View Single Post
Old 09-26-2013, 11:05 AM   #13
johnfowles
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: New Jersey U.S.A. ex UK and Canada
Posts: 4,846
Send a message via AIM to johnfowles
Default Re: "Loving Everyone That She Met?"

f
Quote:
Originally Posted by johnfowles View Post
But But But as I have previuously posted here somewhere it is a fact that when Gord sang this greart song at the 1969 Charlottetown,PEI Summer Festival (a concert recorded and broadcast on CBC-FM radio on October 5th 1969 he carefully and clearly introduced the song as follows
"we're gonna do a song about the heroine of Pig's Eye,... Minnesota"
No amount of searching reveals who this person was and when asked Gord was vague but it is another fact that:-
"The original name of the settlement that became St. Paul was Pig's Eye. Named for the French-Canadian whiskey trader,
Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant, who had led squatters to the settlement"
It was renamed St Pauls as being a more dignified name for what was to become the state capital
and "Pig's eye Landing was founded by a notorious, though popular, retired fur trapper whose talents had been turned to moonshining, Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant."
Another fact is that the famous American explorers Lewis and Clark were "accompanied by a crew of men, and later, the Shoshone Indian guide and interpreter Sacajawea (also spelled Sacagawea)"
and that 'most historians agree that Sacagawea married a French-Canadian fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau"
so just possibly Gord had read about both those facts on his 1968 song writing trip to England stories and that they became fused together in his mind when he wrote Bitter Green
John
P.S, found on my hard drive while searching for notes
http://www.pigdog.org/skunkschool.html
"Skunk School -- Learn Why Not To Keep Skunks As Pets"
which points out
"Skunks have a ground speed of nearly 85 miles per hour, close to that of the cheetah."
and
"The only recourse a skunk owner has is to build skunk traps baited with chocolate. Chocolate is an irresistible substance to skunks, and it is also a a deadly poison to them."
that fact enabled me to kill a pair of annoying and breeding skunks in our yard a while ago
ewwwww!!
Further research suggests that Gord's "heroine" might well have been a teacher from Vermont named Harriet Bishop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Bishop
who having "moved to Saint Paul,Minnesota in 1847. started the first public school in the Minnesota Territory, the first Sunday school in the territory, was a founding member of temperance, suffrage and civic organizations, played a central role in establishing the First Baptist Church of St Paul, and was an active promoter of her adopted state"
in related note
Minnesota in Sioux actually means "cloudy water,"
which nicely contrasts with the UK town where I was born many years ago
Sherborne in Dorset
from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherborne
"The town was named scir burne by the Saxon inhabitants, a name meaning "clear stream" (see: Bourne (placename) and is referred to as such in the Domesday book."
(not to be confused with Sherborn up near Boston
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherborn,_Massachusetts)
Amazingly I also discovered that
Clear Lake is a city in Sherburne County, Minnesota!
Here endeth today's history/geography lesson boys and girls
OK Wikipedia may not always be accurate but comprises so many unexpectedly useful pages
__________________
"Sir" John Fowles Bt
Honorary Curator Bootleg Museum


(where Sir does not signify that I am a fully benighted Knight just a Bt which signifies a humble Baronet -?? read the wiki!)
I meant no one no harm
Once inside we found a curious moonbeam
Doing dances on the floor


Last edited by johnfowles; 09-27-2013 at 08:16 AM.
johnfowles is offline   Reply With Quote