Septoplasty surgery tomorrow

Tomorrow I go under the knife for only the second time in my life. The first was my fundoplication surgery in 2003 to fix my hiatal hernia. Tomorrow’s surgery fixes my deviated septum, or in other words, sinus surgery.

As my ENT doctor, Dr. John Garside, explained, I’m one of those people who were born with an extra sinus, this one on my right side. This sinus eventually grew to the point where it shifted the septum (the divider between my sinus cavities) almost all the way over to the left side, restricting my left nostril’s breathing passage. The steps of the surgery are to remove part of the right sinus, carefully detach the tissue lining the left nostril, remove some of the left nostril’s cartilage, then put everything back together. The procedure takes about 45 minutes under general anaesthesia (likely propofol).
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Saying hello to Isaac Hunter’s Tavern

Isaac Hunter’s Tavern with roads overlayed

After staying up too late Thursday night searching maps for Isaac Hunter’s Tavern, Friday morning I pulled up a Google Search which corrected me on the actual location. My friend and fellow armchair historian, Mike Legeros, took my 2010 post and ran with it, connecting with Hunter descendent Betsy Hunter Amos along the way.

Betsy is a 7th generation neice of Isaac Hunter who connected with me via email shortly after my 2010 posts, offering photos and family history to fill in the blanks. What Mike and Betsy showed me was that the building I thought was the tavern is not the tavern at all. The real tavern is the building on the far western end of the property, not the ramshackle building I saw behind the home in the 1959 aerial photograph. The grand home itself was the home of Judge Biggs and went by the equally grand name of Hardimont. You can read more about it on Mike’s excellent website.

Tavern site as it appears today. Stones and bricks are on the right.

I visited the North Raleigh Hilton at lunch Friday to see what I could see. As Betsy said, the hotel library has a wonderful display of tavern photographs as well as artifacts from the tavern. One handy annotated photo showed how the tavern was originally positioned at the “top of the key” or driveway, across from where Hardimont was built. You can easily imagine it as it once stood between the “Lafayette Oaks” in the photographs. Judge Biggs moved the tavern out from in front of his stately home in 1936 and put it 100 yards west. It remained there until sometime in the early 1970s, when it was bulldozed.

Isaac Hunters Tavern foundation stones

With a little time on my hands, I decided to venture into the woods behind the hotel to see if I could locate the old site. After a few minutes of wandering I came across a clearing. To the left of me was a few mounds of raised dirt. A closer look showed a pile of large stones and brick. It was the foundation of the old tavern!

I whipped out my cellphone camera and snapped photos of the bricks and stones. A concrete bench that once provided respite in the beautiful backyard gardens lay in sections to the left of me. Near it is a set of stones seemingly configured in a step formation. Could these be the old horse mounting stones that once stood outside the tavern?

Bricks from foundation of Isaac Hunter’s Tavern

Broken bench from gardens, and are these the mounting stones on the right?

I quickly turned on my phone’s GPS and got a fix of the foundation site. After returning to work, I compared my coordinates to the historical photographs. Bingo, it fits!

For those who would like to visit what’s left of the tavern, it can be found at 35°49’52.3″ N 78°37’21.5″ W. Surprisingly, its last location is not on hotel property but the parcel directly behind it (roughly 900 St. Albans Drive), so if were bulldozed due to potential development that development never came. Perhaps it was demolished after being deemed a hazard.

Accounts say that local historian (and current Apex resident) J.C. Knowles was supposed to take ownership of the tavern but it was bulldozed before he got it. I will try to get up with Mr. Knowles to see what he might know or remember.

The final resting place of Isaac Hunter’s Tavern

Update 3 Dec 10:25 PM: I am wrong about the location while Mike Legeros is correct. The best news of the day, though, is that I found the remains of the old tavern building! I will post details as soon as I can get Google Earth to behave. Sorry for the wait!

Courtesy North Carolina State Archives

If you’ll recall, five years ago I set out on an Internet quest to determine exactly where Isaac Hunter’s tavern once stood. The Tavern was of important historical significance because it when North Carolina’s state capital was being created, legislators decided it should be within ten miles of the Tavern. Sadly, the Tavern met the same fate that many of Raleigh’s historical properties met in the early 1970s: it fell into disrepair and was later bulldozed. Also sad is that I never completed my quest.

Tonight I got an email from Steve Hall, who found my blog post and asked if I’d ever actually solved the mystery. Steve’s email prompted me to actually finish what I started, so tonight I present to you a few additional historical photographs of Isaac Hunter’s tavern, courtesy of some resource links that Steve sent me (thanks, Steve!).

Here is the Tavern as it appeared on an aerial photograph taken in 1959. Wake Forest Road runs north and south on the right side of the photo and you can see St. Albans Road stretching into the northeastern corner. The curving driveway leads up to a larger, more modern home that was built on the tavern property. In the red circle to the west of the home is the tavern, based on some time I spent matching up the tavern roofline. I learned that near the end of its existence the tavern was used as a horse stable, so its spot here behind the main home seems to support that.

Isaac Hunter’s Tavern, 1959.

The funny thing is, an aerial photograph taken in 1938 does not seem to show the tavern at this same spot. In fact, I’m not sure where the tavern was at this point as I’ve scoured this imagery and can find nothing I can match up with it. My guess is that the tavern might be just south and slightly east of the main house along the curving driveway but I don’t really know for sure. It could actually be in the same spot as it is in 1959 but it sure doesn’t look like it to me.

Isaac Hunter’s Tavern, 1938.

So where would you go if you wanted to stand in the spot where the tavern last was? Since I only know where it last was and have not located its original spot, I can only show you the last location:

Isaac Hunter’s Tavern today

Here’s the same spot with the current Google Maps satellite imagery added:

The location of Isaac Hunter’s Tavern

A smile crossed my face as I was lining up these images. Benson Drive started off as the dirt path that split the home and the tavern! Also delightful is the fact that the land where the tavern itself last stood is still (for now) undeveloped! There still could be historical nails and/or other artifacts to be found at this spot. Hurray!

I want to thank Steve for prompting me to finish my quest and for the handy links he provided: the 1938 aerial and 1959 aerial sets from UNC’s collection of USDA Historical Aerial Photos. For reference, I used images 6W_145 from the 1959 imagery and 13-212 from the 1938 imagery.

No Damned Computer is Going to Tell Me What to Do – The Story of the Naval Tactical Data System, NTDS

This is an excellent (and extensive) history of the Navy’s Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS), the computerized mapping of threats. I worked with NTDS in the Navy but never knew how its development not only revolutionized naval warfare but also spurred the development of modern digital computers.

It was 1962. Some of the prospective commanding officers of the new guided missile frigates, now on the building ways, had found out that the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) was going to be built into their new ship, and it did not set well with them. Some of them came in to our project office to let us know first hand that no damned computer was going to tell them what to do. For sure, no damned computer was going to fire their nuclear tipped guided missiles. They would take their new ship to sea, but they would not turn on our damned system with its new fangled electronic brain.

We would try to explain to them that the new digital system, the first digitized weapon system in the US Navy, was designed to be an aid to their judgment in task force anti-air battle management, and would never, on its own, fire their weapons. We didn’t mention to them that if they refused to use the system, they would probably be instantly removed from their commands and maybe court martialed because the highest levels of Navy management wanted the new digital computer-driven system in the fleet as soon as possible, and for good reason.

Secretary of the Navy John B. Connally, a former World War II task force fighter director officer, and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh A. Burke were solidly behind the new system, and were pushing the small NTDS project office in the Bureau of Ships to accomplish in five years what would normally take thirteen years. The reason behind their push was Top Secret, and thus not known even by many naval officers and senior civil servants in the top hierarchy of the navy. Senior navy management did not want the Soviet Union to know that task force air defense exercises of the early 1950s had revealed that the US surface fleet could not cope with expected Soviet style massed air attacks using new high speed jet airplanes and high speed standoff missiles.

Source: First-Hand:No Damned Computer is Going to Tell Me What to DO – The Story of the Naval Tactical Data System, NTDS – Engineering and Technology History Wiki

Thanksgiving at sea

It was Thanksgiving in 1991, a time near the end of my tour aboard the USS Elliot (DD-967). We were nearing the end of our three-month Persian Gulf deployment, bored nearly shitless with endless tacking around the warm bathtub known as the Persian Gulf. I was on the far side of the world from my home, sick of looking at skies that were either hazy with desert heat and sand or blackened with the smoke from still-burning fires in Iraq’s oil fields. It seemed the end of my enlistment couldn’t get here fast enough.

In spite of my homesickness, in spite of the boredom of the Gulf, in spite of all the griping I could have been doing that day, I knew down on the mess decks awaited a scrumptious Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, ham, stuffing, and the works. I was healthy and fit and (like my shipmates) took great cooks, air conditioning and my bed with me everywhere I deployed.
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Sixteen years and counting

It was sixteen years ago that Kelly and I got married. It’s been a blast! I’m lucky to have met such a smart, confident, funny, and all around amazing woman. Oh, and good looking, too! I’m still hopelessly, goofily in love with her.

10 Military Habits That Make Service Members Stand Out

We all know the tell-tale signs of a military service member: high-and-tight haircut, camo backpack, polo shirt and cargo shorts combination, unit t-shirts or hats, decals on cars, and of course, “Affliction” t-shirts. These are all easy ways to spot military folks in public places. And while many of us try not to stand out, there are still subtle indicators. Most civilians would never notice these things, but they are dead giveaways to those who have served. Here are the top ten.

Source: 10 Military Habits That Make Service Members Stand Out

News and Observer and I part ways

Over the summer the bank canceled the credit card used by thieves on their New Jersey shopping spree. This was the same card used to pay for our News and Observer subscription, and on 12 July our subscription officially expired. The N&O continued to deliver papers and supplemented that with several letters in the mail asking us to call them. After repeatedly leaving messages for Miriam Widger, the newspaper’s “Audience Retention and Collection Agent,” she finally called me back.

Miriam told me we could continue to subscribe for the incredibly low price of $351 for 52 weeks.

“Gosh,” I responded, “I see on your website that we can get a new subscription for only $109.20 for 52 weeks. Why would you charge your long-time customers three times as much as a new subscriber?”
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17 Oct 2000: USS Kitty Hawk gets buzzed by Russian jets

The USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) get overflown by Russian jets. This should never happen.

The photo above was taken by a Russian reconnaissance jet as it buzzed 200 feet above the USS Kitty Hawk as the ship steamed in the Sea of Japan on 17 October 2000. As you can see, the flight deck was far from being ready to launch CAP aircraft. According to some reports, it took over 40 minutes for the Kitty Hawk to launch any aircraft in response to this overflight. Even then, rumor has it that all the ship could muster to launch was a lowly EA-6B Prowler, no match for the Russian jets.

The skipper on that day was Captain Allen G. Myers, who had assumed command 27 May 2000. Ordinarily when a skipper gets caught with his figurative pants down like Captain Myers apparently did, he winds up pushing pencils at some far-flung outpost, never to be seen again. Myers bucked that trend, though, retiring as a Vice Admiral before beginning a lucrative career last year as a vice president at a defense contractor.

Once upon a time I admired the Navy’s flavor of military justice, with it’s deep tradition of a captain’s accountability. By custom as well as international and maritime law a captain at sea is essentially God. With this awesome responsibility comes ultimate accountability. Or so I thought. My first skipper, uh … “bent” our ship, sliced through our sonar array, and made other mistakes that would’ve sunk mere mortal captains. His Naval Academy buddy happened to be Secretary of the Navy, though, and having friends like that makes mistakes magically disappear. My CO went on to retire with three stars and eventually I realized that military justice is a crock.
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The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life – The New York Times

Studies show that moderate exercise such as walking done just an hour per day significantly increases your longevity (and, hey, makes you feel better, too).

Exercise has had a Goldilocks problem, with experts debating just how much exercise is too little, too much or just the right amount to improve health and longevity. Two new, impressively large-scale studies provide some clarity, suggesting that the ideal dose of exercise for a long life is a bit more than many of us currently believe we should get, but less than many of us might expect. The studies also found that prolonged or intense exercise is unlikely to be harmful and could add years to people’s lives.

Source: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life – The New York Times