Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States by Dave Barry Page B

history books. Another one is “Fifty-four-forty or fight.”
     
    THE FORMATION OF TEXAS
     
    At this point Mexico owned the territory that we now call “Texas,” which consisted primarily of what we now call “dirt.” Gradually, however, it began to fill up with Americans, who developed a unique frontier life-style based on drinking Pearl beer, going “wooo-EEEE!” real loud, and making cash payments to football players. This irritated the Mexican government, which sent a general named Santa Anna (SAN-TA ANN-A) up to attack the Texans at the Alamo (AL-A-MO), where, in one of the most heroic, (HE-RO-IC) scenes in American history, the legendary Davy Crockett (played by Fess Parker) used his legendary rifle, “Betsy” (played by “Denise”), as a club in a futile (STUPID) effort to fend off Santa Anna’s troops. But the tragedy served as a blessing in disguise, because a short time later the legendary Sam Houston, showing that he had learned the harsh lesson of the Alamo, ordered his troops to try using their rifles as rifles. Not only did they rout the Mexicans, but they went on to defeat Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl. And thus Texas was born although it was not permitted to enter the union for ten more years, because of NCAA violations.
     
    At this point the president of the United States, a stud named James K. Polk, declared war against Mexico. Don’t ask us why. We are a history book, not a mind reader. This resulted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (GUA-DA … OH, NE-VER MIND), under which the uNited States got the rest of the Southwest and California, and Mexico got smaller.
     
    THE RUSH TO CALIFORNIA
     
    One day in the winter of 1848, a worker was digging in a pond on the northern California farm of Swiss immigrant Johann Sutter. Suddenly the man stopped and stared, for there, gleaming through the muck on his shovel blade, was a discovery that was to transform the entire California territory almost overnight: a movie camera. Word of the discovery spread like wildfire, and Soon thousands of actors, agents, producers, and so forth were rushing westward, overburdening the territory’s limited restaurant facilities and causing the price of valet parking to skyrocket. Soon there were more than a hundred thousand residents, which raised the issue: Should California be declared a state? Or, in this case, maybe even a separate planet?
     
    These were just some of the storm clouds now gathering over the nation’s political landscape. For meanwhile, back east, the cold front of moral outrage was moving inexorably toward the low-pressure system of southern economic interests, creating another of those frontal systems of conflict that would inevitably result in a violent afternoon or evening thundershower of Carnage. Also, it was time for the Civil War.
     
    DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
    1. In the song “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain When She Comes,” why do
    they announce so cheerfully that they intend to “kill the old red rooster
    when she comes”? Is it some kind of ritual thing? Or is it that they
    just hate the old red rooster, because maybe it pecked them or something
    when they were children, and now they’re just using the fact that she’s
    comin’ ‘round the mountain as an excuse to kill it? 2. An-cay oo-yay eak-spay ig-pay atin-lay? Explain. 3. Define the following: “Wooo-EEEE!

CHAPTER TEN
The Civil War: A Nation Pokes Itself in the Eyeball
    The seeds of the Civil War were sown in the late eighteenth century when Eli Whitney invented the “Cotton gin,” a machine capable of turning cotton into gin many times faster than it could be done by hand. This created a great demand for cotton-field workers, whom the South originally attempted to recruit by placing “help wanted” advertisements in the newspaper:
     
    ATTENTION SELF-STARTERS!
    Are you that special “Can-do” kind of guy or gal who’s
    looking for a chance to work extremely hard under horrible
    conditions for your entire life