Thursday, May 22, 2008

Geronimo and Cairo

Yes, George W. Bush is the one with degrees from both Yale and Harvard.

And yes, Prescott Bush, who served as senator from Connecticut, was among the soldiers stationed at Fort Sill, Okla., who allegedly stole the skull of the Apache chief Geronimo from his gravesite there. Prescott was also a Skull and Bones member.

Trivia question:
What author had this to say about Cairo, Ill., in 1843?
"At length, upon the morning of the third day, we arrived at a spot so much more desolate than any we had yet beheld, that the forlornest places we had passed, were, in comparison with it, full of interest. At the junction of the two rivers, on ground so flat and low and marshy, that at certain seasons of the year it is inundated to the house-tops, lies a breeding-place of fever, ague, and death; vaunted in England as a mine of Golden Hope, and speculated in, on the faith of monstrous representations, to many people's ruin. A dismal swamp, on which the half-built houses rot away: cleared here and there for the space of a few yards; and teeming, then, with rank unwholesome vegetation, in whose baleful shade the wretched wanderers who are tempted hither, droop, and die, and lay their bones; the hateful Mississippi circling and eddying before it, and turning off upon its southern course a slimy monster hideous to behold; a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulchre, a grave uncheered by any gleam of promise: a place without one single quality, in earth or air or water, to commend it: such is this dismal Cairo."

2 comments:

Swamproot said...

Are you sure it was not by an author who had been there last week? I passed through there last month for the first time in almost probably 20 years.

It was certainly not the same Cairo where I sneaked into King Tut's as a High Schooler. Even some of the beautiful historic houses had been abandoned and were in disrepair.

It was always had a rough reputation in my lifetime, but to see it now is saddening. It's like a war zone over there.

refugeroad said...

Charles Dickens.