βFrom JFK to Rasputin / November 2025
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LEJ's Louisiana
a monthly e-column at
November 2025
Yours Truly in a Swamp
by Leonard Earl Johnson
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"What profit those who would scuttle their own ship to steal their own brass."~ Hildegarde Bottlebrush
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LEJ's
Louisiana
a monthly e-column at
November 2025
Yours Truly in a Swamp
by Leonard Earl Johnson
π«π₯π«π₯π«π₯π«π₯π«
"What profit those who would
scuttle their own ship
to steal their own brass."
~ Hildegarde Bottlebrush
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Best contrast on a computer
or phone screen with a black background.
J. F. K., assassinated on
22 November 1963
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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 Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Congressionally mandated liberal G. I. Bill.
We took it home, rinsed it under the kitchen faucet and placed it on a tea-towel atop the stainless steel drainboard.
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When it happened I was in Springfield, Illinois, twenty some years old, and two-hundred-and-twenty miles north of Carbondale, where I longed to be. I had flunked out of Southern Illinois University and at the insistence of my Father, taken a job working for the Illinois Secretary of State. College failure has taken me far.
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~ Fiction ~
Roman Γ clef, cher.
Created A. I. free
by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
www.LEJ.world β
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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 β 1963).
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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 Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Congressionally mandated liberal G. I. Bill.
They also got an education and a career, along with housing suitable for displaying treasures such as our JFK Rocking Chair. The Nation got a broadly expanded middle-class, and for everyone a postwar prosperity that has until recently been the envy of the world and the target of endless demagogy.
JFK's political inspiration was Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945 ~ the last year of World War II.
Roosevelt was the Father of the New Deal, a Great Depression weapon designed to un-constipate monetary economics.
World War Two came along and derailed FDR's New Deal. After the war, the G. I. Bill revived it, field-tested it, and proved it ~ along with its handmaiden, John Maynard Keynesian Economics.
"The G. I. Bill created America's post-war prosperity. More than gun sales and tariffs," Hildegarde Bottlebrush, Housekeeper to the Cathedral Rector, said to an Uber driver delivering a Rouses Market shopping bag containing a broken green alligator brief case holding an empty clear plastic cube of melted Republican Snowball.
She waved her hand dismissing the driver.
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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 steel 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. Young and feet firmly on Capitalism's prosperous path I had just purchased twenty shares of Saint Louis based Ozark Airlines.
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That brisk November day, I walked the few blocks to the Illinois
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| Illinois Capitol, Springfield courtesy Illinois Secretary of State |
State Capitol. Where a bronze bigger than life Abraham Lincoln stands yet today, on a pedestal inscribed with his prophetic words on departing Springfield for Washington,
February 11, 1861:
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"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 by the Red Warrior Woman who
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| Amtrak's Sunset Limited, Westbound |
boarded the train in Lafayette, sporting red hat, red clothing and two doting acolytes.
She sent the text to Hildegarde Bottlebrush, of Saint John the Evangelist, Lafayette.
"I know a joke about JFK,"
she texted.
"This conspiracy theorist dies and goes to heaven, see!
"Saint Peter says, 'I will now answer any questions about Earthly matters.'
"The man slaps his forehead and yells, 'Who shot John F. Kennedy!?'
"Peter smiles and says,
'Why, Lee Harvey Oswald.'
"The man cries, 'My God, this goes higher than I thought!' "
Hildegarde looks at her phone, wipes away a tear and texts back:
"Funny!
"Have you heard the one about Rasputin, the Donald-go-round's cabinet, and the film
KING OF HEARTS?"
Β© 2025, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
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~ to be continued ~
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Lagniappe du Jour
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| 1963 JFK memento Photo credit LEJ.world |
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on JFK's death.
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| Photo credit: Leonard Earl Johnson |
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They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years. .JPG) ~ ~ ~ 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 It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana www.LEJ.world β π£π· |
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posted by LEJ's Louisiana | 8:15 AM
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