My great uncle was named Custer Crawford. As Custer grew up, it was discovered that he was very smart. He went on to get his Ph.D and later become a professor at a college in Georgia. He grew up in the country near the NC/SC border in the mountains. The story goes that “he was so smart, he was stupid”–which was a well-known phrase back then to denote someone who had a large IQ but very little “common sense.” Of all the vignettes about Custer, the best known one is that when he was a teen, he was sent out to the barn to saddle up a horse to check out some of the crops as part of his chores. My great granddad kept waiting and waiting for him to ride up to the house and join him….he finally got sick of waiting and went out to the barn to see what on earth was taking so long. Well, when he got there, he found Custer trying to mount the horse (he was actually 1/2 on it, but was stuck) and as it turned out, he had put the saddle on completely backwards and was attempting to mount the beast as if there was absolutely nothing wrong! So to this day, when anyone in our family makes a crazy blunder, we call it “doing a Custer Crawford.” ………………………………………
Terra Beek