https://thelebanonchannel.viebit.com/#b6fbb4b3c15b464c83d39f8c4e731c9a
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Levi and Pepper Perry
This terrific story of courage and survival comes to us from Joe Preston historian and volunteer at the Radnor Historical Society in Radnor, Ohio. Thank you!
Click to enlarge.....
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Roger Troutman and Zapp Monument
A statue honoring funk music legend Roger Troutman and the on-going work to revitalize the city’s Salem and Catalpa Gateway was installed October 29, 2012.
The metalwork created by Dayton artist Michael Bashaw and commissioned by the Phoenix Project is on the former site of Troutman Recording Studio near the northwest corner of the Salem Avenue and Catalpa Drive.
The dilapidated studio was torn down and transformed about five years ago into one of three parks created near the intersection by the Phoenix Project - a joint effort between Citywide Development Corporation, the City of Dayton and Good Samaritan Hospital.
Bashaw’s sound sculpture incorporates clock chimes and is
named for and tuned to Troutman’s hit “I Can Make You Dance” with Zapp &
Roger. In the Triangle Park neighborhood, the statue includes 27 triangles.
Monday, July 4, 2016
Charles Kettering and Grand Theft Auto....
Another Daytonian; Charles F.
Kettering sold General Motors the first self-starting system for cars. It
didn’t seem to matter much to Kettering that he didn’t actually have the
machinery, people, or facilities to complete the order. Together with his
partner, Edward Andrew Deeds, an electrical engineer who worked for National
Cash Register, they completed the order in a barn owned by the Deeds family.
When top executives discovered that Kettering intended to stay in Dayton
to produce the system, they tried to argue against it.
“Come to Detroit!” they said. “Dayton has no adequate roads, no decent
rail service, and no access to shipping from the great lakes. It is just too
far inland.”
Kettering only bobbed his head and said, “Inland-? That is a great
name.” Thus Inland Manufacturing in Dayton was born. Back in those days General Motors
manufactured their cars with slow drying oil based paint that took six to eight
hours to dry to the touch. The paint was hand brushed over a primer, and then
the cars were left outside for thirty days to allow the paint to cure and
harden to a tough, durable finish. Then the cars were brought back in to be
buffed with rubbing compound for a deep, lustrous shine.
This process caused many delays in production, sometimes stopping the
assembly line altogether because there simply was not enough room on the
premises to park the cars to allow the paint to cure outside.
Kettering saw this as an opportunity, and developed a new automotive
finish that he offered to General Motors. He announced his paint would dry to
touch in twenty minutes, and didn’t need to be buffed to produce a glossy new
car finish. G.M.’s production manager was unconvinced.
“Not possible Kettering, our people have tried it already. Just can’t be
done!” he stated emphatically.
Undaunted, Kettering asked him to have lunch at his expense; so he could
explain the chemical properties of his new product. The executive quickly
accepted the offer, knowing Kettering was a legendary cheapskate.
Over lunch Kettering patiently explained his revolutionary automotive
paint theory; and massive production cost benefits to the G.M. production chief,
but the man was unconvinced and told him so. He tersely thanked Kettering for
the meal and left.
Kettering loitered for a while in the restaurant, and unhurriedly paid
the bill as the G.M. executive returned in a panic. He shouted “call the Police
my car has been stolen!”
Kettering followed him back out to the restaurant parking lot and
pointed to a car parked in his original spot.
“Why, there it is!”
“No” the manager said, “That’s not my color.”
“It is now.” Kettering said slowly.
In truth, Kettering’s staff had stolen the production manager’s car.
They then completely repainted it and returned it to its original spot. Bone
dry and gleaming in the afternoon sun. A deal with Kettering’s fast dry enamel
paint, for all of G.M’s Automotive Division, was soon signed.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Eddie Rickenbacker/ The old man who thanked seagulls..
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| Click to enlarge picture. |
I have never shared this story before, because I thought no one would believe it! But yes, according to Rickenbacker's biographers, it is true....Jeff
Old Eddie
It happens every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembles a giant orange and is starting to dip into the blue ocean. Old Ed comes strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his bony hand is a bucket of shrimp.
Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now. Everybody’s gone, except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts….and his bucket of shrimp.
Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier. Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly.
Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, ‘Thank you. Thank you.’
In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn’t leave. He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place. Invariably, one of the gulls lands on his sea-bleached, weather-beaten hat – an old military hat he’s been wearing for years. When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away. And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.
If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like ‘a funny old duck,’ as my dad used to say. Or, ‘a guy that’s a sandwich shy of a picnic,’ as my kids might say. To onlookers, he’s just another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp.
To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant….maybe even a lot of nonsense. Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters. Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida.
That’s too bad. They’d do well to know him better. His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero back in World War II. On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft. Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger. By the eighth day their rations ran out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where they were. They needed a miracle.
That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap. Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged. All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft.
Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull! Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal – a very slight meal for eight men – of it. Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait……and the cycle continued.
With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued. (after 24 days at sea…)
Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull. And he never stopped
saying, ‘Thank you.’ That’s why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of
gratitude.
(Max Lucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp.221, 225-226)
PS: Eddie was also an Ace in WW I and started Eastern Airlines
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Roger Troutman and Zapp
Jeff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r3yYQwnt-4
Thursday, January 7, 2016
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