Thirty-nine years ago, Jimi Hendrix finished off the festival that morning, performing what is now a famous rendition of the, in the public domain, "Star Spangled Banner". Almost as if we were there, it musically created the rocket bombardment of the island-fort in Baltimore, where our guns were just out of range of the British Navy engagement. They had small longboats with ladder like structures and big metal encased rockets, parachute flares, and standard naval artillery, which, over-run us and led to the burning the White House in the War of 1812! I've learned it was over the American invasion of what today is Toronto from Sacketts Harbor, NY led by Zebulon Pike. Francis Scott Key, recorded what he saw from shipboard, and the poem later became the US National Anthem. I worked in the center of Fort McHenry in 1978 for the Dept. of Interior, National Parks Service, Denver Service Center, from which various parks projects, i.e., interpretation, architecture, archaeology, etc. is/was conducted from. One third of its operations were cut by the Reagan Administration.
Hello! Where did everybody go? Anyway I was offered a ride, too barefoot to do much picking up without risking injury, and fell asleep dropped off at Grand Central, then walked over to Penn Station, and realized I didn't have that much money, and decided to take the subway to the last exit nearest the Long Island Expressway, which wasn't too smart either, before the now almost ubiquitous plastic bottle discarded rather than the former glass containers most beverages were kept in.
Finally getting a ride for awhile dropped off a few exits before my folks home exit 60 on the LIE, (Ronkonkoma Avenue, to: Ronkonkoma, Lake Ronkonkoma, Lake Grove, Long Island MacArthur Airport, Sayville) kept walking through the night and finally about 6:30 AM picked up by a class mate, a drummer in the band "Armadillo" also a former fencing teammate, dropped me at home, out of his way, off to go clamming on the Great South Bay. That's done from "Garvey" boats small flatboats with long handled iron rakes, a tough job getting those hardshell Venus mercenaria clams. I slept like one for near a day I think. I had split at the beginning of the it with my friend down at the "Hog Farm" bus and stage to listen to "The Quarry".
In 1859, New York Congressman Sickles shot and killed Francis Scott Key's son, over an adultery committed by his wife and District Attorney Philip Barton Key. (See "The Washington Tragedy") One source wrote to the Westchester Historical Society years ago, that the congressman's wife was known as "Swamp Angel" and the artillery crew that fired incendiary shells over six miles at Charleston, South Carolina in 1863 using the R.P. Parrott rifled cannon, that exploded and kept firing, was named after her. I was part of an EPA archaeology effort that found, recovered either the gun platform that was put on the artificial "island" built in the swamp on grillage, or on other grillage built in the West Point Foundry Cove marsh in Cold Spring, NY as the "Swamp Angel" platform prototype. It was found below the "Bridge Shop" remains of the former early 20th century extensive rail yard. "Swamp Angels" were also I read, a "gang" of thieves that used to raid ships at dockside in the port of New York City, escaping in some of the sewers there then the legend states. The writer states she never found a marriage mentioned in the books on the congressman.
Our crew was to stay in 1978, in a typical Baltimore, Maryland "railroad flat" after staying in the empty apartment in the Lemon Tavern at the Allegheny Portage Railroad, PA. All the services are conducted behind the houses, trash pickup, etc., on the lane between the two rows of houses backyards, facing streets, where there's no trash or other traffic relating to the pickup of garbage, which is what I started to do after the Woodstock festival ended and most people had left. Obtained over the phone, one tiny sink, navy cots and screens nailed to windows caused us to negotiate for a "apartment in the projects" with a commute for the same amount. It's hot in Baltimore in the summer. I had to sign an agreement that we weren't trying to "blockbust" which is when "whites" move into ethnic "black" neighborhoods to take them over and it had AC. The Fort in the Inner Harbor is either very still and hot or when windy, the large replica flag snaps like a bullwhip and has to be taken down or it will tear itself up. Fortunately the 10" shell that landed next to the "bombproof" next to the officers two-hole latrine I helped excavate alongside it, did not explode, the "bombproof" in "Toronto" exploding part of the "casus belli". One 10" shell fired at Sackets Harbor, rolled up the doctor's front walkway, was loaded, and fired back, the only ammunition Americans had for that gun.
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