Drats!  For a minute there I thought we'd found Tom B.!

Re the "sobriety" issue, Robin Room once referred to the masculine American
drinking norm of "turning wine into water" -- with something of the same
"alcohol
has no effect" and "I can hold it" macho sensibility in mind.

----------
> From: Jon Stephen Miller <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Tom Blankenship
> Date: Tuesday, October 12, 1999 3:08 PM
>
> Close, Ron, but no cigar.  Blankenship's birth is dated around 1831.--Jon
>
> P.S.  As for the "sobriety" of Twain's stag dinners, I would say, no
doubt
> they were physically intoxicated after 8-10 toasts, no matter how light
> the wine.  I think Fatout's point--in the piece I quoted--was that these
> were "dignified" and not "wild" affairs.  No paradise of bachelors; more
> like stodgy old Babbitts.  I think he means "sober" in the non-alcoholic
> sense (if there is such a thing): i.e., more grave, earnest, and subdued
> than silly, cynical, and uproarious.  As the center of entertainment,
> however, Twain was probably one of the least "sober" in the room.
>
>
>
> ----------------------
> Jon Stephen Miller
> Assistant Editor
> Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
> Department of English
> The University of Iowa
> Iowa City, Iowa  52242-1492
> [log in to unmask]
> 1.319.335.0592
>
> On Mon, 11 Oct 1999, Ron Roizen wrote:
>
> > Jon -- Hold Everything!  Tom B. was a "respected justice of the peace
in
> > Montana," did you say?  Murray, the town May Hutton placed Uncle Tonk
in,
> > isn't all that far from the Montana border.  Hutton says Tonk was born
on
> > February 10, 1842 at Fort Madison, Iowa but moved to Hannibal where he
> > "grew to manhood" (p. 190).  Got a birthdate and birth place for Tom
> > Blankeship by any chance?
> >
> > Breathless in north Idaho...
> >
> > Ron
> >
> > ----------
> > > From: Jon Stephen Miller <[log in to unmask]>
> > > To: [log in to unmask]
> > > Subject: Tom Blankenship
> > > Date: Monday, October 11, 1999 3:55 PM
> > >
> > > Ron's right--Tom Blankenship was a childhood friend of Twain's.  In
1906
> > > he recalled TB as the model for Huck.  From _Mark Twain A to Z_
(1995):
> > >
> > > [TB's] father, Woodson Blankenship, resembled Pap Finn in being a
town
> > > drunk [in Hannibal], but was quite different in having a wife,
Mahala,
> > and
> > > eight children, all of whom were born in Missouri.  The Blankenships
were
> > > desperately poor, undisciplined and disreputable.  Tom Blankenship
> > > consequently grew up badly fed, unschooled, unwashed and
unsupervised.
> > > (37)
> > >
> > > Different stories describe Tom's adult life: in 1889 and 1899 he was
> > > reported dead, but in 1902 Tom's sister Elizabeth told Twain he was a
> > > "respected justice of the peace in Montana." (37)
> > >
> > > Jon
> > >
> > >
> > > ----------------------
> > > Jon Stephen Miller
> > > Assistant Editor
> > > Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
> > > Department of English
> > > The University of Iowa
> > > Iowa City, Iowa  52242-1492
> > > [log in to unmask]
> > > 1.319.335.0592
> >