Perfect It Aint

Squttery

2011-12-05T18:01:00.006-05:00

Interesting e-mail I received this past Sunday from my brother.

It is a forward and has been making the rounds for a few months. I was beginning to wonder if I was going to get an unexpurgated copy, after receiving expurgated ones.

So I pass it on via this blog, giving full credit to the original editorial author, Matt Patterson.

Quoth the e-mail>>>>>

Amazing that the Wash Post would actually print this re Obama.

The Washington Post

August 18, 2011

OBAMA: THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PRESIDENT

by Matt Patterson (columnist - Washington Post, New York Post, San Francisco Examiner)

Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?

Imagine a future historian examining Obama's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a "community organizer"; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact, nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote "present") ; and finally, an unaccomplished single term in the United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions. He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as a legislator.

And then there is the matter of his troubling associations; the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's "spiritual mentor"; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama's colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: How on earth was such a man elected president?

Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal: To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers, would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protestors against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass.

Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass -- held to a lower standard -- because of the color of his skin.

Podheretz continues:

And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also so articulate and elegant and (as he himself has said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?

Podheretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon -- affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.

Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back. Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don't care if these minority students fail; liberals aren't around to witness the emotional devastation and deflated self-esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action. Yes, racist.

Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin -- that's affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn't racism, then nothing is. And that is what America did to Obama.

True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was told he was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; He was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in Illinois; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way, Obama was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary.

What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks?

In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama's oratory skills, intellect, and cool character. Those people -- conservatives included -- ought now to be deeply embarrassed. The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of cliches, and that's when he has his TelePrompter in front of him; when the Prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all. Not one original idea has ever been issued from his mouth -- it's all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 years.

And what about his character? Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess. It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own incompetence. But really, what were we to expect? The man has never been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?

In short; our president is a small, and small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job.

When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have gone otherwise with such a man in the Oval Office.

<<<<<

What an Obummer

2011-11-07T08:59:00.002-05:00

I note with some alarm that most of the e-mails I have been receiving lately have concerned themselves with our current president. Further alarm is triggered by the fact that none have placed him in a favorable light. This, of course, is probably due to the fact that all my previous liberal contacts have faded away into the night as it has become more and more apparent that he is so far in over his depth that it would be laughable if it were not so disruptive to our joint common sense.

The latest e-mail is a forward from the former mother-in-law of my daughter. A few samples---

If any of our former presidents had doubled the national debt in one year, would you have approved?

If any of our former presidents had criticized a state law that he admitted he had never even read, would you have approved?

If any of our former presidents had reduced your retirement plan holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

I don't know about you, but these are very serious charges to me, and, yet, each is very provable. There are about three dozen of these charges levied in the e-mail, and I cannot find a single one that does not have an actual basis in fact. Yet our liberal friends seem totally unconcerned about them, and in point of actual fact, seem to approve.

I recognize that our country is in serious, serious trouble, and yet this president seems, like his supporters, to be totally unconcerned with the mockery he has made of the presidency. It would seem a small thing that he bows to the king of Saudi Arabia, that he presents a set of videos of himself to the queen of England, that he has consistently downplayed the role of the US in the governance and well being of the entire planet - if it were not for the fact that he really honestly believes that he is performing his duties in a wise manner.

His buffoonery is intolerable to any thinking American. He is what he is, a street organizer; and that is all he ever will be, whether he holds higher office or not. He is simply incapable of understanding that his actions are deleterious not only to himself, but to all persons upon this earth. He is, after all, the leader of the free world - or his position commands that he be. At present, he is the leader of only the Democrat Party and its coterie of far left ultra liberal loonies.

He has been unable to form any kind of coalition between the Democrats and Republicans in Congress and in the country at large. Indeed, he has been disruptive to that entire process. He has failed utterly to lead, but has relied upon his gang of 32 czars to formulate policy and given them their head to place such policies into effect by regulation, thereby bypassing any Congressional review. He has forced legislation to be passed without any review by the 600 plus members of Congress. The leadership of the Senate cannot get anything passed unless the matter is decided by a 51-49 vote. The House does pass numberless bills but the Senate will not even bring them to the floor.

Gridlock.

That is what the current president has provided to the US populace. Gridlock.

I thought the country under Carter was a travesty. Under Obama, it isn't even that good. Under Carter we were dealing with a man who could not make up his mind what it was he thought would move the country forward. Under Obama, we have a man that doesn't know and apparently doesn't care what he does to the 330 million, only what is best (in his eyes) for him. And that surely is not what is best for this country.

This country WILL survive his ineptness. I have no doubt of that. He WILL go down in history as the worst of all so far. But the travail that he leaves in his path will take decades to erase.

And in the meantime, we talk of entitlements (which aren't, by the way, as dedicated taxes have been and are being paid for Social Security and Medicare, for Unemployment and Workers Compensation, etc.) We talk of cutting federal expenditures, we talk of raising taxes on the rich, we talk of a 'super committee' which will do nothing, we battle over the debt ceiling, and we talk ad nauseam. The real description of gridlock. Talk. Talk. Talk.

OK.

The time has come to get off our collective asses and DO. The malaise that has overcome us has to be ended. And the only way to DO that is to vote for anyone other than this popinjay that is holding the office now. I don't see a lot of difference between the current crop of Republican hopefuls. But I'd vote for Bill the Cat if it would ensure that Obama is removed from the presidency.

Occupying My Mind

2011-11-04T08:17:00.002-04:00

There is nothing new under the sun.

Recently, and now, and for the foreseeable future, the protestors that title themselves as Occupy anything will be with us. They are similar in many ways to others we have seen marching the streets of America, and yet there is a rather dramatic difference in them.

In the Thirties we had Cox's Army and their fringe in the streets of Washington. In the Sixties we had the Civil Rights marchers and their fringe all over the country. In the Seventies and Eighties we had the Vietnam War protestors and their fringe all over the country. Today we have the Occupiers all over the world, but centered primarily on Wall Street.

Similarities? Well, each of these movements were pretty well organized - except for the current Occupiers. And each of them were centered on a specific issue - except the Occupiers. They each prevailed in their goals -it remains to be seen what will happen with the Occupiers.

The Occupiers are not organized, they have no specific issue. And until they do they will remain disorganized and will not prevail.

My favorite songwriter, Tom T. Hall, seems to have had the right idea, long before the Occupiers arrived on the scene. In looking at the human condition in the United States, Hall wrote "We got too many do-goods and not enough hard working men, we have too many hands out and not enough lending a hand..."

A few weeks ago I read a blog that excoriated the Occupiers, and answered their demands point by point, a great entry, and it got me to thinking about this rag tag group. At the time I also wrote a dissertation about them that went much deeper into their demands and answered each one. I will not bore you with it, if you want a copy get in touch with me through this blog and I'll send you a copy - just give me your mail address (postal address please, I'll not place it on e-mail.)

The upshot of my response was as I have just indicated, they are too disorganized for anyone to take them seriously, have no set of specific demands but the ones they have put forward are simply impossible or too darned stupid to even be considered. I'll pick just one for discussion here (and a short discussion, too.)

According to the published demand, the Occupiers feel that it is a must that ALL debt be cancelled. Immediately. Personal debt, student loans, municipal debt, state debt, federal debt, interbank debt, IMF debt, country to country debt - the entire gamut of debt, as they say "planet wide" must be obviated NOW.

Well. That is a pretty big demand. And wouldn't it be wonderful - if it were possible!!

They assign no responsibility for who is to do this, only that it be done, with no regard to the obliteration of every economy in the world. It just won't play in Peoria or anywhere else in the world, and specifically within the US. Just think, if General Motors needs $3 billion to have steel on hand to produce the autos and trucks that the world needs, they would have to pony up that $3 billion upfront - and the question immediately arises, where are they going to get it since all personal and corporate debt has been eliminated and all those millions indebted for $25,000 for that car or truck and GM won't get it. They could not even say they would pay upon delivery, as that in and of itself creates debt. Taken as a demand that one falls so far short of any reality it is laughable.

As is the whole 'Occupier Movement."

Any person with a reasonable grasp of basic economics must understand that their whole movement is being prodded by those who do not have such a grasp. Indeed, I was unable to find a single one of their demands (these were just the ideas of one person, by the way, God knows what others may be thinking) that have any basis in reality.

As Hall said, "...we have too many hands out and not enough lending a hand." My basic instinct tells me these wild-eyed pie in the sky Occupiers would do better to go home and grow up - and go to school and learn some of the facts of life. No one has a debt to these people who refuse to better themselves. Personal responsibility has been the guiding quality of Americans for three centuries. I expect it will remain so for any successful people throughout the life of our republic.

I view the Occupier Movement as no more than a hair on a pimple on a wart on the otherwise fair face of this country. If they want all these things, then the answer is to go out , get a job, make the money required and then put their ideas into effect.

But - they won't. they are too much into gimme, gimme, gimme.

But Hall also wrote about that, too. In one song he relates the story of an old man who told him, "Folks will tell their kids, now I don't want you to have to work the way I did. They don't - and folks will tell you it's a shame. But you've got to think - before you place the blame."

Yeah. You've got to think before you place the blame.

Fortieth & Plum

2011-08-18T15:29:00.002-04:00

Man, that's way out in the country.

Back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid of nine or ten, we lived out on Savage Branch (now called Merritts Creek, by virtue of a mistake by the State Road Commission.) Our house was a board and batten of four rooms sitting on the hillside above the sand and mud road that wound up the hollow for about a mile and a half or two miles. Heat was by two coal heating stoves and a small wood burning cookstove in the kitchen. There was no insulation, and the bathroom was a privy on the hillside out the back door.

We got electricity in about 1947 or 1948, telephone ( a twenty-five or so party line) in 1955, a drilled well that never provided much water in 1954 (prior to that and after that we used a dug well about eighty feet deep that was located out back on the path to the backhouse,) and a television in 1951 or 1952 (we were the first family up the hollow to get one.)

We did not have an automobile until my brother graduated from high school in 1956 and got a job in town. After he bought his car, our father decided to go ahead and get one too. He bought a six year old Ford sedan, eight cylinder, automatic--and learned again how to drive. He had driven when he was a young man, but had not done so for over twenty-five years.

Up until then, we rode shank's mare whenever we wanted to go somewhere. Or got a ride with a neighbor, or thumbed a ride down on the highway, or rode the Logan bus (Consolidated Bus Lines, or Trailways Bus Lines, or a Greyhound - for about a month.) The bus was really pretty cheap - for an adult, about forty cents one way to Huntington, for a kid up to twelve about a quarter. Fortunately, the busses ran about every hour and a half during the day and then there were three night runs - about 9 pm, midnight, and 3 am. But that was when it was Consolidated. When it moved to Trailways, it was about every two hours during the day and two runs at night - about 9 pm and midnight. At the end when it was a Greyhound route, we had two inbound daytime runs and two outbound daytime runs and no night service.

Yeah. We lived out in the country.

Now we live seven miles closer to town, and still consider ourselves to live in the country. But it aint like back then. We still live eight miles from town center (Courthouse), but the Interstate is only four miles one way and three miles the other way. There are four separate entrance ramps we can, and do, use when we are going on trips, or from one end of town to the other, or to Ohio or Kentucky.

But, when we go to see one of our kids, we say we are going out in the country, just as we did when we visited my inlaws before they died. They all live or lived out near Salt Rock, one about two miles from where I grew up and the other just up on Tyler Creek on the other side of Salt Rock.

And the really funny thing is that when we were young and living at Savage Branch, we thought trips to Hickory Ridge and Heath Creek were 'out in the country.' And if we were going up Madison Creek or over on Bowen Creek or up Raccoon Creek, that was really going out in the country.

It's all a matter of your current perspective, I reckon. I tell my friends that I live just south of Melissa, and no one knows where I live. I tell them that I live on Route 10 just south of the intersection of 10 and Alt 10, and they can pinpoint my home with real precision. I have even directed people in to my house from as far away as Princeton here in WV, and they never had a problem finding the place, and they had only been in Cabell County once before in their life.

So maybe being way out in the country isn't way out in the country anymore.

But I still like that old song about "...way out in the country, at Fortieth and Plum."

And for those of you who still don't understand, that is, forty miles from town and plum back in the sticks.

Ramblings

2011-04-19T10:59:00.003-04:00

I have fallen into a bad habit. I wake up too early each morning.

Of course that is only a relative bad habit. The alternative is one which I don't really wish to contemplate seriously, that of not waking at all.

And when I do wake up early--I'm talking about 2:30 to 3:00 AM here, folks--I begin to think of what I should be writing about. But, like all night thoughts, the ideas I get that early in the morning disappear before I can get around to writing about them.

Like this morning, I had a great idea, about being born and growing up in Appalachia.

But most of what I thought has gone from my mind now.

But there is one thought that sticks in my mind.

And that is that you cannot really generalize about something like that. You see, the Appalachia of today is not like that of twenty, thirty, fifty or sixty years ago. And that is a darned dirty shame.

The advent of good roads, more and more airline flights, television, computers, both fathers and mothers having to work to scratch out a meager living, families needing to have two or three vehicles, more options for education in the public schools, cell phones, and the plethora of other distractions that are available - and owned by those from two to a hundred - have taken away the tight knittedness (I just make up the words I need as I go along) of the family in Appalachia, and across the country and the world.

There used to be a song that went, 'how you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree.' And now the farms are gone and so are the kids. And a lot of the smartest and most able of our citizens have moved out, along with a whole bunch of the other kind, too. And they have been replaced by some of the smartest--and smart-alecks. In the late Sixties and early Seventies, we saw the influx of the hippies back in the hills where they could grow great marijuana - and they did - and from all I understand it is some of the best quality in the country, commands a higher price than the run of the mill stuff. And is the largest cash crop in Appalachia now, replacing that old burley tobacco.

Tom T. Hall wrote a song about how "It's a million miles to the city." And that did seem true back in the Fifties, when it took six hours and more to get from the Huntington area to Morgantown, and was an all day trip - or even two - to get to Martinsburg. But now that trip to Morgantown is a short three to three-and-a-half hours and Martinsburg is a fifty minute flight. Pittsburgh and D.C. are just about an hour, Atlanta two, and Chicago not much more.

And kids have always been the backbone asset of families in Appalachia. Fathers and mothers did whatever it took to raise their kids and depended upon the kids to help them when they got older. But with the coming of Medicare in the Sixties, there was no longer the acute pressure on the kids to take care of their parents, Medicare paid for the required medical care, and Social Security gave them a pittance to keep body and soul alive so the kids felt that they could move to California or Texas or Michigan or Illinois and why worry about the old folks, they would be taken care of, one way or another.

Besides that, you could see all the better things available on the television (I do not drop into the habit of calling it a TV.) Old Tom T. also wrote about an old guy in Kentucky who said 'they want to see what all they've heard about,' and they do, the kids do, and they want it now, not wait the ten or twenty years it took their parents to acquire what they have. So the kids went away to the city, got married, got kids, got CREDIT. Unfortunately, not too many got the jobs to support all that, and a lot of them came back home to live with, or live on their parent's land in a trailer or double-wide if they could get it on CREDIT. And most still did not take care of their parents, even then.

And this was something new. And so was the MEDICAL CARD. And the FOOD STAMPS. And so was the SSI. And, wow, do they ever use it.

My grandparents, back in the Fifties, survived by the skin of their teeth, by my parents, and their siblings, letting them live in an old ramshackle house rent free, and providing food and cash as needed, transportation the same way. AND by receiving WELFARE - if you could call it that.

My grandmother, a widow in her early seventies by that time, lived in that old house with two adult sons, one of whom had a job which paid fifteen dollars a month, the other semi-disabled at a job some forty years before. She received a grand sum of twenty bucks a month. And Mom made out a rent receipt each month for fifteen dollars, or Grandma would not have received even that much. Can you imagine, five dollars was all that she received, over and above the 'rent'? Of course, they counted the wages her son brought in, and thought that the family of three could live on twenty bucks a month, after 'rent.' They didn't, they survived.

And it took the whole family of some eight children, total, to keep them. But the family was glad to be able to do so. It was what they had been brought up to do, in Appalachia. It was just a part of living. And seeing that others did, too. There was no television, no steaks, no car or truck, it was an old radio, game the grandkids could shoot and fish on occasion when the fish were biting, eggs from the chickens that had to run free because they could not afford feed for them, vegetables they could raise on poor land. And shank's mare for getting round to the store, and then there was the once a month bus ride to town.

But they were well-respected and thought of a s on the wealthy side because their kids tried their very best to take care of them, and, considering, they actually were better off financially than some others in the rural neighborhood.

And that was what it was like in Appalachia. People took care of each other. Whether it was a ride to the doctor, sitting up with a sick neighbor, helping with the canning or hoeing a neighbor's garden, there was always someone to help. One fellow couldn't afford coal for his heat and cooking, so we let him get a bucket a day out of Grandma's coalpile - which her kids bought for her.

It was caring and sharing.

And I have rambled too much.

Bye Bye Pine Tree

2011-03-23T18:29:00.002-04:00

After posting the first of two today, I went to the bathroom and was looking out the window as the wind was literally shaking the house. One of the few remaining pine trees in the yard was doubled over and I thought that it would surely go down with the next gust.

I was not disappointed.

Medical Update 23 March 2011

2011-03-23T18:09:00.002-04:00

For those of you who haven't heard, I am still alive and kicking.

During December 2009, I had surgery to repair two aneurysms, one behind my left knee and one on my left femoral artery. After surgery I developed an infection on the incision. Treatment at the hospital was ineffective and I was discharged to return home but I had to undergo intravenous antibiotic/antiviral treatment for bout a month and a half before the infection finally cleared up. Nearing the end of the regimen, I developed a severe rash as a reaction to the increased dosage the doctor asked me to go to. When the rash bloomed, I immediately stopped all treatment and the infection cleared up immediately afterwards. I did, and still do, have to treat the rash on about a monthly basis with a cream. My personal physician says I will need to do this for the rest of my life.

Then in May 2010, I returned to the Clinic and had surgery to repair an aneurysm behind my right knee and another one on my right femoral artery. At the same time the surgeon did the necessary work at the right femoral site to enable him to perform the required surgery on my upper aortic aneurysm whenever it become large enough to repair.

He will not do this work until then because there are some potential complications that he feels outweigh the need for sped in repairing it. These potentials carry the possibility of paralyzation .

After going back for the nine month checkup (you need to understand there was a three month checkup also), the doctor says there was almost no growth in the aneurysm over the past six months, and I was released until February or March of 2012.

So, thanks for your good wishes. I appreciate them very much.

A Year and Five Months

2011-03-23T17:05:00.003-04:00

Seventeen months?

Holy cow!

That's a long time to go without posting anything to a blog.

But too much has happened to attempt to recall all of them.

This morning started off at about 65 degrees and has gone up to about 71degrees and now the cold front is passing through and it it dropping like a rock. Supposed to be about 42 or 43 overnight.

Winds are kicking up pretty good. They are saying the wind might hit 60 mph or higher.

We have been looking into getting new fireplaces for the old homestead. A crack developed in the big one i the bedroom, along a line about eighteen inches long. The chimney sweep says the unit is unusable as is. So we want to replace it.

At the same time, we plan to put a fireplace in the living room.

We have it out for bids right now. Gonna be spensive.

We have removed everything from the junk room and have removed the carpet and tack strips. This is the first step in combining that room into the kitchen area. The carpet will be laid on the back porch. We're also looking into getting windows/doors to glass in the back porch--one of the benefit of the newer fireplaces is that the two will heat the entire house including a glassed in back porch, so we can add that 400-500 square feet to the usable living space, bringing us up to about 3100.

It will take two 48" windows for each side, and two 36" for the front plus a 6' French door for the front. Once that is done, then we can put the two French doors from the combined kitchen/spare room combination out onto the porch. And getting the electrician out to move the meterbox out to the end of the house and alter some of the interior wiring for the kitchen. Then comes the plumber to move the sink and do some minor work underneath the house.

Of course you know that will all not happen in just one year. Or even a year and five months.

Uh oh!! Lightning and thunder getting pretty bad.

Later, Tater!!!!!!!!!!

Medical Update

2009-10-23T14:44:00.003-04:00

For the two or three of you who may actually read the tripe I put out on this blog, here is the current medical on me.

Plans call for me to visit the Clinic two and a half-weeks from now for various tests and to get to know my surgeon. Depending upon the commercial availability of device(s) surgery could be done within two to six weeks after that date, or, if no commercial devices are available, within two weeks to six months after, depending upon how soon the Clinic can manufacture their own. To my knowledge, all my medical history is now in the hands of the surgeon so he knows exactly what to be looking for, but the visit is to enable him to meet me and direct what additional tests he may want to have done to see my entire condition. ( I plan to excise my third arm and the extra toes before I go, but I will under no circumstances destroy my second brain.)

Seriously, I look forward to getting on with it. The last time it made me feel ten to fifteen years younger and I am hopeful this one works just as well. I do not feel bad, but I know I have slowed down some physically within the past few years.

3:23 AM, OCTOBER 6, 2009

2009-10-06T03:23:00.000-04:00

Good morning, God.

Thank you for allowing me another day.

Thank you for waking me up this morning so early, so that I have the opportunity to gaze upon the almost full moon shining so brightly through my window once again. Shining so brightly it almost seems like daylight, so brightly that I could almost read a book by its light.

Thank you for the autumn day promising a blue sky with white puffy clouds riding high above the trees just beginning to turn color.

And, to shift gears somewhat, thank you for allowing me to reflect upon why so many people seem to deny your existence, when it it clearly evident that you do exist and do bestow such proofs of your existence throughout the world.

They say that the proof is in the pudding, but I say the proof is in the mirror. I cannot understand how anyone can see the reflection of themselves in a mirror and continue to deny you. Can they not see that they are not the product of two or three clods being jostled together and suddenly life being created? As Robby the robot on "Lost in Space" would say, "That does not compute."

Science and God are not exclusive. How can either exist without the other? Someone, or something, created science. And science only proves the existence of God. Who do they think set up the rules of science, anyway? Only a mindforce ultimately far superior to anything mankind could ever comprehend could possibly create the blade of grass, the minnow in the pool, the squirrel in the tree tops and the walnut that he eats, the clear blue sky with those puffy white clouds.

Science prides itself on being able to reproduce the same result every time. Yet science admits to mutation when it is convenient. Can they not see that mutation is creation at work?

Scientists are generally not humble. They are prideful in their work and in their belief.

I am not prideful. I am humble before you, God. Your glory throughout the universe is clearly visible. I know that my own efforts could never produce a white puffy cloud in all its glory riding high above the earth. I could never create a blade of grass or a minnow, or a squirrel or a walnut.

I can take what you have created and alter it to a different state, but that is not creation. The raw life was there from the outset, created by you. And no effort of mine can create, only alter what has already been created.

And what do you ask of me?

You only ask that I love you.

For love includes obedience to your will, following your laws, exhorting others to do the same, and the multitude of other ways to show my love. Your direction of my life is not onerous to me.
I glory in your work.

I am not a perfect person, O, Lord. I have grave faults. Faults that are a part and parcel of my essence. But I try, Lord. I strive to overcome my natural disobedience. I do not always succeed in doing so. But I try.

Forgive me for not being perfect, Lord. As I go forth to face another day, be with me in all that I do. Give me the strength to strive with my fellow men to bring understanding to them--as well as to myself.

As do you, O, Lord, I will try to do my best.

Amen

ONE PERSON ASKED, SO---

2009-08-28T18:32:00.001-04:00

Now, don't anybody panic. I'm alive and well--well, as well as I am, anyhoo.

Having made the local circuit of the medical profession (actually that, for me, consists of my personal physician and the specialist he recommended) the consensus is that they can't perform the required operation here in the Huntington area, so I must travel to the mistake by the lake--otherwise known as Cleveland--to have them poke and prod and eventually decide to slice into my innards and put a piece of plastic in my aorta. The locals can do the work below the renal arteries, it appears, but are hesitant to do so above the renal arteries. And I appreciate their honesty and concern.

Medically, it is known as a thoraco-abdominal aneurysm. The aneurysm I had repaired some nine or ten years ago was an abdominal aortic aneurysm, and the repair was done locally and the repair has performed perfectly now since February 2000. So, no, I am not really concerned about any surgery that will be required, other than the fact that I am now nine years older and that has some implications.

What does cause some minor concern is that they also found aneurysms on both femoral arteries, both small and of small consequence at the present time. My head has been scanned a number of times and they tell me they did find a brain in there but did not find any indications of aneurysms.

Originally I had not intended to publish this material, but since my daughter has contacted her prayer groups and such, I figured I should do so just to allay any fears anyone has.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My activities go on unabated. Maybe I am too fatalistic, but I have lived a good life, am secure in my religious beliefs, have provided as well as I can for my wife, and have no fear of death. I intend to live many more years and be a thorn in the side of the far left liberal fringe element--if for no other reason other than I just like to jangle their headbones every now and then--and support those conservative beliefs that I hold dear.

I hope to finish my songbook for the kids before the first of the year. I don't know whether I can or not, though, because every time I drop one into print, I think of two or three others, so the whittling down to a hundred or so is really going to be a tough thing for me. And every day I find myself singing new songs--actually old ones that I haven't sung for ages. And if it pops into my mind, chances are good that it is one that I like really well.

My health, otherwise, is generally good. I had a shoulder problem a while back but a shot with a six inch needle in my butt and a regimen of steroids took care of that in no time flat. Seriously. I could not raise my hand, my elbow or my shoulder more than an inch or so due to the pain. But the hand and elbow worked fine if manipulated by my other hand or by someone else. And the shoulder did not hurt when manipulated. I simply could not get my own muscles and sinews to go. But the next afternoon after seeing the doctor, the pain was almost completely gone and I had full movement. After two days, the pain had disappeared too.

My wife is back to work full time. Her ankle is still a problem but she's a gritty girl and still goes to work with it. We will be asking her doctor to limit her to eight hours daily and no work over 40 hours per week on Tuesday. I am much more concerned about the eight per day than I am by the forty per week. I can really see the difference between and eight hour day and a nine or ten hour one.

Got to go. The whistle just sounded which means the run is starting out at the still.

Cheers.

Hello, Follower

2009-08-25T21:22:00.001-04:00

It's me again, Margaret.

I've been doing a lot of copying and pasting on my songbook for the kids. Mostly, the songs are just what the title indicates to them, Songs My Papaw Sang. And those are old and new, classics and dimly remembered things, country and pop, rock, you name it, even religious. I sing all the time and half the time don't even realize that I am.

And I have been doing a little thinking , too, of the divisions within our country, of the rancor that is plainly evident everywhere we look. The shouting never has relevance, the noise is only to hide our fears.

And I pulled Bob Dylan's song out and sang it again. Been a long time--

WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE

Oh, my name it means nothing, my age it means less,
And the country I come from is called the midwest.
I's taught up and brought up, the laws to abide,
And the land that I live in has God on it's side.

Oh, the history books tell us, they tell it so well,
The cavalries charged, the Indians fell.
The cavalries charged, the Indians died.
Oh, the country was young then, with God on it's side.

Oh, the Spanish-American War had it's day.
And the Civil War too, was soon laid away.
And the names of the heroes I's made to memorize,
With guns in their hands, and God on our side.

Oh, the First World War, boys, it closed out it's fate.
The reason for fighting, I never got straight.
But I learned to accept it, accept it with pride,
For you don't count the dead when God's on your side.

When the Second World War came to an end,
We forgave the Germans and then we were friends,
Though they murdered six million, in the ovens they fried,
The Germans now too, have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians all through my whole life.
If another war starts, it's them we will fight.
To hate them and fear them, to run and to hide,
And accept it all bravely, with God on our side.

But now we've got weapons of the chemical dust.
If fire them we're forced to, then fire them we must.
One push of a button, and a shot the world wide.
And you never ask questions, when God's on your side.

In a many dark hour I've been thinking about this,
That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss.
But I can't think for you, you'll have to decide,
Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side.

Now as I'm leaving, I'm weary as hell.
The confusion I'm feeling, aint no tongue can tell.
The words fill my head and fall to the floor--
If God's on our side, He'll stop the next war.

Well, I don't know about that, but it does make one wonder.

I've also been talking/singing "The Ballad of Ira Hayes", although it is long and I forget more than half as I go along. But one verse just jumps out at you as you go through it--

"And Ira started drinking hard, jail was often his home.
They let him raise the flag there and lower it like you'd throw a dog a bone.
He died drunk early one morning, alone in the land he had fought to save.
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch was the grave for Ira Hayes."

Wow! And I cry every time I remember that verse. Not just for Ira Hayes the man, but for all the Ira Hayes there are and have been in America. What a comment on the greatest country in the world that we cannot remember our heroes. Dylan wants us to know that he knew them from memorization in "With God On Our Side", but this poem says nothing at all about him being a hero, it expects us to know that already and revere him as such.

So I could question my grandchildren and ask if they know who he was and what he did and what that meant. But, you know, I think I am fearful that I will not hear what I want to hear but what I have just described. And if my giving them my songbook will help cure that, then it will be worth all the tears and frustration I have had in trying to get the lyrics all correct. And, if they already are aware, then we are well ahead of the curve (another one of those overused, trite sayings that you write about.)

Last topic--

My grandkids, of course.

The two boys, still in high school, are coming to rely on me as a 'last resort' in some of their honors courses. I am really impressed with the knowledge both of these young men have in the sciences and the arts, and I can tell you quite honestly, I think their violin playing is better than anyone else's. Both have shown an interest in the instrument and both play very well. The older taught he younger a lot of the basic stroking and fretwork long before the younger ever began classes. Both are members of their high school orchestras, the All-County orchestra, and the Tri-State Orchestra, and have played here locally and on the road for regional events.

I seldom give an exact answer to their school related questions because that would be too easy. Instead I try to inculcate the reasoning behind the questioning and what response would be appropriate to that particular question when asked in that particular manner about that particular topic. In other words, I try to make them think. I am not popular with their teachers, I don't imagine. I don't view education as being to educate for the Westest, but as a broadening of the inherent intellect of the individual, and, as such, cannot be rigidly aligned with 20 or 25 other individual intellects to make a super intellect. Indeed, the only manner in which a child can develop properly is one where it's own drive for education is encouraged and challenged and never sated. Sitting for a six or eight hour day in modern schools would be stultifying to any intellectual process.

And as Jim would say, TTFN.

One of These Days

2009-07-10T18:45:00.001-04:00

WHEN I GET TIME...

I am going to spend a day in late October pondering why the sky is so blue that it almost hurts your eyes to look at it. And then do the same thing in late April.

I am going to try to figure out why Americans seem to have a great love affair with butterflies, but hate caterpillars. And why Americans seems to love babies, but hate adults.

I am going to peruse the why's and wherefore's of how it is that Americans, who love babies, still have denied some fifty million of them the chance to be born.

I am going to read more. Finish all those Hemingways that I have started so many times. Complete the Fitzgeralds. Read Paradise Lost again.

I am going to complete the songbook I am preparing for my children and grandchildren.

I am going to write more poetry. And this time I am actually going to commit it to paper before I forget it or get busy on something else.

I am going to enjoy raising a garden, instead of thinking of it as something I must do.

I am going to finish the remodeling of our home instead of starting so many different projects and not getting any of them finished.

I am going to have more faith in our leaders and in the American people to do right instead of them going off the deep end and having to struggle back to some semblance of normalcy.

I am going to be more forgiving of those cell phone users, those people who insist they own the entire road, those who fail to stop at stop signs, those who refuse to dim their headlights, those who will tell you right out that they are safer NOT wearing their seatbelts, those who follow too closely, those who break into funeral processions and then stop at the next red light thereby breaking the procession completely, yada yada yada.

And in all I do, I am going to glorify my God much more than I have done in the past. He is after all, my Father, and I should be more attuned to His desires for me. He has given me life and I owe Him everything for the opportunities He has presented to me. A child should do no less than this.

Give Me, Or Maybe Not

2009-07-04T20:10:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning about 5:30 am. But decided that I would just lie in bed for an hour or two. Finally at 6:15 am I rolled out and got the coffee going.

A while later, after breakfast, I turned on the tv and began watching the History Channel presentation of 'Revolution." I watched it off an on all day.

Made myself a cup and went outside to sit with my wife and just enjoy the mid-morning. Birds singing, flowers dancing in the breeze. Butterflies flitting here and there. Hummingbirds feeding.

Got my new string trimmer out and finished off the areas I had missed yesterday. Then mowed the yard around the house.

Came inside to cool off, drink some orange juice, and eat lunch. Watched more of the "Revolution" program.

Back outside to sit in the swing for a half-hour or so. Beginning to look more like rain.

Took mower outside gate and mowed out to the hard road and back, then beside the fence and across the road.

Back inside to cool off and drink a diet soda. Changed clothes and watched a little more of the program.

Napped a little--well, maybe a lot, but what the heck, it is Saturday after all. And I have no place to go.

Looked a lot like rain when I woke up, kept hoping it would hold off until tonight, but it did not. Kids at the soccer tournament going to get wet.

Ate supper. Hot dogs. Was going to grill chicken but never got back to store to get the chicken. Didn't think about it until this morning that we didn't have any hot dog chili either. Then discovered we had no chili beans. But we did have the dogs. But upon checking we had no onions either. But good luck--we had some chopped onions that we have had in the refrigerator since the last time we had hot dogs, and they were still good.

Went online and checked Michelle's blog. I'm going to have to sit down and write some comments for her, she has a bunch of stuff that just begs to have comments and I have been remiss in not doing so. Maybe within a few days.

Read the HD forums. Not much there. People still cannot write properly, grammar is terrible, spelling worse, logic generally missing.

And then I sat down here to write about the Fourth of July holiday. Independence Day. And this entire post is just that, a tribute to Independence Day.

You see, I am able to sit down and write whatever I wish with no fear of reprisals, no fear of being put in the lockup because of what I write or the opinions I express.

When I woke up this morning, I was thinking of what liberty means to me. All day long I have had that same thought running through my mind. And I am reminded of the words of a song from back in the 1960's, the protest years--"I had a little book was given to me, and every page spelled liberty, All my trials now, soon be over. Too late, my brother, too late--but, never mind, all my trials Lord, soon be over."

Liberty is not to be free of trials, but liberty is the freedom to do something about them--or not. That is the essence of liberty. The freedom to act, or not to act. We all seem to want to get hung up on the freedom to act and forget that there is an obverse to that.

And I never realized myself, until I retired a few years ago, that that obverse was much more important than the first part of the definition. All my life was dedicated to doing something, to protecting the rights that I had to DO something. But I now realize that in a lot of cases, most to my way of thinking, the only proper action is to do nothing.

You know, back when I was a businessman, I knew that all along, and practiced it religiously, but didn't realize that I knew it and was doing it. I just thought that I was ignoring a situation because it would usually go away or resolve itself if I took no action. And it usually did.

In the hustle and bustle of living life, we sometimes need to step aside for a moment and watch life go by. Watch the processes and the actions of others. View with a critical eye what others are doing and what they are not doing.

And that is what I do a lot of--not doing. And it makes me so very happy to be free to do so--or not.

Sufferin' Succotash

2009-07-02T19:51:00.001-04:00

Been a little busy.

A reset in telephone repair parlance appears to be this--

Remove each device from the telephone lines within your home.

Wait at least seven minutes after removing the last device.

Reinstall each individual device, testing each for proper functioning before reinstalling the next, until all devices are reinstalled and working properly.

Hell, I do that once a year anyway. Just common sense, copper connections can oxidize.

But it still didn't take the static off the lines.

Been doing genealogy and forums work. Genealogy is easy, reforming stupid is not.

One guy says, "...I had my golf clubs Tayler Made..." Another guy says, "...dumb ass, it is Taylor Made..." So I said, "actually you are both wrong, it is tailormade---made to order." And suggested maybe they need to go back and take Sixth Grade English over again.

People seem to get upset by my use of the name Mutt for our president. So I replied that, after all the years of "...that monkey in the White House..." I vowed that payback would be sweet and long. Hell, folks, we just got started.

Had a ct scan Tuesday, another one next Tuesday and eye specialist next Wednesday. No problems just checkups. Last doctor visit about a month ago, everything ok (except lose that weight.)

Wife is now working in the yard, washing clothes and dishes, sometimes cooking. Still using cane.

Later. Maybe. Who knows?

"Heh-heh=heh, the Shadow knows!"

#Y&*^$%#@

2009-06-29T17:30:00.000-04:00

You know, it has to be one of the utilities, right?

In this case it is Verizon.

I was up early Friday morning because the grandkids were coming to spend the day. So after getting the gate open and having my breakfast, and knowing the kids like to play on the computer, I decided to log in and write an entry on this blog.

No can do. No dial tone.

Again.

That was the fourth time this year.

I cannot tell you how long it has been since I have had my telephone service interrupted four times in a single year. And the year aint half over yet!

So I go out and call the company and they tell me it will be July 8 before they can get here to fix it.

July 8?

That was 12 days out. Ridiculous. And I told them so. Well, I went back to the house and just got steamed even more, came back out and called them back. Oh, this time, the line check instead of showing that it was working is now 'compromised, it looks like it is our (the phone company) fault.' I was then assured that although the tech is set up to come on July 8, they will probably get it working by mid week(that is this week).

Sunday, we were visiting one of our kids for a grandson's birthday and when we got home, voila, we have a dial tone. Good. So we make one call and receive one call Sunday afternoon.

After therapy for the wife today we get home about noon. I get a cuppa and try to log on, and ---yep, no dial tone.

Can I say goddamnit? Yeah. I can. And did.

And went back out to make that same old call. Now five times, huh?

Well, whatta you know, they can get a tech here tomorrow!!!

Oh, they said the line check says that the line needs to be 'reset' whatever in hell that means.

So I come back home, eat my lunch, read the paper, and check the phone, just for the hell of it.

Holy shit, the damned thing has a dial tone.

I get online real quick, start reading my emails which are beginning to stack up, pretty good. I get three read, two deleted and boing boing disconnected. Try to log on, disconnected, no dial tone.

Really pissed off.

Go outside and pull weeds, work on the pool, come back in and get a drink. Decide to do some work on the genealogy from data already downloaded. On offchance, try to log on--works--now have dial tone, for how long I don't k now, I've been online for about two hours and it still is working.

But I'm not going to trust it, so I'm posting this baby now.

Wish us luck.

WV Supreme Court - Joe's Buds and Mutts' Henchmen

2009-06-08T21:58:00.000-04:00

To say the very least, I am pretty upset. And every American who values their rights should be too. But they are not, because most of them do not know what is going on in this backwoods state. Having lived here most of my life and watching the progression or perhaps I should say dissolution, of the legal system, maybe I should not be surprised.

But I am. I am surprised at the power grab that I see within the WV State Supreme Court.

There is no longer any question that the state Supreme Court is making law in West Virginia. And they are making it from the bench, not by the time honored and accepted method of advising lawmakers (read that the Legislature) and the Governor, that certain laws might well be altered.

I admit that it really ground my grits that the WV State Supreme Court so misread the application of the law concerning when giving turn signals is required. In point of fact, the court turned its collective back upon the circumstances of the case and gave a motorist a free pass on a DUI because of the method used by the arresting officer. The officer noted that in the early morning the motorist did not give a turn signal when turning off the road. There were no other motorists around except the policeman. When the policeman noted a strong odor of alcohol, he proceeded to make a DUI arrest also and gave the man a citation for failure to signal a turn.

The court passed over the DUI and concentrated on the failure to give a signal citation. And, admittedly, there is a provision in the law that says that if no other motorist is affected, a signal is not required. BUT, and a big one to me, a policeman WAS there, and observed no signal being given. Does the office not count as another motorist?

So the court ruled, and at the time I thought it was simply an error in judgment on their part, that the DUI infraction was tossed out as was the failure to give signal.

Now, friends, I have driven an automobile or truck for over fifty years. I have never been cited for failure to give a signal, simply because, back in the Dark Ages, you actually had to memorize that section of the Drivers Manual supplied by the State Police to0 all beginning drivers. If you couldn't cite it word for word, you failed to get your Learners Permit. If I can remember it, here it is--

"The driver of a vehicle within and intersection intending to make a turn to the left, shall yield the right of way to every other vehicle within the intersection or so close thereto to constitute an immediate hazard, but said driver, having so yielded and having GIVEN A SIGNAL WHEN AND AS REQUIRED, shall proceed to make such left turn, and the drivers of all other vehicles shall yield the right of way to him."

Given a signal when and as required.

We were told that a signal was required every time we wanted to change lanes, turn right or left, or slow down significantly. We also were required to know proper hand signals.

When did this change? I did not take time to review all the changes that had been made in traffic laws since 1958. I got my license in 1959 and I know damned well that had a patrolman given me a citation for failure to give a signal back then, even if there were no other vehicles around, the WV Supreme Court would NOT have voided the ticket for such foolishness as they have displayed.

Yet, I got pooh-poohed for even thinking there was something afoot when I raised teh question of propriety.

A day or two ago, they did it again, only this time it really means something bad to everyone, and that is not pooh-pooh, it is plain old shit. No second guessing this one. It is an outright power grab, and a complete misuse of power by the court. The court decided to acquit a person who had been arrested, tried before a jury of her peers and found guilty, all by laws then in effect and sentenced properly under those laws. And the reason for acquitting her? The case law has always been wrong.

Never mind that we have actually executed people in this state under that same case law. Never mind the fact that case law has been the rule for generations.

Now let's look at this objectively. If the WV Supreme Court can, all on its own, make it stick that it can make prior laws unenforceable, then it stands to reason that our long standing protection from being charged and convicted for violations of newly enacted legislation for acts committed years before enactment is now gone. Who says? The WV Supreme Court, that is who says, and, by extension, Joe Manchin.

Hell, with such a precedent, the WV Supreme Court can declare the state constitution is unconstitutional. It is the most egregious power grab I have witnessed in my long and rather uneventful life. Just where do these assholes get off anyway?

There is not one single law in effect in West Virginia today that cannot be changed by this group if they are allowed to continue. And they will be allowed to do so.

This is exactly what Joe and Mutt have been hoping for. Now we have some 1.9 million citizens living in a state that has no law except what the government wants to say and enforce as the law, and, even then, they can change it from day to day, minute by minute. Jesus H. Christ, I can hardly believe it. Joe was reelected and the American people as a whole elected Mutt and now they can see where that is leading. Right down to perdition is where. No one is safe anymore, anywhere.

And here is Mutt kissing the ass of every enemy of the US, declaring the US to not be a Christian nation. Appeasement to every enemy. He simply can't seem to keep his lips off their big asses. His Secretary of State couldn't find her ass with two hands and a flashlight, and yet she is preparing to negotiate the release of two of Al Gore's reporters from North Korea (and no one has ever shown that they are not guilty even.) Why would we even consider negotiating for them if they are guilty?

Sorry. I got off topic.

Americans as a whole are a pretty good lot of people. They are basically honest, God-fearing people who desire to obey the laws. But now, no one can know what the law is. And that fits Joe's and Mutt's agendas perfectly. THEY are able to define what is law and don't you forget it, Bub! For what you may think is the law is not any more, unless those two say it is. And poor old Joe. He got sucked right in again, does he really thinkMutt is going to let him have a piece of that bone? He'll be shucked out as quick as an ear of corn by three hungry mules.

But it appears that the West Virginians, and all Americans by extension, have just been sheared but good. Man, I sure hope they have a mess of vaseline, because we are sure as hell gonna need it.

COMICALS

2009-06-02T16:00:00.001-04:00

Ah, you young whippersnappers. You laugh at Dilbert and his Elbonians, but you never read the Katzenjammer Kids. You love Baby Blues, but you don't know squat about Lord and Lady Plushbottom. And Hager certainly cannot compare to Alley Oop. Garfield is fun, but Felix, now there was a real cat. And then there were the adventure guys--Steve Canyon, Flash Gordon, Superman, Cap-tain Marvel, Spiderman, Wonderwoman (to get a woman in there somewhere--old time comics didn't have many superwomen in them for some reason). And who could forget Terry and the Pirates? You could take a stroll down Gasoline Alley, maybe run into Little Orphan Annie and Sandy, or maybe even Little Lulu. Then you could make a stop at OurBoarding House and visit with the Colonel. Harrruuummmmph!

But out of all of them, there were two that stood out for me.

The first was Lil Abner. Now he was a handsome looking galoot from Dogpatch, and he had his pick of the women. And, shucks, he took a liking to Daisy Mae--finally married her. But for sheer good looks, who could possibly ask for more than Moonbeam McSwine. Politicians? Why everybody loved General Bullmoose (What's good for General Bullmoose is good for the USA.)

Law enforcement was enamored of Fearless Fosdick. And no one who ever got close could ever forget the Inside Man at the Skonk Works. Common sense was the forte of Mammy Yokum, and Pappy Yokum ws great at, at, um, ah, er, uh, uh, well just what in hell WAS Pappy good for, except swigging the McSwine's moonshine.

And then there was this guy who walked around under a cloud all the time. Can't remember his name right off, but I've been right there with him a few times in my life. Ah, Joe Bffstttkk, that was his name, or something like it anyway.

And you think the Elbonians were a great invention? Shucks, we had Lower Slobovians long before the first Elbonian swam out from under that rock (they do have rocks in Elbonia, don't they? I am not sure, all I've ever seen is water.)

And there were schmoos. And what a delight those schmoos were. Always had a smile on their faces, even when put into the pot to boil. Fried they tasted like chicken, baked like ham, boiled--make up your own favorite flavor. They were shaped like bowling pins with small legs.

Of course there were hundreds of other characters that Al Capp used to keep the shenanigans going. And every one of them had a name that was exactly apropos to their role.

Then. There. Was. Pogo!

What can you say about Pogo that he hasn't already said about himself? Pogo was little opossum that wore a pullover referee's shirt and lived in Okefenokee Swamp. He had a cast of characters about him that was outrageous, and not all came necessarily from the swamp. Probably his main claim to fame was the quote heard round the swamp, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

I mean, really. What do you do after you have issued that bon mot?

Well, just about whatever you want to, it would appear. He had a set of friends ranging from Howland Owl and Churchy Le Femme to Mam'selle Hepzibah and Rackety Coon Child. Now Howland wore huge black horn-rimmed glasses. Don't get it? It's hilarious. Owls have exceptionally good eyesight, right? What a hoot. OK. To me it is funny.

Churchy of course was a turtle. There was also Albert the Alligator, who usually served as the straight man of the bunch, and of course, Mam'selle Hepzibah was a cutie of a skunk and spoke French. Albert, Howland, Churchy and Pogo formed the basic group and other characters weaved in and out as necessary to keep the story line going. There was a dog and dozens of other animals of all sorts--birds, reptiles, mammals--about anything you can conceive of that might at some time or other be in a swamp (and some which would not.)

Pogo was no lightweight when it came to the heavy topics of the day. When Kruschev (Kushaw) was pounding his shoe on the desk at the UN, there was a similar story line going on in Pogo, with a pig as Kushaw. There were, in fact, a number of books of Pogo and his adventures with this silly group. One had a story line where they were all in Siberia and were stranded on the steppes waiting for a train on the Trans-Siberian Railway. They had had nothing to eat for days and one piped up and said, "If we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs." Another replied, "A man could starve to death in this country waiting on a train." To which the reply came, "All is equal in this country." To which the reply came, "All is starving." To which the reply came, "Da, BUT equal starving!"

And then, just to keep us happy, Walt Kelly would have the group sing some lovely songs. A few follow:

LLUDE SUNG CUCKOO

Wretched Richard, richened sweet,
By the fingers of his feet,
Toted tuppence with his toes,
Nodding nimbly next his nose.
The mist must myrtle on the way
Where last the minstral minstrel lay.

And this one for which I cannot remember the title

There were some wasps in our town,
Who with their lovely wives,
They suckled at the bramble bush
In search of lovely lives.

And when they saw each bush was dry,
Quick each and every one,
They wrapped it well in wire barb
To shield it from the sun.

And of course, everyone's favorite Christmas Carol

DECK US ALL

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash. and Kalamazoo.
Nora's freezing on the trolley,
Swaller, dollar cauliflower, Allegaroo.
Don't we know archaic barrel,
Lillaby, lullaby, Louisville Lou.
Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
Boola, boola Pensacoola, hullabaloo.

Walt Kelly sure had a gold mine there. I could even stand reruns on Pogo. Charlie Brown has been around for ages, it is about time to retire him and bring on Pogo for another run.He is just as up to date as all the rest, even though Kelly quit drawing it over thirty years ago. Or was it forty? Yeah, more like forty, I think.

See you later, I'm stopping at Moon Mullin's place for a beer. Maybe talk with Mamie for a bit, see how Lord Plushbottom's lumbago is coming along.

Old Poems by Other People #5

2009-06-01T20:30:00.000-04:00

Everyone has read and enjoyed William Wordsworth's "Daffodils". But if you don't remember it, here it is again--

DAFFODILS

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,--
A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay
In such a jocund company;
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon my inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Magnificent. Simply magnificent.

But I was a reader of MAD Magazine also, back in the early to mid-1950's. And at the same time I was learning some of the master poets and writers of the ages, I also got a bellyfull of trash. Plain unvarnished trash. Like this parody--

AXOLOTLS

I wandered lonely as a clod,
Just picking up old rags and bottles,
Till once, upon my way I plod
I saw a host of axolotls,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
A sight to make a man's blood freeze.

Some had handles, some were plain.
They came in blue, red, pink and green,
Though most were mottled in the main,
The damnedest sight I've ever seen.
The females did a sprightly dance.
The male ones all wore knee-length pants.

Now, oft, when on the couch I lie,
The doctor asks me what I see.
They flash upon my inward eye
And make me laugh with fiendish glee.
I find my solace now in bottles,
And I forget those axolotls.

I'm sorry. There was a third verse, but for the life of me, I cannot recall any of it. So I publish what I can remember. And let you know that the original did appear in MAD Magazine sometime between 1954 and 1960. And I do not know the author. But I don't think it was Alfred E. Neumann!

My twelfth grade English Lit teacher did not like me very well when I would bring one of these to class and pass it around. But, other than that she was a good old girl. Her husband was the announcer for the football team, the PA guy, and we all liked him really well too. One morning she came in about fifteen minutes late (by the way, he was a doctor), and she told this class of twelfth graders (16 to 18 yrs old) that she was sorry, "But I just couldn't get Frank off this morning."

Open mouth. Insert foot.

Old Poems by Other Poets #4

2009-06-01T18:45:00.003-04:00

When in high school, I was one of the fortunate ones that was able to have Stella Sumpter for Latin--for two years running. Now I was no great Latin scholar, but I was pretty good at piecing out what the writer was saying . She got all over me one time, though.

The story was about Quintus, and his family and friends liked to write letters telling about his exploits. So I had translated the pages the night before and had them written out and lying on my desk. It was at the beginning of the letter and the writer was asking about Quintus and his activities. But the way it was phrased, Quintus could be interpreted as I did--honestly. Naturally, Mrs. Sumpter had to call on me. All I did was to interpret it as if there was no capital Q. So I said--How is our fifth holding out?

The class was in an uproar. She was flabbergasted. And was going to give me a low mark for class activities that day. We convinced her otherwise, and my interpretation was given to other classes to see if they could spot the error. None could (as they had heard the story before they got into class.) She was again flabbergasted, and we moved on to Jason and the Argonauts.

Many terms used in the following appear to be Latin. See if you can spot the obvious ones that are not. It is called "Song of the Opossum" as translated. In the original the unknown author simply titled it

CARMEN POSSUM

The nox was lit by the lux of Luna,
And 'twas a nox most opportuna
To catch a possum or a coona;
For nix was scattered on this mundus,
A shallow nix, et non profundus.
On sic a nox with canis unus,
Two boys went out to hunt for coonus.
The corpus of this bonus canis
Was full as long as octo span is,
But brevior legs had canis never
Quam had hic dog; et bonus clever,
Some used to say, in stultum jocum
Quod a field was too small locum
For sic a dog to make a turnus
Circum self from stem to sternus.
Unis canis, duo puer,
Nunquam braver, nunquam truer,
Quam hoc trio nunquam fuit,
If there was I never knew it.
This bonus dog had one bad habit,
Amabat much to tree a rabbit,
Amabat plus to chase a rattus,
Amabat bene tree a cattus.
But on this nixy moonlight night
This old canis did just right.
Nunquam treed a starving rattus,
nunquam chased a starving cattus.
But securrit on, intentus
On the track and on the scentus,
Till he trees a possum strongum,
In a hollow trunkum longum.
Loud he barked in horrid bellum,
Seemed on terra vehit pellum.
Quickly ran the duo puer
Mors of possum to secure.
Quam venerit, one began
To chop away like quisque man.
Soon the axe went through the trunkum
Soon he hit it all kerchunkum;
Combat deepens, on ye braves!
Canis, pueri et staves;
As his powers non longius tarry,
Possum potest, non pugnare.
On the nix his corpus lieth.
Dow to Hades spirit flieth,
Joyful pueri, canis bonus,
Think him dead as any stonus.
Now they seek their pater's domo,
Feeling proud as any homo,
Knowing, certe, they will blossom
Into heroes, when with possum
They arrive, narrabunt story,
Plenus blood et plenior glory.
Pompey, David, Samson, Caesar,
Cyrus, Black Hawk, Shalmanezer!
Tell me where est now the gloria,
Where the honors of victoria?
Nunc a domum narrent story,
Plenus sanguine, tragic, gory.
Pater praiseth, likewise mater,
Wonders greatly younger frater.
Possum leave they on the mundus,
Go themselves to sleep profundus,
Somniunt possums slain in battle,
Strong a ursae, large as cattle.
When nox gives way to lux of morning,
Albam terram much adorning,
Up they jump to see the varmen,
Of the which this is the carmen.
Lo! possum est resurrectum!
Ecce pueri dejectum,
Ne relinquit track behind him,
Et the pueri never find him.
Cruel possum! bestia vilest,
How the pueros thou beguilest!
Pueri think non plus of Caesar,
Go ad Orcum, Shalmanezer,
Take your laurels, cum the honor,
Since ista possum is a goner!

Aw, you saw it coming, dintcha?

The poem appears on pages 484 and 485 of "The Best Lov Poems of the American People" Selected by Hazel Felleman, Garden City Books, Garden City, NY, copyright 1936, 37th printing, 1960

Old Poems by Other People #3

2009-05-29T20:46:00.003-04:00

For those who have an aversion to sex or talk about sex, this is your warning, this poem is about SEX!

Back in the early days of our country there was extant a practice called bundling. If you studied your early literature, you know what I am talking about. If you do not, read this and you will.

THE WHORE ON THE SNOW CRUST:
A New England Broadside in Defense of Bundling

Adam at first was formed of dust
As we find on record;
And did receive a wife called Eve
By a creative word.

From Adam's side a crooked bride,
We find complete in form;
Ordained that they in bed might lay,
And keep each other warm.

To court indeed they had no need
She was his wife at first,
And she was made to be his aid,
Whose origin was dust.

This new made pair full happy were,
And happy might remained,
If his helpmeet had never eat
The fruit that was restrained.

Though Adam's wife destroyed his life
In manner that is awful;
Yet marriage now we all allow
To be both just and lawful.

And nowadays there is two ways,
Which of the two is right:
To lie between sheets nice and clean
Or sit up all the night.

But some suppose bundling in clothes
The good and wise doth vex;
Then let me know which way to go
To court the fairer sex.

Whether they must be hugged and bussed
When sitting up all night;
Or whether they in bed may lay,
Which doth reason invite?

Nature's request is give me rest,
Our bodies seek repose;
Night is the time, and 'tis no crime
To bundle in our clothes.

Since in a bed a man and maid
May bundle and be chaste;
It doth no good to burn up wood.
It is a needless waste.

Let coat and shift be turned adrift ,
And breeches take their flight,
An honest man and virgin can
Lay quiet all the night.

But if there be dishonesty
Implanted in the mind,
Breeches nor smock, nor scarce padlock,
The rage of lust can bind.

Kate, Nance and Sue proved just and true,
Though bundling did practice;
But Ruth, beguiled, proved with child,
Who bundling did despise.

Whores will be whores, and on the floor
Where many has been laid
To sit and smoke and ashes poke
Won't keep awake a maid.

Bastards are not at all times got
In feather beds we know
The strumpet's oath convinces both
Oft times it is not so.

One whorish dame, I fear to name
Lest I should give offense
But in this town she was took down
Not more than eight months since.

She was the first that on snow crust
I ever knew to gender;
I'll hint no more about this whore
For fear I should offend her.

'Twas on the snow when Sol was low,
And was in Capricorn
A child was got, and it will not
Be long ere it is born.

Now unto those who do oppose
The bundling trade, I say
Perhaps there's more got on the floor
Than any other way.

In ancient books no knowledge is
Of these things to be got;
Whether young men did bundle then,
Or whether they did not.

Since Ancient book says wife they took,
It don't say how they courted;
Whether young men did bundle then,
Or by the fire they sported.

They only meant to say they sent
A man to choose the bride;
Isaac was so, but let me know,
If any one beside.

Men don't pretend to trust a friend
To choose him sheep or cows;
Much more a wife whom all his life
He does expect to house.

Since it doth stand each one in hand
To happyfy his life;
I would advise each to be wise,
And choose a prudent wife.

Since bundling is not a thing
That judgment will procure;
Go on young men and bundle then
But keep your bodies pure.

The writer is unknown, but the verses were extant in America prior to 1786. The version above is taken from Selden Rodman's "100 Greatest Poems." Other versions are available.

ohio981

2009-05-29T20:11:00.002-04:00

For those who have called, emailed or commented about it, Jim Ross has a new blog on which he extols the major river through our valley. To reach this blog go to ohio981.blogspot.com

This is your only warning! I do not place links on my blog.

Old Poems by Other People #2

2009-05-29T19:05:00.000-04:00

We hear daily about planned obsolescence. My Maytag repairman told me the last time he was here (the third time for the same complaint within 4 months) that refrigerator manufacturers no longer offer 10 year warranties on compressors, nor even five year warranties on compressors. In fact, if you get more than a one year warranty on a refrigerator compressor, you are getting a good deal any more.

Merle Haggard sang that he "...wished a Ford and a Chevy would both last ten years--like they should." Well, Merle, old boy, mine do because I maintain them. But I see a few out there that never get any maintenance that actually have been on the roads for longer than that--but there are damned few of them, and it looks like the wheels are ready to fall off just like the fenders have.

I always plan on having to but another printer after the old one has been in use for three years, and a cpu after five years, or at least a major upgrade to the old one. And I find it more cost effective to just go out and buy a new mower when the old one decides to get cranky.

Planned obsolescence. Bad words but the rule it seems, these days.

Now let me take you back a couple hundred years. Actually more than that. 254 years to be exact, and tell you about a preacher---

THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stay,
And I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the Parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits,
Have you ever heard of that , I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five,
Georgius Secundus was then alive,
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open up and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what ,
There is always somewhere a weaker spot,
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, in or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,-lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will,
Above or below, or within or without,
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,)
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou,"
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it couldn't break daown:
"Fur," said the Deacon, " tis mighty plain
That the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;
'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for thtings like these;
The hubs of logs from the "settler's ellum,"
Last of its timber--they couldn't sell 'em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin, too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue,
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide,
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through."
"There!" said the Deacon, "Naow she'll dew!"

Do? I'll tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew to horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and Deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren-where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon earthquake-day!

Eighteen hundred: it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten;--
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came;--
Running as usual, much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then came fifty, and fifty-five.

Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it,--you're welcome.--No extra charge.)

First of November-the earthquake day,
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be, -for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whipple-tree neither less or more,
And the spring and axle and hub encore,
And yet as a whole , it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out.

First of November, 'Fifty-five!
This morning the Parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the Parson. Off went they.
The Parson was working on his Sunday text,
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed,
At what the --Moses--was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meetin' house on the hill.
And the Parson was sitting up on a rock,
At half-past nine by the meetin' house clock,
Just the hour of the earthquake shock!
What do you think the Parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,
All at once and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
LOGIC IS LOGIC. That's all I say.

The Deacon's Masterpiece was written by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Old Poems by Other People

2009-05-28T21:40:00.002-04:00

Over the course of my life I have run into some real classics in the poetry of others. But I mean real classics, not what the professors say is a classic. You know, poems that you and I can relate to.

Well, shucks, the poems will say it better than I can explain it.

So we start a small series of poems that have enchanted me for ages.

THE PASSING OF THE BACKHOUSE

When memory keeps me company and moves to smile or tears,
A weather-beaten object looms through the mist of years,
Behind the house and barn it stood, a half a mile or more,
And hurrying feet a path had made, straight to its swinging door.
Its architecture was a type of simple classic art,
But in the tragedy of life, it played a leading part.
And oft the passing traveler would drive slow and heave a sigh,
To see the modest hired girl slip out with glances shy.

We had our posey garden that the women loved so well;
I loved it too, but better still I loved the stronger smell
That filled the evening breezes so full of homely cheer,
And told the night- o'er-taken tramp that human life was near.
On lazy August afternoons it made a little bower
Delightful, where my grandsire sat and whiled away an hour.
For there on summer mornings, its very cares entwined.
And berry bushes reddened in the steaming soil behind.

All day fat spiders spun their webs to catch the buzzing flies
That flitted to and from the house, where Ma was baking pies.
And once a swarm of hornets bold had built their palace there,
And stung my unsuspecting aunt--I must not tell you where.
My father took a flaming pole--that was a happy day--
He nearly burned the building up, but the hornets left to stay.
When summer bloom began to fade and winter to carouse,
We banked the little building with a heap of hemlock boughs.

But when the crust is on the snow and sullen skies were gray,
Inside the building was no place where one would wish to stay.
We did our duties promptly; there one purpose swayed the mind;
We tarried not, nor lingered long, on what we left behind.
The torture of the icy seat would make a Spartan sob,
For needs must scrape the flesh with a lacerating cob,
That from a frost-encrusted nail suspended from a string--
My Father was a frugal man and wasted not a thing.

When Grandpa had to "go out back" and make his morning call,
We'd bundle up the dear old man with a muffler and a shawl.
I knew the hole on which he sat--'twas padded all around,
And once I tried to sit there--'twas all too wide I found,
My loins were all too little, and I jack-knifed there to stay,
They had to come and get me out, or I'd have passed away.
My father said ambition was a thing that boys should shun,
And I just used the children's hole 'til childhood days were done.

And still I marvel at the craft that cut those holes so true,
The baby's hole, and the slender hole that fitted Sister Sue.
That dear old country landmark; I've tramped around a bit,
And in the lap of luxury my lot has been to sit,
But ere I die I'll eat the fruits of trees I robbed of yore,
Then seek that shanty where my name is carved upon the door.
I ween that old familiar smell will soothe my jaded soul,
I'm now a man, but nonetheless, I'll try the children's hole.

The poem is variously attributed to James Whitcomb Riley and to Charle T. Rankin. But no one knows for sure if either of them wrote it or some anonymous writer actually penned the words.

Back soon with another one.

Jim Ross--My Friend

2009-05-23T16:34:00.007-04:00

I found out late yesterday that the Herald Dispatch has terminated some 24 employees.

First of all, this was not something totally unexpected, the newspaper industry has generally been in a financial decline for some time. But community newspapers seemed to have been surviving the trend fairly well. Apparently declining revenues and failure to maintain the required level of profitability spelled the end for these employees.

Now, I only know of one of them for sure that I think was a terrible mistake. Jim has been steady for about 30 years at the newspaper in various capacities, all of which he has handled well. I recall when he was the business page guy that I had a stock which I owned and the paper seldom published it. After calling and explaining, the daily quotations appeared. Little things. Made me think more highly of the Huntington Publishing Company. And I will always remember it as HUPCO.

My uncle worked for the paper years ago, as an assistant to Maury Kaplan. He was a photographer and was all over the area and even out of the immediate area at times to get the photo that needed to be there. Times change, my uncle retired, then died. But spoke well of HUPCO and the dedicated employees.

I will miss Jim as the Editor of the Editorial Page. Even more I will miss him as a sometimes contributor to the "Forums" and all the time moderator of his "Hot Topics" blog. But most of all I will miss the knowledge that the blog, the Op-Ed page and the forums are under his purview. I would be remiss if I did not say that I do not see good times ahead for the online world of the Herald Dispatch.

I am unaware of the status of Andrea and Joe, but even if they are both still there, I foresee a lessening of interest on my part, as I know Jim will not be there to monitor the forums.

Jim, if you read this, and I hope you do get to it now and then, I want you to know I respect your abilities far more than any other editor I have ever known (including my own former son-in-law.) I have learned of your family (as have all others who lurked around your blog.) Were I able to help in any way in your current situation, I would do so. But all I can really give you is my very best wishes for you and your family in this trying time. And keep the faith, the Old Man Upstairs watches each of us. And He really does care. And He really does answer prayers, most times in ways we may not recognize immediately as the answer we were seeking, but later, on reflection, we come to know of His wonderful love and care.

Keep in touch with some of us so we know how you are doing.

We care, too.

IF IT'S MEMORIAL DAY , IT MUST BE TIME FOR THE REUNION

2009-05-23T16:33:00.000-04:00

What a day.

Tomorrow is my wife's family reunion.

They decided this year to have hot dogs and burgers on the grill. So much less work.

Yeah. Right!

Depends on who gets that less work, I reckon.

See, we normally contribute on Saturday, the loan of three tables, twelve chairs. This year we contribute those three tables, twelve chairs and my large charcoal grill. Which had to be cleaned of course. And then one of the top hinges came up missing and the pin dropped out of the other one. And it was on the back porch and I had to get it into the driveway to load into the truck.

The hinge was repaired by using a hex wrench through the hole.

We also usually prepare banana pudding, which we are also doing this year. We usually prepare baked beans, which we are doing this year. We also supply various items such as napkins, spoons, forks, knives, plates, cups, the normal picnic supplies. And, I almost forgot, sixty or so charbroiled chicken breasts, done the night before (which is the only thing not done this year that we normally do) and taken to the site on Sunday for the reunion.

So I have the truck loaded now, ready to take it all to my sister-in-laws- place. And guess what I get to do tomorrow? Yeah. Get there early, fire up my grill, my son-in-law's grill (he works at a church and can't be there until about 1 PM), and maybe my brother-in-law's grill too. Once at proper temperature, I can then begin grilling the burgers and the chicken I just know someone will bring and maybe even a steak or two.

So I can be hot and sweaty and stinky for lunch--while everyone else just brings a few chips, some sodas, a few bottles of water, some condiments (by the way, Mary and I supply those also) and a few desserts.

And then I get to go back Monday and pick up the grill and the tables and the chairs.

And you know what? I enjoy this. I really do. Because no one else will do what Mary and I do and do it as well as we do. Yet we let them think they do so much more than us. Because it makes them feel good.

But next year, the grill stays home.

I looked back through the photo albums (yes, we actually do have albums of photos) and picked out eight from our original reunion here at our house back in 1980. I scanned and printed them as 4 x 6's and framed them around an 8 x 10 of my mother- and father-in-law and their eight children--from the same reunion back in 1980, on a standard poster board, then hand wrote the notation of what the pictures were in dayglo highlighter. Just a little surprise for the folks.

More another time.

Woo Hoo, Hootie

2009-04-05T19:08:00.003-04:00

Ooh, ooh. And Hoo hoo.

Doggone it, Hootie, there's a tea at the end of those hoos.

Well, if there's a tea, let's get a cup, whooot, and see if we can get dwunk on it.

No, no, Hooties. The letter T. You know T as in , as in well, as in teat.

Heck, I din't know wimmen had tea in them things.

Hootie, that is quite enough. You are going to have to learn to be a little more reserved. After all, you know we have someone to see, and you want to present your very best side.

(Oh, damn, I knew I shouldn't have used that word!)

'Side? 'Side. We goin' outside? Oh, hot doggety digs. maybe there'll be a woman owl out there! But, Tans, she wouldn't have them things on her. After all, she's just a bird like me. SO she won't be able to loan me one. Dang it, I guess I'll just have to do without a T for now. But we can still meet that feller, caint we? Who who who?

I can't tell you who just yet Hootie.

Or you either.

But in a few days there will be no buts about it (or is that abut it?) Or maybe butts? Anyway, keep watching this space!

AND POST NO BILLS, HOOTIE!!

Well, Whatta You Say, When There Aint Much To Say?

2009-04-03T19:40:00.001-04:00

Been a lot going on around Bootleg Hollow these past few days.Not really in the Hollow, but around the area.

Yesterday morning I went down to the Lab and had the vampires draw off a gallon or two of that red stuff so my doctor would quit pestercating me. No news is good news and the doctor's assistant called me this afternoon with the news--"Your cholesterol is 204." And I waited for the rest of the report. And I waited and then I said, "And?" "Oh, that's all. Everything else was just about like last time (which was nine months ago.)" "Triglycerides?" "Same as last time, nothing to worry about. He says just keep up,the good work on the cholesterol and keep on the same med schedule. OK?"

Well, whatta you do, except say, "OK."

On the way back from the lab, I decided to go to the Post Office to pick up the mail and signalled for a left turn onto Alt. 10. Bad news. Road was blocked. When I got home I turned on the news and was informed that there had been a triple fatal wreck out at Edens Branch.

Well, whatta you do, except say, "There but for the grace of God is me." Someone made a terrible driving error and three lives were snuffed out, snap, just like that. MAkes you want to drive a little more defensively, if that is possible.

So later in the day my wife says she need to have a prescription refilled. I get on the phone and order it and it will be ready after 12:45 pm. That gives me time to get out and spread fertilizer with weed killer over the yard, everywhere except around the garden area. So after linch, I start out to get the prescription and am coming up on the first road into/out of Guyan Estates. A guy in an older model convertible, with top down, is coming toward Alt. 10 and is not slowing very rapidly. I hit the brakes, thank God, and managed to get slowed to the point that I could see there was nothing coming toward me in the southbound lane, moved all the way over to keep from hitting said freak, and continued my trip, after, of course, giving a him a good verbal assault (My windows were down, too.) The guy behind me came to a stop and really let him have it--but still mouth only.

Well, whatta you say, except, "Glad I got good brakes and a great vocabulary."

So I do all the things on my list and return home. I then put bug killer and fertilizer with crabgrass preventer in the spreader and do the whole yard all over again. And after that, I kinda stank like bug killer and fertilizer (not surprising since a constant wind was blowing all the time) and came in and took a shower. And I'd sure like to know where I put it 'cause I could use another one.

Well, whatta you say, except, "Phew!"

Bootleg Hollow

2009-04-03T19:38:00.002-04:00

I have decided that that is the name of the road I live on and that is what I will be calling it from now on.

There are several reasons for this, few of which are worth talking about, so we won't.

In the meantime, life goes on and is seldom surprising. Maybe I have just gotten to the point where about everything that can happen in my lifetime has happened and nothing surprises me anymore. It is not that everything has happened to me, but, somewhere on this planet, or off even, the events of the past 67 years have been so earthshaking that it takes a hell of a lot to get me shaken anymore.

And you know, the one thing that can is man's own inhumanity. The depths of depravity that I have witnessed is far more than anyone should ever have to bear. Not that it has happened to me, but has happened either in view or I have been told or saw pictures or read about it and have no reason to doubt that it has happened.

Cigarette burns on a baby. Disfigurement caused by parents' maltreatment of their own children. Letting the car drive itself into a lake with your own precious children inside. Dropping an atomic bomb on a city after a war has already been won I can perhaps excuse the first on Hiroshima, but I can never excuse the attack on Nagasaki.) Killing and maiming just to be doing something. And the list goes on and on.

But these are only the physical signs. This is what anyone can view in the tabloids and on the television and in the papers daily. Much more insidious and oh, so much more painful to bear, is the hurt each of us may inflict upon our loved ones or even on total strangers. Not by a rap across the knuckles but by a slap on the emotions.

I have a friend, a very precious friend, that has problems. Some she has had for most of her life, feelings of inadequacy, little feeling of self worth, and yet she is such a vital and expressive young woman, one who can simply express her innermost feelings of love and hope and misery and despair. Growing up without a father in the home, she did not have the mentoring that most children do. But she did have a mother and a pretty large support system in her immediate and extended family.

Well educated, I guess. She can talk on any subject with authority that shows much education, although she insists she has not had the extensive education her verbosity belies. Perhaps it is self education. I do not know, I only know that she has a great command of the language and seems well versed in practically any subject which may arise.

She recently lost her mother, after getting to know her again for a short while before her death. No, her mother was always around but was not in any way communicative for a large number of years. Then she and her husband divorced, no big deal they had been separated for a number of years. But still, there was the finality. She then remarried--a fellow she knew very well for a number of years.

She has packed a lot of living into her under forty years.

About once a month, she has a swing into a period of deep depression. It is then that she writes at her very best. And I feel very privileged to be able to read those writings, for only a very limited number know where to look--and I refuse to tell anyone.

Those of you who know me, know me to be a bit of a rascal. I play tricks on people and like to be snotty to some and play angles off against each other, and generally just like to have fun. I never mean to harm anyone, but I like to rattle cages too.

You also know that I have a most unconventional belief when it comes to anything approaching a belief in a higher power. OK, God. See, I have worked out what I believe to be an all encompassing ethic that allows me--no, forces me, to believe in God, to believe in evolution, to believe in natural and the rigorous sciences, to even believe in some of the social sciences, although I will ardently tell you they are not sciences.

You also know I have a flair for writing, and sometimes it can become the most outrageous piece of claptrap that ever hit the pike, but at other times, can be the most soothing, most sentimental goo that even a bee couldn't land on and keep his feet dry. So where is the happy medium when I need to not be condescending or boorish or mawkish even, but yet must instill a sense of love and hope, faith in God, while at the same time let my friend know that she is loved not only by God but by her fellow men, just for what she is and no more and no less. Just for her own sweet self.

I don't know.

But when the need to do so is apparent, I delay. And delay. And then sit down with no forethought and write what I feel at the time. And I do it without editing as I go, and my final editing is sometimes forgotten, because, quite honestly, I have to get away from the keyboard for a while. Maybe take a coffee break, watch the boob tube, walk outside, whatever.

And, what do you know, when I come back to it I find I have done some of my best writing ever. Cogent, coherent and fully expressing my belief in my God and His wonders and His love for everyone of us.

And only one or two people, other than myself will ever read it.

And that makes it even more perfect.

For that is the way He meant it to be.

And that is all me and Hootie have to say from here down in Bootleg Hollow.

The Stupid Vault

2009-03-27T12:10:00.001-04:00

The longer I live the more ignorance I see.

A person runs a red light while trying to get to the hospital to see his wife's dying mother. Such things happen daily. Most of the time no one sees them do it and there are no repercussions. Sometimes another driver sees them much too close and both drivers die as the result. And then there are the times a patrolman sees it and attempts to enforce the law.

The driver was a professional football player. He says he slowed down to make sure nothing was coming and then ran the red light. OK. Admission is good for the soul, and brands him eligible to receive a ticket. But he apparently does not respond to the red, white and blue lights flashing behind him and proceeds on to the hospital parking lot.

There the patrolman begins the ticket writing process only to be harassed by the errant driver protesting that his mother is dying. She is not, but that is irrelevant at this point. What is relevant is that the errant driver attempts to move on into the hospital without waiting for the patrolman to be finished doing what he is sworn to do. So the patrolman tells the errant driver to stop or be taken to jail.

Watching this whole scene unfold time and again on the morning news, I still am dumbfounded. Dumbfounded by the sheer arrogance of the errant driver. Arrogance that pushed him to break the law in the first place and arrogance in that he refuses to accept the blame in the second. All his conversation is directed to his mother dying.

OK. Now wait a second. It was his wife's mother, not his. His wife went on into the hospital and arrived in time to be with her mother when she died.

Errant driver continues to wail and wait. Is he really that dumb? Do what the policeman says, dumbass, take your ticket, say I'm sorry, and get your ass on into the hospital. But no, he has to keep on his tirade that his mother is dying. To the exclusion of any common sense.

And as a result, he was too late to be there when his MOTHER-IN-LAW died.

Just plain ignorant.

But, wait! There is more to this saga.

The Plano Police Department has placed the officer on administrative leave, pending investigation of HIS actions during the contretemps. I seldom use the term, but, WTF? The officer was doing his job. He even told the errant driver that if the driver had stopped and told him what was going on, he would probably have released him with no ticket no nothing. And I can tell you from my own personal experiences that the policeman would probably have run interference for him, to boot.

But to be placed on administrative leave because you did your job? Did it in a creditable and straitforward manner? Did it with due deference to the offender?

Sure, the apology and condolences for his mother-in-law delivered by the patrolman were nice, as was the apology by the Plano Police Department. But I never heard the Department say the patrolman was doing his duty, that the errant driver was wrong in his actions--but I'll bet a dollar to a donut that that citation will be quashed. And that would also be --IGNORANT.

This whole thing is more in keeping with the Keystone Kops. A man does his job, one that he was sworn to do, and has been excoriated by his own superior officers.

I give a huge THUMBS UP for the officer.

And the reverse for both the errant driver and the Plano Police Department administration.

Jesus, what's next? The stupid vault has been broken open andthere is more to come.

A Tribute--After 36 Years

2009-03-23T13:00:00.001-04:00

We were living in Houston, TX. My wife was in the hospital awaiting our second child. I was at home with my in-laws who I had imported from WV for the big event. I was reading the morning paper, and my sister-in-law says, "Who is this guy, Ed Swinney. He's funny." So I said, "He's the local TV guru. Always poking fun at guys like Marvin (The Swindler) Gindler." She said, "You need to read this," and handed me the section she was reading.

And what Ed Swinney wrote was the following:

Start

Television
Slips that didn't pass in the night

By Ed Swinney, Post Television Editor

In retrospect, I probably threw some of you nice folks a curve with a parenthetical aside in the review of the TV adaptation of the 1931 Broadway musical "Of Thee I Sing." Reference the sweetened George Gershwin score, I added (with lyrics by his lovely wife Ira, as the blooper record tells us.

Maybe you never heard of the Kermit Scafer "Pardon My Blooper" series, a collectionof YV and radio fluffs going all the way back to the grandpappies of them all, Harry Von Zell, introducing "Hoobert Heever" and Uncle Don , thinking his mike was off, saying to a nation of little tykes, "That oughta hold the litte (bleeps)."

Audio fluffs or bloopers usually are spoonerisms, named for the real British counterpartof our ficticious Mrs. malaprop, who was always using the wrong word but which sounded almost the same as the correct one, with humorous results. For example, the athlete who announced that proceeds of a benefit would go to "indignant" ballplayers. The word in the script was "indigent."

The Rev. William A. Spooner was always reversing the initial sounds of one or two words, and this is the most common goof on radio and TV. More often than not, they're simply uncaught typos in the script; at other times they result from unfortunate juxtaposition of words or sentences, i.e., "Next week's sermon will be "Do you know what hell is? Come in and hear our organist."

Others are just plain people goofs, such as the time Raymond Massey was playing Abe Lincoln in a TV show and the crowd was waving and shouting farewells. Everyone got the right except Ted Knight, now on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. He said loud and clear, "Goodbye, Mr. Massey."

Then there was the quiz show contestant, a maid, who was asked how many people were in the family she worked for: "Let's see...there are four girls, three boys, one adult and one adultress." Another lady contestant had seven brothers and seven sisters but only one child. "Only one?" said the announcer. "Gimme a chance," she replied. "I only been married a month."

"A size 10 already, " protested a lady from the Bronx about her show gift bathing suit, "And I take a 44, so on top of everyting I tink it's gonna be tight in da clutch."

Spoonerisms and the unfortunate juxtapositing of words can happen to anybody, including the BBC announcer who praised a Jessie Matthews record as "one that should be on every British hit list" or the Canadian anouncer who signed off with "This is the Dominion Network of the Canadian Broadcorping Castration."

Announcer swho are pressed for time often run into problems. "I'm orry," purred a Midwest lady giving public notices, "but that's all the time we have, so several deaths and births will have to be postponed until next week." And the network announcer who had his eye on the clock more than the script: "Tune in next week when the subject iof the sermon will be 'Cast thy broad upon the waters.' This is the National Breadcasting Company."

Here are some classics from the Kermit Schafer collection:

"Get it at your local A and Poo feed store."
"Gen. Marshall arrived at the airport looking tall, dignified and uninformed."
"When the king and queen arrive, you'll hear a 21 sun galoot."
"You'll love this recipe for fricken chicasee."
"Join the blonde-a-month club."
"This report comes from reliable White Houses souses."
"Josh Logan's 'Fanny' is the biggest thing in town."
"Tune in at 6, when Mutual resents Fulton Lewis Jr."
"Patty McCormick, the American lady bullfighter, is recuperating in Mexico City, where she was gored by an infatuated bull."
"The 4H club is proud to present this plague to you."
"I'm proud to say that our firm is the largest manufacturer in the US of magnoosium, aleeminum and shtool."
"A warm mass is headed this way. That is a warm mass of air."
"American forces have stopped the advance of Hitler's pansy divisions."
"This is the CBS radio wetwork."
"Our shop has the latest maternity fashions for the modern miss."
"TV rights have just been sold to the Crimsey-Louse play 'Lice with Father'."

A listener can go through life without catching a live blooper, so I've been lucky , having witnessed several, including one on Arthur Godfrey's Talent scouts and a couple on the old Steve Allen Tonight Show, neither of which can be described here. When I was in New York last summer, Channel 7's newscaster mispronounced the title of a movie seen here later. He advised that there was no Dick Cavett Show, so "stay tuned for the late movie, 'Fantomas'."

I think he mispronounced it. I can' t think of any other reason for falling out of bed.

End

Yeah, I know. It does not age too well. But in 1972, it was hilarious. That is the reason I have kept this aging old yellow newspaper for almost 37 years. And probably will for a lot more.

A Quickie in the Snow

2009-03-11T14:17:00.002-04:00

Just a quickie.

The splint is off, the boot is on. And the prohibition against any weight on the ankle still holds. The stitches came out yesterday and the incisions look really nice and clean, no streaking, no redness, so it appears that the surgery went well and the prognosis is good. No more doctor visits for four weeks, then x-rays to make sure everything is right and begin weight bearing therapy on walker and crutches.

The PT home visits are ended and she will have to go out to a PT for rotation and stretching exercises, fortunately there are a couple real close.

Life continues apace.

I have been contacted by a far off cousin regarding our joint genealogy. His name is Dave and he lives in Maryland. He is the great grandson of my grandfather's brother. I leave it to you to work out the relationship. I could find little to nothing on our joint relative, so we have been updating each other on family history from each side and are exchanging pictures and memorabilia. He just began into the genealogical aspects and, like we all were at that stage, is so exited to find anything even if it is wrong. It is interesting.

I am constantly behind on the news events of the day. By the time I hear what is happening it is already old news and all I can do is pass a slow curve instead of a fastball or a slider.

Quickie time is over. Back on my head!

Just one more--

You know what a quickie is, right? Do you know what a coolie is? Look at the title of this post!

Pocket? Pocket? I Aint Got No Pocket!

2009-02-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

Not much going on hereabouts today. Yesterday we were in a dead rush all day, it seemed.

A long lost cousin of mine called about 8:45 am to discuss genealogy. He was on the phone for about an hour before I could get him off. Then a nurse called wanting to come see my wife. Then the kids called. Then a PT called wanting to come see my wife. So each of them came out , back to back, and took up about 2-1/2 hours of time. Our daughter came by on her way to work. Our daughter in law let us know our granddaughter was going to be on the tv at 6 pm, and we had to watch (as if we needed prompting.) Calls from friends and doctors offices all day long. Then this cousin calls again just as I am getting supper prepared. Hectic day continued with more family and friend calls.

Today, the phone has been medium busy, no visitors at all. I went to the grocery store, the bank, the pharmacy and the Post Office. My wife has been religious about her exercises. I fed the birds finally. They ran out of food yesterday afternoon and I couldn't get to them then. I taped the appearance of our granddaughter on the tv last night. The class was on for about ten seconds or less. Just a still photo of the class.

We had cereal and toast for breakfast, blt's for lunch and baked potatoes a salad and broccoli for supper. Yum.

No big doings today. I have had a little skirmish with some person who calls himself 'Sonofkentucky.' Big booster of secession by the states due to all the wrongly understood events that have occurred recently. Another kook from the far right fringe idiot group. Even worse than the American Society for the Preservation of Wooden Toilet Seats. Oh, sure, you have heard of them. Maybe by their other name? The Birch John Society?

Hey, here's a crazy--I got this idea from a poster on the "Straight Outta Appalachia" board.

I don't want to read the joke, just let me have the ten best punchlines you know. Not knock knocks either, real joke punchlines--like I have a few samples right cheer---

1.) Rectum, Hell! Killed 'em both!

2.) What you mean 'we', Kemo Sabe?

3.) He's a cripple, you know.

4.) Hold number ten, number nine done et up the liver!

Well, you got the idea by now. Give it a shot. And the fun part is, that you can make up your own jokes to fit someone else's punchline. C'mon, it'll be fun.

IDLE TALK ABOUT IDLE HANDS?

2009-02-24T21:17:00.000-05:00

So Mary had her surgery today. Everything went well--to a point. The surgery disclosed that the incipient osteoporosis has worsened and now it appears she needs some more testing and probably a maintenance drug to thwart the further onset. So we will need to set up another appointment with her preferred provider to schedule the tests and prescribe the medication regimen. Job seems just a little closer.

Additionally, as usual, she had reactions to the anesthesia and is spending the night in the hospital. I just didn't think I could handle it here at the house, with the pain and the vomiting, the bedpan and another night of no sleep for either her or me. So when the nurse suggested it, my daughter and I held a quick consultation and decided to agree with the nurse. Hopefully I can pick her up tomorrow morning.

Never have gotten that old tire fixed, just continue blowing it up as needed. It sems to leak about three pounds per day, running or sitting still, so it is no real problem so far. Maybe when I get her home to stay I can get it taken care of.

The refrigerator and the water heater are working well (fingers crossed and knock on wood.)

New topic--Muttematics.

I see that Mutt says he inherited a $1.3 trillion budget deficit from Bushie. I have no doubt his figure is probably in the ballpark. But then he says, with his added stimulus bill of $787 billion, that the new deficit will be $1.5 trillion. Now when I went to school 1.3 plus .787 equalled (doggone it, it is equalled not equaled and I don't give a damn what the AP says) 2.087. Subtracting his stated 1.5 that leaves .587 unaccounted for. Talk about voodoo economics. Ah, but he will say that those extra billions will not be spent until 2010 or after, I'm sure. Maybe so. Maybe so. But that is not good accounting. And he says that in four years he will have reduced that 1.3 to about half of that figure. And I ask how? And I ask why this bill could possibly be called a 'stimulus package'? Hell, we need the help now, not over the next four years. And his billions today will cost much more tomorrow. Try about 1/4 more for each year out from now, once you add in the interest and inflation. But Muttematics is alive and well in DC. That is CHANGE for you!

Well, I see his pug on the tube for his State of the Union address, so I'll stop for now and listen to what he has to say. Know your enemy and all that. I do feel he is the enemy right now.

CATCHING UP

2009-02-09T22:40:00.000-05:00

Originally typed Monday, February 2, 2009

Before I get into reading anything to taint my perceptions, I want to get a few things down.

The guys from the power company did a great job. Our power went off about 11:30 pm on Tuesday night, January 27. A tree across the road fell from the accumulated weight of the snow and ice. About 1:30 am, a state salt truck came by and stopped, apparently radioed for help and a while later a state pickup truck appeared. Together the guys got the road cleared, but left a large part of the tree overhanging the road, suspended by the cable tv wire.

On Wednesday afternoon, after noticing APCO trucks going all over the place, up and down the road, but never slowing or looking at our area, my wife made a sign and I placed it out at the end of our road. The sign as reproduced by the Herald-Dispatch on Thursday, and, voila, on Friday the trucks and men suddenly appeared and we got our power back at about 6:00 pm Friday. I guess it pays to advertise--thanks, Jim and your paper, for publicizing how our area was left out of the grand scheme when repairs were being made. We gad been told originally that it would be at least Sunday or possibly some time this week to get the power back.

The telephone company says it will be Wednesday before they restore service to our line. Another tree dropped on that line and took it out , as well as the line for two neighbor women that live in the head of the hollow. But yesterday, Sunday, the phone company showed up, looking for those ladies, to repair their telephone service. My wife told them that they lived all the way up the hollow, about a quarter-mile. The repairman went up on the road, picked up the broken wires, looked all around, apparently trying to figure out how to access the pole; gave up, turned around , got into his truck and disappeared. Must hae been too much ice and snow for him to navigate. So we are still without telephone service.

He came while I was at the store and post office. On the way I called Comcast from the public phone at the nearby (yeah, two and a half miles is nearby?) convenience store down on Alt. 10. The person who answered the phone at Comcast was very nice, promising that someone would be at the house on Monday (today) between 1 and 5 pm. After I had gotten home, I went outside to take a few pictures and a Comcast truck pulled into the driveway. He asked if I wanted to watch the game this afternoon and I said sure, if he could get it working. He replied that I would have service within fifteen minutes. He said that he and his crew had seen the problem last night but had been unable to stop then and decided to come back and fix it the next day (Sunday). And sure enough, within ten minutes I had cable service again and the crew even came back to the house and made sure it was working properly.

So, now we are down to telephone service only. And maybe he will be back today--I can dream can't I? Anyway I have to hand it to the service guys. They did a hell of a job in extremely trying conditions. As a for instance, if you remember, Friday was the day of the six inch snowfall, on top af the original snow and the later ice fall, and the power guys worked right through it from 12:45 pm until 5:15 pm at our location. Hell, I couldn't have done that even in my younger days

So here's to the service personnel of the area, and those imported to help. Guys, you did a great job. And I for one am thankful for your hard work and dedication during such bitterly cold weather. God bless each and every one of you. I know the pay is good--but it is a pittance for what you do. I know. It isn't easy or fun trying to survive i an eight room house that has only one source of heat (a fireplace, woodburning) in only one room and that room at the very back of the house and is unable to provide heat into the balance of the house without fans which take electricity which we aint got because the power is off. We survived. We kept the water from freezing, but there were times we could see our breath whenever we got out of the bedroom with the fireplace. With the best readings we could get, our thermometer showed about 36 to 40 degrees in the rest of the house and 55 to 65 in the bedroom. SO if you need to know about cold for 3 or 4 days running, just ask me.

But the cold we suffered was not like what you guys went through. And I thank you. And fervently hope that your next emergency jobs are somewhere where the temperature is a bit less formidable, where the sun is warm upon your back as you go up in that bucket or as you walk the lines to uncoil them.

And I do want to thank the Herald Dispatch for running the story and the picture of our sign. No, we are not quoted in the story, no, our name is not mentioned, except as 'frustrated neighbors.' But that is my house in the background of both those pictures--with that nice southern honey-colored pine log siding (which you cannot tell in the photos. I think the sign just noted the frustration we felt, many of us felt, as we kept wondering (as we had no telephone to call) when our service would be restored. We knew nothing of the prioritizations that were being made daily, hourly for those repairs. All we knew was that it was getting colder and colder and other people were getting their service restored and we were not. Hell, we couldn't even get them to remove the damned wires so we could get in and out of the road. The mindset of such people sometimes gets a little ugly on occasion. Maybe publishing the picture of the sign helped. I like to think it did.

So I am now ready to resume being my old irascible self. I'll be looking in on various blogs and forums, making comments, sneering on occasion, laughing on more occasions, and just being glad that, maybe, just maybe, life may return to some semblance of normality. Be prepared for anything.

I must not forget to say one thing here. It has been a great relief not to hear or read anything about politics during this little hiatus. And not thinking about it either. Politics doesn't raise the actual temperature of a cold room one degree. Perhaps it is a sign that we lie in this great country. Maybe we need to learn to just ignore what may be going on outside our immediate purview for a short while, sort of take a vacation from the silliness, and know that the country will continue to move on without our input for a while. Sort of takes all the self-centeredness out of us to know that the world will survive without us. I will begin getting my newspapers and magazines, watching a few random news shows and so on, just sort of catching up, which just happens to be the title of this note. Aint that sweet, how that worked out? Just like it was planned, huh?

UPDATE: Monday, February 9, 2009--

On Wednesday morning, January 28, 2009, my wife and I walked up the hollow to see if the two women who live there were ok, if they had food, heat, fuel, whether the phone was working (no) and to remind them know to call on us if anything was needed. On the way back, we stopped at the guy's house who lives between us and them to see how he was situated--no power, but did have heat, food and telephone service. We came on back to the house and stoked up the fireplace, tired but glad we had made the trip.

Our telephone service reconnects became a comedy if you like. My wife calls them from work on Friday, January 30--they say they will be here Wednesday, February 4. They show up Sunday February 1 and don't do anything. Wife calls again Monday, February 2, and is told absolutely, Wednesday February 4. On February 4, wife receives call at work saying there was a 'technical difficulty' and it would be Thursday February 5. Having dealt with bureaucracy before, I gave her the number of the Public Service Commission, that evening to use for her calls on Thursday. She tried to call our house, of course no answer as we weren't reconnected yet, she calls PSC, then calls Verizon and tells them she has called PSC, Verizon responds with a story that they dispatched a technician that morning at 9:30 am to our house--funny, I sat in front of the window all day and failed to see him--and he reported that there was so much damage that they would need to get a utility crew in to remove the trees and brush before any line work could be done, so it was indefinite when service might be restored, but it would be quite some time they were sure. In the meantime, a recorded message had been left at her workplace saying that without fail, the service would be restored on Friday, February 6. It was not.

On Saturday morning, my wife got the idea to walk up the hollow to check on the ladies again, as we had not seen the younger one driving out to work as she usually did. I advised against it, wanting to wait until the following morning, when more of the melt would have taken place, but we got on our coats and shoes and took off. After talking with the older of the two ladies, we were walking back home and my wife slipped and fell, breaking her left ankle.

Now I am a pretty big guy, 230 pounds and about six feet tall, but I am also 66 years old and there was no way that I could carry her the two hundred yards back to the house. I had to leave her there, cold and in extreme pain while I came home and got the four wheel drive truck to go get her. That took me probably ten minutes or so to get to the house (it was really slick and melting) move the car out of the way and get back up the road to where she was. We tried to find something to splint with but couldn't everything was either too rotten or too big. So, on her hands and knees, she crawled the ten or twelve feet to the truck, the eight or ten feet alongside the bank of the creek and I opened the door. Together we got her into the back seat/floor area of the truck and I drove on up to the ladies' house, turned around and drove back out of the hollow.

So, why didn't we drive up there to start with? I have never before, in 28 years of living here, driven up that road, and when we walked up the last time, no one could have driven in or out with all the downed tree limbs and the depth of the snow. At one point a large bush, some thirty feet in length and twenty feet high overhung the road completely and was sagging down to about four feet off the road surface. So, no, I would not have even thought of driving up that road except in case of a real emergency.

After getting back to the house, I gathered all the necessary items and the took off to get her to the hospital . She went right into the ER and after some diagnostics had her ankle reset and splinted. She cannot use crutches, bound to a wheelchair for six to eight weeks minimum.

So, no good deed goes unpunished still seems to be a good motto to live by.

When we finally got her discharged, about 2:30 pm, she got into our daughter's van, as it is much lower than my old truck (hell, it aint old, it is a 2007) and we started home. I got out in front and lo and behold, what do I see when I top the rise just before our road? The damned telephone company has big bucket truck setting in our road and two guys are using chainsaws up on that hill. Had our telephone back on in about an hour after that.

Wonder if the PSC had anything at all to do with that, hmmm?

Anyway my wife will be home with me for the next two or three months anyway. Thank God we have good insurance and a pretty good benefit package where she works--sick pay, vacation, short term and long term disability policies, so it won't be too hard a financial hit. And old Tanstaafl gets to do the washing and drying and vacuuming and cooking and --oh wait, I have been doing that for four years anyway. All I add in this situation is really caring for her, and that is no problem, friends of mine, that is a joy.

Welcome to the real world. I guess that 'some semblance of normality' went a-glimmering, huh? And that 'be prepared for anything' was more truth than poetry this time, huh.

But she and I have pulled in the same traces for almost 43 years now. We are pretty well broken in with the other. Bumps in the road only make the trip more memorable.

TO ANONYMOUS

2009-01-05T06:41:00.003-05:00

While attempting to post your comment to my last post, something got screwed up in the system and the response was lost. From what I recall, it began "liberals conservatives where (we're?) all americans" If there was more, please repost.

Just based on those few words, I would have to agree, being an American means that you can have whatever political view you wish to have. That is what makes American the greatest country in the world. We can agree or disagree without fearing that the government will take reprisals, sometimes fatal in other countries, against us.

We have moved into a new world of communication. Political views, religious views, etc, are all over the web. If anyone wants an argument he or she can certainly find it somewhere. My major problem with commenting on some blogs is that some bloggers like to censor comments made on their blogs by others. The only censoring I do is for lewdness, obscenity and gross profanity. Other than that it is pretty much anything goes.

With the proviso that I may respond to any comment. Or may not.

THIS 'N' THAT

2008-12-11T14:39:00.003-05:00

Gee, it has been a month since I've been back here. Too long. I'll try to do better. Yeah. Right.

In the meantime, I have found a new place to rattle people's cages. While surveying someone else's blog I discovered a new forum that has just been put up (a few weeks ago) that replaces the old and new WV Bloggers. It is called Straight outta Appalachia and can be reached at appalachiastraightup.com. Most of the old group have come back to this one. A lot of good discussion going on there. If you are into pristine English with no profanity, this is definitely not the place for you. But if you can stand the occasional profanity, it should work. There are about 30 to 35 different topics so just about anyone can find something they like to rant about.

I continue my hallooing on the Herald-Dispatch forums and on Jim Ross' Hot Topics blog. Sometimes the forums get rather heated, but that is what it is all about. The topics never are new, just different stories with the same old trite comments. But I like to shake 'em up every now and then. Sometimes by completely reversing my normal positions just to get a rise out of some of them.

Cold. And wet. That is the way it has been lately. So I began feeding the birdies again a few weeks back. Still haven't seen the pileated woodpeckers that we usually see, but they'll get here after it starts snowing regularly and being nice and cold all the time. I have seen a hawk a number of times, but the other birds run and hide when it comes around. So far he hasn't gotten any of them as far as I know.

I went out this morning to get a haircut. When I approached the barber shop, I could hear a banjo being picked on some old high lonesome song. I figured he had the radio on. Upon opening the door, lo and behold, there sat my barber picking it out. He started to lay it down but I told him to just keep on picking. So he took off where he' d left off and finished out the song. Then he cut my shaggy old hair off. Boy, I feel bald as a peeled onion now. I left a couple of extra bucks for him as payment for the entertainment. I came home and washed the dishes and turned the tv to the bluegrass channel and have been listening to it for about three hours.

My doctor tells me that my breathing is that of a young man. Wow, and I am on the downhill side of 65 to boot. But I am trapped in this body while my mind is still back in the early twenties. Life is pretty good, especially when I consider the alternative.

So the country is going through the changeover of administrations, our eight year travail. And I sure don't envy the new kid his job. And I surely don't like the way the economy has nosedived. But it could be a lot worse. I don't know how, but people keep telling me that they haven't changed too awfully much of what they were doing six months ago. That is probably a bad sign if you are a pessimist. I am not. I am an optimist.

The Optimist

The optimist fell ten stories
And at each window bar
He shouted to his friends
"All right, so far."

How can you not be an optimist? I have two kids and six grandkids. The youngest grandkid has now started school and the oldest has just graduated from high school. Can I really think that they will have a worse life than I have had?

I only got one pair of shoes each year. I took lard on a cold biscuit to school to eat for lunch lots of times. Meat was something we had to shoot or catch on a hook or wring it's neck if we were lucky. School was a mile and a quarter away, walking all the way, no bus until in Junior high school. No car in our household until I was in the tenth grade. Church was three miles away and, yeah, we walked. That was what you did when you lived at 40th and Plum.

There was no mall, but there were five old time grocery stores within walking distance. If you had the money you could have a ham for Christmas, if you ordered it two weeks in advance. And you didn't get to select which one, either. Mail was delivered six days a week by an old guy who drove a worn out jeep or battered pickup that wheezed and smoked. Newspapers came by mail, usually a day late, except on Sundays you had to hoof it out of the hollow to buy one at the store (actually, if the store was closed, you took one and paid the man later in the week when you went to the store.) Groceries came on credit and got paid off as you got the money to pay it.

Vegetables came out of the garden (s) and were canned for winter use. Same with fruits. Chickens were grown for their eggs (trade for cash at the grocery store) and then the chickens were slaughtered (again for trade at the grocery store.) We were limited to two eggs per day and had a chicken on the table about once a month. Squirrel hunting was not only fun, it was a necessity for meat in the fall. Just like rabbits. And catfish was a summertime treat, as was the fishing for them.

Two acres on a hilltop for the vegetables. Carry them half a mile or more to the house, prepare them, put the big old copper kettle on the outside fireplace to boil and can them up for when there was nothing else.

Hoopy hide in the evening, or catch lightning bugs. In the daytime, catch a June bug and tie a string to it's leg and watch it fly in circles. Use a sickle to cut the weeds off the banks around the house, or a scythe in the honeysuckle. Gather walnuts and hickory nuts in the fall, or maybe those great hazelnuts above the chicken coops.

Do I really think my grandkids could cope with all that misery? How about you? How about your kids?

And you know, we didn't really think we were poor. The folks that lived around on the river bend. Now that was poor. Not us. Heck, our daddy got to work a week or two a month most of the time. All they had was too many kids and two old mules. Man, that was poor.

Some other time---

THE 10 CANNOTS

2008-11-10T05:56:00.004-05:00

As promised, here is something my son placed on his blog-- wvmountainhome --.

As with him, I offer it with no further comments.

The 10 Cannots

By William J. H. Boetcker
(erroneously attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.

You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.

You cannot establish security on borrowed money.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

NOTHING PARTICULAR

2008-11-07T16:08:00.002-05:00

While pursuing the election forums and blogs, I have not had time to do anything with my own for a few days. That will be the status until I find something worthwhile to write about. There is nothing particular that I feel right now, except disappointment. No shock, no recrimination, no wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Our country will survive. Mutt is right about that. Americans are resilient. And in the long term, we will survive as a nation and rise above the bitterness that many are feeling right now. This is no epiphany for me. I have always felt this way. Sure, American is for a rough ride. But we were in for a rough ride, anyway.

America will rise above the current mess and be a better land. Someday. Not soon. But I cannot be a conservative without being an optimist, too. Severe depression is ahead, at the very least. The country cannot live on these massive borrowings forever. We will not all like the remedies we are going to get. That is life. I didn't want to leave that nice warm place in order to be born, either. But you have to get on with life.

I will never give up my right to criticize. Nor praise. Nor give thanks to my God that I live in a country where I can do so and not be jailed or killed for expressing my criticism or praise.

But for today, I have nothing particular to say.

MUTT

2008-11-07T16:02:00.002-05:00

MUTT.

I have been criticized because I referred to our revered head honcho elect as "Hybrid." But no one has given me a name which I may call him. You know, they called President Bush every name in the book and even invented a few for him.

But the answer came today, from a totally unexpected source, our revered head honcho elect himself. In answer to a question posed by a reporter during his press conference, he was giving the answer and said "...or a mutt like me."

So there it is.

MUTT.

Short Thoughts

2008-11-04T18:48:00.003-05:00

At 6:50 pm on election night, the talking heads are still at it. But I haven't seen a political ad since about 5:50 pm--a Rockefeller ad, no less, as if he needs it.

And speaking of Rockefeller, since I seldom do, I am not a big booster of this carpetbagger. Yeah, that is what I said, carpetbagger. He came into this state, apparently as a volunteer during the war on poverty from what I hear. After leaving to go back home to his multi-million (billion?) dollar home, he apparently seized upon the idea of returning to West By God and becoming the governor. So he did, coming into the state, establishing a legal residence and running a multi-million dollar ($6 million plus) campaign and thereby buying the governorship. Serving the maximum terms he then bought a U S Senate seat and has been there ever since. Just a typical American success story. Small town boy makes good. Woo-hoo!

But, I have to hand it to Rocky Jay, he doesn't bad-mouth other people. I have never heard him make an untrue statement about an opponent. And that, my friends, is a laudable thing in these days and times. Rocky Jay does his thing and gets along.

And while he is at it, he brings foreign investment into the state in terms of new production facilities, almost one a year it seems like to me. Not $5.00 an hour jobs either, but jobs with good wages and benefits.

Damn, with all that going for him, why didn't I vote for him instead of whoever it was the impotent Republicans threw under the bus this year?

I have to admit it. The awful truth is, I am still a provincial posterior opening of the alimentary canal. He's a damned carpetbagger.

**********************************************************************************

I almost forgot--my wife just reminded me of it--"So they put it on the last page of the first section, huh? After spreading it in 20 point type on the front page when the charges were made. 'Expletive deleted' 'expletive deleted'. Just like them. And I bet you haven't heard about it on the news channels either, have you?"

"No, honey, I haven't."

"Says right here, 'Report from board clears Palin in Troopergate probe'

What else can I say? The Herald-Dispatch strikes again. Whoever makes up that section of the paper is so damned biased that that ought to be their name.

And if it were the first occurrence, it might be excused. It is not and it is not. On the day of the election and they place it on the last page of the front section. Now let's see just what was so important that it gets relegated to the very last page.

First we have to pull that damned sticker off the page so we can read it. I'd really like to get a paper some day without those stickers on it. And without all the ads on the bottom of the page too.

OK, above the logotype is the normal MU sports line, the weather brief and a reference to a retailer in trouble. Then the logotype, then another large banner for MU sports.

Then the meat of the paper--Utility upgrades on 4th Avenue-yeah, should be there. TTA service to KY--So who cares, how about TTA servicing Cabell County? Now that would be news. This item rates second or third page coverage. Big Voter turnout expected--has been on the news for weeks and weeks, why is it front page news now? Short answer, it isn't.

Hey there is plenty of room for that report on the front page when second and third page items are removed. But I did notice that Obama's picture is on the front page, as usual. So his gramma died. Sorry, but not front page news. Just a way to get his pug out there.

Oh well. The view never changes unless you are the lead dog.

An American Creed-by Dean Alfange

2008-11-04T18:23:00.003-05:00

My son posted the following on his blog about a week ago. I will not give you all the detail surrounding the reasoning for placing it on his blog , nor will I make much comment myself. I think the item speaks for itself.

***********************************************************************************

An American Creed

by Dean Alfange

Originally published in "This Week Magazine", later reprinted in "The Readers Digest", October, 1952, p. 10, and again in "The Readers Digest", January, 1954, p. 122--

****************

I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon-if I can.

I seek opportunity-not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.

I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say. "This I have done."

*************

**********************************************************************************

Make of it what you will.

Y ? Y? Y?

2008-10-27T07:30:00.001-04:00

Back in the late 1950's the DOH decided to make a Y out of the intersection of Alt. 10 and Route 10. This was just shortly before I got my first driver's license. Previously there was just Alt. 10 being a narrow two lane road that came to a perpendicular end at Route 10, another narrow two lane road, with a stop sign for Alt. 10.

There were occasional serious crashes due to this configuration, as both are state highways and carried a fairly high volume of traffic. Alt. 10 was the quick way from Route 10, a north-south route going from Huntington to Logan and beyond to US 60 about three miles away to the northeast. As the Corridors and interstates had not been constructed, it carried all traffic going between those destinations.

With the construction of the Y, the number of, and seriousness of, crashes was lessened dramatically. The Y had a lane from Route 10 northbound onto Alt. 10
with a corresponding lane for Route 10 southbound traffic off Alt. 10. At the same time, the Y also had one lane for northeast bound Alt. 10 traffic coming off Route 10 with a corresponding lane for northbound traffic onto Route 10 off Alt. 10. And of course it also had lanes for northbound and southbound traffic on Route 10. Simple. There were stop signs for all traffic coming off Alt. 10 onto Route 10 and a stop sign for southbound traffic turning onto Alt. 10, at the end of the Y.

Simple, easy to enter and exit and the end result was the speed up of all traffic with few crashes as long as people obeyed the stop signs. There were a few horrific crashes, as with any intersection where through traffic has the right of way and some people will always attempt to beat the oncoming traffic. But, all in all, a very safe intersection, certainly an improvement over the straight line perpendicular stops.

Then came the advent of rolling stops. And the number of crashes increased. And drivers who normally stop for stop signs learned to slow down before traversing the Y, particularly paying attention to the south-bounds turning onto Alt. 10 and the northbound Alt. 10's turning onto Route 10. Why those in particular, I can't say, only that that was the way it was.

About a month ago, someone in the DOH approved a change in the intersection, back to the old perpendicular configuration. With disastrous results. The Y was ripped out and the old style intersection was reinstalled. And last week a man from Logan County was killed and his wife seriously injured when they pulled out into the path of a northbound ambulance.

Now let me tell you about how the intersection was rebuilt. They left in the lane for right turns off Alt. 10 for northbound traffic. The lanes were wide. And a stop sign was placed at the far right, in the grass at the right side of the right turn lane, out of the normal vision of the driver wanting to make a left turn to go south on Route 10. I know, I drive the road almost every day and for two days I looked for a stop sign. I finally found it, hidden behind some other signs. And I only found it because I live about a half-mile from the intersection, I knew that I had to stop. There was only that one obscure sign, no warning that a stop was required ahead anywhere on Alt. 10.

The Route 10 to Alt. 10 route is one favored by drivers of semis coming north on Route 10 and heading toward the interstate going east from Barboursville and for US 60 commercial traffic. They did not widen that lane, instead forcing semis to make a swerve into the southbound lanes of Route 10 to make the turn. And even then, they would come into the lane for those wishing to make a left turn southbound. The intersection is slightly banked as it is in a slight rounding curve, so anyone making a turn left onto Route 10 or a right off Route 10 is somewhat atilt as they do so.

After the crash, of course, there was an investigation conducted by the Cabell County Sheriff's Department. The result was that the man from Logan County was at fault as he disobeyed the stop sign and pulled out into the path of the northbound ambulance. The report indicated the stop sign was there and was ignored. The Chief Deputy also stated that the reconfiguration of the intersection played no part in the crash.

Strange. Everyone I know has indicated that the reconfiguration was the immediate cause of the crash. They also aver that there was no logical reason to change the intersection, but that enforcement of the existing signs by the Sheriff's Department would have made the intersection safer for all drivers. That, of course, would mean that the deputies would also have to stop. I have personally witnessed deputies driving through the signs without so much as a second glance. But the most ignored of all the signs were the ones controlling? traffic going north on Route 10 off Alt. 10 and controlling? traffic coming from southbound Route 10 onto Alt. 10. Any driver assuming these two signs would be obeyed was placing their life in danger.

Be that as it may, proper enforcement would have cured the problem , or at the least, lessened the incidence. Since it was not done, all drivers now must pay for the disobedience of the few. Typical governmental interference and poor decision making by the DOH.

Now, to the crux--anyone driving in a construction zone must be extra careful and be willing to face abnormal delays. That does not obviate the responsibility of the DOH to ensure that proper signs are placed in the normal view of the driver. A man has died and his wife injured as the direct failure of the DOH to follow required procedures. Since the crash, the stop sign has been moved closer to the lanes of traffic, and, a NEW sign has been placed permanently on the approach to the intersection warning of a stop ahead. A temporary sign is also alongside the approach some one hundred yards prior the the permanent sign warning of the required stop.

I really do appreciate the construction work that has been done to the two major highways, the widening and gravel being added to the edges. But the intersection was fine the way it was. It was an unwise and life threatening decision. It was a wrong decision. There now sits a piece of land some twenty to thirty yards wide and even longer that is completely unused that has been planted in grass. I wonder how much of it will remain, as the semis are using a fair portion of it closest to the road to make their turns. As the guy used to say, I PREDICT--that a turn lane will be added for the semis coming north on Route 10 and turning onto Alt. 10 toward US 60. And that will re-form the Y, except that the left turn lane onto southbound Route 10 will be in the middle , still perpendicular to Route 10, thereby retaining the worst of the redesign, and the worst of the decision.

Funny. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

As an aside--when they widened the road past my house--

The road makes a sharp left turn at the top of the rise above my land. There is a slip on the upper side of the road across from me. They widened the road on my side all the way up to and actually under the guardrail, extending it about a foot-and-a-half. That foot-and-a-half doesn't sound like much, but it was enough to warn a driver who slipped off the road to get the vehicle back into the roadway. Now the driver will just go ahead and hit the guardrail, causing more expense to the driver and the DOH. On the other side, they paved almost into the ditch, and with the gravel, have put the road about four inches higher than it was previously. That I like, as it should divert some of the water away from the road. But when the ditch fills up, which it will, it will allow much more water to pour over the road and down the hill into my yard. So it looks like I will get to install that drainage tile after all.

NOTHING MUCH, JUST TALK

2008-10-10T10:20:00.001-04:00

Most of the week has been spent watching the dollars fly out the window from the precipitous drop in the markets. But there are times when a person just has to get up and get outdoors to see the beauty of our area.

I walked out in the yard a while ago, before my last post, and was observing the deer playing in the woods above the creek at the back of the house. Bright sunny day, a little cool, but not crisp yet. The maples are really glorious under the early morning sun. Most of the other trees are showing color too, but the maples just seem to outshine all of them. The dogwoods are turning gray instead of the normal reds we see.

I haven't mowed the whole yard now for about three weeks. I did have to mow the area near the 'swamp' as the grass was up to about five inches or more. It is a fairly large area, between the swing and the fence, probably about 125 feet long and maybe forty or fifty wide. Took me about fifteen minutes on the riding mower. The rain we got was not enough to start the creek flowing again. It did put some water in the creek but the waterholes are still disconnected and there is a pretty heavy layer of leaves over it. I am keeping water in the birdbath for the birds and insects.

Our hummingbirds left about the middle of last week. They were fun while we had them this year, but we only managed to have about five or so. We usually have eight or ten around all summer. With the loss of the hummers, we received a flock of blue jays. Wow, they sure make a racket when they are close to the house , or even in the woods across the creek. Our squirrels have been making inroads on the walnuts for the past couple of weeks, but since the jays came, there haven't been many of the bushy-tails around.

I'm a little worried about one of my fellow bloggers. Her mother has some pretty serious health issues and my blogger buddy hasn't posted for quite some time. I have been praying for her mother and for her both. I sure hope everything turns out ok for them.

We've had birthday parties for grandkids over the past month and, although we have seen our kids, we really haven't had the opportunity to talk much with them. Not withdrawal symptoms, but we do like to sit down with them and talk, and the opportunity just has not been there. Maybe this weekend or next, we hope.

I wanted to get my wife out on the roads to see the scenery some, but she has been working six days a week of late. Paychecks are good, but it sure takes away from time at home or with me and the kids. Plus her physical condition suffers terribly with all the hours on her feet. I was hoping for a long weekend (at least two days worth) but it seems that she will need to work again tomorrow. If she does have to work tomorrow, I think I'll go fishing at the new bridge next to the 4H Camp. Maybe I can go and not catch anything, huh? And even if I do catch something it will go right back into the river.

Time for another cup of coffee.

Next time.

RIDE 'EM, COWBOY

2008-10-10T09:52:00.000-04:00

Hang on, it's going to be a rough ride.

It is almost time for the markets to open on this Friday morning, one week since the 'bail out' plan was adopted by Congress and signed by the president. Since that time the markets have nose-dived to the point that the gains of the past few years have been wiped out.

It is too late now to jump ship. The potential profits that may have been made by quick dumps has passed. Most investors are in for a long slide down while the markets adjust to the current crisis. Anyone who has invested in stocks over the long haul has made money. And that will include those who are invested in mutual funds through 401k's and IRA's.

What we are facing right now is the adjustment that had to come as a result of the gross overvaluing of most securities. We are in the middle of a bank crisis and a money market crisis. That has no relationship to the intrinsic values of equity securities. When banks lose their credibility due to poor judgments on credit risks and consequent purchase of junk mortgage securities, the only possible result is, as McCain pointed out a few years ago, a near-catastrophic failure in the system that generates a sense of panic in the speculators.

When the speculators sense a greater risk of loss, their natural inclination is to sell. And sell they have. And when the man on the street sees this happening it generates a sense of panic in them, compounding the problem. Just like lemmings following the first one to break for the sea, so the small investors get in line behind anyone who is running and the result must be an adjustment such as we are now seeing.

But the basic values are still there in the securities of manufacturers and service industries. And most of those are not included in such bellweathers as the Dow, the S&P and the Nasdaq. Solid performers such as local stocks are pretty secure.

The market just opened at 600 down on the Dow. But the credit markets are showing signs of strength today. Oil stocks are way down with the price of crude dropping sharply. The Dow is at a five year low now, at 9:40 AM. There is showing a basically irrational side to all this. And that irrationality can be fatal if it continues.

As indicated, an adjustment was due, whether the credit markets precipitated it or not. The securities markets have been grossly overvalued for the past three or four years. But, hang on. The ride will be rough for a few weeks. We will see extreme lows before it turns.

But it will turn. Once we realize that it is a functional adjustment, had to happen, and will stop and begin to creep back upward we will feel more secure and begin pushing the prices back upward. And it is now 9:45 AM and the Dow has moved upward, reversing the panic at opening and is now at down 164. It will jump all over today and settle near yesterday's close at days end--I think. But even if it drops lower, it is no reason for panic. It is and will be volatile for a few weeks but the turn will come.

Keep the faith. Behind the cloud is the sun. And it will shine again as it has. But we will have cloudy days on occasion. Let us hope the bottom has been reached or is very near and the trend is back to more reasonable levels. But don't expect the 13000 range again for a few years. But year end should show us closer to 10000 than the current 8000.

THERE YOU GO---AGAIN

2008-10-02T17:12:00.002-04:00

There you go. There went all the hopes for a full and fair hearing on the 'bailout' bill in the House.

Despite all the hoorah when she took over as Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi just said, "we won't bring it to the floor unless we have the vote." So how does that equate to the 'full and fair" she promised to all America?

More liberal posturing it would seem.

Of course this is the same person who said the Democrats would end the war in Iraq if the voters would just give them a majority in Congress. We see how that went too, huh? The same way as the promised holding the line or decreasing gasoline prices.

I now understand why they call them lie-berals.

NOT EXACTLY

2008-10-01T06:39:00.002-04:00

We all remember Honest Abe, the Illinois politician who supposedly never told a lie. Well, we sure know one now who is running for president now and I sometimes wonder if he ever tells the truth. Honesty is the best policy but---

I received an e-mail yesterday and it did shock me just a bit. I do not vouch for everything in it but here it is for your perusal. I have put it into a more presentable form.

Obama's Not Exactlys---

1. Selma got me born. Not exactly. See, your parents had you in 1961. Selma happened in 1965, and so had no effect upon your birth.

2. My father was a goat herder. Not exactly. He was a privileged, well educated youth, who went on to work with the Kenyan government.

3. My father was a proud Freedom Fighter. Not exactly. He was a part of the most corrupt and violent governments Kenya has eve had.

4. My family has strong ties to African freedom. Not exactly. Your cousin, Raila Odinga, has created mass violence in attempting to overturn a legitimate election in 2007 in Kenya. It is the first widespread violence in decades. The current government is pro-American, but Odinga wants to overthrow it and establish Muslim Sharia law. Your half-brother, Abongo Obama, is Odingo's follower. You interrupted your New Hampshire campaigning to speak to Odinga on the phone. Odingo ran for president of Kenya, and when he lost, his followers burned the homes of Christians and then burned men, women and children alive in a church where they had taken refuge. Barack Obama supported his cousin before the campaign process started here in the US.

5. My grandmother has always been a Christian. Not exactly. She does her daily Salat prayers at 5 AM according to her own interview. Not to mention, Christianity would not allow her to have been one of fourteen wives of one man.

6. My name is African Swahili. Not exactly. Your name is Arabic and Baracka (fro which Barack came) means 'blessed' in that language. Hussein is also Arabic as is Obama. BArack Obama is not half-black, but would be the first Arab-American president if elected. His derivation is actually 50% Caucasian, 43.75% Arabic and 6.25% African Negro. While Barack Obama's father was from Kenya, his fathers family were mainly Arabs. Barack Obama's father was only 12.5% African Negro and 87.5% Arab (his father's birth certificate even states he's Arab, not African Negro.)

7. I never practiced Islam. Not exactly. You practiced it daily at school where you were registered as a Muslim and kept that faith for 31 years, until your wife made you change, so you could successfully run for office.

8. My school in Indonesia was Christian. Not exactly. You were registered as a Muslim there and got into trouble in Koranic studies for making faces.

9. I was fluent in Indonesian. Not exactly. Not a single teacher there says that you could speak the language.

10. Because I lived in Indonesia, I have more foreign experience. Not exactly. You were there from the ages of 6 to 10, and couldn't even speak the language.

11. I am stronger on foreign affairs. Not exactly. Except for Africa and the Middle East you have never been anywhere else on the planet and thus have no experience with our closest allies.

12. I blame my early drug use on ethnic confusion. Not exactly. You seemed quite content in high school to be Barry Obama, no mention of Kenya and no mention of struggles to identify yourself. Your classmates dais you were just fine.

13. An EBONY article moved me to run for office. Not exactly. EBONY has yet to find the article you mentioned in your book.

14. A LIFE Magazine article changed my outlook on life. Not exactly. LIFE also cannot find the article you mention in your book. Apparently neither it, nor the EBONY article exists, or ever did exist.

15. I won't run on a national ticket in '08. Not exactly. Here you are, despite saying, live on tv, that you would not have enough experience by then, and you are all about having experience first.

16. Voting 'present' is common in the Illinois state senate. Not exactly. Although it seems common for you, not a single other senator has ever racked up 130 of them.

17. Oops, I misvoted. Not exactly. Only when caught by church groups and Democrats, did you beg to be allowed to change your 'misvote.'

18. I was a professor of law. Not exactly. You were a senior lecturer on leave.

19. I was a constitutional lawyer. Not exactly. You wee a senior lecturer on leave.

20. Without me there would be no ethics bill. Not exactly. You did not write it, introduce it, change it or create it.

21. The ethics bill was hard to pass. Not exactly. It took only 14 days from start to passage.

22. I wrote a tough nuclear bill. Not exactly. Your bill was rejected by your own party for its pandering and lack of all regulation--mainly because of your nuclear donor, Exelon, and David Axelrod.

23. I have released my state records. Not exactly. As of March 2008, state bills you sponsored or voted for have yet to be released, exposing all the special interest pork hidden within.

24. I took on the asbestos Altgeld Gardens mess. Not exactly. You were simply one of a great number of persons who remedied Altgeld Gardens. You failed to mention that anyone else was involved in your book.

25. My economics bill will help America, Not exactly. Your 111 economic policies were combined into a proposal which lost by a vote of 99-0, with even YOU voting against it.

26. I have been a bold leader in Illinois. Not exactly. Even your own supporters claim to have never seen BOLD action on your part.

27. I passed 26 of my own bills in one year. Not exactly. They were not YOUR bills, but rather were handed to you, after creation by a fellow senator, to assist you in a future bid for higher office.

28. No one on my campaign contacted Canada about NAFTA. Not exactly. The canadian government has published the names and a memo of the conversation your campaign had with them.

29. I am tough on terrorism. Not exactly. You missed the Iran Resolution vote on terrorism and your good friend Ali Abunimah supports the destruction of Israel

30. I want all votes to count. Not exactly. You said, "Let the delegates decide."

31. I want Americans to decide. Not exactly. You sem to prefer caucuses that limit the vote and confuse the voters.

32. I passed 900 bills in the state senate. Not exactly. You passed 26, which you did not write yourself.

33. I believe in fairness, not tactics. Not exactly. You used tactics to keep Alice Palmer from running against you.

34. I don't take PAC money. Not exactly. Not in small amounts anyway.

35. I don't have lobbyists. Not exactly. Only 47 of them at latest count.

So there is the gist of the e-mail. Take it for what it is worth. By the way, there are sources given in the e-mail for a great deal of this. Most of this I was already aware of, some was brand new to me.

One little misstatement (where have I heard that term used before?) might be overlooked, but this seems to be a pattern here. Old Abe must be rolling, no more like spinning, in his grave.

TO BAILOUT OR NOT TO BAILOUT, THAT IS THE QUESTION

2008-09-30T12:12:00.002-04:00

Maybe I should just bail out.

$700 billion. Large number. Assuming a 300 million population, that works out to about $2,333 per person in the US.

Now I don't know about you, but I just don't have that kind of cash to give to my banker. Or a broker. Or anyone else.

My daughter has five kids plus a husband. That makes seven. Times $2,333 equals $16,331 for her family. I feel sure she has other needs that that could go for.

And everyone in the US also has better uses for that cash.

And, wait. You are not going to get a chance to direct where it goes. But, you are going to pay it out. Or your kids are. Or your grandkids are. Or their kids.

That is seventy months of the Iraq war costs. Five years and eight months worth.

My nephew sent me a forward of an e-mail he had received regarding the AIG bailout. That one was worth only $85 billion. The guy that wrote it was a pretty poor calculator. He had calculated that about 200 million adults live in the US. And then divided the $85 billion by the 200 million and came up with the staggering sum of $425,000 per adult--actually it works out to $425. Still a fair little bit, that is groceries for my wife and I for about a month and a half. Or gasoline for about two and a half months.

But putting aside for a moment the enormous amount of money, does it make sense to bail out all these firms?

A person saves his money, borrows some more and goes into business. The only reason he does so is to provide a profit that he can retain for his enjoyment. He has responsibilities, primary of which is to pay off that loan he got to start the business. Once that is done, he is free to pocket his profit. If he makes bad decisions, he loses money, and his business folds. And the creditor is out the amount left unpaid. The capitalist system.

Nowhere does it say his customers must come up with the cash to make his business break-even or profitable. That is a risk of doing business. When I overspend my income, I have never found the rich uncle to bail me out. I have to suffer for my bad decisions. What makes them any better than me? Or you?

Of course I don't want the system to fail. But it was not me that made the decision to make bad loans. I do not bet on whether or not twenty million poor credit risks will be given loans for overinflated housing prices. Or whether they will repay them. Common sense has gone out the door while unabashed greed walked in and took over.

And yet they want me, whose basic source of income is Social Security, to bail them out. I already have to pay income taxes on that Social Security check. Now they want to take more of it to give to poor businessmen, businessmen who make more in one hour than I receive in an entire year.

Ethics has no apparent place in the world of business anymore. I could see that coming forty years ago when the MBA's took over from the seasoned executives, when the education received in four years in college was no longer appreciated, but the quickie specialization in how to wring the next dollar out of a business became, not the goal, but the overriding concept. Do whatever is necessary and screw the stockholders, the workers, the public, the government, just produce more and more obscene profit so the pockets of the new executive corps can be lined and relined again. Get that golden parachute from as many companies as you can, and to hell with how you go about it. Or who gets destroyed in the process.

And beginning in 1993 and continuing until this day, that has been the primary thrust of business and it has penetrated into the government as well. Otherwise why would a person spend millions of their own money to gain a seat that pays only a couple of hundred thousand a year? Clinton and Bush baby are as alike as two peas in a pod in this regard. I have no respect for either of those jerks.

Aint deregulation great?

There aint no such thing as a free lunch. Proven over and over again. And no hope on the horizon with the two that are running for president--again. Unless you are the lead dog, the view never changes.

VARIATIONS ON NO THEME

2008-09-15T06:14:00.003-04:00

This is one of those mornings that my wife had to go to work very early. Every Monday she must be at work at 5:30 AM. So that means that I also have to get up very early. About 4:30 to 4:35 AM. So after seeing her off and closing the gate, I came inside, made my first cup of coffee and, it being a warm morning with the moon riding lower from the zenith, I took my cup and went outside to sit in the swing for a while.

Quiet. Oh, lovely quiet. Except for the air conditioner blowing into my ear. But even that seemed rather subdued this fine morning.

I have been reading a series of books written by Effie Wilder, a resident of a nursing home in South Carolina, which tells of all the activities in her life at the nursing home. Yeah, it sounds like it would be rather boring. After all, what possible cheer could there be in a nursing home?

But you couldn't be further from the truth. Ms. Wilder has the unique ability to see the humor in life, even at her advanced age. She is in her mid- to late eighties (85 when she began the series and there have been at least five or six books so far.) Of course there are the tragedies too--the falls, the sprains, the sicknesses and deaths. Plus the romances among the residents.

If you have a hankering to enjoy some light reading , I suggest you check her books out. I found the at the local library.

Later on today, the garden will be the work of the day. I still have a little left of the corn plants to remove, the tomato plants, cucumbers and the beans. Plus the weeds. Then I can till it up and make it ready for the coming winter. I have already removed the fence that kept the deer out for the past three years. We finally got the creek bank protected with a stock fence and there have been no deer incursions since we got it up. So we are removing all the internal fencing around our garden and flower beds.

And, thinking about the deer, we have had three of them killed just at the end of our road within the past month. We live next to the state highway and there is a hollow up past our house and one across the highway also. So the deer use the hollow roads as a pathway from one area to another. It is not unusual to see herds of as many as six or eight deer going back and forth at any time of the day or night. So some are naturally going to fall prey to the high speed traffic.

The creek runs behind our house, about fifteen feet from the back wall. I have never sen the creek come over the bank right here at the house, but it does do so occasionally upstream and downstream. A few years ago, when Ivan came through, we had the highest water I have ever seen in the twenty-eight years we have lived here. It came over the bank upstream into the field below the garden and went back into its banks about thirty feet upstream from the shed on the back of the house. Then it came out really bad just on the other side of the private road that goes up our hollow, and out into my neighbor's field. At that time a slip had blocked the ditch along the highway and forced water from the ditch all over our front yard. So it really looked like we were surrounded by the water. But our driveway and private road were passable all through it.

We had a birthday cookout for my granddaughter yesterday at her father and step-mother's house (my daughter and her husband.) All six grandkids were there as well as their parents, my wife and I plus her aunt and her kids as well as the grandmother from her father's side. All told about twenty or so people, including boyfriends. A good crowd, good people and lots of laughing and fun.

And this Saturday my brothers and their wives and families all get together at my brother's house in town for our reunion. So I guess it will be family time for a couple of weeks. I've not decided whether to fix ribs or a blackberry cobbler. But at least I have narrowed it down to those two.

I guess I must be regressing. I find myself referring to the local university as Marshall College these days. I was in the second graduating class after it was made into a university back in 1962, but I still refer to it as Marshall College, after years of forcing myself to call it University. Old habits come back to haunt us as we grow older.

As a back-up to my reading materials, I keep a copy o0f Frank Herbert's "Dune" and all the various sequels to it available. I began re-reading it back in early August, as time permits and as I feel the urge. I am about one-third the way through the original book so far. In the meantime I have read about six other novels, as well as starting Wilder's series. Some of the others have been McCaffrey and her son's novels about Pern. And some have been small volumes of poetry (no, I've not written any myself.)

And I watched a lot of the celebrations of the two major political parties. I can't bring myself to call the 'conventions' as they were not conventions in the conventional sense. And I'll let that dog stay asleep.

But it is now almost seven o'clock, and time to be out and doing.

Some other time, maybe.

100 AND COUNTING

2008-09-12T09:06:00.003-04:00

One hundred posts.

Wow. It is hard to believe.

One hundred times I have sat down and written an entry to this thing.

Amazing!

About two months ago, we took our kitty to the vet to see what was ailing him. The initial diagnosis was almost too much to comprehend. Hyperthyroidism, diabetes, cardiac racing, you name it, it seemed old Scruffy had it. After blood tests were performed, we eliminated some of it, most of it, and the final diagnosis was just feline diabetes.

So we started an insulin regimen, one unit once daily, and remove all soft foods from his diet. A week or so later we did another fasting blood screen. The result was that we moved the insulin to one unit twice daily and fortified his diet with a special food.

After ten days, another screen. Good results. He began gaining some weight, muscle improvement, better bathroom habits. We do not look for any more major improvements, but a kitty that weighed over fifteen pounds and had gotten down to just over two pounds is now back up to six or seven pounds. He still acts like he is hungry all the time, but he eats regularly and has a lot more activity than he did.

So after almost $600 spent on a 'free' kitty I have to say that it has been worth it to see the improvement in him. He is already over fourteen years old and cannot be expected to live too much longer but for now he seems like a much healthier and happy kitty, and that makes it worthwhile. I don't think he'll see the nineteen years that Tommy had, though.

It is a wet, rainy morning this morning. I got the yard mowed yesterday, humid as it was. Took most of the day even with the riding mower. I still need to get the area outside the fence, but I'm not going to get it done today, I don't imagine, with the showers moving through the area.

Yesterday was one of our granddaughters sixteenth birthday. And one of our grandsons becomes sixteen in about two weeks. And contrary to popular opinion, it does not make us older, it makes us younger to be around such vital young people.

The talking heads are doing so in the background. They cannot seem to make up their mind whether the reporting on the hurricane is more important or whether they should stay with the election campaigns. Maybe they should ask the viewers. I think the hurricane would win.

My family reunion happens this weekend. I look forward to seeing my brothers again and catching up on what they are into these days. The oldest is 70 and I am the youngest at 66. The other two fall somewhere in between. Three others passed away from 1994 to 2002.

My only surviving aunt died last weekend out in California. I hadn't seen her since back around 1992 or 1993. So now I really am one of the old ones. A member of the oldest generation of our families still living.

And maybe that is why I spend so much time on our genealogy. No one else seems to be interested, but I think it will be a valuable piece of history to our younger ones. Some of my relatives can hardly believe it when I can speak with some authority on people who lived fifty, eighty, or a hundred years ago--where they lived, what they worked at, who their relatives were, and what they accomplished, what schools they attended, where they are buried--they myriad of details that are not important, but people like to talk about.

And the most interesting part of it is the differences in the records as seen by different people. There is one woman who is said to be the daughter of two completely different sets of parents (although the purported fathers were brothers) and who purportedly was married to two different men at the same time having children by both at the same time. Each descendancy list has about 200 or more people in them, some intermarrying of course.

And I have just discovered there is a dispute over who the father of one of my wife's and my own joint progenitor back about 150 years ago. Fun all day.

I decided not to do any political stuff yesterday. It just did not seem to be the thing that meant the most on such a day. Yesterday was a day of remembrance and re-dedication. But that time is over and by tomorrow I'll be back at it again, I feel sure.

Y'all have fun and I'll begin my second hundred sometime soon.

FINALLY---I SPEAK OUT ON OBAMA

2008-09-09T09:29:00.003-04:00

Well, well, well--

So Mr. Er Ah has decided to open seven campaign offices within the state of West Virginia. How interesting. Funny that he has never shown any interest in this state before. Could the latest polls be worrying him just a little? Gallup has him trailing by five points among registered voters nationwide. Our local Herald Dispatch unscientific poll shows him losing by 26 points. There are hundreds of polls, and a few actually show him to be ahead, but only by one or two points. So now he is going to shower the state with cash to see if he can pull it out.

I have no doubt that it will be by far less than 26 points in West Virginia, but surely he will lose the state by a fairly wide margin. West Virginia Democrats are still pissed off by the actions of their leaders in supporting Obama when Clinton won overwhelmingly. And, although many still repeat the old black man can't get elected in West Virginia mantra, that is a very very small number of voters.

But, and a big but, this black man cannot get elected in West Virginia. While we are pictured nationwide as a very prejudiced people in this state, that is simply another stereotype promulgated by the media and reinforced by those who do not know us. There is far less bigotry due to racial origins in this state than in most around the country.

Sure there are those here who still use the N word. And the influx of blacks selling drugs has not helped that situation. The rapid increases in crime, committed primarily by the blacks who have come for that purpose, has not helped that situation. And it is not just in the Huntington area. All areas of the state, even very small communities have been affected by this scourge.

But the people in West Virginia are still the old independent mountaineer stock, on the whole. We recognize and esteem people as they are, not according to their race, but according to their actions. And most recognize the ephemeral nature of the influx. Most see that if the local population will resist the attraction of illegal street drugs, the problem will reduce to manageable size.

And there will always be those who do look at the color or ethnicity or religious beliefs as the measure of a person. Nationwide and worldwide phenomenon. Not a trait that can be said to be pervasive in our communities.

Be that as it may, Obama has little chance to succeed in West Virginia for a great number of reasons. But the primary reason is that he is completely out of touch with us. The last elitist president who won wide approval in West Virginia was Franklin Roosevelt. And Obama, unlike Roosevelt, has no substance to his ideas. I am not a great admirer of Roosevelt, but at least he followed up his statements with actual performance. He was able to galvanize a country that had been brought to its knees economically and socially. Obama talks a good game, but cannot provide methodologies to fulfill his promises, or at the very least, has not done so as yet.

Obama's pick of Joe Biden was a disaster for his campaign. It was an open admission that he has no usable experience and is praying that Biden can prop him up. Unfortunately, Biden is the third most liberal in his votes over his career of some thirty years in Congress. Obama is number one during his short tenure, by the way.

So the stage is set.

Obama preaches change and in order to secure it he wants to spend, spend, spend. He has said that he will provide tax relief for 95% of the American people. That leaves very few people to pay the trillions of additional spending that he has proposed.

He has indicated that he wants to join with all countries of the world in discussions. But no conditions antecedent. He by his silence indicates that UN sanctions mean nothing to him. He wants the UN Security Council to rap Russia's knuckles for the mess in Georgia, not realizing that Russia has full veto power over that body. He said the surge in Iraq would not work. When proven wrong, he still insists that he would not have approved it.

Just what IS in his head? He must wear asbestos clothing to protect him from all the rapid rotations of ideas he puts forth. He changes alright. He changes his positions daily, to suit whatever audience happens to be on tap that day.

Simply put, I do not like him. A man who vacillates so much is no leader, and is not a person I want to lead this country for one day, much less for four years. And the thought that his running mate MIGHT someday be president, God forbid anything happening to Obama, terrifies me.

Admittedly, I am a conservative, in thought and action. But this goes way beyond that. Had the Republicans nominated someone of Obama's character and qualifications, even if he/she were a staunch conservative, I would be saying the same about him/her. I would vote for a screaming liberal before I would vote for a know-nothing such as that.

IT IS UP TO EACH MAN...

2008-09-05T06:48:00.004-04:00

A hellburner, huh? Well, probably not.

First, what was this country based upon? I keep hearing people talking about this country being founded upon Christian principles. I strongly disagree. Try as I might, I can find nothing in the Declaration of Independence about Christianity. Same hold true within the Preamble to the Constitution. And those are the only two documents that give us a hint. They lay out the reason the colonists felt it necessary to separate from England, and what the victorious rebels wanted to accomplish by their new Constitution, after suffering for eight or so years with the Articles of Confederation. They decided to use a federal system. And that system is still in effect today, the longest lasting Republic that has ever graced the face of the earth.

Were the framers of our freedoms and the Constitution which guarantees it religious? Very much so. Both documents speak of God or the Creator. Great obeisance is apparent. Some say they were Deists. Some actually persist in saying they were agnostic, some far outs also repeat the word atheist. They were neither agnostic nor atheist. But they did have a faith and reverence for God. As do I. I do not claim to be a Christian. But I do believe in God.

Why?

Probably I can illustrate this belief and the reason for it in a little story.

Back in the Dark Ages, some forty plus years ago, I was a member of the Jaycees. As an active member, I was involved in a number of different projects. At one time in particular, I had traveled to Charleston to assist in planning the statewide Miss America pageant for the state. After we had completed our meetings for the morning we got back in the station wagon and headed back up US 21 to Parkersburg. Somehow the topic or religion and God came up.

My boss was driving, my friend was sitting in the front passenger seat and I was sitting outboard in the rear seat. For whatever reason, we were stopped in traffic, and continuing the conversation Lee asked me if I really believed in God. I told him that I did. He then asked me the unanswerable question--why.

I sat for a moment collecting my thoughts. Then I replied that he should look out the window into the creek that ran beside the road and he would find my answer there. He did so, looking puzzled, and then said, "All I see are the minnows swimming in the creek." And I replied, "There is the answer you seek."

"But what has that to do with your belief in God?" he persisted. So I told him, roughly, as follows.

"You see, Lee, I cannot prove by science that God exists. I know He does because the father and mother of those little minnows were not rocks. Like all creatures, their little bodies are precise copies of their parents. Their hearts beat just as mine does. They are covered with skin, just as I. They have the exact same drive for living that both you and I have. They even have a brain as we do."

"Something created them, as a species, however many millions of years ago. Just as man was created as a species, so many millions of years ago."

And here he interrupted, "But the Bible says that man was created only some six thousand years ago."

To which I replied, "But the Bible was written by man and interpreted by other men through the ages. I do not say the Bible is not the inspired word of God, only that the Bible necessarily was written by man and is therefore subject to error in transcription and interpretation. We have all heard the scientific theory about the 'big bang.' Do you believe in that?"

He nodded in the affirmative.

"Is that also a Biblical event?"

He nodded negatively, but was considering the possibility.

I said, as the clincher, "Let there be light."

"Lee, as much as people may deny the existence of God, the very fact of original creation is now pretty much a scientific given--the big bang theory is accepted as the final answer to the beginning of the universe. And years before, 2000 years before someone finally figured this out, God had directed man to record this event right there in the Bible. So if there is a presence, a supernatural being that is capable of that, that we call God, that so accurately described the beginning of the universe, how can anyone say with finality that God does not exist? He has just proven his existence beyond a doubt. And the proof was right back there in that pool of water, if we are only smart enough to see it."

"I look around me, and I see butterflies, mankind, birds, squirrels, flowers, grass--all the living creatures and all the living plants, and I know that it took an intelligence far greater than any that has existed in mankind to create it all, set the laws of nature that we all are forced to obey--without even knowing we are--the laws that govern the motion of the stars, what keeps earth spinning around the sun and the moon spinning around the earth. My question to you is why would I not believe in God, with all this proof that he does exist?"

"And yet, I know, I cannot place God on a plate or table for you to see and examine. You must do that within yourself. Only you can convince you of His existence."

And Jim spoke up and said, "Lee. You lost that argument."

To which I replied, "No, the argument will continue until the end of our lives upon this earth. Because no one can really define his faith in God without saying simply that this is what he believes or does not believe."

And that is where I will leave it at this time.

ONCE AGAIN NOW, ONE MORE TIME

2008-09-03T11:19:00.000-04:00

July 26? I thought it was farther back than that!

I'm back. I'm conservative. And there will be quite a bit of political stuff coming on here. Be warned. If you don't like what I say, tough cookies. I'm also wordy. Be prepared to read a lot of lines. Again, your choice.

The summer is just about over. The wolves are out. Pressing hard upon every iota of every conservative candidate. The conservatives press back. And that infuriates the wolves. No. Not wolves, probably. More like jackals. Or maybe jackasses, as in the icon of their party.

Read a letter in the daily rag the other day that was praising old Bye Bye to the sky. Seems like he created the state and everything in it with his largess from the public treasury. Somehow it had a real hollow ring to it. But I persisted in reading the rest. And I could hardly believe it. The writer also said we should be thankful to Senator Kennedy, that white haired old--no I won't say it-- from somewhere up east. The one with the brain cancer. Why she was proud that his state's voters had returned him to the Senate for forty or so years. This despite his obvious errors in voting and his leaving Mary Jo at the bottom of Chappaquiddick Bay, no less. And yet he is a champion of the people? After waiting for some six or eight hours to tell anyone that she was there?

I saw and heard Mr. Er Ah Um Uh the other day when he was telling us that everyone should lay off Palin's family. No teleprompter, no notes, he had been well coached in what to say. Then the reporter asked a question. Yeah, classic Er Ah Um Uh again. Stuttering, fumbling, trying to think what he needed to say. Took him about two minutes to get out a seven or eight word sentence, and still sounded stupid when he finished it.

Experience keeps a dear school but a fool will learn in no other. Ben was right. The Democrats are in a feeding frenzy about Palin and her lack of experience (disregarding the other media frenzy about her family matters.) They cite her being mayor of a small town and her being governor for only slightly less than two years. So which town was either of their candidates the mayor of? So what states had either as its governor? Er Ah Um Uh says the fact that his campaign has over 2500 workers and a $30million monthly budget gives him vast managerial experience. Sure. When he is the front man, but his campaign managers do all the work. He is told what to do, when to do it by the managers, who also design and decide where ads will be shown, pay the staff, set up the appearances. And that makes him a good manager? That gives him experience? Horse hockey, to quote Colonel Potter!

He also has cited the fact that he was a community activist as experience. In what way did he gain executive experience? Maybe he showed others the proper way to use a stapler to post notices on telephone poles? Which, by the way, is an illegal activity in any jurisdiction in the country!

Oh, well. Pretty boy will drop from the high view in a couple of months and McCain can get on with running the country in a responsible manner--something Er Ah Um Uh could never do, and one which the majority of voters will prevent him from doing anyway. Hell, he will probably rejoin Rev. Wrongs church again.

I have been a regular participant on the HD forums this past summer. It has been interesting. I kept up a constant running gun battle with Jim Porter, along with a couple of his supporters and a few of my supporters. I finally signed off this week as there is no use trying to correct a stump that has only one song. Over and over. Incessantly. I characterized it as the song of a katydid--you know, irritating and constant, never varying, just irritating and constant. The only difference is that a katydid knows enough to shut up when the light of day and reason falls upon it. Porter doesn't.

Also have worked a lot on my family genealogy over the summer, adding some five thousand more people. I have been trying to include some individual histories to it. This takes a lot of time to do. Have done a lot of editing--making sure state designation for VA (WV) is consistent, chasing down birth dates, marriage dates, discovering what counties were included in Fincastle County, VA and Augusta County, VA--a lot of minutia.

I have done very little verse writing. The drive to get up and commit it to paper right then has not been there and it must be in order to retain it. Or even prose. Decided to stop the heavy work on Maple Creek until this winter, although I continue work on smaller segments.

But I am back. And will be making fairly regular entries. Some political, some personal, some outlandish, some not. But all just whatever hits me at the time I decide to do it.

And I must say that the layout of the Blogger setup is an improvement. And my profile looks skyrocketed while I was away. Who knows, may go higher now that they have something to read.

Hang on group. It'll be a helluva ride for a while. And your comments are encouraged!

Bill's Still

2008-07-26T17:25:00.003-04:00

My sister Calliope's husband sent me the following, saying that his only brother-in-law had just written it today.

BILL'S STILL

I make that old liquor and sell it quicker
'Cause my recipe's fine in these hills of mine.
My cow was a mooer and would spot revenuers,
But mistaken for a deer, she got shot last year.

I needed some money to give to my honey.
Corn from the store would make a man poor.
But sugar's delivered by a guy in a flivver.
A sled and a mule and a path for this fool.

I built my stills by a creek in the hills,
To run off my brew for to sell it to you.
I've grown my own corn since the day I was born,
And all was ready last Saturday morn.

The creek was real clear like the base of a beer,
So I started my mash with a bit of a dash.
I made me a flag from an old sugar bag
And flew it to tell I was ready to sell.

I jarred it all up, a buck for a cup.
Price was just right for folks to get tight.
They came to that rag with a great big bag
Of cash to pay for heir holiday.

Quart or a half, I just had to laugh.
They carried it away, and a;ll of 'em pay
For that dew of mine. They all like that shine.
And I didn't sorrow when they returned on the morrow

With a swole up old head, wishing they were dead,
To get some hair of the dog, what they call my old grog.
So the price I jacked up, then they kicked my pup
Right into the fire and that got up my ire.

So I didn't fiddle, I grabbed him by the middle
Threw him into the creek. He landed on some geek
With a green uniform. I didn't mean no harm.
He said, "Son, you'll be my guest. You're under arrest.

You can't make that shine in these hills so fine,
Without making an arrangement to avoid an arraignment."
So I pulled some of the cash right out of my stash,
Said, "That's all I got since last I got caught."

He said, "That's enough. I don't aim to be rough.
You know the rule, you want to play cool.
So pay us some first and then we won't burst
Up your rusty old still. And I hope that you will

Make a lot more to sell at the store
We set up for you and a few others, too,
Back up in the holler, and we get a dollar
For every quart and a gallon brings four.

Sell all you make. There's no mistake,
Your brew is great, really first rate.
Something so rare gets a good market share.
So get with it, Bill, fire up that still."

Uncle Mitch, you should have lived to see the day!

Quick, Hootie, Get me a Doctor (of Physics)

2008-07-19T19:07:00.005-04:00

A good blogging friend of mine, Michelle, has cited my comments in some her latest posts. And, while I am very appreciative of the fact that she takes the time to consider my views, the real talent shown in her posts are due entirely to her beliefs. I only serve to sort of 'grease the wheels,' so to speak.

I check her blog almost every time I log on to see if there is anything new going on. And I am always pleased to see the growth of her homelife and her growing awareness of the responsibilities and rewards of being an adult in a world gone crazy. A world where many adults never received basic instruction in manners, language, work ethic, religious matters, or family situational ethics. Of course, they didn't receive much other instruction also, or, if they did, it certainly did not catch.

But her latest post really intrigued me. It was about time. No, I mean it was about time, the noun, as in how rapidly it passes, how slowly it passes, we had a good time, bad time, etc. And it got me to thinking about my time on this planet of the naked ape. All the many years of life that have passed and the many that are still to come (assuming we aren't all wiped out on December 22, 2012 at about 10:00 AM--I'll let you figure that one out, if you do not already know!)

For the most part, I have enjoyed these three-score plus (but less than 10) and I attribute that mostly to the fact that I DID receive such instruction. Not always by parents and not always by teachers but by friends, acquaintances and just plain common sense. You know, the old 'what can I learn from this experience?' thing.

I won't go into a history of myself. Most of you have some idea of that already (if not, try reading the former posts on this blog, discounting about half, and being skeptical about the remaining quarter. Oh, the other quarter? Pure gas, man, pure gas.) But you all know I just dearly love hillbilly music. And bluegrass music. And big band music. And some classical. And some jazz. And a little of everything else (except 'heavy' hymns!)

And there are two songs that I dearly love. And guess what? They both concern--ta da--time!
One I have liked ever since I first heard it back in the late 1960's or early 1970's. It is called "Too Old To Die Young." Don't ask me who wrote it or who had the biggest hit with it, because I assure you I do not know. The last group I heard sing it was "The Bluegrass Legends" on the "Jubilee" program from WKAS-Ashland, KY (KET). Here it is as I remember it--

If life is like a candle light, then death must be the wind.
You can hold your hand so tight, but it still comes blowing in.
So I will climb the highest hill, to greet the rising sun,
And pray that I may live until I'm too old to die young.

Let me watch my children grow,
To see what they become.
Lord, don't let that cold wind blow,
'Til I'm too old to die young.

I once had some precious friends I thought would never die.
Now all I have that's left of them, are these teardrops in my eye.
If I could have one wish today, and know it would be done,
Then I would say everyone can stay 'til they're too old to die young.

Let me watch my children grow, to see what they become.
O, lord don't let that cold wind blow 'til I'm too old to die young,
No, Lord, don't let that cold wind blow, 'til I'm too old to die young.

But the one that came to mind when I read Michelle's last post was this next one. And I admit that I don't know all of it probably, just a fragment. But it really sums up the way time works. It is about a letter a fellow gets from an old flame--but it kind of sums up an awful lot of ideas , hopes, plans, dreams, schemes, the whole of human experience as far as time is concerned. And, truly, I could only guess at the title--I have tried to find it on the WEB but I keep getting George Jones and Colin Ray and "Just Someone I Used to Know," and that aint it, folks.

Time's like a river
That flows round the bend
And can never return to the places it's been.
So meet me tomorrow, where we used to go.
She signed it "Someone that You Used To Know."

The years have gone by,
Some good, and some bad,
But I always remember
The times that we had.
So meet me tomorrow where we used to go.
She signed it "Someone That You Used To Know."

Now, boy, I can get into a song like that. No big analysis, but lets' get rid of the obvious hope for cheating, okay. That aint me and that aint you, I hope (there's that old ethical, moral training rearing its' head again!) So we can concentrate on "...The years have gone by, Some good, and some bad..."

They sure have. And they sure have been. I have been blessed with two fine adult children and six wonderful grandchildren, from four to eighteen, four beautiful girls and two handsome young men. Yeah, I know, everyone says that. But in my case it is true. Plus a fine son-in-law and a great daughter-in-law. And my wife of some (almost) 42 years. Bless her heart, she is the best thing that ever happened to this old country boy.

We haven't been rich, but we really haven't been poor. A lot of times we were comfortably well off and other times it became rather dicey, and we needed help, got it, and repaid it all pretty fast when our situation turned favorable again. We have lived in five states, some more than once, from the Ohio Valley to California and from Michigan to Texas. Our kids got to see more of the country 'live' than most kids of their generation ever saw on tv or in the movies. Both had the opportunity, with loans, to attend good universities and both now hold responsible jobs in their respective communities. The oldest grandchild is eighteen and has been working regularly for the past two years while finishing high school.

So yes, some good and some bad--but I do remember the times that we had. And they were almost all good. Those which weren't were, sometimes, my own damned fault, and other times, pure bad economic fortune, the result of not moving quickly enough when I plainly saw the writing on the wall. But having a good woman by your side is the best asset any man can have, fellows. And the same for you women, you know a good man is hard to find, but find him you must, for he is the pillar of your existence if he is good, and the bane of your life if he is bad. After 42 years, I guess I'll keep her.

And it is true that history does not repeat itself. Time can never return to the places it has been. Once used, the moment is gone. Similar situations can occur and that is why folks say that history does repeat itself, but it does not. Believe me. And if you choose not to believe me, all you need to do is request a TS chit and I'll be happy to forward one to you at minimal cost. This time!

I often wondered what good a time machine would do. Can you imagine the harm it would cause if there actually was one and the operator went back to Bethlehem and found out that it was really a shepherd boy in the manger, and not Christ? Or that it was actually Barabas that was crucified? And that Easter IS really all about colored eggs for Sister Sue? The possibilities are stunning. A time machine, huh? Now where in the hell is that personnel directory when I need it? Oh, there it is. Thanks, Hootie. had any good voles, lately? Huh? Let's see, tch tch tch. Nope. No time scientists here. How about a damned good physicist? Spit, the best one is Einstein and I'd need a damned time machine to get to him. Spit!

See what you done, Michelle. Now I'm so rattled that I think Hootie is back. By golly, I'm sending him down the other side of Sandy to hunt you down and drop a mouse in your coffee. YEEECCCCH! Time. How ridiculous. Only a prisoner thinks about time. He's got nothing but trouble and time on his hands. (Thanks, Tom T.) Oh, well, at least it did get me to write something again. So I guess some good came out of it. Thanks from me. I don't know about those other 1 people who glance in here and are usually disappointed.

Brief Brief

2008-06-29T22:22:00.002-04:00

Still do not have much time. It is 10:25 PM on Sunday evening and I am here only because I checked my name (vanity, vanity) on Google and saw 75 hits, wondered where they all came from. Now I know. We'll get up and going one of these days.

TO MOW OR NOT TO MOW , THAT IS THE PITS

2008-05-21T16:42:00.000-04:00

So last Tuesday my wife and I traveled to Sears and bought a new riding mower. A mulching mower, electric start, 30" blade (single), fully automatic transmission, yada yada yada. I drove back on Wednesday morning to pick it up. Got there at 9:20 AM. Pick-up area doesn't open until 10 AM. Went to McD's and got breakfast, a paper, came back, parked and ate breakfast and scanned the news.

At 10:05 AM put pick-up receipt in slot and bingo, here it comes. I asked a simple question "Is the mulching attachment coming with it, or do I have to wait?" They do not know. They scurry around for fifteen minutes and no one knows what the mulching attachment is. I got down on hands and knees, felt the blade and it appeared to be a mulching blade. Then I asked where the side chute is, in case I decide to blow it out the side. No one knows. We have to walk around to the parts department and order it. Walk back to pick-up and the mower has been placed back in stock. The guy brings it out and loads it on the truck. After tying it down, making sure parking brake is set, I bring it home. Placed boards up to bring it off truck and cannot do it, the mower housing is catching on tailgate. I call up my engineering department (that is the other side of my brain, it takes a minute or two to reach there.) Solution--let down tailgate of old truck (tailgate hangs down at slant since no chains to hold it, back up new truck to overlap tailgate, move to old truck, move new truck out of way, put down boards for it to run on and, Voila, new mower is on driveway. Damn, my engineering department is good.

Read instruction manual, put gas in tank, check oil, all ok. Check all areas and turn key to start. RRRRR, RRRRR, rrrrr, clunk, clunk, clink clink. Battery dead. OK. Check date of battery-12/07, should be good. Get cables and jump from old truck. Starts up and runs well. But how do I stay in seat, disconnect jumper cables, and keep it running? Engineering?

Deadman switch can be controlled by placing foot hard on it, but easiest is to disconnect cables at truck and let it run to charge battery. So I do, by stretching this old body farther than it needs to be stretched. Truck is still running in neutral, mower is running. I let it go for about five minutes, plenty of time to get some charge in battery. Shut off mower, disconnect cables, close compartment. Shut off truck. Get back on mower, depress clutch, hit starter, RRRRR, rrrrr, clunk, clink, clink. Battery dead.

So I'm trying to think of a way to get the thing recharged without a huge amount of work. Aha, get my battery charger out of garage and hook it up to battery. Great. Except my charger has gone on the fritz, too. And while looking at it, I notice the rod that supports the compartment while open is supposed to be straight, and it is in the shape of a 'C'. Major pissed off. Next thought was to put it back on truck and return it. Then I remember the difficulty in getting it off. Got to be much more major pissed off to go through all that. Called Service Department, got some one in Phillipines, finally got switched back to Arizona where I set up service call for next week, 28th earliest can get here.

Wife even more ticked than me. She suggests returning. I tell her of the difficulty in getting it off the truck. We agree to be reasonable about this. She calls Sears sales floor and they tell her to bring the battery to their Parts Department and they will exchange.

Next morning I removed battery and returned to Sears Parts Department. They tell me I have to go to Sales Department to make the exchange. I then told them I wanted to order the rod (even told them I was willing to pay for it and even wait to have it delivered via USPS. No, they tell me, that also has to be done through the Sales Department. I ask why? Because it is a new mower. I can feel the major coming on again.

Well under control, I walked to the Sales Department. There were probably two customers and six or seven clerks. But no one inquires why I am standing there with a battery in my hand. Finally after about three passes past the counter where I am standing, one asks if he can help me. I explain. He says I have to handle the affair through the Parts Department. I reply that no, he can handle it through the Parts Department, that I have walked all I intend to walk. I told him that if he could not handle the exchange, that perhaps he needs to get his manager there to do so.

He asks to be excused for a moment so he can confer with other clerks. I say sure, I'm not going anywhere until I have my new battery. After about five minutes, another clerk asks me if he can help me. I said someone was trying to do so, but it had been a while since I saw him. So I explain again what the problem is. And all of a sudden, here is the woman who sold us the unit. And she gives me the same song and dance about seeing the Parts Department. By this time my cool is hot. I told her that I was not going anywhere, that if she intended to save the sale, she had best get on the stick and do her job. She then tells me that it will be a warranty exchange. I said no, that the sale has not been completed as a workable product has not been delivered and no charge to any warranty will be allowed, that I will simply go home, load the unit on my truck and bring it back, at which point she can issue me a check for the exact same amount my check was for, or give me cash, didn't matter to me.

Something must have clicked in her brain. For suddenly, I was handed a side chute, the rod, and a battery. This after over an hour of trying to get them to do their job.

Dumb me. I forgot to look at the replacement battery. I knew, because she told me, that she had taken all three parts from another mower to give to me, and dumb me, I forgot to look at the date on the replacement battery. I had gotten all the way outside and was putting the items into my truck when I remembered. Now, was that replacement battery charged? I took it to their Auto Center and, no, it was dead, but chargeable. That they did and an hour later I came home, after the guy in the Auto Center told me that Sears didn't even use that brand battery any more. I looked at the date and it was 01/07, eleven months older than the one I gave them back.

Back home. Battery back in mower. RRRRR, RRRRR, rrrrr, rrrr, clunk, clunk, clink, clink. Jump started it. Let it run for five minutes. Disconnect jumper cables. Hit starter, engine catches and I take it for a trial spin, cut two small sections of yard, probably about 30 minutes worth. Shut engine off. Start engine. Again. Again. Remove old rod, replace with new one. Leave side chute in truck. Put mower in garage.

Next day about 10 AM, I go to garage, start mower. Shut off, restart mower, shut off.

Monday, 19th. I string trim entire yard, inside and outside fence. Wife gets back from doctor appointment, we eat lunch and decide to mow yard. She will get outside gate along road, I will get inside with new mower. Back it out of garage and you guessed it, won't start. I try to jump, won't start. She will go to Sears and get resolution, I will mow with old self-propelled until she returns. Poor old Sears, they just do not know what a whipsaw they have had unleashed on them. But they found out.

She took battery with her, sales slip also. Goes directly to Sales Department. They say they cannot do anything, has to be handled by Parts and Repair. She tells them no. If they cannot handle it, get their supervisor. If supervisor is unable to handle it, get store manager. If store manager cannot, get location manager, and if they cannot handle it, send a truck to come and get it. That is their options. Pick one and do it. But it will be done that day.

Then she makes sure that the sign is still up that it is supposed to be a Die-Hard battery. The one she has is not, so she insists that only a Die Hard is acceptable. Like chickens with their heads cut off, scurrying around geting nothing done. A person who appeared to be a supervisor
appears on the scene. But no one knows the proper computer codes to do what needs to be done. She uses my technique, that is their problem, not mine, I just want my product usable, so do what ever needs to be done to get the customer happy.

The woman who sold the mower to us appears. And denies that she made the exchange with me. Denies that she gave me that battery. But finally is forced to admit what she has done, when the floor manager gets there, finally. Before he got there, they were informed the location manager was unavailable, was in a meeting and could not be disturbed, to which my wife replied that they better get someone really quick.

So they asked for the exchange receipt that I was to have been given. Of course there was none. They insisted there had to be one, that nothing could be done without one, that I could not have been given those parts without an exchange receipt. It was at this point the saleswoman finally admitted what she had done, which I'm sure endeared her to the floor manager.

So the decision was made to give my wife a new (03/08) Die Hard battery. My wife took it to the Auto Center and had it charged. (By the way, the Auto Center did not present a bill for the charging either time.) She brought it home, I put it in the mower, and it works like a charm. So far.

Which brings me to this conclusion. It is quite apparent that no one in the Lawn and Garden Department can think. Give them anything out of the ordinary, and they are lost. Unless it is on the computer screen, they don't know it exists. If what appears on the screen does not match reality, they do not know where to go to correct it.

I am very disappointed with Sears. As I usually am. But, dammit, they do have good products. Craftsman mowers are the best we have been able to find. But their Sales, Parts and Service departments are pure crap. And the only way to get satisfaction is to go to their store managers in most cases. If it doesn't fit their own prescribed mold, it is impossible for them to use their brain to solve a problem.

So we now have a riding mower with a three year warranty on parts and labor, in home service. If you can get them here within a reasonable time period. But judging from this last effort, two weeks is not a reasonable time. And their 'sometime from 8 AM to 5PM' is not acceptable either. Hell, even I could predict whether it would be morning or afternoon, even from two weeks out. If I couldn't, I would say one or the other anyway, and correct it as the time and situation drew nearer to when I could predict with some certainty.

I canceled the service call, by the way.

A Missive From Miss Sellaneous

2008-05-18T21:33:00.003-04:00

Sorry.

My life is just a little too cluttered right now to do much blogging. I'm lucky to get a couple of hours to read other people's blogs and the local rags' forums. Too much mowing, too much social crap, too much springtime getting it all together so the place looks the way I want it to look.

I got the garden in and everything is up and growing, even the weeds--or, especially the weeds. But I can't do anything about that, it is too wet. The cicadas are driving me crazy and they haven't even begun their whine (as of this evening, anyway.) Can't really mow the yard yet, with the swamp area just that.

I did buy a new mower, a riding thing that is small enough to get around flowerbeds but large enough to use on the whole place. Got it at Sears. Normal problems like a dead battery, bent props and the like. I think I have them all worked out now.

Attended a funeral yesterday. My sister-in-law's mother. Good old woman. Got a lot more information that goes into the genealogy (now over 48,000) . Funny thing, a week or two ago I am reading this book, and the guy gives a little genealogical info on his family. Damned if we aren't related--far off but related. My Farleys and his Farleys cross. A nd that puts him into my wife's family too, because her Farleys are sometimes my Farleys. Plus this author has McWhorters in his family, as do I. So I copied his couple of pages on my copier and have been adding data to my files. I look for 50,000 to be here before July 4.

We have been talking about moving my wife's family reunion next year from her sister's house to one of the parks located in the area. So far we have surveyed four of the seven and they all think it is a good idea, but none of them will run with it. Guess it will be my wife and I going it alone again. As usual. We started the reunion back in 1980, and it looks like it is about time to take it in hand again and get it located somewhere permanently.

My brother and sister apparently got their e-mail system fixed so they can now send as well as receive. I just got pictures of a grandnephew and his date for the junior/senior prom this year. Handsome couple. He is a junior at HHS.

I'll try to get back to doing some writing in the evenings after things settle down, probably in a couple of weeks. Until then it is going to be rather sporadic.

I checked my e-mail this evening and discovered that overnight 7 had been deposited and 1 during the day today. So I start in, the first two were from my grandson, the first was blank, the second was to ask me to ignore the first. Good start, huh? The next three were pix I mentioned above, and the next was supposed to be a pix of just my grandnephew. It ended up as ASCII characters. Next to last was a thing my sister-in-law sent (a fwd, and I hate fwd's) about the Holocaust. The last was an attempt to give me a link to a quiz. This one started out coming from my daughter's friend up in northeast Ohio. After two attempts to get the link from her I gave up, then my daughter sends me the same thing, and damned if it didn't have the link either. She tried to resend it but it still wasn't there. I went to Google and found it, took the quiz and discovered that I scored 67% Dixie. A lot of the answers indicated that normally people from Michigan answered that way. Since I lived in SOUTHERN Michigan, I guess they converted those to Dixie scores, too? As a matter of fact, I lived one block off the Dixie Highway! If you want to take the quiz, go to Google--"Yankee quiz", you'll find it.

I'm outta here. Time for a jolt of joe and a short read before bed. See y'all. You all. All of you'se.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XXIV

2008-05-09T07:54:00.002-04:00

UP THE BRANCH

Part VIII

During the warm days, we all got together with our friends around the area and played there around our house. Many times it devolved into just the four of us and a kid who lived on up the hollow, and then we usually played baseball.None of us were particularly good
at it but we loved to pretend we were.

Living out in the country and not wanting to walk all the way down to the schoolyard, we would play in the dirt road that went past the house. Always at our house, because the road was much wider there than anywhere else.

A very few times, we actually had a real baseball. But mostly we had a taped up ball or, sometimes, we wrapped twine around a rock and taped it up--but it was a ball at least. Bats were occasionally real ones, but many times just a handy stick. Bases were dried up mud puddles--well, most of the time they were dried up, but sometimes we just went ahead and got wet.

With five boys total, we had three on each team. Simple math. Two permanent on each team , one rotating from team to team. Sometimes it was two per team and one always pitching for both teams, or catching, or wherever. Actually catching was what was needed most, because the pitching got pretty wild at times and we needed someone to shag the balls behind the batter. I was the youngest. You know who rotated, who pitched, who caught, who shagged--yeah, me.

There was a sixth position needed, so we all rotated through that position. That was the 'caller.' He had the responsibility, no matter what else he was doing, of watching for traffic and calling out "car coming" so we could get out of the way. This was only necessary because the drivers would not stop or swerve. In essence, at times, we played dodge ball--or ford ball--or chevy ball.

And though our talents were limited, our desire was not. We played with an intensity unmatched by real teams and would argue endlessly about whether a ball ws fair or foul. Or argue about safe/out calls. Did we EVER argue about safe/out calls. But that was more fun than actually playing the game, of course. We could have one or two plays and then argue all afternoon without even raising a sweat. What's wrong with that?

Towards the end of our careers, home plate was in the middle of the road, aligned with our mailbox, and second base was the last mudhole before the apple tree across the road from out front porch. Second base was slightly out of alignment because the mudhole was nearer the edge of the road beside the ditch than the center of the road, so the distance from first to second was a bit longer than from second to third. First and third bases were a weed and a large chunk of coal, respectively. Home plate ws a stick of wood laid crossways in the road.

The pitch ws made and a crack of the bat sent the ball through the infield. Carl (the kid from up the road) rounded first and headed into that long second base stretch. Nelson was there waiting and the throw came in at ground level. Nelson had it before the runner got there. Carl did his Fancy Dan slide, and that is something you don't do on a rocky road. Slide burns, gashes and blood all over. We patched him up, then told him he was out. And he argued. And argued. And argued. But he lost.

Carl swore that he'd never play ball there again, that we enjoyed seeing him get hurt. Well, maybe we did, but he came back again and again. Eventually he and I went to college together. He was the best man at my wedding and I at his. we remained friends for a while, but drifted apart. I moved to Texas and on to California, and we never got close again. He passed away a few years ago.

But memories remain.

[Insert "Huntin' Possum]

[Insert 'Cabin on the Hill]

Now that I'm thinking about that old cabin up there above the strawberry patch, it reminds me of all the times we we were back on that hill getting wood for the winter. We heated and cooked with coal and wood at that old house so we had to get in large amounts of wood during the summer in order for it to cure up for winter use. I never really calculated how much we would get in each year but it always seemed a prodigious amount. Let's see, four rows, two feet wide, and about 30 feet long-that's 240 square feet and we stacked it about six feet high, so that is 1,440 cubic feet and a cord is 128 cubic feet, so we had, oh, about 11 cords, give or take a little. And that would last about a year.

We'd go on the hill behind the house, sometimes as much as a half- to three-quarters of a mile up that ridge and cut trees in the early summer, sometimes as early as the late spring. We seldom cut anything later than mid-August as it would not dry in time for use. If we did, it was always an old dead tree. We always cut oak, hickory, ,locust, maybe an elm, hardwoods only--never pine or poplar or any of the softwoods. We tried to find trees that were anywhere from six to twelve inches in diameter, for it was much easier to bring them off the hill if they were smaller, and it did not take near the processing time once we got them home.

Naturally, as time went on, and the cutting continued, the supply got shorter and shorter and we had to move farther up the ridge to find the type trees we wanted. A few times we even went onto adjoining ridges to locate a good stand.

The tree cutter was always the oldest one there, unless our father went along. When he did, Paul or Nelson alternated with him in cutting the trees. We younger ones never got to touch the axe while on the hill unless our father said we could. We used a double-bitted axe which was kept sharp at all times. As any good axman can tell you, you never have to replace a good axe, but you only replace the handle. As I recall, we only had to do that twice in some fifteen years.

The trees were felled and limbed with the axe. Sometimes some of the limbs themselves were large enough to use as firewood and we would bring them off the hill too. Once we had a supply of logs ready to go, we attached them together with a chain and began the job of bringing them off the hill and into the back yard of the house. Sometimes the yard looked like a miniature lumberyard with all those logs waiting to be sawed into usable lengths. Many times, the tree cutter and another one of us would stay on the hill felling more trees while the others brought the previously cut logs to the house. That way we could get many more logs off the hill in a days time.

We had constructed sawhorses in the yard, actually just crossed timbers driven into the ground. Logs were placed on the horse and then were sawed into firewood lengths using a two-man crosscut saw. Smaller logs were chopped with the axe on the chopping log we kept in the yard.
A lot of chickens lost their lives on that old chopping log also. If splitting was needed, that was done as soon as the units were sawed off. We drove medium sized timbers into the ground at one side of the yard near the porch at the top of the bank, and at the walk coming off the porch. We stacked the firewood between these timbers for drying and storage until needed. We never covered the wood, preferring to let it air dry. If it rained, and it always did, only the top got wet anyway.

[Insert 'Blackberry Pickin' Time']

[Insert 'The Chicken Pluckers']

[Insert 'Telecommunications']

[Insert 'Big Yellow Schoolbus']

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XXIII

2008-04-28T08:51:00.008-04:00

UP THE BRANCH

Part VII

And speaking of the strawberry patch, this was where, for a time anyway, we tried to grow a garden. Back in the late forties, we were a family of eight trying to live on a very few dollars. Times were hard and so we had to do anything we could to keep body and soul alive. And it was difficult. The place we tried to grow the garden was was on a hillside above the house. The land was probably about seventy-five to one hundred feet wide and went from one end of our land at the trees to the wash about two-thirds of the way to the other end. We owned four acres, about two hundred feet wide and almost 900 feet long, alongside Maple Creek Road, all steep hillside. On the other side of the wash was where an old barn had stood in earlier times. There were a couple of small plots of garden land near it that were fairly flat, the only flat land we owned.

But raising food for eight people required more than that, so we had the larger, steeper land plowed and tried there, as well as using the two small plots. We called this larger area the flat but it wasn't. We tried potatoes, corn, beans and so on. Our harvests were not great. The land had been used for corn so many years that the fertility was gone long before we tried. It was also so steep that we joked that when we dug the potatoes they just rolled out and over the hill and we could walk along the ditch at the road and pick them up. It reminds one of the tale of the mountaineer who planted his corn with a shotgun (if you've heard the tale, you know what I'm talking about, if you haven't, you just did.)

There were a lot of wild strawberry plants scattered all over the land, so we gathered all we could find and began planting them in rows in some of the more fertile areas of the hillside. As strawberries will, they reproduced well and soon we had enough to cover three sections of the hillside just above the house. After a few years of replanting the newer plants, we had about all we could handle to pick those patches clean each year. We had plenty to sell, and people would come from all over, even as far as town, to get our fresh strawberries. We sold them for a quarter a basket, a dollar for four baskets (we used quart baskets.) We younger boys picked basket after basket to sell and we received a nickel for each basket we picked and sold.

During the peak seasons, after the season had ended, the entire family went to Camden Park with some of the profits we made. We would get up early on a Saturday morning, catch the Logan Bus into Huntington, and there we would board the Ohio Valley Bus Company bus and travel all the way down to the park. We would stay until about five or so and then make the trip in reverse.

When I was in the fifth grade, that would have been about 1952, my teacher wanted some strawberries for his mother to use for jam, so I picked a gallon for him. I hit the patch about four-thirty and then discovered that most of the good crop was gone. I didn't want to give him scrawny berries so I picked and picked and looked and looked and picked and picked. I had promised him the berries the following morning so I couldn't let him down. Finally I had five quarts of good berries. The extra quart was our dessert that evening, and the next morning I went off to school taking his berries to him. I got to keep the entire dollar for myself and felt like a king having that much spending money in my pocket all at once.

Back then seemed to be a magical time for me. I was young enough to be innocent but still old enough wish I wasn't, I guess. But even then, as young as I was, I could remember some things that had happened earlier in my life. For instance, what do younger kids do when all the older ones have gone off to school? My earliest recollections, whether real or imagined or told to me by someone else and thought of as my own remembrance starts at about age three or four. They center around the back yard of our home or around the cellar door. Why, I don't know, but there they are.

The older boys had all gone to school and I was there by myself with Mom. My father had gone to work and Mom was napping on the bed in the front bedroom. It was early fall, warm and sunny. I went outside, looking for trouble, and I found it, too.

Winter was coming on and I knew we needed wood for the stoves. I walked over to the the chopping log and there was the double-bitted axe. Sharp on both sides. Ready to chop that kindling. I put the log on the chopping log, picked up the axe and let it fall. It went about an inch into the log, three more drops and I'd probably get it apart. Wouldn't Mom be surprised and happy when she saw that I could help the older boys get the wood in for winter?

I pulled the axe out. It was hard to do but I got it out. Now to lift it and let it fall again. Missed the log. Try it again, this is hard work. Let it fall. Hit the log and fell off right onto my foot. Oh, no! My toe hurts! Look at the blood! MOM! ! ! MOM! ! ! Run into the kitchen and slipped on my bloody foot. Went right past Mom coming through the door.

She almost fainted, put my foot into the water bucket--oooh, that was cold water. She got sugar and cloth and tape. Wrapped my toe in cloth and taped it after putting sugar around it. Terrible hurt for a few days, but it got better and the only permanent result was a split toenail for a few years, then a rippled toenail for the rest of my life.

The next spring, I got stupid again. Fell off the back porch railing onto the mowing scythe blade. I hit it with my left pinkie finger between the first and second knuckle. To this day, I have a puffiness in that part of my finger. She used the same treatment for the finger as she had for the toe.

I also remember being in the front bedroom and seeing the older kids coming up the road from school one day in the spring. The girls from up the road were wearing dresses that flowed in the wind. I remember yellow and green. I remember some of the girls' names but not others. The same with the boys. When I was a kid, boys in the country seldom wore undershorts at such a tender age. It was just too expensive. And we were poor. Mom made my clothes all the time. I'm not sure I ever had any store-bought clothes until I was nine or ten, if then. If I did it was probably just pants, as Mom could make really nice looking shirts.

So, here I go. Out of the bedroom, out of the front door and around the path in front of the cellar, right above the road. Why? I don't know--I began removing my shirt. The kids yelled and hollered. I went ahead and removed my pants (actually I was wearing shorts Mom had made me, blue, from feed sacks) and stood there stark naked with all the girls pointing at me and laughing. And Mom at the window telling me to put my clothes back on. But I didn't, until the kids had gone on up the road.

There were no televisions, computers or modern day entertainment back then. Just what could be done by individuals interested in having fun, and we did have fun.

Guitars, banjos, and fiddles--and the more the merrier; no booze, unless it was kept in the jalopies the musicians or guests drove; cold cuts (we just called it lunch meat back then) and hot food (which was always cold before it was eaten) like fried chicken; a warm summer evening where you could sit out on the front porch and listen to the raucous music and conversation going on inside; friends young and old; good hillbilly music--there was no such thing as country music, it hadn't been invented yet; sounded a lot like bluegrass, swing and old-time folk music played by a string band.

Some memories just get better with age. Back when I was a kid, maybe five or six, we had the music at our house. Mom and the older kids worked for a couple of days to get it in shape, not only the house but the grounds, too. That meant cutting the grass and sweeping the dirt in the yards so that not a stray clod was anywhere to be found. It also meant making sure the chickens were in the pen before dusk turned to dark. At the same time, having music meant that the food had to be prepared early and kept on ice or in a refrigerator until time for the music to arrive.

But as the time got closer for the folks to get there, there was a renewed feeling of anticipation in the air. All the local family except Grandma and Grandpa had gotten there and had a bite to eat (didn't want to eat while the company was there, that food was strictly for the company, the musicians who needed it to keep the music going and the dancing men and women to keep them strong.)

Everybody sitting on the front porch high above the dirt and rock road which stretched for about a mile farther up the hollow to where Grandma and Grandpa lived. There you could get out of the car and hike up the old road to the ridge to go to the church in the old schoolhouse if you wanted to (but who did unless they had to?) The house sat perched on oak and locust posts set on rocks, a small four room board and batten cottage that normally held eight souls from father and mother to the youngest of six children ranging in age from sixteen to six. But tonight--tonight, there would be many more there, more than likely somewhere between forty and fifty depending on who did the counting and how many times they counted each person--everyone kept moving about and it was pretty hard to get a handle on the exact number.

The sun set about a half hour ago and we are all ready. We've invited a few of the neighbors but most are family and musicians from all over the county. There aren't many chairs for all this crowd but we did borrow a few extras, and, besides, who wants to sit anyway, unless it is to sit on the bannisters on the porch where it is nice to be outside away from all that heat inside.

Of course, this is all for the old folks, us kids just were wide-eyed and wondering that such a thing could happen here at our house, AT OUR HOUSE, and us as poor as dirt and there's all those big shiny cars and trucks stopping in the dirt road at the end of the path and women in frilly dresses and men in fancy shirts and string ties getting out and opening up big black trunks with locks on them and there's those beautiful guitars and banjos and fiddles with the pretty wood and funny shape and there's Uncle Lee and old Bumgardner and nobody plays as sweet as Uncle Lee and there's Frank and Ab and Ab's dancing with Mom right there in the road and Mildred's just laughing and there's Bud with his new Cadillac and his old wife and now Grandma and Grandpa are getting out and Bud's helping Pa up the hill to the house and could there ever be a better night in the whole world and I never dreamed it could be this good and I hope it never ends.

But, it did, of course. And for a few days, the glow lingered. Eventually, it faded entirely and the reality that we were still dirt poor and, while we would never forget entirely all the fun we had, we also knew that we needed to work the garden truck and get it canned and get the wood in off the hill for the winter and re-dig the coal lot so we could get a load to burn later on when it got so really cold in that drafty old house.

That drafty old house got torn down and burned sometime in the late sixties. We had moved out in 1959 when I began college in town. The man who bought the place from Mom and Dad wanted to put a trailer there for his boy and his wife. I guess that was okay, and even though the trailer is still there, every time that I come up this hollow I still see that ramshackle old place with the front and back paths and the privy setting on the bank and I hear the strains of that wild hillbilly music in the air.

(Next--Play Ball)

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XXII

2008-04-23T07:02:00.004-04:00

UP THE BRANCH

Part VI

Back when I was in grade school, it was located on the hard road a little more than a quarter mile north of the hollow road. And most years while I went to that school, we had tinder dry summers followed by the hills burning . Some said that people lit the fires. And they probably did. The state or county would pay five cents an hour for folks to fight those fires. Admittedly not much, but more than the nothing some of these people got while sitting on their backsides doing nothing. So we always suspected that the people who lit the fires were the very same as those who were first to volunteer to fight them. We had a pretty good basis. The fires were always close to the residences of the firefighters and were recurrent from year to year. It was not unusual for the same patch of hillside to burn two or three times within a month or so.

There was one year, I think I was in the fourth or fifth grade then, that the hill across the hard road from the school was on fire at least five times in the space of a month or so. This, in and of itself, would have been strange. But even stranger was the fact that there were no homes located anywhere near where these fires started. The start of the fires was near the top of the hill. The hill itself was one that started near the Forks and went all the way over the ridge to near the cemetery, a distance of about three or four miles. How fires could start in the middle of the top of the hill would need to be explained by someone else. I can't. You might say that it was fox or coon hunters, but these fires started in the middle of the day, long after any such hunters would have gone home for the day. Just a mystery, like a lot of things that occur and those responsible keep their mouths closed.

And speaking of hunting, we all liked to hunt when we were kids. Squirrel hunting was the favorite kind of hunting, although we did rabbit hunt, grouse and quail hunt, too. But we all looked forward to the second Saturday in October because that was when squirrel season began. It didn't end until mid-January but the prime hunting, after the season officially started, was up until Thanksgiving. After that it was rabbits. Many of the young bucks went out after squirrels before the season started, including my oldest brother, but most waited until it was legal. Of course, you know when the very best time to hunt squirrels is--when the horse weeds bloom, around the end of August to late September. Usually by the start of the legal season, some of the guys had fifteen to thirty tails already--they had to be careful who they bragged to, though, word might get back to the game wardens.

Being kids with not a whole lot to keep us busy after we got the wood in for the winter and got rid of the strawberries in the late spring, and since baseball only took a couple of days a week, we decided to get ready for the season's hunting by clearing the paths in the woods that we would use that fall. We made regular maintenance trips to keep the paths clear each week. The paths were cleared to a pretty much uniform width of two feet and we didn't stop with just the floor of the woods. Oh no, we also clipped branches off that we thought might impinge upon our silent movements.

After these major improvements, we were sure we would reap a large harvest of squirrels. Well, to tell the truth--if you went hunting in the morning, you were in the woods and seated before daybreak, so you didn't need to have those clean paths. If it was damp, again, you didn't need clean paths. Only in the dry daytime or in case you hunted while walking--we did not, usually--were the cleaned paths of much use. The idea was great and kept us occupied , with the persistence known only to kids, for a number of years anyway.

The first time I hunted with a gun, I was about eleven years old. We got up early and went back behind Bub's place on the hill across the road from where we lived. We went over the hill of course, much safer and much shorter than walking down the road and up the branch, then up the hill in the middle of the night past the dogs and landowners with guns. I positioned myself about ten or twelve feet uphill from the path that traversed the break of the hill. Just in front of me, on the downhill side of the path, was a sapling of perhaps eight inches in thickness, with an old rusty fence of barbed wire attached to it. Where the top strand of wire was attached, there was an enlargement of the bole, probably caused by the attachment of the wire a long time ago. It was circular and about a foot or so in diameter.

I was using a .22 single shot rifle with long rifle hollow points for ammunition. We had borrowed the rifle from a friend as we only had three guns in the house and my brothers were using them. I had shot a rifle probably fifteen or twenty times before and really had no idea whether I could hit a squirrel with a shot or not.

About an hour after daybreak, a squirrel came up the hill and perched on the sapling, astraddle of the enlargement. I raised the rifle to position, aimed and pulled on the trigger. Nothing happened. It took me a few seconds to remember--the safety was on. he squirrel remained quiet on the tree, waiting on me I suppose. Silently I removed the safety and then re-aimed. I couldn't keep the gun steady. Buck fever at its' shaking worst. Hands and body shaking, teeth chattering--just a mess. I breathed in and out heavily two or three times and the shakes were gone. I re-aimed and fired. Nothing happened, the squirrel just stayed there, didn't twitch, didn't fall off, didn't do anything. Just sat there as it was before.

Well, nothing to do but do it over. Up with the gun after reloading, aim and fire. Okay. Nothing happening again. What is going on here? I aimed for the head and I didn't see any wood chipped away. Could I have missed the entire tree? Am I that bad a shot? Once more, up with the gun, reload, aim well and shoot. Still no action by the squirrel.

Only one thing to do now. I got up as slowly as I could. Walked slowly as I could. I poked the squirrel with the barrel of the rifle. Nothing. But I can see the bullets have hit one on top of the other right through the head of the squirrel and the last one is shining in the sunlight lodged in the head. I pulled the squirrel by the tail and it came loose. I carried it back to my spot, sat down, laid the squirrel beside me and waited for my brothers to finish their hunt, because I was finished. I couldn't possibly feel any better than I did sitting there that warm morning with a squirrel by my side. One morning on the hunt, one tail for me.

(Insert Bombs Away here)

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XXI

2008-04-22T07:52:00.003-04:00

UP THE BRANCH

Part V

Thinking of that old woman who lived across the bottom in that old shack who watched her privy float away and be destroyed by hitting the bridge reminds me of some other zany things she did or was a part of--

We all had fun when the postman came by in his truck. We were on a rural route and the mail was delivered every day by a short little old guy from up the hard road. She could see the intersection of the hard road and our branch from where she lived, and we always knew when the driver had turned into our hollow road because she would suddenly burst out of her house and practically run to the mailboxes down by the bridge going up the branch where she lived. Poor old Joe was shanghaied every day for about an hour talking with her. She would stand there for a few minutes, then put her foot up on the running board and gab for an hour or more. All the time, Joe was trying to get out of the conversation by easing the truck forward. She would take her foot off the running board momentarily and grab hold of the mirror on the truck, effectively stopping him. This would be repeated time and again, until the truck was twenty or thirty feet beyond the mailboxes, and, finally, she would let him go.

Up on the hill in the woods, just before our house, we had put old bedsteads and springs out in the woods as we had gotten new ones. We would go out there in good weather and play. There was a path going around the side of our hill out to the place where we had put them and we'd go out there and hide when we thought Mom was about to tan our hides. But, woe unto us, if she found us out there hiding.

We eventually got smart and placed leaves all over the springs that we had turned on their sides to make a fort so that she couldn't see us. One day, in the fall when leaves had fallen all over, my two next older brothers, Bob and Lee, came back to the house and told me of a trick they were doing. I wanted to see for myself and we all three went out to the fort. Bob lit a match t the leaves on the side of the fort. The idea was to blow the fire out before it got big. We did that a few times and it was really fun. But the last time, we weren't quite quick enough. Boy, did that fire ever get big fast. Before we knew it, the entire fort was flaming and we ran back to the house to tell Mom. By that time, the old woman across the bottom was out yelling that she was going to call the sheriff unless we put the fire out.

We couldn't get it out, of course, and she didn't call the sheriff. The fire took off up the hill and got to the gas road where it stopped without damaging any more of her property (actually it wasn't her property, but her brothers', but he had moved away a long time ago so she thought it was hers. What a rude awakening when a couple years later it was sold and she didn't get a dime out of it!) But it did go through a small hollow where there was a path from our house to a basketball court we had built on top of the hill. At that one place on the gas road, it had jumped it and gone over probably an acre or two of open field to the top of the hill overlooking Clint's house. At this point the fire would have had to go downhill to keep burning and fires don't do that too often. We were lucky on that one, because if it had gone downhill, it would have gotten into a broom sedge patch and then gone all over the hills. Other than our backsides, the only casualty was my brother's cap. It had fallen off some time previously, I guess, and we found it lying smoldering by the path near the top of the hill.

One night our father came home from work about one o'clock in the morning and got us out of bed to go fight a fire that was burning near the gas well. It was probably about five in the morning before we got that one out. We took hoes with us and cleared lines around the fire then went back inside the lines to put out any of the fire that was still burning. After we got back to the house, Mom fixed us biscuits and eggs with cereal for breakfast and let us go back to bed. We did not go to school that day.

There was another time that a guy over on another adjoining ridge let a fire get away, supposedly from his moonshine still. The fire burned up the hill from his house and came over the ridge and down toward our house. It had gotten to the top of the hill just above our house and we got five gallons of kerosene from the store to set backfires with. There were about eight or ten of us, neighbors included, that went up into our strawberry patch and we set fire to the broom sedge at the edge of it all along the entire line, all at once. Whoosh. The fire caught in the broom sedge and took off up the hill so fast that it didn't have time to get into the trees but stayed on the ground like we wanted it to do. After the fire was out, we did a walkthrough to make sure there were no hotspots and found three rabbits that didn't make it out of the way in time.

JUST AN UPDATE

2008-04-21T08:40:00.000-04:00

Life around the old ranch has been a little hectic of late. With the advent of spring and all the attendant work required to get the place spruced up, there has been precious little time to do much of anything else. And this will continue for a while longer. But I will try to blog a little more often.

I may have located the outfit through which I may publish my book(s). I haven't made up my mind yet, but it is a good possibility. The production costs seem better and the arrangements are more to my liking than what I've found previously. And I would not be in the distribution business nearly as much.

We had the entire family, less one granddaughter, here yesterday for my wife's birthday celebration.

The redbud trees are gorgeous and the dogwoods are beginning to show a lot of white and red. The grass literally grows an inch a day it seems. I got the garden tilled for the first time last week. The pear trees are off bloom now, but the plum tree is just beginning. Lots of bloom this year on my Granny Smith apple tree.

I will be out looking for mulch today. I need about 100 to 150 cubic feet so it will take a number of trips.

The birds are getting a lot of food from nature now, so I'm scaling back the filling of the feeders somewhat. I thought I saw the first hummingbird last week but it was just a passer through if I did. It has not come back. When it does, the feeders are ready for them.

It is 8:36 AM and the sun just came through the window. Time to get about todays' business. More another time.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XX

2008-04-10T06:54:00.002-04:00

UP THE BRANCH

Part IV

DEDICATION

This collection of memories is dedicated to Karen and Ron, Mike and Tammy, Kristen, Christopher, Katelyn, Benjamin, Michelle and Erin--children and spouses and all six of the grandchildren, all of whom inspire me to do what I enjoy doing--writing. And especially to Mary, my wonderful wife who puts up with me everyday, and keeps me as sane as I am.

PREFACE

UP THE BRANCH

So.
Here I am.
And what has it been, forty years or more since I last stood on this road? Sure, I've driven past it hundreds of times on my way here or there during that time? I've even driven over it a number of times, but have never gotten out and walked on it, like I did when I was a kid, for too long.

But here I am.

And I'm so glad that you chose to be with me today. Having a grandchild with me today just makes this trip extra special. I would have enjoyed it on my own, but you add so much to the occasion, for memories are better when shared with someone you love. And you other folks can join us if you want to share in those memories.

Come along, and let me tell you some things I remember as we walk up the branch. And you know that each memory that comes will bring another one. And probably not in the order in which it occurred, either. But let's start up the branch and discover were I used to live and what may have made me the person I am today. We won't walk fast, we've got all day.

You don't need to say anything, unless you want to. I'll do the talking--I always am, anyway. And, sometimes, I'm going to forget that you are here beside me and just ramble on. I'll stop here and there, to rest and remember. Most of the places that I'll stop at are very dear to my memories. And a few of those memories are so special, I'll probably just not share them with you--I'll just stop and smile--and you will know then that I am happy.

You will have memories like that too, my child. When you get a little more age on you. But stay a child as long as you can. And when you are all grown up, you will have those wonderful memories to last you the rest of your life.

A wise man once said that youth is wasted on the young. From an old mans' perspective, he may have been right. But I would not want to be young again without the knowledge that I have gained by growing older, and the memories that keep me company. And you children are what keeps me forever young, if not in body, at least in spirit. To hear your voices, to share your hopes and plans, your dreams--what more could a grandfather ask for?

So walk with me for a spell. Indulge me for a while. Perhaps we will both be richer for it.

Papaw

(Final date here)

FAMILY TIES AND OLD TOM T.

2008-04-09T20:43:00.001-04:00

As I was in town today, I stopped by to see my brother who lives in Guyandotte. He was still sitting in that old straightbacked chair in the kitchen watching tv when I walked in. I think I may have surprsied him by walking in. Don't think he expected me. Of course I didn't call as I was already at 31st and Fifth before I decided to go see him. Well, a block or two before it but it took me that long to get into the right (left) lane to make the turn to get into Guyandotte. Wish to hell they'd get that bridge replaced.

We rambled over a lot of territory, like we always do. From kids to grandkids to other family members. Spent time on the genealogy, discussing my blog, his and my writings and how easy it is if you have the touch and how very difficult it can be if you don't. And how some people are storytellers by mouth and some are by the written word.

We talked and talked about everything and nothing. But we finally got a handle on the world. And decided that we'd give it to the squirrels. (Thanks, Tom T. Hall, you are a lifesaver and a hell of a poet, boy.)

After I left I came up Route 2 to Little Seven Mile and went across the connector to Route 60, back to Alternate 10 and on home, forgetting to get the prescription filled so I'll have to do that in the morning, along with all the other stuff, before the girls get here between noon and 12.30. Supposed to have both Shellie and Kate for the afternoon 'til their Dad comes to pick them up.

I may get another story off tomorrow morning, or maybe just a poem or two. Depends on the time I imagine.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XIX

2008-04-08T11:40:00.000-04:00

UP THE BRANCH

Part III

I see the Highway Department has never gotten rid of the old concrete bridge just fifty yards or so up the hollow. It is one of the few remaining ones with the high concrete walls on the sides. The WPA built it when they improved the road back in the Thirties.

Two branches meet just south of the bridge and then go beneath it on their way to the Forks. The main branch comes out of the hollow and the smaller one drains the hills to the south. At this point the branch is about two thirds of the way to the Forks where it meets the northern branch coming down from Ferguson Ridge to form the major creek that flows on to the river which is about a half mile to the northeast from the Forks.

Standing on this old bridge again reminds me of the time the school was having its' usual Fall Social. At that time the school was housed on the same land where the transmission shop is now located. As was normal, every time there was a social, the same old prank was played. Someone would stand by the hard road, across from the schoolhouse, and wait for the Logan bus (actually it was either a Consolidated or Trailways bus, but we always called it the Logan bus.) The driver would be flaged down and was told there was a man who needed to catch the bus to get home, to get to work or whatever tale could be thought of quickly. The driver would let the bus idle there for five or ten minutes, getting impatient to be on his way, blowing the horn repeatedly, and then finally driving off, while we laughed and laughed.

Later, on our way home, we had all reached this old bridge just at the start of the hollow. There were seven of us from our immediate family, my five brothers, myself and Mom. My father always worked evening shift and was never able to go with us. Then my two bachelor uncles from up in the head of the hollow were along. There were many more folks walking with us, practically all the parents and kids from up the hollow, maybe twenty-five or so more, strung out in front of us and behind us. When the school had a social, everyone came, whether they had any money to spend or not.

We were sitting on the walls of the bridge, or just standing, talking. It was a warm fall evening, everyone having a good time. We noticed a car pull of the hard road into the hollow but we didn't pay all that much attention since it was moving very slowly due to the large number of people there. Although it took some time, we all moved over to the side as far as we could and continued the talk and laughter. Just country folks having a chance to get together in a friendly atmosphere.

As the car got closer, we could see that it was Jim and Norma. Now Jim was not the best liked guy around. He was tolerated, as was his wife, a pinch-faced, sharp tongued woman. As the car rolled slowly past the group on the bridge, my oldest brother (Bill was probably about seventeen or so and I was probably seven or eight) suddenly yelled that Jim had run over his foot and took off after the car. He reached it at the end of the bridge and slammed his fist into the rear fender of the car, making a huge dent. Jim never stopped, just accelerated slightly and rolled on up the road.

Of course, he had not driven over my brother's foot, that was just a ruse to let Bill do something. And Jim had to know that. Off to the right of the bridge was the narrow road that led to Clints' house. He and Aldine bought the house and lived there while I was growing up. I can just barely remember the old woman who owned it before Clint and Aldine took it over. They had a kid, a boy, and I cannot for the life of me remember his name, I think Gary, but not sure. The house itself was a white frame, five rooms, small, and had huge cedar trees flanking it on both sides of the front entrance.

Clint owned the hillside behind the house, up the run to the north and up the hollow road for a good distance, nearly a quarter-mile. He bought a brand new Ford sedan, 1952, yellow and either brown or black. It sure was a good looking car (Aldine was a good looking woman, too.) They moved out after we did and went to live around Ona, somewhere up there. That was about 1960 or so. The house and grounds have sure gone downhill from then on. The house has been all different colors; the cedars were cut down; junk, cars and litter has been placed all over the garden areas; four wheelers have run over all the yard areas so the yard is pretty much of a mess, especially when it rains.

Now, just around the curve from the bridge and Clints' house, there was a small wet weather swamp, on the same side of the road as Clints' house, but down in a gully. Maple Creek flowed on the other side of the road, hugging right up against the road. There were all kinds of paths through that swamp, which could be used in dry weather, but water accumulated to four or five feet deep in hard rains. There was a series of small knolls above the water level on the hillside. The knolls were used for various purposes by various people. One was pretty well set aside for the gamblers and drinkers use. They'd light a campfire and spend most of the night there sometimes. A couple of others were for the lovers in the community. Both licit and illicit. Just let it be said that if a car or cars were parked in the curve, you kept your eyes on the road and not on the hill. It was just amazing what you could find around these knolls in the daytime, but I leave that to your imagination, also.

Two curves farther on up the road was where Jim and Norma lived. The rented the old George Pinch house, a board and batten tiny little frame house. Old George and his wife raised nine or ten kids in that house. It had three bedrooms, all small, and a kitchen, outside privy, and a lot of land around it. But the land was no longer farmed and was covered hip high in broom sedge every summer.

Jim and Norma had rented the house just after they were married, and, for a time, were able to get their car across the old timber bridge. But it had rotted to the point where he was afraid to drive across it anymore. As we approached the house, we could plainly see that the car was parked there on the road, knew they had just gotten home, and should be preparing to get their little girl in bed. But there were no lights. And that seemed a little strange. We had been talking all the way up the road about what Jim might do about the dent in the car that Bill had left. Bill and a few of the others called out to Jim but there was no response from the house. So we continued on up the hollow toward the house. We never heard a word about the dent, but he did get a different car shortly after that.

Every now and then the river would flood and cause backwater to come up the creek. This part of the hollow was almost three miles from the river itself and I can only remember one time when we actually got backwater that far up the creek. That was in 1956, I believe, it was a long time ago, but I do remember that the water was so high that it covered the hard road all the way up past the Fire Road entrance, completely covering the bridge there on the road by Virgil's house. The water was so high that it got into the little field we farmed for Grandma and Grandpa and almost got into the road leading off to Clints' house.

Between the swamp and Jims' house, the road went up a slight grade and at the curve between them, was some twenty feet above the level of the creek. As a result, all the water that fell on the hill and the road wanted to pool on the road between the swamp and that first curve. This was a fairly long straight stretch of road, about two hundred yards, and had always been a nice solid stretch. But one year, about 1957, late in the year, we had a spate of terrible rains. Not enough to flood, but enough to keep the ground soggy from late fall into winter. Then we had a very wet winter on top of the fall rains. and the bottom fell out. We, along with some others, put tons of rock into these holes but never were able to keep them filled. Cars and trucks got stuck in the mud constantly. Then the weather broke and they graded it back flat just as it dried out and it was fine through the summer. The next winter was just as bad or worse. Freezing, thawing, snow, rain and the road broke down again. Even the school bus had a difficult time negotiating the road. Finally, after repeated calls by residents and the school board, the state came in and put truckload after truckload of rock and gravel on the stretch and finally got it stabilized.

Around the curve from there, was another straight stretch of about three hundred yards, past Jim's house, and then it curved around the hill again. Directly across from Jim's house, was a gas company road that led off Maple Creek Road and wound up the hill to a gas well and pipeline near the top of the hill behind our house. The road was only used to company jeeps up the hill for right-of-way maintenance and for growing boys to use to get where they wanted to be.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XVIII

2008-04-07T11:16:00.000-04:00

UP THE BRANCH

Part II

I met Jake at the grocery store the summer before I started the first grade. He was there with this Dad and Mom getting a pair of shoes for school just like me and my brothers. His brother, Mel, was there too as was his sister, Rhonda. His Mom was a medium sized woman with a lot of blonde, frizzy hair and Rhonda had the same kind of hair. Jake had blonde hair and Mels' was brown, like his Dads'.

My brothers and I all got what we called brogans for school, high topped boot type shoes, but Jake got a pair of patent leather loafers and I wished I could have a pair like that. My father told me he couldn't afford them and, anyway, when winter got there, Jake would be wishing he had some brogans too. I don't think my father was too impressed with Jake or his Dad, they talked funny and had such high airs and Jake's Mom, she was worse than both of them, always talking about what she had in Michigan and what she would go back to as soon as Marcus was called back to work in Detroit.

When school started, Jake and I became good pals. He brought marbles from home and we'd play every day. He was better than me but we still liked to play. He'd give me twenty in the morning and they had to last me all day. If I lost them back to him, I could only play with the ones I had left. At the end of the day, I had to give them all back to him anyway so he could take them home. Sometimes he'd forget to bring them in the morning and we'd run to his house at lunchtime and bring them back to school so we could play at afternoon recess.

Jake and I did everything together and in the evenings he and Mel would come around to our place and play. We would rip and chase all over the place, climb hills and playing the creek, race up the trees and down again. He got a bike for Christmas and I got to ride it a few times before he moved away. Mostly though, he and I would get on it and it would fall over with us. His Mom got so mad because we scraped and scarred the paint on it but his Dad just laughed and said he'd put some more paint on it.

Jake and his family moved away, back to Michigan at the end of first grade. That was a sad time for him and me but his Dad got laid off again about a year-and-a-half later and they moved back. They didn't get to move back into the same house and had to stay with his grandpa at the top of the hill. But that was okay, he still attended the same school as me. We didn't play much marbles, though, but a lot more tag and softball. By this time Mel had started school, and that made it just that much more fun. Sarah had started playing with the girls more, too.

At recess, one day in spring, Mel had to go to the privy really bad, and he took off at a dead run. The school had just had new gravel paths laid down between two-by-fours and Mel was moving fast. At the fork of the new walks, the boys had to turn right and go up the hill to the privy. If you went straight ahead you ran into the coal house, turn left and you went to the girls privy. Mel didn't make the turn quite quickly enough, realized his mistake, made a quick right turn and tripped over the two-by-fours. He was wearing lightweight pants and so his knees, both of them, were scratched and small gravels embedded in his skin. Lucky dog, he got to stay off school the rest of the week.

Again at the end of the school year, their Dad got his recall to the Detroit and they moved away. They returned just before the start of the sixth grade. Jake and I were inseparable that year in school, taking on all comers (they had consolidated three smaller schools into ours the year before.) Mel made new friends and quit hanging around with us. Sarah never hung around with us, except going to and from school, when she walked between us most of the time. And just as all good friends do at some point, Jake and I had our one and only fight that year.

After school was out one day, I had to get a dozen eggs at the store. Red put them in a small bag that barely held them, since he didn't have any cartons for them--he bought the eggs locally, sometimes from us in years past, and no one had cartons unless they were a grocer or whatever. Jake and I were going up the hard road, almost to the hollow entrance, when he said something I didn't like, out of the blue. Sarah was walking behind with her sister. I told him to not say things like that and he repeated it and began to tease me. As we turned into the hollow road, I got him over to one side and, with the eggs in one hand, delivered a good swing at him. Missed him completely. Off balance, I swung again. Didn't miss. Bloodied his nose, he's saying he's sorry and crying. I'm doing the same. Then Sarah has her arm around me and telling me that he shouldn't have been teasing me and asking what it was that he was teasing me about. You know who and what it was about. I made up a story on the spot, Jake swore by it. And I didn't break a single egg.

I never told Sarah what he was teasing me about. The one and only time he ever had. Jake and I made up. Sarah hung around us for a few weeks to make sure we were okay. We were best pals when he moved back to Michigan, not to return. I never saw him again after my sixth grade year.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XVII

2008-04-07T09:17:00.000-04:00

UP THE BRANCH

Part I

You know I grew up in this old hollow. Didn't leave it until I was a freshman in college. And some of my most precious memories come out of here. Of course when I went to school at the local elementary, I had to walk out of this old hollow for six long years. And like all old men, I'll tell you right now that the spring rains were harder, the winters colder, the snows deeper, and everyone knows that the summer days were always hotter here in this hollow. "It was two miles over and three miles back," as Roger Miller told us, and uphill all the way, coming or going.

I parked my old truck down where the tavern used to be. It was torn down about thirty years ago while I was somewhere out west. The tavern was the drinking hole around these parts for as long as I can remember but I guess it just got to be too much for the community. Or maybe it got too expensive to run. Or maybe there were other places to go when it was closing down. I don't know. I wasn't around these parts then. But when I was a kid, I drank my first beer there. I was only thirteen or fourteen at the time but the guy sold it to us anyhow. I think the oldest one of us was only around seventeen or so. We'd go in there and drink Coke most of the time, and shoot pool. The pool room was off to the side of the tavern itself, in a separate room, and they let us play pool without having to be eighteen. At that time you had to be eighteen to buy beer or wine, and twenty-one to buy liquor. Usually my three brothers, a friend and me were the ones who played, and it wasn't very often at that.

We sure saw and heard some strange (to us) things while in there as kids. They used to have cabins out back in the field behind the tavern. I'll leave it to your imagination as to what may have gone on in those cabins, but I will tell you that one cabin was reserved for the gamblers in the area. The others were used for what you are probably imagining.

One time, I couldn't have been more than seven or eight I guess, they had a country music group come out from the city on three or four successive nights. They set up a stage on the creek bank across the field from the tavern to use for playing the music so the crowd would have a fairly large place to sit, stand or whatever. My memory fails me as to what the leader's name was, but my brother told me lately that it was Anderson, but that is not important. The group was made up of six or seven people who appeared regularly on the local radio station. Every evening they had some sort of game they got the kids involved in. The last night they were there, they were going to have a cracker eating contest. Somehow I got put up on stage along with three other kids about my age. The trick was that you had to eat eight or ten crackers and then whistle to win the game.

Of course, you didn't get anything to drink with those crackers until you had whistled. We all started eating those crackers, and I can tell you they were dry as toast. It was hard enough to chew them, dry and stale as they were, much less swallow. But I got it done and finally my mouth got enough spit back in it to let me get out a short whistle before any of the others. So I won. My prize was a small box of candy that you could buy at the store for less than a nickel. Big deal. Then as I was walking down the stairs off the stage, the emcee let the crowd in on the fact that I was the only one of the group that knew how to whistle--and then he gave them a bottle of pop to drink. But I didn't get any. All I got was that danged old box of candy. Can you say "upset?" But I managed to go around behind the stage and found their carton of pop and pulled one out and drank it, while they were busy singing and playing.

Later on, when I was in the ninth grade and after, we had a pickup baseball team. We played other pickup teams from around the area on a field next to the drive in down at Ferguson Ridge Road, or occasionally, at their fields, though usually at our field since it was a regulation field and didn't have stumps and wires and trees and crops to interfere. New baseballs were a little expensive for country boys, so we put out donation jars in all the local stores and the like. We got a pretty good response to our jars (and had fairly good crowds at our games), usually picking up three or four dollars a week at each jar each week. After buying a couple of new balls, we would generally have a few dollars left over, and we would spend it on playing pool or at other stores in the community. I guess we figured we needed to keep the local economy going.

Looking around here at the intersection of the hollow and the hard road I can see there have been a lot of changes, but some things seem never to change. And there on the hard road is the evidence. It looks like a vehicle pulled out of the hollow and was headed north toward Huntington, probably going slow, when a car came around the curve and couldn't get stopped in time to avoid a rear ender, then swerved right, into the ditch and up the side of the hill. I saw it happen at least once a year while I lived in this hollow, and I guess things just never change. At least this one hasn't in the last forty years.

The hollow road is different though. It is now asphalt with gravel along the sides. But not much gravel--not much asphalt either, from the looks of it--and the road is narrower than it used to be. The graders used to scrape the road before elections, and they graded it right over to the fence and to the top of the bank on the other side. Now it must be six or eight feet narrower than it used to be. Back then it was just sand rock, sand and mud. But it was one of the better roads the WPA put in, good drainage and lots of sand rock pounded into it for most of its' length anyway. The elementary school had been relocated up this hollow from out on the hard road after I moved away and the gravel only is along the side of the road up to where the entrance to it was located. The school was closed fifteen or so years ago and is now a community center. Past there, the road narrows even more as there is no gravel side and the scrapers don't come this way anymore.

Looking south from the intersection, I note that Frans' and Eds' place has been torn down and a new mansion has arisen from the dust of where it sat. Must be ten or more rooms in that new place, two story and a huge landscaped yard. Ed used to have a really nice place there, two story, frame, white, long driveway, tall cedars lining it, neatly kept lawn and beautiful flowering bushes around everywhere. Just a beautiful old farmhouse.

The new place looks good, but seems too modern. Plus, too many other buildings have been erected, like the old school building and some sort of garage-type building that is out of place. All the grass is gone, there is no paving, only old ugly dirt and gravel and lots of ruts. The nice small pasture where Ed kept his cow between the hollow and his house is gone, bulldozed over with nothing in it, just an ugly scar on the land.

And looking north, the field that served in my youth as a truck garden is now an equipment yard with heavy machinery in it. What a waste. You didn't even have to fertilize that field. The tomatoes just grew like crazy, and the potatoes and sweet potatoes, too. Squash, like everywhere, grew rampant on that field and the corn was great. Yellow and sweet, you didn't even have to cook it to eat it, it was that good. Now it's just weeds and rusting machinery that someone has abandoned here.

When I was a kid, Grandma and Grandpa rented the field for a few years. All of us kids helped set out the plants or seeds as the case was. We also hoed and weeded for them as they were getting rather old and Pa couldn't see much anyway. One year we had so many tomatoes that we couldn't eat them all, can them all or even give them away. We got into a tomato fight with each other and when we got home, we all looked like we were bleeding to death. Even our two old bachelor uncles were in on the fight. Thank God, they were, or we would probably have gotten some licks if they had not been as red as we were.

Here at the intersection is also where I had a fight with my best friend when I was in the sixth grade. The reason for the fight is no longer significant, only the fact that two really good friends could actually come to blows over some real or imagined wrong the other was doing. I am still glad that it didn't cause any long term problem between us.

NOTICE TO LURKERS

2008-04-04T15:04:00.000-04:00

I appreciate greatly your interest in my blog. And I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it. And I must admit I sometimes wonder who you all are. But just knowing you are there is a plus for me, for I know that I am not writing in vain. So if you will keep reading, I will keep writing. And if you ever feel the urge to comment, please do so. I'm not a mean person--I will publish it just as you write it, with the exception that I do not allow cursing or smut. I do not consider a damn or a hell as cursing, by the way.

Welcome back and keep on keepin' on.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XVI

2008-04-04T14:12:00.000-04:00

THE BIKE

I've got five dollars and it's...

We were poor. We walked everywhere we needed to go. Or bummed a ride with someone or rode the Logan bus into town. Most of our friends had bicycles. We didn't. We were poor.

And then we suddenly had some cash in our pockets from selling strawberries and decided we just had to get ourselves a bicycle. There were four of us, so if we pooled our money we thought we could probably get us one. But not a new one. Those things cost too much, twenty-five to forty dollars. While we had a little cash, we didn't want to spend it all.

And the the god of kids looked down and smiled. One of our friends had just gotten a new bike from his parents and was willing to let his old one go. So we negotiated. And the price was right, almost unthinkable. We had about thirty bucks between us, but he was willing to let his old bike go for only five bucks. Even back then, in 1954, that was a pretty good deal. And it still had both fenders, even if the tires were old. It needed brakes and could use new bearings in the wheels. Shucks, the tires would last a little while longer. We could rebuild the brakes, and putting new bearings in was cheap to do. And five bucks? Sure.

So the deal was made. No warranties, no help to fix it up. Just a flat five and walk away with it. And we did. Walk away with it, that is. The tires were flat so we pushed it the two miles to the house, stopping on the way to pump up the tires. Which were flat again before we got it home.

The two older boys weren't too much into riding the bike, but they still coughed up their $1.25 each and we alternated riding it for about a half mile, until the tires went flat on us, using our feet as drag brakes. We discovered that repairing the brake was was a job we really didn't want to do, and it only cost a few more dollars to get a new coaster brake and put it on. So the next time we went to school, we stopped at the five and dime and got a brake and bearings for the front wheel.

Ah. Rode like a new one then, and it would stop too. Next job was to paint it. So the next time we had cash, we stopped at the five and dime and got a half pint of paint and smeared it over the rusty metal. Made it look better. We had a lot of paint left over so we knew we could redo that paint job whenever we wanted to. But pushing it down to the store to pump up the tires really got to be a drag. We asked around and some other friends supplied some old worn out tubes. We patched them and put them in. It worked good for a while. But then we discovered that one tire had a small hole in it and pinched the tube which let the air out. So we got some old tires from those same friends and doubled them up on the wheels.

We now had four tires and two tubes on that bike. Not a good idea, I can tell you. Coming home from the store one evening with a full bag of groceries in one arm and holding the handlebar with the other, a tube blew out. The inner tire had shifted allowing the tube to be pinched between the two tires. Rats. Now I had to carry the grocery bag and push that #*(T%$ old bike too. All the way home, all the way uphill. Back on foot again, I found two fairly good tires at a friends house, paid him a buck for both and demounted the old and remounted the new. You know what was next--push it down to the store and pump them up. But it solved the tire problem for as long as we had the bike.

A few months later, the handlebars broke on one side. Just tore apart right at the barrel. We sawed it off to get rid of the snags, right against the barrel and rode it one armed from then on.

Now I was a pretty competitive little fellow when I was a kid, and my next older brother knew it too. He was always getting me to do stupid things because he said he could do it. And I was dumb enough to believe it most of the time.

One afternoon he came into the house and told me that he had ridden down the front path, into the road, pumped all the way down the hill and made a right turn across the bridge at the bottom that went up Finney Creek. Without braking. A ninety degree turn. I told him he couldn't possibly have done that. He insisted that he just had.

Sure. I tried it. Boy, you really go fast down that hill. And I just knew he couldn't have done it. But he said he had. So here I go. Here comes that turn. I made it about three quarters the way across that old wooden bridge before it laid down in a skid. I'm on the deck of the bridge on my right side sliding toward the edge. The bike has already gone across the bridge and is upsetting in the field. Wish I had. I hit the side board on the bridge, rolled over on my stomach, slid right on over and down into about eight to ten inches of water.

Wet, disgusted and just plain mad at myself for being such a fool and allowing myself to be taken in again, and at my brother for having done so, I still had to push that (*^$ bike back up the road to the path and then up it to the house. I looked all around for him. He was nowhere to be found. And by the time he was back I had cooled off enough not to start the fight I had contemplated walking back up that hill.

We have both laughed a lot about that little incident over the years, when one or the other brings it up. And I can't honestly remember how we got rid of the bike. I remember riding it when I was about seventeen, just before I got out of high school.

And I still have a scar to remind me that you don't have to be stupid, no matter how much someone goads you to be so.

HOOTIE SAYS, "MORE POETRY, NOW"

2008-04-03T14:18:00.000-04:00

So who am I to argue. The first is a cold and snowy one. Better get a blanket!

A SNOW AT GRAMPA'S

Cold and bright the morning dawned
Over the hills near Grampa's home,
Giving just a little hint
Of the snow that was to come.

Just before the first flakes came
Drifting slowly as the fell,
From the pasture came the sound
Of Betsy's old cow bell.

Betsy knew what was to come
As she began to move toward the barn.
The world would be white in no time.
The barn was dry and warm.

The horses followed Betsy's trail,
Their breath as white as snow.
The sheep moved closer to the shed
Down by the bungalow.

Snow was falling faster now
And covering the farm in white.
Wood was brought into the house
Against the coming night.

The stock was fed, the old cow milked.
The barn door closed. The old bull tethered.
The dog and cat were brought inside
To keep them from the weather.

The house was full of cooking smells,
Fried chicken and apple pie.
The old folks sat before the fire
And remembered snows gone by.

The snows they'd seen in fifty years
While raising kids on the farm,
All grown up now with kids of their own.
The fire and their memories kept them warm.

All night long the snow came down
And covered all in white.
Next morning we gazed out upon
The snow in the sun so bright.

Two feet high outside the door
And three feet high in the lane,
The old man pushed his way to the barn
To feed the stock hay and grain.

The snow lay on for four more days
But it was snug and warm inside.
A memory for them to share
Another time when the kids came by.

The next was written one day when I was feeling kind of low about this old world and what we are doing to it. And the problems seem to be multiplying.

STEWARDSHIP

There are times I just want to be by myself,
Just to be with my thoughts,
Not being social, not talking at all,
To think what mankind has wrought.

We've conquered the land, conquered the seas,
And think we're kings of the earth.
We've even taken steps in space,
For whatever that may be worth.

The earth is ours to command,
To do with as we please.
But we have made an unholy mess.
Believe me, friend, God sees.

We've dumped our trash in oceans deep,
We've done just as we wish.
But God has seen the way that we
Have destroyed most of His fish.

Out in space there's lots of room
For Man to put his mess--
Satellites, space stations, where will it end?
We can only guess.

The Bible says there'll come a time
When God again will take command.
Then fires will burn and waters boil,
Uncontrollable by man.

Stewardship is what we need
Of all that has been given to us.
Until that time I'll use my pen
To quiet all this fuss.

And with that, have a good day.

TICK RIDGE FACES THE SOUTH

2008-04-03T13:46:00.000-04:00

Late last fall, I purchased a book entitled "Tick Ridge Faces The South" by Danny Fulks, author of "Tragedy on Greasy Ridge." It is a soft cover issue and the price I felt was quite reasonable. Mine cost only $14.95 plus tax. And I bought it at a supermarket in Barboursville.

After I had read it, I let my daughter have it to read. I don't think she ever did. But in any event it is back in my possession now. And I have again glanced through it just to make sure my original thoughts about it were correct. And they are.

His dedication tells quite a bit about both him and the book. It reads "This book is dedicated to men and women who work for the Man." Pretty straightforward. Just like his book.

In the book he tells some of the older tales of life in this area. But the real meat is his descriptions of the people who inhabit this area. His work as a teacher and a citizen of this area is brought forth to illustrate the backwardness and the beauty of the people who inhabit his book. Down to earth country people. College students just learning about life in the real world. Hopes. Dreams. Successes. Failures.

He includes a section on Floyd Collins who died after being trapped in a cave in Kentucky back in the 1920's, of the efforts to free him and of the circuslike atmosphere around the cave while those efforts were ongoing.

He tells of the hillside coal mines, of hunting and fishing, of his own life and his search for who and what he was and is. And perhaps more importantly, of why he is what he is. Country music. That godawful rock and roll invasion. And going back to the roots.

His book rolls on like that Buick Roadmaster one of his characters drives. And it rolls just right. A good read on a rainy day or a cold night before a fire. Laughter comes out whether you want it to or not, and an occasional tear as you recognize all your old buddies and your old girlfriends, and you are no longer old but young and remembering the good times.

All in all, a good read for anytime.

"Tick Ridge Faces the South", by Danny Fulks, published by Mountain Press, Ashland, KY, 2006

BLOGGERS REJOICE

2008-04-03T13:30:00.000-04:00

Now for those of you who who have been told repeatedly that constant use of the keyboard will lead to carpal tunnel syndrome, take heart. It aint so.

A blurb in the April 17, 2008 issue of "Family Circle" magazine dispels such an idea. Using as their source the Arthritis and Rheumatism journal, the magazine says:

TYPING MAY NOT CAUSE CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME AFTER ALL

In fact, the more time you spend in front of the computer, the less likely you are to develop the condition, according to a recent study that surveyed 2,465 people, ages 25 to 65. It appears the repeated low-force muscle activity can decrease the risk of edema, swelling caused by a buildup of tissue fluid, which sometimes leads to carpal tunnel syndrome.

Page 56.

So what do we now do with those hundreds and maybe thousands of typists who have filed claims with workers compensation boards across the country claiming carpal tunnel syndrome was caused by their work? Sounds like we have an industrial injury that is not an industrial injury at all. And I wonder how many of those cases are simple arthritis and rheumatism, caused primarily by heredity in the first place. How many misdiagnoses are we paying for? How many employers have suffered and are suffering higher premium rates for these misdiagnoses? And how many of those misdiagnoses have been caused by workers who do not want to work, but would rather suck the public teat instead?

Interesting little blurb.

WEST VIRGINIA COMMONPLACE BOOK

2008-04-03T08:38:00.000-04:00

It happens. There are days like this. Days when you just do not really have anything to write about. And you feel bad, because you know there are things that need to be addressed. But your heart just isn't in it. Today is such a day.

It is a dull, gray overcast day this morning. I had my breakfast at a little after 5 AM, have done some reading, a little book put together by Jim Comstock, past editor and owner of the WV Hillbilly newspaper. It is called "West Virginia Commonplace Book." And he didn't do a bunch of writing in it. It is mainly composed of hundreds of news articles reflecting on the early days, and even some more modern, of West Virginia people and places.

But what is most interesting is the 1,000 Questions feature. On every page there are five or six questions pertaining to people, places and events unique to West Virginia history. I always thought I had a pretty good grounding in the subject, but I find that I can usually only answer one or two per page, and have to look at the answers he gives at the end of each set of questions. Here's a sample from page 158--

496. Your grandparents could have attended what college in St. Albans that you can't?

497. Where in West Virginia is nickel plate made from matte, an ore from which all impurities, except sulphur, have been removed, and which is brought into this state from mines in Ontario, Canada?

498. The county seat of Cabell County was moved to Huntington in 1887 from what town?

499. What West Virginia woman almost got dunked for being a "common scold?"

500. There must have been some good reason for pouring a barrel of James River water into the Ohio River at Huntington in 1873. What was the reason?

Easy, huh? I knew three of them right off. I had heard of the incident in #499, but did not know her name. And had no idea of the answer to # 496.

The answers--

496. Shelton College
497. At the International Nickel Company in Huntington.
498. Barboursville
499. Anne Royall
500. Celebration of the completion of the C & O Railroad to the Ohio River.

Interesting little tidbit from page 206--HOMECOMING-Back in the early 1950's a man was arrested for being drunk on the courthouse lawn in Huntington. Arraigned before a local judge, he threw himself on the mercy of the court, explaining that he had run into some friends who he had not seen for years and had been celebrating with them. Sounded good, but further investigation proved that he hadn't seen his friends because he had just finished serving a term of several years in the State Penitentiary at Moundsville.

OK, the questions above really aren't quite fair to some. But everyone knows our famous presidents, right? So here's some presidential trivia questions related to the Mountain State--

394. This president owned more of West Virginia than Jay Rockefeller and the federal government combined.

395. This president sat down on a rock at Harper's Ferry and said that what he saw from where he sat was worth a trip across the ocean.

396. This president took his last train ride through West Virginia.

397. This president's John Henry snipped West Virginia's umbilical cord.

398. This president said "I will" in West Virginia.

399. This president allegedly left a wood's colt in Lewis County.

400. This president who really gave a dam for West Virginia, dedicated it-the Summersville Dam.

401. This president, traveling over the Midland Trail, reportedly stopped to attend a funeral in Ansted, because his name was the same as the woman's being buried there.

402. This president, without the fanfare which would go with a present president's presence, did his fishing in the waters near Weston.

403. This president, writing the chronicles of winning the west, started with West Virginia.

And while you think about those, here is a question that many know the answer to, particularly if they really studied much West Virginia and colonial history--

404. In West Virginia there is a marker which indicates the line which George III drew, beyond which no settler could settle. Where would you find this marker?

Of course the answer is in in Mineral County, near the crest of the Allegheny Front. And the more obvious response from the settlers was a big "Yeah, right" and they kept coming, sometimes going the route of over to the New River and down it to the Kanawha Valley, or continuing westward into Kentucky through what is now the southern coal fields or through the area which is around what is now Grundy, VA.

Here's the presidential answers--

394. George Washington
395. Thomas Jefferson
396. Dwight Eisenhower
397. Abraham Lincoln
398. James Madison
399. William McKinley
400. Lyndon Johnson
401. Andrew Jackson
402. Grover Cleveland
403. Theodore Roosevelt

And we all have heard of the silver tongued orator, William Jennings Bryan. He came to West Virginia one time to visit the graves of his grandparents. Were did he do this?

The graves are located at Ona, Cabell County, WV.

Larkin McDowell applied to secure a post office at the place he lived in Summers County, WV. As attestation at the end of his letter of application, he made the statement, "Now this is true." Sure enough, his application was approved--to open a post office at True, WV.

I have to hand it to Comstock, he has a neat little book. I have enjoyed it tremendously. If you want to have a looksee, you might find it in any West Virginia Public Library. I chased my copy down at the Barboursville Library and will be returning it in a few days.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XV

2008-04-02T11:10:00.000-04:00

BIG OLD SCHOOL BUS

Part VI

The principal of our junior high school served his last year at the end of my ninth grade year. He had finally made it to sixty-five. He was somewhat rotund and as bald as a peeled onion. Quite naturally, his nickname was "Baldy" or "Chrome Dome." He and I never liked each other very much. I think it probably sprung from the time I was in the seventh grade and had a bad experience with a hot dog I had eaten for lunch. I had been back in class for about fifteen minutes or so and just knew I was not going to keep it down. Now, I've had a gut like an iron pit all my life. I felt really good all morning, but that hot dog was really working on me.

I told the teacher and took off for the bathroom. I was in the "B" building at the time and had to go down the stairs, across the driveway, up the steps , down the walk, into the main building and down the hall to get to the bathroom. I made it. But just barely. I spewed into the first lavatory, right by the door. I cleaned myself up, swished a lot of water and spit it out, then sat down on the stool. Up and do it all over, this time in a commode. Flush and clean up again.

About five minutes after the second time, Baldy walks in. He asked me how I felt and I said weak and nauseous. His response was that I needed to clean out the lavatory, that I should have used the commode, and that "You country boys are going to have to learn to use the bathroom properly." And I thought, "Yeah, and there are privies all over this town?" Well, what a hoot!

I told him that I ws not going to clean the lavatory, that that was the janitor's job, not mine. I told him I was lucky to have made it into the bathroom at all and didn't spew it all over the hallway. He replied that, yes, I was going to clean it. He also informed me that I needed to come to the office when I had gotten it all cleaned up. He walked out. I pulled off some toilet paper and put it on the end of a pencil I had found, placed the toilet tissue at the bottom of the lavatory and ran the lavatory about half full of water. Then trudged down the hallway to his office.

When I got there, the secretary told him I was there and he called me into his office. He asked if I had cleaned it up and I told him that the lavatory was stopped up somehow and the water wouldn't go down in it. He had me sit down and told me he was going to call my parents to come and get me. I said he'd have to have aloud voice because we didn't have a phone and neither did we have a car. He was just about to blow a gasket and was fingering that old paddle in his right hand, but he got himself back under control. He let out a great sigh, the telephone rang, and the bell rang for us to change classes. He waved me out, I retrieved my books and went to the last class of the day. From that time on, it seemed that every time I turned around, old Baldy was watching me.

Being kids, we loved to bait him whenever we could get by with doing so. And the very best time to bait him was when the buses lined up on the street out in front of the school at the end of the day. On our bus, we at the junior high school were sometimes the first to load, sometimes the high school kids were on the bus when it pulled up out front. And there were times when we were the last bus in line, right in the middle or the very first one in the line. We always liked it best when we were in the center or last. But the center was really prime time for us.

Being in the center put us right at the steps leading from the street to the walkways that led to the front doors of the school. Baldy loved to stand on the steps, leaning on the rail and observe the loading of the buses. Weather permitting, which was just about all the time unless it was pouring the rain, the windows on the bus was either partially open or wide open. A busload of kids creates a lot of heat inside the bus, especially when it is not moving.

And the windows being at least slightly open was ideal for our favorite pastime of Baldy-baiting. I never knew of a driver who ever said the catcalls were coming from his bus. In fact, they laughed as much as we kids did about it. And every bus had its' good and its' better catcall artists. Acknowledged by all the kids as the very best, was a kid who lived on Upper Buck Creek and who rode our bus. He could change the sound of his voice from a deep bass to a high tenor in an instant, so Baldy never knew who he was looking for. This kid would move from the back of the bus to the front and back again making his music--"Hi, Baldy,", It's Mr. Chrome Dome," "Fat and bald, that's the man"--and he would vary the call up and down, high or low, from each end of the bus.

One afternoon, hot October, windows all down on every bus, it started as the first bus rounded the corner and continued from every bus as they lined up--a constant chorus, with our guy orchestrating the song, it seemed. Baldy was getting more and more upset. He finally exploded and jumped onto the steps of our bus, climbed on up into the bus and yelled that he would get the persons expelled who were making the calls. Our guy was hunkered down near the back of the bus, Baldy turned his back, and the kid yelled out, "Baldy, Baldy, Baldy" really quick. Before Baldy could get turned around, the kid was sitting in the seat as if nothing was going on.

He started back into the bus and suddenly, from the bus in front and the bus behind us, there arose a continuous hoot of "Baldy" and "Chrome Dome". He jumped down off the bus and went to the one in front, then to the one in back, and as he passed there were a lot of calls from our bus. Frustrated he went from bus to bus telling all the kids that they were going to get expelled if the catcalling did not stop, that he would catch every one who was doing and make sure they got expelled.

No one ever did. And the catcalling continued for the rest of the year, if anything worse in the spring than it had been in the fall. He retired that year from that principalship and took a job as a teacher in Logan County. But the thing I remember most about him was his constant reminder to all the males who attended the school, "Boys will be men." He lived to the age of about 90 or 95, after finally retiring for good at about 80. His daughter died a couple of years ago.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XIV

2008-04-01T14:36:00.000-04:00

BIG YELLOW SCHOOL BUS

Part V

The school board, in its' infinite wisdom, attempted to send me and a group of other kids in the neighborhood to Southern Junior High one year. None of us had been made aware of it prior to school starting so we naturally rode the bus to our regular school the first day. We were all called to the principals office at the start of the day and were given notes to take home to our parents informing them that we had been transferred to Southern for that year. We were not allowed to attend classes that day so we all ended up spending the day at the local library.

The note directed us to catch Shorty's bus the next morning. We did, and attended classes at Southern that day. During the day, the parents of each of us went to the board and had us transferred back to our regular school. All except me. We did not have a car and so my parents were unable to get into town until they could get a neighbor to drive them in. So I attended Southern for two more days, hated it, and my parents sent me back to the regular school again. Of course, as I was enrolled at Southern, I still could not attend classes at the regular school and I spent most of the day in the principals office that day. The following day I returned to Southern and my parents shanghaied Harry to take them into town. I returned to my regular school the next school day and finished junior high there.

As my tenure at Southern was so short, I really didn't get much out of the experience, but I did learn that you did not have to keep your eyes open to drive. Why I ever noticed this I cannot say, but at every curve on the road we came to, Shorty would close his eyes. Now I do not mean that he would blink. A blink only lasts a blink, less than a half second. But Shorty would close his eyes the moment we started into a curve and keep them closed until we were coming out of it. Maybe he was just resting his eyes, but it scared me. One morning we were headed south on the hard road and were approaching a long but fairly sharp curve, just south of Jones Creek Road. As we started into the curve, I glanced up into the mirror and Shorty had his eyes closed.
I began counting and it was one, two, three, four seconds and his eyes popped open and then shut again for a count of three and we were out of the curve and on the long straight stretch. All the way on the straight, he simply blinked his eyes, but he did his closing act again on the curve at the bottom of the hill, too. That got me curious, I guess, and I began watching him, and it happened on every curve. I couldn't wait to get off that bus. Fortunately, I had only one more day on his bus. He drove bus for all his life and as far as I know, he never had a wreck. But that was scary.

What bugged me most as a kid was that we got to school at about 8:10 AM for the start of school at 8:00AM. Not a good sign, and then we had to wait in the evening until Shorty had completed all his other runs from town over Lower Buck Creek, through Bugtown and over Hardy Creek. We were the add-on to his route (he lived in our neighborhood.) And he was irritated that the route had been added. And it was really galling to him I guess when, after only one day, I was the only passenger he had on the route. So he got there about 4:15 PM, and I was the only person left around the school when he got there, everyone else had gone home by 3:30 or 3:45 PM. My brothers had ridden the bus home from high school and had gotten home about 3:30 PM and I never made it until about 4:30 PM.

Oh, and as a side note, about three weeks after I had gone back to my regular school, my parents got a letter from the school board that told them that the board was considering transferring me to the town school because of the lateness of the driver getting home in the evenings, and the extended length of the runs he was making. The board asked if that would be acceptable to my parents. Now that was really strange, as I was already back at my regular school, had been for three weeks and Shorty was complaining about the length of his run? Was he really still making that morning run? That had to be the only one in contention since the evening pickup only took him off the hard road long enough to make the pick up and return to the hard road and continue on to his home, dropping me off at the road I lived on. I never got the straight of it. It didn't matter to me, I was back where I wanted to be anyway.

As can be imagined, we had a lot of fun while riding back and forth to and from town. One of the real joys was the Sandy bridge. I noted in the paper a few months ago that they are still arguing about whether to demolish that old bridge, since they built a new one about four years ago. Some folks are saying it is an historic bridge, while others, like me, say blow it away as it is an obstruction in the river. I have no idea who is going to win that argument. As far as I am concerned, it should have been replace about fifty years ago.

At that time, the road made a sharp right turn onto the bridge, regardless of which direction you were going. The road was so narrow and the approach so short that there was only room for the bus, barely, to make the turn onto the bridge by going off onto the dirt on the west side, or almost scraping a tree on the east side. The west side was also a blind entrance as there was a store building on that side. The bridge was a one lane bridge so there was the constant occurrence of having to back up if there happened to be another vehicle on it at the time of your approach. This could occur on both approaches due to the store on one side and the presence of high brush and trees on the other blocking the view until you swung onto the bridge.

The bridge was old and not structurally sound most of the time. We had it both ways during my school bus years--there were times when it was judged to be sound and we drove right on across, and there were other years when it was judged so unsafe that we were forced to get off and walk across while the driver waited until we had crossed before he would bring the bus across, where we would reload. And, of course, there were the car and truck drivers that were in such a rush to get across that they would pull out onto the bridge while we were making our walk across, and the driver would be forced to back up to allow them to pass, as he usually pulled right up to the bridge before letting us off. That could get a little tricky as there were always vehicles following the bus, and they had to back up also.

I never like heights. So it was terrifying for me to walk across that bridge. At one time, the bridge still had the wooden plank flooring so it wasn't too terribly bad, except where boards were missing. And there were a lot of missing boards and broken boards that would trip you. Then, they stripped the boards and left only the steel mesh flooring. Now that was really scary to me. You could look down through the steel grid and see the river flowing by underneath you. When the water was at its' regular flow, it wasn't so bad, but when we had floods, and we had them often, I was absolutely terrified to make that walk. And when there was ice on the steel gridwork, it was doubly scary.

When a river rises, a normally placid stream can make a terrific noise. The river was usually contained into its' banks and was only a couple hundred feet wide. When it was in flood it was from one high bank to the other high bank, completely covering the fields under the bridge, and sometimes rose to where it was only eight or ten feet below the deck of the bridge. And sounded like a freight train going by underneath you. At those times, even some of the older kids wee scared to walk across it. So we ran. And as we ran we could see all the trees and trash floating by just under our feet, and hear that loud sucking sound of the water as it rushed by. Brush, trees, chairs, sofas, jugs, cans, you name it, all went by in the more than yearly flushing of the valley.

We got to walk across that old bridge come rain or shine, snow, sleet, ice, whatever. And it was not a pleasing experience. I always felt bad for those kids who had to cross bridges like we did , after I got out of school and was a little older. You could never wear good clothing to school since you didn't know what the weather was going to be like. But you wore the best shoes you could afford to keep out the water. The crossing always added an extra ten minutes to the trip. And, on the way home, we would unload, cross the bridge, reload and then drive fifty yards or so to the Sandy Elementary school and pick up the kids there to take them on home.

We were a pretty close-knit group of kids. Riding the same bus for six years with the same group of kids will do that. We generally looked out for each other at school. Fight one, fight them all. Occasionally, however, just as in most families, there would be a dispute that boiled over now and then. Most of the time these were little tiffs that were settled with just some mean talk back and forth, either at school or somewhere else, but sometimes they would erupt into something a little rougher.

And who knows what starts a fight--jealousy, a boy, a word twisted, gossip--two girls from out on Ferguson Ridge had been slinging words back and forth for a while, with murderous looks, and then one had had enough. The fight started while the bus was in motion and the driver failed to notice it until it was full blown. When he did realize what was occurring, he immediately pulled to the side of the road, but by that time the hair pulling, slapping, gouging and yanking at various parts of the anatomy was in full force. It took him a minute or so to get them apart, with all the clawing, biting and anything else to get an advantage. The penalty ended up being both of them sitting on the front seat of the bus for a while, a short while, a week or so, and everything was calm and back to normal again. As far as we all knew it went no farther, the school administration was never informed about the incident.

Gosh, I can't remember whether it was the eighth or ninth grade when this occurred. My cousin and I had the same home room teacher. At that time, we ended the school day by going to home room for dismissal. She and I drew the daughter of the principal for our home room teacher, a dried up old prune, probably about forty, looked sixty, and she knew who her father was. She taught English and was dry as toast in class.

Our bus was always the first to leave the junior high school, as it had to go back through town to pick up the high school kids. It was late winter, early spring, and we had all attended a basketball game in the gymnasium that afternoon. It ran a few minutes late and we were all late getting back to home room. The teacher called the roll, then made announcements, ad nauseam, until I told her that we had to go, that our bus would leave without us. She replied that no bus ever left the school without all the students being aboard to which I replied that that was not true, that ours left at the appointed time, students aboard or not. Of course, that precipitated another long tirade about what students knew and what truth really was. Despite all that, I pointed to our bus just making the turn down the street to head back to the high school.

The teacher said she would call the high school and tell them to hold the bus there until we could get there, as it was only a short walk--yeah, all the way across town, about twelve blocks or so. we asked for a ride over there, but to no avail, we had to hoof it. We got our things together and started. My cousin and I ran practically all the way, but as we started up the alley to where the bus was parked, the bus pulled out, heading towards the Sandy Road.

What to do, what to do? We talked for a minute or so, and decided to hoof it on home if necessary. My folks did not have a car. Her family had one, but her Dad worked evening shift and was at work by that time. No one was left at the high school, we tried all the doors, even the guys in the bus garage were gone. We got out to the Sandy Road and had walked probably a hundred yards when an older fellow, probably in his sixties, came along in a ten-ton flatbed farm truck. He stopped and asked where we were headed. I told him and he said he was headed that direction, to climb aboard, that he was going to turn off onto another road than that which we were going , but that it didn't make any difference to him how he got where he was going, and that he would try to catch up with the bus for us. Like manna from heaven.

We thought we would be able to get on the bus at the Sandy Elementary, but the bus left just as we came off the bridge. We followed it on out to the hard road, but the road was clear and the bus pulled out before he could get the driver's attention. A few stops up the road was where my cousin normally got off the bus, so she got out when the bus stopped in front of us. I stayed in because it was only about two miles on to where I could get on the bus at the Maple Creek Elementary School. And if I didn't make it onto the bus, it was only about three quarters of a mile farther to my house. When the bus stopped at Maple Creek Elementary, I got on with the elementary kids and everyone kept asking where I had been. And I had a tale to tell them.

When we got to school the next morning, our home room teacher sent us to the office. The principal said he had a note that we were not on the bus the afternoon before and he wanted to know why. we both spoke up and told him the same story, about how we thought his daughter was responsible. He said that was not the story he had gotten but he would look into it. She and I both had assumed we were going to get paddled for the way we talked about his daughter, but it didn't happen. When we got into homeroom that afternoon we were dismissed but were told we needed to go to the principals office. We thought, uh, oh, we've had it now. He handed us a letter to take to our parents in which he apologized for the incident, accepting all the blame.

THE SCI-FI MASTERS

2008-03-31T11:13:00.000-04:00

"...For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;..."

Alfred, lord Tennyson (1809-1892) "Locksley Hall" lines 119-122

Quite a seer, was our Tennyson. Born the same year as Lincoln and died just when the fervor of automobile experimentation was at its' height, foretelling the airplane and its' commerce and role in warfare. Especially when you consider that the poem these lines appear in was first published in 1842, long before automobiles and airplanes were common-in fact before many men had even dreamed of such.

Other prophets had done so before, but few, if any, had expressed it quite so clearly. Even the Bible had its' share of prophets, and visionaries have existed throughout history. Nostradamus and da Vinci come to mind immediately. Da Vinci even made drawings of some of his and they bear remarkable resemblances to modern day inventions.

Modern day visionaries' thoughts are even more far out of mainstream writing. Three of them were exceptional: Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke. And over the past fifteen or so years we have lost all three, but their ideas live on in such stories as the Rama series by Clarke, the Foundation series by Asimov and the Future History series by Heinlein.

Isaac Asimov was the son of a Russian immigrant to the United States. He was very young when his family came to America. His life is well documented so I will not go into it, except to say that he received an excellent education, obtaining the professional use of his doctorate to teach biochemistry at the university level for a number of years. But his greatest love was his writing. And he was the writer of hundreds of books-texts, opinion pieces, criticism, general sciences and science fiction and mysteries.

When I was the tender age of ten, my father brought home a short novel named "Nightfall." From that moment on I was a fan of Asimov. The story concerned the natives of a planet located in the central core of galaxies where there was always a sun shining in the sky. Every few millennia, the movement of the galaxies was such that there descended upon the world a complete and total darkness, lasting only one night. "Nightfall" deals with the social and religious implications of such an event.

Asimov's "Foundation" series was a landmark series. Originally written as a trilogy in the late forties and early fifties, he expanded it to include his "Robot" novel characters in the seventies, and brought it full circle at the end of the complete series which ran to some six or seven books, not counting the original robot novels. The series chronicle the attempt by a changing group of men to allay the effects of the downfall of of an empire from internal corruption and to reduce the time required to rebuild a new empire from its' ashes, thereby reducing the time of chaos from thirty thousand years to a fraction of that time.

Although I have enjoyed every book he ever wrote that I could lay my hands on, I have always felt that his general sciences books were the very best. He could take extremely difficult subjects and explain them in everyday terminology which even youngsters could usually understand. My personal favorite is "Adding a Dimension," but I leave it to you to read and see for yourself. You may very well find others that you deem better, and that is what makes a horserace.

Robert Heinlein passed away a few years ago. He was, like Asimov, a very prolific writer, most always in the science fiction genre. Early in his career, he constructed a future timeline of events and people, and then proceeded to write short stories and novels based upon that future history. His future history encompassed the rise of the religious right to include a theocracy for the United States, the bringing forth of a family of very long lived men and women and the resultant turn=moil when their longevity was made public, the birth and life of a human youngster on Mars and what occurs after he is brought to the Earth for 'humanization', and many others all welded into a framework which includes the 'black hats' of the Universe. I have never tried to figure out just how many of his works are tied into this framework, but it always seemed to me that he was very consistent in the views which were expressed throughout his works.

I could not assign a favorite among his many works. Each of them has its' own worth and comparisons are difficult. My own screen name, by the way, is taken from one of his novels, "The Moon IS A Harsh Mistress." But the term appears in many other works by Heinlein. One note I will make is that he uses alternate Universes and alternate Earths throughout his histories. Many times the story actually revolves around that alternate theory. Tanstaafl simply means "there aint no such thing as a free lunch," which pretty well expresses my view on life.

The third of the triumvirate is probably the best known around the world. We all know at least one work by Arthur C. Clarke, "2001: A Space Odyssey." But a great deal of the science in that novel and film was known at the time and the novel, while interesting, does not really display the depth of his knowledge. His "Rama" series is probably much more indicative of this than many of his other novels.

Like Asimov and Heinlein, Clarke was a very prolific writer. As well, he hosted his own television series which was a scientific coup. and drew many younger viewers to the field. During his later years, Clarke teamed with other authors, most notably Gentry Lee, a writer of some renown in his own right. Clarke's and Lee's "Cradle" is an excellent novel.

For pure technical works, Clarke was difficult to match. His understanding of basic science was on a par with Asimov and his ability to weave the science into his stories was unparalleled, especially so in that he introduced it in a manner that even non-technical minds could, if not entirely grasp it, at least see that the work was well grounded in science.

His crowning achievement, of course, was being knighted by Queen Elizabeth.

All three are gone from us now. This world will, undoubtedly, have others just as great. But my time of reading will not discover them. I have large collections of all three, although my Clarke's are not as extensive as I'd like. And the science is now something that I do not keep up with too well. Newer writer that I enjoy are primarily those who deal in the fantasy genre, where science is left by the wayside and the social and interpersonal relationships are explored.

But after a few of those, I find myself rereading some of these three masters for relief and I find that the enjoyment of rereading one of their works is as much or more pleasurable than trying to grasp the nuances of new writers.

So, goodbye old friends. Your great works are for the ages now. They serve as a fine memory and current comfort to me. You will be read as long as my eyes and inclinations remain.

CONSERVATIVE LIBERALISM OR LIBERAL CONSERVATISM?

2008-03-29T19:44:00.000-04:00

Michelle, who is a very valued commenter on this blog, indicated that she was having maybe some ideological concerns of late. It seems that her conservative views have, in some instances, devolved into some fairly liberal stances.

Welcome to the real world, Michelle.

You are not alone. Practically everyone has the same experience, or the reverse experience. I did not make this up, but someone once said that he was afraid to be too liberal in his youth because that meant he would probably be too conservative in his old age. You and I probably are the ones who fall into the 'reverse' group here.

I make no bones about it. I am a conservative. I was born in 1942, so I was able to vote the first time in the 1964 elections. I was a strong supporter of Barry Goldwater, and still feel that had he been elected Vietnam would have been over by the middle of his first term. Instead it ended more than a decade later and we still feel the effects of improper prosecution of a war. I campaigned for him, was called one of "Barry's Boys" on many occasions, and contributed money to help elect some Republicans to Congress.

Strangely, four years before, in my first year at Marshall, I had worked for Hubert Humphrey in an attempt to stop the juggernaut of Joe Kennedy's millions that was used to buy West Virginia and the presidency for his son. I got to meet both and have few words with them, and found Kennedy to be magnetic but transparent and Humphrey to be overwhelmed by the effects of the money thrown against him. Had I been able to I would have voted for Nixon that year.

I majored in Accounting in college and took a position in northern WV upon graduation. The accounting degree was useful in that it immediately placed me into management for the bulk of my career--until I got fed up with management and what it had become--and dropped out to become a lowly telemarketer. But a telemarketer who was constantly harassed by management to rejoin their ranks. During my long career I served as financial manager for a number of Fortune 500's and then became active in social work management, which was where my management career ended. I retired in 2004, just before my 62nd birthday.

None of that is important, except that, as a manager, my social and political views were pretty much conservative. Then, as now, I felt that conservatives generally were better at managing the government from a financial standpoint. And, admittedly, my social views inclined to be somewhat conservative, also. While the idealism of youth was still around, it lay hidden below my consciousness for twenty-five years or so.

I do not know of any particular thing that caused my social views to begin changing in the mid-1980's, but they began a metamorphosis that astounded me. Come to think of it, maybe I do have some inkling. It was Roe v. Wade that got me unstrung.

I do not believe in abortion as a common method of contraception. Therapeutic abortion for specific reasons, yes, I approve. But simply because a woman does not want to bear a child is not enough reason to deny that child life. In my opinion, anyway. So how did that make me become more liberal? Funny you should ask. I wondered about that too. But it started a complete review of my value system.

Always a strong supporter of individual rights, I felt that the right to keep and bear arms was critical to the national profile. I was a strong supporter of the death penalty. I had little sympathy for those on welfare of their own accord, which spilled over at times to scorn for those who were there for any reason. My, how the times do change.

After a lot of internal debate and a lot of hand wringing, excited by the experiences of living in a few major and a few tiny cities, and seeing the carnage performed by Americans upon Americans, I found I could no longer support private ownership of handguns. Subsequent developments in this area has led me to withdraw my support for even hunting rifles and shotguns, and all other firearms. And I feel I am well within the Constitution in doing so. It says "...in order to maintain a well armed militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged." Well, okay, let them keep and bear their arms in a well armed militia. That does not mean they are or should be allowed to walk the streets with them. In this case I think the conservatives have erred and continue to err in their interpretation of that great document. (That is hilarious, I typed interpretation as 'unterpretation'--maybe I should have left it that way, it makes more sense!)

All my life I had been a supporter of the death penalty. Relying upon the Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye, I paid little heed to the other one that said thou shalt not kill. The whole thing about abortion called into question, for me, just when if ever killing was allowable. Even the Bible was unreliable as it also says, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. So could society, as a whole, condone killing simply because it had not worked out a way to prevent it? Clearly, if society put a murderer to death, there would be no repeat by that murderer. But it provided no clear deterrence either, as witnessed by the fact that most murders were committed by family members upon other family members. And those family members committed those murders in the heat of passion or by clear premeditation for various reasons where knowledge of the consequences meant little or nothing. I vacillated, but finally come to the firm conclusion that the death penalty was an unworkable punishment and did more harm to society than good.

I have always felt, and still do, that, of those who live on welfare alone, probably eighty to ninety percent have no real reason to be there except an aversion to working for the good of themselves and society. I have little if any respect for them, particularly those families now in their third or fourth generation of welfare. But at one time I lumped them all together, those permanently on relief and those temporarily on relief. And what a fool I was. For I came to realize that there are so very many that are there through no fault of their own. And those ones we must encourage and aid in any way possible. We must go out of our way to succor these unfortunate persons.

But the permanent welfare dweller is a problem of another sort. And I have no solutions for them. Absolutely they are a tremendous drain on society. Some go so far as to feel an entitlement to those funds. But, you know, I also feel we must in some ways try to generate a sense of worth among them, which they sadly lack. What programs are required and what concessions must be made and what demands must, I cannot begin to extrapolate from my own experiences. I only know that we must be much more concerned with them than we have been in the past. We cannot allow such a percentage of our citizens to ride free upon the largess of society forever.

So, yes, I have a patch of liberal views, myself. As does every thinking adult. And I also have a greater patch of conservative views. Indeed, my own personal views are currently best described as falling almost over into the libertarian areas. I am tired of government which is overbearing, grasping, insensitive and unappealing. I am tired of politicians. I am tired of those who think they know better than I how I feel about matters of importance. I am sick to death with those who pimp their own solutions and think anyone who doesn't agree with their views are undoubtedly ignorant or intentionally boorish, or whatever their latest buzzwords are for those who dare disagree.

I do not care one bit if some think of me as one of the great unwashed majority of the country. I take it as a compliment when I get a disagreement from an especially rotten correspondent, to a well reasoned argument, that he happens to not agree with. The old sticks and stones saying is true. Even some of my best friends and I disagree somewhat fiercely on some areas. And disagreement is a good thing. It shows that people are thinking.

But by the same token, the proper usage of the English language is an indicator of the intelligence of the person. A good argument is destroyed, whether liberal or conservative, by rotten language. Asking someone to add the punctuation or missing words or capitalization is the sure sign that the writer is not concerned with making a valid point, only in trumpeting his ignorance.

I'm feeling a rant coming on, and this is not the time nor place for that.

So, don't feel too bad, Michelle, you are among good company with your ideology. I dare say everyone who reads this blog is in the same position, a mix of both. And that is what is so great about this land of ours, we can be different while being a part of the one body of America. And be free to do so.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XIII

2008-03-28T18:30:00.000-04:00

BIG YELLOW SCHOOLBUS

Part IV

When I was a sophomore in high school, the second oldest girl from the family up the road began riding the bus. She was one of four girls in the family, no boys. She was entering the seventh grade. She was 19 years old. Yes, 19. Ugly as sin and dumb as a broadaxe. And this was the year that the board decided that all bus stops had to be at least two tenths of a mile apart.We had never had a problem before, as the stop prior to ours was well up the road and the next stop was at the bottom of the hill. But now that she had started to ride the bus, that made her stop and ours only about one and a half tenths of a mile apart. The compromise was that we would walk halfway to her house and she would walk halfway to ours.

Well, that lasted a whole one day. We walked up halfway but she stood in front of her house. The bus came along and passed her up and stopped for us. The driver waited about five minutes, honking the horn every now and then. While she stood her ground so to speak. He finally took off with all of us laughing. The next morning we walked up again and she again stood in front of her house. Her father stood with her and flagged down the driver. After about five minutes, she got on the bus, her father got off and the driver pulled the bus down to pick us up. We got on and he proceeded with the route as usual.

On the way to school, my brothers and I talked with the driver and we decided that she and her family were not going to budge. We asked him if the mileage between our front path was still over the two tenths rule, and he said that it was, just barely. He also said that if we would move our spot down front instead of out back, that he could then pick her up at her house. We told him that was fine with us, and that was the way it was.

Kids are cruel. Those on the bus constantly made fun of her. She had a slight speech impediment which, naturally, the kids exaggerated, and she wore clothing that obviously were hand-me-down hand-me-downs, of such garish colors that it would make one blink. Her favorite outfit, worn two or three times per week, was a brilliant yellow and bright purple get up. Almost gives me a headache just to remember it. She wore an old rag coat year round and an old felt hat that somewhat covered her always greasy looking hair. Her manner was very abrupt, always unsmiling even when someone tried to be friendly with her.

Riding the bus home one hot late September day, all the windows open on the bus to catch whatever wind we could, we all were remarking that she was still standing when there were many available seats where she could sit. I guess maybe we were wondering why that stump didn't sit down and take a load off her legs. She had been standing all the way from school and we were now about three miles from home, about seven or eight from school. During all tghis time the driver had been observing her as the bus emptied and she remained standing.

The bus had been completely full when we left the high school and it was not unusual for there to be three or four kids who had to stand until we made a stop or two. But what ws unusual ws that the high school was the second stop--it loaded the junior high kids first, and she was in the seventh grade. There were empty seats when the bus got to the high school and she was standing at that time. Oh, well.

We had pulled off Lower Buck Road onto the hard road heading south and were approaching the stop for the kids who lived on Upper Buck Road. Suddenly someone or something, dislodged the old felt hat from her head. Out the window it flew like a bird on the wing. And such a look of perplexion came over her face that we all burst out laughing (yeah, I know there is no such word, but it fits the situation so well.) I can understand now that it was cruel of us to laugh, but, at the time it was hilarious. She moved back and forth in the aisle, three steps forward, three steps backward and repeat. And all the time the driver is watching her.She had begun to settle down a little as we neared the elementary school to pick up those kids for the rest of the trip.

Her two sisters came on board along with the rest, and sat down in the seat next to where she was standing. At this time, including the space where her sisters sat, there were probably thirty empty spaces available, many of them completely empty seats. Apparently the driver had had enough. He looked in the mirror and said, "Hey, girl, what's the matter?" She looked up into the mirror and shouted, "Find no seat!" At which point the entire busload erupted into laughter. The driver told her to sit because he was not going to move the bus until she was in a seat. She continued to stand. This conversation went on, one-sided, for a few minutes and she finally sat down with her sisters who were tugging at her to get her down. That was her last day of school.

Her next younger sister never made it to the seventh grade. She retired from public education at eighteen in the sixth grade. We always referred to her as the halfback, or the hunchback.

The youngest sister started riding the bus when I was a senior. There was no problem with her walking down to the halfway post after the first two or three times that the driver failed to pick her up at her house. The first morning he picked us both up, she at her house and me at our back mailbox. But the told us both that the stop was at the power pole midway between our houses from then on. I walked up to the pole the next day and she stood in front of her house. The driver passed her up. Same thing the next day. And the next. The next day her father stood in the middle of the road and forced him to stop. There ensued a conversation which I heard about later. The driver told me that they had gone at it pretty hot and heavy with the father making some threats and the driver had told him that the stop was where I was standing and that was the only place he was stopping in the future, that he would not stop to talk or even open the doors except at that stop. The next day and every day after that she was at that pole for the bus to pick her up.

And the funny thing was that the following year, she came down to that post for about a week and a half until some rat told her I wasn't going to school anymore.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XII

2008-03-28T14:12:00.000-04:00

BIG YELLOW SCHOOL BUS
Part III

Now and then, during these six fast years, we had floods. Did we ever have floods. When it was dry, it was very, very dry and when it was wet, it flooded. Our route, no matter which one, was beset with low water crossings (no flood control dams had been built then,) so we were at the mercy of the weather. And the weather ain't too merciful sometimes. Maple Creek, Lower Buck Road, Blue Town Road, the hard road at the end of Blue Town Road and even the four lane near town. And with a flood, it ain't a case of being late, you just are not there at all.

One merry morning in my junior year in high school we were just rolling along. At the low point on Maple Creek, we went through with no problem, the water was just at the bottom of the pavement at the high-banked curve. There was backwater at the entrance to Lower Buck Creek Road but only about six inches or so. At the dip on Lower Buck (if you have traveled it you know where it is, if you haven't, it is unimportant,) the water was two or three inches over the road at the very bottom of the dip. No problem, we rolled along.

At the railroad bridge near Inez, near where we had a bus wreck one time, the water was about a foot or so below the road so we crept slowly by and headed on to Swamp Hollow. Here we could see that the water had flooded all the bottomland of the dairy farm and we told the driver he should turn around and take us home, that he wouldn't be able to get through on Blue Town Road, past Blue Creek. He didn't listen, of course, he had a job to do.

The water was not quite into the road at two places near Swamp Hollow that were susceptible to floding and we rolled along. We started down Blue Town Road and did really well until we got to Blue Creek Road. we were supposed to go up that road but there was about two or three feet of water covering it at the lowest point we could see from Blue Town Road. So we went up the grade and turned down toward the camp. And here there was about a foot of water over the road. We stopped. The driver got out and looked. Back on the bus. And he got out and looked again. Then he mounted that old International and took us through. After that nothing could save us. We were bound for school and neither hell nor high water would keep us from it. He was just determined to get us to school that day.

He did. And was met at the high school by the superintendent of transportation, who told him to turn it around and take us back home, that the forecast was for a swift ride on the river. They were closing all the schools for the day. So off we roll again. When we got back to the turn off to Blue Town Road, the hard road was closed in two places, but we were able to get across the bridge and proceed down Blue Town. The water was now about a foot-and-a-half of water over the road. But old Buster took us through. With a mighty bow wave, the old bus made it through and made it to the top of the grade before it coughed and sputtered and died. After a number of tries, it finally sprang back into life and we were off again on our mid-morning hegira.

Water over the road at both places near Swamp Hollow. We went through and rolled along. Water just breaching the road at Inez. We rolled along. Dirty brown water swirling about a foot deep at the dip. We rolled along. backwater visible all the way along Lower Buck to the hard road. We rolled along.

Water covering one full lane at the high-bank curve at Maple Creek. We moved to upper lane and rolled along. I rode the bus all the way up Maple Creek road and he turned the bus around. We broke speed records coming back down Maple Creek Road to my house. I was the only kid left on the bus. When I got off I wished him luck getting home. He lived about two miles farther south on the hard road, but there was one more place the water usually got over he road before he would get there. He took off fast and told me later what occurred.

He turned right onto the hard road. He noticed there was no traffic. He rolled along. He drove to the top of the hill and started down to Jones Creek. WHOA UP, BUCKO! Jones Creek backwater completely closed the hard road with about four feet of water. She'll drive, but she won't float. Buster had to back it up about a quarter-mile to the drive-in near the top of the hill and get home by canoe and shanks mare

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XI

2008-03-28T14:07:00.000-04:00

BIG YELLOW SCHOOL BUS
Part II

While we always called the road Blue Town Road, it was actually Camp Road. Blue Creek Road is about a half mile from the camp and goes up a hollow that would take you to the hard road at the top of Dunns Hill if you followed the cowtrack on up the hill. Just before you get to Blue Creek Road coming from Sandy, there is a hill and a longish run around the hill to get back down to Blue Creek.

Whenever we had a good rain, the road in this stretch became very muddy--greasy, we used to say. It was mainly red clay mud and the gravel washed off soon as it was applied. If the gravel didn't wash off, it was ground down into the clay by the traffic anyway, so it did no good. As we were such a studious and conscientious lot, we naturally hoped there would be no untoward occurrences as the bus navigated this tricky little piece of landscape during such times. No one likes to be stuck out on a hillside waiting for a tow when they could be safely ensconced in a warm classroom learning to decline a Latin verb or proving that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides (and thank you, too, Pythagoras.)

Sure. And God didn't make little green apples, either.

When it got good and soupy and the bus made its' way up to the top of the hill, we all hoped that the brother and sister who lived almost to the top of the hill were going to school that day. For if they did, the bus had to stop to pick them up and then go into low gear and that was always a potential slide in a coach that long. Never would we think of doing a "student body left" while the driver tried vainly to keep it out of the ditch. Never. Always. And about 50 % of the time it worked.

It was always too muddy to get outside so we sat and sang songs or whatever else suited our fancies until they brought a tow truck, tractor or another bus (seldom--why get another bus in the ditch?) Besides, we were guaranteed to be at least an hour late getting to school. Eventually (after a couple of years) they got smart and overloaded the area with gravel and stone--and then they changed the route so we didn't go that way anymore.

Of course, that was not the only place the bus got hung up. Ferguson Ridge Road was always a great place for it to happen also. This road, once the top of the ridge was breasted, was pure red clay, all the way from the top of the hill at the cemetery to old schoolhouse. And there was the place where the bus got hung up regularly, especially in the spring of the year.

The bus had to be turned around here, and the driver went just beyond the schoolhouse and then backed in beside it, made a few back and forth moves, and then made a sharp right turn and was on the way back out the ridge toward the hard road. There was a large tree in just the wrong place and the driver had to turn the wheel a little left and get the side clear of the tree before he could go on out. The schoolhouse was built on fill dirt that had been shoved over the hill and then leveled for the site.

If it had been raining for a while, the dirt turned to pure red clay mud, slick and soft and the back end of the bus would sink . The more the driver tried to move, the farther it sank. When this occurred, we had to wait for an extended length of time since this was at the very end of the route in terms of distance from the garage, plus the fact that there were no telephones in the area, and this was long before the advent of cb radio or cell phones. So we had to wait for someone coming by on the road to even send for help. There was a road just across Ferguson Ridge Road that went down the hill into the next county, but in all my years of being around there, I only saw a vehicle on it one time, and that was a huge logging truck.

The only help was to catch someone driving down off the ridge and have them call the garage. Now there were kids from only three families that we picked up at that stop and they had walked upwards of a mile to get there. There were no telephones and the traffic was very light, most of their fathers had already gone to work before the bus ever got there, and most families only had the one vehicle, if they had one at all. We sat there, on occasion, as long as three hours before the folks at the garage realized we were stuck somewhere. Then they had to run the route backwards to find us. Once or twice a logging truck happened by and pulled us out.

This schoolhouse was a one-room school that had been closed and consolidated into Maple Creek Elementary the year that I was in the fifth grade. We picked up about fifteen kids from that closure and another fifteen or so from the closing of Upper Buck and ten more from Lower Buck (my cousin was the teacher at Upper Buck when it closed.) The board had added one more room to Maple Creek Elementary and had expanded the kitchen to accommodate the influx of students. After the addition of these three schools, Maple Creek Elementary had about eighty kids altogether.

The old schoolhouse on Ferguson Ridge then became a church. I have no idea what denomination this church was supposed to be. And, for my brothers and I, and a few other folks, too, the easiest way to get to the church was to go up to the head of Maple Creek and ascend the old road to the top of the hill whee the church was located. At one time, that old road was capable of being negotiated by old time automobiles, then by trucks only and then by jeep only and by the time I was old enough to know anything, by horse or foot only, after a slip developed and took three-quarters of the roadway with it. That road had been the main way to get to Ferguson Ridge back in the 1920's and 1930's but fell into disrepair during the 1930's and the war years. Going by foot for us was a trip of about one-and-a-half miles from our house to the church.

The other way of course was to go out to the hard road, north on the hard road for about a mile then up Ferguson Ridge Road for about three miles, for a total trip of about five miles. So it was natural for us to go up our hollow and up the hill. About halfway up this hill, there was a pool of water just off the old road. This pool had some of the best tasting water in those parts, especially when you were climbing that hill. I don't know how it tasted when you were descending the hill, because I never needed it then. And as I grew older I realized that drinking that water may not have been such a good idea anyway, as you never knew who had been up and down that hill before you or what they may have done in their travels.

After the church had been established for a while, they decided to put a big press on to reap the large number of young people who came to the church but spent most of the time outside socializing. Their method was to sponsor weiner roasts (ok, we called them weenie roasts.) All the swells and not-so-swells attended these functions, as well as a large number of the local girls. As it was church-sponsored, no one thought of bringing in anything alcoholic (unless you looked in a few of the cars.) On the whole, everyone was very well-behaved, even the normal adolescent and post-adolescent profanity was muted. One fellow did ask the preacher for a 'church key' one night, but that was not too bad (as a matter of fact, the preacher pulled one out of his pocket and handed it to him.) The food was good, the company better and everyone had a good time. Sure beat those school-sponsored 'socials.'

The better part of these get-togethers was that there was nothing else going on at the time in the area. The weenie roasts were held on summer and early fall evenings when it was warm, but not hot, out on top of the ridge, and were welcome diversions for all the locals. Plus, there was no preaching, no altar calls, no pleas to come to the Lord. Just a social get-together where all were welcome. After the church folks left, it got a little looser, but even then was pretty well controlled.

Coming home we usually walked off the hill by the road so we could stop at the little drive-in restaurant at the end of the road at the hard road. Here we could listen to good country music, drink a pop and talk--plus see who else was hanging out that night. Most nights we had one of our unmarried uncles and a bunch of friends and a looney guy from down at the bottom of the hill walking with us. Local folks said he had a steel plate in his head as a result of a prior injury. He acted half-crazy and his grandfather was the local bootlegger. He'd walk along telling wild tales and occasionally screaming at the top of his lungs. When he was quiet, which happened sometimes, it was very peaceful to listen to the crickets and katydids and all the tree frogs calling out in the night.

My brother used to tell the tale that when he was hunting one day, he happened to be near the old mans' still. The revenuers had been there and smashed the still and upended the barrels of mash and the drippings had flowed into the sluggish little stream that flowed out of the hollow and joined another creek to form the northern branch of Maple Creek. Some of the old mans' cattle had wandered down to get a drink from the creek and had sampled some of that white lightning. He said they were stumbling and weaving and falling down from the effects. Just like the men who drank it did.

IT'S FRIDAY, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?

2008-03-28T11:15:00.000-04:00

There are times when I let my righteous indignation get the better of me.

Over the past few weeks, I have noticed that my responses to certain individuals and certain situations have not been completely indicative of my true feelings. I have noted an increase in my basic conservatism, to the point that I find I have been less than forgiving of those who are the of the liberal stripe. Whatever the reasons, I do not find that I wish to continue this trend.

I am a conservative, in thought and deed. But I am not an extreme conservative. I hold more moderate views, and, in fact, agree with the liberal view in many respects. Yet I have seen my reaction to the extreme liberals to be a 9-9 push toward the far right. My normal laid back style has been corrupted. And I will change that.

I am an intelligent person. Therefore I should have realized that the posters of the far left have been inciting me to my responses. But I fell into their trap, and responded as they wanted me to. No more. I am on to their baiting.

I am a forgiving person, probably too forgiving, at times. But, nevertheless, I do tend to get my points across, at times in a most acerbic way. At other times, I get my points across in a straightforward manner. I much prefer the latter method.

I am not a lurker. When I see something with which I disagree, I do not stand back, I jump right in and let the writer know that I disagree. I do not do this for every item, as I do not have that much time. But if I feel it is important, I do let the writer know that I feel they are wrong and give reasons why I feel that way. But, of late, I have found that I have been going on gut reaction, rather than reasoned argument.

So, what do I do now? Where do I go?

For the most part, there will be little change. There will be less confrontational responses from me. There will be more reasoned responses from me. And, there will be fewer responses from me. I found myself jumping into discussions where all I was doing was adding heat. And my normal moderate views do not support that activity.

I became embroiled in the Clinton/Obama cesspool. And for no good reasons. That is a problem the Democrat party will have to sort out. I don't really have a horse running in that race, it is too comical to really matter, and the mudslinging of those two can only add to the Republican coffers of tools to be used when the real race starts. So why should I get involved and try to correct their errors? I shouldn't. And won't. Unless the participants try to drag the conservatives into the slime along with them. So my political comments will become very few for the time being. At least on the national scale.

Local politics, however, will probably receive a larger share of my attention. As will local social issues, and statewide politics. I do have dogs in those races. And expect to participate in discussions of them.

Contrary to the diatribes issued by the liberal faction, I find that the conservatives like myself have a more idealistic view than the hard-line conservatives and the liberals as a group. I do not find that to be a problem for me. I have always been rather idealistic. But I tend to be somewhat of a pragmatist, too. Ideals do not feed the hungry nor clothe them nor shelter them. That takes pragmatic action. But even the most pragmatic person must have goals and ideals toward which they want to steer governmental and societal actions. And this must not be read as any religious bent, for it is not.

I am constantly disappointed by those who tout their idealistic notions and then fail to act upon them. I attempt, always, to move my life toward my ideals. Many successes and more failures. But the attempt must be made in every action that a person takes. Failure to reach the goal or the ideal is not a moral issue. Failure to attempt to do so is a moral issue.

A PICTURE IS WORTH ONE THOUSAND WORDS

2008-03-22T18:34:00.000-04:00

In no particular order, here are three that Hootie likes--at least he covers the bottom of his cage with them. That does mean he likes to read them, right?

JUST LUST

She set her cap, said "He's the man
Whom I want to wed,"
Not thinking of the other ones
That may have shared his bed.

They married, and he left her flat
After two months and went his way,
Leaving her with HIV,
Her reward for their play.

And six years later, to the day,
After she became his wife,
We laid her in a cold, cold grave,
When she gave up her life.

So, girls, remember, though it be love,
Or passion if you please,
There's danger in this big old world
Whenever you spread your knees.

AHHH, the train of truth rolls on unabated--

GRACIE

Once red hair, now mostly gray,
We wonder about her life.
She lives with a man across the way
And we know she's not his wife.

She had a good man once, she says.
But for some untold reason, lost him.
Who knows? Maybe she wanted too much
And he wouldn't pay what it would cost him.

Whatever the reason, she's stuck with it now,
And lives with the man who does the chores.
Seems like she's angry all the time,
While stirring the neighborhood wars.

A no-account woman that no one likes
And avoids whenever they must--
Just wanting nothing to do with her,
And all the resultant fuss.

We pray for her when we go to church,
That she'll repent some day,
And become the woman she could be--
Or else stay out of our way.

And flights of fantasy, too--

THE MAZE

The moon came out late that night
And shone on the snow so white.
It almost seemed like broad daylight
Though it was midway through the night.

I looked out and saw the deer
Walking in the yard so near.
They walked over to the weir
To drink the water, crystal clear.

They turned and came back through the snow
And started playing by the window,
Running and leaping to and fro
Making patterns in the snow.

The tracks were there for three more days,
In the snow looking like a maze.
From times long past I recall their play
When I remember the good old days.

Happy Easter everyone.

Yams and ham and taters, too.
Beans and corn and biscuits, woohoo.
Banana pudding and cake with strawberries
Let's all eat and be merry.
And remember the reason for the day.
Christ arose in the Passion Play,
And wiped our sin from the slate.
Remember, now, and pass the plate!

HUH?

2008-03-22T18:28:00.000-04:00

I just released Maple Creek Memories X to the post. When I went to look for it, I assumed it would be the leader. But it wasn't there. After a few minutes of flipping back and forth, I found it. I had typed it before the last poetry entry but had not published it. Blogger inserted it before the last poetry post. So now I guess I'll have to release them as I type them. And that doesn't give me any time to edit the way I like to. Dagnabbit!

Hey, my son just showed me a neat little trickie. Disregard this post and understand you are dealing with an old fart who sometimes doesn't .