MORE ROAD TRIP ADVENTURES--TASTING CHILI, 2 PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES, 2 CAPITOLS, AND OTHERS,
SAMPLING CINCINNATI CHILI
After touring the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, Dianne and I stopped for dinner nearby at Skyline Chili, a Cincinnati icon. I had never visited a Skyline Chili restaurant, but I heard its the most exciting thing to happen in Cincinnati since they elected Jerry Springer mayor.
Most people don't know this, but Cincinnati is famous for its chili, especially Skyline Chili. For years people have been bending my ear about how great it is, and this was my first opportunity to taste it. The chili was created by a Greek immigrant named Nicholas Lambrinides in 1949 using family recipes. He opened his first restaurant and named it for his view of the Cincinnati skyline. Since then, it has expanded to over 150 locations in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.
The marketing department at Skyline Chili has done a good job. The chili is the "official chili" of sports teams like the Cincinnati Reds, the Columbus Blue Jackets and even Kings Island amusement park. It sponsors the Crosstown Shootout, the annual basketball game between Cincinnati and Xavier Universities, both Division 1 rivals. According to Wikipedia, Skyline, along with Cincinnati chili in general is considered the signature dish for the whole State of Ohio. So take that, Texas!
It is not to be confused with Texas chili. Cincinnati chili lacks meat, and beans cost extra. Spiced with curry powder, and sprinkled with grated cheese, Cincinnati chili is really a sauce spread over hot dogs or spaghetti. Most Texans will probably stick to their own chili with meat and hot spices.
I ordered the 5-ways which is the spaghetti with chili, cheese, beans and onions. On the 4-ways, you get a choice of beans or onions, and on the 3-way, you just get the chili and cheese. I enjoyed it, but I'll stick to the Chicago style chili which is more similar to the Texas chili.
RIO GRANDE UNIVERSITY--BEVO FRANCIS
A three hour drive East of Cincinnati, we visited the leafy campus of Rio Grande University, at an unlikely location, not in Texas, but in Southeastern Ohio. Many moons ago, in the early 1950's, this small school, then known as Rio Grande College was a basketball hotbed. The school at that time had less than 100 students and more than half were girls. The gym didn't even have a locker room, so the players had to scamper across to the dorm to take showers.
For two seasons, though, Rio Grande was a giant in the basketball world. The team stunned sport fans by blowing through 39 straight small schools in 1953 and then more than holding their own against large basketball powers the following year, going 21-7. That wouldn't normally be a big deal, but they had a star player named Bevo Francis who became a household name as the big fish in the small pond. Mr. Francis AVERAGED over 50 points per game, setting the all time college basketball scoring record which still stands. He scored 116 points in one game and 113 in another.
Years ago, I wrote an article about Mr. Francis, and now I was able to research his story firsthand. See KENSUSKINREPORT, June 11, 2007.
Near the gym is a street on campus named after Mr. Francis. I went inside the gym and took a picture of Mr. Francis' jersey, Number 32 hanging from the rafters. It was new student week and I asked a young female student guide if there were any other Bevo Francis memorabilia in the building. She didn't know the significance, and wasn't even sure who he was. For all she knew, I could have been talking about Pope Francis. Nevertheless, she took me to the trophy room where behind the glass were yellowed newspaper accounts of Mr. Francis' exploits.
A large plaque hanging on the wall has a list of Francis' highest scoring games--116 against Ashland Junior College, 113 against Hillsdale, 84 against Alliance College, 82 against Bluffton College, and so on. That was before they had 3-point baskets, and Francis could shoot from outside as well as inside.
That was the high point of Mr. Francis' basketball career. He was drafted by the NBA, but in those days he could make more money playing for the Washington Generals, the all-white patsy team who played the Harlem Globetrotters every night. After a few years, Francis gained weight and lost his magic on the court. He had to get a day job and spent the rest of his working life at the steel mills.
NITRO, WEST VIRGINIA
Later the same day, we pulled up to a truck stop in Nitro, WV. Parked next to us was a truck with a sign, "we stamp concrete any color you want!" I talked to the guy for awhile and asked him if he could do my favorite color--plaid. Well, almost any color.
Meanwhile, my wife, Dianne, met a woman in the rest room who explained that she was in Nitro to visit the World War I Museum Her grandfather worked in Nitro during the war. She convinced us to visit also. We were just sightseeing, so we had plenty of time to look around. I had heard of Nitro because of its unusual name and because former baseball star Lew Burdette hailed from there. More on him in a moment. I couldn't have located Nitro on a map until we showed up there.
Nitro is a living memorial to World War I which wasn't even called that until World War II began. The town derived its name from nitrocellulose, the main ingredient in smokeless gunpowder. According to the Mayor, the name was selected by the Ordnance Department of the government.
A couple years ago, we had visited the World War II Museum in New Orleans, so it was time to fill in our bucket list regarding wars. We've done Vicksburg and Gettysburg from the Civil War and even Saratoga and the George Rogers Clark campaign in the Revolutionary War. This museum was worth the visit.
Nitro was conceived as a company town to manufacture smokeless gunpowder during World War I. When the U.S. entered the war, the country could not produce enough gunpowder to supply the combat troops. Congress acted quickly to authorize construction of defense plants.
The War Department chose the location because they deemed it safe from coastal attacks, and it offered readily available rail and water transportation. They broke ground shortly before Christmas in 1917 and created a boomtown within 11 months.
Today, Nitro has 7100 people. The namesake chemical plant, officially, "Explosives Plant C", was producing 100,000 pounds of high explosives daily but it quickly became obsolete when the war ended. The government had built housing for 26,000 people, and it wasn't even complete when the war ended.
After Armistice Day, the town had to reinvent itself, so it brought in other chemical plants. As could be expected, the nearby Kanawha River became highly polluted, and the chemical site ultimately was placed on the National Priorities List Superfund. You may recall the deadly Agent Orange from the Vietnam days. Well, it was manufactured in Nitro by Monsanto, creating widespread dioxin contamination. The company had to pay millions for cleanup of homes and for medical monitoring of inhabitants of the community. In the old days, you could smell the town before you arrived there, but in recent years, manufacturing has shifted away from the area, and air pollution is no longer the problem it once was.
The highlight of Nitro is the World War I Museum, located in an old school building, displaying uniforms, guns and other items donated by families of veterans. One can review the blueprints of the explosives plant. They even have a replica of a World War I trench. In recent years, the museum incorporated World War II materials as well as other historical items relating to the town. Tucked away on a back table is a signed portrait of actor Clark Gable who worked in the plant in 1918.
Our guide, the 95 year old veteran of D-Day, Clyde Mynes explained that the purpose of smokeless gunpowder was that the enemy couldn't see you. I called him "sir"--he was a badass dude during World War II. He stormed the beach on D-Day and continued on into Germany where he witnessed some of the battles and atrocities that we all know about.
The museum even displayed Lew Burdette's baseball uniform from the Milwaukee Braves. In case you don't remember him, Burdette, a right-handed pitcher and native of Nitro, almost singlehandedly throttled the New York Yankees in the 1957 World Series, winning 3 games, the last two by shutouts. About 10 years later, the team moved to Atlanta, and the City of Milwaukee has not won a championship since.
CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA
We visited two state capitol buildings on our trip. The magnificent capitol building in Charleston, the largest city in West Virginia was completed in 1932. Today it is being renovated, and we couldn't see too much. The dome, which resembles the Capitol in Washington, is 292 feet high and 75 feet in diameter. Inside the dome is a 4000 pound chandelier, but I couldn't see that either because of the renovation.
The verdant grounds are beautiful. The two prominent statues outside the building brought together an odd couple. The famous Lincoln Walks at Midnight sculpture by Fred Martin Torrey stands in front of the main entrance, and Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson stands maybe a hundred yards away, among the large trees. West Virginia is not Virginia, so maybe they won't tear it down anytime soon.
Jackson was born in what is now West Virginia, and the state claims him as a native son. Before the Civil War, most Americans considered themselves citizens of their home state rather than the USA. Jackson, a Virginian, opposed seceding from the Union, but when Virginia seceded in 1861, he remained loyal to his state and fought for the South.
Jackson, a West Point grad, acquired his nickname during the First Battle of Bull Run when his troops held the line against superior Union forces. Another Southern general exclaimed that Jackson's forces stood like a stone wall. He was killed by "friendly" fire on a scouting mission. After the Battle of Chancellorsville in early 1863, he went on a reconnaissance mission with his aides. A North Carolina regiment mistakenly took them for enemy cavalry and shot the General.
West Virginia broke off from Virginia in 1861 after Virginia seceded from the Union. Virginia was part of the Confederacy, but the country people in the mountainous Northwestern part of the state were Union sympathizers. Most were yeoman farmers who owned no slaves and who resented the elite planters of regular Virginia. West Virginia proved to be a key border state during the Civil War. By 1863, Lincoln's re-election chances were somewhat iffy with the war dragging on. The Administration encouraged those folks to apply for statehood, and that, along with Nevada in 1864, gave a boost to Lincoln's re-election.
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
We visited another state capitol building--Montgomery, Alabama. On a sunny Sunday morning we toured the capitol grounds. Across the street is President Jefferson Davis' house, actually the First White House of the Confederacy when Montgomery was the original capital of the Confederacy in 1861.
The Davis family only lived in the house for a few months; the Confederacy moved the capital to Richmond, VA the same year. The large white Italianate mansion was built in 1832 by an ancestor of Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of famed novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. They moved the house to its present location in 1921.
We hung around Montgomery for a few hours and then headed for Biloxi, Mississippi, the seafood capital and challenging Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world.
SHRIMPING IN BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI
In the spirit of Forrest Gump, we hitched a ride on a shrimp boat in Biloxi, Mississippi and learned all about the shrimp industry. Biloxi was once called the seafood capital of the world. Hurricanes and other disasters like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill periodically decimate the seafood industry. Fortunately shrimps and oysters are not endangered--they breed in prodigious numbers. Shrimps and oysters produce millions of offspring in any breeding season-- for example a female oyster can produce 100 million eggs in one season. It can take them a year or more to reach marketable size.
Most of the harvest on our boat was brown shrimp which are caught at night in the summer months. White shrimp and pink shrimp are also caught. To me, they all taste the same, but they do have different characteristics. White shrimp are caught in the daylight during the fall and winter months. Pink shrimp are also caught at night in October through April.
The boat drags a net and hauls in the fish. If they are the wrong size, or the wrong fish, he throws them back in the water. For photo ops, we held up the shrimps by their long stringy tails.
JEFFERSON DAVIS--BEAUVOIR
On our trip we learned more about Jeff Davis than we ever cared to. His real home was a grand mansion called Beauvoir, facing the Gulf Coast on U.S. 90 in Biloxi. The house was built by a man named James Brown, probably not related to the King of Soul. Its location, close to the water, makes it a target of hurricanes, and it was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The main house has since been restored, but several buildings on the grounds were destroyed, and replicas are in the planning stage. Today the grounds house the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library, a Confederate cemetery, a gift shop and others.
We watched a video of Davis's life. A graduate of West Point, Davis was appointed Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. He was also a U.S. Senator from Mississippi. Among other things Davis owned and operated a cotton plantation along with 113 slaves.
Davis married well. His first wife, Sarah was the daughter of President Zachery Taylor. She died of malaria a few months into the marriage. Davis contracted malaria also, but survived. The disease plagued him periodically the rest of his life. His second wife, Varina Howell was the daughter of a Governor of New Jersey and a cousin of Vice President Aaron Burr.
Historians have looked unfavorably upon Jefferson Davis. The academics considered him a poor leader detrimental to the Confederate cause. According to Wikipedia, "his preoccupation with detail, reluctance to delegate responsibility, lack of popular appeal, feuds with powerful state governors and generals, favoritism toward old friends inability to get along with people who disagreed with him, neglect of civil matters in favor of military ones and resistance to public opinion all worked against him. " Have I missed anything?
Although Davis was not disgraced; as a war leader, I think we can all agree that he was much less effective than Abraham Lincoln. In Southern consciousness, General Robert E. Lee is much more revered than Davis.
Don't confuse Jefferson Davis (Jefferson F. Davis, that is) with Jefferson C. Davis, a Union general who endured much razzing because of his name, but maybe they promoted him to confuse the Southerners. There is no evidence they received each other's mail, but both fought honorably in the Mexican War. The Union's Jeff Davis was promoted to Brigadier General after a significant victory in Arkansas and later served as a corps commander during Sherman's March to the Sea in 1864. The Northern Jeff Davis achieved some notoriety when he shot and killed his superior officer, General William Nelson, who allegedly insulted him in front of witnesses. Davis beat the rap because of the shortage of experienced commanders in the Union Army.
OFFSHORE OIL RIG, MORGAN CITY, LOUISIANA
In Louisiana, we drove about 70 miles west of New Orleans to the oil patch in Morgan City. The attraction there is the International Petroleum Museum which has a real working offshore oil rig. Well sort of offshore. You can get there by car. The oil rig is called Mr. Charlie, named after a banker and oil man named Charles H. Murphy who financed the $2.5 million to construct it, back in 1952. Murphy's company, Murphy Oil, based in El Dorado, Arkansas made a deal with Shell Oil to drill offshore wells.
At that time, offshore drilling was a new industry. Oil companies obviously wanted access to the oil field, but their methods were vastly inefficient. Shell wanted to drill near the mouth of the Mississippi River, but conventional methods were not cost effective.
A young Naval engineer named A.J. "Doc" LaBorde, working for an oil company named Kerr McGee came up with a solution by transporting the entire drilling operation on a barge that could be floated to any location. They would then sink the barge to the bottom to create a stable platform and start drilling. When they were done, they would raise the barge and move it to the next location. The thinking at that time was "what could possibly go wrong?"
The establishment thought LaBorde was nuts, but Charlie Murphy hung in there, and incredibly, the idea worked! The oilfield turned out to be a monster, and Murphy drilled hundreds of wells for Shell and other major oil companies.
The rig is located in the inlet, the delta of the Atchafalaya River, next to the shore. This is a 1950's vintage rig which is showing signs of rust and wear. The guided tours are at 10 AM and 2 PM. Unfortunately for us,. we arrived at about Noon, and there is not much else to do in Morgan City. The city doesn't make the place easy to find. Even using the GPS in our car, we drove around the block several times before we figured out where it was. We couldn't do the tour, but we could walk around and take pictures. The museum, which is interesting, tells the history of offshore and deep water drilling.
We stopped for a late lunch at a small diner on the road which served the best crawfish stew we've ever had. Then, on to the Laura Plantation.
LAURA PLANTATION
An hour west of New Orleans, in Vacherie, Louisiana are several restored plantations by the Mississippi River left intact after the Civil War. The Laura Plantation, which used to be called the DuParc Plantation is named after a Creole woman who was born there during the Civil War and lived into the Kennedy Administration at age 101.
Creoles are defined as native born people, especially of French or Spanish descent, mixed with Negro and/or Native American blood. Creoles have a culture all their own, with a strong French influence. Much is attributed to a somewhat hostile state government during the Jim Crow days, which mandated that English be spoken, essentially making the Creoles "outsiders" The state decreed that French was a foreign language, at least in the segregated public school system. It became an "us" versus "them" mentality for the Creoles. The culture centers on food, music, folklore, family traditions, architecture, the Catholic faith and genealogy.
Laura's life story is riveting, and the plantation has become a popular tourist attraction. The stories are told through the eyes of the gentry and also through the slaves who lived and worked there.
The namesake "Laura" was Laura Lacool (1861-1963) who spent most of her life on the plantation. In 1936 she wrote her memoirs, called Memories of the Old Plantation Home from where the stories are derived. That manuscript was lost to the ages but rediscovered in 1993 and is now the basis of the whole tourist experience. Historians now have first hand glimpses of plantation life in Creole Louisiana.
JAMES K. POLK, COLUMBIA, TENNESSEE
We took a detour south of Nashville to visit another presidential library, that of our esteemed 11th president, James Knox Polk. Polk, the eldest of 10 children, came from North Carolina with the Polk Brothers, and sisters. It was a sizzling day--104F, and we were happy to visit an air conditioned house.
Polk was elected in 1844 and served one term. In those days it was common not to seek re-election. In Polk's case, he said that he fulfilled all his campaign promises and also started a war with Mexico--does that sound familiar? Polk was the Manifest Destiny president, During his administration, the U.S. acquired more land than in any other. Almost the entire Southwest was added to the United States, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Polk died in 1849, and his wife Sarah survived him for 42 years until she died in 1891.
Polk, a protégé of Andrew Jackson, served 7 congressional terms, the last two as Speaker of the House. Polk was nominated as a little known dark horse candidate running against the well known House Speaker Henry Clay of the Whig Party who ultimately ran for president and lost 3 times. Clay made fun of Polk (Who is James K. Polk?), because of his low profile--he was not well known outside of politics. Clay, as before, managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Polk's platform favored expansion of the U.S., starting with the annexation of Texas. This proved to be popular with the voters and was the deciding factor. You may be familiar with Polk's vice president, George Dallas. You've heard of the Dallas Cowboys--they were named after him, at least the Dallas part.
Historians consider Polk the most effective president of the pre-Civil War era--Arthur Schlesinger ranked Polk 8th best president, although most other historians ranked him around 12th. Among other things, Polk reduced tariffs and negotiated a settlement with England regarding the Pacific Northwest--Oregon and Washington territories. On the other hand like most pre-Civil War presidents, in fact 12 of the first 14 presidents, Polk owned slaves and even purchased some during his administration. You won't see many statues of him outside Tennessee except for one in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Polk was the only president to graduate from the University of North Carolina, at least until Michael Jordan goes into politics.
After touring the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, Dianne and I stopped for dinner nearby at Skyline Chili, a Cincinnati icon. I had never visited a Skyline Chili restaurant, but I heard its the most exciting thing to happen in Cincinnati since they elected Jerry Springer mayor.
Most people don't know this, but Cincinnati is famous for its chili, especially Skyline Chili. For years people have been bending my ear about how great it is, and this was my first opportunity to taste it. The chili was created by a Greek immigrant named Nicholas Lambrinides in 1949 using family recipes. He opened his first restaurant and named it for his view of the Cincinnati skyline. Since then, it has expanded to over 150 locations in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.
The marketing department at Skyline Chili has done a good job. The chili is the "official chili" of sports teams like the Cincinnati Reds, the Columbus Blue Jackets and even Kings Island amusement park. It sponsors the Crosstown Shootout, the annual basketball game between Cincinnati and Xavier Universities, both Division 1 rivals. According to Wikipedia, Skyline, along with Cincinnati chili in general is considered the signature dish for the whole State of Ohio. So take that, Texas!
It is not to be confused with Texas chili. Cincinnati chili lacks meat, and beans cost extra. Spiced with curry powder, and sprinkled with grated cheese, Cincinnati chili is really a sauce spread over hot dogs or spaghetti. Most Texans will probably stick to their own chili with meat and hot spices.
I ordered the 5-ways which is the spaghetti with chili, cheese, beans and onions. On the 4-ways, you get a choice of beans or onions, and on the 3-way, you just get the chili and cheese. I enjoyed it, but I'll stick to the Chicago style chili which is more similar to the Texas chili.
RIO GRANDE UNIVERSITY--BEVO FRANCIS
A three hour drive East of Cincinnati, we visited the leafy campus of Rio Grande University, at an unlikely location, not in Texas, but in Southeastern Ohio. Many moons ago, in the early 1950's, this small school, then known as Rio Grande College was a basketball hotbed. The school at that time had less than 100 students and more than half were girls. The gym didn't even have a locker room, so the players had to scamper across to the dorm to take showers.
For two seasons, though, Rio Grande was a giant in the basketball world. The team stunned sport fans by blowing through 39 straight small schools in 1953 and then more than holding their own against large basketball powers the following year, going 21-7. That wouldn't normally be a big deal, but they had a star player named Bevo Francis who became a household name as the big fish in the small pond. Mr. Francis AVERAGED over 50 points per game, setting the all time college basketball scoring record which still stands. He scored 116 points in one game and 113 in another.
Years ago, I wrote an article about Mr. Francis, and now I was able to research his story firsthand. See KENSUSKINREPORT, June 11, 2007.
Near the gym is a street on campus named after Mr. Francis. I went inside the gym and took a picture of Mr. Francis' jersey, Number 32 hanging from the rafters. It was new student week and I asked a young female student guide if there were any other Bevo Francis memorabilia in the building. She didn't know the significance, and wasn't even sure who he was. For all she knew, I could have been talking about Pope Francis. Nevertheless, she took me to the trophy room where behind the glass were yellowed newspaper accounts of Mr. Francis' exploits.
A large plaque hanging on the wall has a list of Francis' highest scoring games--116 against Ashland Junior College, 113 against Hillsdale, 84 against Alliance College, 82 against Bluffton College, and so on. That was before they had 3-point baskets, and Francis could shoot from outside as well as inside.
That was the high point of Mr. Francis' basketball career. He was drafted by the NBA, but in those days he could make more money playing for the Washington Generals, the all-white patsy team who played the Harlem Globetrotters every night. After a few years, Francis gained weight and lost his magic on the court. He had to get a day job and spent the rest of his working life at the steel mills.
NITRO, WEST VIRGINIA
Later the same day, we pulled up to a truck stop in Nitro, WV. Parked next to us was a truck with a sign, "we stamp concrete any color you want!" I talked to the guy for awhile and asked him if he could do my favorite color--plaid. Well, almost any color.
Meanwhile, my wife, Dianne, met a woman in the rest room who explained that she was in Nitro to visit the World War I Museum Her grandfather worked in Nitro during the war. She convinced us to visit also. We were just sightseeing, so we had plenty of time to look around. I had heard of Nitro because of its unusual name and because former baseball star Lew Burdette hailed from there. More on him in a moment. I couldn't have located Nitro on a map until we showed up there.
Nitro is a living memorial to World War I which wasn't even called that until World War II began. The town derived its name from nitrocellulose, the main ingredient in smokeless gunpowder. According to the Mayor, the name was selected by the Ordnance Department of the government.
A couple years ago, we had visited the World War II Museum in New Orleans, so it was time to fill in our bucket list regarding wars. We've done Vicksburg and Gettysburg from the Civil War and even Saratoga and the George Rogers Clark campaign in the Revolutionary War. This museum was worth the visit.
Nitro was conceived as a company town to manufacture smokeless gunpowder during World War I. When the U.S. entered the war, the country could not produce enough gunpowder to supply the combat troops. Congress acted quickly to authorize construction of defense plants.
The War Department chose the location because they deemed it safe from coastal attacks, and it offered readily available rail and water transportation. They broke ground shortly before Christmas in 1917 and created a boomtown within 11 months.
Today, Nitro has 7100 people. The namesake chemical plant, officially, "Explosives Plant C", was producing 100,000 pounds of high explosives daily but it quickly became obsolete when the war ended. The government had built housing for 26,000 people, and it wasn't even complete when the war ended.
After Armistice Day, the town had to reinvent itself, so it brought in other chemical plants. As could be expected, the nearby Kanawha River became highly polluted, and the chemical site ultimately was placed on the National Priorities List Superfund. You may recall the deadly Agent Orange from the Vietnam days. Well, it was manufactured in Nitro by Monsanto, creating widespread dioxin contamination. The company had to pay millions for cleanup of homes and for medical monitoring of inhabitants of the community. In the old days, you could smell the town before you arrived there, but in recent years, manufacturing has shifted away from the area, and air pollution is no longer the problem it once was.
The highlight of Nitro is the World War I Museum, located in an old school building, displaying uniforms, guns and other items donated by families of veterans. One can review the blueprints of the explosives plant. They even have a replica of a World War I trench. In recent years, the museum incorporated World War II materials as well as other historical items relating to the town. Tucked away on a back table is a signed portrait of actor Clark Gable who worked in the plant in 1918.
Our guide, the 95 year old veteran of D-Day, Clyde Mynes explained that the purpose of smokeless gunpowder was that the enemy couldn't see you. I called him "sir"--he was a badass dude during World War II. He stormed the beach on D-Day and continued on into Germany where he witnessed some of the battles and atrocities that we all know about.
The museum even displayed Lew Burdette's baseball uniform from the Milwaukee Braves. In case you don't remember him, Burdette, a right-handed pitcher and native of Nitro, almost singlehandedly throttled the New York Yankees in the 1957 World Series, winning 3 games, the last two by shutouts. About 10 years later, the team moved to Atlanta, and the City of Milwaukee has not won a championship since.
CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA
We visited two state capitol buildings on our trip. The magnificent capitol building in Charleston, the largest city in West Virginia was completed in 1932. Today it is being renovated, and we couldn't see too much. The dome, which resembles the Capitol in Washington, is 292 feet high and 75 feet in diameter. Inside the dome is a 4000 pound chandelier, but I couldn't see that either because of the renovation.
The verdant grounds are beautiful. The two prominent statues outside the building brought together an odd couple. The famous Lincoln Walks at Midnight sculpture by Fred Martin Torrey stands in front of the main entrance, and Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson stands maybe a hundred yards away, among the large trees. West Virginia is not Virginia, so maybe they won't tear it down anytime soon.
Jackson was born in what is now West Virginia, and the state claims him as a native son. Before the Civil War, most Americans considered themselves citizens of their home state rather than the USA. Jackson, a Virginian, opposed seceding from the Union, but when Virginia seceded in 1861, he remained loyal to his state and fought for the South.
Jackson, a West Point grad, acquired his nickname during the First Battle of Bull Run when his troops held the line against superior Union forces. Another Southern general exclaimed that Jackson's forces stood like a stone wall. He was killed by "friendly" fire on a scouting mission. After the Battle of Chancellorsville in early 1863, he went on a reconnaissance mission with his aides. A North Carolina regiment mistakenly took them for enemy cavalry and shot the General.
West Virginia broke off from Virginia in 1861 after Virginia seceded from the Union. Virginia was part of the Confederacy, but the country people in the mountainous Northwestern part of the state were Union sympathizers. Most were yeoman farmers who owned no slaves and who resented the elite planters of regular Virginia. West Virginia proved to be a key border state during the Civil War. By 1863, Lincoln's re-election chances were somewhat iffy with the war dragging on. The Administration encouraged those folks to apply for statehood, and that, along with Nevada in 1864, gave a boost to Lincoln's re-election.
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
We visited another state capitol building--Montgomery, Alabama. On a sunny Sunday morning we toured the capitol grounds. Across the street is President Jefferson Davis' house, actually the First White House of the Confederacy when Montgomery was the original capital of the Confederacy in 1861.
The Davis family only lived in the house for a few months; the Confederacy moved the capital to Richmond, VA the same year. The large white Italianate mansion was built in 1832 by an ancestor of Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of famed novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. They moved the house to its present location in 1921.
We hung around Montgomery for a few hours and then headed for Biloxi, Mississippi, the seafood capital and challenging Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world.
SHRIMPING IN BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI
In the spirit of Forrest Gump, we hitched a ride on a shrimp boat in Biloxi, Mississippi and learned all about the shrimp industry. Biloxi was once called the seafood capital of the world. Hurricanes and other disasters like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill periodically decimate the seafood industry. Fortunately shrimps and oysters are not endangered--they breed in prodigious numbers. Shrimps and oysters produce millions of offspring in any breeding season-- for example a female oyster can produce 100 million eggs in one season. It can take them a year or more to reach marketable size.
Most of the harvest on our boat was brown shrimp which are caught at night in the summer months. White shrimp and pink shrimp are also caught. To me, they all taste the same, but they do have different characteristics. White shrimp are caught in the daylight during the fall and winter months. Pink shrimp are also caught at night in October through April.
The boat drags a net and hauls in the fish. If they are the wrong size, or the wrong fish, he throws them back in the water. For photo ops, we held up the shrimps by their long stringy tails.
JEFFERSON DAVIS--BEAUVOIR
On our trip we learned more about Jeff Davis than we ever cared to. His real home was a grand mansion called Beauvoir, facing the Gulf Coast on U.S. 90 in Biloxi. The house was built by a man named James Brown, probably not related to the King of Soul. Its location, close to the water, makes it a target of hurricanes, and it was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The main house has since been restored, but several buildings on the grounds were destroyed, and replicas are in the planning stage. Today the grounds house the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library, a Confederate cemetery, a gift shop and others.
We watched a video of Davis's life. A graduate of West Point, Davis was appointed Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. He was also a U.S. Senator from Mississippi. Among other things Davis owned and operated a cotton plantation along with 113 slaves.
Davis married well. His first wife, Sarah was the daughter of President Zachery Taylor. She died of malaria a few months into the marriage. Davis contracted malaria also, but survived. The disease plagued him periodically the rest of his life. His second wife, Varina Howell was the daughter of a Governor of New Jersey and a cousin of Vice President Aaron Burr.
Historians have looked unfavorably upon Jefferson Davis. The academics considered him a poor leader detrimental to the Confederate cause. According to Wikipedia, "his preoccupation with detail, reluctance to delegate responsibility, lack of popular appeal, feuds with powerful state governors and generals, favoritism toward old friends inability to get along with people who disagreed with him, neglect of civil matters in favor of military ones and resistance to public opinion all worked against him. " Have I missed anything?
Although Davis was not disgraced; as a war leader, I think we can all agree that he was much less effective than Abraham Lincoln. In Southern consciousness, General Robert E. Lee is much more revered than Davis.
Don't confuse Jefferson Davis (Jefferson F. Davis, that is) with Jefferson C. Davis, a Union general who endured much razzing because of his name, but maybe they promoted him to confuse the Southerners. There is no evidence they received each other's mail, but both fought honorably in the Mexican War. The Union's Jeff Davis was promoted to Brigadier General after a significant victory in Arkansas and later served as a corps commander during Sherman's March to the Sea in 1864. The Northern Jeff Davis achieved some notoriety when he shot and killed his superior officer, General William Nelson, who allegedly insulted him in front of witnesses. Davis beat the rap because of the shortage of experienced commanders in the Union Army.
OFFSHORE OIL RIG, MORGAN CITY, LOUISIANA
In Louisiana, we drove about 70 miles west of New Orleans to the oil patch in Morgan City. The attraction there is the International Petroleum Museum which has a real working offshore oil rig. Well sort of offshore. You can get there by car. The oil rig is called Mr. Charlie, named after a banker and oil man named Charles H. Murphy who financed the $2.5 million to construct it, back in 1952. Murphy's company, Murphy Oil, based in El Dorado, Arkansas made a deal with Shell Oil to drill offshore wells.
At that time, offshore drilling was a new industry. Oil companies obviously wanted access to the oil field, but their methods were vastly inefficient. Shell wanted to drill near the mouth of the Mississippi River, but conventional methods were not cost effective.
A young Naval engineer named A.J. "Doc" LaBorde, working for an oil company named Kerr McGee came up with a solution by transporting the entire drilling operation on a barge that could be floated to any location. They would then sink the barge to the bottom to create a stable platform and start drilling. When they were done, they would raise the barge and move it to the next location. The thinking at that time was "what could possibly go wrong?"
The establishment thought LaBorde was nuts, but Charlie Murphy hung in there, and incredibly, the idea worked! The oilfield turned out to be a monster, and Murphy drilled hundreds of wells for Shell and other major oil companies.
The rig is located in the inlet, the delta of the Atchafalaya River, next to the shore. This is a 1950's vintage rig which is showing signs of rust and wear. The guided tours are at 10 AM and 2 PM. Unfortunately for us,. we arrived at about Noon, and there is not much else to do in Morgan City. The city doesn't make the place easy to find. Even using the GPS in our car, we drove around the block several times before we figured out where it was. We couldn't do the tour, but we could walk around and take pictures. The museum, which is interesting, tells the history of offshore and deep water drilling.
We stopped for a late lunch at a small diner on the road which served the best crawfish stew we've ever had. Then, on to the Laura Plantation.
LAURA PLANTATION
An hour west of New Orleans, in Vacherie, Louisiana are several restored plantations by the Mississippi River left intact after the Civil War. The Laura Plantation, which used to be called the DuParc Plantation is named after a Creole woman who was born there during the Civil War and lived into the Kennedy Administration at age 101.
Creoles are defined as native born people, especially of French or Spanish descent, mixed with Negro and/or Native American blood. Creoles have a culture all their own, with a strong French influence. Much is attributed to a somewhat hostile state government during the Jim Crow days, which mandated that English be spoken, essentially making the Creoles "outsiders" The state decreed that French was a foreign language, at least in the segregated public school system. It became an "us" versus "them" mentality for the Creoles. The culture centers on food, music, folklore, family traditions, architecture, the Catholic faith and genealogy.
Laura's life story is riveting, and the plantation has become a popular tourist attraction. The stories are told through the eyes of the gentry and also through the slaves who lived and worked there.
The namesake "Laura" was Laura Lacool (1861-1963) who spent most of her life on the plantation. In 1936 she wrote her memoirs, called Memories of the Old Plantation Home from where the stories are derived. That manuscript was lost to the ages but rediscovered in 1993 and is now the basis of the whole tourist experience. Historians now have first hand glimpses of plantation life in Creole Louisiana.
JAMES K. POLK, COLUMBIA, TENNESSEE
We took a detour south of Nashville to visit another presidential library, that of our esteemed 11th president, James Knox Polk. Polk, the eldest of 10 children, came from North Carolina with the Polk Brothers, and sisters. It was a sizzling day--104F, and we were happy to visit an air conditioned house.
Polk was elected in 1844 and served one term. In those days it was common not to seek re-election. In Polk's case, he said that he fulfilled all his campaign promises and also started a war with Mexico--does that sound familiar? Polk was the Manifest Destiny president, During his administration, the U.S. acquired more land than in any other. Almost the entire Southwest was added to the United States, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Polk died in 1849, and his wife Sarah survived him for 42 years until she died in 1891.
Polk, a protégé of Andrew Jackson, served 7 congressional terms, the last two as Speaker of the House. Polk was nominated as a little known dark horse candidate running against the well known House Speaker Henry Clay of the Whig Party who ultimately ran for president and lost 3 times. Clay made fun of Polk (Who is James K. Polk?), because of his low profile--he was not well known outside of politics. Clay, as before, managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Polk's platform favored expansion of the U.S., starting with the annexation of Texas. This proved to be popular with the voters and was the deciding factor. You may be familiar with Polk's vice president, George Dallas. You've heard of the Dallas Cowboys--they were named after him, at least the Dallas part.
Historians consider Polk the most effective president of the pre-Civil War era--Arthur Schlesinger ranked Polk 8th best president, although most other historians ranked him around 12th. Among other things, Polk reduced tariffs and negotiated a settlement with England regarding the Pacific Northwest--Oregon and Washington territories. On the other hand like most pre-Civil War presidents, in fact 12 of the first 14 presidents, Polk owned slaves and even purchased some during his administration. You won't see many statues of him outside Tennessee except for one in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Polk was the only president to graduate from the University of North Carolina, at least until Michael Jordan goes into politics.
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