FEBRUARY 10 — 1962 Spy exchange between U.S. and Soviet Union; 2014 RIP Leonard Knight, creator of Salvation Mountain; 1806 Frederick “The Ice King” Tudor begins his quest to sell ice to the tropics
FEBRUARY 10
1962 – Spy exchange between the US and Soviet Union. Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel. Powers was flying a recon mission in the Soviet Union when his U@ plane was shot down, thus leading to the U2 spy plane incident. The US denied having any part of spying, but Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev presented undeniable evidence that America was in fact spying.
Abel, on the other hand, was posing as an artist in Manhattan. When he was arrested investigators found a hollow pencil with notes inside it, a hollow wooden block that contained microfilm and a code book. Despite this, the Soviet Union denied any espionage. President JFK and Khruschev really wanted peace but were too busy measuring each other with a ruler make peace happen. This was an opportunity for both sides to improve relations. The exchange took place at the Gilenicker Bridge that linked east and West Berlin February 10, 1962.
2014 – Leonard Knight, artist of Salvation Mountain, passes away.
I believe he’s absolutely right when he says God is love, and God loves humankind, and perhaps I’ll find out for sure someday sitting next to Leonard having that discussion on a cloud somewhere in Heaven. Born November 1 1931 in Burlington VT, Leonard was odd. He didn’t have a lot of friends and was bullied. He was a loser. He enlisted in the military in 1951, served for a while, got out, did some odd jobs, and then one day Jesus talked back to him.
Age 36, he got into a debate with his sister regarding Jesus, went off into his VW bus, alone, and recited the Sinner’s Prayer Jesus, I’m a sinner. Please come upon my body and into my heart. “” He said it repeatedly, until it happened. Knight went to churches and explained his visions, but was discredited by deities who thought Knight to be a simpleton.
Meanwhile, this simpleton saw more than any deity could at that time. Knight decided to spread the word through the use of a homemade hot air balloon, stop laughing. He drove his van to Nebraska and went to work on the world’s largest hot air balloon that would read God Is Love. So he went and got fabric and material and tried to make this balloon but, thankfully it never inflated.
The Lord works in mysterious ways, it’s been said, and this balloon may not have been a good idea. Even if you did take a pair of mailed and female animals of every species on earth and squeeze it into the balloon. It still wouldn’t work. It’s quite possible God saw poor Leonard Knight being pushed around by life to the point where He decided to make the balloon not work and his van break down.
Anyway, Knight moved to Imperial Valley in so-Cal, where he could spread his message with gallons and gallons of spray paint, on Salvation Mountain. My understanding is that he didn’t purchase this land. Rather, it’s in a strange area of California called Inland, which also has Bombay Beach, which is a wasteland of old cars and scrap buses, Slab City, which has WWII vehicles rotting in the desert where squatters and other folks in RVs can stay for the winter.
Starting in 1985, Leonard grabbed some concrete, a shovel, sand, and lots of paint. He built and built and built on this land, with Biblical Versus and reminders to Repent, until the mountain he built collapsed. He started over, using adobe clay and straw. In the ‘90s, critics of the mountain called it a toxic waste dump, and threatened to have Leonard’s mountain of messages moved to a burial site in a Nevada waste dump.
But Leonard had some fans, and a little bit of Jesus, who got California senator Barbara Boxer on his side, calling the mountain in 2002, “a unique and visionary sculpture… a national treasure… profoundly strange and beautifully accessible, and worthy of the international acclaim it receives.” This would help the land to be preserved as a National Monument. But Leonard’s health continued to decline as he aged, and after 2010 was placed into a nursing home in El Cajon, about 15 miles from where I live actually.
On this day in 2014 Leonard Knight passed on to meet Jesus in person, and his legacy continues to live on. His mountain still needs a lot of paint, if you want to help out.
1976 – HSF goes up against MSL. First there was the American Revolution which led to the British losing 13 colonies. On February 9 1964, England would exact her revenge by sending the Beatles to thh Ed Sullivan theatre for a total British invasion. Americans didn’t stand a chance. Complete madness and hysteria shook the country. And then on February 10, 1976, an Ameican would get revenge against one of these Beatles.
In a very gutsy move, Bright Tuens Music Corp unleashed its fury on the quiet Beatle. Will we ever get along with our brethren across the pond? HSF, which stands for He’s So Fine, was a song by the Chiffons that went to #1 for 5 weeks in America in 1963. But in England, that song was lesser known as it made it only up to #12. Instead, the song From Me To You was the #1 song in Britian. When the Beatles broke up in 1970, George Harrison, aka the quiet Beatle, released All Things Must Pass, which was a huge commercial success fueled by the popularity of MSL, or My Sweet Lord. While George was singing to My Sweet Lord I really want to see you, Bright Tunes was singing to George, I really want to sue you. The judge finally determined it was a cause of subconscious plagiarism. And in the end, George never made a penny off his biggest hit.
1899 – Happy Anniversary Herbert Hoover and Lou Henry. She was a student of his at Stanford. They began their marriage in China and fell into the Boxder Rebellion of 1900. An international coalition was able to stop the rebellion, and the Hoovers spent their time between Califorinia and London. When Herber was elected president, she served as president of the Girl Scouts. She was a guest speaker on a radio broadcast and talked of volunteer opportunities. She spoke five languages, incidentally is the only First Lady to date that spoke an Asian language, and received eight honorary degrees throughout her life.
1992 – Mike Tyson convicted of raping beauty queen Desiree Washington. In July of 1991, the two met t an event for the Miss Black America pageant. They went back to his hotel, and that’s where he got in trouble, although he claimed the sex was mutual. Iron Mike would serve three years. I’m guessing the guards didn’t feed him well because when he got out he was so hungry he tried to eat Evander Holyfield’s ear. But that’s another story.