This Date in History - October 7

 

Happy death day to Clarence Birdseye.  My mother couldn't have cooked without you.

3761 BC:  THE EPOCH REFERENCE DATE OF THE MODERN HEBREW CALENDAR.

That's a freakin' long time ago.

1477:  UPPSALA UNIVERSITY IS INAUGURATED AFTER RECEIVING ITS CORPORATE RIGHTS FROM POPE SIXTUS IV IN FEBRUARY THE SAME YEAR.

Pope Sixtus IV adds up to X.

1513:  BATTLE OF LA MOTTA:  SPANISH TROOPS UNDER RAMON DE CARDONA DEFEAT THE VENETIANS.

Who, in turn, lost to the Drapes.

1542:  EXPLORER CABRILLO DISCOVERS SANTA CATALINA ISLAND OFF THE CALIFORNIA COAST.

Smart move.  Nice place.

1582:  BECAUSE OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR, THIS DAY IS SKIPPED IN ITALY, POLAND, PORTUGAL, AND SPAIN.

It sucks to be born Gregorian on October 7.

1826:  THE GRANITE RAILWAY BEGINS OPERATION AS THE FIRST CHARTERED RAILWAY IN THE US.

All aboard!

1849:  AUTHOR EDGAR ALLAN POE DIES.

Never more.

1868:  CORNELL UNIVERSITY HOLDS OPENING DAY CEREMONIES WITH STUDENT ENROLLMENT AT 412, THE HIGHEST OF ANY COLLEGE TO DATE.

That's one long line at the cafeteria.

1905:  ACTOR ANDY DEVINE IS BORN.

The inventor of the cowboy's sidekick.

1916:  GEORGIA TECH DEFEATS CUMBERLAND 222-0 IN THE MOST LOPSIDED COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME IN HISTORY.

Take Cumberland with 223 points.

1917:  ACTRESS JUNE ALLYSON IS BORN.

Well, that depends.

1919:  KLM, THE FLAG CARRIER OF THE NETHERLANDS, IS FOUNDED.  IT IS THE OLDEST AIRLINE STILL OPERATING UNDER ITS ORIGINAL NAME.

And with the original frequent flyer miles.

1925:  PITCHER CHRISTY MATHEWSON DIES.

With that arm, he could probably still pitch six innings on October 8.

1933:  AIR FRANCE IS INAUGURATED.

Par avion.

1940:  WORLD WAR II - THE MCCOLLUM MEMO PROPOSES BRINGING THE US INTO THE WAR IN EUROPE BY PROVOKING THE JAPANESE TO ATTACK THE US.

Spoiler alert:  It worked.

1943:  COLONEL OLIVER NORTH IS BORN.

If you insist...

1944:  WORLD WAR II - DURING AN UPRISING AT BIRKENAU CONCENTRATION CAMP, JEWISH PRISONERS BURN DOWN THE CREMATORIA.

That's redundant.

1956:  BUSINESSMAN CLARENCE BIRDSEYE DIES.

I always wanted to know why he insisted on including lima beans.

1958:  THE US MANNED SPACE-FLIGHT PROJECT IS RENAMED PROJECT MERCURY.

Paging Alan Shepherd.

1960:  NIGERIA JOINS THE UNITED NATIONS.

Meetings on the first Tuesday of every month.

1963:  PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY SIGNS THE RATIFICATION OF THE PARTIAL TEST BAN TREATY.

Good thing.  Only about seven more weeks left for him.

1985:  THE ACHILLE LAURO IS HIJACKED BY THE PLO.

It really did happen, folks.  It wasn't just a TV movie.

1991:  BASEBALL MANAGER LEO DUROCHER DIES.

Tossed from the game for the very last time.

1996:  THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL BEGINS BROADCASTING.

The other side of the MSNBC seesaw.

1998:  MATTHEW SHEPARD, A GAY STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING, IS FOUND TIED TO A FENCE AFTER BEING SAVAGELY BEATEN.

No smart comment here.  Tragic.

2003:  THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, GRAY DAVIS, IS RECALLED IN FAVOR OF ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER.

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  I can't wait till they recall the current asshole.

2023:  HAMAS ATTACKS ISRAEL.

And it's been ugly ever since.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.  

Morons of the Month - October 2026

 

It's a month before Election Day and mail-in ballots are already in the house.  Now, don't get me wrong.   I do enjoy the convenience of not leaving my home to vote.   I can take my time to sprawl out the LA Times and see their recommendations with the ballot in front of me.   By the way, whatever the LA Times tells voters to do, I do just the opposite.   Oh, and if any ballot measures talk about raising funds to do X Y or Z, I vote two other letters.  N O.

But I digress.

This is the time we hear from Democrats about voter fraud and needed reform.  Of course, the left is the side that loves to practice voter fraud and needed reform.  In their minds, everyone is entitled to a vote regardless of where they live.   And, oh, yeah, everything works perfectly.

Uh huh.

So, besides receiving my own ballot, I also got the ballots for the last six tenants of this apartment.   Are people that stupid when it comes to notifying the city and state about their new addresses?   Or is the state of California that inept in updating their records?   

Yes and yes.

It's why that, in my last apartment, former tenant Don Knotts was still receiving ballots years after he died.  

Is this mike on?   Hello?

I took the ballots of the last six tenants and wrote "no longer at this address."  I left them for the postman.   But, I noticed in the recycle bin that other current tenants must have also gotten old ballots.   Those folks simply threw them in the garbage.

It made me wonder about some other people out there who might have been compelled to fill out the ballots whether they belonged to them or not.   Think that's not likely?   I know for a fact about a nurse at an assisted living facility here who filled out the ballots for a lot of the seniors with dementia.   

The mailing-in process, as easy as it is, invites all of the bullshit they say is not happening.  Indeed, mail-in ballots should only be allowed in extreme cases of immobility.

Oh, and did I mention you need to show an ID?  Hell, you need to show it for 99% of everything else in life.   For Pete's sake, I have to present my ID whenever I have to buy some fucking Claritin.   

How hard would that single act of voter reform be?   But, no, the Board of Elections love to manipulate everything they say they are not doing.

Morons.

Dinner last night: Leftover General Tso's Chicken.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - October 5, 2026

This month on every Monday, we honor the great "I Love Lucy" which celebrates its 75th anniversary this October.   Is there a better video laugh than that?  Remember Ethel's hostess pants?

Dinner last night:  The pre-game buffet at the Dodger Stadium Club.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Switching Coasts

 

I can't explain how some things have happened in my life.   Or, for that matter, I can't explain how a lot of things have happened in my life.   Back, when I was a kid, I fantasized about Hollywood and California.  As far as I was concerned, both might as well have been on the moon.   I was on South 15th Avenue in Mount Vernon and I expected to die there.  

I mean, I would look at my own family.   They were sequestered in the Bronx and lower Westchester County.  Few went anywhere far.   Most had never flow on an airplane.  Back in the day, you just didn't harbor any expectations when it came to traveling great distances.

So, as I did yesterday and will later today, I sit in, of all places, Dodger Stadium.  In my season tickets.   And I think one more time how this all happened.  I'm close to the stadium now.  And I remember how far away it was way back when.

A lifelong Met fan now screaming his head off in Chavez Ravine.

Back when I was a kid in NY and a fledgling fan of the sport of baseball, the Dodgers' home in Los Angeles seemed to be in another world.  And that was just as well.   I was bleeding blue and orange...the chosen plasma of every New York Met fan.  And I wanted to hear and see every pitch.  Even when they were playing in that far off land called California.  

I didn't understand completely then the concept of time zones. All I knew is that Dodger Stadium was so far away the games started three hours later than they did in NY. An 8PM start time was really 11PM at Dodger Stadium and it took years for me to comprehend this phenomenon. So, whenever the Mets played the Dodgers on that other end of the planet, I had to get very creative when it came to staying in touch with the game.

Rarely were those contests telecast on television back to WOR-TV Channel 9 in New York. And, if they were, there was no way this eight-year-old was going to be able to go into the living room and turn on the big clunky Zenith. As it was, the sleeping hawks/parents sensed my every nocturnal move.

"You're going to the bathroom. What's wrong?"

"You turned the light on. What's the matter?"

"Why are your bedcovers off? What's the problem?"

Jeez...........

So, to keep track of West Coast baseball games, I was reduced to covert activity. A transistor radio with the covers pulled over my head. Meanwhile, since my dog Tuffy was already in the bed with me, this became a very sweaty situation on hot summer nights.

I was trying to listen to Met announcer Bob Murphy call the action with the play-by-play smothered under a pillow. Did he say that was a strike or a ball? Did Ed Kranepool score or didn't he? And, Tuffy, please stop licking my feet!

Eventually, one of the parental units would get up to go to the bathroom themselves. And the faint hum of AM radio would be radiating from my bedroom.

"TURN OFF THAT GAME AND GO TO BED!!!"

Er, I'm not listening to a game. And, technically, I am in bed. Oh, never mind. I quickly clicked off the transistor radio and threw it across my room.

I needed those words from the Met announcers because, indeed, I had no idea what Dodger Stadium looked like. Oh, I had seen a few pictures, but little else. I knew there were these two neat six-sided scoreboards. And that wave-like roof over the bleachers. But, all in all, this ballpark was a mystery to me.

I was further addled by the varying names the stadium had. Sometimes, I saw it in print as "Dodger Stadium." But, other times it was called "Chavez Ravine." Is that the Spanish translation? I had no clue. It all sounded so wonderful. But, only in my mind. Really, all I had to go on was an episode of "Mr. Ed."  Or that time Jeff Stone met Don Drysdale on "The Donna Reed Show."

I finally got to see the place for myself on a Labor Day when I was eleven. For some bizarre reason, one of the networks was televising a game that afternoon between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Why? Who knows? But, it was strange for me to watch a game that didn't involve the Mets.

I was going to get my chance to actually see Dodger Stadium for myself. And I was a captive audience. Mainly because I was trapped in my bed with a fever of 104 degrees. That was probably the sickest I have ever been in my life. Some sort of virus was galloping through my body. It was like one of those jungle movies where the great White hunter has malaria and is lying in a quonset hut, being fanned by natives. Except I was lying in my bedroom and my parents were taking turns applying cold compresses and alcohol in order to get the fever down.

Meanwhile, as I lay there in gallons of sweat, I kept staring at the game on the black and white TV in my room. That's Dodger Stadium! There's those cool scoreboards! Look at all those palm trees outside the bleachers! I was literally and figuratively closer to heaven. I vowed to go there one day and see this Chavez Ravine for myself

 I, of course, survived. The Giants won that day in 13 innings. And it would be another twelve years before I would see Dodger Stadium for myself. In person.

It was as glorious as it appeared on that day when I lost about ten gallons of water through my pores. I was on my first ever trip to Los Angeles and this ballpark was a mandatory stop. The Reds shellacked the Dodgers that day. But, the sheer essence of just being there was enough for me.

Here I am years later. A season ticket holder with a regular view of all that which enchanted me when I was eleven. I never take it for granted. This is baseball paradise.  Especially when there's playoff baseball in October.

Yes, Shea Stadium will always be my first love. But, if I have no other baseball home for the rest of my life, Dodger Stadium will do just fine.

Dinner last night:  General Tso's Chicken and spicy noodles.

Classic TV Commercial of the Month - October 2026

 Baseball and Ballantine!

Dinner last night:  Grilled gruyere cheese and bacon from Clementine's.

The Mugs of October - 2026

 

 No worries.   Your prison is all men.

 I've heard of ringworm, but this is ridiculous.

 I'll say.

Um, you got caught.

 Also doubles as his Facebook profile photo.

 Arrested for stealing asparagus.

 No.

 You don't.

 Got milk?

I hope she wasn't busted for prostitution.

Well, he knows his rights.

How far around does this go?

Dinner last night:  Leftover SPO.

Where Was I?

 

What the hell?  This all slipped by me.

But, then again, back about 15 or so years ago, the medium of television had evolved into a reality-drive nightmare.  Prime time TV was a cesspool of shows that displayed the underbelly of society.  People being "voted off" left and right.

Because I didn't partake in this frenzy, a lot happened off my radar screen.   One of them was a program on NBC called "To Catch a Predator." Some schlock "journalist" named Chris Hansen used actors as teenage decoys to catch those poor shlubs who were descending on innocent children.   This show, according to IMDB, ran three seasons.

Huh?

Well, it really did exist and now there's a Hollywood movie about all this and it goes off the air when one of the sting operations...well...end badly.  So this could have easily been a documentary but it's not.  Robert Pattinson plays Hansen, who apparently has a few skeletons in his closet.   My research shows he is still working and has...gulp...a few Emmy awards.  Meanwhile, the real Hansen did not participate in the making of this movie and hasn't had anything nice to say about it.  I wonder why.

So, since this was all new to me in 2026, the story...and movie...were fascinating to me.   It is told not only from the perspective of Hansen, but also one of the "actors" who would pose as a teenager to catch these creeps.   Indeed, I thought that kid's story was the real compelling one.   

Overall, the film feels real and, to that point, then-NBC News head honcho Jeff Zucker is a character.   As I watched the movie, I wondered out loud how they found an actor who looked so much like Zucker.  Imagine my surprise when I read the closing credits and saw that Jeff was playing himself.

Yes, the movie "Primetime" feels dirty and sleazy.  But somebody was going to eventually go after the reality TV onslaught from back when.   It might as well be this offering from director Lance Oppenheim.

LEN'S RATING:  Three stars.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.