Tragedy Waiting

Three teen brothers from one family. Two teen boys and their teenage sister from another family. All out together with tons of other family members and friends.

They went to a sandbar in the Red River. An area where they all loved to go to barbeque and wade in the river, have a great time. Everything was going great, except that then everything went wrong.

The tragedy is that not one person, among the couple of dozen or so people there, knew how to swim. Out on the river, and none of them swim. Only one life jacket among them all, and it wasn't used.

One of the teens stepped out to explore a part of the river he had never been to before. He didn't know about the sinkhole. As his friends reached out to try to help him, each was swept away, one by one.

The people on the shore stood helplessly and watched them drown, one by one.

Only one teen, the 7th child in the group, was rescued.

Learn to swim. Please. Don't ever be around the water without knowing how to swim. Have life jackets available when you are on large bodies of water, or in places where you don't know what awaits under the water.

Otherwise, it will be another tragedy waiting for a place to happen.


Today is:

Champagne Day

Coast Guard Day

Constitution Day -- Cook Island

Fairy Drying-Out Day, Fairy Calendar (Makes sense, as we washed them yesterday. Now it begs the question, how does one dry a fairy?)

Fiestas de la Virgen Blanca -- Vitoria-Gasteiz, Alava, Basque Country, Spain; through the 9th

Independence Day, Jamaica

Matica Slovenska Day -- Slovakia

National Chocolate Chip Day

National Day -- Burkina Faso

New Brunswick Day -- Canada

Nicole Robin Day (Celebrates her safe return to the Virgin Islands after being held by Cubans.)

Peer Gynt Festival Days begin, Norway

Vigil of St. Oswald


Birthdays Today:

Cole and Dylan Sprouse, 1992
Roger Clemens, 1962
Billy Bob Thornton, 1955
Raoul Wallenberg, 1912
Louis Armstrong, 1901*
Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, 1900
Louis Vuitton, 1821
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792


Today in History

The destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, 70
A supernova is observed in constellation Cassiopeia, 1181
The first printing of Zohar (Jewish Kabbalah), 1558
A hurricane in the Carribean kills thousands in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Christopher, 1666
Dom Perignon invents champagne (traditional date), 1693
First edition of the Saturday Evening Post, which was published until 1969, 1821
The family of Lizzie Borden is found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home, 1892
The Greenwich foot tunnel under the River Thames opens, 1902
The Supreme Court of Japan is established, 1947
The Billboard Hot 100 is founded, 1958
American civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21, 1964
The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso, 1984
Operation Storm begins in Croatia, 1995



*In several interviews, Satchmo claimed to have been born on July 4, 1900. Historians always disputed that claim, saying it was too neat and tidy, and his baptismal records, found in a church basement, proved otherwise. Some biographies still give the July 4, 1900 date in error.