A Writer Writes

By William Gibson White

Some in this collection of not so politically, socially correct newspaper articles had to be re-written before editors would publish them. Others not published at all because of the author's feelings about religion, race, gender and politics. Basically, White believes this world is big enough for everyone and each can do what they want as long as they don't harm anyone else. He also does not want anyone telling him what to believe and how to conduct his life.

Articles include childhood memories, introduction to religion, assorted jobs, printing trade, Marine Corps, Korean War

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Gibson White
• Release date: May 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452407098

William Gibson White

Born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, William Gibson White said his first thought was: “Either I don’t have a sense of humor, or I don’t belong here.” So stupidity reigned over intelligence, and he stayed and found his sense of humor as a philosopher. Better paying jobs have included: Cotton picker, hay baler, newspaper carrier, U.S. Marine Corps sergeant with one year in combat during the Korean War, short order cook, hypnotist, journeyman printer, writer, businessman, and college instructor. After his Marine Corps career, White completed a Linotype typesetting course at the Southwest School of Printing to supplement the vocational printing trade he took in high school. Then he worked in print shops and newspapers while attending college on the GI Bill. He graduated from Henderson State University with a degree in psychology and English. Later, he became a journeyman printer and did graduate work in English at The American University in Washington, D.C., while setting type for The Washington Post where he worked for 22 years. White has always been interested in writing. His articles have been published in several newspapers including The Washington Post, Detroit News, Rhode Islander and the Arkansas Gazette. He self-published “Born Again! As a United States Marine!” in 2002, "Cupcake, Kids and Me" in 2003 and "Rings of Death" in 2008. Currently, he writes a column for The Standard, a weekly newspaper and a monthly humor column for his hometown newspaper, the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record. Most of his poetry deals with war, religion, enlightenment and “the meaning of life” and has appeared in several publications. White thinks the answer to human behavior lies in this explanation by Mark Twain: "When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."

Book preview

Chapter 1

Sweating with the Gov before

he became President

What do you think about Bill Clinton? my wife and I often asked our fellow adventurers while traveling recently from Hot Springs to both coasts. After they found out we were from Arkansas, they usually countered with the same question as did the cab driver after we had, in AMTRAK parlance, detrained.

All I know is he wants to be president and apologizes too much, I said, still grumpy and swaying from de train ride.

Maybe he needs to, said my wife and the cab driver laughed.

Actually, I do have two things in common with our governor: I was born in his other home town, (before the Hope sound byte entered his campaign), and I also married a damn Yankee who is smarter than I am. My wife has labeled me often as: A politically and socially incorrect redneck traveling south in Dixie without a plan." Yet, I don't want much -- just to make it through the day without getting highly pissed.

But last summer we, and about 100 others, were invited to a reception at the governor’s mansion in Little Rock where Clinton unveiled his Fight Dirty plan. (Then he was not talking about Jerry Brown. The slogan is: Fight Dirty. Keep Arkansas Clean.)

Well, I wasn’t exactly invited to this historic moment. My wife was. I just sorta tagged along. Clinton honored programs that helped keep Arkansas beautiful and litter-free in what I call a gold star, kindergarten-for-adults, ceremony that a governor must perform.

I was grumbling before we got there. It was 100 degrees at 6 p.m. when we arrived and got out of the air-conditioned car. To me, wearing a shirt and tie in that weather was insane but putting on a suit coat was just plain stupid. I said so as I put on the coat of my only summer suit and cursed. The lining ripped as my arm went in between it and the cloth. I had thought I was through with this nonsense, but my wife said it was for only a little while and it would be cool inside.

Governor Clinton greeted us in the front yard and apologized saying it might be even hotter inside because the air conditioning unit in the mansion wasn’t big enough to handle the heat and the big crowd. Well, at least we got out of the sun and the ceiling fans worked well.

We were introduced, tagged and left alone to eat finger food, drink fruit punch or white wine and make small talk. I took a nibble of something and a glass of wine and wandered around the first floor with sweat rolling down my backbone thinking: This man wants to be president and he can’t even keep the house cool for company?

Meanwhile, the sucking up to the governor rituals had begun. Then Hillary Clinton appeared and the suckees became confused. She was overly friendly to everyone except the governor. In fact, Hillary seemed highly p___, er, miffed at the governor. I don’t know why. Maybe Gennifer had just called. At any rate he tried to cozy up to her all evening but she wasn’t having any of it.

Everyone who was anyone, including the governor, gave a speech praising everyone who gave a speech, while my shoes filled up with perspiration. Finally, our brush with greatness ended when we went outside to record this great moment for posterity on film. Some were photographed with the governor, while I wondered if this were proper work for a grown man — especially a Rhodes Scholar?

In spite of the sauna, I think Clinton is intelligent and, morally, probably no worse than the rest of us. But if after 10 years as governor he can’t get adequate air-conditioning in the mansion, how would he cope as president? He can certainly stand the heat!

Chapter 2

So I lost the election

and you’re glad

As you know, I lost the election, so now I can reveal my entire platform. If I had been elected president, my plan was to assume temporary dictatorial powers (isn’t that what all of us dictators say).

Just before my inaugural address, I would order our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. As commander-in-chief, I would need them here to enact martial law and to protect me from harm when I put forth further ultimatums. See, I already feel the power.

Now oil companies would have to hire mercenaries to protect their pipelines. No more American service personnel would die for them.

Pakistan would be given an ultimatum: Get rid of Al Qadi or face possible nuclear annihilation.

Next, to correct the stench and chaos in our present government, I would give members of both houses of congress the choice of resigning without any benefits or facing a firing squad. This would eliminate the two-party system which has become the one BIG PARTY SYSTEM.

All lobbyists would be shot, twice, on sight, since most are ex-members of congress.

I would shut the federal government down for a year to let the stench clear out of Washington, D.C. Or possibly, forever. Think of the money this would save us.

China would have the choice of forgiving the $518 billion we owe them or Wal-Mart would find another producer of its goods. Same goes for the $593 billion we owe Japan and $290 billion we owe the United Kingdom. World War II more than paid those bills.

Most power of government would revert back to the states. U.S. citizens would come first. Federally mandated free cradle-to-grave medical care for U.S. citizens only, sponsored by state governments would be available to everyone with no involvement of insurance companies.

By law, all students would have to finish high school and enroll in college or a trade school. Then as long as students passed the courses, they would be allowed free education through graduate school.

No more foreign aid. Period. This includes Israel. If they are indeed God’s chosen people, as Jewish writers infer, let Him furnish them the money. Hey, we let them develop the atom bomb and we wonder why their Muslim neighbors hate us.

Our borders would be closed immediately. No immigrants for five years. The military will help to enforce it.

Drugs would be legalized and highly taxed like liquor and cigarettes. The present policy is ridiculous and hypocritical. The U.S. is the biggest drug user. People should be able to do whatever they want, as long as they don’t hurt anyone else. Impaired drunks or druggies who kill or harm another would face the death penalty.

With the advent of computer technology every citizen can vote on every law that affects their state or the federal government. Hackers of this system would be put to death. The two-party-one-big-party-system would be abolished forever and replaced by a multi-party system of 305 million or the current U.S. population. Every citizen would have his own party and the opportunity to vote on every law. Lobbyists would go crazy. They would then have to bribe every citizen.

It would work this way. No federal or state congress. Each state would form its own Laws Committees picked like jury members to serve for one session only.

At age 18, all citizens would be obligated to two years military training to provide and keep the best and strongest military in the world. The motto being: Don’t mess with us and we won’t invade your country.

I would abolish the IRS. States would impose a sales tax to meet the needs of its people. States would remit its share to support the national defense.

Unless a real attack occurred on our country, we could not go to war until all citizens voted for it.

Aren’t you glad I lost the election?

Chapter 3

"If you meet a Buddha

on the road, kill him!"

Stubborn! My mother called me because I wouldn’t accept any religion for my own. Although I consider myself a religious person, I’ve always looked for my own truth. I did fight a war in the name of God. (Aren’t they all?) Afterwards, using the G.I. Bill, I got a degree in psychology and developed an interest in philosophy and Eastern thought. I became a hypnotist. I even read about voodoo. I became a Rosicrucian for a while. In the late ‘50s my search led me to what has since become a world religion—Scientology—except then it was called Dianetics.

Dianetics the Modern Science of Mental Health, written by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, touted methods to know one’s self resulting in a state of clear. (Clear, in Dianetic theory, compared to enlightenment in Eastern philosophy where subjects had been cleared of all their psychological problems.)

I read the book while still in college, and during one summer break a friend and I drove to Washington, D.C. The Hubbard Dianetics Foundation was then located in three large brown-stone houses a few blocks off Du Pont Circle on 18th Street, N.W. During the tour we met a man who thought he was Jesus.

A lot of strange things happen before you become clear, the guide said. And you remember past lives.

What? I said.

Apparently you don’t have Dr. Hubbard’s latest data, said another student. Subjects must be cleared of aberrations from all past incarnations in order to be free.

We found a classroom where several students were paired off processing each other. The method consisted of one student auditor asking a set of questions to another hooked up to what Hubbard called an E-meter, a sort of lie detector, or what is called a Galvanic Skin Response meter today. Emotions cause sweat glands to release tiny amounts of water. This sweating changes the resistance of the skin to electrical current.

All the students and instructors appeared enthusiastic about the system, yet it seemed more like a religion than a psychology. I was curious, so after graduation, I decided to take the course.

Since I was a journeyman printer I had no trouble finding work. I set type at The Washington Post at night and began Hubbard Certified Auditor training. This was after I had paid about $200 for 10 hours of auditing to see if it worked.

During the first session, nothing happened. I was disappointed as I walked back toward my hotel. Then, suddenly, I felt totally aware! I stopped on the sidewalk and looked at the most beautiful red roses I had ever seen. They were on a trellis in a nearby yard. Somehow I had disappeared and had become the roses. The feeling was great, but it passed quickly, and I reverted back to my old state of insanity. Yet I knew I had experienced a moment of enlightenment.

Nothing dramatic happened in my processing for the next couple of weeks. Then after about 20 hours, I remembered a past life and my death. I was a fisherman living on the French coast around 1900. On this balmy afternoon I was having a pleasant nap and could smell the ocean and feel the warmth of the sun coming through the windows of my apartment when I was awakened by the angry shouts of a female. I jumped to my feet just in time to see the knife she plunged into my back, as I screamed and died. It was as real as any memory is, but I didn’t totally buy it.

Meanwhile, I met another Korean veteran and Hubbard disciple, who had an engineering degree and a good job in the District, and we became roommates. I worked nights, Howard worked days. One Saturday morning, he woke me up having a grand mal epileptic seizure. Then I learned Howard’s first seizure had occurred during Dianetic processing. (The auditing rule was: Keep running the process till the subject got through his problem.) But his seizures became more frequent. In six months he lost his job, his health and became a street person because he refused to take drugs (against Hubbard’s teachings) to control his epilepsy. He died within the year from an epileptic seizure.

I only met one person who claimed to be clear, a now starving (Hubbard always paid himself well first.) Dianetics instructor who had been a college professor before he got involved with Dianetics. I bought him dinner, and he drank six beers with it. I wasn’t impressed.

Later, I heard the charismatic, well-fed L. Ron Hubbard speak at a Scientology convention. Afterwards, I watched everyone but me fawning over this messiah. I kept thinking about Howard. As for me, I was ready to kill another Buddha on the road to enlightenment. And I’m still stubborn but, perhaps, wiser?

Chapter 4

Men, don't blame women

for your problem

NOTE from my editor, who is a minister of the gospel, on the column that follows:

Here's my take on the Let us make man in our image passage. To me, it's simple. God is a three-person entity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Actually, this isn't the only us" passage in Scripture.

Regarding the column, the arguments are fair enough. For sure, us guys have to control ourselves and forcing priests to be celibate (which Paul actually said was wrong) has created many problems since it is against nature. However, you got a bit too fiesty in your statements about the man-made God stuff. Folks will crucify me if that runs just like it is now. I can carefully edit it or let you do it since it's your stuff and you know what you want it to say."

I had to do some revising before he would publish it. Here is the original:

Cupcake read the The Standard's Devotional Corner page of 3/1/12, titled Secrets about Christian men and immodesty and was unhappy.

As always, she said. Man blames his problem on women! Read this! I did and the following is my response:

The writer, Richard Mansel, said: "When a man becomes a Christian he does not cease to be a man with all the passions and sexual drive God gave him. [No kidding!] The desire to look at attractive women is still instilled deep in his being . . . Christian women . . . do not know the battles that men face . . . [seeing a revealing female body part].

Yet women have the same urges, I believe, when they see half-naked men. What about that, sir?

The late Rev. Jerry Falwell gave this advice for males: Admire but don't desire. Not easy! But that translates to self-discipline.

It seems to me writer Mansel doesn't know much about his gods' or God's First Commandment. As usual, he blames women for what Mother Nature and even some gods have commanded them to do. Mother Nature's power is supreme over all MAN-made gods and religions. And they are all MAN-made. Ever since life crawled out of the sea, science has determined survival of a species is its only purpose.

Some religions violate Mother Nature's law by preventing their priests from having sex which is a proven recipe for insanity. We've seen the results: pedophiles raping our children while the church covers it up.

Let me point out it was so-called God-inspired men who wrote and re-wrote the Bible and most popular religious works. A power play for men. If women were the authors, we would have a more loving world and not be continually killing each other in the name of some loving god.

Look at the world. The Christian Great Commission vs. Islam's mission is the military-industrial complex's golden dream! It continues to sell weapons to both sides. Judeo-Christianity and Islam Muslins are still fighting the Crusades. Both religions have the same mission: Convert the world to believe in their god. Of course, man has always used this as an excuse to exploit another nation's resources in the process. Today, we do the same, adding democracy as a pretext to get other country's oil. U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell wants to use overwhelming military force against Iran if it develops nuclear weapons. Yet Israel already has nuclear weapons? Insanity.

Women should be in charge. They have compassion for human life. Instead, man's religion has made women scapegoats for his sins. Women would have deleted these missions to convert the world from all religious works. But not man. No profit in that. More wealth results in more power and less empathy for human beings. Somehow the well-meaning messages from different Messiahs have always been perverted or lost. Man never learns. From the beginning, he has enjoyed killing in the name of his god.

But in regard to this sex-thing, let me quote the first Great Commandment in the King James Version of the Bible. (This was after the god(s) said, Let us make man in our own image. Man in our image? This indicates to me that more than one god was involved. Never heard any preacher explain that.

What was needed was some God-inspired proofreaders, because two verses later the God became singular. Even the Good News Bible carries the same mistake. Anyway, Genesis 1:28 says: And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth . . . .

And how is this done? Yes, sex. In this case, it was not the devil who made me do it! as Mansel implies, but God (Mother Nature).

Yeah, blame women's immodesty on man's lack of self-discipline. Maybe Mansel wants all females covered in a burka from head to toe like Muslim women?

Don't mess with Mother Nature!

Best quote of the week: Women bring all the politicians into the world. In 2012, women can also take them out.

Chapter 5

Making powerful

do right takes guts

Martin Luther was shocked by the corruption in the Catholic Church. He nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of a church. A printer took it, set Luther’s complaints in type, printed it for all to see, and brought about the Protestant Reformation. Takes guts! The Christian religion was never the same.

Five hundred years later came the medium of television. Edward R. Murrow and CBS TV news exposed Sen. Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunt. Takes guts! And we learned a new word: McCarthyism—the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. McCarthy was later censured by the United States Senate.

On June 17, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara created a Vietnam Study Task Force. They were to write a history of the Vietnam War, later called the Pentagon Papers. McNamara claimed he wanted to leave a written record for historians. But he kept the study secret from the rest of the Johnson administration. Thirty-six analysts, consisting of active-duty military officers, academics and civilian federal employees, worked on the project. Daniel Ellsberg, a Marine officer who had spent two tours in Vietnam, worked as an aide to one of the task force leaders and knew most of them. Ellsberg and his friend, Anthony Russo, both of whom opposed the war photocopied the 7,000-page study in October 1969, intending to disclose it.

The documents were not kind to five presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. None had done right when it came to the Vietnam War.

Ellsberg had tried to get senators involved. If he could get one to read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record, he knew they couldn’t be prosecuted. Senators Fulbright and McGovern both agreed to do this, thus protecting Ellsberg as the source. However, both senators, after considering their political careers, reneged.

So Ellsberg leaked the study to The New York Times. It takes guts!

The Times printed the first installment of the Pentagon Papers on Sunday, June 13, 1971. It didn’t bother President Nixon much because the article listed the mistakes of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. After the third article was published, Nixon started to sweat. Knowing he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he began to yell the standard McCarthyism refrain: Top secret, secret, confidential, threat to national security and putting our troops in danger. The Justice Department went to court and got an injunction against the Times restraining it from printing any more of the study.

By now, Ellsberg had leaked the study to other newspapers. One was The Washington Post where I worked as a printer. We began printing the Pentagon Papers on June 18. Immediately, we were informed by the government that we were in violation of the Espionage Law. We continued to publish, letting the lawyers sort it out. Takes guts! For eight days we didn’t know whether we were all going to end up in Federal prison until a Federal judge ruled for freedom of the press.

Meanwhile, Richard Nixon was re-elected president. To prevent further leaks of national security documents, the administration formed the White House Plumbers. It consisted of former FBI and CIA agents familiar with covert operations. Their first assignment was to dig for dirt on Daniel Ellsberg. They burglarized his office and the office of his psychiatrist with no results.

Then on June 17, 1972, the Plumbers burglarized the Democratic National Committee’s office in the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C. and got caught. Post’s reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward found the break-in lead to the President himself. Takes guts! Nixon resigned.

Today’s Pentagon Papers might be WikiLeaks. World government big wigs, as well as banks, are nervous. Even in our great country the politicians are yelling the McCarthyism mantra: Top secret, secret, confidential, threat to national security and putting our troops in danger. Maybe this will end the two stupid wars we’re fighting.

Will WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst suspected of supplying classified information, emerge as traitors or international heroes?

Takes guts!

Chapter 6

It happened long ago, but?

It was a cold, dark February morning in 1934. I was almost 4 years old. Freezing wind howled and scratched sleet against our unpainted, two-room shack. Suddenly the front door flew open and a bewhiskered tramp staggered in.

Bad times, the unwashed stranger muttered as Mama hugged him like she had hugged Daddy before he left. She helped him over to Daddy’s chair near the warmth of our roaring cast-iron heater.

Ye wouldn’t believe it! he said again and again.

Brown shaggy hair stuck out from under his greasy rumpled hat and curled around his skinny neck. Tiny pebbles of sleet clung to him like spilled salt.

The shiny elbows of his filthy brown corduroy jacket were worn through, revealing a frayed hole in his red flannel shirt and showing his grimy long underwear. His blue faded overalls were threadbare and pieces of newspaper protruded from the cracked soles of his scuffed high-topped shoes. He took off the wet shoes and with great difficulty pulled off his ragged blood-soaked socks and hung them steaming and stinking on the woodbox.

There was something vaguely familiar about him when he placed his calloused dirty and bleeding feet close to the stove.

His brown eyes showed shock and defeat as he stared, apparently talking to the rusty stove pipe. Men livin’ in Hoovervilles at the city dumps. In boxes, empty sewer pipes 'n' sleepin’ in barrels stuffed wif grass to keep from freezin’ to death. Like packs o’ starvin’ dogs, they spent the days scroungin’ the dumps for bits o’ food, sometimes fighting’ over a piece o’ rotten garbage! Ruby, ye jest wouldn’t believe it! he muttered as a tear rolled down into his matted beard. "There jest ain’t no work. Two months 'n' all I could make wuz 'at $2 I sent ye. Lord I hope President Roosevelt can do something! He got to!

"My first mistake wuz went I went the wrong direction. The smart ones went south for the winter. Me, I went north into a freezin’ hell! I seen men a’stealin’ food fer their children and then a’dying’ from starvation 'cause they hadn’t stole enough. One family I knowed wuz so desperate the man killed his wife 'n' children 'n' then shot hisself. He jest couldn’t take it no more.

"Lord I been hungry! But I met some good people 'at had nothin’ much, yet they shared it wif me. I’d been dead if’n they hadn’t. I got down on my knees and begged, Ruby. Begged fore a dime jest to get enough food to keep from starvin’!

"Once I asked fer a handout from a rich-lookin’ man who jest come out o’ restaurant in St. Louis pickin’ his teeth. The fat gentleman replied: ‘What’s a strong, healthy man like you doing living like a bum? Why don’t you stop begging an go work?’

I wanted to kill the bastard! But I wuz too weak to even reply. So I vowed to myself ‘at I’d steal fer the first time in my life jest to keep alive, ‘n’ I did. It won’t say much fer a man’s principles when out o’ desperation he thinks o’ murder ‘n’ has to steal. It were then I decided I best git back. If’n I wuz gonna starve, I’d druther die wif my own. I headed fer home, riding the rains ‘n’ walkin’. I guessed I walked over 200 miles. Lord, I’ve had ‘bout all I can take!

His head fell down against his chest. Then he seemed to remember something. He looked around and saw me and for a brief moment he almost smiled and pulled me up in his lap against his wet cold breast.

My boy! he moaned. My boy. What’ve I done to ye? Then he began to cry. And Mama, who was aristocratic, practical and unemotional (I could never quite comprehend how she became associated with the rest of us), did a strange thing. She began to weep also. About that time Grandma came in the back door and saw Daddy and she cried. And I started crying because I didn’t know what else to do. Later, Daddy asked if there were anything at all in the house to eat.

We got cornmeal and a gallon jug of molasses, Mama Said. And the cow ain’t dry yet.

Grandma made Daddy a feast of hot cornbread, butter and molasses with milk to drink. He ate like the starved animal he was until he was full and then he went back to his chair behind the warm heater and soon fell asleep.

It was dark when he awoke. the wind continued to howl and pelt the tin roof with sleet and covered the ground with an icy crust mixed with snow. Because we were all together again and we were warm, and our stomachs were full, I felt safe and secure. The sleet on the tin roof was music. I was happy. But Daddy didn’t seem so.

Mama had carried water from the well and heated it in a washtub on the wood-burning heater. While he took his bath, Daddy spoke only once. Ruby, did ye pay my life insurance? Mama nodded that she had.

Soon Daddy shaved and looked the same as ever except he was skinnier and never smiled unless he was playing with me.

In the mornin’, he said to Mama, my boy ‘n’ I’ll take the 12-gauge and go kill us a hoover hog. We still got two shells left.

Then I thought everything was going to be all right. The next morning after another meal of milk, molasses, butter and cornbread, we slipped out early into the snowy fields. Daddy shot a rabbit in no time at all.

Here, boy, he said giving me the bloody carcass and smiling, but there were tears in his eyes. Run this home to yer mama. I’ll be along.

I took the furry creature, getting some of its blood on my mittens. Why’re you crying, Daddy? I asked, feeling there was something terribly wrong.

It’s jest the cold, son, he said, forcing a smile. Suddenly he lifted me up, dead rabbit and all, hugged me and kissed me several times. His lips were cold. Now git home wif ‘at rabbit! Run!

I ran as fast as I could, falling down several times and skinning my knees on the hard crust surface of frozen sleet. Somehow I knew I had to get to Mama as fast as I could.

Mama! Mama! I screamed as I ran past our barn and scooted under the barbed wire fence into our back yard. Daddy needs you! Daddy needs you!

Mama ran out the back door, followed by Grandma. Seeing the blood all over me from the rabbit, she scooped me up and examined me. No! I cried. I’m not hurt! Daddy needs you!

Suddenly a shotgun blast interrupted Mama’s confusion as to what I meant. She looked in the direction of the shot and gave a cry as she took off running with me in her arms down the trail of my footprints. It led to a small hollow where the land had been cleared and there were many stumps and piles of brush.

Already in my mind I could see Daddy, his crumpled body lying in the snow, a bloody silhouette.

But my mind had picked up the vibrations of intentions rather than actualities. Daddy was sitting on an ice-crusted stump. The shotgun lay in the snow in front of him. There was a black streak across the snow where the weapon had discharged.

Daddy was sobbing when Mama touched his shoulder. Stupid! Mama screamed. You could’ve killed yourself!

I wuz goin’ to, Daddy said. Take my life so’s ye’d git 'at $1,000 to live on. But I jest couldn’t do it. I’m too big a coward. I guess I dropped the gun and it went off when it hit the ground.

Mama helped Daddy to his feet and hugged him tightly. Bill, we’ll get by somehow. Let’s go home. Besides, she said, your insurance don’t pay on suicides.*

*Published in the December 27, 1973, The Washington Post

Chapter 7

Would today’s media dare

call Old Hickory a wimp?

Imagine, if you will, that due to a time warp, Andrew Jackson (Old Hickory) became a candidate for President and called a press conference.

Is it true, General, that you still believe the world is flat?

Absolutely, sir. If you’ve read the seventh chapter of Revelations, verse one of the Holy Bible, you will know it speaks of the four corners of the earth. I’ve never seen corners on a globe.

Then you believe, General, in the literal translation of the Bible?

No, but, by god, I believe in what it says.

So, General, would you consider yourself a Christian?

If you mean, have I lived a Christian life, no, I have not but I do believe in Christian principles as does my wife. Next question.

There seems to be a difference of opinion about that. Is it not true that you married Rachel before she was divorced from her first husband?

That’s correct but both of us thought she was divorced, an error we have often regretted.

Did you not threaten to cut off her husband’s ears with a hunting knife?

Ex-husband, who had insulted my wife. And it was not a threat, sir. We, in the south, protect our women. If you persist in this line of questioning I must ask you to meet me on the field of honor.

I understand, General, you take the Code of Honor seriously and have been involved in several duels.

Yes, ma’am this is the only way gentlemen can settle some arguments but it can be painful. I still carry lead from two bullets in my body, one near my lungs and the other in the muscle of my left arm.

At what age did you kill your first man?

Probably at thirteen, during the Revolutionary War. It was dark. The British and Tories fired at us killing a man at my side. I fired back.

I meant in a duel, General. But never mind. I see you have a scar above your left eye. Will you tell us how you got it?

When I was fourteen I was captured by the Tories who handed me over to the Redcoats. This British officer ordered me to clean his boots. I refused. He raised his sword and I put up my hand to deflect it but he slashed my head as well as my hand. Next question.

But you got even, didn’t you, General? In the Battle of New Orleans after we had signed a peace treaty with the British.

Ma’am, neither General Packenham nor I was aware of the Treaty at Ghent.

Is it true that with an untrained and poorly-armed army,