The other day, Anne and I were sitting in the dining room, when we both heard the gobble-gobble sound of turkeys. At first, I thought Anne was making the sound on her phone, but as it turned out the pictured pair were moving around the house towards the backyard. The noise of opening the sliding door was enough to frighten them off, but we intercepted them in the front yard. Anne ended up chasing them down the road. Turkeys are not rare around here, but usually they are seen at the bottom of the hill, not 1200′ up. I think that all of the rain that has fallen this year has made the top of the hill more hospitable than in years past.

A daily ritual around here is watching TV together in the afternoon. Dad and Chris used to only watch British murder mysteries, but all of the violence depicted became too much. Too many sleepy little villages with murder rates that dwarf both Detroit and Saint Louis combined. Now they have switched to the History Channel. Its shows are easier or my dad to follow, what with his failing eyesight. Initially, we watched a show about the highjacker DB Cooper, who either got away with it or didn’t. The show was not entirely clear. Recently, we have been watching a show about how California became a state.

It was the time of Manifest Destinay and President Polk was leading the charge. Polk decided that Mexico owned too much of what should be and eventually became the United States. He had already sprung Texas free from Mexico, but the slavery issue prevented it from joining the union that it would all too soon leave. Not content, he yearned for a country that went from sea to shiny sea. To this end, he sent a freebooter named Fremont to formant a rebellion in California. Fremont, with the aid of his trusty guide Kit Carson did just that and led a nearly bloodless rebellion that seized the state. Declaring victory and wanting to let Polk know, Fremont set Carson back east with the good news.

On the way home, Carson nearly died in the Sonora desert, but was rescued at the last minute by American troops, heading west to seize California. They had already taken New Mexico and Arizona and were on their way further west. Their commander convinced Carson to turn around and act as their guide west.

It was at this point that everything for the Americans began to fall apart. The Mexicans had not rolled over, but instead had taken their sweet time to react to all of this American aggression. They had already routed Fremont and his gang, when they surrounded the column that Carson was leading. Besieged, Carson had to crawl forty miles through the desert to San Diego and retrieve reinforcements. Superman did it in one day. Returning with the Marines, Carson had saved the day. Regrouped, Carson and Fremont defeated the Mexicans and took LA. Later that year, Carson again headed east to let Polk and the rest of the world know what had been occurring in California. This time he made it and he also brought news that gold had been discovered.