Potlikker Politics
After you boil up your mess of greens, the liquid in the bottom of the pot is potlikker. It’s a Southern delicacy, especially when served with corn-pone.
In February, 1931, the Atlanta Constitution ran an Associated Press article about how Louisiana Governor Huey Long had saved the state $600,000 on highway bonds by serving corn-pone and potlikker to the representative of a bond syndicate, who gave a lower interest rate in appreciation. The article explained to the Yankees that Long dunked the cornbread in the potlikker.
An editor at the Constitution, Julian Harris, appended an editor’s note: “Corn-pone, so-called, that can be ‘dunked’ is not genuine corn-pone.” That touched off a three week battle in the press over whether corn-pone should be dunked or crumbled into the potlikker.
Huey Long sent a telegram to the Constitution demanding a retraction. The Constitution replied with its telegram, citing its 60 year status as “a patriotic arbiter of all matters appertaining to potlicker, cornpone, dumplings, fried collards, sweet ‘tater biscuits and ‘simmon beer and ‘possum, reiterates its assertion that cornpone is crumbled into the potlicker and not dunked.” It gave Long two hours to reply.
Not hearing from Long, the paper put the dunking vs. crumbling question to Southern governors. None agreed with Long. New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, an honorary Southerner due to his second home at Warm Springs, Georgia, sent a telegram to the “Potlikker and Cornpone Department” of the Constitution diplomat-ically suggesting that the matter be referred to the platform committee of the Democratic National Convention due to meet shortly in Washington, but added “I must admit I crumble mine.”
Emily Post waffled on potlikker etiquette, suggesting “dunk with dunkers, crumble with others” in the New York Times February 19, 1931.
An article in the Oxford American Magazine (Miss.) March 13, 2014, said the Constitution had received over 600 letters to the editor about dunking and crumbling, including one from an 85 year old Con-federate Civil War veteran asking “does it not depend in a great measure if the users have two sets, upper and lower teeth?”
Boob Married Men Tax Corsets!
The Revenue Act of 1918 stated that “Men’s, women’s, misses’, and boys pajamas, nightgowns, and underwear, on the amount in excess of $5 each” would be subject to a luxury tax.
“Underwear shall include any garment worn under the outer dress, such as undershirts, drawers, pants, bloomers, union suits, combination suits, tights, camisoles, corsets, corset covers, brassières, chemises, and vests.”
“Corsets Luxury? Ask the Ladies! Boob Married Men in Congress Should Have Known You Simply can’t Buy ‘Em for Five Dollars” headlined the McCone County Pioneer (Circle, Montana) July 4, 1919.
Women in Indiana were outraged, charging that it was discrimination against zaftig women who needed a corset. A small woman might be able to get a corset for $5 or even do without, “whereas if those whom nature has rounded out to full and opulent proportions were to appear without them they would be perfect sights, my dear, really.”
A married man knows, since he pays the bills, that his wife’s corsets cost $10-12 ($162-194 in 2017 dollars).
500 women in Indiana sent a petition to Senator “Jim” Watson, “a discreet man and a model husband” asking that the corset tax be levied only on those costing $12 or more. Watson discreetly didn’t publish the petition in the Congressional Record “with their names and everything, where one could read the intimate details.”
“Where Was Jeannette When This Law Went through?” asked the article in a subhead. Jeannette Rankin was the first and then only woman elected to the House in 1916, from Montana.* A Republican, she was out running for senator after a reapportionment put her in a Democratic district and missed the vote. The Indiana women said if Jeannette had been there “she would have knocked the hooks and eyes out of the corset clause.”
* Montana gave women the right to vote in 1914. Women had voting rights in 15 states before the 19th amendment granting the vote to all women in the nation went into effect in 1920.
Gold Bug
Edgar Allan Poe submitted a short story to the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper for a writing contest. He won the grand prize and The Gold-Bug was published in three installments in 1843.
The story is set on Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina. The plot involves a man bitten by a gold-colored bug which leads him to Captain Kidd’s buried treasure after decrypting a message written in cipher.
In 1896, William McKinley was elected president campaigning on the gold standard. His opponent was William Jennings Bryan, who favored bimetallism, free coinage of silver along with gold. At the Democratic Convention, Bryan gave his famous “Cross of Gold” speech.
McKinley supporters started calling themselves “gold bugs”, sporting brass lapel pins in the shape of a bug. This one has pictures of McKinley (left) and his vice president Garret Hobart. Bet you didn’t know we had a vice president named Garret Hobart.
You can see Garret Hobart in person. He was from Paterson and after he died in 1899, a bronze statue of him was erected in front of city hall.
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Roach Revenge
I reported to you in Anyone Got Raid? on p. 193 about Animal Planet adding cockroaches to its live-streaming animal cams. (Sponsored by Orkin exterminators.)
Now you can have your own cockroach cam. The El Paso Zoo will name a cockroach after your ex and feed it to meerkats. You can watch it live on Valentine’s Day.
I also reported in the article that Cockroaches beat Congress 45-43 in a favorability poll by Public Policy Polling. Congress then had a 9% favorability rating. In 2018 it sank to 6%. Maybe congress should be fed cockroaches.
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What the Heck?
A mulltiplex theater in Dickson, Tennessee changed the signs for the new 2019 supernatural superhero film Hellboy to Heckboy.
The theater manager explained that it does not use “profanity” on signs since “We are located next to an elementary school and across from a church,” she said.
We might have not won World War II if Audie Murphy had gone To Heck and Back. What the hell were you thinking?
Trash Talk
London installed 25 talking trash cans in 2011. The cans thank you, sing, applaud, or burp when you do your civic duty to keep Britain tidy. The response can be tailored to the location. Liverpool will get trash cans that sing Beatles songs, Covent Garden, opera.
In Sweden, a talking can was used three times more than a nearby dumb can. Finland has been trash talking since 2009. A dozen Helsinki cans will talk back to you in Finnish, Swedish, Japanese, English, German, Polish, and Russian
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