1492 and All That: A Fool's History of the USA

By Richard Minadeo

The "fool" of the title is the inept narrator, who takes us on a warm but clueless tour of US history. He stops briefly to visit American culture, the American mind and various problems he claims to solve but fails even to illuminate. Presidents get harpooned along with both parties. Yet the view is ever rosy, including a glimpse of endless prosperity that "only Yankee Doodle dares dream of."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Minadeo
• Release date: Jan 2, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458147295

Richard Minadeo

Education: BA Syracuse University 1951 MS University of Wisconsin 1956 PhD University of Wisconsin 1965 Profession: Wayne State University Professor of Classics 1961-1996 Publications: The Lyre of Science 1969, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by the Wayne State University Press The Golden Plectrum 1982 The Thematic Sophocles 1994

Book preview

PART I

FROM COLUMBUS TO MONROE

CHAPTER 1

THE EXPLORER

American History began in 1492, when Christopher Amerigo Columbus sailed into the Bay of Haiti, which he mistook for India. Christopher therefore didn’t exactly discover America. This honor went to the Spanish explorer, Punchy de Leon, years later, while he was searching for Florida.

Punchy not only located Florida, but he found, capped and absconded with all he could tote (ten gallons) of the magical Fountain of Youth. He was last seen selling pencils on a Las Vegas street corner in 1958. He was a lad of fourteen at the time.

Nor was it all roses for Christopher, either. He never did locate India, and Haiti turned out to be the Vale of Tears of the Western Hemisphere. Also, he left millions dead of the strong killer germs he imported with him from Spain and, in return, poisoned the lungs of the Old World with the sweet smell of Cubano.

CHAPTER 2

THE FONDLER

But, whoa. Who will ever forget the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Lucia of grade-school fame? And who ever heard of Vespuccia University or Punchy, Ohio? Before Columbus sailed, the world was thought to be an immassive cube. Sail West and you plunged off the edge or, worse (because it was more jagged), the corner of the world straight into the bottomless Abyss.

Columbus sailed. He didn’t plunge. For Corleones alone, he deserves to be called the Fondling Father Number One of all America that he undoubtably is. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 3

NEW BLOOD

Then came the French, the Dutch and the Spaniards (or vice versa), and, hanging a left, the Spaniards discovered El Dorado, that is, rivers of Gold and Silver Bunions. Bearing right, the others discovered the romantic Northwest Passage to India— useless because frozen shut three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. So, jointly, the explorers petitioned the Pope to extend the year by a hundred days, but managed (after many decades) only Nine. This was a Very Memorable Failure.

CHAPTER 4

THE LOST COLONY

Sir Walter Raleigh, the sexual favorite of the Virgin Queen (viz., Victoria) planted the first English Colony, a hundred strong and romantic Souls, in a nice warm spot down South and hurried back to England, for the Queen was waiting. When he returned next Spring, Raleigh couldn’t find the spot (Jamestown) where he had planted those Souls. Hearing the Rumor that one Soul had eaten his wife’s dead corpse out of sheer hunger, he tried but couldn’t recall if he had left the settlers with any provisions at all.

Undented, Sir Walter planted another hundred Souls the following Year, and this batch took root. He named the place Virginia in honor of the same romantic Queen. It was rumored that Raleigh forgot the Queen herself at a wedding function some years later, but this is doubtless a Coproful.

CHAPTER 5

POCAHONTAS

Captain John Smith, Jamestown’s most memorable strong man, was about to have his skull bashed in by a native North American Chef called Powerhat, when, according to Smith himself, the Chef’s eleven-year—old daughter, Pocahontas, embraced his (Smith’s) head and begged for his life. She got it.

Pocahontas later married not Smith, however, but the strong and handsome Indian brave, Hiawatha, who survives in Song and Story till this day. So was America saved, a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 6

THE PIGEONS

Next arrived the God-fearing Pigeons. Shooed out of England because of their depressing gray coats and coo-coo behavior, the Pigeons honed in on Plymouth Rock and landed spot-on. Because this modest folk refused to wear the Naughty Wigs of the day, they were also called Roundheads and Puritans.

The last name suited them fine, for Pure they were and Thrifty. To save on heating bills, they would bundle up their memorable teenagers two or three to a sleeping sack, sleepover guests included, without fear of Sin. The practice became so second-nature to the Teenies that they would bundle in the Summer as well, if the situation arose, and even in the afternoon.

If anyone erred, he/she would have to wear the disgraceful scarlet letters BC (Bundling Criminal) on his/her chest till age twenty-one, whereupon it was changed to a simple F.

CHAPTER 7

WITCHERY

The Pigeons were strong and memorable Witch-Hunters, bagging more Frequent Flyers per square mile than any other known society in the history of the World. One strong, memorable remedy for witchery was Waterboarding (dunking in the stocks), which always drew a festive crowd; others were sleep-depravation and, for the shy, forced Nakedness.

CHAPTER 8

THE FIRST THANKSGIVING

This was a Myth. True, the Pigeons invited the memorable King Philip—not the UK menarche, but a Colonial look-alike—to a turkey supper but with inferior motives. Philip, a big-time Indian Chef, knew innumerous Squaws, and the Pigeons wanted a few memorable specimens for the romantic Capt. Miles Standish, who had just lost Priscilla Arden to her brother, John. Philip was happy to comply at first, but soon he became merry with drink and started popping browned turkeys galore with his Singing Arrows.

CHAPTER 9

KING PHILIP’S WAR

This meant War. King Philip was no mere bow-and-hatchet chef, however. He came at his new Enema (the Pigeons) with Musk and Canon and caused the rivers to run with blood, according to a temporary source. In return, the Pigeons conducted innumerous Midnight Scalpings of innocent victims and finally prevailed. It is a little-known fact, indeed, that the Indians learned the art of Red-Heading from the Pigeons and that a well-tressed Indian Scalp would soon bring in a good hundred pounds (a good $23,345,000.00 in current Coin). This was a Very Tempting Sum.

CHAPTER 10

THE QUACKERS

The stretch between this fierce little War and the great American Revelation was filled with scalp-hunting, colony-building, slave-trading, church-forming, pulpit-thumping, maple-draining, cotton-picking Zeal. But the Best Good Thing was the arrival of that fine and immoral religious sect, the American Quackers.

This was the first religion to devote itself wholly to Friendship, Peace and Philadelphia. Plain and Modest by nature, they dressed like undertakers. Their churches were constructed of no steeples, no windows, no pews, no acorns, no sermons, no floors, no choirs, no gee-gaws and no clergy. They entered the Place of Worship, went down into the strong Mystic Mazurka position and, when the Spirit moved them, began to quack uninhabitably like a Duck for as long as the Spirit lasted—sometimes all night long.

CHAPTER 11

THEIR INFLUENCE

This was the cause of the Declaration of Independence, the Revelation, the Constitution, the memorable Bill of Rights and

Reviews for 1492 and All That

[Walt Scrivens · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

awful.