Monthly Archives: July 2021
When you have a landmark city…a City of Lights, you want to protect it from the ravages of war. Paris was just that…the City of Lights, and during World War I, in an effort to protect the city from enemy bombs, the French built a “fake Paris” to the city’s immediate north. Complete with a duplicate Champs-Elysées and Gard Du Nord, this “dummy version” of Paris was built by the French towards the end of the war as a means of throwing off German bomber and fighter pilots flying over French skies. Wily military strategists, understandably tired of the enemy dropping bombs on their beautiful hometown, had decided that the best way to keep the city safe was to bring in a stunt double…a life-sized mock up situated to act as a decoy to draw fire from Paris proper.
London’s Daily Telegraph explains that the fake city wasn’t just “a bunch of cardboard cutouts.” No, far from it, in fact. There were “electric lights, replica buildings, and even a copy of the Gare du Nord—the station from which high-speed trains now travel to and from London.” The painters went so far as to use paint to create “the impression of dirty glass roofs of factories.” Fake trains and railroad tracks were lit up as well. There was a phony Champs-Elysées. Many of us today would say, “How could that work? The Germans must have known where they were dropping their bombs!” Nevertheless, it stands to reason that in the early 20th century, the plan could have worked. “Radar was in its infancy in 1918, and the long-range Gotha heavy bombers being used by the German Imperial Air Force were similarly primitive,” the Telegraph notes. “Their crew would hold bombs by the fins and then drop them on any target they could see during quick sorties over major cities like Paris and London.”
No one really knows how well the plan might have worked, because it was never put to the test. World War I ended before the fake city was finished. Both the real Paris and the fake one escaped significant damage. The fake version has long since been dismantled, though photos of it still remain. I suppose it was a ghost town of 
it’s own, and had it remained, it would have been interesting to visit and very likely a tourist attraction. Seriously…the idea of a to-scale decoy city made of wood and canvas dumped out in the leafy suburbs just a few miles from Paris’ instantly recognizable landscape may seem a little far fetched, if not completely crazy. Nevertheless, as the war progressed and French anti-aircraft technology improved, the daylight airship bombings which had previously caused such havoc were eventually rendered too risky for the planes. As such, any bombing raids were forced to take place under cover of darkness and it was at this point that an illuminated sham Paris began to…shall we say…shine!!
To further validate the idea, French fighter pilots reported that during night flights they looked for familiar features of the landscape below when attempting to locate Paris. According to their research, railways, lakes, rivers, roads and woodland were the most useful indicators that they were in the neighborhood. Using this information, the mastermind behind the replica project, Fernand Jacopozzi, along with his team of highly capable engineers worked to make life even harder for the German pilots who were already struggling to find their bearings in an era before radar or precision targeting. Intending to confuse an enemy pilot sufficiently that he would start to doubt his own bearings, the construction of Paris’ mirror image began in earnest at Villepinte to the northeast where a working model of the Gare de l’Est gradually began to take form.
The “fake Paris” was exquisite. No detail was overlooked: “complex, sprawling networks of lights arranged skillfully creating the impression of railway tracks and avenues, as well as storm lamps clustered together on ingenious moving platforms designed to simulate vast steam trains in motion. Immense empty sheds masquerading as factories had translucent sheets of painted canvas stretched tightly across their wooden frames which were illuminated from underneath, an arrangement that to anyone passing overhead would look remarkably like the dirty glass roofs characteristic of industrial buildings. Working furnaces were also installed to add an extra dimension of reality and the factory’s lights were even configured to dim noticeably during an air raid, fooling enemy pilots into believing that the facsimile buildings were, in fact, occupied.”
Because World War I ended, it was only this small part of Zone A that was built. The German bombing campaign came to an end in September 1918 and the armistice was signed at Compiègne two months later. The mock factories and railway network at Villepinte were dismantled shortly after the hostilities ceased. By the beginning of the 1920s little remained of the project. Though his fascinating idea never really got much further than the drawing board, the designs of Fernand Jacopozzi inspired similarly ambitious plans in the United States during World War II.
While riding the 1880 Train on the last day of our annual trip to the Black Hills, Bob and I were sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the ride. It is a favorite part of our trip each year. One of the things that I like to do on these train rides, is to listen to what the people around us think of the journey. When you ride the train every year. You know the area, and while it is still very interesting to me, I do know the area. Others don’t, so it’s interesting to see what they think of this area I love so much. I almost feel like a local listening to the tourists who are viewing this place for the first time.
This trip’s most profound conversation was a little different, and it really made me think. The train has a recorded narrative, and a little boy, about 5 or 6 years old was listening to it. So often, children don’t really listen to such things, but this little boy was rather intently listening to the message. So as he listened, the narrator said that 
the train was in use during World War I and World War II, and the boy said, “What’s a war?” That really made me wonder…how nice it would be, not to know what war is. Yes, there have been wars in his lifetime, and indeed, we are in one even now, but this little boy is too young to really fathom the meaning of the word…war. He still possessed an innocence when it comes to war, killing, and death. That innocence is about to end, I suppose, because once his aunt or mother answered his question, he will forever know what a war is. He cannot go back to that innocence again. It is gone.
I came away from that experience a little sad. Children have such an innocent joy, and for this boy, that is changing. True…he won’t fully lose that innocence in one explanation, and it will depend on how much the 
adults with him can soften the truth for him, but no matter what we do or say, war and death go together, and death by war is not pretty. This boy has an imagination, and if he continues to question the adults in his life, he will begin to get a clear picture of war, and what it really is. Then, as he grows, that picture will become more and more vivid. He will know what death by war means. War is a part of life, and eventually we all know what war means, but for me, the question felt sad, because I was witnessing the beginning of the end of his innocence. It’s a moment I wont easily forget either.
Using prisoners-of-war as free labor in the concentration camps was not an unheard of practice during World War II. Many of the prisoners in Auschwitz were forced to do administrative and labor duties, such as sorting new arrivals’ possessions, constructing and expanding the camps, and taking photos of the other captives. In the photo lab at Auschwitz alone, nearly 39,000 prison photographs were taken. The problem with those photos was that when the Nazis began to realize that they were going to lose the war, they knew that all those photos were proof positive of their guilt in the matter of the Holocaust. That meant that the photos had to be destroyed.
During the evacuation of Auschwitz in 1945, photo lab workers Wilhelm Brasse and Bronislaw Jureczek were ordered to burn all photographic evidence. The men knew that to do so would mean that the Nazis would get away with the heinous murders they had committed. So, they came up with a way to save the pictures. They placed wet photo paper at the bottom of the furnace before placing the real pictures inside. With the furnace so packed and the wet paper creating so much smoke, the blaze went out quickly. Then, once they were unsupervised, the men were able to take the unharmed pictures from the furnace to smuggle them out. The precious pictures of victims of the Holocaust were then cataloged, and have been kept in the Archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
On July 11, 1944, evidence of mass murder of Jews at the extermination camp was provided to Winston Churchill by four escapees from Auschwitz. For two years, the Nazis had managed to keep the gas chambers in Auschwitz, southern Poland, a secret. Churchill wrote to his Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, “There is no doubt this is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world…all concerned in this crime who may fall into our hands, including people who only obeyed orders by carrying out the butcheries, should be put to death.”
Auschwitz was the principal Nazi extermination camp in World War II. The complex covered at least 15 square miles. As World War II was coming to a close, and the Nazis were fleeing their own demise, the camp was evacuated, there were about 67,000 inmates who were still alive there. About 56,000 of these are led away. The rest were too sick to move, so they were left behind to die. As many as 250,000 people will die on the roads before the end of the war. Originally, the site for Auschwitz was chosen because the main railway lines from Germany and Poland passed through the area. By taking the prisoners to Poland, the Nazis hoped to keep their existence a secret. When the prisoners were sent to Auschwitz, they actually had to pay their own way…to be stuffed into a cattle car, so tightly that they couldn’t even fall down if they passed out or died. Prisoners deported to Auschwitz went there to die. The Nazis had no plans for them to survive. Auschwitz contained five crematoria, made and patented by German engineering company Töpf and Sons. It was estimated that they could dispose of 4,756 corpses a day. The crimes against humanity that had been committed here were atrocious, and panic had set in among the SS guards, who feared for their lives at the hands of the ruthless Red Army when it arrived.
For the prisoners, the end was also in sight, either by death, or by liberation for the few survivors of one of humanity’s most vile atrocities. The snow across the grounds of Auschwitz was deep, and temperatures are well below freezing. The Soviet Red Army was only a few miles away. Many SS officers and their families had already left, with cases full of valuables stolen from murdered inmates. Those on the death marches from Auschwitz survived by eating the snow on the shoulders of the people in front of them, because if they bent down to pick up the slush they risked being shot. As the prisoners marched slowly west through Poland, SS Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Höss was heading in the opposite direction. Höss had been given the task of building Auschwitz by Himmler and had been the camp’s brutal commandant, living in luxury with his wife and five children just 100 yards from the camp grounds. After consideration, he headed back to Auschwitz, past what he described as “stumbling columns of corpses,” to make sure all evidence linking him to the genocide had been destroyed. But Höss was forced to turn his car around as the Russians advanced toward him. In 1946, he was captured and a year later hanged at Auschwitz.
Inmates, Brasse and Jureczek employed at Auschwitz’s Identification Service saved the thousands of negatives 
of prisoners’ ID photographs, at great personal risk to themselves, and because they did, at least some of the guilty ones could be held accountable. The photos were intended to be a way to identify prisoners if they escaped, but their rapid starvation made these images useless. Nevertheless, Brasse and Jureczek were keen on preserving evidence of the atrocities at Auschwitz, and in the end, their efforts paid off.
My husband, Bob and I love the Black Hills. We go over every year for the Independence Day celebration, which also happens to be right around Bob’s birthday. It is a kind of double celebration for us. Bob and I love to hike, and we have a number of favorite trails in the Black Hills. Some trails we take every year, some only in years that we are in tip top condition, and we try to find a new trail once in a while. There is so much of the Black Hills that most people never see. The back country of the Black Hills, deep in the forest, is just stunning. These Independence Day trips are such a sweet retreat for Bob and me. We especially love the ride on the 1880 Train, as the grand finale. That ride is so relaxing, and it really never gets old.
Bob is such a hard worker. Even in Retirement, he spends a lot of time working on cars for people. There are 
people who totally depend of his knowledge and ability to keep their vehicles running, and I don’t know what he would do with himself if he didn’t work on the vehicles of all his friends and family members. Since his retirement, he has kept busy and has thoroughly enjoyed the work he does…plus the fact that he is his own boss. All the years he spent working for the City of Casper were great, but there is nothing quite like being your own boss. You work at your own pace and take only the jobs you want to take, and since Bob is such a social person, there is the added benefit of meeting people and making friends.
Bob is such a kind and thoughtful person, who always has something nice to say about everyone. Its a wonderful trait to be able to find the good in people, and that is just what Bob does. I don’t think he has ever met someone he didn’t like. That is something I love about Bob…his easy manner with people. It makes people 
comfortable with him. From adults to little kids. Everybody likes Bob. His nieces and nephews are all very fond of him, and love to spend time with him. They love to tease him and make him laugh, and he feels the same about them. Little kids are the best ones to watch. They can usually tell if a person is someone they would like, and Bob always falls into the “we like you” category. I have to agree with them. I like him too. He’s a pretty great guy. I liked him from the moment I met him…and I still do. Today is Bob’s birthday. Happy birthday Bob!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
My Aunt Jeanette Byer, is such a sweet person. She is easy to get along with and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love her. For a number of years we didn’t get to see her much, while she and my Uncle Larry were living in Louisiana, because he took a transfer with Texaco when things here in Wyoming were slower. I can imagine that it was a fun time for them, however, because it was near the Gulf of Mexico, and warm year round. There is the hurricane factor too, of course, and that might not have been so great. Nevertheless, my grandma, Hattie Byer and several other of my aunts and uncles went down for visits, as did my parents. I remember my mom, Collene Spencer telling me that it was so humid there that you couldn’t get dry, no matter how many times you dried off, and it was a little hard to breath through the humidity. Aunt Jeanette assured my mom that you got used to that after a while. Strangely, when my husband, Bob and I went to Louisiana years after Aunt Jeanette and Uncle Larry moved back to Wyoming, I don’t recall the humidity issues that my mother had experienced. Maybe I just liked summer and humidity more than my mom had, I really can’t say for sure.
I was glad when Aunt Jeanette and Uncle Larry moved back to Wyoming, because then we got to see them more…oddly it was most often in the hardware store. I guess we were both doing projects at that time, hahahahaha!! Nevertheless, we always stopped and visited before we each went back to our shopping again. They were always great to talk to, and they laughed often. Both of them had these wonderful, infectious laughs, and I often wondered if that was part of what attracted them to each other in the first place.
Aunt Jeanette knew Uncle Larry when they were kids in school. As sometimes was the case, and still is today, people knew each other for years, and even became high school sweethearts before they married. When you think about it, that isn’t a bad thing. Becoming friends before you start dating, means that you at least know if you can stand to be around the person for more than ten minutes at a time. Well, Aunt Jeanette and Uncle Larry knew that they most definitely could “stand” to be around each other for more than ten minutes, and in reality, for much longer. The could “stand” to be around each other for life, and it would be a life filled with laughter too. Today is Aunt Jeanette’s 85th birthday. Happy birthday Aunt Jeanette!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
My Uncle Elmer Johnson, was a character. From what I’ve seen of men from that era, my dad, Al Spencer and his brother, Bill included, thee pranks Uncle Elmer and his brother, Les played were…a bit different from what we played as kids. The boys from their era might make their dad think they were going to run the outhouse over with a tractor, assuming no one knew that he was inside. Of course, they would be in trouble when he came running out with his pants down, in an effort to save his own life. Kids back then, living on a farm, thought nothing of driving a tractor or using dynamite, and there is no end to the ideas they might come up with to play a prank on someone with such items. While Uncle Elmer and his brothers were prone to pranks, it didn’t make them bad kids…just typical mischievous kids…especially in that era.
Uncle Elmer loved holidays. My cousin, Elmer…his dad’s namesake, tells me that his dad literally spoiled the family at Christmas, which was his favorite holiday. I can understand that. Don’t we all wish we had the money to spoil our kids to the max at Christmas. There are so many cool new things out, every year, and you want to give your kids that latest toy or gadget. Every year, someone invents some new cool item, an every kid wants one. It would be awesome to be able to give your kid every great new thing they wanted, and I know that Uncle Elmer wanted to do just that.
Uncle Elmer loved his Harley Davidson motorcycle, and he and his brother “terrorized” the cops in Evansville, 
racing around, and if I guess right, getting multiple speeding tickets for it. They didn’t worry too much about that, because as we all know, motorcycles are meant to go fast. Uncle Elmer and his brothers, Les and Tom, loved their machines…of any kind. Uncle Elmer drove semi-trucks for many years. He loved the open road, a trait that fit well into his past of tractors, motorcycles, and trucks. Today would have been Uncle Elmer’s 88th birthday. Happy birthday in Heaven, Uncle Elmer. We love and miss you very much.
These days, my brother-in-law, Chris Hadlock has much in life to love. He and my sister, Allyn now own the property east of Casper by the Platte River that had belonged to his parents Chris has always loved that place, and when his mother passed away, and the property was offered to them to buy, they jumped at the chance. Chris loves taking care of the place, and can often be found mowing, snow removing, or some other form of improvement on the place. The love he has for the place is very obvious in all the wonderful care he gives it. He is often out in the garage fixing things too. Chris loves his job too. He is a retired Casper Police Officer. His new job for Motorola is going well and he is relaxed and happy in it. Police work can be challenging, and although he loved it, it takes its toll.
They went fishing out at Pathfinder Reservoir on Father’s day. It was a perfect day. They took the 4 wheeler out 
and just rode far back off the beaten path and he fished all afternoon. It was super nice and relaxing.
Recently, they went fishing in the Big Horn Mountains, something they haven’t done for a couple of years. From there they headed to Laramie, where their daughter, Lindsay Moore and her family live to spend Independence Day with them; daughter Jessi Sawdon and family; son, Ryan Hadlock and family; and daughter, Kellie. Chris was like a kid in a candy store about the fireworks. The guys went and bought a bunch of them and Chris couldn’t wait to set them off! Sparklers, those black snakes that you light and they grow out of a small pellet, smoke bombs, fountains. He kept things going all evening!
Chris loves being a grandpa. He recently got to watch as his grandson, Ethan Hadlock caught his very first fish that is such a big moment in the life of a kid. His granddaughters, Aurora Hadlock, Adelaide Sawdon, and Mackenzie Moore, as well as Kellie’s boyfriend’s daughter, Jolene, have him wrap ones around their little fingers, 
and he doesn’t mind it a bit He really enjoys his sons-in-law, Jason Sawdon, Shannon Moore, and Kellie’s boyfriend, Tim Williams, as well as daughter-in-law, Chelsea Hadlock. Everyone in his family is a perfect fit in the family.
Chris plays the guitar, and is always composing beautiful new songs on his on it. Chris us quite talented in the area of music, and his family loves listening to him play. He loves his guitar so much, he sleeps with it!! Hahahaha!! Today is Chris’ birthday. Happy Chris!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
My sister-in-law, Marlyce Schulenberg lives only in our memories since her passing at the young age of 39, on August 13, 1989. Those were sad days leading up to and following her passing. The cancer stole so much from her. She was skin and bone by the time she died. Marlyce was developmentally disabled, and in most was she was an adult-kid. She loved candy. It was a vice she really had to have, and if that was the worst bad habit she had…well, that’s not bad. In the end, I suppose it was the extra weight she carried from the candy, that kept her alive as long as she hung on. Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is a horrible disease. In Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, white blood cells called lymphocytes grow abnormally and can form growths (tumors) throughout the body.in Marlyce, they tumor was in her esophagus, and she couldn’t swallow much. She ate baby food in the end.
It was so sad, but I want to concentrate on the good memories. Marlyce worked at Wood’s School, which was for the handicapped at that time. They ran a laundry service there, and she worked in that laundry. She was so proud of her job. Marlyce was very dedicated to her job, and would go on sick, if need be. She was very proud of making money.
Marlyce was also a great baker of Chocolate Chip Cookies, and I loved them. They were the best I ever had…now or then. When we went out to the house to visit, I always hoped Marlyce had been baking. She made 
other kinds of cookies too, but when I came in the door, I was always happiest when she said, “Caryn. I made Chocolate Chip Cookies!!”
Marlyce also made knitted stocking caps. She sold them at craft fairs, and they sold very well. These were talents that not every developmentally disabled person could do, but Marlyce excelled in those areas. I love the sweet memories of my sweet, gone-too-soon sister-in-law. Today would have been Marlyce’s 71st birthday. Happy birthday in Heaven, Marlyce. We love and miss you very much.
Not many wars can be called…peaceful, but the Dutch-Scilly War is one that definitely can. Some wars start over borders, some over principles, and some over…well, who remembers. The Dutch-Scilly War lasted 335 years. That’s an amazingly long time in any war, and even more so when you consider that it had no battles or deaths. Oliver Cromwell had fought the Royalists to the edges of the Kingdom of England. Cromwell was an English general and statesman who, first as a subordinate and later as Commander-in-Chief, led armies of the Parliament of England against King Charles I during the English Civil War, subsequently ruling the British Isles as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death in 1658.
In the West of Britain, Cornwall was the last Royalist stronghold. In 1648, Cromwell pushed on until mainland Cornwall was in the hands of the Parliamentarians. The Royalist Navy was forced to retreat to the Isles of Scilly, which lay off the Cornish coast and were under the ownership of Royalist John Granville. Before fleeing Cornwall, the Royalists raided a few Dutch shipping vessels as an act of revenge, then escaped to the Isles of Scilly. With that, the war was on. The Dutch turned up in Scilly demanding reparations from the Royalists. The Royalists refused and the Dutch declared war. The whole point of the war was to get restitution for the damage done by the Royalists, but the Dutch quickly realized that the Royalists were “dead broke!!” They didn’t have a penny to their name. Well, as we all know, you can’t get blood from a turnip, so going to war to receive money that could never be paid would do no good. In the end, they decided to call it a day and go home. A smart move if you ask me. The problem with the whole 
thing is that they never declared peace with the Isles. They just completely forgot they were at war.
In 1986, Roy Duncan, historian and Chairman of the Isles of Scilly Council, decided to investigate. He wrote to the Dutch Embassy in London. Research proved that that no peace treaty had ever been signed, so Duncan invited the Dutch ambassador Jonkheer Rein Huydecoper to visit the islands and officially end the “conflict” at last. Peace was declared on April 17, 1986, exactly 335 years after the supposed declaration of war. The Dutch ambassador joked that it must have been horrifying to the Scillonians “to know we could have attacked at any moment.”
As my grand-niece Audrianna “Anna” Masterson’s birthday approached, I talked to her sister, Raelynn, who tells me that Anna is “quirky.” That is a fact that anyone who knows Anna knows quite well. Anna has a very unique personality and Raelynn loves to see how she reacts to certain things. Anna is very strong willed and stubborn, and as kids will, they disagree about some of the strangest things. Nevertheless, sometimes they get into “joking” screaming matches about book or movie characters we may see differently. They live to banter back and forth, and it usually ends up in a giggling match.
As she has grown, Anna has changed a lot, and these days, style matters…but it has to be her own style. So, Anna has been experimenting with different styles. Recently, she wanted a “Wilbur Soot” style outfit. For those, like me, who don’t know who “Wilbur Soot” is, he is a YouTuber they both watch, so when she asked Raelynn at the events center yesterday, if she had achieved the look and Raelynn said, “yes,” Anna was ecstatic.
Anna often asks Raelynn, and her brother, Matt about what would look good with what and what kinda clothes to wear to what events. Raelynn often lends her clothes so she can achieve just the right look. Matt will always be brutally honest, which some may think is a bad thing, but you never want to go out looking bad, simply because your siblings 
didn’t want to hurt your feelings about how you really look. People have to be able to trust their siblings about these things.
It is so hard to believe that fashion matters to Anna, because it wasn’t that long ago that Anna didn’t care about things like that. She used to put on sweat pants and a t-shirt, and she was good to go. It didn’t matter if she was going to school or somewhere else, she was comfortable in sweats and a t-shirt, and that was it. She rarely even combed her hair in those days. Not so now. Now the whole look matters. Anna is growing up. Today is Anna’s 14th birthday. Happy birthday Anna!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
