In my continuing quest to try and understand what has happened mentally with D friends of mine who have seem to gone off the deep end, I came across this article/podcast by Sasha Stone…interesting. She gives many example and also brings in the idea of mass psychosis. You don’t have to listen to the podcast as it’s in written form below the podcast window with the embedded videos she references:
About that traveling by wagon, in 1908 my dad’s family and several extended families traveled by wagons, pulled by horses, from NW Arkansas to far Western Oklahoma, about 400 miles and it took them 30 days. My grandmother Nancy Elizabeth, born in 1869, was a fiesty little almost five foot tall woman in her 90’s, when she told me about them having to cross the Canadian River in the area which is now between Oklahoma City and Norman Oklahoma. She told me that my dad who was five years old at the time started crying and became scared and they forded across the river. His comments as she remembered were, “Mom, I want to go to Oklahoma through the weeds and not through the water.” As she told the story, it was difficult crossing the river, so they had to put extra horses on the other side of the river with ropes to pull the wagon through the mud.
Grandmother told me that as they came up on the other side of the river there were a fair number of Indians riding up on horseback and she became scared and thought they might be in grave danger. As it turned out the Indians actually helped them get the wagons on up the bank and watched while they hung clothing, that had become wet in the beds of the wagons, up on ropes to dry. They prepared a meal and shared it with the Indians who she turned out to be fine people.
It took them 30 days to cross 400 miles and reach some real sorry land that was available for them to try to farm which was not easy. Dad had two older sisters, one born in the late 1800’s and the other in January of 1900 – Esther Pearl who lived to be over 100 years old. Dad’s mom, Nancy Elizabeth, lived to be 94 and dad lived to be 94 also so they were kind of long livers. When dad was in grade school the two older sisters, Ola and Esther Pearl would put their younger brother between them and they shared an old beat up, one eyed horse for their school transportation.
A lot happened during the last century because my dad was 14 before he ever rode in a vehicle that was not pulled by a horse and in the 1960’s he and mom flew by jet over to Europe to join me and my wife for a bit of vacation when I was stationed in Germany in the Army.
At the same time, early 1900’s my mom’s family moved from Missouri to the Texas panhandle where my great grandmother was the Postmistress of a small town, now a ghost town, which she named Abra, Texas after her deceased husband. The living in the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s was difficult in the border states not recovered from the Civil War and a lot of folk moved West looking for something a bit better. My dad’s grandfather returned from the War and they told him that the man never smiled again, he had no sense of joy or humor after fighting for the South in a terrible war. We had others on both mom and dad’s side of the family and most fought for the South but not always.
So that’s my story about traveling in an old wagon, I still have the muzzle loading shotgun my great grandfather kept close and they did their 30 day journey by wagon and my dad used it to shoot rabbits to feed the family when he was about ten years old. It seems strange to become 80 years old this year and know the stories about such a different time not that long ago.
RE: The Oregon Trail–From what I understand, the thousand plus miles, month’s long trek was really brutal, and for the length of the trail, it was littered with often cherished but heavy possessions, dumped to lighten the load, with used up, or broken wheels and other items, dead animals, and the graves of pioneers who died on the trek.
RE: Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon
Boy, Pete is really over the target, because the MSM, leftist members of Congress, and those who oppose him in the Pentagon (apparently quite a large crew), are digging up and inflating every picayune item, trying to slap every charge they can against him, hoping that their cumulative weight/force will be able to drive him and his reforms out of the Pentagon.
Their latest phony charge; he spent thousands to set up a makeup studio for himself.*
Something about the Oregon Trail that not a lot of people know is that it worked both ways. Many people returned to the East, either giving up on getting to Oregon Country, or unable to make a living once they got there. (Lots of people returned to their home countries after landing at Ellis Island, which not a lot of people know about either.)
Only about 300,000 settlers used it, and no known statistics of how many returned; something under 10% of them died on the way, usually of diseases such as cholera: when large groups camped together sanitation was poor. Oregon Country was accessible by ship for those who could afford that (and was no picnic either, having to round Cape Horn) and later, of course, by railway.
Parts of the Oregon Trail can still be visited, and parts of it are now I-80 and I-84.
In Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Dana describes meeting a man in California who had walked overland from the East to Oregon Country, and then come south to California.
I’d love to refer you to Francis Parkman’s Oregon Trail but the title is somewhat misleading: he and a friend were on vacation hunting, and they traveled something less than half of it, and don’t have much to say about the emigrants. The diaries of the Lewis and Clark expedition are better in terms of understanding the route but predate the Oregon Trail considerably.
Snow, my thoughts too. He is causing them pain. GOOD! Weed them out.
OldTexan, yes we are close to those before us.
My Great Grandfather and his 3 brothers from SC fought for the South. Two died. Somewhere I have a copy of a letter sent to him by their farmhand after the War. It said, come to Memphis, lots of opportunities. I remember visiting my Dad’s Aunts in Memphis in the early 50’s. His Dad, born in Memphis, moved to Atlanta where Dad was born. Prior to moving to Atlanta, we moved to Galveston, Texas. He was a carpenter, built a house that survived the hurricane. During the Depression, Dad’s family moved to San Antonio, Texas.
I have BA/MA in History. I have always thought of History as a River, with tributaries flowing in, causing ripples in time
Yellowstone 1883 was about the oregon trail in part, i think they stuck the landing in the third iteration
My great-grandfather, having left his Quaker meeting to join the Union Army in 1861, and serving through to Appomattox, left Pennsylvania and moved west, in a wagon, to Lawrence, Kansas.
In my continuing quest to try and understand what has happened mentally with D friends of mine who have seem to gone off the deep end, I came across this article/podcast by Sasha Stone…interesting. She gives many example and also brings in the idea of mass psychosis. You don’t have to listen to the podcast as it’s in written form below the podcast window with the embedded videos she references:
https://sashastone.substack.com/p/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-sane-democrat
About that traveling by wagon, in 1908 my dad’s family and several extended families traveled by wagons, pulled by horses, from NW Arkansas to far Western Oklahoma, about 400 miles and it took them 30 days. My grandmother Nancy Elizabeth, born in 1869, was a fiesty little almost five foot tall woman in her 90’s, when she told me about them having to cross the Canadian River in the area which is now between Oklahoma City and Norman Oklahoma. She told me that my dad who was five years old at the time started crying and became scared and they forded across the river. His comments as she remembered were, “Mom, I want to go to Oklahoma through the weeds and not through the water.” As she told the story, it was difficult crossing the river, so they had to put extra horses on the other side of the river with ropes to pull the wagon through the mud.
Grandmother told me that as they came up on the other side of the river there were a fair number of Indians riding up on horseback and she became scared and thought they might be in grave danger. As it turned out the Indians actually helped them get the wagons on up the bank and watched while they hung clothing, that had become wet in the beds of the wagons, up on ropes to dry. They prepared a meal and shared it with the Indians who she turned out to be fine people.
It took them 30 days to cross 400 miles and reach some real sorry land that was available for them to try to farm which was not easy. Dad had two older sisters, one born in the late 1800’s and the other in January of 1900 – Esther Pearl who lived to be over 100 years old. Dad’s mom, Nancy Elizabeth, lived to be 94 and dad lived to be 94 also so they were kind of long livers. When dad was in grade school the two older sisters, Ola and Esther Pearl would put their younger brother between them and they shared an old beat up, one eyed horse for their school transportation.
A lot happened during the last century because my dad was 14 before he ever rode in a vehicle that was not pulled by a horse and in the 1960’s he and mom flew by jet over to Europe to join me and my wife for a bit of vacation when I was stationed in Germany in the Army.
At the same time, early 1900’s my mom’s family moved from Missouri to the Texas panhandle where my great grandmother was the Postmistress of a small town, now a ghost town, which she named Abra, Texas after her deceased husband. The living in the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s was difficult in the border states not recovered from the Civil War and a lot of folk moved West looking for something a bit better. My dad’s grandfather returned from the War and they told him that the man never smiled again, he had no sense of joy or humor after fighting for the South in a terrible war. We had others on both mom and dad’s side of the family and most fought for the South but not always.
So that’s my story about traveling in an old wagon, I still have the muzzle loading shotgun my great grandfather kept close and they did their 30 day journey by wagon and my dad used it to shoot rabbits to feed the family when he was about ten years old. It seems strange to become 80 years old this year and know the stories about such a different time not that long ago.
RE: The Oregon Trail–From what I understand, the thousand plus miles, month’s long trek was really brutal, and for the length of the trail, it was littered with often cherished but heavy possessions, dumped to lighten the load, with used up, or broken wheels and other items, dead animals, and the graves of pioneers who died on the trek.
RE: Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon
Boy, Pete is really over the target, because the MSM, leftist members of Congress, and those who oppose him in the Pentagon (apparently quite a large crew), are digging up and inflating every picayune item, trying to slap every charge they can against him, hoping that their cumulative weight/force will be able to drive him and his reforms out of the Pentagon.
Their latest phony charge; he spent thousands to set up a makeup studio for himself.*
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/04/pete-hegseth-delivers-absolutely-savage-response-far-left/
Something about the Oregon Trail that not a lot of people know is that it worked both ways. Many people returned to the East, either giving up on getting to Oregon Country, or unable to make a living once they got there. (Lots of people returned to their home countries after landing at Ellis Island, which not a lot of people know about either.)
Only about 300,000 settlers used it, and no known statistics of how many returned; something under 10% of them died on the way, usually of diseases such as cholera: when large groups camped together sanitation was poor. Oregon Country was accessible by ship for those who could afford that (and was no picnic either, having to round Cape Horn) and later, of course, by railway.
Parts of the Oregon Trail can still be visited, and parts of it are now I-80 and I-84.
In Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Dana describes meeting a man in California who had walked overland from the East to Oregon Country, and then come south to California.
I’d love to refer you to Francis Parkman’s Oregon Trail but the title is somewhat misleading: he and a friend were on vacation hunting, and they traveled something less than half of it, and don’t have much to say about the emigrants. The diaries of the Lewis and Clark expedition are better in terms of understanding the route but predate the Oregon Trail considerably.
Snow, my thoughts too. He is causing them pain. GOOD! Weed them out.
OldTexan, yes we are close to those before us.
My Great Grandfather and his 3 brothers from SC fought for the South. Two died. Somewhere I have a copy of a letter sent to him by their farmhand after the War. It said, come to Memphis, lots of opportunities. I remember visiting my Dad’s Aunts in Memphis in the early 50’s. His Dad, born in Memphis, moved to Atlanta where Dad was born. Prior to moving to Atlanta, we moved to Galveston, Texas. He was a carpenter, built a house that survived the hurricane. During the Depression, Dad’s family moved to San Antonio, Texas.
I have BA/MA in History. I have always thought of History as a River, with tributaries flowing in, causing ripples in time
Yellowstone 1883 was about the oregon trail in part, i think they stuck the landing in the third iteration
My great-grandfather, having left his Quaker meeting to join the Union Army in 1861, and serving through to Appomattox, left Pennsylvania and moved west, in a wagon, to Lawrence, Kansas.
this curious offering is an attempt to adapt pynchon’s vineland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u-2yB8GJ-Q
talk about paranoia creeping all around,