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To Our Dear Clients and Friends and Their Families:
Freemon, Shapard & Story has an employee in our Austin office, Adrian Van Zelfden, who is an Attorney and CPA. For the last seven years he has been sending those of us in the firm and some of our clients and friends a monthly combination almanac that include lists of upcoming historic anniversaries, tax, and accounting items, and other information relevant for the month. Some are serious topics, some humorous. We have all been enjoying this so much that we wanted you to have this sample.
Please note that there is additional information linked to most dates, and you should feel free to click on them (links are underlined and in a different color). If you find this page difficult to read, it's probably because you are set up for plain text, and if so; you can go to <Options> and click on the HTML button.
Adrian's December almanac also includes a helpful year-end checklist for business owners. The links for the two-part checklist are at the conclusion of the email. We hope you enjoy and find this information useful!
Dennis Cannedy, CPA - Wichita Falls Office (940) 322-4436
Mac Cannedy, Jr., CPA - Wichita Falls Office
Bob Henry, CPA - Wichita Falls Office
Debby Humpert, CPA - Wichita Falls Office
Mike Herbert, CPA - Austin Office (512) 454-6010
Philip Wooten, CPA - Marble Falls Office (830) 798-9978
H. Ted Neeb, CPA - Windthorst Office (940) 423-6626
Tidbits in Time Almanac
December 2013
Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know?
In your palace warm, mighty king
Do you know what I know?
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold.
Let us bring Him silver and gold.
Let us bring Him silver and gold.
He will bring us goodness and light
Do You Hear What I Hear ~ Noel Regney and
Gloria Shane Baker (1962)
Day-by-Day
December 1, 1958 the Freeman Magazine published the superb essay by Leonard E. Read, "I Pencil." We are all in this together.
December 2, 1942 a team of scientists led by Italian refugee Enrico Fermi, working on the Manhattan Project, conducted the first ever small-scale fission reaction. Fermi had theorized that if you could split an atom with a neutron, it would produce more neutrons that would split other atoms eventually creating a chain reaction. Using a pile of uranium bricks and graphite bricks with cadmium rods in a squash court on the University of Chicago campus, his experiment worked, forever changing the world.
December 3, 1935 Did you hear about the neon sign that was accidentally left on for 62 years? On a related topic, inventor Georges Claude first presented neon lighting at the Paris Motor Show on December 3, 1910.
December 4, 1816 James Monroe was elected President (also see December 26th). He was from Virginia, as were all but one of the first five Presidents. In 1831 he died on the 4th of July, as did two other Presidents before him. His administration was marked by its isolation from European wars and its insistence on the prohibition of further colonies in North and South America (the Monroe Doctrine).
December 5, 1886 Rose Wilder Lane was born in De Smet, Dakota Territory. After considerable career success as a reporter, novelist, and ghostwriter, her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, approached her for help with a rough draft of what became the "Little House on the Prairie" series which became wildly successful. Rose Wilder Lane was one of the founders of the Libertarian Movement.
December 6, 1833 John Singleton Mosby was born in Powhatan County, Virginia. During the War Between the States, he began leading a mounted cavalry group of rangers conducting asymmetric warfare. His tactics were so successful that he moved up the ranks to Colonel, leading a group of raiders. He became known as the "Gray Ghost." After the war he became a valuable asset to his former enemy's commander, President Ulysses S. Grant, by serving in various Department of Justice roles and as consul to Hong Kong. Later in life Mosby became acquainted with a family which had a son who grew up to be General George S. Patton, Jr. The old man and the boy became friends and talked endlessly about battles, battlefields, strategies, and tactics.
December 7, 1863 Richard Warren Sears was born in Stewartville, Minnesota. He grew up with and was good friends with Almanzo Wilder, future husband of Laura Ingalls Wilder (see December 5th). He was one of the first direct-mail sellers; and his talent at marketing was manifested in the early versions of the Sears catalog. They got so good at it that you could even mail-order a house from Sears.
December 8, 1929 Vang Pao was born in Xiangkhouang Province, Laos, French Indochina. He joined the French military to protect the ethnic Hmong people and eventually rose to the rank of General. During the U.S. war in Vietnam, Vang Pao commanded the "Secret Army," also known as the "Hmong Army." Because the war was lost to the communists, he and many Laotians were granted asylum in the U.S. in 1975 and thereafter. He became the spokesman for the Laotian community in America.
December 9, 1906 one of the most important people in the computer age, Grace Brewster Murray Hopper was born in New York City. Starting her career as a Ph.D. math professor at Vassar, she enlisted in the U.S. Navy at the beginning of World War II, eventually retiring as a Rear Admiral. She wrote the first compiler and COBOL (Computer Business-Oriented Language). After finding a moth causing a short in the circuitry of one of her machines, she became known for the most popular computer geek joke about "de-bugging."
December 10, 1815 Augusta Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace (called the Enchantress of Numbers) was born in London, England. She is credited with writing the first algorithm to be processed on a machine (Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine). She thus became the first computer programmer.
December 11, 1688 King James II abdicated his throne by throwing the Great Seal of the Realm (or accidentally dropping it) into the Thames River and fleeing England. A tradition was begun in 1066 whereby the King or Queen would enact a decree in writing and use a metal seal pressed into melted wax. It was an act of treason to counterfeit the Great Seal. During modern times, seals in dark green wax are used to promote people to the aristocracy; blue seals sanction actions of the Royal family; and red seals designate the appointment bishops and approve other affairs of state.
December 12, 1915 Francis Albert Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. Known for ballads, he was also very good at Christmas songs.
December 13, 2013 is the premier of the "Hobbit 2." After all the installments of the Hobbit tale are finished, will this be the end of the line for the J.R.R. Tolkein books? Can the Silmarillion be made into a movie?
December 14, 2013 is the 114th playing of the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia. The USNA Middies lead the series over the USMA Cadets by 57 wins to 49 losses with 7 ties. This year the sponsors have gone all out on the uniforms.
December 15, 2010 a Smart Car was filled by 19 young women at the Defense Authority Creek Club in Karachi, Pakistan, for a world record.
December 16, 1653 Oliver Cromwell became the lord protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland. He did not wear a crown as a king. Instead of taxes, he sold off all the works of art that had been owned by the government. He revitalized the educational system. Though he was a Protestant, he instituted greater religious freedom than any British ruler before him, allowing Catholics to practice however they desired. The Parliamentary reforms that he put in place have lasted.
December 17, 1955 Carl Perkins wrote his big hit "Blue Suede Shoes" and recorded it less than 48 hours later at Sun Studios in Memphis. As goofy as the premise is, I always get a kick out of hearing the lyrics.
December 18, 1997 HTML 4.0 (code-named "Cougar") was released, and it kicked internet browsing into high gear. Just five years before there were only 50 web servers in the world and with the growth of the internet, previous versions of Hypertext Markup Language had become barely adequate.
December 19, 1868 was the birth of Eleanor Emily Hodgman Porter in Littleton, New Hampshire. She is best known as the author of "Pollyanna" (1913), about a young orphan girl who suffers tremendous adversity but remains optimistic. As successful as the book was, the 1960 Disney movie with Haley Mills, Jane Wyman, and Karl Malden did not do well financially despite many fans who remember it now, years later, as their favorite. I liked it.
December 20, 1943 Lt. Charlie Brown, a rookie pilot, was flying a B-17 bombing mission over Bremen, Germany and his aircraft was severely damaged. Luftwaffe Me-109 pilot and ace Franz Stigler decided not to finish him off. What a Christmas present! Both pilots survived the war and met each other some forty years later.
December 21, 1937 Jane Fonda was born in New York, New York. In 1979 her then husband, Tom Hayden, made the mistake of thinking he could extend his political future by organizing a tour to protest nuclear energy electric plants. Tom Pauken, a prominent Texas political figure, organized a counter-tour. Pauken's friend Zach Burkett uncovered a film clip of Jane Fonda sitting on an anti-aircraft gun in North Vietnam, with an ecstatic look on her face. After Tom Pauken's release of the photo, Jane Fonda made only two appearances on Tom Hayden's 1979 tour and dropped out, unwilling to face the public about that image. The picture in the public mind would not go away, and decades later Fonda issued a partial apology.
December 22, 1949 fraternal twin brothers Robin and Maurice Gibb were born in Douglas, Isle of Man. As part of the musical group the Bee Gees, they had many hit records. And they also recorded some Christmas songs.
December 23, 1812 was the birth of Samuel Smiles in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland. He is best known for his 1859 self-published book "Self-Help," which was mostly a compilation of anecdotes about people who pulled themselves out of poverty and discouragement by hard work and thrift.
December 24, 1941 Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt took a brief intermission during their war-planning meeting (code named "Arcadia" - Europe first; Asia later) and issued a joint Christmas message. Churchill remarked, "This is a strange Christmas Eve. Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and with the most terrible weapons which science can devise, the nations advance upon each other."
December 25, 2013 What is your favorite Christmas movie? Please use the <Reply> button to vote (there may be a prize). Don't be limited by this list, but to jog your memory, here are some suggestions:
Holiday Inn - Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire (1942) A thin plot strung together for lots of Irving Berlin songs.
Meet Me in St. Louis - Judy Garland and June Lockhart (1944) A Christmas Eve ball leads to a marriage proposal.
It's a Wonderful Life - Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed (1946) What would have been (the big if).
Miracle on 34th Street - Maureen O'Hara and a young Natalie Wood (1947) Is Santa Claus real?
The Bishop's Wife - Cary Grant and Loretta Young (1948) A church building program goes awry.
Scrooge (A Christmas Carol) - Alastair Sim (1951) A retelling of the Charles Dickens tale.
White Christmas - Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney (1954) An old General's Vermont Ski Lodge is failing.
A Christmas Story - Darren McGavin and Peter Billingsly (1983) Ralphie and the B-B gun by the brilliant Jean Shepherd.
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, and Randy Quaid (1989) No Christmas bonus this year.
The Santa Clause - Tim Allen and Judge Reinhold (1994) A far-fetched legal contract.
Elf - Will Ferrell and Bob Newhart (2003) An adoption gone terribly wrong.
Any one of dozens of Hallmark TV Christmas movies (see December 29th).
Any other Christmas movies not on this list - you get to pick.
While you are trying to decide, you might listen to this (extremely well done a cappella).
December 26, 1776 George Washington led a surprise attack on a group of Hessian soldiers in Trenton, New Jersey. Washington had wanted to arrive while it was still dark, but they reached the camp just after sunrise. It didn't matter, though. Most of the Hessians were still asleep, and they were taken completely by surprise. It was the first major victory Washington's army had managed and a tremendous morale booster. Only two American soldiers were wounded in the fighting, one of which was a young lieutenant named James Monroe (see December 4th).
December 27, 1822, was the birthday of Louis Pasteur in Dole, Franche-Comte, France, the discoverer of microbes. He did important work on molecular asymmetry, immunology, and vaccination. His most important contribution was to get people to go wash their hands with regularity.
December 28, 1879 William Lendrum (Billy) Mitchell was born in Nice, France to Milwaukee parents who were visiting there (was that bad timing or what?). He was the driving force behind the establishment of the theory of air power, though conflicts with superiors led him to be busted in rank from Major General down to Colonel and court-martialed. He was awarded the Medal of Honor and his rank was restored posthumously. The story of his trial was made into a 1955 Otto Preminger movie "The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell," starring Gary Cooper as Mitchell, with other cast members being Ralph Bellamy, Rod Steiger, Elizabeth Montgomery, Jack Lord, Peter Graves, and Darren McGavin. The U.S. Air Force Academy dining hall (with seating for 4,500 Cadets and serving 3 million meals per year) is named after him.
December 29, 1891 was the birth of businessman Joyce Clyde (J.C.) Hall born in David City, Nebraska. In 1910 he and his brothers moved to Kansas City with shoeboxes full of picture postcards and began selling them to dealers around the Midwest. He started manufacturing his own cards and founded the Hallmark Card Company, which is now the largest greeting-card company in the world. Despite its size, it is still privately owned.
December 30, 1865 Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India, and grew up there and in England. As a young man, he became a reporter in an area in which the British were fighting a war with Afghanistan (also known as the Graveyard of Empires). After six years at that job, and writing fiction and poetry in his spare time, he returned to England. His writing made him an unwilling celebrity. He finally settled in Vermont, where he wrote some of his best known works.
December 31, 2013 with the New Year fast approaching, if you are worried about maybe losing your way, there are some giant arrows to point you in the right direction.
For Business Owners Only:
Fun Contest. Business owners sometimes have to attempt the ridiculous to accomplish the miraculous. Have you ever come up with a plan for your business that seemed like a good idea at the time? Did you test that idea and really try hard to make it work? Was it a spectacular failure? Did you learn anything from the experience? Will you ever make that mistake again? Can you look back at those days and laugh?
If you can address those questions on an entertaining two and a half minute YouTube video, you could win a $10,000 prize. If you think you want to try or if you want more information about it, here is the link.
So far there is only one entry, and it's a pretty good story about How Not to Expand Your Business. The owner of Grimball Jewelers in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Berkeley Grimball, tells us his story of woe, from which he recovered. Go buy something from him.
More than a century ago Samuel Smiles (see December 23rd) said, "Probably he who never made a mistake, never made a discovery."
Then there is Shelley Crowther who isn't going for the grand prize, but who wants to get enough <Likes> to win a free Wizard Academy course. Her video is great.
Special Information for Business Owners. We have prepared End of the Year Checklist specifically for business owners so that you can finish out your year without missing any important tax information. Part 1 Part 2
From me and mine to you and yours, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
E. Adrian Van Zelfden,
Keeper of Days
(512) 346-3393
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