It's a Bird, It's a Plane, No,it's...

Satellite Radio!

After all these years, I think Linda and I finally got a real good deal on a car.  It was "officially" a used car....however it had only been used by the dealer as a "loner."  Total mileage was 13,000 miles...which is considered "barely broken in."

Perhaps this is a gimmick that car dealers are using nowadays, I don't know, but we were very happy with the total price and the car itself.

One of the best features is Satellite Radio!  Now, I realise we have to pay to subscribe to that ourselves, when the dealer's contract with them runs out...but it hasn't run out yet, and we bought the car over a year ago!

But when it does, we'll gladly pay for it.  (I think the price is about $10 a month for what we would want, but don't quote me on that.)

However if you had asked asked me before we bought the car if I wanted to have Satellite Radio installed...and pay for it. I would have said absolutely not!  We don't go on long trips anymore, and besides....etc,.etc,..etc...

You have a choice of, 100, 500...I don't know how many  channels....but the one we've chosen is the  SERIOUSLY SINATRA channel featuring the songs of Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen and other greats.

The Sinatra Channel, not only features Frank, but also a lot of great singers like Ella, Vic Damone, Ray Charles,...in fact, every first rate singer you ever heard of singing "Our Songs" the popular Classics!

Until now, we didn't realize how much we missed listening to good music!
So glad to have it back in our lives.

An added attraction is featured singers that most of us associated only with their commercial hit songs,

such as Rosemary Clooneys "Come ona my house..." or some such awful song. No, no, none of that;
only really fine songs like,, The Nearness of You, or a Nightingale 

Sang in Berkley Square...What a talent she was!  And they might feature Willie 

Nelson.....singing Autumn Leaves...with a full string orchestra!

also they play a lot of Doris Day songs....not her commercial ones, but the classics. I never 

realised the full beauty of her voice until I heard her singing great songs on Satellite Radio!

In my opinion, her very successful movie career distracted the public from realising what a

 terrific pop singer she was!

By the way, Doris emerged from her more or less "seclusion" last April to celebrate her 90th

 Birthday!

After all these years, I still have a place in my heart for Doris!  Even though, she went a little 

nuts over the animal thing. 








But, Nobody's perfect. 

-Ed

Memphis Belle

It was great hearing from Warren and Becky Sparrow. They continue to spend their Golden years visiting interesting places and seeing amazing sights.
They didn't have to go very far a couple of weeks ago to see one of the Greatest Generation's most historical symbol of American Heroism:  THE MEMPHIS BELLE.

The MEMPHIS BELLE is the most famous of WW2's Flying Fortresses, the Boeing B-17 bombers, which dropped more bombs than any other aircraft in WW2; 1.5 metric tons.

The pilot was Robert K.Morgan from Asheville, NC. His plane was named after his sweetheart, Margaret Polk, a resident of Memphis, Tennessee. After completing 25 bombing missions, Morgan and his crew returned to the USA and flew the plane on recruiting and war bond tours. Morgan wrote that during a flight over Ashville, he buzzed the town at a very low altitude and at one point, lowered his left wing in a 60 degree bank and flew between the City Hall and the Courthouse.

One of the most amazing features of the B-17s was it's incredible ability to take an enormous amount
of damage...and still survive!

That old WW2 song, A WING AND A PRAYER immediately comes to mind.

-Ed

PS...Thanks Warren and Becky for giving me an excuse to research
and write about one of my favorite subjects!  -Ed

Hurry Up and Stop

I remember a nationwide poll taken a number of years ago that asked the public to describe the "most dangerous driver" in America.

The winner was,

An Old Man Wearing a Hat!

Now I fit that description perfectly, but they weren't referring to me, or a particular person. They had the "generic" old man in mind.

That might have been true back in the 70's, but the correct answer for today is:

Just about EVERYBODY!

Look up the major causes of auto accidents  and you will see many of the obvious causes, speeding, drunk driving, distractions, etc.  But I did a quick search on the internet, and never once saw one of the major "culprits" mentioned:

FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY.

Tailgating is the other word for it, and in my opinion it has become veritable epidemic! So much so, that I'm almost convinced that it's being taught in driving schools.  Another ubiquitous technique that drives me nuts is the almost universal desire to speed up when approaching stopped traffic waiting at a red light.....then
slamming on the brakes. That doesn't make a bit of sense.  But look around, and notice how many people do it.

There will almost always be "distractions" and un-anticipated actions by other drivers whenever you venture out in your automobile. Anyone who doesn't plan on them is just asking for trouble. Give yourself time to react to them by maintaining a reasonable speed and keep plenty of room between you and the car in front to allow for you make the correction when necessary.

 The speed limit is a pretty good rule of thumb to follow. How foolish to speed around blind turns etc. assuming that no other driver is going to run a red light or stop sign or do anything stupid to cause you to be involved in an accident.

Why in the world would you assume all the other drivers are perfect and never make mistakes?

Finally, you and I aren't perfect either, so make sure you have at least $100,000 in liability coverage.

That may seem like "overkill" to us "depression kids"....but in today's environment, I'm assured by lawyers and friends who've been sued in minor fender benders by the the "other driver" who suddenly comes down with the "insuranceitis virus"   (a mysterious virus that attacks an iindividual who is involved in an auto collision that they didn't cause and isn't showing any signs of injury until the police and EMS arrive. Usually due to the fact that when these two organizations arrive, they begin to see dollar signs.)... 

it's pretty much the minimum

-Ed

And speaking of today's environment:

 Just in Case.....(from the internet)

Fraudulent injury claims are not uncommon in minor accidents where a seemingly harmless fender-bender turns into a drawn out battle between insurance companies and the parties involved. It is possible for the at-fault driver to contest a fraudulent injury claimand win. The driver, however, will have to be prepared to prove the case.

At the Scene

When a minor crash occurs, many drivers exchange information and go on their way with little or no thought about a problem arising down the road. The unfortunate truth is that injury claims can come in weeks or even months after a crash, causing problems for the at-fault driver. Motorists can protect themselves from accident fraud and fraudulent injury claims by:

• Making sure the police are notified of a crash. Keep in mind that police often will not respond to minor fender benders. If this is the case, physically go to the station and file a report to make sure something is on the record.
• Taking pictures of the damage that did – or did not occur – as a result of a collision. Make sure to take pictures of all vehicles involved. If there is no visible damage at all, record this, too. The lack of damage can speak volumes about fraudulent injury claims.
• Making sure to get information, including names, addresses, telephone numbers and insurance particulars from the other involved motorists. Also take down information from any witnesses on the scene of a crash.
• Refusing to admit fault for the crash. When speaking with others at the scene, be very guarded about what is said and what isn’t said. Leave the investigating and assignment of blame to law enforcement.

What to Watch for

Even in very minor fender benders, motorists can sometimes notice behaviors that might be indicative of another driver’s willingness to make a false injury claim. Even if damage isn’t evident on the vehicles, pay attention for signs such as:

• The motorist complaining of injuries or discomfort
• The other motorist trying to assign blame even if he or she is clearly at fault
• Insistence on the use of an ambulance even if physical damage is minimal or nonexistent

Why Disputing Claims Matters

While insurance will likely absorb the cost of a fraudulent injury claim if it is not disputed, the end result can prove costly to the driver blamed. Making sure to fight suspected cases of fraud can protect the driver from:

• Inflated insurance charges
• Cancellation of insurance coverage
• Potential legal action to recover money above and beyond what insurance pays

Get a Lawyer

When a fraudulent injury claim is suspected, hiring a lawyer can be the defending party’s best course of action to take. A skilled automobile accident attorney can investigate a crash, request medical documentation and use collected evidence to successfully dispute claims of injury. Standing alone in this instance can prove costly for a motorist who believes injury reports are fabricated.

by: David Berg

Ghosts

The local stores around here are already jam packed with Halloween candy and stuff; I expect the Christmas merchandise to show up any moment now.

Ever since the early 70's whenever All Hallow's Eve approaches I think of my old friend and co worker at WMAL radio in Washington, John Alexander. John was a newscaster at the station and I was an announcer. It so happened that we worked the same early morning shift every weekend.  John had begun writing a book based on a Halloween show he had produced for WMAL and

asked if I wanted to help illustrate it for him by taking photographs of various "haunted places" in Washington.

He knew of my interest in photography and guessed that I would jump at the chance.  Which I did.

Neither one of us were ever sure the project would see the light of day, much less become the success that it did.  We just thought it was worth doing...and besides, would probably be a lot of fun; which it was.

John's book was published, and the US Park Service sold it in all their National Parks for years, they still might for all I know.

But fun, it was. I still remember fondly those Saturday afternoons clicking pictures of Washington landmarks, both famous and obscure, and visiting just about every old cemetery in D.C.

In those days, the city was not nearly as "up Tight" as it is today.  We couldn't have rummaged through the Washington landmarks today like we did in the early 70s.

It was a different era, although not that long ago.  We had complete and unfettered access to the Capitol where in a lower basement we discovered a bathtub and many forgotten long ago artifacts.

It was at a cemetery in Georgetown that I took the cover photo of the second printing of Johns' Ghost book.  The artwork makes the child's face look "spooky," but in reality the weather made tears simply make it appear very sad.

That photo haunts me to this day. I can think of nothing sadder than the death of a young child, which was oh, so common in the early history of this country.

The inscription on the tombstone is RANDALL.  I tried searching the Internet and discovered that his

father was a Civil War  reporter for a New York newspaper and the family lived in the "Arlington House"  I was unable to find out if  that was the once home of Robert E. Lee, which could have been turned into a hotel of sorts during the war....I have no idea.

As I recall that was the same cemetery that President Lincoln's son Tad, was entombed, and where Lincoln spent many nights sitting with the body, so he wouldn't be alone in that cold dark mausoleum which had been loaned to Lincoln until his son could be buried in Springfield.

The chair (R) inside the tomb where Lincoln spent many nights.

John moved to Charlotte in the 80s and started a video production  company, specialising in medical films. About 10 years ago he and his wife moved to Tennessee. I've lost contact with John, but hope he's doing well. He's a very talented ...and extremely nice ...guy!

-Ed

UFOs

On the outside chance you've run out of things to worry about, here's a new one:

UFOs.

No, not the "Flying" kind. The "Floating" kind.

Unidentified Floating objects.

A whole bunch of them are winding up on the beaches of a Sydney Australia beach and baffled scientists don't know what they are, but for now calling them "green alien eggs.

Their best guess is they are thought to be a rare type of living algae, brought ashore by warmer weather and rough conditions.

Translation: "We have absolutely no idea what they are."

-Ed

Where Did the Bugs Go?

 I stopped watching TV back in the mid 70's when I began spending a lot of time in my "darkroom" developing film and printing pictures. Photography has always been a "close second" to radio as far as my hobbies are concerned.

One thing you can't do in a darkroom...is turn on a TV set.  If you do, the dark goes away.

Film, of course finally did go away, and so did my darkroom, but I never bothered to turn the TV set back on again. 

I've lived happily ever after since. So far, so good.

However, there is one downside: if  something happens that isn't mentioned on the radio or the Internet, then I know nothing about it.  For example,surely I'm not the only one who noticed that there were no bugs this summer. I'm talking about insects. Darned if I don't think I saw even one all summer!

I don't really miss them, but if I remember correctly, we were once taught that little creatures like Bees, butterflies, fireflies, mosquitoes and ticks are the small creatures that hold up entire ecosystems? 


We might really miss the those.

Bug scientists have noticed for years that the firefly population has declined, but they attribute this to the proliferation of more lights that disrupt their communication with other fireflies. But that is only a theory.

I don't have any idea, unless all the bugs, like more and more of our liberal friends are moving down to the Red States like North Carolina and unfortunately bringing their voting habits with them.
Let me know if they ( the bugs) showed up down there this summer.

-Ed

Albert Einstein once said: “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination … no more men!” 

“If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.”

-Dr Jonas Salk

The Year of No Summer

That's what I tell my friends as I am well into my second week, of my second month of living with SHINGLES.

I hope you never get it, but statistics say that 20% of people who have ever had Chicken Pox will get it, usually when we get as old as we are.

Chicken Pox normally goes away in a couple of weeks, but it leaves a virus in you body that is just waiting to attack. Not much you can do about it, but getting early treatment often shortens its duration. It sometimes mimics a heart attack. Those were my first symptoms,  but my Cardiologist was absent from class the day they discussed that in Medical school, so it was left to my wife Linda to diagnose my problem.  Delayed treatment is probably what has caused my Shingles to last so long.

Enough about me.

There once was a worldwide Year of No Summer.  It was 1816.

I don't recall ever reading or even hearing about it until I started feeling sorry for myself and began looking for others whose summer was ruined by Shingles.

This is how Wikipedia describes it:

The Year Without a Summer was an agricultural disaster. Historian John D. Post has called this, "the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world".^[5] The unusual climatic aberrations of 1816 had the greatest effect on most of New England, Atlantic Canada, and parts of western Europe. Typically, the late spring and summer of central and northern New England and southeastern Canada are relatively stable: temperatures (average of both day and night) average between about 68 and 77°F (20 and 25°C) and rarely fall below 41°F (5°C). Summer snow is an extreme rarity.

North America

In the spring and summer of 1816, a persistent "dry fog" was observed in parts of the eastern U.S. The fog reddened and dimmed the sunlight, such that sunspots were visible to the naked eye. Neither wind nor rainfall dispersed the "fog". It has been characterized as a "stratospheric sulfate aerosol veil".^[6]

At higher elevations, where farming was problematic in good years, the cooler climate did not quite support agriculture. In May 1816,^[1] frost killed off most crops in the higher elevations of New England and New York. On June 4, frosts were reported as far south as northern Connecticut and the highlands of northwest New Jersey. ^[7] On June 6, snow fell in Albany, New York, and Dennysville, Maine.^[8]

Many commented on the phenomenon. Sarah Snell Bryant, of Cummington, Massachusetts, wrote in her diary, "Weather backward."^[9]

At the Church Family of Shakers in upstate New York, near New Lebanon, Nicholas Bennet wrote in May 1816, "all was froze" and the hills were "barren like winter." Temperatures went below freezing almost every day in May. The ground froze solid on June 9. On June 12, the Shakers had to replant crops destroyed by the cold. On July 7, it was so cold, everything had stopped growing. The Berkshire Hills had

frost again on August 23, as did much of the upper northeast .^[10]

A Massachusetts historian summed up the disaster: "Severe frosts occurred every month; June 7th and 8th snow fell, and it was so cold that crops were cut down, even freezing the roots .... In the early Autumn when corn was in the milk it was so thoroughly frozen that it never ripened and was scarcely worth harvesting. Breadstuffs were scarce and prices high and the poorer class of people were often in straits for want of food. It must be remembered that the granaries of the great west had not then been opened to us by railroad communication, and people were obliged to rely upon their own resources or upon others in their immediate locality."^[11]

Europe

Cool temperatures and heavy rains resulted in failed harvests in Britain and Ireland. Families in Wales travelled long distances as refugees, begging for food. Famine was prevalent in north and southwest Ireland, following the failure of wheat, oats, and potato harvests. In Germany, the crisis was severe; food prices rose sharply. With the cause of the problems unknown, people demonstrated in front of grain markets and bakeries, and later riots, arson, and looting took place in many European cities. It was the worst famine of 19th-century Europe.^[8][14]

Again, according to Wikipedia,

The crop failures of the "Year without a Summer" may have helped shape the settling of the "American Heartland", as many thousands of people (particularly farm families who were wiped out by the event) left New England for what is now western and central New York and the Midwest (then the Northwest Territory) in search of a more hospitable climate, richer soil, and better growing conditions.^[24]

According to historian L.D. Stillwell, Vermont alone experienced a drop between 10,000 and 15,000 people, erasing seven previous years of population growth.^[5] Among those who left Vermont were the family of Joseph Smith, who moved from Sharon, Vermont, to Palmyra, New York.^[25]This move precipitated the series of events that culminated in the publication of the Book of Mormon and the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.^[16]

In June 1816, "incessant rainfall" during that "wet, ungenial summer" forced Mary Shelley, John William Polidori, and their friends to stay indoors for much of their Swiss holiday. They decided to have a contest to see who could write the scariest story, leading Shelley to write Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus and Lord Byron to write "A Fragment", which Polidori later used as inspiration for The Vampyre^[26] — a precursor to Dracula. In addition, Lord Byron was inspired to write a poem, "Darkness", at the same time.

Darkness

BY LORD BYRON 

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts

Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:

I believe the reason very few people have ever heard of the YEAR OF NO SUMMER is because for many years it was simply a WEATHER story.  It had to wait for fairly modern communications to learn that disastrous year was caused by the eruption of Mount Tamboro in Indonesia, the largest volcano eruption in recorded history. It killed over 90,000 people.

By the time the world found out, it was "old news."

I'm not trying to out scare any of those great story tellers of the 1800's but scientists who should know, say that Mount Tamboro could erupt again any day now.

It's already been rumbling for over a year.

-Ed