Billy Edd Wheeler, Appalachian Polymath: Reflections On The Death Of A Great Appalachian

On September 16, 2024, Billy Edd Wheeler died at his home in North Carolina at the age of 91.  Depending on whom you ask, you could hear Wheeler described as a practitioner of various occupations and, before you ask, you should know that he was a master at several.  He was a song writer and performer, an author of nearly a dozen books, a college administrator, a humorist, and a playwright.  He was admired all across Appalachia as a shining example of what a great Appalachian should be and what all Appalachians should seek to become.  Several of his songs have embedded themselves deep in the psyche of the country.  His half dozen books of humor, co-authored with another great Appalachian, Loyal Jones, are found on the display shelves of book stores, variety stores, and general merchandise establishments.  Several of those humor books are likely to be reprinted for years to come.  He was also the author of several outdoor dramas in states as varied as his native West Virginia to Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.  Wheeler was a man of man talents and he worked daily to utilize them all to the best of his prodigious ability.  In addition to those occupations from which he received most of his support, he was also a painter, wood worker, and sculptor whose works were actually good enough to be displayed in several galleries over the years.  

 

 

He was the  son of a mother who raised to be man enough at 16 to climb on a bus in his native West Virginia and travel to Swannanoa, North Carolina, to a residential school with only a single dollar in his pocket.  Over the years after that fateful trip to North Carolina, he served his country as a student pilot, was hired as Alumni Director at his alma mater Berea College, and completed graduate school in play writing at  Yale University.  His was truly a varied and prodigiously productive life.  

 

I never knew Billy Edd Wheeler but we have had three mutual friends including his coauthor of six books Loyal Jones, and Betty Lynn whom he hired as a secretary at Berea College and who also worked with Wheeler and Jones on the publication of their books.  My friend Betty Lynn had this to say about Billy Edd Wheeler: "I read the obit, but it didn't list BEW's first job out of BC. He was associated with the outdoor drama, "Wilderness Road" at Berea, and was the Alumni Director for a few years before going to Yale. He hired me in Jan.'59 to be the secretary/office mgr. in Alumni Office; and we completed the Alumni Memorial Bldg. in 196l under his leadership. I started being Assoc. Ed. of THE BEREA ALUMNUS, a publication for alumni, staff and the campus, under his leadership. I worked with him and Loyal Jones on the Traditional Music events, held annually on the campus and in the publication of their humor books. BEW wrote several outdoor dramas, one in Indiana about Abe Lincoln; one in West, KY at Murray (I went to both of those) and one in WVA about Hatfields/McCoys; and, maybe others? He put out several albums himself, I have most of them. He was very talented!"  

Another friend who had worked with Billy Edd Wheeler on an outdoor drama in North Carolina said, "he authored our sesquicentennial play in MacDowell County some years ago. 1993. " Voices In The Wind". My oldest daughter and I were both in the show. He was quite taken with her performance, at 9 years old!"   Billy Edd Wheeler was obviously a man who enjoyed watching children develop their talents and was willing to reward them for their achievements.  

I have not even mentioned the things I appreciate most about Billy Edd Wheeler and his amazing life.  I love his obvious zest for life and his ability to achieve success in many fields, his lifelong striving to produce high quality work, his outstanding example for other ambitious Appalachians, and his incredible song writing ability.  I consider three of his songs about the coal mining life to be among the ten or so best songs ever written about coal mining.  "Coal Tattoo" is an incredibly masterful work about the difficulty of being a coal miner and facing periodic layoffs and injuries from the profession.  He addressed the frequent loss of a job in coal mining in that song with these words: 

Travelin' down that coal town road,
Listen to those rubber tires whine;
Goodbye to Buckeye and White Sycamore,
I'm leavin' you behind.
I been a coal man all my life
Layin' down track in the hole,
Got a back like an ironwood bent by the wind
Blood veins blue as the coal.

Then he went on to address the frequent injuries in coal mining with one of the great metaphors in all of song writing, comparing a near death experience in the mines with a tattoo,  And yet, that same stanza ends with another reference to the typical coal miner's love of the job which has nearly killed him: 

 Somebody said "That's a strange tattoo
You have on the side of your head."
I said "That's a blue print left by the coal.
Just a little more and I'd be dead"
But I love the rumble and I love the dark
I love the cool of the slate.

Billy Edd Wheeler addressed the deaths and injuries in the coal mines once again in another of the best coal mining songs ever written, "Red Winged Blackbird".  

Oh, can't you see that pretty little bird
Singing with all his heart and soul
He's got a blood red spot on his wing
And all the rest of him is black as coal

Of all the colors I ever did see
Red and black are the ones I dread
For when a man spills blood on the coal
They carry him down from the coal mines dead

Fly away you red winged bird
Leave behind the miner's wife
She'll dream about you when you're gone
She'll dream about you all her life

Oh, can't you see that pretty little bird
Singing with all his heart and soul
He's got a blood red spot on his wing
And all the rest of him is black as coal

 Using the coloration of a beautiful bird, the red winged blackbird as a metaphor for the wounding, disabling, murdering  accidents inside a coal mine was a brilliant piece of writing.  "For when a man spills blood on the coal  They carry him down from the coal mines dead."   It is my personal opinion that Billy Edd Wheeler was the greatest writer of coal mining music who ever lived.  And he proved it once again the beautifully poignant song "The Coming Of The Roads" about a broken love affair and the death of a coal mining town.

Once I thanked God for our treasure
Now like rust it corrodes
And I can't help but blamin' your goin'
On the coming, the coming of the roads
No, I can't help but blamin' your goin'
On the coming, coming of the roads 

While I value the song writing of Billy Edd Wheeler most for his incredible contributions to the genre of coal mine music, I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that Wheeler also wrote a couple of other songs which were even more favorably regarded by the market place.  He was also the author of the songs "Coward Of The County" which was a Number 1 song for Kenny Rogers; "Jackson" which was often regarded as the signature song of Johnny Cash and June Carter; and the humorous "The Little Brown Shack Out Back" which Wheeler  himself took into the Top 10.  He is a member of the Nashville Song Writers Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame; and the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.  That, my friends, is a career. 

 

Me And My Shirt Take A Trip To The Big City!

 

I never leave home any farther than to my mail box about 200 yards away these days without wearing one of my Kamala Harris shirts.  The one pictured above is my current favorite until cooler weather makes me wear a sweatshirt which was delivered yesterday while I was gone to Lexington, Kentucky,  with my wife Candice, who was also wearing her current Kamala Harris shirt which I have pictured below.  We had a blast, made stops at several locations during the day, and received multiple compliments about our shirts. 

The first place we went was the Lexington Arboretum where I like to walk when I'm in Lexington.  Candice can find a shady location and read while I put in my hour or so on the many paved trails or my favorite tan bark paths in the woodsy section of the Arboretum.  Shortly after I began my walk, I met a woman on one of the paved trails who gave me a thumbs up and just said "Kamala".  Then, as we were headed into the parking lot to leave, two different women, one walking and one sitting in her car, both spoke up about how much they liked the shirts.  We had short, positive conversations with these women and left the Arboretum.  Then we went to the Kentucky Clinic where Candice had an appointment in the Wound Care Clinic.  When a nursing assistant took her blood pressure they said, "That is a comfortable shirt", which I assumed was a coded way of saying they liked the shirts.  I laughed and asked, "Do you mean to say that it is a shirt you are comfortable with?' and got a nonverbal confirmation.  Actually, in that clinic, it is not unusual to receive positive comments about our political leanings.  Just last Friday, I had a very positive conversation with my surgeon and wrote about at this post.  That surgeon and I have open political conversations every time we see each other.  He is not the only doctor at this facility with whom I have political conversations in nearly every encounter between us and I am damned grateful for their political thinking and their willingness to speak out on behalf of America and American Democracy.  

After we left the clinic, we went looking for a Haitian restaurant where we could support struggling immigrants but did not locate one and went to Sonny's Barbecue instead.  I had found a couple of Caribbean restaurants advertised in Lexington during an internet search but had not found one clearly labeled as Haitian.  At Sonny's, I got up to wash the barbecue sauce off my hands and face, and on my way back from the restroom, a woman and her husband spoke up as I got near their table and told me how much they liked my shirt.  We had a short conversation about politics and the upcoming critical election in America before I returned to my seat.  When I had paid the ticket at the table and was preparing to leave, an older man seated on a bench near the cash register said in a low voice, "I like that shirt!"  We also had a short conversation about politics and I made sure he also saw Candice's shirt as she drove her wheelchair past him to leave.  It is always wonderful to find another person who understand that this is the most important election in American History and is, literally, a contest between good and evil.  I always wear one of my Kamala Harris shirts whenever I leave home and I will until election day when we can all work together to save America and American Democracy from TRAITOR Trump and his cult.  I am also encouraged by the large numbers of Republican former government officials who are endorsing Harris as the election approaches.  That list includes more than 200 former employees of the Department of Justice under Republican presidents.  But we all must work every day to make it clear that there is only one choce in this election and that choice is Kamala Harris. 

"The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, Reading A Great Book Many Years Too Late!

 

 

 

 

Despite how much literature, and a great deal of the "great literature" I have read in my life, I had never read "The Jungle" or any other book by Upton Sinclair until just now.  A couple of months ago, my sister-in-law in Wisconsin suddenly mailed me a copy of "The Jungle" with a note that said "Roger, I tried to read this book, but got frustrated right away.  I think you'll have more patience with it."  On some levels I was surprised by the book and note and, on some other levels, I was not.  She is a pretty voracious reader, rather brilliant with near perfect scores on her college admission tests when she came out of high school almost 30 years ago.  But I have noticed over the years that her reading material tends to be a bit toward the general adult fiction level.  I had asked her about why she didn't like the book or "got frustrated" with it and never seemed to get a succinct answer.  

 

 

Anyway, my wife Candice decided when it was time for us to choose another book for our joint reading effort in which I read aloud while Candice washes the dishes each day and we alternate in who chooses the books.  When she finishes washing the dishes, I dry them and eventually put them away each evening.  I have to say I was also somewhat surprised that Candice chose this book but thought that it might have been curiosity about what her sister gave up on.  But she also tends to like more "great literature" when I do the reading aloud than she would usually read on her own.  

The first thing I noticed about the book is that it is a markedly dark novel, about as dark as anything I have ever read.  I don't cull much in literature and don't usually say anything is too dark for me.  But this novel is incredibly dark, moving consistently from one disaster among the central characters to another without ever having a bright spot or a lucky day last any longer than the next sunrise, if the sun rises at all the next day.  But it is a fine novel with excellent character development, plot and counter plot, and a couple of definite goals from the beginning to the end.  I would say that the primary goal of the novel, which I suspect is true of everything Sinclair wrote, is to promote socialism as the best form of government for the United States.  In Sinclair's defense, I would also say that his secondary goal was to write a good to great novel which would be accepted widely by the reading public.  I have no crow to pick with his first goal since I have known several devout socialists in my lifetime, and I would even agree that socialism is a far better form of government in its pure form (which can never be fully achieved) than several other forms of government.  As for his second goal, I came out of the novel firmly convinced that Sinclair had definitely achieved his second goal with flying colors. This is a fine novel!  Yes, it is as dark as the deepest corner of an underground coal mine, but it is also a fine novel.

The protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus, and his family are the central characters, native Lithuanians who emigrate to the United States and find themselves living, if that is  not too strong a word, in the meat packing neighborhood of Chicago.  The novel was published in 1905 and covers about a ten year period before and after the turn of the century.  Sinclair chose to give the neighborhood around the meat packing companies, slums, and railroad yards as Packing Town.  It is filled with immigrants from several different countries and cultures who struggle to survive on a daily basis in which the meat packing companies operate as the Meat Trust in conjunction with the Railroad Trust, two entities which are each comprised of several companies who work in a cohort in order to control and suck the lives out of their employees just as they take the lives of trainloads of cattle and hogs.  The book served to educate the American public about the outrageous practices of the meat packing industry and the multitude of ways in which those companies live off the lives of everyone they come into contact with, whether they are employees or customers.   They own the local public officials, judges, police, and nearly every human who comes into contact with the meat packing industry.  They are a predatory entity both as individual companies and as a loosely constructed conglomerate.  

Jurgis and his family suffer one debilitating event after another from the packing industry, local real estate companies, the police and courts, and each other.  His wife dies in childbirth because the family has no money for a doctor.  His only child drowns in the mud and water surrounding their home. He is jailed multiple times and eventually blacklisted because he beat his wife's supervisor who had lured her into prostitution.  Another child in the family is frozen nearly to death walking to work in a Chicago winter and eventually killed and eaten by rats after being locked into his work site at the end of the day.  But eventually, Jurgis is converted to socialism, gets a job in a hotel owned by a socialist with a social conscience, and become a devout evangelist for socialism. The novel ends with about 20 pages of a lengthy sermon about the virtues of socialism and the predatory nature of capitalism.  Yes, it's dark as hell, but it's a fine novel.  If you haven't ever read it, give it a chance and commit before you begin it that you won't give up, as my sister-in-law did, before you have read at least fifty pages. 

Did America's Kristallnacht Begin At Arlington?

 

On August 26, 2024, TRAITOR Trump, a collection of his staff, and a film crew connected to the campaign made a visit to Arlington National Cemetery, specifically in Section 60, and made an attempt to film his laying of flowers at a grave of one of the US military personnel who was killed during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Filming of any political action is prohibited at Arlington and has been for many years.  During their attempt to film, an Arlington employee approached the group to inform them of the rules about political activity and was verbally and physically abused according to the US Army information provided later about the incident.  The employee decided not to pursue criminal charges against the staff members who assaulted them.  It is safe to assume that the decision not to prosecute was influenced by other incidents around TRAITOR Trump and his co-conspirators such as the rabid harassment of two female African American election workers in Georgia.  Since the incident at Arlington, the campaign of TRAITOR Trump has refused to release any video they have of the incident. I have little doubt that the withheld video would prove that the fault was with TRAITOR Trump and his staff.  We could naively choose to believe that this was an isolated incident in which one particular staff member became overzealous and caused the incident.  But such incidents of disrespect for others, whomever they may be, and whatever they represent, are routine around TRAITOR Trump and those who support him. That Arlington Employee represented both the federal government of the United States of America as an employee of the US Army and those hallowed dead heroes and heroines who are buried at Arlington.  The question we are examining in this blog post is this: "Did America's Kristallnacht begin on August 26, 2024, at Arlington National Cemetery?"

The photograph above is of Nazi soldiers destroying a Jewish business during Kristallnacht.

I sincerely hope that everyone who reads this blog post understands fully already  exactly what Kristallncacht was and the important place it holds in the history of both World War II and The Holocaust.  The rough translation of the German phrase "kristallnacht" is "night of broken glass".  It refers to the night of November 9-10, 1938, and a horrific series of events which took place in Germany on that night.  On the night of November 7, 1938, a low level German diplomat was shot and killed by a German/Jewish student.  German  Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, after conferring with Hitler, harangued a gathering of old storm troopers, urging violent reprisals staged to appear as “spontaneous demonstrations.” Telephone orders from Munich triggered pogroms throughout Germany, which then included Austria. It is also appropriate here to explain that "pogroms" were "an organized, often officially encouraged massacre or persecution of a minority group, especially one conducted against Jews".  The pogroms of Kristallnacht were "organized" by Joseph Goebbels and "officially encouraged" by Adolph Hitler and all of his high command.  The pogroms of Kristallnacht resulted in two days and nights of extreme violence and destruction directed against German Jews.  During Kristallnacht more than 1,000 synagogues were burned or vandalized.  Rioters ransacked and looted about 7,500 Jewish businesses burning many to the ground, destroying key assets of others, and rendering it impossible for Jewish business owners to continue in business. These officially sanctioned criminals killed at least 91 Jews, and vandalized Jewish hospitals, homes, schools, and cemeteries. About 30,000 Jewish males aged 16 to 60 were arrested. To accommodate so many new prisoners, the concentration camps at Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen were expanded.  After this night, the Holocaust had officially begun in Germany which would result in the deaths by various means of more than 6 million Jews.  Arguably, however, the Holocaust in Germany began on the day Adolph Hitler was first elected to public office. 

In his excellent article on the Time website, Timothy Ryback writes

Adolf Hitler never won a majority in a free and open national election. He never received more than 37% of the vote in a free and open national election, but he argued that 37% represented 75% of 51%, and demanded political power. It was the political calculus by which the Nazi leader disabled, then dismantled, the Weimar Republic. Hitler exploited his 37% to gridlock legislative processes, to cudgel or crush the political opposition, and ultimately to undermine the country’s democratic structures. When Hitler had vowed in court, in September 1930, to destroy democracy through the democratic process, a judge asked, “So, only through constitutional means?” Hitler replied crisply, “Jawohl.” (Timothy Ryback, "How Hitler Used Democracy To Take Power", April 26, 2024, https://time.com/6971088/adolf-hitler-take-power-democracy/)

So, I hear you asking, what does this have to do with TRAITOR Trump and his incident at Arlington National Cemetery.  It has everything to do with it.  One incident, when officially sanctioned, resulted in all the crimes aforementioned in Germany. Admittedly, that one incident was followed by hundreds of others. But no such incident of public hatred, criminality, violence, and ostracism ever goes unnoticed, especially by those who have been holding the same ideas in their souls and minds.  One incident made it clearly understood by every citizen of Germany that it was now acceptable to commit any crime of violence against a Jewish citizen of Germany.  It officially sanctioned hatred and all the various evils it can produce, and ultimately resulted in the murder of more than 6 million innocent men, women, and children.  

Now, that brings us back to the incident at Arlington National Cemetery which was not actually an isolated incident in the life and crimes of TRAITOR Trump.  It is one of a long string of such incidents, public endorsements of violence and crime both in America and the world, and public endorsement of hatred, racism, criminality, insurrection, domestic terrorism, and even murder by TRAITOR Trump.  As we go back in the public life of TRAITOR Trump, there is a long trail of such public statements, actions, and actual physical acts by TRAITOR Trump in which he has copied the types of actions, statements, and physical acts which culminated in the extermination of 6million Jewish men, women, and children, along with the deaths of about 3% of the total global population in 1940 .  One of the earliest, but perhaps not the first, such action by TRAITOR Trump occurred in 1989 when he took out full page ads in New York newspapers calling for the execution of five young black men who  had been accused in the assault of a female jogger in Central Park.  Those young men were imprisoned for several years before being exonerated and released.  On some levels another famous incident by Traitor Trump was his public mockery of a physically disabled reporter which took place in 2015.  Despite that the incident was so egregious that Meryl Streep spoke out about it at the Golden Globes ceremonies that year, TRAITOR Trump has never admitted his actions were mockery or that they constituted any kind of belittling or derogatory actions.  

 

Looking back at the Timothy Ryback article cited and linked above, we see that Adolph Hitler never won a free and open election.  He simply stated in open court that he would "destroy democracy through the democratic process".  From June 16, 2015, to the present day of September 16, 2024, we have seen TRAITOR Trump doing the same thing without ever having acknowledged it as Hitler did.  He lost the 2016 election of Hillary Clinton by nearly 3million votes but managed to destroy democracy through the democratic process  just as Adolph Hitler did.  In 2020, the popular vote margin was even greater and President Biden also won the electoral vote total despite TRAITOR Trump's persistent espousal of The Big Lie.  The vote margin was slightly more than 7million votes at 7,060,347.  In response to the vote totals, TRAITOR Trump then incited the insurrection of January 6, 2021, in an attempt to overthrow the legally constituted government of the United States for which more than a thousand of his co-conspirators have been convicted.  Still The Big Lie will not die and TRAITOR Trump is now disparaging, threatening, and defaming more than 10,000 legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, to the point that the Republican governor of the state, Mike DeWine, has found it necessary to publicly contradict TRAITOR Trump and support the city, its immigrant population, and the community at large.  

 

So, it should be apparent to all that the Kristallnacht of the United States of America did not begin at Arlington National Cemetery on August 26, 2024.  It is quite possible that it did not begin on that day in 1989 when TRAITOR Trump advertised in favor of the execution of five innocent young black men.  If the Kritallnacht of the United States is averted by the voters on November 5, 2024, we might not ever decide on what day it began or, perhaps, would have begun.  But we have been more than sufficiently warned of the potential of that night coming to America by both the actions and words of TRAITOR Trump and those around him.  If we accept quietly a long and persistent string of attacks against the innocent, the disabled, the immigrants in our country and allow TRAITOR Trump once again to occupy the White House in defiance of all that is holy and just, we will surely see Kritallnacht come to fruition in America, and the greatest democracy on earth will be destroyed.  

A Very Rewarding Visit With My Surgeon!

In previous posts (post #2) over the last few years, I have discussed a couple of visits (post #1) I have had with two of my doctors, a surgeon (post #3) and a cardiologist.  About six years ago, I discovered that I had a life threatening blockage of one of my carotid arteries and a surgical procedure was recommended which I finally accepted about four years after the original diagnosis.  During that four years, I engaged in a serious regimen of exercise, mild medication treatment, and a stringent change to my diet, all of which resulted in serious reductions in my blood pressure, weight, overall health risks, and even my opthalmic pressures in both eyes.  I had the surgery roughly two years ago and have been fine ever since.  Immediately after my original diagnosis by a local general practitioner who is friend of mine, I began to see these two specialist and have done so ever since.  About three months after the surgery, I was put on a program of one year follow up visits with both doctors and see each of them once a year and once a year only unless some future serious change in my health requires closer treatment.  

 

When I have any serious appointment for any reason, and especially for medical visits, I always carry whatever book I am reading to the visit since waiting room and even examination room waits can be longer than  just a few minutes.  I always read during those waits unless I sometimes become engaged in a positive conversation with another patient.  As I had said in two of the blog posts linked above, during those particular visits both of these doctors noticed what I was reading and engaged me in conversations about the books at those times.  This is not a very common practice among doctors and, right or wrong, I have always considered the fact that they did so to be a compliment to the quality of my reading material.  I never read what I call "light reading" or "drug store fiction", and neither do most doctors.  They are universally too busy.  But I learned long ago that nearly all doctors have been engaged, like me, in a lifetime habit of reading or most of them would never have become doctors in the first place.  This past Friday, September 13, 2024, I had my regular annual visit with my surgeon and went to the visit reading "The Road To Unfreedom" by Timothy Snyder whose works I have written about on more than one occasion on this blog, and about which I will most certainly write more in the future.  Snyder is one of the best historians, authors, and political thinkers in America today.  He is a professor of history at Yale University and holds an endowed chair there where such a guaranteed lifetime position would be one of the most competitive jobs in education in the world.  Snyder writes in about a half dozen languages, reads in about four or five more, is an incredibly diligent researcher, and an author any high level reader has to respect.  This particular book is the third of his works which I have read and I will write about it in the near future when I finish it.  

As my surgeon entered the examination room, he glanced at my book, asked me "what are you reading today?" and turned to my wife Candice to say, "he never lets me down when he recommends me books".  The first ten minutes or so of our conversation were about Timothy Snyder, his work, politics, and books in general.  Then for about two minutes, he said, "your ultrasounds are great. You're perfect.  Your arteries are perfect."  and we returned to our conversation about politics, literature, and travel since I had told him I had bought "Black Earth: The Holocaust As History And Warning" by Snyder at the El Paso Holocaust Museum in 2017.  When we finished our conversation and he was ready to move on to his next patient, he actually walked with me to the front desk to tell the staff when I needed to return and we ended our conversation there.  I won't see him for another year unless some catastrophe strikes and I need his medical expertise on short notice.  But I know in advance that I will carry whatever book I am reading then, hopefully a biography of Kamala Harrris, President of the United States, and we will discuss it and whatever we both have been reading shortly before the visit.  And he will continue to provide me the same excellent, potentially life saving medical expertise he always has.  Then both of us will go out to order whatever book the other has recommended.  That is the kind of doctor I wish all of you could benefit from on a regular basis.  

Since originally completing and posting this blog post, I have become engaged in a long and rewarding messaging exchange with one of my former high school teacher whom I have been in regular contact with over the last several years.  Our exchange this time was prompted by this blog post and she said during that exchange that We need you to stay around and get our country back on track.Those kinds of compliments about my writings on politics are what keep me writing on this blog and in other venues,  both because I know that if we don't save democracy in this election we may well lose it forever, and because I know that I am correct about this situation in America today and my writing just might change a few minds in the right direction. 

Hornets Are Everywhere This Year!

 

For the past month or so, I have been fascinated by two large hornet nests which are located near a state highway near my home.  It is Kentucky 1000 and I have actually written a blog post in the past about the large amount of wildlife sightings I have had along that road.  In fact, today as I was driving on that road, I saw two separate groups of wild turkeys, one of about half a dozen and the  other of three.  But these two hornets nests are located along a telephone line which services the neighborhood.  One, literally at the top of a hill along the road, is attached to the top of a telephone pole.It is a large nest and I would love to have been able to add photographs of these two nests on this blog post.  But my cell phone will not focus closely enough to do a clear photograph of the nests.  I don't currently own a working high quality camera.  The second nest is about the same size of the first, located about 200  yards down the hill from the first about 50 yards off the road in an overgrown farm through which the telephone line passes.  It is located on a guide wire to the pole instead of on the pole itself.  

I first noticed these nests a couple of weeks ago when my wife and I drove up on two young men in their late teens or early twenties who had stopped their pickup truck in the middle of the road so they could throw rocks at the nest on the top of the pole which was not the smartest thing they ever did.  I have kept an eye on these two nests every time I drive Kentucky 1000 ever since that day.  But to my surprise, yesterday, September 6, 2024, my wife and I suddenly discovered that we had an equally large hornet nest  on our house under the eaves, attached to both the brick wall and the fascia just above and to the right of our back door.  We had literally been going in and out that door and under this large hornet nest ever since the hornets began building it, God only knows how long ago. Also, about a week ago, I had been having conversation under the hornet nest with a FedEx driver whom I know pretty well who regularly delivers medication to us which Candice receives monthly from the drug manufacturer. We had stood there and talked probably ten minutes within five or six feet of the nest and neither of us noticed the hornets.  I can't wait to tell the FedEx driver about it and show him the photographs below which I shot before I sprayed the nest. 

 

I knew immediately this nest had to go.  Hornet stings can be incredibly painful and very dangerous to the victim's health even in low numbers. With the number of hornets in this nest based on the number we were seeing on the outside of the nest, we knew it had a very large number of  hornets in it.  I immediately quit using that door, checked my supply of wasp and hornet killer, and went to my local Dollar General for another can to supplement the partially used can I already had. I waited for darkness just before bedtime before I attacked the nest.  My wife Candice is in a power wheelchair and I knew that with her neurological condition only one or two stings from hornets could possibly severely affect her, or even kill, her.  She wanted to be up, in the house, near that door when I went outside to attack the nest in case I got seriously stung so she could call 911 for me.  But I told her to be certain that if I got stung, no matter what happened, she should not ever come out that door if I had been attacked by the hornets. 

 I sprayed the nest from as closely as I felt safe in doing it and used nearly all the contents of both cans of wasp and hornet killer and thought that I had probably killed all the hornets.  This morning as soon as I got out of bed I went to check the nest and did not see any hornets at that time.  But this afternoon when I was considering tearing the nest off the side of the house, I saw a couple of hornets flying into the nest which means that all are not dead and tearing it off the house is a really bad idea.  I will go to the store again tomorrow, since we have commitments today, and buy more spray to finish the job of killing all the hornets.  If these hornets had built a nest in a tree somewhere near the boundary of our property, I doubt that I would have bothered to kill them unless the location presented a danger to me when I was doing yard work. Hornets, like all forms of wildlife, do have a niche in the environment in which they provide a necessary service to the entire ecosystem.  If they are in a nonthreatening location, it is not necessary to kill hornets or most other forms of wildlife, even if they are venomous insects or snakes, or apex predators.  I hope I never again have a hornet nest on my house.  

 

I have to add this update to my post since I went out this morning, September 8, 2024, under the assumption that all the hornets were dead, and intended to tear the nest down, throw it away, and clean the clinging residue off the soffit and fascia.  I got a stepladder and flat bladed grass edging tool and began tearing the well sprayed nest off the house.  Not long after, I saw a hornet fly away from an open area in the now well damaged nest.  I soon realized that I still had at least a dozen live hornets and a large amount of larvae in the nest.  I was also out of wasp and hornet spray so I went to my local Dollar General to get more to finish the job on the remaining hornets.  That store was out of the spray I needed so I traveled a few miles more to the Dollar General in Salyersville, Kentucky, and bought the "economy" two pack of spray and returned to spray the remains of the nest and the chunk of larval cells which had come out of the nest intact.  But I did take more photographs so those of you who actually read this post can see just how much larvae was in the nest.  I had also had to stomp and kill several, 8 or 10, damaged but living hornets which had survived the initial spraying and fell to the concrete back entrance. Also, while I was checking out at Dollar General this morning, the clerk asked me, "How are you today?" to which I replied "If I can finally finish killing these hornets, I'll be fine."  A women nearby heard us and walked up with her cell phone in hand to say, "Let me  show you what I found at my house a few days ago."  She had a photograph of a large, but smaller than mine, hornets nest laying the grass about 8 inches high.  She said,"I burned this one out." to  which I replied, "I don't want to burn my house down."  She also said that she had found that nest on her property just as it looked in the photograph, live and working  on the ground in the grass which is highly unusual for hornets. They prefer to be in high, sheltered locations, elevated well above the ground.  I think this nest on the ground  a few miles from my house further supports my statement at the beginning of this post that hornets are everywhere this year.  

One more short addendum is necessary to this post.  When I tore down the remains of the nest with the larval cells, I sprayed the larval cells heavily with wasp and hornet killer and left them on the ground overnight to completely die.  When I went out yesterday, September 9, 2024, in the morning to check what was left of the nest, the larval cells were gone and I realized that something had either eaten them, wasp and hornet spray and all, or had dragged them off to eat them somewhere else.  I looked around and found them several feet away with all the larvae and their cells gone.  All that remained was the empty cells in the photograph which surrounded the cells which had larvae in them.  I assume the possibly doomed culprit which ate the larvae, poison and all, was probably a skunk, opossum, raccoon, or fox since we have all those species in the immediate area and see some of them from time to time on the property.  I hope whatever ate those larvae can survive the wasp and hornet spray. 

Labor Day 2024, As We Face The Most Important Election In American History

 

As we celebrate Labor Day this year, I would suggest that we celebrate it with a sense of caution and use it as an impetus to renew our personal commitments to fight to protect the working class, the middle class, and all threatened classes of individuals with our vote on November 5, 2024, to elect President Kamala Harris.  Labor Day is a day which was set aside as a national holiday on June 28, 1894, when Democratic President Grover Cleveland signed a federal law making Labor Day a national holiday.  Labor Day had previously been celebrated in roughly 30 states.  Labor Day has been celebrated ever since both as celebration of the working class and a tribute to all the people who worked over the past 250 years to make America the country and the Democracy it has always been.  But this year we are facing the worst attack on the American working class, middle class, elderly, infirm, racial and ethnic minorities, women, children, and nearly every human in America who is, in one way or another, vulnerable to those who have no respect for laws, the US Constitution, constitutional rights, human rights, and any other idea which is intended to protect, defend, educate, provide health care, and all other basic rights to such vulnerable individuals.  That attack is being perpetrated by TRAITOR Trump, the Right Wing Radical Repugnican Party, Project 2025, the super wealthy, and those who comprise all such groups and their ideas.  

In this election, we have what is actually the most clear cut choice ever posed in an election for an electorate to choose between Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Human Rights and Total Disregard For Such Rights.  The choice is between Vice President Kamala Harris who represents all those positive possible outcomes and TRAITOR Trump who represents all that is Evil and Destructive in the world. Kamala Harris is a person who has spent her life fighting for and defending all that is Good and Positive in the world.  TRAITOR Trump has spent his life fighting to destroy literally everything in the world which he cannot find a way to dominate, control, and hoard unto himself.  This choice is so simple that it baffles me and millions of other good, decent, rational Americans to understand how any human on earth can fail to understand the simplicity and the seriousness of this choice.  TRAITOR Trump and everything he represents is geared to destroy America, American Democracy, Constitutional Rights, Individual Rights, and to wipe all that is good and productive off the face of America.  

I am asking each of  you who read this to either make or renew a personal commitment to fight every day from now until President Kamala Harris can be elected, protected, and sworn into office to uphold the Constitution, to elect President Harris, and to insist that TRAITOR  Trump finally be held criminally responsible for all his crimes against America, American Democracy, the world, and the planet.  He must be convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned for his crimes.  If he is not, this country cannot survive as a Democracy.  We are literally facing a choice between the future of America and the total destruction of all that America and American Democracy represent.  We will either save America and American Democracy or we will lose them forever as a result of this election.