"Divine Right's Trip: A Novel Of The Counterculture" by Gurney Norman, Observations On A Rereading

I just looked back over the blog and realized that I haven't written a post since March about anything which was absolutely Appalahchian in its focus. It is long past time to do that and my subject matter today cannot be more clearly Appalachian. "Divine Right's Trip" by Gurney Norman is subtitled "A Novel Of The Counterculture" and I do agree that it is. But speaking from the viewpoint of having been a hippie in Eastern Kentucky when the book was originally published in the corners of the pages of "The Last Whole Earth Catalog", I cannot think of a more Appalachian book. Admittedly, it covers a lot of ground on several topics and geographic areas which are not Appalachian. But it covers those topics from the viewpoint of a protagonist who is a fine example of the young Appalachians I knew when I was growing up not more than 30 or so miles where Gurney Norman grew up, and we both are definitely native Appalachians. The protagonist in this novel is David Ray Davenport, Divine Right, or D. R. as he is severallly known both inside and outside his head. He and his girlfriend Estelle are on a trip around the country in a Volkswagon van name Urge which has been painted in a very random fashion by D. R. and an equally random collection of his friend and momentary contacts. They are sometimes under the influence of marijuana, LSD, and malnutrition. Movement and new sights to be seen are generally more important to them than a normal workaday world. They are very typical characters of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960's and early 1970's. D. R. is a bit of a lost ball in the high, high weeds having been raised for the most part by his grandparents in a fictional county in Eastern Kentucky which can be assumed to be at least a marginal facisimile of the Letcher County in which Gurney Norman spent his childhood. D. R. does not know his father and his mother has given him the last name of a less than desirable step-father. Estelle is at least a competent enough woman that she can usually drag D. R. out of whatever mire in which has found himself. They take turns driving Urge across the country from one crisis to the next, from one interesting interaction to another with generally benevolent strangers. Eventually, the return to Cincinatti where they have friends and family and then become separated from each other somewhat unintentially when D. R. goes to visit his sister and her family and fails to return to Estelle on time. Then he hears by telephone from the local female country storekeeper Mrs. Godsey that his uncle Emmit is dying on the old homeplace in the head of a holler in Kentucky. D. R. offers to come and care for the dying uncle and actually delivers on the promise. They spend a few weeks getting to know each other again as the uncle attempts to train D. R. in the daily routine of his ramshackle house and a plethora of rabbits and chickens. Mrs. Godsey and her husband Leonard take D. R. under their wing so to speak, allowing him to have credit in their little store with little or no proof of ability to pay and he grows up a bit during the deterioriation and death of his uncle Emmit. He spends the last few days of Emmit's life caring for him in the local hospital, arranges his funeral, helps dig the grave in the old family graveyard in order to save some money, and decides to try to track Estelle down through a mutual friend who actually accomplishes the task. Estelle comes to Eastern Kentucky to live with D. R. and they decide to get the married. The final wrapping up of all the loose ends of D. R.'s life are brought togehter during the wedding which is performed jointly by the local mainstream (for Eastern Kentucky) preacher and a very hippie type of friend from California who is known only as the Annaheim Flash. The wedding is attended by a large crowd of people from both of D. R.'s worlds, Eastern Kentucky and all of hippie America. As many great stories end, a fine time was had by all. The old homeplace contains many of the things which have endeared Appalachia to thousands, perhaps millions of us: the homeplace itself now strip mined to near total destruction, the old family graveyard in danger of being buried by strip mine sludge, good friends and neighbors who step in at both the best and worst of times, and all those sometimes lost but never forgotten heartwarming experiences which always make home a home and prove that Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again, at least if your name is David Ray Davenport.

The Big Sandy River Influence On American Culture

 

The Big Sandy River Influence on American Culture

The Big Sandy River has had an amazing amount of influence on American Culture over the last 100 years with a number of musicians, educators, writers, folklorists, and politicians coming out of the region which is in great contrast with the total population of the area drained by the river.  Formed by the Tug River and the Levisa Fork along the Kentucky, West Virginia border it drains Boyd, Lawrence, Johnson, Floyd, Pike, and part of Knott counties in Kentucky and Wayne, Mingo, and McDowell counties in West Virginia.  The region in both states contains only about 300,000 people and the population has been in flux at various times as outmigration has often taken place in conjunction with ebbs in the coal business which has been the primary economic driver in the region.

Yet, this region has produced an astounding number of important figures in American history including many of the country’s most popular musicians, a significant number of educators with national reputations, and several significant politicians.  The list from Boyd County includes The Judds including the actress and social activist Ashley Judd, Billy Ray Cyrus, and the Goins Brothers who were not natives but spent most of their lives in the region.

 Lawrence County has produced Ricky Skaggs and the multi-media artist Nyoka Baker Chapman who is also an official of the Huntington League of Women Voters.  The great Appalachian educator and writer Cratis Williams for whom the graduate school at Appalachian State University is named was also from Lawrence County. The former Chief Justice of the United States Fred Vinson was born in the Lawrence County Jail while his father was jailer there.  He also was a major economic officer in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the recovery from the Great Depression prior to his appointment to the court.  Former Kentucky Governor Paul Patton was also born in Lawrence County and was county judge executive in Pike County. He also served a term as lieutenant governor and was a major driver of the expansion of the University of Pikeville as both president and board member.

Johnson County has produced, and continues to produce an astounding number of important musicians including the Webb sisters, Loretta Lynn, Peggy Sue, and Crystal Gayle; Hylo Brown; Chris Stapleton;  and the minor Bluegrass band Five Miles From Nowhere.  Few Americans realize that the actor Richard Thomas of The Waltons is the son of a New York ballet dancer who grew up in Johnson County and Thomas often spent his summers with his grandparents in Paintsville.  The country singer Tyler Childers was born in Lawrence County and grew up in Johnson County.  Brett Ratliff, an old time musician and singer, also grew up in Johnson County. John Pelphrey who is a well known basketball coach and a member of the University of Kentucky team referred to as The Unforgetables also grew up in Paintsville, Kentucky, and has since been a head coach at the University of Arkansas, South Alabama University, and Tennessee Tech University where he still coaches today.  

Floyd County produced one of the greatest collectors and publishers of folk songs and folk tales, Leonard Roberts, who produced a half dozen books of his collected songs and stories from Appalachia and was a professor at Pikeville College until his death before it achieved university status.  Dwight Yoakam was born near his grandparents’ home in Betsy Layne in Floyd County and often refers to his Eastern Kentucky history despite having spent most of his childhood in Ohio.  Floyd County also produced the founder of the band Goose Creek Symphony, Charlie Gearheart.  The famous Bluegrass singer Tommy Webb is also a native and resident of Floyd County. McDowell in Floyd County produced the significant Appalachian painter and art professor Tim Sizemore who taught for many years at Prestonsburg Community College. The well known artist Russell May lived his entire life Floyd County.  In Wheelwright, Kentucky, Carol Stumbo and her English students produced the significant literary journal “Mantrip” for ten years along with the assistance of Albert Stewart, a highly admired poet and editor from Knott County. Floyd County also produced the man who is generally conceded to have been the best high school basketball player of all time, Kelly Coleman.   

Pike County is famous for having produced Patty Loveless but lesser known for having been the home of the early country singer Molly O’Day. The former Kentucky Poet Laureate Lillie D. Chaffin was also born in Pike County, spent most of her life there, and was a professor at Pikeville College.  The country musician, song writer, and night club owner Marlo Tackett grew up in Floyd County and ran a well known night club in Pike County for many years.

Although Knott County is not fully drained by the Big Sandy River, a significant portion of it is and the Floyd County Times in Prestonsburg was, for many years, the primary newspaper serving Knott County.  Due to the small size of Hindman, the county seat of Knott County, most people on the northern side of the county did their business for many years in Floyd County and students from that area were also bussed to Floyd County schools for many years due to the lack of paved roads in the county.  Knott County has produced Albert Stewart, the poet who founded “Appalachian Heritage” magazine and taught for many years at Alice Lloyd College.  Knott County also produced Verna Mae Slone who became a best selling author in her late 60’s. The most important writer of Wiccan books, Jessie Wicker Bell, was raised at Mousie in Knott County and produced her literature under the Wiccan name Lady Sheba.  Her ashes were scattered in the Wicker Family Cemetery at Mousie.  The county was also home for many years to James Still and Mae Stone, both connected to the Hindman Settlement School, both widely read authors, neither of whom grew up in the area.  Similarly, William Howard Cohen, a poet and professor at Alice Lloyd College came to the area and produced significant works while there. Cohen was also chosen as a Cultural Delegate to the 1968 Mexico City Olympics where he read his poetry and later produced a book of poems about the experience. 

I have not studied the important cultural figures from the West Virginia side of the Big Sandy River drainage as extensively as I have the Kentucky side but the Appalachian author Lee Maynard grew up in Crum, West Virginia in Wayne County and wrote extensively about the region.  In fact, his “Crum Trilogy” refers several times to the border conflicts which sometimes occurred between adolescent natives of the two states across the watery boundary.  Fannie Belle Fleming, known more widely as the burlesque star Blaze Star, was born in Wayne County. 

McDowell County West Virginia produced two very important Appalachian authors, Denise Giardina and Homer Hickam. Giardina is a liberal political activist in her spare time and made an unsuccessful run for governor. Hickam spent his career at NASA as a scientist after he and a group of other high school students won a national science competition.   

It is truly exceptional that such a small geographic area in what is sometimes disparaged as a struggling region could have produced so many influential and successful individuals.  There are also a large number of these people who grew up just outside the environs of the Big Sandy but were significantly influenced by the culture of the area.  Those include Keith Whitley, Don Rigsby, and his brother John Rigsby all of whom have been important musicians who grew up in Elliott County.  Don Rigsby also was Director of the Center for Traditional Music at Morehead State University for a time.  Tom T. Hall, one of the greatest song writers in the country as well as an important novelist and short story author, grew up in Carter County and worked for a time as disc jockey in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, on the Big Sandy.  Magoffin County also produced the Bluegrass singer and attorney Charlie Sizemore who played with Ralph Stanley for several years before quitting to go to college at Prestonsburg Community College and on to law school.  Magoffin County also produced Tom Whitaker who was a significant Appalachian artist and art professor at Prestonsburg Community College.  Magoffin County also produced the minor country singer Rebecca Lynn Howard and two Lexington, Kentucky, television weather forecasters, Chris Bailey and Jim Caldwell. The country singer Gary Stewart grew up in Letcher County and often played in Pike County in his early career.  All of these people, while not directly growing up in the Big Sandy River area, grew up within a few miles of the river and were influenced by the culture of the river basin. 

Some Thoughts On "Crossing The Bar" by Alfred Lord Tennyson

There was a clue on "Jeopardy" quite a while ago about the poem, "Crossing The Bar" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, which is one of the most well known poems about death other than possibly "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant. Because the language is a bit simpler and the poem much shorter than in "Thanatopsis", "Crossing The Bar" was for many years one of the most often printed pieces on the back of funeral memorial cards in Appalachia. I have a sizeable collection of such memorial cards and wrote about them in the blog post at the preceding link. I have probably seen it on the cards at a hundred or more funerals in my life. It is a great little poem and, in it's own way, a major part of Appalachian history and culture.

 

With the recent massive flooding in Eastern Kentucky and the still unfinished search for the likely dead, many more of those memorial cards in being printed in several of the most Appalachian counties in Kentucky.  One of those is my native Knott County and, luckily, so far I have not heard of anyone being among the dead from my relatives and acquaintances.  I also have deep ties to Floyd County which has had severe flooding especially in Wayland and Garrett on Right Beaver Creek and all up Left Beaver Creek, all of which lies in Floyd County.   I spent the first 6 years of my life on Steele's Creek in Floyd County just a mile from Wayland and still have many friends and relatives there.  The next 17 years of my life were spent on Right Beaver Creek at Dema in Knott County just about three miles from Wayland.  Most of my closest friends during my teenage years were from Wayland including my two cousins, more like brothers, Jack and Johnny Terry.  It is horrible to think of having anyone die in a flood and it is just as horrible to know that several thousand people in about 7 counties in Eastern Kentucky are now homeless because of this flood.  So, in memory of the dead from the Eastern Kentucky floods of July 29, 2022, here is the complete text of "Crossing The Bar".

 

Crossing the Bar

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

 

 

 

The Genius Of Joel Pett And The Inability Of Appalachians To Understand It

 

A few days ago, the Lexington Herald-Leader published this cartoon as part of their ongoing coverage of the Eastern Kentucky flooding and it literally caused a storm of strong, often totally irrational, comments about how horrible the cartoon was, how little Joel Pett understands Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia, and how "he done us wrong".  First of all, let me tell you about Joel Pett's resume as a political cartoonist and a little about my resume as an expert on Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia before I tell you what I think about Joel Pett, his work in general, and this cartoon in particular.  Joel Pett, after having done freelance cartoon work for about 15 years, following his graduation from Indiana University, began working as the staff cartoonist for the Lexington Herald-Leader in 1984.  His cartoons regularly appear in many of the best national newspapers including the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe.  He has won the 1995 Global Media Award and the 1999 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.  But those are not the greatest awards his work has earned.  Joel Pett has actually won the Pulitzer Prize, count them, ONE< TWO<THREE>FOUR times,  and was a finalist for the Pulitzer twice more.  That's not bad, folks!  He has also been chosen at times as a jurist for the Pulitzer Prize.  

Now, let me tell you a little about myself and my qualifications to speak on the subject of Appalachia, Appalachian Culture, poverty, and Eastern Kentucky.  First of all, since Knott County Kentucky is the worst hit of the counties being discussed in the news about the flooding, I was born and raised in Knott County.  I grew up in a country store where for many years my parents dealt, on a daily basis, with a broad selection of Knott Countians.  I grew up walking up to ten miles a week to sell Grit newspapers, garden seeds, Cloverine Salve, and Rosebud Salve to my neighbors.  I graduated from Knott County High School, not the new Knott County Central High School.  I grew up in the KCHS in the photo below which was built by the WPA in 1939 on Caney Creek which just a few years before was having mail delivered by mule back.  

I attended Upward Bound for one year on the Stuart Robinson Campus in Letcher County at Blackey.  I attended it another year at Alice Lloyd College on Caney Creek in Knott County.  I also attended, but did not graduate from Alice Lloyd College.  I also attended the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College in Beckley, West Virginia, but did not graduate from that institution which was primarily a training ground for young Appalachian writers, several of whom have gone on to become respected writers on the subject of Appalachia.  I received a Bachelor of Social Work degree from Morehead State University and a Master of Education Degree in Counseling and Human Development degree from Lindsey Wilson College and served as an adjunct instructor in the same program for about 3 years for LWC.  I have worked as a door to door salesman out of Logan, West Virginia, primarily in the counties of Logan, Mingo, Boone, Lincoln, Wayne, Wyoming,  and McDowell in West Virgina, and in the counties of Pike and Martin in Kentucky.  I have worked as a mental health and substance abuse therapist in Montgomery, Breathitt, Jackson, and Wolfe Counties.  I also  have a Kentucky auctioneer license and have held auctions, several hundred actually, in Floyd, Letcher, Johnson, Magoffin, Morgan, Fayette, and Kenton counties in Kentucky.  I am a regularly published writer on the subject of Appalachia including professional articles on the subject of Culturally Appropriate Counseling in Appalachia.  I tend to believe that most judges would accept me as an expert on Appalachia and Appalachian Culture.  

Now that you know who Joel Pett and I both are, let's talk about the cartoon above, which has caused so much ire in Eastern Kentucky.  The cartoon is very simply and directly worded and drawn as a cartoon version of several well known photographs of Eastern Kentucky residents clinging to roofs during the recent flooding. The language in the cartoon is simple, direct, and a bit unnerving I will admit.  It says just eight words and they are powerful words.  "When it rains, it pours on poor people."  Since the cartoon talks about poverty, let me add one more resume line for myself to prove I am also an expert on poverty.  I worked for 8 years at the Hope Center in Lexington, Kentucky, which is a large, inner city homeless shelter.  I know poverty, both in the city and in the country.  

To help us understand what poverty means in Eastern Kentucky let's look at the reality of poverty in the counties which have been involved in this disaster.  Floyd County has a 32.4% poverty rate.  Breathitt County has a 32.5% poverty rate.  Knott County has a 32.1% poverty rate.  Letcher County has a 31.1% poverty rate.  Perry County has a 28.9% poverty rate.  Johnson County has a 25.0% poverty rate.  Pike County has a 23.8% poverty rate and yet in the 1970's was often touted as having more millionaires per capita than any other county in the country due to the coal boom. These are some of the highest poverty rates in the entire nation.  Nearly a third of the population in all these counties are below the poverty level.  So now let's look at how poverty works and just how precise Joel Pett was in this cartoon in getting directly to the point of the consequences of a major disaster in an area where such a large percentage of the population is poor.  

Poor people have little or no resources, weak social support systems, and little recourse to supportive means when times get hard.  Times don't ever get any harder than when your living quarters and every thing you own have been washed down Troublesome Creek, Squabble Creek, or Beaver Creek and you and whatever is left of your family are clinging to a tree or a barn roof in a muddy flood.  Poor people never live in the best houses in the best locations in any community. They live in poorly built houses and trailers in low lying land where the better off locals didn't want to build a house but were perfectly happy to gain some side income by placing rental property in bottom land they no longer farm.  Poor people rarely own their own homes and almost never have renters insurance because, if at the first of the month, you have a choice to pay either your rent and utilities or your renter's insurance, you pay what keeps a roof over your head and some basic food necessities for the next month.  Poor people often have poor to no credit ratings.  When everything you own has been washed down a muddy stream, you can't run out to the Ford dealer and buy a new truck or car.  You can't run down to the local bank and borrow money for a new double wide on higher ground.  You do damn well to buy two changes of used clothes at Goodwill for each member of your family.  Poor people don't have large amounts of savings and often have none. Poor people often don't have computers or internet.  If they have a telephone, it is usually a prepaid phone and often out of minutes. When you live from paycheck to paycheck, you can't suddenly find a new place to rent, pay a deposit, buy a full replacement of clothing, food, utensils, and bed clothes for a family.  You can't just get up, dust yourself off, say "well, that was a pretty bad little storm", and trot off to another set of living quarters in new Levis.  Poor people rarely have life insurance, health insurance, car insurance, or any assurance that they can survive a blowout on the 20 year old car they are driving to a minimum wage job, or a new refrigerator if the old one dies. When a family member dies among the poor, they usually have no life insurance, no savings, and no way to pay for a funeral and this flood has caused far too many funerals.  I personally know several funeral home owners who often bury people on credit with little or no down payments and hope they will be paid someday and be able to survive in business by getting paid by other concerned contributors and the profits they earn on high dollar funerals for the well to do.  I also know one less compassionate undertaker who will not touch a body until he has enough money in hand to cover the cost of his materials or has a mortgage on a piece of hillside land.  That is how the poor get treated on many occasions. The reality of poverty is that when you are poor, you are poor 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and, if it's leap year February 29 is just another day of poverty.  

So that should bring us back to Joel Pett's cartoon and the reality of being poor in a major disaster.  Those eight words, "When it rains, it pours on poor people", have caused a great deal of ire in Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia.  I had one friend who, despite growing up poor in Floyd County attempted to compare Joel Pett to J. D. Vance, the worst enemy of Appalachian people since Harry Caudill.  That is like comparing Mahatma Gandhi to Adolph Hitler.  I saw another lengthy diatribe from a woman on social media who kept ranting about being a "proud hillbilly" and how ignorant Joel Pett is.  I am certain that woman has no idea that the word "hillbilly" is never a matter of pride.  It is just as defamatory, demeaning, and debilitating as the "N" word, the "K" word, the "Q" word, or the "C" word. It is a cultural and ethnic epithet and no member of any cultural or ethnic minority should ever resort to referring to themselves by the same misnomers their detractors use. When I confront people of any ethnic or minority group about their use of these cultural and ethnic epithets in reference to themselves, I frequently hear them say it is an appropriation of the words which empowers them.  By the same logic, which is deeply flawed, we could say that any suspect in a police interrogation should eventually confess whether or not they committed the crime in question. Using such a word about oneself with a note of pride in the voice is a sure sign the user is uninformed and unlikely to benefit from future enlightenment. What I have seen in the hundreds of comments about Joel Pett and his work falls into two categories.  The poorly educated, ill informed, and less fortunate commenters think Joel Pett made a personal attack on them, their families, and their pet dog.  The better educated, better informed, and more fortunate Appalachian commenters see the truth in Joel Pett's eight little words and are glad he is speaking out in defense of the poor of Eastern Kentucky as they try to pull themselves up by the boot straps one more time in the face of a horrible disaster.  The cartoon in question is another case of Joel Pett hitting the nail on the head with his art work and his words.  That cartoon is another example of why the best newspapers in the country regularly publish his work. That cartoon is another shining example of why Joel Pett has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize six times and won it four. That cartoon is a masterpiece.  Those eight little words are right on point.  "When it rains, it pours on poor people."  That cartoon is proof, once again, that Joel Pett is a genius. 

Return The Historic Window To Leslie County Kentucky

 In recent weeks, the board of directors of what is now the Frontier Nursing University which was originally, and for nearly a century, known as The Frontier Nursing Service, have removed a historic 15th century stained glass window from the original chapel of the Frontier Nursing Service campus in Leslie County Kentucky and stated their intentions to install in the new campus of the Frontier Nursing University in Versailles Kentucky more than a hundred and thirty miles from the spot which Mary Breckinridge had placed it and stated her intentions for it to remain in perpetuity.  The citizens of Leslie County are deeply troubled by this theft of a priceless artifact of the county's history and are fighting the board of directors to force the return of the window.  I fully support their efforts and so should you.  Please go to the link I have provided below and sign the petition.  Also please consider calling the offices of the Frontier  Nursing University and state your support for the citizens of Leslie County.  That telephone number is (859) 251-4700.  Also please share the petition in all forms of your social media and by e-mail.  Please support the citizens of Leslie County.  

Mary Breckinridge, Founder of The Frontier Nursing Service.

Here is an edited link to the peitition by the citizens of Leslie County Kentucky demanding that Frontier Nursing University return a historic 15th century stained glass window to the chapel on the original campus of the Frontier Nursing Service which was started by Mary Breckinridge as an agency dedicated to direct health care services to the citizens of the area. The current board of directors have abandoned the mission along with Leslie County, all of Eastern Kentucky, and Appalachia in order to become a lower tier nursing school in Versailles Kentucky the heart of the Bluegrass and well outside Appalachia. Please consider signing the petition and demanding that this historic window be returned to Leslie County where it was intended to stay for all eternity by Mary Breckinridge herself.

Mary Breckinridge began the Frontier Nursing Service in 1925 in order to work with mothers and young children primarily to lower the rates of infant mortality, still births, and the deaths of mothers in child birth.  In the 1920's, Leslie County was one of the most remote and isolated areas in all of Appalachia and health care was minimal at best.  The nurses of the Frontier Nursing Service road on horse back in rain, sleet, snow, hail, lighting, thunder, and dark of night to provide health care to natives of Central Appalachia.  The Frontier Nursing Service School of Midwifery and Family Nursing was established in 1939 in order to train nurses and midwives and eventually became the longest continually operating nurse-midwife educational program in the country.  Leslie County was in the heart of the Kentucky coal fields and as coal companies came to the area and coal camps proliferated, the Frontier Nursing Service provided care in all the gaps which the coal companies refused to operate.  They were the first line of defense against death, disease, and epidemics in the area around Hyden and Leslie County.  They fought the polio epidemic of the early twentieth century along with providing basic health care to anyone who asked.  

But over the course of time, the area acquired roads such as the Daniel Boone Parkway, more doctors and hospitals arrived, and the mission of the Frontier Nursing Service became much more focused on educating nurses and midwives.  In recent years, the board has changed hands and become dominated by individuals who have little or interest in serving or being loyal to Leslie County and its citizens. Hence the crisis of the stained glass window has arisen in the wake of the board having decided to abandon Leslie County for the rolling fields of the Bluegrass in Woodford County.  They moved their headquarters and decided to cart the historic and priceless window off with them.  Without notifying the community, essentially in the dead of night, they removed the window from the original chapel of the Frontier Nursing Service Campus and now want to mollify the residents of Leslie County by giving them a "facsimile" or "replica" of the priceless window which was actually a gift from Mary Breckinridge to the county.  This has just become one more chapter in the rape and rapine of Appalachia.  I beg of each of you who reads this to join the fight with the citizens of Leslie County and never give up until that window is back where it belongs.