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Medley
by Mike Cox
Sam Houston,
General Phil Sheridan, Tascosa
and
Traveling salesmen jokes
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If
Stephen F. Austin was the father of Texas, Sam Houston was its uncle. Texas’ “Uncle
Sam” won the battle that counted when he defeated Santa Anna at San Jacinto, and
he continues to win the battle of the anecdote. Austin may have been a critical
figure in the state’s history, but Houston lived larger and longer and left a
much richer legacy of stories.
A couple for instances:
In the late
1950s, Garland Adair gave the Texas Memorial Museum a note written by historian
J.T. DeShields about Sam Houston:
“Of course every school boy knows the
story of San Jacinto as told in the books,” DeShields wrote. “But there is in
the Southwest a fireside tale about it which deserves to be better known.”
The historian continued:
“The night before the battle Santa Anna sent
a flag of truce to the Texan camp with a summons to surrender and offer of pardon.
Grim Gen. Sam Houston heard the message and said to one of his aides: ‘Tell him
to go to hell! Put that in Spanish! And the aide, translating the answer into
the language of the Spanish military diplomacy, made oration as it appears in
the books: ‘Gen. Houston says that you will have the kindness to present his compliments
to Gen. Santa Anna, and inform him that Gen. Houston regrets to be constrained
to reply that if Gen. Santa Anna desires our company it will be necessary for
him to condescend to give himself the trouble of coming and getting us.’”
Though
Houston’s original message to the Mexican general had not contained any verbal
artistry, Houston definitely had a way with words.
Later in his career,
serving as governor shortly before Texas seceded from the Union, Houston encountered
one of his political enemies in the capitol.
“Howdy do, sir,” Houston
said formally, though coolly.
“I never knowingly speak to scoundrels,”
the opponent replied to the governor.
“You perceive that I do,” Houston
said as he walked on.
(The late Texas tale teller J. Frank Dobie told that
story in the late Houston Post on Aug. 27, 1954.)
Books
on Sam Houston
Shop at
Amazon.com |
Any
Baby Boomer who has ever struggled to figure out a new cell phone will appreciate
this story:
Arthur MacArthur, father of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, told his
son about being on hand in the 1870s when General Phil Sheridan negotiated a peace
treaty with the Indians.
After the peace pipe had been passed, Sheridan
tried to impress the Indians with the awesome technological power of the U.S.
and the futility of opposing American expansion.
Where the red man had
only canoes, the U.S. had mighty steamboats plying the Mississippi, the famed
Civil War general said.
Having said that, Sheridan asked his interpreter
whether he had made his point.
“General, they don’t believe you,” he said.
Then the general told of the ever-expanding U.S. railroad system and how rapidly
Americans could travel in comparison to Indians on their ponies.
Again,
the interpreter said, “General, they don’t believe you.”
Frustrated, Sheridan
told of Alexander Graham Bell’s recently invented telephone.
“I can talk
into a little black box and the Great White Father in Washington will hear me
and answer,” the general asserted.
At that, the interpreter remained silent.
Impatient,
Sheridan ordered him to tell him what the Indians thought of his last revelation.
Still, the interpreter remained silent.
“What’s the matter with you?” the
general asked.
Slowly chewing his tobacco, the interpreter replied:
“Well, general, now I don’t believe you.” |
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MacArthur told that story, which could have happened in Texas, in his 1964 memoir,
“Reminiscences by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.” | |
Tascosa,
now the site of Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch northwest of Amarillo, had the reputation
of being one of the toughest towns in Texas during its heyday in the early 1880s.
Bonham
poet and all-round character Macphelan Reese told this story in 2000:
A dusty cowboy (so bow-legged they’d have to bury him in a base fiddle case) rides
into Tascosa, already high enough
to have a nose bleed, and ties his horse in front of one of the town’s numerous
saloons.
Tromping inside, the drover orders a beer and drinks about half
of it before noticing that the floor is covered in sawdust. He observes to the
bartender: “I’ve been in saloons all over this country and I ain’t never seen
one with sawdust on the floor.”
The bartender replies: “That ain’t sawdust,
that’s last night’s furniture.” |
Traveling
salesmen jokes used to be common when drummers traversed Texas peddling their
wares. Now, thanks to box stores and the Internet, the class once known as rangers
of commerce is virtually extinct.
But the humor has survived:
A traveling salesman driving through East Texas runs over someone’s coon dog.
Being a dog lover and decent sort, he goes to the nearby farm house, knocks on
the door and tells the woman who answers that he’s accidentally killed their dog.
Shaking her head sadly, she tells the salesman he’d better go break the news to
her husband in person.
“He’s out back in the barn,” she said. “And listen,
make it easy on him. At first, tell him it was one of the kids.” |
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