Author: Richard Daybell

A writer of fiction and other stuff who lives in Vermont where winters are long and summers as short as my attention span.

NOVEMBER 3, 1883: STAGECOACH POETICA

Posted on by Richard Daybell

STAGECOACH POETICA

The California Gold Rush was in full swing by the latter half of the 19th century. Stagecoaches and Wells Fargo wagons were hauling gold out of blackbartCalifornia by the, well by the wagonload.  All this gold was just too much of a temptation for some folks, transplanted New Yorker Charles Boles being one such tempted soul.

In the summer of 1875, Boles donned a white linen duster, put a flour sack over his head and a black derby on top of that and set about robbing the gold from a stagecoach leaving the mining city of Copperopolis. Boles stepped out in front of the stage, aimed a shotgun at the driver, forcing him to stop and demanding him to “Throw down the box.” The driver was reluctant to comply until he saw several gun barrels aimed at them from nearby bushes. He calculated the odds, and turned over the strongbox. Boles whacked the strongbox with an ax until it disgorged its treasure, which Boles hauled off while the stagecoach driver remained a captive of Boles’ fellow conspirators. After this standoff had lasted a bit too long, he moved to retrieve the empty strongbox and found that the rifles pointing at him were nothing but sticks tied to branches of the bushes.

Boles was rather amazed at how easy this robbery business was and so, adopting the moniker Black Bart, he embarked on a life of crime. He became a bit of a legend due to his daring, the fact that he never rode a horse and leaving bits of verse “po8try” behind at each robbery:

I’ve labored long and hard for bread —

For honor and for riches —

But on my corns too long you’ve tred,

You fine-haired sons of bitches.

His victims also called him a gentleman. Once after ordering a stage drive to throw down the box, a frightened passenger tossed him her purse. Bart returned it to her, saying that he wanted only the strongbox and the mailbag.

Black Bart the Po8 robbed his last stagecoach on November 3, 1883 — that is, attempted to rob his last stage. Wells Fargo, not amused at having lost close to half a million to bandits, had secreted an extra guard on the stage. Bart escaped the trap but dropped his derby and left several other incriminating items behind a nearby rock. Within days, Black Bart had been apprehended.

During his eight years as a highwayman, Black Bart never shot anyone, nor did he ever rob an individual passenger. He stole a grand total of $18,000. Sentenced to six years in prison, he served four before receiving a pardon and disappearing into retirement.

 

November 2, 1886: Brother, Can You Spare a Vote

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Robert Love Taylor, “Bob,” the Democratic candidate for governor of Tennessee, defeated his Republican opponent, Alfred Alexander Taylor, “Alf,” on November 2, 1886. One might guess that two candidates with the same last name would confuse voters at the polls, especially since they looked a lot alike, they both played the fiddle and they called the same two people mom and pop. Bob bested Alf, his older brother, 125,151 to 109, 837, in what would be called the “War of the Roses” because Bob’s fans all carried white roses and Alf’s carried red.  (Or was it the other way around?”) Their pappy, when asked to run as the Prohibition Party candidate, chose not to, evidently deciding that he would be one Taylor too many.

The brothers were born in Happy Valley, Tennessee, Alf in 1848, Bob in 1850. Their father, a Methodist minister, was a Whig; their mother, a gifted pianist was a Democrat. Bob and Alf both found their way into politics, lecturing and writing. They fiddled together, and collaborated on  a fairly successful play. Their gubernatorial campaign was nothing like the typical rough and tumble political contest. They campaigned together, lacing their political banter with humorous stories, then fiddling while their audiences danced.  It is rumored that a good portion of the electorate tossed coins to choose a candidate.

Bob served as governor from 1887 to 1891 and again from 1897 to 1899. He also served as U.S. senator from 1907 until his death in 1916. Alf was elected governor in the 1920’s. He died in 1931.

November 1, 1609: I Was Just Drinking a Health and Wound Up Debauched and Drunk

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Sir Matthew Hale, born November 1, 1609, was an influential English legal scholar, barrister and judge throughout a good part of the 17thhealth1 century. Perhaps he was a bit of a stick in the mud as well. When he died, he left a rather unusual bit of advice for his grandchildren: “I will not have you begin or pledge any health, for it is become one of the greatest artifices of drinking, and occasions of quarreling in the kingdom. If you pledge one health, you oblige yourself to pledge another, and a third, and so onwards; and if you pledge as many as will be drank, you must be debauched and drunk.”

A fellow Englishman Charles Morton agreed, going so far as to dedicate a book to the subject: The great evil of health-drinking, or, A discourse wherein the original evil, and mischief of drinking of healths are discovered and detected, and the practice opposed with several remedies and antidotes against it, in order to prevent the sad consequences thereof. Catchy title, but most people probably just asked their booksellers for that book by Morton.

The French chimed in with their thoughts as well, the writer/philosopher Voltaire saying that “the custom arose among barbarous nations” (England) and that drinking to the health of one’s guests was “an absurd custom, since we may drink four bottles without doing them the least good.”

And of course they were all right. The slippery slope led to toasting any number of things on any number of occasions in addition to one’s health. The word toast, incidentally, crept into the language as a result of putting pieces of toast in the drinks (to make them healthier?).

One of the earliest known toasts or healths was ancient Saxon. At a banquet hosted by one Hengist, a mercenary in the employ of King Vortigern, the beautiful daughter of Hengist lifted a glass of wine to the king and said: “Lauerd kining, wacht heil” (Lord King your health). The king then drank and replied: “Drine heil” (Here’s looking at you, kid).

OCTOBER 31, LONG AGO: THE DEVIL MADE HIM DO IT

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One might assume that the carving of jack-o’-lanterns was a clever promotion by the Association of Pumpkin Growers because there just weren’t enough pumpkin pies being eaten in this world. But as it turns out, folks have been making jack-o’-lanterns at Halloween for centuries. And that there’s a proper legend to explain the practice.

It all started with an Irish fellow called Stingy Jack. In addition to being cheap, Jack was a drunkard and a ne’er-do-well. During one of Jack’s benders, the Devil came calling on him with every intention of claiming his miserable soul. As a last request, Jack asked the Devil to have a  drink with him. (It’s a relief to learn the Devil drinks; Hell might not be so bad after all.)

Naturally, Stingy Jack being Stingy Jack had no intention of paying for the drinks, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks, and the Devil agreed. (It would appear that the Devil is not the brightest candle in Hell.) Once the Devil had changed himself into a coin, Jack stuffed him into his pocket next to a crucifix, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack, now having all the chips in this game, agreed to free the Devil, on the condition that he would not bother Jack for ten years and that, should Jack die during this time, he would not claim his soul. (Jack wasn’t all that shrewd either.)

Drunkenness tends to make time fly, and before Jack knew it, ten years had passed.   And the Devil, ever prompt, came calling for Jack’s soul once again. And no last drink this time, the Devil said. Then perhaps just one small apple before I go, Jack begged. The Devil acquiesced. Jack lamented that he was in no condition to climb the apple tree, and would the Devil be so kind as to fetch the apple for him? (The Devil is a lot like Charlie Brown and his football. You’d think, being the Evil One, he wouldn’t be so trusting.) So the Devil climbed the tree, and while he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark. To earn his release this time, the Devil agreed never to take Jack’s soul.

Wouldn’t you know, little time passed before Jack turned up his toes. Jack’s soul foolishly made it’s way toward Heaven where everyone had a good laugh before telling him to get lost. Then Jack journeyed to the Gates of Hell where the Devil, finally wise to Jack’s tricks,  also sent him packing —  to roam the world between good and evil, with only a burning ember inside a hollowed out turnip to light his way.  Jack of the Lantern. Obviously, the Association of Turnip Growers botched this one. Had they been on their toes, we’d all be celebrating Halloween with carved-out rutabagas.

 

halloween

OCTOBER 30, 1938: JUST ME AND MY RADIO

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It’s easy from the comfort of our 21st century recliners to dismiss the mass hysteria of an earlier generation as so many Chicken Littles or Turkey Lurkeys, afraid of their own shadows. We’ve seen it all, any horror one can imagine, right there on the screen in front of us, and should it become too squirmy, well we can always just hit a button. The remote is there to protect us.

But what if you were at home, alone perhaps, on that October night back in 1938. It’s dark out; Halloween and all its spookiness is just a day away. But there’s the radio to keep you company. Like millions of other Americans, you’ll tune in to Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. That should lighten up a dark night. They finish their comedy routine at ten after eight. A singer you’ve never heard of follows so, like millions of Americans, you surf the radio stations (Wasn’t there supposed to be a dramatic program on?) pausing to hear an unenthusiastic announcer: “. . . the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York, where you will be entertained by the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra.” You listen for a minute; it’s not that great. You’re all set to surf again when the announcer interrupts, reporting that a Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory has detected explosions on the planet Mars. The music returns, but only for a minute. The announcer is back with the news that a large meteor has crashed into a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey.

Now your ears are glued to the radio, as announcement after announcement confirms the impossible – a Martian invasion. “Good heavens, something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now here’s another and another one and another one. They look like tentacles to me … I can see the thing’s body now. It’s large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather. But that face, it… it … ladies and gentlemen, it’s indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it’s so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate.”

Now’s the time to surf the radio. If you do, you’ll quickly realize that everything is normal on other radio stations, that you’ve been listening to a realistic but fictional radio drama. But if you don’t, chances are you’ll join the thousands of people jamming highways, trying to flee the alien invasion.

Orson Welles was just 23 years old when his Mercury Theater company broadcast its update of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds with no idea of the uproar it would cause. He employed sophisticated sound effects and top notch acting to make the story believable.

And believed it was. In Indianapolis, a woman ran into a church where evening services were being held, yelling: “New York has been destroyed! It’s the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die!”

When the actors got wind of the panic, Welles went on the air as himself to remind listeners that it was just fiction. Afterward, he feared that the incident would ruin his career, but three years later he was in Hollywood working on Citizen Kane.

OCTOBER 29, 1636: HERMIT OF GRUB STREET

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Henry Welby was a gentleman of fortune, education and popularity in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth who suddenly secluded himself from all public life – not as a hermit off in the wilderness but right in the middle of London. His irrevocable resolution to live a solitary life followed an incident in which his younger brother, displeased over some trifle or another, attempted to shoot him at close range, certainly with the intent to kill.

To fulfill his resolution, Henry took a house at one end of Grub Street, known primarily for bohemians and impoverished hack writers. He occupied three rooms himself – one for dining, one for sleeping and one for study. The rest of the house was given over to his servants. A technical quibble here perhaps: can a man truly be a hermit with servants?  But it would seem that he managed. While his food was set on his table by his cook, he would wait in his bedroom. And while his bed was being made, he would retire into his study, and so on – thus avoiding any actual contact with his servants.

He ate only a salad of greens and herbs in the summer and a bowl of gruel in the winter. He drank no wine or spirits, only water or an occasional cheap beer. Occasionally, on a special day, he might eat an egg yolk, no white, or a piece of bread, no crust. Yet he provided a bountiful table for his servants.

And in these three rooms, he remained – for forty-four years, never ever leaving them until he was carried out on a gurney.  Not one of his relatives or acquaintances ever laid another eye on him – only his elderly maid Elizabeth ever saw his face. And she didn’t see much of it because it was overgrown by hair and beard. Elizabeth died just a few days before Henry’s death on October 29, 1636.

Books were his companions for those forty-four years, and not once did one of them shoot at him.

So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed

Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era. A favorite of Queen Elizabeth herself, he was during his life an aristocrat, statesman, courtier, soldier, explorer, spy and poet. He established an English colony on Roanoke Island in Virginia, he led expeditions in search of the legendary City of Gold, El Dorado, and popularized the use of tobacco in England.

When Raleigh returned to England from the New World in 1586, he brought with him corn, potatoes and tobacco. This largesse was viewed with a good amount of skepticism — especially those potatoes. They were deemed unfit for human consumption, possibly poisonous and perhaps even the creation of witches or devils.

Tobacco, on the other hand, was seen as beneficial and even healthful (“more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette”). It could relieve toothaches and halitosis, and the smoking of it in those elaborately carved pipes was oh so sophisticated.

One story has it that the first time one of his servants saw Raleigh smoking, he thought Raleigh was on fire and doused him with a bucket of water. Nevertheless, once dry, Raleigh resumed the practice and even convinced Elizabeth to give it a go. She did, and so did the rest of the country. Within a few decades, the English were importing 3 million pounds a year from Virginia, this in spite of James I, Elizabeth’s successor and the surgeon general of his time, calling smoking loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs with a black and stinking fume.

Raleigh was executed for treason on October 29, 1618. It had nothing to do with tobacco.

October 28, 1993: Moon Over Bogota

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National University in Bogota, Colombia, prided itself on its reputation for academic excellence. Like many institutions of higher learning, it also attracted its share of student radicals from across the political spectrum.

On October 28, 1993, University President Antanas Mockus was delivering a speech at the opening of a university art show and enduring frequent interruptions with catcalls from rowdies in the audience. Finally, Mockus stopped mid-sentence, turned around, bent over, dropped his drawers and mooned the audience into a stunned silence. Score one for the prez.

Unfortunately, an enterprising student caught the whole thing on videotape. Naturally, the videotape found its way to the media. The incident was shown over and over on national TV, and stills from the tape made it into print. Radio talk shows were abuzz with calls for his censure, his ouster, his head. He had damaged the image of higher education and of the country itself, according to some.

But there were others such as the columnist who wrote: “That he showed his pale buttocks to some disrespectful, bus-burning anarchists is a thing I understand.”

Mockus made a tearful mea culpa appearance on TV, placing his fate with the Colombian president. And he survived. Two years later he was elected Mayor of Bogota. But maybe mooning was in his blood. In 2018, now age 65 and a Congressman, Mockus mooned his fellow legislators who were interrupting the outgoing president’s farewell speech.

You May Not Kiss the Bride

Elsa Lanchester, born in London on October 28, 1902, enjoyed a long show business career first in England then with her husband Charles Laughton in the United States. Her most famous role was probably that of the title character in the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein ( a good choice for a Halloween movie). She starred with Laughton in a dozen films before his death in 1962. She died in 1986.

OCTOBER 27, 1666: I DID IT WITH MY BOX OF MATCHES

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I DID IT WITH MY BOX OF MATCHES

When the ashes settled after the great Chicago Fire, folks looked to assign blame and pointed their fingers at a cow.  The English were fire-of-londonalso looking to fix blame for a fire some two centuries earlier.  In early September 1666, a major fire broke out in Pudding Lane in the City of London and within days had destroyed 80 percent of the old city.
Accusations were flying in all directions — strangers, the Spanish, Dutch, Irish and most particularly the French, Catholics, even King Charles II.

Enter one Robert Hubert.  Hubert was a simple watchmaker who wasn’t quite wound up  — and he was a French Catholic.  He obligingly confessed to being the culprit, telling authorities he deliberately started the fire in Westminster.  He was arrested, but one little problem cropped up: the fire hadn’t even reached Westminster, let alone started there.

When confronted with the fact that the fire originated in a Pudding Lane bakery.  Hubert adjusted his story, saying that he had actually started the fire there, tossing a fire grenade through an open window.  What’s more, he did it because he was a French spy in service of the Pope.

Hubert was hauled before the court.  His story turned out to be riddled with problems.  The bakery had no windows, and Hubert was judged to be so crippled that he could not have thrown the grenade.  An even bigger problem:  he was not in England when the fire started, according to the testimony of the captain of a Swedish ship who had landed him on English soil two days after the outbreak of the fire.

Nevertheless, the court found Hubert guilty, and on October 27, 1666, he was hanged at Tyburn, London.  A year later, the cause of the fire was quietly changed to ‘the hand of God, a great wind and a very dry season.’

Don’t You Be a Meanie

Oh, Mr. Paganini
Please play my rhapsody
And if you cannot play it won’t you sing it?
And if you can’t sing you simply have to . . .

Mr. Paganini, aka (If You Can’t Sing It) You’ll Have to Swing It became a paganinifixture in Ella Fitzgerald’s repertoire back in the 1930s. The Mr. Paganini to whom she refers is composer and violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini who was born on October 27, 1782. During the height of his career, the legendary “devil violinist”  set all of nineteenth-century Europe into a frenzy. He was a headliner in every major European city.  His technical ability was legend, and so was his willingness to flaunt it. His fame as a violinist was equaled by his reputation as a gambler and womanizer.

Alas, his grueling schedule and extravagant lifestyle took their toll, and he suffered from ever increasing health problems. He died in 1840.

OCTOBER 26, 2010: WELL-ARMED SOOTHSAYER

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Paul the Oracle was somewhat of a child prodigy, demonstrating a marked intelligence right from the get-go. “There was something about the way he looked at our visitors,” said the adult in Paul’s early life. “It was so unusual, so we tried to find out what his special talents were.”

Paul was hatched from an egg at the Sea Life Centre in Weymouth, England, then moved to his permanent home, a tank at a center in Oberhausen, Germany.  Paul took his name from a German children’s poem, Der Tintenfisch Paul Oktopus. He quickly became a celebrity by virtue of his divination of the outcome of international football matches, choosing the winners through a stratagem typical of German engineering in its complexity — picking boxes of oysters emblazoned with competing nations’ flags.

Octopuses are some of the most intelligent of invertebrates, with complex thought processes, memory, and different personalities (good octopus, bad octopus). They can use simple tools, learn through observation, and are particularly sensitive to pain. This according to PETA, the animal rights group. PETA argued that it was cruel to keep Paul in permanent confinement. Sea Life Centres contended that releasing him would be dangerous, because being born in captivity, he was only accustomed to sitting around a tank, popping oysters and using a remote, not fending for himself.

Paul’s accurate choices for the 2010 World Cup, broadcast live on German television, made him a star. Paul predicted the winners of each of seven matches that the German team played, against Australia, Serbia, Ghana, England, Argentina, Spain, and Uruguay. His prediction that Argentina would lose prompted Argentine chef Nicolas Bedorrou to post an octopus recipe on Facebook.

“There are always people who want to eat our octopus,” said Paul’s keeper. “He will survive.”

Paul’s correct prediction of the outcome of the semi-final, with Germany losing to Spain, led to death threats. Spain’s prime minister offered to give Paul safe haven in Spain.

Paul died on October 26, 2010, at the age of two-and-a-half, a normal lifespan for an octopus.  German attempts to find other oracles have never fared well. The animals at the Chemnitz Zoo were wrong on all their predictions.  Leon the porcupine incorrectly picked Australia, Petty the pygmy hippopotamus failed to be swayed by Serbia’s pile of hay topped with apples , and Anton the tamarin mistakenly ate a raisin representing Ghana.

The E-ri-e Was Arisin’

Back at the beginning of the 19th century, shipping goods from one end of New York to the other was a costly and cumbersome. Thereerie2 was no railroad, no trucking, no Thruway — just a two-week ordeal by stagecoach to get from New York City to Buffalo. The New York State Legislature leaped into this transportation breach. They proposed and Governor DeWitt Clinton enthusiastically endorsed a proposal to build a canal from Buffalo, at the eastern point of Lake Erie, to Albany, and the Hudson River. By 1817, they had authorized $7 million for the construction of what would laughingly be referred to as Clinton’s Ditch, 363 miles long, 40 feet wide, and four feet deep.

Work began in August 1823. Teams of oxen plowed the ground, and Irish workers did the digging, using only basic hand tools. It was a lot of work for $10 a month, but officials cleverly left barrels of whiskey alsong the route as an added inducement.

Governor Clinton opened the 425-mile Erie Canal on October 26, 1825, sailing from Buffalo in the Seneca Chief.  News of his departure was relayed to New York City by cannons placed along the entire length of the canal and river, each within hearing distance of the next cannon. The firing of each signaled the next to fire. It took 81 minutes to get the word to New York— the fastest communication the world had yet known. Clinton arrived in New York on September 4, where he ceremoniously emptied a barrel of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic Ocean — the “Marriage of the Waters” of the Great Lakes and the Atlantic.

The canal put New York on the map as the Empire State, transformed New York City into the nation’s principal seaport, and opened the interior of North America to settlement. It has been in continuous operation longer than any other constructed transportation system on the North American continent.

October 25, 1938: It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing

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The swing era in American music had its roots in 1920s jazz as small improvisational groups gave way to larger ensembles using written arrangements.  A typical swing song features a strong rhythm section supporting loosely-tied wind and brass sections and in later years string and vocal sections.  It has a lively danceable beat and, well, it swings.

Although it might have seemed so, not everyone in 1930s America wanted to sing and sway and snap fingers to the music of the proliferating number of big bands.

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Francis Beckman was ordained to the Catholic Ministry in 1902, and moved steadily up the theological ladder until finally becoming Archbishop of Dubuque in 1930, guiding his flock through both the Depression and World War II.  He undertook several crusades during his tenure, the least of which was most likely his campaign against swing music beginning in 1938.  His holy war came to national attention when on October 25, 1938, in a speech before  the National Council of Catholic Women, he denounced swing music in no uncertain terms.  It was, he said, “a degenerated musical system… turned loose to gnaw away the moral fiber of young people” which would lead one down the “primrose path to Hell.”  Perhaps, it’s just as well the Archbishop was  whistling heavenly tunes when rock and roll came around (having died in 1948).

The success of his campaign can no doubt be measured by how infrequently the name Francis Beckman rings a bell compared to Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, or Count Basie.

 

Politics as Unusual

Ross Perot suddenly dropped out of the 1992 presidential race in perotJuly amid swirling controversies after having suddenly dropped into it a few months earlier with an off-the-cuff announcement on Larry King’s television show.  Campaign managers were becoming increasingly disillusioned by his unwillingness to follow their advice to be more specific on issues, and his need to run the show on his own.  They bridled at such practices as forcing volunteers to sign loyalty oaths  and his nine-to-five style  of campaigning.  When he jumped back into the race in October, the campaign professionals were gone, replaced by amateurs of unquestioned loyalty.

In another bizarre turn, Perot went on 60 Minutes on October 25, claiming his July withdrawal from the race was the result of his hearing that President Bush’s campaign was planning to smear his daughter with a computer-altered photograph and to disrupt her wedding.   Perot offered no evidence, only quoting an unidentified “top Republican.” “I can’t prove any of it today,” he said.  “But it was a risk I did not have to take,” he added, “and a risk I would not take where my daughter is concerned.”
A spokesman for the President dismissed Mr. Perot’s assertions as “all loony.”

Maybe not so unusual these days.