When I was young I recall my mother commonly doing this, which would have been in the 60s and 70s.
Showing posts with label 1960s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1960s. Show all posts
Saturday, May 16, 2026
Sunday, May 10, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 134th Edition. Paying the cost of failed Reconstruction.
Henry Mosler's painting "The Lost Cause", depicting an uneducated Southern dupe returning to his destroyed home after having fought for rich Southerners who wanted to keep human beings in barbours slavery.
Two related items:
Tennessee's Redistricting Fight and the Long Shadow of the Civil War
and this one:
The Confederacy rises again
The biggest political mistake the US has ever made was not engage in radical reconstruction after the American Civil War. To have served in an officer, or frankly even as a volunteer, in the Confederate Army should have been regarded as fully treasonous and never forgiven. Those who did should have been tried and given heavy sentences. Men like Robert E. Lee should never have been allowed to walk the streets as free men again.
Slave holders, no matter how small they were, should have had to compensate their former slaves or their decedents heavily. On the principal that the land belongs to he who works it, a means of transferring agricultural land to the former slaves should have been devised.
This is, I'd note, the second time the country has gone through this Lost Cause crap. The cause of the Southern States during the Civil War ranks right up with that of Nazi Germany as one of the worst causes people have every fought for. The South should have been made to hang its head in shame, as the Germans were after World War Two. And yet, here we go again.
If there's any good thing about any of this is that the rise of the Lost Cause yielded to the Civil Rights Era. Americans thought they'd finally one the promise of the country, although Liberals and Progressives certainly took that claimed victory beyond what it meant and should have mean in other ways. Everyone has been reminded of that, now that the fulfillment of the result of Reagan's Southern Strategy has been afflicted upon the nation in form of the Trump Administration.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 133d Edition. What happened to that Board of Peace?
Labels: children, Chuck Gray, Health, Jillian Balow, Lies, Music, Post Office, The Press, The Second Trump Administration, United Nations, United States and Israel v. Iran, Zeitgeist
Saturday, April 18, 2026
Thursday, April 18, 1946. Riding clubs, Yugoslavia, minor league baseball, teen queens.
The Powell Valley Riding club was formed in Powell Wyoming.
The League of Nations dissolved and transferred its assets to the United Nations.
Jackie Robinson appeared in his first minor league game in the farm teams for Major League Baseball. He had previously played for the Kansas City Monarchs. His current team was the Montreal Royals.
The US recognized the government of Tito in Yugoslavia.
The International Court of Justice held its first meeting.
English actress and 1960s Disney teen queen Haley Mills was born.
She managed to transition into adult roles after her Disney era and still acts. Probably her most famous early movie was The Parent Trap.
Last edition:
Wednesday, April 17, 1946. Syria becomes independent. Protests in Japan.
Wednesday, April 15, 2026
Friday, March 20, 2026
Wednesday, March 20, 1946. Tule Lake closes but its residents struggles continue.
The final adjudication of the cases of Japanese internees who had renounced their citizenship during World War Two concluded, resulting in the closure of Tule Lake War Relocation Center. The litigation reversed their loss of citizenship, but the Justice Department would reverse that. It would take until the 1960s for their citizenship to be restored.
Almost all of those who had renounced their citizenship had recanted, and for that matter not all of the renunciations were genuine.
There were two air disasters in the news:
26 DIE IN C-47 CRASH; AB-29 FALLS WITH 7; Army Plane Explodes in Sierras, Lost 'Superfort' Is Found South of San Francisco
Last edition:
Saturday, March 16, 1946. Route 66. George Mikan turns pro.
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Railhead: The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado, to Billings, Montana.
Railhead: The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado...: I had no idea that this is what this train was called. Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know! I've been looking into local passen...
The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado, to Billings, Montana.
I had no idea that this is what this train was called. Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know!
I've been looking into local passenger train travel as part of my efforts with a novel. What I found is that I knew very little about it. Probably more than your average bear, but that's about it. I'd long assumed that a person could board a train in Casper in 1916 and take the train to Douglas or Cheyenne, and then return that evening, but the more I looked into it, that was just an assumption.
I'm not the one who figured out how it really worked. That goes to MKTH. the result is fascinating.
It turns out I was right sort of. The Burlington Northern ran a train from Denver Colorado, to Billings Montana, and vice versa, daily. This article takes a look at it.
What I imagined, for novel purposes, was boarding in Casper, and traveling to Douglas. I may, as I work at it, make it Cheyenne.
Union Station, Denver Colorado
Union Station, Denver Colorado
Union Station as viewed from in front of Denver's Oxford Hotel.
Anyhow, this is a really interesting article and give a really good look at what traveling on the Denver to Billings night train was like, complete with stops for food, which is something I hadn't considered. It also picked up mail, and my source indicates, cream, something I also hadn't figured, but that may explain why the creamery my family owned was just one block from the Burlington Northern. In fact it probably does.
Jersey Creamery Inc.
The trip took 19 hours. It take 8 hours today by car, assuming good weather conditions, and not figuring in stops for food, etc. The train moved about 34 miles an hour.
We'll look at the return trip first. The train having come up from Cheyenne boarded there at 12:49 in the morning. Uff.
It got to Casper at 6:20 in the morning, having made a couple of stops along the way.
Burlington Northern Depot, Casper Wyoming
What I imagined?
Not really. And I also had no idea that there was a major cafe right off the railroad. This article deals with the early 1960s, but I can see that some variant of it was there decades prior. That makes piles of sense, really. Of course there would be. How else would people eat if they were making the long journey?
It simply hadn't occurred to me.
In my imaginary trip., that'd be it. If I stuck with the Douglas variant of this, my protagonist would be boarding the train in the early, early morning hours and get in a couple of fitful hours of sleep, probably interrupted by a stop in little Glenrock. Indeed, this train stopped everywhere to pick up mail, and a few passengers.
What about the other way around?
Well that was a day trip, but as we can see, the 19 hours the train traveled in total meat that it took a good 6.5 hours to travel just from Cheyenne to Casper. Going the other way would mean the same thing, and likely a bit in reverse. The 6.5 hour trip from Cheyenne to Casper was the second major leg of the trip (it'd still stop in numerous small towns in between), the first being Denver to Cheyenne. Going the other way around meant that the Cheyenne to Denver leg was about five hours. The article notes that the train actually arrived from Billings 40 minutes before its 7:00 p.m. departure. So it arrived, more or less, at 6:00 p.m. and changed crews. That would have meant that it left Cheyenne, on the way to Denver, at about 1:00 p.m. or so, which makes sense. Passengers traveling all the way to Denver would have eaten lunch there.
By extension, however, that meant that the train left Casper at about 6;00 in the morning, approximately.
These times are almost unimaginable now. When we had good air travel to Denver I'd frequently board United Express here about 6;00 a.m. and be in Denver about 8:30, and take the train downtown and be to work by 9. I'd be back in Casper on the redeye about 10:00, or if I was lucky, 6:00.
And when I go to Cheyenne, I drive. Normally that takes me a little under three hours. I haven't stayed overnight in Cheyenne for years, although I recently had an instance which should really cause me to.
Anyhow, if I'm looking at 1916, why not just drive?
Well, in 1916 most Americans, including most Wyomingites, didn't own automobiles, and those who did, didn't normally make long trips with them. They frankly weren't that reliable, even though they were simple. Roads also tended to be primitive, and not really maintained for weather. Could a person have driven from Casper to Cheyenne in a Model T, the most likely car they would have had? Yes, but it wouldn't have been any faster. It may well have been slower, quite frankly, as well as much riskier.
Monday, March 16, 2026
Saturday, March 16, 1946. Route 66. George Mikan turns pro.
Route 66 was recorded for the first time, the introductory edition of the Bobby Troup work by Nat King Cole.
Troup was a songwriter and actor, married to actress Julie London
He was also a graduate of Wharton, which produced the unfortunate Trump and Gray, but that's another matter. He served in the Marine Corps in World War Two, by which time he was already a songwriter. The war did not really interrupt his songwriting.
Route 66 was an absolute masterpiece, and has been recorded an innumerable number of times, and was even used for the basis of a television series that ran from 1960 to 1964.
In some very real ways, Route 66 symbolized the post war world and its sense of youth, indicability, and automotive freedom.
Route 66 itself was one of the original U.S. Highways of the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. It became a huge factor in Depression Era migration to California, which makes the way its nostaglically remembered somewhat ironic, but as
College basketball player George Mikan, who was hugely popular turned pro.
He was a great player, and notably played with glasses. He struggled with diabetes in his final years, which focused attention on the plight of pre big money players.
He died in 2005 at age 80, a basketball great.
The Rocky Mountain News focused again on gambling.
An intersting service was being offered:
A tryst with a German Madchen went rather poorly.
To popular one panel cartoons of the day:
Last edition:
Friday, March 15, 1946. Soviets in Iran.
Labels: 1930s, 1940s, 1946, Harry S. Truman, Iran, Nazi Germany, Propaganda, Radio, Skiing, United States, USSR, World War Two
Saturday, March 14, 2026
The Best Post of the Week of March 8, 2026. The Week King Donald's War went astray for lack of purpose.
It won't go down as a great week in American history. King Donald committed us to a war which it does not look like we can win.
No Trumps will die in this war, but a lot of other people will.
So, what were its bloodstained highlights? Let's take a look.
First we'll note something we failed to. Country Joe McDonald died this past week, sort of a poetic end, in a way. He was a veteran of the Navy.
Not Trumps have served in the Navy. Well of course not.
We finished up 1914 to 1926, by finishing up, 1916.
Wednesday, March 8, 1916. Villa crosses the border.
Let's just admit, by this point, the only people who don't think the Trump Administration is the worst administration in American history are in it, and even some of them probably think that.
An event I sort of wish had never happened:
We looked at some movies.
We looked to an historical example regarding conscription.
We decided to punish our own political party, and we're not alone in that.
Giving up completely on the GOP.
I've noted my political history here before.
I'm a Westerner and an Irish Catholic. That informs my vote pretty heavily.
When I first registered to vote Ronald Reagan was President. Marine Corps Raider veteran Ed Herschler, a Democrat, was the Governor of Wyoming. D-Day veteran Teno Roncolio, also a Democrat, was our Congressman. Republicans Malcolm Wallop and Alan Simpson were our Senators.
That was sort of the political landscape here at the time. More Republicans than Democrats, but there were still Democrats, and those Democrats tended to be pretty tough conservative people. Republicans were already tacking off into batshit crazy economic theories but they weren't completely bathed in them yet.
I registered as a Republican.
I didn't stay a Republican for a really long time. I don't recall when exactly I switched parties, but by the time I was at the University of Wyoming, I had registered Democratic. I stayed in the Democratic Party for a long time. I was still a Democrat when I became a lawyer and I know that I was when I was married. However, sometime after that, I couldn't stand the sea of blood the Democratic Party had become. I became an independent.
As an independent you missed the primaries pretty much, however, and starting in the Clinton era in general Wyoming Democrats began to drift over to the GOP. After all, the mainstream of the Democratic Party wasn't all that different from the traditional mainstream of the local GOP. After awhile, I registered as a Republican.
Little far right Dixiecrats like Chuck Gray like to scream that people like me are "RINOs", when in fact they're the malignant innovation into the GOP. That element hadn't entered the GOP at the time I was first in it, and didn't for a long time. Gray himself, who nobody really knew anything about, was probably the first, followed by Jeanette Ward, who served one term in the legislature before losing a bid to retain her seat. While she lost, that showed the direction things were headed in. Carpetbaggers who knew nothing about their state moved in and wanted to convert it into pre 1964 Alabama.
It's not as if the Democrats stood still. As moderate Wyoming Democrats left the party, it too became delusional. If the Republicans became increasingly fascistic or Dixiecratic, the Democrats lived intellectually in the Greenwich Villages' Stonewall Inn in 1969. It made going back into the Democratic Party an outright impossibility for people like myself, particularly as they lashed themselves increasingly to abortion and perversion.
More recently, I'll note, that seems to be wearing off. The Democrats are still "pro choice", but they don't talk much about it. For that matter Republicans who were really gung ho on being pro life have sort of lost their fire for that as well, following the lead of Orange Mussolini.
What the Republican Party, nationally, has become is flat out insane. No thinking person can be a member of it and be comfortable.
There are still good Republicans here in Wyoming. They began a big fight against the Dixiecrats prior to the legislature and largely prevailed this session, in spite of the fact that the diehard adherents of The Lost Cause were theoretically in control of the solons. That should give local Republicans who aren't literally whistling Dixie some hope.
But with the current national Trumpites in control, the line has been drawn.
For years people like Dixiecrat Chuck Gray, or Dixicrat Bextel, have claimed that the Republican Party here was infiltrated with Democrats. Well, it was. They're the Democrats. Democrats from 1960 Alabama. They just don't know it. But the screaming lunacy that they've espoused does have an effect after awhile. Yell at people that "you are a RINO" for long enough, and they'll take it up.
I'm remaining registered in the GOP. Chuck Gray's efforts to disenfranchise voters has been enough for me in and of itself not to change registrations. Frankly, if I was to take a run at the House of Representatives, and I've thought about it, I would switch parties as right now that would give a person a place in the November election no matter what. But I'm not going to do that. I'm old, worn out, and very tired.
So I'm remaining in the GOP in no small part so that I can vote for the decent primary candidates, of which there are some right now.
At this point, merely stating that you are "pro Trump" will be enough to cross my vote for you off the list. At least three House candidates are promising to be Trump's biggest lover, and they're all of the list. I hope I run into some of them during their campaigns. I probably will.
And I've already quit giving MAGAs in my midst slack. Frankly, since the start of the assault on Iran, that's been easy, as the "never war" MAGAs can't explain that one without sounding like hypocrites, and they know it. Even a few have begun to look as if Valentines to Trump weren't a good idea.
But in the Fall. I'm not voting for any Republicans for anything.
That won't exactly be easy. So far here only one candidate from the Democratic Party has signed on to run for a statewide office. He has my vote even though I like the only Republican whose announced for the same position. And just because I'm not voting for a Republican doesn't mean I will vote for Democrats. In my state house district a really decent Republican holds the seat and a young woman from the Democratic Party has announced against him. She's already on the sea of blood ticket. I can't vote for her, but I won't vote for the Republican I've voted for many times before.
To vote for Republicans in 2026 you have to accept that a low IQ, deranged, octogenarian should have complete dictatorial control over the Federal Government, can start major wars on his own, can demolish parts of the White House as he has the tastes of a bordello owner, can cause the hiding of files on a major pedophile ring, and can have a domestic army occupy the streets. It also means you have to be willing to sacrifice the environment of the planet for scientific denial. You have to be willing to endorse lies at a never before seen rate, which makes you a liar yourself if you do.
I can't go there.
On a bright spot, the Confederate dominated legislature went home routed.
A fellow traveler pondered the long strange trip of the NatCons and J. D. Vance.
The war started wrecking the economy.
Perverts were hitting on Chloe Winters.
Have some of you seen any daylight recently?
This is amusing. Chloe Winters is not unattractive, but the married Galwegian dresses like what she is, a market gardener. It's a dirty job. Her only adornment, normally, is a cross denoting her Christianity.
The fact that she's getting hit on for gardening videos. . . well it's just sad.
It became clear that Donald Trump had committed the nation to war on the concept that the Iranians would just collapse, even though he was warned that they would not.
Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 5. Trump's forever war. King Donald's War, Part 1.
Last edition:
Best post of the week of March 1, 2026.
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