re: Pictures from days gone by....

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The Big Game Disaster of 1900

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From the article:

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Charles Yotz, an oven man at the factory, had been raking the fire when bodies began raining down, narrowly missing him. He tried to remove those who had fallen on top of the furnace with a giant poker while his partner, Clarence Jeter, ran to turn off the oil feeding the blaze inside. Officials later estimated the surface temperature of the furnace at 500 degrees.

"It was a horrible experience standing there beside a hellpot and seeing human beings roast to death," Jeter told the Examiner. "We did the best we could."

Some were lucky to grasp rafters, holding on for life as death massed below. "Bodies were falling like hail," one man said. "As I clung there I saw the poor fellow who had been chatting with me strike the furnace. He curled up like a worm in that heat."

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Unsent postcard

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James Baskett, out of his Uncle Remus makeup, with the Oscar he received for Song Of The South

Walt Disney called Baskett his favorite actor.

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With Ingrid Bergman

At age 33, married and with a daughter, and after already serving as a Naval flight instructor in WWII, Ted Williams was called up by the Marines in 1952.

On 16 Feb. 1953, on his third mission, and only 13 days after his arrival in Korea, Williams’ plane was hit by small-arms fire that knocked out his radio and compass, and disabled his landing gear. As he approached the nearest airbase, his plane caught fire. He thought about ejecting, but was afraid he was too tall (6’3”) and that his legs would be broken (or worse) against the cockpit. Williams stayed with the plane even though it was on fire, the landing wheels would not lower, and he was coming in at more than twice the speed for a safe landing.

Ted Williams received the Air Medal for his mission, and flew another mission the next day. He would fly 39 combat missions in Korea (and crash land one more time).

“Everybody tries to make a hero out of me over the Korean thing,” Williams said. “I was no hero.”

Ted's crashed plane

1940

Florence AL, February 1980

I walked across the railroad trestle over the Bogue Falaya River in Covington on my daily trek to and from school. That pic brought back some memories.