He also got shot in the chest at the beginning of a speech, calmed everybody down and told the crowd to give the assassin to the police and make sure nobody hurt him, and then spoke for 50 minutes before he left to get medical care.
He said later that because he wasn’t coughing blood, he was confident the bullet hadn’t pierced his lung, so he could go for a while before needing it looked at.
Before the invention of TV stupefied everybody, America was fuckin WILD.
America was so wild that our West was called The Wild West. There were like 12 rules in the United States for a hundred years. Beyond that you could do whatever the fuck you wanted. I’m sure it was fraught with peril, and subject to multiple attacks from all sides, but it probably felt free as fuck. You needed to be strong to survive. There were no safety signs for those without a sense of self-preservation.
Yeah given how warped our understanding of the old west is from movies and TV I’m gonna bet most of what we think we know is bullshit and it was actually a lot more chill since people liked living. A lot like how if you check TV you’ll see all sorts of stories on murder because those are prominent events. You’ll see the same in history books and wiki articles. Years and years of nothing special being recorded, everyone being chill, but check out this Sheriff who did a backflip off a horse and shot three people in the dick in 1762.
You were a hell of a lot more likely to die of dysentery, or break a wagon wheel and starve to death, than you were to die in a gunfight, but gunfights could and did happen. If you were a homesteader then you had all sorts of wild shit to deal with, since you were literally living in the wild. Attacks from natives who didn’t like the idea of you just claiming their land and fencing it off, wild animals stealing your livestock that you needed to live. Drought killing your crops that you needed to live. It was fraught with peril on all sides. But you were free as fuck.
Yeah free to die from drinking shit water, absolutely. I don’t idolize that way of life whatsoever. Shit was brutal, most everyone died from things we easily prevent today, and nearly all of the things we use to make us comfortable didn’t exist. Like the concept of ice in your drink was mind blowing. No thanks. I’ll be a corpo slave with air conditioning.
Shit was brutal, most everyone died from things we easily prevent today, and nearly all of the things we use to make us comfortable didn’t exist.
That’s called technological progress, baby!
I forget which president it was, but I remember that one of them would frequently insist on bathing in the Potomac.
John Quincy Adams.
Every day, at about 5:30 in the morning, totally naked.
Anne Royall, one of the first female journalists, allegedly forced Adams to do an interview with her by taking his clothes and refusing to give them back to him until he answered all her questions.
Andrew Jackson for his inauguration party invited literally anybody who showed up to attend, and a bunch of people got roaring drunk and wrecked up the White House.
The fuck happened to us man
As a huge fan of the musical 1776, I unfortunately imagined Mr. Feeny as John Adams in the nude. Shudders
“A giant wheel of cheese!”
Back then everybody swam naked in the Potomac. Ben Franklin is another one with written records about it.
If you see the Potomac River today, you’d wonder what the hell happened, it is absolutely filthy and not even a rat would swim in it. well maybe a rat would drown & die in it.
If you see the Potomac River today, you’d wonder what the hell happened, it is absolutely filthy
Free market baby! You sound like a commie.
The Potomac ain’t that bad.
That was John Quincy Adams. I remember because I also learned that he did this nude, an image I’ve been trying to get out of my head for 30 years.
You’ve been trying to get that image out of your head for 30 years? How often do you have to try hard not to picture John Quincy Adams naked?
Our most dudes-rock president. The first in an airplane - after being president - back when a quarter of the takeoff weight was him. To the pilot’s immense frustration, Teddy leaned out to wave at the crowd.
"President Lambert of the St. Louis Aero club introduced me to Roosevelt. Lambert said something about my trip from Springfield. Roosevelt said he envied me. ‘Here’s your chance,’ I said to him.
"All right,’ said Roosevelt, ‘but let’s not make too much fuss about it.’ Roosevelt was on the machine before I was. He was bareheaded. A newspaperman gave him a cap and he said 'let ‘er go.’ We started.
"I didn’t look at Roosevelt until I felt the machine wiggle. He was waving at the crowd. We were up about 150 feet.
"‘Be careful not to pull any of those strings,’ I warned him. He was sitting directly underneath the valve cord of the engine and the engine would have stopped had he touched it. ‘Nothing doing,’ he shouted back, showing his teeth. The propeller made so much noise we had to shout. I heard him say ‘war,’ ‘army,’ ‘aeroplane’ and ‘bomb,’ but the noise was so great I could not hear the rest.
"I was very careful. I said to myself, ‘If anything happens to him I’ll never be able to square myself with the American people.’ I was mighty glad when we landed. I never felt a greater responsibility in my life.
“‘Hoxsey, you’re all right,’ he said as we alighted.”
More presidents should host events where citizens can punch them.
Can you imagine any of the current geriatrics taking anything more than a 6th grader’s punch?
Oh, believe me, I’m imagining it often. 😈
so often. so hard.
I think Biden could take like, 1 sixth grader down, but honestly 2 sixth graders would probably overwhelm him.
I think i could probably take 3. 4 after my coffee and adderol. 5 motivated 6th graders? I dunno, i think I’m toast
I can take on 100 at once when I’m feeling energetic, and would lose to 1 when I’m not.
I’ve borne witness to horrors. Endless rows of soulless shelves. Signs that spoke of treasure oft ignored. People dumb enough that it scared me knowing they operated a motor vehicle.
As someone who has worked retail. If I tapped into the pure, black rage created in that time I would gladly fight a whole class of sixth grades. Especially the valued customers wwh~idiots that would leave frozen product on shelves and I would “Thank You, Sir”…
O-oh god, it’s coming back! “Have a great day!” No, not like this.
“Haha yeah, it didn’t ring up properly. Definitely free!”
ahhh
Here’s a great line a buddy of mine came up with during my time in the trenches: “you guys have been just horrific.”
Try saying it out loud lol.
If you like it, you can still use it today!
Teddy is a real dichotomy to me. When I was much younger, living outside the US, i found him to be the worst that Americans represented: arrogant, bullish, and full of sovereign ignorance. Then going through college and beyond, living states side, I discovered his championship of nature and his passion for reading and education. Now a days, I can recognize him as an imperfect man trying to do the best he thought at the time. Kinda like a grumpy granddad with some ideas way ahead of his time.
His worst aspect was Imperialism, but his best aspects were legitimate concern for his citizens well being, hatred of corruption and money-politics, and love for nature and education.
As far as America goes that’s like a perfect recipe for a president. Maybe not for the rest of the world.
TIL Teddy Roosevelt’s dad was cold and distant.
Somewhere there was an article I quite liked that basically said, in the quest to discard toxic masculinity, a lot of modern US culture has also turned against the idea of nontoxic masculinity. Like if someone likes man stuff then there’s automatically something wrong with them.
I don’t know enough about Teddy Roosevelt to say for sure, but I suspect he was just a big boisterous person which is fine. If we find out he secretly beat his wife or was a womanizer or something then sure, but to me my rough impression is that he was anything but unemotional or evil and just had a good time with his life.
Young Teddy was very much not athletic, in fact he was sickly and asthmatic. Over time he literally remade himself and overcame his early health issues. Getting into heavy duty physical activity and using that to overcome early challenges probably was a hell of a lot of fun, and it was continuing the process of self-improvement that made his life so much better to begin with.
He was told he couldn’t join the cavalry because his eyes were so bad that he needed glasses, and if he fell off the horse they’d get lost or broken.
So Teddy bought a vest with a bunch of pokets, filled them all with glasses, and considered the matter solved.
Makes sense. And yeah. That’s non toxic masculinity (or, whatever you want to call it, the gender-neutral term). It’s okay to want to overcome real challenge and feel like you’re strong and capable and test yourself. In some circles it is even encouraged.
It’s pretty fucked up. I really enjoy a lot of traditionally manly pursuits. Hunting, fishing, building, grilling, doing stupid drunk shit in the woods, and a bunch of others. You know who the majority of people are who do those things (at least in my experience)? It’s either guys who don’t really enjoy it but pretend to because they think it makes them masculine or guys who also enjoy the manly pursuits of owning their wives and yelling about how the South will rise again. I’m not really into either of those things. I just like to have a good time.
I know who I get lumped in with and why. There’s a lot of overlap between me and toothless hillbillies. I yee a bunch of motherfucking haws. And I’m sad that all this stuff that’s legitimately fun if you’re the type that enjoys it is looked at as though it’s a problem simply for existing and not because of the kinds of idiots that take part in it.
Sounds like the point where mom steps in cause someone got hurt
I’d pay real money to watch him give DJT a live dressing down. I mean we all know the bronzer cake king would never accept a challenge to a physical fight, he’s a bully and coward.
I mean, he’s neat, but Alice Roosevelt (his daughter) is more interesting imo.
