Roberto,

I thought that it was YOU that talked our way out of the detention center that Sunday with Sheriff Gauze!

Goo

Goo,

Naw, dude, you came up wid the porno story out of the blue.
Sheriff Gause let me get out of the car and you got out & right when Gause asked me what we were doing down in that gully behind the elementary school (where Max Atwood had stashed the New Orleans beer cache), I hesitated & you came out with, "A guy let us have his stash of Playboys."
then I caught on, "Yeah, Sheriff Gause, we'd been out to Blue Spings with our friends here who are visiting from California and we were trying to impress them so we got Max Atwood to give us his girly magazines."
I opened the trunk and showed him the porno and he chewed us out about interrupting his lunch but he let us go and rest is history

I call it MCGOUGH'Z PORNO DEFENSE.

best,
Roberto

Hey y'all:
Fall is definitely in the air here in old T-town.
The beautiful crepe myrtle blossoms have about played out,
Crimson Tide football commences this evening and thousands of people are partying their asses off everywhere.

I kicked off my 39th Annual Tuscaloosa Autumn last night at Little Willie's http://www.myspace.com/littlewillies
by rockin' with Erin Mitchell and her band.
Please do yourself a favor and click on all the sites below and you will witness some TALENT. Erin's band is the core of Taylor Hicks' LITTLE MEMPHIS BLUES ORCHESTRA.
Their bass player, Mitch Jones, is from Enterprise & he calls himself ZERO, ZIROH & ZROW!
http://golfcount.wordpress.com/tag/beetle-bailey/
(Zero, Patron Saint of ZERO, NORTHWEST FLORIDA)
Don't that beat all!
Erin & all those cats in her band were so sweet to me last night.
Zippy from Huntsville slaps them skins like ya 'sposed to!
Sam is GUITARRRRRZAN!
Jeff is the MIRACLE MAN playing tenor sax, alto sax, soprano sax, baritone sax, flute & electronic sax all AT THE SAME FREAKIN' TIME!!!!




image of the Erin Mitchell Band courtesy of http://www.myspace.com/erinmitchellmusic
Left to right: Sam Gunderson http://www.myspace.com/samgunderson
Erin http://video.aol.com/video-detail/crossroads-erin-mitchell-band/3326386679
Zippy http://www.myspace.com/littlememphisbluesorchestra
Jeff http://www.myspace.com/jefflopezalien8
Mitch http://www.myspace.com/mitchjonbass

image courtesy of Enterprise, Alabama's Mitch Jones, Taylor Hicks' bass player
click here to listen to the Little Memphis Blues Orchestra http://www.myspace.com/mitchjonbass


Back in '98, I put together a little flyer for the 30th reunion of our DHS Class of '68.
The format was based upon THE GRAPEVINE which was the gossip page in our school newspaper, The Dothan High SOOTZUS.

I'm publishing it now to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the commencement of our senior year.

GEE DOWN!!!!
THE DHS GRAPEVINE 1968-2008
40TH REUNION
RHGN! SRS '68!

W. Brad Stephens really has some nerve pulling the Homecoming Queen out of study hall. SOMETHING LIKE THAT COULD RUIN SOMEONE'S REPUTATION.
Remember Dothan Tigers,
we may be the Peanut Capitol of the World,
but we're also the Home of Akwell Industries!
No excuses for not "wrappin' things up!"

IS THERE ANY TRUTH to the conspiracy theory that R.E.'s dad was the mastermind behind the Ranchero Egg Wars? That weekly combat certainly helped the poultry business.

WARNING! BEWARE OF POISON GAS ATTACKS
when sharing a vehicle with F.J.

ONE THING YOU CAN SAY about Seniors '68-
at least no one in our class was named Norman Cumb.

WHATEVER happened to Calhoun?

E.Y.C. WILL FOREVER SEE the need of providing constant adult supervision on weekend trips to P.C.
Idden dat rite, Hollybo?

PRUDENCE FORBIDES THE GRAPEVINE from entering into the rumors about M.Y.F. at First Methodist. We absolutely refuse to enter any further into that sordid business!


REALLY, FELLAS, GUS was an innocent victim of a cruel practical joke perpetrated on an obviously intoxicated individual.
But what about Jack?
Dear reader, do not become addicted to this wicked, fascinating, unnatural and most destructive of crimes. If thou hast entered into this trap, flee from the destruction both of body and soul that awaits thee!
HARPER SHANNON alone can save you from the final perdition of your soul!

SPEAKING OF THE BAPTISTS: Reverend Embry sho' do believe in the healing power of the layin' on of hands. Do dat boy believe in savin' souls or just in makin' 'em?!!!!

M.M., YOU REALLY SHOWED Lungz and the crowd that you really knew how to "lie like a dog" when you explained everything to Sheriff Barkley Gause after Curt & Russel got caught fighting over the JAX & The DIXIE.

WHO RANG THAT DOORBELL?
The Grapevine heard it was S.J.

ALIENS WEREN'T the only things that landed in Roswell, New Mexico!
Right, Bruce?!!!!

COULD YOU GET a 2-S deferment from Frenchie's College of Cosmetology?

WHO WAS THE TRUE LEADER of that dirty, vile, gross and degenerate lunch table? Between shooting birds & hunting squirrels, all they seemed to talk about was what they did while on PBR.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO TRUTH in those nasty rumors about those evening study sessions on West Main Street. They were for English tutoring only!

PLACES IN THE HEART: The Skyview, the Goober, Little P.C. above Newton,Porter's Fairyland, Kelly Springs, Blue Spring, Lake Seminole, the PX at Rort Fucker, the Green Front Store next to Barrentine's, Curb Service at the bootlegger's store in Baptist Bottom, Chandler's, Pete's Place, Dobb's, Oscar's Drive-In, Burger Chef, the Shamrock, Granger & Snell's, Buie's ,Creel's,Buddy's, Northcutt's, Jay's, Nip & Ernie's, Gabe's Fish Camp, the Dale Drive-In in Level Plains , the Coffee Drive-In in New Brockton, the Old Dutch, the Red Rooster, the Jetties, Phillip's Inlet, the Elk's Club Pool, Patricia Lanes,Compass Lake, The Busy Bee, the Barney Gray, the Spray,the Dip,the Jackson's house,the Houston Theatre, the Martin Theatre, the Rec Center and The Hangout.

RAISE HELL AND GO NAKED
SENIORS '68

best,
rr http://myspace.com/robertoreg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Wives

The Allman Brothers at The Beacon Theatre


A superb self-promotion website:
http://www.creativelatitude.com/profiles/index.html

I noticed where Tuscaloosa is getting a new company called CREATIVE MARKETING & MANAGEMENT.

When you google "creative marketing and management",
your first hit is a business called Creative Marketing and Management in Hoboken, N.J.
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/product-compint-0000732680-page.html

From what I gather, the director of Creative Marketing and Management is Ilise Benun who has published a book called DESIGNING WEB SITES FOR EVERY AUDIENCE
http://www.stcsig.org/usability/newsletter/0401-benun-review.html

She has put some wonderful marketing & public relations material on the Web.
http://www.marketing-mentor.com/

People pay this woman MONEY to teach them how to be ASSERTIVE!!!!

image courtesy of http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/sixties/kesey.html

Question #7:

What do you remember about the moment this photo was taken?

Burt Williams Jr.
Burt Williams Jr. of Dothan died unexpectedly at University Hospital in Birmingham on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2007, following a long battle with liver disease. A memorial service will be Friday in the sanctuary of First United Methodist Church at 11 a.m. with Dr. James B. Sanders III, and the Rev. Lynn Smilie Nesbitt officiating. Family visitation will be from 10 to 11 a.m. in the church parlor. In lieu of flowers memorials may be made to First United Methodist Church, 1380 West Main Street, Dothan, AL 36301, and designated for "The Settlement" Group Home at Grimes or the Music Ministry of First United Methodist Church. Burt was born in Jackson, Miss., on March 6, 1950. He moved to Dothan in 1954, and has since been proud to call it home. He graduated from Auburn University with a B.S. degree in Business Administration in 1972, and later went back to Auburn on a teaching fellowship while studying for his MBA degree which he received in 1976. He was a founding owner of Wiregrass International, Inc., in Abbeville about 20 years ago. The company moved to Headland several years later and Burt remained an integral part of that business. An organist and pianist, Burt enthusiastically served as interim and substitute organist at First United Methodist Church over the years and was a faithful member of the choir for many years. He also served for some time as an FUMC junior high counselor. Burt loved theatre and was a vital part of Southeast Alabama Community Theatre, having served on the board of directors for many years as well as president for two terms and treasurer for one term. He was most well-known in the community theatre group for his stage management expertise as well as several "cameo" appearances he made from time to time. Burt, known for his generous heart, treasured his family and friends and was always willing and ready to help anyone in need - both financially and with his time and talents. He was a member of the Wiregrass Museum of Art, the Humane Society, the Cultural Arts Center, and SEACT, but his loving heart belonged most to the children of "The Settlement" Group Home in Grimes where he was a living embodiment of Santa Claus in his generosity and care. Burt is predeceased by his father, Burt Williams, who died in 1973, and by a faithful dog, Missy, who died in 1999. Survivors include his mother, Mildred Williams and his sister, Jane Williams of Dothan. He is also survived by an aunt, Virginia Williams of Pascagoula, Miss.; cousins, Tommy and Cecilia Thornhill of Atlanta, Jimmy and Wanda Williams of Ocean Springs, Miss., Carey and Ann Williams, Harry and Tommy Williams and Jon and June Williams of Columbia, Miss., Sylvia and Fred Newsome of New Hebron, Miss., and Sujane Williams of Austin, Texas. Byrd Funeral Home, (334) 793-3003, is in charge of arrangements. Sign the guest book at www.dothaneagle.com. Published in the Dothan Eagle on 8/30/2007.

Robertoreg & Robert Nix @ Miz Newbys, Sunday August 19, 2007

Hey y'all:

Alison Heafner's http://myspace.com/alisonheafner
music continues to draw more & more fans each day.

Miz Newby's bar manager & Alison


Alison's Hot Band underneath the Miz Newby's sign in PCB
left to right: Evan,Will, Robert, Alison, Jeff

Evan & Alison @ sound check in Miz Newby's



All you cats near Memphis can see her rockin' band perform tomorrow night, August 29, at T.J. Mulligan's in Cordova. The show starts at 8. The restaurant & club http://www.tjmulligans.com/trinity/home.php
are located at 8071 Trinity (901-756-4480).

Friday night in Memphis, Alison will perform beginning at 9
at Neil's Bar & Grill located at 1835 Madison Ave.(901-278-6345)

Sunday has Alison performing at 9 in Southaven at Huey's Blues, Brews & Burgers
http://www.hueys.cc/index.asp
at 7090 Malco Blvd. (662-349-7097)

Of course all uv OUR INNER SANCTUM WIREGRASS CREW
members have circled Friday- September 28,Saturday-September 29 & Sunday- September 30 on our 5767 calenders (Hebrew year for 2007). The crew will meet Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon to watch Alison SHAKE UP Miz Newby's for THUNDER BEACH!!!!

image courtesy of
http://www.thunderbeachproductions.com/

Alison's career has really taken off since she beat out 12 other bands and won April 14th's Overton Square Crawfish Festival's Battle of the Bands in Memphis...

image courtesy of http://www.rock103.com/main.html

Winning THE GREAT UNSIGNED competition secured Alison a performance at the Beale Street Music Festival

image courtesy of http://memphisinmay.org/bsmf.htm
during The Music In May International Festival http://memphisinmay.org/home.html
& it's been full tilt boogie ever since!

Rock 103 in Memphis has really been good to her.
Read what Luca & had to say about Alison on the air at Rock 103:

DJ: So come out & join us.

Luca: And Alison Heafner's gonna be playing...

DJ: Oh my God! We'll burn the bar down!

Luca: Listen to this!
She performed last week at the Boiling Point down in Southhaven http://www.theboilingpoint.com/
& our friend Pablo went to see her. She did her own version of ENTER SANDMAN from Metallica.

DJ: Hell, yes! Maybe she'll play it tomorrow.

Luca: She followed it by STRUT which she did when she performed at T.J. Mulligan's last time. I'm going to try to convince her to do some more Metallica. I want to hear her version.
THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!

DJ: Me too! Yeah that's all going on tomorrow...

Rock 103 has something to do with this superb podcast by Dave "Vexar Dave" Thorn which you can hear by clicking below.
Vexar Dave rants a little at the beginning about G.I. Joe but the second cut on the show is Alison doing THE ROAD GOES ON FOREVER.
Listen to me good.
Hearing Alison grunt & SCREAM
"Whoa!", "Oh yeah!", "Uh, huh!", "Uh, Uh, Uh!", "WAHHHH!
& "Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah! Oh BABY!"
on a recording is one thing but folksizzzzzzzzzzz
You Gotta See This Little Girl Rock!
I MEAN TO Tellzzzzzzzzzz YA
SHE MEAN BIDNISS!

Check out Alison at http://myspace.com/alisonheafner
& order her CD.
One day you can tell your grandchildren,
"Yeah, I was sweating with Alison down at Miz Newby's back in '07!"

Here's Vexar Dave's podcast...Alison is the second cut...
http://www.vexarentertainment.com/podcast.html

As many of y'all have realized, I've been going through the Robertoreg Archives lately and tonight I began to look through the 15 '67-'68 Berkeley Barbs which Rockin' Gibraltars' guitarist Rusty Crumpton gave me back in '73 or '74 when he moved from his little crib off of 13th Street down by the railroad tracks near 10th Avenue.

I was looking on the back page of 1968's March 29-April 4, BIG SUR BUSTS number and found a Grateful Dead ad for a Carousel Ballroom March 29, March 30 & March 31 concerts with Chuck Berry.
I looked it up on Google and found the damn tape of the concert free on the Web.
Check it out:
Here's March 29, 1968
http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-03-29.aud.vernon.9473.sbeok.shnf

Here's March 30, 1968
http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-03-30.aud.cotsman.14912.sbeok.shnf

Here's March 31, 1968
http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-03-31.aud.cotsman.14913.sbeok.shnf

& last but not least as I was going through all this old stuff I found 13 documents from May of 1970 including copies of the Crimson-White, the Tuscaloosa News, High Gauge & the University Free Press.
If anybody needs to know what happened here during Kent State, tell 'em to call me cause I got dah stuff which includes the Thursday August 13, 1970 Crimson White with the earth shaking headline:
CAPSTONE STUDENT FOUND NOT GUILTY!
It includes these words in BOLD PRINT!

Emmett Brown and Robert Register, both University students, testified that Culberson was inside the apartment when the policemen arrived. They also both testified that the door burst open and the lights went out in the apartment simultaneously.

Judge Rosen had to gavel down the laughing courtroom crowd after I responded to one of General Partlow's questions:

General Partlow: & Mr. Register, what exactly did you do when Officer Bingham broke the door down?

Roberto: I left the room, Sir.

best,
rr http://myspace.com/robertoreg

GOOD MORNING!
I MADE IT HOME!

Hope I wasn't too drunk on the phone.

Didn't know 'bout the official prayer.
I thought it was "Weed, Women & Wine:We're the Class of '69."

Let's see if I can remember the prayer.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can
& the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time.
Enjoying one moment at a time.
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.
Knowing that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
& supremely happy with you forever in the next.
Amen

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will direct your paths.

Proverbs 3, 5-6

HEY Y'ALL:

I guess it's probably best to get the bad news out of the way first thing so, unfortunately, I have the task of informing you that an important member of our DHS Class of '68 is extremely ill in B'ham tonight.

Burt Williams, who was very involved in putting together our 30th reunion in '98, has a weak heart & is critically ill right now. Please put Burt in your prayers and hopefully everything will be all right & we'll get to enjoy Burt's company at our 40th reunion in Dothan next summer.

Yesterday was Archie's birthday so I trekked down to Forkland with 6 quarts of "bald peanuts" I cooked Sattiddee nite
so I made lots of friends before the birthday feast after sundown.

Before sundown, I explored the Warrior River above Archie's house & for the first time traveled through dense groves of cypress on a Sea Doo. I freaked out when I rode over a trot line because I forgot that the damn thing doesn't have a propeller.

I worked my way back down the creek to where I met Archie & the gang on the pontoon boat. I noticed that everyone on the pontoon boat was captivated by a snake swimming beside the boat. I pulled up along side of them, let go of the handlebars of the Sea Doo and reached down into the water as if to pick up the snake.

"NOOOOO!!!!!"
Talking about women hollering & screaming!
They actually thought I was gonna pick up that vicious critter
& after I tricked 'em, I laughed like hell.

"Look at him! Look at him!", they yelled as I roared off into the orange reflection on the water of a spectacular sunset over the white chalk cliffs of the Black Warrior.
They didn't 'preciate my humor.

I was on my best behavior all day. Only drank 10 beers in six hours. Didn't cuss & didn't piss anybody off (as far as I could tell) so I was a good boy before I parked in the pasture behind Archie's motel and got on the cell phone & started talking trash...

& I didn't do bad then either.

I'm learning to behave in my old age.

Y'all remember Burt Williams in your prayers today.

Best,
rr http://myspace.com/robertoreg

PEACE, PROGRESS & REMOVAL:
ALABAMA'S CHOCTAWS FORCED TO FOLLOW THE TRAIL TO DISAPPEARANCE
by Robert Register

In 1830, the Choctaw families in West Alabama had made amazing progress in adapting to the ways of the white man. The women were spinning and weaving homespun cloth from which they sewed their own clothing. The warriors were forbidden to go to Mobile or New Orleans during planting season and for the first time in their history, Choctaw men stayed at home and worked. All of this was about to change.

On September 27, 1830, the signing of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek stripped the Choctaw's entire ancient inheritance from them with the stroke of a pen. The Choctaw legacy of friendship with the white man was ignored. The fact that this tribe had never made war against the French, the Spanish, the English or the Americans was never considered. The "Godfather", Andrew Jackson, had given the Choctaw an offer they could not refuse. The Choctaw Nation,led by Demopolis businessman George Strother Gaines, packed their belongings and moved west. What force could be so powerful as to push the Choctaw out of their old hunting grounds in Alabama and Mississippi?

Andrew Jackson answered that question on May 28, 1830 when he signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Not one word in this law mentions that an Indian could be removed from his land by force. But the Choctaw could read the handwriting on the wall. When John Eaton, Jackson's Secretary of War, arrived in Noxubee County just west of Aliceville in 1830, he let everybody know that it was illegal for the Choctaws to refuse to surrender their land in what is now Pickens, Sumter and Choctaw counties as well as millions of acres in Mississippi.

Robert Remini, in his prize-winning biography of Andrew Jackson, writes:
"This monumental piece of legislation spelled the doom of the American Indian. It was harsh, arrogant, racist- and inevitable. It was too late to acknowledge any rights for the Indians. They had long since been abrogated."

Nothing could stop removal. Not even an 1832 U.S. Supreme Court victory could stop the Indians from losing their land. The first victims of this horrible legislation lived right here in West Alabama. In fact, the starting place on the Choctaw's "Trail To Disappearance" is less than one hundred miles west of Tuscaloosa on the banks of Dancing Rabbit Creek near Mashulaville in Noxubee County, Mississippi.

The two commissioners who made this treaty with the Choctaw Nation were at the nucleus of the cartel of Jackson cronies who controlled government offices in the Southeast during the 1830s. John Coffee, one of Jackson's earliest business partners and the General's calvary commander during the Creek War of 1813, had the shortest trip to make to the banks of Dancing Rabbit Creek. He lived in Lauderdale County, Alabama near Florence. The other commissioner, Jackson's Secretary of War, Major John H. Eaton, accompanied Jackson on his summer vacation to the Hermitage near Nashville and continued south with only one instruction from Andrew Jackson, the man the Indians named Sharp Knife: "Fail not to make a treaty!"

Eaton and Coffee earned the dubious distinction of being the first United States Commissioners in history to NOT arrive at an Indian treaty site on horseback. They came in horse-drawn carriages (This author found no record of John McKee, Tuscaloosa's first U.S. Congressman, being among the commissioners yet the DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY discloses that in 1830 he was one of the commissioners to negotiate the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek.This author concludes that McKee was in attendance but he was not a commissioner)

Catering for this gathering of six thousand Choctaws between the two prongs of Dancing Rabbit Creek was provided by George Strother Gaines of Demopolis, Alabama. A former Choctaw agent, Gaines was now a Marengo County merchant in partnership with Allen Glover, builder of Rosemont, a twenty room mansion still standing near Forkland in Greene County. Gaines hauled flour and cornmeal on Indian ponies and penned beef cattle about a half-mile away for daily butchering.

Politically, the Indians from what are now Choctaw, Sumter and Pickens counties were weakened by divisions in their tribal allegiances. Clear threats and harassment between members of the "Pagan" party led by Mushulatubbee & Nitakechi and the "Christian" party led by Greenwood LeFlore and David Folsom moved the tribe close to a state of anarchy. This emotional instability was heightened after the Choctaw arrived at the treaty ground and discovered that they would be forced to give up all of their land and head west. George S. Gaines wrote that, "This proposition acted as a bomb thrown among the Choctaws."

Jackson's commissioners were between the devil and the deep blue sea. Under no circumstances could they return to Washington, D.C. and Old Hickory without a treaty. On the other hand, they were very close to being mobbed by thousands of drunken warriors. The distillers of the Black Warrior and Tombigbee valleys made sure that the council grounds were well lubricated with "mountain dew." Halbert states, "It must be recorded that a large portion of the white people at Dancing Rabbit were not the best characters, being mainly rowdies, gamblers and saloon keepers-
in short, the bad element characteristic of the American frontier. The law was very much relaxed on this occasion, and all the demoralizing concomitant of civilization were to be found at the fork of the two Rabbits- drinking, saloons, gaming tables, and every other cunning contrivance whereby to catch the loose cash of the white man and the Indian."

The commissioners banned missionaries from treaty negotiations and forbade them to step foot on the treaty ground because "their religious instructions would have a tendency to distract the Indians' minds during the progress of negotiations."

Jugs of good whiskey near the hand of each Choctaw councilman could not be considered a distraction and were placed there only because some Indians might desire to quench their thirst during the tiresome process of negotiation.

The layout for the council ground was sort of like a semi-circle.

The commissioners and their white advisors sat on a large log that was lying with its big end facing west. The commissioners' secretary's desk was on the south side of the log and the commissioners sat facing south. More that sixty Choctaw councilmen sat on the ground facing north and formed the completed semi-circle. On the ground in the middle of the semi-circle were seated seven of the oldest women from the Choctaws who had assembled at the treaty ground. On their left at the west end of the commissioners' log sat the old squaws' interpreter, Middleton McKee.

H.S. Halbert describes the respect McKee had for his duty,"McKee solumnly promised these old women that he would faithfully interpret to them everything that was said by the commissioners in council, 'Holabi likma, sakonla baqshlit has tabla chike,'
('and if I tell a lie, you may cut my neck off.'). Encircling the commissioners and the Choctaw councilmen were hundreds of Choctaw spectators, eager to see and hear everything said and done in council.

The secretary for the commissioners read the treaty in English and John Pitchlynn from near Columbus, Mississippi, translated it into Choctaw for the audience. Then the commissioners requested that Killihota step up on top of a three foot high stump to make a speech to the Indians. Killihota, a half-breed chief and "front man" for the "Christian" party of Choctaws, pitched the land deal that the commissioners were offering in what in now Oklahoma. He told the Indians that this territory was way better than Alabama and Mississippi. There was more game and watermelons grew twice as big in the West. Killihota told his Choctaw brethren that children out west grew up bigger and stronger and guaranteed them that if they "would leave this country and emigrate there, their children would all grow up large, strong and healthy."

The seven old ladies seated around Killihota's stump didn't buy it. According to Halbert: "One of these venerable matrons sprang excitedly to her feet and made a threatening gesture toward Killihota with a butcher knife.
'Killihota,' she said,'I could cut you open with this knife. You have two hearts,'
meaning by this, one heart for the white people and one for the Choctaws."
She was calling Killihota an "Apple": red on the outside & white on the inside.

After this episode all of the chiefs of the "Pagan" party were allowed to speak. They were angry. Little Leader, a Choctaw councilman, said,"Any chief who may sign a treaty selling our country is a traitor and should suffer death. I go home to prepare my people to fight for our homes and the graves of our fathers."

Halbert beautifully describes the closing of this emotional session:
"At the conclusion of the last speech, that of Shenatubbee, Killihota, taking a large knotty hickory stick in his hands, and saying,
'Yakni kanchi lishkeh,'
' I am for selling the country,' gave a heavy thud on the ground with it, thereby recording his own vote in favor of the treaty. He then passed the stick to his right-hand neighbor. This man, to show his opposition to the treaty, passed the stick in silence to the next councilman sitting on his right-hand. The stick thus passed in silence from hand to hand around the circle until it returned to the hand of Killihota, who alone of all the councilmen, that day, had struck the ground with the stick, thus voting for a treaty.

"When the action with the stick was completed, Mingo Moshulitubbee, mindful of the immemorial Indian ceremony in public assemblies, broke the silence by saying, 'hakechuma keho shunks,' 'let us all smoke tobacco.' The chief thereupon ordered that his silver-mounted pipehatchet be filled with tobacco and lighted, then handed over to Killihota, who, after taking a single whiff, passed it to his right-hand neighbor. He, in like manner, after taking a whiff, passed it to his right-hand neighbor. The pipe thus from hand to hand passed around the circle, everyone, even including the whites sitting on the log, taking a single whiff until the pipe returned to Killihota, thus completing its circuit. During all these ceremonies, the passing of the hickory stick and the smoking and passing of the pipe, the councilmen remained seated in grave and decorous silence. It was now about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. All now arose to their feet and the council adjourned for the day."

There was to be no negotiating on this treaty.

From the opening talk on Saturday, September 18, until the Indians signed on the dotted line on Monday, September 27, the commissioners used the same threat:
If you do not sign, the United States will withdraw all protection from you and you will be at the complete mercy of the white citizens of Alabama and Mississippi.

To a Choctaw living here in 1830, that threat represented their greatest horror and worst nightmare. So eventually they signed and they walked- from the Tombigbee to the Mississippi at Memphis. Their emigration was a confused mess.

Ironically the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek did not end John Eaton's negotiations with the Choctaw Nation. On April 7, 1831, Major Eaton resigned as Jackson's Secretary of War. This was the climax of a scandal that split Jackson's cabinet over how to handle the vulgarities of Eaton's wife, Peggy. Before Peggy's marriage to Eaton, she'd grown up at a District of Columbia tavern's table.
She was one Washington's original "party girls" & seeing as how she was the friendliest girl in the room, her reputation followed her to the White House in her position as wife of Andrew Jackson's Secretary of War.
"The dark and sly insinuations" of this "vile tale" almost toppled our government. Jackson's entire cabinet resigned and for the first time in more than forty years of orderly, constitutional government, our republic experienced a catastrophe that came from within itself. Eaton had already helped to destroy the Choctaw Nation, and now he had certainly threatened our Republic, yet he was to continue to play a role in the destruction of the Choctaws.

By October of 1831, Eaton was back at work. He, along with Coffee, had again been appointed commissioners by Jackson. Their job was to demand that the Choctaws sell 4,500,000 acres of their Oklahoma land to the Chickasaws. At this conference, which occurred as the Choctaws marched out of Mississippi, one of the Indians reportedly asked Eaton,"Will you not at least let us put our feet on our new land before you ask for it?"

It may be unfair to saddle Eaton, Coffee and Jackson with the total responsibility for Choctaw removal. Andrew Jackson could have done nothing at all like all of the other men who preceded in the White House. And if he had done nothing, it can be argued that there would be no present-day talk of the legal sovereignty of Indian tribes in America because there would be no Indian tribes. Jackson certainly rubbed the Yankees noses in it every chance he got. In 1830 a group of Philadelphia Quakers came to the White House to protest the inhumanity of forcing the Choctaws from their ancestral homes. Jackson was incensed. Sarcastically, he asked the Quakers,
"Is Philadelphia the ancestral home and hunting ground of the Quakers?"

"Not exactly, but that's a different case," a Quaker replied.

"Were you born in Philadelphia?," Jackson asked.

"We were." The Quaker said his parents and grandparents were also natives, but conceded that most of their great-grandparents had come from England.

"Then," Jackson said,"They left their ancestral homes and hunting grounds and came to the West in search of new homes."

"Well, yes. But it was a different case."

"Did your great-grandparents find Indians at Philadelphia?"

"Yes, but..."

"What became of those Indians?" Jackson inquired.

"Oh, those Indians moved away; but it was a different case."

"Why did they move away?"

"Because our forefathers bought their lands."

"What did your forefathers pay for their lands?"

"That was a different case."

Old Hickory dismissed the delegation by saying,"I think you folks have taken up quite enough of my time... I concede to everyone the constitutional right to be as big a hypocrite as he may please, but do deny your right to take more of my time..."

The years 1830 to 1839, during and immediately after Indian removal, produced phenomenal population and economic growth in Alabama. Cotton exports from the Port of Mobile, where much of the cotton produced from Choctaw land was shipped, increased from 100,000 bales (each weighing approximately 500 pounds) in 1830,
to 300,000 in 1838. Between 1830 and 1839, 1,850,000 bales were shipped to Mobile from the river valleys that drain this region. Alabama's population nearly doubled, ballooning from 309,527 in 1830,
to nearly 600,000 in 1840.

Almost all Americans in 1830 believed that it was a sin to not till the soil. The only good Indian, they surmised, was an Indian who walked behind a plow. Still, no matter how hard the Choctaws worked or how civilized the Choctaws may have become, most Americans either gave no recognition of progress, or they just didn't care. Ignoring every moral and constitutional implication, the American citizenry with the willing help of the congressmen from the Southern frontier who bulldozed the Indian Removal Bill through the House and Senate, allowed their appetite for surveyed acreage to conquer any "decent concern for humanity."

Regardless of Indian progress, American civilization was not going to allow the Choctaws or any other tribe to play "catchup".

No time-outs or rain delays in this ball game.

Repercussions of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek live with us in the present day. According to John H. Peterson, Jr., Professor of Anthropology at Mississippi State University in Starkville, the 150th anniversary of the Treaty in 1980 made a few Noxubee County politicos anxious. The local committee planning to commemorate the Sesquicentennial of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek weren't certain whether it would be proper to invite the Mississippi Band of Choctaws from neighboring Philadelphia to the festivities.





Subject: Burt Williams

Amelia just called with news about Burt Williams. He's in B'ham with Sister. He had another heart attack, his kidneys are shutting down and the next 12-24 hours are critical. Please forward this to any other classmates and others who know him.

Pray for him.

I can see him giggling and squinting those little eyes.
We are too young to be this sick!!!

love you all,

jennifer


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Question #5:

What are your recollections of Cassady meeting his old friends in New
York City?

While the rest of us were settling into the apartment that had been
loaned us in Madhattan, Cassady went off on his own and hooked up
with Ginsberg and Orlovsky. Also in their little group was Julius
Orlovsky, Peter's brother, his first day out after 14 years in the
nuthouse. They picked up Kerouac and all came to the apartment.
Julius immediately fell in love with the bus and went inside and
stayed there. The rest of the crew came up to the apartment and we
were very honored to meet Ginsberg and Orlovsky and Kerouac. We had
all read On The Road and it had a major impact on us; we recognized
right away this was a major American writer with a style that
connected instantaneously with our generation and generations to
come. Plus Cassady and Kerouac spiritual brothers, Ginsie forming a
third of a triumverate, Orlovsky lapping at the circle, holeymoley we
were consorting with the Beats!
--

http://www.skypilotclub.com

Talking about the president won't stop air pollution.
Put your hand over your mouth that's part of the solution.
-- Respect Yourself. Staple Singers.

Hey Y'all:

Alison is female blue-eyed soul to the bone.
The bikers & their babes absolutely love her wherever she goes.
She does everything from Janis to Bobbie Gentry to Axel Rose to Metallica.

The gal is blue-eyed BESSIE SMITH!

Dis babe rocks & she'll be playing at Miz Newby's on the beach at Panama City Beach during THUNDER BEACH
September 28, 29 and 30.

Alison naturally puts OUT
the UH-HUH STUFF!!!!

Check her sound out at http://myspace.com/alisonheafner

best,
rr http://robertoreg.blogspot.com