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The
peculiar population of that suburb were gathered on
the sidewalk; bold, dirty-looking women, who had
evidently not been improved by four years of
military association; dirtier, if possible,
children; and here and there were skulking
scoundrelly-looking men…hard at it, pillaging the
burning city.
"To
Appomattox—Nine April Days," 1865, by
Burke Davis, Eastern Acorn Press, 1959
Mothers
clutched their children for protection, people
screamed as they were knocked to the round, a
stroller was demolished, cars inched through the
crowd.
"iBook
Sale Creates Chaos," by Olympia Meola and
Alexa Williams, The Richmond Times-Dispatch,
August 17, 2005
If
you’re having trouble discerning which event was
which here, you are forgiven. Behaviors were so
similar, according to eyewitnesses, it is not
immediately obvious.
Not
since Del. Algie Howell’s "droopy
drawers" bill has Virginia made such
international headlines as she did when Henrico
County decided to unload a thousand or so used
lap-top computers. Blared Great Britain’s The
Register: "US iBook Sale Ends in
Pandemonium."
Well,
it did. Folks were trampled. A few were injured.
The T-D reported that 17 were treated, mostly for
minor stuff. Apparently, there was enough boorish
behavior to last most folks a lifetime.
“I
can’t believe people are so barbaric,” said
Grace Wang, a rising senior at Henrico County’s
Godwin High School, according to the Times-Dispatch.
Evidently,
a crowd began gathering just after midnight at the
Richmond International Raceway sale site. By
morning, depending on which account you believe, it
had swelled to between 5,000 and 10,000 people and
had taken on a "surly" tone.
And
all of this for a shot at a $50 piece of out-dated
computer junk? Go figure.
Times
must be a little harder than I thought. Still,
it’s not quite as bad as things were in 1865.
Davis details one Richmond dowager’s treatment of
her last hen, upstairs in one of the city’s
mansions, “tethered to the bed, stuffing her with
dried peas in a vain attempt to fatten her for the
pot.”
I
don’t go looking for these comparisons. They just
seem to fall into my lap. I really have been reading
Davis’s (he’s my neighbor here in Meadows of
Dan) gripping account of the last days of the
Confederacy, including the nighttime split by train
to Danville and this observation of it by
18-year-old John Wise, grandson of General Henry
Wise, one of Virginia’s former governors:
“I
saw a government on wheels. It was the marvelous and
incongruous debris of the wreck of the Confederate
capital. There were very few women on these trains,
but among the last in the long procession were
trains bearing indiscriminate cargoes of men and
things.
“In
one car was a cage with an African parrot, and a box
of tame squirrels, and a hunchback. Everybody, not
excepting the parrot, was wrought up to a pitch of
intense excitement.”
That’s
sorta how it was at the computer sale this week, the
only difference being the squirrels seemed to be in
charge.
The
good news? Henrico still has about 8,000 laptops to
sell. Maybe this time they’ll decide to do it
right and bust open a barrel of hard liquor.
Who
knows, maybe it would even produce some soothing
sing-a-longs.
Writes
Davis, quoting a young Richmond diarist:
“People were running about everywhere with plunder
and provisions. Barrels and boxes were rolled and
tumbled about the streets… Barrels of liquor were
broken open and the gutters ran with whisky and
molasses… The air was filled with yells, curses,
cries of distress, and horrid songs.”
No
word yet on exactly how Henrico will handle the rest
of these machines. But stay tuned, this could be
good. And if you happen to witness some of this
first-hand, keep a diary. Folks might be reading you
a hundred years from now.
--
August 23, 2005
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