Please tell General Grant that I must go home

In 1862, Jonathan Johnson began active service as Captain of Company D, 15th Regiment, NH Volunteers, and went to war. One year later, at the age of forty-seven, he died, leaving his wife Nancy a widow with eight children at home, four of them less than 16 years of age.

Capt. Jonathan Johnson succumbed to what they called “swamp fever”, contracted while fighting in New Orleans. He was sent home to Deerfield to die. His son George never returned home, and was buried in a double grave after the Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864. Both had gone to war to preserve the Union, and believed that slavery was an iniquitous institution. Both died for that cause.

During his year of service, Capt. Johnson kept a diary and regularly wrote home. His last day on duty was 24 hours spent in battle. Johnson, worn out by three continuous weeks of nasty Civil War fighting, was hospitalized in Baton Rouge, La.

We can only imagine the conditions under which the soldiers endured - quarters crowded with the sick and wounded, inadequate staffing, insufficient medical supplies, and the heat of the lower Mississippi. Food was scarce while snakes and alligators were in abundance.

The trip home to New Hampshire took two months. Along the way, the Captain wrote a informative letter to his 12 year old son, Benjamin.

"If you expect a harvest, you must put in the seed. Take care of what you put in, and do it in season. Mother earth is the best paymaster there is. She always puts her fruits in their season, while the paymasters of the United States pay only when they get the money. We have not been paid yet. Therefore, plant and sow plentifully, and you can be sure of your pay. "

I am the caretaker for the Granite Cemetery in Deerfield, NH where Captain Jonathan Johnson is buried. The gravestone to his immediate right is his wife, Nancy. The son, George is buried next to his mother. There is no chance that I will forget to place new American Flags by their markers for the men.

As for Nancy, she went the distance overcoming unspeakable tragedy. The average life expectancy in 1865 was 40. Nancy made to 94 years and five months. Somebody had to harvest the crops and take care of the remaining seven children. She deserves a new flag, too


Paul Murphy

Follow me on Twitter at @_prmurphy

For Bobby Orr, every day is Mother's Day

We always remember the big events in our lives. Most of these are sad so we rarely talk about them, but we know every detail. We can’t remember where we left our wallet, keys, glasses or coffee cup, but we always know where we were when it happened.

It was a beautiful, sunny day on May 10, 1970. This was Mother’s Day. It was also Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the St. Louis Blues and the Boston Bruins. While St. Louis had only been in The National Hockey League for 4 seasons, the Boston club had been in business since the 1920’s. Many of those years, the team would be found in the cellar. The fans had waited a long time to see the Bruins capture the Cup, and today surely seemed like the one for the Bruins held a 3-0 series lead. 29 years was an eternity to the long suffering Boston faithful. Little did they know this wait would be nothing compared to: 86 years for the Red Sox, 100 for the Cubs, and over 200 for the British. The British had held a commanding 3-0 series lead as well.

Boston and St. Louis were tied at 4 as we headed to overtime. It was over before you could blink. Orr to Sanderson, back to Orr. Defenseman Noel Picard would trip Bobby. As he flew through the air, Orr would slide the puck under the pads of future Hall of Fame Goaltender Glenn Hall. Before he would land, women had placed pillows on the ice to lighten the impact. That supposedly famous photograph of Derek Sanderson hugging Bobby Orr following the Stanley Cup Winning Goal is actually a deranged, female fan from Section 8, not Derek.
Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end.

We were wrong. A crushing first round playoff exit in 1971 to the Montreal Canadiens was the start. The Boston Bruins did win the Stanley Cup for a second time in 1972, but the end was near. The World Hockey Association took away key players in goaltender Gerry Cheevers and center Derek Sanderson. The expansion draft cost the Bruins right winger, Eddie Westfall.

Shocking losses to the New York Rangers in 1973, the bigtime choke against the Philadelphia Flyers in 1974, and the Chicago Black Hawks in 1975 tarnished the two titles.

The playoff losses were rough, but they were not as painful as seeing Bobby Orr don a Chicago Black Hawks jersey. After having played only 10 games with the Bruins in 1976, Orr's representative Alan Eagleson worked out a contract deal with the Black Hawks. Eagleson had withheld pertinent information from Bobby Orr, including 18% ownership shares of the Bruins. Orr would play only 26 games in a three year span with Chicago.

The Black Hawks balked at paying him the balance of his contract in 1979, and Orr took them to court, settling in 1983 for $450,000, one-third of the money they owed him. Of this, $200,000 went to taxes and legal fees.

The goal that would surely live on forever in the city of Boston wasn’t just left as a memory, however, as an 800-pound bronze statue commemorating the goal was eventually erected outside the TD Garden to solidify it's place in history. The statue was placed on the western side of the TD Garden for roughly six years before it was moved just three days ago on May 7th, 2016 to a new home on the eastern side of Causeway Street in Portal Park.

To further honor the memory of the 1970 Stanley Cup-winning goal, the Bobby Orr statue will be moved in about three years to be used as the centerpiece for the entrance of the new complex, “The Hub On Causeway."

Traffic on the Zakim Bridge was backed up for miles while workers gingerly moved the statue. Nobody beeped their horns because Number 4 was going through the tunnel.


Paul Murphy

Follow me on Twitter at @_prmurphy

Dwayne Wade joins Hanoi Jane on All-Hate team

In basketball, a flagrant foul is a serious personal foul. A foul is considered flagrant when it involves excessive or violent contact that could injure the fouled player. A flagrant foul may be unintentional or purposeful.

Flagrant Foul Rules. There are three types of Flagrant Fouls, as follows: Flagrant "1" (FFP1) - unnecessary contact committed by a player against an opponent. The opposing team is awarded two (2) free throws and possession. Flagrant "2" (FFP2) - unnecessary and excessive contact committed by a player against an opponent. It is an unsportsmanlike act and the offender is ejected immediately. The offender will be subject to a fine not exceeding $35,000 and/or suspension by the Commissioner. Flagrant 3 (FFP3) - disrespectful behavior toward a national anthem (known as the Jane Fonda rule).



Plenty of people, particularly Toronto Raptors fans, took offense to footage that found its way to social media of Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade casually going about his pregame shooting routine while a young girl sang Canada's national anthem "O Canada" at midcourt of American Airlines Arena prior to Game 3.

It's customary to silently reflect during the national anthems for both teams involved in an NBA playoff game, especially since their countries allow Wade to make a $20 million annual salary for playing the game he loves, but because the league's rules actually require him to do so:

"Players, coaches and trainers are to stand and line up in a dignified posture along the sidelines or on the foul line during the playing of the National Anthem."

Hey @DwyaneWade a Canadian invented the game. Respect the anthem. #WeTheNorth #RTZ

— John Tory (@JohnTory) May 8, 2016

James Naismith was a Canadian-American physical educator, physician, chaplain, sports coach and innovator. He invented the sport of basketball in 1891.

Wade disrespected Canada's national anthem. Dwayne cited the earlier start time for singing two national anthems, and a superstitious pregame routine that "requires" him to convert a layup or dunk and a 15-foot bank shot before the game,

"I’m thinking about what I need to do before every game that I prepare for and have been doing my whole career. I understand whatever’s said from that standpoint, but I’m not a disrespectful person. If anybody thinks I’m being disrespectful to their country, then they have no idea who Dwayne Wade is."

Yes, we do.

Paul Murphy

Follow me on Twitter at @_prmurphy

More than four dead in Ohio

The Kent State shootings involved the massacre of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.

Some of the students who were shot had been protesting the Cambodian Campaign, which President Richard Nixon announced during a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.

There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of four million students, and the event further affected public opinion—at an already socially contentious time—over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.

A protest was scheduled to be held at noon. University officials attempted to ban the gathering, handing out 12,000 leaflets stating that the event was canceled. Despite these efforts, an estimated 2,000 people gathered on the university's Commons, near Taylor Hall. The protest began with the ringing of the campus's iron Victory Bell (which had historically been used to signal victories in football games) to mark the beginning of the rally, and the first protester began to speak.

Companies A and C, 1/145th Infantry and Troop G of the 2/107th Armored Cavalry, Ohio National Guard (ARNG), the units on the campus grounds, attempted to disperse the students. The legality of the dispersal was later debated at a subsequent wrongful death and injury trial. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that authorities did indeed have the right to disperse the crowd.

Just before noon, the Guard returned and again ordered the crowd to disperse. When most of the crowd refused, the Guard used tear gas. Because of wind, the tear gas had little effect in dispersing the crowd, and some launched a second volley of rocks toward the Guard's line, to chants of, "Pigs off campus!" The students lobbed the tear gas canisters back at the National Guardsmen, who wore gas masks.

When it became clear that the crowd was not going to disperse, a group of 77 National Guard troops from A Company and Troop G, with bayonets fixed on their M1 rifles, began to advance upon the hundreds of unarmed protesters. As the guardsmen advanced, the protesters retreated up and over Blanket Hill, heading out of the Commons area. Once over the hill, the students, in a loose group, moved northeast along the front of Taylor Hall, with some continuing toward a parking lot in front of Prentice Hall (slightly northeast of and perpendicular to Taylor Hall). The guardsmen pursued the protesters over the hill, but rather than veering left as the protesters had, they continued straight, heading down toward an athletic practice field enclosed by a chain link fence. Here they remained for about ten minutes, unsure of how to get out of the area short of retracing their path.

During this time, the bulk of the students congregated off to the left and front of the guardsmen, approximately 150 to 225 ft away, on the veranda of Taylor Hall. Others were scattered between Taylor Hall and the Prentice Hall parking lot, while still others were standing in the parking lot, or dispersing through the lot as they had been previously ordered.

At 12:24 p.m., Sgt. Myron Pryor turned and began firing at the students with his .45 pistol. A number of guardsmen nearest the students also turned and fired their rifles at the students. In all, 29 of the 77 guardsmen claimed to have fired their weapons. The adjutant general of the Ohio National Guard told reporters that a sniper had fired on the guardsmen, which remains a debated allegation. The President's Commission on Campus Unrest avoided probing the question of why the shootings happened. Instead, it harshly criticized both the protesters and the Guardsmen.

Photographs of the dead and wounded at Kent State that were distributed in newspapers and periodicals worldwide amplified sentiment against the United States' invasion of Cambodia and the Vietnam War in general. In particular, the camera of Kent State photojournalism student John Filo captured a fourteen-year-old runaway, Mary Ann Vecchio, screaming over the body of the dead student, Jeffrey Miller, who had been shot in the mouth. The photograph, which won a Pulitzer Prize, became the most enduring image of the events, and one of the most enduring images of the anti-Vietnam War movement.

Time magazine later concluded that "triggers were not pulled accidentally at Kent State."

Paul Murphy

Follow me on Twitter at @_prmurphy