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.

Uncle Billy

 Since 1979, I have virtually stopped reading fiction, except for those few articles I may read in today's newspapers.  Just kidding...kind of.  I prefer reading books about American history and biographies of people who made an impact on American history.  

The only fiction I have read would be books that are sometimes called "faction", because they are novels about historic events, people and places.  Examples would be Burning Ground, by D.A. Caldwell, about the exploration of what is now Yellowstone National Park.  Caldwell also wrote Fatal Ground, about what is called Custer's Last Stand.  I have also read many of the novels of James Michener, which cover a wide range of history.

The reason for my interest in American history began in 1979, when I was living in Atlanta Georgia.  I had gone to attend a school to acquire my flight engineer rating and was hired as an instructor afterwards.  I met many Southerners while I was there.  One of them is still one of my best friends, about whom I wrote in earlier posts.  However, there were some who were still carrying a grudge against people from the North.  They put them in two categories, Damn Yankees were those who came to visit and left and Goddam Yankees came and stayed.  At that point, I seemed to fall into the latter group.

At that point, the Civil War had been over for 114 years.  Growing up, I had learned about the war as early as grade school and in much more detail during my junior year in high school.  However, I had moved on and was very surprised to learn how people in the South held a grudge more than a century later.

I wanted to try to gain an understanding of the war to have something to say to them, when they told my how terribly the people of the North had mistreated them.  I wanted to learn about their war time experience and their reasons for fighting the war.   Some explained that the focus of their anger and hatred and the excuse for their behavior to me was General William T. Sherman.  My thoughts were that no one from my family had come to the United States until the later 19th Century, so WTF?

Sherman had brought the war to Georgia, taking the city of Atlanta and then marching across the state to Savanah.  To execute that march, he had severed his supply lines and his army lived off the land, taking what was needed from the farms along the way.  What he didn't need was destroyed.

As I read, I got a better understanding of Sherman's thinking.  When the war began, he was the head of a military academy in Louisiana, that became Louisiana State University (LSU).  Sherman was from Ohio and had graduated from West Point.  David French Boyd, a close friend, recalled Sherman declaring at that time:

"You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it ... Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth—right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail."

Southerners were not convinced.

I am now convinced that I know far more, than my antagonists of 1979, about the causes, execution and aftermath of the Civil War.  The following video provides the best and easiest to grasp explanation of what drove Sherman to do what he did in Georgia.

Communication Skills

 We learn to communicate almost immediately after birth.  Infants can see facial expressions and infer meaning from them.  They communicate with their own facial expressions in a very short time.  It is not difficult to see when they are happy or whether something is bothering them.

When my kids were learning to swim at a very early age, the guy who was teaching them had developed his PhD around a system of teaching young children to swim.  He taught us that different cries from infants meant different things.

There are cries of anger.  There are cries of fear.  There are cries of hunger.  There are cries of, "Hey, I messed my laundry and I want someone to do something about it".  There are many other messages being sent by this crying, but in all cases, a response is expected.  "Let me know you have heard and understood what I am communicating and that you will do something about it".

We moved on to learning the alphabet, then putting it together in words and eventually, sentences and paragraphs.  Even before that, kids are learning language, simply by hearing others speak and trying to imitate.  I've long said that the first time a child says no is the beginning of the development of that child to become an independent and self sufficient adult.

Communication becomes more and more sophisticated as we grow and have more life experience.  I was fortunate to be a child and teenager during the 50s and 60s, when there was more discipline and eduction going on in schools, as opposed to much of the indoctrination of today.  I attended Catholic schools through high school.  We were drilled with correct spelling, grammar  and diagramming sentences.  

As you may know, if you have read my blog from the beginning, I did not attend college.  In some ways this is beginning to look like a blessing, although college was probably not as bad then, as it is today.

Two years after graduation from high school, I was drafted into the United States Army.  I have written extensively about that experience. This morning, I was thinking about some of the things I was taught about communication while in the army.  During my second 8 week period of training, Advanced Individual Training (AIT), we were being taught how to talk on radios.  This was primarily because we were being trained to be scouts for armor units.

As scouts, we would be probing advanced areas, searching for the enemy and reporting back to the main body, the location, nature and size of enemy units.  We would also be calling in artillery strikes.  Precise and clear communication was critical. Mistakes or misunderstanding could cause lives to be lost.

Sometimes it was necessary to spell words in radio communicaion.  It has been decided that the normal alphabet can be easily misheard or misunderstood.  Therefore a phonetic alphabet was developed.  Words are used to represent letters.  You may be familiar with the phonetic alphabet that was being used by the US military during World War II, from seeing the TV series Band Of Brothers.  It covers E Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, "The Screaming Eagles".  At that time the phonetic word for E was Easy.

At some point after WW II, the countries of NATO changed the phonetic alphabet.  This new one was the one we learned in 1966.  For example, Easy was changed to Echo.  Supposedly, the reason for the change was to make communication between people who spoke different languages more easily understood.

Not long after I left the army, I began learning how to fly and as you can imagine, precise and easily understood communication is as important in aviation as it is in the military.  Here, I encountered the familiar NATO phonetic alphabet again.  This makes sense, as airplanes can easily be flown anywhere in the world, it is necessary to have a standardized method of communication.  It was decided that English would be the language of international aviation communication and the NATO phonetic alphabet would be the standard.  Lucky for me, I did not have to learn new ones.  Not so lucky for those who want to be involved in aviation and their first language is not English.  Life can be tough.

Another aspect of critical communication, that I touched on slightly in discussing infant communication, is acknowledging reception of messages. In aviation, a read back is usually expected and sometimes required.  When air traffic controllers tell pilots to fly a certain heading, change to a different altitude or clears them for takeoff, landing or an approach, they want to hear back from the pilot, exactly what they have cleared them to do.  Simply saying Roger, will usually piss someone off.  The read back should also include the call sign, to assure that the correct airplane will do what the controller expects them to do.

Although it is usually not as critical, normal communication between humans should also have some standards.  When someone says something to you, it is good policy to acknowledge in some way.

OK, the reason I started thinking about this, is that I have a mobile repair guy, here in Fort Myers, I have been dealing with for a few years and I have been trying to get information from him.  He and his office have not been getting back to me and I am pissed, but I don't want to dust him off.  He is very good, when I can get him out to work on the coach.

Stillers FedEx Connection

 It is being reported, that the Steelers have hired Arthur Smith as their new offensive coordinator.  Smith was fired after 3 years as the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons.  He led the Falcons to 3 seasons of 7 and 10 records.  Prior to the Falcons, Smith had spent 10 seasons with the Tennessee Titans, the last 2 as offensive coordinator.  During that time, he has been credited with rehabilitating the career of quarterback, Ryan Tannehill, and developing the Titans' running game, behind Derrick Henry.

At first glance, this appears to be a typical Mike Tomlin move.  Many were discussing the many young, up and coming, offensive minded coaches who could be promoted to Steelers offensive coordinator.  Smith seems to have peaked out during his time with the Titans.  As a fan, my hope is that Smith is an example of the Peter Principle and will be able to thrive again as a coordinator.  Head coach may have been a bridge too far for him.  Dick LeBeau would be an example of a coach who was better as a coordinator than as a head coach.  Mike Tomlin may be another.

I had not paid much attention to Smith as the head coach of the Falcons.  I only saw parts of Falcons games on NFL Sunday Ticket Red Zone and he seemed to have the deer in the headlights look that we have seen on Tomlin's face, when the Stillers are losing late in games and he doesn't have an answer.  They would make good book ends.  During one game, the announcers seemed to be talking more about Smith's new mustache than his coaching abilities.

This morning I watched a YouTube video of Tomlin apologist, Rich Eisen.  He is all in on the Smith hiring, but he really likes Tomlin also. One of the points in his argument in favor of Smith, is that he does not need to work.  He is one of the 10 children of FedEx founder, Fred Smith.  Fred has a very interesting story, which you can read by clicking on the hyper link on his name above.  He is reported to be worth in excess of $5 Billion.  Eisen's rationale was that since he is the son of Fred Smith, the billionaire, Arthur did not need to work and was coaching because he loves it, just like Tomlin.

Steelers owner, Art Rooney, is starting to indicate he is getting tired of just not having a losing season.  For what it's worth, so is Snoop Dogg.