Hi, sorry about any confusion, let alone controversy. Allow me to clarify my clarification: I think I was just trying to quickly list a bunch of facts about recent presidents that most educated Americans know about. the football announcing part about Reagan probably says more about my sports fanaticism than anything. I was trying to think of what we might call standard parts of the legend; elements of a mythic account of an iconic person that most people know about. I believe most Americans would have known that Abe was a "rail-splitter," because it was part of the mythos. Same with his trips down the river, whether on a raft, a flatboat, or a jet ski. It was in fact a flatboat; it is also mentioned in Lincoln's third (and by far the longest) of his 3 autobiographical statements [1860], all 3 of which are reprinted in my book LINCOLN IN HIS OWN TIME, (p. 51). That last autobiography was printed in June 1860 in the Chicago Press and Tribune. Not every American, but most literate Americans would have known these elements of the legend, especially someone like Twain who himself had some rather famous connections with the river. I could be wrong about it. But the flatboat scenes kept showing up, over and over, in later accounts of Lincoln, so I suspect it became a standard touchstone fairly rapidly. (many of these later accounts are also reprinted in the LINCOLN book listed above.) best regards, -hb On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 1:29 PM, Arianne <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Sharon: > Links worked! Fascinating details. The SIZE of some of these > astonishes me. Thanks for the information. > -- Prof. Harold K. Bush Professor of English 3800 Lindell Saint Louis University St. Louis, MO 63108 314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h) <www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>