Dewey Defeats Truman ... Not!

At the crack of dawn on November 3, 1948, in an effort to be the first newspaper to announce the defeat of President Harry S. Truman in the 1948 presidential election, the Chicago Daily Tribune (now just the Chicago Tribune) announced that New York Governor Thomas Dewey had won the presidential election.  There was only one small problem.  Truman won!  Oops.  Just as Harry held up the paper in a moment of presidential hilarity, I leaped up and grabbed it.  I had a sense that it might be a collector's item someday.

- Charlie

Decathalon

In 1976, Bruce Jenner won the Decathalon at the Olympics and set a new world record by scoring 8,176 total points after the ten events.  (I had 8,177 points but was disqualified when my routine urine sample returned positive for dog.)  The Decathalon consists of ten track and field events.  "Deca", meaning ten, and "thlon" meaning ... uh ... things.  Apparently, someone from General Mills was at the games and quickly painted this shot at the finish line of one of the events.

- Charlie

I Shall Return

On October 20, 1944, General Douglas MacArthur, a US five star general and Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Pacific, triumphantly returned to the Island of Leyte in the Philippines after US forces retook the island from the Japanese.  Years earlier, in 1942, MacArthur was in charge of US military forces in the Philippines which, at the time, was part of the US Commonwealth.  As an invading force of Japanese soldiers overwhelmed MacArthur's defenses, he was ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt to leave the Philippines.  In a radio address to the Filipino people, MacArthur vowed that he would return to the Philippines.

Whether it's the waves of Southern California or on the beaches of the Philippines, its super fun to wade in the surf.

- Charlie

Man or Monster?

October 1967.  Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin set out on horseback along the Bluff Creek drainage north of Eureka, California on a mission to capture images of Bigfoot on film.  As luck would have it, they found him or, er, her.  Forty-three years later, the short film captured by Roger Patterson remains some of the most controversial film footage ever produced.  Among those who have claimed the film is a fake -- a man in an ape suit -- no one has been able to reproduce the realism in the Patterson film.  Personally, I'm a believer.  Have you ever seen any movies made in the 1960's that included a gorilla or other monster that looked this real?  Personally, I'm hard pressed to believe that a couple of goofs with a rented 16 mm movie camera could have put together a gorilla suit that looked more realistic than what Hollywood was producing at the time.

Patterson went to his deathbed asserting that the film shows a real Bigfoot and, even today, Bob Gimlin claims that although it is possible that Patterson fooled him, he was never part of any hoax.

- Charlie

Hippies!

The Beatles released their album Abbey Road in October 1969.  "The Beatles."  "The Fab Four."  Whatever.  I know the perfect word to describe these characters ... Hippies!  Look at that guy I just passed.  He's not wearing any shoes or socks!

- Charlie