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The Rise of the US Camel Corps · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to Ridiculous History. As always, thank you so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. We're continuing a bit of a zoological
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Speaker 1: theme this week by talking about some animals that are
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Speaker 1: bitter sweet to me. Camel's Hi, I'm Ben, Hello Ben,
0:43
Speaker 1: I'm no, and uh dare I say stop? Camel time?
0:48
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well I mean we should keep going. But yeah, yeah,
0:52
Speaker 1: I feel like, okay, okay, we could continue. We may
0:55
Speaker 1: continue even after I made that unforgivable h MC hammer
1:00
Speaker 1: friends there. But you know, if there's one person that
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Speaker 1: won't judge me for a bad pun or joke, it's
1:05
Speaker 1: our guest superproducer andrew A. How super mega cool Guy Deluxe.
1:14
Speaker 1: I didn't get that right, but you get the spirit
1:17
Speaker 1: of the nickname, is there, hey man, Thank you dude,
1:21
Speaker 1: thanks for standing standing in when Casey La Bush Pegram
1:24
Speaker 1: is off on Adventures and Far Off Lands. Yeah, I
1:28
Speaker 1: think he's either out of lock up now or is
1:31
Speaker 1: in the process of being deported back to the US.
1:33
Speaker 1: But yes, thank you andrew A how A k A
1:37
Speaker 1: cool Guy Deluxe Howard for joining us for a second episode.
1:43
Speaker 1: We did have to talk him back into coming on
1:45
Speaker 1: the show. Is writer is candidly a little bit robust.
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Speaker 1: Uh So, I don't know if we're gonna be able
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Speaker 1: to afford you for the next episode, but you know,
1:56
Speaker 1: it's the time we have, right Andrew sounds good. We're
2:01
Speaker 1: springing so many jokes out of him that we haven't
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Speaker 1: told him about. Yeah, well it's a it's sink or swimming.
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Speaker 1: You are flying my friend. Uh today's episode camels. I
2:13
Speaker 1: don't know whether either of you guys have ever had
2:16
Speaker 1: close up, firsthand experience with camels, with drama daries in general.
2:21
Speaker 1: Have you know you're nod in your head a little bit. Uh,
2:24
Speaker 1: you know that they used to have a thing at
2:26
Speaker 1: the zoo. I remember when I was growing up where
2:28
Speaker 1: you could ride a camel um and I do recall
2:32
Speaker 1: doing that. I can't remember if there was like a
2:35
Speaker 1: like a saddle that was like situated betwixt the humps,
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Speaker 1: or if you actually just it kind of makes a
2:40
Speaker 1: natural saddle really if you think about it, if it's
2:42
Speaker 1: got two humps, there's a perfect little place where you
2:44
Speaker 1: just kind of sink down as a little kid and
2:46
Speaker 1: just ride that thing. Ah. Yeah, I believe those are
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Speaker 1: Bactry and camels. They're the ones with two humps, which
2:53
Speaker 1: always seem a little cooler to me. The drama dary
2:55
Speaker 1: the Somali or Arabian camel, that's the one that has
2:59
Speaker 1: one hump on its back. Camels are bitter sweet to
3:02
Speaker 1: me because when I was very very young in Tennessee,
3:07
Speaker 1: there was a thing called Twitty City, which you guys
3:09
Speaker 1: should not feel bad for not knowing about. Conway Twitty,
3:13
Speaker 1: the country singer. Conway Twitty would deck his his state
3:18
Speaker 1: out in all these ridiculous Christmas decorations once a year,
3:22
Speaker 1: and kids from all around the region would go to
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Speaker 1: Twitty City to look at the lights do holiday themed
3:30
Speaker 1: family stuff. One of the things you could do was
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Speaker 1: ride a camel. So I rode this camel was very young,
3:36
Speaker 1: and part of the part of the experience was that
3:39
Speaker 1: you would get a camel license that, in my mind,
3:43
Speaker 1: authorized you'd ride every camel ever for the rest of time.
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Speaker 1: I promptly lost that uh, and now all I have
3:51
Speaker 1: is a picture of a very startled looking child wearing bifocals.
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Speaker 1: I used to wear bifocals writing a camel, so I'm
4:00
Speaker 1: miss that camel license. Help me figure out how I
4:02
Speaker 1: can get one. Now in my thirties, I have the
4:05
Speaker 1: camel hold up in like in the picture, does he
4:07
Speaker 1: look like he's having a good time or does he
4:08
Speaker 1: look put upon? Oh he's he's he's having a pretty
4:12
Speaker 1: grand old time. Actually I got there while they were
4:15
Speaker 1: feeding him treats or a snack or something. But the camel,
4:21
Speaker 1: there's the important part of the story. I guess the
4:22
Speaker 1: camel was not mistreated. The handler, from what I recall,
4:27
Speaker 1: was was very much of the attitude that I am
4:30
Speaker 1: here with this camel and it kind of does what
4:32
Speaker 1: it wants. Don't get near its face because it's cantankerous.
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Speaker 1: But we know that, uh, we know that camels are
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Speaker 1: in different parts of the world right now. We know
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Speaker 1: that the US has a varied collection of biomes, rico systems.
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Speaker 1: And it may surprise some of us in the audience
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Speaker 1: today to know that back in the eighteen fifties, the
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Speaker 1: US Army wanted to import camels the because they thought,
5:01
Speaker 1: you know, we've got deserts here in the Southwest. People
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Speaker 1: have been using camels to traverse deserts for thousands of years.
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Speaker 1: Why should we be any different. And that is our
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Speaker 1: story today because once upon a time. No fooling Uncle
5:18
Speaker 1: Sam actually did import camels from the Middle East and
5:22
Speaker 1: use them in expeditions through Texas and California. What how
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Speaker 1: do we get here? Who came up with this idea? Well,
5:30
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. Bennett was an officer in the U.
5:32
Speaker 1: S Armies Quartermaster Corps, which is a thing can before
5:36
Speaker 1: we proceed, Ben, what's the Quartermaster Corps? Oh? Yeah, it's uh.
5:41
Speaker 1: They're the people in charge of all the quarters there.
5:44
Speaker 1: Not to be confused with the Directory of Dimes or
5:49
Speaker 1: with the uh the prime Ministers of bendees are tickled
5:53
Speaker 1: with this joke. Yeah, Quartermaster court. Uh supplies logic things
5:58
Speaker 1: like God, I got it. So it could even be
6:00
Speaker 1: sort of I mean maybe like but not necessarily the
6:02
Speaker 1: armory situation. It was more specifically, like the person that
6:06
Speaker 1: is in charge of all of the facilities that house
6:09
Speaker 1: individuals kind of supplying troops. Yeah, logistics, got it, got it.
6:13
Speaker 1: So this guy's name was George H. Croftsman Um, and
6:16
Speaker 1: he proposed using camels back in the eighteen thirties. Um
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Speaker 1: he believed they would be super helpful, specifically in Florida,
6:25
Speaker 1: where US troops were fighting against the Seminole community UM
6:31
Speaker 1: and Florida's you know, it's a tropical kind of region,
6:35
Speaker 1: a lot of dense foliage and uh and sort of
6:39
Speaker 1: harsh conditions at times. UM. Even though it's thought of
6:42
Speaker 1: as like you know, a vacation destination, is a lot
6:45
Speaker 1: of like very humid, a little bit oppressive in my opinion,
6:50
Speaker 1: being there, uh not at the beach. It's not particularly
6:53
Speaker 1: pleasant climate. UM. And some of the terrain, like the
6:56
Speaker 1: swamps and the foliage and all that, can be a
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Speaker 1: little rough. Camels have a history in the military UM
7:02
Speaker 1: for traversing a little bit challenging terrains and for use
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Speaker 1: in cavalry operations in the US. UM started expanding with
7:12
Speaker 1: that manifest destiny like moving out west, UM expanding the territories.
7:17
Speaker 1: After the Mexican American War, in particular, from eighteen eighteen
7:21
Speaker 1: forty eight, there was a territory of the US acquired
7:25
Speaker 1: that all of a sudden had different terrain than the
7:28
Speaker 1: East coast and what they were used to, and that
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Speaker 1: included a lot more arid regions, desert regions UM. And
7:35
Speaker 1: that's when the U s started to establish forts. After
7:38
Speaker 1: that war with Mexico and after the annexation of Texas
7:42
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty five. Yeah, it's important to note here
7:47
Speaker 1: George H. Croftsman, when he first pitched the idea of
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Speaker 1: camels in the eighteen thirties, was pretty much roundly ignored.
7:56
Speaker 1: His idea went nowhere, but people remembered it because it
7:59
Speaker 1: was so out there. So it wasn't until you know,
8:03
Speaker 1: more than a decade later that the US started taking
8:08
Speaker 1: this seriously. And they only took it seriously because they
8:12
Speaker 1: had a tremendous problem on their hands after the end
8:15
Speaker 1: of the Mexican War, which just subscribed Nold Uncle Sam
8:19
Speaker 1: got these vast swaths of land in the Southwest, and
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Speaker 1: they had not explored it. They had no idea what
8:27
Speaker 1: to do with it. They had no idea how to
8:29
Speaker 1: start exploring it because in their collective mind, there was
8:32
Speaker 1: no real practical way to travel throughout this part of
8:35
Speaker 1: the country. There were no roads, and going off any
8:39
Speaker 1: existing trails meant going straight into forbidding terrain, deserts, mountains, etcetera.
8:46
Speaker 1: We also knew that we couldn't take our normal modes
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Speaker 1: of transport because horses, mules, and oxen, they need water,
8:54
Speaker 1: they need pastures, they need stuff to eat and drink.
8:57
Speaker 1: And this is sparse at best. Year. In fact, horses
9:01
Speaker 1: and mules tended to die of thirst between known water holes.
9:07
Speaker 1: So of all the kind of beast of burden in
9:10
Speaker 1: the world that the US knew about at this time,
9:13
Speaker 1: camels seemed the only creature that could survive in this environment.
9:20
Speaker 1: And they had reports from other militaries that assured them
9:25
Speaker 1: this was viable. Right. Well, I mean, even just the
9:29
Speaker 1: casual follower of history and of kind of camels of
9:32
Speaker 1: wildlife know of them as being referred to as the
9:35
Speaker 1: ship of the desert um. And that's because you know,
9:38
Speaker 1: I actually, uh, very mistakenly, I bet a lot of
9:42
Speaker 1: other folks did too, thought that those humps that they
9:45
Speaker 1: have actually stored water um and they actually that's somehow
9:49
Speaker 1: a reserve of water for them, And that's not exactly
9:51
Speaker 1: the case. It's more, uh, that their metabolisms are really efficient,
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Speaker 1: and those humps store fat and that contributes to their
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Speaker 1: very very um precise metabolism. I guess you could say
10:03
Speaker 1: that allows them to survive in much more arid climates
10:07
Speaker 1: because they're able to essentially use what little water they
10:11
Speaker 1: do have in their systems very very effectively. A bit
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Speaker 1: of science here and this is I hope you like
10:18
Speaker 1: this because I was trying to think of a comparison here, folks. Yes,
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Speaker 1: it's correct. It's a huge misconception about camels storing water
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Speaker 1: in their humps, as you said. No, they store fat
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Speaker 1: that they metabolize for nutrition, and they have very very
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Speaker 1: efficient metabolisms. They can go almost a week without drinking
10:37
Speaker 1: any water. But that's because they have these other things
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Speaker 1: inside their bodies. Their blood cells, if you think about it,
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Speaker 1: are actually like tiny little storage humps on the inside
10:50
Speaker 1: of their bodies. They have this unique oval shape that
10:53
Speaker 1: allows camels to consume up to thirty gallons of water
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Speaker 1: in one city. The cells are more are elastic, they
11:00
Speaker 1: can change shape more easily, and this also lets their
11:04
Speaker 1: blood flow more easily when water is scarce. So there's
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Speaker 1: a whole system here. You can't you can't have a
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Speaker 1: camel without the humps. You can't have a camel without
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Speaker 1: camel blood. The point about the military precedent I want
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Speaker 1: to hit here is that the U. S. Army put
11:20
Speaker 1: a lot of importance on things that they saw European
11:25
Speaker 1: armies doing. If the French and the Russians did it,
11:28
Speaker 1: for instance, then the U. S Army would say, oh, okay,
11:31
Speaker 1: well that must mean it's practical because they've been around
11:33
Speaker 1: for centuries. The Crimean War had a lot of reports
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Speaker 1: of armies using camels as pack animals too great results.
11:42
Speaker 1: They said that the animals were stronger than horses and mules,
11:46
Speaker 1: and they were also more reliable. And that's part of
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Speaker 1: what inspired Jefferson Davis, the guy would later go on
11:55
Speaker 1: to be the president of the c s A. That's
11:58
Speaker 1: not community support or to agriculture, that's Confederate States of America.
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Speaker 1: It inspired Jefferson Davis to pitch this idea to progress,
12:09
Speaker 1: the idea of army camels dare we say a camel core.
12:14
Speaker 1: He was serving as a Secretary of War in the
12:17
Speaker 1: cabinet of President Franklin Pierce and and that's when he
12:22
Speaker 1: took the opportunity to try to say, hey, no, really, camels,
12:26
Speaker 1: we can do it. And that's where he essentially made
12:28
Speaker 1: his case to Congress for receiving funding for this program.
12:32
Speaker 1: It's sort of buried the lead a little bit in
12:34
Speaker 1: this uh kind of lengthy report, but he essentially says
12:38
Speaker 1: that he's been going out of his way to do
12:42
Speaker 1: his homework about camels and about the history of camels
12:45
Speaker 1: and military use um and that he has made himself
12:48
Speaker 1: familiar with two different types. The one that we were
12:51
Speaker 1: talking about earlier been the one humped Dramedary or Arabian camel,
12:56
Speaker 1: and then the two humped Central Asian camel, which is
12:59
Speaker 1: also for two as the backty and camel, which is
13:01
Speaker 1: the one that I rode at the zoo. Um. And
13:04
Speaker 1: here's a little exert from this section. Quote on the
13:08
Speaker 1: older continents and regions, reaching from the torrid to the
13:11
Speaker 1: frozen zones, embracing arid planes and precipitous mountains covered with snow,
13:16
Speaker 1: camels are used with the best results. They are the
13:18
Speaker 1: means of transportation and communication in the immense commercial intercourse
13:23
Speaker 1: with Central Asia, from the mountains of Circassia to the
13:27
Speaker 1: plains of India. They have been used for various military purposes,
13:31
Speaker 1: to transmit dispatches, to transport supplies, to draw ordinance, and
13:36
Speaker 1: as a substitute for dragoon horses. And he goes on
13:40
Speaker 1: to talk about Napoleon's activities in Egypt. He goes on
13:44
Speaker 1: to mansion French forces in Algeria, and then he says, look,
13:50
Speaker 1: this ticks all the boxes military purposes, for express for reconnaissance.
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Speaker 1: This is the animal for us, and so he says,
14:01
Speaker 1: it is respectfully submitted that the necessary provision be made
14:05
Speaker 1: for the introduction of a sufficient number both varieties of
14:07
Speaker 1: this animal, to test its value and adaptation to our
14:11
Speaker 1: country and our service. It took a year for the
14:15
Speaker 1: rubber to hit the road on this or should I say,
14:17
Speaker 1: the camel to hit the sand. But on March third,
14:20
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five, he finally got his wish. A bill
14:25
Speaker 1: for military appropriations included thirty thousand dollars in eighteen fifty
14:31
Speaker 1: five cash to fund the purchase of camels and to
14:34
Speaker 1: set up a program to sort of pilot them in
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Speaker 1: the American Southwest. For real, quick inflation calculation here, beepoopoop beepeepoop, peepoop,
14:43
Speaker 1: peepoop d d D D D D deed perfect thirty
14:51
Speaker 1: thou dollars in eighteen fifty five is the equivalent of
14:55
Speaker 1: drumroll please or maybe some cool like adventure in the
14:58
Speaker 1: desert music Perfect eight hundred four and seventy two sets.
15:08
Speaker 1: So not a million dollars, but that's that's probably enough
15:11
Speaker 1: to buy a camel, right, I think you'd probably get
15:14
Speaker 1: a handful of camels. What's a group of camel's called?
15:16
Speaker 1: Is it a pack? Camel pack? It should have some
15:18
Speaker 1: specific camel related name nomenclature, like a murder of crows.
15:23
Speaker 1: Sure it's a terravan, which of course it is. Everybody
15:26
Speaker 1: knows that if you've seen a ladd, what's wrong with me?
15:28
Speaker 1: A pack of camels is for the smoker crowd. That's
15:31
Speaker 1: also true. Um, But they actually uh went nant to
15:35
Speaker 1: go get the camels. So there is a young naval
15:37
Speaker 1: officer by the name of Lieutenant David porter Um who
15:40
Speaker 1: was assigned to command a an expedition to the Middle
15:44
Speaker 1: East to pick up their camels. Uh And and he
15:47
Speaker 1: did that thing. And there was a U. S. Army
15:49
Speaker 1: officer assigned to learn about camels before actually acquiring them,
15:53
Speaker 1: and that was Major Henry c. Wayne, who went to
15:55
Speaker 1: West Point and was a decorated military man for his
16:00
Speaker 1: bravery in the Mexican War. He also served in the
16:03
Speaker 1: Confederate Army during the Civil War. But we'll give him
16:06
Speaker 1: a pass on that for now. Um. But Jefferson Davis,
16:09
Speaker 1: like you know, he was a go getter man. He
16:11
Speaker 1: really wanted this camel situation up and running quick so
16:15
Speaker 1: he passed out orders to Major Wayne Um asking him
16:18
Speaker 1: to go to London and then Paris to find experts,
16:22
Speaker 1: the leading camel experts to figure out who, what, what
16:25
Speaker 1: kind of camels they need to get to get all
16:27
Speaker 1: of the inside scoop about camels. And then his his
16:31
Speaker 1: navy man got a U. S. Navy transport vessel, the U. S. S. Supply,
16:35
Speaker 1: which then took a hot trip over to the Mediterranean
16:39
Speaker 1: um under the command of Lieutenant Porter, and the two
16:41
Speaker 1: of those folks met up uh and sailed to various
16:45
Speaker 1: parts of the Middle East in search of just the
16:47
Speaker 1: right camels to buy. What an adventure. Yeah, and this
16:51
Speaker 1: is not like the Nazi horse thievery. They were buying
16:55
Speaker 1: these camels. They're also finding human camel experts. And so
17:05
Speaker 1: they went around in search of camels and people who
17:08
Speaker 1: were experts on camels. I don't know what the word
17:10
Speaker 1: for camel expert is. Please right in if you if
17:13
Speaker 1: you figure it out. Is that drama, Darius, I was
17:16
Speaker 1: just thinking the same thing. Get out of my head.
17:18
Speaker 1: It couldn't cover all the camels though, because battory and
17:21
Speaker 1: camels anyway. Point is by February of eighteen fifty six,
17:26
Speaker 1: the ship is setting sail for America. They have thirty
17:29
Speaker 1: one adult camels, they have two calves, and they also
17:32
Speaker 1: have five human experts who have been hired to help
17:36
Speaker 1: tend the camels. The trip had a lot of rough weather,
17:41
Speaker 1: but eventually, in May of eighteen fifty six, they land
17:45
Speaker 1: in Texas and they've only spent some of that thirty grand.
17:49
Speaker 1: They still have cash for the program. So Jefferson Davis
17:53
Speaker 1: looks at Lieutenant Porter and he says, hey, great, great
17:56
Speaker 1: job on the camels. Go do it again, And so
17:59
Speaker 1: he sends the guy out. Well, at least it wasn't
18:03
Speaker 1: his first camel rodeo at this point, right, he knew
18:07
Speaker 1: what he was going for. He'd already like spoke to
18:09
Speaker 1: these consultants. He didn't have to do all of it again.
18:12
Speaker 1: He just had to make another trip because he'd already
18:14
Speaker 1: like figured out what the best camels where to find them.
18:16
Speaker 1: You know. But but still, I kinda I gotta imagine
18:19
Speaker 1: it wasn't quite as simple as that, because you know,
18:22
Speaker 1: that's a lot of camels to it. But do we
18:24
Speaker 1: have like a total number ben of how many camels
18:27
Speaker 1: they were going for? We don't have a total number
18:30
Speaker 1: of how many they wanted, because they probably weren't sure
18:33
Speaker 1: until that first trip about how many they could buy
18:36
Speaker 1: with the money they had. So the first trip he
18:39
Speaker 1: comes back with, as I said, thirty one adult camels,
18:42
Speaker 1: two calves, two juvenile camels, and then on the second
18:47
Speaker 1: trip porter returns with forty four camels. So all in
18:52
Speaker 1: all their total camel hall is about seventy camels, various
18:57
Speaker 1: different types. And it's important to during that second camel run,
19:01
Speaker 1: I like the idea of a camel run instead of
19:03
Speaker 1: a cannibal run. During the second camel run, they're testing
19:07
Speaker 1: these camels in Texas and it's going pretty well, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:11
Speaker 1: So they start using them for first they marched them
19:15
Speaker 1: from Indianola to San Antonio, and then they start using
19:21
Speaker 1: them for routine jobs carrying supplies from San Antonio to
19:25
Speaker 1: this fort called camp Verde, about sixty miles southwest. And
19:29
Speaker 1: then at first they're over the moon. They say, wow,
19:33
Speaker 1: these camels can carry so much more than pack mules.
19:37
Speaker 1: And as long as we tell the soldiers what to do,
19:41
Speaker 1: and as long as those knuckleheads pay attention, there won't
19:45
Speaker 1: be too many problems handling them. Yeah. The only downside
19:48
Speaker 1: was I think that we know, you know, horses don't
19:51
Speaker 1: smell great. Camels kind of smell worse, or at the
19:54
Speaker 1: very least, it was a smell that was different enough
19:57
Speaker 1: that that freaked the horses out. Um, So there was
20:00
Speaker 1: a little bit of unrest bringing this new type of
20:04
Speaker 1: of animal into the mix. Right. Yeah, I believe that's correct.
20:07
Speaker 1: And you know, horses are already in a very weird situation,
20:11
Speaker 1: so you can't blame him for being skittish. We do
20:14
Speaker 1: know that these tests were considered successful. The second trip
20:18
Speaker 1: was considered successful for a number of reasons. Camels didn't
20:23
Speaker 1: need as much water uh or as much food as
20:26
Speaker 1: other creatures. They also didn't need to wear horseshoes. They
20:30
Speaker 1: could just barefoot around. And once the experiments were considered
20:35
Speaker 1: a success by Jefferson Davis, he makes a new report
20:40
Speaker 1: on the project. He publishes it as a book in
20:43
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty seven. This guy loved camels. It's kind of
20:46
Speaker 1: weird that there weren't more camels during the Civil War
20:49
Speaker 1: if he was a charge. And you know what's interesting
20:52
Speaker 1: about what you said, Nol with the horses not really
20:56
Speaker 1: liking the camels. It turned out that they weren't the
20:59
Speaker 1: only animals dogs didn't like a cattle were freaked out. Yeah.
21:04
Speaker 1: A lot of times they would actually cause the horses
21:07
Speaker 1: or mules to like bolt, often carrying with them, you know,
21:11
Speaker 1: cargo attached to these wagons and buggies that were connected
21:15
Speaker 1: to them. Um. And a lot of people weren't crazy
21:20
Speaker 1: about them either, even though they were sort of like,
21:23
Speaker 1: oh ah, kind of a new exotic species. They often
21:28
Speaker 1: would spit in people's faces, Like I think we saw
21:31
Speaker 1: that and it was that an Indiana Jones. The camels
21:33
Speaker 1: spits on Indiana Jones. Yeah, I thought, Okay, Andrew says,
21:38
Speaker 1: it sounds right, I'm gonna go with that. If not,
21:40
Speaker 1: it's definitely in like some Spielberg e type movie where
21:43
Speaker 1: a camel spits in somebody's face and it's really gross
21:46
Speaker 1: and frothy, and uh it's something that they do. Uh
21:49
Speaker 1: and this is a real gross y'all. Uh. They would
21:52
Speaker 1: sneeze a lot um and so violently when done as
21:58
Speaker 1: a herd. Uh, they would actually like cause you know,
22:01
Speaker 1: the earth to shake. That is what I'm reading here,
22:04
Speaker 1: which seems a little extreme. But they also u when
22:08
Speaker 1: they got spooped, they would blow a bloody, bladder like
22:13
Speaker 1: mass of tissue out of their mouths as we guys
22:18
Speaker 1: threw up in my mouth a little bit um and
22:22
Speaker 1: they were really stinky. M h. And let's add to that,
22:27
Speaker 1: camels have a meeting season, and during the meeting season,
22:30
Speaker 1: the mail camels just start screaming at each other and
22:34
Speaker 1: try to kill each other, so that can throw off
22:37
Speaker 1: a standard operation, as you might imagine. Also, other businesses
22:42
Speaker 1: in the US and the South especially didn't like this
22:45
Speaker 1: new form of competition in the world of shipping, and
22:49
Speaker 1: the rank and file enlisted at Camp Verdey thought the
22:53
Speaker 1: experiment was ridiculous. From soup to nuts, where should I say,
22:56
Speaker 1: from hump to hoofs still made a lot of progress.
23:02
Speaker 1: The thing that worked best about the experiment was, according
23:06
Speaker 1: to this fantastic article on vault dot side dot com,
23:11
Speaker 1: the camels themselves, because yeah, they didn't smell like Irish
23:15
Speaker 1: springs or zest or whatever, but they could carry these
23:19
Speaker 1: enormous loads and they were super resilient. When a camel knelt,
23:23
Speaker 1: it was loaded with four bales of hate, any one
23:26
Speaker 1: of which would have been too much for a mule.
23:29
Speaker 1: And people, civilians and soldiers alike we kind of gather
23:33
Speaker 1: around in a circle and heckle the camel, and they'd
23:36
Speaker 1: be like, ah, there's no way this guy can't even
23:39
Speaker 1: stand up with these four big bales of hay. And
23:42
Speaker 1: then it would rise, and then they would they would,
23:45
Speaker 1: you know, there would be a silence for a moment,
23:47
Speaker 1: I'm making all of this up, and then they would
23:49
Speaker 1: erupt in riotous cheers, you know, hip hip, hep camel
23:54
Speaker 1: or hump hump parade, and then it would fall commands
24:00
Speaker 1: and it would march away on its destination. And this
24:04
Speaker 1: kind of one over some of the Texans because once
24:09
Speaker 1: their livestock started to become kind of acclimated to the
24:14
Speaker 1: weird side of a camel, uh, things seemed like they
24:17
Speaker 1: would go back to normal. One woman in Victoria, Texas
24:21
Speaker 1: even knitted a pair of socks from camel I guess
24:25
Speaker 1: you'd call it for camel pile and sent it to
24:28
Speaker 1: the president uh, And in return, he sent her back
24:31
Speaker 1: a silver mug with get this, his name on it.
24:35
Speaker 1: That's a very self absorbed gift. Yeah, man, I mean
24:39
Speaker 1: that's not helpful at all. Um. But when Franklin Pierce
24:43
Speaker 1: left office, James Buchanan became the President. That's when Jefferson
24:46
Speaker 1: Davis left the War Department, and it was kind of
24:51
Speaker 1: the beginning of the end a little bit for the
24:54
Speaker 1: for the Camel Corps because the Civil War was was
24:58
Speaker 1: soon to come. UM and UH. In the eighteen fifties,
25:03
Speaker 1: things got pretty bad for the for the camel experiment,
25:07
Speaker 1: even though it was really pretty successful and efficient when
25:10
Speaker 1: it was in its heyday. UM. Congress became really focused
25:15
Speaker 1: on this whole like divide over slavery, and Jefferson Davis,
25:20
Speaker 1: who had been kind of the you know, the standard
25:22
Speaker 1: bearer for the whole thing, UM, started to be much
25:26
Speaker 1: more focused on representing the state of Mississippi in the U. S. Senate.
25:30
Speaker 1: And as the Civil War came closer and closer, the
25:33
Speaker 1: camel thing just sort of kind of fell out of
25:35
Speaker 1: people's fell out a top of mind. UM. It was
25:38
Speaker 1: really more of a Texas thing, more of like a
25:41
Speaker 1: regional thing, and it's sort of lost its luster. And
25:44
Speaker 1: also there was a thing called the mule Lobby, which
25:47
Speaker 1: is exactly what it sounds like it was. They had
25:49
Speaker 1: lobbyists back in those days, and it was for the
25:51
Speaker 1: mule industry UM, and they were really anti camel and
25:55
Speaker 1: pro mule, and Davis had written to his successor, uh,
26:01
Speaker 1: the next Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, and he
26:04
Speaker 1: was like, look, this works, Let's do it more camels.
26:07
Speaker 1: He was really a camel champion, and Floyd asked Congress
26:11
Speaker 1: to buy another one thousand camels. But, as you said, old,
26:14
Speaker 1: for various reasons, this was an increasingly low priority for people.
26:21
Speaker 1: The camel Corps was still around in Texas, but they
26:26
Speaker 1: were encountering problems. Soldiers didn't like them because they were
26:30
Speaker 1: getting spat on and pooped on, having bloody masses ejected
26:33
Speaker 1: into their faces, right, camel loogies, and that's the scientific term.
26:38
Speaker 1: And then they also hated the smell. And they couldn't
26:42
Speaker 1: put them in stables near horses because until a horse
26:45
Speaker 1: had been really thoroughly acclimated to this creature, it would
26:49
Speaker 1: understandably freak out. And in eighteen sixty a guy named
26:52
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee might be familiar named to
26:56
Speaker 1: some people. He used camels on a long range patrol
26:59
Speaker 1: and he said, these things are great. Why aren't we
27:03
Speaker 1: using more of these? But then of course people were like, uh,
27:07
Speaker 1: if I look at my list of things I care about,
27:09
Speaker 1: that begin with a c Civil war is the first
27:12
Speaker 1: thing that pops up, not camels. So in the eighteen
27:15
Speaker 1: sixties the Army ends their active experimentation with camels, and
27:20
Speaker 1: the Confederate soldiers who take over Camp Verde in eighteen
27:23
Speaker 1: sixty one don't really use them at all during the
27:26
Speaker 1: Civil War, I mean not very much, because why would
27:29
Speaker 1: they They're familiar with horses. So people were having a
27:32
Speaker 1: tough time figuring out how they would use the camels
27:36
Speaker 1: that were already stuck in the US. A second flock
27:39
Speaker 1: of camels or what do we call them earlier? A caravan?
27:44
Speaker 1: Maybe A caravan's only if they're in mo and motion.
27:47
Speaker 1: Maybe if they're just hanging around loitering camels and they're
27:51
Speaker 1: a flock, Yeah, yeah, I like a like a congregation
27:55
Speaker 1: of camels, cavalcaded camels, forum of camels for the yeah,
28:01
Speaker 1: but still spell it with a seed to throw people off.
28:05
Speaker 1: So there was a second quorum or cavalcade of camels
28:10
Speaker 1: that had been moved out to Camp Tahan, California. It's
28:13
Speaker 1: a lot of seas right there, my man. Yeah, a
28:16
Speaker 1: lot of seeds. They were still in the possession of
28:19
Speaker 1: the Union forces, and this second group of camels was
28:25
Speaker 1: repeatedly transferred to different posts throughout the Civil War because
28:30
Speaker 1: literally no one could figure out what to do with them.
28:32
Speaker 1: No one could. I mean, that's yeah, what do you
28:34
Speaker 1: what do you if you're not like trained to deal
28:37
Speaker 1: with camels, And that's a weird kind of boondoggle to
28:41
Speaker 1: have hanging around. It's like, hey, we got this like
28:43
Speaker 1: surplus camel situation, and they're really just kind of hanging
28:46
Speaker 1: around and spitting on people and stinking up the joint.
28:50
Speaker 1: It's like, what what do you do? And this really
28:57
Speaker 1: was just kind of par for the course. It was
28:59
Speaker 1: a sign of things to come. This, you know, these
29:02
Speaker 1: last stragglers, this last bastion of this uh noble experiment
29:06
Speaker 1: that was the camel corps Um eventually also fizzled out
29:10
Speaker 1: in the in the core was officially disbanded in eighteen
29:13
Speaker 1: sixty three. But you know, the camels were pretty good
29:18
Speaker 1: at what they were supposed to do. It's really not
29:21
Speaker 1: their fault that like they didn't, you know, wreck this
29:24
Speaker 1: whole thing. It was really just kind of the tide
29:26
Speaker 1: of of of war and and the and the terrain.
29:29
Speaker 1: Right as after the Civil War um the frontier wasn't
29:32
Speaker 1: as much of a thing anymore. There wasn't as much
29:35
Speaker 1: of that rugged terrain that that you needed something like
29:39
Speaker 1: a camel to traverse. Railroads were more of a thing
29:42
Speaker 1: technology that's like, you know, disruptive to things like horses
29:47
Speaker 1: and also camels. Yeah, that's a good point. The camels
29:51
Speaker 1: did nothing wrong. At least stop blaming the camels. Civil
29:55
Speaker 1: War era military members, only a few people really took
30:00
Speaker 1: the idea seriously, and it turns out that a lot
30:03
Speaker 1: of the officers who were opposed the idea of a
30:05
Speaker 1: camel corps were just being closed minded. It's the same
30:11
Speaker 1: thing that happened when other military officers opposed the idea
30:14
Speaker 1: of aircraft just seventy years after this. It makes me
30:18
Speaker 1: think of that line in Wayne's World where the sleazy
30:21
Speaker 1: producer character played by an actor whose name I'm totally forgetting,
30:25
Speaker 1: but he was the really attractive dude from the eighties
30:28
Speaker 1: who now has a podcast called Seriously. He was also
30:31
Speaker 1: in Parks and Wreck. Somebody helped me out. I know
30:33
Speaker 1: you you know everything about this guy except for his
30:35
Speaker 1: accept his damn name. Um. But he uh, he comes
30:39
Speaker 1: up on Garth while Garth is like doing this experiment
30:41
Speaker 1: and you know, he's like so excited about bringing Wayne's
30:44
Speaker 1: world to the masses, and then Garth just goes way
30:47
Speaker 1: fair change, rab blow, rab blow. That's the guy. Yeah,
30:54
Speaker 1: it was so many hearts broke against the rocky shores
30:58
Speaker 1: of that gaze. So oh and that jagged jawline, my man,
31:03
Speaker 1: I mean, and he's you know, he is a I
31:05
Speaker 1: swear to god. He made a deal with the devil
31:06
Speaker 1: or is like a secret vampire or something, the chin devil.
31:09
Speaker 1: He made a deal with the Chin devil, which is
31:12
Speaker 1: like the other devil but real. Anyway, that's an episode
31:15
Speaker 1: for another day. The point we're making here about the
31:20
Speaker 1: Camel Corps is that there was another factor at play.
31:25
Speaker 1: The Civil War engulfed the United States, and most of
31:30
Speaker 1: the war was fought heavily in the East, and in
31:33
Speaker 1: the eastern part of the US, railroads, rivers and roads
31:38
Speaker 1: were already very well established as supply routes. We didn't
31:41
Speaker 1: need camels, you know what I mean. They were solving
31:44
Speaker 1: a problem we didn't have in that part of the world.
31:47
Speaker 1: But despite the fact that the camels themselves did nothing wrong,
31:51
Speaker 1: they became victims of politics. We cannot dismiss this particular
31:57
Speaker 1: aspect of the story. The main cha ampion of a
32:01
Speaker 1: Camel Corps was Jefferson Davis. Did he have a good idea? Yes, absolutely,
32:07
Speaker 1: at least when it came to Camel's. His ideas about
32:10
Speaker 1: the Confederacy were terrible. Was about to say, was he
32:13
Speaker 1: a good guy? Debatable? Right, that's very kind of you.
32:18
Speaker 1: But yeah, the point the point is, you know, on
32:22
Speaker 1: some level, people who controlled the purse strings of the nation,
32:28
Speaker 1: we're going to be biased against any ideas from Jefferson Davis,
32:33
Speaker 1: even if like the Camels, they were a good idea. Yeah,
32:36
Speaker 1: I mean, and and that this this this whole idea
32:38
Speaker 1: of we fear change, you know. It was absolutely a
32:41
Speaker 1: theme that kind of continued um with things such as
32:44
Speaker 1: the something called the balloon core Um. There there were
32:48
Speaker 1: a lot of innovative, kind of outside the box experiments,
32:51
Speaker 1: not to mention um incredible communication development called the telegraph,
32:57
Speaker 1: and that was something that freed people out to it.
32:59
Speaker 1: That's time or the invention of something called ironclads, which
33:05
Speaker 1: was what was that a type of ship? Yeah, ironclads
33:10
Speaker 1: were these armored vessels. They were steam propelled warships essentially,
33:16
Speaker 1: and they had these iron or steel armor plates that
33:20
Speaker 1: would be on their you know, their hole or covering
33:22
Speaker 1: the top of the ship. So they it was meant
33:26
Speaker 1: to solve the problem that wooden warships had, which is
33:30
Speaker 1: if you had explosive ordinance, Uh, the wooden ship would
33:34
Speaker 1: not last long. So they were a good idea as well.
33:37
Speaker 1: But to your point, they didn't maybe get their time
33:40
Speaker 1: in the sun that they deserved. This was also you know,
33:43
Speaker 1: shout out to Rachel Lance. Uh, this was an era
33:47
Speaker 1: of early submarining too. Write it absolutely was what was
33:53
Speaker 1: it the Huntley that was the one that the yeah,
33:56
Speaker 1: with the weird little flintstone kind of self propelled like
33:59
Speaker 1: pedal situation, seemed absolutely destined for failure. But a cool
34:03
Speaker 1: idea and obviously led to amazing innovations in underwater craft.
34:09
Speaker 1: But maybe building it out of wood not a particularly
34:12
Speaker 1: great idea now, being that would like leaks and and
34:16
Speaker 1: you're you know, submerging the entire thing. Um kind of
34:19
Speaker 1: felt like a little bit of a rickety death trap
34:22
Speaker 1: to me. I propose with full humility here and Rachel,
34:26
Speaker 1: I hope you're listening. And one of the greatest historical
34:30
Speaker 1: accomplishments of the Huntley was the creation years and years
34:35
Speaker 1: later of our Ridiculous History episode on it is that No.
34:40
Speaker 1: I think that's just self aggrandizing enough to be absolutely correct.
34:45
Speaker 1: So there we go. There we go. And when we
34:48
Speaker 1: think about the camels, we know that they got the
34:51
Speaker 1: they got the short end of the hump, I guess
34:55
Speaker 1: because they didn't do anything wrong. Everybody who would use
34:58
Speaker 1: them under the circumstances they were designed to be used
35:02
Speaker 1: in found them pretty pretty great. You know. Robert E.
35:06
Speaker 1: Lee thought they were swell. His yelp review would have
35:09
Speaker 1: been five stars. Could have done without the bloody flegm Yeah, okay,
35:13
Speaker 1: four point five, four point five for the flegm uh
35:16
Speaker 1: and the smell. And so as we know, the Civil
35:20
Speaker 1: War concluded. After the Civil War, the U. S. Army
35:25
Speaker 1: sold their camels, both the ones in Texas and the
35:29
Speaker 1: ones in California, and they also sold a bunch of
35:32
Speaker 1: young camels that were born here in the good old
35:35
Speaker 1: US of a any number of people bought these fire
35:39
Speaker 1: sale camels, carnivals of course, circuses, uh, mining operations, and
35:45
Speaker 1: my favorite, my favorite part, my favorite historical detail. There
35:48
Speaker 1: were apparently a few people who just said, I want
35:51
Speaker 1: to own a camel? Do you just buy a camel,
35:55
Speaker 1: and then they bought them and then and that's probably
35:58
Speaker 1: the one that I wrote at the Zoo's probably timing
36:01
Speaker 1: matches up. You Oh, that's right, you did ride one, right,
36:06
Speaker 1: I again, when that camera would have been quite old. Uh,
36:09
Speaker 1: if that was the one that I had that I
36:11
Speaker 1: had set astride, it could be descended from one of those.
36:14
Speaker 1: I mean, that's good point. Then that's a good point again.
36:17
Speaker 1: I just I pined for my camel license. Someone photoshop
36:21
Speaker 1: of fake camel license for me. I promised you, I
36:24
Speaker 1: will print it out and put it on my wallet.
36:26
Speaker 1: You're you're right, though, the camels entered a different career path.
36:30
Speaker 1: As a high school counselor would say, they were in zoos.
36:33
Speaker 1: They were in zoos, they were they were private pets,
36:36
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, some had an unfortunate end in
36:41
Speaker 1: mining insalt mining operations in Nevada and others. We're just
36:46
Speaker 1: abandoned in Texas and Arizona. And they lived wild for
36:50
Speaker 1: a time until the settlers came in and killed them
36:54
Speaker 1: off by shooting them for fun. Oh boy, that's yeah.
36:58
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know were they eating, ever, it
37:01
Speaker 1: doesn't seem that maybe they would that wouldn't be. They
37:03
Speaker 1: seem very fatty and kind of uh, scrawny around the
37:07
Speaker 1: parts that you might eat. Yeah, in other cultures camels
37:11
Speaker 1: have being consumed for food, but in the US they
37:14
Speaker 1: were more they were thought of more as a beast
37:17
Speaker 1: of burden, which is which is interesting because people will
37:21
Speaker 1: tell you that camel meat is delicious, that it tastes
37:24
Speaker 1: like a combination of land and beef. But with eating cattle,
37:29
Speaker 1: just like real estate, it's all about location, location, location.
37:33
Speaker 1: You know, the fatty hump is going to taste different
37:35
Speaker 1: from I guess the trotters. That does sound kind of tasty,
37:39
Speaker 1: but I don't know. It's It is one of those
37:41
Speaker 1: what was it called ben the meat paradox kind of
37:44
Speaker 1: situation where it's like, are these animals that that we
37:47
Speaker 1: feel comfortable consuming? Are or are these even animals that
37:51
Speaker 1: we feel comfortable riding? Because there's actually a couple of
37:55
Speaker 1: articles when I was doing some research on the history
37:58
Speaker 1: of camels and I was honestly wondering if camels were
38:00
Speaker 1: still ridden in the desert as much. Yeah, they are,
38:04
Speaker 1: for sure, but it's also much more of like a
38:05
Speaker 1: touristic kind of thing as well. Um and the artist
38:08
Speaker 1: article on Nomad World nomads dot com ask the question
38:12
Speaker 1: is it ethical to ride camels? Uh? The headline is
38:15
Speaker 1: we ride horses. We don't ride elephants except at the zoo.
38:18
Speaker 1: Occasionally there's elephant right at the zoo. But is it
38:21
Speaker 1: okay to ride camels when traveling? And how can we
38:23
Speaker 1: assure that we're not harming them anyway? And then it
38:24
Speaker 1: goes through some um, you know, details as to how
38:28
Speaker 1: to sit properly as to not harm them, and you
38:30
Speaker 1: know PETA's kind of position on the whole thing. But
38:34
Speaker 1: the most interesting thing that I came across in this
38:36
Speaker 1: article was just the stats on like how far they
38:40
Speaker 1: can travel and how much weight they can carry. An
38:42
Speaker 1: adult camel can apparently travel at the twenty five miles
38:45
Speaker 1: a day and carry up to thirt hundred pounds and
38:49
Speaker 1: survive for ten days without water. Might have been cool
38:53
Speaker 1: to put that up front in the show, but I
38:54
Speaker 1: just I definitely want to impress on people these are
38:57
Speaker 1: very resilient animals and very powerful as well, and they're
39:01
Speaker 1: not as ungainly as you might think. If you've just
39:05
Speaker 1: seen you know, works of fiction, or you've seen camel's
39:08
Speaker 1: chill accent, which they're very good at I'm gonna give
39:11
Speaker 1: them that. Camels can actually run forty mile. That's why
39:15
Speaker 1: camel racing is a hugely popular sport in Australia, UH,
39:20
Speaker 1: North Africa, Pakistan, Mongolia. People bet on it. People go
39:26
Speaker 1: just to watch the camel races. There's this whole amazing
39:29
Speaker 1: camel culture out there and the US. Uh. Frankly, we
39:34
Speaker 1: missed our chance. We were so close. And it's not
39:38
Speaker 1: your fault. If you're a camel listening to the episode today,
39:41
Speaker 1: it is not your fault at all that things didn't
39:44
Speaker 1: work out. I would love to see the rise of
39:47
Speaker 1: more wild camels. There was a cryptic tale in here too,
39:51
Speaker 1: because although camels were thought to have been largely sold
39:54
Speaker 1: or killed off short in the years shortly after the
39:58
Speaker 1: Civil War, people we're still reporting alleged camel sightings well
40:03
Speaker 1: into the nineteen forties. So there might be a cryptic
40:06
Speaker 1: camel out there today, all right, And that's a fun
40:10
Speaker 1: place to leave this, uh, a little bit of a mystery. Uh,
40:13
Speaker 1: and maybe there's there's more in store for the camel,
40:18
Speaker 1: the the noble camel, and then this our modern times
40:22
Speaker 1: um huge thanks to super producer you gotta help me
40:25
Speaker 1: with this nickname, Ben, I keep losing it. This is
40:28
Speaker 1: our guest super producer, Andrew a k A A how
40:32
Speaker 1: a k A Cool Guy Deluxe a k A. Mr
40:36
Speaker 1: Magic Ours Howard. I hope Casey is all right with
40:41
Speaker 1: us giving Andrew like five nicknames over the course of
40:46
Speaker 1: two episodes. Uh. I can't wait to hear what sound
40:49
Speaker 1: cue you guys come up with, So thanks in advance
40:51
Speaker 1: for that. I hope Casey's feelings aren't hurt that we've
40:54
Speaker 1: just been showering Andrew with nicknames, Casey. Casey only has two.
41:00
Speaker 1: He comes from a nickname economy. But we'll we'll, we'll
41:04
Speaker 1: make it up to you, Casey, whether you want some
41:07
Speaker 1: new general nicknames, some audience suggestions, or some camel specific nicknames,
41:12
Speaker 1: just let us know. Thanks, as always, of course, to
41:17
Speaker 1: the quister a k a. Jonathan Strickland. We refer to
41:22
Speaker 1: him by both names so often that sometimes I forget
41:26
Speaker 1: which one is the real name, and which one is
41:28
Speaker 1: the alias, and which one is him playing a character
41:31
Speaker 1: and which one is actually him. He's a sly one,
41:34
Speaker 1: you know. He's Uh. He's one of those dudes where
41:36
Speaker 1: the line between the the alter ego and the ego
41:41
Speaker 1: just blurred completely and I love him though I wouldn't
41:44
Speaker 1: have it any other way. Hughes. Thanks to Christopher hasciotes
41:47
Speaker 1: here in spirit, our researcher extraordinariy Game Luisier. Who else
41:52
Speaker 1: we got, Alex Williams, you compose this theme as well
41:55
Speaker 1: as our pure podcaster Eve's Jeff Coach. Check out her show,
41:59
Speaker 1: and I would like to thank the Arabic language Arabic
42:02
Speaker 1: speakers in the audience. Let me know if this is true.
42:05
Speaker 1: I recently read that there are more than one hundred
42:09
Speaker 1: sixty words in Arabic that means some version of camel,
42:13
Speaker 1: so let me know. You can find us all over
42:15
Speaker 1: the Internet, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, not just as a show
42:20
Speaker 1: but as individuals. I am at how Now Noel Brown
42:25
Speaker 1: on Instagram exclusively. I'm on Twitter occasionally as a lurker,
42:29
Speaker 1: but you don't really need to follow me there. Don't
42:30
Speaker 1: worry about that, just stick with the Instagram. I I
42:33
Speaker 1: am at Camel core Rise again on respect, live journal
42:38
Speaker 1: and my Space. But you can find me at ben
42:41
Speaker 1: Bullet on Instagram, and you can find me at ben
42:43
Speaker 1: Bullet hs W on Twitter, where I get into various
42:47
Speaker 1: misadventures Uh, I think that's our show man, but I
42:51
Speaker 1: really want to just hang out with a camel. Same.
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Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast,
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.