Surprise! Positive American Contributions to Civilisation
Western movies
The Colt revolver
The banjo
R.E. Lee
Loosiana cooking
Charles Lindbergh
McCormick reaper
Charleston
Moby Dick
White clapboard country churches
Tobacco
The music that used to be known as “Negro spirituals”
Southern literature
Hot dogs
Cornbread
100 kinds of barbecue sauce
H.L. Mencken
Fourth of July picnics
“Dixie” and the Confederate battle flag
A day to honour Mothers
Sandlot baseball
Tom Fleming and Chronicles
And you thought this column was always negative . . .
Entries(RSS)
Charles Lindbergh! How about John T. Flynn instead?
And Nathan Bedford Forrest, James Ewell Brown Stewart, John Singleton Mosby, Thomas Jonathan Jackson; and all the rest of those marvelous "hillbillies."
bourbon
57 Chevys
Southern Comfort (the hospitality AND the drink)
John Ford movies
gin rickys
John Wayne
Martinis (real ones with gin, not that James Bond vodka cough syrup)
Edison
Sunday school
Russell Kirk
Wonderful, Dr. Wilson. This is why, despite all my threats and complaining, I will never leave America. As long as the memory of real America persists in word and symbol, its traditions practiced, and values embraced, if only by a small but enduring subculture, I will be at home. I don't believe plastic America can ever fully extinguish the real, organic one.
And I too have always had a fascination with white country churches. I'll take a quiet country church over a cathedral anyday.
Cheers to the banjo as well.
Rodeos, Cowboys, men who discovered silver in the stars, gold in the morning sun and roughriders in the sky.
any day, I mean
China-berry and green-pecan wars
Dirt-clod wars
Deer huntin' with a "multi-cultural" pack of Blue Ticks, Black&Tans, and Walkers and sometimes a Beagle
A wild hog (feral pig) round up with a pack of Catahoula Leopards
The Bonnie Blue Flag and the attendant song
Fox huntin' with your buddies on a Friday night
Catching gar with bailing wire and dry-salt bacon and killing them with the ball-peen hammer.
A Confederate grave-marker ceremony in an old cemetery with ancient oaks, cedars and magnolias and kith and kin gathered round
The Natchitoches Christmas Parade
The Madden graveyard working
BB-gun wars with rat traps for mines and clay packed around two-inch firecracker for grenades. (In these wars, we were cowboys and indians, cops and robbers, Germans and Americans. There was never any WBS fighting because no one wated to be Yankees!)
Shootin' gar with .22's off a bluff
Clyde Baum and his fiddle - in the Louisisana Music Hall of Fame
Going on a Sunday drive and stopping by to talk and drink coffee with folks sitting on the front porch (before air conditioning)
Stalking a holly, a cedar or a longleaf pine as a trophy Christmas tree
Going to a basketball tournament at a backwoods country school and watching some good basketball, eating some good hamburgers and flirting with some pretty girls you'd never see again
Listening to whipoorwills on a spring night (They came to our farm on 15 April this year.)
Richard Taylor and Henry Wadkins Allen
Mr. Peters,
There is a legend that says St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Boneventura both submitted prayers to be included in the Mass of Corpus Christi and having heard St. Thomas read his proposed prayer first, the Francisan simply tore his proposed prayer up and threw it away.
After reading your post @7, I would like the webmaster to please delete my post @5 and throw it away.
Musical comedy
Hero sandwiches (po' boys, subs, grinders, muffalettas, etc.)
String bands
Tall tales and raconteurs
Home-grown tomatoes
Carnegie libraries
Gospel music
Diners
Soapbox racers
J.J. Audubon
Maple syrup
Apple pie
bluegrass music
bluegrass gospel music
newgrass
JEFFERSON DAVIS, for Heaven's sake! (He's really at the top of my list as an American anomaly: a principled politician).
John Randolph,
Concurrent majority
Fried Okra
grits
hash browns
salsa
Andy Griffith show
The V-8 engine
Off Shore Drilling
Articles of Confederation
Thomas Jefferson
The Alamo
Institutionalization in "Organic law" (i.e.: The Constitution) of prohibition of confessional jurisprudence, in particular of Amendment V. Confessional jurisprudence is, IMO, nothing less than the vilest abomination Mankind has ever raised; and it is the primary peg whereon I hung my antipathy to the Soviet Union.
Institutionalixation in that selfsame "Organic law" of the ordinary private citizen's R I G H T to arms. In authoritarian parts, where anyone outside the local elite has permission, it seems that such permission is a reward for fellatory deference to the local Powers That Be, a.k.a. "political reliability."
John Flynn, fine as he was, was an incorrigible liberal who very unwisely tried to distance the America First committee from Lindbergh and later forced the New York chapter to destroy its mailing list, which could have been a great asset after the war. Lindbergh was a great man in many different respects. Even after FDR had threatened any company that employed him in the war and as CL was flying combat missions, he continued to donate his very useful patents to the USA. I respect Flynn a great deal, but I honor Lindbergh.
Lindbergh also persuaded financier Harry Guggenheim to finance an obscure scientist named Robert Goddard, who developed the first early missile systems in the 1930s. With the assistance of his friend Frenchman Dr. Alexis Carrel, Lindbergh developed the first crude perfusion pump that would make open-heart surgery possible twenty years later and routine today. Lindbergh's advice to bomber pilots to reduce propeller revolutions in order to conserve gas mileage added hundreds of miles to bomber runs during the Pacific campaign. A very active man, Lindbergh fathered six legitimate children and five illegitimate children. He was no saint.
10 Tom Ridenour
Wonderful, one must add to your keen addition "concurrent majority" the name of the greatest political analyst we've produced as a nation: John Caldwell Calhoun, and, one must not forget, John Taylor of Caroline.
10 Tom Ridenour
And one could remark: "we are all Confederates now"!
Clyde Wilson; Jim Kibler; David Aiken; Michael Hill and all the other contemporary Southern writers and leaders.
Coca-Cola, the original soft drink (and Southern at that)
Smith & Wesson - proof that SOMETHING good came out of Massachusetts
Davy Crockett
Gold Democrats
M1 Garand
Derek Leaberry @14:
Yes, you are correct. And Goddard's work in rocketry ultimately led to the Apollo program, a singular American accomplishment. I would recommend a visit to the Kennedy Space Center to anyone visiting that part of Florida. Even though I was not very interested in the space program growing up, I was moved when I visited the museum housing a Saturn V, a recreation of Mission Control from the '60s, and many other items associated with our visit to the Moon. It was a vivid reminder that the America I grew up in both valued accomplishment and succeeded in a wide range of endeavors.
Among many other American contributions to civilization, some that come to mind are:
Other inventors, such as Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, and Henry Ford, who made the automobile accessible.
Baseball, Football, and Basketball, all invented by Americans
Cole Porter
Frank Sinatra
Glenn Miller
Winchester
ironclads
submarine--CSS Hunley
Never forget Col. Travis, Jim Bowie and those that gave the last full measure at the Alamo- even if it did give the Bush Clan of Connecticut a base of operations. Bob Wills, Delbert McClinton, Waylon and Willie are also gifts of Texas despite Willie's politics, not to mention Hill Country BBQ from Black's and Kruez Market. Larry McMurtry's pen gave us the way underated novel "Horseman, Pass By" which inspired the even more underated film "Hud", not to mention Capns. Woodrow Call and Augustus McRae, even if he did go Brokeback on us.
Gen. George S. Patton, Gen. Smedley Butler, Private. Alvin York, Ted Williams, but also Mahalia Jackson, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Father Jon Corapi, Whittaker Chambers, George Washington Cable too name a few brave souls who wielded the truth if not the gun.
Dr. Wilson hit it pretty good on the epicurean triumphs, but I would just add: Spoonbread and Virginia Ham, Maryland Lump Crabcakes, Missouri Red Eye Gravy and Grits, Kentucky Hot Brown Sandwich and Mint Juleps on Derby Weekend, that fried chicken first marinated in hot sauce from Nashville, and from Mr. Peter's section, Ruston Peach pie or cobble and meat pies from Natchitoches, which I can't believe he left out.
Roy Acuff, Buck Owens and Merle Haggard (Okie from Muskogee v., not Hillary backer) Otis Redding, brick craftsman bungalows in Tulsa with dogwoods and redbud trees, stone houses in the Ozarks, Louis Armstrong's version of "Sleepy Time Down South"...
From Wisconsin (sorry I'm not from the South): Old-fashioned dairy farms (all but extinct these days). They were places you could get: homemade bread topped with farm-fresh butter and your choice of homemade jams and jellies; homemade vanilla ice cream topped with fresh picked strawberries; unpasturized, unhomoginized whole milk; garden beans, cucumbers, tomatoes; great beef steaks and roasts; good eggs; stewing hens; homemade dill pickles. Plus respect for elders, respect for mother nature, manners, ghost stories, bonfires and roasted marshmallows. The place was a veritable treasure trove of good things gotten by very hard work, family, the land and a true community (your neighbors and the town you did all your business at).
Wisconsin cheese--though the corporations have bought up most of the old cheese makers.
Watching fireflies on a moist Virginia night
Making a fort out of grandad's wood scraps and surplus rental supplies in his backyard
Tree houses (not sure if those are all American)
Decent sized garages
More forts (many types of construction materials will do)
Pea Ridge National Battlefield Park
@22
Still have them here in Ohio. Young's Jersey Dairy over in Yellow Springs Ohio is almost exactly what you describe.
Oh another addition, surprised no one else mentioned him:
Clint Eastwood
@24
What I described was a family dairy farm that I practically grew up on. I didn't live there--I lived in town--but one of my good friends was on the farm, and I spent so many days and weeks there I knew it very well. My friend's parents treated me and my siblings almost as members of the family (discipline included). The excess milk and beef were sold; the rest was consunmed by the family (and friends) who produced it. The garden, berry patch and hen house were for family, friends and needy church members. My parents and we kids helped as much as we were able and were rewarded for it.
Fried cherry stone clams
Stuffed quohogs
Narragansett Lager Beer
clambakes
mussels dipped in drawn butter
haddock
Cape Cod in fall, winter and spring
Cape Codders (cranberry juice and vodka)
cranberry bogs
Walden Pond
Fenway Park
William M. Bulger
South Boston
Sons of Liberty...and swamp Yankees
John Browning
The Grey Ghost -- John Mosby
Robert Frost
Gen. Smedley Butler
muscle cars
Songs that extol the virtues of the Shenandoah, Suwanee, Mississippi, and Red Rivers
Duke Ellington
High school football on a crisp fall Friday night
The architecture of Old Town Alexandria and Fredericksburg
I forgot the most important -- Swing Time!
General Nathaniel Lyon
Frank Blair
Edmund Ruffin. Ted Williams. "I'll Take My Stand" and to a lesser extent "Who Owns America?". Richard Weaver and Mel Bradford. Washington Irving. James F. Cooper. Nathaniel Hawthorne. Herman Melville. William G. Simms. Allen Tate. Donald Davidson. Stephen Foster.
@ Etienne:
Highly recommend Bob Wills's classic "Red River Valley" which includes, among others, the outstanding "Take Me Back to Tulsa". And though it refers to the Bluegrass State as a whole rather than the river of the same name, I'll put The King's "Kentucky Rain" from his 1968 Memphis comeback album up there with anything from Stephen Foster to Townes Van Zandt.
And thanks for the seconding of Gen. Smedley Butler, a damn fine Marine.
1.Pearl handled six shooters (cap guns)got them every spring for my birthday as I would wear out the old pair.
2.Fishing for chain pickerel on a warm summers day.
3.Johnny Horton
McCormick the reaper but not The Colonel?
Rob 32
Good reference to Edmund Ruffin. One is moved to read about his departure for eternity, wrapped in the Battle Flag!
flannery o'connor
peters@7:
"BB-gun wars with rat traps for mines and clay packed around two-inch firecracker for grenades. (In these wars, we were cowboys and indians, cops and robbers, Germans and Americans. There was never any WBS fighting because no one wated to be Yankees!)"
This is funny....I was born in NY, but moved to small town NC and was "brung up" there by Yankee parents. As a grade schooler, I was the only one who would play a Yankee. But you're right - in general we fought the Germans - killing one Yankee, no matter how satisfying the argument about who shot first, was hardly satisfying to a bloodthirsty pack of ten year olds who could all tell you the names of their famous Confederate ancestors. As Southern essence slowly seeped into my being, I realized the error of my ways, and now mourn how misguided my poor Yankee ancestors were.
Dirt clod wars.....my kids have no idea what that is!
And ouch! - my brother could hurt you with a green pine cone!
Thanks!
On more observation ...my Dad, brought up in small town PA, found a pretty snug fit in small town NC. My Mom not so much, maybe because she grew up in NYC?
coon skin caps
Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Trigger (bless them!)
Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers (Rogers at all times the perfect Southern lady)
hillbillies (NOT as portrayed in Deliverance!)
white lightning
the 10th Amendment
George Wallace
Flat and Scruggs
Louis Armstrong
King Cotton
Nullification
hillbilly music
coon hunting
I forgot:
Jerry Clower
Sitting on a front porch full of rockers and a squeaky glider on a summer's evening (no Daylight Saving Time, thank GOD)with parents and other kinfolk talking, the red glow of a cigarette when one of the smokers took a drag, the smell of English boxwoods in the air (the cigarette smoke never was an issue), and the sound of crickets, katy-dids and tree frogs with an occasional car going by...this was small-town life in north Georgia in the 50's and early 60's, recreated at our house here on the farm on the Alabama-Georgia border, minus the tobacco and traffic. (Though I'd give anything to have my Daddy sitting on the porch smoking a cigarette or pipe or cigar.) Plus there are the delicious smells of Japanese honeysuckle, wisteria, roses, tea-olive, banana shrub, etc. Many things still to be enjoyed.
Great stuff! Hail to the contributors one and all! And I shall add:
Buster Keaton
Laurel and Hardy
Preston Sturges
from my homeland, the Great White North:
the Non-Partisan League
J. F. Powers
the North Shore (of Lake Superior, that is)
Anthony Bukoski
Timothy Murphy
the microbreweries of Wisconsin
walleye pike
wild rice
the Black Hills
I would like to second the defenders of the Alamo! Also High School football! And would add Daniel Boone,Simon Kenton,Timothy Murphy,Sam Davis,Richard Kirkland,Stan Waite,Crazy Horse,Quannah Parker,the Texas Rangers and Bear Bryant.
The First Missouri Confederate Brigade.
@ MAP 41
JERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY! Amen brother, and Brother Dave Gardner too.
Mark @ 38
Green pine cones! Those things would blight a face with blood and scratch! The U.S. Forest Service, in the mid sixties, was paying six dollars a bushel for green longleaf pine cones. They were drying them and extracting the seeds. My buddy and I went into business. At first we attempted to limb the trees, but shinnying up a longleaf pine takes time, hide and energy. So we hit upon shooting them down with .22's with a tripod and a scope. You could buy fifty .22 shorts for fifty cents, and if you were good enough, you could shoot down about a bushel with a box. Some days, like dove hunting, were better than others. Well, at least once during the felling of cones of a given day we would get into a cone fight. We got a lot out of the experience: honed skills for kill squirrels later that fall, money from the U.S. Forest Service and a good fight with the requisite dueling scars.
The best fighting was wasp fighting. Five or six of us would arm with slingshots (PC), fresh pine tops, and homemade rubber-band guns. At the count of three, we'd fire a salvo of rocks into the wasp nest, getting them stirred up "real good." Then we'd fire upon individual targets with the rubber-band guns. A wasp coming at you looked like a Jap Zero right out of a war movie. If he (Most wasp I suppose are actually female, but this was a "man" thing!) got too close, then the pine-top defense was activated. Sometimes one got through and stung. I boy was a man if he got a dou-pop and did not cry: two quick stings by one wasp! We once made the stupid mistake of attacking a hornets nest. Nearly all of us got stung, and we saved ourselves by jumping into a seven-foot hole of Big Creek. It took about an hour before those hornets gave up looking for our noses and our foreheads.
Dried and open longleaf pine cones also make excellent Thanksgiving turkeys if you add some post oak leaves for their tails.
@46 Virgil
Thanks for jogging my memory about Brother Dave! God bless you and tax the poor, give them something to strive for. And I used to think Limbaugh dreamt that up!
Couldn't resist the parochial:
The Old Brick Church, St. Lukes, Isle of Wight, VA c.1632, and the old graveyard adjacent.
Jamestown Island.
The University of Virginia, before 1976, a remarkable woman, 'Dean' Jean Holliday, and a man named Joe Vaughan, School of Engineering, RIP. And of course, the late George Garrett.
Carolina Girls, particularly during the summer in the Outer Banks. (Married one)
And a big hellyeah for Brother Dave, 'rejoice, dear hearts!'