Must we experience sorrow to appreciate joy?
Twenty-eight years old he was when Cody passed away.
We’ve lost a lot of friends from our small group.
Felt a lot of pain.

“Pick yourself up and get back in the race,” is Sinatra’s response to a knockdown.
But we need to grieve.
We need to accept grieving as an unavoidable part of life.
So natural.
So positive.

Here’s an upbeat way of accepting grieving, from Ogden Nash: “So Penseroso.”

Come, megrims, mollygrubs and collywobbles!
Come, gloom that limps and misery that hobbles!
Come also, most exquisite meloncholiage,
As dank and decadent as November foliage!
I crave to shudder in your moist embrace,
To feel your oystery fingers on my face.
This is my hour of sadness and soulfulness,
and cursed be he who dissipates my dolefulness.
I do not desire to be cheered,
I desire to retire, I am thinking of growing a beard.
A sorrowful beard with a mournful, dolorous hue in it,
with ashes and glue in it.
I want to be drunk with despair,
I want to caress my care.
I do not wish to be blithe,
I wish to recoil and writhe.
I will revel in cosmic woe,
and I want my woe to show.
This is the morbid moment,
this is the ebony hour.
Aroint thee, sweetness and light!
I want to be dark and sour!
Away with the bird that twitters!
All that glitters is jitters!
Roses, roses are gray,
Violets cry Boo! and frighten me.
Sugar is stimulating,
and people conspire to brighten me.
Go hence, people, go hence!
Go sit on a picket fence!
Go gargle with mineral oil,
Go out and develop a boil!
Melancholy is what I brag and boast of,
Melancholy I plan to make the most of.
You beaming optimists shall not destroy it,
But while I am at it, I intend to enjoy it.
Go, people, stuff your mouths with soap,
and remember, please, that when I mope, I mope! 

“So Penseroso”
Ogden Nash

______________________________________
Today is Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Good morning, my friends.
This is my 113th consecutive daily posting.

Time is now 12.03am. Our streak of amazing weather ends tomorrow with rain, whatever that is.
Today’s dinner is Roasted Chicken quarter with Cacciatore Sauce.

_____________________________________

SHORT TAKES

The Web Meister asked how Bobby G came to be called Cody and got this response from Sammy Viscione:

“When we were kids playing cowboys, Cody use to slap his hip as you would if you were whipping a horse.
Somehow, someone said "He thinks he is Buffalo Bill Cody. “

Hi Dom. I read your blog every day.”

_______________________________________________
Today’s quiz:
Who was Wild Bill Hickock?
Find the answer just before today’s Post below. Partial answers for partial credits.

___________________________________
Thumbnail Biography, excerpted from Wikipedia
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917) was an American scout, bison hunter, and showman.
He was born in Le Claire, Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa), but he lived for several years in his father's hometown in Toronto Township, Ontario, Canada, before the family returned to the Midwest and settled in the Kansas Territory.

Buffalo Bill started working at the age of eleven, after his father's death, and became a rider for the Pony Express at age 14. During the American Civil War, he served the Union from 1863 to the end of the war in 1865. Later he served as a civilian scout for the US Army during the Indian Wars, receiving the Medal of Honor in 1872.

One of the most colorful figures of the American Old West, Buffalo Bill's legend began to spread when he was only twenty-three. According to Cody's account in Buffalo Bill's Own Story, the Utah War was where he began his career as an "Indian fighter":

“Presently the moon rose, dead ahead of me; and painted boldly across its face was the figure of an Indian.
He wore this war-bonnet of the Sioux, at his shoulder was a rifle pointed at someone in the river-bottom 30 feet [9 meters] below; in another second he would drop one of my friends.
I raised my old muzzle-loader and fired.
The figure collapsed, tumbled down the bank and landed with a splash in the water.
'What is it?' called McCarthy, as he hurried back. 'It's over there in the water.'
'Hi!' he cried. 'Little Billy's killed an Indian all by himself!' So began my career as an Indian fighter.”

In 1869, the twenty-three year-old Cody met Ned Buntline, who later published a story based on Cody's adventures (largely invented by the writer) in Street and Smith's New York Weekly and then published a highly successful novel, “Buffalo Bill, King of the Bordermen,” which was first serialized on the front page of the Chicago Tribune, beginning that December 15.

Many other sequels followed by Buntline, Prentiss Ingraham and others from the 1870s through the early part of the twentieth century.
Cody later became world-famous for Buffalo Bill's Wild West, a touring show which traveled around the United States, Great Britain, and Continental Europe. Audiences were enthusiastic about seeing a piece of the American West.
Emilio Salgari, a noted Italian writer of adventure stories, met Buffalo Bill when he came to Italy and saw his show; Salgari later featured Cody as a hero in some of his novels.

______________________________________________
Today’s Movie Details:
“Buffalo Bill” (1944) is a Technicolor biographical Western about the life of the legendary frontiersman Buffalo Bill Cody, directed by William A. Wellman and starring Joel McCrea and Maureen O'Hara with Linda Darnell, Thomas Mitchell (as Ned Buntline), Edgar Buchanan and Anthony Quinn in supporting roles.

“Buffalo Bill and the Indians,” or “Sitting Bull's History Lesson” is a 1976 DeLuxe Color revisionist Western directed by Robert Altman and based on the play “Indians” by Arthur Kopit.
It stars Paul Newman as William F. Cody, alias Buffalo Bill, along with Geraldine Chaplin, Will Sampson, Joel Grey, Harvey Keitel and Burt Lancaster as Bill's biographer, Ned Buntline filmed in Panavision.

As in his earlier film MASH, Altman skewers an American historical myth of heroism, in this case the notion that noble white men fighting bloodthirsty savages won the West. However, the film was poorly received at the time of its release, as the country was celebrating its bicentennial.

Thank you, Wikipedia

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Answer to the Quiz:
James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876), better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West known for his work across the frontier as a drover, wagon master, soldier, spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor.
He earned a great deal of notoriety in his own time, much of it bolstered by the many outlandish and often fabricated tales that he told about his life.
Some contemporaneous reports of his exploits are known to be fictitious, but they remain the basis of much of his fame and reputation, along with his own stories.

Hickok was born and raised on a farm in northern Illinois at a time when lawlessness and vigilante activity were rampant because of the influence of the "Banditti of the Prairie".
Hickok was drawn to this ruffian lifestyle and headed west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice, working as a stagecoach driver and later as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska.
He fought and spied for the Union Army during the American Civil War and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, actor, and professional gambler.
Over the course of his life, he was involved in several notable shoot-outs.

In 1876, Hickok was shot from behind and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (present-day South Dakota) by Jack McCall, an unsuccessful gambler.
The hand of cards which he supposedly held at the time of his death has become known as the dead man's hand: two pairs, aces and eights.

Hickok remains a popular figure in frontier history.
Many historic sites and monuments commemorate his life, and he has been depicted numerous times in literature, film, and television.
He is chiefly portrayed as a protagonist, though historical accounts of his actions are often controversial and most of his career was exaggerated by both himself and various mythmakers.
While Hickok claimed to have killed numerous named and unnamed gunmen in his lifetime, according to Joseph G. Rosa, Hickok’s biographer and the foremost authority on Wild Bill, Hickok killed only six or seven men in gunfights.

TODAY’S POST
PUFF, PUFF, THAT CIGARETTE

I was 12 years old when I took my first drag of a cigarette. It was early June of 1955. School had just ended. Cody Giovanditto and I bought 2 loose from Charley the Jew’s variety store at the corner of Wiggin and Tileston Sts. for 5 cents. Other stores like Peglegs, Roger’s, Piccolomini’s, and Joe Black’s also sold cigarettes to kids at affordable prices. Remember how they used to sell two or three cigarettes for a nickel or a dime? However, each store would only give second rate brands like Dunhill, Wings, Sarno, Viceroy, L&M, Herbert Tayrenton, Kent, and Raleigh. The latter being a popular sell since the owners would keep the coupons. Our choice was Kent’s because of the “micronite filter” and its reputation for being very mild. The micronite filter was a new breakthrough in cigarette technology rendering low tar and a smooth taste. Just right for novices. By the way, they were popular with women but too mild for real men. So, on one Sunday afternoon, on the bathhouse steps, we were going to do it. Learn to smoke. Become one of the guys, leap into manhood. But who would go first? Let’s choose up! Finally, we decided to do it together. We agreed there will be no phony exhaling. The smoke had to come from the lungs. We each took a deep drag and immediately started to choke our brains out. I coughed so violently my nose started bleeding while Cody nearly vomited. He went home sick, embarrassed and defeated. But we were determined. Finally, after a few more days and nickels we perfected the vice and entered into manhood.

To His memory,
Robert “Cody” Giovanditto
1944-1972

_________________________________________

Post Scripts
Would you like this daily posting to arrive in your mailbox? 
Just send the email to domcapossela@hotmail.com

Or would you like to comment on a posting? 
Mail the comment to domcapossela@hotmail.com

Or would you like to view the blog?
Existential Auto Trip: www.existentialautotrip.com