Bag of Randomness for the Last Day of March 2017

  • That’s MomGeeding, circa mid-Sixties, all four-feet-eleven inches of her. There aren’t any pictures of her as a baby or child, and I think this is the youngest photograph of her.
  • Within one hour, I had Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormon missionaries knocking on my door.
  • A reporter found FBI Director James Comey’s Twitter and Instagram account and he seemed to have a good sense of humor about it.
  • Bill to name Highway 191 for Chris Kyle passes House
  • My mother had the fifth most popular last name in Vietnam – Why 40% of Vietnamese People Have the Same Last Name
  • The Cheapest Way to Build Trump’s Wall – The U.S. military has become expert at building concrete walls and might be able to do the job for less than the private sector.
  • A few more thoughts and tidbits from my book about the relationships amongst presidents:
    • As President Eisenhower watched the inaugural reviewing stand be built he joked, “I feel like the fellow in jail who’s watching his scaffold being built.”
      • That reference might not make sense for many today unless they are a fan of westerns, but I wonder if Ike ever witnessed an actual hanging and how relevant his quote was to him. In case you were wondering, he was born in 1890.
    • Robert McNamara was the first president of Ford Motor Company from outside the Ford family. Less than five weeks after becoming president of Ford, he was approached to join the Kennedy administration either as the Treasury or Defense Secretary. As you historians know, he became the Secretary of Defense. It’s not apples to apples, and times and circumstance aren’t the same, but I don’t think that’s all that different than Trump tapping Exxon chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson for the Secretary of State job.
      • If I were alive when Kennedy was selecting his administration, I’d raise an eyebrow about him hiring a car guy to lead the military and his very young brother as Attorney General. And not to sound too much of a Trump apologist (y’all know I lean left of center), but I don’t have any issue with his daughter and son-in-law serving in his administration in advisory roles. It’s one thing for me to not agree with their politics and another in how they serve.
    • Eisenhower asked the president-elect one favor, to be restored as a 5-star rank general as it will make him more than just an ex-president.
    • Ike and JFK met quite a bit in that time span between the end of the election and inauguration, at least compared to modern times. I’m not sure how often LBJ and Nixon met, but I think all the others only met once during that time. Well, except Reagan and Bush, of course.
    • Former President Hoover never made it to Kennedy’s inauguration due to the icy weather and his plane was rerouted. Yes, he was alive back then and even outlived JFK, he died in October of 1964.
    • Back in the day, Secret Service protection wasn’t extended to former presidents for very long. This is how it happened for Ike:
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1939 NFL Brooklyn Dodgers vs Detroit Lions – High Quality Color Video

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyD3XKhgHd8&feature=youtu.be

YouTube user classicsportsvids one-upped the NFL in a huge way. The user uploaded on Saturday over 10 minutes of mind-blowingly clear footage of the 1939 game between the Detroit Lions and Brooklyn Dodgers.

It’s hard to believe that this footage is not only real but captured as clearly as it was. However, everything checks out. This footage only contains highlights from the half, which ends in a 0-0 tie in the video. According to Pro Football Reference, this game did indeed go to halftime tied 0-0, but ended with the Lions winning 27-7. Additionally, the Lions’ quarterback at the time, Johnny Pingel (who also served as the team’s punter and running back), wore the number 37, as it clearly shows in the video above.

Full Article

There are so many neat things in this video and as The TICKET described yesterday, the quality of this video is amazing as you consider how old it is, especially since it’s in color. No one is wearing a facemask, you see all the classic cars in the parking lot, the refs are dressed in all white and wearing bow ties, and I could go on and on.

The Lions are in blue and the Dodgers are in red.

My father played semi-pro during this period. I may have some old pictures with his team wearing those old leather helmets or newspaper clippings.

UPDATE: There’s no date on this article, but it appears Dad recovered a fumble and here’s the team picture.

Dad is pretty much in the center, back row, to the left of the dude in the white shirt. Click to enlarge:

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