A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....01-27-05...On the discovery of the Freeper Archives

LadyX, jwfiv, Billie | written by jwfiv and LadyX

[Billie]

(4-28-03)

Signed - sealed - and delivered, Miss Billie.
To you with love - - - Johnny and Maggie

On The Discovery of the Freeper Archives by LadyX and jwfiv

I t began as a rather ordinary day, our small cubicle just as any other one, kinda cramped and poorly lit, with just enough space for our desks and chairs and computers and supplies, and the requisite bottomless coffee pot.

Johnny Mac and I, Maggie Malone, we are - sometime reporters for The Finest Gazette - and we'd been waiting for a new assignment from The Editor, Billie - just 'Billie,' the name.

Johnny arrived first, and as I approached, a "What tha?!!" exclamation arose. A puzzled look on his face, he held something strange in his hand - a playing card - - - this one, folks:

I'll tell Intel was the source listed on the envelope in which it was delivered; the accompanying note saying only "Subject last seen reported as fleeing across Syrian border, wearing a blue burqa and riding on camelback."

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On our computer screens was a message from Billie: "Get on it, guys - Aeronaut will pilot you wherever this one takes you - -"

"Wow! The jumbo jet!" Johnny exclaimed! Bit premature, we realized, boarding the Cessna, and tightening the belts on our usual severely limited expense account. Shoulda known......

And there Dear Readers, began the grand adventure that took us to three other continents, our most amazing assignment yet!

With the able assistance of fellow Freepers dansangel, MeeknMing, SpookBrat, The Thin Man, and the most helpful one, in Capital City - D.C. - FreeTheSausages - we followed an exciting trail. Further clues led to the next message in Cairo - - one was under the Rock of Gibraltar, of all things - - another dangled and was snatched from Pierre's hands atop the Eiffel Tower in Paris...... ( sorry, Pierre..) another challenge was locating the one in Scotland Yard, finding it in the trunk of an ancient oak there.

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However, we finally discovered algore had first headed back to his old homestead in Tennessee, rather than the new Tara digs where he and Tipper Canoe currently reside. Intrigued, we found only a handful of caretakers at the old property, the rental house empty and still a mess, for it seems the Secret Service detail had refused to rent it from the Gore family.

Searching the grounds of the farm, we came across a waterfall, and further exploration beneath it, led to a locked Secret Room!!

Summoning our ally, and Freeper friend, Dubya, with his Marine Corps expertise, the door yielded readily enough to our 'Open Sesame!" command. And therein was found the most extraordinary thing imaginable - a library in a sad state, volumes strewn randomly under debris, cobwebs and dust covering everything.

Just as we picked up a few torn-out pages, voices were heard from beyond, apparently in another room in a tunnel. Alarmed, we beat a hasty retreat with what we had in hand.

Not stopping until we reached the warmth and safety of the elegant lobby of the Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis, we finally had a gander at our 'treasure.' Astonished, we thus learned algore in utter frustration and fury had stolen some of the ancient archives of his archenemy - - The Free Republic website!

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The purloined book we held in our hands was old and yellowed with time and neglect, but we were delighted to discover that its pages revealed long-forgotten research on the biographies of early Americans who just might be the ancestors of some of the Freepers we see here at the Finest most every day. We had found the long lost first volume of the Freeper Chronicles!

Here we share some of the biographies with you:

Seth Robinson, 1848-?.
19th Century political activist and pioneer.

About this early American publisher, trailblazer, and wagon master, very little fact is recorded, though rumor and story abound. Fortunately, several photographs of him have survived the decades, of which I have located copies of four.

One fable of his early years concerns the beginnings of his passion for politics and the news, which was born in the fall of 1860, when his father brought him to see a debate between Abe Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, held in a shady square in front of City Hall, in the town of Springfield, Illinois.

Young Seth was so inspired by Mr. Lincoln's stern and wise demeanor that he resolved then and there to always revere the good, the beautiful and the true.

He would sometimes speak of his youthful resolution being validated later in that fateful debate, when Douglas referred to a lockbox in which he would keep a state's right to secede the Union safe from those who might hold the Union itself sacred. The boy couldn't help but laugh out loud at this "darn fool notion," drawing the attention, and scowl, of the confusticated Mr. Douglas which, Seth would proudly say, he rather enjoyed.

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The first part of his adult life he passed in quiet anonymity, tending 120 acres of corn and tobacco in western Ohio, raising a family and publishing, at his own expense, a weekly gazette which he called The Free Republic. It was a slim 8 pages containing both opinion and news of the day, which he acquired from conversation with workers and passengers, as well as newspapers, cablegrams and rumor gathered from the sidewalks and gutters of the local train station and riverside docks.

Seth Robinson, far right, at the first recorded 'Freep', held at the
just opened toll-bridge outside the town of Hope, Arkansas,
circa 1873. A notation on the back of the photo identifies the
gentleman standing at the chuck wagon as a Mr. Carlo1A.

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In 1877, Seth is recorded as the buyer of seven Conestoga wagons, and seven teams of horses, along with tack and supplies, in the frontier outpost then known as Sawtooth Gap, on the west side of the Platte River. Local stories say that he then led a wagon train of friends and extended family (who called themselves Freepers) west across the Great Divide and into the mists of legend.

Their vision and intention was to follow the sunset and found a new community of freedom loving Americans, informed and prosperous. Whether they ever reached their destination and established their town of Freeperville, history has yet to tell.

Mrs. Josiah Heapgood, painted from memory
by her granddaughter, Mrs. Constance Emery Shepherd,
wife of the the famed Lt. Col. Caldicott Shepherd,
who served bravely under Gen. Washington at Yorktown.
Mrs. Josiah Heapgood, 1598 -?.

When the Pilgrims sailed on the Mayflower - 102 aboard - to the New World, our WVNan's forebear happened to be the wife of The Reverend Josiah Heapgood.

While no written record exists, legend has it this rather spirited good woman sometimes dressed as a lad and clambered up onto the ship's rigging, hoping to spot land.

On that momentous December day in 1620, it was attributed to someone named NAthaN Tucker as the one who yelled, "LAND HO!!" upon sighting what became known as Plymouth Rock. Fact is, it was she!

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She quickly organized the womenfolk to do chores, help with the crops and led a Bible study group. When the Indians became friends, she was behind the idea to invite them to share the harvest in 1621, even directing an elaborate play she wrote for it, every person participating.

We would have loved to have seen Chief Massaquoit and his ninety men following her patient direction, everyone singing Kumbaya! Records indicate the feast went on for three days, the Indians providing five deer and plentiful fowl to supplement the turkeys and pumpkins.

Nan the First, naturally, was thrilled to be in charge of all that cooking...:))

Our own Nan still clings to her Rock - - -

Louis deWolff, Cairo, Illinois, circa 1857.
Louis deWolff, 1831-1923.
19th Century gambler, entrepreneur and adventurer.

Rumored to be the son of the notorious voodoo queen, Marie Leveaux, and a mysterious French-Italian-Spanish nobleman in exile who lived in a mansion hidden deep in the bayou, and was feared by the local Cajuns to be a loup garou, deWolff was raised by his maternal aunt, Tante Bert and her husband, Jack O'Reagan, who favored the young lad, and took him on as apprentice in his New Orleans hat shop.

Lured by the promise of easy money and adventure, on his 17th birthday, young Louis asked permission to leave his uncle's employ at the haberdashery, and, with the blessing of his adopted family, signed on as a stevedore and deck hand aboard the riverboats that plied the mighty Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.

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After two years working as a laborer, his natural flair with a deck of cards, and the ladies, enabled him to step into the role of professional gambler.

His skill at the gaming table, and reputation for honest play and straight dealing, soon won him no little fame up and down the length of those great rivers. Wise with his winnings, and investing in properties with the same shrewd eye that made him an ace at the table, in a few years' time he owned a small fleet of the finest riverboats then afloat, along with several saloons, general stores and liveries in towns small and large along the winding waterways of a young America. Anonymously, it is said, he also established and funded several orphanages.

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deWolff's luck took a bad turn just before the Civil War, when, as the story has been told, he refused the attentions of a wealthy widow from a venerable Boston family. After being threatened with his life, and the ruin of his reputation, he quietly made arrangements with his lawyers and deeded his entire fortune and legacy to an orphanage in St. Louis, and then simply vanished from the streets and rivers so familiar to him.

It is rumored he fought for the North, as a scout and rifleman, and that after the War, he travelled westward where he trapped in the Rockies and, later, lived with the Indians of the Plains regions.

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In 1874, he is known to have taken part in a week long poker match in Kansas City. There is no more record of him until a notice in the Tombstone Epitaph makes mention of his arrival in town as the guest of the Earp family, just after the death of Morgan Earp. It is a little known tale of the West that deWolff rode with Wyatt as the famed peace officer sought vengeance amongst the outlaw cowboy gangs, but such has never been authentically documented.

Louis deWolff at the faro table in Brown's Hotel,
Tombstone, Arizona, 1882.

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Louis deWolff then again disappears from the pages of history, the only clue to his fate being a small ad which appeared in the pages of a St. Louis newspaper, in October of 1887, announcing the marriage of a clergyman's daughter, who had worked as a teacher at an orphanage for thirty years, to a Mr. Lobo, known only as a prosperous rancher and landholder from the West. Local myth says that he and the lady, Miss Rebecca Davenport, had been acquainted in younger days.

After some months spent in the St. Louis area, the handsome stranger then took his bride, along with four children from the orphanage, away West; they passed their remaining years in quiet retirement amidst the vineyards and rolling hills of northern California.

The only known portrait of the mysterious Mr. Huang Deaux,
in a silhouetted cameo, from about the age of 12 years.
Jean Huang Deaux, 1783-?.

The JohnHuang2 lineage makes, possibly, its first appearance in France, where there is found, in the court records of a small town called Vézelay, in the Burgundy countryside southeast of Paris, a record of the birth of a male child born to a Mlle. Bernadette Huang, she being the daughter of the mistress of an un-named Ambassador to the court of the King of Siam.

At the age of 19, Mlle. Bernadette began working as a hostess at the L'aigle Or Confections & Expresso Salon, an establishment in the neighborhood of the American Embassy in Paris that was said to be a favorite of the political and intellectual classes as a purveyor of the finest chocolates in France.

Benjamin Franklin, while serving as America's Commissioner to France during the War for Independence, is known to have spoken fondly of the candies and pastries for which Paris is famous, and is said to have been a frequent customer at the little salon, stopping by weekly to purchase strawberry truffles and chocolate torts for his diplomatic staff and guests.

Mlle. Bernadette, being yet an unmarried maiden, turned her infant son over to the nuns of the Abbey at the Basilique Saint Madeleine, who raised him until the age of five, when the young mother married Mr. Roland Deaux, a minor official in the city of Lyon, who adopted young Jean as his son and heir.

Jean attended school in Lyon until enrolling in the University in Zurich, but he left after less than a year, saying only that he was going to America to 'get a genuine education', and that he wished to see the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. After saying his goodbyes to family and friends, he departed from a port on the Normandy coast, and here our story must end, for the trail goes cold when that ship set sail west across the wide Atlantic.

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Perhaps here it is appropriate to note the similarities between the known writings of Ben Franklin, and our own JohnHuang2. An example follows:

Over two hundred years ago, Franklin wrote "A penny saved is a penny earned." More near our own day, JH2 has written, "Sure, a penny saved is a penny earned, but you can have my two cents for nothing - -"

A coincidence worth considering? This reporter thinks so.

THIS WEEK'S THREADS 01-24-05 Military Monday 01-25-05 Maggie 01-26-05 Inauguration & W2 Ball Pictorial Review

Opinions by our own 'King of Ping' The guy's good, folks!

Thanks, Mixer!

1) Click on the graphic to open the Calendar.
2) Once there you can click on any month and even click to the right to go into next year. Once you are in the month that you joined FR you will need to click on the number in the calendar and then an add item screen will come up.
3) In the next box enter your name in the "Calendar Text" field and then click on submit.
4) If any of the screens fail to load simply click on refresh in your browser and that will usually fix it.
5) If all else fails or simply if you want me to do this for you send me a FReepmail and I will gladly do it for you. Mixer

Click on the photo to view the album. To
submit your photo, please contact dansangel or .45Man
at
danbh59@yahoo.com
and include Freeper Photo Album in subject line.

12-29-04 ~ Finest Hall of Fame #10

[The Mayor]

Weather here is not human friendly.
Currently 7 degrees, I am not looking forward to going out.
I'd rather stay in Fla.......

Be careful on your journey, are you driving or flying?

[dutchess]

Hi lysie. Thanks for stopping it!

[dutchess]

Hi texagirl. Love you tagline!!! (appreciate it too)

[dutchess]

Hi colleen. Loved the pictures of you and your wonderful family at the freeper ball. Looks like the kids had a blast! (((((COLLEEN))))))

[dutchess]

Hi freezie... It is so need to see your calendar back. Have been missing you around these parts! How was the tea with our finest west coasters?

[dutchess]

A drive by hello to two of our finests handsome gents. Cyber treats to Ink and Jack!

[Texagirl4W]

I was just this morning looking for another one. Every time I think of changing, someone let me know they like it. It's going to stay like this for a while longer.

[MEG33]

Thank you, dutchess, Hugs!

[Temple Owl]

Thank you dear dutchess. It is always good to hear from you.

[dutchess]

Lori and Amy. So sorry I missed yesterday's thread. We ended up staying with dad's friends for an extra day and had no access to a computer. (as my body quivers with withdrawal). Looks like you had a blast, the thread was delightful...and amy...Marissa is absolutely adorable! ((((lori))))) (((((amy)))))

[Lakeside]

"...the past 18 years." And if I had my wishes I'd still be there, too, tho I don't live far from TN now that I live in northern AL. I miss going to the Redbirds games in AutoZone Park. Fun times.

(I was just funnin' about TN not being Algore's home. I still remember how steamed everyone was when Al hauled out the ol' "Tennessee's muh home" when it suited him yet did next to nothing for his ol' home state the rest of the time.)

[Texagirl4W]

I received this in an email this morning and thought it worth sharing.

God is at the window

There was a little boy visiting his grandparents on their farm. He was given a slingshot to play with out in the woods. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit the target. Getting a little discouraged, he headed back for dinner.

As he was walking back he saw Grandma's pet duck. Just out of impulse, he let the slingshot fly, hit the duck square in the head, and killed it. He was shocked and grieved. In a panic, he hid the dead duck in the wood pile, only to see his sister watching. Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing.

After lunch the next day Grandma said, "Sally, let's wash the dishes." But Sally said, Grandma, Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen. Then she whispered to him, "Remember the duck?" So Johnny did the dishes.

Later that day, Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing and Grandma said, "I'm sorry but I need Sally to help make supper." Sally just smiled and said, "Well, that's all right because Johnny told me he wanted to help. She whispered again, "Remember the duck?"

So Sally went fishing and Johnny stayed to help. After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally's he finally couldn't stand it any longer.

He came to Grandma and confessed the he had killed the duck.

Grandma knelt down, gave him a hug, and said, "Sweetheart, I know. You see, I was standing at the window and I saw the whole thing. But because I love you, I forgave you. I was just wondering how long you would let Sally make a slave of you."

Thought for the day and everyday thereafter:
Whatever is in your past, whatever you have done -- and the devil keeps throwing it up in your face (lying, debt, fear, hatred, anger, unforgivingness, bitterness, etc.) whatever it is, you need to know that God was standing at the window and He saw the whole thing. He has seen your whole life. He wants you to know that He loves you and that you are forgiven. He's just wondering how long you will let
the devil make a slave of you.

The great thing about God is that when you ask for forgiveness, He not only forgives you, but He forgets - It is by God's Grace and Mercy that we are saved.

God is at the window

[Lakeside]

Thanks! I was pretty sure no one would notice...

[Aquamarine]

I interrupt this thread to bring you JohnHuang2's latest essay!

*Sorry bout the mix up but Dutchess just found this hidden away deep in a dungeon in the blue zone somewhere in Florida* (lol)
Thanks Dutchess. :)

It'll still be Bush's fault

The paralyzing cold only got harsher and harsher. Hands and feet were not just numb, they were ice. We're not talking frostnip -- we're talking frostbite, severe enough to freeze right to the bone. The cold sensation was so intense, they say it's impossible to describe. They were shaking and shivering. They were quivering and trembling! I'm talking about Democrat reaction to Bush's inaugural speech, not the Blizzard.

Bush's critics complain that Bush's speech left a chill on Bush's critics. A week after Bush's inaugural address, Democrats are still frozen in fear and Bush is still basking in the glow of criticism. In the latest Gallup, 62 percent rated Bush's speech positively, which proves the Little People are out of touch with pundits. Critics say the speech signals a radical departure and a whole new dangerous direction in U.S. policy abroad. This radical departure and dangerous new direction consists of portraying America as good, tyranny as bad and spreading democracy and freedom as good things. (Weakened with fear, I fainted when I heard this.) Bush, in another radical departure, noted that free nations are less likely to go to war with each other. Therefore, the fewer tyrannies there are in the world, the safer America and the world will be. Democrats say that's mind-boggling, that they're baffled as to what he's talking about. Sen. Barbara Boxer, appearing on CNN's Late Edition, called it an "odd speech" and that she's "baffled as to what he's talking about." Especially the part where Bush, in another fit of tyranny-bashing, said America is on the side of freedom. When Bush tells democracy movements, 'we're rooting for ya,' he's baffling foreign policy luminaries like Barbara Boxer, who's baffled by Bush's use of obscure and mysterious words like "freedom" and "liberty". (Must be some Texas cowboy thing.)

As a result, Democrats, even with a translator repeating every word in French, say they have no idea what Bush's signaling by that speech and that clearly Bush's signaling an aggressive new policy of invading every country that isn't a democracy. Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's new president, was sworn in on Sunday and he thanked America for her help in "enrooting democracy in Ukraine" -- another country Bush must've invaded as part of his 'aggressive new policy' of siding with freedom. "I believe in the transformational power of liberty," declared Bush shockingly in his inaugural address, signaling a shift from the "realism" of Brent Scowcroft, the genius who told Bush the elder Saddam would never invade Kuwait. "The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom," said Bush, who must think he's leader of the Free World, or somethin'. Democrats think the wisest use of American strength is to advance Summit meetings. Bush added that "Young women across the Middle East will hear the message that their day of equality and justice is coming. Young men will hear the message that national progress and dignity are found in liberty, not tyranny and terror. Reformers and political prisoners and exiles will hear the message that their dream of freedom cannot be denied forever. And as freedom advances, heart by heart, and nation by nation [CLEARLY THIS SIGNALS MORE U.S. INVASIONS!], America will be more secure and the world more peaceful."

Oh wait -- that's Bush's GOP convention speech last year. In his inaugural address, Bush used the same theme and the same language he's been using since about 10 seconds after 9/11, so clearly Bush's signaling a 'radical departure' here. Showing they can make a coherent argument, Democrats note the speech shows Bush's a 'hopeless idealist' for human rights and accuse Bush of being deeply in cahoots with the Saudis so he doesn't care about human rights, plus he's a Zionist deeply in cahoots with the Jews in Israel plotting war against the Saudis and Syria. Anyway, all of this 'security-through-freedom' talk by BushCo is just a ploy to justify the Iraq invasion, given no WMDs have been found. Bush's 'security-through-freedom' theme echoed the ideas of another president, Thomas Jefferson, so Democrats must think he too was trying to justify an Iraq invasion.

Almost immediately after Bush's inaugural speech, an Islamist website posted a chilling audio tape in which the speaker vowed holy war against the U.S. in Iraq, saying, 'We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it," adding that "those who vote" in the coming Iraq elections "are infidels" and that democracy is just a tool of U.S. imperialism. The voice on the tape was that of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the feared al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, which has nothing to do with al-Qaeda. Zarqawi was giving the Democrat response to Bush's inaugural speech. (The tape was also aired by CNN's sister station, Al Jazeera.)

As Iraqi elections approach, Generals were warning of 'spectacular' attacks in a bid to stop the vote, and boy, were they right. The attacks were truly spectacular, truly barbaric -- the attacks on Condi Rice in the Senate Tuesday. Did you see them? Democrats were busy acquitting Saddam Hussein of weapons charges, with Robert Byrd, symbol of Southern white Democrat resistance to Condi Rice, who masterminded the plot to frame an innocent dictator, leading the charge. (Having a former Klansman and fascist beat up a black woman in defense of a former fascist dictator -- talk about smart politics!) Democrats denounced Rice as incompetent, unqualified, unfit and unsuited for the job, so she's firmly on track for confirmation. Sen. Mark Dayton called her a liar (it marked the first time Rice was officially accused of being a Democrat.) He said, "I don't like impugning anyone's integrity," so I'll do it quickly.

Showing the marvel of public schools, Democrats, when pressed, insist SHE LIED, then say they don't know if she SHE LIED intentionally.

Robert Byrd, eager to dispel the notion he's just an empty sheet, denounced Rice for using "overblown rhetoric" and intimidating tactics just to "scare" people; Ted Kennedy denounced Rice for trying to concoct a false alibi to escape severe consequences; and Barbara Boxer denounced Rice as too fringe. In fairness, Byrd denies being a racist, noting he's come out against the Dred Scott decision and slavery.

During two grueling days of Senate hearings, Dr. Rice answered more than 199 speeches and 200 pontifications and in just a few days the Iraqi people will answer the Democrats and the media, which "reports" only losses on our side, with a huge turnout in the elections. And it'll all be Bush's fault. ;-)

Anyway, that's...
My Two Cents...
"JohnHuang2"

[MEG33]

Texa..That is so true..Thank you for sharing!

[Billie]

That was beautiful beyond words.

[Pippin]

Thanks for posting this Aqua!

Great one JH2!

[The Mayor]

That is excellent!

Thank you

[Aquamarine]

Dansy and I were looking everywhere for John's essay yesterday and it was in Dutchess' mailbox all along. lol

[MEG33]

Just wonderful! Thank you!