DRAFT ⚓ From JFK to Rasputin / November 2024 DRAFT

 

DRAFT

~ Fiction ~

Roman à clef, cher.

Created A. I. free

by Leonard Earl Johnson 

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

 www.LEJ.world ✍

🗣😷

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

click here

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~

📖

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Copyright, 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

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⚓ ⚓

November 2024

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⭐From JFK to Rasputin⭐

by
Leonard Earl Johnson

Home Reliquary, Lafayette Parish

Photo credit: Frank Parsley

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In Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, at an antique store where rummaging is encouraged, I found a dime-store memento from the shortened days of John F. Kennedy's presidency (1961 – 1963).

The item is a small glazed rocking chair that looks to be half a pair of salt-and-pepper shakers. It is not. There are no holes and there is no mate. It is a singular thing that would have been bought for very little money and taken home to display on a whatnot shelf ~ a popular home shelving unit since World War II soldiers came marching home expecting a home and got one, thanks to a Congressionally mandated liberal G. I. Bill.  They also got an education, a career, and the middle class.

The G. I. Bill field-tested and proved John Maynard Keynesian Economics, and created our World famous American post-war prosperity. 

"More than it came from guns," Hildegarde Bottlebrush, Housekeeper to the Cathedral's Rector, said to an Uber driver delivering the Rouses Market shopping bag containing a broken green refrigerated alligator brief case, with an empty melted Republican Snowball cube. 

She waved her hand dismissing the driver. 

👆👋👇

1962 J. F. K. dime-store memento        

             Photo credit: Dave Therrien

The rocking chair is white pottery.

 Stoneware. Nearly porcelain quality. 

There are reddish brown highlights on its arms and rockers, and on the bottom it reads in black lettering: 

"c. ARROW 1962 NYC 

Made in Japan" 

 

In gold, on the headrest are the initials,

 "J. F. K."

We took it home, rinsed it under the kitchen faucet and placed it on a tea-towel atop the stainless drainboard.  

Sitting it there conjured up the President's head resting on the examination table at Parkland Memorial Hospital ~ that day in Dallas, November 22, 1963.  Back when Americans still trusted themselves, and CBS News Anchor, Walter Cronkite comforted us:  

"From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at One p.m., Central Standard Time; Two O'clock, Eastern Standard Time, some thirty-eight minutes ago."

The World learned Kennedy had been assassinated while I was "with my stockbroker," in Springfield, Illinois. I was young and feeling myself firmly on Capitalism's prosperous path ~ I had just purchased twenty shares of Saint Louis based Ozark Airlines.

That brisk November day, I walked the few blocks from my broker's office to the Illinois State Capitol.  Where a bronze bigger than life Abraham Lincoln stands yet today, on a pedestal inscribed with his prophetic words, Departing Springfield for Washington, February 11, 1861:

🎩

"I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return..." 

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The following text message was sent from Amtrak's Sunset Limited, somewhere in Texas.  It was sent

 

Amtrak's Sunset Limited, Westbound  

by the Red-Warrior-Woman who boarded the train in Lafayette, sporting a big red hat and two doting acolytes. 

She sent her text to Hildegarde Bottlebrush,

Housekeeper to The Rector of The Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist, Lafayette.

"I know a good joke about JFK," she texted.

 

"This Conspiracy Theorist dies and goes to heaven, see!

"Saint Peter says to those waiting at The Gate, 'I will now answer any questions you have about Earthly matters.' 

"The Conspiracy Theorist slaps his forehead and yells, 'Who shot John F. Kennedy!?' 

"Peter smiles and says, 

'Why, Lee Harvey Oswald.'

"The Theorist cries, 'My God, this goes further than I thought!' " 

Hildegarde looked at her phone for a moment then texted back: "Have you heard the one about Arnold Palmer in the locker room shower with The Donald and Rasputin!?"

© 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

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🗣😷

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

click here

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~

📖

  💛 

~ to be continued ~

~ www.LEJ.world ✍ 

~    ~    ~

Lagniappe du Jour

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CBS News Anchor Walter Cronkite,

November 22, 1963

🎥

Arnold Palmer's Daughter on

 The Donald's recollection of 

her Father's penis. 

~ You Tube ~

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Photo credit:
 Leonard Earl Johnson

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The Ladies Wore Red,

July 2021

Origin Story

of

The Red Women Warriors Stories

💞

 

Go here for 
T-Shirts, Koozies, LEJ.world icebox magnets and such folderal ...

If you wish to read any month's column go to www.LEJ.world anytime. 

They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years.

~   ~   ~

 LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp

is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.world,

Hosted by GOOGLE BLOGGER,
and historically at

Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans

publication of the

Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association

It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

 www.LEJ.world ✍

🗣😷

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

✍ WHAT GOES UP / October 2024

~ Fiction ~

Roman à clef, cher.

Created A. I. free

by Leonard Earl Johnson 

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

 www.LEJ.world ✍

© 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved 

⚓

⚓ ⚓

October 2024

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⭐ WHAT GOES UP ⭐

Continuation of the Red Women Warriors Series

BY  Leonard Earl Johnson

 ~ www.LEJ.world✍

📖

💛

💜 💚

💛

💧

🗣😷

© 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

click here

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~

Photo credit: Leonard Earl Johnson

Amtrak  🚅.....

 👒

The train bearing our little klatch of 

Red-Hatted 

Women-for-The-Donald

wobbles off down the tracks leading from Lafayette, Louisiana to the Texas border.  

At a table under the club car's upper deck observation 

dome sits the large woman who boarded in Lafayette with a small following and the biggest red hat she could find in Dallas. She opens a green alligator briefcase exactly like the one Sylvia and Balthazar took to New Orleans, and extracts a clear cube inside of which sits a solidly frozen Republican Snowball.

"A manifest example of non- Global Warming." 

She continues, 

"To paraphrase our censorious leaders: 

'Global Warming is a Wacky Wokey Liberal Hoaxy'."

She smiles at one of her acolytes and instructs her to pass pamphlets to three glum faced women watching from the table across the aisle. 

The three women are bound for Lake Charles. They hold red paper coffee cups liberally laced with Bourbon, and wear faces that are liberally skeptical. 

Now they live in Lafayette. They previously lived in Lake Charles and 

Capital One Bank's Bank One Tower
Lake Charles, Louisiana 

proudly worked at Capital One Bank's Bank One Tower   ~  ~  at twenty-two stories the tallest building between Lafayette and Houston. They are taking the train back home to witness The Tower being brought down in a highly publicized implosion, following years of FEMA inertia, and private investor reluctance to reopening the building after Hurricanes Laura and Delta blew out its windows and closed it down but left it standing. The implosion will not be so sparing.

"Makes you think FEMA and investors might know more 'bout  Global Warming than Republicans do." one of the former Lake Charles residents says to the acolyte handing her a pamphlet.

 🥤 🥤 🥤

Meanwhile in Lafayette, at the Rosa Parks Amtrak stop, Sylvia and Balthazar cross Jefferson Street for Rêve Coffee Roasters. There they are greeted by their friend, The Mulato, who asks if

 they brought Stormy Daniels back with them for Halloween.

Photo credit:
Leonard Earl Johnson

"No," Sylvia says. 

"But Balthazar did buy a Trump Voodoo Doll for twenty-dollars, from a street picker at a gas station under the Broad Street overpass."

Balthazar holds up the little orange headed doll with a long hat pin through its bloated chest.  The Mulato sits their coffee on the counter and laughs.

Balthazar picks up the cups and they move out to the curbside tables. Sylvia unlocks their broken green alligator brief case and transfers it and its empty snowball cube to a Rouses Supermarket bag. 

Shortly an Uber driver pulls up, takes the bag and drives off down Jefferson Street. The Street is under an early Fall canopy of browning 

Spring budding, Bald Cypress Trees
Jefferson Street, Lafayette, Louisiana
Photo credit: Leonard Earl Johnson 

Bald Cypress Trees gathering deciduous needles round their knees, and around storm drains up and down The Hub City's Great Art Way. 

~ www.LEJ.world ✍ 

📖

💛 

Copyright, 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

~ to be continued ~

🗣😷

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

click here

~    ~    ~

Lagniappe du Jour

💜  💚  💛

💧

 
💜 💚

💛

Implosion Day, Bank One Tower
Lake Charles, Louisiana

Jefferson Street Cypress Knees
 The Great Art Way, Lafayette, Louisiana
Photo credit: Leonard Earl Johnson

💜  💚  💛

💧

Photo credit: Leonard Earl Johnson

~    ~    ~

💜  💚  💛

💧

The Ladies Wore Red,

July 2021

Origin Story

of

The Red Women Warriors Stories

💞

 

Go here for 
T-Shirts, Koozies, LEJ.world icebox magnets and such folderal ...

If you wish to read any month's column go to www.LEJ.world anytime. 

They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years.

~   ~   ~

 LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp

is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.world,

Hosted by GOOGLE BLOGGER,
and historically at

Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans

publication of the

Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association

It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

 www.LEJ.world ✍

🗣😷

Your comments and corrections

are welcome