Lost Americana Quotes

Opinions will differ, but let not your humanity be lost because of your differences.

I come home from work this evening there was a note in the frying pan said Fix Your Own Supper Babe I Run Off With The Fuller Brush Man Well I sat down at the table screamed & hollered & cried I commenced to carring on 'till I almost lost my mind and I miss the way she used to Yell At Me the way she used to Cuss & Moan and if I ever go out and get married again I'll never leave my wife at home The Frying Pan Diamonds In The Rough John Prine

Starting with his modest amount of capital, Ford began his work on the Ford Motor Company’s first car, the Model A, starting in 1903. And from the start, contradictions abounded. Ford didn’t believe that the customer was always right. Indeed, he attributed the difficulties of his early competitors to their slavish need to listen to customers. To Ford this was a trap. The customers willing to pay the absolute most for a car were ones who wanted customization. But an automaker willing to customize, to cater to individual requests, lost the opportunity to scale his operation, which rested on repeating the same thing over and over again. To reduce the cost of production, a manufacturer needed to standardize components and processes. Customization, in Ford’s words, led to “the habit of grabbing at the nearest dollar as though it were the only dollar in the world.” Customers needed to be led, not followed.

Even Al Capone, the night before his sentencing, was perplexed over the intricacies of public policy. “I’m not complaining, but why don’t they go after all these bankers who took the savings of thousands of poor and lost them in bank failures? How about that? Isn’t it a lot worse to take the last few dollars some small family has saved—perhaps to live on while the head of the family is out of a job—than to sell a little beer?” It was too late to counter views such as Capone’s with the intricate points of preserving the gold standard or the nuances of the balance of payments—the verdict was on display at the soup kitchens for all to see. The men of the shantytowns named “Hoovervilles,” full of makeshift homes that assaulted the dignity of the once-proud workingman, father, and husband, understood this economy as well as any economist.

Surprised at Kaye’s belated display of maternal instincts, Sean relented, promising he’d get in touch with Lily. Besides, he knew his own mother would never forgive him if he refused such a simple request. As he made his way down the narrow streets to the pensione opposite the Pantheon, where Lily and her roommate were staying, Sean steadfastly refused to acknowledge any other reason for agreeing to take Lily out. It had been three years since they’d left for college, not once had she come home to visit. But Sean still couldn’t look at a blonde without comparing her to Lily. He’d mounted the four flights of narrow, winding stairs, the sound of his steps muffled by red, threadbare carpet. At number seventeen, he’d stopped and stood, giving his racing heart a chance to quiet before he knocked. Calm down, he’d instructed himself. It’s only Lily. His knock echoed loudly in the empty hall. Through the door he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Then it opened and there she was. She stood with her mouth agape. Her eyes, like beacons of light in the obscurity of the drab hallway, blinked at him with astonishment. “What are you doing here?” The question ended on a squeak. As if annoyed with the sound, she shut her mouth with an audible snap. Was it possible Kaye hadn’t bothered to tell Lily he’d be coming? “I heard you were spending a few days in Rome.” Sean realized he was staring like a dolt, but couldn’t help himself. It rattled him, seeing Lily again. A barrage of emotions and impressions mixed and churned inside him: how good she looked, different somehow, more self-confident than in high school, how maybe this time they might get along for more than 3.5 seconds. He became aware of a happy buzz of anticipation zinging through him. He was already picturing the two of them at a really nice trattoria. They’d be sitting at an intimate corner table. A waiter would come and take their order and Sean would impress her with his flawless Italian, his casual sophistication, his sprezzatura. By the time the waiter had served them their dessert and espresso, she’d be smiling at him across the soft candlelight. He’d reach out and take her hand. . . . Then Lily spoke again and Sean’s neat fantasy evaporated like a puff of smoke. “But how did you know I was here?” she’d asked, with what he’d conceitedly assumed was genuine confusion—that is, until a guy their age appeared. Standing just behind Lily, he had stared back at Sean through the aperture of the open door with a knowing smirk upon his face. And suddenly Sean understood. Lily wasn’t frowning from confusion. She was annoyed. Annoyed because he’d barged in on her and Lover Boy. Lily didn’t give a damn about him. At the realization, his jumbled thoughts at seeing her again, all those newborn hopes inside him, faded to black. His brain must have shorted after that. Suave, sophisticated guy that he was, Sean had blurted out, “Hey, this wasn’t my idea. I only came because Kaye begged me to—” Stupendously dumb. He knew better, had known since he was eight years old. If you wanted to push Lily Banyon into the red zone, all it took was a whispered, “Kaye.” The door to her hotel room had come at his face faster than a bullet train. He guessed he should be grateful she hadn’t been using a more lethal weapon, like the volleyball she’d smashed in his face during gym class back in eleventh grade. Even so, he’d been forced to jump back or have the number seventeen imprinted on his forehead. Their last skirmish, the one back in Rome, he’d definitely lost. He’d stood outside her room like a fool, Lover Boy’s laughter his only reply. Finally, the pensione’s night clerk had appeared, insisting he leave la bella americana in peace. He’d gone away, humiliated and oddly deflated.

Hereupon there was appointed an able and faithful committee of gentlemen, who printed, from copper-plates, a just number of bills, and flourished, indented, and contrived them in such a manner, as to make it impossible to counterfeit any of them, without a speedy discovery of the counterfeit: besides which, they were all signed by the hands of three belonging to that committee. These bills being of several sums, from two shillings to ten pounds, did confess the Massachuset-colony to be endebted unto the person in whose hands they were, the sums therein expressed; and provision was made, that if any particular bills were irrecoverably lost, or torn, or worn by the owners, they might be recruited without any damage to the whole in general. The publick debts to the sailors and soldiers, now upon the point of mutiny, (for, Arma Tenenti, Omnia dat, qui Justa negat!)[161] were in these bills paid immediately: but that further credit might be given thereunto, it was ordered that they should be accepted by the treasurer, and all officers that were subordinate unto him, in all publick payments, at five per cent, more than the value expressed in them. The people knowing that the tax-act would, in the space of two years at least, fetch into the treasury as much as all the bills of credit thence emitted would amount unto, were willing to be furnished with bills, wherein it was their advantage to pay their taxes, rather than in any other specie; and so the sailors and soldiers put off their bills, instead of money, to those with whom they had any dealings, and they circulated through all the hands in the colony pretty comfortably.

From this climate emerged a new party, the Republicans. Eliminating much of the exclusionary politics of the Know Nothings while seeking common ground among the interests of free workingmen, immigrants, abolitionists, and prospective western settlers, the party’s founding platform coalesced neatly into an antislavery position. Its first presidential candidate in 1856 was California’s John Frémont, running with the slogan “Free soil and Fremont.” He lost.

By late 1847, it was clear that Mexico had lost the war. With the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February 1848, everything to the west, including all of California, became a part of the United States. The terms of surrender called for an American payment of $15 million for the territory, the same price tag applied to the Louisiana Purchase forty-five years prior. With it, the project for the continental United States had been completed. Destiny had unfolded in Polk’s first term, just as the campaign rhetoric of 1844 had prophesied.