Dear Thomas,
I'm sure I speak for all of us when I thank you for that truly illuminating and informative report. I am always very impressed by the vast array of strange, though usually historically inaccurate, facts that spring willy-nilly from your brain at the slightest provocation. Unfortunately, and I do beg your pardon for this, I misspelled "phalacrophobic". Of course you then, with slightly Freudian overtones, went on to misspell it even more, but it may have been I who initially catapulted you into your erroneously avian essay on the cravenly crowphobic Custer, who actually was not at all afraid of birds, (indeed, it is rumored that he wept uncontrollably when the family parakeet was eaten by the Custer cat) The true meaning of the word and the true story is as follows:
Phala--and indeed, I'm a little surprised that you didn't know this, being related to the Hossenpfeffer/ Beethoven clan-is the Latin affectational derivative for the German pfahl which means "stake". Hence, phalacrophobic is the fear of stakes or fear of impalement on a sharp object.
This phobia began innocently enough in Custer's youth, when one of his siblings accidentally fell on a stick while roasting marshmallows and put out his eye directly in front of the young and impressionable George, who in a well-meaning but confused attempt, replaced the eye using his marshmallow instead and then ate -well--enough said.. As a
result George was left with a terror of sharp pointy objects, a phobic reaction which generalized over time until George was unable to walk in the woods, eat with utensils, or get near his dear Aunt Esther's nose, which caused all sorts of hurt feelings at family
reunions.
In retrospect, it seems an admirable and courageous decision for poor Custer to confront his inner demons mano a mano as he did, riding into a veritable firestorm of flying pfahllic objects in his sojourn across the fruited plain. The large figures erected in
ever-increasing magnitude at each encampment were not, as you have proclaimed, scarecrows, but simulacra cleverly designed to decoy the marauding Indians' pfahls. Surely you noticed the little bullseyes painted on their umbilici in the award-winning photographic coverage of the battles in Life Magazine?
As for the singing of The Yellow Rose of Texas...it's a lovely bit of folklore, but highly unlikely, as the famous ditty was written by Susannah Dickinson, Emily's twin sister, as she hid under the bed of General Jim Bowie (the one later alleged to have been ill)during the final siege of the Alamo, a charmingly bawdy tale, the racier elements of which have been santiized for public school children in the compulsory Texas history textbooks, but which I will be glad to recount at another time if you like. The battlesong that was heard echoing up hill and down dale during the pre-battle erections was Stand By Me, a subtle text that appealed to the contemplative side of the General, who hoped he would someday be portrayed by Robert Goulet in a musical biography of his life.
Indeed, when the cook later escaped the clutches of his captors, he gave a moving account of the eve of the final battle, when the General lustily belted out the chorus as they raised the blue-uniformed decoys. "It was Custer's Last Stand By Me", the cook informed his audience tearfully. Of course, as often happens to famous sayings over time, this has suffered abbreviation to... |
