Cold Beer Research Articles

Sedimentary Layers: Bob Hawke’s Beer World Record and Ocker Chic

ABSTRACT Australia’s 23rd prime minister, Bob Hawke, is celebrated for a world record set at the University of Oxford in the 1950s for the fastest consumption of a yard of ale. The beer record is apocryphal, having five evidential flaws. However, the embellishment—or fabrication—of the record was crucial to the “larrikin-leader” dual image Hawke constructed over the course of the 1970s as he manoeuvred to enter parliament. Hawke’s dual image appealed widely from the 1970s onwards because of the rise of the “ocker”: a middle-class caricature of Australians. By the 1980s, a refined “ocker chic” identity had emerged in which the middle class could erect a national culture that feigned meritocracy. In the 2020s, politicians, professionals, performative fathers and others identify with an ahistorical nation in which irreverence, elasticated leather boots, cowboy hats, Bavarian-style cold beer, and stories of endurance in foreign lands help to conceal their privilege. While many commentators have tried to explain this phenomenon, Diane Kirkby’s formulation of ocker chic reveals the interchange between class, gender and race that has preserved neoliberal capitalism in Australia.

The Four

The Four Cary Heinz (bio) It was spring. I love spring. One of the things I like most about spring is the return of our national pastime. Baseball. Listen to the speech by James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams. If you’re reading this, those words probably give you goose bumps. The problem was, it was the spring of 2020. Baseball wasn’t the only thing missing. We were trapped in our homes, many working from there, staring endlessly at computer screens. The NCAA tournament was canceled (my college roommate and I had a thirty- four-year annual bet paused), and the NBA postponed their season and finished it in a “bubble” in Disney World. Spring training stopped, and a shortened sixty- game season followed in late July without fans. It was surreal. With no live games, I turned to the MLB channel, noting they were filling time with any baseball content imaginable, including old movies and documentaries. Robert Redford broke a lot of lights that spring. One night after working remotely numbed my brain, I sat down on the couch with a cold beer and rewatched Ken Burns’s Baseball. I was a happy man. I am on record stating he could make a documentary explaining how Q-tips are made and it would be interesting. When this first appeared in the fall of 1994, it was much like his 1990 work The Civil War. It was long, it was interesting, and it was really good. Watching it now, as I approach the age of sixty, I am a far different man then when I viewed the original broadcast. During the episode “The Seventh Inning,” which covered the 1950s, the black- and- white ghosts, men I grew up watching now appeared in color. An amazing photograph appeared on my screen: Henry Aaron, Ernie Banks, Willie Mays, and Frank Robinson, the icons of my youth. Their faces were printed on cardboard rectangles, statistics on the back. These artifacts were the foundation of my baseball card collection I saved from my mother. She gave a treasure trove of comic books from the 1960s, which I’m sure would have little value today with the popularity of superhero movies. Excuse my sarcasm, but it still hurts. All these years later, however, I still have the cards. [End Page 104] These aren’t just four ghosts from baseball’s past; they had a remarkable amount in common. All were first- ballot Hall of Fame selections, four of the first eighteen chosen that way since 1936. Each of them hit five hundred home runs, four of the first eleven to do so. All were an MVP twice (except, inexplicably, Aaron), won at least one Golden Glove, lived past the age of eighty, and were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. Banks, Mr. Cub, even had the distinction of being presented his medal by a White Sox fan, Barack Obama. I coincidentally thought of four words, all beginning with C, to describe each: Aaron, consistency; Banks, cheerfulness; Mays, charisma; and Robinson, competitiveness. Each word matches their temperament and playing style. Their statistics are legendary, especially when looked at in a Street & Smith’s Official 1978 Yearbook, the first published after their careers had ended. That was a different era, and in that context and perspective their numbers are better appreciated. At the time, all were in the top ten in home runs, hitting a combined 2,513 dingers. They played 11,626 games and created 15, 558 runs (runs scored and runs batted in). Their cumulative total base numbers added up to thirty- nine miles. They rapped out 12,580 hits and 2,082 doubles. All but Banks stole over two hundred bases, and they appeared in sixty-four All- Star rosters. Each was an All- Star more than ten times.1 Today, with the baseball that’s been played since Henry Aaron and Frank Robinson retired after the 1976 season, it’s difficult to appreciate just how good they were. In the past forty-five years, we have had a steroid era and baseballs that many have accused of being juiced. There now are twenty- eight players who...

Cold Beer, Fried Chicken, Communication, and History

Cold Beer, Fried Chicken, Communication, and History

Jazz Places: How Performance Spaces Shape Jazz History

Jazz Places: How Performance Spaces Shape Jazz History

Oceans Away

Oceans Away David Gessner David Gessner, essay, ocean, Miami ________ The dolphins cut back and forth in front of our bow, rolling and jumping and twisting. They spotted our boat and began to chase it as we chased false albacore, and before we knew it a half dozen of them had caught up with us and were darting through the slipstream of our bow. The three of us on the boat are laughing and smiling and pointing. The dolphins seem like sleek packages of exhilaration. Joy embodied. It is November 2, 2021, and this is the first stop in a trip south to Florida that I am taking with my frequent traveling companion and old friend Mark Honerkamp. Hones, as I have forever called him, lives to fish and today he is in heaven. We launched from the dock in front of my friend Douglas's house. Douglas Cutting, a former student of mine and former fishing guide, is part owner of an old but beautifully restored wooden house that stares out at the Intracoastal Waterway in McClellanville, South Carolina, a small fishing village about three hours south of Wilmington, North Carolina, where I live. Before the day is over Hones and Douglas will have caught spotted sea-trout, red snapper, black sea bass, gag grouper, pinfish, and an oyster toadfish. The fish they don't catch, the false albacore, or albies, will provide them the most excitement, rippling the surface with their sleek backs as they devour pods of baitfish, but refusing to take the lures we offer. Even I, a nonfisherman, get into the pursuit of the albies, standing up as the lookout in the crow's nest as I scan the waters with my binoculars. On top of all the fish we are treated to the sight of bald eagles, a loggerhead turtle, and a vast variety of birds from scoters to little blue herons. But for me it is the sight of the dolphins bowriding that will remain the day's highlight. When we first moved to Wilmington, I told people that I felt like I had moved onto the set of Flipper. One of the best things about moving south was suddenly having dolphins as neighbors. It turned out that my new home was not just the center for a large community of dolphins, but a hotbed of dolphin research. One of the most exciting discoveries was recently made by three scientists, [End Page 9] one of whom, Laela Sayigh, lived only a twenty-minute paddle from me when I first moved South. Laela coauthored a paper that concluded that bottlenose dolphins convey identity information with individually distinctive signature whistles. This may not seem particularly eye-opening until you stop and think that this is just a fancy scientific way of saying that they call each other by name. There are those who deny the world beyond the human. But face to face with dolphins it is harder. ________ I have spent the last year traveling to places where the climate crisis has hit hard, and have been writing as I go, but have somehow failed to mention the large, wet elephant in the room. That is, I have mostly ignored the three-quarters of the globe that is covered by water. Thematically there is no excuse for this, but stylistically there is. I have tried to make climate small and personal, and what is larger and less personal than an ocean? But if the ocean's story is large and impersonal, it is also vital. And if we are overheating the world, this is where most of the heat is going. The heat and acidification of our ocean waters do not get the big headlines. Yet. Dolphins, I suppose, are one way of making the watery and vague more specific. But if the oceans go, so do they. After Douglas has docked and cleaned the boat, we stand around the kitchen island and drink cold beer while feasting on the fish we have caught and on the stone crabs he has prepared. We are joined by Greg, another of the house's co-owners, and his friend Drew, who has served as Greg's...

Another lazy person looking for a meal.

She sat on the hospital bed munching on a sandwich someone brought her and told me her story. Oh, they sometimes judge her when she comes into the emergency department. What's the occasion tonight? Pain in her feet? An ache in her back? What's the real reason: looking for food and a warm place to get rest? She's told that she wouldn't be on the street if not for the alcohol. Some have even asked if maybe she's homeless by choice. Here's the thing: almost no one would choose to check in to Hotel Dark Alley That Smells Like Old Garbage where she gets to sleep on the ground. But most people don't choose between their house and the street. It starts differently. It starts with a person much like herself: with a job and a townhouse and, even with her best efforts, just not enough money. One month, she realized: she can sleep in her car, but she can't drive her townhouse to work. That's when she packed her bags and moved into her car. She kept her job for a while, but it wasn't that simple. Every night she spent an hour looking for a safe place to park. The back seat of a car wasn't the same as a mattress at home. Every sound startled her. Her back started to hurt. Between that and no shower to count on, she started looking ragged. Her boss wasn't happy, and her costs were just rising. No townhouse meant no cooking. She relied on restaurant meals, and that was most of her paycheck. Then the paycheck wasn't coming: she fell asleep at her desk and found herself fired. This is where it got complicated. She budgeted out her last paycheck to pay for food. But there wasn't enough money for car payments, and then her car got towed. She grabbed her belongings out of the car—as many as she could carry in a bag heaved over her shoulder. This is where she checked into Hotel Dark Alley That Smells Like Old Garbage. Her back really aches now that her bed is the street. And her feet are sore from the walking she does in damp socks and worn shoes. She begs for a few dollars when she can. People look past her or tell her to go get a job. What's the chance of her getting a job when her clothes smell like trash and she can't remember the last time she showered? It's not looking more likely than someone handing her a dollar. And as for the money she does get, she's spending a few dollars on a beer. People judge her for throwing that money away. But she isn't choosing between a townhouse and drinking. It's between a burger and a beer. That's what she thinks they don't understand. To those who judge her, she wishes they would realize: when they see someone homeless. Someone begging. They're not looking at someone just lazy who prefers being out on the street. They're looking at a person with so much between herself and dignity that if she can afford a cold beer to relax for a few hours, she'll take it. And she is thankful for those in the emergency department who accept her as she is. She is grateful to the providers who bring her a meal and talk about her problems like they really matter. Even if they can't help her feet or her back but can make her feel like a human for a few hours, as they have tonight: she'll take it.

Stretchable Skin‐Like Cooling/Heating Device for Reconstruction of Artificial Thermal Sensation in Virtual Reality

AbstractAlong with visual and tactile sensations, thermal sensation by temperature feeling on the skin can provide rich physical information on the environment and objects. With a simple touch of objects, relative temperature can be sensed and even objects can be differentiated with different thermal properties without any visual cue. Thus, artificially reproducing accurate/controllable thermal sensation haptic signals on human epidermis will certainly be a major research area to reconstruct a more realistic virtual reality (VR) environment. In this study, for the first time, a skin‐like, highly soft and stretchable and bi‐functional (both cold and hot sensation) thermo‐haptic device is reported for wearable VR applications with a single device structure (not separate heater and cooler). The skin‐like thermo‐haptic (STH) device can actively cool down and heat up deformable skin surfaces with instantaneous and accurate adjustment of temperature based upon a feedback control algorithm to mimic desirable thermal sensation with 230% stretchability. As a proof‐of‐concept, the STH device is integrated with a finger‐motion tracking glove to provide artificial thermal sensation information to the skin in various situations such as touching cold beer bottles and hot coffee cups in virtual space. This new type of STH device can offer potential implications for next‐generation haptic devices to provide unique thermal information for a more realistic virtual‐world field and medical thermal treatment.

Tristes Tropique in Jacqueline Bishop's Patchwork Aesthetics

Tristes Tropique in Jacqueline Bishop's Patchwork Aesthetics

The fluid mechanics of bubbly drinks

Although quenching one’s thirst may be the primary appeal of soda pop or a cold beer, there’s a lot of physics in the drinks’ two-phase flow.

Marielle, Presente!

Marielle, Presente!

Hot money, cold beer: Navigating the vanilla and rosewood export economies in northeastern Madagascar

ABSTRACTSince 2000 northeastern Madagascar's subsistence‐based communities have registered record profits thanks to a boom in vanilla and rosewood exports. Yet, rather than saving or investing these returns, much of the local earnings were spent in “hot money” sprees on cold beer, gambling, and other forms of immediate consumption. Far from being illogical or unproductive, hot‐money spending and other practices associated with export economies help local communities navigate the volatility of global markets and domesticate foreign demands. Although these tactics come from the margins of global capitalism, they represent an acute cultural expression of some of the most sophisticated dynamics found at its core. [export economies, money, tactics, globalization, consumption, vanilla, rosewood, Madagascar]

The impact of PROP and thermal taster status on the emotional response to beer

With an increasingly competitive global market, understanding consumer emotional response to products can provide a different perspective to identify drivers of consumer food choice behaviour beyond traditional hedonic measurement. This study investigated how two taste phenotypes (Thermal taster status (TTS) and PROP taster status (PTS)) impacted liking and emotional response to beers varying in bitterness, carbonation and serving temperature. Volunteers (n = 60, balanced for TTS and PTS) were invited to express their liking and emotional response to 2 commercial beers of contrasting bitterness, presented at two different carbonation levels (commercial carbonation and low carbonation level) and served at two temperatures (cold and ambient). In general, when beers were served at their commercial carbonation level and at a cold temperature, they received higher liking scores and evoked more positive emotions and less negative emotions. Signficant temperature ∗ carbonation interactions were found for liking and some emotion categories. At commercial carbonation levels, cold beer was better liked and evoked more positive emotions than beer served at ambient temperature, but no such temperature effect was observed at the low carbonation level. Although the sample size was relatively small, significant effects for liking were observed for PTS but not TTS, suggesting PTS is a more influential factor regarding liking than TTS. However, thermal tasters (TT) rated 6 out of 10 emotion categories significantly higher for beer than thermal non-tasters (TnT), indicating emotional response may be more sensitive to capture the differences across taste phenotypes than liking, and that TT show increased negative emotions to beer in general. PROP supertasters (ST) rated some emotion categories significantly higher than non-tasters (NT) and, in contrast to TTS these were the more positive emotions, such as excited and content. This is the first study to report an impact of both TTS and PTS on emotional response. Furthermore, this study observed significant relative effects of TTS and PTS on emotional response, where the effect of PTS was more pronounced in TnT. This highlights the importance of investigating the combined effects of different phenotypes on consumer response representing the reality of different consumer segments.

Portage: A Family, A Canoe, and the Search for the Good Life by Sue Leaf

Reviewed by: Portage: A Family, A Canoe, and the Search for the Good Life by Sue Leaf Kevin Koch Sue Leaf, Portage: A Family, A Canoe, and the Search for the Good Life. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015. 249 pp. $16.95. Every once in a while, you encounter a book seemingly written for yourself. And maybe even about yourself. I frequently felt as if I were looking in a mirror while reading Sue Leaf’s delightful nature memoir, Portage: A Family, A Canoe, and the Search for the Good Life. [End Page 85] Perhaps it was her three-decades-plus marriage to her husband Tom, with many of their best times spent outdoors in a canoe. My wife and I have tallied just a few less than the author, and we too head to water, woods, or cycling roads as often as possible. Maybe it was the four kids they brought along on outings (including Mother’s and Father’s Days . . . parents choose!). For us it was three. Definitely it was the seventeen-foot, green, Old Town Penobscot canoe. They must have bought the one next to ours. And shuttling from the canoe back to the car by bicycle—done that, too. True, Leaf and her spouse’s portage-laden canoe journeys—through the Upper Midwest (another similarity), the Boundary Waters and Great Lakes, and occasional outlier trips to places like Montana, Ontario, and Louisiana—have been far more ambitious than the local floats my wife and I have undertaken. Yet the book is no less relatable, even to those who have never dipped a paddle. For Sue Leaf and her husband are, like most of us, working people with busy lives. They head off once each year, more or less, for a week-long canoe trip involving camping, portaging, and minimalist living. Portage chronicles the almost-annual ventures in semi-independent essays ranging from their dating days, to their first and successive forays with children, to their first voyages into empty-nester waters. In the hands of a less-skilled author, it could become a clichéd trope that canoeing offers lessons about life. But while the essays of Portage often do open up to universal reflections, they are organically connected to their preceding narratives and uniquely insightful. Canoeing with children, for example, “reinforced in our children less tangible ideas: that it’s good to roll with the punches and learn how to execute plan B, for there is always a need for a plan B.” If the kids complained, they were plied with three questions: Are you warm? Are you dry? Are you fed? “If the answer is ‘yes’ to all of them, a camper is in a good place.” There are mishaps to learn from. After an ill-fated route through rapids, “the gash on the hull of the Old Town remains, reminding me to choose wisely.” (Another glance in the mirror: our Old Town likewise sports an accusing gash from an ill-executed maneuver.) Leaf and her spouse all too soon paddle into middle age. On a more somber note, Leaf explores Native American traditions that present the canoe as a liminal boat that “would carry us to our new life.” More cheerfully, sans children to instruct in the ways of the wild, they occasionally opt for an easier float, even allowing for the luxury of a cooler, which previously [End Page 86] would have been too heavy and bothersome to carry: “Hey, we’re empty nesters! Approaching decrepitude! We’re entitled to cold beer in camp!” But more than what we learn is what we see, hear, and encounter. I’ve paddled only once in the Boundary Waters, and through Leaf’s accounts I can feel once again the weight of a canoe on my shoulders during a long portage, can see the copper-colored, tannin-tinted clarity of frigid lake waters, and must whisk away pesky mosquitoes. I’ve never paddled in the south or in Canada, but I can visualize their daughter’s eagerness to paddle “toward one floating ‘log’ after another” in search of an elusive Louisiana alligator, and can ponder Ontario’s Nellie Lake with its eerie deep clarity...

Editor’s Letter

1. Mark Adelson 1. Editor Spring is in the air and a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of ... baseball. The smells of horsehide and pine tar, the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, ice cold beer, and hot dogs—paradise on Earth for the loyal fan. The structured finance

Yes, But: A Response to Brian Richardson

Yes, But: A Response to Brian Richardson Peter J. Rabinowitz (bio) Brian Richardson’s devotion to unnatural narratology is both illuminating and infectious. As a result, my conversations with him (both our real conversations and the imagined conversations I have after reading something he’s written) tend to last long into the night, leaving me with a list of books I’m eager to read, as well as a salutary reminder that my own theoretical practice is probably too firmly grounded in mimetic texts. He consistently points to things I’ve too readily taken for granted as well. “Unnatural Narrative Theory,” for instance, has made me nervous about my use of the word “real.” At the same time, I’m always left with a “yes, but” feeling—not so much a clear disagreement (although Brian and I have our share of those, too), but a series of questions that inevitably generate further conversation. Brian ends his essay with a parable. So let me begin where he leaves off by introducing, in that spirit of continuing conversation, a very short unnatural narrative epitomizing many of the qualities found in the works that he enlists to support his cause in “Unnatural Narrative Theory.” Straddling the fiction/nonfiction divide, my chosen text is a tale without a title and without any specified characters. It also lacks a clear story order, since, operating under a radical and arbitrary restriction (an Oulipo influence?), it dispenses with verbs entirely, and hence offers no signals of past, present, or future. The absence of verbs also, of course, makes it impossible to tell whether the narration is first or second or third person, or whether it’s singular or plural. Yet for all its resistance to narrative norms, it remains a moral tale that offers two lessons, each of which raises important questions about Brian’s argument. The story is a sign—not in the structuralist sense of “sign,” but in the old-fashioned commercial sense. It stands outside a store in Windsor, Maine. At the top is a permanent section that reads: [End Page 425] Hussey’s “MAINE’S LARGEST” General Store Below that there is a changeable letter section that, in my experience, no one has ever changed—except, perhaps, to straighten out the letters when they slip out of alignment: GUNS WEDDING GOWNS COLD BEER It’s the bottom section that contains the story—clearly, a cautionary narrative about a shotgun wedding (what could be better for a store called “Hussey’s”?), although one fraught with ambiguity due to the equivocal chronology. Is the “cold beer” in the last line something served at the wedding reception (in which case we have an upbeat story with no “beginning,” the chronology moving from middle to end) or is that final line a flashback to the cause of the other events (in which the tone of the ending is less celebratory)? There’s no way to know. In either case, though, as I’ve suggested, it’s a moral tale—in fact, it’s a moral tale on several levels. For my purposes here, I’ll skip over the possible lessons in the storyworld centering on the wages of sin, and concentrate instead at the caveats directed, on the meta level, at narrative theorists like us. The first lesson emerges when we read the sign as a narrative. What’s involved in that act? After all, it’s not “clearly” a narrative about a shotgun wedding. In fact, it’s not clearly a narrative at all. I usually pass this sign in a car full of friends—and most of them see it simply as a list. It has become a narrative for me because I’ve decided to read it that way, which reaffirms the basic maxim that reading is always reading as. Qualities like narrativity, fictionality, and unnaturalness are all the result of processes between readers and texts—that is, they depend fundamentally on choices made by readers. This may seem to be more or less the same argument Stanley Fish makes in his famous essay “How to Recognize a Poem When You See One,” where he describes how one of his classes was able to...

Editor's Spotlight/Take 5: Nano-ceramic Composite Scaffolds for Bioreactor-based Bone Engineering

Editor's Spotlight/Take 5: Nano-ceramic Composite Scaffolds for Bioreactor-based Bone Engineering

Condensation, atmospheric motion, and cold beer

The latent heat released when water condenses is an important driver of weather phenomena. And as a simple experiment shows, it also makes it tough to enjoy a frosty one in the summertime.

Backstage Stories: Wonders, Relics, and a Beer Fridge

Backstage StoriesWonders, Relics, and a Beer Fridge Photopgraphy and collected anecdotes by Daniel Coston Click for larger view View full resolution Chandler Holt, Chatham County Line, 2010. [End Page 24] Click for larger view View full resolution Doc Watson, 2010. Even the dingiest backstage, supplied with a comfy sofa, can feel like a pharaoh’s chamber when you’re a bit weary from touring. Hot coffee, cold beer, and a fresh piece of fruit can temporarily change your world. —Chandler Holt, Chatham County Line The backstage area has long held a fascination for music fans. There is a mystique about being “with the band” and allowed in places where fans rarely get to go. Despite the perceived glamour of backstage life, however, the backstage area is often just a momentary rest stop for the artist. Back rooms, catering areas, and the club owner’s office typically make up a venue’s backstage—if the venue has a “backstage” at all. Showers and loading docks often serve as the place to tune up, work on songs, check phone or email messages, and generally take a moment away from the world. It is these moments, before or after a show, that make up a huge part of the musician’s daily life. A lifelong interest in musicians and their process—how the music is created and presented—drew me backstage. I wanted to document musicians’ day-to-day experiences and their travels, as well as my own. Over time, my subjects also became my friends. Here are some of my friends, all in moments away from the audience, but never too far away from the music. [End Page 25] Click for larger view View full resolution Avett Brothers, 2004. [End Page 26] Click for larger view View full resolution Chris Phillips, Squirrel Nut Zippers: “Touring has its ups and downs, for sure. For some it has all the hallmarks of hell on earth. For others it is a vast wilderness of adventure, fun, and hi-jinks. But many would agree that the typical backstage dressing room is a gruesome dungeon of horrors. I suppose at the top levels they are quite nice and some club owners actually do make efforts to provide an actual heated or air-conditioned room that has been made habitable for humans. But most are abandoned relics of the Dark Ages. Forgotten broom closets wet with yesterday’s mop water, covered in sadistic and eerily repetitive graffiti, and stubbornly occupied by swayback couches and stacks of broken chairs. While I do love the front of the stage, I go gray at the thought of another backstage dressing room. Let them eat rock . . .” [End Page 27] Click for larger view View full resolution Maurice Williams (left, in 2009): “The backstage area is very important. It’s nice to have a place to relax before the show, to have some quiet time. You can meditate, or say prayers. We say prayers before we go on stage. The backstage area really hasn’t changed while I’ve been performing. I first played at the Apollo Theater in 1961, and their backstage area is the same now as it was then. You sit down back there, you’re waiting to go on, and then you’re on stage. [End Page 28] Click for larger view View full resolution Caitlin Cary (pictured with Mike Daly, in 2000): “Backstage is most assuredly not one thing, and every musician who’s not playing arenas has run the gamut, from smutty to sterile. So of course we use backstage in all kinds of different ways. Sometimes it’s a great place to hang out and warm up; sometimes you’d rather change in the back of the van (which I’ve done many times, with varying results). In the sweet spots, on the sweet nights, backstage is a gratifying hang with people who understand your way of life—a chance to shake off the doldrums of the hella-long van ride, to catch up with old friends, maybe even to write a few great lines with someone you admire, or learn to sing their song so you can join them onstage later. This picture looks...

Urban cool

The picture-perfect summer for many involves dipping toes into the water's edge on a sandy beach, strolling through a park licking an ice cream or cracking open a bottle of cold beer as gorgeous smells waft from a barbecue nearby.

How Robert Whitekiller Got a New Name and Found His Own Grave

How Robert Whitekiller Got a New Name and Found His Own Grave Robert J. Conley (bio) He stopped his new GMC pickup right there in the middle of the bridge. There wasn't any other traffic visible anyway, and there was an old Indian man sitting on the bridge rail, his feet dangling off over the water below, and his whole appearance projecting a kind of hangdog look. "Hello there," Robert said. The old man glanced over his shoulder. "Hello," he said. He squinted at the stranger in the new pickup. "You an Indian?" he asked. "Yes sir," Robert said. "You ain't from around here," said the old man. "I'm Cherokee," said Robert, "from Oklahoma." "Cherokee?" the old man said. "You look like a real Indian." "I'm a full-blood Cherokee," Robert said. "And I think I'm real. I feel real." "Well, I'll be," the old man said. "The only people ever told me they were Cherokees were white people. I didn't know there were any real Cherokees left." "Well, you're talking to one," Robert said, and he shut off the engine of the pickup and stepped out onto the road. "You're way out here in the middle of nowhere all by yourself," he said. "You got a car somewhere?" "No." "Is someone coming to pick you up?" "No." "Well, can I give you a ride somewhere?" "No," the old man said. "I'm just sitting here thinking about jumping off this bridge." "Oh, hey," Robert said. "What you want to do that for?" He swung first one leg, then the other over the rail and sat down beside the old man. "You don't want to kill yourself, do you?" [End Page 37] "Don't see why not," the old man said. "I got no money. Got nothing to eat. No family left, so no one cares a damn about me any more. All I do is sit around getting older and wait to die." "Well, I care," Robert said. "Come on. Let's go get something to eat." The old man shrugged but made no move. "My name's Robert Whitekiller," Robert said. "Whitekiller?" said the old man, and he grinned. "That's a good name, alright. Whitekiller. I like that. I'm Roman White Horse," and he gave emphasis to the second syllable of his first name, giving it a French sounding pronunciation. "I'm a full-blood Lakota. The white men call us 'Sioux.'" He held out a small right hand, and Robert took it in his. "Hell, I'm glad to know you, Roman," he said. "Come on. I've got some cold beer in the pickup." "Well, that sounds pretty good," Roman said. "Okay." They walked over to the pickup and got in. Roman rubbed the dashboard and the back of the seat. "This is a real nice truck," he said. Robert reached into a cooler behind the seat and pulled out two cans, dripping from the melting ice in which they had been immersed. He handed one to Roman, and they pulled the tabs. Each man took a long swig of cold beer. "Ahh," Roman sighed. "That's good. It's been too damn long." "Well, there's plenty where that come from," Robert said. "You know a good place to eat around here?" "I know the best place," Roman said. "It's also about the only place." Robert laughed. "Well then," he said, "it'll do. Tell me where to go." Roman gave Robert directions to a small place just on the outside of the reservation. Signs on the outside of the building advertised gas, groceries, cold beer and barbeque, ready to eat. "They make hamburgers, too," Roman said. "Pretty good ones." A number of cars and pickups were parked around the building in the gravel parking lot. Robert thought that was usually a good sign, but then, if this was the only place around, it might not mean much this time. "It's off the reservation," Roman said, "so he can sell beer. You can't sell beer on the reservation, you know." [End Page 38] "Yeah, I know," Robert said. "Oh," said...