Author: NewMexiKen
Nothing Changes
“We will sign this contract with a heavy heart. … With a few scratches of the pen, we will sell the best part of our reservation. Right now the future doesn’t look too good to us.”
George Gillette, chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, 1948, pictured left at signing.
It’s Fall in Albuquerque
In May the highest official temperature in Albuquerque was 87º.
In June the official high temperature in Albuquerque reached 90º or higher 27 out of 30 days. It got to 100º twice (actually 103º one of those two times). The average high was 93.3º.
In July the official high temperature in Albuquerque reached 90º or higher 29 out of 31 days. It got to 100º three times. The average high was 95.6º.
In August, so far, the official high temperature in Albuquerque has reached 90º or higher just six out of 25 days. 93º is the highest and 86.7º the average. Twice the high hasn’t even reached 80º.
At a mile above sea level the summer really is perfect. Warm but confined to 2-1/2 months!
Update September 5th: Hasn’t been 90° since August 15th.
More Juan Gabriel
The Star Spangled Banner
The Penultimate Day of August
Warren Buffet, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, is 86 today. I’ve always thought of him as Uncle Warren. Happy Birthday, Uncle.
Teddy Ballgame is 98 today. Again as he has in recent years, Ted Williams will spend the day hanging out and just chillin’.
Williams played his entire career with the Boston Red Sox. He was American League MVP twice, won the batting title six times and twice won the Triple Crown (led league in batting average, home runs and rbi). (The MVP years and the Triple Crown years were four separate seasons!) Williams career average was .344 and he hit 521 home runs.
Williams was the last hitter to bat over .400, hitting .406 for the season in 1941. “If I was being paid thirty-thousand dollars a year, the very least I could do was hit .400.”
Williams did not play during the 1943-1944-1945 seasons due to military service. And he only played 43 games over the 1952-1953 seasons, also due to military service. Nearly five years between age 24 and 34 missing from his career. Had he been available to play those seasons he might have reached Ruth’s 714 home runs.
It’s also the birthday —
… of Ellen Muriel Deason, known to us as Kitty Wells, and famous for “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” Miss Wells was born in 1919; she died in 2012.
It wasn’t God who made Honky Tonk angels
As you said in the words of your song
Too many times married men think they’re still single
That has caused many a good girl to go wrong
Fred MacMurray was born on this date in 1908. MacMurray required that all his scenes for My Three Sons be filmed at one time. After MacMurray was done, the rest of the cast started filming the shows in the normal sequence. IMDb has MacMurray saying: “The two films I did with Billy Wilder, ‘Double Indemnity’ and the ‘The Apartment’ are the only two parts I did in my entire career that required any acting.” It showed Fred, it showed.
Oscar-nominee Raymond Massey was born on this date in 1896. Massey received the nomination for Abe Lincoln in Illinois. Massey, related to the Masseys of Massey-Ferguson (tractors and such), was in a lot of westerns and did a lot of TV.
Best actress Oscar-winner Shirley Booth was born on this date in 1898. Booth won the award for Come Back, Little Sheba. Sadly, she’s probably better known for playing the maid Hazel on the sitcom.
The Kingfish, Huey Long, was born on August 30th in 1893. Governor of Louisiana 1928-1932 and U.S. Senator 1932-1935, Long was assassinated at age 42. Historians have argued whether he was dictator, demagogue, messiah or populist. I’d say he was just a little more megalomaniacal than almost any other politician.
Ty Cobb made his major league debut 111 years ago today.
Fort Bowie National Historic Site (Arizona)
… was authorized on this date in 1964. According to the National Park Service:
Fort Bowie commemorates in its 1000 acres, the story of the bitter conflict between the Chiricahua Apaches and the United States military. For more than 30 years Fort Bowie and Apache Pass were the focal point of military operations eventually culminating in the surrender of Geronimo in 1886 and the banishment of the Chiricahuas to Florida and Alabama. It was the site of the Bascom Affair, a wagon train massacre, and the battle of Apache Pass, where a large force of Chiricahua Apaches under Mangus Colorados and Cochise fought the California Volunteers. The remains of Fort Bowie today are carefully preserved, the adobe walls of various post buildings and the ruins of a Butterfield Stage Station.
Visiting Fort Bowie requires a three mile round trip hike — unless you use the handicap entrance, which they keep a secret until you show up after walking a mile-and-a-half on a July afternoon with a daughter eight months pregnant and a two-year-old grandson.
