When I began writing this column in the 1970’s, I sometimes imagined myself sitting in a friend’s kitchen, chatting over a cup of coffee. Those conversations can drift along from one topic to the next, often interrupted by a phone call, a demanding child, or a batch of laundry ready for the drier. Topics under discussion could switch abruptly when a remark triggered some loosely related thought. As I wrote about opinions, events and observations to share with my readers, that same chain of thoughts often caused me to end up writing about things totally unrelated to my initial intent. So it is yet today.
I don’t have to remind you that this is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. The broadcast media won’t let it pass without repeatedly telling you about the bombing in Hawaii and the fact that 2,403 Americans died there on that Sunday in 1941. Aside from the advantage of clear weather, the Japanese chose to strike on that particular day, knowing that people would be at worship and less alert to possible attack. They probably won’t also mention that, immediately after the attack, Japanese planes hastened to assault U.S. and British bases in the Philippines, Guam, Midway Island, Malaya and Hong Kong.
December 7th was also the date of Jesse James’s 1869 robbery of the bank in Gallatin, MO. Jesse and his brother Frank both served in the Confederate Army before becoming outlaws and leaders of the James-Younger gang, primarily robbing banks and trains in the Old West. He spent 16 years in that notorious career before being shot, at age 34, by his own gang member Bob Ford. In order to collect a reward of $10,000, Ford and his brother Charlie had made a deal with Governor Tom Crittenden. They were convicted of murder, then later pardoned by Crittenden, as agreed. Jesse was shot from behind while standing on a chair to straighten a picture on the wall of the home in St. Joseph, Missouri where he lived, under the assumed name of Tom Howard, with his wife and two children. (You may have wondered why Jesse was referred to as Mr. Howard in that song about “…the dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard and laid poor Jesse in his grave.” Now you know.)
There is an addition to the James legends in my hometown of Knoxville, claiming that Jesse James once spent the night hiding in a wood-box at a farmhouse near the Des Moines River, but as far as I know, it has been neither proven nor disproven. With the construction of the Red Rock Dam, the area is now under water and part of Red Rock Reservoir. Jesse and the farmhouse no longer exist, but the legend lives on – true or not.
Knoxville has a more interesting and distinguished history to be proud of. It is where our state flag, which was designed by Dixie Cornell Gebhardt, in the early 1900’s. She was a leader in the Iowa chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and, during World War I, pressured the state legislature for the adoption of an official state flag. The state motto “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain” had been adopted in 1847, a year after Iowa became a state and Gebhardt wisely included the motto in her design. It is written on the streamer carried by an eagle in flight. The legislature officially adopted the flag in 1921 and also used her eagle image on the official state seal.
Years ago, on the way to visit my parents, we passed a billboard proclaiming Knoxville to be the birthplace of the Iowa flag. When I pointed this out to our children with hometown pride, my husband expressed doubt that an Iowa flag could be bought in Knoxville. I directed him to Cummings Book Store, demanded his checkbook, and emerged a few minutes later with a large Iowa flag; the price tag had been about three times as much as for an American flag of comparable size and quality, and my hometown gained a considerable degree of respect from my Doubting Thomas husband.
TV ad blunders; I wonder about that ASPCA bit promising to send prompt donors a “one of a kind” T-shirt. If there’s only one, they must not be expecting many donations. You think?