Little Egypt Heritage Articles Stories of Southern Illinois © Bill Oliver 17 March 2006 Vol 5 Issue: #11 ISBN: pending Osiyo, Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt, Today is St Patrick’s Day which is quite widely celebrated. You have heard of “Luck of the Irish”. I don’t know if a four leaf Shamrock is rarer than a four leaf clover. So, our smallest granddaughter has given her Grandmother a planting kit of Shamrock seeds with full instructions for her Birthday which is St Patty’s Day. Today’s article is a couple of days early because my internet access will be very limited for the next three days and I wish this to be posted earlier than later. Due to the fact that this is St Patty’s Day and luck is such a part of the mythology of the Irish I thought I would write about one of the symbols we hold as a “lucky” item – the horseshoe. Horseshoes have been around a long, long time. We’ll get around to the history of them in a moment or two. First, horseshoe pitching is a universal sport and it too has been around a long time. It is enjoy with varying degrees of intensity by us commoners and those with higher social or economic status. Take for instance, the George Bush Presidential Library holds a picture of President George H W Bush engaged with his son, Marvin, in one of his favorite activities – horseshoe pitching [dated 16 April 1989]. He had a horseshoe pit added to the White House complex. Johnny Carson once again demonstrated his “iron nerves” in April 1968 a horseshoe pitcher nicknamed “The Kid” on the Tonight Show. He placed his chin on a horseshoe “stake” while the “Kid” demonstrated his skill at tossing “ringers”. There are other horseshoes – natural ones – much more spectacular than the ones we manufacture, such as, Horseshoe Falls at Niagara Falls and Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River. Then there is the Horseshoe Sandwich. Northwest Ohio had it Moronburger and the Panhandle of Nebraska has a similar delicacy, but the Horseshoe Sandwich is the product of Springfield and central Illinois. The Leland Hotel there claims to have invented it and is served in most restaurants around there. The traditional horseshoe sandwich is open-faced. It takes two slices of Texas toast. Of course, you know that Texas toast is thick sliced bread and lightly toasted. I’m told that some restaurants will substitute English muffins for the toast – but only begrudgingly. To continue with the makings – two hamburger patties cooked to preference, usually medium. A mound of French Fries goes with it – those real skinny kind. All this is topped with cheese sauce – Welsh rarebit if it is a “kosher”. The garnish is Paprika. The modern American eater tries turkey, chicken, ham, Italian sausage as substitutes. I guess that even shrimp, crawfish, egg or tomato have been tried as well. Those who think all this is too much, can order a smaller version called a “ponyshoe”. Now if you ex-service people think that this sounds a lot like a very similar dish made of chipped beef on toast [S.O.S.]– you might have good memories! Not so long ago, archeologists, near Wiltshire, unearthed on a Roman road some medieval artifacts. Among them were three iron horseshoes. Now the Romans didn’t have horseshoes. The conclusion then was that they were used in medieval times. During the second century, before the Christian Era [BC], iron plates and rings were nailed to horses’ hoofs in Western Asia and Eastern Europe. Sculpture and drawings that date from the second millennium BC show men and women on horseback. The saddle, stirrup and collar, probably originated in the Asian steppes. Early Asian horsemen used “booties” made from leather. During the first century A.D., the Romans made leather and metal shoes called “hipposandals”. Somewhere in the sixth or seventh century A.D, European horsemen began the practice of nailing metal shoes to horses’ hooves. One of the Olympian Games of Greece included the discuss throw. The discuss was similar to the modern quoit, though not in size nor weight. It was a circular plate, ten to twelve inches across. A strap or thong was passed through a hole in the middle. The strap was released by the player as he swung it so as to gain the greatest possible distance. One tradition holds that those who could not afford the discuss would take discarded horseshoes and throw them at a stake. Thus, horseshoe pitching comes from the game of quoits and quoits is a modification of the Grecian discus throwing. England’s Duke of Wellington claimed that the Revolutionary War was won by “pitchers of horse hardware”. I’m not at all sure about this because I haven’t found evidence before the Civil War where Union soldiers threw mule shoes at stakes. I did find a statement though that asserted that the game of quiots was played during the Revolutionary War. Still returning soldiers brought the game back with them from war. From this though, folks, including my Uncle Phillip, had backyards laid out pitching courts in their backyards and every public park I can remember as a youth had courts. Horseshoe pitching has grown into a world wide sport with international tournaments. During the 1930s the game of horseshoe pitching became so popular in Kentucky that “every” backyard reportedly had a horseshoe court and it was played everywhere. Some say this popularity was due to the cash prizes for winners. During the summer 0f 1930 a horseshoe tournament attracted 52 competitors. On the first day there were more than 500 spectators in Burlington to witness the “derby” which lasted over several weeks. By the finals, more than 1,000 people packed the special built stands to watch Lloyd Cleveland Weaver win the derby and claim the cash prize and a silver horseshoe trophy. Though still popular, horseshoe pitching has now been overshadowed by another northern Kentucky game called “cornhole”. e-la-Di-e-das-Di ha-wi nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da. (May you walk in peace and harmony) and Wado, Bill -=- PostScript: Other sites worth visiting: http://www.deannedurrett.com/codetalkers.html PostScript: = = = = http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SOIL http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ILMASSAC http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/state/BillsArticles/LittleEgypt/intro.html