[Today is Columbus Day, and, FYI, the banks are closed. Whether you view today as a celebration of Christoper Columbus (which is happening less and less), or a celebration of indigenous peoples (a fitting repurposing), we need to remember the real reason for the day: to give bankers 3-day weekends :-)]
In 1961, the humorist Stan Freberg issued Volume 1 of The United States of America, a musical telling of the founding of America through the Battle of Yorktown (Volume 2 goes through the end of World War I (“They’ll never be another war…”)). The first scene on Volume 1 relates the story of how the Native American’s discovered Columbus, and how Columbus traveled to the “New World” to fulfill his dream — to bring death and disease to the people of the new world (and because his love affair with Isabella had been discovered). As today is Columbus Day, I present a transcription of the scene:
