Tomorrow, December 7, is National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.
This is a day where Americans remember and honor all those who died in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941 America’s naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was attacked by aircraft and submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Pearl Harbor still serves as a United States Naval institution over 60 years after being the site of one of the worst attacks on U.S. Naval resources in a single day. Photo R. Anderson
My grandfather, Howard Kirby, was at Pearl Harbor. He was one of the lucky ones who survived the attack. After a few other close calls he was able to return to his family at the end of the war.
While my grandfather was a survivor of the attack, more than 2,400 Americans were killed and more than 1,100 were wounded on that December morning at Pearl Harbor.
The attack sank four U.S. Navy battleships and damaged four more. It also damaged or sank three cruisers, three destroyers, and one minelayer. Aircraft losses were 188 destroyed and 159 damaged.
Tonight the University of Central Florida Knights (9-1, 6-0) will host the University of South Florida Bulls (2-8, 2-3) in their second to last game of the college football regular season.
Tomorrow people in north and middle North America, also known as Canada and the United States, will celebrate Thanksgiving.
While there are of course other areas of the world that celebrate a day of thanks over the course of the year the American and Canadian version are the most similar to each other and just so happen to occur on the same day.
I am sure we all remember the stories from grade school when we made construction paper hats and played pilgrim while learning about the first Thanksgiving feast which may or may not have had fish as the main course instead of what we have today.
This year is also the first time since 1888 that Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah both occur on the same day.
For the first time since 1888 Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah occur on the same day which means there will be plenty of dreidels being spun alongside the turkey and dressing. Photo R. Anderson
Thanksgiving and Hanukkah are both times to reflect on what we are thankful for and spend time together with friends and family.
Of course in recent years Thanksgiving seems to have become less about the time with family and more about the planning for Black Friday shopping.
While stores once waited until the predawn hours of Friday to start their sales, more and more stores are now opening on Thanksgiving day to allow shoppers to get an even earlier start on the holiday of commercialism.
When I was younger very few stores were open on Thanksgiving. There were of course the diners like Waffle House that never closed their doors and a smattering of gas stations and convenience stores to help travelers reach their destinations.
Aside from that you would be hard pressed to really find anything open on Thanksgiving that counted as a shopping experience.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of two things that changed the world.
On this date a half century ago events on two continents made the world seem both larger and smaller at the same time.
I am referring to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the premiere of the British television show Doctor Who.
One this day 50 years ago America lost a president and perhaps some of its innocence as well. Photo R. Anderson
Now, to be fair I was not alive 50 years ago on the day that changed everything; having arrived on the scene a little bit after that.
But, as a student of history and an avid Whovian I feel fairly confident in assessing the impact that both events had on the world in general.
And one does not need to have been alive on that fateful November day to feel the impacts of those two events.
So let us start with President Kennedy whose assassination on a Dallas street around four hours from where I am writing this changed the face of politics and gave breath to a whole industry of conspiracy theories as to what happened.
While I suppose one can argue for both the lone gunmen theory of a single shooter versus multiple shooters that does not really change the fact that a President of the United States was slain and with it a part of the innocence of the nation was slain with it.
President Kennedy was not the first president to be assassinated. In fact William McKinley, the 25th U.S. President, was killed in 1901. So it stands to reason that there were people alive in 1963 who were alive the last time a president was killed.
But for many younger Americans they had never witnessed the death of a president, let alone one as popular as JFK.
Individuals tried to assassinate both Presidents Ford and Reagan and I would like to believe that lessons learned from the Kennedy assassination helped protect both of those men from being killed.
The Warren Report sought to explain the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy although there are still many theories about what really happened. Photo R. Anderson
Yesterday Jimmy Johnson won his sixth NASCAR championship.
Johnson won five straight titles from 2006 to 2010 before returning to his winning ways by capturing the 2013 title.
Aside from needing a second hand for all of the Championship rings, the sixth victory places Johnson one title away from tying two of the legends of the sport, Richard
Dario Franchitti, four-time Indy Racing League (IRL) champion and three time Indianapolis 500 Champion, announced yesterday that he was retiring from racing at the age of 40.
In the announcement that shocked much of the racing world, Franchitti stated that he was following the advice of doctors who cautioned him that returning to racing and risking further injury once he recovered from injuries sustained at the Grand Prix of Houston last month would be detrimental to his long-term quality of life.
Dario Franchitti, shown during the Grand Prix of Houston, announced his retirement from the Indy Racing League yesterday. Franchitti cited injuries sustained at the Grand Prix of Houston as a leading reason for the retirement. Photo R. Anderson
Franchitti sustained multiple injuries, including his third diagnosed concussion, during a last lap crash in the Grand Prix of Houston when his car made contact with another car and became airborne and rolled up into the catch fence before landing back on the track.
While the wreck was certainly bad most fans figured that Franchitti would heal and return to his big box retailer sponsored car next season.
After all, that is what drivers do they get back on that horse that threw them, or in this case the car with all that horsepower that they crashed in.
If someone had approached me that October afternoon when I was standing in Victory Circle and told me that I was witnessing the last race of Dario Franchitti
Dropping temperatures around the Texas Coast this week have ushered in the return of several cold weather traditions.
The power lines are filled with hundreds of migrating birds each evening looking for a place to rest up for the night.
Locals are dressed like they are ready to catch a ski lift in their puffy jackets and fuzzy boots.
And I have a never ending craving for chili.
Now, in fairness around this part of Texas I am sure there are people for whom chili is an every week kind of meal.
After all, with so many chili cook offs to enter one would need to spend the entire year perfecting the recipe prior to the start of competition season.
When the craving for chili strikes there is a quick process for feeding the craving. Step one, purchase a can of chili. Photo R. Anderson
And with the start of various hunting seasons there are all sorts of exotic meat beyond cow that people can put in their Texas chili.
More power to those who have the year round urge for chili but for me the urge to eat chili coincides with falling leaves and falling temperatures.
Of course I can eat a chili dog or chili cheese fries year round but to sit down with an actual bowl of chili as the main course takes temperatures below 60 degrees.
Over the past few weeks I have sampled chili of all shapes and sizes but much like Goldilocks and her porridge I have not really found one that has been just right.
Growing up my mom made a certain chili which much like her special birthday meatloaf just always tasted good.
Add the fact that the chili was always served in bowls that had gold leaf accents, and it truly was a meal fit for a king.
