March 1971

Time for the next in my ongoing series of reviewing the Top 40 songs from 50 years ago.  I've been doing this version of the review for For 15 months, plan to continue indefinitely.  

  So what was March1971 like?

During the 4 weeks of March1971, there were 55 songs that spent time in the Top 40. As usual, lots of great stuff.  

As with February, Only 2 songs made it to #1 during the month.  The Osmonds' "One Bad Apple" spent the 1st 2 weeks at the top, finishing a 5 week stretch at the top.  Janis Joplin's posthumous release "Me and Bobby McGee" took over for the last 2 weeks.

Here's the top 10 songs of the month, ranked by average chart position over the 4 weeks of the month:

• Me And Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin - 1.75  
• Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me) - The Temptations - 3.25
• One Bad Apple - The Osmonds - 3.75
• She's A Lady - Tom Jones - 4.00
• For All We Know - Carpenters - 5.00
• Proud Mary - Ike & Tina Turner - 7.25
• Doesn't Somebody Want To Be Wanted - The Partridge Family - 9.25
• If You Could Read My Mind - Gordon Lightfoot - 9.5
• Mama's Pearl - Jackson 5 - 9.75
• Amos Moses - Jerry Reed - 10.5

Eighteen (17) songs made their Top 40 debut, some pretty notable songs.  Here they are (listed by entering position):

• Oye Como Va - Santana - 26
• No Love At All - B.J. Thomas - 28
• What's Going On - Marvin Gaye - 29
• Free - Chicago - 32
• Country Road - James Taylor - 34
• Joy To The World - Three Dog Night - 34
• Wild World - Cat Stevens - 35
• Another Day - Paul McCartney - 36
• Put Your Hand In The Hand - Ocean - 37
• You're All I Need To Get By - Aretha Franklin - 38
• Love's Lines, Angles And Rhymes - The 5th Dimension - 38
• Eighteen - Alice Cooper - 38
• One Toke Over The Line - Brewer And Shipley - 39
• Sit Yourself Down - Stephen Stills - 39
• Soul Power (Pt. 1) - James Brown - 40
• Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom Boom) - The Staple Singers - 40
• Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream) - Glen Campbell - 40

The Best Camera...

I've always liked the quote "the best camera is the one you have with you".   Which is not to say that you shouldn't strive to have decent equipment.  Rather, don't pass an opportunity just because you don't have your "best" camera with you.  

I had an appointment in Highland Illinois the other day, and we were a bit early.  So we decided to wander around the south side of town,  an area I'm not familiar with.  We found this cool old building, and my iPhone yielded a passable photo.

According to the internet, this the Highland Brewery (before prohibition) / Schott Brewing Co. (after prohibition), with the building dating to the late 1800's.  Closed as a brewery in 1947, and currently abandonded.

 

Worst Spam Ever?

 

I found this one in the Junk folder of my least used email:

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Mr Femi Brown <tes@aspirepp.com>

Tue 3/16/2021 11:07 AM

To: recipients:

This mail is been writing to you because we have come to understand that you have lost a lot of money all because you want to receive your fund well note that all that have been put to a stop as the federal government of Nigeria has promised to assist you with the sum of $5million in other to compensate you and all you have to do is fill the below information s.

1 full name

2 home phone and cell phone number

3 occupation

4 amount that was lost by you

Send this and get back at once.

Warm regards

Femi

- - - 

Where to start?  How about it is clearly a bulk email, sent to "recipients".

And the reply address doesn't match the sent from.  

Then the fact that it is 1 run-on sentence.  

And, the message is pretty much incomprehensible.

Just to make sure you know it's a scam, it's from Nigeria!

After a couple of readings, I wonder if this is targeted at people who have already fallen for a Nigerian scam, since it says the Nigerian govt is going to "put a stop" to your loss and "assist you".

I do like that I get to tell them how much money I lost, presumably not to exceed the $5M they mention.  

I guess people still bite on these, or they would still be trying.  On the other hand, I used to get these with some regularity, now they're pretty rare.

Cahokia Mounds

Beautiful day yesterday, and went for a nice hike at Cahokia Mounds.  As noted at the UNESCO World Heritage site:  "Cahokia Mounds, some 13 km north-east of St Louis, Missouri, is the largest pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico. It was occupied primarily during the Mississippian period (800–1400), when it covered nearly 1,600 ha and included some 120 mounds. It is a striking example of a complex chiefdom society, with many satellite mound centres and numerous outlying hamlets and villages. This agricultural society may have had a population of 10–20,000 at its peak between 1050 and 1150. Primary features at the site include Monks Mound, the largest prehistoric earthwork in the Americas, covering over 5 ha and standing 30 m high."

The Terraced front of Monk's Mound, seen from the west.  This was actually the last phot taken, towards the end of our 3.2 mile clockwise loop.

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Lots of deer in the wooded areas of the park.  They seemed remarkably uninterested in us, I had to make a sound to get this one to even acknowledge we were there.

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I liked the reflections here.  I guess you'd call this wetlands, they were sure wet lands on this day.  looking at the trail map, this is one of the larger "borrow pits", where they got the dirt to build the mounds.

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.

Looking west across Twin Mounds

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It's been years since I've been to Cahokia Mounds, and I didn't realize they had such an extensive collection of trails.  We'll have to check them out more!

Our walk, from the AllTrails Ap.  The green stars are the approximate photo locations:

 

I'm Rich (or not...)

 So, I was glancing one of at my spam folders and saw the following message, sent from JFK International Airport <info@jfkairport.com>:

ATTENTION! ATTENTION!

I received your Fund Consignment Box worth $10.5 million USD in my office and it is ready to be delivered to your home address or through bank transaction before two young men by name WILLIAM HUGES and JOHN CAMEL came with a sad news of your death, they also claim to be your relatives and they make enquiry to claim your Fund as it is their rightful inheritance. They told us that you gave them the permissions at the hospital bed to claim your money before you die we couldn't hand over your money to them until we find out that you are dead and if they are truly your sons please reconfirm with your information if you are still alive and if you know these two men . If you fail to do so , we will assume also that you're truly dead and we will be left with no other option than to hand the fund over to them .

WOW!!  $10.5 Million, and all I have to do is assure the folks at JFK Airport that I'm alive!  I should probably hurry, hurry to make sure those "young men" don't steal my money.

On the other hand, it's been 10 days since the airport sent the message, so it's certainly too late.  Oh well, huh?

- - - - -

Clearly, it is Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam....  This is a little bit of a twist, the promise that there's a lot of money physically in the USA, ready to pickup.  On the other hand,   And there's push to respond quickly, so those two imposters don't walk off with my money.  .  On the other hand, they didn't even bother to dream up some backstory as to why somebody sent me 

But wouldn't it be nice if random strangers actually sent you $10.5M?