Memories

Thank you Senator Biden. You are an ass, but you reminded me of some of my history.

Your dementia memory “You’re a lying dog faced pony soldier” was recorded at a rally. It  is the opening sequence in an old fashioned swearing contest. It was probably a ‘buffalo soldier’ that was modified. A ‘buffalo soldier’ was a black.

Up until WWII it was common in America to have swearing contests.  I learned from a black classmate of mine at the University of Chicago in 1958, from a guy whose father owned a taxi company, the first line of a swear that he knew ‘You ain’t nothin but a lyin’ dilly dapper. Yo heart pumps sheet and you breathe through yo assoe’.

My grandfather, Henry J. Phillips, a San Francisco dentist, used to go across the street from his office to Union Square where there was a regular swearing contest with hundreds of listeners.  Henry was considered a master who could swear for half-an-hour without repeating himself. This is not mentioned in his obituary.

Memory was still prized in his generation.  His brother A.L. Phillips (Abraham Lincoln) had several long soliloquies that he would stand up and recite to young people, including me, from Shakespeare.

A.L. was a Christian Scientist.  He explained that he joined the church because it was "scientific".  That probably made sense in the 1880s when he was becoming an adult.

Henry's other brother Mel Phillips did something that made no sense at the time.  He would leave a $5 or $10 bill under the dinner plate when he visited. My mother pointed it out but never explained it.  She was from a wealthy New York family where it probably never occurred.  

Mel was a life-long San Francisco bachelor.  My guess is that it was common for such bachelors to leave the money because bachelors could not reciprocate by having guests to their home for dinner.