BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream

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A shotgun wedding for the lady in the red dress
2008 Nevada Press Association first-place award winner
From the 10-31-1999 Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune
Reprinted in the Tribune on 29 October 2006, 28 October 2007, 3 January 2011, 31 October 2013, 31 October 2018
Updated 10-26-2008, 9-20-2009, 1-5-2011, 10-31-2013, 10-31-2014, 10-28-2016, 10-29-2017, 11-6-2018, 3-29 & 6-27-2023

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Out west lives an eccentric old lady. Sometimes you can glance at her and see flashes of what she was when she was young and unspoiled, wild and free. But there is an old sadness in her eyes.

Men came and violated her one night more than a hundred years ago. The fear is still there. Once in awhile, she still walks the streets of Washington, DC, and, occasionally, she still gets invited in — but only to be used again.

The old lady has little left to give them. The once-voluptuous resources are long gone. But the big boys never understood. She wasn't like them. She was headstrong and independent, never easy to understand, and just wanted to be left alone. She's still that way.

The old girl is all that's left of a shotgun wedding perpetrated in 1864. Late one night, they scissored off some of Arizona and patched it onto a few odd sections they stole from Utah. They trussed young Nevada up in this ill-fitting girdle to make her presentable back east.

But it didn't feel right. It didn't look right. She had never worn a corset before. She couldn't breathe bound up that way. It didn't feel free.

No matter.

She was delivered up to Washington in order to form a more perfect Union and to provide a convenient dowry of two northern-voting U.S. senators.

She protested breathlessly, screaming that she had already given enough to the Union cause, financing with her family jewels a civil war that was no fight of hers. She pleaded to be left alone. The corset was already beginning to chafe.

But the wedding between the old man in the striped pants and the kicking girl in the red dress took place on Oct. 31, 1864, Hallowe'en.

The marriage of convenience did not go well. She was abandoned. They didn't leave her with much — just a lot of arid space and a few petered-out pockets of low grade ore for men to take advantage of whenever market conditions were right.

Life was hard. She was forced to use everything God had given her just to stay alive. When the Great Depression came around, she had nothing left.

Starvation stared her in the face. Her children cried out for help. What to do?

She couldn't sell any land — the husband in the striped pants who abandoned her still owned most of that. Nothing of value was left in her pockets. But she had children to feed. What to do?

The red dress.

She had kept it all these years since the wedding. Even wore it once or twice when the occasion warranted.

She would put on her red dress. People might notice her again. She could go back in style. She knew how attractive a red dress could look.

Maybe strangers would come calling to see her and even spend some money. That would help her children.

It was worth a gamble.

She put on the red dress and hit the streets.

Happy Birthday, old gal.
__________________

Be well. Raise hell

NOTE TO READERS 10-31-2018 updated 3-23-2023: I composed the above as prologue to a book I wrote in 1983 which has been rewriting itself ever since. "The Lady in the Red Dress" first appeared in the Daily Sparks Tribune on Nov. 4, 1990, and occasionally on or about the anniversary of our admission to the union on Oct. 31, 1864. The tale is best told when read aloud, preferably in front of a roaring fire.

I've recently seen repetition of the erroneous history that "Battle Born" Nevada achieved statehood in 1864 because the North needed our silver to finance the Civil War. I concur with the dissenting opinion that the reason for sending the longest telegram in Western Union history (the Nevada Constitution) for ratification in October 1864 was because President Lincoln needed two more northern-voting senators in the upper house. With the Civil War's end looming, former Confederate states would be sending moonhowlers to a reconstituted Congress. My dear friend Guy Rocha penned the following item on NevadaWeb.

"Nevada's creation as a TERRITORY on March 2, 1861 by the United States Congress ensured that its riches would help the Union and not the Confederate cause," historian Guy Rocha wrote. (Emphasis added. Alas, the link is now stale and a search has proven fruitless though there are are many other works on the subject. Silver State mineral resources were desirable but the telegram emergency serves as proof of the catalyist.)

Shots rang out, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee became president, and the darkness of Reconstruction fell over the land for the next century where it abides to this very day.

NOTE TO READERS 10-31-1999: I composed the above as prologue to a book I wrote in 1983 which has been rewriting itself ever since. "The Lady in the Red Dress" first appeared in the Tribune on Nov. 4, 1990, again on Oct. 31, 1993, Oct. 31, 1999, Oct. 29, 2006, and most recently on Jan. 3, 2011. The tale is best told when read aloud, preferably with a fire going.

1-3-2011 NOTE TO READERS: I composed the above 500-word history of Nevada as prologue to a 1983 book which has been rewriting itself ever since. "The Lady in the Red Dress" first appeared in the Tribune on Nov. 4, 1990, and occasionally on Nevada Day weekends since then. The tale is best told when read aloud, preferably with a fire going.

The question she asks today: Does dear Nevada have anything left to exploit or will we continue selling our future into indentured servitude to the gambling-industrial complex and the mining overlords?

More on that as the new year regresses while the grandchildren of the red dress pursue redress.

10-31-2013: The answer to my 2011 question has become increasingly clear. Pleasant it ain't. Read the top 10 reasons that Nevada is not and has never been a state. (No, it's not because we were Battle Born in Kenya.)

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Copyright © 1983, 1990, 1993, 1999, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2023 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413 and editor of U-News. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks Tribune since 1988.

3-29-2023 UPDATE: Andrew Barbano is a 54-year Nevadan, executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, former first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com and BallotBoxing.US and SenJoeNeal.org and DoctorLawyerWatch.com/ As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988 and received its ninth Nevada Press Association award and 6th first-place at the 29 Sept. 2018 NPA annual convention in Las Vegas. (That trophy and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.) The 'Wire has now won a total of 11 NPA honors but patronizing anti-union Starbux is strongly discouraged.

Be well. Raise hell.

Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.) / être bien, élever l'enfer (And my French.) / Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)

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