Dishing the co-Kenans (coquinas)

Hi Dwayne,

Don’t know what your “wow” is from: my email or my blog: http://scottkenan.blogspot.com. Maybe both. I TOLD you I was a Bad-Ass Mo-Fo! Hell! I’m going to see that my mother is arrested, tried, and hung for High Treason –and you can take THAT to the bank! The details are in the blog.

This is NOT my mother (to the right) -- although she has my nose, brows, and cheekbones -- far from it!!! This is Mary Lily Kenan Flagler, and for now, we'll just forget the 'Bingham', thank you very much!!! More on Mary Lily HERE.

Sorry, Dwayne, that you’re having a rough time physically. I hate to admit it, but if you told me the nature of your condition, I somehow have no memory of it – not that it’s really any of my business.

Not sure what you mean about the Trust’s version of things. I read the David Chandler books in the late 80s when they were national bestsellers and 60 MINUTES interviewed Tom about Mary Lily’s codicil to Bingham, her Laudanum addiction, and the seeming likelihood that she had gotten syphilis from Bingham when they were in college and trysting. Apparently, it showed few symptoms, but they knew she had it – hence her not being married at a usual age -- or maybe she was just waiting . . .  (Clarification added 5/17/11: Mary Lily was only 23 when she met Henry at a party in Newport, RI, in 1891, but there were complications that required they wait until he was 72 and she 34 before they could marry.)

Later, of course, the tertiary phase set in some years after Flagler’s death and the excruciating pain led to her deep opiate addiction. And only arsenic to treat the disease back then – not just a little like using the poison AZT to treat AIDS in the early years. The cure is worse than the illness – and God did I know people who suffered! I’m one of the Lost Generation of Gay Men, the sexually active ones near my age having nearly all died the most horrifying deaths while the Republicans and Christians said it was God’s righteous punishment. The disease flared beginning early in the Reagan years, and he refused to fund ANY research – never even publicly spoke its name.

GOD THE THINGS ALL OF US PUT UP WITH FROM REPUBLICANS AND FAKE CHRISTIANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

It’s a miracle I haven’t gone on a rampage of murder after what I’ve been through, especially. But I have none of that in me. Oh, I do have rage sometimes, but it passes. They know not what they did -- and do! But once you confront them with it, THEY ARE FULLY RESPONSIBLE AND MUST FACE THE CONSEQUENCES. This is what three contingents of people from Kenansville who strangely stopped me on the street the first month I was here said I must do to my immediate family: parents and siblings. I will NOT be stopped bringing my parents to justice, but my siblings must PROVE they were duped, soon, or I’ll do whatever it takes to prove they KNOWINGLY helped the country’s top Nazi. They just convicted Demjanjuk – or however you spell it. I’d been following that case for at least 15 years.

And 'poor', un-poor Henry Flagler! Those Kenans had him going every which way to Sunday! First, apparently, was Will (William R. Kenan, Jr, who later founded the granddaddy of the serious trusts), absolutely CHEATED out of benefiting from his discovery of acetylene. I always figured he was laughing in his grave – or maybe he wasn’t dead yet – when Union Carbide had that horrifying accident in Bhopal, India years ago. Nothing to let anyone see you smirk over, though. But he did his research farm thing and his block & tackle company. 

Enter Henry Flagler and Will is off and REALLY running. Next thing you know, there’s an old man and no Viagra yet (not that I know he needed it!), but next thing you know, Miss 'Social Graces', after an act of the Florida Legislature, is set to marry him. And their cousin Owen Hill Kenan is Flagler’s personal physician – to keep him bamboozled if syphilis flares? Who knows. But I have never seen nor heard a WHIFF of anyone thinking the Kenans did a THING to Henry Flagler that he wasn’t happy to have them do, especially, his wife. 

And I bet he and Mary Lily just LOVED everyone knowing their business as they ‘shocked the world’ by sleeping in the same bed and bedroom. I bet there had been rumors about Mary Lily having syphilis and gossips claiming she was TOTALLY ruined. HA! She sure showed them – and in the gentlest kindest ways imaginable – just by living well and loving well. You KNOW Flagler absolutely adored her – and loved building her the finest house in the world. Scarlett O’Hara, sans the tacky and the vulgar!!!

And I love that Mary Lily was running all around with Mr. & Mrs. Pembroke Jones – Pembroke taking his male lover nearly everywhere he went with his wife as they LITERALLY set the "keeping up with the Joneses" standard (this is where the expression originated. REALLY!) for entertaining in Wilmington, and more in Newport -- just to honor their friend Mary Lily (and I just got several more confirmations that she was the wealthiest WOMAN on earth -- not just 'widow' -- THAT before the later year Standard Oil Trust was broken up and because that gave everyone more confidence, the value of all her -- and all the other Kenans' -- stock DOUBLED in one year!!!)


Take THAT, you Saudi Royals!!! LOL.  

Saudi Arabia has been blocking access of their citizens to this blog for over a week, now. Previously, more Saudis read it than people from all other not-USA countries combined. Gee, I wonder why? Now, 5/16/11, Iranians hold that 'honor.' Perhaps our Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters have, like me, discovered that my distant Kenan relatives have (for years now) secretly funded Foundations in support of LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL in the Middle East -- as well as all across Africa, behind the former Iron Curtain, and much of Asia as well. HA! TAKE THAT, YOU SAUDI ROYALS!!!

>>> UPDATE TUES. 5/16/11, 9:43 AM:

Apparently, some internet dam has broken, because in the last hour, Saudis are FLOODING to this blog and reading it. Going from zero, an hour ago, they have FAR overtaken the lead in hits here other than those from any other country except Iran (and, of course, the United States of America, which still accounts for about 80% of the hits).

Meanwhile, poor Will worked his ass off keeping everything going. But I love that after his wife died, Will spent the rest of his days living with his life-long devoted male secretary, Scottie. HA!!! Dr. Owen H.K. never married. Seems an awful lot of Kenan men never married, and when they did, they seemed to prefer first cousins – even those without giant estates like my grandfather who married HIS first cousin. No wonder we’re all bat-shit crazy. Might be why I’m so tall.

Well, enough. But it was after seeing 60 MINUTES’ piece on Mary Lily that I hoped to get the answer from Tom, since he had, reportedly, ordered her exhumation and an autopsy (not the first time this had been done!). I was going to trade info that Tennessee Williams had died infested with crotch pets (crabs, which at the time I thought was just too shocking to let anyone know), for his report on the autopsy. I have no idea who the hell I thought I was, calling him and asking him that, and while that wasn’t the whole conversation, it certainly did END it. 

Between my manic condition and my expecting I could just waltz into Kenan Oil’s office, hobnob with Mr. President Shafer like I was someone of achievement, and then ask Tom what he hadn’t disclosed to anyone, publicly. Well, I guess it was practice for confronting Republicans today.

I gotta go bum a cigarette. HA! 


UPDATE 5/17/11, 8:06 AM: A 'godly' (LOL!!!) Humanist I met at a political meeting last night, gave me money to buy cigarettes while I wait for $20.00 donated through my book's website www.walkingonglass.net yesterday to flow through to my debit card. YOU, reader, might help out a little too by clicking the link and donating through PayPal and get a pre-publication copy of my Tennessee Williams memoir as a token of my thanks! -- or I'll be evicted from my apartment at the end of the month.

Dwayne: Call when you get a chance. I’ll be in church 8:00 – 11:00 as I do Sunday School as well. And after the third class I attended, I was drafted to teach the next week’s class. Well, Wilmington sure is a town where even the most fringe of eccentrics can feel right at home -- PRAISE JESUS!!!

Scott

Today's post is dedicated to Sue Hobbs, 'Conchologist  to the Stars', for her laughter (the spitting image of my Grandmother Meyer's) and her many kindnesses over the years. More about Sue HERE.