h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'Shootin' Iron' is also wild west dialect for 'fire arm'.

The diminuitives, 'little', 'li'l' and 'old', 'ol'' are generally affectionate, respectively, especially in the feminine and masculine genders.

With "Ol' Hickory", the connotation of "'Old' (well seasoned) Hickory" was probably intended.




Andrew Jackson didn't learn to read until he was an adult, hired to work as a school teacher pn the principle that he was tough rnough to keep order with a number of unruly school boys.

He taught the class by means of keeping a day ahead of the students in the lessons... ...according to legend with a hickory stick close at hand.

I expect he may have used it occasionally as a gavel.

Stipulated he was very hard headed, he also learned exceptionally easily.

Next he went on to teach himself law and then went on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Tennessee before his military service in the War of 1812.

I don't believe that Jackson didn't learn to read until he was an adult.

That was true of Crockett, but not Jackson. While his mother was alive, Jackson attended school in the Carolinas. No, it wasn't much, but early schools were terrible. This would have qualified Jackson to 'teach' school - and I use the term loosely. It was a common story.

My Tennessee grandmother was qualified to teach under the same system. You should have seen her spelling.

They were autodidacts back then, but Crockett had them all beat. Not only did he learn, but he understood - that was a man with heart and soul and character.

...and somewhere in the middle, between Crocket and Jackson, Sam Houston.

This item provides a good outline of the life of Andrew Jackson.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51641

Where there are points of discrepancy between this account and that of biographical treatments on Andrew Jackson, I'd be inclined to accept the outline here as authoritative.

Not a primary source, but very close to primary source material.

http://thehermitage.com/learn/andrew-jackson/jacksons-papers/

That outline and inventory are pretty good. I'd take all the hagiographic prose with a grain of salt, though. Typical stuff.

Even primary sauces should frequently be taken with a grain of salt

On hagiographic notes, if I'd been planning the Mt. Rushmore monument, I think I would have placed Jackson between Washington and Lincoln, but otherwise left the monument the same.

I doubt the USA would ever have become a superpower without him.

I never wanted the US to BE a superpower. I'd rather it was just our home.

As to Mount Rushmore, I consider defacing a mountainside with the physiognomies of dead politicians to be an act of sacrilegious vandalism. As do the Lakotas, I understand.

Have you seen the movie 'Skins'?

Perhaps they could have carved their likenesses into a sea cliff face instead, so that colonies of nesting gannets could deposit appropriate amounts of guano for posterity.

What a great idea! The UN needs you as an event planner, Icy.