PART ONE
Anacin
Anacin is a painkiller that was very common in the 60s. It contains aspirin and caffeine.
Camas, WA
Camas is a city in Clark County, Washington, with a population of 19,355. Officially incorporated on June 18, 1906, the city is named after the camas lily, a plant with an onion-like bulb. At the west end of downtown Camas is a large Georgia-Pacific paper-mill (TBK uses a fictional name). Accordingly, the city is about 20 miles east (upwind) from Portland, Oregon. Historically, the commercial base of the city was based almost solely on the paper mill. In 1960, the population was 5,666, which rose to only 5,790 by 1970 (and actually decreased by 1980).
Chicago Seven
The Chicago Seven were seven defendants charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other charges related to countercultural protests that took place in Chicago, Illinois, on the occasion of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. These activities were primarily in protest of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s policies for the Vietnam War, policies which were vigorously contested during the presidential primary campaign and inside the convention.
Halitosis
The medical term for “bad breath.”
Hopi Indian
Hopi is a concept deeply rooted in the culture’s religion, spirituality, and its view of morality and ethics. To be Hopi is to strive toward this concept, which involves a state of total reverence and respect for all things, to be at peace with these things. Stereotypically, used as a marker for more “civilized” tribes.
Hosanna
The word hosanna comes from the Hebrew word meaning save, rescue, savior. “Hosanna” was the shout of praise or adoration made in recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It is used in the same way in Christian praise, especially on Palm Sunday, which commemorates that event, and in many Christian hymns.
Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey was an American novelist, essayist, and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey volunteered to take part in what turned out to be a CIA-financed study at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital where he worked as a night aide. The project studied the effects of psychoactive drugs, particularly LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, aMT, and DMT on people. Kesey wrote many detailed accounts of his experiences with these drugs, both during the study and in the years of private experimentation that followed.
Kincaid, OK
Interestingly, this is not a real city.
Musicians
Cat Stevens Mick Jagger
paper mill smell
Paper mills smell bad. Smelly mills use a process for conversion of wood into wood pulp consisting of almost pure cellulose fibers. It entails treatment of wood chips with a mixture of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide, that breaks the bonds. The sodium sulfide is what gives the mill their bathroom-like stench.
peyote
Peyote is a small, spineless cactus with psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline. Known for its psychoactive properties when ingested, peyote is used worldwide as an entheogen (psychoactive religious substance) and supplement to various transcendence practices, including meditation, psychonautics, and psychedelic psychotherapy.
Perry Mason
Perry Mason is a fictional criminal defense lawyer who is the main character in works of detective fiction written by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Queen for a Day
Queen for a Day was an American radio and television game show that helped to usher in American listeners’ and viewers’ fascination with big-prize giveaway shows. Using the classic applause meter, a device that measured the intensity of audience reactions. Contestants were interviewed about their difficult life circumstances. The harsher the circumstances, the likelier the studio audience was to ring the applause meter’s highest level.
Rawlings & Adirondacks
Names of baseball bat manufacturers.
“Riverboat Sloan” and “Starvation Whitey.”
Papa is not referencing anything – he’s just entertaining himself.
ROTC
The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC, often pronounced “rot-see”) is a college-based officer training program for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. ROTC students attend college like other students, but also receive basic military training and officer training for their chosen branch of service through the ROTC unit at or nearby the college. The students participate in regular drills during the school year, and extended training activities during the summer. The Solomon Amendment denies federal funding to any university with a “policy or practice” that prevents the military from “maintaining, establishing or operating” ROTC on its campus.
Spokane
Papa talks about whipping kids “off to Spokane.” This would be a reference to the multiple Adventists schools in Spokane, WA.
Tea Totaler
Teetotalism is the practice or promotion of complete personal abstinence from alcoholic beverages. The Pledge: “We agree to abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality whether ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as medicine.”
Valley Forge
Valley Forge was the military camp in southeastern Pennsylvania, approximately 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia, where the American Continental Army spent the winter of 1777–1778 during the American Revolutionary War. Starvation, disease, malnutrition, and exposure killed over 2,500 American soldiers by the end of February.
Vespers
Vespers is the sunset evening prayer service in the Orthodox, Western and Eastern Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran liturgies of the canonical hours. Evening Prayer gives thanks for the day just past and makes an evening sacrifice of praise to God
Wrong Way Peachfuzz
Capt. Peter “Wrong Way” Peachfuzz was a supporting character on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Peachfuzz was, from his youngest days, an incompetent sailor. As a child, even his toy boats sank.
PART TWO
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye was an American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian. Working alongside UNICEF’s Halloween fundraiser founder, Ward Simon Kimball Jr., the actor educated the public on impoverished children in deplorable living conditions overseas and assisted in the distribution of donated goods and funds.
Dyscrasia
Dyscrasia is a nonspecific term that refers to a disease or disorder, especially of the blood. Before modern medicine, it meant an imbalance of four body fluids: blood, bile, lymph, and phlegm.
Frank Capra
And Norman Rockwell: Rockwell’s final version of “Freedom of Speech” was the result of four restarts and consumed two months. According to Scholes, the subject resembles a Gary Cooper or Jimmy Stewart character in a Frank Capra film. Each version depicted the blue-collar man in casual attire standing up at a town meeting.
Fulbright scholarship
The Fulbright Program is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists. Under the Fulbright Program, competitively selected U.S. citizens may become eligible for scholarships to study, conduct research, or exercise their talents abroad; and citizens of other countries may qualify to do the same in the United States. The program was established to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries through the exchange of persons, knowledge, and skills.
Mekong
(pron.) Mey-kong
purse seine
A seine is a fishing net that hangs vertically in the water with its bottom edge held down by weights and its top edge buoyed by floats. A purse seine encircles schools of fish and uses a drawstring (like a purse) to close the bottom, preventing the fish from escaping.
Sammy Davis Jr.
Samuel George “Sammy” Davis Jr. (1925 –1990) was an American entertainer. Primarily a dancer and singer, he was also an actor of stage and screen, musician, and impressionist, noted for his impersonations of actors, musicians and other celebrities. As an African-American during the pre-Civil Rights era, Davis was a victim of racism throughout his life and was a large financial supporter of the Civil Rights movement. One day on a golf course, he was asked what his handicap was. “Handicap?” he asked. “Talk about handicap — I’m a one-eyed Negro Jew.”
Southern Cross
Crux, also known as the Southern Cross, is a constellation located in the southern sky in a bright portion of the Milky Way, and is the smallest but one of the most distinctive of the 88 modern constellations. In the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern Cross is frequently used for navigation in much the same way that the Polaris is used in the Northern Hemisphere.
Definitions primarily sourced from Wikipedia.
The Brothers K 