Hotheads

Hotheads in Congress have such a history! Here's a 1856 shenanigan.

Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts had ranted for two days. On his second day, he called Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina an imbecile.

Two days later, Sumner sat writing letters at his Senate desk. He failed to notice Representative Preston Brooks until he spoke: "Mr. Sumner. I have read your speech twice over. It libels South Carolina, and my white-haired old relative, Senator Butler, and I've come to punish you for it."

As Sumner started to rise, Brooks attacked, smashing the Senator's skull with a gold-headed cane, knocking him under his desk. As Brooks walloped him, the Senator, quite tall, struggled to rise from under the heavy desk, which was bolted to the floor. Blood gushed down his face.

Just another morsel from THIEVES RASCALS & SORE LOSERS, a saucy Nebraska history by Marilyn June Coffey.

Of Chiwere & Bacon

He spoke Chiwere, native tongue of Otoes and the Missouria, so William Parker Carr was a natural choice to move the 700 Indians to their new reservation. After, of course, Washington D.C fleeced both tribes of their lands and they had nowhere else to go.

Practical Carr had plenty of food—flour, bacon, and sixty head of cattle.  So he invented a strategy to make excellent time with a minimum of fuss on the 75-mile trip. 

The first day, he distributed five cows plus ample flour and bacon to the 700 travelers. He waited until all ate their fill. Then he announced where their next meal would be served. Just as he expected, the Otoes and the Missouria sped to the next location.

Just another tidbit from THIEVES RASCALS & SORE LOSERS, a saucy Nebraska history by Marilyn June Coffey.

Bull Whackers

Ever yearn to be a bull whacker, driving a team of eight oxen, heading to Fort Laramie? 

William Parker Carr did, whacking his bullocks to get them to move..

"Off he went, inspiring his oxen team to move alongside the flat, meandering Platte River. 

"By night around the campfire, Carr listened to bull whackers' tales: About the guy who drove a flock of turkeys a thousand miles to Utah. Or the chap who hauled frozen oysters to market along the trail. Or the freighter who made a mint selling cats to Denver miners. They used the cats as mousers—or even as companions. At least that's what those bull whackers said.

"And by day Carr brandished his long whip until it split the sky with cracks. Highdy, highdy, highdy, haw! He also engaged in the fine art of twisting an ox's tail to get his attention."

Read about it 

in my upcoming book, THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS.

April 1

28 days to April 1 when my latest book, THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS, materializes.

Here's a smidgen of the 62,000 words I wrote:

from Chapter 1, Hauling Mail on a Mule

In 1853, William Parker Carr crossed Old Muddy in a flat-bottomed wooden boat that lurched from bank to bank. 

When he stumbled from the ferry, he set his boots on Unorganized Territory. It wasn't Nebraska yet, but it would be soon. 

Carr landed six miles south of Table Creek where he found his first job: delivering mail on a mule. If he'd been smart, he would have declined. The last mail carrier set out with his load of letters and never came back, perhaps because the mail route crossed the land of the Pawnee, those skilled robbers of horses and mules. 

But Carr needed a job so he took it. 

BELLY RAP

Who knows what lesson a lover may bring. Take Jack, who caressed my naked stomach and said, "My, I sure do love your fat little belly."

My fat belly? Surely I misheard. Surely he said, "Flat."

But later, bare-skinned before my mirror, I had to admit that my flat belly had mysteriously disappeared.

Like my once brown hair 

Like my wisdom teeth 

Like my days dissolving into decades.

from the author of PRICKSONGS: Tart Poems from the Sixties 

http://www.amazon.com/Pricksongs-Marilyn-Coffey

Marilyn Coffey, Great Plains Writer: Good Old Pratt Institute

Marilyn Coffey, Great Plains Writer: Good Old Pratt Institute: Became nostalgic for Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, where I taught for many years. Jumped on line to catch up with the news. Here's wh...

Good Old Pratt Institute

Became nostalgic for Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, where I taught for many years. Jumped on line to catch up with the news. Here's what I found:

About a day ago, a gunman unleashed a hail of bullets near Pratt Institute, hitting one 17-year-old girl in the torso, another in the leg and a 26-year-old man in the knee.

About  2 days ago, gunshots erupted near Pratt Institute's campus as a gunman hit a 20-year-old man, shot another in the arm, and a third in his hand. 

In recent months, near Pratt's campus:

An innocent bystander, Antonio Wilson, 23, was killed May 31 last year when a bullet, fired during a fight, pierced his chest.

In October last year Corey Brown, 21, tried to shoot someone but instead hit two other people. One, Nicoleia Taylor, 24, died.

These news items jolted my memory. 

Pratt is located in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the second biggest ghetto in New York City. The biggest is Harlem.  

Teaching at Pratt I walked from the subway to class in the heart of that depressed community. There on campus, two masked teenagers held me up at gunpoint. There my students looked out a classroom window to watch a man stalked, shot and killed in the street. 

Remembering why I left New York for Nebraska jolted me. Here in my home state, I did find Omaha's ghetto an improvement on New York's. But it's not that much better. Except for size, North Omaha shares a lot with Bedford-Stuyvesant. 

However, in Nebraska I safely read newspaper accounts of North Omaha's many shootings and killings, anxious about the ghetto but relieved I don't live or work in that stubbornly depressed part of town.