July 21.... The First Day
Ok, I haven't totally lost all my math skills, but thumbing through the calendar the 202nd day of the year has seen plenty of firsts...
In my life it was a biggy when Neil Armstrong first took "one giant leap for mankind", by walking on the moon (1969).
Of course I watched it on television, and the first station to begin regular seven day a week scheduled television was CBS in New York, on this day in 1931.
Perhaps a great first step for "womankind" also happened on this date nine years before the boys of summer landed on the moon. In 1960 the first elected woman leader of any nation state in history, Sirimavo Bandaranaike became Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. Serendipitous for sure. (If that remark confuses, see http://www.pballew.net/serendib)
It was on this day that real western train robberies began; Jessie James, Cole Younger, and their assorted band of unshaven misfits robbed the Rock Island Railroad after derailing the train near Adair, Iowa in 1873. Some purists may hold forth about an earlier train robbery in Seymour, Indiana; but that just won’t fit in my vision of western train robberies. Total take for the James-Younger robbery was $3000, but the wreck killed the Engineer.
Speaking of the wild west, and folks who died today, does anyone ever give credit to David Tutt for his historical first? He happened to be the first guy ever to die in a classic western shoot out.. in that wild west town of Springfield, Missouri. Here is a version (one of many) from a web page at http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=128729 this guy seems to know a lot about guns, so I for one believe every word he prints there…including :
The story goes that J.B. Hickock and Dave Tutt arrived in Springfield Mo. right after the war having fought on opposit sides. They enjoyed pretty much the same things including gambling, drinking and fooling around with the same woman- something that might have cause a bit of ructure in their friendship. In any case a sort of rivalry developed and one night Dave cleaned Hickock out in a card game. He wound up with Hickocks Waltham repeater watch as surity and when JB asked him not to flaunt it around, Dave just laughted at him. He then told him Not to flaunt it around or he (JB) would blow his (DT's ass off- or words to that effect.
Sure enough, early the next morning both parties showed up in the Springfield town square to see what would happen. Dave showed up fingering the watch and JB got wind of it. Both of them stepped into the street and a later-measured 75 yards and cut loose. Apparently Dave took the classic NRA target stance, side on to JB while Hickock braced his revolver in two hands. The guns went bang at about the same instant and Tutt spun around saying " I am killed" just before falling out kaput.
At this point the story becomes a bit controversial. Most reports have Hickock using a .36 navy and one contemporary account has him already wearing the two reversed navies in a sash at the time he reached Springfield. The same story tellher has him going to meet Tutt with a Colt Dragoon, Another version said he was using a .44 1960 Army revolver. What ever he was using, the three revolvers seem capable of about the same degree of accuracy.
As a teacher I have to mention that today (1925) was the day that John T Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution in a city that had not, Dayton, Tennessee. His fine was $100, which he could have borrowed from the James Brothers if they had invested their heist at 4.5% per annum for the intervening years; that would be....oh do the math.
On this day in 1997 Old Ironsides, the USS Constitution, first set sail agian on her two-hundred year anniversary after 116 years in port. This story about her possible near demise at a much earlier date was taken from http://www.legallanguage.com/poems/OldIronsides.htm :
In 1828, the Constitution was laid up at Boston for two years. The Navy Yard commanders were surveying all the ships in the yard in order to determine the price to bring the ships into active commission. Reports began to circulate that the Navy was considering scrapping the Constitution. There was a public outcry when many heard that the ship which bore the same name as the document that stood for American freedom might be destroyed. Oliver Wendell Holmes also heard of the fate that might befall the ship, and he quickly came to the rescue. He wrote a poem that struck a chord with the patriotic masses of a young America. Old Ironsides was published the next day, and it became wildly popular. The Secretary of the Navy soon ordered the ship to be restored and returned to active duty.
AS a footnote for Clarity, the O W Holmes is the Doctor, and father of the Supreme Court Justice..The poem, which was a favorite of many of my wife’s English students in her grade 7 classes in Misawa, Japan is:
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar; --
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.
Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee; --
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
If you were born today, you share your birthday with Ernest Hemingway and Don Knotts. You are not obligated to tell everyone both names. Pope Sixtus was also born today, as were Moe Drabowsky and Janet Reno. If you don’t know Moe, look him up. He just died last year, and should be remembered. Here are two clips from his associated press obituary:
“More than anything else, Drabowsky was known for being one of the most zany players in the majors. He loved to make crank calls from bullpen phones and once gave commissioner Bowie Kuhn a hotfoot.”
“Drabowsky also was the answer to several trivia questions. He gave up Stan Musial's 3,000th career hit, was the losing pitcher in Early Wynn's 300th career victory and was the first Royals pitcher to win a game.
Yet, Drabowsky developed more of a reputation for what he did off the field.
Slipping sneezing powder into the air conditioning system of the opponent's locker room was a pet trick. So was putting goldfish in the other team's water cooler. He was a master at hotfoots and claimed Kuhn as one of his victims, lighting the commissioner's shoe on fire during the Orioles' 1970 Series win over Cincinnati.
Oh, and the snakes: Because of Drabowsky, they'd show up in shaving kits, lockers and many other places. During a reunion dinner in Baltimore, in fact, one of them slithered out of Brooks Robinson's bread basket and frightened him.
Drabowsky made his share of crank calls from bullpen phones, too. He used the one at Anaheim Stadium to order takeout food from a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong. His favorite gag ever, he said, came at old Municipal Stadium in Kansas City.
"I had pitched there for a few years so I was familiar with the phone system. I knew the extension of the Kansas City bullpen and you could dial it direct from the visitor's bullpen," Drabowsky once recalled.
"One game, Jim Nash of the Athletics is cruising against us in about the fifth inning. So I call their bullpen and shout, 'Get Krausse up' and hang up.
"You should've seen them scramble, trying to get Lew Krausse warmed up in a hurry," Drabowsky said. "It really was funny."
Speaking of Baseball and First, Jimmy Foxx, first baseman for the old Philadelphia Athletics died on this day in 1967.(Foxx was actually a catcher, but the A's had a guy named Mickey Cochran who had that job pretty well sewed up) One of the most feared hitters of his time, Foxx's record of twelve consecutive seasons with 30 or more homers lasted until broken in 2004 by Barry Bonds (Ok, put an asterisk on it)..and his 50 homers in 1938 remained as a club record for the Red Sox through the age of steroids and up until 2006 when it was broken by David Ortiz. Foxx once hit a ball onto the third deck of left field in Yankee stadium. High and Far… When Lefty Gomez, the hall-of-fame pitcher who gave up the shot asked, “How far did that go?” the answer came back, “I don’t know, but it took 45 minutes for them to go up there and get it back.” Gomez is also remembered for commenting on Foxx’s incredible strength, “That guy has muscles in his hair.”
Yep, it’s always a good day for baseball, and speaking of firsts, the Tigers are in first and on a roll, ten out of twelve. {crap!! I wrote this late last night and then watched the tigers roll over to Kansas City…. Kansas City for gosh sake, and 10-2… Oh well, still in first}
