The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    MY BACK PAGES

    By Richard Day on Wed, 04/13/2011 - 4:10am |

     

    I recall certain things about childhood.

    I recall just getting up on a Saturday and running out of the house to play with my friends. I had no wallet, no money, no identification, no debts, no guilt, and really no worries whatsoever—that is until I got home again.

    We would play baseball without umpires.

    We would hang around the mall with no purpose.

    And like the 70's Show, we would end up in somebody's basement even though it was the 50's and 60's.

    Hell I had a bed and a card table and a four drawer clothes chest and a lamp in my basement office as well as my transistor radio as a child. But I had it made cause out of my three other brothers, I had my own goddamn room.

    I had no idea. I mean I had no ideas about anything.

    Nobody ever read to me unless I was in school. No parent had anything to do with me when I was at home. Except for telling me to wash up and go to bed and to quit asking so many goddamn questions.

    But I came to certain conclusions.

    When I was a kid I thought Paladin's first name was 'Wire'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgvxu8QY01s

    I thought that Socrates was pronounced So-crates like orange crates.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2KzymrmNa0

    I thought Hercules was pronounced like Poirot pronounces it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSSVvEz-hAI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3qwLjN7Vcg&feature=fvst

    I thought Washington was pronounced Warshington. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5SzPLe7wGc

    I thought Arkansas was pronounced Ark-kansas. (Turns out there is a river pronounced Ark-kansas.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tzznnkHaNA&feature=fvst

    I thought Puerto Rico was a foreign country.

    I thought that the Revolutionary War was the only way to establish a free country on this continent! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc1_vfBfLxI

    I thought the Mayans (whoever they were) invented Mayo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz0fLT_k3_U

    Communists were all bald and wished to destroy my country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Led_Three_Lives http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0DW_qpilRQ

    Arabs wrote neat stories. (I mean they really did write neat stories) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md-KdO2mYL4

    War is hell but it's a good way to reach some sort of recognition from others. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olyf5v_TYUE

    People on TV cared about me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3w7w58CREY

    Hitler was a bad guy and Stalin was a bad guy; so I guessed you had to pick your poisons in this world. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXlZs3WzYGU

    You cannot do anything in this universe without money. (See, my deductions were not all wrong!)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6xkT7FMyTc

    We would all die once nuclear war began; and it would begin any minute and hiding under your desk would do you no good; and it would all be the commies' fault. And death was a very bad condition to find oneself in. And you should never end a sentence with a preposition, unless it is absolutely necessary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqagmRy9ukQ

    We Americans have freedom of speech and commies wish to take away our freedom of speech so we cannot permit commies to speak freely. http://www.mediaite.com/tv/sen-lindsey-graham-freedom-of-speech-is-a-great-idea-but-were-in-a-war/

    Thou shalt not kill unless you come upon a commie or a NAZI; and you are properly armed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPT13fsyQLw

    You should never use atomic bombs unless you are dealing with the Japs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rHrV2QhArA

    We have free elections in this country. I mean we had two choices and the commies only had one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkgx1C_S6ls

    Education is the only way out of this mess; otherwise you will spend your worthless life making a buck an hour. http://www.allfreeessays.com/topics/education-is-a-key-to-success/0

    Roman Catholicism is the only true religion and everyone else is going to hell. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxr-fbtV1-8

    These types of misconceptions came to me on my own.

    My parents helped me to acquire even worse misconceptions.

    If someone fell out of an airplane or jumped from a tall building..well..

    He was dead before he hit the ground! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K5Ufc4gFpU

    Mexicans always have head lice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBEaUZiBMWA

    Paul Harvey knew what he was talking about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKDb4hN0JoA

    Huntley was bluntly and Brinkley was twinkly but Cronkite told the truth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYf3eyRjfYA

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Cronkite

    Divorce was a mortal sin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England

    Sex was a mortal sin.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj3vXkhqszE

    The Chinese could not go to church and children would report their parents to the authorities. http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/strict-chinese-parents-vs-gentle-western-parents/

    We had Miracle Whip because Mayo was for rich folks.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayonnaise

    I thought that Vericose veins were very close veins and had nothing to do with the fact that mums never exercised. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vericose_veins

    Lee J. Cobb sold out his friends at the McCarthy Hearings. http://southwerk.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/lee-j-cobb-blacklists-in-american/

    Pope Pius XII was God. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_pius_xii

    It was normal for men to wear dresses as long as they were priests. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI

    Women should wear hats in church.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_headcovering

    White girls should never, never, never have sex with Negroes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws

    The best people in the world drink a fifth a day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS6OhC-4Zyw

     

     

     

     

     

    Comments

    One of my favorite Dylan tunes, and a great cover, IMO.  Makes my heart swell for some reason...oh yeah; I just rmembered the reason.  Shhhhhh; never mind.

    You didn't mention if you read 'Yosse-Might" Sam in the comic books.      ;o)

      


    by we are stardust on Wed, 04/13/2011 - 9:53am

    Well I watched the cartoons!


    by Richard Day on Wed, 04/13/2011 - 11:20am

    For a fact Arkansas is traditionally pronounced 'R-Kansas'. 

    To further enlighten folks, Iowa is historically pronounced 'Eye -O - Way".

    I learned these pronunciations from a 85+ year old over 20 years ago who grew up and lived in the midwest. He was an authentic old time midwesterner. He recalled his family breaking the plains in Nebraska and having to steer plows around the still remaining buffalo wallows. He also killed kittens. Kept only the number needed to keep rodents out of the corn bins.  He repaired his roof at age 85+, rolled his potatoes in lime before planting, and cut all his own wood.


    by NCD on Wed, 04/13/2011 - 11:17am

    Sounds like an interesting character!


    by Richard Day on Wed, 04/13/2011 - 11:32am

    And Rocky and Bullwinkle had all the awswers.


    by cmaukonen on Thu, 04/14/2011 - 12:05am

    Always loved Mr. Knowitall. hahahahah


    by Richard Day on Thu, 04/14/2011 - 4:56am

    This is great, DD. Takes me back, too.  I remember how scary the idea of Communists in every neighborhood was to us as kids.  We had "Commies" kitty-corner from us, or so we were told, and we always crossed the street rather than walk past their house.  I know now that they weren't communists, but once they set a box out in their trash filled with excelsior (shredded newspapers) and the word was they were trying to get rid of papers they didn't want anyone to see.  Oh, it was fun! For us.

    We were terrified of the H-Bomb and every time we heard a "boom" we thought we were done for.  People were building underground bomb shelters and there were signs like these everywhere:

     

    I still love Miracle Whip and I don't apologize because it's way better for us than Mayo.   (But it has to be at least half mayo in chicken salad and red-skin potato salad.)

     


    by Ramona on Thu, 04/14/2011 - 9:06am

    I hate mayo. Addicted to Miracle Whip (lite these days) but I have been experimenting with addatives in my salads and sandwiches.

    Great spooky story about your neighbor. hahaha

    My next door neighbor was a fascist who used to pet his dogs most strangely.

    One of my favorite films is:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_from_the_Past_%28film%29

    Walken builds a bomb shelter and takes his family down there for thirty years because he thought they had dropped 'the big one'. hahahaha


    by Richard Day on Thu, 04/14/2011 - 3:12pm