Excerpt from Satirical History of MASSACHUSETTS
NEW “ALL-TOO-TRUE-BLUE” (ALTERNATIVE) STATE HISTORIES
1661 – Accusations of Whichcraft
In the city of peace (Salem) in 1661, some residents were accused of whichcraft. This is a crime where a craftsman answers a perfectly plain question with another question, beginning with the word “which.”
For example, if a body were to ask a craftsman, such as a cooper, “Where did those people get off to?” and the barrelmaker answered with the question, “Which people?” he would be accused of Whichcraft. The general populace did not cotton to Whichcraft. Not one bit, no sirree Bob.
Here is a polaroid taken at one of the trials, where a carpenter named Henry Howland is being accused of whichcraft:
1670s -- King Philip’s War
In the 1670s, a series of events took place that were later collectively called King Philip’s War. Nobody remembers who Philip was (although he later invented a type of screwdriver), but that way the war didn’t get blamed on anybody still living, or who had living relatives, so nobody got embarrassed that way. That would have been awkward.
Truth is often lamer than fiction, and that’s true in this case. Rather than an actual “war,” it was really a Lacrosse tournament. The locals indeed take Lacrosse seriously, but to call it a war might be going a bit far.
Well, it was not so much the games themselves that could be termed “warfare” by any reasonable standard, but the fans sometimes did get a little out of hand, providing an example for soccer enthusiasts in later centuries.
Here’s a study of one of those minor misunderstandings, as it was remembered by the brilliant watercolorist A. Bronson Alcott:
1688 to 1763 -- French and Indian Wars
When the British moved into America and took it over, some people spoke French, and others Indian. This led to Babylon-like confusion, and hostilities ensued. This is the only known instance of actual violence ever taking place in Massachusetts.
The opposing sides soon learned, though, that their guns spoke the same language. Before they realized that and made peace, though, here are some Frenchmen trying to convince some Indians the superiority of their lingo (and vice versa):
1770 -- Boston Mass Acre
In 1770, the fabulous “Boston Mass Acre” came into being. The reason for this was that there were a lot of Irish people in Boston. That being, so, there were many Catholics. So many, in fact, that it took a church that covered an entire acre to hold mass for them all.
This megachurch (the first of its kind) was affectionately called “The Boston Mass Acre.” On a side note, attending mass made these people wise. For that reason, some referred to them as wise acres.
Here’s a sculpture of one of these masses, when a clumsy guy who hated music tried to stop the harp solo but smashed into the pillars instead:
1773 -- Boston Tea Party
An event still talked about today took place in Boston in March of 1773. A tea party hosted by the Boston Millinery Guild was put on.
Unfortunately, when hair was discovered in some of the tea, the rowdier of the invitees rose up in anger, and chucked the chief hat makers into Boston Harbor.
Thus, not only Paul Revere and his Raiders, but also Squanto, Metacomet, and Ralph Waldo Emerson got all wet. Paul Revere and his band later hat a hit song entitled “Cherokee Nation.”
1775 -- Revolutionary War
Back in times of antiquity and iniquity, some people thought the earth revolved around the sun, while others thought the lucky old sun didn’t revolve at all, but simply sat way up there in the sky, rolling around heaven all day.
Although an academic matter meant for astrologists and philosophers, some commoners got so hot under the collar about this question that they started a war. They called it the Revolutionary War.
Many from Massachusetts went all the way to Lexington, Kentucky to take part in the carnage. In Concord (Massachusetts), people were so angry that they stamped their feet and squished all the grapes that were underfoot. This type of grape is now called the Concord grape. Some thought it should be spelled “conquered,” but the grapes were not really conquered, just crushed.
Other Massachusettsians, wanting to keep their State free of bloodshed, sued for a change of venue and got one of the battles shuffled off -- no, not to Buffalo, but to Queens, New York. This became famous as the Battle of Archie Bunker Hill.
1787 -- Shays’ Rebellion
In 1787, a new type of locomotive was built. Since it was designed and built by a guy named Myles Standish, it was called the Shay (“Standish” would have been too obvious, and rather self-aggrandizing on the part of the genius inventor).
When some farmers decided their taxes were too low, they pooled their resources and chartered the Shay. They planned on going to John Adams’ bungalow outside of Boston to ask for an increase in their tax assessment, as they really appreciated everything the government had done for them, and wanted to at least pay their fair share.
Besides, they had never done anything to help the government before, having sat on their haunches while the war about the revolution of the earth and sun was being conducted.
On the way there, though, the train broke down smack dab in the middle of the dismal swamp. “Gorgeous George” Washington sent out another George, Patton, to pat them all on the backs and tell them to simply calculate their tax by deciding what was fair – and then tripling it.
They were more than satisfied with this arrangement, and immediately began the trek back on foot, feeling energized and enthusiastic:
1851 – Moby, Dick Published
A famous book that nobody reads anymore was published in 1851. It is called “Moby, Dick” and is a story about a sailor named Dick Moby. In the book, Mr. Moby is the captain of the Minnow, a small vessel that takes vacationers on whale-watching trips around Nantucket.
Another interesting character in the book is Moby’s first mate, an Iowa pig farmer known as Ahab the A-rab.
One fine day, Moby, Ahab, and a bunch of vacationers from Florida end up stranded on a deserted island after Moby sees a mirage of a giant pink whale. Chasing the mirage (which he believes with all his heart to be real), Moby is tricked into sailing right up onto a coral reef between Nantucket and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
1854 – “The Waltons” Published
Destined to become a huge international television success, Henry David Thoreau (“Hank” to his friends) wrote “The Waltons” in 1854.
When others tried to follow in his footsteps by writing similar things, they would often be badgered with such rhetorical question as, “Are you sure Hank done it this way?”
Here’s Henry, after he got tired of writing and took up playin’ the guitar:
1869 – “Littler Women” Published
In 1869 (a very good year indeed), Louisa March Apricot published her novel “Littler Women.” It was about some women who lived in a house with other women. The protagonists are a mite smaller than the others, and thus feel disrespected. The main story is about how they played mean tricks on the taller ones to “get back” at them.
Here’s a slide show, which plainly depicts one of the littler women about to drop a bean bag on the head of one of the taller women. The difference in height between the two women is not super-obvious, but that is due to parallax error and the foolish usage of non-standard software to produce the file:
1891 -- Basketball invented in Springfield
In 1891, Michael Nesmith (who would go on to fame as the watchcap-wearing member of The Monkeys) was a P.E. coach in Massachusetts, in the small town of Clarksville.
His wards were bored with jumping jacks, stretches, fisticuffs, and all that rot. They wanted excitement. They wanted to get their exercise without the tedium.
Nesmith thus invented basketball. In this way, the students got the exercise they needed, and also learned how to dunk, “box out,” commit flagrant fouls, and talk smack. Seldom are heartwarminger stories heard.
Here is a picture of Michael back then, before he took to wearing a watch cap. He didn’t have a basketball or a basket yet, so he had to use a soccer ball and a peach basket. Isn’t it a good thing that he exercised the forethought to name his game “basketball” instead of “peach basket ball with a soccer ball”?
1903 -- First World Series, in Boston
Some people have heard of baseball. It is an obscure sport, but should still be mentioned. Every year, in fall, they play a championship series. It’s called the “World Series,” although only teams from the Ewe-Knighted States (and Canada, once in a great while) are allowed to participate.
The first, the inaugural, of this series took place in Boston, in 1903. The Pittsburgh Pirates played the Boston Americans. Boston won. But the Pirates got mad and slashed the Americans with their swords, causing blood to run down onto their stockings. Since then, the Boston team has been nicknamed the “Red Stockings” or “Red Sox” (people didn’t know how to spell “socks” back then, before the advent of spell-checking software).
Awedly enough, although both basketball and volleyball were invented in Massachusetts, and Massachusetts was the site of the first baseball World Series, please note that there have never been any good football teams there. Well, maybe some good “football” (soccer) teams, but no good “real” (American) football teams. I wonder why that is?
At any rate, here is a picture from that first world series, after the Bostonians had been attacked and gotten their stockings “redded up”:
. . .
Each Saturday and Tuesday an excerpt of one State’s (satirized) history will be posted here, in alphabetical order (from Alabama to Wyoming).
For “the rest of the story,” the (32-page) complete book “The New All-too-True-Blue History of Massachusetts” is available here.
The regions of the U.S. have been combined into volumes, too; [State] is included in the volume The New All-too-True-Blue History of the American Northeast
You can listen to this excerpt here:
Blackbird Crow Raven is also the author of the book “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle”