I’m not sure this doesn’t belong in another forum, but here goes. They’re digging up poor old Jesse James once again today, because because somebody’s just gots to believe that that dirty, rotten coward did NOT, in fact shoot Mr. Howard, and didn’t lay poor Jesse in his grave. What is it with these faked or exaggerated death legends. James, Billy the Kid, Elvis, Bruce Lee. They can’t be dead. It just can’t be. Part of it goes right to the heart of the resurection of Jesus, I guess, but that story has to be older than that, too. You got your Jack Kennedy living as a vegetable in a cave in France - that’s supposed to be comforting? Uncle Walt is frozen and waiting for his animators to perform th real thing. But the faked deaths get me. We are asked to believe that a famous person is so able to change every fabric of their being to become an unrecognizable entity for countless years. Billy the Kid wasn’t killed by Garret, you see. He got away and quietly lost all of his psychopathic, homicidal, compulsively horse rustling ways and live as a peaceful farmer to his old age. Ditto for James, one of the most famous and well recognized faces of his day. Sure they let him live under an assumed name in Missouri - he was surrounded by mostly friends. The former Quantrill raider became a guy named Dalton in Texas, the story goes, and never got in trouble again. And Elvis. Here’s a guy who only existed in the glow of public adoration. And he’s able to slide it all off and become a Walmart clerk in Aberdeen or some such. What is with this stuff?
You know, for a minute I thought the title of this thread was “Exhuming Jesse Helms,” and I was wondering why I hadn’t heard about his demise in the first place.
To the OP…I guess people like to believe that their favorite bigger-than-kife figures were able to stick it to the authorities (or the Grim Reaper) just one last time. Of course, a whiff of unsolved mystery doesn’t hurt, either.