MARCH 28, 1910: M-O-U-S-E

Jimmie Dodd, who was born on March 28, 1910, was an American actor who had small parts in movies during the early 50s. His specialty seemed to be playing taxi drivers (You can check him out in Easter Parade.) His big break came in 1955 when he became the fearless leader of a gang of young teenagers who all performed on TV five times weekly sporting mouse ears.

Dodd was, of course, the head mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club. Dodd also penned the infamous “Mickey Mouse Club March” as well as other songs which he performed on the program accompanying himself on his “mouse-guitar.” It must have been embarrassing enough for teenagers, wearing those mouse ears, but for a guy in his forties — well, chances are he drank heavily.

Kingdoms Can Be Magic or They Can Be Wild

Herding teenagers in mouse ears is one thing, but being chased by wild animals week after week was quite another. It was, however bread and butter for Marlin Perkins, born on this date in 1905. For 35 years beginning in 1950, Perkins was insulted, chased, bitten and stung, first on Zoo Parade and then on Wild Kingdom. Perkins eventually got smart and let his sidekick Jim Fowler interact with the animals while he narrated from a safe distance.

The Maine and Spain

On March 28, 1898, the United States Naval Court of Inquiry found that the American battleship Maine, which had been blown up in February while on an observation visit, was destroyed by a submerged mine.

William Randolph Hearst had already decided the Spanish were to blame and meant to do something about it. He ran a series of articles pushing for war with Spain. Headlines proclaimed “Spanish Treachery!” and “Destruction of the War Ship Maine Was the Work of an Enemy!” Hearst’s New York Journal offered a $50,000 award for the “detection of the Perpetrator of the Maine Outrage.”

Several months earlier, Hearst had sent Western artist Frederick Remington to get sketches of the brave Cuban insurgents fighting for independence. When Remington sent a report stating that everything was quiet — rum, conch fritters and siestas — that there would be no war, Hearst famously responded. “Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I will furnish the war.”

His hyperbolic and breathless accounts of “atrocities” committed by the Spanish in Cuba and his leading role in inciting the war, earned Hearst the nickname Father of Yellow Journalism (a title not really up there with  Father of Quantum Physics or Father of  the Bride), yellow journalism being the presentation of news of questionable legitimacy using exaggeration, sensationalism and eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers.  Unless it’s true — then it’s called fake news.

The Nays of Texas

On March 28, 1845, Mexico had a diplomatic temper tantrum over the territory of Texas and broke off relations with the United States. (Either both countries wanted Texas or neither country wanted Texas.)  Said the Mexican president: “We’re going to build a big, beautiful wall, and the United States is going to pay for it.”

Wretched Richard’s Little Literary Lessons — No. 5

rep·ar·tee

ˌrepərˈtē,ˌrepˌärˈtē,ˌrepˌärˈtā/

noun

Conversation or speech characterized by quick, witty comments or replies; amusing and usually light sparring with words

For example:

“So here we are,” said Huey. “stuck on Gilligan’s Island – Chickenshit Crusoe and his faithless companion, Good Friday.”

“I was a Boy Scout for two weeks,” Paul offered.

“What a relief. And to think I was starting to get worried. But you obviously know how to start a fire without matches, forage for food, and carve a comfortable existence out of the cruel jungle.”

“Well I did learn how to tie a square knot.”

“Well there you are. You little rascals are always prepared, aren’t you? And kind and reverent and true and God-fearing and above all helpful. If we only had a little old lady, you could help her back and forth across the beach.”

“Are you through?”

“Probably not.” She sat down next to him.

“Since we may be spending the rest of our lives together, we should probably learn to be cordial.”

“Sure, I know your type, Crusoe,” said Huey. “First you get a girl stranded on an island. Then you want to be cordial. And then – ”

And then?

JUNE 15, 1937: REEFER MADNESS

In 1937, Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act which levied a tax of one dollar on anyone who dealt commercially in marijuana. The bill had been written using the slang term “marihuana” throughout, obscuring the fact that it covered the plant’s legitimate uses in medicine, where it was broadly known as cannabis and in the fiber industry as hemp. The Act did not itself criminalize their possession, but regulations and restrictions on the sale of cannabis as a drug had been around since the previous century.  In effect, the bill made it impossible for anyone to deal with call it what you will in any form.

     Conspiracy theorists maintained that business tycoons Andrew Mellon, Randolph Hearst, and the Du Pont family were behind passage of the Act as a way to reduce the size of the hemp industry. Hemp had became a very cheap substitute for the paper pulp that was used in the newspaper industry and as such was a threat to Hearst’s extensive timber holdings. Mellon had invested heavily in the Du Pont family’s new synthetic fiber nylon that was competing with hemp.  The campaign that Hearst’s newspapers had been staging against the dangers of the recreational use of the”powerful narcotic in which lurks MURDER! INSANITY! DEATH!” was therefore disingenuous. (‘Beware the evils of hemp’ didn’t quite cut it.   “Reading newspapers printed on hemp will lead to degradation and reading the New York Post.”)

     The legislation effectively killed the hemp industry and the medical use of cannabis, and the ensuing years of “reefer madness” completed its evolution to the abominable recreational drug it became through the rest of the century.

 

face down in a cranberry bog, part 4:  the corpse returns

“Yoo hoo.” I turned and saw her standing in front of a thicket of heath, twenty yards beyond the bogs.

“Where is he?” I demanded when I reached her, even though it sounded as if I were getting a little possessive with this body. She was quite disheveled, as though – as though she’d dragged a body out of a cranberry bog.

“Back there, in the bushes.”

“Why?”

“After you left, I started thinking more clearly and realized that he can’t be found here. That would be terrible. I hope you’re not angry.”

“Angry? The Nantucket police chief thinks I’m a lunatic. And if anyone dies mysteriously on this island in the next ten years, I’m his number one suspect. Angry? Of course not.”

“Oooh, I’m sorry,” she wailed and unleashed her puppy dog eyes.

“Why can’t he be found here?”

“Because he’s supposed to be in Boston. It’s very complicated.”

“You had sex with a man who’s supposed to be in Boston on the edge of a Nantucket cranberry bog and he died and fell in so now he’s back there in the bushes. What’s complicated?”

She looked at me as though she still wasn’t sure I could be trusted even though I had aided and abetted every inch of her little crime other than the actual killing – and the sex, of course. Finally she spoke. “You didn’t recognize him, did you?” I was about to reply that we hadn’t met under ideal conditions. “He’s Alexander Farnsworth.”

“Alexander Farnsworth. The name’s not familiar, nor his face. Why would I recog – ?” I guess my mouth dropped open because she began to shake her head excitedly.

“No,” I said, as if my denial would make it not so, but now the face was familiar, too. “Not Secretary of State Alexander Farnsworth?”

“Yes. Everyone thinks he’s in Boston. But he’s been here for the past week having secret meetings with a Prince Somebody from somewhere important.”

“I thought he was here to fool around with someone in a cranberry bog.”

“That’s not very nice,” she snapped.

“Okay. How did the two of you happen to end up…?”

“I came to Nantucket with him. I work for him. This morning, he wanted to relax for a while so we took a walk and – well, you know the rest. Now you know why he can’t be here. It’s not just me. It’s national security stuff.”

“He’s no better off in those bushes than in the bog.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m going to take him back to Boston.”

“Oh boy.”

“I’ve made up my mind. I’ve got to do it. But I need your help again. Do you have a car?”

“I hope you’re not going to ask me to drive a dead man to Boston.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that.” Then she breathlessly explained to me how she herself was going to drive the dead Secretary of State first onto the ferry then to Boston in an official government vehicle which she would leave with him behind the wheel in the underground parking lot of an exclusive Boston hotel. My mind went a little numb as I listened to her plan and gazed into her conspiring eyes. When she stopped talking, I leaned forward and kissed her. She let me, but then pulled away. “Please,” she said. “Not now. Later, before I go to Boston.”

continued