Clearly, the right wing nutballs are missing the point on President Obama's birth certificate. They should be aiming at President Andy Jackson, the founder of the modern Democratic Party, instead. Legend has it that Old Hickory himself was not born in the good old US of A. Here's the scoop, or at least how I remember the story. The hero of the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 had actually, he claimed, fought the Brits when he was a little nipper back in the Revolution. Not just shooting a peashooter, but actually fighting at age 13. OK so the youngest kid from Easton to serve in the Rev War was 12, but his papa was the nefarious thief "Old Bunn" Benoni who probably was working a con to collect a bounty. Clearly, 13 is a little young, but what if AJ was 15? Wake up, birthers, here's the nub of the argument-the future president's parents were Scotch-Irish (Ireland is just a little north of Kenya) who allegedly emigrated to the future US just two years before he was born. They apparently brought two boys with them, but what if there was a babe in arms, and when did they actually arrive?????? In the approved version of AJ's story, Jackson's dad died in an accident in February, 1767, three weeks before Andy was apparently born. Jackson apologists note the exact birth site is unclear because his mom was "making a difficult trip home from burying his father." In 1824 Jackson claimed he was born in an uncle's home in South Carolina, but other evidence points to North Carolina. Aha! Or maybe Ireland??? We'll never know for sure because AJ's two older brothers and mother died during the Revolution conveniently taking any knowledge of the true story to their graves. Inconveniently, this left Andy an orphan at 14 or was he 16?????
Stay tuned. Tomorrow-Jefferson's red hair-early signs of communist leanings??????
Hope you all caught the wonderfully unfair use of allegedly or apparently and the pregnant question marks in the above. I particularly liked "the approved version of AJ's story" (AKA "historical fact"). I'm including the above paragraph in my resume to Fox News. Jackson is not my favorite President, by any means; but I dislike him for his ridiculous policy decisions not the remote possibility he wasn't born here. Today, perhaps we could all do the same. We probably wouldn't solve the country's problems, but we'd sound a lot less stupid.
What might have been on the breakfast table in Easton as our boys were on the way to the Washington today 150 years ago? Lots of foods we'd recognize from scrambled and poached eggs to pancakes. Here's a little bit unusual pancake recipe from just after the war.
1 qt. sour or buttermilk
2 eggs, beaten light
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda dissolved in hot water
2 tbs. molasses
1 tbs. lard, melted
1/2 c. flour
Corn meal
Add [to other ingredients] meal to make a batter a trifle thicker than flannel cakes.
From Common Sense in the Household by Mrs. Marion Harland, 1871 (New York)
A modern addendum says you add enough cornmeal to make the batter thin enough to ladle into a frying pan and thick enough to form the circles we all recognize as pancakes. I haven't tried this one yet, but it looks worth making.
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