Groundhog Day

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February 2nd, 2006

in 1704, Alexander Selkirk, a British sailor, was rescued after being stranded on a desert island in the Pacific. Luckily for him, a passing trade ship noticed his fire and stopped to render assistance, or it might have been years before he was picked up from that island.

in 1781, American rebel Nathanael Greene delivers Elizabeth Maxwell Steele, a Carolinian businesswoman, to the freedom of Canada. Mrs. Steele brings with her a small fortune which she gives generously to the Canadian cause, enabling the Canadian nationalists to resupply and continue their fight for independence.

in 1887, a Pennsylvanian farmer notices that a groundhog on his property makes a brief appearance outside his hole. The groundhog sees his shadow, and hides back in his burrow. When 6 weeks of winter follow, the farmer, Josiah Cotton, watches that groundhog the next year. When the groundhog is wrong the following year, Mr. Cotton kills the furry little beast and turns him into a hat.

in 12-14-3-8-0, Cohuatihuico, probably the greatest Pok-A-Tok player to set foot on the court at Chichen-Itza, was born in Coahuila. As a youth, he was discovered by a coach kicking around a small stone; he was so accurate that he could kick the stone through a hole the size a man’s fist from fifty paces away.

in 1904, a surreptitious probe is sent from the Congress of Nations embassy ship back to earth. In it, Ambassador Li’Kanto’Mk informs the C.N. that the current inhabitants of the Mlosh homeworld, while sprung from the same genes as the Mlosh, are a dangerous breeding experiment that went awry, causing the original Mlosh colonists to flee to earth. Li’Kanto’Mk is afraid that now that they have discovered their progenitors on another planet, that they will follow the Mlosh there.

in 1918, a day out from shore, Mikhail von Heflin is set upon by a few British boys on the Caesar Augustus. He manages to fight them off without seriously injuring any of them, but very nearly kills a boy who calls him a “Boche" before his wife, Velma Porter, can restrain him. Milo Cranston, who had urged the boys on, makes note of the fight, and the ease with which von Heflin dispatched his attackers.

in 1925, novelist James Dickey was born in Atlanta, Georgia. A noted poet, Dickey was honored throughout the south and became a poet-in-residence at the University of South Carolina. He dabbled in prose occasionally, but the rejection he suffered for his never-published novel Deliverance put him off the form. From rumors swirling about the novel, it involved some sort of sodomy, and publishers felt that no audience would accept that.

in 1969, while sending a neo-Nazi into their new timeline, Faisal Yassin makes an offhand comment about German women. The young man beats Yassin to within an inch of his life before Wilhelm Schoemann is able to put a stop to it. Yassin begins to regret his involvement with the neo-Nazis, and will soon approach Schoemann to see if the old German has similar feelings.

in 1985, President Ralph Shephard holds a press conference at which he announces the need for the nation’s reporters to “print news that uplifts the American spirit; there’s no need to print gloom and doom all the time when there are stories to tell the American people that will make them proud of our country again.” Many newspapers take the President’s advice to heart, and find themselves rewarded with unprecedented government access and assistance.

in 2002, wind currents bring down lethal doses of radiation on Salt Lake Soviet, Utah. Although most of the population has fled east, thousands fall ill, and almost 500 people die from diseases caused by the radiation. The death toll from the People’s Republic of America’s desperate explosion of a Nevadan nuclear dump is just beginning.

in 2005, Jeanne Best chances a call into her office from a public pay phone in Bastrop, Texas. She wants to find out if her boss knows about her involvement with the Save Earth movement. Speaking with her employer, attorney Jack Armstrong, she is lulled into a semi-hypnotic state by the sound of his voice. Before she knows what she has done, she has told him exactly where she is. Still in a daze, she goes back to the Save Earth safe house.

Timelines in today's post: Canadian Independence, the Oueztecan timeline, the Mlosh, von Heflin, the GZR, the Ralph Shephard timeline, and Communist America.

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