Blondin's Bravery, Wallenda's Will

Photo of Blondin crossing Niagara Gorge courtesy http://wac.450f.edgecstcdn.net.

Charles Blondin, a French acrobat and tightrope walker, walked across the Niagara Gorge on June 30, 1859, and made his mark in the record books.  Spectators stood in the tall grass of the riverbank to watch Blondin cross, sporting a dark wig, a purple vest and white Turkish pantaloons.  His manila rope was 3 inches in diameter and 1300 feet in length, stretching from Niagara Falls, New York to Niagara Falls, Ontario.  He held a 30 foot long balancing pole weighing 40 pounds.  The trip took 20 minutes. 

But that wasn't enough for Blondin.  On his return crossing, he dropped a bottle down to the Maid of the Mist boat, hauled it back up filled with Niagara River water, and consumed its contents.  He drank a glass of champagne, did a little dance and finished the rest of his crossing in 8 minutes. 

On subsequent crossings of Niagara, he rode a bicycle, walked on stilts, sat on a chair, pushed a wheelbarrow, sported a blindfold, cooked an omelette, did somersaults and a handstand.  His most impressive feat was carrying his manager across the gorge piggyback-style.  The world would not soon forget Blondin's impressive feats.

Decades passed.  Crossing the Niagara River became an illegal act.  No one even thought of trying -- until Nik Wallenda entered the picture.  Nik Wallenda is a daredevil with stunt performance in his blood (a seventh generation flying Wallenda).  Four of the members of his family's lives have ended in tragedy while performing stunts.  However, that did not deter Nik, who dedicated his crossing to his Grandpa Carl, one of the four who perished. 

Wearing black pants and a red jacket, sporting a balancing pole and attached to a harness, Nik slowly made his way through wind and heavy mists across the Falls.  The wire was 550 metres in length.  With his family waiting on the Canadian side, along with 120,000 spectators, Nik made slow but steady progress.  Within several feet of the rope's end, Nik put on a burst of speed and ran across the rest of the wire.  Beaming, he pumped his fist in the air once he reached the Canadian side.  Reporters were ready with microphones, asking him what his secret for success was.  Nik's reply?  He thanked Jesus!

Photo of Nik Wallenda crossing Niagara Falls courtesy http://msnbcmedia.msn.com.

The Great Escape

Stalag Luft III, a Nazi prisoner of war camp 100 miles southeast of Berlin, now part of Poland, was the site of the largest Allied escape during World War II.  The escape required incredible brain power, manpower, materials and courage.  Six hundred prisoners worked on the project.  And yet only three made it to freedom.  What happened on that fateful day in March of 1944?

The plan to dig three tunnels at Stalag Luft III was implemented in April of 1943.  One tunnel, nicknamed Tom, started in a dark corner of Hut 123.  A second tunnel, Dick, was located under a bathroom drain in Hut 122.  A third tunnel, Harry, was hidden behind a stove in Hut 110.  Some prisoners built a vaulting horse big enough to house two diggers; they would move the horse over the opening to the tunnel, and then the workers would crawl down it and start to dig, while several prisoners would distract the guards with their vaulting.  They made sure that they dug 30 feet below the surface so the guards would not hear them work. 

The resourcefulness of the prisoners amazes me.  Everyone had a job:  Robert Bushell was the overseer of much of the project; Tim Walenn forged official documents for when the fugitives were stopped and asked for identification; Al Hake was a compass maker to help the escaped prisoners find their way to neutral countries; Des Plunkieett was a map tracer; Tommy Guest was the head tailor, trying to outfit the prisoners in civilian clothing for life on the outside; "Lookouts" made sure that the guards were distracted and not privy to what was going on at digging time; and "Penguins" wore pants with yellow sand hidden inside (excavated from the tunnels) which they slowly let fall out as they paced back and forth on the prison grounds.

A list was compiled with prisoners deemed fit for the escape; those who were claustrophobics, for example, were prohibited from being added to the list since the tunnels were so narrow.  As the men made progress on the tunnels, the guards discovered "Tom", and shut it down.  "Dick", which they had been using for storage anyway, was shut down.  Only "Harry" remained.  The prisoners waited for a moonless night to make their move.  On March 24, 1944,  they seized the opportunity to try out "Harry".  The prisoners, mostly Commonwealth Airmen, crawled through Harry one by one.  The first to reach the exit discovered that they were only a few feet shy of the forest, their intended target, which made them more visible to the guards.  After the 76th man, popped his head out, they were busted. 

The Nazis searched for them for weeks.  Sadly, all of the fugitives were recaptured with the exception of three men, two of whom reached Sweden, the third ending up in Spain.  Hitler ordered that fifty of these prisoners executed and the remaining ones were sent to another prison where they lived out the duration of the war. 

Note:  Paul Brickhill, one of the prisoners who helped orchestrate the escape, but who was not on the list due to his claustrophobia, wrote a book called The Great Escape documenting the experience.  A movie of the same name debuted in 1963 starring Steve McQueen. 

Fore more information, read The Great Escape:  A Canadian Story by Ted Barris (2013).

Photo of Stalag Luft III courtesy www.wackyowl.com.

Handcuff Harry

"Crowds on the street gasped as they looked upward.  There he was!  A man, tightly bound in a straitjacket, hanging by his heels high above New York's Times Square.  Suddenly, he began wriggling wildly.  In seconds, he was free, spreading his arms in an upside down bow."*

Harry Houdini, a.k.a. Erich Weisz, was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1874.  He emigrated to the United States with his parents four years later, settling in Minnesota where his father worked as a rabbi.  However, it was not long before his father lost his job and the family relocated to New York City.  The family did not have much money, especially once Mr. Weisz passed away, and it fell upon Erich and his brother to make money.  They started a brothers act in vaudeville.  Both became magicians, but Erich soon learned that his specialty was being an illusionist and escape artist.  Renaming himself "Houdini" after a French magician named "Houdin", Harry learned how to promote himself well by distributing colourful posters and leaflets advertising his upcoming stunts.  One such stunt took place on June 12, 1923 in New York City's Times Square.  Houdini was strapped into a straitjacket and hung upside from a crane used to build the New York subway.  Not only did he escape successfully, but he managed to do so in only two minutes and 37 seconds, caught on film.  Houdini went on to perform more death-defying acts.  Sadly, he passed away on Halloween Day in 1926 from a ruptured appendix.

*Excerpt from the book A People & A Nation:  A History of the United States (Mary Beth Norton).

Photo of Harry Houdini above Times Square in 1923 courtesy http://25.media.tumblr.com.

Escape from Alcatraz

Alcatraz, a high security prison on an island of the same name off California's coast, was home to famous inmates like "The Birdman from Alcatraz", a.k.a. Robert Stroud, and the Mafia mobster Al "Scarface" Capone.  It was also home to Clarence Anglin, John Anglin and Frank Morris, the three men who tried to escape on the fateful night of June 11, 1962, never to be seen again.  What happened to these fugitives from justice?

Brothers Clarence and John Anglin were Georgia farm labourers.  They robbed several banks and were arrested in 1956, serving time in the Atlanta Penitentiary.  However, both were transferred more than once for trying to escape, ending up on The Rock in 1961. 

Frank Morris was born in Washington D.C. where he spent time in several foster homes as a child.  By 13 years of age, he already committed his first crime, ending up in a detention centre.  Later he was charged with narcotics possession and armed robbery.  He demonstrated a pattern of escape attempts in prison and was transferred to Alcatraz by 1960. 

The three prisoners got acquainted and started to plan their escape from The Rock, located a mile and a half from California's mainland.  Using spoons from the prison dining hall, the three men chiselled a hole in the wall of their cells.  Using sopa, toilet paper, real hair from the barbershop and paint from prison art kits, the prisoners made life-like dummy heads to place on their pillows the night of the escape.  Using raincoats, contact cement and glue from the glove shop, they made a rubber raft and life preservers for the trip across the harbour.  Using an electric hair clipper from the bargershop and drill bits, they made a homemade drill.  Later, they used a vacuum motor for their escape purposes.  They also found an instrument called a concertina to inflate the raft.

On the night of the escape, after lights out, the three men left the dummies on their pillows, opened the holes they had created, climbed through the tunnel to the disused service corridor, climbed 30 feet of plumbing pipes up to the roof, ran 100 feet across the rooftop, dropped 50 feet down the outer wall, inflatted their rubber raft and off they paddled through the frigid waters surrounding Alcatraz Island, nicknamed "Devil's Island".

The local police searched The Rock the following morning, but to no avail.  They also searched the neigbouring Angel Island.  The FBI also took part in the investigation.  Due to the high tides and the cold waters around Alcatraz, officials believed that it would have been unlikely that the three fleeing prisoners would have survived.  A fourth accomplice, John West, had planned to escape too but on that fateful night he was unable to remove his grill; when he finally succeeded and climbed to the roof, the other prisoners were gone.  He gave statements to the police to help them piece the mystery together saying that the Anglin's and Morris were planning on making it to Angel Island where they would steal a car, steal some civilian clothes, escape by boat to the mainland and fall in with the general population. 

Initially, the FBI was not able to track down any car thefts in the 12 day period following the escape.  No one reported having clothes stolen either.  However, a Norwegian freighter crew member did report seeing a body wearing prisoner-type clothing floating in the ocean 20 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge in July of 1962.  It was also reported that a life preserver bearing teeth marks was found in the water.  After a 17 year investigation, the FBI officially closed the case.

However, a 2011 National Geographic program about the Alcatraz escape reported that footprints were found leading away from the raft on Angel Island.  They also claimed that a car was reported stolen that night.  Even so, no conclusive evidence has been found to determine the fate of the three prisoners.  The case remains unsolved.

The prison closed in 1963, the year after the famous escape.  It is now a museum visited by 1 million tourists each year.

For more information, read Escape from Alcatraz (1963) by J. Campbell Bruce.  Watch "Escape from Alcatraz" (1979) a movie starring Clint Eastwood.

Alcatraz Island, or "The Rock", home of Alcatraz Prison courtesy www.guideoftravels.com.

The Ants Go Marching

Every spring we get ants in our driveway which eventually come into our house.  Here are ten things you didn’t know about ants:

1. Intelligence - Ants are smarter than you think.  They are the animal with the largest brain (250,000 cells) in proportion to their body size,

2. Agriculture - Ants began farming 50 million years ago.  They use horticultural techniques like spreading manure to enhance the growth of their crops.

3. Warfare -  Ants are the greatest insect killers on earth, even killing their own kind.

4. Numbers -  One tenth of the world’s animal tissue is composed of ants.  The biomass of ants is equivalent to the biomass of people.

5. Supercolonies -  Their colonies stretch for hundreds of miles and reach 20 feet deep.  They contain millions of nests.

6. Lifespan - Workers live only 45 to 60 days.  However, the queen ant can live up to 20 years.  The colony dies within months of the queen’s death.

7. Carnivores -  Africa and Asia have Driver Ants.  A colony can be composed of up to 20 million of them.  They kill insects and spiders on their own.  However, as an army, they can kill lizards, snakes and even chickens.  They can attack and kill a tethered horse and have even been used as a form of execution for enemy soldiers.

8. Ranchers – Ants farm, gather, hunt and raise other insects.  For example, honey ants feed off the secretion of aphids. They protect aphids, destroying their predators’ eggs (ex. Ladybugs).

9. Slavery – Ants raid nests of other ants and steal their pupae.  The eggs hatch and they use the new ants as slaves (ex. The Amazon ants raid the Formica ant colonies.)

10. Castes – The queen is the founder of the colony; she produces other ants.  The males inseminate the virgin queen.  The workers forage, care for the brood, repair and defend the nest and care for the queen.

    11.  Bonus:  Power – Ants can lift anywhere from 20 to 40 times their bodyweight. 

     Source:  http://acwsky7.blogspot.ca.

Cartoon courtesy http://4.bp.blogspot.com.

So You Want to Write a Children's Book

Mem Fox is an Australian children's book author and public speaker.  Here are some tips she shares on her website for writing a successful picture book:

1.  Trouble should occur at some point in the book.

2.  It should be based on one of two themes:  "The Stranger Comes to Town" or "The Quest".

3.  Build characters whom the reader cares about deeply.

4.  Perfect words should appear in perfect places.

5.  Delight in happiness at some point in the book.

6.  No preaching allowed.

7.  Include subtle signposts to living in a social world.

8.  The book should affect the heart of the reader.

9.  Unexpected or unusual use of language should be evident.

10.  The story should be complex, forcing the reader to remain attentive to detail, problem-solve, predict, derive meaning and roll over hills of emotion.

11.  For younger children, establish an original pattern with rhyme, rhythm and repetition.

12.  The book's effect should lead the child to cry:  "Read it again!"

Source:  www.memfox.com.

Collage of Mem Fox books courtesy http://1.bp.blogspot.com.

The Homerun-Strikeout King

On this day in 1926, New York Yankees player Babe Ruth hit the longest homerun in history.  It flew over Detroit's Navin Field fence hitting an automobile, then rolled over several other cars, landing two blocks away on Plum Street, with a mob of kids in hot pursuit.  Experts estimated the baseball travelled 626 feet in the air and landed 885 feet from homeplate.

Although 1926 was a pivotal year for Babe Ruth, the year 1923 was even more important as the baseball legend set three records:  the most homeruns, the highest batting average and the most strikeouts.  He was the homerun-strikeout king:  what an oxymoron! 

The baseball legend proved, however, that if we want to succeed in life, we have to be willing to stick our necks out.  Too often, we fail because we don't even try.  We hold back.  We don't give our outmost.  And the result is mediocrity at best.  If we study the great figures in history, we see people who were striving for success, but who did not fear failure. 

As blogger Benny says "There is no success without failure."  Here are some great men in history who achieved success despite their past struggles:


1.  Colonel Sanders was rejected several times before he sold his fried chicken franchise.

2.  Walt Disney was fired by a news editor for "lack of imagination".  He was turned down 302 times before he secured financing for Disney World.

3.  Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4 years old, and did not read until he was 7, but went on to win the Nobel Prize.

4.  Vincent Van Gogh, who painted over 800 pieces in his lifetime, only sold one.  However, now his most valuable painting is worth over $142 million.

5.  Stephen King threw his manuscript for Carrie in the garbage can after it was rejected 30 times.  Now the book has sold more than 350 million copies.

6.  Stephen Spielberg was denied twice at University of Southern California film school and thus attended Cal State instead.  In 1994 he received an honourary degree from the former and is now worth $2.7 billion.

7.  Thomas Edison failed thousands of times in his laboratory.  In fact, he failed 1000 times during the invention of the lightbulb.  However, he called the invention a "1000 step process".

8.  Winston Churchill, wartime Prime Minister of Great Britain, failed sixth grade, was defeated in every election for public office and yet was elected Prime Minister at the age of 62.  "Never give up" was his motto.  His "We shall fight on the beaches" type speeches led the nation through World War II.

9.  Robert Goddard, the inventor of the rocket, found his ideas rejected by his scientific peers as they thought that rocket propulsion would not work in the "rarified" atmosphere of space.

10.  Michael Jordan, the NBA retiree, was cut from his high school basketball team.  He has missed 9000 shots and lost 300 games.  And yet many consider him to be the greatest player of all time.


If at first you don't succeed, try and try again!

Sources:  www.des.emory.edu
                getbusylivingblog.com

Photo of "Babe at Bat" courtesy www.faughnfamily.com.