October 20, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, you can delegate authority - yet responsibility remains with you, the leader. Hear lessons that make a difference from Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, author of Risks and Returns: Creating Success in Business and Life. His career flourished thanks to hard work, mentorship, and many other blessings worthy of study.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American People.
Colonel Harlan David Sanders was an American businessman known for
founding the fast food corporation Kentucky Fried Chicken. Colonel Sanders
did something that no other restaurant founder dared to do.
He became his company's own mascot and brand ambassador. Here
(00:32):
to share the story of KFC and a little about
who Colonel Sanders was is Adam Chandler, the author of
Drive Through Dreams.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Take It Away.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Adam, the story of Colonel Sanders and KFC is one
of the best stories there is in fast food. There's
nothing else like it. Guy who was born into poverty,
(01:03):
grew up on a rural farm. He's basically an orphan.
He raises his own family while his mother's working after
his father dies at a very young age, and he
works every job imaginable for the first six seven decades
of his life. He's selling tires, he's working for the
(01:26):
Chamber of Commerce, he's building ferries, he's working on trains,
he's trying to become a lawyer. He does all of
these different things, and he finds success in some of them,
and he fails at other ones, and he just he
keeps trying, and he ends up in a small gas
station that he owns in southeastern Kentucky, and basically his
(01:46):
entire focus is trying to beat out the other gas
stations for customers on the newly built roads that are
happening in southeastern Kentucky, the Dixie Highway, and he ultimately
succeeds by having excellent service and excellent food. And that's
the beginning of fried chicken. He loves it. He creates
(02:11):
a electric pressure cooker, patents it to make fried chicken
faster than anyone has ever made fried chicken before, and
it is a hit. He gets written up in national publications,
and eventually he turns this idea into a franchise. He
goes around and patents the recipe and sells the idea
(02:32):
on handshake deals to small mom and pop shops and
diners all around Appalachia and the Midwest, basically just saying
here's the recipe for my chicken. I'll send you the seasoning,
and you give me five cents for every chicken that
you cook. It's the most homespun thing imaginable. It sounds
completely insane today, but this is how he built his empire.
(02:55):
Eventually he started opening these standalone stores. And mind you,
he was sixty six when this happened.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
He was old.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
That was the standard age that you were suspected to
possibly pass on at that point. That was the life expectancy.
Was where he was basically at when he decides to
turn KFC into an empire. And he could have just retired,
he would have been fine doing it, but instead he
goes out on the road and he just creates this
brand that everyone falls in love with, and it expands
(03:28):
around the world and he becomes one of the most
famous men in the world after living in obscurity for
so long, because he's got this big personality, he's got
this drive, and he's got this really strong belief in
his product. And you know, the white planter suit with
the tie, that's all something that he came up with
as a way to kind of brand himself. He was
(03:48):
a Kentucky colonel, which is an honorary title in Kentucky,
and he uses this to market himself as the colonel.
There are thousands of Kentucky colonels out there. There's only
one Roald Sanders, and everybody knows who he is. He
gets on television, he's in movies, he becomes this character.
(04:09):
He becomes the second most recognizable figure in the world
according to one poll in the nineteen seventies. And that's
not something that happens to a lot of people. But
through sheer force of will and a lot of skill,
he manages to do this, and that idea is still
a cherished part of the brand's motto is doing things
the hard way, the way that the Colonel did it.
(04:30):
So this story of sort of perseverance and a real
belief in self and in your own invention is a
huge reason why we know KFC the world around. What's
great about the fast food story, and this is still
true to some extent today, is you didn't need a
(04:52):
college degree or really great connections to make it in
the fast food industry when it was starting out. Looking
at the early stories of the founders, most of them
didn't graduate high school, much less go to college. They
were salespeople. They were salesmen driving around the country trying
to sort out a way to create a business model
(05:13):
that would be sustainable. A lot of them served in
the Armed forces at some point and kind of learned
what the meaning of regimented service and operations are. And
they just worked hard and created a system that was
very popular. So all of these really big American ideals
that we cherish is hard work, and that part of
(05:34):
the American story really come to bear in fast food.
And it's not just the big recognizable names, you know,
there are also these small entrepreneurs who open franchises and
are able to become wealthy in a way that you
would think you would need connections or advanced degrees to get.
And that's just not the story of fast food. There
(05:58):
are so many different people, all ages, all backgrounds, all
ethnicities that managed to create something special in that post
war era.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Madison Dericot, and a special thanks to
Adam Chandler, author of Drive Through Dreams, and by the way,
go to Alamerican Stories dot com and you can hear
the full story of so many of the other fast
food and drive through restaurants that were formed and founded
(06:33):
by men and women just like Colonel Sanders.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And this is the distinct nature of this business.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
It didn't take a PhD or a JD or a
BS or even a high school degree. He wanted to
provide better service for his customers and his gas station.
He kicked around a long time. In his sixties, he
finally lives that American dream. But boy does he hustle.
And he's driving from town to town selling his recipe
and his patent. And by the way, the number of
(07:02):
people who got wealthy owning KFCs and owning these restaurants,
that's the other flip side of this American dream. It
wasn't just the product he created fro him self, but
the wealthy spread and by the way, the yummy chicken.
The story of Colonel Sanders here on our American Story folks,
(07:31):
I you love the great American stories we tell and
love America like we do. We're asking you to become
a part of the our American Stories family. If you
agree that America is a good and great country, please
make a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and
seventy six cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters.
Go to our American Stories dot com now and go
(07:52):
to the donate button and help us keep the great
American Stories coming.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
That's our American Stories dot.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Com, and we returned to our American stories.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Up next, a story from Zorro the Drummer.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
He's worked for musicians the likes of Lenny Kravitz, Frankie Valley,
and Lisa Marie Presley. But before he was a renowned drummer,
he was a poor kid from California named Daniel Donnelly.
Let's get into the story. Take it away, Zorrow.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
My life is very much like Forrest Gump. All the
things that were not supposed to happen to Forrest happened.
If you remember in the movie, you know he's in
the White House with Elvis. All these amazing things to
this kid, the unlikely kid that was pretty much me.
(08:52):
My mother, Maria, had the enormous task of raising seven
children alone in the area known as Compton. So I
was straight out of confident. Like the rap song says
she was an immigrant, she actually came from an aristocratic family.
(09:14):
She was the daughter of a Supreme Court justice. She
had married my father about six months of age. He
took the only car we had and abandoned us. So
life was very difficult. We moved around a tremendous amount
because we were getting evicted for either being late with
the rent, and back in those days in the sixties,
(09:35):
they could kick you out if you had too many people.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
All that has changed now.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
But my mother tried to hold down as many jobs
as she could, but still wasn't enough, so we struggled
a lot just to make ends meet. In fact, there
were times when we moved when there was no money
for a U haul or anything to move from one
apartment to the next, so I would use literally my
red radio flyer wagon and we could load up furniture
(09:59):
on there if you stack it a certain way, and
me and my brothers would hoist it and haul it
down the street a couple of miles to the next place.
But at the same time, my mother had this incredible faith,
She had this vision and dream, and something pretty amazing
happened during the like when I was going into the
second grade. Even though we were poor, she always dressed
(10:22):
very dignified, and so she always carried herself as the
person she grew up being in Mexico, So she never
saw herself like that poor person. She carried herself in
a different way even though we were poor. But she
wore these scarves, and she always looked fabulous in these scarves,
and inside of me was like a budding rock star,
which I had no idea was there at the time,
(10:43):
but there was this artistic flare about me. And I
asked her if I could wear her orange silk scarf
she was wearing. I asked her if I could wear
it for my second grade school picture. And she looked
down at me and she laughed and go, oh me,
you can't wear my scarf. The boys will beat you up.
This is not Maiko in the United States.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
But I wanted to wear it really bad.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
So I kept reasoning with her, and I said, I
don't care what they think, and said, the scarf looks cool.
Elvis Presley wears one, Tom Jones wears one. I want
to wear a scarf. I want to be different. And
so she knelt down and tied her orange silk scarf
around my neck and then she whispered in my ear.
She says, one day, my precious son, you will do
something fantasmical with your life. Fantasmical was the word she used.
(11:25):
It was a mixture between fantastic and amazing and wonderful,
and it was her own own word that she coined,
but that's how she truly felt. So I grew up
in this household full of love, even though we were
in abject poverty. And I think during those years of
being sort of heartbroken, because I remember trying to send
letters to my father, he never responded to any of
(11:48):
the letters or the report cards.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Of the pictures.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
So I grew up with this incredible sense of rejection.
It would have been different if he died or died
in the war. Then I would just have to have
dealt with this is no longer can be. But there
was always this glimmer of hope inside this kid that
something he would write or do or say would make
his dad respond. And so he never did, and that
sent a big spear of hurt, pain and rejection in me,
(12:14):
which became the fuel later for me doing what I
end up doing. Really, one great thing that happened during
those days we lived in Compton was all of my
brothers and sisters loved music, and so I grew up
in a house where everyone was playing different records, all
the great rock and roll records, soul music, and motown jazz.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
My mother loved big band and Mariacci.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
And then I had the great fortune a neighbor bought
us some tickets, took me to go see Diana Ross
and the Supremes and the Temptations when I was seven
or eight years old, and I got so excited from
the concert that the next day I just wanted to
play drums. I was drawn to the rhythm soul music.
(13:05):
I didn't own any drums, but I was creative, so
I looked at my mother's cupboard and found some tupperware
canisters and some salad spoons, and then looked at the
trash cans and found like some folder's coffee cans, all
Monroca cans. And I made a ghetto drum set, put
it in my red radio fire wagon, took it out
on Compton Boulevard, turned on my transistor radio to Wolfman.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Jacket, how you doing?
Speaker 6 (13:31):
Made away and call.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
It brown, and put on soul music.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
And then I just commenced to pounding on the drums,
and all the people around me were digging it and
throwing coins into my wagon. Something sparked in me that day,
and something came alive. That rhythm and that drummer thing
was calling to me. We ended up moving to Grant's Pass, Oregon.
(13:58):
It's beautiful up there. There's mos rivers, lakes, trees, and
they hated us because my mother was Mexican. But this
is fully the American dream. My mother was tired of
renting and she had this dream of having a house
one day. So we scrimped and saved, all of us
(14:19):
worked and put a little tiny piece of down payment
on a little plot of land out in the middle
of nowhere in the country.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
But we didn't have any money for a dwelling.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
We lived in our nineteen sixty two Chevy Nova, which
was hot as hell in the summer. No running water,
no electricity, no outhouse. But I remember, for all the
harsh people that we met, we met some godly Christian
people as well. And there was a reverend. His name
was a Reverend Ed Williamson. He is the one who
(14:51):
let us shower at his house, and he also bought
me and my brother's shoes. We didn't have the money
to buy the shoes because we wanted to go on
this church camping trip, so he bought us the shoes.
That's what allowed us to go to the summer church camp.
And that's actually the camp where I gave my heart
to Jesus. So sometimes it takes just a pair of
shoes to get a kid to find Jesus. And the
(15:13):
most beautiful part of that story, I was in Grant's
past preaching at a church and doing some book signings,
and that pastor showed up fifty years later and we
had this beautiful full circle moment. And I've been tracking
him down because I wanted him to know what I
had done with my life and how many people I've
affected because of the love of God he showed to
(15:34):
me and my family.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
So it was just the most beautiful thing.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
But anyway, so in Grant's Pass is where I officially
wanted to be a drummer. So I entered a talent show.
They were putting a band together, and I just told
him that I was a drummer, even though I didn't
have any drums or had never played any drums other
than the ghetto drum set on the streets.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
And Compton, which was not a drum set.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
So I calmed my way into this band, and when
we had the first rehearsal, they were like, hey, you know,
where's your drums? And I said, they're in the shop
getting fixed. But I could play with my hands on
the back of the chair just to keep time for
you guys. And so I faked my way through that
until the day of the show, and which of course
I wasn't going to have the drums that hadn't known
any We found a big, giant box. We ended up
(16:16):
painting a drum set on it by hand with glitter
and glue and all that stuff, and I ended up
playing at the talent show on the box with my
hands like I had been playing on the chair. The
kids in the band were totally disappointed, but I just
wanted to be in that talent show.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
And kind of what.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
Sparked that whole thing was watching Elvis Presley on the
big televised satellite show he did called Elvis Aloha from Hawaii.
It was the world's first satellite broadcast broadcast all over
the world. At the same time, I watched the drummer
behind Elvis. His name was Ronnie Tett, and when I
saw him play man, the guy looked like he was
having so much fun. I'm like, that's what I want
(16:53):
to do. I want to do what that guy's doing.
But then it kind of went dead for a while
because I didn't get into school band, and so at
that point I needed a new dream. And so, living
in rural Oregon, everyone raised animals we couldn't afford, like
cows and horses and goats and stuff. So I decided
I was going to raise chickens because they were really
(17:15):
cheap to buy and they were small.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
I wanted to be the world's greatest chicken farmer.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
Then I raised a couple of Saint Bernards and then
one of them got loose and destroyed my entire chicken
farm in one day. And that's what sort of God's
plan for my life. I needed a new dream, and
so I thought about it. I'm like, man, Music's what
I always really wanted to do, but I didn't know
how to get into it.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
I didn't own any drums.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
So, and you've been listening to the story of Zorro
the Drummer. His mother Maria, raised seven kids alone in Compton.
But his mom's incredible faith, well, it was always in evidence.
When we returned more of Zorro of the Drummer's story
here on our American Stories, and we returned to our
(18:09):
American Stories and the story of Daniel Donnelly aka Zorro
the drummer. When we last left off, Daniel had set
aside his dream of being a drummer because while he
couldn't afford a drum set, didn't get into the high
school band, and chickens were cheap. But he'd soon have
a meeting with his school counselor that would change the
course of his life. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
He said, what do you like? I said music. Can
you find me a job that puts me around music?
And he goes, I'll see what I can do. A
week later he comes back and he goes, man, I'm sorry,
I couldn't find anything like what you wanted, but I
did find you a job, and I'm like, well, what
is it. He goes, well, it's a custodial position. And
I'm like, okay. Where He goes right here, right where,
right here?
Speaker 4 (18:55):
At the school my school.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
He goes, yeah, oh, man, like an embarrassing job, like
the school bell rings and all the kids are seeing
you clean the toilets. But he said, well, the good
news is you get to clean the bandroom. So I
was like, wow, great, I get to clean the bandroom. Well,
at the end of the two hours of the job,
last ten minutes. I reserved to sneak into the band
room after I cleaned it, and then I would sneak
(19:19):
on the drums and play. Now, I never took a lesson.
I didn't own a set of drums. But I guess
you could say I was given a gift because from
day one I could play.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
I would do that every day.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
You know, I just daydream about being on stage one day,
and then one day, uneknownst to me, the band director
was in his office. He came out and startled me.
He caught me drumming on the job. So he goes
and says, wait right there, and goes and get somebody else.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
And I know I'm getting fired.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
So I think he's bringing my boss, Clarence, to tell
him this kid sneaking on the.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Drums and playing.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
Instead, it was the swing choir director. He says, play again.
You were playing it, and so I played, and they
both looked at each other and they're mumbling while I'm playing,
and then they said, stop, kid, You've got an incredible
amount of talent.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
You're like a rhythmic genius. I need you in the.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
Swing choir, the stage band, the marching band, all the
school bands and that is how my career started. So
I graduated high school. Then I auditioned for and landed
a gig with a local band, Italian family, a bunch
(20:37):
of brothers and a sister. They had an opportunity to
go down to LA to audition for Disneyland as the
house band at the Tomorrowland Terrace, which was the stage.
It would rise from the ground like hydraulically and then
all of a sudden it would be up in the
band would be playing. And they had held that job
a couple of years earlier as the house band, so
I was certain we'd get the job again, and now
(20:59):
I'd be back in my southern California, La area, live
in my dream of playing. Additionally, ID with a show band.
For whatever reason, we auditioned and they didn't get the gig.
Was heartbreaking. So I ended up quitting the band and
I was ready to go back, and I called my
mother told her what had happened. The band was falling apart,
and she said, she said, son, don't come back.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
I said, what do you mean.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
She goes, If you come back, you'll never make it.
She said, you have real talent, but you got to
stick it out in La you've got to be there.
That's where all the gigs are, that's where all your
potential is, that's where opportunities are.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
There's nothing for you up here. And I was scared
as gonna be.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
I didn't really know what to do, but I listened
to her advice and said okay. And then I drove
all around LA for a a couple of few days,
just you know, Hollywood and Beverly Hills, trying to figure
out the lay of the land, reading newspapers looking for
ads about drummers. Just couldn't figure out where to meet
the people. You know, I hadn't been there since I
was a kid. And I drove by Beverly Hills High
(21:58):
School and I thought, wow, it looked like a college camps,
like an Ivy League college campus like Harvard or something. Gee,
I wish I would have went to school like this.
And then this idea came to me. I wanted to
meet kids my age to play. So I went one day,
spent the last bit of money I had on the
latest Panasonic boom box, and then I went to Beverly
(22:22):
Hills High School one day in the afternoon and I
got there around lunchtime, and I sat on the lawn
of this pristine, well manicured lawn a beautiful fall day.
I'm going to play my boom box. I'm going to
crank some earth Wind and Fire in the earth Wind
and Fire Platinum boom Box. I'm bringing my practice pad
and my sticks, and I'm just going to play on
the lawn. And if there's any musicians within an earshot,
(22:45):
they're going to go, hey, who's that new kid on
the lawn. You know, I was trying to bring attention
to myself. I wore like a yellow silk shirt and
silk pants. I had a panama jack hat with a
sash around it that was yellow, had some shades.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
I was like big bird out on that lawn. I
was yellow and you're going to find me.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
Within ten minutes of doing that, this kid comes walking
up to me and goes, hey, man, are you new here?
And I just said yeah, because you know, I'm not
really supposed to be there.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
You know, you're not supposed to be just walking in
on the campus.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
So I said yeah, And then he was like, where'd
you come from? So I just transferred from Eugene, So
I kind of pretended like I was a new student there.
He played the bass. His name was Kennedy, and we
became fast friends. And then another kid came up to
me about ten minutes later, and it was the same thing.
It was like, hey man, you knew here. You look
like you had some mean chops, you know. I was
(23:41):
practicing fast on the pad and his name was Lenny.
Well later he turned out to be Lenny Kravitz, and
Kennedy turned out to be Kennedy Gordy, who was the
son of Barry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records. It
wasn't long after I met Kennedy Gordy. I'm up at
(24:04):
the Gordy compound and one day I see two rolls
Royce's pulling up and Kennedy's the only kid I knew
who had pinball machines, and he had an arcade in
his front living room, but you didn't have to put
coins on them. So I was in there playing arcades
by myself. He was upstairs in his bedroom taking a shower.
His dad was upstairs. Then the doorbell rings and I
(24:24):
opened the doorbell and it's Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five,
which is another one of my favorite groups I grew
up with. I had all their forty fives. I belonged
to the fan club. So I'm there trying to talk
Michael and the brothers into jamming with me, like Michael, Jermaine, Jackie, Tito, Marlin, Man,
I know all your songs, Man ABC, the Love You Save,
you know one more chance? I named them all you know,
(24:45):
I want you back. Michael just looked at me with
this smile.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
He goes, oh, kid, you got a lot of heart.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
But anyway, I ended up chatting with them for like
twenty minutes, entertaining them while they were waiting for Barry
Gordy to come downstairs. So it was like I could
dream come true. So all these amazing things were happening.
And then within a couple of years I had got
a gig with Philip Bailey, who was the lead singer
of Earthwin and Fire, my favorite group, the group whose
music I played on the boombox that day, and that's
(25:14):
how everything started. My biggest break that really put me
on the map was in nineteen eighty five. The group
The New Addition was looking for a drummer and Lenny
Kravitz had met the managers up at MCA Records and said,
I got just a guy, and he goes, hold all
your calls. I got just a guy. But by that
(25:36):
time the word had gotten out and now every other
great drummer in LA had heard about it. It was
like a cattle call. There's no way I'm going to
get this gig over these guys. These guys are pros.
And Lenny's like, now, come on, man, you're funkier than
those guys, and you're cooler. You got an image, you
got a vibe, you get your Zorro vibe and your
Zorro hat. So he talked me into believing I could
do it. But through playing with them, I became a
(25:58):
teen star on my own right. So there were Zoro
posters and centerfolds in the white teen magazine, Black teen magazine,
Latin teen magazine, every kind of teen magazine you can imagine.
So my story is an overcoming story of epic proportions
(26:18):
in the spirit of like Rocky. But it's about a
musician with a dream and a family. It's about this
mother and this faith that my mother had that God
could still provide, that God could still do incredible things,
that nothing could count us out. I adopted that same
faith myself and I've preached everywhere from San Quentin prison
to the most hardened criminals in the world to Hollywood
(26:40):
oscar parties. Probably the most beautiful thing about my story,
this overcoming story, I got to become the very thing
that I never had. I never had a loving father
who mentored me, supported me, did anything for me in
any way or sape or formed. But I got to
become a father to my children. The most important kind
(27:00):
of success is the one that really matters when you're
on your deathbed.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And a special thanks to Zorrow the Drummer. His book
is called Maria's Scarf, and by the way, as a
final note, Tsorrow the Drummer still wears a scarf to
this very day.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
When he plays an homage to his mom.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
The story of Zorrow the Drummer an overcoming story of
epic proportions. Here on our American stories, and we return
(27:38):
to our American stories and up next a story from
a regular contributor, Anne Claire, about a fight over a
pig that almost led to a war.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Take it away And.
Speaker 6 (28:02):
In spite of its name, the pig War didn't have
much to do with farm animals. Rather, the unfortunate demise
of a pig who ventured into the wrong garden in
eighteen fifty nine almost led to an armed conflict. Another
armed conflict between Britain and the United States. In the
(28:24):
early eighteen hundreds, multiple countries had sent explorers to the
Pacific Northwest coast of North America. These explorers laid claim
to territory in the New World. However, as there weren't
markings on property lines, Britain, Spain, Russia, and the fledgling
United States all ended up with overlapping claims. Now By
(28:45):
eighteen nineteen, Spain was out of the running for Pacific
Northwest real estate thanks to the Transcontinental Treaty. President James
Monroe's eighteen twenty three speech outlining the Monroe Doctrine warned
Russia that seed making interests in North America wouldn't be tolerated,
but this still left Britain and the United States of
(29:06):
having to work out their conflicting claims. Both nations had
reasons why they felt their claim was more legitimate. On
the British side, Captain James Cook had conducted important explorations
of the coastal areas of the territory. One of his
crew members, George Vancouver, returned and became the first non
(29:28):
native to explore Puget Sound, giving it its name in
the process. The Hudson Bay Company had been active in
the area for years, establishing trade and putting down roots. However,
the Americans had the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery
exploration to point to and the subsequent setting up of
trading posts and forts. A decade before Lewis and Clark
(29:50):
reached the Pacific, Thomas Gray, sailing from Boston, had explored
and named the Columbia River. This whole idea, also of
manifest death that the United States not only would expand,
but was meant to expand to the Pacific, bolstered the
voices calling for the Oregon Territory to become officially American territory.
(30:15):
Britain and the United States had already agreed to set
their borders from Minnesota to the Rocky Mountains along the
forty ninth parallel, why not, moderate American voices asked, agree
to just keep the same line all the way to
the Pacific. This would also conveniently give the United States
Puget Sound, which would be America's first good deep water
(30:36):
harbor on the Pacific but no. The Hudson Bay Company
also recognized the value of Puget Sound. The forty ninth
Parallel was too far to the north for their plans. However,
by eighteen forty three, so many American families had moved
west along the Oregon Trail and begun settling in the
Oregon Territory that they set up a provisional government to
(30:57):
keep the territory in order possession nine tenths at the
law right. As the debate wore on, some American voices
clamored that a border on the forty ninth Parallel wasn't
not enough land anyway. President James K. Polk won his
eighteen forty five election on the slogan fifty four to
forty or fight. In other words, he called for a
(31:19):
border that went up to fifty four degrees forty minutes,
which would extend the United States border all the way
north to Alaska or thereabouts or else. However, once he
was in office and by a slim margin of votes,
President Polk wasn't really feeling the fight part of his
slogan anymore.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
So.
Speaker 6 (31:37):
The conflict when it came was not at the dictates
of Washington, d C. In eighteen forty six, Britain and
the United States signed the Treaty of Oregon in London.
This treaty finally positioned the border between the two nations
on the forty ninth parallel from the Rocky Mountains west
(31:58):
until it hit the wall. Then the line would swing
south through the middle of the channel which separates the
continent from Vancouver Island. So they thought the problem was solved,
except that this treaty did not specify which channel the
border should pass through when it swung south, Harrow Strait
(32:19):
near Vancouver Island or Rosario Strait near the mainland, and
the San Juan Islands lay between those two straits, so
naturally both Britain and the United States claimed them as
their rightful property and began trying to establish their claims
through action. The Hudson Bay Company at Fort Victoria, which
(32:42):
was only seven miles from San Juan Island, has set
up salmon curing stations on the island. When the United
States claimed the island, the HBC upped its game and
established the Bellevue Sheep Farm as well. American settlers, all
eighteen of them, established their own claims, settling in and
building homes right in the middle of the sheep grazing land.
(33:04):
The settlers were confident that the US government would recognize
their claims, while the British were equally sure that these
new residents were just squatters. Finally, on June fifteenth, eighteen
fifty nine, came the incident. An American resident of San
Juan Island, Lyman Cutler, found a British company pig in
(33:26):
his garden. He shot and killed it. This didn't go
over well. The British authorities threatened to evict all of
the Americans from the island except Cutler, whom they wanted
to arrest. The Americans dug in their heels and refused
to move, but they sent messages to the American authority
(33:48):
in the territory Brigadier General William S. Harney. He sent
a company of sixty four infantrymen under Captain George E. Pickett,
who would later be a well known name in the
American Civil War. Picket encamped his men just north of
the British sheep farm. Word of the situation reached Vancouver
Island and the ears of the British governor, James Douglas.
(34:10):
In response, Douglas sent Captain Jeffrey Phipps Horn and his
thirty one gun steam frigate, the HMS Tribune, to San
Juan Island. They were ordered to get rid of picket
without bloodshed if possible. The Tribune was soon followed by
the HMS Satellite with her twenty one guns and the
(34:31):
HMS Plumper with her ten plus forty six Royal Marines
and fifteen Royal engineers. Faced with almost one ship gun
for each of his men, Pickett still refused to withdraw.
He did, however, request reinforcements. In the meantime, the British
did not take aggressive action, waiting for the commander of
(34:52):
the British Naval Forces in the Pacific Rear, Admiral R.
Lambert Baines, to arrive.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Now.
Speaker 6 (34:59):
I don't know any thing else about Admiral Baines, but
I think his reaction to the situation speaks well of him.
Baines was appalled and advised Douglas that he would not
involve two great nations in a war over a squabble
about a pig. Now on the island, Pickett received his reinforcements,
(35:22):
one hundred and seventy one men and a replacement commander
in the form of Lieutenant Colonel Silas Casey. Casey tried
to parley with Baines, but after Bains refused to leave
his ship, or maybe it was after seeing the eighty
four guns on bains ship, Casey also sent word asking
for more reinforcements. So by the end of the month,
(35:42):
four hundred and sixty one Americans were encamped in the
woods just north of the sheep Farm. And there they waited,
and the British also waited, drilling and firing their guns
into the island's bluffs. Now, among all the absurdities of
this situation, officers on both sides attended true together on
the satellite and socialized. Now, at last, the story of
(36:05):
this conflict reached Washington, d c. And the then President,
James Buchanan. He hurriedly dispatched General Winfield Scott, a veteran
of the War of eighteen twelve and also a veteran
of calming down border disputes. In the end, both parties
agreed to withdraw their reinforcements. Britain and the United States
(36:26):
would share San Juan Island in a joint occupation until
the matter was finally resolved. The Americans would leave one
company of soldiers on the island, and the British would
keep one warship in Griffin Bay. Now this temporary solution worked,
though with one thing and another keeping the decision makers occupied,
(36:46):
including our civil war. The temporary solution dragged on for
twelve years. In eighteen seventy one, Britain and the United
States agreed to let Kaiser Wilhelm, the first of Germany
Are betray their dispute. He gave the project to a
three man commission who met on the subject in Geneva
for nearly a year. They ruled in favor of the
(37:10):
United States. This set the final boundary between the US
and British now Canadian territory, and so the Pig War ended,
a war in which the only casualty was a pig,
and in which diplomacy finally triumphed.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
And a terrific job on the production by Monty Montgomery
and a special thanks to Anne Claire for telling us
what is a seemingly humorous but important point to make
about border disputes and how they change, and borders have
been battled over for centuries over.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Big and small things, even a pig.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
And by the way, if you have stories history stories yourself,
send them to our American stories dot com. So many
of you are actually closet historians or are actually history teachers.
Send them in and send them to Ouramerican stories dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
The story of a battle over a pig that almost
led to a war here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American People.
Colonel Harlan David Sanders was an American businessman known for
founding the fast food corporation Kentucky Fried Chicken. Colonel Sanders
did something that no other restaurant founder dared to do.
He became his company's own mascot and brand ambassador. Here
(00:32):
to share the story of KFC and a little about
who Colonel Sanders was is Adam Chandler, the author of
Drive Through Dreams.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Take It Away.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Adam, the story of Colonel Sanders and KFC is one
of the best stories there is in fast food. There's
nothing else like it. Guy who was born into poverty,
(01:03):
grew up on a rural farm. He's basically an orphan.
He raises his own family while his mother's working after
his father dies at a very young age, and he
works every job imaginable for the first six seven decades
of his life. He's selling tires, he's working for the
(01:26):
Chamber of Commerce, he's building ferries, he's working on trains,
he's trying to become a lawyer. He does all of
these different things, and he finds success in some of them,
and he fails at other ones, and he just he
keeps trying, and he ends up in a small gas
station that he owns in southeastern Kentucky, and basically his
(01:46):
entire focus is trying to beat out the other gas
stations for customers on the newly built roads that are
happening in southeastern Kentucky, the Dixie Highway, and he ultimately
succeeds by having excellent service and excellent food. And that's
the beginning of fried chicken. He loves it. He creates
(02:11):
a electric pressure cooker, patents it to make fried chicken
faster than anyone has ever made fried chicken before, and
it is a hit. He gets written up in national publications,
and eventually he turns this idea into a franchise. He
goes around and patents the recipe and sells the idea
(02:32):
on handshake deals to small mom and pop shops and
diners all around Appalachia and the Midwest, basically just saying
here's the recipe for my chicken. I'll send you the seasoning,
and you give me five cents for every chicken that
you cook. It's the most homespun thing imaginable. It sounds
completely insane today, but this is how he built his empire.
(02:55):
Eventually he started opening these standalone stores. And mind you,
he was sixty six when this happened.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
He was old.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
That was the standard age that you were suspected to
possibly pass on at that point. That was the life expectancy.
Was where he was basically at when he decides to
turn KFC into an empire. And he could have just retired,
he would have been fine doing it, but instead he
goes out on the road and he just creates this
brand that everyone falls in love with, and it expands
(03:28):
around the world and he becomes one of the most
famous men in the world after living in obscurity for
so long, because he's got this big personality, he's got
this drive, and he's got this really strong belief in
his product. And you know, the white planter suit with
the tie, that's all something that he came up with
as a way to kind of brand himself. He was
(03:48):
a Kentucky colonel, which is an honorary title in Kentucky,
and he uses this to market himself as the colonel.
There are thousands of Kentucky colonels out there. There's only
one Roald Sanders, and everybody knows who he is. He
gets on television, he's in movies, he becomes this character.
(04:09):
He becomes the second most recognizable figure in the world
according to one poll in the nineteen seventies. And that's
not something that happens to a lot of people. But
through sheer force of will and a lot of skill,
he manages to do this, and that idea is still
a cherished part of the brand's motto is doing things
the hard way, the way that the Colonel did it.
(04:30):
So this story of sort of perseverance and a real
belief in self and in your own invention is a
huge reason why we know KFC the world around. What's
great about the fast food story, and this is still
true to some extent today, is you didn't need a
(04:52):
college degree or really great connections to make it in
the fast food industry when it was starting out. Looking
at the early stories of the founders, most of them
didn't graduate high school, much less go to college. They
were salespeople. They were salesmen driving around the country trying
to sort out a way to create a business model
(05:13):
that would be sustainable. A lot of them served in
the Armed forces at some point and kind of learned
what the meaning of regimented service and operations are. And
they just worked hard and created a system that was
very popular. So all of these really big American ideals
that we cherish is hard work, and that part of
(05:34):
the American story really come to bear in fast food.
And it's not just the big recognizable names, you know,
there are also these small entrepreneurs who open franchises and
are able to become wealthy in a way that you
would think you would need connections or advanced degrees to get.
And that's just not the story of fast food. There
(05:58):
are so many different people, all ages, all backgrounds, all
ethnicities that managed to create something special in that post
war era.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Madison Dericot, and a special thanks to
Adam Chandler, author of Drive Through Dreams, and by the way,
go to Alamerican Stories dot com and you can hear
the full story of so many of the other fast
food and drive through restaurants that were formed and founded
(06:33):
by men and women just like Colonel Sanders.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And this is the distinct nature of this business.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
It didn't take a PhD or a JD or a
BS or even a high school degree. He wanted to
provide better service for his customers and his gas station.
He kicked around a long time. In his sixties, he
finally lives that American dream. But boy does he hustle.
And he's driving from town to town selling his recipe
and his patent. And by the way, the number of
(07:02):
people who got wealthy owning KFCs and owning these restaurants,
that's the other flip side of this American dream. It
wasn't just the product he created fro him self, but
the wealthy spread and by the way, the yummy chicken.
The story of Colonel Sanders here on our American Story folks,
(07:31):
I you love the great American stories we tell and
love America like we do. We're asking you to become
a part of the our American Stories family. If you
agree that America is a good and great country, please
make a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and
seventy six cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters.
Go to our American Stories dot com now and go
(07:52):
to the donate button and help us keep the great
American Stories coming.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
That's our American Stories dot.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Com, and we returned to our American stories.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Up next, a story from Zorro the Drummer.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
He's worked for musicians the likes of Lenny Kravitz, Frankie Valley,
and Lisa Marie Presley. But before he was a renowned drummer,
he was a poor kid from California named Daniel Donnelly.
Let's get into the story. Take it away, Zorrow.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
My life is very much like Forrest Gump. All the
things that were not supposed to happen to Forrest happened.
If you remember in the movie, you know he's in
the White House with Elvis. All these amazing things to
this kid, the unlikely kid that was pretty much me.
(08:52):
My mother, Maria, had the enormous task of raising seven
children alone in the area known as Compton. So I
was straight out of confident. Like the rap song says
she was an immigrant, she actually came from an aristocratic family.
(09:14):
She was the daughter of a Supreme Court justice. She
had married my father about six months of age. He
took the only car we had and abandoned us. So
life was very difficult. We moved around a tremendous amount
because we were getting evicted for either being late with
the rent, and back in those days in the sixties,
(09:35):
they could kick you out if you had too many people.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
All that has changed now.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
But my mother tried to hold down as many jobs
as she could, but still wasn't enough, so we struggled
a lot just to make ends meet. In fact, there
were times when we moved when there was no money
for a U haul or anything to move from one
apartment to the next, so I would use literally my
red radio flyer wagon and we could load up furniture
(09:59):
on there if you stack it a certain way, and
me and my brothers would hoist it and haul it
down the street a couple of miles to the next place.
But at the same time, my mother had this incredible faith,
She had this vision and dream, and something pretty amazing
happened during the like when I was going into the
second grade. Even though we were poor, she always dressed
(10:22):
very dignified, and so she always carried herself as the
person she grew up being in Mexico, So she never
saw herself like that poor person. She carried herself in
a different way even though we were poor. But she
wore these scarves, and she always looked fabulous in these scarves,
and inside of me was like a budding rock star,
which I had no idea was there at the time,
(10:43):
but there was this artistic flare about me. And I
asked her if I could wear her orange silk scarf
she was wearing. I asked her if I could wear
it for my second grade school picture. And she looked
down at me and she laughed and go, oh me,
you can't wear my scarf. The boys will beat you up.
This is not Maiko in the United States.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
But I wanted to wear it really bad.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
So I kept reasoning with her, and I said, I
don't care what they think, and said, the scarf looks cool.
Elvis Presley wears one, Tom Jones wears one. I want
to wear a scarf. I want to be different. And
so she knelt down and tied her orange silk scarf
around my neck and then she whispered in my ear.
She says, one day, my precious son, you will do
something fantasmical with your life. Fantasmical was the word she used.
(11:25):
It was a mixture between fantastic and amazing and wonderful,
and it was her own own word that she coined,
but that's how she truly felt. So I grew up
in this household full of love, even though we were
in abject poverty. And I think during those years of
being sort of heartbroken, because I remember trying to send
letters to my father, he never responded to any of
(11:48):
the letters or the report cards.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Of the pictures.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
So I grew up with this incredible sense of rejection.
It would have been different if he died or died
in the war. Then I would just have to have
dealt with this is no longer can be. But there
was always this glimmer of hope inside this kid that
something he would write or do or say would make
his dad respond. And so he never did, and that
sent a big spear of hurt, pain and rejection in me,
(12:14):
which became the fuel later for me doing what I
end up doing. Really, one great thing that happened during
those days we lived in Compton was all of my
brothers and sisters loved music, and so I grew up
in a house where everyone was playing different records, all
the great rock and roll records, soul music, and motown jazz.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
My mother loved big band and Mariacci.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
And then I had the great fortune a neighbor bought
us some tickets, took me to go see Diana Ross
and the Supremes and the Temptations when I was seven
or eight years old, and I got so excited from
the concert that the next day I just wanted to
play drums. I was drawn to the rhythm soul music.
(13:05):
I didn't own any drums, but I was creative, so
I looked at my mother's cupboard and found some tupperware
canisters and some salad spoons, and then looked at the
trash cans and found like some folder's coffee cans, all
Monroca cans. And I made a ghetto drum set, put
it in my red radio fire wagon, took it out
on Compton Boulevard, turned on my transistor radio to Wolfman.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Jacket, how you doing?
Speaker 6 (13:31):
Made away and call.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
It brown, and put on soul music.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
And then I just commenced to pounding on the drums,
and all the people around me were digging it and
throwing coins into my wagon. Something sparked in me that day,
and something came alive. That rhythm and that drummer thing
was calling to me. We ended up moving to Grant's Pass, Oregon.
(13:58):
It's beautiful up there. There's mos rivers, lakes, trees, and
they hated us because my mother was Mexican. But this
is fully the American dream. My mother was tired of
renting and she had this dream of having a house
one day. So we scrimped and saved, all of us
(14:19):
worked and put a little tiny piece of down payment
on a little plot of land out in the middle
of nowhere in the country.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
But we didn't have any money for a dwelling.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
We lived in our nineteen sixty two Chevy Nova, which
was hot as hell in the summer. No running water,
no electricity, no outhouse. But I remember, for all the
harsh people that we met, we met some godly Christian
people as well. And there was a reverend. His name
was a Reverend Ed Williamson. He is the one who
(14:51):
let us shower at his house, and he also bought
me and my brother's shoes. We didn't have the money
to buy the shoes because we wanted to go on
this church camping trip, so he bought us the shoes.
That's what allowed us to go to the summer church camp.
And that's actually the camp where I gave my heart
to Jesus. So sometimes it takes just a pair of
shoes to get a kid to find Jesus. And the
(15:13):
most beautiful part of that story, I was in Grant's
past preaching at a church and doing some book signings,
and that pastor showed up fifty years later and we
had this beautiful full circle moment. And I've been tracking
him down because I wanted him to know what I
had done with my life and how many people I've
affected because of the love of God he showed to
(15:34):
me and my family.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
So it was just the most beautiful thing.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
But anyway, so in Grant's Pass is where I officially
wanted to be a drummer. So I entered a talent show.
They were putting a band together, and I just told
him that I was a drummer, even though I didn't
have any drums or had never played any drums other
than the ghetto drum set on the streets.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
And Compton, which was not a drum set.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
So I calmed my way into this band, and when
we had the first rehearsal, they were like, hey, you know,
where's your drums? And I said, they're in the shop
getting fixed. But I could play with my hands on
the back of the chair just to keep time for
you guys. And so I faked my way through that
until the day of the show, and which of course
I wasn't going to have the drums that hadn't known
any We found a big, giant box. We ended up
(16:16):
painting a drum set on it by hand with glitter
and glue and all that stuff, and I ended up
playing at the talent show on the box with my
hands like I had been playing on the chair. The
kids in the band were totally disappointed, but I just
wanted to be in that talent show.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
And kind of what.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
Sparked that whole thing was watching Elvis Presley on the
big televised satellite show he did called Elvis Aloha from Hawaii.
It was the world's first satellite broadcast broadcast all over
the world. At the same time, I watched the drummer
behind Elvis. His name was Ronnie Tett, and when I
saw him play man, the guy looked like he was
having so much fun. I'm like, that's what I want
(16:53):
to do. I want to do what that guy's doing.
But then it kind of went dead for a while
because I didn't get into school band, and so at
that point I needed a new dream. And so, living
in rural Oregon, everyone raised animals we couldn't afford, like
cows and horses and goats and stuff. So I decided
I was going to raise chickens because they were really
(17:15):
cheap to buy and they were small.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
I wanted to be the world's greatest chicken farmer.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
Then I raised a couple of Saint Bernards and then
one of them got loose and destroyed my entire chicken
farm in one day. And that's what sort of God's
plan for my life. I needed a new dream, and
so I thought about it. I'm like, man, Music's what
I always really wanted to do, but I didn't know
how to get into it.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
I didn't own any drums.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
So, and you've been listening to the story of Zorro
the Drummer. His mother Maria, raised seven kids alone in Compton.
But his mom's incredible faith, well, it was always in evidence.
When we returned more of Zorro of the Drummer's story
here on our American Stories, and we returned to our
(18:09):
American Stories and the story of Daniel Donnelly aka Zorro
the drummer. When we last left off, Daniel had set
aside his dream of being a drummer because while he
couldn't afford a drum set, didn't get into the high
school band, and chickens were cheap. But he'd soon have
a meeting with his school counselor that would change the
course of his life. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
He said, what do you like? I said music. Can
you find me a job that puts me around music?
And he goes, I'll see what I can do. A
week later he comes back and he goes, man, I'm sorry,
I couldn't find anything like what you wanted, but I
did find you a job, and I'm like, well, what
is it. He goes, well, it's a custodial position. And
I'm like, okay. Where He goes right here, right where,
right here?
Speaker 4 (18:55):
At the school my school.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
He goes, yeah, oh, man, like an embarrassing job, like
the school bell rings and all the kids are seeing
you clean the toilets. But he said, well, the good
news is you get to clean the bandroom. So I
was like, wow, great, I get to clean the bandroom. Well,
at the end of the two hours of the job,
last ten minutes. I reserved to sneak into the band
room after I cleaned it, and then I would sneak
(19:19):
on the drums and play. Now, I never took a lesson.
I didn't own a set of drums. But I guess
you could say I was given a gift because from
day one I could play.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
I would do that every day.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
You know, I just daydream about being on stage one day,
and then one day, uneknownst to me, the band director
was in his office. He came out and startled me.
He caught me drumming on the job. So he goes
and says, wait right there, and goes and get somebody else.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
And I know I'm getting fired.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
So I think he's bringing my boss, Clarence, to tell
him this kid sneaking on the.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Drums and playing.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
Instead, it was the swing choir director. He says, play again.
You were playing it, and so I played, and they
both looked at each other and they're mumbling while I'm playing,
and then they said, stop, kid, You've got an incredible
amount of talent.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
You're like a rhythmic genius. I need you in the.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
Swing choir, the stage band, the marching band, all the
school bands and that is how my career started. So
I graduated high school. Then I auditioned for and landed
a gig with a local band, Italian family, a bunch
(20:37):
of brothers and a sister. They had an opportunity to
go down to LA to audition for Disneyland as the
house band at the Tomorrowland Terrace, which was the stage.
It would rise from the ground like hydraulically and then
all of a sudden it would be up in the
band would be playing. And they had held that job
a couple of years earlier as the house band, so
I was certain we'd get the job again, and now
(20:59):
I'd be back in my southern California, La area, live
in my dream of playing. Additionally, ID with a show band.
For whatever reason, we auditioned and they didn't get the gig.
Was heartbreaking. So I ended up quitting the band and
I was ready to go back, and I called my
mother told her what had happened. The band was falling apart,
and she said, she said, son, don't come back.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
I said, what do you mean.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
She goes, If you come back, you'll never make it.
She said, you have real talent, but you got to
stick it out in La you've got to be there.
That's where all the gigs are, that's where all your
potential is, that's where opportunities are.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
There's nothing for you up here. And I was scared
as gonna be.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
I didn't really know what to do, but I listened
to her advice and said okay. And then I drove
all around LA for a a couple of few days,
just you know, Hollywood and Beverly Hills, trying to figure
out the lay of the land, reading newspapers looking for
ads about drummers. Just couldn't figure out where to meet
the people. You know, I hadn't been there since I
was a kid. And I drove by Beverly Hills High
(21:58):
School and I thought, wow, it looked like a college camps,
like an Ivy League college campus like Harvard or something. Gee,
I wish I would have went to school like this.
And then this idea came to me. I wanted to
meet kids my age to play. So I went one day,
spent the last bit of money I had on the
latest Panasonic boom box, and then I went to Beverly
(22:22):
Hills High School one day in the afternoon and I
got there around lunchtime, and I sat on the lawn
of this pristine, well manicured lawn a beautiful fall day.
I'm going to play my boom box. I'm going to
crank some earth Wind and Fire in the earth Wind
and Fire Platinum boom Box. I'm bringing my practice pad
and my sticks, and I'm just going to play on
the lawn. And if there's any musicians within an earshot,
(22:45):
they're going to go, hey, who's that new kid on
the lawn. You know, I was trying to bring attention
to myself. I wore like a yellow silk shirt and
silk pants. I had a panama jack hat with a
sash around it that was yellow, had some shades.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
I was like big bird out on that lawn. I
was yellow and you're going to find me.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
Within ten minutes of doing that, this kid comes walking
up to me and goes, hey, man, are you new here?
And I just said yeah, because you know, I'm not
really supposed to be there.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
You know, you're not supposed to be just walking in
on the campus.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
So I said yeah, And then he was like, where'd
you come from? So I just transferred from Eugene, So
I kind of pretended like I was a new student there.
He played the bass. His name was Kennedy, and we
became fast friends. And then another kid came up to
me about ten minutes later, and it was the same thing.
It was like, hey man, you knew here. You look
like you had some mean chops, you know. I was
(23:41):
practicing fast on the pad and his name was Lenny.
Well later he turned out to be Lenny Kravitz, and
Kennedy turned out to be Kennedy Gordy, who was the
son of Barry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records. It
wasn't long after I met Kennedy Gordy. I'm up at
(24:04):
the Gordy compound and one day I see two rolls
Royce's pulling up and Kennedy's the only kid I knew
who had pinball machines, and he had an arcade in
his front living room, but you didn't have to put
coins on them. So I was in there playing arcades
by myself. He was upstairs in his bedroom taking a shower.
His dad was upstairs. Then the doorbell rings and I
(24:24):
opened the doorbell and it's Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five,
which is another one of my favorite groups I grew
up with. I had all their forty fives. I belonged
to the fan club. So I'm there trying to talk
Michael and the brothers into jamming with me, like Michael, Jermaine, Jackie, Tito, Marlin, Man,
I know all your songs, Man ABC, the Love You Save,
you know one more chance? I named them all you know,
(24:45):
I want you back. Michael just looked at me with
this smile.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
He goes, oh, kid, you got a lot of heart.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
But anyway, I ended up chatting with them for like
twenty minutes, entertaining them while they were waiting for Barry
Gordy to come downstairs. So it was like I could
dream come true. So all these amazing things were happening.
And then within a couple of years I had got
a gig with Philip Bailey, who was the lead singer
of Earthwin and Fire, my favorite group, the group whose
music I played on the boombox that day, and that's
(25:14):
how everything started. My biggest break that really put me
on the map was in nineteen eighty five. The group
The New Addition was looking for a drummer and Lenny
Kravitz had met the managers up at MCA Records and said,
I got just a guy, and he goes, hold all
your calls. I got just a guy. But by that
(25:36):
time the word had gotten out and now every other
great drummer in LA had heard about it. It was
like a cattle call. There's no way I'm going to
get this gig over these guys. These guys are pros.
And Lenny's like, now, come on, man, you're funkier than
those guys, and you're cooler. You got an image, you
got a vibe, you get your Zorro vibe and your
Zorro hat. So he talked me into believing I could
do it. But through playing with them, I became a
(25:58):
teen star on my own right. So there were Zoro
posters and centerfolds in the white teen magazine, Black teen magazine,
Latin teen magazine, every kind of teen magazine you can imagine.
So my story is an overcoming story of epic proportions
(26:18):
in the spirit of like Rocky. But it's about a
musician with a dream and a family. It's about this
mother and this faith that my mother had that God
could still provide, that God could still do incredible things,
that nothing could count us out. I adopted that same
faith myself and I've preached everywhere from San Quentin prison
to the most hardened criminals in the world to Hollywood
(26:40):
oscar parties. Probably the most beautiful thing about my story,
this overcoming story, I got to become the very thing
that I never had. I never had a loving father
who mentored me, supported me, did anything for me in
any way or sape or formed. But I got to
become a father to my children. The most important kind
(27:00):
of success is the one that really matters when you're
on your deathbed.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And a special thanks to Zorrow the Drummer. His book
is called Maria's Scarf, and by the way, as a
final note, Tsorrow the Drummer still wears a scarf to
this very day.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
When he plays an homage to his mom.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
The story of Zorrow the Drummer an overcoming story of
epic proportions. Here on our American stories, and we return
(27:38):
to our American stories and up next a story from
a regular contributor, Anne Claire, about a fight over a
pig that almost led to a war.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Take it away And.
Speaker 6 (28:02):
In spite of its name, the pig War didn't have
much to do with farm animals. Rather, the unfortunate demise
of a pig who ventured into the wrong garden in
eighteen fifty nine almost led to an armed conflict. Another
armed conflict between Britain and the United States. In the
(28:24):
early eighteen hundreds, multiple countries had sent explorers to the
Pacific Northwest coast of North America. These explorers laid claim
to territory in the New World. However, as there weren't
markings on property lines, Britain, Spain, Russia, and the fledgling
United States all ended up with overlapping claims. Now By
(28:45):
eighteen nineteen, Spain was out of the running for Pacific
Northwest real estate thanks to the Transcontinental Treaty. President James
Monroe's eighteen twenty three speech outlining the Monroe Doctrine warned
Russia that seed making interests in North America wouldn't be tolerated,
but this still left Britain and the United States of
(29:06):
having to work out their conflicting claims. Both nations had
reasons why they felt their claim was more legitimate. On
the British side, Captain James Cook had conducted important explorations
of the coastal areas of the territory. One of his
crew members, George Vancouver, returned and became the first non
(29:28):
native to explore Puget Sound, giving it its name in
the process. The Hudson Bay Company had been active in
the area for years, establishing trade and putting down roots. However,
the Americans had the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery
exploration to point to and the subsequent setting up of
trading posts and forts. A decade before Lewis and Clark
(29:50):
reached the Pacific, Thomas Gray, sailing from Boston, had explored
and named the Columbia River. This whole idea, also of
manifest death that the United States not only would expand,
but was meant to expand to the Pacific, bolstered the
voices calling for the Oregon Territory to become officially American territory.
(30:15):
Britain and the United States had already agreed to set
their borders from Minnesota to the Rocky Mountains along the
forty ninth parallel, why not, moderate American voices asked, agree
to just keep the same line all the way to
the Pacific. This would also conveniently give the United States
Puget Sound, which would be America's first good deep water
(30:36):
harbor on the Pacific but no. The Hudson Bay Company
also recognized the value of Puget Sound. The forty ninth
Parallel was too far to the north for their plans. However,
by eighteen forty three, so many American families had moved
west along the Oregon Trail and begun settling in the
Oregon Territory that they set up a provisional government to
(30:57):
keep the territory in order possession nine tenths at the
law right. As the debate wore on, some American voices
clamored that a border on the forty ninth Parallel wasn't
not enough land anyway. President James K. Polk won his
eighteen forty five election on the slogan fifty four to
forty or fight. In other words, he called for a
(31:19):
border that went up to fifty four degrees forty minutes,
which would extend the United States border all the way
north to Alaska or thereabouts or else. However, once he
was in office and by a slim margin of votes,
President Polk wasn't really feeling the fight part of his
slogan anymore.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
So.
Speaker 6 (31:37):
The conflict when it came was not at the dictates
of Washington, d C. In eighteen forty six, Britain and
the United States signed the Treaty of Oregon in London.
This treaty finally positioned the border between the two nations
on the forty ninth parallel from the Rocky Mountains west
(31:58):
until it hit the wall. Then the line would swing
south through the middle of the channel which separates the
continent from Vancouver Island. So they thought the problem was solved,
except that this treaty did not specify which channel the
border should pass through when it swung south, Harrow Strait
(32:19):
near Vancouver Island or Rosario Strait near the mainland, and
the San Juan Islands lay between those two straits, so
naturally both Britain and the United States claimed them as
their rightful property and began trying to establish their claims
through action. The Hudson Bay Company at Fort Victoria, which
(32:42):
was only seven miles from San Juan Island, has set
up salmon curing stations on the island. When the United
States claimed the island, the HBC upped its game and
established the Bellevue Sheep Farm as well. American settlers, all
eighteen of them, established their own claims, settling in and
building homes right in the middle of the sheep grazing land.
(33:04):
The settlers were confident that the US government would recognize
their claims, while the British were equally sure that these
new residents were just squatters. Finally, on June fifteenth, eighteen
fifty nine, came the incident. An American resident of San
Juan Island, Lyman Cutler, found a British company pig in
(33:26):
his garden. He shot and killed it. This didn't go
over well. The British authorities threatened to evict all of
the Americans from the island except Cutler, whom they wanted
to arrest. The Americans dug in their heels and refused
to move, but they sent messages to the American authority
(33:48):
in the territory Brigadier General William S. Harney. He sent
a company of sixty four infantrymen under Captain George E. Pickett,
who would later be a well known name in the
American Civil War. Picket encamped his men just north of
the British sheep farm. Word of the situation reached Vancouver
Island and the ears of the British governor, James Douglas.
(34:10):
In response, Douglas sent Captain Jeffrey Phipps Horn and his
thirty one gun steam frigate, the HMS Tribune, to San
Juan Island. They were ordered to get rid of picket
without bloodshed if possible. The Tribune was soon followed by
the HMS Satellite with her twenty one guns and the
(34:31):
HMS Plumper with her ten plus forty six Royal Marines
and fifteen Royal engineers. Faced with almost one ship gun
for each of his men, Pickett still refused to withdraw.
He did, however, request reinforcements. In the meantime, the British
did not take aggressive action, waiting for the commander of
(34:52):
the British Naval Forces in the Pacific Rear, Admiral R.
Lambert Baines, to arrive.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Now.
Speaker 6 (34:59):
I don't know any thing else about Admiral Baines, but
I think his reaction to the situation speaks well of him.
Baines was appalled and advised Douglas that he would not
involve two great nations in a war over a squabble
about a pig. Now on the island, Pickett received his reinforcements,
(35:22):
one hundred and seventy one men and a replacement commander
in the form of Lieutenant Colonel Silas Casey. Casey tried
to parley with Baines, but after Bains refused to leave
his ship, or maybe it was after seeing the eighty
four guns on bains ship, Casey also sent word asking
for more reinforcements. So by the end of the month,
(35:42):
four hundred and sixty one Americans were encamped in the
woods just north of the sheep Farm. And there they waited,
and the British also waited, drilling and firing their guns
into the island's bluffs. Now, among all the absurdities of
this situation, officers on both sides attended true together on
the satellite and socialized. Now, at last, the story of
(36:05):
this conflict reached Washington, d c. And the then President,
James Buchanan. He hurriedly dispatched General Winfield Scott, a veteran
of the War of eighteen twelve and also a veteran
of calming down border disputes. In the end, both parties
agreed to withdraw their reinforcements. Britain and the United States
(36:26):
would share San Juan Island in a joint occupation until
the matter was finally resolved. The Americans would leave one
company of soldiers on the island, and the British would
keep one warship in Griffin Bay. Now this temporary solution worked,
though with one thing and another keeping the decision makers occupied,
(36:46):
including our civil war. The temporary solution dragged on for
twelve years. In eighteen seventy one, Britain and the United
States agreed to let Kaiser Wilhelm, the first of Germany
Are betray their dispute. He gave the project to a
three man commission who met on the subject in Geneva
for nearly a year. They ruled in favor of the
(37:10):
United States. This set the final boundary between the US
and British now Canadian territory, and so the Pig War ended,
a war in which the only casualty was a pig,
and in which diplomacy finally triumphed.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
And a terrific job on the production by Monty Montgomery
and a special thanks to Anne Claire for telling us
what is a seemingly humorous but important point to make
about border disputes and how they change, and borders have
been battled over for centuries over.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Big and small things, even a pig.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
And by the way, if you have stories history stories yourself,
send them to our American stories dot com. So many
of you are actually closet historians or are actually history teachers.
Send them in and send them to Ouramerican stories dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
The story of a battle over a pig that almost
led to a war here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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