“Leave Him A Tip For His Trouble” June 7, 2008

The ridge of high pressure that has dominated our weather for the last few days will continue to do so.  It broke down as expected just enough to allow a few t’storms to skirt our northern viewing area.  The band of brothers, Jackson, Jennings and Lawrence Counties in Indiana, were under a tornado watch for a time and northern Lawrence even had a brief, but unwarranted, t’storm warning.  The ridge will build in to the west again and any activity will be shunted well to the north and west through the weekend.  The record high on Saturday is 96 and Sunday it’s 95.  Those will be in jeopardy both days.  However, the National Weather Service a couple of years ago moved the official site from the National Weather Service office to Standiford Field.  It’s almost always a few degrees hotter at the airport than anywhere else in the region.  This has resulted in a number of times when we set a record that otherwise would not have been set.  Last year it added many many days to the number of 90 degree days.  So, if we do set a record on either day, don’t get a bee in your bonnet over Global Warming because the record will have been set more because they moved the thermometer than because it was actually hotter than it has ever been.

2008 Belmont Stakes Forecast:  I don’t know what this means to the handicappers but the ridge of high pressure that is over us will also be influencing New York.  Rain chances will be slim and none for the region and it should be partly cloudy and hot at race time.  Highs will be in the 90′s. I would think that would mean that a horse’s conditioning and stamina will be at a premium as it is a very long race.  Snow White still says Big Brown is the way to go.

On This Date in History:  On This Date in 1866 an Indian Chief died.  He was a chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes having gained the leadership of both tribes by having a Suquamish father and a Duwamish mother.  He was born in the late 18th century and by the 1850′s, white settlers from America started setting up villages.  The chief welcomed the strangers and in homage to his kindness, the settlers named the village they set up on Puget Sound for him.  They called it Seattle.  Chief Seattle was a pretty smart guy as, even though he thought the whites would eventually eradicate his people, he figured that fighting them would only hasten their demise.  A couple of other tribes disagreed and started a war, only to surmise that Seattle was probably right all along and they too put down their weapons and made the best of the situation as they could.   

However,  Chief Seattle had a little problem.  In the Indian tradition, the mention of a dead man’s name would disturb his eternal rest and with a town bearing his name, the Chief would be quite restless in eternity.  Well, the settlers couldn’t possibly change the name of their town.  So, instead, they levied a tax on themselves to raise money for a little fund that they paid to Chief Seattle before he died as a payoff for the trouble he would be in when he passed from this world.  On June 7, 1866 Chief Seattle died thus saving the taxpayers of Seattle money.

Here’s an interesting side note on Seattle.  They used to skid logs down a chute on the main street to get them to the sawmill.  The road came to be known as “skid road”.  Later when the town’s main center moved north, the road was left in a dilapidated part of town filled with drunkards and derelicts.  The part of town went from being known as “skid road” to “skid row” and today the term “skid row” has made its way into the American lexicon for the dilapidated area of any town in the country.

Here Come the Brides May 29, 2008

Thursday looks to be the day to call in sick.  The clouds on Wednesday moved south pretty quickly such that Louisville was sunny. Much of the southern part of the viewing area had the clouds for a good chunk of the day but they will be chased away by high pressure and everyone will enjoy temperatures moving to the upper 70′s and low 80′s after a cool start.   Friday’s not too bad but the humidity level increases as does the mercury as we head toward the upper 80′s.  Someone may even hit 90.  A front approaches late Friday and rain chances increase for Friday night into Saturday.  Sunday looks good.

On This Date In History:  Asa Mercer was already the president of Washington Territory’s first university by the time he was in his mid twenties.  The Pacific Northwest had great natural resources attracting miners and lumbermen from around the nation.  But…there was a scarcity of women.  Mercer decided to fix that by placing an ad in a Seattle newspaper promising to find a wife for every man who paid $300 toward bringing a woman from the East.  A New York magazine hailed Mercer as a modern day Moses.  Skeptics suggested that the women would have nothing to do and their trade would be something less than honorable.  Mercer assured that the ladies would be employed as schoolmistresses and nothing more.  Those same skeptics wondered how they could all be school teachers if there were no children to teach.

Nevetheless, Mercer sailed a ship from Seattle and found he had some 300 adventurous ladies willing to take the trip.  However, by the time he was to set sail from New England, in January 1866, the number of volunteers had fallen to 100.  I guess they had second thoughts.  Those on board became even more fickle when they began romancing with the ships’s crew.  When they stopped in Chile, many became enamoured with the military officer’s stationed at Lota, Chile.  Apparently, one of Mercer’s ladies rode a spirited pony to the delight of onlookers such that 17 proposed marriage.   So, now Mercer had to deal with women who didn’t want to leave the crew and others who didn’t want to leave their Chilean suitors.  So, he set sail at night and secretly stole away…to keep his cargo from getting stolen away.  When they got to San Francisco, he lost 11 who got off and never returned.

On This Date in 1866, Asa Mercer arrived in Seattle with what was left of his precious cargo.  Many of the subscribers who had paid $300 were chagrined when they found out that their payment didn’t guarantee a woman.  One man was quite upset when the specific woman whom he had asked for showed up and turned out to be a different woman by the same name.  Undeterred, the man said, “All I want is a wife, and if you are willin’ I would as soon take you as the other woman.”  Such romantic overtones went unheeded as the woman replied simply, “I do not wish to marry, sir.”

It wasn’t a total disaster for the operation or for Asa Mercer.  Annie Stephens from Baltimore was one of the first to be married.  Her husband?  Asa Mercer.

This little tale was no doubt the inspiration for the late 1960′s TV show, Here Come the Brides.  The photo above is of the Bolt brothers, Jeremy, Joshua and Jason as well as Candy, a girl with whom Jeremy was smitten.  Jeremy was played by Bobby Sherman, who was a teen idol.  His acting career went no where and after watching the tv show, you might find out why.  He tried his hand at singing and that too went nowhere.  Joshua was played by David Soul who later was one of the rogue young cops in Magnum Force.  I think Clint helped him exit the movie violently.  Later he gained fame for his role in Starsky and Hutch.  He capitalized  on that fame by singing a stupid song that was in the top 40.  Jason Bolt was played by Robert Brown who was an accomplished stage actor.  He is known perhaps more by his role in a Star Trek episode in which he played a guy named Lazarus.  I think that was the last we saw of him. Maybe he got the Star Trek gig by way of Mark Lenard, who plays Sarek in the 23rd century but was Aaron Stemple in Seattle in the 19th Century.  I have no idea who Candy was nor what happened to her.

I want to know what happened to Captain Clancy.  It seems to me that aside from Lenard and Soul, Here Come the Brides was the graveyard for actors though it was a pretty accurate show because, like the Asa Mercer story, it didn’t seem there were too many marriages.

(Snow White thinks I am too hard on Bobby Sherman in this…I told you he was a teen idol)