mills

Also from Andrew: this photo of the intersection of Mills Road and Rough and Ready Highway, which he sees while biking in Nevada County, CA. He very kindly sent this to me, and like many of his photos it’s wonderful.

Larger here.

GPOYW: Frank / GI Joe edition.

Abby, Will, John, Rebecca, Andy, and I went to the ranch for a few days of filth, scrum, shooting, swimming, high-bluff-jumping, smoking, night-photography, drinking, and more. We didn’t take enough photos, possibly because we were too busy having a good time.

We followed some deer and some hogs and even caught some rain, despite the drought. Worse than usual, I am having a hard time being back.

The photos are here; I’ll probably post some more when I get the chance.

GPOYW: Instantiation Edition with Wilbur Mills and Fanne Foxe. (First | Second)

I am always grateful to those who do more with this name than I do; I hope that, in decisive interactions, the cultural aura that surrounds it has been sufficiently enhanced by Haley Mills, C. Wright Mills, the Quasi-Honorable Semi-Judge Mills Lane, Sam Mills, military hero Gen. Mills, and others that otherwise suspicious interlocutors will give me the benefit of the doubt. A positive association with the original Parent Trap, for instance, could incline a policeman to overlook my poor driving.

I was pleased, then, to read about Wilbur Mills, a powerful Southern congressman, here photographed behind a plate that reads as I am addressed by a friend’s children: “Mr. Mills.”

Mills served in Congress from 1939 to 1977 and for eighteen years (1957-1975) was the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, a post he held longer than any other person in U.S. history. Mills was often termed “the most powerful man in Washington” during his tenure… His accomplishments in Congress included playing a large role in the creation of the Medicare program. Mills initially had reservations about the program because he was worried about the eventual cost, but eventually shepherded it through Congress and had a large hand in shaping its program. Mills was also acknowledged as the primary tax expert in the Congress and the leading architect of the Tax Reform Act of 1969. Mills favored a conservative fiscal approach, adequate tax revenue to fund government programs, a balanced budget, and also supported various social programs, especially Social Security Disability, adding farmers to Social Security, unemployment compensation, and national health insurance.

I hope there is something in there to satisfy readers of virtually all political inclinations. I felt proud to have an utterly incidental connection to this obvious hero of fiscal restraint, political compassion, and power-mongering ambition, until I came to this:

Mills was involved in a traffic incident in Washington, DC at 2 a.m. on October 9, 1974. His car was stopped by U.S. Park Police late at night because the driver had not turned on the lights. Mills was intoxicated, and his face was cut from a scuffle with Annabelle Battistella, better known as Fanne Foxe, a stripper from Argentina. When police approached the car, Foxe leapt from the car and jumped into the nearby Tidal Basin in an attempt to escape… On November 30, 1974, Mills, seemingly drunk, was accompanied by Fanne Foxe’s husband onstage at The Pilgrim Theatre in Boston, a burlesque house where Foxe was performing. He held a press conferencefrom Foxe’s dressing room. Soon after this second public incident, Mills stepped down from his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee, acknowledged his alcoholism, joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and checked himself into Palm Beach Institute at West Palm Beach.

This article is even better: black eyes, lies, obvious lunacy! I suppose that qualifies as additional context for the question of how much our names govern our lives, how much of an effect an idiosyncratic name can have on our development. I now consider myself, and Wilbur, mere victims of a name that wrought debauchery through us quite without our consent. Pity us!