42 Great Shots

Great pictures are a visual delight and these are in that category. I've included one of them below. They are from the 2013 National Geographic 25th annual Traveler Photo Contest,and appeared in The Atlantic, where Alan Taylor wrote "National Geographic was once more kind enough to allow me to share some of the early entries with you here, gathered from four categories: Travel Portraits, Outdoor Scenes, Sense of Place, and Spontaneous Moments. Photos and captions by the photographers. "
Scroll down in the story and Enjoy!

A group of 12-14 hyenas were chasing a herd of 7-8 elephants. The elephant herd included 2 adult females, a few teenagers, and a baby that was a few days old (belonging to one of the adult females). The hyenas were trying to get at the baby. In this picture, the mother is kicking at the hyenas. (© Jayesh Mehta/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest). 

 

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The 4th Stent

"The 4th Stent" sounds like a great title for a novel by a contemporary spy author. It is, however, what was put in me on August 28th by an excellent and aggressive cardiologist, Dr. Matthew B. O'Steen, Charleston, SC. This stent went in the artery in my right kidney and followed on two in the left kidney and one in the LAD in my heart. All of this by Dr. O'Steen since April. Needless to say I am feeling much better, my wife, Joyce, says my color is much improved and most importantly indications are that my blood pressure has gone down. This has been a major concern for quite awhile.
The work was done in Roper-St. Francis Hospital in Charleston and the recovery room nurse, Jessie, was great. A patient could not ask to have a better one. 
All was not medical on this trip from Hilton Head to Charleston. On the day before the procedure we went to dinner at California Dreaming and then drove to Folly Beach to show Joyce the famous pier. It was a good night to go. Around 7 pm there were some people enjoying swimming, fishing and playing volleyball on the beach. We took the usual array of photos. 
It made me feel good to see these people having a great time and to see Joyce enjoy some new sights and sounds of South Carolina. It was a good couple of days.

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Massachusets - Memories Abound

I had my pacemaker checked on Tuesday, all was well, thank you, packed my bag and took off on Wednesday with my wife, Joyce, to drive to Massachusetts. Before our return to South Carolina a week later we would log 2,794 miles, the last fifty or so in a driving rain storm that at times almost wiped out road visibility.
We visited Joyce's family and I met her oldest son and his wife and son (in Douglas, MA) for the first time since our marriage in March. The second son and I met earlier in the year while he was visiting in South Carolina. Joyce's brother and his wife welcomed us to their home in Andover, MA., and this was another first meeting. A visit with my sister and her friend (No. Chelmsford, MA) was a reunion as we had all been together in The Villages in Florida over Christmas.
Joyce and I took turns showing each other where we had been raised, went to school and worked in our early years. We had lived about an hour's drive from each other (me in Lowell and Joyce in and around Douglas) but never knew each other until we met on-line last year. In my case, I showed Joyce parking spaces where two of the houses I grew up in once stood. I wanted to take her inside St. Patrick's church in Lowell where I had been an altar server for several years but the church was locked tight. Thievery is so common churches are locked except when in use. A sad commentarry on the times in which we live.
Joyce's house of many years in Rehoboth, MA, was sold when she moved permanently to Moss Creek about 12 years ago. It has been rental property for several years and sad to say, shows it. A pool cover was in place and according to the current tenant had not been removed in years.
For many people driving up the East coast on I-95 is a nightmare of congestion, road construction and repairs, heavy truck traffic and boring landscape. We tried to temper this by going up I-95 to Columbia, then to Charlotte on I-77 and eventually all the way through North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut to the Mass Turnpike, using I-81 and 84. The scenery was much improved and although there were some minor delays for construction, the road traffic was lighter. We returned using most of the same roads, except we detoured into the Washington, D.C., area to visit one of my sons. We completed our return via I-95 picking it up South of Washington.
We had planned a couple of tourist type stops on the return trip (Natural Bridge in Virginia, Hyde Park - family home of FDR, and Croton Dam in New York - a recent beautiful Bing screen saver on my computer) but rain dampened our enthusiasm and we had to leave these side trips on our bucket list. While we were in Massachusetts we visited Fall River and viewed the heritage harbor and World War II era ships moored there. The USS Massachusetts and USS Joseph P. Kennedy are the among the vessels in the harbor.
It is good to get away occasionally, to see relatives and even better to return home.
Pictures are a part of every trip. Some out of whimsey, some because we could and some because we wanted to record the happy moments. 
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Discovery House

In 1789 a man named John Hanahan settled a piece of land on Hilton Head Island, SC; ultimately known as "Honey Horn," said to be the Gullah pronunciation of his family name. Interestingly enough for over 50 years I lived in Hanahan, SC, a bedroom community more than 100 miles from Hilton Head. Our family lovingly referred to it as "Happy Hanahan." 
The house on Honey Horn is called Discovery House and serves as a local museum and meeting place, showing how life was a couple of hundred years ago. There is  a dock with access to the marshes and water (some evidence of crabbing) and a walking trail through the surrounding woods on the property. Giant oak trees are still plentiful; one of these is near the entrance to Discovery House. Discovery House is aptly named as we - my wife and I - discovered this charming new mom with her nine-week old adopted child. She had an older daughter by her side. It gave me a great feeling to see the joy in the eyes of this loving mother. I wish I had the presence of mind
to get her name and address so I could share these photos.

Pass the meatballs...and other tidbits

Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, a basketball legend with Baltimore and New York in the 60s ad 70s, insisted on eating spaghetti and meatballs before every game after he had such a dish "and then had sex before going to a game" in which he scored 56 points. "I wanted to duplicate that." Apparently, the sex had nothing to do with the 56 points.

Thanks to the Wall Street Journal we learn the average three-hour major league baseball game has 17 minutes and 58 seconds of action, i.e. pitches, balls in play, running and throwing. Sounds like my son's' football coach was right: "Baseball is just a bunch of guys standing around."

The net flow of Mexicans to the United States has been slowing down since 2003. The number returning to Mexico from the United States is likely to top those coming over the border later this year, so says Rana Foroohar in TIME, July 22.






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Lookout Mountain - A Return Visit

I hardly remember my first visit to Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, Tenn., some forty or fifty years ago, but I was amazed by what I saw there last week.  The area has developed a hundred fold, interstate highways take you practically there. Organized tours are available or you can get around on your own, but the area is flat-out big business seven days a week. The place was overrun with families on the summer holiday and my wife and I jumped in to enjoy it right along with them.

En route, we stopped in Aiken, SC, for a night and visited the historical and railroad museums in that city.  The historical museum is located in an old home built in the early 1900s by Yankees with railroad, oil and banking money who loved to winter in Aiken. They lived a good life.

At Lookout Mountain visitors have the opportunity to see Ruby Falls by descending on an elevator into a cave and walking about a mile underground to the falls. This was more of a challenge than we wanted so we bought a video to savor the experience and drove on to one of the mountain lookouts.

It is possible to reach this point by riding an incline car but we elected to take the drive around winding roads and experience more than could be seen on a straight ride up the mountain inside a closed cable car. We were not disappointed. The drive is suspenseful and challenging, especially when you come up behind bikers in your lane and meet an on-coming vehicle in the opposite lane.

When we came off the mountain we visited the Tennessee Aquarium in nearby Chattanooga and it was well worth the time. Again, the locale was crowded with families, not only out-of-area tourists but locals taking advantage of the weekend. One of the more interesting features was the butterfly house with hundreds of beautiful butterflies. Their colors were gorgeous.  It is not easy to capture a picture of a butterfly

 as adults and children keep passing through and disturbing them, to say nothing about a couple of beautiful macaws, who loudly entertained sightseers, young and old. 

It is a great part of the United States to visit - and re-visit if you haven't been there since your own children grew up and moved out on their own. 

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The River Jordan

A friend sent along some pictures taken of a baptismal site on the River Jordan on the border between Jordan and Israel. The pictures were taken on the Jordan side and the baptisms are taking place in Israel.  (Click on the link above.)
This is the same river (not the actual spot obviously) where Jesus was baptized by John.

Baptism of Christ by John.

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The Duke said it well... 237 years old!

"America - Why I Love Her" - John Wayne
John Wayne's "America, Why I Love Her" ^ | July, 1964 | John Mitchum 

Posted on Saturday, September 15, 2001 7:35:41 PM by StoneColdGOP

The following is a favorite poem of the Duke's, which he delivered before the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, California.

Why I Love Her

You ask me Why I Lover Her? Well, give me time and I'll explain.
Have you see a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain?
Have you drifted on a bayou down Louisiana way?
Have you watched a cold fog drifting over San Francisco Bay?

Have you heard a bobwhite calling in the Carolina pines,
Or heard the bellow of a diesel at the Appalachia mines?

Does the call of Niagara thrill you when you hear her waters roar?
Do you look with awe and wonder at her Massachusetts shore,
Where men who braved a hard new world first stepped on Plymouth's rock?
And do you think of them when you stroll along a New York City dock?

Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies, way up high?
Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky?

Do you hail to the Columbia as she rushes to the sea,
Or bow your head at Gettysburg at our struggle to be free?

Have you seen the mighty Tetons? Have you watched an eagle soar?
Have you see the Mississippi roll along Missouri's shore?

Have you felt a chill at Michigan when on a winter's day
Her waters rage along the shore in thunderous display?

Does the word "Aloha" make you warm? Do you stare in disbelief
When you see the surf come roaring in at Waimea Reef?

From Alaska's cold to the Everglades, from the Rio Grande to Maine,
My heart cries out, my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain.

You ask me Why I Love Her? I've a million reasons why:
My Beautiful America, beneath God's wide, wide sky.

John Wayne

How fortunate we are who live in this great country. 

Celebrate her 237th birthday today.

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What I would like to see...

Just once I would like to see the President express a bit of public pique or even anger with the Russians. President Obama has not responded aggressively, so far as I know, to Russian President Putin's statement that Russia will not hand over Edward Snowden. Unless you have been sleeping on the moon you must know Snowden has released U.S. classified information to the world and has been indicted for his violation of American laws. If he is returned to the U.S., he would be tried in Virginia and if convicted could be sentenced to a term in a federal prison. 
Granted Russia does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. Since Snowden is at the airport in Moscow, however, the Russians could put him on a plane to the U.S. He has no passport and whether he has a visa or not is immaterial. 
So what shape could President Obama's displeasure take without turning U.S. - Russia relations into a 1950's Cold War era nuclear standoff? He could recall the American ambassador to Russia for consultations. He could call in the Russian ambassador in Washington and give him a dressing down.  He could order a halt to whatever commercial, social or cultural exchanges are set up for the next six to twelve months. (President Carter cancelled American participation in the 1980 Olympics in Russia.) This might put a crimp in some Americans' interests, but a little hard ball from time to time would do wonders for the national psyche.
You might ask if Mr. Snowden is worth all this. It is not only about  that blabbermouth. It is about our country, our laws and the right we have to expect cooperation from other countries and officials. Granted, President Obama has to play the long game and prudence dictates he take these humiliations in silence. Waiting to get even, however, is not in the American tradition. Such pettiness at a later date would be looked upon by the rest of the world as third-graders getting even over a playground argument. So, for just once, I would like President Obama to let Mr. Putin and the world know he is p****d off. It might not do any good for U.S. - Russia relations, but it would make me and - I believe - a lot of other Americans feel good. It might lead Mr. Putin to sit up and take notice, and it would put the rest of the world on notice.

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Dining out and orchids

On Saturday evening, just before dusk, we stepped out to take a short walk around the neighborhood and observed a hawk in a tree eating on a smaller bird. 

Earlier in the week, I observed some horses in the Stable Gate section of Moss Creek out in the corral munching on the grass. It was almost impossible to get any horse to look up, so intent were they on eating. 

And we had a bonus from a neighbor who left some plants for us to water as she departed on a trip. We got to witness the blooming of a a couple of orchids.

Dreaming

I had a strange – make that weird, dream last night. It started with me looking at a large painting with a three stories high chateau on a hill in the upper left corner. A dirt road extended out to the right and when it reached the edge of the picture it curved back toward the lower left corner. In the lower right corner a small building was surrounded by a manicured lawn. I was standing in a gallery looking at this painting. The picture slowly came to life when a procession started from the chateau, a vehicle in front and hundreds of troops marching in formation behind it. Simultaneously, a jeep moved out from the building in the right corner across the grass until it stopped just a few yards from the road. Then the figures came into view. General George S. Patton, Jr., was in the vehicle at the head of the procession.  He was standing up, bedecked in his dress uniform, battle and other ribbons smartly displayed on his left breast, an ivory-handle pistol at his waist, a riding crop in his left hand and obviously enjoying himself as the center of attention. Behind him marched his beloved 3^rd U.S. Army which he led across France following D-Day in 1944. In the parked jeep sat three American army officers and a man in a German uniform. His face was a scowl. It was obvious he absolutely hated the moment and wished he were elsewhere. When the parade of troops ended the jeep started up, turned and headed back to the small building and carried Adolf Hitler to his fate.

Professional and amateur dream analysts are invited to comment via e-mail to arch@archibald99.com. 

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Posting on Facebook while driving

I am a reasonably competent PC user and sometimes encounter difficulty posting on my Facebook  or Twitter page. It takes my full attention to do it properly and to type without misspellings or getting the wrong picture into the post. (The last sentence had three typos which I had to correct.) I also use a dictation program and  experience proves there are always multiple errors to correct at the end of the dictation. The proposal some auto makers are putting forth to allow drivers to post on the Internet (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) while driving borders on insanity, or foolishness multiplied.

It doesn't make any difference, typing or dictating. Defensive driving requires full attention. Can you imagine the outcome when a driver becomes more concerned with how his Internet post will look or be received than whether he is driving properly and safely? Accidents happen in an instant. Bad ideas abound.

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Fewer pecans this season

I never learned the answer (if there is one) to the rhetorical question, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?" Not many heard a major limb snap off a pecan tree near the entrance to Moss Creek plantation at Hilton Head, SC, on June 4, during an electrical and rain storm which passed through the area, but certainly it must have sounded loud and clear.

A similar storm  has been a daily feature for a few days and the forecast is for more such storms for the balance of the week. This one of many pecan trees in the area but the first one to suffer such damage this season. The same general area also houses dozens if not hundreds of giant, sprawling oaks, some of which are at least 100 or more years old.

Being a relative newcomer to Moss Creek I do not know who harvests the pecans when they are ready but it is obvious there will be fewer this season than in the past.
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Paying my dues

In the mail this week came a reminder to pay my annual dues to the AFOSISA: the Association of Former Office of Special Investigations Special Agents. The OSI is the Air Force equivalent of the FBI, the model on which it was created on  August 1, 1948, under the brilliant, innovative and inspiring leadership of General Joseph F. Carroll, a former FBI agent, supervisor, and special assistant to J. Edgar Hoover.

Sixty years ago, I was an airman serving as the Legal Clerk in the 3650^th Air Base Group at Sampson AFB, New York. Sampson had been a Naval Training site during WWII, but when the Korean War started the Air Force took it for basic training of new recruits. The 3650^th was the house keeping group on the base. I wanted to transfer to the Office of Special Investigations and in the spring of 1953 the deputy group commander, Lt. Col. John A. Brock, recommended me for such service.

(In 2013, AFOSI is the second-most requested career-field choice in the Air Force.)

Within a few weeks I was on my way to Washington, D.C., and posted as the Senior Administrative Airman in the Sabotage & Espionage Branch, Counterintelligence Division, Headquarters, OSI. When I arrived in the spring of 1953, street cars were operating on Pennsylvania Avenue, and cherry blossoms were in full bloom around the tidal basin facing the Jefferson Memorial.

Our offices were located in buildings built at McLean Gardens in NW Washington as “temporary” during World War I. The OSI mission in the early fifties was to provide personnel, criminal and counterintelligence investigative services to the Air Force around the world. It was an AFOSI agent who first alerted Gen. Douglas MacArthur's headquarters of the attack from North Korea that began the Korean War in June of 1950.

(Today, OSI is a federal law enforcement and investigative agency operating throughout the full spectrum of conflict, seamlessly within any domain; conducting criminal investigations and providing counterintelligence services.)

In September 1953, I went to the OSI Special Agents’ training school and was graduated in November. For the next six years I served in a variety of assignments, stateside and overseas. My special interest was with counterintelligence and I took advantage of my status and opportunities to learn everything I could. When I left the Air Force in 1959, after eight years of service, I was employed by the United States Navy as a security administrator and director. I was the first civilian security officer hired by the Naval Supply Corps, which in Charleston, SC, had responsibility for world-wide support of the nuclear powered submarine force carrying Polaris-Poseidon missiles as the Navy’s first line of deterrence against the threats posed by the Soviet Union. Later I was elected to the S.C. House of Representatives and was a senior manager at the state’s Department of Corrections.

Looking back it was the totality of my eight years work and specialized training and duties in the Air Force which set the stage for my life’s work. To this end, I will always be grateful for the opportunities I had and the men and women who helped me along the way. That is why I will send off my dues this week and remain in the brotherhood of former OSI Special Agents.

The AFOSISA was incorporated on December 7, 1966, and its objectives are to maintain and further friendships emanating from service with or employment by AFOSI; to assist one another through combined efforts and mutual association; to perpetuate the ideals and principles of AFOSI; to facilitate contact with members on a worldwide basis; and to unite former and present AFOSI Special Agents in the common interest of promoting the security of the U.S. Air Force

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Did it again

 Do you recall doing some things and enjoying them so much you could not wait to do them again? Like the time you went to a carnival as a teen with your own money and had a waffle covered with strawberries and cream. Or the first time you had sex with someone other than yourself.  A more recent experience did not reach those levels of pleasure, but I did it a second time anyway. 
 In April my cardiologist, Dr. Matthew O'Steen put a stent in the LAD (left anterior descending artery which supplies blood to the front and bottom of the left ventricle) of my heart.
 I felt so much better afterwards. I was walking a couple of miles at a good pace and without stress. My wife said my color was better. I felt better all around. But my blood pressure remained high.
 A month later I went back to hospital and Dr. O'Steen put two stents in the renal artery of my left kidney. If one is good, two must be better, right?  
 Suffice that my blood pressure has dropped 30 points over the past week since the kidney work. A major triumph. My doctors and I have been working on lowering my BP for a long time.
 I share this personal experience with the hope it may help someone to do some things in their life if they are having problems of fatigue, shortness of breath and worst of all high blood pressure. See your doctor as the place to start.
 Life is the most valuable possession we have. We ought to take care of it and enjoy it. "Living well is the best revenge."
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Prison inmates and e-mail

I was sitting around a doctor's waiting room recently reading the weekly New York Times Magazine, (which I brought with me. Doctor's offices typically having copies of Reader's Digest dating back to the Reagan years.)
 One of the more interesting stories, "A Lust for Zeros," centered on a couple of men who have broken the law, one (Raj Rajarainam),is doing an 11-year stretch in in federal prison for multiple securities fraud offenses, and one, (Rajat Gupta) has been convicted of and is out on bond while his appeal is being heard. He is is likely to be in a federal prison for two years if the Securities and Exchange Commission has its way.

 What jumped off the page was the information that the writer, Anita Raghavan, had an e-mail from Jeffrey Skilling, former head of Enron, who is doing a 24-year stretch in a federal prison at Littleton, Colorado, for his well-known felonious conduct. The e-mail was a comment on the career of Mr. Gupta.
 As a former executive in the South Carolina Department of Corrections, I was surprised that an inmate had access to e-mail. I went to the Federal Bureau of Prisons web site and learned about this practice and how it is carried on. The policy is outlined here.
 Essentially, the system is a controlled one and like ordinary mail the sender and recipient of e-mails has to be on an approved (by prison officials) list. Anyone else, such as a reporter, must jump through some hoops to contact a prisoner before there can be an exchange of e-mails.This program is one of the ways the Bureau of Prisons hopes to prepare inmates for an eventual return to the free world.
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Fighting over Nelson Mandela

The vultures are out in South Africa. Members of the ruling party, African National Congress, and the opposition, Democratic Alliance, are staging photo ops to bask in the image of the ailing, fading 94-year old Nelson Mandela, life-long activist for equal treatment of all South Africans, 27-year prisoner for his opposition to apartheid, and first black president of South Africa. Amidst all this members of his family squabble publicly over the executor of the trust set up to handle his estate when he dies. This is shameful in the extreme. To be used as a political prop and have your family fighting over your estate is a sad way to end a life of struggle and victory.

This downloaded picture of Mr. Mandela is from a happier time when he was enjoying his later life in his beloved South Africa. 

  I took this picture in 2003 of Mr. Mandela's former cell in the Robbin Island prison where he was held for almost three decades.

 

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Sit in the Archibald

This is the "Archibald", designed by Jean Marie Massaud, for Poltrona Frau. The New York Times Style Magazine (May 12, 2013) carried a full page ad for this chair.  Seldom does one see a piece of furniture being one's name. Quite interesting. 

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A new credit union experience

The capabilities of the world wide web and the tel-communications industry continue to amaze me. A credit union where I do business allows customers to scan a check and have it deposited almost instantly in an account. This new service came to my attention about a week ago. Yesterday, for the first time, I had an opportunity to use it. The whole process went smoothly and in a couple of hours the check was credited to my account. I am required to hold the check for 60 days. No more going to the physical site of the CU, no more standing in line, and no more mailing for a simple task. I think the whole process shows imagination and a willingness to innovate. 
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Get out and vote

After the March mayoral primary in Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, who won the primary, told Joel Stein (TIME, My 13, 2013, pg. 58),"I got 33% of the 20% turnout of the 49% of the population registered to vote. I had a landslide with 2.6% of the population."
Tuesday, May 7, voters living in the 1st Congressional District of South Carolina have a chance to elect their representative to Congress.  The last incumbent got appointed to the U.S. Senate, thus the vacancy and the special election. The race is between business woman and Democrat Elizabeth Colbert-Busch and former congressman and governor Republican Mark Sanford.
Let's prove we can do better than Los Angeles. 

Get out and vote!