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| PanaGals on the Tour Bus |
My wife, the next door Mafioso, and
the PanaGals completed their two day rampage through the Big Apple despite my wife’s
ongoing battle with the nasty cold I was considerate enough to pass on to her.
I was semi-informed of their headlong track around the island of Manhattan. The
fact they ate lunch around 5pm was an indicator of the activity level.
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| They Found a Panamanian Flag In NYC |
The ladies flocked home exhausted from
their effort with a lot more luggage than they left with. I’m told NYC’s Chinatown
may never be the same again after this Panamanian invasion and shopping acuity.
My wife was understandably exhausted and reported only one issue with her
navigation down and back. She tried to use one of my short cuts but was distracted
when a critical turn came up. Anyone who knows her can guess the distraction
involved “talking”. This wasn’t the first and won’t be the last time this
happens to her but she was able to show the PanaGals parts of Hartford Connecticut
that are well off the beaten path. The PanaGals were excited and so grateful at
achieving their dream of touring New York City. My wife and the Next Door
Mafioso did right by them.
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| And St Paul's Cathedral |
Since I was at loose ends once again I
took in an early movie, going to see American Ultra. It’s an action comedy
which had liberal doses of both. Jesse Eisenberg plays a stoned out loser in
West Virginia who also happens to be a deadly secret agent that Eric Forman and
Boyd Crowder are trying to kill. Coach Taylor’s wife comes to the rescue in
time to semi-activate Eisenberg from his sleeper state and hijinks ensue.
It was nice to see Kristen Stewart
leave her Bella state of perpetual pout and truly engage as the girlfriend with
real on screen chemistry with Eisenberg. This could have been something really
special if they played up the comedy a little more but they got sucked into too
much time with the bad guys instead of the Eisenberg-Stewart pairing. All in
all though, a lot better than you’ve probably heard with some laugh out loud
moments as Eisenberg keeps accidently killing highly trained assassins.
A friend posted the following essay on
an American hero who’s been denied his rightful place in the conversation about
that select group. The essay was an attempt to correct the lack of recognition
that could be classified as a crime. Please meet, Eugene Jacques Bullard,
American hero:
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| During WW1 |
Do you know who this is a photo of?
Chances are you don’t, but don’t feel bad because probably not one American in
one million does, and that is a national tragedy. His name is Eugene Jacques
Bullard, and he is the first African-American fighter pilot in history. But he
is also much more than that: He’s also a national hero, and his story is so
incredible that I bet if you wrote a movie script based on it Hollywood would
reject it as being too far-fetched.
Bullard was an expat living in France,
and when World War 1 broke out he joined the French Infantry. He was seriously
wounded, and France awarded him the Croix de Guerre and Medaille Militaire. In
1916 he joined the French air service and he first trained as a gunner but
later he trained as a pilot. When American pilots volunteered to help France
and formed the famous Lafayette Escadrille, he asked to join but by the time he
became a qualified pilot they were no longer accepting new recruits, so he
joined the Lafayette Flying Corps instead. He served with French flying units
and he completed 20 combat missions. When the United States finally joined the
war, Bullard was the only member of the Escadrille or the French Flying Corps
who was NOT invited to join the US Air Service. The reason? At that time the
Air Service only accepted white men.
Now here is the part that almost
sounds like a sequel to ‘Casablanca’: After WWI Bullard became a jazz musician
in Paris and he eventually owned a nightclub called ‘L’Escadrille’. When the
Germans invaded France and conquered it in WW2, his Club, and Bullard, became
hugely popular with German officers, but what they DIDN’T know was that
Bullard, who spoke fluent German, was actually working for the Free French as a
spy. He eventually joined a French infantry unit, but he was badly wounded and
had to leave the service. By the end of the war, Bullard had become a national
hero in France, but he later moved back to the U.S. where he was of course
completely unknown. Practically no one in the United States was aware of it
when, in 1959, the French government named him a national Chevalier, or Knight.
In 1960, the President of France,
Charles DeGaulle, paid a state visit to the United States and when he arrived
he said that one of the first things he wanted to do was to meet Bullard. That
sent the White House staff scrambling because most of them, of course, had
never even heard of him. They finally located him in New York City, and
DeGaulle traveled there to meet him personally. At the time, Eugene Bullard was
working as … An elevator operator. Not long after Eugene Bullard met with the
President of France, he passed away, and today very, very few Americans, and
especially African-Americans, even know who he is. But, now YOU do, don’t you?
And I hope you’ll be able to find opportunities to tell other people about this
great American hero that probably only 1 American in 1 Million has ever heard
of.
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| Bullard in his Later Years |
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