Great Political Banners In Appalachia

Every now and then someone does something which I cannot resist passing on to the general public in the best interests of the country and the world at large.  This is one of those occasions and my cousin, really more like a brother, Jack Terry, is the person who has done it.  Jack and I have known each other since I was born 68 years ago.  You might say we go back a long way.  Our mothers were sisters and we grew up a lot alike, about 5 miles apart on the waters of Beaver Creek in Eastern Kentucky.  Our families actually spent several years, at different times, living in the same house on Steele's Creek near Wayland Kentucky.  Our upbringing was a lot alike and Jack, his brother Johnny, and I spent a lot of time together when we were not in school since we attended school in two different counties.  My parents moved out of that house and store on Steele's Creek in Floyd County in the summer of 1957 just before I turned six and started school.  As we moved out and further up Beaver Creek to Dema in Knott County, on the return trip down the creek, the truck and laborers stopped at the place Jack's parents had been living in and picked up a load of their house plunder and hauled it to the building we were moving away from.

Jack became career Army and later career Army Corps of Engineers and is now retired as am I.  He lives in a very rural part of Lawrence County Kentucky and recently sent me photos of two political banners he has erected on his property beside the state highway.  I love these banners.  They say at least part of what needs to be said about the ongoing political, moral, ethical, and legislative disaster which has been transpiring in America since January 20, 2017.  Here are the photos.  Feel free to share them anywhere you desire on social media or otherwise.  But please give photographer and creator credit to Jack D. Terry.

Political Banner--Created & Photographed by Jack D. Terry

Political Banner Created & Photographed by Jack D. Terry 

In Memory Of 100,000 Innocent Dead American Victims Of Covid 19

Wreath Photo by Pinterest

It seems appropriate since this is Memorial Day weekend to write a blog post in memory of the roughly 100,000 innocent, dead American victims of the Corona Virus or Covid 19 whichever you prefer.  At this point, I have not known any of the victims although I do  have a great niece in Indiana who is battling the virus after contracting it in a nursing home which reportedly has an 80% positive rate among the staff and clients.  What is truly sad about that is that it is not terribly unusual in the nursing home industry.  The virus has killed astounding numbers of people, both clients and staff, in nursing and long term care facilities.  I know of another nursing home in a very rural county in Eastern Kentucky which has similar infection rates with several deaths including one staff person.  But the truly horrible aspect of this whole pandemic is that the great majority of these deaths were preventable if any appropriate actions had been taken by the federal government in January and February after the White House was notified that the pandemic was coming and could destroy the county.  For two months in January and February 2020, not one thing was done to stop the virus until we actually had cases and deaths and at that point it was far too late to act with any hope of stopping the spread.  It is highly likely that we will hit 150,000 US deaths by the end of June 2020 and the total number of deaths may well reach a quarter million before the pandemic runs its course or a fully tested, ethically produced vaccine can be created, manufactured in large enough numbers, and administered to those of us who are lucky enough to have survived to that point.  And at this point, the TRAITOR who illegally occupies the White House is unethically, irrationally, and indefensibly fast tracking some choice vaccine efforts in which he may well have a vested interest just as he has attempted to promote Hydroxychloroquine in spite of its well documented ineffectivness against Covid 19 and its equally well documented risks of heart disease and increased deaths.  In fact, hydrosychloroquine is no more effective against the Corona Virus than is the combination of injected disinfectants this TRAITOR also promoted.  This TRAITOR fired the entire pandemic response team more than two years ago simply because the team had been created by President Obama.  Nothing he has ever done has been rational, ethical, or in the best interests of the country, the world, or the human race.  He has totally ignored, belittled, verbally abused, and vilified the best scientist alive while claiming to know a great deal when in fact he knows nothing, cares nothing, accepts no personal responsibility for his TREASON, assorted other crimes, and ignorance in general.  Every one of these 100,000 deaths from Covid 19 to date are on his head and his hands.  Let's remember each of these 100,000 innocent victims and all those victims still to come until this TRAITOR can be removed the scene of his nearly four year crime spree to date.  These innocent victims deserve to be honored, remembered, defended, and their final sacrifice must be dealt with by the American justice system against the perpetrator of this disaster.  

I Got Tested For Covid 19! So Should You!

On Tuesday, May 19, 2020, my wife and I traveled to Saint Claire Medical Center in Morehead Kentucky to participate in a free, drive through Corona Virus test.  I hear people talking all the time about how they will not participate in testing, will not wear a mask in public, and think that all the promotions about staying safe against the spread of the most dangerous virus in the world is all "a hoax", or useless, or crazy, or whatever asinine excuse they can come up with to avoid being tested.  The entire procedure from the time we drove into the parking lot to the completion of testing and driving away was about fifteen minutes.  Isn't it worth fifteen minutes of your time to avoid becoming an asymptomatic carrier, infecting dozens of people, and possibly causing the deaths of some of them?  The test itself is a bit unpleasant.  The nurse, in full personal protective equipment (PPE) walked up each window of our vehicle, asked a few identifying questions, entered them into a laptop, and returned with a long handled swab which was probably six inches long.  I honestly cannot tell you whether the handle portion of the swab was plastic or twisted paper like a stick for a child's sucker.  The cotton tip of the swab was then inserted up each of our nostrils all the way to the back of our throats which takes less than ten seconds but is a bit unpleasant.  I had to sneeze into my mask a couple of times shortly after the test was performed.  My wife did not and seemed to dislike the procedure less than me.  This morning, two days later, I went on the patient portal at Saint Claire and checked our results which were both negative as we expected.  My wife, due to serious complicating health problems has not gone into a public setting in over two months.  I do the chores and always wear a mask and gloves.  You should also always wear a mask and gloves.  There are no valid reasons for not wearing a mask in public.  There are no valid reasons for not wearing gloves in public.  There are no valid reasons for not being tested.  There are only excuses.  If you allow your irrational fears of testing or your ignorant justifications for not wearing a mask and gloves to prevent you from helping in the fight to stop the spread of this virus will you be willing to step up and take responsibility for the potential dozens of infections and deaths your refusals led to?  I doubt it.  You should be tested and you should wear a mask and gloves in public.  You are simply assisting in the spread of the deadliest disease to hit the world in many years if you do not.  This virus has already killed 95,000 innocent American victims as of today, May 21, 2020, and will kill more than 100,000 before June 1, 2020.  It is also likely to kill 150,000 before July 1, 2020.  Are you going to help it in its work or are you going to help the country fight it? 

"Tales from Sacred Wind Coming of Age in Appalachia" by Cratis D. Williams--Book Review

Williams, Cratis D., and David Cratis Willams and Patricia D. Beaver, Editors. Tales From Sacred Wind Coming of Age in Appalachia (Jefferson, NC, McFarland & Co. 2003)

For my regular readers over the past month or so, it is no secret that I love this book.  Some of the most popular and easiest written blog posts I have ever done have been about particular segments of issues which Cratis D. Williams discusses in the book.  I have written about Death, Dying, and Burial Practices In Appalachia; Croton Oil And Cratis Williams; Traditional Appalachian Children's Games; and One More Short Lesson From Cratis Williams.  I had also written a much earlier post about some reading of his work which I had one under the title Responses To Some Reading Of Cratis Williams.  All of these posts were very easy to write and well received by my readers.  Cratis Williams was the Dean of the Appalachian State University Graduate School and taught there for several decades in addition to being one of the most influential scholars in all of the field of Appalachian Studies.  I have said repeatedly that I never met Dr. Williams and I regret that a great deal.  He was erudite, well read, incredibly funny, and one of the best experts on the culture of Appalachia, especially in the early twentieth century.  

This book was edited by his son, Dr. David Cratis Williams and Dr. Patricia D. Beaver who had been one of his professional colleagues at Appalachian State University.

Cratis D. Williams--Photo by the Williams Family

It was published eighteen years after his death.  It is basically a memoir of the first twenty or so years of his life.  It is assumed that he intended to complete a comprehensive memoir of his entire life and simply did not have the time during his academic career to complete and subsequently did not live long to complete the work after his retirement. That is a tragedy since this book is one of the finest books ever written about Appalachian Culture in the early twentieth century, especially the culture of the Big Sandy River Valley and Eastern Kentucky.  This book was published as the eighth produced in the Contributions To Southern Appalachian Studies Series from McFarland & Company in Jefferson, North Carolina.  The series is now comprised of roughly forty books and still being expanded regularly by the publisher.  They cover numerous areas of interest in the greater field of Appalachian Studies.  Although I have not read anywhere near the entire series, I am sure the majority of them are well worth reading.

Now, to get back to "Tales From Sacred Wind...", I am sure that most people tend to think that the name Sacred Wind for the post office in the community on Caines Creek in Lawrence County must have been rooted in religion.  According to Williams, it was not remotely rooted in religion.  He relates the story of how the first postmaster had been tasked with naming the post office and wanted to find a particularly meaningful name.  He had struggled with that effort and was sitting on his porch one day with a friend talking about the effort when the friend passed gas loudly and demonstratively and said, "Name it after that." which is exactly how the postmaster arrived at the name of Sacred Wind.  

The book covers numerous areas of Appalachian Culture including those I have written about and numerous others such as feuds, family strife up to and including patricide and pedicide, the United Baptist Church, one room schools, education in general, farming, child birth, midwifery, and many others.  The book is well written but, if there is one area in which to critique it, the quality of the writing is variable, at times well above average and, at other times, the quality drops a bit.  The book was apparently written over several years in small to medium segments or sections each on a particular topic.  After his death, Cratis Williams' son and Dr. Beavers edited the manuscript and McFarland published it.  I am sure that it does not have the same level of consistency and quality that it would have if Cratis Williams had lived to fully complete the work to cover his entire life.  But the work is well worth reading and I certain that many of my regular readers on this blog will attest to that fact also.  It is well worth the money, time, and effort to buy and read it.   

Croton Oil And Cratis Williams

Over the last month or so, I have written several posts based on my reading of the book "Tales From Sacred Wind Coming Of Age In Appalachia" by Cratis D. Williams.  I have loved the book, loved writing about it, and the posts have generated a great deal of interest from my readers.  I had thought that I would not write any more of these single subject posts about the book and what I learned from it but I just cannot resist writing one more.

Croton Plant Potted As An Ornamental--Photo by Shutterstock

I do still owe the regular readers who have enjoyed these posts one more book review type post to discuss the book in general and I will do that.  But I just have to write about Cratis D. Williams and croton oil.  When we were both boys, forty years and fifty miles apart in the drainage of the Big Sandy River in Eastern Kentucky, both of us knew about croton oil although I never had a personal encounter with the stuff.  But Cratis Williams did, or thought he did, and wrote about it in the book.  Croton oil was a strong laxative which was extracted from plants of the croton family.  Croton plants are described as a tree native to India and the Malay Peninsula.  Based on photos I have been able to find, I believe we still see members of that family being sold as either potted plants or for transplantation as ornamentals in yards and gardens. I suspect that many of my readers will recognize the plant also.  If any of you have these plants in your homes or flower gardens, I would love to see what you know about it posted as a comment on this post.

As my parents, maternal grandparents, and other friends and relatives described it, croton oil was one of the most powerful laxatives you could use and was sold in most country stores in the late 19th and early 20th centuries all over Appalachia. Cratis Williams wrote the best description of a bout of diarrhea I have ever read in this book, which he and several others believed was due to croton oil, and I will get to it in a minute but I need to prepare the readers to fully understand how effective, or overly effective, croton oil could be.   In the stories I heard, most people who had ever used croton oil hated the experience and it was generally used only in times of desperate constipation.  It apparently caused a lot of pain; rapid, excessive, fire hose like evacuation; and nobody who ever used it desired to do so again. I have been lucky enough to locate one photo of a vintage bottle of croton oil on E-bay and post it here also.

Vintage Bottle of Croton Oil--Photo by E-bay

Based on what Cratis Williams said in the book about what he and several others believed was their group experience of it, he agreed with the people I knew about the overpowering effects of the concoction.  Croton oil also had other negative qualities and I found a report that the US Navy actually used it to prevent sailors from drinking alcohol which was known as "torpedo juice" because the croton oil was added in small amounts to the neutral grain spirits which propelled torpedoes in an attempt by the navy to stop sailors from drinking the torpedo fuel. The oil was intended to prevent sailors from drinking the alcohol based fuel. Sailors with experience in drinking and making alcohol would build crude stills on their ships to separate the alcohol from the croton oil since alcohol evaporates at a lower temperature than croton oil. I would not be surprised to someday learn that the first sailor to do that was from Appalachia and came from a family with experience in moonshining.  Members of the Norwegian resistance who had been ordered by the Nazi sympathizing Quisling government to turn over a boat load of freshly caught sardines to the Nazis whom Quisling had allowed to occupy Norway doctored the seized sardines with croton oil as they were about to be shipped to  a German U-boat base.  The Norwegian Resistance fighters had found a way to cooperate with British forces who supported the Norwegian Resistance to obtain a large shipment of croton oil to poison the entire boat load of sardines, whose fishy taste was expected to conceal the tampering.  I have actually read a lot about Eastern European Resistance efforts in World War II but had never run into that story before. I have added titles of a few books about the history of the European Resistance to the list on the front page of this blog which is labeled  "Books I Have Read Lately".  Based on what Cratis Williams wrote about it, and on the stories I heard from my family and friends, I would love to read a first person account from a Nazi soldier who served at that U-boat base about eating those sardines. Croton oil also has a long history of having been used in cosmetic skin peels due to its abrasive qualities which must have added to the pain of using it as a laxative. When applied externally, croton oil can cause irritation and swelling. Croton oil has been used widely in Phenol-croton oil chemical peels due to its caustic exfoliating effects.  Used in conjunction with phenol solutions, it results in an intense reaction which leads to initial skin sloughing.  I can only imagine what a person's digestive tract would have felt like after a large dose of the oil as a laxative. Since croton oil is very irritating and painful, it is used in laboratory animals to study how pain works  and I am certain that members of PETA probably hate it also.  But, I know I need to get to Cratis Williams' account about croton oil before I lose all my readers.

When Williams was living in a boarding house in Lousia in order to attend high school twenty-five miles from his home on Craines Creek, the residents of his boarding house and several other homes on that street all got their water from one well in a yard nearby.  Since this was the middle to late 1920's, the well was no doubt a hand dug well and the boarding house had an outdoor toilet in the back yard as I suspect most of the other houses did also.  Williams also related earlier in the book that the city water supply for Louisa at that time was stored on a hillside above the town inside a remodeled Civil War stone fort which also probably put everyone who drank that water at risk.  But here is Williams' account of the croton oil incident, or what he and several others believed was a croton oil incident. They thought that a local prankster had poured a large amount of croton oil into the shared well. Whether it was caused by croton oil or by contaminated water, which is what I suspect, it is the best description I have ever read of diarrhea.

"One night I became dimly aware of much activity elsewhere in the house as abdominal pains woke me up.  The pains, passing like waves, mounted in intensity, and, before I was fully prepared to admit that a trip out back through the darkness was a necessity, I found that unless I hurried I might not be able to make it to the privy in time to head off an accident.  Pulling on my pants and slipping my feet into my shoes without taking precious time to tie the laces, I rushed headlong down the stairs and in a half bent posture on toward the back door, half embarrassed to see all the members of the household up and scattered along the way through the dining room, kitchen, and laundry room, all with the gas lamps on, highlighting my hegira through the ranks of smiling, but nonetheless puzzled faces.  As I fumbled hurriedly with the lock on the back door, Ernest called out that it was a good thing for me that I had appeared.  Perplexed by the remark but without time or inclination to determine its significance, I dashed toward the privy, my shoe laces whipping at my legs and my shoes playing loosely on my feet.  Halfway there I flung one of my shoes, which I decided not to bother to find just at that time.  The rowling pain was so severe  and the need for relief so intense that I thought I had waited perhaps two seconds too long as I released my pants and thumped myself down on the bench.  An explosion was followed by a mad rush outward of everything in me, like the crashing of wild waters down a valley after a dam has been dynamited.  But the relief did not meet my Gulliver-like need for satisfaction. The pain continued.  Other floods, driven by the growling anger of my bowels, followed in rapid succession.  After what seemed eight or ten minutes, I realized that even though the pain continued, I was thoroughly, completely, and absolutely purged but that had my tonsils given away my entire intestinal tract would have turned itself inside out and fluttered behind me in comfort on the night breeze like the tail of a comet."  (Cratis D. Williams, "Tales From Sacred Wind Coming Of Age In Appalachia, pp. 394-395)

 I repeat that section from the book above is absolutely the best description of diarrhea I have ever read, anywhere, any time, from anybody and, in spite of those of you who might be mildly offended, I just had to pass it on for the reading pleasure of those of you who have had similar experiences but lacked the words to describe it.  That description lives up to every story I ever heard told by those I knew who had also experienced croton oil as a laxative.  I can assure you that I am very grateful that croton oil had stopped being marketed in country stores in Appalachia by the time I was a boy. Cratis Williams, the other residents of his boarding house, and several people in neighboring houses who all drank water from the same dug well believed that some prankster had poured croton oil in the well as I stated above.  But the houses in that part of Louisa were fairly close to the Big Sandy River and most of them had outdoor toilets and dug wells. In a typical small town lot, those wells and toilets were probably not often as much as one hundred feet apart which is well within a range capable of causing ground water contamination of the wells from the toilets.  I suspect it is much more likely that the well was contaminated from either a high water table from the river or one of the outdoor toilets.  It is also probable that the combination of river, high water table, and outdoor toilets combined accounted for the contamination of the common well and the widespread bout of diarrhea that night.  

Here are links to several other posts I have written on the blog about Cratis Williams, his life, work, and the book.  Death, Dying, and Funeral Practices In Appalachia;  Traditional Appalachian Children's Games such as Fox and Geese; Responses To Some Reading Of Cratis Williams;  A Short Lesson From Cratis Williams And "Sacred Wind...".  I hope some of you at least enjoy them all. 

A Pretty Good Brand Of Sorghum That Is New To Me

I have written several times on this blog about various brands of sorghum which is one of my favorite foods.  I use it in a variety of ways including eating it in hot cereal, no pancakes and hoecakes, and for cooking at times.  I had run out of my favorite local, Morgan County Kentucky sorghum from Holbrook Brothers recently and actually done without for a couple of weeks since I have seriously worked to minimize my contacts in the world of the Cornona Virus and an uncaring White House.  But we ran out of several things we use regularly about two weeks ago and I took a trip to Save-A-Lot in Sandy Hook, Kentucky, about 25 miles away because they have a newer, larger, more airy store than our local store which is small, tightly packed with narrow, congested aisles and, in today's world, that is not someplace I want to be even with a mask and gloves.  The Sandy Hook store also has a large, well stocked produce department and produce was one of things we needed most.  

I had not even added sorghum to my list before I went to the store and was surprised to see a relatively local brand on a display near the produce section.  The maker is Lloyd Roe Farms in Pomeroyton, Kentucky, in adjoining Menifee County.  Since I had been without sorghum for a couple of weeks, I grabbed a jar and added it to my cart.  I neglected to check it closely but noticed later that it had some granulation visible through the clear glass jar.  When I got it home and tried it, I discovered that it was granulated close to 60%.  I blame this oversight on the fact that at about the same time I grabbed the sorghum I was also beginning to suffer symptoms of some virus or other which dissipated in about three hours and which I am sure was not Coronoa.  I have also seen my local doctor since then and he agrees.  But, when I realized that the sorghum was severely granulated, I knew that I had  bit of mild work to do to reliquify the sorghum.  I did sample the sorghum with a spoon before I tried to reliquify it and found it to be sweet, not bitter, not scorched, and a pretty good variety of sorghum if you discounted the granulation.  My favorite method of reconstituting granulated sorghum or honey is to heat it in a pan of hot water on the stove.  I will place the open jar in enough water to rise about half way up the jar, bring it to a boil and immediately turn the heat off and allow the honey or sorghum to sit in the hot water until it cools to about room temperature.  I check it then to see if it has fully returned to its liquid form.  If not, I repeat the process until it fully back to its liquid state.  The second time sufficed well for this particular jar of sorghum.  Let me say at this point that I also do not hold Lloyd Roe Farms responsible for the fact that the sorghum was granulated even though I know that overcooking sorghum can result in granulation.  But overcooking also usually results in scorching and that is unmistakable by taste or smell.  This sorghum was not scorched and I do not think it was overcooked even the least bit.  I just think the store probably had it in stock too long resulting in the granulation.  I will also say that, at some time in the future, I will locate a freshly cooked jar of Lloyd Roe Sorghum and give it one more honest test.  

After being heated to its liquid state, the sorghum was tasty, sweet, not bitter, not granulated, not scorched and a perfectly acceptable brand of sorghum with only one or two minor points to be discussed.  It was thin and I like thick sorghum which has not been overcooked or scorched.  But the thinness could also be due to having been heated twice in a hot water bath.  The other point I have to bring up is that the jar is a clear glass jar which is about the same height of a regular quart Mason jar in which we find most brands of good local sorghum anywhere in the country.  But, the jar does not have that signature pot belly or bulge in the middle which regular Mason jars have.  As a result this jar, hold what the label says is 35 ounces or .992233 kilograms or 2.1875 pounds which is considerably less than that typical pot bellied Mason jar holds.  Most brands of sorghum I buy in those pot bellied Mason jars are labeled to hold 44 ounces or 1250 grams.  That is a difference of about 9 ounces of product at about the same price as the larger jars of other brands.  For me, and for most other buyers, that is an issue most of us will not ignore.  I leave that to the judgment of the reader.  It is a brand of sorghum which is good enough that I will try it again when I find it ungranulated.  But I would be more willing to try it again if I received that other nine ounces and I bet you would too. 

One More Short Lesson From Cratis Williams and "Sacred Wind..."

Reading "Tales From Sacred Wind Coming Of Age in Appalachia" by Cratis D. Williams has been a real pleasure for me and, based on page views of the other blog posts I have written about it, many of my readers on this blog agree with me.  My posts about "Traditional Appalachian Children's Games" and "Death, Dying, and Funeral Rites In Appalachia" have been some of the most well received posts I have ever written on this blog.  I appreciate the interest in both my writing about his work and about the work of Cratis D. Williams. 

Cratis D. Williams--Photo by the Williams Family

He was one of the early founding fathers of the entire Appalachian Studies movement and he deserves that respect.  I am nearly through the book and will write a longer, more traditional book review of the book in a few days when I finish it.  But I just came across another story of a completely different nature in the book which I want to discuss at length here because it reflects on an important cultural and moral value among Appalachian people which I believe has vanished to a great degree in much of the region.  

In the section to which I am referring, Cratis went to the home of some school friends during a school year break when he going to high school in Louia and living in the home of some relatives because his home on Craines Creek was twenty-five miles away, too far in the 1920's to live at home and go to school. At the time, it was a full day's ride on mule back or in a wagon. As he relates the story, during his time in the home of these friends, he could hear sounds coming from somewhere in the house and could not account for the person making the sounds since everyone he had met was in sight of him at the time.  As Williams begins the story: "I kept hearing hearing a moan and chatter followed by high pitched laughter coming from somewhere in the house.  Nobody said anything about it and the Boggses talked on as if they heard nothing."  For nearly anyone, such an occurrence would cause a lot of thoughts, possibly some worry and fear.  But, as it turned out, there was no cause for any concern, worry, fear, or other negative emotions.  But Williams goes on with the story: "During the first night I was there, I could hear that curious moaning and high pitched laughter from time to time all through the night.  But, the next morning, Cratis Williams got his answers about the moaning and laughter when the mother of the family asked one of his friends "...to bring Hettie to warm and to be fed by the fire.  Two of the boys disappeared.  In a few minutes, they returned carrying a high chair in which was strapped a badly deformed little girl with a misshapen face."  As Cratis Williams relates the story, he was then told that the father of the family had been out and about in the community one day when he had heard noises coming from what appeared to be an abandoned house.  He went to the house, looked in the curtainless window and saw two small children in the empty house, one dead, and the other, Hettie, still alive but very weak crawling in the floor. The man then went to the closest neighbor for help and they entered the house, rescued the living child, and reported the events to the authorities in Louisa.  As it turned out, the two severely disabled children were orphans whose parents had been first cousins and that consanguinity resulted in their severe handicaps.  The parents had died and left the children to another sibling and her husband who were not handicapped.  But these caretakers had abandoned the two children and "...left the country.  No one knew where they had gone."  The community had buried the dead child and the county had allowed this family to take care of the severely handicapped little girl, a job which they had accepted freely at a time when there was no such things as welfare, kinship care, child support, foster care, or food stamps.  This family had seen a human being in need, unable to care for even her most basic needs, and had taken on the responsibility of caring for her for the rest of her life, no matter how long that might be.  Williams does not relate that the authorities were ever able to locate the two adults who abandoned the children.  But, in light of the limited ability of police agencies in that time to locate fugitives, it is unlikely that anyone ever heard from them again.  

This story, while not absolutely common in Appalachia, does point out a tendency among native Appalachian people in the early twentieth century to see a need and step up to address it in whatever way seemed best at the time.  We are people of compassion, honesty, honor, and willingness to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.  I have written in several places on this blog about the "Appalachian Values" of Loyal Jones, another of the early fathers of the Appalachian Studies movement and someone I have known.   I have never known of a story exactly like this one in my life in Appalachia.  But I have seen a few occasions when an elderly person without close relatives has been accepted into an unrelated home to be cared for until death. Some Mennonite friends of mine cared for an older woman until her death and are now caring for an elderly man about the same age.  I have known several instances of families having disabled members, both children and adults, who have been cared for and protected admirably by their family.  In my own family in another state, a niece and her husband have a severely handicapped daughter whom they care for with love, respect, and compassion that is admirable anywhere.  It is sad that such a story could have been true in Eastern Kentucky in the 1920's but such stories are not completely unheard of anywhere.  What is to be learned from this story is that in Appalachia, people usually have tried to do the right thing in nearly all circumstances and still do today.   This is one of the most moving stories in the Williams book and it is well worth reading. 

How Should We All Receive Our News!

In today's world, there are numerous problems all threatening to destroy the country, the entire free world, and the human race simultaneously.  We are in the middle of the worst worldwide disease pandemic since at least the polio pandemic of the early twentieth century.  That pandemic coupled with gross mismanagement of the crisis by numerous world leaders has created the worst worldwide economic crisis since the Great Depression.  Russia, under the totalitarian government of Vladimir Putin, is working on a daily basis to attempt to seize control of all the territory it lost in the breakup of the Soviet Union and to establish itself as the great overseer of the entire world.  America is without a legally, duly elected president of the country based on the treason of Donald Trump under the oversight of Vladimir Putin whereby an American presidential election and the White House were literally stolen via a campaign of internet based sabotage.  And, to complicate all these problems beyond belief, there is a majority of the population of America and much of the rest of the world which has fallen prey to a vast campaign of lies, misinformation, prevarication, obfuscation, and deceit from both Russia and the usurped White House.  That campaign of lies and misinformation is frequently accepted as fact by a sizeable percentage of the American population.  These gullible people accept at face value anything they see or hear being disseminated from the White House.  One of the most frustrating factors of this whole set of problems is the fact that these people have no understanding of the difference between real, documented, substantiated news stories and blatant lies and propaganda.  I propose a few simple steps which would be productive for every American and, in fact, every human to follow with regard to how, where, and from whom they get their news.  

1. Never accept as factual any news story which you cannot verify through a reputable third party story source no matter what the original source may be from which you received the story in the first place.  
2. Never restrict yourself to only one or two sources of news whether they be television networks, radio news networks, internet websites, or speeches from public figures viewed or listened to on any and all means of mass communication.
3. Always use at least three sources of news on any given day.  Watch a major news network's daily prime time broad cast every day.  The major news networks are CBS, NBC, ABC, and National Public Television.  All other news sources on television are less reliable than any of these four and several of them are part of the misrepresentation, lies, and propaganda purveyors.  Read at least three page one news stories daily from three separate daily newspapers on their internet news sites.  If you are in your vehicle at the top of any hour, listen to the radio news from a major radio news network. The same four television news networks listed above also function as the most important and most credible radio news networks.  
4. Create a schedule whereby you watch television news daily from a different source every day.  In your rotation of television news sources include all three major American television news networks, your local public television news station, and on a rotating basis insert a once weekly newscast from other news networks such as the British Broadcasting Corporation, Al Jazeera, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and several other of the less well known, and sometimes less honest news casts which are reportedly questionable at best.  This will give you a wide ranging view of local, national, and international news and the sources which provide it. It will also teach you the difference between real, verified, documented news reports and propaganda being painted as news by questionable sources and outright liars.  Generally, when a majority of the major news networks and national newspapers agree on the key elements of a story, you can trust the statements they make about the story. 
5. Create a list of the major newspapers of the nation and world and use that list to vary the three sources you read an article from each day.  Look for newspapers which have consistently been rewarded for the honesty and truth of their reports.  Choose those which have won awards such as the Pulitzer Prize, Associated Press, and United Press International awards for the quality and honesty of their reporting.  Such newspapers include the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Miami Herald, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe.   
6. Also read occasional news stories from magazines such as Time, the Atlantic, The Nation, and U. S. News and World Report.  Also include some visits to news websites such as The Guardian.
7. Most importantly, never accept as fact any news story, from anywhere, on any topic unless you have seen it verified from another source.  I realize I am repeating myself here but this is the most important thing you can do to know that you are seeing, reading, and understanding honest, accurate news.
8. As you learn more about the difference between truth and propaganda, create your own list of the liars, propagandists, and fakes.  Call them out publicly in your posts of social media and in face to face contacts with anyone you know or meet who is repeating fake news stories which you have verified as inaccurate.