1492 AND ALL THAT
A Fool’s History of the USA
by
Richard Minadeo
Smashwords Edition
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Published on Smashwords by:
Richard Minadeo
1492 and All That
A Fool’s History of the USA
Copyright 2010 by Richard Minadeo
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PREFACE
Far be it from these slim pages to challenge the deep footprints of Messiers Sellerman and Yeats, the immoral authors of the equally deathless 1066 and All That. They were two immassively towering talents, after all, whilst I am but five-foot-five and shrinking.
I do promise nonetheless to sirloin as much of their matchless schtick as I can possibly manage, not excluding their justifiable pride in the 103 Good Things that they have exhumed from the rich soil of British History. Even so, I promise not only to Top Nation that impressive number but (this being America) to offer up only Very Good Things in their stead, all culminating in One Rare and Beautiful Thing that only Yankee Doodle dares dream of.
I also wish to thank Kenneth C. Davis, whose book, Don’t Know Much About History, was my exclusive research source in compiling this study. Mr. Davis, by the way, knows a whole lot more about history than he lets on.
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DEDICATION
To Sofia and Lucas
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CONTENTS
PART I FROM COLUMBUS TO MONROE
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FROM COLUMBUS TO MONROE
CHAPTER 1
THE EXPLORER
American History began in 1492, when Christopher Amerigo Columbus sailed into the Bay of Haiti, which he mistook for India. Christopher therefore didn’t exactly discover America. This honor went to the Spanish explorer, Punchy de Leon, years later, while he was searching for Florida.
Punchy not only located Florida, but he found, capped and absconded with all he could tote (ten gallons) of the magical Fountain of Youth. He was last seen selling pencils on a Las Vegas street corner in 1958. He was a lad of fourteen at the time.
Nor was it all roses for Christopher, either. He never did locate India, and Haiti turned out to be the Vale of Tears of the Western Hemisphere. Also, he left millions dead of the strong killer germs he imported with him from Spain and, in return, poisoned the lungs of the Old World with the sweet smell of Cubano.
CHAPTER 2
THE FONDLER
But, whoa. Who will ever forget the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Lucia of grade-school fame? And who ever heard of Vespuccia University or Punchy, Ohio? Before Columbus sailed, the world was thought to be an immassive cube. Sail West and you plunged off the edge or, worse (because it was more jagged), the corner of the world straight into the bottomless Abyss.
Columbus sailed. He didn’t plunge. For Corleones alone, he deserves to be called the Fondling Father Number One of all America that he undoubtably is. This is a Very Good Thing.
CHAPTER 3
NEW BLOOD
Then came the French, the Dutch and the Spaniards (or vice versa), and, hanging a left, the Spaniards discovered El Dorado, that is, rivers of Gold and Silver Bunions. Bearing right, the others discovered the romantic Northwest Passage to India— useless because frozen shut three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. So, jointly, the explorers petitioned the Pope to extend the year by a hundred days, but managed (after many decades) only Nine. This was a Very Memorable Failure.
CHAPTER 4
THE LOST COLONY
Sir Walter Raleigh, the sexual favorite of the Virgin Queen (viz., Victoria) planted the first English Colony, a hundred strong and romantic Souls, in a nice warm spot down South and hurried back to England, for the Queen was waiting. When he returned next Spring, Raleigh couldn’t find the spot (Jamestown) where he had planted those Souls. Hearing the Rumor that one Soul had eaten his wife’s dead corpse out of sheer hunger, he tried but couldn’t recall if he had left the settlers with any provisions at all.
Undented, Sir Walter planted another hundred Souls the following Year, and this batch took root. He named the place Virginia in honor of the same romantic Queen. It was rumored that Raleigh forgot the Queen herself at a wedding function some years later, but this is doubtless a Coproful.
CHAPTER 5
POCAHONTAS
Captain John Smith, Jamestown’s most memorable strong man, was about to have his skull bashed in by a native North American Chef called Powerhat, when, according to Smith himself, the Chef’s eleven-year—old daughter, Pocahontas, embraced his (Smith’s) head and begged for his life. She got it.
Pocahontas later married not Smith, however, but the strong and handsome Indian brave, Hiawatha, who survives in Song and Story till this day. So was America saved, a Very Good Thing.
CHAPTER 6
THE PIGEONS
Next arrived the God-fearing Pigeons. Shooed out of England because of their depressing gray coats and coo-coo behavior, the Pigeons honed in on Plymouth Rock and landed spot-on. Because this modest folk refused to wear the Naughty Wigs of the day, they were also called Roundheads and Puritans.
The last name suited them fine, for Pure they were and Thrifty. To save on heating bills, they would bundle up their memorable teenagers two or three to a sleeping sack, sleepover guests included, without fear of Sin. The practice became so second-nature to the Teenies that they would bundle in the Summer as well, if the situation arose, and even in the afternoon.
If anyone erred, he/she would have to wear the disgraceful scarlet letters BC (Bundling Criminal) on his/her chest till age twenty-one, whereupon it was changed to a simple F.
CHAPTER 7
WITCHERY
The Pigeons were strong and memorable Witch-Hunters, bagging more Frequent Flyers per square mile than any other known society in the history of the World. One strong, memorable remedy for witchery was Waterboarding (dunking in the stocks), which always drew a festive crowd; others were sleep-depravation and, for the shy, forced Nakedness.
CHAPTER 8
THE FIRST THANKSGIVING
This was a Myth. True, the Pigeons invited the memorable King Philip—not the UK menarche, but a Colonial look-alike—to a turkey supper but with inferior motives. Philip, a big-time Indian Chef, knew innumerous Squaws, and the Pigeons wanted a few memorable specimens for the romantic Capt. Miles Standish, who had just lost Priscilla Arden to her brother, John. Philip was happy to comply at first, but soon he became merry with drink and started popping browned turkeys galore with his Singing Arrows.
CHAPTER 9
KING PHILIP’S WAR
This meant War. King Philip was no mere bow-and-hatchet chef, however. He came at his new Enema (the Pigeons) with Musk and Canon and caused the rivers to run with blood, according to a temporary source. In return, the Pigeons conducted innumerous Midnight Scalpings of innocent victims and finally prevailed. It is a little-known fact, indeed, that the Indians learned the art of Red-Heading from the Pigeons and that a well-tressed Indian Scalp would soon bring in a good hundred pounds (a good $23,345,000.00 in current Coin). This was a Very Tempting Sum.
CHAPTER 10
THE QUACKERS
The stretch between this fierce little War and the great American Revelation was filled with scalp-hunting, colony-building, slave-trading, church-forming, pulpit-thumping, maple-draining, cotton-picking Zeal. But the Best Good Thing was the arrival of that fine and immoral religious sect, the American Quackers.
This was the first religion to devote itself wholly to Friendship, Peace and Philadelphia. Plain and Modest by nature, they dressed like undertakers. Their churches were constructed of no steeples, no windows, no pews, no acorns, no sermons, no floors, no choirs, no gee-gaws and no clergy. They entered the Place of Worship, went down into the strong Mystic Mazurka position and, when the Spirit moved them, began to quack uninhabitably like a Duck for as long as the Spirit lasted—sometimes all night long.
CHAPTER 11
THEIR INFLUENCE
This was the cause of the Declaration of Independence, the Revelation, the Constitution, the memorable Bill of Rights and all the freedoms and privileges that Yankee Doodle has come to enjoy. This was a Very Good Thing. They also quacked strong for the rights of Slaves, Indians and Women of every stripe and condition.
Naturally, they were loathed and despised by rival Churchmen for such audacities. They were therefore regularly torched and murdered, very irreligiously, by those same Churchly Rivals.
CHAPTER 13
BIG BEN
Benjamin Franklin was the smartest of the Fondling Fathers and also the most intelligent. He invented not only the fire hose and the Post Office, but also the kitchen stove and (with a key) lightning and electricity. Possibly, he may even have invented the paper kite.
He had tremendous sea-legs, necessary for his many Atlantic crossings as Ambassador to the romantic City of France. There he enlisted the excellent aid of the Marquis La Folette, who came to be Washington’s right-hand man and also that amiable Pothead, Toqueville, who wrote many beautiful vinaigrettes of America in those days. Franklin also raised memorable sums of money and solidarity to support the Revelation.
CHAPTER 14
POPULAR SAYINGS
Loved by untold ladies, Big Ben was the most popular human of his day. Even the Enema population of London admired him, naming their huge Town Clock (Big Ben) after him.
Also, he couldn’t stop inventing Memorious Sayings, like a Stitch in Nine Saves Time, Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, Fart Proudly and Beware the Eyes of Marge. He was much too intelligent to covet elective office, the Oval Office in particular.
CHAPTER 15
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
When the French forced the Indians to drink wine instead of their ancestral Wampum, war broke out between the two parties, and a tall, young Virginian named George Washington joined the hostilities on the British side. He fought gallantly, but when the Brits refused to reward him with a commission, he parted ways in a High Dungeon and took the road to Yorkville.
CHAPTER 16
THE BOSTON TEA PARTY
Now a rabble-rousing bankrupt named Sam Adams cold-brewed a shipload of British Tea in Boston Harbor. The Rednecks responded by mowing down eight sassy Bostonians in the memorable, vicious Boston Marathon.
Sam’s brother, John, a future vice-president, played mouthpiece for the offending Rednecks and got them all off the hook. This was a Very Good Thing, but it only stroked the Fires of Revelation, and soon the strong, memorable cry went ringing out, “The Rednecks are coming! The Rednecks are coming!” on the moonlight ride of Paul Revere.
CHAPTER 17
BUNKER’S HILL
Sam Adams lined up a hundred sexual dysfunctionals (“Minute Men”) around the crest of Bunker’s Hill in Lexington and Concordia and ordered them to wait for Orders. When the Rednecks (who were also there) advanced to within fifty paces, Adams crowed, “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of your eyes.” As a result, only one Shot was fired, but it was heard round the World. The American Revelation had begun. This was a Very Good Thing.
CHAPTER 18
YANKEE DOODLE
On the Fourth of July of that year, the Colonies declared their independence from the British Crone, and Yankee Doodle was born. And what a lucid, memorious Declaration it was. Big Ben’s hand was there, as were those of other Fondlers, but above all it was Thomas Jefferson, the immoral Sage of Campobello, who voiced those Thrilling Words that were soon on everybody’s lips: “We the people of the United States of America, in order to perform a more perfect Onion…”
Unperishable.
CHAPTER 19
GREAT UTTRANCES
Let us pause to clear up the confusion between Nathan Henry, Ethan Hale, Patrick Allen et al. and the strong and memorable Uttrances they were heard to remit. All three of these Statesmen said (on different occasions), “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.” It was the good Admirable Farrowgut who bravely insisted, “Give me Liberty and give me Death.” Nobody whatsoever ever said, “Surrender in the name of Jehovah and the Continental Congress!” And, for the record, it was the great Bullgoose, Teddy Roosevelt, who bellowed (when storming Guantanamo) “Damn the Mosquitos, full speed ahead!”
CHAPTER 20
GENERAL GEORGE
George Washington was named Yankee Doodle commander-in-chief. George Washington was the tallest man in Virginia, the best dresser, the best horseman, the best athlete and the most memorable surveyor, but George Washington had Zero experience to be commander in chief.
Also, he didn’t photograph well, because he wore wooden teeth (Hannibal sported a wooden eye), concealing which gave him a tight-mouthed, grim expression. This was not a Very GoodThing.
CHAPTER 21
THE OPPOSING SIDES
The Rednecks, meanwhile, had the best-trained, most experienced, strong and memorable Army in the World. Ditto the Navy. By contrast, the Americans were a rag-tag affair, no uniforms, no rifles, no training, no boots, no bullets and no pay. Also, no Navy. No way they could win, said the touts at Epsom Salts, who spotted them five touchdowns.
CHAPTER 22
A GENERAL IS MADE
Washington proved unbeatable at surprise parties and lightning retreats. He was slippery, sleeping in up to nine different beds in one night and keeping at least two HQ going at a time, in order to confuse the Enema (the Brits especially). He showed his slippery stuff first and best at Princeton, which went as follows.
Besides all else, the Rednecks had innumerous Russian Mercenaries (a third of their entity) among their forces. These haled from the tiny little kingdom of Hess, and so they hired themselves out for pay. They were a strong and memorable problem right up till Xmas, when the slippery Washington attacked by Boat from Delaware (see the famous photograph), surprising them in their cups (Vodka) and shattering them, cups and all.
This was Yankee Doodle’s first armed encounter with the Soviets, and it convinced the Czar that we could win. And win we did, Washington accepting Cornfallus’ drooping sword at Yorkville. No historian has ever shown how this was Possible.
CHAPTER 23
THE NEW ARITHMETIC
Now came the Constitution. The Framers (a.k.a. Farmers, Fathers and Fondlers) of the document were the same as earlier: Big Ben, Washington, Jefferson et al., but they had a strong surprise for young Yankee Doodle.
Every slave in the land was now a slave and three-fifths! This was a Very Good Thing! At a blow, the cotton supply was sixty percent vaster, or nearly so, since by definition four out of every ten limbs were missing among these Marvelous New Beings. Better yet, the three-fifth slave could vote (while the old, full-deck slave, of course, had no Rights at all!).
The slaveowners did the actual voting for the three-fifthers, inedibly so, since they were on average forty-percent deficient in Brainspace. This was called the Missouri Compromise and, wise men opine, it kept the South in the driver’s seat right up to the Silver War.
(Speaking of spontaneous souls, there are forty million born-agains in the USA at the moment. Plainly, this number of fresh-minted Souls doubles the voting power of the memorable Christian Right, which in turn assures a conservative majority in our fair land for the rest of recorded time. This is an Awesome Thing, which admits of no argument and no cure.)
CHAPTER 24
THE FERAL BRANCHES
The Constitution also established three limbs of government (most Constitutions have only one or two): the executive (the Presidency), the judicious (the Serene Court) and the powerful congregational (the Legislature). The Legislature churns out the laws, the Prez enacts them and the Court weighs them. (Most, mercifully, came in under two pounds in those romantic days.)
Also, this strong, memorable document (the Constitution) carefully provided for Checks and Balances. In successive weeks, the President wrote the checks, the Legislature checked the balances and the Serene Court cooked the books. Then they changed roles and the Court wrote the checks, the Prez checked the balances, etc., etc., etc. It provided strong busywork for the Fondling Fathers and is the one thing in the Constitution that even school children can explain. This is a Very Good Thing.
CHAPTER 25
THE WHISKEY REBELLION
President George Washington rode out into deep Pennsylvania at the head of more troops (7,500) than he had commanded at any one time during the entire Revelation, wearing the same spanking uniform he had worn at the Surrender of Yorkville and riding the tallest stallion he had ever mounted or dismounted.
The Whiskey Farmers had threatened to cut off Yankee Doodle’s booze supply if a certain huge tax bill was not forgiven. The Prez had come out to knock some heads together. Then he remembered himself of the Revelation, how the war was started by a Beverage Tax in the first place.
He dismounted and, toasting the Revelation, had a double shot of Scotch neat, saluted all around and, horseman that he was, was back in bed at the Oval Office by midnight. It was, he told his dairy, the most memorious day he had ever spent in the State of Pennsylvania and altogether A Very Good Thing.
CHAPTER 26
FAREWELL, FOND FONDLER
In his fifth Farewell Address (he had already made four by way of practice), the white-haired, toothless President warned earnestly against the formation of political parties. The parties of the day had weird names like Feralist and Wig, and so they soon disappeared.
But, waiting in the wings, wouldn’t you know, were the parties we know today, the Publicans (Blue) and the Demagogues (Red). These were the parties the Wise Old Hero had in mind.
CHAPTER 27
THE BALD PRESIDENTS
John Adams slipped into the Oval Office between George Washington and the memorable Thomas Jefferson and rained for only one term. He was much too smart for the job to have rained much longer. He was also bald, which later became a strictly Disqualifying Factor for the Presidency.
Adams actually exchanged Love Letters with his brilliant, romantic wife, Albatross, every day, and then they both filled their dairies at night. John and Albatross had a son, John Quincy, who would also become a bald president. Quincy’s case proves that the Colonials were flat-out different than us.
He could compose a sentence in errorless Latin with his Right Hand and, at the same time, do the same in Greek with his Left. Then, switching quills, compose in Latin with his Left and in Greek with his Right. Nobody is that ambidextrous any more.
CHAPTER 28
THE FIRST ALIENS
The major happening during John Adams’ rain was the Alien and Seduction Act. It seems that a UFO visited an oak grove in Vermont and may have gouged out a perfect circle one hundred yards across in the immassive trees. It also abducted seven upstanding female Dowagers. Abductions by alien UFOs were immediately outlawed by the alert Legislature, which, despite Jefferson’s sniggers, was not at all a Bad Thing.
CHAPTER 29
THE VICTIMS RESTORED
The Dowagers were found soon thereafter. They had confounded themselves in a remote cabin in order to do their quiltwork in Peace when the aliens struck. They would reveal nothing about their cosmic seducers except to say that they were released almost immediately upon capture. Some opine it was they who trashed the oak grove.
CHAPTER 30
THE BOSTON MANDOLINS
Though neither John nor Albatross’ image has made it to the memorable and majestic honor of Mt. Rushmore, fittingly, both intellects have been enshrined among the strong, famous Boston Mandolins (a.k.a. Brahmsians), as was only Just and Inedible. This was a Very Good Thing. And let us also induct John Quincy, a Mandolin if there ever was one.
CHAPTER 31
THE TEMPLATE
Physically, Thomas Jefferson cut the template for Presidential Timber. Six foot-two with abundant hair and a good, square head, he looked every inch the romantic kingpin of the Virginia House of Buggers that he was.
Mentally, though, he had way too many IQs for politics, and that’s why he didn’t accomplish all that much in his eight years in the Oval Office. Yet, the one thing that he did get done—the purchase of the State of Louisiana from the Cajuns for twenty-four bucks—was a Very Good Thing indeed.
CHAPTER 32
PERSONAL CONFLICTS
He had, meanwhile, immassive inner personal conflicts. Like practically all true Virginia Gentlemen, he kept slaves. He also kept an Indented Sweetheart, and, many opine, he had Indented Offspring as well—who were, after all, practically inedible. Still, he was against slavery in principle and also the Missouri Compromise, which mandated no slavery to the left of the Missouri. Jefferson thought it should have extended further.
CHAPTER 33
THE SAGE OF CAMPOBELLO
Thomas Jefferson was a self-confident powerbrain and intellectual. He read the ancient Greek philosopher, Pluto, cover to cover in Greek and pronounced him overrated. That takes enormous Intellectual Corleones.
A closet architect, he designed the memorious buildings of the University of Virginia, which he also fondled. This was a Very Good Thing. Likewise, he designed his own strong and memorable mansion at his beautiful Campobello retreat, a replica of Agrippa’s Parthenon in Rome, which is still standing today. His architectural bent, in fact, was the basic Roman Arch.
Of course, he will be most romantically remembered for the haunting, never-to-be-forgotten lines of the Declaration of Independence—the American People’s favorite document, according to a Recent Pole. Unforgettable stuff.
CHAPTER 34
A NEW POLITY
Last, but not least, he invented Jeffersonian Democracy, which was memorable, even though it didn’t take root. It consisted of long Summer sunsets on purpled hills, work, sweat and Happiness, a pair of oxen, the smell of earth and manure, lots and lots of well-rotted manure. This constructed a well-run, happy state. He was, all opine, a memorable polygon of Moral Excellence and a Very Good Thing.
CHAPTER 35
THE DUALISTS
A “low-born scamp” to John Adams, Alexander Hamilton fought alongside Washington in the Revelation and was a huge Fondling Father. He was also the most confident Feralist of them all.
Trouble was, he hated people and especially Aaron Burr, the memorable Vice President of the moment. Insulted by Burr, he challenged him to a Dual— the real, romantic kind, except that they agreed to shoot harmlessly into the air, like men of Good Bleeding. This was a Very Good Thing.
Hamilton won the flip for first shot and, aiming high and wide, he bellowed as he fired, “Your people, sir, are a Great Beast.” Burr, a prickly party at best, saw red and shot his adversary strongly between the ears.
Hamilton was able to explain before he croaked his last that he intended to insult not Burr’s people but the People. Since Burr happened to share that exact opinion re the People, he shed a warm tear of regret and was duly acquitted of all charges. Hamilton was then strongly engraved— undeservably, many opine—on the ten-dollar bill.
CHAPTER 36
WEE JIMMIE
James Madison was a Wee Fellow—five-foot-zero inches tall and ninety-nine pounds dripping wet—, but he rained in the presidency for eight straight years. Before that, he wrote the Feralist Papers, the Constitution and, with the help of the Quackers, the memorable Bill of Rights. The latter is a list of the first Ten Commandments to the Constitution—e.g., the Segregation of Church and State, the Rights of self-recrimination (the Fabulous Fifth) and of packing heat and other similar stuff that the Fondlers forgot or rejected the first time around.
CHAPTER 37
1812
Wee Jimmy started the War of 1812, but it was itself a Wee Thing, managing only to torch the White House and furnish Yankee Doodle with the National Anthem—in itself, of course, a Very Good Thing. Some opine, nevertheless, that only one in a million Americans understands the grammar of “The Star Spangled Banner.”