A Trail Without A Trace

Toward the end of the 19^th century, Frenchman Louis Le Prince boarded a train in Dijon headed for Paris. A pioneering inventor, he’d taken many trips to America to secure coveted patents on his latest inventions, and planned to return to finalize his patent pending on the first true Moving Picture Camera – before he vanished.

Le Prince was not on the train when it stopped in Paris, nor were any of his belongings. It was as if he’d never boarded in the first place, except that, as a person of notability, people had seen and talked to him. Though the entire train was searched and every passenger questioned, even Scotland Yard was baffled.

There was, however, plenty of speculation. Had Le Prince committed suicide by jumping off the train? Along with all of his belongings? Had his brother murdered him with an elaborate magic trick? Had his family requested his disappearance due to financial difficulties? Those in the industry had different ideas.

The competition was fierce in the cinematography field and none more so than one American trailblazer who actively obstructed every U.S. patent Le Prince ever sought.  In return, Le Prince assisted in the sharing of pertinent information belonging to the trailblazer to a highly interested group of European patent seekers.   

Consequently, with Le Prince out of the picture (no pun intended), the American trailblazer got the pending patent and possibly many more that might have belonged to Le Prince. Nonetheless, the trailblazer undeniably made quite a name for himself with prior and subsequent inventions of his own; which the world still appreciates today, but eventually Le Prince was all but forgotten.

Until 2008, when a graduate student perusing a timeworn book by Thomas Edison on motion picture history in the New York Library archives found this astonishing handwritten note in the pages, dated September 20, 1890:

“Eric called me today from Dijon. It has been done. Prince is no more. This is good news, but I flinched when he told me. Murder is not my thing. I am an inventor and my inventions for moving images can now move forward.” 

What do you think happened to Louis Le Prince? 

"Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people." - David Sarnoff, Pioneer of American Commercial Radio and TV   

References:

cracked.com

sciencedirect.com

Friends of the Famous - V

Rather than regale you with the story of the Roman poet Virgil, who was so incensed when his land was to be considered eminent domain unless he had a family member buried on it that he constructed an elaborate mausoleum wherein he laid to rest a housefly, thus saving his land from the greedy hands of the government,

 I share with you one man’s humorous and poignant journey with a “non-friend” cat he called Valdez.

I took Bob Valdez for a last ride on Tuesday. When I carried him out to the truck, he wanted to know where we were going. It was a rhetorical question. It's hard to fool a cat.

I answered him anyway. "We're going to the vet's."

"Good idea," he said. "I feel awful."

Sick and hurting, he still wanted to drive. I unlatched him from the steering wheel and put him on the passenger seat. He crawled onto the back and perched next to a headrest.

We didn't go straight to the vet's. I drove Valdez around the neighborhood for a last look. Yellow eyes studied the old ambush sites where he murdered anything that came by smaller than a dachshund. There was the tree he stayed in whenever my wife kicked him out over some felony to the furniture. Lately, he'd become incontinent and increasingly defiant. We would come home and find his business in a closet. He'd lie and say the dog did it.

His politics had shifted. A staunch Democrat for years, Bob had started tuning into McCain/Palin ads. We both had. But where I was only looking at Sarah, Bob actually seemed to be listening to John. I had no idea how old Bob was. He showed up at the house one day 11 years ago and just moved in. We never became what most people would call friends. Ours was a relationship based on a mutual distrust of most things.
 

Bob was intensely suspicious of closed doors, rearranged furniture, blinds, distant sirens and the doorbell. He hated dogs, other cats, loud noises, bright lights, rubber bands and squirt guns.

His worst foes were grandkids. He'd lay into them if they got too close. It was hard to blame him. You wouldn't like someone twice your size towing you around a hardwood floor by your butt, either.

He attacked our youngest granddaughter a couple of weeks ago, leaving a long scratch at the corner of her eye. And that, as they say, was that.

When I pulled into the vet's, Bob climbed off the seatback and into my lap. He'd never done that before. I patted his head. He hooked his claws into my legs. "You know," I said. "Mice in heaven are fatter and the dogs are dumber."

"Who cares?" he replied. "Only morons go to heaven. I'm going to hell. That's where the action is."

I carried him inside. In an exam room, the vet checked Bob over. We discussed the options, all of them delaying tactics against a growing agony. Bob sat in the window and ignored us.

When the time came, I told him I was sorry.

"Don't be," he said. "I'd do the same for you if I could." 

I have no idea where cats go when they die. Maybe like people it's to different places. If so, I'm probably going to see Bob again.

By Robert Kirby, Salt Lake City Tribune         The Infinite Cat

No questions this time folks, but I’d love to know your thoughts.

Lost and Found - for hearts

Hi Everyone! Today I’m excited to be a part of Lost and Found – a special Valentine’s blogfest collaborated by Arlee at Tossing it Out and Guillie Castillo at Quiet Laughter.  Joining them will be Elizabeth Seckman,  Yolanda Renee,  Denise Covey.  and  Alex J Cavanaugh and an entire list of participating bloggers!  

Have fun and enjoy, everyone! Because after all, “there are no limitations when it comes to love…” ~ Arlee Bird

Chains of a Rolling Stone

The riveting roar of the river phoned

And gladly, I went—headlong.

Attaching as moss to a rolling stone

Enraptured by hymns of birdsong

Basking through seasons, we flourished

‘Neath cottonwood canopies; dense

Little was ever discouraged

and everything seemed to make sense

Till sunrays were hindered by branches that swayed

As wind gusted foul-natured scents

from the swell of the river, collecting its prey;

ending our game of pretense.

Oh, still do I roam the kitten-soft banks,

Remains of my haven, my home

afloat with content, and free of the shanks

once chained to a rolling stone.

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened” ~ Dr. Seuss