Author Archives: CharlieClaywell

About CharlieClaywell

I have been a writer for years, mainly as a reporter, but I have always enjoyed history, especially non-mainstream stories buried inside old documents. My blog mostly centers around those stories. On occasion, though, I deviate and talk about my dog, vintage toys and what it's like to be middle-aged.

Amphicars Make A Splash At Annual Ohio Show

Posted on July 27, 2014 by CharlieClaywell

An Amphicar cruises in St. Mary’s Lake during the 2014 Lake Festival in Celina, Ohio.

Lake Festival in Celina, Ohio is a free event that has a fair-like quality to it — with plenty of deep-fried food — and is held on the banks of St. Mary’s Lake each year in July. This year’s event was held July 25-27, and included the Friday evening ‘Splash Inn’ where Amphicars from California, Michigan to Ohio drove down a wooden dock, splashing into boat mode before navigating through an tunnel and out onto St. Mary’s Lake. | View Photos

Since relatively few cars made it into the U.S. only a handful of the cars are at the event (maybe 15) which is why the event is extra special because it is one of the few times you will see an Amphicar — especially one operating in boat mode.

Between 1961 and 1967 slightly more than 3,000 of the vehicles were imported into the United States. The vehicle’s model number 770 comes from the fact that the car can do 7 knots on water and 70 mph on land. This was accomplished with a 43-hp Triumph engine.

Amphicars hold the distinction of being the only civilian amphibious passenger automobile ever to be mass produced.

Presidential Favorite

President Lyndon B. Johnson owned a Lagoon Blue version and used the vehicle to prank an unsuspecting passenger by telling the passenger that the brakes weren’t working as he ‘crashed’ the car into a lake.

To learn more about the Amphicar visit:

Amphicars: This is an enthusiast site and offers recent news, history of the vehicle, links to vehicles for sale and upcoming events associated with the Amphicar.

The International Amphicar Owners Club: Click on this link to find upcoming ‘swim-ins’ across the United States.

eBay: Occassionally a few will be listed for sale on the eBay Motors website.

Categories: 8th congressional district, American History, Ohio Events

Confederate Families Exit The U.S. To Colonize Brazil

Posted on July 24, 2014 by CharlieClaywell

The United States Civil War has always fascinated me especially once I discovered the high price my maternal family paid in the conflict. Living in the borderland region of Tennessee and Kentucky, my family line suffered death as well as the exploits of renegades like Tinker Dave Beaty and Champ Ferguson and overall, a general breakdown in law and order.

Another part of the War that I find interesting are the stories that have, for the most part, been removed from the history of the conflict –like this one about Americana, Brazil.

Shortly after the War ended, as many as 20,000 Confederates left the United States and an estimated 5,000-10,000 headed to Brazil (which still practiced slavery) where they hoped to create a plantation system based on a life that had left behind in the South. For nearly the first 100 years, the descendant spoke only English (with a southern drawl) before becoming more assimilated into the Brazilian society.

Historians say theirs was the only political exodus of American citizens in the history of the United States, though it is rarely mentioned in history books. In the latter half of the 1800s, thousands of Americans from all over the South left their homes and families in search of new lives in Mexico, Cuba and Brazil.

The Confederate families that chose Brazil found cheap land and the opportunity to colonize. The South American country welcomed the families because Brazil hoped to establish itself as the leader in worldwide cotton production by capitalizing on American farming techniques.

In the case of the ones that landed near present day Americana, Brazil — they maintain a connection to the Confederate South even to this day — holding an annual festival to honor their heritage.

First Confederate home in Brazil.

Learn More

Wikipedia has a nice article on the history of the Confederate colonies in Brazil, but for a more in-depth article read The Confederados by Ron Soodalter originally published in America’s Civil War magazine.

I also found a few book titles (which I’ve added to my reading list).

Categories: American History, Civil War History

Veep: Politics as Usual?

Posted on July 22, 2014 by CharlieClaywell

Some TV shows are meant to expose the truth while some are designed to entertain. The best TV shows, though, entertain while exposing the truth which is what Veep has accomplished in its first three seasons.

The HBO show, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is a political comedy that follows the life of Selena Myers (Louis-Dreyfus) an incompetent vice-president with an incompetent staff.

But, if the show was only about her incompetence — no one would watch.

It is the keen observations of the writers and actors that make the show a telling — albeit dark — account of modern-day Washington D.C. The jokes are crude, the language is rough and no one in D.C. is exempt from the spotlight’s glare. Politicians and businessmen are all fair game.

The series begins after Meyers’ unsuccessful bid for the president lands her in the vice-president role. In this powerless position she plots, plans and connives in preparation for the next presidential election so she can claim her rightful place in history.

As the show progresses, her platform changes as needed until near the end of the third season, she ‘decides’ to let the powerful political party leaders tell her what to do. In the meltdown, she repeats that it is her decision to let them tell her what to do.

But it is not just powerful political leaders Meyers has to deal with — it is also young, wealthy businessmen who fund her campaigns.

In another 2014 episode, Meyers is forced to ‘play nice’ with the billionaire owner of Clovis (which is a caricature of firms like Google or Facebook), but she can’t do it. From the owner’s arrogance to the ‘kindergarten’ setting of the workplace — she has had enough, but she still finds a way to leverage the situation for her political gain.

When she notices the allegations of torture attributed to her opponent playing on the screen behind her at Clovis, she uses the technology of the day to manipulate what she says into a sabotage against the opponent. As Meyers publically denounces the story (that presidential candidate and war-hero, Danny Chung was involved in the torture of Iraqi prisoners), she intentionally (or clueless?) repeats the words Danny Chung and torture — linking the terms together forever in the virtual search engine driven world.

In an effort to give the show its authenticity, the actors visited D.C. before the series began to get a better understanding of politics. It’s this insider’s look at D.C. that gives the show its edge.

Matt Walsh, who plays Mike McClintock — Meyer’s in-over-his-head communication director — noted this is a 2012 article on Politico,

“One big insight to me was that you can get success over wording — if you can change the wording of some bill, then you can give your state another $20 million, if you can just change a sentence,” he said. “To me, that was really insightful as to why the works get gunked up so much, because everyone’s fighting for their constituents.“

Rated 5 out of 5: Louis-Dreyfus is brilliant, the cast is superb and the subject is one everyone loves to hate: incompetent politicians. Although the show is Not Rated, it contains R and MA rated material.

D.C. In A Day
If you have not watched the show, it is a great candidate for binge-watching. With less than 30, 30-minute episodes through three seasons, it can be easily watched in one weekend. Veep: Season 1

Categories: TV Shows