Authors: Mark Dunn
IBID (6 page)
HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN, JIGGITY JIG
1.
The homecoming was bliss.
Jonathan’s Diary, JBP.
2.
The next morning he entered Pettiville High School.
Some say through the north door, others the south door; there is also a small camp that believes that Jonathan entered the school through the kitchen and nipped a egg cream cup as he passed. Obviously, this is inconsequential. (It is also becoming obvious that this book has been seriously over-researched.) The most salient fact here is that Jonathan was home safe and sound, and back in school. His circus days were over. Life for young Jonathan Blashette had finally taken a promising turn.
3.
Even at this early age, Jonathan had become a crusader.
Always a compassionate child, Jonathan’s concern for others less fortunate than himself and especially for the maltreated and oppressed of society only grew stronger as he matured into late adolescence. Living with side show performers whose physical defects had left them open to abuse and societal marginalizing only strengthened the boy’s resolve to fight for the rights of all those who were similarly relegated. This group included Native Americans as well. I discovered among Jonathan’s papers a very telling letter from author L. Frank Baum, dated January 27, 1904. It was apparently written in response to one that Jonathan had sent him. (Jonathan’s letter no longer exists. According to Baum, the drawing that accompanied it was immediately destroyed; one suspects that the letter itself quickly met the same end.) Nonetheless, the beacon of Jonathan’s courage shines through by inference.
Dear Master Blashette,
Thank you for your letter of January 22. For a young man of fifteen you express yourself quite well. If you were to choose a career as a writer you would be well served by your talent.
While I commend your command of the language, the content and thrust of your missive was most unwelcome. Your anger is curiously misdirected, or shall I say, microscopically directed. Is my position not one shared by hundreds of thousands of other white Americans? Will you write vituperative letters to all of these good people as well? You will be a busy lad. I suggest you get to work without delay!
I have not altered the opinion I held in the
Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer
editorials to which you refer, and that is that our safety even in this relatively new century continues to depend upon the total extermination of the Indians. I will agree with you that we have wronged the savage Red Man for centuries. But while you suggest that we make amends in whatever way possible for those decades of subjugation, I strongly argue the opposite course of action. The red-skinned barbarian will never submit to our civilizing influence. He will insist on retaining claim to land to which by his innate primitivism he has lost clear title. Anger-fueled violence toward our government will never subside. Without hope of reconciliation or redress, it is most efficacious for us to simply finish the job we started: wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth and be done with it. Unless we take swift action along these lines, our great nation will remain under-civilized, its enormous potential unrealized. We have no choice: the Red Man must be eliminated.
My secretary tells me that your letter was accompanied by a picture which you had drawn that was of such a distressing nature that she was forced to place it directly into the hearth fire to ensure that none of the many children who wander into my office would find it and be harmed by the exposure.
Young man, I think it should be possible for you to disagree with me on this matter without making a shamefully obscene mockery of my work. My secretary tells me that your drawing depicted a full scale Indian assault on the characters in my children’s book
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
. In the picture the savages have eviscerated the Scarecrow, chopped the Tin Man into a pile of scrap metal, and skinned the Lion and hung him upon a spit, his face twisted in agonizing death throes. Young Dorothy lay writhing upon the blood-streaked Yellow Road, her scalp peeled horrifically from her skull.
In addition to which, young man, your facts are erroneous. There
are no
Indians in the land of Oz. They were exterminated many years ago by the Munchkins. Oz is a far better (and safer) place for their absence. Perhaps some day you will see that our great country would fare even better (we have no witches here) should we follow the same course of action.
Perhaps it is good that I did not see the picture you drew. I am not sure that I would find it in my heart to forgive you for the violence you did to them.
Yours truly,
L. Frank Baum
4.
A high point of the year was the tug-of-war.
Griselda Duderstadt,
Halcyon Days in Wilkinson County
(El Dorado,
Arkansas: Ouachita Publishing, 1974), 178-79. The Wilkinson County tug-of-war had been an annual event going back to 1870. Traditionally, male citizens of Pettiville would gather on the south bank of Gobles Creek as male citizens of neighboring Ambless gathered on the north bank with the exception of 1889 when Pettivillians, finding the south bank rain-soaked and mud-laden—a disadvantage they would not accept—requested of their north county rivals a switch, or at the very least, the drawing of lots to determine bank assignment. Amblessites, staunchly adhering to tradition, rejected both proposals. Rather than canceling the bout, the two teams agreed to join forces for this one year, the men of both towns gathering
en masse
on the north bank to pull down a roped oak tree across the creek. Failing miserably at this task (“We removed some bark.”) the men were mocked by their female kin, and the
Pettiville Press
published a demoralizing story under the headline, “Wilkinson County Hangs its Head. Oak Tree wins Annual Tug-of-war” (24 July1889). The emasculated men of the county did, however, get the last laugh; the next week they chopped down the deeply rooted oak, milled its timber and turned the boards into backsplashes for a number of Pettiville and Ambless outhouses. “This way,” explained Pettiville mayor Herman Sills, “whoever wanted to, could piss right on that damned uppity tree.”
5.
Jonathan was caught playing craps behind the main tent of the Billy Wonder Traveling Revival.
Interview with Odger Blashette.
6.
Later Jonathan found Jesus at the Billy Wonder Traveling Revival.
Jonathan’s chief duties as “silent deacon” during his summer on the tent show circuit after his conversion by Billy Wonder included standing as sentry to prevent “bedeviled” teenaged hooligans from pulling out the stakes and toppling the canvas tenting, collecting love
offerings from those in attendance, and lending a hand to those spiritually and physically “infirm” who might wish to approach the altar to obtain soul-cleansing and chiropractic adjustments. Sixteen-, then seventeen-year-old Jonathan wrestled throughout the summer with a faith that seemed by turns impertinent and non-existent. “Is it possible to be a Christian and not believe in God?” Jonathan posed in his diary. He put this question to Billy Wonder, as well. “That’s a new one on me,” Billy responded, and then added somewhat cryptically, “I suppose you can drink the milk without dancing with the cow.” “And what milk would that be?” Jonathan inquired of the man who, in spite of his skillful religious legerdemain, did possess faith of a sort. “Why, the milk of human kindness!” Billy chirped, his bright, sun-glinted eyes reflecting thoughtful consideration of the concept. An interesting concept, Jonathan noted in his journal, from the wonder-working Billy Wonder. Jonathan’s Diary, 30 June 1904, JBP.
7.
Jonathan was removed from the Epworth League for making a joke about the Holy Ghost.
Reverend Devon Stoddard to Eugenia Sellers, 20 September1904, Sellers Family Papers.
8.
Jonathan was voted president of the Pettiville High School Debate Society.
Jonathan’s Diary, 12 October1904.
9.
Jonathan lost the presidency of the debate society when a rival challenged his legitimacy and he responded with, “Oh, really…must we debate this?”
Ibid., 13 October1904.
10.
Jonathan considered quitting school and becoming a patent medicine salesman.
Interview with Odger Blashette.
11.
Jonathan decided not to quit school and become a patent medicine salesman.
Ibid.
12.
“I’m so glad that you decided not to quit school and become a patent medicine salesman. Your mother is too.”
Ibid.
13.
“He’s right. I am. Come give Mother a hug.”
Ibid.
14.
Love finds Jonathan Blashette.
Mildred Boyers’s family was relatively new to Pettiville. Her father sold Divine Bain sea sponges throughout a territory that included eastern Arkansas, northern Mississippi, and western Tennessee as well as, curiously, Atlantic City, New Jersey, where, it was said, he had a mistress named Sheila who either (sources disagree) ate lye and died, or ate dye and lied about it, bragging that blue tongues ran in her family. Mildred wasn’t close to her father, but found comfort and solace at the rectory of St. Bartholomew Catholic Church of Ambless where she performed light housekeeping chores and posed as famous Greek statuary for the amusement of Father Dwayne and his toothless assistant Toot. Maise Boyers Gabridge, interview by author, 16 May 2000.
No picture of Jonathan’s first girlfriend Mildred exists (see Note 16.). However, we have been left with several photographic likenesses of “Sheila,” discovered among the Boyers family effects in an old Atlantic City taffy box. In one snapshot she wears a Gibson Girl bathing dress and a big grin. This particular picture was given to me by Sheila’s great-granddaughter and it is now affixed to my refrigerator right next to the Michigan snowshoe magnet that secures my coupons for Mint Milanos.
15. “
Mildred’s my gal.”
As happy as Jonathan and Mildred were, they must have known that they were not destined to spend the rest of their lives together. Perhaps this note, slipped into Jonathan’s hand at the Pettiville High School Homecoming bonfire, offers a few clues. JBP.
November 2, 1904
Dear Jonny,
You CANNOT, CANNOT, CANNOT think that I would go on the hayride with you. I simply will not do it. You will horse around as you always do when you get with Bub and Charlie and the Vox, and will pay no attention to me, you may be sure of it. I will sit in a corner of that wagon ALONE and watch the four of you make UTTER fools of one another and wonder why I ever FOR ONE MINUTE thought we’d be cuddling in the moonlight when that is probably THE LAST THING ON YOUR MIND! So you go on without me and I will stay behind and help Miss Britten dust her erasers unless you can absolutely positively assure me that you will pay attention to ME and only ME on the hayride and not act the fool with those ruffian characters you call your pals.
I made you a pie last night and it is waiting for you in the home sciences room and you may have it for the price of a little KINDNESS for HEAVENS SAKE!
Love,
Mildred
PS. Daddy is off in Atlantic City again. He will no doubt try to make me feel better about his absence by bringing home TAFFY.
16.
Another favorite pastime was “kodaking” in Donlee Hills
. Each of these photographs of Jonathan and his friends (JBP and Maise Boyers Gabridge, Private Collection of Family Ephemera) was taken with Mildred’s new Brownie camera, probably by Jonathan’s high school chum Will “The Vox” Crispen. The oversize thumb-intrusions in the bottom
right corner of each are identical.
Though camera-shy herself, Mildred loved her little Brownie and was careful to preserve all of her own efforts, including a photographic essay she entitled “Work, the Curse of the Drinking Class.” Jonathan played one of the roles in this pictorial commentary on Upper Class indolence, dressing up as a moneyed swell, berating (in frozen pantomime) the hired help, and drinking himself into a nightly stupor. The photographic tableau assigned to “nightly stupor” shows Jonathan comically body-hugging a lamppost. I have discovered a number of variations of the lamppost clench. My chief researcher Billy Vivian was quick to demonstrate to me that by placing the photographs in a certain order and flipping them, one may animate the scene, thus producing a peep show of Jonathan dry-humping the post.
17.
Both a curse and a blessing was this second sight.
Jonathan’s mother didn’t always possess the gift of prophecy, but for a period of ten years, it seemed that almost all of her predictions came true. In early 1912, however, Emmaline’s second sight began to fail her and her back-porch prognostications started to miss their mark by wide margins. For example, she predicted that the Titanic would be drydocked after forty years of dutiful service to the White Star Line and then be turned into a home for old sailors, and that anarchist Emma Goldman would become a Republican senator from New Jersey. Later she predicted that Al Jolson would lose his voice and become a whispering Southern Baptist. Addicus Andrew Blashette, interview with author, 5 October, 1999.
18. “
Graduation comes none too soon! Hip Hip Hoorah! Tah Rah Rah Boom Dee-A! [sic]”
Jonathan’s Diary, 25 May 1905.
19.
“I am leaving to spend my summer as a counselor at a fishing camp.”
Jonathan Blashette to Mildred Boyers, 29 May, 1905, Private Family Correspondence Collection of Maise Boyers Gabridge. Mildred was, incidentally, in Atlantic City looking for her mother who, according to Gabridge, had learned of her husband’s extramarital dalliances and went to either “drag the man by the short-hairs all the way home” or “feed that sorry excuse for a husband and father to the fishes.”
20.
“This was my welcome to the Fritz Fighting Camp.”
The word “fighting” was a misprint. Jonathan spent his graduation summer paying—along with other members of the camp’s staff—for this glaring promotional brochure typographical error. Given the misleading advertising, few arrived at the Minnesota camp expecting to fish and those who made the attempt usually, in the words of the camp’s beleaguered administrator Trent Littlefeather, “had no sooner dropped their lines in the cool, placid lake water than their boatmate hauls off and knocks the dog crap out of them when they’re not looking.” It was the summer Jonathan learned fisticuffs, a little about lures, and the importance of accuracy in promotional circulars. Jonathan’s Diary, 3 June1905.