February 5, 2019
Good morning friends. We are glad you made it today.
On tap for you, we have the Almanac spotlighting the end of History’s longest war, Top of the Charts is from 1966 and Philosophy 101 talks about accepting responsibility for our lives.
THE DAILY ALMANAC
On This Date:
In 1971 – Apollo 14 lands on the moon, man’s third visit to the lunar surface. Commanded by Alan Shepard and also manned by Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa, it was the first Apollo mission following Apollo 13’s aborted lunar mission and had been delayed four months. Shepard and Mitchell spent nine-and-a-half hours walking on the moon and Apollo 14 is mainly remembered for Shepard hitting a couple of golf balls and for being the last crew to be quarantined after returning to Earth.
In 1985 – The Third Punic War officially comes to an end when the mayors of Carthage and Rome meet in Tunis. The war was conducted over three years a century-and-a-half before Christ and ended with a Roman victory over Carthage. A peace treaty, however, was never signed, Rome merely took possession of and rebuilt Carthage and at 2,1,31 years the Third Punic War remains the longest war in history.
Top of the Charts
#1 songs on this date in 1966:
Hot 100 – My Love…Petula Clark (1st of two weeks)
Soul Chart – Uptight (Everything’s Alright)…Stevie Wonder (3rd of five weeks)
Country Chart – Giddyup Go…Red Sovine (5th of six weeks)
Album Chart – Rubber Soul…The Beatles (5th of six weeks)
– Chart data courtesy of Billboard.
Numbers Racket
10,637: the continuous number of days the US has been at war.
21.965: the number of dollars, in trillions, of America’s national debt. – Source: usdebtclock.org
644: days until Election Day 2020.
Philosophy 101
Neither age nor size makes a man…It is the willingness to accept responsibility.
Louis L’Amour
The Lonesome Gods
The Lonesome Gods is mainly about alpha males doing alpha male things so it would follow the reference in the quote is for a man. We forgive Mr L’Amour for this, though because few provide the insights into our human experience that he does and L’Amour, one of our more thoughtful if not most technically brilliant writers, can be excused for singling out men.
Today’s quote applies to everyone: male, female, young, old, everyone. Those that get on in this world all accept responsibility, the responsibility for making your time on this planet serve you, instead of merely marking time or serving a sentence.
It is not always easy to do this because this usually involves going against society’s grain. It is very easy to settle for the road most traveled: it’s a well-trod path with few bumps and fewer successes or failures. However little of what we want in this life can be found on a well-worn path. We must blaze our own path in this world.
We must know what we are about and then we must have the courage to toss society aside to go live the life we were meant to live. We cannot merely pass the years breathing everybody else’s air. We must accept the responsibility for making the most out of the time we spend on this planet. When we do that life’s great prize, living the life we were meant to live, awaits.
Louis L’Amour (1908-88) was an American writer.
Many thanks for reading, and have a good day.
xoxoxo
Kaitlyn