Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (81 page)

T
HE MYTH

All the cowboys in the American West were white.

BACKGROUND

Most of what Americans “know” about the Wild West comes from movies, TV, and popular authors. For years, these media have portrayed the Old West as virtually lily-white.

For example: Seven of the top 10 television shows of the 1958-1959 season were Westerns:
Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun Will Travel The Rifleman, Maverick, Tales of Wells Fargo
, and
Wyatt Earp.
All of them featured all-white regular casts.

Hollywood even went so far as to cast white actors to play the parts of real-life black cowboys, as in the 1951 film
Tomahawk.
The film featured Jim Beckwourth, a legendary black frontiersman... but the part was played by Jack Oakie, a white actor.

THE TRUTH

Nearly one in three cowboys in the American West were black, with the ratio higher in some states. Oklahoma, for example, saw 30 all-black towns spring up between 1890 and 1910, and 26 of the first 44 settlers of Los Angeles were black.

In fact, many of the most celebrated American cowboys were black, including:

•
Bill Pickett,
a rodeo star who toured under the name Will Pickett the Dusty Demon. He was a huge rodeo star in the early 1900s (Will Rogers was one of his early assistants) and starred in several silent films. He also invented the sport of “bulldogging”—wrestling a bull to the ground by its horns—although his preferred method, biting the bull’s lip as he threw it to the ground, never caught on with other rodeo stars.

•
Nat Love,
also known as “Deadwood Dick,” was a unique character who got his start as a cowboy in Dodge City at the age of 15 and went on to become a rodeo star. A friend of the famous lawman Bat Masterson, Love boasted of having 14 bullet wounds, and was famous for an incident in a Mexican bar in which he ordered drinks for his horse.

Good news? Marriages lasting more than 13 years are more likely to end in death than in divorce.

•
Cherokee Bill,
an Indian scout and notorious outlaw who in his day was as well known as Billy the Kid. His luck was just about as bad as Kid’s was, too: His run-ins with the law resulted in his being hanged one month shy of his 20th birthday.

•
Mary Fields,
better known as Stagecoach Mary, a “strapping 6-footer who never shied from a shootout. A fearless mail carrier while in her 60s, she spent much of her final years in a Cascade, Montana, saloon playing cards with the boys.”

•
Isom Dart,
a former slave who became famous as a rodeo clown, cattle rustler, prospector, and broncobuster.

BLACK WESTERNS

Hollywood has, on occasion, featured blacks in Westerns, but the depictions have rarely been historically accurate. The ’30s and ’40s saw a spate of cowboy ‘race’ films, including Bronze
Buckaroo
and
Harlem Rides the Range
; the ’60s saw some racially relevant Westerns like
Major Dundee
and
The Professionals
... and the “blaxploitation” wave of the ’70s even resulted in some patronizing black Westerns, the worst of which was probably
The Legend of Nigger Charlie.

In the 1980s it became common to cast blacks in Westerns without referring to their race in the film, but it wasn’t until the 1990s—when independent black filmmakers began directing their own Westerns—that films like Mario Van Peebles’s
Posse
(1993) began to feature blacks as they really were in the West, a development that has been lauded by filmmakers, historians, and sociologists alike. “It’s so important that the West be pictured as it was, not some lily-white John Wayne adventure story,” says William Loren Katz, author of The
Black West
and
Black People Who Made the Old West.
“Books make it seem like, after the Civil War, blacks went home and went to sleep and didn’t wake up until Martin Luther King. A whole heritage has been lost to generation after generation of schoolchildren, black and white.”

American tables are set with salt and pepper; in Hungary it’s salt and paprika.

Crazy comments from comedian Robin Williams.

On Princess Di:
“She is exquisite. She is porcelain. She has that look, like some incredible cocker spaniel.”

“I love San Francisco. It’s a human game preserve.”

When asked if he had a political consciousness during the Vietnam War
: “I had only a genital consciousness during those years.”

“The French are going the Americans one better with their Michelin bomb: it destroys only restaurants under four stars.”

“Cocaine is God’s way of saying you’re making too much money.”

“Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?”

W
ILLIAMS:
Next thing I knew, I was in New York.

I
NTERVIEWER:
Was that a heavy adjustment for you to make?

W
ILLIAMS:
I was the walking epitome of
furshirrr
meets yo’ass. On my first day in New York, I went to school dressed like a typical California kid: I wore tie-up yoga pants and a Hawaiian shirt, and I kept stepping in dog shit with my thongs.”

On Ronald Reagan
: “I still think Nancy does most of his talking; you’ll notice that she
never
drinks water when Ronnie speaks.”

“The first time I tried organic wheat bread, I thought I was chewing on roofing material.”

On birth:
“She’s screaming like crazy....You have this myth you’re sharing the birth experience. Unless you’re passing a bowling ball, I don’t think so. Unless you’re circumcising yourself with a chainsaw, I don’t think so. Unless you’re opening an umbrella up your ass, I don’t think so.”

“What’s right is what’s left if you do everything else wrong.”

“Death is nature’s way of saying ‘Your table is ready.’”

Uneven stats: There are about 10,700 births and 5,700 deaths every day in the United States.

When we heard about this “hobby,” we couldn’t believe it. But sure enough, it’s real. First we found a book called
Knitting with Dog Hair,
by Kendall Crolius...then several web pages on the subject. All are apparently serious, so here are some ideas if you’re interested in “Putting on the dog.”

M
Y DOG HAS FLEECE

“Let’s be honest,” writes Kendall Crolius in her book
Knitting with Dog Hair.
“Everything in your house is probably covered with a fine coat of pet hair. Now all that fuzz that used to clog up your vacuum cleaner can be put to good use. In fact, you’ll probably want to brush your dog more often—you’ll not only have gorgeous new clothes but a better-groomed pet and a cleaner house.”

Gorgeous new clothes? Is she really suggesting we make clothes out of dog hair? You bet. And why not? After all, before there were sheep in Scandanavia and on the American continent, there were canines. While other animals were killed for their fur, prehistoric natives on both continents considered dogs too valuable as hunters and companions for that. So, she informs us, they saved dog hair and knitted it into fabrics.

PUBLIC OPINION

Dedicated dog hair knitters have learned from experience that other people think they’re weird.

“When you first tell your friends that the garment you’re wearing was previously worn by your dog, you’re bound to get some raised eyebrows, not to mention a few shrieks of horror,” Crolius writes. That’s why most of them have learned that it’s a better idea not to say “dog hair” at all when showing off a new hand-knitted sweater. After all, most people immediately think of fleas, itching and doggy smells when they think of canine fur.

Some even ask, with eyes wide, “How many dogs have to be killed to make a sweater?”

Q: What kind of wood is used to make Scrabble letters? A: Vermont Maple.

DOG HAIR BY ANY OTHER NAME SMELLS AS SWEET?

• Faced with such reactions from friends, family and neighbors, knitters have dealt with the issue...by avoiding it—they’ve come up with a new name.

• Combining the French word for “dog” with the name of another natural hair fiber, angora, they’ve coined a fashion euphemism that’s nearly as good as the day that furriers discovered that “ermine” sounds more luxurious than “white weasel.” The new name for dog-hair creations...“Chiengora.”

• In fact, in her
Merry Spinster
web page, Patty Lee Dranchak insists that dog hair should be considered a luxury fiber, like all the others that come from humble origins including cashmere and angora (goat) and mohair (rabbit).

Reasons to Bark

• The hardcore dog-lovers who practice the art have created sweaters, hats, mittens and pantsuits from the hair of their beloved pets.

• They report that chiengora is—to quote Dranchak—“soft and fluffy, lovely and lustrous, incredibly warm and it sheds water. This furry look just seems to invite touching. Wearing it invites comments, questions and even an occasional pat on the back to see if it is really as soft as it looks.”

• Besides that, Dranchak says, dog lovers have sentimental reasons: “By having a pet’s hair spun, dog lovers will always have a part of their treasured companion with them—a reminder of the love, loyalty and good times they shared together.”

• Jerilyn Monroe, who makes yarn out of her half-wolf dogs, agrees: “Having a scarf, blanket or hat made from a special pet can be a lovely way to remember them.”

A SHAGGY DOG YARN

• The key to knitting with dog hair is its length. “Rule number one is that you should never shear, cut, or shave fur from your pet,” says Crolius. “Not only would such a radical approach seriously humiliate your companion and render him exceedingly unattractive, it is counterproductive. To spin a really nice yarn, you need the longest, softest fibers your pet can grow. It’s best if the hair is two inches or longer if you want a pure chiengora yarn, so collies, Afghans, poodles, samoyeds, golden retrievers, sheepdogs and huskies work better than basset hounds or chihuahuas.”

The stirrup, the tiniest bone in your body (it’s in your ear), is smaller than an ant.

• Shorter hair has to be blended with wool, silk or other fibers to hold it together. “Properly blended and spun, it’s difficult to tell that the resulting yarn isn’t all dog hair,” observes Dranchak.

THE HARVEST

However, unlike sheep, you don’t shear your dog—you merely collect hair from brushes and combs. So even with the hairiest dog, it can take several years to collect enough hair for a major project like a sweater or a blanket.

• After you gather it, you should store it dry in a paper bag—never plastic, say some dog hair experts.

• However, other experts disagree, saying it should be stored tightly sealed in a plastic bag to keep out fleas and moths. “Moths love dog hair,” says one, who recommends zip-lock bags.

• Regardless, paper grocery bags make a good standard of measure: a knitted sweater takes about two bags, a vest about one and a hat about 1/3 of a bag. Crocheting adds another 33% for each garment; weaving about 33% less.

WARP AND WOOF...WOOF...WOOF

• Once you have your big bags of hair, how do you turn it into yarn? Dog hair requires gently hand-spindling with a weighted drop spindle—none of these newfangled machines like the spinning wheel. The result comes from twisting the hairs around each other.

• The good thing about fibers like dog hair is that if the yarn breaks, you just fluff up the end and begin again, adding fibers. “This is a craft that the whole family can participate in,” suggests Crolius. “The younger kids can help brush the dog, and the older kids can help prepare the fiber for spinning. It’s a terrific way to spend time together.”

ODDS & ODDS

• If you have a multi-colored dog, experts suggest keeping the colors somewhat separate to give an interesting graduated color effect.

• Mixing the hair together yields a uniform gray-beige color

• Like the dogs it came from, dog-hair garments should be hand-washed—not thrown into a washing machine. Unlike the dogs, the fabrics can be dry-cleaned. Dog-hair garments can last 20 years.

The automobile “population” of Seoul, South Korea, increases by 800 cars
every day
.

What if they minted a coin and no one would use it? That’s what happened with the Susan B. Anthony dollar.

B
ACKGROUND

In the mid-1970s, the demand for dollar bills was increasing at a rate of about 10% a year. Each bill cost the government 2¢ to make...but lasted only about 18 months. Treasury officials figured they could save taxpayers about $50 million a year if they replaced the $1 bill with a $1 coin—which would last about 14 years and cost only 3¢ to make. They were confident that the American public would make the change.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Responding to the political currents of the mid-’70s, U.S. Mint officials told chief designer Frank Gasparro to draw a portrait of a woman for the proposed new dollar coin. “I decided to draw Miss Liberty,” he says, “but they told me they didn’t want Miss Liberty. It had to be Susan B. Anthony.” Gasparro had no idea what Anthony, an activist for women’s rights in the late 1800s, looked like. So he went down to the local newspaper and looked at the photograph files. They contained two portraits of Anthony: one taken at the age of 28, and the other at age 84. “I chose the younger one,” he recalls. “She was a very attractive woman at 28.”