What Would Jimmy Do?

I don’t remember ever having drills when I was in school in case of a bomb attack, but Claire, being a little younger remembers the old “duck and cover” drills that were popular during the Cold War. The fire alarm would go off and the students would get under their desks and curl into a fetal position. I’m not sure what great scientific minds thought that the desks would provide protection during a nuclear attack, but I’m sure a lot of thought went into those procedures. 

But anyhow, back then the threat of nuclear war seemed very real and I remember seeing lots of posters than featured the mushroom cloud. I remember reading that after the first nuclear tests in the 1940s, there were various names suggested to describe the cloud produced by a nuclear blast, like cauliflower cloud or raspberry cloud — but mushroom cloud won out. 

When a nuclear device is detonated, an almost incomprehensible amount of thermal energy is released and that creates a massive fireball that incinerates everything below it. As the fireball rises into the air, convection currents rush after it, sucking up debris into a column. Eventually, the fireball reaches the peak of its upward movement and expands outward, creating the mushroom-shaped head. That physical process occurs in other forms of explosions too, like volcanic eruptions. 

I’m not sure if the risk of a nuclear holocaust is more or less today than it once was, but from what I’ve seen, school desks don’t seem a sturdy as they were when I went to school……
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For some reason, I’ve watched a lot of PBS programs lately. A couple of weeks ago there was a documentary about the old west. It indicated that maybe the most famous gunfight occurred at the O.K. Corral. According to the TV show, the gunfight has been immortalized in over 40 feature films and written about in more than 1,000 books. 

Well — that was enough for me…. this subject just screamed for some of my extensive research. One of the first big surprises my research uncovered was the fight had nothing to do with cattle. I thought that this was a fight between cattle rustlers and lawmen…. but there was no cows involved in any way with the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Another thing that is terribly misleading in all the books and movies is that the showdown in Tombstone, Arizona didn’t take place in the O.K. Corral — it happened in the city’s vacant lot No. 2. I guess the Shoot-out in Vacant Lot No. 2 just didn’t have the same ring to it, so some journalist, or scriptwriter must have moved it over a few yards. 

And — no matter what the movies may suggest, it wasn’t a simple tale of white hats versus black hats or good versus evil — the real story is complicated with lots of twists and turns. It also had a cast of characters that included carousing cowboys, contentious lawmen, corrupt politicians, card sharks, cattle rustlers, a dentist named Doc, and Doc’s lady friend, Big Nose Kate (apparently her name was appropriate.)

One thing that everyone seems to agree on is that on October 26, 1881, at around 3:00 p.m., four men entered the lot behind the O.K. Corral: They were Wyatt Earp, his brothers, Virgil and Morgan, and John Henry “Doc” Holliday. There, they encountered Ike Clanton, his brother Billy, Frank and Tom McLaury, and Billy Claiborne. Thirty seconds later, both of the McLaury brothers as well as Billy Clanton were dead. Virgil and Morgan Earp sustained serious sounds and Holliday suffered a minor injury while Wyatt walked out without a scratch.

So — what brought them all there? Trouble had been brewing between the Earp and Clanton groups for quite a while. Doc Holliday, a Philadelphia-trained dentist, preferred playing cards to pulling teeth, and this habit left him short of cash. Earlier he had been accused of stagecoach robbery by his own girlfriend, Big Nose Kate. The Earp brothers suspected that Ike Clanton had put her up to it to deflect suspicion from Clanton’s friends. When four of those friends turned up dead, Clanton accused the Earps, and the bad blood began to boil.

How did the gunfight begin, who fired first? Most historians agree that Holliday and Morgan Earp started it, one wounding Frank McLaury and the other Billy canton. When that happened, all **** broke lose. An estimated 30 shots were fired within half a minute. Wyatt claimed that 17 were his, thought he is only thought to have killed one man, Tom McLaury. 

The Earps and Holliday were ultimately acquitted of any wrongdoing. Several months later, Morgan Earp was shot to death by unknown assailants. Wyatt spent the next two years tracking down everyone he thought was connected with his brother’s death. The song says he was “brave, courageous, and bold,” but was he, or was he just a ruthless vigilante? The jury is still out on that one.  

But whatever you think of him, Earp’s wife is responsible for shaping the narrative about him that most people know today. Josie Marcus, who technically never married Earp, was obsessed with making sure she could give her husband the epitaph she believed he deserved. But I’d say Wyatt Earp is an American original and there’ll probably be stories about him for years to come…
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Yesterday, when I was checking on the meaning of the word hoax, I ran across a few “hoaxes” that have become famous, or notorious, over time. One that I found interesting involves fairies….
In 1917, two yours girls, Elsie Wright and her cousin Frances Griffiths, claimed that they’d played with fairies in the garden of their home in Cuttingly, England. They even produced photographs of the fairies to prove it.
The pictures made headlines around the world and the story was believed by many, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. He became an ardent supporter of the girls’ story.
But 55 years later the girls, now old women, admitted that it had all been a hoax and that they had cut pictures of fairies out of a book and attached them with paper clips to branches and shrubs before taking the photographs. Frances Griffiths expressed her amazement that anyone believed the story, saying, “How on earth anyone could be so gullible as to believe that they were real has always been a mystery to me.”
Imagine what she’d think if she saw the Internet today…..
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If you’ve been paying any attention much at all to the news lately, you’ve probably noticed that the terms witch hunt and hoax are mentioned a lot.

For no good reason I decided to look up the word hoax. According to the dictionary, it means an act intended to trick or dupe — or — something accepted or established by fraud or fabrication.
Digging a little deeper, the word hoax is a shortening of “hocus-pocus,” a synonym for trickery that in turn comes from the Latin “hoc corpus est” — “This is my body” — the phrase spoken during the Mass when Catholics believe that the bread is transformed into the body of Christ.
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While cleaning out some of our recordings from TV, I ran across a whole section that we’d recorded for Emily — probably a couple of years ago. One of the recordings was Pocahontas — an animated version released by Disney. It occurred to me that the Disney-fied version of Pocahontas and John Smith didn’t look anything like reality. 

Most of the legends about Pocahontas are about her courage and kindness — the way she intervened between her own Algonquin tribe and the colonial settlers, and how she saved the life of Captain John Smith when she put her own head down next to his on the execution block.

Turns out that there probably isn’t a lot of truth to those tales. It’s possible that John Smith and Pocahontas may have crossed paths when Smith skirmished with her father, Powhatan, but it’s unlikely that the 12-year old performed any legendary acts of bravery. 

Pocahontas was really an innocent victim of the colonists — she was kidnapped as a teenager by British settlers and held hostage in hopes that her father, Powhatan, would strike a peaceful — and lucrative — settlement. While in captivity, a British minister taught her English and tried to “civilize” her. Pocahontas had an aptitude for both her English lessons and for British culture. When she was 19, she married Englishman-colonist John Rolfe and took the name Rebecca — that means “mother of two peoples.” (Pocahontas has several different names. She was named Ammonite at birth and went by the name Matoaka, that means “flower between two streams.” She supposedly earned the nickname Pocahontas, which means “playful one,” because of her happy, inquisitive nature.)

Rolf was a planter and cultivator of tobacco, but his business was suffering due to heavy English import taxes. King James I refused to lower tariffs, so Rolfe’s solution was a promotional tour that used his English-speaking Indian wife as bait while Rolfe peddled tobacco samples. Pocahontas was a big hit with her careful English and her high-necked English dresses — a big contrast to the traditionally dressed Indians that traveled with her on the tour. But King James I never lowered tobacco duties and the trip to England proved to be her undoing. Pocahontas, and about half of the Indians who accompanied her on the tour, was stricken with a European disease — she died of smallpox shortly before she was to return to America. She was only 22 year old and she was buried in England.

I mentioned the story of Pocahontas saving the life of John Smith when his head was on the execution block — here’s how the story goes….
The first English settlers arrived in Jamestown colony in 1607. That winter, Pocahontas’ brother kidnapped colonist Captain John Smith and made a spectacle of him before taking him to meet the chief.
According to Smith’s writings, his head was placed on two stones and a warrior was prepared to smash his head and kill him. But before the warrior could strike, Pocahontas rushed to Smith’s side and placed her head on his, preventing the attack. Chief Powhatan then bartered with Smith, referred to him as his son, and sent him on his way.

The legend appears to be his own publicity-seeking invention. Captain John Smith never even mentioned Pocahontas in his writings until 1824, seven years after Pocahontas had died and decades after he’d landed at Jamestown.
So I guess the message is don’t believe everything you see on TV or in the movies, and probably less of the things you see in animated movies….
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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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