Weekly Comments Archive
Archived Issue
Sunday, October 21, 2018
ISSUE #949
Senator Warren, Pocahontas and Sears-Roebuck

Senator Elizabeth Warren is a native of Oklahoma, but she is not, to use the current terminology, a Native American. You know her background so I won’t go into details about her as a Harvard professor, her entry into politics during the Obama Administration, then election as Senator in Massachusetts.

She is a Democrat and during the 2016 election campaign she somehow drew the ire of Republican candidate Donald Trump. Questions had been raised earlier about her claim at Harvard of being part Cherokee. Well, Trump didn’t like her political views, so, Trump being Trump, he found a nickname for her, as he had done with plenty of other political opponents.

Instead of ignoring Trump’s taunts, she took a DNA test which she hoped would prove she really is part Cherokee. I think she wanted to collect on the million dollars Trump promised to give her favorite charity if she proved to be an Indian. However, the test showed she is, at most 1/512 or 1/1024 North or South American native. Definitely no proof of being part Cherokee.

To be fair, I think Trump should pay up by writing a check for 1/512 of a million: $1953.13.

Here’s more of the story: Will Rogers was 5/16 Cherokee, and proud of it. In 1899, a group of Cherokee girls formed a fun, social club. It was for girls, but they made Will (age 19) an honorary member. Today, 119 years later, this club is thriving with Cherokee females of all ages! And one of their main activities is to honor Will Rogers’ birthday every year, Nov. 4. What’s the name of this group? Pocahontas Club. [In case you don’t know, Pocahontas was Powhatan, not Cherokee.]

Sears is bankrupt. Hard to imagine, isn’t it, for folks who grew up with a Sears-Roebuck catalog. Many small towns had a Sears store. You could buy almost anything from the catalog or store, kinda the Amazon of its time.

Before indoor plumbing, the old Sears-Roebuck catalog was “recycled” to the outhouse as soon as the latest catalog arrived. It was more than just reading material. The softer pages always got ripped out first, and if all the pages disappeared before the next Wish Book arrived in the mail, well, the next option was corn cobs.

Historical quotes by Will Rogers:

“Sears Roebuck has opened up a store on every section line crossing. You can’t possibly live over six miles out of their clutches. They will sell you a Mowing Machine, Standard Oil stock, U. S. bonds, a Farm, Town lots, Ice Cream soda, a house all put together like blocks.

“If you want meat you don’t go to the Butcher. The Chain will sell it to you and throw in a Radio and mattress. Independent Druggists just as well pack up their unpaid charge accounts and their Asparin Tablets and Lettuce sandwiches and quit and join the Navy. For the chain will slice ham thinner than they ever could. They buy their Coca Cola in Oil Tankers. They can serve your wife a case of Gin, and you a Ford Tractor and deliver it over the counter with your Apple Pie…They even got the poor old Bootlegger on the run; they can sell Oklahoma City people Jamaica Ginger cheaper than the Bootlegger.” WA #378, March 23, 1930

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