Saturday, March 2, 2024

A quick ride through history with Jesse James...

Jesse James Potrait-Wikipedia
Written by Jim Heffernan/ DuluthNewsTribune/3-2-24

Jesse James is dead. Dead as a doornail, as Charles Dickens put it about Scrooge’s business partner Marley (read “A Christmas Carol” sometime). Dickens elaborated a bit saying that he doesn’t know what there is particularly dead about a doornail, pointing out that the coffin nail is deadlier. Amen.

 

No question about it though, Jesse James is long gone (murdered by a comrade in 1882), but I didn’t realize until recently HOW long gone.

 

For the record, and, apparently, for the edification of some members of Generation Z, Jesse James is America’s most famous old west outlaw — his gang robbed trains, banks and stage coaches. He has been portrayed in numerous movies over the years on his way to becoming a mythical figure whose name is known — I had thought — to every warm- and cold-blooded American and those in between.

 

It isn’t. Jesse James is really dead, I learned recently at the counter of a Duluth fast food outlet. Placing my order to a young man — looked to be 18 or 19 years old — he asked my name to identify the order when it came up. As I often do, instead of using my three-syllable last name, I said, “James.” It’s my first name, of course, but the last name of some people — like Jesse.

 

Here’s the scene:

 

CLERK — Can I have your name?

 

ME — Umm, James. Like in Jesse.

 

CLERK — What?

 

ME — James is actually my first name, and it was the last name of Jesse James.

 

CLERK — Who?

 

ME — You know, Jesse James the famous outlaw in the old west.

 

CLERK — (Displaying a blank stare) Never heard of him.

 

ME — What? You’ve never heard of Jesse James?

 

CLERK — Nope. Doesn’t register.

 

Wow. I turned on my heel and retreated to a nearby corner of the place to wait to be called to pick up my order, not sure if they’d call out James or Jesse or both.

 

As I stood there I began wondering if Generation Z (people born between 1990 and 2012 including all of my grandchildren) have a sufficient grasp of history, which is very important, according to registered historians.

 

Accordingly, today I will devote this space to refreshing some readers’ knowledge of history (readers older than 19) and lecturing younger readers (if there are any who don’t get all their information from their phones) on important aspects of our history they might not be aware of.

 

If they don’t know who Jesse James was, here are some other important names in what used to be considered our shared history.

 

Let’s begin with Christopher Columbus, who sailed the ocean blue in nineteen-hundred and forty-two. Under the sponsorship of Queen Isabella of Spain, Columbus outfitted a ship called the Mayflower and eventually landed in Ohio, where he founded a city and named it after himself. When Queen Isabella later visited northern Minnesota in search of wild rice and gold, they named a town after her too. This was before the arrival of Frank Hibbing and Father Emil Biwabik, spiritual leader of trappers, hunters and hairdressers.

 

Onward. A French guy who called himself Daniel Greysolon Plaza Sieur DuLhut became an explorer and paddled a canoe as far as he could go on Lake Superior, landing in Canal Park to visit his Grandma. He looked at the high hills rising from the shoreline and declared, “I hereby declare this place shall be called Duluth.” A pint-sized French voyageur accompanying him said, “But Sieur, don’t you mean DuLhut?” to which DuLhut rebuked, “Don’t get wise, bubble eyes,” coining a phrase for the ages.

 

Several years after that, a Virginia planter named George Washington became “the father of our country,” proudly known as the Simon Bolivar of North America. Reports that his false teeth were made of wood have not been substantiated, although he ate corn-on-the-cob with a chain saw. He was most respected, though, for chopping down a cherry tree as a youth and admitting it when his father, Denzel, questioned him about it, saying, “I cannot tell a lie.” No politician has followed that dictum in all subsequent American history.

 

Oh, geez, I’m running out of space. Here’s one more: Paul Bunyan was a Minnesota lumberjack who chopped down all the trees more than 100 years ago. He traveled with a small pet, Babe, a big blue oxymoron. He is widely credited with digging the Mississippi River but not rock ’n’ roll music.

 

I hope this enlightens Generation Z on some important aspects of American history they might not be aware of. It also poses the question: When Generation Z, the last letter of the alphabet, ages out of that category, what are they going to call the following generation?

 

As a member of the “Silent Generation,” I want to know.

 

In the meantime: Shhhhh.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

Saturday, February 3, 2024

So proudly we hail our new state flag...

Source: Minnesota State Emblems Redesign
Commission via Courthouse News
Written by Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune 1/3/24

Here’s the latest fake news that’s unfit to print from this date in 2029 (five years from now).


 DATELINE ST. PAUL — Minnesota Gov. C. Elmer Polka today activated the Army National Guard to assist local law enforcement throughout the state in quelling ongoing riots and street fighting over the adoption of a new state flag five years ago.

  

Minnesota adopted its original flag in 1893 but by 2023 many citizens and aliens believed it had become outdated. It contained the state seal and images of a farmer plowing a field with a Native American on horseback who was, some criticized, riding off into the sunset. Inscribed on the seal were the French words “etoile du nord” which many believe means “toilet of the north.”

 

Union plumbers and others felt this was demeaning and the Legislature authorized the creation of a new flag, appointing a commission to select one. Word went out to the citizenry to submit ideas for a new flag, and some 2,000 responded.

 

After much deliberation, the commission selected a flag with a broad image of the state of Minnesota containing an eight-pointed star (of the north) and a large field of blue. That was it.

 

Many, including most registered Republicans, were not satisfied with the selection, especially constituents in “greater” Minnesota, some of whom have since advocated splitting the state down the middle with the western portion seceding to “the Dakotas,” becoming Dakotasota. The eastern half would become Minnesconsin. The metro area should be renamed Minnemoscow, according to some rural county-level leaders who suggested a red flag be adopted there.

 

Objections to the new flag were manifold. Brewing interests were upset over the blue field on the new flag which many interpreted to represent “The Land Of Sky-Blue Waters,” a promotional slogan representing Hamm’s, “the beer refreshing.” “What’s Grain Belt supposed to do with the whole state advertising Hamm’s?” asked Grain Belt president Walter B. “Whoopie” Kusheon. “Why not replace the blue with amber waves of grain?”

 

 A spokesperson for Budweiser beer, Charles “Chuck” E. Cheesehorst, suggested the flag should include a team of draft horses pulling a wagon, an image steeped in Minnesota agricultural and brewing history.

 

Elsewhere, the Rev. Bartholomew Saturn, spiritual leader of Midwestern Heavenly Astronomers LLC, objected to the star on the flag, saying it resembles the star of Bethlehem that was followed by three wise men astride camels to the birthplace of Christianity. “It violates the separation of church and State of Minnesota,” said the Rev. Mr. Saturn, adding, “we might as well put camels on the flag. Or start smoking them again.”

 

Disputing sides in the flag controversy have taken their grievances to the state Supreme Court following violent outbreaks in several communities resulting in open street confrontations with participants wielding hockey sticks and curling brooms, but no curling irons. Deployed National Guardsmen and Women have used fire hoses to quell the violence in season.

 

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Ducks Unmolested organization called for inclusion of a duck on any new flag. “In the past it was de rigueur to depict a loon on our flag and our seal” said DU spokesman Mallard W. Coot. “What about ducks? You can’t roast a loon. Besides, they spend half the year in Louisiana. Let them put a loon on their flag,” stated Coot.

 

A state spokesperson, John Jacob “Jingleheimer” Johnson, said in a statement that a new state seal depicts a proud loon, and that critics of it “are a little loony, no insult intended.” It has not been determined if “loony” constitutes an insult, an issue expected to reach the state Supreme Court.

 

“What about wolves?” howled wolf advocate “Wolfman” Jack Drool, who heads BBWCAW United (acronym stands for Big Bad Wolves Can Always Win). “Our wolves are more popular than loons and ducks. We need wolves to blame when hunters don’t shoot enough deer. Put wolves on the flag. There are more wolves in Minnesota than habitués of urban bars. In fact, there are quite a few wolves IN those bars.” 

 

U.S. President Amy Klobuchar called for peace. “We’re the Midwest, not the Middle East,” she reminded. Klobuchar, a former U.S. senator from Minnesota, was elected to the White House last year, defeating perennial presidential candidate Nikki Haley in the first all-female race for president.

 

Haley’s campaign faltered when she responded to a question asking what caused World War II by not mentioning Hitler’s Germany or the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

 

Film at 10. 

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.