How The Mind Works

 I had to drive the coach three and a half hours to Mayfield Kentucky on Sunday.  I had an appointment to have some things fixed early Monday morning.  The drive is beautiful and fun in the coach, once I pass Elizabethtown and get on the Western Kentucky Parkway.  The pavement is smooth and the traffic is light.

Temperatures were working their way up into the 90s.  The outside air temperature indicators on the coach were indicating 93degrees when I arrived there at about 8 PM.  I had to disconnect the Jeep and back the coach between a small RV and a large mobile dwelling that I am not going to waste too much time trying to describe.  The space was wide enough for someone who was good at backing coaches, but that ain't me.  Furthermore, the rear tv camera system wasn't working.

It took me 3 attempts to back in from one direction and 3 more from the other, to finally get it in there.  Because the tv wasn't working, I had to stop the coach, set the parking brake and jump out to go back and check my distance from the large garage type door I was backing toward.  I had to do that 3 times.  I say jump, because the stairs were one of the things I was getting fixed there.  I don't jump so well anymore.  Then I had to step up to the bottom level of the coach entry door, which is about hip high to this geezer, then hold the hand rails and pull myself up and it.  Guess who was overheated and sweating profusely in this 93 degree heat.

The drive out there had been easy and fun, but it had become progressively warm in the driver's seat.  There are 4 air conditioning systems in my coach, Enigma.  Three ACs are in the roof and they are the ones that cool the house part of the bus.  The other system is similar to those you are familiar with on automobiles.  It has an engine driven compressor and creates cool air that comes at you from openings in the dash.  The problem is that the Enigma's engine is in the back of this 43 feet long beast and the air has to be ducted to the dash, which is all the way to the front.  It can become inadequate in very hot ambient air situations.  

It is possible to supplement the dash AC, by running one or more of the house ACs, but that requires running the generator, which uses very small amounts of the diesel fuel, because of the high electrical load.  The batteries and engine generator just can't carry that load.  

I didn't start feeling hot until I was almost at my destination and didn't feel like taking the time to stop and do what was necessary to run one of the house ACs.  I wanted to disconnect and park before dark and find a place to eat dinner before 9 PM.  Mayfield rolls up the sidewalks early.

After I finally got the coach parked, I was able to plug in 50 amp shore power from the dealership's building.  When I saw that it was providing power to the coach, I turned on the minimum number of circuit breakers that I would need to spend a comfortable night sleeping, after I had eaten dinner.  I wouldn't be needing the electric, fake fireplace or washer and dryer, for example.  I did close the CBs for all 3 house ACs.  I turned them on and got in the car to drive to the nearby Cracker Barrel.  I walked in the door at 8:45 PM, thinking the coach would be nice and cool by the time I returned.

I like Cracker Barrel, because you know what you are going to get.  It may not be fancy, but it is good and you can stuff yourself for $15.  

When I climbed back into the coach, it was not cool and comfy.  I knew there was something wrong.  I went to the panel that controls the cooling and heating of the interior and saw that the front unit was running, but the middle and rear units had E7 faults.  This indicates a circuit breaker fault.  I went to the CB panel and surprisingly, the CBs were not in the tripped position, they were full on.  Strange.  Nonetheless, I turned them off and back on and went back to turn the ACs on again.  E7 times 2.  I must have done this 3 times totally, because my mind was fuzzy from the drive, the heat, and the hour.  Mayfield is in the Central Time Zone, so it was after 1030 on my body clock.  The temperature inside the coach was indicating 88 degrees.

At this point, I had enough knowledge and information to figure out what was wrong, but I was tired and hot and soon started thinking about the alternative to sleeping in the coach.  I knew it would not cool down enough for me to fall asleep for hours.  I would have to go to a hotel to get enough sleep to deal with the things I would be facing in the morning.  That is what I did.  Cracker Barrel opened an hour before the dealership, so I was the last customer one day and the first the next. 

I drive to this dealership, because there are not acceptable RV repair places for me closer to Louisville.  There is one in Nashville, but that is a drive of about 3 hours and is just not as easy for me to deal with.  At the one in Mayfield, I actually get to talk to the guys who are working on the coach.  There is so much lost in the transfer of information, when you have to talk to someone between the technician and yourself.  

After a good night's sleep in air conditioning and breakfast with coffee, I was probably able to break the code on my AC problem, but I left it in the capable hands of Cody, the guy who works on Enigma there.  He told me he found there was a mix up with the CBs for the 2 problematic units.  The middle unit was actually on the CB labeled Washer and the rear unit on the CB labeled Fire Place.  When Cody told me that, a cartoon frame of me would have had a lightbulb above my head.

During our previous stay in Florida, over the winter, we had a short on the CB panel, nearly causing a fire.  We went without total power for several days, waiting for parts and for our mobile technician to be able to rebuild the panel.  He must have gotten the position of the CBs switched in those two cases.  The ACs had worked fine after that, but we had all the CBs on, and had not left some of them off selectively, assuming we wouldn't need them, as I had done the night before. 

Now, to get back to the title of the post.  The whole time I was working on figuring out why the ACs weren't working, there was something in the back of my mind telling me I had all the information I needed to solve this problem, if I only worked on it and calmly thought my way through it.  My subconscious mind knew the answer to the problem, but my emotions were getting the best of me, due to fatigue and discomfort.  I kept going back to the CB panel, knowing it held the answer, but just allowed frustration to prevent me from working it out. 

Unusual In The Extreme

Early in this video, you will see a Burghboy say nice things about Ohio.  That is Unusual In The Extreme.  That is because there is a somewhat friendly rivalry between people from Pittsburgh and the state of Ohio.  There are decades old rivalries in professional sports and just the natural antagonisms of living close together.

However, there are truths that cannot be denied.  Ohio had some very important people, Grant and Sherman, Wilbur and Orville would be just a few and Pittsburgh has a football team that can win Super Bowls.

Early in my life, I became interested in the way humans always give names to everything. When I talk to one of my doctors and they ask me about prescriptions, I am always impressed by their ability to remember the names. 

I have decided to name an upcoming, bike ride with my friends The Quest.  In the immediately preceding post, I gave you the story that is the partial inspiration for that name.

We call the series of rides we have been doing for more than a decade the Tour De Nbo.  This is a clever play on words our riding pal, Ed Quigley, came up with based on the Tour De France and the nickname they all call me, Denbo.

I may have blogged about how I acquired that name, but I will now provide a refresher.  When I was a gradeschooler, my dad would take my brother, Jim, and me to visit his parents, Pap and Gram.  Jim was always a more gregarious kid than I was and as we walked into the big room where Pap was always sitting in his lounge chair, doing crossword puzzles and spitting tobacco juice in his spitoon,  Jim would always give him a big, cheerful hello.  Pap would return the enthusiasm with a big, "Hey Jimbo".  There was much less enthusiasm in my exchange with Pap.  I was just a shy kid.  This happened several times and finally, one time I guess Pap must have seen the look on my face and broken the code that I was just not as outgoing as Jim and was disappointed in not having a nickname.  Pap always came up with the family nicknames.  He said, "Hey Denbo". 

Years later, as I was sitting in an office, just off the showroom floor of the car dealership, where I worked as a salesman, I was engaged in a discussion about nicknames.  The discussion was with one of my favorite people of all time, Eddy Link.  Eddy liked to give people nicknames also.  He had named the parts manager Towhead, because he had blonde hair.  He asked me if I had a nickname and I said a good friend had always called me Denny The Weasel.  Ed didn't like that one, so I related the story about Jimbo and Pap.  He liked that and started calling me Denbo on a regular basis.

Several more years later, I was having a similar discussion about nicknames with good friend and another of my favorite people, Lloyd, who was called The Lloydster.  (I always call him the guy with the redundant L).  He liked Denbo also and that is what he called me on our many hiking and camping trips in western mountains.  One of those trips was our first hike to the summit of Mount Whitney and we were joined by a fellow UPS pilot who had been a fighter pilot and as you may know, they all have call signs, which is what they call nicknames.  This guy's call sign was Snake.  Snake began calling me Denbo also.  Snake and I are both active on a chat room that our union of UPS pilots established called the Bar And Grill.  He always referred to me as Denbo on the BnG and it caught on there.  Snake joined us on one of our Tour De Nbo rides, referring to me as Denbo, so it caught on there.  Sorry, I tried to make that as short as I could.

Whew!  Then I began naming each ride.  Smell The Roses, Zest For Life, Toxic Masculinity and The Phoenix are examples.  I am calling our next one The Quest.  The name was inspired by the story in the preceding post and the fact that I will be 80 years old on this ride.  It will be 9 days of riding from Washington DC to Pittsburgh on the Chesapeake And Ohio Canal Towpath and the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP), 335 trail miles.  The Quest will be to see if I can ride 40 miles a day, sleep on the ground and get up and do it again and again...

I have my new Category I ebike to provide an assist and I rode it 250 miles on the Katy Trail in Missouri last October, but I slept in a bed every night.

Hang around me long enough and you will hear me say, there is a thin line between genius and insanity.  I don't know if that is true, but I like to say it, because many of the really smart people I have known or observed are a little nutty.

The discussion in the video above is about the Wright Brothers and their signature accomplishment, First Flight.  I think it is ironic, that these 2 guys, who did not go to college, solved the mystery of human flight.  It was accomplished because they were both very smart, but more so because they were persistent and did not allow setbacks to discourage them.

Silent Cal is not considered one of our Rushmore worthy presidents, but I think he hit the accomplishment nail on the head with the above quote.  In an earlier blog post, titled Psycho Babble, I discussed a book, by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, Psycho Cybernetics.  This book makes the case that we succeed by making mistakes, learning and then pressing on.

  

 

The Quest

When we study history, we often know the end of the story and fail to understand, that the outcome was not inevitable.  Take for example, the event that actually created the United States of America, the American Revolution.  The successful separation from England was in doubt until the very end of significant conflict at Yorktown, Virginia.  Early in the war, Washington was defeated and routed in the Battle of Brooklyn, by what was probably the first Hail Mary attack in America.  Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf is famous for his end around attack in the Kuwait War, but that is not the first involving Americans in conflict.  Another was the attack by Stonewall Jackson, on behalf of Robert E. Lee at Chancellorsville.  This attack was against General Fightin' Joe Hooker, who Lee referred to as Mr. F. J. Hooker.

Washington's American army was huddled on the shore of the East River, outnumbered and outclassed.  The Brits decided to wait until morning to finish the job, but a miraculous fog appeared on the river and Washington managed to escape Long Island for Manhattan Island in small boats and live to fight another day.  This is but one example of the battle losses and narrow escapes of Washington's ragtag army.  No one at that time gave the former colonies any hope of winning that war against the most powerful army on the planet at that time.  During the Civil War, World War II, just about every war our country has engaged in, there were points where victory was in doubt.

As I wrote my blog, Flexible Flyer, How Not To Build An Aviation Career, I knew how it ended, but while I was living it, there was always great uncertainty that I would achieve my goal of having a financially successful career as an airline pilot.  If you read the blog, you will see how it developed, step by step and see how bleak things looked at several points.  There were times when my resolve was nearly broken.  There are also many elements that helped build and rebuild that resolve.

I have been thinking about a small part of that process lately.  When I was in the army from October 1965 to October 1967, I spent most of my time as a drill sergeant at Fort Knox Kentucky.  My best friend and roommate was Howard "Ricky" Richter, a Jewish guy from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, near Camden and across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.  Ricky was fascinated by the 1965 musical, Man of La Mancha, which was based loosely on the 17th Century novel, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Ricky loved the principle song from the musical and he would sing it often as we drove from Fort Knox to Louisville, to do the things young men strive to do.  Ricky did not have a good voice and could not carry a tune, but he did not allow that to deter him. 

In recent years, I search the World Wide Web for Ricky and found his obituary.

  

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

Dr. William P. Garvey

 The idea to write this chapter occurred as I was watching a YouTube video of an interview of Shelby Foote on Book TV, a C-Span2 program.  Foote is famous for his three volume effort, The Civil War: A Narrative.  This series was made famous, popular and successful by Foote's appearance on Ken Burns' PBS show, The Civil War.  You can click on all the hyper links if my discussion is insufficient.

Brian Lamb began the interview, by asking about the cause and impact of the Civil War.  This reminded me of my high school history teacher, Dr. William P. Garvey.  At the time he was my teacher, Mr. Garvey was still working on his masters and doctorate in history, at the University of Pittsburgh.

Garvey was my teacher for Pennsylvania history, during my freshman year and American history in my junior year.  Of course, the major discussion of the Civil War was in American history.

The thing I remember most was his explanation of the underlying causes of the war.  He compared it to an explosive device, a bomb.  I will have to paraphrase, because of faded memory, but it went something like this. 

First there has to be an explosive substance, something that will blow up, under the right conditions, such asTNT or nitroglycerin.  In Garvey's opinion, this was the vagueness of the Constitution with regard to the relationship of the Federal government to the states.  You have to remember the situation when the Constitution was created.  Briefly, the states had been operating under the Articles of Confederation, which created a very weak central government.  The states did not even have a common currency.  Some of the Founding Fathers did not believe there should be a strong central government and of course some did.  Jefferson was one who opposed it and Hamilton was in favor.  Jefferson was out of the country at the time and was not happy when he learned what had been created.  Hamilton would have made it stronger. Jefferson was from a southern state and Hamilton a northern state.  As you can guess, this was beginning to become a regional disagreement.  The Framers of the Constitution had to tread carefully and compromise to get enough  agreement to accept it.  Therefore, there was so much vagueness, that some states believed they could secede from the Union, if they had a fundamental disagreement with policy.

Secondly, a bomb must have a fuse, an ignitor, something that will cause the explosive substance to explode. Garvey asserted that slavery was this fuse. As I pointed out, the Constitution created a strong central government and there was concern in the South, that the 'Peculiar Institution' of slavery would be abolished by the government, because of growing anti-slavery sentiment in the North.

Third, the bomb must have a spark to light the fuse.  If my memory is correct, Garvey said the election of Lincoln as president was this spark.  I don't think Lincoln ran strongly on abolishing slavery, but his position was well known from the famous Lincoln Douglas Debates, which occurred when Lincoln ran against incumbent Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas in 1858, two years before the Civil War began.

Once again, I use hyper links to provide additional information and I use WikiPedia a lot, despite the many criticisms of its accuracy, because it has a standard format for comparison.  If more information is required, you can make use of your research skills on the World Wide Web.  An in-depth discussion of the preceding is not in the scope of my post.

After all, the blog is about my favorite subject, the one about which I am best informed, me.  I have been discussing the elements that went into the development of my career, as a professional pilot. I am describing how, step by step, the pieces came together, like a jigsaw puzzle.

I am the beneficiary or victim of 12 years of education in Catholic schools.  I say beneficiary, because it was a very good education.  I believe I was taught more pertinent things in 12 years, than most people learn through post graduate degrees today.  I don't really see myself as a victim at any stage of my life, but I used that word to get your attention.  I believe my parents and educators developed the Type B side of my personality and the US Army helped me develop the Type A side.  In my professional pilot career, I believe both sides came in handy.

Mr. Garvey was the teacher of whom I have the strongest memories.  In my life as an instructor, I think I used techniques I learned in his classroom.  He spoke in a way that demanded your attention.  The instructor training in the army taught that and explained how and why to do it.  I discussed some of that early in the blog, talking about military bearing, etc.  He knew the subject and it was obvious he enjoyed it.  He allowed and even required class participation.  You could ask questions and even disagree, up to a point.  There were the usual time constraints and the lesson plan must be completed.

Garvey instilled a love of American history in me. As I have blogged previously, this came in handy when I lived in Atlanta and encountered people who harbored a resentment of people from northern states, although they often lacked a good base of knowledge about WTF actually happened.  With even the most basic reading about the war, I was able to shut most of them up.  Some of them reminded me of the Japanese trying to build a case that they were actually the victims of World War II.

Of course, the internet did not exist for most of my life.  Some time after it showed up, I decided to search for William Garvey.  Through a typing error, I learned that there was a Dr. William Harvey, who discovered the circulatory system of the human body.  At the time of my research, Bill Garvey was president of Mercyhurst College.  

We have all probably been asked at some time, what person, dead or alive, we would love to meet and chat with.  Garvey would have been such a person for me, based on our time in class and my subsequent obsession with American history as an adult.  Lincoln and Grant would be historic people in the category for me also.

I decided to call Mercyhurst to see if I could have a phone chat with Mr. Garvey.  I talked to his secretary and had to make an appointment.  She called back at the appointed time and after assuring it was me, connected Doctor Garvey.  He acted as if he remembered me and said I was a good student.  I was tempted to throw the bullshit flag on that.  I told him about my memory of things I learned about teaching from him and that I modeled my techniques after them.  I told him I had 2 kids and he told me to send them to Mercyhurst.  I would have gotten into more of a history discussion, but the secretary, appointment, and Dr. Garvey crap kind of knocked me off my stride.  I didn't want to take up too much of his precious time.

I think it is worth mentioning an incident I witnessed in the classroom during my freshman year in high school.  Garvey was lecturing on something in Pennsylvania history and standing about 6 feet from the classroom door, when the bell rang.  Bill continued lecturing and all members in the class were wise enough to remain seated as long as he was speaking, except one.  Michael "Mickey" Markle got up and started walking from the left side of the room, toward the door and between Garvey and the class.  As he passed, Bill grabbed the back of Mickey's head and smashed his face into one of the desks in the front row.  Mickey's glasses were broken, but I don't remember much more about that.  

Actually, this was not as shocking as it may seem now.  In that, my 9th year of Catholic eduction, I was not unfamiliar with physical punishment.  I always say I believe the good Sisters Of Saint Joseph invented some of the submission holds of modern day Mixed Martial Arts.  My parents also did not spare the rod.  Despite that, I still do not see myself as a victim at any time during my life.  If I got a whoopin', I probably deserved it. 

Bill Garvey was still around two years later for my American history classes, so I'm guessing he paid some price for that episode, but was obviously not fired.

Garvey was born 10 years before me, so he was about 25 to 27 at the time I was his student.  There were some things about him that seemed a little strange to us, but nothing we could pinpoint.  At the time I began to research him on the internet, there were positive articles that mentioned the things that were in his obituary, when he died in 2017.

https://www.burtonquinnscott.com/obituaries/dr-william-garvey

However, not long after our phone conversation, this kind of stuff came to the surface.

https://www.goerie.com/story/news/local/2017/08/10/garvey-former-mercyhurst-president-dies/19823413007/

Yes, my educational hero was accused of sexual child abuse and an investigation paid for by Mercyhurst found that the accusations "appear to have merit".  By that time, it was past statute of limitations for criminal investigation and prosecution.  Garvey was forced to "retire".

Although he seemed unusual, there was never anything I knew about that indicated Garvey was a pedophile.  The accusations were about his time teaching at a Catholic grade school in Erie, PA, both before his time at my high school, North Catholic of Pittsburgh, as well as after.  Decades after my days there, I received correspondence from the school mentioning that there had been some incidents with some of the religious teachers, brothers and priests of the Marianist Order.  I was being asked if I knew of any such incident.  Once again, there were some weird dudes, but I never heard anything specific with regard to pedophilia.  I had nothing to report.

I guess this is another example of the complexities of human beings.  A complete study of just about every person will find that there are many levels of good and bad in everyone.  The greatest among us often have some darkness in their story

 

Skylark

 Doreen and I are in Savannah for a week, staying at Red Gate Farm RV Park.  It was raining like hell, when we drove here, arrived, set up the coach, all night and half the next day.  Fortunately, the lot was crushed limestone and not muddy, but there were a few puddles on the way in.  I will have to hose off the wheels before we leave.

We are working our way back to Louisville from Lakes Park RV, in Fort Myers.  Our next stop is at Tanglewood RV Park, near Mocksville NC, where we will have MagneShades installed on all our front windows to reduce the exchange of heat through them.  The front of the coach is a challenge for the cooling and heating systems to keep up with, depending on ambient outside air temperature.  The Magne Shades will help mitigate that problem.

After Mocksville, we will stop at Anchor Down RV Resort, in Dandridge TN, for a night.  We stayed there last year, sweating the threat of heavy thunderstorms and tornadoes.  From there, we drive home, in time for the second annual, day before Easter musical show for geezers, starring our son, Mike, and many of his great musical friends from high school and college days. (I'm thinking Weaver will wear a clean shirt this time.  These videos are from a Christmas season reunion show they did several years ago.)  Last year, they all brought their wives and kids and it was a fun reunion.  I call it a show for geezers, because it will be held at the Tin Roof bar on Shelbyville Road in Louisville at 4:30 in the afternoon, as opposed to their normal starting time of about 10:30 PM, back in the day.  The musician are now in their 30s.

Yesterday, after the rain stopped, we drove in to town to begin exploring this very historic and interesting town.  We drove around for about 45 minutes, getting the lay of the land and looking for a place to park.  Since it was a Saturday, there were tourists everywhere.  We finally headed toward Forsyth Park and, by good fortune,  ended up at Monterey Park, where we found a parking spot on the street.  There was a meter, but parking was free on weekends.  This was fortunate, because the Mercer Williams House is on the square occupied by Monterey Park.  This is the only historic house Doreen wanted to visit in Savannah.  The house is historic, because it is the site of a murder made famous by the non-fiction book, titled Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil and the movie, by Clint Eastwood, of the same title.  Doreen has read the book and seen the movie several times. 

I titled this post Skylark, because the movie opens with the K D Lang version of the Hoagy Carmichael/Johnny Mercer tune, Skylark.  Mercer is a native of Savannah and wrote the lyrics to the song.  The Mercer Williams House was owned by a family member, but Johnny never lived there.  If you would like to hear the song with a little more energy, there is an Aretha Franklin version,  There are several other Mercer tunes on the soundtrack.  James Gandolfini, aka Tony Soprano, has a small role, as the second cook during a scene at Clary's Cafe.

For more information and fun, click on the hyper links at the different colored words.

Chattanooga

 In my previous post, Uncle Billy, I discussed my time living in Atlanta Georgia.  As part of my effort to become more aware of the American Civil War, I drove to the Chickamauga GA battlefield.  It was a humiliating defeat for the Union Army of the Cumberland.  The army was routed and made a disorganized retreat to the city of Chattanooga Tennessee. 

The Army of the Cumberland, under Rosecrans, was put under siege by the Confederates, under Bragg.  Supplies were difficult to come by and the troops were reduced to quarter rations. 

 Rosecrans

Bragg

Generals Grant and Sherman made their way to Chattanooga, with the Army Of The Tennessee, after a successful campaign at Vicksburg Mississippi.  General Joseph Hooker arrived, with an element of the Army Of The Potomac after a victory at Gettysburg.  Grant took charge of al the Union troops and devised a successful plan to greatly improve the line of supply in Chattanooga.

Grant

During this time, the men and officers of the Army Of The Cumberland were taking lots of abuse, at all levels of rank, from their counterparts in the Armies Of The Tennessee and The Potomac.  They had been embarrassed at Chickamauga and it was mostly because of a communication malfunction at the highest level of command.  They were seething.

Eventually, Grant's troops outnumbered Bragg's and they were better supplied.  Grant became tired of being under siege and wanted to start trying to break out.  His plan was to send his most trusted subordinate, General Sherman, to attack the Confederate right and rolling their line along Missionary Ridge.  Before this, General Hooker led an attack on Lookout Mountain and won what became known as the Battle Above The Clouds.  This victory was important, but not as important as some of the stories of the time made it out to be.

Hooker

After visiting Chickamauga, I drove to Chattanooga.  I made my way through the neighborhoods to the summit of Lookout Mountain.  I drove to Orchard Knob and Missionary Ridge.  The city has kind of consumed by the battlefield, but there are historic plaques and statues everywhere.  It is easy to get the lay of the land and understand how the terrain effected the battle. 

Sherman's efforts were foiled by his misunderstanding of the terrain at the far right of the Confederate line.  There were more hills there that he was not aware of.  As his attack faltered, Grant ordered the Army Of The Cumberland to threaten Missionary Ridge at the center of the line, to draw reinforcements from the right.  His orders were to take the trenches at the base of the ridge only.  He still thought Sherman should be the emphasis of the effort.  

The Army Of The Cumberland, now under General George "Pap" Thomas, the "Rock of Chicamauga", advanced to the base of the ridge, driving the Confederates up toward the top.  When they got there, they began to climb the ridge, contrary to orders.  I was a spontaneous movement, not commanded by anyone and they began to drive the rebels from the top of Missionary Ridge.  This became an avenging rout of the army that had routed them at Chickamauga.  It was another victory for Grant, despite the fact that it was not according to his plan.

Thomas

After reading much more about this battle and the entire Civil War, I have come to the conclusion that this was a very under rated battle.  It played an enormous part in the final outcome of the war.  

Gettysburg and Vicksburg had just happened and were rightfully seen as critical Northern victories, but Chattanooga did several things that kept the momentum going.

First of all, it helped Lincoln install Grant as the overall commanding general of the entire Union Army.  Despite his record of winning victory after victory, Grant was accused of being a careless drunkard.  There may be some partial truth to that, but he was a hard fighter, who wanted the enemy to worry about what he was going to do, rather than the other way around.  He fought like hell and he won.  Lincoln's previous choices as commanding general had been mostly failures.  Grant's assumption of command eventually led to the Overland Campaign, which resulted in Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House.

Secondly, it turned Sherman loose on Georgia.  That is what I talked about in my previous post.  Lincoln, Grant and Sherman met after Chattanooga, to discuss and plan how they would conduct the remainder of the war.  Grant and Sherman would use the same strategy as they advanced on Richmond and Atlanta, respectively.  Previously, Union generals would fall back after a major encounter with the Confederates.  Grant and Sherman just maneuvered around the enemy and continued their moves toward the objective, forcing the enemy to abandon a strong defensive position and try to move to block them.  Eventually Richmond and Atlanta were placed under siege.  This was the beginning of a change from the older forms of battle, which involved armies lining up on opposite sides of the field and shooting volleys at each other, to the modern, trench warfare.

Lincoln, Grant and Sherman understood the importance of breaking the will of the population of the enemy, the civilians, as much as the army.  You can see this in all levels of competition.  If the people supporting the competitors realize there is no way they can win, everyone on both sides is aware that it is only a matter of time.

The only reason the Confederacy lasted as long as it did, is because of the incompetence of Yankee generals and the hope that there would be recognition of the Confederate States Of America by European countries, that it was indeed a separate nation.  The major Union victories eventually killed that hope.

Chattanooga set Sherman and Grant up to be able to demonstrate in the Eastern and Western Theaters that the North would eventually prevail. 

 

Thin Air

 I'm reading The Oregon Trail, A New American Journey, by Rinker Buck.  Buck and his younger brother, Nick, followed the Oregon Trail in a wagon, like the ones used by the early pioneers.

I just reached the part of the story where they are crossing the lowest point on the Western Continental Divide and spending lots of time above 7,000 feet elevation.  Buck discusses an incident when he watered their mules and then left one of their 3 water buckets and a ladder behind on the trail.  He attributes this absent mindedness to the hubris and euphoria of hypoxia.

If you have read my blog to this point, you know a little of my experience hiking and skiing at higher elevations.  Of course, I also had some experience at high altitudes and high cabin altitudes in airplanes.  For clarification, I distinguish elevation, altitude and cabin altitude in this way.  An elevation is the height of a point on the ground above Mean Sea Level (MSL).  Altitude is a height above MSL in the air.  Cabin altitude is the equivalent altitude in a pressurized airplane.  For example, a pressurized airplane flying above 30,000 feet would have a cabin altitude equivalence of about 7,500 to 8,000 feet.  The air density in the cabin would be the same as that at those altitudes.

The Mount Whitney Trail, which I have hiked several times, begins at 8,300 ft. and goes to the summit at 14,500 ft. elevation.  I have flown airplanes as high as 41,000 ft. (rarely) with cabin altitudes between 8 and 9 thousand feet.  Most flying of jets is done in the 30 to 39 thousand foot range.  

During the early years of my flying career, I flew only two types of pressurized planes.  Almost all of my flying time was in unpressurized airplanes.

The one experience I was reminded of by Rinker Buck's tale of euphoria on the Oregon Trail was very early in my 5 years flying for Graham Aviation FBO in Butler PA.  I was trying to build flying time and experience and always looking for ways to do so.  Technically, I was still married to a flight attendant for Allegheny Airlines and able to fly with a  non-revenue pass.  We were a Piper dealer and the single engine planes we sold were made in Vero Beach Florida.  They then had to be flown to Butler.  That is where I put all of the above together and told the boss I wanted to travel to Vero Beach and fly a new Warrior back.

It has been a while since that trip, early in my career, but what I remember about it was my first personal exposure to the effects of high altitude euphoria, which can be deadly.

I had flown planes back from Vero Beach before.  Jim, BS and I brought 2 Cherokee 140s back, when I was still a student, working on my commercial license.  I learned about the range capabilities of these planes and knew I would have to stop for fuel, at least once.  I think the Warriors range was a little more than the Cherokee's but would still have to stop for fuel.  The best place to do that was before I began crossing the Appalachian Mountains, somewhere in North Carolina.  Options thin out until the border of West By God Virginia and Pennsylvania.  I had thought about this long and hard and knew this was the smart move, when I was on the ground.

Unfortunately, we had this thing called the 1973 Oil Crisis.  Fixed Base Operators (FBO), where struggling to get enough Avgas for airplanes.  They are the gas stations for general aviation flying across the country.  This was before the internet and getting information about availability was not easily available.  Typically, you could call them on the radio to ask about fuel availability, except that the plane I was ferrying had no radios.  They would be installed by our shop, when I arrived at Butler Graham.

I had planned where I would stop.  I don't remember which airport, but it was not one that required radio communication with Air Traffic Control.  To extend the range, I decided to fly at 12,500 feet.  Piston engine planes get a higher true air speed and burn less fuel at higher altitudes, to a point.  By regulation, 12,500 ft. was the highest altitude I could fly without supplemental oxygen or pressurization.  As I neared my planned airport, I checked fuel quantities and thought I could continue farther.  After some time, I was beginning to see the mountains to the north. I suddenly realized that I must have been experiencing euphoria from my time at 12,500.  It hit me like a baseball bat.  I was beginning to think I could extend all the way to Butler.  That was probably a very fortunate and unusual realization, for someone in that situation.  I checked the map for the nearest airport at which I could land and began my descent, getting smarter with each 1,000 feet. 

I think it was Mount Airy, North Carolina, but would have to check my logbook to be sure and it is currently 1000 miles away.  I got refueled, probably got something to refuel myself and flew the rest of the trip without incident.  

When I would tell my parents about trips like this, they were always shocked to learn that you could fly around the country like this without getting permission and talking to someone all the time.  God Bless the good ol' USA, for as long as we can keep it, which is not looking very promising at this time.