The Laid-Back Landscaper

Carlton Enfinger (1929-2016)

In my weekly search of obituaries, I was saddened to come across this one of a very familiar character from my early college years.  Although not a professor (not even close actually!) he had his own impact on many students at the old campus in Graceville, FL, back in the day, and I wanted to just spend a little time telling my story of knowing him.

In the early 1990's at what was then known as Florida Baptist Theological College in Graceville, I was a young kid in my early 20's, fresh out of high school.  In my first couple of years at FBTC, I managed to get a part-time job working on the campus with the maintenance department - my job was not glamorous at the time, as it simply involved walking around with a bag and a stick cleaning up garbage on the campus a couple of hours a day.  As I lived in the dorms then, I had no living expenses so to speak, so this modest income kept me taken care of during those years.  If you would wander the campus in those days, often you would stumble across an elderly guy who would be sort of hanging out in a grove of trees or a thicket of shrubbery somewhere out of the way.  He was actually the campus landscaper, and he had the duty of keeping up the lawns, the shrubbery, and the flowerbeds.  Although he actually looked "lazy," he really wasn't - he worked as hard as anyone, but he did so at his own pace, and at his age no one really argued with him about it either!  That old fellow was Carlton Enfinger, and he was sort of a campus fixture at that place for over 25 years of his life.  Let me give you a little biographical information about him I gleaned from his obituary, and then I want to talk more about how I actually got to know and respect him.

Although he lived in Graceville most of his life, Carlton was born actually about a dozen miles or so away in the neighboring town of Bonifay to the west.   He was, for all intents, a native "Florida Cracker," and he loved his home.   Although the obituary at the local James and Lipford Funeral Home in Graceville lists him as a retired custodian, his actual job was landscaping around the campus.  He was happily married to his dear wife Marilyn for I don't know how many years, but he must have been married at least 60 or more to her.  Although he had retired some years ago from the college as their landscaper, Carlton still seemed to have a pretty decent life up until his repose this past Sunday.  

Not long after I came to school at FBTC in 1989,  I was able to get work as part of the campus maintenance crew on the "Work-Study" program, and often as I made my rounds, I would run into Carlton doing his thing and we'd chat a bit.  After some time, I got to know him pretty well, and having the daily chat with him of a day turned out to be something I looked forward to, as he was a fount of historical information about Graceville and the surrounding areas - if you needed to know anything about anyone locally, Carlton was the guy to ask!  He and his wife Marilyn also grew turkey figs on their property, and she would can those.  One day Carlton brought me a container of those figs, and I recall making an Assyrian-type pastry out of them with biscuit dough, and they were actually delicious!  

The last time I saw Carlton was back in 1992, after I had left FBTC for good and was preparing to transfer to Southeastern University in Lakeland, where I would eventually get my Bachelor's degree in 1996.  At the time, Barbara and I were newly-married, and we were visiting an old-fashioned Holiness/Pentecostal church in Graceville called Graceville Community Church, which had recently renovated its campgrounds and sanctuary after sustaining extensive damage from a fire a couple of years earlier.  Although at least professing to be Baptist, I was actually pleasantly surprised to see old Carlton and his wife there, and it was good to see him.  I don't recall if he had retired then or what the story was, but apparently after some time he had started going to Graceville Community.   In recent years it looks like he attended Harmony Baptist in Graceville (also called "The Mission," where my old boss on the maintenance crew, Raymond O'Quinn, pastored), as it is listed in the obit as where his membership was at the time of his repose. 

In summation of all this, Carlton was just a good guy - he had a sense of humor, was very easy-going, and you couldn't help but love the guy once you got to know him.  He will be missed by so many of us who often took him for granted as a permanent fixture around the campus, and as his family and loved ones say farewell to him today at his funeral in Graceville, I do likewise in spirit too - rest eternal, Carlton.  

34 Years of Collecting Records!

October 1st is a significant day for me, as on October 1, 1982, I received the first record ever in my collection, and it has led to what has become a lifelong passion since.  I have told that story many times already, so today I want to just commemorate a backstory to how I got into this hobby.

I have told before about how it was one summer night in 1981, while listening to Henry Boggen's old show that broadcast out of Charlotte, NC, on WBT-AM, and that doesn't bear repeating here either as it is told elsewhere.  Another factor though which had a lot of bearing was concurrent with listening to that show, and it is what I would do while I listened to it.  Being I didn't have a set bedtime in the summer months due to not being in school then (during school nights, Mom made me go to bed at 9PM sharp up until I was in my teens), I could stay up much later and that is how I often got to listen to Henry's show all the way through.  At that time in the little town of Kirby, WV, where we lived, our house was a 2-bedroom mobile home with blue-and-white trim and a long front porch with a small storage room.  When you'd enter the front door, you would be in the living room, and at this particular time we didn't have a great deal of furniture but one thing we did have was a small wooden rocking chair that Mom had sitting in the southeast corner of the room beside a small end table.  I recall there was a lamp on the table, and for a long time the radio also sat there too.  Also in those days, we "inherited" a lot of people's old magazines, which I always found of interest.  Many of those magazines I would read many times over, and some of it was rather unique material for a 5th-grader then - Family Circle, Newsweek, and of particular interest, Reader's Digest.  From the Family Circle magazines I recall I learned a lot of interesting cooking tips and other things, and sometimes the ads fascinated me for some odd reason. But, it was the Reader's Digest issues that got my attention the most, both because they had good articles, but also because back in the day Reader's Digest also advertised music collections you could buy.  Many of them were very good boxed sets - usually consisting of between 6-10 LP's - of standard recordings of a given genre, and a couple of years later I would have my first two of those.  However, on occasion they would advertise things for a company called the Franklin Mint, and at that time Franklin Mint issued these monumentally huge record sets (100 records in 50 albums of 2 records each) that you could purchase on subscription.  One of those was what I call the "Holy Grail" of vintage big band recordings - it was a 100-record set entitled The Greatest Recordings of the Big Band Era, and it was truly monumental for its time.  When I first got interested in this music, I literally salivated over that collection and wanted it bad.  To have gotten that, I would have had within two years the collection it's taken me 30 to get now!   The albums in this collection were library-quality too - the records were pressed on red vinyl, two to an album, with extensive liner notes included with them.  The boxes they were housed in were silver in color with a burgundy logo.  Here is what one of them looked like:

However, when you are a poor kid from a single-parent home growing up in semi-rural West Virginia, the likelihood of getting something like that was so negligible that you would probably been more guaranteed a visit from the Tooth Fairy at that time than you would having a set of these show up on your doorstep.  But, one could dream, and also there were the smaller but equally good Reader's Digest-issued sets which were easier to find, and one of those in particular got my attention and would be in my collection in less than a couple of years.

Some years before Franklin Mint reissued their monumental collection of vintage big band recordings in the late 1970's, Reader's Digest at that time would have had the next-best collection.  This one was a ten-LP set entitled The Great Band Era, and it consisted of a retrospective of rare recordings otherwise not found on LP then that was arranged in a chronological order beginning with the year 1936 and going to 1945, the traditional dates of the "big band era."   You could actually purchase this collection from Reader's Digest for less than $50 at that time (still a lot of cabbage for a poor West Virginia kid!) which made it more accessible.  The collection was boxed in packaging that looked like this at the time:

The cover art on this one is the older issue from the late 1960's, as it was later repackaged in a similar box and looked more like this when I got my first set:

Despite subtle differences in packaging and a title change, the collection was essentially the same.  At the time I got this one (around Spring of 1985), I was still pretty much restricted then to buying many of my records in my collection for a quarter apiece at the old "Rio Mall" in Rio, WV, about 6 miles from where we lived in Kirby at this time.  My early days of collecting records were a lot less discriminating, although in due time I would begin to refine what I kept and would also "weed out" a bunch of rather cheap pop records and other stuff I had obtained.  My goal then was to have a purely big band music collection, and as big band recordings were scarce but not totally impossible to find then, I resorted to getting them through the mail.  However, as an irresponsible teenager, that almost got me into trouble, as I found it was easier to order things than it was to pay for them, and I had to learn a harsh lesson about that.  In later years, my policy would be to pay for it upfront, and then there would be no issues.  That is why today I have a debt-free collection.

Around the time I became a born-again Christian in early 1986, my musical interest took a back seat to my newfound faith, but that was actually a good thing - I was getting way too obsessed with my music collection, and needed to prioritize.  I never stopped listening to this great music though, but the scope of my collection took a new direction instead as church activities, and sub sequentially college, married life, and so many other things began to shape my future.  But, my collection was not forgotten, and with the advent of the CD and a flood of good reissued recordings in the mid-1990's, I began to actively collect for a few years again.  In due time, it also meant re-collecting vintage vinyl as well (much of my original collection was lost in a storage unit in Marianna, FL, back in 1992 not long after Barb and I first married) and the major boost in that came around 2004-2005.  

One of the things I have thanked the good Lord for over the years is the phenomenon called E-Bay.  In 2005, after discovering E-Bay for myself and learning the art of the bid and other tricks, I was able to find the entire Franklin Mint set on there for less than $200, and being I had the means then, I purchased them.  They are in great condition, and are now a very good part of my LP collection.  

With that, I sort of reached the pinnacle of collecting at that point, and in the next 10 years or so I began to purchase less and less.  And, that brings us to today.

The past year, as far as getting new recordings, has been a bit slow - for once I feel I have the collection I have always wanted, and over the past year (2015-16) I have only gotten about 10 new CD recordings and about 7 LP's.  As of October 1st, my current collection stands at 912 LP records, 1207 CD's, and 97 vintage DVD recordings of big band-related media (movies, Vitaphone "soundies" and live concerts).  This year too, I have also taken to a new thing I have discovered - you can, if you know where to look, find vintage recordings on YouTube and elsewhere which can be downloaded as an MP3 and saved to CD discs.  I have taken to doing that as well, and have built up a sizeable collection of those as well.  

In this coming year, I am not really anticipating much growth in my collection as a planned move as well as my graduate studies are taking up much of my time these days, and I don't have the time to really research what's new out there.  Nonetheless, I am always on the lookout for new material I don't have in my collection as of yet, and as it comes available, I am now in a better position to acquire it.  So, as year 35 begins, this will be a year I anticipate will be slow in growth, but still a vibrant interest.  So long until next time. 

Dissing the National Anthem and the Real Injustice

In 1953, the beloved late comedian Andy Griffith released on record a monologue comedy bit entitled What it Was, Was Football.  As a kid, I remember hearing that story on Henry Boggen's Sunday night radio program on WBT-AM in Charlotte, and I have always considered it one of my favorites.  The gist of the story was that this country guy was taken by his friends to what appeared to be a college football game, something he knew nothing about.  After getting his big orange soft drink, he and his friends make their way into the stadium and find seats.  Oblivious still to what is going on, Griffith tells in the story that all of a sudden a bunch of men emerge from a "little outhouse" at the end of a big cow pasture, and they start chasing after a "funny-looking pumpkin" while a bunch of "convicts" scurry about on the field.  In his retrospection at the end of the routine, he finds out what he was seeing was a football game, and it came as quite a revelation.  A story like that, because of its down-to-earth humor, is timeless, but it also conveys a message to today's society.

I have never been a fan of football at all, and never really played sports other than when my 6th-grade teacher made us play at recess.  Despite not really liking football or any other sport, for the most part as a kid it only took me about 5 minutes to figure out how the game was played, and I still understand the fundamental concepts of those games even today.  Andy Griffith's first-person character and I have something in common - although at first we didn't have a clue as to what the sport was, it can be easily figured out in a short time, and that is something I want to revisit shortly as it plays into my story here.

Over the past couple of weeks, a lot of press has been devoted to the activities of a professional athlete by the name of Colin Kaepernick, who I believe plays for the San Francisco 49ers.  I really don't give a rat's tail honestly about what most professional athletes do, but in this case it has gotten attention of even those who don't follow the sport.  Kaepernick refused to respect the National Anthem when it was sung because he believes that it "glorifies a racist, corrupt nation," and this has rightly incurred the ire of many good folks.  Kaepernick's disrespect is one thing - he has a right to do that, and although he's an idiot, the Constitution gives him the right to be stupid - but the kicker is his rationale - he is talking about an "unjust system" yet he is inconsistent.  And, that is what I am going to talk about.

An average athlete garners millions of dollars per game doing something it took me five minutes to learn when I was in the fifth grade, and it took only a short time for a rural bumpkin like Andy Griffith's fictional monologue tells to figure out what goes on.   In other words, athletics takes no real skill.  Sure, the more you play the better you should be, I will grant that, but at the same time it doesn't take rocket science to play football.  So, why is a man like Kaepernick getting a fortune doing what a grade school kid picks up in one period of recess?   This question addresses the real injustice.

Kaepernick is supposedly anti-cop, yet a cop performs a valuable public service - it takes a lot of courage to do what our policemen do, and many risk their lives doing so for a salary that is far below what they deserve. Also, police work entails very intense and careful training - not everyone can be a cop.  It takes a hell of a lot more skill to be a cop than it does to kick a ball over a goalpost, yet who gets the bigger salary?   Then there are our teachers - teachers have to often train for years, and it takes a lot of dedication to mold young minds in the classroom, yet the average teacher's salary is shameful - they get paid next to nothing for doing a lot.  So, it takes a hell of a lot more skill to teach people than it does to kick a ball over a goalpost, yet again who gets the bigger salary?  I have heard this hypocritical rhetoric before too - from politicians, from actors, from academic elites, etc.  Yet, the inconsistency is glaring, and let's talk about that.

For all his whining and protesting, Kaepernick has it pretty good - he gets millions annually in salary, can do what he wants when he wants, yet he whines about "injustice." However, for all his protests about a "corrupt American society," what I don't see from Kaepernick is his hatred for the American dollar - he sure loves getting those!  The inconsistency in this is also something that is shared by other mouthy high-profile blowhards such as Oprah Winfrey, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, and a large number of academic elitists at many of the universities in this country.  They run their mouths, yet the ticker tape on their stocks runs faster - at the same time, teachers struggle, cops struggle, and the average working-man of any race often has issues meeting his monthly bills and putting food on the table for his family, yet we don't seem to acknowledge that.  Rather, we look at "poor Colin Kaepernick" who is such a "hero" for making an ass of himself on the sports field - poor guy; must really stink getting all those millions of dollars for doing little while many of our vets, who gave themselves for our country, starve on street corners and spend the nights in shelters.  Oh yeah Kaepernick - you and your friends have it so bad!  And, that is the real injustice.

It is time that we stop putting celebrities up on pedestals for saying and doing stupid things to stir up controversy and draw attention to themselves.  I am all for people working hard and even acquiring good fortunes if they do it honestly, but what I am not for is seeing skilled professionals who invest much in preparing for their vocations struggling to make ends meet while athletes with no skill whatsoever can say what they want, do what they want, and they are "sanctified" by the duped masses as "heroes" for doing it, many of those masses who themselves are struggling.  To the masses I say this - instead of wasting money watching a jerk like Kaepernick kick a ball around (something a three-year-old toddler can do) why don't you use that money toward something more constructive?  Maybe if we start hitting these athletes where it hurts - their cojones and their bank accounts seem to be synonymous with each other - maybe it will humble them a little and the Colin Kaepernicks, Dennis Rodmans, Michael Vicks, OJ Simpsons, and other crooks posing as athletes will be cut out to pasture where they belong and it can put their engorged egos on much-needed diets.   We should also do the same with the music business as well, as people like Simon Cowell (who is so tone-deaf he has to use sign language to urinate) have no business dictating what constitutes talent - do you ever notice there are no instrumentalists or trained musicians on shows like "American Idol" and "The Voice?"   Reason for that is that these programs are not about talent, but rather who has the tight booty they can shake at the judge.   If shows like this featured real talent, they would feature people like Carol from our parish church, who has a beautiful singing voice and also can play any keyboard instrument with finesse and class - Carol though lives on a fixed income she has to supplement by offering piano lessons to kids, and I guarantee she don't make millions doing it.  Yet, her dedication and love for what she does speaks for itself, as she is not in it for the money or fame; she does it from her own passion.  That is another injustice in society that the Kaepernicks don't seem to get either - people who have passion for what they do and do it with excellence are not rewarded for their efforts, but are marginalized instead economically.  It's a crying shame.

That is my "rant" for this week, as I felt I had to address this issue of over-spoiled celebrities who like to say things they cannot back up, and in my eyes they are simply not worth paying attention to anymore.  If more people thought the same, it would cut off their funding, and perhaps they could be jogged back into the real world where the rest of us live.  It's "dreaming the impossible dream" in today's society, I know - but, one day thankfully God will set things right.  It's that hope that sustains me, and hopefully it will you as well.

From Athens to Alexandria This Year

In the midst of a lot of graduate school, Sunday School blogs, etc., there has also been a necessity this year in particular as far as travel is concerned, and so far this year we have traveled a lot.  Given my previous role of leadership in the House of Laity for our diocese, I was once again priveleged to attend our fourth (and regrettably last) Synod for the Diocese of the South for our church at St. Stephen Pro-Cathedral in Athens.  We were up there during the last week of April, and as usual it was a good Synod - got to see a lot of familiar people and it was just a great visit.  On the way home from that, we stopped over in St. Simons Island and Brunswick, where I spent a lot of my childhood with my dad many moons ago, and I also got to meet up with a dear friend of mine from elementary school days by the name of Sim Taylor - it was a great blessing to get to see him after all those years.  It was also new for Barbara as well, given she had never been to Brunswick or the Golden Isles before, but she enjoyed it as well.  This trip was an important first step for us, as a lot of new things are beginning to open up and I want to share that briefly here.

2015 was a rough year for us, as it almost cost us our house and we struggled with so much - lack of employment hurt our income, and despite an attempt to work at a couple of at-home schemes (both of which were actually scams) the year was pretty bleak last.  As 2015 ended and a lot of things started coming to a head, it forced us to see the importance of relying on God's will and His direction, and as we did so, things started to happen.  To begin, God provided in an abundant way for a great need we had, and we saved our home.  But, in the process, Barb and I talked, and we decided that we needed to follow a greater vision and plan on moving out of Florida for good after living here almost 27 years.  So, we began to explore options, and what happened in the coming months was a whirlwind of things that began to fall in place for us, and one of them occurred at the Synod this past April.

One of our diocesan bishops, Bishop Donald Lerow, actually has jurisdiction over what is called our Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic States, or DMAS, but he also pastors a parish in Jacksonville, NC, which is in the Diocese of the South.  While at Synod, Bishop Lerow and I began to talk, and as it turns out he had been praying for years for parish work to happen in my home state of West Virginia, and he really got fired up that a native of the state who was also a part of the Church wanted to go back north and do something for the Church, so as we talked, a lot began to happen, and in the coming weeks after Synod things came together quickly.

Bishop Lerow, in his wisdom, thought I would do best in Church work as an ordained deacon, and just a couple of weeks after the Synod I got this email from his secretary with the application paperwork to start the process.  As I completed and submitted everything required, I also got on with the business of taking my summer term coursework, and all went pretty quietly until about two weeks ago when another email from the diocesan secretary came with an official summons to meet with the diocesan Commission on Ministry in Alexandria, VA.  This was, on the outset, an extremely short notice, but just a few days after hearing from that we get checks from a class-action settlement we were part of in the amount of $350 between us, which supplied the need for the trip.  So, on the 19th of August, we took off at around 1 in the afternoon and headed north, and now history started to take shape for us.

The trip up was long, and having worked a partial day, traveling straight through on that 12-hour trek was not possible, so we decided to stop and get a few hours rest in North Carolina at this place in Dunn called the Highway Inn.  That was a big mistake!  It was kind of late, and we were looking for a convenient and economical place to crash for a few hours before getting back on the road, and the desk man was decent about it, and surprisingly up-front - he essentially told us that if we didn't like the room, we would be refunded with no problem, and he suggested we see it first.  That was a red flag there, and we should have really taken the good man up on that offer!  We get up to the room, which stunk, was overheated, and the carpet looked hideous due to the fact it appeared to have never been introduced to a vacuum before.   The bathroom also had no towels, and a shower was an impossibility at that point.  This motel was the stuff that bad horror movies are inspired by, and it was a disaster/nightmare of a lodging to be sure!   I managed myself to get about 2 hours sleep, with the fact that the sparse blind was letting in glaring lights from the parking lot and upon taking a visit to the restroom, I was greeted by the sight of two copulating cockroaches on a door hinge - they were dispatched and buried at sea, but considering what they were doing at least they died happy!  Not being able to sleep, I was up by 3:45 AM, and I let Barbara rest until 4:30, at which time we got up and got back on the road.  I was very thankful to get out of that crap-hole of a lodging, and would not recommend anyone staying there ever.  Usually though, with a motel like that, the lack of maintenance is a sign that it may be about to close permanently, and to be honest it probably wouldn't be a bad idea.  Dunn is a significant place regarding Christian history as it is the location of the headquarters of a very unique church denomination called the Pentecostal Free Will Baptist Church.  But, that stay didn't reflect any enthusiasm for that, and we were both relieved to kick the dust of Dunn off after that experience.

The Highway Inn in Dunn, NC.  We stayed in the room where that first window on the second floor is, the "room from hell." 

Bad motels aside, we made great timing getting to Alexandria, even with a breakfast stop in Rocky Mount, NC.  We arrived at All Angels Church, which meets in an office building just off Exit 2B on I-395, at around 9:30 AM, about a half of an hour before the Committee meeting.   There were two other candidates besides myself, and the whole proceeding took about 2 hours, which was fine.   The meeting produced good fruit, and a lot of both the priest and lay members of the Committee were very nice folks, and Bishop Lerow also provided over site - it was good to see him again as well. The outcome of the meeting was that I was accepted as what is called an Aspirant, meaning that the next stage of the process involves an MMPI test, a background check, and some paperwork submissions, which will not be too hard to do.  If all that goes well, I will be then accepted as a Postulant, and it looks as if I will be assigned to Fr. Pothin of the Frederick, MD, parish as a mentor priest who will oversee my diaconal preparation.  There is an excitement about all this happening, but also I am understandably a bit nervous too - there is a lot to do ahead of us, and it requires commitment on my part, but I can do it. 

All Angels Parish, as well as Bishop Lerow's office, are located on the third floor of this office building at the intersection of Edsall and Cherokee in Alexandria. 

The altar of All Angels Church in Alexandria - they did a tremendous job creating a beautiful parish in an unorthodox location.

After the meeting, we decided to go explore the neighborhood near the we stayed at - the Days Inn on Bragg Road, a much better place to visit than that Dunn place!   We grabbed a bite of lunch at the Royal Palace Kabob House on Beauregarde Street, and then went and checked out an Ethiopian market.  At this point, it is worth mentioning that Alexandria is noted for a couple of things, one being the Masonic Monument downtown and the other for hosting one of the largest communities of Ethiopian-American people in the nation.  Alexandria is rightly called "Little Ethiopia" because in practically every shopping center there is a shop of some sort with Amharic lettering on the sign, and that proved to be a blessing to me personally.  The first Ethiopian place we visited was the Dire Market and Deli on Chambliss Street, just across the street from our hotel.  Although a small market, it was still an experience to visit it, and I was able to stock up on both berbere and on some delicious but volatile Ethiopian biltong jerky.  I was really wanting to buy some injera, a flat pancake-like bread which is a staple of Ethiopian cuisine that is made from teff flour, but I was also a bit apprehensive about that being I feared it would not make the trip back.  But, if all goes well, we will be visiting again.  I also have a bit of a humorous story to relate about this too.  The market also has a small cafe-type eatery incorporated into it as well, and Barbara was curious about the injera bread.  Well, goofy me, with only about 3 hours sleep, noticed a plate of injera pieces sitting on a counter and thought they were samples, so I told Barb to check it out.  Turns out, the plate was a dirty plate being taken away by the wait staff for a customer, and luckily Barbara figured that out before she "partook" of it, and she wanted to shoot me!  We did get a good laugh from it later, and it is a story we can amuse ourselves with for years to come. 

The Dire Cafe and Market (now called Time Market) on Chambliss Street in Alexandria - two doors down is the Enat Restaurant, an authentic Ethiopian eatery we didn't have the privilege of trying this visit.

Visiting that market was exciting, but not as exciting as it was when we got back to the hotel.  Just across the street from our hotel is the Hamere Noah Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and being it was right there I just had to check it out, so I walked over there.  Now, Ethiopians don't just relegate church to a one-hour timeframe, but they go all day, and a lot was still happening at that little parish despite the fact the official Liturgy was over a couple of hours earlier.  The beauty of a Marian shrine at the entrance of the parish was the first thing that struck me, and in back I was also able to get some good pictures of some beautiful Ethiopian icons as well as of the ceremonial drums they use as part of their worship.  I actually was welcomed into the sanctuary, but declined due to the fact that in their churches, it is a requisite to remove your shoes, and I had holey socks on and didn't want to do that.  Maybe another day for that.  Over the next day before we left, we watched as tons of devout Ethiopian Christians parked quite a distance away and made their way to the church, ladies clad in the white traditional headcoverings in particular.   That had to be one of the neatest experiences I had ever encountered, and is one I will always treasure. 

The exterior of Hamere Noah Ethiopian Orthodox Church, facing Bragg Road - the Marian shrine is in the middle.

An up-close picture of the Marian shrine.

An array of Ethiopian liturgical drums laid out on carpets in back of the church

My experience in "Little Ethiopia" was not quite ready to be over yet, as that evening we went across the street to a Chinese buffet, but prior to going we decided to check out some of the local shops.   One of them was a 99-cent store which, judging by the Amharic signage over the door, was Ethiopian-owned, so we stopped in.  While in there, I got to talk to a nice Ethiopian gentleman who gave some insight about the "Broad Canon" of the Ethiopic Bible, which contains 81 books, including Enoch and Jubilees.  That turned out to be a stimulating conversation, and I actually learned a few things from this guy that even I didn't know, and I have been learning about Ethiopic Christianity for years!  The whole experience was a blessing, and afterwards we ate and then relaxed at the Days Inn we stayed at for the night.

The Days Inn on Bragg Road in Alexandria, where we lodged during our visit.

Sunday morning got off to an interesting start, as we got a really good night's rest and decided to attend Mass at All Angels before hitting the road back to Florida.  The folks at All Angels were a nice congregation, and they have an awesome vicar in Fr. Clarke, their Jamaican-born priest-in-charge.  We got to talk some to the folks, and the priest prayed his blessing over our travel, and we headed back.  Other than a few gas fill-ups and some Bojangle's Chicken for lunch in Petersburg, VA, the trip back was smooth and uneventful, but it also gave us a lot of memories too.  We now have all in place for a new chapter to start in our lives, and this trip sort of got that process started.  In coming months, I will document other developments as they happen, and thank you for visiting with me here on my virtual "front porch."

Random Ponderings on Top Issues

Given the title of this article, in reality this will focus on one major issue for the remainder of this year with different posts, as there is a lot to discuss and much of it will be impromptu, drawing from things I have written in my personal journals and other sources.  I want to begin this random series of perspectives by saying that one thing most of us need is a systematic statement of our world view on different issues and situations, and in studying a lot of different things this past year - G.K. Chesterton's writings, as well as the writings of such people as Ivan Ilyin and others - I have come to the conclusion that there are several things that need reform in this nation, and as I have come to that conclusion it has made me more resolute in some long-held positions I have had, but also given more clarification as to views I have held but may not have been able to classify by name.  In many cases, much of what I say will no doubt tick off people, as I am not guaranteeing "political correctness" on some things, and also I will not always even march lock-step with those who call themselves "conservative" either.   No one is perfect, in other words, and what we need to do as critical thinkers is to sort out what doesn't sound right and instead focus on the virtues of a given position.  In doing so, this means a radically new way of looking at things in some cases, even for me personally.  That being said, why don't we open this by way of introduction by stating some simple facts about where I stand politically and philosophically.

Some of the material I have been exposed to recently has included Hillaire Belloc's The Servile State, as well as Chesterton's The Everlasting Man.   Both of these books have something in common which has more or less given form to ideas I have had before, and that is both of them advance a socio-economic viewpoint called Distributism.   Also espoused by other well-known writers and activists such as Dorothy Day, Distributism is a viable alternative, with a strong Judeo-Christian foundation, to much of the nonsense that both Corporate America and big government espouse, in that a Distributist model starts at grassroots and doesn't serve the establishment well.   The tenets of Distributism stress things such as the right of all to property ownership, the importance of the family as the cornerstone of a society's economy, and also this position would be much friendlier to local business interests in contrast to corporate conglomerates.  Having a solid grounding in Judeo-Christian faith too, it also affirms the role of faith in business practices, something that the ethics-deficient corporate world needs these days.  Critics of Distributism say that it is promoting an agrarian society at the expense of technology, but it really is not - as a matter of fact, technology should be utilized properly as a tool to aid the stability, both socially and economically, of a society.   While Distributists often do romanticize agrarian life as the ideal, Distributism as properly understood applies just as equally to the small-town and even urban culture.  The reason many people associate Distributism with agriculture is probably due to the property ownership emphasis it has, but people can own properties in towns too.  The real impetus behind Distributism is to promote a greater self-sufficiency among families and individuals, while at the same time allowing for charitable effort where needed and also the interdependence of each self-run business regarding the success of the local economy.   So far in this year's Presidential race, it is unfortunate that none of the major candidates, Republican or Democrat, have the interests of the family in mind;  one candidate is a major figure in Corporate America, and espouses a "crony capitalism" in which smaller businesses suffer in order to advance the large corporation.   The other candidate is about more centralized government, and subsequentially more government control in daily life, and this is depersonalizing as it detracts from encouraging people toward self-sufficiency.  Neither the corporate executive nor the bureaucratic socialist have a clue as to what makes the average family tick, and that is why I will support neither of them.

Another idea I have in relation to this is the reinstatement of a system of guilds and co-ops to aid communities.  I want to focus on the co-op, in that I believe it is the key to benefitting everyone in a given community.   The way I perceive a co-op to work is quite simple really - a system is set up in a community, and the members of that community contribute as they are able, and then the system is there to benefit those who require its services.  Take for instance a medical clinic which is run on a co-op principle.  As part of the community ordinance, people would be encouraged (not coerced) to contribute an amount they are able to give to a pool fund, and that pool fund would aid in the operation of the clinic.  If some become financially unable to contribute at some point due to loss of employment or other situations, then the co-op would provide for them anyway via a discretionary account set up for that purpose.  In this way, people could get the care they need without having to stress about bills and insurance rackets.  In essence, a system like this would be a true insurance policy in that all members of a given community could benefit from it.  A system like this would quickly do away with the oppressive system of "Obamacare" as well as health insurance rackets which charge exorbitant premiums but then deliver little in return to those paying into it.  This is one idea I have among many, although it would take much more thought and planning to really iron out the details.

Another area that would be a target of reform is community upkeep.  In a truly Distributist situation, the community is the responsibility of those living in it, and what this would mean is volunteer-based beautification projects which would eliminate the need for overpaid and underqualified government workers.  One part of this would be resurrecting the old "Adopt-a-Highway" programs which were very effective years ago.  Also, planting things such as community vegetable gardens and other projects would aid in achieving the goal as well.   One thing for projects like these too would be to target younger people - if young teens are put to work, it would keep them out of trouble and they could have a sense of accomplishment for what they do.  For poor teens from low-income households, a fund could even be set up to pay them a minimal rate for their work, thus helping them contribute to their family's income too.  If more communities would do stuff like this, it would cut down on crime, and if such programs were made mandatory in problem areas (dare I say Black neighborhoods in many cities, which are notoriously crappy-looking and crime-ridden, although it is probably not "politically-correct" to say so and may get me some badmouthing from loudmouths like Al Sharpton), it would cut the need for entitlement programs and instead encourage the development of a responsible work ethic.  It could also be made part of the school curriculum for local high schools, colleges, and universities as well, given past success rates with such things.  Known as "cooperative education," such programs benefit both the young person and the community, in that it also helps the young person develop practical work experience to make job searching less stressful later.  College and even high school credit could even be given in some instances for participation.  It is programs like this, which are at their core essentially Distributist, which will revitalize many communities if people would just take such things seriously.

The key to something like this working is a change in attitude on the part of so much of the American public.  We have been, by and large, swept up in a post-modernist "feelings-centered" mentality where encouraging hard work and self-sufficiency is viewed by such people as "racist" or "offensive."  It is so much easier for the detractors (many of whom are radically left-leaning in politics and morality) to throw money at a problem rather than fixing it at the fundamental level, and hence the problem.   Distributism understands that often it does more good to temporarily hurt someone's feelings in order to motivate them to do better, and although the person may not find getting his toes stepped on too endearing, in the end such a person, if receptive, will be thankful for the assertive approach.  This is why also we need to get the wimps, pansies, and sissified career politicians, many of whom will say or do anything to keep their cushy jobs (another reason why Congressional term limits are a great idea, but that is for another discussion), out of office and elect real leadership which is more about correct action and motivation than political rhetoric.   Good candidates with a more Distributist approach to economics and who listen to those who voted for them will in time be able to even resolve the national debt if we cut some "fat" regarding entitlement programs from the Federal budget.  Until we do, America's fate is questionable at best.

Those were a few thoughts today on Distributism and economics, and hopefully I can share more soon.

Random Ponderings on Education

I grew up, as many know, in rural West Virginia.  I also grew up without a lot, coming as I did from being raised by a single mother in poverty.  Depictions of West Virginians in the media are often of us as being backward hillbillies who sit around drinking moonshine and plucking out "Dueling Banjos" on ratty-looking stringed instruments while we date our cousins, and the lamestream media (not a typo, as most media is lame these days!) seems to love to caricature people who hold to traditional values and firm religious convictions as being like this in general.  Yet, when I look at today's educational system, I am actually thankful for how I was brought up, because I learned something.  Many kids in today's schools cannot make that same statement, as they come out more ignorant than they went into school.  Let me give a couple of examples I read about recently, as it just proves how stupid the really ignorant are, and the really ignorant are often the teachers standing in front of public school classrooms.

Just this past June, a little boy in New Jersey got into some trouble over what is really a stupid reason.  The little boy either brought brownies to class or was talking about brownies to another student, and the idiot teacher calls a fully-armed cop into the class to interrogate the boy!  As a result of the incident - which was abuse by the teacher of a dumb New Jersey 'hate-crimes" law that really needs to be taken out of the books - the boy was traumatized, and his mother was upset (understandably!).  The mother (who is of Brazilian ethnicity) is exercising her right to take her son out of that stupid school, and she should.  What is bizarre about this whole incident is that a Black thug can kill cops and get called a "hero" by that incompetent ding-dong in the White House (that would be Obama, whose equally idiotic wife launched a crusade against peanut butter sandwiches for the same reason), yet an innocent child is punished over brownies (this story is at http://patch.com/new-jersey/collingswood/third-graders-racist-brownie-comment-prompts-police-response-new-jersey.  Accessed July 25, 2016) .  If teachers were to focus more time on teaching kids how to count, how to write, and how to be intelligent human beings rather than being agents of a "politically-correct" dictatorship, we might have a better educational system in this nation.  I want to contrast that with what I learned in our little three-room "ignorant" West Virginia school.

The little elementary school I went to, Grassy Lick Elementary in Kirby, WV, only had three rooms, and we had two grades taught by one teacher in each room of the school.  The high school I went to - East Preston Senior High School in Terra Alta, WV - was not much bigger, but both of these schools (over 2 hours apart from each other) have some things in common.  In these schools, one thing that could be guaranteed was that our teachers were strict!  When you were in class with them, at the time you would probably hate them, but years later you really appreciate them so much because they dedicated a lot of effort to making sure you learned what they gave you effectively.  One such teacher that comes to mind was my 10-grade math teacher at East Preston, Dorothy Schwer.  If you know German, you may pick up that her last name meant "difficult," and she did live up to that!   As I had German at about the same time, the joke that was quipped among some of us then was "Ist Frau Schwer schwer?"  But, I will tell you something about Miss Schwer that I would not have admitted when I was a 16-year-old high school sophomore over 30 years ago - she was a dedicated teacher who took her job very serious.  She wasn't there to make friends of her students, but rather to make them apply their brains God gave them to learning how to work with numbers in their future jobs.  She was definitely a challenge as a teacher, no argument there, but at the same time she was challenging us.  In retrospect, she was being an effective teacher, and God bless her for it.  Miss Schwer is now long retired, and on occasion I still say hello to her on social media, and I appreciate her dedication to us as her students.  And, I should consider that, as should all of her former students, a blessing - she imparted to us a great gift, but it was up to us to learn how to use it.

Grassy Lick School, Kirby, WV - as it appears today

Another such teacher I had like this was my 5th and 6th-grade teacher at Grassy Lick, the late Guy Dispanet Jr.  Back then, especially as a young kid of 10, I was actually intimidated by Dispanet and his character - he was huge, had the demeanor of a Marine boot-camp sergeant, and he went by a strict regimen in his classes.  At the age of 10, I was sort of in a state of flux - I was living in a poor household, and I wasn't really applying myself as I should.  So, that particular year Dispanet did me a huge favor - he flunked me in 5th grade, and I had the privelege then of having him as a teacher for three years instead of two.  The retention to repeat the 5th grade was my own fault, and Dispanet was only doing his job - like Miss Schwer, he was dedicated to his students, and they were going to learn something out of him come hell or high water.  And, God allowed it because Dispanet was ordained by Him to get my act together and be the person I am called to be.  In the following two years though, something very neat took place - thanks to Dispanet, I was able to really draw out a lot of my own talent and giftings, and I earned both his respect as well as his guidance.  His motivation was something I honestly needed, and God knew how to get me where He wanted me, and Dispanet was His instrument for doing that.  I am now completing graduate school as a result of Guy Dispanet's strict but caring guidance, and although he passed away in 1992 from an unfortunate illness, I was truly blessed to have the opportunity of learning from him.

Another such teacher was one I had in first grade, Mrs. Frances Harper.  Mrs. Harper was a young teacher back in that first school year of mine in 1976, but she too took her job seriously.  One thing Mrs. Harper saw in me that stood out was that I had the capacity for learning in a way that was sometimes eccentric, but she knew just what to do.  It was from Mrs. Harper that I learned two things - one an appreciation for reading, and the other learning to organize things systematically, which I still practice to this day.  She was another one of those teachers I owe much to, and recently I was able to get in touch with her - she remembered me very well too!  As a rambunctious kid of 6, I was also prone to getting into mischief, and I must have driven that poor lady to distraction, but at the same time she also knew how to challenge me in order to channel my energies in more productive ways.  Do current educational standards reflect the stellar education I received?  Let's talk about that.

In our parish church we have a gentleman named Dick who serves as the parish Senior Warden, and he is a retired teacher as well.  One day I was talking to him about education and its current state, and what he told me echoes the sentiments of many good teachers who are often deprived of their vocation to serve as glorified babysitters in classrooms.  Dick was substitute teaching in a neighboring county just prior to his retirement, and one Sunday he came to church really frazzled - the school he was working in the previous week was nothing but gang fights and goof-offs, and Dick said he spent the majority of his time breaking up fights and doing other duties, and his position entailed very little actual teaching.  In his own words, he more or less said that he didn't spend all the time and money on tuition to go to teacher's college to be a glorified referee and babysitter, yet that is what he was essentially having to do.  His frustration was understandable, as today most of the educational system is run by corrupt politicians who are more concerned about students knowing about "diversity" rather than teaching them to actually spell it and pronounce it correctly.  These politicians are often fueled financially by a wealthy lobby of professional educators with radical agendas which we now call the NEA.  The result of much of this has been a dumbing-down of the educational system in order to promote "tolerance" and other BS, and let me now talk about an example of that.

Thanks to the Obama Administration and its own radical agenda, many disciplines taught in schools have been dumbed-down to the degree that it is almost ridiculous for a real educator to even waste time teaching them.  A perfect example of this is what is called "Common-Core Math."  For many of us who are from earlier generations, we remember how rigorous math was, and it was a hated subject - constant memorization of multiplication tables, etc.  But, you did learn from that, and it enhanced one's educational experience.  Instead of learning multiplication tables, "Common Core Math" has students do math the stupid way.   Let me give you an example.  For anyone taught math like it was supposed to be taught, you can do this equation in your head:

32 + 24 = 56

That is really not that hard for most of us, is it?   However, here is what "Common Core Math" has students to do, and it is just nuts:

10+10+10+13-5+2+20-10+10-4 = 56

Although you eventually come to the same answer, it is so ridiculous how they do it, and it wastes a lot of time.  The primary reason for "Common Core Math" is just like the rationale behind why a lot of things are taught weird in other disciplines - it is not about students applying themselves to learn anymore, but rather about them feeling good.  It is likewise true in literature as well - most of your average high-school graduates in Florida schools these days know less than I did when I was in the 6th grade in a little "backward" West Virginia school.  For instance, to have classic stories like Joel Chandler Harris's Tales of Uncle Remus banned as "racist," as well as banning my good friend Robert Newton Peck's book A Day No Pigs Would Die because it accurately sums up how life is on a farm, especially during the Depression, is the height of lunacy considering the same people who banned those would allow their first-grader to read "Heather Has Two Mommies" or their junior in high school to read Alfred Kinsey's sick theories on sexuality.  The "idiocy factor" among so many of our youth has grown astronomically due to hippie burn-outs teaching radical politics in place of basic skills in classes, and it is a scandal on Western civilization.  As D. James Kennedy, Kent Hovind, and even generations earlier with G.K. Chesterton have noted, when you remove certain things from public life, it causes problems.  Let's consider what has happened in the past 53 years:

1.  1963 - Prayer in schools is banned.

2.  1973 - Roe v. Wade legalizes abortion as an industry and radically alters how people value human life. 

3.  2015 - Under Obama, the Obergefel ruling of the Supreme Court mandates recognition of  "same-sex" marriage, undermining the family.  

These three fundamental actions of our own leadership have assaulted and attacked three fundamental areas of human development - the home itself, the family unit, and the value of each individual human life.  Let's think about that really carefully - when a bunch of radical academic elites (many of whom don't know their keisters from kickstands) start dictating to people that God doesn't exist and that human beings are mere "evolved apes" with no more value than a common garden earthworm (some of them value worms more than their own kids!), it doesn't bode well in the classroom when you start teaching kids they are mere "animals," for in time they begin to act like animals.  We see the consequences of that mentality now - the Columbine shootings of 1999 were a very serious and tragic example, but when you have to walk through security checks and have your bags checked for metal detectors before entering home room at school, there is something amiss.  And, that is why we have so much violence today.

Patriotism is another virtue that has suffered because of this.  All through school, we always recited the Pledge of Allegiance before every class day started, and it was something that was considered honorable to do.  Also, once I was in sixth grade, it was considered a privelege when those of us who were older kids got to put up and take down the American flag each day, and we were taught to handle that flag with the utmost respect.  I was shocked recently when my wife received a medical certification at a technical college she studied at for a while, when at the graduation ceremony the National Anthem was sung but the majority of the people in the auditorium just sat on their fat rumps and disrespected the whole thing - in my day, when the Anthem was sung, you stood up, put your right hand over your heart, and you respected what was going on as proper protocol.  When I saw that shameless display of disrespect in that auditorium a couple of years back, I wanted to literally flog the whole lot of those slackers.  We need to respect the flag, and honor the National Anthem when it is sung - patriotism is a virtue and a fundamental traditional value, and by taking it away it compromises who we are as a nation.  

That all being said, we need to get back to teaching our kids not only academic excellence, but also moral and social etiquette when it comes to certain customs which define us as Americans.  Until we learn that, we will never be the nation we once were, and we will also cease to exist as the America we know.  Considering who is now running this nation, maybe that is not such a bad thing either - perhaps the dissolution of the United States as a political entity will preserve in its remnants what it means to be truly American.  Any rate, thank you for allowing me to share. 

The artwork in this article was painted by a gifted artist named Jim Daly.  

Summertime Reminisces

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article for submission in an Appalachian literary magazine called Summer Nights, but it was never published.  I wanted to work on it some, and was able to, and I want to share here a little bit of an updated version of that article with you.

Growing up poor in rural West Virginia, it required a creative imagination to keep myself busy in the summers, and over the years some things changed.  One of my earliest memories though was catching bugs, salamanders, and frogs in the yard surrounding my great-grandmother's house in my hometown of Hendricks, and also commandeering the swinging bridge beside the house where I would often either scare the crap out of local women who wanted to cross it or I would cook up schemes to make a quarter or two in order to buy a soda or some candy up at Sonny Hedrick's store just down the street from the house.  Of course, on occasion, I would wander out too far and that would get me in some trouble - you see, I was not allowed near the river behind the house, as of course I couldn't swim and I was much too young to deal with things like the occasional copperhead snake that would occasionally be lurking in the bushes.  Probably more frightening though was the old couple who lived in a ramshackle old house just at the other side of the field, Jake and Corey Phillips.  The Phillipses were an eccentric old couple, and would even pull a shotgun on local kids that got too close - rumor had it that old Jake had shine stashed in the springs nearby, and he didn't want them to be found.   Whether that was substantiated or not remained to be seen, but it made for good local legend and would explain why those two were so cranky!  If I got too close to the creek, it would be guaranteed that I would suffer the consequences of that decision - Mom at the time worked at the Kinney Shoe Factory in Parsons, and Granny babysat me most of those days.   One time, as a matter of fact, I decided to venture down to the river, and in short order here came Granny with a large spatula, and she herded my little butt back to the house with it quickly!  That incident lives on in family legend as my famous "Skillet Spoon Encounter," and it has become the object of much laughter even to this day.

All of that happened around the year 1976.  Approximately one year earlier was the setting of my famous "Pentecostal Peeper"story that took place in a little church outside Falling Waters, WV, called Little Falls Chapel.  When my step-grandmother Goldie became terminally ill with cancer, she underwent a major religious conversion and devoutly followed her faith by attending that little church.  However, being I loved to catch critters down near Hoke Run close to their house outside Martinsburg, I often ended up taking some of my little friends to church with me, and that caused excitement.  But, you can read that story elsewhere, as it has already been told.  But, here is the little church, both inside and out, as it appears today:

Little Falls Chapel, interior - that was the center aisle I ran down to show "Preacher Jake" the huge toad I caught.

The exterior of the church.

Catching frogs and toads was only one of many activities I had during the summer months, as I grew older I was allowed to patrol the creeks myself without supervision, and then my focus shifted to crawfish, "miller thumbs" (a small creek sculpin), and other creatures I would find.  Most of that happened when I was around ten years old and we moved to Kirby, WV, and through the center of town flowed Grassy Lick Run.  We at the time lived in a mobile home just about a couple of hundred yards from the creek, and I would spend hours on end down there messing around in the creek, being careful to avoid neighborhood bullies and nosy neighbors.  I began to also take an interest in reading more in the summers at that time, and that fueled my imagination more (I will be talking about that in-depth shortly too), to the point I decided to build my own "island" in the middle of the deep hole just below the town bridge in the creek - in reality, all the deeper it got was to my ankles, so it became easy to heft big rocks and pieces of sod to my "island" to fix it up.  I also had gotten the family passion for fishing a year earlier when I spent the spring of 1979 with my dad and step-mother in Brunswick, GA, and in the deep holes of Grassy Lick Run there were two types of large fish that were fun to catch but of no nutritional value - one was creek chubs, which were large minnows that grew to about 9 inches, and the other were 1-2 foot mudsuckers.   The mudsuckers were really fun to catch, as you often had to snag them with a hook as they would not bite, but the challenge of catching them became a sort of personal accomplishment.  Although regrettably I haven't fished in years, I still love to fish, and look forward to doing some more fishing later on. 

Another thing that I found fun to do in the summers was picking berries and other fruits that came in season.  As a young kid, I came to know well when the various edible berries ripened, as my great-grandmother would go every July at least once to pick huckleberries, blackberries, and a luscious red raspberry we called "mountain raspberries."  When she picked all the berries, she would spend at least a week canning them, turning the harvest into jars and jars of jams, jellies, and also delicious pies, dumplings, and cobblers.  Granny's favorite places to pick blackberries and raspberries was over in what was called Shaver's Fork, which was accessed by a dirt road on the east bank of the Shavers Fork River just south of my hometown of Parsons.  Back in there, she was able to go to a couple of abandoned farms which were owned by relatives and pick all the berries she wanted. Later, it would be a trip to Stony River just northeast of Thomas where a large plateau sat just above the dam there, and the place was abundant with huckleberries.  I always liked the huckleberries the best, as they had a good flavor to them - elsewhere in the country they called these "wild blueberries," which technically they were, but we always called them huckleberries.  Another berry in close proximity which was similar was a reddish berry with a cherry-like flavor called a serviceberry.  Often, we would just pick them together, and they somehow ended up all mixed in the same bucket.   Seeking out a delicious delicacy like that had its risks, in particular venomous snakes such as rattlers and copperheads, but it was worth it to have those delicious berries.  As I got older and we moved to Kirby, I was able to find a small huckleberry plain just outside of town, and often frequented that as well as picking the ton of tiny wild strawberries that grew in the big field behind Grassy Lick School. Those berries often ended up in a small pie I had a local woman named Goldie bake for me.  There is a certain satisfaction one gets in harvesting wild food like that, and throughout the year during the summers there was always something to pick or dig up, and I got to master all of them. 

Once I hit fifth grade and my own pursuits became more varied, I also spent a lot of time, especially at night, reading books.  I grew to love and identify with so many of the characters in the books I was exposed to, especially thanks in part to a large stack of old Cricket and Readers Digest magazines that we got from Aleida, a classmate of mine, as well as some of the local people.   But, I also had a lot of other reading material, and it was pretty diverse - Robert Newton Peck's Soup books, as well as Louisa Shotwell's Roosevelt Grady and William Armstrong's Sounder.  I also still found a great deal of pleasure in reading the Olive Beaupre Miller My Book House set that Mom had originally gotten me as a gift when I was born, and through that I was exposed to so many other things, notably William Makepeace Thackaray's classic short story The Rose and the Ring, which still amuses me to this day.  Reading books like that (including the World Book Encyclopedia set and the large gourmet cookbook I "inherited" from my late step-grandmother when she passed away in 1979) helped me to rise above the poverty that we lived in then, and in addition to having a certain identification with many of the characters (ironically, this is why I cannot be prejudiced today, because in reading books like Roosevelt Grady, Sounder, and Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, all of which had as central characters Depression-era poor Black children, I saw myself), it also fueled my hunger for knowledge and I would "experiment" with doing things those books said by going outside and sort of reenacting some of the stuff, of course adding my own twist.  I did have many neighborhood kids as friends then too, and we would build forts and other stuff together too, and they must have thought I was out of my mind with some of the stuff I would come up with!  However, I am thankful for that experience, as it broadened me in so many ways. 

As I grew older, however, I found my interests expanding quite dramatically, as all of a sudden at around the age of 12 I began to develop an interest in music.  It was on one of those lazy summer Sunday nights, and Mom was messing around with the radio, flipping through the dial, when I heard this great sound coming through - the song I can remember vividly, as it was a 1949 recording by Benny Goodman's orchestra of a song called Moonlight on the Ganges, and as I listened more to this, I became hooked, and that began a 35-year love of a music called big band.  I didn't know what it was all about then, but I knew I liked it.  In a short time, I found out that the station Mom tuned into was WBT-AM, at 1110 on the dial, out of Charlotte, NC.  On Sunday nights back then, WBT had a music show that went from 10 at night till 1 AM that was hosted by late radio personality Henry Boggen, and as I have already told the specifics of that story, I won't indulge that here.  Needless to say, over the next couple of years afterward, I would sit at our kitchen table in our mobile home in Kirby, WV, with that radio on, and in the summers when I was allowed to stay up later I would sit and drink sugar-sweetened coffee while listening to that show on Sundays, and that also began to fuel my imagination.  As I loved to draw, I began drawing pictures of orchestras and such, and that music was adding a new dimension to my already-active imagination.  And, so that would be all the way into my high school years.   I still listen to that music today, and collect it - with almost 1000 LP records and over 1200 CD recordings, I would say that in 30 years I have a good handle on the music now, and it is solely entrenched as a part of my own identity.  When I hear a song like Keely Smith's rendition of Lullaby of the Leaves, or Sinatra's very iconic recording of Summer Wind, it hearkens back to those balmy nights of sitting at our kitchen table with the windows open and the radio playing, often with only the light over the stove on.   On occasion, Mom and I would play Yahtzee or dominoes too when she had trouble sleeping, and all of that just evokes so much.   

As I entered my teenage years, many changes took place as we moved out of Kirby in the summer of 1985 and in the next few summers my whole summer routine would change.  I still loved my music, still read a lot of good books (at this time I became passionate about Armenians and Assyrians, and was introduced to William Saroyan's writings), but I also began to diversify my tastes a little.  In my sophomore year of high school, I got into Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, and later Shostakovich, and Russian composers became something I liked to listen to.  Also, after my conversion in 1986, I also became more involved in church work, and I spent a lot of summers doing things such as teaching Vacation Bible School, attending denominational conventions, and other such things.  I also had learned to play the saxophone, and in high school I was active in the marching band and that had me out and about as well during a lot of weekends in the summer months.  A more active social life meant a little less of my earlier childhood activities, as my interests were changing - I didn't catch as many crawfish or frogs in the creeks anymore, but I did still gather plants.  When Mom took care of a nonagenarian lady on Salt Lick Road between the towns of Terra Alta and Rowlesburg, we were out in the country, and there were a lot of woods around.  So, I would explore the woods above the house, often taking our old dog Jill with me, and while in the woods I harvested stuff such as ramps, wild garlic, fiddleheads, and berries.  It was around this time too I began to dabble more in cooking as well as short forays into minor agriculture, and I kept a little vegetable patch above the house as well as using the wild foraging items I found in recipes.  Listening to Stravinsky or Mario Lanza while experimenting with a homemade pizza recipe or making bagels (I was becoming more aware of my Jewish roots, and found a Jewish cookbook in the local library, so I experimented in the kitchen a lot!), as well as making a sort of stew concoction I liked to cook was comforting to me, and it made me feel creative and productive.  I also was able to spend more time with my dad's family in Brunswick, GA, and loved fishing for gar and dropping blue crab traps in the river with my cousin Michael off my aunt and uncle's houseboat near Blythe Island, as well as messing around Saint Simon's and Jekyll Islands. That was also my first opportunities to earn a little cash too, as I worked with the construction business my dad had in Brunswick to pick up a little extra cash in the summer, and that felt good as well.  Once I graduated high school and went off to college though, a lot of that faded away, especially as the responsibilities of married life, keeping up with school work, and later jobs took up much of my time.  And, for most of my adult life, living in a more urban environment didn't help either, as a began to gain weight and just succumb to Corporate America's demands rather than indulging some childhood passions I once had.  The fading away of much of that also caused a part of me to sort of die as well, and in the past few years I really started to realize it more as I get older.

However, I do have good news.  Over the years, I have began to do a little bit of rediscovering who and what I am, and doing a personal journal for over 20 years has helped a lot.  Additionally, recently the opportunity has presented itself to move back home after over 26 years in Florida and the "urban jungle," and I see much possibility for recovering some of what I have lost.   Of course, not all is lost in Florida though - being able to grow my own tomato and basil plants, as well as having the joys of seeing the sandhill cranes and their families as well as feeding bread to the large flocks of white ibis that visit our yard every so often have put me in touch with some of that early passion, and I think that the more I recover some aspects of my youth, the more healthier it will make me physically and spiritually too.  One part of being a West Virginian by heritage is  mastering the ability to "make do," and oftentimes the worst wildernesses to survive in are not the ones with creeks and woods, but rather the ones with asphalt, concrete, and pollution - that has been a big struggle for me.  It also has helped in recent years to see shows now in TV such as Swamp People and Duck Dynasty, as they also serve as a reminder of who I am and where I come from.  However, at this stage in my life I see myself more of an Ike Godsey than I do a John-Boy Walton, but Ike's character had a lot that was admirable as well.  So, whether it be the rural creeks and woods of my home state of West Virginia, or even the occasional "Florida Cracker" towns that grab my attention here, they all resonate with something deep inside me that reminds me of carefree yet busy summers of my youth.  And, as I write this now in the Florida heat of mid-June, that fact becomes more real.  If you grew up the way I did, my advice to you is to remember those good things, even if you did possibly grow up poor economically and in a rural or small-town environment. Never think of that as a curse, but as a blessing, for you will begin to find it has impacted you in more ways than you imagine.  Thank you for allowing me to ramble and share, and enjoy these summers and make the most of them while you can. 

Many of the art pieces I have included in my article are endearing prints created by a talented artist by the name of Mark Keathley.  I recently became acquainted with his work, and his paintings have in large part inspired this article too.   I hope you can appreciate this remarkable artist as much as I have come to appreciate him.