BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE –THE AMERICANA ISSUE

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 "There are three things which I shall never forget 
about America: the Rocky Mountains,the Statue of
Liberty and Amos 'n' Andy."
                             George Bernard Shaw

"From hobo jungles to the White House, the
mundane world stopped for fifteen minutes
at seven o'clock on weekday evenings; movie
theaters piped in episodes between reels;
department stores carried the dialogue for
the convenience of late shoppers; factories
staggered shifts, auto thefts soared, plumbing
fell silent; and one of the representative
memories of the period involved walking along
a street on a spring evening and hearing the
same voices float from the open windows of
house after house."

Robert Taylor, writing about the popularity
of the Amos 'n' Andy radio show for (1930-
1932)in Fred Allen: His Life and Wit (Boston:
Little, Brown and Company, 1989)

Mr. Taylor points out "Never has a U.S. 
entertainment phenomenon rivaled Amos 'n'
Andy,which for a brief interval (1930-1932)
the total attention of the nation."
**

"With Special Field Order 15, he (Major General
William T. Sherman) directed that more than 
400,000 acres of confiscated Confederate land
to be distributed to formerly enslaved people.
Under the mandate, eventually named '40 Acres
and a mule,' nearly 40,000 Black Americans were
settled within six months.
   "The land grant was short-lived. After President
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, his successor
Andrew Johnson, moved to pacify white Confederate
planters-- by repealing Order 15 and returning 
their land."

Natalie Baszile. "The Indelible Legacy of Land"
in National Geographic (April 2021)

**


We price the cotton.
We spin the yarn.
We weave the fabric.
We dress the world.
Same as it ever was and as it will always be.

Welcome to Spindle City.
               
---Colonel Jefferson Cleveland,
                   
president of Cleveland Mill, speaking
 to visiting French Trade Council, 1886

Epigraph to Spindle City by Jotham Burrello 
(Ashland, Oregon: Black Stone Publishers, 2020)
**
Although Utah lies more than 500 miles from 
the nearest ocean, its official state bird
is the sea-gull.
**
The 1st U.S. President to have a phone placed
directly upon his desk in the White House was
Herbert Hoover in 1929. The phone number of
the White House that year was NA-1414.

***

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing
the matter with this, except that it ain’t so.


Mark Twain


I am killing only one man in this tragedy, now, and 
that is bad, for nothing helps out a play like bloodshed. 
But in a few days I propose to introduce the smallpox 
into the last act. And if that don’t work I shall 
close with a general massacre.
    


Mark Twain in his curtain speech at the opening of
The Gilded Age (September 16, 1874)
 

**
Coca-Cola was created in1886 by an ex-Confederate
soldier, John S.Pemberton. A bookkeeper, F.M.
Robinson, named the concoction Coca-Cola because
the taste was derived from a combination of cocoa
leaves and cola nuts. When the syrup went on sale
that first year, only 25 gallons were sold.Eventually,
in desperation, Pemberton sold out his interest in
the formula for $1,750.

** 

BADLANDS

What the French first dubbed
Mauvaises terres pour traverser,
All my life I have lived in the Badlands,
At least in my imagination,
Where gullies are filled

With bones of my enemies
(It will take more than death 
to bleach them)

Not really part of the World

Of treacherous copybooks,
I turn my thoughts to South Dakota,
To gunslingers & outlaws
Running ragged 
Over this land, 
with its mesas
 & saw-tooth grasses,
Jagged terrain & fluted hills,
What have I gained by being so docile?


Loose gravel scatters under my horses' hooves.
Nothing better than to run wild,
Bringing coronary thrombosis
To a huge posse  of critics.
Mostly, I do not wish 

To be like everybody else.

Ah! Yes! The Badlands!
 


Louis Phillips