Down the Hill...Around the Bend...and Over the Edge: Shideler Harpe is Off His Meds Again

By Shideler Harpe

"Down the hill...around the bend...and over the edge" is a collection of significant essays, short stories, great thoughts, infuriating opinion, artful comedy, and other important stuff, all gathered during a very long career in journalism, public relations and politics. Also, there is a novella, "Email from my heart to hers"; it is a love story for the Cyber Age, written especially for this captivating anthology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483513737

Book preview

A Delighted Boy Finds Rotten Fruit on the Family Tree

What could be more exciting to a twelve-year-old boy than to discover that his family history appears to include the exploits of two bloodthirsty villains who were (a) pirates, (b) bandits, and (c) probably the nation’s first and foremost serial murderers?

This would give that boy big-time bragging rights over his buddies, who could not claim interesting or important historical figures in their genealogical background, or could claim only dreary lawyers, doctors, educators or clergymen.

It was late on a typical Sunday morning in the Harpe household, and I was perusing the big weekend edition of The Indianapolis Star as my parents still slept, or whatever they did in their bedroom on Sunday mornings. I was skimming through The American Weekly, a supplement distributed nationally by the Hearst newspaper empire. This was my favorite part of the Sunday newspaper because of its lurid, sensational journalism.

It was then that I stumbled upon the Harpe brothers, Micajah (aka Big Harpe) and Wiley (aka Little Harpe), who terrorized Ohio River Valley pioneers during the 1790s. They preyed upon travelers on the overland trails and the waterways, and upon boatmen, innkeepers, and settlers living on isolated farms and in the few scattered villages.

The American Weekly had printed reproductions of gruesome woodcuts from the era that illustrated the chilling text which recounted some of the more than forty grisly murders of men, women and children committed by the Harpe brothers. They also are believed to have been responsible for many other vile killings and heinous crimes. The Harpe boys liked to kill.

The Harpe brothers (who actually may have been cousins) were members of a family which had emigrated from Scotland and settled in North Carolina. During the American Revolution the two young men fought for the British as guerilla warriors. Their military careers turned out to be rewarding apprenticeships in killing, torturing, raping, pillaging and destroying.

They enjoyed sharpening their new skills, and expanded into the piracy, banditry and wholesale murder business. The Harpes left the Carolinas and headed for Tennessee, killing and brutalizing along the way, and acquiring three women who (probably without benefit of the usual sacraments) served as their wives (two for Micajah, one for Wiley). The women produced several children, including a baby girl fathered by Big Harpe, and killed by him because her crying annoyed daddy.

By 1798 they were well-known for their bloody deeds as they roamed through the Ohio River Valley, occasionally organizing makeshift gangs of like-minded misfits, or linking up with established gangs. Some of the latter were so appalled by the Harpe brothers’ bloodlust that they asked them (very politely) to move on.

I was enthralled and delighted by my possible genealogical discovery, and could hardly wait to tell the exciting news to my parents. I assumed mom and dad were unaware of the awesome Harpe brothers since I had never heard them mentioned by anyone in the family. Mom and dad finally came downstairs and listened to my thrilling report, but it wasn’t news to them. Dad conceded that the Harpe brothers might be relatives but Harpe (or Harp) was a fairly common name (I wasn’t aware of that) and we probably were not directly related. That was a crushing disappointment. Mom seemed a bit agitated, exclaiming that there was no way any vulgar, bloodthirsty ruffians of that sort could be connected to dad’s branch of the family tree. (She was a member of a fine old Indiana family with an exciting history of successful small-town dentists, accountants, and owners of hardware stores, and dry goods and millinery shops.

My parents seemed totally disinterested in the sinister siblings and I don’t believe I ever mentioned the subject to them again. However, over the years I occasionally continued to learn more about the adventures of the notorious Harpes. Despite their vicious antisocial activities, the brothers didn’t get much print from historians and authors who have created legends and lore about frontier heroes such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Thanks to the Internet, there now is much more fact, and and surely even more fiction, available about Micajah and Wiley.

When I was in my mid-twenties, fate thrust me right into Harpe brothers country when I went to work for The Evansville Courier. Evansville, Indiana, is across the Ohio River from Henderson, Kentucky. The brothers had cut a path of death and destruction along much of the river that flows southwest for nearly one thousand miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, eventually past Henderson, an area where some of their most brutal depredations occurred, and on downriver to Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio joins the Mississippi.

Big Harpe"s bloody career ended in August of 1799 when a posse caught up with him about ten miles south of Henderson and Big Harpe was wounded in a brief shootout. A member of the avenging posse hacked off his head (the record is unclear whether he was alive or dead at this point) and placed it atop a pole (or maybe impaled the ghastly trophy upon a tree limb or jammed it into the fork of a tree; history is again unclear.) The head remained there for years, and the area, to this day, is called Harpe’s Head, and a nearby road is known as Harpe’s Head Road.

Little Harpe had escaped as the posse approached, and continued his savage ways until he was hanged by the law-abiding citizens of Greenville, Mississippi, on February 8, 1804…but wait, maybe not. There is some evidence that the wrong man may have swung from the gallows, and Little Harpe may have returned to Kentucky and lived happily committing mayhem ever after. There is no reliable record of his whereabouts or activities after 1804.

The Harpes/Harps were a large and widespread clan back in the 1800s, and many dropped the e from their names, either legally or informally, to distance themselves from their violent namesake celebrities, and some, of course, adopted Smith or other more acceptable labels. And this brings us to a puzzling discovery I made just a couple of years ago. I never knew my father’s father, who died when I was three years old. But I knew his name.

For no particular reason I looked him up in the 1920 census record and discovered that my grandfather spelled his last name Harp. But I am a Harpe, and my father was a Harpe. Apparently my dad at some time had added the e. But why? My father died in 1973. He was an only child, and so was I, and there are no relatives left to ask. Its ridiculous, but this really bugs me.

Author’s note: I should admit that, in my teens and early twenties, I occasionally hinted that I probably was related to the ferocious Harpe brothers, who most people had never heard of. So I would narrate in some detail two or three of their most heinous crimes. At the time I thought this gave me some kind of weird cachet, and it did occasionally impress young ladies I met in classrooms and later in bars, and a couple of times at funerals.

A Precious Right Not to Vote

Mike Royko produced a daily newspaper column in Chicago for 30 years, until his sudden death in 1997. Mike saw his career as a calling to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable. His beat was Chicago, its people and their lives; his audience was worldwide.

I worked in the Windy City for a few years, and I was privileged to have had something more than a nodding acquaintance with Royko. We occasionally sat elbow to elbow at the bar in the original Billy Goat Tavern, located downtown and conveniently just a few steps from the three major daily newspapers being published in that city at that time. Since 1964 the legendary Billy Goat has been a sanctuary for not only honest working men, but also journalists, politicians, lawyers, policemen, and other questionable sorts.

The following is adapted from a commentary I wrote in 1996, when Royko turned out a provocative piece in the Chicago Daily News after the Clinton-Dole presidential election. Now it’s January of 2012 and we are watching the meltdown of the Republican Party as Tea Party Yahoos and Fundamentalist crazies struggle to pick a candidate who can defeat President Obama. My guess is that Royko would be both outraged and disgusted by current politics, election campaigns, voter gullibility, non-issues, mega-lies, and dirty tricks that were unheard of in 1996.

Klutzes in the Voting Booth

In 1996, President Bill Clinton handily defeated Bob Dole to win a second term. Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko wrote a post-election piece about the low voter turnout, but he put a new spin on the usual laments and lectures by pundits, politicians, experts, and idiots.

Royko quoted a news anchor’s prediction, on a slow election day, that fewer than half of the nation’s eligible voters would cast ballots, and the low turnout would be a national disgrace.

That’s the traditionally stern position many media people take whenever great numbers of Americans exercise their precious right not to vote, Royko observed. He then suggested that people who have to be nagged into voting haven’t been paying attention, and therefore have no idea what the real issues are, or what the candidates may or may not do if elected.

He called such a clueless citizen a civic klutz and asked, So why is it important to the future of this nation for a klutz, or millions of klutzes, to go punch holes in ballots? Then he followed that thought with an even more significant question: If you are a thoughtful, (politically) involved person, do you want your vote cancelled out by some klutz?

(Good thought, Mike, I said in 1996. And even a better thought in 2011, when it appears that klutzes, Know-Nothings, and Yahoos soon may be stampeding to the polling places.)

Royko continued: But what bothered me most about the ‘national disgrace’ remark was that the writer didn’t bother to explain why so many Americans decided to sit this one out. If he had, he would have been required to say, ‘It’s a national disgrace – and media creatures like me must bear a big part of the blame’.

Royko rightly pointed out that the two presidential candidates – and their campaigns – were not generating the kind of gee-whiz excitement that might get voters off their butts. The media message generally had been that the presidential yacht already had left the pier without Dole, and Clinton had an insurmountable lead.

Royko continued: Hardly a day passes without some (broadcast) network or big newspaper beating people over the head with the message that it’s all over but the funeral. How can the media then tell these same people that is their civic duty to show up as pallbearers?

I was a Royko fan for many years, long before I lived and worked in Chicago, and long after. His viewpoint usually was simplistic but entertaining, and his observations and conclusions usually were right on the mark.

Royko made a pot of money and won a lot of fame, but he never forgot his blue-collar beginnings. He grew up with three siblings in an apartment above a tavern his parents owned, in a tough Chicago neighborhood. He worked in the tavern as a young boy, knocked around in various odd jobs and perhaps some possible misdemeanor scrapes, then served in the Air Force during the Korean War.

He went to work in 1956 as a political reporter for the Chicago Daily News and soon was writing a weekly political column; in 1963 his popular column began appearing five days a week. When the CDN folded in 1978, Royko took his column and most of his fans to the Chicago Sun-Times.

He worked for the Sun-Times until 1984, when Australian newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch bought that newspaper. Royko despised Murdoch and his brand of sensational tabloid news, and when negotiations for the sale began he vowed never to work for Murdoch. Royko wrote, No selfrespecting fish would be wrapped in a Murdoch paper. He moved to the Chicago Tribune, where he continued to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable until his death in 1997.

As I write this in 2011, a huge and growing scandal finally has lifted the lid for a look at dishonest, disreputable and apparently illegal activities of Murdoch’s vast worldwide communications empire, including here in the U.S. The unexpected scrutiny has ended a few journalism and government careers in London, but it hasn’t accomplished much over here. Even so, Mike Royko would have enjoyed all of the hullabaloo. It is his kind of story

A Walk in the Park on a Sunday Afternoon

Several years ago, at an advanced age (in my 60s) and after a long career as a prolific writer in journalism, public relations and politics, I enrolled in a college course to determine if I had any skills in truly creative writing like, perhaps, short fiction.

One of the first assignments was a task designed to test my powers of observation and description: Go outdoors somewhere, and list 50 things I could see, smell, hear, touch, taste, and maybe seduce if I got lucky, then work my findings into a poem or story.

It seemed like a lame assignment. I could stay home, mix a stout martini, and create a list. Who would know? For instance, here’s what’s left of a squirrel, flattened by auto traffic circling the park perimeter, and toasted by the sun…

And over there is a dog, sniffing another dog’s butt…

Hey, I think I heard the screams of a little old lady being mugged…

No, I better go to the nearby very popular city park and give it a try. So here I am, wandering around with my notebook, intently observing everything and taking notes. People probably think I’m a narc.

First, I observe the walkway. I bend down and touch the pavement. It feels rough and slightly warm. That keen observation went into So come along. Amble with me:

The thwock of tennis racquets hitting tennis balls

Gentle snores of a man napping under a tree

Steady breeze rustling the leaves, branches moving lazily

The slapping sound of joggers’ shoes on pathways

Lots of people doing nothing in particular

Lots of joggers and bike riders

Lots of picnickers – couples, small groups, large groups

Occasional whiffs of charcoal smoke as earnest grillers tend their grills

Motorists snarling traffic as they cruise slowly, looking for a place to park

People pushing baby strollers, presumably with babies in them

Large ball floating in the pond, kid and dad trying to figure out a way to retrieve it

Soft, continuous splash, splash, splash of the fountains

Very few people seeking the sun, lots of people under trees

Two nattily dressed geezers on a pond-side bench, enjoying a smoke and a quiet chat

Dad slumped on a bench, smoking a cigarette and yelling at nearby kid playing at

edge of pond; kid ignoring dad

Elderly homeless woman asleep on the ground, shopping cart tethered to her wrist

Another ball in the water, pushed gently toward shore by breeze and current

Pleased adults and excited kids feeding the ducks

Other ducks quacking furiously as they chase a fleeing duck across the pond

Rustle of bamboo fronds stirred by the breeze

Overflowing trash barrels

Pair of ducks who have dropped anchor under a fountain and appear to enjoy the spray

Two large dogs romping in the park and ignoring the leash law

Extremely obese couple, both stuffed into Speedos, holding hands as they stroll

Excited little kids climbing, swinging and sliding in the play area

Continuous sound of traffic on nearby freeway

Thump and slap of rubber soles on basketball court

Large group of noisy young men playing basketball, all wearing huge, baggy pants

Ragged, bearded man taking cans from trash barrel, putting them in plastic trash bag

Silent, determined soccer players

A few men and women of all ages, sitting alone and quietly reading, or with various electronic devices

plugged into their ears, or just doing nothing

Seriously irritated youth cursing as he repairs flat tire on his bicycle

Swish and whir of other bike wheels rolling slowly past him

Sparkling, absolutely empty swimming pool

Unintelligible blare of loudspeaker somewhere in the park

Hundreds of books on makeshift tables behind the memorial building, leftovers

from Saturday book sale

Woman with two kids in lobby of memorial building, struggling with vending machine

Dog sniffing another dog’s butt. Really. I’m not making up this notebook entry

Young couples scoring (up to a point) on blankets under the trees

Few sun worshippers, but one dynamite young woman lying face-down getting

some rays, wearing tiny shorts and not really wearing her untied halter

Small dog chasing a Frisbee and repeatedly failing to catch it

Smattering of people, mostly older, admiring flower gardens at park’s east end

Two young men, who appear to have had a few brewskis, struggling to erect volleyball net

The occasional, unmistakable aroma of pot wafted here and there upon the

gentle breeze (I recorded surprise that there wasn’t more)

Constant but muted background noise of shouts (children and adults) and barking dogs

Impatient family sitting in car while puzzled guy peers and tinkers under hood

One squirrel, probably lonesome since I didn’t see any others

Tow truck arriving to rescue puzzled guy and impatient family

Heavily burdened men, women and children carrying picnic gear from cars to shady areas, and from shady areas to cars

Anniversary

(A finalist in the short fiction competition sponsored by the San Francisco Peninsula Chapter of the prestigious California Writers Club.)

Carolyn has been missing exactly one year ago today. It had been a day very much like today, in early spring. Sunny, unseasonably warm, with the promise of a new beginning after a cold, nasty, and nearly unbearable winter.

Carolyn simply vanished. On Sunday, April 3, she was here at home, preparing the fresh turned earth for her beloved flowers. She would tend them with loving care, spending long hours coaxing green shoots into blooms of riotous color. They were her pride and joy, and the envy of the other amateur horticulturists, both male and female, in our tightly wrapped urban neighborhood.

On Monday, April 4, Carolyn had planned to leave the house early in the morning, intent upon another of her frequent trips to Walmart’s garden shop. She was never seen again. Late that afternoon I called the police to report that she was missing. They expressed little interest. A bored cop told me she wasn’t really missing until she had been gone for at least twenty-four hours.

I didn’t wait. The neighborhood soon was papered with notices I had carefully composed on my computer, then – with the help of friends and neighbors – taped to utility poles, placed in the windows of shops, and tucked under the windshield wipers of parked cars. It was