"Kentucky Pride" by Gene Markey, A Civil War Reconstruction Novel From 1956

"Kentucky Pride" is a 1956 novel by Gene Markey who for many years was the husband of Lucille Markey Wright, the owner of famed Calumet Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. Before he married the widow Wright, Markey was a Navy Reserve Admiral, a Hollywood screen writer, and a well known Hollywood ladies man. But he became a devoted student of Kentucky history and produced several novels which were set in Kentucky, most of which were actually set in Lexington, Kentucky. This novel is best described as a Civil War/Reconstruction novel whose protagonist, Aidan Kensal, is former Confederate Major who owns a Lexington thoroughbred farm. His two associates who figure heavily into the novel are a jockey from the mountains of Kentucky, and a second Lexington Confederate both of whom have served with Kensal in the Confederate unit commanded by John Morgan. The three are attempting to return to Central Kentucky after the Civil War has ended, and the novel seems to be somewhat sympathetic to the Lost Cause. The primary villian is a Union Major Veach Doucain who has grown up near Aidan and has always hated him because of his families wealth, large farm, and outstanding Thoroughbred breeding program. Doucain is assisted by several lesser villians, four of whom form the other members of what is known as The Counsel of Evil which is a committee which has been sanctioned by the Union government to run the affairs of the area from an anonymous shield of power and silence. The other key member of The Council of Evil is a banker, Bowen Slaidrick, who is both a member of the council and the legal guardian of his neice Lacey who is the legitimate owner of another large farm which adjoins Aidan's. Doucain is obsessed with owning Aidan's property and destroying him at any cost. Lacey would have been called a tomboy in today's parlance and the opening of the novel involves an attempted stage coach robbery which is foiled by Aidan, Link, and Fid, the jockey, along with Lacey who is riding beside the driver atop the stage coach. When the driver is wounded, Lacey takes the rains, uses a whip to lash at least one of the highwaymen, and drives the stage away in a gallop as Aidan and his friends send the robbers packing. Action like this pops up in almost ever chapter of the novel and is offset by one after another action by The Council of Evil to rob Aidan of all he owns. If you can accept the fact that the good guys in this novel are returning Confederal soldiers and a few other Confederate sympathizers who are friends of Aidan in Lexington, it is well worth reading. It is loaded with good or better character development, a strong plot which flows smoothly, great conflict and conflict resolution, and a story which I am certain happened several times in the years immediately after the Civil War, especially in the Confederate states and border states. Gene Markey could write or he would never have been a major Hollywood script writer. Yes, I know it isn't popular in today's world to write novels about protagonists who are Confederate soldiers being pilloried by Union officers and supporters. But this novel is well worth reading if you can set your prejudices aside.

"No Kings Day" Protest, Morehead, Kentucky, June 14, 2025

Yesterday, my wife and I attended the "No Kings Day" protest in Morehead, Kentucky, along with somewhere in excess of 200 other people who are all committed to seeing the end of the occupation of the White House by TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet". It was a very successful and fulfilling event. It never stopped raining the entire time we were there. We arrived at almost exactly the scheduled start time of noon and had to leave at about 1:30pm to meet an old friend of mine at Cracker Barrel whom we hadn't seen in about 25 years. I wish we could have stayed longer. I dropped my wife off around the corner from the little city park at the junction of KY 32 and Main Street, and then drove down the street about three blocks to find a safe parking spot at a business which was closed for the day. When I returned to the protest, my wife had been invited under a tent which the organizers had set up, actually one several such tents. We had not thought about making protest signs and took none which is a shame. But the street side of the park was lined shoulder to shoulder and about three rows deep with people who were holding a wide variety of signs some of which were homemade and some which were commercial products. My favorite sign of the day is the one in the picture above. But during the time we stayed, one man who told me he is 80 was sitting down to take a break and agreed to loan my wife his sign which she held while he rested and managed to situate herself in her power wheelchair on the street edge with the sign. There was a lot of traffic for a Saturday in Morehead and most of the cars driving by were blowing their horns in support, waving in agreement, sometimes shouting encouragement to us, and in the spirit of honesty, some few would give us the finger or shout an obscenity. But the majority seemed to be supporting us. I talked to numerous people during the time I was there including a photographer for the local Morehead newspaper. Our conversation was about the difficulty which small town newspapers and radio stations are facing with the movement of most advertising money to the internet. We specifically discussed one of the Morehead stations which some people I know used to own as one in a small chain of small town Eastern Kentucky stations. That station, and all their others, have recently been sold to a Right Wing Radical Repugnican who has actually served prison time for vote buying when he was an elected public official. The Morehead newspaper has actually been sold a couple of times since the inception of the internet as have at least two other papers in Eastern Kentucky. None of those sold seem to have been bought by people with liberal leanings. Yes, it is possible for a newpaper editor, publisher, owner, and staff to promote rational liberal ideas which still providing accurate honest reporting. In fact, one small town newspaper on the Virginia border has, in the last couple of years, won a major award from the Kenucky Press Association for reporting it did on the 2022 floods in several Eastern Kentucky counties, and it is quite liberal in its leaninings. It's a shame in these times that more small town newspapers and radio stations were being bought up by Right Wing Radicals and being turned into megaphones of the Radical Right. I stayed at the protest as long as my other appointment would allow and both of us really enjoyed our time. We both feel a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment for having taken time out of our lives, as we always do, and as you should also be doing, to support the steadily growing public opposition to the TREASON of TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate. Always Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out!

I wish I could have personally thanked every one of those American Patriots who stood up in Morehead and every other town and city in the country on No Kings Day. That is impossible. But each of you should know just how proud of you I am and how grateful I am for your courage and commitment to our country and our democracy! Always Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out!

"An Appalachian Flood Of Memories: Vol. CCXXII" by Lloyd Dean

Several months ago, my wife and I were eating in Cattlemen's Steak House in Morehead, Kentucky, and found ourselves seated opposite an elderly couple whose male half struck up a conversation with me. His name was Lloyd Dean and he gave me a copy of a self published pamphlet of about 54 pages as described in the title above, "An Appalacian Flood Of Memories: Vol. CCXXII" by Lloyd Dean. He stated that it was his one hundred and some double digit release. I thanked him for it, filed it away and finally perused it. It is collection of captioned photographs, a list of the post masters of the Haldeman, Kentucky post office (now defunct), church bulletings, photocopied newspaper articles, funeral memorial cards, and other miscellanous items which Mr. Dean has obviously collected over the years. I don't intend to pooh pooh his efforts to preserve his memories or mementoes of the past. I do some of the same thing myself. But, despite the fact that five of the best years of my life were spent in Morehead, Kentucky, where this encounter occurred, I did not recognize anyone in the photographs and most of the events happened long before I began to attend Morehead State University as a non-traditional student. The back cover of the book contains a lenghty list of other such books or pamphlets which Mr. Dean has produced over the years and says that they can be purchased from Mr. Dean at 6770 US 60 East, Morehead, KY 40351. The book does not contain a phone number or e-mail address but I have been able to locate a land line phone for Mr. Dean which I will not include in this blog post. I will leave it up to anyone interested in seeing some of Mr. Dean's work to either write him or locate a land line number and give him a call. For me personally, the most interesting inclusions in the book were a newspaper story (photocopied) covering the occasion when the Jesse Stuart Foundation bought the old Ashland, Kentucky, post office building which is still their headquarters, and, at the top of the list of Mr. Dean's works on the back cover is an item listed as "Rural Cemeteries of Kentucky --UK (Sociology) 1952". I have intended to call Mr. Dean and attempt to pursue a copy of that paper since I have always been interested in rural cemeteries in this state and several others which I have visited over the years. A good rural cemetery is one of the finest ways to learn a lot about an area when you are new in the locale. You can learn the names which seem to dominate the community, see some obvious stories about unfortunate deaths, marriages of men to more than one woman, women who died in childbirth buried either beside or with their newborn babe, and also victims of our wars, victims of the 1918 influenze epidemic, and sometimes victims of events such as tornadoes and major floods. I never disparage anyone who chooses to write their ideas and beliefs and publish the results. Mr. Dean obviously has loved to make an effort to preserve as much of his extensive knowledge as possible. He is to be commended for that. Lloyd Dean also left much of his local history and genealogical papers to Morehead State University and they can be found at this link although it appears that the collection has not been fully assessed and catalogued.

"Skags The Milk Horse" by Miriam Blanton Huber, Great Children's Literature From 1931

The first time I came across this book, I bought a copy of it at a large flea market in Northern Indiana, and almost immediately sold it online for a nice profit. In addition to being one of the nicest little pickups I had ever had in that interesting and exciting (at times) pursuit of finding, buying, and either keeping or reselling found objects, this little book has always fascinated me for several reasons. It had survived to be found more than 75 years later in a flea market. I have also spent years of my life working in equine related jobs, more than 20 years in the Thoroughbred horse business and almost four years with the private juvenile treatment company Vision Quest, nearly all of which I spent on the Vision Quest Wagon Trains, riding down the highways of the Eastern United States on one of the best horses I ever knew stopping oncoming traffic on a horse while holding a hand held stop sign. That kind of partnership with a horse is the kind of experience that can give you a lifetime of memories and that mustang, Teepee, and I had a helluva parentership. This book is about a draft horse of unknown breed and a milk delivery man who had that same kind of partnership. The book is 111 pages written by Miriam Blanton Huber and illustrated by Curtiss Sprague. Huber wrote at least 50 or 60 books. Sprague can be found listed as the author or illustrator of about a dozen books. Good biographical information cannot be located online for either of the two. The American Book Company which published the book existed from 1890 to 1981 as an independent publisher of educational books for students at all levels of American education. It ceased to exist as an independent imprint in 1980 after almost 100 years as a publishing company. Another company, unrelated to the original American Book Company, now operates under the same name. The book contains a page labeled "Note" which states that the vocabulary of the book is "512 words of which 81 percent are found in "Gates' Reading Vocabulary for the Primary Grades" and 51 percent are found in the first five hundred words of the Gates list." I have never before encountered the Gates list. I have learned that an author and psychologist named Arthur Irving Gatesin the early twentieth century produced several books in the fields of psychology, education, and the blended discipline of educational psychology. I have since learned that Gates lived from 1890 to 1971 and was an expert on vocabulary in early childhood education. If I had never gotten another positive thing from this book, I would have learned about the lives of three educational professionals who obviously had some positive impact on each of their fields. But, you ask, what about "Skags The Milk Horse". Skags, the hero of the book, is a draft horse who pulls a milk wagon through the streets of an unnamed city, and is driven each day by his regular driver and partner Jim Clark. The milk company has a building and lot somewhere on a city street which is designed in such a way that the milk bottling and distribution operation is on the ground floor and the horse stable is on the second floor with a stall for each horse, a large harness room, an attendant, and a cat named Tibbs who is Skags' friend. Each night, in the middle of the night, the horses are harnessed by their drivers, hitched to their wagons which have been parked in the large lot behind the building, loaded with milk, and set out around the town to make their deliveries. Naturally, each driver and horse have an assigned route with regular customers. Skags and Jim Clark go from house to house and Skags actually knows which houses he is supposed to stop at while Jim delivers the milk. But one day in winter,Jim falls on ice after having walked down an alley between two streets to deliver milk to the only two houses he has on that street. He has left Skags and the wagon on the first street and after his fall he is unconscious and transported to a hospital. No one comes to do anything with Skags and the wagon. Skags waits patiently for Jim until about noon when he finally leaves the spot he has been left in and follows his regular route back to the milk company where no one knows yet that Jim has fallen. Eventually, the hospital calls the milk company when Jim regains consciousness. In the meantime, Skags has found his way back to the milk company and is seen as a hero for knowing his route well enough to return to the company with the wagon, honoring the stop signs and red lights, following his routine, and being safe the entire time. The book describes a very humane operation of the horse stable and the care and handling of the horses. It delivers a wonderful story of the kind of partnership a human and a working horse can establish when they are together nealry every day doing their jobs. Yes, it an aged book and unlikely to ever by used in an educational setting again, except by one or two dedicated teachers who stray into a copy and use it is as auxillary material in a classroom. The book also gives a good history lesson about how milk was processed and delivered in urban areas as American cities grew larger and larger before the common use of automobiles and trucks. The one flaw in the book, possibly, is the fact that the author describes the horse stable as being on the second floor of the building above the milk processing facility. Even in the 1930's when the FDA was much less stringent in their regulation of foods and drugs, it seems unlikely to me that a milk company would have stabled ther horses on a floor above the processing plant. Otherwise, this is a fine early childhood book which is appropriate for grades somewhere between three and five. If you are a horse person or an elementary teacher who likes to use auxillary material in class, this is a fine book to own.

Scott Pelly Gave The Most Important Speech I Have Ever Seen

On May 19, 2025, at the 2025 Commencement of Wake Forest University, CBS 60 Minutes Correspondent Scott Pelley gave one of the most important speeches I have ever seen, read, or heard described in my entire life. I first heard about the speech when Pelley was inteviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN after their live screening of "Good Night And Good Luck", the first Broadway play to ever be televised live in its entirety in the entire life of television. The full text of Pelley's speech is found at this link. My impressions of watching the play on CNN are found at this link. I will not append the full text of the speech here but I will discuss my impressions of the most important points in it below. Pelley began with the usual trite recognitions of the higher ranking persons in the audience, a comment about the weather, a small attempt at a joke, and then gave one of the finest speeches since Socrates first mesmerized a crowd of his peers. I have attended, read, or watched thousands of speeches in documentaries and on television. I have seen four presidents of the United States speak publicly plus numerous governors, senators, and lesser elected officials. I have never seen a speech in any form or format which affected me more or made me more proud of the speaker. As Pelley reached the outset of the meat of the speech he began this way:

You know, if we were in London, we might be walking past Portman Square on a beautiful spring day. We would encounter the headquarters of the British Broadcasting Corporation, a nearly 100-year-old building from which Edward R. Murrow, the original CBS News correspondent, stood on the roof and broadcast back to America word of the falling bombs of fascism that fell on that free city month after month. If we walk a little bit further past the BBC, we will encounter another hero in the fight against fascism, George Orwell. He’d be standing there, frozen in bronze with his words carved in the side of a building: “If liberty means anything at all, it means something worth saying that some people don’t want to hear.” I fear there are some people in the audience who don’t want to hear what I have to say today. But I appreciate your forbearance in this small act of liberty.

I am certain that as soon as the words "...the falling bombs of fascism that fell on that free city..." emerged from the speakers around them many in the audience realized they were in for a large dose of truth. For some of them, it was a dose of truth they did not want to hear. Hopefully, for others, actually most of the others, I hope they quickly realized that the dose of truth which was coming was not only needed by the entire audience but also needed by the world at large. Pelley then went on to begin the very necesssary truths he had come to deliver:

"...this morning – our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack. An insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes and into our private thoughts. The fear to speak. In America? If our government is – in Lincoln’s words – “of the people, by the people and for the people” – then why are we afraid to speak? The Wake Forest Class of 1861 did not choose their time of calling. The Class of 1941 did not choose. The Class of 1968 did not choose. History chose them. And now history is calling you, the Class of 2025. You may not feel prepared, but you are. You are not descended of fearful people. You brought your values to school with you and now Wake Forest has trained you to seek the truth, to find the meaning of life."

When he clearly and most publicly stated that our rule of law, journalism, universities, and freedom of speech are under attack, Scott Pelley was saying exactly what needs to be said to the face and into the ears of every living American today. We are under attack by a committed Criminal Syndicate under the control of a committed TRAITOR and they all want to destroy everything about America which is good, noteworthy, vibrant, democratic, and worth preserving. That attack is headquarted at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the attackers are all posing as legitimate officials of the federal government. They are all unqualifed to be in the positions in which they have found themselves. They are all unfit to lead a one car funeral. They are all committed to their cause, and many of them are agents of our worst enemies as a nation. Their ostensible leader, TRAITOR Trump, is, as are most of them, under the control and supervision of Vladimir Putin and Russia. Just as Scott Pelley told the Wake Forest University graduating class of 2025 that they have been chosen by history, the remainder of us loyal citizens of the United States have also been chosen by history. We are literally a nation of people who are being required, if we truly love our nation and our democracy, to become, both individually and collectively, the boy with his/our finger in the dyke in our joint effort to stem the flow of this TREASONUS effort by TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet". Scott Pelley, after telling the crowd that they have been chosen by history just as others long before now were chosen by history that he has known three people, Volodomyr Zelensky, Dr. Samer Attar, and Nadia Marad who were also chosen by history to defend great things. He told the story of how a CBS 60 Minutes film crew found Nadia Marad in "a refugee camp and a few years later she won the Nobel Peace Prize". Yes, my fellow Americans, history works that way and often chooses those who appear to be "the least among us" to become the heroes and heroines of our times. History has chosen a Ukrainian comedian, a simple nun in Calcutta, a log splitting lawyer in 19the century Illinois, and others such as each of us today to Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out, to do the work which our times and the evil operators around us require us to do. Each of us must take on the duty which history and the evil which history and democracy oppose has thrust upon us as our country and our democracy are under attack, as fascism posing as a legitimate government leads that attack, and as many of our peers seek to deny the truths before us about this attack. We must not bow down. We must not surrender. We must not retreat. We must fight to preserve American Democracy in the face of this attack from the worst TRAITOR in the history of the world, TRAITOR Trump.

Watching "Good Night And Good Luck" on CNN!

Last night, my wife and I watched the Broadway play "Good Night And Good Luck" which stars, and was written and produced by George Clooney. The play is about the impact the McCarthy Committee Hearings had on America as US Senator Joseph McCarthy ran amuck in the senate claiming America was being infiltrated by thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of commmunist party members and communist spies. I have writen on this blog in the past about a book by Lately Thomas, "When Even Angels Wept: A Story Without A Hero", which is about Senator McCarthy and terribly destructive impact he and his minions had on literally thousands of innocent victims of their effort to destroy anyone whose ideas they opposed. I have been blessed to know four people who were victims of Senator McCarthy who, to one degree or another, had their lives destroyed by the senator. None of the four people I knew ever wavered in their opposition to the senator, and all of them worked on a daily basis for the remainder of their lives to defend the US Constitution and Constitutional Rights. Clooney's play is now the only Broadway play ever to have a performance televised in its entirety. The play, and everything about the life and crimes of Joseph McCarthy, are a warning about just how fragile democracy is, even in what until January 29, 2025, was the most democratic country in the world. There is no difference in the morally degenerative nature of Senator McCarthy, his minions at the time, and TRAITOR Trump, and his minions today. America and American Democracy are under attack and that attack is directed, fomented, and led from the White House. That is why George Clooney, his business partners on Broadway, and the management team at CNN chose to take the unprecedented step of televising a full length Broadway play to America and the world wherever CNN is available. In today's world, nealry all of satellite based television is available worldwide except in a few of the most repressive countries. Without a doubt, it must have had an incredibly large viewership last night. In a stunning proof of just how dangerous TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate are, just last night as the play was being televised and small demonstrations against his crimes were taking place in Los Angeles, he ordered 2,000 National Guard troops to go to California to quell the demonstrations over the public objections of California Governor Gavin Newome who stated that his administration and the police agencies in the areas of the demonstrations did not need the National Guard mobilization and that it would make matters worse. There can be no doubt that it did. This action by TRAITOR Trump is an escalation of the action he attempted to take in his previous illegal occupation of the White House against peacful demonstrators in Washington when he tried to order that those demonstrators be tear gassed despite their clearly peaceful intentions. These are the most dangerous times in America since at least the end of World War II, and they are dangerous solely because of TRAITOR Trump and his minions. Every American citizen should be standing up and voicing public opposition to TRAITOR Trump, his actions, his minions, and his continued occupation of the White House. But simply impeaching and removing him would not be the best answer since J. D. Vance, the Vice President of record, is just as criminal, just as evil, just as dangerous as TRAITOR Trump. If impeachment is to occur, it must be simultaneous impeachments of every person in the constitutional chain of command and succession until that chain of succession reaches a person who has not shown loyalty to TRAITOR Trump. The only person in the chain of succession at this time who can even be remotely believed to be capable of assuming leadership of the country without risk of further crimes is US Senator Chuck Grassley, the President Pro Tempore of the US Senate, who is second in line to the presidency. That means that only simultaneous impeachment of both TRAITOR Trump and J. D. Vance can hope to put an end to the ongoing attacks on democracy. It needs to happen today, might not be likely to happen until it is far too late, and the ultimate price could be the loss of Democracy in America if the other elected representatives in congress don't take the necessary actions as soon as possible. God Help Us All!

America's Worst Case Scenario Could Be About To Happen!

Many Americans are jumping up and down with glee because the short, destructive, TREASONOUS honeymoon between TRAITOR Trump and Elon Musk has come to an end. But I would not go so far as to say that this is a good thing. In fact, it could be the first public evidence that the situation could very likely get worse in the near future. Yes, I know that many of you are asking "how do you think it could get any worse than it is already". Humor me here, sit down, be quiet, and listen to what I am saying. In the bizarre public course of the breakup between the worst TRAITOR in history and the first immigrant who should be deported from America to the Salvadoran prison, we could be seeing the beginning of what is likely to turn out to be the worst deterioration of a full blown crisis in the history of the world. The full blown crisis the fact that TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet" have been working daily to destroy America and American Democracy at least since November 5, 2024. So how could it get worse? In the rapidly flowing public insanity of the breakup many of you have probably either ignored or cheered the fact that Elon Musk publicly called for the impeachment of TRAITOR Trump and his replacement in the White House by J. D. Vance. In my analysis of that possibility, the situation for all Americans and the world at large would actually be made far worse instantly if that happened. J. D. Vance is just like every other member of TRAITOR Trump's Criminal Syndicate. He had to swear fealty to both TRAITOR Trump and Project 2025 in order to be chosen to be in the position he is in. He had to be willing to commit any crime up to and including TREASON in order to be where he is. He is just as amoral, criminal, and evil as TRAITOR Trump...and he is just a bit smarter. If he were in the White House, whether it was by hook or crook, he would be less likely to attract the kind of public venom which TRAITOR Trump does because he is smart enough to keep his mouth shut about what he is doing, who he is doing it to, and what his criminal objectives are in doing it. J. D. Vance's entire life and career have been built on lies, deception, deceit, and depravity. But he has generally managed to not become the kind of public recognized public enemy that Musk or TRAITOR Trump are publicly recognized. Vance would, to a degree, be able to fly below the radar as he worked feverishly with his version of the Criminal Syndicate to destroy America, American Democracy, and world peace. Vance, if TRAITOR Trump was impeached, might remove some of the members of the Criminal Syndicate in cooperation with Musk. But he would replace them with even more evil, more dangerous, and more deceptive minions such as the young criminals he placed in DOGE. The world would instantly become a far more dangerous place. America would be destroyed more quickly, more thoroughly, and silently while our collective backs are turned. If what we are seeing is a marriage between Musk and Vance, rest assured that it is a marriage made in Hell...or Moscow! DON'T BE SURPISED IF YOU SEEN MUSK AND VANCE LEAD A JOINT EFFORT TO EITHER HAVE TRAITOR TRUMP IMPEACHED OR REMOVED FROM THE WHITE HOUSE UNDER THE 25TH AMENDMENT. PUT MORE WATER IN THE SOUP WORSE TIMES ARE VERY LIKELY COMING!

17 Year Cicadas, No They Are Not Locusts, And Also Not A Plague

I'm a bit late in writing about the recent, and still ongoing, hatch of 17 year cicadas in my area of Eastern Kentucky. But I was reminded of them, as I am every day at home, by seeing a television news anchor in Lexington at WKYT-27 actually mention on air twice that she could hear the cicadas in the studio. I have also frequently heard reporters and anchors at that station say that they could hear heavy rain and thunder storms in their studio as they work. It has led me to believe that their studio must have been built much more cheaply and poorly than most television broadcast studios are built since soundproofing is a necessary part of that type of media. Anyway, the cicadas seem to be abating somewhat around my house where I have heard them nearly every day since the first two or three began singing in search of mates. As for the title of this blog post, they are CICADAS, not LOCUSTS, not a BIBLICAL PLAGUE, and generally NOT HARMFUL TO YOU OR YOUR PROPERTY IN ANY WAY! Yes, cicadas have always been commonly referred to as locusts especially in this area. A locust is a completely different insect. The best resource I can give to you about cicadas is at this website which is operated by a college entomology professor who happens to be an international expert on cicadas. There are numerous different broods of cicadas and all of them are not living a 17 year life cycle. Some are living a 13 year cycle. They come out of the ground, make their characteristic noise to attract mates, mate and lay their eggs before dying, the eggs hatch, the young and immature larvae go back underground and come out again in either 13 or 17 years. They are not harmful to you and should not be killed just because you are afraid of them or angry at their noise.

And, if you are into exotic foodstuff, cicadas are edible. You can find cicada recipes on numerous websites and many people do eat them. I have to admit that I have not eaten cicadas but I am intrigued by the idea. If my wife would join me in eating some, I would gladly do it. Many millions of people in some of the poorer countries of the world eat large numbers of insects, and they are reputed to be a very legitimate source of protein in impoverished areas. Try some if you are an adventurous eater. I have no idea if I will live to see another hatch of cicadas, and neither do you. If there is anything you want to learn about cicadas, now is the time to do it. Here is a chart for the various species of cicadas. Study it! Learn from it! Become a cicada expert!

"Nellie And The Mayor's Hat" by Charlotte Baker, A Fine Old Children's Book From 1947

Sometimes, a good dose of children's literature is a great thing to give us all a break from the horrible political events going on in America today. I have read and written about many children's books over the years, both those beginning reader books and adolescent literature can be fun and educational to read. I especially like to read books which have won or been finalists for awards such as the Newberry, Caldecott, and the National Book Award which also gives an award in the category of Young People's Literature. So far as I know, this book, "Nellie And The Mayor's Hat" never won any awards, and might not have even been nominated for any. I cannot find any significant information about the author Charlotte Baker. The search for information about her is also made more difficult by the fact that a currently living Right Wing Radical "Christian" woman of the same name is currently making waves in the country. But Charlotte Baker, the important Charlotte Baker who wrote "Nellie And Mayor's Hat" was an interesting writer and person as proven by this book alone. The book was published in 1947 with simultaneious issue in both the USA and Canada. It is a hardback book of 96 pages and published by The Junior Literary Guild and Cornwall Publishers. It is probably most appropriate for readers in the third to sixth grades. The title of the book refers to a little dog, Nellie, who is owned by a family of Hispanic children and their grandfather in a town somewhere, presumbably, in Texas. They are poor and the grandfather is trying hard to feed the children while at the same time Nellie has a litter of five puppies which are growing fast and eating the family out of house and home. Nellie is actually the heroine of the story which in today's parlance can be said to be a story about DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The grandfather tells the children they have to find homes for the puppies very soon or they will have to "go away". The children talk about finding a home for the puppies which will have plenty of food, a good yard with a fence, and children to play with the puppies. They decide to "investigate" several people they know whom they believe to be appropriate people to care for the puppies. They begin with Miss Bliss, one of their teachers in school and that is a miserable failure when Miss Bliss leaves the puppies alone in her small apartment and they wreak havoc and disturb the neighbors. Then they "investigate" the service station man who has to tell them he can't keep the puppies because there is too much traffic around his service station. Finally they decide the mayor who lives in a big pink house and has two children would be a good person to take the puppies because he has a big yard, lots of money, and children. They try to see the mayor and have to sneak into his back gate and hide in the shrubbery until he comes out to walk in his yard. But he says he doesn't like dogs and refuses. The mayor has just been given a big hat, actually a sombrero by the mayor of Monterray in Old Mexico and is planning to lead a parade for Founders Fiesta Day wearing the hat and riding a big palomino horse. The children convince their grandfather to take them to the parade along with the puppies in a little wagon. At the parade, the dogs spook the mayor's horse and he loses his hat which falls in the river. But Nellie, who has been a big part of the book and the multiple "investigations" all along, jumps into the river and drags the mayor's hat back to shore just in time to return it to him which causes the crowd to cheer loudly for Nellie. The mayor instantly gives a speech to thank Nellie and finds himself backed into taking Nellie's puppies which saves the day. It is fascinating to find a book this old, written for children, which addressed issues of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in a time when almost no children's books approached subject matter about minority culture, equal rights, or other issues of discrimination or human rights. It is a wonderful surprise of a book from the late 1940's and can become a great classroom tool in today's public schools if enough copies can be located. In all honesty, this is a book for which a legitimate argument can be made to have it reissued in a new edition. Find A Copy! Read It! Tell The World About It! Use it to support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

"Where Is Here" by Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published nearly 60 novels, several plays and novellas, and several collections of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels "Black Water", "What I Lived For", and "Blonde" along with two of her short story collections, "The Wheel of Love" and "Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories" were all nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won the National Book Award, for her novel "Them", plus two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize. For many years, she has been acknowledged as a master of the short story...and, yet, I had never read her work before I strayed into this little collection of stories, "Where Is Here". It is an interesting and entertaining little book containing 35 stories in less than 200 pages. In defense of my having never previously read her work, I can only say that nobody has the time to read every popular writer's works, and many writers whose work is popular are not worth reading anyway. That statement does not fit the work of Joyce Carol Oates. The stories are almost all markedly short, not quite what gets called "Flash Fiction" in today's world but generally shorter than most people write short stories. The stories only average about 5 1/2 pages each, maybe 1,500 words, with the longest being 15 pages. I am not and never will be a fan of "Flash Fiction" since I can get the same kind of thing sitting in a country store or small town restaurant listening to conversations between men with dirty work boots and women who haven't worn anything except Levis in 99% of their lives as waitresses, maids, factory workers, and store clerks. But I like Joyce Carol Oates' stories. They generally contain all the important elements of a good story: Plot, Character Development, Conflict, and most times Conflict Resolution. One aspect of her stories which is interesting is that she almost never gives names to her characters. She describes them with a few choice words which generally do not include a lot of adjectives about appearance, clothes, or other aspects which are not directly a part of her story. It works. But it probably does not work for most other short story writers. She frequently writes stories about men and women who can be extremely violent, aggressive, and not the kind of person you would want to bring home to meet your mother. She writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary situations which might not end in ordinary ways. I recently attended the funeral of a man I had known for about 20 or so years who, the first time I met him, introduced himself to me and in the next 30 minutes told me the story of his life which began with the words "my name is...and I shot my brother six times in that little restaurant up the road in front of ten witnesses." He was the kind of character you might find in a Joyce Carol Oates short story. If that doesn't make her work worth reading, what else could I ever say about it. Will that make me write a 1,500 word short story about somebody like that...probably not. I could never adequately tell his story in 1,500 words...but Joyce Carol Oates might. It can sure be interesting to read stories like that when the author is someone like Joyce Carol Oats.