Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Take 1940 One

The pseudo-intellects, or "coffeelectuals", or "blackrimmers" as I call them (because of their glasses), needed no excuse to wear their scarves today. I sat from the cafeteria picking leftover friedness from Chick-Fil-A tin foil and watched the weather roll in. The clouds looked like chins on angry men when they've been driving too long without Paul Harvey. Or a P stop. They hit the breaks and realized there wasn't anything to stop them over the flat states—except that arch in St. Louis which they slid right under. The wind smacked the side of my face in Central Arkansas, forcing me to grab my glasses, my scarf... and run for coffee.

Comfortably inside my favorite antique store, I reflected on the irony of the whole town being rather antique. The price tag, however, on living here is breathing the fine dust that has kept the roads to the lungs, and the mind, closed from moving past 1965. I flipped through post cards in a shoe box titled "The Old South." Half of them were identical, featuring a red-lipped brunette straddling a Civil War cannon. She waves a rebel flag over her head, and has this grin like the war was yesterday... and yesterday was a dream that tomorrow will correct. But the cannon, it’s cracked and overgrown, and it looks through all of this—the photographer, the cut-offs—and pleads directly with me: Why are we doing this? Why can’t the south move on?

Moving on, I began looking through other cabinets and drawers for tin types when the Tuesday owner, the old wife of the Wednesday – Saturday owner, entered from what appeared to be a safe that Butch Cassidy and Sundance had robbed. All of that startled me into an ignorant comment about how the cold was back, to which she hammered: “It’s still winter.”

When will we learn that only meteorologists can have intelligent conversations about the weather?



I smelled the small booklet before I could bring it to visual range. The corner stuck out like a golden ticket underneath black and whites of ancient frowning couples—gender questionable. I love the smell of old, thick paper. It sends me into every attic I peered into as a child, every cat black coffee I wondered in at my reflection, and reminds me that there are still deeds—good and bad—that for whatever reason have been forgotten by the common fable.

I had found a Chicago Street Guide. Two of the front cover claims were instantly, but forgivably, wrong: the statement that it was free (tagged $1), and that it was the “latest” (the date was 1941). Inside was a listing of streets as well as, bizarrely, descriptions of current health problems ranging from sleeping disorders to social diseases—now known as STDs.

The writing was beautifully World War II in a font that seemed to match all of its upfront, black-and-white, legalistic ways. One hilarious example stuck out, titled “SEXUAL WEAKNESS.” Click the image to read.


I left the antique store and walked through the antique town holding the book up in front of my face like a comic to 1.) block the freezing wind and 2.) prevent the reminder that 2007 was still all around me. Grinning, I straddled a park fence, overgrown and cracking, waving my little treasure.

Then I wondered: Was I any different from the red-lipped brunette with her rebel flag and cannon?

True, the Civil War was a terrible blotch on our nation’s history and many of the social injustices it tried to combat still exist today (i.e. The symbolism the confederate “rebel” flag now assumes because of racists nearly a century after the war), but there were also many problems in 1941. Our “Greatest Generation” stood by nationwide segregation, unequal opportunities for women and immigrants, as well as the development of the largest mass-murder weapon in history—the atom bomb.

Was I celebrating hate, sexism, and violence by proudly displaying my Chicago Street Guide? Of course not. And besides, there are many aspects of an earlier America that are now tragically lost. The localized culture of 1850’s America, where each town had its own unique dialect and flavor, soul—now replaced by McDonalds and Starbucks coast to coast. And there’s something behind the honesty of the “SEXUAL WEAKNESS” article that used to lend our news and writing a certain energy—now watered down by political correctness in its aim to keep everyone as comfortable as possible.

I think back to the grinning Southern girl and the flag that represents her heritage—we are all apart of a similar heritage that should be openly celebrated and learned from. And for the cannon’s question, all I know is that the south can’t move on because… it shouldn’t have to.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Oh wait, this piece of paper is real



What isn’t known about George A. Custer is the story of his last one-night stand. The only remaining account, a banned History Channel teleplay, is locked in a historical cabinet marked “Absolutely Disgusting” because—it’s absolutely disgusting.

Sioux warrior princess Bear Wolf Cub Owl Dog (translated: Amy Adams) was winning a staring contest with her reflection in the Little Big Horn River when Custer arrived, sparking debatably the greatest love affair of 1876.

While his men, on a 24-hour recess, pillaged the Black Hills for gold and collectible arrowheads, Custer and Amy spent a day running up streams with salmon, finding clues in a childish “savager hunt”, and making fun of the earth without care of the next harvest.

Unfortunately, when they realized they might be sworn enemies, Custer changed the subject to avoid awkwardness. And in what would become the most obvious trap since Delilah cut Samson’s hair, Custer trusted the advice that there were only 2 natives (including her brother who didn’t really count for some reason involving poison oak) camped near the river.

So on June 25th, 1876 the Custer confidently led his 210 men into a battle with nearly 5,000 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. In one of the largest massacres since the Civil War, Custer and his men wound up “absolutely disgusting”... and broken (like the treaties).

I have never seen a less threatening field. A giant obelisk in Crow Agency, Montana serves to commemorate the Little Bighorn Battlefield. The product of Custer’s last one-night stand. Have you ever been playing solitaire at work, visiting an old lady at a nursing home, or simply staring into the blue and red lights of a police car in your rear view and thought: I wonder what the field where George Custer died over 130 years ago looks like at this exact moment in time? Me too. Thanks National Park Service…

http://www.nps.gov/archive/libi/webcam.htm

Amazing, but still no comparison to real men on real horses without 6-minute uploads. If that doesn’t fill your insane George Custer craving, then this will. Thanks Hardin, Montana…

http://www.custerslaststand.org/

These were my thoughts as I was sitting in a wooden library cubicle handwriting notes on the American West. It’s amazing how textbooks consistently take the most fascinating people and stories, official or unofficial, and dull them down with enough dust to fill every bottle in every saloon of every real ghost town George Custer ever dreamed of during debatably the greatest love affair of 1876.

College ruled paper and Mirado Classic #2 Pencils. My hand was hurting from writing history notes, so the cell phone ring was a relief. I hesitated however, still in the moment, and for a split second alerted myself: I need to save this document to the hard drive. I looked to the top left of the paper for the “file” tab, but there was none. Oh wait, this piece of paper is real…

…So the battle between reality and digital continues, and it’s 210 versus 5,000