History
Hurricanes were not always given names, but rather years ago, they were given a number. In 1935, on September 2nd, then Hurricane Three became the Great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. The hurricane was the most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall on record in terms of pressure. It tied with Hurricane Dorian in 2019 as the strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricane for maximum sustained winds. The hurricane had winds of 185 miles per hour. When Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana on the 29th of August, on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I was thinking about how bad it was, but Ida was only a Cat 4, with 150 mile an hour winds. That is really nothing compared to 185 mile per hour winds.
Hurricane Gilbert finally passed the Great Labor Day Hurricane as the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record in 1988. The fourth tropical cyclone, third tropical storm, second hurricane, and second major hurricane of the 1935 Atlantic hurricane season, the Labor Day hurricane was one of four Category 5 hurricanes on record to strike the contiguous United States, along with Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Hurricane Camille in 1969, and Hurricane Michael in 2018. In addition, it was the third most intense Atlantic hurricane on record in terms of barometric pressure, behind Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
The Labor Day Hurricane intensified rapidly as it was passing near Long Key on the evening of Monday, September 2nd. Southern Florida was swept by a massive storm surge as the eye passed over the area. After carving new channels connecting the bay with the ocean the waters quickly receded. Gale-force winds and high seas prevented rescue efforts into Tuesday. The storm continued northwestward along the Florida west coast, finally weakening before its second landfall near Cedar Key, Florida, on September 4th.
The Labor Day Hurricane was quite compact and intense. It caused catastrophic damage in the upper Florida Keys. The storm surge of approximately 18 to 20 feet swept over the islands. Nearly all the structures between Tavernier and Marathon were destroyed by the hurricane’s strong winds and the surge. The town of Islamorada 
was wiped off the map. Portions of the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway were severely damaged or destroyed. Sadly, many veterans died in work camps created for the construction of the Overseas Highway, in part due to poor working conditions. The hurricane also caused additional damage in northwest Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. In all, the hurricane took 23 lives before it dissipated on September 10, 1935.
These days, most of us don’t give too much thought to the reasons for school lunches, but during the Great Depression, children might have gone to school with some potato skins, a piece of bread, or even nothing at all, if their parents didn’t have enough money to get them something. Enter the school lunch program. It’s been around for so long that these days it is just part of everyday school life. The reasons aren’t what you might think. Many people think that the Great Depression had something to do with the set up of the National School Lunch Program, but that would be wrong. The National School Lunch Program started in 1946, and it was actually due to World War II.
As many people know, World War II was the second deadliest war in United States history. The loss of 405,399 American lives was second only to the Civil War, in which 618,222 American lives were lost. When a nation loses so many young men to war, there can be a concern about the future and particularly about future wars. The United States government decided to address that future deficit by giving the nation’s children free meals. The theory was that if the children were given meals with proper nutrition, 
there would be a healthier draft pool in the event it was ever necessary to have a draft again. That is a good idea in theory, and I’m sure that with nutritious meals they would be healthier, but it is strange to use that as a way to build an army. In a way it seems manipulative.
Why do governments always seem to have an ulterior motive…about everything they do? I suppose it’s possible for them to honestly want to help people, but when you hear things like feeding the hungry, so they will make a good army, it tends to be a really big inspiration downer. The idea that had taken shape in the first place, becomes polluted by the manipulation of the government, and suddenly it just doesn’t seem so nice. Over the years, military leaders have stood up to make sure America’s youth had proper nutrition for a healthy start in life. The military discovered that at least 40% of rejected recruits were turned away for reasons related to poor nutrition. With that, I can understand that the government wanted to help. After the war ended, the military’s Selective Service Director, General Lewis Hershey, gave a speech that helped win passage of the National 
School Lunch Program in 1946.
Now, Seventy years later, the program is still a very important part of the healthy eating habits of a great number of children. School nutrition remains a national security concern. Many children consume up to half of their daily calories at school. That said, it stands to reason that healthier school nutrition will be a driving force for lowering obesity, which is the leading medical reason why more than 70 percent of the nation’s young adults cannot qualify for military service. I am not opposed to making children’s lives better, but I just don’t like the manipulation that was involved.
came from a totally different era and had a totally different meaning. For example, when we talk about sitting down with someone to have a long talk, we might say, we are going to “chew the fat” with them. This was originally a sailor’s term, that refers to the days before refrigeration when ships carried food that wouldn’t spoil. One such food was salted pork skin, which was largely fat. Sailors would only eat it if all other food was gone, and they often complained while they ate it. This idle chatter became known as “chewing the fat.”
The “blue moon” is one of my favorite and often used sayings, and it is a real astronomical phenomenon. The “blue moon” is the second full moon in the same month. It’s a rare occurrence, happening just once every 2.7 years, which is how the phrase came to be. Usually, a blue moon just looks gray or white like any other full moon, but on even rarer occasions, the moon actually does seem to change color. During volcanic eruptions or forest fires, the oils in smoke can make the moon appear blue, according to NASA.
We have all walked by the carnival games and maybe even played them. Carnival games nowadays give out stuffed animals as prizes, but in the late 19th century, the games were targeted to adults, not kids. The winners, instead of getting a giant teddy bear, might get a cigar. If they almost won but didn’t earn that prize, they’d be “close, but no cigar.” The phrase stuck as meaning getting close, but in the end, failing to reach the goal. By the 1930s, the phrase became fairly common…even outside of the fairgrounds.
We have all heard the expression “flying off the handle,” but most of us think it is an expression for getting angry. That is true, but it’s not really where the saying originated. The saying “fly off the handle” originates from the 1800s. It’s a saying that refers to axe-heads flying off their handles when swung backward before a chop. The axe-heads were not as securely fastened in those days, so it was a good idea to give the user some space…much like you do when someone gets very angry, and “flies off the handle” is the sense of how the phrase is used today. And, anyone who was on the receiving end of the anger form of “flying off the handle” 
knew that they probably needed to duck and cover, because the person who was “flying off the handle” was really mad!! The next time you find yourself saying these, or any number of “old sayings” you might want to think about how that “old saying” really came into being. Some are funny, while others might just make you want to “fly off the handle.”
Volcanoes don’t just suddenly start erupting without warning. There is always some kind of warning. Things like earthquake swarms, a bulging mountain side, and little smoke and ash showings from the crater, always come first. These may not always all happen, but they do happen. The biggest problem in 1883 is that scientists didn’t really know that then. When Krakatoa, in the Sunda Strait of Indonesia, began to wake up on May 20, 1883, it had been dormant for around 200 years. The first sign was an ash cloud that was reported by the captain of a German warship. It rose nearly 7 miles above the island. Strangely, no one in Anjer, 25 miles from the island, or Merak, 35 miles away, reported anything unusual that day, but the inhabitants of Batvia, 80 miles away, “were startled by a dull booming noise, followed by a violent rattling of doors and windows. Whether this proceeded from the air or from below was a matter of doubt, for unlike most earthquake shocks the quivering was only vertical.” The event started rumblings and blasts from the volcano’s vents that continued for the next three months. But this was just the beginning.
Krakatoa began to erupt in earnest on the afternoon of August 26, 1883, sending ash clouds at 22 miles above the island. Along with the eruption came a tsunami that rolled up both sides of the strait. The eruption continued into the night with increasing violence, and at midnight by volcanic lightning strikes to distances of ten to twelve miles. The event was similar to a horror movie, complete with electrical phenomena to a terrifying scale. The glow that surrounded the gigantic column of smoke and ashes was seen in Batava, eighty miles away. Some of the debris fell as fine ashes in Cheribon, five hundred miles east of the volcano.
While the August 26th event was terrifying, the most terrifying part of the disaster happened the next day. When Krakatoa erupted on August 27, the sound it made was accompanied by pressure waves that ruptured the eardrums of people 40 miles away, traveled around the world four times, and was clearly heard 3,000 miles away. That distance is comparable to the distance between New York and und from San Francisco. The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was one of the deadliest and most destructive volcanic events in recorded history. Explosions were so violent that they were heard 1,930 miles away in Perth, Western Australia, and 3,000 miles 
away in Rodrigues near Mauritius. At least 36,417 deaths were attributed to the eruption and the tsunamis it created. The sound was claimed to be heard in 50 different locations around the world and the sound wave is recorded to have travelled the globe seven times over. Following the eruption, there were increased seismic activity that continued until February 1884, although there is speculation as to whether on not that was because of Krakatoa. Whether it was or not, really makes no difference, because the effects that can be confirmes as part of the aftermath of Krakatoa are big enough on their own. The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was a major event, and possibly the biggest on in recorded history.
If you visit the Colosseum in Rome these days, you will see a rough-looking shadow of its former glory. The Colosseum was built between 70 AD and 80 AD, under Emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, the Flavian Emperors. The original name of the Colosseum was the Amphitheatrum Flavium, or the Flavian Amphitheater. Viewed as a populist undertaking by Vespasian, the Colosseum was, at least in part, commissioned as a means to regain the favor of the people, who were restless and unhappy with the imperial institution after Nero’s reign. Planning began in 70 AD and construction in 72 AD. The site of the artificial lake that Nero had constructed as part of the Domus Aurea was chosen for the Colosseum.
Most of the labor for the construction of the building was provided by Jewish slaves, who had been taken as prisoners following the first Jewish-Roman war. The Colosseum was constructed of several materials, mainly travertine, limestone, and marble for decorations. They used tuff, volcanic rock, brick, and lime for links. Metals, mainly bronze, were used to bind the stones together. Travertine is a sedimentary limestone, that is found where rivers, springs, lakes used to exist. Beige in color, travertine typically forms in hot springs. The area around Rome is rich with travertine. It forms by the precipitation of calcium carbonate. The travertine that was used to build the Colosseum came from the town of Bagni di Tivoli, formerly Tibur. Travertine is the majority of the stone in the Colosseum, and most of what is left.
The Colosseum’s decorations were in mostly made of marble, but if you go to the Colosseum today, you will not find much of that marble. It has all but disappeared, because it has been reused in the construction of other buildings in Rome. I find that fact to be very strange, since the Colosseum would have been seen as an important center in Rome…or maybe that is just what it is today. The entrances of the cavea and the balustrades were decorated with marble pieces as well. The first 3 rows of seating were also made of marble, a luxury reserved for the most affluent social class. The columns on the outside had marble capitals, and some columns were also in marble.
Of course, metal was needed too. They had to be able to attach the marble to the structure. In the Colosseum, bronze was the primary metal used, but they also used iron. The metal, was heated and stretched into a bar, then curved into a U shape. Adapted to holes intentionally dug into the stones of the facade, these structures served as agraphs to help keep the Colosseum upright. The first fires got the better of these agraphs which were gradually recovered to be melted. Nowadays only the holes in the stones remain, vestiges of this originality in the construction.
The Colosseum was originally clad entirely in marble. When you visit or see the Colosseum these days you’ll notice how the stone exterior appears to be covered in pockmarks all across its surface. Some say that it was not the reusing of the marble in other buildings that brought the Colosseum to it’s current pockmarked state, 
but rather that after the fall of Rome, the city was looted and pillaged by the Goths. They took all of the marble from the Colosseum, and stripped it down to its bare stone setting. Whatever really happened, or even if it was a combination of the two, the Colosseum that stands today looks like a war-torn, broken-down shadow of what it used to be, and yet the fact that it still stands, continues to draw many people from all over the world to visit it every year.
When it became necessary to improve the condition of the wounded soldiers during a war, 12 nations adopted The Geneva Convention of 1864 for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick of Armies in the Field during a meeting in Geneva. Basically, the agreement, which had been advocated by Swiss humanitarian Jean-Henri Dunant, provided for the neutrality of medical personnel, so they could provide care to the sick and wounded in times of war, without considering the nation the soldier came from. It’s hard for me to think of refusing a soldier care because he fought for the enemy. He is still a human being, and still needs care. Nevertheless, there were times when the medics were not allowed to care for enemy troops.
When the proposal was adopted, is was necessary to design an international emblem to mark medical personnel and supplies. In honor of Dunant’s nationality, a red cross on a white background…the Swiss flag in reverse…was chosen. Most of us have seen it, in person or on television. The MASH units had the symbol on the top of their tents. Military ambulances had it on the top of the unit. The organization became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross. Of course, we know it as the Red Cross. After a time many nations formed their own branches of the Red Cross.
Clara Barton founded the American chapter after hearing about the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1869. Barton went to Europe and became involved in the work of the International Red Cross during the Franco-Prussian War. After the war, she was determined to bring the organization to America. Barton became President of the American branch of the society, known as the American National Red Cross in May 1881 in Washington. Barton had connections in New York, so she opened the first chapters there. Money was donated by John D Rockefeller and four others to help create a national headquarters near the White House. Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist and a friend of Barton’s, offered advice and support as she sought to establish the American Chapter of Red Cross. As Register of Deeds for the District of Columbia, Douglass also signed the American Red 
Cross’ original Articles of Incorporation.
Barton led one of the group’s first major relief efforts, a response to the 1881 Thumb Fire in Michigan’s Thumb region. Over 5,000 people were left homeless. The next major disaster was the Johnstown Flood on May 31, 1889. Over 2,209 people died and thousands more were injured in or near Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in one of the worst disasters in US history. The American National Red Cross, became an organization that was highly respected. Over the years they have done much to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in congruence with the International Red Cross. In 1901, Jean-Henri Dunant was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize.
On this day, August 21, 1911, an amateur painter decided to paint a painting near Leonardo da Vinci’s famed Mona Lisa, only to find out that someone had walked into the Louvre that morning, taken the priceless painting off the wall, hidden it under his clothing, and walked out of the museum. The first thought is, of course, who would be so brazen, but my second thought is how could he have pulled that off? How much clothing would it take to simply “tuck” a 20 inch by 30 inch painting into his clothing. Nevertheless, earlier that day, Vincenzo Perugia had walked into the Louvre, removed the famed painting from the wall, hid it beneath his clothes, and escaped.
The theft, somehow carried out in complete secrecy, left the entire nation of France is shock. There were many theories as to what could have happened to the priceless painting. Strangely, professional thieves were not on the list of suspects, because they would have realized that it would be too dangerous to try to sell the world’s most famous painting. I suppose that a private art collector might have hired a professional to steal it for a secret collection, but that didn’t seem to be the case. One theory, or 
rumor really, in Paris was that the Germans had stolen it to humiliate the French. I’m not sure that made any sense before either of the world wars, but I guess tensions between the nations could have been on the rise then.
For two years, investigators and detectives searched for the painting without finding any real leads. Then in November 1913, the thief mad his first move…the one that would eventually bring his doom. Italian art dealer Alfredo Geri received a letter from a man calling himself Leonardo. It indicated that the Mona Lisa was in Florence and would be returned for a hefty ransom. Why he waited two years to ask for a ransom is beyond me, other than the fear of getting caught. The meet was set to pay the ransom, and when Perugia attempted to receive the ransom, he was captured. The painting was recovered, unharmed.
In a way, you could say that this was an inside job. Perugia knew his way around, and knew areas where the 
Louvre might be vulnerable. Perugia, a former employee of the Louvre, claimed that he had acted out of a patriotic duty to avenge Italy on behalf of Napoleon. That claim was disproven when prior robbery convictions and Perugia’s diary, with a list of art collectors, caused most people to believe that he had acted solely out of greed. Perugia served seven months of a one-year sentence and later served in the Italian army during the First World War. The Mona Lisa is back in the Louvre, where improved security measures are now in place to protect it. I guess that one good thing came of the theft…better security. Of course, that might have come with technological advances anyway.
Ed Freeman first served in the military during World War II, in the United States Navy on the USS Cacapon (AO-52). While World War II was in no way uneventful or unimportant, it was not the most eventful part of Freeman’s service. Freeman decided to continue on in the military. Freeman had reached the rank of first sergeant by the time the Korean War began. By this time Freeman was in the Corps of Engineers, but his company fought as infantry soldiers in Korea. Freeman found himself fighting in the Battle of Pork Chop Hill, where he earned a battlefield commission as one of only 14 survivors out of 257 men who made it through the opening stages of the battle. His second lieutenant bars were pinned on by General James Van Fleet personally. He was given command of B Company and led them back up Pork Chop Hill.
It was Freeman’s childhood dream to become a pilot, and his new commission made him eligible to become a pilot. Nevertheless, there was one drawback. When he applied for pilot training he was told that, at six feet four inches, he was “too tall” for pilot duty. That phrase stuck, and he became known as “Too Tall” for the rest of his career. It was a devastating setback, but in 1955, the height limit for pilots was raised and Freeman was finally accepted into flight school. He first flew fixed-wing army airplanes, but later switched to helicopters. When the Korean War ended, he flew the world on mapping missions.
By this time, Ed W. “Too Tall” Freeman had already had many success stories, but his real success story came during the Vietnam War, during the Battle of Ia Drang, specifically on November 14, 1965. During the battle, there were multiple men injured and the possibility of them dying was very real. Their unit was outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire on the men on the ground was so intense from 100 yards away, that the Commanding Officer ordered the MedEvac helicopters to stop coming in. That was basically a death sentence for the wounded men. The men were at LZ X-Ray, one of the most legendary war sites in Vietnam. It was here that the United States had its first major battle with the North Vietnamese People’s Army of Vietnam, the first very violent round of a bout that would last ten more years. There was really no way for the MedEvac helicopters to save them. Enter, Captain Ed Freeman, who was not a MedEvac pilot, by the way. Nevertheless, that did not stop him. He could not leave a man behind, much less 29 men. That this was not his job, meant nothing to Freeman, who heard the radio call and decided he was going to fly his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway. He had not been given orders not to go, because he was not a MedEvac pilot, so he went. Those men soon knew that Captain Ed Freeman was coming in for them. Freeman dropped his Huey in and sat there in the machine gun fire, as they loaded 3 men at a time on board. Then, he flew up and out through the gunfire to get these men to the medical teams safety. And, he didn’t go in just once!! He kept going back…13 more times!! He went in until all the wounded were out. No one knew until the mission was over that the Captain had been hit 4 times in the legs and left arm.
Ed “Too Tall” Freeman was born on November 20, 1927 in Neely, Mississippi, the sixth of nine children. At the age of 13, he saw thousands of men on maneuvers pass by his home in Mississippi. He knew then that he wanted to become a soldier. Freeman grew up in nearby McLain, Mississippi, and graduated from Washington High School, however, at age 17, before graduating from high school, Freeman served in the United States Navy for two years. He then returned to his hometown and graduated from high school after the war. He joined the United States Army in September 1948, and married Barbara Morgan on April 30, 1955. They had two sons. Mike was born in 1956, and Doug was born in 1962.
Freeman’s commanding officer nominated him for the Medal of Honor for his actions at Ia Drang on November 14, 1965. Unfortunately, not in time to meet a two-year deadline in place at that time. He was instead awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. The Medal of Honor nomination was disregarded until 1995, when the two-year 
deadline was removed. He was finally and formally presented with the medal on July 16, 2001, in the East Room of the White House by President George W. Bush. Freeman died on August 20, 2008, due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was buried with full military honors at the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery in Boise.
The 19th Amendment states that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” In theory, this language guaranteed that all women in the United States could not be prevented from voting because of their gender. Of course, these days, no one really gives that a second thought, because…well, of course, women can vote. Who dared to think otherwise? Nevertheless, women were not always given the right to vote. In fact, for many years, men thought that politics was something that women could not possible begin to understand, and that it was a subject that was simply too harsh for the fragile female mind. Hahahaha!! We can laugh at such a thought now, because it is completely absurd, but that is what everyone thought back then…before the 19th Amendment was passed, following a fierce battle between the women suffragists and the men who ruled the nation.
Nevertheless, in the midst of that fierce battle for the right to vote, an odd event took place in the form of the election of a US Congress member, Jeanette Rankin somehow being elected to Congress!! She was elected to 
the US House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916, and again in 1940. Rankin was a woman, so how could this have possibly happened. She couldn’t even vote, and yet she won the election. That’s crazy. If her “fragile” mind could not be expected to understand how to vote for the office, how would she ever be able to function in the office. I mean, after all, she would be dealing with the same politics that her fellow members of congress had deemed her too fragile to understand. In fact, Jeanette Rankin would not be able to vote in an election until August 18, 1820. Her term in office ran from March 4, 1917 to March 3, 1919…during which time she was the only woman in the United States who could vote. Rankin would serve again from January 3, 1941 to January 3, 1943. Oddly, each of Rankin’s Congressional terms coincided with initiation of US military intervention in the two World Wars. A lifelong pacifist, she was one of 50 House members who opposed the declaration of war on Germany in 1917. In 1941, she was the only member of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Jeanette Rankin was born on June 11, 1880, near Missoula in Montana Territory. Montana would not become a 
state for another nine years. Her parents were, schoolteacher Olive (née Pickering) and Scottish-Canadian immigrant John Rankin, a wealthy mill owner. She was the eldest of seven children, including five sisters (one of whom died in childhood), and a brother, Wellington, who became Montana’s attorney general, and later a Montana Supreme Court justice. One of her sisters, Edna Rankin McKinnon, became the first Montana-born woman to pass the bar exam in Montana and was an early social activist for access to birth control. With all that, it’s little wonder that she became a congresswoman. Apparently, politics ran in the family, and was likely an often-debated subject in the family home.
While Rankin was in her first term in office, it would seem to me that she must have felt a very strong sense of responsibility, because she was at that time the voice of all women…at least as it applied to government and politics. I can’t say that I would have agreed with all of her votes in office, especially where it applied to the two world wars, which I feel the United States needed to be involved in. Perhaps it is that aspect of being in office that the men didn’t think women were very well equipped to handle…war being such an emotional issue and all. I still think that there are many women who might struggle with the idea of sending our men into war, but then there are men who feel the same way, so I guess it is just a matter of where people stand concerning war. To date, Rankin remains the only woman ever elected to Congress from Montana.
We seldom, if ever, think of a flamethrower as a weapon of warfare, but in the year 672, it was very much the weapon of choice for naval warfare by the the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantines). The weapon called Greek Fire was used in ship-mounted flamethrowers. This weapon was so unique and deadly due to the fact that throwing water onto the solution would only feed the fire. That really left nothing to do but abandon ship and try to swim as far away as you could and as fast as you could. Imagine the shock as the first victim of this weapon tried to throw water on the flames, only to have them explode in their faces. These days, Firefighters understand that some chemical fires require a different form of attack than other chemical fires. It the case of something like the Greek Fire, used by the Eastern Roman Empire, modern firefighters would use a foam solution or a dry powder, usually found in a fire extinguisher. Unfortunately, those things were not available in 672.
The Greek Fire was mostly used in naval warfare, because the required large flamethrowers to send its projectile across the water to the enemy ships. Ships could be better accommodated such a large piece of equipment. The infantry would be unable to carry such a weapon, although they probably wished they could, as it would effectively annihilate the enemy. The Greek Fire consisted of a combustible compound emitted by a flame-throwing weapon. It is believed that it could be ignited on contact with water, and was probably based on naphtha and quicklime. The Byzantines typically used the Greek Fire in naval battles with great results, as it could supposedly continue burning while floating on water. This technological advantage provided the Byzantines with military victories, including the salvation of Constantinople during the first and second Arab sieges. The Empire couldn’t have survived without it.
The impression made by Greek fire on the western European Crusaders was such that the name was applied to 
any sort of incendiary weapon, including those used by Arabs, the Chinese, and the Mongols, even though the formulas were different from that of Byzantine Greek Fire, which was a closely guarded state secret. The Byzantines also used pressurized nozzles to project the liquid onto the enemy, in a manner resembling a modern flamethrower. The usage of the term Greek fire has even been general in English and most other languages since the Crusades. The solution had a number of other names over the centuries. including sea fire, Roman fire, war fire, liquid fire, sticky fire, or manufactured fire, but none stuck quite like Greek Fire.
