="font-family: arial;">George Floyd and you get an endless stream of misinformation. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Redskins have become Commanders, Indians are Sentinels, and Land-o-Lakes has removed the Indian from the land once and for all, saying it was </span><span style="font-family: arial;">demeaning cultural appropriation to use the image of the woman, who had been depicted as kneeling for nearly 100 years. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Like the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue in Richmond, the renaming of streets in Charlotte, woke idiots are erasing American History daily because the dumbing of America prohibits free thought. In other words you aren't smart enough to understand history.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Just another reminder that Socialist liberals what to control every aspect of your life from vaccines to history and what you share with your children. </span></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-40248317170923770002023-10-25T17:48:00.006-04:002023-10-26T09:56:39.672-04:00UNC Charlotte Director Asha Ellison Ugly Tirade About Charleston South Carolina<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Charleston and the South Carolina Lowcountry has always be the land of Pat Conroy who often took literary license to either stretch or diminish the role of slavery in the South depending on the novel. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Said Conroy “I do not think I was a hothead—not then and not now. I thought I was right. I had read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bible. Segregation seemed evil from the time I was a boy. Slavery is an abomination on the American soul, ineradicable stain on our body politic."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Other writers </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Margaret Mitchell would go on to speak of either the romance the Anthemum South or Harper Lee admonish it for steadfast the role of racism and at one time slavery, is a time honored tradition of many authors. It is indeed a complicated relationship that southerners have with history.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This week<b> Asha Ellison Director of Research Translation and Engagement at the University of North Carolina Charlotte</b> took to "X" from her @GirlGoneCLT handle to express her "uncomfortableness" about visiting Charleston and her perception of the South's most notable city.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxXE5Z_ufrz0JdlOps6ayom5-_s6Qs9xEGH0jD1Srp-9MjJ6pYfAw0k9V68s_uy1X4yPPDZ37hVYq_K48C8rqcCeweAdX0anOrSgSMcj0onqWv_50ImZIRgiba_r5wiLQ6kcKeLy2p3zomSC4QO9ULie2Vy3loUFzVl_h60wIBOn3sbJDzyATJrwBqbzM/s220/Asha%20Ellison%20edited%20high%20res.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="217" data-original-width="220" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxXE5Z_ufrz0JdlOps6ayom5-_s6Qs9xEGH0jD1Srp-9MjJ6pYfAw0k9V68s_uy1X4yPPDZ37hVYq_K48C8rqcCeweAdX0anOrSgSMcj0onqWv_50ImZIRgiba_r5wiLQ6kcKeLy2p3zomSC4QO9ULie2Vy3loUFzVl_h60wIBOn3sbJDzyATJrwBqbzM/w259-h255/Asha%20Ellison%20edited%20high%20res.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Asha Ellison Director of Research Translation and Engagement </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">at the University of North Carolina Charlotte</span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">Said Ms. Ellison: </span><i style="font-family: arial;"><b>"I enjoy Charleston, I do. But I need to make it clear that Black folks experience that city, and most of the Lowcountry, differently than our white counterparts. It’s just the reality of the matter. We don’t feel the same things when we stroll along the rivers or King St. It is thick."</b></i><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Immediately Jim Mitchum who from Charlotte and an outspoken critic of conservatives added to the theme: <b><i>"My daughter just moved there out of college. We recently visited. Told my wife on the way home how I just get a weird vibe there. The dark history hangs like a cloud there. I mean it’s pretty and all, but I can’t get past the idea that human beings were sold there."</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In response says Ms. Ellison <b><i>"Well that’s much of the South, unfortunately. “Hangs” is a word you could use to describe it, I guess. I’d say linger though. Folks are *still* being lynched today."</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And then adds another "X" user: "<b><i>Was JUST talkin to a coworker about this last weekend..Love Charleston.. but the history of that land is literally in the air and I can’t ignore it… it’s noticeable!!"</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And then again Ms. Ellison:<b><i> "I had a community leader here tell me there is an air of “slavery.” And they aren’t wrong.I get physically sick by city market. I didn’t even go during my trip this past weekend. I can’t separate the “people goods” of the past from the product goods of today."</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Well let's stop right here, now you can pretend you feel uncomfortable in Charleston but I can't imagine anyone of color feeling as uncomfortable in Charleston as this white boy did in 1995 on the No. 4 Train mistakenly going to Harlem and 125th street rather than in the opposite direction toward Canal Street by in NYC.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I've lived and worked my entire life in the South much of it in Charleston in both the investment business and during the last 20 years as a yacht captain and I have yet to attend a Klan Rally, a Lynching, or a Cross Burning, in fact my entire existence has been surrounded by wonderful people of all colors and even more so in Charleston. The city has no more of a racist slavery past than Boston, Atlanta or Houston Texas and it damn sure doesn't today.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There is no lingering or hanging in the air feeling of social injustice except to those of questionable intent or unstable personality.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And yet to spread an absolute falsehood about The Charleston City Market and to degrade the "Holy City" is just plain wrong and it’s unfortunate that Ms Ellison would perpetuate her racist ignorance via social media. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Let's be clear they did not ever hold slave auctions at The Charleston City Market.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Yes at one point in time more than 12 million Africans were swept up in Africa and imported to the Americas as slave labor. Horrible by anyone's standard. Most however never stepped foot on US soil. In fact by some counts only 150,000 arrived in the Carolinas and according to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. only 388,000 were brought by force to the entire United States before 1808 when the importation of slave labor was outlawed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As for the selling of slaves yes, there were indeed auctions of humans in Charleston. Most were held on the north side of the Exchange Building where Broad dead ends at East Bay, then later at the publicly funded "Mart" on Magazine Street. Both are more than four blocks south of The Charleston City Market. The "Mart" museum is open every day of the week to tourists on Chalmers Street.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As for <b>The Charleston City Market</b>, the covered open air venue located between North Market and South Market from Meeting Street to East Bay that just the sight of makes Ms. Ellison shudder in fear, well this building was completed in 1804 and subsequent enhancements took place during the next 40 years. Then in 2010 a $5.5 million dollar renovation project began and in 2011 the building as you can experience it now reopened to the public.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Slaves were not part of the building's history never were. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In fact Ms. Ellison's disparaging remarks negatively affect countless small businesses owners many who happen to be Black and who sell their products to Charleston tourists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Charleston is accustomed to ignorant tourists. White Point Garden is "where the rebels fired on Fort Sumter" I've heard more than a dozen times. "They brought alligators from Louisiana to keep the slaves on the plantations in South Carolina". All funny except when you start harming people's livelihood. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Ms. Ellison is no more authentic that the woman yelling about Tony's Ice Cream in Gastonia upset because someone looked at her racist. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As Tim Scott has said : </span><span style="font-family: arial;">“Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country.” Perhaps Ms. Ellison should adopt the Senators clear directive: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">“My mission statement is to positively impact the lives of a billion people with a message of open opportunity”.</span></p>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-83396863851069906092023-10-20T01:00:00.003-04:002023-10-20T01:00:00.151-04:00Everett Wilson A Halloween Tale<p><span style="font-family: arial;">So I wrote this several years ago. Spending much of my life in the South Carolina "Lowcountry" where there is a wonderful tradition of story telling. This is a patchwork of stories told since my childhood, accented with my personal experience of nights aboard a yacht and people and places I've met and come to know who call the Barrier Islands home.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The wind pushed steadily against the palmetto trees, their stiff fronds rustling in the midnight barrier island breeze. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHNbHO419aT-enO0bnFVFi8xaHtTLU3YJL7F0W2WV1Qf-ZnUx-AQzU5wvZFpFfs-LoWl43nzV3VodjT9tMYFIqCkRVYI5i71xu5KnWbe5yN4akot-8wX70oXDXLvG_s2fQoQeAl91-UxIrW-wzTc_ltcOTulASQ30FiimgRarORzYgryG22IwV4jEb/s453/Picture1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="241" data-original-width="453" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHNbHO419aT-enO0bnFVFi8xaHtTLU3YJL7F0W2WV1Qf-ZnUx-AQzU5wvZFpFfs-LoWl43nzV3VodjT9tMYFIqCkRVYI5i71xu5KnWbe5yN4akot-8wX70oXDXLvG_s2fQoQeAl91-UxIrW-wzTc_ltcOTulASQ30FiimgRarORzYgryG22IwV4jEb/w414-h220/Picture1.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>Gathered around the fire, far from the abandoned plantation house, were a dozen shadows. Their voices rose and fell on the wind, and the smell of salt air mingled and danced with that of pluff mud and smoke from burning live oak and cypress logs. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">All Saints Eve was not celebrated until the 1890’s but that didn’t stop share croppers during the days of reconstruction from telling stories filled with macabre and horror as the South Carolina autumn began to give way to the chilled nights of a southern winter. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The civil war had not so much ended, but rather faded away. Tales of battles and bravery were common way to pass the early evening hours in the years after the great war. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">On this night out of earshot of women folk the men shared drink, tobacco and tales. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The young boys came along soon after their chores were done and their sisters and younger brothers were tucked in for the night. The place was hard to find, a single path led across the salt marshes and through the groves of 100-year-old live oak, and it was surrounded by yellow jasmine and thorny brambles. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The oldest of the men was Samuel Wright. When he spoke his corn cob pipe wavered back and forth in his mouth, unless he was packing it with the tobacco, he had cured himself and still the pipe never left his mouth. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Tell us a story Pappy” the young boys pleaded. Samuel ignored the youngsters and continued to silently pack his pipe. “Come on just one story….” The boys begged again. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“I’ll tell you about the three little nigger boys who wouldn’t never keep quiet” Samuel scolded. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Ahhhh we didn’t mean nothing” they said together. Samuel put a flame up to his pipe and took a deep draw. Then he slowly exhaled and puffed a ring that paused in midair for a moment and then rushed off like a ghost into the moon lit night. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“They were divining up souls” he said softly in his deep voice. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Who was dividing up souls?” the boys asked intently. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Samuel Wright leaned toward the boys “God and the DEVIL” he said wide eyed and with emphasis on the devil. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The young boys jumped back but remained silent. “What was that fella’s name?” Samuel inquired out loud to no one in particular. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Wilson I recall, Everett Wilson”. Offered another man. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The young boys leaned in towards Samuel and moved closer to the fire. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Yes, sir that was his name he was a trouble maker and inherently mean, so it was no surprise when Everett Wilson met his end that the story of his death would be told over and over again.” Announced Samuel Wright to the young faces before him. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“How mean was he?” Asked the youngest boy. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Another man spoke up out of the darkness and joined in the tall tale. “He was so mean that he once cut off a dog’s ears because the dog wouldn’t come when he was called.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The boys spoke quietly among themselves, the youngest tugging on both his ears trying to imagine how he'd hear without his ears. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The truth is that Everett Wilson was pretty damn mean, and he was a thief. He would steal just about anything he could get his hands on, and of all the things he stole he loved to steal whiskey. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But the only place Everett could drink the liquor was to hide out in the swamp at night. He didn’t mind the all the snakes, and the bugs in the swamp, but he couldn’t swim and was deathly afraid of the water. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">During the early days of the Civil War the Devil made his was way south looking for souls. The word among those who lived and worked the rice fields south of Charleston was that the Devil and God made a pact. They would simply divide up the souls of those killed in battle evenly as long as the war raged across the low country. There were just too many dead to sort out the good from the evil souls so the pact was agreed to. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">One day Everett Wilson stole a bottle of whiskey from the town doctor and just after dark he made his way to his secret place in the high marsh on a dry spot encircled with sea island grass. Wilson was a towering man, he wasn’t a free man but he did just whatever he pleased. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">No one wanted his work because he had such a mean streak. But as mean as he was he was no match for the drink and soon passed out with his lantern and bottle by his side. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The night wore on and well after dark, Wilson awoke from his drunkenness to the sound of voices. He lay there staring at the full moon overhead and listened as the voices broke out in song, songs he didn’t recognize. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> "Them’s must be Yankee songs", Wilson thought to himself. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The wind blew gently across the moonlit marsh as Wilson dared to look above the sea oats and grass across the low-lying levee, he could see a fire and shadows moving about. "Yes sir them's Yankee troops and many of them as well", Wilson said out loud but in a hushed voice. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Wilson lit his lantern that he had carefully wrapped in a wet burlap sack to hide the light. If needed he could remove the cover should someone approach. But he wasn’t about to announce his presence unless he had to, for fear that they might steal his what was left of his liquor. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A dozen miles away the members of the 14th South Carolina Volunteer Infantry McCalla Rifles walked quietly in the darkness. There were no songs and no idle talk as they walked single file along the sandy road in silence. Though the night was still damp with the afternoon’s heat there was a definite chill in the air. A chill that meant winter would soon settle over the Barrier islands of South Carolina. It was the 31st of October 1862. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Close to midnight the men slowed their pace, the smell of smoke in the air was enough to let them know Yankees were no more than a little piece away. They moved ahead on lighter heels and soon discovered that indeed the Yankees were camped just the other side of the levee that held back the brackish waters of the Edisto River and allowed the rice to thrive. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The plan of attack was simple, outnumbered the volunteers would strike fast and hard hopefully killing a few Yankees and then retreat into the woods and then to a rally point 2 miles away. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Everett Wilson had drank more of his whiskey and dozed off to sleep again when he rolled over to find the tide on a full moon, had pushed the waters of the Edisto River up to his high spot in the marsh. Abruptly he sobered up realizing that he was surrounded by water. Wilson was afraid that the tide wouldn’t begin to recede and he might drown, but a much worst fate was about to seize upon the man. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Suddenly gunfire ripped through the night, smoke could be seen coming from the far tree line near the road. The full moon shined brightly only to be outdone by brilliant flashes from the muskets of the rebel infantry. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As the Yankees sounded the alarm, there were also screams of pain as the rebel bullets found their mark. But the bullets were also hitting the marsh around Wilson. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Expectedly return gun fire erupted from the Yankee camp. Before he could react, a Yankee bullet whistled by Wilson’s head and knocked his hat into the water. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Shots were coming from both sides now and Everett Wilson was square in the middle of the crossfire. Wilson tried to run, but in each direction was water, deep cold water. In the confusion and his drunkenness Everett Wilson pulled the burlap cover off his lamp and raised it in hopes that the soldiers would stop shooting. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">For reasons only known to Everett Wilson he stood up towering in the darkness and waved the lantern in a mindless move that was met with bullets from both sides. In all eighteen musket balls ripped into Wilson’s body most before he fell to his knees. Nine bullets from the Union side nine from the Rebel’s. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At the midnight hour on October 31st, 1862, as Everett Wilson lay dying the Rebel attackers retreated. The Yankees had also run to safer ground leaving their dead behind. Between midnight and when dawn’s first light rose to meet the stars, Everett saw God and the Devil in the tall marsh grass and thick fog coastal fog. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">They were dividing up the souls. “One fer me, One fer you, One fer me, One fer you” the Devil was saying. In total 11 Union soldiers were dead and when the Devil took the last soldier Wilson figured God would get him and he would go straight to heaven. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Having divided up all the dead the soldiers God and the Devil looked at Wilson. Wilson’s soul pleaded for God to take him but God said it was the Devil’s turn. But the Devil wanted no part of Everett Wilson saying “Hell has enough trouble makers and thieves”. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And with that the God and the Devil vanished into the darkness. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">To this day among the marsh grass and the pluff mud just before dawn you can hear him calling out for God and the Devil. “Come Back, Come Back” “Take Me Take Me”.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Some say they’ve seen Everett Wilson rise up from the water waving a lantern with one hand and holding a bottle of stolen liquor in the other. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A man so mean he was wanted neither by God or the Devil, he wanders the banks of the Edisto River each night calling out for his soul to be taken. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“You best listen for him because if he calls your name and you don’t answer he’ll cut off your ears and steal your soul.” Samuel Wright told the young boys who were all silently nodding up and down with their mouths agape. With that two of the men who had snuck off unknown to the young boys reached out from the darkness behind them and grabbed the boys by their ears. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The old men laughed as the boys ran for their lives and screamed out in horror of having their ears hacked off by the ghost of Everett Wilson. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Soon the men were passing the bottle again, and the boys recovered and caught their breath. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Then in the silence they all saw it, across the fog shrouded salt marsh the light of a lone lantern appeared and then vanished into the night. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And no one said a word.</span></p><div><br /></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-67660133432643390452023-10-05T18:19:00.007-04:002023-10-14T20:11:36.675-04:00October 5, 1993 CMPD Officers Burnette and Nobles EOW <span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">John and Andy were the first two officers killed at one time in the history of Charlotte and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoev-aX9O3TNLlHXV761EZr94Z7jlscNGfukWPNctCbYFSeNJTGqvO-PtXgXQxxulZ9mnWOVKuJIhoo2afKU-XsvW7ed8pIv26YjdpY9flIdhdgsiM9ZJez-BHQbRsJY2n9GAXMMjKii8/s1600/John+and+Andy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoev-aX9O3TNLlHXV761EZr94Z7jlscNGfukWPNctCbYFSeNJTGqvO-PtXgXQxxulZ9mnWOVKuJIhoo2afKU-XsvW7ed8pIv26YjdpY9flIdhdgsiM9ZJez-BHQbRsJY2n9GAXMMjKii8/s320/John+and+Andy.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The officers patrolled Boulevard Homes - a housing project that was notorious for crime. </span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">On October 5, 1993 John and Andy were chasing a suspect who ran into a wooded area near the Boulevard Homes housing project.
The suspect shot and killed the two officers. </span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">In the 30 years since, Charlotte has erected a memorial Uptown to honor all officers who died in the line of duty. Burnette's and Nobles' names are there.
That's not the only place.
City officials tore down Boulevard Homes and built the Renaissance Development.
Two roads in that development are now named after the officers.
<a href="http://www.charlottemagazine.com/Charlotte-Magazine/June-2008/Crime-Time/" target="_blank">Related</a> </span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">But now 30 years later much of the current CMPD rank and file never knew John and Andy. </span></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Rookie Officers hear the cautionary tale and try to understand the why and how, but most will never understand that it was more than just two active duty officers killed in the line of duty by a worthless Mofo. It was the beginning of the end of a good department.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Most of those on duty that night have now retired. I can remember asking a friend a CMPD sergeant for some doing some secondary and he begged off saying I just lost two of my guys. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">As the sun begins to set on this memories come fast. It is hard to know and not think about it. A radio call brings back a flood of emotion. Those who knew John and Andy think of them often the job is like that. But you try not to think. Its hard for those left behind. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Rest easy heroes we have the watch.<br />
<br /><br /></span></div></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-89711064928038014742023-09-14T00:30:00.001-04:002023-09-15T06:18:41.860-04:00A Day In The Life - Throwback Thursday<p><span style="font-family: arial;">It’s 4 AM and I've awoken to the Beatles "A Day in the Life" playing in my head, sadly for me most the “people” I know are still sleeping.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Most those who wake up at 4 AM will just roll over, fluff their pillow, and drift off back to sleep. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But to me, one of the best things about living part time in Charleston's historic district, an area void of look alike cloned houses and silent streets after 9:30 of urban planned subdivisions, my Charleston neighborhood is alive, even in the small hours that follow midnight.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The city is respectfully quiet, but there is life at every turn and knowing that I have two eager friends to walk along with me, makes the choice to go for a 4 AM walk easy. They never need encouragement, their otter tails banging everything in reach, my two happy clowns who the rest of the world calls "Labs" are ready to go and the three of us bound out the door.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Thunderstorms swept through Charleston around midnight and some of the streets are still flooded something you learn to live with if you call Charleston home.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2ERbuRdjA7vAhSLAHk-hFFHH9ZdzPsnk8WTSS5aCCa22SOeOLUDYb5BubKHJQxQekGVK_aXyCMAUWLA57RPHdMD6dyhXAlytMZPJfGClEKO4AfY7PeEYT-i4_5ZpvUvJU383NA0XRbWmu6kK5ieXUHY-Ykd7SeE1uV2cKlqOp7gxlUnacrRtQwwJVOA/s1600/Charleston%20at%203%20AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1070" data-original-width="1600" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2ERbuRdjA7vAhSLAHk-hFFHH9ZdzPsnk8WTSS5aCCa22SOeOLUDYb5BubKHJQxQekGVK_aXyCMAUWLA57RPHdMD6dyhXAlytMZPJfGClEKO4AfY7PeEYT-i4_5ZpvUvJU383NA0XRbWmu6kK5ieXUHY-Ykd7SeE1uV2cKlqOp7gxlUnacrRtQwwJVOA/w446-h298/Charleston%20at%203%20AM.jpg" width="446" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Up on Broad the Blind Tiger has closed but the staff are still cleaning up. Along the East Bay a lone patrol car sits, the officer inside completing paperwork looks up just long enough to recognize Madison and Callie, he knows the dogs but doesn’t know or acknowledge me.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The section known to all as Rainbow Row is dark and void of her famous pastel colors, simply muted tones of gray and white.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Along high battery all is quiet the harbor shrouded in low hanging clouds passing swiftly out to sea. It's still and the water seems nearly motionless.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Charleston is a city of subtle oddities. South Battery Street is a block from The Battery and the street that runs along the battery is called Murray Boulevard.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Years ago, they filled in the marshland that had grown up over the years along the Ashley River after all the small ships and wharfs shut down. Someone decided to build a sea wall and the property became prime real-estate and so with the sea pushed back, homes sprang up.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In the dark dampness of the predawn hours I notice a lone fisherman, his pole, cooler and bucket. A lit cigarette in his mouth, he eyes my two dogs cautiously gives a friendly wave and casts his bait into the tide.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">My grandfather taught me long ago a secret that fishing wasn’t just about where but about when, the moon and the tides all played into catching fish and tonight at 4 AM the fishing is good. But this secret was not only a secret to me, for scattered down the concrete edge of the Ashley River are no less than 30 cars outside each darkened car are couple of poles and buckets. These buckets are about fifty feet apart, another fifty feet and another fisherman. Some sit, some lean, some are asleep in their cars, those who came together take turns watching the pole and checking their bait.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At 4 AM this is an surprising sight and in the darkness their black faces are hard to see, they are all black and they are all fishing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Good Morning, says Trenton, he’s afraid of Madison and Callie he says “Man them two dogs are so black I didn’t even see them until you was right here”. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I laugh and he knows why I’m laughing. Other than the fish Trenton just put in his bucket I’m the only white thing on the battery this early in the morning and Trenton is no easier to see than Madison or Callie.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I circle the dogs back about ten feet and tell both “down”, and they drop like Marines on a drill sergeant’s command.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Trenton asks if they are black labs and stops me from answering by adding.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">"I know they black."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I polity tell him yes they are black labs</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">They bite?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">No Sir, I offer.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And they’ll just stay there.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Yes Sir, I reply. They will stay like that until I say OK lets go.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">He’s talking to me keeping an eye on Madison and Callie just in case they make a move.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Trenton tells me the moon is right and at slack tide so you fish when they are biting and proudly shows me a bucket of small fish.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Up and Down the battery the buckets are filled with the same small fish. Fishing is, as Trenton says, “real good”. Trenton tells me he's been fishing here at night for as long as he can remember, and that he used to come here with his father and his grandfather.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I learn they both have "passed" and that his sons want no part of fish, or fishing and so Trenton fishes alone.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We leave Trenton and the other fisherman behind and make out way past the Coast Guard Station and in no time we are back home again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We’ll leave Charleston alone for now. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The black mass of fur has curled up into one ball each dog on top of the other. Two pairs of eyes look up at me and the tails thump the floor as if to say we'll ready to go again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Stay, I tell them, and Madison lets out a big sigh.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Dawn is still mercifully just an hour away. Sleep is not easy to come by with so much to do at 4 AM and then it starts again:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Woke up, fell out of bed</b></i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Dragged a comb across my head</b></i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Found my way downstairs and drank a cup</b></i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>And looking up, I noticed I was late</b></i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Found my coat and grabbed my hat</b></i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Made the bus in seconds flat</b></i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Found my way upstairs and had a smoke</b></i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>And somebody spoke and I went into a dream</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Tuesday, March 30, 2010</span></p><p><br /></p>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-17987083362140598012023-09-11T07:08:00.005-04:002023-09-15T08:01:41.499-04:00 One Man's Story 9/11 September 11, 2001<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>On September 11, 2001 I was thankfully 700 miles away in Charlotte. To this day I’m haunted by this memory.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>There are things that tie this nation together, Pearl Harbor, Challenger, and 9/11 as it has come to be known. But now 22 years on, many people not directly affected by the great loss of life or living in New York at the time may have forgotten the hours immediately after the first plane roared into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.</i></span></p><p><i style="font-family: arial;">The current president Joe Biden will skip today's ceremonies in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. It is his belief that it is time for our Nation to move on. He has said the same about Pearl Harbor in the past.</i></p><p><i style="font-family: arial;">Certainly anyone over the age of 30 understands what happened that day, but still only a small number of Americans know what New York was like during the attack and in the first hours after.</i></p><p><i style="font-family: arial;">As I said above CP was thankfully not in New York on September 11th having left the city two days prior. I watched the second plane impact the South Tower live on television. The rest of the day is a distant memory, except for the silence in the air that afternoon. Unknown to me one of my colleagues a fellow investment professional was at ground zero.</i></p><p><i style="font-family: arial;">His story arrived 2 days later via fax at my office. The images at the bottom of this post are of that fax that I've kept in my top desk drawer for the last 22 years. </i></p><p><i style="font-family: arial;">Today I'm sharing one man's story unedited with the exception that I've added times and dates for clarity.</i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;">(The images you will have to click on each image to enlarge) </span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">From Jay:</span></p><p><b style="font-family: arial;">My Memories of the day, September 11, 2001</b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">September 11, 2001 will long be remembered as one of the darkest hours in this country’s history. It should also be remembered as one the brightest as thousands of selfless human beings attempted to save lives and a country rallied around all those that had be affected by the horrific acts of cowards who acted supposedly in the name of God. For me it was a day that I will remember for a lifetime.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I left Charlotte on September 10th with my colleague Courtenay Miller and our client Rich Covelli to travel to NYC. We were scheduled to meet with Moody’s Investor Service and MIBA the following day to discuss our golf pool program. We arrived at Newark Airport on time and were met by Concorde Limo for the short drive into Manhattan. As approached the Holland Tunnel, the skyline of NYC towered in the distance. It is an impressive sight.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 10, 2001 12:30 p.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We checked into the Marriot Hotel and then met up with our other colleague, Clyde Measey. We grabbed a bite to eat in the Tall Ships restaurant right there in the Marriott. We discussed our presentation and established the three major point to get across to each party the following day. After lunch we all parted company until 5:00 p.m. when we met for drinks before having dinner at Grammercy Tavern (Danny Meyer’s restaurant) at 7:00 p.m.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">During the afternoon, I decided to run up to Central Park. Not a smart idea, as it turned out to be a lot farther than I had remembered. After making my way up to the Park. I knew that if I want to get back to the hotel in time for dinner, I had better take a subway or I would never make it back in time. I was sever so proud of myself as I found the E train and took it down to the World Trade Center and walked through the concourse back to the hotel. I showered, changed clothes and met everyone upstairs before departing for the restaurant.</span></p><p><b style="font-family: arial;">SEPTEMBER 10, 2001 7:00 p.m.</b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Dinner at Grammercy Tavern was delicious. Each person had something different and each person raved about the food and the service. After consuming too many chocolate desserts, we left and headed back downtown to our hotel. Since it had been raining during our dinner, cads were at a premium and it took us sometime to locate one. Our cab ride was anything but uneventful. The driver was a Colombian woman who declared to all of us that she was a part time cabby and part time drug runner. She told us she would rather be a full time drug dealer but the risk of being put in prison or being wiped out by the drug lords scared her too much. The entire ride back to the hotel she raged on about the United States, its useless attempt to curtail the drug business, its corruption, filth and two-faced policies. While spouting forth and driving, she continually played with her chest under her shirt and kept putting her hand on my leg. Unsetting to say the least. As we approached the hotel she took us in the back way right past the garage entrance to Tower 1. For a moment I remember the bombing eight years ago and wondered to myself if such an event would ever occur again. Little did I know what would occur the following morning?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">After several cigars and beers later for the boys (I had another coke) at the Tall Ships bar, we adjourned for the night deciding on the time to meet for breakfast downstairs in the atrium restaurant. We agreed on 8:30 a.m. instead of 8:00 a.m., as we didn’t have our first meeting until 10:00 a.m., and the walk to Moody’s was just four blocks. We all headed to our respective rooms.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 10, 2001 10:30 p.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Dead tired from my long jog/walk to Central Park, I crashed for the night at around 10:30 p.m. I tossed and turned for the most of the night. I kept thinking it was so strange not to be sleeping well as I had gotten such a work out that afternoon. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 6:00 a.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I spent several house watching TV and as the sky began to lighten at past six, I arose for the day and showered and watched the morning news.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 8:00 a.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I left my room at 8:10 a.m. to meet everyone for breakfast. As I entered the restaurant, I saw Rich sitting on the upper right hand side. He was the only one present as the time. I sat down with Rich and we discussed various topics including the dinner the night before and our strategies for the meeting that day. As the clock approached 8:40 a.m., both Rich and I agreed to go ahead and order and when Courtenay and Clyde joined us they could order then. Our food arrived within minutes and Rich commented to the waiter “What took you so long?” The waiter laughed as it only been 3 or 4 minutes since taking our order and the time the food arrived.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 8:46 a.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I had just began to eat my eggs when I heard and felt a huge explosion. Within seconds there was a second blast which was much louder and severe that the first. The impact of this blast knocked me nearly off my chair. Not being able to comprehend what had happened, everyone in the restaurant just looked around in disbelief. Within seconds it became apparent that something horrific had happened as some type of debris began crashing through the restaurant’s glass atrium onto the food and patrons below. Being located on a raised level of the restaurant there was above us a solid ceiling so that no glass was crashing onto our heads. This was not the case for the other patrons and waiters and waitresses, so as debris continued to crash through the roof, chaos broke out.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Those caught under the glass roof began running towards us to seek cover under the ceiling portion of the restaurant and the tables themselves. Rich and I were looking for cover under the tables but the tables were already jammed with wild-eyed panicked screaming patrons.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As fireballs of debris continue to rain down from above, reality hit both Rich and I and we agreed to make a run for it. As we leapt over bewilder, frantic people to make our escape the debris continued to crash through the atrium and just as we made our way to the restaurant’s front door a body came crashing through the roof and landed on the floor just feet from both (of) us. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As we continued our run, I noticed the people outside the hotel in the open area between the two towers running in all directions. All of them had their arms over their heads and totally panic-stricken looks on their faces. The open area they were running through was strewn with massive amounts of burning debris and what appeared to be a whole bunch of white chalk or dust. (I didn’t realize until later that the “dust” was pulverized concreate.) One frantic man was within feet of the door from the outside into the hotel when he was struck and killed by a falling piece of steel. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The scene was unimaginable and incomprehensible. I had never seen a person die and after witnessing two people killed within seconds and within several feet of me, my mind became filled with an indescribable sense of terror. I realized that Rich and I were in a run for our own lives. I began praying that I would live so that I could tell my wife, daughters and other family members just how much I loved them. I just kept telling myself, you cannot die; keep going, get out of the building before something else horrendous happens.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Realizing I was in the middle of an enormous unfolding disaster, Rich and I raced through the 2nd floor lobby headed for the stairs that would lead us down to the ground floor lobby of the hotel. As we made our decent down the stairs, there were hundreds of people standing around the door looking confused, crying and screaming and not moving anywhere. Most people appeared to be in total shock and like me unable to comprehend what was truly happening. As Rich and I reached the front door, one of the hotel clerks told us not to leave the building. Another police officer said it was safer to stay inside. I wasn’t listening. My only thought at the moment was to get the hell out of the building because the building was located on top of the World Trade Center garage and basement and maybe there was another bomb about to go off. So Rich and I raced out of the doors and what we saw next caused us both to stop dead in our tracks.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">From the top of the front steps of the Marriott Hotel the landscape had been transformed into what I imagine the surface of the moon to look like. The road, the sidewalks, the signs, the cars, the cabbies and just about everything you could see in front of you was covered with a layer of grayish white dust. Scattered among the dust were burning fragments of paper, steel, clothing and body parts. The entire area looked like a war zone. As I regained my mental capacity, I told Rich to follow me and we began to run across the northbound lanes of West Street. As we cleared the median separating the north and southbound lanes, I noticed that all of the cars on the street were scattered around facing in all different directions and of the windshields of these cars were shattered. AS we ran across the southbound lanes we came within feet of a white car that was no longer headed southbound but instead had crashed headfirst into the median on the right hand side of the southbound leans. Its driver was no longer living as his head was hanging out the driver’s side of the car blood was gushing from the side of his head.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As we continued in the direction of the Merrill Lynch building, One Financial Plaza, the carnage scattered about was numbing. I still did not realize what had happened, as I had not yet looked behind me back in the direction of the Trade Center. When we reached the corner of the Financial Plaza (approximately 150 feet from the entrance to the Marriot Hotel) Rich and I both stooped running to catch our breath and re-orient ourselves to the situation around us. It was at this point that I look east back toward the Marriot and saw for the first time the inferno that was raging 80 floors up in North Tower (Tower 1). I remember thinking, oh my God how are the ever going to put that fire out.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 9:02 a.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I still did not know what had caused the fire. I thought it might have been a bomb, a transformer blowing up, a plane off course, etc. I had no idea it had been a terrorist attack nor did those around me. The scene for that moment was one of total pandemonium. People were screaming, crying, shaking and holding each other. Rich and I kept saying to each other, “we’re okay”, “we’re oaky” but then it hit us both that we did not know where Courtenay and Clyde were at the time of the explosion and we wanted to find them right away. To help locate them, we decided to stay close to the Merrill Lynch building in hopes that we would catch a glimpse of them leaving the building and call to them to come join us until the crisis subsided.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">While standing watching the entrance to the hotel, Rich was able to call his wife on his cell phone and leave her a message. He told her “the World Trade Center was on fire. Jay and I are okay. We don’t know where Courtenay and Clyde are but we assume they are fine too. Please call Suzanne, Jay’s wife and let her know he is okay”.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As we stood taking in the situation unfolding around us, emergency vehicles began arriving at the scene and the police were in an orderly fashion pushing people back across the street towards the Hudson River to make room of the emergency response teams. As help arrived at the ground level, all Hell was breaking lose in the North Tower (Tower Number 1). Those desperate folks trapped in the burning tower were screaming for help. They were waving towels, clothes and any other object they could use to draw attention to themselves. Despite their frantic scream for help, no one was able to reach them and many were left with only one option: jump or suffer a worse fate. It was impossible to believe but out of sheer desperation and agony person after person leapt from the top floors to their death. As each one jumped people on the ground began screaming and sobbing. <y emotions were reeling. At one moment I felt helpless, another a coward – I should go help, another moment sick to my stomach and still another this is a horrible nightmare and O am going to wake up soon. I truly did not know what to do, where to go or what was going to happen next. I feared for my own life and wanted desperately to be home with Suzanne, Lauren and Sarah. I also wanted to find my friend Courtenay.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 9:03 a.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As my mind and emotions attempted to create some rational thought process, my whole being was shattered to the core as I dead a deafening roar and then looked up to see what speared to be a tail of either a plane, or a missile slam into the South Tower. The blast was deafening and the heat emitted from the explosion could be felt on our faces – we were that close to the blast. At this point I knew the city was under attack and I was scared to death. I did not know what to do or where to go. Rich and I just started running away from The South Tower towards the Hudson River. I wanted to get away from any building because I didn’t know which building was going to be hit next.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As we ran to the river, I dropped Rich’s cell phone. Desperation set in. I had lost the only thing that could give us access at some point to our loved ones. Luckily some nice guy picked it up and delivered it back to me and Rich reassembled the phone.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As we regrouped along the riverfront adjacent to the marina, I know our next route of escape was going to have to be to jump into the river. I told Rich about the current and looked for a piling that we could each hold onto should it ever become necessary. I figured the water would protect us from any flames.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">After several minutes of no further attacks, I began to develop our game plan of how to get out of the city. I told Rich that we needed to make our way north. By going north, we would avoid being scattered with more debris as the prevailing winds that day were from the north. We thought about taking the ferry across the Hudson River to New Jersey but decided against is as we realized that brought us closer to Newark Airport and all those people trying to find rides out of the metro area. I decided at that point to attempt to make to MetroNorth at 125th street. I believed if we made it there we could get a train to White Plains and pick up a rental car and drive back to Charlotte and Hilton Head. I did not want to go to Grand Central because I wasn’t sure whether or not is was open or in fact whether is was the target of another attack.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Agreeing on moving north, Rich and I made our way around the marina. We were on the southern side of the marina after our run from the second explosion so moving north meant moving close to the Marriot hotel before being able to move further away. Rich was a little apprehensive about getting close to another tall building but we moved anyway. As we were making these decisions, we were continually attempting to make voice contact via cell phone with Bridget to check on the status of Courtenay and to notify our loved ones that we were still okay. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 9:59 a.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As we made our way to the northern edge of the marina, I heard another horrific blast and looked in the direction of the noise. What I thought I saw I could not comprehend…. The shell of the South Tower was peeling away from the core of the building and the floors were crumbling into each other like dominoes. The roar became a 100-foot high wall of glass, steel, pulverized concrete and paper and this wall of debris was rushing toward us at an ungodly pace. In a split second we knew we had to run to get out of the way the crashing building.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Rich and I both took off running parallel to the Hudson River as the cloud got closer and closer over our right shoulders. As we ran we lost view of each other as you had to watch your step so as not fall over those that had fallen, those that had had a heart attack or those there were suffering from asthmatic attacks. After running until I could run no longer, (I had run out of sidewalk and there was nowhere else to run except to jump into the river in front of me), I stopped to check out my situation. Fortunately for me the majority of the cloud had continued to move westward and not northward. That meant the cloud around me was just the peripheral edge of the cloud and not the black cloud which enveloped the area right behind me. As I looked behind me I saw the cloud race out into the river to the shoreline of New Jersey. In its wake, there was debris everywhere and hundreds of people dazed and confused and covered with ash and soot. Many more were floating in the river, either forced in by the blast or there by their own accord. No matter where you looked there were faces filled with total disbelief, fear and terror. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">While standing at the corner of the sidewalk and river, I frantically began searching for Rich among the thousands of other people that surrounded me. I knew Rich was as panicked as me and I knew we were much better together than apart. He was after all not only my client but my friend. After a few silent prayerful seconds, I spotted Rich and yelled to him. He heard me and we were once again reunited to continue together this horrendous ordeal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We both looked at each other in total disbelief. Did we just see what we saw? It could not be. The South Tower did not just implode in less than 15 seconds. It just could not have happened!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Stunned and dazed, Rich and I continued to attempt to walk north. By this time, we were in a massive crowd of equally dazed and frightened people. No one could process the magnitude of the disaster and no one wanted to attempt to comprehend how many innocent lives had been lost in the rubble. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As we made our way back towards West Street, I could see for the first time, the impact side of the North Tower and the continuing inferno that rage from the upper floors. The devastation was more severe that I had thought and I then knew the inevitable – the North Tower was going to collapse as well. My thoughts continued to be with those trapped on those upper floors. It was incomprehensible to imagine their suffering or fate. It was unimaginable that another “human” could have done this to thousands of innocent people.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 10:28 a.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Before I had time to think anymore, The North Tower began to sink into itself. It occurred with the same noise, cloud and chaos that had accompanied the first collapse. But this time you were able to see that the tower was collapsing into itself and falling straight down. This was evidenced by the descent of the radio tower which had once stood on top of the building. The radio tower fell straight down and never toppled over. Once again, my mind was reeling with feeling of total and complete denial and fear. Who could have ever imagined that within two hours the world’s largest buildings would have been reduced to a pile of burning rubble? Who could have imagined that thousands of innocent people would lie dying or dead underneath this rubble? I couldn’t comprehend any of it and I simple muttered, Oh my God, Oh my God.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 10:15 a.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It was now 10:15 a.m. and I was consumed with trying to reach Suzanne by phone. Rich’s phone did not work and there were not any land lines out on the where we had run to escape the masses. While mingling around looking in the direction of where the two towers used to stand, we were once again assaulted with a thunderous roar overhead. People ducked, jumped and screamed. We all thought it was another place headed for yet another landmark building in NYC. It was not. It was rather the roar of the engines of a United States Air Force F16. I have never been so relieved to hear the words “those are our guys. That’s the United States Air Force. It’s all okay.” You wanted to believe the words, but I really didn’t know if it was “all okay.” Who knew if there was another onslaught of planes inbound for another part of the city? What we did know is that we wanted to distance ourselves from the area as quickly as possible. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We began our trek north towards 125th street walking up West Street along the riverfront. We were two of thousands doing the same thing. What struck me at this point in the nightmare was the total calmness of those around us. There were hundreds of thousands of people just walking in an orderly fashion, one foot after another. The screaming and crying had subsided. In its place was the constant piercing sirens of police, fire and other rescue vehicles. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Rich and I agreed we wanted to get away from the masses so we crossed over the northbound lanes and headed north on a road in from the West Side Drive. We stopped for a bottle of water to quench our parched mouth and throats. Unfortunately the first place was without any more water and it was not until several more blocks that we located a place with water.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We just kept walking, looking for an open landline to call our loved ones. Looking for a chance to make contract with those we knew would be concerned. This is where I realized the old saying was true; "sometimes it is easier to be the patient than the bystander.” Each phone we approached had ten or more people waiting and those on the phone didn’t appear to be having short conversations. So we pushed on. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 11:00 a.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Finally at approximately 11:00 a.m. I was able to find a landline and call collect to Bridget in Charlotte. I knew Suzanne wasn’t home and I knew Bridget could try lots of phone numbers and not disconnect me. So I called Bridget. The joy and relief I felt when I finally got through was overwhelming. I knew now that no one would have to worry any longer because Bridget would be able to track Suzanne down and tell her that I was okay. I cried when I heard Bridget’s voice and she told me that Courtenay and Clyde had called in and they were okay too. When Bridget tied in Suzanne and I heard her voice, my adrenaline stopped momentarily, and I couldn’t do anything but weep.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">After regaining composure, Suzanne and I talked briefly and then I returned to my number one mission: get the hell out of the city.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 1:00 p.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Rich and I continued by foot northbound. We stopped at a little after one o’clock at an open air-restaurant to grab another water or possible something to eat. We were able to find a table inside and see for the first time with our own eyes exactly what had happened. The restaurant had at least six tv’s on the walls and every station had another tape of the actual place going into the second tower. I remember thinking, this is not possible. You are having the worst nightmare of your life. You are going to wake up and some director is going to yell, “cut”. Nothing in my life had prepared me for the four hours I had just experienced. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">After a bite or two of a grilled chicken sandwich, conversations with perfect strangers and a hug from one of the strangers we deiced to push on. We attempted to hail a cab but to no avail. No cabby was taking new passengers. The street below 50th street were being left open for emergency vehicles. At this point we had 100 blocks to go (5 miles). So we continued to move north.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">By this time, Rich’s expensive dress shoes had given him blisters and he had resorted to putting napkins inside his socks as to give his feet some relief from the pain. We both agreed this pain was far less than the being suffered by so many behind us at the World Trade Center so we stopped talking about the discomfort and pushed on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At 79th Street we spotted a host of rental car locations. My heart seemed, for the first time in six house, to leap for joy. Maybe just maybe they would have a car and we could high tail it up the West Side Drive and get out of NYC? Rich headed towards Hertz and I headed toward National. To our surprise and utter disappointment and frustration, no one had a car to rent us. Each attendant had the same answer; “I’m sorry. There isn’t a car left in NYC.” Words we dreaded to hear. Crestfallen, we each looked at each other and knew we only had one alternative; keep walking.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">By 86th Street, Rich was really in great pain. We needed a ride to 125th Street or find a shoe store where we could replace our dress shoes with sneakers. We looked up and down block after block but no store was open. Every store had closed for the day and stores were now behind those metal gates used to keep the masses out at night. Up to this point I had not noticed this fact before. But as I looked around, it appeared that the majority of the city had closed and the city had become a ghost town. No wonder there weren’t any rental cars.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We keep walking. By the time we had made it to 90th and Broadway, Rich said he just couldn’t go any further and he would find us a ride from one of those “assholes” who were heading north and had not stopped to help us. Rich stood at the intersection of 90th and Broadway and asked several cars for a ride. It was not until a Porky’s meat truck stopped at that the light did Rich have any success. The truck driver agreed to take us to 125th and we both hopped up into the cab and shared one seat all the way to 125th. Despite one seat and jarring from each little bump, the ride beat walking and neither one of even thought of complaining. It was in fact the first time I smiled or laughed that day. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At 125th, the truck driver let us off. We offered him $50.00 but he refused it. He told us no and said he was only too glad to help us given what we had been through that day. We thanked him profusely and he said God Bless you. It was yet another time that I cried as his simple act of kindness restored my belief in humanity and a part of my broken heart. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I thought when the driver left us that we were at the metro north station. Oh how wrong was I. We were on 125th but clear across on the opposite side of 125th for the station. So we had yet another mile plus to go to reach the train. Rich still needed sneakers so we found “Harlem Sneakers” and we each purchased a pair. What a sight we must have been with both of us in business attire except for me in my black and red Nikes and Rich in his gray and silver Air Jordan’s.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We finally reached the station, waited several minutes and boarded the Harlem Division for the ride up to North White Plains. We sat down for the first time in five hours and oh how good it felt. As we rounded the bend on the train and began to cross over the Harlem River, I could still see the smoke billowing from lower Manhattan. It hit home once again. We had been spared from a horrific disaster. God had spared our lives and those of Courtenay and Clyde. Why? Why were we the lucky ones and yet so many other, thousand perhaps, were not so lucky. I couldn’t comprehend it and I couldn’t think about it anymore because I was exhausted both physically and mentally. It did not stop the guilt though as I sat in the air-conditioned comfort of the soft train seat. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We arrived at the Bronxville station and got off. We looked for a place to grab another water and a phone booth once again to call our loved one and let them know of our status. We were able to find a phone and I called home. I talked for the first time to my oldest daughter Lauren. Her voice sounded so good that it took me a couple of seconds of tears and silence to continue the conversation. Lauren used her cell phone to call and make us reservation at the Rye Town Hilton. When she had them confirmed, we hung up and Rich and I hailed a cad and dove to the hotel.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 6:05 p.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Upon arriving at the Rye Town Hilton, we were told there was only one room available but once we explained what we had been through, the nice clerk gave us each a room. After checking in we went to the gift shop and both purchased a pair of swim trunks, t-shirts and some toiletries. We agreed to meet back in the bar area after getting a shower and making some calls. I was able to talk to Suzanne, Lauren Sarah, my parents, brother and sister, and my in-laws Janet and Cowles, It was so comforting to hear each one of their voices and know that within a short time I would be able to be re-united with all of them. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 8:00 a.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The next day Chip came to meet Rich and me for breakfast. What a sight for sore eyes and what a joy to be able to hug him. It was what I now know was the beginning of the healing process. We ate together and then Chip took us to the North White Plains train station to rent a car. We left with our new red Trans AM car for the long journey back to Charlotte and then Hilton Head for Rich. A long hug good-bye, some tears and laughter and we were off on our 675-mile trek south.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 10:00 a.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The car ride was filled with emotion as Rich and I both grappled with the disaster and the events of the prior day. I remember crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge and looking south to the city and seeing the smoke still hovering over the tip of Manhattan. The sight sent chills though my body and a renewed fear that something still might happen. I accelerated faster over the bridge and remember breathing a sigh of relief as we cleared the expanse. Now it was only a matter of hours until I was able to wrap my arms around Suzanne and the girls.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As we drove south, I remember day dreaming. My mind was filled with the anguish of what I had witnessed the prior day. My emotions ranged from rage to utter devastation for the families that had lost their loved ones. I kept asking why? Why in a world like ours could such a horrendous act occur? How could God have allowed this to happen? Slowly but surely it became a little clearer. God didn’t have a hand in this act of terror. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">He was probably feeling the same sense of sadness that we all were feeling. He was probably thinking, how in the world could one of His children have done such a thing? That realization gave me a great feeling of comfort but I continued to prat that my own desire for retribution and hatred toward he cowards who carried out these acts would subside in time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The drive was long and arduous. The car was silent for long periods of time and then at others there were expressions of anger, pain, anguish and joy. The emotions ran the gamut; tears, smiles, laughter and silence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>September 12, 2001 9:15 p.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We finally made it home to Charlotte at around 9:15 p.m. I dropped Rich off at his son’s house and watched as Rich hugged his son Tom. It was a reunion of father and son and such a joyous one at that. I lingered for only a short time as I longed to be doing the same thing with Suanne, Lauren and Sarah.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>September 12, 2001 9:25 p.m.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I arrived home at 9:25 p.m. and found the back door locked so I rang the bell. I didn’t have any keys as they were in the rubble of the disaster in NYC. I heard Lauren’s voice and I began to cry. I will never forget how good it was to wrap my arms around her when she opened the door and then to be able to do that two more time with Sarah and Suzanne.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">That night I lay awake thanking God for all that He had given me. For my safety; the love of my family; the love of friends and colleagues; my life and for being an American. I had a lot to be thankful for and this event reconfirmed to me those blessings thousands of time over.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As I regain the normalcy back into my life, I continue to mourn like all Americans and God fearing people across this world. I have confidence in mankind and know that good will eventually win out over evil. I still cannot fully process the carnage I witnessed on September 11th. But I can share with other the heroism of other human beings as I witnessed many selfless people attempt to save the lives of other human beings. The memories and the love of my family and friend that I cling to and it is this type of goodness that I cherish most about this glorious country we all call America. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As that wonderful song says, “I am proud to be an American” and I know America and all of its people have the might and strength to recover from this tragedy and eventually triumph over evil.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Foot Notes:</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>2,606 people in the Twin Towers including 343 firefighters and 71 NYPD and Port Authority Police officers perished more than 5,500 were injured.</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>A total of 2,977 deaths and more than 6,000 injured including the Pentagon and Shanksville Pennsylvania crash. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>The 19 hijackers are currently standing at the gates of hell denied entry to their promised paradise even hell won’t take them. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>In 2001 not everyone had a cellphone and yes there were payphones all over New York. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Today there are more Uber and Lyft drivers than Taxi Cabs.</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>The 2001 Trans AM was an awesome car.</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Harlem Sneakers on 125th Street is now Sneaker Den </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Porky’s Trucks both “Box” and “18 Wheelers” still roll along the streets of NYC.</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Rich Covelli is now is his mid 70’s and lives at Lake Norman. He ran C2 Advisors and Pension Advisory Group which closed in 2018.</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Courtenay Miller is still active in the business and is with Park Avenue Securities a division of Consolidated Planning.</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Clyde Measey is with Fifth Third Bank at the time he was director of development with Golden Bear International. He resigned from Golden Bear September 2001. </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Jay I’ve lost touch with but I've kept this letter (Fax) for 22 years a reminder of what was lost that day. No we should never forget, we should never move on.</b></i></span></p><div><br /></div><div><div><div><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Cedar's Take:</b> I'm still stunned at what happened that crystal clear Carolina morning in September and while I lost no friends or family in the attack the pain is just as if I had. </span><br />
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<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">My grandfather a Navy vet never hated the Germans but he despised the "Japs". I never understood why until 9/11. It takes a pretty horrific event to make an entire group of people the most hated and despised of the world's population. Muslims have unfortunately accomplished just that. </span></span></div></div></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-37554671927410842682023-09-08T01:00:00.107-04:002023-09-08T01:00:00.157-04:00Fort Sumter September 9, 1863<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS2eI3s9uKdZ9G10hfITHHE5u50HWxW3G5HQbEAHA6j0qlk3-I81_XjWnulXeYYdBNGmt4MZE48UCcTf8U6UvYZFj252zjCAnKfuEqdNfGmHHuV9e38soa-gHMIXb1Q7UHoWKCuQ6tN3TC/s1600/sumter-inside-under-confeds.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS2eI3s9uKdZ9G10hfITHHE5u50HWxW3G5HQbEAHA6j0qlk3-I81_XjWnulXeYYdBNGmt4MZE48UCcTf8U6UvYZFj252zjCAnKfuEqdNfGmHHuV9e38soa-gHMIXb1Q7UHoWKCuQ6tN3TC/s400/sumter-inside-under-confeds.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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Tomorrow will mark the 160th anniversary of the only Union attempt to storm the South Carolina fort where the Civil War began — an attack doomed to failure by rivalries between Union commanders, poor planning and the fact the Confederates knew exactly what was coming.<br />
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The September. 9, 1863, attack on Fort Sumter was, like the Confederate bombardment of the fort in Charleston Harbor that opened the war more than two years earlier, a complete Southern victory.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />
This time, with the Confederates holding the fort, about 500 Union sailors and Marines in small boats approached Sumter in an unusual nighttime operation. But after about 20 minutes the shooting was over.<br />
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There were about 125 Union casualties — five killed, 16 wounded and the rest captured — while the Confederates lost not a man.<br />
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"The federals lose five boats. They lose five stands of colors and they have 11 officers captured. It's bad" Rick Hatcher, a historian at the Fort Sumter National Monument said ten years ago during the 150th anniversary. <br />
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The fight made national news at the time. Now, 160 years later, that fight like many others during the war has been lost amid bigger milestones such as the Battle of Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg earlier in the summer of 1863.<br />
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The Union wanted Charleston for two reasons, Hatcher said a decade ago.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />
"This is where rebellion and treason began," Hatcher said. "Charleston was also the most successful blockade running port in the Confederacy."<br />
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The attack developed after the Confederates evacuated Battery Wagner on Morris Island three days earlier. Wagner was the battery that the black 54th Massachusetts soldiers unsuccessfully stormed earlier that summer — their exploits chronicled in the movie "Glory."<br />
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What the 54th could not capture, the Union forced the Confederates to abandon when their siege lines moved closer to the oceanfront battery. Capturing Sumter seemed the next step in taking Charleston.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />
Rear Admiral John Dahlgren, commanding Union naval forces, wrote in his log he was informed by Army Gen. Quincy Adams Gillmore that Wagner had been evacuated.<br />
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"The island is ours," he wrote. "I sent a flag demanding surrender of Sumter". Answer: 'Come and take it,'" he writes in the log included in the "Official Records of the War of the Rebellion."<br />
Dahlgren and Gillmore both wanted the glory of taking Charleston for themselves and both planned an attack for the same night without consulting the other, Hatcher said.<br />
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"Your dispatch by signal that you intended to assault Sumter tonight reached me about an hour after I had sent a letter by one of my staff informing you I intended to do the same," Gillmore telegraphed Dahlgren. "In an operation of this kind there should be but one commander to insure success and prevent mistakes."<br />
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But there was no cooperation. When the Navy began its attack before Gillmore could began his, he recalled his 500 troops. Dahlgren's remaining 500 sailors and Marines were hampered by poor planning.<br />
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"Dahlgren hasn't done any reconnaissance. He hadn't sent out any boats at night to see what the situation is and he provides no scaling ladders," Hatcher said. The attackers were in small boats pulled toward the fort by a tug boat and then set adrift. Three Union warships that were supposed to provide supporting fire never got into the battle.<br />
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"Some of the sailors and Marines can't make their way through all the debris by the fort that has been knocked down by the earlier bombardment," Hatcher said. "Some make it to the second level but then hit a straight wall and have no ladders."<br />
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"After casting off from the tug, I pulled up to the northeast face of the fort," Lt. F.J. Higginson of the USS Housatonic wrote in his report. "I succeeded in reaching the fort and immediately attempted to land. I found myself upon a narrow ledge of rocks in which no foothold could be obtained."<br />
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The Confederates, who had recovered a Union code book from a sunken ironclad when Union naval forces attempted to run past Sumter earlier that year, could read federal signals and knew what was planned.<br />
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After the fight, Union forces would never attempt to assault Sumter again. Hatcher said that in the following months, the Charleston blockade was tightened and East Coast blockade running shifted to Wilmington, N.C.<br />
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The battle for Charleston "pretty much devolved into a stalemate" with troops from both sides being shifted into other theaters of the war.<br />
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With the blockade solidified, there was no real imperative for the Union to take Charleston "other than the moral factor of putting a U.S. flag again over the city," Hatcher said<br />
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The Union would never take Charleston. It was abandoned in early 1865 when U.S. Gen. William T. Sherman marched through South Carolina to the west, cutting the city's lines of communication.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Today's revisionist history attempts to portray Confederate forces as illiterate racists and treasonist traitors. Often described by today's liberals as MAGA extremists, hate filled inbred knuckle dragging southerners who only wish was the enslavement of the black man. And of course losers.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">However history still proves that the Confederate soldier served out of allegiance not to slavery rather to the belief in self-governance and state's rights. They fought without compensation or conscription. An all volunteer force commanded by superior military tacticians who would had prevailed had they garnered the support of a benefactor nation as Ukraine enjoys today.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The war for Southern Independence was lost because they were outnumbered and outgunned. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Today the war continues as a war of culture. Liberalism vs conservatism, wholesomeness vs debauchery, faith vs decadence, patriotism vs communism, responsibility vs dependence on subsidies, honor vs lawlessness and finally right vs wrong.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This I believe.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-89263119140735998992023-09-06T11:36:00.003-04:002023-09-06T13:10:18.300-04:00US Army Capt. Larry Taylor Medal of Honor (Back Story)<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>By now you have likely watched President Joe Biden fumbling around while presenting US Army Capt Larry Taylor with the Medal of Honor.</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>An awkward salute and Biden then turns his back to Captain Taylor and walks off stage before the ceremony is over, leaving the Capitan standing by himself brushing tears aside.</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPd9OzvhEia8C6OV2ELMx35GuIPxg1U8d04jhxud0jyClKL4LrRM8wIx_oRv0X1gvx7sALRwj51h6CDnQRtUmuE19BVegT5UC6zxxuR9WtlpaCK096wwDQgmKAXiUYkCtTkBe6jm_GN9IfvVeUSglXNqFWNromx51InMHQMHkkyzyIA-zubwa0fo2knyk/s656/Screenshot%20(1311).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="656" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPd9OzvhEia8C6OV2ELMx35GuIPxg1U8d04jhxud0jyClKL4LrRM8wIx_oRv0X1gvx7sALRwj51h6CDnQRtUmuE19BVegT5UC6zxxuR9WtlpaCK096wwDQgmKAXiUYkCtTkBe6jm_GN9IfvVeUSglXNqFWNromx51InMHQMHkkyzyIA-zubwa0fo2knyk/w480-h318/Screenshot%20(1311).png" width="480" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /><i><br /></i></b></span><p></p><p><b><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Perhaps</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> if Joe Biden understood the back story he would have had more interest. Nah he wouldn't but in case you do here it is:</span></i></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Sgt. David Hill’s team leader gestured for him to get down. He and his two other teammates softly lowered themselves, careful not to make any noise.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Out on a standard reconnaissance mission, the four-soldier team had only moments ago reversed course after the team leader had used a Starlight scope to spot enemy soldiers blocking three sides around them in the pitch-black South Vietnam night.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Now with the fourth side blocked, the team squatted, boxed in and alone.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“We were in a Custer-like situation,” Hill said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The closest terrain feature was the Saigon River, about a mile away. But across swaths of open rice paddies, a crossing would have meant a death sentence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At least a few squads, possibly platoons, of enemy soldiers had likely set up multiple ambush points.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Luckily a water buffalo trail, hard-packed by the massive beasts, formed a kind of natural parapet for at least some cover.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">They put claymore mines around their position, and the four men set up back-to-back, each covering an entire cardinal direction, waiting for the rush to come.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Team leader Pfc. Robert Elsner, from Manhattan, New York called for everything — artillery, air support, help. The team leader had been a sergeant about a week before, and was now a private, having gotten on the bad side of some commander or other, but would soon be a sergeant again. Rank aside, he was the best leader for the job.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At about 2100, on the northeast side of Saigon, about 30 miles away, the plea crackled over staticky radio.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The call was answered by 1st Lt. Larry L. Taylor, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who alongside his co-pilot and gunner CWO2 J.O. Ratliff, of Cody, Wyoming jumped into a two-seat attack helicopter, the AH-1G Cobra, call sign “Dark Horse 32,” and took flight alongside Taylor’s wingman, Capt. Roger D. Trickler, 31, of Daleville, Alabama, and his co-pilot and gunner, Capt. Richard Driggs LeMay Jr., 27, of New Britain, Connecticut.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The four aviators were part of Troop D (Air), 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division. The men on the ground were out of “Wildcat 2″ the call sign for their four-soldier recon team under F Company, 52nd Infantry (Long Range Patrol) 1st Infantry Division.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The next half hour would witness one of the most daring rescues of the Vietnam War, and it would be carried out by a helicopter designed only for attack. In the weeks following, death after death hit the unit. Those who knew just what Taylor had done either spread out on other combat missions or died in tragic, but all too common events for that time in the war.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In those ensuing decades the men from that night would grow gray, reunite and Hill, among others, would fight a different battle, one with folders, yellowing documents and binder clips instead of M16s, grenade launchers and claymores.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But on both the fateful night of June 18, 1968, and now in the coming days, their tenacity, perseverance and intrepidity would prove victorious.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And that’s the start of how former Capt. Larry L. Taylor will become, on Sept. 5, the most recent recipient of the nation’s highest valor award: the Medal of Honor.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiw02PW7_5FwVZt_VdXkWNhnh_Hp52giRixOiVm07kxoyVJgG89BZh6JCFH4iJ21kOD4seuRKIbi_QH2UKnuT2CGr0hF96GAD8eZsQVivVP3_awbNmdfiv-9QcjMLafsXbMktgerqyNP1eDI6lYgwXpJNMxKaf0Sag5MPK_J88lKOn1cj3GIA1yI7sycc/s660/Screenshot%20(1304).png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="478" height="363" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiw02PW7_5FwVZt_VdXkWNhnh_Hp52giRixOiVm07kxoyVJgG89BZh6JCFH4iJ21kOD4seuRKIbi_QH2UKnuT2CGr0hF96GAD8eZsQVivVP3_awbNmdfiv-9QcjMLafsXbMktgerqyNP1eDI6lYgwXpJNMxKaf0Sag5MPK_J88lKOn1cj3GIA1yI7sycc/w263-h363/Screenshot%20(1304).png" width="263" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: center;">Capt. Larry Taylor, circa 1967. (Army)</div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Beginnings</b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Taylor, 81, grew up in the historic St. Elmo neighborhood of Chattanooga.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">That area rests in the shadow of Lookout Mountain, where in November 1863, Union troops flowed up the northern slopes in what historians would later call the “Battle Above the Clouds.” This followed a southern victory at the battle of Chickamauga, Georgia and what led to the Confederate siege of Chattanooga that the Union ultimately broke on their continued southern march and defeat of the Confederacy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This served not as a history class lesson, but a direct connection for Taylor, whose great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War. The family later sent his great-uncle to fight in World War I and both his father and uncles fought in World War II.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Taylor joined the U.S. Army Reserve Officer Training program at the University of Tennessee just up the road from Knoxville, Tennessee shortly after high school. He graduated college in 1966.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The Army sent the Tennessee boy to Fort Knox, Kentucky for armor training. But as soon as he could, the young Taylor found his way into the fledgling Army aviation helicopter branch. By June 1967 he was an Army aviator.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Taylor’s explained in multiple interviews why he decided to fly instead of stay in the armor branch, where the Army first put him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">He painted a stark picture of the life of ground troops in Vietnam in his soupy Tennessee drawl.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“I had been on the ground in Vietnam and it sucked, so I wanted to avoid all of that,” Taylor said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It was a place where someone might wait behind every tree to shoot you all day while they mortared your position all night. But in a Cobra, you can fly above that at 150 mph carrying 76 rockets and 16,000 rounds of machine gun ammo.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“So yeah, I’d rather be an ass kicker than have my ass kicked,” Taylor said. “That settles that question.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At around the time Taylor was earning his wings, the Army was refining how it would fight in places such as Vietnam. Early work with the UH-1 Iroquois helicopter proved that an attack helicopter could provide support for larger transport helicopters, much like fighter planes and bombers paired together in World War II.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFNTgoBq7JUSrZWse4W2AC46IljANsA1XjRnGz2-lm4E2TgMla5RyKyke9TrTGpyr6g1xQ1FxAo1bRRJL2hPddMiNndHM3IIpl_GvzWSU_q1f7s6lekINqh_IRzWh5mAiORHbsxLjiQ36OZssQZ9P8wG1cqEAX26vD-Anaal3s_odrFO-arQb-foeQ17w/s828/Screenshot%20(1305).png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="828" height="327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFNTgoBq7JUSrZWse4W2AC46IljANsA1XjRnGz2-lm4E2TgMla5RyKyke9TrTGpyr6g1xQ1FxAo1bRRJL2hPddMiNndHM3IIpl_GvzWSU_q1f7s6lekINqh_IRzWh5mAiORHbsxLjiQ36OZssQZ9P8wG1cqEAX26vD-Anaal3s_odrFO-arQb-foeQ17w/w539-h327/Screenshot%20(1305).png" width="539" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>A Bell AH-1 Cobra helicopter flies low over the treeline as protection for the Vietnam-era Air Assault and Rescue at Dawn, a simulated rescue of a downed pilot. (Spc. Jennifer Andersson/Army)</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But the Iroquois wasn’t purpose-built for that mission. So, the service worked with Bell Helicopter and adapted the Iroquois system into a newer, nimbler attack helicopter eventually dubbed the AH-1 Cobra.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The first prototype flew in September 1965, while Taylor still rooted for the Tennessee Volunteers at football games in Knoxville.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But by June 1967, when Taylor became an aviator, the Cobra was in the Army inventory and batches were being delivered to Vietnam. The same place Taylor found himself by August 1967.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The young lieutenant flew some of the first combat missions with the AH-1G Cobra. Eventually, he’d fly as many as 2,000 missions in both the Iroquois and Cobra. About 1,200 were combat missions. Taylor estimated that at least 1,000 of those combat flights involved supporting the long-range reconnaissance patrols. In 340 of those missions, he took enemy fire and was forced down five times, according to information provided by the Army.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">By June 18, 1968, the war, which would continue for another seven years, was not going well. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had turned back the Tet Offensive earlier that year, but, as many historians now note, those events piled on an already dismal view of the war and paltry public support back home.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In May 1968, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson and North Vietnamese leaders began peace talks. Johnson had already announced he would not seek reelection. That year alone nearly 17,000 U.S. troops would die in Vietnam.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But soldiers such as Taylor and Hill still had tours to complete and missions to accomplish.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Dark as an inkwell</span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When Taylor and his co-pilot approached Hill and his team’s position south of Saigon, not a single light illuminated where they were. Taylor had to use radio direction-finding to somewhat gauge where the four-soldier team had hidden.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The team leader whispered on the radio microphone to avoid letting enemy troops know exactly where they lay.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“It was dark, there was nothing down there with a light on and I didn’t think I was ever gonna find them,” Taylor said in a recent phone interview.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Taylor radioed the team and said that he didn’t want to start launching rockets without knowing their position. He told them that once he was directly over them they should say “now” in the radio and he would then fly on, circle back and come get them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The tactical operations center tried to wave Taylor off. They said the team was trained to escape and evade. They could handle themselves.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“I told them there’s no place for them to escape and evade to,” Taylor said. “Please stay off my radio.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The chopper flew past, someone yelled over the rotor wash into the radio, “you’re over us now.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Taylor told them to mark their position with flares, red star clusters popped in the night sky and what seemed like a wall of bullets began flying from both sides on the ground.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">He knew where the team sat, he began firing rockets and ripping through 7.62mm ammunition from the Cobra’s mini-gun.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Elsner fired his 5.56mm carbine, a shortened version of the standard issue M16.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Hill opened up with his Korea-era, .30 caliber M1 carbine which he’d sawed down the barrel for easier carry. The rear security man chose it because the .30 caliber rounds sounded like what their counterparts fired. If the team, which had been running patrols together since February, needed an indistinguishable, single-shot kill, they called up Hill with his M1.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Grenadier Spc. 4 William P. Cohn, or Billy, of Old Mystic, Connecticut, lugged the M79 grenade launcher, a specially made 18-round high explosive grenade carrier vest and a backup .45 caliber 1911 handgun.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Radio operator Cpl. Gerald Patty, of Marysville, Tennessee, fired off from his CAR-15.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Every team member carried an additional five extra 40mm grenades for Cohn’s M79.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Each soldier had stepped off on that foot patrol with 650 rounds. The grenadier alone fired 75 grenades from his M79 launcher in the handful of minutes they’d repelled the onslaught from an unknown number of enemy troops in the night.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Within moments Taylor was out of rockets and machine gun ammo. The four-soldier team had fired all their ammunition. and had only a satchel full of fragmentation grenades and the trusty claymore antipersonnel mines. And their knives.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“We were all tapped out, we had nothing left,” Hill said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Taylor was out of ammo too, but not out of bluffs.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">He told the ground team to reposition their claymores to the northeast and southeast. When they saw him begin his next run at the enemy, Taylor figured they’d think he would fire on them, distracting the enemy troops just enough.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“We’re gonna blow a hole in that ring,” Taylor said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The lieutenant told the team to fire those claymores and then “run like hell” on a 135-degree azimuth, the opposite direction. “I’ll be there, and I hope so are you.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Hill still had about a dozen grenades in his rucksack. He took rear security as the men skedaddled, lobbing a grenade every few seconds into inkwell night.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>A new mission</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Three decades later Hill and Taylor met at a unit reunion. The pair shared memories of that night and other escapades from before and after as the two had finished their tours a lifetime ago. A few of their comrades hadn’t made it out of Vietnam alive. Others had or would succumb to the indignity of a car wreck, cancer and other quiet calamities.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It was at that 1999 reunion in Branson, Missouri when Hill learned that Taylor had received the third highest valor award available, the Silver Star Medal. But Hill knew how much that night meant, how daring, bold and, maybe a little crazy, things had been, and he knew what Taylor had done. This was something that never happened before and probably never will again. Others had received more prestigious awards for less.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWujx20FOPTocbdrozDEJ3ncHzh-t4K318t4JXfwlmZxNymZtGKra1dCwiIbXnC_o_XIJ224jYj2XL4JFAh3SUyPGgka8p_e-GbWzgLfZJkwdu9x6AMmSXuP-Kem4CDukcrLAoZ_aqKWQJiFPMPg_CC2S9at1R29QC053nqpTby5s2jTAW6xYJ4hWSZnU/s569/Screenshot%20(1308).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="357" height="576" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWujx20FOPTocbdrozDEJ3ncHzh-t4K318t4JXfwlmZxNymZtGKra1dCwiIbXnC_o_XIJ224jYj2XL4JFAh3SUyPGgka8p_e-GbWzgLfZJkwdu9x6AMmSXuP-Kem4CDukcrLAoZ_aqKWQJiFPMPg_CC2S9at1R29QC053nqpTby5s2jTAW6xYJ4hWSZnU/w362-h576/Screenshot%20(1308).png" width="362" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>Three of the surviving members from the June 18, 1968 rescue at a reunion in 1999. (Left to right) David Hill, Larry Taylor, Paul Elsner. (Contributed)</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A few years later Hill retired from a career with the U.S. Department of Commerce. He moved from California to Nevada. He kept busy managing a golf course but had an itch.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The Silver Star Medal? It wasn’t enough.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The former sergeant began a kind of bureaucratic trek to revisit the heroism of that fateful evening that saved his life.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">He gathered documents, talked with politicians, researched websites and submitted a packet asking the Army to review the case. Hill hit hurdles and roadblocks that have stymied others for decades. The Army and most military branches are reluctant to second-guess the decisions of the commanders on the ground who recommend or approve valor award citations.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Part of the criteria involves evaluating whether what’s being submitted in a review request was available to commanders at the time. Basically, did they have all the information, did the commanders know all of what happened?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">After a few failed attempts, Hill met with retired Army Gen. B.B. Bell, a 39-year Army veteran who retired in 2008 after having led the United Nations Command in South Korea.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>By The Numbers:</b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">3,535 Medals of Honor awarded</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">268 for Vietnam</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">65 living Medal of Honor recipients</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">54 total Army aviators have received the Medal of Honor</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">12 Army aviators received the Medal of Honor for service in Vietnam</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Source: The Army Aviation Museum; Congressional Medal of Honor Society</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Bell retired to Signal Mountain, Tennessee where Taylor has lived now for decades.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The general asked questions that Hill hadn’t yet considered — were any of the members of his four-soldier recon team interviewed following the June 18, 1968, rescue?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">No.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The pair found the former Army officer who’d overseen awards and decorations for Taylor’s unit in Vietnam. No, the officer confirmed they’d not interviewed the ground team.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Combat continued after that June night, getting witness statements and commanding officer approvals wasn’t high on the priority list for a division engulfed in daily combat. But without that paperwork and those command approvals, only so much could be done.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Also complicating the decision process, nearly three weeks after the June mission on July 4, 1968, Taylor’s commanding officer, Maj. Federick Terry, 31, died in a midair collision while responding to a call for help when a U.S. armored vehicle struck a landmine on a movement, injuring several soldiers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Tragedy struck the unit again a few weeks later. On Sept. 12, 1968, LeMay, the co-pilot in the second helicopter on the June mission, died along with 1st Lt. William Henry Hanson, 31, Park Falls, Wisconsin, in a Cobra gunship crash while defending ground troops east of Quan Loi in Binh Long Province.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The next day, the division commander over Taylor’s unit, Maj. Gen. Keith Lincoln Ware, who had received the Medal of Honor for his own actions in World War II, died in a helicopter crash near Cambodia.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Armed with these new facts, Hill resubmitted his review request in 2021, for the third time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Back on the battlefield that fateful night...</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Empty on ammo, out of grenades and enveloped in a cacophony of explosions, rifle and machine gun fire, Hill and his team ran into a clearing as Taylor stomped on the left pedal and plopped his Cobra on the ground.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As they descended, Taylor’s co-pilot asked, “what are we going to do with them?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“I said, ‘I don’t know, I didn’t think that far ahead,’” Taylor said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The Cobra has no seating for passengers. It is a narrow fuselage aircraft with seats for a pilot and co-pilot, stacked atop each other. Its stubby wings and light frame hold weaponry — a minigun and rocket launchers — and two slender skids come between the aircraft and the ground.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“I didn’t have to tell them to get on,” Taylor said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">On June 18, 1968, Hill and Cohn straddled the rocket launchers like horses while Elsner and Patty hugged the skids.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Which is exciting in the dark,” Hill said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">They banged hard twice on the frame, that was technical military code for “haul ass.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Once airborne, Taylor knew that they couldn’t fly these guys at 150 miles an hour back over Saigon and to Phu Loi Base where he was headquartered.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At higher altitudes and speeds, the men would freeze and fall off the aircraft. So, he stayed as low as incoming fire would allow and dropped the quad at a nearby water plant where they radioed ahead so the team could link up with a friendly unit.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Hill remembers a glimpse of a vague profile outline of a helmeted Taylor through the plastic windshield.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">They landed, the four men ran to the front of the aircraft so Taylor and his co-pilot could see them. The four saluted the men who’d saved their lives and then they were gone.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The memory halts Taylor’s speech, sticking in his throat when he tells the story, even a lifetime later.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Recognition</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">On an early June morning, Taylor awakened to his ringing phone.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">That’s how, 55 years later, Taylor learned he would join an exclusive group, honoring the highest standards of combat valor in the U.S. military.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">While the recognition is nice, bringing that team home alive proved the enduring reward for not only that half-hour mission but for the 2,000 or more missions he flew those many years ago so far from home.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“We never lost a man,” Taylor said. “We lost some aircraft, but we never lost a man.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">*This article drew information from the following sources: local media reports including the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press; the Chattanoogan; Cody (Wyo.) Enterprise; video published online of Gen. B.B. Bell speaking at The Walden Club; a media roundtable phone interview with Larry Taylor, David Hill and James Holden; A separate phone interview with David Hill; the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund database; the Army Office of the Chief of Public Affairs; whitehouse.gov; U.S. State Department; U.S. Department of Defense; honorstates.org; Google Earth; Freedom Sings Publishing; Pritzker Military Museum and Library; Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association.</span></p><p><br /></p>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-55988502262544826332023-09-02T09:57:00.003-04:002023-09-02T10:08:55.371-04:00The Saturday Change Up - Jimmy Buffett Live in Anguilla (Re-Post Just Because)<span style="font-family: arial;">The video below runs nearly continuously on our boats while guests are aboard. It embraces everything about the water, the islands and boating that our crew and guests love.
If you had the right connections, you scored an "invitation" to charity concert which by most accounts still stands as the ultimate parrot head adventure.
And just might explain why the CP blog suddenly goes silent from time to time.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="250" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z5lsHdfqA7o" title="One Particular Harbour - Anguilla" width="332"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
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The concert, took place on March 24 2007 at 3pm, and was hosted by international reggae icon and Anguilla's favorite son Bankie Banx at his acclaimed beach hotspot Dune Preserve. The late-afternoon show began with an opening performance by Banx and his bandmates, followed by Buffett and his renowned Coral Reefer Band.
Tickets for the concert where only $100, and all the proceeds benefited Project Stingray, an acclaimed music and education program on Anguilla, the Anguilla Tennis Academy and the Anguilla Community Foundation.
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A few photos from the event:
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://s75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/motoryachtsoco/?action=view&current=Buffett2007.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/motoryachtsoco/Buffett2007.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The patron saint of Anguilla himself.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://s75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/motoryachtsoco/?action=view&current=DSCN8802.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/motoryachtsoco/DSCN8802.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Something you won't see at a concert in the Carolina's a real parrot.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://s75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/motoryachtsoco/?action=view&current=DSCN8879.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/motoryachtsoco/DSCN8879.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It won't be a Buffett concert without some wild hats</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://s75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/motoryachtsoco/?action=view&current=DSCN8893.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/motoryachtsoco/DSCN8893.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">or not much at all.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://s75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/motoryachtsoco/?action=view&current=DSCN8827.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/motoryachtsoco/DSCN8827.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">And then there was Jim Patterson sporting our Southern Comfort Abaco Islands 2007-2008 Tour t-shirt.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span></td></tr>
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We now return to our regular programing.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Foot Note:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">James Mims Patterson Jr, 86. of Charlotte, NC passed away Wednesday, the 4th of December 2019 at Lake Park Rehabilitation Nursing home after a long battle from suffering a stroke 5 years prior. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">James is survived by two sons, Mark Patterson and James Mims (Pat) Patterson III. He is also survived by two grandchildren, Samuel Patterson and Ana Isabella Patterson.Mr. Patterson was born the 12th of December 1932 in Maxton, NC and was an only child. He spent most of his later career working as an Executive Vice President for Homebuilder's Association.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Jim was a good friend and life long fellow Parrott Head. </span></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625439945853248265.post-959253873099317902023-08-31T08:05:00.003-04:002023-08-31T08:05:39.241-04:00Fidelity Outage "Again?"<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Good Morning Fidelity Customer Service,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I understand that sometimes network upgrades fail and that yesterday was just an anomaly. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5s5wXHGnoKdMgqp3UeE9cnGt81ul9ABcOGRu37May52rl45a9vzHMkIRBGgqQSbBmk_fT5lNAwnljvLdwdqIQ1IhrsAiMRXgPl7vRaAJGYdGvP3-IAa5si2Wk_1RZPmH3TQ-n4iAdIlqDfAL68wqpY4693oWWmXN4TPJ1hjyAfwGA68W08bM-kG6UgBU/s750/BN-WI874_IMG_25_NS_20171129110446.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="750" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5s5wXHGnoKdMgqp3UeE9cnGt81ul9ABcOGRu37May52rl45a9vzHMkIRBGgqQSbBmk_fT5lNAwnljvLdwdqIQ1IhrsAiMRXgPl7vRaAJGYdGvP3-IAa5si2Wk_1RZPmH3TQ-n4iAdIlqDfAL68wqpY4693oWWmXN4TPJ1hjyAfwGA68W08bM-kG6UgBU/w445-h343/BN-WI874_IMG_25_NS_20171129110446.jpg" width="445" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial;">However, the total lack of appropriate response during the trading hours outage yesterday is problematic. Never mind the potential losses, that will be determined at today's opening. What makes this outage very troubling is the very tiny "try again later" popup that accompanied my account's zero balances. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">What made things worse was the dismissive response from your virtual and real telephone support staff. The only somewhat legitimate appearting information was a message posted on "X" formerly known as Twitter nearly an hour after the outage began. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The vagueness and uninformed representatives gave the perception of some sort of internet hack, scam and perhaps even theft.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The dismissive try again later response was later upgraded to "we apologize for the inconvenience", which was also hardly adequate.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I suggest that future outages route user's at login to a full page "we are sorry", with the time that the outage began and when the issue is expected to be resolved (even if overly optimistic) and a contact number to further confirm that legitimacy of the outage. In other words 404 Error just does not earn any trust.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Please do better.</span></p><div><br /></div>Chip Starrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13685330952994380287noreply@blogger.com3