Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Sunday, March 30, 1924. Camp Carey
Friday, March 29, 2024
Saturday, March 29, 1924. Yesterday's news, or not. Morning mail.
Well, it was the "Night Mail" edition. You'd get it Saturday morning.
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Some recent bios and what they tell us about the realatively recent past.
Lex Anteinternet?
Well, in reality, that broadened out pretty rapidly to taking into account looking at everything in this era in trying to get a grasp on it. Since then, it's certainly broadened out enormously, probably much too much.
Anyhow, some recent items help illuminate some of the things of this era, and the one immediately after it. Indeed, as we'll discuss, one of them helps actually define, maybe, how to property define certain eras.
The items we looked at which brings this to mind are the story of Maj. Gale "Buck" Cleven, that of Dick Proenekke, and also Lee Marvin, and the work of the Southern Agrarians, and that of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
Quite a varied set, I'll admit.
Let's start with Dr. Gale Cleven, which is how most people who knew him, knew him as, the latter part of his life.
Another thing, and one that cuts a bit against something I've noted here in the past.
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Sunday, February 27, 1944. The Khaibakh Massacre
Weather prevented over 700 Chechen villagers from Khaibakh from being convoyed in the Soviet mass deportation of Chechens, meaning they could not meet the absurdly short deadline set by Lavrentiy Beria so they were shot. The order was given by Mikhail Gvishiani, an officer in the NKVD.
Beria, a loyal Stalin henchman, was a first class weirdo who was also a mass rapist, something his position allowed him to get away with. He fell after Stalin's death, was tried, and executed for treason.
Gvishiani survived the fall of Stalin, but probably only because his son, Dzhermen Gvishiani, was married to the daughter of Communist Party Central Committee member Alexei Kosygin.
It was the start of National Negro Press Week.
The U.S. Office of Strategic Services commenced Operation Ginny I with the objective of blowing up Italian railway tunnels in Italy to cut German lines of communication.
The OSS team landed in the wrong location and had to abandon the mission.
Hitler ordered the Panzerfeldhaubitze 18M auf Geschützwagen III/IV (Sf) Hummel, Sd.Kfz. 165, "Hummel" renamed as he did not find the name Hummel, i.e. bumblebee to be an appropriate name.
You would think that Hitler would have had other things to worry about at this point.
The Grayback was sunk off of Okinawa by aircraft.
Saturday, February 24, 2024
February 24, 1874. Honus Wagner born.
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Today In Wyoming's History: Major Gale "Buck" Cleven
Major Gale "Buck" Cleven
In the Apple TV series Masters of the Air, one of the characters is Maj. Gale "Buck" Cleven, who reports himself as being from Casper twice in the first episode.
Who was he, and was he really from Casper?
Clevens was born in Lemmon, South Dakota, on December 27, 1918, just after the end of World War One. His family moved to Casper when he was still a child, although I'm not certain when, as they moved first to Lusk, in 1920. He likely was a 1937 graduate from Natrona County High School, the only high school in Casper at the time (Natrona County had a second one in Midwest). Following graduating from high school, he attended the University of Wyoming while also working on drilling crews as a roughneck.
He did, in fact, move at some point to Casper, where he was employed as a roughneck on drilling crews. He used the money he earned to attend the University of Wyoming and was enrolled by the fall of 1937, presumably right after high school. His name appears in the social pages of The Branding Iron as having had a date attend the men's residence hall October dance. He was a guest of a different young lady at the 1939 Tri Delts Halloween sorority dance. The same year he was apparently in a fraternity, as he's noted as having attended the Phi Delta Theta dance with, yes, another young lady. In February 1939 he went to a fraternity dance with Nova Carter, whom I believe I'm related to by marriage. A year later, February 1940, he took a different gal to the same dance.
He left UW in 1941 to join the Army, intent on being a pilot. The October 21, 1943, edition of the UW Student Newspaper, The Branding Iron, notes him (inaccurately) as being stationed in North Africa and having received the Distinguished Service Cross, which he in fact did receive for piloting his badly stricken plane from Schweinfurt to North Africa, the flight path taken on that raid. This even is depicted in Masters of the Air. The Branding Iron noted that he had attended UW for three years. In June, 1944, the student newspaper reported him a POW. He's noted again for a second decoration in the March 2, 1944, edition, which also notes that he was a Prisoner of War.
As depicted in Masters of the Air, his B-17 was in fact shot down over Germany. He ended up becoming a POW, as reported in the UW paper, at Stalag Luft III for 18 months, after which he escaped and made it to Allied lines. He was put back in the cockpit after the war flying troops back to the United States.
Following the war, he was back at the University of Wyoming. He graduated from UW with a bachelor's in 1946. He apparently reentered the Air Force after that, or was recalled into service, and served in the Korean War, leaving the Air Force around that time.
He was on the Winter Quarter 1954 UW Honor Roll and obtained a Masters Degree, probably in geology, from UW in 1956. Somewhere in here, he obtained a MBA degree from Harvard and an interplanetary physics doctorate from George Washington University.
He married immediately after the war in 1945 to Marjorie Ruth Spencer, who was originally from Lander Wyoming. They had known each other since childhood. She tragically passed away in 1953 while visiting her parents, while due to join Gale at Morton Air Force Base in California. Polio was the cause of her death, and unusually her headstone, in Texas, bears her maiden name. Reportedly, her death threw Cleven into a deep depression. He married again in 1955, to Esther Lee Athey.
His post-war career is hard to follow. He flew again during the Korean War, as noted, which would explain the gap between his bachelors and master’s degrees, and probably his doctorate. He's noted as having served again during the Vietnam War, and also has having held a post at the Pentagon. He was in charge of EDP information at Hughes Aircraft. Given all of that, it's hard to know if an intended career in geology ever materialized, or if his World War Two service ended up essentially dominating the remainder of his career in the form of military service. The interplanetary physics degree would and employment by Hughes would suggest the latter. His highest held rank in the Air Force was Colonel.
Following retirement, he lived in Dickenson, North Dakota, and then later at the Sugarland Retirement Center in Sheridan. He died at age 86 in 2006, and is buried at the Santa Fe National Cemetery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his marker noting service in three wars.
Monday, February 19, 2024
Soap Blindness. Being careful about what you are wishing for.
Independent truck drivers, whom share nothing in common with Donald Trump whatsoever, are claiming they'll boycott New York State today due to the judgment against the serially indicted former President.
In the Gene Shepherd classic A Christmas Story, Ralphie imagines that he'll get "soap blindness" and live on the streets, to the regret of his parents, for having his mouth washed out with soap. No such thing exists, of course, but in reality, if it did, it'd be worse than the remorse the parents would feel for the person enduring it.
In other words, a person needs to be careful for what they wish for.
Truck drivers, or at least American independent truck drivers, are heavily invested in the belief that "America needs us". They're also heavily invested in a myth of manly, rugged independence. The reality of the situation is quite different, however.
The United States went to a semi tractor supply distribution system through the short sightedness of Dwight Eisenhower, who backed the massive Federally funded expansion of the US highway system during his administration. Eisenhower, impressed with the Autobahn, which he'd seen while the Supreme Commander of Allied Expedition Force in Europe, wanted them here. It was really an example of the American System at work, and while I'm generally a proponent of the American System, it shouldn't have happened in this example.
Coming right at the same time that the American love of automobiles really took off, it caused a massive ongoing subsidy of the highway system, and by extension, the expansion of over the road trucking, at the detriment of the railroads. I've posted on that here before, stating:
It's doing that fairly inefficiently compared to rail. Rail is incredibly cheap on a cost per mile basis, and it's actually incredibly "green" as well. It's efficient. Trucks are nowhere near as efficient in any fashion. Not even in employment of human resources. Trains have, anymore, one or two men crews, the same as semi trucks, but they're hauling a lot more per mile than trucks are with just two men.
And, as we also stated:
One semi truck does as much damage to the highways as 2,000 passenger cars, or some I'm told. I was told that by the owner of a company that has semi trucks.
On top of it, truck driving isn't something Americans want to do anymore, something the independents who are protesting seem to be missing. As we earlier noted:
And laborers are also demanding better wages and benefits in order to do the work they're doing.
I can blame the nation for putting itself in this situation, however.
Drivers can make a lot of money, for sure, but their paychecks often go towards paying for their trucks and the like. Modern trucks are automatic transmission vehicles and the days of really highly skilled teamsters who knew how to double clutch and shift two gear shifts at once (which I've seen done), are long gone. The job has become one where temporary immigrants and immigrants from the Third World are incredibly common.
So sure, while there are Trump loving independent teamsters out there, there are a lot of drivers from India, Somalia, Russia or Mexico who no doubt have little Trump love.
And motorists have little truck love. That's part of the reason that teamsters feel compelled to attempt to remind people that things move by truck. The problem is, they don't have to.
Had the Defense Highway System not been built, things would move by rail, except locally. There's no reason that couldn't happen again, and if the Federal Government suddenly decided, for whatever reason (and expense would be a good one) to end the funding system, the result would be just like what happened when it quite subsidizing housing the mentally ill back in Reagan's day. States wouldn't pick it back up. It'd take awhile, but not as long as supposed, before rail picked its old role back up, but it could and would.
Beyond that, rail transportation is already very "green", as noted above, compared to truck transportation. It could be made much more so by electrifying the system, which is a proven system. Trains engines are also more capable of readily being made in alternative fuels than semi trucks are. Short haul trucks, from rail to consumer, are also relatively easy to make the conversion to electricity.
Up until after World War Two, most things moved by rail, and trucking was local. The highway system, while the Federal Government was already in it, was much more local.
So, want to show how valuable you are to the economy? Going on strike or into a boycott may do it. Perhaps you are like the railroader of World War One and World War Two and can't be ignored. Perhaps you are an economic Lysistrata and people won't want to ignore you.
Or perhaps people figure they're better off without you and they don't want to be taxed to support your industry anymore and they'll look forward to not seeing trucks in their rear view mirror.
Related Threads:
Supply Chain Disruption and Other Economic Problems
Monday, February 5, 2024
Tuesday, February 5, 1924. Joseph M. Carey passes away. Burying Wilson, Enjoining Tepot Dome.
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
I had always thought my grandfather on my mother's side died at age 58. . .
but it turns out, he died in 1958.
He was, therefore, about 67 years of age.
Still not ancient by current standards, but not 58 years of age, either.
That was, FWIW, the same year my parents married.
His wife, my grandmother, died at age 89, however, which is a little younger than I remembered. It was in 1979, which is later than I remember, which means that my recollection didn't make mathematical sense, either. I was in high school at the time, but I don't recall it that way.
That also means that she lived long enough to see one of her children die, which I knew, and two of them fall into severe illness accompanied by mental decline, which must have been hard in the extreme to endure.
Monday, January 22, 2024
Monday, January 15, 2024
Tuesday, January 15, 1974. Happy Days.
Happy Days, the legendary sitcom, appeared to mixed reviews.
Clearly riffing off of 1950s nostalgia, less than 20 years after the end of the decade, the show had more or less been laid a path to success by the recent film American Graffiti, which also featured Ron Howard portraying a major character. Even before that, however, nostalgia had seen the rise of the rise of the band Sha Na Na which appeared in 1969 in sufficient time in which to appear at Woodstock.
Sunday, January 14, 2024
Blog Mirror: January 14, 1954: Joe DiMaggio Marries Marilyn Monroe
An interesting and sympathetic, while honest, treatment of a story we first looked at here in the context of her marriage during the Second World War.
January 14, 1954: Joe DiMaggio Marries Marilyn Monroe
DiMaggio, who we would have to assume had a thing for blond starlets, as this notes, would cap his marital attempts at two. Monroe attempted three times. So did Dorothy Arnold, who we would have to characterize as a minor actress. She died in 1970, leaving behind her third spouse.
Arnold and DiMaggio's union resulted in the only child either of them had, the troubled Joseph Paul DiMaggio III. He lived a troubled life, there being a lesson in here, but interestingly remained close to Monroe after his father and the actress divorced. He was one of the last people she called. He died at age 57.