Our Daily Dead

NY Times
Red Horner, a Hall of Fame defenseman who was one of hockey’s most rugged players of the 1930’s, died Wednesday in Toronto. He was 95.

His death was announced by the National Hockey League, which said he was believed to be its oldest former player.

Making his debut in 1928, Horner played 12 seasons for the Toronto Maple Leafs and was their captain from 1938 to 1940. He led the league in penalty minutes for eight consecutive seasons, receiving 1,264 penalty minutes to go with 42 goals and 110 assists. His 167 penalty minutes in 1936 established a league record that stood for 20 years.

Horner played with the Maple Leafs when they won their first Stanley Cup championship in the 1931-32 season. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1965.

“No one, not even the toughest guys in the N.H.L., took liberties with the Leafs,” King Clancy, a member of the Hall of Fame who was often paired with Horner on defense, was quoted by The Toronto Star as having said. “Do one of us dirt and you had to deal with Red. That was absolutely no fun at all. He was as tough as any man who ever played the game, an excellent body-checker who fought only when necessary.”

Horner did his share of fighting the night of Dec. 12, 1933, in one of the most frightening episodes in league history, when the Maple Leafs played the Bruins in Boston.

In the second period, Horner slammed Eddie Shore, the Bruins’ tough defenseman and a future Hall of Famer, into the boards. Shore then sent Maple Leafs wing Ace Bailey head-first to the ice - tripping him with his stick, according to the Associated Press account - leaving Bailey with a fractured skull. Moments later, Horner knocked Shore unconscious with a right to the jaw. Conn Smythe, the owner of the Maple Leafs, then fought with several fans near the Maple Leafs’ dressing room.

ODDfellows bounced around Skeleton Canyon, saw fat cattle, American Indian sites, the place where Geronimo
surrendered, beautiful horses, ranch dogs (a unique breed combining cunning and cow-sense with ability to ride in the back of pickup trucks at high speeds, skillful in the avoidance of horses hooves and all things sharp, and thrive off a diet of kibble and horse manure), but not MinuteMen or rattlesnakes. The former are lobbying in Washington, D.C., and the latter are just hiding out, but definitely there - we saw a 15 segment rattle off a five foot-long snake as thick around as a Coke can.

The whole area is a freeway for people and things coming out of Mexico. We did see five “Burros” standing in the middle of the road, trying to flag down a ride. Burros are the young men that carry packs of drugs from Mexico into the U.S. Generally the packs weigh 50-60 pounds. They get $600/15-20 mile trip, and make two trips a week. Once they cache the drugs at a pre-determined pickup point, they go to the highway, and try to wave down cars, knowing that someone will call the Border Patrol to come get them. Sometimes they even hold their little and index finger up to their head in the “telephone sign”, asking that the Border Patrol be called. The Patrol does pick them up, feeds them lunch at McDonalds, and sends them back to Mexico. Sometimes a member a group of Burros will have on a long black coat. This is the “guard” protecting the shipment from being hijacked and making sure the Burros don’t take off with it. Not too long ago, local rancher was gathering cows, and through the deep underbrush saw a black cow. He couldn’t push it out by yelling at it, so he rode in on his horse, kicked the black cow in the back, and said, “Get the hell out of here you sonofabitch.” He was suddenly looking down the barrel of an Uzi submachine gun
. What he thought was a black cow, was a Burro guard in a long black coat. Some of the stories the locals tell makes the Border Patrol sound like “The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight”.
Among other things, they leave gates open for cattle to get out. There’s basically an unlimited supply of illegals for the area Patrol, so if they need to get their quotas up, they’ll capture 150; if they don’t feel particularly ambitious on a given day, they’ll only bring in 2, and claim “Border crossings are down.” Sounds like our ODDly Departed One today, Red Horner, could have given them a few lessons in enforcement. That reminds us, should the NHL be “On Deck”?

If you want to see the result of the witches brew of foreign competition, environmental regulations, and a Super Wal-Mart, take a drive down the main street of the once thriving smelter town of Douglas, Arizona .

Shifting to the nutritional front, a recent report from “Medicine and Science of Sports and Exercise”
showed that feeding athletes carbohydrates during exercise significantly improved performance. It also improved the blunted central nervous system function often seen at the end of exercise (The post workout “stupids”?) We ODDfellows wonder if this decreased ability to think has anything to do with the brainless things athletes sometimes say in post-game interviews.

Have a ODDly wonderful Saturday, and Pat, have another piece of birthday cake, it will make you run faster and improve your mood.

LA Times
Maria Schell, an international film and television actress of the 1940s and ’50s and older sister of actor and director Maximilian Schell, has died. She was 79.

Schell died Tuesday at her home in the Austrian town of Preitenegg. She had gone into a clinic recently for treatment of pneumonia.

In 2002, her brother reminded audiences of Schell’s worldwide rise to fame and her subsequent decline in his well-received documentary, “My Sister Maria.”

LA Times
Hasil Adkins, 67, whose screaming vocals and freestyle approach to rhythm made him a cult favorite among rockabilly fans, was found dead Tuesday at his home in Charleston, W. Va. Authorities said the cause of death had not been determined but it did not appear to be suspicious.

Adkins, who said he had written more than 7,000 songs, first came to attention in the 1950s. He was an original star on Norton Records, a label built around the primal recordings he produced in his mountain home. But after some initial success, he struggled for decades to be noticed. His songs drew new interest in the early 1980s, after the punk-rock band the Cramps recorded Adkins’ “She Said.”

NY Times
Percy Heath, whose forceful and buoyant bass playing anchored the Modern Jazz Quartet for its entire four-decade existence, died yesterday in Southampton, N.Y. He was 81 and lived in Montauk, on Long Island.

The cause of death was bone cancer, his family said.

Mr. Heath recorded with most of the leading musicians in modern jazz, including Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. But from the early 1950’s through the middle 1970’s, most of his recording activity and all of his live performances were devoted to the group known to its fans around the world as the M. J .Q.

NY Times
J. B. Stoner, an unapologetic racist whose conviction for bombing a church, divisive political campaigns and vituperations about Jews and blacks made him a benchmark for racial extremism in the United States, died on Saturday at a nursing home in La Fayette, Ga. He was 81.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, Judith Ragon, wife of Mr. Stoner’s second cousin, Ronald Ragon, told The Associated Press.

Mr. Stoner’s views were so immoderate that Lester Maddox, an avowedly segregationist governor of Georgia, once refused to share the same stage with him. Mr. Stoner was convicted in 1980 of the 1958 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Ala., and was suspected by prosecutors in as many as a dozen others.

Yesterday we warned you to be careful lest you get grossed-out (or worse) by an exploding toad. Actually, this warning appears to location specific, in that it has occurred in Northern Europe. We pretty sure one of notable passings, Maria Schell (sister of Maximillian) was not a victim of amphibian WVD (’Was verdammt!’). Looks like the mystery may be solved, and the reason is birds with a particular taste for toady pate .

Hasil Adkins of rockabilly fame has died, as has Percy Heath of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Another troubled soul has wadded across the River Styx .

The ODDfellows are going into Skeleton Canyon
today. Why?? you may ask? We’re seeking history, rattlesnake sightings, and MinuteMen . Pray for us?

LA Times
Martin Blumenson, 86, a leading historian of World War II who wrote the U.S. Army’s official account of the D-day invasion and was perhaps the foremost authority on the life of Gen. George S. Patton Jr., died of cancer April 15 at his home in Washington, D.C.

Blumenson parlayed his early experience as a historian attached to Patton’s 3rd Army during World War II into a lifelong career, writing 19 books.

At the invitation of the Patton family, Blumenson spent years combing through the general’s letters and personal records that explored the depths of Patton’s character. His biography, “Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885-1945,” won praise for its multidimensional portrait of the general.

With these immortal words from the funerary scene in “The Big Lebowski
, we bring the news of the death of Martin Blumenson, noted World War II military historian and biographer of General George S. Patton. We ODDfellows particularly like the wit and wisdom of Old Blood and Guts, (”The key to efficiency is favoritism”). We recommend you check out the Patton memorabilia at eBay.com.

Today we share with you the ODDly rememberable words of the writer John D. MacDonald
: “Tacky though it might be, its (Florida) fate uncertain, too much of its destiny in the hands of men whose sole thought was grab the money and run, cheap little politicians with blow-dried hair, ice-eyed old men from the North with devout claims about their duties to their shareholders, big-rumped good old boys from the cattle counties with their fingers in the till right up to their cologned armpits - it was still my place in the world. It is where I am and where I will stay, right up to the point where the Neptune Society sprinkles me into the dilute sewage off the Fun Coast.”
Delicious.

We’re done for now. We’re working on “The wit and wisdom of Tom DeLay
.” We suspect it will be a very short book. Enjoy your day, but watch out for exploding toads .