The Beatles made two movies in a year. They started filming "Help" in the Bahamas this week in 1965.
Flying with the 33rd Marine Air Group, Ted Williams was one of the 200 flyers in a huge air mission aimed at Kyomipo, fifteen miles south of the North Korea capital of Pyongyang. Coming in low over his target, a troop encampment, Ted lost site of the plane in front of him.
He dropped down to regain visual contact, but went too low. North Korean soldiers in the encampment blasted him with small arms fire. He completed his run over the target and tried to pull up. Every warning light in the cockpit was lit and the plane was vibrating. The stick started to shake and he knew he’d sprung a leak in the hydraulic system. The landing gear came down and the plane was hard to control. Ted got the gear up and started climbing. He knew he was in trouble and got on the radio, but the radio went dead. Another pilot pulled close and tried to signal Ted to bail out, but he didn’t know his plane was on fire. He increased altitude and turned the jet toward the nearest American base. Nearly all his instruments were out. The airspeed indicator read zero. The wing flaps were frozen and Ted was unable to lower the landing gear. Every message given by the plane told him to eject. He continued to climb, still not knowing the plane was on fire, but took the precaution of climbing to higher elevation anyway. A companion aircraft, piloted by Lieutenant Larry Hawkins, led Ted back to the field and radioed ahead that he was in trouble. Ted again considered bailing out but resisted the idea. He was afraid if he |
ejected his kneecaps would crash against the cockpit.
With the field in site, Ted turned to land when an explosion rocked the craft. A wheel door had blown off. Smoke was pouring from the brake ports. Down below, the residents of a small Korean village on the outskirts of the field scattered. His plane was a mass of fire and smoke. Unable to check his air speed and almost powerless to do anything about it, Ted approached the ground at 225 miles per hour, almost twice the recommended speed. He dropped the emergency wheel latch and only one wheel dropped into position. He hit the strip level, but with no way to slow the plane. Soon the plane settled on its belly, sparks, fire, and smoke trailing after it, as Ted held on, hoping it would stop. The F-9 screamed down the field out of control for more than a mile, shedding strips of metal and on the verge on exploding. Twice the plane nearly barreled into fire trucks waiting for the inevitable blowup. Finally, at the very edge of the field, the plane groaned to a stop. Ted popped the canopy. With the exception of the cockpit, the entire plane was aflame. He dove headfirst to the tarmac, where he was grabbed by two Marine flight crewmen and hustled away. Angry, both at himself and the close call, Ted took off his helmet and threw it on the ground. When he returned to look at the plane, it was a blackened hulk, completely destroyed. He avoided death by the narrowest margin. |
Feb 18, 1953: Just read that CBS signed Lucy & Desi for a 2-year $ 8 million contract...what a show! The Cuban and the funny lady........
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Feb 17, 1904: "Madame Butterfly" made its debut in Milan.........and now we get to enjoy it in Dallas.........
On this day in 1898, the USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor. Not much later, President McKinley called on the US Congress to declare war on Spain.
McKinley tried to keep a distance from the terrible situation in Cuba, i.e. a long and bloody war of independence. However, everything changed after that explosion. It certainly caught the interest of newspapers and their readers.
And so started the 4-month Spanish American War that changed Cuba forever. It also made a national hero out of Theodore Roosevelt. After the quick victory over Spain, President McKinley selected Mr. Roosevelt as his running mate in 1900. A year into his second term, TR assumed the presidency when McKinley was assassinated.
And Cuba? The island became an independent country in 1902 and you know the rest of the story.
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P.S. You can listen to my show. If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.
"Harry, what the hell are you doing campaigning for that crippled son-of-a-bitch that killed my son Joe?' [Joseph P.] Kennedy said, referring to his oldest son, who had died in the war. Kennedy went on, saying Roosevelt had caused the war. Truman, by his later account, stood all he could, then told Kennedy to keep quiet or he would throw him out the window." -- "Truman" by David McCullough, Page 328The angry man was Joseph P. Kennedy, whose son Joe had been killed in Germany. He was speaking to Harry, or Harry Truman who succeeded FDR.
We remembered the great World War II military leaders with Barry Jacobsen...One of those men was General Omar Bradley,..born in Clark, Missouri, on this day in 1893 and died in 1981.......click to listen....... https://t.co/aQrzBqblZF— Silvio Canto, Jr. (@SCantojr) December 4, 2016
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Am I showing my age? I remember every Super Bowl, from the Packers to whoever won the last one.
Of course, it was not called the Super Bowl back then. It was the NFL-AFL Championship game when Green Bay beat K.C. and then Oakland the next year. I am not sure what they called it when the Jets beat the Colts in #3 or when K.C. beat Minnesota in #4.
Nevertheless, the game has been a part of my life, and I have some favorite Super Bowl memories.
Without question, the best game for me was #13, or Pittsburgh-Dallas in '79. Around here, this is remembered as the day that Jackie Smith dropped a Staubach TD pass and kept the Cowboys from winning back-to-back titles. Well, we don't know if that's true, but it sure felt that way back then. I had a chance to see an ESPN Classic of this game, and it was great. The Steelers and Cowboys were the two best teams of their era, and it showed on the field.
The Green Bay wins in I and II were fun because I was rooting for the Packers. But they were not good games. In fact, I remember that many purists were calling off the whole AFL vs. NFL because it was a gimmick or mismatch between a senior and junior league. There were lots of empty seats, and school bands performed in the halftime show in those two.
The history of the Super Bowl really started with the Jets beating the Colts in January 1969. I recall a sportscaster in Milwaukee predicting a 36-0 Colts victory. He said that it was no contest. Don't hold it against him, because most experts saw the Colts killing the Jets.
Like most people, I was stunned to see the Jets beat Baltimore. Actually, I was hoping for an upset because most teens back then were impressed that Joe Namath was so popular with the girls. Namath was cool. "Broadway Joe" was a rock star playing QB in the NFL.
The Jets were perfect that day. The Colts looked like a team that didn't take their opponent seriously. Later that year, the baseball N.Y. Mets beat the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. Nineteen sixty-nine was a year for upstart N.Y. teams to beat favored veteran Baltimore teams! Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in '69, so maybe it was a year for unexpected things.
The Dolphins vs. Redskins or #7 was curious because Miami finished a perfect season. A funny thing happened in that game, as we see in this report from George Solomon:
Miami had a commanding 14-0 lead with 2:10 left when Garo Yepremian attempted a cake-frosting field goal from the Redskin 42. But Bill Brundige blocked the kick. The slight Yepremian picked it up and tried to pass. Brundige tipped it and Mike Bass plucked the ball out of the air and dashed 49 yards for the Redskins' only touchdown.
When Curt Knight added the extra point to slice Miami's lead to 14-7, there was still 2:07 left to play. A miracle was still possible, particularly after the Redskins forced a Miami punt and got the ball back with 1:14 left on their own 30.
But Bill Kilmer, enduring one of his most frustrating days as a Redskin, could generate nothing on his final four plays of the game.
Twice he threw incompletions; a swing pass to Larry Brown lost four yards; then on the last play of the season, Vern Den Herder and Bill Stanfill overwhelmed Kilmer, crushing him to the turf for a nine-yard loss.
It was perhaps fitting that the game should end with two Miami linemen sitting on top of the Washington quarterback. The Dolphins had similarly flattened the Redskins much of the game.
In other words, the Dolphins were two minutes away, and the field goal would have meant winning the game 17-0. Amazing finish to their 17-0 season. But the Gods of football had a different plan and made it interesting for the Redskins fans at the end.
Most of the games in the 1980s were pretty bad, or so I think. The next decent game was in 1991, when the Giants beat the Bills in the last minute. We were fighting in Iraq, and I recall the air of patriotism. The Denver–Green Bay or #32 was interesting because the Broncos ended a long NFC streak. The NFC won the Super Bowl from 1985 to 1998, something that is still hard to believe. Of course, the NFC sent San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, and Dallas to the Super Bowl.
In recent years, the game turned into The Tom Brady or the Manning Brothers Show.
The Super Bowl has not always lived up to its promotion, but it's not really about the game anymore. It's about the food and tolerating the halftime show or commercials. Let's hope today's game is good football and that the "virtue" ads stay away.
P.S. You can listen to my show. If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.
P.S. You can listen to my show. If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.The Norman Rockwell Treasury by Thomas S. Buechner https://t.co/hvMyXfxlWW via @amazon— Silvio Canto, Jr. (@SCantojr) February 2, 2017
”Holly and Elvis Presley are the two seminal figures of Fifties rock ‘n’ roll, the place where modern rock culture began. Virtually everything we hear on CD or see on film or the concert stage can be traced back to those twin towering icons – Elvis with his drape jacket and swivelling hips and Buddy in big black glasses, brooding over the fretboard of his Fender Stratocaster guitar.But Presley’s contribution to original, visceral rock ‘n’ roll was little more than that of a gorgeous transient; having unleashed the world-shaking new sound, he soon forsook it for slow ballads, schlock movie musicals and Las Vegas cabarets.Holly, by contrast, was a pioneer and a revolutionary.His was a multidimensional talent which seemed to arrive fully formed in a medium still largely populated by fumbling amateurs.The songs he co-wrote and performed with his backing band the Crickets remain as fresh and potent today as when recorded on primitive equipment in New Mexico half a century ago: That’ll Be The Day, Peggy Sue, Oh Boy, Not Fade Away.To call someone who died at 22 “the father of rock” is not as fanciful as it seems.As a songwriter, performer and musician, Holly is the progenitor of virtually every world-class talent to emerge in the Sixties and Seventies.The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend and Bruce Springsteen all freely admit they began to play only after Buddy taught them how.Though normal-sighted as a teenager, Elton John donned spectacles in imitation of the famous Holly horn-rims and ruined his eyesight as a result.”
