Thanksgiving (the turkeys prospective)

By James H Cavanaugh, KD1FW

Personally, I cannot comprehend why my outlook should be grateful

Seeing on Thanksgiving Day that they treat us so darn hateful

Contemplate how your feelings could be anything but down

When they pluck you, gut you, stuff you, then cook til’ golden brown

And if that wasn’t enough to make us flee for our very lives

They set your carcass on the table and break out carving knives!

It’s enough to broil our giblets, get our proverbial goats,

Mixing flour, water and drippings to pour in gravy boats

As you humans practice gluttony, while discussing Pilgrim’s pride

We turkeys will be concealing ourselves, in the woods outside.

Topic for November 29: The Coconut Grove Fire

The Story of the Cocoanut Grove Fire

The Cocoanut Grove Fire

November 28, 1942

2220 Hours, Box 1521, 5 Alarms. 408 Lives Lost

At about 10:15PM in the evening, a busboy had been ordered by a bartender to fix a light bulb located at the top of an artificial palm tree in the corner of the basement Melody Lounge. It is believed that the bulb had been unscrewed by a patron desiring more intimacy with his date. Due to the lack of light in the area of the palm tree, the busboy lit a match in order to locate the socket for the light bulb.

The Cocoanut Grove was a restaurant/supper club (nightclubs did not officially exist in Boston), built in 1927 and located at 17 Piedmont Street, near Park Square, in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Piedmont Street was a narrow cobblestoned street (now paved) located near the Park Square theater district, running from Arlington Street to Broadway.

The Cocoanut Grove had been very popular in the late 1920’s, due to Prohibition, but had fallen on hard times during the 1930’s. It became very popular once again during the early years of World War II. In 1942 the owner for the three years previous years had been a lawyer named Barnet (Barney) Welansky. The Grove was THE place to be in 1942. The building was a single-story structure, with a basement beneath. The basement contained a bar, called the Melody Lounge, along with the kitchen, freezers, and storage areas. The first floor contained a large dining room area and ballroom with a bandstand, along with several bar areas separate from the ballroom. The dining room also had a retractable roof for use during warm weather to allow a view of the moon and stars. The main entrance to the Cocoanut Grove was via a revolving door on the Piedmont Street side of the building.

On Saturday, November 28, 1942, the powerful Boston College (BC) football team had played Holy Cross College (HC) at Fenway Park. In a great upset of that period, HC beat BC by a score of 55-12. College bowl game scouts had attended the game in order to offer BC a bid to the 1943 Sugar Bowl game, a bowl BC had previously won on January 1, 1941. As a result of the rout a BC bowl game celebration party scheduled for the Grove that evening was canceled. BC later accepted a bid to play in the Orange Bowl on January 1, 1943, subsequently losing to the University of Alabama.

A famous Hollywood cowboy movie star, Buck Jones (real name Charles Gebhart)(photo right), was traveling the country on a War Bond campaign, had attended the BC-HC football game with Boston Mayor Maurice Tobin. Despite his reluctance due to illness, Buck was persuaded by movie agents to have dinner that evening at the Grove.

Special Thanksgiving Edition 11/24: T-G Poem, Jack Ruby, Thanksgiving Origins

Jack Leon Ruby

(born Jacob Leon Rubenstein; March 25, 1911 – January 3, 1967) was an American nightclub owner. He fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, while Oswald was in police custody after being charged with both the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the incumbent United States president, and the murder of Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit. A Dallas jury found Ruby guilty of murdering Oswald, and he was sentenced to death.

Ruby's conviction was later appealed, and he was granted a new trial. However, as the date for his new trial was being set, Ruby became ill in prison and died of a pulmonary embolism from lung cancer on January 3, 1967.

In September 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald. Various groups believed Ruby was involved with major figures in organized crime and that he killed Oswald as part of an overall plot surrounding the assassination of Kennedy.

Source: Wiki

Thanksgiving's Ancient Origins

Although the American concept of Thanksgiving developed in the colonies of New England, its roots can be traced back to the other side of the Atlantic. Both the Separatists who came over on the Mayflower and the Puritans who arrived soon after brought with them a tradition of providential holidays—days of fasting during difficult or pivotal moments and days of feasting and celebration to thank God in times of plenty.

As an annual celebration of the harvest and its bounty, moreover, Thanksgiving falls under a category of festivals that spans cultures, continents and millennia. In ancient times, the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans feasted and paid tribute to their gods after the fall harvest. Thanksgiving also bears a resemblance to the ancient Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot. Finally, historians have noted that Native Americans had a rich tradition of commemorating the fall harvest with feasting and merrymaking long before Europeans set foot on America's shores. Source: History.com

Topics for November 22: For Shure !!

It Shure Is A Good Microphone!

For Shure, Let's have a good talk on this quality product that we hear every day and we do not even think about.

Topics for November 17: Lunar Eclipse This Week and........... Your Favorite Book(s)

Longest Lunar Eclipse in Centuries!

The Beaver Moon partial lunar eclipse on Nov. 19 will be the longest of the century.

By Joe Rao 2 days ago

Its peak will last 3 hours, 28 minutes and 23 seconds.

2:18 am -5:47 am EST is the time to view the long peak

It will be the second lunar eclipse of 2021 and, in some ways, will be similar to the last one on May 26. Most North Americans will again need to get up early and look low in the west toward daybreak. And again, the farther west you are the better, as the moon will appear much higher from the western part of the continent as opposed to locations farther to the east. It will also be the longest partial lunar eclipse in 580 years, lasting just over 6 hours, with its pass through the darkest part of Earth's shadow taking about 3 hours, 28 minutes and 23 seconds, and also the longest this century.

But in another way, it will be different. This lunar eclipse will fall just shy of being total; 97.4% of the moon's diameter will become immersed in the Earth's dark umbral shadow at maximum eclipse, leaving just the southernmost limb To those watching with the naked eye, binoculars and small telescopes, the lower edge of the moon will likely remain much brighter than the deep red or ochre hue we can expect across the rest of the moon's face. Source: Space.com

14 Novels to Read Before You Die

1. 1984 by George Orwell

2. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

3. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

4. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

5. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

6. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

9. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

10. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

12. Animal Farm by George Orwell

13. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

14. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Read any of the above?

What's the best book you have ever read?

Topics for November 15: Parks On The Air and Callsigns

POTA, POTA, POTA

As requested by Don K0VNV

Parks on the Air had a record-breaking month in October, with hundreds of thousand contacts. And, POTA added two new countries - Ireland and India.

Have you ever POTAed? Are you interested in getting involved?

Callsigns, Callsigns, Callsigns

How many have you had? Tell us your story.

I have had 4 KC1FCV KD1TAT K1TAT And Finally got W1TAT

Jake W1LDL Teasing me with the TAT brand fly strips.

Topics for November 10: Johnny Cash and Home Alone

The Great Morse Code Crack: Johnny Cash was the First American to Hear About Stalin’s Death

The badass stories about Johnny Cash abound, and here over a decade after his death, his prominence as a man of cultural greatness still looms as large as it ever did. But arguably the first moment of greatness for Johnny Cash happened off the stage, well away from the spotlight, and before he was known to anyone as a musician.

In 1950, at the age of 18, Johnny Cash did what many young men of the time did, he enlisted in the United States military, specifically the Air Force, and was shipped off from his home in Arkansas to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX. While there, he met what would be his future first wife Vivian Liberto at a roller rink, but the couple wouldn’t be married for another four years. After dating Vivian for only three weeks, Johnny received his deployment papers and was shipped off to a base in Landsberg, West Germany for a three-year tour. The base served as one of the forward outposts in the outbreak of the Cold War the world found itself in after World War II in the face of Soviet aggression.

Over Johnny’s enlistment period, he rose to the rank of Staff Sargent and became a crack Morse Code Operator in a Security Service unit. Because Cash showed such skill at deciphering Morse Code, he was put in a prominent seat at his Landsberg post to listen in on Soviet communications.

Saving Country Music

Johnny Cash was the first American to hear about Stalin’s death The Vintage News

Over 30 Years Ago?

November 10, 1990 - It is Christmas time and the McCallister family is preparing for a vacation in Paris, France. But the youngest in the family, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), got into a scuffle with his older brother Buzz (Devin Ratray) and was sent to his room, which is on the third floor of his house. Then, the next morning, while the rest of the family was in a rush to make it to the airport on time, they completely forgot about Kevin, who now has the house all to himself. Being home alone was fun for Kevin, having a pizza all to himself, jumping on his parents' bed, and making a mess. Then, Kevin discovers about two burglars, Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), about to rob his house on Christmas Eve. Kevin acts quickly by wiring his own house with makeshift booby traps to stop the burglars and to bring them to justice.

Topics for November 8: Net Control Opportunities and Amplifiers

NET CONTROL CHALENGE

I am Going To Propose A challenge,

Once a month a regular check in to the 6 O'clock will volunteer to do the net for an evening here on this net. Now come on let's be good sports no teasing and no one will be made fun of.

Just give it a shot we will also help you. You can even choose Monday, Wednesday or even Friday. We will supply the Preamble and run Netlloger for you. I think it's a great idea. Also promotes emergency communications. So, what do you think???

QRO or QRP?

Power Who has amplifiers? Do you run high power? Or maybe less? Or are you a QRP operator?

Let's talk about power---- your lowest power contact and your highest power QSO.

Topics for November 3: WWV and WBZ AM Radio

Radio Station WWV

NIST radio station WWV broadcasts time and frequency information 24 hours per day, 7 days per week to millions of listeners worldwide. WWV is located near Fort Collins, Colorado, about 100 kilometers north of Denver. The broadcast information includes time announcements, standard time intervals, standard frequencies, UT1 time corrections, a BCD time code, and geophysical alerts.

Broadcast Frequencies

WWV operates in the high frequency (HF) portion of the radio spectrum. The station radiates 10 000 W on 5 MHz, 10 MHz, and 15 MHz; and 2500 W on 2.5 MHz and 20 MHz. Each frequency is broadcast from a separate transmitter. Although each frequency carries the same information, multiple frequencies are used because the quality of HF reception depends on many factors such as location, time of year, time of day, the frequency being used, and atmospheric and ionospheric propagation conditions. The variety of frequencies makes it likely that at least one frequency will be usable at all times. NIST Web Site

WBZ Radio- 100 Years On The Air

Arch McDonald, Dave Maynard, Carl DeSuze, Don Kent, Bruce Bradley, Gil Santos, Larry Glick, Gary LaPierre, Guy Mainella, Joe Green, Bob Raleigh, Bob Lobel, Norm McDonald, Upton Bell, David Brudnoy, Tom Bergeron

BOSTON (CBS) – On September 19, 1921, WBZ Radio was the first commercially licensed station to broadcast live in the U.S. The first program was live from the Big E in Springfield.

In the early days, WBZ transmitted from Springfield with programming that included live theater, a farm hour and even sewing lessons.

In the 1930s WBZ migrated east, setting up its studios in a Boston hotel. In 1932, WBZ made headlines when a lion brought into the studio for a promotion lunged through a glass wall, injuring seven people.

During the mid-century, WBZ played mostly music, but for decades, there was always a break for news with Gary Lapierre and Gil Santos on Sports.

President Biden sent along a letter of well wishes to the station saying in part, “The freedom of the press has always been vital to the function of our democracy, and stations like WBZ NewsRadio have pioneered a path forward for tother news networks to expand their reach to listeners across our Nation. Congratulations on your centennial anniversary.” boston.cbslocal.com/

Topics for November 1: Dogs & Working at Height

The dog is often called man's best friend...........

Dogs are social pack animals who thrive off of attention and affection, making them a prime candidate for a person's best friend. Since dogs have been domesticated to a point where they need us to survive, and we tend to find that we need them almost as much, people and dogs developed a symbiotic relationship.

Working High Up

Working at height refers to any work where a person could potentially fall and injure themselves. A ladder, a roof's edge, an opening on the floor, and even a loading dock can be considered working at height. In general industry, fall protection is required by OSHA for any height change of 4 feet or more.