As soon as the last presidential election was over, shocked Americans looked at each other over coffee and strudel and asked themselves, “Did we really DO that? Did we actually elect Donald Trump president of the United States? Who do we see for a do-over?”
Too bad life isn’t more like the movies. The director anguishes over the emphasis of every syllable, frets over each physical act of his cast, often repeating a scene twenty, thirty times to get it right. But far too often, we poor humans make one small mistake and the ball game is lost, the job is forfeited, the girlfriend is off to greener pastures, the vet bill for the dog is $800.
Sometimes an error is not catastrophic, just uncomfortable. When my cabbie asked me where I wanted off my first day at college, I foolishly chose the administration building and wound up toting two monumentally heavy suitcases a half-mile across campus to my dorm. When I bought twenty boxes of onyx products in Puebla, Mexico, it never occurred to me the transport company would only allow me to ship one package on each bus. When I decided to take a nude swim with a girlfriend far from the main beach at Washington Oaks State Park, I failed to consider the possibility of local policemen incorporating binoculars to apprehend crimedoers (and I now have an indecent exposure conviction in my large police dossier). Nobody’s perfect. We just have to hope we make it through our follies with life and limb intact, with a measure of dignity retained, with an opportunity to give it another shot. So, as Phil Esterhaus used to advise us on Hill Street Blues, let’s be careful out there. Especially with those unforgiving chain saws.
On The Wisdom Of Pissing Off Genghis Khan & Other Slight Miscalculations
Genghis K., ruler of the Mongol Empire, was a reasonable man. All he wanted was to open some nice diplomatic and trade links with grouchy old Ala ad-Din Muhammad, Shah of the neighboring Khwarezmid Empire, which occupied modern day Iraq and Iran in the 13th century. But oh no, Muhammad had to be a weasel, rejecting the proposal and beheading GK’s diplomat in the bargain.
Well! We all know there’s nothing as dangerous as a Mongol ruler scorned, but Ala ad-din found out the hard way. Turned up to a boil, Genghis Khan let loose 200,000 seething warriors on the Shah, turning Khwaremed to very tiny ashes. Can’t you just see Muhammad as the dust cloud rolled in? “Er, Samarkand---we have a problem….”
In 1788, the Austrian army set up camp while the vanguard scouted for the enemy Ottoman Turks. There didn’t seem to be too many Turks lurking about but the boys did find some Tzigani merchants who happily sold them large quantities of alcohol. When the remaining infantry found them drinking but not sharing their bounty, some infighting broke out. The ruckus was mistaken by Austrian soldiers just across the Danube River, who began yelling, “Turks! Turks!” and the numbskull Battle of Karansebes was on. When the dust settled, 10,000 Austrians were dead. The amused Ottomans giggled, slapped one another on the back and said things like, “You know, Ekrem, nearsightedness is a growing problem in Austria.”
Following World War I, large numbers of ex-soldiers from Australia were given land in the western part of the country on which they were encouraged to grow wheat in marginal farming areas. The task, already difficult enough, became monumental with the arrival in 1932 of more than 20,000 emus, who appreciated the cleared land and water supplies made available for livestock by the West Australian farmers. The emus consumed and despoiled the crops and wrecked the fences, allowing rabbits to enter and compound the problem. This led to the Great Emu War, where Major G.P.W. Meredith and the Seventh Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Army took up arms against the foe.
The operation was delayed at first by a period of excessive rainfall, which caused the emus to scatter over a wider area. On November 2, however, 50 birds were spotted near Campion and the soldiers attacked. Alas, the clever birds were out of range. When the local settlers attempted to herd the emus into an ambush, the birds split into small groups and ran, becoming difficult to target. The subsequent fusillade from machine guns was ineffective due to the range. On the 4th of November, the army established an ambush near a local dam and more than 1000 emus walked into the trap. This time, the gunners waited until the birds were in close proximity before opening fire. Well, that was the idea, anyway. After a mere 12 birds were killed, the gun jammed and the remaining 988+ emus scattered to the four winds.
By November 8, over 2500 rounds of ammunition had been fired and few birds killed. Ornithologist Dominic Serventy commented: “The machine-gunners’ dreams of point blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated. The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic. A crestfallen field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month.”
Major Meredith philosophized, “If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world. The Emus can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks. They are like Zulus, whom even dum-dum bullets cannot stop.” The Major thankfully reported that his men had suffered no fatalities.
Fancy Meeting You Here
In the entire state of Ohio in 1895, there were only two cars on the road. You guessed it. The drivers of these two cars ultimately crashed into one another. “You first, Alphonse!” “No, no, after you, Gaston!”
Related Phenomena
1. During the French Revolution, members of the Third Estate stormed the Bastille, freeing a grand total of 7 prisoners, one of them a drunk lunatic Irishman named Whyte de Malleville who had no idea what was going on.
2. The direct cause of WWI was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. What is largely unknown is that an initial assassination attempt failed when the bomb blew up in the car behind Ferdinand’s. The only reason he was eventually killed is because one of the Black Hand terrorists stopped to buy a sandwich and saw Ferdinand in the store. (Another argument for home delivery.)
3. In World War II, two bombing squadrons were sent by America to the same location with orders to obliterate the terrain. Trouble was, one of them showed up thousands of feet lower than the other one. Neither of them noticed until the bombing started. Miraculously, no planes were lost in the scuffle and the Germans were amazed by this ingenious bombing strategy, terrified that the Allies had such a level of skill.
4. When Andrew Jackson died in 1845, his attendants thought it would be a nice sentimental touch to have his beloved pet parrot included in the funeral ceremonies. Not for long, though. The foulmouthed bird started swearing a blue streak and was hurriedly removed from the proceedings.
5. General J. Sedgewick’s last words during the American Civil War were “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” Maybe not, but somebody tucked a bullet neatly beneath Sedgewick’s left eye. His family rejected etching the quote on the General’s gravestone.
6. Somebody’s asleep at the switch over at NASA. First, they taped over the only visual recording of the moon landing, then they lost a Mars orbiter because part of the team used metric units and the other half used English.
Where’s GPS When You Really Need Them?
In 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh became an international celebrity via his solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean on the Spirit of St. Louis. Among Lindbergh’s mechanics for the iconic event was one Douglas Corrigan, himself an aspiring flier. In 1938, Corrigan bought a 1929 Curtis Robin aircraft off a trash heap, rebuilt it and modified it for a long-distance flight. In July of that year, he piloted the single-engine plane nonstop from California to New York, amazing the national press that his rattletrap could survive the journey.
Almost immediately after arriving in New York, Corrigan filed plans for an international flight, which aviation authorities promptly denied, deeming it a suicide mission. They would, however, allow him to fly back to the West Coast, and on July 17 he took off from Floyd Bennet Field in Brooklyn, ostensibly headed West. A few minutes later, however, Corrigan made a 180-degree turn and vanished into a cloudbank, confusing onlookers.
Twenty-eight hours later, Corrigan landed in Dublin, Ireland, stepped out of the plane and asked, "Where am I?" He claimed he had lost his direction in the clouds and that his compass had malfunctioned. Furious authorities didn’t go for the story and immediately suspended him, but people on both sides of the Atlantic thought it was great fun and branded the clever pilot “Wrong Way Corrigan.” By the time Corrigan and his crated plane shipped back to New York, he was a national idol and a mob of autograph seekers met him on the gangway, celebrating a man for the big mistake he never made. Or did he?
Twenty-six years later, Minnesota Vikings legend Jim Marshall had his own “Wrong Way Corrigan” moment and received nothing but snickers. On October 25, 1964 at San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium, Marshall picked up a 49ers fumble and ran to glory. Unfortunately, somewhere in the course of the action, he got turned around and ran the ball a mighty 66 yards and back over his own goal line, giving San Francisco a two-point safety. The first player to reach him was 49er tackle Bruce Bosley, who patted him effusively on the back. Marshall’s inglorious moment did not cost the Vikings, who won 27-22, anyway. “Hey,” grinned the unruffled Marshall, “they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Whoomp, There It Is!
Famed artist Anish Kapoor is fond of black holes, so much so he likes to create his own, which he’s been doing since 1985. Kapoor devised one for the Fundacio de Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, Portugal called Descent Into Limbo, a black circle on the floor which is meant to trick the eye into thinking what it’s seeing is a flat 2-dimensional painting of a circle instead of what it is….an actual hole in the floor. The impressive illusion is made possible by Kapoor’s use of vantablack, the blackest material in existence, to which Kapoor owns the exclusive rights. By using vantablack, Anish was able to eliminate any visible depth in the piece. No curves or contours are visible.
The Museum, of course, provided security near the exhibit, but not quite enough of it to prevent an curious Italian man in his sixties from a too-close examination of the phenomenon. He fell eight feet to the bottom, injuring only his self-esteem, but elating Kapoor at the cleverness of his piece. I guess Anish never heard of these things called lawsuits, the ultimate black holes. BIG mistake.
Addenda: The Final Insult
It being Oops! Day, it’s only appropriate that The Flying Pie arrives late. That’s what happens when you’re held prisoner by the wonderful world of Windstream, which is operated by a trio of incompetents named Hardrock, Cocoa and Joe, who were not on the Dean’s List at Stanford. Our phones and internet lie at the mercy of the Terrible Trio, who fall down a lot and often forget to come to work, because we are located in a vast darkness which no other server dares enter. We may get to you later today or even Friday, but if things continue to look bleak, there’s always the stagecoach or Wells Fargo. We thought of delivery by drone but there’s way too much of that sort of thing circling the skies already. If TFP doesn’t arrive by Saturday, give us a call and we’ll read it to you.
That’s all, folks….
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
