March 5, 2007: Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Although the United States threw in the towel on the prohibition of alcohol back in 1933, one alcoholic beverage remained in the crosshairs of the temperance types for another seven decades.

Absinthe, also known as the Green Fairy or the Green Lady, was created back in the early 19th century by French doctor, Pierre Ordinaire, an innocent enough sounding gentleman. It was made by infusing wormwood, fennel, anise and other herbs into alcohol, creating an elixir that tastes like licorice but packs a much more powerful punch. The good doctor used it to treat a variety of illnesses.

It later became trendy as an alcoholic beverage thanks to celebrity imbibers such as Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and Vincent van Gogh, who thought it increased their creativity. But then came studies that unfairly claimed that absinthe not only had hallucinogenic effects but caused immorality, antisocial behavior and madness. Some critics even claimed that it was absinthe that led van Gogh to take a knife to his ear.

Absinthe was soon proscribed (as opposed to prescribed) pretty much everywhere, and remained so throughout the 20th century, until a host of modern studies cleared its name.  It received its U.S. reprieve on March 5, 2007.

Speak Softly But Carry a Big Speech

John Schrank was born in Bavaria on March 5, 1876, and emigrated to the United States when he was 9. Things didn’t go all that well for John. His parents died soon after their arrival. He was taken in by an aunt and uncle, working for them in their New York tavern. They also died, and when his only girlfriends died as well, he sold off his inheritance properties and set to rambling around the east coast. Just as this was beginning to sound like the plot of an opera, he got religion and became a bit of a biblical authority (at least in his own eyes), lecturing other folks on their sins in various barrooms and public places. Although he annoyed a lot of people, he did no real harm.

During the 1912 presidential contests, the Republican party suffered a schism, each side wanting the Republican tent to be a little smaller, excluding the other side. Conservatives were led by William Howard Taft, and moderates (known today as RINOs) were led by ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. When Taft won the nomination, Roosevelt bolted and formed the Bull Moose Party. Roosevelt was campaigning in Wisconsin when he was shot by our biblical scholar John Schrank. The bullet hit the text of Roosevelt’s speech, eliminating several dozen useless adjectives and other excess verbiage.

The speech was much improved and Roosevelt himself was unhurt. Schrank explained to authorities that he had nothing against Roosevelt as an individual; in fact he rather liked him. His quarrel was with ‘Roosevelt, the third-termer’ and was meant as a warning to any other politician who might seek a third term (take heed, Franklin). And not only that, shooting Roosevelt was not his own idea. The ghost of William McKinley made him do it. The ghost rose up right out of a coffin, pointed at a picture of Roosevelt and said: “Do it.”

Even with this quite splendid explanation, the authorities nonetheless sent Schrank away to a Wisconsin mental hospital where he remained until his death in 1943.

March 4, 1925: Swain Song

Posted on by Richard Daybell

On this date in 1925, the United States annexed Swain’s Island. If your history or geography course somehow skipped over this event, here’s practically everything you need to know (and then some).  Swain’s Island is a 461-acre atoll in the Pacific (and not to be confused with Newfoundland’s Swain’s Island). A Portuguese navigator was the first European explorer to southvisit Swain’s Island, arriving in 1606, although it was not called Swain’s Island then. It wasn’t called anything then, so he named it Isla de la Gente Hermosa, which in Spanish means “island of the beautiful people” (and some would say, a much nicer name than Swain’s Island).

Years later, Fakaofoan invaders (folks from a nearby island — no need to memorize their name) killed or enslaved all the gente hermosas. It was a Pyrrhic victory, however, since the island became infertile thanks to a curse placed on it by the chief of the gente hermosas (who evidently had a mean streak under all that beauty). Everyone died, and the island remained uninhabited until an American, Eli Hutchinson Jennings, founded a community with his Samoan wife, Malia, claiming to have received title to the atoll from a British Captain Turnbull for fifteen shillings per acre and a bottle of gin. The curse had expired, and the Jennings developed a thriving copra (coconuts, not snakes) business.

In 1907, Britain claimed ownership of Swain’s Island, demanding payment of a tax of $85. Jennings paid the tax, but he complained to the U.S. State Department, and his money was ultimately refunded. The British government also conceded that Swain’s Island was an American possession, and it officially became part of American Samoa on March 4, 1925.

Because it is in the middle of nowhere, Swain’s Island is considered an amateur radio “entity” and has become a mecca for ham operators, straining the hospitality of the island’s 17 permanent residents, none of whom would be called gente hermosas.

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March 3, 1605: And a Decaf Peppermint Almond Latte

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Ippolito Aldobrandini was born into a prominent Florentine family in 1536. As a child he was told that any little boy could grow up to be Pope. And didn’t he just do it, becoming a noted canon lawyer, a Cardinal Priest, and in 1592, Pope Clement VIII. He led the church until March 3, 1605. VIII’s enduring papal legacy for most of the world is not his bringing France back into the Catholic fold or leading the opposition to the Ottoman Empire, but rather his blessing of a certain beverage.

“The grain or berry called coffee groweth upon little trees only in the deserts of Arabia,” an early handbill proclaimed. “It is a simple, innocent thing, composed into a drink, by being dried in an oven, and ground to powder, and boiled up with spring water . . . and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured.”

sheepCoffee had been around for centuries from the time when shepherds noticed that the beans when eaten by their sheep caused those sheep to become rather frisky. Naturally, the shepherds were anxious to try it themselves. Eventually, after a lot of broken teeth, they learned to roast it, grind it and brew it.

It didn’t take long for coffee to become wildly popular throughout the Muslim world. Not so in Europe however; no civilized Christian could share the drink of those infidels they had been battling practically forever.  The beverage came to be known as “Satan’s drink.” and Christians pleaded with Pope Clement to ban the evil liquid and declare that anyone who drank it would be destined to burn in Hell or some other nasty spot.

Clement considered this request, but being reasonable as well as infallible, would not condemn the drink without a fair trial. Thus a steaming cup of coffee was placed before him. He took a sip, and immediately became as frisky as those Muslim sheep.. “This devil’s drink is delicious.” he declared. “We should cheat the devil by baptizing it.”

And then came Starbucks.

Note: The popular folk song that came much later was not named for Clement VIII. It was “Oh My Darling Clement IX.”

March 2, 1985: Steering the Ark of Decorum to Saner Shores

Posted on by Richard Daybell

When he put down his pencil on March 2, 1985, Gus Arriola brought to an end a classic comic strip that had endured for 45 years, appearing in as many as 270 newspapers. During that span, Gordo (meaning Fatso) had evolved from a Mexican version of Li’l Abner — a lazy, overweight bean farmer who fit the American stereotype of Mexicans (but not yet as rapist and murderer) — to an “accidental ambassador’ for Mexican culture.

Arriola wrote, illustrated and produced the strip throughout its run except during a stint in the army, although he regularly used tongue in cheek pseudonyms such as Overa Cheever, Liv Anlern, Kant Wynn, and Bob N. Frapples for his Sunday strips.

Along with Gordo, there were his nephew Pepito, poet Paris Juarez Keats Garcia, housekeeper Tehuana Mama and the widow in hot pursuit of bachelor Gordo, Artemesia Rosalinda Gonzalez. And pets Poosy Gato, Señor Dog, and Bug Rogers (a spider).

As Arriola became aware of the strip’s cultural influence over the years, he began to present Gordo as a more complex sympathetic character — more depth, less girth. In 1954, Gordo lost his farm and went to work as a tour guide, traveling throughout Mexico and presenting a more nuanced view of Mexican life.

Charles Schulz said Gordo was “probably the most beautifully drawn strip in the history of the business.” Arriola died in 2008.

Gordo strip for March 2, 1985:

Th-th-that’s All Folks

On March 2, 1935, Warner Brothers introduced a new cartoon character name of Porky Pig.  Next day on his dressing room, they hung a star, and Porky went on with the show for another 153 cartoon appearances,  Warner’s longest running character.

December 31, 1920: Don’t Go Near the Indians

Posted on by Richard Daybell
New Year’s Eve, aka the seventh day of Christmas, is the day we shuck off this year with a lot of over the top partying, letting mirth run rampant before we face the sobering of the coming year. Two of the more noble New Year’s Eve traditions are Drinking and the making of Resolutions. The former is often accomplished with Wassail, a bowl of spiced ale around which folks gather and drink to each other’s health until someone gets sick.  The latter is the solemn promise we make to the empty Wassail bowl never to drink again. Mark Twain on resolutions: “Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient short comings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time.” ~Mark Twain

A proper resolution might go something like this: I hereby resolve to read Wretched Richard’s Almanac every day so that I might be well informed, sophisticated and attractive. And I will recommend it to all my friends so they too might be well informed, sophisticated and attractive.

The seventh ghost of Christmas enjoyed his wassail while regaling Scrooge with the painful memory of his Junior Prom when the girl of his dreams broke their date because her grandmother died, she had a hangnail or she was grounded for misbehaving with the captain of the football team — take your pick.  True Love celebrated in his or her predictable fashion with a gifts of the avian persuasion, to be specific seven swans a-swimming.  That’s a bird count of 28 thus far.  No, make the 27; one of the calling birds made the mistake of calling the cat.

About Those Indians

It was 1949 and executives at Republic Pictures had a brainstorm – let’s take that nice clean-cut guy hanging around the studio and make him a cowboy – maybe even a singing cowboy – he’ll be a God-fearing American hero of the Wild West, wearing a white Stetson hat; he’ll love his faithful horse (platonic, of course); and maybe he could have a loyal sidekick who shares his adventures. We’ll call him the Arizona Cowboy (Arizona isn’t already taken, is it?) And so Rex Allen, born December 31, 1920, came to a silver screen near you,  joining such singing cowboys as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. His horse was Koko, and his comic relief sidekick was Buddy Ebsen (later Slim Pickens). He rode out of the West just as the West was losing interest for moviegoers. He did get a quick 19 movies in the can (and a comic book) before the genre played out. And in 1954, he starred in Hollywood’s last singing western. Then, like other cowboy stars, he rode into the sunset and onto TV in a series called Frontier Doctor. Allen had written and recorded a number of the songs featured in his movies. He continued recording, and in 1961, had a hot country single with a song called “Don’t Go Near The Indians,” featuring the Merry Melody Singers. The song told the story of a young man who disobeys his father’s titular advice and develops a relationship (platonic, of course) with a beautiful Indian maiden named Nova Lee. The father reveals a deep dark secret out of the past: his biological son was killed by an Indian during one of those skirmishes between the white man and a nearby tribe. In retaliation, he kidnapped an Indian baby and raised him as his son who grew up to be you-know-who. And there’s another jaw-dropping secret: Nova Lee is the boy’s biological sister! (But poppa, it’s purely platonic; our kids won’t be imbeciles.) They don’t write them like that anymore. Rex Allen turned in his spurs in 1999 at the age of 79.  

December 30, 1865: You’re a Better Man Than I Am

Posted on by Richard Daybell

On this the sixth day of Christmas True Love is back to his bird fixation with a gift of six geese a-laying — and presumably a-honking.  The sixth ghost of Christmas has prepared a thoughtful, if lengthy, power point presentation, vividly detailing every zit suffered by the adolescent Scrooge.

Rudyard Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Born in Bombay, India, on December 30, 1865, Kipling is best known for his works of fiction, especially The Jungle Book (a collection of short stories which includes “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”), Just So Stories, Kim, “The Man Who Would Be King” and such poems as “Gunga Din,” “Mandalay,” and “The White Man’s Burden.” He is considered a major “innovator in the art of the short story,” and his children’s books have become true classics.

Kipling became synonymous with the concept of British “empire” and as a result his reputation fluctuated and his place in literary and cultural history inspired passionate disagreement during most of the 20th century.  Nevertheless, critics agree that he was a skilled interpreter of how empire was experienced.

Young Rudyard’s earliest years in Bombay were blissfully happy, in an India full of exotic sights and sounds. But at the age of five he and his sister were sent back to England, as was the custom, to be educated. In his autobiography, published 65 years later, Kipling recalled the stay with horror, and wondered ironically if the combination of cruelty and neglect he suffered from his foster family might not have hastened the onset of his literary life: “I have known a certain amount of bullying, but this was calculated torture—religious as well as scientific. Yet it made me give attention to the lies I soon found it necessary to tell: and this, I presume, is the foundation of literary effort.”

Kipling traveled extensively throughout the world, and his travels included a stay of several years in Brattleboro, Vermont, an unlikely spot in which to create The Jungle Book, although he did, along with Captains Courageous.

During his long career, he declined most of the many honors offered him, including a knighthood, the Poet Laureateship, and the Order of Merit, but in 1907 he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1936 in England (even though a few years earlier he had written “Never again will I spend another winter in this accursed bucketshop of a refrigerator called England.”)

December 29, 1852: Of Virile Toggery

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Today, if you were wondering, is the fifth day of Christmas.  The fifth ghost of Christmas has taken Ebeneezer back to his childhood and a festive party.  The children are all very merry, playing a game of pin the tale on the donkey.  Unfortunately, Scrooge is the donkey.

True Love has sworn off birds and has sent a  lovely gift — five gold rings.  But wait, some scholars, having precious little to do, have studied this gift and have determined that those rings actually refer to — you guessed it — ring-necked pheasants.  Birds.

Folks who were not wrapped up in fifth day of Christmas activities in late 1852 were most likely following the activities of Frederick Douglass or newly elected President Franklin Pierce.  In Boston, however they were following the escapades of Emma Snodgrass. On December 29, Boston police arrested her again, another of many run-ins with the law beginning that Fall. This desperado was a tiny 17-year-old daughter of a New York policeman who had set Bostonian tongues awagging by appearing in public “donning the breeches.” Wearing pants, that is. She was arrested the first time in November and Emma-Snodgrass1promptly sent back to New York.

But didn’t she just come back again and set right in “visiting places of amusement around Boston.” She circulated among “all the drinking houses, made several violent attempts to talk ‘horse,’ and do other things for which “‘fast’ boys are noted” breathlessly reported one of the local papers.

Her notoriety spread.  She was ‘the wanderer in man’s apparel,’ the ‘foolish girl who goes around in virile toggery’ and ‘an eccentric female who roams about town.’ Back in New York, the Daily Times wondered: “what her motive may be for thus obstinately rejecting the habiliments of her own sex.”

She didn’t return to Boston. But during the next several months, there were Emma Snodgrass sightings practically everywhere else. She was reportedly sent home from Richmond, Virginia, sent before a judge in Albany, New York, spotted in Buffalo and Cleveland.

Emma Snodgrass, “the girl in pantaloons” was last seen in Louisville, on her way to California or Australia, reported the Fort Wayne Times and Peoples. But then a strange news report came out of Lancaster, Wisconsin: “Emma Snodgrass has repented, gone home, taken off her breeches, and sworn eternal attachment to petticoats and propriety.”

Could it be? We’ll never know, since it was the last news report. Emma Snodgrass had disappeared.

December 28, 1900: Abstinence? On the Fourth Day of Christmas?

Posted on by Richard Daybell

On the fourth day of Christmas, True Love proffered even more poultry in the form of four calling birds (originally colly birds, i.e. blackbirds). In case you haven’t been keeping track, we now have ten such creatures, calling, clucking, cooing and generally squawking around the pear tree.

Thanks to the fourth ghost of Christmas, Scrooge is now reliving is early childhood as a skinny kindergartener in whose face the bigger kids loved to kick sand.  Even the dainty Molly Malone picked on Ebenezer, whacking him daily upside the head with a dead fish until he turned over his milk money.

Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

The names of many desperadoes struck fear into the hearts of saloon patrons during the late nineteenth century – Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Doc Holiday, the Younger Brothers. In Wichita, Kansas, at the turn of the century, a six-foot, 175 pound, hatchet-wielding woman terrorized would-be tipplers.

Carrie Nation had led a lifelong battle against the evils of alcohol, preaching abstinence until she was blue in the face. Her first husband had a drinking problem that eventually destroyed their marriage and killed him in the bargain. Nation then married a minister from Texas. She and her new husband moved to Medicine Lodge, Kansas, in 1889, when it was still part of the wild and woolly frontier. With her husband’s blessing, Nation began to battle the dark forces of drunkenness with a new vigor, traveling throughout the state of Kansas with a message of temperance.

But her dandy rhetoric against demon rum fell on the deaf ears of the more depraved people of Kansas. Finally on December 28, 1900, Nation took up her little hatchet in an effort to to get their attention. Storming into the barroom like a runaway locomotive, Nation hacked away with a fervor that sent grown men scurrying for the nearest exit – furniture, mirrors, paintings all succumbed to her moral righteousness.

Since the sale of alcohol was already illegal in Kansas, Nation felt justified in enforcing the laws that the more timid officials were not. She felt that chopping up saloons was her duty as a law-abiding citizen. Local law authorities did not usually agree, and she served her share of jail time.

Although Nation’s handiness with an ax brought her national fame, her cause didn’t really catch on – at least not until several years after her 1911 death when, in 1920, the U.S. undertook the “noble experiment” of prohibition.

December 27, 1895: It’s the Third Day of Christmas, But Don’t You Touch My Stetson

Posted on by Richard Daybell

The night was clear and the moon was yellow
And the leaves came tumbling down,

but back to that in a moment.  First we’ll have a quick celebration of the third day of Christmas.  True Love celebrated with three more birds – trois poules françaises, three French hens, that is.  Some say they stand for faith, hope and charity; others say they stand for dinner on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

The third ghost of Christmas celebrated by remembering for Scrooge his crawling days when he was often mistaken for the family dog Fido and given kibble, while Fido got the yummy pablum.

Precious Little Faith, Hope and Charity Here

Many of us remember the hit recording from 1959 about an unfortunate bit of  barroom business between Billy Lyon and his good friend Stagger Lee. “Stagger Lee” topped the pop charts for Lloyd Price that year. Fewer of us will remember 1928’s “Stack O’ Lee Blues,” a version of the story by Mississippi John Hurt. And fewer still will remember the incident that inspired the song. It took place on December 27, 1895, in St. Louis, Missouri.

Shooting, fighting and general mayhem have found their way into many songs over the years, and often pop songs are based on true incidents – “Tom Dooley,” the “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” The case of “Stag” Lee was duly reported by the St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat under the headline “Shot in Curtis’s Place.”

I was standing on the corner
When I heard my bulldog bark
He was barkin’ at the two men
Who were gamblin’ in the dark

It was Stagger Lee and Billy
Two men who gambled late
Stagger Lee threw seven
Billy swore that he threw eight

The Globe-Democrat didn’t mention any gambling. According to its account, Stagger Lee and Billy were in “exuberant spirits” thanks to several rounds of John Barleycorn when they got to discussing politics. Well, a couple of “nattering nabobs” and “right-wing Neanderthals” later, the discussion took on heat, and Billy, in a precipitous move, snatched Stagger Lee’s hat from right atop his head. Such a move cannot go unanswered, and it didn’t.

Stagger Lee told Billy
I can’t let you go with that

You have won all my money
And my brand new stetson hat

Stagger Lee went home
And he got his forty-four
Said, I’m goin’ to the barroom
Just to pay that debt I owe

Go Stagger Lee

Stagger Lee drew his revolver and shot Billy in the stomach. When that poor boy fell to the floor Stagger Lee just took his hat from the dead man’s head and coolly strutted away into musical immortality. Go Stagger Lee, Go Stagger Lee.

December 26, 1921: Hi Ho, Stevarino

Posted on by Richard Daybell

But first, hi ho second day of Christmas, because that is today to those who prolong the season through Christmastide.  For True Love, it is the opportunity to give two birds, turtle doves to be precise.  And just as practical as that partridge.

Meanwhile Scrooge is visited by the second ghost of Christmas who conducts a review of the many less than loving names his mother called soon-to-be-born Ebeneezer while in labor.

Hi Ho, Stevarino

Although Steve Allen, born December 26, 1921, was a musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer, he is best known for his career in television. He first gained national attention as a guest host on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and then became the first host of The Tonight Show, initiating the format that television talk shows would follow from then on.

Moving from late night to prime time television, he hosted numerous game and variety shows, most notably The Steve Allen Show, going head to head with Ed Sullivan and Maverick on Sunday evenings. It was there he developed the man on the street interviews which featured Don Knotts, Tom Poston and Louis Nye among others.

Allen was a comedy writer and author of more than 50 books, both fiction and nonfiction, including Dumbth, a commentary on the American educational system, and Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality.

Allen was also a pianist and a prolific composer, writing over 14,000 songs, some of which were recorded by Perry Como, Margaret Whiting, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Les Brown, and Oscar Peterson. He won a Grammy in 1963 for best jazz composition, with his song The Gravy Waltz. He also wrote lyrics for the standards “Picnic” and “South Rampart Street Parade.” He once won a bet with Frankie Laine that he could write 50 songs a day for a week. His output of songs has never been equaled.

He died in 2000.