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Leonard Earl Johnson (photo credit Frank Parsley) covered Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2005), and the 2010 British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico for ConsumerAffairs.com. He is a contributor to Gambit Weekly, New Orleans Magazine, SCAT, Baton Rouge Advocate, Advocate Magazine, The Times-Picayune, Country Roads Magazine, Palm Springs Newswire and the anthologies: FRENCH QUARTER FICTION (Light of New Orleans Publishing), LOUISIANA IN WORDS (Pelican Publishing), LIFE IN THE WAKE (NOLAfuges.com), and more. Johnson is a former Merchant Seaman, and columnist at Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans; and African-American Village. Attended Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship at Piney Point, Maryland. Winner of the Press Club of New Orleans Award for Excellence, 1991, and given the Key to The City and a Certificate of Appreciation from the New Orleans City Council for a Gambit Weekly story on murder in the French Quarter.

Friday, November 01, 2024

βš“FROM JFK to RASPUTIN / November 2024

  

~ Fiction ~

Roman Γ  clef, cher.

Created A. I. free

by Leonard Earl Johnson 

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

 www.LEJ.world βœ

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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 a
lso got an education, a career, and the middle class.

JFK's political inspiration was Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945.  

Roosevelt was the Father of the New Deal, a Great Depression weapon designed to un-constipate monetary economics.  

World War Two derailed FDR's liberal New Deal.  The G. I. Bill revived it.  Field-tested and proved it ~ and its handmaiden, John Maynard Keynesian Economics.  It is the G. I. Bill that 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

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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 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, Illinois. I was young and feeling myself firmly on Capitalism's prosperous path ~ 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.

"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 higher 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!?"

Β© 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

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πŸ’œ πŸ’š

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πŸ—£πŸ˜·

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

click here

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  πŸ’› 
~ to be continued ~
~ www.LEJ.world βœ 

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Lagniappe du Jour


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πŸ’œ πŸ’š

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JFK's assasination


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You Tube ~

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Photo credit:
 Leonard Earl Johnson

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The Ladies Wore Red,

July 2021

Origin Story

 

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.
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 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