The same weather as all week lovely and sunny and I went to the gas station in town for 8am where the hiking group meets I knew Pierre would not be there so I joined the other group on a more leisurely hike and today we went here to the big tree.
The drive out to the village was about 20 minutes and we parked and then crossed the river
into the small town….all the villagers were very friendly and we talk and say hello to everyone especially the children.
The small church in the square
From here it is only a short walk to the massive tree
the roots are amazing
I took this shot of one of the hikers to get a perspective of how big the trunk is!!!!!
From here we went upwards into the hills and the views were lovely
One of the local kids, Fernando, came a ways with us!!!
The farmers from the village have formed a cooperative and planted many napal trees and built irrigation ditches
Some even sleep out here..we were very respectful when we passed by!!!
A local cowboy!!!
It was a good but short hike and we were back at the gas station by noon.
I came home and did chores, my Spanish homework, worked on two class activities this week including the party for the students on Wednesday and also a big tennis event next Sunday that I am organizing…more on that later in the week.
After getting cleaned up and eating now watching a live soccer game from LA at a stadium where I attended a game two years ago…..and a hockey game coming up later in the evening.
I think we all remember the following!!!!!
Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.
Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat--you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked.
As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?" Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice.
Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?"
Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?" Nimitz explained:
Mistake number one:
The Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave.
If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.
Mistake number two:
When the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America . And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.
Mistake number three:
Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America.
-Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism.
President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job. We desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.
There is a reason that our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST
Yashi Kochi!!!!!
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