Jipzeecab Restored to his Former Place in History
Several of you are aware that in real life my most prominent claim to fame (fifteen minutes) is associated with the 1982 mock secession of Key West from the United States of America creating the “Conch Republic”. I wrote about this briefly in a post on May 28, 2005 when I noted that I had discovered someone had written a book about the event which I would have to obtain.Subsequently after reading the book it was apparent to me that the writer himself admittedly was missing key information about the event which I could have provided. As a result in the absence of my input others were creating scenarios which just weren’t factual at the time. Two key unanswered questions were:
1. Who thought up the idea originally? (in the book a Miami PR man tried to take credit for it)...and
2. What was the process with regard to the Founding Fathers that led to the Mock Secession? I knew the answer to both questions.
In July of 2005 I wrote a letter to the author of the book detailing my thoughts. Originally I was unable to get his attention by e-mail however I tried again this past July posting the letter on a blog I use to preserve writings and by e-mail calling his attention to it. He responded immediately to it and a brief exchange of e-mail between us took place. He promised that when and if a 4th printing of his book is done he would include the new information.
At Christmas my sister (“Tommy’s Girl”) gave me two books on Key West which piqued my interest in something about Key West. When googling the subject I ran across the “Official Conch Republic website” (a fellow there named Peter Anderson has copyrighted and trademarked anything to do with "The Conch Republic").
Having explored his site several times before I noticed that he has recently revised his “Official History” in a way that I can tell reflects the input I gave Gregory King in my letter. Some of the changes are subtle (which only I am able to recognize) but the most obvious thing is that the list of “Founding Fathers” which used to be a copy of the list in the order they appeared in King’s book now has my name at the top and the subsequent order of names reflects the process I described in my letter.I doubt very seriously if a 4th printing of King’s book is coming out anytime soon (they have to sell out the third printing first) but King apparently believes me to be credible and has passed on the new information to Mr. Anderson.
Thank you to all concerned..
posted by jipzeecab @ 3:00 PM
1 Comments
