Canister!

Posted in Memory by Andy Hall on March 8, 2015

Wine

A hundred fifty years ago this weekend, the British blockade runner Denbigh was here in Galveston, loading cotton and waiting for a dark night to slip again out of the harbor. Her destination, as usual, was Havana. I’ve never been to Cuba, but I’d sure like to go.

In other recent news, the “Five Flags” display is going up again at the Pensacola Bay Center, but without the Confederate Battle Flag. The CBF should never have been included in a display of national flags in the first place. (h/t Kevin Levin)
On the other hand, the City Council in Charlottesville eliminated Lee-Jackson Day as an official city holiday. Remarkably, Karen Cooper’s rant about black people on welfare buying sneakers and Susan Hathaway accusing the council of “backwater tyranny” were not persuasive.
On Friday night in Charleston, 150 people who had bought tickets waited anxiously to discover the contents of a 151-year-old wine bottle recovered from the wreck of the blockade runner Mary Celestia in Bermuda (above).”The panel said the cloudy yellow-gray liquid smelled and tasted like a mixture of crab water, gasoline, salt water and vinegar, with hints of citrus and alcohol.” They also said it was 37% alcohol, so if you can get the first couple of glasses down, you might not care so much after that.
The first artifacts from the recovery of C.S.S. Georgia at Savannah have been presented to the public. (h/t Barry Colbaugh)
I see that Pat Godwin and her “Friends of Forrest” group in Selma have decided to give the finger to the folks commemorating the events of Bloody Sunday. Thanks for confirming that you are who we thought you were, Pat.
Not to be outdone, Confederate Heritage activist/performance artist/beard H. K. Edgerton explains how MLK and George Wallace should have just talked things over back in the day. A mint-julep summit, you might say.
Mort Künstler has retired after a long career of painting historical subjects, particularly relating to the Civil War. Everyone has a favorite painting of his; mine is his cover art for “Yank Commandant of Nude Women Plantation-Compound.“
Tom Crestodina is a commercial fisherman in Bellingham, Washington. When his son Franio was a toddler, Tom wanted to tell him all about what he was doing on the boats during the weeks he spent away from home. But Franio was too little to read, so Tom began drawing pictures showing what life on the boats was like. Wonderful, wonderful pictures.
And finally, my C-SPAN interview that I mentioned a while back aired this weekend, and can be seen online here, with lots of other good stuff.

Got any more? Put ’em in the comments.

__________

GeneralStarsGray

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Reed (the original, accept no substitutes) said, on March 8, 2015 at 2:43 pm

And I looked at the photo and thought they were pouring out a fresh round from the Super Bass-O-Matic ’76. http://www.hulu.com/watch/19046

Cheers!

Reply
H. E. Parmer said, on March 8, 2015 at 9:44 pm

So, I could drain the water from a can of crab meat, add some salt, gasoline, vinegar and PGA in the proper proportions — don’t forget the dash of lemon! — and get the same effect? Probably considerably more cheaply, too. This sounds more like a home ipecac recipe, or some kind of Bizarro World cocktail. (“Charleston Choker: it am awful!”)

Speaking of Bizarro World: good gravy, that Edgerton character! Although I’m sure the alternate history our “mid-South flagger” concocted makes him feel quite special. When it comes to cases like H.K., I’ll let John Cleese speak for me. Sometimes, a total lack of self-awareness is a merciful thing.

I agree that the image of MLK and George Wallace having a nice sit-down on the veranda of the governor’s mansion and working things out without all that fuss and bother is highly risible, but for me the crowning touch has to be H.K.’s little homage to King’s “I Have a Dream” by way of Birth of a Nation:

I would tell them to stop somewhere along the way and beg, borrow, or buy a Flag like mine, and sing, We Shall Overcome Some Day all the way to the Capitol, whereupon they will find the Table of Brotherhood awaiting as would their ancestors had not the Yankee come.

Not only was it authentic Mid-South Flagger gibberish, it expressed a level of useful idiocy seldom seen even in this day and age.

Reply
- Andy Hall said, on March 8, 2015 at 9:51 pm
  
  Never saw that Cleese clip before, but it’s true.
  
  Reply
Mousy Tongue said, on March 9, 2015 at 11:39 am

A bit more on Pat Godwin:
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2015/03/shes-just-humble-southern-history-buff.html
http://restoringthehonor.blogspot.com/2015/03/sunday-bloody-sunday.html

Reply
dmf said, on March 10, 2015 at 2:55 pm

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/mar/10/the-selma-confederates-video

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- Andy Hall said, on March 10, 2015 at 5:58 pm
  
  I’d read The Guardian news story, bu the video is new to me. They are who we thought they were.
  
  Reply