Here is a list of Society Blogs ordered by Newest, posted by members. A Blog is a journal you may enter about your life, thoughts, interesting experiences, or lessons you've learned. Post an opinion, impart words of wisdom, or talk about something interesting in your day. Update your blog on a regular basis, or just whenever you have something to say. Creating a blog is a good way to share something of yourself with others. Reading blogs is a good way to learn more about others. Click here to post a blog.
Something odd at No.1 Main Street
The building firm I used to be with did a lot of work for a country estate. There is a village attached to the estate and its old stone buildings are in constant need of repair or renovation, between tenants. One such property was No. 1 Main Street. This large stone cottage had been occupied by a retired couple, but, after her husband’s death, the wife had been asked to move into a smaller property.
The cottage needed a lot of work. We replaced all the plumbing, wiring and central heating, renewed most of the woodwork and replastered here, there and everywhere. We were on that job for two or three months.
On such long term jobs we would set aside a room for lunch breaks, where we would all sit at “snap time”, eating our snap. One lunchtime, while snapping in the winter gloom of that room, I had a sudden awareness of movement out on the landing, but by the time I had turned my head to look, all was still. There was an almost identical occurrence the next day.
On the afternoon of the second incident I was working outside when one of the locals came walking down the road. Bob was one of several villagers who I was on speaking terms with, after having worked in the village for a few years. When Bob got to the garden gate he stopped and shouted something like, “they’re keeping you busy, then”; I replied with a witty comment that didn’t come out quite right and left me feeling like a knob, but Bob was kind enough not to notice.
While we were chatting, I asked Bob what he knew about the history of the cottage; it turned out he could tell me quite a lot about it. Most of what he told me was just of passing interest but when he started to talk about an incident that happened there in the 1930s my interest became heightened.
Back then the cottage was home to the estate head gamekeeper and his wife. Two or three times a week the gamekeeper would go out in the middle of the night and lay in wait, on the lookout for poachers after his pheasant. He shared this duty with his two assistant gamekeepers, each taking different nights. He also, unknowingly, shared his wife with one of them, who would nip round to his place on the nights he was on watch.
It was on such a night that the head keeper cut his watch short, owing to not feeling well. His early return gave rise to much alarm, and the panic stricken assistant bolted like a scared rabbit, only to come face to face with the last man on Earth he wanted to come face to face with, standing at the top of the stairs. In his frenzied eagerness to be somewhere else, he made a lunge for the stairs, only to go headlong down them and arrive at the bottom with a broken neck and dead.
The cottage needed a lot of work. We replaced all the plumbing, wiring and central heating, renewed most of the woodwork and replastered here, there and everywhere. We were on that job for two or three months.
On such long term jobs we would set aside a room for lunch breaks, where we would all sit at “snap time”, eating our snap. One lunchtime, while snapping in the winter gloom of that room, I had a sudden awareness of movement out on the landing, but by the time I had turned my head to look, all was still. There was an almost identical occurrence the next day.
On the afternoon of the second incident I was working outside when one of the locals came walking down the road. Bob was one of several villagers who I was on speaking terms with, after having worked in the village for a few years. When Bob got to the garden gate he stopped and shouted something like, “they’re keeping you busy, then”; I replied with a witty comment that didn’t come out quite right and left me feeling like a knob, but Bob was kind enough not to notice.
While we were chatting, I asked Bob what he knew about the history of the cottage; it turned out he could tell me quite a lot about it. Most of what he told me was just of passing interest but when he started to talk about an incident that happened there in the 1930s my interest became heightened.
Back then the cottage was home to the estate head gamekeeper and his wife. Two or three times a week the gamekeeper would go out in the middle of the night and lay in wait, on the lookout for poachers after his pheasant. He shared this duty with his two assistant gamekeepers, each taking different nights. He also, unknowingly, shared his wife with one of them, who would nip round to his place on the nights he was on watch.
It was on such a night that the head keeper cut his watch short, owing to not feeling well. His early return gave rise to much alarm, and the panic stricken assistant bolted like a scared rabbit, only to come face to face with the last man on Earth he wanted to come face to face with, standing at the top of the stairs. In his frenzied eagerness to be somewhere else, he made a lunge for the stairs, only to go headlong down them and arrive at the bottom with a broken neck and dead.
There are words...
There are words to describe people who...
Park in the handicap access and walkway to a medical center.
Park so tight in the handicap zone that a handicapped person couldn't get in or out their vehicle.
Over stack the end of the dumpster instead of taking 3 more steps and throwing the trash in the middle.
Finish the roll and walk away.
The last one makes me wonder if they didn't have enough paper to finish the job, did they walk away anyway.
Park in the handicap access and walkway to a medical center.
Park so tight in the handicap zone that a handicapped person couldn't get in or out their vehicle.
Over stack the end of the dumpster instead of taking 3 more steps and throwing the trash in the middle.
Finish the roll and walk away.
The last one makes me wonder if they didn't have enough paper to finish the job, did they walk away anyway.
Remembering WWI's Hill 80
Archeologists are gingerly and respectfully exploring what is known as Dig Hill 80 in Flanders, Belgium today.
In 1914 invading Germans and Bulgarians surrounded a tiny, bucolic, village on a hill 80 meters high and and occupied it. The name of the village was Wytschaete. This village was defended by British & French forces as well as the civilian male occupants and their families. The civilians were very unfriendly to the invaders too. Letters home from the victorious Bulgarian and German soldiers described how they were often repulsed or took heavy losses from the defenders when they tried to clear the village house by house. So they barricaded the houses and other buildings, then set them all afire with the various occupants still inside. The fighting, screaming and dying lasted for 3 days. Afterwards the Germans and Bulgarians built a fortress wall around the smouldering village
The site offered an excellent observation of nearby Ypres and the German forces wasted no time bringing in their best optics and using the site as both an artillery observation point and also their fortress. Elaborate trenches and underground structures were built as part of the defense.
For the next 4 years every day artillery shells landed there or were launched from there. There were repeated major unsuccessful attempts to recapture the area. By 7 June 1917 British sappers had succeeded in tunneling secret tunnels under the German walls and they then placed 900,000 pounds (450 tons) of high explosives in their man made caverns 75 feet down under the fortress. At 3pm that day they detonated them and made the largest (until then) conventional explosive blast in history. The fortress vanished along with many of the occupants and the British moved in and occupied the torn earth and rubble.
Fighting continued and in April of 1918 the Germans succeeded in retaking the site and began re-fortifying it. Only in September 1918 when the Germans pulled back did the fighting there end when the British again reoccupied the site.
At least a full regiment of men who died fighting inside those walls to capture or defend it on behalf of one side or another now lay where they fell (along with whatever villagers who were been trapped there by the events) or were buried or burnt alive. Over 100 years later still nothing remains above ground except a few bricks. The bones, artifacts and unexploded artillery shells lay below.
the site today.
A cloud funded, multi national group of archaeologists, both amateur and professional is now very carefully and respectfully excavating the old fortress grounds to preserve for history whatever they can about the people who died there.
Here is a release at seminar of their first report.
In 1914 invading Germans and Bulgarians surrounded a tiny, bucolic, village on a hill 80 meters high and and occupied it. The name of the village was Wytschaete. This village was defended by British & French forces as well as the civilian male occupants and their families. The civilians were very unfriendly to the invaders too. Letters home from the victorious Bulgarian and German soldiers described how they were often repulsed or took heavy losses from the defenders when they tried to clear the village house by house. So they barricaded the houses and other buildings, then set them all afire with the various occupants still inside. The fighting, screaming and dying lasted for 3 days. Afterwards the Germans and Bulgarians built a fortress wall around the smouldering village
The site offered an excellent observation of nearby Ypres and the German forces wasted no time bringing in their best optics and using the site as both an artillery observation point and also their fortress. Elaborate trenches and underground structures were built as part of the defense.
For the next 4 years every day artillery shells landed there or were launched from there. There were repeated major unsuccessful attempts to recapture the area. By 7 June 1917 British sappers had succeeded in tunneling secret tunnels under the German walls and they then placed 900,000 pounds (450 tons) of high explosives in their man made caverns 75 feet down under the fortress. At 3pm that day they detonated them and made the largest (until then) conventional explosive blast in history. The fortress vanished along with many of the occupants and the British moved in and occupied the torn earth and rubble.
Fighting continued and in April of 1918 the Germans succeeded in retaking the site and began re-fortifying it. Only in September 1918 when the Germans pulled back did the fighting there end when the British again reoccupied the site.
At least a full regiment of men who died fighting inside those walls to capture or defend it on behalf of one side or another now lay where they fell (along with whatever villagers who were been trapped there by the events) or were buried or burnt alive. Over 100 years later still nothing remains above ground except a few bricks. The bones, artifacts and unexploded artillery shells lay below.
the site today.
A cloud funded, multi national group of archaeologists, both amateur and professional is now very carefully and respectfully excavating the old fortress grounds to preserve for history whatever they can about the people who died there.
Here is a release at seminar of their first report.
online today!
Biased American media race baiting....
... Today, on a talking head show, an alt-lefty reporterette was interviewing a nice young Black man, concerning gun violence in his community. It seems some likely gang banger cretin was passing by where this fellow and his mom were sitting on the stoop, and the lowlife shot both of them, fortunately with no life threatening injuries. The point of the program was youth's solutions to gun violence, and this well spolen 17 year old did a great job giving his thoughtful views on the subject. But the lady had to introduce race into it, pressing him on how special his situation was, give his race. I saw where this was headed, having seen this sort of thing many times. I turned it off before she predictably lead into how our brilliant President might just as well have pulled the trigger himself on that scary day. These media folks are a major reason it is so hard for all of us to try our best to relate to others in human, but not racist, ways. Wish I had a dollar for each time I've seen this sort of thing. Outrageous.
Bump bumping bump bump
Just a little social experiment to see if anyone reads the blog info or just comments on anything
And was tired of the same old topics and faces
And was tired of the same old topics and faces
I spent like five minutes trying to figure it out
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