"How're you

 girlfriend?". A woman working at Red Barn Hollow General Store asks a white haired lady.  The lady sighs a little tired and says, "Been to physical therapy.". People are making way to lunch, foraging through an array of snacks, beverages, and sundry-save-the-day items like charcoals for cooking out, Jersey workgloves, fishing pole and split shot.

  Some raspberry Italian ice, perfect in a sun that holds getting work done days open.  In mountains it's not "attitude" when anybody working on anything stays on-focus to achieve.  Mountain places especially run on tight schedules of delivery and pack-ins; visitors coming and going in every direction, but here they are friendly too.

  About two weeks from the Friday before the Fourth, here, the Red Barn Cafe is going to open.  Kristen Johnson will be managing the cafe.  "Diner-type setting," she nods a little as she decides what style of cuisine.  "We're gonna do breakfast and lunch."

  Kristen says it's an old building.  Used to be a gas station and garage.  Though she's "been up" since November the cafe was just not functioning during Covid.  In 2017 it was big doings, opening a restaurant in big mountains.  They had "broasted" chicken.  Different than roasted chicken in that it's pressure deep fried, Kristen explains.  As we are talking I see that the local newspaper is The Graham Star.

  I'm cool to sit in the dining room and reckon with such different terrain.  28 runs east and west but I'd just been on a spit of road that put me going south, north, and west all at once.  And the altitude changes conditions of machinery as well as organics.

  The cafe's ceiling is plank board sloping up to center beams which are, in fact, de-barked tree trunk.  The tables and chairs are a sturdy sit; hardwood squared to perfect comfy-casual tabletops and stickwood seat backs.  Lightbulbs in Mason jar chandeliers ambient while wall to ceiling windows mix in the natural lighting passively.  Ferns common to North Carolina and Tennessee but maybe some called "New York ferns" can be seen out picture windows.

  The good eatin' will include menu items such as...

  Kristen's daughter Katie, mother's helper, lets me preview a menu.

  The Momma's Boy--Two eggs any style, two slices of bacon, two sausage patties, and your choice of two pancakes or two slices of French toast.

  The Tornado Omelet--Ham, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, peppers, onions, & cheddar cheese with a side of hashbrowns.

  Lunch appetizers will include onion rings and beer battered mushrooms.  Burgers and sandwiches will include a Catfish and Philly Cheesesteak.  There will be salads, entrees, and dessert!  I was imagining the chocolate lava cake as a customer came inside to pay for gas.

  Above the register is a sign that reads: PUBLIC NOTICE, due to recent budget cuts, the rising cost of electricity, gas and oil, plus the current state of the economy, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.

  Outside an American and a North Carolina flags on a gold-ball-topped pole that seems as tall as the mountains behind them.

  Over at Look Rock God is making the fire works in a rolling thunder.

Happy Independence Day America!

  A stop at the 129 Hub to smile at the "Save the Stick" campaign logo and I am OFF!!!!!  

  For me driving the Dragon is more thrilling than maybe 94 or 87% of life.

   Ah, Bryson City, NC

  From the Tuckasegee River on an inner tube you can't really see the little unimposing office of the newspaper.  Don't really smell the freshly ground coffees.  Can't picture the latest round of homes for sale, quite the price range.  You scrape your knee or butt on a rock and proudly resolve to keep carrying on.

  The mix of man and mountain here....

  The uneven sidewalks kind of go with the territory.  If your head floats off in thoughts of gourmet cheese for Uncle Louie for Christmas or chichi scarves near Sasquatch tee-shirts, tripping over a tree root raised segment of sidewalk is sure to bring you back down to earth.  Been lost in a deep ravine and forging way from campsite to toilet shack in the shadow of ever taller mountains to climb?  Ground.

  Reality, locale, has a way of settling in on a place.

  Even before bankers' hours the Everett Street Diner's bteakfast smells waft through town the way clouds linger on postcard image of mountains to the edge of Bryson City.  Peoples' good mornings can be heard.  There is something inviting about doing business here.

   From where I sit in the shade, out past the crop-topped White Birch I can see two hills.  The Weather Channel's 20% chance of rain here seems in the clouds out past those hills, drifting slowly towards afternoon while a ground breeze slaps at the newspaper articles I am reading.

  Dr. Harold Black takes a somehow centered position in asking the question, Will the EPA cause Michigan to flip?  

  City Council to add Historic Overlay District to Sunsphere by Mike Steely tells us about "block grant funding."

  And an exceptionally well-written article by One Feather Intern Reporter Mattilynn Sneed summarizes the many details of the case of the Ela Dam.  The multi-page article is titled, Dam issues; The Ela Dam: A complicated but crucial journey ahead.  In it we read of environmental problem caused by aging man-made.  But we also have strong, living example of many groups working together to come up with solution.  Like the Cherokee symbol of a spider with many legs, the dam issue involves many aspects or parts.

  On my way into the Museum of the Cherokee People I get the chance to chat with some young people.  They are part of a group called "The Firebuilders".  Peanut has a gigantic smile.  Ava is working on a black and neon pink finger-woven belt.  And Dylan explains their group works out of the museum.  We do what we do "for everyone, but mainly to teach our different communities." "Oh!? You have different communities?" I ask.  The young people explain all Cherokee People and our Tribe has a way of basically classifying where we live.  There's Big Cove, Wolf Town, Yellie or Yellow Hill, and Bird Town and Snow Bird and, Paint Town they round out the list together.

  Peanut passes the beaten drywall saw to Dylan for a turn cutting a block of rock.  "It's like soft granite," Dylan tells me.  A soapstone found near granite deposits.  The strands of Ava's yarn move gently in the breeze below where her hands weave together the belt.  The L-shaped Minnesota Red Pipestone piece that Dylan is working on absorbs the sunlight making the color even richer.  I wonder to myself if the rock's coloring is like that of the sicklefin Refhorse fish.  

  Inside the museum is cool and refreshing.  A steeply slanted roof outside effects the inside of the building.  Richard Saunooke sits at a table working on a piece of leather.  If you have any questions, he tells each visitor.  So I ask him, "What are you working on?" He is making a knife sheath.  He's taken some things "off the wall" for today's display.

  A British "gorge-ette" in a special case looks different.  Richard tells it was worn as a medallion by officers; it's a quarter moon.  His own hand pats a medallion he is wearing, "A full moon."

  There is a, "I can't remember from my reading," and Richard finishes my sentence, "story belt".  The purple is wampum beads and the white is of welk shell.

  "Are these your medals?" I ask of the encased coral-colored pieces.  "These are Peace Medals," Richard clarifies.  Lewis and Clark gave one to every chief they met so they'd know who the ptesident was.  This shows a Cherokee Code-Talker.  The embossed medallion shows a WWII soldier but Richard explains the Cherokee did code-talking in WWI as well.

  On the table are also ceremonial pipes--tiger'd maple buffed to shine, inlaid with pewter and silver.  "What's this?" Blurts out of my mouth when I see a knobbygnarly item, "Another pipe?"  "It's a war club," Richard says.  "An Irish shay-lay-ler; outlawed in Ireland; so they made these of those," he indicates a walking stick resting against the wall.

  Back outside the young people are sawing away at the white-ish colored rock.  The men are discussing whether or not to try and snap it at this point.  So sloooow, they agree and recall other projects that took time to produce end result.  "Like my Grandpa said," Dylan says, "inchin' by a mile."

  I ask them then their favorite part about working with the Museum.  Peanut answers first and, it turns out for all, Going up to Kituwa (Gid ooo ah) to teach the little kids.

  Dylan rasps at the red soapstone and says, "Because you can see the difference." "Yeah," Peanut gives a nod of affirmation.  "High Fives at first, but by the end of the year--hugs!"  Dylan explains, "Answering questions of tourists is one thing, but with tourists you don't know if you've made a difference.  With sticking in your community, you see that.  You see a community member knowing self better."

Dylan, Peanut, and Ava (2024)

 

   At Spring Park someone burned down the toilet and trash can!  I am so tired of people ruining "nice", I really am.

  Photos sent in from another park visitor (thanks! Horned Lizard):

Partings at the ledge

   I read in a newspaper Sports section today, "There is a tradition in the South, as in other parts of America, that a story worth telling places a responsibility on the listener to tell it again, in another place."

  Some campfire stories bear repeating, and some don't, to be sure.  Like some sermons, it's usually easier to pass on the good news, the keep on keeping on parts than it is the sad and troublesome.  Relays bear the burden of choice especially in partings.

  "To Powell's fury a group of archeologists persuaded Congress to divert part of the bureau's [the Smithsonian's Bureau of Ethnology] funds into Mound Builder research aimed at proving that ancient European civilizations had once flourished in the Midwest.  Powell [a self-taught geologist] responded by recruiting Cyrus Thomas, an entomologist-turned-archeologist, to prove that 'the prehistoric mound builders and the historic tribes were part of the same fabric of unbroken cultural development' (148, The Adventure).

  "Fanning out over mound country in 1882, Thomas and his assistants found that popular tales about the mounds had created a fever for collecting artifacts.  Landowners were selling them off; collectors traveled around the country digging into mounds and hauling away everything they found.

  "Trying to stay ahead of the vandals, Thomas's colleagues worked as quickly as possible" (148).

   A dumpster jacked up to keep hands off; scrap.  The shiny silver glints, wreckage saved.

  I've been spending time each morning handing out business cards to do light-duty (not a contractor) landscaping and carpentry.  This morning's sunny start was also perfect for checking out plants at Lowe's.  It's that time of year for our vegetation friends to get out of their pots, too confining since they've grown, and into someone's TLC.

  Fourth of July preparations are being made all over the place.  Someone kindly even stood Our flag on a median.

  Listening to Delilah on the radio somewhat smoothed the not-so-great feelings about coming back to the city.  Could be any city; and I really mean, not-as-good, I don't feel quite as good about concrete as I feel when I'm in nature.  So that's good to know about myself.

  I'm reading Michener's Poland.

  Stay well wherever you live.  It was nice to reconnect with some lifelong friends.  Thank you.

   Getting back to the city is a mix of imagery and sounds and smells.  Rows and rows of mowed grass.  An An All Aboard the Trump Train handpainted sign let's me know we're on the ledge of the great divide in this election cycle.  Compassionate somebodies plug the word "together" everywhere we could get lost.  Remaining one Nation is the ideal and the goal.  

  In the past when we've been here, the majority of us re-ups on hard work and earning and investing.  And in that function there is space and growth potential for individuality too.  Our most devisive issues turn into a patchwork of possibility, not a tyranny of told what to do--not in reality.  There are factors which influence the broadstrokes and how balance rocks in turbulence, but our civility is a strong cement.

Historic Rugby

   Into the early morning quiet bursts a barrage of bird song.  The mist hangs heavy around trees cradling the village.  Sunlight gently spotlights.  Plankish boards on building.  Tin roof.  Patch of flower.  Some of the buildings sport historic info out front, explaining original purpose.  There was a turn of the century (ca. 1901) Boarding House here, for instance, that a relative of the first owners helped to preserve in the 1980's.  A photograph of ladies in Victorian-age dresses shows off gardening accomplishment and fiddle in hand.

  Preservation of the village is the mission-goal of Historic Rugby.  There are regular residents and people who live/work here to tend and relay its past.  The significance of that past isn't readily spectacular like a Civil War battle, but holds more subtle heroic effort and victory.

  A map like a sketch of Rosary Beads in an 1884 edition of the Rugby Gazette and East Tennessee News shows us Rugby almost in the center between north and south.  The LOC--Library of Congress/Chronicling America by the National Endowment for the Humanities has pages online from the newspaper originally established as The Rugbeian in January of 1881.  The C.S. Railway ran from Chattanooga through Danville Junction where there was an arm of the L.A.N.R.R.  Louisville, Kentucky to the west, Cincinnati a little more north and east.  This place was described as "the most delightful situation on the Cumberland Mountains."

  While the Harrow Road Canteen is still under construction right nearby of interest is a gallery and the Rugby Printing Works.  A wooden sidewalk and treestump-sitting speak to the blend of nature and human ingenuity that is a hallmark of Tennessee.

  This morning Brian was manning the desk at the Visitor's Center before Tours at eleven.  A mural, Rugby, Tenn, 1880's, is like a view from a hot air balloon.  Pictorial landscape; village gentlemen on one platform with blueprints and book; ladies and children on another (bottom right) ground the painting to the room.  The people are life-size and one gets a real sense of connecting with these pioneers of the past.

  A brochure reads, Fall in Love With A Village, Historic Rugby:1880s Living Victorian Village.  And, "Historic Rugby was founded in 1880, as a British colony in the United States.  Thomas Hughes, a best-selling author (Tom Brown's School Days) and social reformer, financed the Rugby coloney so England's second sons (who typically inherited nothing) could move to America, acquire land, and get a fresh start."

  The orientation film, viewable upon request in a beautiful tiny theatre, explains that Founder Thomas Hughes also beckoned unemployed factory workers from the Northeast.  The dream/vision was a "utopian" "community based on hardwork, cooperation, and compassion for others."  There were Appalachian farmers already in this area.  Hughes' daughter, Emily, photographed many of the people living here.

  During a visit to The Rugby Printworks I find out from Pete Merrill that the National Geographic in 1880 didn't have "pictures" in 1880.  Any image to be printed was based on an engraving.

  Pete  commutes 60-65 miles a workday to be present at the Print Shop.  He's originally from Maine where in the late 1950's he "knew where my destiny" would take him.  He studied Math, English, and History and spent the rest of his High School time in the Print Shop.  He also served for twenty-two years!  His Veteran's cap tells me and the other visitors, Pete worked on submarines.  He explains a "retired flag" project started by StarsForOurTroops.org after lunch at a food truck.

  Local George (?) explained that the food truck is the canteen while the (sadly) burnt down Canteen (3-4 yrs ago) is being rennovated.  There is a grant to do so, but the project will not be completed until next year.

  I arrived to The Rugby Printworks and was greeted by the lovely smells of aging oak, press oil, sawdust, paper, and ink, and Beth Donegan.  Jerry Zorch was off today.  Beth starts a talk by letting us know it's a working press-place so touching/moving stuff around messes people up in efficiency.  And later when Pete "keys/coins" a "chase" to ink some monogrammed letterhead, his talkreiterates how lined-up the work needs to be.

  "Bit of a fat man's squeeze," a woman explains of an afternoon hike to a rock formation, "But it's not a cave." I meet Maggie, and Jodie, and Frannie.  Frannie's "the counselor" and she and her group have gathered at Historic Rugby for Adult Summer Camp.  In which people get together and act like kids again.  I tell them how some of my creative compatriots came to Tennessee some thirty years ago.  At that time I learned so much from the experiences.  I'd learned, for example, from the Martha Sundquist State Forest workers how to ready a campsite between late spring and summer.  So I did as I had learned this past Memorial Day Weekend.  Smudge fires at dusk, making a treetop and trunk of an unruly pile of stick wood.  I remembered stuff I'd learned experientially like it was yesterday!

  At the Print Shop Beth shows me a photograph of the building we are standing in on a flatbed being hauled (in 1978) from Deer Lodge.  And shows me a The Rugby Gazette broadsheet.  It's a single big piece of paper that's 1 and 2, 3 and four pages of newsprint.  She explains, "It starts with a man on a horse."

     "A man on a horse?"

     "Yup." And she tells how in the 1880's people here had to make way to Elgin which was Sedgemoore.  They had two things Rugby did not.  They had a Railroad Station and a telegraph office.  That meant national news!

[Insert more] on print shop

Mass at 11 am Sunday in the second chapel, Christ Church (no communion the Father is traveling)

  Pete at age 83 outpaces me after a day of listening intently to process and historical fact.  He's in a silk-screening studio when I find him mid-afternoon.  Some of the Adult Summer Camp-ers are having their yearly gathering logo'd onto tees.  I also meet Benita Howell who hashes my description words of her as ' real Rugbeian'.  Living in Beacon Hill nowadays she's been a "long-term resident" for some twenty years.  She grew up in Asheville, North Carolina and explains, "not a descendant.". Pete swipes the ink over a screen and wets a tee-shirt with fresh image.  Benita lays it on a rolling mesh that takes it through a belt dryer.

  She shows me an aging work table for silk screening that was used by Mike Alley.  His were more wood block type images.  Benita tells me Historic Rugby acquired some additional used equipment when a shop closed down with the widening of 127.  Pete helped them jumpstart the tee-shirt-making.  We get a preview of the 13th Annual British Car Show coming up in early fall.

  Around 5 o'clock under a sun still broadly sweltering I walked over to the Canteen/food truck area for "Road Bowling".  There was Gerald, maintenance-extraordinaire for this historic village in a Bowler or Derby hat (I [obviously] know nothing about fashion; nada, zip).  People were gathering!  A tall summer-tanning man asked me was I going to bowl.  I responded that I preferred to watch since I've never experienced this before.  He assured, "You can walk alongside.". And, "It's a walking game."

  Making teams of us was a woman who worked up here for forty-five years and who misses it.  The tall man assured hesitators, "You don't have to be good at it."   He also kindly gave me a bottled water.  I think our ages spanned the spectrum.  Another person in an old timey hat explained, There will be spotters a ways down.  "Everyone cheers everyone else on!" Someone interjected.  The spotters will see where your canonball goes.  If a car comes, everyone yells caaarrrr!  The goal is to make the loop in as few a rolls as possible.

  The spotters had marking poles-- chalk on one end and a magnet on the other.  "Okay, Game On!" The tall man issued the ready, set, GO.  The first person took to the center line in the street and pitched the canonball.

  The other teams rotated in a bowler and amidst much fanfare we watched each color ball roll and walked a little ways to where each ball had stopped rolling.  The orange ball rolled past the elderly crossing sign.  The blue went pretty far.  A spotter chalked a line from the grassy edge to road.  "White!"  He called of the ball.  Hoots and hollers went up for each bowler.

  Orange made a smooth, long roll.  Another orange team player pitched the ball like an underhand softballer.  Gerald picked up a ball with the magnet end of his marking pole, "Red," he held the ball up high.  We came across parked and chair-seated fans!  Wearing straw hats with flowers and Queen Elizabeth in a hat in a car window.  A ball was pitched pretty sideways, the lot of us clapped and cheered anyway.

  "CAaaaar," people said as a red ball rolled into the grass ditch.  Little Madeline furthered the blue team's progress.  It was the red team up after a white "gutter ball".  Clapping.  CaaaaaaRR!  A motorcycle and trike went through our procession.  An orange canonball rolled straight down the line.  A blue stopped rolling near a mailbox.  Team Missy roll-pitched the white ball.  Up near Laurel Dale Cemetery, another car.  Someone pronounced, "The Rugby Rush Hour."

  A dog on a leash got a waterbreak in the shade.  A belle in white dress, barefeet jokingly offered ice tea on the veranda of one of the historic buildings.

  We looped onto a path passing by a building where I heard instrument sounds.  Red, blue, we walked beside a little field of grass.  The slightly uneven pavement making the game even more challenging.  Sloping away from us a ball rolled into a pole or something and made a chunkclak sound.  At one point the whole group moved so a bowler could get a better angle.  Soon we were back near the street sign reading: Laurel Dale Cemetery/Dead End.

  Gerald held up a ball calling, "Red." A golf cart drove by with pizzas on the front seat.  Bobbie in the lime green sun hat advanced team orange.  By the time we got to the corner of Farringdon (where the 1880 Newberry House offers lodging) we witnessed perhaps the farthest roll by team white who won the walking game--Irish Road Bowling.

  There is something reinvigorating of faith when people gather to worship in a mountain church.  People have been off doing.  Doing survival, doing exercise, doing play, doing everything humans do.  And to do Christ also adds an element to life that helps sustain.  The little Christ Church in Historic Rugby reminds me of the onion-domed churches in Alaska; the ones I learned about reading Michener.  At Rugby the weathering wood is in part painted in the rich tones of maroon and spruce and a subtle gold.  The crucifix is also more quaint than huge and imposing.  The altar space involves the humans; those doing the readings, giving the sermon, and focusing on connecting with God.  Even the music player's station is open and centered--up front.  The way of the service is explained so people feel comfortable and engaged.  And the space that people created for this celebration is un-vacant'd by us singing and praying together and paying attention to God's Word.

  Today we reflected on Old Testament story of a young and fearless David.  Aligned in his life as individual...learned survival living, learned hunting, learned confrontation and endurance growing into manhood...it comes time for him to help his army, bolster the Israelis in battle, step up in the group way.  The wizened Goliath puts down the Judeo-Christian God and believers.  David's destiny flashes clear; he will use his skills and faith to conquer for God and his people.  Victory happens!

  So we as Christians are grounded in the roots of our religion for Gospel (Good News) which today in the story of Jesus quelling the stormy sea parallels that of leader David coming into role.  Both stories are about fear and faith, and, about being ourselves--humans caught up in the power of God.  In dire situation being afraid is quite natural, as is being shaken out of sleep to see.  That person has an idea, a way, a trust.  The disciples did not yet have an established religion; had not yet experienced the totality of Christ's mission; of course they were unsure of Jesus' power(s).  And Jesus had not yet relayed all the facets of being a Christian, having equal measure in terms of faith in God's love and mercy.  By the time Jesus asks, Why are you afraid? there's temptation to feel like maybe an individual's faith is being doubted.  Though there is also a case to be made here for group experience processing.  Jesus checking in on where people were at in relationship with Almighty God, OT God who over-sees battle and weather.  Jesus prodding at the very tenents of trust.  Do we trust in God?  Do we trust in each other?  Do we trust that even in mortal peril, God's got us?

  The coming from the nooks and crannies of mountain life to trust in church for a worship-gathering doesn't win a war, or prove that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (the Holy Trinity) exists as a Supreme Power, but it does advance knowledge and wisdom of God's ways.  It does present opportunity for individual to further stepping up.  And it provides the two or more.  Gathering to celebrate being a Christian, to worship together, to go through the human processes with the Living Presence Holy Family...is surely anchoring in any storm.

  Back up at the Visitor's Center Brian and new-to-Rugby Guide Lily were off giving another tour.  I met some folks up from Chattanooga way.  I'd seen enormous equipment stowed on the side of the road a couple days before and couldn't imagine what that was about.  Well, these traveling buddies who went to high school together many years ago now, brought up that stranded cargo.  Apparently it's come all the way from Kansas!  It's here in Tennessee but there's permission issue.  The lady'd found a newspaper article on the big doings.  I'm watching for that in the email.

from the Sunbright Lady:

  I was reluctant to write today though committed to my challenge--no photographing!  Push myself to write as descriptive-ly as image.  My hesitancy/hemming and hawing has more to do with the weight of gold to this story.  And I'm still digesting the triumph of what Hughes inaugurated here in Historic Rugby.  As in our times, the "work" is ongoing; and though there be fights over management and ownership, contentions over issues and leadership, friction of idea and belief; there is also continuity in a spirit of surviving as a free and tending-place people.

  It was more than thirty years ago I met some people in this area of TN who were painstakingly grooming walking trails.  I was young and experiencing anxiety from studying "hot war" and the pressures of competition in every field I was considering as "career".  More than one adult encouraged, Go outside and play.  The Rugby State Natural Area looptrail to the Massengale Homeplace charged up my batteries!

  My walking mates had a good laugh at citygirl getting ready for forty-five minutes.  And then recording all the information on the Trailhead Kiosk.  I actually had tears of joy and appreciation in my eyes for the effort that had been made to honor an Appalachian neighbor.  The Massengales had lived on the ridge!  "In there?" I asked looking towards a ferny damp mysterious holespace into the woods.  "Ahuh," an outdoors type replied.

  The kiosk tells us that this project has been a "cooperative effort of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation & Historic Rugby." It's a 725-acre State Natural Area that's been "achieved in several stages" TO: Accomplish both natural resource conservation and protection of the Rugby Colony National Register Historic District from surrounding incompatible development." We weren't really joking when we wisted for the same for ourselves and had a lively conversation about encroachment and boundaries.

  In the case of the RSNA, Rugby State Natural Area, cooperating entities included:

  The TN Dept of Environment & Conservation (TDEC); the TN Department of Transportation; a National Forest Service Legacy program; landowners Bill Ray, Andrew and Herman Gettelfinger and Jean Rhoads and Hugo Goad; and non-profit Historic Rugby.

  The Trailhead kiosk also notes key support of Governor Phil Bredesen, "a strong proponent of Cumberland Plateau conservation efforts."

  Mentions too, extensive pro bono assistance by the law firm of Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis.

  The Massengale Homeplace Loop was the first constructed trail in the Class I Scenic-Recreational State Natural Area.  And there were hopes for such work to continue.

  Across town, 2024, the sounds of portable drill and hammer rally to an early start workday.  The Brad Daugherty Construction crew positions scaffolding, cites places to be careful, and discusses plan of action.

   A young Edith Walton eyes the present from still-frame black and white portrait on the kiosk.  Through the tenths of a mile trail I go trying to spot the wild Tennessee vegetation identified in photography.  It's eye-foot coordination that steadies through.  Mind recalling sample plants up at Frozen Head, shapes of leaves, and the taste of berries on a tree in Jisen Park, Knoxville.  A North Light Art School, 1986, publication on observation and drawing pops into my head, encouraging visual curiosity and practicing...concentration, looking at the lights and darks of things, recall, and base-to-build out.  I see different kinds of ferns; carpets of moss on fallen tree; silty-bottomed trickle of stream; earth sloping stairway up to ZigZag Railfence and another kiosk.

  A homestead now partly canopied, part sunlight raying into my sense of time.  A quote hanging on a door jumps off my notebook page.  "Speed is not important." --Pete Merrill. We'd been talking about a fruit tree planted for a president, Charlie Burnell, of the British Car Show club as Pete used a spatula to wipe "ink"/chemicals from a screen back into a container.  As in baking the temperatures matter to solidifying image/item and the heat of the resting press plate gets out wrinkles where the item to be silk-screened will be coated by squeegee with the two-part material that's a resin, a plastic material.  But it's in the dark room that my mind better understands the red burned on/black washed out.  And on the ridge in the backwoods I see the fence standing out from the vanished cabin.

  Fortunately a long ago visitor to the Massengale's sketched the family and watercoloured both home and the "hearth" of people in place.  A tall lean woman could be the twin of my own West Virginia to Michigan Grandma Pearl.  A story of a schoolgirl relaying a "tall tale" by the man who lived here about a spectacular day of rounding up food makes me chuckle.  Reminds me of a favorite children's book, Sometimes it's turkey, sometimes it's feathers.  I have brought no implement to copy the growing season chart and as I head back to loop I think about schoolkids walking to village and clearing to learn stuff like alphabet and fundamental principles of nation.

  Hayrolls are stacked three-high in a greying wood barn.  Outside the 

              R.M. Brooks

                  GEN. MDSE.

     GROCERIES DRY GOODS NOTIONS

place, fairyangelwing ribbon still wraps poles of outdoor seating.  A man sorts Recycling into heavy metal trash-protector containers.  The man slows truck on his way past me and asks if'n I was walking on the tall bridge yesterday.  Someone spotted a woman walking there and there's really no way to know....Was it someone pushing through fear of heights?  Taking in the view?  Or something else?

  An OPEN sign nee-ons at 10 a.m.

  Inside an apron embroidered gives a touchpoint of history: R.M. Brooks, est. 1917, Rugby, TN.  Paperwasp nests bereft of insect hang along a crossbeam.  French Fries and a Tiffany sandwich fill the clearly hallowed halls with the smells of delicious.  And my tummy as I have breakfast with Ronny England and hear that Friday's wedding was a real nice afternoon.  He takes his time to wonder and ask what I'm writing about, so I tell him about my article on the Mountain Shadows blog (mtshadows.blogspot.com).

  An ecclectic mix of human ephemera, what also gets called culture material and stuff, counter-balances a clapboard wall of family, group, individuals' photographs.  From a Sailor's woolie uniform shirt to hand split White Oak Tobacco Sticks this place is a testament to thriving as blossom on survival.

  An obituary and memorial service booklet framed commemorates Andrew Clay Starr Jr. (November 17, 1934-October 15, 2022) and the star dust farm of Sunbright, Tennessee.  Quilt and collander hang beside on country wall-museum.  Elect Eddie Langley, Sheriff.  A Bobby Brooks write up on the hand split White Oak Tobacco Sticks tells about the equipment hung perfectly for display.  The R.M. Brooks store starts to get busy as I read about the tools being used for over fifty years on farm established by his late Grandfather R.M. "Daddy Bob" and Nettie E. Brooks.

          "They were used to spear or spike the tobacco with the metal spear shown above for wilting down before hanging in the Tobacco Barn for final curing before stripping and hand tying could commence.  Once dry or cured it was then strip one leaf at a time and separate into separate grads of 5 or 6 and then tied into hands for selling at the Tobacco Warehouse where the sales were conducted before Christmas.  The money was used to pay the land taxes, farm expenses, with the reminder for Christmas."

  A business card leads me to shiney sculptures on metal popsickle-like stakes.

             "Beauty from Ashes"

                     Isaiah 61:1-3

      Repurposing one life at a time

     "The sulverware items you see represents the oppirtunity for changed lives in the Dominican Republic.  In 2011 God spoke to my heart and opened the door for me to be involved in a Sewing Ministry through One Vision International.  This all came about after I quit work to care for both my mother and mother-in-law.  I definitely had my doubts as to how we could afford the trips with the decrease of one income to our budget.  That's when God asked "Do you trust me?" I stepped out in faith, trusting His provisions for every trip.  He gave my husband and I the idea of the silverware artwork-repurposing often discarded odd pieces.  Our ministry in the Dominican gives ladies the opportunity to learn a skill to provide for their families raising them up out of poverty as well as hearing the gospel." --Stephanie McMahan, owner Beauty from Ashes, MsStephmac@comcast.net // 865-924-2090

  On another trip back to the Historic Rugby Visitor's Center I meet a philosophy professor (retiring soon) who visits this nature every year.  He asks Lily Huckeby, recent high school grad, "Where to?" when she tells us this is a summer job and she's headed to college!  A Tennessee school, Lincoln Memorial.  This gives me the opportunity to explain getting lost on a nature destination trip and feeling lucky to happen into the Briceville Library.  It was heartening to see a poster-sized Abraham Lincoln in the foyer.  And the librarian kindly helped me figure out, all turned around.  Lily was telling the professor more about the Sheltowee Trace when her mom stopped in.  Since I wasn't taking photographs for the weekend's writing assignment I ask her to send me copy.

                                      Lily Huckeby, Big South Fork Park Guide, Summer 2024

Weekending not far from the City

 27 n, Frozen Head filled up!

Naw, it's a piece on the equator days (solstice time) between the two Tennessees--mythical and factual.  Hence Historic Rugby.

On the way...

     Oh dear

Bigbig fullmoon

in the morrow,

  I did a bit of a roundabout way to get here, staying off the parkways but on TN's Scenic Byways.  Found a crawdad with some folks from Texas in a stream not running too fast, more meandering.  A State Park nature-person was teaching about snakes at dusk as the trails took on forest-dark blankets of night before a magnificent moonrise.

  Some of the road construction is par excellence ready for summer, but some signs are still not up properly, so yeah, I missed a couple turns.  Fortunately TN Rest Areas have really good maps.

Cha; but the xtra driving left me with vapors.  Have gas can.

  An option or two for tent-camping but a wedding last night foiled attempt to do so.  It was late in evening.

We were settled on it

   Summer.  In my family, age-wise we were same generation but all over a twelve year spectrum of chrysallis difference.

  That summer I blew out my breath, a tired anxious about any "issue" sigh, and sort of moped over to Mom.  "What's wrong?" She asked.  We were all switching up clubhouses.

  'Honestly, I was torn between spending the summer as a colonial and pioneer settler.  Carrie"s gonnah use the log cabin as a mansion.  You think Dad can get his buddies to move it?"

  "Your father doesn't have buddies."

  "Is it our project then????"

  "'Fraid so."

  "Okay I'll organize but we'll let Mike be Boss."

  "Got it."

  That summer our mom kept asking the boys, "You're gonna marry her too?" Of all my girlfriends.

  We grew three watermelons and laughed with Daddy when Mama wouldn't let the spit out seeds be wiped off faces.  She"d already washed our faces getting ready for bed but we hadn't done hands and teeth yet when Daddy got home frim the train station.  'Plaining about thirsty but proud of leaving sports on TV at a bar.  Mom looked at his state of wrinkled, pulled his tie from his change pocket, and rallied,  "Let's eat ONE of the Watermelons!!!!". People chucked toothbrush and hairbrush and made way to the back door that Daddy'd had a man fix.

  The boygirl saw the cooking fire smoke get chokey damp so she knew it was later morning.  Since this Pol Pot character, that's what her big brother had called "the man," had renamed the villages in Cambodia, the boygirl felt more content to picture living in the world.

  Most everybody was deaf.  And some senses returned over time like some colors of the rainbow seeping back to mind; mind connecting that sound, that texture with its thing.

  The child pedaled.  She was the only one who knew she was a she.  And not just a girl child, but a Ftench girl

  She looked like a duck and she didn't know why but it meant she got to ride the bicycle.  The playung cards clucked and clattered into tiny bells made from

  Couldn't remember the holiday, but there'd been decorating.

"InsidiOUS"

  Oh, all that.

  That amounted to people beating the fuck out of each other in the woods.  Let me repeat the . at the end of that sentence.

It was essentially the same exercise as people lined up to scream "Insidious" at each other about hate and/or love.

  To each his/her/  own.  That really is the American way.  We uphold property laws when possible.

  All that was thirty years ago anyway.

  As it had not been the point of me going camping, the story about the coal box made of stone was not about the hate and violence all around.  Not even about how those sentiments take form.  It was about the love that "fathers" have for "children".  Marsha's "father"/the hunter guy a bunch of us adopted got the innocents out of the trailer; dug a tunnel to do it; stayed in there for more than one night smuggling out people-hostages/prisoners thrown in there, and really bad people....they made a hands across the woods to catch the bad people!  He also collected and locked in a drawer in there all the drugs and alcohol people were stashing in there as the rallies turned into boxing ring/stage.  Total hero.  He was also able to help the misfit/runaway/tribal children connect with the variety of artists, psychologists, medical people who came to help with situation.

  I stayed a few days past all the negativity and guarded my tent while that guy slept for like 17 hours; then found a good coal in the coalbox of the restored fire ring!  That was really cool and beautiful.

   It was Lincoln's idea to keep 'em separated.  At the end but still during the U.S. Civil War.  He wanted to know how to solve the crisis of house-divided.  The scouts and the spies on both sides wanted to know what kind of deal.

  Carefully recorded for posterity.

  The Union listened.  There were those who would never give up "the fight".

  Be it wrong or right.

  The "fragility of freedom" ....

  like those angel wing pickett fences, and then poof!  The world changes.

Yeah, after that trip

 everything bagels were not okay with some of us; we were chiggered out.

  And if I had to hear, "Brian quit flicking your chiggers at me" one more time I'da screamed.

  Big adventure in the big mountains and then the watershed of disciplines.

  Some of the naturalists had fieldwork completed and got science credits!

  God only knows what happened to those psychologists.  Election times are tough to get through.

  Those investigative reporters moved on to other subjects, topics du jour for the dig.  Fiercely competitive.

  My own writing mentor convinced me to stay at university.  Swore to the Absolute that I'd be in the thick of something but with a room of my own.  It was true.

  College-level learning filters and grinds live action, or, the community of academics, scholars does.  For the people who want to do it all, there's opportunity.

  Reading?  Today.  My book melted.  Am reading Gin Phillips' The Well and The Mine.  One of the best.

'The Coal Box Made of Stone'

 'Twas the story I was working on when the rain storm popped up.  It was a rain storm by urban desert standards, just a shower really in the mountains.

  It was actually 'bout that very State Forest campground thirty years ago.

  Father's Day was hard on my mind.  And then I temembered that had almost everything to do with the chaos part of running around in the woods at that political time, my God, the lot of us, humanity.

  I was scurred.  Had elevation vomit as well, whaddah ya call that?  I turned to my fishing buddy and asked.  She psyched a throw up two fer flinching pise and I didn't.  Naw dad that was the motion sickness from this one's driving us over suicide hill.  Or should I say foothill?

  At least it's peoples' choice the whole suicide thing.  My deep woods hunting adopted-for-the-weekend-Dad looked at me long and hard, studying my character.  He was down from campsites B on account of swine flu holer uppers with tons of ammo.  Plus people had had a lot of time on their hands because diwn turned economy like nobody'd ever seen.  Ain't it always like'n that?

  Whaddyah speakin' pidgeon arsehole?  S'matter wich you?  Wannah be a

  OMG she was gonnah say

  the test word

  And she did, she dropped it like a bomber plane

              redneck

  My mother had cautioned me not to get people to fall in love with me.  I had no idea what she meant at 19-23, 24 even, so I defensively drop kicked a whaddayah mean maw?

  Don't you maw me your brothers are driving me crazy with that Republican Redneck crap, and you and I are friends.

  Mother.  And.  Daughter.

  And as both your mother and your b

  Friend

  Bafriend, I am telling you, people like you and then you leave.  That confuses people.

  Someone had made it "to the end of the world" with a tiny house trailer on a towbed and Marsha was playing mini-mom to every yahoo up in this neck of the woods.  "She's our Saint," I'd explain for all of us hiding our various religions.  I knew to call her that because my Grandpappy and our Ida May had raised up Christian civilized Americans in West Virginia through the Civil War.  I'd been studying our geneaology since first grade but everytime I'd get closest to the burning truths, politically, the country seemed to be going a little nuts.

  In first grade it was a squaw line fight about DARs that down through the years turned into funny TV commercials about "lint lickers", mostly.  But to each their own is true American and so "hate crimes" and slower than Catholuc Church fathers sitcoms.  America always has had lots of ways besides civil wars to work out our shit.  So there some of us were hiding, running from, dreaming, reaching for, choking, barfing, pulling and tugging and summering another passionate Spring.  Kinda like that one's "old man", we were scribbling fireside notes to each other.

  In the morning here came some people who wanted to be naturalists, so they were.  They were off to bake samples of dead things on plastic garbage they'd found in a pile.  That's how you can make fossils!  Or, make things get invisible.  All of us young people were a cantankerous mix of wanting it all, to be invisible like a forest creature, to be swinging on ropes over a swim hole hootin' and hollering a happy.

  Some of our camping friends were going into armies.  We got to do some try-out training!  I was best as trying out to maybe be a Forest Ranger.  And I put that on my list of stuff to check out back at the Resource Center at school.  Early bird me took to making coffee for the men of the forest.  Some were traveling for work each day, some checkin' in on, I'll be back, and some did come back.

  One, a grizzly older-than-me "weathering-for-life" type, saved my hyde when things took a turn from weekending to my ride has to travel.  And so we built a coal box made of stone.  Swear to Godah?  I'd ask of his hunting tips.  The answer was usually an ayup or a growl for doubting right when we needed to be timely.  After getting through tense, we'd do a griwn up dance regarding apologies.  And I'd babble some more 'cuz he was a good listener and been dere.

  He wasn't the only person alarmed, but not showing that, about broken mailboxes and stolen bicycles and other seasonal people and property issues near parks and resorts.  Someone had even cracked a window at the local Post Office and people rallied to track down the story there.  Turned out an ApTrailer drank too fast coming up slope and went to pee and leant on it and crack, got a crack in it.  'Course the trailer fahreaked.  Goodie two hiking boots mostly, especially the serious ones.  I'd gotten to camp close to some trailers who'd been at it for years and listening real close, not just staring at their discipline, and asking questions was how I became a kind of signal fire at my special campsite.  Between learning to always always brush towards fingertips with the not always antibacterial wipes to rotating wet clothes with the sunny spots....I was learning so much I tried to convince my mom and dad I didn't need any more college.  That was all I said on a phone call and hung up.  It hadn't occurred to me they didn't know I'd stayed.

  Back at the site from a logging truck hitchhike some Wilderness Not-Army "friends"/competition were gearing up for big adventure and I actually felt a passionate jealousy.  That scurred me too.  I 

am

jealous, I realized and acknowledged frightfully.  To myself.  Writing mentors had been a wildfire to button up writing chores to rambo around on mountain bikes, and were quite snippy, like, at your age I didn't need to tell the whole world my every thought.  And, fuck if I know; to which non-fiction-driven writers amongst us, well, mouths dropped open and somebody gasped, and some cried.  Marsha demanded to know what just happened when she came out of the house trailer back on the towbed, some guy had even built her steps, and us there group-realized

  WAS TOO

  literally?  Beaten with a baseball bat getting here, someone else repeated everything being said aloud, HERE????????  A guy squeamed.

  YAH, yeah, babahBUT

  Wasn't gay and Is came out the mouths of two different guys.  A young woman gasped.  Suddenly a real "Camp Counselor" required ID age checks.  That's when a few things got really weird.  Like, for some reason some people had been dividing youth into clans.  Bear clan, dolphin clan, paw paw clan....

  The camp counselor hushed without hushing a Park Ranger from a different park same State, and wanted to know all about this tribe thing.

  Meanwhile it was midafternoon so those of us in camp routine snapped into evening comin'on action.  People interested in music made way for an old lady up the hill's site.  They'd been weeding the hardcore road musicians from can't tour no more tired people.  Though every American and foreigner I met was tired tired.  A wagon was being pulled by some gypsies around sites to see if found and chucked stolen goods belonged to anyone before being "offerings" as potential kampy instruments.

  Grumpy Can, that's what his own mother named him, palmsmashed another beer can and barked a "Patch ME through then."

  "Can't do that Sir," a female Park Ranger hung the walkie-talkie back on the old school 'quipment hook in the ranger patrol car and just sat there.  She looked at the steering wheel and frowned.  It was one of those situations where communications had to have priorities.  At that time the U.S. was still looking for the Green River Killer.

  Chores, chores, a sad clown standing near a hobo (obviously a girl with charcoal face hair) started a sing-along to help people get up the hill with less

Goddamn

G D

goddam

G D

gish darn?

Gosh, she explained to a skinny Russuanesque guy in overalls.  Knees starting to get holes through the oil and grease.

  "Is he really Russian?" I asked a new person my age.

  "Czech or Slovakian, I think he said."

  "You know him?  I might be able to interview him for a more Salt-like piece on wartorn."

  "What's vartooRN?" The man asked and I almost dropped the black beans for being so stupidly loud.

  "Your knees darling.  No matter.". She shot me a look I could not describe.

  No less than forty eight hours later, a girl started receiving audio tapes out of the woods.  I shit you not.  I felt I had to let her use my box and she was polite about my batteries.  A few days past that a proud-to-be-Australian brought one, missing the ocean, and it had my name on the envelope.  "You sure?!?" I wide-eyed then squinted one almost shut threatening her, better be tellin' ME the truth.  She circled her heart twice with her writing pen fingers and said, "Otherwise," and made the sad, crying sign language without touching her eyes.  We'd been learning about skin, human, being water soluable and so parasites come and go but your eyeball is different.

  It wasn't too long before little clusters of walking groups moved in the shade of the day, back and forth on the trail-road nearby.  I didn't just sit like it was a show.  Between the State Forest being tended by official authorities, and real locals breaking up home routine by camping, and that year a lot of people coming and going from jobs related to government there really was a lot to learn about how to be the best kinda grown up.

  I left the Trail Mail on the makeshift desk and went off to learn how to properly clean up a campsite and clear deadwood from forest.  Snap, snap, went the stick fire wood in my hands that were growing less afraid to be a strong woman.

  Didn't notice it not being there when I came "home from work" and built a talking-fire.  Some of the girls had come up to see off beaus and brothers.  Though there was fighting abroad people weren't overly worried about getting hurt, more antsy-in-amber....not really in a routine but not free either.

  One of the girls came back from Jeeping and was about to tell me where she stowed the envelope when a mountain biker coming downhill fast yelled "GET OUT THE WAAAaaay!!!!!!"

  He didn't stop, didn't skid, just crashed in a heap-and-scramble.  All legs and spikey shoes like an electrified jelly fish.  Within seconds other biker men arrowdarted around to where he'd raised up off the ground.  His crotch was like Clingman's Dome in his biker shorts, the pads dripping with sweat.  The drops plunked onto the swept dirt and dribbled rivulets of color down his legs.  No one said anything.  Not one word.

  After several minutes of absolute silence a shark nosed man ordered, Pick it up.

  Girl chests heaved up and down, like the workout had already begun.  I gulped.  Not sure if I'd agreed to the We'll listen.  Some of the psychology-minded amongst us, men and women, studying that kind of stuff and human nature in a cycle of group-rev-up like election year, had been hacking out what kinds of tools for crisis intervention.  Not sure if I was ready for the double whammy.  That's what he'd said it would be.  Testing us.

  Pick.  It.  Up.

  Still no one breathed aloud or uttered even a sound.

  The biker who'd come in first suddenly stuck a foot out like a dueler.  I had a memory flashback of the beautiful rust-burgundy and cream colored pointer dogs we'd grown up with on Long Island.  The ones without heeler, more Irish Setter, so you'd never expect this.  The dog might want your sandwich or be telling you someone's stuck in the mudhole that will be a well someday.  He seemed to be starting a tap dance.  More than one pair of eyes just looked down at the foot.  And then back up at what next?

  Sharknose whipped his wrist to in front of his bugeye sunglasses.  "I don't have time for your bullshit Willy."

Pick it up.

The foot circled twice and tap tapped.

  Another of the bikers who might as well have been wearing a shoulder padded suit with steely flecks of metallic thread just under the main fabric got off his bike and stood beside it straight-backed and lifted one leg in a perfect vee shape.  The bicycle rested on a knobby knee.

  "What was your plan boy?"

  They seemed about the same age, early twenty-something-forever.

  The crashed biker looked up then or partly up and out towards something that we couldn't see.

  Pick.  It.  Up.

  He did not.

  "Are we going to be here all day?". A fourth or fifth biker, they all looked the same, angular seated in perfect muscle control.  

  Shut up Wally.  Pick it up.

  "I may as well plan on lunch with these twits then?!?"

  I lit a cigarette and sat on my typewriter stool.  I crossed a leg and flexed my rubbery calf muscle.

  A dark colored safari-looking vehicle pulled up fast but smooth.  Another one, I thought.  Without doors, no servant needed to follow that kind around, the vehicle smelled of fresh oil and carwax.  One of the psychology people took a step backwards and made a point to look at me.  I remembered.  Some real people were investigating hate groups.  We didn't have that language at the time.  It was all natzis and gangs and haters.

  My eyebrows went up and down.  Maybe this guy "infiltrated," this first biker.  As all that meant sank in I got up and rattled a pan on the picnic table.  Then squeezed a pretzel bag, acting out.  Realizing, I'd gotten it.  Maybe not, I crushed out the cigarette butt.  And turned slowly around in time with whatever cluster of walking people were just crossing the spot where the old maps revealed slight shifts in trail.

  FUCKNUTS, a tall man in beret and kilt and decorated suit jacket turned his head and said.  Then he looked forward again.  A woman in a fisherman's sweater brushed something off his back.  Everyone but the first biker and sharknose was looking at them.  They'd locked horns like elk.  Hands on each others' shouldertops round and round started slowly, almost painfully.  Like sinew the dance.

  The psychologists looked at each other.  I thought of Clifford Geertz and willed myself to BE Clifford Geertz so that, so that

  So that I could explain in his words the kind of anthropological-thinking w'all should be doing in this instance.  One arm of one man ripped at a helmet, one forehead smashed into another forehead.  Feethooves twirled curly cues of what had seemed like neat tally marks on slate, learned, learned.  Dirt layer dried in sun spot dusted into little plumes and spouting puffs.  Shoeshells dug deeper and deeper into damp beneath, a knee went for the family jewels but hands let go of helmet being wrestled like a boulder uphill and squared to knee thrust.  A twist brought sharknose out of posture and as if they were on a city street and he'd just tossed a half-eaten pretzel in the garbage can, he started to walk away, hand to fix silky pony hair sharpened helmet instead.  The man whirled and the other squatted.  Birds chirped.  I could smell pine and fires put out.  Coming out of the squat his own hands like a pitchfork deftly removed shirt and helmet, football goal post arms flung.  So sharknose undid his helmet strap and stripped to black tank top.  Some of the psychologists started to leave.

  It was only then a deep voice still in the safari vehicle bellowed, What's it about?

  A vee'd knee unfolded into attention.

  "I don't know Sir," the one who'd gotten out had started back and reported.

  "Well, find out."

  "Okay Sir."

  But he turned back towards the fight and didn't ask.

  I'd been told that they'd want the campsite.  I wondered then if that was what it was about.  So I asked, "What's this about?"

  The bike crasher yoga posed hands out, palms up, then brought his hands to his own shoulders, the way you'd poke at something, two times he punchpoked at himself.  He cracked his neck slow and did it again.  Like you wannah piece of me?!

  Piece ah shit like you, who'dah thought.  Sharknose restrapped his helmet on.  And turned on heel.  

  As soon as the bikers fell in behind the safari vehicle I stalked over to the bike crasher who'd sunk to his knees and was rubbing dirt between his hands and I pushed him backwards using all my force to punchpoke both his shoulders.  He didn't even grunt or unfold his legs.  "YOU messed up MY campsite JERK."

  I just looked at him with eyes shut against the sky.  I just stood there looking down at his barely fluttering eyelids until I saw tears coming out the sides, sliding into his ears.  Then I shook my head and muttered, apparently too close.

  Just his imprint a man with no legs in the dirt remained when I woke up from a tentnap.

  'OH MY GOD!'

  "Surprised to see me  

  'Shit mohn

  "Here

  'What

  "Wherever

  the fuck

  "Patched?

  I'd never seen my friend's hair so tangled.  This is

  The Satphone seemed a cube four square bigger than his tiny head.  The measure-talk evaporated in my disability to handle worlds colliding.

  My, one of my editors came out of the woods separating campsites, wrangling gigantic shorts over boney hips.  "What have you got?  Hurry up." She made the conductor's tidal wave on the drum rolling between crescendo.  I brought it right over tears popping because I knew.  I knew she only had time to read in paraphrase.

  As the people disappeared selves and were pulled back into group

  Grisly leathery hands covered in car wax and baby oil

  Firelight flickering sounds of sticks

  "Were the sticks being carved?"

  "Kinda."

  "Wannah buy one?" My sassquatch hunting partnerfriend didn't step out from the shadows of the Rhododendron trees.

  "Maybe."

  "Who's got the money sachel?"

  I picked at the slimedgrime under my fingernails.

  Lara

  This is beautiful  I could hear the South African accent telling me about a story sappier than the place we'd gathered some pitch for the peace warrior bow--no pullstring.

  "Well, honey, that old man is really my father."

  "Really is?"

  She nodded slowly over knees cradled in crossed arms.

  Sadder than sad 'bout that we'd come up with a plan for the exit dance.  A parade like firewood splinters carefully placed in a horseblanket.

  The tribes of young'ns, presorted into clans of issues needing attention, paw paws, dolphins, the Count Draculas

  "The Count Draculas?  I want more on that."

  "Can't.  Not me."

 The hobo in really nice brandwear but smeared moustache face came wandering over with a tarnishing flute.

  Stopped.  Looked from hands turning flute around and around thoughtfully, to looking at that space between stomped soil and peak in the distance, thoughtfully.

  "So I SAYS," real loud.  "Says, BRAAAWL FELLOWS...."

  "That's Marvin, everybody's fave gay dad."

  "Is he gay?  Or is he the father of gays?

  "Orders went round NOT TO SAY

  "I

  "'cuz, you know

  "Wasn't done with my questions.  And I don't know LAHrah."

  "Well, first the Army

  "Not correct

  "First the military

  "Incorrect keep going

  Since there'd been people at University who'd been wrapped up in the Island Pond fiasco, there'd also been a gaggle of geese developing how to do these situations.  Just as there'd been, at that time, a more silent than toe-stubbed OWwwing out loud bunch of marches through the trails.

 At the regal--in a State Park way gates--there were mounting piles.  One was spoons.  One was forks and knives.  I was told, no, I couldn't have a souvenir, those had to go to the government buildings.

  I'd said souvenir, stupid, because I was actually in a state of biological shock.  Way before in the list of miracles and saved skin

  Dragged-by-the-shirt up around his windpipe the boy smiled anyway.  Held up to be the next one roasted, he managed a gleeful squeal.

  Another boy in a mismatchbuttoned shortsleeve shirt was pushed into the glow of block fire already piled over the rocks making a fire ring.  That boy shrugged it off just as hard as the shover 'splained what doing there; "Found this one stashing negroes under the tin can."

  A girl buried her face in her hands stained with blood.

  "Told you.  Told you."  A person older than teenager was poetry-humming over and over.

  The fire lashed upwards in crackling snaps.

  There was no joking about the Dixie Man Clan now, no, my mind tried to narrate all that was happening.  That was just one more nice family.  There had been so many.  Snacks and fresh vegetables and marshmellows to die for.

  That had been real too.

  It was like a buncha hikers out ahead of caravans all reaching the tops of cool, or at least cooler.  God's timing pacing into grind and shake.  Pepper, just a bit larger than mustard seed, a Christian had made the comparison to Our peppercorn.  Ours smothered in each a hand hold of the whole world of Peppercorn Circle.

  "WHICH negroes?"

  "Ones off'n them city busses Doc."

  Who we thought was the leader grunted, hummphed, and spit slime.  "Bring him closer."

  The shover shoved.  The boy's one sock showed through the all loosened up fat high top sneaker, the other foot a wild profusion of purples and bloodied.

  "Bet that hurt," a taller than tall black man in sporty clothes clucked and almost whooo-hee'd but the tone was off.

  I wanted to go back to that morning.  Wanted so badly.  When I'd put the ember into the stone coal box so not a gilly suit could make his cup o' joe.  Wanted.  The meanings whirled in my head.

  "SHE SAID TO" the mangle-footed boy yell answered.  Finally.  And what does it matter if someone's shirt is buttoned crooked.

  "That's not what you stuttered out earlier you funky piece of shit," mouths dropped open when the black man said that.

  "She said to," the boyman repeated.  The fire's box tunnel hissed, then hurled an indescribable noise.

  More than one person puked into cups, hands, sweatshirts.

  The slime spitter pulled cell phones from a pocket, all stolen, we knew.  'Make it work," he demanded of a girl.  An immovable girl.  The one who our whole lives from ground up learned and taught us how to talk without talking.  Her hands smushed the winecooler-colored puke into her bike shorts while her head started shaking no.

  And then the man pulled her by her hair to the fireside lightening like brunch time.  "I said, MAKE IT work,"  and he spit again.  I'd seen those slime spots in the woods but thought they were dead frogs, careless hiker murders.

  A different person made a move to tackle the disgusting cave man of a monster.  Without talking we were starting to act like a group.  My mind made a mental note of how the words were in there; how to describe bad stuff too.  Monster!  It shouted.

  A second tall black man, only middle tall, stepped away from the outer shadows and lost some of his tall.  Towards the taller one.  The taller one stuck up one really long pointer finger like a philosopher while he waved the would-be tackler to SIT DOWN.

  The upstart did but in a wiggle closer to the bleeding girl.  Planted butt.

  The tall black sudden philosopher didn't take his eyes offah slime.  Monster.  Fucking monster.  Stupid motherfucking God where are you?  monster

  A boy friend of Marsha realized he didn't know what to say.  He jumped up and like Jack to the Beanstalk he straightened and crouched, straightened and crouched.  He sat Indian-style.  He said, "I know what you mean Socrates."

  "You dooo?" Middle tall asked.

  "HE does," real tall bellowed.

  "I hate mine too." People started blinking.

  "Tell him I'll be right.  There." We heard a husky voice say.  

  "Is this the movie?" Someone asked.

  "I'll show him."

  But as the voice with an older person on arm started to emerge something jah-jitzued on a diagonal at the pair.  Coming from seven o'clock if they were noon suddenly.

  The bleeding stomach'd girl tried to stand and keeled over.

  Whatever had jah-jitzued out of seemingly nowhere screeched like an ugly owl and the walking up pair split.  The firelight was silouhetting and lighting.  The younger of the pair hucked something into the woods closest.  It hit the ground with a thud.  "I mean it, I'm not up for this right now.  Beat it." The ninja-thing kept right at and when the person waved an arm like calling the whole thing off and turned starting to walk away, it screeched again and jumped onto the person's back.  The person spun around and around (we saw the barefoot prints the next day) but couldn't shake the ninja.  Next to the bare feet, only one set, were the motorcyclists' clumps and drags.

  "Don'tcha care why?" The Indian-sitting-boy asked the finger as it was realizing, arching through the air, covering face, pushing face back towards the trailer, time to take cover

  The force was with that finger because in a scramble and drag each other WE broke out of the trance.  Shots fired broke the deep woods quiet I'd been experiencing for going on three weeks in a way I can compare to atomviding.  The small herd of us crashed into sumac and vine bramble behind the trailer but could see the main trailroad and people

  With torches 

  Asthma attack noises were covered with dripping sweaty hands of others.  Eyes white, wide-eyed, scream whispering and head nods and shakes to questions.  Mangled foot boyman backed into a lump of us trying to stay behind bigger than rhododendron sized treetrunks.  The finger pointed.  "Two rallies colliding."

     Two rallies colliding

  I strained my eyes to try and see through the weird lighting.  Various fire was flickering, white-colored clothing was steady streaming until we heard motorcycle engines revving and grinding on gravel.  Then the white-colored clothing got smushed up into itself but the parade didn't stop.  People were just shoving each other out of formation and the piling just oozed off the trailroad and into the campsite areas.  Torches were planted.  And sure enough here came a large plain rough wood cut square cross.  The Dixie flags weren't far behind.  And more torches and flags with snakes and colors not Old Glory.

  When the soldier-types centered with the cross the mudslide silently slowed to a crawl.  Somebody said hoarsely, "See HE isn't on there." I turned to relay the good news to Marsha.  Marsha was gone.

  I crept up behind really tall and gently pulled on his sweatsuit hood.  He pounced downward and hands scraped at his neck.  I jumped forward and hugged him from behind, "It's, me, only me, sorry, sir

  "Get.  Off.  My.  Back.

  Hands yanked his zipper down, frog legs rebounded but he only quarter-turned to me and the finger pointed, still.

  "So soRRY," I mouthed.

  His eyes looked up at his own eyebrows and looked at both side to side, then back at me as the finger held me in place.

  "Marsha's missing," I started to mouth and realized there was more ruckus noise building so I whispered missing.  The man just breathed.  So I did too.  The finger seemed to be listening and then drooped.  Hands fell to sides.  His eyes took stock of the shadowy forms from where he stood.  Then he asked almost talking normal in the rumbling noises

  "Who?"

  Like there was a vacuum cleaner sucking.  The now crowded trailroad covered in people fur moved one way, then the other.  Middle tall came and stood next to really tall, and turned as if the sway was hypnotic.

  There was pace.  Pace to how long.  Pace to sway.  Pacing noises then.  Thuds and metals clashing.  Stick on stick noises.  And grunts.

  Then after a long while of noises not natural and natural there was the sound of vehicle tires on gravel.  Not engine, just tires squishing gravel stone.  Firelit path.  A parting.  

  Mangle foot boyman mouthed Told you as he put his finger like a Hitler moustache under his nose.  That was the last I saw him.

  I laid on the ground on belly and hip.  And swam through damp smashed leaves and quietly sorted anchored vine from twig.

  

  

  

 

   Around the time that September 11th happened there was sharp debate about whether or not to call what was happening a "culture clash".  Out of a state of shock essays and commentaries dripped from pens.  There were those who immediately took sides and could not seem to get unsucked to the vortex of immediate response necessary...

Attacked?!

Retaliation?!

  The formula seemed as clear as day from night.  Questioning the formula was quickly becoming UNpatriotic even before the vigil candles had burnt out.

  Our own antithetical cultural-personality types...pacifism/lawful bearers of arms...was in torment.  The acts of terrorism demanded response.

  In the postColonialism world the central question is something like, How do we share our culture and invite others to choose to be like us? Right at the turn of the millenium is when 9112001 happened; it was right at that time that intellectually the world came to loggerheads on the fundamental issue/s regarding it's ALL culture.

  It actually wasn't the first time that the sensitive issue/s were up against the reality of conflict.  The military historian John Keegan outlines outstanding cases of culture clash in the fighting field in his work A History of Warfare.  Always pronounced for the Western world's military were the formulas of regimental soldiering put forth by revered experienced soldier-leaders.  As equally pronounced in the field were the klephtic ways of soldiering sallied by various "ethnic" fighters.  All warriors, all expressing their own cultural ways of warfare.

 Insert photo by me

  There is a concept in political ideology called irredentism.  This is stemming from 19th century Italian politics.  It's the notion that once claimed a territory is forever owned (irrespective of occupation), or, claiming/reclaiming land that a political or popular movement considers lost or unredeemed territory from their nation's past.

  We are thinking about this along with considerations regarding minorities and majorities in political contest.  As wars and migrations jostle peoples who are ethnic and cultural and religious and political around in place and time, concepts in action are thought of as "behavior".  There are personal and group behaviors.  Many group behaviors get "codified" by law and practice.  Sometimes group behavior is spontaneous, but very often it is influenced.

  Political pressure can be an influencing behavior to behavior.

  Thinking broadly can help us better understand self.  For instance, I've been very aware of an increasing sentiment to fight for our country.  That has me thinking about Patriotism and Nation!  And it also has me thinking about human nature.  Somewhere in the mix we need to understand better what parts of "racism" are group behavior and what parts, choice; to each his own.  What part/s of teaming up are choice, and what forced?  What about claiming?  We can claim possessions, things, and we can claim feelings...like a national spirit.  And doesn't a personal awareness of my own claiming/abandonment/ignorance effect how I'm understanding everybody else?

  Wondering about all this has me more critically thinking about sentiment and events.  So I'm better able to mentally process people's moods and behaviors; not take things personally; use those tools for studying culture.

  To me it is making sense that in a political election year the-world-over there is much contention over "territory" and that a human being feels the stresses of the topic of "power".  It makes sense that any change/s to a person's grounded in powerful would cause reaction, maybe even a lot of reaction.  Way back in Western Civilization reaction was not allowed.  Nowadays in Western Civilization reaction varies from apparent apathy to violence.

  Rainy day today.  This thinking-stuff is why I so enjoy labor/work.  Chop wood, carry water.

  Rain, time, layers of reading.  This has brought me to the juncture of a central question...historical research...

  War as decisive

 

 

  The man's cart was loaded with finds.  Bags draping over neatly stacked.  If it was a competition you'd think he's good at that.  He parked the cart near a knee wall separating parking lots.  He dug through a dumpster.  He let the scratch-off lottery tickets fall to the ground after quick scratches and peering at each in the predawn mix of pole and store light.  Sitting on the knee wall man and cart blurred together in a plinth.

  It was June 2024.  Over the past four months there'd been a change, some sort of cultural shift turning entrances of fast food joints overrun by "funky" into landscaped boundaried territory.  And there was fringe.  You could see people in the treelines of highway ramps.  Backpackers, cart people, clearly disturbed, poor things, people thinking, some saying out loud waiting for a light to change.  Like castles of other times now museums, America has a feel of disparity--what it was/what it is.

  In the mid-1990's geographers talked about Eastern Europe in similar fashion.  The break up of the Soviet Union was redefining the outlines; more porous boundaries; no longer part of

But there.

 

  Cha, 'twas an excellent little writer/writing campout.

Although my campsite needed a late spring air-out and apparently this was a "deer stand" in winter, so I got tick-bites!  Deer ticks, are teeny teeny tiny.  Like little blackish ink pen dots.  Mostly I'd kept my work gloves on and cleared the trampled leaves (smudge fires at dusk!) with hand tools, but those little buggers were in superabundance.  Now I have to watch out for Lyme Disease symptoms.  No matter, I'm back to summer work:  light duty landscaping and carpentry.  Certainly nothing I wrote over the camp trip will earn me any money, that's for sure.