history « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

history

books / friends / history / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
18
Jan 17

Stuff in the air, and in my office

I found this book last weekend:

It was published in 1958 and seems to be aimed at giving a reasonable historical re-telling and description to teens. The chapters have great line art:

That’s a paratrooper, which was pretty much the moment I decided to take pictures to send to our friend Adam, who is a modern paratrooper, because I thought he’d appreciate the biplane:

But it was this one he really liked, and how could you not? Look at his left hand:

Just another day at the office, oh, and do remember your briefcase. Here’s an almost contemporaneous accounting of Captain Sergei Mienov:

He spent almost a year in the United States. On his way back to Russia he passed a few days in Paris. He was full of enthusiasm for what he had seen in the development of air technique. Although Russia was not yet officially recognized, Mienov had been courteously received. He had visited airplane factories, airdromes and training schools. He praised highly the quality of American parachutes and the instruction American pilots received in their use. He had made his first parachute jump here.

[…]

When Mienov submitted the report of his US observations to Air Chief Alksnis, he mentioned the wide interest which parachute jumping could arouse. He suggested that the interest of the Soviet population, and particularly the young, could be turned toward the development of air power by this type of propaganda. Alksnis passed the comment on to the Politburo. Stalin agreed that it was a good idea.

And so parachuting became wildly popular in the Soviet Union.

Until the purges. And then the Germans did it better and then the Americans did it more. And that’s the story of how one of the more crazy ideas a person could do as a spectator sport became one of the craziest things people would do in military service. How the book wound up where I found it remains a mystery.

Here’s Adam now, this is his jump into Ste. Mere-Eglise, Normandy, France, commemorating the 70th anniversary of D-Day:

He took a miniature American flag on the jump with him and sent it to me as a keepsake, which super cool. That’s in my office now.

So is this stuff:

We are about to surplus a bunch of old equipment. The university has a surplus process for its eight campuses and some things of a certain value must be processed in a certain way and that’s where I am. More specifically, that picture is opposite of where I am, in my office, which is now filled.

Because it made more sense to bring this stuff out of storage, start (and hopefully complete) the paperwork process and then wait on the nice fellows from the Surplus store to come over and pick it up. So I have huge bundles of television cabling, a half dozen old cameras, a switcher, various accesorries and a chest-high stack of old engineering components in my office. If anyone wants to come push buttons, now is the time.

As a bonus, many of the buttons sound different.

history / IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
17
Jan 17

The ranch we visited last weekend

So we stopped by to see some family. Which, to some of us, meant family and, to others, like me, meant new people. And very kind and interesting and happy people, too. This was after the funeral, and this was some of the local family who invited the whole large group over for a visit. This was the first sign you see:

Now think of that. Inside the house there was a framed certificate that says they ranch started in 1856. Texas was annexed in 1845, so the ranch itself is almost as old as the state. We learned that the man who originally owned the land had it longer than that before he built on it. In all that time it has stayed in that one family. Think of that.

So it turns out Texas’ Historic Farm project has been going on for some time. They recognize farms that have stayed active within one family at 100, 150 and 200 years. One press release I found said there were about 4,800 in the state that can make the century claim. In an entire state, in all of Texas, there are just a handful of farms older than this place:

Let’s think of this another way. While at the place, which still raises cattle and has at least a few horses and one very loud donkey, I met this delightful lady, a retired art teacher. I won’t guess her age, but she had one. These, she said, were her grandparents:

And they weren’t even the first people on the ranch. And the way she said it, they were’t the first ones by a good ways.

Back at work today. The semester started last week and we started shooting today. Here’s a view of the control room during the shoot:

And here I am in the studio with the What’s Up Weekly crew:

They proclaimed me the king of candid shots with that one. I’ve had worse titles.

adventures / history / I do not know what is happening. / photo / running / weekend — Comments Off
24
Dec 16

A Christmas Eve jog

We ran 12.64 miles today. We did that on Christmas Eve, and I do not know what is happening. But it was in the low 60s, because we’re back in Alabama for a few days. We ran to the dam, and then we ran over it. I remember being nervous about riding over it as a kid, and then driving over it when I was young, so narrow is the road. But there’s now a nearby bridge that took much of the traffic off the dam and so it seems like no big deal to jog along on the sidewalk, which is about as wide one of the two very narrow lanes.

I ran over that. I do not know what is happening.

There are five turbines inside the dam, taking the flood waters upstream and generating hydroelectric power, 663 megawatts a day. Those turbines can produce what is equivalent to 35,000 horsepower. That’s the most powerful set of turbines in the TVA system, and an impressive degree of efficiency for something developed in 1848.

There are 49 spillways in the dam, and the signs say that if you collected the water from just one gate for an hour you could fill the Astrodome. The lock on the side is the highest one in the country to the east of the Rockies. More than 3,000 commercial and private boats go through each year.

cycling / football / history / IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
18
Oct 16

Just some quick photos

USA Today’s little decorative badge is trying to capture the national mood. How do you think they’re fairing?

I pedaled my bike to campus this morning. Here’s a part of my route, a nice clean path with neat little trees and curves:

And the second part of the route, a slightly wider path, upon which you can go at least four wide:

I found this print today, the first Indiana football team:

They played one game, this week in 1887, in fact. They lost, to Franklin College. That was their season, a tournament to determine the state champion. IU was coached by Arthur Woodward, an economist. A future state attorney general was on the team. Six teams took part in what was the first version of something closely similar to modern football in the state. The Indianapolis Athletic Club invited Butler, DePauw, Franklin, Hanover, Indiana and Wabash to play the October and November series in Indy. Wabash won it all. You like to think some old men in the middle of the 20th century were still reminding each other how they got the job done back in the eighties.

history / memories / photo / television / Thursday — Comments Off
5
Oct 16

Beam this up

There has been a Star Trek exhibit at one of the campus museums. As far as I can tell there might be 16 museums and galleries on this one campus. This was at Lilly, the acclaimed rare book library. The experts there house more than 400,000 books, more than seven million manuscripts, 100,000 pieces of sheet music and, right now, a small Star Trek exhibit.

Being the last few days, these were on display, I had to stop by.

Please note the date. This is a 1964 treatment of the original Trek, with Gene Rodenberry’s name across the top:

This means that staple has been in place for more than 52 years. Incredible.

Also, look at the example episode descriptions. Some seem familiar. Some read like obvious early drafts of old favorites. And one just might have been altogether forgotten, fortunately.

One of the classics, the Trouble With Tribbles, which was written by David Gerrold:

Side note, the tribble episode might be one of the last of the original series I ever managed to catch. Famous as it was, I never saw it on television.

This is from another classic episode, Amok Time, written by the great Theodore Sturgeon:

And, oh look, something like tri-ox is actually a medical reality now.

And just over from the the script for the famous third act sick bay scene was this handsome cover:

It was a small exhibit, and mostly script-based items of the above sort. But it was worth walking a few blocks on a warm autumn day to see. And, by the door, someone had filled a display case with action figures:

I’m pretty sure that they just wanted to show off their Gorn.