Hey kids!  Another week has passed and it is Sunday August 17.  There are only 130 days until Christmas so get out the traveling fruit cake and get ready to send it on its annual holiday journey.  Today we honor the birthdays of Davy Crockett, Mae West and Larry Rivers.  On this day in 1807 Robert Fulton’s steamboat Clermont began its first trip up the Hudson River, in 1896 gold was discovered on the Klondike River and in 1960 Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 spy trial opened in Moscow.  In Argentina it is San Martin Day, in Indonesia and Gabon it is Independence Day and in the Yukon it is Klondike Gold Day.

First let me make a comment or two about Davy Crockett.  A number of years ago my family embarked on a grand tour that included the Rockies, Santa Fe and San Antonio, among other places.  I was excited because we were going to see the Alamo.  This was the trip, by the way where I spread chicken pox throughout the mid and south west … but I digress.  We arrived in San Antonio and went to the Alamo.  I was disappointed that there was no lingering evidence of dead Mexicans and Texans.  I had hoped for something that would indicate the great battle that went on there.  We did not even see the skulls of horses like we always saw in cowboy movies.  That was my first disappointment.

The bigger disappointment came when we were in the Alamo and saw a picture of the man himself.  He looked nothing like Fess Parker.  He was, I think, a bit on the ordinary side.   He did not look like someone you would call the King of the Wild Frontier.  A more appropriate title might have been a Guy from the Wild Frontier.  I couldn’t help but think that if this guy was the one they were relying on, it was no wonder things did not work out.  Of course the fact that there were some 1500 Mexican soldiers and barely 200 Texans in the Alamo might have contributed to the debacle.  But I was still disappointed and did not even want to buy a coonskin hat as a result.

Moving along, I wanted to give you a little history about the gold discovery on the Klondike River mentioned earlier.  Sometime prospector George Carmack stumbled across gold while salmon fishing along the Klondike River in the Yukon.  Carmack and two Tagish Indian friends were fishing on Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Klondike.  At day’s end, they made camp along the creek and Carmack spotted a thumb-sized nugget of gold jutting out from the creek bank.  Further investigation revealed gold deposits “lying thick between the flaky slabs of rock like cheese in a sandwich.”  Carmack got rich, reportedly taking a million dollars worth of gold out of his Klondike claims, which was a considerable amount back in 1896.

Today, the Yukon celebrates their grand history with a week-long event known as Discovery Days.  There are family friendly events, writing competitions, walking tours and an arts festival.  So if you are looking for something to do next August, try Discovery Days.

I recently thought of a couple “what would you do’s” that I thought I would share with you.  One, I asked the lovely Elaine about one time.  We were out in my car driving along the highway and I said to her, “What would you do if you looked over and saw your car go by with a complete stranger driving?”  Her initial reaction was, “Why, did you just see it?”  Once I explained that it was just a hypothetical question, I got - the look.   Then she said we would follow the car while she called the police.  I suppose the plan would be to let them handle the situation.  I, of course would be there to support them, offering up a variety of swearing designed to bring the miscreant to tears, once he was cuffed of course.

Another one I thought of recently, I presented to Elaine and Pat.  My question was, “What would you do if a loved one died while you were away on vacation.  You had the body loaded on the plane to be brought home.  When you arrived and went to claim it, you found out that both the loved one and your luggage were lost.”  They would not even give any credence to that scenario.  They had a number of reasons why it could not or would not happen.  I guess that was because they could not say what they would do.  I suppose that once they read that last statement, I will get two looks.

Our fact this week tells us that armadillos, opossums and sloths spend about 80% of their lives sleeping.  I think you can add teenage boys during the summer to that list.