Texas Star
US Veteran
My male offspring just gave me a pair of Courtney hunting boots, made in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. (Formerly Rhodesia.)
Pretty darned good boots, well known among hunters in Africa.
In the box was a newsletter consisting of news bits from the early settlement of what became Southern Rhodesia. This was in 1890.
In proclaiming the area open to settlement under Cecil John Rhodes's British South Africa Company, Rhodes's man Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, who later got himself into a mess with the Boers, made a speech in front of the new Maxim hotel, in Bulawayo, formerly despotic Matabele chief Lobengula's main kraal. (Bulawayo means, The Place of Killing, if memory serves.)
Anyway, Dr. Jameson mounted a soapbox and declared to the crowd:
"It's my job to declare the town open. Gentlemen, I don't think we want to talk about it. There's plenty of whisky in the bar, and all should retire therein to celebrate."
Now, is that one of the best and most practical speeches of all time?
It certainly meets Mark Twain's definition of a good speech: "Long enough to cover the subject and short enough to be interesting."
Now, all I have to do is figure out the US postage for the boot warranty card. I'll ask at the USPS desk, but was once told there when I asked about postage to Austria (as in, like, Vienna), "They don't have no post offices in Australia" (as in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, etc.)
Wish me luck. The boots are good and I enjoyed that newsletter with Jameson's speech!
Pretty darned good boots, well known among hunters in Africa.
In the box was a newsletter consisting of news bits from the early settlement of what became Southern Rhodesia. This was in 1890.
In proclaiming the area open to settlement under Cecil John Rhodes's British South Africa Company, Rhodes's man Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, who later got himself into a mess with the Boers, made a speech in front of the new Maxim hotel, in Bulawayo, formerly despotic Matabele chief Lobengula's main kraal. (Bulawayo means, The Place of Killing, if memory serves.)
Anyway, Dr. Jameson mounted a soapbox and declared to the crowd:
"It's my job to declare the town open. Gentlemen, I don't think we want to talk about it. There's plenty of whisky in the bar, and all should retire therein to celebrate."
Now, is that one of the best and most practical speeches of all time?
It certainly meets Mark Twain's definition of a good speech: "Long enough to cover the subject and short enough to be interesting."
Now, all I have to do is figure out the US postage for the boot warranty card. I'll ask at the USPS desk, but was once told there when I asked about postage to Austria (as in, like, Vienna), "They don't have no post offices in Australia" (as in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, etc.)
Wish me luck. The boots are good and I enjoyed that newsletter with Jameson's speech!
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