Tag Archives: History

Italians Have Twitter, Too

1 Feb

This morning, I stirred up a small storm on Twitter. As everyone surely knows, Amanda Knox was found guilty of murder for the second time. I do not know what happened on that fateful night, but I know that the saga has gone on for way too long.

The return of this story brought to mind a book that I read, and I sent out a tweet that said:

If you want to know how screwed up the Italian justice system is then read The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston.The Monster of Florence

It ended with an Amanda Knox hashtag.

Immediately, I got a couple of responses from, what I assumed to be, people from Italy. They wondered if I had ever heard of Sacco and Vanzetti, a controversial trial from America’s past where two Italian immigrants were convicted of murder and executed.Sacco Vanzetti

I replied but immediately deleted it. There was no point in getting into an argument that I could not win. However, I thought their tweets were interesting.

I have heard of the Sacco/Vanzetti case and teach about it in my survey class. In Massachusetts, a murder took place during a robbery at a shoe factory. The two men, Nicola Sacco and Bartolemo Vanzetti, were arrested and convicted. Later, another man admitted to the crime and stated that they were not involved. Despite the new information, a judge refused to grant a new trial, and the two men were executed. The case has served as an example of anti-immigrant mindset. (Things do not change much do they?)

Debate has raged about their guilt or innocence, but, undoubtedly, their rights were violated when a new trial was not granted. It was a terrible time for the American justice system. However, I do not know what that has to do with my tweet about the book.

I never said the American justice system was a shining example of fair play. Everyday, we see where that is not the case. Despite that, I think that it works better now than it did in the 1920s when Sacco and Vanzetti found themselves in its grip. I understand that the folks who replied to my tweet were standing up for their country by telling me that my country is no better. However, it could also be taken as, “You screwed a couple of Italians in the 1920s. Now, it’s our turn.”

As I said at the beginning, I do not know if Amanda Knox is innocent or guilty. Also, I do not know if Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent or guilty. I know that our system messed up, and it is looking like the Italian system is messing up now. Actually, I do not think they know anymore about her guilt or innocence than those of us watching it on television.

That brings me to The Monster of Florence. Preston was a writer who moved to Florence. Not long after his arrival, he began hearing about a serial killer who terrorized the area many years before and was never caught. Preston became fascinated and decided to research the subject for a book. He found articles, witnesses and other sources to weave his tale. He also found a journalist who reported on the murders and had been studying it for years. Together, they found new evidence and thought that may have a few suspects.

They took this information to the lead investigator. He was very interested in what they had found and began an investigation of his own. In the process, he consulted a psychic; he questioned the writer and the reporter; and chased down suspects. However, they were not the people who the writer and reporter had thought about. As a disagreement grew, the investigator came to the idea that the writer and the journalist took part in the killings. Officials grilled Preston for hours while trying to get him to confess.

Apparently, they did not care that he was not in Italy at the time. I guess he was covering up for the journalist who was in Italy when the murders took place. After all, he wrote the stories.

Why did this book make me think of Amanda Knox? Because that same investigator led the charge to have her arrested.

I apologize. I should not have said that Italy’s justice system was screwed up. That is a blanket statement. However, I think this investigator might be. He has a history of using psychics to pull theories out of the air.

Somebody committed a murder in Italy. Somebody committed a murder in Massachusetts. In both cases, I am not sure the authorities did a very good job. Sacco, Vanzetti and the victim deserved better here. Knox and the victim deserve better there.

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Those Who Have Come and Gone

15 Dec

Last week marked the end of another semester and also marked the retirement of two outstanding individuals.

Through the years, Pace Pope fulfilled many capacities at Cumberland University. However, her greatest role was being herself. She cared for the students – especially the internationals – and was their collegiate mother. Everyone loves Pace, and Cumberland will not be the same without her.

She has held up the world and has held up the university.

She has held up the world and has held up the university.

Pete Peterson taught Biology for a long time and also served as the Vice President of Academic Affairs. He was a tough but fair teacher who sent many students on to graduate school. You haven’t lived until you have hiked a New Mexico trail with Pete.SONY DSC

Their retirement made me think of the other people who have come and gone during my time at Cumberland. Some of them have faded from memory, but others left a distinct impression. It’s strange to see people who you have seen on a daily basis suddenly not be there. As I type this, their faces are popping into my mind. How many have their been? I have no idea. However, there are two that I would like to write about. They were my teachers before they were my colleagues, and they have both passed away.

Dick Henderson was a geologist who worked in the oil industry before making his way to Cumberland. He was a great man who cared about the success of his students in the classroom and in life. I first knew him as a teacher, and two instances stand out.

He took our class on what was my first college field trip. We hopped in a van and headed to the southeast corner of Tennessee. Along the way, he explained the landscape and the rock formations. We went through the town of Cleveland and made our way past the Ocoee River. We also went to Copper Basin. Each time I travel to that area I think about the things that Dr. Henderson told us on the trip.

The other instance involved a test. We had my grandfather’s funeral one day, and Dr. Henderson had a test scheduled for the next day. I showed up to take the test because it was my responsibility. I didn’t do well on the test because my mind had not been on studying. After grading and returning the tests, Dr. Henderson called me to his office and asked what happened. He couldn’t understand why I did that badly. When I explained, he said that he wished he had known. I could have taken the test later. He even offered to make out another test for me.

I didn’t take his offer, but I never forgot the gesture. That day, I had no idea that I would one day be hi s colleague. I also had no idea that I would serve as a pallbearer at Dr. Henderson’s own funeral.

Jim Dressler taught history at Cumberland for three decades. He was an institution. In fact, my first college class was taught by him. He sat on the desk with his feet dangling and rattled on about world history. He never had notes. All he had was a cigarette. Like all of the other students, Dr. Dressler intimidated me. He was tall, strict and didn’t take any crap.

When I started teaching, he still intimidated me. It was probably a combination of things. His knowledge. His stature. A combination of it all. However, I learned that he also cared about the success of the students. He was strict for a reason. He wanted them to stay focused on the goal of graduating. After a while, Dr. Dressler and I became better acquainted a realized that we had a lot in common. We liked the same era of history. We agreed on politics. We both loved Cumberland University and wanted it to thrive. His death was sudden and left a hole in the history department.

There is one thing more about these two men. Of all the people I have worked with, they are the only ones who I never called by their first names. I think that was out of respect for who they were and what they represented. To others, they may have been Dick and Jim. To me, they were and always will be Dr. Henderson and Dr. Dressler.

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A Few Days in December 1941

7 Dec

December 7, 1941 was a Sunday. It was also the day that the Japanese fleet attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor.Pearl Attack

Actually, that is not accurate. It was an attack on various locations around the island of Oahu. Most people know the story and have seen the footage of the attack. However, something else was taking place thousands of miles away.

In Washington, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who graduated from Cumberland University, was preparing to meet with the ambassador of Japan when word of the attack got to his office.Cordell Hull

Hull greeted the ambassador, who did not know the attack had already taken place, and read documents stating that negotiations between the two nations were ending. The Secretary of State exploded with angered while the ambassador quickly left. Hull uttered a few other choice words while realizing that the United States had just entered the World War.

On December 8, Franklin Roosevelt convened a joint meeting of the Senate and the House of Representatives to request a declaration of war against Japan. On that day, he said:

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And, while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

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Elvis Presley and the Perpetuation of a Myth

3 Dec

The other day, I mentioned that there was a semi-serious post floating in my brain. Today, I am going to get it out of there. A couple of weeks ago The Tennessean, Nashville’s daily newspaper, printed an article about an activist who was going to be speaking in the area.

In the article, readers learned that the activist had a great deal of respect for Dolly Parton because of the singer’s work to improve the lives of children and others. They also learned that she had no respect for Elvis Presley, who she saw as someone who could have done more for his times and his community.Elvis Gate

That’s fine. We all have opinions about what people should and should not be doing. Many feel that the famous have a responsibility of using that fame for the betterment of the world. Dolly does a lot, and Elvis probably didn’t do enough. However, the writer continued with her disdain for Elvis by saying that he was racist. Her proof was that he had once said, “The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes.”

When I read it, something in the back of my mind said that it wasn’t right. I couldn’t explain what was nagging at me, but I just didn’t think that was an accurate quote. That’s when I hit Google and was directed to Snopes. According the them, Elvis never made that statement and referenced Michael Bertrand as the historian who discovered where this urban legend began.

That’s when I knew where that nagging feeling was coming from. Dr. Bertrand teaches at Tennessee State University and spoke to the History Club at our university. He and I had a great conversation about the early years of Rock n’ Roll, but this information came from his presentation to the group. He tracked the origin of this tale to a magazine article in which an anonymous person on the street said that someone told them that Elvis had said that. Through the years, many people have heard it and taken it as fact.

Why am I writing about a long dead singer being misquoted in a newspaper? Because the newspaper and the activist being interviewed should know better. (Note: While working on this post, I discovered that the quote was taken out of the original article, and a follow-up article admitted to the falsehood of the quote.) It is one thing for misinformation to circulate, but people who are trained to research and write shouldn’t go with something they think might be true.

I am also writing about it because historians have to deal with this kind of misinformation all of the time. Surely, you have heard that Catherine the Great died while having sex with a horse. It’s not true, but everyone thinks it is. You have also heard that George Washington could not tell a lie. That probably made his espionage efforts during the Revolutionary War hard to manage. That’s despite being one of the best parts of his strategy.

It is hard to get to the reality of history. It is especially hard when people have misinformation about it already in their minds. All of this is made worse when a reputable newspaper interviews a reputable activist, and they spread the misinformation further.

She is probably correct. Elvis could have done more during his life to make the world better. Instead, he fell into a life of extravagance and drugs. There are many lessons to be learned from the Elvis story but adding wrong information only makes those lessons harder to learn.

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The Weirdness of Thanksgiving

27 Nov

Thanksgiving is a weird holiday. Now, don’t get me wrong. I like Thanksgiving. In fact, it is my favorite holiday. It is just weird to me.

Unlike other holidays, it is not a religious festival. It doesn’t have a patriotic meaning like Independence Day, Memorial Day or Veterans Day. It doesn’t represent a new beginning like the first day of January. It’s as if the Powers-that-Be decided to create another holiday and stick it in the middle of the week to create a long weekend.

“Hey everybody, take the day off and eat as much as you can. Oh, don’t worry about buying gifts or fireworks or anything. Spend all of that money on food.”

It’s the holiday that celebrates pigging out. I have no problem with that, but the timing of it all is also weird. Like I said, they put it into the middle of the week.

“There are not many holidays scheduled for Thursday. Let’s go ahead and put it there.”

Also, it is very close – too close – to the end of the school year. We are working our way toward the end, and, BAM, it’s time to take a few days off. That means that we have one week left before exams. I like a break as much as anyone, but it would be nice if it came sooner. Thanksgiving being this late causes issues. Mainly, it’s too late to have the entire week off. Instead, we get a couple of days in October and a couple of days in November. If Thanksgiving was in October, then we could get an entire week like Spring Break. Unfortunately, the Powers-that-Be didn’t take my schedule into consideration.

In a related matter, Thanksgiving is awfully close to Christmas. When the Powers-that-Be created Thanksgiving, they probably didn’t realize that future people would begin Christmas preparations in August. They can’t be blamed for this, but Thanksgiving’s closeness to Christmas has made it a shopping and decorating launching pad. Instead of focusing on giving thanks, people see the day as the beginning of the next holiday. I just read that stores are getting the jump on Black Friday by opening on Black Thursday. Soon, we won’t even be pigging out. We will be making out shopping lists for Christmas.

All of that is weird, but, in my mind, the weirdest part of Thanksgiving is this pilgrim thing. According to various online dictionaries, a pilgrim is someone who travels to a holy place. In the United States, we look back at the Pilgrims who traveled on the Mayflower to Massachusetts. Since when is Massachusetts a holy place?

The people we know as Pilgrims were Puritans who didn’t like how things were working with the Church of England. I guess that thought they were going to a holy place where they wouldn’t have to listen to the archbishop, but I still don’t think pilgrim is the right word to describe them. I would go with colonists.

We have attached these colonists to our celebration of Thanksgiving because they were supposed to have had a Thanksgiving meal of their own. You see, they were struggling to survive in a harsh land, and the situation was looking bleak. Then, Native Americans came to the rescue. They brought food and helped the colonists survive.Pilgrims

That’s another weird part of Thanksgiving. I never understood why the Native Americans in the region did that. Why help out a bunch of trespassers who are dying off? In the tradition that has been passed down through numerous elementary school pageants, the Native Americans were Adam’s and Eve’s in a Garden of Eden who helped God’s people thrive in paradise.

I guess that’s what the colonists believed. I guess that’s what a lot of people still believe. Maybe, that’s why pilgrim was applied to the Puritans. They really did travel to a holy place in Massachusetts.

When I was a kid in those pageants, I never bought that, and it took a long time to get the real story. I will no chronicle the entire saga, but I will tell you a good place to find it. Charles Mann’s 1491: New Revelation of the Americas Before Columbus provides a great description. You will need to buy a copy to get the entire story, but the simple version happened like this.

The Puritans landed in the middle of a conflict between two native groups. One group had been devastated by diseases that had moved up from the Spanish colonies and found themselves in danger of invasion. When they saw the Puritans struggling, the leaders of this group had a decision to make. They could let the newcomers starve, or they could help them and gain allies against the stronger native group. Looking at a quick fix to the problem, the leadership went with the second option.

The Puritans did not travel to a holy place filled with Adam’s and Eve’s. They traveled to a complicated place filled with enemies and allies.

As we gather on Thanksgiving, we need to remember what we are giving thanks for. We are giving thanks for having a holiday in the middle of the week. We are giving thanks that we have a day to Christmas shop. We are giving thanks that some people got mad at their church. We are giving thanks that it got so bad that they decided to leave. We are giving thanks that a Native American leader found his people in such dire circumstances that he took a chance and allied with a bunch of outsiders.

In the long run, that decision didn’t work out very well. Are we supposed to give thanks for that, too?

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If I Can’t Read a Newspaper, Then I Will Read a Book About Women’s History

26 Nov

There is a semi-serious post floating around in my brain. It is from something that I read in the newspaper. Those are the things that have been around for years but are slowly fading away. The world will be missing something when we can no longer read the news from folded paper that leaves ink on our hands. I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to the death of newspapers, but I will miss them when they are gone.

I only have one pet peeve when it comes to newspapers. I don’t mind the ink. I don’t mind when a page is cut wrong. I absolutely mind when someone folds a newspaper in unnatural ways. You aren’t making origami. Turn the pages like they are supposed to be turned. Don’t flip it and flop it. Keep it in order like a civilized person would.

The Civilized Way

The Civilized Way

Anyway, I didn’t mean for this to be an ode to newspapers. All of that just kind of spilled out of my mind. I meant to say that I have this semi-serious post floating around in my brain, but I don’t feel like writing about that topic. In fact, I don’t really have anything to write about.

I was just handed two books to review. One of them is about drug abuse and prostitution in Tennessee history. Long ago, I began researching prostitution in the American West, so this will fit in with some of my area of expertise. The other one is about women in the Progressive Era. I am not as certain about this one, but I will give it a shot.

Speaking of books, I have some favorites lining the shelves of my office. One is about Pauline’s, a famous brothel in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I know a few men around town who spent some formative evenings there.

There is also a book about Pretty Shield, a Crow medicine woman. It is a fascinating account of Native American life. The students in Expansion of the United States are going to read it. They need to find it just as fascinating as I do.

Parlor Politics is awesome. It is about the women who helped build culture and society in the early days of Washington, D.C. If you think deals are made at cocktail parties, then you should read about what was going on back then.

That’s it. I’m not going to write anything else.

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November 25, 1968

25 Nov

That is the day I was born at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. Through the years, I have jokingly said that they should have closed the place down. After my birth, they couldn’t have done any better. That was 45 years and many birthdays ago. Some of the birthdays have been memorable and some have not, but this one is completely different. I have never had a birthday while being married. Tonight, my wife, stepdaughter and everyone else sang “Happy Birthday” to me. I can’t remember the last time that happened.

I can say that this has been the happiest birthday of them all.

For a blogging commemoration, I have decided to research events that took place on November 25, 1968. Now, let us see what I find.

Upton Sinclair passed away. He wrote The Jungle, one of the most influential books in American history.Upton Sinclair

Jill Hennessy was born. She is an actress, but I have never seen her in anything.

Paul Siple passed away. He was an explorer who took six trips to Antarctica.

The Beatles had Billboard’s top song, “Hey Jude.”

Lady in Cement topped the box office. It starred Frank Sinatra as Tony Rome, a private detective in Miami.Lady in Cement

That night’s television schedule was interesting. ABC aired The Avengers, The Outcasts and The Big Valley. Over on NBC, they were showing Gunsmoke, The Lucy Show and The Carol Burnett Show. Meanwhile, CBS had Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Sock it to me, baby!

Those were the primetime shows. Throughout the day, people could watch The Dating Game, Jeopardy, The Match Game and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

And that’s the way it was. November 25, 1968.

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Hypothetical History

20 Nov

This weekend, I went to the Hermitage, home of Andrew Jackson, to hear my colleague speak on his latest book about the former president. A large crowd filled a church on the property, and it was a great event. I learned a lot about a president who I have lectured about numerous time. It goes to show that we can all learn something new. Actually, that’s what the study of history is all about.

At the end, time was allowed for questions, and several people raised their hands. I asked a question that wasn’t very good, but it was far from the worst. Just before me, a man asked which side Andrew Jackson would have been on if he had been around for the Civil War. These kinds of questions bother me because they are impossible to answer. I call them “hypothetical history.” Interestingly, my colleague said that is the question he gets the most. Really? Of all the things Andrew Jackson actually did, people are more interested in what he might have done? Hypothetical

These same questions are being asked about John F. Kennedy. As we have been reminded over and over, the 50th anniversary of his assassination is coming up. That means numerous documentaries and articles about his murder and the conspiracies surrounding it. However, it also means numerous documentaries about what might have been. What if he had not been assassinated that day in Dallas?

Many people think that the world would have been a better place. There would not have been a Vietnam. There would not have been more assassinations as the 1960s moved forward. There would never have been a Richard Nixon or a Watergate. All of the bad things that have happened since 1963 would not have happened if only John F. Kennedy had lived.

On Sunday, there was an article in The Tennessean, Nashville’s daily, about this very thing. A Nashville native and friend of Kennedy’s talked about what might have been and what he thought would have been. But, here’s the thing. We don’t know that. It’s all hypothetical. Last year, I read 11/22/63 by Stephen King. It’s about a man who goes back in time and saves John F. Kennedy. In King’s imagination, the world ended up in a worse situation because of that.

Some may say that there’s no way. Kennedy would have made things better. However, Stephen King’s book is just as valid as anyone’s. He writes fiction, and that is what “hypothetical history” really is.

John F. Kennedy’s death was a tragedy that affected everyone who was alive at the time. It changed the course of American history. We just don’t know how it changed that history. The study of history is difficult enough without wondering what might have been. We can only study what happened and try to figure it out as accurate as possible.

By looking at “hypothetical history,” I believe that we are doing the people of the past an injustice. Instead of thinking about what Jackson or Kennedy might have done, we should focus on who they were and what they did. That’s the best way to honor people who we are interested in. Let’s get to know them the best we can. We can never really know the real people, but that is better than trying to know them in an imaginary way.

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Picture This – The OK Corral

15 Nov

Arizona 2013 008

A few weeks ago, Necole and I spent some time in Arizona, and that provided us with the opportunity to travel to Tombstone. I had been there several times, but this was Necole’s first trip. It was about time that she experience “The Town Too Tough To Die.”

Like everyone else, we had to take a look at the OK Corral. To do that, we had to make our way through a souvenir shop that sold everything with OK Corral written on it. That wasn’t surprising. The fact that there was a movie about the history of Tombstone in the next room was also not surprising. However, discovery that Vincent Price was the narrator of the movie caught me off guard. Of all people chosen to narrate a movie about a western town, Vincent Price would not have been my first choice.

Anyway, we paid our money and walk out the back door to the OK Corral. There was some blacksmith stuff going on, and there was a carriage for a photo opportunity. However, there wasn’t anything about the gunfight that made the OK Corral and Tombstone famous. There have been movies about the Gunfight at the Ok Corral. There have been books written about the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Unfortunately, the gunfight did not take place in the OK Corral. It took place in a vacant lot around back.

It seems that the Gunfight at the OK Corral sounds more interesting that the Gunfight at the Vacant Lot.

We followed the path of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the gang and found ourselves staring at Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the gang. As you can see from the above image, they looked very realistic. I thought Disney World was the only place with animatronic figures. In fact, Tombstone has them, too.

Necole noticed that their boots had curled up from long exposure to the elements. She also noticed that they were standing close together. That’s because the combatants we standing close together. At least, that’s what Wyatt Earp said. The problem is that a lot of things Wyatt Earp said have turned out to not be true.

As we stood pondering these thoughts, a booming voice came over the loud-speaker, and the figures began to move. The Gunfight at the OK Corral was happening all over again. It was not very action packed, but the most disappointing aspect was that the booming voice did not belong to Vincent Price.

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Walking in the Footsteps of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Some Biosphereans

15 Oct

Necole and I just returned from Tucson, Arizona and the conference of the Western History Association. The conference was informative and will be covered in the next post. This post is about the touristy things that we did while there. Obviously, there are lots of places to see, but our time was limited. Necole had never spent much time in that part of the country, and I wanted to make sure she saw some good stuff. With that in mind, I picked one place that neither one of us had ever seen and another place that I have visited several times. In fact, it’s one of my favorites.

North of Tucson sits a giant scientific experiment called Biosphere 2, which was recently named one of the 50 Wonders of the World. In the 1980s, it was built by a private firm for $150 million as a way to study the environment in a controlled setting. For two years, eight Biosphereans were sealed in the facility to live and study their surroundings. After our tour, I am still not sure what they were trying to accomplish, but they came out alive. More people probably remember Pauly Shore wrecking the place in Bio-Dome than they do the actual experiment.

I have always wanted to see Biosphere 2 and thought it would be something good for us to both see for the first time. We had to walk through a little village that is supposed to be the model for a perfect community. I have no idea why people keep trying to create one of these. People aren’t perfect, and, therefore, communities will never be perfect.

Then, we saw it.Arizona 2013 001

Before we went in, I was afraid that we might run into a Sandman. The crystal in my palm has already turned black, and there was no way I was going to Carousel. My options started to run through my mind. I could look for Farrah Fawcett at the plastic surgeon, or I could run. It turns out that I didn’t have anything to worry about. Instead of a Sandman, we found a tour guide.

He took us through a building with miniaturized versions of different environments. There was a rainforest. There was an ocean. There was a swamp. There was a desert.Arizona 2013 004

After touring the upper world of Biosphere 2, we went into the underworld and saw the guts of the place. Then, we sat the dining table in the living quarters of the Biosphereans. It was a nice place, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

It was at some point toward the end of the tour when a German tourist asked about the power source for the structure. The tour guide said that it ran on 2% solar power. Necole said what I was thinking. How can an experiment design to study the environment run on 2% solar power? Shouldn’t they be more environmentally friendly than that? As Necole said, it made the entire thing seem hokey.

The next day, I took Necole to one of my favorite places, Tombstone, Arizona. Known for the Gunfight at the OK Corral, this town has been immortalized in movies, books and television. It’s a good thing because without a gunfight that lasted a few seconds “The Town Too Tough To Die” would be dead. The old mining camp lives off tourist who want to walk in the footsteps of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. I won’t destroy anyone’s opinion of those guys in this post. Instead, I may do it in the next one.

My parents took me to Tombstone when I was a kid, and I have been back several times since. I wanted Necole to see one of the places that made me want to study and teach the history of the West. To do that, we needed to step into the streets of a famous mining camp.Arizona 2013 007

Our first stop, like everyone else, was at the site of the gunfight. Of course, you have to go through a souvenir shop before they will let you in the corral. In truth, that’s not where the gunfight took place. We walked through the corral to a backlot where the action took place. Now, there are cheap animatronic figures representing the combatants. As the narrator describes the fight, they move. However, they don’t fall down when they are shot.Arizona 2013 008

After watching the fake gunfight, which I had explained to Necole before the narrator ever began, we walked down the street. Necole wanted to stop in a jewelry store, and it turned out to be a good thing. That was the place where Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday stopped to buy cigars before going toward the corral. Movies make it look like they walked a long way. It was just a block away.

Then, it was on to the highlight of any visit to Tombstone, a meeting with Ben Traywick. We entered his bookstore to find him behind his desk. I introduced myself and introduced him to Necole. Mr. Traywick is the Tombstone historian. He also happens to be from Watertown, a little town in our county where my dad grew up. For the next hour, he told us how he got to Tombstone; talked about the actors who have visited him; talked about people back home; and showed all of the books he had written. I bought too many of them. Mr. Traywick is an interesting person who has lived an interesting life. I wish more people knew to stop in and see him.

We went further down the street to the Birdcage Theater, perhaps the most famous saloon in the West. It served as a theater, a gambling hall, a bar and a brothel. In fact, prostitutes plied their trade in the theater boxes that overlooked the main floor. The boxes looked like birdcages.Arizona 2013 009

If you see anything weird in this picture let me know. The Birdcage is supposed to be one of the most haunted buildings in the country.

After the Birdcage, we did like Doc and Wyatt and went to a bar for a drink. I was tempted to order a shot of redeye. Instead, I got a Jack and Coke.

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