Saturday, October 24, 2009

Amelia Earhart's Scarf

Amelia Earhart in front of the Lockheed Electra in which she disappeared in July 1937 (picture courtesy of NASA and msnbc)

A new movie is coming out this week end about Amelia Earhart, we are going to wait for the DVD but another thing is going to happen in Nov. which involves Amelia.

Her lucky scarf (which she did not take on her fatal flight) is going up in space. It is going to be on the space shuttle Atlantis with Astronaut Randy Bresnik.

Randy is the grandson of Amelia's personal photographer, Albert Bresnik
Along with the scarf Randy is taking one of his grandfather's pictures and the coordinates for Howland Island. This is the island that Amelia was trying to find when she disappeared. He is going to try and take a picture of the island as they fly over it in the space shuttle.

The scarf is on loan from the Museum of Women Pilots in Oklahoma City. It was given to the museum by Amelia's family and has been on display along with pictures from Albert Bresnik.

This is not the first scarf of Amelia's to go into space, the first american woman to pilot and command the space shuttle, Eileen Collins, had another Earhart scarf from the collection and wore it on her first mission in 1995.

Purdue University has an Earhart scarf that flew on the 1990 mission to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope. And a watch that Amelia wore is going to space in 2010 with astronaut Shannon Walker.

Now, the only thing left is for us to find out, what happened to Amelia Earhart.

Friday, October 23, 2009

My Dream

Picture courtesy of icindy (independent newspaper)

Okay, this is why this post was done. Darlene from Darlene's Hodgepodge posted she had a dream and I posted if she would tell me hers, I would tell her mine. She did and now here's mine.

Above is the main street of Colorado Springs, in the good old days looking at the mountains. In my dream I was standing in the middle of the street seeing what you see in the picture.

Coming towards me is my grandfather Penrose, only he is huge towering over the buildings. He is dressed in a white glowing robe
with a white glowing cowboy hat. He looks at me and tells me everything is going to be okay. I start walking in to the town and a river of blood stops me. The river turns into a red carpet and my grandfather laughs and says "I told you everything would be okay".

So, that's my dream.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Japanese Attack on Santa Barbara, Truth or Fiction

Most of my life, I have been treated like a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed bullsh-t. So, the truth is very important to me and I am a truth seeker.

So, when I did my last post I mentioned the bombing of Santa Barbara and Darlene from Darlene's Hodgepodge made a comment. That sent me on a mission of truth and I had to find out if the Japanese really did bomb Santa Barbara. This is the result of my search:

Our story, strangely enough starts before the war in the late 1930's. A Japanese ship docked in the small city of Santa Barbara, it is unknown if it was there to load or unload cargo or to get a shipment of crude oil from one of the off shore wells by the city.

While the ship was in port, the Japanese captain was given a tour of the sights. While the captain was admiring a view, he fell backwards landing in a cactus bed. The americans burst into laughter, the captain felt ridiculed.

After war was declared, this Japanese freighter captain joined the navy as a submarine commander. So on Feb. 23, 1942 he brought his submarine close to the Calif. coast.
He knew the oil fields by Santa Barbara, which of course is important in any war, but this was revenge for being ridiculed in the late 1930's.

He surfaced his sub near an oil field pier just north of a suburb of Santa Barbara called Goleta. He shelled the pier and ordered shelling of the area around. The only damage was to the pier, no lives were lost and few people lived in the area. But the captain got his revenge.

Only two newspapers carried the story on March 1, 1942. The Santa Barbara paper and the San Francisco Chronicle. This act put the people in Santa Barbara on alert. In the nearby town of Montecito, many of the wealthy part time residents put their houses up for sale and went back east.

Later, a person would buy the timber from the pier and build a restaurant called "The Timbers". it is on Highway 101.

There is no record of what happened to the submarine captain.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Honorable Heart

Isn't this a neat title for a book! This is the book that I am reading now. It is the life story of Eugene R. Harwood, written by him and his daughter Barbara Harwood Hartwig. It's available at Barnes and Noble.

Barbara had to finish the book by herself because her dad passed away in 2005. I wanted this book because Eugene was born in Colorado Springs and there is a lot of neat stuff in there about the Springs during the 1920's and 1930's. His parents owned a home in the Broadmoor area that I went by many times.

Eugene also was a navigator on a B29 during WWII and ended up a POW. There were a lot of things I didn't know about WWII that he shares about. Did you know that the Japanese bombed Santa Barbara or that we dropped leaflets to the Japanese people telling them to get out of towns because we were going to bomb them or that our ally, the Russians, shot down our planes and turned our men over to Japanese POW camps? If you did, then you know more then I concerning WWII.

This book talks about that and more. Eugene was a navigator on one of the leaflet planes (this plane also was a plane we used to drop supplies to our POW men), that same plane was shot down by the Russians and he was put in a POW camp. The very same camp he delivered supplies to.

This is a great story and the title fits it to a tee.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Where An Address Leads

picture courtesy of PPLD
This is a picture of my dad, Merton and Ruth Bogart, it says they are on the SS Empress of Canada. Of course I always check these things out, mainly because at PPLD they said Merton was my dad's secretary. Merton was C.L. Tutt's secretary, so that was one strike against this pic.
So, I did my detective work. Yes, they were on the same ship. My dad in 1st class, the Bogart's were in cabin. My dad's destination was Niu, Honolulu. The Bogart's destination was 5621 Kalanianaole Highway, Honolulu. Both places are Niu, so I don't know where my folks stayed.
But, I followed the address and this is what I found:
200 years ago King Kamehamha I gave 2,400 arces to Alexander Adams, a British sea captain. The captain was head of the kings first navy. The land passed down to Adams grand daughter, Mary Lucas.
Starting in the 1950's much of the land was subdivided into residential housing going to Mary's children Charlotte Cassiday and Mary Pfluger. Her grandson, Ben Cassiday Jr was given 5699 Kalanianaole Highway in 1940, he got the property 5621 when Mary died in 1965.
I don't know if Mary lived at 5621 when my parents went to Honolulu or if she rented it or if one of her relatives lived there. But there is a tie there, Ben Cassiday Jr. is now a retired Air Force General. He was at the Air Force Academy here in the Springs from 1955-1959. He has lived at the 5621 address since 1973, he retired in 1972. His son, Ben Cassiday III has lived at the 5699 address since 1982.
And wouldn't you know, this family is in a dispute over the family money and trusts. When I read about the feud, it was like welcome to the club. But, at least in my case it wasn't my own family member's, it was my dad's lawyer that stole from me. At least these people are old enough to fight back. I was 3 and I had no one on my side.
But, I thought it a hoot that an address would connect Mary Lucas, Ben Cassiday, my parents, the Tutt's and Merton Bogart all together. And what's happening to the Cassiday's now, happened to me many years ago.
You never know where an address will lead :)

Thursday, October 8, 2009


My family have known the Astor's for a long time, so when Brooke Astor was sick a couple of years ago, I sent a get well card to her. When she passed away, I did not find out about till a few weeks after. It was to late to send anything and with her death I felt a part of history had faded away.

Brooke Astor married into the Astor family in 1959, she had a son from her previous marriage, his name is Anthony Marshall. He is her only son and they say he was stealing from her. She was 105 years old when she passed away. Anthony is 85 years old.

I speak of this now because his trial is over, Brooke's attorney was also brought up on charges. They were found guilty but his lawyer is going to appeal. I felt very sad about this and even sadder when I read that he wasn't taking care of his mother. But, the thing I don't understand is, if she had all these friends, that the paper said she did, which include Barbara Walters and Henry Kissinger, then why didn't they say something to her son? Also, the person who brought these charges up was Anthony's son, Philip.

Now, if he was so concerned about his grandmother, then why didn't he make sure she was taken care of. Why didn't he pay for certain things she needed. Also, his dad is 85, shouldn't the son be looking out for his dad instead of taking him to court. Something's not right, things don't add up. Like Walter Cronkite said, you don't get to the truth till you hear both sides of the story.

But, I will tell you, to me, it looks like the grandson is a greedy SOB and he wants his own father out of the way. I could be wrong, I don't know the whole story but it looks fishy to me.

Anthony had legal power over his mother's estate. So, he could spend the money. I see greed and envy in the grandson but not the son. And like I said I could be wrong. If Anthony was taking such bad care of his mother, how did she live sooo long. It looks like Philip's lawyer got the jury caught up in legal issues that they didn't understand. Anthony's lawyer should have proven (and there is proof) how well he took care of his mother.

I know greed, I have been a victim of greed since I was 3 years old. Philip wants all the money, he doesn't want to wait till his dad dies. OMG, he might live to be 105 like Brooke. They also threw in the pity vote, that the will was changed to exclude certain charities. I bet she did exclude them and I bet her grandson Philip has a postion with each charity that was excluded.

I will tell you now that Anthony is getting the shaft, this never should have been taken to court. And as far as the grandson Philip, he needs to be slapped. And the question put to him, "Why didn't YOU help your grandmother if things were so bad!"

That's my beef for the week. Greed sickens the mind, soul and spirit.