Graduation Party Prelude

I have come to the conclusion that I am finally an Old Man.

In eleven days Sara will be graduating from Bethel High School

Class of 2011.

This coming Sunday we are all gathering at Bennett Park for her graduation party, family and friends alike to share in her celebration of being such an awesome student and graduating with honors and continuing her higher education at Keene State this fall.

It is very difficult to realize that she has so quickly grown up to be such a wonderful young woman heading off to college to follow her life's dream of becoming a teacher.

Les Paul

On this day in 1915 Lester William Polsfuss was born and a new era in Jazz and any other type of music was on the horizon. An accomplished musician, he work for Gibson in the Epiphone guitar factory in 1940. After hours he was busy creating "The Log", one of the first solid body guitars. Not the first nor the last but one to be reckoned with. Adolph Rickenbacker had marketed one in the 1930's and Leo Fender created his own in 1946.

The original Gibson Les Paul guitar regained it's popularity when Eric Clapton added it to his line-up of Gibsons and to this day is one of the most popular guitars on the market.

Happy Birthday Les wherever you are!

Titanic II

Not so long ago, Mr. Mark Wilkinson of Birmingham, England purchased a used 16 foot cabin cruiser for himself. The boat set him back about $1,600.00 USD. To me the price would have been a good indication of the ship's shape. Just to make sure things went really well off with his new boat he christened the vessel; TITANIC II. Good thinking Mr. Wilkinson!

After towing the boat from his home to West Bay in Dorest for his first fishing trip things started out pretty good. He had a successful day of fishing and started to head back into West Bay. As he made way into the harbor TITANIC II sprang a leak leaving the vessel floundering and Mr. Wilkinson clinging to the side of his new boat.

"It's all a bit embarrassing and I got pretty fed up with people asking me if I hit an iceberg".

Turns out that there had been a previous hole in the hull patched by the previous owner which just couldn't hold water.

Palin vs. Revere

The web and news are all abuzz - Seems Sarah Palin had some history facts to share while visiting Boston. She was not totally correct in her facts but by mistake was actually correct. Well sort of. What I am finding really amazing is that most of the news services are also getting it wrong including Yahoo. It appears from what I can tell from the 100's of news posting, that this was what she said.... "warned the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms by ringing those bells." She continued to say after being told she got it wrong... :"I didn't mess up about Paul Revere... Part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there. That, hey, you're not going to succeed. You're not going to take American arms".

Well even after trying to fix a pot hole with water she still is far from factual in her understanding of early American history. Truth be known, Revere never announced the British are Coming, after all, everyone including Paul Revere were British! In addition, this was not his first ride nor was it really his most important of rides. Revere was constantly on the road doing Whig business making several trips to Philadelphia to the First Congress, New York City delivering documents and through out New England exchanging letters and documents. What did make this ride stand out from his other more clandestine missions are several smaller events during the long ride. His actual mission that night was to warn Hamilton and Adams that "The Regulars are Coming Out!" Both gentlemen were staying in Lexington and the Regulars were on their way to take Hancock and Adams in for questioning and possible trial in England. William Dawes who also rode that night was responsible for going door to door in the country side to warn folks of the marching troops heading their way. There was no warning ride through the streets of Boston. In fact, Paul Revere was riding a borrowed horse who he lost to the British during his capture.