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'Educated' should be read with grain of salt, says family's attorney
By Necia P. Seamons The Preston Citizen Feb 23, 2018
Like most parents, Val and LaRee Westover love their daughter, but unlike most parents, today they do that from afar, said their attorney, Blake Atkin of Clifton. LaRee Westover referred a call from the Citizen regarding the publication of their daughter Tara Westover’s book, “Educated,” to Atkin.
The book is Tara’s memoir. Her parents raised their family in what Tara described as an extremist mindset, but what they felt was self-sufficiency, Atkin said.
The Westovers chose to teach their children at home, but at 17, Tara decided to take her education into her own hands. Following an older brother’s example, she obtained the books she needed to study to take the ACT test. She scored so high she was not only accepted into Brigham Young University, but earned a scholarship to do so, Atkin said.
Tara graduated magna cum laude from Brigham Young University in 2008. She then went on to earn a master’s in philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge University, and spent a year as a visiting fellow at Harvard University.
Today she lives in England and has since earned a Ph.D. in history.
The book describes Tara’s journey from an upbringing in which Tara felt her parents’ survivalist ideals did not prepare her for her life.
She was born in 1986, but unlike most American residents, she did not have a birth certificate. She writes that Val’s survivalist ideals and distrust of the government plus LaRee’s knowledge of herbs and midwifery meant the younger children were delivered at home, and if they were injured or ill, LaRee healed them.
Years ago, when Val was severely burned in an explosion, LaRee supervised his recovery at home, Tara wrote.
“Tara’s parents are disappointed Tara would write a book that maligns them, their religion, their country, and homeschooling,” he said.
Although “there’s a little germ of truth,” in “Educated,” the book falsely portrays the Westover family, Atkin said.
“They are conservative, patriotic people. Tara says her father is a (Mormon) fundamentalist, which infers that he believes in polygamy. That’s certainly not the truth. She actually says her father has schizophrenia and that her mother had a severe brain injury that was never cared for, so she has lost her motor skills. Anyone who knows her knows that is not true,” Atkin said.
“The Westovers have hundreds of people that rely on their business, so they’ve instructed me to not let the allegations go unanswered,” Atkin said.
Butterfly Express, a 22-year-old company, began as a cottage industry in which LaRee’s knowledge of herbs and essential oils offered people “affordable and natural alternative resources for their families,” states their website.
Today, Butterfly Express is a family business with multiple facilities, 30 employees and an automated assembly line offering a wide variety of essential oils, education and related personal products including tinctures, minerals, diffusers and jewelry.
In an NPR interview Feb. 20, Tara noted that when she did reach BYU, she felt fearful and uneducated.
“One of my first lectures, I raised my hand and asked what the Holocaust was because I had never heard of it,” she said on NPR.
“And after a year or two of being in this environment and learning about all of these things — the Holocaust, the Civil Rights movement … the difference between North and South Korea — the world started to feel very big. And that’s, I think, when I began to wonder if moving back (with my family) … was really what I wanted,” she said on NPR.
Atkin disagrees with Tara’s characterization of the family’s educational efforts.
“The premise is that they started teaching the older kids, but by the time they got to her they neglected her schooling,” Atkin said.
Tara is one of seven children, three of whom have gone on to earn their a Ph.D.: Tara, Tyler and Richard, said Atkin.
“That’s 42 percent of their children. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a public school with those statistics,” he said.
“We used to think that education was to teach you how to read, think and plan what you wanted to do. If that were still the definition of education, then Val and LaRee Westover’s homeschooling was successful,” Atkin said.
Although Atkin said he feels the book is libelous, he said he has not been instructed to take legal action.
“The Westovers love their daughter, and they don’t want to hurt her,” he said.
But Tara writes in her book that when she went to them about a brother’s abusive behavior, she didn’t get the help she needed, which lead to estrangement from her family.
During a recent appearance on “CBS This Morning” she explained:
“When I confronted my parents with that, they decided to try and convince me that I was insane, and I couldn’t trust my own memories, and ultimately that would lead to estrangement from my family. At first that was their choice; they ostracized me for speaking up against my brother. And then eventually, it took me a lot of years, but then that was also my choice,” she said.
Atkin said Tara’s parents are troubled by those claims.
“They thought they were dealing with situation the best they could with what they knew,” Atkin said.
Tara said on the CBS show that her parents continually denied things that were happening, such as the incident with her brother.
“One of the reasons I wrote the book is because of the gaslighting I experienced from my parents,” she said. “I think the tragedy here isn’t that bad people do bad things. I think the tragedy is what good people do to keep secrets.”
Atkin said he has known the Westovers for 15 years and defends their goodness.
“My hope is that people will read the book with a little grain of salt,” Atkin said.
He acknowledges that she is in contact with some members of the family and not others.
100 years of coal mining in Harlan County
TERRY'S FORK — On Aug. 25, 1911, a Friday, a Louisville & Nashville locomotive steamed away from a tipple in a hollow in Harlan County with a load of coal bound for Western Kentucky, and the county changed dramatically, forever.
It was the first commercial coal shipment by rail out of the mountainous county.
The coming of the railroad sparked a feverish boom as out-of-state industrialists and investors, and some homegrown businessmen, rushed to develop the rich coalfield, with its high-quality seams nine feet thick in places.
Within a few short years, a sparsely populated place that had long been defined by subsistence farming was transformed into an industrial society largely controlled by the coal industry.
The population tripled by 1920 as people poured into Harlan County for work, and doubled again by 1930.
Coal production of 25,814 tons in 1910 shot up to 384,427 tons in 1912, then to 1.2 million tons in 1914, and eventually climbed to more than 15 million tons by the late 1920s.
The coal industry has dominated the local economy for a century, providing jobs in a place where they are scarce. There was a price, however, including the deaths of hundreds of miners who were blown up, crushed or suffocated. Others died more slowly from the coal dust in their lungs.
The number of deaths dropped dramatically over time with improved safety measures, technology and oversight. There were two mining-related deaths in Harlan County last year, according to federal regulators.
In the century since that first rail shipment, miners have blasted and dug nearly a billion tons of coal from the mountains of Harlan County.
As the county marks that anniversary, though, there are a lot of questions about what is to come during its second century of coal production.
Family foresight
Commercial coal production began in Kentucky long before the Civil War, but the Harlan area was among the last major deposits to be developed because companies built rail lines to other spots first.
During the three decades before the railroad came to Harlan County, industrialists, investors and speculators — many from out of state — had bought enormous tracts of timber and coal land throughout the region, or leased the mineral rights.
Many landowners in Eastern Kentucky, unfamiliar with its potential value, sold their control of great reserves of coal for as little as 50 cents to $1 an acre, according to some historians.
Kentenia Corp., a company based in the Northeast, once controlled more than 100 square miles of land in Harlan and Bell counties, according to an entry in the Kentucky Encyclopedia by James S. Greene III, a school administrator and historian in Harlan.
The first coal shipped out of Harlan County, however, came from land owned by a local businessman, Jesse M. Blanton.
The family story is that Franklin Delano Roosevelt stopped by Blanton's farm when the future president went to Harlan County with a team surveying coal properties during the early 1900s, said Mark Bailey, Blanton's great-grandson.
Roosevelt asked Blanton what he thought of a steep mountain in the distance as an investment for Roosevelt.
Blanton dismissed it, and Roosevelt rode off, but the local entrepreneur actually realized the potential value of the land. He sold other property to buy part of the mountain and later leased it to a coal company to mine because he knew the railroad was coming, Bailey said.
"He outfoxed the future president," said Bailey.
At the height of the Great Depression in the 1930s, Bailey said, Blanton's monthly income from coal properties was $7,000. That would be roughly $95,000 today.
His descendants still own land Blanton bought, and it has produced income for every generation.
Company towns
As in other counties, companies quickly built entire towns in Harlan County to house miners after the railroad came.
A subsidiary of U.S. Steel, for instance, built Lynch in 1917 at the foot Big Black Mountain, the highest peak in Kentucky.
Where there had been only scattered small farms, the city's population quickly grew to 10,000, equaling that of the entire county before the boom.
Most of the people who flooded into the county for jobs were from nearby counties, but the miners included African-Americans from the South and European immigrants.
"It was just like a magnet," Greene said in interview.
The companies controlled every aspect of their towns, some even paying miners in scrip, company money used to buy goods at the company commissary.
The miner "had no voice in community affairs or working conditions, and he was dependent upon the benevolence of the employer to maintain his rate of pay," Ronald D. Eller, a professor at the University of Kentucky, wrote in Miners, Millhands and Mountaineers, his book on the industrialization of the Appalachian South.
The industrial age brought what a number of historians have described as wrenching change, with thousands of people who had been independent farmers suddenly living in crowded camps owned by someone else, working for a wage for the first time.
The transformation also brought much greater access to material goods, as well as doctors, schools and other amenities. The quality of camp housing varied but was better than what many miners previously had.
But the changes also produced "serious social disorganization," historian John W. Hevener said in his 1978 book Which Side Are You On? — the title of a famous labor song from the county.
With guns and alcohol widely available to people adjusting to a new order and used to settling disagreements for themselves, bloodshed was common.
The homicide rate in Harlan County in the 1920s was the highest in the nation — twice that of Florida, the most violent state — with 50 homicides a year, Hevener's book reported.
And the divorce rate in the county rose 80 percent from 1922 to 1932, according to a study Eller cited in his book.
Bitter labor battles
Harlan County had some of the most widely reported labor problems of the 1930s, when violence during bitter fights over union organizing cemented the nickname "Bloody Harlan."
Coal operators used their control over the county's economy and politics to beat back union efforts in the 1920s and 30s, evicting union members from company houses, blacklisting them and paying the salaries of sheriff's deputies who supported the companies' efforts and intimidated miners.
The coal boom already had stalled when the Great Depression crippled the county's coal industry after 1929.
From 1929 to 1931, the average Harlan County miner's annual wage — already lower than those of miners in unionized northern coal states — dropped from $1,235 to $749. The number of children dying of diseases related to malnutrition rose and would have been higher if not for a feeding program the Quakers launched in late 1931, according to Hevener's book.
"We live on beans and bread. We don't get no dinner," one woman was quoted as saying in Harlan Miners Speak, a 1932 book by a committee that took testimony on labor violence at the request of the Communist-backed National Miners Union.
By 1932, a third of the county's mines had closed, according to A New History of Kentucky by Lowell Harrison and James Klotter.
Amid the desperate conditions, both sides used violence in the labor struggle.
One of the bloodiest events occurred in May 1931, when union miners ambushed a convoy of cars escorting a non-union miner near Evarts.
Three deputies and one miner died in the shootout, Hevener wrote.
Changing times
Better economic times returned with the World War II demand for coal, but the industry continued to undergo major changes in the decades after the war because of technology and market forces, going through cycles of boom and decline.
That meant big changes for Harlan County.
Demand dropped after the railroads stopped using coal to drive locomotives, and factories switched to oil and natural gas for their needs.
Production in Harlan County fell throughout the 1950s, hitting a near 50-year low in 1960 of 1.3 million tons, state records show.
The drop in production meant a big drop in jobs and population as well.
From 1950 to 1970, people left to find work, causing the county's population to drop by nearly half, U.S. Census figures show.
Coal companies pulled out of the business of owning towns as large rail mines were replaced by smaller mines. The companies sold the houses and closed the company stores.
U.S. Steel sold its houses in Lynch to residents in the early 1960s.
Growing use of machines to mine coal also meant the companies needed fewer employees. Employment in Kentucky's underground mines fell 70 percent from 1950 to 1965; in Harlan County, mining employment dropped from 13,619 to 2,433 in that time, according to A New History of Kentucky.
A Middle Eastern oil embargo caused a spike in coal demand during the 1970s and 80s, and mining employment rose to 4,419 in 1981, the most recent employment peak.
There were 1,780 people employed in mining in the county in 2009, an increase of 195 from the year before, according to federal data.
Looking beyond coal
The coal industry doesn't have as tight a grip on Harlan County as it once did.
However, Mark Bell, president of the Harlan County Chamber of Commerce, estimated 20 percent to 25 percent of the jobs in the county are tied directly to the industry.
"It's the foundation on which the economic livelihood of the community functions," Bell said.
Still, the county is relatively poor and the population has declined steadily for decades, falling to 29,278 in 2010 — the lowest level since before 1920.
The loss in population has fed the longtime interest in diversifying the county's economy.
Many residents think highway access will have to be improved for the county's economy to grow.
But Eller says Harlan and other Appalachian counties need a different, broader concept of what constitutes economic development, and how to achieve it, than the ideas local and state leaders have traditionally held — building industrial parks in hopes of luring factories, and investing in coal.
Harlan County has potential for jobs in agriculture, tourism and other fields, he said.
"The problem is we've got to redesign the economy" to reach that potential, Eller said.
Surface mining conflict
The controversies around the coal industry have shifted.
The United Mine Workers of America finally organized the county during the late 1930s, but its influence later waned, and there are no UMW mines in the county now. It's been almost 40 years since there was serious unrest and violence over attempts to unionize a mine in Harlan County.
These days, the most emotional fight relates to mountaintop mining, in which coal companies blast the tops off mountains to reach coal seams.
That controversy has caused conflict different from the labor upheavals "but not far removed in terms of emotional intensity," John D. Hennen, a professor at Morehead State University, said in his introduction to a new edition of Harlan Miners Speak.
There is less mountaintop mining in Harlan County than in some other counties in Eastern Kentucky. In 2009, underground production in the county totaled 7.5 million tons compared to 2.9 million tons produced by surface mining, according to the Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing.
The ratio was much closer in some coal counties. In Pike County, for instance, there was 9.3 million tons of underground production and 7.1 million tons mined from the surface.
Harlan County is no stranger to the fight over mountaintop mining, however.
Some residents and local officials are objecting to a coal company's application for a surface mine near Lynch, the historic mining town.
The concern is that the mine would hurt the chances of developing tourism based on the town's beautiful location and history.
"We want 'em to leave us something," said Carl Shoupe, a former miner and union organizer who is a member of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, which opposes surface mining.
"It's a payday next week for 12 men," he said of a surface mine, "but what is it for our grandchildren?"
Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, said a lot of variables will influence the second century of coal production in Harlan County.
Those include environmental regulation, technological changes and the growth of demand in China and India.
But the projected growth in energy needs means coal will be a key part of meeting those needs for a long time, Bissett said.
"I strongly believe that in 100 years, we'll be mining coal in Eastern Kentucky," he said. "The question will be how, and how much?"
12 things you need to know about the Prodigal Son
by Jimmy Akin Thursday, March 07, 2013 11:12 PM Comments (15)
There is more to the story of the prodigal son than meets the eye. Here are 12 things you should know about it.
On the Fourth Sunday of Lent, the gospel reading is the famous parable of the "prodigal son."
It is a moving story that teaches us about God's love for us and his willingness to forgive us no matter what we have done.
But there is more to the story than meets the eye . . . much more.
Here are 12 things you need to know.
1. What does "prodigal" mean?
The word "prodigal" is mysterious to us. Almost the only time we ever hear it is in the title of this parable.
It's basic meaning is "wasteful"-particularly with regard to money.
It comes from Latin roots that mean "forth" (pro-) and "to drive" (agere). It indicates the quality of a person who drives forth his money-who wastes it by spending with reckless abandon.
That's what the prodigal son does in this story.
2. Why does Jesus tell this parable?
This question is answered at the beginning of Luke 15, where we read:
[1] Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him [Jesus]. [2] And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." [3] So he told them this parable . . .
Actually, Jesus tells three parables:
The parable of the lost sheep
The parable of the lost coin
The parable of the lost son (or, as we know it, the parable of the prodigal son)
All three parables are on the subject of recovering the lost, which is the implicit explanation of why Jesus receives sinners and eats with them: They are lost, and he wants to recover them.
Interestingly, the parable of the prodigal son (and the parable of the lost coin) occur only in Luke.
3. What's happening in the parable?
Jesus' parables are based on real-life situations, though they often veer off from the expected course of events in surprising ways. Those surprises teach us lessons.
Here, Jesus relates the situation of a father who has two sons, one of whom can't wait for his inheritance.
In Jewish society, there were laws regarding how inheritances were typically divided. The oldest brother got a double share (cf. Deut. 21:17), while the other brothers got a single share.
When there were two brothers (as here), the older brother would get 2/3rds of the estate, and the younger brother would get 1/3rd.
4. What is the prodigal son asking for?
In this parable, the younger son demands "the share of property that falls to me" (v. 12).
That means he is asking for the 1/3rd of the father's possessions that he would ordinarily get when the father dies.
Think about that.
He's asking his father to give him 1/3rd of everything that he owns right now, before the father is dead, when his father would still have use for these possessions.
How many fathers would receive that suggestion well today? How many would comply with it if one of their children asked it?
Not many!
This is a truly astonishing request, and it would have been even more astonishing in the ancient world.
In a society that highly reverenced parents, it would have been equivalent to saying: "Father, I can't even wait for you to die. Give me 1/3rd of everything you have right now."
5. What does the father's reaction teach us?
Despite the breathtaking-and insulting-audacity of the younger son's request, the father grants it!
Amazing!
This reflects the amazing indulgence that God shows toward us. Even when we are acting as selfishly as the prodigal son, God indulges us.
He yields what is his and allows us to misuse it out of respect for the freedom that he has given us.
But he knows that the misuse of our freedom will have no better results than it did with the prodigal son's misuse of his freedom, and God trusts that we will learn our lesson and come back to him.
6. What does the prodigal son do next?
After he gets 1/3rd of his father's estate, he takes everything he has and goes "into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living" (v. 13).
In context, this means that he abandoned the Holy Land to go, voluntarily, into exile into a gentile, pagan country where he could live loosely without being censured by fellow Jews living all around him.
He wanted to get out of God's land so that he could live in sin and fund his sinful lifestyle by what he took from his father.
But eventually the resources he had were exhausted and a hard time came.
If he had not spent what he had on loose living (as we will later learn, on prostitutes), he would have had the money he needed to weather the hard time, but he didn't.
Thus he was reduced to a state of hunger and had to subject himself to a pagan (humiliation #1) and to feed the pagan's pigs (humiliation #2).
He would have been happy just to eat as well as the pigs (humiliation #3), but nobody gave him anything to eat, not even from the pigs' slop (humiliation #4).
Having been brought to such a low state, he recalled how his righteous father treated even his hired servants better: "How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger!" (v. 17).
He thus plans to return to his father and say three things:
(a) "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you" (v. 18),
(b) "I am no longer worthy to be called your son" (v. 19a),
(c) "treat me as one of your hired servants" (v. 19b).
Even being treated as one of his father's hired servants would be better than the treatment he is receiving in the gentile world.
7. What do the actions of the prodigal son teach us?
They teaches us the depths to which our own misuse of freedom will bring us.
If we are bent on leaving God, things will go badly for us. We will be humiliated in the uncaring world.
The farther we get from the Father's loving care, the worse off we will be, and our best course is to return to God and his forgiveness.
8. What does the father do next?
When the prodigal son returns to his father, something significant happens.
While he is still at a distance, the father sees him, has compassion upon him, runs to him, hugs him, and kisses him.
This is far from the humiliating reunion that the son might expect based on his previous audacious and insulting treatment of his father!
The returning son must have been astonished!
But he continues by beginning to recite his pre-scripted speech to his father, and he manages to get the first two parts of it out. He says:
(a) "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you" (v. 21a),
(b) "I am no longer worthy to be called your son" (v. 21b).
But before he can say the third part-before he can ask to be treated merely as a servant-the father interrupts things and takes them in a very different direction.
Rather than treating his younger son as a mere servant, he turns to the actual servants and orders a celebration.
9. What do the actions of the father teach us?
The first lesson is that the father will not treat a son as a hired servant. The younger son is still a son!
As a result, his return is something to be celebrated!
He is to wear a fancy robe! A fancy ring! Shoes! There is to be a fancy feast for everyone! There is to be music and dancing!
Because "This my son was dead, and is alive again" and "He was lost, and is found."
This shows us God's reaction when we return from being lost in sin.
He doesn't begrudge us what we have done. He doesn't take us back reluctantly.
Like the father in the parable, he takes us back joyously! Eagerly!
But this is not all there is to the story . . .
10. What does the older brother do next?
There is usually at least one major lesson per parable for each major figure in it, and now we come to the lesson that the older brother can teach us.
He didn't demand his inheritance. He stayed faithful to his father. And now he is angry.
Why should his younger, wasteful, sinful brother receive such a reception by their father?
The older brother is so angry that he refuses to go inside and join the party.
Naturally, his father hears about it and comes to talk to him.
When that happens, we discover that he's not just angry with his brother, he's angry with his father, too.
He points out that he has never disobeyed his father's commands but that his father has never given him a kid (a young goat) so that he could slaughter it and have a party with his friends.
In contrast, the younger brother has "devoured your living with harlots" (wasting a third of the father's estate!), but when he comes back "the fatted calf" (that is, the best, most tender and delicious animal, specially raised to be so) is killed!
The older brother sees this difference in treatment as a manifest injustice toward him and is angry with his father because of it.
As we will see, he even seems to be worrying about his own security in the family since the father is showing such seeming favoritism to the younger son.
11. What does the father do?
The father tells the son three things.
First, he tells him: "Son, you are always with me." This seems to be a reassurance to the elder son that he has not lost his place in the family. His place is secure.
Second, he tells him: "and all that is mine is yours." This is because the division of property has already taken place. The younger soon took his third, so the two-thirds that remain will go entirely to the older son.
This means that the current celebration does not represent a threat to the older brother or his inheritance. Instead, it is a celebration of joy occasioned by the return of the son.
Thus the father thirdly tells him: "It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'"
12. What are the spiritual lessons for us? ;
From this parable we can draw a number of spiritual lessons:
We can be a genuine son of the Father-who is spiritually "alive"-and be "lost" through sin. We can turn our backs on our heavenly Father and leave him of our own free will. Mortal sin is a real possibility.
Mortal sin inevitably lands us in a far worse state than we were in originally.
We can, however, return to the Father and be accepted by him with great joy. In fact, he is ready and eager to accept us back and forgive us, no matter what we've done.
Christians who have never fallen should not resent those who come back. They should share in their Father's joy.
Their own place is secure and their heavenly reward is not threatened. God loves them just as much as he loves those who come back through a dramatic conversion.
http://www.ccccok.org/museum/dustbowl.html
A Revival Account Asbury 1970
By Editorial Staff
Published March 31, 2008
WILMORE, Kentucky – One morning in 1970, without warning, all heaven broke loose during Asbury College’s 10 a.m. chapel service.
“When you walked into the back of Hughes Auditorium … there was a kind of an aura, kind of a glow about the chapel,” said Dr. David Hunt, a Louisville physician who was then a student.
“I always have been reminded of the verse ‘Take off your shoes, for you are standing on holy ground.’ You just walked in and sensed that God had indeed sent His Spirit.”
The service, a routine meeting, was scheduled for 50 minutes. Instead, it lasted 185 hours non-stop, 24 hours a day. Intermittently, it continued for weeks. Ultimately, it spread across the United States and into foreign countries. Some say it is being felt even today.
This year marks the 21st anniversary of the landmark 1970 Asbury College revival, an unplanned, unled display of fervor that has been compared to the Great Awakenings of 1740 and 1800. This year is also the 41st anniversary of a strikingly similar revival Asbury experienced in 1950.
A Short History Of Kentucky/Central Appalachia
Introduction
Floyd County in eastern Kentucky, where "Country Boys" was filmed, is located in the geographic center of America's Appalachian region (see map). Eastern Kentucky's history epitomizes the problems that have long plagued the larger region: poverty, unemployment, poor education, and a troubled relationship with the coal industry. While "Country Boys" chronicles how Chris and Cody's lives defy many of the stereotypes commonly associated with the region, it also shows how their community still lives with the legacy of Appalachia's past. Here's an overview of that past as it unfolded in Kentucky.
The New Frontier (1767-1775 )
Follow Daniel Boone's 1775 journey through the Cumberland Gap and into central Kentucky. In 1767, Boone first ventured into the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky, to winter at Salt Spring, present-day David, Ky.
Early in eastern Kentucky's history, its isolated wilderness attracted frontiersmen and other rugged individualists who disliked the growth of towns and the disappearance of the unsettled countryside in the East. In 1767, when legendary woodsman Daniel Boone first reached Salt Spring (the present-day town of David, Ky.), just a handful of white men had ever ventured into the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. The area was considered too dangerous due to the ongoing battles between French and British colonial powers and the Native American tribes who claimed hunting rights to the mountains: the Shawnee in the north and the Cherokee in the south. However, after the British defeated the French and later the Shawnee, the area was considered open for settlement, and in 1775, the Transylvania Company, a land speculation firm, hired Boone to establish the first settlement in what they hoped would become a new colony. That year, Boone and more than 30 other settlers first passed through the famous Cumberland Gap and established the settlement of Fort Boonesborough in the fertile bluegrass region of central Kentucky.
Mass Migration and Statehood (1780-1792 )
By 1788, Kentucky had already become "too crowded" according to Boone, and he headed further west to the wilderness of Missouri. Kentucky's population, which had been just under 1,000 in 1780, had grown to more than 100,000 by the early 1790s due to Virginia's generous, and sometimes conflicting, land policies. An old colonial law still in effect guaranteed any settler up to 400 acres of unclaimed land if he surveyed and registered it and then built a cabin and raised a crop of corn. Likewise, the Commonwealth of Virginia paid for the services of many of its war veterans by giving them warrants for land in the Kentucky territories.
According to some historical accounts, these policies, coupled with the unscrupulous dealings of land speculators and local governments, resulted in the distribution of enough land "to cover the state four times over." The confusing and often overlapping property boundaries created a highly litigious society and contributed to some of the vicious feuds among neighbors that lasted through the end of the 19th century. However, the mass migration of settlers from the East produced a population large enough to warrant statehood, and in 1792 Kentucky became the fifteenth state to join the new United States of America.
Widening Economic Inequality (1793-1850 )
Though land in the new Commonwealth of Kentucky was quickly claimed, it wasn't fairly or equally distributed among its many new inhabitants. By 1810, eastern Kentucky had become known as a "poor man's country," where some 57 percent of households were landless (the number was as high as 74 percent in some of Kentucky's eastern counties). Statewide about 25 percent of landowners possessed more than three-fourths of all the land, and one quarter of the land was owned by only 21 individuals. The wealth of these "backcountry elite," as they were called, grew and grew, while the fortunes of their neighbors, mainly self-sufficient yeomen farmers, stagnated or dwindled.
These ever-widening gaps in wealth were exacerbated by the corrupt and undemocratic nature of Kentucky's early government. For the first half of the 19th century, most of the roles of government were administered by justices of the peace -- those county magistrates who were appointed for life by the governor and oversaw everything from property assessment to tax collection, as well as the settlement of civil and criminal disputes. All other county officials served at their discretion. According to two University of Kentucky historians, Dwight Billings and Kathleen Blee, remnants of this early system of patronage and political clientism persist in many communities to this day and is one of the region's major stumbling blocks to economic improvement.
Kentucky's Own Civil War (1861-1865 )
The growing inequality between the state's rich and poor reached its apex during the American Civil War. Kentucky was in an unusual and unenviable position: It was a slave-owning state straddling the dividing line between the slave-owning South and the "free" North. Early on, it tried to be neutral; after all, both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were Kentucky native sons. But a faction of its wealthy, slave-owning "elite" joined up with the Confederacy, causing the remaining majority -- the landless workers and small-scale farmers -- to side with the Union. This decision divided friends, neighbors and even families and pitted the haves against the have-nots. Though the Civil War ended in 1865, Kentucky did not experience a renewed state of peace but rather the beginning of an era of heightened internecine conflict. In the words of Appalachian historian Harry Caudill, "When the occupants of a mountain cabin learned that a son, brother, or father had died at the hands of Union or Rebel troops on some distant battlefield, they fixed their resentment, not against the far-off armies but against the known and near neighbors, relatives or former friends who had put on the uniform of the army at whose hands the loved one had perished."
The Post-Civil War Feuds (1870s-1910s )
Though the long-running feuds that consumed Appalachia for the second half of the 19th century have been branded with a legacy of hillbilly in-fighting -- for example, one family fighting another over the death of a stray hog -- most feuds involved the so-called "backcountry elite" and were actually born out of ideological differences over the Civil War and family struggles for wealth and power in local government. One of the most infamous of the clan feuds erupted between two prosperous farming families who had fought on opposite sides of the Civil War: the Hatfields and the McCoys. According to one version of the story, the feud began when Tolbert McCoy fatally stabbed "Big Ellison" Hatfield after the latter crossed the West Virginia border to vote in a local Kentucky election. The murder set off a guerrilla battle between the two families that lasted decades and resulted in the deaths of some 65 local residents.
Accounts of earlier feuds in eastern Kentucky emphasize that they were not the result of petty squabbling but of aggressive competition between the members of the eastern Kentucky ruling class. Contemporary scholars argue that the strong social and political cliques of eastern Kentucky, the corrupt local governments, and the lack of open public discourse led to the failure of public institutions and reinforced the long-term social and economic stagnation of the region.
Industrial Transformation (1870s-1920s )
The mountains of eastern Kentucky were rich with natural resources: salt, coal and timber. Prior to 1870, only the salt mines of Floyd and Clay counties had been tapped with any real significance. Soon after the Civil War, agents from eastern corporations streamed into the mountains to secure extraction rights for the virgin hardwood forests and later for the vast beds of bituminous coal beneath them. Often a mountaineer could be easily persuaded by these speculators to sell the rights to mine his land or cut his timber for a few cents an acre -- a paltry sum compared to the wealth the company could extract from it, but enough money to provide a small-scale farmer with many luxuries.
Extracting this irreplaceable wealth took its toll on the health of the land and its people while lining the pockets of the absentee industrialists. Many loggers lost their lives or were seriously maimed in accidents while felling the massive hardwoods or on the treacherous runs escorting the trunks down-river to market. Generations of miners were killed or disabled by dangerous methods used to extract the "black gold" from the coal seams running deep within the mountains. In the words of Appalachian historian Caudill: "Coal has always cursed the land in which it lies. When men begin to wrest it from the earth it leaves a legacy of foul streams, hideous slag heaps and polluted air. It peoples this transformed land with blind and crippled men and with widows and orphans. It is an extractive industry which takes all away and restores nothing. It mars but never beautifies. It corrupts but never purifies."
Often, these eastern companies bought only the "dominant" timber or mineral rights -- not the "subordinate" land rights -- and so in many cases it was the local landowner who paid the property taxes, while the coal and timber companies waited for the railroads to finally infiltrate the isolated hollows and cart away their vast wealth. By 1910, a majority of the land in the Cumberland Plateau was owned outright by non-residents; non-residents also owned about three-fourths of the timber rights and 85 percent of the mineral rights.
Riding the Crest of the Coal Wave (1912-1927 )
Since Appalachia's population at the turn of the century was still thinly spread out over the mountains and hollows, the coal companies needed to build entire towns and infrastructure from scratch in order to support their businesses. They constructed hospitals, commissaries, schools, and government buildings, as well as houses for the miners and their families and nicer homes for the executives. Often, these new towns were owned outright by the coal companies and were named for company executives: Haymond, Fleming, Jenkins, Dunham, McRoberts, Lynch and Benham. David, Ky., where Chris and Cody attended the David School, was one such company town, owned entirely by the Princess Elkhorn Coal Company until 1975 and named for the first-born son of the company's owner.
With the demand for coal during the First World War, the coal industry boomed. By the early 1920s, it was operating at peak production, employing more than 700,000 miners and extracting more than 40 million tons of coal annually. Thousands of people from all over the world flocked to the region to share in the wealth, and for the first time, many miners and their families could afford luxuries such as factory-made clothes, appliances, and even automobiles. However, a miner was dependent on his company for all of his needs; they "clothed his back, filled his belly, sheltered and lighted his household, and provided his family with medical treatment, fuel and water," according to historian Caudill. When the industry crash finally came in 1927, the miners had no insulation against the shock; the entire economic system of these communities collapsed.
A Great Depression and a New Deal (1927-1940 )
The stock market collapse that would shake the nation in 1929 had already hit the coal industry by 1927. When companies began receiving fewer and fewer orders, they tried to compensate by offering coal at reduced prices and by lowering the miners' wages. The miners had no choice but to accept the reduced salary, since the bottom had also dropped out of the timber market and there were few other employers in the area. But the move set off a price spiral throughout the industry and forced many smaller companies out of business. Wide-scale unemployment followed. Those miners who did retain their jobs were often only paid to work one or two shifts a week -- hardly enough to provide for a family. Relief finally came in the form of President Roosevelt's New Deal, which supplied out-of-work miners, loggers and farmers with food and clothing and put as much as three-fourths of the local work force on the federal payroll, constructing public buildings and laying down miles and miles of paved road for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). However, unlike elsewhere in the country, where new jobs and industries were being created, the "dole" persisted in Appalachia for the better part of a decade. Widespread employment did not return until another world war increased the demand for coal once again.
Another Boom, Another Bust (1940-1964 )
With the U.S. entering the Second World War, the coal industry revived and began another boom period, this time spreading some of the profits among the now-unionized coal miners, who received higher wages as well as health and disability insurance, thanks to the strength of the newly organized United Mine Workers of America. Likewise, the timber industry experienced a modest revival that persisted long after the war as a result of the nation's population and housing boom. Meanwhile, the G.I. Bill allowed many thousands of mountaineers returning from WWII to receive lifetime medical care and a chance to improve their lot in life through education or training in a new trade.
Unfortunately, the prosperity wouldn't last. Many of the newly educated left Appalachia for higher wages in surrounding states, and they took with them waves of public servants and high school graduates, creating a "brain drain" that would continue to the present day. Meanwhile, the region's major employers, the coal and timber industries, began implementing procedures such as clear-cutting and strip-mining that would wring out every last drop from the region's natural resources and, in the process, devastate the local ecology. Then, beginning in 1948, the world's appetite for the dirty and troublesome coal fuel began to wane in favor of cleaner fuels such as oil and gas. At the same time, a technological revolution in the coal industry began replacing workers with faster, cheaper and more efficient machines. Although this bust was not as swift or devastating as the one in the 1920s, many workers lost their jobs and it depressed the region's major industries, and this time, they would not rebound.
The "Other America" and the "War on Poverty" (1964-present )
Read the 1964 report from the President's Appalachian Regional Commission (PARC), that revealed the gaping deficiencies of the region and lead to government initiatives to improve the region's industry, infrastructure, healthcare and education.
With the second bust in the coal industry -- this one permanent -- Appalachia began a period of sharp economic decline. Mining jobs left, never to return. And many of eastern Kentucky's best and brightest followed, creating population declines as much as 20 percent in some counties. For those who stayed, there were no WPA programs to create a new influx of jobs. Since few miners had ever completed secondary school, they lacked the skills and opportunities to learn new trades. The illiteracy rate was staggering, and to complicate matters, the birth rate in the coal-producing counties of eastern Kentucky was among the highest in the nation. By 1957, in some eastern Kentucky counties, as much as half the population was eating government relief commodities.
By the 1960s, America starting paying attention to the poverty in Appalachia. A number of books and news reports appeared, drawing attention to "the Other America." When John F. Kennedy visited Appalachia during the 1960 presidential campaign, he was so shocked by what he saw -- "the hungry children, … the old people who cannot pay their doctors bills, the families forced to give up their farms" -- he vowed to implement programs to improve the situation. As president, he set up the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), still in operation today, to examine the roots of the region's poverty and recommend solutions. After Kennedy's death, President Johnson made improving Appalachia the centerpiece of his "War on Poverty." His Appalachian Development Act, allocated $1 billion to 11 states in the Appalachian region for the development of highways and other projects. Other legislative programs also benefited the region, such as Job Corps, which offered remedial and vocational education to school dropouts; Head Start, which provided early education to poor children; and Medicare and Medicaid.
Meanwhile, thousands of young people passed through the region on one- and two-year stints through the federal government's VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America) program, and helped teach and build and add to the overall development of the region. Others, like Danny Greene , the founder of the David School, found their way to the region through churches and non-profit groups. Some of these volunteers, like Greene, stayed and made a long-term impact at the local level.
Appalachia and Floyd County Today
Today, the images of coal-blackened miners and thin, barefoot children are a thing of the past, but central Appalachia is still largely a depressed region. The most recent census data shows that in 2000, Floyd County's employment, income and education continued to lag far behind the rest of the country. More than 30 percent of the county's 42,000 residents lived below the poverty line -- more than twice the national rate of poverty. Annual per capita income was about $18,500, including government assistance, compared with roughly $30,400 nationally. Only 61 percent of the county's adults had high school diplomas, while only 9 percent had college degrees. Unemployment was about 6.1 percent, higher than the national average, and that figure didn't reflect people no longer looking for work. And, the region's overall population is becoming an older population as a result of a falling birth rate and an exodus of many of its best young workers.
A Note On Sources: This history is drawn from FRONTLINE research and the following books:
Billings, Dwight B. and Kathleen M. Blee, The Road to Poverty: The Making of Wealth and Hardship in Appalachia. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Caudill, Harry M. Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1963
Caudill, Harry M. The Watches of the Night. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1976.
http://twistedsouth.com/w-c-rices-miracle-cross-garden-2/
http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html#[[Chap%20Intro%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%201%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%202%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%203%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%204%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%205%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%206%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%207%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%208%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%209%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2010%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2011%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2012%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2013%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2014%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2015%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2016%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2017%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2018%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2019%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2020%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2021%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2022%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2023%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2024%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2025%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2026%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2027%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2028%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2029%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2030%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2031%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2032%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2033%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2034%20Notes]]%20[[Chap%2035%20notes]]%20[[Epilogue%20Notes]]
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David and Uzie first met Lily at JC's BBQ and Grill bar in Bowling Green, KY.
David and Uzie was brothers. Uzie was the showman and David was the support.
Their family is back with the tent revival which has made camp outside of town and close to the Green River.
It is Saturday night in 1960.
David and Uzie are playing for tips at JC's. David has a Martin guitar and Uzie a tam-borline. The tips are sparse and will hopefully pay their gas back to the tent. The bought drinks come much more freely. After things gets a little loose, Uzie may even invite a few people to the revival.
David and Uzie go about the same thing during week and on Sunday mornings, except instead of getting tips, they get an offering.
People in the audience often partied hard on Saturday night and showed their asses. Many of these would do the same thing on Sunday morning. On Saturday night they were drunk on the booze and they were seduced by the opposite sex. On Sundays, they were often drunk in the Spirit and seduced the opposite sex. Women flashed their legs and eyes on Saturday on drink and done the same on Sundays in the Spirit.
They would get drunk on Saturday night. They stagger home with their partner for the night. And then get up and stagger to Sunday School with a hangover. Sometimes even the newly found couples would show up at the meeting and a rustle of whispers would go throw the crowd. Sometimes these hook ups would last. Others would be over by the next weekend.
Church was more that a meeting for religious services. It was often the center of social life in many small towns. It was often were you met you future wife or husband. It is where you met your friends. It was where you met your family.
The bar was the same as the church in practically every-way plus it added the social lubricant of alcohol which tended to speed things up.
Just as those in the world use alcohol as a lube, the holy rollers used the "baptism of the spirit" to get drunk in the spirit and to then do things out of the ordinary.
Uzie had the habit of flirting with the girls, whether in the church or in the bar. He was a good looking guy. He had reddest blond hair, blue eyes. He was tall and slender, almost skinny. He was either pale or red faced depending on the mood. He looked every bit the Scotts-Irish which was his heritage. Uzie would use all to seduce a young lady about every night.
David was dark. He had dark hair and dark eyes. He was also tall and slender. He had the habit of moving slowly, speaking slowly, and staying in the background. This was just the opposite of Uzie who was loud and out front of everything.
David played the guitar. Uzie used the tamborlne and sang.
No pair of twins had been more different.
But neither had to be handsome as they were to strike up an interest in the audience. Through out history a man could be a troll or a frog or the most unappealing man in appearance, but if he would get up in front of the church and make them laugh or make them cry, the frog would become a prince.
David first met Lily at the bar. She was like a dark Marilyn Monroe. Not as sultry has Sophie Loren, but as flirtatious affected as Marilyn. Yes her manner was forced and affected, but effective nevertheless. She was dressed like an uptown whore in a ten cent juke box place. Maybe it would be better to compare her to Liz Taylor in Cleopatra. She had the same long black hair, cut in a long page boy style. She had doe like cow eyes framed with dark make up and false eye lashes. She was slim, but yet curvy with full breasts and round hips. She was a buffet in movement and you did not know where to land your eyes. She knew she looked good and she knew how to make herself shine. She had a dramatic flair. Just walking across the floor was a three act play in motion, wiggling into a booth, and then telling David with her eyes, lips, and curved finger with the long red finger nail to join her. She just oozed sex and David could almost smell it as he slid in the booth beside her.
Often after him and Uzie finished playing, people would invite him for a drink. He played the guitar, but this girl played the room.
They made small talk.
He go up to play a few more songs and when he found her table to steal a glance, she was gone.
Appalachian crafts, farming, making moonshine, and mountain folk lore.
How To. . .A Pioneer Guide
In the hills, you were on your own. No all night convenience stores. No remodeling companies. No butchers. If you ever wondered what it'd be like to "do-it-yourself" all of the time, here's a start.
. . .Build A Log Cabin
. . .Dress Meats
. . .Make Moonshine
. . .Make Soap
. . .Plant by the Signs
. . .Recipes
. . .Build A Log Cabin
Unlike the round log building that Abraham Lincoln slept in, the pioneer Appalachian log cabin was constructed of hand split boards measuring 6" to 8" thick and 16’ to 24’ long, locked and fastened together by half-dovetailed hewn notches connected at the corners. The spaces between the boards were chinked in with clay. The home itself was usually a square or rectangular single room, one and one-half stories high, with a front, and maybe, a back door or a window at the opposite end of the fireplace. Later, cabins were expanded by adding a kitchen ell or building another cabin alongside the original. A "dog trot" cabin is two cabins with chimneys on opposite ends and connected by a breezeway; a "saddleback" is two cabins with a chimney in the middle.
Tall and small diameter trees were chosen for the cabin walls, the favorite being the yellow poplar, or tuliptree. Felled by axe, or scorched around the base the previous year and left to die, the trees were hauled to the building site by horse or mule. Logs for a round log building were laid up whole with saddle or "V" notches, but most of the Appalachian homes were constructed from logs that had been hewn by axe along two sides, thus removing the softer sapwood and reducing the weight. Cut to size they were laid up, and by chiseling half-dovetailed notches at the ends, they would lock securely together. Barns, corn cribs, and mills were made in similiar fashion with horizontally laid hand split boards, one or two stories high.
A foundation may have been built out of solid rock or a few flat stones serving as pillars to support the sill. Hinges and hasps for doors were made from wood, as were the pegs that held the frames to the walls. The floor of the house was made with split logs, called puncheons, that lay upon sleepers notched to the sill. The first rooves were constructed by notching logs to stepped gables, but later rooves were constructed of whole or split log rafters and light lathing, then covered with split shingles. Soft woods like poplar, pine, and chestnut were used for the walls, joists and floors of the buildings, while harder woods like oak, hickory, maple and locust were used for fence posts, tools, and simple furniture. The pioneer buildings were constructed using wedges, mallets, and mauls made from hardwood limbs of hickory and oak and axes and nails made of iron.
The chimneys and fireplaces were made of flat creek rock or field stone laid upon each other and chinked with red or yellow clay. Occasionally an iron bar ran across the fireplace to hang pots and kettles, but generally stews, soups, and breads and cakes were prepared in Dutch ovens set directly on hot coals in the fireplace. Potatoes, corn, and nuts were roasted by burying them in ashes and then placing hot coals upon them. Meat was roasted using forked sticks propped over a bed of hot coals.
. . .Dress Meats
Catfish
Soak the fish in hot water to loosen skin. Using a large nail, hammer its head to a log, tree, or 4x4. Slice the skin around its head and pull off using pliers. Cut off the head and gut the fish. Depending upon the size of the catfish either filet or cook whole.
Trout
Using a sharp knife cut from the anus just to the pectoral fins beneath the gills. Then cut a slit in the lower jaw through both sides and out towards the mouth. Using your thumb inserted into the slit, pull the gills, pectoral fins and entrails from the fish. Further clean the guts from the fish using the back of your thumb scraped along its backbone. Lightly coat the fish, head and all, in flour and corn meal and fry. When served you should pull the head backwards removing head, backbone, most of the small bones, and tail. You may use this technique for panfish as well. Just remember to scale ‘em first!
Chicken
Wring the chicken’s neck, defeather, and singe the hairs off by holding over a flame of burning paper or candle. Enlarge the anus with your knife and, using your hand, remove the guts. Cut into quarters for frying or leave whole for broiling.
Hogs
Hang and cut the hog’s jugular to drain blood. Scald hairs off in boiling water and scrape with knife. Gut the hog and cut off its head. Slice the sides for bacon, and chisel the ribs off the back bone using a hatchet and hammer. Cut the remainder into hams, shoulders, loins, and backbones (for chops). The head or "souse" is prepared after cutting off and saving the ears, jowls, snout, and tongue. First, cut out the eyes, then halve and quarter the head with an axe, removing the brain. Put the meat into a pot to soak overnight. After soaking, rinse and put the quartered pieces into a pot of salty water and cook slowly until the meat begins to fall off the bones. Season with sage and black pepper and fry on a skillet until runny. Place a plate on top and squeeze out the rest of the grease. Pour off the grease and put the meat on a plate and refrigerate. Slice and serve hot or cold. The jowls should be fried. For tongue, the hairs are removed with boiling water then scraped. Boil until tender, slice and serve hot. The snout is cleaned and roasted. The brains are "skinned" in boiling water, then seasoned with salt and pepper. Mash ‘em up and scramble with eggs. The ears are boiled in salt water and eaten alone or used in the souse. Chitlins are the intestines of the hog dipped into batter and fried. The feet can be roasted, boiled or pickled. Sausage is made from the lean meat of hams and shoulders. The meat is ground with salt, pepper, sage, and brown sugar and fried until browned. Pack the mixture into the intestines or a cloth sack and refrigerate or smoke.
. . .Make Moonshine
Making Moonshine
The art of making ‘shine was by no means an easy chore. It was hard work and only became profitable after prohibition and, to a larger extent, during the nineteen sixties after state liquor taxes drove the price of whiskey to new all time highs and redesigned stills made higher yields. The ol’ timey still was crafted from copper sheets used sparingly due to the cost. The furnace was constructed from natural stone and chinked with red clay. The construction of the still was exacting -- there could be no leaks between the top and bottom halves of the still, the flue should draw well and the cap should be airtight. The copper was molded using a wooden mallet and beaten against a tree stump. The pieces were fastened together with brads and soldered with tin.
Pure corn whiskey was made without sugar (later used to increase the yield). First, a bushel to a bushel-and-a-half of corn was soaked in warm water and allowed to sprout. During the summer the tub of corn and water could be left in the sun, during the winter the tub would need to be heated by fire. In either case, the corn needed to be stirred daily and would malt in about 5 days. Then another six or seven bushels of corn would be milled and cooked, first by boiling a half bushel of ground corn malt in the still, running it off into a barrel and adding a gallon of raw meal, filling six or seven barrels one-by-one. Water was added to the barrels until the mash was thinned. The barrels were capped and left for the night to ferment.
The next day the beer would be working. If some barrels didn’t take they would be mixed back and forth with others that did so that the entire yield of beer would be ready to run simultaneously. After five days, when the foamy cap on the beer had been eaten off by the alcohol, the beer was ready to be distilled. The beer was poured into the still, a fire was built in the rock furnace from ash, hickory, or oak and the mixture stirred. When the beer reached a rolling boil, the cap and cap arm were sealed on top of the still using a thick paste made from rye. The steam from the boiling beer was channeled through the cap arm to a copper "worm" inside of a barrel fed with spring water. The steam condensed and dripped into another barrel. Then the still was thoroughly cleaned and the "singlings" were boiled and distilled to make the final product. The yield would be about twelve gallons of proof whiskey.
There are a lot of "family" recipes for "shine". You'll find another on the "Recipes" page.
. . .Make Soap
Making Soap
"You put two pints and a'half a'water and one can lye - Red Devil Lye - in your pot. You got to stir it 'til this dissolves good; then you got t'add th' grease to it. Then after you add th' grease, you got t'stir it for twenty minutes."
"Lye's dissolved now. Grease, this is th' grease. You just have grease and th' lye. This is breakfast bacon grease. You can have anything. I had a man th' other day offered to give me mutton tallow. You know - to make it out of. I think I'll take him up. I've always used hog grease myself - five or six pounds for this here."
"This is beginnin' t'get thick now. Looks a lot like chicken gravy don't it? I wish this's a'little darker because homemade soap's always dark. Well, this is homemade soap, but it's not like we used t'make it because we used t' drip th' lye."
"Can you wash your clothes in it?"
"Yeah, you can. Just take that, y'know, like we used to - we took our clothes and put our soap on 'em and rub'em and boil'em. People don't do that now. And I ain't afraid t'wash my hands in it! That there lard kills th' lye."
"Why do you stir it so much?"
"It requires it. It wouldn't make if you didn't dissolve it good. You got t'get it thick like jelly, y'know. Y'can't leave jelly til it gets right."
At this point, she leaves the pot. She'll stir it again in about half an hour, and then pour the thickened mixture into a shallow pan to harden overnight. When hardened she'll cut it into smaller blocks for use .
Foxfire
A transcription of a recorded interview with Pearl Martin on soap making. Reprinted with permission from The Foxfire Book.
Foxfire is a national, nonprofit, education organization headquartered in Mountain City, Georgia. For more information on the Foxfire organization and the Foxfire Series -- books on Appalachian traditions, folklore, and material culture -- please visit their web site .
. . .Plant by the Signs
Through tradition many mountain folk accept the signs as the proper way to plant and harvest their crops. Based upon the ancient astronomers' recognition of the Zodiac, the twelve signs come around every 28 days and are divided into elements: fire, earth, air, and water; and body parts: head, neck, breast, bowels, loins, knees, feet, legs, thighs, kidneys, heart, and arms. Using a calendar or almanac that delineates the days of the month by signs, a farmer would pick the series of days with the most favorable signs for planting or harvesting his crops. In addition, many believe that the best time to plant crops with yields above ground is while the moon is waxing, and plant those crops with yields below ground (root crops i.e. potatoes, radishes, peanuts, etc.) while the moon is waning. There are many other rules for planting, harvesting, plowing, transplanting, even cutting timber, romancing, hunting, cooking, or cutting your hair.
Following are the signs of the Zodiac and a few tips:
Aries
Good for cultivating the ground, planting beets and onions, and hunting. Bad for planting and transplanting other crops.
Tarus
Good for all root crops and above ground crops, hunting and fishing.
Gemini
Good for planting all crops, also for preserving jellies and pickles.
Cancer
Best for planting above ground and root crops. Good for cooking and fishing.
Leo
Good for sports, romancing, job hunting, and hunting. Bad for planting or transplanting.
Virgo
Good for trading. Bad for planting.
Libra
Good for planting above ground crops and flowering plants.
Scorpio
Best for flowers and above ground crops. Good for all other crops, fishing and hunting.
Sagittarius
Good for hunting jobs, trading, baking and preserving. Bad for transplanting.
Capricorn
Best for root crops. Good for flowers and above ground crops.
Aquarius
Good for above ground crops, social events.
Pisces
Good for planting and transplanting above ground crops, trees and shrubbery. Good for fishing and weaning babies and animals.
In addition to the astrological signs, highland folklore has it that there are proper lunar phases to plant and harvest the crops. A few of these are listed below. The moon is waxing (increasing) if its "horns" are pointing to the left (east), and waning (decreasing) if pointed to the right (west). If you're north of the equator and it's too cloudy to see the moon tonight, check out our "virtual moon ".
Plant fruits, seed flowers, and vegetables that bear above the ground when the moon is waxing. That is, from the day after the moon is new to the day before the moon is full.
Plant flowering bulbs and vegetables that bear below the ground when the moon is waning. That is, from the day after the moon is full to the day before it is new again.
1st and 2nd Quarter (moon is waxing). Plant above ground yields. Do not plant on the day the moon is new, full or changing quarters. Graft trees just before the sap flows.
3rd and 4th Quarter (moon is waning). Plant crops that grow underground in the third quarter. A waning moon is good for harvesting most crops, canning and preserving vegetables and jams. Kill weeds and trees, turn the soil. Slaughter livestock in the 4th quarter before the new moon.
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Rom
The Rom arrived in the United States from Serbia, Russia and Austria-Hungary beginning in the 1880's, part of the larger wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Primary immigration ended, for the most part, in 1914, with the beginning of the First World War and subsequent tightening of immigration restrictions (Salo and Salo 1986). Many people in this group specialized in coppersmith work mainly the repair and retinning of industrial equipment used in bakeries, laundries, confectioneries, and other businesses. The Rom, too, developed the fortune-telling business in urban areas.
Two subgroups of the Rom, the Kalderash ("coppersmith") and Machwaya ("natives of Machva," a county in Serbia) appear in the photographs in Carlos de Wendler-Funaro's collection. De Wendler-Funaro identified some, but not all, Kalderash as "Russian Gypsies." Another group he identified as "Russian Gypsies" seem to be the Rusniakuria ("Ruthenians"), musicians and singers who settled in New York.
Ludar The Ludar or "Romanian Gypsies," also came to the United States during the great immigration from southern and eastern Europe between 1880 and 1914. Most of the Ludar came from northwestern Bosnia. Upon their arrival in the United States they specialized as animal trainers and showpeople, and indeed passenger manifests show bears and monkeys as a major part of their baggage. Most of de Wendler-Funaro's photographs of this group were taken in Maspeth, a section of the borough of Queens in New York City, where the Ludar created a "village" of homemade shacks that existed from about 1925 to 1939, when it was razed. A similar settlement stood in the Chicago suburbs during the same period.
Romnichels The Romnichels or English Gypsies, began to come to the United States from England in 1850. Their arrival coincided with an increase in the demand for draft horses in agriculture and then in urbanization, and many Romnichels worked ashorse-traders. After the rapid decline in the horse trade following the First World War, most Romnichels relied on previously secondary enterprises, "basket-making," including the manufacture and sale of rustic furniture, and fortune-telling. Horse and mule trading continued to some extent in southern states where poverty and terrain slowed the adoption of tractor power (Salo and Salo 1982).
Black Dutch
Gypsies from Germany, generally referred to in the literature as Chikeners (Pennsylvania German, from German Zigeuner), sometimes refer to themselves as "Black Dutch." (While the term "Black Dutch" has been adopted by these German Gypsies, it does not originate with this group and has been used ambiguously to refer to several non-Gypsy populations.) They are few in number and claim to have largely assimilated to Romnichel culture. In the past known as horse traders and basket makers, some continue to provide baskets to US Amish and Mennonite communities. The literature on this group is very sparse and unreliable.
Hungarian Gypsies
The Hungarian (or Hungarian-Slovak) musicians also came to this country with the eastern European immigration. In the United States they continued as musicians to the Hungarian and Slovak immigrant settlements, and count the musical tradition as a basic cultural element. The sparse literature on this group begins in 1921. Curiously the proportion of scholarly efforts is higher than for the literature on other groups: three sociological studies (although two are unpublished master's theses), and one survey focused on music.
Irish Travelers
The Irish Travelers immigrated, like the Romnichels, from the mid to late nineteenth century. The Irish Travelers specialized in the horse and mule trade, as well as in itinerant sales of goods and services; the latter gained in importance after the demise of the horse and mule trade. The literature also refers to this group as Irish Traders or, sometimes, Tinkers. Their ethnic language is referred to in the literature as Irish Traveler Cant. Harper's ethnographic and sociolinguistic studies and Andereck's in the sociology of education are the few serious studies of this group. The popular literature on Irish Travelers includes articles in Catholic periodicals.
Scottish Travelers
The present population of Scottish Travelers in North America also dates from about 1850, although the 18th-century transportation records appear to refer to this group. Unlike that of the other groups, Scottish Traveler immigration has been continuous. Also unlike the other groups, Scottish Travelers have continued to travel between Scotland and North America, as well as between Canada and the United States, after immigration. Scottish Travelers also engaged in horse trading, but since the first quarter of the 20th century have specialized in itinerant sales and services. With the exception of one researcher's master's and doctoral theses and material culture studies, the literature on this group consists almost wholly of warnings to prospective consumers accompanied by information, derived from consumer protection agency records, of doubtful accuracy.
Strict rules govern student life at BJU.[137] Some of these are based directly on the university's interpretation of the Bible. For instance, the 2011-12 Student Handbook states, "Students are to avoid any types of entertainment that could be considered immodest or that contain profanity, scatological realism, sexual perversion, erotic realism, lurid violence, occultism and false philosophical or religious assumptions." Grounds for immediate dismissal include stealing, immorality (including sexual relations between unmarried students), possession of hard-core pornography, use of alcohol or drugs, and participating in a public demonstration for a cause the university opposes.[138] Similar "moral failures" are grounds for terminating the employment of faculty and staff. In 1998, a homosexual alumnus was threatened with arrest if he visited the campus.[139]
Other rules are not based on a specific biblical passage. For instance, the r'
Baptism by Super Soaker
Imagine a baptism by super soaker. Kinda like a wet t shirt contest.
Baptism by Super Soaker
Imagine a baptism by super soaker. Kinda like a wet t shirt contest.
"""Bathsheba Moment
There will be a scene like the David and Bathsheba rooftop bath scene.
Dave will catch Lily innocently. They are on the road traveling. There are few moments when a lone. They are only alone when going to the toilet and bathing.
Dave and Lily are camping. Not far from the road.
He leaves to find some wood and material to make a shelter. He will cut some limbs for the frame of a lean to with his camp hatchet.
While he is gone, Lily starts giving herself a sponge bath and changing her clothes and prepares to wash her other ones.
Dave comes back before she is finished. He sees her before he sees him. He hesitates a moment embarrassed and looks away. Then he steps to the side of a bush and sits back on his haunches and watches.
Lily is a dark haired beauty with light eyes. Sometimes they look blue. Sometimes they look green. Today they are green and sit well with her olive skin, almond eyes, and a curly black hair halo. There is a wildness which fits the woods. She has large heavy breasts with brown nipples the size of a snuff can lid. Breasts that have the firmness and lift that only a woman without children has. She pushes her skirt down over the bones of her hips. She slips her panties down next, and they hang on her ankle as she stands on one foot and kicks them off. She stands there a moment looking at her heap of clothes on the ground. She stands there. One foot out a bit with her weight back on her other leg. She crosses her long slender arms under her breasts and lifts them just a bit so the hard nipples point straight at him. She stands there like that frozen in time, deep in thought. As he stares at her, the clouds break, and cast shadows of the tree leaves across her skin. Dave shifts position and tries to stand. It may be his breath had been taken away. It may be that the blood rushed from his head as he stood. Dave saw stars and fell. Lily saw him fall and went behind a tree to get dressed. She yelled what happened. Dave groggily yells back that he tripped on a root. Yes he fell for something.
Questions--
Where are they coming from?
Where are they going?
How did they meet?
Why are they on the road hitch-hiking?"""
Beat Zen
In the mid-1950s, writers associated with the Beat Generation took a serious interest in Zen,[16] including Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Kenneth Rexroth, which increased its visibility. Prior to that, Philip Whalen had interest as early as 1946, and D. T. Suzuki began lecturing on Buddhism at Columbia in 1950.[17][18] By 1958, anticipating Kerouac's publication of The Dharma Bums by three months, Time magazine said, "Zen Buddhism is growing more chic by the minute."[
[img]http://i.istockimg.com/file_thumbview_approve/5037378/2/stock-illustration-5037378-big-top-circus-carnival-tents.jpg[/img]
For a short time in the middle of the twentieth century a small town in North Carolina became a hub of American cultural production. The town was Black Mountain and the reason was Black Mountain College. Founded in 1933, the school was a reaction to the more traditional schools of the time. At its core was the assumption that a strong liberal and fine arts education must happen simultaneously inside and outside the classroom. Combining communal living with an informal class structure, Black Mountain created an environment conducive to the interdisciplinary work that was to revolutionize the arts and sciences of its time.
Among Black Mountain's first professors were the artists Josef and Anni Albers, who had fled Nazi Germany after the closing of the Bauhaus. It was their progressive work in painting and textiles that first attracted students from around the country. Once there, however, students and faculty alike realized that Black Mountain College was one of the few schools sincerely dedicated to educational and artistic experimentation. By the forties, Black Mountain's faculty included some of the greatest artists and thinkers of its time: Walter Gropius, Jacob Lawrence, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, John Cage, Alfred Kazin, Merce Cunningham, and Paul Goodman. Students found themselves at the locus of such wide ranging innovations as Buckminster Fuller's Geodesic Dome, Charles Olson's Projective Verse, and some of the first performance art in the U.S.
By the late 40s, word of what was happening in North Carolina had started to spread throughout the country. With a Board of Directors that included William Carlos Williams and Albert Einstein and impressive programs in poetry and photography, Black Mountain had become the ideal of American experimental education. Its concentration on cross-genre arts education would influence the programs of many major American institutions.
In 1953, as many of the students and faculty left for San Francisco and New York, those still at Black Mountain saw the shift in interest and knew the school had run its course. Black Mountain had existed on its own terms, and on its own terms had succeeded in expanding the possibilities of American education. Realizing that they had essentially achieved their goals, they closed their doors forever. Black Mountain's legacy continued however, with former students such as painter Robert Rauschenberg, publisher Jonathan Williams, and poet John Wieners bringing the revolutionary spirit of their alma mater to the forefront of a number of other cultural movements and institutions.
The Black Mountain College Historic District is visible from North Fork Rd., off old Rte. 70, three miles west of Black Mountain and 15 miles east of Asheville. For more information call 828-686-3885 or visit Rockmont.
Bob's Tiddlyspots
http://bc1488.tiddlyspot.com/
http://bobstheology.tiddlyspot.com
http://feverdream.tiddlyspot.com
http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com
http://bobwebsite.tiddlyspot.com
I Have Borderline Personality Disorder
Triangles
By: casswednesday
Written on October 2nd, 2011
I am a 22 year old woman struggling with BPD and with borderline/narcissist personalities in my family. My mother has undiagnosed BPD and it continues to affect me as an adult. She hates children and yet wants to control hers so badly. My father remarried another woman whom I consider to also have BPD and an eating disorder. I feel horrible for my youngest sister who lives alone with my mother and probably would come live with my father if he had not married a woman with such a tendency to project her body image issues on other women. My mother suffers mostly from narcissism, and will never admit to fault. The day after my college graduation, the only time in a year my whole family has been together, my younger brother tried to kill himself. Since my brother's attempt, my stepsister has been bulimic, my stepmother has been acting out, and my father has been turning a deaf ear.
I am always retreating back into myself in order to protect my desires, goals, accomplishments from my family.
As someone with some form of BPD, my biggest difficulty besides self-harm and self-sabotage, is relationships. i feel devastatingly lonely and accept people indiscriminately and then push them away. I form triangles like it's breathing. I want parents, I want a family, I etch triangles in which I fluctuate between mother, father, child. I don't have a sense of self except the pervasive sense of having done something wrong. I feel compassion toward myself for making this effort, trying to unify all these fragments in my body, trying to reconcile them, but I just wish I could find peace. I get angry at people who have a sense of self because it seems so violent, like people with stronger senses of self sometimes don't feel such a desperate need to receive or understand others.
Does anyone else have this experience of triangles? For example, I often fall in love with couples, or date a butch and a femme at once, or fall in the middle of arguments between two of my friends who have nothing in common with each other. Right now I am not dating because I know i can't be satisfied. I have strong romantic feelings for one of my best friends, but I think that's only because he used to date one of our other close friends, and that triangle means something to me.
By: casswednesdayAge: 22-25,
Lost River Cave & Valley Ballroom in Bowling Green
A Truly Unique Wedding Venue
Your wedding day is a day that you will remember forever, and is one that you want your guests to remember as well. You're tired of all the same old wedding venues, and you want your location to be unique, something your guest will talk about for days, weeks, even years to come. Have you thought about getting married at Lost River Cave in Bowling Green, Kentucky? What could be more unique or unusual than getting married in a cave? It is not a joke you can get married at Lost River Cave.
Lost River Cave and Valley has quite an illustrious history. First used by Native Americans for shelter, it was then used by early settlers for water power while milling in the 19th Century, then in 1868 legend has it that Jesse James and his infamous gang hid out in the cave after robbing the bank in Russellville, then in 1933 a ball room was built, now known as the Lost River Cave and Valley ballroom, for an underground nightclub that was operated in the cave until the 1960's.
It is in the Lost River Cave and Valley Ballroom that you can have the unique wedding of your dreams. The dance floor has been renovated, and the historic bandstand and bar from the nightclub are in excellent condition, providing a wonderful backdrop for your event. A lovely crystal chandelier hangs above, glimmering light on everyone below. Lost River Cave and Valley Ballroom will accommodate up to 300-seated guests, and still allow plenty of room for dancing the night away.
You can begin your wedding at Lost River Cave and Valley with a beautiful, and memorable ceremony on either the bridge or at the Butterfly Habitat. With your reception being held in the historic Ball Room after the ceremony.
Renting the cave will cost you $750 for up to 100 guests, for parties of 100-200 guests cave rental is $1,000, and for 200 or more guests cave rental is $2,000. If your event is held on a weeknight, Sunday through Thursday nights, the rental fee will be reduced by $100. Rental length includes set-up and breakdown times.
For an additional $150 you can provide your guests with boat tours of the cave. In addition, Lost River Cave and Valley also offers golf cart rentals for transporting your guests to and from the ballroom. Golf Carts are $75 each, and will be driven by Lost River Cave and Valley staff.
For more information on renting Lost River Cave and Valley Ballroom for your wedding please visit their website at http://www.lostrivercave.com/cave_rental.htm , or you may reach them by telephone at 270-393-0077.
Published by Stephanie Raney
I am a stay at home mom of four kids. We homeschool, practice sustainable living techniques, love to camp, and travel frequently. View profile
Father of Dave and Kenny. Almost died in a mine collapse and converted to a born again Christian. Travel around the South giving [[tent revivals]] .
Brother Kenny had joined the traveling salvation show in the Spring. He had come highly recommended as he had just had finished a revival circuit and had brought the fire of the spirit into many small churches. He had the knack on getting a crowd fired up and then being able to close the deal during an altar call. He could burn up a harmonica while playing the electric guitar, and dance in the spirit all at the same time. He was 21 yo and single and the ladies in the congregations loved him. He had recently started letting his hair grow out and was now fond of wearing pointed Beatles’s boots.
Over the years tent revivals come and go. In some towns, the revival left such an impact, news churches were founded. The newly initiated did not feel welcome in their local churches.
In 1937, members of my distant family started meeting out in woods about three miles from town. It was the site for an old campground. Members of the newly saved met each week their and had services outside under a brush arbor. They said on benches made out of planks and under shade provided by a canopy of brush and leaves. During the week, the men of the church worked to build a little old church in the woods
Over the years tent revivals come and go. In some towns, the revival left such an impact, news churches were founded. The newly initiated did not feel welcome in their local churches.
In 1937, members of my distant family started meeting out in woods about three miles from town. It was the site for an old campground. Members of the newly saved met each week their and had services outside under a brush arbor. They said on benches made out of planks and under shade provided by a canopy of brush and leaves. During the week, the men of the church worked to build a little old church in the woods.
Mailing Address: Cane Ridge Shrine, Inc., P.O. Box 26, Paris, KY 40362-0026
Physical Address: (Please do not send mail to this address) 1655 Cane Ridge Rd. (Hwy. 537) Paris, KY 40362-0026
Phone: 859/987-5350
Website: www.caneridge.org
Email: curator@caneridge.org
Hours of Operation:
9:00 am-5:00 pm, Monday through Saturday, 1:00 pm-5:00 pm on Sundays, April 1-October 31.
Winter schedule: November 1-March 31, by appointment when curators are available.
A Church of Pioneers
group of Kentucky's early settlers built Cane Ridge Meeting House in 1791. Nestled among Kentucky's rolling hills and gracious horse farms, Cane Ridge Meeting House is located on State Highway 537 in Bourbon County, Kentucky. It is believed to be the largest one-room log structure standing in North America. It is the symbol of the late 18th and early 19th Century Western Great Revival. The Cane Ridge Presbyterian congregation with its pastor Barton Warren Stone were hosts for the event that took place here in August 1801.
Following the advice of pioneer explorer and guide Daniel Boone, a group of Scots-Irish Presbyterians from North Carolina settled in the area in 1790. At the same time that they were building homes and establishing livelihoods, they cut and hewed blue ash logs for the Meeting House's walls and oak and chestnut trees for beams and roof supports.
Religion on the Frontier
he young Presbyterian minister, Barton Warren Stone (1772-1844), arrived on the western frontier to pastor at Cane Ridge in 1796. By the end of the century, Presbyterians in Kentucky, southern Ohio, and northern Tennessee traveled to each other's sacramental communion services which typically began on Friday or Saturday and continued through Monday. Joining them in increasing numbers after a meeting at Red River in Logan County in June 1801 were Methodists and Baptists as well as the unchurched.
The Revival of August 1801 at Cane Ridge was the climactic event of the Western Great Revival. It was estimated by military personnel that some 20,000 to 30,000 persons of all ages, representing various cultures and economic levels traveled on foot and on horseback, many bringing wagons with tents and camping provisions. Because of the numbers of people attending and the length of the meeting, Cane Ridge has become the metaphor of the Great Revival. Historical accounts recall the contagious fervor which characterized the meetings that continued day and night. Descriptions abound of individuals, taken by great emotion, falling to the ground, crying aloud in prayer and song, and rising to exhort and assist others in their responses to the moment. Worship continued well into the week following the serving of Communion on Sunday, in fact, until provisions for humans and horses ran out.
The sacramental gatherings of the Presbyterians, already undergoing transformation by the time of the August 1801 Cane Ridge Revival, contributed to the growing camp meeting revivals. Participation by Methodists added an emotional evangelical quality that Presbyterians had previously tried to hold in check. Baptists attended, however, many were in a parallel meeting of the South Elkhorn Baptist Association.
Birth of "The Christians"
n 1804, a small group of Presbyterian ministers from Kentucky and Ohio, including Stone, penned and signed a document, "The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery", at Cane Ridge that resulted in the birth of a movement seeking unity among Christians along non-sectarian lines. They would call themselves simply "Christians. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Churches of Christ (non-instrumental), and the Christian Churches (independent) of the Stone-Campbell movement trace their origins here. This movement is often noted as the first one indigenous to American soil.
Preserving the History
ane Ridge Christian Church congregation continued until 1921 when the declining congregation disbanded. The historic old building stood in its place awaiting recognition of its proper place in cultural and religious history.
The effect of the charismatic leadership of Alexander Campbell dominated the Stone-Campbell movement for many years after his death in 1866. In the 1930s the ministry of Barton Warren Stone was discovered anew. His role in the Cane Ridge Revival and the development of the Christians of the West sparked the desire to restore the Meeting House to its original appearance. This led to the organization by the Disciples of Christ of the Cane Ridge Preservation Project. After the Historic American Buildings Survey visited Cane Ridge in 1934, it was recognized by the US Dept. of the Interior as a building of national significance deemed worthy of saving. To protect it from weather, vermin, and woodpeckers, in 1957 a golden limestone superstructure around the log church was dedicated. In 2006 the Cane Ridge Preservation Project was renamed The Cane Ridge Shrine, Inc.
Web counter courtesy of www.digits.com
Cane Ridge Meeting House. All Rights Reserved.
Site Maintained by W.H. Johnson Co. - Lexington, KY
Centralia Mine Fire, at 50, Still Burns With Meaning
Saved From the Void
Photograph from AP
Hours after plunging into the Earth, Todd Domboski stares at the abyss that briefly swallowed him—a hole swirling with toxic gases from an underground mine fire.
On February 14, 1981, 12-year-old Domboski sank into a cave-in that ruptured the soil in his grandmother's backyard in Centralia, Pennsylvania, where an abandoned coal mine had smoldered for 19 years.
The Centralia blaze, still burning more than 50 years after it began, ranks as the worst mine fire in the United States. But it is by no means the only one. More than 200 underground and surface coal fires are burning in 14 states, according to the U.S. Department of Interior's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement .
And with worldwide demand for coal surging, especially in industrializing nations such as India and China, mine fires have emerged as a global environmental and public health threat. Thousands of coal fires rage on every continent but Antarctica, endangering nearby communities. The blazes spew toxic substances such as benzene, hydrogen sulfide, mercury, and arsenic, as well as greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide. (See related story: "Seeking a Safer Future for Electricity's Coal Ash Waste .")
In Centralia, Domboski survived his 45-second ordeal by grabbing onto tree roots. He screamed for help until his cousin ran to his aid, reached into the void, and hoisted him out.
Many Centralia residents had long feared a calamity like the one that nearly unfolded that Valentine's Day. Four years earlier, Domboski's father had told a reporter, "I guess some kid will have to get killed by the gas or by falling in one of these steamy holes before anyone will call it an emergency."
—Joan Quigley
Joan Quigley is author of the 2007 book about Centralia, The Day the Earth Caved In: An American Mining Tragedy .
This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge .
Published January 8, 2013
Change name of Hilda to Lilith or Lily
Hilda was a child hood memory of a disposed soul.
Need names of characters
Change 909 to a mystical number
Tell about Antonio's Italian background?
Is Dave's Dad name Joe?
[[Chapter 1]]
This chapter needs more fleshed out.
Kenny only goes to Bro Jo because he needs him. Kenny is too much of an egomanic to work for anyone.
Kenny is in trouble because he got caught having an Errol Flynn like affair with a 13 yo, who looked 22.
[[Chapter 10]]
Research Lilith Rose name.
Research prostitution in the South in the 1960's.
Research bar hustling in the 60's.
[[Chapter 11]]
What was it like to be a vagrant in the 60's?
How did towns and sheriff's treat them?
Salvation Army?
[[Chapter 12]]
What is Dave's crisis on the road that sends him home to Pappa?
Was Ott involved?
Compare this more to the return of the Prodigal Son story in the Bible.
[[Chapter 14]]
Kenny knew how to fill the offering buckets.
Bro. Joe cautions him to "bounce his eyes" when preaching to not turn the young women on so much.
Some whispered that he was like a "holiness filled Elvis."
[[Chapter 15 Notes]]
Give backstory on Louise.
Louise and Hilda are lovers too.
[[Chapter 16]]
Kenny and Dave developed their routine.
They studied films and stories of preachers. They watched Elmer Gantry.
They practices their moves, singing, shouting, dancing, and speaking in tongues.
[[Chapter 17]]
Hilda's stay with the carnival was like a criminal book camp. There were con men, husters, whores, robbers, theives. She learned it all.
Pick pockets.
[[Chapter 18]]
Things to do around Bowling Green. It was the Confederate Capitol of Kentucky.
Beech Bend Amusement Park
Rochester Dam
Abandon PRison by Paradise
Paradise Hotel.
Lost River Ballroom
Green River
[[Chapter 19]]
Have a flashback to Antiono as a father?
What is Hilda's mother's name?
What is Ott's wife's name? Was her daddy killed in a mine years ago?
Ott is about 20 yo had time of the cave in on Joe, Antiono, and Coonie.
[[Chapter 2]]
When Hilda joins up with the revival group. It is a lot like traveling with the carnival. She shares a trailer with a old woman who plays the piano.
Interesting encounters of Dave, Kenny, and Hilda which develop into a love triangle.
[[Chapter 20]]
Draw more comparasions to David's seduction of Bathseba in the Bible.
Who shall be Uriah?
Hot sex in the trailer.
[[Chapter 21]]
Ott joins the carnival as a roadie and truck driver. Ott is about 35 yo now. He never remarried after the death of his wife.
He watches Hilda have sex with Kenny. Then with Dave. He then thought he would get a piece of the action. She knew he was there, but did not tell on him. She must be waiting for him.
[[Chapter 22]]
Ott is put out of his misery with a tent stake.
Kenny was seeing another women too, so Hilda chose Dave to run away with. She was worried someone would rat her out or find out about the murder.
[[Chapter 23]]
More adventures on the road.
Air force base.
Rape?
Sexual perversions?
Shoplifting?
Tension
Under the Billboard and Moon beamed stars.
The Cabin in the Woods.
[[Chapter 24]]
Dave is vaguely jealous that Hilda seems to love the orgies and sexual perversios so much, so he takes another hit. At the commune.
Then Hilda starts having flashbacks to being raped, molestated, and abuse.
Was she molested by a preacher when young.
Dave is depressed and overcome with guilt when not stoned. He thinks of suicide.
[[Chapter 25]]
[[Hilda's Molestation]]
Kenny has a hit record. His version of "If I had a Hammer"
He gets a deal to be a TV preacher on Sundays. His slot follows Oral Roberts and he becomes quite famous. He learnes the propersity gospel well and believes it himself.
[[Chapter 26]]
Hilda had be in sexual relationship and had sex with a dozen different men in the space of two months. Who was the father? She thought she was sterile/barren because in the years Coonie had been fucking her she never got pregnant. It could have be Dave, Kenny, Ott, or any of the others.
She thought she had been punished by God for enjoying sex so much.
[[Chapter 27]]
She had flashbacks and was filled with the spirit. Which was real? Either?
Other times she had bad trip flash backs of Hell, Satan, and felt demon possessed. At times she felt filled with Legion.
She ended up in mental hosptial in Eastern Tenn.
[[Chapter 28]]
What type of treatment did she get at the psych hospital unit? ER psych unit in a general hospital. What kind of meds did she have then?
Was the hospital near Oak Ridge Tenn and the federal nuclear base?
Kenny rescues her. She tells him she is pregnant and he assumes the baby is his.
[[Chapter 29]]
Where and when does Hilda start using the name Lilith, Lilith Rose, for her alter ego the Whore?
The growth of Preacher Joe on the sawdust trail.
[img[http://wolfden-designs.com/gallery/Deities/slides/Succubus.jpg]]
Dave is heartbroken with Hilda running away.
He stays at the commune for a while longer, staying drunk, stoned, and in a erotic limpness.
He OD's on drugs. He OD's on sex.
He leaves. He goes on the road and ends up at Key West, the end of the line. He survives by camping and killing wild chickens.
[[Chapter 30]]
Kenny is wealthy. He takes Hilda to Nashville Mansion. They marry.
He is on a full tilt boogie.
Kenny's brother dies of the yellowing and poverty. Hilda is appalled at his coldness for ignoring the needs of his brother and instead goes on mission trips to France, China, and Hawaii.
Hilda starts fucking the help and goes on spending sprees and parties in the honky tonks of Nashville and in the late night whore houses.
[[Chapter 31]]
Hilda is in a full blown binge. She is a lone in Nashville while Kenny is out on his "mission trips". She partys so much that it finally reaches the media.
About the same time she goes into a full blow post partum psychosis.
She becomes paranoid and then runs away on the road.
She ends up in a back woods state hospital built during the Civil War in West Virginia.
[[Chapter 32]]
Hilda survives the "treatment" and escapes from the hospital.
She has a host of other adventures with men, entertainment, booze, drugs and sex. And Crime.
She ends up at the Paradise Hotel with a couple of dudes she has hooked up with. They party and have threeway sex. She can manipulate them easily and they even rob for her.
Is she a squirter or a spinner?
The Peabody Company is closing the town of Paradise. Who organizes the party? What churches are involved? where are the cemetaries?
[[Chapter 33]]
Meanwhile....Kenny continues the good life. He lets Hilda go. She is too much of a liability. He lets the nannies raise the twins.
He goes on to more and more riches and fame.
[[Chapter 34]]
Kenny is retired in weatlh. His boys are grown and run the family business. He has one son in the Harvard Divinity School. He has re-married.
Dave still lives in Key West. He runs a coffee shop which is kind of like a old fashion beatnik/christian/philosophic club, near the beach. He has many friends.
Hilda is dead an forgotten.
Till the grandson gets involved in writing a paper for his school.
[[Chapter 35]]
Research Detroit in the 50's.
When was Elmer Gantry in theatres?
[[Chapter 4]]
Base this chapter on Jeanies story with the Baptist.
Ott's wife has a GBM tumor like Jeanie did.
Research Baptist's, Hell, and such opinion in the 1950's.
[[Chapter 5]]
Explore Bob Jones University has setting for Dave's school.
How did they feel about homosexuals?
How and how often were students kicked out of college for sinful beliefs?
Re-read the story of Ezra Pound and his stint as Professor.
Is the school near Ashville, NC.
[[Sex Scandal at BJU]]
[[Chapter 6]]
Carl Fisher is a hero of Kenny has a hustler.
He has the same knack at publicity.
He improved daily as an entertainer.
[[Chapter 7]]
The stepfather taught Hilda all about sex. She enjoyed it. She felt no guilt. She enjoyed their secret and the power her sex had over him. She was sure this was a part of growing up and they many girls learned this way. Hilda started high school. She learned of many of the girl's secret experiences. In fact she even learned that a few of the girls had been taught by their fathers and older brothers. But then she heard about some of the boys and men going to the pen. She continued to keep the secret, but suspected that she might be wrong about her relationship with the stepfather. Hilda falls for a boy at school and one evening after they have had sex, Hilda shares her story with him and he ridicules her and says she is engaged in evilness and sodomy. He runs away and tells her he doesn't want to every see her again. Shortly thereafter, the stepfather tries to hookup and have a sexual liaison. Hilda explodes on him that she has been defiled and no decent man will ever want her. Stepfather backhands her and tells her to be quiet or she may just disappear. Yes he would leave her alone, but he she better not tell of her sexual training. A few days later Hilda goes out to feed the pigs and she walks up on the stepdad having sexual intercourse with her 13 yo sister, Dixie. Hilda yells at them. Yes a the sin and all. Stepfather withdraws and stands up. And starts to fight back. He knocks Hilda down next to the pot belly stove. She picks up a chunk of coals as she rises and she hits him in the head and he falls over dead. She tells sis to be quiet about the sex and she just found him dead. He must have fallen while he was dead drunk. She covered up and stayed a short time and helped settle things with the family. They got the still going for a little money from the family business and they got the pension. Later, she started worrying about others' knowing about her molestation and that someone would tell and cast suspicion on her. She ran away and hit the road. She hitch-hiked and learned the rules of the road and how to survive.
Is Hilda jealous of sister? Is Coonie in Dixie when he dies? Does Hilda sneak up on them to kill him?
Research death from head injury.
Is Dixie the name of the sister?
[[Chapter 8]]
Was Dave interested in Jack Keroac's On the Road and Ginsberg's Howl?
What was Buddism like in America in 1960?
[[Chap 9]]
Narration type?
Consider screenplay and radio play versions.
Go more into the background of the religion and the religion.
[[Intro]]
This chapter narrows the board area's story down to just a handful of families and characters. There is a mine collaspe in the Pocohontas Coal Field, in shaft 909. This is where Hilda's dad Antonio dies. Kenny's dad, Ken, is on the right side of the collapse and escapes. Dave's dad, Joe, is trapped in the darkness alone for several days. Ott is a young coal truck driver who helps in the rescue. Coonie, future clown, and future stepdad of Hilda, is trapped at the entrance of cave in and his legs are crushed. But he gets out alive.
Joe just barely survived an explosion and cave in at a mine he was working. Dave was a small boy. Joe has a "come to Jesus" moment after many days and promises to be a soul warrior if God will only save him and allow him to live and return to his family. He is rescued and he is born again. He starts attending church every service with his wife, Anne. The father began with giving fervent testimonies at meetings. He met with the preacher and eventually got his training as a soldier for the Lord. He started out preaching at their church and then started visiting other local churches. Word spread that he was a chosen man and preacher and the crowd grew and grew. Eventually he grew too popular for the small local churches and had to buy a tent.
Dave's father was a called preacher. This means God talked to him personally and told him to win souls for God. He was self ordained and only preached what was in the King James Bible. Event though there was much in the bible he did not understand , he counted on the Holy Spirit to explain the meaning and how to give it to the sinners.
He use to be a coal miner. The deep shaft coal mine is where he worked. He earned his pay by the ton. It was dangerous and back breaking work as he picked, scraped and shoveled the coal into his cart to be weighed. If he did not haul his cart up with the pony , he would not be paid.
One day there was a cave in after an explosion of gas and dust. There was a great lost of life. Many friends were killed. His pony was killed. He was trapped in a small pocket alone. He thought that he would have to stay here until he was either rescued or died. This just may be his grave if he was never found. He knew all to well that many of the miners lost were never found. As all to common he began to pray and pray.
After many hours his carbide lamp burned out. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps his supply of air had ran out. Perhaps death was about there. He add heard that dying by foul air was different than from dying from no air. With no air you suffered from suffocation and it was misery. With foul air, you just went to sleep with the oxygen ran out. It was kind of like when the pound put a dog to sleep. He hoped this was true and that he would not suffer.
Hours passed and he started having visions and hearing voices. While he went to church every week with his wife, he was not much of a religious man. He did not think of God constantly and usually not even daily. He was the "god" of his universe and daily made the decision of what was right and wrong in his universe for him and his family.
Now he was talking with the a Great God. The God of everything and eternity. With his certainty of death, he was having an introductory conversation. As the fear and awe wore off, he felt more comfortable. He felt more at ease and he asked God to save him. He offered to turn his life completely over to God and would be his servant for the rest of his life. He said, "God will just give me the chance?"
After a total of three days, he was rescued. He was pulled from the deep by volunteer coal miners who went to his wife's church.
Dave saw the change in his Dad. He started going with the family to the mountain holiness church several time per week. He was more in the spirit. He frequently got up and testified about his experience and got many heart felt amens. He spent as much time as he could with the ministers and learned all that he had to teach him. He prayed without ceasing and gave praise and thanksgiving. He read the Bible every day.
He finally arranged a meeting with the minister and told him of his calling and his desire to preach and win souls for God. He studied and trained with the minister's guidance in the manner he was taught the way many years earlier.
His testimony grew to giving the sermon and the message as guided by the Holy Spirit. The congregation usually got in the Spirit and talked in tongues or danced around in contortions in the fever.
He would never go back under ground again until it was time to be buried.
He was kicked off the company rolls. Dave and his family no longer had any standing to shop at the company store or to live in company housing. The family moved farther up in the mountain and closer to church. One of the congegration rented him a one room log cabin with a loft, just down the dirt road from the church. Members of the church also gave them household goods, food, and clothes.
Though Dad would never officially progress beyond the six grade nor went to divinity school; and He was not even sure what theology meant, he learned the craft and learned to wear his calling as special. He would never accept the term Reverend, He was a preacher and he was Brother Joe.
He started preaching once in a while at other nearby churches, across the holler or on the next mountain. His skill at getting the people in the pews in the Spirit became his calling card. Suddenly he was in the big time. The local churches could not handle all the crowds. He had to buy a tent. This lead to riches on the sawdust trail and into legend of the boy who had made it to the big time and the big top.
And eventually he started on the saw dust trail, a journey he would be on the rest of his life. The mother Anne died a few years later and Bro. Joe thank the Lord for letting his wife live long enough to raise the kids. He would finish it up.
Ott had just came back from making a local delivery of coal and helped as best he could with the rescue efforts. He works as long as he can, but he has to get home to take care of his dying wife.
Ott and his wife Bessie are from the swamp land and bayous next the Gulf of Mexico. He and she moved to the coal mountains for work. He could not get work on a oil rig because he was a local and the oil companies had a bit of prejudice about this.
The families and church people were at the entrance alternating between wailing and praying.
Ott knew many of them from praying over his wife.
[[Chap 1 Notes]]
Introduction of Hilda and relationship with stepfather.
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Type the text for 'New Tiddler'
1. The following chapters needs to be zigzag or seesawed in with the other chapters. The first chapter of the book introduces Hilda. She was born in the hills of West Virginia in 1946. Even now she would still be younger than Mick Jagger. Her father was a immigrant from Italy who worked in the coal mines. He came to the mountains for work. He meets Francis, a local girl, and they married. Hilda had two younger siblings. Her brother was almost two years younger and he died of the flu before he started school. Dixie was four years younger and both she and Hilda had the looks of her father. This gave them a smoldering exotic beauty with their green eyes and coal black hair. This chapter will discuss the life of a coal mining family. They went to a country and mountain Holiness church. This chapter will cover Hilda's life until she was about 12 years of age and the death of her father in a coal mine.
Type the text for 'New Tiddler'
Kenny has a scandal with his traveling from church to church with his revival. Sure he had been caught more than once diddling a member of the hosting congregation. But this one was different. He made the news. It hurt his name.
The only way he could survive would be hooking up with another preacher and be more in the background.
Brother Joe's traveling revival helped solve his problem.
[[Chap 10 Notes]]
Dave and Hilda leave the circus. Intimate revelations and discussions. They are disillusioned, but need money. They develop their own hustle. Part religion, part entertainment, part street con.
They sing on corners, in bars, in churches. They sell big family Bibles. They pass out church flyers for donations.
Hilda knows how to work a crowd.
10.All of the above come together on the sawdust trail in the Holy Circus. And thus begins Part Two of the novel. There conflict between Ott and the faith healers and preachers. There is conflict between Hilda and men in general. Louise is a closet lesbian. Dave may be homosexual and has many conflicts with his spiritual self. Kenny is a hustler. Kenny, Dave, and Hilda team up for a while and hustle at the tent revival together. A love triangle develops between the three. Kenny for Dave and Hilda. Kenny for Hilda. And Hilda for Dave and Kenny. Much conflict evolves from this. Kenny and Dave will each have the opportunity to rescue Hilda from a crisis. Ott and Louise will weave in and out of the plot at pivotal moments. Part Three of the book will concentrate on Hilda and being loss and found. All the plot lines will meet and resolve in Paradise, KY.
Adventures of Hilda on the road.
The carnival. The drugs. The booze. The sex. The cutting.
[[Chap 11 Notes]]
Dave becomes a street preacher while hitching the south. He preaches and hustles. He stays with random guest families. He studies Buddism. He meets Quakers.
HE gives street passerbyslittle flags or pamphlets for a donation. He gave out Christian matchbooks too.
[[Chap 12 Notes]]
Dave has a crisis on the Road. Someone gets raped. Someone gets killed. He runs to Dad's tent.
[[Chap 13 Notes]]
Chapter 13 Hilda Goes to Kenny
Hilda was on the road for several weeks. She travel through the Smokies and back to the Ohio Valley. She had went to several churches and asked for a place to stay. She explained who she was and about her travels with the revival. She told them her husband beat her and she left.
She found a couple of churches where she met with an elder's wife or the pastor's wife. They were much more sympathetic to her story and she got a few days for a place to stay and have something to eat. The only downside was that she had to go to the service on meeting nights. These meetings always held the possibility that she would have to sing or testify. The worst of staying with these folks was having to endure the one to one preaching of the pastor. He would say forgiveness is God's way. He would say pray and work to get your family back together and be blessed. God will provide a way if only you have faith. These talks always made her feel guilty as she had lied about her circumstances and for the fact that Dave had not beat her.
Some of the pastors took a different tact. They would claim that she had left her husband because she was demon possessed. This led to the laying on of hands, the anointing of oil, and long and loud prayer sessions. Sometimes someone in the group would be caught up in the Spirit and jump up, run around the church, and roll on the floor. Other times one would start talking in tongues and prophesy about her getting back with Dave. The speaker would sometimes carry on a conversation with the demon inside of her and these was especially frightening.
The Spirit lead speaker sometimes said things that were very accurate about her feelings and desires. It, the demon, or the Spirit, seemed to know about her abuse as a child and the incestous relationship she had with step father. They would speak about her sometimes enjoying the illicit sex, but that it was the demon's craving and that she was not at fault. The demon talked about killing his host before he would flee and the ordained would tell about the cutting and mutilation being away the demon taunted her and sometimes was a way to wake herself up so she could have her own thoughts instead of the demons.
Hilda would get so worked up she would roll on the flooring and her crying and tears joined the wailings of the faithful.
One time doing one of these intense prayer sessions she had a flashback. She had visions of Heaven and Hell. She saw demons and angels. It was like a shutter on a camera opening for a moment she would see the vision then the shutter would close. She slipped into a spell and it felt as though she left her body in a wisp as she exhaled. She traveled to a spot above the prayer circle and she herself laying on the floor. She saw herself recoil in a seizure like movement on the floor and she was pulled back to herself in a snap as if she was connected with a rubber band. She would get hot. Then cold and shiver. She would spit awful tastes out of her mouth. She would hear demons whisper in her ear, then angels. She experience sexual arousal and would wet herself and then feel extremely guilty. She was in a psychedelic whirl.
She passed out after a session. She woke up and she was naked and the nude middle aged pastor was there with her. He spoke about comforting her. Hilda felt wetness between her legs and yelled at the preacher and beat him in a frenzy with her fists as he ran from her bed. She said, "How could you? You raped me."
The preacher said "no no, you seduced me and I thought I was helping you". "The demon in you must have got in me or Satan sent another to couple with you".
Hilda knew she had to left. She was used up. He might have hurt her baby. The demon may be hurting her baby. She now accepted she was demon possessed. She left that day with her small suitcase and hitched a ride to West Virginia.
She would end up in a mental hospital there.
#### Add adventure of being raped by truck farmer and be arrested for being crazy. At first they thought she was drunk or high.
She become psychotic in jail. She ended up in the mental hospital build during the Civil War.
Does she go to Kenny first? Does she go to Kenny after she is hospitalized? She could not have shock treatment while she was pregnant. So she goes to the hospital. She tells them to contract Bro Kenny Sherlock. They do. He gets her out of the hospital. He takes her home. She tells him she is pregnant. The time frame tracks back to the time he seduced her, or she seduced him, at Bro Howard's revival camp. The baby could be his. It could be Dave's. She wintered there and the babies were born in the Spring of 1965. They were fraternal twins. One had dark hair like Dave's and the other had blond hair like Kenny's. She would be that both were the fathers until her dying day. They had significant Bible names.
In the weeks after the birth, Hilda suffers from post partum depression. It gets so bad she can't get out of bed and she can't care for the babies. She starts having hallucinations and becomes psychotic. Kenny either didn't have faith in his prayers or he had enough knowledge about mental illness to call a doctor, after she cut some gashes on both wrists and tried to cut her own throat. The doctor arranged for to go back to the state hospital in West Virginia.
Hilda had to put in leather restraints to keep her from hurting herself further.
The Prodigal Son returns to the Sawdust Trail.
[[Chap 14 Notes]]
Brother Kenny had joined the traveling salvation show in the Spring. He had come highly recommended as he had just had finished a revival circuit and had brought the fire of the spirit into many small churches. He had the knack on getting a crowd fired up and then being able to close the deal during an altar call. He could burn up a harmonica while playing the electric guitar, and dance in the spirit all at the same time. He was 21 yo and single and the ladies in the congregations loved him. He had recently started letting his hair grow out and was now fond of wearing pointed Beatles’s boots.
Brother Kenny was generally the center of attention and what was politely called an extrovert.
Dave and Kenny were opposites in personality. Dave was introverted, introspective, and contemplative. Kenny was impulsive and loud and his energy was near manic. They were the same age and became the kind of friends where the opposites came together to form another personality.
[[Chap 15 Notes]]
Hilda is on the road with prostitute/lesbian/fugitive/whore Louise. They live in a airstream travel trailor following the carnival from town to town.
They both met Ott who worked a a roadie and drove a truck for the carnival.
A drunk Ott rapes Hilda. Loise almost kills Ott with a tent stake and banishes him from the carnival.
[[Chap 16 Notes]]
Dave and Kenny merge into a polished act which would give a performance several times per day in the big top.
[[Chap 17 Notes]]
Hilda and moves to entertain at the carnival. She worked as a houchie couchie girl with Louise. She was learning to be a gypsy prophet and training as a pickpocket when she got interested in singing. She started singing with some of the musicans at the dances.
[[Chap 18 Notes]]
Hilda, Louise, Dave, and Kenny meet up in Bowling Green.
They hook up. Experience the locale. Hustle a little. Go to the underground ballroom. Rochester Dam. Sing something like Paradise.
[[Chap 19 Notes]]
Coonie hooks up with Hilda's mother. His character is fleshed out more. He makes his living by clowning and dealing moonshine. He is a child molester. HE reminds one of the scary clowns like Stephen King's "It".explore how Hilda and the family survived the crisis. The future step-father will be introduced. He is on a pension for being injured in a mine accident. The pension is not enough so he makes money by making moonshine and selling it. He sells much of it from his shabby storefront where he sells popcorn on weekends dressed as a clown. This is a front for him selling moonshine in little sacks with popcorn on top. He had never married and had no prospects because he was a gimp and a little strange, and he was the town drunk. He hooks up with Hilda's mother. They marry and he moves the family from the mine's housing to his country cabin on Lone Mountain. He needs a maid and cook and a little company. He also wanted sex. But not necessarily from his wife, but from Hilda. He was a pedophile and had used his clown get up before to cop a feel, a smell, or a squeeze. Mostly this just fueled his fantasies for masturbation, but he occasioned got the full boat of a young filly for extended please. And he liked being the little man in the boat and he took pride in the fact that his girl enjoyed him being there. He seduced shortly after they all moved to the mountain. She was thirteen.
Kenny's dad, Ken, vows to never work underground again. He and his family move to Detroit and to work at GM.
Dave's dad, Joe, had a religious experience while he was trapped. He gets religion and starts on the road to becoming a preacher.
Ott is married to a swamp girl. Ott starts out a good guy and is turned to a criminal by a series of unfortunate events.
Ott works a little running Coonie's moonshine.
[[Chap 2 Notes]]
2. This chapter will explore how Hilda and the family survived the crisis. The future step-father will be introduced. He is on a pension for being injured in a mine accident. The pension is not enough so he makes money by making moonshine and selling it. He sells much of it from his shabby storefront where he sells popcorn on weekends dressed as a clown. This is a front for him selling moonshine in little sacks with popcorn on top. He had never married and had no prospects because he was a gimp and a little strange, and he was the town drunk. He hooks up with Hilda's mother. They marry and he moves the family from the mine's housing to his country cabin on Lone Mountain. He needs a maid and cook and a little company. He also wanted sex. But not necessarily from his wife, but from Hilda. He was a pedophile and had used his clown get up before to cop a feel, a smell, or a squeeze. Mostly this just fueled his fantasies for masturbation, but he occasioned got the full boat of a young filly for extended please. And he liked being the little man in the boat and he took pride in the fact that his girl enjoyed him being there. He seduced shortly after they all moved to the mountain. She was thirteen.
Lily joins the Circus and Louise goes back to the carnival.
She finds a place and stays in a travel trailer. She learns to sing and entertain with Dave and Kenny.
There are hints of a romantic triangle.
There are hints of mental illness in Hilda with cutting and hysterical behavior. She seems to have a borderline personality.
Dave experiences depression. Kenny experiences mania.
[[Chap 20 Notes]]
The triangle blossoms into a pyramid. Either Kenny seduces Hilda or she him. They have David and Bathseba moment when Hilda is in the camp showers and Kenny is up hanging banners outside the big top. He sees down into the showers and Hilda does not try to hide. She seems to entice him and seduce him with her movements and gestures. Does she know she is being watched or not? Is she seducing him or is he seducing her?
I hook up later for some hot sex in the trailer.
[[Chap 21 Notes]]
Ott joins the circus as a roadie and a truck driver.
He works a few weeks till he and she meets. She acts like she doesn't know her. He goes about his way. He meets up with her later and basically asks for a truce and he keep her secrets if he keeps hers.
Goes on a few weeks.
Ott walks up on Hilda having sex with Kenny and watches them from the shadows. He is turned on and starts drinking. He goes to her trailer later and rapes her. Dave walks in just as Ott finishes up and is zipping his pants up. Hilda wimpers and Dave goes beserk. He and Ott roll around and fall out the trailer door onto the grass. Ott gets up and runs, Dave chases and tackles him. The fighting gets more intense. Dave grabs a stake mallet and hits Ott several times and kills him.
[[Chap 22 Notes]]
Hilda in the mean time runs to Kenny and he follows her back to the scene of the murder. No one else is there except Dave, Hilda, Kenny, and the body.
They decide to hide his body quickly and cover up the crime. They wrap him in a piece of tent tarp and carry him down to the creek and hide him under the bridge.
Heavy with guilt, Dave and Hilda decide to leave the circus and go on the road. Reluctantly, Kenny agrees to help them and to provide a cover story.
Kenny was involved with another girl from the services anyway.
[[Chap 23 Notes]]
On the road again. With Dave and Hilda.
They hustle, street preach, sell trinkets to make it.
They have a few adventures.
They hook up with the Jesus Freaks and go to live on the commune outside Asheville, NC.
[[Chap 24 Notes]]
Adventures with the freaks and live on the commune.
Free love, sex, drugs, rock and roll, and Jesus. Mystical experiences.
Hilda and Dave dive in.
Dave has guilt and depression. Hilda has visions of the devil and tries to kill self and self injures herself.
[[Chap 25 Notes]]
We go back to the big top.
Kenny has a hit record.
He starts preaching on TV. He becomes a hit after being in the time slot following Oral Roberts. He learns the prosperity gospel and starts preaching it every day. His number of follower quadrupled each week.
He was a multi-millionaire in a short period. He left the tent revival a few months early.
[[Chap 26 Notes]]
Hilda starts feeling sick and ill at ease. She had a fellow camper drop her at the free clinic on the sguare in Asheville.
She is checked out and gets some tests. She is pregnant and is having morning sickness. She is about three months pregnant. Three months ago she had sex with Dave, Kenny, and Ott within a matter of days. She thought she was barren has she had sex with Coonie for half a dozen years and never got pregnant. She had not even considered that she could get pregnant. She thought God had struck her barren for enjoying her incestous molestation.
Who was the father? There had been many rumors recently of LSD babies being borned deformed. What was she going to do?
She would run away. She went on the road alone.
[[Chap 27 Notes]]
Hilda on the road going from town to town staying at small churches with the kindness of the preacher or the congregation. She told them that she was pregnant and had run away from her abusive husband who was a preacher.
She had flash backs and spirit filled moments. Some suspected she was demon possessed.
She got kicked out of one home for ranting like a demon possess whore and who started self flaggelation.
She got kicked out of another church after having flash backs and trying to kill herself.
She was arrested and put in a mental hospital in Eastern Tenn.
[[Chap 28 Notes]]
Hilda is treated at the psych ward and gets better. She sees Kenny on TV on Sunday in the ward dayroom.
She calls the listed number she has to go through many people just to leave her number after she convinces them she was a freind of Kenny. They let her leave her name and the phone number of the hospital ward where she was at.
Kenny comes and "rescues" her the next day and takes her back to his mansion. Hilda tells him she is pregnant and he assumes the baby is his.
He convinces her to marry him quickly.
[[Chap 29 Notes]]
The next few chapters narrow the attention down to just one family, their story, and their progress to the early 60's.
This chapter deals with the Penn family. This is Dave's family. Dave's dad is the focus as he moves the family into the live of a preacher. First it is only in one small backwoods church. Then he travels from church to church in the hills. He then travels town to town and has to rent a tent for the overflow at the churches. He then goes into the business alone. He travels from place to place like a big top circus. And the money rolls in. He becomes renown and pretty family in the South Central part of the USA, south of the Ohio River, East of Mississippi, West of the Mountains, and North of the Gulf of Mexico.
[[Chap 3 Notes]]
Hilda decided she was tried of the mountain life. She was tried of being molested by her step daddy. She was tired of the jealousy of her mother.
She did not want to live her life on that mountain.
She ran away the year of 1962. She was 18 yo.
She hustled, hitch hiked, and caroulsed across the country.
She finally tumbled in with a carnival caravan and stayed with a road whore and con artist named Louise.
The stepfather taught Hilda all about sex. She enjoyed it. She felt no guilt. She enjoyed their secret and the power her sex had over him. She was sure this was a part of growing up and they many girls learned this way. Hilda started high school. She learned of many of the girl's secret experiences. In fact she even learned that a few of the girls had been taught by their fathers and older brothers. But then she heard about some of the boys and men going to the pen. She continued to keep the secret, but suspected that she might be wrong about her relationship with the stepfather. Hilda falls for a boy at school and one evening after they have had sex, Hilda shares her story with him and he ridicules her and says she is engaged in evilness and sodomy. He runs away and tells her he doesn't want to every see her again. Shortly thereafter, the stepfather tries to hookup and have a sexual liaison. Hilda explodes on him that she has been defiled and no decent man will ever want her. Stepfather backhands her and tells her to be quiet or she may just disappear. Yes he would leave her alone, but he she better not tell of her sexual training. A few days later Hilda goes out to feed the pigs and she walks up on the stepdad having sexual intercourse with her 13 yo sister, Dixie. Hilda yells at them. Yes a the sin and all. Stepfather withdraws and stands up. And starts to fight back. He knocks Hilda down next to the pot belly stove. She picks up a chunk of coals as she rises and she hits him in the head and he falls over dead. She tells sis to be quiet about the sex and she just found him dead. He must have fallen while he was dead drunk. She covered up and stayed a short time and helped settle things with the family. They got the still going for a little money from the family business and they got the pension. Later, she started worrying about others' knowing about her molestation and that someone would tell and cast suspicion on her. She ran away and hit the road. She hitch-hiked and learned the rules of the road and how to survive.
Type the text for 'Chapter 3 Vocabulary'
Dave leaves the commune heartbroken and travels to Key West.
He has some adventures settling in, but eventually starts a coffee shop and a new sort of mission.
[[Chap 30 Notes]]
Life with Mr. and Ms. Keny.
Living the Prosperity Gospel
and babies make four,
Then Kenny's brother dies in poverty of the yellowing.
Hilda is in post partum depression and psychosis.
She runs away from the Nashville mansion to West Virginia and the mountains. Home. She is arrested after she is gang raped and goes to the Civil War Mansion Mental Hospital.
[[Chap 31 Notes]]
[[Kenny and the Gospel of Prosperity]]
Treatment in a rural mental hospital. Hilda get water treatment. Insulin therapy, Medications. LSD, and shock treatment.
After many harrowing experiences, she escapes and goes back on the road.
[[Chap 32 Notes]]
Hilda is back to the road. She has adventures. This feels like where she is meant to be. She hustles. She parties. She has siezures. She has light induces seizures from the shock treatment. She has flashbacks.
She hooks up with different ment and travels. She is hook up with Rand and Mitch in Kentucky. Traveling carnies. They hear of a party in Paradise, KY. Thank go there to party at the Lights Out Festival. A blow out to celebrate of lament about the closing of Paradise to be dug, bull dozed and buried by the Peabody Coal Company.
At the dance at the Paradise Hotel, the lights flicker and go out while Hilda, now know as Lily Rose, is dancing with Rand. When the lights come back on, Rand finds that Lily Rose has died in his arms. He freaks and worries that someone will think he done it or will find his drugs in her system. Mitch and Rand drunk walk her to the car. They drive outside town and talk about what to do. They wrap her in a tent tarp from the carnival and dump her on the side of a strip pit at the end of a dirt road. They figure she will be bulldozed and buried in the rush for coal.
A few days later Big Jim catches the elevator to top control room of the largest steam like shovel and earth mover in the world. It is taller than the Statue of Liberty and can scoop up a city book with he shovel full. Big Jim looks how over the barren landscape. It has been cleared of houses and trees. Now his job was to get at the coal. He look at the barren and dirt color horizon and sees just a glimer of red in the morning Sun. He gets the bincoculars and sees it is a red dress wrapped in a tarp. Then he see the black flowing hair and an out stretched hand.
He hit the emergency alarm and all worked within a the camp ceased. He radio what had happened. They went and investigated and found Lily Rose. They would find no ID or anyway to find out her name or where she was from. She would be buried in a pauper's grave in the only and last cementary in Paradise. [determined by pre-arrange contract to avoid moving the bodies]. There on a hill next to the Green River, Hilda would lay for eternity. She was buried under instructions of the country preacher show that her feet faced east so that when Jesus came to get her in the sky from the east, she would rise facing him.
[Side note-
The first step is clearing the land of all trees and vegetation. The topsoil and subsoil are then removed and set aside to be used later when reclaiming the land. The overburden – rock and other material covering the coal – is removed by draglines or large shovels to expose the bed of coal. If the overburden proves too hard, it is drilled and blasted. Smaller shovels load the coal onto large trucks.]
[[Chap 33 Notes]]
Meanwhile, Brother Kenny raises the twins and bases in the glory of the Prosperity Gospel.
He let the fact of his wife leaving him, die in quiet rumor. He could survive this as the wronged party, but a full blown scandal could only hurt him. He had the boys and there were plenty of women.
[[Chap 34 Notes]]
45 years pass. Kenny retires in wealth and with his wife.
He is prideful of the two boys taking up the family business and that his grandson was in the Harvard Divinty School.
As is sometimes the nature of history, some are more interested than others. Josh was that kind and it had help seal his choice to be in Harvard. As young adults sometimes do, he used his considerable skills of research to look at his own family. Of course there were many gaps in the offical paper record and he could only get closer to the truth by interviewing people back from the old times. He just had to learn the complete story and what happened to his mother.
He learns about Dave. He tracks him down and they talk. He fills him in on the rest of the sorry and that a happen stance DNA test had showed that Kenny was not his dad. They agreed to meet and discuss further.
Josh told Dave of all his other research and all the leads he had tracked over the years. He shared some that he had left to do. They discussed his DNA testing.
Dave noticed one of the leads was about a mysterious death in the mid sixties in Paradise, KY. before the town was razed for the Peabody Coal Company. Dave told him that he and Hilda had once stayed there in the Paradise Hotel. Josh said the annual Paradise Festival and Rembrance was coming up soon in a near by town on the Green River. They should go together and see what they could find.
[[Chap 35 notes]]
Kenny Cline's family moves to Detroit. The father, Lou, goes to work in the Ford Factory. This chapter explores the experiences of an immigrant Appalachian family in the north.
Kenny comes to age and finds his calling as a hustling and his work is explored. He works as a door to door salesman. He works in a car lot. He works selling appliances and carpet. He honed his skills to manipulate the wives as he knew they lead their men.
He progresses to being a traveling salesman. He goes to the mountains and the south central district. He discovers tent revivals. He discover the amount of money made by the preachers. He moved to be a preacher just like Elmer Gantry had done a few generations before.
[[Chap 4 Notes]]
Ott eventually went on the road. He ran over a kid while drunk and driving a coal truck.
About the same time it was found out that he was the cause of the local jack leg epidemic. Jake-leg epidemic first reported by Oklahoma City doctors
Jake leg is a rarely used term, and memories of the jake-leg epidemic have almost disappeared.
A little-known epidemic, first detected in Oklahoma, it spawned slang words, songs and a dance, all of which have been nearly lost to the passage of time.
Ott's wife dies alone. The Baptist had refused to baptize her and the Holiness Revival had promised too much.
This chapter will explore their love and the sadness of her illness. We will look at their isolation as their family is back in the swamp country.
She gets sick with seizures and temp paraylsis. They would never know that she had a GBM tumor and would be dead in less than a year. They could not afford medical treatment even if it was around. Even if their culture supported it. When people got sick they went to church.
They chose a local church in the mountains. A small church. A Baptist Church. Ott carried her into church one night.
The pastor refused to baptise her and get her ready for death if it was coming. She would have to convince him that she was "saved". She could hardly talk.
Ott: from the hills. Former coal miner, truck driver, roustabout. Lived with his young wife many years ago. They never had children. Many years ago. She became ill with something like MS or MD. She was continually wasting away. He took her to a local Pilgrim Baptist Church. He asked that she be prayed for and Baptized. He wanted her healed and if that did not occur, he want her ready for Heaven. They refused and called her a sinner and she was in a wheel chair and could not speak. They said it was too late and they could not tell what was in her heart. Later there was a tent revival near his town. The wife was much worse and and appeared near death. She could not eat. She messed herself. She had not spoke in months. They had no family or support. Ott carried her to the tent revival and when they that the prayer call, he carried her up to the altar to be prayed for by the preacher. He was a faith healer. He touched her with a oiled cloth and spoke in tongues, shook, and stamped and demanded that the demon of sickness leave her body. He acted like he was drawing the demon spirit out of her mouth. She suddenly seemed more awake and started speaking grunts, moans, and slobbered. The preacher jumped up and down and claimed the Holy Spirit had entered her and that she was speaking in tongues. There were praises and amens. The speaker claimed she was saved and cured. He told the audience that she would be up and walking in a few days. The preacher used this event for the next three days to drum up more donations to the offering plates. Mary died three days after the revival tent had moved on to another town. Ott was heartbroken and enraged. He made a vow he would never forgive these slimy, money grubbing, preachers. He went down hill and even though he went back to driving a coal truck, he kept drinking the lightening. His job ended when he passed out while driving a coal truck down a mountain side. It smashed into a general store killing three boys buying penny candy and the old man and his wife who owned the store. The wreck woke him up and sobered him up enough to see what he had done. He knew his next stop would be in prison for many years. He walked down to the crossroads and walked to an angle that he could not see the wreck he hitched and immediately caught a ride with a curious driver who wanted to know what all the fuss was about, but could not stop.
There was a young hillbilly bootlegger from the extreme hills. He went to a revival with his young wife. She was a teenage and very ill. They went for a healing. She did get healed that night. She went home and the tent revival left.
The wife tried to join to the locale log cabin church. The preacher said that he did not recognize the authority of the revivalist and refused to baptist her until she attended his church regularly and repent. There was not enough time to attend church regularly. She and her husband had so much work to do just to survive.
As the months passed, she again got sick and sicker. She died about six months after the tent revival. She had to be buried in unsanticified ground as she had not been baptized and a stranger spoke at her funeral.
At he service she had left her wheelchair and kneeled at the altar. The preacher lifted her up, whispered in her ear, and prayed loud for the crowd could hear. She entered a frenzied bliss. The preacher told her to tear off her braces and to run around the church.
She did and she had no pain.
After the revival, she went to the backwoods church with her husband. The husband was happy to have his wife back.
The log cabin church had been there for years. The old pastor had been there as long as anyone could remember. He was set in the old ways. The closed ways. The holy ways. He has the responsibility of shepherding the whole church.
When the young wife came and expected to continue on her spiritual journey, the pastor rejected her healing as not being from God and said her conversion was not valid.
The wife started to get sick again. She could feel the end coming. She asked, "Is there any meaning to death? Is it the end of the universe". Will it be for me?
The wife and husband were stunned and and were shunned by the church.
They were a lone until she died.
The holiness and baptism of fire movement was about personal experience. It was about the ectascy and the bliss. It was not about numbing or relaxing rituals. It was not about building a church in the woods. It was about building a temple inside the person.
Each person on this journey to oblivion works each day trying to make sense of the mystery and slowly builds their funeral pyre.
[[Chap 5 Notes]]
5. This chapter will describe Dave's background. His Dad, Joe, started out being a coal miner. The father just barely survived an explosion and cave in at a mine he was working. Dave was a small boy. Joe has a "come to Jesus" moment after many days and promises to be a soul warrior if God will only save him and allow him to live and return to his family. He is rescued and he is born again. He starts attending church every service with his wife, Anne. The father began with giving fervent testimonies at meetings. He met with the preacher and eventually got his training as a soldier for the Lord. He started out preaching at their church and then started visiting other local churches. Word spread that he was a chosen man and preacher and the crowd grew and grew. Eventually he grew too popular for the small local churches and had to buy a tent. And eventually he started on the saw dust trail, a journey he would be on the rest of his life. The mother Anne died a few years later and Bro. Joe thank the Lord for letting his wife live long enough to raise the kids. He would finish it up. He chose for Dave to go to a Southern Bible College. He wanted better than his eight grade education.
This chapter covers Dave growing up and going to a prestigious Bible College. His was not all that committed and felt pressure to go there.
He was an okay student though he did not agree with all of the values and beliefs.
This chapter covers some of his visits home to the sawdust trail.
This chapter will describe Dave's experiences at college.His mistakes, his conflicts. His friendship with a beatnik hippie type searching for the meaning of life. He was gay. Both were eventually kicked out of school. The beatnik for being caught in a homosexual act with one of the Bible professors. Dave was kicked out because the administration said that he knew the beatnik was gay and an abomination and did not tell on him. This cast suspicion that he was a homosexual too. The rumor black listed him from ever attending a Bible College again. Dave returns to the saw dust trail despondent and depressed.
There is a scandal which involved his liberal thoughts and the homosexuality of his room mate.
. Dave returns to the tent revival with mixed feelings. He still sings and entertains. He still prays with the group. He still makes announcements. He does not give testimony and believes many in the church to be hypocrites. He starts just thinking of the ongoing revival as a business and comes to handle more and more of the business end. He also started drinking. At age 22, he was firmly on track to be a full blown alcoholic. He starts playing music in bars and honky tonks. He oddly retains an unquenched spiritual side and he travels his own path to enlightenment. His path crosses with Ott's at a club one night. Dave path crosses with Kenny's at a bar. They both meet Hilda and Louise later at a bar.
Merge with [[Chapter 9]]
[[Chap 6 Notes]]
[[Lot Lizards and the Lady of the Highway]]
6. This chapter will describe Dave's experiences at college.His mistakes, his conflicts. His friendship with a beatnik hippie type searching for the meaning of life. He was gay. Both were eventually kicked out of school. The beatnik for being caught in a homosexual act with one of the Bible professors. Dave was kicked out because the administration said that he knew the beatnik was gay and an abomination and did not tell on him. This cast suspicion that he was a homosexual too. The rumor black listed him from ever attending a Bible College again. Dave returns to the saw dust trail despondent and depressed.
This chapter goes into detail of Kenny's life moving into Brother Kenny Cline.
This chapter shows his training as a fire and brimstone preacher and entertaining.
He developed a knack for getting attention and getting publicity. This was money.
Kenny: from the hills via Detroit. A born salesman and entertainer. Becomes a preacher for the money. Kenny’s dad use to work in the coal fields of Kentucky. The family grew tired of the scrappy existence and joined the parade and migration to the north. They ended up in Detroit and settled in with the rest of the southern white trash. The Dad got a job at Chevy. It was a well paying job, but he drank, he smoked, he gambled, and he womanized. The family could never get a head. Kenny grew up tough as an immigrant hill billy. He learned to hustle young. He also had an ear for music. As a teacher he would work in a rock and roll band at night and doing his free days from school he would work as a salesman. He sold cars, carpet, shoes, on and on. He found that he was a born salesman and knew that he would never want for work. He grew into being a traveling salesman who made a pretty hefty commission. His district was south of the Ohio, east of the Mississippi, west of the Appalachians, and North of the Gulf. One night on the road, he went on a walk from his hotel. He walked upon a tent revival. He went in to be entertained. He immediately recognize many of the preacher’s techniques at manipulating the crowd. When he saw the piles of money filling up the five gallon offering buckets, Kenny realized that he had to get “saved” and learn this new profession of preaching.
[[Chap 7 Notes]]
7. Dave returns to the tent revival with mixed feelings. He still sings and entertains. He still prays with the group. He still makes announcements. He does not give testimony and believes many in the church to be hypocrites. He starts just thinking of the ongoing revival as a business and comes to handle more and more of the business end. He also started drinking. At age 22, he was firmly on track to be a full blown alcoholic. He starts playing music in bars and honky tonks. He oddly retains an unquenched spiritual side and he travels his own path to enlightenment. His path crosses with Ott's at a club one night. Dave path crosses with Kenny's at a bar. They both meet Hilda and Louise later at a bar.
This chapter goes in detail about Hilda's childhood til as a young adult she runs a way to hitch hike around the country.
This chapter will explore Coonie's crazy ways of making money by being a clown, selling popcorn on main street, and dealing moonshine. He used all of these traits to entice young girls and molest them.
At home he groomed Hilda to be a perfect sexual partner and vicitm. He taught her all the tricks of satisfying him. He taught her to love sex.
This was Hilda's child hood. It continued until Hilda caught Coonie going at it doggie style with her 13 yo sister over a split rail in the barn. Hilda either out of rage of jealousy, or trying to protect her sister, grabs a lump of coal out of the bucket next to the stove. She crushed his skull and he fell dead before he hit the floor and while he was still inside Rose.
he stepfather taught Hilda all about sex. She enjoyed it. She felt no guilt. She enjoyed their secret and the power her sex had over him. She was sure this was a part of growing up and they many girls learned this way. Hilda started high school. She learned of many of the girl's secret experiences. In fact she even learned that a few of the girls had been taught by their fathers and older brothers. But then she heard about some of the boys and men going to the pen. She continued to keep the secret, but suspected that she might be wrong about her relationship with the stepfather. Hilda falls for a boy at school and one evening after they have had sex, Hilda shares her story with him and he ridicules her and says she is engaged in evilness and sodomy. He runs away and tells her he doesn't want to every see her again. Shortly thereafter, the stepfather tries to hookup and have a sexual liaison. Hilda explodes on him that she has been defiled and no decent man will ever want her. Stepfather backhands her and tells her to be quiet or she may just disappear. Yes he would leave her alone, but he she better not tell of her sexual training. A few days later Hilda goes out to feed the pigs and she walks up on the stepdad having sexual intercourse with her 13 yo sister, Dixie. Hilda yells at them. Yes a the sin and all. Stepfather withdraws and stands up. And starts to fight back. He knocks Hilda down next to the pot belly stove. She picks up a chunk of coals as she rises and she hits him in the head and he falls over dead. She tells sis to be quiet about the sex and she just found him dead. He must have fallen while he was dead drunk. She covered up and stayed a short time and helped settle things with the family. They got the still going for a little money from the family business and they got the pension. Later, she started worrying about others' knowing about her molestation and that someone would tell and cast suspicion on her. She ran away and hit the road. She hitch-hiked and learned the rules of the road and how to survive.
Hilda worried about either Rose or the mother breaking one day and telling the sheriff what really happend. They both went through periods of being hostile at her. Afterall, they both knew Coonie was screwing her all the time, but they had not killed him. Now who would take care of them?
Hilda too to the road. She hitch-hiked all over the south and hustled a living daily.
[[Chap 8 Notes]]
8.Kenny: from the hills via Detroit. A born salesman and entertainer. Becomes a preacher for the money. Kenny’s dad use to work in the coal fields of Kentucky. The family grew tired of the scrappy existence and joined the parade and migration to the north. They ended up in Detroit and settled in with the rest of the southern white trash. The Dad got a job at Chevy. It was a well paying job, but he drank, he smoked, he gambled, and he womanized. The family could never get a head. Kenny grew up tough as an immigrant hill billy. He learned to hustle young. He also had an ear for music. As a teacher he would work in a rock and roll band at night and doing his free days from school he would work as a salesman. He sold cars, carpet, shoes, on and on. He found that he was a born salesman and knew that he would never want for work. He grew into being a traveling salesman who made a pretty hefty commission. His district was south of the Ohio, east of the Mississippi, west of the Appalachians, and North of the Gulf. One night on the road, he went on a walk from his hotel. He walked upon a tent revival. He went in to be entertained. He immediately recognize many of the preacher’s techniques at manipulating the crowd. When he saw the piles of money filling up the five gallon offering buckets, Kenny realized that he had to get “saved” and learn this new profession of preaching.
This chapter looks at Dave again and the spiritual turmoiled he experienced at the Bible College. He is expelled and black listed for any Bible College. He is shamed and leaves.
Dave goes on the road, hitching around the south and doing odd jobs. He read a lot and particurily enjoyed the book "On the Road" and the poem "Howl". He became more enmessed with the beat generation and hung with the underground, There was such an underground even in the South.
[[See reference on beatniks|http://pcasacas.org/SiPC/20.1/petrus.htm]]
[[Chap 9 Notes]]
The revival goes a new route by copying Oral Roberts. The revival starts having "healings".
A dying backwoods girl is "healed". She dies later while be shunned by her clan and church. Husband who is a bootlegger swears vengeance.
9. Ott: from the hills. Former coal miner, truck driver, roustabout. Lived with his young wife many years ago. They never had children. Many years ago. She became ill with something like MS or MD. She was continually wasting away. He took her to a local Pilgrim Baptist Church. He asked that she be prayed for and Baptized. He wanted her healed and if that did not occur, he want her ready for Heaven. They refused and called her a sinner and she was in a wheel chair and could not speak. They said it was too late and they could not tell what was in her heart. Later there was a tent revival near his town. The wife was much worse and and appeared near death. She could not eat. She messed herself. She had not spoke in months. They had no family or support. Ott carried her to the tent revival and when they that the prayer call, he carried her up to the altar to be prayed for by the preacher. He was a faith healer. He touched her with a oiled cloth and spoke in tongues, shook, and stamped and demanded that the demon of sickness leave her body. He acted like he was drawing the demon spirit out of her mouth. She suddenly seemed more awake and started speaking grunts, moans, and slobbered. The preacher jumped up and down and claimed the Holy Spirit had entered her and that she was speaking in tongues. There were praises and amens. The speaker claimed she was saved and cured. He told the audience that she would be up and walking in a few days. The preacher used this event for the next three days to drum up more donations to the offering plates. Mary died three days after the revival tent had moved on to another town. Ott was heartbroken and enraged. He made a vow he would never forgive these slimy, money grubbing, preachers. He went down hill and even though he went back to driving a coal truck, he kept drinking the lightening. His job ended when he passed out while driving a coal truck down a mountain side. It smashed into a general store killing three boys buying penny candy and the old man and his wife who owned the store. The wreck woke him up and sobered him up enough to see what he had done. He knew his next stop would be in prison for many years. He walked down to the crossroads and walked to an angle that he could not see the wreck he hitched and immediately caught a ride with a curious driver who wanted to know what all the fuss was about, but could not stop.
There was a young hillbilly bootlegger from the extreme hills. He went to a revival with his young wife. She was a teenage and very ill. They went for a healing. She did get healed that night. She went home and the tent revival left.
The wife tried to join to the locale log cabin church. The preacher said that he did not recognize the authority of the revivalist and refused to baptist her until she attended his church regularly and repent. There was not enough time to attend church regularly. She and her husband had so much work to do just to survive.
As the months passed, she again got sick and sicker. She died about six months after the tent revival. She had to be buried in unsanticified ground as she had not been baptized and a stranger spoke at her funeral.
At he service she had left her wheelchair and kneeled at the altar. The preacher lifted her up, whispered in her ear, and prayed loud for the crowd could hear. She entered a frenzied bliss. The preacher told her to tear off her braces and to run around the church.
She did and she had no pain.
After the revival, she went to the backwoods church with her husband. The husband was happy to have his wife back.
The log cabin church had been there for years. The old pastor had been there as long as anyone could remember. He was set in the old ways. The closed ways. The holy ways. He has the responsibility of shepherding the whole church.
When the young wife came and expected to continue on her spiritual journey, the pastor rejected her healing as not being from God and said her conversion was not valid.
The wife started to get sick again. She could feel the end coming. She asked, "Is there any meaning to death? Is it the end of the universe". Will it be for me?
The wife and husband were stunned and and were shunned by the church.
They were a lone until she died.
The holiness and baptism of fire movement was about personal experience. It was about the ectascy and the bliss. It was not about numbing or relaxing rituals. It was not about building a church in the woods. It was about building a temple inside the person.
Each person on this journey to oblivion works each day trying to make sense of the mystery and slowly builds their funeral pyre.
[[Lilith and meaning of the Name]]
[[Character Rambling]]
[[Dave, The Introvert Evangelist]]
[[Succubus]] Is Lily possessed by this demon?
[[How does it feel to be possessed by a succubus?]]
[[Character Rambling]]
[[Dave]] the introvert
[[Lily]] the temptress
[[Kenny]] TV evangelist
[[Bro Louie]] ex coal miner and preacher
[[Rose]] , Lil's sister
[[Coonie]], Lily and Rose's stepfather
[[Ott]] , mean drunk truck driver
[[Louise]], gypsy friend of Lily
The [[Succubus]]
Some character ideas
Uza : faith healer, exovert, loud, braggart
David--Holiness and Perfectionism Penn based on Penrod
Lilith/Rose based on Hilda, Rosalina, Lilith.
Drunks Moonshine
con men
Street Preachers
Temptress
Truck farmer
Hippies
Love Fest
Themes
Light v Dark
Quiet v Loud
Popular v Lone
Adventures
Search and yearning
Love triangel
Paradise, Ky
Temptress
Sheriff
Hypocrites
True Believers
Love Triangles
Redemption
Yearning and Longing.
Scams
TV Evangelist
true Believers
Perfectionism
Second Blessing
Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost
[[Bed Burnings]]
Loss
Chaos
Transcendentalism
Friends of the Truth
Unitarian
The Holy Club
Brother, Mother, Father, Teacher, Elder, and Deacon
Sine qua non means the essential ingredient.
Primitive Baptist
Missionary Baptist
Hard Shell
Jails emptied after revival.
Mules going crazy in the mines from lack of cursing and sinning.
That old time religion
[[Holiness Church]]
[[Jesus Only/Oneness/Unitarian]]
Arminianism v Calvinism Freewill v Determinism
Stagnation and Fatalism
[[Living on road]]
[[Hitch hiking]]
[[Abandoned Log Cabins]]
Key Terms per stations of the cross
Use stations of the cross as plot line and for chapters the way Joyce did Ulysses .
Settings
Appalachia
Morgantown
Nashville
Green River
W. Virginia
Tenn
North Carolina
Hidden mind shifts
[[Lilith | meaning of Lilith]]
[[Moral ambiguity can bring a lot to a novel.]]
The Southern Cherokee Nation of Kentucky (SCNK) claim descent from the Cherokee forcibly removed to Indian Territory in 1838,[1][2] and to have first emerged as a distinct political faction known as the Treaty Party before the Trail of Tears, circa 1835.[1][3] They report having fled Indian territory, after the American Civil War, circa 1871 for Kentucky to escape Reconstruction era violence.[1] The City of Henderson, Kentucky published a proclamation stating they have been headquartered there since the late 19th century,[3] and according to the State-Journal of Frankfort, Kentucky, they are assumed to be the oldest Native American presence in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.[4] The SCNK states it had an estimated one thousand members as of 2009, living in several US states, and that it is "not affiliated with any other group calling themselves Southern Cherokee".[1][5]
[[Civil Rights in KY in 1960's|http://kchr.ky.gov/kchr1960.htm]]
Progress Closing the Gates to Paradise
Only Six Residents Left in Tiny Town
Contributed by Dorann O'Neal Lam
Source: Messenger & Inquirer, Owensboro, KY, by Dave McBride, December 3, 1967
There seems to be no room for Paradise on earth. And just as sure as Ebenezer is only a few horse strides down the road, there won't be in a matter of weeks…at least not in Muhlenberg County.
Adam and Eve took care of one Paradise by goofing in the garden, and the Tennessee Valley Authority is taking care of another.
Nestled along a road that leads almost to nowhere is the doomed little hamlet with only six inhabitants gamely clinging to the last threads of their homeplace.
Paradise never was a very big place. They say that no more than 35 families ever lived in the area at one time and part of them claimed to be Ebenezerites.
And nobody knows for sure if there ever was an Adam or an Eve living in the Kentucky Paradise on the Green River.
About the only life left in Paradise these days stirs around the former post office - a building which also served as the general store.
And about the only things remaining in that old store are its owner and former postmaster J.H. Buchanan, a crackling fireplace and a few letters left after the post office was closed November 17.
Buchanan who was postmaster at Paradise for 27 years, nine months and 17 days, says his store is the last of four or five once operating in the tiny community.
Only one light is kept burning in the rustic landmark and the proprietor moved around much slower than he did in days past when the shelves were stacked with merchandise and customers were plentiful. A sign on the front porch reads “last roundup sale in Paradise.”
Deserted Church. Looking around outside, a visitor sees other decaying structures, a church with broken windows and a very noticeable absence of life.
Giant shadows fall across the countryside, created by the huge chimneys at the nearby TVA plant and the earth trembles underfoot when the world's largest strip mining shovel takes a mammoth bite out of the soil.
TVA has been buying up property from residents of the community for several months. A spokesman for the huge generating facility said the land is being acquired for future expansion. He did not elaborate.
Three Families Left. Only three families remain of the original 35 who were property owners when TVA announced plans for construction of the steam plant in October 1959.
At that time, Paradise residents became elated with the prospect of seeing their town boom, with TVA being a hub for a possible industrial explosion. But this was not to be.
Only a few employees of the steam plant stayed in Paradise with the remainder making their homes in Drakesboro, Greenville, Central City, Owensboro and Russellville.
How It Began. Paradise is located on land originally settled by Jake and Henry Stum. The two men operated a small store in connection with their farm and their boat landing on the Green River in the northeastern section of Muhlenberg County. It was first called Stum's Landing.
The town of Paradise was incorporated March 10, 1856, more than half a century after the town had been settled. For a few years after the Mexican War, it was called Monterey.
In 1871 Paradise had a population of about 300. There were five stores and two tobacco factories. Inhabitants made their incomes from mining, timber and farming.
About a mile down river from Paradise stands the old Airdrie Iron Furnace, built in 1885. This settlement of 25 or more families was named after a Scottish town which has long since disappeared.
It was in this area that General Don Carlos Buell lived the last 35 years of his life. Buell commanded Union troops at Shiloh and Perryville. His former home burned to the ground in 1907.
Buell was credited with getting reinforcements to General Grant at Shiloh in time to change what appeared to be certain defeat into a partial victory. His efforts aided in forcing Confederate forces back to Corinth, Miss.
Another rapid march by Buell to Louisville prevented the city from falling into the hands of General Braxton Bragg's army.
The land adjoining the iron works is being strip mined by P&M Coal Company. Persons interested in preserving the site have been assured that the fortress-like ruin will be kept in its present condition.
Early inhabitants of Paradise and the surrounding area would never recognize the once beautiful rolling countryside.
The ground and everything above it is darkened with coal dust and the earth, a victim of its own riches, is scarred by deep pits.
And as the last remaining residents leave this sleeping little town they glance back over their shoulders and wonder how there can be hell on earth but no place for Paradise.
Coal miners
John McCutcheon's song "Ghosts of the Good Old Days," he makes reference to a common Appalachian practice:[21] "Hung three pictures above the old sofa; it was Jesus, FDR, and John L./So we knew how to pray, we knew how to vote, and we knew how to really give 'em hell."
Coal Mining in Appalachia
History of coal mining in southern Appalachia.
COAL MINING IN APPALACHIA
The Southern Appalachian region has long been one of the largest sources of coal in the world. For generations, miners have been digging and blasting their way into the rugged mountains of Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama to unearth thousands of tons of what are commonly called “black diamonds.” The explosion in coal mining operations in Appalachia that started near the turn of the century altered its landscape, and its people, forever.
Appalachian Coal Mine Car
Early Appalachian explorers mentioned the fine veins of coal that spread throughout the region. Thomas Jefferson even referred to the abundance of coal in his Notes on Virginia. But in the 18th and early 19th centuries, there was little use for coal, other than in blacksmith fires.
But when the Civil War ended, the United States entered a tremendous industrialization period, and coal was desperately needed to feed the factories and railroads that were spreading across the country like wildfire. Capitalists from the urban centers of the Northeast, South and Midwest descended in droves into rural areas such as Southern Appalachia to tap into its human and natural resources.
The first coal mines in Southern Appalachia were run by small local operators with little financing. After the Civil War, however, independent coal barons from outside the region set up shop throughout the hills, with better equipment and deeper pockets. At the turn of the century, many independent operations consolidated into larger ones. This set the stage for the growth of large mining corporations (such as U.S. Steel) in later years.
As World War I escalated around the globe, the demand for coal from Southern Appalachia grew to unprecedented heights. A coal boom followed, and mining companies began recruiting large numbers of European immigrants, as well as African-American “migrants” from the deep South, to join the work force of Appalachian farmers turned miners. At the height of the coal boom, there were nearly 12,000 mines operating in the region, employing over 700,000 men.
Mines in the early days were more primitive and dangerous than the more mechanized mines of today. Miners would dig and blast their way into a hillside, shoring up the walls and ceiling of the tunnel with heavy wooden timbers that they cut from the surrounding forest. They used hand drills to prepare holes to set explosive charges to dislodge the coal. Mules, and later mining cars, were employed to pull the coal from the depths of the mine shaft.
As valuable as mules were, however, they were occasionally sacrificed for the safety of the miners. As mining operations would shut down for the evening, methane gas would sometimes build up in the mine shaft overnight. To ensure that there was no gas inside, a mule would be sent into the mine first thing in the morning with an open flame (carbide or oil) strapped on its body. When the men would hear an explosion or see a smoking mule running out of the shaft, they knew the coast was clear.
To handle the influx of workers, mining companies built company homes for them and their families. They were simple, monotonous, clapboard homes with only one drop light on the porch. Coal was supplied for cooking, and food was either purchased in the company store or grown on the hillsides. The companies issued their own currency called “script” that was used to purchase goods. Credit was rarely extended to the workers, and any large purchases were taken out of each day’s wages. To this day, the remains of many of these old company towns can be seen throughout Southern Appalachia.
Although life in the company towns was a step up for the more impoverished Appalachian families, most found it to be a meager existence. Miners were typically paid $3-$5 a day for a 12-hour work day. Many young boys went into the mines with their fathers to perform “dead work” for which the miner wasn’t paid. Mothers and children were typically dressed in rags. Expenses such as tools, blasting powder, blacksmith services, basic utilities, or health care services were all taken out of the miners’ already meager wages.
And then there was the fear that every miner’s wife had: that her loved one wouldn’t come back from the mine at all. Coal mining has long been one of the world’s most dangerous occupations, and in the early days, it was even more so. Cave-ins were commonplace, and if a miner survived a mining accident, the company offered him little support if he couldn’t return to work. Many miners developed a horrible respiratory affliction known as pneumoconiosis, or “black lung,” from countless hours working in cramped, dark tunnels breathing in the black coal dust.
Many miners chose to fight back against the companies by joining the main miners’ union, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). Some companies responded with intimidation and violence to keep their workers in line. Hired thugs from so-called “detective agencies” were brought in by the company to discourage any union activities. Many violent clashes followed, including the infamous battles in Harlan County, Kentucky and Matewan, West Virginia.
But it was an over expansion of the coal industry during the early part of the century that finally led to its collapse. When World War I ended and European mines reopened, the demand for American coal fell sharply. Prices dropped, and coal companies slashed wages to compete and protect profits. Thousands of mines went bankrupt, closed completely or were consolidated into larger mines.
Although World War II brought a temporary boom to the coal industry, the companies began using more efficient mining machines instead of manpower. Large national industries replaced coal with natural gas and fuel oil, while railroads replaced steam with diesel-powered locomotives. As a result, mine workers migrated out of the region in droves, while other Appalachian miners and their families returned to a life of farming, falling into poverty and malnutrition. The U.S. Government offered financial aid to these displaced miners and their families. This federal assistance program has become an ever-present reality in Appalachian life to this day.
Appalachian Coal Miners
Coal mining continues in the Southern Appalachian region today. The physical scars of mechanized strip mining can be seen throughout the hills. But it is the social and economic scars on the region itself that remain below the surface.
For more information on coal mining history in Appalachia and elsewhere, check out this site:
Kentucky Coal History :
Features information on Kentucky coal mining history, as well as links to related sites across the country.
You can help keep the stories coming by making a donation to The Moonlit Road.com. Large or small, any amount helps!
Tags: Appalachian , Coal Mining
6 Responses to “Coal Mining in Appalachia ”
Seth :
Were did coal minning start?
kagan :
well around tennessee or kentucky the reson i know this is becouse i live in the deep south of tennessee and my papow uncle orther uncle was a coal miner but it spread throught applitchan mountians
Stacie :
I don’t know what the author is talking about coal mining leaving scars. Coal mining is crucial to everyone and everything in the area. It leaves up with land that we can actually use to build houses, stores, etc. The economy is thrives from the coal miniers and when it goes the economy will drop and this will become a ghost town. Coal mining is a good thing even though environmentalist who don’t even live in this area will tell you that it is the most awful thing ever when if we didn’t have it that would be the worst thing to the people here.
teresa needham :
I would like to see some pictures of derby holler, wise virginia
Jason Vincent :
Who wrote this article? how can I properly cite this research, if the author’s name is not known?
themoonlitroad :
You can credit The Moonlit Road.com
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Written By Coal Miners
y Worked and Where They Lived
Copyright © 2012 Roger Philpot All Rights Reserved
Images © Roger Philpot - 2012
The Kentucky Coal Mines
Way down deep inside the Kentucky coal mines,
A lot of brave men is what you’ll find
Who risk their lives by night and day,
For lots of hard work and very little pay
They risk their lives day in and day out,
For it’s their families they worry about
They worry about clothes and shoes for their feet,
They worry about bills and food to eat.
They don’t get enough pay for what they must do,
Some call them crazy others call them fools
If you ask them why, here’s what they will say,
There’s no better job with any better pay.
It’s dark in there so you miners beware,
Watch out for each other and miners take care
Keep your light shining; keep it at all times
So your way back out you’ll be able to find.
Let’s all say a prayer as they enter in,
God let them come out and see daylight again
God please watch over these brave Kentucky men
© Brenda Grahm
All Rights Reserved
page 2
One day fifteen days later eleven. For the grim total of twenty six men young and old. Their profession digging coal all lost their lives within a week.
Who's to blame for the suffering and the pain who brought on by disaster at Blue Diamond Scotia mine.
Today they came to seal the pit with eleven men inside of it. I watched as sad faces went to and fro. The fathers the sons the mothers and the wives friends of those who lost their lives. Shed a million teardrops at Blue Diamonds Scotia mine.
An old man standing along side of me wiped a tear from his cheek turned to me and said, son I'm getting old, and God knows Iv' e dug my share of coal part of which I dug right here in Scotia mine.
Son he said somewhere down there in that tomb where gas replaced the air lies my first born. A boy who meant this world to me, since the day he started working. Iv' e been afraid, something told me he was digging his own grave from the first day he dug coal in Scotia mine.
I can remember times down there I choked and gasped for air the times I walked hand in hand with death. My God why was I spared. It should be me not him down there he was planning for a future I was making plans to rest.
Suddenly it was over. I was awakened with a jerk. The little wife was saying Bob its time to go to work. Is it all right if I drive you you to the mine. I didn't tell her about the dream or how frightening and realistic it seemed or that I had gone to bed with Scotia on my mind
©Jack Lee Shepherd
Used With Permission Of Jack Lee Shephard
All Rights Reserved
page 3
How’d the dust blight come upon me?
Then I’ll tell you if I must,
bout the blight of the Shadow Miner,
Who walks the midnight dust.
T’was the year ‘76, and the middle of March,
At the end of the number one line,
When the Shadow brought fire, and smoke and death
To the boys in the Oven Fork Mine.
The smoke was so thick, you could cut it.
The heat more than any could bear.
And the sound of top falling on the roadway
To the portal for which we must steer.
It was silent on number three section.
The Shadow had plotted the mood.
There was no sound of life or motion
To break the solitude,
Except the wailing of the gob rats
That squealed in fearful disgust,
And the flapping of the brattice cloth curtain,
Making way for the smoke and the dust.
I said to myself, “ I must keep my nerve.”
Through far the portal be,
Yet my heart would be much lighter,
If I only had company.
And so I sang and shouted,
Keeping rhythm, as I sped.
To the screech from the soles of my work shoes,
As they sprang beneath my tread.
Not far into the air course,
Had I stumbled on my way,
When I saw a dusty figure,
In a capuchin of gray. And bending upon my shoe toes,
With a long and limber stride,
I caught the dusty stranger,
And we traveled side by side.
But no token of communion,
Gave he by word or nod,
And a fear chill fell upon me,
At the crossing of the gob.
For I saw by my dim lit mine light,
As I followed, lungs a bust,
That the walking of the stranger,
left no footprints in the dust.
Then the fear chill gathered o’er me
Like a shroud around me cast,
As I sank upon the gob pile,
Where the Shadow Miner passed.
And the other miners found me
Just before the break of day,
With my fair skin burned and blackened,
As the dust in which I lay.
But they spoke not, as they raised me,
For they knew that in the night,
I had seen the Shadow Miner,
And had withered in his blight.
In memory of the men who lost their lives in the Scotia Mine accident
in 1976, in Letcher County, KY
© E.B. Reb Allen
All Rights Reserved
Extracting this irreplaceable wealth took its toll on the health of the land and its people while lining the pockets of the absentee industrialists. Many loggers lost their lives or were seriously maimed in accidents while felling the massive hardwoods or on the treacherous runs escorting the trunks down-river to market. Generations of miners were killed or disabled by dangerous methods used to extract the "black gold" from the coal seams running deep within the mountains. In the words of Appalachian historian Caudill: "Coal has always cursed the land in which it lies. When men begin to wrest it from the earth it leaves a legacy of foul streams, hideous slag heaps and polluted air. It peoples this transformed land with blind and crippled men and with widows and orphans. It is an extractive industry which takes all away and restores nothing. It mars but never beautifies. It corrupts but never purifies."
Corbin - Congregation Cave - A very old cave located near Laurel Lake once was used for church congregations in the late 1800s. On Sunday mornings if you are outside anywhere around the cave you can hear a congregation singing. However, after about 11:00 a.m. the singing stops.
Crippled drunk and moonshiner. He was crippled in mine collapse. He goes to town dress as a clown and sells popcorn to the kids and moonshine in mason jars to the adults.
He is a sexual pervert who later marries Lily's widowed mother, [[Beulah]]. He later molests [[Lily]] and [[Rose]].
"morbid fear of clowns," by 2001 (said in Web sites to date from 1990s or even 1980s), a popular term, not from psychology, possibly facetious, though the phenomenon is real enough; said to be built from Greek kolon "limb," with some supposed sense of "stilt-walker," hence "clown ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_clown
[img[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/phobia/images/a/a9/Pennywise_the_Clown.png/revision/latest?cb=20171112081630]]
[img[https://www.myinterestingfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/bad-Clown.jpg]]
Dangers to miners
The Farmington coal mine disaster kills 78. West Virginia, US, 1968.
Historically, coal mining has been a very dangerous activity and the list of historical coal mining disasters is a long one. In the US alone, more than 100,000 coal miners were killed in accidents over the past century,[17] with more than 3,200 dying in 1907 alone.[18] Open cut hazards are principally mine wall failures and vehicle collisions; underground mining hazards include suffocation, gas poisoning, roof collapse and gas explosions.
Firedamp explosions can trigger the much more dangerous coal dust explosions, which can engulf an entire pit. Most of these risks can be greatly reduced in modern mines, and multiple fatality incidents are now rare in some parts of the developed world. Modern mining in the US results in approximately 30 deaths per year due to mine accidents.[19]
However, in lesser developed countries and some developing countries, many miners continue to die annually, either through direct accidents in coal mines or through adverse health consequences from working under poor conditions. China, in particular, has the highest number of coal mining related deaths in the world, with official statistics claiming that 6,027 deaths occurred in 2004.[20] To compare, 28 deaths were reported in the US in the same year.[21] Coal production in China is twice that in the US,[22] while the number of coal miners is around 50 times that of the US, making deaths in coal mines in China 4 times as common per worker (108 times as common per unit output) as in the US.
In 2006, fatal work injuries among miners in the US doubled from the previous year, totaling 47.[23] These figures can in part be attributed to the Sago Mine disaster of January 2006. The 2007 mine accident in Utah's Crandall Canyon Mine, where nine miners were killed and six entombed, speaks to the increase in occupational risks faced by US miners.[24] More recently, the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West Virginia killed 29 miners in April 2010.[25]
Chronic lung diseases, such as pneumoconiosis (black lung) were once common in miners, leading to reduced life expectancy. In some mining countries black lung is still common, with 4,000 new cases of black lung every year in the US (4 percent of workers annually) and 10,000 new cases every year in China (0.2 percent of workers).[26] Rates may be higher than reported in some regions.
Build-ups of a hazardous gas are known as damps, possibly from the German word "Dampf" which means steam or vapor:
Black damp: a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in a mine can cause suffocation, and is formed as a result of corrosion in enclosed spaces so removing oxygen from the atmosphere.
After damp: similar to black damp, after damp consists of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen and forms after a mine explosion.
Fire damp: consists of mostly methane, a highly flammable gas that explodes between 5% and 15% - at 25% it causes asphyxiation.
Stink damp: so named for the rotten egg smell of the hydrogen sulphide gas, stink damp can explode and is also very toxic.
White damp: air containing carbon monoxide which is toxic, even at low concentrations
Safer times in modern mining
Improvements in mining methods (e.g. longwall mining), hazardous gas monitoring (such as safety-lamps or more modern electronic gas monitors), gas drainage, electrical equipment, and ventilation have reduced many of the risks of rock falls, explosions, and unhealthy air quality. Statistical analyses performed by the US Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) show that between 1990 and 2004, the industry cut the rate of injuries by more than half and fatalities by two-thirds. However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, mining remains the second most dangerous occupation in America.[27]
The improved safety features in Australian mining has dramatically increased the forecasted improvement in the deficit to average life expectancy of the working male. It is envisioned that within 17 years, life expectancy of mine workers will be on par with the average male Australian.
Environmental impacts
Main article: Environmental effects of coal
Coal mining can result in a number of adverse effects on the environment. Surface mining of coal completely eliminates existing vegetation, destroys the genetic soil profile, displaces or destroys wildlife and habitat, degrades air quality, alters current land uses, and to some extent permanently changes the general topography of the area mined,[28] This often results in a scarred landscape with no scenic value. Rehabilitation or reclamation mitigates some of these concerns and is required by US Federal Law, specifically the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977.
Mine tailing dumps produce acid mine drainage which can seep into waterways and aquifers, with consequences on ecological and human health. If underground mine tunnels collapse, this can cause subsidence of land surfaces. During actual mining operations, methane, a known greenhouse gas, may be released into the air. And by the movement, storage, and redistribution of soil, the community of microorganisms and nutrient cycling processes can be disrupted.
Coal mining by country
One of main characters. Essentially representing the force of good.
Dave moves to California then to Key West
Through his many wanderings, Dave ended up where most American wanders seem to end up, in Key West, FLA
Key West is a mystical place. It is not quite the mainland, but it is not quite an island.
Wanderers have washed up on shore here for the past 100 years. Many a wanted man had come here to escape an ex-wife or a criminal charge in the north.
Alternate Leaving of Tent
Dave and Hilda go on road running from tent grop because they killed a man. His name was Lumberjack.
He had raped Hilda while they were with a caravan months early. Hilda had told her trailer mater Louise and she beat Lumberjack and excel him from the caravan. Lumberjack was beat to a pulp and swore to kill Hilda.
While traveling with the revival, Lumberjack show up at tent meeting. Hilda scared. He tried to get her between trailers and Dave killed him with a hatchet. They took the body out to the woods and hid him.
They packed up their stuff and went on the road.
This is one of the stories.
Under the Beaming Stars
It had been an adventure for Dave and Lilly as they hitch-hiked across the south.
Last night they had camped out near a bill board after the traffic on their back road had died out.
They had been awoken by some military police at dawn with gruff voices and 45 pistols pointed at them. This anxiety was piled on the anxiety they had about getting kicked out of the town across the county. The MP's said get up and get out as they were on a military base.
Yesterday had been about usual for them. They had scrounged around and looked for money and food. It was a small town, like many they had passed through lately. They had stood on the town square trying to sell Bible pamphlets or veterans' lapel flags. It had been a bad day for bumming around. No one had offered to buy them a meal and the sales had garnered less than a dollar in change. About mid afternoon the town constable came and told them to move on or they would be arrested for loitering. They couldn't hitch in front of the man, so they began their long walk out of town.
At the edge of town was a small country store. Dave left his large and heavy back pack next to a tree outside. He and Lily went in to see how much of a meal they could buy for 85 cents.
They picked out some crackers and a pint of milk and went to the register to pay for it. Dave looked over his shoulder at the cashier who was giving them a hard and angry stare. Dave thought to himself that she must not like hippies. He gathered his back pack and he and Lily started walking toward the crossroads about two miles down the road. It was a national road and it would be much easier getting a long distance ride.
After about fifteen minutes of walking a county sheriff patrol car pulled over behind them. The officer got out and starting walking toward us. A few seconds later, the passenger door opened. It was the lady cashier from the store.
The lady was mad. She strutted up to Lily and said in a loud and angry voice, "Give to me what you stole." I started to say we didn't steal anything, but I caught myself as Lily reached into her big floppy purse and brought a can of tuna fish out. Lily started crying.
The officer said, "I should arrest you all for shop lifting. I don't want you around here so don't stop and keep walking till get out of my county."
The lady said, "You should've just told me that you were hungry." She slipped the can of tuna fish into her purse and got back into the patrol car. The officer got back in and briefly turned on his lights as he did a U turn and sped off the way they had come.
Dave did not really know if they had made it out of the county when they settled down that night. They used the light of the billboard to set up their small camp and to eat their meal of crackers and lukewarm milk.
The stretched out and their sleeping bag. After they had made love, Dave looked up at the stars at peace and in the glow of Lily. He felt like the luckiest guy a live and being there his could just reach out and touch the Holy Spirit of God radiating in the star beams.
The beams of light seemed like he could just reach out and grab one like a rope and shimmy his way up to Heaven and to touch the face of God.
David and Uzie are playing for tips at JC's. David has a Martin guitar and Uzie a tam-borline. The tips are sparse and will hopefully pay their gas back to the tent. The bought drinks come much more freely. After things gets a little loose, Uzie may even invite a few people to the revival.
David and Uzie go about the same thing during week and on Sunday mornings, except instead of getting tips, they get an offering.
People in the audience often partied hard on Saturday night and showed their asses. Many of these would do the same thing on Sunday morning. On Saturday night they were drunk on the booze and they were seduced by the opposite sex. On Sundays, they were often drunk in the Spirit and seduced the opposite sex. Women flashed their legs and eyes on Saturday on drink and done the same on Sundays in the Spirit.
They would get drunk on Saturday night. They stagger home with their partner for the night. And then get up and stagger to Sunday School with a hangover. Sometimes even the newly found couples would show up at the meeting and a rustle of whispers would go throw the crowd. Sometimes these hook ups would last. Others would be over by the next weekend.
Church was more that a meeting for religious services. It was often the center of social life in many small towns. It was often were you met you future wife or husband. It is where you met your friends. It was where you met your family.
The bar was the same as the church in practically every-way plus it added the social lubricant of alcohol which tended to speed things up.
Just as those in the world use alcohol as a lube, the holy rollers used the "baptism of the spirit" to get drunk in the spirit and to then do things out of the ordinary.
Uzie had the habit of flirting with the girls, whether in the church or in the bar. He was a good looking guy. He had reddest blond hair, blue eyes. He was tall and slender, almost skinny. He was either pale or red faced depending on the mood. He looked every bit the Scotts-Irish which was his heritage. Uzie would use all to seduce a young lady about every night.
David was dark. He had dark hair and dark eyes. He was also tall and slender. He had the habit of moving slowly, speaking slowly, and staying in the background. This was just the opposite of Kenny who was loud and out front of everything.
David played the guitar. Kenny used the tamborlne and sang.
No pair of twins had been more different.
But neither had to be handsome as they were to strike up an interest in the audience. Through out history a man could be a troll or a frog or the most unappealing man in appearance, but if he would get up in front of the church and make them laugh or make them cry, the frog would become a prince.
David first met Lily at the bar. She was like a dark Marilyn Monroe. Not as sultry has Sophie Loren, but as flirtatious affected as Marilyn. Yes her manner was forced and affected, but effective nevertheless. She was dressed like an uptown whore in a ten cent juke box place. Maybe it would be better to compare her to Liz Taylor in Cleopatra. She had the same long black hair, cut in a long page boy style. She had doe like cow eyes framed with dark make up and false eye lashes. She was slim, but yet curvy with full breasts and round hips. She was a buffet in movement and you did not know where to land your eyes. She knew she looked good and she knew how to make herself shine. She had a dramatic flair. Just walking across the floor was a three act play in motion, wiggling into a booth, and then telling David with her eyes, lips, and curved finger with the long red finger nail to join her. She just oozed sex and David could almost smell it as he slid in the booth beside her.
Often after him and Kenny finished playing, people would invite him for a drink. He played the guitar, but this girl played the room.
They made small talk.
He go up to play a few more songs and when he found her table to steal a glance, she was gone.
Dave and Kenny Meet Lily.rtf
David and Kenny first met Lily at JC's BBQ and Grill bar in Bowling
Green, KY.
David and Kenny was brothers. Kenny was the showman and David was the
support.
Their family is back with the tent revival which has made camp outside
of town and close to the Green River.
It is Saturday night in 1964.
David and Kenny are playing for tips at JC's. David has a Martin guitar
and Kenny a tam-borline. The tips are sparse and will hopefully pay
their gas back to the tent. The bought drinks come much more freely.
After things gets a little loose, Kenny may even invite a few people to
the revival.
David and Kenny go about the same thing during week and on Sunday
mornings, except instead of getting tips, they get an offering.
People in the audience often partied hard on Saturday night and showed
their asses. Many of these would do the same thing on Sunday morning.
On Saturday night they were drunk on the booze and they were seduced by
the opposite sex. On Sundays, they were often drunk in the Spirit and
seduced the opposite sex. Women flashed their legs and eyes on Saturday
on drink and done the same on Sundays in the Spirit.
They would get drunk on Saturday night. They stagger home with their
partner for the night. And then get up and stagger to Sunday School with
a hangover. Sometimes even the newly found couples would show up at the
meeting and a rustle of whispers would go throw the crowd. Sometimes
these hook ups would last. Others would be over by the next weekend.
Church was more that a meeting for religious services. It was often the
center of social life in many small towns. It was often were you met you
future wife or husband. It is where you met your friends. It was where
you met your family.
The bar was the same as the church in practically every-way plus it
added the social lubricant of alcohol which tended to speed things up.
Just as those in the world use alcohol as a lube, the holy rollers used
the "baptism of the spirit" to get drunk in the spirit and to then do
things out of the ordinary.
Kenny had the habit of flirting with the girls, whether in the church
or in the bar. He was a good looking guy. He had reddest blond hair,
blue eyes. He was tall and slender, almost skinny. He was either pale or
red faced depending on the mood. He looked every bit the Scotts-Irish
which was his heritage. Kenny would use all to seduce a young lady about
every night.
David was dark. He had dark hair and dark eyes. He was also tall and
slender. He had the habit of moving slowly, speaking slowly, and
staying in the background. This was just the opposite of Kenny who was
loud and out front of everything.
David played the guitar. Kenny used the tamborlne and sang.
No pair of twins had been more different.
But neither had to be handsome as they were to strike up an interest in
the audience. Through out history a man could be a troll or a frog or
the most unappealing man in appearance, but if he would get up in front
of the church and make them laugh or make them cry, the frog would
become a prince.
David first met Lily at the bar. She was like a dark Marilyn Monroe.
Not as sultry has Sophie Loren, but as flirtatious affected as Marilyn.
Yes her manner was forced and affected, but effective nevertheless. She
was dressed like an uptown whore in a ten cent juke box place. Maybe it
would be better to compare her to Liz Taylor in Cleopatra. She had the
same long black hair, cut in a long page boy style. She had doe like cow
eyes framed with dark make up and false eye lashes. She was slim, but
yet curvy with full breasts and round hips. She was a buffet in movement
and you did not know where to land your eyes. She knew she looked good
and she knew how to make herself shine. She had a dramatic flair. Just
walking across the floor was a three act play in motion, wiggling into
a booth, and then telling David with her eyes, lips, and curved finger
with the long red finger nail to join her. She just oozed sex and David
could almost smell it as he slid in the booth beside her.
Often after him and Kenny finished playing, people would invite him for
a drink. He played the guitar, but this girl played the room.
They made small talk.
He go up to play a few more songs and when he found her table to steal a
glance, she was gone.
Dave has been traveling with his Dads’ traveling tent revival since he had been kicked out of college. He had been traveling what was known as the “sawdust” trail. The name sawdust came from all the wood chips they left behind after they left a place and spilled on the way to another camp. They were about halfway through the year’s campaign. Dave usually just did odd jobs and paid a box guitar in the evening services. Once in a while he would get to play a song solo.
This chapter will describe Dave's background. His Dad, Joe, started out being a coal miner. The father just barely
survived an explosion and cave in at a mine he was working. Dave was a small boy. Joe has a "come to Jesus"
moment after many days and promises to be a soul warrior if God will only save him and allow him to live and return to his
family. He is rescued and he is born again. He starts attending church every service with his wife, Anne. The father began with
giving fervent testimonies at meetings. He met with the preacher and eventually got his training as a soldier for the Lord. He
started out preaching at their church and then started visiting other local churches. Word spread that he was a chosen man
and preacher and the crowd grew and grew. Eventually he grew too popular for the small local churches and had to buy a tent.
And eventually he started on the saw dust trail, a journey he would be on the rest of his life. The mother Anne died a few years
later and Bro. Joe thank the Lord for letting his wife live long enough to raise the kids. He would finish it up. He chose for Dave
to go to a Southern Bible College. He wanted better than his eight grade education.
This chapter will describe Dave's experiences at college.His mistakes, his conflicts. His friendship with a beatnik
hippie type searching for the meaning of life. He was gay. Both were eventually kicked out of school. The beatnik
for being caught in a homosexual act with one of the Bible professors. Dave was kicked out because the administration said
that he knew the beatnik was gay and an abomination and did not tell on him. This cast suspicion that he was a homosexual
too. The rumor black listed him from ever attending a Bible College again. Dave returns to the saw dust trail despondent and
depressed
Dave's father was a called preacher. This means God talked to him personally and told him to win souls for God. He was self ordained and only preached what was in the King James Bible. Event though there was much in the bible he did not understand , he counted on the Holy Spirit to explain the meaning and how to give it to the sinners.
He use to be a coal miner. The deep shaft coal mine is where he worked. He earned his pay by the ton. It was dangerous and back breaking work as he picked, scraped and shoveled the coal into his cart to be weighed. If he did not haul his cart up with the pony , he would not be paid.
One day there was a cave in after an explosion of gas and dust. There was a great lost of life. Many friends were killed. His pony was killed. He was trapped in a small pocket alone. He thought that he would have to stay here until he was either rescued or died. This just may be his grave if he was never found. He knew all to well that many of the miners lost were never found. As all to common he began to pray and pray.
After many hours his carbide lamp burned out. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps his supply of air had ran out. Perhaps death was about there. He add heard that dying by foul air was different than from dying from no air. With no air you suffered from suffocation and it was misery. With foul air, you just went to sleep with the oxygen ran out. It was kind of like when the pound put a dog to sleep. He hoped this was true and that he would not suffer.
Hours passed and he started having visions and hearing voices. While he went to church every week with his wife, he was not much of a religious man. He did not think of God constantly and usually not even daily. He was the "god" of his universe and daily made the decision of what was right and wrong in his universe for him and his family.
Now he was talking with the a Great God. The God of everything and eternity. With his certainty of death, he was having an introductory conversation. As the fear and awe wore off, he felt more comfortable. He felt more at ease and he asked God to save him. He offered to turn his life completely over to God and would be his servant for the rest of his life. He said, "God will just give me the chance?"
After a total of three days, he was rescued. He was pulled from the deep by volunteer coal miners who went to his wife's church.
Dave saw the change in his Dad. He started going with the family to the mountain holiness church several time per week. He was more in the spirit. He frequently got up and testified about his experience and got many heart felt amens. He spent as much time as he could with the ministers and learned all that he had to teach him. He prayed without ceasing and gave praise and thanksgiving. He read the Bible every day.
He finally arranged a meeting with the minister and told him of his calling and his desire to preach and win souls for God. He studied and trained with the minister's guidance in the manner he was taught the way many years earlier.
His testimony grew to giving the sermon and the message as guided by the Holy Spirit. The congregation usually got in the Spirit and talked in tongues or danced around in contortions in the fever.
He would never go back under ground again until it was time to be buried.
He was kicked off the company rolls. Dave and his family no longer had any standing to shop at the company store or to live in company housing. The family moved farther up in the mountain and closer to church. One of the congegration rented him a one room log cabin with a loft, just down the dirt road from the church. Members of the church also gave them household goods, food, and clothes.
Though Dad would never officially progress beyond the six grade nor went to divinity school; and He was not even sure what theology meant, he learned the craft and learned to wear his calling as special. He would never accept the term Reverend, He was a preacher and he was Brother Joe.
He started preaching once in a while at other nearby churches, across the holler or on the next mountain. His skill at getting the people in the pews in the Spirit became his calling card. Suddenly he was in the big time. The local churches could not handle all the crowds. He had to buy a tent. This lead to riches on the sawdust trail and into legend of the boy who had made it to the big time and the big top.
Dave's father was a called preacher. This means God talked to him personally and told him to win souls for God. He was self ordained and only preached what was in the King James Bible. Event though there was much in the bible he did not understand , he counted on the Holy Spirit to explain the meaning and how to give it to the sinners.
He use to be a coal miner. The deep shaft coal mine is where he worked. He earned his pay by the ton. It was dangerous and back breaking work as he picked, scraped and shoveled the coal into his cart to be weighed. If he did not haul his cart up with the pony , he would not be paid.
One day there was a cave in after an explosion of gas and dust. There was a great lost of life. Many friends were killed. His pony was killed. He was trapped in a small pocket alone. He thought that he would have to stay here until he was either rescued or died. This just may be his grave if he was never found. He knew all to well that many of the miners lost were never found. As all to common he began to pray and pray.
After many hours his carbide lamp burned out. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps his supply of air had ran out. Perhaps death was about there. He add heard that dying by foul air was different than from dying from no air. With no air you suffered from suffocation and it was misery. With foul air, you just went to sleep with the oxygen ran out. It was kind of like when the pound put a dog to sleep. He hoped this was true and that he would not suffer.
Hours passed and he started having visions and hearing voices. While he went to church every week with his wife, he was not much of a religious man. He did not think of God constantly and usually not even daily. He was the "god" of his universe and daily made the decision of what was right and wrong in his universe for him and his family.
Now he was talking with the a Great God. The God of everything and eternity. With his certainty of death, he was having an introductory conversation. As the fear and awe wore off, he felt more comfortable. He felt more at ease and he asked God to save him. He offered to turn his life completely over to God and would be his servant for the rest of his life. He said, "God will just give me the chance?"
After a total of three days, he was rescued. He was pulled from the deep by volunteer coal miners who went to his wife's church.
Dave saw the change in his Dad. He started going with the family to the mountain holiness church several time per week. He was more in the spirit. He frequently got up and testified about his experience and got many heart felt amens. He spent as much time as he could with the ministers and learned all that he had to teach him. He prayed without ceasing and gave praise and thanksgiving. He read the Bible every day.
He finally arranged a meeting with the minister and told him of his calling and his desire to preach and win souls for God. He studied and trained with the minister's guidance in the manner he was taught the way many years earlier.
His testimony grew to giving the sermon and the message as guided by the Holy Spirit. The congregation usually got in the Spirit and talked in tongues or danced around in contortions in the fever.
He would never go back under ground again until it was time to be buried.
He was kicked off the company rolls. Dave and his family no longer had any standing to shop at the company store or to live in company housing. The family moved farther up in the mountain and closer to church. One of the congegration rented him a one room log cabin with a loft, just down the dirt road from the church. Members of the church also gave them household goods, food, and clothes.
Though Dad would never officially progress beyond the six grade nor went to divinity school; and He was not even sure what theology meant, he learned the craft and learned to wear his calling as special. He would never accept the term Reverend, He was a preacher and he was Brother Joe.
He started preaching once in a while at other nearby churches, across the holler or on the next mountain. His skill at getting the people in the pews in the Spirit became his calling card. Suddenly he was in the big time. The local churches could not handle all the crowds. He had to buy a tent. This lead to riches on the sawdust trail and into legend of the boy who had made it to the big time and the big top.
Existential Relief
I was once terrified of dying. In recent years, this panic has went away. I don't know if it is because of the medication or if I have less and less to lose. I have fewer and fewer friends. I have less and less energy. I have worse and worse health. Is it just a sign of old age? Does the body change to accommodate the mind?
Or is it just giving up? Giving up the pain? Giving up the loneliness? The long goodbye?
Is it self annihilation, the end of everything personal and that has meaning to myself?
"Falling inside myself" a man once used on the radio to describe his feeling when he heard that his wife had been murdered. This is a perfect way to describe the panic and anxiety about personal annihilation. It is like the feeling you have when you are falling in a dream, but you wake up as you hit the ground, except in the conscious version it doesn't have that clean of an ending. It lingers and dissipates much more slowly. It eats holes in your heart and soul. Gnawing painful holes which may or may not ever heal.
I have had "falling inside myself" feelings on several occasions. Here are a few examples:
1. When I was at the final divorce hearing with my ex-wife.
2. The night my ex kicked me out of the house and said that she would call the police and say I tried to rape her if I didn't leave. It was such a betrayal of trust, I was falling for days and weeks after that. I thought I was going to die.
3. I had it the afternoon I learned that my girlfriend was going to die from brain cancer.
4. I had it the day I loss my job of twenty five years.
These were all life changing events which happened over a period of a couple of years. The stress was overbearing and I am still suffering the effects and barely climbing out of the weight of this pain after twelve years.
Is it only the passage of time which eases the burden or is it anything I have done myself? Is it just luck? Or is it misfortune that it is taking so long?
Does one just grow to learn to walk into the grave without fear? Is this just seeking a goal of relief?
I was thinking today. Maybe Heaven is truly nothingness, a void, or total annihilation of the self. I can't think of anything I would, or could, experience for eternity without it growing tiresome, boring, or becoming Hell.
Maybe Man's total mission in this world is to travel a journey of ever increasing detachment. Along the pathway, we throw off relationships to things and people, as we climb the mountain, to jump off the edge and to dive into nothingness. This slow crawl out of the nothingness has as its only goal to return to nothingness.
But what is nothingness? Is it the all? Is it the 70% of the universe which is dark matter or dark energy and where surely the mind of God dwells?
Peace can be found in nothingness. If consciousness re-awakes, it will be in the body of God. If this consciousness is to be anything but Hell, it will be in the relationship with God.
So maybe it is a good thing to cast your prayers into the void and hope that God will find you worthy and will reawaken you without memories or attachments. Just maybe this life is a test to find souls that are worthy of joining God. It is just another form of evolution where the good souls continue on and the weaker never awaken.
Maybe this process of weeding out starts while we are still alive. Just maybe there is a growing spark of warmness drawing one into the void to be with God. Maybe this spark is not in everybody and some are spiritual zombies and are the walking dead marching to the waiting pool of nothingness.
My goal then is to live as good as life as I can. I will try to be happy as I can in the moment and in the present. I will help others when I can. I will try not to hurt others. I will continue the quest for wisdom.
Maybe there is a spark that draws me home and comforts me. This is the peace that replaces the fear.
Is God a loving and wonder God?
Does everyone go to Heaven?
Wouldn't this been the most worthy image
For our love and worship?
But is God the Great Adjudicator?
Does this Inspire
Or does it terrify?
Are we to inhale Fear
And exhale anger?
Type the text for 'Dave, The Introvert Evangelist'
a main character acting for good.
evangelism for introverts
Evangelism for Introverts
By Mike Bechtle
If you're a typical introvert, you're probably starting this article thinking "maybe it'll give me hope." When you saw the title, you expected to see suggestions to be more bold, more obedient and more committed in sharing your faith. You don't really want to read it, but you're thinking, "If I can learn some new techniques, maybe I'll be more successful and see more results, and God (and others) will be pleased with me." You really want to share your faith, but it seems so hard.
Sorry-this article won't go there. Witnessing will never get easier if you're focusing on techniques. If it's hard and you inwardly dread sharing your faith, it's probably because you're trying to do something in ways that don't match the way God designed you.
For years I wanted to be an effective witness. I took classes, listened to sermons and read books about evangelism. I tried every method I could find, but it seemed to get harder instead of easier. I wondered, "If God wanted me to share my faith, why didn't He give me a more outgoing personality? Why should it be so hard?" I finally gave up on evangelism, because I got tired of feeling guilty.
That began a journey from guilt-based sharing to grace-based caring and sharing. I discovered that God made me in exactly the way He wanted so He could work through that temperament. He didn't want me to become something I wasn't; He wanted me to be me.
The value of being an introvert
When David fought Goliath, everyone assumed he would wear Saul's armor. They thought it would be ridiculous to go into combat without that protection. But when he tried it on, it didn't fit. It was only when he used his unique set of skills that he found victory, even though it didn't fit the pattern that worked for everyone else.
Most books on evangelism focus on witnessing methods more suited for extroverts. There's nothing wrong with those methods. But for an introvert, those methods don't go far enough. Reading them, I always felt like a turtle being taught by birds the best way to walk.
I discovered that my guilt in sharing came from trying to use methods that didn't fit. When I heard sermons on boldness, I assumed it meant "outgoing and forceful." But that wasn't how God made me. I was designed for quiet persuasion, reaching people who will never respond to an aggressive approach.
If God designed introverts, doesn't it make sense that He would want them to do His work through that personality? When introverts spend time trying to function like extroverts, they're doing more than just wasting time. They're actually robbing themselves of the very tools God gave them to do His work.
If sharing your faith is something you inwardly dread, it's probably because you're working outside of God's unique design. You're following other people's patterns instead of God's.
How we're different
Brett is an extrovert. He gets energized in a large group, and feels drained when he spends too much time alone. He's action-oriented and learns by doing. He thinks out loud, and makes decisions easily. Brett's pattern is "act-think-act."
Jill is an introvert. She doesn't mind being in a group, but finds it draining after awhile. She recharges by being alone. She's thought-oriented and learns by watching. She thinks best when she's alone and needs time to make decisions. Jill's pattern is "think-act-think."
Which is better for evangelism? Both.
It used to bother me that I could come up with great answers for people's questions about 30 minutes after the conversation was over. I'd beat myself up thinking, "Why didn't I say such-and-such?" I envied extroverts who could think quickly in a conversation.
Introverts might take awhile to formulate their answers, but an answer will be well thought-out and sensitive. Just because we can't think of the best response ?right at that moment doesn't mean we've failed. It means saying, "That's a great question. I'll have to think about it. Give me a day or so, and I'll email you my thoughts."
Introverts have some real advantages in evangelism:
They care what people think, so they'll be sensitive in their approach to others.
They recognize their inability to reach people through an outgoing approach, so they're more aware of their dependence on God to work through them.
As fishers of men, they see themselves as bait rather than the hook.
Quiet people who think deeply can reach other quiet people who think deeply (the ones who are turned off by a hard-sell approach).
They have the patience to let God use them in reaching another person over a long period of time rather than focusing on an immediate decision.
They might reach fewer people but build deeper relationships with them.
Strategies from scripture
I had certain ideas about what evangelism should look like. When I prayed to be a better witness, I assumed God would supernaturally change my desire so I would want to share in those ways. But that didn't happen. Instead, I found that many of my ideas weren't biblical. When I finally discovered what the Bible actually says, it all began to make sense-and I had the desire to share in new, appropriate ways. So, what did I learn?
1. Evangelism isn't our job-it's God's job. We're responsible for building relationships, pointing people to Christ and allowing God to use those relationships to draw people to Himself. We have to be faithful in delivering God's message when He calls us to do so, but trust Him with the results.
2. I don't have to use sales techniques. We don't have to convince people to come to Christ. God does that. Our role is to introduce one friend to another (Christ), and let them develop that relationship. Take the time to get to know the person well and discuss spiritual concerns that directly relate to that person's life. Ask open-ended questions, listen carefully and seek to learn something from the person.
3. I don't have to witness to everyone I meet. Introverts aren't made for quantity of relationships-they're made for deep relationships. When an extrovert walks into a room full of people, she surveys the crowd to see how many people she can talk to during the event. But when an introvert walks into the same room, she surveys the crowd to see which one person looks the "safest" to have an extended conversation with.
4. "You shall be witnesses" is a description of a person who has firsthand experience with something. If we know Christ, we are qualified witnesses-whether we feel like it or not. As we deepen relationships with people, the things we've seen and experienced become a natural part of our conversations with them.
5. Evangelism is a team effort. The Bible compares the church to a body with different parts. When we demand that everyone witness in the same way, it ignores the value God places on all the members. When Christians ask someone to receive Christ, they don't do it alone. God has already brought a string of people (including introverts) into the person's life to move him or her closer to faith. I Corinthians 3:6 reinforces the value of each person in that chain: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth."
6. I have to hang out with non-Christians. Introverts might be uncomfortable pursuing a lot of relationships. For them, quality is more valuable than quantity. But the relationships have to be formed through interaction with unbelievers. Introverts specialize in "going deep" in those life-on-life connections.
7. God uses us the way He made us. If you try to be an extrovert, evangelism will get harder. If you try to be yourself, it will get easier. That's why God designed you as you are. People aren't attracted by our methods, they're attracted by our lives. Don't use your introvert temperament as an excuse to avoid tackling a task God is calling you to undertake. While He doesn't want you to be someone you're not, God may lead you out of your comfort zone in order to stretch and build your faith.
8. Communication doesn't always involve talking. Most evangelism methods emphasize verbal techniques. But introverts are often more effective in writing than speaking. If it's demanded that introverts verbalize their faith in every situation, the value of their written communication is minimized. For example, writing through exchanged emails can be an effective way to evangelize.
A Biblical approach for introverts
Colossians 4:6 describes the most effective approach to evangelism for introverts: Your speech should always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.
God hasn't designed introverts to be aggressive in evangelism. He made them sensitive, patient and thoughtful-characteristics that will be extremely effective in the lives of others. Our responsibility, according to this verse, is to prepare. When God brings opportunity, our responsibility is to genuinely care for that person. When that caring leads to a faith discussion, it won't be forced. It will be a natural expression of that caring.
Matthew 28:19 instructs us to "make disciples." Discipleship involves guiding people closer to God from whatever place they are. For unbelievers, it's moving them one step closer to salvation. An introvert is called to be intentional in his efforts to engage in that process.
Introversion isn't something to be cured; it's something to be celebrated!
Mike Bechtle is the author of Evangelism for the Rest of Us: Sharing Christ Within Your Personality Style (Baker Books), on which this article is based. Visit www.mikebechtle.com.
This is the most recent summary of the book. This is an outline and more.
Here is the basic outline.
1. Intro
Intro to coal country and the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia. I envision this being told like the opening of a movie. There will be an overhead shot running through the green hills with an occasional wisp of smoke coming up from amidst the trees. You can almost smell the wood and coal burning. The shot goes in closer and we see coal mine pits and openings in the mountains. The shot then sweeps onto main street with simple stores and poor ladies. The camera goes on down main street and follows a road out of town and goes to some shacks on the hill side with flat rock foundations, unpainted gray walled , and with rusty tin roofing. There are hound dogs and dirty bare foot children running around.
There is some explanation of the exploitation of the poor and the dangerous conditions in the mines.
There is an explosion which comes out the entrance to the shaft. The camera then goes down under ground. There is a cave in and there are many man trapped. We contemplate this scene for a few seconds. Then we focus on three groups, each with about dozen men. Then we go down to focus on four men.
One of the men Antonio is killed outright. He is an Italian immigrant who came during the war and married a hill woman. He had two daughters, Hilda, and Elsie who lived in a company cabin in the town village.
Another man nicknamed Gizzard has his legs crushed and they are going off in different ways and he is in much pain. He is an alcoholic and it was his lit cigarette that caused an explosion of the methane gas.As the lights dimmed he pulls out a hip flask and took a slig of moonshine.
The third man is named Johnny and he is uninjured and he volunteers to go an squeeze through the small passages and try to find help and a way out. He travels about a hundred yards through very narrow areas and goes into a cocoon like space and there is another cave in and he is separated from everyone. He will spend several days there. He will be there even after the crew he just left to help is rescued.
The last man is Ralph. He is just a normal guy. He too has a wife and kids in the company village. If you asked anyone, he was a stand up guy. He worked and stayed out of trouble. He got along to get along.
All of the men except Antonio is rescued. This cave in has profound effects on the survivors and will forever change their lives.
And this is just the beginning of the story, but it is not their story.
But we do have a little more of their stories to tell has it affects their children and the next generation. This story is about the next generation but it is good to think about the blackness going through their veins and wonder if it is coal or is it evil?
Demon Of The Day: Succubus And Incubus
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/incubus.htm
Posted by Job on February 19, 2007
Here is an excellent link on the Incubus and Succubus demons; evil spirits that have intercourse with people. Of course, many who profess to believe in either God, evolution/Big Bang, or both will deny that such spirits can exist. So an omnipotent omnipresent omniscient uncreated God can exist (or the universe exploded and conscious life evolved out of basically nothing by itself), but an evil spirit that has intercourse with people cannot?
The people who encounter these demons are generally dreaming, or in dreamlike/trancelike states. Of course, ancient religions, rituals, and practices were done in order for the practicioner to experience sexual ecstasy. In our modern world, sexual experiences through virtual reality and technology is a pursuit of many. Different times, cultures, and beliefs, but you are dealing with the same demon!
Trying not to get too graphic on here as this IS a site totally 100% dedicated to the pursuit of the will of God, if you have ever spent an evening viewing pornographic material (whether TV, magazines, Internet), read erotic books, listened to erotic music, or spent an evening “grinding” with your boyfriend or girlfriend (or just some stranger in a nightclub or something), enhanced your experience with drugs or alcohol, fallen into a deep sleep, had some absolutely wild dreams, and later woke up all drained, hot, sweaty, and sticky, then I would say that there is a great chance that you have been visited and defiled by a demonic stranger. And in this modern world, where sexuality is depicted and flaunted in every context (even children’s entertainment has dirty jokes and double entendres), and the result is that virtually every imagination of virtually every man is only evil continually, these demons are quite busy.
And consider this. In a society where sexual stimulation is all around you, it is inevitable that you are going to have dark unacceptable sexual thoughts, vile things that are not only unspeakable, but you are going to be unwilling to admit to yourself that you are having them, because they fill you with so much fear, shame, and self – hatred (all demons by the way). So, in order to avoid dealing with thoughts, feelings, and desires so evil that you are disgusted with yourself just by having them, you jam them into your “subconscious.” In other words, use your self – control, your self – will, to lie to yourself about those thoughts not being there, and pretty soon you get good at it. BUT WHEN YOU FALL ASLEEP, YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO EXERT SUCH CONTROL OVER YOUR THOUGHTS! As a matter of fact, even when you are drifting off into the state between awake and sleep, the halfway point where you see and think all sorts of wild things but later dismiss it as imagination, brain chemicals, or whatever, you lose the ability to keep denying and negating these thoughts, and they come to the surface. And you have just given Incubus or Succubus a fertile playground.
In times past, society warned us the dangers of allowing yourself to lapse into such sexual fantasies, because even if people did not know or believe the spiritual warfare dimensions of it, they knew that such behavior was unbecoming to and destructive of virtuous character (not something that “good people” do), and moreover if you entertain fantasies long enough you will eventually go out and do it. But now, we are told that sexual fantasies are great! Natural! Healthy! People who oppose letting your mind go all through Sodom, Gomorrah, Babylon, and all over the place are called prudes, repressed and oppressed! One of the reasons why I stopped watching network television was when they began to push the notion that IT IS OK FOR A MARRIED COUPLE TO FANTASIZE ABOUT HAVING SEX WITH SOMEONE ELSE WHILE HAVING SEX WITH EACH OTHER! This is so network TV can pretend to be upholding “family values”; they know that the public would not stand for promoting adultery outright, so they instead promote “flirting”, “flings”, “tempting”, “fantasies”, and all sorts of things that go right up to intercourse but stop just short. Now according to what Yeshua HaMashiach says … that whoever looks upon or desires someone has already committed adultery in their hearts. So, since the sin is the same, why limit yourself to the fantasy? Why not get out, go, and do it? Well, because normally the object of sexual desire is unattainable (some movie star or athlete or whatever), so you have to “settle” for your wife and mother of your children. See how harmful, degrading, dehumanizing, dangerous this stuff is? So yeah, follow the advice of the media and pretend that you are having sex with whatever 13 year old (or 13 year old LOOKING) girl that MTV is promoting as the child molester fantasy – excuse me – dance pop singer of the month when you are supposed to be joining as one flesh with your wife (while your wife is pretending that you are this character in the romance “novels” that she “reads”), and then you both fall asleep and get visited and defiled by Succubus and Incubus during the night!
The spirit world is very real, people, and denying the true nature and depths of its existence just makes the jobs of the demons easier and the people who wish to conduct spiritual warfare and deliverance harder. My job on this website is to warn you, and consider yourself warned. Remember one of the most succint warnings in the Bible was:
“Flee fornication!” Stuff like this lets you know that there was a reason for it.
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Desolation Row by Bob Dylan
They’re selling postcards of the hanging They’re painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner They’ve got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they’re restless They need somewhere to go As lady and I look out tonight From desolation row
Cinderella, she seems so easy It takes one to know one, she smiles And puts her hands into her back pockets Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning "You belong to me I believe" And someone turns and says to him "My friend you'd better leave"
And the only sound that’s left After the ambulances go Is Cinderella sweeping up On desolation row
Now the moon is almost hidden The stars they're just pretending to hide The fortunetelling lady Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel And the hunchback of Notre Dame Everyone is makin' love Or else expecting rain
And the good Samaritan, he’s dressing He’s getting ready for the show He’s going to the carnival tonight On desolation row
Ophelia, she’s ’neath the window For her I feel so afraid On her twenty-second birthday She already is an old maid
Now to her, death is quite romantic She wears an iron vest Her profession is her religion Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah’s great rainbow She spends her time peeking Into desolation row
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood With his memories in a trunk Passed this way an hour ago With his friend, some jealous monk
Now he looked so immaculately frightful As he bummed his cigarette Then he went off sniffing drainpipes And reciting the alphabet
You would not think to look at him But he was famous long ago For playing the electric violin On desolation row
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world Locked inside of his leather cup But all his sexless patients They’re trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser She’s in charge of the cyanide hole She also keeps the cards that read "Have mercy on his soul"
They all play on the penny whistle You can hear them blow If you lean your head out far enough From desolation row
Across the street they’ve nailed the curtains They’re getting ready for the feast The phantom of the opera In a perfect image of a priest
They’re spoon feeding Casanova To get him to feel more assured Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence After poisoning him with words
And the phantom shouts to skinny girls "Get outta here if you don’t know Casanova he's just being punished for going To desolation row"
Now at midnight all the agents And the superhuman crew Come out and round up everyone That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory Where the heart attack machine Is strapped across their shoulders And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles By insurance men who go Check to see that no one is escaping To desolation row
Praise be to Nero’s Neptune The Titanic sails at dawn And everybody’s shouting "Which side are you on?"
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Elliott Fighting in the captain’s tower While Calypso's singers laugh at them And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea Where lovely mermaids flow And nobody has to think too much About desolation row
Yes, I received your letter yesterday About the time the door knob broke When you asked me how I was doing Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame I had to rearrange their faces And give them all another name
Right now I cannot read too well Don’t send me no more letters, no Not unless you mail them From desolation row
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elements. This is a vast improvement over the days when every writer essentially had to figure out for him/herself how to write a satisfying story. Nonetheless, the lack of a standard model does make for a certain amount of confusion. (In fact, writers often feel motivated to come up with their own model so that they have something unique to present in workshops, which can make things confusing for beginning writers who attend a lot of workshops.) story cube 119Save
While you may find it helps your writing to stick with one comprehensive model that makes sense for you, it's also helpful to be familiar with some of the other models, so that, when you have conversations about stories with writers who use them, you can have a shared understanding.
Of course, what you have to watch out for is that some story models only describe one particular type of story, while ignoring other possibilities. For instance, some models only focus on happy endings. Others may be very genre-specific.
Below please find links to articles where we compare Dramatica with some of the other models of story structure you are likely to encounter. Story Models You Should Know About... Syd Field's Model of Screenplay Structure
Legendary screenwriting guru Syd Field proposed a model of story structure that seems to be a forerunner of the W-Plot. Plus he offers a wealth of practical advice for all writers. 119Save The Monomyth Story Model
Also known as "The Hero's Journey," this classic model is ideally suited to Young Adult stories. Here we look at its origin and components, and correct some common misconceptions.
119Save Michael Hague's Story Model
Michael Hague, author of Screenplays that Sell, is one of today's foremost Hollywood story gurus. This article compares his theory of story structure with that of Dramatica.
W-plot 119Save The W-Plot
One of the easiest story models to use, particularly in genre fiction, is the W-Plot, as expressed by Mary Carroll Moore, author of Your Story Starts Here. Here we compare it with Dramatica.
Understanding the Seven Basic Plots
A comparison between Dramatica and The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories by Christopher Booker. Booker argues that most stories throughout history have followed one of seven (or nine) basic plots. Knowing these could help with your storytelling. The Seven...Actually Nine... Basic Plots Themselves
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A closer look at Christopher Booker's basic stories, from the perspective of a four-act structure. Includes charts illustrating the progression of each act, which is valuable if you are writing in one of these genres.
W Plot Line bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
https://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/w-plot.html
About the Ending... bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
You've probably noticed there's still one thing missing from our plot outline: how the story ends. We haven't forgotten. Go to the next lesson to learn about the 4 Types of Endings and how to round out your Plot Outline. Next Step: Plot Progression
https://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/plot-development.html
Next Step: Plot Progression bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
As I said, the 8 Essential Plot Elements can be put in any order, and can be illustrated in different ways at different points in the story.
However, stories also have a progressive plot structure. Plot progression refers to the way events must happen in a certain order to create emotional impact. For example, you wouldn't show the reader the resolution of the story before the crisis, because it would make the crisis emotionally flat.
So after you have polished your Plot Outline, use the W-Plot model to give your story the emotional structure it needs.
Organizing Your Plot Outline bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
Once you have chosen your eight elements, the next step is to arrange them into a brief plot summary. It doesn't matter what order you put them in, so long as all eight are included. In fact, most of the elements can be repeated or included in more than one way.
For example, here's how we might put together all eight elements for our executive story together into a one-paragraph plot outline...
“A female executive in her late 30s has been married to her job. But she has a wake-up call when her elderly, spinster aunt dies alone and neglected (consequence). The executive decides that she needs to have a family before she suffers the same fate (goal). So she buys a new wardrobe and signs on with a dating service (prerequisites). Her boss offers her a promotion that would involve a lot of travel, but she turns it down, so that she will have time to meet some men (cost). She goes on several dates (requirements). But each one ends in disaster (forewarnings). On top of that, because the agency arranges all her dates for Friday nights, she ends up arriving tired and late for the company's mandatory 6AM Saturday morning meetings (preconditions). Along the way, however, she starts to realize how the company's policies are very unfair to people with families or social lives outside work, and she begins to develop compassion for some of her co-workers that leads to improved relationships in the office (dividend).”
Forewarnings bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
Forewarnings are the counterpart to requirements. While requirements show that the story is progressing towards the achievement of the goal, forewarnings are events that show the consequence is getting closer. Forewarnings make the reader anxious that the consequence will occur before the protagonist can succeed.
In the plot outline for our story, events that could constitute Forewarnings might be...
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the company loses one of its key employees to another firm that was more family-friendly. the protagonist has a series of bad dates that make it seem like she will never find the right guy. the protagonist meets a woman at a singles club who tells her that at their age all the good men are already married. one of the protagonist's friends goes through a messy divorce, showing that marriage may not be the source of happiness it's purported to be.
While the Story Goal and Consequences create dramatic tension, Requirements and Forewarnings take the reader through an emotional roller coaster that oscillates between hope and fear. There will be places in the plot where it seems the protagonist is making progress, and others where it seems that everything is going wrong. Structure these well, and you will keep your reader turning pages non-stop.
For example, here's how our plot outline might look so far ...
"A female executive in her late 30s has been married to her job. But she has a wake-up call when her elderly, spinster aunt dies alone and neglected (consequence). The executive decides that she needs to have a family before she suffers the same fate (goal). In order to do this, she hires a dating service and arranges to go on several dates (requirements). But each date ends in disaster (forewarnings)."
As you can see, using just these four elements, a story plot is starting to emerge that will take the reader on a series of emotional twists and turns. And we're only halfway through our 8 plot elements! (Of course, we started with the four most important ones.)
Notice too that these elements come in pairs that balance each other. This is an important secret for creating tension and momentum in your plot.
Before moving on to the remaining elements, list some possible events that could serve as Forewarnings in your story. For now, just choose one. See if you can create a brief plot outline like the example above using just the first four elements.
Preconditions bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
The last element to balance your plot outline, Preconditions, is a junior version of Forewarnings. Preconditions are small impediments in the plot. They are stipulations laid down by certain characters that make it more difficult for the Story Goal to be achieved.
A classic example is Pride and Prejudice in which Elizabeth's quest for happiness is made more difficult by the terms of her grandfather's will, which state that the family property can only be inherited by males. This means that, upon her father's death, Elizabeth and her sisters will be penniless unless they find good husbands first.
However there are many other ways characters can impose conditions that impede the attainment of the Story Goal. They can make their help conditional on favours, insist on arduous rules, or negotiate tough terms.
For instance, perhaps the company where our female executive works has a rule that executives must attend meetings very early in the day - say 6AM on Saturdays. This rule makes it very hard for her to go on Friday night dates and be alert in the meetings. Or perhaps the singles club she joins has some seemingly unfair rules that cause her problems.
You know what to do by now. List possible Preconditions your characters might encounter, and choose one you like.
Prerequisites bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
Prerequisites are events that must happen in order for the Requirements to happen. They are an added layer of challenges to your plot outline. Like Requirements, as Prerequisites are met, the reader feels progress is being made towards the goal. For instance, in order to free the Princess, the hero must recovery the key from its hiding place, but first (Prerequisite) he must defeat the dragon guarding it. In order to win the maiden's hand, the gallant suitor must show he would not risk losing her for anything. But before he has a chance to do that, he must show he is willing to risk everything to win her (Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice).
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If the Requirement for our novel about the executive is that she must go out on several dates, perhaps the Prerequisite is that she must sign up at a dating service, buy a new wardrobe, or get a make-over.
Take a look at your chosen Requirement and make a list of possible Prerequisites that must be accomplished before the requirement can be met. Choose one.
Dividends bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
The element that balances Costs in your plot outline is Dividends. Dividends are rewards that characters receive along the journey towards the Story Goal. Unlike Requirements, Dividends are not necessary for the goal to be achieved. They may be unrelated to the goal entirely. But they are something that would never have occurred if the characters hadn't made the effort to achieve the goal.
In the case of our executive, perhaps her efforts to meet men give her an idea for creating a business of her own – a kind of executive dating service, for instance, that will lead her to a happier career. Or perhaps the quest for love and family forces her to become more compassionate towards her co-workers when their family responsibilities interfere with work.
List possible ways to reward your characters and choose one that feels appropriate for your plot outline. Then move on to our final pair of elements.
Costs bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
Generally speaking, good plots are about problems that mean a lot to the characters. If a problem is trivial, then neither the protagonist nor the reader has a reason to get worked up about it. You want your readers to get worked up about your novel. So you must give your protagonist a goal that matters.
One sign that a problem or goal matters to the protagonist is that he/she is willing to make sacrifices or suffer pain in order to achieve it. Such sacrifices are called Costs.
Classic examples of Costs include the hard-boiled detective who gets beaten up at some point in his investigation, or the heroic tales in which the hero must suffer pain or injury or give up a cherished possession to reach his goal. However, Costs can come in many other ways. Protagonists can be asked to give up their pride, self-respect, money, security, an attitude, an idealized memory, the life of a friend, or anything else they hold dear. If you make the costs steep and illustrate how hard the sacrifice is for the protagonist, the reader will feel that the protagonist deserves to achieve the goal.
In the case of our female executive, perhaps she must give up a promotion she has worked hard for because it would require her to travel so much that she would have no chance of settling down and raising a family.
Make a list of possible Costs your protagonist might be forced to endure in order to achieve the Story Goal. Again, just choose one idea to include in your plot outline for now.
Requirements bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
The third element of your plot outline, Requirements, describes what must be accomplished in order to achieve the goal. You can think of this as a checklist of one or more events. As the Requirements are met in the course of the novel, the reader will feel the characters are getting closer to the attainment of the goal.
Requirements create a state of excited anticipation in the reader's mind, as he looks forward to the protagonist's success.
What could the Requirements be in our executive story? Well, if the goal is for our protagonist to find true love, perhaps she will need to join a singles club or dating service so she can meet single men. Perhaps she will need to take a holiday or leave of absence from her job.
Ask yourself what event(s) might need to happen for the goal in your novel to be achieved. List as many possibilities as you can think of. To keep things simple for the moment, just choose one requirement for now to include in your plot outline.
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Consequence bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
Once you have decided on a Story Goal, your next step is to ask yourself, “What disaster will happen if the goal is not achieved? What is my protagonist afraid will happen if he/she doesn't achieve the goal or solve the problem?”
The answer to these questions is the Consequence of the story. The Consequence is the negative situation or event that will result if the Goal is not achieved. Avoiding the Consequence justifies the effort required in pursuing the Story Goal, both to the characters in your novel and the reader, and that makes it an important part of your plot outline.
The combination of goal and consequence creates the main dramatic tension in your plot. It's a carrot and stick approach that makes the plot meaningful.
In some stories, the protagonist may begin by deciding to resolve a problem or pursue a goal. Later, that goal becomes more meaningful when he discovers that a terrible consequence will occur if he fails. Other times, the protagonist may start off threatened by a terrible event, which thus motivates him/her to find way to avoid it.
As Melanie Anne Phillips points out, in some stories the consequence seems to be in effect when the story opens. Perhaps the evil despot is already on the throne and the Story Goal is to depose him. In that case, the consequence, if the protagonist fails, is that things will stay the way they are.
In our novel plot about the female executive, we've already come up with one possible Consequence – that she could end up like her spinster aunt. We could make the Consequence worse (perhaps the aunt dies of starvation because she is feeble and has no immediate family looking after her). Or we could create a different Consequence. Her employer may go bankrupt unless it becomes more family-friendly.
Write a list of possible Consequences you could have in your plot outline. Then choose one to be the counterpoint to your chosen Story Goal.
Story Goal bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
1. Story Goal 17K+Save
The first element to include in your plot outline is the Story Goal, which we covered in detail in the previous article, The Key to a Solid Plot: Choosing a Story Goal. To summarize, the plot of any story is a sequence of events that revolve around an attempt to solve a problem or attain a goal. The Story Goal is, generally speaking, what your protagonist wants to achieve or the problem he/she wants to resolve. It is also the goal/problem that involves or affects most, if not all the other characters in the story. It is “what the story is all about.”
For instance, let's say we want to write a story about a 38-year-old female executive who has always put off having a family for the sake of her career and now finds herself lonely and regretting her choices. In this case, we might choose to make the Story Goal for her to find true love before it's too late.
There are many ways we could involve other characters in this goal. For instance, we could give our protagonist ...
... a mother who wants her to be happier.
... friends and colleagues at her company who are also unmarried and lonely (so that her success might inspire them).
... a jealous ex-boyfriend who tries to sabotage her love life.
... an elderly, lonely spinster of an aunt who doesn't want the protagonist to make the same mistake she did.
... a happy young family who give her an example of what she has missed.
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... a friend who married and divorced, and is now down on marriage. (Forcing the protagonist to work out whether her friend's experience really applies to her – or whether it was just a case of choosing the wrong partner, or bad luck.)
We could even make the company where the protagonist works in danger of failing because it doesn't appreciate the importance of family. It could be losing good employees to other companies that do.
In other words, after we have chosen a Story Goal, we will build a world around our protagonist that includes many perspectives on the problem and makes the goal important to everyone in that world. That's why choosing the Story Goal is the most important first step in building a plot outline.
If you haven't chosen a goal for your novel yet, do so now. Make a list of potential goals that fits the idea you are working on. Then choose choose one goal to base your plot outline on.
Mountain Holiness bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
file:///H:/tiddly/azusaevernote/Kentucky%20Mountain%20Holiness%20Association%20-%20Wiki.html
Haunted Mental Hospital bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Allegheny_Lunatic_Asylum
International Pentecostal Holiness Church differs from the UPI bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
International Pentecostal Holiness Church From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search International Pentecostal Holiness Church International Pentecostal Holiness Church (logo).jpg Classification Protestant Orientation Pentecostal Polity Connectionalism[1] Leader Dr. A. Doug Beacham, Jr. Associations National Association of Evangelicals, Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches of North America, Pentecostal World Conference, Christian Churches Together, World Pentecostal Holiness Fellowship Region Worldwide: divided into 28 regional conferences Founder Abner Blackmon Crumpler, Benjamin H. Irwin Origin January 30, 1911 Falcon, North Carolina Merger of Fire-Baptized Holiness Church and Pentecostal Holiness Church (1911), Tabernacle Pentecostal Church (1915) Separations Pentecostal Fire-Baptized Holiness Church (1918), Congregational Holiness Church (1920) Congregations 16,609 Members 4,600,000 Official website www.iphc.org Statistics for 2012[2] Part of a series on Pentecostalism
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Congreso Nacional Juvenil3.jpg Background [show] Early history [show] Key beliefs [show] Key people [show] Major denominations [show] Related movements [show]
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The International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC) or simply Pentecostal Holiness Church (PHC) is a Pentecostal Christian denomination founded in 1911 with the merger of two older denominations. Historically centered in the Southeastern United States,[3] particularly the Carolinas and Georgia, the Pentecostal Holiness Church now has an international presence. In 2000, the church reported a worldwide membership of over one million—over three million including affiliates.[4]
Heavily influenced by two major American revival movements—the holiness movement of the late 19th century and the Pentecostal revival of the early 20th century[5]—the church's theological roots derive from John Wesley's teachings on sanctification.[6][7]
Several ministers who were raised in the Pentecostal Holiness Church have come to have greater name recognition than the church itself, such as Oral Roberts, an internationally known charismatic evangelist; Charles Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention; and C.M. Ward, a former Assemblies of God radio preacher.[8] Contents
1 History 1.1 Origins 1.1.1 Fire-Baptized Holiness 1.1.2 Pentecostal Holiness of North Carolina 1.2 Mergers and schisms 1.3 Further development 1.4 Recent history 2 Doctrine 2.1 Cardinal doctrines 2.1.1 Justification by faith 2.1.2 Sanctification 2.1.3 Baptism with the Holy Spirit 2.1.4 Divine healing 2.1.5 Second Coming 3 Structure 4 Educational and charitable institutions 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links
History Origins
In 1894, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South adopted a statement which opposed the growing holiness movement in the church. Within a decade about 25 new holiness groups, including the Pentecostal Holiness Church, came into existence.[9] Fire-Baptized Holiness
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The oldest group that is part of the foundation of the Pentecostal Holiness Church originated in 1895 as the Fire-Baptized Holiness Association in Olmitz, Iowa. The leader, Benjamin H. Irwin of Lincoln, Nebraska, a former Baptist preacher, organized the body into the national Fire-Baptized Holiness Church at Anderson, South Carolina, in August 1898.[10] By this time, Irwin's group had organized churches in eight U. S. states and two Canadian provinces.[11] Pentecostal Holiness of North Carolina
The first congregation to carry the name Pentecostal Holiness Church was formed in Goldsboro, North Carolina in 1898. This church was founded as a result of the evangelistic ministry of Abner Blackmon Crumpler, a Methodist evangelist.[12] A year earlier, Crumpler had founded the inter-denominational North Carolina Holiness Association.[13] After his trial and acquittal by a Methodist ecclesiastical court for preaching holiness doctrines, Crumpler and several of his followers left the Methodist Church and formed a new denomination known as the Pentecostal Holiness Church ("Pentecostal" being a common name for holiness believers at the time).[12]
The first convention was held at Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1900. The convention adopted a denominational discipline, and Crumpler was elected president. In 1901 at a meeting in Magnolia, North Carolina, the word "Pentecostal" was dropped from the name to more fully associate the church with the holiness movement.[14] For the next eight years, the church would be known as "The Holiness Church of North Carolina".[12] The church had congregations outside of North Carolina as well, principally in South Carolina and Virginia.
Gaston B. Cashwell, a minister of the Methodist Church, joined Crumpler's group in 1903. He became a leading figure in the church and the Pentecostal movement on the east coast.[15] In 1906, he traveled to Los Angeles to visit the Pentecostal revival at the Azusa Street mission. While there he professed having received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the evidence of speaking in tongues. Upon returning to Dunn, North Carolina, in December 1906, Cashwell preached the Pentecost experience in the local holiness church.
The influence of the Pentecostal renewal grew while, at the same time, the leader and founder of the church, Abner Crumpler, though willing to accept speaking in tongues, did not accept the idea that it was the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.[8] At the annual conference of 1908, Crumpler was re-elected president of the body; however, with a majority of the delegates having experienced tongues, he permanently disaffiliated himself from the church.[16] After Crumpler's departure, the conference added an article to the statement of faith, recognizing tongues as the initial evidence:
We believe the pentecostal baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire is obtainable by a definite act of appropriating faith on the part of the fully cleansed believer, and the initial evidence of the reception of this experience is speaking with other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance (Luke 11:13; Acts 1:5; 2:1-4; 8:17; 10:44-46; 19:6).[17]
The PHC Foreign Mission Board was formed in 1904, and its members were all women.[18] In 1907, Tom J. McIntosh, a PHC member, traveled to China and may have been the first Pentecostal missionary to reach that nation.[19] Mergers and schisms The octagonal Falcon Tabernacle was the site of the 1911 merger.
The Fire-Baptized Holiness Association also embraced Pentecostalism around the same time, taking the line that the baptism in the Holy Spirit was the "baptism of fire" that it had been seeking. Given the similarities in doctrine and geographic reach with the Pentecostal Holiness Church, the two groups began talks on a merger. The two groups merged on January 30, 1911, at the Falcon Tabernacle in Falcon, North Carolina. The new denomination took the name of the smaller of the two, Pentecostal Holiness Church.[20] S.D. Page was elected the first General Superintendent.[21]
Following the 1911 merger, the Tabernacle Pentecostal Church, originally the Brewerton Presbyterian Church, merged with the Pentecostal Holiness Church in 1915.[22] Having Presbyterian roots and located mostly in South Carolina, this group of around 15 congregations was affiliated with Nickles Holmes Bible College in Greenville.[23] After the mergers, the new denomination, which continued to go by the name Pentecostal Holiness Church, had about 200 churches with approximately 5,000 members. Property for the denomination's first headquarters was purchased in 1918 for $9,000 in Franklin Springs, Georgia.[24]
In 1918, several PHC members who wanted stricter standards concerning dress, amusements, tobacco, and association between the sexes withdrew to form the Pentecostal Fire-Baptized Holiness Church.[25] In 1920, another schism came into the Pentecostal Holiness Church over divine healing and the use of medicine. Some pastors believed that while divine healing was provided in the atonement, Christians still had the right to turn to medicine and doctors. The majority of the church—as did many Pentecostals of the time—believed in trusting God for healing without turning to earthly means. The minority withdrew
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and formed the Congregational Holiness Church in 1921.[8] Further development
The Pentecostal Holiness Church was a charter member of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1943 and joined the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America in 1948. At the general conference a year later an attempt at merging with the mostly black United Holy Church failed when the United Holy Church asked if their members could attend the church's schools and colleges.[26]
In the 1960s, the Pentecostal Holiness Church began to branch out beyond the United States by affiliating with sister Pentecostal bodies in other parts of the world. In 1967, an affiliation was formed with the Pentecostal Methodist Church of Chile, one of the largest national Pentecostal churches in the world and the largest non-Catholic church in Chile.[27] At the time, the Jotabeche Pentecostal Methodist congregation was the largest church in the world with over 60,000 members. With over 150,000 members, it ranks second to the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea. This denomination claims 1.7 million adherents.[8] A similar affiliation was forged in 1985 with the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Brazil. A Neo-Pentecostal body with roots in the Brazilian Methodist Church, the Wesleyan Church numbered some 50,000 members and adherents in 1995.[8] The word International was added to the church's name in 1975.[8] Recent history
The largest Pentecostal Holiness churches in the United States include The Gate Church in Oklahoma City, pastored by Tony Miller; Northwood Temple in Fayetteville, North Carolina, pastored by John Hedgepeth; Evangelistic Temple in Tulsa, Oklahoma, pastored by Norman Wilkie; Eastpointe Community Church in Oklahoma City, pastored by Shon and Rachel Burchett; Christian Heritage Church in Tallassee, Florida, pastored by Steve Dow; Redemption in Greenville, South Carolina, pastored by Ron Carpenter, Jr.; and World Agape Mission Church in Los Angeles, pastored by John Kim.[8]
In 2000, the IPHC reported 10,463 churches and over a million members worldwide (over 3.4 million including affiliates).[4] In 2006, membership in the United States was 308,510 in 1,965 churches.[28] There were 28 regional conferences and missionaries in more than 90 nations. International offices were once located in Franklin Springs, Georgia, but are now located in Bethany, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City.
In January 2011, the PHC celebrated the 1911 merger centennial with special events at Falcon, North Carolina.[29] Doctrine
The doctrine of the Pentecostal Holiness Church is articulated in the Apostles' Creed and the Articles of Faith.[30] The Articles were placed in their present form in 1945. The first four articles are essentially the same as the first four Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church.[31]
The IPHC believes in common evangelical beliefs, including the Trinity, the dual nature of Christ, his crucifixion for the forgiving of sins, his resurrection and ascension to heaven, the inerrancy of the Bible, a literal belief in heaven and hell, and the responsibility of every believer to carry out the Great Commission. The church holds water baptism and communion (open communion observed quarterly) to be divine ordinances. Though not considered an ordinance, some of the churches also engage in the practice of feet washing.[32] Cardinal doctrines
Since the adoption of the article of faith on the baptism of the Holy Spirit in 1908, the Pentecostal Holiness Church has taught the following beliefs as their five cardinal doctrines: justification by faith, entire sanctification, the baptism in the Holy Spirit evidenced by speaking in tongues, Christ's atonement (including divine healing), and the premillennial second coming of Christ. [33][34] Justification by faith Main article: Sola fide
The Pentecostal Holiness Church believes that no amount of good works can achieve justification or salvation. This is achieved only "on the basis of our faith in the shed blood, the resurrection, and the justifying righteousness" of Christ. Good works, however, are a product of salvation. "When we believe on Jesus Christ as our Savior, our sins are pardoned, we are justified, and we enter a state of righteousness, not our own, but His, both imputed and imparted".[35] Sanctification Main article: Entire sanctification
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As a holiness church, the PHC believes that for the Christian there is not only justification and forgiveness for actual transgressions but also "complete cleansing of the justified believer from all indwelling sin and from its pollution."[36] This cleansing is not "maturity" but a "crisis experience" and a "definite, instantaneous work of grace, obtainable by faith." The church recognizes that there is maturity and growth in the life of the believer, but states that "we must get into this grace before we can grow in it." The sanctified life is described as "one of separation from the world, a selfless life, a life of devotion to all the will of God, a life of holiness ... a life controlled by 'perfect love' which 'casteth out fear.'" The Pentecostal Holiness Church specifically rejects absolute perfection, angelic perfection, and sinless perfection—terms that imply that it is impossible for a sanctified believer to commit sin.[37] Baptism with the Holy Spirit Main article: Baptism with the Holy Spirit
As a Pentecostal church, the PHC believes the "baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire is obtainable by a definite act of appropriating faith on the part of the fully cleansed believer." Spirit baptism is available to all believers and provides empowerment to witness for Christ. To receive the baptism, a person must have a "clean heart and life" and to "live in the fullness of the Holy Spirit's power and possession, one must continue to live a clean and consecrated life, free from sin, strife, worldliness, and pride, and must avoid attitudes and actions that tend to 'grieve' or 'quench' the Holy Spirit."
The Pentecostal Holiness Church distinguishes the initial evidence of Spirit baptism - which all believers experience when Spirit baptized - from the gift of tongues, which is not given to every Spirit-filled believer. Speaking in tongues is only the first sign of Spirit baptism. Other evidence that will follow Spirit baptism include: the fruit of the Spirit, power to witness for Christ, and power to endure the testings of faith and the oppositions of the world. Besides speaking in tongues, other spiritual gifts recorded in the Bible (specifically in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14) are encouraged to operate in Pentecostal Holiness congregations for the edification of the Body of Christ.[38] Divine healing Main article: Faith healing
The PHC believes that "provision was made in the atonement for the healing of our bodies".[39] Congregations will pray for the healing of sick people and church elders will lay hands on and anoint the person being prayed over. While in its early years the Pentecostal Holiness were against receiving medical care, emphasizing divine healing, that is not the case today. The church teaches that Christians should believe in divine healing but also teaches that medical knowledge comes to humanity through God's grace.[40] Second Coming Main article: Premillennialism
The PHC believes in the imminent, personal, premillennial second coming of Jesus Christ. It will occur in two stages: the first stage will be the rapture of the saints before the Tribulation, and the second stage will be at the end of the Tribulation when Christ will return to defeat the Antichrist, judge the nations of the world, and begin his millennial reign.[41] Structure
Reflecting its Methodist heritage, the IPHC is governed under the principles of connectionalism, a mixed system of episcopal and congregational polity.[1] Authority in the church is shared between local churches, quadrennial conferences, and the General Conference.
Pentecostal Holiness congregations are self-governing in local affairs and are led by pastors. The pastor preaches, administers the ordinances, and promotes the "spiritual welfare" of congregants.[42] Furthermore, the pastor is the chairman of the church board. Other than the pastor, the church board consists of deacons and a secretary/treasurer elected by the church members.[43] The board is accountable to the pastor and church members, and pastors are accountable to the quadrennial conferences.
Geographically, churches are organized into conferences led by conference superintendents. In their spiritual roles, superintendents function as bishops, and in their administrative roles they act as chief executive officers of their conference. All conference leaders are elected by their local conference but are accountable to the General Superintendent.[44]
The General Conference is the highest administrative body in the church. Under it are regional, annual, district, and missionary conferences.[32] When the General Conference is out of session, the General Board of Administration acts as the church's governing body. In the IPHC, the terms "bishop" and "superintendent" are used interchangeably. The church recognizes the biblical office of bishop but does not believe in an historical episcopate or adhere to the doctrine of apostolic succession.[45]
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The General Superintendent and Presiding Bishop, Dr. A. Doug Beacham, Jr., was elected in 2012.[46] Educational and charitable institutions
The IPHC has five affiliated institutions of higher education and operates several charitable organizations. The IPHC colleges are Emmanuel College in Franklin Springs, Georgia; Holmes Bible College in Greenville, South Carolina; Southwestern Christian University in Bethany, Oklahoma; and Advantage College in San Jose, California. Charitable organizations include the Falcon Children's Home, Alternative to Abortion Ministries, New Life Adoption Agency, and The Children's Center. References
Section IV. A. 1. "Organization in General", IPHC Manual 1993-1997, electronic edition. "IPHC Manual" (PDF). IPHC. Retrieved 2017-02-22. "2000 Religious Congregations and Membership Study". Glenmary Research Center. Retrieved 2009-12-16. International Pentecostal Holiness Church (2007). "24th General Conference Highlights". Retrieved 2009-03-01. "IPHC Brief History: Introduction". 2007. Synan, Vinson (1997). The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century. William B. Eerdmans Pub. ISBN 0-8028-4103-1. p. 30 "Holiness movement". Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2008-10-28. "An Article on the International Pentecostal Holiness Church". "IPHC Brief History: Holiness Movement". 2007. Burgess, Stanley M; Gary B McGee; Patrick H Alexander (1988). Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. Regnery Reference Library. ISBN 0-310-44100-5. p. 466 "IPHC Brief History: Organizational Heritage". 2007. "Organizational Heritage", IPHC Manual 1993-1997, electronic edition. Synan, Vinson (1997). The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century. William B. Eerdmans Pub. ISBN 0-8028-4103-1. p. 62 Synan, Vinson (2001). The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal. Thomas Nelson Pub. ISBN 0-7852-4550-2. p. 110 Synan, Vinson (2001). The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal. Thomas Nelson Pub. ISBN 0-7852-4550-2. p. 111 Synan, Vinson (1997). The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century. William B. Eerdmans Pub. ISBN 0-8028-4103-1. p. 119 "IPHC Brief History: Pentecostal Movement". 2007. Dr. Harold Hunter (2007). "Four Fire-Baptized Holiness missionaries arrive in Cuba". Retrieved 2009-05-03. Dr. Harold Hunter (2007). "PHC Sponsors First Pentecostal Missionary to China". Retrieved 2009-05-03. "IPHC Brief History: Pentecost & Mergers". 2007. Archived from the original on 2008-07-23. "Historic Timeline". 2007. "IPHC Brief History: Organizational Developments". 2007. "Pentecostal Holiness Church", Encyclopedia of Religion in the South, Samuel S. Hill, editor. "3rd General Conference, 1917". 2007-11-14. Retrieved 2008-09-10. "ARDA PF-BHC Denominational Profile". Retrieved 2008-09-24. "11th General Conference, 1949". 2007-11-14. Retrieved 2008-09-10. "John Paul cries 'wolf': misreading the Pentecostals". "2008 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches". The National Council of Churches. Retrieved 2009-12-16. IPHC, Centennial Home, accessed June 2, 2011. International Pentecostal Holiness Church, Our Beliefs. Accessed January 14, 2011. "Introduction – Historical", Our Beliefs. Accessed January 14, 2011. "Pentecostal Holiness Church, Inc". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Burgess, Stanley M; Van der Maas, Ed M (2010). The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements: revised and expanded. Zondervan Pub. House. ISBN 978-0-310-87335-8. "IPHC Articles of Faith". 2007. "8. Justification by Faith", Our Beliefs. Accessed January 14, 2011. "9. Cleansing", Our Beliefs. Accessed January 14, 2011. "10. Sanctification", Our Beliefs. Accessed January 14, 2011. "11. The Baptism With the Holy Ghost and Speaking With Other Tongues", Our Beliefs. Accessed January 14, 2011. "12. Divine Healing", Our Beliefs. Accessed January 14, 2011. International Pentecostal Holiness Church (2007-11-14). "Divine Healing". Retrieved 2008-09-10. "13. The Second Coming of Jesus", Our Beliefs. Accessed January 14, 2011.
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no tags
no tags
Section IV. B. "Duties of the Pastor", IPHC Manual 1993-1997, electronic edition. Section IV. E. "Officials of the Local Church", IPHC Manual 1993-1997, electronic edition. Dr. A.D. Beacham, Executive Director PHC Church Education Ministries. "Frequently Asked Questions". Retrieved 2008-09-12. International Pentecostal Holiness Church (2008-04-23). "Apostolic Position Paper". Retrieved 2008-09-12.
"IPHC Polity". 2009.
Further reading
Encyclopedia of American Religions, J. Gordon Melton, editor Handbook of Denominations in the United States, by Frank S. Mead, Samuel S. Hill, and Craig D. Atwood
External links
Official website
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Categories:
Pentecostal denominationsReligious organizations established in 1911Pentecostal denominations established in the 20th centuryMembers of the National Association of EvangelicalsEvangelical denominations in North AmericaHoliness denominations
Soteriology bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
Soteriology (/səˌtɪəriˈɒlədʒi/; Greek: σωτηρία sōtēria "salvation" from σωτήρ sōtēr "savior, preserver" and λόγος logos "study" or "word"[1]) is the study of religious doctrines of salvation. Salvation theory occupies a place of special significance in many religions.
In the academic field of religious studies, soteriology is understood by scholars as representing a key theme in a number of different religions and is often studied in a comparative context; that is, comparing various ideas about what salvation is and how it is obtained.
The United Pentecostal Church International History and Information bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
The United Pentecostal Church International (or UPCI) is the world's largest Apostolic (Oneness) Pentecostal Christian denomination, headquartered in Weldon Spring, Missouri.[1] The church adheres to the non-trinitarian theology of Oneness, and was formed in 1945 by a merger of the former Pentecostal Church and the Incorporated and Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ. The denomination also emphasizes holy living in all aspects of one's life.
The UPCI has been among the fastest-growing church organizations since it was formed in 1945 with 521 churches.[citation needed] In 2018 the UPCI has 4,825 churches (including daughter works and preaching points) 10,367 ministers, and 750,000 constituents in the United States and Canada. Outside the U.S. and Canada it has 36,917 churches and preaching points, 30,000 licensed ministers, 970 missionaries, and a constituency of 4.17 million in 189 nations and 36 territories.[citation needed] The international fellowship consists of national organizations that are united as the Global Council of the UPCI, which is chaired by the general superintendent of the UPCI, David K. Bernard. Total worldwide constituency is estimated at 4.9 million.[2]
The UPCI emerged from the Pentecostal Movement, which traces its origins to the teachings of Charles Parham in Topeka, Kansas, and the Azusa Street Revival led by William J. Seymour in 1906. The UPCI traces its organizational roots to 1916, when a large group of Pentecostal ministers began to unite around the teaching of the oneness of God and water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ.[3] Several Oneness ministers met in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and on January 2, 1917, formed a Oneness Pentecostal organization called the General Assembly of the Apostolic Assemblies.
The General Assembly of the Apostolic Assemblies merged with another church, the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World
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(PAW) and accepted the leadership of G. T. Haywood, an African-American. This group held the first meeting in Eureka Springs in 1918. This interracial organization adopted the PAW name and remained the only Oneness Pentecostal body until late 1924. Southern Jim Crow laws and racial hatred resulted in many white leaders withdrawing from the PAW rather than remaining under African-American leadership. Many local congregations in the South, however, remained integrated while attempting to comply with local segregation laws.
In 1925, three new Oneness churches were formed: the Apostolic Churches of Jesus Christ, the Pentecostal Ministerial Alliance, and Emmanuel's Church in Jesus Christ. In 1927, steps were taken toward reunifying these organizations. Meeting in a joint convention in Guthrie, Oklahoma, Emmanuel's Church in Jesus Christ and the Apostolic Churches of Jesus Christ merged, taking the name the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. This merger united about 400 Oneness Pentecostal ministers. In 1931, a unity conference with representatives from four Oneness organizations met in Columbus, Ohio attempting to bring all Oneness Pentecostals together. The Pentecostal Ministerial Alliance voted to merge with the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, but the terms of the proposed merger were rejected by that body. Nevertheless, a union between the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ and the PAW was consummated in November 1931. The new body retained the name of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.
In 1932, the Pentecostal Ministerial Alliance changed its name to the Pentecostal Church, Incorporated to reflect its organizational structure. In 1936, Pentecostal Church, Incorporated ministers voted to work toward an amalgamation with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ. Final union, however, proved elusive until 1945 when these two Oneness Pentecostal organizations combined to form the United Pentecostal Church International. The merger of these two Oneness Pentecostal bodies brought together 521 churches.[4]
In global missions the UPCI has long followed a dual strategy of inclusion and targeted outreach. Consequently, the UPCI has believers in 212 nations and territories, and the vast majority of its total constituency is nonwhite. It has multicultural, multiracial churches in large cities around the world.
In the U.S. and Canada the UPCI has traditionally reflected the majority culture with the majority of its constituency being Caucasian and Anglo-American. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, however, the UPCI became more intentional about the inclusion of every race and culture in North America. Consequently, over the years the UPCI of the U.S. and Canada has established several important ministries that focus on the evangelism of minority groups. As of 2013 these ministries have made significant progress and are led by representatives of the various ethnicities. Spanish Evangelism Ministry reported over 700 Spanish-speaking ministers and about 350 Spanish-language congregations. Building the Bridge Ministry develops strategies for cross-cultural ministry, urban ministry, and particularly evangelism into the African-American community. Its leaders estimated that the UPCI had about 500 Black ministers and 250 Black pastors. Multicultural Ministries coordinates outreach to eighteen language and ethnic groups, encompassing 186 ministers and 195 works. Based on these statistics in 2013 about 1,400 ministers were from minority groups, or fifteen percent of the total, and about 800 churches were ministering primarily to ethnic minorities, or eighteen percent of the total. In addition, most UPCI churches have significant involvement by ethnic minorities, especially larger churches, growing churches, and churches in urban areas. This involvement was an estimated ten to fifteen percent of constituency. In sum, as of 2013 an estimated twenty-five to thirty percent of UPCI constituency in the U.S. and Canada was nonwhite.[5]
This diversity is increasingly reflected in leadership. For example, according to a 2012 survey of the fifty-five districts in the U.S. and Canada, thirty-one had minorities as department heads and thirty-nine had minorities in some leadership position. Of these, eleven had African-American or black board members; five had Asian, Pacific Island, or Native American board members; and five had Hispanic board members. The Board of General Presbyters (General Board), which is the governing body under the General Conference, has African-American or black, Hispanic, and Asian members. The work of the organization is conducted by eight general divisions (major ministries), and each of them has minority representation on its general committee or board. For several divisions such as Youth, Sunday School, and North American Missions, the participation is twenty percent or more. Significantly, these leaders were not chosen on the basis of ethnicity, but they have risen through the ranks and have been elected by their peers based on involvement, qualifications, and abilities.[5] Beliefs Main article: Oneness Pentecostalism Godhead
The UPCI adheres to a "oneness" concept of the Godhead, in contrast to orthodox belief in the Trinity. Hence, an understanding of Oneness doctrine over against Trinitarian doctrine is critical in any analysis of UPCI beliefs. They are viewed as heretics by most of Christendom, that has accepted the doctrine of the Trinity since the First Council of Nicaea in the Fourth
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Century.
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three consubstantial persons,[6] or hypostases[7]—the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit; "one God in three persons". The three persons are distinct, yet are one "substance, essence or nature".[8] In this context, a "nature" is what one is, while a "person" is who one is.[9][10][11]
Oneness believers, by contrast, hold that God is absolutely and indivisibly one (Deuteronomy 6:4), and do not accept the idea of three distinct centers of consciousness in the Godhead, a modern form of the ancient belief of Modalism or Sabellianism. They also affirm that in Jesus dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and that Jesus is the only name given for salvation (Colossians 2:9). The Father was revealed to the world in the name of Jesus, the Son was given the name of Jesus at birth, and the Holy Spirit comes to believers in the name of Jesus. Thus they believe the apostles correctly fulfilled Christ’s command to baptize “in the name [singular] of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” by baptizing all converts with the invocation of the name of Jesus (Matthew 28:19; Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5; 22:16).[12]
Oneness believers affirm that God has revealed Himself as Father (in parental relationship to humanity), in the Son (in human flesh), and as the Holy Spirit (in spiritual action). They acknowledge that the one God existed as Father, Word, and Holy Spirit before His incarnation as Jesus Christ, the Son of God; and that while Jesus walked on earth as God Himself incarnate, the Spirit of God continued to be omnipresent.[13] Soteriology
The UPCI derives its soteriology in part from Acts 2:37-39 and John 3:3–5 (Other key texts include Acts 2:4; Romans 6:3-4; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17).[14] Defining the gospel as "the good news that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again,"[14] it believes that in order to receive biblical salvation, a person must obey the gospel by being spiritually born again. This is accomplished through repentance (death to sin), water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ (burial), and receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the initial sign of speaking in tongues as the Spirit gives the utterance (resurrection).[14]
Thus, the UPCI does not share the soteriology advanced by most Evangelical Protestants, namely that belief or faith in Christ alone is the sole requirement for salvation. Although many Evangelicals would characterize this as "works salvation" and thus heretical,[15] the UPCI insists that "salvation comes by grace through faith based on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ."[14] Repentance
The UPCI believes that repentance is essential to salvation, as indicated in Luke 13:5 and Acts 2:38. Repentance is defined as a complete turning away from sin and toward God. According to the UPCI, repentance requires the repentant sinner to take the next biblical steps toward forgiveness and reconciliation to God: water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Ghost.[16][full citation needed] Furthermore, repentance must be accompanied by "Godly sorrow". This is not merely regret, but a genuine inward taste of God's displeasure over one's sinful lifestyle,we are all sinners and come short of the glory of God Romans 3:23, which in turn breaks his or her heart and leads to a determination to utterly forsake sin with no regrets or second thoughts. [17][full citation needed]
Repentance is also a prerequisite for receiving the Holy Ghost. UPCI sources emphasize that no one can repent on his or her own power; it requires a supernatural gift of God's grace.[18][full citation needed] It does not bring by itself the full power of salvation, and unless it is followed up with baptism in water in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of tongues, it may be lost. Also, a child may not be baptized until the child knows right from wrong, because the child can not repent of the sins they have as a baby. Being that all are born into sin, we all have sin when we are born.[19][full citation needed] Furthermore, the ability to repent is temporary and may only be accomplished while one is alive.[20] Luke 13:3 Jesus' Name Baptism
Baptism is a second essential component of UPCI doctrine. Members of the UPCI affirm an indispensable need for baptism, citing John 3:5, Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38 and Matthew 28:19. They point to Matthew 3:13–16 as evidence that even Jesus himself was baptized. The UPCI mode of baptism is complete immersion in water, completed in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.
This Jesus' Name doctrine is a point of contention between the UPCI and Trinitarian Christians. Like other Oneness believers, the UPCI baptizes "in the Name of Jesus Christ", while Trinitarians use "in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit". Both sides utilize Matthew 28:19 to support their claims, with the UPCI holding that the name of the Father, Son
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and Holy Spirit is Jesus. They insist that the word name in the scripture is singular, and that implies all three titles refer to Jesus. Other Oneness believers assert that Matthew 28:19 was changed to the traditional Triune formula by the Catholic Church in 325 AD in the counsel of Nicaea. The Jesus' Name belief originates from Acts 2:38, and members also stress Acts 8:16, Acts 10:48, Acts 19:5, and Acts 22:16, and 1 John 2:12, claiming that these are the only scriptures showing how the early Church performed baptisms, and that there is no scripture in the Word that shows anyone ever being baptized in the titles of God, and that the Bible authorizes no departure from that formula.[21][full citation needed]Even that the early priest state that the early church only baptized in Jesus name and the latter formula was applied after 325AD by the Catholic church. Speaking in tongues
The UPCI embraces the view that speaking in tongues is the immediate, outward, observable, and audible evidence of the initial infilling of the Holy Ghost (spirit), 1 Cor. 14:22, Acts 2:33, and is the fulfillment of Jesus' commandment to be "born of the Spirit" in John 3:5. As defined by the church, speaking in tongues constitutes speaking in a language that one has never learned before,as the spirit gives them utterance, Acts 2:4,[22][full citation needed] UPCI beliefs on this subject are derived from Acts 2:4, 17, 38–39; 10:46; 19:6; and I Corinthians 12:13, Mark 16:17, 1 Cor. 14:18, 1 Cor. 14:22.
In UPCI theology, the tongue becomes the device of expression for the Holy Ghost (James 3), and symbolizes God's complete control over the believer. Joel 2:28, Isa. 28:11. UPCI doctrine distinguishes between the initial act of speaking in tongues that accompanies one's baptism in the Spirit, and the gift of "divers kinds of tongues" spoken of by Paul. While the former is considered indispensable evidence of one's baptism by the Holy Ghost (as spoken of in Isaiah 28:11, John 3:5; also Matthew 3:11, Acts 1:5, 2:4, 10:45–46 and 19:6, according to UPCI doctrine), the latter gift is not necessarily held by all believers once they have initially spoken in tongues, it is the interpretation of tongues.[23][full citation needed] The incidents of tongues speaking described in Acts,are different in operation and purpose than the tongues spoken of in I Corinthians 12–14. The latter are given to selected believers as the Spirit decides. Acts 2:3, Acts 2:11, 1 Cor. 12:10, 12:28,1 Cor. 14:21, James 3:8.
UPCI doctrine also distinguishes between the fruit of the Spirit, as mentioned in Galatians 5:22–23, and the initial act of speaking in tongues. The fruit of the Spirit takes time to develop or cultivate and therefore does not qualify as an immediate, outward and identifiable sign of receiving the Holy Ghost. Speaking in other tongues, on the other hand, does serve as that sign and is therefore considered an indispensable part of any person's salvation process. Acts 10:44-48, they knew they had the Holy Ghost because they could hear them speak with tongues. 1 Cor. 14:22, tongues is for a sign, not to them that believe but to them that believe not. Holiness living Main article: Outward holiness
The UPCI emphasizes that salvation is accomplished by grace through faith in Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9). This faith is coupled with obedience to his command to be "born of water and of the Spirit" (John 3:5). Even though no amount of obedience to laws saves anyone (Ephesians 2:8–9, Titus 3:5), the Scriptures also state that those who are saved have been created in order to do good works (Ephesians 2:10).[24]
Given this Scriptural principle, the UPCI teaches that one should live a life that demonstrates Christ's attributes.[25] Inward holiness, such as demonstration of the fruits of the Spirit in the Christian's life, is to be accompanied by outward signs of holiness, according to the UPCI. The UPCI also maintains the teaching of gender roles, including a belief that women should not cut their hair (1 Corinthians 11:3-15) or wear pants. Inward and outward modesty applies to women and men alike, though UPCI men have fewer dress codes than their female counterparts. Members are discouraged from adorning themselves outwardly with cosmetics or jewelry, biblically defined as "gold, or pearls, or costly array," and should instead show their beauty by their actions (I Timothy 2:8-10). Organization
The basic governmental structure of the UPCI is congregational. Local churches are autonomous, electing their own pastors and other leaders, owning their own property, deciding their own budgets, establishing their membership, and conducting all necessary local business.[26] The central organization embraces a modified presbyterian system: ministers meet in sectional, district, and general conferences to elect officers and to conduct the church's affairs. The annual General Conference is the highest authority in the UPCI, with power to determine articles of faith, elect officers and determine policy. A General Superintendent is elected to preside over the church as a whole. On October 1, 2009, David K. Bernard was announced as the new General Superintendent.[27]
According to the UPCI, in the United States and Canada it has grown from 521 member churches in 1945 to 4,822 churches (including daughter works and preaching points) 10,367 ministers, and 750,000 constituents in the United States and Canada
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in 2018. Outside the U.S. and Canada it has 34,779 churches and preaching points, 25,292 licensed ministers, 970 missionaries, and a constituency of 3.25 million in 188 nations and 35 territories. The international fellowship consists of national organizations that are united as the Global Council of the UPCI, which is chaired by the general superintendent of the UPCI, David K. Bernard. Total worldwide membership, including North America, is at 4,000,000 or more.[28]
Ministers at all levels are allowed to marry and have children. Homosexuality is considered contrary to biblical teaching and the UPCI opposes homosexual acts and homosexual marriage just as it opposes unbiblical heterosexual conduct such as adultery and fornication.[29] The UPCI has made it clear, however, that it affirms the worth and dignity of every human being and opposes bigotry and hatred.[30][relevant? – discuss] General Conference
At the annual conference of the United Pentecostal Church International, attendees conduct business, receive training, network with colleagues, participate in worship sessions, and raise funds for various ministries.[31] North American Youth Congress (NAYC)
NAYC is a church gathering primarily for the youth of the UPCI, held every other year since 1979, in various locations around North America.
The latest Congress was held in Lucas Oil Stadium in 2017, in the city of Indianapolis, IN. The meeting was one of the largest to date, with over 34,000 youths attending. This is the first time NAYC has been held in a football stadium. The meeting was given the title "This is That, stylized as THIS THAT. The meeting did not garner much attention from the local news in the city, but the meeting did, however receive a letter from Vice President of the United States of America, Michael Pence, who was also the former governor of Indiana. The letter encouraged the meeting, and assured the congregation that Vice President Pence and President Trump would continue to fight for the continued right of religious expression for Christians.
It was announced at the meeting that the next NAYC meeting will take place at The Dome in St. Louis, Missouri in 2019. Educational institutions
The UPCI operates the only Oneness Pentecostal seminary accredited by the Association of Theological Schools:[32] Urshan Graduate School of Theology was granted the status of Candidate for Accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission in June 2018.[33]
Urshan Graduate School of Theology in Hazelwood, Missouri
The UPCI launched a Christian liberal arts college in Fall of 2012. Urshan College was granted the status of Candidate for Accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission in June 2018.[34]
Urshan College in Florissant, Missouri (formerly known as Gateway College of Evangelism)
In addition, the UPCI endorses several unaccredited bible college type institutions:[35]
Apostolic Bible Institute in St. Paul, Minnesota Centro Teologico Ministerial in Pasadena, Texas Christian Life College in Stockton, California Christian Service Training Institute in San Diego, California (also offering online distance learning as well satellite campuses in California, Georgia, and Florida) Indiana Bible College in Indianapolis, Indiana Northeast Christian College in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada Purpose Institute based in Canton, Ohio (see Campus Directory) Texas Bible College in Lufkin, Texas
See also
Oneness Pentecostalism Nontrinitarianism
Notes and references
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"United Pentecostal Church, Inc". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 December 2011. UPCI. "UPCI | Home". www.upci.org. Retrieved 2018-07-24. UPCI. "UPCI | About the UPCI". www.upci.org. Retrieved 2016-02-09. Bernard, David (1999). A History of Christian Doctrine, Volume Three: The Twentieth Century A.D. 1900–2000. Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press. p. 98. "UPCI | Members". The Family Bible Encyclopedia, 1972 p. 3790 See discussion in Wikisource-logo.svg Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Person". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Definition of the Fourth Lateran Council quoted in Catechism of the Catholic Church, 253 "Frank Sheed, Theology and Sanity". Ignatiusinsight.com. Retrieved 3 November 2013. "Understanding the Trinity". Credoindeum.org. 16 May 2012. Archived from the original on 25 January 2016. Retrieved 3 November 2013. "Baltimore Catechism, No. 1, Lesson 7". Quizlet.com. Retrieved 3 November 2013. Bernard, David K. (2011). The Apostolic Life. Hazelwood, Missouri: Word Aflame Press. p. 99. Bernard, David K. (2011). The Apostolic Life. Hazelwood, Missouri: Word Aflame Press. pp. 99–100. "Our Beliefs". UPCI. United Pentecostal Church International. Retrieved April 20, 2016. See, for instance, Thomas A. Fudge: Christianity Without the Cross: A History of Salvation in Oneness Pentecotalism. Universal Publishers, 2003. See under headings "Repentance and Emotion" and "Relationship to Water and Spirit Baptism" in Bernard, David K. See under heading "Contrition for Sin" in Bernard, David K. See under heading "The Source of Repentance" in Bernard, David K. See under heading "Relationship to Water and Spirit Baptism" in Bernard, David K. "Except Ye Repent". United Pentecostal Church International. Retrieved 2006-06-21. See Chapter 7, "Baptismal Formula: In the Name of Jesus", in Bernard, David K. See under heading "Speaking in Tongues Defined" in Bernard, David K. See under heading "After the Baptism of the Spirit" in Bernard, David K. See Essential Doctrines of the Bible, "New Testament Salvation", subheading "Salvation by grace through faith", Word Aflame Press, 1979. See An Overview of Basic Doctrines, Section IV "Holiness and Christian Living," Word Aflame Press, 1979. Contains numerous scriptural references for specific UPCI standards. Retrieved on 17 July 2008. "gc2009 - News". www.unitedpentecostal.net. Retrieved 2016-09-30. Jack Zavada. "United Pentecostal Church International". About.com Religion & Spirituality. Retrieved 5 March 2015. "Homosexuality". United Pentecostal Church. Archived from the original on 16 October 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2013. "RESPONSE TO SUPREME COURT DECISION REDEFINING MARRIAGE". United Pentecostal Church International. Retrieved 7/24/18. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) UPCI General Conference http://www.upcigc.com/. Retrieved 7/24/18. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help) "ATS - Member Schools". Archived from the original on 9 June 2008. "Accreditation Information". Higher Learning Commission. Retrieved 7/24/18. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) "Accreditation Information". Higher Learning Commission. Retrieved 7/24/18. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
"Bible College". edu.upci.org. Retrieved 2016-09-30.
Further reading
Bernard, David. The New Birth. Bernard, David. The Oneness of God. French, Talmadge. Our God is One. Norris, David S. I AM: A Oneness Pentecostal Theology.
External links
Official website of the United Pentecostal Church in America Official website of the United Pentecostal Church in Australia
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Official website of the United Pentecostal Church in Belgium Official website of the United Pentecostal Church in Canada Official website of the United Pentecostal Church in France Official website of the United Pentecostal Church in Great Britain and Ireland Official website of the United Pentecostal Church in India Official website of the United Pentecostal Church in New Zealand Official website of the United Pentecostal Church in Peru - Radiante Official website of the United Pentecostal Church in Peru Official website of the United Pentecostal Church in the Philippines Official website for Ministers of the United Pentecostal Church United Pentecostal Church International Directory of Churches
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Oneness Pentecostalism Denominations
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People
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Other Pages of Interest
Baptism in Jesus name Oneness Christology Pentecostalism
Categories:
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The United Pentecostal Church and the Movie Borat bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
http://www.spiritualabuse.org/issues/borat.html
The UPCI and the Movie Borat
Borat at UPC camp meeting Borat at UPC camp meeting Borat at UPC camp meeting
The United Pentecostal Church, an organization that preaches against movies, has found itself on the big screen, much to the dismay of some. They were fooled by the film makers when Hollywood came to one of their meetings.
In November 2006, 20th Century Fox released the movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." It has created a stir among the United Pentecostal Churches due to a section of the film that features Borat at a UPCI camp meeting service in Mississippi. Camp attendees attempt to pray Borat through to the Holy Ghost in the film (for those unaware, that means they expect him to speak in tongues as they consider that the evidence of having received the Holy Ghost).
UPC evangelist Greg Godwin and UPC minister Jason Dillon are featured in the film. Godwin is ordained and Dillon is general licensed, with Godwin based in Texas and Dillon in Mississippi.
Borat enters the service, already in progress. It has been shared that it is Timothy Spell who is leading worship when Borat enters the meeting. The film shows scenes of people dancing, running, jumping up and down, raising their hands and worshipping. Clips of politicians addressing the people are shown (Charles "Chip" Pickering and Jim Smith). Then comes the preaching of Greg Godwin.
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Interspersed are scenes of Borat observing and one where Jason Dillon, Jerry Dillon's son, is speaking in tongues while Borat is standing next to him. (It has been alleged that it was Jason Dillon and Greg Godwin that signed the waivers to allow the filming.) The preaching continues, ending with the usual call to the altar. Jason walks with Borat to the front where Greg Godwin introduces him to the audience and allows Borat to speak. There are shots of the audience while Borat and Godwin have their conversation.
It is Greg Godwin who speaks directly with Borat, assuring him that Jesus loves him and others, and attempts to pray him through to the Holy Ghost. Borat asks, "Is there anyone who can help me?" When he asks, "Can Jesus heal the pain that is in my heart?" the people explode with enthusiasm. Godwin tells Borat to raise his hands and proceeds to pray with him. He can be heard to say, "God forgive me of my sins. Forgive me God; cleanse me." You can hear Borat say "cleanse me" several times. Godwin continues, "Let that tongue go. Here it comes. You're going to speak in tongues. Let it go." He presses his hand on Borat's head as he prays, a normal happening in the UPC, and proceeds to speak in tongues while expecting Borat to also speak in tongues. Borat fakes this and soon ends up on the floor.
This scene, other than the faking of tongues, is something that regularly happens in UPC and other Pentecostal churches. Often people have hands placed on their head and/or back/shoulders and sometimes with force placed on the head. Their arms are often held up in the air. What I saw in the clips of the film, it does accurately reflect things that happen in UPC services.
Echoing the thoughts of some other church members, one female poster on the Good News Cafe, an apostolic discussion board, had the following to say about the film. [The site has closed since our original posting.] "I explained that, while Sacha Baron Cohen's (Borat) foray into a house of worship to serve his own comedic purposes "crossed the line" and should not have happened in any faith's place of worship, the most troubling thing to me was the complete absence of an important Gift of the Spirit: that would be "discerning of spirits." ...How could it be that one of the UPCI's premier, very much in demand evangelists (Godwin) and another strong very conservative voice (Dillon) in one of its "districts" be so incredibly clueless as to who was among them? None of those "big-timers" could even tell that "Borat" wasn't even authentically speaking in tongues!"
The movie is descibed on Yahoo as: "Borat Sagdiyev, Kazakhstan's sixth most famous man and a leading journalist from the State run TV network, travels from his home in Kazakhstan to the U.S. to make a documentary. On his cross-country road-trip, Borat meets real people in real situations with hysterical consequences." Of course, this is not a true documentary and is a comedy film that carries an R rating "for pervasive strong crude and sexual content including graphic nudity, and language." Click here to go to the Yahoo page. [The original page linked to is no longer in operation, so we have provided a different archived link.]
There has been an inside struggle in the UPC in recent years to allow its licensed ministers to advertise and broadcast services on television. A great divide exists among the ministers, with some threatening to leave should this ever be permitted. The portrayal of the UPC in Borat has caused some additional discussion in this area, with a call for people in favor of the change to reconsider.
The United Pentecostal Church has taken a stand against its members watching movies made by Hollywood, as well as television shows. (See their Articles of Faith and their positions on technology as well as videos for further information.) Ministers are regularly required to affirm that they believe and embrace these teachings and that they will practice and teach them.
This creates a difficulty for some members as they have become curious as to their portrayal in this film. Despite the reason for the R rating, some UPC members have already seen it, others intend to, and still others will never watch in keeping with UPC teachings and due to the nature of the film.
Above is a YouTube video of part of the movie. This is just the audio of the UPC related portion of the film. A poor video quality may be found here.
Below are some responses from UPC members as well as others. The discussion boards are two apostolic debate boards. Note that the one from the GNC goes off track for many posts but does later return to the subject.
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A response from Scott Phillips, UPC ordained minister in Mississippi, on YouTube.
Another response from Scott Phillips, UPC ordained minister in Mississippi, on YouTube.
UPC on Borat? from the Where You Can Find Me blog on blogspot. (Link removed at owner's request on Jan. 4, 2013.)
Borat & Me posted by Kent on the Collideoscope blog.
A response from Ren Rutledge, general licensed UPC licensed minister in Connecticut.
More From Borat posted by Denelle Burns on the Collideoscope blog.
http://www.everyonesconnected.com/News/Item.aspx?ID=310499&Newspaper=10&Comment=0 - Everyones Connected discussion of the movie. (Many apostolics participate on Everyones Connected, though it is not an apostolic site.) Please be forewarned of some language. [NOTE: This site is no longer in operation.]
Borat and the Pentecostals: God Always Gets the Last Laugh by Scott Phillips, UPC ordained minister in Mississippi.
http://www.goodnewscafe.net/showthread.php?t=9493 - Good News Cafe debate. [Site has since closed.]
Will Greg Godwin or any of the others involved come out with a public statement? Only time will tell....
Page Added November 12, 2006 - Updated April 11, 2016
Understanding The Seven Basic Plots bob, 12 January 2019 (created 12 January 2019)
https://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/seven-basic-plots.html
A comparison of Christopher Booker's theories of story with Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley's theory of Dramatica.
Christopher Booker's book, The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories, is an academic investigation into the nature and structure of stories. As a fan of Dramatica, which I believe is the most complete and open-ended theory of story structure, I was naturally interested in seeing how Booker's theories compared, and whether Booker offers any additional insights which may be of practical use to writers.
Because this is a lengthy work (roughly 700 pages), it may take me more than one article to discuss the theories it presents. So please consider what follows as an initial overview. I will add more detailed analyses of aspects of the book in other articles (which will link from this page) at a later date.
However, lets begin with the part of the book of most interest to writers...
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As you can guess from the title, The Seven Basic Plots argues that there are seven basic plots that writers have used throughout history, and that these have certain similar structural features.
Normally, I resist approaches like this that try to reduce the universe of stories down to a handful of types. It's not that I disagree with the conclusions these approaches reach. Undeniably, good stories share many common structural features. What I dislike is how reductionist approaches tend to leave one with the impression that all stories are more or less the same. It may be useful from the perspective of literary criticism, to develop a broad understanding of how literature works and its role in human culture. But from a writer's point of view, making stories appear “all the same” makes them less interesting. Drama, excitement, and emotional engagement come from differences, from stories that seem new and unique.
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Reductionist approaches also deliver the message that a writer has almost no hope of creating an original plot. That is not a particularly useful perspective for a writer who is trying to develop a new and exciting story idea.
I don't believe writers approach their craft with the desire to write the same stories over and over again, nor to write the same stories that have been written a thousand times before by other writers. One of the reasons I like Dramatica is that, while it fully describes the structure of stories, it does not limit possibilities. Following the rules of Dramatica, writers can create an almost infinite variety of stories (over 32,000 in its current form, and potentially four times as many).
Nonetheless, when you are struggling with a story, it can be helpful to look at the well-worn paths created by successful authors, because it can help you avoid most of the pitfalls you could stumble into otherwise. And, to be fair, Booker's theories are not quite as limiting as his title suggests for the following reasons...
A. Despite calling the book, The Seven Basic Plots, Booker actually identifies nine basic plots. These are...
Overcoming the Monster: in which the hero must venture to the lair of a monster which is threatening the community, destroy it, and escape (often with a treasure). Rags to Riches: in which someone who seems quite commonplace or downtrodden but has the potential for greatness manages to fulfill that potential. The Quest: in which the hero embarks on a journey to obtain a great prize that is located far away. Voyage and Return: in which the hero journeys to a strange world that at first is enchanting and then so threatening the hero finds he must escape and return home to safety. Comedy: in which a community divided by frustration, selfishness, bitterness, confusion, lack of self-knowledge, lies, etc. must be reunited in love and harmony (often symbolized by marriage). Tragedy: in which a character falls from prosperity to destruction because of a fatal mistake. Rebirth: in which a dark power or villain traps the hero in a living death until he/she is freed by another character's loving act. Rebellion Against 'The One': in which the hero rebels against the all-powerful entity that controls the world until he is forced to surrender to that power. Mystery: In which an outsider to some horrendous event (such as a murder) tries to discover the truth of what happened.
The last two plots are only discussed late in the book because, as Booker explains, they were quite rare for most of history. Today, of course, Mystery plots have become quite popular. Rebellion Against 'The One' is still less common, but I would argue that some great science fiction stories are based on it – especially versions where the hero wins against the overwhelming power of society (e.g. The Prisoner, The Matrix).
Booker does make it clear that he has much more respect for the first seven basic plots than the last two. Nonetheless, I think it's a little snobbish to say that Mystery stories are somehow inferior to Overcoming the Monster.
B. Booker acknowledges that each of the seven basic plots comes in several variations, including dark (or less satisfying) versions, depending on which characters represent the forces of light and dark, how the story ends, the amount of realism, etc. For instance, Overcoming the Monster has a number of variations including...
Western (town threatened by outlaws) Melodrama (hero threatened by scheming villain) Thrillers (world threatened by madman) War stories (world threatened by Nazis or equivalent) Science Fiction (world threatened by aliens or a man-made threat/monster) Sympathetic Monster (e.g. King Kong)
C. Booker acknowledges that many stories incorporate elements taken from more than one of the seven basic plots, allowing for additional variations. However, unlike with Dramatica, Booker does not suggest rules that would determine whether a particular combination of elements will create a satisfying story. (Rather, he seems to believe that only the “light” or archetypal versions of the seven basic plots are truly satisfying.)
The Basic Pattern to the Seven Basic Plots
Booker describes almost all of the seven basic plots in terms of five stages. In this, he echoes Aristotle, Freytag, and Shakespeare, though, like most theorists, he assigns his own set of labels to the stages.
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Booker's five stages are...
Anticipation: in which the initial setting is established and reader is introduced to the hero/heroine, who is somehow constricted or unfulfilled. Dream: in which the hero embarks on the road toward a possible resolution and experiences some initial success. Frustration: in which the hero's limitations and the strength of the forces against him become more obvious, make attaining the resolution seem increasingly difficult. Nightmare: in which a final ordeal takes place that determines the resolution. Miraculous Escape/Redemption/Achievement of the Prize or (in the case of Tragedy) the Hero's Destruction. Booker uses various terms for this stage, depending on the basic plot. But in all cases, this stage is some sort of Resolution.
For a more detailed description of Booker's seven basic plots (including the other two) click here. Comparison to Other Story Models
Though it is tempting to say that Booker's seven basic plots follow a five-act structure, my own feeling is that this is a mistake.
For one thing, calling it a five-act structure would make Booker's model difficult to reconcile with other story models, such as Dramatica which describes plots in terms of four acts. I've pointed out elsewhere that the W-Plot is actually a four-act structure, even though many people mistakenly call it a three-act structure. I think Booker makes a similar error. After all, each of these story models describes the same universal pattern found in successful stories. So they should all coincide.
There are two other reasons why I think Booker makes a mistake when he describes the seven basic plots in terms of a 5-stage structure.
First, Booker frequently mentions “The Call” as an important part of story structure. The Call is an event that occurs early in the story and makes the Hero aware of the possible resolution or prize and which sets the Hero on the road to achieving it. Even though Booker regards The Call as important and distinct enough to be named as a separate part of the structure, he doesn't consider it one of the stages. Instead, he attaches it to either the start or the end of the Anticipation stage, depending on which of the seven basic plots is being followed.
Second, while Booker's first four stages are described as longer sections of story which may be composed of many events, the fifth stage, the Resolution, is different. Like The Call, the Resolution is more like a single event that marks the final change in the story world (or what Dramatica would call the Outcome of the story).
So why are The Call and the Resolution single events, while the other parts are more like sequences of events? And why is one considered a stage and the other not? Here's what I think is going on...
The Dramatica model and others (such as the W-Plot) divide stories into four stages. Each stage begins and ends with a key event which Dramatica calls a Driver. Other terms for these key events are Turning Points (ala Michael Hague), or Trigger Events (ala the W-Plot). Regardless the term, each of these events are changes that send the story off in a new direction (except for the final one, which marks the end of the story).
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I believe that what Booker refers to as The Call is what other models call the First or Second Driver (depending on whether it comes at the beginning or end of the Anticipation stage). Similarly, Booker's fifth stage appears to be what others call the Fifth or Final Driver.
Booker doesn't refer specifically to the other three drivers, but then neither do most literary critics, probably because these drivers don't stand out as much from a reader's perspective (though they are quite important from a story writer's perspective).
In the following chart, I've tried to reconcile the terms used by Booker, Dramatica, Michael Hague, and the W-Plot users. I've also included some alternate terms for some of these stages and events. As you can see, these models all describe the same basic parts of a story, just using different words.
Comparison of Story Structure Models
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Based on this comparison, I think we can say that Booker's seven basic plots actually follow the same four-act structure described in Dramatica. Story Goals
One of the core concepts in Dramatica is that all stories represent an attempt to solve a problem or rebalance an inequity. Hence, the overall throughline of every story revolves around a Story Goal (the thing the protagonist is trying to achieve that involves or affects most of the other characters). Dramatica allows for an infinite number of possible goals, grouped into 16 categories.
Separate but connected to the overall throughline is the main character throughline, in which the main character faces an inner conflict, a dilemma of whether or not to change. How this conflict is resolved determines whether the Story Goal is achieved.
Booker, on the other hand, believes there is only one universal goal of a good story: the downfall of the ego and reconnection with the true Self. Or, to put it another way, the story problem is always about an imbalance between the masculine and feminine principles. The masculine principle has become dominant to the point that it threatens the world, and the solution must be to rebalance things so that the feminine principle carries equal weight. This change must be internal as well as external. The hero (or more rarely heroine) must change – must recover and integrate the feminine part of himself. Most of Booker's basic plots end happily because this change occurs. Tragedy ends unhappily because it doesn't.
Booker argues that many variations on the seven basic plots are unsatisfying because they do not fulfill the basic goal of recovering the feminine principle. But is this really fair? Many of the stories Booker uses as examples of bad storytelling have been exceedingly popular (Star Wars, for example). Certainly, readers and audiences have found them emotionally satisfying and enjoyable. It seems rather unfair to say they are categorically unsatisfying. Should writers really abandon all variations on Booker's seven basic plots?
Let's look a little more closely at the terms feminine and masculine and see if Dramatica can shed some light on what's going on. Feminine and Masculine Values
Booker describes masculine values as:
1) power or strength (whether physical or in terms of personality)
2) order (as in hierarchy, discipline, and justice under the law)
The feminine values, he describes as:
1) Selfless feeling
2) Intuitive understanding (“the ability to see whole, making for connection, the healing of division, and life”)
Dramatica similarly says that main characters can be either holistic (feminine) or linear (masculine) thinkers. Most male characters (and most men) are linear thinkers and most female characters (and most women) are holistic thinkers.
Where the theories differ is that, for Booker, female characters almost always embody the feminine principle and male main characters always suffer from a lack of feminine values.
Dramatica, however, is a little more flexible. It allows that some male characters are holistic thinkers, and some female characters are linear thinkers (an example would be Agents Sculley and Mulder from The X-Files). In fact, earlier versions of Dramatica assigned characters a male or female “mental sex” or brain gender, which could be opposite to their physical gender.
Dramatica gives writers more options to play with. For instance, you can create a male hero who is a holistic thinker. Such a character would hardly need to recover his feminine side to achieve the Story Goal. Rather, his success might depend on his adopting more masculine values.
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On the other hand, a female heroine might be a linear thinker who can only achieve the goal by adopting more a more holistic outlook or feminine values.
(In fact, the conflict between the holistic and linear ways of thinking often play out in the relationship between the main and impact characters. If one is holistic, the other tends to be linear, and vice versa. The impact character is a concept unique to Dramatica, but Booker comes close to it when he observes that male characters are often saved by union with a female, and vice versa.)
Dramatica also allows for the possibility that main characters don't always need to change. In some stories, staying steadfast is the choice that will let the hero or heroine achieve the Story Goal. The fact that neither the hero nor the audience can be certain what the right choice is makes stories less predictable, and therefore more engaging.
Booker doesn't seem to allow for steadfast heroes.
Archetypal Characters
In addition to the seven basic plots, Booker describes a number of archetypal characters. Some of these will be familiar to everyone, such as hero and heroine. Some are similar to archetypal characters found in Dramatica. For instance, Booker's Wise Old Man and Anima characters are male and female versions of what Dramatica calls the Guardian. Similarly, Booker's Tempter and Trickster are good and evil versions of what Dramatica calls the Contagonist.
The difference I notice is that Booker interprets stories from a psychoanalytic perspective in which many characters symbolize fathers, mothers, and siblings. For this reason, many of his archetypes have definite genders associated with them.
Dramatica, on the other hand, allows any character to take on any of the archetypal roles. Unlike Booker's Wise Old Man, Dramatica's Guardian doesn't have to be old or male. The Guardian role could be played by a child, a young woman, an animal, a computer, or any other sentient being.
It may seem that I am being rather dismissive of Booker, but that would be unfair. Booker did not write The Seven Basic Plots for the benefit of writers but as a work of literary scholarship, particularly for those interested in psychoanalytic theory. Booker has obviously spent much time struggling to uncover patterns in literature, and his book provides a vast survey of the history of storytelling. There is certainly something to be learned from his description of the seven basic plots (or nine, or ...) and the archetypal characters he describes. And in future articles, I plan to examine these in more detail.
However, as a practical theory for writers, I feel that Dramatica puts fewer limits on a writer's imagination and allows a greater variety of dramatically sound plots and characters. It is also more suited for today's culture, which is becoming increasingly liberated from sexual stereotypes.
Create your main characters. Usually there is a main good guy (protagonist) and a main bad guy (antagonist). There are several ways to do this. One way could be to draw rough sketches of them. Another could be to write up a list of questions (name? age? pastimes? fetishes? flaws? temptation?) and answer them for each character. Or just start writing and take them raw. Make sure that these characters are believable and natural.
* Don’t make your protagonist perfect. If your protagonist is perfectly flawless, your readers will have no way to connect to him or her. After all, nobody’s perfect. For the protagonist character development is very important. These are scenes that tell the reader something more about the character. This will help the readers feel more strongly about him or her.
* Same applies to the antagonist, they shouldn't be all bad. If they have no good or human qualities, your readers will have no way to connect, and they will seem wooden.
4.
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Create your other characters. Don’t make the mistake of thinking secondary characters are unimportant. They will inhabit the back drop of the novel and must help bring the place alive. These characters should be explored but remember that they should not get in the way of the protagonist.
5.
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Start writing. There are several common approaches to writing:
* Begin with the ending in mind. Meaning, of course, you set the outcome of the story in your head, and work toward it. If you know the ending of the story, it can help you form the theme, the plot, the settings, the characters, and it can help you progress more easily toward that ending.
Dixie Highway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dixie Highway was a United States automobile highway , first planned in 1914 to connect the US Midwest with the Southern United States . It was part of the National Auto Trail system, and grew out of an earlier Miami to Montreal highway. The final result is better understood as a network of connected paved roads, rather than one single highway. It was constructed and expanded from 1915 to 1927.
The Dixie Highway was inspired by the example of the slightly earlier Lincoln Highway , the first road across the United States . The prime booster of both projects was promoter and businessman Carl G. Fisher . It was overseen by the Dixie Highway Association, and funded by a group of individuals, businesses, local governments, and states. In the early years the U.S. federal government played little role, but from the early 1920s on it provided increasing funding, until 1927 when the Dixie Highway Association was disbanded and the highway was taken over as part of the U.S. Route system, with some portions becoming state roads.
The route was marked by a red stripe with the white letters "DH", usually with a white stripe above and below. The logo was commonly painted on utility poles .
History[edit source | editbeta ]
Monuments like this, and even arches over the roadway, were put up by counties as they built sections of highways including the Dixie Highway.
The Dixie Highway, an idea of Carl G. Fisher of the Lincoln Highway Association , was organized in early December 1914 in Chattanooga .[1] On April 3, 1915, governors of the interested states met at Chattanooga, and each selected two commissioners to lay out the route from Chicago to Miami .[2] On May 22, 1915, the commission decided on a split route in order to serve more communities. The route left Chicago to the south via Danville, Illinois and turned east to Indianapolis , where it split. The west branch headed south through Tennessee via Louisville and Nashville to Chattanooga, Tennessee , while the east route went east from Indianapolis to Dayton, Ohio before turning south via Cincinnati ; Lexington, Kentucky ; and Knoxville, Tennessee ; to Chattanooga. Two alternate routes were included between Chattanooga and Atlanta , and again between Atlanta and Macon, Georgia . Finally, between Macon and Jacksonville, Florida , the west route went south to Tallahassee, Florida before turning east, while the east route had yet to be defined in detail. From Jacksonville, the route followed the east coast south to Miami along the John Anderson Highway. The commission voted to invite Michigan and to extend a branch of the east route from Dayton north to Detroit via Toledo , as well as to study a loop around Lake Michigan and a western route between Tallahassee and Miami.[3][4][5]
Within a week, Michigan agreed to construct a loop around the Lower Peninsula , passing via South Bend , Mackinaw City , Detroit , and Toledo .[6] Detroit became the northern end of the eastern division, with the old route to Indianapolis becoming a connecting link.[4] In early April 1916, the commission approved the route between Macon and Jacksonville via Savannah, Georgia , and designated the more direct route via Waycross, Georgia as the central division.[7] At the urging of locals,[8] the eastern division was realigned to a more direct path northwest from Milledgeville, Georgia to Atlanta over the "Old Capitol Route", bypassing Macon, and the old eastern division via McDonough , Jackson , and Macon was removed from the system in early July 1916.[9] By early 1917, the western division had been modified in Florida to go southeast from Tallahassee via Kissimmee and Bartow to the eastern division at Jupiter ;[10] the old Tallahassee–Jacksonville route became another connection.[4] The Carolina division, connecting to the eastern division at Knoxville, Tennessee and Waynesboro, Georgia , was approved in mid-May 1918.[11] By mid-1919, a short piece on Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan became part of the eastern division of the highway, which was extended north from Detroit to Mackinaw City and across the Straits of Mackinac [12]
Routes[edit source | editbeta ]
For local details about the routes, see the individual articles linked.
The Western route connected Chicago, Illinois and Miami, Florida via Danville in Illinois ; Indianapolis and Bedford in Indiana ; Louisville , Elizabethtown , and Bowling Green in Kentucky ; Nashville and Chattanooga in Tennessee ; Atlanta , Macon , and Albany in Georgia ; and Tallahassee , Gainesville , Orlando , Arcadia , and Naples in Florida .
Except for realignments made since the 1920s, the western route is now Illinois Route 1 and U.S. Route 136 to Indianapolis, Indiana State Road 37 and U.S. Route 150 to Louisville, U.S. Route 31W , U.S. Route 68 , and U.S. Route 431 to Nashville, and U.S. Route 41 , U.S. Route 231 , U.S. Route 41A , and U.S. Route 41 to Chattanooga. At Chattanooga, the western and eastern routes intersected; the western took a longer route along U.S. Route 27 to Rome and then returned to U.S. Route 41 at Cartersville via U.S. Route 411 . At Atlanta, the eastern route split off toward Madison, Ga., with the western continuing to Macon along the present U.S. Route 41; then Georgia State Route 49 , U.S. Route 19 , and U.S. Route 319 to Tallahassee; U.S. Route 27 and U.S. Route 441 to Orlando; and U.S. Route 17 and U.S. Route 41 (over the Tamiami Trail ) to Miami.
The Eastern route connected Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan with Miami, Florida, running via Saginaw and Detroit in Michigan ; Toledo , Bowling Green (Ohio) , Dayton , and Cincinnati in Ohio ; Lexington in Kentucky ; Knoxville and Chattanooga in Tennessee ; Atlanta and Savannah in Georgia ; and Jacksonville and West Palm Beach in Florida .
In Michigan's Upper Peninsula , the highway follows MI 129 from Sault Ste. Marie to Pickford and then west to follow a short portion of former U.S. Route 2 , replaced by the Mackinaw Trail . It crossed the Straits of Mackinac and then used U.S. Route 23 and old U.S. Route 10 to Detroit. Currently it still exists in Michigan as the name of a secondary road from Saginaw southeast to the county line (as an alternate route to Flint ), from southeast Flint to northwest Pontiac , and from Flat Rock southwest to Monroe ending at the state line. A short section of the Dixie Highway in northwest lower Michigan running north from Eastport in Antrim County to the village of Norwood in Charlevoix County is named Old Dixie Highway--U.S. Route 31 parallels this road to the east. In Ohio, it is old U.S. Route 25 (now designated as OH Route 25 ) to Cincinnati, current U.S. Route 25 and U.S. Route 25W to Knoxville, and U.S. Route 70 and U.S. Route 27 to Chattanooga. The eastern division took a more direct route than the western between Chattanooga and Atlanta, following U.S. Route 41 all the way, but it followed a more circuitous path south of Atlanta. Traffic left Atlanta to the east on U.S. Route 278 , following U.S. Route 441 , Georgia State Route 24 , a short section of U.S. Route 301 , and Georgia State Route 21 to Savannah. There, the route turned south along the coast via U.S. Route 17 to Jacksonville and U.S. Route 1 to Miami.
The Central route was a short cutoff between the western division at Macon, Georgia and the eastern at Jacksonville, Florida , forming a shorter route to Miami than the western on its own; it followed U.S. Route 41 , U.S. Route 341 , U.S. Route 129 , Georgia State Route 32 , and U.S. Route 1 .
The Carolina route cut the distance between Knoxville and Waynesboro, Ga. on the eastern route. It is now U.S. Route 25W and U.S. Route 25 , and passes through Asheville , Greenville , and Augusta on its way to the eastern route and Savannah .
After the U.S. Highway System[edit source | editbeta ]
Much of the eastern route---and all the Carolina route---became U.S. Highway 25 . Then the primary eastern route (Knoxville to Macon) was largely paralleled and in some sections replaced by Interstate 75 , which runs from Miami, Florida , to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan . A large portion of the former US 25 in western Ohio ultimately ended up in 1963 (after Interstate 75's completion in that area) as County Highway 25-A. A four-lane portion runs through Bowling Green between Cygnet and Toledo as Ohio State Route 25 . In Michigan, M-25 from Port Huron to Bay City incorporates the segment of old US 25 that Interstates 75 and 94 did not supplant as a through route. The eastern portion from Jacksonville, Florida south was largely replaced with U.S. Route 1 .
The portion of the western route from Nashville, Tennessee north to Louisville, Kentucky is now U.S. Highway 31W . In most of the cities it traverses in Kentucky, it is still referred to as "Dixie Highway" or "Dixie Avenue". The western route generally follows the present-day route of U.S. Highway 31 from Louisville to Indianapolis. From Nashville to Indianapolis, the route parallels Interstate 65 . Portions of this stretch were originally parts of the Louisville and Nashville Turnpike , which began construction in the 1830s.
The name "Dixie Highway" persists in various locations along its route where the main flow of long-distance traffic has been rerouted to more modern highways and the old Dixie Highway remains as a local road. In some south Florida cities, Dixie Highway (or sometimes Old Dixie Highway) parallels "Federal Highway" (U.S. Route 1 ), sometimes just a block away. In Tennessee, the name lives on in Dixie Lee Junction (where Dixie Highway and Lee Highway intersected). In Western North Carolina, seven bronze plaques on granite pillars placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in the late 1920s mark the route of the Dixie Highway (and honor General Robert E. Lee); these markers can be found in the towns of Hot Springs, Marshall, Asheville, Fletcher, and Hendersonville, and on the SC and TN state lines; today it follows US 25; an eighth monument of identical type can be found on US 25 in downtown Greenville, South Carolina . Two additional monuments can be found in Franklin, Ohio at the intersection of the Old Dixie Highway and Hamilton-Middletown Road, and near Bradfordville, Florida on US 319. The name Dixie Highway is also still commonly used in portions of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, such as in the Waterford MI area, where it is very much a major thoroughfare known as US 24 .
In some cities and towns, Dixie Highway is the north–south axis of the street numbering system. The extension of development westward means that the northwest and southwest quadrants of the grid defined in this manner are generally much larger than the northeast and southeast ones which are constrained by the Atlantic Ocean . Also, the route of Dixie Highway generally parallels the coast, often running diagonally instead of straight north and south, causing irregularities in the numbering system.
The Dixie Highway-Hastings, Espanola and Bunnell Road (also known as County Road 13 or the Old Brick Road) is a historic section of Old Dixie Highway in Florida. It is located roughly between Espanola (in Flagler County ) and CR 204 southeast of Hastings near Flagler Estates (in St. Johns County ). This is one of the few extant portions of the original brick Dixie Highway left in Florida. On April 20, 2005, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places .
There is also a small section of the original brick Dixie Highway, and a monument marking the county line, near Loughman, Florida on the Osceola County /Polk County border.
See also[edit source | editbeta ]
References[edit source | editbeta ]
^ "Dixie Highway Organized". Atlanta Constitution . December 4, 1914.[page needed ]
^ "Will Meet May 20 in Chattanooga to Pick Highway". Atlanta Constitution. April 24, 1915.[page needed ]
^ "Agrees to Split Dixie Highway". Indianapolis Star . May 23, 1915.[page needed ]
^ a b c Richardson, James D., ed. (1917). A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Prepared Under the Direction of the Joint Committee on Printing, of the House and the Senate ... (With Additions and Encyclopedic Index by Private Enterprise) . New York: Bureau of National Literature . OCLC 1071871 . Unknown parameter |oage= ignored (help)
^ Hoskins, C.H. (1918). "Dixie Highway" . In O'Shea, M. V.; Foster, Ellsworth D.; Locke, George Herbert. The World Book: Organized Knowledge in Story and Picture 3. Chicago: Hanson-Roach-Fowler Co. pp. 1823–4. OCLC 16737279 .
^ "Peninsular Loop is Agreed Upon". Atlanta Constitution. May 31, 1915.[page needed ]
^ "Wonderful Progress in Road Construction Shown by Two Auto Tours". Atlanta Constitution. April 2, 1916.[page needed ]
^ "Urge Old Capitol Route". Atlanta Constitution. April 18, 1916.[page needed ]
^ "Highway Directors Bar Eastern Route Atlanta to Macon". Atlanta Constitution. July 2, 1916.[page needed ]
^ Newark Advocate . February 13, 1917.[full citation needed]
^ "Include New Link in Dixie Highway". Atlanta Constitution. May 17, 1918.[page needed ]
^ "System of Roads Urged by Hoosier State Automobile Association". Fort Wayne News and Sentinel . August 27, 1919. p. 6. OCLC 11658858 .
^ "National Register Information System" . National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service . July 9, 2010.
External links[edit source | editbeta ]
[img[https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41QZuQ2h2WL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg]]
[['Educated' should be read with grain of salt, says family's attorney]]
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Editors' #1 Pick for the Best Book of 2018: Tara Westover wasn’t your garden variety college student. When the Holocaust was mentioned in a history class, she didn’t know what it was (no, really). That’s because she didn’t see the inside of a classroom until the age of seventeen. Public education was one of the many things her religious fanatic father was dubious of, believing it a means for the government to brainwash its gullible citizens, and her mother wasn’t diligent on the homeschooling front. If it wasn’t for a brother who managed to extricate himself from their isolated—and often dangerous--world, Westover might still be in rural Idaho, trying to survive her survivalist upbringing. It’s a miraculous story she tells in her memoir Educated. For those of us who took our educations for granted, who occasionally fell asleep in large lecture halls (and inconveniently small ones), it’s hard to grasp the level of grit—not to mention intellect—required to pull off what Westover did. But eventually earning a PhD from Cambridge University may have been the easy part, at least compared to what she had to sacrifice to attain it. The courage it took to make that sacrifice was the truest indicator of how far she’d come, and how much she’d learned. Educated is an inspiring reminder that knowledge is, indeed, power. --Erin Kodicek, Amazon Book Review
Review
“A coming-of-age memoir reminiscent of The Glass Castle.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“Beautiful and propulsive . . . [Tara Westover’s] voice is so sui generis it feels in debt to no one. . . . And despite the singularity of her childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?”—Vogue
“An amazing story, and truly inspiring. The kind of book everyone will enjoy. It’s even better than you’ve heard.”—Bill Gates
“Heart-wrenching . . . a beautiful testament to the power of education to open eyes and change lives.”—Amy Chua, The New York Times Book Review
“Westover is a keen and honest guide to the difficulties of filial love, and to the enchantment of embracing a life of the mind.”—The New Yorker
“Westover’s one-of-a-kind memoir is about the shaping of a mind. . . . In briskly paced prose, she evokes a childhood that completely defined her. Yet it was also, she gradually sensed, deforming her.”—The Atlantic
“If [J. D.] Vance’s memoir offered street-heroin-grade drama, [Tara] Westover’s is carfentanil, the stuff that tranquilizes elephants. The extremity of Westover’s upbringing emerges gradually through her telling, which only makes the telling more alluring and harrowing. . . . By the end, Westover has somehow managed not only to capture her unsurpassably exceptional upbringing, but to make her current situation seem not so exceptional at all, and resonant for many others.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Tara Westover is living proof that some people are flat-out, boots-always-laced-up indomitable. Her new book, Educated, is a heartbreaking, heartwarming, best-in-years memoir about striding beyond the limitations of birth and environment into a better life. . . . ★★★★ out of four.”—USA Today
“[Educated] left me speechless with wonder. [Westover’s] lyrical prose is mesmerizing, as is her personal story, growing up in a family in which girls were supposed to aspire only to become wives—and in which coveting an education was considered sinful. Her journey will surprise and inspire men and women alike.”—Refinery29
“Riveting . . . Westover brings readers deep into this world, a milieu usually hidden from outsiders. . . . Her story is remarkable, as each extreme anecdote described in tidy prose attests.”—The Economist
“Incredibly thought-provoking . . . so much more than a memoir about a woman who graduated college without a formal education. It is about a woman who must learn how to learn.”—The Harvard Crimson
“A subtle, nuanced study of how dysfunction of any kind can be normalized even within the most conventional family structure, and of the damage such containment can do.”—Financial Times
“Whether narrating scenes of fury and violence or evoking rural landscapes or tortured self-analysis, Westover writes with uncommon intelligence and grace. . . . One of the most improbable and fascinating journeys I’ve read in recent years.”—Newsday
“If [J. D.] Vance’s memoir offered street-heroin-grade drama, [Tara] Westover’s is carfentanil, the stuff that tranquilizes elephants. The extremity of Westover’s upbringing emerges gradually through her telling, which only makes the telling more alluring and harrowing. . . . By the end, Westover has somehow managed not only to capture her unsurpassably exceptional upbringing, but to make her current situation seem not so exceptional at all, and resonant for many others.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Tara Westover is living proof that some people are flat-out, boots-always-laced-up indomitable. Her new book, Educated, is a heartbreaking, heartwarming, best-in-years memoir about striding beyond the limitations of birth and environment into a better life. . . . ★★★★ out of four.”—USA Today
“[Educated] left me speechless with wonder. [Westover’s] lyrical prose is mesmerizing, as is her personal story, growing up in a family in which girls were supposed to aspire only to become wives—and in which coveting an education was considered sinful. Her journey will surprise and inspire men and women alike.”—Refinery29
“Riveting . . . Westover brings readers deep into this world, a milieu usually hidden from outsiders. . . . Her story is remarkable, as each extreme anecdote described in tidy prose attests.”—The Economist
“Incredibly thought-provoking . . . so much more than a memoir about a woman who graduated college without a formal education. It is about a woman who must learn how to learn.”—The Harvard Crimson
“A subtle, nuanced study of how dysfunction of any kind can be normalized even within the most conventional family structure, and of the damage such containment can do.”—Financial Times
“Whether narrating scenes of fury and violence or evoking rural landscapes or tortured self-analysis, Westover writes with uncommon intelligence and grace. . . . One of the most improbable and fascinating journeys I’ve read in recent years.”—Newsday
Read more https://www.amazon.com/dp/product-description/0399590501/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&isInIframe=0
[[ 'Educated' should be read with grain of salt, says family's attorney]]
Because I could not stop for Death Poem Text
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –
Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –
One of the grandsons, Josh, son of the light haired one, tracks Dave 44 years later and says he is dong a project for school and his church. He explains that he is the grandson of Brother Kenny. He says he is research the family and church history. He found Dave through his books and his Dad had told him about the singing trio. He knew that Dave, Kenny, and Hilda had played together as a trio.
Asked for an interview.
They decided to look for Hilda together.
Much easier now with Internet and records on line. They found some possiblities of being in the state hospital in West Va. and in prison in KY.
There were several mysteries in Kentucky of women showing up with no background or history. They were noteworthy because their cases had made the newspaper when they died suddenly and the authorities had tried to find the next of kin. Some articles had artist drawings and some had morgue photos.
The search narrowed down to a happening in Paradise. Paradise, Kentucky.
The probelm was that Paradise did not exist any longer. The town at been dug up and abandoned in 1968. Some fo the residental lived in a nearby town. They had a memorial park there and had a Paradise Memorial Festival everyyear as it had become famous in a song by John Prine.
They decided together and go to the next festival. They would try to question some of the old timers there.
On june 6, 2013, they went to the festival. It had a little village of houses from around the time of the town's demise. The John Prine song played constantly. There were pictures, exhibits, slide shows and story tellers. There was even a lady telling ghost stories.
They listened to the ghost lady. She old of a story of a young woman showing up at the last festival at Paradise. She looked like a gypsy movie star. No one knew why she was there. Was she an etertainer or what? The villiagers did not even get her name. The old women went on with the description. She said the girl was in her early to mid twenties. She had the bluest eyes and long black hair. She was voluptous and a looker. Finally, she described her arms. She had scars all over her arms. It made her skin look like alligator skin. There were hundreds of scars on both arms.She had died that night and later found along side a back road, wrapped in a canvus tent. The old lady said her ghost still haunted the hills around the invisible now.
Dave knew they had found Hilda. Josh had not spoke of the scars and Dave knew about her self tortureous fits. But he had to be sure.
After the camp fire meeting, Dave spoke with the old story teller and told her of his search. She invited Dave and Josh back to her trailer for some coffee.
They sat around the dining room table. After a while the lady remember her collection of old newspapers about Paradise. She went to a backroom and fetched them. She ruffled through them at the table. She found one. She said this is the last issue of the Paradise newspaper. It has a few photos of the party and dance at the Paradise Hotel. She handed the paper to Dave.
Dave saw her instantly. It was her. It was black and white so the red dress did not stand out so the old lady did not even know this was the same girl who was found dead. But the beauty was still there. The black gypsy hair and the flirtaeous eyes. It was her. This is where her story ended.
Dave explains all this to Josh and the lady.
They go to her grave the next day with only a simple flat head stone. It said Unknown White Woman, Early Twenties, Died. July 6, 1968,
Dave looked down and said a short prayer with the trio. At the amen, he looked out on the rolling green hills of the reclaimed land and almost expected to see the spectre of Hilda.
Dave finally closed their impromtu service,
"Hilda is finally in Paradise."
He turns and walks away.
[[Epilogue Notes]]
How will the mysterious Hilda be remembered?
Type the text for '[[Epilogue'
Grandson reads David's last letter to Hilda.
[img[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Visions_of_the_Daughters_of_Albion_copy_G_plate_01.jpg]]
Free love is a social movement that accepts all forms of love. The Free Love movement's initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery. It claimed that such issues were the concern of the people involved, and no one else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_love
Appalachian Trail
45,747 views
The Appalachian Trail is a footpath the runs from Maine to Georgia. The trail is also home to casual sex, cheap drugs, and adventure! Here are some things you will want to know before setting off on a hike.
A View in the Great Smoky Mountains
A Map of the Appalachian Trail - A Long Fucking Way
A page from an AT hikers journal - titled
Just The Facts
2,178 miles long, travels through 14 states, takes about 5 million footsteps to hike the entire trail
Crosses multiple streams and rivers all filled with nubile female hikers washing one another
Offers easy availbilty of marijuana, LSD, mushrooms, and assorted hippy drugs (often for free)
Bulletproof excuse to use while committing adultery
Brief History of the Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian Trail (AT) is the culmination of one mans idea to provide a place for out of work slackers to travel, meet, and congregate in the great outdoors. Benton MacKaye (pronounced like sky) invisioned a ridge top trail running the legnth of the Appalachain Mountains with small villages (hippy communes/hobo camps) along the path that would provide travelers with an exciting drug and alcohol fueled refuge in exchange for backbreaking menial labor.
Benton's dream never came true. He was a dreamer and idea generator unable to make any of his ideas a reality, prefering to lord over lesser peons while spouting inane commands and frequently changing his mind about prevoius dictates. After a short period of rule MacKaye was ousted during a peasent rebellion. He was replaced by Myron Avery, a much more pragmatic man who got shit done. MacKaye died alone in 1952, an unhappy and broken man whose biggest contribution was to take an existing idea and plagarise the hell out of it (and add hippies).
Hippies
The Appalachian Trail Today
The original idea of a footpath through the woods designed for contemplating the majesty of God's creation quickly fell by the wayside. In the early years a few dedicated individuals managed to hike the entirety of the trail in one journey with that idea in mind however, as soon as prospective hikers discovered that "townies" would give them free transportation, free lodging, free food, cheap boobs , and free alcohol and drugs, the idealistic views of the trail went straignt down the shitter.
Today the AT Adventure demographic is comprised of four primary groups:
Day Hkers: People who hike along the AT simply for enjoyment and just to get away from it all. These people generally have no plans for hiking the entire trail.
Thru-Hikers: People who set out to hike the entire trail in one journey. Each year several thousand people set out to hike the whole trail and only a few are successful. There is no realiable method to determine success potential in this group. Professionals, retired persons, Joe Plumber, and hobos have all managed to complete the entire trail. The only similarity amongst successful thru-hikers are masochistic tendencies.
Trail Bums: A group of people that have fallen in love with the trail mythos and are unable to function in normal civilization. Many individuals in this group claim to have hiked the AT multiple times (mostly lying). In reality they are generally worthless individuals unable to contribue to everyday society. They seek solice in a "world" comprised of free rides and minor fame. In order to support their high rolling lifestyle many of the Trail Bum species work at hardware stores and live in shacks during the winter and migrate to the trail in the Spring to take advantage of unsuspecting hikers.
Psycho Killers: Yes, there are psycho killers on the Appalachian Trail. The total number of people killed on the trail is a matter of some dispute. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy maintains an effective disimformation office (aka Ministry of Truth) that uses fancy words to bend the truth. (For example the ATC doesn't count hikers who were killed in towns while resupplying along their trip). Psycho killers aside, the ATC doesn't count rapes, assualts, or robberies either. If you are planning a hike on the AT be forewarned - that noise outside your tent might not be a cute woodland critter, it may very well be a lunatic bent on killing, raping, and robbing you (not necessarily in that order)
This guy is right outside your tent.
Trail Towns
Towns along the Appalachian Trail are known as Trail Towns. These towns are the crown jewel of the AT; providing unlimited opportunities for sex, drugs, satan worship and supplies. When planning a hike on the AT it is helpful to know that the biggest town payoffs occur in towns located in the south (GA - WV) and in the New England (VT - ME. Massachusettsdoes not in any way qualify as a New England state - don't buy into that crap) states. These states offer lots of bars and the ubiquitious skanks that look upon dirty, smelly, and broke hikers as a step up in the world.
When in Trail Towns it is a best practice to persue locally employed women. As a rule these women are just looking for a quick heave ho and know that you will be moving on tomorrow. Look for exposed tattos, facial bruises, and belly piercings. These women are easy targets and offering up a few drinks and or drugs basically guarantees you success. Just make sure to be gone before sun up or to give her the boot when you are done with her. Otherwise Bubba may come looking for you and your purtty mouth.
Easy Score
For some strange reason many AT hikers fail miserably at getting laid during their six month journey. After several interviews with these tragic failures it became apparent that they are unable to get laid in real life either. Our conclusions (which will be included in the Ken Burns documentary on National Parks) basically state that if you aren't covered up in women while hiking the trail you are not hiking correctly.
Food, Supplies, and Gear You Need for Hiking the Appalachian Trail
One of the most common questions asked about hiking the AT is what do you eat and where do you get it. Assuming you are not a complete savage you have two choices: buy food in towns or steal food.
The easiest option is to buy high calorie food while in towns. Good choices for food include McDonalds Double Cheeseburgers, $1.00 and a zillion calories each. This amazing burger can stay "fresh" in your backpack for 5-7 days (no kidding) and is nearly impervious to any type of external damage. Witness the pictures below for proof. The burger on the left is brand new, the burger on the right has been in a backpack for three days (cheese food removed for clarity):
Cheap, easy, and stays fresh for up to a week with no refrigeration. Thanks McDonalds!
You will need to consume 4-5,000 calories per day in order to stay healthy so McDonalds is the clear cost/benefit winner. For less than $50 a week you can stay fit and strong during your hike.
Much hullabaloo is made about gear you will need on your hike. Don't listen to all that bullshit. All you need is some sort of sack to carry stuff in and a poncho. Save the money you were going to spend on fancy synthetic clothes for boooze, drugs, and sex. (Unless you are a woman, then you should buy very tight fitting synthetic clothes, short skirts, and visually appealing panties).
Things to be Aware of on the Appalachian Trail
There are very few actual dangers on the AT (not counting physho's) so we're not going to concern ourselves with bears and mountain lions.
Oh Shit! Lions? The picture above was taken by the President of the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club near Blairsville, GA. But since these cats don't officially exist we won't concern ourselves with avoiding them.
Significant Concerns:
Hitchhiking - A lot of times hitchhiking is the only way to get into town to resupply and get laid. Hitchhiking is extremely safe, especially for women, doubly especially safe for small groups of young women - ages 18 -35 who like to pose for "artistic" photos. Hitchhiking is not quite as safe for men as there have been several incidents of buggery (that's ass rape) and theft over the years. If you are a guy make sure to carry a large pistol and pepper spray, or only get in the car with hot women. (Also don't even try to catch a ride in the rain. Through some perverse reversal of God's love you will never get a ride when you really need one).
Police - Never noted for being overly bright, many police assume that if you can take six months out of your life to go play in the woods that YOU must be a hippy - and everyone knows how cops deal with hippies.
Cops Dealing With Hippies
The best way to deal with police is to carry farily large stacks of $50's (cops like them a lot for some reason).
Porcupines - Horrible little creatures with an amazing ability to climb. They sneak into your camp under cover of darkness and eat anything that has been sweated on. This includes boots, socks, backpacks, nutsacks, and basically anything you can think of. The best way to deal with them is to liberally scatter rat poison around your campsite and hope for the best.
Kilts - Yes, fucking kilts are rather popular on the AT. Be on constant guard against these tools of Satan as an accidental flash of sweaty hiker balls may result in cardiac arrest or an involuntary reflex to claw your eyeballs out (see photo - notice the dead girl? Killed by viewing hiker junk).
Death by Hiker Nuts
Those are really the only things you need to be concerned with while hiking the Appalachian Trail. Have fun and don't forget condoms.
Elizabethtown - Gates of Hell cemetery - The "Gates of Hell" is the nickname of a cemetery at the end of St. John Road. In Elizabethtown the cemetery at the end of Saint Johns road, known as Gates of Hell, is said to be haunted. The interesting thing about this haunted place is that when traveling to the cemetery one of the last building you see is Elizabethtown’s other haunted place, Bethlehem Academy. No more than a couple of miles to the end of the road where surrounded by trees and overgrowth the cemetery contains the graves of unknown people from the 1700’s and 1800’s. The place right outside the remains of the iron and stone gate is where people go to party away from town. Many years ago while parked there at night witnesses report they watched an enormous green orb suddenly suspended right above them. After a couple of long minutes the orb shot straight up so fast that it was out of sight in a second. Others have claimed other phenomenon while hanging out at the cemetery such as hearing screams, seeing shadow people, having electrical problems with their cars, and becoming so scared that many of them never returned.
Eolia - Arlie Boggs Elementary - their used to be downstairs bathrooms in the school back in the late 1900's, but after many reports on a baby crying down their and due to the need for new bathrooms more where built up stairs and the bottom one sealed off. Now at night you can hear a baby crying and the sound of an older woman, thought to be the mother, saying, "LET ME OUT", and beating on the floorboards.
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Harlan - Closplint - Childscreek - it is said that on a cold, rainy night that you can see a headless man by the name of Doc walking up and down the hollow trying to find his head and the people that cut it off.
Harlan - Hall Elementary - Footsteps heard, apparitions seen. The story is a male janitor died from actually falling into the furnace.
Harlan - Pine Mountain - at the top of the mountain some nights you can see a ghostly figure of a lady on a dark night.
Harlan - Red Dog Hollow - Murdered by his wife's lover, a coal miner on an old mining road in Fairview lights appears as you watch in amazement as it will come down the hill at you. If you don't run you can feel him touch.
Harlan - Wallins creek - Watts creek - there are several hauntings in the small community one that most people in this community has experienced is a old coal miner who died in a explosion he still walks the old path from his mines to his home and is seen quite often .
Notes on Plot
29.2.1 KY Ghost
29.2.1.1 a hitching ghost
Hitchhiking Ghost of Kentucky - My Ghost Story
Leaving Lexington, Kentucky toward the capitol in Frankfort, you can take the old U.S route 421. Before you are out of the city you will see the vast expanse of the Lexington Cemetery on your right.
The grounds are well kept and some of the monuments date back into the 1700's. On your right, just across the road, is a somewhat smaller Catholic cemetery. Our story, as related to me by my father and one of his brothers, occurred in the mid 1930's when they were still randy teens who would go to the big city on Saturday nights from their home in the small burg of Midway. Midway was aptly named for being "midway" between the two larger towns.
They had borrowed their fathers old Model "A" and had made a good night of it, but nearing 12:00 o'clock they had to be getting back as work on the farm started before daybreak and they would only be getting a nap anyway. It was spring and the day's earlier rain had left its cloying moisture in the air as a swirling fog that made it necessary to drive more slowly than their usual youthful spirits maintained.
My father was driving and it was well within his nature, when he saw a young woman on the right side of the road just where the entrance to the cemetery was, to stop and offer her a ride. She responded that she was not going far but our young gallants did not mind. My uncle graciously got in the back so she could ride up front. My father threw the car back into gear and started off. They had only traveled about a tenth of a mile and were nearing the end of the stretch that passes through the two graveyards when she reached over and put her hand on his arm and told him to stop as that was as far as she was going.
My father said it put a cold stab of fear through him, for the hand and arm was withered and boney. He gasped as he looked over at the woman, who moments ago had looked as though she too had been dressed up nice for a night out, was now a desiccated looking figure with wrinkled skin and a tattered gown. He hit the brakes hard enough to stall the engine and tried not to scream as the figure faded from the seat and a thick billow of fog swept over the front of the vehicle and blew off to the left towards the high iron fence of the old Catholic cemetery to the left.
He looked into the back seat towards his brother who was now pushed back as far as he could go and was wide eyed and as "white as a sheet"."J-just start the d**m car" was all he said.
I heard this story about thirty-five years after the fact when the two of them were sitting around our place getting well lubricated with Kentucky's finest. Though the spirits had loosed their tongues about the spirit they saw that night, I never could get them to repeat the story after that and was usually told to shut the h**l up.
On a final note; a few years later I grew up and moved to the city and lived for a while on the west side. Several times while talking to my neighbors, I would hear tales and reports of people having to swerve to keep from running over a woman who was darting across the road between the cemeteries on foggy nights. Was she merely a "ghostly" visitor to friends buried in the other cemetery?
Contributed by Wm. Douglas Mefford and Copyright © 2007 True Ghost Tales all rights reserved. No part of this story may be used without permission.
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29.2.1.2 Haunted Coal Mines
Spirits Underground: A Haunted Welsh Coal Mine
Rocks that moan and creak, absolute pitch darkness, clouds of black dust and scurrying rodents set the stage for terrifying tales. Added to that are the gruesome tragedies that took place underground where black diamonds were mined - explosions, men trapped and suffocated by poisonous gases, eye-sockets taken out with pickaxes and bodies severed by underground rail carts.
If ghosts don't exist in coal mines, they don't exist at all.
Several coal mines offer underground tours where visitors can get a first-hand look at a grim, but fascinating history.. and perhaps even a glimpse of the supernatural. Here's a look at one of the best.
The Big Pit: Blaenavon, Wales
Blaenavon, once considered a bleak pit town, is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognized for its industrial legacy that includes the world's oldest surviving iron works and the Big Pit, one of only two remaining coal mines, now preserved as a museum.
Also see:
The underground tour here is the real deal and the experience is an authentic one and as one member of our group finds out - it's a haunted one as well.
We store all of our cellphones, cameras and other battery-operated devices because of the real safety risks of the gases emitted underground. Then, we're outfitted with a hard hat and a surprisingly heavy belt, the same equipment worn by the miners, before we're ushered into 'the cage' (elevator) with our guide Jake. As we descend 300ft, he tells us that he started mining when he was 17, and 'loved the pits'.
Now underground we start our walk through the mile-long tunnel. It's hard to see what there is to love. It's hard to see - period - with only the light off our hats. And it's damp and more than a little eerie.
"AHHHHH!" A scream pierces the damp air. "I felt someone pulling me," says a tourist. There's nobody behind her.
Jakes shrugs it off. "That's one of our ghosts, happens all the time."
Our guide then begins to recount what the conditions were like not only for the men, but the women and children who used to work here.
"Kids as young as five worked 12-hour shifts underground as 'trappers', opening and closing ventilation doors." Jake explains that since candles cost money, they would work in complete darkness. "Many went blind; many died."
To show how dark it would have been, we are asked to turn off our lights. It takes a few moments as we fumble around with unfamiliar equipment, but finally the last light goes out and we're in the dark. Pitch black darkness. We can see absolutely nothing and the only indication that there are people around us is the nervous laughter that occasionally erupts.
A chill goes up my spine thinking of a boy my son's age working here in the darkness and what his thoughts would have been.
And that is scarier than any ghost story.
29.2.2 Coal Miner Ghost
The Coal Miner Ghost Story
Many years ago in a little backwoods country town in eastern Kentucky, were a number of
underground coal mines. This was how the men of that era made a living for them and their
families. This work was considered to be most hazardous back then, due to no safety rules
or safe equipment.
Byron Ballard
Granny Witch of the Week: Byron Ballard
Anna Lea Jancewicz | 17 October 2017
In honor of the Hallowe’en season, Misty Skaggs brings you a special series profiling some of the honest-t’-god granny witches from the Appalachian hills and hollers. Follow along as Misty talks healing and hexing, herbcraft and auguries, with the fierce wise-women who practice mountain magick.
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Misty: Byron! I fell in love with the way you referred to yourself in another article as a forensic folklorist. That turn of phrase strikes me so vividly, as a third generation hardcore hillbilly storyteller! Can you explain it to us and little bit? And how does the title connect to your spirituality and beliefs?
Byron: As far as I know, I’m the only person to claim this profession. I was at a conference in Maryland, sitting on a panel discussing myth and practice. One of the speakers was talking about the use of fairy tales in the exploration of folklore practices. That is certainly part of the work I do, digging into stories to find the hidden nuggets, the information that was encoded into the European fairy tales that I grew up hearing and reading. It occurred to me that I was sifting through layers to get at the kernel and the phrase came into my head, a forensic folklorist. I did a Google search, as one does, and couldn’t find that anyone else had put that thought together. And here I am. (I just did that Google search again and my name came up.)
My spirituality is completely nature-based and animist, and my practice is Appalachian folk magic, what I have taken to calling hillfolks’ hoodoo. I say it that way because the folkways aren’t dependent on particular spiritual systems. They are a series of practices that have their roots in the British Isles, Ireland, Pennsylvania Dutch culture and First Nations people in the southern Appalachian highlands. Some of these practices are received as gifts, I assume genetically, that come through certain family lines. Things like the Sight, prophetic dreaming, hands-on healing and the like seem to come to most people through no work of their own; these abilities come to the surface at some point in the person’s life and may remain or fade with time.
I grew up unchurched, as we say around here, though my mother’s family were Methodists and my father’s Baptist. We went to church with my grandparents sometimes, or with friends, but were not churchgoers. I have never been baptized and have never considered myself Christian.
Misty: I reached out online to identify interviewees and at the mention of granny witchin’ and Appalachian folk magic, I was inundated with stories from friends and strangers alike. I introduced this series with a story of my own, about witching warts. And lordy, I got a lot of wart stories! One involved a rag buried and left to rot, another a string that was tied into a certain number of knots and left to the same fate. All the stories seemed to share two similarities: a full moon and leavin’ something alone to let nature run its course uninterrupted. Can you tell us a little about the origin of witching a wart in the mountain magic tradition?
Byron: The examples you gave are the ones I know, too. Because these folkways are generally shared down family lines, details of the cures and workings can vary from cove to cove and from house to house. They often have commonalities but the details may vary. There are many ways to remove warts through the methods you mention. But I am also an amateur herbalist and know the value of bloodroot tincture to do the same thing. Bloodroot is a little white flower that blooms in the spring but when the root is harvested and chopped, the juices are red. It is sovereign for removing warts and skin tags but you must be careful that the tincture doesn’t stay long on healthy skin.
There are traditional mountain burn spells that also vary from place to place. Sometimes three angels come out of the North to take fire and frost. Sometimes brides come out of the East to take fire and leave frost. As I travel around, I love to listen to the variations and to speculate on the origins of each. The ones about “brides” intrigues me. “Bride” is another name for Brigid, an Irish Goddess/saint who was involved in healing. Does this come to us from an Irish tradition? With this folkloric remnant as a clue to the charm’s origins? That’s the work of a forensic folklorist!
Misty: What would you say is the most powerful/interesting/shocking thing you have unearthed in your forensic exploration of Appalachian folklore and fairy tales?
Byron: The strength and, frankly, personality of these old mountains. I have always been here. My family has been here for hundreds of years. But there is always a new spirit (sometimes quite literally) around the bend in the path, something new to learn or experience or see. I love them afresh almost every day and find myself fiercely defending them (and our culture) like a mama bear.
Misty: I have also noticed in my research that witchcraft/folk magic and the Bible mix and mesh more often than one might expect in this region. My own great-great-grandfather was supposedly a healer, able to stop a toothache or blood by laying on hands and uttering a biblical verse that he felt was delivered to him in a dream, a verse he never shared with anyone. Is there a lot of crossover in Appalachian witchery and the Christian faith, historically and in your personal experience?
Byron: Of course there is. Appalachian folk magic—mountain witchery—comes firmly out of a Protestant Christian tradition and most traditional practitioners are Christian. There are add-ins and influences from Cherokee and other Native practices but the bulk of the work as it is practiced traditionally is Bible-based. Several years ago, an old-style practitioner informed me I couldn’t possibly practice this without being a Christian and had the good grace to laugh when I told her I’d been doing it successfully for about half a century without being one.
Because I now follow an Earth-based spirituality, many people outside the culture assume that these must be ancient Pagan practices of some sort. Leftovers of that perhaps, but as it has been and still is practiced, there is an understanding that the work doesn’t happen through the agency of the worker but through the Holy Spirit. Many workings come directly outof the Bible. The receipt (an old word for recipe) to stop a flow of blood comes out of Ezekiel and bibliomancy (divination by book, specifically the Bible) is a part of this, too.
I had a great aunt who could talk away warts. She would rub the affected area between her finger and thumb and the whole time be saying “I don’t know why people come to me about this. I can’t really do anything.” That sense of humility is central to these healing practices, the sense that we are merely tools of a Divine will and not the agents of the healing at all.
Misty: I think we’re getting know one another a little and you strike me as a straight talking backwoods broad, so. Give it to me straight, Byron… Have you ever used hillbilly hoodoo to stick it to some sumbitch who reeeeally deserved it?
Byron: Definitely. I teach a workshop called Willful Bane: the Joy of Hex. Here’s a piece I wrote about that:
Generous Wort and Willful Bane
Byron Ballard
“Only justice will stop a curse.” –Alice Walker
The notion of “re-wilding” witchcraft is flowing through some of the communities and individuals that make up modern-day Paganism. Witches have become domesticated, dysfunctional and inauthentic because we are cud-chewing and safe, some folks opine, and heads are shaken throughout Pagandom at our collective lack of wildness.
What a bunch of bunkum.
I don’t know who these sage philosophers are dealing with but the witches in my neck of the woods don’t come when called. We don’t scrape and bow and make ourselves small so that no one notices how dangerous we are. We are women (yes, mostly) who strive to have the powers of the natural world at our fingertips and revel in our freedom to do the work we’re called to.
We are house-clearing, baby-blessing, marriage-making, herb-swilling miscreants who answer to our personal ethical codes. We heal, we hex, we dance, we howl.
Yes, I have vervain, datura and belladonna in my garden. Yes, I observe the world around me, including the humans that are often unaware of my observation. Yes, I do believe if a witch can’t hex, she probably won’t have a strong gift for healing either.
That is not a popular sentiment in the modern Pagan world. I have been called to task on more than one occasion by well-meaning people who don’t really understand the difference between folk magic practice and the restrictions of formal traditions like Wicca. I will endeavor to clear some of that up here, to shed some light on these old workings.
This year I created a “Candy Magic” workshop that is an outgrowth of the popular Marshmallow Hex of several years ago. We were traveling to a festival or conference when I started riffing on using Necco Wafers to commune with the Dead and to call them Necro Wafers. Yep, I did that—and went on to think of other popular or old-fashioned candies and their nefarious uses.
Which led, as one might expect, to the Reese Cup Spell for Taking Another’s Power. I premiered that at a popular Midwest festival as part of my Willful Bane workshop an a couple of people were appalled at the notion of wanting to take someone else’s power. “Why would you want to do that?Why?” I presented a scenario where a boss was taking credit for all your work and you wanted to take the bloom off her rose, so to speak. I also reminded them that some of our Celt Ancestors were headhunters and I was only suggesting eating a delicious candy treat, not drinking from your enemy’s skull.
Gad zooks, people. Don’t you read history? Are you still so deeply mired in your Protestant upbringing that you can’t enjoy the irony of stealing someone’s glory by eating peanut butter and chocolate? Sometimes, honestly, I despair of us.
In the excavations of ancient holy springs, archaeologists have found lead rolls that hold prayers and bargainings, as well as imprecations. Alexander Carmichael and his fellow folklorists collected charming chants to change cream to butter, prayers to the Trinity and St. Patrick and St. Brigid, and charms less jolly and more sinister.
From the Evil Eye to animal sacrifice, these workings for justice, personal advancement or revenge seem to be hardwired into many cultures, mine being one of them. Bear with me as I sift through these odd and often misunderstood practices.
In classes, lectures and essays, I refer to these magics as banes, or banework. Bane’s opposite is wort. You may think of them as healings and blessings. But here’s an interesting thing about banework as I practice it: in spite of its fearsome reputation, I think of banework as an extreme healing modality. It’s a notion we will explore further.
Though I am a Wiccan priestess by training, I have inherited a folk magic tradition by virtue of being a child of the southern Appalachian mountains. I left much of that country lore behind when I went to college and grad school and pursued my chosen spiritual path. But with the birth of my daughter, everything came full circle for me and I looked backward over my shoulder to the shadowy rural life I had gleefully abandoned years before.
I began writing down what I could remember and asking friends and family what they remembered from so long ago. These old magics worked so well and were so simple, I pondered why they were so little known and whether I should share them out. As I began to talk about banework and developed my jolly attitude to the work, I came up against two of the concepts that keep this work from being more widely practiced: the Law of Return and the question of karma.
Three-fold return (and sometimes ten-fold return) is the notion that every bit of energy we put into the Universe comes bouncing right back to us. So, it seems only logical that we would never wish harm on another because that harm would return to us, three times over.
The problem with that is that, in addition to being a modern notion that doesn’t apply to folk magic, it simply doesn’t work. All of us know perfectly despicable people who seem to continue to profit from their behavior. You can look at the world of politics through the lens of history and see examples of good things happening to bad people, over and over again. It isn’t part of ancient spiritual structures and folk magic practitioners rarely consider themselves bound by this notion of return. If you are clutching your pearls at this point, then banework is not for you and you should jog on.
In the aforementioned Pagan discussions of our relative domesticity, some have stated, rightly enough, that this Law of Return business is another way to keep our practices contained, our work small, our intentions weak.
And then there is the notion of Karma. Every third meme on social media is about the power of karma to make amends where none can reasonably be made. Karma is “a bitch.” Karma will “take care of it.”
“I am leaving that up to karma.”
The problem is that karma, like tantra, is not deeply understood in the West. It is a subtle and exquisite Eastern concept. Karma links our life-force into the wheel of reincarnation. It is a beautifully woven and ancient idea that most of us get wrong. It is not tit for tat. It is not the righteous hand of justice for the guy who just cut you off in traffic. It is also not a concept that governs the work of people around the world who practice folk magic.
That being said, you should never engage in practices that you disapprove of or that you find unwholesome, my pearl-clutching colleagues. If you have ethical objections to the practices I’m describing, don’t do them. Don’t do anything that feels wrong to you. This work isn’t for everyone.
We live in a culture that seems to require us to try everything new, to sample the buffet of experiences that modern Paganism has to offer. But you don’t have to, not with this. Peer pressure is a force to be reckoned with, as any seventh grader will attest. Simply because that person you admire is touting banework as The Next Big Thing doesn’t mean you have to take it up. Search your own ethical base, be a grown-up, and discern carefully whether it meets your criteria as a valid and acceptable practice.
This applies to everything in life, by the way.
Attitude is everything in this work and I believe it should never be done in fear or anger. Shaking your tiny fist at the sky and swearing vengeance is dramatic in that graphic novel you love but it will gum up your banework and connect you energetically in ways you probably don’t want. I’ve discovered that it works best when you are relaxed, prepared, and a little gleeful about the working you are engaging.
I was visiting a friend a few years back and we sat on her porch, looking out at her garden. She told me about a problem with a member of her social circle and we discussed some simple remedies. At last, she shook her head and sighed.
“I don’t think any of that will work. We’ve really tried it all.”
I nodded and then smiled. “Have you got any black wax?”
She looked puzzled, then laughed and nodded. We went into the house laughing and assembled the materials for the necessary work. It was delightful.
Do it and let it go. Whether it’s an egg-binding gone into the freezer or a slip of paper burned at the crossroads—do the work and stand back. Evaluate the results and move on.
Perhaps a little history, steeped in injustice and oppression, will illustrate the other important piece when considering this work. Poor people who have little recourse to law have used these techniques when formal systems of justice aren’t available to them, either through financial hardship or cultural tradition. People steeped in the traditional culture of the Appalachians have always been loath to bring in law enforcement of any kind and that still holds true in many rural areas. There is a sense that poor people won’t get treated fairly in court and this has often proved the case. When there is no hope of justice, or faith in the legal system, people sometimes resort to hexwork.
Justice isn’t the only aim of banework and we are coming now to the notion of banes as extreme healing. There are situations where the family or community have been so thrown out of balance by the actions of one member that there seems no way to correct course and move forward. There are so many healing workings that can be done and folks tend to start simply, evaluate the results and see if healing has commenced. If it happens, they may choose to go a little deeper, to give the problem good attention and see if that helps.
At last, after due consideration and application of other healing modalities, you may choose a stronger method. You may think of it as amputation—losing a diseased limb to save the life—or as chemotherapy—the application of strong medicine because the illness is persistent and resilient.
It is powerful work and, I believe, necessary work. But it should not be entered into for fun or as the Next Cool Thing. You may be interested in it but feel unnerved by it. If that is the case, it is not for you. Butas with many things on a Pagan path, you may feel a call to this work.
Here are some general guidelines to consider:
—This work is never done in anger.
–Find a good teacher, a real teacher.
–It is not for everyone.
–Don’t be seduced by costly supplies.
–Start simply. Do the work.
–Evaluate your results and then consider how you could have achieved a
clearer outcome.
Whether you think of it as radical healing, hexing, or banework, stepping onto the fascinating path of folk magic’s deep healing requires study with a good and ethical teacher, it requires you to leave the drama at the door and focus on the work, and it invites you to enter into an energetic relationship with the rootworkers and hexmasters who have gone before.
You may now release your pearls and commence your tut-tutting, if that is where your thoughts are headed. But remember the Bard’s wisdom on this—there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy…
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Byron Ballard, BA, MFA, is a western North Carolina native, teacher, folklorist and writer. She has served as a featured speaker and teacher at Sacred Space Conference, PantheaCon, Pagan Spirit Gathering, Southeast Wise Women’s Herbal Conference, Glastonbury Goddess Conference, the Scottish Pagan Federation Conference, Mystic South and other gatherings. She is senior priestess and co-founder of Mother Grove Goddess Temple in Asheville, NC where she teaches religious education, as well as leads rituals. She is one of the founders of the Coalition of Earth Religions/CERES, a Pagan non-profit and does interfaith work locally and regionally.
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Her writings have appeared in print and electronic media. Her essays are featured in several anthologies, including Birthed from Scorched Hearts (Fulcrum Press), Christmas Presence (Catawba Press), Women’s Voices in Magic (Megalithica Books), Into the Great Below and Skalded Apples (Asphodel Press). She blogs as Asheville’s Village Witch, and writes as The Village Witch for Witches and Pagans Magazine.
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Her pamphlet Back to the Garden: a Handbook for New Pagans has been widely distributed and she has two books on Appalachian folk magic, Staubs and Ditchwater: an Introduction to Hillfolks Hoodoo (Silver Rings Press) and Asfidity and Mad-Stones (Smith Bridge Press). Embracing Willendorf: a Witch’s Way of Loving Your Body to Health and Fitness was published in April 2017 by Smith Bridge Press. Byron is currently at work on Earth Works: Eight Ceremonies for a Changing Planet and Gnarled Talisman: Old Wild Magics of the Motherland. Contact her at info@myvillagewitch.com.
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Misty Skaggs, Rabble’s Appalachian Features Editor, is an author, artist, and activist from Eastern Kentucky.
Follow her on Twitter @mistymarierae.
Header Image: Creative Commons, Public Domain, modified.
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According to T.J. Smith, Ph.D., folklorist, and executive director of the Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center in Mountain City, Georgia, however, many mountain healers practiced their folk medicine through a strictly Protestant lens, believing they were fulfilling a duty as Christ-followers to help those in need. Some, he says, would even balk at the notion that grinding herbs to heal a sore, performing a ritual bath, or saying a prayer or chant to cure a burn was connected in any way to pagan practice or ideology. They believed that their ability to use plants and prayers to heal the sick was a gift from the Divine.
Religious xenophobia saw many non-Protestants classified derogatorily as witches and persecuted, though many were simply lay healers, practitioners of herbal medicine whose philosophies were rooted in a spirituality that venerated nature instead of a single monotheistic deity. A few historians have speculated that these potentially pagan practitioners—a word with Latin roots simply meaning “country dweller,” which later evolved into the word “paganus,” and eventually became “heathen” in Christian Latin—went underground or fled to the New World, where their methodologies could have been suppressed or absorbed by Christianity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_healer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Voodoo
https://mountainx.com/living/wellness/byron-ballard-keeps-appalachian-folk-magic-practices-alive/
Known as Asheville’s village witch, Byron Ballard practices what she calls “hillfolk hoodoo,” a form of Appalachian folk magic. Ballard came by hoodoo naturally, growing up in a poor community in the mountains of Western North Carolina where hoodoo was practiced. She laments that the practice is disappearing: “Local hillfolk are no longer practicing hoodoo, but it’s within living memory. There’s a kind of sadness that the culture of the hillfolk is fading.”
Hoodoo is different from voodoo, she explains, even though the words sound alike. Voodoo originated in Haiti and follows the West African Yoruban religious tradition. Hoodoo, on the other hand, is a nonreligious practice with cross-cultural roots. It grew out of the interactions of three cultural groups — the Scots-Irish who immigrated to Western North Carolina, the indigenous Cherokee and the Pennsylvania Dutch (Germans) who migrated to the area through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.
Ballard goes on to say that immigrants from Europe, fleeing religious persecution, settled in isolated mountain coves that gave them the privacy and freedom they sought. Theirs was a hardscrabble way of life, but it gave them independence, she says. In the 1930s, when the textile mills moved into the area, the culture began to shift from agricultural to industrial. The money was better, but it took away the independent streak of the mountain people, who were selling just enough of their cash crop to buy coffee and other goods they couldn’t grow. With contact from outside people, their folk practices began to erode, she continues.
“I call myself a forensic folklorist,” says Ballard, “because I’m excavating the practices from older generations.” She aims to preserve what she can of the traditional folk practices, and her book Staubs and Ditchwater is the result of her research into her Southern Highlands roots and its practices.
Although Ballard admits she is attempting to dispel the “hillbilly” and “redneck” stereotypes in her book (she prefers “hillfolk” to “hillbilly”), she nevertheless reclaims them: “I am totally a redneck. I grew up wild and poor in the country … understanding that violence is a way to solve problems. I am stubborn and willful, and I hate authority. I’m always having to suppress my tendencies toward violence.”
As the hillfolk culture is thinning, Ballard says, it is also becoming gentrified by “outlanders” — the affluent people who move into the area. These outsiders are hungry for folk traditions that feed them spiritually and are willing to appropriate any of the practices for their own benefit, she says. But she calls this process of stripping away pieces of the local culture by outsiders “cultural strip-mining.” The culture itself gains nothing and is in fact left weaker by the exchange, she says, comparing it to mountaintop removal and clear-cutting.
Ballard confesses that she is torn about whether it’s better to let the cultural practices die with the people who practiced them or pass them on to the larger world, which may be able to use them for spiritual and environmental purposes.
Although she’s “excavating” a dying culture, she is also actively practicing it, relying on what she learned as a child. Like the “cove doctor” of her forebears, Ballard’s carrying on the tradition of “workings,” or magical spells, to help people heal or get what they want. She gives an example of a working she might do to help someone get a job: “It could require dressing a candle with particularly potent oil and having the person burn it while focusing on their intention to get a new job.” Ballard adds that she tells the person to keep looking for a job meanwhile. “This is definitely a belt-and-suspenders type of magic,” she says.
Most people who come to her for help want healing work, she notes. “Healing is a big thing. The culture we live in is diseased. Hoodoo can help on a one-to-one basis.” She uses herbs, or “yarbs,” for the healing of many physical ailments, noting that they are often more effective than allopathic remedies. Ballard tells the story of her daughter, who saw many doctors to get rid of a wart. None of the treatments she received was effective. Finally, she tried bloodroot, an indigenous herb, and the wart went away.
Many people in the mountains are known for doing disease-specific healing, Ballard reports. “I had a great aunt who could rub a wart or a mole between her fingers, and it would disappear,” she says. “The whole time she would say something like, ‘I don’t know why people think I can do this,’ and in three days it would be gone.” A characteristic of folk magic, Ballard continues, is that practitioners deny they have the ability to do the healing — perhaps out of humility, acknowledging that the power is merely passing through them. She points out that other hillfolk use a different remedy to remove warts — wrapping the affected area in a dirty dishrag, then counting or saying the Lord’s Prayer, followed by burying the dishrag off the property.
Ballard says we often don’t know why traditional folk remedies work. She gives the example of catnip tea, which is given to infants to prevent hives. One theory about how it works, she explains, is that after some of the tea is given to the child, the mother drinks the rest of it. Since it’s a soporific, the mother is more relaxed, which helps her milk production. As a result, the child is healthier from being better nourished.
Often Ballard is called upon to do love spells, but she always refuses. “The problem,” she says, “is that they work. And sometimes the person asking for the spell ends up not being as interested as they thought they were, or they draw a person to them in an unhealthy way, such as stalking.”
Although hoodoo is not a spiritual or religious practice per se, Ballard notes that it can often involve a spiritual or religious overlay. She says that although there are religious-specific pieces, such as reading a part of the Bible to stop the flow of blood, hoodoo works regardless of the lens that’s used. “Religion can be an important part of the cultural practice,” she says, but “utilizing the earth energy is what works. It just depends on how you access it. … Hoodoo is about using earth energies in the quest for personal agency. It’s all about moving your position in the world to where you want it to be.”
Ballard points out that folk magic practices were developed by cultures in the Old World that lacked a sense of agency. “When you live in a feudal system, you don’t have a lot of access to justice or healing,” she says. “Their practices became a form of peasant medicine and psychology.”
When folk magic practices were brought to southern Appalachia, they took hold there as well because they helped provide a sense of personal agency and justice for impoverished mountain dwellers. “The ability to access justice is thin unless you have money and time,” she says, “and the hillfolk had neither.”
Acknowledging the issue of class and economics in the discussion of folk magic “honors the people who developed and practiced it, who are either our literal blood ancestors or … our spiritual and practice ancestors,” she says. “It honors them to say they were not people of great means for whom personal agency was easy.”
Ballard continues the tradition of using hoodoo to bring about justice. “I don’t work for peace. I work for justice,” she says. “I believe, and I think tribal people in Europe believed, that when you have justice, peace is a byproduct of that.”
Ballard teaches local courses about hoodoo. Information about them can be found on her Facebook page, Asheville’s Village Witch, or at myvillagewitch.com.
https://mountainx.com/living/wellness/byron-ballard-keeps-appalachian-folk-magic-practices-alive/
Falling inside myself,
Collapsing inward,
Gravity pulls to nothingness.
Like a black hole,
Snuffing out flares,
Smoothing all to none.
Green River (Kentucky )
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the river in Kentucky. For other uses, see Green River .
The Green River is a 384-mile-long (618 km)[2] tributary of the Ohio River that rises in Lincoln County in south-central Kentucky . Tributaries of the Green River include the Barren River , the Nolin River , the Pond River and the Rough River . The river was named after Nathanael Greene , a general of the American Revolutionary War .[3]
History[edit source | editbeta ]
Following the Revolutionary War , many veterans staked claims along the Green River as payment for their military service. The river valley also attracted a number of ne'er-do-wells, earning it the dubious nickname Rogue's Harbor.[1]
In 1842, the Green River was canalized , with a series of locks and dams being built to create a navigable channel as far inland as Bowling Green, Kentucky . Four locks and dams were constructed on the Green River, and one lock and dam was built on the Barren River, a tributary that passed through Bowling Green.
During the American Civil War , Confederate General John Hunt Morgan conducted daring raids through the Green River country, from which he reached into southern Indiana and Ohio .[4]
In 1901, two additional locks and dams were opened on the Green River, which allowed river traffic to Mammoth Cave. In 1941, Mammoth Cave National Park was established, and the two upper locks and dams closed in 1950. In 1965, Lock and Dam #4 at Woodbury failed;[5] this was the dam that locked both the Green and Barren rivers.
In 1969, the United States Army Corps of Engineers impounded a section of the river, forming 8,200-acre (33 km2) Green River Lake. The lake is now the primary feature of Green River Lake State Park .[6]
There is still one Native American tribe living on the Green River: the Southern Cherokee Nation of Kentucky . In 1983 Governor John Y. Brown, Jr. recognized the Southern Cherokee Nation as an Indian tribe.
Route[edit source | editbeta ]
The Green River flows through Mammoth Cave National Park , located along river miles 190 to 205. The river drains the cave and controls the master base level of the Mammoth Cave system: the construction of a 9-foot (2.7 m) dam at Brownsville in 1906 has raised the water level in some parts of the cave system by as much as 6 feet (1.8 m) above its natural value.
The 384-mile-long (618 km) Green River, an important transportation artery for the coal industry, is open to traffic up to the closed Lock and Dam #3 (known as the Rochester Dam) at mile 108.5. Muhlenberg County , once the largest coal-producing county in the nation, benefits greatly from access to the river, as does the aluminum industry in Henderson County . In 2002, more than 10 million short tons were shipped on the river, primarily sub-bituminous coal , petroleum coke and aluminum ore.
Biology[edit source | editbeta ]
The Green River is home to more than 150 fish species and more than 70 mussel species.[7] This includes some of Kentucky's largest fish,[8] and some of the world's rarest species of mussels.[9]
Mussels[edit source | editbeta ]
Endangered species:
Threatened species:
In popular culture[edit source | editbeta ]
In 1971, the Green River was mentioned in the song "Paradise " by John Prine .
See also[edit source | editbeta ]
References[edit source | editbeta ]
^ a b Kleber, John E., ed. (1992). "Green River". The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Associate editors: Thomas D. Clark , Lowell H. Harrison, and James C. Klotter. Lexington, Kentucky : The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-1772-0 .
^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map , accessed June 13, 2011
^ Benke, Arthur C.; Cushing, Colbert E. (2005). Rivers of North America . Academic Press. p. 405. ISBN 978-0-12-088253-3 . Retrieved 24 March 2012.
^ [[Betty Jane Gorin-Smith]], Morgan Is Coming: Confederate Raiders in the Heartland of Kentucky . Louisville , Kentucky : Harmony House Publishers, 2006, 452 pp., ISBN 978-1-56469-134-7 . Wikilink embedded in URL title (help)
^ The Kentucky Encyclopedia: Butler County
^ The Kentucky Encyclopedia: Lakes
^ "Pioneering Effort to Restore Green River is Extended" The Nature Conservancy Press Release 2009
^ "Kentucky State Record Fish List" . Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. 2006-04-17. Retrieved 2007-02-17.
^ "The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species" . Iucnredlist.org. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
Further reading[edit source | editbeta ]
The Ohio River - In American History and Voyaging on Today's River, with a section on the Green River; Heron Island Guides, 2007, ISBN 978-0-9665866-3-3
External links[edit source | editbeta ]
U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Green River
Coordinates : [Show location on an interactive map] 37°54′9″N 87°29′59″W
Green River History
Established in 1969
The Army Corps of Engineers began construction of a dam on Green River in April 1964 to control flooding and completed the project in June 1969. The rock and earth filled structure is located in Taylor County, about 26 miles from Greensburg. The dam is 141 feet high and 2,350 feet long. The 8,200-acre Green River Lake has a 147-mile shoreline and covers parts of Adair, Casey, and Taylor Counties.
Green River Lake State Park opened in 1969 and contains 1,331 acres of land along with the 8,200-acre lake. The park has many attractions for those who love nature and wish to experience the beauty that is Kentucky. The park has an 18-hole miniature golf course, hiking trails, a beach, picnic area, and a playground. The marina has a restaurant, boat slips, and rentals for different types of boats. The lake abounds in bass, bluegill, catfish, and crappie.
Taylor County is filled with exciting episodes of Kentucky history. The “Long Hunters” traversed this area during the 1770s looking for game. During the Civil War the county had two Union recruiting camps established within its boundaries, Camp Hobson and Camp Johnson. Hundreds of young Kentuckians joined the federal ranks in these two camps to fight for the Union.
Part of Green River State Park’s charm is the beautiful scenery that dominates the area. Large hills, some over 900-feet-high, surround the lake. This portion of Kentucky is made up of rolling hills covered with a variety of trees and plant life. The park is one of the most popular campgrounds in the state parks system. The campground is located at the edge of the lake giving campers a close and convenient view of this magnificent body of water.
[[Gypsy Lore and History]]
[[Gypsy Camps|http://www.enslin.com/rae/gypsy/camps.htm]]
[[Persecution of Gypsies|http://www.ccccok.org/museum/dustbowl.html]]
[img[http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/media/life3301.jpg]]
[[Gypsy Persecution]]
[[The Gypsy Holocast|http://www.iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1997/roma-in-holocaust.html]]
[[Arrival of Gypsies in America]]
[[Scottish Travelers]]
[[Roma]]
[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Bosnian_Gypsies.jpg]]
Gypsy History/Lore
Learn about Gypsy lore: Rom history, Fortune telling, Holocaust, Romani Gypsy Shamanism and "The Black Triangle"!
Origins Of The Gypsy/Roma/Rom History
History of the Gypsy/Roma
Diverse, nomadic…to be Roma, or “gypsy,” is to be a member of an ethnic minority that is difficult to define in any definite, factual terms. Throughout their history, the Roma have been comprised of many different groups of people, absorbing outsiders and other cultures while migrating across continents. This has resulted in creating a patchwork of groups calling themselves Roma, Romani, Romany or Gypsy, each with differing cultures, customs, and now in only the current times - written languages.
Despite their differences, the Roma do share certain attributes. Made up of four “tribes,” or nations (natsiya), they are bound together at least through Rom blood and Romani (or Romanes), the root language they share. The Roma also hold common characteristics: they are extremely loyal to family and clan; a strong belief in both Del (God) and Beng (the Devil); belief in predestiny; and Romaniya, loosely translated as certain standards and norms in codes of conduct (which vary in degree from tribe to tribe). At their core, because of their history, they are a people who are adaptable to changing conditions.
There are conflicted points of view to where the Roma or Gypsies originated. Because they arrived in Europe from the East, they were thought by early Europeans to be from Turkey or Nubia. They were even thought to have been from Egypt, and were called, among other things, Egyptians, or ‘Gyptians, which is how the word “Gypsy” originated. The most popular belief among scholars has the origins hail from India. But even their beginning in India is muddled with disagreements and an abundance of cold hard facts. Because of this, the Roma/Gypsy foundation in India has several versions.
Deep in the heart of India around 400 AD, work wasn’t as plentiful as it once was in the small villages. This dilemma forced a handful of Indians to become traveling craftsmen and entertainers. They moved along the countryside entertaining villagers at night and using their skills with wood and/or metal during the day. This subtle start to the nomadic life worked well from this point forward. The handful of wandering people grew in numbers as others embraced the nomadic lifestyle, yet they were still able to stay below the Persian radar until 440 – 443. This is when, rumor has it, the great Persian Shah Bahram Gur persuaded ever so forcefully that the Indian King Shangul should send him 10,000 Luri musicians so that they can run around Persia entertaining the hard-working people. The name Luri is used as opposed to Roma or Gypsy because before the 10th Century, gypsies did not exist by the name of Gypsy or Roma. They were known by various names tribal names including Zott, Jat, Luri, Nuri, Dom, Sinti, Domarai and Athengani.
Around 820, long after the Luri entertained the countryside of Persia, the Zott arrived and set up state on the banks of the Tigris River. The Zott enjoyed life there until the Byzantines attacked Syria in 855. After the war, the Byzantines took huge numbers of Zotts as prisoners. Partly because of they were known for their excellent craftsmanship with wood, metal and construction, the Zotts were used as slave labor to shore up and expand upon the empire. In addition to manual labor, their entertainment skills were also of high value as well as their gift of foretelling the future.
From 1001 – 1026 King Mahmud from Ghazni used put forth a forceful effort to wipe out the Sindh and the Panjab tribes in India. King Mahmud invaded some seventeen times with a mixed army of Turko-Persian from Ghazni (which would be modern – day Iran). Rajput warriors, the Indian fighters (which included Roma/Gypsy), were fierce and cunning, but King Mahmud finally wins. His reward was half a million Indian/Roma/Gypsy slaves.
Another version of the Indian origins doesn’t make any mention of the Roma/Gypsies until the war with King Mahmud (who was called Muhamad Ghazni in this version) in 1001. Here the 500,000 Rajputs fighters were prisoners of war and placed in Afghanistan. While prisoners, they were ordered to convert to Islam by threat of the sword. Many resisted and were either killed or they escaped to Armenia and/or Greece.
Yet another version of the same story had the rulers of India put together troops from a variety of ethnic backgrounds to fight King Mahmud (Mahmud of Ghazni in this version) and keep Islam out of Hindu territory. The Indian/Rajputs Troops were victorious. The descendants of these troops crossed over to south-eastern Europe for asylum, to escape forcible Islam conversion by the Turks, around 1300.
Some other theories that have had people take notice of the Roma/Gypsy origins includes that the first Gypsy was a son of Eve, from her sexual relationships with Adam after his demise. No mention was ever said how he survived the great flood (as in Noah and that Ark). Some others feel that Tubal Cain and his half-brother, Abel, are the originators of the bloodline based on the Book of Genesis, Chapter IV Verses 19 – 22; “Lamech took unto him two wives and the name of one was Adah and the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bore Jubal. He was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. And Zillah she also bore Tubal Cain, a instructor of every artificer in brass and iron."
Another theory which has gained steam over the years was that the Gypsies/Roma is descendants of Abraham’s children by his second wife, Keturah. She gave him six children; Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbah and Shuah. When the Israelites left Egypt, the children’s descendants went with them. Exodus xii.38: “and a mixed multitude went up also with the Children of Israel.”
While the origins remain scratchy, what most can agree on is that there were great migrations through Roma/Gypsy history that had dispersed them throughout the world, beginning with the first wave when it was assumed they left India over a thousand years ago. The next great move, known as the Aresajipe, was from southwest Asia into Europe during the 14th century. The third great migration was from Europe to the United States during the 19th century and early 20th century after the abolishment of Romani slavery in Europe.
In the second half of the 18th century, European scholars studying the Roma/Gypsy found that the Romani language shared basic words, including numbers, action, family relationships, etc. with the Eastern Indian languages. So it appeared that its roots appear to be based on Sanskrit, the historical language of the Hindus of India.
While the “official” language of the Gypsies, Romani, has many dialects, it is a spoken-only language. There are, still, many common words used by each dialect. Thus, based on language alone the Roma/Gypsy are divided into three sub-groups (which like everything else about the Gypsies is surrounded by controversy): the Domari of the Middle East and Eastern Europe (the Dom), the Lomarvren of Central Europe (the Lom), and the Romani of Western Europe (the Rom). Among themselves the Roma speak their own language; otherwise they speak the language of the country they currently occupy.
The wheel represents a sixteen-spoked chakra, which is the Romani symbol. A chakra is a link back to the Gypsy/Roma’s Indian ancestry (India has the 24-spoked Ashok Chakra in the center of their flag) and represents movement forward and Creation. The Romani flag is green and blue with a red chakra in the center. The Roma motto is “Opré Roma” (Roma Arise) and the song “Gelem, gelem,” also known as “Djelem, djelem” and “Opré Roma,” is the Romani anthem.
Today there are approximately more than twelve million Roma/Gypsies living across the world. It’s difficult to put a final tally on their numbers, as many Gypsies lie about their heritage due to economic, social and political reasons.
Source: The Mysterious & Magical Gypsy/Roma by Allie Theiss (paper for Middle Eastern Class - 2009)
Gypsy/Rom History In the US
The Rom arrived in the United States and Canada from Serbia, Russia and Austria-Hungary beginning in the 1880s, as part of the larger wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Primary immigration ended, for the most part, in 1914, with the beginning of the First World War and subsequent tightening of immigration restrictions. Many in this group specialized in coppersmith work, mainly the repair and refining of industrial equipment used in bakeries, laundries, confectioneries and other businesses. The Rom, too, developed the fortune-telling business in urban areas.
Virtually all the anthropological and sociological work on North American Gypsies concerns the Rom, an emphasis which has led a British observer to label the North American academic tradition "Kalderashocentric," Kalderash being one of the Rom subgroups. The first work covered in this bibliography to concern the Rom appeared in 1903. Material appeared sporadically after that, and steadily from 1928 onward. This group is also referred to in the literature as Nomads, Coppersmiths, Nomad Coppersmiths, Vlach (or Vlax) Gypsies, or by reference to a country from which they immigrated to North America, as Brazilian Gypsies, Bulgarian Gypsies, and so forth. The individual subgroup terms Kalderash and Machwaya are also used. While in the Kalderash dialect of the Romani language, Rom is both singular and plural, the Machwaya dialect has plural Roma, which is also found in the literature. The inflected language of the Rom belongs to the "Vlach" branch of the Romani language family. Native speakers refer to "speaking Romanes" (adverb) "in the Gypsy fashion."
A group of Rom who began immigrating to the United States and Canada from eastern Europe in the 1970s is represented primarily in the police literature, where they are referred to as Yugoslavian Gypsies.
(reprinted from The Gypsy Lore Society) http://www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html
Gypsy/Rom Fortune Telling (Dukkerin')
It’s difficult to think of a Gypsy and not see the image of a crystal ball or tarot cards. Since their push into Persia, Gypsies/Roma has been simultaneously linked with fortunetelling. From the Eastern, holistic and magical context to their Indian ori¬gins, Gypsies or Romas, are prized for their remark¬able psychic abilities and the gift to attract good fortune or destroy a life with a curse. All are born with such gifts, but what makes their powers so innate is their relationship with nature. Their bond with the spirits of the outdoors allows their gifts to evolve naturally.
Gypsies/Roma believes that within their own there are certain ones who posses’ great power through the ability to perform magic with their special range of knowledge. Such people known in the Gaje, or white man’s world, are usually called witches, warlocks or wizards but within the Roma/Gypsy society they are known as chovihanis.
Among the chovihani there are four favorites for fortune telling (or dukkerin`): palm reading, tea leaves, the crystal, and cards. These methods are of a “practical” nature and do not take anything complex or expensive to utilize.
Surprisingly, the Roma/Gypsy usually does not consult a chovihani or anyone else for past, present or future knowledge. Nor are the chovihanis held in high esteem because of their gifts; rather it is the money brought in by their gifts that gives them a place of honor within the society.
Palm Reading: Palmistry is the most common divina¬tion method. It requires no special equipment or props of any kind, can be practiced discreetly, and has traditionally been the first method taught to children by their mothers. Palmistry is combination of both chiromancy and chirol¬ogy, or a belief that is based on the idea that certain parts of the body have an indepen¬dent spirit.
The hands can be considered a simple chart of our lives. The left hand reveals the life we are born with while the right hand is what we make of that life. In a reading, the cho¬vihani uses the lines, mounts, divisions, and type of hand to tell of a person’s past, pres¬ent, and future.
Tea Leaves: Reading the tea leaves has always been a pop¬ular divination method, espe¬cially in the 1930s and 1940s when “Gypsy Tea Rooms” sprung up quite frequently, sometimes featuring less than authentic “Gypsies.”
The questioner begins by drinking Chinese tea or any large-leafed variety with a round cup, white or very pale, with a handle. He or she will drink the tea until only a spoon¬ful or less is left in the cup. With their left hand, the tea is swirled around anticlockwise, three times in the cup and then turned upside down to drain. The cup is then turned right-side up and passed to the chovihani to read the leaves.
Crystal Ball: The image of a Gypsy, huddled over a crystal ball, is a familiar one, made popular by the movies and TV. In reality, the crystal ball is rarely used as it takes much preparation before and during the reading. It is difficult to be “on” all day to read the crystal ball. Normally if on call for the day, the chovihani will gaze at the ball but use their own intu¬ition for the reading.
However, utilizing the crys¬tal ball is an art that can be mastered with dedication and patience. For gazing, gather a crystal ball (or any reflective surface - bowl of water, mir¬ror, metal, etc.), a black cloth (to put the ball upon) a com¬fortable chair and a table. The trick here is to “gaze” into the ball and not stare. Meditate for as long as need to quiet your mind, gaze into the ball and interpret the symbolic images that appear.
Tarot Cards: The earliest known tarot deck came from India with the Gypsies introducing them to the world. Many chovi¬hanis are happy to use playing cards in place of tarot cards. Since playing cards are derived from tarot cards, it really makes no difference which one is used in the art of fortunetelling.
A deck of tarot cards consists of seventy-eight richly decorated cards marked with a number of antiquated symbols. The cards are divided into two groups: The Major Arcana, consisting of twenty-two ceremonial pictures of symbolic persons; and the Minor Arcana, fifty-eight cards that represent the four suits.
The methods to interpret the cards are various and plenti¬ful, with many books and web sites devoted to this topic alone. No matter how compli¬cated or simple the method of interpretation, tarot cards are used to gain insight into a person’s actions and how they relate to the past, present and future circumstances.
Among the Gypsies, the magi¬cal arts are almost always prac¬ticed by women. Evidence of the chovihani (female) in gypsy society far outweighs the cho¬vihano (male). The Gaje impres¬sion of a fortuneteller is also that of a woman and not a man. This view is no doubt based on the emotional, psy¬chological and spiritual makeup of women. However, in the Gypsy society more specific and tangible reasons can be found based on the sexual and social categorization of their culture.
Although the quest to place the factorial origin of the Roma/Gypsies in India is far from over, they will always have the image placed on them as the original “free spirits” of the world. The Roma/Gypsy has lived a nomadic existence for thousands of years and has lived in har¬mony with nature longer than most because, this author feels, of their Eastern origins. With a kinship to mind, body and soul that most can only dream of, the Roma/Gypsy have much to teach the Western world, if people would only listen.
Source: The Mysterious & Magical Gypsy/Roma by Allie Theiss (paper for Middle Eastern Class - 2009)
Gypsies/Rom During The Holocaust
Like Jews, the Rom Gypsies were chosen for total annihilation just because of their race. Even though Jews are defined by religion, Hitler saw the gypsies as a race that he believed needed to be completely annihilated. The Nazis believed that both the Jews and Gypsies were racially inferior and degenerate and therefore worthless.
On December 16, 1942, Heinrich Himmler had a "Final Solution" to the gypsy problem and issued an order to send all gypsies to the concentration camps, such as Dachau, Mauthausen, Ravensbruck and Sachsenhausenexcept to perish and become human guinea pigs. But the chosen gypsies, these "lucky" ones from Germany and Nazi-controlled Europe were sent to Auschwitz/Birkenau, where a special Gypsy Family Camp was erected.
At the hands of the so-called "doctors" at Auschwitz/Birkenau they would torture Gypsy children and adults by putting them into pressure chambers, tested with drugs, castrated, frozen to death, and exposed to various other traumas. Some gypsy adults of child-bearing years were lured into voluntary sterilization on the false pretense that to do this would allow them to go free. The female volunteers were injected with chemical substances producing horrible pain, inflamed ovaries and bleeding. If the subject lived through all of that, the damaged ovaries were then removed, without anesthesia, and sent to Berlin. Men and women were positioned repeatedly for several minutes between two x-ray machines aimed at their sexual organs. Their seared flesh was prime for infection, which many died from. Void of anesthesia, men had their testicles sliced off and sent to Breslau.
The man in charge of life and death at Auschwitz/Birkenau, Dr. Josef Mengele, oddly enough loved the gypsy children as much as he hated them. He had a soft spot for them and would give them treats of chocolate and candies. In turn, the children would call him "Uncle Pepe". This Uncle facade allowed Dr. Mengele to get close to the children and made it easier to take them to the children's barrack, nicknamed "The Zoo", in order to be primed for medical and scientific experiments.
In July 1944, the order was given from Berlin to close down the Gypsy Family Camp. Those strong enough to be moved were to be sent to work camps, while the others, mostly women and children, were to be liquidated in the gas chambers. At the end of July and early August 3,000 men were marched out to walk the long distance to the work camps with nothing for survival but the meager clothes on their backs..
"Night of the Gypsies", August 2/3, 1944, the SS rounded up the rest of the gypsies by luring them out of the barracks with the promise of water and bread. Since it was well known by the SS that the gypsies would not go quietly to their deaths, the SS was prepared. After the gypsies realized what was going on they fought back with their bare hands but they were no match for the clubs and guns of the SS. The gypsies were loaded onto the lorries and driven to the gas chambers. Dr. Mengele drove the children under his care to the gas chambers and led them straight to their death. The gypsies fought for their lives until their last breath.
Figures for the number of gypsies killed during the holocaust range from 200,000 to a conservative 500,000. As gypsies could not read or write, many were not registered at the camps and if they were registered, a simple 'Z" was placed where their name should be. Most gypsies were either killed in transit or where they were captured with no record of their deaths. A more realistic number of gypsy deaths is between 1.5 and 4 million, 80% of the European gypsies, slaughtered at the hands of the Nazis.
Dr. Josef Mengele escaped while in custody of the Allied forces and led a long life in South America until he died in 1979 in a drowning accident in Brazil.
The gypsies still await recognition for their suffering.
Excerpt from: Gypsy Magic for the Family's Soul © 2006 by Allie Theiss. All rights reserved.
The Ancient Power Of Healing - Romani Gypsy Shamanism
Deep in the Romanian forest, at the darkest time of night, a Chovihano (Gypsy Shaman) squats over a wooden floor as he engages in an ancient healing ritual. The ones that gather for healing do not see what the Chovihano is doing for he is bathed in the blackness of the night. All they can hear is his low conversations with the Trees and with the Spirits of the Sun, Moon, Air, Earth, Wind and Fire asking for their aid. With his Bakterismasko (magic wand) he drums up the energy around him which by now is starting to flow freely, but powerfully around him.
The Chovihano jingles the Bakterismasko’s bells to ward off any lower unsavory spirits from joining in on the healing ritual. He mummers commands in the Romani tongue as he sprinkles salt for protection around those who have come for healing. He can feel the spirits have gathered to join him in his healing quest and he is in complete control of the Otherworld’s activity.
The Chovihano smiles and talks to all the spirits. It would appear to an outsider that he is talking to himself, but the gypsies that gather know that their Chovihano is in deep conversation with his Guardian Spirits. The gypsies watch him, as they are gathered around a fire with the clan’s Patrinyengri (an herbalist and usually the Chovihano’s wife), as she burns the sacred herbs of rosemary and mugwort for protection and for visions, while she too utters sacred words in the Romani language.
Now it is time for the healing to begin. The Chovihano walks about and jingles, as he is ladened with charms, amulets, talismans, coins and bells for protection. The Chovihano, with the aid of his tambourine, lucky charms and Spirit Guardians, rocks back and forth, moans and makes odd noises as he works himself into a healing trance. He is making contact with his Spirit Guides who will help keep everyone safe during the ritual.
His goal in this healing ritual is to be able to stand in the shoes of those in the group who are sick and/or troubled or bothered by a malevolent spirit so that the problems can pass through him and he can place those problems into one of the three levels of the Otherworld where they belong. If need be he can also travel to the three levels of the Otherworld for soul retrieval, which occurs when someone loses a part of their soul in a past or present life.
To be a Chovihano one is normally the son of the current Chovihano and begins his training in childhood. If no son is born to the Chovihano, then he hand picks his successor - with the help of his Spirit Guides - from the young males. The current Chovihano stays the Chovihano until he dies or is too sick to help. This is when the new Chovihano takes his place in the gypsy hierarchy.
The lifelong commitment of the Chovihano is an honor given to the chosen few, but his influence is felt by all the gypsies and throughout the generations.
Excerpt from: Gypsy Magic for the Dreamer's Soul © 2007 by Allie Theiss. All rights reserved.
Gypsies In The Holocaust: "The Black Triangle"
This infuriates me to no end that the deaths of so many gypsies have been ignored by a large chunk of the world - mostly in the United States. This is why I wrote the screenplay, The Black Triangle, a historical drama with fact blended in with fiction to create a compelling and eye opening story.
Update (Jan 19, 2009) - I have an LA Manager now and I'm working hard on a rewrite. Because of this I am not permitted to handout any more copies of the previous version for review - sorry. Please keep the positive thoughts flowing!!
Activist Lubo Zubak (http://www.romafilmfund.com/) helped me out tremendously in my research and for that I am forever grateful. Please visit his site and see if you can give him a hand in his filmmaking.
Check out our growing collection of Gypsy Lore Links!
BOOKS AND WEB SITES USED IN RESEARCH
These are the resources I used as I wrote the screenplay. I encourage you to pick up one of the books or visit the web sites today.
1. Gerald Posner and John Ware, Mengele: the complete story (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986).
2. Linda Jacobs Altman, The Forgotten Victims of the Holocaust (Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2003).
3. Erika Thurner, National Socialism and Gypsies in Austria, ed. Gilya Gerda Schmidt (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998).
4. Romani Rose, The National Socialist Genocide of the Sinti and Roma (State Museum of Auschwitz, 2003).
5. Mengele’s Twins - http://www.auschwitz.dk/Mengele/index.htm
6. The Crime Lab (Serial Killers/Killers from History) - http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/history/mengele/index_1.html?sect=6
7. The Patrin Web Journal - http://www.geocities.com/~patrin/
8. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/
9. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims - http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/romgypsies.htm
10. The Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society: http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/colldescs/gls.html
11. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_Lore_Society
PUBLISHED INFORMATION ON GYPSIES/ROMA
**Note from Allie: This list was comprised by a well-read gentleman on Gypsies & Roma. His name is Caiyros. I honestly cannot remember where I got this list from, but I do know that this list needs to be credited to the right person.**
Bibliography For Romani, Gypsy, etc:
Acton, Thomas. Gypsy Politics and Social Change. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1974.
Borrow, George Henry. The Zincali, or an Account of the Gypsies of Spain, London: John Murray,1841. Available as an electronic document via FTP.
Borrow, George Henry. Romano Lavo Lil: Word-Book of the Romany or English Gypsy Language, 1874.
Crowe, David M. A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1996) Prof. Ian Hancock remarks in his review (Roma #s 44-45, 1996) "Despite its inevitable Euro-American perspective on Romani history, David Crowe has done a remarkably throough and compassionate job, and this book should be a basic research tool in any Romanologist's library".
Crowe, David. and John Kolsti, eds. The Gypsies of Eastern Europe. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1991. Introduction and "The East European Roots of Romani Nationalism." by Ian Hancock are particularly good, as are the remainder of the chapters, detailing the experience of the Roma in Germany and the Nazi's genocide as well as their experience in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Roumania, Croatia, Serbia, and Albania.
Fonseca, Isabel. Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. This one has created some controversy amongst reviewers. We have left it standing in the bookstore.
Fraser, Angus. The Gypsies 1992 Blackwell Publications Oxford, England. An exhaustive compilation of the historical records makes it a valuable reference, despite its somewhat lackluster interpretive/insightful content.
Hancock, Ian.The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution Ann Arbor: Karoma Press, 1987. Probably the single best source regarding persecution and slavery of the Roma.
Hancock, Ian. A Handbook of Vlax Romani Slavica Inc., 1995. Includes a discussion of the history and migration of the Roma from India to Europe.
Hancock, Ian. "What is The Best Thing To Call Gypsies?." manuscript for Friends of Roma Children, ed. Mary Thomas. Alexandria, VA: (1993).
Kenrick, Donald, and Puxon, Grattan. Gypsies under the Swastika, 1995 (reprint of The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies, London: Sussex University Press, 1972).
Kenrick, Donald. Gypsies: From India to the Mediterranean, Toulouse: CRDP, 1993.
Lee, Ronald. "The Kris Romani." Roma. (July 1987).
Leland, Charles Godfrey. English Gypsy Songs in Romany, 1875. This beautiful little volume is a collection of verses printed in the Romani of the 19th century in England, with English translations and a brief glossary and dictionary.
Liegeois, Jean Pierre. Gypsies: An Illustrated History, 1986. Al Saqi Books, London. English translation based on Tsiganes, La Decouverte, Paris 1983 Useful for its many photographs.
MacRitchie, David. Accounts of the Gypsies of India, 1886. New Society Publications. Delhi, India.
McDowell, Bart. Gypsies: Wanderers of the World National Geographic Society, 1970.
McLane, Merrill F. Proud Outcasts: the Gypsies of Spain, 1987.
McOwan, Janne-Elisabeth. "Ritual Purity: An Aspect of the Gypsy Pilgrimage to Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer." JGLS. Series 5, Vol. 4, No. 2 (August 1994).
Petulengro, Gipsy. A Romany Life, 1936.
Pott, August F. : Die Zigeuner in Europe and Asien. Halle, Heymemann 1844-45
Rao, Aparna. "Some Manus Conceptions and Attitudes." In Gypsies, Tinkers, and Other Travellers, ed. Farnham Rehfisch, 143-144. London: Academic Press, 1975.
Rishi, W.R.: Roma. 1976 Punjabi University, Patiala, India. Who better to understand the basis underlying their language, customs, etc., than an Indian linguist? So un- referenced amongst the internet resources we have found that we have reproduced large excerpts of this work here with the author's permission and as a tribute to his work.
Schreiner, Claus, et. Flamenco Amadeus Press, Portland, Oregon. 1990. Translated from the German 1985 Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main by Mollie Comerford Peters. Collection of extremely well researched and interpreted essays. Undoubtedly the definitive work on the subject, with extensive bibliography, discography, list of festivals, etc. See Publisher's Website for ordering information, also some music links.
Shashi, S. S.: Roma: The Gypsy World 1990 Sundeep Prakashan Delhi, India. Again, an excellent perspective from an Indian author.
Tomasevic, Nebojsa Bato, and Djuric, Rajko. Gypsies of the World, 1988.
Sutherland, Anne. Gypsies: The Hidden Americans New York: The Free Press, 1975. Reprinted Prospect Heights: Waveland, 1986.
Sutherland, Anne. "Gypsy Women, Gypsy Men: Paradoxes and Cultural Resources." (Gypsy Lore Society) Papers From the Sixth and Seventh Annual Meetings, ed. Joanne Grumet. (1986).
Sutherland, Anne. "Health and Illness Among the Rom of California." JGLS Series 5, Vol. 2, No. 1 (February 1992).
Sway, Marlene. Familiar Strangers: Gypsy Life in America University of Illinois Press: Chicago, 1988.
Tong, Diane. Gypsy Folktales New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1989.
Yates, Dora, ed. Gypsy Folktales Barnes & Noble. NewYork 1995, originally published 1948. Some told in local languages of various regions, some in Romani and translated to English. Unfortunately the Romani texts are not printed, nevertheless these stories represent a significant collection of folklore.
The Romani Project - Univ. Manchester UK: http://romani.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/db/bibliography/index.html
The Gypsy Holocaust in World War II:[/color]Bibliography for Gypsies in the Holocaust
Burleigh, Michael
The Racial State: Germany, 1933-1945 (1991)
Fonseca, Isabel
Bury Me Standing: the Gypsies and Their Journey (1995)
Friedman, Philip
Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust (1980)
Hancock, Ian
The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution (1987)
Kenrick, Donald and Grattan Puxon
The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies (1972)
Mueller-Hill, Benno
Murderous Science: Elimination by Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others, Germany 1933-1945 (1988)
Ramati, Alexander
And the Violins Stopped Playing: A Story of the Gypsy Holocaust (FICTION) (1985)
Rose, Romani
The Nazi Genocide of the Sinti and Roma (1995)
State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau
Memorial Book: The Gypsies at Auschwitz-Birkenau (1993)
Wytwycky, Bohdan
The Other Holocaust: Many Circles of Hell (1980)
Articles
Braun, Hans
"A Sinto Survivor Speaks."
Papers From the Sixth and Seventh Annual Meetings, Gypsy Lore Society, North American Chapter. Ed. Joanne Grumet. (1986)
Michalewicz, Bogumila
"The Gypsy Holocaust in Poland."
Papers From the Sixth and Seventh Annual Meetings, Gypsy Lore Society, North American Chapter. Ed. Joanne Grumet. (1986)
Tyrnauer, Gabrielle
"The Forgotten Holocaust of the Gypsies."
Social Education Feb. 1991: 111-113.
Tyrnauer, Gabrielle
"Scholars, Gypsies and the Holocaust."
Papers From the Sixth and Seventh Annual Meetings, Gypsy Lore Society, North American Chapter. Ed. Joanne Grumet. (1986)
Bibliography - Culture
Acton, T Irish Travellers, Culture and Ethnicity
Advisory Committee on Travellers (N.I.) With not For
Allen, Judy The Dream Thing
Area Education & Rights Centre Travellers - the nomadic people of Ireland - cultural and social realities
Associazione Tem Romano (mondo Zingaro) Gypsies in Italy
Barnes, Bettina "Irish Travelling People"
Bewley, Victor Travelling People
Binchy, A Irish Travellers: Culture and Ethnicity
Boxall, T. Gypsy Camera
Byrne, Jones & Jones, Carol & T. Lew Gypsy fires
Cannon, Jon & The Travellers of Thistlebrook Travellers: An Introduction
Casey, Maude Over the Water
Castlebrae Community Education Service Traveller writes
Clondalkin Travellers Development Group & Dublin In Depth Photographs Travelling Through Our Family Lives' - Photographic Exhibition
Conference on Major Religous Superiors Travelling People Today
Council of Europe Gypsies and Travellers: Socio-Cultural Data
Dallas, Duncan The Travelling People
Dempsey, Anne 25 Years with the Travelling People 1965-1990
Dowber, Hilary Travellers and School travellers in Lewisham talk of their experiences of school
Editor - Curtin, Chris Irish urban cultures
Editor - Ian Cruickshank Django's Gypsies - The Mystique of Django Reinhardt and and hid People
Editor - Mayall, David: Immigrants and Minorities Vol. II, No. 1 Gypsies: the forming of identities and official responses
Editor - Volland, Anita Journal of the Gypsy Lore society (published twice yearly)
Erno, Kiraly Gypsy folk Music from Voivodina
European Ethnic Oral Traditions, Dublin - Editor Tom Munnelly Songs of The Irish Travellers
Finlay, Rev T.A. Occasional sketches of Irish life No. II: the vagrant
Fonseca, Isabel Bury me Standing: the Gypsies and their journey
Fraser, Angus The Gypsies (People of Europe)
Fraser, Angus; Wade, Soravia Angus Fraser on 16th century Gypsy healer
Gmelch, George Change and adaption among Irish Travellers (Ph.D Dissertation)
Gmelch, George The effects of economic change on Irish Travellers sex roles and marriage patterns
Gmelch, George & Kroup, Ben To shorten the road
Gmelch, George & Sharon The Irish Travellers: Identity and Inequality
Gmelch, Sharon A field work experience: Irish Travellers in Dublin
Gmelch, Sharon Economic and power relations among urban Tinkers: the role of women
Goddon, Rumer The Diddakoi
Gormon, Margo Travelling report Newry
Gropper, R.C. Gypsies in the City: Culture patterns and survival
Hall, Wilfred A time to come alive (photos)
Harper, J. The Irish Travellers of Georgia (Ph.D. thesis)
Heleiner, Jane The Tinker's Wedding Revisited: Irish Traveller Marriage
Helleiener, Jane The Travelling People: cultural identity in Ireland (PhD Thesis)
Helleiner, Jane The tinkers wedding revisited: Irish Traveller marriage
Holdstock, Mark The Great Fair (Horse Dealing at Balinasloe)
Irish Association for Cultural Economic & Social Relations at al. President Robinsons Awards for the Design of Traveller's Accommodation
Jones, Alan Yorkshire Gypsy Fairs, Customs and Caravans1885-1985
Jones, Alan E. Gypsy Caravans, Their History and restoration
Joyce, Nan We're a different speaking people with our own traditions
Kelly, Judith The Invention and Inventiveness of Gypsy Culture 'The Social Constructions of Minorities and cultural rights in Western Europe' Draft Version
Kenrick, D & Puxon, G Irish Travellers- A Unique Phenomenon in Europe
Kenrick, D & Puxon, G The Destiny of Europe`s Gypsies
Kenrick, Donald Gypsies: Why learn about them?
Kenrick, Donald The portrayal of the Gypsy in English schoolbooks
Koudelka, Josef Gypsies
Kyprianou, Paul Travellers on Mersyside - the experience of racism (MA Thesis)
Law, Barrie A time to look back, Appleby Fair over the last 50 years (photos)
Leblon, Bernard Gypsies and Flamenco
Leland, Charles G. The Gypsies
Liegeois, J-P Gypsies: An illustrated history
MacGreine, Padraig Irish Tinkers or "Travellers"
MacLaughlin, Jim Travellers and Ireland: whose country, whose history?
MacMahon, Bryan A Portrait of Tinkers
Maguire, Des Horses are my life
Mandell, Frederick Gypsies: Culture and Child care
Manush, Leksa Ramayana
Manush, Leksa Roma
Masters, Anthony Traveller`s Tales
Maximoff, Mateo E. Rut
Mc Carthy, Patricia Life with the Travelling People
Mc Donagh, M Nomadism in Irish Travellers' Identity
Mc Veigh, Robbie & Mc Donagh, Michael Minceir Neeja In The Thome Monkra - Irish Travellers in the USA
Minority Rights Group Moving on: A Photo Resource Pack
Moreaux, R. The Gypsies
National Association of Travellers Training Centres Voice of the Traveller - Issues 7/8 May'94->Oct'94
National Council for Travelling People About our Travelling People
National Council for Travelling People The Travelling Paper
National Gypsy Council The Gypsy Way of Life
Navan Travellers heritage teamwork Now and Then (3 copies)
Ni Fhloinn, Bairbre 'Irish Traveller and the oral tradition' in a heritage ahead cultural action and Travellers
Ni Shiuinear, S Irish Travellers, Ethnicity and the Origins Question
Norfolk Traveller Education Service Travellers at fairs and festivals - Talkabout Book 1
Northern Ireland Council for Travelling People The Travelling People in Northern Ireland
O'Baoill, D.P. Travellers' Cant - Language of Register
O'Connor, DJ A fast disappearing clan: the Irish Tinkers
O'Riain, G Traveller Ways, Traveller Words
O'Rourke, Felim The Travelling People
O'Siochainn, S & Ruane, J & Mc Cann, M Introduction
O'Sullivan, Kay Traveller Woman's Wash Day
Okely, Judith The Traveller-Gypsies
Pavee Point A Heritage Ahead: Cultural Action and Travellers
photographed & compiled by Janine Wiedel & with a foreword & transcripts by M. O`Fearadhaigh Irish tinkers
Publisher - Barrie Law Times to remember (photos)
Reemtsma, K Ireland's Discriminated Minority
Rishi, W. R. Multilingual Romani Dictionary
Robey, Sally Tyso`s Promise
Ryan, George The Irish Travellers
Sandford, Jeremy Gypsies
Save the Children Gypsy and Traveller families in the West Midlands
Save the Children Working with Gypsies and Travellers (video)
Spiers, Derek Pavee Pictures
St. Vincent de Paul Society Travelling People - Limerick
Synge, John In Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara
Tallaght Travellers' Development Group & 'Alternative Entertainments' Stories from the Circle. The Travelling Way of life.
Tallaght Travellers' Development Group & Alternative Entertainments Community Arts Group A different way: family life and traveller culture
The Anthropoligical Association of Ireland Irish Travellers: Culture and Ethnicity
The Council for Social Welfare The Travelling People
Tomasevic, B & Djuric, R Gypsies of the world
Travellers' Cultural Heritage Centre & Dublin Travellers Education & Delopment Group Traveller Ways, Traveller Words
Unesco, London The Unesco Courier November 1994
Unspecified Irish clan gathers to observe annual funeral ceremonies
Unspecified Lavs, More Kushti
Waterson, Mary Gypsy Family
Wedeck, Harry Ezekiel Dictionary of Gypsy life and lore
Weldon, Helen Tinkers, Scorners and other Vagabonds
Whyte, Betsy Red Rowans & Wild Honey
WMESTC Somebody told me
Yoors, Jan The Gypsies
The history of the Roma (or Gypsies) is the history of persecution. From the earliest records they have been considered foreigners and outcasts in the lands in which they have travelled. Hundreds of years of propaganda against them have led to vast misconceptions about their culture and heritage . It has been said that despite there being thousands of books on them, only a handful contain any truth. Often considered the underclass in society, the Roma population have often lacked the same rights and access to essential services and so have lived shorter and less substantial lives, even in modern Britain.
The Roma, a nomadic folk, are originally come from Northern India. Their true beginning is lost in myths and legends. Some say that they are descended from an ancient warrior caste, others that they were a gift of musicians sent to the king of Persia. Whatever their beginnings it is clear that they left India sometime after the 5th century and headed towards Europe.
Coming to Europe in the 12th century the Roma began to face their first documented persecution in the Balkans. Their flamboyant ways and traditions, and their refusal to succumb to forced integration led to all the Roma in the region being enslaved. They were used as house slaves, field workers and slaves to the Church. At this time they were considered below the law and therefore were treated in any way their masters wanted. Abuse, rape and murder were common, and there were severe punishments for slaves that ran away or tried to rebel. It was also common for selective breeding to take place in order to produce stronger slave stock.
In the 14th century came the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire. As it began its march into the West so the Gypsies faced more persecution. The White peoples of Europe considered them to be Muslim spies because of their strange colour, culture and language. They became an easy target on which the Europeans could enact vengeance. Stereotypes of them being thieves and devil-worshippers became prevalent and were used in sanctioning their persecution. So much so that many fairy-tales from that time contain 'evil-gypsies'
As the Roma spread, so too did their persecution. In 17th Century Bohemia: King Leopold I, Emperor of The Holy Roman Empire, ordered the killing of all Roma males and the mutilating of all the woman in the form of cutting off their ears. At the same time in France it became illegal to be a Gypsy, punishable by forced labour. In most other European countries, including Britain, it became common practice to deport them to America, something to which a lot of American Gypsies trace their roots. Throughout this time it is thought that nearly half of all gypsies were enslaved at some point.
During the rise of Nazism the Roma people were once again to face persecution in the form of the Holocaust. After the Balkan Roma slaves were freed in 1860 a new wave of Gypsies spread across Europe and America looking for work and their numbers had begun to grow again. This was at odds with Nazi idealism and so the systematic extermination of them began. Over 500,000 Roma were killed during the Holocaust; in gas chambers, scientific experiments and other forms of cruelty.
Even today the Roma face misunderstanding and mistrust that often comes forth as racism. Over 6 million Gypsies live in Europe, most in former Soviet countries or in small groups around the Mediterranean. They nearly always find themselves at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Poverty is rife among them, unemployment rates are exceptionally high and life expectancy is exceptionally low. In Hungary and the Czech-Republic, racism against Gypsies is common, with 'White Only' restaurants and schools, and although the situation is improving there is still a lot to be done.
Though to a lesser extent, the same problem exists here in Britain. Gypsies (or Travellers) have a well below average life expectancy, have worse access to schools and medicine and are significantly more likely to develop mental illness. As well as these factors they still face a racism that stems from a continued misunderstanding of their culture. Many small towns are opposed to Gypsy camps being allowed to set up near them and often use the same reasoning that has been the basis for their persecution throughout history. It doesn't help when the Conservative party (now in government) do everything they can to stop the creation of new Traveller camps, and when its members have been accused of racism towards the Gypsy Community.
It is amazing that, despite nearly a millennium of persecution, slavery and extermination, this vibrant and colourful people have held onto their identity. Many of their customs are hundreds of years old and the legends that surround them are both fantastic and wonderful. Modern Gypsies hold on to these traditions, but the tradition of their exclusion and mistrust should be consigned to the annals of history. We can only do this by not letting their proposed areas of land be cut, as has happened recently when Boris Johnson cut the proposed sites from over 800 to just 238. The new Conservative government also plans to take away the ‘Regional Spatial Strategies’ that, among other things, force local councils into setting aside areas of land for Traveller communities. In a modern society, where equality is so championed, surely the time is long overdue for embracing these people rather than pushing them further into to the fringes of society.
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I wrote this piece after studying the Gypsies for a recent blog-post on the government rescinding the 'regional spatial strategies' (found here)I was horrified at the information I found and, unable to fit it all into a single post decided to submit it here. Thanks for reading.
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Harlan County, Kentucky
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harlan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky . It was formed in 1819.[1] As of 2010, the population was 29,278. Its county seat is Harlan . The Commonwealth's highest natural point, Black Mountain (4,145 feet (1,263 m)), is in Harlan County.
With regard to the sale of alcohol , it is classified as a moist county —a county in which alcohol sales are prohibited (a dry county ), but containing a "wet" city, in this case Cumberland , where package alcohol sales are allowed. In the city of Harlan, restaurants seating 100+ may serve alcoholic beverages[2]
History[edit source | editbeta ]
Harlan County was formed in 1819 from a part of Knox County . It is named after Silas Harlan.[3] A pioneer, he was born on March 17, 1753 in Berkeley County, West Virginia (when it was still part of Virginia), the son of George and Ann (Hurst) Harlan. Journeying to Kentucky as a young man with James Harrod in 1774, Harlan served as scout, hunter, and held the rank of Major in the Continental Army . Harlan assisted Harrod's party in Harrodsburg to deliver gunpowder to settlers in Kentucky, and to assist them against the British in the Revolutionary War .
With the help of his uncle Jacob and his brother James, Harlan built a log stockade near Danville known as "Harlan's Station". He served under George Rogers Clark in the Illinois campaign of 1778–79 against the British. He also commanded a company in John Bowman 's raid on Old Chillicothe in 1779, and assisted Clark in establishing Fort Jefferson at the mouth of the Ohio River in 1780.
Silas Harlan died leading the advance party at the Battle of Blue Licks on August 19, 1782. At the time of his death, Harlan was engaged to Sarah Caldwell, who later married his brother James and was the grandmother of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan .[4][5]
Harlan County Courthouse
The county has been the site of repeated attempts to organize labor and gain better deals from owners, beginning in the early 20th century, primarily related to the coal mining industry. Violent confrontations among strikers, strikebreakers, mine company security forces and law enforcement in the 1930s led to the county being referred to as "Bloody Harlan" for several years. After the Battle of Evarts , May 5, 1931, the governor of Kentucky called in the National Guard to restore order. The county was the subject of the film Harlan County, USA (1976), which documented strikes and organizing during a second major period of labor unrest in the 1970s.
In 1924, Condy Dabney was convicted in the county of murdering a person who was later found alive.[6]
From the late eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth century, Harlan County and nearby counties were settled by numerous persons of multiracial descent, with African, European and often Native American ancestors. Descendants, some of whose members have been called Melungeon , have documented the racial heritage of Harlan's early settlers through 19th-century photographs, DNA analysis and historic records. In 2007, the Ridgetop Shawnee Tribe of Indians formed as a non-profit to work on improving the lives of multiracial families and preserving Native American heritage. It established the Kentucky Native American Data Bank, which has the names of 1,000 people of documented Native American descent related to this region; it is accessible for free on Rootsweb.
Geography[edit source | editbeta ]
According to the 2000 census, the county has a total area of 467.97 square miles (1,212.0 km2), of which 467.20 square miles (1,210.0 km2) (or 99.84%) is land and 0.78 square miles (2.0 km2) (or 0.17%) is water.[7]
Geographic features[edit source | editbeta ]
The headwaters of the Cumberland River are located in Harlan County: Poor Fork (extending from the city of Harlan east past the city of Cumberland and into Letcher County ), Clover Fork extending East from above Evarts, and Martins Fork (extending through the city of Harlan west). The confluence is located in Baxter.
Black Mountain , located east of Lynch , is Kentucky's highest point, with an elevation of 4,145 feet (1,263 m) above sea level.
Major highways[edit source | editbeta ]
Adjacent counties[edit source | editbeta ]
National protected areas[edit source | editbeta ]
Cumberland Gap National Historical Park (part)
Communities[edit source | editbeta ]
Cities[edit source | editbeta ]
Unincorporated communities[edit source | editbeta ]
Demographics[edit source | editbeta ]
As of the census [10] of 2000, there were 33,202 people, 13,291 households, and 9,449 families residing in the county. The population density was 71 per square mile (27 /km2). There were 15,017 housing units at an average density of 32 per square mile (12 /km2). The racial makeup of the county was 95.56% White , 2.62% African American , 0.48% Native American , 0.29% Asian , 0.02% Pacific Islander , 0.08% from other races , and 0.95% from two or more races. 0.65% of the population were Hispanics or Latinos of any race.
There were 13,291 households out of which 32.20% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.30% were married couples living together, 13.20% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.90% were non-families. 27.00% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.60% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 3.00.
The age distribution was 25.00% under the age of 18, 8.50% from 18 to 24, 27.50% from 25 to 44, 25.20% from 45 to 64, and 13.90% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 91.80 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.80 males.
The median income for a household in the county was $18,665, and the median income for a family was $23,536. Males had a median income of $29,148 versus $19,288 for females. The per capita income for the county was $11,585. About 29.10% of families and 32.50% of the population were below the poverty line , including 40.10% of those under age 18 and 21.00% of those age 65 or over. During Harlan County's early history a number of Native Americans of mixed heritage, or commonly called Melungeons , settled the area.
Education[edit source | editbeta ]
Higher education[edit source | editbeta ]
The county's only higher education institution is Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College (formerly known as Southeast Community College), a part of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, which has its main campus in Cumberland.
K–12 public schools[edit source | editbeta ]
The county has two K–12 public school districts .
Harlan County Public Schools[edit source | editbeta ]
Harlan County Public Schools covers all of Harlan County, except for the city of Harlan and some small unincorporated communities adjacent to the city. The district operates one high school, Harlan County High School , which opened in August 2008. The school mascot is the Black Bears, reflecting the area's increasing black bear population. The new high school, located in the rural community of Rosspoint east of Harlan, replaced three other high schools:
Cumberland High School, Cumberland ,[11] served students from the cities of Cumberland, Benham, Lynch, and near the Letcher County border.
Evarts High School, Evarts ,[12] served a wide geographical area reaching from the Harlan City limits to the Virginia border.
James A. Cawood High School, Harlan ,[13] served students in central Harlan County.
The district also operates the following K–8 schools:
Black Mountain Elementary
Cawood Elementary
Cumberland Elementary
Evarts Elementary
Green Hills Elementary
James A. Cawood Elementary
Rosspoint Elementary
Wallins Elementary
Harlan Independent Schools[edit source | editbeta ]
Harlan Independent Schools is a separate district covering the city of Harlan and operating the following schools:
Harlan High School
Mascot: Green Dragons[14]
Harlan Middle School
Harlan Elementary School
K–12 private schools[edit source | editbeta ]
There are two private schools in the county:
Harlan County Christian School (Putney)[15]
Victory Road Christian Academy (Cumberland)[16]
Economy[edit source | editbeta ]
Coal companies in Harlan County[edit source | editbeta ]
Notable natives[edit source | editbeta ]
Bernie Bickerstaff , NBA coach
Rebecca Caudill , author of children's books[20]
Jerry Chestnut, songwriter
Carl H. Dodd , Korean War soldier and Medal of Honor recipient
Wah Wah Jones , NBA player
Nick Lachey , singer, actor
Cawood Ledford , University of Kentucky basketball and football announcer
George Ella Lyon , author and poet
Florence Reece , songwriter
Area attractions[edit source | editbeta ]
Martins Fork Lake
Black Mountain Off-Road Adventure Area : This off-road park has been voted number one all-terrain vehicle (ATV) destination by ATV Pathfinder [1] for two years running. It consists of more than 7,000 acres (28 km2) set aside for quads and 4WD vehicle recreation. The park attracts several thousand visitors and is considered by many to be the best riding area in the eastern United States. Harlan county also holds the Guinness world record for the largest ATV parade.[21]
Kingdom Come State Park ; Elevation: 2,700 feet (820 m); Size: 1,283 acres (5.19 km2); Location: On the outskirts of the city of Cumberland, and is connected to the Little Shepherd Trail. This state park was named after the popular Civil War novel, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, by Kentucky author John Fox, Jr. The park contains a picnic area, hiking trails, a fishing lake, a cave amphitheater, several lookouts and contains many natural rock formations, including Log Rock and Raven Rock. It is also the site of the annual Kentucky Black Bear Festival.
Martins Fork Lake
Cranks Creek Lake
Pine Mountain Settlement School [22]
Benham School House Inn
Kentucky Coal Mining Museum
Hensley Settlement : South of Kentucky Route 987 on Hensley Settlement Road
In popular culture[edit source | editbeta ]
Prose[edit source | editbeta ]
Elmore Leonard 's novels Pronto and Riding the Rap feature Raylan Givens , a Harlan County native, and his short story "Fire in the Hole" has Givens returning to Harlan.
Music[edit source | editbeta ]
Harlan County is mentioned in many versions of the 18th century folk song "Shady Grove ". The famous labor song, "Which Side Are You On? ", was written by Florence Reece in 1931 in and about Harlan. It has been covered by many artists from Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers to Billy Bragg , the Dropkick Murphys , and Natalie Merchant . Harlan is mentioned in the Aaron Watson song "Kentucky Coal Miner's Prayer". It is the subject of the Darrell Scott song "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive", which has been covered by Brad Paisley , Kathy Mattea , and Patti Loveless , among others. Dierks Bentley 's song "Down in the Mine", on his Up on the Ridge album, mentions Harlan. The band Spear of Destiny wrote a song entitled "Harlan County", which was released on their album World Service in 1985.
Films[edit source | editbeta ]
Harlan County, USA (1976). Documentary film directed by Barbara Kopple depicting the Eastover/Brookside coal miners' strike, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature .
Harlan County War (2000). Dramatic film based on the Eastover/Brookside strike. Directed by Tony Bill and starring Holly Hunter .
Television[edit source | editbeta ]
The FX television series Justified , created by Graham Yost and based on Elmore Leonard 's Raylan Givens novels and short story,[23] is set in the U.S. federal district of Eastern Kentucky and prominently in Harlan County. The show is filmed in California, however, and not in Kentucky.
William Lewis (played by Pablo Schreiber ), the suspect in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Her Negotiation" (season 14, episode 24), was born and allegedly committed his first offense in Harlan County.
See also[edit source | editbeta ]
Notes and references[edit source | editbeta ]
^ "Find A County" . Naco.org. Retrieved April 16, 2013.
^ "Wet & Dry Counties in Kentucky" (PDF). Kentucky Office of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Archived from the original on March 15, 2007. Retrieved March 21, 2007.
^ Rennick, Robert M. (1987). "Kentucky Place Names". University Press of Kentucky. p. 131. Retrieved 2013-04-28.
^ Green III, James S. (1964). Major Silas Harlan: His Life and Times. Baxter, Ky. p. 83.
^ Harlan, Alpheus Hibben (1914). History and Genealogy of the Harlan Family; and Particularly of the Descendants of George and Michael Harlan Who Settled in Chester County, Pa., 1687. Baltimore.
^ Borchard, Edwin M (1932). Convicting the Innocent: Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice. p. 55. ISBN 1-4086-7960-4 .
^ "Census 2000 U.S. Gazetteer Files: Counties" . United States Census. Retrieved 2011-02-13.
^ "U.S. Decennial Census" . Census.gov. Retrieved August 5, 2013.
^ "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2012" . Census.gov. Retrieved August 5, 2013.
^ "American FactFinder" . United States Census Bureau . Retrieved 2008-01-31.
^ "Cumberland High School" . Web.archive.org. 2008-10-14. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
^ "Evarts High School" . Web.archive.org. 2011-01-23. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
^ "James A. Cawood High School" . Web.archive.org. 2008-12-25. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
^ "Harlan Independent Schools" . Harlan-ind.k12.ky.us. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
^ "車査定で高値を引き出すコツ！知らなきゃ損する中古車買取の秘訣" . Hccs-warriors.com. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
^ "Home - Victory Road Christian Academy" . Victoryroadchristianacademy.webs.com. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
^ Alpha Natural Resources - 2012 Kentucky Operations
^ James River Coal Company – Bledsoe complex
^ US Coal Corporation :: Operations
^ Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award: About the Award . Rebeccacaudill.org (1985-10-02). Retrieved on 2011-03-13.
^ Lee-Sherman, Deanna (2006-09-16). "County breaks ATV world record" (– Scholar search ). Harlan Daily Enterprise[dead link ]
^ "Pine Mountain Settlement School" . Pine Mountain Settlement School. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
^ Zogbi, Marina (December 1, 2009). "'Justified' on FX Premiering in March" . AOL . Retrieved December 13, 2009.
Further reading[edit source | editbeta ]
External links[edit source | editbeta ]
[show]
Municipalities and communities of Harlan County, Kentucky, United States
Coordinates : [Show location on an interactive map] 36.86°N 83.22°W
Luke 15:11-32
New International Version (NIV)
The Parable of the Lost Son
11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
[[Help in Writing Novel|http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Novel]]
1.
1
Some writers like to map out their story ahead of time. Other writers jump into the story headfirst. Remember: Writing isn’t always a perfect process. It proceeds backwards, inside out, or upside down more often than forwards. Skip the first three steps, or add more detailed steps of your own. As The Writer, it’s your decision.
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2.
2
Figure out what your story is going to be about. This is called the plot. To start, decide what the novel is about. It could be about a pirate captain who voyages the seven seas or a knight who defends his fortress from cruel invaders or a concentration camp escapee. Once you have the central idea it WILL develop into a full fledged plot. A plot needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. It also must have conflict and a resolution pulled on by believable motivation that will make your writing static.
* Consider using authoring software if you do not have a good feel for doing it on your own. This can be expensive but can help both the novice and the professional in developing solid stories.
3.
3
Create your main characters. Usually there is a main good guy (protagonist) and a main bad guy (antagonist). There are several ways to do this. One way could be to draw rough sketches of them. Another could be to write up a list of questions (name? age? pastimes? fetishes? flaws? temptation?) and answer them for each character. Or just start writing and take them raw. Make sure that these characters are believable and natural.
* Don’t make your protagonist perfect. If your protagonist is perfectly flawless, your readers will have no way to connect to him or her. After all, nobody’s perfect. For the protagonist character development is very important. These are scenes that tell the reader something more about the character. This will help the readers feel more strongly about him or her.
* Same applies to the antagonist, they shouldn't be all bad. If they have no good or human qualities, your readers will have no way to connect, and they will seem wooden.
4.
4
Create your other characters. Don’t make the mistake of thinking secondary characters are unimportant. They will inhabit the back drop of the novel and must help bring the place alive. These characters should be explored but remember that they should not get in the way of the protagonist.
5.
5
Start writing. There are several common approaches to writing:
* Begin with the ending in mind. Meaning, of course, you set the outcome of the story in your head, and work toward it. If you know the ending of the story, it can help you form the theme, the plot, the settings, the characters, and it can help you progress more easily toward that ending.
* The big picture approach. Try to create the world (the overall setting and environment), and then build on it to create your novel. Create geography, races, towns, cities, capitals, cults, factions, governments, etc.
* Dive in approach. You have the list of the idea, and you start writing while it's still fresh in your mind. Take few, short breaks while writing with this method, as to not forget what you're thinking about. And also- be ready for this to hit you at anytime. Inspiration's not going to warn you when it's about to come knocking on your door.
* Start with characters. Create three or four characters and let the plot build up around them. This way will allow the characters to be more embedded in the plot.
6.
6
Make the Commitment. You do need to understand what you're undertaking. Many wonderful writers go unnoticed and unread because their drawers are filled with unfinished novels. You must say to your self that if this novel does not get written then you can only blame your self. Try to set small goals. This will keep you motivated.
7.
7
Create a habit. “We are creatures of habit,” it is said, and it’s true. Do the following things to help make your writing a habit:
* Make yourself write every day, whether it's a sentence, a chapter, or more, you must regularly dedicate some time to your novel. Set aside a quiet hour where everyone must leave you alone. Morning or night, it doesn’t matter, although some writers work better at certain times of the day. Just make sure you write daily! Or, an even better idea, set a time limit for each day, say, a few hours, so you don't go insane trying to finish your story but you do have some motivation to make use of your hours before that timer dings.
* Create a writing space. Find a cozy place where you can relax and there are no distractions. Get a good chair to sit in which won't give you back pains after hours and hours of sitting and writing. You don't write a book in an hour, it takes months, so protect your back.
* If you are a procrastinator, try joining NaNoWriMo: write 50,000 words in one month to complete your novel. Writers tend to work better when there's a deadline to face. More motivation.
8.
8
Seek constructive feedback. Never show your precious writing to someone you don't completely trust. Your writing is in its “baby stage” and it needs nurture and love. You need someone encouraging, but who isn't afraid to be honest and completely blunt with you. Remember, only take criticism from a friend as long as you know they are being honest with you, otherwise it is better to get criticism from an editor or agent.
* Consider joining an online or offline writing community. This can provide support, feedback, and peer reviews.
9.
9
Rewrite. The story is really written during this part. Editing and rewriting is what makes the story good, because you can always write fuller. The writing stage is when you set your ideas down. The rewriting stage is the time to make it great. But be careful not to over-edit. It is possible to rip out your story while you straighten your grammar. Check with two or more "personal editors" (aka, friends, family, teachers, etc...) before you do a massive edit (although your opinion is the final decision it is not always the right answer). Always save the first draft in a safe place. Sometimes you DO go overboard with the editing and end up wanting to go back to that first draft.
10.
10
Keep rewriting. A great story is never truly finished, and as an amateur, you really don't have any time restrictions. “A story is never finished, only abandoned.”
11.
11
Publish your work. This is the conclusion that most writers aim for. Whether you choose a well known publishing company, an online e-publisher, or self-publish.
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[[Help|http://www.giffmex.org/twfortherestofus.html]]
In the book Cold Mountain the main character walks home from a battle to go home. It is a great distance away. He spends a great deal of time in the mountains and valleys. He has many adventures. One of the things that has always fascinated me about this book was his adventures. He came upon these mysterious place and peoples. Some seemed like dreams. He came upon gypsies, carnivals, and old hermit mystics.
I want to add something like this to my book. I want Hilda and Dave to have such adventures while they are on the road. I want to them to see some great mysterious and learn some great truth.
Secret Camps, Hermits, and Mysteries in the Deep Woods
Flying over America today, you only have to look outside your window to see how much wilderness and rural areas there are. It is easy to assume that this is wide open spaces with very few inhabitants. But if you are on the ground you quickly learn to dispel this myth. You only have to pick and direction and walk and you will make a discovery. Yes, it may be later, than sooner. You will surprised.
Now imagine you are in the 2000 mile range of the ancient Appalachian mountains. There are nooks, hollers, caves, and secrets. These places are inhabited with a vast range of characters, both real and imagined. There are many stories and as you touch and perhaps pierce the veil of its truth, it becomes part of your story.
Some of the inhabitants were there by choice, some were on the run, and some sought a conversation with God. Some were practical. Some were evil. Some were magical and mysterious.
Type the text for 'New Tiddler'
In the book Cold Mountain the main character walks home from a battle to go home. It is a great distance away. He spends a great deal of time in the mountains and valleys. He has many adventures. One of the things that has always fascinated me about this book was his adventures. He came upon these mysterious place and peoples. Some seemed like dreams. He came upon gypsies, carnivals, and old hermit mystics.
I want to add something like this to my book. I want Hilda and Dave to have such adventures while they are on the road. I want to them to see some great mysterious and learn some great truth.
Secret Camps, Hermits, and Mysteries in the Deep Woods
Flying over America today, you only have to look outside your window to see how much wilderness and rural areas there are. It is easy to assume that this is wide open spaces with very few inhabitants. But if you are on the ground you quickly learn to dispel this myth. You only have to pick and direction and walk and you will make a discovery. Yes, it may be later, than sooner. You will surprised.
Now imagine you are in the 2000 mile range of the ancient Appalachian mountains. There are nooks, hollers, caves, and secrets. These places are inhabited with a vast range of characters, both real and imagined. There are many stories and as you touch and perhaps pierce the veil of its truth, it becomes part of your story.
Some of the inhabitants were there by choice, some were on the run, and some sought a conversation with God. Some were practical. Some were evil. Some were magical and mysterious.
Hilda has her babies.
Hilda had been traveling with Dave and the Hippies for several months on the love bus.They had traveled all over the south. They had hustled, beg, partied and generally had a good time except when she wasn't. Hilda was generally a bummer for the whole group. She was emotional. She would throw fits, She would manipulate. She was selfish and egotistical. The group learned pretty quick that Hilda was great for partying one day with, but she was way too draining to spend your life with.
Even Dave would grow exasperated with her and her tantrums. There was just no pleasing her sometimes. It seemed the more intimate they became physically the more emotionally distant she become.
Spiritually, everyone in the group was growing closer and more enlightened except for Hilda. While more of the group was in the bliss of an acid trip and find answers to heaven, Hilda was trying to crawl out of Hell.
Since she had started doing acid, she had started having flashbacks of being raped and molested. She would re-live all of her torment in a flash, and it affected her emotionally. Sometimes when she would be having sex with Dave, she would see and smell her step father and become like a rag doll that she used to do with him. Sometimes it was better when she was a rag doll because she truly felt like a victim. The times when she enjoyed it, afterwards guilt would pour into her soul like melted lead. And this guilt weighed her down all of her days. During these flashbacks of sex, the emotional baggage would be with her for days.
Other times she would have flashbacks of the Lumberjack and have the terror she had when he raped her. Sometimes this was followed by visions of is rotting body and she would be bagged up in a bundle of guilt and terror which would stay with her.
She certainly gave out bad vides and most of the group stayed away from her. She would increasingly become more isolated till Dave came back to their sleeping area at night.
In Ashville, the group made camp for several weeks with the commune in the mountains.
One day, after hearing of a free clinic, by someone asking volunteers, she though she would go for a check up. She had been nausea and dizzy for a few days. She borrowed a bike and road into town. There was a tent set up in the park with a big sign saying Free Clinic. She checked with the girl at the folding table and was directed across the street to the store front clinic. The reception was triaging and thought her complaints needed evaluated right away.
The girls in the office weighed her. Took her temp and blood pressure. They gave her a little cup and directed her to the rest room to give a urine sample. They then directed her into a small room with an exam table. After a few minutes a young man with long shaggy hair and a lab coat comes in with a clip board. He speaks to her and he has a heavy Boston accent. She asks him about it and he explains that he had come south to do some mission work.
The doctor asked her specific questions about her habits, living arrangements, drugs, alcohol, whether she was married, had she any children. He then examined her and listened to her chest and heart. The last thing he did was call in a nurse. He explained that he was going to do a pelvic exam and that the nurse was going to help.
He finished up and told her to get dressed and that the nurse would bring him back to his private office.
The doctor was just finishing up when Hilda walked into the room. He told her to have a seat. He started out did she suspect that she was pregnant. She said no. Well he said your urine test and the pelvic exam confirms that you are about three months pregnant. She let out a gasp. Did you not miss your periods. yes but that was not unusual.
She was scared. While she was in the waiting room, she had read some of the pamphlets and had seen one entitled LSD and Birth Defects.
He asked her plans and recommended a course of follow up appointments. She gave him answers, but she really did not know what she was going to do.
As she was walking across the park, she decided to do what she usually did. She would run. She would disappear.
She would find Kenny. He would help.
Hilda is going to have a baby.
Hilda had been traveling with Dave and the Hippies for several months on the love bus.They had traveled all over the south. They had hustled, beg, partied and generally had a good time except when she wasn't. Hilda was generally a bummer for the whole group. She was emotional. She would throw fits, She would manipulate. She was selfish and egotistical. The group learned pretty quick that Hilda was great for partying one day with, but she was way too draining to spend your life with.
Even Dave would grow exasperated with her and her tantrums. There was just no pleasing her sometimes. It seemed the more intimate they became physically the more emotionally distant she become.
Spiritually, everyone in the group was growing closer and more enlightened except for Hilda. While more of the group was in the bliss of an acid trip and find answers to heaven, Hilda was trying to crawl out of Hell.
Since she had started doing acid, she had started having flashbacks of being raped and molested. She would re-live all of her torment in a flash, and it affected her emotionally. Sometimes when she would be having sex with Dave, she would see and smell her step father and become like a rag doll that she used to do with him. Sometimes it was better when she was a rag doll because she truly felt like a victim. The times when she enjoyed it, afterwards guilt would pour into her soul like melted lead. And this guilt weighed her down all of her days. During these flashbacks of sex, the emotional baggage would be with her for days.
Other times she would have flashbacks of the Lumberjack and have the terror she had when he raped her. Sometimes this was followed by visions of is rotting body and she would be bagged up in a bundle of guilt and terror which would stay with her.
She certainly gave out bad vides and most of the group stayed away from her. She would increasingly become more isolated till Dave came back to their sleeping area at night.
In Ashville, the group made camp for several weeks with the commune in the mountains.
One day, after hearing of a free clinic, by someone asking volunteers, she though she would go for a check up. She had been nausea and dizzy for a few days. She borrowed a bike and road into town. There was a tent set up in the park with a big sign saying Free Clinic. She checked with the girl at the folding table and was directed across the street to the store front clinic. The reception was triaging and thought her complaints needed evaluated right away.
The girls in the office weighed her. Took her temp and blood pressure. They gave her a little cup and directed her to the rest room to give a urine sample. They then directed her into a small room with an exam table. After a few minutes a young man with long shaggy hair and a lab coat comes in with a clip board. He speaks to her and he has a heavy Boston accent. She asks him about it and he explains that he had come south to do some mission work.
The doctor asked her specific questions about her habits, living arrangements, drugs, alcohol, whether she was married, had she any children. He then examined her and listened to her chest and heart. The last thing he did was call in a nurse. He explained that he was going to do a pelvic exam and that the nurse was going to help.
He finished up and told her to get dressed and that the nurse would bring him back to his private office.
The doctor was just finishing up when Hilda walked into the room. He told her to have a seat. He started out did she suspect that she was pregnant. She said no. Well he said your urine test and the pelvic exam confirms that you are about three months pregnant. She let out a gasp. Did you not miss your periods. yes but that was not unusual.
She was scared. While she was in the waiting room, she had read some of the pamphlets and had seen one entitled LSD and Birth Defects.
He asked her plans and recommended a course of follow up appointments. She gave him answers, but she really did not know what she was going to do.
As she was walking across the park, she decided to do what she usually did. She would run. She would disappear.
She would find Kenny. He would help.
Segway### This section will be an exposition on Kenny's morphing into a televangist and faith healer. He had left the tent circuit.
The third part of this section will be Hilda find Kenny. She starts to tell him that she is pregnant, but she is caught up emotions. She ends up in bed with him and kinda on a honeymoon of a rush of love. She delays telling him. After several weeks the belly grew more pressing. She had to tell him. She tells him that she is pregnant and before she could tell him the rest of the story, he rushes to her and hug and shallows her up.
Don't worry. I love you and you love me. We will elope and get married as soon as possible. And they do.
Azuzu Chapter 18
Hilda has her babies.
Hilda had been traveling with Dave and the Hippies for several months on the love bus.They had traveled all over the south. They had hustled, beg, partied and generally had a good time except when she wasn't. Hilda was generally a bummer for the whole group. She was emotional. She would throw fits, She would manipulate. She was selfish and egotistical. The group learned pretty quick that Hilda was great for partying one day with, but she was way too draining to spend your life with.
Even Dave would grow exasperated with her and her tantrums. There was just no pleasing her sometimes. It seemed the more intimate they became physically the more emotionally distant she become.
Spiritually, everyone in the group was growing closer and more enlightened except for Hilda. While more of the group was in the bliss of an acid trip and find answers to heaven, Hilda was trying to crawl out of Hell.
Since she had started doing acid, she had started having flashbacks of being raped and molested. She would re-live all of her torment in a flash, and it affected her emotionally. Sometimes when she would be having sex with Dave, she would see and smell her step father and become like a rag doll that she used to do with him. Sometimes it was better when she was a rag doll because she truly felt like a victim. The times when she enjoyed it, afterwards guilt would pour into her soul like melted lead. And this guilt weighed her down all of her days. During these flashbacks of sex, the emotional baggage would be with her for days.
Other times she would have flashbacks of the Lumberjack and have the terror she had when he raped her. Sometimes this was followed by visions of is rotting body and she would be bagged up in a bundle of guilt and terror which would stay with her.
She certainly gave out bad vides and most of the group stayed away from her. She would increasingly become more isolated till Dave came back to their sleeping area at night.
In Ashville, the group made camp for several weeks with the commune in the mountains.
One day, after hearing of a free clinic, by someone asking volunteers, she though she would go for a check up. She had been nausea and dizzy for a few days. She borrowed a bike and road into town. There was a tent set up in the park with a big sign saying Free Clinic. She checked with the girl at the folding table and was directed across the street to the store front clinic. The reception was triaging and thought her complaints needed evaluated right away.
The girls in the office weighed her. Took her temp and blood pressure. They gave her a little cup and directed her to the rest room to give a urine sample. They then directed her into a small room with an exam table. After a few minutes a young man with long shaggy hair and a lab coat comes in with a clip board. He speaks to her and he has a heavy Boston accent. She asks him about it and he explains that he had come south to do some mission work.
The doctor asked her specific questions about her habits, living arrangements, drugs, alcohol, whether she was married, had she any children. He then examined her and listened to her chest and heart. The last thing he did was call in a nurse. He explained that he was going to do a pelvic exam and that the nurse was going to help.
He finished up and told her to get dressed and that the nurse would bring him back to his private office.
The doctor was just finishing up when Hilda walked into the room. He told her to have a seat. He started out did she suspect that she was pregnant. She said no. Well he said your urine test and the pelvic exam confirms that you are about three months pregnant. She let out a gasp. Did you not miss your periods. yes but that was not unusual.
She was scared. While she was in the waiting room, she had read some of the pamphlets and had seen one entitled LSD and Birth Defects.
He asked her plans and recommended a course of follow up appointments. She gave him answers, but she really did not know what she was going to do.
As she was walking across the park, she decided to do what she usually did. She would run. She would disappear.
She would find Kenny. He would help.
###Segway### This section will be an exposition on Kenny's morphing into a televangist and faith healer. He had left the tent circuit.
The third part of this section will be Hilda find Kenny. She starts to tell him that she is pregnant, but she is caught up emotions. She ends up in bed with him and kinda on a honeymoon of a rush of love. She delays telling him. After several weeks the belly grew more pressing. She had to tell him. She tells him that she is pregnant and before she could tell him the rest of the story, he rushes to her and hug and shallows her up.
Don't worry. I love you and you love me. We will elope and get married as soon as possible. And they do.
Hilda had been hitching around for a few weeks. She was not really running from anything, but it felt to her like someone was after her. She often felt like a coon being pursued by baying dogs. She was running from trouble and all too frequently into trouble. She had seen her share of hustles, quacks, and kooks. Most of her time was spent traveling with the carnival. She earned her keep by a variety of jobs. She washed, drove trucks, cleaned, gambled, sweet talked, ran the carnival rides, sang, hustled the crowd, and occasionally worked as a hochie coochie girl.
It was an adventure she enjoyed. She was only twenty and had the energy to enjoy her reputation as a fast girl. She was riding life like a war horse. She met her share of boys, seemingly a new one in every town. She saw the insides of a many honky tonk and was the source of not a few drunken attentions.
Hilda shared a travel trailer with Louise. Louise was in her mid to late thirties. She was an attractive woman, but had a hard edge which advertised she was not easy pickins. She had been with the circus for about five years. She had takened up the nomadic way after a bad run with a man. She never quite told the whole story, but many of the troupe had piece together that she had fallen in love with a con man while she was still a teen and ran away from home. He had used and abused her and had her as a partner in crime across the North and West. She still had a half dozen warrants out for her and that is why she didn’t ever go north of Ohio or west of the Mississippi. By the time of the night she left him, that night in Chicago, she had had enough. After he had beat her in a drunken rage, she had tied him up after he passed out and whacked him a few times on the head with his Wild Turkey whiskey bottle as she was leaving with as much money and valuables she could find on him and in their belongings. He bled a lot and moaned. She did not know how bad he was hurt nor did she care. She did not look back. She never went back to Chicago. As far as she knew he could be dead and there was a murder warrant for her, or he could be alive and gunning for her. She had hooked up the carnival in Louisville working the summers. They traveled farther south as the seasons turned and usually ended up wintering for a few months in the Keys every year.
The carnival was in the middle of his Summer season and was traveling throughout KY and and the western side of the Appachlains. It was just too much trouble to haul the amusement rides through the mountains.
No one would never know if Louise would have entered the life if not for that man. But entered it she had. It was all she knew. And she was pretty good at turning a dollar. Or a trick. Survive she would at any cost.
As usual the carnival had pulled into town on a Wednesday in order to be set up and running for the weekend. The locations were usually booked months in advance. Utilities had to be arranged. Permits and inspections done. And palms greased. They usually worked Noon to Midnight so they had some time to carouse the local night life. Sometimes Hilda and Louise made more money in a night hustling at a bar than they did all week scamming at the carnival.
Dave has been traveling with his Dads’ traveling tent revival since he had been kicked out of college. He had been traveling what was known as the “sawdust” trail. The name sawdust came from all the wood chips they left behind after they left a place and spilled on the way to another camp. They were about halfway through the year’s campaign. Dave usually just did odd jobs and paid a box guitar in the evening services. Once in a while he would get to play a song solo.
Brother Kenny had joined the traveling salvation show in the Spring. He had come highly recommended as he had just had finished a revival circuit and had brought the fire of the spirit into many small churches. He had the knack on getting a crowd fired up and then being able to close the deal during an altar call. He could burn up a harmonica while playing the electric guitar, and dance in the spirit all at the same time. He was 21 yo and single and the ladies in the congregations loved him. He had recently started letting his hair grow out and was now fond of wearing pointed Beatles’s boots.
Brother Kenny was generally the center of attention and what was politely called an extrovert.
Dave and Kenny were opposites in personality. Dave was introverted, introspective, and contemplative. Kenny was impulsive and loud and his energy was near manic. They were the same age and became the kind of friends where the opposites came together to form another personality.
Dave and Kenny had decided to go out that night in Bowling Green.
Louise and Hilda had decided to go out that night in Bowling Green.
I was just a matter of fate that they ended up in the same place. It was a matter of conniving and manipulation that they ended up parked at the Rochester Dam listening to the radio and making out.
Hilda had been hitching around for a few weeks. She was not really running from anything, but it felt to her like someone was after her. She often felt like a coon being pursued by baying dogs. She was running from trouble and all too frequently into trouble. She had seen her share of hustles, quacks, and kooks. Most of her time was spent traveling with the carnival. She earned her keep by a variety of jobs. She washed, drove trucks, cleaned, gambled, sweet talked, ran the carnival rides, sang, hustled the crowd, and occasionally worked as a hochie coochie girl.
It was an adventure she enjoyed. She was only twenty and had the energy to enjoy her reputation as a fast girl. She was riding life like a war horse. She met her share of boys, seemingly a new one in every town. She saw the insides of a many honky tonk and was the source of not a few drunken attentions.
Hilda shared a travel trailer with Louise. Louise was in her mid to late thirties. She was an attractive woman, but had a hard edge which advertised she was not easy pickins. She had been with the circus for about five years. She had takened up the nomadic way after a bad run with a man. She never quite told the whole story, but many of the troupe had piece together that she had fallen in love with a con man while she was still a teen and ran away from home. He had used and abused her and had her as a partner in crime across the North and West. She still had a half dozen warrants out for her and that is why she didn’t ever go north of Ohio or west of the Mississippi. By the time of the night she left him, that night in Chicago, she had had enough. After he had beat her in a drunken rage, she had tied him up after he passed out and whacked him a few times on the head with his Wild Turkey whiskey bottle as she was leaving with as much money and valuables she could find on him and in their belongings. He bled a lot and moaned. She did not know how bad he was hurt nor did she care. She did not look back. She never went back to Chicago. As far as she knew he could be dead and there was a murder warrant for her, or he could be alive and gunning for her. She had hooked up the carnival in Louisville working the summers. They traveled farther south as the seasons turned and usually ended up wintering for a few months in the Keys every year.
The carnival was in the middle of his Summer season and was traveling throughout KY and and the western side of the Appachlains. It was just too much trouble to haul the amusement rides through the mountains.
No one would never know if Louise would have entered the life if not for that man. But entered it she had. It was all she knew. And she was pretty good at turning a dollar. Or a trick. Survive she would at any cost.
As usual the carnival had pulled into town on a Wednesday in order to be set up and running for the weekend. The locations were usually booked months in advance. Utilities had to be arranged. Permits and inspections done. And palms greased. They usually worked Noon to Midnight so they had some time to carouse the local night life. Sometimes Hilda and Louise made more money in a night hustling at a bar than they did all week scamming at the carnival.
Hilda had been hitching around for a few weeks. She was not really running from anything, but it felt to her likesomeone was after her. She often felt like a coon being pursued by baying dogs. She was running from troubleand all too frequently into trouble. She had seen her share of hustles, quacks, and kooks. Most of her time wa sspent traveling with the carnival. She earned her keep by a variety of jobs. She washed, drove trucks, cleaned,gambled, sweet talked, ran the carnival rides, sang, hustled the crowd, and occasionally worked as a hochie
coochie girl.It was an adventure she enjoyed. She was only twenty and had the energy to enjoy her reputation as a fast girl.She was riding life like a war horse. She met her share of boys, seemingly a new one in every town. She saw theinsides of a many honky tonk and was the source of not a few drunken attentions.Hilda shared a travel trailer with Louise. Louise was in her mid to late thirties. She was an attractive woman, buthad a hard edge which advertised she was not easy pickins. She had been with the circus for about five years.She had takened up the nomadic way after a bad run with a man. She never quite told the whole story, butmany of the troupe had piece together that she had fallen in love with a con man while she was still a teen and ran
away from home. He had used and abused her and had her as a partner in crime across the North and West.She still had a half dozen warrants out for her and that is why she didn’t ever go north of Ohio or west of the
Mississippi. By the time of the night she left him, that night in Chicago, she had had enough. After he had beat her in a drunken rage, she had tied him up after he passed out and whacked him a few times on the head with his Wild Turkey whiskey bottle as she was leaving with as much money and valuables she could find on him and in
their belongings. He bled a lot and moaned. She did not know how bad he was hurt nor did she care. She did not look back. She never went back to Chicago. As far as she knew he could be dead and there was a murder warrant for her, or he could be alive and gunning for her. She had hooked up the carnival in Louisville working the summers. They traveled farther south as the seasons turned and usually ended up wintering for a few months in the Keys every year.
2
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The carnival was in the middle of his Summer season and was traveling throughout KY and and the western sideof the Appachlains. It was just too much trouble to haul the amusement rides through the mountains.
No one would never know if Louise would have entered the life if not for that man. But entered it she had. It was all she knew. And she was pretty good at turning a dollar. Or a trick. Survive she would at any cost.
As usual the carnival had pulled into town on a Wednesday in order to be set up and running for the weekend. The locations were usually booked months in advance. Utilities had to be arranged. Permits and inspections done. And palms greased. They usually worked Noon to Midnight so they had some time to carouse the local night life. Sometimes Hilda and Louise made more money in a night hustling at a bar than they did all week scamming at the carnival.
Dave has been traveling with his Dads’ traveling tent revival since he had been kicked out of college. He had been traveling what was known as the “sawdust” trail. The name sawdust came from all the wood chips they left behind after they left a place and spilled on the way to another camp. They were about halfway through the year’s campaign. Dave usually just did odd jobs and paid a box guitar in the evening services. Once in a while he would get to play a song solo. Brother Kenny had joined the traveling salvation show in the Spring. He had come highly recommended as he had just had finished a revival circuit and had brought the fire of the spirit into many small churches. He had the
knack on getting a crowd fired up and then being able to close the deal during an altar call. He could burn up a harmonica while playing the electric guitar, and dance in the spirit all at the same time. He was 21 yo and single and the ladies in the congregations loved him. He had recently started letting his hair grow out and was now fond of wearing pointed Beatles’s boots. Brother Kenny was generally the center of attention and what was politely called an extrovert. Dave and Kenny were opposites in personality. Dave was introverted, introspective, and contemplative. Kenny was impulsive and loud and his energy was near manic. They were the same age and became the kind of friends where the opposites came together to form another personality. Dave and Kenny had decided to go out that night in Bowling Green.
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Louise and Hilda had decided to go out that night in Bowling Green.
I was just a matter of fate that they ended up in the same place. It was a matter of conniving and manipulation. They went to the Cave Ballroom and then they ended up parked at the Rochester Dam listening to the radio and making out.
The stepfather taught Hilda all about sex. She enjoyed it. She felt no guilt. She enjoyed their secret and the power her sex had over him. She was sure this was a part of growing up and they many girls learned this way.Hilda started high school. She learned of many of the girl's secret experiences. In fact she even learned that a few of the girls had been taught by their fathers and older brothers. But then she heard about some of the boys and men going to the pen.She continued to keep the secret, but suspected that she might be wrong about her relationship with the stepfather. Hilda falls for a boy at school and one evening after they have had sex, Hilda shares her story with him and he ridicules her and says she is engaged in evilness and sodomy. He runs away and tells her he doesn't want to every see her again. Shortly thereafter, the stepfather tries to hookup and have a sexual liaison. Hilda explodes on him that she has been defiled and no decent man will ever want her. Stepfather back hands her and tells her to be quiet or she may just disappear. Yes he would leave her alone, but he she better not tell of her sexual training. A few days later Hilda goes out to feed the pigs and she walks up on the step dad having sexual intercourse with her 13 yo sister, Dixie. Hilda yells at them. Yes a the sin and all. Stepfather withdraws and stands up. And starts to fight back. He knocks Hilda down next to the pot belly stove. She picks up a chunk of coals as she rises and she hits him in the head and he falls over dead. She tells sis to be quiet about the sex and she just found him dead.He must have fallen while he was dead drunk. She covered up and stayed a short time and helped settle things with the family.They got the still going for a little money from the family business and they got the pension. Later, she started worrying about others' knowing about her molestation and that someone would tell and cast suspicion on her. She ran away and hit the road.She hitch-hiked and learned the rules of the road and how to survive.
Hilda shared a travel trailer with Louise. Louise was in her mid to late thirties. She was an attractive woman, but had a hard edge which advertised she was not easy pickins. She had been with the circus for about five years. She had takened up the nomadic way after a bad run with a man. She never quite told the whole story, but many of the troupe had piece together that she had fallen in love with a con man while she was still a teen and ran away from home. He had used and abused her and had her as a partner in crime across the North and West. She still had a half dozen warrants out for her and that is why she didn’t ever go north of Ohio or west of the Mississippi. By the time of the night she left him, that night in Chicago, she had had enough. After he had beat her in a drunken rage, she had tied him up after he passed out and whacked him a few times on the head with his Wild Turkey whiskey bottle as she was leaving with as much money and valuables she could find on him and in their belongings. He bled a lot and moaned. She did not know how bad he was hurt nor did she care. She did not look back. She never went back to Chicago. As far as she knew he could be dead and there was a murder warrant for her, or he could be alive and gunning for her. She had hooked up the carnival in Louisville working the summers. They traveled farther south as the seasons turned and usually ended up wintering for a few months in the Keys every year.
Hilda Note
She was like a dark Marilyn Monroe. Not as sultry has Sophie Loren, but as flirtatious affected as Marilyn. Yes her manner was forced and affected, but effective nevertheless. She was dressed like an uptown whore in a ten cent juke box place. Maybe it would be better to compare her to Liz Taylor in Cleopatra. She had the same long black hair, cut in a long page boy style. She had doe like cow eyes framed with dark make up and false eye lashes. She was slim, but yet curvy with full breasts and round hips. She was a buffet in movement and you did not know where to land your eyes. She knew she looked good and she knew how to make herself shine. She had a dramatic flair. Just walking across the floor was a three act play in motion, wiggling into a booth, and then telling David with her eyes, lips, and curved finger with the long red finger nail to join her. She just oozed sex and David could almost smell it as he slid in the booth beside her.
Hilda's Papa
The screen door slammed into the casement.
"I am home."
They all knew it was Papa cause they had been watching him for the last fifteen minutes trudge up the red dirt road of the foot hill. Their vantage point up high gave him a view almost all the way to the mine and to the south, the Main St. of the town of Bracken, West Virginia.
The family did not know for sure, but everyone was talking about the war ending soon and with it many they expected layoffs. Coal was hot during war as it fueled the industrial machines which made more and more gruesome tools of death.
Seven year old Hilda did not much about war and her four year old sister knew less. Hilda wanted to concentrate on fun as this was her first summer after her first year of school.
The girls ran to front door yelling "Papa", "Papa"!
Mamma came up behind the girls and scolded, "You girls know better than to hug Papa when he first gets home from the mine. Now look at you. You both are almost as black as your Papa."
The light rays from the door made dancing motes in the coal dust swirling in the air.
Coal's play on the senses would be with the girls the rest of their lives. Coal had its own look, its own feel, its own smell, and its own taste. The girls knew nothing about the science of coal or where it came from, but they knew working it was their Papa's job. It kept them warm in the winter and cooked their meals about every day.
"Antonio", get the bar of soap and towel and you and the girls go down to the pond and bathe.
Antonio had come to America before the war. Once in a great while, someone remember he was from Italy and he would have to endure a joke about Mussolini. The first few years here he had lived in New York City and he never tired of telling his girls about the wonders there. He rarely spoke Italian to the children or his wife as he wanted to be, and he wanted his family to be 100% American. He had come to Bracken ten years ago to work in the mines. The mine owners did not care about your age, your race, your religion, or where you came from if you were willing and able to mine coal for a few cents per pound.
Antonio was a hard worker and he fit right in. He had met Beulah the second year he was in town at a company dance. They were married in a small Baptist church and Antonio just had to walk away from his guilt about not marrying in the Catholic Church. But if it was any group that the towns folk hated, it was the Catholics.
The girls and Papa followed the path down to the small pond. Papa liked this time of year and this time of day. The sunshine and the smell of wet grass and the buzzing of bugs reminded him how good it was to be above ground.
The girls untied Papa's boots as he took off his suspenders, then his shirt, and pants till he was was completely naked. He gingerly walking to the cold water and took his bar of Ivory soap. The girls hurriedly stripped down and followed their father in. They had never been taught to be modest about their bodies. Papa soaped up completely. He done his hair, his groin, rear.....the soap just floated the black dust off and the water rinse the black specked scum away. He ducked down completely in the water and washed the dirt off. He stood up to about his waist and he floated the Ivory over to the girls.
"Now soap up good girls for Momma won't be mad."
The girls did the same routine as their father. He playfully splashed water at them a couple of times as he soaped up his face to shave. Papa said he shaved at night caused he wanted to be soft for Momma and joked that there were not anyone down in the hole who would be hugging him, kissing him, or rubbing his face.
Papa gave himself a final rinse and got out of the pond. He wiped off with the towel. He wade his clothes up with the girls' clothes in one hand and carried his boots in the other.
Papa yelled, " Come on girls. Supper and Momma is waiting for us".
The girls got out and pulled the towel off of the bush. They dried off as Papa started walking up the path. They ran to catch up as they dried themselves.
And there they went, naked, and with their rear ends jiggling , as they padded up the path and into the sunset to the small clap board house.
Papa asked the girls what was for dinner but he did not have too as they had pretty much the same thing every night.
The girls yelled, "beans, corn bread, ice tea, onions, and butter milk."
Papa looked at the girls. Smiled and was content.
Who all has molested Hilda?
Teachers,
Stepfather,
Sheriff Deputy?
Rich coal mine owner?
Preacher?
Lily Rose
BPD
Tent Girl Story. Carnie death story.
She is a cutter and a self-mutilator.
She has self inflicted stigmata.
.1 Alternative A view on Hilda
Hilda decided she was tried of the mountain life. She was tried of being molested by her step daddy. She was tired of the jealousy of her mother.
She did not want to live her life on that mountain.
She ran away the year of 1962. She was 18 yo.
She hustled, hitch hiked, and caroulsed across the country.
She finally tumbled in with a carnival caravan and stayed with a road whore and con artist named Louise.
Historical Asheville Places and Times
History of Asheville
Asheville City Hall
Taking a short evening stroll through modern downtown Asheville North Carolina, it is impossible not to get a sense of the city's history. Soaring buildings in Neoclassical, Romanesque Revival, Art Deco, and many other styles attest to the depth and diversity of Asheville's past. These surroundings coupled of the city's extensive nightlife have granted Asheville the title "Paris of the Southeast". Next to such a description, it is difficult to imagine that this great city was settled by a lone family just a little over 200 years ago.
In 1784, at the end of an arduous journey over the Blue Ridge Mountains , William Davidson and family, undoubtedly infatuated with the beauty they encountered, decided to settle on what would become modern Asheville. Less than a year latter a permanent settlement was created, and as of Dec. 5, 1791, Davidson, with the aid of Colonel David Vance, was able to establish the surrounding area as Buncombe county. As more settlers discovered the beauty and ample resources of the region, it was a matter of time before a proper city was founded; accordingly in 1797 it was officially named Asheville after then Governor Samuel Ashe.
Biltmore Estate Winery Gardens
Although destined to become a luxurious resort town , Asheville had a ways to go from its pioneering roots. As often happens with young towns, the economy grew with the roads that connected it to the surrounding areas. With the completion, in 1828, of a road tracing the French Broad River into Tennessee, Asheville's economy, already a hub for Western North Carolina, was opened to the markets and resources of the west. As more roads were finished, Asheville began to earn its reputation as a resort destination for the elegant and affluent of the South. In 1880, the railroad breached the Eastern Continental Divide, opening entirely new markets to an Asheville already famous to the South and West. With its breathtaking scenery and its reputation as an opulent resort destination, it was only a matter of time before Asheville acquired the admiration of one of the world's wealthiest families.
Perhaps one of the biggest attractions in Asheville to date, is the home built by George W. Vanderbilt. The Biltmore Estate , America's largest private residence, was the brainchild of the famous architect Richard Morris Hunt. Building enormous French Renaissance chateaus surrounded by acres of luxurious gardens was no small feat, however. The construction lasted 5 years, requiring the additional erection of Biltmore Village simply to house the the hundreds of workers required for the task. The end result is no less stunning than the great rolling mountains surrounding it. This grand estate, however, was only the beginning of many great architectural endeavors.
In and around the turn of the century, Asheville became an epicenter of new construction: the Asheville Board of Trade, an opera house, City Hall , the Jackson Building, and others began to sculpt the face of Asheville into the facades familiar to today's travelers. With the addition of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway, built under Franklin Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps, Asheville had sealed its place in history as a city of sumptuous resorts, soaring architecture, diverse nightlife, and of course of the majestic, natural beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains that once convinced William Davidson and family to end their journey and call it home.
http://www.sitemason.com/files/d0tIEU/History_web.pdf
http://patrickmorley.com/blog/2015/6/23/a-brief-history-of-spiritual-revival-and-awakening-in-america
June 30, 2015
In describing what happened in Jonathan Edward's Northampton, Massachusetts church in 1734, observers said, "It pleased God...to display his free and sovereign mercy in the conversion of a great multitude of souls in a short space of time, turning them from a formal, cold, and careless profession of Christianity, to the lively exercise of every Christian grace, and the powerful practice of our holy religion."1
That's about as clear a definition as we'll ever get! During a revival, God supernaturally transforms believers and non-believers in a church, locale, region, nation, or the world through sudden, intense enthusiasm for Christianity.2 People sense the presence of God powerfully; conviction, despair, contrition, repentance, and prayer come easily; people thirst for God's word; many authentic conversions occur and backsliders are renewed.
Revival and awakening are, generally, synonyms. The larger the geography a revival covers, the greater the tendency to call it an awakening.
America has a deep, rich history of revivals and awakenings.
Revivals in America: A Well-Travelled Road
The Great Awakening, 1734-43. In December 1734, the first revival of historic significance broke out in Northampton, Massachusetts, where a young Jonathan Edwards was pastor. After months of fruitless labor, he reported five or six people converted--one a young woman. He wrote, "[She] had been one of the greatest company-keepers in the whole town."3 He feared her conversion would douse the flame, but quite the opposite took place. Three hundred souls converted in six months--in a town of only 1,100 people!4 The news spread like wildfire, and similar revivals broke out in over 100 towns.5 Starting in Philadelphia in 1739, George Whitfield's dramatic preaching was like striking a match to the already-underway awakening. An estimated 80% of America's 900,000 Colonists personally heard Whitfield preach.6 7 He became America's first celebrity.8
The Second Great Awakening, 1800-1840. In 1800, only one in 15 of America's population of 5,300,000 belonged to an evangelical church.9 Presbyterian minister James McGready presided over strange spiritual manifestations in Logan County, Kentucky. The resulting camp meeting revivals drew thousands from as far away as Ohio.10 11 Rev. Gardiner Spring reported that for the next 25 years not a single month passed without news of a revival somewhere.12 In 1824, Charles Finney began a career that would eventually convert 500,000 to Christ. An unparalleled 100,000 were converted in Rochester, New York, in 1831 alone--causing the revival to spread to 1,500 towns.13 By 1850 the nation's population exploded fourfold to 23,000,000 people, but those connected to evangelical churches grew nearly tenfold from 7% to 13% of the population--from 350,000 to 3,000,000 church members!14
The Businessmen's Revival of 1857-1858. In 1857, the North Dutch Church in New York City hired a businessman, Jeremiah Lanphier, to be a lay missionary. He prayed, "Lord, what would you have me do?" Concerned by the anxious faces of businessmen on the streets of New York City, Lanphier decided to open the church at noon so businessmen could pray. The first meeting was set for September 23--three weeks before the Bank Panic of 1857. Six attended the first week, 20 the next, then 40, then they switched to daily meetings. Before long all the space was taken, and other churches also began to open up for businessmen's prayer meetings.15 Revivals broke out everywhere in 1857, spreading throughout the United States and world. Sometimes called The Great Prayer Meeting Revival, an estimated 1,000,000 people were added to America's church rolls, and as many as 1,000,000 of the 4,000,000 existing church members also converted.16
The Civil War Revival, 1861-1865. The bitter dispute over slavery thrust our nation into the deadliest war we've ever experienced. By the end, 620,000 Americans lay dead--one out of every 50 of the 31,000,000 people counted in the 1860 census. At the start of the Civil War in 1861, it seemed as though the soldiers for both sides had left their Christianity at home and gone morally berserk. By 1862, the tide turned, first among the Confederate forces. An estimated 300,000 soldiers were converted, evenly divided between the Southern and Northern Armies. 17 18
The Urban Revivals, 1875-1885. Young businessman Dwight L. Moody participated in the Great Revival of 1857 as it swept Chicago.19 Moody later conducted revivals throughout the British Isles where he spoke to more than 2,500,000 people. In 1875, Moody returned home and began revivals in America's biggest cities. Hundreds of thousands were converted and millions were inspired by the greatest soul winner of his generation.20 At this time, the general worldview of Americans was shifting away from a Christian consensus. Darwinism and higher criticism were gaining traction, and Moody became the first evangelist to come under attack--accused of making religion the opiate of the masses.21
By the turn of the twentieth century, the mood of the country was changing. Outside the church, it was the era of radio, movies, and the "Jazz Age." World War I led to a moral letdown and the Roaring Twenties. When that era came to an abrupt end on October 29, 1929, followed by the Great Depression, there was surprisingly little interest in spiritual revival.22 Inside the church, a half-century long battle raged between evangelicalism and theological liberalism which had penetrated major denominations.23 The effect was that twentieth century revivals were more limited in scope, and lacked the broad impact on society of earlier awakenings.24
The Revivals of 1905-1906. Word of the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905 spread to Welsh-speaking settlers in Pennsylvania in late 1904 and revival broke out. By 1905, local revivals blazed in places like Brooklyn, Michigan, Denver, Schenectady, Nebraska, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Taylor University, Yale University, and Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky.25 Billy Sunday, who became a key figure about this time, preached to more than 100,000,000 people with an estimated 1,000,000 or more conversions.26
The Azusa Street Revival, 1906. In 1906, William J. Seymour, an African-American Holiness pastor blind in one eye, went to Los Angeles to candidate for a pastoral job. But after he preached, he was locked out of the second service! He began prayer meetings in a nearby home and the Spirit of God, which they called "the second blessing," fell after many months of concerted prayer. Eventually, the interracial crowds became so large they acquired a dilapidated Methodist church at 312 Azusa Street where daily meetings continued for three years. The resulting Pentecostal Movement and the later Charismatic Movement, which both exploded worldwide in the twentieth century both trace their roots to this revival.27 28 29
The Post-World War II Awakening. After World War II, in 1947 and 1948, Pentecostals experienced two strands of an awakening, one the Latter Rain Revival and the other the Healing Revival. Large numbers of evangelicals also experienced revival resulting in many conversions. It was at this time that a great generation of Christian leaders emerged. Bill Bright began Campus Crusade for Christ. In 1949, Billy Graham's distinguished career, which popularized evangelical Christianity for a new generation, exploded on the scene during his Los Angeles crusade sponsored by the Christian Businessmen's Committee.30 31 An estimated 180,000,000 people attended his nearly 400 crusades, and millions more viewed on television.32 College Revivals started as early as 1946, but when the prayer-based Wheaton College Revival of 1950 achieved national publicity, it sparked other college revivals throughout America.33
The Charismatic Renewal and Jesus Movement. During the late 1960s and early 1970s more revivals of national scope developed. The first strand was the Charismatic Renewal which spread far beyond Pentecostal and Holiness churches to college campuses, the Catholic Church, and mainline denominations.34 The second strand, the widely publicized Jesus Movement, emphasized turning from drugs, sex, and radical politics to taking the Bible at face value and finding Jesus Christ as personal Savior.35 Not surprisingly, this revival spread to college campuses, most notably the 1970 Asbury College Revival in Wilmore, Kentucky. Within a week the revival had spread throughout the entire country.36 In 1976 America elected a born-again president, and evangelicalism has continued to prosper from then to now.
The Mid-1990s Revivals. Despite the widespread secularization of society since the Cultural Revolution that began in the late 1960s, in the mid-1990s God once again brought a series of revivals, mostly to Charismatic and Pentecostal groups. In 1994 it was The Toronto Blessing, and 1995 ushered in the Melbourne Revival on Florida's Space Coast, the Modesto Revival, and the Brownsville Revival in Pensacola, Florida, which recorded 100,000 conversions in two years.37 College Revivals swept across America, starting at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, under the preaching of Henry Blackaby, a Southern Baptist.38
The Promise Keepers Revival, the most publicized of the mid-1990s Revivals, began in 1991 when 4,200 men descended on the University of Colorado to be challenged to live up to their faith. In 1993, 50,000 men assembled from every state and 16 nations. In the following years, stadium events were conducted in cities throughout the United States. A spirit of revival and transformation swept across America as millions of men attended. The revival reached it's zenith on October 4, 1997, as 1,000,000 or more men gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. By the close of 2000, Promise Keepers reported 5,000,000 had attended 100 conferences. An additional 1,000,000 men have been impacted since.39
Ten Characteristics of Revivals
Each revival or awakening leaves its own heat signature; in 1740 youth led the way, in 1857 businessmen and prayer took center stage, and the 1906 Azusa Street revival was decidedly interracial. Yet all share common themes. What are the most frequently mentioned characteristics of revivals and awakenings in literature?
1. TIMING: Revivals emerge during times of spiritual and moral decline, which leads to intense prayer.40
2. PRAYER: God puts a longing into the hearts of many to pray for revival.41
3. THE WORD: The preaching or reading of God's Word brings deep conviction and desire for Christ.42
4. THE HOLY SPIRIT: The Holy Spirit takes people to a spiritual depth they could not achieve on their own.43
5. CONVICTION: Affected sinners are inconsolable except in Christ.
6. GLORY FOR GOD: God receives praise, honor, and glory for bringing revival.
7. REFORMATION AND RENEWAL: Revival produces lasting fruit. New ministries are founded and society experiences a reform of morals as more and more people convert.44 45 46
8. MANIFESTATIONS: Manifestations like fainting, groaning prayer, and miracles vary by culture and denomination.47
9. MESSY: Revivals are messy--controversies swirl about miracles, abuses, excesses, suspicions, and theological disputes (to name but a few).48
10. CYCLICAL: Revivals inevitably crest and decline.49 50
Is America Ripe for Revival Today?
A majority of Americans believe our country is going downhill. Yet church attendance as a percent of population has held steady since 1990, and probably since 1940.51 America added 50,000 new churches in the last 20 years of the 20th century to total 350,000.52 The number of born-again Christians has grown steadily to 46% of adults today.53 Given the state of moral and spiritual decay, how is that possible?
The answer is simple. Today, Christianity is prevalent but not powerful. The solution is spiritual revival and awakening.
We've not had an awakening in America of historic proportion for a long time. With such a great tradition of revival and awakening, a great base from which to start, and a great need to counteract the increasing moral and spiritual decline, our nation appears ripe for a fresh outpouring of God's Spirit.
But history tells us that national revivals and awakenings cannot be manufactured. They are sovereign acts of mercy and grace by God Himself, when He supernaturally achieves in a short span what seems otherwise impossible. However, God loves to respond to the prayers of His people (e.g., 2 Chronicles 7:14).
While the decision belongs to God alone, He gives us the privilege of hastening the day through humble repentant prayer. Let us pray....
Until every church disciples every man…
Pat
Pat Morley is the Founder and Co-CEO of Man in the Mirror.
© 2015. Pat Morley. All rights reserved. This article may be reproduced for non-commercial ministry purposes with proper attribution.
Endnote References
1 Jonathan Edwards, "A Narrative of Surprising Conversions," Jonathan Edwards on Revival, Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, first published in 1736, p. 2.
2 Keith J. Hardman, Charles Grandison Finney 1792-1875, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987, p. 9.
3 Edwards, p. 12.
4 Frank Grenville Beardsley. A History of American Revivals. New York: American Tract Society, 1912, pps. 25-27.
5 Beardsley, pps. 28-31.
6 Beardsley, pps. 36-40.
7 Class Notes, Reformed Theological Seminary, Church History, June, 1998.
8 Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991, p. xiv.
9 Beardsley, p. 211, and U.S. Census data.
10 Peter Marshall and David Manuel, From Sea to Shining Sea, Old Tappan: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1986, pps. 60-66.
11 Hardman, pps. 6-7.
12 Beardsley, p. 104.
13 Beardsley, pps. 142, 150, 161.
14 Beardsley, p. 211, and U.S. Census data.
15 J. Edwin Orr, The Event of the Century, Wheaton: International Awakening Press, 1989, pps. 52-56.
16 Orr, pps. 320-321.
17 Keith J. Hardman, Seasons of Refreshing: Evangelism and Revivals in America, Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1994, p. 184-191.
18 Beardsley, p. 249.
19 Hardman, Seasons, pps. 197-198.
20 Beardsley, p. 287.
21 William g. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978, p. 141-142.
22 Hardman, Seasons, p. 242.
23 Hardman, Seasons, pps. 238-242.
24 Richard M. Riss, A Survey of 20th Century Revival Movements in North America, Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1988, p. 3.
25 Riss, pps. 44-45.
26 Hardman, Seasons, p. 236.
27 George Waugh, Flashpoints of Revival, North Charleston: BookSurge Publishing, 2009, p. 41.
28 Riss, pps. 46-47.
29 Hardman, Seasons, p. 243.
30 Hardman, Seasons, pps. 242-254.
31 Riss, pps. 1, 106-142.
32 Hardman, Seasons, p. 264.
33 Riss, p. 133-141.
34 Riss, pps. 147, 155-162.
35 Riss, pps. 147-149.
36 Riss, p. 153.
37 Waugh, pps. 111-113, 124-137.
38 Waugh, pps. 134-135.
39 http://www.promisekeepers.org/about/pkhistory, retrieved January 9, 2010.
40 Riss, p. 5.
41 Beardsley, p. 342.
42 Beardsley, pps. 345-346.
43 Beardsley, p. 343.
44 Edwards, "An Account of Revival," p. 148.
45 Waugh, p. 31.
46 Beardsley, p. 333.
47 Hardman, Finney, pps. 198, 249.
48 Riss, pps. 6-7.
49 Beardsley, p. 53.
50 Riss, p. 42.
51 Stanley Presser and Mark Chaves, "Is Religious Attendance Declining?" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2007), 46(3), pps. 417-423.
52 John C. LaRue, Jr., "Three Church Myths," Leadership, Wednesday, February 21, 2001, retrieved from ChristianityToday.com.
53 Barna.org, "Barna Survey Examines Changes in Worldview Among Christians over the Past 13 years," March 6, 2009, retrieved from barna.org
David and Hilda were often on the road. They would be standing on the side of the road in all types of weather. They would be there in the dark of the night. They would be there in good areas and bad areas.
They were at the mercy of the people who gave them a ride.
Traveling through the south, they end up in Alabama and headed south. A old pick up truck pulled over and the colored man offered to take them straight on to Montgomery. We praised our luck and jumped into the cab.
After getting in for a new ride, there is often a moment of awkward bantering. It was even more so in this case as the driver was black. Brother King had been stirring up a lot of trouble recently and black people were often rude in groups. However, they remained usually docile and polite in private.
"Where yall headed? They call me J.T.."
"We are looking for church to preach and possible do a revival.
I am David and this is Hilga."
"What do yall preach?"
"We preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible."
"No, I mean what denomination yall with?"
"I am spirit ordained and we are not affiliated with anyone denomination, but he end up mostly at Holiness and Pentecostal churches, " said David.
"Where yall from?"
"I am from Kentucky and Hilda here is from West Virginia. We met at a tent revival and got hitched after a whirlwind of stepping out. We have been married about three months."
"So you all are newlyweds?"
"I guess we are still on our honeymoon. Traveling and preaching on our honeymoon."
"How about you JT? Are you heading home to your family?"
The Hoosier National Forest, in the hills of south central Indiana, is a property managed by the United States Forest Service. Composed of four separate sections, it has a total area of 201,047 acres (81,361 ha; 314.136 sq mi).[1] It is headquartered in Bedford, with a regional office in Tell City. Prominent places within the Forest include the Lick Creek Settlement and the Potts Creek Rockshelter Archeological Site.
[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cd/Sycamore_trail_Hoosier_National_Forest.jpg]]
History
Hoosier National Forest was first touched by humanity 12,000 years ago, when Native Americans in the United States hunted in the forest. Europeans reached the forest in the late 17th century, and began building villages in the forest. Actual lumbering began in the 19th century, with the cutting of more difficult terrain occurring after 1865. By 1910 most of the area had been cut. In the early 1930s the governor of Indiana pushed for the federal government to do something with the eroding lands that saw its residents leaving, with the act being accomplished on February 6, 1935.[2]
Within Hoosier National Forest, two miles (3 km) south of Chambersburg, lies the former Lick Creek Settlement Site, a settlement of free blacks led by the Quaker Jonathan Lindley from around 1819 to around 1865.[3] Pioneer Mothers Memorial Forest near Paoli contains an excellent example of virgin forest. Hemlock Cliffs Recreation Area in Crawford County contains one of the most scenic hiking trails in Indiana.
Most of Thomas Hines' Hines' Raid was within the present-day Hoosier National Forest.
Hickory Ridge Lookout Tower is the sole remaining fire tower out of eight that once stood within Hoosier National Forest. When built, there was a two-room house for the ranger and his dependents to live within, but it has since been destroyed. Visitors may still climb the tower, but are recommended to be cautious when climbing.[4]
Much of Hoosier National Forest is over karst, responsible for the many caves in south-central Indiana.[5]
Included in Hoosier National Forest is the Charles C. Deam Wilderness Area, the only recognized wilderness area left in Indiana. This means that no motorized vehicles are allowed in the area, and instead mules and horses must be used to maintain hiking trails.[6] [7]
In the Clover Lick Barrens, in the southern portion of Hoosier National Forest near the Ohio River and the vegetation more typical of prairies on the Great Plains is found. This was discovered by a botanist and a biologist from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, who later found that in the first recorded survey of the area in 2005, the land was described not as forest, but as "a mile of poor barrens and grassy hills". It is believed that the inability of tall oaks to grow in the area allows for this prairie vegetation to persist in such an unlikely location. In 2006 a conscious effort was made to keep the barren look to the area; previous federal efforts on renovating Hoosier National Forest meant adding nonnative species to low-growth areas.[8] It was around Clover Lick in 1972 that Indiana decided to reintroduce wild turkeys back to Indiana, dedicated 6,000 acres (2,400 ha) for the purpose.[9]
Also in Hoosier National Forest is Sundance Lake, a 5.3-acre (2.1 ha) lake; not only is fishing offered, but every year Native Americans perform a spiritual dance near the lake.[10]
Hoosier National Forest lies in parts of nine counties in southern Indiana.
Recreation
The trail system has almost 266 miles (428 km), and allows horseback riding and mountain bikes, along with hiking. Hikers are to yield to horses, and mountain bikers are to yield to both of them.[11] Within the Hemlock Cliffs Valley, located within the central portion of the National Forest, there is the 1.2 mile Hemlock Cliffs trail. The trail is noted as access to sandstone cliffs and seasonal waterfalls as well as Hemlock trees and rare wintergreen plants.[12]
Hoosier National Forest Trail System
All trail locations are within the state of Indiana.
The Oregon & California Railroad Ferry No. 2 initially served Portland, providing connectivity between the East Portland terminus of the O&C Railroad line and Downtown Portland.[1][2] It was put into service in 1879 by Henry Villard, to replace an aging ferry initially set up by Ben Holladay. Differing accounts have the boat built on the East Coast and coming to Portland around Cape Horn, or else being built in Portland.[3] The Portland ferry service was the subject of a court case appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court: in November 1878, a drunken passenger stepped off the boat before it landed, and drowned.[4]
With the construction of the Steel Bridge in 1888, the ferry was no longer needed; after several idle years, it was transported to the San Francisco Bay, renamed Vallejo, and converted to use coal and then oil for fuel. A bill of sale dated 1923 reflects a purchase by Robert Rauhauge of the Mare Island Line.[3] It was put into service transporting workers and visitors between the city of Vallejo and Mare Island.[1] Ferry service was discontinued after the end of World War II, and with the construction of a causeway connecting Mare Island and Vallejo; Vallejo was the last ferry to be retired. She was sold for scrap in 1947, and delivered to Sausalito to be broken up.[3]
Restored SS Vallejo
Artist Jean Varda noticed the boat while its demolition was pending. He, surrealist Gordon Onslow Ford, and architect Forest Wright purchased it; Wright soon sold his third to Ford. They made extensive, improvised alterations, using scraps in the area, and turning the boat into an art studio and houseboat. Ford described it as "a place where artists blossomed, flowered", adding that "Varda set the tone" with his interest in entertaining.[3]
Zen Buddhist Alan Watts bought Ford's share of the houseboat in 1961.[5][6] Varda's parties and salons continued. The most famous party, thrown in 1967, was known as the "Houseboat Summit", and featured Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Watts discussing LSD; it was featured in the counterculture magazine the San Francisco Oracle.[7] Vallejo deteriorated heavily during the 1960s. Varda died suddenly in 1971, as did Watts in 1973.[3]
Marian Saltman, who had begun living on Vallejo in 1971, arranged for its purchase in 1981, and began to restore the boat. She said, "I hope she will continue to be the home of remarkable people and ideas, and I wish her to serve the creative and artistic needs of Sausalito and the Bay Area."[3]
Vallejo was transferred across the San Francisco Bay to an Alameda shipyard for repairs in 2000, and then returned to her dock in Sausalito.[8][9]
A new fiberglass outer hull is currently[when?] being built and will be installed sometime in 2012. The houseboat currently[when?] operates as a private residence, with no visitation permitted.
Type the text for 'How does it feel to be possessed by a succubus?'
https://www.quora.com/How-does-it-feel-to-be-possessed-by-a-succubus
I am an expert in demonology, been possessed by demons of all rank and have a demonic haunting in my home.
The Succubus Rank is the lowest ranking demon and is a female demon and when it possesses its host, the host will feel a strange tight cap be put over his or her head, this cap those feels alive and making a kissing sensation on the scalp which is the demon starting to drain life force that is stored in the brain .Soon after the host will feel arms reach around from the back and rest of the shoulders of the host, this is the primary sign of a possession when the host starts to feel those things.
This demon likes to cause intense states of arousal to the point that the host has to masturbate or make love to get rid of the urge. The demon does this to get semen from the male host (should the host be male) as the demon doenst have to actually mate with its host to get impregnated. Succubi are also sensitive to where its host likes to feel intense states of ecstasy and can command the body to give rushes of this intense feeling to wherever the host might want, sometimes as an attack but the host many of time will welcome this and again the demon uses it as a method to get semen from the host.
The only way to get a Succubus off without the help of a spirit guide or the help of a divine being is to simply reject and resist all the urges the demon uses to get the host to engage in love making and after 3–4 days will detach from its host and them find another, but those days will be very hard for the host to resist. I am speaking from experience as the first demon that possessed me was of the Succubus rank.
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The most profitable way to decapitate a mountain. Blow its top off, section by section, and then move the rubble with heavy equipment. Sometimes the forest cloaking the condemned mountain is clear-cut; more often the trees are simply scraped away, bulldozed into a pile, and burned. A pad is leveled, and a large drilling rig bores a series of holes. Into them goes a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil—the same type of explosive that homegrown terrorist Timothy McVeigh used to bomb the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Prior to detonation, warning whistles sound. When the charge explodes, the earth shudders. The explosions may shake and crack house foundations, startle wildlife, and spray a large area with dust and flying rock. Coal mining is far and away the largest industrial consumer of explosives in the United States. According to government figures for 2005, more than 1.8 billion pounds of high explosives were used in West Virginia and Kentucky alone, primarily in surface-mining operations.
The most ancient mountains in North America, plundered for profit. The forest covering these venerable ridges and valleys is a global hotspot of biological diversity. An estimated 800,000 acres of that forest have already been destroyed—and more than 470 mountains sheared off—by surface-mining operations. Sometimes hundreds of feet of elevation are lost as a mountain’s original contour is blasted away. The topsoil, foundation of the landscape’s exceptional diversity of life, is wasted. Broad, plateau-like mesas remain. Federal law does not require formerly forested mine sites to be reforested during “reclamation.” Even when operators meet their legal obligations to reclaim mined areas, the result is a biological wasteland compared to the native forest—generally a thin, green sheen of exotic grass growing on compacted rubble. The return of a vibrant, ecologically healthy natural community that approaches its former richness is a distant dream.
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<nowiki>Howl by Allen Ginsberg
For Carl Solomon
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving
hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry
fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the
starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the
supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of
cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels
staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkan-
sas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes
on the windows of the skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in
wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,
who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt
of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or
purgatoried their torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and
endless balls,
incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind
leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the mo-
tionless world of Time between,
Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunk-
enness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon
blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring
winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of
mind,
who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy
Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought
them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain
all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,
who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford's floated out and sat
through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi's, listening to the
crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,
who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue
to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,
a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire
escapes off windowsills of Empire State out of the moon,
yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and
anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,
whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with
brilliant eyes, meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement,
who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous
picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall,
suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of
China under junk-withdrawal in Newark's bleak furnished room,
who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wonder-
ing where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts,
who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward
lonesome farms in grandfather night,
who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah
because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,
who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels
who were visionary indian angels,
who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural
ecstasy,
who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse
of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain,
who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or
soup, and followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America
and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa,
who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but
the shadow of dungarees and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in
fireplace Chicago,
who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts
with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incompre-
hensible leaflets,
who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze
of Capitalism,
who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and
undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and
wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,
who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before
the machinery of other skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for
committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and
intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof
waving genitals and manuscripts,
who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and
screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of
Atlantic and Caribbean love,
who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of
public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whom-
ever come who may,
who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind
a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to
pierce them with a sword,
who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew
of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the
womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass
and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman's loom.
who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a
package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued
along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with
a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of con-
sciousness,
who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and
were red eyed in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of
the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake,
who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C.,
secret hero of these poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver--joy to
the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner
backyards, moviehouses' rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or
with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings
& especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys
too,
who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a
sudden Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hung-
over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams
& stumbled to unemployment offices,
who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks
waiting for a door in the East River to open to a room full of steam-
heat and opium,
who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hud-
son under the wartime blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall
be crowned with laurel in oblivion,
who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy
bottom of the rivers of Bowery,
who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions
and bad music,
who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to
build harpsichords in their lofts,
who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the
tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology,
who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in
the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,
who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming
of the pure vegetable kingdom,
who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg,
who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside
of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next
decade,
who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and
were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were
growing old and cried,
who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue
amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regi-
ments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertis-
ing & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down
by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,
who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked
away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown
soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,
who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window,
jumped in the filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the
street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed phonograph
records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz finished the whis-
key and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears
and the blast of colossal steamwhistles,
who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to the each other's
hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation,
who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you
had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity,
who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver
& waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in
Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver
is lonesome for her heroes,
who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other's salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a
second,
who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals
with golden heads and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang
sweet blues to Alcatraz,
who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha
or Tangiers to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or
Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave,
who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with
their insanity & their hands & a hung jury,
who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently
presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with
shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instanta-
neous lobotomy,
and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity
hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & am-
nesia,
who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table,
resting briefly in catatonia,
returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and
fingers, to the visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns
of the East,
Pilgrim State's Rockland's and Greystone's foetid halls, bickering with the
echoes of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench
dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to
stone as heavy as the moon,
with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the
tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 a.m. and the last
telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room
emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper
rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary,
nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination--
ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you're really in the
total animal soup of time--
and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash
of the alchemy of the use of the ellipse the catalog the meter & the
vibrating plane,
who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images
juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual
images and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun and dash of
consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens
Aeterna Deus
to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before
you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet
confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his
naked and endless head,
the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here
what might be left to say in time come after death,
and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow
of the band and blew the suffering of America's naked mind for love
into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered
the cities down to the last radio
with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies
good to eat a thousand years.
II
What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up
their brains and imagination?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Chil-
dren screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old
men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Mo-
loch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jail-
house and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judg-
ment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned govern-
ments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running
money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast
is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrap-
ers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose
factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and
antennae crown the cities!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity
and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch
whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the
Mind!
Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in
Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!
Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness
without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ec-
stasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light stream-
ing out of the sky!
Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries!
blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible mad houses
granite cocks! monstrous bombs!
They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios,
tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American
river!
Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive
bullshit!
Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood!
Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years' animal screams and suicides!
Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!
Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells!
They bade farewell! They jumped off the roofl to solitude! waving! carrying
flowers! Down to the river! into the street!<nowiki>
[[Reading|http://archive.org/download/naropa_anne_waldman_and_allen_ginsberg/naropa_anne_waldman_and_allen_ginsberg_vbr.m3u]]
http://www.angelsghosts.com/hypnogogia_succubus_incubus_ghosts
http://www.angelsghosts.com/spirit_possession
HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION TO THE COAL FIELDS OF WEST VIRGINIA.
West Virginia has been of more or less importance as a coal-producing State since it was formed in 1863. The industry's most striking growth, however, has been made since the year 1893. In its first year as a State, the total production was 444,648[a] short tons. From 1863 to 1893 the production was gradually increased, and almost every year showed an increase over the one immediately preceding it. In the year last mentioned the production was 10,708,578 short tons, and since then the increase has been rapid and constant. For the past twenty-seven years, there have been only two instances in which production has shown a decrease in one year as compared with the one preceding. These exceptions were in 1895 and 1908, both years or financial depression. The high- water mark was reached in 1907, when 48,091,583 short tons were mined.
[Footnote] a. Production of Coal in 1908, p. 193. E. W. Parker, United States Geological Survey, Mineral Resources of the United States.
When the mining industry began to be developed, the State as a whole was sparsely settled, and the expansion of the industry was further hampered by the fact that topographically the sections containing the best coal were rugged and transportation facilities were slowly developed. Because of these conditions, and the lack of sufficient capital for many years, the operations were scattered and rather small, and practically all labor to operate the mines was secured from the immediate vicinity. As more coal was mined each year, and new mines were opened up, the available numbers of native people, always small, began to decline and the negroes, principally from Virginia, began to be attracted to the coal fields, while some white native miners from adjoining States also appeared. Within more recent years the mining industry has been consolidated more and more and many very large companies have been formed. The greatest development has been going on in four well-defined fields. In presenting a history of immigration and a discussion of the conditions resulting therefrom, only these four fields will be discussed. They do not contain all the counties within the State which produce coal, but they contribute more than 90 per cent of the total output. They are also clearly defined and have certain distinguishing geographic and physiographic features. Practically all the immigrant laborers employed in coal mines within the State are in mines included in these sections.
Two of these fields are located in the northern part of the State and two in the southern. Those in the northern are the. Fairmont, or Upper Monongahela, and the Elk Garden, or Upper Potomac, districts. Those in the southern are the New and Kanawha rivers district, which includes what are usually popularly divided into the New and Kanawha river fields, and the Pocahontas or Flat Top district, which also includes Tazewell County in Virginia.
Although conditions in many respects are very similar in all these districts, there have been certain elements entering into the development of each which make it different in some respects from the others, and for this reason the divisions above referred to will be treated separately.
The culture of the coal country, the mountains, and the religion is introduced.
[[Chap Intro Notes]]
Intro to coal country and the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia. I envision this being told like the opening of a movie. There will be an overhead shot running through the green hills with an occasional wisp of smoke coming up from amidst the trees. You can almost smell the wood and coal burning. The shot goes in closer and we see coal mine pits and openings in the mountains. The shot then sweeps onto main street with simple stores and poor ladies. The camera goes on down main street and follows a road out of town and goes to some shacks on the hill side with flat rock foundations, unpainted gray walled , and with rusty tin roofing. There are hound dogs and dirty bare foot children running around.
There is some explanation of the exploitation of the poor and the dangerous conditions in the mines.
There is an explosion which comes out the entrance to the shaft. The camera then goes down under ground. There is a cave in and there are many man trapped. We contemplate this scene for a few seconds. Then we focus on three groups, each with about dozen men. Then we go down to focus on four men.
One of the men Antonio is killed outright. He is an Italian immigrant who came during the war and married a hill woman. He had two daughters, Hilda, and Elsie who lived in a company cabin in the town village.
Another man nicknamed Gizzard has his legs crushed in different ways and he is in much pain. He is an alcoholic and it was his lit cigarette that caused an explosion of the methane gas.As the lights dimmed he pulls out a hip flask and took a slig of moonshine.
The third man is named Johnny and he is uninjured and he volunteers to go an squeeze through the small passages and try to find help and a way out. He travels about a hundred yards through very narrow areas and goes into a cocoon like space and there is another cave in and he is separated from everyone. He will spend several days there. He will be there even after the crew he just left to help is rescued.
The last man is Ralph. He is just a normal guy. He too has a wife and kids in the company village. If you asked anyone, he was a stand up guy. He worked and stayed out of trouble. He got along to get along.
All of the men except Antonio is rescued. This cave in has profound effects on the survivors and will forever change their lives.
And this is just the beginning of the story, but it is not their stories.
Is God a loving and wonder God?
Does everyone go to Heaven?
Wouldn't this been the most worthy image
For our love and worship?
But is God the Great Adjudicator?
Does this Inspire
Or does it terrify?
Are we to inhale Fear
And exhale anger?
Succubus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
n folklore
According to Zohar and the Alphabet of Ben Sira, Lilith was Adam's first wife who later became a succubus.[2] She left Adam and refused to return to the Garden of Eden after she mated with archangel Samael.[3] In Zoharistic Kabbalah, there were four succubi who mated with archangel Samael. They were four original queens of the demons Lilith, Agrat Bat Mahlat, Naamah, and Eisheth Zenunim. In later folklore, a succubus took the form of a siren.
Throughout history, priests and rabbis including Hanina Ben Dosa and Abaye, tried to curb the power of succubi over humans.[4]
Not all succubi were malevolent. According to Walter Mapes in De Nugis Curialium (Trifles of Courtiers), Pope Sylvester II (999–1003) was involved with a succubus named Meridiana, who helped him achieve his high rank in the Catholic Church. Before his death, he confessed of his sins and died repentant.[5]
[edit] Ability to reproduce
According to the Kabbalah and the school of Rashba, the original three queens of the demons, Agrat Bat Mahlat, Naamah, and Eisheth Zenunim and all their cohorts give birth to children, except Lilith.[6] According to other legends, the children of Lilith are called Lilin.
According to the Malleus Maleficarum, or "Witches' Hammer", written by Heinrich Kramer (Insitoris) in 1486, a succubus collects semen from the men she seduces. The incubi or male demons then use the semen to impregnate human females,[7] thus explaining how demons could apparently sire children despite the traditional belief that they were incapable of reproduction. Children so begotten – cambions – were supposed to be those that were born deformed, or more susceptible to supernatural influences.[8] The book does not address why a human female impregnated with the semen of a human male would not produce a regular human offspring.
[edit] Possible explanation for alleged encounters with succubi
In the field of medicine, there is some belief that the stories relating to encounters with succubi bear similar resemblance to the contemporary phenomenon of people reporting alien abductions, which has been ascribed to the condition known as sleep paralysis. It is therefore suggested that historical accounts of people experiencing encounters with succubi may rather have been symptoms of sleep paralysis, with the hallucination of the said creatures coming from their contemporary culture.[9][10]
[edit] Qarinah
In Arabic superstition, the qarînah (قرينه) is a spirit similar to the succubus, with origins possibly in ancient Egyptian religion or in the animistic beliefs of pre-Islamic Arabia (see Arabian mythology).[11] A qarînah "sleeps with the person and has relations during sleep as is known by the dreams."[12] They are said to be invisible, but a person with "second sight" can see them, often in the form of a cat, dog, or other household pet.[11] "In Omdurman it is a spirit which possesses. ... Only certain people are possessed and such people cannot marry or the qarina will harm them."[13]
In India the Succubi is referred to as the seductress "Mohini". Not to be confused with the mythological "Mohini" - who is depicted to be the slayer of Bhasma Asura. Succubi is described as a lone lady draped in a White Saree (Indian traditional women costume), with untied long hair. She generally is said to haunt lonely paths or roads. She is said to have died from torment by the Male and thus would seek revenge on any Male.
[edit] Succubi in fiction
Main article: Succubi in fiction
Throughout history, succubi have been popular characters in music, literature, film, television, and especially as video game and anime characters.
Blues musicians of the 1930s sang about the dire straits of people affected with "jake leg." The condition meant permanent paralysis for as many as 100,000 people who drank ginger extract cut with a potent neuro-toxin. NPR's Michele Norris talks with John Morgan, a physician and professor at the City University of New York, about the affliction and the music.
Jake-leg epidemic first reported by Oklahoma City doctors
Published: December 14, 2010 by Mary Phillips Comment on this article
Jake leg is a rarely used term, and memories of the jake-leg epidemic have almost disappeared.
A little-known epidemic, first detected in Oklahoma, it spawned slang words, songs and a dance, all of which have been nearly lost to the passage of time.
Oklahoma City has the dubious honor of being the first place the mysterious condition appeared, and from here it was to reach national epidemic status before the cause was determined. It began with Dr. Walter H. Miles, a city physician, and Dr. E. Goldfain, a neurology specialist, noticing that men suffering from the same symptoms were presenting themselves at hospitals in the city.
A front-page article published March 7, 1930, in The Oklahoman described the symptoms and the probable cause: “Spinal afflictions, believed the result of poison whiskey, which has afflicted 60 men in Oklahoma City in the last ten days, and possibly caused one death, Thursday night brought an order from city officials for an investigation seeking the source of the poison liquor supply.
“The strange malady affects the spine, causing a partial paralysis, especially of the feet, resulting in inability to walk normally.”
It became known as the jake-leg, jake foot, jake walk, jake wobblies and jakeitis.
On March 9, the newspaper reported 400 cases of men afflicted. Investigators determined their theory of poisonous liquor was correct: “The poisoning is the result of some denaturant used by wholesale drug houses in mixing Jamaica ginger.”
In 1930, Oklahoma and the nation were still in the throes of prohibition, and many drinkers got their “liquor” from patent medicines or extracts that were mostly alcohol. A favorite was Jamaican ginger extract, familiarly known as “jake,” which was 70 to 80 percent alcohol.
The government told the makers that they had to make it less palatable. Some got creative, adding ingredients such as castor oil and increasing the ginger in an effort to make it more like medicine and less like a beverage. One company experimented, adding — after being assured by the supplier that it was not dangerous — a chemical called ortho-tri-cresyl phosphate.
In an article Aug. 28, 1930, The Oklahoman reported that a “tasteless, odorless compound, generally used in the lacquer and leather industries, is responsible, in the opinion of government chemists, for the thousands of cases of paralysis that followed the drinking of ginger concoctions.”
The epidemic, first reported in March 1930, pretty much had run its course by October.
On March 12, 1931, The Oklahoman reported the recognition of research done by doctors from University Hospital (now OU Medical Center) by the American Medical Association on the treatment of Jamaica ginger paralysis. Their determination was that ortho-tri-cresyl phosphate was the cause and that there was no cure.
The story ends with this summary of events: “Simultaneous with the Oklahoma City epidemic, similar ones occurred in Tennessee, Kentucky and Kansas, especially in Wichita. A wave recently was reported in Los Angeles and on the West Coast. Several owners of drug firms have since been indicted and convicted for sale of Jamaica ginger.”
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The History Of Kentucky Fried Chicken And Colonel Sanders
Find out the interesting story behind Kentucky Fried Chicken, Colonel Harland Sanders and his famous recipe!
Colonel Harland Sanders has become a world-known figure by marketing his "finger lickin' good" Kentucky Fried Chicken. His chicken is now served daily across the United States as well as in more than eighty other countries. It is one of the largest fast food corporations in the world.
The spectacled Colonel Sanders could easily be identified by his clean, crsip white suite, black string tie, and walking cane. A statue of this man can be seen as far away as on Nathan Road in Kowloon, Hong Kong, for one place.
What makes Colonel Sanders' story so amazing, you might ask. One of the most amazing aspects of his life is the fact that when he reached the age of sixty-five years old, after running a restaurant for several years, Harland Sanders found himself penniless. He retired and received his first social security check which was for one hundred and five dollars. And that was just the beginning of his international fame and financial success story...
Harland Sanders was born in the month of September in the year of 1890. He was the oldest child in a family of five. His father toiled in the coal mines of Kentucky until his death, which came at a young age. Sanders had just reached the tender age of six years old when he had to take care of his younger brother and sister. With his father gone, that left the responsibilities of working and supoprting the family up to his mother. She began working in a shirt factory. Harland tended to things at home and learned to cook the meals by his mother's teachings. She taught him how to cook many foods, including fried chicken.
Over the next several years, Harland Sanders worked at a variety of jobs. He started out as a farm hand, then moved on to be a streetcar conductor while he was still just a teenager. From there he was a fireman on the railroad and finally ended up running a service station. Once again, he used his cooking skills that were learned from his mother to provide meals for travelers who stopped at his service station. As his cooking became more famous, and his food business grew, he moved into an actual restaurant nearby. His specialty was, of course, fried chicken which was seasoned with his original blend of eleven herbs and spices.
A few years later, in the year of 1935, when Sanders was forty-five years old, then Governor Ruby Laffoon made him a Kentucky Colonel because of his delectable cooking skills.
Progress is not always for the good of everyone, and in the 1950's, Colonel Harland Sanders got the news of the plans for a new highway which was going to be constructed. The highway could divert the majority of the traffic away from the town and, with the beginning of the highway, Colonel Sanders saw his successful business coming to an end. He closed the restaurant and retired to a social security check of one hundred and five dollars a month. When he received his first month's pension, he decided that he wasn't going to sit in a rocking chair and wait for the government checks. So, he convinced others to invest in his delicious fried chicken recipe, and Kentucky Fried Chicken was born.
Colonel Harland Sanders finally retired from the business when he was eighty years old, and stricken with illness.
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http://unusualkentucky.blogspot.com/2010/10/kentuckys-own-hell.html
Kentucky's Own Hell
Many people have heard about the infamous underground coal mine fire in Centralia, PA , which has been continuously raging since 1962 and necessitated the total evacuation of the city. It is currently considered unstoppable and is burning for miles under the surface. The Centralia underground fire has been the subject of numerous documentaries, news stories, and articles.
But how many know that a very similar subterranean catastrophe is taking place right here in Kentucky?
The Tiptop underground mine fire in Bulan, KY (Breathitt County), also known as the Lost Mountain fire or "the Ruth Mullins fire" for the lady who discovered it, is burning out of control just below the Earth's surface and has been for apparently many years.
But how did this happen? Details are sketchy. An article in Discover doesn't really delve into the fire's origins. According to Earth Magazine , "No one seems to know how long it’s been burning, how much coal it has consumed, how it started or the dangers associated with it."
A report of scientific analysis of the outgassing fumes from the Tiptop fire paints an ecologically troubling picture:
At the time of our visits, concentrations of CO2 peaked at 2.0% and > 6.0% (v/v) and CO at 600 ppm and > 700 ppm during field analysis in May 2008 and January 2009, respectively. For comparison, these concentrations exceed the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) eight-hour safe exposure limits (0.5% CO2 and 50 ppm CO), although the site is not currently mined. Mercury, as Hg0, in excess of 500 and 2100 μg/m3, in May and January, respectively, in the field, also exceeded the OSHA eight-hour exposure limit (50 μg/m3). Carbonyl sulfide, dimethyl sulfide, carbon disulfide, and a suite of organic compounds were determined at two vents for the first sampling event. All gases are diluted by air as they exit and migrate away from a gas vent, but temperature inversions and other meteorological conditions could lead to unhealthy concentrations in the nearby towns.
There are at least nine sites with major openings in the ground where the Ruth Mullins fire is venting, extending over a huge area that occupies both Breathitt and Perry counties. Many researchers believe that underground coalmine fires such as this (there are many around the world, especially in China ) could be a major culprit in man-made global warming.
On the other hand, such fires can also be a part of mother nature's plan. An enormous mountain in Australia , once thought to be a volcano, has turned out to be a naturally-occuring underground coal-seam fire that has been raging for over six millenia.
And if, as many Native Americans believe, coal has a mind of its own , then the coal spirit may be well pleased by its own blaze of glory.
Earth On Fire
Thousands of hidden fires smolder and rage through the world’s coal deposits, quietly releasing gases that can ruin health, devastate communities, and heat the planet.
By Kristin Ohlson |Tuesday, January 04, 2011
RELATED TAGS: EARTH SCIENCE
coal1
In Centralia, Pennsylvania, clouds of smoke and toxins from a 48-year-old coal mine fire
waft past empty fields and abandoned homes.
Glen B. Stracher
Not far from Hazard, Kentucky, in the shadow of Lost Mountain, a woman named Ruth Mullins saw smoke rising off the slope. “I knew it wasn’t no woods on fire, because of the smell”—the rotten-egg stench of sulfur—she said. Her suspicions were soon confirmed: Lost Mountain’s coal mine, abandoned for 40 years, was burning.
Kentucky names coal fires for the people who first report them, so the fire, which has continued to smolder and occasionally flame since it was identified in 2007, is known officially as the Ruth Mullins fire. “We’ve never met the woman and we don’t know where she lives, but her name now appears in scientific publications that are read all over the world,” says Jennifer O’Keefe, a geologist at Kentucky’s Morehead State University. “She’s got her little bit of immortality.”
O’Keefe is part of a team that has been visiting the Ruth Mullins fire over the past three years, studying its behavior and quantifying the gases that plume from nine known openings in the ground. Last January she and a colleague, University of Kentucky geologist James Hower, brought some students to the coal fire for new measurements. They parked off Highway 80, a road that cuts a swath along the side of Lost Mountain, and unloaded gear in a stingingly cold wind as speeding trucks whipped ice along the asphalt. Trudging up the snow-covered mountain, the scientists shivered along the flat shelf of land circling its midsection, the remains of contour mining in the 1950s. While smoke from the burning mine had been hard to spot from the road, here it billowed from small vents where portals to the mine had collapsed.
Approaching the site, all except Hower (who stayed farther back) donned pink respirators. A student equipped with a GPS device tried to detect the outline of the underground fire by looking for areas where the snow was thinner or melted away entirely. Two other students and O’Keefe settled at a vent, measuring the temperature at the opening and the velocity of the gases (including carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, methane, and oxygen) that were flowing out.
“Jen, do we have any tar or minerals up there?” Hower called to O’Keefe, who shook her head. He made his way carefully over some fallen trees, possibly killed by the coal fire cooking their roots, to another vent and climbed closer, sliding a little in the snowmelt and mud made warm by the mine’s hot breath. Here there was plenty of tar and minerals: Black goo two-toned the leaves on the ground, and minerals that had precipitated out of the gases encrusted the tree roots dangling over the vents. To identify the potentially dozens of hydrocarbon gases roiling beneath, he stuck a tube deep inside each vent, collecting emissions in a steel canister for later analysis in a laboratory at the University of California at Irvine.
Hower also retrieved a weathered contraption perched at the entrance to one of the vents. Cobbled together from galvanized-steel stovepipes and heat-resistant tape, this assemblage, nicknamed the Tin Man, had been taking measurements for 22 days. Three layers of filters impregnated with activated carbon captured mercury emissions, and a pair of instruments recorded temperature and carbon monoxide every 10 seconds for three days. Another set of devices monitored the same parameters every minute for the entire duration. Through these measurements, the team will gain a better understanding of the long-term variation in the fire’s temperature and emissions.
This was the second Tin Man. The first, deployed during a 2009 study , showed that the carbon monoxide level at Ruth Mullins dropped dramatically once a day and then shot back up again. “These mine fires seem to have a regular breathing cycle,” Hower says.
Coal fires are as ancient and as widely distributed as coal itself. People have reported fires in coal beds close to the earth’s surface for thousands of years—in fact, Australia’s Burning Mountain, once thought to be a volcano, sits atop a coal seam that has been on fire for some six millennia. But ever since the Industrial Revolution, the number of coal fires has grown dramatically. There are now thousands of such fires around the world, in every country—from France to South Africa to Borneo to China—where mining exposes coal deposits.
These fires are an insidious, persistent, and often nearly invisible threat to local health and to the natural and built environment. Added to that, there is now a growing realization that all these coal fires together may contribute significantly to climate change, a risk that has inspired the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to measure emissions of greenhouse gases (pdf) and other pollutants from coal fires around the United States, starting with three in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. The USGS effort, including scientists from organizations around the country, was convened to employ new tools and expertise to measure greenhouse gases from coal fires, which have not been included in previous national and worldwide surveys. “What is the overall contribution of these coal fires to global warming?” asks Glenn Stracher, a geologist at East Georgia College whose work inspired the USGS effort. “That’s an important question that no one has answered, and that’s why this team of scientists has gotten together to work on a quantitative analysis.”
Most Americans are unaware of these long-burning coal fires, with the possible exception of the mine fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania . In 1962 residents of this small mining town burned trash in an abandoned strip mine used as a dump near the Odd Fellows Cemetery, not realizing that the mine had not been properly sealed. The trash was reduced to smoldering piles, which firefighters later extinguished—or so they thought. But the fire continued to burn, and a month later bulldozers arrived for a more concerted effort to put it out. The citizens then discovered that the dump contained a 15-foot-long opening that connected to a maze of underground mine tunnels. These passages allowed the fire to spread to the coal seam underneath the town and expand along four fronts, eventually affecting a surface area about two miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide.
Since then, around $4 million has been spent to put the Centralia fire out, to no avail. It continues to burn today, moving through a vast network of abandoned mines that are still littered and lined with coal. No one knows how extensive these empty spaces are, and the effort to quell the blaze has come to an end. “It’s too expensive to tackle, and we’re not sure we can do it anyway,” says Alfred Whitehouse, chief of the Reclamation Support Division of the federal Office of Surface Mining.
A power hungry and greedy preacher on TV and fake news.
Kenny came from Detroit. He was born of hill people. His return to hill country was unusual as the migration was normally from the hills to Detroit to work in the factories. His dad was a factory worker. He worked hard , drank hard, and played hard. The neighbors looked at his family hillbilly white trash. Jokingly he and his siblings were called the Beverly Hillbillies after the popular show on TV and about a backward and ignorant family who moved to the city.
Kenny had done well in school. He did not want to work as a factory worker. After school he worked as a salesman, door to door, car lots, appliance, and at selling carpet. His co-worker once told him "you only need to be a good salesman to succeed in life. It doesn't matter what the product is. And you can always find work and will never have to retire."
Kenny was working as a traveling salesman. He was in a medium sized city in the south. All the cities and hotel rooms were starting to look a like. He was bored. He went for a walk. He walked upon a tent revival in a vacant lot. He went on in for some entertainment. He left with a new profession.
He started with this small tent revival group. He preached and he sold God. He traveled with them for a few months and then he set out on his own. Rather than trying to pack a tent around he would travel to small country churches and offer to give a guest sermon and if it worked out, he would have a revival after he worked it out with the church on how they were going to split the offering.
Kenny learned real quick that he needed only to hold the Bible and read out loud at random and use one of the themes of sex, sin, drinking, greed, death, hell and that the sermon would be a hit with occasionally yelling, jumping, gestating, and speaking in gibberish. The country folk congregation were more than happy to follow him into a frenzy of ecstasy. The women especially loved Kenny and he loved them as long as they were young and pretty. Kenny would first draw the women and the men would follow.
*****
Background on Kenny. Blond hair. Extrovert. Plays electric guitar and the piano. He even played in a couple of bands in high school. He learned what it felt to be a star at the high school dances where he played and entertained.
The third part of this section will be Hilda find Kenny. She starts to tell him that she is pregnant, but she is caught up emotions. She ends up in bed with him and kinda on a honeymoon of a rush of love. She delays telling him. After several weeks the belly grew more pressing. She had to tell him. She tells him that she is pregnant and before she could tell him the rest of the story, he rushes to her and hug and shallows her up.
Don't worry. I love you and you love me. We will elope and get married as soon as possible. And they do.
It is Saturday night in 1964.
David and Uzie are playing for tips at JC's. David has a Martin guitar and Uzie a tam-borline. The tips are sparse and will hopefully pay their gas back to the tent. The bought drinks come much more freely. After things gets a little loose, Uzie may even invite a few people to the revival.
David and Uzie go about the same thing during week and on Sunday mornings, except instead of getting tips, they get an offering.
People in the audience often partied hard on Saturday night and showed their asses. Many of these would do the same thing on Sunday morning. On Saturday night they were drunk on the booze and they were seduced by the opposite sex. On Sundays, they were often drunk in the Spirit and seduced the opposite sex. Women flashed their legs and eyes on Saturday on drink and done the same on Sundays in the Spirit.
They would get drunk on Saturday night. They stagger home with their partner for the night. And then get up and stagger to Sunday School with a hangover. Sometimes even the newly found couples would show up at the meeting and a rustle of whispers would go throw the crowd. Sometimes these hook ups would last. Others would be over by the next weekend.
Church was more that a meeting for religious services. It was often the center of social life in many small towns. It was often were you met you future wife or husband. It is where you met your friends. It was where you met your family.
The bar was the same as the church in practically every-way plus it added the social lubricant of alcohol which tended to speed things up.
Just as those in the world use alcohol as a lube, the holy rollers used the "baptism of the spirit" to get drunk in the spirit and to then do things out of the ordinary.
Uzie had the habit of flirting with the girls, whether in the church or in the bar. He was a good looking guy. He had reddest blond hair, blue eyes. He was tall and slender, almost skinny. He was either pale or red faced depending on the mood. He looked every bit the Scotts-Irish which was his heritage. Uzie would use all to seduce a young lady about every night.
David was dark. He had dark hair and dark eyes. He was also tall and slender. He had the habit of moving slowly, speaking slowly, and staying in the background. This was just the opposite of Kenny who was loud and out front of everything.
David played the guitar. Kenny used the tamborlne and sang.
No pair of twins had been more different.
But neither had to be handsome as they were to strike up an interest in the audience. Through out history a man could be a troll or a frog or the most unappealing man in appearance, but if he would get up in front of the church and make them laugh or make them cry, the frog would become a prince.
David first met Lily at the bar. She was like a dark Marilyn Monroe. Not as sultry has Sophie Loren, but as flirtatious affected as Marilyn. Yes her manner was forced and affected, but effective nevertheless. She was dressed like an uptown whore in a ten cent juke box place. Maybe it would be better to compare her to Liz Taylor in Cleopatra. She had the same long black hair, cut in a long page boy style. She had doe like cow eyes framed with dark make up and false eye lashes. She was slim, but yet curvy with full breasts and round hips. She was a buffet in movement and you did not know where to land your eyes. She knew she looked good and she knew how to make herself shine. She had a dramatic flair. Just walking across the floor was a three act play in motion, wiggling into a booth, and then telling David with her eyes, lips, and curved finger with the long red finger nail to join her. She just oozed sex and David could almost smell it as he slid in the booth beside her.
Often after him and Kenny finished playing, people would invite him for a drink. He played the guitar, but this girl played the room.
They made small talk.
He go up to play a few more songs and when he found her table to steal a glance, she was gone.
This is a story about Hilda. Shortly after the birth of her twins. She had returned to Nashville to be with Kenny during the pregnancy. She did not know if the babies were his, but they could be. She needed help and he seemed to have the most help to offer. She was not sure if she had any love for him, but she was fond of his caring.
And take care of here he did. And he could afford it. After all, he was a successful evangelist and he had a record on the charts. He was wintering in Nashville at his mansion and working on some new recordings. He still had plenty of time to take care of Hilda.
Kenny was not sure he loved Hilda, but she had a raw animal attraction for her. She reeked of sex and this was a smell Kenny went after her late a shark after raw meat.
He had always been this way with her. Sometimes against his better judgement and to his detriment. His first sexual experience was Biblical.
It was shortly after Hilda had joined the tent revival. She was Dave's girlfriend and he as Kenny's friend. And he worked for Dave's dad, Brother Louie. Dave had went into town to get some supplies. On the campgrounds there were some temp showers set up.
Who Am I to Say God is Wrong in his Punishment?
Kenny had a few business associates over for dinner. Hilda was able to give a half hearted attempt at helping to entertain. The twins were in bed and sleeping sounding.
"Brother Kenny this is an opportunity to get the message of our ministry out there and still do some good for the poor Haitians. It is a win-win."
"How much time and money will it cost us. I need to know the bottom line and I want to see the projections and how this will pay off in the future. We know we won't make any money from the Haitians, no matter how many we baptist", answered Kenny.
Hilda made an effort to join the discussion. " But Kenny, isn't winning souls is what we are all about?"
"No, Hilda. Before we can do anything, we have to exist. And to exist we have to operate like a business and a business makes money and a profit."
"Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of God."
"Don't you dare quote scripture to me. I provide for you and the boys. I took you in and protected you and your secrets. You know the things you have been into and you have the nerve to counsel me."
Two of the business advisors spoke up and said that they had to get to another meeting and they all started out the door.
Kenny said, " Remember I need those numbers and projections in order to make a good decision. Have them to me by noon tomorrow."
There was a moment quiet as the gang exited.
"What kind of man are you? I know about your family and out you left them to suffer. We make plenty of money. You could sent some to supplement your mother's pension and pay for your brother's treatment. How can you let them suffer?"
"Mom is doing ok and she wouldn't accept my money anyways. She believes suffering and being poor is next to Godliness. Now Ray, is reaping what he has sown. He sinned, partied, and drank whiskey all his life. He is suffering and dying because of his choices. Who am I to block God from exacting punishment?"
"He is your brother. God doesn't want to punish him. He could be saved if he brought Christ into his life. You haven't talked to him in years. He may even be doing the Lord's work and God wants you to help him."
"There is nothing in it for me or this business. There is no positive that could come from me helping him. It would open all kinds of questions about Grace, my history, and my ministry. Like it or not there is such a thing as "guilt by blood". I will not risk my business or my lifestyle for this lowlife. You above everyone else should appreciate this. You would be in the gutter or dead if I didn't provide for you."
"Kenny, how can you cross an ocean to minister to the poor and can't cross the street to help your brother?"
"Hilda, I am going to end this discussion. The plain truth is that tens of thousands will see me helping the Haitians. No one will see my helping my brother and it might bring forth some ugly truths. Some which may hurt you. I am done.
And with that Kenny went out the door and drove to his church office.
8.Kenny: from the hills via Detroit. A born salesman and entertainer. Becomes a preacher for the money. Kenny’s
dad use to work in the coal fields of Kentucky. The family grew tired of the scrappy existence and joined the parade
and migration to the north. They ended up in Detroit and settled in with the rest of the southern white trash. The Dad got a job
at Chevy. It was a well paying job, but he drank, he smoked, he gambled, and he womanized. The family could never get a
head. Kenny grew up tough as an immigrant hill billy. He learned to hustle young. He also had an ear for music. As a teacher
he would work in a rock and roll band at night and doing his free days from school he would work as a salesman. He sold cars,
carpet, shoes, on and on. He found that he was a born salesman and knew that he would never want for work. He grew into
being a traveling salesman who made a pretty hefty commission. His district was south of the Ohio, east of the Mississippi,
west of the Appalachians, and North of the Gulf. One night on the road, he went on a walk from his hotel. He walked upon a
tent revival. He went in to be entertained. He immediately recognize many of the preacher’s techniques at manipulating the
crowd. When he saw the piles of money filling up the five gallon offering buckets, Kenny realized that he had to get “saved”
and learn this new profession of preaching.
20.1.2 Kenny's brother
Kenny's brother is dying from AIDS like disease and lives in very poor and bad conditions. He is dying from something called the "yellowing".
Kenny never helped him. Never took care of him. He did all of the other charity for show. And helping his brother would not draw a crowd or donations.
Bro. Kenny has never built him a house. Arranged for services. Took him foo.
But he does this for others, in foreign countries, and other the glare of TV cameras.
It has once been said, "It ain't charity if no one is there to see it."
The Yellowing
I am setting and preparing myself to visit a friend, Jeff Reed. He is dying with the same disease which took my brother. This is a disease I also have.
This disease is not a glamorous one. It is not like cancer. Not even the hidden ones like prostrate or rectal. It does not have a horde of advocates like AIDS. It is a disease in the shadows. It is a disease my worse by unbecoming behavior. It is call hepatitis C, of Hep C, Or HCV. The romantics call it the yellow dragon.
Most of the time, I don't think about my virus passenger, But I do think about at some points during each day. I may not carry the thoughts to their logical conclusion, my death with every thought, the disease is like the legendary thorn in St. Paul's side. The pain in my side and my fatigue are my constant reminders.
HCV is not a marque disease. Though millions suffer from it, few get up at a pulpit and proclaim their infection. There are many reasons, but the biggest are personal shame and the disdain and prejudice of other people. This prejudice is even found in our most educated. It is a disease which is easy to be disgusted at. It is all too easy for some to say or think, "you are getting what you deserve" or "this is a consequence of bad decisions by immoral people."
I have witnessed this prejudice and downright hatred many times. The most shocking and outrageous example came from my old neurosurgeon, Dr. David Steadman. He had been encouraging me for months to have back surgery. I had recently found out I had HCV due to a new RNA/DNA test. I was scheduled to start a new type of chemotherapy with interferon. It was advised that if I was going to have surgery on my back, I needed to do it before starting on the year long course of treatment with the injections. I went to Dr. Steadman to discuss this as he had been trying to convince my to have surgery for two years to ease my pain.
I remember going into the surgeon's consultation office. He was much different than on previous occasions. In the past he had been friendly and jovial. This time, he was hostile and downright mean. I told him what the other doctors had recommended and that I was ready to arrange my back surgery. He rose from his chair and came around and stood over me. He acted as though I had offended him. He said, "Don't you know how contagious Hepatitis C is?" And he then escorted me from the office.
I was shocked and and insulted. He threw me out of his office like a piece of trash.
Another memorial insult came while I was at my son's soccer practice. It was not intentional. It was incidental. It reminded me of someone spurting prejudice against blacks or gays when they don't think any are around.
As was routine, the parents gathered on the sidelines and watched their children play soccer. While doing this the parents often talked and gossiped. The topic came around to signing the kids up for other summer activities at the YMCA. A mother who was a RN and a specialist with the infectious disease department at IU Hospital. She expressed the decision that she would not be signing her boys up for any water activities. She said that you don't who has hepatitis and that the disease was easily spread through the water. She made no differentiation between type A,B, or C.
And I guess that demonstrates one major problem with hepatitis is that people often get the different types mixed up. They all mix all the traits together and assign them all to the generic label of hepatitis. So it is common for people to say they know what hepatitis is and then go on to stay it is from fecal matter and unsanitary behavior. This often transfers to all those with hepatitis has being low class, dirty, and uncivilized.
I went on and visited my friend Jeff at the hospital. He smiled when I arrived, but he mostly slept. I gave him some mint candy and really seemed to enjoy this. He went back to sleep. I didn't want to impose on his energy so I just sat with him for an hour or so.
During such times one can't help remembering the old times. I remembered Jeff as a small boy, a year younger than me, who lived on the next street. I remember him playing at my wedding reception when we were in our twenties. And I remember him being a pall bearer for my brother, who died of the yellowing two years ago.
Before leaving, I said a short silent prayer and thought that this may be the last time I would see him alive.
Jeff died on the third day following my visit and on the birthday of my youngest brother. There was a rash of phone calls of grief and panic on how his arrangements would be held. He had no money or insurance. His wife at first said there would be no service and that he would be cremated as soon as he left the hospital. Many calls were made to discuss donations and Jeff's step-daughter agreed to front payment for the services. Myself and many of his friends agreed to donate money.
I went to Jeff's gathering memorial today. There was a big turn out. There were many from the old neighborhood and I did not recognize many of the children who had become old men and women. There was much polite conversation and re-acquainting.
The inevitable question came up many times around the room about Jeff's condition and the story of his passing. This story had morphed into him having died from liver cancer. People politely steered away from him having hepatitis C. It seems it is much more acceptable to die from the big C than the big H. There is just much baggage associated with HCV, that I can certainly understand the family want to avoid this added hardship to their grief.
I visited his casket to pay my last respects. Someone had left a shiny quarter on his heart. I guess we all have to pay our dues and the toll to cross the river Styx ix one.
Kenny's Proserity Gospel
This belief that God blesses people with wealth, which has gained in popularity over the years, is known as the “prosperity gospel.” The prosperity gospel emerged in the 1970s in response to dwindling church attendance. Hoping to appeal to the masses and increase their numbers, many pastors and influential Christian speakers changed their style of preaching and broadened their messages. Indeed, attempting to project a less “established religion” feel, many mega-churches today mirror the tactics of Wall Street and Madison Avenue and have adopted a more generic look. Some have even expanded their facilities to include such general consumer attractions as bowling alleys, NBA regulation basketball courts, exercise gyms and spas and even food courts complete with Starbucks and McDonald’s franchises.
1955-The Kelly, Kentucky Alien Invasion
Summary :
Only a year after the bizarre case of a UFO disappearing into thin air , another case that stretches the imagination would occur in the rural setting of Kelly-Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The events in Kentucky would begin on the night of August 21, 1955, and are still being discussed and debated today. A family would have a battle with a group of small alien creatures.
An Immense, Shining Object :
Billy Ray Taylor and his wife were visiting the Sutton farm on this particular night. Billy exited the house to go fetch water from the Sutton family well. While drawing water, he witnessed an "immense, shining object" landing about a quarter of a mile from the house. Excited and frightened, he ran back to the house with the news, but no one took him very seriously.
Shoot First, Ask Questions Later :
Soon, strange things began to occur. The family dogs began to bark outside. The man of the house, "Lucky" along with Billy Ray went outside to see what the problem was. They were both stunned when they saw a three to four foot tall creature, making its way toward them with its hands up. They two men described the creature as like nothing they had ever seen before. It had large eyes, long thin mouth, thin, short legs, large ears, and its hand ended with claws. Billy Ray fired his .22 caliber rifle, and Lucky fired his shotgun. The barrage of bullets had no effect on the being.
Being Appears at Window :
Lucky and Billy both knew that they had hit their target at that close range. But the small creature did a back flip, and then scurried into the woods. The two men went back into the house, but soon another creature was seen looking at them through a window. The two men again blasted away, and ran outside to see if they had killed it, but found nothing. A large hole was later seen through the screen where the shots had been fired.
"Run for Your Lives !":
This cat and mouse game continued into the night as the creatures would appear and disappear. Realizing that they were up against something out of the ordinary, the family decided to run from the house, and ask for assistance from the police station in the little city of Hopkinsville. It took two vehicles to hold everyone, but off they went. After hearing their bizarre story, Sheriff Russell Greenwell thought they were joking. Finally the family convinced him that they were not making up their story, and Greenwell decided to go to the Sutton farm house.
The Police Arrive :
When the police arrived at the farm house and searched the area around the house no evidence of any creatures was found. However, they did find numerous bullet holes through the windows and walls of the house. Over twenty policeman were involved in the search. The police admitted that the Suttons were not drunk, and genuinely frightened by something or someone. Nearby neighbors did confirm strange "lights in the sky," and "hearing of bullets being fired." The police left at 2:15 AM.
The Aliens Return :
After the police were gone, the aliens returned, and the earlier battle was repeated. The gunfire had no effect on the creatures. All together, eleven people were present at the Sutton family farmhouse.
The Air Force Arrives :
Not all of the eleven witnessed the strange events of the night. June Taylor was too frightened to look, and Lonnie Lankford, and his brother and sister were hidden during the encounter, which still left seven witnesses to the encounter. The police department requested the Air Force to investigate the happenings at the Sutton house. They also did a search of the house and surrounding area, but without any solid evidence being found.
Public Reaction :
The morning of the Air Force search, Lucky and Billy Ray had gone to Evansville, Indiana on family business. The five remaining witnesses to the events of the night before were interviewed by Air Force personnel, giving their full account of the night of terror. The story of the small aliens spread quickly, and the Kentucky "New Era" newspaper published a story of the family's encounter on August 22, 1955.
Conclusions :
In the beginning, most of the public believed the Suttons were perpetuating a hoax. But, if this was the case, what would be their reason? They made no money from the story, only accruing debt by damaging their house. Could all of their trouble have been to get their name in the local newspaper? All of the witnesses to the strange events of the night of August 21, 1955, made sketches of what the creatures looked like. The drawings were practically identical. Almost a year later, the case was investigated by Isabel Davis. She believed that the Suttons were telling the truth.
Famed UFO investigator Dr. J. Allen Hynek also believed the account of the Kelly aliens, and discussed the case with Davis. This case is still being investigated today, and there have been many books, and television specials made relating to the Kentucky events of 1955.
Kentucky Dam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kentucky Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River on the county line between Livingston County and Marshall County in the U.S. state of Kentucky . The dam is the lowermost of nine dams on the river owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority , which built the dam in the late 1930s and early 1940s to improve navigation on the lower part of the river and reduce flooding on the lower Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The dam impounds the Kentucky Lake of 160,000 acres (65,000 ha), which is the largest of TVA's reservoirs and the largest artificial lake by area in the Eastern United States.[1] A canal connects Kentucky Lake to nearby Lake Barkley , created by Barkley Dam on the Cumberland River . The lakes run parallel for more than 50 miles (80 km), with the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area located between them.
Location[edit source | editbeta ]
Kentucky Dam is located just over 22 miles (35 km) above the mouth of the Tennessee River, which empties into the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky . After absorbing the Tennessee, the Ohio flows for another 46 miles (74 km) before emptying into the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois . The dam is approximately 20 miles (32 km) north of the Kentucky-Tennessee border and 10 miles (16 km) southeast of the Kentucky-Illinois border. The city of Grand Rivers is located southeast of the dam, and Gilbertsville and Calvert City are immediately downstream. Kentucky Lake stretches southward for 184 miles (296 km) across Kentucky and most of the length of Tennessee to the base of Pickwick Landing Dam , near the Tennessee-Alabama line, and includes parts of Livingston, Marshall, Lyon , Calloway , and Trigg counties in Kentucky and parts of Humphreys , Benton , Decatur , Stewart , Carroll , Wayne , Henderson , Henry , Perry , Houston , and Hardin counties in Tennessee.
Barkley Dam, which is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , is located along the Cumberland River just opposite Lake City a few miles east of Kentucky Dam. The canal connecting Kentucky and Barkley Lakes joins Kentucky Lake approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) upstream from Kentucky Dam.
Capacity[edit source | editbeta ]
Kentucky Dam is 206 feet (63 m) high, although over half the dam is submerged by water. At 8,422 feet (2,567 m) long, Kentucky Dam is the longest dam on the Tennessee River and the longest in the TVA system. The dam has a generating capacity of 223,100 kilowatts , and its 24-bay spillway has a total discharge of 1,050,000 cubic feet per second (30,000 m3/s). Kentucky Lake's 2,064 miles (3,322 km) of shoreline, 160,300 acres (64,900 ha) of water surface, and 4,008,000 acre feet (4,944 Gl) of flood storage are the most of any lake in the TVA system.[2][1]
Kentucky Dam is serviced by a 600-by-110-foot (180 by 34 m) navigation lock , soon to be supplemented by a larger 1,200-by-110-foot (370 by 34 m) lock which will be better able to accommodate the long barge tows which navigate the river.[3] A large industrial complex of chemical plants has developed below the dam near Calvert City due to the convenient barge transportation and inexpensive TVA electricity. The locks' lift raises and lowers vessels up to 75 feet (23 m) between Kentucky Lake and the lower part of the river.[1]
Background and construction[edit source | editbeta ]
The original design plan for Kentucky Dam, circa 1938
Throughout the 19th century, Congress passed a series of initiatives to improve navigation on the Tennessee River between the river's mouth and Florence, Alabama . By the 1890s, a 5-foot (1.5 m) continuous channel had been secured, but was still deemed insufficient for major river traffic. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted an extensive survey of the lower river in the early 1900s, and recommended constructing a dam at Aurora Landing (roughly 20 miles (32 km) above the present site), but the project was never funded. In the 1930s, the Tennessee Valley Authority sought to create a continuous minimum 9-foot (2.7 m) channel along the entirety of the river from Paducah to Knoxville . The Authority also sought to help control flooding on the lower Mississippi River, especially in the aftermath of the Ohio River flood of 1937 , as research had shown that 4% of the water in the lower Mississippi originates in the Tennessee River watershed. TVA surveyed the lower part of the river and considered the Aurora Landing site, but eventually settled on the present site at river mile 22.4. The Kentucky Dam project was authorized May 23, 1938, and construction began July 1, 1938.[1]
Kentucky Dam's spillway, 1940s
The construction of Kentucky Dam and its reservoir required the purchase 320,244 acres (129,598 ha) of land, 48,496 acres (19,626 ha) of which had to be cleared. 2,609 families, 3,390 graves, and 365 miles (587 km) of roads had to be relocated. 65 new bridges were built, 7 were rebuilt, and 3 were raised. The Illinois Central Railroad— which crossed a bridge just downstream from the dam— was rerouted to cross the top of the dam. The communities of Johnsonville and Springville in Tennessee and Birmingham in Kentucky were completely inundated, and a protective dike was constructed at Big Sandy, Tennessee to protect the town from reservoir backwaters.[1]
Kentucky Dam was completed and its gates closed on August 30, 1944, and its first generator went online September 14, 1944. The project cost nearly $118 million, making it the most expensive TVA dam project. Kentucky Dam's navigation lock was the first lock designed by TVA— the Corps of Engineers had designed the locks for previous TVA dam projects.[1] The Corps of Engineers is designing the new lock, however, which was scheduled for completion in 2008.[3]
Since Kentucky Dam is located in the New Madrid Seismic Zone — which produced earthquakes of estimated magnitude 7.0 to 7.9 in 1811 — it is one of the few TVA dams built to withstand major earthquake shocks.[1] Emergency preparedness officials in Marshall County and McCracken County, Kentucky (downstream from the dam) and a TVA spokesman discussed concerns of the public about the dam in 2005 in a local newspaper, The Paducah Sun . The dam was regarded as well maintained. Experts suggested that any dam failure would probably occur in the earthen levees at the end of the concrete portion of the dam, and the subsequent release would start small and enlarge as water poured through it. It is not expected that a 50-foot (15 m) wall of water would suddenly go down the river. Instead, it would likely take at least six hours for the water level to rise above the Calvert City chemical plants. The floodwater should only reach the base of the Paducah floodwall.[4]
The dam also carried a railroad line and two lanes of US 62 /641 at its crest. However, due to the planned lock expansion, two new crossings were built just downstream of the dam—a two-lane road bridge and a separate rail bridge. The new bridges were opened in late 2009.
See also[edit source | editbeta ]
References[edit source | editbeta ]
^ a b c d e f g Tennessee Valley Authority, The Kentucky Project: A Comprehensive Report on the Planning, Design, Construction, and Initial Operations of the Kentucky Project, Technical Report No. 13 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951), pp. 1-12, 68, 115-116, 509.
^ Tennessee Valley Authority, Kentucky Reservoir . Retrieved: 20 January 2009.
^ a b U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kentucky Lock Project Fact Sheet . Retrieved: 20 January 2009.
^ Bill Bartleman, "Dam Safety Attracts Public Concern ." The Paducah Sun, 28 September 2005. Retrieved: 20 January 2009.
Construction of Kentucky Dam began in 1938 and was completed in 1944.
The dam is 206 feet high and 8,422 feet long.
Kentucky Dam is a hydroelectric facility. It has five generating units with a net dependable capacity of 184 megawatts. Net dependable capacity is the amount of power a dam can produce on an average day, minus the electricity used by the dam itself.
Kentucky Reservoir features 2,064 miles of cove-studded shoreline and about 160,300 acres of water surface.
The reservoir drains the entire Tennessee Valley watershed, which covers an area of 40,200 square miles.
Kentucky has a flood storage capacity of 4,008,000 acre-feet, more than 2.5 times the capacity of the next-largest reservoir in the TVA system.
Kentucky helps reduce flood damage on six million acres of the lower Ohio and Mississippi rivers and reduces the frequency of flooding on another four million acres.
To maintain the depth required for navigation, the water level in the reservoir is kept at a minimum winter elevation of 354 feet. The typical summer target level is 359 feet.
Kentucky Tribes
Southern Cherokee Nation of Kentucky
Chief David L. Fallis
P.O. Box 1750
Henderson, KY 42419
E-mail: dlfallis@fewpb.net
Phone (502) 695-7974
State Recognized by proclamation in 1893 and again by Governor Fletcher on 20 Nov 2006.
Ridgetop Shawnee
E-mail: info@ridgetopshawnee.org
Recognized by the State House of the Kentucky General Assembly in 2009 under HJR-15
Non-Recognized:
Kentucky Native American Indian Council (KNAIC)
Harlan County Native American Site Protection Office
Early Tribes1
Cherokee. The Cherokee claimed some land in southeastern Kentucky and traces of culture of Cherokee type are said to be found in archeological remains along the upper course of the Cumberland, but no permanent Cherokee settlement is known to have existed in historic times within this State.
Chickasaw. The westernmost end of Kentucky was claimed by the Chickasaw, and at a very early period they had a settlement on the lower course of Tennessee River, either in Kentucky or Tennessee.
Mosopelea. This tribe may have lived within the boundaries of Kentucky for a brief time, perhaps at the mouth of the Cumberland River, when they were on their way from Ohio to the lower Mississippi.
Shawnee. The Shawnee had more to do with Kentucky in early times than any other tribe, but maintained few villages in the State for a long period. Their more permanent settlements were farther south about NAsheville. At one Shawnee town, located for a short time near Lexington, Ky., the noted Shawnee chief, Blackhoof, was born. The tribe crossed and recrossed the State several times in its history and used it still more frequently as a hunting ground.
Yuchi. According to some early maps, the Yuchi had a town in this State on a river which appears to be identical with Green River.
1Extract from "The Indian Tribes of North America" by John R. Swanton, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 145—1953, [726 pages—Smithsonian Institution], (pp. 229-230)
Born: March 12, 1922, Lowell, Massachusetts
Died: October 21, 1969, St. Petersburg, Florida
The Smell of Ink
Copyright September 1999, by Mary Sands
Young Jack learned about layout at an early age in an atmosphere made intoxicating by the smell of ink.
-Douglas Brinkley, “In the Kerouac Archive,” The Atlantic Monthly, 1998.
From the time when Jack Kerouac was very young and nicknamed Ti Jean, he wrote in his diary. Throughout the years, he kept letters, articles, and thoughts scribbled during uncertain midnights or in pinetop clarity near creekbeds. Some of these writings have already been published, and others will be published soon. Now that Kerouac’s estate has begun to authorize the release and publication of Kerouac’s personal belongings, and thanks to historian Douglas Brinkley and others such as Kerouac’s friend and Neal’s wife Carolyn Cassady, we will begin to see more books about Kerouac.
We may begin to understand more about Jack Kerouac through his newly published writings (some of them coming out now, in the latter part of 1999). Journalists, biographers, and editors will no doubt continue to find new angles that inspect and analyze Jack and his life.
The Atlantic Monthly stated in November 1998, in an article titled “In the Kerouac Archive,” that if Kerouac is not unfamiliar, he may nevertheless be underknown. We already know a lot about Kerouac because the 17 books published while he was alive, and a few more after his death, document his experiences. Kerouac wrote novels based on his life, from growing up in Lowell to later travels across the country. Besides novels, he also wrote poetry, including haiku, giving insight to his artistry and perception. He wrote essays about his “spontaneous bop prosody” and about the beat generation. He’d also developed a very conversational style of writing. Since Jack died, 30 years ago this month, his friends and biographers and editors and readers have tried to eschew that fact. We just can’t let Jack Kerouac die, really. He never did.
Biography
Jack Kerouac, named Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts on March 12, 1922. He was the youngest child of three. Raised by French-Canadian parents, he didn’t speak English until age 6; before that he spoke joule, a French dialect. By the time Kerouac was 10, he knew he wanted to be a writer. His earliest inspirations were Thomas Wolfe and a radio show called “The Shadow.” Jack’s father Leo published a Lowell newsletter called “The Spotlight,” and Jack helped his father with the layout and press work for the publication. The smell of ink must have been a true “first” deep impression on Kerouac. As a young teenager, Kerouac wrote his own sportsheet, which he sold to friends. In the 40s, he wrote for Lowell’s Sun as a sportswriter.
Dancing in his young mind were visions of an American dream: he idolized plains drifters and cowboys, and he adored baseball–and later wrote “Ronnie on the Mound,” about Ronnie Melaney of the “Chicago Chryslers.” By the time he was in high school, he was on the baseball, track, and football teams. There was a wide open road ahead of Kerouac, and little did he then know that he’d follow that “hero” road and that almost half a century later, others would regard him as a great rucksack-literary trailblazer trekking across America.
His life in Lowell was partially documented in Kerouac’s later novels. In Maggie Cassidy and Vanity of Duluoz, he wrote of skipping school to read Shakespeare, Hugo, and Penn. In Maggie Cassidy–which was based on his friendship with Mary Carney, whom he met at age 16– he also talked about the poetry of Robert Frost and Emily Dickenson as part of his high school agenda and learning. The book Visions of Gerard is a bittersweet, spiritual “pain-tale” that re-creates the tough feelings surrounding the sickness and death of Kerouac’s brother. Kerouac was only 4 when his brother Gerard died at age 9. Doctor Sax mentions the Boott, a mill, where windows shine “like a lost star in the blue lights of Lowell.” Visions of Cody also mentions working in the textile mills. One gets a sense that growing up in Lowell was a soft, red-brick dally, before Jack would eventually depart and thread through other towns and cities, in the true holyboy/hobo way.
Life in Lowell had become a financial struggle for Jack’s parents, Leo and Gabrielle. The textile mills, once the reason for Lowell’s prosperity, were not doing so well anymore, which affected the entire community. Leo’s once successful printshop began to suffer as well. Jack’s father turned to gambling in order to help the family’s financial situation. Jack felt that going to college might help restore the Kerouac name and good reputation. He received a football scholarship to Columbia University, after a winning touchdown in a key game for Lowell High School.
After attending public schools, including Lowell High School and Catholic schools, upon the advice of Columbia’s football coach, Kerouac attended the Horace Mann Preparatory School, in New York City, from 1939 to 1940. At age 17, he tried his first “stick of tea” and published articles in the “Horace Mann Record,” which was the school newspaper. In 1941, he spent his first and only year at Columbia. The football plans didn’t work; Jack “broke his leg” and was unhappy with his coach’s insistence that Jack not play. To beat it all, Jack’s father lost his business and fell into alcoholism. Jack dropped out of college.
Jack joined the Merchant Marines, and a year later, after WWII began, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. During these couple of years, Kerouac sailed to Greenland as well as to Liverpool as a merchant seamen. He was discharged from the Navy for psychiatric reasons.
Jack met Allen Ginsberg, Lucian Carr, William Burroughs, and Neal Cassady during these years when he was home from sailing. His new friends, some of them from Columbia University as well, were either writers or wannabe writers, and a deep literary interest tied these men together. Jack later gave Allen a manuscript he had been working on, and in turn Allen gave the manuscript to one of his professors. This book was published in 1950, as The Town and the City. The novel was inspired by Wolfe and addressed Jack’s tug-of-war concepts of the sanctioned values he’d been raised with versus his newly embraced city life that opposed the old ways. Kerouac’s new friends provided a cushion for his home life worries, and they helped Jack to chart new pathways that began to unveil their “furtive” and seeking minds. Kerouac’s new buddies sat more heavily on the seesaw than Jack’s old life did. Although his mother Memere always kept him under a tight wing, Kerouac had begun to fly a little.
During this flight, sometimes Jack found himself in trouble. For instance, Lucian Carr, who had introduced Kerouac to both Ginsberg and Burroughs, killed a man named David Kammerer, who had been stalking and threatening Carr. Kerouac was named as an accessory and a material witness, and was sent to jail. A quick marriage to girlfriend Edie Parker ensured the payment of bail from her family. Their marriage was annulled a year later. Meanwhile, Jack collaborated with William Burroughs in writing “And the Hippos were Boiled in Their Tanks,” which recounted the Kammerer murder and trial.
One of Kerouac’s most influential friends, however, was Neal Cassady, the holy madman who had come to visit New York from Denver. In many ways, Cassady represented the folk hero that Jack had envisioned dreamily from boyhood days. Some say that Neal signified Kerouac’s long-lost Gerard–a brotherhood resurrected. Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg hit it off right away, and even had an affair; Kerouac chronicled his early thoughts about the duo (Neal Moriarty and Carlo Marx) in On the Road:
But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’
Kerouac and Cassady made a deal: that Jack would teach Neal how to write and Neal would teach Jack how to drive. Ironically, it was Neal’s writing (spontaneous, honest, and fresh) that influenced Jack’s prose. As well, Jack may have been a safer driver than his pedal-to-the-metal friend; but a lackadaisical agreement was made, and thus the two (and sometimes with other beats) were on the road.
In 1947, Kerouac set out to Denver, in search of Neal, and then drove to California and back to New York. In the next few years, Cassady would get married to his second wife Carolyn after an annulment from his first wife Luanne, and have a “home base” in San Francisco. Yet, Cassady and Kerouac would still take to the road extensively, much to the dismay of their women at home: Carolyn and Gabrielle.
In 1948, Jack met John Clellon Holmes and the two began trying to define a “new vision” of writing that was being sought by themselves and cronies such as Lucian Carr, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. Holmes wrote “This is the Beat Generation,” and Kerouac began to write On the Road, documenting his travels with Cassady. The cluster of writers felt that they were “furtive seekers” and wanted to define their new, unique writing concepts.
The beat generation had formed its roots, and people such as Ginsberg, Burroughs, Cassady, and Kerouac often tried to bring a label or definition to their writing techniques. Kerouac developed a love for bebop, an improvisational, intricate riff-like jazz style that originated in Harlem jam sessions and was ignited by such greats as Charlie Parker. This energetic music was described by journalist Frank Convoy as “ejaculatory jungle music.” However it can be characterized, both Kerouac and Cassady were impressed by the sound of bebop, and their writing was styled after it.
In 1949, Kerouac and Cassady met up at Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where Jack’s mother had moved after the death of Leo. Together, they drove up to New York in a 1949 Hudson and then out to California, with a stop in Algiers, Louisiana to visit William Burroughs. During this year, Kerouac and his mother also moved temporarily to Colorado.
A year later, Jack’s first novel The Town and the City was published, and he went on the road again with Neal, to Mexico. He also married Joan Haverty, whom he divorced a year later. Joan later gave birth to their daughter, Jan, but despite finally (in 1962) acknowledging the fact that she was his daughter, Jack failed paying child support for years and never made Jan a part of his life.
After two short-lived marriages and some infamous road trips with Neal Cassady, Kerouac may have begun to feel the excitement of the beat generation’s historical and formative literary years. By 1951, Burroughs had written Junkie and Holmes had written Go, which Kerouac read. Jack had also been working on his novel On the Road, and he wrote the novel on a during a three-week period. Jack’s manuscript was rejected, and this caused him some grief and insecurity, until On the Road would be published by Viking Press in 1957.
In 1952 Kerouac stayed part of the year with Neal Cassady and his wife Carolyn, in San Francisco. A strong tie had been established with Neal, as it had with Allen Ginsberg, and because the three would often be stuck like pins on a map in different parts of the country, or world, the infamous letter-writing begun years earlier became a mainstay. During times when Kerouac stayed with the Cassadys, he also became close to Carolyn; the two even had an affair that Neal didn’t seem to mind. Throughout the years, this bond among Neal, Carolyn, Jack, and Allen formed into the famous letter-writing years. It was as though they were family–and when apart, the post office was handling what would later become treasured memorabilia.
A year later, in 1953, Kerouac was on the road again, to stay with William Burroughs in Mexico City. Jack wrote Dr. Sax, before heading to North Carolina to visit his sister and then back to California to work as a brakeman (like Cassady). That year, he also worked on the S.S. William Carruth, in New Orleans. During his travels between California and Mexico, Jack wrote “The Railroad Earth,” inspired by his temporary assignment as a brakeman. This was also the year that Joan gave birth to Jan, in Albany, New York.
During the next several years, Jack traveled and wrote much more. He wrote “San Francisco Blues” and Some of Dharma in 1954. In 1955, he wrote Mexico City Blues and began work on Tristessa. A year later, he penned Visions of Gerard, wrote journals that would become Book One of Desolation Angels, finished Tristessa, and completed “The Scripture of the Golden Eternity” and “Old Angel Midnight.” In 1957, On the Road was finally published, and Jack wrote The Dharma Bums. He also gave readings at the Village Vanguard and helped Ginsberg type and edit Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. In 1958, The Dharma Bums and The Subterraneans were published, and Jack began to write Lonesome Traveller. The following year, he narrated the film “Pull My Daisy” (based on his play by the same name) and began writing a column for Escapade. Three of his books–Dr. Sax, Mexico City Blues, and Maggie Cassidy–were published. In 1961, his Book of Dreams was published, and he wrote both Book Two of Desolation Angels and Big Sur. During the next two years, both Visions of Gerard and Big Sur were published. Later, Satori in Paris, Pic, and Vanity of Duluoz were published.
In the 1950s, as he was writing and getting published, Kerouac had reached a peak in his spiritual, literary, and nomadic experiences. He had been all over the United States, to Mexico, and had visited Burroughs in Tangier, Morocco. He’d lived in New York; Rocky Mount, North Carolina; several California cities; Orlando and St. Petersburg, Florida (where his mother had moved); and Paris, France. Note that the word “lived” signifies “stayed,” since Kerouac never established residency anywhere for too long.
The height of the beat generation, and some say the beginning of it, was on the night of October 7, 1955, when several of the original East Coast beats joined the West Coast poets for the “Six Poets at the Six Gallery” reading in San Francisco. The six readers were Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Philip Lamantia, Kenneth Rexroth, Philip Whalen, and Allen Ginsberg. Kerouac, who came to the Six Gallery to visit Ginsberg and hear the other poets, would grow to admire Snyder’s love for nature and simple Buddhist philosophies (this spiritual seeking side of Kerouac, and Snyder’s contributions to it, are illustrated in The Dharma Bums). That night also marked Ginsberg’s reading of the poem “Howl,” which Lawrence Ferlinghetti, part owner of City Lights Bookstore, heard, loved, appreciated, and published. Ferlinghetti was later arrested for selling an obscene book. This, as well as many of the beats’ lifestyles–not to mention the years-before killing of David Kammerer and Burroughs’ accidental murder of his wife Joan–created a stigma around the beat generation that was hard to break through. Although Ferlinghetti eventually won his case for publishing “Howl,” it would become many years before the majority of beat writings were seriously looked at and appreciated by those outside the “subterranean” culture.
For a period of time, Kerouac’s career and popularity peaked: his road trips were followed by his feverish writing about them. These years may have been Jack’s happiest. He was still close to his mother and visited her often; his friends and fellow beats shared his great enthusiasm for writing, jazz, Buddhist philosophies, experimentation, being on the road, reaching intoxicated states, and getting involved with rucksack/nature expeditions. The novel The Dharma Bums elucidates a mountain climb with Gary Snyder in which Kerouac finds some “answers” about beinghood and happiness, in the form of Buddhism, poetry, and rucksacking on some awe-inspiring trails.
The beat generation had become “hip” by the mid-fities, and after the publication of On the Road, which propelled Jack into an overnight celebrity status, he began to drift away, not wanting to fit the mold of a wildman image. He began drinking a lot, too much, and in the years to come, he would grow confused, unfocused, and needy.
When Kerouac spent the summer of 1960 in Big Sur, he was trying to get away from his newly found popularity, which meant fleeing from the attention of the press and fans who wanted a glimpse, a word, a touch. Jack’s escape was two-fold: he had gotten the popularity he wanted, yet he didn’t like the responsibility that came along with it. He didn’t want a fad, but that’s how it appeared. The “beat” vagary became a juxtaposition of “beat” meaning. Staying in Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s cabin in beautiful coastal California, not too far from Carmel, where authors such as Robinson Jeffers and Jack London had lived, seemed to be a good move for Jack. He’d already had several grand encounters with nature, as described in The Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels. This might be another, to help him get back on track.
However, the high cliffs and pounding surf of Big Sur made Jack uneasy right away. His stay there was one full of paranoia; even the sounds of a small creek, the crashing waves, or the other nighttime sounds around the cabin frightened Jack. He had been drinking so heavily that his reality was becoming distorted, and he was experiencing delirium tremors. Although finding some comfort by the creekbed during the day, and trying to confront his irrational fears, he was aware of the fact that he was having a nervous breakdown. He imagined that evil existed in a mountain at nearby Bixby Canyon, and the mountain began to materialize in nightmares.
Kerouac’s book Big Sur describes his cabin experiences, after which Kerouac left to go to San Francisco to continue to drink, thus falling deeper into depression. Back at the cabin, later, things became worse. Kerouac’s hands would tremble upon trying to light a match, he would pace for hours, and he imagined that the waters in the creek were poisonous.
After his trip to Big Sur, Jack returned to New York, where he wrote and published some of his later novels. In 1962, when Big Sur was published, Jack moved with his mother to St. Petersburg, Florida. His older sister Caroline (“Nin”) died that year. Jack also met Ken Kesey in New York, with the Merry Pranksters, and reunited with Neal Cassady; they hadn’t seen each other for years.
The following year, Jack went to France to write Satori in Paris; a year later, that book was published, and Jack moved in with his mother again, this time to Hyannis, Massachusetts. His mother suffered a stroke in 1966, and Jack married Stella Sampas, a friend of the family’s since his childhood. A year later, he moved with his wife and mother back to Lowell.
Although Jack was still writing, his drinking had begun to dominate his life. Carolyn Cassady wrote in Off the Road that during these last few years, Jack would often call her, incoherent, drunk, and needing an ear. When Neal Cassady died in Mexico, in 1968–the same year that Vanity of Duluoz was published–Jack and Carolyn spoke on the phone again, and Carolyn felt ominously forewarned by Jack’s mood that he would soon join Neal. That year, Jack, Stella, and Gabrielle moved again to St. Petersburg.
Jack died in St. Petersburg, at age 47, in October, 1969. His death was from an abdominal hemorrhage surrounding complications due to his alcoholism.
After Kerouac’s death, more of his books became published: Pic, in 1971; Visions of Cody, in 1973; Heaven and Other Poems, in 1997; Pomes All Sizes, in 1992; Old Angel Midnight, and Good Blonde & Others in 1993; Book of Blues and Selected Letters 1940-1956, in 1995; On the Road: 40th Anniversary Edition and Some of Dharma, in 1997.
Kerouac “Today”
It’s difficult to discuss Kerouac’s impact on his readers, because there are so many varieties of readers. There are those who see Kerouac as godlike, and use such phrases as taking a “pilgrimage to Desolation Peak” or “Jack is holy.” There are those who read Kerouac’s novels and see them as crazy, insurgent turns of events that are to be admired, if for no other reason than their youthful and lawless pursuit of mad, hopping adventure. Some read Kerouac and come away deeply moved by the human, spiritual insights that he captured so well with words, and these readers are inspired by Jack’s breath of fresh air, as well as his obvious profound sense of life and being.
Critical journalists and analysts tend to see Kerouac’s following as immature and juvenile. A recent article, by James Wolcott, in Vanity Fair (October, 1999), says that “The issue of whether On the Road holds up is irrelevant to a kid cracking it open for the first time; to him (and usually it’s a him, Kerouac’s disciples being overwhelmingly male, in my experience), the novel isn’t a literary artifact to be judged against the inner gold of other artifacts, but a personal saga and broadcast that bypass normal communication. To newbies, Kerouac’s exploits aren’t filtered through layers of critical analysis but come at them point-blank, just as Ginsberg’s haranguing lines in ‘Howl’ manage to hit new generations of readers full blast. Kerouac writes as if he’s right there with you, a fellow passenger. (Kerouac himself seldom drove.)” Wolcott follows this passage with an example of Xander (Nicholas Brendon) reading On the Road in an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
On the other end of the spectrum, growing academic interest in Jack Kerouac and his “new vision” buddies shows that the beat generation’s literary styles do measure up and are worth the study. Several universities teach about Jack Kerouac and other beats in a structured, serious setting. Professors and instructors are not there to teach about the “latest craze.” Spontaneous bop prosody has found a place in academia; the impact of Kerouac’s and others’ writings on literature and culture, although still considered by many to be avant-garde and rebellious, is finally being taken earnestly by scholars.
Last year, two 100-top-books lists came out, and on both of them, On the Road ranked around the 55th best book of all times. In China, where post-Tiananmen youth are scared into maintaining a cutting edge of non-political rebellion, one bookstore noted that Kerouac’s On the Road and Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, were the two topsellers. In bookstores in the USA, On the Road takes its seat in the display cases of “Best Literary Classics” or “Recommended Reading.” An article by the New York Times, in 1997, noted that beat-related books and products are enjoying their highest sales ever.
Whether the beats are being resurrected from their fashionable, but underground, place in the 40s and 50s is hard to tell. From times when Kerouac wore Levis in an advertisement for The Gap, to current rumors of Francis Ford Coppola and his son Roman producing a movie based on On the Road, what has resulted is that serious students of Kerouac wonder about whether the current neo-beat Kerouac interest has a sincere, heartfelt place in the 90s. There are curious reactions to people like Johnny Depp’s celebrity status harboring enough of an edge to get his views about Kerouac published in the recent book The Rolling Stone of the Beats. Although objectively, Kerouac’s oldest readers welcome anyone’s (including Depp’s) appreciation of Jack, it’s also scary that the thought of Kerouac’s profundity might be miscaptured and misplaced in the current times of rich and technological consumerism, lazy comfort, two-second attention spans, and push-button accessibility to quick-fix information. Nobody but nobody wants to filter out Kerouac’s followers and lovers, and there has never been an elite crowd of those who read Kerouac, because that goes against the kindness and warmth that Kerouac projected to others during his peak quests for meaning and happiness. But there is a deep desire among Kerouac’s oldest fans to keep his true spirit alive. It’s easiest by going back to read Kerouac’s greatest words, such as the passage below, from The Dharma Bums, and then taking these thoughts with you on your own road.
Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared, and I said “God, I love you” and looked up to the sky and really meant it. “I have fallen in love with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other.”
(Ray Smith, on Desolation Peak)
Key to Kerouac’s characters in his own novels: Sal Paradise in On the Road; Peter Martin in Town and The City; Jack Duluoz in Satori in Paris, Maggie Cassidy, Tristessa, Visions of Gerard, Desolation Angels, Big Sur, and Visions of Cody; Leo Percepied in Subterraneans, Ray Smith in Dharma Bums; and Jack in Book of Dreams. He was also known as Gene Pasternak in Holmes’ Go.
Books
The Town and the City (1960)
On the Road (1957)
The Dharma Bums (1958)
The Subterraneans (1958)
Doctor Sax (1959)
Maggie Cassidy (1959)
Mexico City Blues (1959)
Visions of Cody (1959)
Tristessa (1960)
Lonesome Traveler (1960)
Book of Dreams (1961)
Big Sur (1962)
Visions of Gerard (1963)
Desolation Angels (1965)
Satori in Paris (1966)
Vanity of Duluoz (1968)
Pic (1971)
Scattered Poems (1971)
Selected Letters (1993)
Some of the Dharma (1994)
Book of the Blues (1994)
http://twistedsouth.com/hey-jack-visiting
This Student Was Kicked Out Of College For Watching Glee
Gleediscoweek
First Posted: 04/27/2012 3:05 pm Updated: 04/30/2012 4:19 pm
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So the problem with going to college at a fundamentalist christian school like Bob Jones University that's actively working toward returning America to the 1740s is that there are some super ridiculous rules. For example, you can only watch certain TV shows off-campus like Girls and Breaking Bad and reruns of Real Sex. Just kidding. Those shows are most definitely on the banned list.
Chris Peterman, a student at BJU (insert middle school sense of humor here), claims watching Glee on his computer at an off-campus Starbucks got him in big trouble with the school. So much trouble in fact, that they banned him from graduating by suspending him.
While I think we can all agree that the plot doesn't always makes sense on the show, I doubt that's why it's on their unapproved list. I'm going to take a wild guess here and assume it has something to do with their positive portrayal of LGBT students as well as their openess when it comes to discussing teen sexuality.
Read more on Crushable !
Correction: An earlier version of this article mischaracterized Bob Jones University as a "baptist" institution. We regret the error.
Read more from Huffington Post bloggers:
Lorri L. Jean: Dramatic Changes on Campus at Georgetown
Much has changed at Georgetown since 1980, when some fellow students and I sued the school for refusing to recognize our LGBT group because doing so allegedly violated Catholic doctrine.
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11:49 AM on 05/02/2012
What happens if a student has a friend who watches Glee? Do they disown their friendship? What if one of their family members is gay? Do they stop loving them? Are the students at this school so misguided at home they don't know the difference between right-and-wrong and can't judge for themselves (judge--that's God's job, excuse me for the poor word choice; I don't have a college degree)? Once graduated, how do you separate yourself from the godless individuals you will have to work around/with? There's nothing wrong with having rules and values---so many don't nowadays. But how much is too much? It's going to be a rude awakening for the students once they're exposed to the "real" world.
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12:47 PM on 05/01/2012
A degree from BJU isn't worth the paper it's printed on. BJU is not accredited by ANY group.
The founder of BJU bought most of his art from the Nazis....
10:10 PM on 05/01/2012
Since the Nazis had pretty good taste in art, the walls at BJU must look nice then. The whole lack of accreditation thing should be a red flag though.
03:50 PM on 08/17/2012
The nazis stole the art from the Jews they were killing....
12:36 AM on 08/01/2012
I went to BJU and guess what? I got kicked out. But the irony is that I support the school. I was kicked out because a friend of the same gender fell in-love with me. She claimed we were both lesbians and the school kicked us out that day. But I am straight, married with 2 children. It took me a long time to not hate the school but if I hadn't gotten kicked out I wouldn't have met the man I married! Anyhow, all that to say the school gives you a fantastic education. I live in a college town and believe me, these barfing kids are not getting an education when they are hung over every single day. BJU is very strict and you MUST go to class. There is no failing there or you won't last long. You are expected to keep your grades up. And my cousin went there and is a medical doctor, I have several friends who are R.N's and command a high salary because they are in the top of their field. I could go on and on. BJU is not accredited because they don't want the government to force them to teach perversion such as homosexuality is okay. But not being accredited doesn't mean you're not getting a great education.
03:51 PM on 08/17/2012
How do they deal with SCIENCE? or do they just not teach the parts they don't like?
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12:11 PM on 05/01/2012
Let me just say that as a Bob Jones University student, you are doing a horrible portrayal of my school. Yes, we have rules. We strive to honor God in all that we do, and if that means not watching Glee because of content than that's what happens. But don't go saying that the school was looking for anything they could to kick Peterman out. He wanted out. He did everything possible to be expelled, yet he wants the school blamed. But guess what! Where God has a plan, the world or any human can't hinder it, so no matter what you may say God's work at Bob Jones University will go on!
10:14 PM on 05/01/2012
Just curious, will you turn into a pillar of salt if you watch Glee? What is the problem with it? I've never watched the show myself and probably never will, but I would not want my university or my religion telling me I couldn't watch a certain tv show or read a certain book. Something doesn't sound right about that.
01:52 AM on 05/02/2012
Do you obey laws anywhere? Before signing up as a student these rules are laid out in black and white and SOMETIMES RED. SO, this kid knew what he was signing and getting into BEFORE he went - he spent 3+ years there - now he's tired and wants to do his own thing - even though he KNEW before going that this was expected of him, and since he no long wants to abide by a rule of the school - he doesn't have to and should have to have ANY consequences thrown at him for breaking the rules he knew were already there? Hey buddy - go steal something major - announce when and where you're going to do it and see if a bunch of people aren't going to be there to arrest you and throw your sorry behind into jail (consequence). Then whine to everyone around you about it...that's what's going on here. He's getting less then he deserves if you ask me....this should have happened long ago. He's a spoiled baby and needs to grow up one of these days - if he's gonna make it in the REAL world -
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08:20 AM on 05/02/2012
The problem isn't necessarily with Glee. The fact is that Chris's demerit record was too close to 150 and when he watched Glee that put him over the 150 limit. BJU feels that because of the homosexuality portrayal in Glee and also the other things don't honor God that students shouldn't watch the show.
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01:05 AM on 05/02/2012
But covering up a rape doesn't honor God. Peterman stood up for Truth and Light above an institution. Do you think Chuck Phelps was honoring God in what he did to Tina Anderson?
08:17 AM on 05/02/2012
Have you completely researched the Tina Anderson story? When was the rape covered up? It was taken to the authorities as it should have. Pastor Phelps did was was right, and for you info Pastor Phelps never did anything to Tina, so don't you dare go saying "Do you think Chuck Phelps was honoring God in what he did to Tina Anderson?" HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO HER!
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08:40 PM on 04/30/2012
Why would anyone hire someone who got such a limited education (by going to BJU)
12:12 PM on 05/01/2012
WE DON'T HAVE A LIMITED EDUCATION! The education that I have received at BJU is far better than any education you ever got.
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Ichigo Kurosaki
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12:49 PM on 05/01/2012
And your degree has no value at all. Mine's from Stanford, a legitimate and ACCREDITED institute of higher learning.
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01:16 PM on 05/01/2012
Not likely.
02:02 PM on 04/30/2012
1. Bob Jones does not want to return America to 1740s. Bob Jones wants to create an America that has never existed and that definitely should not exist -- a theocracy, but based on his perverted notion of religion. I have always thought that those who shout the loudest about their religion are actually demagogues and charlatans. Avoid them like the plague. 2. Perhaps Chris can sue for his degree? He paid for it and he earned it. I hope he goes to grad school at a secular school.
12:15 PM on 05/01/2012
What a bunch of lies you just posted. This school was founded to honor and glorify God, which means we have rules and standards and if a student can't obey that than they don't need to be here. Yes, I don't like all the rules, but I signed that paper at the beginning of the semester saying I would obey. If you go back on that then the administration has every right to expel a person.
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Ichigo Kurosaki
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12:50 PM on 05/01/2012
No, it was founded to glorify and honor Bob Jones, a man who helped Nazis launder looted art works.
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05:03 PM on 08/17/2012
glorifying God has no place in education. Now if this school is a school for future priests, nuns, preachers, church workers, christian organizations, by all means carry on with the school, but don't make it as something it isn't, as a higher learning facility
09:12 PM on 05/01/2012
well that school sucks!! To me I think it is a good thing for others to watch Glee. The show hits alot of issues that students face no matter what school you attend. This show teach kids that bullying is wrong. It also shows kids that if you get teased and you dont let it bother you, you can achieve anything like winning a competition. The student of the glee club get teased and bullied constantly but they never never let it get them down!!! Ill let my child watch glee any day of the week!!!!
07:45 AM on 04/30/2012
The Glee thing is a smokescreen and the real issue is getting lost here. Google the Tina Anderson case. It was about a rape cover up in a Baptist Church. Bob Jones University had the Pastor who covered up the crime on their board. Peterman organized a protest to get this person removed. The Pastor did resign and BJ did nothing about about Peterman at the time because the spotlight was on them but instead waited and expelled him on trumped on things like watching Glee OFF CAMPUS.
Why did he go to this school? Because basically a lot of these kids are raised in this atmosphere and literally know nothing else.
02:00 AM on 05/02/2012
AND He CHOSE too. Come on people ALL of our actions have consequences.... REMEMBER that!!
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04:26 AM on 04/30/2012
If you don't like the rules at Bob Jones University, Brigham Young University, or any other school with religious affiliation--
GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!
04:14 AM on 04/30/2012
On The Daisy Deadhead Show this Saturday, Christopher Peterman told about being followed, being called into spiritual counseling at midnight, and how a student "turned him in" for watching glee on his laptop off campus. The show can be heard streaming or downloaded as a podcast at http://www.TheDaisyDeadheadShow.com . You can also subscribe to the show via iTunes.
After a Facebook page named "Do Right Daisy Deadhead" was created, complete with the threat "We gonna find you.", Peterman took to youTube and posted another video, titled "Why bully a Daisy?" It's here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9ct8VqBxbM
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06:13 PM on 04/29/2012
I didn't even have to read the first letter of the article to know it was a religious school. Tsk tsk
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kywst09
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04:06 PM on 04/29/2012
I hope He was thrown out for just bad taste not some religious B.S.
02:55 PM on 04/29/2012
WOW, why would anyone actually want to go to that school?
swsmith45
Keep calm and carry on.
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10:58 PM on 04/29/2012
Same reason anyone would actually want to watch Glee.
11:26 PM on 04/29/2012
I highly doubt that...
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11:30 AM on 04/29/2012
How stupid can you be to believe you are gonna be taught to to be an independent thinker, develop a reasoned or cogent philosophically perspective and well-rounded/civil-mindedness toward another perspectives when you place yourself in the Dark-Aged mentality of the Flat-Earth society. I feel so sorry for those who are force to go there. Oh, it's their choice!
10:08 PM on 04/28/2012
I know many baptists attend BJU but I don't think it is a baptist college. Did the reporting do any fact checking?
tomjefferson2005
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01:56 AM on 04/29/2012
Ron Sheveland : " I know many baptists attend BJU but I don't think it is a baptist college. Did the reporting do any fact checking?" .................. >>>>>>> Here is a transcript of an interview with Bob Jones III : http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTs/0003/03/lkl.00.html : Larry King Live
Dr. Bob Jones III Discusses the Controversy Swirling Around Bob Jones University
Aired March 3, 2000 - 9:00 p.m. ET : "KING: And if you had to do it over again, you would not disinvite the governor. I'm sure he -- if he had to do it over again he would discuss his feelings about Catholicism and inter-racial dating, I'm sure.
JONES: You know, as Protestants, anybody who knows that we are Baptist Protestant people should know that we obviously don't agree with Catholic doctrine, but there is nobody that has ever accused us of hating Catholics who knows us."
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disc0pat
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09:32 PM on 04/28/2012
Oops, my bad. I read it as BYU, not BJU (I thought they were just being "naughty" referring to it as BJU, LOL). I dont' know the code at BJU, but still am glad that BYU is coming around.
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disc0pat
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09:27 PM on 04/28/2012
I was just checking out an organization called USGA (Understanding Same-Gender Attraction) that exists at BYU..It says that over 1800 LGBT students attend the school, despite it being ranked one of the most unfriendly schools to LGBT students. Many of them are Mormons. 24% have attempted suicide. In 2007, BYU changed its Honor Code to allow LGBT students to openly state their sexual orientation without fear of expulsion and in 2010, lifted a ban on homosexual advocacy. I guess some of the administration has not caught up with these things.
Life of Alan Watts
Mira Tweti recounts the remarkable life of Zen pioneer Alan Watts in the Fall 2007 edition of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Subscriptions to Tricycle for European customers are available exclusively through Wisdom Books.
WHILE THE USUALLY sleepy English village of Chislehurst was being bombarded by German aircraft in the early morning of January 6, 1915, Alan Watts-who was to become one of the foremost interpreters of ancient Eastern wisdom for the modern West-was born to Laurence Wilson Watts and Emily Mary Buchan.
The elder Watts was an executive with the Michelin tire company in London, and his wife taught at a local school for daughters of missionaries to China. It was because of his mother that Alan had early exposure to Asian culture, via art and other gifts brought by parents returning from China. A Sinophile all his life, Alan attributed the start of his interest in the writings of Chinese poets and sages to his mother's gift of a Chinese translation of the New Testament.
Watts's spiritual journey began with a bucolic childhood steeped in the cobwebbed mores of Edwardian England. He bad a religious upbringing in the Church of England, and by his teens he'd become an expert on ecclesiastical ritual. He took as his early role models local priests who lived large and showed him that one could be worldly and a holy man, too. In later years he described himself as an unabashed sensualist and openly admitted he was ill at ease with people who militantly abstained from smoking, sex, and drinking. "I am committed to the view," he wrote in his autobiography, "that the whole point and joy of human life is to integrate the spiritual with the material, the mystical with the sensuous, and the altruistic with a kind of proper self-love."
As much as he respected his native religion, Watts was troubled by its solemn hymns, its rigidity, and the dualism he found in its teachings, although its harshness was tempered by the natural tranquility he found around him in his mother's garden and surrounding countryside. "I used to lie in bed feeling my spirits raised by the bird symphony, a choir of angels in praise of the sun. And at sunset a solitary thrush would perch at the very top of the rowan tree and go into a solo," recalled Watts of his youth.
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Watts's mother was overprotective of her only surviving child (she had suffered two miscarriages and an earlier son's death at just two weeks old); she discouraged Alan from sports and pushed him toward artistic and intellectual pursuits. His father read to him from Rudyard Kipling and spoke of Buddhism, both of which enchanted the boy with "curious exotic and far-off marvels that simply were not to be found in muscular Christianity." In the evenings Alan joined his parents in the living room, where his mother played an upright piano and his father sang arias from Gilbert and Sullivan. During school holidays he would write heady papers-often on theological subjects-for the fun of exploring his own ideas, and then read them to his parents, launching family discussions that ran long into the night. In high school Watts considered his Anglican religious education "grim and maudlin though retaining fascination because it had something to do with the basic mysteries of existence." His view of the universe was forever changed after reading about nirvana in Lafcadio Hearn's book Gleanings in Buddha-Fields. "Buddhist bells sound deeper than Christian bells," he later wrote," . and om mani padme hum ran in my brain as something much more interesting than "O come let us sing unto the Lord." So in 1929, at the age of fourteen, he d himself a Buddhist and started a correspondence with the most famous English Buddhist, Christmas "Toby" Humphries, a high court judge, Shakespearean scholar, and chairperson of the Buddhist Lodge in London. When Watts, chaperoned by his father, showed up at the Lodge, Humphries and the other members were astonished to learn that their brilliant new associate was a teenager.
Watts became the organization's secretary at sixteen, the editor of the Lodge's journal, The Middle Way. at nineteen (a position he held for the next four years), and wrote his first book, The Spirit of Zen, in a month of evenings at the age of twenty. He chose not to attend college, although much later he was made a Harvard research fellow and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Vermon~ instead, he designed his own "higher education" curriculum, with Humphries as the preceptor.
IN 1938, NOW ALL OF TWENTY-THREE, Watts moved to New York City with his first wife, Eleanor Fuller, a Chicago socialite and practicing Buddhist. Watts and Eleanor studied with the Zen master Sokei-an Sasaki Roshi (1882-1945), who had a temple in a one-room brownstone apartment in the city. Of Sokei-an, Watts said, "I felt that he was basically on the same team as I; that he bridged the spiritual and the earthy, and that he was as humorously earthy as he was spiritually awakened." Some years later, Watts's mother-i n-law, Ruth Fuller, married Sasaki and became a Buddhist teacher herself.
In 1940, Watts wrote The Meaning of Happiness and started lecturing and writing in earnest to an American audience. His talks were well received by small groups in local bookstores and private homes, but on the whole he felt dismissed as "a crackpot with green idols, thighbone trumpets and cups made from human skulls" adorning his home. In contrast to the openness to Buddhism he had experienced in England, in his early years in the States Watts found himself marginalized by his vocation. And while he would ultimately help popularize Buddhism to a mainstream American audience, he would always remain an iconoclast carving out a new spiritual path through stubborn terrain.
Although Eleanor came from money, Watts felt pressure to be the breadwinner. Interest in his writing and lectures was limited, and he struggled to earn a living, fearing he was on his way to becoming "a misfit and an oddity in Western society." So at twenty-six, in order to have a steady job, he decided to leave New York and take ordination as an Episcopalian priest at Seabury Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. He later wrote of this move, "I did not then consider myself as being converted to Christianity in the sense that I was abandoning Buddhism or Taoism. The Gospels never appealed to me so deeply as the Tao Te Ching or the Chuang-tzu book. It was simply that the Anglican communion seemed to be the most appropriate context for doing what was in me to do in Western society."
Though Watts later said of this time in his life that he had deliberately gone "square" and that his gift for "ritual magic" made him more shaman than priest ("priests follow traditions," he said, "but shamans originate them"), his position as priest gave him the power to do away with the elements of Christian ritual he abhorred. This included personal Christian prayer, which he called a "clumsy encumbrance" that got in the way of the fact that "God is what there is and all that there is." 'Watts took a position in 1944 as Episcopal chaplain at Northwestern University, where he threw open the church's doors and developed a dedicated following of students who came for prayer and stayed for tea, cocktails, and regular late-night discussions. He jazzed up church services by performing "magical liturgies," banning "corny" hymns, limiting sermons to fifteen minutes or less, and celebrating mass as "a joining with the Cherubim and Seraphim~ the Archangels and Angels, in the celestial whoopee of their eternal dance about the Center of the Universe." Watts had creative ideas about those angels, saying, "When I contemplate such ordinary creatures as pigs, chickens, ducks, lazy cats, sparrows, goldfish and squids I begin to have irrepressibly odd notions about the true shapes of angels."
A longtime friend and colleague, the scholar and esteemed religions author Huston Smith said of Watts, "He was a consummate liturgist. We were together once on an Easter Sunday at Esalen libertarian views on sexuality (particularly his belief free love) didn't make for a solid marriage. In 1949 s left him, taking their two young daughters with her and had their marriage annulled.
Smith notes that the chaplainship at Northwestern was "too small a puddle for Alan Watts," and that was surely a factor when in 1950 Watts hung up his robe and left Illinois with one of his students-and former babysitter-Dorothy Dewitt, who became his second wife. The couple moved to a farmhouse in upstate New York, where they lived-until 1951, when Watts was offered a faculty post at the newly formed American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco (now the California Institute of Integral Studies)~ Among its students were the future .Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder; Richard Price, cofounder of Esalen Institute (Watts was invited as the center's first speaker); and teachers like the Indian thinker Krishnamurti and the religion professor Frederic Spiegelberg.
At the American Academy of Asian Studies, Watts was finally in a place he loved, doing what he loved. He could spend all his time engaging in "spiritual mischief' and exploring issues of human identity and the transformation of consciousness. He was free to teach what he liked and utilized techniques ahead of his rime, such as mixing disciplines. In a single course students were exposed to Buddhism, Tantric yoga, biophysics, cultural anthropology, cybernetics, and guest speakers who spoke on a number of subjects. Watts believed that no intelligent person should restrict himself to artificially segregated fields of spiritual or intellectual adventure."
Watts disdained equally formal education and religious practice and came to the defense of his friend D. T. Suzuki when he wrote: "The uptight school of Western Buddhists who seem to believe that Zen is essentially sitting on your ass for interminable hours (as do some of the Japanese), accursed (Suzuki) of giving insufficient emphasis to harsh discipline in the course of attaining satori (awakening) Watts, like Suzuki, believed that "too much zazen is apt to turn one into a stone Buddha," and sat only when the "mood" was upon him. Watts supported this belief by quoting the Sixth Zen Patriarch, Hui-neng, who said, "A living man who sits and does not lie down, a dead man who lies down and does not sit. After all, these are just dirty skeletons." During the mid-fifties, Watts guest-lectured at Columbia, Yale, Cornell, Cambridge, and Harvard, where he befriended Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass), who were conducting their LSD experiments at the time. Although Watts didn't publicly endorse drug use, he was a mescaline "guinea pig" for Oscar Janiger's experiments and took LSD as a subject in Keith Ditman's studies at UCLA. Watts continued to drop acid recreationally through the rest of his life. He was so fond of what he considered its enlightening aspects that he offered each of his children a guided trip when they turned eighteen.
In the spring of 1957, Watts left the Academy of Asian Studies and went out on his own. By then he had also had enough of the "obsolete institution" of marriage and the white picket fence that came with it. He had fallen out of love with Dorothy and left her and their four children.
Watts paid a high price for his personal freedom. During their split-up, Dorothy found she was pregnant with their fifth child. Now, with seven children to support, Watts had to work incessantly. He wrote books (fifteen after 1957), poems, and articles (some for Playboy magazine); created art and music; lectured; and traveled (including trips to Japan and Switzerland, where he spoke at the Carl Jung Institute and met with Jung at his home). Watts took care of his children and never missed a writing deadline, but often did not care for himself. The unrelenting work schedule combined with years of heavy smoking and escalating vodka consumption drained his health and energy. He is reported to have been hospitalized with delerium tremens, a serious condition indicative of late-stage alcoholism.
Watts found a drinking partner in Mary Jane Yates King, known as "Jano," a journalist and public relations executive who shared Watts's spiritual, philosophical, and creative interests and whom he described as the soulmate he had been "looking for all down my ages." They eventually married and stayed together until his death. Apart from their struggles with alcoholism, the couple enjoyed the ideal bohemian lifestyle to which Watts had aspired. They lived in Mann County, California, alternating their time between the Mount Tamalpais bohemian community of Druid Heights and a Sausalito houseboat. Watts attended tony Hollywood parties with fellow guests like Marlon Brando and Anaïs Nm, and shared with Jano a profusion of interesting artistic and intellectual friends.
In 1960 Huston Smith arranged for Watts to meet Aldous Huxley at dinner in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when Watts was again lecturing at Harvard and Huxley was a visiting professor at MIT.
The two had been at the same social gatherings before but bad never conversed. Smith recalls the end of the evening: "I could almost see the wheels in Aldous's mind sort of sorting things out after Alan left. And then came the verdict, 'What a curious man. Half monk and half race-course operator.' I told Alan some rime later. Alan loved it and said, 'He's got me exactly right." Huxley and Watts became close friends.
In 1959 and 1960 Watts taped twenty-six lectures collectively titled "Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life" for National Educational Television, the precursor to the Public Broadcasting System. He traded in the traditional classroom setting of educational shows during that period in favor of a Zen garden; he would arrive at the studio in time for taping and just start talking. His intimate presentation and informal setting won many viewers and brought him a following of non-Buddhists across the United States. Watts gained such a devoted following, Smith recalls him once saying that he could have opened his own monastery in California "because he was so charismatic and turned on crowds."
All along Watts disdained the role of yogi or Zen master, although he understood the desire of some people to have one. To him it was just another ego trap, and he discouraged his close students from treating him as such. Instead, he encouraged them to become his friends once he felt he had taught them sufficiently. Of a friend who disappeared to India to seek enlightenment, he wrote, "I miss him. I wish I could show him that what he is looking for is not in India but in himself, and obvious for all to see. But he will not believe me because I am not a guru, and all gurus represent an endless 'come-on' where 'veil after veil shall lift, but there must be veil upon veil behind' until they bring us by our own desperation to absolute surrender."
Watts and Jano embraced the burgeoning counterculture movement of which Watts was one of the heroes. His work was a magnet for a generation looking for meaning and trying to define themselves and a new society. What many baby boomers today know of Buddhist ideas they learned from Watts's work, and it is unlikely that Buddhism would have gained the popularity it did in the U.S. without his presence. "Alan Watts and Suzuki Roshi were the two people writing about Zen in the 1950's says American Zen teacher Roshi Bernie Glassman. "Anyone who was around then and interested in Buddhism would have been influenced by Alan Watts." In the end, Watts lived a life bound by no rules save his own.
At the 'conclusion of his autobiography, In My Own Way. published in 1972-a year before he died-he wrote, "As I look back I could be inclined to feel that I have lived a sloppy, inconsiderate, wasteful, cowardly, and undisciplined life, only getting away with it by having a certain charm and a big gift of the gab. . . . A realistic look at myself, aged fifty-seven, tells me ill am that, that's what I am, and shall doubtless continue to be. I myself and my friends and my family are going to have to put up with it, just as they put up with the rain."
Regardless of how modestly-and uninhibitedly-he may have viewed himself, Watts had profound insights into the nature of life and existence that have affected millions of people. "My point was, and has continued to be, that the Big Realization. . . is not a future attainment but a present fact, that this now-moment is eternity and that one must see it now or never," he said. Watts's death from heart failure on November 16, 197? at age fifty-eight, at his home at Druid Heights was as unorthodox as his life. Hours after he died, but before authorities could get involved, Jano had him cremated on wood pyre at a nearby beach by Buddhist monks. Although public cremation is illegal, no charges were brought.
After Watts died, Gary Snyder (whom Watts once famously said he would have liked to claim as his spiritual successor) wrote this "Epitaph for Alan Watts":
He blazed out the new path for all of us and came back and made it clear. Explored the side canyons and deer trails, and investigated cliffs and thickets.
Many guides would have us travel simple, like mules in a pack train, and never leave the trail. Alan taught us to move forward like the breeze, tasting the berries, greeting the blue jays, learning and loving the whole terrain.
Lilith | meaning of Lilith | name Lilith
[img[https://imgix.ranker.com/user_node_img/50068/1001340451/original/lilith-always-gets-her-way-photo-u1?w=650&q=50&fm=jpg&fit=crop&crop=faces]]
Lilith is an ancient yet still thriving archetype of a fallen woman. She takes many forms - perhaps the most famous is Lilith, the Biblical Adam's first wife. (Things didn't work out, and she left him.) Over the ensuing centuries of Judeo-Christian culture, Lilith evolved as the ultimate symbol for succubi.
Men across cultures and ages claim to have been visited by Lilith in the form of a succubus. Sometimes she is invoked or invited. Other times, she sneaks in to unsuspecting males and takes what she wants from them.
https://www.ranker.com/list/scary-stories-about-succubi/cheryl-adams-richkoff?page=2
Lilith meaning and name origin
Lilith \l(i)-li-th\ as a girl's name is of Babylonian origin, and the meaning of Lilith is "belonging to the night". From "lilitu". According to legends told in the Middle Ages, Lilith was the name of Adam's first wife. Because she refused to obey him, she was turned into a demon and Eve was created to take her place.
The story of Lilith dates back to the ancient Sumerian literature and has appeared in epics as old as Gilgamesh. The artist, Lilian Broca writes: “I went to primary sources for the story of Lilith - i.e. post-biblical literature, the Talmud, the Apocrypha and Pseudopigrapha.” These striking images were the result of her long time interest in this subject.
According to the myth, God’s first attempt at creating humanity resulted in an androgynous being that was both male and female, joined as one. Could this be a symbol of the integrated personality of Jung, where the male Animus and the female Anima are joined in full cooperation? In the story, however, God thought twice about this model and eventually split the two halves, creating one in the shape of a man, (Adam) and another as a woman (Lilith). Both were said to have been formed from the dust of the earth, and should have been considered equals, but Adam chose to deny the equality of Lilith and strove instead to dominate her. It is here that the rift begins that has wounded both men and women through the ages.
As Jeffrey Smith analyzes it: “In psychological terms, he (Adam) identified with his own ego, and not with his full self; confronted with his Shadow/Deeper Self, he rejected it, or at least tried to subject it to the demands of his ego. Lilith's response was to fly away…(Adam, after all, lost one half of his own self.)”
When Lilith refuses Adam’s domination, she calls on the ineffable name of God and leaves him. One should note that the inverse was also true, for in leaving Adam Lilith also loses one half of her self. To my thinking, this separation is wonderfully reflected in Carl Jung’s psychology, where the personality has several aspects: The male side or Animus, the female side or Anima and the dark repressed side or Shadow. The work of “integration” according to Jung is to heal the separation between these aspects of the self and become a fully actuated person where each aspect is accorded equality. The story of Lilith is a perfect illustration of Jung’s “archetypal symbols” reflecting this basic human truth.
To continue with the myth, when Lilith flees Adam, the Hebrew version of the story casts her in a dark light and shows her fleeing to a cave to mate with serpents and spawn a hundred demons each day. In Jungian terms I see this as the rejected Anima consorting instead with the Shadow, the repository of repressed, negative and undesired traits in the psyche. When God then fashions Eve from Adam’s rib, Lilith, in her agony, returns to prey upon the children of their union. Smith continues to assert: “If we return to our image of Adam as the ego and Lilith as the Deeper Self, then we find that the ego represses and drives into the Deeper Self what it cannot accept, and what it deems as illegitimate. And what is repressed rebounds on the ego in the form of the demonic, destroying what is acceptable and "legitimate" (symbolized by the offspring of Eve).” -- Jeffrey Smith: www.lilitu.com/lilith/lilit.htm
To my mind the myth of Lilith appears to be an amalgam of the Anima and Shadow, and may be a powerful archetype for a man who has failed, by other means, to re-integrate his Anima into the self. It is as if the Anima then flees him, as in the traditional telling of the tale, and consorts instead with the Shadow. The resulting union creates a powerful figure that returns to force itself upon him in his sleep, charged with the power and psychic energy of a sexually dominant being. This being, in its alliance with the Shadow, is now fully capable of subduing his Animus, or male egocentric self, rendering it powerless and paralyzed, while the union is forced upon him.
The Artist Lilian Broca sees Lilith in another light. She writes: “Lilith was a powerful female, probably the world’s first feminist. She radiated strength and assertiveness. She refused to cooperate in her own victimization. The ancient Rabbis who acted as the ultimate decision makers as to what stories were to be set in the canon and what was to be omitted, realized that this Lilith could be easily regarded as a role model by women, a condition which provoked too much anxiety in the men to allow such behavior to be encouraged. Hence, the elimination of the Lilith story from the canon. However, the legend had been altered; in time, Lilith was accused of seducing men with her unimaginable beauty, and men’s nightly emissions caused by erotic dreams were attributed to Lilith’s nocturnal visitations.”
Modern Interpretations:
Lilith is one of many mythical figures reputed to visit sleepers and these images and stories appear throughout all cultures. More than a story, these nocturnal visitations appear to be real events. Modern science has an interesting explanation of the experience and calls it HSP (Hallucinatory Sleep Paralysis). It is a scenario common to about 20 % of the population, and your chances of experiencing at least one HSP event are as high as 80% in a lifetime. The victims report that they awake in the night and sense a presence in the room along with a feeling of paralysis, pressure, (as if they are being mounted) and a smothering sensation. Such experiences may be the root of myths like the incubus and succubus, the Irish “Old Hag” and the the German Hexendrucken or “Witch Pressing.” I lived in an Eskimo village for three years while teaching school there and found that the myth even extends into that culture in the demonic figure of Paija, a creature who steals men’s souls in the night. To me the Lilith myth is the more artful and interesting story because of its archetypal qualities.
What is actually happening? Scientists tell us that as the brain begins to fall asleep and dream, signals are sent to the muscles to turn them off, as a safety measure, so the sleeper will not act out their dream. Instead of falling into the dream, however, the sleeper awakes--yet. for a period of a minute or so, the “muscle atonia” (or paralysis) is still in effect. The person finds that they cannot move and their mind, still at the edge of sleep, fills in the details with a dream story that seems completely real. This state of a “waking dream” is known to researchers as a kind of “lucid dreaming,” and it appears to be charged with imagery that is very primal; almost archetypal in quality.
These are the dreams the main character in Steamboat Slough experiences, and they also reflect his own internal struggle to re-integrate with his Anima and free the union from contamination by the Shadow. It is this reunion that removes the demonic elements of Lilith and conveys the regenerative wholeness that a fully actuated personality is capable of attaining.
In the Tibetan Tradition the belief that the soul enters a state know as “the Bardo” after death is very much akin to this. The Tibetan Book of the Dead recounts Bardo experiences where the soul is visited by demonic entities. The work is to see past the demonic, and the fear, and view these entities as guideposts to the next reincarnation.
- John Schettler
“That’s it, he’s done it to me. Now I’ll never get to sleep! This happened to me once, and when I read this the fear and horror just grabbed me by the throat again--because believe me--whatever it is, this entity is real!”
The Lilith Myth
Presented here is a chapter discussing Lilith, taken from Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (New York: Doubleday, 1964), pp 65-69. Graves and Patai have collected traditional Hebrew myths that amplify (and sometimes radically alter) stories found in the Book of Genesis. This chapter, titled "Adam's Helpmeets", deals in part with the Lilith myth. Each section of the chapter excerpted here recounts a "story" collected from non-biblical sources, frequently the Talmud -- sources are footnoted. The footnotes are followed by notes of author commentary. Hebrew Myths is recently back in print in a new hardcover edition -- Buy the Book. (A much more extensive discussion of Lilith is found in the The Hebrew Goddess, also by Rapael Patai. The Hebrew Goddess is in print and is listed next....)
The best detailed discussion and historical evaluation of the Lilith myth will be found in The Hebrew Goddess, by Raphael Patai (Wayne State University Press, 3rd edition, 1978). Patai presents an in-depth evaluation of the important but oft ignored role played by the feminine in Hebrew myth and religion, following the story of the Hebrew goddess from antiquity through its manifestations in Kabbalah and in the developing myth of Lilith. We highly recommend this work to those interested in the story of Lilith. Click here to Buy the Book
Those interested in the Lilith myth might also find interesting an essay discussing Gnostic creation mythology and the important role played by the feminine in the unique Gnostic reading of the Book of Genesis: The Genesis Factor: Gnostic Creation Mythology.
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Excerpt from:
The Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (New York: Doubleday, 1964), pp 65-69
Chapter 10: Adam's Helpmeets
(a) Having decided to give Adam a helpmeet lest he should be alone of his kind, God put him into a deep sleep, removed one of his ribs, formed it into a woman, and closed up the wound, Adam awoke and said: 'This being shall be named "Woman", because she has been taken out o f man. A man and a woman shall be one flesh.' The title he gave her was Eve, 'the Mother of All Living''. [1]
(b) Some say that God created man and woman in His own image on the Sixth Day, giving them charge over the world; [2] but that Eve did not yet exist. Now, God had set Adam to name every beast, bird and other living thing. When they passed before him in pairs, male and female, Adam-being already like a twenty-year-old man-felt jealous of their loves, and though he tried coupling with each female in turn, found no satisfaction in the act. He therefore cried: 'Every creature but I has a proper matel', and prayed God would remedy this injustice. [3]
(c) God then formed Lilith, the first woman, just as He had formed Adam, except that He used filth and sediment instead of pure dust. From Adam's union with this demoness, and with another like her named Naamah, Tubal Cain's sister, sprang Asmodeus and innumerable demons that still plague mankind. Many generations later, Lilith and Naamah came to Solomon's judgement seat, disguised as harlots of Jerusalem'. [4]
(d) Adam and Lilith never found peace together; for when he wished to lie with her, she took offence at the recumbent posture he demanded. 'Why must I lie beneath you?' she asked. 'I also was made from dust, and am therefore your equal.' Because Adam tried to compel her obedience by force, Lilith, in a rage, uttered the magic name of God, rose into the air and left him.
Adam complained to God: 'I have been deserted by my helpmeet' God at once sent the angels Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof to fetch Lilith back. They found her beside the Red Sea, a region abounding in lascivious demons, to whom she bore lilim at the rate of more than one hundred a day. 'Return to Adam without delay,' the angels said, `or we will drown you!' Lilith asked: `How can I return to Adam and live like an honest housewife, after my stay beside the Red Sea?? 'It will be death to refuse!' they answered. `How can I die,' Lilith asked again, `when God has ordered me to take charge of all newborn children: boys up to the eighth day of life, that of circumcision; girls up to the twentieth day. None the less, if ever I see your three names or likenesses displayed in an amulet above a newborn child, I promise to spare it.' To this they agreed; but God punished Lilith by making one hundred of her demon children perish daily; [5] and if she could not destroy a human infant, because of the angelic amulet, she would spitefully turn against her own. [6]
(e) Some say that Lilith ruled as queen in Zmargad, and again in Sheba; and was the demoness who destroyed job's sons. [7] Yet she escaped the curse of death which overtook Adam, since they had parted long before the Fall. Lilith and Naamah not only strangle infants but also seduce dreaming men, any one of whom, sleeping alone, may become their victim. [8]
(f) Undismayed by His failure to give Adam a suitable helpmeet, God tried again, and let him watch while he built up a woman's anatomy: using bones, tissues, muscles, blood and glandular secretions, then covering the whole with skin and adding tufts of hair in places. The sight caused Adam such disgust that even when this woman, the First Eve, stood there in her full beauty, he felt an invincible repugnance. God knew that He had failed once more, and took the First Eve away. Where she went, nobody knows for certain. [9]
(g) God tried a third time, and acted more circumspectly. Having taken a rib from Adam's side in his sleep, He formed it into a woman; then plaited her hair and adorned her, like a bride, with twenty-four pieces of jewellery, before waking him. Adam was entranced. [10]
(h) Some say that God created Eve not from Adam's rib, but from a tail ending in a sting which had been part of his body. God cut this off, and the stump-now a useless coccyx-is still carried by Adam's descendants. [11]
(i) Others say that God's original thought had been to create two human beings, male and female; but instead He designed a single one with a male face looking forward, and a female face looking back. Again He changed His mind, removed Adam's backward-looking face, and built a woman's body for it. [12]
(j) Still others hold that Adam was originally created as an androgyne of male and female bodies joined back to back. Since this posture made locomotion difficult, and conversation awkward, God divided the androgyne and gave each half a new rear. These separate beings He placed in Eden, forbidding them to couple. [13]
Notes on sources:
1. Genesis II. 18-25; III. 20.
2. Genesis I. 26-28.
3. Gen. Rab. 17.4; B. Yebamot 632.
4. Yalqut Reubeni ad. Gen. II. 21; IV. 8.
5. Alpha Beta diBen Sira, 47; Gaster, MGWJ, 29 (1880), 553 ff.
6. Num. Rab. 16.25.
7. Targum ad job 1. 15.
8. B. Shabbat 151b; Ginzberg, LJ, V. 147-48.
9. Gen. Rab. 158, 163-64; Mid. Abkir 133, 135; Abot diR. Nathan 24; B. Sanhedrin 39a.
10. Gen. II. 21-22; Gen. Rab. 161.
11. Gen. Rab. 134; B. Erubin 18a.
12. B. Erubin 18a.
13. Gen. Rab. 55; Lev. Rab. 14.1: Abot diR. Nathan 1.8; B. Berakhot 61a; B. Erubin 18a; Tanhuma Tazri'a 1; Yalchut Gen. 20; Tanh. Buber iii.33; Mid. Tehillim 139, 529.
Authors’ Comments on the Myth:
1. The tradition that man's first sexual intercourse was with animals, not women, may be due to the widely spread practice of bestiality among herdsmen of the Middle East, which is still condoned by custom, although figuring three times in the Pentateuch as a capital crime. In the Akkadian Gilgamesh Epic, Enkidu is said to have lived with gazelles and jostled other wild beasts at the watering place, until civilized by Aruru's priestess. Having enjoyed her embraces for six days and seven nights, he wished to rejoin the wild beasts but, to his surprise, they fled from him. Enkidu then knew that he had gained understanding, and the priestess said: 'Thou art wise, Enkidu, like unto a godl'
2. Primeval man was held by the Babylonians to have been androgynous. Thus the Gilgamesh Epic gives Enkidu androgynous features: `the hair of his head like a woman's, with locks that sprout like those of Nisaba, the Grain-goddess.' The Hebrew tradition evidently derives from Greek sources, because both terms used in a Tannaitic midrash to describe the bisexual Adam are Greek: androgynos, 'man-woman', and diprosopon, 'twofaced'. Philo of Alexandria, the Hellenistic philosopher and commentator on the Bible, contemporary with Jesus, held that man was at first bisexual; so did the Gnostics. This belief is clearly borrowed from Plato. Yet the myth of two bodies placed back to back may well have been founded on observation of Siamese twins, which are sometimes joined in this awkward manner. The two-faced Adam appears to be a fancy derived from coins or statues of Janus, the Roman New Year god.
3. Divergences between the Creation myths of Genesis r and n, which allow Lilith to be presumed as Adam's first mate, result from a careless weaving together of an early Judaean and a late priestly tradition. The older version contains the rib incident. Lilith typifies the Anath-worshipping Canaanite women, who were permitted pre-nuptial promiscuity. Time after time the prophets denounced Israelite women for following Canaanite practices; at first, apparently, with the priests' approval-since their habit of dedicating to God the fees thus earned is expressly forbidden in Deuteronomy xxIII. I8. Lilith's flight to the Red Sea recalls the ancient Hebrew view that water attracts demons. 'Tortured and rebellious demons' also found safe harbourage in Egypt. Thus Asmodeus, who had strangled Sarah's first six husbands, fled 'to the uttermost parts of Egypt' (Tobit viii. 3), when Tobias burned the heart and liver of a fish on their wedding night.
4. Lilith's bargain with the angels has its ritual counterpart in an apotropaic rite once performed in many Jewish communities. To protect the newborn child against Lilith-and especially a male, until he could be permanently safeguarded by circumcision-a ring was drawn with natron, or charcoal, on the wall of the birthroom, and inside it were written the words: 'Adam and Eve. Out, Lilith!' Also the names Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof (meanings uncertain) were inscribed on the door. If Lilith nevertheless succeeded in approaching the child and fondling him, he would laugh in his sleep. To avert danger, it was held wise to strike the sleeping child's lips with one finger-whereupon Lilith would vanish.
5. 'Lilith' is usually derived from the Babylonian-Assyrian word lilitu, ,a female demon, or wind-spirit'-one of a triad mentioned in Babylonian spells. But she appears earlier as 'Lillake' on a 2000 B.G. Sumerian tablet from Ur containing the tale of Gilgamesh and the Willow Tree. There she is a demoness dwelling in the trunk of a willow-tree tended by the Goddess Inanna (Anath) on the banks of the Euphrates. Popular Hebrew etymology seems to have derived 'Lilith' from layil, 'night'; and she therefore often appears as a hairy night-monster, as she also does in Arabian folklore. Solomon suspected the Queen of Sheba of being Lilith, because she had hairy legs. His judgement on the two harlots is recorded in I Kings III. 16 ff. According to Isaiah xxxiv. I4-I5, Lilith dwells among the desolate ruins in the Edomite Desert where satyrs (se'ir), reems, pelicans, owls, jackals, ostriches, arrow-snakes and kites keep her company.
6. Lilith's children are called lilim. In the Targum Yerushalmi, the priestly blessing of Numbers vi. 26 becomes: 'The Lord bless thee in all thy doings, and preserve thee from the Lilim!' The fourth-century A.D. commentator Hieronymus identified Lilith with the Greek Lamia, a Libyan queen deserted by Zeus, whom his wife Hera robbed of her children. She took revenge by robbing other women of theirs.
7. The Lamiae, who seduced sleeping men, sucked their blood and ate their flesh, as Lilith and her fellow-demonesses did, were also known as Empusae, 'forcers-in'; or Mormolyceia, 'frightening wolves'; and described as 'Children of Hecate'. A Hellenistic relief shows a naked Lamia straddling a traveller asleep on his back. It is characteristic of civilizations where women are treated as chattels that they must adopt the recumbent posture during intercourse, which Lilith refused. That Greek witches who worshipped Hecate favoured the superior posture, we know from Apuleius; and it occurs in early Sumerian representations of the sexual act, though not in the Hittite. Malinowski writes that Melanesian girls ridicule what they call `the missionary position', which demands that they should lie passive and recumbent.
8. Naamah, 'pleasant', is explained as meaning that 'the demoness sang pleasant songs to idols'. Zmargad suggest smaragdos, the semi-precious aquamarine; and may therefore be her submarine dwelling. A demon named Smaragos occurs in the Homeric Epigrams.
9. Eve's creation by God from Adam's rib-a myth establishing male supremacy and disguising Eve's divinity-lacks parallels in Mediterranean or early Middle-Eastern myth. The story perhaps derives iconotropically from an ancient relief, or painting, which showed the naked Goddess Anath poised in the air, watching her lover Mot murder his twin Aliyan; Mot (mistaken by the mythographer for Yahweh) was driving a curved dagger under Aliyan's fifth rib, not removing a sixth one. The familiar story is helped by a hidden pun on tsela, the Hebrew for 'rib': Eve, though designed to be Adam's helpmeet, proved to be a tsela, a 'stumbling', or 'misfortune'. Eve's formation from Adam's tail is an even more damaging myth; perhaps suggested by the birth of a child with a vestigial tail instead of a coccyx-a not infrequent occurrence.
10. The story of Lilith's escape to the East and of Adam's subsequent marriage to Eve may, however, record an early historical incident: nomad herdsmen, admitted into Lilith's Canaanite queendom as guests (see 16. 1), suddenly seize power and, when the royal household thereupon flees, occupy a second queendom which owes allegiance to the Hittite Goddess Heba.
The meaning of 'Eve' is disputed. Hawwah is explained in Genesis III. 20 as 'mother of all living'; but this may well be a Hebraicized form of the divine name Heba, Hebat, Khebat or Khiba. This goddess, wife of the Hittite Storm-god, is shown riding a lion in a rock-sculpture at Hattusaswhich equates her with Anath-and appears as a form of Ishtar in Hurrian texts. She was worshipped at Jerusalem (see 27. 6). Her Greek name was Hebe, Heracles's goddess-wife.
-- Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (New York: Doubleday, 1964), pp 65-69. Click here to Buy the Book
TLily Rose
BPD
Tent Girl Story. Carnie death story.
She is a cutter and a self-mutilator.
She has self inflicted stigmata.
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a "saddleback" is two cabins with a chimney in the middle.
Lost River Cave
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lost River Cave is seven-mile cave system with a river running through it. It is located in Bowling Green, Kentucky , an hour drive from Nashville , Tennessee and a two-hour drive from Louisville , Kentucky . Western Kentucky University shares the 68 acres of property with Lost River Cave. Visitors have been taking boat tours through certain portions of the cave since 1998. It is the only underground boat tour offered in Kentucky. Lost River Cave is a nonprofit organization and offers many other activities along with the boat tour.
Cave boat tour & activities[edit source | editbeta ]
The two-part tour is 45 minutes. For the first 20 minutes, visitors will walk along the river with their guide, stopping at a blue hole and the cave entrance. Visitors will then board the boat and explore the inside of Lost River Cave for the remainder of the time. Boat tours typically run at the top of each hour.
Other attractions at the park include about two miles of nature trails, a seasonal butterfly habitat, blue holes, and gem mining. There are also other activities to enjoy while on the trails like geocaching, bird watching, bird bingo, and a Young Interpreters program. GPS units and binoculars can be checked out in the visitor's center.
In 2012, Lost River Cave began two new activities specifically geared towards children exploring nature: the Kids' Discovery Cave Crawl and the Nature Trading Post. In the fall of 2012, Lost River Cave began building an outdoor classroom for kids to explore nature in new ways. The outdoor classroom will be complete in Spring 2013.
As a non-profit[edit source | editbeta ]
Lost River Cave is owned jointly by Western Kentucky University and Friends of Lost River, a non-profit organization that works towards preservation of the cave. Friends of the Lost River formed in 1990 in order to clean up and restore the cave and surrounding area, the Friends of the Lost River, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Through years of effort, the organization has managed to wipe away the traces of the abuse Lost River Cave suffered during its 30 years as a dump site. The underground boat tour, nature trails and gift shop are operated to fund the continuing struggle to preserve and maintain Lost River Cave as a cultural and natural landmark. Local guests of the park may decide to purchase a park membership, make a monetary donation or volunteer service hours to contribute to the Friends' mission.
Programs are in the works to remove invasive, pest plants from the valley and upland trails, construct a wetlands area to improve filtration of storm water entering the cave system and design a nature center and exhibit area to better educate and serve visitors to the historic eco-tourism site.
Mission statement[edit source | editbeta ]
To restore, preserve, protect and promote Lost River Cave & Valley as an historical, geological, cultural, and educational site.
Event venues[edit source | editbeta ]
Lost River Cave offers two event venues . The Historic Lost River Cave Ballroom is available for corporate, civic, or social events. Lost River Cave just finished building a large meeting room (the River Birch Meeting Room) complete with restrooms, a kitchen and a big screen TV. The River Birch Meeting Room is available to rent for holiday parties, annual meetings and other events.
The Nature Center[edit source | editbeta ]
The Nature Center at Lost River Cave will provide a place for regular contact with nature, a place for unstructured play that is so important to building early childhood confidence and a variety of formal learning opportunities.
The first inhabitants[edit source | editbeta ]
From the moment the first human set foot at Lost River Cave, the cave and valley have been used as a safe and plentiful source of food, water and shelter. Evidence of such use has been uncovered by archaeologists at Western Kentucky University. The cultural artifacts discovered by these experts tell the story of Kentucky’s earliest inhabitants and Lost River’s place in their lives. Ten thousand years ago, the Kentucky climate was cooler and wetter—supporting a landscape of evergreen forest. The Paleo Indian Cultural Tradition, also known as "big game hunters", roamed the forests in search of food and shelter. These humans utilized Clovis spear points to bring down such animals as the giant ground sloth, the mammoth and the mastodon. They were nomadic groups, moving between different camp sites seasonally. Anthropologist Jack Schock of Western Kentucky University believes that these prehistoric Kentucky tribes camped at Lost River Cave in the winter, enjoying shelter from the cave as well as clean water from the blue hole. One of the only Dalton points found in situ in southeastern Kentucky was discovered at Lost River by Dr. Schock. This spear point, dated at around 8,000 years old, is a rare find, making Lost River stand out as a unique archaeological site for the Archaic Indian Cultural Tradition! These native groups enjoyed a period of occupation from about 8,000 B.C. till around 1,000 B.C. Their culture included more exploitation of the environment than their predecessors.
The mill[edit source | editbeta ]
The cave mills at Lost River Cave and the Louisville-Nashville Turnpike which passed over the cave are connections to the 19th century commercial and agricultural development of Warren County. There are many conflicting reports on the construction of the first mill at Lost River Cave. Some undocumented 20th century reports state that it was built in 1792 as a corn and saw mill. Other accounts place the construction of the “first flour mill in Warren County” much later. There seems to have been several mills with different operators and production goals throughout the 19th century. The first of these structures sat inside the cave while later millers built their operations on top of the arched entrance to the cavern.
There is definitely enough factual documentation to show that the mill was in operation by 1823 and continued until at least 1847 when it was maintained as a grist mill and wool carding machine by a Mr. Shanks. This mill was built directly in the stream under the rock arch of the cave entrance.
"[The] water [is] confined just above a wall of masonry being built across with narrow gates or issues for the water to pass through."
-Samuel Hibbs, 8th Kansas Infantry camped at Lost River in 1862
In the mid-1870s, John L. Row built a stone dam in the stream near the cave entrance, drilled through the 42 feet of bedrock in the arched ceiling of the cave entrance and constructed a three-story high mill above the cave. A shaft ran from the mill to an "undershot wheel" in the dam raceway. He operated his mill as a distillery and flour mill until 1889 when it was purchased by James Skaggs.
The last mill at Lost River, owned by Robert Crump, was destroyed by fire in 1915. A history of industry which lasted over a century ended with the burning of the old mill. Today, the hole John Row drilled in the cave ceiling, a reconstructed dam from the night club era and a large waterwheel at the entrance to the park are used by interpreters to explain the importance of economic and industrial development for early owners of the cave and valley.
Civil War[edit source | editbeta ]
Lost River Cave served as a camp for both Union and Confederate troops in this area. Lost River offered a natural water supply and the beauty of the cave provided a diversion from the ugliness of war. On one of his “lightning raids” into Kentucky, John Hunt Morgan allegedly hid in the cave when escaping from pursuing troops.
Nearly 40,000 Union soldiers camped around Lost River Cave & Valley from 1862-1865. An oasis in difficult times, the cave and river provided a cool respite from blistering heat in the summers. The men enjoyed the cave just as the Confederate troops had in their down time. They crawled through the underground network of passages and wrote their names, ranks and companies on the ceilings and walls of the cave. They even fired their guns inside the cave passages to hear the echoes, leaving behind their bullets for historic archaeologists to find more than a century later.
Cave Night Club[edit source | editbeta ]
Scenic Lost River Cave has been used by Kentucky's inhabitants for thousands of years and in a variety of ways. Though shelter and water have always been high on the list of reasons for living and working around the valley, a very impressive entrepreneur came up with a new and exciting use for the property in the 1930s: A nightclub, complete with stage, bar and dance floor was built inside the mouth of Lost River Cave.
Bowling Green, Kentucky—like most areas of the United States—found itself in turmoil during the economic strife of the 1930s. What better way to relieve the pressure of The Great Depression than to cool off in Lost River’s breezy cave entrance? One of the largest cave entrances east of the Mississippi River, Lost River Cave was an ideal spot for the construction of a unique wining, dining and dancing experience. Locals and tourists alike flocked to the "Cavern Nite Club" to enjoy an evening of fun and freedom far beneath the hectic streets of the city. Church picnics, weddings and high school proms were held at the night club from 1934 through the early 1960s and some of the greatest swing band acts of the time belted out tunes from the bandstand.
The Cavern Nite Club served locals as well as the droves of tourists traveling the Dixie Highway from 1933 until the late 1950s. As an added bonus, guests were treated to guided walking tours inside the cave. These tours were especially popular because of a local legend that the famous outlaw Jesse James hid out in the cave depths to escape the law after robbing the Southern Deposit Bank in Russellville, Kentucky.
In the late 1950s, the night club era was at an end. The construction of I-65 re-routed traffic away from the Dixie Highway and from the Lost River Cave. The cool, natural breeze in the cave entrance was less enticing to a generation that had air conditioning in their homes and Elvis Presley's new Rockabilly style was sweeping the United States and replacing swing music in the hearts of Americans.
As a dumping site[edit source | editbeta ]
The Cavern Nite Club closed its doors and the Lost River Cave entered a time of neglect and abuse. For more than 30 years, Bowling Green forgot about its historic and natural gem located in the heart of the city. By the 1980s, Lost River Cave had become a dumping site. In an effort to return the site to its former glory, the Friends of the Lost River formed in 1990.
References[edit source | editbeta ]
External links[edit source | editbeta ]
Coordinates : [Show location on an interactive map] 36°57′10.20″N 86°28′17.99″W
During the simmering summers of the 1930s, folks in Bowling Green, Ky., headed to Lost River Cave’s “natural air conditioning” to escape the heat. By the late-'30s, the cool cavern had grown into a hot spot, a truly underground nightclub, touted nationally in Billboard magazine.
“According to an original road sign, the cave was called the 'Cavern Nite Club,'” said Rho Lansden, Lost River Cave’s first and only executive director. “The Cavern Nite Club was operated from 1934 through 1949 by Jimmy Stewart, a Bowling Green businessman, as a tourist attraction. The underground night club was a stop on the big band tours, with well-known entertainers such as Francis Craig and his NBC Orchestra, and Dina Shore performing. You could purchase a ‘deluxe ice,’ a bowl of ice for $2 in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Under the ice was a half-pint of Yellow Stone whisky,” Lansden said.
In 1934, the cave celebrated the first of its many weddings. Bowling Green social clubs held elegant formal dances to big bands. High schools held proms. Dancing to big band sounds, swing, and jitter-bug, the subterranean party ended with the arrival of the Sixties.
“Progress led to the cave’s demise; construction of I-65 … the interstate, less traffic on Highway 31 and Dixie Highway, and every place had air conditioning,” she said. “In 1939, the Cavern Nite Club was named as the only air conditioned night club in the country by Billboard magazine.” By the early ‘60s the Lost River Cave had become a trash dump.
Now jointly owned by Western Kentucky University and a non-profit preservation group called Friends of Lost River, removal of tons of garbage from the abandoned ballroom cave was the first step in FLR’s conservation effort. “In the mid-‘70s, Friends of Lost River worked slowly but surely and began the cave’s restoration.” Lansden said.
The historic cave ballroom, with its sparkling crystal chandelier, is now available for corporate, civic and social events, during June, August, September, and the first and second weekends of October. The cavern still has the original bandstand and bar from its heyday as a night club. The venue is able to seat up to 300 with room left for dancing.
“We want the cave to be protected by future generations. If you have your high school prom or wedding here, it builds a strong tie, a memory, to the cave. By building strong connections with the community, we will have people who understand the importance of the preservation of the cave and its history, after we’re gone.”
HelloBowlingGreen Tip: Friends of Lost River will hold “Get Down in the Valley,” its annual fundraiser for the National Historic Site, on Saturday, July 9, 2011, featuring entertainment by the Dueling Pianos International. For ticket information, call (270) 393-0077 or e-mail info@lostrivercave.com.
On the Road with Dave
Dave had been wandering the highways for a few days. He still didn't know what he would do or where he would end up.
Ever once in a while, he would end up on the turnpike. It was part of the new interstate super highways they were building. He had traveled a while with a man going to Cave City and he had to make a turn off and let Dave off at a truck stop at the side of the exit and entrance ramps.
Dave thought he might as well go in and get a cup of coffee.He grabbed a stool at the counter and sat his bag on the floor.He ordered his coffee.
Next to him was an older man who appeared to be a trucker. He wanted to make small talk.
"Boy, I like them new roads. I will be glad when they are finish cause I can go twice as far in the same amount of time as on the old roads. It helps my pay check a lot."
"Those new roads are a lot smoother and quieter. "
"I see you have your bag with you. Where are you headed?"
"I am going to Frankfort to see a friend about a job."
"What kinda of work you do?"
"I am not particular. Just something to help me get by. He has a room over his garage that he said I could stay at a few weeks or till I got my feet back on the ground.'
"Yeah, it is tough when you are down on your luck, Lord knows I have been there enough times to know. Tell you what, I am going through there and will be happy to give you a ride for the company."
They introduce themselves. "I am Gary", said the trucker,
"I am Dave."
They finished up and went out to the parking lot and there was dozens of trucks parked for the night. Dave climb up on the side of the cab of the 18 wheeler. It had a sleep compartment like most of the parked trucks.
While two girls climb out the cab of a parked trucked each carrying a bottle of beer. They walked a few spaces down and climb up and got into the cab of another trucker. Just as she slammed the door, Dave saw another cab door open at the back of the lot and climb down. She straightened her clothes, pulled her hair back and walked across the lot and got in a dark car that was running and waiting for her.
"There seems to be more ladies out here in the parking lot than in the restaurant."
"Those are a particular kind of lady. Most called them ladies of the night. Some call them hookers. They are prostitutes. I called them lot lizards."
"Is it like this every night?"
"It is like this every night and at about any truck stop across the south after a certain time."
"This world has wonders I never even knew existed and this is something I never heard of."
"Well it is not one of those things that gets advertised, but word gets around to those interested. That's the way it has always been. Seek and yee shall find."
The sage put the truck in gear, turned off the air brakes, and crawled out of the lot and back on the highway and rolled into the darkness.
After an hour and many conversations on many a topic, Dave commented on the darkness and being in the wilderness.
"It is beautiful out here. I had forgot what a starry niight in the wilderness looks like."
Gary looked over in his mirror and down. He interrupted Dave,
"You ain't gonna believe what is over here. There is a broad with her titties hanging out and her panties pulled down. She is driving with her dome light on to make sure I can get a look."
She kept pace with the truck for a few seconds more and then went on and passed. She pulled in front of the truck and tapped her brakes.
Gary excitely said, " You wouldn't believe how often this happens."
"What does it mean?"
"She is a queen of the night. She is Lady of the highway. She brings good luck and loving to us lonely travelers far from home."
He flashed her lights and she flashed her brake lights again. She pulled over slowly and Gary pulled in behind her and turned off all his lights.
"What are you doing? " asked Dave.
"I am going up to talk to her. She may want to come back here to the sleeper."
"Aren't you worried that a trooper will stop or something?' said Dave anxiously.
"She probably works this section of highway every
night and knows the lay of the land. She probably knows where the trooper are for a 50 miles in any direction. Besides, if a trooper stops, I will just say it is my old lady from Indianapolis and we hooked up cause I was lonely. Truckers do it all the time."
Gary climbed down out of the truck. Dave watched his shadow approach the driver's side window. He bent down and stood back up. He lit his cigarette and one for her. In the matchlight, Dave could see her shiny ear rings and blonde hair.
After a minute or so, Gary flicked the cigarette to the pavement in a burst of sparks and walked around to the passenger side and got it the car.
With each passing minute, Dave became interesting nervous. He was not very experienced with sex and certainly not with this situation. What would happen next?
After what seemed an eternity to Dave, The passenger door opened and he saw Dave exit and walk back to his side of the truck. He climbed up and got in his seat.
"Boy, it is your turn."
"Whatta mean? I don't have any money.
"Since we couldn't do it in my sleeper cause of you being here, she agreed to do both of us as a special price if we did it in her car."
"What about my bag. Don't worry son, I won't leave you. Now get on up there and do your business. She is not bad at all. I have already paid her.
Dave slowly climb down from the truck and walked up to the car. As he got closer he could see that it was a late model Cadillac El Dorado. He couldn't ever remember being in such a nice car before and here he was getting ready to climb into a sex pit.
He open the door and the map light came on. She was blonde. She had on a lot of make up and jewelry. Her blouse was pulled up and show her naked breasts, Her skirt was pulled up around her waist and hid her belly fat. She smelled good, He pause a moment and took all in and realized that this woman was older than his mother.
She said, "Get in sweetie."
He got in and sat. The electric seat started reclining. As whinning purred, she told him the rules.
"There are just a few rules. No kissing at all. I don't want to mess up my hair or smear my makeup. There is no oral or any other monkey business. You get on top and you can suck my tits."
She leaned back and spread her legs over the console and pulled him toward her and unfastened his pants. He pulled his pants and underwear down to his thighs. She grabbed his manhood and said,
"There is no problem with getting you hard."
And she guided him into her. She moved her hips once and then just laid there as Dave slowly went to work. She would move no more until he finished.
He cummed. As he pulled out, she reached up grabbed a kleenex. She gave one to Dave and took one and wiped herself. As Dave repositioned himself and pulled his clothes up, she pulled her bra down and fit her breasts in. She pulled down her skirt and blouse and the seats whined as the motor pulled them to the upright position.
Dave said, "Well I better get going."
He got out and started to close the door. She looked at Dave, said goodbye, and said, "Tell Jake to call me at the number I gave him sometime. Thanks."
And she was gone. Back on the road in her Caddy, before he even got back to the truck.
When he climb in. Pause a moment to decide whether to call him "Gary" or "Jake". Then it dawned on him, he did not really know what was real.
Dave said, "She told me to tell you to call her sometime."
"I don't have that whore's number. Just wishful thinking. She must have liked what I gave her."
Jake, Gary, or whoever, put the truck in gear and they slowly gained speed on the dark highway.
Gypsy friend of Lily. She works at carnivals as a fortune teller.
No one would never know if Louise would have entered the life if not for that man. But entered it she had. It was all she knew. And she was pretty good at turning a dollar. Or a trick. Survive she would at any cost.
When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.
Chorus:
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
Repeat Chorus:
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
Repeat Chorus:
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.
Repeat Chorus:
''BOOK CHAPTERS''
[[Intro]]
[[Chapter 1]]
[[Chapter 2]]
[[Chapter 3]]
[[Chapter 4]]
[[Chapter 5]]
[[Chapter 6]]
[[Chapter 7]]
[[Chapter 8]]
[[Chapter 9]]
[[Chapter 10]]
[[Chapter 11]]
[[Chapter 12]]
[[Chapter 13]]
[[Chapter 14]]
[[Chapter 15]]
[[Chapter 16]]
[[Chapter 17]]
[[Chapter 18]]
[[Chapter 19]]
[[Chapter 20]]
[[Chapter 21]]
[[Chapter 22]]
[[Chapter 23]]
[[Chapter 24]]
[[Chapter 25]]
[[Chapter 26]]
[[Chapter 27]]
[[Chapter 28]]
[[Chapter 29]]
[[Chapter 30]]
[[Chapter 31]]
[[Chapter 32]]
[[Chapter 33]]
[[Chapter 34]]
[[Chapter 35]]
[[Epilogue]]
[[All Chapters Opened]]
[[Map to Paradise|http://thestoms.com/paradise/ParadiseRoadMap.jpg]]
https://biblescienceguy.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/15-hike-the-bible-mary-magdalene-lady-or-tramp/
Mary Magdalene
Magdala’s most famous personage is Mary Magdalene, a faithful follower of Jesus throughout His earthly ministry. She was at the foot of the cross, witnessed His burial, and was the first to see Jesus after His Resurrection. This is the first of a series of three blog posts on Mary Magdalene.
The Bible does not actually say that Mary was from Magdala. This is an inference from her moniker Magdalene, analogous to Jesus the Nazarene from Nazareth.
It’s possible that Mary “was called Magdalene” (Luke 8:2), because she was very tall. Magdala means tower in Aramaic as does Migdal in Hebrew. It would distinguish her from others named Mary, just as today we might distinguish one Tom from another by calling one Big Tom. Contemporary slang translations might be “Mega Mary” or “Mary the Tall” or “Mary the Great.” In early Christian art Mary was often depicted as taller than the apostles.
Mary Magdalene, from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons, first appears near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. She is one of “many” women who traveled with Jesus and the disciples who had been healed of demons and diseases and contributed support from personal funds.
And it came about soon afterwards, that He began going about from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God; and the twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means. (Luke 8:1-3)
Just as in this passage from Luke, Mary Magdalene is usually named first in lists of women around Jesus in the Gospels, many of whom are not even named. Clearly, Mary Magdalene was a person of significance in the Gospels where she is called by name 14 times, plus 23 other references without her name. This is more than any woman except for Mary, the mother of Jesus. For comparison, Jesus’ mother is referred to by name 18 times in the Gospels, plus 25 other references without her name.
The prominence of Mary of Magdala is further underscored by calling her simply “Magdalene” without connecting her to a family. Frequently women in the Gospels were identified by husbands, such as “Joanna the wife of Chuza” (Luke 8:3) or “Mary the wife of Clopas” (John 19:25) and by sons, such as “Mary the mother of James and Joseph” (Mat 27:56; Mark 15:40, 47; 16:1), Salome “the mother of the sons of Zebedee” and sister of Mary the mother of Jesus (Mat 27:56; Mark 15:40; Mark 16:1; John 19:25).
Apparently Mary Magdalene was an independent woman of substantial means. Possibly she was a wealthy widow.
Read the sequel in this 3-part subseries on Mary Magdalene:
15. Hike the Bible – Mary Magdalene, Lady or Tramp?
David and Uzie first met Lily at JC's BBQ and Grill bar in Bowling Green, KY.
David and Uzie was brothers. Uzie was the showman and David was the support.
Their family is back with the tent revival which has made camp outside of town and close to the Green River.
It is Saturday night in 1960.
David and Uzie are playing for tips at JC's. David has a Martin guitar and Uzie a tam-borline. The tips are sparse and will hopefully pay their gas back to the tent. The bought drinks come much more freely. After things gets a little loose, Uzie may even invite a few people to the revival.
David and Uzie go about the same thing during week and on Sunday mornings, except instead of getting tips, they get an offering.
People in the audience often partied hard on Saturday night and showed their asses. Many of these would do the same thing on Sunday morning. On Saturday night they were drunk on the booze and they were seduced by the opposite sex. On Sundays, they were often drunk in the Spirit and seduced the opposite sex. Women flashed their legs and eyes on Saturday on drink and done the same on Sundays in the Spirit.
They would get drunk on Saturday night. They stagger home with their partner for the night. And then get up and stagger to Sunday School with a hangover. Sometimes even the newly found couples would show up at the meeting and a rustle of whispers would go throw the crowd. Sometimes these hook ups would last. Others would be over by the next weekend.
Church was more that a meeting for religious services. It was often the center of social life in many small towns. It was often were you met you future wife or husband. It is where you met your friends. It was where you met your family.
The bar was the same as the church in practically every-way plus it added the social lubricant of alcohol which tended to speed things up.
Just as those in the world use alcohol as a lube, the holy rollers used the "baptism of the spirit" to get drunk in the spirit and to then do things out of the ordinary.
Uzie had the habit of flirting with the girls, whether in the church or in the bar. He was a good looking guy. He had reddest blond hair, blue eyes. He was tall and slender, almost skinny. He was either pale or red faced depending on the mood. He looked every bit the Scotts-Irish which was his heritage. Uzie would use all to seduce a young lady about every night.
David was dark. He had dark hair and dark eyes. He was also tall and slender. He had the habit of moving slowly, speaking slowly, and staying in the background. This was just the opposite of Uzie who was loud and out front of everything.
David played the guitar. Uzie used the tamborlne and sang.
No pair of twins had been more different.
But neither had to be handsome as they were to strike up an interest in the audience. Through out history a man could be a troll or a frog or the most unappealing man in appearance, but if he would get up in front of the church and make them laugh or make them cry, the frog would become a prince.
David first met Lily at the bar. She was like a dark Marilyn Monroe. Not as sultry has Sophie Loren, but as flirtatious affected as Marilyn. Yes her manner was forced and affected, but effective nevertheless. She was dressed like an uptown whore in a ten cent juke box place. Maybe it would be better to compare her to Liz Taylor in Cleopatra. She had the same long black hair, cut in a long page boy style. She had doe like cow eyes framed with dark make up and false eye lashes. She was slim, but yet curvy with full breasts and round hips. She was a buffet in movement and you did not know where to land your eyes. She knew she looked good and she knew how to make herself shine. She had a dramatic flair. Just walking across the floor was a three act play in motion, wiggling into a booth, and then telling David with her eyes, lips, and curved finger with the long red finger nail to join her. She just oozed sex and David could almost smell it as he slid in the booth beside her.
Often after him and Uzie finished playing, people would invite him for a drink. He played the guitar, but this girl played the room.
They made small talk.
He go up to play a few more songs and when he found her table to steal a glance, she was gone.
4. This chapter will be about Hilda adventures on the road. How she hooked up with a carnival and stayed with a traveling hooker in a trailer. This segment will describe her using her sexy wiles to seduced men and sometime just sell sex outright as a whore. This segment will described their adventures in small towns and in Nashville, the Athens and whore capital of the south. They have some run ins with racist and bigots. The religious wackos marched on their camp at one town. They where driven out as gypsies in another town. They cross paths with Ott and he tries rapes Hilda and when Louise finds out she nearly beats Ott to death with a tent stake. He is ran out of the carnival. Shortly thereafter they camp near Bowling Green, KY and go out clubbing. They meet Kenny and Dave at road club shanty performing. They perform together and hook up.
One place they end up at is the ballroom in the cave, the place where Jesse James use to hide out.
MIDDLESBOROUGH HISTORY
1890-2012
You have found what may be the largest collection of photographs, yearbooks and documents of Middlesboro, Kentucky on the internet.
Alexander Arthur's vision of his "Magic City" turned the wilderness of the Yellow Creek Valley into a raging new housing, commercial, mining, timber and industrial enterprise. With help from British investors and their millions of pounds, Middlesborough, if only for a while became the Pittsburgh of the South.
Those older folks who call Middlesboro home are aware of the boom and bust of our town. Yet we share a love for its remarkable history and our memories of growing up in a very unique place. It doesn't matter if you have moved away; Middlesboro is still home.
Middlesboro's history is traced from the beginning through its enormous growth during the 1950's and early 1960's. Please let us know what you think about what you see here. It is not a fancy website with a lot of web extras. It is just a place where older people can look back on what we once had, and kids can look and say, "I wish I could have seen it back then."
Download whatever you wish! If you copy large numbers of these photographs onto another web site, PLEASE provide a link back to this site: www.middlesboroughhistory.com. That is all we ask. THANKS!
DISCLAIMER: All materials on this website may be copyrighted. A limited amount of material may be in the public domain. Materials are posted here based on an understanding of the Fair Use provisions of United States law. They are not used for profit. No funds will be, or have ever been accepted for any image shown. These historic photographs and other materials are often used as educational material at the public high school where I teach and are placed here for education and research only. The Lige Yeary photographs are copyrighted, Middlesboro, Kentucky 2012.
MIDDLESBOROUGH HISTORY STARTS HERE
Written by Chuck Owens
Copyright 2013 Middlesboro, Kentucky 40965
Over 1.6 million page views for Cumberland Gap Broadcasting & Middlesborough History
Since 10 January 2010
Email: ceowens3@earthlink.net
Miners that were rescued after being trapped
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Mine Rescue Success Stories
Miners and others rescued after being trapped underground
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Chile Chile
Mar 2013 A Chilean miner (Mario Torres Lopez) has been brought to the surface after spending 52 hours trapped 100m underground in the collapsed Victoria Mine in the northern Atacama region. Rescue teams found out he was alive when he used a hammer to bang on metal tubes running through the shaft to communicate with them. More
Oct 2010 On August 5, 2010, a major collapse was experienced in the San Jose Copper Mine near Copiapo, Chile leaving 33 miners trapped 2,300 feet from the surface. For the next 69 days, working around the clock, rescuers worked feverishly to get them out safety. On October 13th, all 33 of the miners were pulled from the mine in a rescue capsule designed and built by the Chilean Navy. This rescue came following the longest period of entrapment on record.
Germany Germany
In May 1955, three miners were trapped when a shaft collapsed in the Dahlbusch colliery in the western German city of Gelsenkirchen. The men were able to receive food and water from above, but couldn't be rescued as there was no suitable device. One of the engineers working at the mine, Eberhard Au, designed a cigar-shaped capsule made out of steel sheet. The capsule was then lowered down a specially-drilled escape shaft. The miners stood in the capsule with their hands above their heads as if about to dive into water.
After its first, successful assignment, the capsule went on to rescue trapped miners in 1956 and 1957. But it was in 1963 that the capsule received worldwide fame. It was the center-piece of a rescue operation at the Mathilde iron mine in the northern German town of Lengede when 11 miners were rescued. Collieries around the world copied the design. Today there are three or four "Dahlbusch Bombs" in Germany. (Author: Gesche Brock) [Additional information from Wikipedia ]
Nov 1963 Broistedt, Germany - Eleven men were rescued from the flooded Mathilde iron mine, two weeks after they were entombed and given up for dead. A huge drilling rig broke through early Thursday to the gallery 183 feet below the surface where they had taken refuge when disaster struck October 24. They were hoisted to the surface in a rescue capsule one-by-one in a predetermined order. Thursday's rescue brought the total saved to 100. The remaining 29 miners were given up for dead. See Vintage News Article and Vintage Video
Feb 1946 550 miners were trapped in the Monopol-Grimberg Coal Mine explosion in Unna, near Dortmund, Germany. 70 miners were brought to the surface after an undisclosed period, of which 11 were dead. See Vintage Video
Peru Peru
Apr 2012 Nine Peruvian miners emerged into the daylight Wednesday morning (4/11/12) after six days trapped in a collapsed mine. For days, a tube snaked down to the collapsed cavern was the only connection the miners had to the surface. It provided them with oxygen, food and water, as well as communication. The miners had been stuck since Thursday (4/5/12) in the wildcat Cabeza de Negro mine in southern Peru. More
Scotland Scotland
Sep 1950 116 miners were rescued after their 2 day entrapment following a cave-in at the New Cumnock mine. Twelve miners died in the disaster. The rescued miners, tired and worn, wore gas masks and respirators to make their way through a barrier of toxic mine gases on their way to the surface.
Oct 1923 Out of the jaws of death, 5 of the entombed miners in a Falkirk, Scotland mine disaster were rescued after being 9 days underground. See Vintage Video
Australia Australia
Dec 2007 All 27 miners trapped after a gold mine shaft collapsed near the central Victorian city of Ballarat have been rescued. A crane was used to bring the men out through a ventilation shaft. There were no injuries. More
May 2006 Two miners rescued after being trapped for 14 days following a collapse at the Beaconsfield mine in Tasmania. One miner was killed. More
Jan 2006 Three miners who were feared trapped in the burning Avebury nickel mine owned by Allegiance Mining in Tasmania, Australia were rescued. More
Canada Canada
Jan 2006 Seventy-two Canadian miners rescued after 24 hours trapped in a Saskatchewan potash mine where a fire occurred blocking their escape. More
Apr 1936 Two miners were rescued from the Moose River Gold Mine in Nova Scotia, Canada after being trapped for 6 days. More
France France
Oct 1964 Nine miners were brought to the surface in a rescue capsule after their 8-day entrapment in a limestone mine near Champagnole, France. See vintage video
Poland France
Mar 2006 A Polish coal miner trapped more than a kilometre underground for 111 hours was brought to the surface alive and well Monday after rescuers freed him from under tons of rubble in the Halemba mine in Ruda Slaska, southern Poland. More
China Record Entrapments Annual Coal Mine Deaths China
For more about China mining, visit our China Mine Disaster Watch pages for information taken from news articles about mining disasters that have occurred there since January 2004.
Apr 2013 Three miners trapped in the flooded Yunda Coal Mine for nearly 60 hours were rescued early Monday (4/8) in southwest China's Guizhou Province. More
Dec 2012 Four miners who were trapped for 5 days in the flooded Furuixiang Coal Mine were rescued on December 7th. More
Aug 2012 Following a roof fall accident, fifteen miners were rescued from the Ruifeng Coal Mine on August 18th after an entrapment period of approximately two days. More
Four miners were rescued from the flooded Ji'anda Coal Mine in Shanxi Province following a two day entrapment. Eight others died in the incident. More
Seven miners who were trapped for forty-two hours after the roof of the Nuanquan Coal Mine collapsed in North China's Shanxi province were rescued. More
Jul 2012 Fifty-three rescuers were freed after becoming trapped while trying to save five coal miners stuck underground following a roof fall in the Anlilai Coal Mine in Guizhou Province. As they tried to enter the mine, the tunnel collapsed a second time and trapped the rescuers. The 53 were trapped for less than a day and were brought out through a freshly-dug tunnel. The original 5 trapped miners were rescued after an entrapment period of 96 hours. More
May 2012 One miner was found alive after being trapped for 17 days following an inundation of water at the Junyuan No. 2 Coal Mine. At least ten miners were killed in the accident. More
Nov 2011 Forty-five miners trapped underground more than 36 hours after a rock blast in the Qianqiu Coal Mine were brought to the surface on Nov. 5th in a rare successful rescue. More
Sep 2011 Four miners were rescued after being trapped for over 31 hours in a flooded mine pit in northwest China's Heilongjiang Province. More
Aug 2011 Three of 26 miners from an illegally operating flooded mine in Heilongjiang province that were trapped for more than four days were rescued; the body of a deceased miner was retrieved the next day. More
Nineteen of the trapped miners in a flooded mine in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province were rescued early Tuesday morning, bringing the total number of rescued miners to 22. The 19 miners were trapped in the highest position in the mine, and survived on dripping water underground in the past 165 hours, rescuers said. More
Jul 2011 Two workers were pulled out alive more than 180 hours after they got trapped in a collapsed coal mine in China's southwest Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, rescuers said today. The two were among 18 miners trapped after the mine operated by Guangxi Heshan Coal Mining Company collapsed midday on July 2 after days of heavy rain. More
Nov 2010 Rescuers on Monday pulled to safety 29 people trapped in the flooded Batian Coal Mine in southwestern China, about 24 hours after they were stranded in the pit. 22 of those rescued were miners, while the other seven were people sent down after the accident in an initial rescue bid who also became trapped. More
Jul 2010 Eight miners who had been trapped in the flooded Shengping coal mine of north China's Shanxi Province were saved early Friday, July 2nd after being trapped for 35 hours. More
Seven miners trapped for almost 80 hours in the flooded Laolongdong Coal Mine were rescued Thursday, July 29th. Rescuers spent two days pumping water out of the mine before they could save the miners. More
Jun 2010 June 6 - Six workers were rescued on June 6 at about 11:30 p.m. from the flooded Jiaonan Coal Mine after being trapped underground for three days.
June 14 - Wang Daoguang, 42, had been trapped underground for 262 hours before he was lifted out of the pit at Jiaonan Coal Mine in Jincheng city at 3:39 a.m. Monday. More
Apr 2010 April 4 - Nine workers have been rescued alive from a Chinese coal mine, after more than 179 hours trapped in the flooded Wangjialing Coal Mine.
April 5 - Rescuers pulled out 115 miners alive from the flooded Wangjialing Coal Mine in northern China's Shanxi province Monday after the men had spent nearly eight days underground. More
Five miners trapped in the flooded Shundagaofeng iron ore mine in central China's Hunan province were rescued. Three were pulled out alive at 9:30 a.m. Saturday (4/10) morning after 47 hours. Two were saved Thursday. More
Mar 2010 Two miners were found alive after being trapped for eight days in the flooded Shunda iron ore mine in central China's Henan Province. They were pulled out alive at 9:20 a.m. after being trapped underground for 201 hours. More
Oct 2009 Three coal mine workers were rescued after being trapped underground for more than eight days in the Northwest Shaanxi province. Rescuers pulled up the three men to the ground from the pit of a coal mine in Shenmu County at about 3:30 am. More
Jul 2009 Three men, who had been trapped in a flooded mine in Guizhou Province for 25 days, were rescued on July 12, 2009. The Xinqiao Coal Mine in Qinglong County was flooded on June 17 when 16 miners were working underground. More
Jun 2009 All seven trapped workers in the Yongjin Gold Mine in Tianzhu County of Qiandongnan Autonomous Prefecture of Miao and Dong Nationalities were saved after a 20-hour rescue effort. More
Nov 2008 Four miners were rescued after being trapped for about 80 hours after a roof collapsed at the Hantan Tungsten Mine in east China's Jiangxi Province. More
Rescuers pulled 32 of the 34 trapped miners out of the flooded Gaomendong Coal Mine in central China's Henan Province, almost 23 hours after the accident occurred. More
Aug 2008 Two miners who had been trapped underground for over 50 hours following an iron ore mine cave-in in east China's Anhui province were brought out safely. Both of them were not seriously injured. More
Eight of the nine workers trapped for a week in a collapsed coal mine in Shaanxi province in northwest China have come out alive. The eight miners appeared August 5th at the entrance to the mine that collapsed on July 31st but it wasn't immediately known how they managed to escape or survive for a week, the report said. They were hospitalized and listed in stable condition. More
Dec 2007 Two were trapped for more than 30 hours before they were rescued following a coal mine flood in north China's coal-rich Shanxi Province. 43 others managed to escape. More
Rescuers found Sheng Shouyan, 48, about 5 am on December 17th at Qunfa Coal Mine in Shangrao County, Jiangxi Province some 113 hours after water flooded the mine and trapped four workers on Dec. 12. More
Six miners were rescued after being trapped for 110 hours after a cave-in at the Yangchong Iron Mine in Fanchang County, of Wuhu City, Anhui Province. Search for another miner continued. More
11 miners trapped for 129 hours in an iron pit roof collapse in north China's Hebei Province were rescued. No injuries were reported. More
Oct 2007 A miner was rescued on October 31 from a flooded coal mine in Jiangxi Province after being trapped inside for 83 hours. The 45-year-old miner, Huang Guigen, was not in a critical condition, and he could walk and speak in a stong voice. More
Aug 2007 Meng Xianchen and his brother Meng Xianyou were trapped for 5 days after a cave-in accident in an illegal private mine at the Jinjitai village in Fangshan district of southwestern Beijing. Four days after rescue work ended, the miners managed to break through the debris and climb out of the shaft . More
The 14 miners who were trapped for more than a day in a flooded colliery in east China's Jiangxi Province were rescued. Each of the workers, weak and blindfolded, was carried by two rescuers up to the ground. Some of them were still able to speak despite being starved for more than 30 hours. More
Jul 2007 The Zhijian mine in China's central Henan province flooded on Sunday morning with 102 workers underground. Thirty-three miners escaped but the other 69 were trapped in a section of 600 metres of tunnels that were submerged. All 69 miners were pulled from the mine 3 days later on August 1st. More
Sixteen people trapped for hours in a Chinese coal mine by poisonous gas escaped unhurt yesterday, but four of their colleagues remain underground, unable to get to the surface. More
Nov 2006 All the 16 coal miners who were trapped after a Wednesday landslide in northwest China's Gansu Province at the Deshun Coal Mine were rescued after 14 hours late Wednesday night. More
Oct 2006 Eight Chinese coal miners who were trapped when a tunnel collapsed were rescued early October 12 after 40 hours underground. The miners were trapped October 10 when the ceiling collapsed in the Xieqiao Coal Mine in Fuyang, a city in the eastern province of Anhui. They were weak but in good condition following their rescue. One rescued miner said he ate nothing while he was trapped and drank water leaking from the tunnel ceiling. More
Jun 2006 The remaining three of a group of five miners trapped in a cave-in at a Heilongjiang Province coal mine were rescued after being trapped for more than 60 hours. The accident occurred at the Xing'an Coal Mine in the mining town of Hegang. Four others died. More
May 2006 Rescuers succeeded in pulling an iron miner whose legs had been pinned by rocks from a collapsed shaft in Anhui Province. A total of five miners, including a female, out of the eight trapped had been pulled out alive. More
Eight miners were trapped following a collapse at the Dalongshan Iron Mine in Anhui Province. One miner was brought to the surface 60 hours after the accident occurred. Four more, including a woman were pulled out about 10 hours later. More than 1,000 workers participated in the rescue. More
Apr 2006 Five miners who were trapped in the flooded Yalong coal mine in southwest China's Guizhou province were rescued. More
Mar 2006 One miner was rescued about 26 hours after the fatal blast at Rongsheng Colliery in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Eighteen miners died in the explosion. More
Feb 2006 Seven Chinese miners are rescued four days after a cave-in at the Aiyou coal mine in China's northern Liaoning province. More
Nov 2005 Six people trapped in a coal mine were rescued about seven hours after the mine caved in at Lengshuijiang, a city in central China's Hunan Province. More
One miner was rescued after being trapped for 260 hours (11 days) following a cave-in at a gypsum mine in China's Hebei Province. The rescued miner, Yuan Shenglin, said he drank his urine four or five times. More
Sep 2005 Three miners were killed and two others rescued in a colliery collapse that happened in east China's Anhui Province at the Daihe Coal Mine of Huaibei Coal Mining Group. More
Three of the 13 miners trapped in a flooded Dahao coal mine in southwest China's Guizhou Province were rescued. More
Jul 2005 Three miners trapped in a flooded colliery in Henan Province, central China were rescued after nearly 60 hours from the Xigou colliery. More
Apr 2005 10 coal miners were successfully rescued after being trapped underground for 36 hours following a colliery gas blast in the Shangyukou Colliery in China's Shaanxi Province. More
Two miners who had been trapped for 15 days in a collapsed mine in Leping, Jiangxi Province were rescued. More
Mar 2005 Six miners were rescued 58 hours after they were trapped underground by a mudflow that occurred in the Yaozishan coal mine in Ningxiang county in Hunan Province. More
Nov 2004 Four workers were pulled out alive from the Chenjiashan coal mine in Tongchuan city, Shaanxi Province. A total of 166 miners were killed in the explosion. More
Jun 2004 After some 20 hours of emergency rescue efforts, three miners who were buried in a mine collapse in the Shihu Gold Mine, located in Lingshou County Hebei Province were rescued. More
Apr 2004 12 miners were rescued after being trapped for 5 days when a working face of Zhengzhou Coal Industrial Corporation's Chaohua coal mine in China's Henan Province was suddenly flooded. More
The only survivor of the Shuangyashan Coal Mine inundation was rescued around 8:30 a.m. on April 26th after being trapped underground for 27 hours. Seven miners were killed in the flooding. More
Aug 2002 One man was pulled out alive from a mine shaft, five days after a fire trapped him and 18 other workers underground in a pit in the northern Shanxi province. There were no other survivors. More
Jul 2002 Nine miners rescued after eight days trapped in a coal mine in a northwestern province of China. They survived on tree bark, muddy water. More
Jul 1996 Three miners survived eight days in a flooded mine in southern China.
Jan 1983 Two Chinese miners rescued after 23 days trapped in a coal mine in northeast China.
India India
May 2013 A search and rescue team saved two illegal miners that were trapped in an abandoned gold mine owned by state-controlled mining company Aneka Tambang for 11 days. More
Feb 2001 A miner trapped in a flooded state-run coal mine near the town of Dhanbad in eastern India for nearly six days was brought out alive. More
Nov 1989 Sixty-six miners rescued three days after being trapped by an underground flood in a coal pit in eastern India.
Russia/Ukraine Russia Ukraine
Jun 2009 A miner trapped for three days under rubble at the Yenakieve coal mine owned by the Ordzhonikidzevuhillia state enterprise in the Donetsk region was rescued. More
Apr 2009 Two miners, trapped for two days following a roof collapse at the Poltavska coalmine in Yenakieve, Donetsk region, were rescued. More
May 2005 5 miners were safely rescued From Siberian Mine after 6 hours following a cave-in. More
Oct 2003 All 46 miners trapped in a mine inundated by floodwaters in southern Russia were safely rescued. Contact was established with the miners some 36 hours after floodwaters from an underground lake poured into the Zapadnaya-Kapitalnaya shaft. More
Jun 2003 Rescuers pulled four miners out alive from a Russian mine in which a gas explosion killed 11. The four rescued miners had been trapped underground for 40 hours, following the blast at the Ziminka mine in the Siberian region of Kemerovo. More
South Africa South Africa
Oct 2007 There were no casualties when a pressurized air pipe snapped at the mine near Johannesburg and tumbled down a shaft on October 3rd, causing extensive damage and cutting off electricity to an elevator and stranding 3,200 miners more than a mile underground. The miners, trapped for more than 24 hours, were brought to the surface the next day. More
Jun 2006 A miner who was trapped almost 3km underground in Gold Fields' Kloof mine near Westonaria on the West Rand was rescued. Another miner was killed when rocks fell on him during an earth tremor measuring 3.1 on the Richter scale. More
Jan 2000 Nine gold miners survive for four days trapped in a gold mine at the African Rainbow Minerals mine near Orkney, South Africa.
South Korea South Korea
Sep 1982 Four South Korean coal miners rescued 14 days after being trapped in a cave-in 800 feet underground.
1968 South Korean miner survives after being trapped for 15 days.
United States United States
Jan 2006 One miner is found alive after 40 hours following the Sago Mine Explosion in West Virginia . Twelve miners died in the accident.
Jan 2003 Injured miner Aaron Meyer, three Sheriff's Deputies and a Paramedic clambered into an oversized bucket attached to a crane following the McElroy Mine Shaft Explosion , which lowered them to the injured miners below. They successfully rescued Benjamin Bair, 23, and Richard Brumley, 51. On September 29, 2005, the five men were awarded the Cargegie Medal for Heroism. Included were Aaron Meyer, Jack Cain, Pat Mull, Brent Wharry and Steve Cook.
Jul 2002 Following an inundation of water from an adjacent abandoned mine, nine miners were rescued after being trapped more than three days in the Quecreek Mine in Pennsylvania .
Aug 1991 70 miners were rescued after more than seven hours following a roof fall at the Consolidation Coal McElroy Mine near Moundsville, West Virginia. The fall occurred when a mine car struck a roof support causing the collapse. Rescuers lowed food and extra mine lamps to the trapped miners during their ordeal.
Sep 1989 Joshua Dennis, a 10-year-old gone missing from a Boy Scout exploring trip, was rescued after nearly one week from the abandoned Hidden Treasure Mine near Stockton, Utah. The boy was found by a Utah Power and Light Company mine rescue team, ranked among the best teams in the country.
Oct 1980 Two men, David Aubuchon and Guy Hayton, and the car they were driving were rescued after spending 4 days at the bottom of a vertical shaft of the University of Arizona experimental mine near Tucson. They had crashed their car through a barbed-wire fence protecting the shaft entrance. Following their rescue, the men were questioned by Pima County Sherriff’s detectives about the burglary of $700 worth of tools from the mine. Apparently no charges were filed.
Mar 1977 Ronald Adley survived after being trapped for nearly six days following an inundation of water at the Porter Tunnel Mine owned by the Kocher Coal Company in Tower City, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Nine miners were killed in the accident.
May 1972 Two men, Tom Wilkinson and Ronald Flory, were rescued and found to be in good condition after being trapped for 8 days following the Sunshine silver mine fire in Kellogg, Shoshone County, Idaho. 91 miners were killed in the disaster.
Tragedy at Sunshine Mine by Frank Starr
Dec 1970 Loren Hinkle was rescued after his 24-hour entombment following a roof fall in the Leckie Coal Company mine near Anjean, West, Virginia. Rescuers delivered water and orange juice through a two-inch emergency air vent while they dug him out. Killed in the accident were R. B. Crookshanks and Charles Pitzenbarger. Ironically, Hinkle previously escaped death in a mine fire and another roof collapse.
Jan 1969 Twelve miners were rescued after being trapped more than six hours after a fire at the Christopher Coal Company, Humphrey No. 7 mine near Mount Morris, Pennsylvania. Eleven of the miners were walked out by rescuers, one man was removed by stretcher.
May 1968 Inundation of water at the Saxsewell No. 8 Mine in Hominy Falls, WV. Fifteen men were rescued 5 days later and six others were rescued 10 days after the inundation occurred.
Jan 1964 Stanley Johnson was rescued after his 27-hour entrapment following a cave-in at a MacKay, Utah lead and copper mine owned by Empire Copper Mines. There were no others killed or injured in the accident.
Aug 1963 David Fellin and Henry Throne were trapped for 14 days in the Sheppton Mine in the Pennsylvania anthracite coal region following a cave-in.
A 6-inch borehole – the first such attempt in a mining rescue effort in the United States – miraculously penetrated the chamber where Fellin and Throne thought they were waiting to die. Following that, a much larger borehole – 17½ inches in diameter – was drilled right over it.
In the early hours of Tuesday, Aug. 27, 1963, first Throne, then Fellin were pulled from a depth of 330 feet to the surface wearing parachute harnesses and football helmets. A third miner in the mine at the time, Lou Bova, was never recovered. More
USMRA member, Ronnie Sando , participated in the 1963 Sheppton Mine Rescue. In 1990, performing under his stage name, R. J. Colton, Ronnie wrote and produced Sheppton Mine Rescue as a tribute to this world famous event. Ronnie was accompanied by Elvis' former band and the Jordanaires. See lyrics here .
You can purchase "Sheppton Mine Rescue " from his website at moonfruit.com .
Ronnie Sando
Ronnie Sando
Jul 1963 On July 12, 1963, in a miracle survival that confounded experts, three teenage boys were found alive after spending two days in an abandoned, gas-ridden mine. The youngsters were found nearly a half-mile from the mouth of No. 2 shaft of Castle Shannon Coal Company which had not been used for more than 25 years.
Two hundred rescue workers searched for the boys after their bicycles were found at the pit entrance.
Their rescuers were U. S. Bureau of Mines Inspectors Everett Turner, James Hutchens and Jennings Breedon.
The boys, Danny O'Kain, Billy Burke and Bobby Abbott were taken to St. Clair Hosptal where they were treated for exposure and dehydration. See Vintage Video
May 1958 24 miners, trapped for more than 15 hours, were rescued from a flooded Boone County Coal Corporation mine in Logan, West Virginia. There were no deaths reported in this accident.
Dec 1957 Fourteen miners were rescued after more than five hours following an explosion at a Pocahontas Fuel Company No. 31 mine near Amonate, Virginia. Eleven miners died in the blast. The mine is officially listed as being located in McDowell County, West Virginia.
Apr 1956 A roof fall at the Kaiser Coal Company mine near Sunnyside, Utah occurred trapping 4 miners. Three of the miners were rescued after 44 hours. The rescued were Lavell Golding, Joe Archuletta and Lloyd Allen Heath. Deceased in the accident was Joseph Otterstrom.
Dec 1951 One miner, Cecil Sanders, was rescued from the Orient No. 2 coal mine in West Frankfort, Illinois following an explosion which killed 119. At that time, this disaster was the nation's worst in the preceeding 23 years.
Sep 1943 Rescuers freed six miners after an undisclosed period following an explosion at the Three Point Coal Company mine in southeast Kentucky. Twelve miners perished in the accident; 3 directly by the explosion and 9 others found huddled together, overcome by gases. The six rescued miners had traveled one mile further into the mine where they constructed a barricade.
Mar 1942 Teddy the mule was rescued following an 8-day entrapment after a roof fall occurred in the Cracker Jack mine near Boulder, Colorado. Teddy survived the ordeal by nibbling on bark from pine roof props and drinking from pools of water in the damp mine. The owner, Joe Robertson, turned Teddy out to pasture to rest for a month following his ordeal.
Timothy by Rupert Holmes
Mar 1936 Gus Brown and his three husky sons rescued “Fannie,” their pet pony from the family coal mine in Louis Hollow near Crooksville, Ohio. Fannie, trapped 19 days due to a cave-in, emerged sleepily and appeared none the worse for her experience. The pony, led through hastily-driven shafts was taken into the Brown home and given a warm place by the kitchen stove.
Feb 1928 One miner was found alive after an explosion at the Kinlock underground coal mine of the Valley Camp Coal Company in Parnassus, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. The rescued miner was trapped for nearly 1 day. 12 miners were killed in this accident. (Parnassus was later renamed New Kensington).
Jul 1916 On July 25, 1916, Garrett Morgan made national news for using his gas mask to rescue 32 men trapped during an explosion in an underground tunnel 250 feet beneath Lake Erie. Morgan and a team of volunteers donned the new "gas masks" and went to the rescue.
After the rescue, Morgan's company received requests from fire departments around the country who wished to purchase the new masks. The Morgan gas mask was later refined for use by U.S. Army during World War I. In 1914, Garrett Morgan was awarded a patent for a Safety Hood and Smoke Protector.
Two years later, a refined model of his early gas mask won a gold medal at the International Exposition of Sanitation and Safety, and another gold medal from the International Association of Fire Chiefs. See http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=WTD for more information
Mar 1915 On March 2, 1915, an explosion occurred at the Layland No. 3 Mine in Layland, West Virginia. The explosion occurred at 8:30 a.m., resulting in the deaths of 114 men inside the mine and 1 outside.
Fifty-four men afterward escaped alive from the mine. Seven came out from 2 to 5 hours after the explosion; 5 more escaped unassisted at 8 a.m. on March 6 (4 days later), and 42 others were rescued an hour later.
Of those killed, 44 died from suffocation. The store porter passing the drift mouth at a distance of 100 feet at the time of the explosion was hurled against a post and killed.
Apr 1913 Sixty-seven miners later escaped from the Cincinnati Mine following the explosion that claimed 98 lives on April 23rd, including one apparatus wearing rescuer. Two miners were rescued after 60 hours. See more
May 1912 Norrie Mine, Oliver Iron Mining Company, Ironwood, Michigan - A party of 10 miners and 3 trammers on the night shift was walking home from the boundary of the property above the twentieth level of the mine. Hearing ground dropping, they retreated to what they thought was a safe place, the main drift, which was securely timbered and had 35 to 40 feet of solid ore above it. The cave, however, did not occur at the place where the men had been working, but in the very place of refuse to which they had retreated, crushing in the drift timbers over a length of about 80 feet. Six men were rescued alive after about 24 hours, but one died about a week later. In all, 7 miners were killed.
Mar 1912 Following an explosion and cave-in, a total of 25 workmen were rescued after an undisclosed period from the San Bois No. 2 coal mine near McCurtain, Oklahoma. Of the last 14 rescued, three had to be removed by stretcher. They were located in a small area where they had placed a curtain to exclude foul air. Tapping sounds through a water pipe led to their discovery. 73 miners perished in the disaster.
Nov 1909 There were tales of unbelievable suffering and endurance following the Cherry Mine Fire . One group of miners, 500 feet underground, had built a wall of mud, rocks, and timbers to block off the poisonous gases. They were in total darkness with only a pool of water leaking from a coal seam to drink.
After eight days of confinement, they could bear it no longer. They tore down the barricade and began crawling through the tunnels. Finally, they heard the sounds of a search party. Twenty-one men still alive from this group were rescued.
Mining Accidents and Disasters
Mine Fires About the Celestial Bodies
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Date Mine Name Location Mineral Deaths Planets Moon
01/19/2006 Aracoma Alma Melville, WV Coal 2 Moon phase for this day
12/19/1984 Wilberg Wilberg, UT Coal 27 Moon phase for this day
07/22/1972 Blacksville No. 1 Blacksville, WV Coal 9 Moon phase for this day
05/02/1972 Sunshine Kellogg, ID Silver 91 Moon phase for this day
03/26/1971 Nemacolin Nemacolin, PA Coal 3 Moon phase for this day
03/05/1968 Belle Isle Salt Franklin, LA Salt 21 Moon phase for this day
07/16/1950 Lark Lark, UT Lead 5 Moon phase for this day
11/24/1927 Magma Superior, AZ Copper 7 Moon phase for this day
08/27/1922 Argonaut Jackson, CA Gold 47 Moon phase for this day
06/08/1917 Granite Mountain Butte, MT Copper 164 Moon phase for this day
02/14/1916 Pennsylvania Butte, MT Copper 21 Moon phase for this day
08/23/1911 Giroux Ely, NV Gold/Silver 7 Moon phase for this day
05/05/1911 Hartford Negaunee, MI Iron 7 Moon phase for this day
02/23/1911 Belmont Tonopah, NV Gold/Silver 17 Moon phase for this day
11/08/1910 Victor American 3 Delagua, CO Coal 79 Moon phase for this day
11/13/1909 Cherry Cherry, IL Coal 259 Moon phase for this day
11/06/1903 Koarsarge Virginia City, MT Gold 9 Moon phase for this day
09/06/1869 Avondale Plymouth, PA Coal 110 Moon phase for this day
Mine Explosions About the Celestial Bodies
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Date Mine Name Location Mineral Deaths Planets Moon
04/05/2010 Upper Big Branch Montcoal, WV Coal 29 Moon phase for this day
05/20/2006 Darby Holmes Mill, KY Coal 5 Moon phase for this day
01/02/2006 Sago Tallmansville, WV Coal 12 Moon phase for this day
01/22/2003 McElroy Cameron, WV Coal 3 Moon phase for this day
09/23/2001 JWR No. 5 Brookwood, AL Coal 13 Moon phase for this day
07/31/2000 Willow Creek Helper, UT Coal 2 Moon phase for this day
12/07/1992 Southmountain No. 3 Norton, VA Coal 8 Moon phase for this day
03/19/1992 Blacksville No. 1 Blacksville, WV Coal 4 Moon phase for this day
09/13/1989 William Station No. 9 Sullivan, KY Coal 10 Moon phase for this day
07/03/1983 Homer City Homer City, PA Coal 1 Moon phase for this day
06/21/1983 McClure No. 1 McClure, VA Coal 7 Moon phase for this day
01/20/1982 RHF No. 1 Craynor, KY Coal 7 Moon phase for this day
12/08/1981 Grundy No. 21 Whitewell, TN Coal 13 Moon phase for this day
12/07/1981 Adkins No. 11 Kite, KY Coal 8 Moon phase for this day
09/09/1981 Warrier Burgdorf, ID Gold 3 Moon phase for this day
04/15/1981 Dutch Creek No. 1 Redstone, CO Coal 15 Moon phase for this day
11/07/1980 Ferrell No. 17 Uneeda, WV Coal 5 Moon phase for this day
06/08/1979 Belle Isle Salt Franklin, LA Salt 5 Moon phase for this day
03/09/1976 Scotia Ovenfork, KY Coal 26 Moon phase for this day
12/16/1972 Itmann No. 3 Itmann, WV Coal 5 Moon phase for this day
12/30/1970 Finley Nos. 15 & 16 Hyden, KY Coal 38 Moon phase for this day
11/20/1968 Consol No. 9 Farmington, WV Coal 78 Moon phase for this day
07/23/1966 Siltix Mt. Hope, WV Coal 7 Moon phase for this day
05/24/1965 C. L. Kline No. 2 Robbins, TN Coal 5 Moon phase for this day
08/27/1963 Cane Creek Moab, UT Potash 18 Moon phase for this day
12/06/1962 Robena Carmichaels, PA Coal 37 Moon phase for this day
03/23/1959 Phillips & West No. 1 Robbins, TN Coal 9 Moon phase for this day
10/27/1958 Bishop No. 34 McDowell County, WV Coal 22 Moon phase for this day
12/21/1951 Orient No. 2 West Frankfort, IL Coal 119 Moon phase for this day
03/25/1947 Centralia No. 5 Centralia, IL Coal 111 Moon phase for this day
08/28/1943 Sayreton No. 2 Sayreton, AL Coal 28 Moon phase for this day
02/27/1943 Smith Washoe, MT Coal 74 Moon phase for this day
07/15/1940 Sonman "E" Portage, PA Coal 63 Moon phase for this day
03/16/1940 Willow Grove No. 10 Neffs, OH Coal 72 Moon phase for this day
01/10/1940 Pond Creek No. 1 Bartley, WV Coal 91 Moon phase for this day
07/14/1939 Duvin Providence, KY Coal 28 Moon phase for this day
11/05/1930 No. 6 Millfield, OH Coal 82 Moon phase for this day
05/19/1928 Mather Mather, PA Coal 195 Moon phase for this day
04/30/1927 Federal No. 3 Everettville, WV Coal 97 Moon phase for this day
01/13/1926 Mine 21 Wilburton, OK Coal 91 Moon phase for this day
04/28/1924 Benwood Benwood, WV Coal 119 Moon phase for this day
03/28/1924 Yukon No. 2 Yukon, WV Coal 26 Moon phase for this day
03/08/1924 Castle Gate No. 2 Castle Gate, UT Coal 172 Moon phase for this day
01/26/1924 Lancashire No. 18 Shanktown, PA Coal 36 Moon phase for this day
11/06/1923 Glen Rogers Beckley, WV Coal 27 Moon phase for this day
08/14/1923 Frontier No. 1 Kemmerer, WY Coal 99 Moon phase for this day
02/08/1923 Stag Canon No. 1 Dawson, NM Coal 120 Moon phase for this day
11/22/1922 Dolomite No. 3 Dolomite, AL Coal 90 Moon phase for this day
11/06/1922 Reilly No. 1 Spangler, PA Coal 79 Moon phase for this day
02/02/1922 Gates No. 2 Gates, PA Coal 25 Moon phase for this day
04/15/1920 No. 3 Shaft Delcambre, LA Salt 6 Moon phase for this day
06/05/1919 Baltimore Tunnel 2 Wilkes-Barre, PA Coal 92 Moon phase for this day
04/29/1919 Majestic Majestic, AL Coal 22 Moon phase for this day
09/28/1918 North No. 1 Royalton, IL Coal 21 Moon phase for this day
06/27/1918 Silver Virginia, MN Iron 18 Moon phase for this day
08/04/1917 W. Kentucky No. 7 Clay, KY Coal 62 Moon phase for this day
07/17/1917 Three Forks Quarry Trident, MT Gypsum 8 Moon phase for this day
04/27/1917 Hastings Hastings, CO Coal 121 Moon phase for this day
11/14/1916 Bessie Palos, AL Coal 30 Moon phase for this day
11/16/1915 Northwestern Ravensdale, WA Coal 31 Moon phase for this day
03/02/1915 Layland No. 3 Layland, WV Coal 115 Moon phase for this day
04/28/1914 Eccles Nos. 5 & 6 Eccles, WV Coal 181 Moon phase for this day
10/22/1913 Stag Canon No. 2 Dawson, NM Coal 263 Moon phase for this day
04/23/1913 Cincinnati Courtney, PA Coal 98 Moon phase for this day
07/07/1912 Eureka Pit Ely, NV Copper 10 Moon phase for this day
12/09/1911 Cross Mountain Briceville, TN Coal 84 Moon phase for this day
04/08/1911 Banner Littleton, AL Coal 128 Moon phase for this day
01/18/1911 Keating Radersburg, MT Gold 6 Moon phase for this day
05/05/1910 Palos No. 3 Palos, AL Coal 83 Moon phase for this day
03/02/1910 Alaska-Mexican Treadwell, AK Gold 37 Moon phase for this day
01/31/1910 Primero Primero, CO Coal 75 Moon phase for this day
11/28/1908 Rachel and Agnes Marianna, PA Coal 154 Moon phase for this day
12/19/1907 Darr Van Meter, PA Coal 239 Moon phase for this day
12/06/1907 Monongah 6 & 8 Monongah, WV Coal 362 Moon phase for this day
12/01/1907 Naomi Fayette City, PA Coal 34 Moon phase for this day
01/29/1907 Stuart Stuart, WV Coal 84 Moon phase for this day
03/18/1905 Rush Run/Red Ash Red Ash, WV Coal 24 Moon phase for this day
02/20/1905 Virginia City Virginia City, AL Coal 112 Moon phase for this day
01/25/1904 Harwick Cheswick, PA Coal 179 Moon phase for this day
06/30/1903 Hanna No. 1 Hanna, WY Coal 169 Moon phase for this day
07/10/1902 Rolling Mill Johnstown, PA Coal 112 Moon phase for this day
05/19/1902 Fraterville Coal Creek, TN Coal 184 Moon phase for this day
05/01/1900 Winter Quarters Scofield, UT Coal 200 Moon phase for this day
01/16/1895 Butte Hardware Co. Butte, MT N/A 150 Moon phase for this day
01/07/1892 Mine No. 11 Krebs, OK Coal 100 Moon phase for this day
01/27/1891 Mammouth No. 1 Mt. Pleasant, PA Coal 109 Moon phase for this day
01/21/1886 Orrell Newburg, WV Coal 39 Moon phase for this day
03/13/1884 Laurel Pocahontas, VA Coal 112 Moon phase for this day
Mine Cave-ins About the Celestial Bodies
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Date Mine Name Location Mineral Deaths Planets Moon
08/06/2007 Crandall Canyon Huntington, UT Coal 9 Moon phase for this day
02/13/1991 J & T No. 1 St. Charles, VA Coal 4 Moon phase for this day
01/04/1989 Cumberland Valley Middlesboro, KY Coal 3 Moon phase for this day
09/12/1984 Berger No. 2 Evarts, KY Coal 4 Moon phase for this day
05/10/1982 Magma Superior, AZ Copper 4 Moon phase for this day
08/13/1963 Sheppton Sheppton, PA Coal 1 Moon phase for this day
02/10/1943 C. F. and H. Shullsburg, WI Lead/Zinc 8 Moon phase for this day
02/21/1918 Amasa-Porter Crystal Falls, MI Iron 17 Moon phase for this day
05/13/1912 Norrie Ironwood, MI Iron 7 Moon phase for this day
06/28/1896 Twin Shaft Pittston, PA Coal 58 Moon phase for this day
Mine Inundations About the Celestial Bodies
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Date Mine Name Location Mineral Deaths Planets Moon
07/24/2002 Quecreek Rescue Friedens, PA Coal 0 Moon phase for this day
06/03/1981 Grays Knob No. 5 Harlan County, KY Coal 3 Moon phase for this day
11/20/1980 Lake Peigneur
Jefferson Island Jefferson Island, LA Salt 0 Moon phase for this day
04/04/1978 Moss No. 3 Portal A Duty, VA Coal 5 Moon phase for this day
03/01/1977 Porter Tunnel Tower City, PA Coal 9 Moon phase for this day
05/06/1968 Saxsewell No. 8 Hominy Falls, WV Coal 4 Moon phase for this day
01/22/1959 River Slope Port Griffith, PA Coal 12 Moon phase for this day
11/03/1926 Barnes-Hecker Ishpeming, MI Iron 51 Moon phase for this day
02/21/1918 Amasa-Porter Crystal Falls, MI Iron 17 Moon phase for this day
10/19/1911 Wharton Hibernia, MI Iron 12 Moon phase for this day
Mine Asphyxiations About the Celestial Bodies
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Date Mine Name Location Mineral Deaths Planets Moon
08/13/1936 Mountain City Mountain City, NV Copper 6 Moon phase for this day
04/28/1917 Mountain King Mariposa County, CA Gold 7 Moon phase for this day
Hoisting Accidents About the Celestial Bodies
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Date Mine Name Location Mineral Deaths Planets Moon
10/06/1936 Morning Mullan, ID Lead 10 Moon phase for this day
04/23/1913 Leonard Butte, MT Copper 5 Moon phase for this day
09/03/1911 Butte & Superior Butte, MT Zinc 6 Moon phase for this day
Other Notable Accidents About the Celestial Bodies
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Date Mine Name Location Mineral Deaths Planets Moon
04/17/2007 Tri-Star Mining Barton, MD Coal 2 Moon phase for this day
On Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at approximately 10:00 a.m., Dale Jones, a 51-year old excavator operator with 15 years of mining experience, and Michael Wilt, a 38-year old bulldozer operator with one year of mining experience, were fatally injured when a highwall failed in the 001 Pit (Caledonia Pit/419 Pit) of Tri-Star Mining, Inc., Job No. 3 mine.
08/13/2003 Jim Walter Benchman Tuscaloosa, AL Coal 0 Moon phase for this day
Benchman Marshal Hutchins was seriously burned while filling SCBA cylinders with oxygen. The oxygen in a filter and the piping supplying the pump ignited combustible material within these components.
10/17/2002 Barrick Heat Stress Elko, NV Gold 2 Moon phase for this day
Barrick team members, Theodore Milligan and Dale Spring were overcome and died of heat exhaustion during a training exercise at the company's idled Storm underground decline.
05/10/1995 Vaal Reefs Orkney, South Africa Gold 105 Moon phase for this day
The disaster struck when a runaway train plunged down Vaal Reef's number 2 shaft. The train crashed on top of an elevator carrying miners to the deep gold seams - sending those trapped inside hurtling to their death 2.3 kilometers (1.4 miles) below the surface.
02/06/1986 Loveridge No. 22 Fairview, WV Coal 5 Moon phase for this day
Seven company and contractor officials were walking to the top of a raw coal pile when a section of the coal pile that was 4 to 6 feet in diameter suddenly collapsed. Five of the individuals were rapidly swallowed by the hole and suffocated. The two others escaped injury.
02/26/1972 Buffalo Mining Dam Collapse Saunders, WV Coal 114 Moon phase for this day
The Buffalo Mining Company retaining dam collapsed resulting in the confirmed deaths of 114 persons along Buffalo Creek from Saunders to Man, West Virginia, a distance of about 17 miles.
04/12/1971 Barnett Complex Rosiclare, IL Flurospar 7 Moon phase for this day
Seven men died as a result of exposure to hydrogen sulfide gas in advance workings on the 800-foot level of the Barnett Complex Mine. See video .
03/26/1942 Sandts Eddy Explosives Disaster Northampton Co., PA Limestone 31 Moon phase for this day
Thirty-one limestone workers were killed when 20 tons of TNT prematurely exploded at the Lehigh Portland Cement Company's Sandts Eddy Quarry due to the use of old (5-6 yrs) blasting caps.
05/07/1935 South W-B Haulage Accident Wilkes-Barre, PA Coal 7 Moon phase for this day
Seven miners were killed in one of the most extraordinary anthracite disasters on record. All were "transportation men" who perished when a 250 pound boulder fell about 625 feet into the No. 3 Shaft of the South Wilkes-Barre Colliery and smashed into their ascending elevator.
About the Celestial Bodies: Images of the planets and the moon shown on this page are offered to provoke thought about the possibility of their influence on the events listed here. While the contributing factors causing accidents are numerous, theorists believe the forces of these bodies on the earth may be sufficient for inclusion as a factor. Any thoughts you may have on this subject can be sent to usmra@usmra.com .
Mining Literature
Here are some of the books we've helped to promote:
Famous Sheppton Mine Rescue
The Untold Story: The Blood and Sweat of the Rescue Team
by J. Ronnie Sando
No. 9: The 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster
by Bonnie E. Stewart
The Deep Dark
Disaster and Redemption in America's Richest Silver Mine
by Gregg Olsen
Fire and Brimstone
The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917
by Michael Punke
47 Down
The 1922 Argonaut Gold Mine Disaster
by O. Henry Mace
Red Helmet
by Homer Hickam
Monongah
by Davitt McAteer
Smith Mine Disaster Chronicles
by Jeff McNeish
The Scotia Widows
by Gerald Stern
History of Bear Creek Mountain
by Jeff McNeish
Monongah 1907 DVD
by Davitt McAteer
Goodbye Wifes and Daughters
by Susan Kushner Resnick
Hazard
by Gardiner Harris
Poetry Selections
by Joel Tankersley
Poetry Selections
by Del "Abe" Jones
Poetry Selections
by Various Poets
More disaster books and videos from Amazon
Click here for a printable version
Title: Mining and Safety in Kentucky
Level: Secondary
Day/Time: One class period or Homework assignment
KERA Goals:1.2, 2.6, 5.1, 6.1, and 2.20
Background Information:
Since the first commercial sale of coal in 1820, Kentucky has felt its impact. Mined from near the Green River in Muhlenberg County, this was considered by many the beginning of the coal mining industry in Kentucky.
As industrialization grew during the mid-1800's, the demand for coal also grew. Coal mines opened in the northern and southern regions of the state in response to this increased demand.
By the late 1800's, mining had extended into the rich coal fields of eastern and western Kentucky. Improved mechanization in the mines and the expansion of Kentucky; railway system enabled companies to move into these new regions. Railroads were not only a major means of transporting coal but coal’s largest user.
Many believe the first surface mining operation was started near Paradise, Kentucky. The stripping of overburden, the rock and material covering the coal, was done during the summer and the coal was mined during the winter. The overburden was removed by horse-drawn plows and scrapers. Then it was hauled away in wheelbarrows and carts.
In the late 1800s, steam power shovels were used to remove the material covering the coal; however, these shovels were small and were limited in their effectiveness. As a result, little coal was actually mined. By 1911, this began to change as larger surface mining equipment was finally introduced and the first coal mined from a surface mine was shipped by rail.
Coal mining was to continue to grow until 1990. In that year, Kentucky experienced a record production in excess of 179 million tons. Underground coal production currently exceeds surface coal production by more than 50 percent.
Today, coal mining and the economy of Kentucky, have a close relationship. Many communities would suffer greatly from the loss of this important industry. Kentucky continues to employ more coal miners than any other state in the U.S.
What is Coal?
Coal originated as ancient plants that grew in swamps millions of years ago. Geological processes over vast spans of time covered, compressed and altered the decaying plants, increasing the percentage of carbon (and hardness) and thus producing the different ranks of coal. Lignite is the lowest rank of coal, and the softest, characterized by high moisture and low heat value. Subbituminous coal is next in rank with much less moisture and higher heat value. Bituminous coal – the primary type that occurs in Kentucky – contains very little moisture and has high heat value. Anthracite is the highest rank coal, and the hardest, with almost no moisture and very high heat value.
Along with carbon, coal contains hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur. In fact, coal contains small traces of almost every known mineral. Coal exists as layers, or seams, found between geologic rock layers. In Kentucky, the thickness of these coal layers may be less than an inch to more than ten feet. The coal seams presently mined in Kentucky are typically 2 to 7 feet thick.
Types of Mining in Kentucky
Surface Mining
Surface mining is used when coal seams lie close to the surface. Today’s surface mine operations are highly mechanized, moving huge volumes of earth in order to retrieve a relatively thin coal seam. In Kentucky, surface mine operations typically mine coal that is 25 to 150 feet below the surface. Below this depth, the cost of handling the rock and soil layers overlying the coal becomes prohibitive and the coal is too deep for most surface equipment.
With the passage of strict federal and state surface mining legislation in the late 1970s and early 1980s, coal companies are required to use mining procedures that protect the land and wildlife. Prior to mining, the area is surveyed and inventoried to determine the type and amount of vegetation and wildlife in the area. The mining company determines what conditions exist which must be addressed prior to, during and after mining. Following this pre-mining inventory and the issuance of a permit, mining operations begin.
The first step is clearing the land of all trees and vegetation. The topsoil and subsoil are then removed and set aside to be used later when reclaiming the land. The overburden – rock and other material covering the coal – is removed by draglines or large shovels to expose the bed of coal. If the overburden proves too hard, it is drilled and blasted. Smaller shovels load the coal onto large trucks.
Once the coal is removed, the area is reclaimed. First, the overburden is returned to the pit where the coal was removed. Next, the subsoil and topsoil are replaced. The area is restored as close to the original contour as possible. The reclaimed land is used in a variety of ways: crop land, wildlife habitats, pasture and wooded land, or recreation areas. These are only a few examples of the uses of reclaimed mine land.
Underground (Deep) Mining
Underground mines are developed when the coal is too deep for surface mining. Many of Kentucky’s underground mines are less than 400 feet deep but some are as deep as 1,000 feet. Over 75 percent of the coal mined annually in Kentucky comes from underground mines.
There are three types of underground mines: shaft, slope and drift. The type of underground mine developed depends on the coal seam. If a coal seam outcrops (appears at the surface) or is exposed from a surface operation but is too deep to surface mine, a drift mine can be driven horizontally into the coal seam. When the coal seam is relatively close to the surface yet too deep to be recovered by surface mining, a slope mine can be built, with the mine entrance being a tunnel which slants down from the surface to the coal seam.
The most common type of underground mine is the shaft mine. Used to reach coal seams which are too deep for surface mining or the other two types of underground mines, a vertical shaft is dug down to the coal seam. The shafts are used by miners to enter and exit the mine. The coal is removed through shafts as well.
There are two methods of underground coal mining used in Kentucky:
Room and Pillar: The coal seam is mined in a carefully engineered pattern that keeps approximately half the coal in place to help support the roof of the active mining area. These large "pillars" of coal are left while "rooms" are mined out around the pillars. Coal is removed either by continuous miner machines or conventional methods.
In Kentucky, the greatest amount of coal is mined using a machine called a continuous miner. This machine has a large drum which has rows of bits or teeth. The drum is pressed against the wall of coal and the rotating drum breaks down the coal. Large gathering arms on the machine scoop the coal. A conveyor on the machine then moves the coal back to where it is loaded on waiting shuttle cars. Shuttle cars are machines that have large hoppers and are used to move the mined coal away from the seam.
In conventional mining, a machine resembling a large chain saw cuts into the coal. This gives the coal a place to expand into during blasting. Holes are drilled and explosives are placed into the holes. After the explosives are detonated, machines, called loaders, scoop the coal and load it onto shuttle cars. Another way of blasting the coal is to use compressed air. Long metal cylinders are placed into the holes and the compressed air is released, causing the coal to break.
Longwall Mining: Becoming increasingly more popular, longwall mining is different from room and pillar in that all the coal is removed. Mined by a large rotating shear or drum, the machine moves along the wall of coal, cutting the coal as it moves. The coal falls onto a conveyor belt and is taken from the mine. This wall of coal is several hundred feet wide which is why this type of mining gets its names "longwall."
Since all the coal is removed, the miners must be protected from mine collapse by large steel shields that act as giant jacks to support the roof. After the coal is removed, the shields move forward with the mining operation, allowing the roof to collapse in the area just mined.
The collapsing roof will cause the surface to sink, which is called subsidence. Coal companies are required by federal and state laws to protect homes and property from subsidence and make repairs if damage occurs.
What Factors Determine the Type of Mining Used?
·Location of area to be mined
·The amount and type of overburden
·Thickness of coal seam
·The type of mining that provides the safest and most profitable results, with the least impact on the environment.
Safety in Kentucky Coal Mines
Protecting miners is a primary concern to the Kentucky coal industry. With both surface and underground mining, the safety of the workers is considered essential to the operation of a mine. Coal mining can be a hazardous occupation, and unless special precautions are taken, injury or death may result.
Over the past 20 years, the number of injuries and fatalities have notably decreased in Kentucky mines. It has been through the efforts of labor, management, and state and federal regulatory agencies that this has been achieved. The number one priority is to continue to provide a safe work environment for the Kentucky coal miner.
Underground Mine Safety
Ventilation: Good, fresh air is the most important safety concern. The purpose of good ventilation is to provide workers with a safe and healthy workplace. To ventilate an area means to provide fresh air, control the air movement and also to remove dust and dilute gases generated by mining activities. If the mined area is not properly ventilated, safe mining would not be possible.
The larger the mine, the more effort is needed to move air in and out of the mine. In larger mines, it is difficult to ventilate are from the mine face and provide a fresh supply because the air must travel farther distances.
At the mine face – the heart of the mining operation where coal is being cut away from surrounding rocks – naturally occurring gases, predominately methane, are liberated from the mined coal. Air circulated through the mine is considered "fresh" or "intake air." After the air passes the mine face, it is directed out of the mine in passages labeled "return air flow."
The primary concern with methane is that its presence in sufficient amounts can create an explosion. Most mining equipment operates at the coal face, such as roof bolters and continuous miners, are equipped with methane monitors that will automatically trigger equipment shut down at high methane levels. Methane gases exist in any geologic formation that once consisted of organic materials, such as plants.
Another safety concern is dust created by mining activities. In addition to the application of dust suppressants on interior mine surfaces, mine workers are supplied with respirators to filter dust particles from the air they breath.
Lighting: It is also important to provide proper lighting for underground mining operations to help prevent accidents from occurring. This includes lighting of the work area, travel routes and the machines. Another way to improve safety with lighting is to properly mark passages and exits. An underground mine can be very large. It contains many different rooms and roadways that have already been mined. In older mines, it could take a miner hours to get from the surface to the work area.
Roof Support: By using various roof support methods, the risk of the roof collapsing is greatly reduced. A good roof support plan includes constant checking of mine roof conditions, temporary support plans and permanent support plans. In order to support the roof of the mine, pillars and opening widths must be considered. Posts, jacks, bolts and beams are used to secure the walls and ceiling of the mine.
Rock Dusting: In a mine, the wall areas are covered with a white dust made of powdered limestone. The purpose of rock dusting the areas in the mine is to contain or minimize explosions, aid in the lighting of the mine and reduce health hazards.
Surface Mine Safety
In surface mine, different safety considerations have to be made, including proper communications, proper use of heavy equipment and precautions against falling rock.
Communications: Communication is important in any mining situation. In surface mining, certain signals tell the miners when an area is to be blasted. Electrical safety is important in surface mine situations. Many high voltage lines are found throughout the mined area.
In surface mining, poor housekeeping is one of the leading causes of accidents. Good housekeeping includes proper storage of combustible materials. They must be kept away from electrical components. Miners must be aware of accumulation of coal or coal dust around belts or machinery, which could cause machinery to break down. Equipment and tools must be put in their proper place.
Heavy Equipment: At surface mines, large heavy equipment such as draglines, shovels, haulers, scrapers and bulldozers are used to mine the coal. Great care must be taken when working around large machines. Accidents are most likely to occur when miners get on and off their machines or walk between machines. They may not be seen by other equipment operators nearby.
Equipment Worn by the Miners
Miners wear equipment that helps to keep them safe whether they work in a surface or underground mine. All miners must wear hard hats, steel-toed shoes and, at times, safety glasses. Underground miners are equipped with self-rescuers which allow them to breath in the event of a mine fire. Underground miners also carry gas detectors that are used to measure gases in the air. Some of these gases, such as methane, can be dangerous to the miner and can be explosive. Surface miners must also use hearing protection when working in high noise areas.
Safety Programs
Kentucky Department of Mines and Minerals: The Department of Mines and Minerals interprets the laws and makes decisions on many mining issues. The board also has the responsibility of certifying certain types of mining professions, such as mine examiners, mine managers, inspectors and hoisting engineers.
Mine Rescue: The Kentucky Department of Mines and Minerals, maintains mine rescue stations and teams throughout Kentucky. Mobile mine rescue unites are equipped with every emergency rescue device and instrument that might be needed. These units are located at the mine rescue stations where trained professionals are on call 24 hours a day. Rescue teams are available for both underground and surface mines. Also, and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) must be present when 30 or more individuals are working in a surface or underground mine. These EMTs must be available to provide care in the event of illness, injury or an emergency situation.
The Kentucky Mine Rescue Association hosts an annual mine rescue contest. The purpose of the contest is to simulate a portion of a mine where there has been a problem requiring the services of a rescue team. During the simulation, the rescue team will encounter situations similar to those found in underground mining. Each team will have to explore the mine, make gas checks, change ventilation and account for any miners who may have been trapped in the mine.
These practice contests sharpen the skills of rescue teams.
Discussion:
1. Briefly describe the steps of surface mining.
2. List three facts about surface mining:
a.
b.
c.
3. Name the two methods of underground mining:
a.
b.
4. Which method of underground mining results in the recovery of more coal?
5. List the four main areas of safety for underground mining and give a brief explanation of why each area is important:
a.
b.
c.
d.
6. How does safety differ between surface mining and underground mining?
7. What is the purpose of the Kentucky State Mining Board?
8. What function does the Kentucky Mine Rescue Association serve?
Adapted from materials developed by the Illinois
Department of Commerce and Community Affairs,
Office of Coal Development and Marketing
http://www.beatmuseum.org/ephemera/miss-b.html
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8983238
Is Modern Poetry Too Complicated For Modern Readers?
Modern poetry is markedly different from classic poetry. It relies less on meter and rhyme, and focuses more on biographical events and the everyday experiences of people. So why isn’t poetry more popular these days? Are there ways in which modern poetry is too complicated — and therefore uninteresting — to modern readers?
Superficially, modern poetry is simpler. Because rhyme and meter are emphasized less, we don’t get the tortured grammar of Shakespeare or Wordsworth. Modern poetry more often adheres to free verse, meaning that the poetry tends to follow conventional grammar more closely. Instead of Shakespeare’s inverted sentences (for example, “Why so large cost, having so short a lease,/Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?” from Sonnet 146 ), we get Vera Pavlova’s paradoxical, but grammatically clear lines (for example, “If there is something to desire/There will be something to regret” from her collection of poems by the same name ).
So in some ways, modern poetry isn’t too complicated. However, there’s a lot more to it than grammar.
Modern poetry frequently draws on academic references that make it difficult for non-graduate students to understand what is happening. T.S. Eliot is perhaps most famous for this. His famous poem “The Waste Land ” begins with a Greek quotation, makes references to Anglo-Saxon mythology and Buddhism in addition to more traditional Roman mythology, and has lines in German, French, and Italian. It’s easy to feel helpless when approaching a poem like “The Waste Land,” because most of us don’t have all of these references at our fingertips. A poet like T.S. Eliot makes modern poetry seem hard and makes it seem like poetry is only for elites who have the time to unravel complex mythology.
However, even parts of “The Waste Land” can be appreciated on their own. The fourth section of “The Waste Land” is a moving meditation on death, even if you don’t know who Phlebas is or where Phoenicia was located. There are ways in which modern poetry can be enjoyed in parts, rather than in wholes, that is unusual in poetry. Furthermore, many modern poets have started incorporating pop culture references into their poetry (for instance, Bay Area poet Uyen Hua references Mary J. Blige, among others, in her collection of poems a/s/l ), a move that makes her poetry more widely accessible.
Perhaps most interesting is the rise of translation. Suddenly poetry has a global reach, meaning that people can read poems from Palestine, India, and a variety of post-Communist Eastern European countries, in addition to the countries that have been traditionally translated (France, Italy, and Germany, for example). This means that readers are expected to know a vast amount of world history in addition to being up on current politics. In many ways, this is a good shift because it introduces Western readers to a variety of viewpoints that they may never have encountered before, but this shift also makes the poetry more complex.
Modern poetry is very complicated because it requires a lot of its readers. However, that doesn’t mean it’s too complicated. Sure some poems make you feel like you’re wading through molasses, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it. Poetry is a deeply individual genre. Just because one writer is too complex for you doesn’t mean that all modern poetry is too complex. Whenever you read poetry, keep Jasper Fforde ’s description of poetry in mind: “Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire. It's the crack cocaine of the literary world.” If a poem doesn’t hit you like crack cocaine, try a different poet. Soon you’ll find that modern poetry isn’t that difficult after all.
Picture Credit: V.H. Hammer
Moonshiner 28 from Tail of the Dragon at Deals Gap to Walhalla SC
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MOONSHINING
What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch. W. C. Fields
Being southern born with deep roots in rural Tennessee and North Carolina I heard a few moon shining tales in my lifetime. My uncle used to tell me about his illegal business practices hidden in a cave in the banks of a backwoods Tennessee river. He moved on to more legal pursuits before the law caught-up with him.
Jim Tom Hedrick
Shortly after relocating from the megatropolis of southeast Florida in 1991 to the backwoods of Robbinsville, North Carolina we met one of the moonshiners of the past. He was cooking 140 proof shine right in the open on the grounds of a well known local hotel. Jim Tom Hedrick with his thick country drawl entertained us for an hour with the adventures of his past, no doubt well embellished. He said he was just brewing ethanol so it was legal. Jim Tom was producing biofuels way ahead of his time!
Jim Tom went on to become somewhat of a local celebrity after being featured in several interviews, two movies and appearing in Matt Stillwell’s music video Shine in 2009. The video was actually filmed at Fontana Village located at the northern end of Moonshiner28.
We own two of Jim Tom’s autographed custom miniature copper stills which will become great collector items. We see Jim Tom just about every day in the warmer months riding the back roads of Graham County on his 50 cc cruiser. He makes the rounds to dumpster dive.
We just purchased an operational 40 gallon still from Jim Tom. It is a work of art and completely legal to own. It's illegal to cook though. According to Jim Tom back some 50 years ago when he learned to moonshine there were more than a hundred stills in operation around Robbinsville.
Jim Tom will proudly tell you that he holds the North Carolina State Record for DUIs with 21. And he also holds the record for surviving the worst motorcycle wreck in history. According to him he hit a car head-on at better than 100 miles an hour and flew into the air some 300 feet high. CLICK HERE FOR STORY Yes, Jim Tom is quite a character.
History of Illegal Whiskey Making
The governmental taxing of whiskey and illegal distilling is not a new thing. The Whisky Rebellion of 1791 was a result of the Congress under President George Washington laying a tax on alcohol. Most of the distillers of the time were farmers who lived in remote areas where it was difficult to get their grain to market. Their excess grain was distilled. The “Whiskey Boys” of Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina protested the tax, sometimes violently. Tennessee and Kentucky, not yet in existence, offered safe haven for distillers or they too would have been a part of the protests.
The violence turned to armed rebellion in 1794. One tax collector had his head shaved, his horse stolen and was then tarred and feathered. Washington responded with a sizable militia ordered into the countryside to arrest and detain the rabble. The suppression of the rebellion proved unpopular and became a detriment to the Federalist Party. The whisky tax was repealed in 1803.
The Civil War found a new whisky tax instituted to fund the Federal Government. The extremely high taxes were as much as eight times the cost of the liquor itself. Small distillers began hiding in the backwoods in order to avoid the taxes. The Revenue Bureau of the Treasury Department transformed their “collectors” into a policing authority. The Moonshiners and Revenuers were born.
From these early days of resistance to taxes we move into the early 1900s when the sale of alcohol was actually made illegal in many places. In an odd incongruity, the production of moonshine actually increased as more local municipalities heeded the outcries of the prohibition and temperance movements to make the sale of alcohol a crime. Prohibition also lowered the standards of quality as producers concentrated on making larger amounts to meet the increased demand. This substandard shine was termed “Mean Whisky” and could result in serious injury or even death. One medical problem, known as Jake Leg Syndrome, caused partial paralysis of the feet and legs after consuming a drink called Jake. Because of the underground nature of the business, health concerns were often ignored. Contaminants, bacteria, and poisonous additives sometimes created a potential danger to the consumer.
The term Moonshine comes from the fact that distilling illegal liquor is done underground or “in the moonlight”. The term bootlegger comes from early colonists who hid liquor in their boots in order to smuggle it to the Native Americans.
There are many different recipes for shine. Jim Tom says to “fill your barrel on up with water, put 60 pounds of sugar in it, and a gallon of sprout malt corn, that’s just sprouty corn to make it work, and cover it up. After about four days it will be ready to pour back in the still and run it through.”
The mash is then heated to about 175 degrees in the pot where vaporization occurs and flows into the "thumper" or "doubler" which acts as a second distillation. Without the doubler you have a "singlings" run which requires going through the entire distillation a second time to double the proof.
The vapor is then vented into a coil where it cools and condenses into shine ready to drink or sell. Stills were usually constructed in a remote area near a water source. Running cool water around the worm condenses the vapor into a liquid. The "thumper" was so named because of the sounds it make during production.
Some stills were actually made on wagons so they could be easily relocated. Today many are located indoors.
Moonshine Museum
Moonshiners have always had a touch of folk hero status rather than being seen as criminals. A few years ago we were KLRing the back roads of Virginia and came upon the White Liquor Museum in the small town of Ferrum. We spent more than an hour touring the displays immortalizing the moonshiners of old Franklin County, known as the Moonshine Capital of Virginia. There was a still mock-up, a souped-up 1951 Ford pick-up truck that had been used for running, lots of local newspaper articles from the past and Moonshine T-shirts that glowed in the dark.
The Museum no longer has the display, but here is a link to their on-line page The History and Culture of Untaxed Liquor in the Mountains of Virginia . Be sure to CLICK on the various links in the CHAPTERS SECTION for some very detailed information.
Popcorn Sutton
Another moonshiner hailed as a hero in Maggie Valley was recently in the news again. Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton, age 61, committed suicide on March 16, 2009 rather than serve time in a Federal Prison for yet another arrest. Popcorn, who at the time of his demise lived near Parrotsville, Tennessee in the Appalachian Mountains, came from a long line of moonshiners in western North Carolina. According to him, “the heyday of moonshining was from 1965 to 1972 when you could buy likker about every 200 feet in places.”
One of Popcorn’s last arrests was in 2007 when a fire broke out at his home in Parrotsville and his stills were discovered. He was fined and sentenced to two years probation. He was arrested again in 2008 and at trial his illegal activities all the way back into the 1970s was presented.
He was sentenced to serve time and would have likely spent only a year or so in prison. He stubbornly refused to accept such treatment and committed suicide. Today he is a local folk hero for his mountain ways, rugged individualism and likker making skills.
Moonshine and NASCAR
Another famous moonshiner operated in Wilkes County North Carolina in the 1950s and 1960s. Willie Clay Call bragged that “my daddy was a moonshiner, and my grandpa was in it too”. His good friend Junior Johnson, whose own father ran a still, learned to drive fast by running shine. “Out on the highway, you’re a-runnin’ for your life.” He goes on to brag, “They never caught me a-hauling.” The revenuers did catch him once while working his father’s still and he did eleven months in the pen.
Like many other runners of the time Johnson’s cars were more powerful than those on the race track. The engines were bored and stroked, supercharged and turbocharged. The favorite engine was the Cadillac ambulance V-8s, the biggest engines available. Suspensions were heavily modified to carry the extra weight in the trunk. By comparison the revenuers cars were anemic and called “mechanical miscarriages” by the agents who drove them. Most shiners were caught on-foot, not on the highways.
After winning the Daytona 500 in 1960 Junior quit the moonshine business. Today he legally sells Junior Johnson’s Midnight Moon Carolina Moonshine, an 80 proof corn-based liquor.
Moonshining Today
In the 1950s moonshining was quite prevalent in the south. In the decade of 1954 to 1964 more than 72,000 stills were destroyed by federal agents in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.
But likker makin' still goes on. A “white liquor” distiller in Wilkesboro was arrested in October 2009 and 929 gallons of moonshine was confiscated. Two brothers were arrested in Whitakers, North Carolina with 460 quarts of shine in November 2009. And in December 2009 community activist Gewndolyn Brown-Johnson of Charlotte was arrested for selling moonshine out of her child day care center. The distiller, 82 year-old Ervin Preston Finger, was arrested with 80 gallons of the hooch. Brown-Johnson said she didn’t know what was in the bag that the agent paid $80 for.
Today you can legally buy a part of the past with a purchase of Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine. This triple-distilled flavor moonshine is made in Madison, North Carolina and is totally legal. In shine circles the term Catdaddy described “the best of the best”.
In 2011 another brand of moonshine came on the market. Troy and Sons 80 proof is distilled in Asheville.
Thunder Road, the 1958 film starring Robert Mitchum, glorified the runners of the day. Most of the movie was filmed in western North Carolina. Some scenes were shot on the Dragon and Moonshiner28 itself. Other Hollywood moonshine movies fail to come close to the nostalgic popularity of Thunder Road with the theme song chorus, “Thunder, Thunder, over Thunder Road. Thunder was his engine, and white lightning was his load. Moonshine, moonshine, to quench the devil’s thirst. The law they never got him, ‘cause the devil got him first.”
Other moonshine movies: Why Kentucky Went Dry, Who’s Who in Hogg’s Hollow, Jerry and the Moonshiners all corn pone comedies. Moonshine Mountain – 1964 gory; Moonshine War – 1970 Alan Alda; I Walk the Line – 1970 Gregory Peck; White Lightening – 1973 Burt Reynolds; Bootleggers – 1974; Female Moonshiners – 1975; Bad Georgia Road – 1977; Moonshine County Express – 1977; Ain’t No Way Back – 1989; Moonshine Highway – 1996; and the two recent ones starring our own Jim Tom Hedrick. Jim Tom claims not to have been paid for these appearances.
Real moonshine comes in two "flavors" - legal and illegal. The essential difference is one is taxed and one is not. It’s all about the taxes. You can go into most any liquor store and buy moonshine such as Georgia Moon Corn Whiskey, Platte Valley Corn Whiskey or Catdaddy. The federal tax on a gallon of whiskey is $15.50.
It is legal to own a still; you can buy one online for less than $800. But if you want to produce any alcohol in your still, even for your own personal consumption, you need a federal permit. Under the alternative fuels law, you can make up to 10,000 gallons a year of ethanol, which can power engines when mixed with gasoline.
"Yes, you can have a still, but it must be permitted and you can produce spirits for fuel use only," said Art Resnick, director of public and media affairs for the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department. "Let's make this perfectly clear: It's illegal to make moonshine, which is untaxed spirits."
Even if a person wanted to make moonshine at home and pay federal taxes, it's not that simple. It requires a federal distiller's license and is cost-prohibitive for anyone other than a business.
Because of the difficulties in legally distilling your own spirits, a popular new home brewing underground is developing. Artisans are now busy making small batches of “craft” moonshine. The main idea is to create good tasting hooch for personal consumption rather than to produce large amounts for sale. This is still illegal. Oddly, home brewers can legally make beer and wine for personal use, but distilling liquor on an unlicensed still is a felony punishable with a $10,000 fine and up to 5 years in a federal penitentiary.
Why the difference between beer/wine and liquor? Money …. tax money to be specific. A bottle of whiskey is taxed more than $2 while the same size bottle of wine is about 20 cents. Beer is 5 cents a can. It is possible to obtain a license after going through reams of paperwork and spending some $20,000, but that is hardly worth it for the backyard distiller.
The first liquid out of the still was often unfit and sometimes poisonous so someone had to taste the shine as batches were cooked. The taster, risking his health for the good of the producer, determined when it was suitable for consumption. Jim Tom says that he discards the first quart out of a new still just to clean it out. After that it's all good.
Other names for moonshine include: Branch Water, White Lightning, Kickapoo, Moonshine, Happy Sally, Ruckus Juice, Joy Juice, Hooch, Panther’s Breath, Mountain Dew, Hillbilly Pop, Skull Cracker, Bush Wisky, Stump, Mule Kick, Catdaddy, Cool Water, Old Horsey, Rot Gut, Wildcat, Rise’n Shine and Splo.
In a recent article on Salon.com a commenter wrote: "I had the pleasure of attending one of Terry Sanford's famous "varmint dinners" at the president of Duke's residence when I was a visiting lecturer there. Before becoming president of Duke, Terry had been governor of North Carolina and at one point in his career, an FBI agent. The varmint dinners consisted of dishes made from rattlesnake, possum, real Brunswick stew from squirrel, crow pie, which Terry baked himself, and other critters. There were glistening carcasses throughout the large living room, creating a rather spectacular environment. Terry was in Oshkosh overalls, and served the "white lightning" himself, pouring it with glee. He seemed to have an unlimited supply! It knocked your socks off and was somehow a perfect beverage to serve with the food, which was splendid. To this day, I have wondered how Terry pulled it off. All he confessed was that it was made in North Carolina in the mountains. And with a wry grin, he poured you some more."
At the end of the dirt road, there was a stump. It had a big rock on it.
You drove to the end of the road at night. You stopped the car got out and put some paper money under the rock. Get in the car. Back up about 100ft. Turn your headlights off and tap your horn. Wait five minutes. Turn your headlights on. On the stump would be a jug of moonshine and the money would be gone.
Moral ambiguity can bring a lot to a novel.
For me, writing is a bit of a psychological experiment. I love creating morally gray situations and seeing how my characters react to them. What they do, what lines they cross, how far they’re really willing to go to get what they want. It’s a wonderful way to learn who they are and tell a richer story.
When situations aren’t so back and white, it gives us more opportunities to explore our story’s themes and characters. We can push boundaries to make a point or illustrate an idea. We can raise tensions and provide the emotional depth that keep readers invested. Life is messy, so why not take advantage of that with the tales we tell?
Here are three ways moral dilemmas can benefit your novel:
1. They Provide Inherent Conflict Both Internally, and Externally
internal and external conflict, choices, impossible choices
Force characters to make hard choices
In my fantasy adventure trilogy The Healing Wars, I experiment with how far someone might go to save a family member. My heroine, Nya, discovers her little sister Tali has disappeared and she has to find her and get her back. A simple premise, but what made this especially interesting to me is that Nya has the unique ability to heal by shifting pain from person to person. To help someone, she has to hurt someone else. I pushed this idea even further by forcing Nya to choose between hurting others and saving her sister.
To blur the moral line even more, Nya’s shifting ability can also get her into trouble if she uses it. Her city is under enemy occupation, and if the soldiers find out she can shift pain, they’ll capture her and use her as a weapon against her own people. She’s really stuck–risk herself, risk strangers, risk friends, risk family. No matter what she chooses, someone is going to suffer for it. There are no moral right answers for her.
Maybe it’s my dark side coming out, but putting my characters into tough situations to see what they’ll do makes the first draft more interesting. How far can I push Nya before she digs in her heels and says no way? Can I make her do what she swore she’d never do? Can I force her to make a horrible choice she deeply regrets, then force her to do it again?
(Here’s more on using internal and external conflicts)
2. They Keep the Outcomes Unpredictable
character choices, hooks, unpredicatable, twists
Choices add unpredictability
When choices are easy in a story, it’s clear how the characters will decide. Giving my characters impossible choices makes it more unpredictable–both for me and my readers. They never know where a choice might lead, but they’re pretty sure it’ll end badly for someone. And when my protagonist does make a hard decision, readers cringe right along with her.
For example, early on in the novel there’s a terrible accident and hundreds of people are injured. Afterward, Nya meets a boy who needs her help. His father was injured in the accident and is dying, and the boy needs Nya to heal him and shift his pain. The catch? She has to shift it into this boy and his younger brothers and sister (very young, 10 and 8). Does Nya hurt children to save their father? Risk trading their lives for his? And this request comes with the offer of food and a place to sleep for the night. Something Nya desperately needs at that point in the story. No matter what choice Nya makes, there are serious consequences.
(Here’s more on how impossible choices help hook readers)
3. They Help Readers Relate and Connect to the Characters
make readers care, make characrers likable
Make your readers cares
Having the protagonist in a moral dilemma also makes readers consider what they’d do in the same situation. Would they make the same choice Nya does? The same sacrifice? Would they walk away?
Getting readers to put themselves in the character’s shoes draws them deeper into the story, and the more they lose themselves in the tale, the more likely they are to enjoy that tale.
(Here’s more on making readers care about our characters)
Exploring the moral gray area is central to all my stories. My miniature studies of human nature, even if I’m the one making up all those humans. Hmm…do you suppose it’s really a study of me? Maybe my dark side is stronger than I thought.
Do you play with moral dilemmas in your novels? Do you have any favorites to read or write?
Find out more about characters, internalization, and point of view in my book, Fixing Your Character & Point-of-View Problems.
Go step-by-step through revising character and character-related issues, such as two-dimensional characters, inconsistent points of view, too-much backstory, stale dialogue, didactic internalization, and lack of voice. Learn how to analyze your draft, spot any problems or weak areas, and fix those problems.
With clear and easy-to-understand examples, Fixing Your Character & Point-of-View Problems offers five self-guided workshops that target the common issues that make readers stop reading. It will help you:
Flesh out weak characters and build strong character arcs
Find the right amount of backstory to enhance, not bog down, your story
Determine the best point(s) of view and how to use them to your advantage
Eliminate empty dialogue and rambling internalization
Develop character voices and craft unique, individual characters
Fixing Your Character & Point-of-View Problems starts every workshop with an analysis to pinpoint problem areas and offers multiple revision options in each area. You choose the options that best fit your writing process. It's an easy-to-follow guide to crafting compelling characters, solid points of view, and strong character voices readers will love.
[[McQueen|<iframe src="http://archive.org/embed/Saint_Louis_Bank_Robbery" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>]]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenberg_County,_Kentucky
"Big Brother" Power Shovel [img[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/0a/Bighog1wiki.jpg/440px-Bighog1wiki.jpg]]
https://www.pinterest.com/afordable/muhlenberg-co-history/?lp=true
Paradise (John Prine song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_(John_Prine_song)
Paradise Fossil Plant sits close to the original site of the village of Paradise, Kentucky. The power plant is the second largest plant in the TVA Fossil Fuels Plant Inventory with a rated output of 2,630 megawatts. It is composed of three units. Units 1&2 are twin 740 MW units while Unit 3 is the largest Cyclonic Boiler Unit in the World rated at 1,150 MW.
[img[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/28/AParadise1Wiki.jpg/1024px-AParadise1Wiki.jpg]]
http://www.beatmuseum.org/
Nashville Landmarks From the 1960s
Travel Tips
Ava Lee, Demand Media
In the '60s, Nashville's skyline was very different from today's.
In the '60s, Nashville's skyline was very different from today's.
By the late 1960s, Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, the original site of the Grand Ole Opry, was in disrepair, and Lower Broad -- as downtown's Broadway was called -- was the site of seedy honky-tonk bars and prostitution. But Nashville was proud of its L&C Tower, the first skyscraper in the South, which displayed colors that changed according to the weather. During the Christmas season, families went to Centennial Park to view Harvey's department store's life-size nativity scene on display in front of the replica Parthenon. In warmer weather everyone visited Fair Park to ride the wooden roller-coaster. If you visit Nashville today, you'll find remnants of many iconic '60s structures.
Country Music Hall of Fame
The Country Music Hall of Fame (countrymusichalloffame.org) was established in 1961 and opened in 1967 on Music Row; its first three inductees were Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers and Fred Rose. The museum then and now offers a timeline of country music, from its roots to the present-day sound; in addition, it houses an extensive collection of music and early film. At the original location, tourists could stand on an authentic piece of the Ryman Auditorium's stage. In 2001, the museum moved to downtown Nashville to a new facility near Broadway’s revitalized bar and nightclub scene. The Hall of Fame includes a snack bar, dining and a store and offers live performances and programs. A full tour of the facility includes a shuttle-bus trip to Music Row’s historic RCA Studio B, where hits were recorded by Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton, among others. The tour also takes you to downtown’s historic Hatch Show Print, where original posters have been printed by hand on a letterpress since 1879.
Cheekwood Botanical Garden
Cheekwood (cheekwood.org) was the home of the Cheeks of Maxwell House coffee fame, an early Nashville family that purchased the site's original 100 acres in 1928 as a private residence. The Cheeks' architect designed the mansion and its landscaping, along with its extensive formal gardens. In 1960, the gardens and mansion opened to the public. Visitors to Cheekwood can take in the ponds, fountains, pools, statues and a variety of gardens, including boxwood, perennial, herb and dogwood areas, as well as the mansion's art museum, which houses both permanent and temporary collections. You can enjoy lunch at the Pineapple Room, which overlooks the gardens, or the staff will prepare a box lunch for you to eat anywhere on the 55-acre site.
Municipal Auditorium
If you lived in Nashville during the 1960s and wanted to attend a large show, you went to downtown's Municipal Auditorium (nashvilleauditorium.com), which opened in 1962. Underneath its large, concrete domed roof, the venue hosted performances in the '60s that ranged from the Harlem Magicians basketball team, Dick Clark, Herman’s Hermits and "Holiday on Ice." In the 1970s, Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones performed here. Today, Municipal Auditorium still hosts a variety of events, including wrestling, rodeos and gymnastics competitions.
100 Oaks Mall
One of the most popular places in Nashville during the '60s was 100 Oaks Mall (vanderbilthealth.com/100oaks), which opened in 1968 as the city's first interior regional-class mall. It was a huge hit, and shoppers came from all over Tennessee to visit J.C. Penney, Woolco, Morrison's Cafeteria, Port o’ Call Records, a New York-style deli, a theater and a variety of other retail shops. The mall, once half-empty and dying, is enjoying a new incarnation as a center for medical offices, clinics and shops, along with a large multiplex theater.
Site of the First Baptist Church
While all that’s left is a historical marker, you can learn about a part of Nashville’s civil-rights past if you visit the site at Eighth Avenue North and Charlotte Pike where First Baptist Church once stood. The church in 1960 was the headquarters of the Nashville Sit-in Movement, which worked to end segregation through nonviolent means. The sit-in participants, many of them students at local colleges, attended strategy sessions and nonviolence workshops at the church. Black students marched from the church to sit in and demand service at the downtown lunch counters of the Woolworth's, McLellan’s and S.H. Kress 5 & 10 variety stores.
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About the Author
Ava Lee began writing professionally in 1982. She holds a master's and a bachelor's degree in English literature, and has proofread and copy edited for "Better Homes & Gardens" and the American Marketing Association, among other outlets. She has edited for more than 25 years.
Photo Credits
Streeter Lecka/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images
National Old Trails Road
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
National Old Trails Road, also known as the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, was established in 1912, and became part of the National Auto Trail system in the United States . It was 3,096 miles (4,983 km) long and stretched from Baltimore, Maryland (some old maps indicate New York City was the actual eastern terminus), to California . Much of the route follows the old National Road and the Santa Fe Trail .
Although the western half of the road was signed by the Automobile Club of Southern California in mid-1914, according to their in-house magazine Touring Topics, the routing remained under much discussion until 1917. In particular, the western alignment was debated, with an early proposed routing going though Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California , up to San Francisco, California .
Eventually, however, the alignment below was agreed upon, which followed earlier Indian trails, preexisting railroad tracks and, in some cases, new construction.
Throughout its life, the road was upgraded and realigned in order to improve the route. But, by 1926, significant portions in the west remained difficult to drive on, and much remained unpaved. Only 800 miles (1,300 km) were paved in 1927. Most of the road that traversed the California desert was widened and paved (or "oiled") by the late '20s, reportedly by a process pioneered by a local road superintendent, and some of this blacktop still can be found to this day.
In 1926, the section west of Las Vegas, New Mexico to Los Angeles, California was certified as U.S. Highway 66, (now better known as U.S. Route 66 ) by the AASHTO , as was a section in the St. Louis, Missouri area (Manchester Road).
In 1928 and 1929, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) had Madonna of the Trail monuments placed in each of the 12 states through which the highway passes.
After U.S. Route 66 was decommissioned, in eastern California portions of the road were renamed with the old name, and signed accordingly. Most of the modern-day "National Trails Highway" follows latter-day U.S. Route 66 , however, and not any of the alignments that actually were part of the original road (the main exception being the section of road between Barstow and Victorville, which follows the almost exact routing of the 1925 realignment of the road). The last alignment of National Old Trails Road in California (and the first alignment of U.S. Route 66 ) followed a distinct course from the modern-day route between Daggett and Essex, California, and now only survives as a series of now-disconnected jeep trails and abandoned tracks in various stages of decay. The modern day Route 66 in California is a result of a series of realignments that were undertaken in the early 1930s.
Route[edit source | editbeta ]
Cities along route (east to west):
Further reading[edit source | editbeta ]
The National Old Trails Road To Southern California, Part 1 (LA to KC); Automobile Club Of Southern California; 64 pages; 1916. (Download 6.8MB PDF eBook)
Richard K. and Sherry G. Mangum, 2008, The National Old Trails Road in Arizona. Flagstaff, Hexagon Press, ISBN 1-891517-09-0
External links[edit source | editbeta ]
'From Names to Numbers - The Origins of the U.S. Numbered Highway System' and 'The National Old Trails Road' (predecessor to Route 66) (Part 1) (Part 2) , by Richard F. Weingroff, Federal Highway Administration historian
National Old Trails Road photo gallery , at Federal Highway Administration
'Sagebrush Annie and the Sagebrush Route -- roadside history of part of the National Old Trails Highway in southern California
Madonna of the Trail | August Leimbach
Black woman lives across Nigger Creek,
Black woman making milk,
To feed white babies.
Black woman making catnip,
Across Nigger Creek,
Healing white baby's colic.
Black woman across Nigger Creek,
Making Ear Drops for white babies.
write about moral ambiguity. Can some possessed by evil, really be good or deserves all punishment?
Lilith was possessed after killing bad man for molesting sister. Lilith raised in milieu of country magic .
Intro
This intr gives the broad history of the coal mining region.
Type the text for 'Notes'
Tiddly Web Page
http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html
Chapter 1
2.1 Coal History Note
2.2 Sex and Molestation
2.3 Background
There was a young hillbilly bootlegger from the extreme hills. He went to a revival with his young wife. She was a teenage and very ill. They went for a healing. She did get healed that night. She went home and the tent revival left.
The wife tried to join to the locale log cabin church. The preacher said that he did not recognize the authority of the revivalist and refused to baptist her until she attended his church regularly and repent. There was not enough time to attend church regularly. She and her husband had so much work to do just to survive.
As the months passed, she again got sick and sicker. She died about six months after the tent revival. She had to be buried in unsanticified ground as she had not been baptized and a stranger spoke at her funeral.
At he service she had left her wheelchair and kneeled at the altar. The preacher lifted her up, whispered in her ear, and prayed loud for the crowd could hear. She entered a frenzied bliss. The preacher told her to tear off her braces and to run around the church.
She did and she had no pain.
After the revival, she went to the backwoods church with her husband. The husband was happy to have his wife back.
The log cabin church had been there for years. The old pastor had been there as long as anyone could remember. He was set in the old ways. The closed ways. The holy ways. He has the responsibility of shepherding the whole church.
When the young wife came and expected to continue on her spiritual journey, the pastor rejected her healing as not being from God and said her conversion was not valid.
The wife started to get sick again. She could feel the end coming. She asked, "Is there any meaning to death? Is it the end of the universe". Will it be for me?
The wife and husband were stunned and and were shunned by the church.
They were a lone until she died.
The holiness and baptism of fire movement was about personal experience. It was about the ectascy and the bliss. It was not about numbing or relaxing rituals. It was not about building a church in the woods. It was about building a temple inside the person.
Each person on this journey to oblivion works each day trying to make sense of the mystery and slowly builds their funeral pyre.
Chapter 2
3.1 Dave's Background
Chapter 3
4.1 Alternative A view on Hilda
Hilda decided she was tried of the mountain life. She was tried of being molested by her step daddy. She was tired of the jealousy of her mother.
She did not want to live her life on that mountain.
She ran away the year of 1962. She was 18 yo.
She hustled, hitch hiked, and caroulsed across the country.
She finally tumbled in with a carnival caravan and stayed with a road whore and con artist named Louise.
4.2 Kenny's Background
Brother Kenny had joined the traveling salvation show in the Spring. He had come highly recommended as he had just had finished a revival circuit and had brought the fire of the spirit into many small churches. He had the knack on getting a crowd fired up and then being able to close the deal during an altar call. He could burn up a harmonica while playing the electric guitar, and dance in the spirit all at the same time. He was 21 yo and single and the ladies in the congregations loved him. He had recently started letting his hair grow out and was now fond of wearing pointed Beatles’s boots.
Chapter 4
5.1 Kenny Joins the Tent Revival
Chapter 5
6.1 Hilda joins the Carnival Caravan
The carnival was in the middle of his Summer season and was traveling throughout KY and and the western side of the Appachlains. It was just too much trouble to haul the amusement rides through the mountains.
As usual the carnival had pulled into town on a Wednesday in order to be set up and running for the weekend. The locations were usually booked months in advance. Utilities had to be arranged. Permits and inspections done. And palms greased. They usually worked Noon to Midnight so they had some time to carouse the local night life. Sometimes Hilda and Louise made more money in a night hustling at a bar than they did all week scamming at the carnival.
Dave has been traveling with his Dads’ traveling tent revival since he had been kicked out of college. He had been traveling what was known as the “sawdust” trail. The name sawdust came from all the wood chips they left behind after they left a place and spilled on the way to another camp. They were about halfway through the year’s campaign. Dave usually just did odd jobs and paid a box guitar in the evening services. Once in a while he would get to play a song solo.
Chapter 6
7.1 Kenny and Dave Start Performing
Chapter 7
Azuzu Chapter 7 The Meeting in the Bar
Chapter Seven
Into a Troubled Triad
Hilda had been hitching around for a few weeks. She was not really running from anything, but it felt to her like someone was after her. She often felt like a coon being pursued by baying dogs. She was running from trouble and all too frequently into trouble. She had seen her share of hustles, quacks, and kooks. Most of her time was spent traveling with the carnival. She earned her keep by a variety of jobs. She washed, drove trucks, cleaned, gambled, sweet talked, ran the carnival rides, sang, hustled the crowd, and occasionally worked as a hochie coochie girl.
It was an adventure she enjoyed. She was only twenty and had the energy to enjoy her reputation as a fast girl. She was riding life like a war horse. She met her share of boys, seemingly a new one in every town. She saw the insides of a many honky tonk and was the source of not a few drunken attentions.
Hilda shared a travel trailer with Louise. Louise was in her mid to late thirties. She was an attractive woman, but had a hard edge which advertised she was not easy pickins. She had been with the circus for about five years. She had takened up the nomadic way after a bad run with a man. She never quite told the whole story, but many of the troupe had piece together that she had fallen in love with a con man while she was still a teen and ran away from home. He had used and abused her and had her as a partner in crime across the North and West. She still had a half dozen warrants out for her and that is why she didn’t ever go north of Ohio or west of the Mississippi. By the time of the night she left him, that night in Chicago, she had had enough. After he had beat her in a drunken rage, she had tied him up after he passed out and whacked him a few times on the head with his Wild Turkey whiskey bottle as she was leaving with as much money and valuables she could find on him and in their belongings. He bled a lot and moaned. She did not know how bad he was hurt nor did she care. She did not look back. She never went back to Chicago. As far as she knew he could be dead and there was a murder warrant for her, or he could be alive and gunning for her. She had hooked up the carnival in Louisville working the summers. They traveled farther south as the seasons turned and usually ended up wintering for a few months in the Keys every year.
The carnival was in the middle of his Summer season and was traveling throughout KY and and the western side of the Appachlains. It was just too much trouble to haul the amusement rides through the mountains.
No one would never know if Louise would have entered the life if not for that man. But entered it she had. It was all she knew. And she was pretty good at turning a dollar. Or a trick. Survive she would at any cost.
As usual the carnival had pulled into town on a Wednesday in order to be set up and running for the weekend. The locations were usually booked months in advance. Utilities had to be arranged. Permits and inspections done. And palms greased. They usually worked Noon to Midnight so they had some time to carouse the local night life. Sometimes Hilda and Louise made more money in a night hustling at a bar than they did all week scamming at the carnival.
Dave has been traveling with his Dads’ traveling tent revival since he had been kicked out of college. He had been traveling what was known as the “sawdust” trail. The name sawdust came from all the wood chips they left behind after they left a place and spilled on the way to another camp. They were about halfway through the year’s campaign. Dave usually just did odd jobs and paid a box guitar in the evening services. Once in a while he would get to play a song solo.
Brother Kenny had joined the traveling salvation show in the Spring. He had come highly recommended as he had just had finished a revival circuit and had brought the fire of the spirit into many small churches. He had the knack on getting a crowd fired up and then being able to close the deal during an altar call. He could burn up a harmonica while playing the electric guitar, and dance in the spirit all at the same time. He was 21 yo and single and the ladies in the congregations loved him. He had recently started letting his hair grow out and was now fond of wearing pointed Beatles’s boots.
Brother Kenny was generally the center of attention and what was politely called an extrovert.
Dave and Kenny were opposites in personality. Dave was introverted, introspective, and contemplative. Kenny was impulsive and loud and his energy was near manic. They were the same age and became the kind of friends where the opposites came together to form another personality.
Dave and Kenny had decided to go out that night in Bowling Green.
Louise and Hilda had decided to go out that night in Bowling Green.
I was just a matter of fate that they ended up in the same place. It was a matter of conniving and manipulation that they ended up parked at the Rochester Dam listening to the radio and making out.
8.1 Alternate Notes
David and Uzie first met Lily at JC's BBQ and Grill bar in Bowling Green, KY.
David and Uzie was brothers. Uzie was the showman and David was the support.
Their family is back with the tent revival which has made camp outside of town and close to the Green River.
It is Saturday night in 1964.
David and Uzie are playing for tips at JC's. David has a Martin guitar and Uzie a tam-borline. The tips are sparse and will hopefully pay their gas back to the tent. The bought drinks come much more freely. After things gets a little loose, Uzie may even invite a few people to the revival.
David and Uzie go about the same thing during week and on Sunday mornings, except instead of getting tips, they get an offering.
People in the audience often partied hard on Saturday night and showed their asses. Many of these would do the same thing on Sunday morning. On Saturday night they were drunk on the booze and they were seduced by the opposite sex. On Sundays, they were often drunk in the Spirit and seduced the opposite sex. Women flashed their legs and eyes on Saturday on drink and done the same on Sundays in the Spirit.
They would get drunk on Saturday night. They stagger home with their partner for the night. And then get up and stagger to Sunday School with a hangover. Sometimes even the newly found couples would show up at the meeting and a rustle of whispers would go throw the crowd. Sometimes these hook ups would last. Others would be over by the next weekend.
Church was more that a meeting for religious services. It was often the center of social life in many small towns. It was often were you met you future wife or husband. It is where you met your friends. It was where you met your family.
The bar was the same as the church in practically every-way plus it added the social lubricant of alcohol which tended to speed things up.
Just as those in the world use alcohol as a lube, the holy rollers used the "baptism of the spirit" to get drunk in the spirit and to then do things out of the ordinary.
Uzie had the habit of flirting with the girls, whether in the church or in the bar. He was a good looking guy. He had reddest blond hair, blue eyes. He was tall and slender, almost skinny. He was either pale or red faced depending on the mood. He looked every bit the Scotts-Irish which was his heritage. Uzie would use all to seduce a young lady about every night.
David was dark. He had dark hair and dark eyes. He was also tall and slender. He had the habit of moving slowly, speaking slowly, and staying in the background. This was just the opposite of Kenny who was loud and out front of everything.
David played the guitar. Kenny used the tamborlne and sang.
No pair of twins had been more different.
But neither had to be handsome as they were to strike up an interest in the audience. Through out history a man could be a troll or a frog or the most unappealing man in appearance, but if he would get up in front of the church and make them laugh or make them cry, the frog would become a prince.
David first met Lily at the bar. She was like a dark Marilyn Monroe. Not as sultry has Sophie Loren, but as flirtatious affected as Marilyn. Yes her manner was forced and affected, but effective nevertheless. She was dressed like an uptown whore in a ten cent juke box place. Maybe it would be better to compare her to Liz Taylor in Cleopatra. She had the same long black hair, cut in a long page boy style. She had doe like cow eyes framed with dark make up and false eye lashes. She was slim, but yet curvy with full breasts and round hips. She was a buffet in movement and you did not know where to land your eyes. She knew she looked good and she knew how to make herself shine. She had a dramatic flair. Just walking across the floor was a three act play in motion, wiggling into a booth, and then telling David with her eyes, lips, and curved finger with the long red finger nail to join her. She just oozed sex and David could almost smell it as he slid in the booth beside her.
Often after him and Kenny finished playing, people would invite him for a drink. He played the guitar, but this girl played the room.
They made small talk.
He go up to play a few more songs and when he found her table to steal a glance, she was gone.
8.2 The Meeting
Azuzu Chapter 7 The Meeting in the Bar
Chapter Seven
Into a Troubled Triad
Hilda had been hitching around for a few weeks. She was not really running from anything, but it felt to her like someone was after her. She often felt like a coon being pursued by baying dogs. She was running from trouble and all too frequently into trouble. She had seen her share of hustles, quacks, and kooks. Most of her time was spent traveling with the carnival. She earned her keep by a variety of jobs. She washed, drove trucks, cleaned, gambled, sweet talked, ran the carnival rides, sang, hustled the crowd, and occasionally worked as a hochie coochie girl.
It was an adventure she enjoyed. She was only twenty and had the energy to enjoy her reputation as a fast girl. She was riding life like a war horse. She met her share of boys, seemingly a new one in every town. She saw the insides of a many honky tonk and was the source of not a few drunken attentions.
Hilda shared a travel trailer with Louise. Louise was in her mid to late thirties. She was an attractive woman, but had a hard edge which advertised she was not easy pickins. She had been with the circus for about five years. She had takened up the nomadic way after a bad run with a man. She never quite told the whole story, but many of the troupe had piece together that she had fallen in love with a con man while she was still a teen and ran away from home. He had used and abused her and had her as a partner in crime across the North and West. She still had a half dozen warrants out for her and that is why she didn’t ever go north of Ohio or west of the Mississippi. By the time of the night she left him, that night in Chicago, she had had enough. After he had beat her in a drunken rage, she had tied him up after he passed out and whacked him a few times on the head with his Wild Turkey whiskey bottle as she was leaving with as much money and valuables she could find on him and in their belongings. He bled a lot and moaned. She did not know how bad he was hurt nor did she care. She did not look back. She never went back to Chicago. As far as she knew he could be dead and there was a murder warrant for her, or he could be alive and gunning for her. She had hooked up the carnival in Louisville working the summers. They traveled farther south as the seasons turned and usually ended up wintering for a few months in the Keys every year.
The carnival was in the middle of his Summer season and was traveling throughout KY and and the western side of the Appachlains. It was just too much trouble to haul the amusement rides through the mountains.
No one would never know if Louise would have entered the life if not for that man. But entered it she had. It was all she knew. And she was pretty good at turning a dollar. Or a trick. Survive she would at any cost.
As usual the carnival had pulled into town on a Wednesday in order to be set up and running for the weekend. The locations were usually booked months in advance. Utilities had to be arranged. Permits and inspections done. And palms greased. They usually worked Noon to Midnight so they had some time to carouse the local night life. Sometimes Hilda and Louise made more money in a night hustling at a bar than they did all week scamming at the carnival.
Dave has been traveling with his Dads’ traveling tent revival since he had been kicked out of college. He had been traveling what was known as the “sawdust” trail. The name sawdust came from all the wood chips they left behind after they left a place and spilled on the way to another camp. They were about halfway through the year’s campaign. Dave usually just did odd jobs and paid a box guitar in the evening services. Once in a while he would get to play a song solo.
Brother Kenny had joined the traveling salvation show in the Spring. He had come highly recommended as he had just had finished a revival circuit and had brought the fire of the spirit into many small churches. He had the knack on getting a crowd fired up and then being able to close the deal during an altar call. He could burn up a harmonica while playing the electric guitar, and dance in the spirit all at the same time. He was 21 yo and single and the ladies in the congregations loved him. He had recently started letting his hair grow out and was now fond of wearing pointed Beatles’s boots.
Brother Kenny was generally the center of attention and what was politely called an extrovert.
Dave and Kenny were opposites in personality. Dave was introverted, introspective, and contemplative. Kenny was impulsive and loud and his energy was near manic. They were the same age and became the kind of friends where the opposites came together to form another personality.
Dave and Kenny had decided to go out that night in Bowling Green.
Louise and Hilda had decided to go out that night in Bowling Green.
I was just a matter of fate that they ended up in the same place. It was a matter of conniving and manipulation that they ended up parked at the Rochester Dam listening to the radio and making out.
8.2.1 Note on Meeting
8.2.2 Going to Church
Chapter 8
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s24/res/bba5641e-7299-471a-8766-744b49ab9f4b/photo.JPG?search=trio&resizeSmall&width=1020
9.1 The Trio Performs
Chapter Eight The Trio
Dave looked out over the bar. It was smokey and hazy. It was dark and the smell of sin was in the air. It was an exciting place.
Kenny, Hilda, and Dave were performing at the Cardinal in Nashville, TN. Kenny had arranged for them to play there as he usually handled such things. The place had all they needed. There was a small stage in the storefront. There was an old upright piano. There was a PA system and microphones. They brought two guitars, an accordion, and a tambourine. And most important they had an audience.
They had been playing together on the tent revival circuit and at the occasional tavern. They felt like they were gaining fans. Who knows, with them playing Nashville they might get a record deal or get to be on some radio show. Who knows the sky is the limit for the ambitious youth. They played a mixture of gospel, hillbilly, country, folk, and rock. Kenny did most of the arranging of the song list and he usually put the old time tear jerking gospel music at the end.
Tonight they started out with an Elvis rocker and followed up with a ballad by Hank.
The crowd was more attentive to their drinking than they were to the trio, but there were more than a few single men watching swaying to the music and throwing a smile and patting the tambourine.
They were scheduled to play just one set and a dance band would be coming on. They would be out by midnight and have plenty of time to get some rest before the Sunday morning service. The bar manager had paid them just enough to cover their gas and a bit to eat. If they made any real money it would be on the tips. They had the tip jar on a stool in front of the small stage.
The songs that seemed to bring them tips varied from place to place and time to time. Tonight the song, Blowing in the Wind, seemed to be the money maker as let them shine as sound a likes for Peter, Paul, and Mary in their performance of a Bob Dylan song.
The bars in Nashville were unlike any other bars across the country. Here was a mixture of the famous, the rich, bums, and the religious. It was not usual to see a star at the bar standing next to a couple from Canada. It was a equal opportunity place to enjoy one's self and most usually did.
9.1.1 Blowing in the Wind
Chapter 9
Kenny flirts more and more with Hilda. They have a David and Bathseba moment when she was taking a shower at a camp set up. They ended up having sex as she could say no.
Who Seduced Whom?
The relationship of Bathsheba and David centered on one question expressed by the Women in the Bible website: Who seduced whom?
Their story is told in 2 Samuel 11 and 12, set against the backdrop of David's war against the Ammonites, a tribe from a region east of the Dead Sea that is now part of present-day Jordan. 2 Samuel 11:1 records that the king sent his army out to wage war, but he himself stayed behind in Jerusalem. Obviously David was secure enough on his throne that he no longer had need to go to war to prove his military power; he could send his generals instead.
Thus King David was relaxing on a palace balcony above the city when he spied a beautiful woman taking a bath. Through his messengers, David learned that she was Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite, who had gone to battle for David.
This raises a key question: did Bathsheba set her cap for the king, or did David force his lust on her? Traditional biblical scholarship holds that Bathsheba couldn't have been ignorant of her home's proximity to the palace, given that David was close enough that he could see her taking a bath outside. What's more, Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, had left her to go fight for David.
Although feminist biblical interpretation contends that Bathsheba was a victim of David -- after all, who can say no to a king? -- other scholars find a clue to Bathsheba's complicity among King David's wives in 2 Samuel 4:11. This verse says unequivocally that when David sent messengers to fetch her, she came back with them. She wasn't coerced, nor did she use any of the many excuses she could have for not seeing another man, even a king, while her husband was away. Instead, she went to David of her own free will, and thus bears some responsibility for what happened afterward.
King David Isn't Innocent, Either
Even if Bathsheba had decided to seduce King David, scriptures deem David's sin in their affair to be greater for two reasons. Once he found out Bathsheba's identity, he knew that:
she was married and
he had sent her husband off to war.
Clearly a liaison with her would violate the seventh commandment against adultery, and a king of Israel was supposed to be a religious leader as well as a political leader.
Nonetheless, David and Bathsheba engaged in sexual intercourse, and she returned home. The whole thing might have ended there were it not for a subordinate clause in 2 Samuel 4:11: "she [Bathsheba] had just purified herself after her period."
According to Jewish purity laws, a woman must wait seven days after her menses end before purifying herself ritually in a mikvah, a special immersion pool, so that she and her husband may resume sexual relations. The biblical text implies that this ritual purification was the bath that David saw Bathsheba taking. Depending on the length of a woman's period, this seven-day injunction before purification virtually guarantees that a woman will most likely be ovulating, or close to ovulating, when she resumes having sex.
Consequently, Bathsheba and David had sex at one of the best possible moments for her to conceive -- which she did, with tragic results.
David Connives Uriah's Death
Not long after Bathsheba and David committed adultery, Bathsheba sent a message to David telling him she was pregnant. Now the pressure was really on the king, who might have concealed his affair with Bathsheba, but couldn't hide her pregnancy for long. Instead of owning up to the liaison and making restitution, David took an even more sinful approach to the crisis.
First, 2 Samuel 11:7-11 says that David tried to attribute Bathsheba's pregnancy to Uriah. He recalled Uriah from the front, supposedly to give him a report on the battle, and then told him to take some leave and visit his wife. But Uriah didn't go home; he stayed within the palace barracks. David asked Uriah why he didn't go home, and loyal Uriah replied that he wouldn't dream of having a conjugal visit when David's army at the front has no such opportunity.
Next, in 2 Samuel 12 and 13, David invited Uriah for dinner and got him drunk, figuring that intoxication will arouse Uriah's desire for Bathsheba. But David was foiled again; drunk though he was, honorable Uriah returned to the barracks and not to his wife.
At this point David was desperate. In verse 15, he wrote a letter to his general, Joab, telling him to put Uriah in the front lines where the fighting is fiercest, and then to withdraw, leaving Uriah undefended. David sent this letter to Joab by Uriah, who had no idea that he was carrying his own death sentence!
David and Bathsheba's Sin Results in Death
Sure enough, Joab put Uriah in the front lines when David's army attacks Rabbath after a long siege, although Joab didn't withdraw the army as David instructed. Despite Joab's action, Uriah and other officers were killed. After a mourning period, Bathsheba was brought to the palace to become the latest of King David's wives, thus assuring the legitimacy of their child.
David thought he pulled off this caper until the prophet Nathan came to visit in 2 Samuel 12. Nathan told the powerful king a tale of a poor shepherd whose lamb was stolen by a rich man. David flew into a rage, demanding to know who the man was so that he could exact judgment on him. Nathan calmly told the king: "You are the man," meaning that God had revealed to the prophet the truth of David's adultery, deceit and murder of Uriah.
Even though David had committed sins worthy of execution, said Nathan, God instead exacted judgment upon David and Bathsheba's newborn son, who subsequently died. David consoled Bathsheba by getting her pregnant again, this time with a son they name Solomon.
Bathsheba Became Solomon's Closest Adviser
Although she seems passive at the beginning of her relationship with David, Bathsheba became King David's most famous wife because of the way she secured David's throne for their son, Solomon.
By now David was old and feeble, and his oldest surviving son, Adonijah, attempted to usurp the throne before his father died. According to 1 Kings 1:11, the prophet Nathan urged Bathsheba to tell David that Adonijah was preparing to take the throne by force. Bathsheba told her aged husband that only their son Solomon remained loyal, so the king named Solomon his co-regent. When David died, Solomon became king after executing his rival Adonijah. The new King Solomon valued his mother's help so much that he had a second throne installed for her so that she became his closest adviser until her death.
Bathsheba and David References :
The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford University Press, 2004).
"Bathsheba," Women in the Bible, URL = www.womeninthebible.net/1.11.Bathsheba.htm
"Bathsheba," Women in Scripture, Carol Meyers, General Editor (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).
Comments? Please post in this forum thread .
10.1 The Seduction
Chapter 10
11.1 Lumberjack Shows
Chapter 11
12.1 Alternate Leaving of Tent
Dave and Hilda go on road running from tent grop because they killed a man. His name was Lumberjack.
He had raped Hilda while they were with a caravan months early. Hilda had told her trailer mater Louise and she beat Lumberjack and excel him from the caravan. Lumberjack was beat to a pulp and swore to kill Hilda.
While traveling with the revival, Lumberjack show up at tent meeting. Hilda scared. He tried to get her between trailers and Dave killed him with a hatchet. They took the body out to the woods and hid him.
They packed up their stuff and went on the road.
This is one of the stories.
Under the Beaming Stars
It had been an adventure for Dave and Lilly as they hitch-hiked across the south.
Last night they had camped out near a bill board after the traffic on their back road had died out.
They had been awoken by some military police at dawn with gruff voices and 45 pistols pointed at them. This anxiety was piled on the anxiety they had about getting kicked out of the town across the county. The MP's said get up and get out as they were on a military base.
Yesterday had been about usual for them. They had scrounged around and looked for money and food. It was a small town, like many they had passed through lately. They had stood on the town square trying to sell Bible pamphlets or veterans' lapel flags. It had been a bad day for bumming around. No one had offered to buy them a meal and the sales had garnered less than a dollar in change. About mid afternoon the town constable came and told them to move on or they would be arrested for loitering. They couldn't hitch in front of the man, so they began their long walk out of town.
At the edge of town was a small country store. Dave left his large and heavy back pack next to a tree outside. He and Lily went in to see how much of a meal they could buy for 85 cents.
They picked out some crackers and a pint of milk and went to the register to pay for it. Dave looked over his shoulder at the cashier who was giving them a hard and angry stare. Dave thought to himself that she must not like hippies. He gathered his back pack and he and Lily started walking toward the crossroads about two miles down the road. It was a national road and it would be much easier getting a long distance ride.
After about fifteen minutes of walking a county sheriff patrol car pulled over behind them. The officer got out and starting walking toward us. A few seconds later, the passenger door opened. It was the lady cashier from the store.
The lady was mad. She strutted up to Lily and said in a loud and angry voice, "Give to me what you stole." I started to say we didn't steal anything, but I caught myself as Lily reached into her big floppy purse and brought a can of tuna fish out. Lily started crying.
The officer said, "I should arrest you all for shop lifting. I don't want you around here so don't stop and keep walking till get out of my county."
The lady said, "You should've just told me that you were hungry." She slipped the can of tuna fish into her purse and got back into the patrol car. The officer got back in and briefly turned on his lights as he did a U turn and sped off the way they had come.
Dave did not really know if they had made it out of the county when they settled down that night. They used the light of the billboard to set up their small camp and to eat their meal of crackers and lukewarm milk.
The stretched out and their sleeping bag. After they had made love, Dave looked up at the stars at peace and in the glow of Lily. He felt like the luckiest guy a live and being there his could just reach out and touch the Holy Spirit of God radiating in the star beams.
The beams of light seemed like he could just reach out and grab one like a rope and shimmy his way up to Heaven and to touch the face of God.
Chapter 12
13.1 Joining the Hippy Commune
Chapter 13
14.1 Adventure on Road
Chapter 14
15.1 The Philosophy
Chapter 15
16.1 Kenny Becomes Famous
Chapter 16
17.1 Visiting with Kenny the Jesus Freaks
Chapter 17
18.1 Flashbacks and PTSD
Chapter 18
Azuzu Chapter 18
Hilda has her babies.
Hilda had been traveling with Dave and the Hippies for several months on the love bus.They had traveled all over the south. They had hustled, beg, partied and generally had a good time except when she wasn't. Hilda was generally a bummer for the whole group. She was emotional. She would throw fits, She would manipulate. She was selfish and egotistical. The group learned pretty quick that Hilda was great for partying one day with, but she was way too draining to spend your life with.
Even Dave would grow exasperated with her and her tantrums. There was just no pleasing her sometimes. It seemed the more intimate they became physically the more emotionally distant she become.
Spiritually, everyone in the group was growing closer and more enlightened except for Hilda. While more of the group was in the bliss of an acid trip and find answers to heaven, Hilda was trying to crawl out of Hell.
Since she had started doing acid, she had started having flashbacks of being raped and molested. She would re-live all of her torment in a flash, and it affected her emotionally. Sometimes when she would be having sex with Dave, she would see and smell her step father and become like a rag doll that she used to do with him. Sometimes it was better when she was a rag doll because she truly felt like a victim. The times when she enjoyed it, afterwards guilt would pour into her soul like melted lead. And this guilt weighed her down all of her days. During these flashbacks of sex, the emotional baggage would be with her for days.
Other times she would have flashbacks of the Lumberjack and have the terror she had when he raped her. Sometimes this was followed by visions of is rotting body and she would be bagged up in a bundle of guilt and terror which would stay with her.
She certainly gave out bad vides and most of the group stayed away from her. She would increasingly become more isolated till Dave came back to their sleeping area at night.
In Ashville, the group made camp for several weeks with the commune in the mountains.
One day, after hearing of a free clinic, by someone asking volunteers, she though she would go for a check up. She had been nausea and dizzy for a few days. She borrowed a bike and road into town. There was a tent set up in the park with a big sign saying Free Clinic. She checked with the girl at the folding table and was directed across the street to the store front clinic. The reception was triaging and thought her complaints needed evaluated right away.
The girls in the office weighed her. Took her temp and blood pressure. They gave her a little cup and directed her to the rest room to give a urine sample. They then directed her into a small room with an exam table. After a few minutes a young man with long shaggy hair and a lab coat comes in with a clip board. He speaks to her and he has a heavy Boston accent. She asks him about it and he explains that he had come south to do some mission work.
The doctor asked her specific questions about her habits, living arrangements, drugs, alcohol, whether she was married, had she any children. He then examined her and listened to her chest and heart. The last thing he did was call in a nurse. He explained that he was going to do a pelvic exam and that the nurse was going to help.
He finished up and told her to get dressed and that the nurse would bring him back to his private office.
The doctor was just finishing up when Hilda walked into the room. He told her to have a seat. He started out did she suspect that she was pregnant. She said no. Well he said your urine test and the pelvic exam confirms that you are about three months pregnant. She let out a gasp. Did you not miss your periods. yes but that was not unusual.
She was scared. While she was in the waiting room, she had read some of the pamphlets and had seen one entitled LSD and Birth Defects.
He asked her plans and recommended a course of follow up appointments. She gave him answers, but she really did not know what she was going to do.
As she was walking across the park, she decided to do what she usually did. She would run. She would disappear.
She would find Kenny. He would help.
###Segway### This section will be an exposition on Kenny's morphing into a televangist and faith healer. He had left the tent circuit.
The third part of this section will be Hilda find Kenny. She starts to tell him that she is pregnant, but she is caught up emotions. She ends up in bed with him and kinda on a honeymoon of a rush of love. She delays telling him. After several weeks the belly grew more pressing. She had to tell him. She tells him that she is pregnant and before she could tell him the rest of the story, he rushes to her and hug and shallows her up.
Don't worry. I love you and you love me. We will elope and get married as soon as possible. And they do.
19.1 Hilda Pregnancy
Azuzu Chapter 18
Hilda has her babies.
Hilda had been traveling with Dave and the Hippies for several months on the love bus.They had traveled all over the south. They had hustled, beg, partied and generally had a good time except when she wasn't. Hilda was generally a bummer for the whole group. She was emotional. She would throw fits, She would manipulate. She was selfish and egotistical. The group learned pretty quick that Hilda was great for partying one day with, but she was way too draining to spend your life with.
Even Dave would grow exasperated with her and her tantrums. There was just no pleasing her sometimes. It seemed the more intimate they became physically the more emotionally distant she become.
Spiritually, everyone in the group was growing closer and more enlightened except for Hilda. While more of the group was in the bliss of an acid trip and find answers to heaven, Hilda was trying to crawl out of Hell.
Since she had started doing acid, she had started having flashbacks of being raped and molested. She would re-live all of her torment in a flash, and it affected her emotionally. Sometimes when she would be having sex with Dave, she would see and smell her step father and become like a rag doll that she used to do with him. Sometimes it was better when she was a rag doll because she truly felt like a victim. The times when she enjoyed it, afterwards guilt would pour into her soul like melted lead. And this guilt weighed her down all of her days. During these flashbacks of sex, the emotional baggage would be with her for days.
Other times she would have flashbacks of the Lumberjack and have the terror she had when he raped her. Sometimes this was followed by visions of is rotting body and she would be bagged up in a bundle of guilt and terror which would stay with her.
She certainly gave out bad vides and most of the group stayed away from her. She would increasingly become more isolated till Dave came back to their sleeping area at night.
In Ashville, the group made camp for several weeks with the commune in the mountains.
One day, after hearing of a free clinic, by someone asking volunteers, she though she would go for a check up. She had been nausea and dizzy for a few days. She borrowed a bike and road into town. There was a tent set up in the park with a big sign saying Free Clinic. She checked with the girl at the folding table and was directed across the street to the store front clinic. The reception was triaging and thought her complaints needed evaluated right away.
The girls in the office weighed her. Took her temp and blood pressure. They gave her a little cup and directed her to the rest room to give a urine sample. They then directed her into a small room with an exam table. After a few minutes a young man with long shaggy hair and a lab coat comes in with a clip board. He speaks to her and he has a heavy Boston accent. She asks him about it and he explains that he had come south to do some mission work.
The doctor asked her specific questions about her habits, living arrangements, drugs, alcohol, whether she was married, had she any children. He then examined her and listened to her chest and heart. The last thing he did was call in a nurse. He explained that he was going to do a pelvic exam and that the nurse was going to help.
He finished up and told her to get dressed and that the nurse would bring him back to his private office.
The doctor was just finishing up when Hilda walked into the room. He told her to have a seat. He started out did she suspect that she was pregnant. She said no. Well he said your urine test and the pelvic exam confirms that you are about three months pregnant. She let out a gasp. Did you not miss your periods. yes but that was not unusual.
She was scared. While she was in the waiting room, she had read some of the pamphlets and had seen one entitled LSD and Birth Defects.
He asked her plans and recommended a course of follow up appointments. She gave him answers, but she really did not know what she was going to do.
As she was walking across the park, she decided to do what she usually did. She would run. She would disappear.
She would find Kenny. He would help.
###Segway### This section will be an exposition on Kenny's morphing into a televangist and faith healer. He had left the tent circuit.
The third part of this section will be Hilda find Kenny. She starts to tell him that she is pregnant, but she is caught up emotions. She ends up in bed with him and kinda on a honeymoon of a rush of love. She delays telling him. After several weeks the belly grew more pressing. She had to tell him. She tells him that she is pregnant and before she could tell him the rest of the story, he rushes to her and hug and shallows her up.
Don't worry. I love you and you love me. We will elope and get married as soon as possible. And they do.
Chapter 19
20.1 Hilda Runs to Kenny
Chapter Hilda Goes to Kenny
Hilda was on the road for several weeks. She travel through the Smokies and back to the Ohio Valley. She had went to several churches and asked for a place to stay. She explained who she was and about her travels with the revival. She told them her husband beat her and she left.
She found a couple of churches where she met with an elder's wife or the pastor's wife. They were much more sympathetic to her story and she got a few days for a place to stay and have something to eat. The only downside was that she had to go to the service on meeting nights. These meetings always held the possibility that she would have to sing or testify. The worst of staying with these folks was having to endure the one to one preaching of the pastor. He would say forgiveness is God's way. He would say pray and work to get your family back together and be blessed. God will provide a way if only you have faith. These talks always made her feel guilty as she had lied about her circumstances and for the fact that Dave had not beat her.
Some of the pastors took a different tact. They would claim that she had left her husband because she was demon possessed. This led to the laying on of hands, the anointing of oil, and long and loud prayer sessions. Sometimes someone in the group would be caught up in the Spirit and jump up, run around the church, and roll on the floor. Other times one would start talking in tongues and prophesy about her getting back with Dave. The speaker would sometimes carry on a conversation with the demon inside of her and these was especially frightening.
The Spirit lead speaker sometimes said things that were very accurate about her feelings and desires. It, the demon, or the Spirit, seemed to know about her abuse as a child and the incestous relationship she had with step father. They would speak about her sometimes enjoying the illicit sex, but that it was the demon's craving and that she was not at fault. The demon talked about killing his host before he would flee and the ordained would tell about the cutting and mutilation being away the demon taunted her and sometimes was a way to wake herself up so she could have her own thoughts instead of the demons.
Hilda would get so worked up she would roll on the flooring and her crying and tears joined the wailings of the faithful.
One time doing one of these intense prayer sessions she had a flashback. She had visions of Heaven and Hell. She saw demons and angels. It was like a shutter on a camera opening for a moment she would see the vision then the shutter would close. She slipped into a spell and it felt as though she left her body in a wisp as she exhaled. She traveled to a spot above the prayer circle and she herself laying on the floor. She saw herself recoil in a seizure like movement on the floor and she was pulled back to herself in a snap as if she was connected with a rubber band. She would get hot. Then cold and shiver. She would spit awful tastes out of her mouth. She would hear demons whisper in her ear, then angels. She experience sexual arousal and would wet herself and then feel extremely guilty. She was in a psychedelic whirl.
She passed out after a session. She woke up and she was naked and the nude middle aged pastor was there with her. He spoke about comforting her. Hilda felt wetness between her legs and yelled at the preacher and beat him in a frenzy with her fists as he ran from her bed. She said, "How could you? You raped me."
The preacher said "no no, you seduced me and I thought I was helping you". "The demon in you must have got in me or Satan sent another to couple with you".
Hilda knew she had to left. She was used up. He might have hurt her baby. The demon may be hurting her baby. She now accepted she was demon possessed. She left that day with her small suitcase and hitched a ride to West Virginia.
She would end up in a mental hospital there.
#### Add adventure of being raped by truck farmer and be arrested for being crazy. At first they thought she was drunk or high.
She become psychotic in jail. She ended up in the mental hospital build during the Civil War.
Does she go to Kenny first? Does she go to Kenny after she is hospitalized? She could not have shock treatment while she was pregnant. So she goes to the hospital. She tells them to contract Bro Kenny Sherlock. They do. He gets her out of the hospital. He takes her home. She tells him she is pregnant. The time frame tracks back to the time he seduced her, or she seduced him, at Bro Howard's revival camp. The baby could be his. It could be Dave's. She wintered there and the babies were born in the Spring of 1965. They were fraternal twins. One had dark hair like Dave's and the other had blond hair like Kenny's. She would be that both were the fathers until her dying day. They had significant Bible names.
In the weeks after the birth, Hilda suffers from post partum depression. It gets so bad she can't get out of bed and she can't care for the babies. She starts having hallucinations and becomes psychotic. Kenny either didn't have faith in his prayers or he had enough knowledge about mental illness to call a doctor, after she cut some gashes on both wrists and tried to cut her own throat. The doctor arranged for to go back to the state hospital in West Virginia.
Hilda had to put in leather restraints to keep her from hurting herself further.
20.1.1 Psychotic Pregnancy
20.1.2 Kenny's brother
Kenny's brother is dying from AIDS and lives in very poor and bad conditions.
Bro. Kenny has never built him a house. Arranged for services. Took him foo.
But he does this for others, in foreign countries, and other the glare of TV cameras.
It has once been said, "It ain't charity if no one is there to see it."
Chapter 20
21.1 Hilda Delivers Babies and Runs Aways
HAs faternal twins. Dark haired boy and a light haired boy.
She secretly believes one baby is Kenny's and one is Dave's.
21.2 Kenny's Proserity Gospel
This belief that God blesses people with wealth, which has gained in popularity over the years, is known as the “prosperity gospel.” The prosperity gospel emerged in the 1970s in response to dwindling church attendance. Hoping to appeal to the masses and increase their numbers, many pastors and influential Christian speakers changed their style of preaching and broadened their messages. Indeed, attempting to project a less “established religion” feel, many mega-churches today mirror the tactics of Wall Street and Madison Avenue and have adopted a more generic look. Some have even expanded their facilities to include such general consumer attractions as bowling alleys, NBA regulation basketball courts, exercise gyms and spas and even food courts complete with Starbucks and McDonald’s franchises.
Chapter 21
22.1 On the Road Again with Hilda
22.1.1 In jail
22.1.2 In mental hospital
Chapter 22
23.1 Dave moves to California then to Key West
Through his many wanderings, Dave ended up where most American wanders seem to end up, in Key West, FLA
Key West is a mystical place. It is not quite the mainland, but it is not quite an island.
Wanderers have washed up on shore here for the past 100 years. Many a wanted man had come here to escape an ex-wife or a criminal charge in the north.
23.1.1 Buys Coffee Shop
Chapter 23
The end
This is the end.
This is how the story ends. We knew from nearly the start that it would end like this.
Lily was on the road again. Going from town to town. Man to man. Job to job. Adventure to adventure.
It had been this way since the beginning. From the first day she walked down off the mountain and stuck her thumb out, it had been the same.
Lily had even known that it would end like this.
Lily would die in the company of strangers.
Notes on the End
Chapter 24 The End and Epilogue
One of the grandsons, son of the light haired one, tracks Dave 44 years later and says he is dong a project for school and his church. He explains that he is the grandson of Brother Kenny. He says he is research the family and church history. He found Dave through his books and his Dad had told him about the singing trio. He knew that Dave, Kenny, and Hilda had played together as a trio.
Asked for an interview.
They decided to look for Hilda together.
Much easier now with Internet and records on line. They found some possiblities of being in the state hospital in West Va. and in prison in KY.
There were several mysteries in Kentucky of women showing up with no background or history. They were noteworthy because their cases had made the newspaper when they died suddenly and the authorities had tried to find the next of kin. Some articles had artist drawings and some had morgue photos.
The search narrowed down to a happening in Paradise. Paradise, Kentucky.
The probelm was that Paradise did not exist any longer. The town at been dug up and abandoned in 1968. Some fo the residental lived in a nearby town. They had a memorial park there and had a Paradise Memorial Festival everyyear as it had become famous in a song by John Prine.
They decided together and go to the next festival. They would try to question some of the old timers there.
On june 6, 2013, they went to the festival. It had a little village of houses from around the time of the town's demise. The John Prine song played constantly. There were pictures, exhibits, slide shows and story tellers. There was even a lady telling ghost stories.
They listened to the ghost lady. She old of a story of a young woman showing up at the last festival at Paradise. She looked like a gypsy movie star. No one knew why she was there. Was she an etertainer or what? The villiagers did not even get her name. The old women went on with the description. She said the girl was in her early to mid twenties. She had the bluest eyes and long black hair. She was voluptous and a looker. Finally, she described her arms. She had scars all over her arms. It made her sking look like alligator skin. There were hundreds of scars on both arms.She had died that night and later found along side a back road, wrapped in a canvus tent.
Character Notes
28.1 Hilda Note
She was like a dark Marilyn Monroe. Not as sultry has Sophie Loren, but as flirtatious affected as Marilyn. Yes her manner was forced and affected, but effective nevertheless. She was dressed like an uptown whore in a ten cent juke box place. Maybe it would be better to compare her to Liz Taylor in Cleopatra. She had the same long black hair, cut in a long page boy style. She had doe like cow eyes framed with dark make up and false eye lashes. She was slim, but yet curvy with full breasts and round hips. She was a buffet in movement and you did not know where to land your eyes. She knew she looked good and she knew how to make herself shine. She had a dramatic flair. Just walking across the floor was a three act play in motion, wiggling into a booth, and then telling David with her eyes, lips, and curved finger with the long red finger nail to join her. She just oozed sex and David could almost smell it as he slid in the booth beside her.
28.2 Dave at a Bar
28.2.1 Note on Dave
28.3 Hilda and Dave's Relationship
28.4 Louise Note
No one would never know if Louise would have entered the life if not for that man. But entered it she had. It was all she knew. And she was pretty good at turning a dollar. Or a trick. Survive she would at any cost.
28.5 The Twins
Faternal twins. One dark haired like Dave. One blonde like Kenny.
Need kid's names.
Dave has this habit of walking with his arm holding his elbow behind his back.
The dark haired boy does this too.
Plot Notes
29.1 Hitching
David and Hilda were often on the road. They would be standing on the side of the road in all types of weather. They would be there in the dark of the night. They would be there in good areas and bad areas.
They were at the mercy of the people who gave them a ride.
Traveling through the south, they end up in Alabama and headed south. A old pick up truck pulled over and the colored man offered to take them straight on to Montgomery. We praised our luck and jumped into the cab.
After getting in for a new ride, there is often a moment of awkward bantering. It was even more so in this case as the driver was black. Brother King had been stirring up a lot of trouble recently and black people were often rude in groups. However, they remained usually docile and polite in private.
"Where yall headed? They call me J.T.."
"We are looking for church to preach and possible do a revival.
I am David and this is Hilga."
"What do yall preach?"
"We preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible."
"No, I mean what denomination yall with?"
"I am spirit ordained and we are not affiliated with anyone denomination, but he end up mostly at Holiness and Pentecostal churches, " said David.
"Where yall from?"
"I am from Kentucky and Hilda here is from West Virginia. We met at a tent revival and got hitched after a whirlwind of stepping out. We have been married about three months."
"So you all are newlyweds?"
"I guess we are still on our honeymoon. Traveling and preaching on our honeymoon."
"How about you JT? Are you heading home to your family?"
29.1.1 Ghost Hitcher
Vanishing HitchHiking Story
A FRIEND of a friend and his daughter were driving along a lonely country road at night and happened upon a female hitchhiker. The woman asked for a ride to her home just a few miles up the road. The travelers obliged and continued on with the woman riding silently in the backseat.
As they approached their destination, the driver turned to inform the mysterious passenger that they were about to arrive, only to discover she had vanished from the backseat without a trace! Thoroughly spooked, our travelers inquired at the house whose address she had given and learned that a woman matching the description of the hitchhiker had indeed once lived there, but died several years ago in an automobile accident.
Her ghost, they were told, was sometimes seen wandering beside the highway, attempting to thumb a ride home from strangers.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2003/10/29/vanishing-hitchhikers.htm
The Dancing Ghost
This story has many of the classic elements. It takes place in Tompkinsville, Kentucky.Two young men are on their way to a dance when they spot a girl their age walking along the road in a party dress. They stop and ask if she'd like to attend the dance with them. She accepts and spends the evening dancing with them. When the dance is finished, the young men offer to take her home and she insists they drop her off at a certain spot. They agree, and since it is raining, one of the boys gives her his coat, saying he will pick it up from her later. As she requests, they drop her off at a house on Meshack Road. A few days later, the boy returns to the house to retrieve his coat... but is told by the woman at the house that the girl he describes sounds like her daughter, who died in an accident on that road. When the boy visits her grave at the cemetery, his coat is laying beside her tombstone.
The Girl on the Side of the Road
"The Vanishing Hitchhiker" relates the story of one Dr. Eckersall who, while driving home from a country club dance, picks up a lovely young girl dressed in a sheer evening gown. She climbs into the back seat of the car, because his front passenger seat is crowded with golf clubs, and gives him an address to take her to. As he arrives at the address, he turns to speak to her - and she is gone. The curious doctor rings the doorbell of the address given to him by the mysterious girl. A gray-haired man answers the door and reveals that the girl was his daughter who died in a car accident nearly two years ago. A very similar story is known as The Greensboro Hitchhiker.
The Basketball Player
It's a winter evening in Oklahoma in 1965. Mae Doria, driving to her sister's house from Tulsa to Pryor, sees a boy of about 11 or 12 hitchhiking on the side of the road. She stops for him, he gets into the front seat along side of her, and they make idle chatter as they make their way down Highway 20. In their conversation, the boy says that he's a basketball player for a local school, and Mae reckons that indeed he has the height and build of an athlete. She also notices that he is not wearing a jacket of any kind, despite the fact that it's winter. And the boy seemed to have no particular destination in mind. He points to a culvert on the side of the road and asks to be let out there. Mae is puzzled because there are no houses or lights anywhere in sight. Before she can even pull over, however, the youth simply vanishes from the car. Mae immediately stops the car, gets out, and looks around, but there is no sign of the boy. Mae later learns in a chance conversation with a utility worker that the same phantom hitchhiker was first picked up at the same spot in 1936 - 29 years earlier!
Resurrection Mary
The story of Resurrection Mary is considered one of "the most famous ghosts in Chicagoland."The story begins on another winter night in 1934 when a young girl was killed in an auto accident while on her way home from the O. Henry Ballroom on Archer Avenue in Justice, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. Five years later, in 1939, a cab driver picks up a young girl in a white gown on Archer Avenue. She sits in the front seat and instructs him to drive north on Archer. After driving a short distance, she suddenly tells him to stop... and simply vanishes from the cab. The cab is stopped in front of Resurrection Cemetery, where the girl is buried. According to a 1977 account, a woman may have seen Mary locked inside the iron fence of the cemetery. Reportedly, the metal bars bore the imprints of her hands. According to the Northwest Indiana Society of Ghost Research, the girl's name was actually Elizabeth Wilson, and the cemetery she's buried in is actually called Ross Cemetery.
The Flapper Ghost
The ghost of an attractive young Jewish girl dressed in the fashion of the Roaring '20s (hence the "Flapper Ghost") is said to hitch rides on Des Plaines Avenue in Chicago. According to the story, during the 1930s, she would appear at the Melody Mill Ballroom, looking quite alive and human and dancing with the young men. She would ask for a ride home, then ask to be dropped off at the Jewish Waldheim Cemetery, saying she lived in the caretaker's house. The girl would then dash into the cemetery and vanish among the tombstones. One of the last reported sightings of this ghost was in 1979 when she was spotted by the police walking from the Ballroom toward the cemetery, where she again disappeared.
The Smoking Ghost
On a night in February, 1951, a British officer stops for a fellow soldier hitchhiking on the road. The stranger is dressed in a Royal Air Force uniform, and after he gets into the car with the officer, asks if he can bum a cigarette. The officer gives him one of his Camels and a lighter with which to light it. With his peripheral vision, the officer sees the flash of the lighter, but then turning his head is astonished to see that his passenger has vanished into thin air. Only the cigarette lighter remains on the seat.
Hitchhike Annie
During the 1940s, a young girl is a white dress is said to be seen hitchhiking on Calvary Drive in St. Louis. The pretty girl with pale complexion and long dark hair would tell the drivers who picked her up that her car broke down or was otherwise stranded. Just as they pass Bellefontaine Cemetery, the girl, who has become known as Annie, would vanish from the car.
Sometimes a Bus Will Do
If you can't hitchhike, why not take the bus? This seems to be the attitude of a ghost in the Evergreen Park community of Chicago. A beautiful young girl has on several occasions been picked up by drivers. She asks to be taken to a section of Evergreen Park. As they approach Evergreen Cemetery, she simply vanishes from the car. On many other occasions, however, she has been seen waiting at a bus stop across from the cemetery. On one occasion she actually got on the bus and, not surprisingly, did not pay the fare. When the bus driver approached her for the money, she disappeared before his eyes.
The Grandmother
C.B. Colby tells the the story of the "Hitchhiker to Montgomery" in which two businessmen on their way to Montgomery, Alabama, stop for a little old lady in a lavender dress walking on the side of the road in the middle of the night. She tells them she is going to see her daughter and granddaughter, and they offer to drive her to the next town. On the way, she proudly tells them all about her children and grandchildren, their names, where they live, and so on. After a while, the men become engrossed in their own business conversation, and when they reach their destination, the old woman has vanished from the back seat. Fearing the worst, the men retrace their route, but do not find the woman anywhere. Finally, recalling the daughter's name, they go to her house in Montgomery to report what might have been a horrible accident. The men identify her from photos in the woman's house. But as it happens, the old woman was buried just three years ago that day.
The Ghost of Highway 36
Sometimes, it seems, these phantom hitchhikers don't always ask for rides - they just take them. In the mid-1980s, a woman named Roxie was driving along Highway 36 near Edmonton, Alberta when she was astonished to see a spirit suddenly sitting in the passenger seat next to her. "I realized he wasn't flesh and blood, but, needless to say, I was scared. He appeared in shades of black, gray and white, as if a black and white movie was being projected into my car." His attire, she said, from from the previous decade and she was able to describe him clearly: black turtleneck, black pants, leather boots, blond chin-length hair. He turned, smiled at her with a small wave of his hand... and disappeared.
29.1.2 Vanishing Hitcher
Vanishing hitchhiker
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The vanishing hitchhiker (the ghostly hitchhiker, the disappearing hitchhiker, the phantom hitchhiker or the hitchhiker) story is an urban legend in which people traveling by vehicle meet with or are accompanied by a hitchhiker who subsequently vanishes without explanation, often from a moving vehicle. Vanishing hitchhikers have been reported for centuries and the story is found across the world, with many variants. The popularity and endurance of the legend has helped it spread into contemporary popular culture .
Public knowledge of the term expanded greatly with the 1981 publication of Jan Harold Brunvand 's book The Vanishing Hitchhiker, which helped launch public awareness of urban legends.
The archetypal modern vanishing hitchhiker is a figure seen in the headlights of a car traveling by night with a single occupant. The figure adopts the stance of a hitchhiker. The motorist stops and offers the figure a lift. The journey proceeds, sometimes in total silence, and at some subsequent point, the passenger appears to vanish while the vehicle is in motion. In many cases, the hitchhiker vanishes when (normally) a vehicle reaches the hitchhiker's destination.
[edit ] Variations
A common variation of the above involves the vanishing hitchhiker departing as would a normal passenger, having left some item in the car, or having borrowed a garment for protection against alleged cold (whether or not the weather conditions reflect this claim). The vanishing hitchhiker can also leave some form of information that allegedly encourages the motorist to make subsequent contact.
In such tellings, the garment borrowed is often subsequently found draped over a gravestone in a local cemetery. In this and in the instance of "imparted information", the unsuspecting motorist subsequently makes contact with the family of a deceased person and finds that their passenger fits the description of a family member killed in some unexpected way (usually a car accident ) and that the driver's encounter with the vanishing hitchhiker occurred on the anniversary of their death.
Not all vanishing hitchhiker reports involved allegedly recurring ghosts . One popular variant in Hawaii involves the goddess Pele , traveling the roads incognito and rewarding kind travelers. Other variants include hitchhikers who utter prophecies (typically of pending catastrophe or other evils) before vanishing.
[edit ] Classifications
The first proper study of the story of the vanishing hitchhiker was undertaken in 1942-3 by American folklorists Richard Beardsley and Rosalie Hankey, who collected as many accounts as they could and attempted to analyze them.
The Beardsley-Hankey survey elicited 79 written accounts of encounters with vanishing hitchhikers, drawn from across the USA.
They found: "Four distinctly different versions, distinguishable because of obvious differences in development and essence."
These are described as:
A. Stories where the hitch-hiker [sic ] gives an address through which the motorist learns he has just given a lift to a ghost.
49 of the Beardsley-Hankey samples fell into this category, with responses from 16 states of the USA.
B. Stories where the hitch-hiker is an old woman who prophesies disaster or the end of World War II; subsequent inquiries likewise reveal her to be deceased.
Nine of the samples fit this description, and eight of these came from the vicinity of Chicago . Beardsley and Hankey felt that this indicated a local origin, which they dated to approximately 1933: two of the version B hitchhikers in this sample foretold disaster at the Century of Progress Exposition and another foresaw calamity "at the World's Fair ". The strict topicality of these unsuccessful forecasts did not appear to thwart the appearance of further Version 'B' hitch-hikers, one of whom warned that Northerly Island , in Lake Michigan , would soon be submerged (this never happened).
C. Stories where a girl is met at some place of entertainment, e.g., dance, instead of on the road; she leaves some token (often the overcoat she borrowed from the motorist) on her grave by way of corroborating the experience and her identity.
The uniformity amongst separate accounts of this variant led Beardsley and Hankey to strongly doubt its folkloric authenticity.
D. Stories where the hitch-hiker is later identified as a local divinity.
E. Where a driver gives a girl a lift and drops her off but she leaves something in the car, the driver must return it to her house but when he gets to the house, no one answers. Soon, the driver finds that the girl died when she got out of the car.
Beardsley and Hankey were particularly interested to note one instance (location: Kingston, New York, 1941) in which the vanishing hitchhiker was subsequently identified as the late Mother Cabrini, founder of the local Sacred Heart Orphanage, who was beatified for her work. The authors felt that this was a case of Version 'B' glimpsed in transition to Version 'D'.
Beardsley and Hankey concluded that Version 'A' was closest to the original form of the story, containing the essential elements of the legend. Version 'B' and 'D', they believed, were localized variations, while 'C' was supposed to have started life as a separate ghost story which at some stage became conflated with the original vanishing hitchhiker story (Version 'A').
One of their conclusions certainly seems reflected in the continuation of vanishing hitchhiker stories: The hitchhiker is, in the majority of cases, female and the lift-giver male. Beardsley and Hankey's sample contained 47 young female apparitions, 14 old lady apparitions, and 14 more of an indeterminate sort.
Ernest W Baughman's Type- and Motif-Index of the Folk Tales of England and North America (1966) delineates the basic vanishing hitchhiker as follows:
"Ghost of young woman asks for ride in automobile, disappears from closed car without the driver's knowledge, after giving him an address to which she wishes to be taken. The driver asks person at the address about the rider, finds she has been dead for some time. (Often the driver finds that the ghost has made similar attempts to return, usually on the anniversary of death in automobile accident. Often, too, the ghost leaves some item such as a scarf or traveling bag in the car.)"
Baughman's classification system grades this basic story as motif E332.3.3.1.
Subcategories include:
E332.3.3.1(a) for vanishing hitchhikers who reappear on anniversaries;
E332.3.3.1(b) for vanishing hitchhikers who leave items in vehicles, unless the item is a pool of water in which case it is E332.3.3.1(c);
E332.3.3.1(d) is for accounts of sinister old ladies who prophesy disasters;
E332.3.3.1(e) contains accounts of phantoms who are apparently sufficiently solid to engage in activities such as eating or drinking during their journey;
E332.3.3.1(f) is for phantom parents who want to be taken to the sickbed of their dying son;
E332.3.3.1(g) is for hitchhikers simply requesting a lift home;
E332.3.3.1(h-j) are a category reserved exclusively for vanishing nuns (a surprisingly common variant), some of whom foretell the future.
Here, the phenomenon blends into religious encounters, with the next and last vanishing hitchhiker classification - E332.3.3.2 - being for encounters with divinities who take to the road as hitchhikers. The legend of St. Christopher is considered one of these, and the story of Philip the Apostle being transported by God after encountering the Ethiopian on the road (Acts 8:26-39) is sometimes similarly interpreted.[1]
[edit ] Prophetic hitchhikers since 1970s
The vanishing hitchhiker phenomenon took on a decidedly divinatory cast during the 1970s and early 1980s.
1975 saw a rash of reports of a prophetic nun vanishing from cars after hitching lifts near the Austrian -German border. On 13 April that year, after a 43-year-old businessman drove his car off the road in fright at the disappearance of his passenger, Austrian police threatened a fine equivalent to £200 (1975 value) to anyone reporting similar stories.
In early 1977, nearly a dozen motorists in and around Milan reported giving lifts to another vanishing nun, who (prior to her unexpected disappearance) forewarned her benefactors of the impending destruction of Milan by earthquake on 27 February (this disaster did not happen) (La Stampa, 25 and 26 February, 1 March 1977; Dallas Morning News 25 February 1977).
In 1979, near Little Rock , Arkansas , a 'well-dressed and presentable young man' was hitching lifts despite laws against such activity. When safely aboard, he would confide details of the forthcoming Second Coming of Christ to his startled host(s). After revealing his insights, he would vanish from the moving car. The 'presentable young man' continued his excursions for over a year. The last reported sighting took place on 6 July 1980, when the vanishing hitchhiker's prophecy was apparently a bungled kind of meteorology. He assured his worried driver (and passengers, thus making this a multiple sighting) that it would 'never rain again' - before vanishing from the speeding car a moment or two later. A named Arkansas State Trooper - Robert Rotten - later confirmed to the press (Indiana Star, 26 July 1980) that they had logged two reports of this character's behaviour, but were unofficially aware of many more.
At around the same time as the above prophetic hitchhiker, a second itinerant soothsayer was vanishing from cars around Interstate 5, between Tacoma, Washington, and Eugene, Oregon. Described as a 50-60 year old woman, sometimes in a nun's habit, the hitchhiker would discourse on God and Salvation before vanishing from the car's cabin. Another witness had been warned to repent his (unspecified) sins, or die in a road accident. As 1980 progressed, this vanishing hitchhiker began to display a worrying interest in Mount St. Helens . She took to warning motorists that the eruption of that volcano in May 1980 signified God's warning to the Northwest and that those who did not return to the fold could expect to perish volcanically in the very near future (18 May, to be precise). Tacoma police logged twenty calls from motorists who had met this sinister individual. Latterly, the woman took on a new guise (or perhaps a new vanishing hitchhiker with similar preoccupations assumed her duties) and the roads were again busy with whispered intimations of pending disaster (this time, set for 12 October). The Midnight Globe (5 August 1980) quotes two police officers who had dealt with shocked motorists and one motorist who claimed to have met the vanishing woman or women.
[edit ] Cultural references
In 1941, the Orson Welles Show presented the debut broadcast of Lucille Fletcher 's The Hitch-Hiker , starring Orson Welles . The play contained a variation or subversion of the myth where it is the driver that is the ghost, and a hitchhiker (but not the title character) that is alive. A man (or woman in subsequent adaptations) is involved in a car crash that initially appears to have been a minor blown tire. "The Hitch-Hiker ", an episode of The Twilight Zone , and the episode "RoadKill" of the TV series Supernatural , were notable television adaptations of this particular variation.
The vanishing hitchhiker was the inspiration for Dickey Lee 's recording on a 45 rpm single (TCF-102) of the song "Laurie", which is subtitled "Strange Things Happen ..." Country Joe McDonald wrote and performed a song about a vanishing hitchhiker called "Hold On It's Coming", later covered by New Riders of the Purple Sage . Other modern songs include "I Guess It Doesn't Matter Anymore" by Blackmore's Night on Village Lanterne and "Bringing Mary Home" by the Country Gentlemen originally on Starday's subsidiary, Nashville Records 45 rpm # 2018 in 1964.
Author Alvin Schwartz includes a variation of the vanishing hitchhiker legend in his book More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark along with copious notes detailing the origin and variations of the story.
David Allan Coe 's song "The Ride " reverses the vanishing hitchhiker scenario. In "The Ride", Coe is the pedestrian hitching a ride in a Cadillac driven by Hank Williams from Montgomery, Alabama (Williams' hometown) to Nashville, Tennessee . At the end of the ride, Williams turns the car around, stops, and lets Coe out, saying "This is where you get off, boy, 'cause I'm goin' back to Alabam'."
Keith Bryant 's version of "The Ride" is about an amateur Nascar driver that gets a ride to Daytona International Speedway from Dale Earnhardt .
"Phantom 309 " depicts Red Sovine thumbing a ride with a trucker . When the driver lets Sovine out a nearby truck stop , he tells him to inform the truck stop crowd of who sent him. Silence overtakes the truck stop before one of the patrons tells Sovine the story of the driver, who died after crashing his rig to spare a group of teenagers he hadn't seen in time to stop after topping a hill. Sovine also recorded "Bringing Mary Home ", in which he picks up a young woman standing by the road on a stormy night, only to have her disappear before he reaches the address she gives him. Her mother answers the door and tells him that he is the thirteenth man who has come to her, bringing Mary home.
"Big Joe and Phantom 309" written by Tommy Faile and sung by Tom Waits in his 1975 album Nighthawks at the Diner .
Hilton Edwards directed a 1951 movie called Return to Glennascaul , starring Orson Welles , which centered around a Vanishing Hitchhiker event.
In the Girl on the Road episode of the obscure TV series The Veil hosted by Boris Karloff, a motorist aids a girl stranded on the highway. After she vanishes, he searches for her, eventually discovering she had died years before in a wreck on the stretch of road where he met her.
In the 1960 British horror film The City of the Dead (aka Horror Hotel), actor Valentine Dyall plays a centuries-old warlock who hitches a ride with two different characters in the movie and then vanishes from the car as soon as they reach an ancient New England witch village.
The Swirling Eddies released a song on their Outdoor Elvis album (1990) called "Urban Legends". In the lyrics, the narrator critiques the naive belief in urban legends by satirically having the vanishing hitchhiker tell the car driver to "stop telling lies" before he vanishes.
Dust Devil a 1993 cult film by Richard Stanley set in South Africa was, according to the DVD commentary, inspired by the director's memory of being told the Vanishing Hitchhiker legend as a youngster.
The 1985 film Pee-wee's Big Adventure includes a scene that is a variation on "Phantom 309". While hitchhiking across the country in search of his stolen bicycle, Pee Wee (Paul Reubens ) thumbs a ride with a female truck driver named "Large Marge" who relates to him the story of "the worst accident I ever seen," which concludes with Marge's face contorting very ghoulishly. When Pee Wee announces to the truck stop that Large Marge sent him, one customer recounts that this particular evening is the anniversary of said accident. It is also explained that this accident happened to Large Marge herself.
The contemporary folk-style song "Ferryman" by Mercedes Lackey and Leslie Fish offers another version of the reversal. The encounter here is between a young girl seeking to cross a river in a violent storm, and a ferryman who agrees to take her without charge. Although the tone implies an unworldly nature to the girl, in the end it is the ferryman who is revealed as the ghost. This version includes a garment as a token: the girl’s shawl, left as a pledge for the fare, is found in the morning on the ferryman’s grave.
A popular Bollywood horror film of the 1960s Woh Kaun Thi? meaning "Who was she?", has the sequence where the leading man gives a lift to a beautiful woman on a stormy night. Her manner is mysterious and answers questions vaguely and she asks to be dropped off at a gate. He says "But that's a cemetery!". She looks at him, smiles enigmatically and gets off the car and walks into the cemetery. The gate opens automatically for her.
The website SCP Foundation has an entry on a vanishing hitchhiker, a woman who was ritualistically murdered, and has anyone who picks her up stop at the cemetery where she was buried, where she will vanish. The hitchhiker would leave her sweater behind, and if the motorist who picked her up touched it, they would be compelled to bring it to her elderly parents. In an attempt to vanquish the spirit, a researcher had her parents killed and their home destroyed, reasoning that if the hitchhiker had nothing to come back to, she would stop appearing. This caused the hitchhiker to become homicidal, and begin appearing as a mutilated corpse.
[edit ] See also
[edit ] References
^ Wechner, Bernd "Hitch-hiking in the Bible ". Retrieved on 2009-12-30.
[edit ] Books
Bielski, Ursula, (1997) "Road Tripping" from Chicago Haunts: Ghostlore of the Windy City (Chicago: Lake Claremont Press, 1997).
Brunvand, Jan Harold, (1981), The Vanishing Hitchhiker (ISBN 0-393-95169-3 )
Goss, Michael, (1984), The Evidence for Phantom Hitch-hikers (ISBN 0-85030-376-1 )
29.2 Notes on Plot
29.2.1 KY Ghost
29.2.1.1 a hitching ghost
Hitchhiking Ghost of Kentucky - My Ghost Story
Leaving Lexington, Kentucky toward the capitol in Frankfort, you can take the old U.S route 421. Before you are out of the city you will see the vast expanse of the Lexington Cemetery on your right.
The grounds are well kept and some of the monuments date back into the 1700's. On your right, just across the road, is a somewhat smaller Catholic cemetery. Our story, as related to me by my father and one of his brothers, occurred in the mid 1930's when they were still randy teens who would go to the big city on Saturday nights from their home in the small burg of Midway. Midway was aptly named for being "midway" between the two larger towns.
They had borrowed their fathers old Model "A" and had made a good night of it, but nearing 12:00 o'clock they had to be getting back as work on the farm started before daybreak and they would only be getting a nap anyway. It was spring and the day's earlier rain had left its cloying moisture in the air as a swirling fog that made it necessary to drive more slowly than their usual youthful spirits maintained.
My father was driving and it was well within his nature, when he saw a young woman on the right side of the road just where the entrance to the cemetery was, to stop and offer her a ride. She responded that she was not going far but our young gallants did not mind. My uncle graciously got in the back so she could ride up front. My father threw the car back into gear and started off. They had only traveled about a tenth of a mile and were nearing the end of the stretch that passes through the two graveyards when she reached over and put her hand on his arm and told him to stop as that was as far as she was going.
My father said it put a cold stab of fear through him, for the hand and arm was withered and boney. He gasped as he looked over at the woman, who moments ago had looked as though she too had been dressed up nice for a night out, was now a desiccated looking figure with wrinkled skin and a tattered gown. He hit the brakes hard enough to stall the engine and tried not to scream as the figure faded from the seat and a thick billow of fog swept over the front of the vehicle and blew off to the left towards the high iron fence of the old Catholic cemetery to the left.
He looked into the back seat towards his brother who was now pushed back as far as he could go and was wide eyed and as "white as a sheet"."J-just start the d**m car" was all he said.
I heard this story about thirty-five years after the fact when the two of them were sitting around our place getting well lubricated with Kentucky's finest. Though the spirits had loosed their tongues about the spirit they saw that night, I never could get them to repeat the story after that and was usually told to shut the h**l up.
On a final note; a few years later I grew up and moved to the city and lived for a while on the west side. Several times while talking to my neighbors, I would hear tales and reports of people having to swerve to keep from running over a woman who was darting across the road between the cemeteries on foggy nights. Was she merely a "ghostly" visitor to friends buried in the other cemetery?
Contributed by Wm. Douglas Mefford and Copyright © 2007 True Ghost Tales all rights reserved. No part of this story may be used without permission.
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29.2.1.2 Haunted Coal Mines
Spirits Underground: A Haunted Welsh Coal Mine
Rocks that moan and creak, absolute pitch darkness, clouds of black dust and scurrying rodents set the stage for terrifying tales. Added to that are the gruesome tragedies that took place underground where black diamonds were mined - explosions, men trapped and suffocated by poisonous gases, eye-sockets taken out with pickaxes and bodies severed by underground rail carts.
If ghosts don't exist in coal mines, they don't exist at all.
Several coal mines offer underground tours where visitors can get a first-hand look at a grim, but fascinating history.. and perhaps even a glimpse of the supernatural. Here's a look at one of the best.
The Big Pit: Blaenavon, Wales
Blaenavon, once considered a bleak pit town, is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognized for its industrial legacy that includes the world's oldest surviving iron works and the Big Pit, one of only two remaining coal mines, now preserved as a museum.
Also see:
The underground tour here is the real deal and the experience is an authentic one and as one member of our group finds out - it's a haunted one as well.
We store all of our cellphones, cameras and other battery-operated devices because of the real safety risks of the gases emitted underground. Then, we're outfitted with a hard hat and a surprisingly heavy belt, the same equipment worn by the miners, before we're ushered into 'the cage' (elevator) with our guide Jake. As we descend 300ft, he tells us that he started mining when he was 17, and 'loved the pits'.
Now underground we start our walk through the mile-long tunnel. It's hard to see what there is to love. It's hard to see - period - with only the light off our hats. And it's damp and more than a little eerie.
"AHHHHH!" A scream pierces the damp air. "I felt someone pulling me," says a tourist. There's nobody behind her.
Jakes shrugs it off. "That's one of our ghosts, happens all the time."
Our guide then begins to recount what the conditions were like not only for the men, but the women and children who used to work here.
"Kids as young as five worked 12-hour shifts underground as 'trappers', opening and closing ventilation doors." Jake explains that since candles cost money, they would work in complete darkness. "Many went blind; many died."
To show how dark it would have been, we are asked to turn off our lights. It takes a few moments as we fumble around with unfamiliar equipment, but finally the last light goes out and we're in the dark. Pitch black darkness. We can see absolutely nothing and the only indication that there are people around us is the nervous laughter that occasionally erupts.
A chill goes up my spine thinking of a boy my son's age working here in the darkness and what his thoughts would have been.
And that is scarier than any ghost story.
29.2.2 Coal Miner Ghost
The Coal Miner Ghost Story
Many years ago in a little backwoods country town in eastern Kentucky, were a number of
underground coal mines. This was how the men of that era made a living for them and their
families. This work was considered to be most hazardous back then, due to no safety rules
or safe equipment.
This mine in particular had small mules that pulled the loaded coal buggies out the mines.
One day all the men went to work as usual things were no different until the shift was almost
over, suddenly there was a large rock slide and 10 miners were trapped inside. All the
people in town rushed to help get them out. Many hours went by and there seemed to be no
hope for these men, when all of a sudden the rocks were pushed aside and there stood 9 of
the trapped men. The men were confused and shocked, however, none of hem were
injured very badly and none of them remembered anything that had happened to them. All
the families were overjoyed that their men were safe, except for one who did not come out.
This man was never found and there were many search parties trying to get to him. They
asked the men who came out what the lost miner's name was and no one knew. The men
said he never talked to them much, he was always there and did his job, but they didn't know
anything about him. When the families came for their men, this man had no family waiting
for him.
Many years passed, and the mine was run smoothly; and all the men who had been in the
accident had since died or had retired from mining. One sad day about 50 years after that
mining accident there was another one, this time there were over 100 men trapped in the
mine. It seemed hopeless, but 32 hours later, the wall of coal and rock was pushed aside
and there were all the men rushing out, none of them were injured badly, but they all said they
wanted to thank the miner who helped them find their way out. Reporters wanted to
interview him, but he never came out, but when the men described him, it WAS THE SAME
exact description as the miner who saved the nine trapped men over 50 years ago.
Rumor has it that this man was indeed killed in a mining accident back in 1911, however, he
was there in 1937 and in 1987 saving the men in the same mine. How do you explain this?
29.2.3 Black Ghost Ghost
The Black Dog
Ghost story from Kentucky coal mining country about a miner’s strange and life changing experience with a mysterious black dog. Written by Jim McAmis.
Back in the 1920s, folks in the South didn’t have big department stores or malls where they could buy the things they needed. At best, they had a general store near by, maybe a town with some larger stores, and, of course, there were always the mail order catalogs.
Another source of goods was the “rolling store.” It was usually a good sized truck loaded down with about everything you could imagine. They’d come rolling into town and set up where folks could come, look and buy. It wasn’t unusual for them to pull right up in somebody’s driveway and open up.
In Kentucky, there were lots of coal mining company towns. If a rolling store passed through there, the company got their cut. You couldn’t compete with the company store and not ante up something.
Earl had a rolling store that he drove through the deep, rural hills of eastern Kentucky. He didn’t make great money, and he missed his family now and again. But on the open road, he was generally happy and free.
One day, as it was getting on towards dark, Earl was out looking for a place to pull over and spend the night. You see, some rolling stores had a little compartment in the back of the truck that the driver would sleep in. Sort of a 1920′s version of an RV.
It was then that he saw something standing still in the road up ahead of him. He wasn’t sure what it was at first. Then it turned and looked at him, its eyes glowing in the headlights. It was a black dog – looked more wolf than dog – blacker than any dog Earl had ever seen. Earl eased to a stop, but the dog showed no sign of moving.
“Hey!” Earl hollered out the window. “Wanna get run over?”
The dog just looked at him. Earl blew his horn, but the dog never budged.
“Well I’ll be…” When Earl stepped out of the truck, the dog suddenly got up and ambled down the road. “Now where’re you going?” Earl called after him.
Earl got back in the truck and started it up. He couldn’t pass the dog, because the dog was walking down the middle of the road. Calling it a road was being benevolent, for it was more like a trail, with ruts and a big ditch on either side. And Earl sure didn’t want to run over this strange dog.
Up ahead, he saw a nice flat place by the crossroads. There was plenty of room for the truck, and a good stream was running right by the road. The dog went over and lay in the grass. Earl pulled over, got out, stretched a bit and gathered some wood for a fire. He cooked a little supper and even offered to share it with the dog. But the dog kept his distance.
Just as the moon came up, the dog stirred. He acted like he wanted Earl to come with him. For some reason, Earl felt compelled to go. He followed the dog down the moonlit road. Not too far away was a sharp right hand curve. Just as they got there the dog suddenly turned, looked at Earl and leaped into the hillside.
Just like that, the dog disappeared.
Dumbfounded, Earl just stood there and stared at the hillside for the longest time. Finally, he went on back to the camp, but he did not sleep well that night.
The next morning, Earl went on his way, pulling into the next coal mining company town. This whole area of eastern Kentucky was company town country. The mining company would come in and build houses for their workers. Every company town looked just like another – rows of cookie-cutter, clapboard houses, with the only distinguishing feature being the color. Some folks used store- bought paint to paint their houses in bright colors, while others used whitewash. Still others would mix a little color in the whitewash and use that, and some just left the house unpainted.
Salesmen never knew how good they’d do in company towns. A lot depended on the company, and how much of a cut they took. Earl did fairly well that day, even with the company cut.
It was getting dusky dark as Earl headed out of town back towards the crossroads. Then, lo and behold, in the road ahead he spotted the mystery dog again, just standing in the road. It would walk ahead a little ways and then turn to look at Earl, wanting him to follow. When the dog got to the same sharp curve in the road that Earl had visited before, it turned, looked at Earl, then leaped into the hillside, vanishing without a trace.
By this point, Earl was thoroughly shaken, but he drove on to the crossroads to spend the night. He determined that he’d hit the next town and then clear out of these parts. Life on the road could be strange enough without disappearing dogs.
The following morning, as he pulled into the next company town, he knew something was wrong. It seemed everybody in town was all dressed up – and it wasn’t even Sunday. They were gathered around the yards and porches of several of the houses.
At the first house, Earl found out there had been a cave-in at one of the coal mines. Shaft #3 had caved in, killing all of the miners inside except for one, who was still missing. The townspeople figured that the lone miner was most likely still buried under tons of coal and rock. Earl figured he wouldn’t be selling anything during the funeral, so he headed out of town, almost relieved to be getting away.
Slowly, he drove by house after house. Sad-faced, black frocked women sat on the porches clutching pictures of loved ones. Other women, relatives, and friends tried to comfort them. The yards were full of men, not saying much, just standing around uneasily, not really knowing what to do.
As Earl was about to turn out of town, he saw something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up. On one of the porches stood a woman holding a picture of a big burly coal miner, hard hat and carbide lamp on his head, covered in coal dust. Only his eyes and toothy grin shone out of the blackness.
Striking though the miner was, it was the other image that had caused Earl to stop – a large, coal black dog, more wolf than dog. THE dog from the road – or at least its twin. Earl started to get out of the truck, but the somber, unfriendly looks from the men in the yard made him figure it was time to go.
As he drove out of town, he tried to think about where he would go next, but he could not shake that picture from his mind. Then, before he knew it, he came upon the dog again. The animal looked straight at Earl, turned and jumped into the hillside, vanishing without a trace.
It was then that Earl changed his mind. In a big cloud of dust, he turned around and headed back down the road toward the last town as fast as he dared. He had to go back and tell the townspeople what he had seen.
Earl pulled up in front of the house where he had seen the woman with the picture. All of the women were still on the front porch and the men, in their Sunday best, filled the front yard. From the porch, he could hear the women humming the old time hymn “Precious Memories,” keeping time by rocking in their rocking chairs and fluttering their funeral home fans. The men were in several clusters, most smoking their cigarettes or pipes. They shifted uneasily as they stood around, tugging at the unfamiliar tightness of a starched collar.
Earl jumped out of his truck and started up the walk to the house. A couple of grim-faced men stepped in front of him. “You best be getting on down the road, Peddler Man, this ain’t got nothing to do with you. Ain’t nobody buying today.”
Ignoring them, Earl leaned around and called out to the woman with the photograph he’d spotted earlier. “Ma’am, I’ve got to talk to you. It’s about the dog. The dog in that picture.”
“What about the dog?” growled the larger of the men.
“I’ve seen the dog.”
The woman on the porch stood up. “You’ve seen Shuck?”
“If that’s the dog’s name, yes, Ma’am”
The yard suddenly fell silent. All of the men within earshot turned and looked. The men blocking his way took a couple of steps back. The large man glared at Earl and said, “Peddler Man, if this is some kind of joke.”
The woman shushed the large man and turned back toward Earl. “What do you mean you saw the dog?” she asked. ”He’s lost in the mine with my husband, Jack. Shuck went down in the mine every day just like a regular miner. Jack said he worked harder than some down there. He always said Shuck was good luck. Now, speak your peace.”
Earl told them the entire story of the black dog he’d seen on the road. The woman clutched the picture ever closer and closed her eyes to hold back the tears.
“Mister,” said one of the men, “I don’t know what you saw, or why you’re here, but I think it’s time you were getting along. You ain’t helping.”
It was then that an ancient, wrinkled man, whose every pore seemed to be filled with coal dust, stepped out of the crowd and said, “You all hear what this feller just told? Don’t you realize where he’s talking about?”
“Wait a minute,” another man said, “that’s right there at the Devil’s Mouth.”
“What do you mean? What’s the Devil’s Mouth?” asked Earl.
The old man spoke. “The company called it Shaft #1. It was the richest coal vein and the biggest, deepest, blackest shaft anybody ever saw. Dug before any type of power drills or any other machinery. Dug by hand. Why, when you started down that shaft, seemed like it went on forever. Seemed like she wouldn’t bottom out this side of Perdition. So all the folks around here took to calling her the Devil’s Mouth. When the vein played out they dynamited her shut and built the road along there.”
“I wonder if it still connects to #3?” someone wondered aloud.
Suddenly, men from the surrounding houses began to fill the yard, hearing what was going on. The old man stepped up on the porch and addressed the crowd. “The burying’s just gonna have to wait. We’ve got work to do. Shuck’s showed the way and Jack may just be in there. Alive or dead, we’ve got to get him out.”
The crowd evaporated, only to reappear moments later in work clothes and carrying picks, shovels, drills, hardhats, and carbide lamps. Everybody piled into trucks and off they went.
When they reached the Devil’s Mouth, everybody piled out and started digging. They moved tons of earth in what seemed like minutes. On into the night they dug. Anxious women waited at the edge of the light. Younguns peeked out from behind their skirt tails. Miners worked in shifts, digging and shoring up the shaft they were making in the hillside – reopening the Devil’s Mouth.
Finally there came a shout: “We’ve broke through!” The crowd surged forward, looking and listening for any sign that they had found the lost miner.
“He’s alive!” The words flew like lightning through the crowd. “He’s alive! Oh thank heaven, he’s alive!”
They found Shuck too, just a little bit away. He was dead – crushed by a fallen timber. When Jack was carried out, he was exhausted and hungry but, aside from a broken leg, he was okay. Jack then told his story: “When the tremblin’ started, me and Shuck lit out. Ran as fast as we could. I was hopin’ the shafts still connected. And I was hopin’ I remembered how to get there. When the back end there fell in, Shuck got caught and my leg got broke. I crawled over to him, but he was gone. I been setting here for three days wonderin’ if I’d ever see the light of day again. Been awful dark since my carbide run out.”
“But, you know,” said Jack, “the strangest thing was that sometimes it felt like Shuck was right here by my side. Nuzzling up to me just like always. Keepin’ me company. He was a good dog. I’ll miss him.”
Jack didn’t know how good a dog he really was. For somehow, even in death, Shuck had come to his master’s rescue.
And that’s the story of the Black Dog.
- THE END -
Story Credits | Where Did This Story Come From?
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Tags: Appalachian , Coal Mining , Dog Story , Kentucky
24 Responses to “The Black Dog ”
Oh, God this is THE saddest story I’ve read about a dog. I started crying at the end. Really good story.
Robin :
Author wonderfully captures the somber mood that seems to permeate the culture of coal. Thank you for preserving a part of the coal communities deep in the mountains. Mammaw used to tell me about a dog but it was the Devil in her stories. This was a nice surprise.
Mary :
This was an intense and wonderful story.
that was so sad. ;(
lulu :
hejsa alle sammen
kan I give mig en hurtig resume om den black dog:P
Bradford :
My aunt also used to tell me stories about black dogs. She told me that in Scotland they call ‘em Black Shuck and they only appear to someone who will die or someone who has lost somebody, but doesn’t know it and that they will escort a departed soul to the afterlife.
You always hear of animals helping/saving their owners in stories all through the years up to the present day. Dogs truly are man’s best friend.
Wrye :
Our family told stories of black dogs that would warn when trouble is coming- we call them ‘behinders’ (not sure why)… they act like the Shuck, appearing then vanishing. Good story!
Toby :
This is why I love dogs!
The Joker :
I think I’ve actually seen a Black Shuck before. If it wasn’t one I still don’t know what it was. I’d say it was anywhere from about six to ten years ago (I’m guessing). I’ve always wondered what it was, just until I’ve read this story….I’m really starting to wonder… Let’s see, I was anywhere in between the ages of ten or fourteen. I was going somewhere, riding in a car with someone, not sure. I know I wasn’t driving since I was so young, although I might have been, my parents let me practice a lot. It was dark, I don’t remember the exact time, but I do know it was very dark. We were passing a water tower that was on the left side of the road. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until I got next to it and passed it. I noticed a large black dog like creature and I know for a fact that it was looking at me. I also know for a fact that it’s eyes were glowing, what color? I don’t remember, green I think, possibly red or yellow. There’s probably a logical explanation for this, but this really creeped me out, and I’ve thought about it ’til this day. And when I read this story it really intrigued me and brought back some memories. It was also a little larger than most dogs, and it’s hair seemed like it was either very spiky or had a strange aura around it. Again, it was dark, couldn’t see very well, and I only caught a glimpse of it. I didn’t get sick or die or anything, as you can see. But it was around that time that my parents got a divorce and my uncle passed away. A lot of bad things were happening, it’s really making me think…
lo lo :
this story is awsome
Jessica :
I never get tired of hearing these stories. This story was really amazing, knowing that even in death men’s best friend will still be their.
John Ruth :
This story was great !! Thank you.
Jean Pasigon :
Wow. I wish my dog will be like shuck someday. Not that he’ll be caught up but to be beside me also…. A touching story I’d ever read in my whole entire life that I ain’t gonna forget!
Jean Pasigon :
Earl was a good man. He’d done the right thing to save Jack from the shaft with the help of Shuck, Apparently gone…
zach :
this story is so not scary:(
kiki :
OMG this was so sad, but so loyal Shuck is a beautiful dog.
BOB :
Boring
davmoroxis :
the guy that is talking sounds like lary the cable guy
i love $$$$$:
this story wasnt even scary:(
Rachel :
Thanks! My 12 year old really wanted some scary audio stories and this did the trick!
Brandon :
I love dogs so much, this story has brought tears to my eyes. I live in Southwest Virginia just minutes from the KY state line, this is a story which represents my culture. I Love It! Bravo.
The House on Black River :
[...] The Black Dog [...]
Earl :
Tha story was well told and written. Gave me chills. Good ol Shuck.
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29.2.4 Mysterious Girl Haunting Grave
Ghosts of the Prairie
HAUNTED KENTUCKY
HARRODSBURG SPRING PARK
Harrodsburg, Kentucky
William Montell's book, "Ghosts along the Cumberland", is one of the most essential works of folklore and oral ghost stories in Kentucky. The book was published in 1975 and while it makes for fascinating reading, it doesn't offer much in the way of a key to find the haunted places mentioned in the book. There are a few exceptions however, and while this story doesn't offer much in the way of detail in Montell's book.... something about the story just intrigued me.
I believe that it may possibly be the saddest ghost story that I have ever heard.
On an unspecified date in the late 1800's, a young woman checked into the Harrodsburg Springs Hotel in this small Kentucky town. She used a false name, and while no one knew her true identity, they recalled that she was quite beautiful. That night, as music played in the ballroom, the girl came downstairs and began dancing with various partners. The young men of the town eagerly lined up for their turn to dance with the beautiful young girl.
The girl danced passionately and at the end of the night, her final partner realized, that to his horror, the young girl had literally died in his arms. The shocked staff and guests held a funeral for this mysterious girl and she was buried on the hotel's property. The hotel is gone now. It burned down more than fifty years ago, although the grave remains in what is now a public park. There is a metal marker over her resting places that reads... "UNKNOWN - Hallowed and Hushed be the place of the dead. Step Softly. Bow Head."
As time has passed, local residents claim that this mysterious girl still returns to the site of the hotel. She has been seen lingering in the moonlight, slowly dancing and twirling to music that only she can hear.... still recalling that tragic night so long ago.
Harrodsburg, Kentucky is located about thirty miles southwest of Lexington on Route 68 and just a few miles north of the Perryville Battlefield. The city park where the hotel once stood is located in the center of town. ©Copyright 2001 by Troy Taylor. All Rights Reserved.
29.2.5 Hitching Female Ghost
The Beautiful Young Vanishing Hitchhiking Woman
The Beautiful Young Vanishing Hitchhiking Woman
A young man had just left a party given by some of his friends. As he started down the road it was about 12:30 at night and pouring down rain. He had only driven about 2 miles when he saw this faint figure walking on the side of the road. As he got closer he realized it was a young lady, for she was wearing a long white dress. He pulled over and asked her if she would like a ride. He figured she had came from the party. She said she would and she hoped in the front seat. He noticed she was shivering from the rain so he took off his jacket and offered it to her, she gladly accepted and put the jacket on. They talked about where they were from and other basic chit chat. The young man was overwhelmed by how beautiful the girl was. When he pulled up to her house he was going to ask her out, but when he went around to the passenger side the door was open and she was gone. He seemed a little confused, but figured she had just gotten nervous and ran into her house. The following day the young man realized the girl had left in such a rush, that she forgot to leave his jacket. He remembered the directions to her house and went there since he did not have a phone number to call.
He knocked on the door and a woman answered. The young man told her he was there to pick up his jacket from who he assumed was her daughter. The woman looked at him strangely and then began to smile. She then told him that her daughter had died in a car accident ten years ago. The young man was horrified and did not belive her. The woman asked him to follow her. While they walked the woman told him this was not the first time this had happened and for him not to be upset. The woman stopped at what looked to be a family cemetery and pointed to the far right. The young walked over and there laying on a headstone was his jacket.
OTHER VERSIONS
In all the stories of the vanishing hitchhiker the woman is beautiful and dressed in the most seductive outfit you could ever imagine.
The young man was walking home drunk from a bar one night. He was hitchhiking along a country road and luckily a lady drove by and stopped and offered him a ride home. They talked and the woman told him her name. Being so drunk the woman took him back to her house where she took full advantage of the young good-looking drunk man (use your imagination on that one.......). The man woke up the next morning being shaken awake by police - the police pulled him up and asked him what the hell he was doing? He looked around him and noticed he had been sleeping naked on top of a grave - he was horrified to see the name on the grave was that of the woman that had picked him up the night before.
The girl disappears out of the car suddenly when passing a graveyard. The driver notices in the graveyard his jacket that he lent her draped over her gravestone.
Sometimes he sees a photo at the parents home of her in the same dress that she was wearing the night he picked her up.
This happened somewhere in the sixties.
One day a young couple were on their way to the girl's parents' house to tell them that they had just become engaged. The woman was fast asleep when the man lost control over the vehicle and both were killed. Her name was Maria Roux.
A while later a guy was riding along and saw a lady standing on the side of the road. He asked her whether she wanted a lift, but she didn't answer. She just climbed into the back seat of the car. The guy kept on talking to her, telling her how dangerous it was for a woman to hitchhike at night but she never said a word. While he was driving along he looked back and saw that she had disappeared. He stopped the car and searched everywhere for her but couldn't find her. He then drove to the police station in Uniondale to report her missing, never realizing that she could be a ghost. He thought that she might have fallen out of the vehicle and was lying somewhere seriously injured. The police officer on duty didn't have any patience with this guy, thinking that his story was a cover-up for hurting or killing her. After a lot of begging, the police officer eventually drove behind the guy to the spot where the girl went missing. As they were driving along, the police officer noticed the guy's back door opening and closing by itself. They both realized that it was a ghost and hauled ass out of there as fast as they could.
Somewhere in the seventies a guy came into a cafe in Uniondale, quite visibly shaken. He told the owners of the cafe that he was riding on his bike and suddenly there was a woman sitting behind him on the bike. She looked so real, he could see and feel her hands holding him, but just a while later she disappeared. He got such a fright that he almost fell off his bike. There have been many reports of this woman ever since.
People reckon that since she was asleep during the accident, and the last thing she can remember before she fell asleep was to go to her parents to tell them of the engagement, she doesn't realize that she's dead and her soul won't rest until her mission is accomplished.
ANOTHER VERSION
This happened to my Sister's husbands friend, lets call the guy Tim), I don't kow his real name.
It was a Friday night , Tim went out to a nightclub with a couple of friends , when they got there they all started dancing and eventually broke away from each other. Tim found this girl and they started to dance, after a while , they decided to go home, Tim said "i'll drive you home", she said "ok" , as they were driving home the girl (lets vall here Jenny) said "stop here i'll walk the rest of the way home its only 200m to my house" , Tim said "why i'll drive you there?" , she insisted that she walk so Tim let her get out of the car. It was a cold night out, Tim says "at least take my jacket its cold outside" she said "ok ill give it back to you tomorrow here's my phone number". Handing the phone number to Tim he says "ok i'll call you tomorrow".
The next day Tim decides to ring jenny and ask about his jacket, he rings and a older women picks up the phone, Tim says "Hi is Jenny there?". The women said "Excuse me!?". Tim repeats what he said then the women says "Listen I don't know who you are and what kind of sick joke this is but how dare you" ! and she hung up. Tim was startled and so he rang again, the same women picked it up and said "Hello?". Tim asked again "Is Jenny there?" the women starts to cry and hangs up the phone. Tim rings back a third time and sais "I think we need to talk, I need to get my jacket back from Jenny". The women doesn't know what Tim is talking about and Tim says "yeah I let Jenny borrow my jacket last night !". The woman then asks Tim to come over to talk about something (she gives him the Address).
Tim goes over right away, they sit down and start to talk. Tim tells Jenny's mother his story about the jacket. She looks stunned, "My Daughter Jenny has been dead for over 5 years!" she exclaims. Tim didn't believe her so she then took him to the grave site and showed him her grave. On top of the grave lay the jacket he had lent to Jenny
Submitted from: Andy, New south Wales, Australia
I've heard another variation of this story.
In this setting the locals are aware of this phenomenon and keep an "eye out" for the ghost hoping to see her. Several teenagers go cruising together every weekend looking for excitement when one night they see her. They stop, offer her a ride, which she accepts. She gets into the backseat with the boys sitting on either side of her and away they go. When they near the lonely intersection where she was killed she asks to be let out here please. They refuse to stop and drive through the intersection. She starts screaming and disintergrates before their eyes. The story ends with screeching brakes, car doors flying open, screaming boys diving out of the car, and a slightly teed off father who has to sell the car because he can't get the faint but nagging smell of decay out of the vehicle.
29.3 KY Space Aliens
Siege of ‘Little Green Men’: The 1955 Kelly, Kentucky, Incident
Investigative Files
Joe Nickell
Volume 30.6, November / December 2006
On the night of August 21, 1955, during the heyday of flying-saucer reports, a western Kentucky family encountered—well, that is the question: what were the humanoid-like creatures that terrified a family at their farmhouse? What actually happened at Kelly, Kentucky, that evening?
For the fiftieth anniversary of the incident, I was invited to give a talk at a Little Green Men Festival in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, staged by its Chamber of Commerce. I determined to investigate the story that had caught the attention of the U.S. Air Force’s “Project Blue Book” (which investigated 12,000 UFO reports from 1952 to 1969) and that also inspired a novel (Karyl 2004), a video documentary (“Monsters” 2005), and even an X-Files comic book (“Crop” 1997).
My investigation included visiting the site in the company of UFOlogist and fellow invited speaker Peter Davenport. (We were each given a key to the city by Hopkinsville mayor Richard G. Liebe and chauffeured in his car on research jaunts by Rob Dollar.) I also obtained copies of original newspaper clippings at the Hopkinsville Public Library, conducted further research at the local museum, talked with witnesses to the events, studied detailed reports on the case, and much more. I even attended a Holiness Church tent revival, just down the road from the site of the Kelly incident, held in response to the Little Green Men Festival. Many of the congregation wore green T-shirts with the slogan “Son of Man Is Coming Back.” Pastor Wendell “Birdie” McCord (2005) told me, “I don’t know whether the green men is [sic] coming back, but I know the Son of Man is coming back.”
Background
On the evening of Sunday, August 21, 1955, present at the Sutton farmhouse at Kelly were eleven people: widowed family matriarch Glennie Lankford (50); her children, Lonnie (12), Charlton (10), and Mary (7); two sons from her previous marriage, Elmer “Lucky” Sutton (25) and John Charley “J.C.” Sutton (21), and their respective wives, Vera (29) and Alene (27); Alene’s brother, O.P. Baker (30 or 35); and a Pennsylvania couple, Billy Ray Taylor (21) and June Taylor (18). The Taylors, along with “Lucky” and Vera Sutton, had been visiting for a while, being occasional carnival workers.
Not all of the eleven were eyewitnesses to the most significant events. One of the women, apparently June Taylor, had been “too frightened to look” (Davis and Bloecher 1978, 14), and Lonnie Lankford (2005), speaking to me at age 62, said that, during the fracas, his mother had hidden him and his brother and sister under a bed.
About seven o’clock, Billy Ray Taylor was drawing water from the well when he saw a bright light streak across the sky and disappear beyond a tree line some distance from the house. According to researcher Isabel Davis, who investigated the case in 1956 (Davis and Bloecher 1978, 15), Billy Ray Taylor was different from the other eyewitnesses:
He had looked at the creatures with extravagant success. He was the only member of the group who appeared to arouse immediate doubt in everyone who talked to him. . . . Even among the family he had a low standing; when he first came into the house and reported a “spaceship,” they paid him no attention. Later, during the investigations, he basked in the limelight of publicity. He elaborated and embroidered his description of the creatures (though not his description of the “spaceship”) and eventually produced the most imaginative and least credible of the little-men sketches. Several skeptics who labeled the story a hoax referred to him as the probable originator. His behavior was in sharp contrast to that of the other witnesses, none of whom aroused such prompt suspicion in the investigators.
About an hour after Taylor reported his “flying saucer” sighting, a barking dog attracted him and “Lucky” Sutton outside. Spotting a creature, they darted into the house for a .22 rifle and shotgun, thus beginning a series of encounters that spanned the next three hours. Sometimes, the men fired at a scary face that appeared at a window; sometimes, they went outside, whereupon, on one occasion, Taylor’s hair was grabbed by a huge, clawlike hand. Once, the pair shot at a little creature that was on the roof and at another “in a nearby tree” that then “floated” to the ground. Either the creatures were impervious to gun blasts or the men’s aim was poor, since no creature was killed.
After a lull in the “battle,” everyone piled into their cars and drove eight miles south to Hopkinsville’s police headquarters. Soon, more than a dozen officers—from city, county, and state law-enforcement agencies—had converged on the site. Their search yielded nothing, apart from a hole in a window screen. There were “no tracks of ‘little men,’ nor was there any mark indicating anything had landed at the described spot behind the house.” By the following day, reportedly, the U.S. Air Force was involved ([Dorris] 1955) but ultimately listed the case as “unidentified” (Clark 1998).
Aliens?
Figure 2. Lonnie Lankford was only twelve when the “Little Green Men” incident occurred.
The earliest articles on the incident did not refer to “Little green men.” That color was apparently later injected by the national media, although “Lucky” Sutton’s son now says his father described them as “silver” with “a greenish silver glow” (“It Came” 2005, 8, 10).
Other details are also somewhat fuzzy. The beings were described in the first newspaper story as “about four feet tall,” having “big heads” with “huge eyes,” and “long arms” ([Dorris] 1955). However, they were downsized by Glennie Lankford (1955) to “two and a half feet tall” and were said to have large pointed ears, clawlike hands (with talons at the fingers’ ends), and eyes that glowed (or shone) yellow. They also had “spindly,” inflexible legs (Clark 1998; Davis and Bloecher 1978, 1, 28).
Although the earliest published story claims there were twelve to fifteen creatures, the fact is that in only one instance did the eyewitnesses see more than one creature, and that was the time (mentioned earlier) when a pair was spotted (one on the roof, one in a tree) (Clark 1998; Davis and Bloecher 1978, 18, 27).
From the outset, people offered their proposed solutions to the mystery. In addition to those who thought it was a hoax, some attributed the affair to alcohol intoxication. I talked with one of the original investigators, former Kentucky state trooper R.N. Ferguson (2005), who thought people there had been drinking, although he conceded he saw no evidence of that at the site. He told me he believed the monsters “came in a container” (i.e., a can or bottle of alcohol). A visitor to the farm the next day did notice “a few beer cans in a rubbish basket” (Davis and Bloecher 1978, 35). Whether or not drinking was involved, it was not responsible for the “saucer” sighting; other UFOs were witnessed in the area that evening (Davis and Bloecher 1978, 33). (More on this later.)
Monkeys represented another “theory.” Supposedly, one or more monkeys had escaped either from a zoo or a traveling circus. However, there was never any credible evidence of such an escape (Clark 1998; Carlton 2005). The search for a terrestrial explanation of the incident would have to continue.
Solution
Figure 3. The author is “kidnapped” by “aliens” at the fiftieth-anniversary festival of the incident in Kelly, Kentucky.
I long ago recognized the Kelly flap as being very similar to two alleged alien-encounter incidents that occurred in West Virginia, the 1952 appearance of the “Flatwoods Monster” and the 1966 “Mothman” sightings—the first convincingly identified as a barn owl (Nickell 2000), the second as a barred owl (Nickell 2002).
A year after my Flatwoods Monster article appeared in Skeptical Inquirer, a young French UFOlogist, Renaud Leclet, wrote articles on the Flatwoods and Kelly cases. He concurred with my determination in the former case, and now I can return the favor in the latter. I had suspected owls in the Kelly case, but—since I prefer to investigate on site—I was awaiting an opportunity to visit the area; that came with my invitation to speak at the fiftieth-anniversary celebration of the event. By then, Leclet had ventured to identify the Kelly entities from afar.
Although he and I have reached the same conclusion, he refers to the creature as an “eagle owl” (Leclet 2001), a designation for the genus Bubo that is not generally used by most authorities when specifically referring to the species Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus)—popularly called a “hoot owl.” (See, for example, National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region [Bull and Ferrand 1994].) Confusion can thus occur. [1]
Echoing descriptions of the Kelly “little men,” the Great Horned Owl has a height of some 25 inches; very large, staring, yellow eyes; long ear tufts; a large head, set (without apparent neck) on its shoulders; a light-grey underside; long wings that, seen on edge, could be mistaken for arms; spindly legs; claws with talons; and so on (“Great” 2006; Bull and Ferrand 1994). An owl could be on a roof or in a tree and be perceived to “float” to the ground. As to their behavior, Great Horned Owls are “extremely aggressive when defending the nest,” and their activity typically “begins at dusk” (“Great” 2006).
Although some accounts claim the little beings “glowed,” Glennie Lankford, in her statement (1955), actually used the word shining. That might have been simply an effect caused by the farm lights.
As to the “flying saucer” sighting that preceded the encounter, there were area sightings of “meteors” at the time (Davis and Bloecher 1978, 33—34, 61—62). Most likely what was witnessed was a very bright meteor (or “fireball”).
In summary, allowing for the heightened expectation prompted by the earlier “flying-saucer” sighting, and for the effects of excitement and nighttime viewing, it seems likely that the famous 1955 Kelly incident is easily explained by a meteor and a pair of territorial owls.
What a hoot!
Acknowledgments
In addition to those mentioned in the text, I am grateful to Betsy Bond and her colleagues at the Hopkinsville-Christian County Chamber of Commerce and all the other area folk who assisted me in my work, notably Donna K. Stone of the Pennyroyal Area Museum in Hopkinsville and William Turner, county historian with the Christian County Historical Society. I am as usual grateful to CFI Libraries director Tim Binga, and also library assistant Lisa Nolan, for research assistance.
Note
For example, somehow Leclet (2001) reports “eagle owls” as having facial discs that are “white,” whereas those of Great Horned Owls are yellow (or “tawny-buff”: see “Great” 2006).
References
Bull, John, and John Ferrand, Jr. 1994. National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf).
Carlton, Michelle. 2002. Kelly green men: Children of witness to alleged alien invasion defend father’s 1955 claim. Kentucky New Era (Hopkinsville, Ky.), December 30.
—. 2005. Myriad of theories speculate on Kelly legend. (In “It Came” 2005, 3, 14).
Clark, Jerome. 1998. UFO Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., in two volumes. Detroit: Omnigraphics, volume II: 552—554.
Crop Duster. 1997. Issue 32 of X-Files comic book, New York: Topps Comics; cited in “It Came From Kelly” 2005: 5, 12.
Davis, Isabel, and Ted Bloecher. 1978. Close Encounter at Kelly and Others of 1955. Evanston, Illinois: Center for UFO Studies.
[Dorris, Joe]. 1955. Story of space ship, 12. Little men probed today. Kentucky New Era (Hopkinsville, Ky.: August 22. (Cf. “It came” 2005, 10.)
Ferguson, R.N. 2005. Interview by Joe Nickell.
Great horned owl. 2006. The Owl Pages; accessed July 7, 2006.
It Came from Kelly. 2005. Publication of Kentucky New Era newspaper, Hopkinsville, Kentucky, n.d. [August].
Karyl, Anna. 2004. The Kelly Incident. Vallejo, California: Gate Way Publishers.
Lankford, Lonnie. 2005. Interview by Joe Nickell, August 20.
Lankford, Glennie. 1955. Statement signed August 22; text given in Davis and Bloecher 1978: 112.
Leclet, Renaud. 2001. Kelly-Hopkinsville. Series of articles dated August 28; online here ; accessed July 10, 2006.
McCord, Wendell. 2005. Interview by Joe Nickell, August 19.
Monsters of the UFO. 2005. Video previewed August 20, referenced in “It Came” 2005: 12—13.
Nickell, Joe. 2000. The Flatwoods UFO monster. Skeptical Inquirer 24(6) (November/ December): 15—19.
—. 2002. Mothman revisited. Skeptical Briefs 12:4 (December), 8—9.
29.3.1 more aliens
Alien Encounters, UFO Occupants, Humanoid Report
UFO Occupant Sightings
Richard H. Hall
(Based on information contained in The UFO Evidence, Vol. II. Excerpts are reproduced with permission of the author.)
Overview
Sightings of UFO occupants have occurred steadily over the years, but tend to increase during sighting waves. By far the most common type is the small humanoid wearing "coveralls" and some kind of headgear, usually round or helmet-like. During close-range encounters with beings outside of their UFO craft, witnesses sometimes have heard unintelligible vocalizations and observed technological "tools." They have been observed "taking samples," "repairing their craft," and engaged in other activities.
Police officer Lonnie Zamora reported seeing two small humanoid beings standing next to a landed craft on April 24. 1964, in Socorro, New Mexico. Since Zamora was a well-known and respected officer, his report helped to legitimize 10 years of prior UFO occupant sightings that had been considered somewhat borderline by many people. His report made headlines nationally and, to some degree, internationally.
Some scattered reports of humanoid beings observed in association with UFOs were made as early as 1947. However, the earliest wave of such sightings occurred in Europe late in 1954, primarily in France and Italy. Major U.S. publications like Life and The New Yorker magazine reported the sightings, though inevitably with tongue-in-cheek commentary.
The reported beings typically were 3-4.5 feet (0.9-1.4 meters) tall and wore coveralls and round, translucent headgear resembling "diver's helmets." Light beams or other electromagnetic energy from the craft (or from the beings) had effects on animals and frequently paralyzed human witnesses. At the same time, vehicle engines and headlights failed. Some sort of aerial craft, usually round or disc-shaped, was observed.
In the spring and summer of 1955 scattered witnesses throughout the southern and midwestern United States reported sightings of UFO occupants. The most famous case occurred on August 21, 1955, near Kelly, Kentucky. Small beings with large heads and prominent ears besieged a farmhouse for hours shortly after the sighting of a descending UFO. 2 The 1955 U.S. sightings were not much like those in France and Italy the year before. As expressed by highly regarded contemporary investigators, Isabel Davis and Ted Bloecher:
"Most of the European and South American cases described beings associated directly with objects [i.e., apparent craft]; in the United States, the beings' association with an actual UFO was uncertain or even absent altogether. In several cases, the entities displayed details of appearance strikingly similar to some of the foreign humanoid reports— small size, large glowing eyes and clawed hands. In other respects, there were some notable differences; for example, none of the domestic reports described the `diving suits' that were so often reported in the French and Italian cases."
Very tight, form-fitting coveralls often are described, and sometimes what appeared to life-support systems. In other cases it seemed that the entities were breathing our atmosphere, or perhaps were robots. Quite a few reports describe backpacks, hoses, or tubes, elaborate headgear, and handheld boxes or instruments, indicating some form of technology analogous to ours.
The next major wave of UFO sightings, late in 1957, was concentrated in the southwestern and central United States, and featured unidentified glowing elliptical objects that landed on roadways in Levelland, Texas, as cars stalled. Scattered reports of UFO occupants came from all over the country during this wave. 3 Similar reports were made occasionally during the early 1960s. Then came Socorro, a growing frequency of UFO sightings in 1965, and, finally, the major UFO sighting wave of 1966-1967. UFO occupant sightings multiplied in these years; some of these are included in table 1.
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TABLE 1. UFO OCCUPANT SIGHTINGS, 1954-1963
September 10, 1954 Antoine Mazaud, Mourieras, France 8:50 P.M.
One being of average height, "helmet"-like headgear; cigar-shaped craft; being confronted witness, extended arm and touched him.
September 10, 1954 Marius Dewilde, Quarouble, France 10:30 P.M.
Two beings 3-1/2 ft. tall, coveralls, diver's helmet; dark mass on ground; dog howled, witness blinded by light from craft, paralyzed.
September 17, 1954 Yves David, Cenon (Vienne), France 10:30 P.M.
One being smaller than a man; bicyclist felt shock, paralysis, being touched him on shoulder, uttered unintelligible sound; object on road took off, green light".
September 26, 1954 Mme. Leboeuf, Chabeuil (Drome), France 4:00 P.M.
One being 3 ft. tall, diving suit, helmet, large eyes; flat circular craft; dog barked, being approached, witness fled; circle of crushed foliage found at site.
September 27, 1954 Raymond Romand, Premanon (Jura), France 8:30 P.M.
Two beings, squarish with legs; fiery ball hovered over meadow, light from barn reflected off being, child threw pebbles that struck it with metallic sound; 12-foot circle of flattened grass, imprints, at site".
October 3, 1954 Bernard Devoisin, Rene Coudette, Ligescourt, France 6:45 P.M.
One child-sized being, diver's suit; glowing orange domed disc on road, bicyclists approached, being entered craft and took off.
October 3, 1954 Angelo Girardo, Bressuire, France
One small figure in diver's suit; bicyclist came upon 10-foot disc on ground, being next to it; being entered craft and took off.
October 9, 1954 Roger Barrault, Lavoux, France 7:00 P.M.
One 4-1/2 ft tall being, diver's suit, bright eyes, two lights on chest; bicyclist at dusk encountered being, who disappeared into woods; no craft seen".
October 9, 1954 Gilbert Calda, 12 Pournoy-la- Che live, (Moselle), France 6:30 P.M.
One 4-ft tall being, dark coveralls, large eyes; children roller-skating, shiny round craft landed near them, being emerged, made unintelligible sound; they ran away.
October 11, 1954 Henri Gallois, Louis Vigneron, Clamecy (Nievre), France 4:30 A.M.
Three small figures; en route to a fair, felt shock, paralysis, engine and lights failed; beings entered round craft and took off.
October 11, 1954 Three motorists, Tapignac (Charente, Maritime), France 7:30 P.M.
Four 3-ft tall beings; motorists stopped to watch hovering disc that descended into woods; two entered woods to investigate, saw beings enter domed disc and take off".
October 16, 1954 Dr. Henri Robert, Baillolet (Seine-Inferieure), France nightfall
One 3-ft tall being; one of four circular objects zigzagged down in front of car, witness felt shock, engine and lights failed; being visible in light from UFO .
October 18, 1954 Marie-L. Bourriot, St.-Point (Doubs), France 10:45 P.M.
One human in coveralls, two dwarflike beings; luminous object over road, motorcycle almost struck human form, joined by small beings, craft departed; small footprints found.
November 28, 1954 Gustavo Gonzalez, Jose Ponce, Caracas, Venezuela
Three hairy dwarfs with glowing eyes; glowing sphere blocked road; Gonzalez struggled with being which knocked him down, second emerged, blinded him with light beam.
December 10, 1954 . Lorenzo Flores, Jesus Gomez, Chico, Venezuela nighttime
Four 3-ft tall, hairy, strong beings; UFO like two bowls rim to rim just off ground; beings tried to drag witnesses on board.
May 25, 1955 Robert Hunnicutt, Branch Hill, OH, 3:30 A.M.
Three 3-1/2 ft tall gray beings, wide mouths, lopsided chests; driving home from work, saw beings by road, one held sparkling rod overhead, alfalfa-almond odor; Ground Observer Corps UFO sighting earlier that evening.
July 3, 1955 Margaret Symmonds, Stockton, GA 3:30 A.M.
Four 3-1/2 to 4-ft tall beings, gray garb, long arms, large reddish eyes, pointed chins, small mouths, clawlike hands; beings in road apparently digging with sticks; witness swerved car to avoid hitting them.
August 21-22, 1955 J. C. Sutton family, Kelly, KY. 8:00 P.M.
Two or three 3-1/2 ft tall beings, large heads, big ears, large luminous eyes, long arms, clawlike hands, luminescent torsos; disc-shaped craft landed, dog barked violently, beings approached house one or two at a time, floated at times.
May 10, 1957. Michel Fekete, M. & Mme. Rene Lepot, Beaucort-sur-Ancre, France.10:45 P.M.
Four beings under five feet tall, gray skin or garb, oversized heads; darkness and distance concealed features; bicyclist blinded by light, saw silhouettes of small beings in road, fled; luminous object pulsating from red to white flew away at 45-degree angle.
October 15, 1957 Antonio Villas-Boas, Sao Francisco de Sales, Brazil. 1:00 A.M.
Five small beings, headgear, one female; abducted onto landed disc craft (see section XIII, Abduction Case Summaries)
November 6, 1957 Everett Clark, Dante, TN 6:30 A.M.
Four human-looking beings, unintelligible vocal sounds, entered cigar-shaped craft on ground as if "walking through glass," took off silently; elliptical imprint 5 ft. x 24 ft. found in grass.
November 6, 1957 John Trasco, Everittstown, NJ dusk
One 2-1/2- to 3-ft tall being, green garb, putty-colored face, chin, large bulging eyes; man saw 9- to 12-ft.-long luminous egg-shaped UFO, confronted by being who spoke in broken English.
November 7, 1957 Malvan Stephens, House, MS 7:25 P.M.
Three 4-1/2-ft tall beings, gray garb, dark hair, "pasty white" faces; truck driver blocked by large gray egg-shaped craft on road; door opened, beings emerged, made chattering sound; craft departed straight up at high speed.
December 16, 1957 Mary M. Starr, Old Saybrook, CT 2:00-3:00 A.M.
Two robot-like beings, squarish heads, one arm upraised; visible through windows of 20 to 30 ft long-ellipse hovering near house; craft glowed, windows vanished, took off.
June 26, 1959 Fr. William Gill, Papua, New Guinea 6:45 P.M.
Four "men" illuminated by blue light on top of hovering disc-shaped craft with four legs; responded to waves by witnesses.
July 13, 1959 Mrs. Frederick, Moreland, Blenheim, New Zealand 5:50 A.M.
Two shiny beings, close-fitting garb, "opaque helmets," visible in dome of hovering disc-shaped craft.
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UFO Occupant Sightings, 1964-1967
Major UFO sighting waves in the mid-1960s and in 1973 included dozens of occupant sightings. The 1978 wave included the internationally reported disappearance of a young pilot over Australia during his sighting of a UFO as he was describing it to air traffic controllers.
To what extent do earlier descriptions of UFO occupants match abductee descriptions of their reported captors? In some of the 1954 cases the witnesses saw very large or especially noteworthy eyes through the headgear, and in one case, on October 18, a human-appearing being was seen cooperating with two small humanoids.
On November 6, 1957, in Dante, Tenn., Everett Clark saw beings apparently enter a craft through its side without benefit of a door. Some of these features were reported before abduction reports.
Some speculative questions are these: Were some clues concealed in the numerous occupant reports suggesting a change in the behavior or strategy of the presumed aliens leading up to increasing abductions of human beings? Can a progression of occupant sightings, passive encounters, aggressive encounters, and abductions be traced? Did the growing rate of abductions signal the end of some previous phase of activities?
There have always been sporadic reports of less "humanoid"—even monstrous—beings associated with UFOs in addition to the reported small humanoids. Some were reported to be gigantic and/or grotesque in appearance, but usually there were no confirming examples by independent witnesses in other cases.
Sightings began to increase noticeably early in 1964, for the first time in six or seven years. Then the pace picked up gradually, accelerated in 1965, and remained at an unprecedented high rate throughout 1966 and 1967. Late in 1964 and early in 1965 a flurry of sightings was reported in and around Washington, DC, that attracted the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It was rumored that government officials had been among the witnesses.
Throughout this period high-strangeness cases were common, but often they were high credibility, as well. By the end of 1966 the Air Force Project Blue Book UFO investigation was receiving heavy criticism, Congress was taking a closer look, and an independent scientific study was mandated. Occupant cases during this period often included "coveralls" and helmets or headgear of some kind, elliptical or disc-shaped craft, and face-to-face encounters. A number of examples are listed in table 2.
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TABLE 2. UFO OCCUPANT SIGHTINGS, 1964-1967
April 24, 1964 Gary Wilcox, Newark Valley, NY 10:00 A.M.
Two 4-ft.-tall beings, silver-white garb, egg-shaped craft just above ground; beings communicated in English.
April 24, 1964 Lonnie Zamora, Socorro, NM 5:45 P.M.
Two 4-ft.-tall beings, white garb; beings fled into egg-shaped craft when spotted (see section V).
July 16, 1964 Five boys, Conklin, NY afternoon
One 3-ft.-tall being, black garb, helmet, glass-like faceplate; dome-shaped craft seen on ground; whistling sound attracted attention to being perched in tree, who floated to ground.
September 4, 1964 Donald Shrum, Cisco Grove, CA nighttime
Several humanoids plus robots; luminous object landed, beings trapped witness in tree, prolonged confrontation.
November 25, 1964 New Berlin, NY
Twelve humanoids observed at distance after two discs landed on hill; appeared to be engaged in repair operation for hours.
January 19, 1965 William Blackburn, Brands Flats, VA 6:15 P.M.
Three small humanoids floated from hovering craft, confronted witness.
July 1, 1965 Maurice Masse. Valensole, France 5:45 A.M.
Two to three small humanoids, one-piece garb; whistling sound, saw craft and beings; tried to approach, paralyzed.
September 1, 1965 Huanuco, Peru 5:00 A.M.
One humanoid, large head; oval object landed on estate, being emerged, gestured, reentered craft, took off straight up at high speed.
September 10, 1965 Sao Joao, Pernambuco State, Brazil 8:30 A.M.
Two small, brown-skinned humanoids, one-piece garb; two discs landed, beings emerged, objects rose a few meters, unintelligible vocalizations.
March 23, 1966 Temple, OK 5:05 A.M.
One human-like being and elongated craft with flashing lights encountered on road; being entered it and took off"
February 5, 1967 Milliard, OH evening
Several human-like beings emerged from elliptical craft with three legs, placed small spherical objects around craft.
March 12, 1967 Glens Falls, NY 10:30 P.M.
One being seen moving inside windows of hovering top-shaped craft with lights around circumference".
March 28, 1967 Munroe Falls, OH 2:30 A.M.
Four to five humanoid beings with large heads ran back and forth across road, one hit by car; dents found on car bumper.
April 14, 1967 Melville, NY 9:00 P.M.
One small being appeared in doorway of circular craft that landed beside road, E-M effects on car; soil samples taken.
June 13, 1967 Caledonia, Ontario, Canada 2:30 A.M.
Three 3- to 4-ft tall beings, light-colored clothing, helmets, moved around beneath cigar-shaped craft with windows; physical traces found at site".
July 17, 1967 Belfast, North Ireland evening
Two silver-suited humanoids emerged from craft, entered woods; returned and "drifted" back into craft.
July 20, 1967 Elizabeth Douglas, Titusville, FL 9:15 P.M.
One humanoid visible inside disc with dome, square windows, as craft flew low past house.
July 31, 1967 Sidney Zipkin, Churchville, NY 10:15 P.M.
Two small beings, shiny black garb. Saturn-shaped craft seen near ground in truck headlights; beings boarded, took off straight up.
August 3, 1967 Caracas, Venezuela 11:30 P.M.
One 3-ft tall being, emerged from hovering luminous disc, took gravel samples.
August 23, 1967 Stanley Moxon, Joyceville, Ontario Canada 4:00 A.M.
Three 3- to 4-ft tall beings, white garb, translucent helmets from disc with three legs, gathered specimens (see case summary below).
August 24, 1967 Ron Hyde, Wodonga, Victoria Australia 5:00 P.M.
Two humanoids about five ft. tall, silvery suits, round helmets, emerged from disc with dome; one moved toward witness and gestured, he fled in fear).
August 31, 1967 Cussac, France
Two small beings, black garb, entered disc-shaped craft and took off".
September 15, 1967 Winsted, CT 9:00 P.M.
Three beings about 4'^ ft. tall, large heads, scurried around glowing, pulsating object; light dimmed when cars approached.
September 21, 1967 Jose Edrosa, Barcelona, Spain 1230A.M.
Small beings, large heads, white garb; beings seen moving toward brilliant round object on ground, car lifted, witness in severe shock.
October 24, 1967 Newfield, NY 9:30 P.M.
Two humanoid figures seen in window of saucer-shaped craft (see Dyad case).
November 2, 1967 Guy Tossie, Willie Begay, Ririe, ID 9:30 P.M.
Two small humanoids from disc with dome, aggressive encounter.
November 24, 1967 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 2:30 P.M.
Three small white-clad figures around disc with dome, red lights; physical traces found at site".
December 8, 1967 Marilyn Wilding, Idaho Falls, ID 7:40 P.M.
Two humanoid figures visible in disc with dome.
(For case summaries, 1964-1967, see pages 474-482, Vol. II, The UFO Evidence)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
UFO Occupant Sightings, 1968-1972
The sighting wave tapered off early in 1968, and it was not until 1973 that the next major wave occurred. Humanoid occupant encounters continued sporadically, but UFO sightings in general received very little publicity. However, the same patterns were evident in the cases reported during these years, as illustrated in table 3.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE 3. UFO OCCUPANT SIGHTINGS, 1968-1972
November 20, 1968 M. Milakovic, Hanbury, UK 5:30 P.M.
Five silhouetted humanoids moving back and forth in dome of luminous UFO.
January 1, 1970 Doreen Kendall, Duncan, B.C., Canada 5:00 A.M.
Two dark beings in tight-fitting garb visible in upper portion of Saturn-shaped object with lights on rim; facial features obscured by headgear.
January 7, 1970 A. Heinonen, Imjarvi, Finland 4:45 P.M.
One small humanoid, thin arms, descended in light beam from hovering disc, rendered witnesses unconscious with "light weapon".
June 27, 1970 Aristeu Machado, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 11:40 A.M.
Two small humanoids on rim of Saturn-shaped craft with flashing lights on the underside; craft took off, skimming ocean surface (see section V).
August 16, 1970 Puente de Herrera, Valladolid, Spain 1:00 A.M.
One human-size being, dark tight-fitting garb, entered Saturn-shaped craft, which took off with an intense whistling sound.
April 14, 1971 : D. Donaldson, Gallery, PA 8:00 P.M.
Two silhouetted human-like figures visible in windows of hovering disc (see section VI).
July 19, 1972 Brisbane, Queensland Australia 2:00 A.M.
Six grayish humanoids, faces obscured, standing by roadside near long silvery object; one held up hand as motorist approached.
(Case summaries can be located in Vol. II, The UFO Evidence on pages 483-486)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
UFO Occupant Sightings during 1973 Sighting Wave
During the 1973 sighting wave concentrated late in the year, occupant sightings and confrontational encounters were numerous. A number of robot-like or nonhumanoid beings were sighted during this wave, but the "standard" features prevailed, as shown in table 4.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE 4. UFO OCCUPANT SIGHTINGS, 1973
September 27, 1973 Bedarrides, France 5:30 P.M.
Two 1.2-meter humanoids, slender limbs, black caps, coveralls, with oval craft; UFO took off with whistling sound, sped away.
October 4, 1973 Gary Chopic, Chatsworth, CA early evening
One human-size being, silver suit, elliptical craft with clear dome; saw witness, entered craft and took off.
October 6, 1973 St. Mathias, Quebec, Canada early A.M.
Five small beings, yellow garb, headgear, moved quickly back and forth near dome-shaped craft with body lights.
October 11, 1973 Hickson & Parker, Pascagoula, MS evening
Two robot-like beings, abduction case (see section XIII).
October 12, 1973 Cincinnati, OH 2:30 A.M.
One "apelike" being, featureless, large waist, no neck, visible in dome-shaped object on or near the ground.
October 17, 1973 Paul Brown, Danielsville, GA evening
Two 4- 4-1/2-ft. tall beings, silver garb, emerged from silver egg-shaped craft that descended ahead of car; took off with "whooshing" sound when witness brandished a pistol.
October 17, 1973 Eupora, MS night
One grotesque nonhumanoid creature, flipper-like feet, webbing between legs, appeared from top of dome-shaped object with blue-green flashing lights that landed on road, E-M effects on car.
October 19, 1973 Ashburn, GA 3:30 P.M.
One small being, round helmet, head moved like robot, E-M effects on car; no craft observed".
October 19, 1973 Goshen, OH 9:00 P.M.
Two or three 6-ft tall human-like beings moved around a domed disc resting on tripod legs, entered via ladder, took off with humming sound.
October 19, 1973 Copeland, NC
One 3-ft.-tall humanoid, gold garb, with blue oval object hovering near mobile home; family dog frightened, ran away until next day.
October 22, 1973 Hartford City, IN
Two 4-ft.-tall humanoids, silver garb, seen alongside road three separate times; no UFO seen.
October 23, 1973 Russell Springs, KY
Two 3-ft.-tall beings, reddish color, entered craft (no description), which took off.
October 24, 1973 David Simpson, Dobson, NC
One humanoid, glowing eyes, from oval UFO that landed near car, E-M effects on car".
October 28, 1973 Llanca, Bahia Blanca, Argentina
Three 5-ft tall beings, high foreheads, slanted eyes, gray coveralls, from yellow saucer-shaped craft; abduction case (see section XIII).
(See case summaries in Vol. II, The UFO Evidence)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Occupant Reports since 1973
Sightings continued in Europe—especially southern Europe—into the summer of 1974. Because of incomplete news reporting, the full extent of the wave that began in 1973 may have gone unrecognized. Occupant sightings continued at a fairly high rate throughout the mid- and late 1970s.
An unusual number of detailed cases with many intriguing features were reported during the major wave of 1978. Some of the features were beings descending from craft on ladders or light beams, beings gathering soil and plant samples, and occasional aggressive confrontations with humans that sometimes resulted in injury or illness. The geographical diversity of the sightings is noteworthy: reports came from at least 10 countries on 5 continents.
Occupant reports seemed to decline after 1979. There may be some significance to the fact that an upsurge of abduction cases was occurring in the 1970s just as "old-fashioned" occupant sightings—beings seen in or outside their craft on the ground—seemed to take on a more aggressive character and, then, in the 1980s, apparently became rare and abduction cases proliferated instead. Sightings during this period are included in table 5.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE 5. UFO OCCUPANT SIGHTINGS, 1974-1989
January 7, 1974 Warneton, Belgium 8:40 P.M.
Two humanoids, headgear, approached car from helmet-shaped disc.
March 21, 1974 Valdehijaderos, Salamanca, Spain 2:30 A.M.
Two 6-ft.-tall beings, tight-fitting shiny coveralls, seen after E-M effects on car; beings entered luminous craft and took off.
March 21, 1974 Valdehijaderos, Salamanca, Spain 11:15 P.M.
Two to four beings with disclike craft seen on road, E-M effects on car; beings gestured and moved toward witness, who fled.
April 16, 1974 Mauro Bellingeri, Casale Monferrato, Italy 12:50 A.M.
Three beings with globe-shaped headgear visible within upper portion of disc with central ly ring and rotating lights (see Dyad cases above).
May 7, 1974 Coatsville, PA 9:00 P.M.
Three small beings, gray skin, clawed hands descended from disc-shaped craft with four legs atop hospital, made squeaky vocal sounds, saw witness, reentered craft and took off.
June 14, 1974 Medellin, Spain 4:30 A.M.
Three tall beings with helmets visible in turret of "pot-shaped" craft hovering over farmhouse, area illuminated "like day".
June 25, 1974 St. Cyrille de Wendover, Quebec, Canada 1:15 A.M.
Fifteen 6-ft.-tall robot-like beings, red lights on chests, floated from hovering domed disc with body lights; physical traces found at site.
September 29, 1974 Mme. Le Bihan, Riec-sur-Belon, Finistere, France 12:45 A.M.
Three 1.7-meter-tall stocky humanoids, round heads, silver garb, from brilliantly lighted dome-shaped object with portholes, swaying back and forth near ground; beings walked heavily, rocking back and forth.
January 12, 1975 George O'Barski, North Bergen, NJ 2:00 A.M.
Eight to ten 3'/i-ft.-tall beings with dark garb, helmets, emerged from underside of low hovering disc with lighted windows, took samples from ground".
February 14, 1975 Antoine Severin, Petite-He, Reunion, France 1:30 P.M.
Four 1- to 1.2-meter-tall beings, metallic white garb, helmets, from domed disc with portholes, directed light beam at witness, who felt a force pulling him, later had headaches and impaired vision; beings poked in ground as if gathering samples.
May 3, 1975 Alois Olenick, San Antonio, TX 9:15 P.M.
Two small humanoids, grayish skin, visible in dome of Saturn-shaped craft (see Dyad cases above).
July 31, 1975 Danie van Graan, Loxton, South Africa 7:30 A.M.
Four 1- to 1.5-meter-tall beings, thin, slanted eyes, light coveralls, hoods, visible inside silver oval with legs; light beam struck witness in face, physiological effects.
October 7, 1975 Utterson, Ontario, Canada 8:30 P.M.
One small, stocky humanoid, round helmet, from metallic ellipse on road; UFO took off as car approached, being beside road vaulted fence and fled.
November 7, 1975 Catskill Park, NY 1:00 A.M.
Four beings with dark eyes, diagonal marks on side of head, surrounded campers, reacted to light, faintly luminous structured craft seen; possible abduction".
February 3, 1977 Seven Mile Beach, Tasmania 9:30 P.M.
One slender humanoid, large round head, seen in window of a dome-shaped, spinning craft with flashing lights".
February 24, 1977 Rudi Grutsch, Langenargen, Lake Constance Germany 2:30 A.M.
Two 1.1- to 1.3-meter-tall humanoids, round heads, slanted eyes, long arms, with hovering elliptical UFOs, bright illumination of area.
July 12, 1977 A. Ordonez, Quebradillas, Puerto Rico 8:30 P.M.
One 3'/2-ft.-tall being, green garb, helmet, backpack, four fingers on hands, seen from balcony, no craft seen; being fled when lights turned on, floating upward".
January 10, 1978 Tom Gould, South Middleton, MA 2:30 P.M.
One 4%-ft.-tall, stocky humanoid, three fingers on hands, with egg-shaped UFO; being stood 90 feet away looking at witness.
February 3, 1978 Janine Home, Seven Mile Beach Tasmania 9:30 P.M.
One thin being with large rounded head, moving back and forth in window of disc with dome, flashing body lights, whining sound heard.
February 4, 1978 Manuel Alvarez, La Florida, San Luis, Argentina 4:30 A.M.
One human-size being, helmet, luminous garb, descended on ladder from hovering disc, waved at fishermen, reentered craft, which took off at high speed.
September 1, 1978 Llanerchymedd, Anglesey, Wales 8:15 P.M.
Three 6-ft.-tall beings, grayish garb, helmets, from white egg-shaped object that illuminated trees brightly, dogs barked furiously, cows fled, depressed circle and swathed path found at site.
September 17, 1978 Riccardo Boscagli, Torrita di Siena, Italy 9:00 P.M.
Two small humanoids, green garb, helmets, floated from domed disc on road, circled car, E-M effects.
September 18, 1978 G. Filiputti, Melaria, Porto Nogaro, Italy 3:30 P.M.
One 1-meter-tall humanoid, silver tight-fitting coveralls, almond eyes, emerged from disc with dome, appeared to be making repairs on rim.
October 2, 1978 Groendal Nature Reserve, South Africa 11:15 A.M.
Three silver-suited beings seen moving with odd gait, traversing hillside in terrain with heavy growth, no craft seen; search found 6 x 18 m oval depression, plus a number of smaller imprints.
October 8, 1978 Deanne Kearns, Ord, NE 2:00 A.M.
Two 5- to 6-ft.-tall beings descended in light beam from hovering UFO shaped like one plate inverted on top of another, loud buzzing sound; beings collected earth and plant samples".
November 24, 1978 Angelo D'Ambros, Gallic, Vicenza, Italy 11:45 A.M.
Two 3-1/2 to 4-ft. tall grotesque beings, yellow skin, prominent veins, huge ears, fanglike teeth, from disc with dome, moved jerkily, seized pruning knife from witness, who felt an electric shock during struggle".
January 3/4, 1979 Meagan Quezet, Mindalore, South Africa midnight
Five or six 1.5-meter-tall beings, human appearing, white coveralls, emerged from truncated egg-shaped craft, high-pitched vocal sounds, reentered and took off with buzzing sound.
August 4, 1979 Canoga Park, CA 10:35 P.M.
Two humanoid beings, large heads, seen inside dome of luminous disc. (See Dyad cases above).
November 19, 1982 Temperanceville, VA 11:10 P.M.
Three humanoid beings seen moving around inside hovering silvery disc, light beam to ground; UFO rose and moved over car with buzzing sound".
January 9, 1987 Jozsa, Hungary 2:30 A.M.
Two beings in dark garb seen, one outside low-hovering disc with central row of windows, one in lighted doorway.
September 1, 1987 Bangor, WA 10:55 P.M.
Two humanoids visible inside hovering round object that moved over children, beamed light onto them.
September 21-27, 1989 Voronezh, Russia 6:30 P.M.
Various roughly humanoid, sometimes robot-like beings, complex series of sightings and occupan
29.4 Underground coal fire
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Centralia is a borough and ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania , United States . Its population has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to 12 in 2005,[1] as a result of a mine fire burning beneath the borough since 1962. Centralia is one of the least-populated municipalities in Pennsylvania.
Centralia is part of the Bloomsburg-Berwick micropolitan area . The borough is completely surrounded by Conyngham Township .
All properties in the borough were claimed under eminent domain by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1992 (and all buildings therein were condemned), and Centralia's ZIP code was revoked by the Postal Service in 2002.[1] A few residents continue to reside there in spite of the failure of a lawsuit to reverse the eminent domain claim.
[edit ] History
[edit ] Early history
In 1841, Johnathan Faust opened the Bull's Head Tavern in what was then Roaring Creek Township . Thirteen years later, Alexander W. Rea, a civil and mining engineer for the Locust Mountain Coal and Iron Company, moved to the site and laid out streets and lots for development. The town was known as Centreville until 1865. Since there was already a Centreville in Schuylkill County, the Post Office refused to allow it to use the same name. Rea then changed his village to Centralia.[2]
Centralia was incorporated as a borough in 1866. Its principal employer was the anthracite coal industry. Coal mining continued in Centralia until the 1960s, when most of the companies shut down. Bootleg mining continued until 1982 and strip and open-pit mining are still active in the area. There is an underground mine employing about 40 people three miles to the west.
Centralia area showing conditions before mine fire
Centralia was a hotbed of Molly Maguires activity during the 1860s and 1870s. Alexander Rea, The town's founder, was murdered by members of the Molly Maguires on October 17, 1868.[3] Three men were eventually convicted of his death and were hanged in the county seat of Bloomsburg , on March 25, 1878. Several other murders and incidents of arson also took place during the violence.
Centralia was served by two railroads, the Philadelphia and Reading and the Lehigh Valley , the Lehigh Valley being the principal carrier. Rail service ended in 1966. Centralia operated its own school district, including elementary schools and a high school. There were also two Catholic parochial schools . Centralia at its peak had seven churches, five hotels, twenty-seven saloons, two theaters, a bank, a post office, and 14 general and grocery stores. The population reached 2,761 in the 1890 federal census, then went into decline. By 1980, it had just 1,012 residents. Another 500 or 600 lived nearby.[1]
Most of the property has now been condemned by the state of Pennsylvania. The habitable areas were put up for auction, and in 2010 an anonymous buyer purchased nine land deeds, four of them inhabitable.
[edit ] Mine fire
A small part of the Centralia mine fire as it appeared after being exposed during an excavation in 1969.
In 1962, a fire started in a mine beneath the town and ultimately led to the town being abandoned.
“ This was a world where no human could live, hotter than the planet Mercury, its atmosphere as poisonous as Saturn's. At the heart of the fire, temperatures easily exceeded 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit [540 degrees Celsius ]. Lethal clouds of carbon monoxide and other gases swirled through the rock chambers.[2] — David DeKok, Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986) ”
There is some disagreement over the specific event which triggered the fire. David DeKok, after studying available local and state government documents and interviewing former borough council members, argues in Unseen Danger and its successor edition, Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire, that in May 1962, the Centralia Borough Council hired five members of the volunteer fire company to clean up the town landfill , located in an abandoned strip-mine pit next to the Odd Fellows Cemetery. This had been done prior to Memorial Day in previous years, when the landfill was in a different location. On May 27, 1962, the firefighters, as they had in the past, set the dump on fire and let it burn for some time. Unlike in previous years, however, the fire was not fully extinguished. An unsealed opening in the pit allowed the fire to enter the labyrinth of abandoned coal mines beneath Centralia.
Centralia area showing conditions after mine fire (as of 2008).
Joan Quigley argues in her 2007 book, The Day the Earth Caved In, that the fire had in fact started the previous day, when a trash hauler dumped hot ash or coal discarded from coal burners into the open trash pit. She noted that borough council minutes from June 4, 1962 referred to two fires at the dump, and that five firefighters had submitted bills for "fighting the fire at the landfill area". The borough, by law, was responsible for installing a fire-resistant clay barrier between each layer,[clarification needed ] but fell behind schedule, leaving the barrier incomplete. This allowed the hot coals to penetrate the vein of coal underneath the pit and light the subsequent subterranean fire. In addition to the council minutes, Quigley cites "interviews with volunteer firemen, the former fire chief, borough officials, and several eyewitnesses" as her sources for this explanation of the fire.[4][5] Another theory of note is the Bast Theory. It states that the fire was burning long before the alleged trash dump fire. However, due to overwhelmingly contrary evidence, few hold this position, and it is given little credibility.[4]
However it started, it is agreed that the fire remained burning underground and spread through a hole in the rock pit into the abandoned coal mines beneath Centralia. Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, and it continued to burn throughout the 1960s and 1970s. David DeKok began reporting on the mine fire as a reporter for The News-Item in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, beginning in late 1976. Between then and 1986, he wrote just over 500 news stories about the mine fire. Beginning in 1980, adverse health effects were reported by several people due to the byproducts of the fire: carbon monoxide , carbon dioxide and a lack of healthy oxygen levels.[citation needed ]
In 1979, locals became aware of the scale of the problem when a gas-station owner and then mayor, John Coddington, inserted a stick into one of his underground tanks to check the fuel level. When he withdrew it, it seemed hot, so he lowered a thermometer down on a string and was shocked to discover that the temperature of the gasoline in the tank was 172 °F (77.8 °C ). Statewide attention to the fire began to increase, culminating in 1981 when a 12-year-old resident named Todd Domboski fell into a sinkhole 4 feet (1.2 m) wide by 150 feet (46 m) deep that suddenly opened beneath his feet in a backyard. His cousin, 14-year-old Eric Wolfgang, in pulling Todd out of the hole, saved Todd's life, as the plume of hot steam billowing from the hole was measured as containing a lethal level of carbon monoxide.[citation needed ]
In 1984, the U.S. Congress allocated more than US$42 million for relocation efforts. Most of the residents accepted buyout offers and moved to the nearby communities of Mount Carmel and Ashland . A few families opted to stay despite warnings from Pennsylvania officials.[citation needed ]
In 1992, Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey invoked eminent domain on all properties in the borough, condemning all the buildings within. A subsequent legal effort by residents to have the decision reversed failed. In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service revoked Centralia's ZIP code, 17927.[1][6] In 2009, Governor Ed Rendell began the formal eviction of Centralia residents.[7]
The Centralia mine fire extended into the town of Byrnesville, Pennsylvania and caused this town to also be abandoned.[citation needed ]
[edit ] Today
Very few homes remain standing in Centralia; most of the abandoned buildings have been demolished by the Columbia County Redevelopment Authority or nature. At a casual glance, the area now appears to be a field with many paved streets running through it. Some areas are being filled with new-growth forest. The remaining church in the borough, St. Mary's, holds weekly services on Sunday and has not yet been directly affected by the fire.[citation needed ] The town's four cemeteries—including one on the hilltop that has smoke rising around and out of it—are maintained in good condition.[citation needed ] There is also a notice board posted near Hammie Hill, about 500 yards from the cemetery, protesting the evictions and demanding former Governor Rendell intervene.
The only indications of the fire, which underlies some 400 acres (1.6 km2) spreading along four fronts, are low round metal steam vents in the south of the borough and several signs warning of underground fire , unstable ground, and carbon monoxide . Additional smoke and steam can be seen coming from an abandoned portion of Pennsylvania Route 61 , the area just behind the hilltop cemetery, and other cracks in the ground scattered about the area. Route 61 was repaired several times until its final closing. The current route was a detour around the damaged portion during the repairs and became a permanent route in 1993; mounds of dirt were placed at both ends of the former route, effectively blocking the road. Pedestrian traffic is still possible due to a small opening about two feet wide at the north side of the road, but this is muddy and not accessible to the disabled. The underground fire is still burning and may continue to do so for 250 years.[8]
Prior to its demolition in September 2007, the last remaining house on Locust Avenue was notable for the five chimney-like support buttresses along each of two opposite sides of the house, where the house was supported by a row of adjacent buildings before it was demolished. Another house with similar buttresses was visible from the northern side of the cemetery, just north of the burning, partially subsumed hillside.[9]
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania did not renew the relocation contract at the end of 2005, and the fate of the remaining residents is uncertain.[10]
In 2009, John Comarnisky and John Lokitis, Jr. were both evicted, in May and July respectively. In 2010, only five homes remain as state officials try to vacate the remaining residents and demolish what is left of the town. In May 2009, the remaining residents mounted another legal effort to reverse the 1992 eminent domain claim.[11] In March 2011, a federal judge refused to issue an injunction that would have stopped the condemnation.[12] In February 2012, the Commonwealth Court ruled that a declaration of taking could not be re-opened or set aside on the basis that the purpose for the condemnation no longer exists; seven people, including the Borough Council president, had filed suit claiming the condemnation was no longer needed because the underground fire had moved and the air quality in the borough was the same as that in Lancaster .[12]
The Pottsville Republican & Herald reported in February 2011 that the Borough Council still has regular meetings.[13] The news story reported that the town's highest bill at the meeting reported on came from PPL at $92 and the town's budget was "in the black".
On August 28, 2011, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church celebrated 100 years of worship. This church is located on the north hill overlooking the town. It was allowed to stay because of its distance from the mine fire.
It is expected that many former residents will return in 2016 to open a time capsule buried in 1966 next to the veterans' memorial.[1]
[edit ] Mineral rights
Several current and former Centralia residents believe the state's eminent domain claim was a plot to gain the mineral rights to the anthracite coal beneath the borough. Residents have asserted its value to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, although the exact amount of coal is not known.[12][7][14][15] This theory stems from the municipality laws of the state. According to state law, when the municipality can no longer form a functioning municipal government, i.e. when there are no longer any residents, the borough legally ceases to exist. At that point, the mineral rights, which are owned by the Borough of Centralia (they are not privately held) would revert to the ownership of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.[citation needed ]
[edit ] Demographics
Toxic gas and smoke rising from the ground above the underground fire
A local sign warning of the underground fire. The sign no longer stands.
1999 photo showing the abandoned highway and its replacement
The municipal building of Centralia
As of the census of 2000,[16] there were 21 people, 10 households, and 7 families residing in the borough. The population density was 87.5 people per square mile (3.38 km²). There were 16 housing units at an average density of 66.7 people per square mile (2.57 km²). The racial makeup of the borough was 100% white .
There were 10 households out of which 1 (10%) had children under the age of 18 living with them, 5 (50%) were married couples living together, 1 had a female householder with no husband present, and 3 (30%) were non-families. 3 of the households were made up of individuals, and 1 had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.10, and the average family size was 2.57.
In the borough the population was spread out with 1 resident under the age of 18, 1 from 18 to 24, 4 from 25 to 44, 7 from 45 to 64, and 8 who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 62 years. There were 10 females and 11 males with 1 male under the age of 18.
The median income for a household in the borough was $23,750, and the median income for a family was $28,750. The per capita income for the borough was $16,083. None of the population was below the poverty line .
[edit ] Police
Though it originally fielded its own three-man department (one full-time chief and two part-time officers) during the latter part of the twentieth century, Centralia Borough is now patrolled by the Pennsylvania State Police Bloomsburg Station.
[edit ] Emergency services
The borough is served by the still active Centralia Fire Company #1ddgrr.
[edit ] In the media
[edit ] Literature (non-fiction )
Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire by David DeKok , published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 1986, was the first comprehensive history of the Centralia mine fire. An updated edition entitled Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire, with three new chapters and new information, was published by Globe Pequot Press in 2009.
The Day the Earth Caved In: An American Mining Tragedy, written by Joan Quigley, is an in-depth account of the history of Centralia, PA and the mine fire from its infancy through 2007, when the book was written.
A Walk in the Woods , written by Bill Bryson , describes a visit to the town.
In March 1991, Centralia was the subject of an article ("Don't Go There") in National Lampoon magazine.
The June 22, 1981, issue of People Magazine discusses the borough's dilemma in "A Town with a Hot Problem Decides Not to Move Mountains but to Move Itself ".
A TIME article, "The Hottest Town in America ", covered the story in their June 22, 1981, issue.
Centralia is documented in photographs and oral histories in Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, Pennsylvania by Renee Jacobs, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.
"Alien Hand Syndrome and Other Too-Weird-Not-To-Be-True Stories," written by Alan Bellows in 2009 features a short story on 'Centralia's Hidden Inferno.'
[edit ] Literature (fiction )
Jennifer Finney Boylan 's novel The Planets (written under the name James Boylan) and its sequel The Constellations are both set in Centralia.
Centralia is the hometown of the main character in the crime novel Dirty Blonde by Lisa Scottoline . Several scenes in the novel take place in Centralia.
In the 2003 book Bubbles Ablaze by Sarah Strohmeyer , Centralia is the inspiration for the fictional town of Limbo, Pennsylvania.
The main character in Joyce Carol Oates 's The Tattooed Girl, Alma Busch, is from Centralia.
Douglas Soderberg's 1986 one-act play The Root of Chaos is a dark comedy set in Centralia, and depicts a dysfunctional working-class family coming to terms with their house sinking from the coal fire.
Centralia is the model for the eponymous fictional town of Coal Run , written by Tawni O'Dell . The book is about the life of Ivan Zoschenko, a former football hero known locally as The Great Ivan Z, but who is now the deputy of a nearby town. Ivan grew up in Coal Run, which, like Centralia, is nearly abandoned because of underground fires in the coal seams beneath the town. However, Coal Run's fires are a result of a mine explosion that took the lives of 96 men, including Ivan's father.
Centralia is the location for the final scenes in the novel Vampire Zero by David Wellington .
Dean Koontz 's novella "Strange Highways" takes place in a town similar to Centralia.
Promethean: The Created uses "Appletown" as a replacement to Centralia.
Edward Bloor 's novel "A Plague Year" includes the burning town of Caldera, inspired by Centralia.
In October 2011 the town's last remaining residents were the subject of a devised theatre piece performed in London England by the Superbolt Theatre Company.
In March 2012, the UglyRhino production company produced 6 scenes centering around the remaining residents of the town. It can be seen at the Brooklyn Lyceum on Friday nights in March, in Brooklyn, New York.
Part of George C. Chesbro's 1985 novel "The Beasts of Valhalla," the fourth novel in his series featuring dwarf private detective Mongo the Magnificent, is set in a vast underground secret genetics modification laboratory underneath Centralia.
[edit ] Film
The town and its few remaining residents are the focus of Chris Perkel and Georgie Roland's 2007 feature-length documentary The Town That Was.[17]
The town is the inspiration for the 1991 cult film Nothing But Trouble , written by Dan Aykroyd .[18]
In the 2006 horror film Silent Hill , the town of Silent Hill has been abandoned due to a prolonged mine fire, which writer Roger Avary says was inspired by Centralia.[19][20] Aspects of this are shown throughout the movie, such as characters wandering through the misty version of Silent Hill wearing mining gear.
The town circa 1987 is prominently featured in the opening minutes of the 1987 film Made in USA as the home town of the lead characters.[21]
The 2009 film Sinkhole was filmed mostly in Centralia.
[edit ] Comics
The town is included in a short documentary on the Broken Saints web comic DVD set.
Centralia is the basis for the fictional town of Blossomville, Pennsylvania in Alan Moore 's Saga of the Swamp Thing in the 1985 story arc "The Nukeface Papers".
Centralia appears in Bob Rozakis ' story in Action Comics #558 as Superman comes to Coaltown to use his heat vision to make a firebreak and put the fire out.
[edit ] Other
The Squonk Opera wrote and performed a musical entitled Inferno (working and debut title of Burn), re-interpreting Dante Alighieri 's Inferno as a trip into Centralia.
The fire and the resulting devastation are themes of the 2006 song "Centralia" by the sludge-metal band Jucifer .[22]
Danish electronic musician Trentemøller 's music video "Sycamore Feeling" is shot in Centralia.
Boston ska band Bim Skala Bim has a song entitled "Burning Underground", based on the history of Centralia.
Metal band Car Bomb 's 2007 release Centralia is a homage to the town.
The town was featured in a segment of The Daily Show by former correspondent Matt Walsh .[23]
The town was featured in the episode "Engineering Disasters #7" of Modern Marvels on the History Channel .
The town was featured in an episode of Life After People: The Series on the History Channel. It was used as an example of what would happen to a town after twenty five years without humans.
Episode 200 of The Simpsons ("Trash of the Titans ") was loosely based on the history of Centralia. In the episode, Homer becomes Springfield's Sanitation Commissioner and charges other towns to dump their trash in Springfield's abandoned mine. When trash begins erupting out of the ground, the entire town is relocated.
The town was featured in episode #59, "Fire", of the radio program This American Life .
Several personal stories from the history of the fire were featured in the "Cities" episode of the WNYC radio program Radiolab in Oct 2010.[24]
The experimental band Mountains released an instrumental album called Centralia in 2013. A review of the album by Pitchfork mentions the town.[25]
[edit ] Gallery
[edit ] See also
[edit ] References
^ a b c d e Krajick, Kevin (May 2005), "Fire in the hole" , Smithsonian Magazine, retrieved 2009-07-27
^ a b DeKok, David (1986), Unseen Danger; A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 17, ISBN 978-0-595-09270-3
^ Willard Cilvik, "The Murder of Alexander W. Rea," http://library.bloomu.edu/Archives/SC/MollieMaguires/mollieindex.htm , 2006
^ a b Quigley, Joan (2007), The Day the Earth Caved In: An American Mining Tragedy , New York: Random House, ISBN 978-1-4000-6180-8
^ Quigley, Joan (2007). "Chapter Notes to The Day the Earth Caved In" (DOC). p. 8. Retrieved 2012-03-13.
^ Currie, Tyler (April 2, 2003), "Zip Code 00000" , Washington Post, retrieved 2009-12-19
^ a b Rubinkam, Michael (02-05-2010), Few Remain as 1962 Pa. Coal Town Fire Still Burns , ABC News (Australia) , retrieved 02-06-2010
^ O'Carol, Eoin. 2010-02-05. "Centralia, Pa.: How an underground coal fire erased a town" Christian Science Monitor . Retrieved 2010-04-21.
^ "A modern day Ghost Town, Centralia Pennsylvania" . Retrieved 2007-10-10.
^ Reading Eagle , January 3, 2006
^ Yahoo News, February 5, 2010
^ a b c Beauge, John (23 February 2012). "Court denies Centralia property owners looking to keep their homes" . The Patriot-News. PennLive LLC. Retrieved 12 March 2012. "The same individuals have a suit pending in U.S. Middle District Court that alleges the condemnation was part of the commonwealth’s plot to obtain mineral rights to the anthracite coal they claim are worth hundreds of millions of dollars."
^ Wheary, Rob (13 February 2011). "'Regular borough council' in Centralia" . Pottsville Republican. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
^ This is stated in Joan Quigley's The Day the Earth Caved In in a section that indicated that Centralia is the only municipality within the Commonwealth that actually owned its mineral rights.
^ Walter, Greg (22 June 1981), A Town with a Hot Problem Decides Not to Move Mountains but to Move Itself , People (magazine) , retrieved 2008-12-25, "Despite the inferno below them and the gases that seep into their basements, some Centralians do not want to leave their homes and remain convinced that it's all a plot by coal companies to drive them off valuable land since the borough owns mineral rights to the coal below. (Other rumored villains have variously included anonymous Arabs and large energy cartels.)"
^ "American FactFinder" . United States Census Bureau . Retrieved 2008-01-31.
^ John Lokitis, John Coddington, David DeKok, Todd Domboski, etc (2007). The Town That Was. Centralia, PA; Ashland, PA; Bloomfield, NJ; Harrisburg, PA; etc: Dog Player Films.
^ "Nothing But Trouble" on Amazon
^ Couch, Stephen. Presentation at Eastern Section meeting of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, June 2007
^ "10 Weirdest Urban Ecosystems On Earth" . Retrieved 06/15/2012.
^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095565/
^ "Jucifer - Centralia Lyrics" . Lyricsmania.com. Retrieved 2012-05-27.
^ "Coal Country" . The Daily Show. Retrieved 2013-03-13.
^ "Dying Embers" . Radiolab. Retrieved 2012-05-27.
^ "Centralia (Album Review)" . Pitchfork. Retrieved 2013-03-08.
[edit ] Further reading
DeKok, David. Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire, University of Pennsylvania Press , ISBN 0-595-09270-5 .
Jacobs, Renee. Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986, ISBN 0-8122-1235-5 .
Johnson, Deryl B. Images of America: Centralia, Arcadia Publishing, 2004, ISBN 978-0-7385-3629-3 .
Kroll-Smith, J. Stephen, and Couch, Stephen. The Real Disaster Is Above Ground: A Mine Fire and Social Conflict, University Press of Kentucky , January 1990, ISBN 0-8131-1667-8 , ISBN 978-0-8131-1667-9 .
Moran, Mark. Weird U.S., Barnes & Noble , ISBN 0-7607-5043-2 .
Quigley, Joan. The Day the Earth Caved in: An American Mining Tragedy , Random House , 2007, ISBN 978-1-4000-6180-8 .
Inferno: The Centralia Mine Fire .
29.5 War on Poverty
The poorest of the poor struggle back
Appalachia's War: The poorest of the poor struggle back
First in a three part series
Sunday, November 26, 2000
By Diana Nelson Jones, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Photos by Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Staff Photographer
An introduction: Appalachia, a rugged swath of America hugging the mountains from Georgia to New York, has for generations been the symbol of aching poverty in a land of wealth and opportunity.
But 35 years after President Johnson launched the War on Poverty from a simple porch in Appalachia, the region that claims part of Western Pennsylvania is climbing out of desperation.
Bordering cities of unprecedented growth and dot-com millionaires, Appalachia is finally outgrowing its image of shacks and bare feet.
On good roads, past Wal-Marts and in cozy bungalows, staff writer Diana Nelson Jones and photographer Steve Mellon visited the new Appalachia and uncovered a story of re-birth.
INEZ, Ky. -- Thirty-six years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson leapt over a gulleyful of water into Tommy Fletcher's yard along Route 3 in Inez, Ky. Photos show an entourage in the foreground of Fletcher's shack, where Johnson declared, "I have called for a national war on poverty. Our objective: total victory."
Gary Ball, left, a former coal miner who now edits a newspaper in Inez, Ky., speaks with a couple whose home in Beauty was the subject of a story in Ball's newspaper, the Mountain Citizen. Like many in the region, Ball's life is in economic transition. After a slump in the coal industry left him jobless, Ball moved on to new employment, albeit at a third of his old pay. Here he speaks with Linda Reed while husband Johnny listens from the doorway. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)
The implication was clear: If this was war, Appalachia was ground zero, home to the poorest of the poor, the very definition of rural poverty. For nearly four decades, federal billions have poured into the region.
The results, as you might expect, have been mixed. Appalachia has struggled toward prosperity and in most places has come a very long way. In others, you can still look around and say, "What war?"
Four-lane crossroads sport national retail franchises, malls and hotels. Two-lane arteries pass tidy ranch houses and double-wide trailers lined in hollyhocks; pizza joints beside beauty shops beside tanning salons beside pretty white chapels; cinder-block stores that sell bait and pepper plants; cottage-like restaurants that specialize in hot dogs; and stands of pine that partially hide chalet-style subdivisions.
Even down its narrowest roads and through its quietest hamlets, shacks these days aren't common. Some roads remain unpaved and some wreak havoc on your shocks, but they're as likely to lead to a cozy log lodge in the woods as to a peeling trailer surrounded by contorted lawn furniture.
A majority of Appalachia is now middle class, and parts of the region are growing faster than the nation. Still, nothing has adequately replaced the loss of coal jobs, and the few urban areas are not large or vigorous enough to spawn much outward growth. The bulk of Appalachia remains small towns and hamlets where any job's a good job, there isn't much to do, and residents greet visitors warily, saying, "You musta got lost."
There do remain places President Johnson would recognize. You can still see Tommy Fletcher sitting on his front porch in Inez, the somewhat addled overlord of a slope littered with roosters and soda cans.
"His is a story of failure," says Herbie Smith, a Whitesburg, Ky. filmmaker. "There are plenty of those."
But stories of transition better characterize today's Appalachia.
The coal mines that paid Gary Ball $50,000 a year in the '70s became the mines that didn't need him in the '90s. "It would have been so much easier to go on welfare," he says now, working as an $18,000-a-year editor of the weekly Mountain Citizen in Inez, with two children in college.
Three days a week, Cuban-born pediatrician Isabel Pino sets up shop along rural roads across southwestern West Virginia. The blue van of the West Virginia Children's Health Project is the only doctor's office some rural children have ever known. "This van's wider than a lot of roads," Pino says.
Emma Fletcher -- no relation to Tommy -- is six years into moving off welfare after having fled an abusive marriage with a young child. Now, she is working full time and has just sent her daughter to college. Melanie, a 4.0 student, is the first in the family to attend. "'Better' is not going to just come along," Fletcher says. "You have to make better."
Money began arriving
On evening newscasts the night of President Johnson's visit, Appalachia suddenly found itself in the glare of a national spotlight. It showed a gangly swath of rugged land whose people resembled the politically underserved of a Third World country. Cameras roved over swayback porches, battered cars on cinder blocks, barefooted children, toothless men and polling places where dead people had been voting for years. (The 1960 West Virginia census counted 19,879 voting-age residents in Mingo County -- with 30,331 registered to vote.)
Many Appalachians cringed at the images that entered their living rooms and at the stark contrast between the illiterate isolates and snappy New York newsmen that fed the nation an enduring stereotype. The attention gave new meaning to the word "rural." The sweeping farmlands of the Midwest and picturesque hamlets of New England had a poor-cousin counterpart in Appalachia, where "rural" meant bad drinking water or decent system of waste disposal, no firehouse, no police, no hospital, no sidewalks, no entertainment.
On April 24, 1964, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson visited Inez, Ky., and the property of Tommy Fletcher, a father of eight whose living conditions epitomized the squalor that characterized Appalachia for decades. It was from that porch that Johnson declared the nation's War on Poverty. (The Associated Press)
Washed-out bridges and rickety walking spans separated some communities from the nearest road. A web of trails, some just wide enough for opposing traffic, wound around hillsides like strewn Christmas ribbon. Geographically isolated for generations, even from one another, Appalachians first had to fight a pall over their spirit, a poverty of self-confidence and experience.
What roads there were brought hundreds of activists and volunteers into Appalachia in 1965, revealing dire conditions you can still see in some places, but not from the four-lane highways.
Money began arriving with passage of the Economic Opportunity Act in 1965, the same year Congress established Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start and VISTA. The Appalachian Regional Commission was set up with a domain of 391 counties in 12 states. Mississippi, a non-Appalachian state, became the 13th in 1967. The regional commission now oversees federal development programs in 406 counties.
Although poverty activists complain the "war" didn't last more than five years, and many policy experts believe the war was lost, progress is indisputable.
One in three Appalachians was poor in 1965. The poverty rate now closely shadows that of the nation at about one in 14. The percentage of high school graduates doubled, to 68 percent, by 1990. The number of counties originally considered "distressed" -- 219 -- has been cut in half.
Yet despite the longest economic expansion in U.S. history during the 1990s, 111 Appalachian counties remain economically distressed -- one-fourth of the total.
Parts of Appalachia still rely on ruinous septic tanks and well water tainted by mining residue. Others have no garbage pick-up. Many small-town hospitals are closing as the health-care industry consolidates, requiring people to drive as far for health care as they did in the 1960s, before most small towns had clinics.
In Letcher County, Ky., where 80 percent of the people still have no public water, unemployment rates of 9 to 13 percent do not account for the many people who have stopped looking for jobs that don't exist. The county's judge executive, Carroll Smith, told ABC news last spring that Letcher's true unemployment rate may run as high as 50 percent.
Kathleen Blee, a University of Pittsburgh sociologist who collaborated on a recent study of Clay County, Ky., believes Clay's ruling families benefited most from money spent to fight the war on poverty. After a recent trip, she said, "To me, the poverty was staggering. I saw a woman holding a plastic milk carton against a rock to gather run-off."
'Hey, man, you're poor'
Distress blanketed Appalachia long before the regional commission first applied the word to two-thirds of its counties.
Tommy Fletcher still lives in the ramshackle frame house that President Lyndon Johnson visited in 1964 to launch the War on Poverty. At the time, Fletcher worked erratically as a timberman. Now in his 70s, Fletcher never found steady work and lives surrounded by chickens and pop cans. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)
Early in the 20th century, when companies came around bearing offers for mineral and surface rights, isolated residents had no way of knowing what was at stake. Hundreds of dollars looked like millions to them, so they signed on the dotted line. The outsiders took control of the two industries that came to dominate -- coal and timber -- and made hundreds of millions.
The early profiteers gave back in the manner of a lord to a serf. Many mine laborers lived in company-owned houses and earned scrip that could be used only in company-owned stores. Such arrangements survived well into the '60s.
Meanwhile, in nearly every coal town, little country schools slumped in need of paint and equipment, health clinics were few, and the enormous estate on the hill belonged to the coal operator.
Miners gained unions and lost them in skirmishes over decades. They were killed, harassed and evicted from company-owned houses. Not a few were charged with treason.
Coal miners have taken their lumps in spades, although miners today are among the best paid industrial workers. Nearly every mining family has a loss to report -- a father killed, a brother or sister crippled, a 50-year-old dying with black lung.
Then came the massive layoffs, as industries began to switch from Appalachia's bituminous coal to harder, cleaner-burning Western coal. Between 1950 and 1960, more than 640,000 Appalachians lost coal and agriculture jobs -- half the work force in these endeavors.
The coal business picked up in the 1970s, drawing some economic emigres back to the region, but since then the price of Appalachian coal has dropped to $20-25 per ton from $40, and the number of coal jobs has steadily declined.
One-fourth of the land that might be used for purposes other than coal or timber is flood-prone. Today, walls line rivers throughout the region. An $18 million flood wall fortresses little Matewan, W.Va., from the preternaturally abusive Tug River. But many Appalachians still live as if a river could rise at any time and buckle the floorboards.
Some Appalachians with improved lifestyles blame their own for a persistent image problem. Citing satellite dishes beside trashed-out trailers, they lament the entrenchment of a welfare class that has merely "upgraded" its poverty.
Herbie Smith, one of the first young filmmakers trained at Appalshop in Whitesburg, Ky., doesn't subscribe to this theory. He says the problem with the war on poverty is that it didn't effectively fight the real enemy -- corruption.
"The poor have not failed, they have been failed," he said. "It would be like if I took your money out of your pocket and then sniffed and said, 'Hey man, you're poor.' "
The issue of land ownership is near the heart of most discussions about poverty. A majority of McDowell County, W.Va., for instance, has been owned by coal and timber companies for decades, among them Georgia Pacific and Consol. The top two corporate owners today are coal companies that no longer mine in the county, but simply lease land.
In Tennessee, a citizens' group that organized in the '70s began digging into records to find out why there was no tax money for public health in a five-county area. Ten companies owned 35 percent of the land and 80 percent of the mineral rights, but paid no taxes on the minerals. State law requiring tax payments had not been enforced.
The fight against poverty in Appalachia also has been susceptible to the same recessions and policy decisions that beset the rest of the nation. Through the 1970s, all but 11 of West Virginia's 55 counties had pulled out of economic distress. Kentucky's Martin County, home of Inez, crawled out, too, as did three of its neighbors. By 1980, only 80 counties in all of Appalachia were registered as distressed. But federal funding reductions and a coal slump in the '80s blew more than 20 counties back into the hole.
Many counties lag because they were ignored in the first years of the war on poverty in favor of counties considered to have a better chance of success. The abject poor looked like sinkholes for investment. Many of the interior, rural counties received no funding until the 1980s. The fringe cities of Pittsburgh and Atlanta, early targets of commission funding, continued to be helped until 1994, when Jesse White was appointed head of the commission. He began shifting attention to the poorest counties.
A ferocity of pride
By its hilly nature, Appalachia is expensive to "fix."
A 11/2-mile stretch of U.S. 23 in eastern Kentucky that required massive rock excavation cost $47 million. By comparison, highways in flat, non-Appalachian western Kentucky run $2 million per mile.
The regional commission, which spends two-thirds of its budget on roads, has spent $5 billion toward a 3,000-mile system of highways that is nearly complete. The last 700 miles will cost more than the first 2,300, says commission spokesman Mike Kiernan. Inflation is a factor, but the main reason is that the hardest work comes last: "What remains is blowing through mountains."
Critics of the emphasis on roads say more of the money should have gone to feed the hungry, nurture education and create jobs. They say the main impetus for the vast network of stellar highways was to provide access for developers -- more outsiders who would take profits away.
The pro-roads argument is that without better roads -- and in some cases, roads, period -- no one would be able to get to places where they might invest or provide assistance.
Perhaps the most stubborn factor in Appalachia's slow assimilation has been its culture.
Johnson's lament that Appalachia had missed the U.S. economic bandwagon assumed that it was predisposed to jump on, that it was hobbled solely by need. But a sense of place had formed long before, like the mineral deposits deep in the folds of the mountains.
When the poverty warriors arrived, local people saw themselves reflected, most for the first time, in the eyes of people who saw something terribly wrong. Randy Sluss, a financial planner in Inez, said, "It was like being told, 'You ain't livin' right.' "
Federal programmers underestimated the ferocity of pride among Appalachians -- not pride in poverty but in a quality of life that outsiders failed to discern. Theirs is a culture of stories told over many lifetimes, stories that consult with the ladies in church or traipse through old mine sites where blackberries grow. They go over the gap from Big Branch into Lonesome, places where men say "honey" to their grown sons, and families sit down at the dinner table together, and neighbors still gather on the porch to play music in the evening.
To this day, many Appalachians don't lock their doors. While Wal-Marts and strip malls are gaining hold, many people believe their staunch "otherness" will save the region from being totally co-opted.
Federal bureaucrats in the '60s believed poverty was part of the culture, says Ron Eller, an Appalachian scholar at the University of Kentucky. A child-welfare activist in the late '60s in southern West Virginia, he is working on his second book about the region.
"Those in the field came away with a different assumption" than the bureaucrats. "The people we worked with had no political clout. Absentee corporations controlled their land. They did not have work. Knowing that, a lot of us started reading up on the histories of colonialism."
'People power'
Huey Perry was a high-school history teacher in Mingo County, W.Va., anticipating another summer selling cars in 1965 when he applied to run the county's new community-action program.
He got the job, and his experiences led him to write a book many cite as the best personal account of the war on poverty. In "They'll Cut Off Your Project," he described the beginnings of social change.
The early strategy was to let people build their own wagon and pull it themselves, he said. To prevent corruption, funds bypassed local politicians, who were infuriated. They labeled community volunteers "communists" to scare voters, but people by the hundreds turned out for night meetings in rural schools to meet the activists and talk about organizing politically, staging protests or starting businesses.
Today, Perry lives in Huntington, W.Va., where the Ohio River forms a tri-state fork with Kentucky and Ohio. He and his brother have converted a landmark building Downtown into apartments and offices.
"The early years was the real exciting time," he says. "From '65 to '70, we had a lot of autonomy with the poverty programs. We were constantly at war with the local politicians, trying to maintain the integrity of the program and create some kind of democracy. It was tiring on everyone but also one of the most exciting things I've ever done."
Mingo County residents established a restaurant in Williamson called the Lock Stock & Barrel that operated for 15 years until the building was destroyed by a flood in the '80s.
Several families started a grocery co-op in Baisden, motivated by soaring grocery prices. Eventually supported by 300 families, it sold groceries at just 10 percent above wholesale, and in spite of the ire of other grocers, charges of communism and threats to shut it down, the enterprise made the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite and was lauded by Sargent Shriver, then director of the Office of Economic Opportunity.
The co-op lasted four years.
In 1968, two disabled miners in Mingo County began researching state election laws, and people volunteered to check voter lists for faulty entries. Rumors spread that the miners were backed by communists. Perry and the miners received anonymous death threats. But lots of names were sloughed from the lists -- names of dead people, people who lived outside the state and people who had falsified their registrations.
Mingo County became a national model by developing the first full-day Head Start program. Despite a hue and cry from the county board of education, Perry's group employed 26 women who had been on welfare to run it.
"We weren't trying to teach the ABCs," Perry says. "We were trying to give them a social life and health benefits and hot meals for their kids and play time."
All 26 women went on to get college degrees.
Perry credits a group of VISTA volunteers, many college students who lived with area families during their service, for enabling miners afflicted with black lung to get benefits.
"These miners were dying, and no benefits were being made available to them," Perry said. "Once the miners were organized, coal operators and politicians saw they were too powerful a force not to be reckoned with."
Perry summed up the early years: "We had some small victories, and then there was a tendency to let down. In some ways, things look bleaker now. The only way you can really fight poverty is to give people the power, and no politicians are willing to take the risk."
29.5.1 private battle with poverty
'Poster Father' Weary of Sour Fate : Kentucky: Tom Fletcher still lives in the hillside house where Lyndon Johnson visited. He voices resentment over media interest in his life story, in which most luck has been bad.
'Poster Father' Weary of Sour Fate : Kentucky: Tom Fletcher still lives in the hillside house where Lyndon Johnson visited. He voices resentment over media interest in his life story, in which most luck has been bad.
June 26, 1994 |ALLEN G. BREED | ASSOCIATED PRESS
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INEZ, Ky. — Tom Fletcher was already waging his own private battle with poverty when the President showed up on his front porch and drafted him into a "war."
Lyndon B. Johnson chose the 38-year-old unemployed father of eight "to illustrate the human toll the declining mining industry had taken on these Appalachian families," Lady Bird Johnson would write.
The images from Fletcher's humble home in the rugged eastern Kentucky hills were an opening salvo in Johnson's ambitious War on Poverty in 1964.
Thirty years later, the Martin County man still lives in the hillside house where Johnson squatted and chatted with him.
Then, Fletcher said he hoped Johnson's visit "would bring us some luck."
Now, in a rare interview, he voiced resentment of pursuit by reporters updating a life story in which most luck has been bad.
"I'm getting tired of it," said Fletcher, now 68. "After all this time, I'd think they would be letting it go."
"As long as the rest of the country insists on seeing poverty as symbols and stereotypes . . . people will always be fascinated with Tom Fletcher," said Ron Eller, director of the University of Kentucky Appalachian Center. "For every Tom Fletcher, there were many, many thousands of others in the region who have been able to improve their quality of life and to struggle to improve their communities."
Martin County remains site of one of the hardest struggles. The Appalachian Center estimates 35.4% of its population--three times the national average--lives in poverty and says unofficial unemployment rates have reached 57%.
The vagaries of dependence upon the coal industry took their toll, with 1,700 well-paying coal jobs, or more than half, lost since 1980 in Martin. Despite persistent economic woes, folks here generally agree that there has been progress--in housing, transportation, public health and education.
"I think all things come together," said Phyllis Walker, director of the local office of the Big Sandy Community Action Council, an anti-poverty program. "We see successes all the time."
Fletcher made good fodder in 1964 for the high-profile campaign Johnson wanted. Today, he makes good fodder for those who highlight its failures.
In 1963, Fletcher had earned just $400 from sporadic sawmill work. He had also worked in the mines and on the railroads.
He had paid $100 for his tiny, coal-heated house on Rockcastle Creek and got government help to install electricity.
To this day, Fletcher resents descriptions of his home as a tar-paper-covered shack. He insists the house--now covered in blue planking with white trim--had brick siding when Johnson visited.
There was an upswing for Fletcher.
By 1965, he was earning $42 a week while studying auto mechanics through the Manpower Development and Training Program. He also worked on a government-funded road crew, known locally as "happy pappy" gangs.
But he never got a mechanic's job, and a broken leg in 1969 ended his last regular employment. He now lives on a $284 monthly disability check.
The anniversaries of Johnson's war periodically bring reporters and curiosity-seekers to Fletcher's home, and personal tragedy in 1992 thrust him again into the glare of publicity.
He and his second wife, Mary Porter Fletcher, were charged with murder in the poisoning death of their 3-year-old daughter, Ella Rose, and the attempted murder of 4-year-old Tommy Jr.
Ella died that January of what doctors diagnosed as a seizure disorder.
But her brother was hospitalized the next month, and examinations revealed he had ingested massive amounts of Darvon, a pain-killer. His sister's body was exhumed, and an autopsy showed an overdose of Elavil, an antidepressant.
Mary Fletcher later confessed to poisoning the children in hopes of ending marital strife, and of collecting $5,000 insurance policies. She cleared her husband and is serving a 25-year prison sentence for murder and first-degree criminal abuse.
Ironically, a Johnson program may have saved Tommy Jr.'s life three decades later. Teachers in the Head Start program here first called attention to his symptoms.
Tommy Jr., riding his bicycle one recent day in the Fletchers' yard, was friendly. The blond boy said his father was visiting relatives in Cincinnati, and he provided the telephone number.
Fletcher, weak from stomach and heart ailments, was reluctant.
"I've said enough on it," he said in a low, gravelly voice.
Asked why he was unable to break out of poverty, Fletcher replied slowly: "I don't know."
But he added that he doesn't regret welcoming Johnson onto his porch.
"President Johnson was a good President," he said. "He was nice. He done a good favor to a lot of people."
29.5.2 another story
Pessimism Retains Grip on Appalachian Poor
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Published: February 09, 1998
There is an area of Booneville that some residents call Ho Chi Minh City for its third world appearance. It is not large, just a few winding gravel roads. But many of the houses look like shanties, heated with wood or coal. Children walk around with dirty bare feet. Many people lack telephones and cars.
In many respects, this little corner of Appalachia looks much as it did 30 years ago, when President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty, taking special aim at the rural decay in places like Owsley County, here in eastern Kentucky, and other distressed areas in the 399 counties of 13 states that make up Appalachia.
Federal and state agencies have plowed billions of dollars into Appalachia through economic development programs, highway construction and job-creation initiatives to help residents overcome the economic and psychological isolation caused by poverty and the rugged terrain.
But a tour of Booneville offers ample evidence that money and countless programs have had only marginal effects on breaking a cycle of poverty and despair that continues throughout many parts of Appalachia. And conditions could grow worse before they improve.
With state welfare regulations forcing recipients to find work and with the Federal Government reviewing the eligibility of children who receive disability benefits, many Owsley County residents could lose vital monthly checks that they have relied on for years. More than half of the people in the county who receive those benefits are children.
Viewing those prospects, some residents sound much like people who have criticized entitlement programs for stagnating inner cities.
''The war on poverty was the worst thing that ever happened to Appalachia,'' said Denise Hoffman, 46, who runs a small farm here with her husband, Neil. ''It gave people a way to get by without having to do any work.''
By many measures, Appalachia remains mired in poverty. In about one-quarter of the highland region's counties, according to data from the 1990 census, 25 percent or more of residents live below the poverty level as defined by the Federal Government. That rate is nearly double the national average.
Owsley County, with a population of 5,400, is one of the most distressed areas. To many residents, the booming national economy is something they hear about only on television.
More than 46 percent live in poverty, as defined by the Government. The median household income of $8,595 is one of the lowest in Appalachia. Almost half the adults are unemployed. About two-thirds of the people in the county receive Federal assistance, 30 percent of county families do not have telephones, and 20 percent do not have cars.
More than half the adult population is illiterate.
But perhaps most critical of all, with the coal industry long gone as a major employer and job creation minimal and sporadic, feelings of hopelessness have become so deeply entrenched that many residents have long forsaken any expectation of bettering themselves.
Even a generous new program to encourage savings is struggling to win participants. Through a foundation grant to finance a $6-to-$1 match, residents can deposit up to $15 a month for two years, a total of $360, and receive back $2,520. The program began in May to encourage low-income people to set aside money for home improvements, a new business or school.
Eight people are participating.
''The overriding theory of the program works against the mentality that is deeply set within people who live in poverty,'' said the program administrator, Jennifer Hart. ''They don't think they have a future. If they did, they would think about it and delay instant gratification. But they have no reason to. And they can't. They can only think about how they are going to feed the children this week and pay the rent this month.''
Even many of the 70 seniors at Owsley County High School this year sense the inevitability of spending their lives in poverty, unchanged from their parents' situations.
The Hoffmans' 17-year-old daughter, Megan, a top student and an athlete who has been accepted to four state colleges, thinks of her classmates with chagrin.
''Many of them think things are never going to get any better,'' she said. ''It's pretty sad. Kids feel, 'I don't think I can make a difference.' They don't seem to want to change or care.''
When the senior class voted on the message to print on their T-shirts this year, an annual custom, they chose: ''I came. I slept. I graduated.'' Megan said fewer than 25 percent plan to attend college.
As elsewhere in Appalachia, the feelings of hopelessness prevail despite energetic efforts by Government and private groups like the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, a 21-year-old organization in Berea that helps community groups in 49 counties around the state.
In Owsley it provides a ray of hope through self-help programs like job-training classes, courses on starting a business and agencies that make low-interest loans. It also aids in recruiting companies into the area, a mighty challenge in Booneville, with its remote location and lack of services. The town has two restaurants, three groceries and one dentist. And while it has three doctors the nearest hospital is an hour away.
To attack the worst of rural poverty, the association created ''action teams'' six years ago for the most distressed counties, Owsley and Letcher. In each, officials work closely with local leaders to convince residents that they can lead more productive lives.
The efforts take many forms. In Booneville, the team helped bring Image Entry, a data-entry company that created 58 jobs, onto a site that local leaders hope will become an industrial park. Team members helped start associations for goat breeders and vegetable growers, to increase their profits. The team also helped set up a secondhand shop that employs welfare recipients so that they can fulfill new state regulations that require them to find a job in two years or lose benefits. Next to the shop is a credit union that offers low-interest loans and a generous matched-saving program.
The state welfare agency has set up a pilot program for recipients that teaches ''job readiness skills,'' including how to write a resume and how to fill out a job application.
Yet every initiative pits the action team and Government agencies against an intractable pessimism built on decades of depressed conditions that are visible everywhere: piles of garbage heaped into creeks and ravines because people cannot afford the $12 monthly fee for trash removal; landscapes of rusting cars, some from the 1950's, and the crumbling shell of the Seale theater, which last showed a movie, ''Silver Bullet,'' in 1985.
But many residents say the prevailing attitude in the county, particularly among those receiving state and Federal entitlement benefits, is that no amount of help and instruction is going to make a difference. According to the most recent state statistics, 14.3 percent of Owsley residents receive welfare benefits, 20 percent receive benefits through the Federal assistance program for disabled people known as Supplemental Security Income and almost half receive food stamps.
Mr. Hoffman, 47, a member of the action team, grew almost angry, talking about the conditions in much of Appalachia. ''Poverty is not about money,'' he said. ''It's in the mind. It's a way of life. Once you're in that cycle you think you can't break out of it. I don't know why people think that way, but they become a prisoner of it. It took us three generations to get into this mess, and it's going to take us three generations to get out of it.''
Members of the team say many parents urge their children to try to go to special education classes at school as a way to prove that they are eligible for disability benefits.
''That shows how creative people are when there are no jobs,'' said Jeanne Gage, the director of the sustainable communities initiative for the Mountain Association. ''You learn how to work the system.''
But as the system is changing, that could have a devastating effect on Owsley County without more jobs.
Pam Barrett, 32, a divorced mother of a 17-year-old daughter and two sons, 11 and 10, is beginning to feel the pinch. Living with her 38-year-old former husband, who receives $438 a month in disability benefits for bad nerves and a spine injury, she began working 20 hours a week at the secondhand shop two months ago. She plans to use some of the money for her daughter, Jennifer, who expects to receive an athletic scholarship and start college in the fall.
''She has the chance I passed up to have three young'uns,'' Ms. Barrett said. ''I quit school in the eighth grade to get married. I was 15. He was 21. I've regretted it ever since. And young'uns having babies is going on right today. But I tell you what, you learn from your mistakes.''
Farmers like the Hoffmans, who rely on tobacco as their leading cash crop, are enduring another anxiety, waiting to see how the litigation between cigarette companies and Federal and state governments might affect small growers.
Action team members and government officials working to turn around the fortunes of Owsley County all say their efforts are paying off, even against an enormous tide of negativism that now touches some of those who are succeeding.
Megan Hoffman said, ''I have really enjoyed growing up here.'' But asked whether she planned to return after college, she said: ''No. There is nothing here. There is nothing to come back to.''
The president of the Mountain Association, Don Harker, said that attitude would be difficult to change any time soon.
''We have an immense amount of work to do to bring up the prosperity levels of Appalachia,'' Mr. Harker said. ''To give people hope, we have to change the whole dynamic. To give people a reason to believe things can be different than they are, we have to change their expectations.
''I know we can do it,'' he said. ''But I don't think it will be done in my lifetime.''
Outlines
30.1 one
30.2 two
30.3 three
30.4 four
https://www.evernote.c
part B outline
Soundtrack Ideas
Song Idea for Video Graphic Novel
In the Jailhouse Now
I'll Fly Away
Big Rock Candy Mountain
Man of Constant Sorrow
TimeLine
33.1 1964
33.1.1 Post Camelot
33.1.2 Beatles Invade
33.2 1965
33.2.1 March to Selma
33.3 1966
33.4 1967
33.5 1968
33.6 2013
Settings
34.1 Bowling Green
Bowling Green is the third-most populous city in the state of Kentucky after Louisville and Lexington , with a population of 58,894 as of 2011. It is the county seat of Warren County [1] and the principal city of the Bowling Green, Kentucky Metropolitan Statistical Area with an estimated population of 162,231 as of 2012.[2] Bowling Green anchors the Bowling Green-Glasgow combined statistical area which as of 2012 had an estimated population of 214,831.[3] Bowling Green was founded in 1798 after Robert and George Moore donated an additional 30 acres (120,000 m2) to 40 acres (160,000 m2) to the Warren County trustees . The land surrounded the 2-acre (8,100 m2) plot they had donated for the construction of public buildings. Bowling Green was the provisional capital of the Confederate government of Kentucky .
General Motors has an assembly plant in Bowling Green in which all Chevrolet Corvettes have been constructed since 1981 and Cadillac XLRs were being built there until production ended in the spring of 2009.[4] Other significant businesses in Bowling Green include Fruit of the Loom , Houchens Industries , Holley Performance Products , and Camping World . The second largest Kentucky public university, Western Kentucky University , is situated upon a hill in central Bowling Green. Its athletic teams are called Hilltoppers , and its mascot is Big Red who has been featured in several ESPN commercials. The city is famous for the eponymous 1967 song, "Bowling Green ", by The Everly Brothers .
[edit ] History
[edit ] Settlement and incorporation
The first Europeans credited with having settled the area now known as Bowling Green were Robert Moore, his brother George and General Elijah Covington. The Moore brothers arrived from Virginia around 1794. In 1798, only two years after Warren County had been formed, Robert Moore donated 2 acres (8,100 m2) of land to county trustees for the purpose of constructing public buildings. Soon after, he donated an additional 30 acres (120,000 m2) to 40 acres (160,000 m2) surrounding the original plot. The city of Bowling Green was officially incorporated by the state of Kentucky on March 6, 1798.
The choice of the name Bowling Green has not been attributed to any single source by historians. Some say at the first county commissioners' meeting in early 1798, the pioneers decided that the new town would be "called and known" by the name of Bolin Green." This name was after the Bowling Green in New York City , where patriots had pulled down a statue of King George III and used the lead to make bullets during the American Revolution . Others say the Virginian settlers may have been honoring Bowling Green, Virginia . Still others say, Robert Moore kept a "ball alley game" on his residence which guests called bowling on the green.[5] Early records indicate that the city name was also spelled Bowlingreen and Bolin Green.
[edit ] Nineteenth century
By 1810, Bowling Green had only 154 residents. Growth in steamboat commerce and the proximity of the Barren River increased Bowling Green's importance. Canal locks and dams on the Barren River made it much more navigable. In 1832, the first portage railway was made from the river to where the current county courthouse stands. Mules pulled freight and passengers to and from the city on the tracks.
Despite rapid urbanization of the Bowling Green area in the 1830s, agriculture remained an important part of local life. A visitor to Bowling Green noted the boasting of a tavern proprietor named Benjamin Vance :
“ [Vance] says that he has seen a turnip this fall that measures thirty-two inches around, and has a beet that weighs sixteen pounds and a half;... that corn in this country grows so fast that if you look at it the next, it has grown a foot higher; that the "little hickory twigs" growing in the barrens have roots as large as his legs... ”
In 1859, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (currently CSX Transportation ) laid railroad through Bowling Green that connected the city with northern and southern markets.
Bowling Green declared itself neutral in an attempt to escape the American Civil War . Because of its prime location and resources, however, both the Union and Confederacy sought control of the city. The majority of its residents sided with the Confederacy. On September 18, 1861, to the delight of Bowling Green residents, the Confederate Army under command of General Simon Bolivar Buckner occupied the city. Surrounding hills were fortified to secure possible military approaches to the valuable river and railroad assets. In November 1861, the provisional Confederate government of Kentucky chose Bowling Green as its capital.[6]
On February 14, 1862, after receiving reports that Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River had both been captured by Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant , the Confederates realized they had to withdraw from Bowling Green. They destroyed bridges across the Barren River , the railroad depot, and other important buildings that could be used by the enemy. The city was subject to disruptions and raids throughout the remainder of the war. During the summer of 1864, Union General Stephen G. Burbridge arrested 22 civilians in and around Bowling Green on a charge of treason . This incident and other harsh treatment by federal authorities led to bitterness towards the Union among Bowling Green residents and increased sympathies with the Confederacy .
After the Civil War, Bowling Green's business district grew considerably. Previously, agriculture had dominated the city's economy . During the 1870s, many of the historic business structures seen today were erected. One of the most important businesses in Bowling Green of this era was Carie Burnam Taylor 's dress-making company. By 1906, Taylor employed more than 200 women.
In 1868, the city constructed its first waterworks system. The fourth county courthouse was completed in 1868. The first three were completed in 1798, 1805 and 1813 respectively. In 1889, the first mule -drawn street cars appeared in the city. The first electric street cars began to replace them by 1895.
The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth founded St. Columbia's Academy in 1862, succeeded by St. Joseph's School in 1911.[7] In 1884, the Southern Normal School , which had been founded in 1875, moved to Bowling Green from the town of Glasgow, Kentucky . Pleasant J. Potter founded a women's college in Bowling Green in 1889. It closed in 1909 and its property sold to the Western Kentucky State Normal School (see below, now known as Western Kentucky University ). Other important schools in this era were Methodist Warren College , Ogden College (which also became a part of Western Kentucky University) and Green River Female College , a boarding school.
[edit ] Twentieth century
In 1906, Henry Hardin Cherry , the president and owner of Southern Normal School, donated the school to the state as the basis of the Western State Normal School . The school trained teachers for the expanding educational needs of the state. This institution is now known as Western Kentucky University and is the second largest public university in the state of Kentucky , having recently grown larger than the University of Louisville .
In 1906, Doctors Lillian H. South , J. N. McCormack, A.T. McCormack opened St. Joseph Hospital to provide around the clock medical and nursing care to the residents and students in the area.[8][9]
In 1925, the Kentucky Street Rail Depot was opened. About 27 trains arrived daily at the depot. Local bus lines were also a popular form of travel. By the 1950s, both of these forms of transportation had dramatically declined as highway construction was subsidized by the federal government and the private car became the primary means of travel.
In 1940, a Union Underwear factory was built in Bowling Green and bolstered the city's economy significantly. During the 1960s, the city's population began to surpass that of Ashland , Paducah and Newport .
Downtown streets became a bottle-neck for traffic. In 1949, the U.S. Route 31W Bypass was opened to alleviate traffic problems but it also drew off business from downtown. The bypass grew to become a business hotspot in Bowling Green. A 1954 advertisement exclaimed, "Your business can grow in the direction Bowling Green is growing -- to the 31-W By-Pass".
By the 1960s, the face of shopping was changing completely from the downtown square to suburban shopping centers. Between May and November 1967, stores in Bowling Green Mall opened for business. Another advertisement said, "One stop shopping. Just park [free], step out and shop. You'll find everything close at hand." Between September 1979 and September 1980, stores in the larger Greenwood Mall came inline. The city's limits began to stretch toward Interstate 65 .
By the late 1960s, Interstate 65 , which runs just to the East of Bowling Green, was completed. The Green River Parkway (now called the William H. Natcher Parkway ), was completed in the 1970s to connect Bowling Green and Owensboro . These vital transportation arteries attracted many industries to Bowling Green.
In 1981, General Motors moved its Chevrolet Corvette assembly plant from St. Louis, Missouri to Bowling Green. In the same year, the National Corvette Homecoming event was created, becoming a large gathering of Corvette owners, car parades and related activities in Bowling Green each year. In 1994 the National Corvette Museum was constructed near the assembly plant.
In 1997, Bowling Green was designated a Tree City USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation .
[edit ] Twenty-first century initiatives
The new Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce building was one of the first parts of the Downtown Redevelopment Project to reach completion.
In 2012, the city undertook a feasibility study on ways to revitalize downtown Bowling Green area. The Downtown Redevelopment Authority was formed to plan redevelopment. Plans for the project built on Bowling Green's waterfront assets and historic center and streetscape around Fountain Square. It also proposed a new building for the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce , construction of a Riverwalk Park where downtown borders the Barren River , creation of a new public park called Circus Square, and installation of a new retail area, the Fountain Square Market.[10]
As of the Spring of 2009, the new Chamber of Commerce, Riverwalk Park, and Circus Square have been completed. The Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center, a facility for arts and education, broke ground in October 2009 and celebrated its opening night on March 10, 2012 with a concert by Vince Gill .[11] Ground was broken for the Fountain Square Market in 2012.
In 2005 an effort was made to incorporate a Whitewater Park into the downtown Bowling Green riverfront at Weldon Peete Park. Due to the recession funding for the project fell through. However, as of summer 2010 the effort to have the Whitewater Park built is gaining momentum. Talks with public officials are being held and progress is being made. Information about the park can be found at: http://www.trailsrus.com/whitewater/initiative.html & http://www.facebook.com/BGWWP
[edit ] Geography
The Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport is 547 feet (167 m) above sea level . According to the United States Census Bureau , the city has a total area of 35.6 square miles (92 km2), of which, 35.4 square miles (92 km2) of it is land and 0.2 square miles (0.52 km2) of it (0.45%) is water.
[edit ] Climate
Bowling Green has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa).
[hide]Climate data for Bowling Green
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Average high °F (°C) 45
(7) 50
(10) 60
(16) 70
(21) 78
(26) 86
(30) 90
(32) 89
(32) 82
(28) 71
(22) 59
(15) 48
(9) 69
(21)
Average low °F (°C) 26
(−3) 30
(−1) 37
(3) 46
(8) 55
(13) 64
(18) 68
(20) 66
(19) 58
(14) 46
(8) 38
(3) 29
(−2) 47
(8)
Precipitation inches (mm) 3.59
(91.2) 4.07
(103.4) 4.41
(112) 4.21
(106.9) 5.63
(143) 4.15
(105.4) 4.11
(104.4) 3.32
(84.3) 3.93
(99.8) 3.39
(86.1) 4.21
(106.9) 4.85
(123.2) 49.87
(1,266.7)
Source: Weather Channel[12]
[edit ] Demographics
As of the census [13] of 2010, there were 58,067 people and 22,735 households in the city. The population density was 1631.1 people per square mile (630.5/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 75.8% White , 13.9% African American , 0.3% Native American , 4.2% Asian , 0.2% Pacific Islander , 2.16% from other races, and 2.7% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 6.5% of the population.
There were 22,735 households out of which 24.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 33.1% were married couples living together, 14.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 48.3% were non-families. 35.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 19.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.28 and the average family size was 2.99.
In the city, the population was spread out with 20.1% under 18, 28% from 15 to 24, 25.6% from 25 to 44, 18.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.6% who were 65 or older. The median age was 27.6 years. Females make up 51.7% of the population and males make up 48.3%.
The median income for a household in the city was $33,362, and the median income for families was $45,287. Males had a median income of $35,000 versus $28,916 for females. The per capita income for the city was $19,302. About 19.4% of families and 27.7% of the population were below the poverty line , including 30.9% of those under age 18.
[edit ] Economy
The Medical Center, an ever expanding part of Commonwealth Health Corporation, is one of the top employers in Bowling Green.
Bowling Green is shifting to a more knowledge-based, technology-driven economy. With one major public university and a technical college , Bowling Green serves as an education hub for the South Central Kentucky region. In addition, the city plays an integral part as the leading medical and commercial center.
General Motors Manufacturing Plant, Holley Performance Products , Houchens Industries , SCA, Camping World , Fruit of the Loom , Russell Brands , and other major industries call Bowling Green home. It has also attracted new industries, such as Bowling Green Metalforming, a division of Magna International , Inc.; and Halton Company, which chose to expand their worldwide companies into Bowling Green.
Commonwealth Health Corporation , Western Kentucky University and Warren County Board of Education are the biggest employers for Bowling Green and the surrounding region. Other companies based in Bowling Green include Eagle Industries and Trace Die Cast. The third largest home shopping network ShopNBC has its warehouse fulfillment center located off Nashville Road. Shopnbc also recently moved a large amount of its Customer Service Call Center Operations to its Bowling Green location. ShopNBC is owned by Value Vision Media with is corporate headquarters in Eden Prairie, MN although the largest part of its day-to-day operations are in Bowling Green making it a very important part of the local economy.
Compared with Elizabethtown and Owensboro MSAs, Bowling Green has experienced the largest post-recession employment gain. From November 2001 to April 2006, total payroll employment increased by 13%. Bowling Green has experienced a 5% increase in manufacturing employment, a 5% increase in professional and business services, and a 6% increase in leisure and hospitality since April 2005.
Bowling Green's high income and job growth combined with a low cost of doing business has led the city to be named to Forbes Magazine's 2009 list of the "Best Small Places for Business". In an evaluation of 179 cities across the nation, Forbes ranked Bowling Green 19th in which to do business, finishing ahead of Elizabethtown and Owensboro. The list ranked Bowling Green 34th nationwide for the lowest cost-of-living and 22nd for highest job growth.
In March 2009, the Bowling Green metropolitan area was recognized by Site Selection Magazine as a top economic development community in the United States for communities with populations between 50,000 and 200,000 people. The Bowling Green metro also received the same recognition by Site Selection magazine in 2008.
The Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce received the 2009 Chamber of the Year by the American Chamber of Commerce Executives and a 5-Star Chamber by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
[edit ] Top employers
According to the City's 2011 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report,[14] the top private sector employers in the city are:
# EMPLOYER # OF EMPLOYEES
1 Western Kentucky University 4,626
2 The Medical Center at Bowling Green 1,914
3 Fruit of the Loom 1,632
4 Walmart 1,018
5 Warren County Public Schools 958
6 Express Employment Professionals 931
7 Sun Products 917
8 Houchens Industries 733
9 Magna International 665
10 City of Bowling Green 633
[edit ] Education
[edit ] Primary and secondary education
Public education is provided by the Warren County Public Schools system. Several private schools also serve Bowling Green students.
[edit ] Religious schools
Anchored Christian School - Preschool through 12th grade Baptist Christian school [2]
Bowling Green Christian Academy - Preschool through 8th grade non-denominational Christian school
Foundation Christian Academy - Preschool through 8th grade Church of Christ Christian school [3]
Holy Trinity Lutheran - Preschool through 6th grade Lutheran Christian school [4]
Old Union School - Preschool through 12th grade Christian school [5]
Saint Joseph - Preschool through 8th grade Catholic school
[edit ] Elementary schools
Alvaton
Briarwood
Bristow
Cumberland Trace
Dishman-McGinnis
Lost River
North Warren Elementary
Oakland
Parker Bennett Curry
Plano Elementary
Potter Gray
Rich Pond
Jody Richards
Richardsville
Rockfield
T.C. Cherry
W.R. McNeill
Warren
Warren East
William H. Natcher
[edit ] Middle and Junior high schools
Bowling Green Junior High
Drakes Creek
Henry F. Moss Middle School
Warren East Middle School
South Warren Middle School
Pearce Ford Tower at Western Kentucky University.
[edit ] High schools
[edit ] Post-secondary education
[edit ] Public library
The Warren County Public Library has four permanent locations. The Main Library, which opened in 1956, is in downtown Bowling Green. The Smiths Grove Branch, the system's first branch location, is located in the nearby community of Smiths Grove, Kentucky . The Graham Drive Community Library is a neighborhood branch located in a residential area of the Housing Authority of Bowling Green; it opened for business in late 2007 and replaced the branch formerly located in the Sugar Maple Square Shopping Center. The system's newest location is the Bob Kirby Branch Library , located off Interstate 65 close to Greenwood High School , which opened spring 2008. The Mobile Branch is a 40-foot (12 m) bus that travels across Bowling Green and Warren County carrying 6,000 library materials. The Depot Branch, which opened in 2001, was located in the historic, renovated Louisville and Nashville Railroad Depot and housed a technology and early childhood center, as well as traditional library materials; it closed in late 2007. On July 27, 2007, the Warren County Fiscal Court voted to create a county wide taxing district to benefit the public library. The library system, formerly known as the Bowling Green Public Library, became the Warren County Public Library on July 1, 2008.
[edit ] Transportation
[edit ] Major highways
[edit ] Other highways
[edit ] Attractions
[edit ] Parks and recreation
The Bowling Green Parks and Recreation Department administers 895 acres (3.62 km2) of public land for recreational use.
[edit ] Community centers
F. O. Moxley - Facility includes a game room (billiards , video games ), board game room, concession stand , racquetball /wallyball courts and basketball courts.
Parker-Bennett - Facility has hourly rental rates for meetings, parties and receptions.
Kummer/Little Recreation Center - Facility includes basketball /volleyball courts, concession stand , and walking trails.
Delafield Community Center - Facility includes an auditorium , basketball courts, a playground , and picnic shelters.
[edit ] Parks
See Parks in Bowling Green, Kentucky for a formatted table of this data.
'Basil Griffin - Named for former Bowling Green mayor - Large pond with migratory birds such as ducks and geese, playground, disc golf , picnic tables/pavilions, soccer fields, volleyball court.
C. W. Lampkin - Baseball fields, outdoor basketball courts, concession stands, grills , picnic pavilions and tables, playgrounds , soccer field, tennis courts, volleyball courts
Chuck Crume Nature - picnic tables, walking/running trail
Covington Woods - golf course, baseball field, outdoor basketball court, concession stand, grills, picnic pavilions and tables, playgrounds, tennis courts, volleyball court
Fort Webb - historic site
Fountain Square - historic Victorian fountain and city square in Downtown Bowling Green
Fountain Square Park, in the heart of Downtown Bowling Green.
H. P. Thomas - barbecue grills , picnic tables , playground, soccer fields, volleyball court
Hobson Grove - golf course, baseball fields , disc golf course, historic site, picnic tables, concession stands
James Hines - boating , historic site
Lovers Lane - soccer fields, disc golf course, picnic pavilion & tables, playgrounds, concession stand
Ogden - playground
Pedigo - baseball fields, outdoor basketball court, batting cage , concession stand, picnic pavilion & tables, playground, volleyball court
Preston Miller - water park/swimming pool , disc golf course, picnic pavilions & tables, playgrounds, swimming pools, volleyball courts, walking/running/running trail , concession stand
Reservoir Hill - outdoor basketball court, grills, historic site, picnic pavilion & tables, playground , tennis courts, volleyball court
RiverWalk/Brownfield - historic site, walking /running trail
Roland Bland - skatepark , outdoor basketball courts, grills, horseshoes , picnic pavilion & tables, playgrounds, soccer field, tennis courts, volleyball court
Spero Kereiakes - baseball fields, outdoor basketball court, batting cage, concession stand, disc golf course, grills, picnic pavilions & tables, playgrounds, public gardening plots, soccer fields, tennis courts, volleyball court, walking/running trail
Westside Neighborhood - outdoor basketball court, playground
[edit ] Swimming centers
'Russell Sims Aquatic Center - The largest "water playground" in south-central Kentucky. The center includes zero-depth entry into the water, splash playground, swimming pool, water slides, diving boards and concessions.
'Warren County Aquatics Facility - Domed pool facility open year-round. Closed February 2008. New facility is now open on Lover's Lane behind Warren County Public Schools main office.
[edit ] Museums
Barren River Imaginative Museum of Science - Unique "hands-on" science museum where visitors can experience the force of a mini-tornado, operate one of the largest interactive transportation exhibits in the country, suspend a body with magic mirrors, and more. Closed SEP 2011
Kentucky Museum and Library - Home of rich collections and education exhibits on Kentucky history and heritage. Genealogical materials, published works, manuscripts and folk life information.
National Corvette Museum - Showcase of America's sports car with more than 75 Corvettes on display, including mint classics, one-of-a-kind prototypes, racetrack champions and more.
Historic Railpark and Train Museum - L & N Depot - Train museum in the original train depot of Bowling Green. Opened after the library moved at the end of 2007. Includes 5 restored historic rail cars.
Riverview at Hobson Grove - This historic house museum is a classic example of Italianate architecture—arched windows, deep eaves with ornamental brackets, and cupola. Painted ceilings. Began late 1850s, Confederate munitions magazine in winter 1861-62, and completed 1872.
[edit ] Sports and event venues
E.A. Diddle Arena , located on the campus of Western Kentucky University , is a multi-purpose arena with a seating capacity of 7,500 persons. Built in 1963 and renovated in 2004, the arena has hosted college sports such as basketball and volleyball. The arena has also played host to various traveling rodeos and circuses. In 2006, Diddle Arena hosted the first WWE event to be held in Bowling Green in over ten years.
The Western Kentucky University Hilltoppers won the Division 1-AA Football National Championship in 2002. WKU's men's basketball team has a storied past including the 1971 NCAA Final Four and is one of the winningest teams, in both total victories and winning percentage, in the history of NCAA Division I college basketball.
Bowling Green has always been a place known for good high school athletics. Most recently the Bowling Green High School Purples Football Team won the KHSAA State Championship in 2011. Along with a three year State Championship Runner-Up streak starting in 2005 and then ending in 2008. The Greenwood Gators softball team won the 2007 and 2008 State Championship. The Warren Central Dragons boys basketball team took home the 2004 State Championship. The Bowling Green Jr High School won the 2008 and 2009 KYMSA State Championship, as they went undefeated two years straight, with a combined record of 26-0.
Bowling Green Ballpark
The city and surrounding area could be considered an inline/roller hockey hotspot. It is home to the Warren County Inline Hockey League. It also is home to the Western Kentucky University Hilltoppers team, which competes in the NCRHA , and has several members in the Bluegrass Hockey League and Central Commonwealth League.
Bowling Green Ballpark is a new stadium currently in use in Bowling Green. It is primarily used for baseball, for the Single-A Bowling Green Hot Rods organization of the Midwest League . The Hot Rods began play in the spring of 2009 in the South Atlantic League , transferring to the Midwest League for 2010. They are a farm team for the Major League Baseball team of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays .
The Kentucky Bisons of the American Basketball Association were based in Bowling Green, although they played their home games in Owensboro . The Bisons won the 2008 ABA Championship. In 2010, they announced they would suspend operation.
[edit ] Golf courses
Bowling Green has seven golf and eight disc golf courses.
Golf Disc golf
Crosswinds Basil Griffin Park
Paul Walker Hobson Grove Park
River View KOA Kampground
Olde Stone Lovers Lane Park
Bowling Green Country Club Preston Miller Park
Indian Hills Spero Kereiakes Park
Covington Woods White Park
William H. Natcher Elementary
[edit ] Other attractions
[edit ] Media
Refer to external links for respective media websites.
[edit ] Print media
The Amplifier - Southern Kentucky's Arts & Entertainment monthly since 1995
Bowling Green Daily News
Bowling Green Parent - A resource for families in the South Central Kentucky area
Buy Local Bowling Green
College Heights Herald - WKU student newspaper
The Sporting Times - South-Central Kentucky's first area high school monthly publication
Country Peddler
Soky Happenings - A Guide to What's Happening In and Around Bowling Green KY
[edit ] Television
[edit ] Digital Broadcast
WBKO ABC Channel 13.1 1080i
WBKO Fox Channel 13.2 480i
WBKO CW Channel 13.3 480i
WNKY NBC Channel 40.1 1080i
WNKY CBS Channel 40.2 480i
WKYU PBS Channel 24.1 480i
WKYU Create Channel 24.2 480i
WKGB PBS Channel 53.1 KET1 480i
WKGB PBS Channel 53.2 KET2 480i
WKGB PBS Channel 53.3 KETKY The Kentucky Channel 480i
[edit ] Radio
AM 930 WKCT - News/Talk
AM 1340 WBGN - The Ticket(Fox Sports Radio)
AM 1450 WWKU - ESPN Radio
FM 88.1 WAYFM - WAYFM
FM 88.9 WKYU - Western Kentucky University Public Radio
FM 90.7 WCVK - Christian Family Radio
FM 91.7 WWHR - "Revolution" WKU's student radio station
FM 93.3 WDNS - Bowling Green's Classic Rock Station
FM 95.1 WGGC - Goober 95.1 - Country
FM 96.7 WBVR - The Beaver - Country (licensed to Auburn, Kentucky )
FM 100.7 WKLX - Sam 100.7 - Classic Hits (licensed to Brownsville, Kentucky )
FM 103.7 WHHT - Howdy 103.7 - Country (licensed to Cave City, Kentucky )
FM 105.3 WPTQ - The Point - Classic / Active Rock (licensed to Glasgow, Kentucky )
FM 106.3 WOVO - Wovo106.3 - Adult Contemporary (licensed to Horse Cave, Kentucky )
FM 107.1 WUHU - Woohoo - Top 40 (licensed to Smiths Grove, Kentucky )
[edit ] Nearby cities and communities
[edit ] County communities
[edit ] Neighboring cities
[edit ] Notable residents
Cord of 3 – a Christian rock group
Sleeper Agent – an indie-rock band
Thomas Lilbourne Anderson – U.S. Representative from Missouri [15]
Ben Bailey – comedian and host of TV game show Cash Cab
Sam Bush – musician
Athena Cage – musician
Chris Carmichael – musician
John Carpenter – film director
Rex Chapman – former professional basketball player, played for the Kentucky Wildcats in college, played professionally for the Charlotte Hornets , Washington Bullets , Miami Heat and the Phoenix Suns . Vice president of player personnel with the Denver Nuggets .
Jefferson Davis – President of the Confederate States of America
David F. Duncan – epidemiologist and drug policy consultant in the Clinton Administration
Cage the Elephant – a rock band, all graduates of Greenwood High School
Frances Fowler – painter.
Foxhole – instrumental post-rock group
Dorothy Grider – artist and illustrator of children's books
Henry Grider – U.S. Representative
Brett Guthrie – U.S. Representative
Mordecai Ham – Christian evangelist and pastor of the Burton Memorial Baptist Church early in the 20th century
Corey Hart – Milwaukee Brewers right fielder, 2008 and 2010 MLB All Star
Duncan Hines – food critic and cookbook author
Hillbilly Jim – professional wrestler
Larry Jones – founder of Feed The Children
Ben Keith – American pedal steel guitarist, solo musician and producer
Paul Kilgus – former professional baseball player
John D. Minton, Jr. – Chief Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court
Doug Moseley – former United Methodist clergyman and former state senator
Thomas Nicholson – Professor at Western Kentucky University. Authority on drug abuse and drug policy who was on the shortlist of candidates to become President Obama's Director of National Drug Control Policy.
Rand Paul – ophthalmologist and U.S. Senator; son of U.S. Representative Ron Paul from Texas
Deborah Renshaw – NASCAR driver
Robert Reynolds – former professional football player
Jody Richards – former Speaker of the House in Kentucky and current Kentucky State Congressman
Nappy Roots – a platinum album selling rap group
Lisa Sparxxx – adult film star
Zachary Stevens – vocals Savatage
Morning Teleportation – a psychedelic rock band
Ann-Blair Thornton – Miss Kentucky 2011
Chris Turner – former professional baseball player
[edit ] Sister city
Bowling Green has two sister cities , as designated by Sister Cities International :
[edit ] Legacy
The cities named Bowling Green in Ohio and Florida were named after Bowling Green, Kentucky.[dubious – discuss]
[edit ] Pop culture
- Many songs take their inspiration from Bowling Green, most famously 1967's "Bowling Green " by the Everly Brothers . This song was covered by Neko Case in 1997.
- Bowling Green was the site of a railroad station that gave rise to a famous court case, Black and White Taxicab Co. v. Brown and Yellow Taxicab Co. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. dissented and the case was mentioned and superseded by Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins , a case famous for its doctrine and pervasiveness in Civil Procedure classes in law schools in the U.S.
[edit ] References
^ "Find a County" . National Association of Counties. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
^ {{cite web | url = http://www.census.gov/popest/data/metro/totals/2012/index.html
^ {{cite web | url = http://www.census.gov/popest/data/metro/totals/2012/index.html
^ Lienert, Paul. "Inside Line: News, Road Tests, Auto Shows, Car Photos and Videos" . Edmunds.com. Retrieved 2012-03-22.
^ "Dictionary of Places: Bowling Green". Encyclopedia of Kentucky. New York, New York : Somerset Publishers. 1987. ISBN 0-403-09981-1 .
^ Kleber, John E., ed. (1992). "Confederate State Government". The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Associate editors: Thomas D. Clark , Lowell H. Harrison, and James C. Klotter. Lexington, Kentucky : The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-1772-0 .
^ http://www.stjosephschoolbg.org/aboutus.htm
^ "Dr Lillian Herald South" . Warren County Medical Society official website. Bowling Green, Kentucky: Warren County Medical Society. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
^ Kentucky State Medical Association. (1913). Kentucky Medical Journal. Louisville, Ky: The Kentucky State Medical Association. page 160. Accessed on 31 March 2010.
^ The District - Accomplishments
^ [1]
^ Average weather for Bowling Green Weather Channel Retrieved 2008-03-29
^ "American FactFinder" . United States Census Bureau . Retrieved 2008-01-31.
^ City of Bowling Green CAFR
^ Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607-1896. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who. 1963.
[edit ] Further reading
Hall, Eliza Calvert (October 1937). "Bowling Green and the Civil War" . Filson Club Historical Quarterly 11 (4). Retrieved 2011-11-29.
[edit ] External links
[show]
Bowling Green, Kentucky
[show]
Municipalities and communities of Warren County, Kentucky , United States
34.2 Nashville
34.2.1 Christian Music Festival
34.3 Paradise
aradise, Kentucky
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paradise was a small town in Muhlenberg County , Kentucky , United States . The town was located 10.5 miles east-north-east of Greenville and was formerly called Stom's Landing (sometimes incorrectly spelled Stum).[1][2] It was once a trading post along the Green River , but it no longer exists. It was torn down in 1967 by the Tennessee Valley Authority due to health concerns over coal-burning electric plant, Paradise Fossil Plant .
Main Street, Paradise, Kentucky 1898
[edit ] History
Paradise was settled in the early nineteenth century when it was known as Stom's Landing, for Leonard Stom who founded the ferry there.[1][3] It may have once been named Monterey. The origin of its final name of Paradise is not known.[4] A post office was established at Paradise on March 1, 1852; it closed in 1967.[2][5]
In 1959, the TVA built a coal plant at the former site of Paradise.[6] The coal-fired plants remain controversial and the Paradise permits in particular, have been criticized by environmentalists for non-compliance with The Clean Air Act.[7] Since construction of new Scrubbers on Unit 3 at Paradise, the plants emissions from the massive unit have dropped dramatically in recent years. This in turn has led to a dramatic drop in toxic emissions from the plant overall.
[edit ] John Prine
A song about Paradise, Kentucky, called "Paradise" , was written and made famous by singer/songwriter John Prine . The lyrics attribute the destruction of Paradise to the Peabody company, and allude to the fact that the town was a site for strip mining . In reality, the town remained in partial form after the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company stripped the coal around it. The Paradise Fossil Plant was erected with only two units initially and after that, the residents that were left in the village were bought out by the Tennessee Valley Authority after ash fall from the newly opened plant brought health concerns to the area. It was shortly after the Tennessee Valley Authority bought the town out, they tore down all the structures and at the same time constructed the largest Cyclonic Fired Boiler in the world at the new "Paradise Unit 3". The only thing that remains of the original town is a small cemetery at the top of a hill close to the plant. Contrary to popular belief, the town was not abandoned by any flooding of the Green River . Even though the town did endure numerous floods during its lifespan, it survived all the floods of its history.
John Denver recorded the song, and released it on his album, Rocky Mountain High . Dwight Yoakam also recorded the song in 2 versions, released on his album, Dwight's Used Records.
[edit ] References
[edit ] External links
Ancestors of Robert Stom & Christine (Hilton) Stom
Photos of old Paradise
A pictorial trip to John Prine's Paradise KY - links up old photos of the town to each line of the lyrics
An up-to-date picture of the TVA Paradise Fossil Plant - This plant is the second largest coal fired plant in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) rated at 2,558 Megawatts at Winter Peak.
Coordinates : 37°16′05″N 86°59′01″W
34.4 W. Va Mental Hosp.
34.4.1 ECT And Lobotomies
34.5 Various Hitch hiking camps
34.6 Various Tent Camps
34.7 West Va Cabin
34.8 W. Va. Snake Handlers Church
Snake handling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Snake handling or serpent handling is a religious ritual in a small number of Pentecostal churches in the U.S. , usually characterized as rural and part of the Holiness movement . The practice began in the early 20th century in Appalachia . The practice plays only a small part of the church service of churches that practice snake handling. Practitioners believe serpent handling dates to antiquity and quote the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke to support the practice:
And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16:17-18 )
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. (Luke 10:19 )
[edit ] Founders
George Went Hensley (1880–1955) introduced snake handling practices into the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) , circa 1910.[2] He later resigned his ministry and started the first holiness movement church to require snake handling as evidence of salvation.[3][4] Sister-churches later sprang up throughout the Appalachian region.[1]
However, many of the followers were brought into the movement in the late 19th century by charismatic traveling preachers who boasted of great miracles and allegedly demonstrated wonders. James Miller claimed to have received a Revelation from God to handle serpents and baptize in the Jesus Only formula of Acts 2:38 in the King James Bible . By the beginning of the 20th Century, snake handling had spread to Canada, where a small number of Canadians embraced the Mark 16 revelation.
Another key scripture used to support their belief is Acts 28:1-6, which tells that Paul was bitten by a venomous viper and suffered no harm.
[edit ] Snake handlers today and practices
As in the early days, worshipers are still encouraged to lay hands on the sick (cf. Faith healing ), speak in tongues (cf. Glossolalia ), provide testimony of miracles , and occasionally consume poisons such as strychnine .[5] Gathering mainly in homes and converted buildings, they generally adhere to strict dress codes such as uncut hair, ankle-length dresses and no cosmetics for women, and short hair and long-sleeved shirts for men. Most snake handlers preach against any use of all types of tobacco and alcohol .
Most religious snake handlers are still found in the Appalachian Mountains and other parts of the southeastern United States , especially in Alabama , Georgia , Kentucky , Tennessee , West Virginia , and Ohio . However, they are gaining greater recognition from news broadcasts, movies and books about the non-denominational movement.
In 2001 there were about 40 small churches that practiced snake handling, most of them considered to be holiness-Pentecostals or charismatics . In 2004 there were four snake handling congregations in the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia , Canada .[citation needed ] Like their predecessors, they believe in a strict and literal interpretation of the Bible. Most Church of God with Signs Following churches are non-denominational , believing that denominations are 'man made' and carry the Mark of the Beast . Worshippers attend services several nights a week. Church services, if the Holy Spirit "intervenes", can last up to five hours; the minimum is usually ninety minutes.
[edit ] Risks
Some of the leaders in these churches have been bitten numerous times, as indicated by their distorted extremities. Hensley himself, the founder of modern snake handling in the Appalachian Mountains , died from fatal snakebite in 1955.[6] In 1998, snake-handling evangelist John Wayne "Punkin" Brown died after being bitten by a timber rattler at the Rock House Holiness Church in rural northeastern Alabama .[7] Members of his family contend that his death was probably due to a heart attack . However, his wife had died three years previously after being bitten while in Kentucky . Another snake handler died in 2006 at a church in Kentucky.[8] In 2012, Pentecostal pastor and snake handler Mack Wolford died from a rattlesnake bite he had received while performing an outdoor service in West Virginia , as did his father in 1983.[9]
In 1991, Glenn Summerford, pastor of The Church of Jesus Christ With Signs Following (in Scottsboro, Alabama), was arrested for the attempted murder of his wife, Darlene. Summerford, in a drunken rage, had put a gun to his wife's head, forced her to write out a purported suicide note and then forced her hand into a cage of rattlesnakes used in church services, until she was repeatedly bitten (his church condemned divorce, so he found it convenient to become a widower). She narrowly survived only because he soon fell into a drunken stupor and she was able to make her escape. He was convicted and sentenced to 99 years of prison.[10]
[edit ] Legality
The states of Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee have passed laws against the use of venomous snakes and/or other reptiles in a place that endangers the lives of others, or without a permit. The Kentucky law specifically mentions religious services; in Kentucky snake handling is a misdemeanor and punishable by a $50 to $250 fine.[11] Most snake handling practices, therefore, take place in the homes of worshippers, which avoids the process of attempting to obtain a government permit for the church. Law enforcement officers usually ignore these religious practices unless and until they are specifically called in. This is not usually done unless a death has resulted from the practice.
In July 2008, 10 people were arrested and 125 venomous snakes were confiscated as part of an undercover sting operation titled "Twice Shy." Pastor Gregory James Coots of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name was arrested and 74 snakes were seized from his home as part of the sting. A Tennessee woman died in 1995 due to a rattlesnake bite received during a service at the Tabernacle church.[12] Coots was cited again in 2013 for illegal possession and transportation of venomous snakes when three rattlesnakes and two copperheads were confiscated from his vehicle during a traffic stop in Knoxville, Tennessee.[13]
The practice is legal in the state of West Virginia as the current state constitution does not allow any law to impede or promote a religious practice. [14]
Snake handling was made a felony punishable by death under Georgia law in 1941, following the death of a seven-year-old girl from a rattlesnake bite. However, the punishment was so severe that juries would refuse to convict, and the law was repealed in 1968.[15]
[edit ] Snake handling churches
Alabama
Rock House Holiness Church on Sand Mountain in the rural northeast[16]
Kentucky
Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name, Middlesboro [17]
South Carolina
Holiness Church of God in Jesus Name, Greenville [18]
Tennessee
Tabernacle Church of God, LaFollette [19]
West Virginia
Church of the Lord Jesus, Jolo [20]
[edit ] In popular culture
Robert Schenkkan 's play The Handler deals with the apparent death of a first-time snake handler and the involvement of law enforcement; in this case, the sheriff also being a snake handler.
Ray Stevens 's "Smoky Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat" comedically portrays a couple going to a Bible camp where snakes are passed around. It ends with the singer's wife stomping the rattlesnakes to death. It appears on his Surely You Joust album.
The second season of Saturday Night Live included a sit-com parody called The Snake-Handling O'Sheas.[21]
The X Files episode "Signs and Wonders" deals heavily with snake handling.
In the fourth season episode of the television series The Simpsons , titled Homer the Heretic , the local bartender Moe Szyslak , when asked to join a different religion, declares, "I was born a Snake Handler, and I'll die a Snake Handler." He then displays his badly snakebitten and bandaged hands.
In the 1991 movie Cape Fear , the character Max Cady (played by Robert De Niro) comes from a family of snake handlers.
In the 2012 movie The Campaign , Congressman Cam Brady (Played by Will Ferrell) attempts to boost his campaign popularity by joining a church of Snake Handlers in their sermon, where he is bitten.
Whistle Down the Wind (musical) by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Jim Steinman features two characters who have traveled to town for a revival meeting that includes snake handling.
Season Four of the FX series Justified features a character named "Billy St. Cyr" a captivating snake handling preacher.
[edit ] See also
[edit ] References
^ a b David L. Kimbrough (February 2002). Taking up serpents: snake handlers of eastern Kentucky . Mercer University Press. pp. xiv, 37–51. ISBN 978-0-86554-798-8 . Retrieved 26 June 2011.
^ Encyclopedia of American Religions gives the year as 1909; the Encyclopedia of Religion in the South gives it as 1913.
^ Anderson, Robert Mapes (1979). Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism. New York, New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 263.
^ Hood, Jr., Ralph W.; Williamson, W. Paul (2008). Them That Believe: The Power and the Meaning of the Christian Serpent-Handling Tradition. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. pp. xiv, 37, 38. ISBN 978-0-520-25587-6 .
^ Dennis Covington, Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1995).
^ Appalachian Essays .
^ CNN 1999 Feb. 12
^ USA Today, 2006 Nov. 8
^ The Washington Post, 30 May 2012
^ Thomas Burton, The Serpent and the Spirit: Glenn Summerford's Story (2004, Knoxville, Univ. of Tennessee Press).
^ Woman Fatally Bitten by Snake in Church , Associated Press Nov. 8, 2006, at BreitBart.com .
^ Alford, Roger (2008-07-12). "Pastor among suspects in illegal snake bust" . Associated Press. Archived from the original on 2008-08-03. Retrieved 2008-07-12.
^ Kentucky Pastor Wants Snakes Confiscated in Knoxville Bust ," Knoxville News Sentinel, 13 February 2013. Retrieved: 13 February 2013.
^ Bastress, Robert (1995). The West Virginia Constitution: A Reference Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 102–103. ISBN 0313274096 .
^ Ruthven, Malise (1989). The Divine Supermarket. London: Chatto & Windus. p. 291. ISBN 0-7011-3151-9 .
^ Mike Ford, "Should Christians Handle Snakes? ." Forerunner, August 2003. Retrieved: 31 January 2008.
^ "Kentucky Pastor Wants Snakes Confiscated in Knoxville Bust ," Knoxville News Sentinel, 13 February 2013. Retrieved: 13 February 2013.
^ Pastor Jimmy Morrow (2005). Handling Serpents. Mercer University Press . p. 8. ISBN 0-86554-848-X .
^ Bob Smietana, "Snake-Handling Believers Find Joy in Test of Faith ," The Tennessean, 3 June 2012. Retrieved: 3 June 2012.
^ Serpent Handling at Jolo, West Virginia and the Legitimacy of the Marcan Appendix . Appalachian State University. Retrieved on 2008-10-29.
^ SNL Transcripts: September 25, 1976
[edit ] Further reading
Ralph W. Hood, Jr. and W. Paul Williamson, Them That Believe: The Power and Meaning of the Christian Serpent-Handling Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).
Dennis Covington: Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Salvation in Southern Appalachia: New York: Penguin: 1996.
Thomas Burton: Serpent Handling Believers: Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press: 1993.
Fred Brown and Jeanne MacDonald: The Serpent Handlers: Three Families and Their Faith: Winston-Salem: J.F.Blair: 2000.
Weston LaBarre: They shall take up serpents: The psychology of the Southern Snake Handling Cult: University of Minnesota Press: 1962.
David Kinburgh: Taking Up Serpents: Snake Handlers of Eastern Kentucky: Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press: 1996.
Jim Morrow and Ralph Hood: Handling Serpents: Pastor Jimmy Morrow's Narrative History of his Appalachian Jesus' Name Tradition: Macon: Mercer University Press: 2005.
Ralph Hood and David Kimbrough: "Serpent Handling Pentecostal Sects: Theoretical Considerations" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion: 34:3: (September 1995): 311-332
Stephen Kane: "Ritual Possession in a Southern Appalachian Religious Sect" The Journal of American Folklore: 27:348 (October-December 1974): 293-302.
Paul Williamson and Ralph Hood Jr: "Differential Maintenance and Growth of Religious Organisations Based on High-Cost Behaviours: Serpent Handling with the Church of God" Review of Religious Research: 46:2 (December 2004): 150-168.
Paul W. Williamson and Howard R. Pollo: "The Phenomenology of Religious Serpent Handling: A Rationale and Thematic Study of Extemporaneous Sermons" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion: 38:2 (June 1999): 203-218.
[edit ] External links
Shelton, Steve (June 28, 1996). "Taking up serpents" . Augusta Chronicle.
Handwerk, Brian (April 7, 2003). "Snake Handlers Hang On in Appalachian Churches" . National Geographic News.
University of Virginia article on serpent handlers
Why do we believe in God? , Robert Winston, The Guardian , Thursday October 13, 2005, an article describing snake handling
34.9 Bible College
34.10 Peabody Worlds Largest Steam Shovel
From Wikipedia:
Peabody Energy Corporation (NYSE : BTU ), is the largest private-sector coal company in the world.[2] Its primary business consists of the mining, sale and distribution of coal, which is purchased for use in electricity generation and steelmaking. Peabody also markets, brokers and trades coal through offices in China , Australia , Germany , the United Kingdom , Indonesia , Singapore and the United States . Other commercial initiatives include the development of mine-mouth coal-fueled plants, the management of coal reserve holdings, and technologies to transform coal to natural gas and transportation fuels.
The coal produced by Peabody Energy fuels approximately 10% of the electricity generated in the United States and 2% of electricity generated throughout the world, based on recorded sales in 2010 of 246 million tons of coal.[3] Peabody markets coal to electricity generating and industrial customers in more than 25 nations. As of December 31, 2010, the company had approximately 9 billion tons of proven and probable coal reserves and liquidity that matches the company's entire enterprise value of 12 years ago.[3]
Peabody Energy maintains ownership of majority interests in 28 surface and underground mining operations located throughout the United States and Australia. In the United States, company-owned mines are located in Wyoming , Colorado , Arizona , New Mexico , Illinois , and Indiana . Peabody's largest operation is the North Antelope-Rochelle Mine located in Campbell County, Wyoming , mining more than 100 million tons of coal in 2010. Peabody spun off coal mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky into Patriot Coal Corporation (NYSE: PCX) in October 2007. In October 2011, Peabody acquired a majority ownership stake in Queensland -based Macarthur Coal Ltd, which specializes in the production of metallurgical coal, primarily seaborne pulverized injection coal.[4]
Peabody Energy was listed as number 338 on the Fortune 500 list of companies in 2011.[5] The company was named to Fortune Magazine's list of America's Most Admired Companies in 2008, ranking first in their sector in: Innovation, People Management, Social Responsibility, Financial Soundness, et al.[6] The company is headquartered in downtown St. Louis , Missouri .[7]
History
Early years (1883 – 1959 )
The Peabody Energy company was originally founded as Peabody, Daniels & Company in 1883 by Francis Peabody , the son of a prominent Chicago lawyer, and a partner.[8] The company bought coal from established mines and sold it to homes and businesses in the Chicago area. In the late 1880s, Francis Peabody bought out his partner's share of the business and the company was incorporated in the state of Illinois under the name Peabody Coal Company in 1890. In 1895, it began operations of its first mine in Williamson County, Illinois and later expanded its operations in Illinois.[9] In 1913, the company won its first long-term contract to supply Chicago Edison Company, the predecessor to utility Commonwealth Edison .[10] The company's growth continued after World War I and the corporation went public for the first time in 1929 with a listing on the Midwest Stock Exchange and in 1949, was listed on the New York Stock Exchange .[11]
Despite being ranked eighth among the country's top coal producers in the mid 1950s, Peabody began to lose market share to companies operating cost-efficient surface mining operations.[9] To address the situation, it entered into merger talks with Sinclair Coal Company. A merger between the two companies occurred in 1955, resulting in the transfer of Peabody's headquarters to St. Louis, Missouri . The merged company retained the Peabody name.[11] Under the leadership of chairman Russell Kelce, the company expanded production and sales.[9]
The Bucyrus Erie 3850-B Power Shovel named "Big Hog" went to work next door to Paradise Fossil Plant for Peabody Coal Company's ( Peabody Energy ) Sinclair Surface Mine in 1962. When it started work it was received with grand fanfare and was the Largest Shovel in The World with a bucket size of 115 cubic yards. After it finished work in the mid 1980s, it was buried in a pit on the mine's property. It remains there still today.
1960–2000
In 1962, Peabody expanded into the Pacific with the opening of mining operations in Queensland, Australia .[9] During this period Peabody also forged an equity partnership with the Japanese trading company Mitsui & Co., Ltd. and the Australian construction company Thiess Holdings.[12] In 1968, the company was purchased by the Kennecott Copper Corporation . However, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission challenged the purchase as an antitrust violation. In 1976, the FTC ordered Kennecott to divest itself of Peabody. The newly created Peabody Holding Company purchased the Peabody Coal business of Kennecott for $1.1 billion, and a consortium of companies controlled Peabody-Holding.[11]
In the 1980s, Peabody expanded its operations in the Eastern United States, acquiring the West Virginia coal mines of Armco Inc in 1984.[13] The company sought to broaden its metallurgical coal portfolio through the purchase of Eastern Gas and Fuel Associates' seven West Virginia mines in 1987.[9] Peabody also expanded westward, opening the North Antelope and Rochelle mines in the low sulfur Wyodak seam in the heart of Wyoming's Powder River Basin in 1983 and 1984, respectively.[12]
The passage of the Clean Air Act amendments in 1990 prompted the closure of some Peabody mines. However, other mines under its ownership were able to remain in operation due to the implementation of new equipment and procedures that reduced sulfur dioxide emissions.[9] Stricter requirements outlined in Phase II of the legislation also prompted Peabody to invest in emissions reducing technologies. In 1990, the U.K.-based conglomerate Hanson plc, one of the owners of Peabody Holding at the time, bought out the rest of the owners.[14]
In 1993, Peabody Energy expanded their holdings in the Pacific with the acquisition of three mines in Australia and subsequently developed a fourth operation in New South Wales.[15] Peabody also expanded its operations domestically with acquisitions in New Mexico in 1993 and Wyoming in 1994 and assumed a stake in Black Beauty, a Midwest producer, in response to increased demand for metallurgical coal.[9][16]
34.11 Smell of Coal and Ivory Soap
Best Outline of Book Chapters
35.1 Intro
This story had to wait to be told. It has been retold and retold for the past fifty years. It had been added to and factors deleted at family re-unions, funerals, camp fires, pillow talks, sermons, and at family dinners. So you could say that there are dozens of authors to this story, or you could say that the authors of the story is the main principals.
There are plenty of facts to this story and for anyone so inclined they can search the official records, newspapers, histories, and interview the still living. The difficulty lies with what is embellishment on private moments, motivations, or feelings. I would like to think that this story is more correct than it is wrong and it speaks to a higher truth that each receiver of this story has to find on their own. And perhaps this is also an aid to the development of this story and perhaps legend. As people pass this story on, they pass on a bit of their higher truth and after half a century, the story develops into a legend with dozens of higer truths.
I am the first, to my knowledge, who has attempted to put this story down. I have never written a book, but I had a calling to tell this one. I saw part of this story first hand as a boy and I have thought about it at different times over the past fifty years. This writing is an attempt to put the story, the legend, the facts, and the higher truths in a bit of order. If this story only makes it online, or as a book, I encourage the reader to add or subtract from the story as you feel called to do by your facts and your higher truths, then when you retell the story, tell your version. This is only a humble attempt at my version.
In my version of the story, I like to tell the story like I am watching the movie in my head.
35.1.1 Sensory Memory
New Page
Notes on "The Hollow Men "
Title: Eliot claimed to have made up the title, "The Hollow Men" from combining "The Hollow Land", the title of a romance by William Morris with Kipling's title, "The Broken Men". Many scholars believe this to be one of Ol' Possum's many false trails, instead believing it comes from a mention of 'hollow men' in Julius Caesar or any of several references to Joseph Conrad's Kurtz as hollow in some way (a 'hollow sham', 'hollow at the core'). The title immediately presents us with the first of many allusions, directly referencing two of the four main sources for this poem, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, and Conrad's Heart of Darkness (which I will often abbreviate HoD). The other sources are the Gunpowder Plot and The Divine Comedy, both of which also deal with men or shadows of men who may be described as hollow at the core.
The Gunpowder Plot : This conspiracy arose from the English Catholics' resentment of King James I and his reign's treatment of their religion. A group of extremists led by Rober Catesby planed to seize power by killing King James I and his ministers at the State Opening of Parliament (November 5, 1605), leaving England without a government. Francis Tresham, one of the conspirators, gave the plan away when he wrote to his brother-in-law, Lord Monteagle, telling him to stay away from the Houses of Parliament during the Opening. Monteagle informed the Lord Chancellor of the warning, who in turn told the king. On November 4, 1605, Guy Fawkes was arrested in the cellars of the House of Lords, standing guard over two tons of gunpowder. He was tortured until he revealed the names of his co-conspirators, who, if they hadn't yet fled the country, were soon executed. Now the British celebrate November 5 with bonfires, fireworks, and by burning effigies of Guy. Theoretically, they are celebrating the execution of a traitor, though some have been been known to see it as a celebration of the near death of the monarchy.
Julius Caesar : Shakespeare's version of the story of Julius Caesar also centers around a violent conspiracy of men who are blinded by their cause. In it, Brutus, a leading Roman citizen, is approached by Cassius, who is recruiting people to conspire to assassinate Caesar. Cassius is motivated by ambition, envy, and malice, and he persuades Brutus that Caesar is a tyrant who will destroy the Roman Republic. Cassius plays on Brutus's vanity of his fame as champion for the public good, blinding Brutus to the evil nature of the conspiracy.
The Divine Comedy : Dante Alighieri's classic allegorical story in which, Dante himself becomes a pilgrim traveling through the three kingdoms of the afterlife: hell (The Inferno), purgatory (Purgatorio), and heaven (Paradiso). He is lead through the first two by the poet Virgil in a pilgrimage orchestrated by his late love Beatrice in an attempt to redeem his soul and convince him to change his life so that after seeing Beatrice in heaven he will desire to join her there again after his own death.
Heart of Darkness : Next to Dante's writing, this story by Joseph Conrad is commonly held to be most important and influential literary experience in Eliot's poetry. It is a story full of hollow men- men empty of faith, personality, moral strength, and even humanity. In it the character Marlow tells of his own journey into the heart of Africa, a dark world populated by morally empty men living only for ivory and the money and power that it brings. Deep in the interior, he meets Kurtz, the most depraved man of them all, yet one who, on his deathbed, seems to realize the true horror of what he and humanity as he knows it is and does.
1925: Eliot wrote this poem during a period of absence from the bank, having just suffered a nervous breakdown. The theme of 'hollowness' presented in the poem directly relates to his own psychological condition at the time, a condition known at the time as 'aboulie'.1
epigraph to section: The words spoken by a servant to announce Kurtz's death. They signal the end of an evil presence, but also the end of one who was formerly a great man. With his death the values he held during life also die, leaving the survivors without anything to guide them.
epigraph to poem: A version of 'A penny for the Guy?', the cry children take up when begging money to buy fireworks with on Guy Fawkes Day.
ll.1-4: The 'hollow men' and 'stuffed men', 'filled with straw' are a combination of the effigies burned on Guy Fawkes Day, the conspirators in Julius Caesar, and Kurtz. More profoundly, they are Eliot's modern man, an empty, corrupt breed.
l. 2: According to Valerie Eliot, the marionette in Stravinsky's Petrouchka. 2
l. 4: Straw is the usual filling for the effigies burned on Guy Fawkes Day . It is also a common building material for effigies used in harvest or fertility rituals celebrating the symbolic death of a vegetation god as necessary for the rebirth and growth of the land. One of these, observed by both Sir James Frazer and W. Warde Fowler is the Roman ritual of the Argei. This imagery suggests that a sacrifice of the 'hollow men' can redeem mankind and that after their destruction we can again flourish.
Eliot examined a similar myth, that of the Fisher King, extensively in The Waste Land . The Fisher King myth has many variations, but generally includes an ailing king whose kingdom is sterile- nothing will grow, and the people suffer. The king and the land can only be cured by a pure quest for some sort of knowledge (sometimes in the form of an object, sometimes in a question that must be asked). It is also frequently associated with the Arthurian quest for the Holy Grail and the knight Perceval. Ususally, with the success of the quest, the king and the land are healed. Sometimes the king must die and be succeeded before the land can again bloom. The theme of a king or god needing to die, at least symbolically, for the land to become fertile (for spring to come) also occurs in the Summerian myth of Inanna and Demuzi, the rituals surrounding the Egyptian god Osris, and the Greek myth of Persephone and Demeter.
l. 6: Whispers act as an instrument of fate throughout HoD. Marlow recounts how the wilderness "had whispered to [Kurtz] things about himself which he did not know ... and the whisper proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core".4 And while Marlow attempts and fails to summon up the courage to tell Kurtz's Intended the truth about Kurtz's last words, those words are whispered in his mind, signifying his own hollowness and cowardice. Besides symbolizing fate, whispers can also signify conspiracy, a theme present throughout this poem and seemingly inherent in the hollow men.
ll. 11-12: This refers to a condition of unfulfillment as seen in the spiritual state of the shades in Inferno iii. These shades never made a choice regarding their spiritual state during life (neither following nor rebelling against God) instead living solely for themselves. Neither heaven nor hell will let them past its gates. A similar condition exists, in HoD, among the men of the Eldorado Exploring Expedition: they lacked the moral strength and courage to back up their greed. A third explanation of the lines is Marlow's own experience with and resistance of death. Here we see that the same description that applies to the hollow men can also be applied to what is experienced by those who attempt to struggle against that empty way of life and death.
ll. 13-15: Those who have crossed to death's other kingdom are those who have left behind a state of spiritual nothingness (or, alternatively, hell or purgatory) and entered into knowledge and recognition of that state ( or heaven). They are the ones who are capable of looking directly at life and the universe and seeing the inner truth. Kurtz, though probably not heaven bound, had the same moment of realization just before his death, as seen in his stare and his final utterance, "The horror! The horror!" The idea of crossing refers to a transition from one state to the other, such as when Dante the Pilgrim had to cross to rivers to be freed from sin and shame before his eyes could stand to look upon his beloved Beatrice in heaven. This is a plea from the hollow men to those who have escaped their fate. Like the numerous souls who beg Dante to keep their memory alive, they are asking for those lucky souls to remember the fate of those less fortunate, and to also remember that they were not seeking to do wrong, but simply lacked what the lucky ones have, morals and values.
l. 15: The song sung by children begging for pennies on Guy Fawkes Day begins "Please to remember / The fifth of November / Gunpowder, treason, and plot."
l. 19: Beatrice tells Dante how she came to him first in dreams to lead him back to the part of virtue. Just as Beatrice give Dante a chance for redemption by orchestrating his journey, all men also have the chance for redemption.
ll. 19-22: Dante cannot meet Beatrice's eyes when he first sees her because he still feels shame and suffers their reprove. He acts like a disobedient child unable to meet a stern parent's gaze until he is purified by the waters of the River Lethe. Marlow encounters the force of eyes and glances throughout his adventures, ranging from the invisible eyes of the forest, to Kurtz's dying gaze, to the "guileless, profound, confident, and trustful" gaze of Kurtz's intended.5 The hollow men should be shamed by the eyes of the virtuous, but at the same time those eyes contain within them a chance for redemption. This is an opportunity Dante the pilgrim accepted and Marlow refused.
ll. 20-22: In heaven, Dante no longer feels shamed by Beatrice's gaze, but instead, marvels in her beauty, which continues to grow as they advance to the uppermost strata of heaven. Once the invitation for redemption is accepted and virtue is restored, the formerly hollow man has no reason to feel shame when looking into the eyes of the virtuous. "Death's dream kingdom" is heaven; in order to have reached that paradise, even if by means of a guide, the soul must already have been purified. He does not see the same shame causing eyes he saw originally, instead he sees a gaze that he can meet.
ll. 23-28: These lines resemble the Dante's description of the Earthly Paradise, when still seen from afar in Cantos xxvii-xxix. Dante used the star as a symbol representing God or Mary.
l. 23: A broken column is a traditional graveyard memorial for a premature death.
l. 24: A book Eliot reviewed in 1923, The Sacred Dance by W.O.E. Oesterley contains the image of a 'savage' who is awestruck by 'a tree, swayed by wind, moved'.6
l. 32: In the section "The Propitiation of Vermin by Farmers" in The Golden Bough Frazer discusses both the dressing in animal skins for ritualistic purposes, as well as the custom of hanging up the corpse of a member of a crop damaging species as a possible origin of the scarecrow. Weston looks at the staves of Morris Dancers, clowns in a costume of animal skins or a cap of skin. She sees them as a surviving remnant of earlier vegetation ceremonies. Where the previous stanza showed the beauty present in paradise and the hope a tormented soul has of reaching that place, this one and the next show that souls fear in the obstacles that will have to overcome before that can happen.
l. 33: In The Waste Land Eliot associates the "man with three staves" a card in the Tarot with the Fisher King
l. 35: In the Inferno spirits are blown about by the wind and in HoD the native dies just because he left the shutter open, "He had no restraint- just like Kurtz- a tree swayed in the wind."7
ll. 37-38: Both Dante the Pilgrim and Marlow must face a meeting they greatly fear. Dante must meet Beatrice and face her divine beauty. In doing so he can't help but be reminded of all of his own sins and failings, but by crossing the River Lethe, which flows in shadow, he can be purified and look upon her. At this point, he has completed the unpleasant stages of his journey, which is really an attempt to save his own soul, so that after his own death he will be able to join her in heaven. Marlow also faces the crux of his journey when he faces Kurtz's fiancé, but he chooses a darker path. He follows through on his word to Kurtz by giving her his letters, but he can not bring himself to tell the truth about his last words. In his submission to the heart of darkness he faces a moral twilight in which he chooses the shadow, literally, as the sun sets. The twilight that sets in is the choice the soul must face between light and darkness.
ll. 39-44: These lines are thought to be material originally discarded from The Waste Land as they closely resemble lines from sections I and V both in language and imagery. The stone images (and 'broken stone' in l. 51) suggests idolatrous worship. "The worship of stones is a degradation of a higher form of worship," F.B. Jevens's An Introduction to the History of Religions, a 1896 text Eliot is known to have studied at Harvard.8 The desert imagery suggests sterility, probably the sterility of the modern world.
l. 47: HoD: "We live, as we dream - alone."9
ll. 49-51: To the end, Kurtz's Intended is confident in his faithfulness, goodness, and unending love for her, while in reality he has turned to the worship of pagan forces (stone is symbolic of idolatrous and thus, non-Christian worship).
ll. 50-51: A perversion of Juliet's line about "lips that they must use in prayer" instead of for kissing. Kurtz's lips are being used in pagan worship instead of to express love for his Intended. Also, from Psalm 57, as used in Purgatorio xxii, xxxiii, "Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise!"
ll. 52-56: The valley Marlow walks through upon his arrival to the Congo, half excavated, littered with abandoned objects, and hopeless native laborers, "it seemed to me I had stepped into the gloomy circle of some Inferno ... Black shapes crouched, lay sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced with in the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair."10 Like ll. 39-44, a representation of the sterile, modern world, a place where the eyes that offer hope and shame don't exist.
l. 56: Possibly the "new jaw bone of an ass" (Judges xv, 15-19) with which Samson slew a thousand Philistines. This would seem to signify that the civilizing factor has broken, contributing to, or allowing, modern man's decline. The Golden Bough offers an anthropological explanation; the Baganda (and African tribe) believe that the spirit of the dead clings to the jawbone. The jaw bone of their deceased king is made into an effigy and put in a temple. Again, since the bone is broken, any leadership that could have taken from the talisman is no longer available.
ll. 57-60: These lines allude to all four major sources: the last meeting places and tumid rivers encountered by the Pilgrim on his journey, the element of conspiracy (last meetings before the treasonous act) in Julius Caesar and of the Gunpowder Plot, and Marlow's experiences with the secretive trading company, "It was just as though I had been let into some conspiracy."11 At the trading station he finds that most of the white employees occupy themselves "by backbiting and intriguing against each other in a foolish kind of way. There was an air of plotting about the station, but nothing came of it, of course it was as unreal as everything else."12 This is the final meeting of a doomed conspiracy, the meeting of the lost, hollow souls before they sentenced to the inferno.
l. 60: Dante's River Acheron flowing around hell or the river Marlow follows into the African 'heart of darkness'.
ll. 61-62:If the eyes reappear, so does hope and the possibility for salvation. At Dante the Pilgrim's first meeting with Beatrice, her eyes were shameful for him to look upon, yet they also signaled the possibility of his redemption. When he is able to look upon her again it signifies a change in the state of his soul, it has been purified. When Marlow meets Kurtz's Intended, he is looked upon by the eyes of a pure spirit, "The room seemed to have drown darker, as if all the sad light of the cloudy evening had taken refuge on her forehead. This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an ashy halo from which dark eyes looked out at me. Their glance was guileless, profound, and trustful."13 That moment Marlow's chance to resist the darkness which has penetrated modern life.
ll. 63-64: In Paradiso xxx the Pilgrim's vision of the highest level of heaven is of a rose whose petals are formed by Mary and the saints. In Paradiso xxxi he refers to God as the 'single star', and in Paradiso xxxii and elsewhere he refers to Mary as a rose.
l. 65: The twilight refers to Marlow's meeting with Kurtz's Intended, to the twilight that is physically gathering, and to the hopelessness in Marlow's own soul. Twilight represents a choice, but it can also be the mere memory of that choice.
ll. 68-71: These lines parody a children's song that is derived from a fertility dance done around a mulberry bush 'on a cold and frosty morning'. A prickly pear is a desert cactus, continuing the desert imagery that is particularly prevalent at the beginning of the third section of the poem. 5:00am is the traditional time of Christ's resurrection. In a 1923 review Eliot quoted Frazer on "how often with the decay of old faiths the serious rites and pageants .. [primitive, religious dances] have degenerated into the sports of children."14 Here he has further perverted the children's song by turning it into a modern infertility dance. By performing an infertility dance at the moment of resurrection, we are in effect blocking and rejecting the salvation it can bring.
ll. 72-90: Taken almost directly from Julius Caesar II.i :
BRUTUS
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interm is
Like a phantasma, or hideous dream:
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of men,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
Another possible source is the line "Between the void and its pure issue" from Valéry's The Cemetery by the Sea. In 1924, Eliot wrote an introduction to Valéry's Le Serpent in which he compared that line to Brutus's lines. He viewed The Cemetery by the Sea as an expression of Valery's melancholy skepticism attributed to "the agony of creation ... the mind constantly mocks and dissuades, and urges the creative activity in vain." The three central stanzas of this section closely resemble Valery's in their phrasal structure and emphatic rhythm and also in their thematic contrast between 'idea' and 'reality'.15
This section of the poem deals with the true cause of hollowness- failing to make that choice that was once offered, failing to take action, giving in and living only as a shadow. The shadow has had a chance to recognize the difference between salvation and damnation and has either rejected that chance or failed to choose between the two.
l. 76: In 1935 Eliot accepted a suggestion that he had taken the 'Shadow' from "Non sum qualis eram" (I am not now as once I was) Ernest Dowson's most famous poem. It contains the phrases "Then fell thy shadow" and "Then falls the shadow." He is quoted as responding, "This derivation had not occurred in my mind, but I believe it to be correct, because the lines... have always run in my head."16 HoD also features shadows throughout: the boat moves in shadow, men die with shadows across their faces, pain is experienced in shadow, Kurtz's secrets are metaphorical shadows, Kurtz himself is a "Shadow - that wandering and tormented thing,"17 and at the end of the story a shadow stretches across the sky, a shadow over all of mankind.
l. 77: Part of the Lord's Prayer, as originally mentioned in I Chronicles xxix.
l. 83: Like l. 77 and l. 91, this line is italicized, suggesting a quotation. In this case it is from Conrad's An Outcast of the Islands, in which a broken man is punished by being kept alive rather than by being killed.
ll. 86-87: From Aristotelian philosophy, "matter only has potency until form gives it existence".
ll. 88-89: From Platonic philosophy, "the essence is the inapprehensible ideal, which finds material expression in its descent to the lower, material plane of reality."
ll. 95-98: Here, Eliot is again parodying the children's song 'Here we go round the mulberry bush,' specifically the line "this is the way we clap our hands". He's also referring to the biblical idea of a world without end from, "Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen"
l. 98: George Santayana lectured at Harvard while Eliot was a student there. His account of the Divine Comedy included: "it all ends, not with a bang, not with some casual incident, but in sustained reflection."18 The whimper could be in reference to two things: the Kipling poem, "Danny Deever", with which Eliot is known to have been familier and Dante's description of a newborn baby's cry upon leaving one world to enter another. That in turns suggests the image of a repentant Dante standing before Beatrice as a child before as stern parent.
The whimper is that Guy Fawkes exhaled when he gave up his co-conspirators, it is what Brutus and Cassius spoke when their plans to rule crumbled, it is Kurtz's last utterance when he finally realizes the truth of the world he lives in, and it is the end for all hollow men.
Conclusions
Return to outline.
page 2
Southam, B.C. A Guide to the Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994. p. 23
Kermode, Frank, ed. Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. pp. 37-44
The model Landow is suggesting is remarkably similar to a recent movement in software development, the Open Source Movement , whereas the code that makes up the software is freely available and may be altered. The end result of Open Source projects is often a highly developed and elegant piece of software that has been worked on by many people, a result quite contrary to the 'too many cooks' notion that might be expected to apply. It will be interesting to see whether the same set of concepts can be successfully applied to works in the humanities as well.
Grusin, Richard. Configurations 2.3 "What is an Electronic Author? Theory and the Technological Fallacy". Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Southam, p. 208
Southam, p. 210
Ronnick, Michele Valerie. Explicator, "Eliot's 'The Hollow Men'". Winter 1998. pp. 91-93.
Kimbrough, Robert, ed. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988. pp. 57-58.
Kimbrough, p. 73.
Southam, p. 212.
Kimbrough, p. 51.
Southam, p. 213.
Kimbrough, p. 30.
Kimbrough, p. 20.
Kimbrough, p. 14.
Kimbrough, p. 27.
Kimbrough, p. 73.
Southam, p. 215
Southam, pp. 215-216.
Southam, pp. 216.
Kimbrough, p. 65.
Southam, p. 217.
Kimbrough, p. 69.
Introduction
It’s a brisk fall morning in New York City. Wind blows dust and leaves around in little tornado shaped circles outside the windows of my 7th grade science class. As I watch the hypnotic swirling motion our teacher, Mr. Lobel, leans against the granite lab-table and poses this question: “Let’s say you put a piece of cork and a metal spoon in the refrigerator over night, which one will be colder the next day?” It seems like a trick question. “you're going to have to figure it out, we’ll talk about it tomorrow”. Of course none of us want to wait until tomorrow to get the answer, but Mr. Lobel can not be swayed.
I open the refrigerator at home and feel the milk carton – that’s pretty cold. I feel the cork on the wine bottle – not as cold. The coldest thing in the refrigerator is a wet piece of lettuce, but Mr. Lobel didn’t say anything about wet lettuce. I’m still not sure what the answer is, but I'm pretty sure it's the spoon. There's no way that cork can be colder than metal.
Most of us think it's the spoon. There are a few oddball cork-guys, but they have pretty lame ideas about why it's the cork, so Mr. Lobel finally resolves the mystery: "The cork, spoon and anything else hanging out in the refrigerator long enough will be of equal temperature". He uses this model to illustrate three profound ideas in physics:
One: there is no such thing as “cold”; there is only more or less heat. Cold is a matter of human perception. The metal spoon transmits heat away from the hand faster than cork so it feels colder.
Two: heat will try to even itself out. It will always go to where there is less heat until equilibrium is established.
Three: Heat is energy and energy is motion. The type of motion known as heat is the vibration of atoms and molecules.
This changed my perception of everything. It gnawed at my understanding of reality. How can heat just be wiggling atoms? Heat burns, melts, and boils. Why do the atoms wiggle in the first place? Why does the oscillation always even itself out?
I had unwittingly asked myself a question, the answer to which reveals a connection between the primary forces governing the behavior of the universe. I learned that the ubiquitous evening-out process I had questioned results in a state scientists call equilibrium. In the seventh grade experiment, had I actually gone to the trouble of putting a spoon and cork in the refrigerator, the internal refrigerator temperature would have disturbed the equilibrium between the spoon, cork, and their previously warmer environment. They would have spontaneously given up heat until thermal equilibrium was achieved with the surrounding refrigerator air.
There is a fourth profound idea in this experiment. Even without a rocket, or a cyclotron, or millions of dollars worth of exotic equipment it is possible to explore the universe. By showing us that the deep mysteries of life are revealed by observing everyday phenomena, Mr. Lobel opened the door to real freedom-of-mind. This is how the ancient Greeks invented modern science, mathematics, philosophy, and government. We are only just catching up to them now.
In this spirit, Nothingness Theory begins by investigating the significance of attraction to equilibrium via its role in the behavior of electromagnetism, gravity, and the two nuclear forces.
Chapter 1
The Principle of Unified Forces :
Equilibrium
Fourteen billion years ago there was no space, matter or time. There was no light, dark, emptiness or fullness. Suddenly all these things sprang into existence – the moment cosmologists call the “Big Bang”. Since then, space has been increasing relative to matter and matter has been filling in the increasing space.
Nothingness Theory provides a way to understand this seemingly impossible situation. All motion, including the expansion of the universe, is the result of a disturbance of equilibrium. By applying this simple viewpoint, it is possible to connect the laws and principles of physics via a single framework.
Imagine a motionless boat on a calm pond. The boat and pond are at rest in relation to each other. The law of inertia insures that this resting state will never change unless some external force disturbs the system's equilibrium. Subsequent to a disturbance, the boat will rock and the pond will ripple with waves. This motion inexorably returns the system to its resting state - a requirement of the law of entropy.
Every natural system exhibits this behavior, including the universe as a whole. Like its constituent sub-systems, the universe rocks back and forth between states of undetectable uniformity - states known here as perfectly symmetrical static equilibrium - nothingness. This viewpoint enables a new precision for defining terms such as "universe", "force", "existence", and "matter". This is accomplished by noting that for something to exist it must be detectable, and to be detectable it must be uneven relative to its surroundings and itself.
Detectability
Detectability is paramount in understanding ideas such as time, space, matter, and existence. Human perception is based on detectability, and scientific measurement is an extension of human perception. If something is not detectable, it is not something and it doesn’t exist. This clears up some confusion about space, time and so-called parallel universes.
The universe can be precisely defined as: anything that has been, or ever will be detectable by humans.It is the manifestation of temporal existence – composed of matter, energy, space, and time, and is the macro-system of which all natural systems are a sub-set. Therefore, there can be no such thing as something outside the universe, because if it can be detected, it is by definition, still within the universe. This logic requires that space be infinite, because any area outside the “edge” of the universe would still be space, still be detectable, and still be the universe. Any area inside the smallest particle[i] would still be space and still be the part of the universe.
This same logic requires that time be infinite. Time extends to the past infinitely because a time before time is still time since “before” is a time designation. This applies to the future as well because “after” is a time designation.
At any given moment, what we define as the universe is everything we are capable of detecting. Though we may encounter an ultimate limit of Detectability, this limit defines the boundaries of human detection, and not the boundaries of time and space.
The impossibility of a beginning or end to time and space means that the universe has and always will exist. Yet it has been observed that the universe emerged from nonexistence fourteen billion years ago. The answer to this riddle is that the universe actually emerged from undetectable uniformity - not nonexistence. This creates another paradox because it was established earlier that if something is not detectable, it is not something and it doesn't exist.
Existential Nothingness
Nothingness Theory accommodates this contradiction by distinguishing between relative nonexistence (nothingness) and absolute nonexistence. Nothingness is defined here as a state of perfectly uniform static equilibrium constituting relative nonexistence. A state that exists relative to absolute nonexistence but does not exist relative to temporal existence. Absolute nonexistence is defined as the absence of existence, the absence of nothingness, and the absence of absence. It is what is not being referred-to under any circumstances. Its definition is that which cannot be referred-to, named, or defined. It is the non-state to which everything including nothingness is attracted.
Despite the fact that referring to absolute nonexistence violates its definition, it must be referred-to anyway. There are many paradoxical ideas that must be dealt with in describing and modeling natural phenomena. Infinity, for example, must be invoked to complete many equations and to provide a complete view of complex behavior in natural systems. Yet infinity is by definition not achievable. In this way absolute nonexistence provides a frame of reference by which temporal existence can be better understood.
Nothingness Theory defines temporal existence as the constraint of infinite time and space within which human beings can exist. A state delineated from nothingness by virtue of non-uniformity and whose components are attracted to nothingness. It is the dynamic phase of existence whereas nothingness is non-temporal and non-dynamic. Thus existence is the finite aspect of an infinite process, the result of which is the detectable non-uniformity of matter and space.
If the perfect equilibrium of nothingness was stable, existence would settle into this state forever, and could never have come about in the first place. Absolute nonexistence provides the unachievable state to which nothingness is attracted, thereby driving the dynamic inflection of material existence (see "Creation in Nothingness Theory" by Msgr. Walter Niebrzydowski for theological commentary on this subject). This exchange can be seen in certain paradoxical phenomena such as those associated with a "black hole".
A black hole is created when a massive star exhausts the energy available within it to maintain enough wiggling of atoms to keep them from collapsing into a small area of uniform density. When enough matter collapses with enough force, it creates a central area of sufficient concentration to eliminate space. Were the universe ever to have achieved this state of nonexistence permanently, it could never have existed in the first place because “permanently” in this case means forever.
From the point of view of a black hole, it doesn't exist. The collapse of dimensionality via the joining of matter with itself to the elimination of space, prevents the possibility of Detectability. Detectability requires non-uniformity. A black hole is created when matter and space become concentrated so that there is no differentiation between them. The black hole is only detectable by its effect on the surrounding matter and space, which are inexorably forced to even-out the non-uniformity between them and the relatively nonexistent black hole. Space and matter disappear "into" the black hole at unimaginable velocities as they approach the event horizon.
To apprehend the full meaning of existence, nonexistence, energy, matter and force, one must embrace the paradox embodied in a black hole. The essence of a black hole is that it isn't there, but it has a location relative to existing systems upon which it exerts the most powerful cosmic force. It is an area of nonexistence that has no area. The so called super-massive black holes, apparently at the center of every galaxy, swallow up entire solar systems and yet contain nothing inside of them because they have no inside to fill up. A black hole is the pinnacle of perfectly symmetrical uniformity of matter, space, energy and time. With no detectable separation between matter and itself, it ceases temporal existence.
So space/time – matter/energy can attain relative nonexistence by collapsing into infinite density, which is a uniform state of static equilibrium, but can never achieve absolute nonexistence.
The Life Cycle of Energy
Space and matter can also become uniform by dispersion. Dispersion on a cosmic scale is driven by the second law of thermodynamics, which creates the process known as entropy. Energy (motion) is required to assemble particles into atoms, atoms into molecules, and molecules into complex structures with the ability to accumulate mass. Entropy limits the life of energy by eventually reversing this process.
Energy enables the creation of complexity and structure in natural systems. Entropy ensures that having done so, that energy is no longer available to do any more constructive work. It also insures that the system will eventually come apart, returning its components to its surroundings.
We can follow the life cycle of energy by examining our own solar system. The sun is so differentiated from the space around it that the matter in it is moving at very high speeds to try to even itself out. Hydrogen ions are colliding with each other with such force that sometimes their electrons and protons fuse, creating neutrons. All the neutrons in the universe are here as the result of hydrogen ions colliding with each other.
When an electron and proton fuse, they gain density, lose energy and cancel charge. The extra energy is given up as nuclear radiation and heat. Some neutrons fly off into space and others are trapped in electron/proton systems, which become helium. The only difference between helium and hydrogen is that helium has a neutron in its nucleus, which requires an extra electron orbiting it to balance things out.
So some energy is stored as the extra density of the neutron. Some energy is stored by capturing an extra electron. This is the form of potential energy that is created from increased differentiation and organization. Some energy escapes into space in the form of light and cosmic radiation.
Amazingly, no heat is transmitted directly from the sun. The vacuum of space is just as effective an insulator as it is in a thermos bottle on earth. The energy that was heat at the surface of the sun is “encoded” as light. Infrared light is capable of turning back into heat when matter absorbs it. So some of the frenzied motion of hydrogen ions is released as light when the primary fusion reaction creates neutrons.
Most of the energy that drives the earth’s systems comes from this “waste” light from the sun. The sun’s infrared light provides virtually all the heat available on earth. It’s ultra-violet light supplies most of the energy used to create the complex amino acids that support life.
When the chlorophyll in plants absorbs ultra-violet light, its energy is stored as molecules of increased complexity. The chlorophyll molecules get shoved around by the ultra-violet waves causing them to form complex carbohydrates and proteins. These organic compounds are the food source for almost everything on earth.
When an animal eats a plant, the complex organic compounds that were formed by the ultra-violet light are broken down into simpler organic compounds, which are then absorbed by cells. The cells break them down to their simplest organic form, releasing the energy that made them complex in the form of heat, light and motion. Some of this energy becomes unavailable to do any more work because it becomes trapped in the random oscillation of atoms.
The resulting organic waste compounds are still fairly complex, as molecules go, so they still have some energy to give up. Some of the fats and oils will be burned for fuel. Some of them will collect in the earth and become oil, tar, gas, or coal (in a few million years). In a sense, almost all the energy recovered on earth is solar energy because almost all the organic compounds that became fuel were made from the energy stored by ultra-violet light striking chlorophyll molecules.
Once the fuel has been burned, all the energy that created its organized complexity is finally released. This is the final stage in the life of energy. All the burned energy diffuses out to become random oscillation of atoms. This energy is no longer available to do the work of differentiation and ordered complexity building.
When no energy is left to do work, the universe will no longer be delineated from its surroundings - nothingness. This is the state of nothingness at the opposite end of the universal cycle from the “Big bang”. There will either be another “Big bang”, or a “Big Crunch” – in which the universe collapses over the same period of time it took to expand into nothingness. The result of the collapse will be an infinitely dense singularity, which will explode into existence as it has and will, over and over forever.
Temporal Nothingness
The idea of cosmic contraction/expansion linked to gravity and entropy yields the special definition of time: Time is the measure of the universal progression of uniformity between matter and space, accomplished by counting equal, standardized divisions of a cyclical system of regular motion.
The universe is a pendulum. It swings back and forth between infinite density and infinite dispersion. Every swing is a tick. The resonant effect of this ticking can be traced all the way down to the rate of decay of radioactive elements, throwing off sub-atomic particles at regular intervals, millions of times per second.
The biological clocks in every living thing are driven by these nuclear oscillators and enable organic systems to measure the intensity, distance and direction of incoming stimuli. Humans are distinguished by awareness of time. We use it to construct a cumulative summation of events, the significance of which is related to when they happened. This is an internal story with a hero/protagonist called “self”. To accomplish this singular act of humanness, and the prerequisite planning and measuring that goes along with it, humans use time purposefully.
Given that detectability is at the basis of existence, time must be understood as the frame of reference for all measurement. Physics studies motion by objective measurement. The great discoveries of Galileo, Newton and Einstein were based on inventing new ways to objectively measure phenomena in a well-defined coordinate system. By understanding time as the by-product of the universe as oscillator, it becomes easier to see the connection between the discoveries of these great scientists.
Nothingness, Mechanical Physics and Relativity
The Nothingness Theory definition of physics is: the study of motion. To understand how and why things move is to understand the things themselves. All of the principles and rules of physics are rules about motion.
Isaac Newton discovered the first great fundamental rule of motion: F = MA - force equals mass times acceleration. This means that mass is that which force acts upon to create motion, force is that which can change motion, and acceleration is the change in motion caused by force influencing mass. Each thing defines the other and none is anything in-and-of itself. It also reveals a perfectly symmetrical and constant mathematical relationship between force, mass, and acceleration.
To measure the mass of something here on earth we weigh it. Until Galileo Galilee rolled metal balls of different weights down identical inclined planes, it was assumed that the heavier objects would fall faster. His discovery that weight has no effect on the rate of acceleration of falling objects (it is always 32ft. per second/per second straight down) changed our understanding of the cosmos and enabled Isaac Newton to form the basis for modern physics.
One way to measure force in this experiment is to attach a stationary scale to the falling object and measure the weight registered to stop the object. The amount that the scale indicator is deflected is always a product of the static weight of the object times how long it takes to stop it – F=MA.
Another way to measure the force needed to move an object is to put it in the scale and accelerate the scale and see how far the indicator deflects before the object starts moving, or put the scale in the way and measure the force and time required to stop the object. No matter how you do this F=MA.
From this relationship the fundamental laws of mechanical physics are derived. The law of inertia says that no object will change its motion unless force is applied. The amount of force applied accelerates the object at an inverse proportion to its mass – A=F/M (a derivative of F=MA). Every action has an equal and opposite reaction because force applies equally to the source and target. F=MA holds in both directions thus revealing an underlying symmetry to the laws of nature.
Keeping in mind that detectability is at issue here; static weight is a measurement possible only in the presence of gravity. An object will weigh nothing in space, one thousand times more on Jupiter than on earth, yet posses the same objective mass everywhere. If you eliminate gravity from the equation, it takes the same amount of force to accelerate an object relative to its mass no matter where it is. So if we attach an object in space to the scale, it will indicate an amount of weight commensurate with its mass when using the scale as the accelerator.
Thus mass is not weight, nor matter, nor solidity. It is neither size nor substance. It is defined by a relationship to force and motion. Visceral interpretations and assumptions must be suspended to grasp the profound nature of these matters. The elements of existence are detectable by their relationships to each other. Taken alone they don’t exist. This enables us to make an objective and self-consistent definition of matter: Matter is the detectable absence of space, to which it is attracted. By virtue of logical reciprocity: Space is the measurable absence of matter, to which it is attracted. In both cases, attraction to equilibrium is the underlying force. The dynamic result of these relationships on a macroscopic scale can be recognized in Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.
General Relativity
Albert Einstein created the General Theory of Relativity to solve the mystery of the constancy of the speed of light. In so doing, he revealed that everything in the universe, including space and time, is in motion. An observer attempting to measure the time, distance and speed of an event can only say what happened relative to itself as the frame of reference. There is no frame of reference in existence that is at rest (accept for absolute nonexistence). So with everything moving around all the time it is amazing to discover that the speed of light remains constant relative to the observer regardless of the observer’s motion.
If I am running straight towards you at ten miles an hour, and you are running towards me at ten miles an hour, we are approaching each other at twenty miles an hour. Even if I’m running towards a light ray at one hundred thousand miles per second while the light ray is approaching me at its constant one hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second, the light ray and I are still closing the distance by only one hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second. The same one hundred and eighty six thousand mile per second closing speed is maintained even if I am running away from the light ray.
Einstein’s astounding revelation was that space/time must be fluid, and mass/energy must contract space/time towards it relative to mass/density. He also discovered that mass/density increases with velocity at a rate of E=MC² (courtesy of the Special Theory of Relativity). So the faster you travel, the more massive you become, and the more massive you become, the more you bend space/time. Since light propagates through space/time[2], its velocity relative to you is affected by space/time curvature. As you accelerate, your increasing density bends space/time exactly enough to compensate for your velocity relative to light traveling away from or towards you.
This calls into question ones normal idea of space and time. It redefines matter and energy. General Relativity profoundly affects our understanding of reality. How can empty space have a shape? How can motion create mass? Detectability is still the issue here.
In the experiment where we are each running towards each other at ten miles per hour, we need to measure our independent speed and the closing speed. How do I know I am running at ten miles an hour? Why don’t I add the earth’s one thousand mile per hour rotation to my velocity? Everyone must agree beforehand that a frame of reference is considered to be at rest relative to me as we both spin with the earth. We must agree upon a way of counting standardized intervals (time in per/hour chunks with subdivisions) and connect that to standardized lengths (miles with subdivisions). Miles-per-hour becomes a kind of space/time.
This situation maintains its simplicity as long as we stay in the local coordinate system from yours or my subjective point of view, our agreed upon standards of measurement, and reasonable scales of time and distance (running on flat terrain within site of each other for a minute or less rather than thousands of miles apart for years).
If we mark off regular intervals between us and take accurate stopwatches we can simply time our progress between one marker and the next as we would mile markers on the highway to check our speedometers. From the point of view of light however, we would be traveling at different speeds depending upon the angle the light rays are approaching. This is because our increasing mass curves space/time in proportion to our speed relative to light. So the space/time ruler of miles per hour changes in proportion to how fast we are running relative to a given light ray.
The issue here is still detectability - as applied to objective measurement. There is no automatic guarantee of objective measurement. Objective measurement requires a frame of reference free of subjective variability. Newton required a frame of reference at rest. It was assumed that the center of the universe was at rest and that by extension one could make repeatable measurements using it as a true static frame of reference. Einstein somehow new that not even empty space was at rest and therefore a theoretical static center of the universe was not useful as an objective frame of reference.
Einstein’s approach was very direct; use light as the frame of reference. Its velocity relative to the observer stays the same in all circumstances. This endows light with an objectively dependable measuring capability. Light is the space/time ruler. That being said, his stunningly direct solution is that, if the observer’s velocity changes and light’s doesn’t, space/time itself must be changed by the motion of the observer.
Yet space in-and-of itself is nothing, and time is a human idea used for measurement. What objective, physical reality could possibly change about nothing and an idea? The answer is that physical, objective reality is constructed from human detection, and detectability requires non-uniformity. The only objective way to measure the amount of absent matter (distance) is with the universal constant known as the speed of light. This is accomplished by timing light waves, which propagate through space and therefore yield a self-consistent measurement of distance. The fact that time is required to detect and measure space is at the heart of the term “space/time”.
To understand Relativity it is essential to accept the fact that matter, space, and time only exist by relationship to each other. Relativity is a quantification and explanation of the principles governing this relationship on a macrocosmic scale. If you set a chunk of matter in motion, the shape of space/time will determine where it goes. If I throw a baseball straight away from me, it travels in a straight line through curved space/time. Space/time is curved towards the mass/density of the earth. The baseball eventually follows that curve until it hits the ground. The earth is flying in a straight line through space/time that is curved around the mass/density of the sun. The relationship of matter to space is that the “shape” of space determines where matter goes, and matter determines the shape of space.
Another way to picture this is by thinking of space as a riverbed and matter as the water. The shape of the riverbed is determined by the water flowing through it. The direction of the water determines the shape of the riverbed.
The Nothingness Theory explanation of this is that space is attracted to matter because it is under the influence of the one force driving all motion – the attraction to static equilibrium. To achieve this, space must combine uniformly with matter. Matter, under the same influence, must combine uniformly with space. The macrocosmic effect of this is called gravity. Matter must go in the direction of its greatest absence, which is the most concentrated local space/time. Space/time is concentrated by proximity to its greatest absence, which is in proportion to local mass/density. When static equilibrium is achieved, as at the center of a “black hole”, temporal existence ceases “within” the “black hole”. This state of relative nonexistence is termed here as “nothingness”.
Quantum Chaos
Newtonian physics works on a certain scale of size, distance, and time. Compared to relativity and sub-atomic phenomena, Newtonian mechanical physics is somewhere in the middle of the scale. Electromagnetism, and the nuclear forces operate at the border of detectable smallness. Relativity operates at the border of detectable bigness. Chaos Theory applied to the “big bang” theory explains why these scalar differences cause the one attractive force - existence to nonexistence - to behave differently at different scales of measurement.
Quantum mechanics began with the discovery that a solid body when heated does not increase its heat in a continuous, linear way. It jumps from one state of energy to another – quantum jumps. Atoms suddenly stop wiggling at a low amplitude and start wiggling at a higher one. Each higher or lower amplitude is mathematically predictable.
Electrons orbit their nucleus at a certain distance unless forced to change. Under the influence of force, an electron will simply cease to exist in its lower energy orbit and begin to exist in an orbit farther away. These quantum jumps obey exact mathematical rules. Why doesn’t the electron move continuously from one orbit to the other like a spacecraft flying up into a higher orbit over the earth?
Continuity is an illusion. It is simply more efficient not to see the space between atoms or the difference between varying hues of white light. It is more efficient not to hear ultra-sonic sound, and to sum-up the overtones of a vibrating string into a single note based on its lowest vibration. Human perception is a function of blocking out and sifting information. What’s left is then summed-up as a recognizable pattern of connected dots. Thus at certain scales of space/time it is not possible to detect discontinuity.
Yet discontinuity is the essence of existence. Existence is the result of its discontinuity from nonexistence. Matter is the result of its discontinuity with space. Energy is the result of matter trying to recombine itself with space and the fragments of itself separated by space. The relative expansion, contraction, and bending of space is the result of space recombining itself with matter. Human consciousness is the result of this pattern of activity somehow observing itself and unifying the picture by summing-up the pattern in the form of a story, with the observer/story-creator as the central character.
Thus continuity is a creation of efficient response to stimuli. Upon stepping out of our natural scale of existence, we are forced to see the underlying nature of existence – discontinuity. At a sub-atomic scale, we enter the world of quantum physics. This involves the study of atomic constituents and the constituent’s constituents. These are referred to as particles.
A particle in physics is any of the ultimate constituents of matter – such as an electron or proton. Nothingness Theory establishes that there can be no limit to size (big or small) and therefore no ultimate constituents. The more precise definition of “particle” is therefore: a discrete unit of matter with consistent characteristics unless divided or fused. Particles are phenomena. They are behavior. They exist by comparison to something else, and are detected by making them affect a system big enough for us to see.
Television is a ubiquitous electron detecting system. If you fire enough electrons at the phosphors coating the back of your TV screen, they will push the phosphor’s electrons into the higher energy state predicted by quantum theory. When the electron settles to its lower state – the state of greater equilibrium – it releases the extra energy in the form of light.
Light is a fluctuating quantum disturbance of space/time. It imitates the quantum disturbance of the electron, causing a radiating ripple of time and distance until it hits your eye, at which time it pushes electrons in the retina into a higher state of energy, similar to the phosphor’s electrons on the TV screen. The retinal nerve cell’s equilibrium is disturbed by the change in electrical charge across its membrane causing a flow of electrolytic fluids out of the cell, which propagates along the axon and dendrites until it disturbs the next cell. Eventually a heavily sifted and processed version of the pattern reaches the “interpreter” brain-module, which literally connects the dots (pixels - or picture elements in this case) forming them into a continuous image.
In aggregate, the effect of a sufficient number of sub-atomic particles (in the form of atoms and molecules) is to affect the next higher quantum scale of space/time. The jump from microcosmic to macrocosmic takes matter into the realm of gravity and out of the realm of electromagnetism and the nuclear forces. The new science of chaos theory provides the physical and mathematical models for this.
Given that the universe is the meta-system of which all natural systems are components, it is possible to learn how the universe works from natural systems on earth. Chaos theory pioneers, such as the meteorologist/mathematician Edward Lorenz, have discovered the physical principles governing complexity in natural systems. Instead of the traditional approach to science, where complexity is stripped away to reveal the components of a system, chaos theory studies the way the components of a system interact to accrue complexity.
Complexity in this context is defined as: The characteristic of a system endowing it with the capacity for infinite variation of motion and form. The way the universe and its sub-systems delineate themselves from their surroundings is by exchanging random (disordered) complexity for ordered complexity. This exchange is defined here as evolution. The return to diffuse, randomness is mediated by the second law of thermodynamics in which entropy limits the number of times energy can form complexity (the “work” of energy) thus sealing the fate of the universe, which is to re-achieve the state of uniform nothingness whence it came.
It is the scale of measurement that determines whether we see quantum discontinuity, unpredictable randomness, and convoluted space/time morphology – or linear predictable motion such as that of the sun and planets. Galileo and Newton used the sun and planets to construct a clockwork model of the universe. They did not have the technology to detect events outside of that space/time scale.
It is now known that the exact position of the planets and the shape of their orbits become absolutely unpredictable within a few hundred million years. It is the scale of space/time that determines whether the orbits are predictable or not. It is known, for the same reason, that weather systems become absolutely unpredictable beyond about five days. This discovery by Edward Lorenz in the early nineteen-sixties laid the foundation for chaos theory.
He wanted to make the simplest mathematical model of a weather system. He chose three interdependent variables; temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure. He programmed a crude computer to plot a graph based on the three-number relationships generated by calculating a particular ratio of one variable to the other. A given number for temperature would determine the number for humidity, which would determine the number for barometric pressure, which would determine the number for temperature – ad infinitum.
He noticed that the graphs exhibited patterns very much like a real weather system. One particular tracing interested him, so he entered the three numbers for that new starting point to re-run the graph. After a few seconds, the new graph started to diverge from the old one despite the fact that he had put in the exact same numbers to begin the calculation. After making sure that the computer wasn’t malfunctioning, he discovered that its calculations were based on several decimal points beyond the read-out, so he had entered numbers a thousandth of a percent different than the original. This was enough to make the result utterly unpredictable past a few hundred calculations. He realized that he had somehow created a simple mathematical relationship that matched the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions exhibited by real-world natural systems.
Sensitive dependence on initial conditions is seen in all natural fluid dynamic systems, such as weather systems. You try to gather all the measurements related to the state of a system at a given time so that you can calculate its behavior at some time in the future. If you miss the slightest measurement, your prediction will be limited to the very near future. It was assumed that with better technology, we would be able to establish the total weather conditions for a given area with such accuracy, that accurate prediction would be a matter of mathematical computation from that point forward. Lorenz proved that any system with a certain relationship of three interdependent variables is so sensitive to initial conditions, that it will become totally unpredictable over a relatively short period of time. He said that weather systems were so sensitive that a butterfly flapping its wings in China could set in motion a series of events resulting in a hurricane on the other side of the world a few weeks later – the often miss-quoted, misunderstood “butterfly effect”.
He meant that the butterfly is part of the measurement you would have to take to make an accurate prediction over time. You would have to take into account every wing-flap, breath, motion, everywhere on earth to recreate the so-called initial conditions with enough resolution to enable predictability beyond a few days. In other words, you would need to make an infinite number of accurate measurements all at once to get the total initial condition of a weather system regardless of its given size or location.
Thus infinite complexity is not only a feature of all natural systems, it has a simple mathematical model. This three-variable relationship is an immutable law of nature. It is a universal principle. Even if you take a single target – one piece of matter, and put it under the influence of three interdependent vectors, it will exhibit cumulatively complex and unpredictable variation of motion given sufficient input energy. When applied to the initial condition of the universe – the moment of the “big bang”, this model explains the divergence of the forces over scales of space and time.
The space/time scale is crucial. The evolution of the universe is driven by quantum scalar leaps, which are caused by scalar repetition. Nature does as little as possible to create complexity. Thus there is only one kind of matter – the absence of space – that behaves differently in different contexts.
Prior to the “big bang” matter and space are in the same place at the same time. Though this constitutes a state of nonexistence, we have proved that relative to absolute nonexistence, this state exists. It is assumed in Nothingness Theory that this discontinuity between relative nonexistence and absolute nonexistence pulls matter and space apart and regenerates the universe. Chaos theory shows how the simple division of matter and space is enough to create infinite variation of motion and form.
Imagine you are matter present at the first moment of the “big bang”. You are everywhere all at once because space/time is in the same place at the same time. Technically this is nowhere at all. Suddenly there is space between you and yourself and it is increasing at an unimaginable velocity. The moment that this happens there are an infinite “number” of you in the form of fragments that humans will someday call particles. That is because space increases relative to you in every direction at once from every direction at once. Space/time is after all every direction at once.
The laws of physics say that you must regain the equilibrium of perfect uniformity with yourself while, at the same time, gaining equilibrium with the totally uniform absence of yourself. Given that space is everywhere that you are not, the expansion of space happens in every direction from every direction at once. To go in every direction from every direction you must simultaneously expand, contract, spin, oscillate, and fly. As this process unfolds, it creates quantum scales of space/time – matter/energy systems.
The expansion of the universe requires contraction. The universe does not actually expand in the sense of a balloon blowing up into empty space. Empty space can only be contained within the universe. This is assumed from simple logic: There can be no outer edge to the universe because to be detectable, and therefore exist, there would have to be space on its outer aspect, that space would still be the universe.
Given that the universe is a self-referential system, contraction only happens by virtue of the reciprocal expansion of that which it is contracting from. The expansion of space involves the contraction of the density of matter. As a given clump of matter contracts, its mass/density expands. And the most massive known objects, black holes, contract to a state of relative non-existence at their uniform centers.
Now that you are particles, the N. T. definition of particle becomes important in understanding quantum scalar stratification. A particle is a discrete unit of matter with consistent characteristics unless divided or fused. Your characteristics are determined by your context vis-à-vis the point of view of a human observer.
The universe begins its cycle in a highly disorganized, high-energy state of relatively undifferentiated matter and space. The asymmetrical expansion/contraction of matter and space causes collisions between the newly discrete particles of matter. This causes a differentiation between matter and itself by virtue of local variations of the forces mediating the collisions. Space/time is twisted and warped in various ways depending on the nearby clumps of matter it pulled apart, fragmented, contracted, or directed into collisions. The newly shaped space/time further differentiates and organizes clumps of matter from surrounding clumps.
As the universe evolves, it produces quantum jumps of scale. It maintains all of them simultaneously. At the border of each scalar level there is chaotic activity. This is identical to the phase-change boundary of a fluid system. Water when heated in a container for example will become chaotic at the boundary between liquid and gas – the activity known as boiling. The simple circulation of rising hot water and descending cooled surface-water interrupts itself as the heat increases. The system’s trip to chaos at the surface follows the fluid dynamic modeling described by Lorenz.
At the boundary of the smallest scale of detectable phenomena, a chaotic boiling of nothingness will be found (a provable/disprovable prediction of N.T.). This is the echo of the phase change between nothingness and the sudden leap to temporal existence known as the “big bang”, which is the quantum leap upon which all others are based.
The characteristic of a simple cycle interacting with itself asymmetrically to generate infinitely variable patterns of motion and form is found in every natural system. It is the scale of measurement and position/condition of the observer that determines whether random chaos or recognizable patterns are seen. If you view a tornado from the right distance it looks like a tornado. If you view it from inside, it looks like random, high-energy noise. If you view the trajectory of a piece of particulate matter within the tornado, its course is labile and random. If you make a picture of the debris over time it forms a recognizable contracting spiral that looks like a tornado.
When you view sub-atomic particles over trillionths of a second, you are detecting the random phase of an unfolding space/time process. You are looking back in time to the interruption of space/time with itself. Depending on your position, detection device, and scale of measurement you will see more or less random motion. This gives the appearance of multiple dimensions at certain scales of space and time. At certain very small space/time scales, dimensionality seems to become infinite. Chaos theory reveals that every natural system has an analogue to this situation.
Just as dynamic interrelated cycles interrupting themselves are at the heart of rich natural motion, a simple shape interrupting itself in a repetitive pattern creates the infinitely rich forms seen in nature. This was discovered and subsequently modeled by the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot. The mathematical model he developed is called Fractal Geometry.
His discovery is that to capture the essence of the topology of a natural system you need more than two, but less than three dimensions. The fractal dimension between two and three is a process rather than a fixed coordinate. It is a self-interrupting repetitive cycle based on the iteration of a three-term algorithm. Just as Lorenz discovered a way to model complex motion, Mandelbrot discovered a way to model complex form. Thus the richness of infinite complexity in natural systems is fully realized in the combination of non-linear flow equations and fractal geometry.
Nature does as little as possible to create infinite complexity. A simple branching shape interrupting itself creates a whole class of natural shapes, like lightning, river systems, nervous systems, plants, trees, circulatory systems, etc. - without some clue such as color or context it is impossible to tell what particular system you are looking at and at what distance.
This universal dynamic revealed by Lorenz and Mandelbrot is known as scalar repetition. Whether it is the repetition of a shape interrupting itself, or a cycle of motion causing itself to change asymmetrically, this process of iteration causes a recognizable repetition of behavior and form across observable scales.
River systems illustrate the relationship between non-linear dynamic flow and fractal topology. When water flows from a concentrated source such as a lake it fractures and shapes the earth over which it flows. The earth over which it flows determines where it goes. Where it goes shapes the earth, which shapes the flow. With sufficient energy, the water branches off. The branches diverge, creating more branches, some of which rejoin the main river. This process sheds the dis-equilibrium of water above sea level by storing it in the form of increasingly complex branching/flow systems. Any remaining energy will return the water to the sea – its original source. If you were to measure the total coastal area of this system you would have to measure it forever because branches continue branching at smaller and smaller scales with greater and greater convolution. The greater your resolution (smaller the scale) of measurement, the more you will measure. This means that a fractal coastline is an infinite surface within a finite area. This is called fractal iteration – a phenomenon beautifully modeled by Benoit Mandelbrot’s “Mandelbrot Set”.
We can return to the tornado as an example of scalar repetition. The sun warms the ground, the ground warms the air near it, the warm air rises into the sky where it displaces cooler air, which descends until it hits the ground and is warmed. This is an example of the middle scale of circulation going on in the fluid known as air. Some air circulates millimeters from the ground. Some air hitting the ground shoots out laterally, spinning some of the vertical circulations on their side. These microcirculations are fast, small-scale versions of the ground to sky circulation. Giant air masses, the size of small continents, circulate slowly around land and ocean masses. The entire mass of air surrounding the earth moves almost imperceptibly in relation to it.
Most of the time these circulations interrupt and diffuse each other. When they join together in a way that organizes and concentrates them, a massive dis-equilibrium is created. Storm clouds develop huge internal temperature differences, causing freezing upper air to fall at high speeds with tremendous energy, displacing the hot lower air and shooting it upwards. When conditions coalesce the massive lateral moving airstreams with the high-energy, vertical cloud circulation and inverted ground to cloud air pressure, the cloud circulation can get tipped on its side and begin a lateral circulation. To even out all this unequal air pressure, humidity, and temperature, the system sheds its energy towards the ground. The most efficient and stable way to do this is through a vortex.
This is the classical paradox of a chaotic natural system. A tornado is virtually the definition of chaos. Yet it is formed because the usual chaos of air circulation interrupting itself is reduced. Air circulation systems at multiple scalar levels join in an organized resonance of circulation. They create a simple recognizable pattern of motion that is so stable it is virtually impossible to stop. The vortex is the most stable dynamic system in the universe. There is a hurricane on Jupiter that has been there for millennia. It pre-dates human civilization. Several earths could fit inside of it.
The tornado is a momentarily viewable example of the prime activity going on in the fluid natural systems on earth. They circulate their components to shed energy. They do this at multiple scales of space/time. When a fluid system achieves perfect static equilibrium, it ceases to exist. It is therefore assumed in Nothingness Theory that attraction to nonexistence is the universal primary force.
This applies to the universe as a whole. It is a fluid system. Its container is absolute nonexistence. The components of the system – space and matter – attempt to fill the container in equal distribution. The main process at the beginning of the cycle is the creation of distance. Distance is the detectable characteristic of space/time the way mass is the measure of matter. Distance and mass determine each other.
Mass increases at an inverse proportion to the distance between matter and itself. Distance increases at an inverse proportion to the proximity of matter to itself. Matter can become so concentrated that distance is eliminated. When an area of infinite density (such as a black hole) is surrounded by systems still containing the separation of matter and space, a tremendous dis-equilibrium is created. Space/time and matter are inescapably attracted to the perfect uniformity of the relatively nonexistent black hole.
This is seen as a hurricane-like circulation of matter towards and “into” the black hole (the quotes highlight the fact that there can be no inside to a black hole given that space/time is absent “there”). At certain distances space is stretched and time is slowed. At the border between temporal existence and infinite density (the event horizon) space/time becomes chaotically convoluted and vast amounts of energy are released as matter gives up its last chance for motion. This convolution of space/time and the random high-energy behavior of matter exemplify the universe at the early stages of its “big bang” phase.
It is now possible for us to combine the mind experiments and system models to connect Quantum mechanics and chaos theory. These areas of study attempt to explain the nature of matter and space, establish the principles governing their behavior, and create models that enable us to understand and predict motion and form in a consistent way. The logic of Nothingness Theory reveals the universal behavior of matter and space common to both.
A meta-pattern emerges: Space and matter ultimately eliminate each other – but not permanently. This process takes place in cycles forever and involves the exchange of mass and energy, random and ordered complexity, and matter and space. It creates and destroys quantum scales of space/time, the borders of which have ordered-chaos, identical to the phase-change boundary of a fluid system. It is here that chaos and quantum theory are joined.
The “big bang” is a quantum leap and phase-change. The quantum leap is that of nothingness to temporal existence. The phase change is that of static infinite density to maximally dynamic plasma. One can only visualize this situation and understand its consequences by accepting an impossible paradox and following it to its logical conclusion. Paradox: The universe is infinite in size and is expanding. Conclusion: Nothing can be bigger than infinity; therefore the universe is expanding in reference to itself by exchanging space/matter concentration for space/matter dispersion.
Human beings cannot detect infinity or perfectly symmetrical uniformity. We can measure what goes on in between by viewing phenomena over time. This creates a snapshot of a fragment of an infinite process. The relative size of the fragment and time over which it occurs determines the scale of view. From the human point of view, the moment of the “big bang” is the smallest scale of detectability. Smaller scales of interaction don’t exist for us because they cannot be detected.
At the beginning of the “big bang”, nearness characterizes that which is detectable. When all of space increases from the same place at the same time, it is creating every direction from every direction in every direction. So the center of the universe is expanding and diverging from itself. Any given point is therefore the center of the universe from its point of view. Given that the universe is expanding from an infinite “number” of nearby points simultaneously, it is interrupting itself. The asymmetry caused by the presence of matter delineates all the space/time interactions from each other. Where space/time borders meet, they flatten their topology the way the membranes of inflated balloons flatten when pressed against each other. When viewed at the right level of time and size, particles will obey the mathematical models of String Theory by propagating along the “flattened” membranous pathways.
Nothingness Theory predicts that the multi-dimensional topology modeled by String Theory will prove to be a particular window through which a chaotic process of dynamic flow and fractal iteration are viewed on their way to and from infinity. If this is true, the chaos models should merge mathematically with the String models. This aspect of N.T. is therefore testable by experiment and mathematical analysis.
Thus chaos theory and quantum physics are joined conceptually by noting that all natural systems contain both chaotic and regular dynamics, and that it is the scale of measurement that decides which is seen. Therefore it is assumed that the complexity of sub-atomic behavior is a function of the scale of measurement, and will submit to modeling by fractal topology and non-linear dynamic flow algorithms.
Summation
The forgoing has established a Principle of Unified Forces:
All motion results from the attraction of existence to nonexistence. This has been proven in General Nothingness Theory via a logical framework:
1. The universe began in a state devoid of space, time, matter and energy. It is moving towards a similar state of nothingness. In the context of infinite time, it has and will be doing this forever in the form of cycles of expansion and contraction. All natural systems echo this cycle.
2. By virtue of the behavior of the universe and its sub-systems, it is valid to say that every action serves the ultimate purpose of creating total uniformity. It has been proven in General Nothingness Theory that total uniformity is a state of relative nonexistence (nothingness) and that this state constitutes the most complete possible equilibrium.
3. No other singular force has been identified as present in all known interactions. It is therefore valid to say that attraction to static equilibrium (existence to nonexistence) is the primary force underlying the source of motion.
The attraction of existence to absolute nonexistence is seen as various kinds of attraction or repulsion depending on the scale and context of the system being measured. To achieve nonexistence, matter must become uniformly dispersed in space. Space must therefore be uniformly filled by matter to cease existence. This necessarily adds the repulsion of each to itself and precisely defines them: Space is the absence of matter; matter is the absence of space.
It has been established in General N. T. that the macrocosmic manifestation of this effect is evident in Albert Einstein’s principles of General Relativity, where space is curved by mass/density and matter is directed by space curvature. This is the attractive aspect of matter/space on a macrocosmic scale.
On a sub-atomic scale, electromagnetic charge and the nuclear forces reflect the attraction to uniform static equilibrium. At the smallest scales observable, quantum effects are seen because they are near the phase boundary of universal existence/nonexistence.
Because infinite time prevents the possibility of achieving absolute nonexistence, the behavior of all natural systems can be traced to evolutionary cycles, where disordered complexity is exchanged for ordered complexity and returned to disorder again. These cycles pass through states of uniform static equilibrium, a state of relative nonexistence referred-to here as nothingness.
The realization of this conclusion employs the point of view that the universe is a thermodynamic system, the contents of which are everything everywhere for all time. Given that the universe is moving to and from perfectly uniform static equilibrium, and that its constituent subsystems are doing the same, it is assumed that attraction to uniformity is the primal attractor and source of the four forces identified in physics.
[i] A particle in physics is any of the ultimate constituents of matter – such as an electron or proton. Nothingness Theory establishes that space is infinite, so there can be no limit to size (big or small) and therefore no ultimate constituents. The more precise definition of “particle” is: a discrete unit of matter with consistent characteristics unless divided or fused.
Chapter 2
The evolution of evolution
Conservation of Complexity
Evolution as defined in N.T. is the universal progressive pattern of the exchange of disordered for ordered complexity in all natural systems. It is the orderly increasing delineation of a system from its environment. The universe and its constituent natural systems all develop under the same simple rules of evolution. These rules mainly govern the phenomenon referred to in N.T. as complexity.
Complexity is defined in N.T. as: The characteristic of a system endowing it with the capacity for infinite variation of motion and form. When matter becomes organized in a pattern distinct from matter around it, a system is born. This represents an exchange of disordered complexity for ordered complexity.
Because the universe is being analyzed here as a natural system, the definition of system is adjusted as follows: Elements interacting with each other and delineated from their surroundings. It is a system if it is detectably separate from nearby phenomena by virtue of unique behavior. Our solar system is differentiated from the surrounding galaxy by the detectable patterns of interaction between its elements - the sun and planets.
A thermodynamic system’s surroundings would normally be called its container. We are analyzing natural systems; so calling the surroundings a “container” is insufficient to describe its importance in all interactions. "Environment" is a more useful term to describe the container. The definition of environment is therefore adjusted as follows: Environment: is the immediate surroundings of a given system from which the system is delineated, upon which it is dependent, and to which it will return its component parts.
“Before” the “Big Bang” there is no space or matter. There is nothing to be delineated except for existence devoid of its components. But it is delineated from absolute nonexistence. In this sense, absolute nonexistence is the surroundings, and therefore the environment of nothingness. Nothingness spontaneously becomes delineated from itself by the appearance of space, which is delineated by the reciprocal appearance of matter. Thus, nothingness becomes the surroundings and therefore the environment of the material universe.
The conservation of energy, the law of equal and opposite reaction, the transformation of mass into energy and energy to mass (E=MC²) and the discontinuity of particles and space/time described by quantum mechanics are all examples of the attraction of existence to non-existence in the context of infinite time and space. Given the fact that matter, energy and existence can never be lost, the only dynamic left is the exchange of one for the other. We must therefore add the principle of the conservation of complexity to the list of physical principles.
Energy is conserved by being stored as organized and differentiated matter; complexity is conserved by exchanging high-energy random interactions with increasingly organized and differentiated matter and space/time relationships. Entropy insures that eventually all the energy that is stored in the form of differentiation and organization will be released, redistributing matter/space/time evenly and thereby rendering them unable to continue temporal existence until the meta-force of absolute nonexistence forces differentiation again. Furthermore, the state of nothingness “prior” to the “Big Bang” is devoid of time, so there is literally no time during which complexity is not present.
Complexity is the simplification of infinity. It is a temporal snapshot of a meta-temporal process. Human beings are the photographers. The science of complexity - Chaos Theory - establishes that three interacting forces create complexity. For example: an infinite number of colors can be created from red, green, and blue light. An infinite variation of shapes can be created in three dimensions of space. An infinite variation of motion patterns is possible when a target is under the influence of three forces.
All natural systems are complexity exchangers. They exchange the infinite complexity of random undifferentiated phenomena by organizing it into complex interrelated systems of well-delineated patterns of motion and form.
Roiling amorphous waves of water become river systems. Shapeless masses of air collide and become hurricanes. Amino acids get churned up in the primordial sea and become life. All these things share the same rules of ordered complexity accumulation – the process we call evolution.
Thus there are two ends to complexity exchange: the accumulation of ordered complexity and the random motion of matter. Humans call the former evolution, and the latter chaos. We interpret the process as having a direction through time pointing towards increasing order. In actuality there is a dynamic balance through quantum scales of space/time between the two. When analyzing evolution it is therefore essential to keep in mind that it is at one end of a bi-polar process. This process is a universal physical principal established here as Conservation of Complexity.
Conservation of Complexity: The exchange of ordered and dis-ordered complexity of motion and form in all natural systems.
Constrained Infinity
Temporal existence occurs between the phases of nothingness via constrained infinity. Infinity is automatically constrained by the fact that it can never be achieved. It can only be a potential in the context of temporality. Space and matter interact with the potential for infinite variation. They are constrained to interact under the influence of three forces:
1. The attraction of each to absolute nonexistence
2. The attraction of each to relative nonexistence
3. The repulsion of each to itself
Three forces are enough to produce infinite variation of form and motion and are constrained to act only upon matter and space. It is this situation that drives the evolution of the universe and its constituent sub-systems.
If space and matter were only repelled by themselves and attracted to each other they would simply contract to infinite density and remain there forever (like a black hole). Why doesn’t the universe stay crunched into an infinitely dense equilibrium like every black hole within it?
The answer uses an assumption in physics, that the physical laws apply everywhere all the time. If three forces are necessary to create complexity in any system, and the universe started out in a state of non-existence – no space, no time, no matter – where were the three forces and on what did they act? N.T. assumes that the same singular force and its resultant two secondary forces that brought about the existence and evolution of the universe, act on every observable system today. If this is true, every natural system is most simply understood by applying the idea that its behavior is motivated by attraction to its own relative absence.
Sound when considered as a system illustrates part of this idea. Sound is the fluctuation of air pressure. The rate at which air pressure fluctuates is called the frequency – measured in hertz or cycles per second. The amount of pressure is called the volume, amplitude or loudness. When air pressure is uniform, the system is in a state of equilibrium and there is no sound. When air molecules bunch up as compared to the uniform state, the pressure is positive. When the molecules are pulled farther apart as compared to the resting state the pressure is negative. If they are pushed and pulled with sufficient force at thirty to eighteen thousand times per second, they produce sound within the range of human perception.
During every cycle between positive and negative air pressure, the sound passes through relative non-existence at the points where air pressure equals ambient levels. At these points, sound exists relative to steady silence, but ceases to exist relative to itself. Ultimately, the sound returns to the static equilibrium from which it came and to which all things are unavoidably destined.
This is the arc of birth and death. The universe and all of its sub-systems are born, use energy to acquire complexity, and die by returning their component parts to the environment. On the way they use up energy to redistribute matter evenly throughout the universe (the process called entropy).
This process is infinite because time and space can never achieve absolute nonexistence. It is constrained by the existence of existence, which is by nature finite. Thus space and time are the finite constraint of an infinite meta-process making possible the detectable universe in which humans can exist.
Simultaneous Expansion and Contraction
Constrained infinity causes simultaneous expansion and contraction in all natural systems. Imagine walking in a circle. As soon as you leave your starting point you are approaching it from behind you. Thus you expand the distance from your initial position while simultaneously contracting your distance from that same point. As you set off on a walk around the spherical earth, you expand your distance from the starting point while contracting your distance from that same point by approaching it from the other side of the world. The difference is that there are an infinite number of possible pathways around the three dimensional sphere while only one around the two dimensional circle. The same is true of flying into space. As soon as you leave the ground, you are approaching yourself from behind because of the curvature of space/time but there is an infinite distance to travel before you return to your starting point.
Most significantly, accumulation of complexity leads to the uniform distribution of matter and space, which is the simplest state of existence – nothingness. So the expansion of ordered complexity involves the simultaneous contraction of ordered complexity. This innate juxtaposition in natural systems is an essential component of the engine driving the process of evolution and a measurable aspect of Conservation of Complexity.
Summation
Evolution is the constructive aspect of Conservation of Complexity. It is the polar opposite of entropy. The resulting exchange of ordered and dis-ordered complexity of motion and form generates the dynamic aspect of existence.
Chapter III
Thought and Consciousness
The essence of thinking is that it unifies disparate behavior. Any move towards uniformity is a move towards equilibrium, so human thought approaches equilibrium by summing up complex patterns of behavior, conceptually unifying them. Thinking is the mechanical system that processes logic, information, and organizes behavior, but it does not generate these things. Organized behavior in natural systems, and the logic and information underlying it result from the rules of existence. Nothingness Theory distills the essence of these rules by noting that a single motivator, attraction to equilibrium, is sufficient to generate the patterns of behavior common to the universe and all of its constituent systems.
The self is the conceptual equilibrium to which the trillions of mind/body systems of an individual human are attracted. Hundreds of brain/mind modules work together in a social network to achieve this unifying process. In his book "The Social Brain" Dr. Michael Gazzaniga reveals how he discovered this network over many years of experiments with people who's corpus colosum was severed. The corpus colosum is a cable of nerves connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This afforded him the unique opportunity to communicate with a person's left or right cerebral hemisphere without the other knowing about it.
He discovered a uniquely human brain/mind system in the left hemisphere that he dubbed "The Interpreter". The interpreter creates the self by summing up the behavior of all the parts of body and mind into a single character and attributing all thoughts and actions to that self/character - somewhat like an avatar in computer games.
For example: Dr. Gazzaniga showed a picture of a horse to a patient's left eye (connected only to the right hemisphere). He then told the patient to draw what he saw. The left hemisphere - in charge of speaking - said "I didn't see anything". The right hemisphere - in charge of the left hand - tried to draw a horse with the left hand. When asked about the drawing, the patient (left hemisphere) said "I drew an elephant" and made up a reason why.
Thinking modules organize and process information and actuate behavior. The Interpreter module assigns meaning and reasons to those thoughts and actions in the context of an unfolding story with itself as hero/protagonist. This is the ultimate form of unifying summation because the self is the sum of everything that occurs within and around the body it represents.
Awareness
While thought is the physical process of summing patterns of mind/body systems, Consciousness is the experiencing or awareness of the holistic result. These processes only become meaningful when experienced. The definition of consciousness includes thoughtful awareness of one's self. It also is defined as the aspect of mind that is apart from the physical or material.
- to be continued -
Acknowledgments
Nothingness Theory is dedicated to the memory of my mother Janet Robin. I also thank my grandmother Florence Robin (Nonnie to me). They both died way too young – exactly twenty years apart, to the day. I thank Grampy (Manuel Robin) for patiently teaching me the mystical truth about forces hidden inside the bowling ball - and everything else. I thank Gail Quinn for her editorial supervision and teaching me how to write properly and precisely. I thank Father Joseph Baker; Msgr. Walter Niebrzydowski (Father Walter) and Gail Quinn for helping me rebuild my life after the delayed reaction to my mother’s death five years after the fact. I thank my dad Paul R. Kaup for moral and financial support for the last few decades and Eileen Anderson for keeping him happy and healthy. I thank the late Dr. Robert N. Zitter for planting the scientific seeds for Nothingness Theory and I thank his wife Theresa for supplying me with his unpublished works. I thank three great psychologists for enabling me to overcome some pretty nasty mental illnesses: Vitold Guardian, the late Beverly Zbuska, and her mentor Dr. June Blum. I especially thank Dr. Blum for giving me the education I missed in school and the tools with which to make a good life for myself. Nothingness Theory is based in great part on what I learned from these beautiful people.
Universal Principles
I. The principle of unified forces
All motion results from the attraction of existence to nonexistence. This has been proven in General Nothingness Theory via a logical framework:
1. The universe began in a state devoid of space, time, matter and energy. It is moving towards a similar state of nothingness. In the context of infinite time, it has and will be doing this forever in the form of cycles of expansion and contraction. All natural systems imitate this cycle.
2. By virtue of the behavior of the universe and its sub-systems, it is valid to say that every action serves the ultimate purpose of creating total uniformity. It has been proven in General Nothingness Theory that total uniformity is a state of relative nonexistence (nothingness) and that this state constitutes the most complete possible equilibrium.
3. No other singular force has been identified that is present in all known interactions. It is therefore valid to say that attraction to static equilibrium (existence to nonexistence) is the primary force underlying the source of motion.
The attraction of existence to absolute nonexistence is seen as various kinds of attraction or repulsion depending on the scale and context of the system being measured. To achieve nonexistence, matter must become uniformly dispersed in space. Space must therefore be uniformly filled by matter to cease existence. This necessarily adds the repulsion of each to itself and precisely defines them: Space is the absence of matter; matter is the absence of space.
It has been established in General N. T. that the macrocosmic manifestation of this effect is evident in Albert Einstein’s principles of General Relativity, where space is curved by mass/density and matter is directed by space curvature. This is the attractive aspect of matter/space on a macrocosmic scale.
On a sub-atomic scale, electromagnetic charge and the nuclear forces reflect the attraction to uniform static equilibrium. At the smallest scales observable, quantum effects are seen because they are near the phase boundary of universal existence/non-existence.
Because infinite time prevents the possibility of achieving absolute nonexistence, the behavior of all natural systems can be traced to evolutionary cycles, where disordered complexity is exchanged for ordered complexity and returned to disorder again. These cycles pass through states of uniform equilibrium or relative nonexistence. This is the state known here as nothingness.
In aggregate, this evidence leads to the conclusion that the underlying force in all interactions is the attraction of existence to nonexistence. This conceptually unifies the forces and therefore constitutes a principle of unified forces.
II. Conservation of Complexity
The exchange of ordered and dis-ordered motion and form in all natural systems preserves complexity.
Complex motion decreases in proportion to complex form. The dissolution of complex form results in the proportional increase of complex motion. Complexity of motion increases in proportion to disorder (randomness). Complexity of form increases in proportion to the decrease (constraint) of random motion.
[img[https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSZRLmRFt0oNryPtf0BcvLZrJkLzH5avARNg6mdmOQoMoZp2HQUWQ]]
One of the grandsons, son of the light haired one, tracks Dave 44 years later and says he is dong a project for school and his church. He explains that he is the grandson of Brother Kenny. He says he is research the family and church history. He found Dave through his books and his Dad had told him about the singing trio. He knew that Dave, Kenny, and Hilda had played together as a trio.
Asked for an interview.
They decided to look for Hilda together.
Much easier now with Internet and records on line. They found some possiblities of being in the state hospital in West Va. and in prison in KY.
There were several mysteries in Kentucky of women showing up with no background or history. They were noteworthy because their cases had made the newspaper when they died suddenly and the authorities had tried to find the next of kin. Some articles had artist drawings and some had morgue photos.
The search narrowed down to a happening in Paradise. Paradise, Kentucky.
The probelm was that Paradise did not exist any longer. The town at been dug up and abandoned in 1968. Some fo the residental lived in a nearby town. They had a memorial park there and had a Paradise Memorial Festival everyyear as it had become famous in a song by John Prine.
They decided together and go to the next festival. They would try to question some of the old timers there.
On june 6, 2013, they went to the festival. It had a little village of houses from around the time of the town's demise. The John Prine song played constantly. There were pictures, exhibits, slide shows and story tellers. There was even a lady telling ghost stories.
They listened to the ghost lady. She old of a story of a young woman showing up at the last festival at Paradise. She looked like a gypsy movie star. No one knew why she was there. Was she an etertainer or what? The villiagers did not even get her name. The old women went on with the description. She said the girl was in her early to mid twenties. She had the bluest eyes and long black hair. She was voluptous and a looker. Finally, she described her arms. She had scars all over her arms. It made her sking look like alligator skin. There were hundreds of scars on both arms.She had died that night and later found along side a back road, wrapped in a canvus tent.
There was a young hillbilly bootlegger from the extreme hills. He went to a revival with his young wife. She was a teenage and very ill. They went for a healing. She did get healed that night. She went home and the tent revival left.
The wife tried to join to the locale log cabin church. The preacher said that he did not recognize the authority of the revivalist and refused to baptist her until she attended his church regularly and repent. There was not enough time to attend church regularly. She and her husband had so much work to do just to survive.
As the months passed, she again got sick and sicker. She died about six months after the tent revival. She had to be buried in unsanticified ground as she had not been baptized and a stranger spoke at her funeral.
At he service she had left her wheelchair and kneeled at the altar. The preacher lifted her up, whispered in her ear, and prayed loud for the crowd could hear. She entered a frenzied bliss. The preacher told her to tear off her braces and to run around the church.
She did and she had no pain.
After the revival, she went to the backwoods church with her husband. The husband was happy to have his wife back.
The log cabin church had been there for years. The old pastor had been there as long as anyone could remember. He was set in the old ways. The closed ways. The holy ways. He has the responsibility of shepherding the whole church.
When the young wife came and expected to continue on her spiritual journey, the pastor rejected her healing as not being from God and said her conversion was not valid.
The wife started to get sick again. She could feel the end coming. She asked, "Is there any meaning to death? Is it the end of the universe". Will it be for me?
The wife and husband were stunned and and were shunned by the church.
They were a lone until she died.
The holiness and baptism of fire movement was about personal experience. It was about the ectascy and the bliss. It was not about numbing or relaxing rituals. It was not about building a church in the woods. It was about building a temple inside the person.
Each person on this journey to oblivion works each day trying to make sense of the mystery and slowly builds their funeral pyre.
It was know as the Paris of the South and the Whore Capital. Ott partaked in the festivities often.
He knew all the routines of picking up a whore.
He bootlegged. He ran liquor. He hijacked trucks. He lived on the shady side of life, but could always convince himself that he was doing the right thing. He would think of a thousand reasons to rob a rich farmer, or rape a beautiful/sexy woman. He was like a pirate of the highways instead of the seas.
Owensboro - Ben Hawes State Park - A girl who was accused of witchcraft in the 18th century was burned at the stake in the woods. If you up there at night you can see her ghost walking and the light of the torches of the people who came to burn her.
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM6X_Old_Airdrie_Ironworks
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http://s1131.photobucket.com/home/azusabook/index
http://www.jpshrine.org/picshow/paradise/paradise.html
[[Pictures of Locks on KY Lake|http://watermusiccruising.blogspot.com/2012/10/kentucky-lake-lock-dam.html]]
Dave wrote poem for the funeral of the dead brother who died from the "yellowing".
A whole life lived.
Your passing has shrunk me.
I hurt- - - -
Does any hurt as me?
I can't be distracted.
I don't seek comfort.
I cry- - -
Does any hurt as hard?
A step to oblivion.
A brother lost.
A string pulls me into the darkness.
Does any hurt as deep?
Vanishing to ash,
A body with no soul.
Not to suffer this rigmarole.
Does any hurt as clear?
His pain is gone.
His soul is there.
Where they gather.
A place of light.
He does not suffer as me.
INEZ, Ky. — Tom Fletcher was already waging his own private battle with poverty when the President showed up on his front porch and drafted him into a "war."
Lyndon B. Johnson chose the 38-year-old unemployed father of eight "to illustrate the human toll the declining mining industry had taken on these Appalachian families," Lady Bird Johnson would write.
The images from Fletcher's humble home in the rugged eastern Kentucky hills were an opening salvo in Johnson's ambitious War on Poverty in 1964.
Thirty years later, the Martin County man still lives in the hillside house where Johnson squatted and chatted with him.
Then, Fletcher said he hoped Johnson's visit "would bring us some luck."
Now, in a rare interview, he voiced resentment of pursuit by reporters updating a life story in which most luck has been bad.
"I'm getting tired of it," said Fletcher, now 68. "After all this time, I'd think they would be letting it go."
"As long as the rest of the country insists on seeing poverty as symbols and stereotypes . . . people will always be fascinated with Tom Fletcher," said Ron Eller, director of the University of Kentucky Appalachian Center. "For every Tom Fletcher, there were many, many thousands of others in the region who have been able to improve their quality of life and to struggle to improve their communities."
Martin County remains site of one of the hardest struggles. The Appalachian Center estimates 35.4% of its population--three times the national average--lives in poverty and says unofficial unemployment rates have reached 57%.
The vagaries of dependence upon the coal industry took their toll, with 1,700 well-paying coal jobs, or more than half, lost since 1980 in Martin. Despite persistent economic woes, folks here generally agree that there has been progress--in housing, transportation, public health and education.
"I think all things come together," said Phyllis Walker, director of the local office of the Big Sandy Community Action Council, an anti-poverty program. "We see successes all the time."
Type the text for 'New Tiddler'
Dave, Hilda, and Kenny at the Drive In
When most people think of drive ins, they think of long triple features, long summer nights, greasy concession stands, and passion pits.
Dave and company used the drive in like everyone else, but they also to make some money and win converts.
It was common for drive ins to have stages for live performances before the movies to entertain the crowd till dark. He and the gang would usually get 30 to 45 minutes to sing and to tell the crowd about the nearby tent revival. Once in a while they would get a love offering, but usually their reward was the crowd they drew into the tent.
Another way the group used the drive ins were to hold Sunday Morning services. They called it drive in services. There would be a few songs, a couple of prayers, a love offering collected by two child volunteers running up and down the park cars and taking the donations. There then would be a sermon, usually by Kenny. There would be a brief message about the tent revival and there then would be an ending prayer.
Some of the congregation would be patrons from last night and where sleeping off their drunk.
It would not be uncommon for the gang to do the before movie songs and then watch all the movies and then sleep till the Sunday morning service.
They saw movies like, Lawrence of Arabia, Psycho, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Apartment, Westside Story, Music Man, The Birds, Hustler, My Fair Lady, Elmer Gantry, Mary Poppins, and 101 Dalmatians.
Hilda was on the road for several weeks. She travel through the Smokies and back to the Ohio Valley. She had went to several churches and asked for a place to stay. She explained who she was and about her travels with the revival. She told them her husband beat her and she left.
She found a couple of churches where she met with an elder's wife or the pastor's wife. They were much more sympathetic to her story and she got a few days for a place to stay and have something to eat. The only downside was that she had to go to the service on meeting nights. These meetings always held the possibility that she would have to sing or testify. The worst of staying with these folks was having to endure the one to one preaching of the pastor. He would say forgiveness is God's way. He would say pray and work to get your family back together and be blessed. God will provide a way if only you have faith. These talks always made her feel guilty as she had lied about her circumstances and for the fact that Dave had not beat her.
Some of the pastors took a different tact. They would claim that she had left her husband because she was demon possessed. This led to the laying on of hands, the anointing of oil, and long and loud prayer sessions. Sometimes someone in the group would be caught up in the Spirit and jump up, run around the church, and roll on the floor. Other times one would start talking in tongues and prophesy about her getting back with Dave. The speaker would sometimes carry on a conversation with the demon inside of her and these was especially frightening.
The Spirit lead speaker sometimes said things that were very accurate about her feelings and desires. It, the demon, or the Spirit, seemed to know about her abuse as a child and the incestous relationship she had with step father. They would speak about her sometimes enjoying the illicit sex, but that it was the demon's craving and that she was not at fault. The demon talked about killing his host before he would flee and the ordained would tell about the cutting and mutilation being away the demon taunted her and sometimes was a way to wake herself up so she could have her own thoughts instead of the demons.
Hilda would get so worked up she would roll on the flooring and her crying and tears joined the wailings of the faithful.
One time doing one of these intense prayer sessions she had a flashback. She had visions of Heaven and Hell. She saw demons and angels. It was like a shutter on a camera opening for a moment she would see the vision then the shutter would close. She slipped into a spell and it felt as though she left her body in a wisp as she exhaled. She traveled to a spot above the prayer circle and she herself laying on the floor. She saw herself recoil in a seizure like movement on the floor and she was pulled back to herself in a snap as if she was connected with a rubber band. She would get hot. Then cold and shiver. She would spit awful tastes out of her mouth. She would hear demons whisper in her ear, then angels. She experience sexual arousal and would wet herself and then feel extremely guilty. She was in a psychedelic whirl.
She passed out after a session. She woke up and she was naked and the nude middle aged pastor was there with her. He spoke about comforting her. Hilda felt wetness between her legs and yelled at the preacher and beat him in a frenzy with her fists as he ran from her bed. She said, "How could you? You raped me."
The preacher said "no no, you seduced me and I thought I was helping you". "The demon in you must have got in me or Satan sent another to couple with you".
Hilda knew she had to left. She was used up. He might have hurt her baby. The demon may be hurting her baby. She now accepted she was demon possessed. She left that day with her small suitcase and hitched a ride to West Virginia.
She would end up in a mental hospital there.
Add adventure of being raped by truck farmer and be arrested for being crazy. At first they thought she was drunk or high.
She become psychotic in jail. She ended up in the mental hospital build during the Civil War.
Does she go to Kenny first? Does she go to Kenny after she is hospitalized? She could not have shock treatment while she was pregnant. So she goes to the hospital. She tells them to contract Bro Kenny Sherlock. They do. He gets her out of the hospital. He takes her home. She tells him she is pregnant. The time frame tracks back to the time he seduced her, or she seduced him, at Bro Howard's revival camp. The baby could be his. It could be Dave's. She wintered there and the babies were born in the Spring of 1965. They were fraternal twins. One had dark hair like Dave's and the other had blond hair like Kenny's. She would be that both were the fathers until her dying day. They had significant Bible names.
In the weeks after the birth, Hilda suffers from post partum depression. It gets so bad she can't get out of bed and she can't care for the babies. She starts having hallucinations and becomes psychotic. Kenny either didn't have faith in his prayers or he had enough knowledge about mental illness to call a doctor, after she cut some gashes on both wrists and tried to cut her own throat. The doctor arranged for to go back to the state hospital in West Virginia.
Hilda had to put in leather restraints to keep her from hurting herself further.
Prostitution in Civil War Nashville
Trivia question. What city in the United States was the first to ever legalize prostitution? If you answered Las Vegas Nevada you are wrong. It was Nashville Tennessee in 1863. There are many things that can reduce the effectiveness of an Army in wartime. The use of alcohol, drugs, and sexually transmitted disease. That is in any era. More soldiers died from disease in the Civil War than died from bullets. Besides sexually transmitted disease men died from poor hygiene. The poor placement of latrines near a camp. Surgeons using dirty hands while treating wounds. Because of the Civil War medical officials began to realize that disease could be prevented by changing unhealthy practices and educating troops. In every war since World War I more men have died from combat wounds than disease. In 1860 there were 207 prostitutes living in Nashville. The largest brothel housed 17 women and it was located on the river front near lower Broad & 1st Ave, or as it was called then, Front St. The average house had anywhere from one to three women. In 1860 Nashville had a population of 17,000. Five thousand of these were free blacks and slaves. When the war broke out thousands of Confederate troops passed through Nashville and then the city fell to Union Forces on 25-Feb-1862. There were as many as 100,000 troops in and around Nashville at various times. Washington D.C. and Nashville had the biggest problem with prostitution because Washington was the headquarters for the eastern armies and Nashville was the headquarters for the western armies. There was a four block area from present day 1st Ave. to 4th Ave. called "Smoky Row" which was the "red light district". The term hooker was in use before the war but it was popularized in relation to General Joseph Hooker who had a reputation for hanging out with loose women. Nashville actually acquired the nickname as the "city of 10,000 whores' but the actual number was estimated at 1,500. The rise of sexually transmitted disease became so bad that the army's chief medical officer rounded up as many prostitutes as he could find and put them on a new steamboat called the "Idahoe". He sent them to Louisville and that city refused to take them. Then they eventually traveled to Cincinnatti where they also were not wanted. In the meantime these women trashed the steamboat. The steamboat Captain gave up and returned To Nashville. They found that the black prostitutes were picking up the slack for the missing white prostitutes. After this failed attempt a notice was issued to the prostitutes that they had until 20-Aug-1863 to be medically examined by a Army surgeon and after paying a 5.00 dollar fee they would be issued a permit to ply their trade and must be re-examined every 10 to 14 days. By April 30th 1864, 352 women had been licensed. Thanks to legalization only 30 of the first 999 soldiers to contract a sexually transmitted disease got it in Nashville. Syphilis before the discovery of penicillin was the 19th century's version of AID's. They treated it with salts of mercury. Mercury is extremely toxic. This treatment led to the saying that "a night with Venus means a lifetime with Mercury". There were 23 military hospital's in Nashville during the war. One hospital was for soldiers suffering from STD's. One was for white prostitutes, and one was for black prostitutes. The first picture is of an era prostitute. The second is the permit issued to a Nashville prostitute and the third is believed to be the wartime hospital for white prostitutes on Second ave. near Jo Johnston . Because of the success achieved at Nashville Memphis became the second city to legalize prostitution
Quakers Study Guide & Homework Help
The nineteenth century witnessed significant changes within the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Quakerism had arisen amid the tumult and experimentation of the English Revolution of the mid-seventeenth century. One of many radical religious groups of that era, Friends had proclaimed God's availability to each individual through the Inward Christ or the Inner Light, rendering creeds, outward sacraments, and clerical hierarchy unnecessary. Quakers worshiped by gathering in silence until the spirit inspired someone to speak. To the scandal of many in that day, women as well as men felt led to preach in Quaker worship. Early Quaker spirituality embraced both the inward and the outward life: inner purification led to a powerful sense of union with God and with one another, and the victory of good over evil in the soul energized Friends to seek to transform human society. Quaker social ethics emphasized equality, simplicity, integrity, and peace. When decades of persecution persuaded Friends that the rest of the world was not going to join their program, they withdrew into a quieter, settled life of spiritual discipline, tending toward separation from the larger society. William Penn's Holy Experiment in colonial Pennsylvania, however, kept alive the Quaker ideal of a humane political and social order until Friends withdrew from the legislature in the 1750s, when the English crown insisted on a militia. The American Revolution, during which Friends as pacifists maintained neutrality and suffered for it from both sides, pushed Quakers even further into a sectarian existence.
QUAKERS, 1820870: THEOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS
By 1820 new winds were blowing. Westward migration to Ohio and Indiana produced new social settings and structures, and the "hedge" that had separated "God's peculiar people" from "the world's people" was successively lowered. Some Quakers began to find common ground with other religious groups on matters of philanthropy or social reform, such as abolition. The evangelical movement was at the forefront of many progressive social issues at that time, and evangelical theology began to influence some Quaker thought.
The attraction to the evangelical movement was also a conscious move away from Quaker traditions of the eighteenth century. Quaker thought in that era is often described as "quietist." The turning inward of Quakers as a group paralleled an inward turning of each individual. Quietist thought built on the earlier Quaker understanding of the Inner Light and held that the only trustworthy religious experience was an inward, direct dependence upon God for guidance. Quietism was suspicious of all human initiative.
Elias Hicks (1748830) can represent the quietist position for the nineteenth century, though he himself did not use this term. In his understanding, in order to allow the Inward Christ to work in the soul, the self must abstain from all willing and acting. The animated devotion of evangelicals looked to him like emotional self-indulgence. The appropriate goal of the religious life was instead to lose the self in union with God, to experience annihilation, to become nothing. Evangelicals would find his description of God too impersonal, but to Hicks this did not matter because the aim was selflessness, a state in which there was practically speaking no self left that could be in relationship with a personal God. His views may remind others of the exalted but austere ideals of medieval mystics such as Meister Eckehart or Sufi mystics such as Ibn al-'Arabi.
Hicks was a radical on the issue of slavery. When others suggested that slaves should be purchased from their keepers in order to be set free, he replied that slave owners had no right to additional payment. Not only should they be denied such funds, but they should also be required to set their slaves free and then compensate them for previous services rendered. Hicks promoted a boycott of slave-produced goods. Yet his radical ethic was also separatist: he did not believe that Quakers should cooperate with other antislavery activists. Such social promiscuity could endanger the purity of God's peculiar people. Some antislavery speakers, for example, were professional clergy, so to work with them could be seen as tacit approval of clergy. Hicks was reluctant to compromise on any issue.
Other Friends found the quietist impulse in Quakerism too confining. The sectarian strain prevented collaboration with other sincere Christians on the pressing social issues of the day. Quietism was inadequate to the needs of the times. Additionally, the lofty severity of quietist inwardness felt like a denial of human emotion as a divinely given gift. Evangelical piety focused on love, centered in the love of God. The divinity of Jesus demonstrated God's love, and the humanity of Jesus affirmed the human qualities of the individual believer. To evangelicals, the suffering of Christ awakened in the faithful a sympathy that extended to others who are suffering. This sympathy motivated evangelicals to participate in efforts to relieve human suffering, such as the antislavery movement or prison reform.
Among North American Friends, quietists and evangelicals vied for political power within Quakerism, resulting in a schism in 1827828, first in Philadelphia and then spreading throughout North American Quakerism. The evangelicals called themselves Orthodox Friends. Their counterparts were the Hicksites, who came to include both quietists and liberals. Liberals valued reason over emotion and questioned the infallibility of the Bible. The progressive mood of the era fostered a desire for freedom from what liberals perceived as narrow dogma. Some quietists, fearing the heresy that they found inherent in liberalism, chose the Orthodox camp over the Hicksite. By mid-century this resulted in further division among the Orthodox, resulting in three major factions: the evangelical Gurneyite Friends who took their name from Joseph John Gurney (1788847); the quietist Wilburites whose name derived from John Wilbur (1774856); and the increasingly liberal Hicksites named after Elias Hicks. Later, the evangelical revivals of the late 1860s and beyond brought changes to the evangelical Quaker worship, which came to resemble mainstream Protestant worship with hymns, a planned sermon, and a paid pastor. But before those innovations, the divisions among Quakers must have seemed insignificant or imperceptible to the wider world. While it is true that other Protestant denominations in the United States were likewise dividing along the same lines regarding the evangelical movement, both Quaker parties continued to hold on to common Quaker traditions that were not matters of doctrine. Both parties continued the same pattern of worship in silence. Both groups allowed women to preach. Both sides followed the same pattern of plain dress. Both continued opposition to slavery and war.
The abolitionist and poet John Greenleaf Whittier was the best-known Quaker literary figure of the era. Critics of a later generation regarded as a drawback precisely what was attractive to the audience of Whittier's day: a romantic appreciation of nature, a nostalgia that more recent tastes would consider sentimentality, and the subservience of his poetic craft to his moral passions (especially antislavery). In the early twenty-first century, it is Whittier's religious poetry that remains known in some circles: numerous poems of his are found in hymnals of many denominations. There is a mix of appropriateness and irony in this: his justly revered "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind," found in many hymnals of the evangelical tradition, is drawn from a larger poem, "The Brewing of the Soma," which is sharply critical of the emotional extremes of the evangelical revivals of that era. The verses used as a hymn reflect the gentle quietist element of his Quakerism, as do these lines from "The Meeting."
And so I find it well to come
For deeper rest to this still room,
For here the habit of the soul
Feels less the outer world's control;
The strength of mutual purpose pleads
More earnestly our common needs;
And from the silence multiplied
By these still forms on either side,
The world that time and sense have known
Falls off and leaves us God alone.
Whittier, The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, p. 446.
QUAKERS AND SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENTS
Quakers in the nineteenth century were perhaps best known for their antislavery work, and among Quaker abolitionists perhaps the best known was Levi Coffin (1798877). He had migrated from North Carolina to Indiana, as did many southern Friends, to leave behind the land where slavery was legal and to take up life in territories where it was prohibited. He became a leader in the Underground Railroad, the clandestine movement of escaped slaves on their way to Canada. Coffin's activities were controversial among some Quakers. In earlier days Friends had broken the lawor example, to continue to hold Quaker worship when it was illegal in Englandut they had done so publicly, despite the threat of persecution. Now their defiance of the law endangered not themselves but those whom they were attempting to help, so Coffin and others were comfortable acting in secret so as not to endanger the safety of the refugees. Fidelity to the Quaker commitment to equality led to careful reflection on Quaker devotion to moral integrity, when the traditional Quaker practice of honesty could threaten the lives and liberty of the escapees.
Levi Coffin's Reminiscences (1876) relates many tales of his work with the Underground Railroad and reveal his considerable skills as a raconteur. Among his stories is an account of his houseguest Eliza Harris, the historical figure who inspired her namesake in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) Eliza Harris, escaping from Kentucky, crossed the Ohio River near Ripley on drifting broken ice with her child in her arm. Readers of Uncle Tom's Cabin from Levi Coffin's day to the early twenty-first century have speculated that Simeon and Rachel Halliday are Levi and Catherine Coffin in thin disguise. After some twenty years in Newport (now Fountain City), Indiana, where they assisted thousands of refugees from slavery, the Coffins moved to Cincinnati, where they continued in the Underground Railroad. Coffin also became a leader in the free-labor movement. Another form of protest against slavery, this movement bought and sold only goods produced without the exploitation of slaves. After the Civil War, Coffin worked with freed slaves in Arkansas. He traveled to England, where he raised $100,000 to support the work with freedmen.
Other Friends recognized for their antislavery work in this period include the abolitionist Thomas Garrett (1789871) and the Grimké sisters Sarah (1792873) and Angelina (1805879). Some used journalism to promote antislavery work, as did John Greenleaf Whittier (1807892), who worked for several newspapers; Benjamin Lundy (1789839) in his newspaper the Genius of Universal Emancipation; and Elisha Bates (1781861), whose Moral Advocate also protested against capital punishment and war and promoted temperance and prison reform.
American Quakers engaged in prison reform also included Stephen Grellet (1773855)ho made his home in New York but reported to the tsar, the pope, the sultan, and various European monarchs on the sorry conditions of their prisonsnd Charles (1823916) and Rhoda (1826909) Coffin, relatives of Levi. Elizabeth Comstock (1815891) promoted prison reform and also worked in the Underground Railroad before the Civil War and with freedman's concerns thereafter as well as temperance and women's equality. Elizabeth Howland (1827929) shared these last three concerns.
The following is the portion of Whittier's "The Brewing of the Soma" that often appears in hymnals.
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust like theirs who heard,
Beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow Thee.
O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love!
With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
As noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!
Whittier, The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, p. 450.
If a single person can represent the breadth of Quaker commitment to social reform in the nineteenth century, Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793880, also related to Levi through common Nantucket
A Dream Caused by Perusal of Mrs. H. Beecher Stowes Popular Work Uncle Toms Cabin, 1853. Lithograph by Colin Milne. Milnes anti-abolition cartoon highlights the role of nineteenth-century Quakers in the abolitionist movement: the figure at the
A Dream Caused by Perusal of Mrs. H. Beecher Stowe's Popular Work Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1853. Lithograph by Colin Milne. Milne's anti-abolition cartoon highlights the role of nineteenth-century Quakers in the abolitionist movement: the figure at the center of his nightmarish vision of the world presented in Uncle Tom's Cabin is a black man dressed as a Quaker. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Quaker ancestry) may be the best candidate. A liberal Friend committed to freedom and progress, she acquired her antislavery views early in life. In 1830 she and her husband, James, befriended the renowned abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. They supported the Anti-Slavery Society in America, though only James could join because women were not admitted into membership. In response, Lucretia Mott and other Quaker women, along with free blacks, formed the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.
Mott was not satisfied to call for the end of slavery in the South: she also protested the racism of the North. She defied the segregationist customs of her day, offering hospitality to African Americans in her home and preaching in black churches. Lucretia and James Mott were appointed delegates to the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, but as a woman she was not seated as a delegate but only invited to sit politely in the ladies' gallery. Quite a stir followed as she and others held for the recognition of women as official delegates. At that conference she befriended the young Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Upon their return to the United States, they committed themselves to laboring for women's rights. The outcome of their (and others') resolve was the conference at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848 and its famous Declaration of Sentiments, which led the way to the women's suffrage movement. Mott also worked with peace societies, the Nonresistance Society, anti-Sabbath groups, Native American concerns, and on education, including women's medical education. Bold and unshakable in her ethical passions, Mott was nearly pushed out of Quakerism by more conservative voices. She stood her ground, and by her later years Hicksite Friends considered her as their spiritual leader.
QUAKERS IN LITERATURE
Portraits of Quakers in American literature from 1820 to 1870 range from the unsympathetic to the idealized. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804864) was not especially appreciative of seventeenth-century Quakers, but then his literary works do not reveal much appreciation for any religion in that era. In "The Gentle Boy," from Twice-Told Tales, Hawthorne describes early Quakerism as "unbridled fanaticism" (1:104) and an "enthusiasm heightened almost to madness" that "abstractly considered, well deserved the moderate chastisement of the rod" (1:86). Yet the Quakers in this tale are chiefly a vehicle for comparison with the cold brutality of the Puritans who persecuted and martyred them. Quakers appear as victims of persecution in The Scarlet Letter (chapter 6), and in "Young Goodman Brown" the devil informs the protagonist that Brown's grandfather, who persecuted Quakers, was the devil's partner in so doing. In "Main Street" the narrator suggests a more positive regard, noting that the itinerant Quaker preachers in Salem had "the gift of a new idea" (3:461).
Herman Melville's (1819891) Moby-Dick includes Quakers, since Nantucket was a whaling as well as a Quaker community. Peleg and Bildad, the ship owners, seem more like caricatures, the former being the Quaker by culture who wears a plain coat but has no real use for religion and the latter a pious but hypocritical tightwad who will not pay Ishmael a decent wage if he can get away with it. Both of them Melville calls "fighting Quakers" (p. 71) who profess pacifism against humans but have no quarrel with the brutal killing of the noble monsters of the deep. Starbuck, the virtuous but cautious first mate, also a Quaker, is courageous enough to face any natural danger and to stand up to Ahab, only to give in ultimately. He ponders but then resists the urge to save the crew by killing Ahab. Melville's point may be that Starbuck's weakness is that, in spite of knowing good from evil, he cannot summon the strength to act decisively. Near the end Starbuck questions the justice of it all if his life of devotion leads only to a watery grave.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803882) held a genuine appreciation for Quakers, including Lucretia Mott, whom he knew personally. He wrote that much of the best thought of his day had been anticipated by early Friends. In his essay "Natural Religion," Emerson praised Friends for their likeness to the earliest Christians' ideals: "The sect of Quakers in their best representatives appear to me to come nearer to the sublime history and genius of Christ than any other of the sects. They have kept the traditions perhaps for a longer time, kept the early purity" (p. 57).
Walt Whitman (1819892), reminiscing some sixty years later, wrote of hearing the resonant preaching of Elias Hicks, whom he admired for his attacks on evangelical doctrines. Whitman appreciated the inwardness of Hicks's thought, which would submit to no outward creed, scripture, or theology of blood atonement. Hicks would have been surprised by some of Whitman's praise: "Always E[lias] H[icks] gives the service of pointing to the fountain of all naked theology, all religion, . . . namely yourself and your inherent relations. . . . This he incessantly labors to kindle, nourish, educate, bring forward and strengthen. He is the most democratic of the religionists" (2:627).
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811896) has numerous Quaker characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin, some (as mentioned above) perhaps inspired by Levi and Catherine Coffin. Through them she pictured a religious life without ostentatious self-righteousness or racial bigotry. Her Quakers are idealized, as were Whitman's memories of Elias Hicks, but genuine Quakers would have recognized the ideas as their own.
The only Quaker of literary renown in this period was the poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807892). He was an ardent abolitionist and a friend of William Lloyd Garrison, with whom he faced mob violence from opponents of abolition. Later the two came to differ over the issue of political involvement, when Whittier became an enthusiastic supporter of the antislavery Liberty Party. Whittier once aspired to a life in politics and was elected to the state legislature in Massachusetts, but frail health and his outspoken abolitionist views put an end to his hopes for election to Congress. He worked as an editor for abolitionist newspapers and composed antislavery poems, such a "The Christian Slave," "The Hunters of Men," and "Ichabod," and lived on the edge of poverty until the publication of Snow-Bound (1866) and "The Tent on the Beach" (1868) brought him popular fame. These collections of poetry captured the spirit of the age and spoke to the inner needs of a society struggling to recover from the trauma of a civil war. Late in his life he achieved such popularity that his birthday was a school holiday in his native Massachusetts. Whittier was a friend of the poets James Russell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In his poetry, as in his life, Whittier sought to integrate the inward life of quiet receptivity to the divine presence with a devoted effort to better human society. In this he reflected the ideals of Quakerism.
See also Abolitionist Writing; The Bible; Evangelicals; Feminism; Moby-Dick; Reform; Religion; Slavery; Transcendentalism; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Underground Railroad
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Works
Coffin, Levi. Reminiscences of Levi Coffin. Cincinnati: Robert Clark, 1876.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Uncollected Lectures by Ralph Waldo Emerson; Reports of Lectures on American Life and Natural Religion, Reprinted from the Commonwealth. Edited by Clarence L. F. Gohdes. New York: W. E. Rudge, 1932.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 13 vols. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1882883.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. 1851. New York: Norton, 1967.
Mott, Lucretia. Lucretia Mott: Her Complete Speeches and Sermons. Edited by Dana Greene. New York: Edward Mellen Press, 1980.
Whitman, Walt. Walt Whitman: Prose Works 1892. 2 vols. Edited by Floyd Stovall. New York: New York University Press, 1964.
Whittier, John Greenleaf. The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier. Edited by Horace E. Scudder. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1894.
Secondary Works
Bacon, Margaret Hope. Valiant Friend: The Life of Lucretia Mott. New York: Walker, 1980.
Barbour, Hugh, and J. William Frost. The Quakers. Richmond, Ind.: Friends United Press, 1994.
Hamm, Thomas D. The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800907. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.
Ingle, H. Larry. Quakers in Conflict: The Hicksite Reformation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986.
Jones, Rufus M. Later Periods of Quakerism. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1921.
Michael L. Birkel
Whenever you read poetry, keep Jasper Fforde ’s description of poetry in mind: “Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire. It's the crack cocaine of the literary world.” If a poem doesn’t hit you like crack cocaine, try a different poet. Soon you’ll find that modern poetry isn’t that difficult after all.
Whores Quotes
Quotes tagged as "whores" Showing 1-30 of 36
Chuck Klosterman
“When exactly did every housewife in America become a whore?”
― Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
tags: humor, whores, women
63 likes
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Henry Miller
“Living with a whore--even the best whore in the world--isn't a bed of roses.”
― Henry Miller
tags: life, whores, women
59 likes
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George Carlin
“She was only a prostitute, but she had the nicest face I ever came across.”
― George Carlin, Brain Droppings
tags: humor, whores
55 likes
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Dave Chappelle
“The girl says "Oh uh-uh, wait a minute! Wait a minute! Just because I'm dressed this way does not make me a whore!" Which is true, Gentlemen, that is true. Just because they dress a certain way doesn't mean they are a certain way. Don't even forget it. But ladies, you must understand that is fucking confusing. It just is. Now that would be like me, Dave Chappelle, the comedian, walking down the street in a cop uniform. Somebody might run up on me saying, "Oh, thank God. Officer, help us! Come on. They're over here. Help us!" "Oh-hoh! Just because I'm dressed this way does not make me a police officer!" See what I mean? All right, ladies, fine. You are not a whore. But you are wearing a whore's uniform.”
― Dave Chappelle
tags: comedy, funny, girls, sluts, whores
39 likes
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Karen Abbott
“Leave the fireworks for those who cast no spark of their own.”
― Karen Abbott, Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul
tags: awesome, chicago, inspirational, whores
37 likes
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Julian Barnes
“WHORES.
Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
tags: genius, syphilis, whores
28 likes
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John Wilmot
“Bawdy in thoughts, precise in words,
Ill-natured though a whore,
Her belly is a bag of turds,
And her cunt a common shore.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems
tags: cunt, whore, whores
24 likes
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Julie Anne Long
“What are your pleasures and pursuits, Lord Moncrieffe?" Miss Eversea asked too brightly, when the silence had gone on for more than was strictly comfortable or polite.
That creaky conversation lubricant. It irritated him again that she was humoring him.
"Well, I'm partial to whores."
Her head whipped toward him like a weather-vane in a hurricane. Her eyes, he noted, were enormous, and such a dark blue they were nearly purple. Her mouth dropped, and the lower lip was quivering with shock or... or...
"Whor... whores...?" She choked out the word as if she'd just inhaled it like bad cigar smoke.
He widened his own eyes with alarm, recoiling slightly.
"I... I beg your pardon - Horses. Honestly, Miss Eversea," he stammered. "I do wonder what you think of me if that's what you heard.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did For a Duke
tags: horses, humor, whores
23 likes
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Neil Gaiman
“There are no whores in Scaithe’s Ebb, or none that consider themselves as such, although there have always been many women who, if pressed, would describe themselves as much-married, with one husband on this ship here every six months, and another husband on that ship, back in port for a month or so every nine months. The mathematics of the thing have always kept most folk satisfied; and if ever it disappoints and a man returns to his wife while one of her other husbands is still in occupancy, why, then there is a fight — and the grog shops to comfort the loser.
The sailors do not mind the arrangement, for they know that this way there will, at the least, be one person who, at the last, will notice when they do not come back from the sea, and will mourn their loss; and their wives content themselves with the certain knowledge that their husbands are also unfaithful, for there is no competing with the sea in a man’s affections, since she is both mother and mistress, and she will wash his corpse also, in time to come, wash it to coral and ivory and pearls.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust
tags: sailors, sea, whores
21 likes
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Elizabeth Bear
“Some would say a whore don't have no expectation of Heaven. I'd say, if she gives value for cash, she's got a better shot at God's blessing than your average banker. Jesus loved Mary Magdalene. He kicked over tables when He met a moneylender.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Karen Memory
tags: heaven, jesus, prostitutes, whores
19 likes
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John Wilmot
“Then, if to make your ruin more,
You'll peevishly be coy,
Die with the scandal of a whore
And never know the joy.”
― John Wilmot, The Complete Poems
tags: orgasm, reputation, scandal, sex, whore, whores
18 likes
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Jill Alexander Essbaum
“Whores, Anna once read, make the very best wives. They are accustomed to the varying moods of men, they keep their broken hearts to themselves, and easy women always ease through grief.”
― Jill Alexander Essbaum, Hausfrau
tags: whores, wives, women
12 likes
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Ellen Kushner
“He said, 'They're only whores,' as though their very availability rendered them worthless.”
― Ellen Kushner, The Privilege of the Sword
tags: feminism, gender, sex, whores, women
11 likes
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Henry Miller
“Previously, when I began to write this tale, I set out by saying that Mlle. Claude was a whore. She is a whore, of course, and I'm not trying to deny it, but what I say now is--if Mlle. Claude is a whore then what name shall I find for the other women I know?”
― Henry Miller
tags: whores, women
11 likes
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“That fist he was raising at me would wham into the cupboard door, hurting only himself. I saw it all happening, then it really did happen. But I didn't understand the whore thing. Why was he confusing the drinking with the other? Then I got it. Obvious. It was all mixed up for him, all the same thing: the drinking, the other, anything that could make a woman free.”
― David Gates
tags: freedom, relationships, whores, women
7 likes
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George R.R. Martin
“Who in seven hells is this one?”
“The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard,” Jaime returned with cold courtesy. “I might ask the same of you, my lady.”
“Lady? I’m no lady. I’m the queen.”
“My sister will be surprised to hear that.”
“Lord Ryman crowned me his very self.” She gave a shake of her ample hips. “I’m the queen o’ whores.”
No, Jaime thought, my sweet sister holds that title too.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows
tags: whores
7 likes
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Rachel A. Marks
“The men stop coming after Hunt goes missing. We learned from the last brave soul to visit that they whispered all sorts of stories to answer his disappearance. My favorite is that we ate him. We cooked him up with our whore-earned corn, a dozen rats’ eyes, and a bat wing.
Even I couldn’t have thought of anything more perfect.”
― Rachel A. Marks, Winter Rose
tags: blood, deadly, death, murder, murderers, sacrifice, whores, witch-s-brew
4 likes
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Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“Most women sell sex; most of them just don’t take cash (nor do they each sell to more than one ‘client’ at a time).”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
tags: aphorism, aphorisms, aphorist, aphorists, boyfriend, boyfriends, cash, client, clientele, clients, commerce, consumerism, copulation, credit, credit-card, customer, customers, date, dating, debt, escort, escorts, funny, girlfriend, girlfriends, hilarious, hooker, hookers, humor, humorous, humour, husband, husbands, hustler, hustlers, joke, jokes, ladies-of-the-evening, lady-of-the-evening, lovemaking, making-love, marriage, marriages, materialism, money, procreate, procreation, prostitute, prostitutes, prostitution, quotations, quotes, relationship, relationships, reproduce, reproduction, satire, sell, seller, sellers, selling, sex, sex-act, sexual-intercourse, trade, trading, whore, whores, wife, wives, working-girl, working-girls
4 likes
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Colley Cibber
“Ah! good Sir! no Whores before Dinner, I beseech you."
[Love's Last Shift]”
― Colley Cibber, The Plays of Colley Cibber
tags: comedy, dinner, entertainment, humor, satire, whores
4 likes
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Carl William Brown
“Repetita iuvant. Italy, a land of great saints, poets, sailors, artists, statesmen, businessmen, lawyers, intellectuals, professors, journalists, whores, gangsters, religious parasites and dickheads.”
― Carl William Brown, L'Italia in breve.
tags: artists, businessman, dickhead, gangsters, intellectuals, italy, journalists, lawyers, parasites, poets, professors, saints, whores
2 likes
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Roman Payne
“A tired man lay down his head
in a dusty room so dim,
and for so long his wife did shake
and yell to waken him.
Meanwhile his thoughts, his dreams, did stir
of sandy, red bullfights,
of powder-blasts in the air
and carnival delights.
Yet still his wife was in despair
in a dusty room so dim,
for she knew death was a whore
not far from tempting him.”
― Roman Payne
tags: bull-fighters, bull-fights, bulls, carnaval, carnival, carnivals, death, death-dream, despair, dreaming, dying, dying-at-home, fireworks, husband-and-wife, husband-and-wife-relationship, poetry, torredor, whore, whores
2 likes
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George R.R. Martin
“Tell me where do whores go?”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
tags: whores
1 likes
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Larry McMurtry
“They say he missed that whore.”
― Larry McMurtry
tags: whores
0 likes
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“I rose swiftly and struck him across the cheek, hard enough to make my palm sting. He gaped at me. 'I do not want your damned money. I want you to answer me.'
Carefully, he fingered his jaw. There was something new and strange in his gaze, sharp, intent enough to make me wary. 'I do believe I've forgotten the question.' ”
― Aislinn Kerry, Blood and Roses
tags: surprise, vampire, whores
0 likes
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Deyth Banger
“You can't be transcendent,... which will mean to be perfect in everything. You can try to act as such person, but there is a lot of to learn.
- As first you always will know the few from everything
- Everything is endless!
- (The Wolf of Wall Street), forgot everything what people say to you about the topic "Money"...because money are the thing which make your life interesting. You could buy the best phone, the best hotel or the best room, the best house, the best car, the best TV, the best books... the best wife... There are outside a lot of women which will sleep with you in replace of money... so reality you need money to have them...
(More far than this I can't take you, because the train is too fast It will delete everything.... <----- it will just start from here.)... What I gonna say or I will say is "Good Luck and try by yourself the finish the mission".”
― Deyth Banger
tags: agent, aren-t, aren-t-home, awesome, delete, everything, father, good, good-luck, home, life, luck, mission, money, mother, this, tv, whores, wow, wtf
0 likes
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Bruce Crown
“A costume party… great… a chance for the bimbos to whore themselves out with no penalty of conscience. I found myself excruciatingly curious as to what she was going as, a sailor? No. A pilot. That would be something”
― Bruce Crown, Forlorn Passions
tags: bimbos, conscience, costume, halloween, party, pilot, sailor, whores
0 likes
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“As I came down the stairs, all attention turned from the girls, and everyone looked to me as though this were some sort of drama taking place on a stage, and I was the scorned lover come to confront my erstwhile beloved.
I was not. I was just a whore, nothing else. Nothing more.”
― Aislinn Kerry, Blood and Roses
tags: m-m-romance, vampire, whores
0 likes
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Leonardo Sciascia
“Dear Commendatory Roomers, you have no idea how many people-serious, decently behaved, cultivated people- go looking for the company of whores”
― Leonardo Sciascia
tags: whores
0 likes
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Danielle Bennett
“You can tell Rook his statue's become something like the patron saint for Our Lady, and you can see whores there night and day, praying for safe childbirth and protection from diseases and the like. Though why they think he's the man to go to for that kind of help is beyond me. Just thought he might like to know there're whores on their knees in front of them- so I guess that goes back to what I was saying about things never changing.”
― Danielle Bennett, Dragon Soul
tags: change, patron, pray, prayer, prostitution, saints, sex, whores, worship
0 likes
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Oscar Zeta Acosta
“All through schools, jobs, and bumming, I haven’t even held the hand of a Mexican woman, excepting whores who are all the same anyhow”
― Oscar Zeta Acosta
Her neighbors called her a woman of the night.
The Lord God called her a heroine of the faith.
And a man named Salmon gladly called her his wife.
Meet our amazing sister Rahab, a former prostitute who was decidedly Bad for a Season, but Not Forever.
Rahab the Harlot
Chapter 7: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Joshua 2:1-24, 6:1-25
Her dramatic story began like a James Bond movie, with Joshua sending “two men to spy secretly” (Joshua 2:1) on an exotic foreign location 825 feet below sea level—Jericho, the lowest city in the world.
Where did the men lodge once they arrived? “The house of a prostitute named Rahab” (Joshua 2:1). Make no mistake. She was “a woman who sold the use of her body” (NLV). We can’t clean this up, we can’t wish this away, we can’t pretend she was really just an innkeeper.
She was “a woman whore, Rahab by name” (WYC). And she was chosen by God to be rescued from certain death and included in his Son’s family tree.
No wonder we’ve loved her story for more than three thousand years.
The Walls of Jericho
News traveled quickly in Jericho. That very night the king sent his own men to Rahab’s house, built into the walls of the city near its gate. The king’s men demanded she bring out the spies. But she was too clever for them, having hidden Joshua’s secret agents beneath the stalks of flax drying on her roof.
“Yes, the men came to me” (Joshua 2:4), she admitted, then spun a tale about not knowing where they’d come from or where they’d gone at dusk, when it was time to close the city gate.
So, Rahab fibbed? Yes, she did. But not like Sapphira, who lied to God. Instead, Rahab lied to the bad guys to protect the good men God sent her way.
Once the king’s men took off, Rahab joined her guests on the roof, where they were hiding beneath long, wet stalks of flax, a plant used to make linen.
Flax Plants
To break down and separate the fibers, the flax was soaked in stagnant water, then laid out to dry. Imagine the smell, the sogginess, the muck. Ewww. No one would go looking for those spies under such a nasty wet blanket.
Rahab rescued them in more ways than one, then confessed, “I know that the Lord has given this land to you” (Joshua 2:9).
Stop right there. How could a Canaanite prostitute know about the one true God? The only explanation is revelation. As Jesus would later say to Peter, “This was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). God had shown Rahab who he was, and she had embraced that truth.
After summarizing what Jericho had heard about God’s people, Rahab made the most shocking statement of all.
Night Sky over Jericho
“For the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below” (Joshua 2:11). There it is: “Your God is God.” Unmistakably a statement of fact and a confession of faith. Rahab told these spies what they already knew: “your God is the supreme God” (NLT). Not just an earthly God, but the One who “rules the heavens above and the earth below!” (ERV).
Her faith and her confession led to her salvation. So it is with us: “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved” (Romans 10:10).
Saying it once is sufficient, yet I joyfully repeat my confession of faith whenever I’m with others who are speaking that truth for the first time. Yes, Lord Jesus. Again, Lord Jesus. Always, Lord Jesus. Yours, and yours alone.
Not only was Rahab a hero to God; she was also a hero to her family. She told the men, “Spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them” (Joshua 2:13). This is faith lived out: thinking of others, putting their needs ahead of our own.
The two spies were impressed. She’d already risked everything to protect them, so they rightly said, “Our lives for your lives!” (Joshua 2:14), “provided you don’t betray our mission” (CJB). Rahab sent them on their way, then at their request, tied a scarlet cord in her window.
Ancient Windows
Why scarlet, we wonder? Does it represent the blood of the Passover lamb? the sacrifice of Christ? Some commentators go there, others not. From a practical standpoint, scarlet was a common dye, and the bright color would be visible against the clay outer walls of her house.
Rahab didn’t know precisely what sort of destruction would befall her city, nor had the spies yet been told. But God knew. That night in Jericho, her salvation was assured.
This is how God works, beloved—revealing his truth to those whose hearts are open, doing his mighty deeds through his people, showing his hand when necessary. If we have ears to hear, his voice is easily heard. If we have eyes to see, we see him everywhere.
You know what comes next. Seven priests, seven trumpets, seven days, seven times around the city, marching without speaking. A silent army, waiting on the Lord, the number seven a reminder that their victory was already a completed work, from God’s viewpoint.
At last Joshua commanded, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city!” (Joshua 6:16). Even in the heat of that moment, Joshua made certain God’s will was accomplished and our Bad Girl was saved: “Only Rahab the prostituteand all who are with her in her house shall be spared” (Joshua 6:17).
When the trumpets sounded and the walls came tumbling down, Rahab was still standing, and all her family with her. What a woman!
Let’s linger on the last verse, which gives us all hope. Like this beautiful spring oasis in the Judean Desert at Wadi Qelt near Jericho, it’s never too late to be made new.
Oasis near Jericho
“But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day.” Joshua 6:25
Putting it bluntly, “Joshua made Rahab the whore to live” (WYC). Yet he did so by God’s design. It wasn’t coincidence that the two spies ended up at Rahab’s house of ill repute. God had plans for Rahab from before the beginning of time.
Because of his generous mercy and boundless grace, the Lord also spared “her father’s household” (ASV) and “all who belonged to her” (NRSV). The people that she loved, God loved.
This truth gives me pause: would I beg God to save my whole family, and risk my own life doing so? Yes, I pray for my loved ones, and gently (I hope) speak truth into their lives. But would I risk everything to save them, as she did? The spies might have said, “No way are we rescuing your whole family, Rahab. Just you.”
Because of her courage and strength, “her descendants have lived in Israel to this day” (GNT). Think of it! Thousands upon thousands of people, tracing their lineage back three millennia to this brave woman, who was “faithful to the spies [Joshua] had sent” (VOICE).
There is One Name above all the others in her bloodline which is most dear to our hearts. When Matthew rolls out the lineage of Jesus in the first chapter of his gospel, we come to “Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab” (Matthew 1:5). Only five women are named among a long list of men.
First came Tamar, who dressed as a prostitute to seduce her father-in-law Judah, and proved “more righteous” than he (Genesis 38:26). Now, here’s Rahab, next in line among the women named in the Christ’s family tree. Her faith is celebrated in Hebrews 11:31, and her righteousness in James 2:25.
Take this and run with it, beloved: It isn’t who you were that matters God. It is who you are in him. And who you are becoming by the power of his Spirit.
Like Rahab, toss out that scarlet thread and say with conviction, “Here I am, Lord. Save me!”
Here’s Our Discussion Question
Transformed by God from harlot to brave heroine, Rahab is an inspiration for us all, demonstrating how we can leave behind our shameful pasts and walk forward in grace. Are there any Rahabs in your life—that is, women with a past who need to know they are loved by God no matter what their history? If you believe they’re forgiven completely, how might you communicate that truth to them with your words? And with your actions?
I’ll offer my answer first, for what it’s worth, then it’s your turn.
As it happens, I meet Rahabs on a weekly basis. Women who find me at a conference, or reach out to me via email, or message me on Facebook. With tears in their eyes and pain in their words, they tell me their stories of promiscuity and infidelity, of dancing in strip clubs and selling their bodies, of performing in X-rated movies and posing for pornography.
With tears in my own eyes and as much love as I can possibly pour into my words, I assure them of God’s abundant love, mercy, and grace. “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us” (John 1:4:15-16).
God loves the Rahabs of our world. So must we. With our eyes, our smiles, our hands, our hugs, our hearts, our homes, our lives.
Might you have a story to share, or encouragement to offer? Add your response under Post a Comment at the bottom. You can be sure I read and appreciate each one.
And do take a peek at Rahab’s vibrantly red Pinterest board. http://www.pinterest.com/lizcurtishiggs/rahab/. Definitely delicious.
Next week we’ll take on the baddest of the Bad Girls, Jezebel. Evil as she was, she still offers us lessons worth learning. Until then, BLESS YOU for making time for God’s Word in your busy life!
Your sister, Liz
P.S. If you and your small group are interested, here’s a helpful PDF:
How to Use the Women of Christmas as a Bible Study
The Women of Christmas | Liz Curtis Higgs
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38 Responses to Bad Girls of the Bible: Rahab
Christina Anderson October 16, 2013 at 2:06 pm #
Thanks Liz! I was that Rahab. Though raised in a Christian home, I went my own way. Married and divorced three times, numerous affairs. I used men. They used me. And God convicted me of my shameful behavior and I confessed to Him in tears and asked Him to forgive me. He has. I am single and alone now, (except for my beloved cats). I tell the men who hit on me that it is wrong to have sex with someone outside of marriage and I give them the old “heave-ho”. I didn’t want to grow old alone, but I have God for my father and my husband. He has sustained me and looked after me all these years and I believe he will continue to do so. I will be sixty-six this month and I only want to live my life for God. I’m done poking around in all the wrong places on my bull-headed own!
Angela Marks October 18, 2013 at 9:24 am #
God Bless you Christina! Oh, How He love us! His love is so amazing that it covers us while he waits on his girls to come home! 🙂
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:06 pm #
Your name may be Christina, beloved, but you are like Anna in the New Testament, living only for God. It is GLORIOUS to behold what your Heavenly Father has done in your life. Rejoicing with you!
Kathy T. October 16, 2013 at 2:30 pm #
Oh how I love this Bible story. It speaks to me because it shows us that God truly is forgiving. Years ago when my children were young, we invited a young girl (14) into our home. She lived with us for a season and how we tried to help her. She had so many hurts, she had no clue how to be good. My oldest son would claim we wouldn’t even allow him to have a friend like her and she was living with us. Now we smile about that statement. This young woman grew and developed and the day came when we had to let go. She moved back home with her mom and for about 5 years we never heard from her. Time passed and one day she came back into our lives. She wanted us to meet her fiancé , she wanted our approval. She was going to church. It’s 30 years later, she has three daughters now, she is secure in God’s love and we all lived happily ever after. God redeems anyone who will ask him into their hearts.
Angela Marks October 18, 2013 at 9:27 am #
Amazing Story!
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:07 pm #
Oh, how we love a happy ending! Thanks for sharing her story…and yours, Kathy.
Angel @ Finding The Inspiring October 16, 2013 at 2:48 pm #
This is a beautiful story from the Bible because it reminds us that we are all like Rahab, sinners saved by grace. And when we really understand that and take it to heart, we can offer that same grace to others. We can talk not of their past but of their future. We can put our arms around them and call them our sisters in Christ. Thank you for this great series Liz. Blessings!
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:08 pm #
Amen, amen, Angel!
Susan Ireland October 16, 2013 at 6:13 pm #
Rahab; a woman of many colors. To her family she is kind, good, possibly has children she sings to sleep. To the world after the sun goes down, she is every fallen man’s fantasy, a woman who makes him feel like a King. And he talks to her like a Queen until he walks away when the sun comes up. Rahab is like millions of women down through history. Some by choice and some by necessity. She was brave and she trusted in their God. God knew her heart!!! I love this story, Cinderella of the Bible. I love you God!!
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:08 pm #
A good reminder. to look at her through different sets of eyes. Thanks, Susan.
Courtney October 16, 2013 at 8:34 pm #
I was Rahab. The man that I was suppose to trust and show his little girl how her future husband should treat her betrayed and abused me, my father. I spent the next decade using men and being used to feel I had some sort of control and power over the acts that had been taken my childhood. I did realize in trying to hurt the one who hurt me I was only hurting myself. I am no longer using multiple men but am living with someone out of wedlock and still trapped in the sin of putting a man above God. My father in heaven however is gently and lovingly convicting me and I am beginning to make decisions to get my life back into His service and trust Him to be the only man I need. Liz you are such a gift fromthe Lord with your testimony and loving encouragement. I enjoyed you at WOF this weekend in Charlotte. Please pray for me that God will give me the strength to walk away from a situation I have so desperately clung to instead of Him!
Tina W. October 17, 2013 at 8:56 am #
“Dear Lord- We lift up our sister, Courtney! Jesus give her your supernatural power and strength. Help her to walk away from this situation she is in and learn to rely more and more on You! I pray that she finds help, fellowship and accountability with a strong group of believers! Help her to continually be seeking Your will and Your plan for her life.” In Your Precious Name, Amen!” Blessings to you Courtney and to you too Liz!!
Kathy T. October 17, 2013 at 1:53 pm #
Dear Jesus, where two or more are gathered and believe , we stand together for Courtney. Guide and direct her path, show her the way. Give her strength and boldness to do what is right. Thank you Jesus . Tina and i pray and believe this in your precious name. Amen and amen
Sarah October 17, 2013 at 9:06 pm #
I’ll be praying for you Courtney.
Angela Marks October 18, 2013 at 9:31 am #
Father, I stand with Courtney and the rest of my sisters who have agreed in prayer! You are the same God that delivered me and set my heart free. I pray that you will do the same for Courtney. Give her courage and strength through your son Jesus to walk away feeling complete and whole in you! Restore her heart and make it new again. Her old life has passed away and behold you have a new life waiting for her to walk into. We agree and we praise you for what you have already done for her. In Jesus Name! Amen!
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:13 pm #
Dear Courtney, the prayers of your sisters here are beautiful and real. We care about you and praise God for what he is already doing in your life. I loved our time together in Charlotte, and add my prayers to all those who kindly posted here and the many others who paused to pray for you. You are loved, and you are on the path to wholeness in Christ. Keep walking forward and (as we learned from Lot’s Wife) don’t look back.
cathy gross October 16, 2013 at 10:45 pm #
In this day and age I think most women are Rahab to some extent. I sure was when I looked for love and had no idea what I was looking for. I was so mixed up and settled for less. Now it is different…my name is Daughter now. I still carried the stigma of my past for along time and heard the enemy whisper…”who do you think you are”. Then I learned to ask God to cut the cord that held me to that memory. I believed He would and He did. I know in my head what my past is. My heart and soul don’t care though. I no longer wear scarlet. Covered by the blood of Jesus, I am the woman in white.
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:15 pm #
You look good in white, Cathy! Washed clean by his blood, by his Word, by his Spirit. May we all see ourselves so beautifully dressed like a bride for our Bridegroom.
cathy gross October 21, 2013 at 1:03 pm #
Amen, sister, amen!
Crista Simmmons October 17, 2013 at 8:09 am #
I have made some really bad choices in my life; both as a non-Christian and as a Christian. What I know to be true, in one of my darkest hours, is: “My grace is sufficient for you….”
I also know that those of us who’ve been forgiven much, love much. The Lord has healed me so much over the course of these past 20 yrs. from the emotional and sexual abuse in my past. I am now 60 yrs. old and remarried. It’s been a very long haul, but I can say with confidence that nothing, absolutely nothing is impossible with God, for what is not possible with man IS possible with God. In 1990 during my first psych. hospitalization, the results of my psychological MMPI read: “Crista’s self-esteem is so non-existant that she will probably be successful in terminating her own life within ten years.” And Liz, that was 23 years ago!!!! Praise God!!!! So, I will shout it from the rooftops that there IS victory in Jesus! Hallelujah!!! And I will reach out to any woman who needs an encourager along her way to healing in Christ! May God bless you greatly in your own spirit for all you have done for so many of us who were once Rahab. Ever yours in Christ, Crista
Angela Marks October 18, 2013 at 9:33 am #
Crista, I’m in tears! God bless you! Your testimony is amazing! I praise God for you!!! God your are good and your mercy reigns forever!!!
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:16 pm #
Shouting from the rooftops with you, dear Crista! HE IS FAITHFUL.
Linda H October 17, 2013 at 8:57 am #
Rahab’s story hits hard for me as I know a Rahab who needs to truly be made clean and to be forgiven. The pain this person is inflicting on her kids and those who loved her makes it a difficult journey. She has no shame and no remorse. The wounds are deep, but there is nothing impossible with God. He can do what I can’t. He will help me on this road of forgiveness when so much destruction continues. In this woman’s case the walls of Jericho need to be torn down. Who knows who God will use to bring that message to her…? God’s word and His love is amazing! So thankful Liz for you and your witness and insight.
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:17 pm #
Praying for those walls to come tumbling down. God alone can accomplish that, just as he did in Jericho. Thanks for your honesty, Linda.
Julie Sunne October 17, 2013 at 2:47 pm #
The faith of Rahab is astounding! To have no one to be an encourager, yet cling to the truth of who God is and to risk everything in obedience to Him–that is difficult enough for those of us raised to know His love and faithfulness! Oh to claim a faith so strong! Your posts continue to be inspiring, Liz. Blessings!
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:20 pm #
That’s so true, Julie. We have nothing in the biblical record to suggest that Rahab had anyone encouraging her to embrace the one true God. Clearly he reached out to her, revealed himself to her, then brought the two spies to her door to rescue her. HOW GOOD IS OUR GOD!
Susan Gruener October 18, 2013 at 2:59 am #
This is a great story of the bible to understand God’s redeeming love for each of us. I think we may come across ‘Rahab’s’ in our lives and not even know it…but God does. That’s why we must always be ready to share the Gospel…and it may be as simply telling ‘our story’…what Jesus has done for us!
Thanks once again Liz, for making the stories of the women of the bible so real for us living today. You tugged at my heart with your words.
Blessings to you,
Susan
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:22 pm #
Rahab’s story touches all our hearts at some level. We either were a Rahab, are a Rahab, know a Rahab, or long to see a Rahab set free. Timeless, powerful truths in those verses from Joshua 2 and 6!
Angela Marks October 18, 2013 at 9:41 am #
This has truly blessed me today!
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:23 pm #
Thanks for encouraging our sisters this week, Angela. I was on the road and offline, so trusted my blog followers to stand in the gap. And you did!
Donna Hughes October 19, 2013 at 10:09 am #
I can’t see for tears. Thank you for sharing your stories, cos each of us has a story to tell.I was a Rahab and now I am a princess through his grace and mercy. Blessings and prayers to all of you.
Liz Curtis Higgs October 19, 2013 at 3:24 pm #
Rejoicing in the crown he has prepared for you, Donna.
Eleanor October 20, 2013 at 12:11 pm #
Crista hit the nail on the head, Luke 7:47, “Because of this, I tell you that her sins — which are many! — have been forgiven, because she loved much. But someone who has been forgiven only a little loves only a little.” Makes me want to sing this, so I share this with you… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhUE4q7BH1Y
Angela October 20, 2013 at 5:32 pm #
I don’t have too much to say, other than… I love your blog! It’s such an encouragement… Lots of love, a transitioning Rahab 🙂
Brenna Camp October 20, 2013 at 9:43 pm #
Thank you, Liz. I was thinking about why God might choose a prostitute. She probably did not have much to “lose” when she lied on God’s behalf. Her reputation was already shot and her acts were known and not secret. The only difference with me is that I can “cover” my sin because I know how to look good on the outside. God has used His refining fire to help me let go of things that I hold onto in order to keep my reputation! I have fibromyalgia and can’t be the “do-gooder” I once was! This has forced me to choose God, especially in the things that nobody else can see or in things where others may even judge me, like choosing to homeschool my kids. These choices were because I no longer could keep up with the fast-paced schedule and live each day for God, and be loving (vs. snappy and always in a hurry and not having time to truly live for what matters!)
Becca October 21, 2013 at 11:23 am #
Wow! I stand in awe at the stories that have been posted here. God brings us out of these places to share with others who are still in these places. Ashamed of my own past, I have tried helping young women/girls in the same situation I had found myself in. I thought I had failed in so many ways but God has shown me that the relationship that I built with those women/girls is what He uses to return them to him. If you know a Rahab ladies, although prayer is major part, don’t just pray for her. Build a relationship with her the way Christ has built a relationship with you….. that’s what brings us all to His feet!
monica December 2, 2013 at 10:00 pm #
Awesome to read these, I am so glad I found ur blogs you are helping me so much and don’t even know it. I long for fellowship, with real women who have experience what I have and can be transparent enough to help others without judgment or looking down on them. I too have some ways of rahab, slowly but surely he is allowing me to finally and solely be set free from the things in my past that haunts me. I look forward to the days were im compel free and can look back at ur blogs, and be completely free. Keep blessing us women of god, hopefully one day you visit Chicago where I can speak with you or others that are apart of your ministry.
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Here you’ll find my favorite photos, snippets from my books, interesting bits of Scottish history, tips for travelers, recommended Scottish books and music, and my wee blog.
My Scottish Heart
Recent Podcast Episodes
Word by Word: Rachel
August 25, 2018
Word by Word: Leah
August 18, 2018
Word by Word: Rebekah
August 11, 2018
Word by Word: Hagar
August 4, 2018
Word by Word: Sarah
July 28, 2018
Chapter Form
Exposition
Conflict or Question
Climax
Resolution
Fucking, food, life, and death
fighting death heave religion
Killed rapist dude with sledge hammer or rock hammer
Hilda buried on April Fools Day. Died at dance, found wrapped in a circus canvas.
Penrod has a scar on his head from being dropped on his head by the delivering doctor.
Other songs.....Old Rugged Cross, Sweet By and By
Grandson is doing a project for school on the Pennrod family history.
Dave never married. No family.
Paradise Cemetery on Green River. The TVA and Peabody Coal Co.
Cyclonic Fired Broiler
If I had a Hammer, song.
McDougal Cementery
Paradise Fossil fuel plan
20, 000 tons of coal per day.
Now special databases for genelogical resreach
romantic date picking strawberries
smoking, drinking, carousin
Rose played the tambourine, played spoons, tub, bottle, and back up singing.
briefs or boxers
rattlesnakes and copper heads
Good Night Irene Lead belly
Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie
This Land
Blowin in the Wind
Altar Call
Arche Type
Existential
Rapist Cop
Rose killed by Ott
Mental or Not
Man vs man
Man vs self
Man vs nature
Man vs society
Man vs technology
Going out West.
Traveling the south
Looking for the next big thing
Civil Rights and personal rights
Mental Hospital
Rose joins the hippies
Searching for Rose
Rose fit her cause her pussy lips where a dark red when opened up in passion.
Going legit
Searching for the meaning of life
David's diary
Baby Beth
Book of David
The Girl Who Liked Sex
Gun, a deck of cards, and a knife
Walk of shame, preaching, and playing
sex in the long haul truckers.
There was a moment, went I was about 5 yo. I walked out the door shortly after sunrise. It was crisp and there was a dew. I looked over the garden in the valley. I knew this must be Heaven.
Ott reminds Rose of her stepdad.
Vertical to horizontal easily. She went easily.
A round healed women is easily knocked back down.
One last to sit down will lay down.
Staying at the YMCA, $5 hotels, and with church families.
Having sex on the bathroom floor, because the clerk didn't believe they were married and gave them two different rooms.
Adventures of hitchhikers and the ride wrecks the car.
Some songs you know so well you automatically hear the music when you read the words.
The only sex and loving I ever get is in my dreams.
I have been told that I will look great when I get older. Does this mean I am ugly as sin now?
Look at a woman for the ages. What is cute now, may grow into a woman hideous by middle age. Not so much that the looks are predestined, but it is the lady's lifestyle, vocation, personality, and breeding. And luck can make a hellua difference. But for some, given all the benefit of variable free will, you know it is going to be an up hill battle.
Love at the Paradise Hotel.
The girl who couldn't say no.
Miscarriage on the road.
Pregnant, she left him.
Raped my the attendant in the mental hospital.
She was like the village idiot. she was the village whore of the town.
Trusted for anything except sex.
He was like a Christ clone.
Strange events on the road is a given. Moans, things burst, odd people, ghosts, legends, life on a nickel. Arrested for vagrancy, trying to get arrested, rain, Salvation Army, psychics, nude modeling, photo booth, look for painting.
Some more songs for the vbook:
Turn, Turn, Turn,
Song of Science
I Want to Hold Your Hand
The Thrill is Gone
Homeward Bound
Love Me Tender
Jail House Rock
For What It's Worth
Religious and blues and gospel
Azusa
Mystery partner erotica
honky tonks
River ferry
mud like quick sand
Green lakes by the coal mine
Moonshine
How they got a long.
Get flags fro veterans and sell them
Get pamphlets from churches.
Steal and sell graveyard flowers.
Rochester Dam
Some character ideas
Uza ---faith healer, exovert, loud, braggart
David--Holiness and Perfectionism Penn based on Penrod
Lilith/Rose based on Hilda, Rosalina, Lilith.
Drunks Moonshine
con men
Street Preachers
Temptress
Truck farmer
Hippies
Love Fest
Themes
Light v Dark
Quiet v Loud
Popular v Lone
Adventures
Search and yearning
Love triangel
Paradise, Ky
Temptress
Sheriff
Hypocrites
True Believers
Love Triangles
Redemption
Yearning and Longing.
Scams
TV Evangelist
true Believers
Perfectionism
Second Blessing
Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost
Bed Burnings
Loss
Chaos
Transcendentalism
Friends of the Truth
Unitarian
The Holy Club
Brother, Mother, Father, Teacher, Elder, and Deacon
Sine qua non means the essential ingredient.
Primitive Baptist
Missionary Baptist
Hard Shell
Jails emptied after revival.
Mules going crazy in the mines from lack of cursing and sinning.
That old time religion
Holiness Church
Jesus Only/Oneness/Unitarian
Arminianism v Calvinism Freewill v Determinism
Stagnation and Fatalism
Living on road
Hitch hiking
Abandon Log Cabins
Key Terms per stations of the cross
Use stations of the cross as plot line and for chapters the way Joyce did Ulysses .
Settings
Appalachia
Morgantown
Nashville
Green River
W. Virginia
Tenn
North Carolina
Hidden mind shifts
Jeanie and I once crossed the Green River in my small pick up truck in 1998.
My Uncle Archie once told me about build brush arbors for church. He live from the early 1933's to 2011.
Many of the Cardwell family are from an area off of Green River in Kentucky called Leonard Oak.
When I was a child many poor people still lived in tar paper shacks.
I remember my grandpa talking about working in the mine shafts.
I remember poor people getting commodities in Morgantown, KY, It was in plain gray boxes. I remember liking the taste of cooked chunkie beef and the powered eggs.
I remember gypsies coming to town and staying at the old fair grounds down by the river.
I remember the Travelers going through selling outdoor furniture made out of rough hewn logs.
I remember one day that a group of road workers started running down the hill by my house in Kentucky, They were whooping and hollering. They were yelling that they were running from the copper heads.
Goldie, my mom's cousin died on July 8, 2012. I remember her from my earliest memories. She was always old. She was always getting married.
People were always talking about the Rochester Dam. When I finally got around to seeing it as an adult, it was nothing more than a bunch of rocks thrown in the river to slow it down and make it easier for the boats.
There are two little churches near my home in Ky. One was a Holiness Church found by my great-grandparents. I remember the graveyard there and the outdoor home coming dinners. I have never attended a service there, but I hope to someday. In the other direction is a log cabin church. I remember going in there as a child and being fascinated by the organ. When I went back as an adult, it was still being used, but someone had made a vinyl siding addition to the log church.
Not too long ago, Mom told me about the rats and lizard near out house in KY. I just barely remember them. It is a wonder I am not traumatized.
I remember seeing Oral Roberts on our BW TV preaching from giant tents and "healing" people.
Hilda played an accordion. I looked at pictures and I believe it was the I930's and was a Hohner.
The music was always special. It was country gospel. I still remember listening to If I had a Hammer. And another young man playing the harmonica while holding an old chrome microphone to it.
John Prine and the Everly Brothers came from an area not far from my hometown.
There was once a war on poverty. My county was one of the poorest so we were on the battleground.
I remember traveling preachers, revivals, and tent meetings as a child.
I remember that the log cabin church was a Pilgrim Baptist ? and there was a small house in Morgantown with a sign saying Pilgrim Holiness.
I remember fishing in Green River many times with my Dad and brother.
I learned as an adult that most of my people were probably of the Scott Irish heritage. My family came to Virginia in about 1647. I also learned that the most common religious iconic artifact is a print of Davinci's Last Supper.
I learned of the famous camp meetings at Camp Creek and the Church of God in Cleveland, TN.
I recently read about and was reminded of the following from my childhood: The Holy Kiss, The Holy Ghost, and foot washing.
There are two types of ecstatic worship: internal and external.
The way of the cross is the way of sorrows and is called the Via Dolorosa.
David Bowie's song Station to Station is about the stations of the cross.
The Society of Friends has many appealing qualities to me. It is better known as the religions of the Quakers. It is similar to Holiness. It is similar to Pentecostal. It is quiet contemplation in listening to the Holy Spirit.
There are four elements to Quaker worship: silence, communion, ministry, and worship.
The Quakers are also know as the Friends of Truth and Children of the Light.
Add a Ouija board line
There is a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with a roll of pennies.
[[Gypsy Wagons|http://www.enslin.com/rae/gypsy/camps.htm]]
[[Gypsy]] in rural areas.
[[Farming through the years|http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/index.html]]
[[Studies on the Great Depression|http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/lrRead03.html]]
[img[http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/media/water0701.jpg]]
[[The Dust Bowl|http://www.ccccok.org/museum/dustbowl.html]]
Chapter Digest
The following digest of chapters is not sequential.
1. The following chapters needs to be zigzag or seesawed in with the other chapters. The first chapter of the book introduces Hilda. She was born in the hills of West Virginia in 1946. Even now she would still be younger than Mick Jagger. Her father was a immigrant from Italy who worked in the coal mines. He came to the mountains for work. He meets Francis, a local girl, and they married. Hilda had two younger siblings. Her brother was almost two years younger and he died of the flu before he started school. Dixie was four years younger and both she and Hilda had the looks of her father. This gave them a smoldering exotic beauty with their green eyes and coal black hair. This chapter will discuss the life of a coal mining family. They went to a country and mountain Holiness church. This chapter will cover Hilda's life until she was about 12 years of age and the death of her father in a coal mine.
2. This chapter will explore how Hilda and the family survived the crisis. The future step-father will be introduced. He is on a pension for being injured in a mine accident. The pension is not enough so he makes money by making moonshine and selling it. He sells much of it from his shabby storefront where he sells popcorn on weekends dressed as a clown. This is a front for him selling moonshine in little sacks with popcorn on top. He had never married and had no prospects because he was a gimp and a little strange, and he was the town drunk. He hooks up with Hilda's mother. They marry and he moves the family from the mine's housing to his country cabin on Lone Mountain. He needs a maid and cook and a little company. He also wanted sex. But not necessarily from his wife, but from Hilda. He was a pedophile and had used his clown get up before to cop a feel, a smell, or a squeeze. Mostly this just fueled his fantasies for masturbation, but he occasioned got the full boat of a young filly for extended please. And he liked being the little man in the boat and he took pride in the fact that his girl enjoyed him being there. He seduced shortly after they all moved to the mountain. She was thirteen.
3. The stepfather taught Hilda all about sex. She enjoyed it. She felt no guilt. She enjoyed their secret and the power her sex had over him. She was sure this was a part of growing up and they many girls learned this way. Hilda started high school. She learned of many of the girl's secret experiences. In fact she even learned that a few of the girls had been taught by their fathers and older brothers. But then she heard about some of the boys and men going to the pen. She continued to keep the secret, but suspected that she might be wrong about her relationship with the stepfather. Hilda falls for a boy at school and one evening after they have had sex, Hilda shares her story with him and he ridicules her and says she is engaged in evilness and sodomy. He runs away and tells her he doesn't want to every see her again. Shortly thereafter, the stepfather tries to hookup and have a sexual liaison. Hilda explodes on him that she has been defiled and no decent man will ever want her. Stepfather backhands her and tells her to be quiet or she may just disappear. Yes he would leave her alone, but he she better not tell of her sexual training. A few days later Hilda goes out to feed the pigs and she walks up on the stepdad having sexual intercourse with her 13 yo sister, Dixie. Hilda yells at them. Yes a the sin and all. Stepfather withdraws and stands up. And starts to fight back. He knocks Hilda down next to the pot belly stove. She picks up a chunk of coals as she rises and she hits him in the head and he falls over dead. She tells sis to be quiet about the sex and she just found him dead. He must have fallen while he was dead drunk. She covered up and stayed a short time and helped settle things with the family. They got the still going for a little money from the family business and they got the pension. Later, she started worrying about others' knowing about her molestation and that someone would tell and cast suspicion on her. She ran away and hit the road. She hitch-hiked and learned the rules of the road and how to survive.
4. This chapter will be about Hilda adventures on the road. How she hooked up with a carnival and stayed with a traveling hooker in a trailer. This segment will describe her using her sexy wiles to seduced men and sometime just sell sex outright as a whore. This segment will described their adventures in small towns and in Nashville, the Athens and whore capital of the south. They have some run ins with racist and bigots. The religious wackos marched on their camp at one town. They where driven out as gypsies in another town. They cross paths with Ott and he tries rapes Hilda and when Louise finds out she nearly beats Ott to death with a tent stake. He is ran out of the carnival. Shortly thereafter they camp near Bowling Green, KY and go out clubbing. They meet Kenny and Dave at road club shanty performing. They perform together and hook up.
5. This chapter will describe Dave's background. His Dad, Joe, started out being a coal miner. The father just barely survived an explosion and cave in at a mine he was working. Dave was a small boy. Joe has a "come to Jesus" moment after many days and promises to be a soul warrior if God will only save him and allow him to live and return to his family. He is rescued and he is born again. He starts attending church every service with his wife, Anne. The father began with giving fervent testimonies at meetings. He met with the preacher and eventually got his training as a soldier for the Lord. He started out preaching at their church and then started visiting other local churches. Word spread that he was a chosen man and preacher and the crowd grew and grew. Eventually he grew too popular for the small local churches and had to buy a tent. And eventually he started on the saw dust trail, a journey he would be on the rest of his life. The mother Anne died a few years later and Bro. Joe thank the Lord for letting his wife live long enough to raise the kids. He would finish it up. He chose for Dave to go to a Southern Bible College. He wanted better than his eight grade education.
6. This chapter will describe Dave's experiences at college.His mistakes, his conflicts. His friendship with a beatnik hippie type searching for the meaning of life. He was gay. Both were eventually kicked out of school. The beatnik for being caught in a homosexual act with one of the Bible professors. Dave was kicked out because the administration said that he knew the beatnik was gay and an abomination and did not tell on him. This cast suspicion that he was a homosexual too. The rumor black listed him from ever attending a Bible College again. Dave returns to the saw dust trail despondent and depressed.
7. Dave returns to the tent revival with mixed feelings. He still sings and entertains. He still prays with the group. He still makes announcements. He does not give testimony and believes many in the church to be hypocrites. He starts just thinking of the ongoing revival as a business and comes to handle more and more of the business end. He also started drinking. At age 22, he was firmly on track to be a full blown alcoholic. He starts playing music in bars and honky tonks. He oddly retains an unquenched spiritual side and he travels his own path to enlightenment. His path crosses with Ott's at a club one night. Dave path crosses with Kenny's at a bar. They both meet Hilda and Louise later at a bar.
8.Kenny: from the hills via Detroit. A born salesman and entertainer. Becomes a preacher for the money. Kenny’s dad use to work in the coal fields of Kentucky. The family grew tired of the scrappy existence and joined the parade and migration to the north. They ended up in Detroit and settled in with the rest of the southern white trash. The Dad got a job at Chevy. It was a well paying job, but he drank, he smoked, he gambled, and he womanized. The family could never get a head. Kenny grew up tough as an immigrant hill billy. He learned to hustle young. He also had an ear for music. As a teacher he would work in a rock and roll band at night and doing his free days from school he would work as a salesman. He sold cars, carpet, shoes, on and on. He found that he was a born salesman and knew that he would never want for work. He grew into being a traveling salesman who made a pretty hefty commission. His district was south of the Ohio, east of the Mississippi, west of the Appalachians, and North of the Gulf. One night on the road, he went on a walk from his hotel. He walked upon a tent revival. He went in to be entertained. He immediately recognize many of the preacher’s techniques at manipulating the crowd. When he saw the piles of money filling up the five gallon offering buckets, Kenny realized that he had to get “saved” and learn this new profession of preaching.
9. Ott: from the hills. Former coal miner, truck driver, roustabout. Lived with his young wife many years ago. They never had children. Many years ago. She became ill with something like MS or MD. She was continually wasting away. He took her to a local Pilgrim Baptist Church. He asked that she be prayed for and Baptized. He wanted her healed and if that did not occur, he want her ready for Heaven. They refused and called her a sinner and she was in a wheel chair and could not speak. They said it was too late and they could not tell what was in her heart. Later there was a tent revival near his town. The wife was much worse and and appeared near death. She could not eat. She messed herself. She had not spoke in months. They had no family or support. Ott carried her to the tent revival and when they that the prayer call, he carried her up to the altar to be prayed for by the preacher. He was a faith healer. He touched her with a oiled cloth and spoke in tongues, shook, and stamped and demanded that the demon of sickness leave her body. He acted like he was drawing the demon spirit out of her mouth. She suddenly seemed more awake and started speaking grunts, moans, and slobbered. The preacher jumped up and down and claimed the Holy Spirit had entered her and that she was speaking in tongues. There were praises and amens. The speaker claimed she was saved and cured. He told the audience that she would be up and walking in a few days. The preacher used this event for the next three days to drum up more donations to the offering plates. Mary died three days after the revival tent had moved on to another town. Ott was heartbroken and enraged. He made a vow he would never forgive these slimy, money grubbing, preachers. He went down hill and even though he went back to driving a coal truck, he kept drinking the lightening. His job ended when he passed out while driving a coal truck down a mountain side. It smashed into a general store killing three boys buying penny candy and the old man and his wife who owned the store. The wreck woke him up and sobered him up enough to see what he had done. He knew his next stop would be in prison for many years. He walked down to the crossroads and walked to an angle that he could not see the wreck he hitched and immediately caught a ride with a curious driver who wanted to know what all the fuss was about, but could not stop.
10.All of the above come together on the sawdust trail in the Holy Circus. And thus begins Part Two of the novel. There conflict between Ott and the faith healers and preachers. There is conflict between Hilda and men in general. Louise is a closet lesbian. Dave may be homosexual and has many conflicts with his spiritual self. Kenny is a hustler. Kenny, Dave, and Hilda team up for a while and hustle at the tent revival together. A love triangle develops between the three. Kenny for Dave and Hilda. Kenny for Hilda. And Hilda for Dave and Kenny. Much conflict evolves from this. Kenny and Dave will each have the opportunity to rescue Hilda from a crisis. Ott and Louise will weave in and out of the plot at pivotal moments. Part Three of the book will concentrate on Hilda and being loss and found. All the plot lines will meet and resolve in Paradise, KY.
Red hair signifies sexuality, just as blonde hair has been known to represent. innocence and virginity. In Wendy Cooper's book, Hair, she states that fair hair. symbolizes purity, possibly because fair hair is the least associated to pubic hair, making. it the furthest from any sexual associations.
[img[https://usercontent2.hubstatic.com/517719.jpg]]
https://owlcation.com/humanities/Redheads-Myths--Legends--and-Famous-Red-Hair
https://aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1270&context=honors_theses
http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2013/06/whats_your_opinion_of_tent_rev.html
equal result of worthwhile
and crooked predator hustlers.
[img[http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/1369691130_2coestent.jpg]]
The Romani (also Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms; exonym: Gypsy; Romani: Romane or Rromane, depending on the dialect) are an ethnic group living mostly in Europe, who trace their origins to the Indian Subcontinent.
The Romani are widely dispersed, with their largest concentrated populations in Europe, especially the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe and Anatolia, followed by the Iberian Kale in Southwestern Europe and Southern France. Deported to Brazil by Portugal during the colonial era [16] and via more recent migrations, some people have gone to the Americas and, to a lesser extent, other parts of the world.
The Romani language is divided into several dialects, which add up to an estimated number of speakers larger than two million.[17] The total number of Romani people is at least twice as large (several times as large according to high estimates). Many Romani are native speakers of the language current in their country of residence, or of mixed languages combining the two.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Terminology
o 1.1 Rom, Romani
+ 1.1.1 Romani usage
+ 1.1.2 English usage
o 1.2 Gypsy
* 2 Population and subgroups
o 2.1 Other groups
* 3 History
o 3.1 Origins
+ 3.1.1 Possible connection with the Jat people
o 3.2 Arrival in Europe
o 3.3 World War II
o 3.4 Post-1945
* 4 Society and culture
o 4.1 Belonging and exclusion
+ 4.1.1 Romani leadership
o 4.2 Religion
o 4.3 Music
* 5 Language
* 6 Persecutions
o 6.1 Historical persecution
o 6.2 Holocaust
o 6.3 Forced assimilation
* 7 Contemporary issues
o 7.1 Forced repatriation
* 8 Fictional representations
o 8.1 In contemporary literature
* 9 See also
* 10 References
o 10.1 Notes
o 10.2 Bibliography
* 11 External links
o 11.1 Non-governmental organisations
o 11.2 Museums and libraries
Terminology
Main article: Names of the Romani people
Rom, Romani
Romani usage
In the Romani language, rom is a masculine noun, meaning "man, husband", with the plural roma. Romani is the feminine adjective, while romano is the masculine adjective. Some Romanies use Rom or Roma as an ethnic name, while others (such as the Sinti, or the Romanichal) do not use this term as a self-ascription for the entire ethnic group.[18]
Sometimes, rom and romani are spelled with a double r, i.e., rrom and rromani. In this case rr is used to represent the phoneme /ʀ/ (also written as ř and rh), which in some Romani dialects has remained different from the one written with a single r. The rr spelling is common particularly in Romania, in order to distinguish from the endonym for Romanians (sg. român, pl. români).[19]
English usage
In the English language (according to the Oxford English Dictionary), Rom is a noun (with the plural Roma or Roms) and an adjective, while Romani (Romany) is also a noun (with the plural Romanies or Romanis) and an adjective. Both Rom and Romani have been in use in English since the 19th century as an alternative for Gypsy. Romani was initially spelled Rommany, then Romany, while today the Romani spelling is the most popular spelling. Occasionally, the double r spelling (e.g., Rroma, Rromani) mentioned above is also encountered in English texts.
Distribution of the Romanies in Europe based on self-designation.
Although Roma is used as a designation for the branch of the Romani people with historic concentrations in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, it is increasingly encountered during recent decades[20][21] as a generic term for the Romani people as a whole.[22]
Because all Romanies use the word Romani as an adjective, the term began to be used as a noun for the entire ethnic group.[23]
Today, the term Romani is used by most organizations—including the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the US Library of Congress.[19]
The standard assumption is that the demonyms of the Romani people, Lom and Dom share the same origin.[24][25]
Gypsy
Further information: Gypsy
The English term Gypsy (or Gipsy) originates from the Greek word for "Egyptian", Αιγύπτιοι (Aigyptioi, whence modern Greek γύφτοι gifti), in the belief that the Romanies, or some other Gypsy groups (such as the Balkan Egyptians), originated in Egypt, and in one narrative were exiled as punishment for allegedly harbouring the infant Jesus.[26] This exonym is sometimes written with capital letter, to show that it designates an ethnic group.[27] The term 'gypsy' appears when international research programmes, documents and policies on the community are referred to. However, as a term 'gypsy' is considered derogatory by many members of the Roma community because of negative and stereotypical associations with the term.[28]
As described in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the mediaeval French referred to the Romanies as egyptiens. The term has come to bear pejorative connotations. The word Gypsy in English has become so pervasive that many Romani organizations use it in their own organizational names.
In North America, the word gypsy is commonly used as a reference to lifestyle[29] or fashion, and not to the Romani ethnicity. The Spanish term gitano and the French term gitan may have the same origin.[clarification needed][30]
Population and subgroups
Main article: Romani populations
Distribution of the Romani people in Europe (2007 Council of Europe "average estimates", totalling 9.8 million)[31]
* The size of the wheel symbols reflects absolute population size
* The gradient reflects the percent in the country's population: 0% 10%.
Many Romanies for a variety of reasons choose not to register their ethnic identity in official censuses. There are an estimated four million Romani people in Europe (as of 2002),[32] although some high estimates by Romani organizations give numbers as high as 14 million.[33] Significant Romani populations are found in the Balkan peninsula, in some Central European states, in Spain, France, Russia, and Ukraine. Several more million Romanies may live out of Europe, in particular in the Middle East and in the Americas.
The Romani people recognize divisions among themselves based in part on territorial, cultural and dialectal differences and self-designation. The main branches are:[34][35][36][37]
1. Roma, concentrated in central and eastern Europe and central Italy, emigrated also (mostly from the 19th century onwards) to the rest of Europe, but also on the other continents;
2. Iberian Kale, mostly in Spain (see Romani people in Spain), but also in Portugal (see Romani people in Portugal), Southern France and Latin America;
3. Finnish Kale, in Finland, emigrated also to Sweden;
4. Welsh Kale, in Wales;
5. Romanichal, in the United Kingdom, emigrated also to the United States and Australia;
6. Sinti, in German-speaking areas of Europe and some neighboring countries;
7. Manush, in French-speaking areas of Western Europe;
8. Romanisæl, in Sweden and Norway.
Among Romanies there are further internal differentiations, like Bashaldé; Churari; Luri; Ungaritza; Lovari (Lovara) from Hungary; Machvaya (Machavaya, Machwaya, or Macwaia) from Serbia; Romungro (Modyar or Modgar) from Hungary and neighbouring carpathian countries; Erlides (also Yerlii or Arli); Xoraxai (Horahane) from Greece/Turkey; Boyash (Lingurari, Ludar, Ludari, Rudari, or Zlătari) from Romanian words for various crafts: (Lingurari - spoon makers, Rudari - wood crafters; Zlătari - goldsmiths); Ursari from Romanian/Moldovan bear-trainers; Argintari from silversmiths; Aurari from goldsmiths; Florari from florists; and Lăutari from musicians.
Other groups
Some groups which are commonly thought of as Romani, either by surrounding populations or by Romani groups, do not consider themselves to be Romani. This applies to the Balkan Egyptians and the Ashkali.[38]
History
Main article: History of the Romani people
Origins
Main article: Origin of the Romani people
Linguistic and genetic evidence indicates the Romanies originated from the Indian subcontinent, emigrating from India towards the northwest no earlier than the 11th century. The Romani are generally believed to have originated in central India, possibly in the modern Indian state of Rajasthan, migrating to northwest India (the Punjab region) around 250 BC. In the centuries spent here, there may have been close interaction with such established groups as the Rajputs and the Jats. Their subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is believed to have occurred between AD 500 and AD 1000. Contemporary populations sometimes suggested as sharing a close relationship to the Romani are the Dom people of Central Asia and the Banjara of India.[39]
The emigration from India likely took place in the context of the raids by Mahmud of Ghazni[40] As these soldiers were defeated, they were moved west with their families into the Byzantine Empire. The 11th century terminus post quem is due to the Romani language showing unambiguous features of the Modern Indo-Aryan languages,[41] precluding an emigration during the Middle Indic period.
Genetic evidence supports the mediaeval migration from India. The Romanies have been described as "a conglomerate of genetically isolated founder populations",[42] while a number of common Mendelian disorders among Romanies from all over Europe indicates "a common origin and founder effect".[42][43] A study from 2001 by Gresham et al. suggests "a limited number of related founders, compatible with a small group of migrants splitting from a distinct caste or tribal group".[44] The same study found that "a single lineage ... found across Romani populations, accounts for almost one-third of Romani males."[44] A 2004 study by Morar et al. concluded that the Romani population "was founded approximately 32–40 generations ago, with secondary and tertiary founder events occurring approximately 16–25 generations ago".[45]
Possible connection with the Jat people
While the South Asian origin of the Romani people has been long considered a certitude, the exact South Asian group from whom the Romanies have descended has been a matter of debate. The recent discovery of the "Jat mutation" that causes a type of glaucoma in Romani populations suggests that the Romani people are the descendants of the Jat people found in Northern India and Pakistan.[46] This connection was upheld by Michael Jan de Goeje in 1883.[47]
This contradicted an earlier study that compared the most common haplotypes found in Romani groups with those found in Jatt Sikhs and Jats from Haryana and found no matches.[48] The haplogroup H, which is the most common haplogroup in Romanis is far more prevalent in central India and south India than it is in northern India, where haplogroup R1a lineages make up at least half of male ancestries, and haplogroup H is rare.
Arrival in Europe
The migration of the Romanies through the Middle East and Northern Africa to Europe.
First arrival of the Romanies outside Bern in the 15th century, described by the chronicler as getoufte heiden ("baptized heathens") and drawn with dark skin and wearing Saracen-style clothing and weapons (Spiezer Schilling, p. 749).
In 1322, a Franciscan monk named Symon Semeonis described people resembling these atsinganoi (meaning "untouchable" in Koine Greek: α+θιγγάνω) living in Crete and, in 1350, Ludolphus of Sudheim mentioned a similar people with a unique language whom he called Mandapolos, a word which some theorize was possibly derived from the Greek word mantes (meaning prophet or fortune teller).[49]
Around 1360, the Romani established an independent fiefdom (called the Feudum Acinganorum) in Corfu; it became "a settled community and an important and established part of the economy."[50]
By the 14th century, the Romanies had reached the Balkans; by 1424, Germany; and by the 16th century, Scotland and Sweden. Some Romanies migrated from Persia through North Africa, reaching the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century. The two currents met in France.
Romanies began immigrating to North America in colonial times, with small groups recorded in Virginia and French Louisiana. Larger-scale immigration to the United States began in the 1860s, with groups of Romnaichal from Britain. The largest number immigrated in the early 1900s, mainly from the Vlax group of Kalderash. Many Romanies also settled in South America.
When the Romani people arrived in Europe, the initial curiosity of its residents soon changed to hostility against the newcomers. The Romani were enslaved for five centuries in Wallachia and Moldavia, until abolition in 1856.[51]
Elsewhere in Europe, they were subject to ethnic cleansing, abduction of their children, and forced labor. In England, Romani were sometimes hung or expelled from small communities; in France, they were branded and their heads were shaved; in Moravia and Bohemia, the women were marked by their ears being severed. As a result, large groups of the Romani moved to the East, toward Poland, which was more tolerant, and Russia, where the Romani were treated more fairly as long as they paid the annual taxes.[52]
World War II
Main article: Porajmos
During World War II, the Nazis and the Ustashe embarked on a systematic attempt at genocide of the Romanies, a process known in Romani as the Porajmos.[53] Romanies were marked for extermination and sentenced to forced labor and imprisonment in concentration camps.
They were often killed on sight, especially by the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) on the Eastern Front.[citation needed] The total number of victims has been variously estimated at between 220,000 to 1,500,000; even the lowest number would make the Porajmos one of the largest mass murders in history.[citation needed]
Post-1945
In Communist Eastern Europe, Romanies experienced assimilation schemes and restrictions on cultural freedom.[citation needed] The Romani language and Romani music were banned from public performance in Bulgaria.[dubious – discuss] In Czechoslovakia, they were labeled a "socially degraded stratum," and Romani women were sterilized as part of a state policy to reduce their population. This policy was implemented with large financial incentives, threats of denying future welfare payments, with misinformation, or after administering drugs (Silverman 1995; Helsinki Watch 1991).
An official inquiry from the Czech Republic, resulting in a report (December 2005), concluded that the Communist authorities had practiced an assimilation policy towards Romanies, which "included efforts by social services to control the birth rate in the Romani community" and that "the problem of sexual sterilization carried out in the Czech Republic, either with improper motivation or illegally, exists"[54] with new revealed cases up until 2004, in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.[55]
An 1852 Wallachian poster advertising an auction of Romani slaves in Bucharest.
Sinti and Roma about to be deported from Germany, May 22, 1940.
Society and culture
Main article: Romani society and culture
A Gipsy Family - Facsimile of a woodcut in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.
The traditional Romanies place a high value on the extended family. Virginity is essential in unmarried women. Both men and women often marry young; there has been controversy in several countries over the Romani practice of child marriage. Romani law establishes that the man's family must pay a bride price to the bride's parents, but only traditional families still follow this rule.
Once married, the woman joins the husband's family, where her main job is to tend to her husband's and her children's needs, as well as to take care of her in-laws. The power structure in the traditional Romani household has at its top the oldest man or grandfather, and men in general have more authority than women. Women gain respect and authority as they get older. Young wives begin gaining authority once they have children.
Romani social behavior is strictly regulated by Hindu purity laws ("marime" or "marhime"), still respected by most Roma (and by most older generations of Sinti). This regulation affects many aspects of life, and is applied to actions, people and things: parts of the human body are considered impure: the genital organs (because they produce emissions), as well as the rest of the lower body. Fingernails and toenails must be filed with an emery board, as cutting them with a clipper is a taboo. Clothes for the lower body, as well as the clothes of menstruating women, are washed separately. Items used for eating are also washed in a different place. Childbirth is considered impure, and must occur outside the dwelling place. The mother is considered impure for forty days after giving birth.
Death is considered impure, and affects the whole family of the dead, who remain impure for a period of time. In contrast to the practice of cremating the dead, Romani dead must be buried.[56] Cremation and burial are both known from the time of the Rigveda, and both are widely practiced in Hinduism today (although the tendency for higher caste groups is to burn, while lower caste groups in South India tend to bury their dead).[57] Some animals are also considered impure, for instance cats because they lick themselves.[58]
Belonging and exclusion
Main articles: Romanipen and Gadjo (non-Romani)
Romanipen (also romanypen, romanipe, romanype, romanimos, romaimos, romaniya) is a complicated term of Romani philosophy that means totality of the Romani spirit, Romani culture, Romani Law, being a Romani, a set of Romani strains.
An ethnic Romani is considered to be a Gadjo (non-Romani) in the Romani society if he has no Romanipen. Sometimes a non-Romani may be considered to be a Romani if he has Romanipen, (usually that is an adopted child). As a concept, Romanipen has been the subject of interest to numerous academic observers. It has been hypothesized that it owes more to a framework of culture rather than simply an adherence to historically received rules.[59]
Romani leadership
Main article: Rom baro
In Roma communities in the United States and some areas of Europe,[60] the rom baro is the tribal leader. A rom baro serves the same purpose as a big man in New Guinean tribal societies. He earns his position through merit and his decisions, although considered wise, do not have the automatic approval of the community.[61] Other factors in the selection of a rom baro include knowledge of the language of the areas of planned travel, and resourcefulness in emergency situations.[62]
Qualities expected of a rom baro include wealth, an aggressive wife, a large family, and a willingness to speak out and help.[63]
Religion
Muslim Romanies in Bosnia and Herzegovina (around 1900)
Migrant Romani populations have adopted the dominant religion of their country of residence, while often preserving aspects of older belief systems and forms of worship. Most Eastern European Romanies are Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian, or Muslim.
Those in Western Europe and the United States are mostly Roman Catholic or Protestant (particularly in southern Spain many are Pentecostal). In Turkey, Egypt, and the Balkans, the Romanies are split into Christian and Muslim populations.
Music
Main article: Romani music
Young Hungarian Romani performing a traditional dance.
Romani music plays an important role in Central and Eastern European countries such as Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Hungary, Slovenia and Romania, and the style and performance practices of Romani musicians have influenced European classical composers such as Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms. The lăutari who perform at traditional Romanian weddings are virtually all Romani.
Probably the most internationally prominent contemporary performers in the lăutari tradition are Taraful Haiducilor. Bulgaria's popular "wedding music", too, is almost exclusively performed by Romani musicians such as Ivo Papasov, a virtuoso clarinetist closely associated with this genre and Bulgarian pop-folk singer Azis.
Many famous classical musicians, such as the Hungarian pianist Georges Cziffra, are Romani, as are many prominent performers of manele. Zdob şi Zdub, one of the most prominent rock bands in Moldova, although not Romanies themselves, draw heavily on Romani music, as do Spitalul de Urgenţă in Romania, Shantel in Germany, Goran Bregović in Serbia, Darko Rundek in Croatia, Beirut and Gogol Bordello in the United States.
Another tradition of Romani music is the genre of the Romani brass band, with such notable practitioners as Boban Marković of Serbia, and the brass lăutari groups Fanfare Ciocărlia and Fanfare din Cozmesti of Romania.
The distinctive sound of Romani music has also strongly influenced bolero, jazz, and flamenco (especially cante jondo) in Europe. European-style gypsy jazz ("jazz Manouche" or "Sinti jazz") is still widely practiced among the original creators (the Romanie People); one who acknowledged this artistic debt was guitarist Django Reinhardt. Contemporary artists in this tradition known internationally include Stochelo Rosenberg, Biréli Lagrène, Jimmy Rosenberg, and Tchavolo Schmitt.
The Romanies of Turkey have achieved musical acclaim from national and local audiences. Local performers usually perform for special holidays. Their music is usually performed on instruments such as the darbuka and gırnata. A number of nationwide best seller performers are said to be of Romani origin.[citation needed]
Language
Main article: Romani language
Most Romanies speak one of several dialects of Romani,[64][not in citation given] an Indo-Aryan language. They also will often speak the languages of the countries they live in. Typically, they also incorporate loanwords and calques into Romani from the languages of those countries, especially words for terms that the Romani language does not have. Most of the Ciganos of Portugal, the Gitanos of Spain, the Romanichal of the UK, and Scandinavian Travellers have lost their knowledge of pure Romani, and respectively speak the mixed languages Caló,[65] Angloromany, and Scandoromani.
There are independent groups currently working toward standardizing the language, including groups in Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, the USA, and Sweden. Romani is not currently spoken in India.[citation needed]
Persecutions
Main article: Antiziganism
Historical persecution
One of the most enduring persecutions against the Romani people was the enslaving of the Romanies. In the Byzantine Empire, they were slaves of the state and it seems the situation was the same in Bulgaria and Serbia until their social organization was destroyed by the Ottoman conquest. Slavery existed on the territory of present-day Romania from before the founding of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in 13th–14th century, until it was abolished in stages during the 1840s and 1850s.[66] Legislation decreed that all the Romanies living in these states, as well as any others who would immigrate there, were slaves.[67] Most of the slaves were of Roma (Gypsy) ethnicity.
The exact origins of slavery in the Danubian Principalities are not known. There is some debate over whether the Romani people came to Wallachia and Moldavia as free men or as slaves. Historian Nicolae Iorga associated the Roma people's arrival with the 1241 Mongol invasion of Europe and considered their slavery as a vestige of that era, the Romanians taking the Roma from the Mongols as slaves and preserving their status. Other historians consider that they were enslaved while captured during the battles with the Tatars. The practice of enslaving prisoners may also have been taken from the Mongols.[66] While it is possible that some Romani people were slaves or auxiliary troops of the Mongols or Tatars, the bulk of them came from south of the Danube at the end of the 14th century, some time after the foundation of Wallachia. By then, the institution of slavery was already established in Moldavia and possibly in both principalities, but the arrival of the Roma made slavery a widespread practice. The Tatar slaves, smaller in numbers, were eventually merged into the Roma population.[68]
The arrival of some branches of the Romani people in Western Europe in the 15th century was precipitated by the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. Although the Romanies themselves were refugees from the conflicts in southeastern Europe, they were mistaken by the local population in the West, because of their foreign appearance, as part of the Ottoman invasion (the German Reichstags at Landau and Freiburg in 1496-1498 declared the Romanies as spies of the Turks). In Western Europe, this resulted in a violent history of persecution and attempts of ethnic cleansing until the modern era. As time passed, other accusations were added against local Romanies (accusations specific to this area, against non-assimilated minorities), like that of bringing the plague, usually sharing their burden together with the local Jews.[69]
One example of official persecution of the Romani is exemplified by The Great Roundup of Spanish Romanies (Gitanos) in 1749. The Spanish monarchy ordered a nationwide raid that led to separation of families and placement of all able-bodied men into forced labor camps.
Later in the 19th century, Romani immigration was forbidden on a racial basis in areas outside Europe, mostly in the English speaking world (in 1885 the United States outlawed the entry of the Roma) and also in some South American countries (in 1880 Argentina adopted a similar policy).[69]
Holocaust
Main article: Porajmos
Romani arrivals at the Belzec death camp await instructions.
The persecution of the Romanies reached a peak during World War II in the Porajmos, the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis during the Holocaust. In 1935, the Nuremberg laws stripped the Romani people living in Nazi Germany of their citizenship, after which they were subjected to violence, imprisonment in concentration camps and later genocide in extermination camps. The policy was extended in areas occupied by the Nazis during the war, and it was also applied by their allies, notably the Independent State of Croatia, Romania and Hungary.
Because no accurate pre-war census figures exist for the Romanis, it is impossible to accurately assess the actual number of victims. Ian Hancock, director of the Program of Romani Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, proposes a figure of up to a million and a half, while an estimate of between 220,000 and 500,000 was made by Sybil Milton, formerly senior historian of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.[70] In Central Europe, the extermination in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was so thorough that the Bohemian Romani language became extinct.[citation needed]
Forced assimilation
In the Habsburg Monarchy under Maria Theresia (1740–1780), a series of decrees tried to force the Romanies to sedentarize, removed rights to horse and wagon ownership (1754), renamed them as "New Citizens" and forced Romani boys into military service if they had no trade (1761), forced them to register with the local authorities (1767), and prohibited marriage between Romanies (1773). Her successor Josef II prohibited the wearing of traditional Romani clothing and the use of the Romani language, punishable by flogging.[71]
In Spain, attempts to assimilate the Gitanos were under way as early as 1619, when Gitanos were forcibly sedentarized, the use of the Romani language was prohibited, Gitano men and women were sent to separate workhouses and their children sent to orphanages. Similar prohibitions took place in 1783 under King Charles III, who prohibited the nomadic lifestyle, the use of the Calo language, Romani clothing, their trade in horses and other itinerant trades. The use of the word gitano was also forbidden to further assimilation. Ultimately these measures failed, as the rest of the population rejected the integration of the Gitanos.[71][72]
Other examples of forced assimilation include Norway, where a law was passed in 1896 permitting the state to remove children from their parents and place them in state institutions.[73] This resulted in some 1,500 Romani children being taken from their parents in the 20th century.[74]
Contemporary issues
Main article: Modern Antiziganism
Amnesty International reports continued instances of Antizigan discrimination during the 2000s, particularly in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Serbia[75] Slovakia,[76] Hungary,[77] Slovenia,[78] and Kosovo.[79]
Czechoslovakia carried out a policy of sterilization of Romani women, starting in 1973.[80] The dissidents of the Charter 77 denounced it in 1977-78 as a "genocide", but the practice continued through the Velvet Revolution of 1989.[81] A 2005 report by the Czech government's independent ombudsman, Otakar Motejl, identified dozens of cases of coercive sterilization between 1979 and 2001, and called for criminal investigations and possible prosecution against several health care workers and administrators.[82]
In 2008, following the brutal murder of a woman in Rome at the hands of a young man from a local Romani encampment,[83] the Italian government declared that Italy's Romani population represented a national security risk and that swift action was required to address the emergenza nomadi (nomad emergency).[84] Specifically, officials in the Italian government accused the Romanies of being responsible for rising crime rates in urban areas.
Forced repatriation
Main article: French Romani repatriation
In the summer of 2010 French authorities demolished at least 51 illegal Roma camps and began the process of repatriating their residents to their countries of origin.[85] This followed tensions between the French state and Roma communities, which had been heightened after French police killed a traveller who didn't stop at a checkpoint; in retaliation, a group of armed Roma attacked the police station of Saint-Aignan.[86][87] The French government has been accused of perpetrating these actions to pursue its political agenda.[88] EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding stated that the European Commission should take legal action against France over the issue, calling the deportations "a disgrace". Purportedly, a leaked file dated 5 August, sent from the Interior Ministry to regional police chiefs included the instruction: "Three hundred camps or illegal settlements must be cleared within three months, Roma camps are a priority,"[89]
Fictional representations
Main article: Fictional representations of Romani people
Vincent van Gogh: The Caravans - Gypsy Camp near Arles (1888, Oil on canvas)
Many fictional depictions of Romani people in literature and art present Romanticized narratives of their supposed mystical powers of fortune telling or their supposed irascible or passionate temper paired with an indomitable love of freedom and a habit of criminality. Particularly notable are classics like Carmen by Prosper Mérimée and adapted by Georges Bizet, Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Miguel de Cervantes' La Gitanilla.
The Romani were also heavily romanticized in the Soviet Union, a classic example being the 1975 Tabor ukhodit v Nebo. A more realistic depiction of contemporary Romani in the Balkans, featuring Romani lay actors speaking in their native dialects, although still playing with established clichés of a Romani penchant for both magic and crime, was presented by Emir Kusturica in his Time of the Gypsies (1988) and Black Cat, White Cat (1998).
In contemporary literature
The Romani ethnicity is often used for characters in contemporary fantasy literature. In such literature, the Romani are often portrayed as possessing archaic occult knowledge passed down through the ages. This frequent use of the ethnicity has given rise to 'gypsy archetypes' in popular contemporary literature.[citation needed] A UK example is the Freya Trilogy by Elizabeth Arnold.
See also
* Antiziganism
* Balkan Egyptians and the Ashkali
* Great Gypsy Round-up
* King of the Gypsies
* R. v. Krymowski
* Timeline of Romani history
Advocacy:
* Decade of Roma Inclusion
* European Roma Rights Centre
* Gypsy Lore Society
* International Romani Union
Lists:
* List of Romani groups
* List of Romani people
* List of Romani settlements
General:
* Nomadic peoples of Europe
* Nomadic tribes in India
References
Notes
1. ^ "Rom". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/250432/Rom. Retrieved 2010-09-15. "According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, estimates of the total world Romani population range from two million to five million."
2. ^ "Online version". http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=rmy. Retrieved 2010-09-15. "Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Ian Hancock's 1987 estimate for "all Gypsies in the world" was 6 to 11 million."
3. ^ "The Situation of Roma in Spain" (pdf). Open Society Institute. 2002. Archived from the original on 2007-12-01. http://web.archive.org/web/20071201172552/http://www.eumap.org/reports/2002/eu/international/sections/spain/2002_m_spain.pdf. Retrieved 2010-09-15. "The Spanish government estimates the number of Gitanos at a maximum of 650,000."
4. ^ "Roma rights organizations work to ease prejudice in Turkey". EurasiaNet. 22 July 2005. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/46ef87ab32.html. Retrieved 2010-09-15. "There are officially about 500,000 Roma in Turkey."
5. ^ "Situation of Roma in France at crisis proportions". EurActiv Network. 7 December 2005. http://www.euractiv.com/en/security/situation-roma-france-crisis-proportions-report/article-150507. Retrieved 2010-09-15. "The Romani population in France is officially estimated at around 500,000."
6. ^ "Population By Districts And Ethnic Group As Of 01.03.2001". 05.01.2004. http://www.nsi.bg/Census_e/Ethnos.htm. Retrieved 2010-09-15. "Census 2001 in Bulgaria: 370,908 Roma"
7. ^ "Population by national/ethnic groups". Hungarian Central Statistical Office. http://www.nepszamlalas.hu/eng/volumes/06/00/tabeng/4/load01_11_0.html. Retrieved 2010-09-15. "Census 2001 in Hungary: 205,720 Roma/Bea"
8. ^ "The Romani population in Greece is officially estimated at 200,000.". Hellenic Republic National Commission For Human Rights. http://www.nchr.gr/category.php?category_id=99. Retrieved 2010-09-15. "Census 2001 in Hungary: 205,720 Roma/Bea"
9. ^ "National Composition Of Population And Citizenship" (Excel). perepis2002.ru. http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/English/4-1.xls. Retrieved 2010-09-16. "Census 2002 in Russia: 182,766 Roma."
10. ^ Demographics_of_Italy#Languages Estimated by Ministero degli Interni del Governo Italiano.
11. ^ "Census 2002 in Serbia: 108,193 Romanies." (pdf). Republic of Serbia, Republic Statistical Office. December 24, 2002. http://www.stat.gov.rs/zip/esn31.pdf. Retrieved 2010-12-06.
12. ^ Census 2001 in Slovakia
13. ^ [1] 70,000 Roma/Sinti estimated by the German Ministry of Internal Affairs.[dead link]
14. ^ "The 2002-census reported 53,879 Roma and 3,843 'Egyptians'". Republic of Macedonia, State Statistical Office. http://www.stat.gov.mk/english/glavna_eng.asp?br=18. Retrieved 2010-09-17.
15. ^ Gall, Timothy L. (ed). Worldmark Encyclopedia of Culture & Daily Life: Vol. 4 - Europe. Cleveland, OH: Eastword Publications Development (1998); pp. 316, 318 : "Religion: An underlay of Hinduism with an overlay of either Christianity or Islam (host country religion) "; "Roma religious beliefs are rooted in Hinduism. Roma believe in a universal balance, called kuntari... Despite a 1,000-year separation from India, Roma still practice 'shaktism', the worship of a god through his female consort... "
16. ^ "A historia dos ciganos no Brasil". http://www.dhnet.org.br/direitos/sos/ciganos/a_pdf/teixeira_hist_ciganos_brasil.pdf. Retrieved 2010-10-02.
17. ^ Yaron Matras (2002). Romani: a linguistic introduction. Cambridge University Press. p. 239. ISBN 9780521631655. http://books.google.com/books?id=D4IIi0Ha3V4C&pg=PA238&dq=number+speakers+of+Romani. Retrieved 2009-07-16.
18. ^ Hancock, Ian F (2002). We Are the Romani People, p. XIX. ISBN 9781902806198. http://books.google.com/?id=MG0ahVw-kdwC&pg=PP1#PPR19,M1. Retrieved 2008-07-31 .
19. ^ a b Hancock, Ian F (2002). We Are the Romani People, p. XXI. ISBN 9781902806198. http://books.google.com/?id=MG0ahVw-kdwC&pg=PP1#PPR21,M1. Retrieved 2008-07-31 .
20. ^ p. 52 in Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin Popov's "Historical and ethnographic background; gypsies, Roma, Sinti" in Will Guy [ed.] Between Past and Future: The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe [with a Foreword by Dr. Ian Hancock], 2001, UK: University of Hertfordshire Press.
21. ^ p. 13 in Illona Klimova-Alexander's The Romani Voice in World Politics: The United Nations and Non-State Actors (2005, Burlington, VT.: Ashgate.
22. ^ Xavier Rothéa. "Les Roms, une nation sans territoire?" (in French). http://www.theyliewedie.org/ressources/biblio/fr/Rothea_Xavier_-_Les_roms.html. Retrieved 2008-07-31.
23. ^ Hancock, Ian F (2002). We Are the Romani People, p. XX. ISBN 9781902806198. http://books.google.com/?id=MG0ahVw-kdwC&pg=PP1#PPR20,M1. Retrieved 2008-07-31 .
24. ^ "Dom: The Gypsy community in Jerusalem". The Institute for Middle East Understanding. February 13, 2007. http://imeu.net/news/article004439.shtml. Retrieved 2010-09-17.
25. ^ Douglas Harper (February 13, 2007). [ttp://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Romany "Etymology of Romani"]. Online Etymology Dictionary. ttp://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Romany. Retrieved 2010-09-17.
26. ^ Fraser 1992.
27. ^ Hancock, Ian (1995). A Handbook of Vlax Romani. Slavica Publishers. p. 17.
28. ^ Report in Roma Educational Needs in Ireland
29. ^ American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, definition 3 and 4
30. ^ "gitan" (in French). Dictionnaire de l'Académie française. http://www.academie-francaise.fr/dictionnaire/. Retrieved 2007-08-26. "Nom donné aux bohémiens d'Espagne ; par ext., synonyme de Bohémien, Tzigane. Adjt. Une robe gitane."
31. ^ Council of Europe website, European Roma and Travellers Forum (ERTF)
32. ^ 3.8 million according to Pan and Pfeil, National Minotiries in Europe (2004), ISBN 978-3-7003-1443-1, p. 27f.
33. ^ Council of Europe compilation of population estimates
34. ^ Hancock, Ian, 2001, Ame sam e rromane džene / We are the Romani People, The Open Society Institute, New York, p. 2.
35. ^ Matras, Yaron, Romani: A linguistic introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 5.
36. ^ "Names of the Romani People". http://desicritics.org/2007/12/24/012125.php. Retrieved 2009-01-30 .
37. ^ N.Bessonov, N.Demeter "Ethnic groups of Gypsies".
38. ^ New Ethnic Identities in the Balkans: The Case of the Egyptians.
39. ^ Ian Hancock. Ame Sam e Rromane Džene/We are the Romani people. p. 13. ISBN 1902806190.
40. ^ Ian F. Hancock, Siobhan Dowd, Rajko Djurić (2004). The Roads of the Roma: a PEN anthology of Gypsy Writers.. Hatfield, United Kingdom: University of Hertfordshire Press. pp. 14–15. ISBN 0900458909.
41. ^ "Romani" (pdf). Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier. http://romani.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/downloads/2/Matras_Rmni_ELL.pdf. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
42. ^ a b Luba Kalaydjieva; Gresham, David; Calafell, Francesc (2001). "Genetic studies of the Roma (Gypsies): A review". BMC Medical Genetics 2: 5. doi:10.1186/1471-2350-2-5. PMID 11299048. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2350/2/5. Retrieved 2008-06-16.
43. ^ "Figure 4". Biomedcentral.com. doi:10.1186/1471-2350-2-5. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2350/2/5/figure/F4. Retrieved 2009-05-06.
44. ^ a b Gresham, D; Morar, B; Underhill, PA; Passarino, G; Lin, AA; Wise, C; Angelicheva, D; Calafell, F et al. (2001). "Origins and Divergence of the Roma (Gypsies)". American journal of human genetics 69 (6): 1314–31. doi:10.1086/324681. PMID 11704928. PMC 1235543. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1235543. Retrieved 2008-06-16 .
45. ^ "Mutation history of the Roma-Gypsies". http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:15322984. Retrieved 2008-06-16 .
46. ^ Jatt mutation found in Romani populations
47. ^ Michael Jan de Goeje, Mémoire sur les migrations des Tsiganes à travers l’Asie, Leyden, 1883.
48. ^ Searching for the origin of Romanies http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18768723
49. ^ (1994-02-24). "[at tinhat.stonemarche.org gypsies]". rec.org.sca. (Web link). Retrieved on 2007-08-26.
50. ^ "A Chronology of significant dates in Romani history". Archived from the original on 2004-12-04. http://web.archive.org/web/20041204203106/radoc.net/chronology.html.
51. ^ Hancock, Ian, 2001, Ame sam e rromane džene (We are the Romani People), New York: The Open Society Institute, p. 25
52. ^ Delia Radu, "On the road: Centuries of Roma history", BBC World Service, 8 July 2009
53. ^ Romanies and the Holocaust: A Reevaluation and an Overview
54. ^ Denysenko, Marina (2007-03-12). "Sterilised Roma accuse Czechs". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6409699.stm.
55. ^ Thomas, Jeffrey (2006-08-16). "Coercive Sterilization of Romani Women Examined at Hearing: New report focuses on Czech Republic and Slovakia". Washington File. Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2006/August/200608171045451CJsamohT0.678158.html.
56. ^ "Romani Customs and Traditions: Death Rituals and Customs". Patrin Web Journal. Archived from the original on 2007-08-21. http://web.archive.org/web/20070821022337/http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/death.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-26.
57. ^ David M. Knipe. "The Journey of a Lifebody". http://www.hindugateway.com/library/rituals/. Retrieved 2008-05-26.
58. ^ Hancock, Ian, 2001, Ame sam e rromane džene / We are the Romani People, The Open Society Institute, New York, page 81
59. ^ Saul, Nicholas; Susan Tebbut (2005). Nicholas Saul, Susan Tebbutt. ed. The role of the Romanies: images and counter-images of 'Gypsies'/Romanies in European cultures. Liverpool University Press. pp. 218. ISBN 9780853236894. http://books.google.com/?id=AQw6qOCNj-UC&pg=PA218&dq=romanipen&cd=7#v=onepage&q=romanipen&f=false. Retrieved 03/0310.
60. ^ Sharon Bohn Gmelch. "Groups that Don't Want In: Gypsies and Other Artisan, Trader, and Entertainer Minorities". Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 15, (1986), p. 317.
61. ^ Paul R. Magocsi. Encyclopedia of Canada's peoples. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. p. 644.
62. ^ The Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier, 1981. p. 650.
63. ^ Kevin B. MacDonald. A People That Shall Dwell Alone. iUniverse, 2002. p. xxvi.
64. ^ Halwachs, Dieter W.. "Speakers and Numbers (distribution of Romani-speaking Romani population by country)" (PDF). Rombase. http://romani.uni-graz.at/rombase/cd/data/lang/gen/data/numbers.en.pdf.
65. ^ Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed (2005). "Caló: A language of Spain". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (15th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. ISBN 9781556711596. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=rmr.
66. ^ a b Viorel Achim, The Roma in Romanian History, Central European University Press, Budapest, 2004, ISBN 963-9241-84-9
67. ^ Delia Grigore, Petre Petcuţ and Mariana Sandu (2005) (in Romanian). Istoria şi tradiţiile minorităţii rromani. Bucharest: Sigma. p. 36.
68. ^ Ştefan Ştefănescu, Istoria medie a României, Vol. I, Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, Bucharest, 1991 (Romanian)
69. ^ a b "Timeline of Romani History". Patrin Web Journal. Archived from the original on 2007-11-11. http://web.archive.org/web/20071111142247/http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/timeline.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-26.
70. ^ Most estimates for numbers of Romani victims of the Holocaust fall between 200,000 and 500,000, although figures ranging between 90,000 and 4 million have been proposed. Lower estimates do not include those killed in all Axis-controlled countries. A detailed study by Sybil Milton, formerly senior historian at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum gave a figure of at least a minimum of 220,000, probably higher, possibly closer to 500,000 (cited in Re. Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (Swiss Banks) Special Master's Proposals, September 11, 2000). Ian Hancock, Director of the Program of Romani Studies and the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at the University of Texas at Austin, argues in favour of a higher figure of between 500,000 and 1,500,000 in his 2004 article, Romanies and the Holocaust: A Reevaluation and an Overview as published in Stone, D. (ed.) (2004) The Historiography of the Holocaust. Palgrave, Basingstoke and New York.
71. ^ a b Samer, Helmut (December 2001). "Maria Theresia and Joseph II: Policies of Assimilation in the Age of Enlightened Absolutism.". Rombase. Karl-Franzens-Universitaet Graz. http://romani.uni-graz.at/rombase/cgi-bin/art.cgi?src=data/hist/modern/maria.en.xml.
72. ^ "Gitanos. History and Cultural Relations.". World Culture Encyclopedia. http://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Gitanos-History-and-Cultural-Relations.html. Retrieved 2007-08-26.
73. ^ "Roma (Gypsies) in Norway". http://www.geocities.com/~Patrin/norway.html. Retrieved 2007-08-26. [dead link][dead link]
74. ^ "The Church of Norway and the Roma of Norway". World Council of Churches. 2002-09-03. http://www2.wcc-coe.org/ccdocuments.nsf/index/plen-4.4-en.html.
75. ^ "Europe must break cycle of discrimination facing Roma". Amnesty International. 7 April 2010. http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/europe-must-break-cycle-discrimination-facing-roma-2010-04-06. Retrieved 15 September 2010.
76. ^ "Amnesty International". Web.amnesty.org. 2009-04-20. http://web.amnesty.org/wire/February2002/Europe_Roma. Retrieved 2009-05-06.
77. ^ Colin Woodard (2008-02-13). "Hungary's anti-Roma militia grows". csmonitor.com. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0213/p07s02-woeu.html. Retrieved 2010-09-15.
78. ^ "roma | Human Rights Press Point". Humanrightspoint.si. http://www.humanrightspoint.si/node/12. Retrieved 2009-05-06.
79. ^ "Roma and Ashkali in Kosovo: Persecuted, driven out, poisoned". Gfbv.de. http://www.gfbv.de/inhaltsDok.php?id=612. Retrieved 2009-05-06.
80. ^ Sterilised Roma accuse Czechs, BBC, 12 March 2007 (English)
81. ^ For Gypsies, Eugenics is a Modern Problem - Czech Practice Dates to Soviet Era, Newsdesk, June 12, 2006 (English)
82. ^ "Final Statement of the Public Defender of Rights in the Matter of Sterilisations Performed in Contravention of the Law and Proposed Remedial Measures". The Office of The Public Defender of Rights. December 23, 2005. Archived from the original on 2007-11-28. http://web.archive.org/web/20071128041045/http://www.ochrance.cz/en/dokumenty/dokument.php?doc=400. Retrieved 2010-09-15.
83. ^ Hooper, John (November 2, 2007). "Italian woman's murder prompts expulsion threat to Romanians". London: The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/02/italy.international.
84. ^ de Zulueta, Tana (2009-03-30). "Italy's new ghetto?". London: The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/30/roma-italy.
85. ^ "France sends Roma Gypsies back to Romania". BBC. August 20, 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11020429. Retrieved 2010-08-22.
86. ^ "Troops patrol French village of Saint-Aignan after riot". BBC. July 19, 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10681796. Retrieved 2010-08-22.
87. ^ "Q&A: France Roma expulsions". BBC. September 15, 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11027288. Retrieved 2010-09-16.
88. ^ "France Begins Controversial Roma Deportations". Der Spiegel. 2010-08-19. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,712701,00.html. Retrieved 2010-08-20.
89. ^ "EU may take legal action against France over Roma". BBC News. 14 September 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11301307. Retrieved 15 September 2010.
Bibliography
(An extensive historical bibliography, "Gypsies in France, 1566 - 2011", is available at [2].)
* Viorel Achim (2004). "The Roma in Romanian History." Budapest: Central European University Press. ISBN 963-9241-84-9.
* Auzias, Claire. Les funambules de l'histoire. Baye: Éditions la Digitale, 2002.
* De Soto, Hermine. Roma and Egyptians in Albania: From Social Exclusion to Social Inclusion. Washington, DC, USA: World Bank Publications, 2005.
* Fonseca, Isabel. Bury me standing: the Gypsies and their journey. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1995.
* Fraser, Angus The Gypsies : Blackwell Publishers, Oxford UK, 1992 ISBN 0-631-15967-3.
* Genner, Michael. Spartakus, 2 vols. Munich: Trikont, 1979-80.
* "Germany Reaches Deal to Deport Thousands of Gypsies to Romania," Migration World Magazine, Nov-December 1992.
* Gray, RD; Atkinson, QD (2003). "Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin." Nature.
* Gresham, D; et al. (2001). "Origins and divergence of the Roma (Gypsies)." American Journal of Human Genetics. 69(6), 1314-1331. [3]
* Hackl, Erich. (1991). Farewell Sidonia, New York: Fromm International Pub. ISBN 0-88064-124-X. (Translated from the German, Abschied von Sidonie 1989)
* Helsinki Watch. Struggling for Ethnic Identity: Czechoslovakia's Endangered Gypsies. New York, 1991.
* Leland, Charles G. The English Gipsies and Their Language. London: Trübner & Co., 1873.
* Lemon, Alaina (2000). Between Two Fires: Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory from Pushkin to Post-Socialism. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2456-3
* Luba Kalaydjieva; et al. (2001). "Patterns of inter- and intra-group genetic diversity in the Vlax Roma as revealed by Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA lineages." European Journal of Human Genetics. 9, 97-104. [4]
* Marushiakova, Elena; Popov, Vesselin. (2001) "Gypsies in the Ottoman Empire." Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press.
* Matras, Yaron (2002). Romani: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-512-02330-0.
* McDowell, Bart (1970). "Gypsies, Wanderers of the World". National Geographic Society. ISBN 0-87044-088-8.
* "Gypsies, The World's Outsiders." National Geographic, April 2001, 72-101.
* Ringold, Dena. Roma & the Transition in Central & Eastern Europe: Trends & Challenges. Washington, DC, USA: World Bank, 2000. pp. 3, 5, & 7.
* Roberts, Samuel. The Gypsies: Their Origin, Continuance, and Destination. London: Longman, 4th edition, 1842.
* Silverman, Carol. "Persecution and Politicization: Roma (Gypsies) of Eastern Europe." Cultural Survival Quarterly, Summer 1995.
* Simson, Walter. History of the Gipsies. London: S. Low, 1865.
* Tebbutt, Susan (Ed., 1998) Sinti and Roma in German-speaking Society and Literature. Oxford: Berghahn.
* Turner, Ralph L. (1926) The Position of Romani in Indo-Aryan. In: Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society 3rd Ser. 5/4, pp. 145–188.
* Danish Broadcasting Corporation A page in Danish about Romani treatment in Denmark
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Roma people
* European Parliament resolution on the situation of the Roma in the European Union - April 28, 2005
* Final report on the human rights situation of the Roma, Sinti and travellers in Europe by the European Commissioner for Human Rights (Council of Europe) - February 15, 2006
* Shot in remote areas of the Thar desert in Northwest India, "Jaisalmer Ayo: Gateway of the Gypsies" captures the lives of vanishing nomadic communities who are believed to share common ancestors with the Roma people - released 2004
Non-governmental organisations
* European Roma Rights Centre - European Romani NGO
* Roma Rights Network - Romani INGO
Museums and libraries
* Museum of Romani Culture in Brno, Czech Republic (in Czech)[5]
* Specialized Library with Archive "Studii Romani" in Sofia, Bulgaria (Bulgarian, English)
* Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg, Germany (German, English)
* Ethnographic Museum in Tarnów, Poland. Click "ROMA (CYGANIE)" on the menu at left. (Polish, English, Romani)
* Who we Were, Who we Are: Kosovo Roma Oral History Collection. The most comprehensive collection of information on Kosovo's Roma in existence. (English)
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v • d • e
Romani people around the world
Cultural groups
Roma (Boyash · Kalderash · Lovari · Machvaya · Ruska Roma · Servitko Roma · Ursari · Muslim Roma) · Ashkali · Cascarots · Erromintxela
Iberian Kale (Gitanos and Ciganos) • Finnish Kale • Welsh Kale • Romanichal • Sinti • Manouche • Scandinavian Travellers (Tavinger, Romanisæl) • Kawliya
Sometimes considered Romani: Dom • Lom • Lori •Lyuli • Bosha • Garachi
By location
Global distribution of the Roma people
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Categories: Roma | Indo-Aryan peoples | Eurasian nomads | Ethnic groups in Brazil | Ethnic groups in the Czech Republic | Ethnic groups in Europe | Ethnic groups in Greece | Ethnic groups in India | Ethnic groups in Hungary | Ethnic groups in Kosovo | Ethnic groups in Macedonia | Ethnic groups in Montenegro | Ethnic groups in Pakistan | Ethnic groups in Romania | Ethnic groups in Russia | Ethnic groups in Serbia | Ethnic groups in Slovakia | Ethnic groups in Spain | Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom | Ethnic groups in Vojvodina | Ethnic groups in the Balkans | Europe
The term “Gypsy” is commonly used as designation for the people whose correct ethnic name is Roma. However, the same word is employed also to indicate different non-Roma groups whose lifestyle is apparently similar; like some “Travellers” and other itinerant people.
We are not dealing here with the derogatory implications that are ascribed to this term, but only with the respectful meaning of the word which may be acceptable as a popular term to define a community of people having distinguishable cultural features.
There are also other applications of this word which are not of our interest, as for example, in reference to people whose lifestyle is regarded as unconventional ‒ in a similar way as “Bohemian” ‒ or as it is applied mainly in America, to artists who have actually not any ethnic relationship with any Gypsy group, neither Romany nor non-Romany.
Therefore, we can say that there are ethnic Gypsies who are Roma, and other Gypsies who are not ethnically Roma. In this essay we intend to briefly expose about both: Romany and non-Romany Gypsies.
Romany Gypsies
The Roma are a well defined ethnic community, composed by groups and sub-groups having a common origin and common cultural patterns ‒ that in many cases have been modified or adapted, according to the land of sojourn and other circumstances along history. There is a common Romany Law, which several groups do not keep any longer, but still recognizing that their ancestors have observed such complex of laws until not too long time ago.
It is not easy to classify the distinct Romany groups and sub-groups. There are different patterns to be considered in order to establish a relationship between them: for example, the language and the degree of observance of the “Zakono” (the Romany Law) are essential for the largest group of Roma worldwide, while many other groups do not speak Romany at all and take account of other facts in order to consider a person to be a true Rom/Romni or not. Obviously, the prevailing concepts should be those defined or accepted by the Romany community rather than those invented by the Gadje (non-Roma) in their attempt to classify the Roma groups (see: About Roma Group Denominations). It is clear that Roma do not hold any tradition or social feature related with a caste system, as some students suggest. It is not even appropriate their classification according to traditional professions, as such pattern may be applied only to a limited geographic area, namely Wallachia and Moldavia, in which Roma were subject to slavery and consequently had to develop a family profession that passed on from generation to generation. In fact, non-Romanian Roma usually do not call the other groups by their traditional work activity, but according to other cultural characteristics. Whenever it is possible, we will present here a classification considering the Romany self-definitions and the terms used within the Roma community to define the other groups. We will discard the artificial and arbitrary definitions established by Gadje.
Taking account of the geographic areas and the population, we can define three main blocks and some autonomous groups that cannot be included in any of them:
1. Eastern Roma, mainly represented (by number and geographic distribution) by Kalderaš/Čurari/Lovari-related groups;
2. Central European Roma: Sinti and Romanichel families;
3. Calé (Spanish and Portuguese Roma).
Other groups: Khoraxané, Boyaš, Carpathian Roma, Kaale, Southern-Italian Roma, Balkan Roma, Greek Roma, Armenian Lom, etc.
This first general classification refers to European Roma, who are the overwhelming majority (the communities in the American Continent and some other areas of the world descend from European Roma).
Eastern Roma
Not being possible to find a specific definition for this group besides the term “Rom” that they apply exclusively to themselves and excluding most of the other Roma groups, the most suitable way to call this block, the most numerous in the world, is just the geographic area of historical development, Eastern Europe (including the whole Russia, that is Asia). There is a term coined by some Gadje which is generally used in reference to the majority of this group, which is utterly unsuitable and must be abolished: that is the term "Rom Vlax", which is contradictory by itself, since Vlax or Vlach is the name of a non-Romany people and an equivalent to the Romany word “gažo”. In fact, there is not a single Rom in the whole universe that would recognize himself as a "Vlax Rom". The actual meaning of the term Vlach is "Walachian", "Romanian", historically "Latin-speaking Albanian". It is the national ethnic name of Romanians, which was turned into "Romanian" in the later 18th century c.e. for political reasons (see Vlach). The origin of the word Vlax/Vlach is very well-defined: it is the term by which the Germanic peoples referred to the Celts (and survives today in the English name of Wales). Since most of the Celtic tribes were Romanized, this denomination began to be applied to the Latin-speaking peoples (like the Belgian Walloons, to distinguish them from the Flemish-speaking Belgians). Subsequently, the term was taken by the Slavs and Hungarians with the meaning of Roman-like, Italian, French or Balkan Vlach (Romanian); hence the present-day Polish word for Italian, Włoch (a variation of Wołoch, Walachian) and the Hungarian word for Italian, Olasz (a variation of Olah, Walachian). The Sinti groups, historically dwelling in Germanic-speaking lands, later settled also in France, and they called that country Valči ‒ namely, Wallachia, or else, Gallia ‒ following the terminology applied by Germans to the Romanized Celts. To complete the paradox, the same term conveyed also the meaning of "shepherd", an occupation that has never been typical of European Roma people... Actually, such a term has no meaning at all for Roma, and does not even exist in Romany. Of course that it is not an easy task to make an appropriate classification of Roma groups, but at least we should try to find more suitable terms, that would be recognized also by Roma or with which they may in some way feel identified themselves. The first word to abolish is, of course, Vlax!
The upholders of this designation argue that these Roma were once under slavery in Wallachia and Moldavia, an assertion that is not true for the largest majority of them: in fact, Russian Kalderaša, Serbian Kalderaša, Polish-Baltic Roma, Czech-Slovakian Roma, Greek Roma, Hungarian Roma and Even historic Transylvanian Roma have never been under Romanian rule ‒ in the case of the last ones, they have been always under Hungary until the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. Actually, none of the main sub-groups (Kalderaš, Čurarya, Lovarya) is numerous in Romania, while predominant or relevant by number in the above mentioned countries.
So, the members of this group call themselves simply “Rom”, and even the other communities refer to them in this way, for example, the Sinti call them “Sinti Rom” ‒ so as to distinguish them from the other “Sinti” groups, because they call Sinti to all Roma (see below).
These are the most conservative and exclusivist among Roma. Their strict patterns are strongly founded on Romany language and Romany Law, so that they do not consider Roma to the groups who do not speak Romanés or speak a dialect of it that is not intelligible for them (such as the Sinti dialects, Abruzzese Romany or British Gypsies' Romany), and establish differences between themselves according to the degree of observance of the Romany Law (in the same way as Jews consider the degree of kosher keeping). The most important indicators of such observance are the marimé laws (the Romany kashrut) and the women's clothing, closely related to these laws. They ae primarily defined according to dialectal patterns, and furtherly by “nationality”, meaning the country where they sojourned during the longest period, until the end of the 19th century c.e.
Of the Eastern Roma, we present here in a more detailed way the following groups: Kalderaš-Čurari, Lovari-Mačvaya, Ruska Roma, Servitka Roma and Gurbeti.
· Kalderaš-Čurari Group
This community is the most numerous worldwide, being the largest Romany group in Serbia, Argentina and Mexico, and significant within Romany population in Russia, Transylvania, Sweden, France, Brazil, the United States and the whole American Continent, as well as in most European countries and Israel. In the lands where they emigrated, they usually are overnumbered only by the local Romany groups.
Kalderašitsko is the most complete Romany language, both gramatically and lexically, and it is also the tongue spoken by the largest number of Roma worldwide, so that it can be considered the official standard Romany, both for purity and diffusion.
Čurari Roma are usually regarded as a separate group from the Kalderaš Roma, although related to them. Actually, it is only an offshoot of the Kalderaš group, having the same language and following the same laws and traditions. Many families who are considered (also by themselves) as Čurari in one country are regarded as Kalderaš in another, as the examples we will see later about the nationalities. Contrary to what is usually stated, both these denominations have nothing to do with professions, as most scholars suggest attempting to find an etymology in Romanian language. One of the evidences is that both Kalderaš and Čurari practise the same business activities, share common ancestry traditions and, as already said, there are families who claim both ethnonyms. On the other side, the Čurari Roma are of Russian and Ukrainian “nationality”, often called simply “Rhusia” (Russians), and not from Romania or elsewhere in the Balkans. They have no memory of any ancestor having been in Romania in the remote past. The Kalderaša also are mainly from Slavic lands, and have held this designation since early times, maybe even before their entrance in Europe. It is very likely that the ethnonym Kalderaš has been an ancient synonym of Rom, and the abbreviated versions are the terms still used by other Romany groups such as Calé/Kalé (Spain), Kale (Wales) and Kaale (Finland), designations whose origin is still unknown ‒ and the geographic separation between these groups, now unrelated among them even sharing the same denomination, indicates that there was another way besides Rom to call themselves in an early period. A probable explanation of how these words became Romany ethnic names is found in the area of the Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia, where Roma sojourned before reaching Europe through at least two ways ‒ one crossing the Bosphorus and the other going north across the Volga-Don Basin into Russia ‒ and where they were in the local peoples' view associated with the Magi, commonly known as “Kaldu” or “Kalyb” (“Chaldean”, original nation of the Middle East Magi). In those lands, Roma were as well identified with the Athinganoi (source of the terms Cigány, Tsigan, Zingaro, etc.). Even though these terms were applied to them by the Gadje, it is not unlikely that Roma adopted such names for themselves, as it happened later in countries like Spain, where Roma consider the word Gitano a self-designation, as well as Tsigan in Russia or Cigány in Hungary. Also the profession of blacksmith, widely practised by Roma in that period, has been associated with alchemy and magics, and by a linguistic coincidence, the name Kaldu has a resemblance with the word for "kettle-maker" in Latin-derived tongues such as Romanian, Italian or Spanish. It is also true that the term Kalderaš is often [mis]used by some Balkan Roma as a self-designation based on their inherited profession of coppersmiths, yet not being actually Kalderaš Roma.
On the other side, both Kalderaš and Čurari have not not only been traditionally blacksmiths but also horse-dealers (now recycled into automobile dealers) and their main vocation seems to be commercial trade rather than handicraft. By the way, of the alleged traditional activity of sieve-makers of the Čurarya it seems that there is no memory, and it is also difficult to explain a Romanian term within a group settled almost exclusively in Russia and Ukraine. The etymology of the word Čurari must be another one.
The fact that the Kalderaš and Čurari have kept the Romany Law and language noticeably better than all the other groups is also the consequence of having chosen to settle in lands where there was more freedom for them, and in comparison with Central and Western Europe, the Slavic territories were much more tolerant and suitable for the Romany lifestyle. This curiosity has an explanation, usually neglected, and it is that Roma reached Europe after a long exile in Scythian India (not in Aryan India!), and they found a better environment in Scythian Europe rather than in the "Aryan" Europe...
Kalderaš-Čurari Nationalities
As it was said before, by “nationality” in a Romany context we intend the country of development of a certain group throughout a long period of their history, namely since their arrival in Europe until the end of the 19th century c.e. The Kalderaš-Čurari groups belong to three main nationalities: Rhusia, Srbiaya and the “Gábor” Roma of Transylvania. There is a fourth small community, the Kitaitska Roma, who were originally Rhusia.
Rhusia: This is the name by which the Roma coming from Russia and Ukraine are known, both as the accepted denomination by themselves as well as by the other Roma. They are the most conservative of all Roma, together with the Gábor sub-group. A large number of them emigrated during the critical period for Russia that followed the Crimean War. Their first mass destination were Sweden and France, where there is still a consistent community of them, but then a second wave of emigration led them to the American Continent, mainly Argentina and Brazil. In these countries they are split into two sub-groups, both claiming for themselves the ethnonym Kalderaš and the nationality Rhusia. However, they have internal patterns to define the other sub-group: one community self-applies the designations Kalderaš and Rhusia in an exclusive way, and for the other community they use the term “Moldovaya”, often taken as derogatory as these Roma did not come from Moldavia but from the territories that now are Ukraine and then belonged to Poland, and reject such denomination. This second community also self-applies in the first place the designation of Rhusia, and calls the other sub-group also Rhusia, but distinguish them as “Čurarya”, a term that is however accepted by the counterpart. Intermarriage between both parties are frequent, but are unusual with other Roma groups ‒ although they are becoming more common with the Srbiaya Roma. Both communities consist of extended families having close relatives in several countries, in Europe and the American Continent. Usually the same families, originated from a common ancestor in Russia, who are recognized as Kalderaš in the Americas are regarded as Čurari in Europe (mainly by the other European Kalderaša), and for instance the same habits and dialectal peculiarities typical of some Russian Kalderaš clans in South America are those of the Čurarya in Germany, Italy and France. Therefore, the distinction between Russian Kalderaša and Čurarya is very subtle, what is more, both terms are interchangeable.
Most of them are Evangelical Christian now. Some Russian Kalderaša are Jewish and settled in Israel.
Srbiaya: These are the Kalderaš Roma of Serbia and Montenegro, the most numerous and widespread sub-group in the world. The Serbian Kalderaša are present in almost every European country, and in the whole American Continent, as well as in Australia. They are the absolute majority of Roma in South America; the largest communities are in Argentina and Brazil. The Srbiaya are also conservative and keep the Romany Law; some communities are more traditional than the Rhusia concerning women's clothing, as they wear Romany garments since their childhood, that is the age of ritual purity and the clothing rules are not obligatory. They speak the same Romany spoken by the Rhusia, though with some slight variations: the words that are loans from Russian in the language of those, are taken from Serbian in the one of these, so they are completely intelligible to each other and usually both groups know the terms and expressions used by the other.
In South America, they are called “Grekuya” by the Rhusia communities, while they call themselves Srbiaya or just “Rom”, without further specification. Since they did not come from Greece, the reason by which such a denomination is applied to them is probably related with the Orthodox rite that in Serbia was closer to the Greek rather than the Russian tradition. Now a large number of them have become Evangelical Christian, mainly in the Americas.
The Srbiaya as well as the Rhusia, have no memory of any Romanian ancestor in the remote past, and it is evident that they have been in Serbia since many generations. Definitely, these groups cannot be classified as "Vlax". They distinguish Roma of Romanian stock very well, and try to keep separate from them.
Srbiaya Roma are also strongly endogamic, however, in the last decades intermarriage with other Romany communities, mainly with Rhusia, are becoming always more frequent.
Gábor: This is a Hungarian name (Gabriel) and the most common surname among a Transylvanian Romany community, an offshoot of the Kalderaš which is now often considered as an independent group. They seem to have received an important Jewish influence, and are like the “Orthodox” ‒ concerning Romany Law, not religion ‒ group among Roma. Also the Romany they speak seems to be older than the one generally spoken by most Kalderaša. They are economically at the highest position in Romany society; their homes are easily recognizable for their shining roofs and lordly aspect. The Gábor Roma consider themselves of Hungarian nationality; they speak Romany and their second language is Magyar. They do not emigrate, but may be seen in any European country for business or temporary stay.
The Gábor Roma hardly intermarry, and practise a Shabbath-keeping Christianity.
Šanxajci or Kitaitska Rom: Literally “Chinese Gypsies”, they are an offshoot of the Kalderaša who have settled back in Russia after a long sojourn in China. This historical fact has marked them with distinctive features so as to be considered a separate sub-group, although within the Russian Kalderaš family.
Argentinake Rom: Even though this is still not considered as a separate sub-group ‒ not yet ‒, the Argentinian Kalderaš Roma have developed their own identity, both the Rhusia and the Srbiaya, as well as a family of Kitaitska Rom that settled in Buenos Aires and reintegrated within the Rhusia. They have kept Romany language and culture more genuine than their counterparts in Europe; some terms used by Argentinian Roma are regarded as ″those used by the ancestors″ in Europe, as well as the observance of Romany Law is sometimes considered too strict or old fashioned by European Roma of the same stock. This is due to the sharp separation they established from Gadje, in spite of having enjoyed undoubtedly much more freedom than European Roma, and also because they did not follow the same evolution, being geographically separated. Argentinian Roma still like dwelling in large tents, even though all of them have now comfortable, huge houses with vaste parking places for their automobiles, which they buy and sell. They live only in important cities, but it is not unusual to see them camping in small towns and villages for a short term, for business reasons. It is also common to find them in other countries, mainly Spain, France and Mexico, where they keep separate from the other Roma. Families born and settled in the United States identify themselves as “Argentinuya”, no longer knowing if they were Rhusia or Srbiaya, and being quite difficult to know it, since they have adopted the “Romanynglish” accent and terminology.
An item that must be present in every Argentinian Romany home is the samovar.
· Lovari-Mačvaya Group
In the same way as the Kalderaša developed their culture within the Slavic countries, the Lovarya are the Roma of the Hungarian realm. They are the dominant Eastern Romany group in those territories historically ruled by Hungary or under Hungarian influence, mainly Slovakia and Southern Poland (besides Hungary). They speak Romany, with an important number of Magyar terms and expressions, however, perfectly understood by the Kalderaš speakers. The etymology of their ethnonym is uncertain, and the alleged origin in the Hungarian term “ló”, meaning horse ‒ because Lovarya are traditionally horse dealers ‒ seems to be rather groundless. The most probable interpretation is found in Romany language itself: “lovari” means “money-maker”, and it is coherent with Romany pride that skilful businessmen had self-applied such attribute, which passed on to successive generations as their distinctive designation.
The Lovarya have not emigrated massively as the Kalderaša had, however, they are present in most European countries and in the Americas, mainly the United States and Brazil. On the contrary, the Mačvaya, who are an offshoot of the Lovarya once dwelling in Vojvodina (a Serbian territory formerly under Hungarian rule), more precisely in the area of Mačva, have left for far away destinations: Brazil, United States and Canada gather almost all the people of this sub-group. They are usually rich traders, and there are also many university graduated. They use to intermarry with other Romany groups, mainly with Srbiaya.
· Ruska Roma
Also called “Xaladitka Roma” (Gypsy soldiers), they are the most numerous group in Russia. These are probably the first Roma who settled in that land, likely coming from the Caucasus, and they speak an Old Romany language. They are widespread throughout Russia even up to the Kamchatka Peninsula and across the boundaries with China, as well as in Ukraine, and some of them beyond the western border, in Poland. The Ruska Roma are an endogamic group and keep the Romany Law. They are the main representatives of the Romany culture in Russia, with many families of famous artists, musicians, dancers, and having established their own folk style and artistic patterns (see “Famous Gypsies”). Horse trading is another of their ancestral professions. A distinctive characteristic of this group, which is unique among Roma, is that joining the army is not unusual among them, a tradition that they keep from the past, when ethnic Romany men were found among the Cossacks.
There are several sub-groups, mainly designed according to geographic patterns: Vešitka, Sibiryake, Litovska/Polska, Lotfika/Čuxny, Laloritke, Piterska, etc.
· Servitka Roma
This group is the second largest by number in Russia and Ukraine. Initially settled by the Dniepr River, they arrived from Serbia, as their ethnonym indicates, in an early stage of the Romany Settlement in Europe. Their language is also Old Romany, although many of them have lost it and speak Ukrainian as their mother tongue. The Servitka Roma have been in many aspects assimilated into the Ruska Roma; having outstanding musicians and artists as well, and intermarriage between both groups is common. They should not be confused with the Servika Roma, a Carpathian sub-group. As well as Ruska Roma, many of them were Cossacks.
· Gurbeti
The Gurbeti are the group that is less related with the others in this Eastern Roma block. Being now present in the central and southern Republics of the former Yugoslavia, they are the only ones of this block that may in some way be called "Vlax", as they arrived from Wallachia and Moldavia in the 19th century c.e. after liberation from slavery in those lands. They share some cultural features with the Kalderaša, but also with other Balkan Roma like the Khoraxané. They speak their own Romany dialect, that is definitely different from Kalderašitsko, although both groups can understand each other. A dialectal sub-group is that of the Džambazi. The Gurbeti are partly assimilated into non-Romany social environment and do not follow many patterns of the Romany Law any longer. There are Gurbeti Roma who emigrated to other European countries, mainly Austria and Germany, and also to Brazil and North America.
Sinti and Romanichals: Central European Roma
The Sinti and Romanichal Gypsies can be classified as a single block, as they share many features which show that originally they came out from the same Romany branch. We can classify them as Central European Roma.
Their dialects, although having lost the grammar structure of Romany and having taken many loanwords from the local languages, keep a good deal of terms of the Old Romany. Indeed, some original Romany words that have been lost in Kalderašitsko Romanés, are still used in Sinti and British Romany dialects.
They also keep Romany Law in different degrees of observance, not so striclty as Eastern Roma do.
· Sinti / Manuš Group
The “Sinti” may be also defined as “Germanic Roma”, as they were the first group that settled in the German-speaking lands, namely, the decadent "Roman Empire of the German Nation", and their historical and cultural development took place in the subsequent many small states that emerged from it, then gathered by Prussia and Austria, and ultimately, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This geographic distribution along centuries of relative isolation from the other Romany groups has defined their particular features, so much that they are often considered as a separate ethnic entity.
This concept is reinforced by the fact that they do not call themselves “Rom” but Sinti, and use the term ″rom″ only with the meaning of married Sinti male (a meaning that is also given by all other Roma groups ‒ ″rom″ means married man of the Roma people). However, they call their language “Romanes” and apply the ethnonym “Sinti” to all Roma, therefore, recognizing themselves as members of the same people. So, as the designations of their own sub-groups are based on geographic distribution, they also call the other Roma “Hungarian Sinti”, “Serbian Sinti”, “Russian Sinti”, “Spanish Sinti”, etc.
In modern times, it has become politically correct to say “Roma and Sinti”, in order to meet the requirements of both parties, non-Sinti Roma that do not want to be called Sinti, and Sinti who do not want to be called Roma. This expression is also used mainly in Germany, Austria and other countries in order to distinguish the local Gypsies from the Eastern immigrant ones. However, it is like saying “British and English” or “North-Americans and Canadians”, as Sinti are a Roma group, not a different people. Their distinction is the result of a process that took place in Europe.
Concerning the etymology of the name Sinti, it is still unknown. The alleged association with the region of Sindh is rather a phonetic resemblance that has been discarded from the linguistic science. Actually, this term appears to be relatively recent, not used before the 18th century c.e., and it is unknown why did they adopt this designation for themselves. Apparently, their original ethnonym was “Manuš” (which is still the denomination of French Sinti, “Manouches”), a term that in Romany means ″human being″ ‒ even more general than ″rom″.
The Sinti people speak a Romany language that is not understood reciprocally with Kalderašitsko and related dialects, mainly because the Sinti's tongue has not the Romany grammar structure, and there is a relevant amount of Germanic terms. However, from the lexical point of view, there are some Old Romany words that have been lost by Eastern Roma which are still preserved by Sinti.
The Sinti sub-groups are defined by historic-geographic areas:
Gáčkane (Sinti-Romany name of Germany), also called Teyč (from ″deutsch″, German), are the Sinti of Germany, who are present also in all the neighbouring countries and in Italy. Their élite is represented by the Eftavagarya (the ″Seven Caravans″), the largest family clan, usually having by surname Reinhardt, to which belong outstanding musicians and artists .
Estraxarya (from “Éstraxa”, Österreich), are the Sinti inhabitants of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, still present in the same historic territories, namely Austria, Northern Italy, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Transylvania and Western Ukraine.
Lalere: The Czech Sinti; almost exterminated in the concentration camps during WWII, the few remaining moved to Germany after the war ended.
Válštike (“Roman”, meaning French), better known as Manuš or Manouches: they are the Sinti of France, actually an offshoot of the Gáčkane, that settled in France and eventually assimilated any Romany group that may have been already dwelling in that country. They are also great musicians, so that the Gypsy Jazz is also known as Jazz Manouche.
Piamontákeri: they are the Sinti of Northwestern Italy, who have developed their own identity as a Sinti sub-group, and are important keepers of the Old Piedmontese dialect, that is always less spoken by their native Italian speakers. In compensation, they have almost lost their own Sinti-Romany dialect. They are also present in Provence.
Sinti Lombardi and Veneti: An offshoot of the Estraxarya, the Sinti of North-Eastern Italy that once were under Austrian rule, have developed a separate identity and their dialect has adopted a Northern-Italian structure, so that it is not easy to be understood reciprocally with the other Sinti.
The Sinti dialects were undergoing a decadence within the young generations, but their recent affiliation to the Evangelical movements has produced a renewed need of the language in order to communicate with the Sinti communities in the different countries.
· Romanichals and Welsh Kale
The Romanichals or Romanichels are the English and Scottish Roma; Kale is the designation of the Welsh Roma. Both groups arrived in Great Britain from France and their language shows Old Romany roots, having many lexical resemblances with Sinti dialects and also with Spanish Romanó. In spite of the harsh discriminatory laws against Gypsies in the United Kingdom, they have achieved a cultural and social development within British society through their ability in arts and crafts. Some of them have ever been knighted, either for having served the Crown or else for musical or artistic excellence. They have always professed Christian faith and many of them were even church pastors since early times of settlement, which has been a peculiarity of British Roma until recent times, when a large number of Roma worldwide have joined Evangelical movements.
Roma in Great Britain have been called in different ways, usually in reference to their professions or lifestyle, as “braziers”, “horse-dealers”, “tinkers”, “fortune-tellers”, “vagrants”, etc. In official documents, they were first called Egyptians, then Gypsies, a designation that they have accepted and adopted for themselves along with Romanichal. Their original language is almost lost; they speak rather what is called Anglo-Romany, a mixture of English and Romany. They are divided in three main sub-groups: English, Scottish and Welsh.
The English Gypsies are now distributed not only in England but also in the former British colonies, where they did not emigrate voluntarily, but were deported. Therefore, we can find them, or their descendants, in the United States, Canada, Australia and even in the Caribbean. Although also whole families were transferred, most of the exiled were only men, so that their ethnicity disappeared with intermarriage. In North America it became common that male Gypsies took female Natives as wives, since they were not allowed to mix with the "White" population. Some of their offspring is found among the Melungeon people.
Some contemporary actors and musicians are English Romanichel.
The Scottish Gypsies have an interesting history. Some researchers assert that the first Roma arrived in Scotland with the Knight Templars, who brought them from the Holy Land, where the Knights employed these “Egyptians” as metal-workers to manufacturate and keep maintenance of their weapons. It is well documented that a community of Gypsies dwelled in the Rosslyn Chapel area under protection of the Sinclair family, and many Roma even adopted this surname. The reason for such a privilege is said to be the decisive contribution of a Gypsy contingent to defeat the English in the Battle of Bannockburn (1314 c.e.). That Roma in Scotland had to do with nobility is confirmed also by the Kirk Yetholm Gypsies, who have been recognized as a respectable social group, having even their own Kings and Queens ‒ an oddity of Scottish Roma, because such titles do not exist in Romany society, but only in romantic literature or else for social or political convenience in the relationship with the Gadje society, but not recognized within Roma community.
The so-called Irish Gypsies are not Roma but Travellers. However, there are some ethnic Roma in Ireland, but they are Scottish Gypsies that settled or stay temporarily in Ireland.
The Welsh Gypsies or Kale: They speak a different dialect, better kept than the Romanichels' one. About their designation Kale, see above under Kalderaš. They have shared the same restrictive laws and social emargination undergone by English Gypsies, and like them, many have been deported to the former British colonies. There are notable artists and musicians, a dynasty founded by Abram Wood, who have contributed to the conservation of the Kale Romany dialect.
Calé: Iberian Roma
This Romany group has developed a strong identity, having kept isolated from the other European Roma for centuries. Caló is their common designation in Spain and Southern France (where their mother tongue is either Spanish or Catalan), while in Portugal their ethnonym is “Calon”.
The general hypothesis is that they reached the Iberian Peninsula through two ways: one from the north-east across the Pyrenees, and the other from the south across the Strait of Gibraltar. Nevertheless, only the first route has been verified, while the alleged southern road has still not found any documented confirmation. Indeed, their old language, called Romanó and no longer spoken ‒ different from the variety known as Caló, that is still used ‒ belongs to the same Old Romany branch of the Eastern Roma and shows that they very likely came from Russia. There is not only a noticeable lexical resemblance with the tongue of the Ruska Roma, but also some terms of evident Russian origin, as for example ″úlicha″ (street), which does not exist in Central European Romany, but is found in Eastern dialects like Kalderašitsko (vúlitsa/úlitsa). Other characteristic they have in common with the Ruska Roma is that both groups have traditionally held the very same main professions: horse trading and music. Both groups have developed a particular style of folk that became the most representative of the respective countries. They also behave in the same way regarding the fact that none of the two groups emigrate to lands where a different gažikanés language is spoken. This possible ″Russian connexion″ contributes also to support the hypothesis that the original meaning of the designation Calé may be as explained above.
The Spanish Roma have adopted for themselves the ethnonym Gitano, as well as Caló, and know the term ″rom″ only with the meaning of married man. About the term they use in reference to the other Roma groups, they behave in the same way as the Sinti: they call them “Gitanos Húngaros”, “Gitanos Rusos”, “Gitanos Alemanes”, etc.
Undoubtedly, they are well known worldwide more than anything as the best performers of Flamenco culture in every aspect, so that they are fully identified with it and consider it their own characteristic and original culture. Nevertheless, the fact that Flamenco is exclusive patrimony of Spanish Gypsies and not known by other Roma is a proof that they have found the roots of such expression in the Spanish soil. The oldest ″palos″ (sticks, name of the different styles) del ″cante jondo″ (the deep song) are a legacy that the Sephardim Jews left them after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 c.e., the expression of a discriminated people that was soon adopted by those who remained, the heirs of the persecution, the Gypsies. As it happened everywhere in Europe, the Roma took the houses left by the exiled Jews and dwelled in them, not just because they were empty and without owner, but because only the Jews' homes were considered suitably clean according to the laws of marimé, then observed by all Roma, as Roma did not come into Gadje's houses until recent times because they are considered ritually impure. From the original palos, Roma have developed the Flamenco culture in a varied and rich style and in an unique way, so that it can be considered now legitimate property of the Cultura Gitana.
The Calé sub-groups are defined by geographic areas:
The Andalusian are the most numerous and also those who have achieved a higher instruction level; most of university graduated Gitanos belong to this community. Also the most celebrated Flamenco players, singers and dancers are Andalusian.
The Extremeños are considered the most conservative, closer to the Portuguese Calons rather than to the other Spanish sub-groups.
The Catalanes are the second largest community, they are present not only in Spain but also in Southern France. Although Flamenco is the folk expression of all Calé Roma, the Catalanes have developed their own, softer style, the rumbas.
The Castilian sub-group is considered an offshoot of both Andalusian and Catalanes, established for many generations in the central-northern area of Spain.
The Basque Gypsies, a particular community that keeps a Romany dialect that is more complete than common Caló, although mixed with some Euskara terminology; it is called Errumantxela or Arromnichela ‒ a curious parallelism with British Gypsies: Caló/Arromnichela and Kale/Romanichal.
The Calon are the Portuguese Gypsies, a community socially more emarginated than their Spanish counterpart.
The Calé Roma have been almost surely the first Gypsies that arrived in the Americas; the Spanish rulers used to send to the colonies the people they did not want in Spain, and it is documented that several Roma were part of the crew that sailed with Columbus and the other conquest and colonization trips that followed. Of course, these male Roma had no chance to perpetuate their culture and married Native women, so that today we cannot know their descent. In modern times, some Calé families emigrated as many Europeans did, fleeing from the critical situation in search of a better life, and Calé communities were established mainly in Argentina and Mexico. Concerning the Calons, they have a similar history of early deportation in Brazil, and later immigration in the same country.
These Roma have also joined massively the Evangelical movements, which has led them to have a more fluent relationship with the international Romany community.
Other Romany Groups
Besides these well defined blocks, there are Romany groups and sub-groups that do not fit into any of them, and can be hardly gathered in a common classification, so that they have to be considered separately. As a logical consequence of history, the majority of these communities are geographically located in the Balkan area, while other groups settled in relative isolation and developed their own peculiarities.
· Khoraxané
The Khoraxané or Xoraxané are a Balkan group that settled in the area of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Southern Serbia, Macedonia and Albania during the Ottoman rule, probably coming from Anatolia, as their ethnonym seems to indicate. In fact, this term in Romany refers not only to present-day Turkey but also to the whole Middle East, Southern Asia, including India, and North Africa. Roughly translated as ″Arab″, the actual etymology should be found in the general term used by European Christians in reference to them: Saracenes. This word comes from the Greek Σαρακηνός, and this from the Aramean ″sarqiyin″, desert-dwellers. In some documents written in Romanó, the Moor is called ″Corochai″, which corresponds to the Eastern Romany Khoraxay, which is singular, being the plural Khoraxané or Khoraxá. Therefore, existing a general coincidence regarding every point between the Romany and the European words, the most likely exact translation of this term is Saracene. In fact, Roma use the same word for both Roma and Gadje who are Saracenes by culture.
The Khoraxané Roma speak an hybrid Romany, plenty of Turkish, Albanian and Slavic terminology, and a rough pronounciation. However, with a little effort, it can be understood by mainstream Romany speakers. They do not keep the Romany Law, but have adopted Turkish customs. Actually, they are ethnically a mixed people, in which the Romany element is a component along with Turk and other peoples. In the last decades, they are present in most European countries, not having been welcomed by the local Roma...
South American Khoraxané: By the beginning of the 20th century c.e., a massive immigration of Khoraxané Roma reached South America, in first place Brazil, and settled there. Many however went ahead in their journey and arrived in Chile. Since then, this enigmatic group is the absolute majority of Roma in Chile, and the only ″autochthonous″ Gypsy group in this country. So much that as in Europe the word Khoraxanó is equivalent to ″Saracene Gypsy″, in South America is translated as ″Gitano Chileno″.
Even though their dialect is in some way similar to that of the European Khoraxané, it is closer to mainstream Romany. This group is an enigma because, calling themselves ″Jorajané″ (according to the Spanish spelling), they keep the Romany Law and are Christians, and they already were when arrived in South America. They even have Christian Slavic surnames as Arestić, Nikolić, Pantić, or even an unusual one as California. Since some decades, a large group of them practise Shabbath keeping Christianity. Another characteristic they have is that red hair is very common among them.
Chilean Jorajané have also settled in Argentina and other South American countries, and many emigrated to Mexico and the United States. Intermarriage is becoming more common, with Kalderaša and Mačvaya.
· Boyaš
Also called Banyaš, Bayaš or Beás, they are the only authentic ″Vlax″ Gypsies, who speak Old Romanian and have lost the Romany language, of which they keep only some few terms. They are commonly known by the other Romany groups as “Romanian Roma”. They apparently were forced to work in the mines, according to their ethnonym and also to that one given them in Bulgaria, Rudari. However, their traditional professions have nothing to do with mining. Their language is a 15th to 18th century Romanian, with many Hungarian, Serbian and Romany loanwords and expressions. Their area of distribution is Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia. The authentic Boyaš may be a definite group, however by extension, this designation is applied to all Roma who do no speak Romany but Romanian. Therefore, we will consider here the extensive concept, as the specific denominations are related with traditional professions and not with particular ethnic features.
The most numerous sub-group are the Ursari (bear-tamers), also called Maimunari (monkey-tamers), who are by number the second largest Gypsy community in the American Continent, where they emigrated mainly from Croatia and Bosnia (then Austro-Hungarian Empire) as well as from Serbia. They in fact have Slavic surnames, not Romanian. There they have developed their traditional activity but adapted to the social environemnt, becoming horse-trainers and performing tourist attraction activities. Many have even achieved in settling their own circus. The most numerous communities are in Brazil, Argentina and the United States. They have little relationship with Romany-speaking Roma, since these ones do not consider the Boyaš true Roma because of the language. The younger generations do not even speak Romanian any longer, but the national language of the country where they live.
In Europe the best known sub-group of Romanian-speaking Roma are the Lautari, who are musicians par excellence, mainly fiddlers, organized in bands that play Klezmer and Balkan folk in weddings and entertainment events as well as in theatres.
There are many other communities who are designed after their traditional profession, but actually there are not ethnical differences that may justify a classification as separate groups. These are not even castes, a concept that is completely alien to Romany culture, but work occupations that were them assigned by the slavery system to which Gypsies in Romania were submitted.
· Carpathian Roma
The Carpathian group is not homogeneous, but a complex of Romany communities sharing the same territory, culture and social environment. They are historically settled in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Southern Poland, Transylvania and Transcarpathian Ukraine. The most relevant sub-groups by population are Ungrika Roma, Servika Roma and Burgenland Roma.
The Ungrika Roma, namely “Hungarian Gypsies” are the most numerous community in Hungary. Most of them have lost their Romany language and speak only Magyar, while a minority of them settled in the east and in Slovakia, still speak a Carpathian dialect of Romany. They are also known as Romungri, and are by tradition musicians. They have given important contribution to the development of Hungarian folk music.
The Servika Roma (not directly related with the Servitka Roma), designation that now is being replaced by Slovak Roma, are Gypsies that emigrated from Serbia to Slovakia and Transcarpathian Ukraine in the 16th century. They speak a Carpathian Romany dialect that is different from that of the Ungrika Roma settled in the same area, although reciprocally comprehensible. There is an increasing migration to the Czech Republic, where they are known as Slovenska Roma. A related sub-group are the Bergitka Roma, settled along the Polish-Slovakian border.
The Burgenland Roma are one of the Gypsy groups that risked complete extinction during the WWII. They are the Romany sub-group historically settled in the Austria-Hungary border and in Slovenia. They speak Romany, a dialect that structurally belongs to the Carpathian group.
· Kaale
Kaale is the self-designation of the Finnish Roma. They reached that Nordic land from Sweden, to which Finland has belonged for centuries, according to the family names they have and the amount od Swedish loanwords present in their Romany dialect. It is likely that they belonged to the same stock of the German Sinti, and that they were sent to Finland by Swedish authorities in order that they were not present in the ethnically Swedish land, or maybe with the hope that they would have crossed the borderline to join the Roma communities in Russia. Such gathering did not happen even when Finland passed to belong to Russia; Finnish Roma kept their own group identity. The Kaale keep up to an acceptable degree the Romany Law, and women's clothing is a visible signal of this observance. Ritual purity and blood feud are still considered very important cultural marks. On the contrary, knowledge of Romany language is in decadence among the young generations, who have either Finnish or Swedish as their primary tongue. Finnish Romany is simplified, with no gender and the consequent gender-derived inflections, and is reciprocally of difficult comprehension with other Romany speakers. Kaale's identity is strongly founded on ancestral cultural standards rather than on language conservation.
· Southern Italian Roma
The South of Italy is a complex of ethnic entities of prevailing Mediterranean culture, in which Romany communities have been settled for centuries, some of them mixed with the various local groups and reciprocally assimilated with them, some others keeping a Romany identity more or less defined. Roma arrived in Southern Italy in different migration waves and from different lands, sometimes together with other non-Roma people that still keep their ancestral identity, as well as that of being fully Italians.
This is a self-isolated Romany group, closed within their territorial environment, without establishing relationships with other Roma, not even with their neighbours in Italy. They are called after the historic-geographic regions in which they have settled: Abruzzesi, Molisani, Napoletani, Cilentani, Lucani, Pugliesi, Calabresi. Other groups as the Salentini, Siciliani and Isilesi have been completely assimilated and no longer identified as Gypsies.
The Abruzzesi are those who show their Romany identity in a more evident way; their women still wear traditional Romany clothing and follow the general patterns of behaviour established by Romany rules. Ancestral profession, now almost forgotten, was that of horse-dealers. They probably came from the Southern Balkan region, though the presence of some Germanic terms in their tongue shows that they reached from the north, not by the sea. They speak a Romany dialect that has evolved independently and is mutually incomprehensible with any other. It has Italian grammar and many loanwords and expressions from dialectal Italian. Many of the Abruzzesi Roma have settled in Rome.
Very similar to them are the Molisani, established mainly in the province of Foggia, and still known as horse-traders.
The Napoletani Roma, better known as “Zingari Napuletani”, may have probably come from Spain during the Spanish rule over that region; in such case, they should be of Calé origin. They speak Neapolitan language and are well adapted into the colourful social and cultural atmosphere of that city.
The Cilentani may have likely come from Greece, since they have settled in an area with a strong consciousness of ancient Greek culture, in the neighbourhood of Pæstum, and are well assembled in the social and cultural environment. They still practise metal manufacturing as their traditional activity.
The Lucani and Pugliesi Roma, traditionally horse-breeders and traders, are those who are best assimilated into the local economy, and many have reached high scolarization level.
The Calabresi Roma are by tradition metal-workers and horse-dealers, and still speak a jargon called “Ammasckante”, derived from local dialects. They very likely arrived in Italy with the Arberesh immigrants that fled from the Balkans during the Ottoman invasion of that region, as they are more numerous in the area in which also Arberesh settlements are present.
Of the same extraction should have been the three remaining and completely assimilated sub-groups: the Salentini, Siciliani and Isilesi. In that period, many Roma moved to the Venetian-ruled areas, and one of the most numerous settlements was in Corfu, from where many Greek, Albanian and Roma contingents reached the South-Eastern Italian coast. Today many cultural and musical traditions, as well as some dialectal words in Salento show that the local population has assimilated an important Romany element, that seemingly found a friendly environment so as to intermarry and become part of the local society (as it happens for example in Jerez, Andalusia). The same migratory wave was directed also to Sicily, and it is recorded that by that time Roma had almost monopolised the industry of metal-working. Old Sicilian culture has many points in common with Romany tradition, mainly regarding the wedding, birth and funeral rituals, by which complete assimilation was easier. From Sicily, it is likely that some Roma coppersmiths moved to Sardinia, precisely to the area of Isili, where it still survives a jargon called “Arromaniska” or also “Arbaresca”, which has some terms derived from Romany as well as from Old Albanian and shows some resemblances with that of Sicilian itinerant knife-sharpeners.
· Balkan Roma
There is a very heterogeneous Roma community in the Southern Balkan area, namely Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania and Southern Serbia. There are different groups and sub-groups that may not be included in any broad classification, but are rather autonomous and unrelated with the neighbouring Roma. Some of them even take similar names as other communities already mentioned, yet not having any direct connection with them. A large number of these Roma do not speak Romany any longer, having adopted the local language and often also intermarried with Gadje. As well as the Khoraxané, they are of mixed ethnicity, having mutually assimilated with the local population during the Ottoman rule.
We can roughly divide this group in two geographic areas: Eastern Balkan, (Bulgaria and European Turkey) and Western Balkan (Macedonia, Albania, Southern Serbia).
In the Eastern region, the most numerous community is that of the Yerlii or Erliya, by itself complex and involving noticeable differences within internal subdivisions. Some of them speak archaic Romany dialects mixed with Turkish and Bulgarian, others have adopted Turkish as their own tongue. They are roughly classified in two main distinct sub-groups: Horahané and Dasikané, denominations that are confusing and actually artificial. In fact, it is a religious division which has not an ethnic basis, that is the same one made by the above mentioned Khoraxané, having the same self-designation but not always related with them, and in the same way as these, they call all non-Khoraxané under the generic term ″Das″, meaning Christian. Actually, these ones do not self-identify as ″Dasikané″ (as well as Gadje do not apply themselves this name except when dealing with Roma), but according to their more specific identification. Some authors who speak about ″Dasikané Roma″ do not realize that they are not giving any real classification, but promoting the point of view of the Khoraxané/Horahané only. Both Yerlii sub-groups have internal designations based on traditional occupations. Another contradiction arises from the fact that some Horahané have adopted Christianity, but still keep this name.
Another fragment of the Yerlii are the Agupti, who keep a sharp separation from the rest of Roma but easily blend with Turkish or Bulgarian people and speak these languages rather than Romany, which is being forgotten by the young generations.
The Vlahički or Vlahorya, as their name indicates, came from Wallachia and are recognized according to their traditional professions. They are also Yerlii, but speak a Romany dialect closer to the mainstream language.
Very distinct from the Yerlii complex are the ″Kardaraši″, that many authors confuse with the Kalderaša, but actually different from them. In fact, it is a general name given them by the Yerlii, not by themselves (although they use this designation as well). Their dialects are related with mainstream Romany, and are divided in two main communities: the Laiaši and the Nyamtsi, namely, “Coppersmiths” and “Germans”, and several other subdivisions. They are endogamous and do not intermarry with the Yerlii.
Similar to them, but yet separate and close within their own clan, are the ″Thracian Kalaidzii″.
Concerning the Western region, in which the groups of the Eastern Roma block described above are the dominant Romany population by number, there are other communities that we may include in this complex and fragmentary Balkan group. They are mainly Albanian Roma, also present in Macedonia and Serbia. The Arlija, traditionally blacksmiths, speak a Romany dialect which is reciprocally understood with the Džambazi Roma, although belonging to a different branch. There are some Arlija that converted to Christianity and intermarried with Serbians; they are called Srpski Cigani (″Serbian Gypsies″), implying a negative meaning for the traditional Arlija.
Another Albanian sub-group are the Aškalija, who do not speak Romany and usually do not speak of themselves as Roma, having developed an independent identity. They are also blacksmiths by tradition.
There are still other minority designations, but it is not our purpose to mention all of them.
· Greek Roma
Roma in Greece are not an homogeneous group either, and some of the Balkan families are also found in this country. There are three main communities: the Yifti, who speak Greek and many of them have Greek identity, the Türk-Yifti, who speak Turkish and often prefer a Turkish identity, and the various Romany speaking tribes, with Romany identity although considering themselves part of the Hellenic civilization and culture. There are different dialects, some of them may be considered mainstream Romany, others are mutually understood with it, and others rather closer to the Balkan dialects. Roma in Greece call the Greeks ″Balamé″ instead of Gažé.
· Armenian Lom
Armenian Roma call themselves “Lom”, and are the only non-European Gypsies that may be regarded as authentic Roma (except of course Gypsies in the American Continent, Israel, Australia and all other groups that are originated from European Roma). Their presence in the historic lands of Armenia, which were extended over a much larger territory than the present-day Republic of Armenia and included most of Eastern Anatolia, dates back to at least the 7th century c.e. In fact, there are several Armenian terms in Romany language, as Roma sojourned for a long time in the Armenian realm before having been pushed into Europe, probably by the Seldjuk invasions, in the 11th century c.e. However, the Lom have evolved in an independent way, as by paradox, the Lomavren, that is the Romany dialect they speak, even though plenty of Armenian loanwords, shares very few terms of Armenian etymology with the European Romany. Consequently, the Lom may descend mainly from a second immigration wave, that may have taken place contemporarily with the Roma's arrival in Russia through the Caucasus and in the Byzantine Europe through the Bosphorus.
The Lom have been strongly Armenized, notwithstanding, they have kept their Gypsy identity and perform the traditional Romany professions and practises, except fortune-telling. They belong to the Armenian Christianity and are present in Armenia, Georgia, Russia and Israel. They are no longer endogamous, and intermarriage with Armenians or Assyrians are common. They are well identified with the Armenian culture, and several Lom have been important personalities in Armenian history (an example here).
Romany Group Identity
This brief description of the various groups in which the Romany Nation may be roughly divided is not definitive. These designations are the result of a development along history, through situations and circumstances that have marked their distinctive character and identity, keeping common patterns on one side, and setting differences on the other. The lands of sojourn and the social environment have played essential roles in the process of self-designation. With the renewed migration waves, these references from the past history are no longer permanent but likely to change. For example, it is obvious that groups as the Srbiaya, the Servitka and the Servika were not called like that when they were still in Serbia centuries ago, but acquired this identity after they emigrated, an identity that may fade away after several generations, and be replaced by another. It is also evident that the country where most Roma have settled before moving somewhere else has been Serbia (just consider how many groups are named after this nation, and the population that they represent). Before WWII, the former States of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were home of the most numerous Romany communities in Europe and in the world. Serbia has been the major ″Gypsy-exporter″ to the American Continent, where Roma are building up new identities for the future, that may even transcend the present group divisions which have been kept as reminders of their ancestors' European homeland. Intermarriage between these communities are always more frequent, although in most cases within the same national, social and cultural environment. As it was exposed, Chilean Jorajané have their distinct and unique characteristics so well defined that they deserve being considered a separate group, no longer related with their European counterpart. Argentinian Roma are on the same way towards a national Romany identity. There are also new traditions, for example, it is common in Brazil that Roma join Freemasonry, and this peculiarity is not exclusive of one group, but is generalized. Brazilian Roma are also interested in achieving a high education level, and many of them are university graduated, doctors, lawyers, professionals of any kind. Two Roma reached the highest government position, that of President of the Republic, and one of them was also the founder of the new capital, Brasilia.
While some group distinctions are likely to disappear, others are becoming sharper, as it happens with the new mass migration of Romanian Roma to the West. There is almost no relationship between the long established Roma communities and them; both parties actually make little effort to interact with each other, mainly owing to cultural and language barriers. For example, in the specific case of Spain, Romanian Roma have a better approach with Spanish Gadje rather than with the Gitanos or the other Eastern Roma settled in that country. The same happens in Italy, Germany and France, where even though Romanian Roma are present since a longer period than in other European countries, they have no relationship neither with Sinti nor with other Roma.
Concerning the so-called Romany organizations, usually led by Gadje, they are not recognized by the overwhelming majority of Roma. Many of them hiddenly aim at assimilation. Even the ethnic Gypsies who participate in such institutions are seen by their own people with suspicion, as doing such work for their personal convenience ‒ actually, none of them has been ever chosen through democratic elections within Roma population, but are rather self-appointed as representatives of the Romany community. We cannot doubt of the good faith with which these people may have taken such commitment, but it is a fact that they have not any real support from the Roma themselves. In many cases, these activists belong to a minority group within the national Roma, or even to a group of recent immigration. Wealthy Roma communities as for example the Kalderaš, Čurari, Lovari and others are actually not interested in being represented through any Gadje-like institution.
For an increasing number of Roma worldwide, the main channel of contact with the external society and the local authorities passes through their Evangelical pastors and leaders. Also this massive conversion phenomenon is building up a new Romany identity beyond group designations, and keeping the Romany Law and culture.
Mixed Gypsies
There are some groups that cannot be considered Romany Gypsies, nor non-Romany either, because they are partially Roma or include a Romany sub-group within the same broad designation. Such is the specific case of the “American Gypsies”, as they are also called, namely, the “Melungeon”, “Chicanere” or “Black Dutch”.
· Black Dutch, Chicanere, Melungeons
There are some ethnic groups in the United States known under these names and other similar ones, whose origins have remained an enigma and many hypotheses have been framed in order to get a conclusion. Actually, these definitions are usually interchangeable, but they do not refer to a single, homogeneous community, but are applied to a complex of people who do not fit into any conventional classification. Historical facts, traditions and surnames reveal that part of this heterogeneous group are of Romany ancestry, and some of them still keep this identity as a family secret.
It is historically documented that a relevant number of Romanichals were deported in the 17th century c.e. from England to the Colonies, generally destined to work in the plantations in Virginia. About one century later, many Sinti families from the western regions of Germany, mainly Rheinland-Pfalz, reached the American land fleeing from persecution and poverty. Their dark complexion did not match with the fact thet they were Germans, and probably this is the origin of the term “Black Dutch” or the less common “Black German”; while “Chicanere” seems to be derived from ″Zigeuner″, the German word for Gypsy. Roma would have tried by all means to hide their identity, because of the stigmatization that being Gypsy implied, and so the term Black Dutch was considered a convenient designation. As a matter of fact, American Gypsies of German descent do still identify themselves in this way, and they do not apply this name to other people (even though the term Black Dutch is also used in reference to some other groups).
There are several evidences that this ethnonym was originally applied in America to the German Sinti. The descriptions given in some documents of that period, about their aspect and behaviour, cannot be suitable to any other people but Roma. Also their surnames are those which are common among Gypsies, and in addition to this, the fact that the related families used to give their children the same civil names (in order to make it difficult for the authorities to know who is who) and called them by other names within the community. Many Black Dutch married Romanichals and adopted their English surnames as well.
Yet, it was not possible to keep the Romany ethnicity in the same way as in Europe, because of the fact that the number of male Roma was overwhelmingly larger than that of the females. In America by those times (and even until recently, when Dr. Martin Luther King carried on his revolution for freedom and equal rights) there was a kind of ″apartheid″ system, and the possibilities for a dark-skinned man to get married were reduced to non-White and non-Black women... therefore, many Gypsies took Native women. Also concerning this fact, there are documents that attest the existence of communities composed by such kind of mixed couples. The Natives in any case, enjoyed a better social image than Gypsies as they were not considered innate criminals. Many Roma in the United States still today prefer to allege Native ancestry in order to avoid further enquiries about their ethnicity.
Another designation that is applied to them is Melungeons, although this term refers more specifically to a group of Appalachia, among which there are also Black Dutch, but not all Melungeons are Black Dutch. In fact, only few of them may be of genuine Romany ancestry, nevertheless, there are Melungeons who claim Gypsy origin. There are also some features among them which are typical of Romany culture, as for example, the sharp definition of the male and female roles, the endogasmous marriage system, the metal-working tradition, the frequent moving from place to place, the musical style, etc. Melungeons having typical Romanichal surnames or Anglicized German ones are to be regarded as Black Dutch, and consequently, of Sinti descent.
The most famous Black Dutch was Elvis Aaron Presley.
Non-Romany Gypsies
Non-Romany Gypsies are communities that are not related with Roma by origins and ethnicity and obviously do not know the Romany Law, which may be classified as follows:
1) Ethnic Groups: peoples having a defined history, culture, language, social structure and ethnic identity in the same way as Roma have;
2) Traveller Groups: peoples that are not true ethnic entities, but communities that have been called Gypsies because of apparent features, such as their wandering character, their lifestyle and their typical occupations, as well as the fact that they usually have encoded languages or jargons, which in many cases include Romany terms.
Ethnic Groups
· Domari
The Domari people are often referred to as the ″Middle Eastern Roma″. However, they are a different people. There is no contact between Roma and Domari, and actually, they are not considered in the statistics of estimative Romany world population. The Domari are known under several names, such as Náwwar, Gážar, Karači, Qorbat, etc., terms that often are used in a derogatory manner. They are present in a large geographic area, from Central Asia to the Maghreb. The closest resemblance between Domari and Roma is the language, both having the same roots, but definitely not being the same tongue. There is also no certainty about the historic period in which the Domari appeared in the lands where they live at present, apparently having migrated from the Indus Valley. There is also not any relationship between them and the Dom people of India, besides an ethnonym similarity. Actually, the term Dom in India is applied by the higher castes to different unrelated tribes of various origins, but none of them has never used this word as self-designation. Therefore, it is unlikely that groups that never employed the term Dom as a self-reference in their homeland would then identify themselves in this way after having emigrated.
As a matter of fact, the Domari are a people of Scythian stock, and as well as Roma, they were not autochthonous of India, but settled there in early times, with the establishment of Scythian tribes in the Indus Valley and Northwest India, where also Roma settled when exiled from their original homeland. In the same way as Roma, the reasons by which they left the Indus Valley and did never return back again there, should be understood as an attempt to come back to their ancient homeland in the Middle East. The Domari ethnonym might be related with Edom, a people of mixed Hurrian stock and whose language probably kept many Sanskrit words which pertained to the Hurrian language, widely spoken in the Middle East in the ancient age. Many “Romany” features such as the predisposition to wandering from place to place, the lack of interest in recording their own history and writing their own language, the particular attraction for gold, and many other characteristics are indeed typical of Scythian culture.
The Domari are a discriminated, stigmatised minority in the whole Muslim environment where they live, and the only community in the world that achieved in creating an association for having a voice in behalf of their people is the small settlement in Jerusalem, since this city is again in Israeli hands. The related community settled in Gaza enjoyed a decent life while this land strip was under Israeli control, but since the Arabs have took the rule, the Domari there have fallen in disgrace, impoverished and isolated.
There is not any brotherhood relationship between Israeli Roma and Domari, besides that of being neighbours like Jews and Arabs.
· Qarači
They are a people of Azerbaidjan who call themselves Dom, but they are a distinct group from the Domari dwelling in the same region, who self-designate also Dom, and are as well called Qarači by the Azeri. There is little research done about this group, that some consider to be an old offshoot of ″Central Asian Gypsies″ (Lyuli?). They were studied by the Armenian Rom scholar Kerope Patkanov, who stated that they spoke a language of the same root of Domari and Romany, but also Azeri and even Tat.
· Lyuli or Luli
The Luli are a group settled mainly in Tadjikistan, also present in all the Turkestan region and Russia. They call themselves Mughat, meaning ″fire-worshippers″, or also Ghurbat, ″exiled″. It is known that they arrived in Central Asia in the 13th century c.e. from the area of Multan, in the Indus Valley, by which they are also called Multani, besides Jughi and Lyuli. They have Asian features, so it is possible that they descend from Persian groups assimilated into the Turkic peoples that once ruled over India. They have not any Romany tradition, and the only reason by which they are called Gypsies is because of their nomadic lifestyle. Their social organization is based on clan divisions. In some areas of the Middle East, the term Luli is applied to the Domari people.
· Lambadi or Banjara (Ghor)
This is one of the several groups that are usually called ″Gypsies of India″, as well as others allegedly related with Roma. Actually, none of these communities in India may be ethnically or culturally linked with Roma; the apparent similarity is that these peoples are peripatetic and have no written language ‒ too little for establishing any relationship, besides the fact that their tongues are not intelligible with Romany. None of them has any self-designation term that may be related with the ethnonym Rom. The Lambadi are named in more than fifty ways; Banjara is the term used during the British rule, but they call themselves “Ghor”. They live in Central India, but apparently came from the North. They keep their own traditions, which are utterly different from those of Roma. Their main occupation is farming.
· Gadia Lohar
The Gadia Lohar or Gaduliya Lohar have been thought to be possible relatives of Roma people because they are traditionally blacksmiths and live in Rajasthan. Such is the criterion used by many scholars to establish the origin of peoples! They dwell in bullock carts, called gadia, and according to their tradition, they are nomadic in order to be loyal to a vow pronounced by their ancestors. Ethnically, they are a Rajput tribe.
· Narikorava
Their name is related with jackal chasing. Also known as Kuruvikaran for another of their traditional activities, that is bird trapping. They are nomads and live in Southern India, but according to their language, called Vagriboli, they came from the north. There are no features in common with Roma, besides the nomadic life.
Traveller Groups
The Travellers are groups of nomadic people present mainly in Western European countries, whose origins remain unknown until now. They belong to the same ethnicity of the population of the countries where they live, but they are distinguished by their unconventional lifestyle and their rejection to social inclusion according to the established patterns.
· Yenish / Jenisch / Yeniche
The Yenish are often mistakenly considered a branch of the Roma. Actually, they are ethnic Germans whose origins seem to be a kind of association of wandering artisans that became a solidly endogamous group in the 17th century c.e. They speak a mixed language, composed by German dialects, mainly Alsatian, Rotwelsch, Yiddish and Romany. The presence of these two last elements is owing to the fact that their working activity enabled them to get in touch with other groups such as Jewish merchants and Romany traders, from whom they adopted some terms into their language.
The Yenish have Germanic features and are present in all German-speaking countries and in France. Their traditional occupations are metalsmiths and basket-makers. Their relationships with Roma are rather conflictive, so that both groups avoid meeting each other.
· Irish Travellers
These are the so-called “Irish Gypsies”, who are Celtic by ethnicity. They are by tradition caravan-dwellers and metal-workers. Their origins are remote, very likely the ancestors of these Travellers were wandering blacksmiths already present in the island before the arrival of Roma in the British Isles, and this hypothesis would reasonably explain why Roma did not settle in Ireland.
They have their own dialect, called Shelta, Sheldru, Gammen or Pavee. It is an hybrid tongue, consisting in Old Irish vocabulary and English grammar, with many jargon expressions and also some Romany terms ‒ for instance, they call the settled population “Gadje”, even though the Travellers are not Roma. Their Irish designation is Lucht Siúil or Lucht Siúlta, the Walking People. They are also known as Tinkers, a term that is also applied to other peripatetic people and is often derogatory.
They are present in Ireland, Great Britain and the United States.
· Scottish Travellers
A nomadic group with distinctive cultural patterns since old times. They speak a Gaelic tongue with some Romany terms, commonly known as Cant (this name is also applied to Shelta). Besides the typical profession of metalsmiths, they have a rich oral tradition and are well-known as storytellers and singers. Some of them have emigrated to the United States and Canada.
· Camminanti
Also known as Camminanti Siciliani or Camminanti di Noto, their origins are unknown. One of the hypotheses suggests that they may be the remnant of the above mentioned Sicilian Roma, thoroughly assimilated into Sicilian culture and no longer recognizable as Gypsies, but this possibility is remote: in the first place, because they do not acknowledge themselves as Gypsies, and then because of their physical traits, that are not those typical of Roma, but not those most common among Sicilians either. They have a higher rate of blond individuals than average Italians, what suggests a Nordic or Slavic origin. Sicily was under Norman rule for a period, by which a Scandinavian origin is plausible. They are resident in Southern Sicilian towns, mainly Noto, during the winter season, and travel throughout Italy during the warm period, working as grinders, tinkers, repairing items and selling automobile pieces. They eventually meet Sinti and there are some rare cases of intermarriage; however, Sinti try not to camp near them. They have also some Romany terms in their jargon, which is based on Sicilian dialect.
· Quinquis
Quinquis is the abbreviated term for Quinquilleros, that means ″cheap metalware sellers″, one of their traditional occupations. They are also known by several other names as Cibiqueros, Mercheros, Languilleros, etc. This group is present in Spain, mainly in Castilla. There is the erroneous idea that they are the offspring of Gitanos and ″Payos″ (Gadje), because they do not look like Gypsies but have some apparent resemblances concerning their lifestyle. This is not the case, as Gitanos avoid any relationship with them. A better creditable hypothesis suggests that they descend from common citizens that around the 16th century c.e. were excluded or self-excluded from society by an unknown reason, and the only choice for survival was that of imitating Roma, who are able to cope with the most adverse situations. Other possibility is that they were tinkers who arrived in Spain from Central Europe during the Habsburg rule in Spain ‒ which suggests a possible connection with the Yenish ‒ because of the peculiarity that, as well as the Camminanti, there are many blond people among them, more than average Spaniards. They speak a jargon with some loanwords from Caló.
· Woonwagenbewoners
This is a Dutch term that means ″Caravan-dwellers″. They are ethnic Dutch people who descend from farmers and other workers that were displaced during the Industrial Revolution and began to wander in search of temporary jobs. They have continued this lifestyle for generations until now.
· Gourbetsya
A nomadic group present in Greece, the Gourbetsya are ethnic Vlach people (Romanian).
Conclusion
One day Roma decided to put an end to their long exile in India, and headed towards the west in search of their original homeland, but their homeland was occupied by fierce, intolerant people. Roma avoided any contact with Arabs, so that not a single Arabic word was introduced into Romany language. They found a better environment in the land where Assyrians and Armenians dwelled, until they could no longer stay there as the invaders were approaching. Indeed, they were pushed into Europe by the Turks, so that not even their words were taken ‒ the few Turkish terms in Romany belong to Balkan dialects, adopted during the Ottoman rule, when Roma were already settled in Europe.
During their long exile in the Indus Valley, it is obvious that intermarriage with the local (Scythian) population took place, as it happened later in Europe. Also the Jews of India have a predominant Indian DNA and would be considered of “Aryan” stock, but this logical consequence of a long sojourn cannot deny their true origins. As a matter of fact, Roma have never had the intention of going back to their land of exile in India. Roma have inherited an ancestral, atavic feud, by which they cannot settle back in the Middle East either. Europe seems not to be the most welcoming place to live; maybe the American Continent would be a better land to settle for a people that lives still in exile.
In this essay we have presented different human communities whose unconventional patterns of social life have been criticized, stigmatised and harshly repressed by the establishment, once through persecution and attempts of annihilation, now through “politically correct” methods of assimilation. These peoples, commonly called Gypsies, be they Roma or not, are simply lovers of freedom.
Little sister of Lily who is raped and molested by [[Coonie]].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_Americans
Scotch-Irish American - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ulster Scotch-Irish American United States
Total population
Scotch-Irish
3,538,444[1]
1.2% of the US population
Regions with significant populations
Southern United States, Western United States, Appalachia
Languages
American English, especially Southern Appalachian and South Midland or Highland Southern dialects of Southern American English
Religion
Predominantly
Protestant (Dissenter),
Presbyterian,
Baptist,
Methodist
Related ethnic groups
British Americans (Scottish Americans, Cornish Americans, English Americans, Welsh Americans), Irish Americans
Ulster Scots, Irish, Scottish, English
Scotch-Irish American refers to Irish Presbyterian and other Protestant dissenters from the Province of Ulster who immigrated to North America primarily during the colonial era, and their descendants. An estimated 250,000 migrated to America during the colonial era.[2] Some scholars also include the 150,000 Ulster Protestants who immigrated to America during the early 19th century. Most of the Scotch Irish were descended from Scottish and English families who had been transplanted to Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster in the 17th century. While an estimated 36.3 million Americans (>11.9% of the total population) reported "Irish" ancestry in 2008,[3] an additional 1.2% (3.5 million people) identified more specifically with "Scotch Irish" ancestry. People in Great Britain or Ireland that are of a similar ancestry usually refer to themselves as Ulster Scots, with the term "Scotch-Irish" used only in North America.
[edit] Terminology
"Scotch-Irish" is an Americanism, almost unknown in England, Ireland or Scotland. The term has led to confusion even among descendants of the Scotch-Irish themselves:[who?] some taking it to mean a mixture of Scottish and Irish ethnicities, and others thinking it refers to Irish immigrants to Scotland.[citation needed] The term is also misleading because some of the Scotch-Irish had little or no Scottish ancestry at all, as dissenter families had also been transplanted to Ulster from northern England, Wales and the London area, and some from Flanders, the German Palatinate, and France (such as the French Huguenot ancestors of Davy Crockett).[4] What united these different national groups was their common Calvinist beliefs,[5] and their separation from the established church (Church of England and Church of Ireland in this case). Nevertheless, a large Scottish element in the Plantation of Ulster gave the settlements a Scottish character. However, when the Ulster immigrants began to arrive in America they were collectively called simply "Irish" by colonial officials.[6]
Upon arrival in America, the Scotch-Irish at first usually referred to themselves simply as "Irish," without the qualifier "Scotch." It was not until a century later, following the surge in Irish immigration after the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s, that the descendants of the earlier arrivals began to commonly call themselves Scotch-Irish to distinguish them from the newer, largely destitute and predominantly Catholic, immigrants. The two groups had little interaction in America, as the Scotch-Irish had become settled years earlier primarily in the Appalachian region, while the new wave of Irish American families settled primarily in northern and midwestern port cities such as Boston, New York, or Chicago. However, many Irish migrated to the interior in the 19th century to work on large-scale infrastructure projects such as canals and railroads.[7]
The usage "Scots-Irish" is a relatively recent version of the term. The historic and most commonly used term in America is Scotch-Irish, as evident in Merriam-Webster dictionaries, where the term Scotch-Irish is recorded from 1744, while Scots-Irish is not recorded until 1972.[8]
English author Kingsley Amis endorsed the traditional "Scotch-Irish" usage implicitly in noting that "nobody talks about butterscottish or hopscots,...or Scottish pine", and that while "Scots" or "Scottish" has been preferred for a century in Scotland itself, the traditional English usage "Scotch" continues to be appropriate in "compounds and set phrases".[9]
[edit] Migration
From 1710 to 1775, over 200,000 people emigrated from Ulster to the 13 Colonies, from Maine to Georgia. The largest numbers went to Pennsylvania. From that base some went south into Virginia, the Carolinas and across the South, with a large concentration in the Appalachian region; others headed west to western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and the Midwest.[10]
Transatlantic flows were halted by the American Revolution, but resumed after 1783, with total of 100,000 arriving in America between 1783 and 1812. By that point few were young servants and more were mature craftsmen and they settled in industrial centers, including Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York, where many became skilled workers, foremen and entrepreneurs as the Industrial Revolution took off in the U.S. Another half million came to American 1815 to 1845; another 900,000 came in 1851-99. From 1900 to 1930 the average was about 5,000 to 10,000 a year. Relatively few came after 1930. At every stage a majority were Presbyterians, and that religion decisively shaped Scotch-Irish culture.[11]
According to the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, there were 400,000 U.S. residents of Irish birth or ancestry in 1790 and half of this group was descended from Ulster, and half from the other three provinces of Ireland.[12]
A separate migration brought many to Canada, where they are most numerous in rural Ontario.
[edit] Origins
Because of the close proximity of the islands of Britain and Ireland, migrations in both directions had been occurring since Ireland was first settled after the retreat of the ice sheets. Gaels from Ireland colonised current South-West Scotland as part of the Kingdom of Dál Riata, eventually replacing the native Pictish culture throughout Scotland. These Gaels had previously been named Scoti by the Romans, and eventually the name was applied to the entire Kingdom of Scotland.
The origins of the Scotch-Irish lie primarily in the Lowlands of Scotland and in northern England, particularly in the Border Country on either side of the Anglo-Scottish border, a region that had seen centuries of conflict.[13] In the near constant state of war between England and Scotland during the Middle Ages, the livelihood of the people on the borders was devastated by the contending armies. Even when the countries were not at war, tension remained high, and royal authority in one or the other kingdom was often weak. The uncertainty of existence led the people of the borders to seek security through a system of family ties, similar to the clan system in the Scottish Highlands. Known as the Border Reivers, these families relied on their own strength and cunning to survive, and a culture of cattle raiding and thievery developed.[14]
Scotland and England became unified under a single monarch with the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when James VI, King of Scots, succeeded Elizabeth I as ruler of England. In addition to the unstable border region, James also inherited Elizabeth's conflicts in Ireland. Following the end of the Irish Nine Years' War in 1603, and the Flight of the Earls in 1607, James embarked in 1609 on a systematic plantation of English and Scottish Protestant settlers to Ireland's northern province of Ulster.[15] The Plantation of Ulster was seen as a way to relocate the Border Reiver families to Ireland to bring peace to the Anglo-Scottish border country, and also to provide fighting men who could suppress the native Irish in Ireland.[16]
The first major influx of Scots and English into Ulster had come in 1606 during the settlement of east Down onto land cleared of native Irish by private landlords chartered by James.[17] This process was accelerated with James's official plantation in 1609, and further augmented during the subsequent Irish Confederate Wars. The first of the Stuart Kingdoms to collapse into civil war was Ireland, where, prompted in part by the anti-Catholic rhetoric of the Covenanters, Irish Catholics launched a rebellion in October. In reaction to the proposal by Charles I and Thomas Wentworth to raise an army manned by Irish Catholics to put down the Covenanter movement in Scotland, the Parliament of Scotland had threatened to invade Ireland in order to achieve "the extirpation of Popery out of Ireland" (according to the interpretation of Richard Bellings, a leading Irish politician of the time). The fear this caused in Ireland unleashed a wave of massacres against Protestant English and Scottish settlers, mostly in Ulster, once the rebellion had broken out. All sides displayed extreme cruelty in this phase of the war. Around 4000 settlers were massacred and a further 12,000 may have died of privation after being driven from their homes.[18][19] In one notorious incident, the Protestant inhabitants of Portadown were taken captive and then massacred on the bridge in the town.[20] The settlers responded in kind, as did the British-controlled government in Dublin, with attacks on the Irish civilian population. Massacres of native civilians occurred at Rathlin Island and elsewhere.[21] In early 1642, the Covenanters sent an army to Ulster to defend the Scottish settlers there from the Irish rebels who had attacked them after the outbreak of the rebellion. The original intention of the Scottish army was to re-conquer Ireland, but due to logistical and supply problems, it was never in a position to advance far beyond its base in eastern Ulster. The Covenanter force remained in Ireland until the end of the civil wars but was confined to its garrison around Carrickfergus after its defeat by the native Ulster Army at the Battle of Benburb in 1646. After the war was over, many of the soldiers settled permanently in Ulster. Another major influx of Scots into Ulster occurred in the 1690s, when tens of thousands of people fled a famine in Scotland to come to Ireland.
Just a few generations after arriving in Ireland, considerable numbers of Ulster-Scots emigrated to the North American colonies of Great Britain throughout the 18th century (between 1717 and 1770 alone, about 250,000 settled in what would become the United States).[22] According to Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (1988), Protestants were one-third the population of Ireland, but three-quarters of all emigrants leaving from 1700 to 1776; 70% of these Protestants were Presbyterians. Other factors contributing to the mass exodus of Ulster Scots to America during the 18th century were a series of droughts and rising rents imposed by often absentee English and/or Anglo-Irish landlords.
During the course of the 17th century, the number of settlers belonging to Calvinist dissenting sects, including Scottish and Northumbrian Presbyterians, English Baptists, French and Flemish Huguenots, and German Palatines, became the majority among the Protestant settlers in the province of Ulster. However, the Presbyterians and other dissenters, along with Catholics, were not members of the established church and were consequently legally disadvantaged by the Penal Laws, which gave full rights only to members of the Church of England/Church of Ireland. Those members of the state church were often absentee landlords and the descendants of English title-holding settlers. For this reason, up until the 19th century, and despite their common fear of the dispossessed Catholic native Irish, there was considerable disharmony between the Presbyterians and the Protestant Ascendancy in Ulster. As a result of this many Ulster-Scots, along with Catholic native Irish, ignored religious differences to join the United Irishmen and participate in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, in support of Age of Enlightenment-inspired egalitarian and republican goals.
[edit] American Settlement
Scholarly estimate is that over 200,000 Scotch-Irish migrated to the Americas between 1717 and 1775.[23] As a late arriving group, they found that land in the coastal areas of the British colonies was either already owned or too expensive, so they quickly left for the hill country where land could be had cheaply. Here they lived on the frontiers of America. Early frontier life was extremely challenging, but poverty and hardship were familiar to them. The term "hillbilly" has often been applied disparagingly to their descendants in the mountains, carrying connotations of poverty, backwardness and violence; this word probably[weasel words] having its origins in Scotland and Ireland.[citation needed]
The first trickle of Scotch-Irish settlers arrived in New England. Valued for their fighting prowess as well as for their Protestant dogma, they were invited by Cotton Mather and other leaders to come over to help settle and secure the frontier. In this capacity, many of the first permanent settlements in Maine and New Hampshire, especially after 1718, were Scotch-Irish and many place names as well as the character of Northern New Englanders reflect this fact. The Scotch-Irish brought the potato with them from Ireland. In Maine it became a staple crop as well as an economic base.[24]
From 1717 to the next thirty or so years, the primary points of entry for the Ulster immigrants were Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Castle, Delaware.[citation needed] The Scotch-Irish radiated westward across the Alleghenies, as well as into Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.[25] The typical migration involved small networks of related families who settled together, worshipped together, and intermarried, avoiding outsiders.[26]
[edit] Pennsylvania and Virginia
Most Scotch-Irish headed for Pennsylvania, with its good lands, moderate climate, and liberal laws.[citation needed] By 1750, the Scotch-Irish were about a fourth of the population, rising to about a third by the 1770s.[citation needed] Without much cash, they moved to free lands on the frontier, becoming the typical western "squatters", the frontier guard of the colony, and what the historian Frederick Jackson Turner described as "the cutting-edge of the frontier."[27]
The Scotch-Irish moved up the Delaware River to Bucks County, and then up the Susquehanna and Cumberland valleys, finding flat lands along the rivers and creeks to set up their log cabins, their grist mills, and their Presbyterian churches.[citation needed] Chester, Lancaster, and Dauphin counties became their strongholds, and they built towns such as Chambersburg, Gettysburg, Carlisle, and York; the next generation moved into western Pennsylvania.[28] With large numbers of children who needed their own inexpensive farms, the Scotch-Irish avoided areas already settled by Germans and Quakers and moved south, down the Shenandoah Valley, and through the Blue Ridge Mountains into Virginia.[citation needed] These migrants followed the Great Wagon Road from Lancaster, through Gettysburg, and down through Staunton, Virginia, to Big Lick (now Roanoke), Virginia. Here the pathway split, with the Wilderness Road taking settlers west into Tennessee and Kentucky, while the main road continued south into the Carolinas.[29]
[edit] Old Northwest
In the Old Northwest they arrived in Ohio before 1763.
Among the Scotch-Irish who settled in Ohio before 1825 were the grandparents of future presidents William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson. McKinley's grandfather David McKinley, after fighting in the American Revolution, moved to Ohio in the 1790s. William McKinley was born in Niles, Ohio in 1843. Woodrow Wilson's father moved to Virginia before the Civil War and was a chaplain in the Confederate army, while his brothers stayed in Ohio and supported the Union and abolition.
[edit] Conflict with Native Americans
Because the Scotch-Irish settled the frontier of Pennsylvania and Virginia, they were in the midst of the French and Indian War and Pontiac’s Rebellion that followed.[30] The Scotch-Irish were frequently in conflict with the Indian tribes who lived on the other side of the frontier; indeed, they did most of the Indian fighting on the American frontier from New Hampshire to the Carolinas.[31] The Irish and Scots also became the middlemen who handled trade and negotiations between the Indian tribes and the colonial governments.[32]
Especially in Pennsylvania, whose pacifist Quaker leaders had made no provision for a militia, Scotch-Irish settlements were frequently destroyed and the settlers killed, captured or forced to flee after attacks by Native Americans from tribes of the Delaware (Lenape), Shawnee, Seneca, and others of western Pennsylvania and the Ohio country.[citation needed] Indian attacks were taking place within 60 miles of Philadelphia, and in July 1763, the Pennsylvania Assembly authorized a 700-strong militia to be raised, to be used only for defensive actions. Formed into two units of rangers, the Cumberland Boys and the Paxton Boys, the militia soon exceeded their defensive mandate and began offensive forays against Lenape villages in western Pennsylvania.[33] After attacking Delaware villages in the upper Susquehanna valley, the militia leaders received information, which they believed credible, that “hostile” tribes were receiving weapons and ammunition from the “friendly” tribe of Conestogas settled in Lancaster County, who were under the protection of the Pennsylvania Assembly. On 14 December 1763, about fifty Paxton Boys rode to Conestogatown, near Millersville, PA, and murdered six Conestogas. Governor John Penn placed the remaining fourteen Conestogas in protective custody in the Lancaster workhouse, but the Paxton Boys broke in, killing and mutilating all fourteen on 27 December 1763.[34] Following this, about 400 backcountry settlers, primarily Scotch-Irish, marched on Philadelphia demanding better military protection for their settlements, and pardons for the Paxton Boys. Benjamin Franklin led the politicians who negotiated a settlement with the Paxton leaders, after which they returned home.[35]
[edit] American Revolution
The United States Declaration of Independence contained fifty-six delegate signatures. Of the signers, eight were of Irish descent. Three signers, Matthew Thornton, George Taylor and James Smith were born in Ulster, the remaining five Irish Americans were the sons or grandsons of Irish immigrants: George Read, Thomas McKean, Thomas Lynch, Jr., Edward Rutledge and Charles Carroll, and at least McKean had Ulster heritage.
The Scotch-Irish were generally[weasel words] ardent supporters of American Independence from Britain in the 1770s.[citation needed] In Pennsylvania, Virginia, and most of the Carolinas, support for the revolution was "practically unanimous."[36] One Hessian officer said, "Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more or less than a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion."[37] A British major general testified to the House of Commons that "half the rebel Continental Army were from Ireland".[38] Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, with its large Scotch-Irish population, was to make the first declaration for independence from Britain in the Mecklenburg Declaration of 1775.
The Scotch-Irish "Overmountain Men" of Virginia and North Carolina formed a militia which won the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, resulting in the British abandonment of a southern campaign, and for some historians "marked the turning point of the American Revolution".[39][40]
[edit] Loyalists
One exception to the high level of patriotism was the Waxhaw settlement on the lower Catawba River along the North Carolina-South Carolina boundary, where Loyalism was strong. The area experienced two main settlement periods of Scotch Irish. During the 1750s-1760s, second- and third-generation Scotch Irish Americans moved from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. This particular group had large families, and as a group they produced goods for themselves and for others. They generally were patriots.
Just prior to the Revolution, a second stream of immigrants came directly from northern Ireland via Charleston. This group was forced to move into an underdeveloped area because they could not afford expensive land. Most of this group remained loyal to the crown or neutral when the war began. Prior to Charles Cornwallis's march into the backcountry in 1780, two-thirds of the men among the Waxhaw settlement had declined to serve in the army. British victory at the Battle of the Waxhaws resulted in anti-British sentiment in a bitterly divided region. While many individuals chose to take up arms against the British, the British themselves forced the people to choose sides.[41]
[edit] Whiskey rebellion
In the 1790s, the new American government assumed the debts the individual states had amassed during the American Revolutionary War, and the Congress placed a tax on whiskey (among other things) to help repay those debts. Large producers were assessed a tax of six cents a gallon. Smaller producers, many of whom were Scottish (often Ulster-Scots) descent and located in the more remote areas, were taxed at a higher rate of nine cents a gallon. These rural settlers were short of cash to begin with, and lacked any practical means to get their grain to market, other than fermenting and distilling it into relatively portable spirits. From Pennsylvania to Georgia, the western counties engaged in a campaign of harassment of the federal tax collectors. "Whiskey Boys" also conducted violent protests in Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. This civil disobedience eventually culminated in armed conflict in the Whiskey Rebellion. President George Washington marched at the head of 13,000 soldiers to suppress the insurrection.
[edit] Influence on American Culture and Identity
Author (and U.S. Senator) Jim Webb puts forth a thesis in his book Born Fighting to suggest that the character traits he ascribes to the Scotch-Irish such as loyalty to kin, extreme mistrust of governmental authority and legal strictures, and a propensity to bear arms and to use them, helped shape the American identity. In the same year that Webb's book was released, Barry Vann published his second book entitled Rediscovering the South's Celtic Heritage. Like his earlier book, From Whence They Came (1998), Vann argues that these traits have left their imprint on the Upland South. In 2008, Vann followed up his earlier work with a book entitled In Search of Ulster Scots Land: The Birth and Geotheological Imagings of a Transatlantic People which professes how these traits may manifest themselves in conservative voting patterns and religious affiliation that characterizes the Bible Belt.
[edit] Iron and steel industry
The Iron and steel industry developed rapidly after 1830 and became one of the dominant factors in industrial America by the 1860s. Ingham (1978) examined the leadership of the industry in its most important center, Pittsburgh, as well as smaller cities. He concludes that the leadership of the iron and steel industry nationwide was "largely Scotch Irish". Ingham finds that the Scotch Irish held together cohesively throughout the 19th century and "developed their own sense of uniqueness."[42]
Indeed new immigrants after 1800 made Pittsburgh a major Scotch Irish stronghold. For example, Thomas Mellon (b. Ulster 1813-1908) left Ireland in 1823 and became the founder of the famous Mellon clan, which played a central role in banking and industries such as aluminum and oil. As Barnhisel (2005) finds, industrialists such as James H. Laughlin (b. Ulster 1806-1882) of Jones and Laughlin Steel Company constituted the "Scots-Irish Presbyterian ruling stratum of Pittsburgh society."[43]
[edit] Customs
Archeologists and folklorists have examined the folk culture of the Scotch Irish in terms of material goods—such as housing—as well as speech patterns and folk songs. Much of the research has been done in Appalachia.[44]
The border origin of the Scotch-Irish is supported by study of the traditional music and folklore of the Appalachian Mountains, settled primarily by the Scotch-Irish in the 18th century. Musicologist Cecil Sharp collected hundreds of folk songs in the region, and observed that the musical tradition of the people "seems to point to the North of England, or to the Lowlands, rather than the Highlands, of Scotland, as the country from which they originally migrated. For the Appalachian tunes...have far more affinity with the normal English folk-tune than with that of the Gaelic-speaking Highlander."[45] Similarly, elements of mountain folklore trace back to events in the Lowlands of Scotland. As an example, it was recorded in the early 20th century that Appalachian children were frequently warned, "You must be good or Clavers will get you." To the mountain residents, "Clavers" was simply a bogeyman used to keep children in line, yet unknown to them the phrase derives from the 17th century Scotsman John Graham of Claverhouse, called "Bloody Clavers" by the Presbyterian Scottish Lowlanders whose religion he tried to suppress.[46]
[edit] Housing
In terms of the stone houses they built, the 'hall-parlor' floor plan (two rooms per floor with chimneys on both ends), was common among the gentry in Ulster. Scotch Irish immigrants brought it over in the 18th century and it became a common floor plan in Tennessee, Kentucky and elsewhere. Stone houses were difficult to build, and most pioneers relied on simpler log-cabins.[47]
[edit] Quilts
Scotch-Irish quilters in West Virginia developed a unique interpretation of pieced-block quilt construction. Their quilts embody an aesthetic reflecting Scotch-Irish social history - the perennial condition of living on the periphery of mainstream society both geographically and philosophically. Cultural values espousing individual autonomy and self-reliance within a strong kinship structure are related to Scotch-Irish quilting techniques. Prominent features of these quilts include: 1) blocks pieced in a repeating pattern but varied by changing figure-ground relationships and, at times, obscured by the use of same-value colors and adjacent print fabrics, 2) lack of contrasting borders, and 3) unified all over quilting pattern, typically the fans design or rows of concentric arcs.[48]
[edit] Language use
Montgomery (2006) analyzes the pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammatical distinctions of today's residents of the mountain South and traces patterns back to their Scotch Irish ancestors.[49] However, Crozier (1984) suggests that only a few lexical characteristics survived Scotch-Irish assimilation into American culture.[50]
[edit] Number of Scotch-Irish Americans
Year Total Population in U.S.[51][52][53]
1625 1,980
1641 50,000
1688 200,000
1700 250,900
1702 270,000
1715 434,600
1749 1,046,000
1754 1,485,634
1765 2,240,000
1775 2,418,000
1780 2,780,400
1790 3,929,326
1800 5,308,483
[edit] Population in 1790
According to The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy, by Kory L. Meyerink and Loretto Dennis Szucs, the following were the countries of origin for new arrivals coming to the United States before 1790. The regions marked * were part of Great Britain. The ancestry of the 3,929,326 million population in 1790 has been estimated by various sources by sampling last names in the 1790 census and assigning them a country of origin. According to the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Thernstrom, S 1980, 'Irish,' p. 528), there were 400,000 Americans of Irish birth or ancestry in 1790; half of these were descended from Ulster, and half were descended from the other provinces of Ireland. The French were mostly Huguenots and French Canadians. The total U.S. Catholic population in 1790 was probably less than 5%, although only 17% of all Americans had any religious affiliation. The Indian population inside territorial U.S. 1790 boundaries was less than 100,000.
U.S. Historical Populations
Nation Immigrants Before 1790 Population 1790-1
England* 230,000 2,100,000
Ireland* 142,000 300,000
Scotland* 48,500 150,000
Wales* 4,000 10,000
Other -5 50,000 200,000
Total 950,000 3,929,326
[edit] Ulster-Scottish Canadians
After the creation of British North America in 1763, Protestant Irish, both Irish Anglicans and Ulster-Scottish Presbyterians, migrated over the decades to Upper Canada, some as United Empire Loyalists or directly from Ulster.
The first significant number of Canadian settlers to arrive from Ireland were Protestants from predominantly Ulster and largely of Scottish descent who settled in the mainly central Nova Scotia in the 1760s. Many came through the efforts of colonizer Alexander McNutt. Some came directly from Ulster whilst others arrived after via New England.
Ulster-Scottish migration to Western Canada has two distinct components, those who came via eastern Canada or the US, and those who came directly from Ireland. Many who came West were fairly well assimilated, in that they spoke English and understood British customs and law, and tended to be regarded as just a part of English Canada. However, this picture was complicated by the religious division. Many of the original "English" Canadian settlers in the Red River Colony were fervent Irish loyalist Protestants, and members of the Orange Order.
In 1806, The Benevolent Irish Society (BIS) was founded as a philanthropic organization in St. John's, Newfoundland. Membership was open to adult residents of Newfoundland who were of Irish birth or ancestry, regardless of religious persuasion. The BIS was founded as a charitable, fraternal, middle-class social organization, on the principles of "benevolence and philanthropy", and had as its original objective to provide the necessary skills which would enable the poor to better themselves. Today the society is still active in Newfoundland and is the oldest philanthropic organization in North America.[citation needed]
In 1877, a breakthrough in Irish Canadian Protestant-Catholic relations occurred in London, Ontario. This was the founding of the Irish Benevolent Society, a brotherhood of Irishmen and women of both Catholic and Protestant faiths. The society promoted Irish Canadian culture, but it was forbidden for members to speak of Irish politics when meeting. This companionship of Irish people of all faiths quickly tore down the walls of sectarianism in Ontario. Today, the Society is still operating.
For years, Prince Edward Island had been divided between Catholics and Protestants. In the latter half of the 20th century, this sectarianism diminished and was ultimately destroyed recently after two events occurred. Firstly, the Catholic and Protestant school boards were merged into one secular institution, and secondly, the practice of electing two MLAs for each provincial riding (one Catholic and one Protestant) was ended.
[edit] History of the name Scotch-Irish
Although referenced by Merriam-Webster dictionaries as having first appeared in 1744, the American term "Scotch-Irish" is undoubtedly older.
An affidavit of William Patent, dated March 15, 1689, in a case against a Mr. Matthew Scarbrough in Somerset County, Maryland, quotes Mr. Patent as saying he was told by Scarbrough that "...it was no more sin to kill me then to kill a dogg, or any Scotch Irish dogg..."[54]
Leyburn cites several early American uses of the term.[55]
* The earliest is a report in June 1695, by Sir Thomas Laurence, Secretary of Maryland, that "In the two counties of Dorchester and Somerset, where the Scotch-Irish are numerous, they clothe themselves by their linen and woolen manufactures."
* In September 1723, Rev. George Ross, Rector of Immanuel Church in New Castle, Delaware, wrote in reference to their anti-Church of England stance that, "They call themselves Scotch-Irish,...and the bitterest railers against the church that ever trod upon American ground."
* Another Church of England clergyman from Lewes, Delaware, commented in 1723 that "...great numbers of Irish (who usually call themselves Scotch-Irish) have transplanted themselves and their families from the north of Ireland."
* During the 1740s, a Marylander was accused of having murdered the sheriff of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, after calling the sheriff and his assistants "damned Scotch-Irish sons of bitches."[56]
The Oxford English Dictionary says the first use of the term "Scotch-Irish" came in Pennsylvania in 1744. Its citations are:
* 1744 W. MARSHE Jrnl. 21 June in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. (1801) 1st Ser. VII. 177: 'The inhabitants [of Lancaster, Pa.] are chiefly High-Dutch, Scotch-Irish, some few English families, and unbelieving Israelites."
* 1789 J. MORSE Amer. Geogr. 313: "[The Irish of Pennsylvania] have sometimes been called Scotch-Irish, to denote their double descent."
* 1876 BANCROFT Hist. U.S. IV. iii. 333: "But its convenient proximity to the border counties of Pennsylvania and Virginia had been observed by Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and other bold and industrious men."
* 1883 Harper's Mag. Feb. 421/2: "The so-called Scotch-Irish are the descendants of the Englishmen and Lowland Scotch who began to move over to Ulster in 1611."
In Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a cultural history), historian David Hackett Fischer asserts:
Some historians describe these immigrants as "Ulster Irish" or "Northern Irish". It is true that many sailed from the province of Ulster... part of much larger flow which drew from the lowlands of Scotland, the north of England, and every side of the Irish Sea. Many scholars call these people "Scotch-Irish". That expression is an Americanism, rarely used in Britain and much resented by the people to whom it was attached.
Fischer prefers to speak of "borderers" (referring to the historically war-torn England-Scotland border) as the population ancestral to the "backcountry" "cultural stream" (one of the four major and persistent cultural streams he identifies in American history) and notes the borderers were not purely Celtic but also had substantial Anglo-Saxon and Viking or Scandinavian roots, and were quite different from Celtic-speaking groups like the Scottish Highlanders or Irish (that is, Gaelic-speaking and Roman Catholic).
An example of the use of the term is found in A History of Ulster: "Ulster Presbyterians – known as the 'Scotch Irish' – were already accustomed to being on the move, and clearing and defending their land."[57]
Other terms used to describe the Scotch-Irish include "Northern Irish"[original research?][dubious – discuss][citation needed] or "Irish Presbyterians".[original research?][citation needed]
While Scotch-Irish is the term most used in scholarship to describe these people, the use of the term can draw ire from both Scots and Irish. To the Scots, the term "Scotch" is derogatory when referring to a person or people, and should be applied only to whisky. Many Irish have claimed that such a distinction should not be used, and that those called Scotch-Irish are simply Irish.[58] However, as one scholar observed, "...in this country [USA], where they have been called Scotch-Irish for over two hundred years, it would be absurd to give them a name by which they are not known here... Here their name is Scotch-Irish; let us call them by it." [59]
A false myth[peacock term] claims that Queen Elizabeth used the term.[citation needed] Another myth is that Shakespeare used the spelling 'Scotch' as a proper noun, but his only use of the word in any of his writings is as a verb, as in scotching a snake, being scotched, etc.[citation needed]
It was also used to differentiate from either the Anglo-Irish, Irish Catholics, or immigrants who came directly from Scotland.[citation needed]
The word "Scotch" was the favoured adjective as a designation — it literally means "... of Scotland". People in Scotland refer to themselves as Scots, or adjectivally/collectively as Scots or as being Scottish, rather than Scotch.
[edit] Geographical distribution
Finding the coast already heavily settled, most groups of settlers from the north of Ireland moved into the "western mountains", where they populated the Appalachian regions and the Ohio Valley. Others settled in northern New England, The Carolinas, Georgia and north-central Nova Scotia.[citation needed]
In the United States Census, 2000, 4.3 million Americans (1.5% of the U.S. population) claimed Scotch-Irish ancestry.[citation needed]
Areas with greatest proportion of reported Scotch-Irish ancestry
Interestingly, the areas where the most Americans reported themselves in the 2000 Census only as "American" with no further qualification (e.g. Kentucky, north-central Texas, and many other areas in the Southern US; overall 7% of Americans reported "American") are largely the areas where many Scotch-Irish settled, and are in complementary distribution with the areas which most heavily report Scotch-Irish ancestry, though still at a lower rate than "American" (e.g. western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, western Pennsylvania, northern New England, south-central and far northern Texas, westernmost Florida Panhandle, many rural areas in the Northwest); see Maps of American ancestries.[original research?]
[edit] Religion
Initially the Scotch-Irish immigrants to North America in the 18th century were defined in part by their Presbyterianism.[60] Many of the settlers in the Plantation of Ulster had been from dissenting/non-conformist religious groups which professed a strident Calvinism. These included mainly Lowland Scot Presbyterians, but also English Puritans and Quakers, French Huguenots and German Palatines. These Calvinist groups mingled freely in church matters, and religious belief was more important than nationality, as these groups aligned themselves against both their Catholic Irish and Anglican English neighbors.[61]
After their arrival in the New World, the predominantly Presbyterian Scotch-Irish began to move further into the mountainous back-country of Virginia and the Carolinas. The establishment of many settlements in the remote back-country put a strain on the ability of the Presbyterian Church to meet the new demand for qualified, college-educated clergy. Religious groups such as the Baptists and Methodists had no higher education requirement for their clergy to be ordained, and these groups readily provided ministers to meet the demand of the growing Scotch-Irish settlements.[62] By about 1810, Baptist and Methodist churches were in the majority, and the descendants of the Scotch-Irish today remain predominantly Baptist or Methodist.[63] Vann (2007) shows the Scotch-Irish played a major role in defining the Bible Belt in the Upper South in the 18th century. He emphasizes the high educational standards they sought, their 'geotheological thought worlds' brought from the old country, and their political independence that was transferred to frontier religion.[64]
[edit] Princeton
In 1746 the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians created the College of New Jersey, later renamed Princeton University. The mission was training New Light Presbyterian ministers. The College became educational as well as religious capital of Scotch-Irish America. By 1808 loss of confidence in the College within the Presbyterian Church led to the establishment of the separate Princeton Theological Seminary, but for many decades Presbyterian control over the college continued. Meanwhile Princeton Seminary, under the leadership of Charles Hodge, originated a conservative theology that in large part shaped Fundamentalist Protestantism in the 20th century.[65]
[edit] Associate Reformed Church
While the larger Presbyterian Church was a mix of Scotch Irish and Yankees from New England, several smaller Presbyterian groups were composed almost entirely of Scotch Irish, and they display the process of assimilation into the broader American religious culture. Fisk (1968) traces the history of the Associate Reformed Church in the Old Northwest from its formation by a union of Associate and Reformed Presbyterians in 1782 to the merger of this body with the Seceder Scotch Irish bodies to form the United Presbyterian Church in 1858. It became the Associate Reformed Synod of the West and remain centered in the Midwest. It withdrew from the parent body in 1820 because of the drift of the eastern churches toward assimilation into the larger Presbyterian Church with its Yankee traits. The Associate Reformed Synod of the West maintained the characteristics of an immigrant church with Scotch-Irish roots, emphasized the Westminster standards, used only the psalms in public worship, was Sabbatarian, and was strongly abolitionist and anti-Catholic. In the 1850s it exhibited many evidences of assimilation. It showed greater ecumenical interest, greater interest in evangelization of the West and of the cities, and a declining interest in maintaining the unique characteristics of its Scotch-Irish past.[66]
[edit] Notable Americans of Scotch-Irish descent
[edit] American presidents
Many American presidents have ancestral links to Ulster, including three whose parents were born in Ulster.[citation needed] The Irish Protestant vote in the U.S. has not been studied nearly as much as have the Catholic Irish. (On the Catholic vote see Irish Americans).[citation needed] In the 1820s and 1830s, supporters of Andrew Jackson emphasized his Irish background, as did James Knox Polk, but since the 1840s it has been uncommon for a Protestant politician in America to be identified as Irish, but rather as 'Scotch-Irish'.[original research?] In Canada, by contrast, Irish Protestants remained a cohesive political force well into the 20th century, identified with the then Conservative Party of Canada and especially with the Orange Institution, although this is less evident in today's politics. More than one-third of all U.S. Presidents had substantial ancestral origins in the northern province of Ireland (Ulster). President Bill Clinton spoke proudly of that fact, and his own ancestral links with the province, during his two visits to Ulster. Like most US citizens, most US presidents are the result of a "melting pot" of ancestral origins.
Clinton is one of at least seventeen Chief Executives descended from emigrants to the United States from the north of Ireland. While many of the Presidents have typically Ulster-Scots surnames – Jackson, Johnson, McKinley, Wilson – others, such as Roosevelt and Cleveland, have links which are less obvious.
Andrew Jackson
7th President, 1829-37: He was born in the predominantly Ulster-Scots Waxhaws area of South Carolina two years after his parents left Boneybefore, near Carrickfergus in County Antrim. A heritage centre in the village pays tribute to the legacy of 'Old Hickory', the People's President. Andrew Jackson then moved to Tennessee, where he served as Governor.
James Knox Polk
11th President, 1845-49: His ancestors were among the first Ulster-Scots settlers, emigrating from Coleraine in 1680 to become a powerful political family in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He moved to Tennessee and became its governor before winning the presidency.
James Buchanan
15th President, 1857-61: Born in a log cabin (which has been relocated to his old school in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania), 'Old Buck' cherished his origins: "My Ulster blood is a priceless heritage". The Buchanans were originally from Deroran, near Omagh in County Tyrone where the ancestral home still stands.
Andrew Johnson
17th President, 1865-69: His grandfather left Mounthill, near Larne in County Antrim around 1750 and settled in North Carolina. Andrew worked there as a tailor and ran a successful business in Greeneville, Tennessee, before being elected Vice-President. He became President following Abraham Lincoln's assassination.
Ulysses S. Grant
18th President, 1869-77: The home of his maternal great-grandfather, John Simpson, at Dergenagh, County Tyrone, is the location for an exhibition on the eventful life of the victorious Civil War commander who served two terms as President. Grant visited his ancestral homeland in 1878.
Chester A. Arthur
21st President, 1881-85: His election was the start of a quarter-century in which the White House was occupied by men of Ulster-Scots origins. His family left Dreen, near Cullybackey, County Antrim, in 1815. There is now an interpretive centre, alongside the Arthur Ancestral Home, devoted to his life and times.
Grover Cleveland
22nd and 24th President, 1885-89 and 1893-97: Born in New Jersey, he was the maternal grandson of merchant Abner Neal, who emigrated from County Antrim in the 1790s. He is the only president to have served non-consecutive terms.
Benjamin Harrison
23rd President, 1889-93: His mother, Elizabeth Irwin, had Ulster-Scots roots through her two great-grandfathers, James Irwin and William McDowell. Harrison was born in Ohio and served as a brigadier general in the Union Army before embarking on a career in Indiana politics which led to the White House.
William McKinley
25th President, 1897-1901: Born in Ohio, the descendant of a farmer from Conagher, near Ballymoney, County Antrim, he was proud of his ancestry and addressed one of the national Scotch-Irish congresses held in the late 19th century. His second term as president was cut short by an assassin's bullet.
Theodore Roosevelt
26th President, 1901-09: His mother, Mittie Bulloch, had Ulster Scots ancestors who emigrated from Glenoe, County Antrim, in May 1729. Roosevelt praised "Irish Presbyterians" as "a bold and hardy race."[67] However, he is also the man who said: "But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts "native"* before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen." [1] (*Roosevelt was referring to "nativists", not American Indians, in this context)
Woodrow Wilson
28th President, 1913-21: Of Ulster-Scot descent on both sides of the family, his roots were very strong and dear to him. He was grandson of a printer from Dergalt, near Strabane, County Tyrone, whose former home is open to visitors.
Richard Nixon
37th President, 1969-74: The Nixon ancestors left Ulster in the mid-18th century; the Quaker Milhous family ties were with County Antrim and County Kildare.
Other occupants of the White House said to have[weasel words] some family ties with Ulster include presidents John Adams,[citation needed] John Quincy Adams,[citation needed] James Monroe,[citation needed] Dwight D. Eisenhower,[citation needed] Harry S. Truman,[citation needed] Jimmy Carter,[citation needed] Ronald Reagan,[clarification needed] George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.[68]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
1. ^ U.S. Census Bureau, 2008
2. ^ Scholarly estimates vary, but here are a few: "more than a quarter-million", Fischer, David Hackett, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America Oxford University Press, USA (March 14, 1989), pg. 606; "200,000", Rouse, Parke Jr., The Great Wagon Road, Dietz Press, 2004, pg. 32; "...250,000 people left for America between 1717 and 1800...20,000 were Anglo-Irish, 20,000 were Gaelic Irish, and the remainder Ulster-Scots or Scotch-Irish...", Blethen, H.T. & Wood, C.W., From Ulster to Carolina, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 2005, pg. 22; "more than 100,000", Griffin, Patrick, The People with No Name, Princeton University Press, 2001, pg 1; "200,000", Leyburn, James G., The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, University of North Carolina Press, 1962, pg. 180; "225,000", Hansen, Marcus L., The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860, Cambridge, Mass, 1940, pg. 41; "250,000", Dunaway, Wayland F. The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania, Genealogical Publishing Co (1944), pg. 41; "300,000", Barck, O.T. & Lefler, H.T., Colonial America, New York (1958), pg. 285.
3. ^ "U.S. Census". U.S. Census Bureau. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-ds_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_&-_lang=en&-_caller=geoselect&-format=. Retrieved 2008-04-13.
4. ^ Robinson, Philip, The Plantation of Ulster, St. Martin's Press, 1984, ppg. 109-128, and Rowse, A.L., The Expansion of Elizabethan England, Harper & Row: New York, 1965, pg. 28.
5. ^ Hanna, Charles A., The Scotch-Irish: or the Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1902, pg. 163
6. ^ Leyburn, James G., The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, University of North Carolina Press, 1962, pg 330. Leyburn cites two references from the early settlement years in the 18th century: "In September 1723, Rev. George Ross, Rector of Immanuel Church in New Castle, Delaware, wrote...'They call themselves Scotch-Irish"; and "Another Church of England clergyman from Lewes, Delaware, commented in 1723 that 'great numbers of Irish (who usually call themselves Scotch-Irish) have transplanted themselves and their families from the north of Ireland.'"
7. ^ Leyburn, James G., The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, University of North Carolina Press, 1962, pgs 327-334
8. ^ Merriam-webster.com
9. ^ Kingsley Amis, The King's English : A Guide to Modern Usage, St. Martin's Griffin, 1999, pgs 198-199.
10. ^ Maldwyn Jones, "Scotch-Irish", in Stephan Thernstrom, ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980) pp 895-908
11. ^ Maldwyn Jones, "Scotch-Irish", in Stephan Thernstrom, ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980) pp 901-907
12. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=npQ6Hd3G4kgC&q=1790%20ulster&f=false#v=snippet&q=1790%20ulster&f=false
13. ^ David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed, Oxford, 1989, pg 618.
14. ^ George MacDonald Fraser, The Steel Bonnets, Harper Collins, 1995.
15. ^ Patrick Macrory, The Siege of Derry, Oxford, 1980, pgs 31-45.
16. ^ George MacDonald Fraser, The Steel Bonnets, Harper Collins, 1995, pgs 363 & 374-376; and Patrick Macrory, The Siege of Derry, Oxford, 1980, pg 46.
17. ^ Philip Robinson, The Plantation of Ulster, St. Martin's Press, 1984, pgs 52-55.
18. ^ Ohlmeyer, Jane and John Kenyon, The Civil Wars, p. 278, 'William Petty's figure of 37,000 Protestants massacred... is far too high, perhaps by a factor of ten, certainly more recent research suggests that a much more realistic figure is roughly 4,000 deaths.'
19. ^ Staff, Secrets of Lough Kernan BBC, Legacies UK history local to you, website of the BBC. Accessed 17 December 2007
20. ^ The Rebellion of 1641-42
21. ^ Royle, Trevor (2004), Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660, London: Abacus, ISBN 0-349-11564-8 p.143
22. ^ Scots-Irish By Alister McReynolds, writer and lecturer in Ulster-Scots studies, nitakeacloserlook.gov.uk
23. ^ "...summer of 1717...", Fischer, David Hackett, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, Oxford University Press, USA (March 14, 1989), pg. 606; "...early immigration was small,...but it began to surge in 1717.", Blethen, H.T. & Wood, C.W., From Ulster to Carolina, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 2005, pg. 22; "Between 1718 and 1775", Griffin, Patrick, The People with No Name, Princeton University Press, 2001, pg 1; etc.
24. ^ Rev. A. L. Perry, Scotch-Irish in New England:Taken from The Scotch-Irish in America: Proceedings and Addresses of the Second Congress at Pittsburgh,1890.
25. ^ Crozier 1984; Montgomery 1989, 2001
26. ^ Russell M. Reid, "Church Membership, Consanguineous Marriage, and Migration In a Scotch-Irish Frontier Population", Journal of Family History, 1988 13(4): 397-414,
27. ^ quoted in Carl Wittke, We Who Built America: The Saga of the Immigrant (1939) p. 51.
28. ^ Dunaway, The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania (1944)
29. ^ Leyburn, The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, (1962); Rouse, Parke Jr., The Great Wagon Road, Dietz Press, 2004
30. ^ Edwin Thomas Schock, Jr., "Historiography of the Conestoga Massacre through Three Centuries of Scholarship", Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society 1994 96(3): 99-112
31. ^ Leburn (1962) 228; Ray Allen Billington, Westward Expansion (1972) pp 90-109; Toby Joyce, "'The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indian': Sheridan, Irish-America and the Indians", History Ireland 2005 13(6): 26-29
32. ^ James E. Doan, "How the Irish and Scots Became Indians: Colonial Traders and Agents and the Southeastern Tribes", New Hibernia Review 1999 3(3): 9-19
33. ^ Kevin Kenny, Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment, Oxford University Press, 2009, ppg 119-126.
34. ^ Kenny, Peaceable Kingdom Lost, pp 130-146.
35. ^ Kenny, Peaceable Kingdom Lost, ppg 161-171.
36. ^ Leyburn, The Scotch-Irish
37. ^ Leyburn, The Scotch-Irish 1962.
38. ^ Philip H. Bagenal, The American Irish and their Influence on Irish Politics, London, 1882, pp 12-13.
39. ^ John C. Campbell, The Southern Highlander and his Homeland, (1921)
40. ^ Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, (1906).
41. ^ Peter N. Moore, "The Local Origins of Allegiance in Revolutionary South Carolina: The Waxhaws as a Case Study", South Carolina Historical Magazine 2006 107(1): 26-41
42. ^ John Ingham, The Iron Barons (1978) quotes pp 7 and 228
43. ^ Gregory Barnhisel James Laughlin, New Directions, and the Remaking of Ezra Pound (2005) p. 48
44. ^ Audrey J. Horning, "Myth, Migration, and Material Culture: Archeology and the Ulster Influence on Appalachia", Historical Archaeology 2002 36(4): 129-149
45. ^ Olive Dame Campbell & Cecil J. Sharp, English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, Comprising 122 Songs and Ballads, and 323 Tunes, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1917, pg xviii.
46. ^ Samuel Tyndale Wilson, The Southern Mountaineers, New York: Presbyterian Home Missions, 1906, pg 24.
47. ^ Carolyn Murray-Wooley, "Stone Houses of Central Kentucky: Dwellings of Ulster Gentry, 1780-1830", Journal of East Tennessee History, 2006 77 (Supplement): 50-58
48. ^ Fawn Valentine, "Aesthetics and Ethnicity: Scotch-Irish Quilts in West Virginia", Uncoverings 1994 15: 7-44
49. ^ Michael Montgomery, "How Scotch-Irish Is Your English?" Journal of East Tennessee History 2006 77 (Supplement): 65-91
50. ^ Alan Crozier, "The Scotch-Irish Influence on American English", American Speech 1984 59(4): 310-331
51. ^ Census Research
52. ^ United States Timeline population
53. ^ United States population 1790-1990
54. ^ Ancestry.com
55. ^ Leyburn, James G., The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, University of North Carolina Press, 1962, pg 330.
56. ^ Leyburn, James G., The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, University of North Carolina Press, 1962, which cites Hubertis Cummings, Richard Peters, Provincial Secretary and Cleric, 1704-1776, Philadelphia, 1944, pg. 142.
57. ^ A History of Ulster, Jonathan Bardon, The Blackstaff Press Limited, Northern Ireland, 1992. Emigration to United States and Scotch-Irish, ppgs. 208-210.
58. ^ James Leyburn, The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, University of North Carolina (1962), pg 327.
59. ^ The Scotch-Irish of Colonial America, Wayland F. Dunaway, 1944, University of North Carolina Press
60. ^ Leyburn, James G., The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, University of North Carolina Press, 1962, pg 273.
61. ^ Hanna, Charles A., The Scotch-Irish: or the Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1902, pg. 163
62. ^ Griffin, Patrick, The People with No Name: Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, Princeton University Press, 2001, ppg 164-165.
63. ^ Leyburn, (1962), p. 295.
64. ^ Barry Vann, "Irish Protestants and the Creation of the Bible Belt", Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 2007 5(1): 87-106
65. ^ Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, "The College of New Jersey and the Presbyterians", Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, 1958 36(4): 209-216
66. ^ William L. Fisk, "The Associate Reformed Church in the Old Northwest: A Chapter in the Acculturation of the Immigrant", Journal of Presbyterian History, 1968 46(3): 157-174
67. ^ Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning Of The West, Volume 1, Kessinger Publishing, 2004, pg. 77
68. ^ The Bushes' ancestors include William Holliday from Rathfriland.
[edit] Secondary sources
* Bailyn, Bernard and Philip D. Morgan, eds. Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (1991), scholars analyze colonial migrations. excerpts online
* Blethen, Tyler. ed. Ulster and North America: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Scotch-Irish (1997; ISBN 0-8173-0823-7), scholarly essays.
* Carroll, Michael P. "How the Irish Became Protestant in America", Religion and American Culture Winter 2006, Vol. 16, No. 1, Pages 25–54
* Drymon, M. M.Scotch-Irish Foodways in America(2009;ISBN 978-1-4495-8842-7)
* Dunaway, Wayland F. The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania (1944; reprinted 1997; ISBN 0-8063-0850-8), solid older scholarly history.
* Fischer, David Hackett. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1991), major scholarly study tracing colonial roots of four groups of immigrants, Irish, English Puritans, English Cavaliers, and Quakers.
* Glazier, Michael, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America, (1999), the best place to start—the most authoritative source, with essays by over 200 experts, covering both Catholic and Protestants.
* Griffin, Patrick. The People with No Name: Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World: 1689-1764 (2001; ISBN 0-691-07462-3) solid academic monograph.
* Leyburn, James G. Scotch-Irish: A Social History (1999; ISBN 0-8078-4259-1) written by academic but out of touch with scholarly literature after 1940
* McDonald, Forrest, and Grady McWhiney, "The Antebellum Southern Herdsman: A Reinterpretation", Journal of Southern History 41 (1975) 147-66; highly influential economic interpretation; online at JSTOR through most academic libraries. Their Celtic interpretation says Scots-Irish resembled all other Celtic groups; they were warlike herders (as opposed to peaceful farmers in England), and brought this tradition to America. James Webb has popularized this thesis.
o Berthoff, Rowland. "Celtic Mist over the South", Journal of Southern History 52 (1986): 523-46 is a strong attack; rejoinder on 547-50
* McWhiney, Grady. Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (1984).
* McWhiney, Grady. Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South (1988). Major exploration of cultural folkways.
* Meagher, Timothy J. The Columbia Guide to Irish American History. (2005), overview and bibliographies; includes the Catholics.
* Miller, Kerby. Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (1988). Highly influential study.
* Miller, Kerby, et al. eds. Journey of Hope: The Story of Irish Immigration to America (2001), major source of primary documents.
* Porter, Lorle. A People Set Apart: The Scotch-Irish in Eastern Ohio (1999; ISBN 1-887932-75-5) highly detailed chronicle.
* Quinlan, Kieran. Strange Kin: Ireland and the American South (2004), critical analysis of Celtic thesis.
* Sletcher, Michael, ‘Scotch-Irish’, in Stanley I. Kutler, ed., Dictionary of American History, (10 vols., New York, 2002).
[edit] Popular history and literature
* Bageant, Joseph L. Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War (2007; ISBN 978-1-921215-78-0) Cultural discussion and commentary of Scots-Irish descendants in the USA.
* Baxter, Nancy M. Movers: A Saga of the Scotch-Irish (The Heartland Chronicles) (1986; ISBN 0-9617367-1-2) Novelistic.
* Chepesiuk, Ron. The Scotch-Irish: From the North of Ireland to the Making of America (ISBN 0-7864-0614-3)
* Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. "Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie" (2006; ISBN 0-8061-3775-4) literary/historical family memoir of Scotch-Irish Missouri/Oklahoma family.
* Glasgow, Maude. The Scotch-Irish in Northern Ireland and in the American Colonies (1998; ISBN 0-7884-0945-X)
* Greeley, Andrew. Encyclopedia of the Irish in America
* Johnson, James E. Scots and Scotch-Irish in America (1985, ISBN 0-8225-1022-7) short overview for middle schools
* Kennedy, Billy. Faith & Freedom: The Scots-Irish in America (1999; ISBN 1-84030-061-2) Short, popular chronicle; he has several similar books on geographical regions
* Kennedy, Billy. The Scots-Irish in the Carolinas (1997; ISBN 1-84030-011-6)
* Kennedy, Billy. The Scots-Irish in the Shenandoah Valley (1996; ISBN 1-898787-79-4)
* Lewis, Thomas A. West From Shenandoah: A Scotch-Irish Family Fights for America, 1729–1781, A Journal of Discovery (2003; ISBN 0-471-31578-8)
* Vann, Barry. Rediscovering the South's Celtic Heritage (2004; ISBN 1570722692)
* Vann, Barry. In Search of Ultser Scots Land: The Birth and Geotheological Imagings of a Transatlantic People (2008; ISBN 1570037086)
* Webb, James. Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America (2004; ISBN 0-7679-1688-3) novelistic approach; special attention to his people's war with English in America.
* Webb, James. Why You Need to Know the Scots-Irish (10-3-2004; Parade magazine). Article recognizes the great Scots-Irish people and their accomplishments.
[edit] External links
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Scottish Travelers
The present population of Scottish Travelers in North America also dates from about 1850, although the 18th-century transportation records appear to refer to this group. Unlike that of the other groups, Scottish Traveler immigration has been continuous. Also unlike the other groups, Scottish Travelers have continued to travel between Scotland and North America, as well as between Canada and the United States, after immigration. Scottish Travelers also engaged in horse trading, but since the first quarter of the 20th century have specialized in itinerant sales and services. With the exception of one researcher's master's and doctoral theses and material culture studies, the literature on this group consists almost wholly of warnings to prospective consumers accompanied by information, derived from consumer protection agency records, of doubtful accuracy.
From Wikipedia:
Scottish Travellers, or the people termed loosely Gypsies and Tinkers in Scotland, consist of a number of diverse, unrelated communities, with groups speaking a variety of different languages and holding to distinct customs, histories, and traditions. There are six distinct gypsy communities in Scotland: Scottish Highland Travellers; Funfair Travellers, or Showmen; Irish Travellers; Scottish Lowland Travellers; and Romanichals (a subgroup of the Romani people). In modern times, New Age travellers and Romani people from continental Europe (especially Roma) have emigrated to Scotland.
Contents
* 1 Highland Travellers
o 1.1 Language
o 1.2 Origins and customs
o 1.3 Famous Highland travellers
o 1.4 In popular culture
o 1.5 Novels and short stories
* 2 Scottish Lowland groups
o 2.1 Lowland Scottish travellers
o 2.2 History
o 2.3 Scottish Traveller Cant
o 2.4 Music and Song
o 2.5 Novels and short stories
o 2.6 Border gypsies
o 2.7 Roma
* 3 Non-Romani groups
o 3.1 Fairground travellers
o 3.2 History
o 3.3 Language
* 4 Irish travellers
* 5 New Age travellers
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 Resources
Highland Travellers
In Scottish Gaelic they are known as the Ceàrdannan ("the Craftsmen").[1] The English term 'travelling people' has been adopted into contemporary Gaelic as luchd siubhail (people of travel) but this is a wider term covering other groups of travellers too and it still has to gain full currency and comprehension amongst ordinary Gaelic speakers. Poetically known as the Summer Walkers, Highland Travellers are a distinct ethnic group and may be referred to as traivellers, traivellin fowk, in Scots, tinkers, originating from the Gaelic tinceard or (tinsmith) or "Black Tinkers".[1] Mistakenly the settled Scottish population may call all travelling and Romani groups tinkers, which is usually regarded as pejorative, and contemptuously as tinks or tinkies[2].
Highland Travellers are closely tied to the native Highlands, and many traveller families carry clan names like Macfie[3], Stewart, MacDonald, Cameron and Williamson and Macmillan. They follow a nomadic or settled lifestyle; passing from village to village and are more strongly identified with the native Gaelic speaking population. Continuing their nomadic life, they would pitch their bow-tents on rough ground on the edge of the village and earn money there as tinsmiths, hawkers, horse dealers or pearl-fishermen. Many found seasonal employment on farms, e.g. at the berry picking or during harvest. They also brought entertainment and news to the country folk. Since the 1950s, however, the majority of Highland Travellers have settled down into organized campsites or regular houses.
Adam Smith, the renowned political economist and moral philosopher was reportedly kidnapped by Highland Travellers at a young age before quickly being freed.[4][5]
The Highland Travellers' speech includes a 'Pidgin-Gaelic' called 'Beurla-reagaird'. It is related to the Irish Traveller Shelta as a creol of the Goidelic language group. It was used as a cultural identifier, just as Roma used the Romani language. However like the Highland Traveller the language is unrelated to the Romani languages.
Origins and customs
The Highland Traveller community has a long history in Scotland going back, at least in record, to the 12th century,[6] and share a similar heritage, although are distinct from the Irish Travellers. As with their Irish counterparts, there are several theories regarding the origin of Scottish Highland travellers, one being they are descended from the Picts,[6] excommunicated clergy,[6] to families fleeing the Highland potato famine, or the pre-Norman-Invasion,[7] have been claimed at different times. Highland travellers are distinct both culturally and linguistically from other gypsy groups like the Romani, including the Romanichal, Lowland Scottish Travellers, Eastern European Roma and Welsh Kale groups. Several other European groups are related to the Scottish Highland Travellers, and share similarities to other non-Romany groups across Europe, namely the Yeniches, Woonwagonbewoners in Holland, and Landfahrer in Germany. As with Norwegian and Swedish Travellers, Highland travellers origins may be more complex and difficult to ascertain and left no written records of their own.
As an indigenous group Highland Travellers have played an essential role in the preservation of traditional Gaelic culture.[8] Travellers' outstanding contribution to Highland life has been as custodians of an ancient and vital singing, storytelling and folklore tradition of great importance. It is estimated that only 2,000 Scottish travellers continue to lead their traditional lifestyle on the roads.
[edit] Famous Highland travellers
* Sheila Stewart was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to her country's cultural oral tradition in Scots and Gaelic.
* Duncan Williamson Author and story teller who wrote down the oral history, stories and ancient tales of the Highland Traveller. He recorded over three thousand stories over his lifetime.
In popular culture
* Rob Roy — A 1995 film featuring Liam Neeson that details the exploits of the early 18th century Highland clan chieftain Rob Roy MacGregor. The film opens with MacGregor clansmen retrieving stolen cattle from robbers they call "Tinkers". Later on, the wife of Rob Roy, when commenting on potential economic misfortunes for their clan, dismisses any relationship between their status and that of "Tinkers".
* Death Defying Acts - A film about Harry Houdini and his encounter with A Scottish traveller woman and her daughter.[9]
Novels and short stories
* Scottish Traveller Tales: lives shaped through stories, by Donald Braid 2002 – The storytelling and ballad traditions of the nomadic minority of Scottish Travellers.
* The Yellow on the Broom: The Early Days of a Traveller Woman, Betsy Whyte, 1992 – Life on the road for Scottish Travellers in the early part of the 20th century.
* Red Rowans and Wild Honey, by Betsy Whyte,2004 – The sequel to "Yellow on the Broom" the life of Scottish travellers till the outbreak of the second world war.
* Red Eye Ghost by Micky MacPhee – The story of a Scottish Traveler who encounters a ghostly victim of the Highland Clearances.
* Northern Traveller tales by Robert Dawson – Traditional tales collected from Travellers in the East Midlands, North of England and Scotland.
* The Summer walkers: Travelling People and Pearl–Fishers in the Highlands of Scotland, Timothy Nest 2008 – The story of the itinerant tinsmiths, horse-dealers, hawkers and pearl fishers who made their living 'on the road' in the Highlands of Scotland.
* Jessie's Journey, by Jess Smith, 2003 – The first book of a trilogy and an autobiographical account of stories from the Highland traveller family.
* Tears for a Tinker by Jess Smith, 2005 – The third book of a trilogy; recounting a collection of stories from the authors family tales, ghosts, poems, tales of the road from a family of Scottish Highland Travellers.
* Tales from the Tent , by Jess Smith, 2008 – The third book of a trilogy of stories from the authors own folk tales.
* Bruars Rest, by Jess Smith 2006 – A story of love and loyalty and the journey a woman makes for the love of her husband.
* Stookin Berries, by Jess Smith 2006 – A collection of stories for younger readers, ancient oral tales of Scotland's travelling people.
* Queen Amang the Heather; The Life of Bella Stewart, by Sheila Stewart 2006 – The moving autobiography and life of Belle Stewart, traveller, folk composers and singer who was awarded the British Empire Medal for her contribution to folk music.
* Pilgrims in the Mist; Stories of Scotland’s Travelling people, by Sheila Stewart – A collection of Traveller stories from across Scotland.
* Never to Return: The Harrowing True Story of a Stolen Childhood, by Sandy Reid 2008 – The true story of a family of tinker children taken from their families.
* The Book of Sandy Stewart, by Alexander Stewart, 1988 – Biography of a Perthshire Tinker
* The last of the Tinsmiths: The Life of Willy MacPhee, by Shelia Douglas 2006 – A collection of songs, tales and stories from the rich Highland travelling people.
* The Horsieman: Memories of a Traveller 1928-58, by Duncan Williamson – Memoirs of a Traveller family living at Loch Fyne.
* The King And The Lamp: Scottish Traveller Tales, by Duncan Williamson 2000 – A collection of stories from the rich oral tradition of the Scottish Highland Travellers.
* Fireside tales of the Traveller Children, by Duncan Williamson 2009 – A collection of traditional travelling stories.
* Horse Healer: Eclipse (and other stories in the horse healer series) by Judy Waite 2007 – Includes some short stories based on Highland Travellers.[10]
Scottish Lowland groups
Lowland Scottish travellers
Origins of Scottish lowland travellers is not clear, and can be categorized into three main theories, i) those of indigenous origin to the British Isles, like the Scottish Highland and Irish traveller communities, ii) they are of Indian origin and have a common ancestry with the English Romanichal, and continental Romani groups,[11] iii) or a fusion or mix of Romani and indigenous traveller groups.[12] Regardless of the accepted theories, there has been a certain degree of socio-biological fusion historically between Romani groups and indigenous Scottish travellers, perhaps from the outset of Romani groups arriving in Scotland in the early 16th century.[11] and there are Scottish travellers with at least some degree of Romani including Romanichal ancestry.[11][13] This is not uncommon and can be seen in other groups throughout Europe including the Yeniche people and Norwegian and Swedish Travellers. Scottish travellers remain a distinct ethnic group.
Lowland Scottish Travellers share many cultural features with European gypsy communities such as a belief in the importance of family and family descent, a strong valuing and involvement with extended family and family events, a preference for self-employment, purity taboos (In the case of the Romani people the purity taboos are part of the Romanipen) and a strong commitment to a nomadic lifestyle; even when living a sedentary lifestyle).
[edit] History
Written evidence for the earliest presence of gypsies in Britain more specifically to the Scottish Lowlands can be dated to 1505, in the reign of James IV, when an entry in the Book of the Lord High Treasurer records a payment to Peter Ker of four shillings, to go to the king at Hunthall, to get letters subscribed to the 'King of Rowmais'. Two days after, a payment of twenty pounds was made at the king's command to the messenger of the 'King of Rowmais'.[14][15] A group of Roma danced before the Scottish king at Holyrood Palace in 1530, and Romani herbalist called Baptista cured the king of an ailment.[15] Romany migration to Scotland continued and in the 16th century as some groups were expelled from England resulting in their migration across the border to Scotland.[16][17] Records in Dundee c.1651 shows the migrations of small groups of people called by the name of Egyptians in the Highlands, and are noted to be of the same nature as of the English gypsies.[18] By 1612 communities are recorded as far as Scalloway in the Shetland islands.[16][19] Romani gypsy population in the south of Scotland, enjoyed the protection of the Roslyn family and made an encampment within the castle grounds. However as with its neighbour England, the Scottish parliament in 1609 passed an act against Romani groups known as the “Act against the Egyptians”;[20] that made it lawful to condemn, detain and execute gypsies on proof solely if they are known or reputed to be Romanies on regards to their ethnic origins.[16]
The Lowland Travellers speak a form of non-standard Scots language, called Cant, includes many words in common with Romani including Anglo-Romany words. Between 25-35% of Scottish Cant originates in a Romani-derived lexicon.[21] Containing up to 50% or more Romani loan words in some groups of the central belt of Scotland, those who are Romanichal or Scottish border gypsies.[21] Which demonstrates the intermarriage and links between Scottish travelers and English Romani populations, historically and in recent times.[22] This can be seen as some people from the Scottish travelling community are even members of Romani organisations based in England and are a minority group in Scotland.[23] Includes Romanies of English heritage in Scotland,[24][25][26] Scottish phonology however differs in some respects from that of Angloromany, and there are items of Romani origin which some researchers have referred as Scoto-Romani,[27] which has not been recorded in the other Romani languages of Britain, suggesting an earlier history for the Scottish Romani population and grouping other than that of being an indigenous group. The earliest texts survive from the 16th century [21] perhaps to the late Medieval and may represent one of the oldest of the component traveller dialects of the British Isles.[28] More research is needed into the Scottish traveller Cant variant.
[edit] Music and Song
* The Raggle Taggle Gypsies (1720)
Novels and short stories
* Scottish Traveller Tales: lives shaped through stories, by Donald Braid 2002 – The storytelling and ballad traditions of the nomadic minority of Scottish Travellers.
* Pilgrims in the Mist; Stories of Scotland’s Travelling people, by Sheila Stewart – A collection of Traveller stories from across Scotland.
* Northern Traveller tales by Robert Dawson – Traditional tales collected from Travellers in the East Midlands, North of England and Scotland.
* Travellers: An Introduction by Jon Cannon & the Travellers of Thistlebrook – Insight into the history, culture and lives of Travellers in Britain today.
* Rokkering, Crecking and Cracking by Robert Dawson – The Romani language and cant dialects of travelers and gypsies found in Britain today.
Border gypsies
Main article: Romanichal
Scotland has had a Romanichal population for at least 500 years, they are a distinct group from the Highland traveller and share a common language and heritage with the English gypsies and Welsh Kale, who are also Romani. The first official mention of Travellers in Britain was in 1505, when it was recorded that seven pounds were paid to 'Egyptians' by King James IV at Stirling. They enjoyed a privileged place in Scottish society until the Reformation, when their wandering lifestyle and exotic culture brought severe persecution upon them. Romani populations from other parts of Britain often travel in Scotland. These include English Romanies and Welsh Kale. English Gypsies/Travellers from the north of England mainly in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and Cumbria may be part of common communities with Scottish Travellers living in the Lowlands and borders. Romanichal traders were upwardly mobile, by 1830 travelled to the potteries in Staffordshire and buying china and other goods, selling the items chiefly in Northumberland, while based in Kirk of Yetholm Roxburghshire [29] Some people from the Scottish travelling community are even members of Romani organisations based in England and are a minority group in Scotland.[30] Includes Romanies of English heritage in Scotland,[31][32][33]
Roma
Main article: Roma (Romani subgroup)
In recent years a variety of European Roma, descended from the same people as British Romani Gypsies, are Gypsies/Travellers who have moved here from Central and Eastern Europe, and are also a recognised ethnic minority group. Some have arrived as asylum seekers and refugees, fleeing persecution abroad.
Funfair or travelling showmen are a community of travellers officially called occupational Travellers, can be broadly defined as a business community that includes Scottish travelling show and fairground families, including circus communities. Occupational travellers travel for work across Scotland, the rest of the UK and into Europe. The Show/Fairground community is close knit, with ties often existing between the older Romanichal families, although showmen families are a distinct group and have a vibrant social scene centered both around the summer fairs and the various sites and yards used as winter quarters. Many Scottish show and fairground families live in winter communities based mainly in the east end of Glasgow. Housing an estimated 80% of all showfamilies Glasgow is believed to have the largest concentration of Showmen funfair quarters in Europe, centred mostly in Shettleston, Whiteinch and Carntyne.
Showmen families have a strong cultural identity as ‘Scottish Showmen’, as well as long histories within these communities. Scottish Showmen are members of an organisation called Showmen's Guild of Great Britain and Ireland, and are known within the UK as the “Scottish Section” of a wider British showman community.[34] As with other showmen communities they call non-travellers including members of the public, and other non related travelling groups including Romanichal, Scottish Lowland traveller groups, Highland traveller, Irish and other Gypsy groups “flatties” or non-`showmen’ travellers in their own Polari language [35]. This label can also include showmen who have left the traditional way of life to settle down.
History
Fairs in Scotland have been held from the early Middle Ages, and traditionally brought together the important elements of medieval trade and a festival. Many of the common markets and fairs are rooted in ancient times, from the medieval period or earlier, and are said to be 'prescriptive fairs'. Other fairs will have been granted a royal charter to cement their importance and secure their future, and these are known as Charter fairs. In the Middle Ages the Royal charters gave the fairs legal status and developed their economic importance. The majority of fairs held in Scotland and the rest of the British Isles can trace their ancestry to charters granted in the medieval period. Traders would travel long distances to sell their goods, as did travelling musicians and entertainers who kept both the traders and customers entertained. In the thirteenth century, the creation of fairs by royal charter was widespread. Between 1199 and 1350 charters were issued granting the rights to hold markets or fairs. Kirkcaldy links market remains the premier funfair in Scotland, evolving from a charter granted by Edward I in 1304. By the early 18th century the main aspect of these Scottish charter fairs had diminished and shifted to that of amusement with the advent of technology, and had evolved into the modern day travelling fairs.
The modern travelling showmen have as strong a family history and heritage as do their counterparts in Wales and England. Fairs in Scotland are presented around the same time as they are in the rest of Great Britain with a similar mixture of Charter, Prescriptive and private business fairs. The run of fairs include Buckie fair, Inverness, Kirkcaldy links market and the historic fairs held at Dundee and Arbroath. Annually a team of young showmen from both Scotland and England play an “international football match” known as the international,[36] where trophies and caps are held in high esteem. A Showman newspaper; World's Fair is in circulation and available to showmen and non showmen alike.[36]
[edit] Language
Main article: Polari
The language of the Showmen or Parlyee, is based on a cant slang spoken throughout the U.K. by Scottish, English and Welsh showfamilies. It is a mixture of Lingua Franca, Romany, Yiddish, Cant London slang and backslang). The language has been spoken in fairgrounds and theatrical entertainment since at least the 17th century.[37] As theatrical booths, circus acts and menageries were once a common part of European fairs it is likely that the roots of Polari/Parlyaree lie in the period before both theatre and circus became independent of the fairgrounds. The Parlyaree spoken on fairgrounds tends to borrow much more from Romany, as well as other languages and argots spoken by other travelling groups, such as cant and backslang.
Irish travellers
Irish Travellers
Irish Travellers are a distinct Irish social group with their own customs, language and traditions. Many live in the UK for all or part of the year. Like Romani gypsies, and Scottish Highland gypsies, they are a recognised ethnic minority group.
New Age travellers
New Age or New Travellers choose to live an alternative travelling lifestyle for ideological reasons, for example, because they want to live in a more 'green' way. New Age Travellers have existed since the 1970s, so some are now second or third generation Travellers.[1][2][3][4]
See also
* Cant (language)
* Irish Traveller
* Nomad
* Romani people
* Yeniche people
* Indigenous Norwegian Travellers
References
1. ^ a b The last of the Tinsmiths: The Life of Willy MacPhee, by Shelia Douglas 2006
2. ^ The Concise Scots Dictionary, Mairi Robinson (editor) (1985), p723
3. ^ Ian Grimble, "Scottish Clans & Tartans" p199
4. ^ "What you should know about Adam Smith". BBC News. 13 March 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6445559.stm. Retrieved 29 April 2010.
5. ^ Grey Graham, Henry (1901). Scottish men of letters in the eighteenth century. A. and C. Black. pp. 148. http://books.google.co.uk/books?cd=1&id=zGRCAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22adam+smith%22+kidnapped+scottish&q=+kidnapped+#search_anchor. Retrieved 29/04/2010.
6. ^ a b c The Cryptolectal Speech of the American Roads: Traveller Cant and American AngloRomani. (1986) Ian Hancock. American Speech, 61(3) University of Austin Texas
7. ^ The Cryptolectal Speech of the American Roads: Traveller Cant and American AngloRomani. (1986) Ian Hancock. American Speech, 61(3) University of Austin Texas
8. ^ Travelling People — Highland Travellers.
9. ^ Amber Wilkinson, Death Defying Acts: Movie Review.
10. ^ Marianne Zwicker. Review of Nord, Deborah Epstein, Gypsies and the British Imagination, 1807-1930. H-Ideas, H-Net Reviews. November, 2007
11. ^ a b c Romani Culture and Gypsy Identity (1997). Thomas Alan et al. r Thomas Alan Acton Published by Univ of Hertfordshire Press, 1997
12. ^ Romani Culture and Gypsy Identity (1997). Thomas Alan et al. Thomas Alan Acton Published by Univ of Hertfordshire Press, 1997
13. ^ Henderson 1992. Alias MacAlias. Polygon Edinburgh
14. ^ http://www.scottishgypsies.co.uk/scotland.html
15. ^ a b The Gypsies (the Peoples of Europe Angus Fraser 1995 Wiley-Blackwell; 2 edition
16. ^ a b c Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture Walter Otto Weyrauch 2001 University of California press
17. ^ Early British Gypsies Windstet 1913 cited in Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture Walter Otto Weyrauch 2001 University of California press
18. ^ C.H. Firth. Scotland and the commonwealth (1895) p29 Edinburgh, Scottish Historical Society
19. ^ Scottish Gypsies Macritchie cited in Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture Walter Otto Weyrauch 2001 University of California press
20. ^ Early British Gypsies Windstet 1913 cited in Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture Walter Otto Weyrauch 2001 University of California press
21. ^ a b c wilde 1889, cited in Not just lucky white heather and clothes pegs: putting European Gypsies and Traveller economic niches in context. In: Ethnicity and Economy:Race and class revisited. C. Clark (2002). Strathclyde University.
22. ^ Roma, Gypsies, Travellers. Jean-Pierre Liégeois. Published by Council of Europe
23. ^ Romani Culture and Gypsy Identity. T. A. Acton (1997) University of Hertfordshire Press
24. ^ Insiders, Outsiders and Others: Gypsies and Identity (2008). Kalwant Bhopal and Martin Myers Published by Univ of Hertfordshire Press
25. ^ Romani Culture and Gypsy Identity (1997). Thomas Alan et. Al. r Thomas Alan Acton Published by Univ of Hertfordshire Press, 1997
26. ^ The Appleby Rai: Travelling People on a Thousand-year Journey (1996). By Gordon Thorburn, John Baxter
27. ^ Russell 1915, cited in Not just lucky white heather and clothes pegs: putting European Gypsies and Traveller economic niches in context. In: Ethnicity and Economy:Race and class revisited. C. Clark (2002). Strathclyde University.
28. ^ Not just lucky white heather and clothes pegs: putting European Gypsies and Traveller economic niches in context. In: Ethnicity and Economy:Race and class revisited. C. Clark (2002). Strathclyde University.
29. ^ Gypsy-travellers in Nineteenth-century Society (1988) David Mayall Published by CUP Archive
30. ^ Romani Culture and Gypsy Identity. T. A. Acton (1997) University of Hertfordshire Press
31. ^ Outsiders and Others: Gypsies and Identity (2008). Kalwant Bhopal Published by Univ of Hertfordshire Press
32. ^ Romani Culture and Gypsy Identity (1997). Thomas Alan et. Al. r Thomas Alan Acton Published by Univ of Hertfordshire Press, 1997
33. ^ The Appleby Rai: Travelling People on a Thousand-year Journey (1996). By Gordon Thorburn, John Baxter
34. ^ http://www.nfa.dept.shef.ac.uk/history/showmens_guild/sections.html
35. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/group/wales-talbotgreen.shtml
36. ^ a b Worlds Fair.
37. ^ Partridge, Eric (1937) Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English
Resources
* "Scottish Clans & Tartans" (ISBN 0-600-31935-0), by Ian Grimble, 1973, 3rd (revised) impression 1982
* "Traveller's Joy: Songs of English and Scottish Travellers and Gypsies 1965-2005" by Mike Yates, Elaine Bradtke, Malcolm Taylor, and David Atkinson (2006)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Travellers"
Categories: Scottish Travellers | Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom
Type the text for [['Scotts-Irish']]
Hx of coal mining family of Hilda.
[[Chapter 1 Notes]]
[[Chapter 1 Vocabulary]]
[[Chapter 1 Summary]]
Introduction of Hilda and relationship with stepfather.
The death of Hilda's father and the intro of the evil step dad clown.
[[Chapter 2 Notes]]
[[Chapter 2 Vocabulary]]
[[Chapter 2 Summary]]
[img[https://www.evernote.com/shard/s24/res/6ecf3e8c-7194-4f3f-972c-ab548a575e70/img087.jpg?width=496&height=640]]
Hilda likes sex. Kills step dad out of concern for sister or jealousy. Goes on the road. Learns how to be a whore.
[[Chapter 3 Notes]]
[[Chapter 3 Vocabulary]]
[[Chapter 3 Summary]]
[img[https://www.evernote.com/shard/s24/res/48de920e-4da9-438d-8e11-9342b251e699/img071.jpg?width=496&height=640]]
Hilda's adventures on the road.
[[Chapter 4 Notes]]
[[Chapter 4 Vocabulary]]
[[Chapter 4 Summary]]
Dave's family runs a tent revival racket. It is like a traveling circus and a professional wrestling show. They are cons.
Dave and Hilda travel on the road with the religious circus.
[[Chapter 5 Notes]]
[[Chapter 5 Vocabulary]]
[[Chapter 5 Summary]]
Dave's goes away to college and is ran out of town. Comes back to the tent revival disgraced.
[[Chapter 6 Notes]]
[[Chapter 6 Vocabulary]]
[[Chapter 6 Summary]]
The foursome meet up in Bowling Green, KY
Hilda has a Bathsheba moment with Dave's father.Being run out of town for being cons and gypsies.
A snake man makes an appearance at the tent revival.
[[Chapter 7 Notes]]
[[Chapter 7 Vocabulary]]
[[Chapter 7 Summary]]
Kenny's background and learning how to be a salesman and con man.
[[Chapter 8 Notes]]
[[Chapter 8 Vocabulary]]
[[Chapter 8 Summary]]
Background of Ott and his hatred of revivals.
[[Chapter 9 Notes]]
[[Chapter 9 Vocabulary]]
[[Chapter 9 Summary]]
[[Chapter 10 Notes]]
[[Chapter 10 Vocabulary]]
[[Chapter 10 Summary]]
Adventures while hitch-hiking across the South.
During travels, a trucker picks them up. The have assorted adventures. Later the trucker tries to rape Hilda. Dave beats him with with a tire iron. Fears he will die and that he will be a wanted man.
Trying to care for trucker off the road and in an old cabin.
Trucker dies. They bury body and hide truck. They cross the back country and have some adventures with strange people.
They get back on the road.
They walk upon a mysterious camp in the remote woods. It is the base camp of some Irish Travelers. They are like the Amish in that they have no modern conveniences or technology.
Couple meets up with the hippie movement while hitching. They meet the Jesus Freaks. They have various adventures. Learns new hustling tactics as seduction and drugs.
Join up with the Jesus Freaks again. Go to big love in festival at Nashville, TN.
Experience drugs, sex, and rock and roll there and some wild adventures.
[[Old Woman Tells Story of Hilda's Death]]
"Retaliation" in BJU suspension?
(CNN) -- Former Bob Jones University student Chris Peterman expected to graduate on May 4. But on April 24, nine days before he was set to receive his diploma, the 23-year-old poli-sci major was suspended from school.
According to BJU, Peterman was suspended for a variety of infractions involving the school's code of conduct. Most of the violations, Peterman says, involved his activity on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Peterman responded by uploading videos to CNN iReport alleging that he was the victim of a pattern of intimidation and coercion on the part of several BJU staff and administrators. He claims to have been forced out of school in retaliation for his activism against Chuck Phelps, a former BJU Board of Trustees member who was accused of covering up a sex-abuse scandal at the church where he served as pastor.
Carol Keirstead, BJU's Chief Communications Officer, denied these allegations, and said the university could not comment on Peterman's case because of a federal law that protects the privacy of student education records, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act [FERPA].
"Outraged" by scandal
The Greenville, South Carolina-based college is well known for its Christian-conservative culture. BJU requires students to sign a covenant every year dictating permissible on- and off-campus behaviors. The school enforces strict prohibitions against the use of alcohol and drugs, premarital sex and public demonstrations for causes or institutions opposed by BJU.
In July 2010, allegations surfaced that former Pastor Phelps of Trinity Baptist Church in Concord, New Hampshire, had helped cover up repeated instances of sexual abuse committed more than a decade earlier by an older male parishioner against his step-daughter. The parishioner is currently serving a 15-30 year prison sentence on statutory rape charges.
The girl was impregnated, and she claimed in various media reports that then-Pastor Phelps compelled her to publicly apologize in front of the church congregation for the "sin" of her pregnancy. Phelps was accused of providing board for her in a guest room over his garage until the baby could be put up for adoption, according to reporting by ABC.
Phelps told CNN the girl was not coerced in any way. And in a statement released on his website , he said she "came before the congregation at Trinity Baptist Church voluntarily with her mother's blessing."
Phelps also explained his actions in the statement: "There was certainly no intent to cover up the allegations or hide [her]," the statement said. "I have always been committed to a policy of compliance and partnership with official investigations of any kind."
When Peterman heard news of the initial allegations against Chuck Phelps, he was outraged that Phelps was allowed to continue to hold his chair as a Board member, Peterman said. He posted links about the story on his personal Facebook account, and was called into a meeting with BJU's Dean of Men, Jon Daulton. The Deans of Men and Women are gender-specific assistants to the school's Dean of Students.
"I was told that I'd have to stop posting that stuff, or I would be expelled," Peterman said in an interview with CNN. The Dean of Men "said that the administration was upset with what I was saying. He said that the public relations department was following everything because it was giving Bob Jones a bad name."
Keirstead said that BJU was not commenting on specific allegations made by Peterman, again citing FERPA guidelines.
Personal motivation
Peterman had a personal motivation behind his activism: A practicing Baptist, he has also witnessed a church cover-up of sexual abuse, he said.
"I knew this, so I had this desire to tell my story, and help other people tell their stories." Peterman said he'd rather not give any more specifics on the incident, for fear of hurting and embarrassing his family and community.
In an effort to abide by BJU rules and continue his activism, Peterman created the "Do Right BJU" Facebook page , which drew considerable attention from BJU students and the local community. The group's mission was, in Peterman's words, to "provide a support and outreach network for victims of sexual abuse in the BJU community."
Peterman said that he continued to share stories about the Phelps scandal on the "Do Right BJU" Facebook page.
In a follow-up interview with CNN, Phelps refuted any wrong-doing in the New Hampshire abuse case, and pointed to the statement on his web site that defended his actions.
When Peterman created the Facebook page and organized a "Do Right BJU" protest on December 12, 2011, he was told by the Dean of Men to shut it down immediately, he said. He said he told the Dean he believed his actions were protected by the First Amendment, and that the Department of Education expressly protected his activism.
"They backed off. ... I went home that Christmas, Chuck Phelps resigned from the board, and Bob Jones announced that they were going to form a sexual abuse committee," he said. "I thought everything was good. I was talking with abuse victims and referring them to a support network, RAINN [the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network]. I had other students joining in. It was very good."
Disciplined for using social media
When Peterman returned to BJU in January 2012 for his final semester, he claims he was called in for special weekly counseling with the Dean of Men. "I had questioned the authority of the university, so by association, I had questioned the authority of God himself," he said. "Therefore, I had a deep spiritual problem he needed to fix."
"I would go into these meetings, two to three times a week, for an hour or more at a time, sometimes even at midnight. He would have a printout of my Facebook, and have things highlighted and starred. If anyone appeared in the picture with me, he would have their names highlighted and their faces circled," he said.
"I felt like I was being harassed and followed. ... He would also call my friends in and question them about me, all in an effort to isolate me and shut me up."
Keirstead declined to comment on these allegations.
By April, with only a month left in the school year, Peterman felt confident that he was going to graduate. But then, during the school's Spring Break Bible conference, he Tweeted about the length of a service, five minutes before it began: "This thing is 2hrs long!? What could they possibly talk about for that long!"
"The Dean of Men calls me in and says I sent that Tweet during the Bible conference, which isn't true," he said. "I explained that it was right before, not during, but he says he doesn't believe me and that they're going to give me 25 demerits. That was the first time I'd ever gotten demerits."
According to BJU officials, if a Bob Jones student accrues 150 demerits during the course of a semester, they're suspended from the school for a full semester. "I knew, at that point, that this was going to be difficult," he said. "They had gotten tired of me, because I refused to be quiet."
This, he contends, was the beginning of a pattern of harassment on the part of the BJU administration in retaliation for his activism the previous semester.
Suspended for watching "Glee?"
Three weeks before graduation, he said he was informed by the Dean of Men that he was reported by another student for watching TV off-campus, and would be facing another round of demerits.
He told CNN he was at an off-campus Starbucks, drinking coffee and watching "Glee" when he got called into the office and asked what he had been watching.
"I didn't lie to them. I had been watching 'Glee' since my freshman year, I didn't think I had anything to fear."
Though there are no prohibitions in BJU's student handbook against watching TV off-campus (on-campus TV viewing is not allowed), Peterman said that he was given 50 demerits because of the show's "morally reprehensible" tolerance for, among other things, homosexuality.
"So I'm at about 120 demerits now," he said. "I was so scared. Up until that semester, I had never had any demerits. It's not like I was a bad kid who broke all the rules."
Peterman said he was called in again the following week for posting the lyrics to a contemporary Christian country song on his Facebook during class, and was informed that he would receive another 75 demerits and be suspended from BJU.
He appealed the ruling, and reached out to local CNN affiliate WSPA, who ran a story on his suspension , where he claimed at the time that he was being forced off campus for watching "Glee."
When the appeals board reviewed his case on April 24, during exam week, they accepted his appeal and ruled that he would only be given 25 demerits, and would be allowed to graduate.
"I wanted to cry," he said. "I thought that God had answered my prayers, everything's gonna be alright. So, everybody starts to leave the room, and it's just me, the Dean of Students, and the Dean of Men. Then the Dean of Men says that they're kicking me out because I tried to intimidate BJU."
Peterman said they told him that the intimidation consisted of contacting the media, and the Department of Education and the school's accreditation organization.
"They really didn't like that I contacted the media. They told me I was out, and they had a guy follow me around campus, I had to pack my bags and I was off campus in two hours. They didn't care where I went, they just told me to pack my bags."
Peterman said he was informed that he would be arrested if he attempted to re-enter the BJU campus.
When asked for comment, BJU's Chief Communications Officer confirmed that Peterman was suspended for these infractions, but said that the suspension was not connected to his activism against Chuck Phelps. "If we had been going to suspend him for that, we would have suspended him right then and there. He wouldn't have been back this semester," she said. "The suspension had nothing to do with the protests."
Since his expulsion, Peterman said he has received an outpouring of support from "hundreds" of former BJU students and members of the community.
A crisis of faith
The ordeal shook Peterman's Christian faith to its core. "Having to deal with all this, just fighting for abuse victims and trying to get help from them, and seeing their response to that, it has almost made me an agnostic," he said. "I really almost lost my faith. I was very desperate."
"Throughout this whole thing, I've been in contact with hundreds of people who encouraged me and prayed for me," he said. "That is what has kept me a Christian, their support."
He's also convinced that the reason he was suspended had nothing to do with "Glee" or Facebook. He believes he was suspended for speaking up about sexual abuse within the church.
"These movements, they're springing up within fundamentalist churches, and they're calling for accountability," he said. "We believe these abuse victims, and if you're coming forward and talking to us, we can help you and get you support. That's what this is all about, abuse victims need to have a voice."
Peterman has appealed his case to BJU's provost, and still hopes to return to the school to finish his degree.
Azusa Traveling Circus and Revival
The Picayune Item
PICAYUNE — The fine art of slinging snakes Robert Hitt Neil Syndicated columnist I was out in the front yard close to the Swimming Hole, spraying the burr clover that pricks the grandsons’ feet if you let it grow, and the gallon jug was almost empty when I glanced to the left at a suspicious-looking long stick, to see that it was not a stick atall, but a five-foot chicken snake. Readers may recall that we discussed just such a snake last week, which had been the victim of a mower accident, so since this was exactly the same area where that had occurred, I assumed it was the same serpent, and exclaimed, “Bob! Is that you?" (I’d named it Bob, for Bob-Tailed Chicken Snake.) If it was Bob the Snake, he didn’t immediately answer, so I leaned over and gently set the spray jug on his head, so as to more closely identify the tail end, which I knew quite well would be recognizable, if it was tattered and torn. This snake immediately raised its tail for my inspection, coiling it around the jug. Well, this was a different snake: we must have had a hatch-out of five-foot chicken snakes at Brownspur this spring. I grasped the tail end and managed to straighten out the snake, reaching forward to hold it behind the head with my left hand, so as to separate it from the jug. Now I had an irritated five-foot snake! I once was instructed by my pseudo big brother Alton in the art of popping the head off of a poisonous snake, sort of like cracking a whip, but the head end (you should hold the snake by the tail, to swing it around your head) will actually snap off, I think because the head of a moccasin or copperhead is wedge-shaped. It also helps if there is a bullet hole at the base of said snake’s neck, I might note. It’s been a half-century since I practiced slinging snakes, but here was an opportunity for Wildlife Research: would a non-poisonous snake, without a wedge-shaped head, lose its head in similar fashion? Always the scientist in these matters, I began my wind-up as I released the head – a chicken snake is not poisonous, but a large one can still draw blood when he bites you, I have found through experience. Funny thing about slinging a five-foot snake: it quickly becomes a five-and-a-half-foot snake!
It seems I always have so much to write, then I either don't the time or the energy. Sometimes I just start typing and hope that my muse envelopes me, or the divine breath of God flows into to me and takes over, as it has many times before. When I enter that space, it feels like someone else, not entirely me. Of course, I can see my fingers doing the typing and I can hear my voice in my head recite the verse, but I leave that place of hopeless and despair and actually believe I can write something that my be of value to either myself or share an insight which may help others.
As I left to come down here to the Central Library today, I was burdened by despair and depression. I had horrible nightmares last night. Mostly about my lost family and marriage. Indeed my lost life. I know after almost sixteen years I should have grown beyond this. What inside me keeps these dreadful and weakening forces stirred up to my consciousness? I would probably benefit from therapy, but do I want to let it go?
******
All week long, I have been thinking about some of my antics as a teenager. One of the stories I want to share briefly is how me and the gang [think Little Rascals and not the Crips] got gas to cruise around and get into mischief.
I had a Buick Wildcat Sport. It had a big engine and got maybe eight miles to the gallon of gas. Even though gas was frequently as cheap as a quarter a gallon, we could not afford it. The car would often be filled with the gang and we would decide to take a trip. What we did several times was first to go still a big plastic garbage can. We then would cut and steal some one's lawn water hose. Next we would find a school bus parked at someones house and then one of us would go siphon the gas. The gas flow would be started and then we would drive around the neighborhood killing time as the small hose would fill up the twenty plus gallon garbage can. We often only had to make one stop and the buses were the best. The thing about using this system with cars was that we could let it run for a long time and there was never enough gas in a plan car to fill it up.
We used these this technique to travel all over the midwest to concerts, to go to state parks to camp, and to visit friends in other states.
******
One place we frequently went to was Arcola, Illinois. My friend Shane lived. As did Shelton and his wife. I think I already wrote of this place once about the five dollar hotel like from a old western movie. And the restaurant where everyone in town had their own mug on the shelve [ this was even covered a few times in the national news]. And maybe most important, you could drink there at age 18. Even when you were 15, 16, and 17 yo, it was not unusual to have 18 yo friends.
One of the kids over there was a guy name Shrock. He became friends of ours through Shane. It helped that he had a brand new Cuda car. We didn't understand at the time, but Shrock was probably on his rumspringa break from being a committed Amish. He was wild and reckless. He wrecked his car several times while stoned. I remember pulling his Cuda out of a ditch with a chain and my ice cream truck in front of his dive motel in Danville, IN. He was just wild.
After about one year of this wildness, Shrock was ran over by a train. It was said that he was on the tracks either high, getting high, or passed out. It was reported the engineer saw him for a great distance an blew the horn continuously. Shrock didn't move and the train couldn't stop.
******
I have several fond memories of Arcola and I will have to visit there one day as a staid adult.
One of the best sour dough biscuits I had in an old shack with sloping cracked vinyl floors. It was Shane's grandma and seemed a lot like my Granny. She may have even cooked these over a wood fire.
Another memorable was when I went over and spent the night in an abandoned home which served as the local kids clubhouse. There was no power or plumbing. I spent the night next to Sheila in front of a roaring fire while it was a stormy and raining night outside. We were cozy in our double sleeping bag on a bare mattress on the floor.
I was lucky enough in this life to have two nights like this. One in an abandoned house in the farmland of central Illinois and the other in the back woods of Tennessee in an abandoned log cabin. Both on wildly storming nights, but with different girls.
*******
Now the question is can I use any of the above in my story about David and Hilda? I have adapted the story about the log cabin into theirs and their hitch hiking on the road.
******
I met many strange, odd, and wonderful people on the road. I was lucky. Some of my friends were not. There are several sad stories to be told there of the bad things.
One of my good stories is meeting a guy hitching around the country. He stayed at my apartment for a couple of weeks and he gave me an antique dagger either to remember him or to pay for his stay. A few months later I traded this to a biker in a motorcycle gang for a very good 1965 Chevy Impala. The knife was of value as it was a Nazi's officer's knife from WWII. It had a skull, two lightening bolts, and a swastika. For all I know it could have been worth ten thousand dollars as this was before the Internet. I could do much with the knife except to get into trouble. I had the car for a couple of years.
*********
Some Notes Sept. 2, 2012
Chapter Form
Exposition
Conflict or Question
Climax
Resolution
Fucking, food, life, and death
fighting death heave religion
Killed rapist dude with sledge hammer or rock hamme
r
Hilda buried on April Fools Day. Died at dance, fo
und wrapped in a circus canvas.
Penrod has a scar on his head from being dropped on
his head by the delivering doctor.
Other songs.....Old Rugged Cross, Sweet By and By
Grandson is doing a project for school on the Pennr
od family history.
Dave never married. No family.
Paradise Cemetery on Green River. The TVA and Peab
ody Coal Co.
Cyclonic Fired Broiler
If I had a Hammer, song.
McDougal Cementery
Paradise Fossil fuel plan
20, 000 tons of coal per day.
Now special databases for genelogical resreach
romantic date picking strawberries
smoking, drinking, carousin
Rose played the tamberine, played spoons, tub, bott
le, and back up singing.
briefs or boxers
rattlesnakes and copper heads
Good Night Irene Lead belly
Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie
This Land
Blowin in the Wind
Altar Call
Arche Type
Existential
Rapist Cop
Rose killed by Ott
Mental or Not
Man vs man
Man vs self
Man vs nature
Man vs society
Man vs technology
Going out West.
Traveling the south
Looking for the next big thing
Civil Rights and personal rights
Mental Hospital
Rose joins the hippies
Searching for Rose
Rose fit her cause her pussy lips where a dark red
when opened up in passion.
Going legit
Searching for the meaning of life
David's diary
Baby Beth
Book of David
The Girl Who Liked Sex
Gun, a deck of cards, and a knife
Walk of shame, preaching, and playing
sex in the long haul truckers.
There was a moment, went I was about 5 yo. I walke
d out the door shortly after
sunrise. It was crisp and there was a dew. I looke
d over the garden in the valley. I knew
this must be Heaven.
Ott reminds Rose of her stepdad.
Vertical to horizontal easily. She went easily.
A round healed women is easily knocked back down.
One last to sit down will lay down.
Staying at the YMCA, $5 hotels, and with church fam
ilies.
Having sex on the bathroom floor, because the clerk
didn't believe they were married
and gave them two different rooms.
Adventures of hitchhikers and the ride wrecks the c
ar.
Some songs you know so well you automatically hear
the music when you read the
words.
The only sex and loving I ever get is in my dreams.
I have been told that I will look great when I get
older. Does this mean I am ugly as sin
now?
Look at a woman for the ages. What is cute now, ma
y grow into a woman hideous by
middle age. Not so much that the looks are predest
ined, but it is the lady's lifestyle,
vocation, personality, and breeding. And luck can
make a hellua difference. But for
some, given all the benefit of variable free will,
you know it is going to be an up hill
battle.
Love at the Paradise Hotel.
The girl who couldn't say no.
Miscarriage on the road.
Pregnant, she left him.
Raped my the attendant in the mental hospital.
She was like the village idiot. she was the village
whore of the town.
Trusted for anything except sex.
He was like a Christ clone.
Strange events on the road is a given. Moans, thin
gs burst, odd people, ghosts,
legends, life on a nickel. Arrested for vagrancy,
trying to get arrested, rain, Salvation
Army, psychics, nude modeling, photo booth, look fo
r painting.
Some more songs for the vbook:
Turn, Turn, Turn,
Song of Science
I Want to Hold Your Hand
The Thrill is Gone
Homeward Bound
Love Me Tender
Jail House Rock
For What It's Worth
Religious and blues and gospel
Azusa
Mystery partner erotica
honky tonks
River ferry
mud like quick sand
Green lakes by the coal mine
Moonshine
How they got a long.
Some character ideas
Uza ---faith healer, exovert, loud, braggart
David--Holiness and Perfectionism Penn based on Penrod
Lilith/Rose based on Hilda, Rosalina, Lilith.
Drunks Moonshine
con men
Street Preachers
Temptress
Truck farmer
Hippies
Love Fest
Themes
Light v Dark
Quiet v Loud
Popular v Lone
Adventures
Search and yearning
Love triangel
Paradise, Ky
Temptress
Sheriff
Hypocrites
True Believers
Love Triangles
Redemption
Yearning and Longing.
Scams
TV Evangelist
true Believers
Perfectionism
Second Blessing
Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost
Bed Burnings
Loss
Chaos
Transcendentalism
Friends of the Truth
Unitarian
The Holy Club
Brother, Mother, Father, Teacher, Elder, and Deacon
Sine qua non means the essential ingredient.
Primitive Baptist
Missionary Baptist
Hard Shell
Jails emptied after revival.
Mules going crazy in the mines from lack of cursing and sinning.
That old time religion
Holiness Church
Jesus Only/Oneness/Unitarian
Arminianism v Calvinism Freewill v Determinism
Stagnation and Fatalism
Living on road
Hitch hiking
Abandon Log Cabins
Key Terms per stations of the cross
Use stations of the cross as plot line and for chapters the way Joyce did Ulysses .
Hilda Modeled after Syliva Path
Settings
Appalachia
Morgantown
Nashville
Green River
W. Virginia
Tenn
North Carolina
Hidden mind shifts
Some character ideas
Uza ---faith healer, exovert, loud, braggart
David--Holiness and Perfectionism Penn based on Penrod
Lilith/Rose based on Hilda, Rosalina, Lilith.
Drunks Moonshine
con men
Street Preachers
Temptress
Truck farmer
Hippies
Love Fest
Themes
Light v Dark
Quiet v Loud
Popular v Lone
Adventures
Search and yearning
Love triangel
Paradise, Ky
Temptress
Sheriff
Hypocrites
True Believers
Love Triangles
Redemption
Yearning and Longing.
Scams
TV Evangelist
true Believers
Perfectionism
Second Blessing
Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost
Bed Burnings
Loss
Chaos
Transcendentalism
Friends of the Truth
Unitarian
The Holy Club
Brother, Mother, Father, Teacher, Elder, and Deacon
Sine qua non means the essential ingredient.
Primitive Baptist
Missionary Baptist
Hard Shell
Jails emptied after revival.
Mules going crazy in the mines from lack of cursing and sinning.
That old time religion
Holiness Church
Jesus Only/Oneness/Unitarian
Arminianism v Calvinism Freewill v Determinism
Stagnation and Fatalism
Living on road
Hitch hiking
Abandon Log Cabins
Key Terms per stations of the cross
Use stations of the cross as plot line and for chapters the way Joyce did Ulysses .
Settings
Appalachia
Morgantown
Nashville
Green River
W. Virginia
Tenn
North Carolina
Hidden mind shifts
Song Idea for Video Graphic Novel
In the Jailhouse Now
I'll Fly Away
Big Rock Candy Mountain
Man of Constant Sorrow
[[Story of Jack Kerouac|http://www.beatmuseum.org/kerouac/jackkerouac.html]]
[img[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/gwent/images/0/0d/Succubus.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20171016193426]]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succubus
https://www.ranker.com/list/signs-you-are-dating-a-succubus/jacob-shelton
A succubus is a demon in female form, or supernatural entity in folklore (traced back to medieval legend), that appears in dreams and takes the form of a woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual activity. The male counterpart is the incubus. Religious traditions hold that repeated sexual activity with a succubus may result in the deterioration of health or mental state, or even death.
In modern representations, a succubus may or may not appear in dreams and is often depicted as a highly attractive seductress or enchantress; whereas, in the past, succubi were generally depicted as frightening and demonic.
[img[https://s.hswstatic.com/gif/incu-succubus.jpg]]
Sprawling over a million-acre swath of southern Louisiana, the Atchafalaya River Basin is the largest swamp in the United States and one of the country’s most ecologically varied regions. Its wetlands, bayous and marshes are home to 300 species of birds, 90 species of fish and shellfish and 54 species of reptiles and amphibians, including the great American alligator. It owes much of its haunting and mysterious beauty to the towering, moss-draped bald cypress trees that thrive in its swamp waters.
For hundreds of years, the Basin’s human dwellers—from the Native Americans who harvested its timber to the present-day Cajuns who hunt alligators in its murky depths—have subsisted on its many bountiful resources. In the second half of the 18th century, the region became a refuge for several thousand French colonists who had been expelled from Acadie, part of present-day Nova Scotia, for refusing to swear allegiance to the British crown and church. Known as the Acadians, the settlers adapted their way of life to the changeable nature of the Basin’s wetland environment, where water levels fluctuate depending on the season, by favoring houseboats and campsites to more permanent homes. Many began growing sugarcane and other crops in the fertile bayou soil, while others made a living as loggers, hunters, trappers or fishermen.
The Acadian community grew and prospered, eventually giving birth to the distinctly Louisianan “Cajun” culture, known throughout the world for its food, music and unique dialect. Today, the Cajuns make up a significant part of southern Louisiana’s population, and many continue to embrace the lifestyle and traditions of their ancestors.
In spite of the region’s natural bounty and unmistakable splendor, swamp living has never been easy for the Cajuns and other residents of the Atchafalaya Basin. For instance, the disastrous Great Flood of 1927 decimated many communities, sparking a mass exodus that dramatically reduced the region’s population. But to many people born and raised in the cradle of the lush and majestic Atchafalaya, the dangers and challenges they face are an accepted–and even welcome–part of life.
Related Links
http://www.atchafalaya.org/index.php?page=heritage#historical
http://www.nps.gov/jela/historyculture/from-acadian-to-cajun.htm
http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/publica.htm
http://dnr.louisiana.gov/sec/atchafalaya/easter.asp
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~jmeaux/cajun.html
André Stern Photography
ABOUT THE APPALACHIA EXHIBIT
Current Showing:
The Bridge, Charlottesville, VA
October 7-October 29 2011
Exhibit Website
Previous Showings:
Center for Photography
Graduate School of Journalism
University of California Berkeley
August 2 - October 11, 2010
Ekstrom Library
University of Louisville (Louisville, KY)
August 2008 - July 2009 Exhibition Poster
Appalshop (Whitesburg, KY)
March 13 - April 13, 2008
Godbey Appalachian Center Gallery
Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College
(Cumberland, KY)
October 29 - December 30, 2007
Exhibition Poster
Tuska Center for Contemporary Art
University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY)
September 21 - October 12, 2007
Exhibition Poster
Return to Whitesburg, March 2008
About the Work
The Appalachian Portfolio, 1959-1963, was inspired by his wife, Mary Lou Wyatt Stern, who came from Appalachia coal country. Subsequently, a story in The New York Times prompted Stern to travel to Whitesburg and Harlan County, Kentucky. Over a four-year period, he generated over 900 images. The photographs were widely displayed, including at a Senate hearing on President Johnson's War on Poverty Program. Later, Stern produced a PBS documentary using the images and sound interviews. The broadcast was nominated for an Emmy.
According to Kate Black, University of Kentucky Archivist:
Stern's photographs are socially concerned but they do not reflect common stereotypes of mid twentieth century rural poverty, nor do they depict residents of Appalachia as the "exotic other." Stern's eastern Kentuckians are neither relics of the past nor depraved aberrations. His body of Appalachian work does not contain a single photograph of a soiled child pressed against a dirty window peering forlornly out to a world she can't dream of inhabiting. Instead, it includes a portrait of a girl outside her bare-bones home finger-painting on a warm spring day as her dogs relax nearby. The facts of her material existence are not hidden but neither is the presence of her creative spirit.
Stern captured on film a particular sociological/historical moment in the Appalachian coal fields but did so before these same subjects were represented by a media lens that more often than not—no matter how well-intentioned--tended to portray Appalachians as poverty objects, available for consumption on the nightly news or in weekly news magazines. Andrew Stern captured with his lens the last moments before an iconic Appalachia became forever emblazoned on the American cultural consciousness.
Stern used a Nikon F1, a Rolleiflex, plus X and Tri X film. The negatives were scanned with an Imacon Photo Scanner, carbon ink prints were made on an Epson 3800 with archival Innova Fiba-print Gloss paper.
The Appalachian Portfolio has been included in international publications and has been exhibited at the University of Kentucky at Lexington, the University of Louisville, Godbey Gallery in Cumberland, KY, the Appalshop in Whitesburg, KY, and Dartmouth College, NH. This is the first West Coast exhibition.
Photography Exhibit Documenting Kentucky Mining Towns
Shown For First Time In Kentucky
(LEXINGTON) – The University of Kentucky Libraries and the Tuska Center for Contemporary Art announce the opening of Appalachian Portfolio, 1959-1963: Photographs by Andrew Stern, with a companion exhibit of photographs of coal camp life taken by Russell Lee immediately after World War II. Stern's photographs document the social and physical landscapes of various eastern Kentucky mining communities during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Appalachian Portfolio was shot primarily in Letcher, Harlan, and Perry counties over a four year period prior to President Johnson's War on Poverty (1964). Taken before the onslaught of journalists and image makers descended on Appalachia, "Stern's photographs capture the last moments before an iconic Appalachia became forever emblazoned on the American cultural consciousness," says Kate Black, UK Libraries.
"While Andrew Stern's Appalachian photographs are firmly rooted in the documentary tradition, his work avoids many of the pitfalls of those who unintentionally marginalized the people whose story they came to tell," says Janie Welker, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions for the University of Kentucky Art Museum. "He doesn't disguise the poverty found in the region, but also sees the humanity of these small communities in their gathering places, in the faces of hard-working adults, and in the spirit of children at school and at play."
Stern's documentary What Price Poverty?, which he produced for PBS in 1964 and which was later nominated for an Emmy, features some of the photographs that will be exhibited. This documentary will be shown during the exhibit.
Appalachian Portfolio was co-curated by Kate Black and Janie Welker. The opening reception will be held on Friday, September 21, 2007 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Tuska Center for Contemporary Art, located on Rose Street near the Singletary Center and the corner of Rose Street and Rose Lane. The exhibit will run from September 21 - October 12. On the Eve of the War on Poverty, a conversation about photography, social concern, and eastern Kentucky will be held on Monday, September 24, 12:00-1:30 p.m. in the Tuska Gallery followed by a reception. Participants will be: photographer Andrew Stern; writer and English professor Gurney Norman, who was a journalist in eastern Kentucky in the 1960s; Art Museum Curator Janie Welker whose specialty is photography; and sociologist Maureen Mullinax whose research focuses on community based arts. The discussion will be moderated by Richard Angelo, a professor in the College of Education who studies multiple meanings and interpretations of historical documents, such as photographs.
This is a collaborative effort of the University of Kentucky Libraries, Art Museum, Appalachian Studies Program, and Appalachian Center with the Tuska Gallery. These events are free and open to the public.
For further press inquiries or additional information, please contact Kate Black, Special Collections Librarian, University of Kentucky Libraries, 859-257-4207, kate.black@uky.edu .
About the artists:
Andrew Stern, born in Munich, Germany in 1931, began his career in still photography in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He later became a broadcast journalist and documentary producer for ABC News and PBS. He taught at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley for 25 years, where he inaugurated the broadcast journalism and photography programs.
Russell Lee (1903-1986) is best known for the iconic images of the Great Depression he made for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The fourteen photographs in the companion exhibition are part of a federal survey of health conditions in the bituminous coal fields. As the project's photographer, Lee created an extensive record of coal camp life between 1945 and 1946.
The terror refered to in terror management theory (TMT) is that which is brought on by the awareness of the inevitible death of the self. According to TMT, the anxiety caused by mortality is a major motivator behind many human behaviors and cognitions, including self-esteem, ethno/religio-centrism, and even love.
Terror Management Theory (TMT) was created in 1984 by three men (Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Greenberg). TMT attempts to explain human coping mechanisms regarding the fact that death is inevitable. There are several tenets to TMT, and they build on each other. Here is a basic outline of the theory's ideas:
All living things want to continue living.
Humans are unique in that they realize immortality is impossible; we will, eventually, die.
Humans can imagine what the physical experience of death will be like.
The thought of death is terrifying.
To avoid thinking about death, we embrace "worldviews," or ways of creating a bigger meaning to life, such as culture, religion , or a legacy of some kind.
These worldviews allow us to believe that even though we personally will die, we can somehow leave behind an everlasting, permanent reality, and contribute to that reality.
America's Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
Themes
i
Tennessee Valley Authority director visits the site of the Aurora Dam
President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to not only provide jobs for people, but also raise the country out of the Depression through innovative programs. Roosevelt specified that he wanted “a corporation clothed with the power of government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise.” In 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was established with the intention of bringing modernization and organization to natural resources and energy to parts of Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia.
The TVA, which exists today, is the nation’s largest public power provider. Along with providing the area with low-cost electricity, the TVA also manages natural resources and a wide range of environmental and technical issues.
“From the New Deal to a New Century,” Tennessee Valley Authority. http://www.tva.com/abouttva/history.htm
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[img[width:30;height:20;https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/108480/photo-full.jpg?1332246101]]
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Terror management theory (TMT), in social psychology , proposes a basic psychological conflict that results from having a desire to live but realizing that death is inevitable. This conflict produces terror, and is believed to be unique to humans. Moreover, the solution to the conflict is also generally unique to humans: culture. According to TMT, cultures are symbolic systems that act to provide life with meaning and value. If life is thought meaningful, death is less terrifying. Cultural values therefore serve to manage the terror of death by providing life with meaning.[1] The theory was originally proposed by Jeff Greenberg , Sheldon Solomon , and Tom Pyszczynski .[2]
The simplest examples of cultural values' managing the terror of death are those that purport to offer literal immortality (e.g. belief in afterlife, religion).[3] However, TMT also argues that other cultural values—including those that are seemingly unrelated to death—offer symbolic immortality. For example, value of national identity,[4] posterity,[5] cultural perspectives on sex,[6] and human superiority over animals[6] have all been linked to death concerns in some manner. In many cases these values are thought to offer symbolic immortality by providing the sense that one is part of something greater that will ultimately outlive the individual (e.g. country, lineage, species).
Because cultural values determine that which is meaningful, they are also the basis for self-esteem. TMT describes self-esteem as being the personal, subjective measure of how well an individual is living up to their cultural values.[7] Like cultural values, self-esteem acts to protect one against the terror of death. However, it functions to provide one's personal life with meaning, while cultural values provide meaning to life in general.
TMT is derived from anthropologist Ernest Becker 's 1973 Pulitzer Prize -winning work of nonfiction The Denial of Death , in which Becker argues most human action is taken to ignore or avoid the inevitability of death. The terror of absolute annihilation creates such a profound—albeit subconscious—anxiety in people that they spend their lives attempting to make sense of it. On large scales, societies build symbols: laws, religious meaning systems , cultures, and belief systems to explain the significance of life, define what makes certain characteristics, skills, and talents extraordinary, reward others whom they find exemplify certain attributes, and punish or kill others who do not adhere to their cultural worldview . On an individual level, self-esteem provides a buffer against death-related anxiety.
Background[edit source | editbeta ]
Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker asserts in his 1973 book The Denial of Death that humans, as intelligent animals, are able to grasp the inevitability of death. They therefore spend their lives building and believing in cultural elements that illustrate how to make themselves stand out as individuals and give their lives significance and meaning. Death creates an anxiety in humans; it strikes at unexpected and random moments, and its nature is essentially unknowable, causing people to spend most of their time and energy to explain, forestall, and avoid it.[9]
Becker expounded upon the previous writings of Sigmund Freud , Søren Kierkegaard , Norman O. Brown , and Otto Rank . According to clinical psychiatrist Morton Levitt, Becker replaces the Freudian preoccupation with sexuality with the fear of death as the primary motivation in human behavior.[10]
People desire to think of themselves as beings of value and worth with a feeling of permanence, a concept in psychology known as self-esteem , that somewhat resolves the realization that people may be no more important than any other living thing. Becker refers to high self-esteem as heroism:
the problem of heroics is the central one of human life, that it goes deeper into human nature than anything else because it is based on organismic narcissism and on the child's need for self-esteem as the condition for his life. Society itself is a codified hero system, which means that society everywhere is a living myth of the significance of human life, a defiant creation of meaning.[11]
The terror management theory suggests that people's behavior is dependent upon fear; thus, support for the theory can be seen by examining people's reactions to death and their fear of death. Research not only shows people's reactions to the fear of death, but to suffering as well. Death was welcomed in some cases, by patients and hospice volunteers, if it meant an end to suffering.[12]
The reasons behind people's decisions regarding their own health can be explored through a terror management health model, which has three implications. First, consciousness of death leads people to try to remove all thoughts of death. Secondly, unconscious death thoughts can result in actions taken upon self-esteem as opposed to bodily health. Thirdly, preoccupation with one's physical body can hinder decision-making abilities regarding healthful behavioral choices.[13]
Evolutionary backdrop[edit source | editbeta ]
Terror Management theorists consider TMT to be compatible with the theory of evolution :[14]
Specific fears of things that threaten a human's continued existence have an adaptive function and helped facilitate the survival of ancestors’ genes. However generalized existential anxiety resulting from the clash between a desire for life and awareness of the inevitability of death is neither adaptive nor selected for. TMT views existential anxiety as an unfortunate byproduct of these two highly adaptive human proclivities rather than as an adaptation that evolution selected for its advantages. Just like bipedalism presents problems together with benefits, this anxiety occurs with the existence of human higher mental faculties.
Anxiety in response to the inevitability of death threatened to undermine adaptive functioning and therefore needed amelioration. TMT posits that humankind used the same intellectual capacities that gave rise to this problem to fashion cultural beliefs and values that provided protection against this potential anxiety. TMT considers these cultural beliefs and values adaptive—even the unpleasant and frightening ones – only in that they manage potential death anxiety in a way that promotes beliefs and behaviors that facilitated the functioning and survival of the collective.
Originally, the emergence of morality evolved to facilitate co-existence within groups, which together with language, served more pragmatic functions. However, the struggle to deny the finality of death, co-opted and changed these primitive functions. Neanderthals might have begun burying their dead as a means of avoiding unpleasant odors, disease-infested parasites, or dangerous scavengers. However, during the Upper Paleolithic era, these pragmatic burial practices appear to have become superimposed with layers of ritual and supernatural beliefs, suggested by the elaborate decoration of bodies with thousands of beads or other markers and including food and other necessities for an afterlife within the burial chamber.
Hunter-gatherers began using their emerging cognitive abilities to understand their world and facilitate solving practical problems to help meet basic needs for nutrition, mates, and other resources before their cognitive abilities had evolved to the point where explicit death awareness arose. But once this awareness materialized, the potential for terror that it created put pressure on emerging conceptions of reality so that any formation that was to be widely accepted by the masses needed to provide a means of managing this terror.
Evolutionary history also indicates that evolutionarily "the costs of ignoring threats have outweighed the costs of ignoring opportunities for self-development."[15]
TMT and self-esteem[edit source | editbeta ]
Self-esteem lies at the heart of TMT, and is a fundamental part of its main experimental paradigms. TMT, fundamentally, seeks to elucidate the causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem, and theoretically, it draws heavily from Ernest Becker ’s conceptions of culture and self-esteem (Becker, 1971;[16] Becker, 1973[17]). TMT does not just attempt to explain what self-esteem is, but rather tries to account for why we need self-esteem, and what psychological functions it may serve.[18] The answer, according to TMT, is that self-esteem is used as a buffer for people to help them cope with anxiety; it is a coping mechanism set in place to help control their terror, along with realizing that humans are animals just trying to manage the universe around them. That is the "why". The "what" for TMT is that self-esteem is a sense of personal value, that is obtained by believing in two things:
the validity of one’s cultural worldview, and
that one is living up to standards that are part of the worldview.[18]
Critically, Hewstone et al. (2002) have questioned the causal direction between self-esteem and death-anxiety, asking questions such as, if people's need for self-esteem comes from the overall desire to reduce their death anxiety, or if it is the opposite.[19] Individuals' reduction of death anxiety is coming from their overall need to increase their self-esteem in a positive manner.[19]
Research has demonstrated that in terms of health, self-esteem can play an important role. In some cases, people may be so concerned with their physical appearance and boosting their self-esteem that they ignore problems or concerns with their own physical health.[20] Arndt et al. (2009) conducted three studies to examine how peer perceptions and social acceptance of smokers contributes to their quitting, as well as if, and why these people continue smoking for outside reasons, even when faced with thoughts of death and anti-smoking prompts.[20] Tanning and exercising were also looked at in the researchers' studies. The studies found that people are influenced by the situations around them.[20] Specifically, Arndt et al. (2009) found in terms of their self-esteem and health, that participants who saw someone exercising were more likely to increase their intentions to exercise.[20] In addition, the researchers found in study two that how participants reacted to an anti-smoking commercial was affected by their motivation for smoking and the situation in which they were in. For instance, people who smoked for extrinsic reasons and were previously prompted with death reminders were more likely to be compelled by the anti-smoking message.[20]
Self-esteem as anxiety buffer[edit source | editbeta ]
Individuals' levels of self-consciousness not only impacts their views on life, but more specifically, their views on death. Research has demonstrated that in some instances, individuals with higher levels of self-consciousness have increased death cognitions, and a generally more negative outlook on life.[21]
Conversely, self-esteem can work in the opposite manner. Research has confirmed that individuals with higher self-esteem, particularly in regards to their behavior, have a more positive attitude towards their life. Specifically, death cognitions in the form of anti-smoking warnings were effective for smokers and in fact, increased their already positive attitudes towards the behavior.[22] The reasons behind individuals’ optimistic attitudes towards smoking after mortality was made salient are that once again, people use their positivity as a buffer to hide behind their fears. Therefore, anxiety buffers allow individuals to cope with their fears more easily. Furthermore, death cognitions might in fact make people engage more in the said behavior (smoking in this instance).[22]
TMT and mortality salience[edit source | editbeta ]
The mortality salience hypothesis (MS) states that if indeed one’s cultural worldview, or their self-esteem serves a death-denying function, then threatening these constructs should produce defenses aimed at restoring psychological equanimity (i.e., returning the individual to a state of feeling invulnerable). In the MS paradigm, these "threats" are simply experimental reminders of one’s own death. This can, and has, taken many different forms in a variety of study paradigms (e.g., asking participants to write about their own death;[23] conducting the experiment near funeral homes or cemeteries;[24] having participants watch graphic depictions of death,[25] etc.). Like the other TMT hypotheses, the literature supporting the MS hypothesis is vast and diverse. For a meta analysis of MS research, see Burke et al. (2010).[26]
Experimentally, the MS hypothesis has been tested in close to 200 empirical articles.[26] After being asked to write about their own death (vs. a neutral, non-death control topic, such as dental pain), and then following a brief delay (distal, worldview/self-esteem defenses work the best after a delay; see Greenberg et al. (1994)[25] for a discussion), the defenses are measured. In one early TMT study assessing the MS hypothesis, Greenberg et al. (1990)[4] had Christian participants evaluate other Christian and Jewish students that were similar demographically, but differed in their religious affiliation. After being reminded of their death (experimental MS induction), Christian participants evaluated fellow Christians more positively, and Jewish participants more negatively, relative to the control condition.[27] Conversely, bolstering self-esteem in these scenarios leads to less worldview defense and derogation of dissimilar others.[27]
Mortality salience has an influence on individuals and their decisions regarding their health. Cox et al. (2009) discuss mortality salience in terms of suntanning. Specifically, the researchers found that participants who were prompted with the idea that pale was more socially attractive along with mortality reminders, tended to lean towards decisions that resulted in more protective measures from the sun.[28] The participants were placed in two different conditions; one group of participants were given an article relating to the fear of death, while the control group received an unrelated to death article dealing with the fear of public speaking.[28] Additionally, they gave one group an article pertaining to the message that "bronze is beautiful," one relating to the idea that "pale is pretty," and one neutral article that did not speak of tan or pale skin tones.[28] Finally, after introducing a delay activity, the researchers gave the participants a five-item questionnaire asking them about their future sun-tanning behaviors. The study illustrated that when tan skinned was associated with attractiveness, mortality salience positively affected people's intentions to suntan; however, when pale skin was associated with attractiveness people's intentions to tan decreased.[28]
Mortality and self-esteem on health risks[edit source | editbeta ]
Studies have shown that mortality and self-esteem are important factors of the terror management theory. Jessop et al. (2008) study this relationship within four studies that all examine how people react when they are given information on risks, specifically, in terms of the mortality related to the risks of driving.[29] More specifically, the researchers were exploring how participants acted in terms of self-esteem, and its impact on how mortality-related health-risk information would be received.[29] Overall, Jessop et al. (2008) found that even when mortality is prominent, people who engage in certain behaviors to improve their self-esteem have a greater chance of continuing with these activities.[29] Mortality and self-esteem are both factors that influence people's behaviors and decision-making regarding their health. Furthermore, individuals who are involved in behaviors and possess motivation to enhance their self-worth are less likely to be affected by the importance placed on health risks, in terms of mortality.[29]
Self-esteem is important when mortality is made salient. It can allow people a coping mechanism, one that can cushion individuals' fears; and thus, impacting one’s attitudes towards a given behavior.[22] Individuals who have higher levels of self-esteem regarding their behavior(s) are less likely to have their attitudes, and thus their behaviors changed regardless of mortality salient or death messages.[22] People will use their self-esteem to hide behind their fears of dying. In terms of smoking behaviors, people with higher smoking-based self-esteem are less susceptible to anti-smoking messages that relate to death; therefore, mortality salience and death warnings afford them with an even more positive outlook on their behavior, or in this instance their smoking.[22]
In the Hansen et al. (2010) experiment the researchers manipulated mortality salience. In the experiment, Hansen et al. (2010) examined smokers’ attitudes towards the behavior of smoking. Actual warning labels were utilized to create mortality salience in this specific experiment. The researchers first gave participants a questionnaire to measure their smoking-based self-esteem.[22] Following the questionnaire, participants were randomly assigned to two different conditions; the first were given anti-smoking warning labels about death and the second, control group were exposed to anti-smoking warning labels not dealing with death.[22] Before the participants’ attitudes towards smoking were taken the researchers introduced an unrelated question to provide a delay. Further research has demonstrated that delays allow mortality salience to emerge because thoughts of death become non-conscious.[22] Finally, participants were asked questions regarding their intended future smoking behavior.[22] It should be noted however, that one weakness in their conduction was that the final questionnaire addressed opinions and behavioral questions, as opposed to the participants level of persuasion regarding the different anti-smoking warning labels.
Social impacts and TMT[edit source | editbeta ]
Many people are more motivated by social pressures, rather than health risks. Specifically for younger people, mortality salience is stronger in eliciting changes of one's behavior when it brings awareness to the immediate loss of social status or position, rather than a loss, such as death that one can not imagine and feels far off.[30] However, there are many different factors to take into consideration, such as how strongly an individual feels toward a decision, their level of self-esteem, and the situation around them. Particularly with people's smoking behaviors, self-esteem and mortality salience have different effects on individuals’ decisions. In terms of the longevity of their smoking decisions, it has been seen that individuals’ smoking habits are affected, in the short-term sense, when they are exposed to mortality salience that interrelates with their own self-esteem. Moreover, people who viewed social exclusion prompts were more likely to quit smoking in the long run than those who were simply shown health-effects of smoking.[30] More specifically, it was demonstrated that when individuals had high levels of self-esteem they were more likely to quit smoking following the social pressure messages, rather than the health risk messages.[30] In this specific instance, terror management, and specifically mortality salience is showing how people are more motivated by the social pressures and consequences in their environment, rather than consequences relating to their health. This is mostly seen in young adult smokers with higher smoking-based self-esteems who are not thinking of their future health and the less-immediate affects of smoking on their health.[30]
Death thought accessibility[edit source | editbeta ]
Another paradigm that TMT researchers use to get at unconscious concerns about death is what is known as the death thought accessibility (DTA) hypothesis. Essentially, the DTA hypothesis states that if individuals are motivated to avoid cognitions about death, and they avoid these cognitions by espousing a worldview or by buffering their self-esteem, then when threatened, an individual should possess more death-related cognitions (e.g., thoughts about death, and death-related stimuli) than they would when not threatened.[31]
The DTA hypothesis has its origins in work by Greenberg et al. (1994)[25] as an extension of their earlier terror management hypotheses (i.e., the anxiety buffer hypothesis and the mortality salience hypothesis). The researchers reasoned that if, as indicated by Wegner’s research on thought suppression (1994; 1997), thoughts that are purposely suppressed from conscious awareness are often brought back with ease, then following a delay death-thought cognitions should be more available to consciousness than (a) those who keep the death-thoughts in their consciousness the whole time, and (b) those who suppress the death-thoughts but are not provided a delay. That is precisely what they found. However, it should be noted that other psychologists have failed to replicate these findings.[32]
In these initial studies (i.e., Greenberg et al. (2004); Arndt et al. (1997)[33]), and in numerous subsequent DTA studies, the main measure of DTA is a word fragment task, whereby participants can complete word fragments in distinctly death-related ways (e.g., coff_ _ as coffin, not coffee) or in non death-related ways (e.g., sk_ _l as skill, not skull).[34] If death-thoughts are indeed more available to consciousness, then it stands to reason that the word fragments should be completed in a way that is semantically related to death.
Importance of the DTA hypothesis[edit source | editbeta ]
The introduction of this hypothesis has refined TMT, and led to new avenues of research that formerly could not be assessed due to the lack of an empirically validated way of measuring death-related cognitions. Also, the differentiation between proximal (conscious, near, and threat-focused) and distal (unconscious, distant, symbolic) defenses that have been derived from DTA studies have been extremely important in understanding how people deal with their terror.[35]
It is important to note how the DTA paradigm subtly alters, and expands, TMT as a motivational theory. Instead of solely manipulating mortality and witnessing its effects (e.g., nationalism , increased prejudice, risky sexual behavior , etc.), the DTA paradigm allows a measure of the death-related cognitions that result from various affronts to the self. Examples include threats to self-esteem and to one's worldview; the DTA paradigm can therefore assess the role of death-thoughts in self-esteem and worldview defenses. Furthermore, the DTA hypothesis lends support to TMT in that it corroborates its central hypothesis that death is uniquely problematic for human beings, and that it is fundamentally different in its effects than meaning threats, (i.e., Heine et al., 2006[36]) and that is death itself, and not uncertainty and lack of control associated with death; Fritsche et al. (2008) explore this idea.[37]
Since its inception, the DTA hypothesis had been rapidly gaining ground in TMT investigations, and as of 2009, has been employed in over 60 published papers, with a total of more than 90 empirical studies.[31]
Death anxiety on health promotion[edit source | editbeta ]
How people respond to their fears and anxiety of death is investigated in TMT. Moreover, Taubman-Ben-Ari and Noy (2010) examine the idea that a persons' level of self-awareness and self-consciousness should be considered in relation to their responses to their anxiety and death cognitions.[21] The more an individual is presented with their death or death cognitions in general, the more fear and anxiety one may have; therefore, to combat said anxiety one may implement anxiety buffers.[21]
Due to a change in people's lifestyles, in the direction of more unhealthy behaviors, the leading causes of death now, being cancer and heart disease , most definitely are related to individuals' unhealthy behaviors.[38] Age and death anxiety both are factors that should be considered in the terror management theory, in relation to health-promoting behaviors. Age undoubtedly plays some kind of role in people's health-promoting behaviors; however, if there is an actual age related effect on death anxiety and health-promoting behaviors has yet to be seen. Although, research has demonstrated that for young adults only, when they were prompted with death related scenarios, they yielded more health-promoting behaviors, compared to those participants in their sixties. In addition, death anxiety has been found to have an effect for young adults, on their behaviors of health promotion.[38]
Terror management health model[edit source | editbeta ]
The terror management health model (TMHM) explores the role that death plays on one's health and behavior. Goldenberg and Arndt (2008) state that the TMHM proposes the idea that death, despite its threatening nature, is in fact instrumental and purposeful in the conditioning of one's behavior towards the direction of a longer life.[13]
According to Goldenberg and Arndt (2008), certain health behaviors such as breast self-exams (BSEs) can consciously activate and facilitate people to think of death, especially their own death.[13] While death can be instrumental for individuals, in some cases, when breast self-exams activate people's death thoughts an obstacle can present itself, in terms of health promotion, because individuals’ experience fear and threat.[13]
On the other hand, death and thoughts of death can serve as a way of empowering the self, not as threats. Researchers, Cooper et al. (2011) explored TMHM in terms of empowerment, specifically using BSEs under two conditions; when death thoughts were prompted, and when thoughts of death were non-conscious.[34] According to TMHM, people's health decisions, when death thoughts are not conscious, should be based on their motivations to act appropriately, in terms of the self and identity.[34] Cooper et al. (2011) found that when mortality and death thoughts were primed, women reported more empowerment feelings than those who were not prompted before performing a BSE.[34]
Additionally, TMHM suggests that mortality awareness and self-esteem are important factors in individuals' decision making and behaviors relating to their health. TMHM explores how people will engage in behaviors, whether positive or negative, even with the heightened awareness of mortality, in the attempt to conform to society's expectations and improve their self-esteem.[28] The TMHM is useful in understanding what motivates individuals regarding their health decisions and behaviors.
In terms of smoking behaviors and attitudes, the impact of warnings with death messages depends on:
1). The individuals’ level of smoking-based self-esteem
2). The warnings' actual degree of death information[22]
Emotion and TMT[edit source | editbeta ]
People with low self-esteem, but not high self-esteem, have more negative emotions when reminded of death. This is believed to be because these individuals lack the very defenses that TMT argues protect people from mortality concerns (e.g., solid worldviews). In contrast, positive mood states are not impacted by death thoughts for people of low or high self-esteem.[39]
TMT and leadership[edit source | editbeta ]
It has been suggested that culture provides meaning, organization, and a coherent world view that diminishes the psychological terror caused by the knowledge of eventual death. The terror management theory can help to explain why a leader's popularity can grow substantially during times of crisis. When a follower's mortality is made prominent they will tend to show a strong preference for iconic leaders. An example of this occurred when George W. Bush 's approval rating jumped almost 50 percent following the September 11 attacks in the United States. As Forsyth (2009) posits, this tragedy made U.S. citizens aware of their mortality, and Bush provided an antidote to these existential concerns by promising to bring justice to the terrorist group responsible for the attacks.
Researchers Cohen et al. (2004), in their particular study on TMT, tested the preferences for different types of leaders, while reminding people of their mortality. Three different candidates were presented to participants. The three leaders were of three different types: task-oriented (emphasized setting goals, strategic planning, and structure), relationship-oriented (emphasized compassion , trust, and confidence in others), and charismatic . The participants were then placed in one of two conditions: mortality salient or control group. In the former condition the participants were asked to describe the emotions surrounding their own death, as well as the physical act of the death itself, whereas the control group were asked similar questions about an upcoming exam. The results of the study were that the charismatic leader was favored more, and the relationship-oriented leader was favored less, in the mortality-salient condition. Further research has shown that mortality salient individuals also prefer leaders who are members of the same group, as well as men rather than women (Hoyt et al. (2010)). This has links to social role theory .
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[[Rahab]]
[[Why did God choose to make these women of ill repute?]]
Other bad women
Jesus Christ always respected and cherished women! In a time when females were considered inferior to men and treated as property, Christ counted them among His most valued disciples and friends. I want you to look at four of “His Women,” healed by His mercy and grace, and learn how He cherishes YOU. I want you to know Jesus intimately, the real Jesus…not the Sunday School one, or the painted sissy Christ with a pasty face and girlish hair (they make him look like a shampoo ad!) This spectacular Savior is the One who looked at a woman and made her feel like a million dollars, that she could do anything. These desperate, lonely women looked into Jesus’ eyes and knew that nothing else in the world mattered because He loved them completely and unconditionally. We will look at three wounded women in the New Testament, all from John’s gospel, and see how Jesus re-shaped their views of God when He touched their lives. The fourth, Mary of Bethany, loved her Savior at first sight and understood His passion for people and mission to save mankind.
1. THE ADULTEROUS WOMAN
In John 8, Jesus is in deep water. The plotting Pharisees tried to trap Him, by asking an accusing question—“Who’s your Daddy?” And they didn’t mean Joseph! Mary’s dubious pre-wedding pregnancy still caused skeptics to believe He was an unwanted child. So they tried to place Him in a no-win situation. They accosted Jesus teaching in the temple, and threw an adulterous woman at Jesus’ feet. My question is, “How did they catch this woman ‘in the act’?” Did they hire a Private eye? Did they find a Peeping Tom? Women had no civil rights in the Mediterranean world. They were not considered to be citizens, they could not vote, and they could not seek or gain justice in the court system.
According to Jewish law, both adulterous parties were to be stoned, but the man somehow conveniently eluded their grasp. The trembling, disheveled woman was left to the whims of her accusers – with no protection or recourse. These treacherous hypocrites hurled the harlot at Jesus feet and asked Him what to do with her. The Catch 22 was if Jesus told them to carry out the letter of the Jewish law (her stoning) he would break the Roman law. The Romans did not permit Jews to execute anyone. If Jesus let her off scot-free, He would be breaking Jewish law, and they would call him a liberal and a heretic. Sneaky!
Notice Jesus’ focus. He ignores the Pharisees; he is deaf to the clamor of the mob. Instead of looking at those who had the power to take His life, He knelt in the sand next to the woman. What must she be feeling? Humiliation, terror, shame….What drove her to such desperation that she would risk her life to be with a man in an illicit affair? Was her husband abusive? Did she feel trapped? Was she desperately unhappy? Was she depressed—did she really want to be found out to end her miserable existence?
What did Jesus see in those tear-stained eyes? Fear, condemnation, shame?
No Biblical scholar can verify exactly what Jesus wrote in the sand…was it the sins of her accusers? Was it the name of some prostitute in town all the men in the mob knew a little too well? Was it a scripture verse from the Torah? From the oldest to the youngest…they walked away. We just know one thing for sure. Jesus was on the ground because SHE was on the ground. He looked into her eyes, and said three things.
“Woman, where are your accusers?” Those who had the power to harm her were gone. Her tear-stained eyes met His in utter relief and gratefulness.
“Neither do I condemn you,” Jesus said. “Go and sin no more.”
Jesus’ face told her so much! “Forget the people, forget your reputation, forget the shame of the past…all the wake of your stupid choices. It’s about you and me.” Christ saw her through the lens of unconditional love. She was pure and clean in His eyes – the only eyes that mattered. Jesus related to this broken adulteress with love, compassion, and forgiveness, countering the view of God as disappointed and CONDEMNING.
Disappointment…unmet expectations…dashed hopes. And many times these expectations are unrealistic….the result of self-deception.
If you had a disappointed Daddy, if you feel you blew your chance at life, you may believe all hope of change is gone. You are a lost cause. Meet the Christ who knelt in the sand…the Jesus of second chances….the Jesus who exchanges approval for shame, and hope for hopelessness.
2. THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
Let’s look at another lady Jesus loved. In John 4, Jesus felt compelled by His Father to travel through Samaria. Christ’s “road trip” was not an evangelistic crusade, or a big “red carpet” synagogue appearance. God sent Him to meet a woman in need. Now just for the record, Samaria was not the garden spot of the Holy Land, it was the armpit of the Middle East. The story began at noon beneath a scorching, blistering sun. The disciples were hungry and headed for McDonald’s. They left a parched Jesus sitting at a well in the town square without lemonade or Diet Coke. Enter a Samaritan woman of dubious reputation. This “scarlet” woman and this holy man were from two different worlds. Jesus was a Jewish rabbi. Normally, rabbis were snobs. In Luke 10, we read that an indifferent rabbi encountered a wounded man. He rudely ignored him and crossed to the other side of the street.
Jews didn’t talk to half-breed Samaritans from the other side of the tracks. Jewish men didn’t talk to strange women…they were not even supposed to make eye-contact. And this woman was the ultimate outcast—she had no husband, no visible means of support. Shunned by society, our nameless woman couldn’t draw water in the evening with the rest of her neighbors. She had to come in the middle of the day. Here’s the real shocker, the twist to the story. Jesus, the rabbi, asked her for help. The Creator of the Universe, who made the waters and the seas, who turned water into wine, asked a low-life half-breed for a Thirstbuster. Does it get any better than that? She was so stunned she asked him why he was even talking to her! And then, she did what we often do when we encounter true grace—we try to prove that we deserve it. This woman of ill-repute asked Jesus where to go to church. Shocker! “We Samaritans worship here, you Jews go to Jerusalem…where should I go to church?”
Isn’t it just like us to turn the grace of God into a brownie point system?
We often do the same when we become Christians. We receive the free gift of salvation and self-righteous pride causes us to leave grace behind and create a works system to earn favor with God. We baptize people and then teach them to be Pharisees and legalists. We give them just enough truth to make them miserable.
The woman at the well tried to impress this Rabbi with her church attendance. But Jesus told her worship was not about measuring up, it was about receiving. It was about relationship. The Hebrew word for worship is indicative of a dog licking a master’s hand -- spontaneous, ebullient affection, unabashed enthusiasm. It doesn’t get more personal than dog slobber.
Jesus then asked the woman to call her husband…” He might as well have opened her chest and ripped her heart out. Her life was a series of broken affairs. “You’ve had five husbands and the man you’re living with now is not your husband,” Jesus said. Now Christ went to the core of her heart of hearts and dealt with the grief and despair she felt over lost love. He saw her, warts and all, and offered her unconditional, sloppy, gorgeous grace. He gave her life-giving acceptance that filled the empty places where pain used to be.
You may, as a woman, struggle with rejection issues, with the constant fear that if someone really knew you, you would be hated and avoided. An inspecting view of God is countered by Jesus’ actions with the Samaritan woman.
3. THE WOMAN WITH THE ISSUE OF BLOOD
Some of you ladies are living in pain because Jesus seems far away. He feels like a Cosmic force disinterested in your tiny life. Maybe you see God as distant because Daddy wasn’t there. Maybe he left when you were too little to understand why he and Mommy couldn’t get along. Maybe Daddy just worked too much and didn’t have time to go to your recitals, or play with you on Saturdays. Maybe he beat you when he was drunk. Maybe he touched you where he shouldn’t have. You pray and feel like your words bounce off the ceiling. “Where was God when I needed Him?” you cry.
MARK 5:25-32 describes the miraculous healing of the woman with the issue of blood. This anonymous woman suffered with a twelve-year hemorrhage. What was her illness?? Fibroid tumors, endocrine gland disturbance, a polyp, or tear in the cervix? Today she could probably be cured with a ten-minute DNC. She was at wit’s end after a dozen years of isolation….no houseguests, no potlucks, no hugs, no husband, or children or family. She was exhausted from constant cleaning---everything she touched, everywhere she sat was contaminated. If others touched her, they were considered unclean until sundown. Jewish women were ceremonially impure during their menstrual cycle. The basic Jewish interpretation of the law was that a woman was pure when she was pregnant, and her only value lay in bearing children. Our poor victim was tired of quack doctors and their foul remedies. Bleeding was treated by garden crocuses dissolved in wine, by sawdust from a lotus tree mixed with the curdled milk of a hare or ashes from an ostrich egg worn around the neck in a linen bag.
If you are chronically ill, were your hopes ever dashed when you visited a new specialist only to find nothing really helped? Where is this God who is supposed to care? This despised woman could not even go into the temple to ask God to heal her. The people around her probably called her demon-possessed, just like the man born blind in John 9. Demons were called unclean spirits. You can imagine what folks whispered about her behind her back!
This pitiful creature made the arduous two-day journey-thirty miles on foot from Caeserea to Capernaum-without Nikes. The woman couldn’t sleep in an inn. She was cold, anemic, probably half-starved. But she courageously came for the cure.
She was desperate for a touch from this Galilean prophet. Trying to reach Jesus in a crowd pressing around him to the point of suffocation was probably like trying to get an audience with the President surrounded by the press and secret service. We know Jesus was almost inaccessible because the disciples laughed when Jesus said… “Who touched me?” Jesus and His disciples were packed like sardines in the midst of the mob, and nobody used Right Guard or flossed in those days. But Jesus felt the power (energy, dunamis) of God released from Him.
This weary woman’s only thread of hope was her faith. Somehow this God who had looked away for twelve years, this God who lived among men, this miraculous Messiah took time to touch her, and she would never be the same.
The real God is not afraid to touch the untouchable, or love the unlovable. He doesn’t care where you’ve been, only that you come to Him.
4. MARY OF BETHANY
One remarkable woman in John truly knew Christ’s heart, not because she was someone special, but because she discovered the value of being loved by Jesus. Mary of Bethany did the unthinkable. In a day when women were never able to attend synagogue, when they were prevented from going into the Temple except the outer courts, Mary sat at the feet of Rabbi Jesus. In Jesus’ day women were seen as inferior or defective. Men were the thinkers, capable of being educated. Jewish men believed women couldn’t be educated because they were fragile, emotional, irrational, inferior and ignorant. Jesus broke down these barriers by teaching and treating men and women equally. He never patronized Mary, but taught her as an equal with Peter, James and John. He allowed her to sit at His feet. Martha, her busybody sister, was furious. Mary’s stubborn sibling believed that a woman’s place was in the kitchen, barefoot and bearing babies. They served the men. Females had no business expressing interest in spiritual matters. Jesus rebuked Martha, told her to get out of the kitchen and join her sister. He encouraged her to do the better thing--to be like Mary, sitting at his feet and hearing His heart.
How close were Jesus and Mary? When Mary’s life was torn apart by her brother’s death, Jesus responded in a way she could not possibly have understood. He waited. He didn’t come to heal Lazarus, His dearest friend. Lazarus was dead and her Savior could have been there. He healed everybody else. Why wasn’t Jesus there for the family He loved so dearly? In spite of her grief, Mary threw herself at her Master’s feet when Jesus arrived. She took all of her anger, all of her questions, all of her pain and mourned before Him. And what did her Lord do? He wept with her. He wasn’t weeping for Lazarus. He knew He would raise Lazarus from the dead. Jesus shared in Mary’s pain at the deepest level. In those moments, Christ truly showed us His heart. He is a God who weeps with us.
Jesus’ clueless disciples ran around trying to make Jesus King. Only Mary knew what Jesus came to do. She knelt at his feet in the dining room where women were not allowed, she poured out her life’s savings in perfume on his dusty feet, and she worshipped him lavishly. It was a daring, unconventional thing to do---a million-dollar pedicure in public for this itinerant preacher. What a terrible waste! She mortgaged her future to comfort her Savior. And Jesus smelled the perfume as He hung on His cross. For all eternity, Mary will be the one who truly knew her Savior’s heart.
The real Jesus loves you completely, freely, fully! Kneel before Him today. Give Him your heart.
''The Biblical Myth of Demon Lilith''
How the True First Woman to be Created by God Escaped the Fall
Tweet May 21, 2008Steve Williamsholy roots - morguefile
Examining what the myth of the first woman in Creation can teach us about attitudes toward women at the time and how it may demonstrate that feminism has biblical roots.
Reaching beyond the bible to examine the rich array of biblical myths and legends that have largely been forgotten today, we examine the story that delves long before Eve’s existence and how “girl-power” got the true first woman God created expelled from Eden.
Many books have talked about the various attachments of biblical myths that have originated from Jewish Mysticism, including works by renowned scholars such as Robert Graves and Raphael Patai. Few are as compelling as the first woman to be Adam’s bride, the legendary story of Lilith.
Who Was the Demon Lilith?
It is said that when God created Adam he did not have in mind to also form a “help-meet” – a lover – for his creation, however, after Adam implored Him to do so, God, full of compassion for the human, acquiesced.
“God then formed Lilith, the first woman, just as He had formed Adam, except that He used filth and sediment instead of pure dust.” (Excerpt from The Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (New York: Doubleday, 1964), pp 65-69.)
Why Did Lilith Leave the Garden?
Adam was originally pleased with his lover, but Lilith was less impressed by her mate. The tale goes that she refused to lay down for Adam and be the submissive partner, saying that she was also created from Dust and therefore was Adam’s equal. She called upon the magical name of God and rose into the air, flying from the Garden of Eden.
The Immortal Lilith Lives On
She was spared the curse of Death having flown from the Garden long before the Fall, and could not be compelled by God’s angels to return to the Garden. She gave birth to legion after legion of demons and prayed on boys up to the age of eight days (the time at which a boy should be circumcised) and girls up until the twentieth day.
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Lilith’s story does not end there. She reportedly was the one to kill Job’s sons and ruled, for a time, in Sheba. Her origins are murky and likely a melding of several old Hebrew myths, but there are several instances in the bible itself where her name appears:
“Lilith dwells among the desolate ruins in the Edomite Desert.” Isaiah xxxiv. I4-I5
What Can The Reader Take From the Lilith Myth?
What is fascinating about the Lilith tale is that God did not compel her through holy power to return to the Garden. In fact, if Lilith new the special name of God it would appear, according to Jewish Mysticism, that she at least had some kind of power to sway God’s own, for it was common practice to believe that, by knowing the true name of any divinity, be they demon or deity, that you could command their sway. That is not to say that she had power over God, but rather a power that at least bought her protection from God’s destruction at that time.
Moreover, the eventual creation of Eve was done from a rib of Adam (or a vestigial tail, depending on which myth one believes), making Eve a creature derived from man and twice removed from God.
In short, this establishes the male supremacy and hierarchy of many heavily religious communities of the time and, when that fact is pared with the myth of Lilith, the entire story becomes a fascinating commentary on how religious texts reflect societal values of the period, especially in this case, and with reference to the attitudes of that society towards women.
The Coal Miner Ghost Story
Many years ago in a little backwoods country town in eastern Kentucky, were a number of
underground coal mines. This was how the men of that era made a living for them and their
families. This work was considered to be most hazardous back then, due to no safety rules
or safe equipment.
This mine in particular had small mules that pulled the loaded coal buggies out the mines.
One day all the men went to work as usual things were no different until the shift was almost
over, suddenly there was a large rock slide and 10 miners were trapped inside. All the
people in town rushed to help get them out. Many hours went by and there seemed to be no
hope for these men, when all of a sudden the rocks were pushed aside and there stood 9 of
the trapped men. The men were confused and shocked, however, none of hem were
injured very badly and none of them remembered anything that had happened to them. All
the families were overjoyed that their men were safe, except for one who did not come out.
This man was never found and there were many search parties trying to get to him. They
asked the men who came out what the lost miner's name was and no one knew. The men
said he never talked to them much, he was always there and did his job, but they didn't know
anything about him. When the families came for their men, this man had no family waiting
for him.
Many years passed, and the mine was run smoothly; and all the men who had been in the
accident had since died or had retired from mining. One sad day about 50 years after that
mining accident there was another one, this time there were over 100 men trapped in the
mine. It seemed hopeless, but 32 hours later, the wall of coal and rock was pushed aside
and there were all the men rushing out, none of them were injured badly, but they all said they
wanted to thank the miner who helped them find their way out. Reporters wanted to
interview him, but he never came out, but when the men described him, it WAS THE SAME
exact description as the miner who saved the nine trapped men over 50 years ago.
Rumor has it that this man was indeed killed in a mining accident back in 1911, however, he
was there in 1937 and in 1987 saving the men in the same mine. How do you explain this?
Visit author Patricia West's website at: www.PatriciaWest.net
Hitching
David and Hilda were often on the road. They would be standing on the side of the road in all types of weather. They would be there in the dark of the night. They would be there in good areas and bad areas.
They were at the mercy of the people who gave them a ride.
Traveling through the south, they end up in Alabama and headed south. A old pick up truck pulled over and the colored man offered to take them straight on to Montgomery. We praised our luck and jumped into the cab.
After getting in for a new ride, there is often a moment of awkward bantering. It was even more so in this case as the driver was black. Brother King had been stirring up a lot of trouble recently and black people were often rude in groups. However, they remained usually docile and polite in private.
"Where yall headed? They call me J.T.."
"We are looking for church to preach and possible do a revival.
I am David and this is Hilga."
"What do yall preach?"
"We preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible."
"No, I mean what denomination yall with?"
"I am spirit ordained and we are not affiliated with anyone denomination, but he end up mostly at Holiness and Pentecostal churches, " said David.
"Where yall from?"
"I am from Kentucky and Hilda here is from West Virginia. We met at a tent revival and got hitched after a whirlwind of stepping out. We have been married about three months."
"So you all are newlyweds?"
"I guess we are still on our honeymoon. Traveling and preaching on our honeymoon."
"How about you JT? Are you heading home to your family?"
There are two stories about this. One is about the sale of moonshine. The other is about the sale of BJ's.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-and-psychology-of-clowns-being-scary-20394516/
[img[https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/u73QLiHoUDXz_TGq1VZAwsu4R7Q=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/b8/84/b884ff45-f0b8-465b-9a80-8ef6e9d622c3/maxresdefault.jpg]]
here’s a word— albeit one not recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary or any psychology manual— for the excessive fear of clowns: [[Coulrophobia]].
Not a lot of people actually suffer from a debilitating phobia of clowns; a lot more people, however, just don’t like them. Do a Google search for “I hate clowns” and the first hit is ihateclowns.com, a forum for clown-haters that also offers vanity @ihateclowns.com emails. One “I Hate Clowns” Facebook page has just under 480,000 likes. Some circuses have held workshops to help visitors get over their fear of clowns by letting them watch performers transform into their clown persona. In Sarasota, Florida, in 2006, communal loathing for clowns took a criminal turn when dozens of fiberglass clown statues—part of a public art exhibition called "Clowning Around Town" and a nod to the city’s history as a winter haven for traveling circuses—were defaced, their limbs broken, heads lopped off, spray-painted; two were abducted and we can only guess at their sad fates.
Even the people who are supposed to like clowns—children—supposedly don’t. In 2008, a widely reported University of Sheffield, England, survey of 250 children between the ages of four and 16 found that most of the children disliked and even feared images of clowns. The BBC’s report on the study featured a child psychologist who broadly declared, “Very few children like clowns. They are unfamiliar and come from a different era. They don't look funny, they just look odd.”
But most clowns aren’t trying to be odd. They’re trying to be silly and sweet, fun personified. So the question is, when did the clown, supposedly a jolly figure of innocuous, kid-friendly entertainment, become so weighed down by fear and sadness? When did clowns become so dark?
Maybe they always have been.
Clowns, as pranksters, jesters, jokers, harlequins, and mythologized tricksters have been around for ages. They appear in most cultures—Pygmy clowns made Egyptian pharaohs laugh in 2500 BCE; in ancient imperial China, a court clown called YuSze was, according to the lore, the only guy who could poke holes in Emperor Qin Shih Huang’s plan to paint the Great Wall of China; Hopi Native Americans had a tradition of clown-like characters who interrupted serious dance rituals with ludicrous antics. Ancient Rome’s clown was a stock fool called the stupidus; the court jesters of medieval Europe were a sanctioned way for people under the feudal thumb to laugh at the guys in charge; and well into the 18th and 19th century, the prevailing clown figure of Western Europe and Britain was the pantomime clown, who was a sort of bumbling buffoon.
But clowns have always had a dark side, says David Kiser, director of talent for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. After all, these were characters who reflected a funhouse mirror back on society; academics note that their comedy was often derived from their voracious appetites for food, sex, and drink, and their manic behavior. “So in one way, the clown has always been an impish spirit… as he’s kind of grown up, he’s always been about fun, but part of that fun has been a bit of mischief,” says Kiser.
“Mischief” is one thing; homicidal urges is certainly another. What’s changed about clowns is how that darkness is manifest, argued Andrew McConnell Stott, Dean of Undergraduate Education and an English professor at the University of Buffalo, SUNY.
Stott is the author of several articles on scary clowns and comedy, as well as The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi, a much-lauded 2009 biography of the famous comic pantomime player on the Regency London stage. Grimaldi was the first recognizable ancestor of the modern clown, sort of the Homo erectus of clown evolution. He’s the reason why clowns are still sometimes called “Joeys”; though his clowning was of a theatrical and not circus tradition, Grimaldi is so identified with modern clowns that a church in east London has conducted a Sunday service in his honor every year since 1959, with congregants all dressed in full clown regalia.
In his day, he was hugely visible: It was claimed that a full eighth of London’s population had seen Grimaldi on stage. Grimaldi made the clown the leading character of the pantomime, changing the way he looked and acted. Before him, a clown may have worn make-up, but it was usually just a bit of rouge on the cheeks to heighten the sense of them being florid, funny drunks or rustic yokels. Grimaldi, however, suited up in bizarre, colorful costumes, stark white face paint punctuated by spots of bright red on his cheeks and topped with a blue mohawk. He was a master of physical comedy—he leapt in the air, stood on his head, fought himself in hilarious fisticuffs that had audiences rolling in the aisles—as well as of satire lampooning the absurd fashions of the day, comic impressions, and ribald songs.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-and-psychology-of-clowns-being-scary-20394516/#Zt3bRaHRPRDWrh7B.99
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The Hollow Men
1925
Mistah Kurtz- he dead.
The Hollow Men
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
5
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
10
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
15
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
20
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
25
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
30
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
35
No nearer -
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
40
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
45
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
50
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
55
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
60
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
65
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
70
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
75
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
80
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
85
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
90
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
95
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
The Kentucky Coal Mines
Way down deep inside the Kentucky coal mines,
A lot of brave men is what you’ll find
Who risk their lives by night and day,
For lots of hard work and very little pay
They risk their lives day in and day out,
For it’s their families they worry about
They worry about clothes and shoes for their feet,
They worry about bills and food to eat.
They don’t get enough pay for what they must do,
Some call them crazy others call them fools
If you ask them why, here’s what they will say,
There’s no better job with any better pay.
It’s dark in there so you miners beware,
Watch out for each other and miners take care
Keep your light shining; keep it at all times
So your way back out you’ll be able to find.
Let’s all say a prayer as they enter in,
God let them come out and see daylight again
God please watch over these brave Kentucky men
© Brenda Grahm
All Rights Reserved
Lincoln Highway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the Australian highway, see Lincoln Highway (Australia) .
Lincoln Theater in Cheyenne, Wyoming
The Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental improved highway for automobile across the United States of America.[1] Running from New York City, NY to San Francisco, CA, the highway turns 100 years old in 2013.
General Description[edit source | editbeta ]
Conceived and promoted by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher , the Lincoln Highway spans coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, originally through 13 states: New York , New Jersey , Pennsylvania , Ohio , Indiana , Illinois , Iowa , Nebraska , Colorado , Wyoming , Utah , Nevada , and California . In 1915, the "Colorado Loop" was removed, and in 1928, a realignment relocated the Lincoln Highway through the northern tip of West Virginia . Thus, there are a total of 14 states, 128 counties, and over 700 cities, towns and villages through which the highway passes at some time in its history.
1928-1930 Routing[edit source | editbeta ]
Main article: Route of the Lincoln Highway
Marker at the western terminus of the Lincoln Highway in San Francisco
(Note: A fully interactive online map of the Lincoln Highway and all of its re-alignments can be viewed at the Lincoln Highway Association Official Map website).[2] Google Maps labels the route.
Most of U.S. Route 30 from Philadelphia to western Wyoming, portions of Interstate 80 in the western United States, most of U.S. Route 50 in Nevada and California, and most of old decommissioned U.S. Route 40 in California are alignments of the Lincoln Highway. The final (1928–1930) alignment of the Lincoln Highway corresponds roughly to the following roads:
42nd Street from the intersection of Broadway at Times Square in New York City westward 6 blocks to the Hudson River .
Holland Tunnel from New York City westward under the Hudson River to Jersey City, New Jersey .
(Note: The Lincoln Tunnel (opened in 1937), near 42nd Street, was not an original part of the Lincoln Highway. In 1913, Lincoln Highway travelers crossed the Hudson River via the Weehawken Ferry from New York City to Union City, New Jersey . In 1928, the Lincoln Highway was re-routed through the Holland Tunnel (opened in 1927) from New York City to Jersey City. However, the original Lincoln Highway Association made no attempt to map a route from Times Square to the Holland Tunnel, so today, use the West Side Highway , officially known as the Joe DiMaggio Highway, which uses Twelfth Avenue to Eleventh Avenue to West Street (not a part of the Lincoln Highway) to connect from the west end of 42nd Street down to east portal of the Holland Tunnel.)
U.S. Route 1/9 Truck from Jersey City westward to Newark, New Jersey .
New Jersey Route 27 from Newark southwestward to Princeton, New Jersey .
U.S. Route 206 from Princeton southwestward to Trenton, New Jersey .
U.S. Route 1 from Trenton southwestward to Philadelphia , Pennsylvania.
U.S. Route 30 from Philadelphia westward across Pennsylvania , the northern tip of West Virginia , and westward across Ohio and Indiana , to Aurora, Illinois .
(Note: In Pennsylvania and Ohio, there have been many new 4-lane bypasses constructed on U.S. Route 30, so to follow the 1928 route of the Lincoln Highway, at times it is necessary to travel the old U.S. Route 30 alignments which travel through the center of the cities and towns along the route.)
Illinois Route 31 from Aurora northwestward to Geneva, Illinois .
Illinois Route 38 from Geneva westward to Dixon, Illinois .
Illinois Route 2 from Dixon westward to Sterling, Illinois .
U.S. Route 30 from Sterling westward across Illinois , Iowa , Nebraska and Wyoming , to Granger, Wyoming .
Interstate 80 from Granger westward across western Wyoming and Utah , to West Wendover, Nevada .
U.S. Route 93 Alternate and U.S. Route 93 from West Wendover southward to Ely, Nevada .
U.S. Route 50 from Ely westward across Nevada , to 9 miles west of Fallon, Nevada .
From 9 miles west of Fallon to Sacramento, California , there are two Lincoln Highway routes over the Sierra Nevada :
Sierra Nevada Northern Route: U.S. Route 50 Alternate northwestward to Wadsworth, Nevada , then Interstate 80 & old U.S. Route 40 westward over Donner Pass and the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento.
Sierra Nevada Southern Route: U.S. Route 50 westward around Lake Tahoe and over Echo Summit and the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento.
Old U.S. Route 40 (with sections under Interstate 80 ) from Sacramento southwestward across California's Central Valley to the University Avenue exit in Berkeley, California . (Originally this leg of the Lincoln Highway followed what would later become U.S. Route 50 , from Sacramento south through Stockton and over the Altamont Pass to the East Bay (now Interstates 5 , 205 , and 580 ), but was realigned when the Carquinez Bridge was completed in 1927.)
University Avenue from Interstate 80 westward to the Berkeley Pier .
(Note: In 1928, Lincoln Highway travelers crossed the San Francisco Bay via a ferry from the Berkeley Pier to the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco. Today, use Interstate 80 to connect from University Avenue down to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (opened in 1936) to cross the bay into San Francisco, then take the Embarcadero from the Bay Bridge northwestward along the waterfront to connect to the Hyde Street Pier in Fisherman's Wharf .)
From the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco, take:
Hyde Street southward 2 blocks to North Point Street.
North Point Street westward 3 blocks to Van Ness Avenue .
Van Ness Avenue southward 16 blocks to California Street .
California Street westward 54 blocks to 32nd Avenue.
32nd Avenue northward 2 blocks to El Camino del Mar
El Camino del Mar westward into Lincoln Park , arriving at the Lincoln Highway Western Terminus Plaza and Fountain in front of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor . The Western Terminus Marker and Interpretive Plaque are located to the left of the Palace, next to the bus stop.
History[edit source | editbeta ]
The first officially recorded length of the entire Lincoln Highway in 1913 was 3,389 miles (5,454 km).[a] Over the years, the road was improved and numerous realignments were made, and by 1924 the highway had been shortened to 3,142 miles (5,057 km). Counting the original route and all of the subsequent realignments, there is a grand total of 5,869 miles (9,445 km).[4]
Conceived in 1912 and formally dedicated October 31, 1913, the Lincoln Highway is America's first national memorial to President Abraham Lincoln , predating the 1922 dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. by nine years. As the first automobile road across America, the Lincoln Highway brought great prosperity to the hundreds of cities, towns and villages along the way. The Lincoln Highway became affectionately known as "The Main Street Across America."
The Lincoln Highway was inspired by the Good Roads Movement . In turn, the success of the Lincoln Highway and the resulting economic boost to the governments, businesses and citizens along its route inspired the creation of many other named long-distance roads (known as National Auto Trails ), such as the Yellowstone Trail , National Old Trails Road , Dixie Highway , Jefferson Highway , Bankhead Highway , Jackson Highway , Meridian Highway and Victory Highway . Many of these named highways were supplanted by the United States Numbered Highways system of 1926. Most of the 1928 Lincoln Highway route became US Route 30 , with portions becoming US Route 1 in the East and US Route 40 and US Route 50 in the West. Since 1928, many sections of U.S. Route 30 have been re-aligned with new bypasses; therefore, today's U.S. Route 30 aligns with less than 25% of the original 1913–1928 Lincoln Highway routes.
Most significantly, the Lincoln Highway inspired the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 , which was championed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower , influenced by his experiences as a young soldier crossing the country in the 1919 Army Convoy on the Lincoln Highway. Today, Interstate 80 is the cross-country highway most closely aligned with the Lincoln Highway. In the West, particularly in Wyoming, Utah and California, sections of Interstate 80 are paved directly over alignments of the Lincoln Highway.
The Lincoln Highway Association, originally established in 1913 to plan, promote, and sign the highway, was re-formed in 1992 and is now dedicated to promoting and preserving the road. The LHA has over 1000 members located in 40 states and Washington D.C., and in Canada, England, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Scotland, and Russia. The association has active state chapters in 12 Lincoln Highway states and maintains a national tourist center in Franklin Grove, Illinois , in a historic building built by Harry Isaac Lincoln, a cousin of Abraham Lincoln . The LHA holds yearly national conferences, and is governed by a board of directors with representatives from each Lincoln Highway state.[5]
In 2013, the Lincoln Highway Association hosted the Official Lincoln Highway 100th Anniversary Tours and Centennial Celebration. Over 270 people traveling in 140 vehicles, from 28 states and from Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Norway and Russia, participated in the two tours which started simultaneously the last week of June 2013 in New York City and San Francisco, and took one week to reach the midpoint of the Lincoln Highway in Kearney, Nebraska. On Sunday, June 30, 2013, the Centennial Parade in downtown Kearney featuring the tour cars plus another 250 vehicles was attended by 12,500 people. The next day, on Monday, July 1, 2013, the Centennial Celebration Gala was hosted at the Great Platte River Road Archway Museum, where a proclamation from the United States Senate was presented to the Lincoln Highway Association.
The following article about the history of the Lincoln Highway courtesy of Richard F. Weingroff, "The Lincoln Highway", Office of Infrastructure, U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, May 7, 2005.
Concept and promotion[edit source | editbeta ]
In 1912, railroads dominated interstate transportation in America, and roadways were primarily of local interest. Outside cities, "market roads" were sometimes maintained by counties or townships, but maintenance of rural roads fell to those who lived along them. Many states had constitutional prohibitions against funding "internal improvements" such as road projects, and federal highway programs were not to become effective until 1921.
At the time, the country had about 2.2 million miles (3.5 million km) of rural roads, of which a mere 8.66 percent (190,476 miles or 306,541 km) had "improved" surfaces: gravel, stone, sand-clay, brick, shells, oiled earth, etc. Interstate roads were considered a luxury, something only for wealthy travelers who could spend weeks riding around in their automobiles.
Support for a system of improved interstate highways had been growing. For example, The New York Times in an article on August 27, 1911, gave quotes from several prominent men. "Of the Nation's leaders," it said, "none is more emphatic than Speaker Champ Clark ." Furthermore, from a communication to President Robert P. Hooper of the American Automobile Association, the article quoted Clark's opinion that, "I believe the time has come for the general Government to actively and powerfully co-operate with the States in building a great system of public highways...that would bring its benefits to every citizen in the country." However, Congress as a whole was not yet ready to commit funding to such projects.
Carl G. Fisher was an early automobile entrepreneur who was the manufacturer of Prest-O-Lite carbide-gas headlights used on most early cars, and was also one of the principal investors who built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway . He believed that the popularity of automobiles was dependent on good roads. In 1912 he began promoting his dream of a transcontinental highway, and at a September 10 dinner meeting with industry friends in Indianapolis , he called for a coast-to-coast rock highway to be completed by May 1, 1915, in time for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.[6] He estimated the cost at about $10 million and told the group, "Let's build it before we're too old to enjoy it!"[citation needed ] Within a month Fisher's friends had pledged $1 million. Henry Ford , the biggest automaker of his day, refused to contribute because he believed the government should build America's roads. However, contributors included former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas A. Edison , both friends of Fisher, as well as then-current President Woodrow Wilson , the first U.S. President to make frequent use of an automobile for relaxation.
Fisher and his associates chose a name for the road, naming it after one of Fisher's heroes, Abraham Lincoln . At first they had to consider other names,[7] such as "The Coast-to-Coast Rock Highway" or "The Ocean-to-Ocean Highway," because the Lincoln Highway name had been reserved earlier by a group of Easterners who were seeking support to build their Lincoln Highway from Washington to Gettysburg on federal funds. When Congress turned down their proposed appropriation, the project collapsed, and Fisher's preferred name became readily available.
On July 1, 1913, the Lincoln Highway Association (LHA) was established "to procure the establishment of a continuous improved highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, open to lawful traffic of all description without toll charges." The first goal of the LHA was to build the rock highway from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. The second goal was to promote the Lincoln Highway as an example to, in Fisher's words, "stimulate as nothing else could the building of enduring highways everywhere that will not only be a credit to the American people but that will also mean much to American agriculture and American commerce." Henry Joy was named as the LHA president, so that although Carl Fisher remained a driving force in furthering the goals of the association, it would not appear as his one-man crusade.[7]
The first section of the Lincoln Highway to be completed and dedicated was the Essex and Hudson Lincoln Highway, running along the former Newark Plank Road from Newark, New Jersey to Jersey City, New Jersey . It was dedicated on December 13, 1913[8] at the request of the Associated Automobile Clubs of New Jersey and the Newark Motor Club , and was named after the two counties it passed through.[9][10]
Lincoln Statues[edit source | editbeta ]
The Great Emancipator on display in Detroit, Michigan.
To bring attention to the highway, Fisher commissioned statues of Abraham Lincoln, titled The Great Emancipator, to be placed in key locations along the route of the highway. One of the statues was given to Joy in 1914.[11] Joy's statue was later presented to the Detroit Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America . That statue is currently on display at D-bar-A Scout Ranch in Metamora, Michigan .[12] There is another statue of Lincoln in the main entrance of Lincoln Park (Jersey City)
Route selection and dedication[edit source | editbeta ]
September 1920 photo near the intersection of Broad Street and Northeast Boulevard in Philadelphia
The LHA needed to determine the best and most direct route from New York City to San Francisco. East of the Mississippi River , route selection was eased by the relatively dense road network. To scout a western route, the LHA's "Trail-Blazer" tour set out from Indianapolis in 17 cars and 2 trucks on July 1, 1913, the same day LHA headquarters were established in Detroit. After 34 days of Iowa mud pits, sand drifts in Nevada and Utah , overheated radiators , flooded roads, cracked axles, and enthusiastic greetings in every town that thought it had a chance of being on the new highway, the tour arrived for a parade down San Francisco's Market Street before thousands of cheering residents.
The Trail-Blazers returned to Indianapolis by train, and a few weeks later on September 14, 1913 the route was announced. LHA leaders, particularly Packard president Henry Joy , wanted as straight a route as possible and the 3,389 miles (5,454 km) route announced did not necessarily follow the course of the Trail-Blazers. There were many disappointed town officials, particularly in Colorado and Kansas , who had greeted the Trail-Blazers and thought the tour's passage had meant their towns would be on the Highway.
Less than half the selected route was improved roadway. As segments were improved over time, the route length was reduced by about 250 miles (400 km). Several segments of the Lincoln Highway route followed historic roads:
a road laid out by Dutch colonists of New Jersey before 1675
the 1796 Lancaster Turnpike in Pennsylvania
the Chambersburg Turnpike, over which much of the Army of Northern Virginia marched to reach the Gettysburg Battlefield , a part of which is traversed by the Lincoln Highway.
a British military trail built in 1758 by General John Forbes of England from Chambersburg to Pittsburgh during the French and Indian War , later known as the Pittsburgh Road and the Conestoga Road
a section in Ohio followed an ancient Indian trail known as the Ridge Road
sections of the Mormon Trail
the Great Sauk Trail , an Indian trail through northwest Indiana
portions of the routes of the Cherokee Trail , Overland Trail and the Pony Express
the Donner Pass crossing of the Sierra Nevada , named after the unfortunate Donner Party of 1846
an alternate Sierra Nevada crossing at Echo Summit following a pioneer stagecoach route
The LHA dedicated the route on October 31, 1913. Bonfires, fireworks, concerts, parades, and street dances were held in hundreds of cities in the 13 states along the route. During a dedication ceremony in Iowa, State Engineer Thomas H. MacDonald said he felt it was "...the first outlet for the road building energies of this community." He went on to advocate the creation of a system of transcontinental highways with radial routes. In 1919, MacDonald became Commissioner of the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), a post he held until 1953, when he oversaw the early stages of the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways .
Publicity[edit source | editbeta ]
In September 1912, in a letter to a friend, Fisher wrote that "...the highways of America are built chiefly of politics, whereas the proper material is crushed rock, or concrete." The leaders of the LHA were masters of the public relations , and used publicity and propaganda as even more important materials.
In the early days of the effort, each contribution from a famous supporter was publicized. Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Edison , both friends of Fisher, sent checks. A friendly Member of Congress arranged for a dedicated motor enthusiast, President Woodrow Wilson , to contribute US$5 whereupon he was issued Highway Certificate #1. Copies of the certificate were promptly distributed to the press.
One of the best known contributions came from a small group of Esquimaux children in Anvik, Alaska . Their American teacher told them about Abraham Lincoln and the highway to be built in his honor, and they took up a collection and sent it to the LHA with the note, "Fourteen pennies from Anvik Esquimaux children for the Lincoln Highway." The LHA distributed pictures of the coins and the accompanying letter, and both were widely reprinted.
One of Fisher's first acts after opening LHA headquarters was to hire F. T. Grenell, city editor of the Detroit Free Press , as a part-time publicity man. The Trail-Blazer tour included representatives of the Hearst newspaper syndicate , the Indianapolis Star and News , the Chicago Tribune , and telegraph companies to help transmit their dispatches.
In preparation for the October 31 dedication ceremonies, the LHA asked clergy across the United States to discuss Abraham Lincoln in their sermons on November 2, the Sunday nearest the dedication. The LHA then distributed copies of many of the sermons, such as one by Cardinal Gibbons who, with the dedication fresh in mind, had written that "such a highway will be a most fitting and useful monument to the memory of Lincoln."
One of the greater contributions to highway development was a well-publicized and promoted U.S. Army Transcontinental Motor Convoy in 1919. The convoy left the White House in Washington, D.C. on July 7, 1919, and met the Lincoln Highway route at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania . After two months of travel, the convoy reached San Francisco on September 6, 1919. Though bridges failed, vehicles broke and were sometimes stuck in mud, the convoy was greeted in communities across the country. The LHA used the convoy's difficulties to show the need for better main highways, building popular support for both local and federal funding. The convoy led to the passage of many county bond issues supporting highway construction.
One of the participants in the convoy was a young Lt.Col. Dwight Eisenhower , and it was so memorable that he devoted a chapter to it ("Through Darkest America With Truck and Tank") in his 1967 book At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends. That 1919 experience, and his exposure to the autobahn network in Germany in the 1940s, found expression in 1954 when he announced his "Grand Plan" for highways. The resulting 1956 legislation created the Highway Trust Fund that accelerated construction of the Interstate Highway System .
Fisher's idea that the auto industry and private contributions could pay for the highway was soon abandoned, and, while the LHA did help finance a few short sections of roadway, LHA founders' and members' contributions were used primarily for publicity and promotion to encourage travel on the Highway and to lobby officials at all levels to support its construction by governments.
Early travel[edit source | editbeta ]
According to the Association's 1916 Official Road Guide a trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific on the Lincoln Highway was "something of a sporting proposition" and might take 20 to 30 days. To make it in 30 days the motorist would need to average 18 miles (29 km) an hour for 6 hours per day, and driving was only done during daylight hours. The trip was thought to cost no more than $5 a day per person, including food, gas, oil, and even "five or six meals in hotels." Car repairs would, of course, increase the cost.
Since gasoline stations were still rare in many parts of the country, motorists were urged to top off their gasoline at every opportunity, even if they had done so recently. Motorists should wade through water before driving through to verify the depth. The list of recommended equipment included chains, a shovel, axe, jacks, tire casings and inner tubes, tools, and (of course) a pair of Lincoln Highway pennants. And, the guide offered this sage advice: "Don't wear new shoes."
Firearms were not necessary, but west of Omaha full camping equipment was recommended, and the guide warned against drinking alkali water that could cause serious cramps. In certain areas, advice was offered on getting help, for example near Fish Springs, Utah , "If trouble is experienced, build a sagebrush fire. Mr. Thomas will come with a team. He can see you 20 miles off." Later editions omitted Mr. Thomas, but westbound travelers were advised to stop at the Orr's Ranch for advice, and eastbound motorists were to check with Mr. K.C. Davis of Gold Hill, Nevada.
Seedling Miles and the Ideal Section[edit source | editbeta ]
While the Lincoln Highway Association did not have sufficient funds to sponsor large sections of the road, starting in 1914 it did sponsor "Seedling Mile" projects. According to the 1924 LHA Guide the Seedling Miles were intended "to demonstrate the desirability of this permanent type of road construction" to rally public support for government-backed construction. The LHA convinced industry of their self-interest and was able to arrange donations of materials from the Portland Cement Association.[13]
The first Seedling Mile was built in 1914 west of Malta , Illinois, but after years of experience the LHA began a design effort for a road section that could handle traffic 20 years into the future. Seventeen highway experts met between December 1920 and February 1921, and specified:
a right-of-way 110 feet (34 m) in width
a concrete road bed 40 feet (12 m) wide and 10 inches (254 mm) thick to support loads of 8,000 pounds (3,600 kg) per wheel
curves with a minimum radius of 1,000 feet (300 m), banked for 35 mph (56 km/h), with guard rails at embankments
no grade crossings or advertising signs
a footpath for pedestrians
The most famous Seedling Mile built to these specifications was the 1.3-mile (2.1 km) "Ideal Section" between Dyer and Schererville in Lake County , Indiana. With federal, state, and county funds, and a US$130,000 contribution by United States Rubber Company president and LHA founder C.B. Seger, the Ideal Section was built during 1922 and 1923. Magazines and newspapers called the Ideal Section a vision of the future, and highway officials from across the country visited and wrote technical papers that circulated both in the United States and overseas. The Ideal Section is still in use to this day, and has worn so well that a driver would not notice it unless the marker near the road brought it to their attention.[citation needed ]
Federal highways[edit source | editbeta ]
Lincoln Highway marker in Carson City, Nevada
By the mid-1920s there were about 250 National auto trails . Some were major routes, such as the Lincoln Highway, the Jefferson Highway , the National Old Trails Road , the Old Spanish Trail , and the Yellowstone Trail , but most were shorter. Some of the shorter routes were formed more to generate revenues for a trail association rather than for their value as a route between significant locations.
By 1925 governments had joined the roadbuilding movement, and began to assert control. Federal and state officials established the Joint Board on Interstate Highways, which proposed a numbered U.S. Highway system which would make the Trail designations obsolete, though technically the Joint Board had no authority over highway names. Increasing government support for roadbuilding was making the old road associations less important, but the LHA still had significant influence. The Secretary of the Joint Board, BPR official E. W. James, went to Detroit to gain LHA support for the numbering scheme, knowing it would be hard for smaller road associations to object if the LHA publicly supported the new plan.
The LHA preferred numbering the existing named routes, but in the end the LHA was more interested in the larger plan for roadbuilding than they were in officially retaining the name. They knew the Lincoln Highway name was fixed in the mind of the public, and James promised them that, so far as possible, the Lincoln Highway would have the number 30 for its entire route. An editorial in the February 1926 issue of The Lincoln Forum reflected the outcome:
The Lincoln Highway Association would have liked to have seen the Lincoln Highway designated as a United States route entirely across the continent and designated by a single numeral throughout its length. But it realized that this was only a sentimental consideration. ... The Lincoln Way is too firmly established upon the map of the United States and in the minds and hearts of the people as a great, useful and everlasting memorial to Abraham Lincoln to warrant any skepticism as to the attitude of those States crossed by the route. Those universally familiar red, white and blue markers, in many states the first to be erected on any thru route, will never lose their significance or their place on America's first transcontinental road.
The states approved the new federal numbering system in November 1926 and began putting up new signs. The Lincoln Highway was not alone in being split among several numbers, but the entire routing between Philadelphia and Granger, Wyoming, was assigned "U.S. 30" per the agreement. East of Philadelphia the Lincoln Highway was part of U.S. 1, and west of Salt Lake City the route became U.S. 40 across Donner Pass. Only the segment between Granger and Salt Lake City was not part of the new numbering plan; U.S. 30 was assigned to a more northerly route toward Pocatello, Idaho. When U.S. 50 was extended to California it followed the Lincoln Highway's alternate route south of Lake Tahoe.
The last major promotional activity of the LHA took place on September 1, 1928, when at 1:00 p.m. groups of Boy Scouts placed approximately 2,400 concrete markers at sites along the route to officially mark and dedicate it to the memory of Abraham Lincoln. Less commonly known is that 4,000 metal signs for urban areas were also erected then.[b] The markers were placed on the outer edge of the right of way at major and minor crossroads, and at reassuring intervals along uninterrupted segments. Each concrete post carried the Lincoln Highway insignia and directional arrow, and a bronze medallion with Lincoln's bust and stating "This Highway Dedicated to Abraham Lincoln".
The Lincoln Highway was not yet the imagined "rock highway" from coast to coast when the LHA ceased operating, as there were many segments that had still not been paved. Some parts were because of reroutings, such as a dispute in the early 1920s with Utah officials that forced the LHA to change routes in western Utah and eastern Nevada. Construction was underway on the final unpaved 42-mile (68 km) segment by the 25th anniversary of the Lincoln Highway in 1938.
25th anniversary[edit source | editbeta ]
On June 8, 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938, which called for a BPR report on the feasibility of a system of transcontinental toll roads. The "Toll Roads and Free Roads" report was the first official step toward creation of the Interstate Highway System in the United States.
The 25th Anniversary of the Lincoln Highway was noted a month later in a July 3, 1938, nationwide radio broadcast on NBC . The program featured interviews with a number of LHA officials, and a message from Carl Fisher read by an announcer in Detroit. Fisher's statement included:
The Lincoln Highway Association has accomplished its primary purpose, that of providing an object lesson to show the possibility in highway transportation and the importance of a unified, safe, and economical system of roads. ... Now I believe the country is at the beginning of another new era in highway building (that will) create a system of roads far beyond the dreams of the Lincoln Highway founders. I hope this anniversary observance makes millions of people realize how vital roads are to our national welfare, to economic programs, and to our national defense...
Since 1940[edit source | editbeta ]
Lincoln Highway Monument
Lincoln Highway bridge in Tama, Iowa
Fisher died about a year after the 25th Anniversary in 1940, having lost most of his fortune in the Stock Market Crash of 1929. In the many years since, the Lincoln Highway has remained a persistent memory:
In New Jersey, parts of U.S. Route 1/9 and New Jersey Route 27 still carry the name.
Some segments of U.S. 30 still carry the name.
Some city streets on which the Lincoln Highway was routed still carry the street name "Lincoln Way" or "Lincolnway", including: Mishawaka, Indiana ; Massillon, Ohio ; Valparaiso, Indiana ; Aurora, Illinois ; DeKalb, Illinois ; Ames, Iowa ; Cheyenne, Wyoming ; Sparks, Nevada ; Auburn, California ; and Galt, California . (Note: President Lincoln was popular, and many cities named streets after him, so not every "Lincoln Way" is in fact the Lincoln Highway. Two examples in San Francisco are Lincoln Way along the south side of Golden Gate Park , and Lincoln Boulevard in the Presidio , neither of which were ever the Lincoln Highway.)
Old Lincoln Highway is a secondary street in Trevose, Pennsylvania , using the old highway alignment.
A few of the 3,000 Boy Scout markers can be found along the old route. In some communities, these are being re-established in cooperation with the LHA, such as West Sacramento and Davis, California.
A stretch near Omaha, Nebraska paved with original brick has been preserved by the city government.
A bridge with railings spelling out "LINCOLN HIGHWAY" remains in use as part of County Road E66 in Tama County, Iowa .
Restaurants, motels, and gas stations in many locations still carry Lincoln-related names.
Near Wamsutter, Wyoming , on what was then thought to be the Continental Divide along old U.S. 30, a monument was erected in 1938 to Henry B. Joy, the first president of the LHA, with an inscription describing Joy as one "who saw realized the dream of a continuous improved highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific." Not far from the memorial along I-80 a motorist could see an abandoned stretch of the Lincoln Highway with weeds growing through cracks in the pavement. In 2001, this monument was relocated to a place on I-80 midway between Cheyenne and Laramie .
At the rest area off exit 323 of I-80 east of Laramie is Sherman Summit , the highest point on all of I-80. Located there is a thirteen and a half foot bronze bust of Lincoln. It is mounted on a massive, thirty-five foot granite base. The monument was created in 1959 to mark the high point of the Lincoln Highway and it originally stood about half a mile west and 200 feet (61 m) higher along U.S. RT. 30 which closely followed the path of the Lincoln Highway across this summit. It was moved to the present location in 1969 after I-80 was opened. Robert Russin , an art professor at the University of Wyoming created this stern, brooding sculpture. It was cast in 30 pieces in the favorable climate of Mexico City and assembled in Wyoming . The base is hollow and has ladders and lightning rods inside.
Will County, Illinois has four schools named after the highway: Lincoln-Way Central High School in New Lenox , Lincoln-Way East High School in Frankfort , Lincoln-Way West High School in New Lenox , and Lincoln-Way North in Frankfort . All schools are members of Lincoln-Way Community High School District 210 .
Historic recognition[edit source | editbeta ]
Several stretches of the Lincoln Highway are listed on the National Register of Historic Places :[15]
In Iowa[edit source | editbeta ]
Lincoln Highway Bridge (Tama, Iowa)
The following segments in Greene County are described in a Multiple Property Submission :[16]
West Greene County Rural Segment, near Scranton, Iowa
Raccoon River Rural Segment, near Jefferson, Iowa
Buttrick's Creek to Grand Junction
Grand Junction Segment, near Grand Junction, Iowa
In Nebraska[edit source | editbeta ]
In Utah[edit source | editbeta ]
Revitalized Lincoln Highway Association[edit source | editbeta ]
The Lincoln Highway Association was re-formed in 1992 with the mission, "...to identify, preserve, and improve access to the remaining portions of the Lincoln Highway and its associated historic sites." The new LHA publishes a quarterly magazine, The Lincoln Highway Forum, and holds conferences each year in cities along the route.
Lincoln Highway 90th Anniversary Tour in 2003[edit source | editbeta ]
In 2003 the Lincoln Highway Association sponsored the 90th Anniversary Tour of the entire road, from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. The tour group, led by Bob Lichty and Rosemary Rubin of LHA and sponsored by Lincoln -Mercury division of the Ford Motor Company , set out from Times Square on August 17, 2003. Approximately 35 vintage and modern vehicles, including several new Lincoln Town Cars and Lincoln Navigators from Lincoln-Mercury, traveled about 225 miles per day and attempted to cover as much of the original Lincoln Highway alignments as possible. The group was met by LHA chapters, car clubs, local tourism groups and community leaders throughout the route. Several Boy Scout troops along the way held ceremonies to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the nationwide LH route marker post erection of September 1, 1928. When the tour concluded at Lincoln Park, in front of the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, another ceremony was held to honor both the 90th Anniversary of the road and the 75th anniversary of the post erections.
Lincoln Highway 100th Anniversary Tour and Celebration in 2013[edit source | editbeta ]
In 2013, the Lincoln Highway Association hosted the Official Lincoln Highway 100th Anniversary Tours and Centennial Celebration. The tours was co-chaired by Bob Lichty and Rosemary Rubin, with East Tour Guide Jim Peters and West Tour Guide Paul Gilger. Over 270 people traveling in 140 vehicles, from 28 states and from Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Norway and Russia, participated in the two tours which started simultaneously the last week of June 2013 in New York City and San Francisco, and took one week to reach the midpoint of the Lincoln Highway in Kearney, Nebraska. The tour cars, both historical and modern, spanned 100 years, from 1913 to 2013, and include two of Henry B. Joy's original Lincoln Highway Packards, as well as a 1948 Tucker (car #8). On Sunday, June 30, 2013, the Centennial Parade in downtown Kearney featuring the tour cars plus another 250 vehicles was attended by 12,500 people. The next day, on Monday, July 1, 2013, the Centennial Celebration Gala was hosted at the Great Platte River Road Archway Museum, where a proclamation from the United States Senate was presented to the Lincoln Highway Association.
An independent international motor tour also toured the highway from July 1–26. One hundred classic cars were shipped from Europe to the United States and driven the entire route before being shipped home.[17]
Mapping[edit source | editbeta ]
In 2012, the 25-member Lincoln Highway Association National Mapping Committee, chaired by Paul Gilger , completed the research and cartography of the entire Lincoln Highway and all its subsequent realignments (totaling 5,869 mi or 9,445 km), a project which took more than 20 years. The association's interactive website includes map, terrain, satellite and street-level views of the entire Lincoln Highway and its markers, monuments and historic points of interest.
Old Lincoln Highway[edit source | editbeta ]
Old Lincoln Highway,[18] and sometimes Old Route 30 and Old U.S. 30, are terms both colloquially and officially applied to bypassed parts of the Lincoln Highway.
Such roadways are essentially the older first established parts of U.S. Route 30 (1913) west of New York City and east of San Francisco through areas which grew, and so grew in their need for modern multilane highways. Terms such as the 'Old Lincoln Highway' and 'Old Lincoln Road' are similar terms frequently built into the local business structure as official addresses, so are now embedded in the U.S. culture such as in advertising and literature. These extensive renamings generally refer to older roadway parts (passing through congested business or residential neighborhoods) which have been replaced by newer, more convenient highways or in most cases modern multilane super-highways . A few places kept the original Lincoln Highway title, but on a renumbered highway letting the U.S. Dept. of Transportation keep the designated U.S. Route 30 with the new wider highway.
As the first Trans-National Highway, with congressional funding for a U.S. road network that was already defined by auto-clubs, the highway was almost always locally relevant, and thereafter grew in importance with the growth of the nation. When the Interstate Highway system was funded, and sometimes locally as some cities, counties or states improved their own local highway networks, stretches of road containing a lot of turns, frequent stops (traffic signals), and-or narrow hard to widen ways and roadbeds, stretches of local roads became bypassed and locally named Old Lincoln Highway.
Media[edit source | editbeta ]
Literature[edit source | editbeta ]
In 1914, Effie Gladding wrote Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway about her travel adventures on the road with her husband Thomas. Subsequently, Gladding wrote the foreword to the Lincoln Highway Association's first road guide, directing it to women motorists. Her 1914 book was the first full-size hardback book to discuss transcontinental travel, as well as the first to mention the Lincoln Highway:
We were now to traverse the Lincoln Highway and were to be guided by the red, white, and blue marks: sometimes painted on telephone poles; sometimes put up by way of advertisement over garage doors or swinging on hotel signboards; sometimes painted on little stakes, like croquet goals, scattered along over the great spaces of the desert. We learned to love the red, white, and blue, and the familiar big L which told us that we were on the right road.
In 1916, "Mistress of Etiquette" Emily Post was commissioned by Collier's magazine to cross the United States on the Lincoln Highway and write about it. Her son Edwin drove, and an unnamed family member joined them. Her story was published as a book, By Motor to the Golden Gate. Her fame came later in 1922, with the publication of her first etiquette book.
In 1919, author Beatrice Massey, who was a passenger as her husband drove, travelled across the country on the Lincoln Highway. When they reached Salt Lake City, Utah, instead of taking the rough and desolate Lincoln Highway around the south end of the Salt Lake Desert, they took the even more rough and more desolate "non-Lincoln" route around the north end of the Great Salt Lake. The arduousness of that section of the trip was instrumental in the Masseys deciding to ditch their road trip in Montello, Nevada (northeast of Wells, Nevada) where they paid $196.69 to board their automobile and themselves on a train to travel the rest of the way to California. Nevertheless, an enthusiastic Beatrice Massey wrote in her 1919 travelogue It Might Have Been Worse:
You will get tired, and your bones will cry aloud for a rest cure; but I promise you one thing—you will never be bored! No two days were the same, no two views were similar, no two cups of coffee tasted alike...My advice to timid motorists is, "Go."
In 1927, humorist Frederic Van de Water wrote The Family Flivvers to Frisco, an autobiographical account of him and his wife, a young couple from New York City, piling their belongings and their six-year-old son (dubbed the “Supercargo ”) into their Model T Ford and camping their way to San Francisco on the Lincoln Highway, traveling over 4,500 miles (7,200 km) through twelve states in thirty-seven days. In his book, not much is made of the burden of traveling with a child who has a mind of his own. When they were forced by passing cars into a ditch near DeKalb, Illinois, Van de Water writes that his son, the Supercargo (a small irate figure in yellow oilskins), "scrambled over the door and started to walk in the general direction of New York." The Van de Waters' travel expenses for their entire trip amounted to 247 dollars and 83 cents.
In 1951, Clinton Twiss authored the famous and funny memoir The Long, Long Trailer , about his adventures living in a trailer and traveling across America with his wife Merle. Many of their episodes occurred on the Lincoln Highway, including almost losing their brakes coming down off Donner Pass , barely squeezing across the narrow Lyons-Fulton Bridge over the Mississippi River , and getting stopped at the Holland Tunnel because trailers weren't allowed through. Twiss's book became the basis for the popular 1954 MGM film of the same name , directed by Vincente Minnelli , and starring Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball . Although no filming occurred on the Lincoln Highway, early in the movie, Desi, who finds Lucy's suggestion of living in a trailer ridiculous, jokes: "The Collinis at home! Please drop in for cocktails! You'll find us someplace along the Lincoln Highway!"
In April 1988, the University of Iowa Press published Lincoln Highway, the Main Street Across America, a text-and-photo essay and history by Drake Hokanson .[19] Hokanson had been intrigued by the mystery of this once-famous highway, and tried to explain the fascination with the route in an August 1985 article in Smithsonian magazine:
If it had been restlessness and desire for a better way across the continent that brought the Lincoln Highway into existence, it was curiosity that kept it alive—the notion that the point of traveling was not just to cover the distance but to savor the texture of life along the way. Maybe we've lost that, but the opportunity to rediscover it is still out there waiting for us anytime we feel like turning off an exit ramp.
From 1995 through 2009, author and historian Gregory Franzwa (1926–2009) wrote a state-by-state series of books about the Lincoln Highway. Franzwa completed seven books: The Lincoln Highway: Iowa (1995), The Lincoln Highway: Nebraska (1996), The Lincoln Highway: Wyoming (1999), The Lincoln Highway: Utah (with Jesse G. Petersen, 2003), The Lincoln Highway: Nevada (with Jesse G. Petersen, 2004), The Lincoln Highway: California (2006), and The Lincoln Highway: Illinois (2009). The series is published by the Patrice Press . Each state book contains both detailed history and USGS level maps showing the various Lincoln Highway alignments. Franzwa served as the first president of the revitalized Lincoln Highway Association, in 1992.
In 2002, British author Pete Davies wrote American Road: The Story of an Epic Transcontinental Journey at the Dawn of the Motor Age, about the 1919 Army Convoy on the Lincoln Highway. About the book, Publishers Weekly said:
In his newest book, Davies (Inside the Hurricane; The Devil's Flu) offers a play-by-play account of the 1919 cross-country military caravan that doubled as a campaign for the Lincoln Highway. The potential here is extraordinary. Using the progress of the caravan and the metaphor of paving toward the future versus stagnating in the mud, Davies touches on the industrial and social factors that developed the small and mid-sized towns that line the highways and byways of the nation.
In 2005, Greetings from the Lincoln Highway: America’s First Coast-to-Coast Road, a comprehensive coffee table book by Brian Butko, became the first complete guide to the road, with maps, directions, photos, postcards, memorabilia, and histories of towns, people, and places. A mix of research and on-the-road fun, the book placed the LHA's early history in the context of roadbuilding, politics, and geography, explaining why the Lincoln followed the path it did across the US, including the oft-forgotten Colorado Loop through Denver. Butko's book also incorporated quotes from early motoring memoirs and postcard messages—sometimes funny, sometimes painfully descriptive of early motoring woes—hence the Greetings title. Butko had previously written an exhaustive guide to the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania in 1996, which was revised and republished in 2002 with different photos and postcard images.[20]
In July 2007, the W.W. Norton Company published The Lincoln Highway, Coast-to-Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate: The Great American Road Trip by Michael Wallis , best-selling author of Route 66, and voice in the movie Cars, and Michael Williamson , twice a Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer with The Washington Post.[21]
Completed in 2009, Stackpole Books published Lincoln Highway Companion: A Guide to America's First Coast-to-Coast Road, authored by Brian Butko. This handy glove-compartment guide contains carefully charted maps, must-see attractions, and places to eat and sleep that are slices of pure Americana. The book covers the major thirteen states the Lincoln Highway passes through, from New York to San Francisco, as well as the little-known Colorado loop and the Washington DC feeder loop.
Music[edit source | editbeta ]
In 1914, the "Lincoln Highway March", a band score, was written by Lylord J. St. Claire.
In 1921, the popular two step march "Lincoln Highway" was composed by Harry J. Lincoln . The sheet music featuring an uncredited drawing of the road on the cover. Lincoln was also the publisher, and was based in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania very near to where the highway passed through the city.
In 1922, another march titled "Lincoln Highway" was composed by George B. Lutz, and published by Kramer's Music House of Allentown, Pennsylvania .
In 1928, the song "Golden Gate" (Dreyer, Meyer, Rose, & Jolson), sung by Al Jolson , included the refrain: "Oh, Golden Gate, I'm comin' to ya / Golden Gate, sing Hallelujah / I'll live in the sun, love in the moon / Where every month is June. / A little sun-kissed blonde is comin' my way / Just beyond the Lincoln Highway / I'm goin' strong now, it won't be long now / Open up that Golden Gate."
In 1938, composer Harold Arlen and lyricist E. Y. Harburg (composers of "Over the Rainbow " and many other hits) wrote the song "God's Country", for the finale of the MGM musical Babes in Arms , starring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney . The song starts with the famous lyric: "Hey there, neighbor, goin' my way? / East or west on the Lincoln Highway? / Hey there Yankee, give out with a great big thank-ee; / You're in God's Country!"
In the 1940s, the Lincoln Highway Radio Show on NBC featured the theme song "When You Travel the Great Lincoln Highway". A rare surviving recording of the song can be found online.
Woody Guthrie 's "the Asch Recordins" 1944 and 1945 included his song "Hard Traveling" with the line "I've been walking that Lincoln Highway / I thought you knowed."
In 1945, the title ballad (music by Earl Robinson, lyrics by Millard Lampell) from the 20th Century Fox World War II film A Walk In The Sun mentions the Lincoln Highway: "It's the same road they had / Coming out of Stalingrad, / It's that old Lincoln Highway back home, / It's wherever men fight to be free."
In 1974, the song "Old Thirty" was composed by Bill Fries (C.W. McCall) and Chip Davis for the album Wolf Creek Pass. An early verse contains the lyric: "She was known to all the truckers / As the Mighty Lincoln Highway / But to me She's still Old Thirty all the way."
In 1994, the song "Lincoln Highway Dub" is an all instrumental song created by the band Sublime in their album Robbin' the Hood . It features elements later used in the well-known song "Santeria ", also by Sublime.
In 1996, Shadric Smith composed the country-western swing "Rollin' Down That Lincoln Highway" which was recorded in 2003 by Smith and Denny Osburn. In 2008, Smith revised some of the lyrics. The original 2003 recording of the song and the revised 2008 version can be found online.
In 2004, Mark Rushton released the CD The Driver's Companion. The lead track is Rushton's composition "Theme from Lincoln Highway", an ambient electronic soundscape.
In 2006, Bruce Donnola composed "Lincoln Highway", a track on Donnola's album The Peaches of August, available on both iTunes and CD-Baby. A music video of the song appears on YouTube.
For the 2008 PBS documentary, A Ride Along the Lincoln Highway, Buddy McNutt composed the song "Goin' All the Way (on the Lincoln Highway)".
In 2010, singer-songwriter Chris Kennedy released the CD Postcards from Main Street, a collection of 11 odes to small towns, two-lane roads, and a simpler, slower life. His fourth track is "Looking for the Lincoln Highway". Kennedy is an associate professor of Communications at Western Wyoming Community College , in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a town along the Lincoln Highway.
Radio[edit source | editbeta ]
On March 23, 1940, NBC Radio introduced a Saturday morning dramatic show called Lincoln Highway sponsored by Shinola Polish , which featured stories of life along the route. The show's introduction contained an error in noting the Lincoln Highway was identical to U.S. 30 and ended in Portland. Many of the era's stars including Ethel Barrymore , Joe E. Brown , Claude Rains , Burgess Meredith , and Joan Bennett made appearances on the show, which had an audience of more than 8 million before it left the air in 1942. A rare surviving recording of the show's theme song, "When You Travel the Great Lincoln Highway", survives online.
Television[edit source | editbeta ]
On October 29, 2008, PBS premiered the new documentary film, A Ride Along the Lincoln Highway, produced by Rick Sebak with WQED in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania. The Lincoln Highway Association awarded Sebak its first "Gregory M. Franzwa Award" at the 2009 LHA conference. The Franzwa Award is given to individuals who have made a significant contribution to the promotion of the Lincoln Highway, and is named in honor of Franzwa who was a founding member and the first president of the revitalized Lincoln Highway Association, in 1992.
The pilot episode of Boardwalk Empire, shown on HBO in the United States, beginning in September 2010, contains a scene showing Al Capone en route from New Jersey to Chicago. He passes a sign that says he is travelling on the Lincoln Highway and that Chicago is 200 miles ahead (thus placing him in western Ohio). This episode is set in early 1920.
Film[edit source | editbeta ]
In 1919, Fox Film Corporation produced and released the feature The Lincoln Highwayman, a black and white silent film starring William Russell , Lois Lee, Frank Brownlee , Jack Connolly, Edward Peil, Sr. , Harry Spingler, and Edward B. Tilton.[22] The film was written and directed by Emmett J. Flynn , from an adaptation by Jules Furthman based on a 1917 one-act melodrama by Paul Dickey and Rol Cooper Megrue.[23] The story is about a masked bandit (the "Lincoln Highwayman") who terrorizes motorists on the highway in California. His latest victims are a San Francisco banker and his family on their way to a party. While the masked highwayman holds them up at gun point and steals the women’s jewels, the banker’s daughter Marian (Lois Lee) finds herself strangely attracted to him. When the family finally arrives at the party, they tell the guests their tale. Steele, a secret service man (Edward Piel), takes an interest in their encounter and starts working on the case. Jimmy Clunder (William Russell), who arrives late is talking to Marian when a locket falls out of his pocket. Marian recognizes it, and Clunder claims that he found it on the Lincoln Highway. She begins to suspect that he is the Lincoln Highwayman, as does Steele, Clunder’s rival for Marian’s love.[24]
In 1924, the Ford Motor Company produced and released Fording the Lincoln Highway. The 30-minute silent film documented the 10-millionth Model T Ford and its promotional tour on the Lincoln Highway. The car came off the assembly line of Ford's Highland Park Assembly Plant on June 15, 1924, which was the 16th year of Model T production. The milestone flivver led parades through most of the towns and cities along the Lincoln Highway. It was driven by Ford racer Frank Kulick. Several million people are estimated to have seen the vehicle, which was greeted by governors and mayors at each stop along the route.[25]
The title ballad from the WWII film A Walk In The Sun from 1945 mentions the Lincoln Highway.[26]
In the field of medicine[edit source | editbeta ]
The carotid sheath , a layer of connective tissue, was called the "Lincoln Highway of the Neck" by Harris B. Mosher in his 1929 address to the American Academy of Otology , because of its role in the spread of infections.[27]
See also[edit source | editbeta ]
Annotations[edit source | editbeta ]
^ Greetings from the Lincoln Highway: America’s First Coast-to-Coast Road lists mileages[3] based on LHA guidebooks and a 1913 Packard guide to the road, which gave the length as 3,388.6 miles (5,453.4 km) which is commonly rounded to 3,389 miles (5,454 km). The route, and its length, remained in constant flux in an effort to straighten the road; by 1924, it had been shortened to 3,142.6 miles (5,057.5 km). Interstate 80 , the highway's modern replacement, stretches 2,900 miles (4,700 km).
^ Greetings from the Lincoln Highway: America’s First Coast-to-Coast Road notes the exact number concrete markers, tallied by researcher Russell Rein from Gael Hoag's log, as 2,437 posts.[14]
References[edit source | editbeta ]
Footnotes
^ Weingroff, Richard F. (April 7, 2011). "The Lincoln Highway" . Highway History. Federal Highway Administration . Retrieved December 2, 2011.
^ Online map of the Lincoln Highway, http://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/map/
^ Butko (2005), p. 24.
^ Calculated by the Lincoln Highway Association National Mapping Committee chaired by Paul Gilger, 2007
^ Lincoln Highway Association. "Lincoln Highway Association" . Lincoln Highway Association. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
^ The Lincoln Highway: A Much-Loved Route, Coast to Coast. Rand McNally. 1999.
^ a b McCarthy, Joe (June 1974). "The Lincoln Highway" . American Heritage Magazine 25 (4). Retrieved December 2, 2011.
^ "How "Lincoln Way" Project Now Stands". The New York Times . April 5, 1914.[page needed ]
^ "English Auto Club An Example Here". The New York Times. December 31, 1913. p. 12.
^ "Would Post Notice About Auto Fines". The New York Times. January 26, 1914. p. 8.
^ ">"Statue of Abraham Lincoln." . Detroit: The History and Future of the Motor City. 2006-10-01. Retrieved 2012-07-13.
^ ">"Lincoln Pilgrimage." . Great Lakes Council, Boy Scouts of America. Retrieved 2012-07-14.
^ http://www.cement.org [full citation needed]
^ Butko (2005), pp. 24–5.
^ "National Register Information System" . National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service . 2010-07-09.
^ "National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form: The Lincoln Highway in Greene County, Iowa" . July 15, 1992.
^ LH2013 Centennial Tour - Hjem . Lh2013.com (2013-07-01). Retrieved on 2013-07-23.
^ Google, Inc . " 'old lincoln highway'—Google Search" . Google, Inc. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
^ Hokanson, Drake (1999). Lincoln Highway, the Main Street Across America (10th anniversary ed.). Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press . ISBN 1-58729-113-4 . OCLC 44962845 .
^ Butko (2002).[page needed ]
^ Wallis, Michael ; Williamson, Michael (2007). The Lincoln Highway: coast to coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate. New York: W. W. Norton & Company . ISBN 978-0-393-05938-0 . OCLC 83758808 .
^ "The Lincoln Highwayman (1919)" . IMDB.com. Retrieved December 2, 2011.[unreliable source ]
^ "Dickey Writes Another: 'The Lincoln Highwayman' a Little Copy of 'Under Cover' " . The New York Times. April 24, 1917. Retrieved December 2, 2011.[page needed ]
^ Garza, Janiss. "Lincoln Highwayman (1920)" . All Movie Guide. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
^ Lewis, David L.; McCarville, Mike; Sorensen, Lorin (1983). Ford, 1903 to 1984. New York: Beekman House. OCLC 10270117 .[page needed ]
^ Robinson, Earl (music); Lampell, Millard (lyrics) (1945). A Walk In The Sun (Song). 20th Century Fox . "It's the same road they had / Coming out of Stalingrad, / It's that old Lincoln Highway back home, / It's wherever men fight to be free"
^ Anithakumari, A. M.; Girish, Rai. B. (January–March 2006). "Carotid Space Infection: A Cast Report" (PDF). Indian Journal of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery (Calcutta: B.K. Roy Chaudhuri) 58 (1): 95–7. ISSN 0973-7707 . Retrieved December 2, 2011.
Works cited
Butko, Brian (2002). Pennsylvania traveler’s guide. The Lincoln Highway (2nd ed.). Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. ISBN 0-8117-2497-2 .
—— (2005). Greetings from the Lincoln Highway: America's First Coast-to-Coast Road (1st ed.). Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-0128-0 .
Further reading[edit source | editbeta ]
Kutz, Kevin (2006). Kevin Kutz's Lincoln Highway: Paintings and Drawings. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-3264-2 .
Wallis, Michael; Williamson, Michael (2007). The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate (1st ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-05938-0 .
External links[edit source | editbeta ]
The Meaning of Dreams: 7 Spiritual Dream Symbols
by Desiree Cole
Have you ever woken up from a vivid dream wondering, “What in the world did that mean?” You’re not alone! So what exactly could God be telling you in your dreams today? Here are some spiritual interpretations of common symbols.
grid view slide view
Three houses lined up in a row.
1. Houses
Dreams about your childhood home could have something to do with your past (i.e. an old memory or issue that needs to be addressed). If your dream takes place in your current home, it may be related to present-day life or even your church. Be sure to pay attention to which room you’re in. For example, a kitchen might represent the heart of a problem or a place of spiritual preparation. Meanwhile, if you’re in the garage, it could mean you’re entering a season of waiting that will require you to be patient with God.
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A beautiful, yet mysterious beach with a dramatic sunset.
2. The Beach
Some people dream of idyllic, sandy beaches that almost seem too good to be true. There’s a reason for that. According to Rev. Frank and Rev. Lynmarie Burg, founders of “The Dreamer’s Institute,” beaches can represent a place between heaven and earth, “where man meets God” or where “eternity meets time.” So if you dream about a beach, it could mean you’re having a “supernatural experience or visitation” with God.
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A close up of a test taker's hand filling in multiple choice bubbles.
3. School
Many people have dreams about taking a test at school. According to The Top 20 Dreams by John Paul Jackson, tests may signal “the dreamer is being tested for the purpose of promotion.” However, if the test is taking place at a school you attended, “it could be that the dreamer is being taught something again.” Make sure to pay attention to what grade you’re in, as it may represent your maturity regarding the matter at hand. If you dream of graduating, God might be showing you that you’re about to move to a higher level of understanding or grow in your training.
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A side view of a senior woman driving with her daughter.
4. Cars
If you dream of a car, take note of whether you’re in the driver or passenger seat. These dreams might symbolize the role God has assigned you with a particular task. For example, if you’re the driver of the car, you might be in charge of leading whatever God has entrusted you with. If you’re the passenger, it could mean you will work alongside a group or community on this task.
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A blurred shot of people on city grounds as sunlight pours in.
5. People
Depending on the context, dreams about people you know might have nothing to do with them and everything to do with their name. In Dream Language by James W. Goll, he suggests looking up the meaning of the person’s name to gain further insight into their presence in your dream. On the other hand, if you dream of people you don’t recognize, they could be angels!
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A tidy bathroom with sunlight pouring in through the window.
6. Bathrooms
You might blush at the thought of dreaming about a bathroom, but in God’s language, it’s a very good thing! According to what Jackson reveals in his Top 20 Dreams book, bathrooms could mean you’re about to undergo a “spiritual cleansing.” In other words, there are some things – whether you’re aware of them or not – that need to be “flushed out of your life” before you can grow spiritually.
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Heavenly light shines through behind white, fluffy clouds.
7. Weather
Different weather patterns can mean different things. Rain might signify you’re about to receive an outpouring from heaven. And, in general, bright white clouds, light, clear water and the feeling of calm in the midst of a storm could all be signs of God’s presence in your life.
Read Desiree's exploration of the meaning of dreams from the December-January 2018 issue of Mysterious Ways!
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Cosmovitral Botanical Garden, Toluca, Mexico
7 of the World's Most Mystical W
Coal Miner's Daughter Meaning
How deep is your love for this song? Go deeper.
If you're a fan of "Coal Miner's Daughter," you should have already seen the 1980 movie and fallen in love with Sissy Spacek, who is perfect as Loretta Lynn. Even if you haven't seen the movie (which should obviously be remedied), you probably know a bit about Lynn's story: her childhood of rural poverty, her marriage at barely 14, and her American-dreamy tale of making her own way to the top of the country music world with nothing but a guitar from a pawn shop and the help of her husband. Lynn is an open book: her memoirs also talk about the violence in her relationship with Doolittle Lynn, about his womanizing and her jealousy, and about her quirky take on women's empowerment. She is known for being funny, frank, and charmingly forward, and fans can find out almost anything they want about her values and personal life with a trip to the library.
But it seems like one of the reasons for the huge success of the song is that it's not just a song about Loretta Lynn. It also tells a story about thousands of people with similar experiences, and their relationship to one looming fixture: the coalmine.
"Coal Miner's Daughter" means something because so many people out there know what it's like to live a life dominated by coal. Images of coal miners with coal-blackened faces and wearing headlamps are almost a cliché, representing everything from the story of industrialization to the power of union organizing in its hey-day. In Loretta Lynn's Kentucky hometown of Butcher Holler, coal mining was the only real job available, and almost all the men she knew did that work. In the time of her childhood, union organizers, coal bosses, and government regulators fought tooth and nail over the future of coal.
Now the future has arrived, and coal is still the cheapest and most important energy source in the United States today, generating over half of the nation's electricity . The U.S. also produces about 35% of the world's coal, more than any other country . Coal is also still dirty, and still dangerous. Coal is not a thing of the past—and the debates surrounding it are as heated as ever (no pun intended... or maybe it was).
Take just a few examples. Now that global warming is widely accepted as a problem, people are arguing more and more fiercely about how to reduce the environmental harm associated with burning coal. Coal miners are still in serious danger of injury and death as a result of mining accidents and black lung disease , despite attempts at government regulation. (This makes the 2010 rescue of 33 miners in Chile, who spent 69 days trapped underground, all the more miraculous.) And in Lynn's homeland of Appalachia, some are trying to stop the bulldozers of mountaintop removal coalmining, a practice that strips all the trees and surface rock off of coal-rich hills in order to dig shallow mines. To continue with the obvious cheesy pun, the coal issue is only getting hotter.
To try to understand the utter dominance of coal mining in Loretta Lynn's world, let's start at the beginning (or at least closer to the beginning—the real history of coal mining began over 10,000 years ago in China). Anyhow, in the United States the story of the massive coal industry begins back in the 1800s with the Industrial Revolution , when changes in technology and production led to a sea-change in how European and American societies produced and consumed their most basic needs. Factories replaced individual craftspeople, large farms with single products replaced family farms, and railroads and steam engines made long-distance transportation much easier, which in turn supported even larger-scale industrial production.
Coal was the fuel for many of these changes. By the end of the 1800s, electricity was a household word, and it was coal that kept the trains running and the lights on. Urbanization and a slew of new inventions meant that whole cities were being built whose operations depended on those little black pockets of energy. The Appalachian region, ranging from southern New York State all the way down to northern Alabama (click here for a map), was the center of coal production, and whole towns (called "coal patch towns") grew up around coal mines.
Coal production soared, doubling every ten years from 1850 until 1918, when it peaked at 680 million short tons per year in the U.S. due to the demand created by World War I . But a gradual decline in the twenties became a steep one in the 1930s. The sudden economic changes of the Great Depression cut coal production to 360 million short tons in 1932, just over half of what it had been at the end of World War I . (A short ton, by the way, is 2,000 pounds. A long ton is 2,240 pounds. Go figure.) At the same time, increased mechanization of the mining process cut coal-mining jobs, in some cases replacing almost 70 percent of human work with machines that could mine, load, and transport coal.
Entering into a second World War required coal for industrial production and transportation. The industry in Lynn's region of Eastern Kentucky got enough of a kick that her father gained regular employment as a miner during the early 1940s. Everyone likes a steady job, especially after a recession, right? Unfortunately, by most accounts, mining was a harsh life at best, and a lethal career path at worst.
There were a million reasons to dread working in the mines. Mines were dark , dirty, and cramped. Miners could look forward to lousy wages based on how many tons of coal they produced, which meant that if you were sick, tired, or slow on the job, you could make less money or even no money at all. Mining bosses could easily cheat workers by under-measuring the weight of the coal collected, or refusing to pay for cars of coal with too many rocks in them (even though this coal could still be used). Coal dust entered the lungs, leading to illness and death, and in the 1940s there was still no such thing as workers' compensation or disability payments. Miners who got sick were kicked to the curb with no benefits, which is precisely what happened to Lynn's father in the years before his death. Mining disasters [22] such as fires, explosions, and collapsing mines have also claimed thousands of lives and are still a risk for coal miners.
These nasty conditions spurred plenty of pushback from the large and well-organized labor unions of the earlier twentieth century. The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) was founded in 1890 and grew to be one of the most powerful members of the AFL-CIO under the leadership of John L. Lewis . Unionized miners fought for an eight-hour workday, fair wages, health and retirement benefits and safety protections. But unionizing could be risky: miners often lost their jobs as a result of getting involved with unions. Mine owners hired private guards who beat up and intimidated union organizers and their families (and since mine owners often ran the governments and police forces of tiny mining towns, it was nearly impossible to stop them). Some of those who did organize strikes were murdered in incidents like the 1917 Ludlow Massacre and the 1927 Columbine Mine Massacre in Colorado. Both involved the fatal shooting of striking miners and their families by national guardsmen. Not far from Lynn and her family, Harlan County, Kentucky, became known as "Bloody Harlan" [28] in the 1930s because of ongoing violent clashes between miners and the bosses' henchmen.
Loretta Lynn's dad, Melvin Webb, probably benefitted from some of the victories won by union organizers. But by the time the federal government passed the first ever Coal Mining Safety Act in 1952, Webb's career was nearly over. More comprehensive bills were passed in 1969 and 1977, mandating regular inspection of the mines for safety, and compensating workers who got sick from inhaling coal dust. By that time, Lynn's coal miner father had died of a stroke at the age of 51, unemployed, infected with black lung , and lacking even basic health care.
Without a doubt, coal mining work isn't what it once was. It's safer, more tightly regulated by the federal government, generally less fatal, and at least a bit higher paying. Even though the U.S. produces about twice as much coal now as it did in the 1950s, fewer people are employed in the mines due to changes in technology. But miners still contract black lung, and as recently as April 2010, 29 men died in a mining explosion in West Virginia. The Upper Big Branch mine explosion was the worst U.S. mining accident since 1970, and the tragedy called mining safety and regulation back up to the forefront.
In addition to the health and safety costs of mining, the reality of global warming has been putting pressure on the coal mining industry for a couple of decades now. One of the by-products produced by burning coal is carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. Coal emissions are also linked to acid rain and respiratory illness, and coal mining can destroy ecosystems by tearing up the earth's surface and polluting nearby rivers and lakes.
Coal these days is all about electricity . In 1950, only about 19 percent of the 560 million tons of coal produced went towards producing electric power—the rest of the coal went to steam engines and industrial uses. By 2003, the measure of coal production had almost doubled, but about 90 percent was used for electric power. Coal mining fuels our laptops, lights, cell phone chargers, machinery and appliances.
With a dozen options for cleaner, renewable energy sources , why is coal still such a big thing? The long and the short of it is that coal is cheap. As long as the demand is there, coal corporations will keep up a steady supply unless government regulation stops them. And despite health risks and environmental devastation, many are dependent on the mines for their livelihoods. In Appalachia, where mining jobs have declined due to mechanization and the western migration of the industry, lots of people still favor mining in the region simply because it is their livelihood.
What is the future of this dirty, dangerous, and powerful industry that is literally keeping our lights on? Will renewable energy overcome nonrenewable resources like coal, oil, and natural gas anytime in the near future? Obviously Loretta Lynn can't tell us all that, but "Coal Miner's Daughter" paints a clear picture of a tough lifestyle that might become (but is not yet) a thing of the past.
Hilda had been hitching around for a few weeks. She was not really running from anything, but it felt to her like someone was after her. She often felt like a coon being pursued by baying dogs. She was running from trouble and all too frequently into trouble. She had seen her share of hustles, quacks, and kooks. Most of her time was spent traveling with the carnival. She earned her keep by a variety of jobs. She washed, drove trucks, cleaned, gambled, sweet talked, ran the carnival rides, sang, hustled the crowd, and occasionally worked as a hochie coochie girl.
It was an adventure she enjoyed. She was only twenty and had the energy to enjoy her reputation as a fast girl. She was riding life like a war horse. She met her share of boys, seemingly a new one in every town. She saw the insides of a many honky tonk and was the source of not a few drunken attentions.
Hilda shared a travel trailer with Louise. Louise was in her mid to late thirties. She was an attractive woman, but had a hard edge which advertised she was not easy pickins. She had been with the circus for about five years. She had takened up the nomadic way after a bad run with a man. She never quite told the whole story, but many of the troupe had piece together that she had fallen in love with a con man while she was still a teen and ran away from home. He had used and abused her and had her as a partner in crime across the North and West. She still had a half dozen warrants out for her and that is why she didn’t ever go north of Ohio or west of the Mississippi. By the time of the night she left him, that night in Chicago, she had had enough. After he had beat her in a drunken rage, she had tied him up after he passed out and whacked him a few times on the head with his Wild Turkey whiskey bottle as she was leaving with as much money and valuables she could find on him and in their belongings. He bled a lot and moaned. She did not know how bad he was hurt nor did she care. She did not look back. She never went back to Chicago. As far as she knew he could be dead and there was a murder warrant for her, or he could be alive and gunning for her. She had hooked up the carnival in Louisville working the summers. They traveled farther south as the seasons turned and usually ended up wintering for a few months in the Keys every year.
The carnival was in the middle of his Summer season and was traveling throughout KY and and the western side of the Appachlains. It was just too much trouble to haul the amusement rides through the mountains.
No one would never know if Louise would have entered the life if not for that man. But entered it she had. It was all she knew. And she was pretty good at turning a dollar. Or a trick. Survive she would at any cost.
As usual the carnival had pulled into town on a Wednesday in order to be set up and running for the weekend. The locations were usually booked months in advance. Utilities had to be arranged. Permits and inspections done. And palms greased. They usually worked Noon to Midnight so they had some time to carouse the local night life. Sometimes Hilda and Louise made more money in a night hustling at a bar than they did all week scamming at the carnival.
Dave has been traveling with his Dads’ traveling tent revival since he had been kicked out of college. He had been traveling what was known as the “sawdust” trail. The name sawdust came from all the wood chips they left behind after they left a place and spilled on the way to another camp. They were about halfway through the year’s campaign. Dave usually just did odd jobs and paid a box guitar in the evening services. Once in a while he would get to play a song solo.
Brother Kenny had joined the traveling salvation show in the Spring. He had come highly recommended as he had just had finished a revival circuit and had brought the fire of the spirit into many small churches. He had the knack on getting a crowd fired up and then being able to close the deal during an altar call. He could burn up a harmonica while playing the electric guitar, and dance in the spirit all at the same time. He was 21 yo and single and the ladies in the congregations loved him. He had recently started letting his hair grow out and was now fond of wearing pointed Beatles’s boots.
Brother Kenny was generally the center of attention and what was politely called an extrovert.
Dave and Kenny were opposites in personality. Dave was introverted, introspective, and contemplative. Kenny was impulsive and loud and his energy was near manic. They were the same age and became the kind of friends where the opposites came together to form another personality.
Dave and Kenny had decided to go out that night in Bowling Green.
Louise and Hilda had decided to go out that night in Bowling Green.
I was just a matter of fate that they ended up in the same place. It was a matter of conniving and manipulation that they ended up parked at the Rochester Dam listening to the radio and making out.
David and Uzie first met Lily at JC's BBQ and Grill bar in Bowling Green, KY.
David and Uzie was brothers. Uzie was the showman and David was the support.
Their family is back with the tent revival which has made camp outside of town and close to the Green River.
It is Saturday night in 1960.
David and Uzie are playing for tips at JC's. David has a Martin guitar and Uzie a tam-borline. The tips are sparse and will hopefully pay their gas back to the tent. The bought drinks come much more freely. After things gets a little loose, Uzie may even invite a few people to the revival.
David and Uzie go about the same thing during week and on Sunday mornings, except instead of getting tips, they get an offering.
People in the audience often partied hard on Saturday night and showed their asses. Many of these would do the same thing on Sunday morning. On Saturday night they were drunk on the booze and they were seduced by the opposite sex. On Sundays, they were often drunk in the Spirit and seduced the opposite sex. Women flashed their legs and eyes on Saturday on drink and done the same on Sundays in the Spirit.
They would get drunk on Saturday night. They stagger home with their partner for the night. And then get up and stagger to Sunday School with a hangover. Sometimes even the newly found couples would show up at the meeting and a rustle of whispers would go throw the crowd. Sometimes these hook ups would last. Others would be over by the next weekend.
Church was more that a meeting for religious services. It was often the center of social life in many small towns. It was often were you met you future wife or husband. It is where you met your friends. It was where you met your family.
The bar was the same as the church in practically every-way plus it added the social lubricant of alcohol which tended to speed things up.
Just as those in the world use alcohol as a lube, the holy rollers used the "baptism of the spirit" to get drunk in the spirit and to then do things out of the ordinary.
Uzie had the habit of flirting with the girls, whether in the church or in the bar. He was a good looking guy. He had reddest blond hair, blue eyes. He was tall and slender, almost skinny. He was either pale or red faced depending on the mood. He looked every bit the Scotts-Irish which was his heritage. Uzie would use all to seduce a young lady about every night.
David was dark. He had dark hair and dark eyes. He was also tall and slender. He had the habit of moving slowly, speaking slowly, and staying in the background. This was just the opposite of Uzie who was loud and out front of everything.
David played the guitar. Uzie used the tamborlne and sang.
No pair of twins had been more different.
But neither had to be handsome as they were to strike up an interest in the audience. Through out history a man could be a troll or a frog or the most unappealing man in appearance, but if he would get up in front of the church and make them laugh or make them cry, the frog would become a prince.
David first met Lily at the bar. She was like a dark Marilyn Monroe. Not as sultry has Sophie Loren, but as flirtatious affected as Marilyn. Yes her manner was forced and affected, but effective nevertheless. She was dressed like an uptown whore in a ten cent juke box place. Maybe it would be better to compare her to Liz Taylor in Cleopatra. She had the same long black hair, cut in a long page boy style. She had doe like cow eyes framed with dark make up and false eye lashes. She was slim, but yet curvy with full breasts and round hips. She was a buffet in movement and you did not know where to land your eyes. She knew she looked good and she knew how to make herself shine. She had a dramatic flair. Just walking across the floor was a three act play in motion, wiggling into a booth, and then telling David with her eyes, lips, and curved finger with the long red finger nail to join her. She just oozed sex and David could almost smell it as he slid in the booth beside her.
Often after him and Uzie finished playing, people would invite him for a drink. He played the guitar, but this girl played the room.
They made small talk.
He go up to play a few more songs and when he found her table to steal a glance, she was gone.
One of the grandsons, son of the light haired one, tracks Dave 44 years later and says he is dong a project for school and his church. He explains that he is the grandson of Brother Kenny. He says he is research the family and church history. He found Dave through his books and his Dad had told him about the singing trio. He knew that Dave, Kenny, and Hilda had played together as a trio.
Asked for an interview.
They decided to look for Hilda together.
Much easier now with Internet and records on line. They found some possiblities of being in the state hospital in West Va. and in prison in KY.
There were several mysteries in Kentucky of women showing up with no background or history. They were noteworthy because their cases had made the newspaper when they died suddenly and the authorities had tried to find the next of kin. Some articles had artist drawings and some had morgue photos.
The search narrowed down to a happening in Paradise. Paradise, Kentucky.
The probelm was that Paradise did not exist any longer. The town at been dug up and abandoned in 1968. Some fo the residental lived in a nearby town. They had a memorial park there and had a Paradise Memorial Festival everyyear as it had become famous in a song by John Prine.
They decided together and go to the next festival. They would try to question some of the old timers there.
On june 6, 2013, they went to the festival. It had a little village of houses from around the time of the town's demise. The John Prine song played constantly. There were pictures, exhibits, slide shows and story tellers. There was even a lady telling ghost stories.
They listened to the ghost lady. She old of a story of a young woman showing up at the last festival at Paradise. She looked like a gypsy movie star. No one knew why she was there. Was she an etertainer or what? The villiagers did not even get her name. The old women went on with the description. She said the girl was in her early to mid twenties. She had the bluest eyes and long black hair. She was voluptous and a looker. Finally, she described her arms. She had scars all over her arms. It made her sking look like alligator skin. There were hundreds of scars on both arms.She had died that night and later found along side a back road, wrapped in a canvus tent.
Azuzu Note on Preacher Doings and Characters.
Preachers were money grubbers.
The singers and performers had a separate offering. They set their guitar case out and and people throw money in. This is how they got paid.
There were regular money collections. The preacher primed the offering by tying a $100 bill to the offering plate. It had to be bolted down to keep someone for stealing it.
The preacher also had a "love offering" were he put on a special bib with many pockets and invited people to donate by coming up and stuffing money into the pockets.
When the tent revival came around the back wood people and the most primitive of Christians would be outraged. Why? Because the preachers treated the blacks and whites the same. And practically speaking they were both the same has they both had GREEN money.
More than a few times they intruded on a meeting and threatened the congregation with snakes, fire, and brimstone. Snakes came with their belief that the Bible told them to handle the poisonous serpents as the righteous and saintly could not be hurt.
One night they bursted into a service and threw two copperheads down in front of the pulpit. Brother Joe calmly set down and grabbed the copperhead by the tail and swung him around like David did in his battle with Goliath. He snapped the snake like a whip and the head came right off, like he had been beheaded. The snake handler picks the other snake up and runs out of the tent.
They preached fire and brimstone to those who would congregate with the sons of Cain. A couple of times they actually trade to burn the place down. All that oil soaked canvas, sawdust, and hay seemed to be just waiting for a match.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mountain_College
http://www.beatmuseum.org/ginsberg/AllenGinsberg.html
http://explorepahistory.com/story.php?storyId=1-9-18
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthracite
Dave looked out over the bar. It was smokey and hazy. It was dark and the smell of sin was in the air. It was an exciting place.
Kenny, Hilda, and Dave were performing at the Cardinal in Nashville, TN. Kenny had arranged for them to play there as he usually handled such things. The place had all they needed. There was a small stage in the storefront. There was an old upright piano. There was a PA system and microphones. They brought two guitars, an accordion, and a tambourine. And most important they had an audience.
They had been playing together on the tent revival circuit and at the occasional tavern. They felt like they were gaining fans. Who knows, with them playing Nashville they might get a record deal or get to be on some radio show. Who knows the sky is the limit for the ambitious youth. They played a mixture of gospel, hillbilly, country, folk, and rock. Kenny did most of the arranging of the song list and he usually put the old time tear jerking gospel music at the end.
Tonight they started out with an Elvis rocker and followed up with a ballad by Hank.
The crowd was more attentive to their drinking than they were to the trio, but there were more than a few single men watching swaying to the music and throwing a smile and patting the tambourine.
They were scheduled to play just one set and a dance band would be coming on. They would be out by midnight and have plenty of time to get some rest before the Sunday morning service. The bar manager had paid them just enough to cover their gas and a bit to eat. If they made any real money it would be on the tips. They had the tip jar on a stool in front of the small stage.
The songs that seemed to bring them tips varied from place to place and time to time. Tonight the song, Blowing in the Wind, seemed to be the money maker as let them shine as sound a likes for Peter, Paul, and Mary in their performance of a Bob Dylan song.
The bars in Nashville were unlike any other bars across the country. Here was a mixture of the famous, the rich, bums, and the religious. It was not usual to see a star at the bar standing next to a couple from Canada. It was a equal opportunity place to enjoy one's self and most usually did.
9.1.1 Blowing in the Wind
Picked up hitching by some students traveling to black protests. Get educated on the plight of negroes and the need for civil rights. Travels to the protests and see some religious happenings in the midst of hate and violence.
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Dave looked out over the bar. It was smokey and hazy. It was dark and the smell of sin was in the air. It was an exciting place.
Kenny, Hilda, and Dave were performing at the Cardinal in Nashville, TN. Kenny had arranged for them to play there as he usually handled such things. The place had all they needed. There was a small stage in the storefront. There was an old upright piano. There was a PA system and microphones. They brought two guitars, an accordion, and a tambourine. And most important they had an audience.
They had been playing together on the tent revival circuit and at the occasional tavern. They felt like they were gaining fans. Who knows, with them playing Nashville they might get a record deal or get to be on some radio show. Who knows the sky is the limit for the ambitious youth. They played a mixture of gospel, hillbilly, country, folk, and rock. Kenny did most of the arranging of the song list and he usually put the old time tear jerking gospel music at the end.
Tonight they started out with an Elvis rocker and followed up with a ballad by Hank.
The crowd was more attentive to their drinking than they were to the trio, but there were more than a few single men watching swaying to the music and throwing a smile and patting the tambourine.
They were scheduled to play just one set and a dance band would be coming on. They would be out by midnight and have plenty of time to get some rest before the Sunday morning service. The bar manager had paid them just enough to cover their gas and a bit to eat. If they made any real money it would be on the tips. They had the tip jar on a stool in front of the small stage.
The songs that seemed to bring them tips varied from place to place and time to time. Tonight the song, Blowing in the Wind, seemed to be the money maker as let them shine as sound a likes for Peter, Paul, and Mary in their performance of a Bob Dylan song.
The bars in Nashville were unlike any other bars across the country. Here was a mixture of the famous, the rich, bums, and the religious. It was not usual to see a star at the bar standing next to a couple from Canada. It was a equal opportunity place to enjoy one's self and most usually did.
The Veiled Threat
An ancillary character will be an old woman who lives on the mountain in a log cabin. She is a mystic. A healer. A hermit. She is a mid wife. She has been known to hide those on the run from the law.
She delivers Ott's baby in the parent's cabin. It is born with a veil. It is a sign of good luck but the baby dies soon and the mother gets child's bed fever. The midwife does all she can with herbs and such. She advises her to get the wife ready for death. She recommends the little country church on the other side of the mountain. She goes and they pray. She gets saved but the church won't baptize her till she shows more of a commitment. Ott has to carry her about as she is so sick. He carries her home. He is despondent and crying. She says she feels at peace and feels God's presence. Ott believes she is just delirious. She says she sees her baby on the other side of the River Jordan. The baby girl with the veil, grows into a grow woman in white and is glowing. She motions for the young mother to come on over. She does and the mother dies.
Ott buries them both. He puts his anger on the church and God for taking his wife.
It these deaths the good that the veil predicted?
THE WASTE LAND
T. S. ELIOT
I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 30
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu,
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
"You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
"They called me the hyacinth girl."
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, 40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations. 50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City, 60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying "Stetson!
"You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 70
"That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
"Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
"Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
"Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
"Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
"You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!"
II. A GAME OF CHESS
THE Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out 80
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended 90
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale 100
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
"Jug Jug" to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. 110
"My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
"Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
"What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
"I never know what you are thinking. Think."
I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.
"What is that noise?"
The wind under the door.
"What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?"
Nothing again nothing. 120
"Do
"You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
"Nothing?"
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
"Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?"
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It's so elegant
So intelligent 130
"What shall I do now? What shall I do?"
"I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
"With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
"What shall we ever do?"
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself, 140
Hurry up please its time
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said. 150
Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
Hurry up please its time
If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said,
Others can pick and choose if you can't.
But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.) 160
The chemist said it would be alright, but I've never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert wont leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you dont want children?
Hurry up please its time
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
Hurry up please its time
Hurry up please its time
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. 170
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
III. THE FIRE SERMON
THE river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; 180
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse. 190
Musing upon the king my brother's wreck
And on the king my father's death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter 200
They wash their feet in soda water
Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc'd.
Tereu
Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants 210
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest. 230
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence; 240
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover; 250
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
"This music crept by me upon the waters"
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 260
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails 270
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars 280
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores
Southwest wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
Weialala leia 290
Wallala leialala
"Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe."
"My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised 'a new start.'
I made no comment. What should I resent?"
"On Margate Sands. 300
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing."
la la
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest 310
burning
IV. DEATH BY WATER
PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID
AFTER the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience 330
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mount in mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 340
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring 350
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together 360
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
— But who is that on the other side of you?
What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only 370
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings 380
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one. 390
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
Da 400
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
Da 410
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
Da
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded 420
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon— O swallow swallow
Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins 430
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
The strip mine foreman grabbed the copper head by the tail. He swung in around and snapped his head off.
Aeschylus on the getting of wisdom
He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despair, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
- Aeschylus, Agamemnon, line 179ff.
(as misquoted/paraphrased by Robert F. Kennedy upon the assassination of Martin Luther King, , and then also inscribed on RFK's grave)
Ideas on Character and Plot Lines
David looks like Buddy Holly. Thin and wears glasses.
Uzie is blonde, thin, energetic.
One of the crisis in the plot is that Lily ruins Uzie’s career and he loses everything. Rape, beating, etc.
This is the most recent summary of the book. This is an outline and more.
Here is the basic outline.
1. Intro
Intro to coal country and the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia. I envision this being told like the opening of a movie. There will be an overhead shot running through the green hills with an occasional wisp of smoke coming up from amidst the trees. You can almost smell the wood and coal burning. The shot goes in closer and we see coal mine pits and openings in the mountains. The shot then sweeps onto main street with simple stores and poor ladies. The camera goes on down main street and follows a road out of town and goes to some shacks on the hill side with flat rock foundations, unpainted gray walled , and with rusty tin roofing. There are hound dogs and dirty bare foot children running around.
There is some explanation of the exploitation of the poor and the dangerous conditions in the mines.
There is an explosion which comes out the entrance to the shaft. The camera then goes down under ground. There is a cave in and there are many man trapped. We contemplate this scene for a few seconds. Then we focus on three groups, each with about dozen men. Then we go down to focus on four men.
One of the men Antonio is killed outright. He is an Italian immigrant who came during the war and married a hill woman. He had two daughters, Hilda, and Elsie who lived in a company cabin in the town village.
Another man nicknamed Gizzard has his legs crushed in different ways and he is in much pain. He is an alcoholic and it was his lit cigarette that caused an explosion of the methane gas.As the lights dimmed he pulls out a hip flask and took a slig of moonshine.
The third man is named Johnny and he is uninjured and he volunteers to go an squeeze through the small passages and try to find help and a way out. He travels about a hundred yards through very narrow areas and goes into a cocoon like space and there is another cave in and he is separated from everyone. He will spend several days there. He will be there even after the crew he just left to help is rescued.
The last man is Ralph. He is just a normal guy. He too has a wife and kids in the company village. If you asked anyone, he was a stand up guy. He worked and stayed out of trouble. He got along to get along.
All of the men except Antonio is rescued. This cave in has profound effects on the survivors and will forever change their lives.
And this is just the beginning of the story, but it is not their stories.
This is the end.
This is how the story ends. We knew from nearly the start that it would end like this.
Lily was on the road again. Going from town to town. Man to man. Job to job. Adventure to adventure.
It had been this way since the beginning. From the first day she walked down off the mountain and stuck her thumb out, it had been the same.
Lily had even known that it would end like this.
Lily would die in the company of strangers.
http://tiddlypocketbook.com/
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David and Hilga camp at the Tulip Viaduct one night while on the road.
The Viaduct
Greene County in Indiana has many fascinating landmarks. One of these attractions is the viaduct, which is also known as the Tulip Trestle. As large and impressive as the viaduct may be, the structure often goes unnoticed because of its remote location. The one day that the viaduct received the attention it deserved was on its centennial celebration on Sunday, October 15, 2006.
The viaduct is located in a rural area known as Richland Creek Valley in the eastern part of Greene County. The total price of the viaduct was $246,504 when it was built in 1906. This massive structure was built using mostly Italian immigrant laborers. The laborers were paid up to 30 cents an hour, which was considered to be an excellent wage in 1906. The viaduct was constructed by Indianapolis Southern Railway and secretly financed by Illinois Central Railroad.
The viaduct was built for train travel to transport coal from Greene County mines to large cities, such as Chicago. Passenger trains once traveled across the viaduct, but passenger service was discontinued in 1948.
The viaduct is now owned by The Indiana Rail Road Company. The viaduct has taken “a lot of beating” in the last one hundred years, but still to this day it appears to be as strong as the day is was built.
This information was used with permission from the Linton-Stockton School Corporation.
Pictures can be found in our photogallery.
PLEASE NOTE: Visiting the Viaduct from the public road that runs underneath it is perfectly acceptable and encouraged but never trespass onto Indiana Railroad property or the private property surrounding the Viaduct. The railroad supports "Stay off, stay away, and stay alive" and has authorized local law enforcement to arrest any and all trespassers.
[img[http://greenecountyindiana.com/app/webroot/files/viaduct2.jpg]]
Slowly Joe Blake picked up the top log and carefully moved it away. “Get back there. If ‘e comes out ‘e’ll come out fast.” The rest of the kids didn’t need a second warning. They moved back. I was already back quite a few paces as I watched Mr. Blake. Carefully he lifted the next log and there was a sudden movement and a flurry under the others. There only two logs left when Joe placed his hand on the one on the outside and rolled it backwards and there it was in the space where the two logs met. A gleaming black-eyed, brown-backed, yellow-bellied snake, his beady eye fixed on Joe, his tongue flicking in and out.
Joe took off his hat, a battered old Akubra, and very slowly placed it on the ground in front of the snake. The snake set his beady eye upon it. At the same time Joe moved his right hand round and then, in a lightning move grabbed the tail of the snake and flipped it out and up as he stood up with his hand held high. The snake hung down like a four foot length of rope, swishing from side to side.
“Now get back you kids. ‘e can still bite ya even when ‘e loses ‘is ‘head.” The kids stepped back with shouts of encouragement. “Quick, go on Joe. Crack ‘im now.”
I stood back in amazement wondering what Joe could possibly do with a four foot six copperhead snake hanging down from his outstretched arm. Then I saw what he was going to do. He started to twirl the snake around his head – round and round he twirled it, three, four times, and then suddenly like the crack of a great whip, he whirled his hand over his shoulder and quickly back again as one would crack a stockwhip and the snake uncoiled through the air and then jerked suddenly. The kids shrieked as the writhing body of the snake hung down by his side and its head, cracked off at the neck, went flying through the air in the direction of the water tank.
In one swift move Joe Black had decapitated the snake and its head, wrenched from its body, landed three or four yards away in the dust.
“Keep clear of that ‘ead. ‘e can still bite ya yer know. And it’ll poison ya.” The kids all crowded around the head, bloody and mangled, but nevertheless completely severed at the neck. Joe walked up behind them with the body of the snake still held in one hand above shoulder height. Its blood dripped on the dust. With his other hand Joe gripped the snake and slowly ran his fingers down forcing blood and the contents of its stomach and intestines to squeeze out. “Who wants it?”, said Joe. “I do”, said half a dozen voices, but Tom Bethridge was the one who took charge and commandeered it. “It’ll make a nice belt. Yer, thanks Joe.”
From somewhere I picked up a shovel leaning against the side of the rather dry and struggling garden around the water tank and picked the head up in the shovel and promptly buried it near the edge of the school building.
U.S. Route 66
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
U.S. Route 66 (US 66 or Route 66), also known as the Will Rogers Highway and colloquially known as the Main Street of America or the Mother Road, was one of the original highways within the U.S. Highway System . Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926—with road signs erected the following year.[2] The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in America, originally ran from Chicago , Illinois , through Missouri , Kansas , Oklahoma , Texas , New Mexico , and Arizona before ending at Santa Monica , California , covering a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km).[3] It was recognized in popular culture by both a hit song and the Route 66 television show in the 1960s.
Route 66 served as a major path for those who migrated west, especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and it supported the economies of the communities through which the road passed. People doing business along the route became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later fought to keep the highway alive in the face of the growing threat of being bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System .
Route 66 underwent many improvements and realignments over its lifetime, and it was officially removed from the United States Highway System on June 27, 1985[4] after it had been replaced in its entirety by the Interstate Highway System. Portions of the road that passed through Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona have been designated a National Scenic Byway of the name "Historic Route 66", which is returning to some maps.[5][6] Several states have adopted significant bypassed sections of the former US 66 into the state road network as State Route 66.
History[edit source | editbeta ]
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2011)
Before the U.S. Highway System[edit source | editbeta ]
A remnant of an original state right-of-way marker serves as a reminder of the early days of the road's construction. This was part of the 1927 construction of Route 66.
In 1857, Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale , a Naval officer in the service of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers , was ordered by the War Department to build a government-funded wagon road along the 35th Parallel. His secondary orders were to test the feasibility of the use of camels as pack animals in the southwestern desert . This road became part of U.S. Route 66.
Before a nationwide network of numbered highways was adopted by the states, named auto trails were marked by private organizations. The route that would become Route 66 was covered by three highways. The Lone Star Route passed through St. Louis on its way from Chicago to Cameron, Louisiana , though U.S. 66 would take a shorter route through Bloomington rather than Peoria . The transcontinental National Old Trails Road led via St. Louis to Los Angeles , but was not followed until New Mexico ; instead U.S. 66 used one of the main routes of the Ozark Trails system,[7] which ended at the National Old Trails Road just south of Las Vegas, New Mexico . Again, a shorter route was taken, here following the Postal Highway between Oklahoma City and Amarillo . Finally, the National Old Trails Road became the rest of the route to Los Angeles.[8]
Although entrepreneurs Cyrus Avery of Tulsa, Oklahoma , and John Woodruff of Springfield, Missouri deserve most of the credit for promoting the idea of an interregional link between Chicago and Los Angeles, their lobbying efforts were not realized until their dreams merged with the national program of highway and road development.
While legislation for public highways first appeared in 1916, with revisions in 1921, it was not until Congress enacted an even more comprehensive version of the act in 1925 that the government executed its plan for national highway construction.
Officially, the numerical designation 66 was assigned to the Chicago-to-Los Angeles route in the summer of 1926. With that designation came its acknowledgment as one of the nation's principal east–west arteries.
From the outset, public road planners intended U.S. 66 to connect the main streets of rural and urban communities along its course for the most practical of reasons: most small towns had no prior access to a major national thoroughfare.
Birthplace and rise of Route 66[edit source | editbeta ]
Modern-day shield used in California from 1956–74, when the road was decommissioned (note the black background cut off and the addition of the "US" designator)
Officially recognized as the birthplace of U.S. Route 66, it was in Springfield, Missouri on April 30, 1926 that officials first proposed the name of the new Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway. A placard in Park Central Square was dedicated to the city by the Route 66 Association of Missouri, and traces of the "Mother Road" are still visible in downtown Springfield along Kearney Street, Glenstone Avenue, College and St. Louis streets and on Missouri 266 to Halltown, Missouri .
Championed by Tulsa, Oklahoma businessman Cyrus Avery when the first talks about a national highway system began, U.S. 66 was first signed into law in 1927 as one of the original U.S. Highways , although it was not completely paved until 1938. Avery was adamant that the highway have a round number and had proposed number 60 to identify it. A controversy erupted over the number 60, largely from delegates from Kentucky which wanted a Virginia Beach –Los Angeles highway to be U.S. 60 and U.S. 62 between Chicago and Springfield, Missouri. Arguments and counter-arguments continued and the final conclusion was to have US 60 run between Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Springfield, Missouri, and the Chicago–L.A. route be U.S. 62.[9] Avery settled on "66" (which was unassigned) because he thought the double-digit number would be easy to remember as well as pleasant to say and hear.[citation needed ]
The state of Missouri released its 1926 state highway map with the highway labeled as U.S. Route 60.[10]
After the new federal highway system was officially created, Cyrus Avery called for the establishment of the U.S. Highway 66 Association to promote the complete paving of the highway from end to end and to promote travel down the highway. In 1927, in Tulsa, the association was officially established with John T. Woodruff of Springfield, Missouri elected the first president. In 1928, the association made its first attempt at publicity, the "Bunion Derby ", a footrace from Los Angeles to New York City , of which the path from Los Angeles to Chicago would be on Route 66.[11] The publicity worked: several dignitaries, including Will Rogers , greeted the runners at certain points on the route. The race ended in Madison Square Garden, where the $25,000 first prize (equal to $334,254 in 2013) was awarded to Andy Hartley Payne , a Cherokee runner from Oklahoma. The U.S. Highway 66 Association also placed its first advertisement in the July 16, 1932, issue of the Saturday Evening Post . The ad invited Americans to take Route 66 to the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. A U.S. Highway 66 Association office in Oklahoma received hundreds of requests for information after the ad was published.[12] The association went on to serve as a voice for businesses along the highway until it disbanded in 1976.
Traffic grew on the highway because of the geography through which it passed. Much of the highway was essentially flat and this made the highway a popular truck route. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s saw many farming families (mainly from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and Texas) heading west for agricultural jobs in California. Route 66 became the main road of travel for these people, often derogatorily called "Okies " or "Arkies". And during the Depression, it gave some relief to communities located on the highway. The route passed through numerous small towns, and with the growing traffic on the highway, helped create the rise of mom-and-pop businesses , such as service stations , restaurants , and motor courts , all readily accessible to passing motorists .
Much of the early highway, like all the other early highways, was gravel or graded dirt. Due to the efforts of the U.S. Highway 66 Association, Route 66 became the first highway to be completely paved in 1938. Several places were dangerous: more than one part of the highway was nicknamed "Bloody 66" and gradually work was done to realign these segments to remove dangerous curves. However, one section just outside Oatman, Arizona (through the Black Mountains ) was fraught with hairpin turns and was the steepest along the entire route, so much so that some early travelers, too frightened at the prospect of driving such a potentially dangerous road, hired locals to navigate the winding grade. The section remained as Route 66 until 1953, and is still open to traffic today as the Oatman Highway. Despite such hazards in some areas, Route 66 continued to be a popular route.
Notable buildings include the art deco -styled U-Drop Inn , constructed in 1936 in Shamrock in Wheeler County east of Amarillo, Texas, listed on the National Register of Historic Places .[13][14] A restored Magnolia fuel station is also located in Shamrock as well as Vega in Oldham County west of Amarillo.
During World War II , more migration west occurred because of war-related industries in California. Route 66, already popular and fully paved, became one of the main routes and also served for moving military equipment. Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri was located near the highway, which was locally upgraded quickly to a divided highway to help with military traffic. When Richard Feynman was working on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos , he used to travel nearly 100 miles (160 km) to visit his wife, who was dying of tuberculosis , in a sanatorium located on Route 66 in Albuquerque .[15]
In the 1950s, Route 66 became the main highway for vacationers heading to Los Angeles. The road passed through the Painted Desert and near the Grand Canyon . Meteor Crater in Arizona was another popular stop. This sharp increase in tourism in turn gave rise to a burgeoning trade in all manner of roadside attractions, including teepee -shaped motels , frozen custard stands, Indian curio shops, and reptile farms. Meramec Caverns near St. Louis began advertising on barns, billing itself as the "Jesse James hideout". The Big Texan advertised a free 72 ounces (2.0 kg) steak dinner to anyone who could consume the entire meal in one hour. It also marked the birth of the fast-food industry: Red's Giant Hamburg in Springfield, Missouri , site of the first drive-through restaurant, and the first McDonald's in San Bernardino, California . Changes like these to the landscape further cemented 66's reputation as a near-perfect microcosm of the culture of America, now linked by the automobile.
Changes in routing[edit source | editbeta ]
This section is in a list format that may be better presented using prose . You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate . Editing help is available. (December 2012)
The route sign from 1926 to 1948
Many sections of US 66 underwent major realignments.
In 1930, between Springfield and East St. Louis, Illinois , US 66 was shifted farther east to what is now roughly I-55. The original alignment followed the current Illinois Route 4 .
From downtown St. Louis to Gray Summit, Missouri , US 66 originally went down Market Street and Manchester Road (now, largely, Route 100 ). In 1932, this route was changed, the original alignment never being viewed as anything more than temporary. The planned route was down Watson Road (now Route 366 ), but Watson Road had not yet been completed.
In Oklahoma, from west of El Reno , to Bridgeport , US 66 turned north to Calumet and then west to Geary , then southwest across the South Canadian River over a suspension toll bridge into Bridgeport. In 1933, a straighter cut-off route was completed from west of El Reno to one mile (1.6 km) south of Bridgeport, crossing over a 38-span steel pony truss bridge over the South Canadian River, bypassing Calumet and Geary by several miles.
From west of Santa Rosa, New Mexico , to north of Los Lunas, New Mexico , the road originally turned north from current I-40 along much of what is now US 84 to near Las Vegas, New Mexico , followed (roughly) I-25 —then the decertified US 85 through Santa Fe and Albuquerque to Los Lunas and then turned northwest along the present State Highway 6 alignment to a point near Laguna. In 1937, a straight-line route was completed from west of Santa Rosa through Moriarty and east–west through Albuquerque and west to Laguna. This newer routing saved travelers as much as four hours of travel through New Mexico. According to legend the rerouting was done at the behest of Democratic Governor Arthur T. Hannett to punish the Republican Santa Fe Ring which had long dominated New Mexico out of Santa Fe.[16]
In 1940, the first freeway in Los Angeles was incorporated into Route 66: The Arroyo Seco Parkway , later known as the Pasadena Freeway ; now again known as Arroyo Seco Parkway.
Route 66 between Oatman and Kingman
In 1953, the Oatman Highway through the Black Mountains was completely bypassed by a new route between Kingman, Arizona and Needles, California ; by the 1960s, Oatman, Arizona was virtually abandoned as a ghost town .
Since the 1950s, as Interstates were constructed, sections of Route 66 not only saw the traffic drain to those Interstates, but often the name itself was moved to the faster means of travel. In some cases such as to the east of St. Louis this was done as soon as the Interstate was finished to the next exit. The displacement of US 66 signage to the new freeways, combined with restrictions in the 1965 Highway Beautification Act which often denied merchants on the old road access to signage on the freeway, became factors in the closure of many established Route 66 businesses as travellers could no longer easily find or reach them.[17]
In 1936, Route 66 was extended from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica, terminating at US 101 Alt., today the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Lincoln Boulevard (a segment of State Route 1 ). Even though there is a plaque dedicating Route 66 as the Will Rogers Highway placed at the intersection of Ocean Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard , the highway never terminated there.
US 66 was rerouted around several larger cities via bypass or beltline routes to permit travelers to avoid city traffic congestion. Some of those cities included Springfield, Illinois ; St. Louis, Missouri ; Rolla, Missouri ; Springfield, Missouri ; Joplin, Missouri ; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma . The route was also a foundation for many chain stores back in the 1920s. For example, because of the growing popularity of The Mother Road, chain stores started sprouting up next to it to increase business and sales.
Decline[edit source | editbeta ]
Route 66 in the Painted Desert, Arizona - the road is gone but the telegraph poles are still there
The beginning of the end for Route 66 came in 1956 with the signing of the Interstate Highway Act by President Dwight Eisenhower who was influenced by his experiences in 1919 as a young Army officer crossing the country in a truck convoy (following the route of the Lincoln Highway ), and his appreciation of the German Autobahn network as a necessary component of a national defense system.[18]
During its nearly 60-year existence, Route 66 was under constant change. As highway engineering became more sophisticated, engineers constantly sought more direct routes between cities and towns. Increased traffic led to a number of major and minor realignments of US 66 through the years, particularly in the years immediately following World War II when Illinois began widening US 66 to four lanes through virtually the entire state from Chicago to the Mississippi River just east of St. Louis, Missouri , and included bypasses around virtually all of the towns. By the early to mid-1950s, Missouri also upgraded its sections of US 66 to four lanes complete with bypasses. Most of the newer four-lane 66 paving in both states was upgraded to freeway status in later years.
One of the remnants of Route 66 is the highway now known as Veterans Parkway, east and south of Normal, Illinois , and Bloomington, Illinois. The two sweeping curves on the southeast and southwest of the cities originally were intended to easily handle traffic at speeds up to 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), as part of an effort to make Illinois 66 an Autobahn equivalent for military transport.
An abandoned early Route 66 alignment in southern Illinois, 2006
In 1953, the first major bypassing of US 66 occurred in Oklahoma with the opening of the Turner Turnpike between Tulsa and Oklahoma City. The new 88-mile (142 km) toll road paralleled US 66 for its entire length and bypassed each of the towns along 66. The Turner Turnpike was joined in 1957 by the new Will Rogers Turnpike , which connected Tulsa with the Oklahoma-Missouri border west of Joplin, Missouri , again paralleling US 66 and bypassing the towns in northeastern Oklahoma in addition to the entire state of Kansas. Both Oklahoma turnpikes were soon designated as Interstate 44 , along with the US 66 bypass at Tulsa that connected the city with both turnpikes.
In some cases, such as many areas in Illinois, the new interstate highway not only paralleled the old Route 66, it actually incorporated much of it. A typical approach was to build one new set of lanes, then move one direction of traffic to it, while retaining the original road for traffic flowing in the opposite direction. Then a second set of lanes for traffic flowing in the other direction would be constructed, finally followed by abandoning the other old set of lanes or converting them into a frontage road .
The same scenario was used in western Oklahoma when US 66 was initially upgraded to a four-lane highway such as from Sayre through Erick to the Texas border at Texola in 1957 and 1958 where the old paving was retained for westbound traffic and a new parallel lane built for eastbound traffic (much of this section was entirely bypassed by I-40 in 1975), and on two other sections; from Canute to Elk City in 1959 and Hydro to Weatherford in 1960, both of which were upgraded with the construction of a new westbound lane in 1966 to bring the highway up to full interstate standards and demoting the old US 66 paving to frontage road status. In the initial process of constructing I-40 across western Oklahoma, the state also included projects to upgrade the through routes in El Reno, Weatherford, Clinton, Canute, Elk City, Sayre, Erick, and Texola to four-lane highways not only to provide seamless transitions from the rural sections of I-40 from both ends of town but also to provide easy access to those cities in later years after the I-40 bypasses were completed.
In New Mexico, as in most other states, rural sections of I-40 were to be constructed first with bypasses around cities to come later. However, some business and civic leaders in cities along US 66 were completely opposed to bypassing fearing loss of business and tax revenues. In 1963, the New Mexico Legislature enacted legislation that banned the construction of interstate bypasses around cities by local request. This legislation was short-lived, however, due to pressures from Washington and threat of loss of federal highway funds so it was rescinded by 1965. In 1964, Tucumcari and San Jon became the first cities in New Mexico to work out an agreement with state and federal officials in determining the locations of their I-40 bypasses as close to their business areas as possible in order to permit easy access for highway travelers to their localities. Other cities soon fell in line including Santa Rosa , Moriarty , Grants and Gallup although it wasn't until well into the 1970s that most of those cities would be bypassed by I-40.
By the late 1960s, most of the rural sections of US 66 had been replaced by I-40 across New Mexico with the most notable exception being the 40-mile (64 km) strip from the Texas border at Glenrio west through San Jon to Tucumcari, which was becoming increasingly treacherous due to heavier and heavier traffic on the narrow two-lane highway. During 1968 and 1969, this section of US 66 was often referred to by locals and travelers as "Slaughter Lane" due to numerous injury and fatal accidents on this stretch. Local and area business and civic leaders and news media called upon state and federal highway officials to get I-40 built through the area; however, disputes over proposed highway routing in the vicinity of San Jon held up construction plans for several years as federal officials proposed that I-40 run some five to six miles (10 km) north of that city while local and state officials insisted on following a proposed route that touched the northern city limits of San Jon. In November 1969, a truce was reached when federal highway officials agreed to build the I-40 route just outside of the city, therefore providing local businesses dependent on highway traffic easy access to and from the expressway via the north–south highway that crossed old US 66 in San Jon. Interstate 40 was completed from Glenrio to the east side of San Jon in 1976 and extended west to Tucumcari in 1981, including the bypasses around both cities.
Route 66, going to Oatman, Arizona in 2007
Originally, highway officials planned for the last section of US 66 to be bypassed by interstates in Texas, but as was the case in many places, lawsuits held up construction of the new interstates. The US Highway 66 Association had become a voice for the people who feared the loss of their businesses. Since the interstates only provided access via ramps at interchanges, travellers could not pull directly off a highway into a business. At first, plans were laid out to allow mainly national chains to be placed in interstate medians. Such lawsuits effectively prevented this on all but toll roads. Some towns in Missouri threatened to sue the state if the US 66 designation was removed from the road, though lawsuits never materialized. Several businesses were well known to be on US 66, and fear of losing the number resulted in the state of Missouri officially requesting the designation "Interstate 66" for the St. Louis to Oklahoma City section of the route, but it was denied. In 1984, Arizona also saw its final stretch of highway decommissioned with the completion of Interstate 40 just north of Williams, Arizona . Finally, with decertification of the highway by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials the following year, U.S. Route 66 officially ceased to exist.
With the decommissioning of US 66, no single interstate route was designated to replace it. Interstate 55 covered the section from Chicago to St. Louis; Interstate 44 carried the traffic on to Oklahoma City; Interstate 40 took the largest chunk, replacing 66 to Barstow, California ; Interstate 15 took over for the route to San Bernardino; and Interstate 210 and State Route 2 or Interstate 10 carried the traffic of Route 66 across the Los Angeles metropolitan area to Santa Monica, and the seashore.
After decertification[edit source | editbeta ]
When the highway was decommissioned, sections of the road were disposed of in various ways. Within many cities, the route became a "business loop" for the interstate. Some sections became state roads, local roads, private drives, or were abandoned completely. Although it is no longer possible to drive Route 66 uninterrupted all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles, much of the original route and alternate alignments are still drivable with careful planning. Some stretches are quite well preserved, including one between Springfield, Missouri, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Some sections of Route 66 still retain their historic 9 feet (2.7 m) wide "sidewalk highway" form, never having been resurfaced to make them into full-width highways. These old sections have a single, paved lane, concrete curbs to mark the edge of the lane, and gravel shoulders for passing.
Some states have kept the 66 designation for parts of the highway, albeit as state roads. In Missouri, Routes 366 , 266 , and 66 are all original sections of the highway. State Highway 66 in Oklahoma remains as the alternate "free" route near its turnpikes. "Historic Route 66" runs for a significant distance in and near Flagstaff, Arizona . Farther west, a long segment of Route 66 in Arizona runs significantly north of Interstate 40, and much of it is designated as State Route 66 . This runs from Seligman to Kingman, Arizona , via Peach Springs . A surface street stretch between San Bernardino and La Verne (known as Foothill Boulevard ) to the east of Los Angeles retains its number as State Route 66 . Several county roads and city streets at various places along the old route have also retained the "66" number.
Revival[edit source | editbeta ]
The first Route 66 associations were founded in Arizona in 1987 and Missouri in 1989 (incorporated in 1990). Other groups in the other Route 66 states soon followed. In 1990, the state of Missouri declared Route 66 in that state a "State Historic Route". The first "Historic Route 66" marker in Missouri was erected on Kearney Street at Glenstone Avenue in Springfield, Missouri (now replaced — the original sign has been placed at Route 66 State Park near Eureka ). Other historic markers now line—at times sporadically—the entire 2,400 mile (3,860 km) length of road. In many communities, local groups have painted or stencilled the "66" and U.S. Route shield or outline directly onto the road surface, along with the state's name. This is common in areas where conventional signage for "Historic Route 66" is a target of repeated theft by souvenir hunters.
Various sections of the road itself have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places . The Arroyo Seco Parkway in the Los Angeles Area and Route 66 in New Mexico have been made into National Scenic Byways. In 2005, the State of Missouri made the road a state scenic byway from Illinois to Kansas. In the cities of Rancho Cucamonga , Rialto , and San Bernardino in California, there are US 66 signs erected along Foothill Boulevard , and also on Huntington Drive in the city of Arcadia . "Historic Route 66" signs may be found along the old route in Pasadena (on Colorado Boulevard ), San Dimas , LaVerne , and Claremont , California (along Foothill Boulevard ). The city of Glendora, California renamed Alosta Avenue, its section of Route 66, by calling it Route 66. Flagstaff, Arizona renamed all but a few blocks of Sante Fe Avenue as Route 66. The Chicago Blues Festival held each year in June in Grant Park , includes a "Route 66 Roadhouse" stage which is located on the actual pavement of old US 66, on Jackson Boulevard (which is closed to traffic for the festival) near the route's former eastern terminus at US 41 Lake Shore Drive . Since 2001, Springfield, Illinois has annually held its "International Route 66 Mother Road Festival" in its downtown district surrounding the Old State Capitol .[citation needed ]
Many preservation groups have tried to save and even landmark the old motels and neon signs along the road in different states.[19]
In 1999, President Bill Clinton signed a National Route 66 Preservation Bill which provided for $10 million in matching fund grants for preserving and restoring the historic features along the route.[20]
In 2008, the World Monuments Fund added Route 66 to the World Monuments Watch as sites along the route such as gas stations, motels, cafés, trading posts and drive-in movie theaters are threatened by development in urban areas and by abandonment and decay in rural areas.[21] The National Park Service developed a Route 66 Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary describing over one hundred individual historic sites.[22] As the popularity and mythical stature of Route 66 has continued to grow, demands have begun to mount to improve signage, return Route 66 to road atlases and revive its status as a continuous routing.
The U.S. Route 66 Recommissioning Initiative is a group that seeks to recertify Route 66 as a US Highway along a combination of historic and modern alignments.[23] The group's redesignation proposal does not enjoy universal support, as requirements the route meet modern US Highway system specifications could force upgrades which compromise its historic integrity or require Route 66 signage be moved to Interstate highways for some portions of the route.
Route 66 has been a fixture in popular culture. Pixar 's 2006 animated film Cars describes the decline of a once-booming Radiator Springs, nearly a ghost town once its mother road, Route 66, was bypassed by Interstate 40 . Pixar 's creative director John Lasseter , inspired by what he saw during a cross-country road trip with his family in 2000, contacted road historian Michael Wallis who led the creative team down the still-drivable parts of the route as research for the film. The fictional Radiator Springs is based on multiple real places visited on the five-state research trip through Peach Springs, Arizona , Baxter Springs, Kansas and countless small towns along the way. The movie's success generated a resurgence of public interest in Route 66.
National Museum of American History[edit source | editbeta ]
The National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. has a section on U.S. Route 66 in its "America on the Move" exhibition. In the exhibit is a portion of pavement of the route taken from Bridgeport, Oklahoma and a restored car and truck of the type that would have been driven on the road in the 1930s. Also on display is a "Hamons Court " neon sign that hung at a gas station and tourist cabins near Hydro, Oklahoma, a "CABINS" neon sign that pointed to Ring's Rest tourist cabins in Muirkirk, Maryland , as well as several post cards a traveler sent back to his future wife while touring the route.[24]
Route facts[edit source | editbeta ]
Will Rogers Monument near the western terminus in Santa Monica, CA
Over the years, U.S. Route 66 received many nicknames. Right after Route 66 was commissioned, it was known as "The Great Diagonal Way" because the Chicago-to-Oklahoma City stretch ran northeast to southwest. Later, Route 66 was advertised by the U.S. Highway 66 Association as "The Main Street of America". The title had also been claimed by supporters of U.S. Route 40 , but the Route 66 group was more successful. In the John Steinbeck novel The Grapes of Wrath , the highway is called "The Mother Road", its prevailing title today.[25] Lastly, Route 66 was unofficially named "The Will Rogers Highway" by the U.S. Highway 66 Association in 1952, although a sign along the road with that name appeared in the John Ford film, The Grapes of Wrath , which was released in 1940, twelve years before the association gave the road that name. A plaque dedicating the highway to Will Rogers is still located in Santa Monica, California . There are more plaques like this; one can be found in Galena, Kansas . It was originally located on the Kansas-Missouri state line, but moved to the Howard Litch Memorial Park in 2001.[26]
Route description[edit source | editbeta ]
California and the Southwest[edit source | editbeta ]
Route 66 marker on the corner of Navajo Blvd and Hopi Drive in Holbrook, Arizona
US 66 was a highway in California. Its western end was at the Pacific Coast Highway (then US 101 Alternate, today's California State Route 1 ) in Santa Monica, California . US 66 intersected US 101 , I-5 , I-15 , I-40 , and US 95 in California. US 66 covered 316 miles (509 km) in the state. In Arizona, the highway ran parallel to I-40 on most of its journey. It ran near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and passed the highest elevation in the US while covering 375 miles (604 km) in the state. US 66 passed through many Indian reservations in the western half of New Mexico. U.S. Route 66 covered 380 miles (610 km) in the state.
The Plains[edit source | editbeta ]
US 66 went through Amarillo while it covered 180 miles (290 km) in the Texas Panhandle. The highway passed by many Oklahoma cities and towns, covering 267 miles (430 km) in Oklahoma. US 66 passed by Baxter Springs as it covered only 11 miles (18 km) in Kansas.
Missouri and Illinois[edit source | editbeta ]
US 66 passed through Joplin , Springfield , and St. Louis . The highway covered 292 miles (470 km) in Missouri. US 66 passed by Springfield, Illinois . Its eastern terminus was in Chicago, Illinois
Bannered routes[edit source | editbeta ]
Main article: Bannered routes of U.S. Route 66
Several alternate alignments of US 66 occurred because of traffic issues. Business routes (BUS), bypass routes (BYP), alternate routes (ALT), and "optional routes" (OPT) (an early designation for alternate routes) came into being.
U.S. Route 66 Alternate: Bolingbrook, IL –Gardner, IL
U.S. Route 66 Business: Towanda, IL –Bloomington, IL
U.S. Route 66 Business: Lincoln, IL
U.S. Route 66 Business: Springfield, IL
U.S. Route 66 Business: Mitchell, IL –East St. Louis, IL
U.S. Route 66 Business: St. Louis, MO –Sunset Hills, MO
U.S. Route 66 Optional: Venice, IL –St. Louis, MO
U.S. Route 66 Bypass: Mitchell, IL –Sunset Hills, MO
U.S. Route 66 Business: Springfield, MO
U.S. Route 66 Bypass: Springfield, MO
U.S. Route 66 Alternate Business: Springfield, MO
U.S. Route 66 Alternate: Carthage, MO
U.S. Route 66 Business: Carterville, MO –Webb City, MO
U.S. Route 66 Alternate: Webb City, MO –Joplin, MO
U.S. Route 66 Business: Joplin, MO
U.S. Route 66 Bypass: Joplin, MO
U.S. Route 66 Business: Tulsa, OK
U.S. Route 66 Business: Oklahoma City, OK
U.S. Route 66 Business: Clinton, OK
U.S. Route 66 Business: Amarillo, TX
U.S. Route 66 Business: San Bernardino, CA
U.S. Route 66 Alternate: Pasadena, CA –Los Angeles, CA
See also[edit source | editbeta ]
Portion of US 66 at the National Museum of American History
Related state routes[edit source | editbeta ]
Related Interstate Highways[edit source | editbeta ]
Wigwam motel #6 in Holbrook, AZ
In popular culture[edit source | editbeta ]
American pop-culture artists publicized US 66 and the experience through song and television. Bobby Troup wrote “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66 ", and the highway lent its name to a TV series in the 1960s.[27] Other appearances in popular culture include:
The Grapes of Wrath (novel) and The Grapes of Wrath (film)
Billy Connolly's Route 66 (documentary)
Cars (animated film)
Route 66 Jeans (Kmart brand)
An Idiot Abroad season 2 episode 6 (television series)
References[edit source | editbeta ]
^ Rand McNally & Company (1947). Road and Reference Atlas (Map). pp. 20–21,25,38–39,54–55,72–73,80,104,107,110.
^ "Route 66 Timeline" . Legends of America. Retrieved April 15, 2012.
^ "A table of mileposts for the original US 66 alignment of 1926" . Route 66 Web & Atlas. Retrieved April 15, 2012.
^ Droz, Robert V. (December 10, 2006). "US 66: In the Beginning" . U.S. Highways: From US 1 to (US 830). Self-published. Retrieved April 15, 2012.[unreliable source? ]
^ Illinois Department of Transportation. Illinois Highway Map (Map) (2007–08 ed.). Retrieved May 26, 2012.
^ Google Inc . Google Maps – Bloomington IL (Map). Cartography by Google, Inc. Retrieved May 26, 2012.
^ Old Spanish Trail Association. Map of the Ozark Trails (Map). Retrieved April 15, 2012.
^ Rand McNally (1926). Auto Road Atlas (Map). Cartography by Rand McNally. Retrieved April 15, 2012.
^ Weingroff, Richard F. (April 7, 2011). "From Names to Numbers: The Origins of the U.S. Numbered Highway System" . Highway History. Federal Highway Administration . Retrieved April 15, 2012.
^ Missouri State Highway Commission (1926) (PDF). Road Map of Missouri (Map). Cartography by MSHC. Retrieved April 15, 2012.
^ "The Great American Foot Race" . Retrieved April 15, 2012.
^ Dedek, Peter (2007). Hip To The Trip: A Cultural History of Route 66. University of New Mexico Press. p. 35. ISBN 9780826341945 .
^ "Tower Station" . Texas Historic Sites Atlas. Texas Historical Commission . Retrieved March 25, 2010.
^ Staff. "Texas: Wheeler County" . National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service . Retrieved March 25, 2010.
^ Gribbin, John; Feynman, Richard (1997). A Life in Science. p. 96.
^ "Santa Fe, Pre 1938 Rt. 66 Alignment" . Shadows of Old Route 66. Retrieved April 15, 2012.
^ "U.S. Route 66 in Arizona Multiple Property Submission" . National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service . April 5, 1989. pp. 25–26.
^ Petroski, Henry (2006). "On the Road". American Scientist 94 (5): 396–399. ISSN 0003-0996 .
^ Juozapavicius, Justin (May 20, 2007). "Route 66 motels an endangered species" . Yahoo! News. Associated Press. Retrieved April 15, 2012.
^ Welch, Kevin (July 1, 1999). "House OKs Route 66 Bill" . Amarillo Globe-News . Retrieved April 15, 2012.
^ "Historic Route 66" . World Monuments Fund. Retrieved April 15, 2012.
^ The NPS route 66 itinerary is at http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/route66/listofsites66.html
^ Cain, Fred M. "The Plan" . Route 66 Recommissioning Initiative. Retrieved June 4, 2012.
^ "The Peoples Highway" . America on the Move. National Museum of American History. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
^ McClure, Rosemary (November 29, 2010). "Get your kicks on Route 66—and 499 other great highways" . Los Angeles Times . Retrieved December 7, 2010.
^ Stokes, Keith. "Historic Route 66: Galena, Kansas" . Kansastravel.org. Retrieved June 12, 2012.
^ Snyder, Tom (2000). Welcome to the Old Road. New York: St Martin's Press. p. xii.
Works cited[edit source | editbeta ]
Arizona Highways (Phoenix: Arizona Department of Transportation). July 1981. ISSN 0004-1521 . Entire issue about Route 66.
Dedek, Peter B. (2007). Hip to the Trip: A Cultural History of Route 66. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 9780826341945 .
Freeth, Nick (2001). Route 66. St. Paul, MN: MBI Publishing. ISBN 0-7603-0864-0 .
Krim, Arthur; Wood, Denis (2005). Route 66: Iconography of the American Highway (1st ed.). Sante Fe, NM: Center for American Places. ISBN 9781930066359 .
Mahar, Lisa (2002). American Signs: Form and Meaning on Route 66. New York: The Monacelli Press. ISBN 9781580931199 .
Rittenhouse, Jack D. (1989) [1946]. A Guide Book to Highway 66. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-8263-1148-2 .
Schneider, Jill (1991). Route 66 Across New Mexico: A Wanderer's Guide. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-8263-1280-2 .
Scott, Quinta; Kelly, Susan Croce (1988). Route 66: A Highway and Its People. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-2291-9 .
Wallis, Michael (2001). Route 66: The Mother Road. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-28167-6 .
External links[edit source | editbeta ]
[show]
U.S. Routes related to US 66
Ulster Scots people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ulster Scots John Ballance.jpg1st Earl Cairns.jpgFrancis Hutcheson.gifLord Kelvin photograph.jpg
DrIanPaisley.jpg
John Ballance · Earl Cairns · Francis Hutcheson · Lord Kelvin · Ian Paisley
Total population
Ulster Scots
6.53 million
(including people of Ulster-Scots descent worldwide)
Regions with significant populations
United States 3,570,427 [1]
Ulster 350,000-450,000
United Kingdom 100,000-250,000
Canada 100,000-200,000
Ireland 85,000-100,000
Australia 70,000-90,000
South Africa 65,000-85,000
New Zealand 10,000-30,000
Languages
English · Ulster Scots · Scots · Irish
Religion
Protestant - Presbyterianism · Church of Ireland · Methodist Church in Ireland
Related ethnic groups
Scottish · Irish · Welsh · English
Ulster Scots are an ethnic group in Ireland, descended from Lowland Scots and English from the border of those two countries, many from the "Border Reivers" culture. These people first began to occupy Ireland in large numbers with the Plantation of Ulster, a planned process of colonization which took place under the auspices of James VI of Scotland and I of England on land confiscated from the Irish nobility, most extensively in the Province of Ulster. The term "Ulster-Scots" refers to both these colonists of the 17th century and, less commonly, to the Gallowglass who began to arrive from what is now northwest Scotland centuries earlier.
Ulster-Scots were largely descended from colonists from Galloway, Ayrshire, and the Scottish Borders Country, although some descend from people further north in the Scottish Lowlands and the Highlands. Ulster-Scots emigrated in significant numbers to the United States and all corners of the then-worldwide British Empire — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa — and to a lesser extent to Argentina and Chile in South America. Scotch-Irish is a traditional term for Ulster Scots who later emigrated to what is now the United States; "Scots-Irish" is a more recent form of the American term[2], and is not to be confused with Irish-Scots, i.e., recent Irish immigrants to Scotland.
[edit] History
[edit] Early development
Provincial flag of Ulster.
Although population movement of Gaels to and from the northeast of Ireland and the west of Scotland had been on-going since pre-historic times, a class of warriors from the west of what is now Scotland fought in significant numbers as mercenaries for Irish kings from the mid-13th century to the end of the 16th century. These were known as gallowglass, from the Irish for "foreign gaels", referring to their mixed Norse and Gaelic heritage. Many settled in Ireland at the conclusion of their service. The next major influx of Scots was a concentrated migration of Lowland Scots to Ulster, mainly during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The first major influx of border English and Lowland Scots into Ulster came in the first two decades of the 17th century. Starting in 1609, Scots began arriving into state-sponsored settlements as part of the Plantation of Ulster. This scheme was intended to confiscate all the lands of the Gaelic Irish nobility in Ulster and to settle the province with Protestant English and Scottish colonists. Under this scheme, a substantial number of Scots were settled, mostly in the south and west of Ulster, on confiscated land.
At the same time, there was an independent Scottish settlement in the east of the province, which had not been affected by the terms of the plantation. In east Down and Antrim, Scottish migration was led by James Hamilton and Sir Hugh Montgomery, two Ayrshire lairds. This started in May 1606 and was followed in 1610.
During the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the native Irish gentry attempted to expel the English and Scottish settlers, resulting in severe violence, massacres and ultimately leading to the deaths of between four and six thousand settlers over the winter of 1641-42.[3] Native Irish civilians were massacred in kind.[4]
The Ulster-Scottish population in Ireland was further augmented during the subsequent Irish Confederate Wars, when a Scottish Covenanter army was landed in the province to protect the Ulster-Scottish settlers from native Irish landowners. After the war was over, many of their soldiers settled permanently in eastern Ulster.[5] The war itself, part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, ended in the 1650s, with the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. At the head of the army, Oliver Cromwell re-conquered Ireland. Defeating the native Irish forces on behalf of the English Commonwealth, he and his forces employed methods and inflicted casualties among the civilian Irish population that were long commonly considered by historians and the popular culture to be outside of the accepted military ethics of the day (see more on the debate here). Under the Act of Settlement 1652, all Catholic-owned land was confiscated and the Plantations, which had been destroyed by the rebellion of 1641, were restored. However, due to the Scots' enmity to the English Parliament in the final stages of the English Civil War, English settlers rather than Scots were the main beneficiary of this scheme.
There was a generation of calm in Ireland until another war broke out in 1689, again due to political conflict closely aligned with ethnic and religious differences. The Williamite war in Ireland (1689–91) was fought between Jacobites who supported the restoration of the Catholic James II to the throne of England and Williamites who supported the Protestant William of Orange. The Protestant Ulster community, including the Scots, fought on the Williamite side in the war against Irish Catholics and their French allies. The fear of a repeat of the massacres of 1641, religious persecution under a Catholic monarch, as well as their wish to hold onto lands which had been confiscated from Catholic landowners, were all principal motivating factors.
The Williamite forces, composed of British, Dutch and Danish armies as well as troops raised in Ulster, ended Jacobite resistance by 1691, confirming the Protestant monopoly on power in Ireland. Their victories at Derry, the Boyne and Aughrim are still commemorated by the Orange Order into the 21st century.
Finally, another major influx of Scots into northern Ireland occurred in the late 1690s, when tens of thousands of people fled a famine in Scotland to come to Ulster.[6]
It was only after the 1690s that Scottish settlers and their descendants, the majority of whom were Presbyterian, gained numeric superiority in Ulster. Along with Catholic Irish, they were legally disadvantaged by the Penal Laws, which gave full rights only to members of the state church (the Church of Ireland), who were mainly Anglo-Irish and converts or the descendants of English settlers. For this reason, up until the 19th century, there was considerable disharmony between Dissenters and the ruling Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. With the enforcement of Queen Anne's 1703 Test Act, which caused further discrimination against all who did not participate in the established church, considerable numbers of Ulster-Scots migrated to the colonies in British America throughout the 18th century.
Towards the end of the 18th century many Ulster-Scots Presbyterians ignored religious differences and, along with many Catholic Irish, joined the United Irishmen to participate in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in support of republican and egalitarian ideals.
[edit] 1800 - Present
[edit] Scotch-Irish / Ulster Scots
Just a few generations after arriving in Ulster, considerable numbers of Ulster-Scots emigrated to the North American colonies of Great Britain. Between 1717 and 1775, an estimated 200,000 migrated to what became the United States of America.[7] In the United States Census of 2000, 4.3 million Americans (1.5% of the population of the United States) claimed Scotch-Irish ancestry. The author Jim Webb suggests that the true number of people with some Scotch-Irish heritage in the United States is more in the region of 27 million[8][9][10]. Two possible reasons have been suggested[who?] for the disparity of the figures of the census and the estimation. Modern Americans with some Scotch-Irish heritage may quite often regard themselves as simply having either Irish ancestry (which 10.8% of Americans reported) or Scottish ancestry (reported by 4.9 million or 1.7% of the total population).[original research?]
[edit] Culture
Because of the large scale intermingling of the Ulster Scots population with the Irish, it is difficult to define distinct aspects of Ulster Scots that would distinguish it from either. An example of this being that the Ulster Scots Agency itself points to many of its cultural icons as being from either the Scottish lowlands or from Ireland.
[edit] Language
Ulster Scots, the local dialect of Lowland Scots, which has, since the 1980s, also been called 'Ullans', a portmanteau neologism popularized by the physician, amateur historian and politician Dr Ian Adamson[11], merging Ulster and Lallans - the Scots for Lowlands[12]- but also an acronym for "Ulster-Scots language in literature and native speech".[13]
[edit] Music
In music, there is believed to be[who?] a distinguishable line between the cultures of the native Irish and the Ulster-Scots living in Ireland. In Ireland the traditional music is focused around the 19th century 'session' or until the 1990s, 'kitchen session'. This is a regular meeting, often weekly, and is marked by informal arrangement of both musicians and audience, although Irish traditional music is one of the most influential types of music known to the modern world, and can be heard in some of the Ulster Scots music and in Country and Appalachian musics. Protestant Scottish traditional music is sometimes similar to Irish and Scottish Gaelic-centred music, in that it is usually informal. A popular example of Protestant Ulster-Scots musical events is the marching bands. Here a formal and organised structure is more obvious. Although they play less frequently, these bands meet regularly in community halls to tune their instruments and to practice popular tunes and songs. The strong Scottish Unionist roots of the Ulster-Scots musical scene is evident through the continuing celebrations during the Marching Season, which has caused much controversy in Northern Ireland[citation needed].
[edit] Intermingling and intermarriage in Ulster
A question that has been raised by many historians about the Ulster-Scots is the question of intermingling and more importantly, intermarriage between the native Irish and the incoming Scots. However others contest such claims.
Pádraig Ó Snodaigh, author of the book Hidden Ulster, Protestants and the Irish language, states that many of the settlers came from Gaelic speaking areas in Scotland and thus would have culturally meshed well with their new neighbours. Also he states that church records show that by 1716 close to ten percent of ministers in Ulster preached in Gaelic. He claims that such cultural and geographic affinity would have produced numerous conversions and also marriages.[14] In addition James G. Leyburn, author of The Scotch-Irish: A social history, quotes James Reid, a historian of the Irish Presbyterian Church in 1853, that when the marriage ban was lifted in 1610 that it was a "great joy to all parties". However Professor Leyburn examines both sides of the intermixture debate in Chapter 10 "Intermarriage with the Irish" where after examination of both viewpoints, ends the chapter by giving his own view of the matter:
"If one must give his verdict, the weight of evidence seems to be on the side of little intermixture. The Scotch-Irish, as they came to be known in America, were overwhelmingly Scottish in ancestry and Presbyterian in faith. To the extent that occasional intermarriage occurred, the Irish partner seems almost invariably to have been absorbed into the Presbyterian element."[15]
James Woodburn holds that the Scots and Irish "commonly intermarried".[16] The Handbook to the Ulster Question states how the English politicians were quite perturbed how the Scots were ready enough to intermarry with the Irish.[citation needed] Each of these authors have shown sufficient evidence in their claims.[opinion]
[edit] Hereditary disease
The North American ancestry of the X-linked form of the genetic disease, congenital nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, has been traced to Ulster Scots who came to Nova Scotia in 1761 on the ship Hopewell.[17]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
1. ^ 2009 American Community Survey
2. ^ The term has usually been Scotch-Irish in America, as evident in Merriam-Webster dictionaries, where the term Scotch-Irish is recorded from 1744, while Scots-Irish is not recorded until 1972. See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scotch-irish, and http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scots-irish
3. ^ Patrick Macrory, The Siege of Derry, Oxford University Press, 1980, pgs 97-98
4. ^ Jane Kenyon, Jane Ohlmeyer, The Civil Wars, A military History of England, Scotland and Ireland 1638-1660, p.74
5. ^ Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British, p. 562
6. ^ [1][2]
7. ^ Fischer, David Hackett, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America Oxford University Press, USA (March 14, 1989), pg. 606; Rouse, Parke Jr., The Great Wagon Road, Dietz Press, 2004, pg. 32, and Leyburn, James G., The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, Univ of NC Press, 1962, pg. 180.
8. ^ Why You Need To Know The Scotch-Irish
9. ^ Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America
10. ^ Scots-Irish By Alister McReynolds, writer and lecturer in Ulster-Scots studies
11. ^ Falconer G. (2006) The Scots Tradition in Ulster, Scottish studies review, Vol. 7, Nº 2. p.97
12. ^ Hickey R. (2004) A Sound Atlas of Irish English. Walter de Gruyter. p.156
13. ^ Tymoczko M. & Ireland C.A. (2003) Language and Tradition in Ireland: Continuities and Displacements, Univ of Massachusetts Press. p.159
14. ^ Padraigh O'Snodaigh. Hidden Ulster, Protestants and the Irish language, Lagan Press, Belfast (1995)
15. ^ Leyburn, James G. The Scotch-Irish, A social history University of North Carolina Press, (1962)
16. ^ Woodburn, James Barkley. 1915. The Ulster-Scot: His history and Religion. H. R. Allenson.
17. ^ Bichet et al, X-linked nephrogenic diabetes insipidus mutations in North America and the Hopewell hypothesis, J Clin Invest. 1993 September; 92(3): 1262–1268. doi: 10.1172/JCI116698 Unité de Recherche Clinique, Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
[edit] External links
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Bibliographic details for "Ulster Scots people"
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APA style
Ulster Scots people. (2010, November 18). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:26, January 5, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ulster_Scots_people&oldid=397456980
MLA style
Wikipedia contributors. "Ulster Scots people." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 18 Nov. 2010. Web. 5 Jan. 2011.
MHRA style
Wikipedia contributors, 'Ulster Scots people', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 18 November 2010, 07:08 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ulster_Scots_people&oldid=397456980> [accessed 5 January 2011]
Chicago style
Wikipedia contributors, "Ulster Scots people," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ulster_Scots_people&oldid=397456980 (accessed January 5, 2011).
CBE/CSE style
Wikipedia contributors. Ulster Scots people [Internet]. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia; 2010 Nov 18, 07:08 UTC [cited 2011 Jan 5]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ulster_Scots_people&oldid=397456980.
Bluebook style
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BibTeX entry
@misc{ wiki:xxx,
author = "Wikipedia",
title = "Ulster Scots people --- Wikipedia{,} The Free Encyclopedia",
year = "2010",
url = "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ulster_Scots_people&oldid=397456980",
note = "[Online; accessed 5-January-2011]"
}
When using the LaTeX package url (\usepackage{url} somewhere in the preamble), which tends to give much more nicely formatted web addresses, the following may be preferred:
@misc{ wiki:xxx,
author = "Wikipedia",
title = "Ulster Scots people --- Wikipedia{,} The Free Encyclopedia",
year = "2010",
url = "\url{http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ulster_Scots_people&oldid=397456980}",
note = "[Online; accessed 5-January-2011]"
}
Wikipedia talk pages
Markup
[[Ulster Scots people]] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ulster_Scots_people&oldid=397456980 this version])
Result
Ulster Scots people (this version)
Under the Beaming Stars
It had been an adventure for Dave and Lilly as they hitch-hiked across the south.
Last night they had camped out near a bill board after the traffic on their back road had died out.
They had been awoken by some military police at dawn with gruff voices and 45 pistols pointed at them. This anxiety was piled on the anxiety they had about getting kicked out of the town across the county. The MP's said get up and get out as they were on a military base.
Yesterday had been about usual for them. They had scrounged around and looked for money and food. It was a small town, like many they had passed through lately. They had stood on the town square trying to sell Bible pamphlets or veterans' lapel flags. It had been a bad day for bumming around. No one had offered to buy them a meal and the sales had garnered less than a dollar in change. About mid afternoon the town constable came and told them to move on or they would be arrested for loitering. They couldn't hitch in front of the man, so they began their long walk out of town.
At the edge of town was a small country store. Dave left his large and heavy back pack next to a tree outside. He and Lily went in to see how much of a meal they could buy for 85 cents.
They picked out some crackers and a pint of milk and went to the register to pay for it. Dave looked over his shoulder at the cashier who was giving them a hard and angry stare. Dave thought to himself that she must not like hippies. He gathered his back pack and he and Lily started walking toward the crossroads about two miles down the road. It was a national road and it would be much easier getting a long distance ride.
After about fifteen minutes of walking a county sheriff patrol car pulled over behind them. The officer got out and starting walking toward us. A few seconds later, the passenger door opened. It was the lady cashier from the store.
The lady was mad. She strutted up to Lily and said in a loud and angry voice, "Give to me what you stole." I started to say we didn't steal anything, but I caught myself as Lily reached into her big floppy purse and brought a can of tuna fish out. Lily started crying.
The officer said, "I should arrest you all for shop lifting. I don't want you around here so don't stop and keep walking till get out of my county."
The lady said, "You should've just told me that you were hungry." She slipped the can of tuna fish into her purse and got back into the patrol car. The officer got back in and briefly turned on his lights as he did a U turn and sped off the way they had come.
Dave did not really know if they had made it out of the county when they settled down that night. They used the light of the billboard to set up their small camp and to eat their meal of crackers and lukewarm milk.
The stretched out and their sleeping bag. After they had made love, Dave looked up at the stars at peace and in the glow of Lily. He felt like the luckiest guy a live and being there his could just reach out and touch the Holy Spirit of God radiating in the star beams.
The beams of light seemed like he could just reach out and grab one like a rope and shimmy his way up to Heaven and to touch the face of God.
Mine fire[edit source | editbeta ]
Main article: Centralia mine fire
A small part of the Centralia mine fire as it appeared after being exposed during an excavation in 1969.
In 1962, a fire started in a mine beneath the town and ultimately led to the town being abandoned.
There is some disagreement over the specific event which triggered the fire. David DeKok, after studying available local and state government documents and interviewing former borough council members, argues in Unseen Danger and its successor edition, Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire, that in May 1962, the Centralia Borough Council hired five members of the volunteer fire company to clean up the town landfill , located in an abandoned strip-mine pit next to the Odd Fellows Cemetery. This had been done prior to Memorial Day in previous years, when the landfill was in a different location. On May 27, 1962, the firefighters, as they had in the past, set the dump on fire and let it burn for some time. Unlike in previous years, however, the fire was not fully extinguished. An unsealed opening in the pit allowed the fire to enter the labyrinth of abandoned coal mines beneath Centralia.
Centralia area showing conditions after mine fire (as of 2008).
Joan Quigley argues in her 2007 book, The Day the Earth Caved In, that the fire had in fact started the previous day, when a trash hauler dumped hot ash or coal discarded from coal burners into the open trash pit. She noted that borough council minutes from June 4, 1962 referred to two fires at the dump, and that five firefighters had submitted bills for "fighting the fire at the landfill area". The borough, by law, was responsible for installing a fire-resistant clay barrier between each layer,[clarification needed ] but fell behind schedule, leaving the barrier incomplete. This allowed the hot coals to penetrate the vein of coal underneath the pit and light the subsequent subterranean fire.[6][7] Another theory of note is the Bast Theory. According to legend, the Bast Colliery coal fire of 1932 was never fully extinguished. In 1962, it reached the landfill area.[8]
In 1979, locals became aware of the scale of the problem when a gas-station owner and then mayor, John Coddington, inserted a dipstick into one of his underground tanks to check the fuel level. When he withdrew it, it seemed hot, so he lowered a thermometer down on a string and was shocked to discover that the temperature of the gasoline in the tank was 172 °F (77.8 °C ). Statewide attention to the fire began to increase, culminating in 1981 when a 12-year-old resident named Todd Domboski fell into a sinkhole 4 feet (1.2 m) wide by 150 feet (46 m) deep that suddenly opened beneath his feet in a backyard. His cousin, 14-year-old Eric Wolfgang, in pulling Todd out of the hole, saved Todd's life, as the plume of hot steam billowing from the hole was measured as containing a lethal level of carbon monoxide .[9]
In 1984, the U.S. Congress allocated more than $ 42 million for relocation efforts. Most of the residents accepted buyout offers and moved to the nearby communities of Mount Carmel and Ashland . A few families opted to stay despite warnings from Pennsylvania officials.[citation needed ]
In 1992, Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey invoked eminent domain on all properties in the borough, condemning all the buildings within. A subsequent legal effort by residents failed to have the decision reversed. In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service revoked Centralia's ZIP code, 17927.[3][10] In 2009, Governor Ed Rendell began the formal eviction of the remaining Centralia residents.[11]
The Centralia mine fire extended beneath the town of Byrnesville, Pennsylvania a few miles to the south and caused it to also be abandoned.[citation needed ]
Today[edit source | editbeta ]
Very few homes remain standing in Centralia; most of the abandoned buildings have been demolished by the Columbia County Redevelopment Authority, or reclaimed by nature. At a casual glance, the area now appears to be a field with many paved streets running through it. Some areas are being filled with new-growth forest. The remaining church in the borough, St. Mary's, holds weekly services on Sunday and has not yet been directly affected by the fire.[citation needed ] The town's four cemeteries—including one on the hilltop that has smoke rising around and out of it—are maintained in good condition.[citation needed ] There is also a notice board posted near Hammie Hill, about 500 yards from the cemetery, protesting the evictions and demanding former Governor Rendell intervene.
The only indications of the fire, which underlies some 400 acres (1.6 km2) spreading along four fronts, are low round metal steam vents in the south of the borough and several signs warning of underground fire, unstable ground, and carbon monoxide. Additional smoke and steam can be seen coming from an abandoned portion of Pennsylvania Route 61 , the area just behind the hilltop cemetery, and other cracks in the ground scattered about the area. Route 61 was repaired several times until its final closing. The current route was formerly a detour around the damaged portion during the repairs and became a permanent route in 1993; mounds of dirt were placed at both ends of the former route, effectively blocking the road. Pedestrian traffic is still possible due to a small opening about two feet wide at the north side of the road, but this is muddy and not accessible to the disabled. The underground fire is still burning and may continue to do so for 250 years.[12]
Prior to its demolition in September 2007, the last remaining house on Locust Avenue was notable for the five chimney-like support buttresses along each of two opposite sides of the house, where the house was supported by a row of adjacent buildings before it was demolished. Another house with similar buttresses was visible from the northern side of the cemetery, just north of the burning, partially subsumed hillside.[13]
Deep Underground, Miles of Hidden Wildfires Rage
By Dan Cray Friday, July 23, 2010
Ed Heffern / BLM Wyoming
Coal fires in the Powder River Basin of northeast Wyoming, along the Tongue River north of the town of Sheridan
Three blistering fires are blazing through Wyoming's scenic Powder River Basin, but firefighters aren't paying any attention. Other than a faint hint of acrid odors and a single ribbon of smoke rising from a tiny crack beyond the nearby Tongue River, a long look across the region's serene grassland shows no sign of trouble.
That's what makes the three infernos, and the toxins they spew, so sinister. Their flames are concealed deep underground, in coal seams and oxygen-rich fissures, which makes containment near impossible. Shielded from fire hoses and aerial assaults, the flames are chewing through coal seams 20 feet thick, spanning 22 acres. They're also belching greenhouse gases and contaminants, contributing to an out-of-sight, out-of-mind environmental hazard that extends far beyond Wyoming's borders. "Every coal basin in the world has fires sending up organic compounds that are not good for you," says Mark Engle, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who studies the Powder River Basin, "but unless you live close to them you probably never see them."
See TIME's photoessay "Wildfires Burn Across California."
A surprising number of us live close to them. According to a review by the Department of Interior's Office of Surface Mining Enforcement and Reclamation, more than 100 fires are burning beneath nine states, most of them in Colorado, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Utah and West Virginia. But geologists say many fires go unreported, driving the actual number of them closer to 200 across 21 states. Most have burned for years, if not decades. Pennsylvania's three dozen underground fires include America's most notorious subterranean blaze, a 48-year-old fire in Centralia, whose noxious emissions sickened residents and eventually prompted the federal government in the late 1980s and early '90s to evict homeowners and pay them a collective $40 million for what is now a virtual ghost town.
Internationally, thousands of underground coal fires are burning on every continent except Antarctica. Anupma Prakash, a University of Alaska at Fairbanks geologist who maps the fires, calls them "a worldwide catastrophe with no geographic territory, and if we don't take care of them they're going to take a toll on us." The problem is most acute in industrializing, coal-rich nations such as China, where underground fires are consuming at least 10 million tons of coal annually — and some estimates multiply that amount twentyfold. In India, 68 fires are burning beneath a 58-square-mile region of the Jhairia coalfield near Dhanbad, showering residents in airborne toxins. "Go there and within 24 hours you're spitting out mucous with coal particles," Prakash says. "It's bad, worse than any city, anywhere."
Quantifying the amount of pollution that underground fires create is as difficult as spotting them. The smoke escaping through vents contains carbon dioxide, methane, mercury and at least 40 toxic compounds — "a whole soup of nasty stuff," according to Glenn Stracher, a geologist at East Georgia College in Swainsboro, Ga., who studies the emissions. But that soup's ingredients vary from hour to hour, even vent to vent, and some of the gases also escape through adjacent soil. "It's not like the oil well in the Gulf, where you measure how much is coming out per unit of time," Stracher says. "Making calculations is a tricky business." He and other researchers readily admit that global coal fire emission estimates — 40 tons of mercury spewing into the atmosphere annually, and 3% of the world's annual CO2 emissions — are imprecise. But the negative implications for human health and global warming, they say, are clear.
See TIME's photoessay "American Inferno."
With that in mind, some countries are investigating whether snuffing the fires could help them earn carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol, and are stepping up prevention awareness. Though geologic records show evidence of underground coal fires dating to the Pleistocene era, modern-day coal fires are often an unintended side effect of mining operations that open coal seams to oxygen. Once exposed, the coal undergoes a chemical reaction that releases heat. In some climate conditions the coal spontaneously combusts. Otherwise, lightning, wildfires or an ill-placed spark can trigger the blaze. The flames rip inside the buried coal seams at temperatures exceeding 1,000°F, sometimes fed by oxygen trapped in the microscopic spaces between dirt particles. They're also assisted by a process known as subsidence: as the burning coal turns to ash, it causes the overlying ground to crack and collapse, supplying the fire with fresh air.
(See TIME's photoessay "Fire in the Heartland.")
Extinguishing a fire amounts to a frustrating, expensive version of whack-a-mole. "You put one down, then 300 feet later another one picks up," says Engle. Firefighters can dig up the burning coal or form a break around it, and they sometimes pump ignited seams with cryogenic liquids that absorb enough heat to prevent burning. But large coal deposits can span several miles at 90 feet deep and 100 feet thick, creating a honeycomb of pores that always leaves a few pockets of fire-fanning oxygen. That means the same fire can later reignite — and fighting underground fires doesn't come cheap. The U.S has already spent more than $1 billion battling underground coal fires, according to the Office of Surface Mining. Officials gave up hopes of dousing the extensive Centralia, Pa., fire because the job would have cost more than $600 million — and that was in 1983.
Less expensive alternatives are beginning to hit the market, from special heat-resistant grouts to a fire-smothering nitrogen foam, and other innovative solutions are on the way. "Look, tornadoes and earthquakes are here and gone," Stracher explains, "but these fires will burn for hundreds of years if we don't do something about them." It seems that where there's smoke there is indeed fire, whether we can see the hidden flames or not.
Read "Heightened Fire Danger Looms for Southwest."
Buy reprints of TIME's environment covers.
| !date | !user | !location | !storeUrl | !uploadDir | !toFilename | !backupdir | !origin |
| 16/01/2019 19:43:13 | bob | [[/|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
| 17/01/2019 19:35:53 | bob | [[/|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . | ok |
| 17/01/2019 19:56:01 | bob | [[/|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . | ok |
| 17/01/2019 20:41:46 | bob | [[/|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
| 18/01/2019 12:15:03 | bob | [[/|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . | ok |
| 18/01/2019 12:26:20 | bob | [[/|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . | ok |
| 18/01/2019 12:27:13 | bob | [[/|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . | ok |
| 18/01/2019 12:28:24 | bob | [[/|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
| 19/01/2019 11:47:57 | bob | [[/|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
| 20/01/2019 11:41:53 | bob | [[/|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/]] | [[store.cgi|http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/store.cgi]] | . | [[index.html | http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com/index.html]] | . |
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|''Name:''|UploadPlugin|
|''Description:''|Save to web a TiddlyWiki|
|''Version:''|4.1.3|
|''Date:''|Feb 24, 2008|
|''Source:''|http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#UploadPlugin|
|''Documentation:''|http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#UploadPluginDoc|
|''Author:''|BidiX (BidiX (at) bidix (dot) info)|
|''License:''|[[BSD open source license|http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#%5B%5BBSD%20open%20source%20license%5D%5D ]]|
|''~CoreVersion:''|2.2.0|
|''Requires:''|PasswordOptionPlugin|
***/
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version.extensions.UploadPlugin = {
major: 4, minor: 1, revision: 3,
date: new Date("Feb 24, 2008"),
source: 'http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#UploadPlugin',
author: 'BidiX (BidiX (at) bidix (dot) info',
coreVersion: '2.2.0'
};
//
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//
if (!window.bidix) window.bidix = {}; // bidix namespace
bidix.debugMode = false; // true to activate both in Plugin and UploadService
//
// Upload Macro
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config.macros.upload = {
// default values
defaultBackupDir: '', //no backup
defaultStoreScript: "store.php",
defaultToFilename: "index.html",
defaultUploadDir: ".",
authenticateUser: true // UploadService Authenticate User
};
config.macros.upload.label = {
promptOption: "Save and Upload this TiddlyWiki with UploadOptions",
promptParamMacro: "Save and Upload this TiddlyWiki in %0",
saveLabel: "save to web",
saveToDisk: "save to disk",
uploadLabel: "upload"
};
config.macros.upload.messages = {
noStoreUrl: "No store URL in parmeters or options",
usernameOrPasswordMissing: "Username or password missing"
};
config.macros.upload.handler = function(place,macroName,params) {
if (readOnly)
return;
var label;
if (document.location.toString().substr(0,4) == "http")
label = this.label.saveLabel;
else
label = this.label.uploadLabel;
var prompt;
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prompt = this.label.promptParamMacro.toString().format([this.destFile(params[0],
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prompt = this.label.promptOption;
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createTiddlyButton(place, label, prompt, function() {config.macros.upload.action(params);}, null, null, this.accessKey);
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config.macros.upload.action = function(params)
{
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if (!params) params = {};
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var backupDir = params[2] ? params[2] : config.options.txtUploadBackupDir;
var uploadDir = params[3] ? params[3] : config.options.txtUploadDir;
var username = params[4] ? params[4] : config.options.txtUploadUserName;
var password = config.options.pasUploadPassword; // for security reason no password as macro parameter
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if (!storeUrl) {
alert(config.macros.upload.messages.noStoreUrl);
clearMessage();
return false;
}
if (config.macros.upload.authenticateUser && (!username || !password)) {
alert(config.macros.upload.messages.usernameOrPasswordMissing);
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}
bidix.upload.uploadChanges(false,null,storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir, username, password);
return false;
};
config.macros.upload.destFile = function(storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir)
{
if (!storeUrl)
return null;
var dest = bidix.dirname(storeUrl);
if (uploadDir && uploadDir != '.')
dest = dest + '/' + uploadDir;
dest = dest + '/' + toFilename;
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// uploadOptions Macro
//
config.macros.uploadOptions = {
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var wizard = new Wizard();
wizard.createWizard(place,this.wizardTitle);
wizard.addStep(this.step1Title,this.step1Html);
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wizard.setValue("listWrapper",listWrapper);
this.refreshOptions(listWrapper,false);
var uploadCaption;
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uploadCaption = config.macros.upload.label.saveLabel;
else
uploadCaption = config.macros.upload.label.uploadLabel;
wizard.setButtons([
{caption: uploadCaption, tooltip: config.macros.upload.label.promptOption,
onClick: config.macros.upload.action},
{caption: this.cancelButton, tooltip: this.cancelButtonPrompt, onClick: this.onCancel}
]);
},
options: [
"txtUploadUserName",
"pasUploadPassword",
"txtUploadStoreUrl",
"txtUploadDir",
"txtUploadFilename",
"txtUploadBackupDir",
"chkUploadLog",
"txtUploadLogMaxLine"
],
refreshOptions: function(listWrapper) {
var opts = [];
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var opt = {};
opts.push();
opt.option = "";
n = this.options[i];
opt.name = n;
opt.lowlight = !config.optionsDesc[n];
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opts.push(opt);
}
var listview = ListView.create(listWrapper,opts,this.listViewTemplate);
for(n=0; n<opts.length; n++) {
var type = opts[n].name.substr(0,3);
var h = config.macros.option.types[type];
if (h && h.create) {
h.create(opts[n].colElements['option'],type,opts[n].name,opts[n].name,"no");
}
}
},
onCancel: function(e)
{
backstage.switchTab(null);
return false;
},
wizardTitle: "Upload with options",
step1Title: "These options are saved in cookies in your browser",
step1Html: "<input type='hidden' name='markList'></input><br>",
cancelButton: "Cancel",
cancelButtonPrompt: "Cancel prompt",
listViewTemplate: {
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{name: 'Name', field: 'name', title: "Name", type: 'String'}
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rowClasses: [
{className: 'lowlight', field: 'lowlight'}
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//
// upload functions
//
if (!bidix.upload) bidix.upload = {};
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//from saving
invalidFileError: "The original file '%0' does not appear to be a valid TiddlyWiki",
backupSaved: "Backup saved",
backupFailed: "Failed to upload backup file",
rssSaved: "RSS feed uploaded",
rssFailed: "Failed to upload RSS feed file",
emptySaved: "Empty template uploaded",
emptyFailed: "Failed to upload empty template file",
mainSaved: "Main TiddlyWiki file uploaded",
mainFailed: "Failed to upload main TiddlyWiki file. Your changes have not been saved",
//specific upload
loadOriginalHttpPostError: "Can't get original file",
aboutToSaveOnHttpPost: 'About to upload on %0 ...',
storePhpNotFound: "The store script '%0' was not found."
};
bidix.upload.uploadChanges = function(onlyIfDirty,tiddlers,storeUrl,toFilename,uploadDir,backupDir,username,password)
{
var callback = function(status,uploadParams,original,url,xhr) {
if (!status) {
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.loadOriginalHttpPostError);
return;
}
if (bidix.debugMode)
alert(original.substr(0,500)+"\n...");
// Locate the storeArea div's
var posDiv = locateStoreArea(original);
if((posDiv[0] == -1) || (posDiv[1] == -1)) {
alert(config.messages.invalidFileError.format([localPath]));
return;
}
bidix.upload.uploadRss(uploadParams,original,posDiv);
};
if(onlyIfDirty && !store.isDirty())
return;
clearMessage();
// save on localdisk ?
if (document.location.toString().substr(0,4) == "file") {
var path = document.location.toString();
var localPath = getLocalPath(path);
saveChanges();
}
// get original
var uploadParams = new Array(storeUrl,toFilename,uploadDir,backupDir,username,password);
var originalPath = document.location.toString();
// If url is a directory : add index.html
if (originalPath.charAt(originalPath.length-1) == "/")
originalPath = originalPath + "index.html";
var dest = config.macros.upload.destFile(storeUrl,toFilename,uploadDir);
var log = new bidix.UploadLog();
log.startUpload(storeUrl, dest, uploadDir, backupDir);
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.aboutToSaveOnHttpPost.format([dest]));
if (bidix.debugMode)
alert("about to execute Http - GET on "+originalPath);
var r = doHttp("GET",originalPath,null,null,username,password,callback,uploadParams,null);
if (typeof r == "string")
displayMessage(r);
return r;
};
bidix.upload.uploadRss = function(uploadParams,original,posDiv)
{
var callback = function(status,params,responseText,url,xhr) {
if(status) {
var destfile = responseText.substring(responseText.indexOf("destfile:")+9,responseText.indexOf("\n", responseText.indexOf("destfile:")));
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.rssSaved,bidix.dirname(url)+'/'+destfile);
bidix.upload.uploadMain(params[0],params[1],params[2]);
} else {
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.rssFailed);
}
};
// do uploadRss
if(config.options.chkGenerateAnRssFeed) {
var rssPath = uploadParams[1].substr(0,uploadParams[1].lastIndexOf(".")) + ".xml";
var rssUploadParams = new Array(uploadParams[0],rssPath,uploadParams[2],'',uploadParams[4],uploadParams[5]);
var rssString = generateRss();
// no UnicodeToUTF8 conversion needed when location is "file" !!!
if (document.location.toString().substr(0,4) != "file")
rssString = convertUnicodeToUTF8(rssString);
bidix.upload.httpUpload(rssUploadParams,rssString,callback,Array(uploadParams,original,posDiv));
} else {
bidix.upload.uploadMain(uploadParams,original,posDiv);
}
};
bidix.upload.uploadMain = function(uploadParams,original,posDiv)
{
var callback = function(status,params,responseText,url,xhr) {
var log = new bidix.UploadLog();
if(status) {
// if backupDir specified
if ((params[3]) && (responseText.indexOf("backupfile:") > -1)) {
var backupfile = responseText.substring(responseText.indexOf("backupfile:")+11,responseText.indexOf("\n", responseText.indexOf("backupfile:")));
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.backupSaved,bidix.dirname(url)+'/'+backupfile);
}
var destfile = responseText.substring(responseText.indexOf("destfile:")+9,responseText.indexOf("\n", responseText.indexOf("destfile:")));
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.mainSaved,bidix.dirname(url)+'/'+destfile);
store.setDirty(false);
log.endUpload("ok");
} else {
alert(bidix.upload.messages.mainFailed);
displayMessage(bidix.upload.messages.mainFailed);
log.endUpload("failed");
}
};
// do uploadMain
var revised = bidix.upload.updateOriginal(original,posDiv);
bidix.upload.httpUpload(uploadParams,revised,callback,uploadParams);
};
bidix.upload.httpUpload = function(uploadParams,data,callback,params)
{
var localCallback = function(status,params,responseText,url,xhr) {
url = (url.indexOf("nocache=") < 0 ? url : url.substring(0,url.indexOf("nocache=")-1));
if (xhr.status == 404)
alert(bidix.upload.messages.storePhpNotFound.format([url]));
if ((bidix.debugMode) || (responseText.indexOf("Debug mode") >= 0 )) {
alert(responseText);
if (responseText.indexOf("Debug mode") >= 0 )
responseText = responseText.substring(responseText.indexOf("\n\n")+2);
} else if (responseText.charAt(0) != '0')
alert(responseText);
if (responseText.charAt(0) != '0')
status = null;
callback(status,params,responseText,url,xhr);
};
// do httpUpload
var boundary = "---------------------------"+"AaB03x";
var uploadFormName = "UploadPlugin";
// compose headers data
var sheader = "";
sheader += "--" + boundary + "\r\nContent-disposition: form-data; name=\"";
sheader += uploadFormName +"\"\r\n\r\n";
sheader += "backupDir="+uploadParams[3] +
";user=" + uploadParams[4] +
";password=" + uploadParams[5] +
";uploaddir=" + uploadParams[2];
if (bidix.debugMode)
sheader += ";debug=1";
sheader += ";;\r\n";
sheader += "\r\n" + "--" + boundary + "\r\n";
sheader += "Content-disposition: form-data; name=\"userfile\"; filename=\""+uploadParams[1]+"\"\r\n";
sheader += "Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8" + "\r\n";
sheader += "Content-Length: " + data.length + "\r\n\r\n";
// compose trailer data
var strailer = new String();
strailer = "\r\n--" + boundary + "--\r\n";
data = sheader + data + strailer;
if (bidix.debugMode) alert("about to execute Http - POST on "+uploadParams[0]+"\n with \n"+data.substr(0,500)+ " ... ");
var r = doHttp("POST",uploadParams[0],data,"multipart/form-data; ;charset=UTF-8; boundary="+boundary,uploadParams[4],uploadParams[5],localCallback,params,null);
if (typeof r == "string")
displayMessage(r);
return r;
};
// same as Saving's updateOriginal but without convertUnicodeToUTF8 calls
bidix.upload.updateOriginal = function(original, posDiv)
{
if (!posDiv)
posDiv = locateStoreArea(original);
if((posDiv[0] == -1) || (posDiv[1] == -1)) {
alert(config.messages.invalidFileError.format([localPath]));
return;
}
var revised = original.substr(0,posDiv[0] + startSaveArea.length) + "\n" +
store.allTiddlersAsHtml() + "\n" +
original.substr(posDiv[1]);
var newSiteTitle = getPageTitle().htmlEncode();
revised = revised.replaceChunk("<title"+">","</title"+">"," " + newSiteTitle + " ");
revised = updateMarkupBlock(revised,"PRE-HEAD","MarkupPreHead");
revised = updateMarkupBlock(revised,"POST-HEAD","MarkupPostHead");
revised = updateMarkupBlock(revised,"PRE-BODY","MarkupPreBody");
revised = updateMarkupBlock(revised,"POST-SCRIPT","MarkupPostBody");
return revised;
};
//
// UploadLog
//
// config.options.chkUploadLog :
// false : no logging
// true : logging
// config.options.txtUploadLogMaxLine :
// -1 : no limit
// 0 : no Log lines but UploadLog is still in place
// n : the last n lines are only kept
// NaN : no limit (-1)
bidix.UploadLog = function() {
if (!config.options.chkUploadLog)
return; // this.tiddler = null
this.tiddler = store.getTiddler("UploadLog");
if (!this.tiddler) {
this.tiddler = new Tiddler();
this.tiddler.title = "UploadLog";
this.tiddler.text = "| !date | !user | !location | !storeUrl | !uploadDir | !toFilename | !backupdir | !origin |";
this.tiddler.created = new Date();
this.tiddler.modifier = config.options.txtUserName;
this.tiddler.modified = new Date();
store.addTiddler(this.tiddler);
}
return this;
};
bidix.UploadLog.prototype.addText = function(text) {
if (!this.tiddler)
return;
// retrieve maxLine when we need it
var maxLine = parseInt(config.options.txtUploadLogMaxLine,10);
if (isNaN(maxLine))
maxLine = -1;
// add text
if (maxLine != 0)
this.tiddler.text = this.tiddler.text + text;
// Trunck to maxLine
if (maxLine >= 0) {
var textArray = this.tiddler.text.split('\n');
if (textArray.length > maxLine + 1)
textArray.splice(1,textArray.length-1-maxLine);
this.tiddler.text = textArray.join('\n');
}
// update tiddler fields
this.tiddler.modifier = config.options.txtUserName;
this.tiddler.modified = new Date();
store.addTiddler(this.tiddler);
// refresh and notifiy for immediate update
story.refreshTiddler(this.tiddler.title);
store.notify(this.tiddler.title, true);
};
bidix.UploadLog.prototype.startUpload = function(storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir) {
if (!this.tiddler)
return;
var now = new Date();
var text = "\n| ";
var filename = bidix.basename(document.location.toString());
if (!filename) filename = '/';
text += now.formatString("0DD/0MM/YYYY 0hh:0mm:0ss") +" | ";
text += config.options.txtUserName + " | ";
text += "[["+filename+"|"+location + "]] |";
text += " [[" + bidix.basename(storeUrl) + "|" + storeUrl + "]] | ";
text += uploadDir + " | ";
text += "[[" + bidix.basename(toFilename) + " | " +toFilename + "]] | ";
text += backupDir + " |";
this.addText(text);
};
bidix.UploadLog.prototype.endUpload = function(status) {
if (!this.tiddler)
return;
this.addText(" "+status+" |");
};
//
// Utilities
//
bidix.checkPlugin = function(plugin, major, minor, revision) {
var ext = version.extensions[plugin];
if (!
(ext &&
((ext.major > major) ||
((ext.major == major) && (ext.minor > minor)) ||
((ext.major == major) && (ext.minor == minor) && (ext.revision >= revision))))) {
// write error in PluginManager
if (pluginInfo)
pluginInfo.log.push("Requires " + plugin + " " + major + "." + minor + "." + revision);
eval(plugin); // generate an error : "Error: ReferenceError: xxxx is not defined"
}
};
bidix.dirname = function(filePath) {
if (!filePath)
return;
var lastpos;
if ((lastpos = filePath.lastIndexOf("/")) != -1) {
return filePath.substring(0, lastpos);
} else {
return filePath.substring(0, filePath.lastIndexOf("\\"));
}
};
bidix.basename = function(filePath) {
if (!filePath)
return;
var lastpos;
if ((lastpos = filePath.lastIndexOf("#")) != -1)
filePath = filePath.substring(0, lastpos);
if ((lastpos = filePath.lastIndexOf("/")) != -1) {
return filePath.substring(lastpos + 1);
} else
return filePath.substring(filePath.lastIndexOf("\\")+1);
};
bidix.initOption = function(name,value) {
if (!config.options[name])
config.options[name] = value;
};
//
// Initializations
//
// require PasswordOptionPlugin 1.0.1 or better
bidix.checkPlugin("PasswordOptionPlugin", 1, 0, 1);
// styleSheet
setStylesheet('.txtUploadStoreUrl, .txtUploadBackupDir, .txtUploadDir {width: 22em;}',"uploadPluginStyles");
//optionsDesc
merge(config.optionsDesc,{
txtUploadStoreUrl: "Url of the UploadService script (default: store.php)",
txtUploadFilename: "Filename of the uploaded file (default: in index.html)",
txtUploadDir: "Relative Directory where to store the file (default: . (downloadService directory))",
txtUploadBackupDir: "Relative Directory where to backup the file. If empty no backup. (default: ''(empty))",
txtUploadUserName: "Upload Username",
pasUploadPassword: "Upload Password",
chkUploadLog: "do Logging in UploadLog (default: true)",
txtUploadLogMaxLine: "Maximum of lines in UploadLog (default: 10)"
});
// Options Initializations
bidix.initOption('txtUploadStoreUrl','');
bidix.initOption('txtUploadFilename','');
bidix.initOption('txtUploadDir','');
bidix.initOption('txtUploadBackupDir','');
bidix.initOption('txtUploadUserName','');
bidix.initOption('pasUploadPassword','');
bidix.initOption('chkUploadLog',true);
bidix.initOption('txtUploadLogMaxLine','10');
// Backstage
merge(config.tasks,{
uploadOptions: {text: "upload", tooltip: "Change UploadOptions and Upload", content: '<<uploadOptions>>'}
});
config.backstageTasks.push("uploadOptions");
//}}}
Mystery Monday: Van Lear's Coal Mining Ghosts
Posted: Feb 25, 2013 7:33 PM
Updated: Feb 25, 2013 7:53 PM
Mystery Monday: Van Lear's Coal Mining Ghosts
Throughout the years, stories have filled the small communities of coal mining towns in Eastern Kentucky, whose lifeblood has always been the coal industry.
But a different story fills the air in Van Lear, a small community tucked away in Johnson County.
In Van Lear along the stretch of the road sits a museum. A place that houses a part of this community's history. But between the walls, you'll find something else... a ghost story.
"We hear walking all the time, we hear talking all the time. I've seen full-body apparitions," said Tina Webb, a museum volunteer.
The people who work at the coal miner's museum say they have no doubt spooks and specters are permanent visitors.
"It feels like a hand, and it grabs a hold of your arm" Webb said.
Webb said she has seen her share of strange happenings over the years.
"I've seen a man and he had a ball-cap on and he was just standing in our kitchen," she said.
Webb claims to have seen and heard so many strange things that she called up paranormal investigator Joe Clark.
"This by far is the most haunted place I've ever investigated," Clark said.
And Clark says he has the evidence to prove it.
"When we zoomed in on the photo there was an actual face of a man in the curtain over there," he said.
Why so haunted? This museum isn't just a tribute to the town's past, it was a major pat of it.
This museum was once the center of the city - when it was a prospering coal town. The whole community would walk right through these doors to see their boss, visit the doctor, or even buy something.
"Cause it had the post office and the bank. The doctor, dentist, barber, city offices, jail, masonic lodge, all the engineers for the mines," Webb said.
Clark suspects this once-busy town-center still houses the spirits of many who walked through these doorways.
"We always ask how many spirits are here, how many people are here, we always get different numbers... which kind of makes me believe this place is a portal," he said. "I don't know, maybe spirits come and go, I'm not sure."
That's why Clark continues to investigate the museum and why Tina Webb sometimes feels like an uninvited guest in her own museum.
"The only time that I back away is if I'm here by myself at night," Webb said.
http://www.unique-design.net/library/word/comic/logic.htm
i
Weston State Hospital
Kim Jacks
Thesis submitted to the
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
at West Virginia University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Arts
in
History
Committee:
Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, Ph.D., Chair
Ronald Lewis, Ph.D.
Kenneth Fones-Wolf, Ph.D.
Department of History
Morgantown, West Virginia
2008
Keywords: Weston State Hospital; mental institutions, history; West Virginia
Hospital for the Insane; Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
ii
ABSTRACT
Weston State Hospital
Kim Jacks
Weston State Hospital was a major mental institution in Weston, West Virginia. This
study traces the history of the hospital from its construction in the 1860s to its closing in
1994. It was established as the Trans-Alle
gheny Lunatic Asylum, and then called the West
Virginia Hospital for the Insane from 1863 to 1915. The building was designed following
the Kirkbride plan, which would allow for a pleasant and orderly place of refuge for 250
patients. Gradual overcrowding led to its becoming a custodial facility for over 2300
patients by the 1950s. This study examines the management of the institution, the daily life
of both patients and employees, and the methods of treatment offered, from gentle “moral
treatment” to hydrotherapy, electric shock, lobotomy, and psychotropic medications. The
effects of deinstitutionalization are discussed, including the numbers of mentally ill now
among the homeless or held in jails and prisons.
What The Hell Are Swamp People?
Jun. 17, 2011
By Brad Pike info
Remember when the History Channel was about, um, history? And by history, I mean Hitler? Well, over time, it’s shifted its programming lineup to focus on the cultural dissection and investigation of “redneck”/ rural/ blue collar people. There’s Ice Road Truckers, Mounted in Alaska (about taxidermy), American Pickers (guys who scour hoarders’ stockpiles for valuables), UFO Hunters, Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy, and about thirty different shows about Jesus, the Rapture, and scientifically proving the Bible. Now, the History Channel brings us…Swamp People. You asked for it, America! You wanted to see dentally handicapped, incoherent, poverty stricken Cajuns zooming around the bayou, hunting gators, and now you have it!
One episode starts off with Willie searching for a giant alligator he spotted briefly surface. Our hero is missing a front tooth, needs subtitles to be understood, and scans the swamp with a rapacious hunger for gator murder. The narrator informs us, “A gator this size will make his reputation on bayou.” I imagine the conversation:
“Hey did you hear about the gator Willie caught? 12 feet long!”
“12 feet long?!”
“Yeah, and 500 pounds!”
“Who helped him bring it in?”
“No one. He hauled it in by himself!
“Oh my God, I must blow this sexy swamp man!”
Eventually Willie catches the gator by hanging bait from a tree branch, suspending it just above the water’s surface. The gator thrashes, writhes, and snaps furiously on the line as Willie extends his tender hand flesh right up next to its jaws to pull him close to the boat. Perhaps no one told him that alligators have the strongest laboratory measured bite of any living animal. He then draws out an old pistol, aims point blank at the gator’s face, and blows its fucking brains out. This is in slow motion. Baaaaaaaam! The water turns red with blood around the gator’s head, its powerful body now 500 pounds of raw seafood. This scene is repeated over and over throughout the show—a gun fired directly into a gator’s face in slow motion. All swamp people do all day long is shoot gators’s faces.
I remember Steve Irwin would catch crocodiles and alligators with his bare hands, and then he’d turn to the camera, still holding the gator, and say something like, “These beautiful creatures are under threat from hunters and habitat degradation. I believe we need to do what we can to preserve them.” Cut to Swamp People—shot in the face in slow motion. Again. And again. And again. I know alligators aren’t endangered, but it’s only been a few decades since they dropped off the endangered species list in 1987. After watching swamp people shoot alligator after alligator, I started wondering if this practice could possibly be environmentally sustainable. I love alligators. They smile all the time, and sometimes they lumber out onto golf courses and devour rich old people. Nom nom nom. Watching them get shot in the face by swamp people is disheartening to me on some level.
After one kill shot, a hunter named RJ said, “He thought he was smart. He thought he was slick. But we outslicked him.” First of all, an alligator’s brain is the size of an acorn. If you can’t outsmart a creature that dumb, how can you even turn doorknobs or button your shirt (if you wore anything other than overalls, that is)? Second of all, you have advanced technology in the form of 22 rifles while the alligator can only wriggle helplessly on the end of a line. Third of all, why “outslicked” when “outsmarted” was just within your grasp? If you’re slick, it’s only due to accumulated oils, perspiration, and mayonnaise residue.
One of the subplots revolves around a man named Terral, wandering the wilderness with a crossbow, hunting a giant killer pig he’s named Big Wooly. He’s covered his whole body with leaves for camouflage and stalks slowly through the thick foliage. “This is the Moby Dick of the pig world,” he says to the camera. I cannot make this shit up. The narrator tells me feral hogs have 30 different diseases, attack humans on sight, breed like rabbits, and, because of their thick sinewy hides, are extremely difficult to kill. At any moment, the monster hog could lunge out and attack Terral—or hell, he could gore the cameraman to death for that matter. “If that bitch comes out, I’m gonna give her some of this,” says Terral, gesturing to his weapon (the rifle, you pervert). The narrator says Terral has been hunting this legendary hog for two years. That seems like a questionable use of two years of a person’s life, but who am I to judge? I’m wasting a whole hour of my time on a show about swamp people.
Finally, Terral spots Big Wooly surrounded by her brood of demon piglets from his perch in a tree overhead. Wow, two years of hunting, and that conceited bitch sure showed up quickly once the TV cameras came around. He shoots it, but it flees into the swamp, slowly bleeding to death. At this point, he hops down to the ground, switches to a crossbow, and tracks the dying hog by its footprints and trampled undergrowth. Silence. Then the ominous sound of oinking. “What the fuck was that?” he shouts in terror. I imagine the cameraman saying, “Alright, let’s go down the list. Cow go moo. Chicken go bock bock. Horsy go nay. SHIT WHAT GOES OINK I’M SO SCARED RIGHT NOW.” A few minutes later, they discover Big Wooly’s fat dead body up against a tree stump. By Terral’s expression, it’s clear in the long war between mankind and pigkind, mankind has won a major victory.
Swamp People depicts human beings fighting to control nature either by murdering gators that destroy expensive crawfish traps or trimming the populations of invasive species like feral hogs. For these thankless jobs, their lives are harsh, exhausting, and generally unhygienic. Their equipment is old and rusty. The swamp is an ever shifting labyrinth. Every transition uses b-roll of some other awful thing in the swamp: a snake slithering through the water, a spider devouring a fly, an alligator’s watchful eye just above the water’s surface. All I can think is: this place is a fucking swamp infested with mosquitoes and giant bloodthirsty reptiles! You have televisions! You can see you don’t have to live this way! Get out of there! But they’re happy living in the bayou, shooting gators’ faces despite all the hardships. There’s a lesson there about contentment maybe, but on the other hand, there’s a more important one about brushing your teeth and going to college. TC mark
Why Poverty Is Like a Disease — Nautilus — Pocket
getpocket.com
On paper alone you would never guess that I grew up poor and hungry.
My most recent annual salary was over $700,000. I am a Truman National Security Fellow and a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations. My publisher has just released my latest book series on quantitative finance in worldwide distribution.
None of it feels like enough. I feel as though I am wired for a permanent state of fight or flight, waiting for the other shoe to drop, or the metaphorical week when I don’t eat. I’ve chosen not to have children, partly because—despite any success—I still don’t feel I have a safety net. I have a huge minimum checking account balance in mind before I would ever consider having children. If you knew me personally, you might get glimpses of stress, self-doubt, anxiety, and depression. And you might hear about Tennessee.
Meet anyone from Tennessee and they will never say they are from “just” Tennessee. They’ll add a prefix: East, West, or Middle. My early life was in East Tennessee, in an Appalachian town called Rockwood. I was the eldest of four children with a household income that couldn’t support one. Every Pentecostal church in the surrounding hillbilly heroin country smelled the same: a sweaty mix of cheap cleaner and even cheaper anointing oil, with just a hint of forsaken hope. One of those forsaken churches was effectively my childhood home, and my school.
direct?resize=w2000&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsta
Schoolhouse: The Front St. Pentecostal Church in Rockwood, Tennessee. It was where I went to school, and the center of my daily life.
Class was a single room of 20 people running from kindergarten through twelfth grade, part of an unaccredited school practicing what’s called Accelerated Christian Education. We were given booklets to read to ourselves, by ourselves. We scored our own homework. There were no lectures, and I did not have a teacher. Once in a while the preacher’s wife would hand out a test. We weren’t allowed to do anything. There were no movies, and no music. Years would pass with no distinguishing features, no events. There was barely any socializing.
On top of it all, I spent a lot of my time pondering basic questions. Where will my next meal come from? Will I have electricity tomorrow? I became intimately acquainted with the embarrassment of my mom trying to hide our food stamps at the grocery store checkout. I remember panic setting in as early as age 8, at the prospect of a perpetual uncertainty about everything in life, from food to clothes to education. I knew that the life I was living couldn’t be normal. Something was wrong with the tiny microcosm I was born into. I just wasn’t sure what it was.
As an adult I thought I’d figured that out. I’d always thought my upbringing had made me wary and cautious, in a “lessons learned” kind of way. Over the past decades, though, that narrative has evolved. We’ve learned that the stresses associated with poverty have the potential to change our biology in ways we hadn’t imagined. It can reduce the surface area of your brain, shorten your telomeres and lifespan, increase your chances of obesity, and make you more likely to take outsized risks.
Now, new evidence is emerging suggesting the changes can go even deeper—to how our bodies assemble themselves, shifting the types of cells that they are made from, and maybe even how our genetic code is expressed, playing with it like a Rubik’s cube thrown into a running washing machine. If this science holds up, it means that poverty is more than just a socioeconomic condition. It is a collection of related symptoms that are preventable, treatable—and even inheritable. In other words, the effects of poverty begin to look very much like the symptoms of a disease.
That word—disease—carries a stigma with it. By using it here, I don’t mean that the poor are (that I am) inferior or compromised. I mean that the poor are afflicted, and told by the rest of the world that their condition is a necessary, temporary, and even positive part of modern capitalism. We tell the poor that they have the chance to escape if they just work hard enough; that we are all equally invested in a system that doles out rewards and punishments in equal measure. We point at the rare rags-to-riches stories like my own, which seem to play into the standard meritocracy template.
But merit has little to do with how I got out.
We may not remember 1834 as a banner year, but it was in the field of organic chemistry. It was then that chemists Jean-Baptiste Dumas and Eugène Péligot distilled and analyzed a clear liquid—what they called methylene, and what we’d call methanol today—from softly heated wood chips. At its heart was a methyl group, consisting of one carbon atom bound to three hydrogen atoms. As it would turn out 150 years later, methyl groups play a critical role in gene expression.
In the fall of 1991, Aharon Razin and Howard Cedar published the extraordinary paper “DNA Methylation and Gene Expression,” which showed that gene expression works much like a snake tightly coiled around the Rod of Asclepius.1 Perched atop the indissoluble warp and weft of our genetic code are methyl groups that control how tightly our genetic code wraps around special proteins, called histone proteins. The tighter a portion of code is wrapped, the less likely it is to have any effect (or in the jargon, the less likely it “gets expressed”). This, we now know, is one pillar of the mechanism of the epigenome: Who you are as a person is not just defined by your DNA, but by which parts of it your epigenome permits to be expressed.
Six years later, Michael Meaney, a professor at McGill University specializing in the biology of stress, published a breakthrough result together with his colleagues: The quality of maternal care alters the epigenome in rats, affecting glucocorticoid stress receptors in the hippocampus as well as the response of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis to stress.2 Similar effects were later found in zebra finches which, like humans, are socially monogamous and involve both parents in raising offspring. Messenger-RNA levels of glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors were reduced in maternally deprived birds, which made stress hormones remain elevated in adult finches for longer periods of time. The researchers wrote that epigenetic mechanisms could be responsible for the changes, but they did not prove them to be.3
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Alternative housing: This home, consisting of a plywood attachment to a trailer, is made possible by equal doses of ingenuity and lax housing laws.
In human children, epigenetic changes in stress receptor gene expression that lead to heightened stress responses and mood disorders have been measured in response to childhood abuse.4 And last year, researchers at Duke University found that “lower socioeconomic status during adolescence is associated with an increase in methylation of the proximal promoter of the serotonin transporter gene,” which primes the amygdala—the brain’s center for emotion and fear—for “threat-related amygdala reactivity.”5 While there may be some advantages to being primed to experience high levels of stress (learning under stress, for example, may be accelerated6), the basic message of these studies is consistent: Chronic stress and uncertainty during childhood makes stress more difficult to deal with as an adult.
From one perspective, epigenetics offers a compelling narrative of life experiences feeding back directly onto the basic programming that makes us who we are. But the field also has some foundational controversies. In June of last year, a team of researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bristol University, and the European Bioinformatics Institute published a paper arguing that the field is plagued with misinterpreted results. The sources of misinterpretation included confusing cause and effect (diseases can produce epigenetic markers as well as the other way around); spurious and misinterpreted statistics; confounding variables which cause apparent correlations; and a large variability among the epigenomes of individual cells, which is usually not controlled for in experiments.
John Greally, one of the study’s co-authors, argues that some of the landmark results in the field, including Meaney’s, have suffered from these problems. “At the time [of Meaney’s study],” he explains, “the idea was that if I see something like a DNA methylation change, in cells of either the rats that didn’t get licked by their mothers, or the kids from the lower socio-economic group, or whatever it might be, then I’m learning how we’re reprogrammed as a response to that environmental condition.” But the measurement of DNA methylation explains more than whether a cell has been reprogrammed or not. It is also related to the proportions of cell subtypes, each with different epigenomes, that are present in the subjects being compared. Greally and his co-authors call this the meta-epigenome.
But Greally also points out that, even if the molecular mechanism is a shift in cell subtypes rather than cellular reprogramming through methylation, there is still an interesting conversation to be had. “Even if you find that there’s a change in the proportion of say, cell subtype proportions in the peripheral blood, and it’s associated with a condition like low socio-economic status or something like that, that’s actually a pretty interesting finding,” he says. “It kind of gets back to the issue of how you define epigenetics.” It may be possible that shifts in cell subtypes are inheritable, even though they do not involve a reprogramming of a cell through methylation. Tim Spector of King’s College in London, for example, has found DNA sequence variants associated with cell subtype variation.
The science of the biological effects of the stresses of poverty is in its early stages. Still, it has presented us with multiple mechanisms through which such effects could happen, and many of these admit an inheritable component. If a pregnant woman, for example, is exposed to the stresses of poverty, her fetus and that fetus’ gametes can both be affected, extending the effects of poverty to at least her grandchildren. And it could go further.
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Echo: Once a busy street and meeting place, Main St. in Rockwood suffered a deadly blow with the arrival of big-box retail.
Even at this stage, then, we can take a few things away from the science. First, that the stresses of being poor have a biological effect that can last a lifetime. Second, that there is evidence suggesting that these effects may be inheritable, whether it is through impact on the fetus, epigenetic effects, cell subtype effects, or something else.
This science challenges us to re-evaluate a cornerstone of American mythology, and of our social policies for the poor: the bootstrap. The story of the self-made, inspirational individual transcending his or her circumstances by sweat and hard work. A pillar of the framework of meritocracy, where rewards are supposedly justly distributed to those who deserve them most.
What kind of a bootstrap or merit-based game can we be left with if poverty cripples the contestants? Especially if it has intergenerational effects? The uglier converse of the bootstrap hypothesis—that those who fail to transcend their circumstances deserve them—makes even less sense in the face of the grim biology of poverty. When the firing gun goes off, the poor are well behind the start line. Despite my success, I certainly was.
So how did I get out? By chance.
It’s easy to attach a post-facto narrative of talent and hard work to my story, because that’s what we’re fed by everything from Hollywood to political stump speeches. But it’s the wrong story. My escape was made up of a series of incredibly unlikely events, none of which I had real control over.
At age 14, I’d had eight years of trying to teach myself using photocopied handouts, without textbooks, lesson plans, aids, or even a teacher. I was desperate to get out and terrified of winding up like the people I saw around me at the Christian compound. So, I picked up the phonebook and started dialing trade schools, colleges, anything and anyone that might give me a new option. Randomly, unexpectedly, I reached the president of the local community college, Sherry Hoppe. I was probably 12 years old the first time I met Hoppe and even at that age I could tell my story was not unique in her experience.
At that same college, I met Bruce Cantrell, a professor who wound up being like a father figure to me while I was navigating being 15 and poor. He grew up poor too but ultimately did well. We never actually talked about it but we just clicked. A few years later he ran for office and made me his campaign manager. We won and I got a priceless education in the reality of Roane County bare-knuckle politics. I’ll forever be grateful to Bruce and Sherry. With their help, I ultimately got my accredited college degree.
Did I show initiative? Sure. And there have been many people who have interpreted my escape from poverty as a confirmation of some foundational meritocracy that justifies the whole system. But the fact is hillbilly country is full of people just as desperate to get out as me, and taking just as inventive a set of measures. Yes, I am the exception that proves the rule—but that rule is that escape from poverty is a matter of chance, and not a matter of merit.
I have relatives and friends who are as bright and hard-working as I am, with roughly the same kind of educational path or better. But none of them made it out of poverty. One of them also got into community college, but not before he saw his drugged-up best friend kill himself. That proved to be a one-way ticket to a lifetime of emotional problems. Another was lucky enough to attend an accredited public school, learning far more there than I ever did in my Accelerated Christian Education. He ended up a heroin addict. They would not, as I did, find the path to graduation curiously free of obstacles. They would not become, as I did, head of a derivatives trading desk on Wall Street. They are not, as I am, writing about poverty. They are still living it. As of now, I can count around 20 friends and family who have checked out by handgun or heroin. I have no doubt I will add to that count this year.
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Salvaged: Glenn’s Auto Junkyard hasn’t experienced the decline of other local businesses.
Why do so few make it out of poverty? I can tell you from experience it is not because some have more merit than others. It is because being poor is a high-risk gamble. The asymmetry of outcomes for the poor is so enormous because it is so expensive to be poor. Imagine losing a job because your phone was cut off, or blowing off an exam because you spent the day in the ER dealing with something that preventative care would have avoided completely. Something as simple as that can spark a spiral of adversity almost impossible to recover from. The reality is that when you’re poor, if you make one mistake, you’re done. Everything becomes a sudden-death gamble.
Now imagine that, on top of that, your brain is wired to multiply the subjective experience of stress by 10. The result is a profound focus on short-term thinking. To those outsiders who, by fortune of birth, have never known the calculus of poverty, the poor seem to make sub-optimal decisions time and time again. But the choices made by the poor are supremely rational choices under the circumstances. Pondering optimal, long-term decisions is a liability when you have 48 hours of food left. Stress takes on a whole new meaning—and try as you might, it’s hard to shake.
The standard American myth of meritocracy misinterprets personal narratives like mine. The accumulated social capital of American institutions—stable transfer of power, rule of law, and entrepreneurship—certainly create economic miracles every day. But these institutions are far more suited to exponentially growing capital where it already exists, rather than creating new capital where society needs it. Stories such as mine are treated as the archetype, and we falsely believe they are the path to escape velocity for an entire segment of the population. In doing so, they leave that population behind. I am the face of the self-made rags-to-riches success story, and I’m here to say that story is a myth. The term “meritocracy” was coined in 1958 as a mockery of the very idea of evaluation by merit alone. We’ve forgotten to laugh, and the joke is on us.
It’s time for us to update our response to poverty to take into account the new science that describes it.
Take education. One of the strongest voices connecting the dots from poverty to performance in the classroom and economic struggles later in life is Harvard’s Roland G. Fryer. In their seminal work, “It May Not Take a Village: Increasing Achievement Among the Poor,” Fryer and his colleagues focused on closing the achievement gap between rich and poor through a mosaic of strategies, primarily at school.
But the standard bearer of the achievement gap—math performance—is a symptom and not a cause. When support from well-intended social programs that address things like test scores inevitably diminish or stop, their positive outcomes fail to persist and we grow skeptical about poverty alleviation as a whole. But academic achievement isn’t the real problem—it’s uncertainty and stress. When the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress finds no city in America where more than 25 percent of Black or Hispanic children in the eighth grade function at grade level in reading or math, do we blame our schools, or conclude that we lost the neurological arms race long before the children were tested?
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Uptick: Along with the junkyard and the convenience store, Peggy Ann’s is one of the few local businesses that has survived the downturn.
We should leverage the lessons of the science of poverty rather than ignore them. Poverty alleviation programs like conditional cash transfers, for example, reward parents or caregivers with direct payment for taking actions, like ensuring school attendance or arranging for preventative care. They encourage stress alleviation and long-term planning that is far upstream of doing well on an exam—they provide exactly the kind of certainty that the poverty-stricken brain needs. In a paper released in June of 2009, Lia Fernald and Megan Gunnar showed that such programs lowered salivary cortisol levels and reduced lifetime risk for a range of mental and physical disorders.12 There should be more programs like these: For example so-called whole-child policies, which focus on the long-term development of children starting from birth while reducing uncertainty during the first three years of childhood development.
Our new scientific understanding of the experience of poverty can also inform medical treatments later in life. In 2009, Michael Meaney, Gustavo Turecki, Moshe Szyf and colleagues took hippocampus samples from suicide victims with a history of childhood abuse and tested for DNA methylation controlling the expression of the gene NR3C1.4 They discovered an increased methylation around the NR3C1 promoter, which, in other studies, has been directly linked to a reduced expression of a protein called brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF). BDNF is among the most active neurotrophic factors, which drive the growth and development of new neurons even in adulthood. And the degree to which it is expressed may be inheritable. A 2015 study linked NR3C1 and reduced expression of BDNF in infants born to mothers who reported prenatal depressive symptoms.13
It may be that BDNF is your best friend if you are an adult and want to change your neurological wiring. It could open a pathway to change brain wiring in exactly those areas that are most damaged by early stress and poverty: the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and the entire chain of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system. Those areas of the brain govern long-term memory, emotional control, and delayed gratification; all markers of individuals that outperform in academic settings in youth and are higher earners in adulthood.14, 15 Low doses of ketamine have been shown to act as a rapid anti-depressant, and that impact is directly linked to increased levels of BDNF.16
I would consider trying this treatment myself. But that is not my primary interest in the science of poverty. My interest stems from something else: worrying about the future.
We stand at the precipice if we don’t re-evaluate our understanding of poverty and inequality. The narrative in the neo-liberal west is that if you work hard, things work out. If things don’t work out, we have the tendency to blame the victim, leaving them without any choices. Brexit, Le Pen, and the defeat of Hillary Clinton are examples of the cracks that result from inequality and poverty, symptoms of my childhood experience writ large. The Piketty pitchforks are out, and the march to global disorder can only be arrested by adopting measures that begin to price in the stacked deck that I and anyone else born into deep poverty sees, and resents.
I believe we will see the Italian Five Star Movement submit a referendum to leave the EU this year, and that Marine Le Pen has better than even odds of winning the French election. The EU is in danger of buckling under a globalist defeat and may exist in name only two years from now.
These trends are being accelerated by the blind belief that the poor have failed to seize the opportunities that the market or globalization has created. This myth deserves to be taken off life support—and the emerging, empirical, and carefully observed science of poverty can help us do so if we pay it the attention it deserves.
Christian H. Cooper is the former head of interest rate derivatives trading at an investment bank in New York City and is currently focused on raising a global macro fund. He is a Truman National Security Fellow and a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.
References
1. Razin, A. & Cedar, H. DNA methylation and gene expression. Microbiological Reviews 55, 451–458 (1991).
2. Liu, D., et al. Maternal care, hippocampal glucocorticoid receptors, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal responses to stress. Science 277, 1659–1662 (1997).
3. Banerjee, S.B., Arterbery, A.S., Fergus, D.J., & Adkins-Regan, E. Deprivation of maternal care has long-lasting consequences for the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis of zebra finches. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 279, 759–766 (2012).
4. McGowan, P.O., et al. Epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor in human brain associates with childhood abuse. Nature Neuroscience 12, 342–348 (2009).
5. Swartz, J.R., Hariri, A.R., & Williamson, D.E. An epigenetic mechanism links socioeconomic status to changes in depression-related brain function in high-risk adolescents. Molecular Psychiatry 22, 209–214 (2017).
6. Champagne, D.L., et al. Maternal care and hippocampal plasticity: Evidence for experience-dependent structural plasticity, altered synaptic functioning, and differential responsiveness to glucocorticoids and stress. Journal of Neuroscience 28, 6037–6045 (2008).
7. Lim, J.P. & Brunet, A. Bridging the transgenerational gap with epigenetic memory. Trends in Genetics 29, 176–186 (2013).
8. Dias, B.G. & Ressler, K.J. Prenatal olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations. Nature Neuroscience 17, 89–96 (2014).
9. Heijmans, B.T., et al. Persistent epigenetic differences associated with prenatal exposure to famine in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, 17046–17049 (2008).
10. Pembrey, M., Saffery, R., Bygren, L.O., & Network in Epigenetic Epidemiology. Human transgenerational responses to early-life experience: Potential impact on development, health and biomedical research. Journal of Medical Genetics 51, 563–572 (2014).
11. Pembrey, M.E., Bygren, L.O., & Golding, J. The nature of human transgenerational responses. In Jirtle, R.L. & Tyson, F.L. (Eds.) Environmental Epigenetics in Health and Disease Springer Publishing, New York, NY (2013).
12. Fernald, L.C.H. & Gunnar, M.R. Poverty-alleviation program participation and salivary cortisol in very low-income children. Social Science & Medicine 68, 2180–2189 (2009).
13. Braithwaite, E.C., Kundakovic, M., Ramchandani, P.G., Murphy, S.E., & Champagne, F.A. Maternal prenatal depressive symptoms predict infant NR3C1 1 F and BDNF IV DNA methylation. Epigenetics 10, 408–417 (2015).
14. Xu, X., et al. A significant association between BDNF promoter methylation and the risk of drug addiction. Gene 584, 54–59 (2016).
15. Kheirouri, S., Noorazar, S.G., Alizadeh, M., & Dana-Alamdari, L. Elevated brain-derived neurotrophic factor correlates negatively with severity and duration of major depressive episodes. Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology 29, 24–31 (2016).
16. Haile, C.N., et al. Plasma brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and response to ketamine in treatment-resistant depression. International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology 17, 331–336 (2014).
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Why Poverty Persists In Appalachia
In her critically-acclaimed book, Worlds Apart: Why Poverty Persists in Rural America, published in 1999, Cynthia M. Duncan explored why some families stay mired in poverty generation after generation, and why some regions of the country are chronically poor and depressed. Her book was based on a five-year study of the lives of residents in isolated areas of Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta and Northern New England.
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A Short History of Kentucky/Central Appalachia
An overview of this region's past that provides some history and context for understanding its largely poor and depressed conditions today
Map
Showing Floyd County, where Cody and Chris grew up, and the larger Appalachia region of America
Duncan, professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, has focused her career on poverty in America and is director of the University's Carsey Institute. She spoke with FRONTLINE on Dec. 29, 2005.
How should we understand Appalachia? Is it a place apart and uniquely different from other rural areas of the country that have had a history of chronic poverty?
The answer, fundamentally, is no. The sources of chronic poverty, the ways in which it is perpetuated, and what you see today in Appalachia are characteristic of other chronically poor places in other rural areas.
I think that chronic poverty in rural areas, and urban areas for that matter, really represents long-term neglect and lack of investment -- a lack of investment in people as well as communities. And in the rural areas that I know in America, that lack of investment began as deliberate efforts by those in power -- local elites or employers -- to hold people back. Because it has worked for them, to keep their labor force vulnerable, keep them powerless.
In the case of Appalachia, the coal operators wanted to keep workers from unionizing and demanding higher wages in the early days of coal mining because the industry was so competitive. Historians have shown that the large Northeastern utilities and Midwestern utilities were pitting one small company against another. In the face of this bitter competition, coal operators tried to control everything about workers' lives to keep their labor costs down. And part of controlling everything was to not educate people, to be in control of the ministers, the doctors, the stores … and to discourage workers' participation in community life, making the workers dependent on the coal operators for everything about their livelihood and their community.
Even if a young person is watching a lot of TV, they¹re not necessarily imagining ... being a doctor, a lawyer if they¹re coming from a really poor neighborhood. They¹re imagining themselves being like the person next door ... they structure their behavior to conform to 'what people like us do.'
But the interesting thing that I and others have found is that the same kinds of patterns of control and underinvestment occurred in the Mississippi Delta and along the Mexico-U.S. border. Of course, we know the history of slavery and sharecropping was one where the white plantation owners deliberately kept blacks from learning to read or owning property or gaining skills that would give them the freedom to make more choices or to choose something besides the conditions that the plantation owners had created.
In fact, in the 1930s, when we started Social Security, Southern politicians were able to prevent farm workers and domestic servants from being covered by Social Security because they knew that the small Social Security check would support families and would change the labor market in the South. The places we see deep, persistent, rural poverty are the places where there is a combination of this economic control and, in many cases, racism.
If you look at a map of persistent rural poverty -- and there's a really good one on the USDA [United States Department of Agriculture] Economic Research Service Web site -- you can see that, except for Appalachia, these are places where people of color live. First, the rural South, which is the poorest part of rural America. Every statistic you look at shows the effect of long-term underinvestment: low education, low employment, high disability, chronic problems. But then if you sweep across the country, you see the other persistently poor areas are counties with large numbers of Hispanic residents and places where Native Americans live.
photo by david sutherland
Photos taken by David Sutherland while traveling through West Virginia and Kentucky
You show in "Country Boys" how this kind of poverty is lived, experienced and reinforced, at the level of individual families and relationships. But I think that what we need to see in these decade-after-decade patterns of poverty is not just individual bad behavior -- although that's an element of it, certainly. But we need to recognize these larger histories of deliberate underinvestment for control, to maintain vulnerability. These histories of underinvestment, which most Americans would not want to see today, are now still playing out in contemporary isolation for poor people, preventing them from being able to get together what it takes to be part of the mainstream. The adults are undereducated, the institutions are poor and inadequate to make up for what families do not offer young people, and everyday life for these kids is just plain hard.
During the '60s with President Johnson's War on Poverty, Appalachia got a lot of attention, but it didn't really change much. Is that a fair statement?
I think it is. Even though it felt like a big effort at the time, in the scheme of things, it wasn't a wholesale reorientation towards investing in young people or in job training or in job development. It was relatively small scale, and it was kept a separate program rather than representing a reorientation of the way the Department of Labor or other established agencies worked, rather than making government as a whole oriented toward a fairer distribution of opportunities and benefits.
When I worked in an economic development organization, I would hear stories about how individuals' lives were changed by particular workers in the War on Poverty who believed in them or showed them another way to think about their world or their aspirations. And a lot of the more institutional investment, for example, in rural clinics, during that time, gave people the opportunities to be on governing boards and experience a different kind of participation than they'd known in an area where all kinds of civic affairs are so politicized, with a few people running them as a way to give out favors to people who support them politically. Similarly, the Appalachian Regional Commission , with its investment in infrastructure and highways, made a difference in the places where it occurred.
However, without greater commitment to investment in education and skills, without a significant economic engine to create the kind of jobs that support a solid middle class that can be holding government accountable, it didn't have a lasting, far-reaching effect for the region.
In trying to break the cycle of poverty at the level of the individual, how much does education make a difference? I'm thinking, of course, about the boys in "Country Boys."
Well, as you say, "Country Boys" shows the importance of education. But there's education, and there's education. One of the things about poor rural areas is that the quality of schooling and the expectations aren't as high as they are for middle-class kids. Even within Appalachia, as I learned in the work that we did for the study, the independent schools that are a part of the county seat were much higher quality -- almost more like suburban schools or even private schools -- than the larger, rougher disorganized county schools where the country kids went, the kids from the hollers [hollows] and the kids who were portrayed in "Country Boys."
photo by david sutherland
Although Cody and Chris had this special opportunity at the David School-- it was an alternative school that was about helping kids who had failed from the other system -- the fact that one of the boys could finish his GED but then, in effect, "fail" the ACT [American College Test] is not unusual. I would hear over and over again that people who had a high school degree or a GED couldn't sign papers at the car dealer because they couldn't read the paperwork, couldn't join the army because they couldn't pass the test. So the level of expectations and the quality of education is a really big factor. All schooling is not the same.
The other factor, besides school quality and the expectations that kids experience, is how important mentoring can be. We see this over and over, and rigorous evaluation studies show that mentoring makes a real difference for kids at risk, kids who are disconnected. It was clearly important to the boy Cody in "Country Boys" to have the counseling that he had, especially from his minister. I found that in both Appalachia and the Delta, the kids who made it were those who had mentors who believed in them, that when a young girl or boy would get special attention from a coach or teacher or an aunt or an uncle, it could make a big difference in the kind of decisions that he or she made going forward.
But a very important factor affecting poor kids' options and potential mobility out of poverty is the way the community works. We all know middle-class kids who make mistakes and get into trouble. But there's a way in which the family resources and the community resources in a middle-class setting can end up giving kids a second chance that is deeper and different than what we see in low-income communities and for low-income families.
Finally, an important thing that research shows and the "Country Boys" series shows is the critical importance of family stability. Kids who can have predictability in the family income and where families live and what's going on in the family, are time and again more successful at navigating adolescence. A lot of what Cody had, that Chris didn't, was this kind of stability. There's a wonderful set of studies, including a project called "New Hope" in Chicago and others documented by MDRC . These have shown that an intervention to give earnings supplements to families in exchange for getting the household heads and partners in the families to work steadily, has a positive effect, not only on family well-being and marriage stability, but even on how the kids did in school, what their grades were -- presumably because it is interjecting the stability.
So in other words, breaking the cycle of persistent poverty means thinking about it at both the macro and micro levels.
Yes, definitely. I came to believe that two concepts were really important for understanding poverty when I was doing my research. One was more individual-oriented, and one more community-oriented. The individual-oriented concept is "cultural toolkit," an idea first developed by sociologist Ann Swidler. The community concept is what I call "civic culture." The cultural toolkit idea resonates with what you see in "Country Boys."
The cultural toolkit concept helps us see how what a kid or anybody knows about how to make decisions, or what kind of future they have, is influenced by the world around them. Think of the toolkit as the box into which you put the experiences you have, the people you know, the stories you carry with you. And so if you think about what people bring to making a decision about whether to stay in school, or how to follow through on the idea of putting out a school newspaper, they look into their so-called toolkit of experiences, stories and the world that they know, and think about what their future is. They imagine only the most immediate world around them as framing that future.
Even if a young person is watching a lot of TV, they're not necessarily imagining their future as being a doctor or a lawyer if they're coming from a really poor neighborhood. They're imagining themselves being like their aunt, the person next door, or maybe a teacher they admire. They structure their behavior to conform to "what people like us do."
It is the day-to-day, week-to-week relationships in their lives that really matter.
Yes, what they're experiencing every day. "Country Boys" shows the immediate relationships that these kids have and how important they are.
But something else that's happening there in Floyd County, Ky., or Appalachia as a whole, is how the communities work. And that's where civic culture comes into play. Think of civic culture as the way the community works, how things are "done around here." I find it useful to think of civic culture as having three components: the extent of trust in the community, the extent of inclusive participation, and the extent of investment. Do people trust one another, or are they fearful or suspicious? Is one part of the community making all the decisions, leaving others isolated and cut out? How much are people investing overall in community institutions and how much do they care whether those institutions are open to everyone, even "the kids at the end of the road" who are hoping for a chance for mobility?
In these communities, and in Appalachia in particular, people talk all the time about haves and have-nots. And the haves aren't rich people necessarily; they're people who aspire to be like the few very rich people. They really do discriminate against the kids from the hollows. You saw references to that in "Country Boys" -- the boys' way of talking about who they were and how they were from hollows. The kind of awkward way in which one of the teachers was asking students if they were treated badly by the elite. And how when Chris was going out for a Coke with that young girl, they both could talk to each other.
Because she was from a hollow, too.
Yes. It reflects, at the individual level, the way these communities work. We didn't see it that much in "Country Boys" because of looking so closely at their immediate circle of family and friends. But one of the things that's going on in that region is this kind of broken civic culture where, because things have been bad so long and there's a history of patronage and getting things according to who you know or your family name, that there's an ongoing distrust and nervousness about whether you'll be associated with those who never do any good. And so there's a distancing -- the low-income families are really isolated from the others, made to feel they deserve what they get.
You know, even if 40 percent of the people in a community are poor, it means 60 percent are not. So we have to ask ourselves, what are those 60 percent doing and thinking? And in the case of these chronically-poor places, my experience and others' is that they're distancing themselves from the poor rather than looking for ways to bring them into the Boy Scouts or into the after-school program or into the same church as the more middle-class folks. That means that the cultural toolkit is constricted and constrained in ways that can perpetuate poverty because the individuals are experiencing such isolation, living in a world of only the poor, and being told over and over that they do not belong in another group.
They are being excluded from having aspirations of getting outside their class, their situation.
Yes. I think you see that in "Country Boys" in the ways in which particularly Chris makes excuses for himself. I'm sure a therapist would say that in a way it's helping him cope. I don't pretend to know about that. But I do think it's also part of blaming yourself for where you are and accepting the way other people are blaming you.
What is the potential for change over the next generation or so in Appalachia, to break the pattern of chronic poverty?
photo by david sutherland
It's certainly really, really tough. I think that fundamentally,when rural places lose or don't develop an economic engine that can provide stable work, then it's just an uphill battle. But that said, I really do think that we have evidence that investing in people, especially kids and young people, can make a difference. Whether it's the mentor-level investing, one-on-one, or a program that works hard with infants and very young children on language development and early childhood issues, [or] programs that invest in kids who are coming out of juvenile detention to try to make sure there isn't recidivism. We know things that work. And we even know that they can pay off financially. The Perry School High Scope program in Michigan or the Abecedarian program in North Carolina investing in pre-school programs, or any number of interventions documented by MDRC, show that investing pays off. When we invest in kids, they are less likely to get into trouble with the law, less likely to have children out of wedlock, more likely to finish school and get a steady job and form stable families. Think of the savings if we make pre-school investments and avoid prison costs. But we don't make those investments.
So breaking the chain of poverty on a really significant scale would take a concerted effort to invest in programs that we know work for kids, young people and for their parents. It can be done. You may have heard of the Knowledge is Power Schools [KIPP] that take kids from really poor backgrounds and bad neighborhoods and have enormous success through focused, disciplined programs with high-quality teachers and principals. We also know that national community service for young people can make a really big difference -- Job Corps, Americorps, the conservation corps, that kind of thing. But we barely fund these programs.
One of the things we've learned from the Clinton administration's welfare reform is that the right incentives matter. And while there are a lot of flaws with the way welfare reform was implemented, including not putting in enough support for child care and transportation and education and training, I found in my interviews, and Jason DeParle found it in his great book called American Dream, that people on welfare don't really want to be on welfare, as a rule. They'd rather be working, and they'd rather have their kids succeed. So we want to structure our investments in ways that reward work and provide the kind of supports that help people have stable families. The point is we have lot's of evidence now about what does work, but we are cutting programs and not trying new things these days. Not investing in "our lost children," as one Kentucky leader put it to me.
Maybe that doesn't get at the regional question you ask: whether there's any prospect for change in an area like Appalachia or the rural South, where poverty and education are so low. But one thing we haven't talked about much is community organizing. In addition to these programs investing in education and skills, that work when they're funded and carried out properly, there is the power of community organizing. It sounds sort of old-fashioned and '60s-ish to say this, but I think there's a lot of evidence that when people in a poor region can begin to develop a kind of pride in their history, and a conviction that they can make a difference, social change can occur. That is really what the civil rights movement was all about.
A new area that is emerging across rural America is work to encourage cultural and heritage projects. There are really wonderful projects in Appalachia, as well as in various African-American communities in the rural South, to develop tourism-based heritage programs. The same is true on some reservations among Native Americans. When this cultural pride is linked with organizing that can push for better investment programs, investment in the sense of human capital investment, in schools or in training programs, that can make a difference. People get a new sense of what is possible, not as passive recipients of charity or excuse-making, but as agents of change, insisting that more real investment occur in their communities.
I saw this changed perspective in some ways in my research in the Delta when African-Americans were coming back after having worked in Midwestern and Northeastern cities. They brought back what we might call a different cultural toolkit, a different sense of, not only who they were, but how things ought to work, that jobs ought to be on merit, not politics, that elected leaders ought to act in the public interest, not their own self-interest and aggrandizement -- that kind of thing.
Economist Albert Hirschman wanted to help his fellow development scholars think about the political dimension of development, so he talked about three choices people in poor places have: "loyalty, exit or voice." Loyalty refers to accepting things as they are, loyalty to the status quo and the powers that be; exit, of course, means leaving -- as many "with get up and go" have, moving to areas of opportunity, leaving behind those with fewer personal and family resources; and voice -- staying and working for change, insisting on equitable investment. That is the political, organizing part.
So deep, fundamental change probably will only come when those in these poor regions raise their voice and work for change, and when those of us who do not live in poor communities see our own best long-term interest realized in making these investments that will open up opportunities for mobility. We need a combination of investing resources in education and training at the right level so that it could really make a difference, and figuring out ways to expose people, especially kids, to another way of doing things and another set of aspirations for themselves that may be the root of starting a turnaround.
But as we at the Carsey Institute look at the future of rural communities, we are increasingly hopeful about the potential of linking economic development with sustainable development of the natural resources that are rural communities' greatest common asset. Places like Appalachia and other parts of rural America often still have rich natural resources. I think there are some interesting and promising ways to use those natural resources, say in sustainable farming or in working forests. Some development practitioners in coastal areas are working on sustainable fisheries and working waterfronts. In Appalachia, development practitioners like the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development are looking at timber; others in the Midwest are hopeful about what they call "green chemistry" -- ways to use natural resources in environmentally sustainable ways that can also provide new economic development opportunities. Maybe new concerns about energy security and environmental health and stewardship offer economic opportunities to remote rural places where the old natural resource economies based on extraction are in trouble. It will be interesting to see whether this "working landscapes" idea can provide jobs and enterprises that can sustain communities and make opportunities available to the long-term poor.
Final thoughts?
I think it's easy to be discouraged when we see poor people mired in dead end circumstances. When you see "Country Boys," for example, I think you can end up feeling helpless and sad for these kids and discouraged about the way their lives go in these small, depressed communities, living in trailers, surrounded by adults who are struggling just to get by, who are organizing their kids' lives around eligibility for SSI. It all feels like the individuals are stuck and that the problems are unsolvable.
photo by david sutherland
But poverty isn't inevitable. There are advanced countries and economies that invest in early childhood education or programs for youth to get training or mentoring, or programs to help adults be stable in their earnings, or make work pay. Even here in America, we have examples of stable good-paying jobs being the ticket to the middle class for low-income people: in Las Vegas where hotel and other service workers organized for good pay, families are now homeowners and sending their kids to college. After World War II, steady, good-paying blue collar jobs and the GI Bill launched many families into the middle class.
In America we value individual responsibility, and that's a good thing of course. But this focus on the individual often means we neglect our collective responsibility to invest in poor children, poor youth, and working poor families. Long-term neglect creates a really tough, challenging situation like we see in Appalachia, or the rural South, or in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. There is no magic bullet to turn these places around, but we have learned a lot about what works. We know the investments in kids' early education, youth's engagement, stability of parents' work and income make a difference. We also know that mixed-income communities are better -- that it is destructive and costly to isolate poor families in poor neighborhoods where kids' "cultural toolkits" are narrow and underinvestment becomes the norm.
Whose responsibility is it when youth like Cody and Chris are disconnected, when young people in Camden, N.J., or the Ninth Ward or the Mississippi Delta are without hope, without education, skills, role models, or a future? One way to think about it is that we're all Americans and that we have a responsibility to the Codys and the Chrises of the world, and that it is possible to invest in them, with real commitment, so they have a future, so they can join the middle class, and their kids can have middle-class schools, and have middle-class jobs, and raise strong families. It is possible.
A strange thread runs through the most prominent women associated with Jesus: they are all women of, shall we say, ill repute. Most of their notorious reputations spring from sexual scandals. What does this say about Christ? An awful lot.
If your habit is to skip over the genealogies in the first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, you may have missed a treasure buried in this list of forty fathers who comprise Jesus’s ancestry (if we count Joseph), stretching as far back as Abraham. The hidden treasure is the five women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Jesus’s mother, Mary. Why are they listed? And what makes them as valuable as any man mentioned? That’s precisely what Matthew wants us to ask.
Five Women of Ill Repute
First, Tamar (Matthew 1:3). Tamar is the sort of ancestor most of us wouldn’t mention when recounting our family history. Do you remember her story (Genesis 38)? She entered the messianic bloodline by disguising herself as a prostitute and seducing her father-in-law, Judah. The scene and story are complicated. Given the cultural mores of the time, she acted more righteously than he did, since he had treated her unjustly and she had little recourse. Still, there’s no denying how horrible a mess it was.
Second comes Rahab (Matthew 1:5). She didn’t need a disguise. She was a prostitute (or at least had been prior to her marriage). She was also a Gentile. And not just a Gentile, a Canaanite and a resident of Jericho, the first city Joshua set his sights on in the Promised Land. So, how did Rahab manage to become Jesus’s great, great, great, great — add another 24 greats — grandmother? She hid Jewish military spies and helped them escape, so Joshua spared her and her family (see Joshua 2 and 6). Once she was folded into Israel, Rahab married Salmon, which resulted in the genealogical appearance of . . .
Ruth, the third woman in our list (Matthew 1:5). She wasn’t personally embroiled in sexual scandal, but she came from a people that was. Ruth was a Moabite, a nation which had sprung from the incest between Lot and his oldest daughter (Genesis 19:30–38). Ruth’s people were polytheistic pagans, occasionally offering human sacrifices to idol-gods like Chemosh. Through personal tragedy and great loyalty, she wound up at Bethlehem and in the (lawful) arms of Boaz and also joined Jesus’s family tree. How did that happen, given that Jews were forbidden to marry Moabites (Ezra 9:10–12)? You have to read Ruth — an entire book of sacred Jewish Scripture named after this Moabitess! But catch this: Matthew records Boaz as the son of Rahab and Salmon. If that’s true (ancient genealogies sometimes skip generations), imagine how Rahab might have prepared young Boaz to see in a foreign woman a wild branch God wished to graft into the Jewish olive tree.
The fourth woman is “the wife of Uriah” (Matthew 1:6). We know her as Bathsheba, the woman Israel’s greatest king couldn’t — or better, wouldn’t — keep his hands off of. The account in 2 Samuel 11 doesn’t tell us Bathsheba’s side of this adulterous story. But given the fact that David wielded nearly absolute power as king, this was multilevel abuse, plain and simple. But its result was anything but simple. This single immoral “meal” (Hebrews 12:16) produced a cascading sequence of tragic events. Bathsheba became pregnant. Her husband was murdered in a major cover-up. David brought upon himself, and his entire household, a curse that resulted in horrifying suffering for many, particularly Bathsheba (see 2 Samuel 12). And yet there she is, foregrounded in Jesus’s background.
Last on the list, but certainly not least, is Mary, the mother of Jesus (Matthew 1:16). She became pregnant with Jesus before her wedding. The child’s father was not her betrothed, Joseph. The shadow of this “illegitimate” pregnancy would have lingered over her reputation (and her son’s) for their entire earthly lives.
Jesus’s First Women
Two more women figure prominently in Jesus’s life and are worth mentioning here. Both their reputations made them, in human wisdom, unlikely people to experience two astonishing firsts of Jesus.
In John 4, Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman from Sychar at midday at Jacob’s well (John 4:6). Like Rahab and Ruth (and perhaps Tamar), this woman was not Jewish. And like Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba, this woman had known numerous men — five husbands and at least one uncovenanted “significant other” (John 4:17–18). And yet in John’s Gospel, this woman is the first person to whom Jesus explicitly discloses himself as the Messiah (John 4:25–26). The first person: this woman.
And then there’s Mary Magdalene. The Bible tells us little about Mary other than that she had seven demons cast out of her (Luke 8:1–3), was present at Jesus’s crucifixion (John 19:25), saw where Jesus was buried (Mark 15:47), and saw the resurrected Jesus (Matthew 28:1–10). History, however, has tended to remember Mary as a woman with a sordid sexual past. We’re not sure why. Perhaps it’s because she (likely) came from the disreputable town of Magdala. Or maybe those strange early Christian apocryphal writings are to blame. Or maybe Mary really did have a past (which is where I lean). It seems reasonable that a vague, lingering remnant of what was once her public shame clings to her reputation to highlight her Savior’s grace.
What is so astonishing about Mary Magdalene is that she was the first person Jesus appeared to after being raised from the dead (John 20:11–18). The first person! Jesus did not appear first to his mother, nor to Peter, but to a formerly immoral, formerly demonized woman.
A Gracious Sorority
Why Mary Magdalene? Why the woman at the well? Why unwed Mary of Nazareth? Why Bathsheba, Ruth, Rahab, and Tamar? Why did God choose to make these women of ill repute so prominent in redemptive history?
In order to place the emphasis of history on redemption.
All of these women share this in common: a disgraceful past. They either committed or suffered disgrace. Whether they deserved them or not, they each had a tainted reputation. They endured the contempt of others and felt the pain of very real shame. At least four of the six would have carried extremely painful, sordid memories.
But God no longer sees them as disgraceful, but grace-full. God changed their identities. Instead of women of ill repute, he made them ancestors or disciples of the Messiah. They are archetypes of what he does for all of his children. God is saying loudly through each woman:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17–18)
The Old Has Passed Away
In Christ the old has passed away! Jesus takes away the old reputation. In Jesus, your past sin or the abuse and injustice you’ve suffered, and the ways you’ve viewed yourself and others have viewed you because of it, is not who you are. In Jesus, your heavenly Father says,
You are my child (Ephesians 1:5). I have washed you and made you holy (1 Corinthians 6:11). You are clean, and no one has authority to say otherwise (Acts 10:15). And you are my beloved (Romans 9:25). I have removed all your scarlet letters (Psalm 51:7).
God has thousands of reasons for everything he does. One great reason he founded this gracious sorority was to remind us of his lavish, unmerited grace to the undeserved and unlikely and despised. It’s another way to tell us that he loves to redeem sinners, he loves to produce something beautiful out of something horrible, he loves to make foreigners his children, and he loves to reconcile his enemies. He loves to make all things work together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28), even for prostitutes, mistresses, and men like me.
Jon Bloom (@Bloom_Jon) serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God. He is author of three books, Not by Sight, Things Not Seen, and Don’t Follow Your Heart. He and his wife have five children and make their home in the Twin Cities.
The phrase "something wicked this way comes" originates in Act IV scene 1, line 45 of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth. The speaker is the second witch, whose full line is, "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."
Witches Grave - This cemetery is located off of Ford's Ferry Road in Marion. The legend behind this cemetery is about a five year old girl who was burned at the stake, along with her mother, in the late 1800's to the early 1900's for witchcraft. It is not known what happened to the body of the mother, however the little girl, Mary Evelyn, is buried in a steel lined grave that is covered with rock and not dirt. She has a white picket fence surrounding her grave. The base of this fence is a series of crosses that connect end to end. However she is not tall enough to climb over the fence, unlike a normal 5 year old. Her tombstone looks brand new even though it is close to 100 years old, as does the fence. She paces inside this fence when someone comes to visit her making faces at them and reaching out to them. She sleeps during the day but is very evident at night. The legend also says that she can not rest because she is searching for her mother but can not escape the confines of the fence. Many unexplainable things occur at this cemetery. For one the "Watcher" makes himself very know and tries to follow you out of the cemetery. The "Watcher" was murdered at the swinging bridge but haunts the witch’s grave. He is trying to get to the little witch but because of the crosses that surround her he is unable to because he is evil. Crosses appear in the trees both upright and upside down, directly over her grave, though they face different directions. She presents herself as a normal 5-year-old little girl in a white dress, though her dress is scorched at the bottom as is her blonde hair. If you lay on her grave she will hold you down refusing to let go until someone from outside of the fence pulls you free. However never lay on the grave when you are alone because chances are you will be pulled into her grave to be with her thus giving her more power. As with every haunted cemetery people that are open to the spirit world sees something different.
[[Mary Magdalene, Lady or Tramp?]]
[[The Bible's tainted women]]
[img[http://cfmevangelist.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Prescott-Revival-tent1.jpg]]
Writing about The Beat Generation
http://pcasacas.org/SiPC/20.1/petrus.htm
Rumblings of Discontent: American Popular Culture and Its Response to the Beat Generation, 1957-1960
On 21 September 1959, Life published an article contrasting the values and habits of middle-class Americans living in Hutchinson, Kansas and bohemians known as "beatniks" from Venice, California. The staff of the magazine decided to run "Squaresville U. S. A. vs. Beatsville," complete with illustrations, after hearing of a proposition by three young women from Hutchinson to beatnik author Lawrence Lipton. Kathy Vannaman, Anne Gardner, and Lucetta Peters readily admitted in a letter to Lipton that Hutchinson was "Squaresville itself," and they playfully invited him and some of his friends to come to their town because they wanted "to be cooled in" beatnik ways (31). To their shock, Lipton accepted the invitation and planned to go to Hutchinson until members of the community became aware of the offer and demanded that the girls withdraw their request. Lipton never traveled to Hutchinson, but the proposal attracted the attention of local newspapers--and eventually Life. The story impelled the magazine to compare the midwestern town to the west coast enclave, as "the clash between the squares and beats [was] taking place in many small ways all over the U.S." (31).
The inhabitants of the two communities were polar opposites in terms of family life, amenities in the home, recreational activities, physical appearance, and dress styles. In a pleasant and clean household in Hutchinson, a married couple and their two children gazed happily at a family photo album. In an unkempt "hip pad" in Venice, artist Arthur Richer and his wife and young daughter pondered abstract portraits on their walls. For recreation adults in the Kansas town took walks in a park or visited the local grain elevator; children swam in the municipal pool, bowled, went to the movies, or danced at a convention hall. In Venice "hip cats" read poetry in a bath tub outdoors, painted garbage cans, listened to jazz, played bongo drums, drank wine, and discussed art philosophy. The citizens of Hutchinson were neat in appearance and conservative in hair style and dress, and the men wore no facial hair. The beatniks looked unclean physically, their hair disheveled, their shirts untucked, the men bearded. Both groups expressed satisfaction with their lives in their respective communities. "I think Hutchinson is the nicest small town in the whole world," remarked Ruby Haston as she smiled with her children (32). Arthur Richer was equally content in Venice, where he found "chaos" in "the frontier of so-called civilization" (33).
The reaction of the readers to this article was tellingly mixed. Three weeks later Life printed nine letters to the editors regarding the story, a variety of provocative responses from people who ruminated on the larger implications of a changing society. Tom Robbins of Richmond thought that the beatniks were "grotesquely ostentatious" and the Kansas families "enervatingly dull." He hoped that "there is a middle ground between contrived insanity and inherent mediocrity" (16). Alexander Gross of New York believed that the story was representative of a banal culture. "If the values of a Kansas town are so uncannily excellent, why have they not satisfied everyone?" And "[w]hy have the beatniks, with all their admitted mediocrities, sprung into existence?" He answered his second query by pointing to "the intellectual, artistic and spiritual poverty of American life" (16, 18). Other letters defended and denounced both the Kansans and the beatniks. The last letter included a thoughtful question from Ruth Isely, an astute reader, who observed a fad: "Can the nonconformist beatnik explain why all beatniks look so very much more alike than any two squares in the world?" (20).
This article and the reactions it stimulated exemplify a topic that flooded the pages of popular magazines and newspapers from 1957 to 1960. The "Beat Generation" first gained national attention in September of 1957. Scores of articles on that group and its followers, the hipsters and later the beatniks, quickly fascinated an audience that was not reticent about sharing opinions on broader questions of societal values and mores.
It is clear today that the authors of most of the pieces misrepresented their subjects, exaggerated stereotypes, took quotations out of context, and cleverly used illustrations for a desired effect. This inaccurate coverage did not go unnoticed even then. Mrs. Boyd Rostine wrote to Life claiming that her Kansas town had "a little more in the entertainment line than your article would imply" (18). Regarding the same article, Bruce E. Hunsberger cited a "misunderstanding as to the meaning of true beat." He argued that "beat" entailed a higher "awareness" of existing as a "separate entity and yet as a part of the whole rhythm of the universal life force" (18). The members of the Beat Generation, themselves, were not nearly as polite when addressing problematic journalism. "You are an instrument of the Devil and crucify America with your lies; you are the war-creating Whore of Babylon and would be damned were you not mercifully destined to be swallowed by Oblivion with all created things," wrote Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and Gregory Corso in their typically candid style to the editor of Time in 1959 (5). The trio believed that an article the magazine published in the previous month blatantly misrepresented them at a poetry reading.
The slant of reporters distorted the message, as amorphous as it originally was, of the Beat Generation, hipsters, and beatniks, but that is not the critical issue. More important in understanding this segment of American society from 1957 to 1960 is the nature of the coverage by popular culture magazines and newspapers and the response of the public to what it understood to be the philosophy and values of the non-conformists. Americans, to be sure, reacted in different ways to the barrage, but in the end they co-opted much of the beatniks’ culture and thereby rendered the dissidence obsolete.
To contemporary scholars the term "Beat Generation" refers to a group of post-World War II novelists and poets disenchanted with what they viewed to be an excessively repressive, materialistic, and conformist society who sought spiritual regeneration through sensual experiences. This band of writers includes Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs, who originally met in 1944 in New York City to form the core of this literary movement. Other Beats, less popular, but still essential to the clique were John Clellon Holmes and Gregory Corso. And it is crucial not to exclude Herbert Huncke, Carl Solomon, Neal Cassady, and Peter Orlovsky, who were not writers themselves, but were influential as inspirations for prominent Beat works. Defined loosely, the Beat Generation can be slightly more inclusive, adding certain poets associated with Black Mountain College in North Carolina and the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance.
Though Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs were mostly unsuccessful in persuading publishers to print their material until 1956, the first decade or so of the Beat Generation was hardly a dull one. In 1949, after being arrested for storing stolen goods in his apartment, Ginsberg spent eight months at the New York State Psychiatric Institute where he met Carl Solomon. From 1947 to 1950, Kerouac periodically traveled in a car back and forth across the country with his friend Neal Cassady. And Burroughs for most of the decade fought his addiction to morphine and heroin. These experiences provided ideas that developed into the most important and popular works of the Beat Generation: Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems, Kerouac’s On the Road, and Burroughs’s Naked Lunch.
The first wave of articles in popular magazines and newspapers examined what the term "Beat Generation" meant. The authors of these investigations analyzed the origins and historical context of the Beats and the characteristics and philosophy of their members. Different writers presented a variety of interpretations, which contradicted each other and undoubtedly confused readers. The message sent to the mainstream of Americans was never a clear, organized one. Fortunately, though, there was some agreement and overlap and it is this common ground and the response it triggered that warrant further exploration. Because of the nature of the topics, these initial writings were generally profound and intellectual in tone. But they still decorated the pages of magazines that reached a wide audience, such as Esquire and Playboy.
The first issue was the term Beat, which had several meanings. The first definition, which emerged in an article written by John Clellon Holmes in 1952, five years before the popularization, involved a state of mental exhaustion. Holmes, author of the novel Go and loosely tied to the Beat Generation circle, credited Kerouac with coining the phrase in a conversation the two had in 1948. He wrote that, "[m]ore than mere weariness, [Beat] implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It involves a sort of nakedness of mind, and, ultimately, of soul; a feeling of being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness" (10). This generation, he contended, was a product of the Great Depression and the Second World War. It thus grew up in despair and its members, without a creed and reluctant to categorize themselves, lived with the fear of destructive warfare. Holmes’s essay, because of its untimely appearance, isolated from any other event that might attract more notice to the Beat Generation, made little if any impact on popular culture in 1952. Six years later, though, using a similar definition, he crafted another article, which surfaced in a period of frenzy and gained more notice.
The second definition of Beat came from Kerouac. Television, newspaper, and magazine reporters had seized the word and hounded the novelist for elaboration on its meaning. Kerouac also traced the origins of the phrase Beat Generation to a discussion he had with Holmes in 1948, but he said that he first heard the word beat from hustlers in Times Square and Greenwich Village in the 1940s. Beat, he said, originally meant "poor, down and out, deadbeat, on the bum, sad, sleeping in subways." Since then, however, it took on an elevated and higher meaning. For Kerouac, a Roman Catholic later fascinated by Zen Buddhism, beat signified "beatific," or a feeling of being blessed (42). His was a spiritual interpretation.
In an influential essay entitled "The White Negro" that appeared in the summer of 1957 in Dissent, a highbrow socialist journal, Norman Mailer described the "hipster," a figure whom later writers would link to the Beat Generation. According to Mailer, the hipster was the American version of an existentialist. Shaped by the effect of the senseless murder of World War II and the knowledge of a possible instant death by an atomic explosion or a slow deterioration by the cancerous force of conformity, the hipster responded to his situation by detaching himself from society and rebelling. Attachment, which was the goal of the "square," or the hipster’s opposite persona, meant security, which translated into boredom and eventually sickness. The hipster’s rebellion included smoking marijuana, enjoying the underworld of jazz, and speaking his own language. He lived for the present, always moving. His world was a violent one of excitement and contradiction that encapsulated "the orgy and the dream of love, the desire to murder and the desire to create, a dialectical conception of existence with a lust for power." The hipster existed on the fringes of society like the marginalized African-American, who also lived in constant fear. Mailer wrote that the hipster was the product of the meeting of the Negro, bohemian, and juvenile delinquent, but "for practical purposes," the author asserted, the hipster "could be considered a white Negro" (279, 280).
Writing for Playboy in February 1958, highbrow literary critic Herbert Gold categorized hipsters as Beats and expanded on the violent aspects of the hipster that Mailer presented. Gold’s portrait included motorcycle thugs with sideburns and jeans, college kids enamored with the coolness of a drug addict, and bohemians. Central to his description was the diffidence and "flight from emotional reaction" of this "true rebel without a cause." An aversion to speaking and an addiction to heroin were also essential traits. "Heroin," he noted, "enables the hipster stand guard over his soul, dreaming of cool nothing, beautiful beat nothing, while his feet go ratatat and he strokes a switchblade." This dissident rejected the values of society and believed himself to be "exemplary because he has no wife, children, responsibilities, politics, work" (84, 86).
Printed in Esquire in that same month was John Clellon Holmes’ view, which, of course, was more sympathetic. Again, as in his previous article on the Beat Generation, the author emphasized the historical situation that gave rise to the figure. Holmes’s rebel, like Gold’s, was still reckless in behavior, but less violent and more spiritual and caring. Holmes argued that spirituality existed in this generation despite the growing presence of excessive juvenile delinquency, social irresponsibility, and apathy in politics, communal activity, and orthodox religion. Rather than equating an affection for modern jazz, mild narcotics, and strange idiom with immorality, Holmes associated these activities with an "affirmation of an individuality . . . which can sometimes be only expressed by outright eccentricity." The hipster, who was asocial, not antisocial, emancipated himself from all societal restraint and declared his uniqueness through jazz, sex, and marijuana.
Kerouac objected vehemently to the violent depiction of the hipster. In essays for Esquire, Playboy, and Pageant, he separated the Beat Generation, on a spiritual quest, from juvenile delinquents, who, in fact, were sinful and indifferent. "Woe unto those," he sermonized, "who think that the Beat Generation means crime, delinquency, immorality, amorality" (79). Kerouac saw beauty, sincerity, and energy in the Beats, who were mystics, "digging everything" (6). He identified two types of hipsters: the cool brand "whose speech is low and unfriendly, whose girls say nothing" and the hot kind, a "crazy talkative shining eyed (often innocent and openhearted) nut who runs from bar to bar, pad to pad looking for everybody, shouting, restless" (15). The author said he was a member of the latter version and so were most artists of the Beat Generation.
The articles by Gold, Holmes, and Kerouac, intellectually deep, provocative, and thorough, stimulated dozens of letters to the editors. These responses, also intelligent and critical, were primarily from people who were hostile to the agony and the spiritual plight of the Beat Generation. "Who gives a damn about the Beat Generation?," concluded a dismissive Phillip E. Holt (9). And Carole Wolfman described the Beat Generation as a "minority of people who have used the times as an excuse for their shortcomings" (14). But, just as clearly, a significant number of people were sympathetic. "I, too, am searching for something, I don’t know what, but it’s there inside me," commented Dirk Delturco. Regarding Holmes, he wrote that "[i]t’s just nice to know that for once there’s someone on our side" (12). David E. Feldman called the Beat philosophy a "morbid" one but recognized the inevitability of this type of world view considering the historical circumstances of the Cold War. "We live in a terrible world. We do not know when the big blast will go off and boom, we will be no more. So we must live for today, for tomorrow may never come," he lamented (14).
The mixed response of these Americans to the Beat Generation and its emblematic figure the hipster was not reflective of the feelings of the total popular culture. Delturco was correct in observing that most people were antagonistic to his cause. They were generally hostile to people like himself because they, despite Kerouac’s efforts, lumped him together with the juvenile delinquent. And in the middle to the late 1950s juvenile delinquency, as shown by Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowak, was a serious concern and prominent issue that worried most middle-class Americans (280-287). More and more adolescents, it seemed, defied their parents and blamed them for all that was wrong in society. Even so, the public response to the hipster was ambivalent. The best explanation for this apparent contradiction involves the audience of the specific magazines in question. In 1958, only five years in existence, Playboy, with a circulation of more than 600,000 was an especially daring magazine that displayed photographs of young women in the semi-nude. According to David Halberstam, it aimed for a sophisticated male readership, cosmopolitan in taste (570-576). Unsurprisingly, some of its patrons, with progressive views on sexual issues, mildly accepted the dissent of the Beats. And Esquire, argued John Tebbel and Mary Ellen Zuckerman, was a magazine that printed relatively longer works of fiction and articles that raised the social awareness of its readers. It, too, sought a more urbane, male audience (186, 190). The nature of these publications and the more liberal ideas of their readers, mostly--but not entirely--explain the varied response. Partial acceptance of social heretics unveils not a completely intolerant, stagnant culture, but one slowly in motion. A clearer picture of this society emerges in the next series of responses to the Beat Generation.
If the initial response was like a wave, the second was a tsunami. From approximately the end of 1958 through 1960, popular magazines, newspapers, television shows, and even comic strips bombarded Americans with images of the Beat Generation. People replied in a number of ways to what they saw. Some were amused and receptive to a point, others went so far as imitation, while some condemned specific traits of the non-conformists. But these Beats to which Americans were responding were not the same violent characters introduced to the culture in the sophisticated magazines from the latter part of 1957 throughout 1958. Gone was the James Dean renegade stereotype connected to juvenile delinquency and in came a new, eccentric figure, pejoratively labeled the "beatnik." Beatniks, with their distinctive traits, proved to be much more intriguing characters than hipsters in the realm of the public.
The term beatnik surfaced inconspicuously in Herb Caen’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle on 2 April 2. "Look magazine, preparing a picture spread on S.F.’s Beat Generation (oh, no, not AGAIN!)," he quipped, "hosted a party in a No. Beach house for 50 Beatniks, and by the time the word got around the sour grapevine, over 250 bearded cats and kits were on hand, slopping up Mike Cowles’ free booze" (15). The phrase that Caen used stuck for the bohemians living in small districts not only in San Francisco’s North Beach, but also in Venice West in Los Angeles and New York’s Greenwich Village. Americans soon equated beatniks with--or more appropriately viewed them as disciples of--the Beat Generation. Kerouac, Dennis McNally wrote, unwantingly earned the title "King of the Beatniks" (243). Ginsberg, Barry Miles noted, worked to dissociate his clique from these cultural defectors (248-249). All attempts at separating the two groups, however, were futile. Similarities in terms of fondness for poetry, jazz, and drugs prevailed as the press failed to see Kerouac, Ginsberg, and others, such as Gregory Corso, first and foremost as dedicated writers.
Life, the mass culture periodical with a weekly circulation of 6,500,000, featured and explored beatnik values, habits, and disillusionment in a long and involved article entitled "The Only Rebellion Around," by staff writer Paul O’Neil. Appearing on 30 November 1959, this investigation into the flip side of the mainstream was by far the most thorough and exhaustive work done by a popular magazine on the topic in those three years. O’Neil’s article first brought the reader visually into the beatniks’ "well-equipped pad" or apartment. Using paid models and props, the magazine arranged and displayed twenty-two items which it claimed were virtual necessities in any such residence. The more significant materials included a Beat "chick" wearing black and excessive eye make-up, a naked light bulb, a hot plate for warming espresso, marijuana, crates that served as tables, a hi-fi loudspeaker, an unfinished poem in the typewriter, a bearded Beat wearing sandals and studying a record by the late saxophonist Charlie Parker, a bare mattress, bongo drums, and a Beat baby, asleep on the floor amidst empty beer cans.
O’Neil began his text by characterizing beatnik attitudes, though he admitted the pitfalls of generalizing because "most . . . are against collectiveness of all kind" and "spend hours differing vehemently with their own kind." Still, he claimed that beatniks oppose "virtually every aspect of current American society" such as the traditional nuclear family, politics, organized religion, law, the Ivy League suit, higher education, and the hydrogen bomb. And they especially abhorred working. They also sought "freedom to disorganize" and liberation from the "rat race" of squares, and they were typically "ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed by preference." Described by O’Neil as the "cult of the Pariah," the Beat Generation was a group of masochistic exhibitionists who challenged the values of society, rejected American materialism, and loathed conformity (115). But the author noted that "bohemianism is not new to big American cities." There had always been cultural dissidents in the country, such as the radicals of Greenwich Village in the early part of the century. The Beat Generation, however, unlike any of its predecessors, was popular and influential throughout the nation, most notably in urban areas and on college campuses (115).
What O’Neil observed were the acceptance of the beatnik dissent and the emergence of a fad: a cultural protest transformed into a commodity. Many Americans found the beatniks amusing. Purveyors of popular culture depicted them as ridiculous and harmless. But a goodly number of people looked beyond that portrayal and saw something significant. The original beatniks themselves became tourist attractions. Spectators flocked to San Francisco’s North Beach, the bohemian district, passed a sign which read "Gateway to Beatnikland," and gawked at the people they saw. Reluctantly, Venice West also received many visitors, especially after the publication of Lawrence Lipton’s 1959 best-seller The Holy Barbarians, which described the alternative lifestyle in that community. Greenwich Village, too, became a tourist center.
Beatnik culture pervaded American society. Their odd idiom, taken mainly from jazz musicians and narcotics addicts, containing expressions such as "cool," "crazy," "dig," "go," and especially "like," turned into catchwords. The radio soap opera "The Romance of Helen Trent" and the comic strips "Nancy," "Pogo," "Gordo," and "Popeye" incorporated beatniks into their casts (Cook 92). Dennis McNally noted that television programs such as The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, 77 Sunset Strip, Route 66, and San Francisco Beat also included beatnik characters. These shows depicted the bohemians in various ways. Sometimes the beatnik was violent as in the case of Route 66 and episodes of San Francisco Beat, while on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, he was silly. Probably the most popular beatnik was Maynard G. Krebbs of the highly rated Dobie Gillis show, a situation comedy in the fall of 1959. Maynard was an innocuous, lovable young man who behaved like a child. He wore tattered clothing and often carried around bongo drums. The thought of work terrified this goofy character who frequently began his sentences with the word "like" (271-273).
Newspapers and magazines teemed with ridiculous stories about beatniks. Particularly comical were the attempts of beatniks to win political office in 1960. In the summer of that year the American Beat Party held a convention with the hopes of placing a candidate on the presidential ballot. William Lloyd Smith of Chicago earned the nomination of the party, whose platform consisted of "abolition of the working class [and] a $10,000,000,000 subsidy for artists," reported the 18 July 1960 New York Times (13). "Since its convention this summer," journalist Harold Faber later wrote, "both the party and the candidate have been strangely silent" (60). An article in Life told that beatnik candidates also tried to run for local office in Fort Worth, Texas that same year. Despite a creative slogan--"Kick the cows out of Cowtown and let the cats in to swing"--they were unsuccessful in their bid (48).
Mad magazine, of course, was unable to resist the frenzy. In September 1960 the editors devoted six hilarious pages to mocking the beatniks. They focused on stereotypes and ridiculed the Beat argot, aversion to cleanliness, fondness for Zen Buddhism, styles of dress, and physical appearance. Especially amusing was a story about the regression of "Wild Harry," a beatnik, who transformed back into a square. Harry’s beatnik friends painfully "saw the handwriting on the wall" when he expressed hatred for espresso, wanted to take a walk down Madison Avenue, went to a baseball game, shaved his beard, drank beer out of a glass, and took a bath--the most terrifying sign (41-46).
Many entrepreneurs, seeking financial gains, took advantage of the popularity of the bohemians. Coffee houses, cellar nightclubs, and espresso shops, where beat poetry readings occurred, began to sprout in hundreds of cities and college towns all over the country (O’Neil 116). Jim Morad pointed out that the coffee house business, prominent only in Greenwich Village at the end of World War II, flourished into a $5,000,000-a-year enterprise by 1959 (43). Beatnik clothing also turned into a hot commodity. The Young Individualist Shop, a boutique in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue, noted the New York Times, sold a variety of fake furs and a black wool dress with a sleeveless tunic of mock leopard designed to appeal to the "on-beat chicknik" (25). College stores throughout the nation, as shown in Life, offered loose sweaters, tight black trousers, skirts, and leotards - items that beat chicks consider "the end" (48-49). And department stores, wrote Lloyd Zimpel, advertised beatnik kits, complete with the standard dark glasses, sandals, beret, and even a phony beard! (16)
Fred W. McDarrah, a photographer for the Village Voice of New York, also attempted to capitalize on the fad. Beginning in December 1959, McDarrah ran advertisements in that weekly newspaper, offering to "Rent a Beatnik." Ranging in price from $25 to $200, genuine beatniks were available to read poetry, play music, hold lectures, and have question and answer sessions on the Beat Generation. Prices depended on specific accessories. They came bearded or beardless, long-haired or short-haired, bereted or bare-headed, sweatered or shirted, levied or leotarded, sneakered or sandaled, and bongo-drummed or empty-handed. McDarrah actually was partly sincere, and his business helped many novice poets earn their wages (Millstein 26-30).
Even Playboy exploited the passing fancy by featuring a beautiful beat chick playmate in July 1959. Staff members of the magazine found Yvette Vickers in a coffee house in Hollywood. Vickers, who despised conformity, admitted to being "somewhat of a nut" for health food. The poetry of Dylan Thomas interested her and the classical music of Prokofiev drove her "out of [her] skull" (47). Just as with any other playmate, her pictorial spread stimulated many readers to submit letters to the editor. But because the magazine labeled her a "beatnik," the responses exhibited more than the usual trite comments. Walter E. Magureta, for example, wrote, "Your coinage beatnik to describe Yvette is erroneous. She’s a breastnik" (8). Connie Gray, however, was more perceptive and serious, and his letter revealed a great deal about how absurd the popularization of beatniks had become:
[Yvette] is not only not beat, the whole story was fictitious! I have lived in and among the so-called beats, and have fancied myself one for several years. Never have I seen a beat chick shed her britches . . . bra, yes. Secondly, I’ve yet to see a beat drink wine out of a glass that at one time or another didn’t hold jelly, peanut butter or a candle. There was, in your triple-page picture, no evidence of bongo drums, long black stockings, the essential shark tooth on a chain, or many, many other items no beat could be complete without. You call the Unicorn and Cosmo Alley beat hangouts. Man, have you seen the prices they charge? No self-respecting beat could afford an evening there, nor would he want to (8).
Gray observed in this small example a trend that was sweeping the nation. Many people, like Yvette Vickers, found something useful and meaningful in beatnik dissent and absorbed some of the traits and ways of the bohemians (though apparently sometimes unsuccessfully, as in the case of this model). Imitation was one important way that Americans, particularly adolescents, college students, and young adults in cities responded to the beatnik craze. Called amateur or "weekend beatniks," these people, according to Paul O’Neil, "have jobs and live the comfortable square life but . . . seek the cool state of mind, spread the Beat message and costume themselves in old clothes to ape the genuinely unwashed on Saturday nights" (119). He further wrote that "in the U.S. there are few colleges without a cell of bearded Beatniks and fewer yet where some overtones of Beat philosophy have not crept into the minds of students in general" (126). Beatnik outposts burgeoned in areas in the Midwest and South, in addition to the original villages in California and New York. There were beatnik centers in Cleveland, Houston, Dallas, Amarillo, Atlanta, and Washington D.C.
Amused, tolerant, and imitative to a point were Americans--but only to a point. The distinguishing beatnik features including their dress, argot, physical appearance, fondness for poetry, and impractical attitudes on certain issues were not a real threat to society, and Americans consequently showed a degree of tolerance for them. Two other beatnik attributes, however, which involved their proclivity to commit crimes and their contempt for work, drew sharp condemnation from many citizens. Such behavior provoked J. Edgar Hoover to say at the 1960 Republican National Convention that "Communists, Eggheads, and Beatniks" were America’s three greatest enemies (Schumacher 339). The print media were not as harsh and explicit even though constantly reminding readers about the immorality of beatniks.
The behavior of beatniks even attracted the attention of the medical world. In a study that spanned a year, Dr. Francis J. Rigney, a San Francisco psychiatrist, performed a variety of tests and held countless interviews with fifty-one beatniks. His results, made known in Newsweek and Science Digest, were grave. He found that only fifteen of fifty-one were mentally sound. The remaining thirty-six were unable to deal with the basic challenges of life. Of this group, less than half had the ability to maintain a steady job, more than a fourth had been divorced, nearly twenty percent were alcoholics, and four percent were drug addicts. Rigney concluded that "the Beats, like alcoholics and juvenile delinquents, have severe social-adjustment problems. The public ought to stop regarding them as laughable freaks and the press should leave them alone" (56, 26).
The press, however, was quick to report beatnik offenses. In North Beach and Greenwich Village beatniks ran into trouble with the law. In the spring of 1958, Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle joked that the odor of marijuana was stronger than the aroma of garlic in North Beach. In April of that year undercover cops arrested Neal Cassady, the famous "Dean Moriarty" in On the Road, for possession of marijuana (Schumacher 285). In January of 1960, the New York Times reported that Bay Area authorities raided a beatnik outpost and made thirty arrests and sixteen indictments on charges of narcotics possessions (53). In November 1959, the same newspaper told how New York narcotics agents organized a sting operation and posed as beatniks for three months to accumulate evidence. The results were three raids and the arrests of nineteen beatniks (1, 62). There were many other publicized disputes between beatniks and city leaders pertaining to, for example, the closing down of cafes because of a failure to meet fire safety codes. In Venice West, for example, the beatniks posed a problem for the rest of the community when, in August 1959, they sought an entertainment license for the Gas House, a popular coffee shop. Bill Becker wrote that citizens opposed the idea, testifying to police that "beatniks were noisy around the clock, that in [their] hangouts wine and beer were consumed by apparent minors, and that on at least one occasion a nude model was observed posing nude in a beatnik art center" (67). Mrs. Alfred S. Roberts, wife of the President of the Venice Civic Union, strongly argued against granting a permit. "We’re not criticizing their clothes and beards or their way of life, except when it becomes immoral," she said. "Then it has a bad influence on our children. It looks glamorous, but it isn’t" (67).
Newspapers and magazines also linked beatniks with vagrancy. This accusation was prevalent in many condemnations. "The goals of the Beat," according to a feature story in Look magazine, "are not watching TV, not wearing gray flannel, not owning a home in the suburbs, and especially--not working" (65). Articles in Time and the New York Times reiterated this characterization. Lawrence Lipton, defending the bohemians, claimed that "our poverty is holy" (88). People who wrote letters to the editors were extremely critical of their indolence. As George B. Galinkin grumbled in Look, "It’s about time [they] got off their boastful behinds and got to work" (17). And, finally, a policeman from Hutchinson, Kansas, concisely summarized the attitude of many people toward the shiftless beatnik. A "beatnik doesn’t like work," the officer noted, and "any man that doesn’t like work is a vagrant, and a vagrant goes to jail around here" (31).
Amused toleration, imitation, and denunciation. These were the three obvious ways in which Americans responded to the beatnik. Judging by the manner in which forms of popular culture portrayed beatniks, it is no surprise that the attitude of most people who responded to the bohemians was one of amused toleration. Producers of popular culture depicted the beatniks as innocuous and silly figures, causing Americans to laugh at them and embrace them. This portrayal in effect co-opted much of the beatniks’ culture. The group of people most receptive to the beatniks were high school and college students and young adults in urban areas with a bent for non-conformity. These weekend beatniks followed the genuine beatnik path and assumed a bohemian appearance. Although this rebellion was comparatively an incomplete one that did not go beyond dress, physical appearance, slang, and attendance at coffee houses for poetry readings, it still demonstrated a growing sense of disaffection that troubled the youth and constituted a noticeable form of dissent. But being a weekend beatnik was not as precarious as being a genuine beatnik. The difference existed in the fact that the genuine type risked their livelihood by living an alternative lifestyle, which might entail unemployment. Those Americans who denounced the beatniks for repudiating work appear to have had material interests in mind. Having lived through times of uncertainty during the Great Depression and World War II, many Americans valued stability more than anything. Middle-class citizens reveled in the new economic prosperity of the 1950s. Millions of people exited the cities to live in more affordable homes in the suburbs, which grew at unprecedented rates in the decade. Married couples with children dwelling in houses that looked the same were central features of the suburbs. Hard work and higher education generally were their avenues to success. It seems logical, then, that such middle-class suburbanites reaffirming their own lifestyles would condemn a lazy beatnik. Stepping back and viewing this entire picture, one sees on the surface a culture that valued economic security. Members of this society were unwilling to jeopardize their stable lives and dare to exist like Kerouac’s Dean Moriarty or a poet in Venice West. Memories of the 1930s and 1940s were too strong.
But the beatnik phenomenon shows that this society was not entirely stagnant. Beneath a placid surface were rumblings of discontent. Some members of the Fifties’ Silent Generation expressed disenchantment by becoming weekend beatniks. Other Americans were also receptive to the cultural protest. Pierre DeLattre saw beatniks as "people who are trying to gain a more direct insight into reality through emotional and intuitive forms of experience . . . [mainly] through poetry, jazz, various narcotics, different personalistic religions" (53). Bill Klemann said, "I applaud the Beat for having the courage to live as they please, rather than the way someone else tells them they should . . . Their philosophy makes a lot more sense to me than the . . . middle-class struggle to keep up with the Joneses" (17). In other words, society of the late 1950s was ripe for change. Americans departed the Eisenhower Era and elected a younger President who seemed to be more vigorous and energetic than his predecessor. Around this time the beatnik craze lost its appeal. In February 1960 author and critic John Ciardi wrote an article entitled, "Epitath for the Dead Beats." In this piece Ciardi reflected on the end of the rebellious movement and attacked nearly everything associated with the Beat Generation, including its literary and artistic aspects and the physical appearance, dress, slang, and practices of beatniks (11-13, 42). There were also new stories to be told about restless groups of students challenging American domestic and foreign policies. The year 1960 saw the formation of Students for a Democratic Society, the black college student sit-in movement, and student demonstrations at San Francisco and Berkeley against the House Un-American Activities Committee. The focus of the print media then shifted and slowly began to concentrate on stories pertaining to the energy and disaffection exuded by the young people of the country.
The author thanks David Beito, Paul Gorman, Forrest and Ellen McDonald, and Linn Walker for reading this article and offering many useful suggestions.
WORKS CITED
BOOKS
Cook, Bruce. The Beat Generation. New York: Morrow, 1994.
Ginsberg, Allen. Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights, 1959.
Halberstam, David. The Fifties. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1993.
McNally, Dennis. Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation and America. New York: Random House, 1979.
Miles, Barry. Ginsberg: A Biography. New York: Viking, 1989.
Miller, Douglas T., and Marion Nowak. The Fifties: The Way We Really Were. New York: Doubleday, 1977.
Schumacher, Michael. Dharma Lion: A Critical Biography of Allen Ginsberg. New York: St. Martin’s, 1992.
Tebbel, John, and Mary Ellen Zuckerman. The Magazine in America, 1741-1990. New York: Oxford U P, 1991.
MAGAZINE ARTICLES
"Beat Playmate." Playboy July 1959: 47.
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
Alden, Robert. "Police Pose as Beatniks in Narcotics Raid." New York Times 9 Nov. 1959, 1: 62.
"Beat Party Planning An Off-Beat Platform." New York Times 18 July 1960: 13.
Becker, Bill. "Beatniks Battle for Own Hangout." New York Times 30 Aug.1959: 67.
Caen, Herb. "Business As Usual." San Francisco Chronicle 2 Apr. 1958: 15.
Davies, Lawrence E. "’Beats’ in Center of Coast Unrest." New York Times 31 Jan.1960: 53.
---. "Coast Bohemians Feeling Less Beat." New York Times 14 June 1959: 75.
Faber, Harold. "Minority Groups Also Seek Votes." New York Times 30 Oct.1960: 60.
Millstein, Gilbert. "Books of the Times." New York Times 7 Sept. 1957: 27.
"’On-Beat’ Boutique." New York Times 2 Aug. 1960: 25.
"200 Attend Rally." New York Times 31 Jan. 1960: 53.
a smile you feel in your ears.
[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6c/Colliery.jpg]]
Popcorn Sutton
Another moonshiner hailed as a hero in Maggie Valley was recently in the news again. Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton, age 61, committed suicide on March 16, 2009 rather than serve time in a Federal Prison for yet another arrest. Popcorn, who at the time of his demise lived near Parrotsville, Tennessee in the Appalachian Mountains, came from a long line of moonshiners in western North Carolina. According to him, “the heyday of moonshining was from 1965 to 1972 when you could buy likker about every 200 feet in places.”
Definition of jake leg
: a paralysis caused by drinking improperly distilled or contaminated liquor
First Known Use of jake leg
1932, in the meaning defined above
History and Etymology for jake leg
jake grain alcohol flavored with an alcoholic extract of ginger
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Time Traveler for jake leg The first known use of jake leg was in 1932
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jake leg noun
\ ˈjā-ˌkleg, -ˌklāg
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Medical Definition of jake leg
: a paralysis caused by drinking improperly distilled or contaminated liquor
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The New Yorker, September 15, 2003 P. 50
ANNALS OF EPIDEMIOLOGY about the Jake Walk epidemic and its connection to the Blues. Some years back, Dr. John Morgan, a professor at the City University of New York Medical School, was listening to the Allen Brothers' 1930 song, "Jake Walk Blues." The lyrics reminded him of a 1961 medical school lecture he'd heard about a strange paralysis called "jake walk." Dr. Morgan likes to call himself a pharmaco-ethnomusicologist; he has collected a number of songs about jake leg or jake walk. Says the songs point to a new sort of paralysis appearing in 1930 which affected both blacks and whites, and which rendered men impotent. Claims Morgan has been researching jake leg for twenty-seven years, and has written six medical-journal articles on the subject. In the 1970s, he interviewed a number of the epidemic's surviving victims and collected his data in a huge manuscript that's been gathering dust for years. The outbreak was first detected in Oklahoma City, by Ephraim Goldfain, a Romanian emigrant and physician, who ran a clinic called the Reconstruction Hospital. Tells how, on February 27, 1930, a man staggered in off the street with his feet dangling like a marionette's; his legs were useless below the knee. By the end of the day, several more men had appeared all afflicted with the same distinctive paralysis. One of the victims, a podiatrist, handed Goldfain a list of sixty-five other people who'd been struck with "jake leg." Describes how Goldfain went about analyzing the epidemic. Most of the victims were bums and drunks; all lived in a seedy part of town known for bootlegging. The epidemic spread to various locales in the East, the South, and the Midwest; thousands of people were afflicted. Mentions the economics of Prohibition. Says that most low-income people preferred to imbibe jake––Jamaica ginger extract––a patent medicine which was 85% alcohol but legal. The first person to record a connection between jake and the paralysis was Ishmon Bracey, the black blues singer who recorded "Jake Liquor Blues," in March of 1930. Another singer, Tommy Johnson, recorded "Alcohol and Jake Blues." Morgan believes no other incident has inspired as much popular music as the jake-walk epidemic. Comments on the "miracle cures" rumored to cure jake leg. For some of the afflicted, the paralysis was permanent. Says not all victims were poor and alcoholic. Talks about the embarrassing symptom of impotence; every song by a blues singer mentions the "limber leg." Mentions 79-year-old victim Gwin Davis. Since only whites gathered statistics on the epidemic, it's impossible to determine how many blacks suffered from the ailment; the songs remain the best evidence that jake leg afflicted black communities severely. Describes how the government regulated drugs during the 1930s. Mentions the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration (F.D.I.A.). The only public-health watchdog was the National Institute of Health (N.I.H.). A doctor there, a Russian immigrant named Maurice Isadore Smith, began investigating jake. The Treasury Department's Bureau of Prohibition soon identified a surprising chemical in it: tri-ortho cresyl phosphate (TOCP), a plasticizer. Describes why bootleggers used TOCP in jake. The investigation led to Harry Gross and Max Reisman, of Hub Products, who shipped jake around the country in big barrels. Tells how they came up with the idea of using TOCP in jake to supplement the castor oil, and asked their chemical suppliers, Martin Swanson, for help. Swanson supplied them with Lindol, the Celluloid Corporation's trade name for TOCP. Celluloid assured them it was harmless. In December, 1930, Gross and Reisman were indicted by a federal grand jury. Nobody went after Celluloid Corporation. In May of 1931, some Oklahomans organized the United Victims of Jamaica Ginger Paralysis, which claimed to speak for 35,000 stricken people in the U.S. Morgan insists that the jake-leg story is "almost completely about class…[These men] were seen as poor, sloppy drunks."
A mineshaft as deep as Nelson's Column in the garden brings a hole lot of trouble for couple
By Daily Mail Reporter
UPDATED: 09:21 EST, 21 December 2008
A couple find themselves in a hole lot of trouble after a mine shaft as deep as Nelson's Column is tall opened up in their back garden.
Mark and Susan Gilbert watched in horror as the ground caved in and a 'vast crater' appeared just steps away from their back door of their £250,000 home in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
The mineshaft
Had the Gilberts been sitting on their patio when the mineshaft opened up they could have plunged to their deaths
The stunned couple heard a 'loud creaking' moments before their patio collapsed into the pitch-black chasm.
When the smoke and debris finally cleared, they were left with a giant hole measuring 15ft in diameter - and a staggering 165ft (50m) deep.
Incredibly, the vertical mine was so vast that it could have swallowed a 20-storey skyscraper, more than half of Big Ben, or the whole of Nelson's Column.
Experts say the disused shaft would have been used by teams of miners up until the late 19th century to bring underground coal to the surface.
Luckily, neither of the Gilberts were standing on the patio at the time it collapsed or they could have plummeted into the void and been killed.
But they said the ordeal left them 'shaking for hours'.
Mark, 54, said: 'The whole patio literally disappeared and fell into a vast crater.
"
'The ground in that area just fell away to expose a massive mine shaft 50 metres deep.
'It was a scary sight and although no one was injured, we were both shaking for hours afterwards'
Mr Gilbert
Mr Gilbert surveys the damage in this garden
Mr Gilbert, a delivery manager for Royal Mail, added: 'There are some things that you just don't expect to happen - and that was certainly one of them.'
He and his wife, 53, bought the three-bedroom end-of-terrace cottage nine years ago but had no idea its grounds contained the openings of a mine.
The property is on the outskirts of what was once a thriving coal mining region, and they carried out extensive land surveys before moving in.
But the searches failed to spot the shaft, which experts believe was never officially registered.
Since 1999, they have used the 18ft by 12ft patio on a daily basis to hang out the washing, enjoy barbecues, and relax in the evenings.
But earlier this year, it began to 'sag' in the middle and Mark was forced to hire a builder to flatten it out.
The workman filled the depression with two tonnes of concrete before re-laying the slabs at the correct angle.
But within weeks it had dropped 'significantly' - and Mark finally realised what could lie below.
He said: 'We'd undertaken lots of surveys when we bought the place, but they never revealed anything.
Mineshaft
Half of Big Ben could fit down the shaft
'We knew the area was once a mining area, so when the ground started to sag again, we knew something could be amiss.'
Last month, experts from the Coal Authority, the Government agency which deals with abandoned coal mines, visited the property and confirmed the presence of a mine.
They erected fences around the patio and advised the Gilberts against walking over it until it could be filled after Christmas.
But at around 8am last Thursday, the ground gave in completely - swallowing the patio whole and leaving a vertical shaft in its place.
Mr Gilbert said: 'It beggars belief to think that there's such a large hole in our back garden.
'When it caved in, the earth around it covered it up a bit so it's difficult to appreciate exactly how deep it is.
'But you really wouldn't want to walk on it - there's a drop of 50 metres below that which I've been told would open up under the weight of just a gram or two.
'It was just a miracle that neither of us weren't in the garden at the time, or we would surely have been killed.'
The Coal Authority (CA) believes the shaft was part of the Quarry Pit Mine network, which was last worked in 1836.
It is among an estimated 170,000 unregistered mines, which are frequently discovered by homeowners across the UK.
Luckily, residents who find mines on their property are protected financially by the Coal Mining Subsidence Act, which ensures that holes - and any damage they cause - are repaired free of charge.
The Gilberts' shaft will now be filled in by CA workmen using tens of thousands of gallons of liquid concrete.
A spokesman for the CA said: 'A shaft measuring 50 metres is certainly unusual and was clearly dangerous to the homeowners.
'The Coal Authority visited the property and made the area safe, and we will now be carrying out a filling operation to return their back garden to how it once was.'
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Song Idea for Video Graphic Novel
In the Jailhouse Now
I'll Fly Away
Big Rock Candy Mountain
Man of Constant Sorrow
Jeanie and I once crossed the Green River in my small pick up truck in 1998.
My Uncle Archie once told me about build brush arbors for church. He live from the early 1939's to 2011.
Many of the Cardwell family are from an area off of Green River in Kentucky called Leonard Oak.
When I was a child many poor people still lived in tar paper shacks.
I remember my grandpa talking about working in the mine shafts.
I remember poor people getting commodities in Morgantown, KY, It was in plain gray boxes. I remember liking the taste of cooked chunkie beef and the powered eggs.
I remember gypsies coming to town and staying at the old fair grounds down by the river.
I remember the Travelers going through selling outdoor furniture made out of rough hewn logs.
I remember one day that a group of road workers started running down the hill by my house in Kentucky, They were whooping and hollering. They were yelling that they were running from the copper heads.
Goldie, my mom's cousin died on July 8, 2012. I remember her from my earliest memories. She was always old. She was always getting married.
People were always talking about the Rochester Dam. When I finally got around to seeing it as an adult, it was nothing more than a bunch of rocks thrown in the river to slow it down and make it easier for the boats.
There are two little churches near my home in Ky. One was a Holiness Church found by my great-grandparents. I remember the graveyard there and the outdoor home coming dinners. I have never attended a service there, but I hope to someday. In the other direction is a log cabin church. I remember going in there as a child and being fascinated by the organ. When I went back as an adult, it was still being used, but someone had made a vinyl siding addition to the log church.
Not too long ago, Mom told me about the rats and lizard near out house in KY. I just barely remember them. It is a wonder I am not traumatized.
I remember seeing Oral Roberts on our BW TV preaching from giant tents and "healing" people.
Hilda played an accordion. I looked at pictures and I believe it was the I930's and was a Hohner.
The music was always special. It was country gospel. I still remember listening to If I had a Hammer. And another young man playing the harmonica while holding an old chrome microphone to it.
John Prine and the Everly Brothers came from an area not far from my hometown.
There was once a war on poverty. My county was one of the poorest so we were on the battleground.
I remember traveling preachers, revivals, and tent meetings as a child.
I remember that the log cabin church was a Pilgrim Baptist ? and there was a small house in Morgantown with a sign saying Pilgrim Holiness.
I remember fishing in Green River many times with my Dad and brother.
I learned as an adult that most of my people were probably of the Scott Irish heritage. My family came to Virginia in about 1647. I also learned that the most common religious iconic artifact is a print of Davinci's Last Supper.
I learned of the famous camp meetings at Camp Creek and the Church of God in Cleveland, TN.
I recently read about and was reminded of the following from my childhood: The Holy Kiss, The Holy Ghost, and foot washing.
There are two types of ecstatic worship: internal and external.
The way of the cross is the way of sorrows and is called the Via Dolorosa.
David Bowie's song Station to Station is about the stations of the cross.
The Society of Friends has many appealing qualities to me. It is better known as the religions of the Quakers. It is similar to Holiness. It is similar to Pentecostal. It is quiet contemplation in listening to the Holy Spirit.
There are four elements to Quaker worship: silence, communion, ministry, and worship.
The Quakers are also know as the Friends of Truth and Children of the Light.
Andrea Cohen , ‘The Committee Weighs In ’
This poem originally appeared in The Threepenny Review (Fall 2012) and will be in Andrea Cohen’s forthcoming poetry collection “Furs Not Mine” (Four Way Books). Reprinted with permission from the author. All rights reserved.
The Committee Weighs In
I tell my mother
I’ve won the Nobel Prize.
Again? she says. Which
discipline this time?
It’s a little game
we play: I pretend
I’m somebody, she
pretends she isn’t dead.