What Would Jimmy Do?

We’ve always had an alarm clock beside our bed to wake us up. But for the past year or so, I’ve used Alexa instead of a clock. But I still say, “Alexa, set the alarm for 6:00 o’clock (or whatever time I want to wake up.)

But that got me to wondering how did people wake up at a specific time before clocks, clock-radios, Alexa and other sound-making devices came along.
Well, it turns out that one solution was to have someone else do it — long ago in England, you could hire a guy to come by each morning and, using a long pole, knock on your bedroom window to wake you up so you could get to work on time. This practice supposedly began during the Industrial Revolution, when getting to work on time was a new and innovative idea.
I am not making this up — the British terminology for the pole operator was a “knocker-up.” I’m not sure how the pole operator managed to get himself up on time. 

I’ve read that you don’t need any type of alarm — your body’s circadian rhythms give you a sort of natural wake-up call via your body temperature’s daily fluctuation. It rises every morning regardless of when you went to bed. Some studies indicate that this rising temperature wakes us up if the alarm hasn’t already gone off. 
One study, conducted at the University of Lubeck in Germany, found that people have an innate ability to wake themselves up very early if they anticipate it beforehand. One night, the researchers told 15 subjects that they would be awakened at 6:00 a.m. Around 4:30 a.m., the researchers noticed that the subjects began to experience a rise in the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin. On another night, the subjects were told that they would get a 9:00 a.m. wake-up call — but the researchers shook them out of bed early, at 6:00 a.m. and this time the adrenocorticotropin levels of the subjects held steady in the early morning hours.

So apparently, you can just use your body to wake up — good to know in case your were thinking about hiring a knocker-up.
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Since the container ship hit and collapsed the bridge in Baltimore, bridges seem to have been in the news quite a bit. I was reading an article on the state of bridges in the US, and and ran across something that I had never heard of — apparently there is such a thing as a crybaby bridge.
These bridges are located throughout the United States and are said to mark locations where a baby died. According to legend, if you’re brave enough to wait patiently on the bridge, you’ll actually hear the baby cry. 
Here’s a few that I found through my extensive research that were particularly interesting…..

Cooper Road is a lonely stretch of road that wanters through the backwoods of Middletown, New Jersey. If you stay on this road long enough, you will eventually come to the crybaby bridge. A baby is said to have drowned under this bridge. If you want to hear the baby cry, you should position your vehicle in the middle of the bridge and wait. But make sure you don’t turn your car off, because you won’t be able to start it again.

Just outside of Concord is a bridge on Poplar Tent Road that the locals refer to as Sally’s Bridge. According to local lore, a young woman named Sally was driving home with her baby when she lost control of her car, skidded across the bridge, and crashed. The baby was ejected from the vehicle and fell into the water. Sally was panic stricken and dove into the water to try to save her child, but both mother and child drowned. Today, legend has it that Sally’s ghost will bang on your car, desperately trying to find someone to help save her dying child.

Seems like Ohio has as many, if not more, crybaby bridges as any state. Legend has it that on a cold November night in the small town of Cable, a deeply depressed woman bundled up her newborn baby and walked onto a bridge that crossed over some railroad tracks. She waited patiently until she heard the sound of a train whistle in the distance. Holding the baby in her arms, the  woman jumped in front of the oncoming train just as it reached the bridge — both were killed instantly. If you visit the bridge, especially when it’s close to midnight, just be aware. Travelers crossing the bridge at that time have reported that their cars suddenly stalled. When they tried to restart the engines, they heard the sound of a distant train whistle. As the whistle got closer, motorists reported hearing a baby crying. Then, just when it sounded as though the train was right next to the bridge, they heard a woman scream — and then everything went silent. Only then were they able to start their cars again.

According to legend, on a bridge in Monmouth, Illinois, an entire busload of small children drove off the bridge when the driver lost control of the bus. It is said that if you go to the bridge at night, turn off your car’s engine and put your vehicle in neutral, you’ll hear cries from the dead children. Then ghostly hands will push your car across the bridge and back onto the road, leaving tiny handprints on the back of your car.

And a little closer to home, the story associated with the crybaby bridge in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, says that a young, single woman became pregnant. Embarrassed and afraid of being disowned, she somehow managed to conceal her pregnancy from her family and friends. When the baby was born, the woman waited until nightfall, walked to the bridge, and threw the baby from the bridge into the water below. Legend has it that if you go out to the bridge at night, you’ll hear the baby crying. 

So bridges provide us with a way to get from one place to another — but maybe sometimes that place is the afterlife……
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I watched a program on PBS about the Antichrist the other night. The program left me wondering who isn’t the Antichrist? The media, and the Internet especially, is full of tales that accuse just about every celebrity and world leader — from Taylor Swift to the Pope —of being the dark figure. 

But from what I can tell, the Bible itself doesn’t have much to say on the subject — and what it does say, isn’t very definitive. 
My extensive research found only three mentions of the word “Antichrist,” in the Bible and the picture the passages paint are murky at best. They say that the Antichrist comes at “the last hour” and denies the divinity of Jesus Christ. They also allude to multiple Antichrists who are said to have come already. And they suggest the end of the world should be expected at any moment.

A Benedictine monk named Adso of Montier-en-Der (920-92) wrote a treatise on the subject. According to him, the Antichrist would be a Jew from the tribe of Dan and born in Babylon. He would be brought up in all forms of wickedness by magicians and wizards. He would be accepted as the Messiah and ruler by the Jews in Jerusalem. Those Christians whom he could not convert to his cause, he would torture and kill. He would then rule for seven years before being defeated by the angel Gabriel or Christ and the divine armies, prior to the resurrection of the dead and the Final Judgement.

American evangelist Jerry Falwell, known for his controversial views on apartheid, homosexuality, Judaism, climate change and the Teletubbies once said: “The Antichrist will be a world leader, he’ll have supernatural powers.” Donald trump is gaining popularity as a worthy candidate — ethics scholar D. Stephen Long suggested he represents “not a single person but a political pattern that repeats itself by taking on power to oppress the poor and the just.”

So — as with most religious matters, there’s no definitive interpretation of the Antichrist. But it’s pretty apparent that the Antichrist is the opponent of God, and seen as an agent of Satan and there will be a final battle between good and evil and the Antichrist will be defeated —ushering in the era of the Kingdom of God on Earth. 

It’s interesting to Google “Antichrist” and see the roundup of the usual suspects that are listed. If you’re at all interested in this subject, check out the list and see what you think. It’s obviously impossible to rule anyone out definitely, but I’m pretty sure that Taylor Swift is probably innocent of the charges.
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Our neighbors have a small dog — they walk the dog every day.  And — the dog is always wearing some kind “clothing.” Well, that got me to wondering — why do people dress up their pets? I guess I can see that in cold weather some breeds of dogs don’t have enough meat on their bones or fur in their coats to keep them warm.

But if you look in pet shops, or on the Internet, they have tons of clothing items for dogs and cats and I suppose other kinds of pets, too. You can buy your dog a bathing suit, although I have no idea why anyone would do that. I looked at one web site and they sell hundreds (maybe thousands) of doggie Halloween costumes — you can dress your dog as a pirate, a princess, Superman, or maybe Darth Vader. Again, I’m not sure why anyone would even want to do that. 

I guess many (maybe most) people consider a pet to be a member of the family and Americans spend an enormous amount of money every year on their animals. One of the sites that sells capes for dogs and Santa Claus hats for cats, among other things, had a link to a pet psychologist — apparently there is such a thing. Anyhow, the pet psychologist mentioned one study that suggests people buy clothes and toys for their animals because they are lonely. The University of Chicago asked 99 people to describe their own pet or the pet of someone they knew. The lonelier the people were in their everyday lives, the more likely they were to use human traits to describe their pets, using such words as “thoughtful” and “sympathetic.”

The point? As usual, there is no point. I guess we humans are social creatures and when we’re awkward around other people, we try to fill the void in some other way. Maybe for some people, a doggie in a coat, or a cat in a hat, fills the bill…..
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A few nights ago, I was watching PBS and there was a “filler” piece about famous people born in West Virginia. One of the names mentioned was Stonewall Jackson. I wasn’t aware that he was born in West Virginia, but he’s always been an interesting historical character to me, so what the heck — today’s subject is Stonewall Jackson. 

Confederate Civil War General Stonewall Jackson had a brilliant military mind and was Robert E. Lee’s most trusted lieutenant. But first off, let’s get this West Virginia thing squared away. A little of my extensive research determined that Stonewall Jackson is not a West Virginian. He was born in Clarksburg Virginia. Granted that today this is part of West Virginia, but West Virginia wasn’t a state at the time and didn’t become a state until over a month after his death. 

Thomas Jonathan Jackson was given the name Thomas Jackson at birth — no middle name. So he gave himself a middle name. He was the only child in his family that didn’t have a middle name and it bothered him, especially when he was to enroll at the United States Military Academy at West Point. So when his turn came to sign his name, he added his deceased father’s name to his own — Thomas Jonathan Jackson.

He earned the name “Stonewall” during the first Battle of Bull Run — Jackson’s men faced overwhelming odds, but with their commander in the lead, the small band of Confederates held their ground. General Bernard Bee looked across the battlefield and shouted to his men, “Look! There stands Jackson like a stone wall.” That was enough to rally the Confederate forces for a counterattack that ended in a rout of the Union forces. 

Jackson did have a brilliant military mind… but the rest of him was kind of a mess. He had lots of quirky personal habits and he was a hopeless hypochondriac. He was so obsessed with his physical health that most people thought he was a bit nutty. Some of his physical eccentricities included:
He believed his left arm was heaver that the right, so he would often — even in the heat of battle — raise his left arm in the air to allow the blood to flow equally through his body and establish a state of equilibrium. 
He convinced himself that he would perform at his peak only when his bodily organs were “stacked” properly — in an upright position. His study in Lexington, Virginia had no chairs at all. Whenever he’d did sit down, he never allowed his body to rest against the back of the chair. 
He was terribly concerned about his self-diagnosed “dyspepsia,” or indigestion, so he maintained a diet that consisted almost completely of fruits and vegetables. Whenever his troops overran Union camps, the general grabbed up as much fresh produce as he could. 
Since his boyhood, he suffered from poor eyesight — so he devised his own unique “treatment.” He would dip his head into a basin of cold water with his eyes wide open, staying there till his breath gave out. 

Even though he may have earned his nickname “Stonewall,” due to his steadfastness in the face of the enemy, he was remembered by President Ulysses Grant as a “fanatic” who was delusional and who fancied that an evil spirit had taken possession of him. 

Stonewall Jackson is probably one of the few people to have different parts of his body buried and marked with gravestones in two different places. When the general was accidentally shot in the left arm by his own troops in the Battle of Chancellorsville, the arm had to be amputated. It was buried in a graveyard about a mile from the field hospital. Jackson died eight days later, and his body (minus the arm) was sent home to Lexington for burial. He was only 39 when he died. To be killed by friendly fire is a tragedy — but if he’d lived to an older age, just think of all the new ailments he might have contracted…. some of them might even have been real.
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Those of you that have read this blog over the years know that I always wanted to be a pirate. For some reason, swashbuckling has just always appealed to me. But as we all know, and I’ve mentioned here on occasion, real pirates were not much like the images portrayed in books and movies.

Take the eye patch, for instance — nothing says “pirate” much more than a black eye patch. But the truth is, the real swashbucklers didn’t wear eye patches.
If you read the biographies of most of the famous pirates — Blackbeard, Calico Jack, Bartholomew Roberts, and others — you’ll notice that their portraits don’t show them wearing eye patches. 

So why did the eye patch become synonymous with pirates? Because the creators of fictional pirates like them that way. Eye patches have become part of pirate lore mostly because pirates are portrayed as wearing them in books and movies.

The primary reason anyone wears an eye patch is because he or she has a missing or injured eye. So it’s possible that some pirates may have worn one — pirating, after all, is an extremely dangerous activity.
Eye patches do serve a useful purpose, and their use is a “trick of the trade” for seamen, as well as for law-enforcement officers and the armed forces. An eye patch (or simply closing one eye — but that that doesn’t look nearly as cool as an eye patch) can help your eyesight when moving from a bright place into a dark one. Let’s say you’re a pirate and you’ve just boarded a ship at noon on a bright sunny day. If you’re not wearing an eye patch and everyone you need to plunder is below deck, you could be at a disadvantage because you eyes have to become accustomed to the dark.
Not so with an eye patch! A patch gives you one eye that is already used to the dark. So when you get down below, you simply move the patch from one eye to the other. This allows for much more efficient pillaging.
Maybe I’ll tackle the subject of parrots next time….
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I’ve often heard the term “the ends of the earth.” I got to thinking about that and it seems like all through history, all sorts of cultures and people have imagined images of far-off, mythical places with exotic names like Xanadu, Shangri-La and Pittsburg.

Phrases like “the four corners of the earth” and “the ends of the earth” suggest that somewhere in our plane of existence are some regions or locations farther away from us than any other.

I did a little extensive research and it turns out that “the ends of the earth” is mentioned 28 times in the King James Bible. 
I suppose that a long, long time ago most folks probably did believe that the earth was flat and really did have ends. 

Today, the term isn’t generally used so literally — it’s relative and pretty much open to your imagination. If you live in Paris or Rome, it could be you’re referring to the North Pole, or maybe the Amazon jungle — or, if you’re in some remote village in Africa, it might mean Pittsburg……
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When I was growing up in Maysville, Oklahoma, there were only a couple of “police” officers — and I use that term loosely. Of course there wasn’t much need for the police in Maysville. The biggest “crimes” committed around there was kids turning over outhouses or maybe a drunk being escorted home from the only “beer joint” — as my mother referred to it. 

Anyhow, what got me to thinking along these lines was a blurb on the news a couple of days ago about some criminal being picked out of a police lineup. 
I didn’t know much about police lineups when I was growing up — maybe I saw one in a movie or something like that, but that’s about all.

In a traditional police lineup, a witness tries to pick out the bad guy from behind a one-way mirror. The police typically present one actual suspect and four or five similar-looking inmates from the local jail. The lineup can be either simultaneous (with the suspect and the “fillers” standing together) or sequential (with the possible perpetrators coming out one by one.) When there aren’t enough suitable inmates, police officers or other station staff may participate. Sometimes, the police will even recruit people with the right look off the street and pay them a small fee for their trouble.

But sometimes it can be difficult to come up with five people who closely match the description of a suspected criminal. Even when proper fillers can be found, using people who look very much like the culprit can lead to false identifications. And, if the police choose a filler who doesn’t closely match the description of the suspect, a judge might later rule that the lineup was unfair.That’s one reason a lot of police departments have switched from traditional lineups to photo arrays, or virtual lineups, in which the police select a series of mug shots that closely match the suspect’s description. The conventional virtual lineup includes two rows of three pictures (dubbed the “six pack”.) Just like with the live lineup, some departments prefer a sequential virtual lineup (showing only one picture at a time.)
It’d be interesting to see how Maysville would have implemented a lineup procedure….
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I had a conversation with my son a few days ago and one of the topics was setting boundaries for kids. It’s natural for kids to not like rules, but they’re necessary to live in an organized society. Even I agree that today we seem to live in a society where rules and regulations sometimes just seem too much. But that’s the way our society operates, and as a society grows, so do the number of rules and regulations. 

Well, anyhow, I was thinking about some of the kind of strange laws that are still “laws.” I imagine that a lot, or probably most, still exist because no one has gotten around to changing them. I did a search on “strange or stupid laws” and here’s some that I came up with. Some are pretty funny and a lot of them make you wonder where the heck they came from — what was going on to prompt such a law. And some of them makes you wonder if when they were written, the legal power had landed in the wrong hands…..

Impotence is grounds for divorce in twenty-four states.
In Illinois, it is illegal to speak English. The officially recognized language is “American.”
In Oxford, Ohio, it is still illegal for a woman to undress in front of a picture of a man.
In Indiana, during the 1950s, anything to do with Robin Hood was prohibited. Robbing from the rich to give to the poor was considered communist ideology.
In Finland, Donald Duck was once banned because he doesn’t wear any pants.
In Thailand if you drop gum on the pavement, you can be fined up to $600. You are not permitted to leave your house without wearing underwear — and — all those who attend a cinema show must stand up during the national anthem before a film begins.

The United Kingdom has some strange laws on the books…
It is illegal to die in the House of Parliament. The reasoning behind that is that technically anyone who dies within the walls of Parliament is automatically granted a Royal state funeral.
The head of any dead whale found on the British coast is legally the property of the King. The tail is the property of the Queen so that she can use the bones for her corset.

In the city of York, it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow. 

And if you’re planning to travel to Australia, be aware that…
Although it is against the law for children to buy cigarettes, condoms, or alcohol, they can legally use all of them.
It is illegal to wear black clothing, felt shoes, and black shoe polish on your face while roaming the streets. These items are the tools of a cat burglar.
And if you’re down-under, it is illegal to dress up as Batman. 

Singapore is one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever visited…. the reason is probably because littering is a serious offense. If caught littering, your punishment includes a fine of several thousand dollars, hours of litter collection, state-sponsored counseling, and your picture in the local news. 
It’s also illegal to carry a Bible or talk to someone about Jesus.

And then there’s them French….
In France, it’s illegal to call or address a pig as Napoleon.
Between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., 70 percent of the music on the radio must be by French composers.
It is against the law to sell a doll with a face that’s not human.

Maybe you should save this list and pull it out and re-read it before you go to vote in the next election…..
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This subject is something that’s always been of interest to me and I’ve intended to write about it for a long time. The subject is American Indian Code Talkers. How important were they to all of us? They were extremely instrumental in helping the U.S. win World War II. 

I grew up in Oklahoma and Native Americans from Oklahoma played a major role in the code talker initiative and later in life I became involved with the encryption of communications — so the subject of “codes” seems to have always been of interest to me. Anyhow, you get the point… this is a subject that I find fascinating, so here we go.

What is a code talker? That’s the name given to American Indians who used their tribal language to send secret communications on the battlefield. 

The idea of using American Indians who were fluent in both their traditional tribal language and in English to send secret messages in battle was first put to the test in World War I. There were a number of Native communication experts and messengers used in that war — probably the most famous was the Choctaw Telephone Squad. But it wasn’t until World War II that the US military developed a policy to specifically recruit and train American Indians to become code talkers. 

When the term “code talker” is used, most people think of the Navajo code talkers who used their traditional language to transmit secret messages in the Pacific theater during World War II. Many/most know about code talkers because of the movie, “Wind Talkers.”
The “fact of” coded talkers was declassified in 1968. 

Even though the Navajo Code Talkers have gotten the most publicity, probably because of the movie, there were at least 14 other Native American nations that provided code talkers in both the Pacific and Europe during the war. 

Being from Oklahoma, I’m most familiar with tribes from Oklahoma and more familiar with their contribution. The first tribe to provide code talkers to the US military was the Choctaws — from Oklahoma — during World War I. But in World War II, 17 men formed the Comanche Code Talkers and became the first to be tasked with relaying messages in their native language. Since Comanche wasn’t a recorded or written language, it was the ideal “secret” language.

Historically, Native Americans have volunteered for military service at nearly twice the rate of the American population. Tribal warrior traditions were often a young Indian man’s way of proving himself, and since government run military schools operated with the strict discipline used in the military, the transition to army life wasn’t that hard for the Comanches. According to one story I read, the Code Talkers surprised their drill sergeant by how much they already knew, and their basic training was cut short because of it. 

In addition to the language itself being a “code” to the Germans, the Comanches developed their own lingo of 250 code words to describe military and geographical terms for which there was no native Comanche word. For example, bombers were “pregnant birds” and bombs were “baby birds.” Tanks were “turtles,” and Adolph Hitler was “crazy white man.” Even other Comanches didn’t understand what these 250 words meant. 

Of the 17 original Comanches, only 13 actually saw combat. They trained as a group, but three were discharged after training and one was transferred to I-Corps because of his skill in cryptography. The 13 landed on the beaches of Normandy in 1944. An interesting tidbit about the landing is that Code Talker Larry Saupitty was also the personal orderly, driver and radio operator to the division commanding general, Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. He sent the first Comanche language message when they landed 2,000 yards from their target. He spoke over the radio: “We made a good landing, we landed at the wrong place.”

The Comanche Homecoming was first held in July of 1946 in Walters, Oklahoma to welcome home all the World War II tribal veterans. In September, 1992, the first Comanche Nation Fair was held at Fort Sill’s Eagle Park where the surviving Code Talkers were honored. The tribe also dedicated the Army’s Comanche helicopter. 

Before going overseas many of the Code Talkers participated in a peyote ceremony in the Native American Church and were given medicine bags containing a blessed peyote button to protect them. [peyote is a small, soft, blue-green, spineless cactus, native to Mexico and the Southern US – often used in preparing hallucinogenic drugs.] During difficult times,, some of them consumed the peyote sacrament to help them through it — one of the code talkers said that it must have worked, for all of us came back.

The irony of being asked to use their Native languages to fight on behalf of America wasn’t lost on the code talkers, many of whom had been forced to attend government or religious-run schools that tried to assimilate Native peoples and would punish students for speaking in their traditional language. 

I think that this is such a cool chapter in out history… it’s kind of sad that today advances in communications encryption technology has ended the need for code talking.
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