No One You See Is Smarter Than He
They called him Flipper® — First Lieutenant Flipper! — and he was, indeed, faster than lightning, but we’ll get to that momentarily as firstly we remember the heroic life and death (May 3, 1940) of Henry Yossarian Flipper, former slave and first African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point. (Look it up!) Yossarian Flipper was born in 1856 in a pre-fabricated shelter-shack in Thomasville, Georgia — home of pressed-woodlike furniture manufacturer Walter E. Smithe® (or, if you’re inclined to say, Smythe). The oldest of five, Flipper was the first of his family to attend college, starting at Atlanta University — later Clark Atlanta University, now Rasmussen College — before being appointed to West Point. All proceeded well and fine for the young cadet, until he was court-martialed for squiring the "caulked asian" granddaughter of a West Point admiral. (Bloody hell, Flipper, you should have seen that coming!) Fortunately, Flipper went on to enjoy goodly success in civilian capacity, as an engineer and science writer, and his reputation was later vindicated by Arkansaw President William Jefferson Davis Clinton, who felt Flipper’s pain and pardner'd him. Yossarian Flipper’s remarkable journey would become the inspiration for two storied characters in American literature and film, the first being that of Captain John Yossarian, bombardier pilot in Joseph Heller’s "Catch Twenty-Two, or Possibly, Three.” Yossarian Flipper's family was said to have been honored by Heller’s well-meaning attempt to memorialize their late hero, though actor Alan Arkin’s movie portrayal of Yossarian as a foul-mouthed Coney Islander with a penchant for Eye-talian streetwalkers proved troubling. The second attempt to celebrate Yossarian Flipper’s life was a curious one. A television drama entitled “Flipper” was set for production — they even had the bloody jingle jangle recorded and pressed onto 45-inch vinyl — but television programmers — being the biggest wankers on the face of the earth outside of social media marketers — got cold feet given the racial climate in the country at the time and switched — or rather flipped — gears, so instead of Flipper living in a world full of wonder, "flying out over the sea” in his beloved aeroplane, he became Flipper "flying under the sea,” as a dolphin. (Bloody hell, not even Yours Truly Dooley® could have seen that coming?!) Alas, all's well that ends swell as the endearingly chipper, skinny dipper Flipper would become one of the most beloved African-American television characters of all time, outside of the youngest Huxtable daughter, Trudy, I believe her name was. Well played, bottle-nosed Citizen Seafarer™!
