Brother X and my friend John stopped by this week. When I go to New York, I always visit them, so it was nice to have them pay me a visit.
We went to ballgames and bars, and had a great time. Nothing unusual happened, but I just had to share this crossword puzzle question and answer with those who read this blog.
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
This past weekend my friends Barbara and Jim paid me a visit. They like bowling, Scrabble, Bocci Ball, and shooting pool. There wasn’t enough time for everything, but I tried to plan as much as possible. Normally, I just go to baseball games with my visitors, but the Barnstormer season doesn’t begin until April 26th. I can get seats so close to home plate that the umpire can hear every word we say. That’s my favorite go-to spot, but since it wasn’t available, I had to make other plans. Fortunately, my second favorite local sport, Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby, was available on Saturday night. Jim was a big roller derby fan, back in the day, when big #40, Charlie O’Connell, helped make the San Francisco Bay Bombers the greatest team on skates.
So, we went to see the Dutchland Rollers split a doubleheader on Saturday night. But let me backtrack a little. Jim is currently in the home repairs business. (I wrote about their visit last year when Jim fixed my kitchen plumbing.) Both Barbara and Jim have at one time been in the cleaning business, though, doing both residential and commercial properties. So, I had to clean up my apartment before they arrived. I spent two days trying to make it look like a human being occupied the apartment.
My friend Debbie stopped by on Friday afternoon and thought she was in the wrong apartment. She had never seen my place so clean. We had a few drinks and waited for Barbara and Jim to arrive. As usual, they arrived like they were visiting Ethiopia or some other poor starving country. They had a trunk-load of groceries (in addition to the incredible number of suitcases they brought with them.) I asked them if they were planning on staying the originally agreed upon two days, or were they planning to stay two weeks. When I go to New York, I bring one knapsack. When they travel, it’s like Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey are coming to town. Hannibal crossed the Alps with less luggage.
So, what did we do first? We ate. And ate, and ate, and ate. Then we were ready for some serious Scrabble. Debbie left. The only thing she does seriously is drink. Jim won the first game. Barbara came in second, and I came in last. After Barbara won the next two games it was time to head to bed, couch, and recliner. Naturally, after drinking all night, I had to get up in the middle of the night to pee. There was Barbara cleaning the kitchen. “This needs bleach,” she said. “Where do you keep your bleach?”
“Probably in the laundry room,” I mumbled as I headed to the bathroom.
The next day, as usual, Jim prepared breakfast for a small army. We almost finished eating all of it, too, because it was so good, but it was just too much food to eat. Jim cleaned up afterwards while I went in the backyard for a healthy dose of (non-prescription) medical marijuana. Afterwards, we went back to playing Scrabble and Barbara resumed her winning ways. We had to go to dinner early, because the Roller Derby starts at 6 p.m., and I took them to a new place that opened up on my block, Decades. It’s a bowling alley, arcade for games, a bar, and a restaurant. I thought they might enjoy the sound of tinkling bowling pins while they dined. We all did, and the restaurant section was actually quiet enough for us to carry on a conversation during dinner.
Then, off to the Roller Derby. I had a good time watching my favorite skaters, and they gradually got to understand what was going on, but I’m sure they wished the games were a little shorter. We didn’t go to the after party with the team. We went back to my place for our own after party, and I finally won a game of Scrabble
The next morning Barbara said that I should go in the backyard and just chill out for a while, while she vacuumed and cleaned the house. I protested that I had spent two days cleaning the apartment and that it did not need any more cleaning. I lost that argument, but I had no objection to chilling out in the backyard, so I didn’t mind losing. I entertained myself while listening to the vacuum cleaner go for an hour as Barbara was searching out every speck of dust in every nook and cranny of my apartment.
Then we played Scrabble and Barbara won again. What ever happened to “Root, root, root for the home team?”
As they were leaving, I warned them that when they visit me the next time, I will not spend two days cleaning up my apartment. They will walk into a mess, which I will unashamedly allow them to clean. I will spend the two days before they arrive studying the Scrabble dictionary for all the good Q and Z words, and all those two-letter words that are Hebrew coins or other oddities that no English-speaking person should know.
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
Marianne, who has watched every Seinfeld show, reminded me of an episode where George Costanza used his invented code word “Tippy Toe” to signal Jerry that somebody was entering the room. It was right at the beginning of Marianne’s annual St. Patrick’s and Birthday party. I was talking about my latest big interest, James Buchanan. She told me that she would use the word “Tippy Toe,” if she thought I was talking too much about James Buchanan.
Then she said, “Tippy Toe” and went back to her other guests.
Eventually, other people at the party picked up on the signal, and I got a total of 24 “Tippy Toes” over the course of the evening. In my defense, I was wearing a James Buchanan T-Shirt (an item which can only be found here in Lancaster, his hometown). It was a conversation starter. Many of Marianne’s guests are theatre people, so I was talking about the play I’m writing to boost the poor image we have of our 15th President. “It takes place during the Civil War,” I said.
“Oh, so it’s a musical,” Liz quipped.
“No,” I said, laughing, but then after a moment in thought, I said, it might contain some songs by Stephen Foster. Why not? He’s from Pennsylvania, too – and the same era as Buchanan, and his songs are in the public domain.”
“Tippy Toe.”
“Old Folks at Home?
“Tippy Toe.”
“Battle Hymn of the Republic?”
“Tippy Toe.”
I got the most “Tippy Toes” from Patrick, who gave me four of them. The last one was just for looking like I was gonna start talking about Buchanan.
It was a learning experience for me, as I searched for the episodes in Buchanan’s life that most interested a theatre-going audience. I found out what worked.
Very little.
Cool, I thought. Edison spent years testing over 10,000 elements, eliminating them until he was able to find Unobtanium, or whatever was the one substance he would use for a filament for his new light bulb. In just one night, I found out 100 things that the audience doesn’t want. A very famous sculptor, maybe it was Michelangelo, once said, I take a block of marble and chisel off the parts that are not whatever it is I want that statue to be. Me, too. I just have to chisel away the parts of my Buchanan’s story that the audience doesn’t like, which is pretty much everything between, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen” and “Good night. Drive safely.”
They liked the funny stuff, but there wasn’t a lot of funny stuff.
That settles it. Buchanan, a Rock Between Two Hard Places will now be a musical comedy.
I’m just gonna need more funny stuff. Way more funny stuff.
Did you hear the one about Buchanan, a priest, and a rabbi walking into a bar…?
I know. Tippy Toe.
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
I eked by in High School. My SAT scores were good enough, though, to get me into Queens College. There, my poor study habits doomed me to failure.
It was 1966, and I was in my second month of college when my German professor, Miss Ives, asked me to her office. She levelled with me. “You’ve been in school for two months,” she said, “and you’re two months behind. Are you sure you want to be here?” I had to admit that I wasn’t ready for college. I dropped out and decided to enlist in the service.
The Vietnam War was raging, and I was naive. I thought that only the Army and the Marines were involved in the fighting, so I joined the Navy. I soon learned that Vietnam was an equal-opportunity war. Anybody could wind up there.
After boot camp I went to Communication Technician School in Pensacola, Florida. I figured this was safe. Again, I was wrong. Communication Technicians, it turned out, were spies – Not James Bond type spies, but electronic eavesdroppers. It was classified at the time, but since the end of the Cold War it’s been declassified, so I can write about it. The targets of our snooping were usually hostile countries, and this involved getting close to whichever country you were monitoring. This was not good news.
Then, I learned that the U.S.S. Liberty, which had been attacked by the Israeli Air Force in June of 1967 was a Communications Technician ship. Next, the U.S.S. Pueblo, another Communications Technician ship was captured by the North Koreans on January 23, 1968. Communication Technicians were not safe.
Just before I graduated from Communications Technician school, they asked for volunteers to go to Alaska for a one-year tour of duty. Volunteers would be given their choice of duty station afterwards. I had three years to go on my enlistment. Germany was one of the duty stations available for selection, and it was a two-year tour of duty. By volunteering for Alaska and then going to Germany, I wouldn’t have to worry about going to Vietnam. So, I volunteered.
The Alaskan duty station wasn’t on the mainland. It was in Adak, Alaska, way out in the Aleutian Island chain, close to Russia. (Even closer to Russia than Sarah Palin’s house.) There was plenty of snooping to do while I was working, but there wasn’t much to do in the off hours. To make matters worse, the drinking age in Alaska was 21, so I couldn’t even drink. I started to take studying seriously. I got a stack of Armed Forces German language records. I listened and learned passable German.
In Germany, there is no drinking age, and drinking is one of the most popular things to do. A lot of my fellow servicemen were hesitant to go to town, though, because they didn’t speak the language. I became the translator for the group, and we always went to town as a group.
One night we were all sitting at a big table in a German discotheque, when one of my buddies fell in instant love with a girl sitting at a table full of German girls. He asked me how to say, “Would you like to dance?” in German. I knew it was “Tanzen wir?,” but I was feeling playful. I taught him to say, “Wilst du mich heiraten?” He practiced and then went over to the girl. He got a stunned look from the girl and laughs from our table. I had told everyone that I had just taught him how to say, “Will you marry me?”
He didn’t know what to do when the girl just sat there, so he pantomimed asking her to dance and she accepted. They danced all night.
I felt very slighted six months later when I wasn’t one of the guys they invited to their wedding.
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
In one of my favorite movies, The Big Lebowski, the mustachioed Sam Elliot tells the Dude, “A wiser man than me once said that sometimes you eat the b’ar, and sometimes the b’ar eats you.” Saturday night was opening night for Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby in Lancaster. In their first game, The Dutchland Rollers ate the b’ar, handily defeating the South Delaware team. In the second game of the doubleheader, the b’ar ate them.
Normally, I get there just before the match starts and walk right in to the arena, but on Saturday I wound up at the end of an extremely long line of people waiting to get in. Many were local fans of the Dutchland Rollers coming out to support the team in their season opener. Some were fans of the South Delaware team, but a whole hoard of people were there supporting the team that would play in the second game.
In the second game the Rollers faced the Jersey Shore Beatdown, and it was a hell of a game. The Dutchland Rollers faced a well-drilled team that had brought a lot of talent, their own cheerleaders, and a huge fanbase. They must have come by the busload. They also had three spectacular jammers, Horror Quinn, Silicone Valkyrie, and Misbehaving Maven.
I’m a diehard Dutchland Rollers fan, and one thing I’ve learned from the ladies is that they enjoy the game and that playing hard and improving themselves with each game is what this is all about. They’re amateurs, in that they don’t get paid to play, but they’re professional in their attitude, and they put forth 100% effort all the time. Playing up to your potential is more important than winning. The league is set up so that the winningest teams wind up advancing to tougher and tougher divisions. Because of their winning record last year, The Rollers are now playing against some of the finest Women’s teams in Flat Track Roller Derby, and the games are competitive and intense.
They also have some fun with makeup. Dash Ketchum, one of our finest jammers, wears dark makeup around the eyes that make her look, well, deadly. When she pulls up her bandana like an old-time train robber, you know she means business. Mega Pixel, with her torn fishnet stockings and bright red bloomers under her short uniform skirt, looks kind of cute, sexy, and harmless, until she furiously busts through a wall of opponents to rack up points for her team. They were in the first game, which the Rollers won.
In the second game, Kis’t Kis’t Bang Bang was the Rollers’ top jammer. She skated very well, but her opposition was just overpowering. They were the previously mentioned, Horror Quinn, Silicone Valkyrie, and Misbehaving Maven. My favorite was Horror Quinn. She wore a costume that was part Harlequin and part The Joker. Even her bright white mouth guard added to the look. When she flashed that great big smile, just before she crashed through a wall of determine, but doomed, Dutchland blockers, she looked like a female Jack Nicholson, though I guess she was actually going for the look of Harley Quinn in the Batman stories. The rollerskates have a round rubber piece in the front that can be used as a brake to stop a skater, though I’ve never actually seen a skater use it for that purpose. Horror Quinn was able to stand on that piece like a ballerina, and use the added traction of the rubber to plow through the defense like a fullback.
Later, at the after party, I sat at a table with Kis’t Kis’t Bang Bang and Horror Quinn, the top jammers of the two opposing teams in the second game. There was no lingering blood feud between them, though. It was just girls having fun, which is what this league is all about. And having fun is what I’m all about, so I loved every minute of it, and I also loved the cheeseburger and fries they served at 501 West. The next game is April 13th.
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
Warning: Adult content (with a smidgen of prepubescent-male humor)
One of my favorite writers is Davy Barry. For years, he wrote a weekly humor column in the Miami Herald. Then he sold his life story to TV, made a boatload of money, and retired. As readers of this forum well know, I cannot come up with a new story every week. Sometimes, not even every month. So, I am in awe of the sheer volume of Dave’s columns. Dave had an advantage, though. His millions of “alert readers” would constantly send him newspaper clippings about strange things to inspire him. My readers are just as alert, but they just aren’t as numerous. So, most times I must depend upon my own imagination, but not always.
Sometimes, I catch a newspaper article or news story that triggers an idea. I then Google the facts, just like any other professional investigative journalist. Then I proceed to make s##t up.
But I’m not making this s##t up. This is real. Every year between 15 and 30 thousand people actually die from a condition called recurrent Clostridium Difficile Colitis. Usually, this results from a long hospital stay during which they have been pumped up on antibiotics to kill some kind of really bad bacteria in their system. Unfortunately, the antibiotics also kill all the good bacteria. “Good bacteria?” I hear you say, and I say, “Yes. There is such a thing as good bacteria. It’s mostly in our stomach and intestines, and we actually need it to live. If you don’t believe me, Google it.”
So, what happens when you run out of good bacteria? Duh! You get a bacteria transplant. This is where it gets strange. Where do you find good bacteria? The answer is, in poop, or more specifically in healthy poop. So, now, when someone tells you that they’ve got some really good s##t, be aware that it might have absolutely nothing to do with drugs.
There is even a clinic in Boston looking for poop donors. You get $40 a pop, or, more correctly, $40 a poop. Of course, there are conditions, and the first one is that you have to donate healthy poop, which isn’t exactly the same as just taking a big healthy s##t. They check it, by running medical tests on it over the course of 60 days. If, after 60 days, your poop is up to par, they pay you for all your donations, and okay you for another 60 days of donations.
The clinic has a second condition. You must be from the Boston area. As an old Yankee fan, I can understand this. With the exception of my friends Bill and Mary Ford, everyone I know in Boston is full of s##t. So, they probably produce the largest volume of poop per donation. (Apologies in advance to my thousands of Boston readers.)
Then comes the fun part. The clinic makes up a mixture of poop and saline solution. (The exact proportion of ingredients is a well-guarded secret, like the recipe for Coca-Cola, Kentucky-Fried Chicken, or MacDonald’s special sauce.) Then, they perform an FMT, a Fecal Microbial Transplantation, via Colonoscopy. One treatment is all you need, and you’re cured. So, patients can literally bend over and, a short time later, crack a smile.
For some, though, who have side effects from the anesthesia used during a colonoscopy, there is another solution – Poop Pills. No s##t. I mean, yes, they do contain s##t, but I’m not s##tting you about there being such a thing as poop pills. You have to swallow about 20 of them for it to work, but studies have shown that this method is just as effective as the Colonoscopy method, with way fewer side effects (If you don’t count throwing up in the waiting room). It’s also cheaper, as it costs just $300 versus $500 for the Hershey Highway delivery system.
Now, the interesting part. Not so surprisingly, somebody came up with the brainy idea of separating the good bacteria from the donated poop, so that poop-free (as well as, I suppose, sugar-free, peanut-free, and gluten-free) versions of the “medicine” could be offered. To everyone’s surprise, it didn’t work. The bacteria transplantation alone wasn’t enough to generate good bacteria in the host. Even more surprisingly, maybe even way more surprisingly, the now bacteria-free poop by itself still worked. So, there is another mystery ingredient in poop that works either as a catalyst or something else to facilitate the bacterial transfer and growth of good bacteria in the host. Scientists in Boston are probably working night and day trying to find out what this ingredient is. Presumably there are people in New England laboratories s##ting their brains out to provide enough raw material for scientific scrutiny. When these scientists isolate the mystery ingredient, they’ll probably try to figure out a way to make it synthetically.
So, Red Sox fans, before this golden-brown opportunity ends, stop flushing your money down the toilet, and head for a dump-donor site near you. Get your ass to work, and you could be making money and saving lives.
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
I like to stay up late at night, watching movies, reading, or whatever. Why not? I don’t have to get up in the morning anymore. I’m retired. So, to get the 8-9 hours of sleep that I require, I usually sleep until noon. This week put a serious crimp in my style. The new landlord is making the repairs, which were neglected by the previous owner. This week he replaced the roof.
A crew of Amish workers showed up at daybreak and needed to go through my apartment to bring ladders, tools, and supplies into the backyard. So, I was up at 7 a.m. all week. I then proceeded to go back to bed, but it was almost impossible with all the hammering noises they were making. Still, I tried, and I did manage to doze off occasionally. Eventually, I just had to get up. All these Amish guys were swarming all over the house like bees in a hive removing the old roof and installing the new one. Except one guy. Duane was more or less just directing traffic, so I thought he was the boss.
I was wrong. One of the hardworking Amish guys was the boss. Duane drove the truck and made phone calls. That was his job. The Amish don’t drive trucks. When they have to go to town, they just hook up the horse and buggy. So, for big construction projects, where a truck is a necessity, they hire a non-Amish guy to drive the truck.
It reminded me of many years ago when I worked as a manager at Miriam’s Stationary and Book Store on the Amtrak level in Penn Station. My boss, Moishe, was an Orthodox Jew and forbidden to work or run a business on the Sabbath. The Sabbath, however, was the busiest day in Penn Station. So, he worked out a deal with his Rabbi. He owned and operated the store six days a week. Then, come sundown Friday, until sundown Saturday, I magically became the “owner.” I couldn’t do outrageous things like sell the business, but I did have all the other privileges of an owner. Best of all, I had no supervision, as Moishe had to stay away from the business for those 24 hours.
My friends and I had a great time. Most of them commuted to work by the Long Island Railroad, one level below the Amtrak level in Penn Station. So, after work on Friday they would come to the store. We cranked up the music in the store and we would rock the place. Plus, I always had plenty of beer in the refrigerator in my office. My friends and I enjoyed our own private happy hour before they hopped on the Long Island Railroad to go home for the weekend.
It worked for us, because it worked for everyone. Since the store was predominately a book store, our biggest customers were Amtrak riders who wanted to pick up a book to read on the train. Normally, they would hang out in the store for a long time, like it was a library, browsing the books until it was time for their train. The large volume of browsers made it possible for the “boosters” who worked the area to easily steal books. On Friday night, though, the music was so loud that it was not conducive to browsing. People would come in, quickly buy a book, and head to the relative quiet of the Amtrak waiting room to begin reading it. Business was brisk, but there wasn’t a big crowd in the store, so the boosters couldn’t hide in a crowd. So, business was up, theft was down, and good times were had by all.
It took the Amish roofers four days to complete the new roof, and now things are finally back to normal around here, and I can sleep until noon again. Ahhh! To sleep, perchance to dream of all the fun we had in Penn Station when the real boss was away, and the understudy took the stage.
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson is one of my favorite comic strips. Maybe it’s because I see so much of myself in Calvin, and, like him, I don’t plan to change in the new year. I made up a life-changing resolution a long time ago, and I continue to say it to myself every day. So, instead of an annual New Year’s Resolution, I have a daily resolution that has been guiding me for decades. I’ve shared it with hundreds of people in my children’s book, A Little Bit Better, and today I would like to share it with you.
A Little Bit Better
Thanks to the things I did yesterday,
Today I am better in every way.
I love myself with all my features.
I love the world with all its creatures.
I set great goals and I get them done.
I find many helpers, and so it is fun.
I’ll use this day wisely and go with the weather.
Tomorrow I’ll wake up a little bit better.
May 2019 be a little bit better to you than previous years, and may you be better in 2019 than you’ve ever been.
Happy New Year.
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
Last week the local Susquehanna Valley oldies station, 96.1 FM SOX Radio, had their own “Santa D.” in a big booth at the Wrightsville Columbia Bridge collecting toys for underprivileged children. Their goal was to collect 7500 toys. “7500 toys,” I thought, “heck, my New York friend Marianne could probably gather that many new toys overnight. She’s the leader of a large network of New York Do-Gooders, who manage to turn a whole lot of bad situations into great fundraisers. Marianne just goes on social media and posts something like, “If anyone would like to contribute toys for underprivileged children [or it could be books for Africa, household goods for Appalachia, bleach, food, and water for victims of Hurricane Sandy, toiletries for veterans, or whatever itch needed scratching in some part of the world], they can just leave them on my porch.…and I’ll deliver them.” Overnight, her front porch would become The F.A.O. Schwartz of toy stores or a warehouse of whatever stuff they were collecting for the cause they were helping that day. But that’s not the point of this story.
The point is that the toy drive was being held at the historical site of one of the most famous bridges in Civil War history, the Wrightsville Columbia Bridge, which, back then, was a covered bridge. There are plenty of covered bridges out here in Amish land, and I asked around to find out why. I learned that the main reasons they were covered was to weather storms, and to prevent the horses from seeing the rushing water and being spooked while crossing and possibly falling into the river.The current bridge, the fifth edition of the grand structure, is not a covered bridge like its predecessors. It’s not even called the Wrightsville Columbia Bridge anymore, except by locals. U.S. maps call it the Veteran’s Memorial Bridge.
The first Wrightsville Columbia Bridge was destroyed by severe weather. The second Wrightsville-Columbia Bridge, completed in 1834, is the one that made history. Besides being the longest covered-bridge in the world it was “stout enough to bear loaded train cars.” I wondered how many of the people who travelled across the bridge to give toys, knew the history of the bridge itself. As a native New Yorker, I was completely unaware of the significance of the Wrightsville Bridge in the Civil War until recently.
Most of the Civil War battles were fought in the South. The leader of the Confederate Army, Robert E. Lee, hoped to get England and France to enter the war on the side of the South. So, he instructed his generals to attack the North, hoping to impress the European countries. The Rebel army advanced. The Confederates won at York, Pennsylvania, and were about to cross the Susquehanna River into the City of Lancaster on the way to the Pennsylvanian capital at Harrisburg. If they crossed the Susquehanna, things would not be good for the Union.
The small Pennsylvania militia could not halt the advancing army, so they tried to blow up the bridge with dynamite, but it was like a scene straight out of the movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai. The bridge was so well-built that it was not so easily demolished. So, on June 28, 1863, the Pennsylvania militia wound up soaking it with oil and burning the bridge.
The local people of Wrightsville and Columbia gave up their bridge to save the cities of Lancaster and Harrisburg, and, as it turned out, the Union itself. With no way to cross the mile-wide Susquehanna River, the Southern troops heading north poured into the Gettysburg area. The Army of the Potomac met them there a few days later on July 1, 1863, and they fought one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War at Gettysburg. Casualties were high on both sides, but Lee lost a third of his Southern army. The battle of Gettysburg, followed by Lincoln’s inspirational Gettysburg address turned the course of the war for the North.
It is very fitting that the site of the Wrightsville Columbia Bridge, which gave its all for the Union in 1863 was the site of so much gift giving this holiday season. Happy Holidays to all.
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
Usually when historians are asked to rate the U.S. Presidents, they put James Buchanan at the bottom. I think this is very unfair. He was a very good President, who just happened to be elected at the very worst time in U.S. history.
The country was on the verge of Civil War when he was elected in 1856. Abolitionists in the North desperately wanted to crush slavery and the South along with it. Secessionists in the South were afraid of the dire consequences they would have to face if slavery, which had legally existed in America for 200 years, was outlawed and 4 million negroes were suddenly free to take merciless revenge on their masters. Buchanan had to use everything he learned during his forty plus years of public service to keep the powder keg from exploding, and he managed to do so. Then the election of Abraham Lincoln lit the fuse, and all Hell broke loose.
Rather than acknowledging Buchanan’s peace keeping efforts, both sides immediately blamed him for the war. Though Buchanan had strong sympathies for the South, he was also a strong Unionist and, for the sake of the preservation of the Union, he had to endure the lies that were spread about him by both sides. He didn’t want to further incite the South, so he couldn’t level blame on them for seceding, and he didn’t want to cast aspersions on the new President during wartime by blaming Republicans and Abolitionists for driving the South to secede. He was literally a rock between two hard places, and for the sake of the Union had to take the abuse that was heaped on him without defending himself. His silence only caused both sides to increase their level of abuse until his reputation was utterly destroyed.
He did not wish to stand idly by, though, and he wrote his memoirs to correct all the lies that were being spoken and printed about him. He loved his country so much, though, that he refused to publish his defense until the War was over. Then the Civil War dragged on and on for years and by the time he published his memoirs in 1866 it was already too late to save his reputation. History had already painted him as the villain, and he knew that a century would have to go by before his name could ever hope to be cleared. Unfortunately, a century and a half has gone by, and historians still fail to give him a fair trial. I’m sure they feel that removing blame for the Civil War from Buchanan would force them to place some of the blame on Abolitionists and Lincoln, and that just ain’t gonna happen. Lincoln had already been made into a god. After all, Lincoln freed the slaves, and he was the victim of an assassination. He’s one of the four Presidents on Mount Rushmore. His place in history was literally and perpetually carved in stone. So, Buchanan has to continue suffering “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Maybe, it will be another century before James Buchanan can get a fair hearing with historians and escape the bottom ranking…unless, of course, if Donald Trump continues the way he’s going.
Our representatives are chosen in free elections. The best way to get good representatives in government is for the people to study the issues, study the candidates, and be sure to vote. Tomorrow is Election Day. Vote wisely.
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
earlthepearl137 