| The History of Sassafras County, Missouri |
| In 1861, Missouri residents decided that a Civil War was a lot of work, and that seceding was frankly not worth the effort. Simply remembering how to spell "seceding" was a fair amount of work, and the state's noble citizenry decided, kindly, to save its schoolchildren from the word for generations to come. The residents of Old Hickory County ("Yes, we will! And proudly") and New Hickory County ("Thou Shalt Only Rarely Suffer A Buffoon To Lead You"), having gone through a relatively successful Civil War of their own only a generation earlier, were just as pleased with the state's decision, since they didn't really care which side they were on so long as they got to participate in the War. Participate they did, but perhaps not in the way that they might have hoped. In 1864, when New York City began to move towards seceding from the Union (the New Yorkers were tired of out-of-towners buying up all the seats at Broadway shows), residents of New Hickory County and Old Hickory County decided that if one of the two counties was willing to join New York in secession, the two counties could do a revival of their own civil war. The residents of New Hickory County decided they would be the ones to secede and join New York in forming the New Slightly Less United States of America. Unfortunately, the emissary who was going to take the telegram to New York mistakenly went to Staten Island and has not been heard from since. Having seceded, and only learning later that New Yorkers decided to raise ticket prices so that no one could afford both a hotel room and a Broadway show and therefore decided not to secede, it occurred to the residents of New Hickory County that they actually weren't especially anxious to secede. There were some questions at town meetings about exactly why they had seceded, and a county leader (H. Rodney Rodney, Rodney Rodney's son, who had taken up his father's profession) declared that the only legitimate reason for secession was to change their name. Other members of the county were not impressed with such reasons, and a great shouting match erupted at a New Hickory County County Meeting. The Battle of the New Hickory County County Meeting is, in fact, to this day, immortalized in a diorama in the County Offices, which proudly hold the Guinness Book of World Records record for being the smallest set of County Offices in Missouri. Someone--not H. Rodney Rodney--began throwing eggs, and someone else began to throw tomatoes, and someone else began gathering up the eggs and tomatoes and made a very good omelet. At one point during the battle, name calling broke out, and then escalated into profanity, reaching its height when H. Rodney Rodney had the gall to yell at one of his opponents, "Yeah, you sassafras! I mean you!" History is made in such moments. The county, transfixed, changed its name on the spot, to Sassafras County. |
| Part Three. The Periodontic Later Middle Years [Oh, like you didn't have to look up what periodontic means!] |
| If they made cowboy movies in Sassafras County, Missouri, the actors would very likely look something like this. |
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