If you go to the New Yorker website, you can probably find Calvin Trillin's piece "The Red and the White", which appeared about 2002 and was later collected in

If you go to the New Yorker website, you can probably find Calvin Trillin's piece "The Red and the White", which appeared about 2002 and was later collected in Feeding a Yen. I mention this not for any deep insights it brings, though it does mention the bits of folklore that are passed along as fact, but because Trillin is a funny and graceful writer.