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2010’s Summer vacation plan was a bit unusual. More times than not, my brother Nappy and I will arrange to go on vacation together, usually back home to Los Angeles with the hope of getting in some bodysurfing, inevitably to be disappointed by the lack of rideable surf (it must be the fault of global warming or the Bush tax cuts!), or else we’ll go to Reno, home of the penny slots and penny shots.
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But this year, Nappy took a major trip to China and that left me to make my own vacation plan all by my lonesome. There is one place I have wanted to see for years now, and since Nappy didn’t share my interest in it, I figured this was the perfect time to fly solo and do my thang – to get on down with my bad self all by myself!
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Yeah, it’s probably true that Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong was last century’s greatest American, but my favorite American – and the one who was undoubtedly the mentally toughest person this country has ever produced – was Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the most unjustly vilified person in our history and second only to Jesus Christ on my “Wish I Could Have Met” list.
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MONDAY, AUGUST 30:.Yes, Brothers and Sisters, the time had come for Stephen T. McCarthy to fly to Wisconsin – “McCarthy Country” – and pay my respects to the great American patriot at the site of his final resting place in Appleton.
.Here’s Ann Coulter, honored to be there:
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.So, on Monday, August 30th, I boarded a Delta Airlines plane (because you damn sure know I wasn’t going to fly Southwest Airlines or U.S. Airways out of
Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport’s terminal 4!) and I flew to Minneapolis where I caught a connecting flight into tiny Appleton Airport.
.There I rented a car and the adventure began, just me, my thoughts, my little silver cup, and my Brother’s digital camera. I was r-r-r-ready to r-r-r-r-r-rumble!
.“How do I get to the Super 8 Motel on College Avenue?” I asked the young woman at the car rental counter.
“Oh, that’s easy! College Avenue is Appleton’s main street. Just drive out of the parking lot and the first street you come to, you have no choice but to go right, and that will put you on College Avenue.”
.Five minutes later I found myself in the town of Menasha. Cussing.
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But I gotta admit, immediately following that little incident, I somehow got locked into a zone that would have me cruising through the next four days as if the ghost of McCarthy was guiding me. Everything that could go right did go right. In other words, it was like Murphy’s Law in a mirror.
.So, I got to Super 8 Motel.
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.And checked into my room,
Only to find Gideon’s Bible:
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Because of such little sleep the night before, I had been dogged all day by an upset stomach, so I mostly stayed in my room that first afternoon and evening, organizing my
shi-- “stuffs”, and looked through a couple of McCarthy-related books I’d brought, planning my attack for the next few days.
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That night, I took a picture of an index card and a rosary, both of which I intended to leave at McCarthy’s gravesite.
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.Years earlier, in the book
‘Special Counsel’ by William Rusher, I had encountered this passage on page 251:
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The next evening I walked down to Gawlor’s Funeral Home on Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th, to pay my final respects. Joe McCarthy seemed handsomer in death than he had ever looked in life, but the hairy hand that held a rosary was familiar enough. In the visitor’s book, not far above my own signature, a woman had inscribed beside her name a quiet valedictory: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
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That passage had once nearly moved me to tears for a couple of different reasons. So, back in Phoenix, before I left for Wisconsin, I wrote that same Bible verse on an index card. I also took with me a rosary made of wood from Jerusalem that a friend had given to me quite some time back. Although I have never been Catholic, that rosary hung on my bed post for years. While I was in the process of packing for my trip, my eyes happened to take in that rosary, and then in an instant, the idea burst into my mind that I ought to take it with me and leave it on Joe’s grave.
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Here’s McMe in my room. “What’s that bright light?” you ask.
“I have in my hand”…the ghost of McCarthy.
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.. TUESDAY, AUGUST 31:.I got a late start but was feeling much better after 9 hours of sleep. I had breakfast at The Blueberry Hill Restaurant.
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I ordered the 2-egg breakfast, scrambled, but asked my waitress if I could pay to add an extra egg to it. She told me, “One gets you two, and two gets you three.”
“Huh?” says I in my sophisticated way.
“When you order one egg, we add a second free of charge; if you order two, we give you three; and three you get four and so on.”
Suddenly not feeling so self-conscious about my crappy math skills, I said, “Oh. OK, I’ll have two eggs and I’ll enjoy three, please.”
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After breakfast, I went to The John Birch Society headquarters, which happened to be only a couple of blocks from my motel, and which only coincidentally (according to one J.B.S. employee) also happens to be located in Senator McCarthy’s hometown.
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. .One of the JBS employees then asked me if I wanted to sit in on a conservative community meeting being held nearby at The Machine Shed restaurant. Hell, why not? I’ve got four days.
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And there I listened to Larry Greenley of the JBS speak for an hour on the dangers of calling a Constitutional Convention (“Con-Con”) in order to rein in our out-of-control Federal government. A few of the local blokes running for Congress were also present. It was heartening to see some Appleton Republicans sitting in on a JBS speaker’s presentation.
.Then I drove behind Lawrence University and strolled around down by the Fox River.
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From there I drove back to downtown Appleton and visited Saint Mary’s Catholic Church where the funeral services were held for the good Senator back in 1957.
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I said a couple of prayers from the first pew on the right, and then I lit the largest candle on the right in McCarthy’s honor. The largest candle because McCarthy was a major patriot, and the candle on the right because McCarthy was
“right”, of course.
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The sky had been overcast with lots of dark grey and black clouds and continuous rain was in the forecast. And now, as I left the church, the sky began spitting and then quickly graduated to vomiting. Too nasty to be outdoors, I headed back for Super 8 with my windshield wipers doing more “smearing” than “wiping”. But then I passed the Appleton Cobbler Shop and remembered that for the longest time I’d been meaning to get some holes and eyelets put in the brim of my Stetson cowboy hat so I could attach a much needed wind strap. So, with it now raining cats and dogs, I parked my car and dashed across the train tracks to the shoe shop. I entered drenched, and left my hat with them, being told I could pick it up on Thursday.
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They must have been thinking to themselves: This loony leaves his hat with us as soon as it starts raining cats and dogs? Where do they come from? (Psst: “Airheadzona” is the answer.)
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Although it rained off and on my entire stay in Wisconsin, that was the first and only time I really got caught outside in it. I waited out the rain at a local mall, and then headed down to Saint Mary Cemetary beside the Fox River.
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I only knew that McCarthy’s grave was somewhere toward the back, but I entered the first little driveway, turned left, drove over a beautiful little bridge . . .
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. . . and found the Senator’s final (and well deserved) resting place almost as if I had been led to it - as if it were my own resting place. I was amazed to have found it so easily and to really find myself there at all. Hokey-Smoke! I’m here! I’m finally here in Appleton, Wisconsin, and I’m standing at Joseph McCarthy’s gravesite! Can I believe it? Is this real?
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I took several photos . . .
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. . . and then I drank a toast in honor of my hero. I had brought along my silver cup, which had been a birth gift to me from a friend of my paternal Grandmother – a woman named Althea, whom I have no recollection of ever having met. ["I don't always drink Grand Marnier, but when I do, I prefer it in my silver cup."] I love this silver cup because it reminds me of the similar one Val Kilmer used in his portrayal of Doc Holliday in the movie ‘Tombstone’. And I love the fact that Senator McCarthy held on and didn’t die until May 2nd.
It was his final boot in the butt of communists everywhere! . 
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So, I poured an airline bottle of Jack Daniel’s into my silver cup and drank it in honor of Joseph McCarthy. I downed the whiskey in just two gulps, one to symbolize McC and one to symbolize McMe.
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.I also took a picture of the 2007 M. Stanton Evans tome
‘BLACKLISTED BY HISTORY: The Untold Story Of Senator Joe McCarthy And His Fight Against America’s Enemies’, which Ann Coulter has called, “The greatest book since the Bible.” This was hardly the first publication written in support of the Senator. In fact, Stanton’s own father, Medford Evans, had written a good one titled
‘The Assassination Of Joe McCarthy’ thirty-seven years earlier. But it is
‘Blacklisted By History’ which has now and forever vindicated the man and restored his good name for anyone aware of this book’s well researched contents. The McBullshit is over, and although the lying liberals - with lots of help from the lying liberal media - won so many battles, in 2007 they lost the McWar. (Thanks, Joe. And thanks, Mr. Evans. God love ya both. And Medford, too!)
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Joe's parents are also buried in Saint Mary Cemetary, very close by the Senator's resting place:
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Continued below in
Part 2.
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YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement. .
