AtDDtA1: "Dick"

[Dave Monroe]

"Chick's father, Richard, commonly known as 'Dick,' originally from
the North, had for several years been active in the Old Confederacy
trying his hand at a number of business projects, none of which,
regrettably, had proven successful, and not a few of which, in fact,
had obliged him, as the phrase went, to approach the gates of the
Penitentiary...." (AtD, Pt. I, p. 7f.)


"Dick"

"Mucho Maas, enigmatic, whistling 'I Want to Kiss Your Feet,' a new
recording by Sick Dick and the Volkswagens (an English group he was
fond of at that time but did not believe in), stood with hands in
pockets while she explained about going down to San Narciso for a
while to look into Pierce's books and records and confer with Metzger,
the co-executor." (Lot 49, Ch. 2, p. 23)

http://www.innternet.de/~peter.patti/thomaspynchon-thecryingoflot49.htm

Sick Dick & The Volkswagens

http://nowave.pair.com/no_wave/sickdick.html

http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/interviews/borbetomagus.html

Zhlubb, Richard M.

755; aka the "Adenoid"; night manager of Orpheus Theatre on Melrose
Blvd. in LA; 37th President of the United States

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/x-z.html


posse comitatus

Posse comitatus is a Latin phrase meaning "power of the county"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_comitatus

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 67 > § 1385	Prev | Next

§ 1385. Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus
How Current is This?

Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized
by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the
Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the
laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two
years, or both

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00001385----000-.html

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. §
1385) passed on 1878-06-18 after the end of Reconstruction. The Act
was intended to prohibit Federal troops from supervising elections in
former Confederate states. It generally prohibits Federal military
personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal
authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United
States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or
Congress. The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act
substantially limit the powers of the Federal government to use the
military for law enforcement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

The Myth of Posse Comitatus

http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/Articles/Trebilcock.htm

The Posse Comitatus Act and Homeland Security

http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/Articles/brinkerhoffpossecomitatus.htm


absquatulated

ABSQUATULATE

To make off, decamp, or abscond.

The 1830s — a period of great vigour and expansiveness in the US — was
also a decade of inventiveness in language, featuring a fashion for
word play, obscure abbreviations, fanciful coinages, and puns. Only a
few inventions of that period have survived to our times, such as
sockdologer, skedaddle and hornswoggle. Among those that haven't
lasted the distance were blustrification (the action of celebrating
boisterously), goshbustified (excessively pleased and gratified), and
dumfungled (used up).

Absquatulate has had a good run and is still to be found in modern
American dictionaries. It was common enough that it became one of the
favourite bêtes noires of writers on style in the latter part of the
century. One such was Walton Burgess, who wrote Five Hundred Mistakes
of Daily Occurrence in Speaking Pronouncing and Writing the English
Language, Corrected, a title sufficient in itself to make the
strongest heart quail. He included the word in a list of those to
avoid, with this evocative example of it in action: "He has
absquatulated, and taken the specie with him". He remarked
disdainfully that " 'absconded' is a more classical word".

A writer in the New Orleans Weekly Picayune in December 1839 noted
that the origin of the word lay in squat, to which had been added the
Latin ab– (from abscond), meaning "off, away", and the verb ending
–ulate (borrowed from words like perambulate), so making a word
meaning to get up and depart quickly. Or, as a writer in the old
Vanity Fair magazine in 1875 elaborated: "They dusted, vamosed the
ranch, made tracks, cut dirt, hoed it out of there".

http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-abs1.htm


"scram"

Main Entry: scram
Pronunciation: 'skram
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): scrammed; scram·ming
Etymology: short for scramble
Date: circa 1928
: to go away at once <scram, you're not wanted>

http://www2.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwdictsn?book=Dictionary&va=scram

scram
1928, U.S. slang, either a shortened form of scramble (q.v.) or from
Ger. schramm, imperative sing. of schrammen "depart."

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=scram


Thick Bush

Matagorda is a Spanish word meaning "thick bush."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matagorda_County,_Texas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Texas_county_name_etymologies

Cf. ...

Big Thicket

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Thicket

Texas Big Thicket Directory

http://www.bigthicketdirectory.com/

Big Thicket National Preserve, Texas

http://www.nps.gov/bith/

http://www.nps.gov/archive/bith/default.htm

BIG THICKET. The Big Thicket of Southeast Texas is difficult to define
geographically....

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/BB/gkb3.html

Thanks, Brent Goodsell, Neapolitan Records, Milwaukee ...

http://www.onmilwaukee.com/music/articles/neapolitan.html

Blackwater River, Florida?  Thick Bush, Texas?  Although do note ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Blackwater

Also ..

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/governors/modern/page3.html#Bush

http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/

"The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit" (p. 5)

But do be careful searching this one on Google Image (NWS, as They say) ...