I Am The Walrus?

Daddy has been doing posts about The Wizard of Oz.

When I was 6 years old, I had those Ruby Red Slippers. They are no longer sparkly and have holes in the toes. Momma kept them for me. The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie. I’m pretty sure I watched it every day.

I was so cute.

In my 11th grade Advanced Placement United States History class (APUSH), I had Mr. Washmon. Daddy had him Senior year, if that tells you how old he was. I loved Mr. Washmon, he had all kinds of old posters in his classroom, such as Coco-Cola signs and old War Stamp ones, telling you to support the troops. One of them had a picture of a pretty lady walking arm-in-arm with Uncle Sam. Mr. Washmon collects them.

He has an original movie poster for The Wizard of Oz and used it when he taught us about the monetary system switch of the late 1800’s / early 1900’s. He told us about the book and how it fit in with the silver vs. gold issue, here are a few of my favorites.

Yellow Brick Road - The Yellow Brick Road symbolizes sticking with the good ole gold coins that had been around for as long as anyone could remember. You used gold coins. That’s just the way it was. It was comfortable, you could count on it getting you what you wanted. Eventually.

Ruby Red Slippers - The Ruby Red Slippers are the products of Hollywood. Technicolor had just come out and the red showed up on the yellow brick road. The slippers were originally silver, symbolizing the use of silver coins as currency, but, of coarse, silver doesn’t show up very well on yellow. At the end, Dorothy realizes that she could have just clicked her heels and used her red/silver slippers to get her back home long ago. Yes, the yellow got her there, but she would have been better off just using the silver!

Shadow in the tree scene - There is an Urban Legend that one of the midgets who played a Munchkin hung him self on the set. Apparently, in the scene after the one with the angry apple trees, when the trio is skipping away, you can see his body swinging from one of the tree limbs. This is not true, the background behind them is a wall, not an actual road, he could not have done this, the reason you can ‘see his body swinging in the trees’ is because one of the film cutter people drew on the film so that it looked like the trees were still swaying and throwing apples. Also, if there had been actual trees on set, the proportions are wrong, someone went through and figured out that if the object swinging in the trees was a person, they would not have been the size of a midget, rather, a very large person, much like a giant.

Don’t quote me on that last one, that’s just what I remember from class, when I wrote it, I didn’t have internet access, so I couldn’t check my facts, look it up if you want to!!

It has been over a year since he told me all of this. Though I found it fascinating, I didn’t retain much, I’m afraid those are the only specifics that I remember, but I know that the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Glenda, The Wicked Witch, and The Wizard all represent different players in the arguments for and against the use of silver. I know that the farmers and bankers are represented, but I’m not sure who they are.

My sophomore year, I had Mr. Wooley, who told us that Paul McCartney has been dead since the 1960’s. We spent a week learning all about the cover up and all the hints and clues about how it was true. We even studied the life of Billy Spheeris, who replaced him as lead singer of The Beatles. He had about 95% of my class convinced by the end of the week. The next Monday, he told us that there was no cover up, and that teachers lie to us every day; to take every thing they say with a grain of salt. He said that the only reason teachers don’t completely screw us up is so that they can keep their measly pay checks.

I would like to believe that my teachers really do care. They want us to do well, they really want us to succeed.

I’m not so sure I believe Mr. Wooley.