When i grow up...

...i want to be just like Dorothea Taylor.

Dorothea is 85, and the other day she and her husband, George Murphy, were out with their dogs near Willow Airport outside of Willow, Alaska.

Dorothea was sitting in the truck while her bush pilot husband was exercising the two golden retrievers. When she heard the dogs barking, she jumped out to investigate, and spotted a moose.

She didn't realize it at that point, but the moose had just attacked George, who hadn't been able to make it back to the truck when he saw the animal running toward him. Now, the moose turned on her.

Dorothea grabbed a shovel from the truck bed and began hitting at the animal, getting a few good blows in, mostly on its rump. Not bad for a woman the same size as me, 5 feet tall and under 100 pounds.

After a few clonks from the shovel, the moose moved on and George came up out of the snow bank he had dived into when he could find no other cover.

George had 7 broken ribs and various gashes, but nothing fatal.

Neither of them blame the moose, saying this harshly cold winter has been hard on wildlife in the area.

That's the kind of "little old lady" i want to be someday. Spunky, and able to see that an animal is not to be blamed when something like this happens.


Today is:

Australia Day -- Commemorates Captain Arthur Phillip's arrival at Sydney Cove with the First Fleet, on January 26, 1778.

Duarte Day -- Dominican Republic

End of the Fifth Quarter of the Ninth Dozen of the Thirteenth Set -- Fairy Calendar

IceFest -- Ligonier, PA, US (through Sunday; ice sculpture contest and lots of family fun)

Liberation Day -- Uganda

Lotus 1-2-3 Day -- released this day in 1983

National Peanut Brittle Day

National Pistachio Day

Republic Day -- Delhi, India (pompous and splendid celebration)

Spouse's Day -- an internet generated reason to tell your SO how much he/she means to you

St. Paula's Day (Patron of widows)

St. Timothy's Day (Patron against stomach and intestinal disorders)

St. Titus' Day (Patron of Crete)

Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement -- begun at Toad Hollow School in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the 1800s, a day to encourage your friends



Anniversaries Today:

Michigan becomes the 26th US state, 1837



Birthdays Today:

Kherington Payne, 1990
Kirk Franklin, 1970
Wayne Gretzky, 1961
Anita Baker, 1958
Ellen DeGeneres, 1958
Eddie Van Halen, 1955
Lucinda Williams, 1953
Gene Siskel, 1946
Angela Davis, 1944
Scott Glenn, 1942
Bob Uecker, 1935
Jules Feiffer, 1929
Paul Newman, 1925
Anne Jeffreys, 1923
Maria Augusta von Trapp, 1905
Douglas MacArthur, 1880
Mary Mapes Dodge, 1831
Emperor Go-Nara of Japan, 1497


Today in History:

The fifth recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet, 66
Vicente Yáñez Pinzón becomes the first European to set foot on Brazil, 1500
The Council of Trent issues its conclusions in the Tridentinum, establishing a distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, 1564
Isaac Newton receives Jean Bernoulli's 6 month time-limit problem, and solves the problem before going to bed that same night, 1697
The magnitude 9 Cascadia Earthquake took place off the west coast of the North America, as evidenced by Japanese records, 1700
The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sails into Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on the continent of Australia, 1788
The Rum Rebellion, the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in Australia, 1808
Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States, 1838
Hong Kong is proclaimed a sovereign territory of Britain, 1841
The first US income tax, passed to raise funds for the Civil War, is repealed, 1871
Muhammad Ahmed ("Mahdi") rebels conquer Khartoum, Sudan, 1885
The World's largest diamond, the 3,106-carat Cullinan, is found, 1905
The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III is officially introduced into British Military Service, and remains the oldest military rifle still in official use, 1907
Glenn H. Curtiss flies the first successful American seaplane, 1911
Richard Strauss' opera Der Rosenkavalier receives its debut performance at the Dresden State Opera, 1911
Former Ford Motor Co. executive Henry Leland launches the Lincoln Motor Company which he later sold to his former employer, 1920
Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses, 1952
Danny Heater sets a worldwide high school basketball scoring record when he records 135 points for Burnsville High School (West Virginia), 1960
Ranger 3 is launched to study the moon, but misses its target by 22,000 miles (35,400 km), 1962
Hindi becomes the official language of India, 1965
The Great Blizzard of 1978, a rare severe blizzard with the lowest non-tropical atmospheric pressure ever recorded in the US, strikes the Ohio – Great Lakes region with heavy snow and winds up to 100 mph (161 km/h), 1978
Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations, 1980
An earthquake hits Gujarat, India, causing more than 20,000 deaths, 2001