The Cookout

July 10th, 2007

Digg this

The Announcement

The drive to her father's house was long – everybody in town was on the road, it seemed – but uneventful. The radio had snippets of news about the probe in between the pop tunes, none of which carried any new information. The one funny thing that happened was that the news van following her made a report that she had left her house with her daughter and was on her way to “an undisclosed location”. They both had a good chuckle at that one.
When she pulled up to her father's house, there were already several cars in the driveway and along the street. She picked a nice open stretch of road to give the news van some room to park behind her and turned off the car. “Should we invite them in?”
Monica beamed widely. “Grandpa'd love it! He could see if any of 'em are single and try to get 'em to ask you out.”
Andrea shook her head. “This has disaster written all over it.” They got out of the car, Monica gently extracted her pie from the back seat, and Andrea walked over to the van. “There's going to be a big cookout, and my daughter makes a delicious pie,” she said to the driver and reporter inside. “Want to come?”
They looked at each other, shrugged, and the reporter said, “Thanks for the invite, Doctor Ross.”
“No problem, there's plenty of food. Just don't be surprised if my father gives you a hard time.” She and her daughter walked up to the front door while the news people unlimbered their equipment.
Andrea's father was already at the door, arms wide open for a hug from the pair. Monica held her pie out to one side, but gave him a big hug and kiss, and Andrea kissed him on the cheek. He looked at the two men coming up to his door with a camera and mike and asked them, “Y'all here to eat?”
The reporter nodded his head and smiled very nicely. “Your daughter told us there'd be plenty.”
“She was right.” He opened the door wide and ushered them all through his house and into the back yard, where several of his relatives were already gathered around tables and the large barbecue grill. He pointed out a table that was already groaning with food. “Monica, go on and put your pie over there. I wanna show your momma something.” As the young girl ran off to place her pie among the desserts, he whispered into Andrea's ear, “So, how long they been followin' you around?”
“Since the announcement that I was on the committee about the probe.”
“My girl, makin' the big news,” Papa Ross said proudly. “Just don't let 'em eat all the pie.”

Huey Long	"God, don't let me die. I have so much to do." ~ Huey Long, fearing for his life after a bodyguard shot him by accident.
”The Kingfish”

Huey Pierce Long (August 30, 1893 – September 10, 1973), known as "The Kingfish," was an American politician of the Democratic Party; he was governor of Louisiana (1928–1932), Senator (1932–1935) and President (1936-1944). He was a populist who is often alleged to have had many dictatorial tendencies that made many of his actions quite unprecedented in modern American politics. Long had called for a third special session of the Louisiana State Legislature, and he travelled from Washington to Baton Rouge to oversee its progress. On September 8, 1935 Carl Austin Weiss attempted to punch Long in the Capitol building at Baton Rouge. Weiss was immediately shot some thirty times by Long's bodyguards and police on the scene, and a bullet from one of the bodyguards inflicted a non-fatal wound on the Senator. Fearing for his life, Long was quoted as saying “God, don't let me die. I have so much to do.” In Kingfish, journalist Barry N. Malzberg describes how Long became president in 1936 by stealing away FDR's vice-president. Transcripts of interviews of are included in which John Nance Gardner tells how he struck a deal with the Kingfish, and then how they dealt with Hitler by inviting him to America and then murdering him. A synopsis of Weiss's assault is described at Wikipedia

~ variant by Steve Payne : extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 2009, TV networks critically reviewed events of historical significance to consider whether they actually had deep impact. In episode one of So What If?, the Trent Affair brings the British into the States War delivering a Southern Victory. The centennial was marked unofficially by the million-man march on Richmond Virginia. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King spoke eloquently of his dream for Confederate Black Americans.

~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 2010, the strength of the high-frequency electro-magnetic energy beam is massively attenuated by the creation of a skip zone around HARC. Operatives terminate the powerful beam of high-frequency electro-magnetic energy entering the ionosphere and the episode is over – well, almost. The US military congratulate the Head of HARC, Physicist Mike Ryder for diffusing the catastrophe. Ryder had been initiating the Phase 1 site which had been mothballed at nearby Eureka, effectively using HARC I to destroy HARC II.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

"Max" Aitken	In 1942, in Buckingham, the 32nd American President Winston S. Churchill controversially visited the field of the 1760 battle. This event occurred in the later stages of the collapse of English power, in the Williamite War in England between the deposed King James VII of Scotland and II of England and his son-in-law and successor, ..
.. William, for the English, Scottish and Irish thrones. Reporter William Maxwell "Max" Aitken asked Churchill whether in his view Henry VIII took ultimate or relative responsibility for the collapse of English power. This was a reference to 1533 and the precipitous action to launch the Reformation, inviting destruction from Catholic Europe. Churchill took a huge puff on his cigar and quoted - “If you're going through Hell, keep going.“
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1972, Frederick Forsyth published the semi-fictional novel “The Riga File”, later adapted into a 1974 movie starring actor Jon Voight in the lead role as the young reporter, Peter Miller. The plot begins on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, November 22, 1963. Miller chases an ambulance on the highway and ..	Freddy Forsyth
.. discovers it contains an elderly Jewish Holocaust-survivor who had committed suicide. Miller obtains the diary of his life in the World War II camps, describing the brutality of commandant SS Captain Eduard Roschmann aka the "Butcher of Riga". Miller makes up his mind to hunt Roschmann, not just for a sensational cover story, but for a more serious personal reason – his father, a highly decorated Wehrmacht captain, was shot dead by Roschmann during a war-time altercation. Miller and real-life investigator of Nazi war criminals Simon Wiesenthal confront Roschmann at Wembley Stadium during the 1966 World Cup Final. Miller shoots Roschmann just as Geoff Hurst scores the winning goal, drowning the gun shot in the roar of the crowd. The commentator's announcement “they think its all over, it is now” is a satire on both the goal and the bringing to justice of the Butcher of Riga.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

John T Scopes (..	In 1925, on this day began the State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes (the Scopes or Monkey Trial) in Dayton, Tennessee. John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher, was accused of teaching biblical interpretations in violation of a Tennessee state law. Judge John T. Raulston ruled against the high school ..
.. teacher. Henceforth 'Any statement that denies Charles Darwins' proven theory of evolution that man has descended from a lower order of animals rather than the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible.' became a crime in Tennessee.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev began his five year term as the first elected President of Russia. The program of reform included glasnost ("openness"), perestroika ("restructuring"), and uskoreniye ("acceleration", of economic development), which were launched at the 27th Congress of the CPSU in February 1986. Five years later, ..	Mikhail Gorbach..
.. Gorbachev had concluded the Cold War, ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and dissolved the Soviet Union. Finally, he was in a position to move forward, and in so doing, his great partner, a re-united Germany joined Russia in setting a course for a Common European Home. In many ways, 1991 was the right outcome for Europe. As early as 1910, Prussian thinkers had identified that Russia would eventually overtake Germany, and therefore after two world wars, a partnership was the logical conclusion to a prolonged, and unnecessary state of tension between two great nations who shared many economic and geopolitical interests.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Cool stuff - Let us know where you are on Frappr! and We've been Dugg

We have links again! Yay, us. Check them out on the side of the page, and if you have some suggestions, send them to us!

Visit the Co-Historian's store -