Welcome to Life and Random Thinking ♥

I hope you enjoyed the two parter posts recently with insights into the depression bank robbers – Bonnie & Clyde, click here for Part 1. I know I found the posts interesting and educating.

I have them in the same category – Three Little Random Thoughts, and I list the various categories along the right hand margin of the blog. ♥

Today I hope enjoy my post because it includes Blood, Bullets and a Bull Moose.

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Milwaukee, Wisconsin – October 14, 1912. Theodore Roosevelt was no longer President of the United States, however he was still an imposing figure, often described as a Bull Moose.

That cool Monday he wore his thick Army overcoat, steel rim glasses and strode purposely to the lectern.

In his pocket was his 50 page speech still rolled over, but now it had bullet holes in it. Soon he revealed his shirt to the shocked audience, blood covering the right side of the chest.

Just minutes before, a would-be assassin had pointed a .32 calibre Colt revolver at Theodore’s chest and fired. At only five feet away the assassin probably felt success was assured, Theodore Roosevelt was shot by the bullet on the right side of his chest. Wounded but surprisingly alive!

Theodore’s stenographer seized the man, placed him in a half nelson and grabbed his right wrist to prevent a second attempt.

Theodore (Ted) seemed the coolest one of all, and told the mob not to hurt the almost killer and to instead turn him over to the police.

Hustled away to a private spot, Ted checked his own injury. He was a far sight from the sickly child he once was. Ted, known as Bull Moose, now had a barrel chest and thick muscles around his neck and back even though it had been years since his calvary days and cattle ranching in North Dakota.

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt knew immediately his injuries were not serious because of his hunting knowledge. Taking off his dense overcoat he could feel the dime sized bullet hole in his chest. Inside his coat, slowing the bullet had been the folded pages of his 50 page speech and his steel-reinforced eyeglass case.

Ted went ahead and gave his speech that day, over ruling the organizers who wanted him to go immediately to the hospital. The aspiring assassin’s bullet remained lodged him for the rest of his days, a memento of the day he carried with him, a day unlike any other in his life.

I am positive none of the people present forgot his speech that day either, as he spoke for 50 minutes and his bloody shirt, the bullet torn pages were all inscribed forever in the memories of those there to witness them.

History is interesting, don’t you think?

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My interest in Theodore Roosevelt arose from his speech entitled “Citizenship in a Republic” speech which he gave in Paris, France on April 23, 1910. However, mostly I think of it as “The Man In the Arena” speech, it’s amazing !

Part of that speech is often memorized and quoted, and I shared it once in a speech contest. I think resonates timelessly encouraging me to “dare greatly“

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

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Lastly I will share a few photographs from the western shore of Skaha Lake where I walked a few days ago. It was a beautiful sunny day, despite the low temperature and it felt wonderful to be outdoors.

Thanks for reading – sincerely, David