Mister Ron's Basement #1802

Tue Nov 9, 2010

Mister Ron’s Basement # 1802

At Mark Twain’s request, the first volume of his lengthy Autobiography has just recently been published, one hundred years after his death. One of the earliest pieces in the book is an interview with Ex-President Ulysses S. Grant.

Mister Ron was quite surprised to hear General Grant discuss his classmate at West Point, ‘Squibob,’ and tell some stories about him.

‘Squibob,’ of course, was the pen name of George Horatio Derby, who wrote humorous newspaper pieces while serving as a surveyor and draftsman in the army back in the 1850s. He also used the pen name of John Phoenix.

Derby died in 1861, and his book publisher never sent royalties to his widow. So in 1865, she published a collection of some unreprinted pieces called ‘The Squibob Papers.’ This week, we will be reading from that book.

In today’s tale Derby waxes eloquently with poetry about growing vegetables. It is called ‘Phoenix on Agriculture.’

Time: approx seven and a half minutes

The Mister Ron’s Basement Catalog can be found at:

http://ronevry.com/Mister_Rons_Full_Catalog.html

The Index of Derby stories is located at:

http://ronevry.com/derby.html

*There is a nifty interview with Mister Ron in issue #59 iProng Magazine (now known as Beatweek Magazine) which can be downloaded at a new URL as a free pdf file here. 

*John Kelly of The Washington Post has written a lively piece about the Basement. You can read it here.

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