As I've reminded y'all on at least one or two previous January 8ths:

Today is the 88th anniversary of the birth of a certain very-short-lived boy named Jesse--not to mention the commemoration of the after-the-peace-treaty Battle of New Orleans which made the future President Jackson a 19th Century household name* precisely 120 years prior in 1815--in a Tupalo shotgun shack.

And yeah, ANOTHER Son of the South was ALSO born there in northwest Mississippi that VERY SAME DAY...but I can never seem to recall THAT kid's obscure name. (Even though I DID drive five hours down I-55 from St. Louis with a couple rock & roller pals in order to behold all the hoopla attendant to THAT guy's funeral-for-the-ages in Memphis on Thursday, August 18, 1977.)

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
_______________________
* As well as inspiring some mostly-historically-accurate lyrics eventually warbled by the late, great Johnny Horton**, who quite improbably scored hugely with it as a Top 40 hit--indeed, by some metrics, the top tune of 1959***.
** Expired at mere age 35, following an overnight Texas truck collision the same date as both Keystone Kops ringleader Mack Sennott and veteran actor Ward Bond also elsewhere died, to wit, Saturday, October 5, 1960--just three days before JFK eked out a razor-thin popular-vote presidential victory over sitting Vice President Milhous.
*** Although this linked, smoky, white-out production number staged for him by some TV variety show--presumably for that series's Christmas edition--WAS a bit overwrought, no?
====================https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKeZgTe5EMU

DISC-JOCKEY ERROR:

Uh, the triple-death-date for Messrs. Horton, Sennett* and Bond was Saturday, NOVEMBER 5, 1960, not October.

QUITE OBVIOUSLY, given that JFK took out RMN politically--well, for a few years prior to his remarkable 1968 comeback, at least--on the traditional First Tuesday After the First Monday in November.

I regret being so calendrically slipshod; the fact that I was in kindergarten that month does not in the least excuse this life-long history buff.

STYBLE/Florida
=============
* Misspelling of surname corrected.

ADDENDUM:

Oh, and the day after the Memphis mega-funeral, Groucho Marx died at 86 in California on Friday, August 19, 1977...though a lot of folks barely noticed, thanks to the blanket-coverage of that media event the previous day in western Tennessee.

STYBLE/Florida

They were always the Keystone Cops......not "Kops." Just another thing printed in a book that got quoted as fact over and over and over, etc..

Well, I suppose I was ADDITIONALLY remise in failing to specify this:

That the double-birth in Tupelo--120 years to the day after the Sunday, January 8, 1815 Battle of New Orleans--occurred in said cited shotgun shack on Tuesday, January 8, 1935...which, as it happened, was the day before Krebs-and-Gilligan portrayer Bob Denver was born on Wednesday the 9th, only to be followed on Thursday, January 10th by the birth of recently-deceased rockabilly stalwart Ronnie Hawkins, a singer who was, of course, mightily-influenced musically by one of those two fellows who came into the world two days prior in Tupelo (but offhand I can't recall which one of the pair it was)..

Oh, and one more point: any visit to "Nawlins" is seriously augmented by a side-trip to the battlefield where Andy Jackson entered the American national consciousness. Now, it's a good deal east of downtown New Orleans, probably upwards of 20 miles, and you do have to take a couple rural roads to get there. But with so many Americans these days emulatin g Henry Ford--"History is bunk!" he is often quoted, though out of context--you won't have to endure crowds of tourists at the site.

But the small state park where the hard-by-the-Mississippi River-levee battlefield is situated may be closed; I got there in the late afternoon on a Sunday when the modest vehicle-gate had already been closed, so I (along with a couple other tourists' cars) merely parked outside the gate and walked the half-mile or so south to the actual battlefield. And man oh man am I glad I took the hoofin'-it trouble, because despite having read about Jackson's fabled victory several times ever since middle school, I really never could much visualize what so historically took place in 1815 until I was on-site. There's of course numerous info displays which will detail things for you, but more important is just seeing first-hand the flat expanse, which will allow you to easily picture how things transpired over those remarkable two-and-a-half hours.

And yep, it looks NOT A WHIT like that hokey, smoky soundstage tableau the late Johnny Horton was singing in front of in the linked video, although I suspect the actual battlefield was considerably MORE smoky back on that Sunday afternoon in 1815.

STYBLE/Florida

Much appreciate the Keystone Cops-not-Kops correction!

And one MORE fun factoid:

The only 1815 battle MORE famous than Andrew Jackson's rout of the Brits in Louisiana--that would be Waterloo, another military face-off involving the British (and several other nations as well, most notably the French)--ALSO took place on The Lord's Day (though I gather for a more-protracted period than the under-three-hours BONO), to wit: Sunday, June 18, 1815.

And a hit record came out of THAT one, too!: Waterloo, Waterloo/Where will you/Meet your Waterloo?

STYBLE/Florida

Hard to contemplate that Elvis would be 88 years old if alive today making reports of his present day sightings more hard to believe.

Well, Tommie, Presley mythology has always been of intense interest to me ever since the Memphis funeral, which of course I love bragging that I attended, as well as reminding anyone so suffering my ego also that they in turn didn't.

Now, of all the post-1977 Elvis sightings, easily the most illustrious was that one at a Burger King in Kalamazoo, making that fast-food joint a plaque-worthy shrine on the itinerary of any rock music historian worth his Whopper for any visit to western Michigan. I located and even patronized that particular King outlet on Saturday afternoon, July 27, 1994, but Presley was nowhere to be found by the time I got there--though a certain rock star of even GREATER stellar stature WAS just across town that very day, securely ensconced in his NeverEnding Tour coach prior to commencing what would turn out to be an unusually spirited two-night NET stand at the State Theatre downtown. (Now, I didn't SPEAK with the Rock Rasputin that night as he made his way through a throng of fans into the venerable State via a side door....but I WAS amid his retinue, and indeed immediately to his short-statured, future Nobel Lit left for a dozen steps or so.)

But back to the never-at-that-Burger-King-at-least-then King of Rock & Roll: a decidedly implausible yet not flatly impossible conspiracy theory...

That the still-born story of January 1935 in Tupelo was fake news concocted by Colonel Tom Parker (or someone equally unscrupulous), and that every cited sighting after 1977 was simply identical twin Jesse Garon Presley being the greatest Elvis impersonator of all.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

I think it's safe to assume that had Jesse lived (and pursued the same career), Elvis' popularity would have MORE than doubled.

If that's possible.

After all, the whole world is fascinated with identical twins, in particular. Famous or not.

Two facts:

1. Fraternal twins are twice as common.

2. It's possible for twins to be half-identical. That's when the ovum splits in two BEFORE fertilization. So, since the sperm determines the future baby's sex, a pair of half-identical twins can also be...brother and sister.

(But I've never seen a news story of such a pair. I can't remember - were the boy-girl twins in "Twelfth Night" supposed to look alike? Of course, siblings often look similar anyway.)

radioacti...@gmail.com <radioactiveseattle@gmail.com> wrote:
> As I've reminded y'all on at least one or two previous January 8ths:
>
> Today is the 88th anniversary of the birth of a certain very-short-lived boy named Jesse--not to mention the commemoration of the after-the-peace-treaty Battle of New Orleans which made the future President Jackson a 19th Century household name* precisely 120 years prior in 1815--in a Tupalo shotgun shack.
>
> And yeah, ANOTHER Son of the South was ALSO born there in northwest Mississippi that VERY SAME DAY...but I can never seem to recall THAT kid's obscure name. (Even though I DID drive five hours down I-55 from St. Louis with a couple rock & roller pals in order to behold all the hoopla attendant to THAT guy's funeral-for-the-ages in Memphis on Thursday, August 18, 1977.)
>
> BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
> _______________________
> * As well as inspiring some mostly-historically-accurate lyrics eventually warbled by the late, great Johnny Horton**, who quite improbably scored hugely with it as a Top 40 hit--indeed, by some metrics, the top tune of 1959***.
> ** Expired at mere age 35, following an overnight Texas truck collision the
> same date as both Keystone Kops ringleader Mack Sennott and veteran actor
> Ward Bond also elsewhere died, to wit, Saturday, October 5, 1960--just three
> days before JFK eked out a razor-thin popular-vote presidential victory over
> sitting Vice President Milhous.

Never before had I known that in 1960 the first Tuesday after
the first Monday in November fell on October 8th!
My Unix calendar function must be buggy,it says October 5th
was a Wednesday.

> *** Although this linked, smoky, white-out production number staged for him by some TV variety show--presumably for that series's Christmas edition--WAS a bit overwrought, no?
> =====================
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKeZgTe5EMU

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

In article <tplru1$ooc$1@reader2.panix.com>, Louis Epstein
<le@top.put.com> wrote:

> radioacti...@gmail.com <radioactiveseattle@gmail.com> wrote:
> > As I've reminded y'all on at least one or two previous January 8ths:
> >
> > Today is the 88th anniversary of the birth of a certain very-short-lived
> > boy named Jesse--not to mention the commemoration of the
> > after-the-peace-treaty Battle of New Orleans which made the future
> > President Jackson a 19th Century household name* precisely 120 years prior
> > in 1815--in a Tupalo shotgun shack.
> >
> > And yeah, ANOTHER Son of the South was ALSO born there in northwest
> > Mississippi that VERY SAME DAY...but I can never seem to recall THAT kid's
> > obscure name. (Even though I DID drive five hours down I-55 from St. Louis
> > with a couple rock & roller pals in order to behold all the hoopla
> > attendant to THAT guy's funeral-for-the-ages in Memphis on Thursday, August
> > 18, 1977.)
> >
> > BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
> > _______________________
> > * As well as inspiring some mostly-historically-accurate lyrics eventually
> > warbled by the late, great Johnny Horton**, who quite improbably scored
> > hugely with it as a Top 40 hit--indeed, by some metrics, the top tune of
> > 1959***.
> > ** Expired at mere age 35, following an overnight Texas truck collision the
> > same date as both Keystone Kops ringleader Mack Sennott and veteran actor
> > Ward Bond also elsewhere died, to wit, Saturday, October 5, 1960--just
> > three
> > days before JFK eked out a razor-thin popular-vote presidential victory
> > over
> > sitting Vice President Milhous.
>
> Never before had I known that in 1960 the first Tuesday after
> the first Monday in November fell on October 8th!
> My Unix calendar function must be buggy,it says October 5th
> was a Wednesday.
>
> > *** Although this linked, smoky, white-out production number staged for him
> > by some TV variety show--presumably for that series's Christmas
> > edition--WAS a bit overwrought, no?
> > =====================
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKeZgTe5EMU

This is from the Ed Sullivan Show, Sunday, June 9 1959. I've posted
the info there as well.

Thanks a bundle, Friend, for determining not merely that the Johnny Horton performance was staged on Ed Sullivan's "really big shew", but nailing down its 6/9/1959 date as well...which of course blows to smithereens my theory that the overblown production number was part of some variety show's Christmas edition.

So then why on earth were not only Horton, but also the red-coated Brits as well as the American troops in a choreographed face-off from the War of 1812* while CLAD IN ALL WHITE ?!? Sure, the Sullivan show--and indeed, every CBS production--was broadcast in B&W in those days, but that can't explain the white-out, can it?

Makes one wonder what kinds of recreational drugs Sullivan's set and wardrobe designers were doing backstage.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
===================
* Even though the BONO actually occurred in January 1815, and thus turned out to be a postscript to the already-settled War of 1812 after the peace treaty was inked in Belgium, a sequential snafu that was thanks to transatlantic transit time in the early 19th Century. And that's just ANOTHER reason why "Mr. Madison's War" was the dumbest war** American ever declared--taking on the globally "waves-ruling" British Empire for a rematch less than four decades after we had already been lucky to improbably defeat them the FIRST time--and might easily been averted with sensible and determined diplomacy. And that's ironic, inasmuch as Madison was arguably the greatest thinker among our Founding Fathers although Washington, Jefferson and Franklin clearly have more historian partisans. My bottom-line on Madison--whose framed portrait as a young Constitutional Conventioneer hangs in my condo's entrance hallway (aside 74 other personal heroes or heroines stretching back to antiquity with Thales and Aristotle): GREATEST Founder, but maybe WORST President.
** Though the Spanish-American War was surely a dumb too, as it ended up saddling us with a bunch of far-flung, dependent territorial possessions where hardly anyone spoke English, some of which we're STILL stick with. Though that brief conflict WOULD eventually inspire one of the late--Friday, November 26, 2021--great Stephen Sondheim's greatest rhyme sequences: "Puerto Rico.../My heart's devotion/Let it sink back in the ocean!/Always the hurricanes blowing/Always the population growing/And the money owing/I like the island Manhattan/Smoke on your pipe/And put THAT in!"

re that June 9, 1959 date for The Ed Sullivan Show:

Turns out that the 9th of June 1959 was a TUESDAY, while the only Sunday the 9th during 1959 was in August. Could you have meant that, Friend?

(Not that yours truly would have done any better; after all, above I quite bone-headedly placed JFK's electoral edging out of RMN in October 1960, rather than the obvious-to-anyone correct November.)

STYBLE/Florida

MORE DETAIL CORRECTIONS:

Aside from my lame misspelling of "remiss" above--a typo, actually--I inexcusably ALSO "miss-placed" Tupelo...even though I've driven there on a Presley pilgrimage, as has every pretty much every serious rock & roll historian: Tupelo is not in northWEST Mississippi, but rather the northEASTERN realm of The Magnolia State.

STYBLE/Florida

In article <bb9ca558-dbb3-4b6e-84ca-95eda8ab1d86n@googlegroups.com>,
<"radioacti...@gmail.com"> wrote:

> re that June 9, 1959 date for The Ed Sullivan Show:
>
> Turns out that the 9th of June 1959 was a TUESDAY, while the only Sunday the
> 9th during 1959 was in August. Could you have meant that, Friend?

I was passing along what I'd learned from a site where people should
have known better. Blind unjustified faith, that's me all over.

This page (with the clip) says June 7, which was indeed a Sunday. I
probably crossed a wire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdQ6vtnAUY0

> (Not that yours truly would have done any better; after all, above I quite
> bone-headedly placed JFK's electoral edging out of RMN in October 1960,
> rather than the obvious-to-anyone correct November.)
>
> STYBLE/Florida