Dreaming of a Green Christmas

Abe is getting updated. The new, technicolor $5 bill goes into circulation March 13. Has anyone but me noticed that, just like some Latin American country, the more colorful our money is the less it's worth?

Speaking of money. . . .

We have four titles left for Christmas giving:

The Darkest Dawn: Lincoln, Booth and the Great American Tragedy (paper) $22

The Day Dixie Died: Southern Occupation, 1865-1866 (hardcover) $25

Bloody Bill Anderson: The Short, Savage Life of a Civil War Guerilla (paper) $15

We also have a handful of Stories in Stone, the book on Topeka Cemetery. They are $10 each.

We will happily take your check, or even bland, green money, autograph to whomever you'd like, and mail it to them for only $3 extra.

We have a brand new tour season starting in the spring, so watch our blog, historygypsies.blogspot.com for tour information, and read Tom's Wild West blog on historynet.com.
____________________________________________
Kansas Public Radio

Today was Kansas trivia day on KANU and I just happened to be listening (as I am every day) when they asked, "In which Kansas town did Elizabeth Taylor spend her first Christmas?"

Imagine how edified I was when Kevin S., a neighbor, knew the answer was Arkansas City because he read it in our Kansas Journal of Military History. Kevin had come by our house a few days ago and picked up a copy of Bloody Dawn, the only book of Tom's he had not read, as well as copies of our magazine. Bless his heart. . . .

Oh, and Elizabeth's paternal grandparents lived in Ark City, where she spent a lot of her childhood, and I believe attended kindergarten.

Insufferable Virginians

Douglas MacArthur was, at heart, a Virginian. It explains a lot. Only Texans have comparable egos.

Virginia is the center of America's creation myth--John Smith, Pocahontas, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Lewis and Clark, Robert E. Lee. As a result, we rightfully grow up believing Virginia is the center of the universe. Since I lived near the North Carolina line, my world encompassed its history as well, leading a friend of mine from Topeka to remark with exasperation, "I guess you think God came from Virginia and Jesus came from North Carolina!"

"Exactly!"

Tom and I were privileged to be included in the Gen. George Meade Society's trip to Virginia last weekend. The last stop was the grave of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Norfolk. The legendary soldier, though a military brat himself, considered Norfolk home because it was his mother's home, and after all, Macarthur was a Mama's Boy. She was determined that her son, who would be a great general one day, be born in her home state, but alas, fate determined otherwise. He was born in Arkansas.

Arkansas!!! I'm sure the poor woman never recovered from the blow.

(Thanks to Jim Dover for this photo of me at the sacred shrine of MacArthur!)