Shakesthegrounds Rumblings

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Yes, that is another mountainous road, and in the summer time the veterans from the Veterans Home come out to the road in their wheelchairs and waive American flags at the passersby. I remember waving to them.

Lynne told me in West Virginia there were grounps of homeless Vietnam era survivalists up in them mountains, living off the land. Like modern day Grizzly Adamses.

[Lynne]

Yes, that is another mountainous road, and in the summer time the veterans from the Veterans Home come out to the road in their wheelchairs and waive American flags at the passersby. I remember waving to them.

Lynne told me in West Virginia there were grounps of homeless Vietnam era survivalists up in them mountains, living off the land. Like modern day Grizzly Adamses.

I tried to do some research on where they are and what people know about them..didn't get very far.  I think I'll write to the writer where I first read about them - see what her sources were and how we can get more information.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Well, $543 later I am on me way to Alberta.........anybody wanna buy a house?

It is a cool snap going on right now, down into the 50sF at night, and wet.

This morning I went up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, it was still foggy at 10am. I met up with three cousins at the Rakes Mill Pond overlook to take them out to the family plot at Woods Gap. There was no traffic on the road at all, so while I waited I got to check out the beaver dams on the creek, contimplate if Dannilynn would be at the Kentucky Derby and meet the Queen, and free up space in my camera by deleting photos of nasty rental houses off the hard drive.

Two of the cousins I met last year on the pilgrimage I lead. They are brothers. The other guy was from SF and shared a common grandmother, who had been lured away by her second husband from her first. Like most people looking for the Woods Gap Cemetery he had been there before and looked all thru them hills with no luck.

So we headed off down the pig path, past the pond. The road to the plot has been regraded and if it were dry we might have drove all the way too it. Right now my boots are caked with mud, drying in the corner.

We are so lucky we have this place few can find. A place where the ancestors can rest in peace and the world around them change very little in 150 years. In face, it shows a lot less effects of humanity than it did a few decades ago. We spoke of our recent family, people who 60 years ago lived in a three room house with 12 children and wondered how they could have the privacy to have so many. How they struggled to have a pair of shoes for each, a few clothes for each. Compare that with today. Walmart existing like some temple for us to come fill up with plastic crap and processed sugar. How did it change so fast?

I watched a really good movie last night, "Mrs. Henderson Presents". It was so nice to see Judi Dentch fixed up and look glamorous. If you have not seen it I highly recommend it.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

In yesterday's mail I received a package from my friend John in South Carolina. He sent me a most welcome gift: his published poems to his partner of 49 years, The Edwin Poems.

I had the opportunity to read some of them before when I visited him in October, but what a wonderful testament to his love for Edwin this volume is. There is a handsome picture on the back of the two of them in their navy uniforms.

Please take a moment to visit http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=38727 there is an excerpt you can read there. They make wonderful gifts. 

[moremojo]

Thank you for that news and the link, Truman. I read your friend's sonnet 'Meeting', and thought it quite good. I know you and Edwin and Mr. Ziegler's other loved ones must be very proud of him.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

So today while wait for my oil to be changed I treaded my self to the email exchange betwixt an openly gay man and one Marcia Ramode, a U.S. Army recruiter who had contacted him after reading his online resume. She initially offered him employment until he told her who he was.

The army has reassigned her. I guess they can't fire her, but that is what she deserves. It is an interesting dynamic that she seems to be getting away with her treatment of him as a black man because he is gay. You can down load a pdf here:

http://www.sldn.org/templates/press/record.html?record=3907&section=2

I tried sending her an email, the address no longer works.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Most fastinating thing I heard on NPR this evening: Emory University has released the personal corrspondence betwixt the author Flannery O'Connor and her friends.

The focus of the story was the correspondence of a "recluse" who worked for the credit bureau. One Elizabeth Hester, a woman discharged from the military for an apparent lesbian act. Flannery O'Conner worte back to her that she could not write back fast enough and tell her she had not changed her opinion. She added it was good that she told her, but after they had become friends and they quoted her as saying the most wonderful thing:

"We are not our history."

(You promise?)

[Front-Ranger]

Thanks for telling us about this. That is wonderful! I must know more!

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Here is a link to the story:

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2007/05/13/0513metflannery.html

I am puzzled as to why O'Conner did not save any of Hester's letters, it is like hearing one end of a phone conversation.

[Wayne]

Wow ... Ms Hester Prynne...