Category: History

A Friday the 13th in March..

March 13th, 2026.

Yes, it’s Friday the 13th. But it’s something else you might have missed. You might have forgotten it, but there’s something else.

March 13th, 2020. Another Friday the 13th in history.

Donald Trump was still president back then, just like he is now. It’s weird, right? But he, and many other world leaders, also shut down the planet.
The COVID lockdowns began on this date six years back.

Listen, nobody wants to talk about it. We moved on since then, but we also haven’t. We have gotten ourselves mired endlessly in debate about politics and war, and there’s been conflict and hatred and chaos and disagreement. We moved on since then and we were told to trust the science back then, to the point now where we doubt everything.

But during those fateful first days, things were really weird, weren’t they?
Remember. Unless maybe only remember for a minute and then move on, right? But they were weird.
I distinctly remember my son was only nine, in fourth grade. School got closed for that two week period of time and all of us knew in the back of our heads this will not end this year. And it didn’t. Along with the not ending, it just kept getting worse.

We’re not going to go back and revisit history, but we’re going to go back for a moment just to put things in perspective. The perspective of time.

Think about this, kids who graduated during COVID most likely have now been graduated for about a year or so from college. That’s how fast time has gone.
Kids who were freshmen during COVID are in their first or second year of college now, or their first or second year of whatever lifestyle and future they chose or ended up with.

Many people who were sick during COVID in those early days in nursing homes and care centers died alone. Families have had to grapple with that since.

Yes, the media promoted dancing nurses, whatever that was, and Italian people singing songs on their porches and balconies in Italy.

They didn’t really show the images of family members gathered outside a window in the cold watching mom or dad die in a hospital bed inside alone without the grasp of human connection at the very end.
We also perhaps have moved on because we just don’t want to talk about that anymore.

But I’m bringing it up to get it back into your brain, just to consider where we were and what we were and how we were.

My son being nine, I remember filling a bathtub for him and I had a mini panic attack about the idea that life will never return back to normal ever again. That what we were confined with in our homes would be forever. Or that we would all die like in Stephen King’s The Stand.

Well, we didn’t all die. But many of us did lose people. My mom did. Maybe yours did too.
Eventually, from the stress of all of it, my father passed away not long after my mom.

And when my mom was passing away in a nursing home, we all had COVID in November of 2021.

That’s my personal tale, but that’s not something I’m going to dwell on because you have your personal tales as well.

There are some good memories too. Listen, for some people who don’t like going out in public, maybe lockdowns weren’t all that bad in a sort of funny way.

But also we had those dreams back then.
I don’t know if you remember that. I don’t know if you recall people across the whole planet online speaking about very strange, vivid dreams.

I remember one of my dreams to this day. It was in the midst of COVID. I think I even wrote about it back then here somewhere.

I dreamed I was looking out my back window of the home and I was watching myself and my son dig a hole that, for some reason in my dream, I remembered being for my father.

That stood out to me. A lot of things stand out to me.

I remember all of us as a society becoming very overworked because we didn’t know when to shut the computer down or turn things off.

But it’s all over now, right? It’s all done.
It changed us, but it’s all done.
I think it changed us in ways we don’t even realize.
Yes, the obvious stuff is there. It created mental health and physical health ailments. It made schooling be a bit dicey. It made the workplace be a bit strange. It changed ways of life for good to the point where there are very few diners open at 2:00 in the morning to get an apple pie and a coffee like in a good 1980s movie.
Most of the time things are closing up at 8:00 or 9:00 at night.
So we’ve been changed in little ways and big ways too.

Six years is a long time.

But yet, in some weird way, it felt like timelines got altered and it all just went by in the blink of an eye.

March 13, 2026
It was a Silent Night.. It was a deadly night for a movie called Silent Night Deadly night

Picture it: November 1984.. Ronald Reagan just won re-election handily.. the nation was fearing a beat in the woods but raising the flag in patriotism…
The chill is in the air.
Christmas gifts are getting scooped up at those 1980s malls where the speakers are blasting 1980s music at a volume that feels illegal now.
And right there, near the food court, near the arcade, you catch a glimpse of the movie times. Because maybe… just maybe… in the middle of the hustle, you’ll buy yourself a break. A breather. One big-screen, Hollywood-ish escape.

In Cressona PA you see Prince and Purple rain.. but there is another one..

Silent Night, Deadly Night.

How bad could it be?

You show up, ready for a cheesy seasonal slasher… and you find out you stand no chance. The movie’s getting pulled. Not “it’s selling out.” Not “we don’t have your showtime.” Pulled, as in: some theaters won’t run it, and the distributor starts backing away like it touched a hot stove.

Because in 1984, people stood their moral ground… and this was a national argument.

What makes it funny (in a dark way) is that today we live in an era where Christmas horror is practically its own aisle. We’ve got full-on gore carnivals, movies that treat the holidays like an excuse to paint the walls. Even Terrifier 3 was out here reminding everyone that December can be a bloodbath if a filmmaker wants it to be.

So in 2025, Silent Night, Deadly Night almost looks… gentle. Like a troublemaker from a different generation.

But in 1984? People didn’t see it as quaint. They saw it as a threat.

When “Killer Santa” hit daytime TV

A big part of this firestorm wasn’t even the movie itself but it was in big part, the marketing.

TriStar ran TV spots that mashed up holiday cheer with the image of a Santa figure doing what Santa is not supposed to do—breaking in, weapon in hand, violence implied. And the big mistake? Those ads didn’t just run late at night for adults. They landed in daytime slots, when kids were watching.

THIS was the ad that ill-fated the film:

That’s the part people forget now: the outrage wasn’t abstract. It was parents seeing the commercial in the middle of normal life and concerned their child saw Santa with an axe.

And then it became organized really fast.

Variety reported protests in Milwaukee from a group calling itself Citizens Against Movie Madness, led by local mothers. The protests spread—New York, the Bronx, Brooklyn—signs and chants and that old-school civic energy that feels almost extinct today. The leader was Kathleen Eberhardt, then 32.

Stations reacted too. According to reporting summarized in Vulture’s deep dive on the controversy, at least some TV outlets moved the commercials to late-night, and others yanked them altogether.

Then the cultural heavyweight moment hit: Siskel and Ebert went after the movie hard on TV, and Gene Siskel aimed directly at the people behind it, calling the profits “blood money.”

Suddenly, the controversy wasn’t a local protest story. It was national, loud, and embarrassing for a “respectable” distributor.

We were even led to believe that a that a Lewisburg woman saw a TV spot for the movie during ‘afternoon cartoon hours.’ She didn’t recall the station.. sounds like an automatic urban legend to me.

In 1980 a movie called CHRISTMAS EVIL featured an ax wielding Santa.. No outrage. But that is because the advertising campaign just was not there like it was for Silent Night Deadly Night..

The other brutal truth: it started dropping at the box office

Now here’s the other piece that matters, and it’s less romantic than the protest narrative:

The movie also started slipping financially.

Opening weekend, it pulled in $1,432,800 and played in 398 theaters.

Second weekend? It dropped 45.4%..

But it was also facing a huge problem: It was released the SAME WEEKEND as NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, a movie that was more widely accepted and not protested. It was just a child predator with knife fingers. Not Santa.

TriStar publicly started wobbling right around then, talking about whether it would even be “commercially viable” to keep rolling it out.

And once a studio starts speaking in that careful corporate language, you can feel the exit coming.

The pullback was real enough that the Associated Press was describing it bluntly: TriStar was dropping the film from U.S. distribution after protests and poor early earnings.

And one of the protest organizers, Kathleen Eberhardt with Citizens Against Movie Madness, celebrated the decision with the kind of quote that sounds like it belongs in a time capsule: “Wow. I think it’s great.”

The irony: pulling it probably helped create the legend

Here’s what I love about this story, even if the movie itself is… let’s be honest… not exactly Oscar bait.

In 1984, people talked about it like it was the end of civilization. We already had Jason slashing through forests

In 2025, it’s basically a campfire tale about a moral panic—an artifact from a time when Santa still had a kind of cultural protection around him, like you could get grounded just for disrespecting the concept.

And the greatest irony? By pulling it, they may have cemented it.

Because there’s a difference between a throwaway slasher and a forbidden slasher.

If TriStar had just let it play, it might’ve come and gone like a hundred other low-budget horror flicks. But once it became “the movie they tried to stop,” it picked up that outlaw aura. People love a thing more when someone tells them they shouldn’t have it.

And that’s exactly what happened over time.

The film grew into a cult item, spawned sequels, and eventually inspired a remake in 2012 (titled Silent Night) and the newest 2025 incarnation..

So 40 years after the chaos of the citizens against movie madness … angry moms … TV ads during cartoons (it that really even happened), SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT has become an annual Christmas much watch.. not because it is a great movie. But because it is just that bad.

December 13, 2025
Unpopular(maybe) opinion: Halloween 2 was actually better than the first one

Halloween II picks up right where John Carpenter’s 1978 classic left off .. literally seconds after Michael Myers disappears into the darkness. The sequel takes us deeper into the same October 31st night, only now the screams echo through Haddonfield Memorial Hospital instead of quiet suburban streets.

The movie doesn’t wastes little time with new setups or character introductions; it just drops you right back into that same world, that same panic, that same cold air that hung over the end of the first film. You feel the chaos in the cold night.. even Mrs. Elrod screams as she makes a sandwich and finds blood–to this day we don’t know if her husband wanted mayo or mustard.

There a few interesting back stories to Halloween II almost .. one major point is that it almost didn’t happen the way we know it.

Carpenter himself didn’t originally plan a direct sequel and he envisioned the Halloween name turning into an anthology of different scary stories. He was YEARS ahead of his time on that thought process.

Moustapha Akkad sensed a hit… and it was time to capitalize ..

After the studio pushed for more Michael Myers Carpenter grudgingly agreed to write it. He’s even said he wrote the script with a six-pack of beer by his side, just trying to make sense of what would happen next. That might explain the surreal, dream-like pacing the film has. The movie is admittedly a little sloppy, but hazier, and far more violent than the first.

The mask was back. It was still the same Shatner face, but this time yellowed by chain smoking that Debra Hill subjected it to. Also the new inhabitant with a different face shape. Dick Warlock’s mug was rounder while Nick Castle was longer, hence the difference in appearance.

The new film also had more blood–Carpenter did that on purpose to match what audiences were then wanting. Akkad wasn’t overly happy with that because the TV broadcasts had to be tamed down ..

Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode became the face of the “final girl” trope. But in the sequel, she spends much of the movie confined to a hospital bed, drugged and traumatized, yet still somehow finds the strength to fight back. Donald Pleasence returns as Dr. Loomis, more unhinged than ever, shouting his famous lines about evil and destiny as he hunts Michael through sterile hallways. It is the hospital scenes that give the most feeling of the film. The fluorescent lights, the empty corridors, beeping heart monitors, all building to that fiery ending.

There were several points of Halloween 2 that feel like a docu-drama. You can feel the chaos and panic of the police in the movie–this is exactly how small town America police faced with a gory bloody scene of teenagers being killed would actually react. Now poor Ben Tramer got the brunt. Was it Loomis’ fault by the way? We never really get the chance to flesh that out..

Recently, Nightmare Nostalgia wrote about how II was the scarier sequel.

To us, not only scarier but quite frankly better. Halloween II seems to get better with each passing year despite Carpenter still unwilling to embrace the face that he and Hill either accidentally or unwittingly created a classic.

Perhaps the only pet peeve is that this movie could have been renamed ALL SAINTS DAY since it mostly took place after Halloween, mostly on November 1 if you think about the continuity.

It’s often overshadowed by the original, but Halloween II deserves more credit. It’s the movie that closed the story of Laurie and Michael (at least until later recreations), expanded the mythology, and gave us the twist that Laurie was his sister .. love it or hate it, it was a plot line that shaped the franchise for decades.

When Halloween ENDS came out, fans watched.. and never watched again. But they loved the opening 7 minutes that herald back to the original night he came home. There is lure in a way to what Michael Myers did in the immediate aftermath to Loomis’ six shots.

While ENDS gives us a perspective of a movie that Carpenter never made, we still love the one he did: Halloween II is better than Halloween 1.

October 26, 2025
October 2002: Ducks in a noose

There was something different about that fall. It wasn’t just the cool wind or the early darkness. It was the quiet sense that danger could be anywhere — at a gas station, a parking lot, a grocery store. After the collective fear of 9/11 and the anthrax scares that followed, America was still trying to breathe again. Then, as if on cue, came a new shadow: the D.C. sniper.

It started on October 2, 2002. People were going about their everyday lives when the unthinkable happened. A man was shot in a parking lot in Maryland — random, senseless. Then it happened again. And again. By the end of the spree, ten innocent people were dead and three were injured. They were fathers, mothers, students — ordinary people who simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that was the most chilling part: there was no pattern, no clear motive, no reason. The randomness itself was the terror.

We actively reported it at the time for the HORROR REPORT (yes we are getting old)..

At that time, we focused on the crime, the mystery, the psychics saying they knew whodunit.. and even Geraldo saying it was linked to terrorism..

It wasn’t.

The Snipers: A Twisted Bond

When the names were finally revealed, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, the story only grew darker. Muhammad, the older man, was seen as a manipulative father figure. Malvo, only 17, was the student, the son, and eventually, the one pulling the trigger. It was a relationship that blurred the line between control and indoctrination. The mystery grew deeper.

Investigators later learned that Muhammad’s motive wasn’t random at all. Beneath the chaos was a horrifyingly personal plan.. he wanted to kill his ex-wife, Mildred Muhammad, and hide her murder within the randomness of the spree. Each shooting was designed to make her eventual death look like just another part of the pattern. It’s almost too cruel to comprehend: an entire region terrorized so one man could cover up his own obsession.

Malvo, during his trial, revealed how Muhammad had filled his head with delusions … convincing him they were soldiers on a mission.

Over time, Malvo became the primary shooter, operating from the trunk of a modified Chevrolet Caprice with a small hole drilled near the license plate. He was a minor, controlled by a man with a criminally methodical mind.

The Capture Code

Here is where things get a little creepier.. A little known aspect of the crime remains mostly a mystery even today.

After three weeks of terror, authorities finally caught the pair at a rest stop near Myersville, Maryland, on October 24, 2002. But even the capture carried a strange aura. Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose stepped up to the podium and spoke the now-infamous words: “We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose.” Even more.. Police Chief Charles Moose read that sentence aloud late as part of his message to the sniper, adding: “We understand that hearing us say this is important to you.”

It sounded cryptic and people immediately wondered what it meant. Some reports later said an old Cherokee fable about a rabbit who tries to catch a duck in a noose but fails, leading to his own downfall. Others thought it was simply a coded message the authorities had agreed to use, a way to communicate to the suspects that the hunt was over. But like so much else about this case, the phrase took on a life of its own, sparking whispers of conspiracy, hidden meanings, and deeper psychological games.

This is how CBS news reported it in October 2002:

What does the phrase “caught like a duck in a noose” mean to the sniper?

Authorities are not revealing the context in which the sniper – if he is indeed the author of notes left for police – asked them to publicly say: “We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose.”

Police Chief Charles Moose read that sentence aloud late Wednesday night, as part of his latest message to the sniper, adding: “We understand that hearing us say this is important to you.”

There were rumors immediately afterwards *and even today* that this was all MK ULTRA related and this statement had to be read in order to ‘turn off’ the brain that was wired and programmed to kill. Seriously, with the lack of explanation over the years, this continued to be a point of contention. And remains one of those strange, lingering details ..

The Trials: Justice and Consequence

In the years that followed, both Muhammad and Malvo faced trial. Muhammad was found guilty and sentenced to death in 2004. Malvo, being a juvenile, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The defense for Malvo painted him as a victim of manipulation — a teenager molded and brainwashed by a master manipulator. They argued he wasn’t fully responsible for his actions, but rather under the control of someone he saw as a father. Muhammad’s defense, on the other hand, had little to stand on. The evidence was overwhelming, the motive chillingly clear. On November 10, 2009, John Allen Muhammad was executed by lethal injection in Virginia. He refused to utter last words prior to his the execution.

His ex-wife, Mildred Muhammad, later became an advocate for domestic violence survivors. She founded a nonprofit called After the Trauma to help victims rebuild their lives. Her story — surviving abuse, losing her sense of safety, and then rebuilding her purpose — became a powerful counterpoint to the darkness he caused.

Lingering Shadows and Theories

Even after justice was served, the story never truly ended. The D.C. sniper case feels like a mirror reflecting both the fragility of normal life and the deep, unsettling capacity for manipulation and control. For those who lived through it, the fear was real. People zigzagged while pumping gas, ducked behind car doors, and watched the tree lines. It was psychological warfare in broad daylight.

And then there’s that phrase — “the duck in a noose.” Some say it was just a bit of theater; others think it was something more — a cryptic sign from higher up, maybe even tied to deeper conspiracies or hidden messages. Like many dark chapters in American history, this one leaves room for speculation. Maybe that’s part of what keeps it alive in the public mind: the unanswered questions, the lingering unease, the feeling that not every part of the story has been told.

Mildred is a symbol of courage–even in 2025. She recently gave a keynote speech at a Victims Rights Conference.

Conclusion: A Story That Still Echoes

The D.C. sniper case is now history.. but it’s also a reminder of how fear spreads, how control corrupts, and how quickly ordinary days can turn extraordinary in the worst way. In a way it’s about the fall of 2002, when America once again found itself staring into the unknown after a long period of tension..

Even as the facts are settled and the case is closed, there’s still that phrase hanging in the air .. a duck in a noose.

A cryptic whisper fear ruled enough for people to wonder if they may randomly meet a terrible fate.

October 24, 2025
Today’s special birthday: NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

A little movie about a guy with claws.. Freddy went from villain to 1980s phenom as movie after movie eventually got minced out like sausage in a factory..

But it all started on November 9 1984 when Wes Craven’s creation took hold as a pop culture icon.

It also gave is Heather Langenkamp–and Johnny Depp.

The original A Nightmare on Elm Street, released in 1984, was a groundbreaking slasher film written and directed by Wes Craven. With a modest budget of around $1.8 million, it grossed over $25 million at the U.S. box office, making it a surprise hit. The film not only launched the iconic horror franchise but also helped propel the careers of several key figures. It introduced audiences to Robert Englund as the infamous Freddy Krueger, whose portrayal became legendary. Additionally, it played a significant role in the early careers of actors like Johnny Depp, whose role as Glen earned him his first major film credit, and actress Heather Langenkamp, who starred as the film’s protagonist, Nancy. The success of Nightmare also solidified Wes Craven as a major force in the horror genre.

But..

Going back in time, just for fun, we find this little snippet review of the film from the AP that was shared in newspapers across America a the time–and with reviews like this, 40 years of Freddy just should never have happened.

Happy birthday Fred … no worries about bad reviews anymore.

November 9, 2024
Previously never-before-seen 9/11 footage now revealed after person who filmed it found it in his closet

Kei Sugimoto, a Japanese-American who was 24 years old at the time, has released a nearly 1-hour, never-before-seen video on his YouTube channel.

Sugimoto was a Mainframe Operator at the time at Nissho Iwai Shoji when the terrorist attacks occurred and filmed the footage from the roof of 64 St. Marks Place in New York City.

He used a Sony VX2000 with a teleconverter to capture the harrowing moments, according to his Youtube description.

The hour long video starts with the aftermath of both planes hitting. During the filming, both buildings collapse.. The bright blue sky in the background is still something that people who were alive and old enough to have memories will never forget from that day. The video also portrays the helplessness that everyone felt who was watching it happen.

It is also incredible to think about how people in that ‘time’ filmed things longer. Our brains were just wired to keep a camcorder going. While today the minute video on TikTok just ends.

It is continuously unfathomable to consider the passage of time.. at the time this video is uploaded, kids born on 9/11 will have been legally able to drink in the United States for two years already..

July 27, 2024
The Octopus Murders: They all float down here

Many of you stopped life this weekend to watch THE OCTPUS MURDERS on Netflix..

It was decent–if you like history or conspiracy theory you may really enjoy. It is a mixture of lots of history that really was conspiracy and really happened–and conjecture that leaves you a bit dismayed or confused and the things you may not know about history. Gen X shock at certain parts for sure…

But if you did watch the doc, you may be like us and scratching your head about one particular part that included information about the Zapruder film and the JFK assassination.

In American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders, investigative journalist Cheri Seymour recalls being shown what she was told was the “real” Zapruder film, the footage of the 1963 assassination of John F. Kenney. In this version, the driver appears to be the shooter. However, Seymour suggests this was doctored in order to generate confusion and jeopardize her credibility.

The incident unfolded when she went to visit Robert Booth Nichols, a man who claimed to have worked for the CIA. Michael Riconosciuto, one of Hansen and Casolaro’s main sources, said Nichols was “key to The Octopus,” but had warned not to speak to him, describing him as “absolutely scary.”

According to the account in the documentary, she went to visit Nichols at what she believes was a “safe house,” he started playing the Zapruder tape in slow motion. In this version, the driver took out a gun, turned around, and shot Kennedy. When she asked Nichols if it was a doctored tape, he reportedly replied, “This is the original one.”

The public supposedly saw the normal old regular one–you know, the one where the head goes back and to the left but the limo driver didn’t do it.

But here was the thing.. In this moment of the documentary, they use a snippet of the Zapruder film in which the bottom of the trunk is missing, making the tree appear as if it’s floating. “He says, ‘This is the one that you’re seeing in the media and it’s been doctored.’ He looked very, very intently at me and he said, ‘Nothing is as it appears to be.’ That tape was the last thing he did before I left,” states Seymour.

Here is the problem for many who watched: They did not see a scene of Zapruder in which there was a floating tree…

So what gives?

We can collectively travel to REDDIT to see what the masses are saying about their experiences watching this..

There have been countless conspiracies about the Kennedy assassination in Dallas, even the limo driver did it theory. But the floating tree, to our knowledge, has not come up as a potential conspiracy theory at all since 1963..

This is a first–but again, is there even a floating tree. You can search up videos of the Zapruder film on Youtube, or just watch the movie JFK Where Oliver Stone has Kevin Costner say ‘back and to the left’ on repeat like a broken record. But either way, the challenge is there: Find the floating tree. We can’t.

It also seems unfair to let the ‘limo driver did it’ theory out there without addressing it cohesively. The idea that William Greer did it seems more than far fetched.

Now, there was plenty of concern and anger over Greer on that day, and he eventually apologized to Jackie Kennedy.

There was a public record of Greer being interviewed in 1983 about the assassination. “I was in the front seat, I was driving him when he was shot,” former Secret Service Agent Bill Greer told WBTV in 1983.

“I looked over my shoulder and saw the blood coming down Governor Connaly’s white shirt and I knew it was trouble,” said Greer. “Kellerman yelled out we’ve been hit.” Roy Kellerman was the other secret service agent who was in the front seat of the Kennedy car that day.

“I watched them massage his heart and I thought I saw movement, but there was no doubt he was dead,” he recalled. “It didn’t take long for the significance of what happened to sink in. It shook me up quite a bit.”

Greer retired from the Secret Service just a few years after the assassination and moved to Waynesville, North Carolina. He had nightmares for a while and always thought about why it all happened.

“I think that’s what gave me ulcers,” he said in 1983.

But did he ‘do it.’ Probably not, folks.

You can find tons of websites about the JFK topic, but here is one where they try to track all of the potential whodunits.

But they point out that Greer’s hands are on the steering wheel securely seconds before shots rang out.

So .. anything is surely possible. In this world, it seems like the impossible is possible more often than not. However discernment is also necessary when contemplating things of this nature.

So floating trees and limo drivers doing it just seem difficult to conjure up.

However, what so many fail to mention or remember, number 5 from the Umbrella Academy was certainly behind the fence that same day fighting with his adult self over the briefcase to bring time back, or forward, in time with Luther. …Ah ha, maybe THAT is why the tree temporarily floated. That’t it!

March 3, 2024
It is always a bright day when NEXPO drops

This video focuses on paranoia.com and how Disney ended up being its owner.. Pretty fascinating and addictive, like always is the content from NEXPO..
A great internet mystery detailed!

February 17, 2024
The millennium nostalgia

In random late night searching through sleepless hours, we came across an interesting video on YouTube.

In this CNN footage from December 31, 1999, we see then President Bill Clinton giving the final address to the nation of the 20th century before the dawning of a new millennium at midnight.

What’s poignant about this video is the hope that’s included with his speech, the true joy of what profound changes would lie ahead during the 21st century is apparent..

What an amazing time it was to be alive, and what a hopeful time it was to watch the clock strike midnight that day.

Of course there were some preppers who were hunkered down in bunkers with canned soup and dried noodles, I wonder now 22 years later if they have reinvigorated and spruced up their bunkers with new carpeting in the face of the coronavirus pandemic?

But just listening to the presidents words followed seconds later by 2 million revelers in Times Square welcoming the 21st century and fireworks going off in our nations capital is both nostalgic and depressing at the same time.

So far the 21st-century hasn’t been entirely awful, there are some amazing achievements and advancements of civilization. But there was also the dreadful election of the year 2000. Division. 9/11. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Financial corruption. A burst of new bigotry and racism. And the new hundred year pandemic.. and quite frankly at times what appears to be the fast motion death of freedom not only across the planet but in the home of freedom of self, United States..

Maybe it’s not all bad, are we just being a Debbie downer again?

But that video, that old video. It reminds us of a time that really existed, I have nostalgia for that exact moment. I remember where I was, I just got home from work at a restaurant in time to watch the midnight hour on TV..

And now as we begin a new 2022, it’s time to take back the reins from this cycle of insanity that we have been on. Make this new year ours, and just let’s make it better.

January 3, 2022
PEARL HARBOR 20 YEARS AFTER THE 60TH AFTER 9/11

This is how FOX NEWS reported on Pearl Harbor in 2001, 20 years ago during the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.. during that time, survivors were comparing the attacks of 9/11 to what they saw in 1941.

NEW YORK — Two were getting ready for church. Another was on vacation, just waking up. A fourth munched on breakfast while waiting for friends to take him to a beach party.
Then they got word: The Japanese had struck Pearl Harbor in a sneak attack, triggering America’s involvement in World War II. That “Day of Infamy” — Dec. 7, 1941 — became known as the most dramatic and monumental of the last century in America, one that singularly changed the course of history.
Now it shares that classification with Sept. 11, 2001, a fact not lost in the memories of the surviving veterans.
Daniel S. Fruchter, an Army corporal in 1941, said the first thing that sprang to mind Sept. 11 was the catchphrase that spread after the Japanese struck: “Remember Pearl Harbor — Keep America Alert.”
“A widow of a Pearl Harbor survivor called on the 11th and said, ‘It’s happening again,’” said Fruchter, 83, now state chairman of the New York Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. “I thought that, too: ‘Here we go again.’ I was mad at our own lack of alertness and our lack of knowing what’s going on in the world around us.”
Sixty years ago Friday, Fruchter was eating what he thought was his last breakfast as a soldier. He was scheduled to leave Hawaii the next day, and was thinking about his plans for a seaside celebration that afternoon.
“I never went to that beach party,” he said. “Life changed.”
Fruchter stayed, of course, and with his colleagues set to work preparing for war. “I didn’t feel,” he remembered. “We were just doing our jobs. We were busy.”
Fruchter and an Army buddy didn’t get their first look at the devastation until midnight. Only then did they begin to understand the gravity of what had happened.
“For the first time, we could actually see the damage,” he said. “That night, standing on top of the crater overlooking Honolulu and all of Pearl Harbor, we saw the fleet burning.”
The “Keep America Alert” message also flashed through the mind of Navy vet Bernard “Bing” Walenter, now 81, after Sept. 11.
“If everyone would start remembering Pearl Harbor, maybe we could stop a few of these surprise attacks,” said the former machinist striker and current state chair of California’s Pearl Harbor Survivors. “Here it’s still happening, after all this time.”
Walenter was working in the machine shop of the USS Medusa when the Japanese attacked.
“It’s hard to say what it felt like at the time. I was confused. I couldn’t believe what was happening,” he said. Walenter spent Dec. 7 of 1941 refilling one of the vessel’s guns with powder — though they never fired a shot that day.
Across the island of Oahu, George L. Murray, then an off-duty, vacationing staff sergeant in the Army’s Chemical Corps, was just waking up when he heard the news.
“The shock scared the hell out of us,” said Murray, 83, who chairs the Alabama chapter of Pearl Harbor Survivors. “We were stunned. It was an unexpected war.”
Like Fruchter, Murray was reminded of Pearl Harbor on the morning of Sept 11.
“It was similar in that it was a surprise attack,” he said. “That stunned us again. You sit down and watch TV and can’t believe something like that was happening. One surprise attack in your lifetime is enough.”
But not everyone who lived through both events sees a link between them.
“I felt a lot of anger on Sept. 11, but I didn’t associate it with the attack on Pearl Harbor,” said Julius Finnern, 82, of Wisconsin, a national secretary for Pearl Harbor Survivors. “Other than the fact that both were sneak attacks, I found very little comparison.”
Unlike the vast majority of Americans who were blindsided by the attacks of Sept. 11, some vets said they weren’t completely shocked when Pearl Harbor was hit.
“We were pretty well-adjusted to the idea that we were at war with the Japanese,” said Francesco Costagliola, then a Naval ensign on the USS Phoenix cruiser. “It wasn’t that much out of the realm of reality … It was just the first day of a long, hard war.”
As they do each year, these and scores of other Pearl Harbor veterans will observe Friday’s annivesary of the attack. Some will travel to Hawaii, while others will attend local memorial events.
And how will survivors react to this year’s anniversary, the first since September’s disaster?
“After all these years, I don’t expect I’ll feel any different as I have in the past,” Murray said. “I’m angry about it, but you have to get over it. The world keeps turning, and you have to turn with it.”
After all, for Pearl Harbor survivors and other World War II veterans, Dec. 7 has been fraught with emotion every year since 1941.
“I get real weepy-eyed,” Finnern said. “But I am proud. You’d better believe I am.”

December 7, 2021