November 13, 2003, here on slacktivist: The Good Old Days
This story did remind me of the Damn Yankees song quoted above. That song, by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, also contains these unfortunate lyrics:
I see Indians draggin’ an empty covered wagon
When scalping the settlers was the latest craze …In the production I was in a few years back we changed those lines to:
I see settlers with flintlocks, bearing blankets of smallpox
When slaught’ring the natives was the latest craze …Just figured I’d toss that out there on the off chance someone reading this someday finds themselves in a production of this fine old chestnut. (I can’t help you with the cigarette trick, though. Never did get the hang of that.)