Our aunt, Charlys Schulenberg has been through a lot in the past year. She began having some Neuropathy in her legs and feet. Uncle Butch took her to several neurologists trying to find out if there’s a cure for her. The doctors all say they know of none when it gets that bad. One doctor believes that it all started a couple years ago when her red and white blood cells dropped to a seriously low level. She was very weak. They put her in the hospital and found out that she had no cooper in her blood. So, they gave her copper via IVs. This brought her blood back up, but not high enough. They believe the low copper caused her Neuropathy. They also think that there was too much Zinc in the vitamins she was taking. Apparently, too much Zinc can deplete the copper in your system. So, they got rid of all vitamins that had Zinc in them. Meanwhile, she was home waiting to go back to Billings for another week of IV copper infusions. While she was home however, she, being a very determined lady, refused to take this lying down. She was getting around with a walker, but she was really shaky.
Because of all that, she wasn’t supposed to be cooking. Uncle Butch was doing the cooking. They were going to have spaghetti, but they needed French bread and other groceries, so he went down to store. When he came back 45 minutes later, Aunt Charlys was laying on the floor. She had decided to start the spaghetti, and as she was boiling the spaghetti, her feet went out from under her. She hit the pan of boiling water as she fell, and the pan fell on her, spilling the boiling water and hot spaghetti in her lap causing 3rd, 4th, and 5th degree burns from her knees to her chest. Uncle Butch called an ambulance, and they got her to the hospital, and then, she was flown to the University of Colorado Burn Center. While her burns must have kept her in excruciating pain, Aunt Charlys never lost her sense of humor. She joked with the nurses, even though she was the one in so much pain. She has proven herself to be one tough lady.
After a month in the burn center, she was transferred to the hospital in Forsyth, Montana where they live. She spent another month in the Forsyth Hospital. While she was there, she continued joking and just being herself…always positive and happy. I’m sure that like me, the nurses, doctors, and other staff couldn’t believe that this lady, who was in obvious pain was so cheerful and positive. She has never lost her positive attitude. Her burns soon healed and all that’s left is the scars. Uncle Butch is very proud of her, and so is the rest of her family. Charlys is such a sweet, loving person, and I am so thankful that she is still with us.
Because the Neuropathy in her legs is so bad, she came home in a wheelchair. She couldn’t walk. Uncle Butch got the house set up so she can do things herself. They pulled the carpet up and installed posts by the bed and in bathroom and grab bars in the shower area. When she first came home, Uncle Butch had to help her with bath and bathroom needs, but in true Charlys style, she was determined to do things herself. She worked very hard to make a way for herself. Now, with help of a special chair and the bars on wall, she does many things by herself. All Uncle Butch has to do is stand by to make sure she’s alright. She can pull Herself up out of wheelchair and get things out of the low cabinets. She has one of those two wheeled walkers with solid back legs, and she gets a little further walking with it each day. Uncle Butch says that at times her feet and legs just jump all over the place.
They were scheduled to start copper treatment a couple days before the accident, but they had to cancel that. Meanwhile, their daughter, Andi Kay got a hold of the doctors at the burn center and told them about her copper deficiency. They didn’t want that to continue, so they placed a tube in her nose, that went to her stomach, and fed her copper and drugs straight into the stomach., finally bringing her copper and her red and white cells to normal, Praise God!! With the excellent treatment she was given, she was very soon back to being her old spunky self. Unfortunately, they don’t believe that the damage is done in her feet and legs from the Neuropathy, is reversable. So, she’s in a wheelchair or walking a little with her walker. Meanwhile, being the culinary expert that she is, she has the up the task of “teaching” Uncle Butch to cook, with her supervision, of course. She makes sure to tell him what to do next, even if he probably already knows, but that leaves her basically running the show, and that what is most important. She has been struggling with Macular Degeneration in her eyes, so Uncle Butch reads her the recipes, as well as a lot of articles from papers, a true mark of his love for her. She also has a magnifying glass, that has a small light, and she uses that a lot too.
Their grandson, Christian is living with them and working as a CNA at the Forsyth Hospital. That has been such an amazing blessing. He has been a great help to them. He loves his grandma “to pieces” and gives her all his attention, and the love is “reversed” to him too. Uncle Butch thinks that she wouldn’t be as happy, if Christian wasn’t there. Uncle Butch thinks through all that has happened these last few years, it has only served to bring 
them closer to one another. They got Aunt Charlys a small electric wheelchair that folds down and is real light. I didn’t know they made folding electric wheelchairs, but it is awesome!! It slides into a trunk or a pickup. She can go shopping with it now. They went to Walmart in Miles City last week, and she had a blast!! Uncle Butch says that you have to watch her, or she’ll run over your feet…kind of like a fifteen-year-old with a driver’s permit, hahaha!! The good news is that now that she has it, she can get out more. Charlys is full of life yet, even with all the problems. Uncle Butch says, “She’s a fighter and she dang sure doesn’t give up.” It’s a miracle that could only be God and the excellent people He placed at the hospitals and at home to care for her. Today is Aunt Charlys’ 82nd birthday. Happy birthday Aunt Charlys!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
When Elizabeth Jane Cochrane was born on May 5, 1864, there were things that women couldn’t do. It was a man’s world, after all. Not much had changed by the time she was eighteen years old. She was living in Pittsburgh when the local newspaper published an article titled “What Girls are Good For” and according to the article, the answer was having babies and keeping house. These days such an article would have brought immediate outrage, protests, and the author practically strung up. Due to the times, the author would have gotten away with it, but in this case, Elizabeth Cochrane saw it and was very displeased. She was displeased enough, in fact, that she wrote an anonymous rebuttal.
Strangely, the paper’s editor was quite impressed with her rebuttal. He immediately ran an ad in his paper asking the writer to identify herself. Boldly, Elizabeth contacted him, and he hired her on the spot. I’m quite sure that she was not expecting that at all. Still, in this “man’s world” she could not really let anyone know that she was the writer…and maybe that wasn’t exactly a bad thing. Going up against the men is such an argument using her own name might bring some unwanted attention. After all, things were in the very early stages of women’s rights. At that time, most women were still housewives…or schoolteachers, librarians, seamstresses, and such, if they had to work outside the home. So, it was customary at that time for female reporters to use pen names. To top it off, she wasn’t even allowed to pick out her own pen name. The editor gave her one that he took from a Stephen Foster song…Nellie Bly, and it would actually make her famous…as Nellie Bly anyway.
Bly’s passion was investigative reporting, but once again, she found herself stumbling over the whole “man’s world” concept. While she was given work, the paper usually assigned her to more “feminine” subjects…things like theater and fashion. Still, they couldn’t keep her under their thumb very well. After writing a controversial series of articles exposing the working conditions of female factory workers, and after again being relegated to reporting on society functions and women’s hobbies…at age 21 Bly left for Mexico on a dangerous and unprecedented (for a woman) assignment to report of the conditions of the working-class people there. It didn’t take long for her reporting to get her in trouble with the local authorities. Wisely, Bly fled Mexico, but didn’t give up on her story. She later published her dispatches into a popular book.
By the time Bly was 23, she had established a reputation for being a daring and provocative reporter. This drew 
the attention of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, where she was hired to basically work under cover. It was the assignment that made her famous. In order to investigate the conditions inside New York’s “Women’s Lunatic Asylum,” Bly took on a fake identity (not really a new concept for someone using a pen name to write), checked into a women’s boarding house, and faked insanity. Bly was so convincing that she soon found herself committed to the asylum. I would personally find that a scary situation, but Bly was dedicated. The report she published of her ten days there was a sensation and led to important reforms in the treatment of the mentally ill.
Nellie Bly was a woman to be remembered. When she was 24, she undertook her most sensational assignment yet: a solo trip around the world inspired by Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days. Ready to go at the drop of a hat, Bly was given only two days’ notice, before she set out on November 14, 1889. She packed a travel bag with her toiletries and a change of underwear, tied her purse around her neck, and she was off. Pulitzer’s competitor, the New York Cosmopolitan, took that as a challenge and immediately sent out one of its reporters, Elizabeth Bisland, to race Bly, but traveling in the opposite direction. As Pulitzer had hoped, the stunt was a publicity bonanza. Readers gobbled up the regular reports on Bly’s journey and the paper sponsoring a contest for readers to guess the exact time of Bly’s return. The winning guess would be awarded an expense-paid trip to Europe.
Bly made her triumphant return just seventy-two days later, four and half days ahead of Bisland. She had successfully circumnavigated the globe, while traveling alone almost the entire time. It was a world record…the fastest any human had ever made the journey. Suddenly, Nellie Bly was an international celebrity. I still wonder if there was some regret that she was still using the pen name, or maybe it gave her a degree of anonymity, until people recognized her, that is.
After leading an almost insanely adventurous life, Bly decided to retire…so to speak. When she was 31 years old, Bly married industrialist Robert Seaman, a 73-year-old millionaire. With her marriage, she left behind her journalism career and her pen name and became Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman. She helped run the Seaman family business. While working as an industrialist, she patented two inventions, but she knew that business was not really her forte, and sadly, under her leadership the company went bankrupt. I’m sure that with all her life 
successes, that was a devastating failure for her. With the outbreak of World War I broke out, she returned to journalism, becoming one of the first women reporters to work in an active war zone. I have no doubt that Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman) could have done so many more remarkable things in her life, but sadly, her remarkable life ended on January 27, 1922, when she died of pneumonia in New York at age 57.
I’m told that the Sun weighs 2,000 million million million million tons. That if course, sounds very heavy, and I suppose it could be fairly accurate. Nevertheless, for me these questions arise. How do they know the weight of the Sun? Who was it that somehow managed to go out there and weight the Sun? And where did they get a scale big enough to set the Sun on to get this very accurate sounding weight? Ok, I’m being sarcastic, but then again, these are legitimate questions. I’m told that there is a formula they use to figure the mass of a planet.
First one has to calculate the mass of the Sun. There are apparently several ways to do so. One way is to use Kepler’s third law: “M = 4r³?²/T²G, where r is the distance between the Earth and the Sun, T is the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun, and G is the gravitational constant. The mass of the Sun is about 2×10³? kg.” Another way is to use the mass formula: “Mass = Density x Volume. The mass of the Sun’s core is estimated to be 3.0 x 10³¹ kg, and the mass of the outer shell is estimated to be 1.1 x 10³¹ kg.” The third way is to “divide the total mass by 1.98855 times 10 to the 30th power.” From what I can see, the common methos is the Kepler’s third law. Once you have that figured, you are ready for the next step…the weight of the Sun.
That process is as complicated as, or nearly as complicated as the methods to figure the mass of the Sun. Apparently, it all has to do with the mass of the Sun, the mass of the Earth, the gravitational pull on the Earth by the Sun, and the distance between the two squared. Or more scientifically written, “The gravitational attraction between the Earth and the sun is G times the sun’s mass times the Earth’s mass, divided by the distance between the Earth and the sun squared. This attraction must be equal to the centripetal force needed to keep the earth in its (almost circular) orbit around the sun.” If that makes perfect sense to you, then you are 
likely a better scientist or mathematician than the average person. So even if I could fully understand that process, and I don’t, I still have to ask one question, where is the proof that its true and accurate. I realize that there is no way to definitively prove the weight of the Sun, the Earth, or any other planet, and maybe this is somehow he most accurate guess possible. I don’t know, but maybe they should say that the Sun weighs approximately 2,000 million million million million tons. At least, that would stop such silly questions from people like me.
There are certain things which really should never be mixed together. One of the biggest is alcohol and the operation of any vehicle. That fact was made perfectly clear on May 8, 1837, when the steamship, Ben Sherrod was headed down the Mississippi River. The American side-wheel steamer Ben Sherrod, weighing 393 tons, was under the command of Captain Castleman, and was en route from New Orleans to Louisville carrying about 200 passengers, general freight, a large quantity of coins consigned to banks in Tennessee, and a considerable amount of wealth belonging to private individuals. As was not uncommon, the Ben Sherrod was engaged in an exciting race with the steamer Prairie. It was one o’clock in the morning, and the boat was about fourteen miles from Fort Adams, pushing her way up the Mississippi with as much speed as she could muster. Still, the Ben Sherrod was in sight of, but lagging behind the Prairie. The crew of the Ben Sherrod were determined, if possible, to pass the Prairie by, so the firemen were shoving in the pine knots, and sprinkling rosin over the coal…basically doing their best to raise more steam.
In addition to the necessary supplies needed to operate the steamship, they also had a barrel of whisky set before them, and they were drinking from it heavily and often, until they were very drunk. As they continued to load the boilers to dangerous levels, the boilers became so hot that the sixty cords of wood on board burst into flames. The Ben Sherrod was soon completely enveloped in flames, and to make matters worse, the drunken men ran away from their posts, rather than doing whatever they could to put out the fire and get the passengers to safety. The approximately 200 passengers were sound asleep, completely oblivious to the terror that awaited them.
When the deck hands discovered the fire, they too left their posts and ran for the yawl (a type of boat that can be used with sails or oars…basically a lifeboat), without warning the passengers. Captain Castleman tried to dispel the panic and confusion, by telling them the fire was extinguished. He tried to keep them from lowering of the yawl, which was what they were attempting. Then, the screams of nearly three hundred and fifty persons on board could be heard. The panic was obvious and could be heard for several miles. They were yelling, “To the shore! To the shore!” The boat made for the starboard shore, but could not reach as the wheel ropes soon burned. When they decided to let off the pent-up steam, the boat kept on up the river. The scene was simply horrific. The yawl, which had been filled with the crew, had sunk, drowning nearly all who were in it. That left the passengers with no choice but to jump from the burning ship, without even taking time to dress. There were ten ladies who all went silently overboard. Some drowned instantly, and others clung to planks. In the end, only two of the ladies were saved. While drowning was horrific enough, worse yet was the fact that several passengers were burned alive.
When the steamer, Colombus arrived on scene 30 minutes later, they found a man named Ray, from Louisville, Kentucky, clinging to a rope at the bow of the boat, where he had jumped to in an effort to escape the heat and flames. Ray’s face and arms were terribly burned while clinging to the boat, but he had to hang on and endure the agony. He lost twenty thousand dollars in coins, but he saved his life, so I’m sure the money was of little consequence to him. The steamboat Alton arrived half an hour after the Columbus, but it carelessly came in too fast, causing the drowning of many people who were floating in the water. As Alton came in, the people were too weak to get out of the way. To make matters worse, it was dark, and they were probably difficult to see in the water. A gentleman by the name of Hamilton, from Limestone County, Alabama, was floating on a barrel, with one of the ladies, when the Alton came up, washing them both under. The lady drowned, but Hamilton came up and floated down the river fifteen miles. Finally, he was rescued by the steamer Statesman. A man named McDowell stayed afloat for some time, fighting against the current, and floated only two miles down the river, finally reaching the shore, but his wife, who was floating on a plank, was drowned when the steamer Alton came rushing in. In all only two ladies out of ten who were on board were saved…one of these was the captain’s wife and the other was Mrs Smith, of New Orleans. Of the 300 people on board, it was later estimated that only 70 had escaped with their lives. The loss of Ben Sherrod was complete negligence, and that only because I can’t think of something worse to call it right now.
Many people were furious with the captain of the Prairie, for leaving a boat in flames without turning around to give aid to the victims. Another man, this one in a canoe near the scene of the disaster refused to save any who were floating in the water, unless they promised to pay him handsomely for his services…scum, if you ask me. The Ben Sherrod disaster was one of the worst calamities that ever occurred on the Mississippi river. During the burning of the Ben Sherrod eight different explosions occurred; first, barrels of whiskey, brandy, and then the boilers blew up with a huge explosion. Finally, forty barrels of gunpowder exploded. That explosion could be heard for miles. The wreckage blew apart, scattering fragments in all directions. Immediately after that 
explosion, the wreck sunk out of sight just above Fort Adams, taking with it a large quantity of coins, which was on its way to the Tennessee Banks.
The ship remained in the river for years, but now, the remains of the Ben Sherrod are currently being recovered by a consortium of private investors. The remains of the steamship are lying upside down about one mile from Fort Adams and a little over a mile from the present channel of the Mississippi River. The ship has been buried under approximately seventy feet of sand and mud, possibly making it hard to find. So far, about 50 feet of hull timbers have been uncovered. They were in surprisingly excellent condition and the group is hoping that the cargo is there (especially all those coins), still intact, and as well preserved.
Ian Holbourn born John Bernard Stoughton Holbourn on November 5, 1872, to Alfred Holborn and Mary Jane Stoughton. John Bernard, who later went by Ian, which is the Scottish version of John, was the eldest of their two children. His mother died when he was very young and due to his father’s ill health, the children were sent to live with their stern Aunt Augusta. As a young man he became fond of the remote Scottish island of Foula, which he succeeded in purchasing around 1900, thus becoming its laird (owner of a large, long-established Scottish estate). He was also a professor and lecturer for the University of Oxford, and a writer.
Avis Gertrude Dolphin was born on August 24, 1902, in Rotherham, Yorkshire, England to John Henry Dolphin and Alice Schofield Dolphin. Avis as twelve years old when her parents booked passage for her and two nurses, Sarah Smith and Hilda Ellis, on RMS Lusitania, bound for England where Avis was to attend school while living with her grandparents. It was on that voyage that Ian Holbourn and Avis Dolphin would cross paths and their lives would be forever changed.
Ian befriended the young girl, who seemed to need a friend at the time. They talked of many things from the journey they were on to her upcoming school. She told Ian in one of their talks, that books for girls were uninteresting. Ian, an author, wrote his book “The Child of the Moat, A Story for Girls, 1557 A.D.” for Avis in 1916. The two would be friends for the rest of Ian’s life, but only because they were both destined to survive the sinking of the ship they met on. RMS Lusitania was hit by a torpedo launched from a German U-boat on May 7, 1915. That afternoon, RMS Lusitania was 11 miles off the southern coast of Ireland inside the declared war zone. The torpedo triggered in internal explosion. The damage caused her to sink in 18 minutes, killing 1,197 passengers and crew. Eventually, 289 bodies were recovered or found from the wreck. Only 761 people survived, among them, Avis Dolphin and Ian Holbourn. Ian was married to Marion Constance Archer-Shepherd, 
and together they had three sons. Ian died on September 15, 1935. Avis was introduced to journalist Thomas Foley during a visit to Holbourn’s home, and the two were married in 1926. Avis lived the remainder of her life in Snowdonia, Wales and died of natural causes in Meirionydd, which is a coastal and mountainous region of Wales, at the age of 93 on February 5, 1996.
World records come and world records go. Some take longer to beat than others. One record had stood for nine years. It was a record involving human endurance, and after a while, many believed that the recorded for the four-minute mile seemed like it just couldn’t be broken. so many athletes had tried and failed to break the record of 4 minutes 1.3 seconds set by Gunder Hagg of Sweden in 1945. Nevertheless, a hard to break record is a great motivator, and this one drew lots of athletes who were determined to break that record.
By the early 1950s, and because so many athletes had tried and failed to run a mile in less than four minutes, people began to believe that it was a physical, and maybe even a phycological impossibility. Still, that seldom stops people from trying. In fact, in the early 1950s, several runners had dedicated themselves to being the first to cross into the three-minute zone. The goal became such a big deal that the crowds actually held their breath waiting for the time on a run to be announced. I’m sure that each failure was a colossal disappointment.
On May 6, 1954, in Oxford, England, 25-year-old medical student Roger Bannister finally succeeded in breaking track and field’s most notorious barrier…the four-minute mile. Bannister, who was born in Harrow, England, in 1929, was a top mile-runner while a student at the University of Oxford and at Saint Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London. He won British championships in the mile run, in 1951 and 1953. As he prepared himself for his first competitive race of the 1954 season, Bannister researched the mechanics of running and trained using new scientific methods he developed through his research.
Bannister came to the Iffley Road track in Oxford on May 6, 1954, for the annual match between the Amateur Athletic Association and Oxford University. Bannister was running for the Amateur Athletic Association and against his alma mater, Oxford University. The conditions that day were far from ideal. It had been windy and raining, and a considerable crosswind was still blowing across the track as the mile race was set to begin. At precisely 6pm, the starting gun was fired. Bannister had planned the race very carefully. He was aided by Chris Brasher, a former Cambridge runner who acted as a pacemaker. For the first half-mile, Brasher led the field, with Bannister a close second. Then, another runner took up the lead and reached the three-quarter-mile mark in 3 minutes .4 seconds. Bannister passed the mark at 3 minutes .7 seconds. Then, as he had planned, Bannister took the lead with about 350 yards to go and sprinted past an unofficial timekeeper at the 1,500-meter mark in 3 minutes 43 seconds, thus equaling the world’s record for that distance. Then, Bannister poured it on, throwing in all his reserves. When he broke the tape the time was 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. The announcer didn’t even get the whole time out before the crown erupted. All they needed to hear was “three minutes.” The rest didn’t matter, because the record had been broken!! Bannister’s official time was 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. It was very close to the 4-minute mark, but that didn’t matter, because .6 seconds still made it under four minutes. As soon as the first part of his score was the crown went wild!!
Bannister went on to win British and Empire championships in the mile run, and the European title in the 1,500-meter event in 1954. That was all it took for him. Going out on top, Bannister retired from athletic competition at the end of 1954, to pursue his medical career full time. He wrote a book about his experience in 1955, called The Four Minute Mile. Bannister went on to earn a medical degree from Oxford and became a neurologist. In 1955, Bannister married the Swedish artist Moyra Elver Jacobsson in Basel, Switzerland. Together they had four children…Carol Bannister (born 1957), Clive Bannister (born 1959), Thurstan Bannister (born 1960), and Charlotte Bannister (born 1963). In 1975, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died of pneumonia at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford on March 3, 2018.
As for his world record in the mile, well it did not stand long. The record continued to be lowered with 
increasingly controlled climatic and surface conditions, more accurate timing devices, and improvements in training and running techniques. A “sub-four” mile run is still a notable time, but top international runners now routinely accomplish the feat. These days, the “mile race” has been replaced in the Olympics, because the mile is not a metric measurement. Nevertheless, it continues to be run by many top runners as a glamour event. While the sub-four race time is now a rather common time for the mile, no one else can claim the first-time record, because that belongs exclusively to Roger Bannister.
I have been very privileged to have had two men that I called “Dad” who were both among the kindest men I have ever met. My father-in-law, Walt Schulenberg became my second “Dad” when I married my husband, Bob Schulenberg in 1975. He was a hardworking man, almost to the point of being a workaholic, but that was common for the times and the bigger families that people had. My in-laws, Walt and Joann had six children, of which my husband was the third child and first boy. In big families, there is, by necessity, a certain amount of joking and teasing. It’s really the only way to make sure the kids aren’t always fighting. Everyone’s kids need to know how to hake a joke. They also, need to know how to tell one in good clean fun. Dad taught them well, as did my parents, so Bob and I were quite compatible in that way, as well as many others, of course.
My father-in-law spent most of his childhood living on ranches and learned his work ethic there. When you are 
raising cattle, there is little sleeping in until noon. As with most kids of that era, the workload was shared. The parents couldn’t be expected to take care of everything, especially when there are perfectly healthy kids who can help. He helped with chores around the house, and later with everything from feeding the animals to branding them. Over the years he raised some animals of their own, although not to the grand scale that he had grown up with. I was raised in town, so cows, chickens, rabbits, and the like were a little foreign to me. Nevertheless, if you put your mind to it, you can learn just about anything, and my in-laws were good teachers.
Later in his life, my father-in-law moved my mother-in-law and their eldest daughter, Marlyce to town. While he no longer raised animals, he planted a garden in the back yard, from which my mother-in-law canned the vegetables. His also built a hobby barn, really just a tall and fairly large shed, where he could tinker around making different crafts. He made wooden toys and wind spinners. They graced his yard for the rest of his life, 
as well as may yards around town. People would see them and want to buy them. He also refurbished lawn chairs, actually making them far more beautiful than they had previously been. He was an accomplished contractor, though mostly just for himself and his family. Nevertheless, he did make so steps for people and a few other things over the years. His was a life well lived, and it makes me sad that he has been gone for eleven years now. Nevertheless, time marches on, and today I find that he did leave us eleven years ago today. I still miss him every day.
The Vietnam War was a volatile time in American history. When the war started, so did the draft. Many people protested, especially students. I suppose for them, it all felt so much closer to home, than for the older Americans. Still, the students were not alone in protesting. Many Americans agreed and protested too. The law allows for “peaceful” protesting, saying that it is “a constitutionally protected form of expression under the First Amendment in the United States. It falls under the right to free assembly, allowing every American to voice their opinions and advocate for change. However, a protest becomes a riot when one or more people within the group engage in criminal activity. This can include intentionally damaging property or causing physical harm to another person1. In other words, when a peaceful demonstration loses control and turns violent, it transitions from a protest to a riot.”
On May 2, 1970, a protest rally at Kent State University resulted in the National Guard troops being called out to suppress students who were now rioting in protest of the Vietnam War and the US invasion of Cambodia. As scattered protests continued the next day, they were dispersed by tear gas, and on May 4th class resumed at Kent State University. University officials put a ban of rallies, but it didn’t stop the rallies. By noon, some 2,000 people had assembled on the campus. The National Guard troops arrived and ordered the crowd to disperse, fired tear gas, and advanced against the students with bayonets fixed on their rifles. As is common among protesters, some refused to disperse, and even responded by throwing rocks and verbally taunting the troops.
As the situation escalated, and without firing a warning shot, 28 Guardsmen discharged more than 60 rounds 
toward a group of demonstrators in a nearby parking lot, killing four and wounding nine, one of whom would be permanently paralyzed. The closest casualty was 20 yards away, and the farthest was almost 250 yards away. After a period of disbelief, shock, and attempts at first aid, angry students gathered on a nearby slope and were again ordered to move by the Guardsmen. Though they were prepared to stand and even die for their beliefs, faculty members were able to convince the group to disperse, and further bloodshed was prevented. The Kent State campus was closed for six weeks following the tragedy.
News of the shootings reverberated across the globe. It also led to protests on college campuses across the country. Just five days after the shootings, 100,000 people demonstrated in Washington, DC, both against the war and the killing of unarmed student protesters. The media put out photographs of the massacre, and the images became enduring images of the anti-war movement. A criminal investigation followed, and in 1974, at the end of the investigation, a federal court dropped all charges levied against eight Ohio National Guardsmen for their role in the Kent State students’ deaths. The decision was followed by outrage.
After the decision was made, the defendants issued a statement, “In retrospect, the tragedy of May 4, 1970, should not have occurred. The students may have believed that they were right in continuing their mass protest in response to the Cambodian invasion, even though this protest followed the posting and reading by the university of an order to ban rallies and an order to disperse. These orders have since been determined by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to have been lawful.
Some of the Guardsmen on Blanket Hill, fearful and anxious from prior events, may have believed in their own 
minds that their lives were in danger. Hindsight suggests that another method would have resolved the confrontation. Better ways must be found to deal with such a confrontation.
We devoutly wish that a means had been found to avoid the May 4th events culminating in the Guard shootings and the irreversible deaths and injuries. We deeply regret those events and are profoundly saddened by the deaths of four students and the wounding of nine others which resulted. We hope that the agreement to end the litigation will help to assuage the tragic memories regarding that sad day.” I agree, better ways must be found by both the protesters and the authorities.
My son-in-law, Travis Royce is a fun-loving guy. He loves to entertain, because he is very entertaining. He has never heard a joke he doesn’t know the punchline for. He just always remembers those things. I’m sure it’s because they make sense to him. A true comedienne not only always remembers the punchline, but they can make up jokes as they go along. For them, the world is a funny place. I love talking to him, because he always brings something fun to the table.
Travis is a man of many talents. One of my favorites is his ability to play the guitar. I love watching him play…not just listening…watching. His face always shows just how much he is into the music. Travis likes all kinds of music…some more than others, but I was surprised to find that one of his favorite kinds of music is Blues. 
To me, that seemed like kind of an “old fashioned” genre, so to think that my son-in-law liked it, was a strange thought. I thought most “kids” likes rock and roll. Of course, Travis isn’t a kid anymore, but he was when he started liking Blues. At the time, he was DJ in Casper, Wyoming. He left that career behind in 2015, when he and my daughter, Amy Royce moved their family to the Pacific Northwest. Still, the love of music and the love of making music stayed with him…and those who have heard him play, have been the beneficiaries of his talents.
Travis loves spending time outdoors…now that the climate they live in is milder. He has worked hard to make their favorite hangout, their backyard, into a peaceful and relaxing oasis for them. They spend lots of time relaxing around their fire pit in the evenings. It is such a peaceful way to end a long workday. Travis works in a big supply warehouse. They deliver for places like Etsy. He really enjoys the work, and also the lack of dealing with the public. It’s almost like working from home, but he isn’t at the house. Of course, I’m sure that he would rather be at their house, 
but this would be the second-best possibility for him. Nevertheless, for Travis and Amy, the best place to be in their opinions would be in their own back yard. They love the peace and quiet of their home just past the edge of town. I never would have figured that they would want to be living in the country, but again, they surprised me in that. I always figured they would want to live in town…closer to the action. Still, they are close enough to get to whatever they need, or whatever they want to do. That’s all the matters. Today is Travis’ birthday. Happy birthday Travis!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
Over the years, I think most people have heard of the Loch Ness Monster. Most people have formed their own opinions as to what the monster, dubbed “Nessy” was. Many people have called it a hoax. Others have said that people imagined it. Still others thought it was a big fish or just a log. Whatever it was or is, the legend has endured for a long time now. In fact, the first “sighting” was reported on May 2, 1933. When the news broke, the newspaper, Inverness Courier told of a local couple who told of “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.” The story of the “monster” which was added by the Courier editor, becomes a media phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a 20,000 pound sterling reward for capture of the beast.
The sighting, which actually occurred in April 1933 sighting was reported in the newspaper on May 2nd. After that, interest steadily grew, especially after another couple claimed to have seen the animal on land. I don’t 
recall ever having heard of the Loch Ness Monster being seen on land, but I suppose that if it is real, it could be seen on land too. What is really amazing, however, is the fact that the story, real, imagined, or faked, has endured through the years…90 of them to be exact.
Since the first sighting, amateur “investigators” have for kept an almost constant vigil, and in the 1960s several British universities launched sonar expeditions to the lake. None of the universities found anything conclusive, however, in each expedition the sonar operators detected something large, moving under the water. Still, they couldn’t identify the objects they saw. In 1975, another expedition combined sonar and underwater photography in Loch Ness. A photo resulted that, after enhancement, appeared to show what vaguely resembled the giant flipper of an aquatic animal. Nevertheless, the people who participated in the expeditions believed that there was something there, and they had no reason not to believe that the “monster” often called “Nessy” was real. So, the speculation continued.
In the 1980s and the 1990s, additional sonar expeditions were conducted. These also brought inconclusive 
readings. It was revealed in 1994 that the now famous 1934 photo was a complete hoax, but people still believed. It did little to dampen enthusiasm of tourists and investigators for the legendary beast of Loch Ness. The search continues to this day.
Check these out!
