IT’S JULY 28TH 2016…
There are 156 days remaining in the year. The thermometer outside my tin shack in the Ozarks shows 73 degrees. There were showers yesterday. As I look over the valley toward the distant river, an occasional unheard lightning bolt gives a brief glow to gray clouds.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY…
- 1364 – Troops of the Republic of Pisa and the Republic of Florence clash in the Battle of Cascina. The boys of Pisa got walloped so bad that their tower began to lean.
- 1540 – “Horny” Henry The Eighth married his fifth wife, just hours after he had her husband executed for treason.
Today in 1808 the French Army lost another battle somewhere. Really, I don’t know that for a fact, but it’s a pretty safe bet.
Today in 1896 – The city of Miami, Florida is incorporated in a ceremony at noon. The town at that time consisted of a mercantile store, a Cuban sandwich shop, and nine gay dance clubs.
Today in 1935, the first B-17 lifted it’s wheels off the runway. Hats off to the pilots and crews who would later darken the skies above Nazi Germany with thousands of the famous Flying Fortresses.
ALL THE NEWS I FOUND RELEVANT THIS MORNING…
–Hillary Clinton will accept the Democratic tonight. It tops off a long campaign that began when she jumped on the coat tails of an Arkansas politician forty years ago.
–While our best and brightest minds are creating new game apps for the I-Phone 25, the Chinese are making engineering history. They built a seaplane larger than the Howard Hughes Spruce Goose. Only this one seems able to fly more than a few hundred yards. You can get the story at LewRockwell.com
–Regardless of a person’s views on separation of church and state, most of us agree the relevant laws should be applied equally. Some Minnesotans are hoping they can reclaim a public park that they believe has turned into a radical mosque’s parade ground.
EDITOR’S CORNER……………….
Forty Years With Hercules
B.L. Yukon Harris
New Yorkers have the Empire State Building. Folks in Seattle have the Space Needle. Saint Louis has the Arch. In Denver, they look west and see The Rockies. In the east Arkansas farm town of my youth, the most imposing feature above the landscape was the water tower. And about the only time you bothered looking was when it would get a new paint job every few years. The fact is, I would have grown up in a pretty uninspiring place had it not been for Hercules.
Each day he made a visit over the farm, along with his twin brothers. The Lockheed C-130 Hercules was probably the first airplane I ever saw.
He looked different in those days. Herc still dressed in hues of tan, olive, and jungle green, a style acquired from his recent stay in Southeast Asia. He’s worn a lot of other uniforms over the years. He looked pretty slick when I spotted him in coastal Alaska. The Coast Guard preferred Hercules in mostly white, with a scarf of blue and red. A patriotic outfit to be sure, and Herc has been known to put on one whale of a fireworks display.
Hercules has been a reliable beast of burden for U.K., trudging on despite the drab British attire. You can still find him looking relaxed in khaki, despite the dangerous work he does in the desert. In fact, just about every country that we aren’t at war with has depended on the C-130 for about sixty years now. In peace or war, Hercules has taken on all tasks while boasting a safety record matched by few others.
But you don’t hear much of the pilots. Aviation enthusiasts can name at least some of the aviators associated with the Sopwith Camel, B-17, F-16, P-47, and others. I could only name one who flew the C-130 Hercules, and that only because he was a neighbor of mine when I lived near the Little Rock Air Force Base.
But those planes and pilot have dared every bit as much as the Yeagers and Rickenbackers of (well-deserved) aviation fame. They’ve taken flak as they delivered ammo to surrounded troops, quenched forest fires in Idaho, performed impossible rescue missions in the Bering sea, thrust into the eyes of the fiercest hurricanes, and brought food and fresh water to disaster victims on every continent. Warmonger or tree-hugger, everyone has a reason to love this plane.
I still visit the fields of east Arkansas from time to time. When I step out and night and see a flight of the 130’s coming, I often pull out my flashlight and blink out three dots and a dash to the pilots above. If ever a group of silent warriors had earned a ‘V’ for the part they’ve plaid in our victories, it’s the ones in the Hercules.
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Backwoods Libertarian 