Chief Cochise For Western Wednesday...!

I think that nearly everyone familiar with the old West remembers the name of Cochise. Not as well know as some of the other chiefs maybe, but a force non the less.

As this article from Listverse shows, though, not that much is known about his early days. Here's what we know.

Chief Cochise

Chief Cochise is one of the most well-known figures in the conflict between the Native American people and the European settlers who constantly pushed westward. For someone so prominent whose name is so well-known, he’s a figure shrouded in considerable mystery.

Almost nothing is known about his life before the middle of the 19th century when he was already established as the leader of the Chiricahua Apaches in the areas of northern Mexico and southern Arizona. Decades of raids and conflicts between the Apaches and the settlers in the area ultimately led to the creation of a reservation on the southeastern edge of their territory.

Cochise died in 1874, only two years after the establishment of the peace he’d rarely seen. The location of his traditional burial somewhere in the Dragoon Mountains was known only to a handful of his contemporaries who never divulged the coordinates. Several legends have grown up around the burial of the great leader. According to the story, Cochise’s dog and horse were both shot to be buried with him to keep the animals from being a public reminder of him and his death.

Sounds to me as though the Chief wanted to be secretive in both life and death. Maybe that's a good thing. Wasn't healthy to be his horse or dog, however!

Coffee out on the patio again this morning. I'll make a fire in the BBQ pit, OK?

The Ship In The Desert...!

Folks report seeing some strange things out in the desert at at times, but here is something you would never expect.

Imagine if you found a Spanish galleon complete with all it's treasure? How would folks look at you when you told them about it? Know what I mean? This story from Listverse tells of just such a thing!

The Lost Ship In The Desert

If there’s any place you don’t expect to find a lost Spanish galleon, it’s probably the Colorado Desert. But in the 1870s, there were rumors galore about the lost ships. According to the Los Angeles Star, a treasure hunter finally found what he was looking for in November 1870. On December 1, a man named Charley Clusker claimed to have found an extraordinarily well-preserved Spanish galleon, but nothing was ever brought back from his expeditions into the desert. The ship was a pirate vessel and the treasure was still on board.

It might sound insanely farfetched, but there’s a small possibility that there actually was truth in the story. The Salton Sink is a massive depression created millions of years ago in the Colorado Desert, a depression that has been known to turn into a lake. Evidence of flooding includes the presence of oyster beds high in the San Felipe Mountains. It’s possible the pirate ship made its way up the Gulf of California and then ran aground. The crew would have ultimately died, leaving the galleon baking in the sun. Whether or not that’s really the case is still up for debate, but the sheer number of reports about a lost desert ship are enough to spark the imagination.

Now part of me really wants to believe that ol' Charlie found such a ship, but then the other part of me just wants some of whatever Charlie was drinking, ya know?

Today is my Baby Sis' birthday, so everyone get ready to sing "Happy Birthday!", OK?

Coffee out on the patio this morning. It's cold, but I'm tired of being inside!

Jean Baptiste For Monday Mystery...!

This is an interesting story right out of history. It's true, it's unsolved, and that makes it a great one for today, right?

Jean Baptiste

In 1862, Brigham Young and his congregation were presented with a problem. After discovering that the gravedigger Jean Baptiste was also a grave robber, the people of Salt Lake City had to decide what to do with a man who was a thief of the worst kind. Hundreds of sets of clothing were found in his home, stripped from the bodies of the people he had helped bury. Young reassured his congregation that those who had been buried naked by Baptiste would be fully clothed during their resurrection.

Baptiste’s trial seems a pretty cut-and-dried case. He was ultimately exiled to a barren island in the middle of Salt Lake, escorted there by a handful of men who had been forced to promise that they wouldn’t kill him on their way there. Even though the lake was extremely low, Baptiste couldn’t swim and he was effectively imprisoned. Or so it was thought.

Three weeks later, the owners of the cattle on the island returned to check on Baptiste and their herd. Baptiste was gone. The only signs that anyone had been there was damage to the island’s only shelter, a small shack, and a young cow that had been slaughtered. Baptiste was never seen again.

A handful of different theories have been put forward as to what really happened to him. Some believe that he died trying to make his escape, a theory that’s supported by the discovery of a human skull nearby at the mouth of the Jordan River, and later the rest of the skeleton that was still wearing its ball and chain. Then again, no one seems to know for sure whether or not Baptiste was wearing a ball and chain when he was left on the island. Others suggest that he made it to shore on a raft made of pieces of his shelter and the skin of the cow he killed. Some think that he hopped on a train and headed to California, while others think he made mining towns his home. Later reports dated to well after his exile claim that his ears were cut off and his face was marked with the words “Branded for robbing the dead,” but the truth in those claims is as much of a mystery as his fate.

I reckon that being banished to an island is better than being hung by the neck. Sounds like a strange punishment, but maybe it wan't back in those days. Who knows?

Coffee inside the house this morning. It's cold outside.

Sunday Cartoons For 2015...!

Time once again for some Sunday funnies. Same ol' thing, different year!



Some of these guys have been around for a long, long time!



I hate to say it, but that ham looks better than mine!



The age old battle for love. I remember what it was like...almost!



OK, that's enough for today. How about we go and have a greatday, OK?

Coffee in the kitchen again. Still chilly outside!

Gunfight With A Camel...?

Ya know, folks can end up getting killed in the strangest ways sometimes. Guess that when it's your time, it's your time!

This has to be one of the strangest cases of accidental shooting I ever heard of. See if you don't agree.

John Horrocks

As a pioneer and explorer of 19th-century Australia, John Horrocks always ran a fair risk of getting killed by a wild animal. Ultimately, that was indeed the hand fate dealt him. However, he wasn’t bitten by a spider, stung by a medusa, eaten by a shark or even kicked by a kangaroo. In fact, he didn’t get killed by any of the thousands of lethal creatures Australia has to offer.

He was shot to death . . . by a camel.

Horrocks was a camel enthusiast and was keen to introduce the animals to Australia, as he felt they would do well there. This mission came to an an abrupt end, as one day his foul-tempered expedition camel managed to shift its weight so that pack it was carrying caught Horrocks’ weapon, causing it to go off. Sadly, Horrocks was loading the gun at the moment, so the shot took off a few of his fingers before moving on to his face.

John Horrocks died of his injuries, but not before giving orders for the camel to be shot as well. This means that the first and only camel/human gunfight in history technically ended in a draw.

This particular story makes it hard to decide whether to laugh or be sad. However,he probably has the destinction of being one of th only men to ever be in a gunfight with a camel, or any other animal. Guess that's something.

Coffee in the kitchen again. I don't trust these weather guys one bit!

Something A Little Different...!

I wish the folks at our town would start something like this. Around here there is enough to keep them busy all the time, I think.

The South African Detective Who Fought Satan

By Nolan Moore on Saturday, December 13, 2014

If there’s a demon in your neighborhood, who ya’ gonna’ call? Kobus Jonker! Between 1991 and 2001, this South African detective led a special police unit dedicated to fighting the forces of evil. As you might expect, things sometimes got a little weird . . . according to Jonker anyway.

From Twin Peaks to True Detective, TV is packed with paranormal plots and supernatural psychos. Even Scully and Mulder battled their fair share of spirits when they weren’t investigating UFOs. But these demon-hunting detectives are far from fictional. Believe it or not, between 1991 and 2001, South Africa had its very own Carl Kolchak. His name was Kobus Jonker, and while other cops were chasing run-of-the-mill crooks, he was doing battle with the devil.

Known as “The Hound of God,” Jonker’s obsession with the occult started in 1981. He was an experienced detective and recent Christian convert when he stumbled across an incredibly surreal suicide. The victim was a woman with three strange tattoos. On the sole of one foot was the word “Jesus,” on the other was “Christ,” and “666” was scrawled across her arm. According to Jonker, she was a witch who’d tattooed her feet so she could walk on Jesus’ name . . . before throwing herself in front of a car as a sacrifice to Satan.

This incident had a big impact on the detective. How could he investigate everyday crimes when the devil was on the prowl? It was one of those life-changing moments, and Jonker dedicated himself to fighting the forces of darkness.

At first, his superiors were less than thrilled. However, they changed their tune in ’91 when Jonker discovered the site of a grisly killing. There was a Bible wrapped in chains, blood all over the place, and a woman’s decapitated head. Suddenly convinced they were at war with the legions of hell, South African officials created the Occult-Related Crimes Unit (ORCU) with Jonker in charge.

The ORCU was made up entirely of Christians, and they operated under the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957. Passed in the glory days of apartheid, this bizarre piece of legislation essentially outlawed magic. Anyone with “a knowledge of witchcraft” could wind up in jail. On the flip side, it forbade people from accusing others of practicing the dark arts. It even condemned violence against witches. Basically, it was a law meant to squelch belief in indigenous African practices, and as a result, wasn’t popular with witches or witch-haters.

But it was perfect for Kobus Jonker. For 10 years, the ORCU investigated all sorts of paranormal phenomena, from your typical Regan MacNeil possessions to really nasty Charles Manson murders. They went after baloyi, medicine men who used human body parts in theirmuti (“spells”), and Jonker had a particular axe to grind against Satanists. According to the detective, South African Satanists are far more violent than their more laid-back American and British counterparts.

Whether or not that’s true, Jonker says he’s seen some pretty weird stuff in his day. When a Satanic assassin crept into his office, he allegedly stopped her from pulling the trigger with the power of prayer. While exorcising an 11-year-old girl, he claimed a tortoise crawled out of her belly button. In one of his most dramatic cases, Jonker showed up in a town plagued by a tokoloshe, a mini-demon who threw rocks at police, scared away all the animals, and repeatedly raped a young girl. Going into full-Constantine mode, Jonker prayed over the girl until he saw a mysterious dwarf scamper out of her house.

The rapes stopped, and the animals came back. Supposedly.

But while Jonker’s stories sound zany, he’s surprisingly rational about the whole thing. For example, in 1995, a rapist named Frans du Toit claimed a demon ordered him to attack attractive women. But Jonker didn’t buy his story. According to the detective, demons aren’t choosy when it comes to violence so it didn’t make sense that a spirit would order du Toit to only rape beautiful women. He was also disturbed by du Toit’s lack of guilt as possessed criminals almost always feel regret for their crimes. Similarly, when Morne Haarmse said a demon forced him to don a Slipknot mask, buy a katana, and attack his high school, Jonker wasn’t convinced. Sure, the kid listened to heavy metal, but that didn’t mean the devil was in the details. “I’ve also listened to heavy metal in the past,” he told Vice. “I don’t go and kill people if I listen to metal.” He also believed Haarmse was just too clever and calculating. The kid meticulously plotted the whole assault, and according to Jonker, demons are way too impulsive to make plans.

Eventually, “God’s Detective” was forced to step down as head of the ORCU after he suffered a heart attack in 2001. The unit didn’t last much longer as the government decided a group of cops focusing on particular religious groups probably wasn’t all that constitutional. As for Jonker, these days he works as a pastoral psychologist, helping people with a mixture of psychology and Biblical principles. But when he’s not counseling patients, he’s giving authorities professional advice on occult-related crimes.

While some might think he’s a religious nut, Jonker couldn’t disagree more. According to the detective, witchcraft is a “reality.” “It does exist.” Or in the words of Shakespeare, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Guess there will always be enough bad guys around to keep this fellow and his kind busy. Heck, he could stay in D.C. and have his hands full, I'm thinking.

Coffee in the kitchen this morning. I still have some homemade Snickerdoodles left!

Happy New Year...!

I hope that everyone has a safe and Happy New Year!

Most of all, be safe...be happy...and be back! OK?