Booth and the Our American Cousin we want to forget

BOOTH

That family name is infamous. John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln. It is one of the most dastardly deeds in U.S. history. We still live with the consequences.

Booth didn't just rise from the Ford Theater stage and murder a president. He came from somewhere. He had parents, brothers and sisters. As a kid in Maryland, he was a scamp who liked dogs, rode horses, and played tricks on his siblings. He is not a monster, at least he's not in Karen Joy Fowler's amazing historical novel, "Booth." He's the third-youngest of the children of noted actor Junius Booth and his beleaguered wife. A Marylander, he turns into a Southern sympathizer and buys into the kind of political mind-rot our Uncle Jimbo in South Carolina now gets on Fox and social media. 

We know how the story ends. In tragedy, maybe the worst one in American history. An almost-famous actor kills the president and changes history.

One can almost hear the reporters of 1865 interviewing the neighbors. "He seemed like such a nice man. Last winter I saw him playing in the snow with the kids (a scene from "Booth"). A fine actor too. You just gotta wonder what went wrong."

Presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. He seemed like such a nice man. Until he wasn't.

"Booth," an historical novel by Karen Joy Fowler, explores the Booth family history leading up to April 14, 1865, at a performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. John Wilkes Booth, a Southern sympathizer and conspiracy nut, bursts into Lincoln's box and shoots him in the head. The country, part of it anyway, goes into mourning. Unreconstructed Confederates cheer. 

A divided country -- so what else is new? 

Read it all -- you might be a winner on Jeopardy

The history teacher from Texas won the $100,000 Teachers' Challenge on Jeopardy last week. He clinched the championship because he knew that New Orleans was the U.S. city that dropped off the top-50 cities list but reappeared 10 years later. He permanently moved into first place the day before because he because he knew the author of a very famous book. This very famous book, written in 1936, is 1,037 pages long and the only novel published by the author in her lifetime. You won't find it on any literary lists, mainly because it is basically a southern romance. Not only that. If it doesn't exactly glorify the southern cause in The Civil War, it does portray members of the KKK as brave protectors of southern womanhood.

You know the answer: "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta. A big potboiler of a book that was transformed into a big potboiler of a movie in 1939. The book sold well in its time, but it really took off when the star-studded movie came out. The movie is considered a classic. The book, not so much. That's probably why the two English teachers in the Jeopardy semifinals did not know the answer. They guessed Edith Wharton and Jane Austen. Very smart modern women who knew two members of the American Literary Canon. But didn't know a best-selling author who died too young when run over by a car in downtown Atlanta in 1949.

These two English teachers didn't know GWTW because schoolkids don't read it. I know why (see reasons above) but still, they are all missing out on something good. Have you ever read a big, fat, bloated novel? Of course you have. James Michener excelled at these. In "Hawaii," it takes the reader a 100 pages to get to the spot where human beings actually appear on ancient Hawaii. In "Centennial," set in my part of the country, the author takes his time reaching the arrival of Native Americans to pre-state Colorado and Wyoming. Neither of these books are part of the canon, although you might find both in history classes or, worse, in multicultural studies classes that exhibit books of "cultural appropriation."

Political correctness rears its ugly head.

My liberal self knows that the whole anti-PC movement is an excuse by racists to be racists, misogynists to be misogynists, Trump to be Trump, etc. Still, we are caught up in a ridiculous fight over who has the right to speak for who. Is it valid for a white writer such as myself to speak in the voice of a black woman or a Native American? Yes, because writers have the freedom to write from any POV, including non-human and intergalactic ones. What's that Harlan Ellison story told from the POV of a planet-exploring dog? Fantasy and sci-fi are filled with mythical characters who come alive in the hands of skilled writers. We live in an era of fantastic beasts and superheroes. Not enough of these writers are women or people of color. But that is changing, albeit slowly. The push is on for a balanced perspective, pushed by the country's changing demographics and tastes

But back to "Gone with the Wind." My grandfather Shay boasted that he read GWTW once a year. He was not  a Southerner but an Iowa farm boy who served in the Great War and came home to be a Denver insurance salesman for 60 years. My father was a GWTW fan, which is probably how I came upon the book, sitting forlornly in Dad's library after he and my mother finished with it. I was thrilled by the war narrative but rushed through the mushy stuff, hoping to find sex scenes, but in vain. Meanwhile, I was trying to get my hands on Terry Southern's "Candy." A copy was circulating through Sister Theresa's eighth grade class at Our Lady of Perpetual Chastity Grade School. The girls bogarted the book, which led to the ringleaders being discovered and forbidden from graduating with the class. Some of the boys read it too, although only the girls were punished. Catholic school was instructive in so many ways.

I knew that GWTW was the answer to the Jeopardy question.

"The English teachers will know that," said Chris.

"No they won't."

She seemed shocked when I was right. I told her about the status of GWTW on college campuses and in high school classrooms. At the same time, Mayor Mitch Landrieu had crews dismantling Confederate symbols around New Orleans. A week ago, alt-right demonstrators carrying torches (really guys, torches?) showed up to protect a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia. Some guy drives around Cheyenne in a white pick-up flying a large confederate flag.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

So wrote William Faulkner in "Requiem for a Nun."

In the South -- and in some parts of Wyoming -- the past is present.

So public school teachers in California don't read and don't teach GWTW. So, the Cali school teacher on Jeopardy was an also-ran in the big Teachers' Challenge prize.

While all of the Cali population was not alive in 1865, about half of the state's population is now non-white. GWTW would hurt their feelings. But they will always miss out on a compelling story. They might know the movie but not Mitchell's language and style, which is a damn shame, my dear. They may be an English major at UW or Stanford. They will get to know Austen and Wharton, Toni Morrison and and Jame Baldwin, Sandra Cisneros and Flannery O'Connor.

I've read Michener and Michael Crichton and tons of thrillers and detective novels. I've read treacly romances and predictable Zane Grey westerns.

Read it all.

Don't limit your world. That's how we got into this mess.

High Plains politics getting more interesting all the time

If you're bored with regional politics, you're not paying attention.

In Wyoming, State Superintendent Cindy Hill has been stripped of her powers by fellow Republicans in the Legislature. She's now suing the state and plans to run against our sitting Gov, Matt Mead. Many Tea Party types have come to Hill's aide, pledging their support in 2014 in the form of votes and crazy letters to the editor. This week I saw Cindy Hill riding in an old-timey carriage in the Cheyenne Frontier Days parade. She smiled and waved from the carriage. Hardly anyone smiled and waved back.

Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick, has announced a run for Mike Enzi's seat in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Enzi is a soft-spoken, well-read man who votes with his party 99 percent of the time. If you've seen Liz Cheney on Fox, you know that she swallowed the same bitter pill as her old man. In fact, she is a bitter pill. Maybe that could be her slogan: "Liz Cheney: A Bitter Pill Who Hates Obama More Than Mike Enzi Does." In an op-ed in this morning's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (and on Wyofile July 23), Kerry Drake interviewed former legislator and fellow blogger Rodger McDaniel about Ms. Cheney's run for the Senate. Rodger ventured that she could spend up to $4 million in the primary race. Enzi, in the other hand, has never spent more than $3.50 to defeat any challengers. I jest. He did spend in the low six figures last time out, but he better get on the 2014 money-raising stick PDQ, as Liz is rich and is spoiling for bear.

North Colorado -- like North Carolina or North Dakota. Some say that has a nice ring to it. A handful of denizens of north and east Colorado want to form a 51st state, North Colorado. They are fed up with all the liberals from Denver making all the rules. Bans against high-capacity magazines and automatic weapons. Anti-fracking laws. Pro civil unions for all. Pot legalization. The state is going to heck in a handbasket and secession is in the air. While reefer heads in Boulder experience flashbacks to 1969, good ol' boys in Sedgwick County are riding on the way-back machine to 1861. According to the AP, more than four dozen people showed up to a secession meeting in Fort Lupton this week. More than four dozen? That doesn't seem like many, unless you know that the population of some of those plains counties is five dozen.

I have a modest proposal for the secessionists. Join Wyoming. We're a no-nonsense state on issues such as guns, same-sex marriage and pot. A big yes on the first and a resounding no on the last two. Fracking? Hell, you can frack in your own backyard and the feds and the staties will leave you alone. We don't have any state income tax either, which means you can keep all that fracking loot to buy guns and high-capacity magazines. We have plenty of wide open spaces for shooting practice. People just think those are firecrackers from our thriving fireworks industry. Another thing -- our Legislature hates Obamacare. In fact, if you join Wyoming you can buy any darn health care plan you can afford, as thus far the state has refused to go for Medicaid expansion or any of that socialized medicine nonsense.

One suggestion, though. I know that the Weld County commissioners were the ones who put you up to the idea of North Colorado. But if I were you, I'd ditch Weld County. It's home to the city of Greeley which is filled with Democrats. It has a university, too, and you know that they're the breeding ground of radical liberal educators who keep brainwashing our rural kids in the ways of Howard Zinn and beatnik poets. I was in Greeley last week and saw a merry band of hipsters walking down the sidewalk toward the local brewpub. You know what they say -- cities breed hipsters and Democrats, not the other way around. See if it's possible to excise Greeley from its county, That way, when you join Wyoming, you're not bringing thousands of registered Democrats with you.

You may have to give up the name "North Colorado." Still, Wyoming has a nice ring to it, don't you think? One of your counties is already named Cheyenne. You may not know this, but "Wyoming" means "freedom." Not literally, but you know (a wink and a nod) what I mean when I say "freedom" surrounded by quotes. Freedom!

Stephen Vincent Benet's "John Brown's Body" comes to the Wyoming stage

Nobody, with the possible exception of English majors and classics' scholars, reads epic poetry anymore. The Iliad. The Odyssey. Leaves of Grass. Letter to an Imaginary Friend. John Brown's Body.

Stephen Vincent Benet won the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for "John Brown's Body," a 15,000-line epic about America's Civil War. Benet wrote it in Paris in 1926-1928, his trip financed by a Guggenheim fellowship. I've never encountered Benet in my reading about the "Lost Generation" in Paris, those post-World War I expats from all over who gravitated to Paris for a healthy dose of creativity and mass quantities of boozing (absinthe anyone?).

John Brown usually lies a-moulderin' on the page in Benet's now-neglected book. But a Wyoming family with theatrical roots are performing "John Brown's Body" in a staged reading this week. The reading will be performed by Pete and Lynne Simpson and there three children: Maggie, Milward and Pete. The elder Pete is a retired history professor at the University of Wyoming. Wife Lynne is an accomplished actress and director. Maggie is a singer/songwriter, Milward is a musician and theatre guy (and fellow state employee) and Pete  Jr. performs with the Blue Man Group.

Wyoming was far removed from Civil War action. From 1861-65, it was part of Nebraska Territory with very few Anglo settlements outside of military forts. Although there were some Civil War battles in the Rocky Mountains -- New Mexico comes to mind -- none were fought in Wyoming. Slavery was permitted in the territories. But whether the nascent states would be "free states" or slave states" was being argued about regularly in Congress. That struggle came to a head with abolitionist John Brown's raid on the U.S. Army Depot at Harper's Ferry. He was executed for his crime on Dec. 2, 1859. Southern forces fired on Fort Sumter 16 months later, launching the Civil War. The next four years were a horror show for the country. In his epic poem, Benet tried to describe the experience from various points of view. Maybe Ken Burns was thinking of Benet when he filmed his famous Civil War series for PBS. He let the people speak in their own words.

Some of Benet's lines feature John Brown's final words:

Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my
life for the furtherance of the ends of justice and mingle
my blood further with the blood of my children
and with the blood of millions in this slave country
whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and
unjust enactments, I say, let it be done.

Let it be done. And it was.

You can see "John Brown's Body, a staged reading," featuring the Simpson family with music by the Cheyenne Chamber Singers, at the Cheyenne Civic Center, Thursday, Nov. 15. Tickets $20 for adults and $10 for students. They are $5 more at the door. Visit www.cheyenneciviccenter.org or call 637-6363.

Read more about Benet and his poem at http://www.historynet.com/john-browns-body-stephen-vincent-benet-and-civil-war-memory.htm

Mother's Day has roots in early peace movement

From Nation of Change:  

Mother’s Day began in America in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Written in response to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, her proclamation called on women to use their position as mothers to influence society in fighting for an end to all wars. She called for women to stand up against the unjust violence of war through their roles as wife and mother, to protest the futility of their sons killing other mothers’ sons. Read more here

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Without the South, we'd have a better country -- but the music and novels would suck

Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen offers some alternative thoughts about Abe Lincoln’s legacy during this President's Day weekend:

While Abraham Lincoln certainly had some admirable traits, recall that his main goal was to hold the Union together. Now, ponder what a fine country we'd have if Lincoln had just let the South go in peace. 

Without the South, we'd probably enjoy decent passenger rail service, improved public education and single-payer health insurance. Our federal taxes would be lower, as many of the old Confederate states enjoy substantial subsidies. Mississippi, for instance, collects $2.02 from the federal government for every dollar it pays in federal taxes. It's $1.78 for Louisiana, $1.65 for Alabama and $1.51 for Virginia. 

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Granted, American popular music would be worse than dreadful without Southern contributions.

Not to mention American fiction writing without Southern writers. Instead of U.S. writers from the South, the following would be notable writers from the C.S.A.: William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, Harry Crews, Rita Dove, Zora Neale Hurston, Peter Taylor, Barry Hannah, Pat Conroy, Rosemary Daniell, Lewis Nordan, Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, Kaye Gibbons, Yusef Komunyakaa, Natasha Tretheway, Barbara Kingsolver, and so on. 

Thing is, they might not have become the writers we know without the angst that comes with being defeated rebels. And there are some African-American writers on this list who might not have had the freedom to write in an agrarian slave-based country.   

Read Quillen’s column at http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_19983335?source=pop

Tea Party Slim is not so civil about The Civil War

Tea Party Slim and I were on the back porch discussing the American Civil War. We would have been on the front porch but the Wyoming west wind was blowing too damn hard. Under shelter, we sipped iced tea festooned with sprigs of mint.

“You mean The War Between the States, don’t you?” said Slim.

“The Civil War is what I’m talking about,” I replied. “It was 1861-1865. It started with the South seceding from the Union and firing on a military fort in Charleston Harbor.”

“That’s the one I’m talking about – The War of Northern Aggression. The South just wanted to live in peace…”

“…with their slaves.”

Slim held up his hand. “Not all Southerners had slaves. In fact, 85 percent of them did not.”

“But 15 percent did. And they were the merchants and land barons and politicians that forced the issue. People like Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Scarlett O’Hara’s pa, Mary Custis, etc.”

“You mean Mary Custis, granddaughter of Gen. George Washington, slaveholder?”

“One and the same.”

“Or Thomas Jefferson, slave owner and well, you know… He liked his female slaves.” Slim was trying to be delicate.

“Sally Hemmings – we all know the story,” I said. “And I’m sure there are hundreds like it all across the South. The Massa had all the power and when he came calling, well, how could a girl turn him down?”

“O.K., O.K., enough of that,” said Slim. “People make mistakes.”

“Rape is merely a mistake?”

“Let’s get back to the politics. This stuff makes me sick.”

“Rape is politics.” I had to get in one more jab. “But we were talking about The Civil War. Ken Burns called it that on PBS.”

“Don’t get me started on PBS.”

I dearly wanted to get him started on PBS, one of the Tea Party’s favorite targets, but held my tongue. “Shelby Foote is interviewed on the show. He’s a Southerner and he calls it The Civil War.”

“He has to do that on TV.”

I disappeared inside and brought back Shelby Foote’s massive three-volume The Civil War: A Narrative. “Shelby Foote called it The Civil War.”

“His publisher made him do it,” said Slim. “The War of Northern Aggression: A Narrative wouldn’t be welcomed in those New York literary circles.”

“Foote was from Mississippi, land of great writers” I added. “You can borrow the books if you want.”

“No thanks,” he said. “I’ve read all I need to about The Civ… I mean, The War Between the States.”

I held the books in my lap. They weighed a ton. I wondered if I should tell Slim that I’d only read half of the first volume.

“That’s the problem – the victor gets to tell the story,” said Slim. “The North won. The North tells their side of the story.”

“I told you that Foote is a Mississippian,” I said. “Did you watch him on the PBS series? He spoke very kindly about the South and Southerners and said some harsh words about the North. The Union generals stunk, for one thing.”

Slim smiled. “They did, didn’t they? McClellan was the worst.”

“It’s hard to say who the worst was,” I replied. “So much competition. But they did find a leader in Grant. And Sherman is credited with creating the “total war” concept with his march through the South.”

“Talk about rape and pillaging.”

“And burning crops and houses and generally laying waste to the countryside.”

“The War of Northern Aggression – like I said.”

“The Civil War – like me and Shelby Foote and Ken Burns and millions of others said. You can look it up.”

We sat in silence. I could tell we had reached an impasse. Slim was looking a bit glum. I decided that the day needed some new energy. “I’m surprised, Slim, that you didn’t once mention the magic words.”

He looked at me. “Magic words?”

“States’ rights,” I said.

His eyes bulged. Steam poured out of his ears. The glass shattered in his hand. “States’ rights,” he bellowed. “That’s what it was all about. No matter what you call the war, it was about the rights of a state or group of states over the rights of a federal government. Why just look at what’s happened since. We got the feds telling us what to do, from what crops we grow to the kind of cars we drive. Half of Wyoming is owned by the feds and we should take it back, we should….”

As Slim went on and on, I sat back in my chair and sipped my mint tea. The history of The Civil War weighed heavily on my lap and in my mind.

Photo: Tea Party uber-patriot. Photo by Don Jenkins, The Daily News