"A Picture From Life's Other Side: Appalachian Poems" by Bob Henry Baber

At times when I am in a book buying mood, I will often stray into other books I had not set out to search for and buy one or two I had not foreseen. Although, I had not planned to buy this book, I had been aware of its existence virtually since the day it was published. I was recently searching for a book or two which had roots in the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College, especially one or two which had been published by individuals such as Gail Amburgey, Pauletta Hansel, P. J. Laska, and Robert "Bob" Snyder. I found a copy of this book by Bob Henry Baber who had also been a student at the Southern Appalachian Circuit and decided to buy it. It has been relatively rare to find it on the typical used book websites such as Abe Books and Alibris from which I have bought hundreds of books over the years. Amazingly the copy I found was also in near perfect condition and signed with a generic signature. Bob Henry Baber self published this book in 1994. The title is taken from the music of Hank Williams and his song by the same name. Several of the poems had been previously published in small journals around the country including "Appalachian Heritage", "Appalachian Journal", and "Cold Mountain Review". Many of the poems are rooted in the coal mining industry as is a great deal of Appalachian writing. Some such as "Let Me Hide Myself In Thee" are comments on or reflections of the sometimes fundamentalist religion of much of Central and Southern Appalachia, Others of the poems such as "Taking Title" are strong examples of the Appalachian Value which Loyal Jones called Love of Place. Bob Henry Baber's life, as I have known him, has always been deeply rooted in his historical family farm near Richwood, West Virginia, which Bob has always referred to as "Baber Mountain". For several years, he held a summer get together there which was attended by both members of his family and his friends in the world of Appalachian Literature. Like many other, if not most, native Appalachians Bob Henry Baber has also penned his own paean to the Appalachian family cemetery in the poem "Severed Threads". The lines: "Who will bury our spirits beneath hearthstones to protect them from frigid air? Who will stir our memories and throw kindling on our ancient dreams? Who will cut the cemetery grass that will so shortly be given over to woods?" are another feelingly rendered manifestation of the deep rooted Appalachian people to the many cherished but overgrown mountain cemeteries on long lost family farms which had been scratched out of the resistant mountains of West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, Western Virginia, and North Carolina. He chose to end the book with that poem and it was a fitting tribute to the ties which have always bound him to those mountain acres near Richwood where his ancestors made love to the land with gooseneck hoes, double bit axes, and hillside turning plows, and carried their hard earned raisings from the field to the root cellar in order to weather one more winter on the place which had woven its way into their hearts.

"The Narcotic Farm" by Nancy D. Campbell, JP Olsen, and Luke Walden

The University Press of Kentucky web site describes this book in the following manner:

"The United States Narcotic Farm opened in 1935 in the rolling hills of Kentucky horse country. Portrayed in the press as everything from a "New Deal for the drug addict" to a "million-dollar flophouse for junkies," the sprawling art deco facility was equal parts federal prison, treatment center, working farm, and research laboratory. Its mission was to rehabilitate addicts, who were increasingly criminalized and incarcerated as a result of strict new drug laws, and to discover a cure for opiate addiction. This richly illustrated book offers an important history of this progressive yet ultimately doomed experiment. "Narco," as the locals called it, pioneered new treatments such as prescribing methadone to manage heroin withdrawal and developed drugs that blocked the action of opiates. The coed institution admitted federal prisoners as well as volunteers who checked themselves in for treatment, and through the years it hosted several legendary jazz musicians, including Chet Baker and Sonny Rollins, as well as actor Peter Lorre and writer William S. Burroughs. The facility ultimately closed in 1975 under a cloud as Congress learned that Narco researchers had recruited patients as test subjects for CIA-funded LSD experiments from 1953 to 1962, part of the notorious project MK-Ultra."

In the early 1970's, as a part of my intial involvement in the world of substance abuse treatment, I was an occasional visitor to The Narcotic Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, as it is described in the quotation above. I always went there as part of a group of people, both professionials and patients, who were visiting the facility as an aspect of our involvement either as staff, patients,or volunteers in the field. I was never an employee or a patient/inmate at the facility. By that time, the name of the facility had been changed to the Federal Medical Center Lexington. I often attended group actitivities there and met numerous members of both their professional and patient/inmate populations. It was a fascinating place to visit since it was both a segment of the federal prison system and a treatment and research facility funded by the federal government as a part of the federal response to alcoholism and drug addiction. This book is a fine piece of work, especially in the area of the massive amount of research it required by the three co-authors. They must have spent mulitple years seeking, locating, and compiling the vast amounts of records, photographs, books, media articles, documentaries, and other records, both first hand and secondary, which comprise the book and its supporting documentation. It is somewhat easy for the casual reader to misinterpret this book as a "picture book". While that term can be accurate as a partial descriptor of the book, it is nowhere near a fully accurate assessment of the book. Yes, the book is documented with several hundred excellent and powerful photographs from a wide variety of sources, but is also comprised of thousands of words of written material which is divided between a fine written assessment of the work involved in the institution's work in the twelve areas which comprise the individual chapters, and dozens of lengthy descriptions of the multitudinous photographs which are primarily classic black and white highly professional documentation of the facility and its work with a smattering of more recent color photographs of generally equally professional work.

This book is a fine historical document of a facility which has lasted more than 90 years as both a prison and a treatment and research institution for what were often considered the most severely addicted persons in the nation. In the early days of the facility, its patient population was composed of both convicted felons and patients from the general American public who were allowed to voluntarily admit themselves to the facility as patients seeking treatment for their addictions. My impressions of this book are naturally dual in that I am writing about it as a general reader and also as a reflection of my own personal knowledge which was derived from actual time spent there as a visitor with experience in the field of substance abuse treatment. I strayed into my copy of this book at a local Goodwill Store as I often do with used books in a variety of fields, and my investment of $1.59 was repayed by my initial inspection of the photographs, Contents page, and the Index and Credits. Instantly, I was reminded of the two most interesting men I met during my visits to the facility. One was a somewhat aged but physically and mentally active man in his late fifties who was both a chronic alcoholic and sometime drug abuser who was also an inveterate con artist. He was able to achieve long term periods of abstinence especially at those itmes when he was in a controlled environment. But at those times such as his incarceration and treatment at the Narco Farm, he would invariably be ruminating about his impending release and perpetration of the "perfect con game". He also told a personal narrative of his first incarceration in a state prison in the northeastern United States shortly after he attained adult legal status. He claimed to have been the person who picked up a package containing some firearms which an outside source threw over the prison wall to be carried to the inmate who led one of the worst prison riots in American history. He claimed to have never been an active participant in the actual riot and related attacks on prison staff, and claimed to have never been prosecuted for his part in the riot planning. He always said he had simply been assigned to pick up and transport the package of firearms as the were thrown over the downtown prison's wall and transporting them to the key figure in the riot. During the time I knew this man, he was released from the federal prison system and instantly attained a job as a chef in a large hotel in Lexington. As the book discusses, it was not uncommon for inmates at the facility to be released and remain in Lexington. Almost immediately after his release, this man began the perpetration of his "perfect con game" and was subsequently reincarcerated because of it while claiming to have remained stone cold sober the entire time.

The other man I met at the Narcotic Farm was an early perpetrator of an airliner hijacking. He had been a traveling salesman based in a fairly large southeastern city. He said that he had gotten on a commercial airliner in his home city while in an alcoholic blackout during an extended drunk. Shortly after the plane reached cruising altitude, he said he had told a stewardess "This is a hijacking and I want to go to Cuba." The pilots and other personnnel had pacified him to the best of their ability while communicating with federal law enforcement the entire time. They told him that the plane did not have enough fuel for the long trip to Cuba and they would need to stop somewhere to refuel. Being a somewhat sociable alcoholic, he agreed, and the plane landed at a major airport in another city. When they landed, the crew advised him that none of the other passengers wanted to go to Cuba that day. Once again being a really nice alcoholic, he agreed and allowed the passengers and most of the support staff to leave the plane. The entire story had, of course, been a ruse and as the other passengers completed their deboarding an FBI team boarded the plane and arrested him. This man always swore that he had been in an alcoholic blackout the entire time and remembered nothing of the incident until he regained consciousness in a federal prison holding cell in that second city. He said when he regained consciousness he knew he was in a jail which was unlike any he had ever been in before. He said he could see a television on the wall near the end of the cellblock in which he was being held. He said that the first thing he could remember seeing was himself on the evening local news being led off the plane by two FBI agents. He was convicted of the hijacking but was able with the help of a fine attorney and a good psychiatrist who examined and hypnotized him to convince the necessary authorities that he truly had been in a total blackout due to his alcoholism and had no organic memory of the event. He received a sentence which was shorter than most hijackers at the time and was eventually admitted to the Lexington facility for treatment. I have no idea what happened to this man upon his eventual release from prison.

The Narcotic Farm was often the temporary home and treatment facility for a variety of high profile inmates. It came to be known as a hotbed for jazz music due to the heavy involvement of narcotics in the jazz music scene. The book records that at times aspiring jazz musicians would actually volunteer to become patients at the facility in order to get to play with the actual stars who were incarcerated there at any given time. The book records that:

Chet Baker, Elvin Jones, Stan Levey, Jackie McLean, Red Rodney, Sonny Rollins, Howard McGee, Benny Green, and Tad Dameron.."

were at various time incarcerate there. The Beat Writer William S. Burroughs, Sr. who wrote the classic book "Junkie" did time there as did his son the writer William Lee Burroughs. In addition to "Junkie" by the elder Burroughs, several other well known books were written, at least in part, about time spent at the facility by their authors. Those books include "Kentucky Ham" by William Lee Burroughs, "The Fantastic Lodge: The Autobiography of a Girl Addict" edited by Helen MacGill Hughes, and "The Farm" by Clarence L. Cooper, Jr. Recently, the facility received the latest of its celebrity inmates when Joseph “Joe Exotic” Maldonado, the star of the Netflix documentary series “Tiger King,” was tranferred there. The facility in Lexington is and always was a unique location in the federal prison system. This book is equally unique and well worth reading by a variety of readers including musicians, clean and sober alcoholics and addicts, workers in the addictions and correctinos fields, writers both aspiring and famous, photographers who still love to see exceptional work by others in their chosen profession, and general readers in search of a change of pace in their reading matter.

"A Song To Kill For" by Billy Edd Wheeler

"A Song To Kill For" is Billy Edd Wheeler's only novel. Wheeler is best known as a songwriter and playwright in addition to also having done some performing in the field of country music, having been a popular after dinner speaker for many years. This novel was self-published under the label Infinity Publishing which is virtually non-existent on the internet. They have been defunct since October 2023. I purchased this copy from Amazon and it was publication on demand. I'm not certain if Infinity which had been primarily a children's book publisher was an imprint of Amazon, or if it might have been owned by Wheeler and later sold to Amazon. While this is a self-published novel,Wheeler has a lenghty history as a playwright having written at least nine plays, several of which were produced for quite a few years as outdoor dramas around the southeastern US and Midwest. Wheeler also wrote several songs which were major hits as performed by others. Those songs include "Jackson" which was a signature duet for Johnny Cash and June Carter; "The Reverend Mister Black" which was a hit for the Kingston Trio;"Coward Of The County" which was a massive hit for Kenny Rogers; and, "Coal Tattoo" which has been recoreded by numerous artists with history in the Appalachian Coalfields including Kathy Mattea, The Kingston Trio, and Jim Croce. His well received plays include ""Hatfields and McCoys", "Young Abe Lincoln", and "Johnny Appleseed". It shouldn't surprise anyone to know that his greatest impact as a writer came in the area of playwriting since he held a masters degree in playwriting from Yale University in addition to his bachelors degree from Berea COllege. This book is worth reading even though it is not a great novel. It is funny, fairly well plotted, and has some well developed characters including the protagonist Gabriel Leatherwood who seems to, at least in part, to have been an alter ego of Wheeler himself. Leatherwood is a native West Virginian who is a musician and songwriter who traveld to Nashville only to have several of his early songs stolen by the lead villian who is the owner of music publishing company. Leatherwood decides to take on the company and its owner along with a sizeable cast of lesser villians who assist in his crimes including murder. Along the way, Leatherwood is lucky enough to fall in love with a beautiful female attorney, get invited to the White House to perform, and survive a rather graphic attempted murder by one of those villians. In the end, he marries the heroine, saves his songs, becomes rather wealthy, and chooses to return to Appalachian West Virginia with the woman of his dreams. I repeat, the book is worth reading especially if you are a musician of the country persuasion, an Appalachian, a writer,or if you enjoy crime stories and mysteries. It is not a great novel or a perfect novel. But it is worthy attempt at a first novel by a gifted writer in other areas of the arts.

My Thirty Minute Phone Call From Mitch McConnell!

Last night, just as I was falling off to sleep, my telephone rang and I answered. To my ecstatic surprise, it was Mitch McConnell in the flesh, so to speak, since so many million Americans have begun to doubt his existence. I spat, sputtered, regained control of my rapidly beating heart and finally responded, "Mr. Senator, thank you very much for calling me! I'm surprised you remember me since it has been so many years since we last spoke." Mitch rejoined, "Not remember you??? How could I not remember you? We ate pinto beans together at the old Rock House Restaurant at the mouth of Slone Fork between Hindman and Mousie in the summer of 1968 when we were both just young whipper snappers. You were sixteen years old and fresh out of high school at that wonderful old Knott County High School at Pippa Passes on Caney Creek, what an institution! I was a young, wet behind the ears attorney, just twenty-six years young, just graduated from law school the year before, working for Marlowe Cook in his run for the US Senate seat as his college coordinator with all the colleges in the state. We were desperate for every vote we could find so he sent me to see you in Knott County because you were enrolled in Alice Lloyd College after a wonderful academic summer or two in Upward Bound, that reprehensible program which had been such a waste of federal money by Democrats." I was thunderstruck to say the least but I tried to speak, to ask what he could possibly need from me now almost 60 years after that fortuitous bowl of pinto beans. I tried to speak, to question why it was his idea to call me now. "You and that bowl of pinto beans changed my life forever. You actually agreed to be the campus student chair for Marlowe Cook and Richard Nixon, God bless their sainted souls! You worked that job so hard, called me once a week at my office in Louisville and repeatedly told me the truth, that there were no Republican votes on Caney Creek. You taught me how to face the truth with that kind of honesty. You set me on the path to great power, motivated me to become a powerful United States Senator and Senate Majority Leader for a record stretch. I'll never forget you or that wonderful bowl of pinto beans." I said,"Sir, I'm afraid that you have more important calls to make than this one. I hope you don't intend to waste twenty minutes of your valuable time with me as you have with so many of your Republican colleagues! To my utter surprise, Mitch then said with a sly chuckle, "Waste twenty minutes? Oh no, this won't be a waste, and I'm going to give you a full half hour unlike the others. Just relax and listen as I tell you my plans." I agreed to sit quietly and listen as the half hour flew by, or actually just twenty-eight minutes of it. I can't divulge what plans Mitch told me about but they were fantastic, exhilirating, stupendous, supercalifragilisticexpealidoscious, but he swore me to secrecy. Then just as my bedside clock showed the call to have been going on for twenty-seven minutes, I heard a stentorian but heavenly voice in the background of Mitch's call. "Mitch, it's time. Let's go, please!" I heard Mitch respond, "Peter? Saint Peter, NO, it can't be. I have so much to do. I was just telling Roger Hicks how much I have planned from now until the end of my term...". Then,to my utter consternation, the line went dead...and, I suspect, the line did not go dead alone.

Walking At The Lexington Arboretum, June 2026!

A few weeks ago, I had an appointment in Lexingtno, Kentucky, and took a hike of an hour or so at the Lexington Arboretum which is a lovely, peaceful, and educational place to walk in beautiful, flowering, and wooded setting at the southern end of the University Campus. I frequently walk there when I am in Lexington. The Arboretum has a combination of fairly wide paved trails and others in the more wooded areas which are unpaved but usually filled with tanbark. I prefer the wooded trails and usually try to walk those unless it is after a recent rain since some of them are more prone to a bit of mud than others. On a busy day at the Arboretum, you might meet a half dozen or so people on the wooded trails. On a busy day,you might meet more. On the particular day I have in mind, I only met a few. At one area, there is small circular patch of perhaps a quarter of an acre open area beside the trail with a large central tree, a circular path at the outer edge of the circle, and a concrete bench for resting and meditation near the tree. I rarely stop when I am walking but sometimes will circle that area just to see if anything interesting is in bloom there. On the day I have in mind,I noticed a large plastic big mouth jug with a lid and a sheet of hand written paper on the front. The jug was filled with small scraps of paper. The sign read Free Poems, Take One or something nearly like that. I reached in and took one, the first one on top of the pile. I have scanned it below.

It was written on a receipt from Food Lion, Morgan Square, Route 522 South. It turns out that this store is actually in Berkley Springs, West Virginia. There is one other potentially identifying item on the receipt which I won't list in this blog post in order to prevent less honest people from having the ability to track down the author of the poem. The poem isn't the best poetry I have ever read. Neither is it the worst. This is what it says in seven lines:

It's nice, sweet, a bit too much leaning toward paganism for me perhaps. But it was a very nice gesture for some woman named meagan to leave a jar of her poems, all written on small scraps of paper in a waterproof jug in a forested patch of the Lexington Arboretum. Thank you, meagan!

"Mysteries Of Winterthurn" by Joyce Carol Oates, Some Responses to Reading It!

In the past, I have read and written on this blog about at least one of Joyce Carol Oates' books, "Where Is Here" which is a collection of short stories which I liked a lot. I have also read some of her short stories which have been published independently elsewhere. I have to say that this book, "Mysteries Of Winterthurn" which is generally described as a novel is an interesting book. There are parts of it which I like a lot. There are other parts of it which fail to impress me. First and foremost, I would not say flatly that I see it as a novel. I think of it much more as a Short Story Cycle which is generally described as a collection of short stories with several common aspects including common characters, common setting, a rational timeline which is evident across all the stories, and in most short story cycles all the stories are viable if viewed as being independent of the others. The book is composed of three stories which are also arguably novellas ranging in length from 150 pages to almost 200. The stories have a common protagonist, Xavier Kilgarvan, who is a young man of about 20 or so years in the first story and a man of nearly retirement age in the third. The stories progress across his lifespan in a rational timeline, but there is a sizeable gap of time between each subsequent story and the next. All three are set in Winterthurn a rural,small town in New England. All the stories share a common cast of lesser characters. Each story involves murders which Xavier works to solve since all are unsolved at the time of his initial involvement. The writing style in these stories is very different from the style in the short story collection which I mentioned above. That writing style is reminescent of the work of Edgar Allan Poe or other major writers of early American mystery or detective stories. I believe that Oates set herself the task of emulating as closely as possible the writing style which is generally seen in early American murder mysteries or the English examples such as the work of Conan Doyle. The language is cumbersome, verbose, and replete with words and terms which have nearly fallen out of use in spoken English in America today. I commend Joyce Carol Oates on that effort to emulate the earlier style of writing. She did an excellent job of making the book appear to almost be a 19th century work in the genre. But it is a cumbersome read in today's world. I have to admit that as I read the book I was unmotivated to read it straight through from beginning to end. I had to take a break between the stories, read other works by other authors which were written in more modern styles. After reading another book following each of the stories, I was able to motivate myself to return and complete the book. I have to admit that I rarely, if ever, begin a book which I do not finish reading. I firmly believe that if I begin a book I owe the author an obligation to complete it. That author has spenta sizeable chunk of their time writing the book,obtaining a publishing contract, and marketing the book with public appearances, book signings, and other promotionial work such as radio and television interviews. If you are a devoted reader of murder mysteries, you might love this book. If you are not such a reader, you might stop long before you reach the end.

The Right Wing Radical Repugnican State Legislature Just Reduced Medicaid Reimbursements By 4% More

The political cartoon above is from a time when the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill was still being debated in congress and largely ignored by the general population of our country. TRAITOR Trump, the Criminal Syndicate which supports him by posing as "cabinet", and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican party lied unceasingly to the American public in order to get the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill passed. There was total disregard on the part of millions of Americans to the obvious widespread damage the bill was intended to do to the entire country and to the overall American economy. The Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill was passed by the Right Wing Radical Repugnican majority in congress and signed by TRAITOR Trump on July 4, 2025. I am proud to say that on July 4, 2025, I was present at Rosenberg Square in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, that day as Ned Pillersdorf officially announced his candidacy for the US House in Kentucky District 5. Where were you? A key provision, literally a legislative time bomb, of the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill was that most of the damage it was planned to do was delayed until 2026 after the midterm elections. It was literally a legislative wolf in sheep's clothing and that was very intentional because the Right Wing Radical Repugnicans and TRAITOR Trump knew if they made it effective immediately upon ratification and signature it would guarantee the electoral defeat of most of its supporters. Now, the cat is out of the bag, the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill is rapidly becoming effective and the horrible damage it was intended to do to most of America and Americans has begun. But to make matters worse in Kentucky, the Right Wing Radical Repugnican majority in the state legislature has just passed, over Governor Beshear's veto, another 4% cut in Medicaid reimbursements which will make the effects of the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill far worse on Kentucky hospitals, clinics, and medical providers. Below is a map of hospitals in Kentucky which were initially placed in danger of permanent closure by the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill. What is interesting is that if we look at the point where the borders of Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana meet on the Ohio River just west of Cincinatti and draw a line straight south from that point to the Tennessee border we find that 23 o the 35 endangered hospitals are east of that line. The effects of the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill were always intended to do more damage in Kentucky east of that line than to west of the line. Congressman Hal Rogers and every other Right Wing Radical Repugnican member of the Kentucky legislative office holders at the federal level voted in support of that bill. Now every member of the Right Wing Radical Repugnican state legislature has voted to remove another 4% from Kentucky Medicaid reimbursements to medicaid providers. They did that over the veto of Governor Andy Beshear. That extra 4% of income to hospitals and providers will increase the damage of the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill to a point where the number of hospitals in Kentucky which will be in even more grave danger of closure will be greater. Will it rise from 35 hospitals to 40, to 45, or even 50? We won't know until the closures start happening and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican legislators nationwide start denying their support for the Big, Vicious, Ugly Bill, and those elected at the state level start denying their support of the additional 4% cut in Kentucky Medicaid reimbursements. Very few businesses, where they are country stores, beauty shops, and family restaurants can survive a loss of 4% of their income for an extended period. It is the dream of TRAITOR Trump and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican party that those effects will be permanent. It is the dream of the Kentucky legislature in Frankfort that those horrible effects of both the Big,Vicious, Ugly Bill and their own 4% cut in Medicaid reimbursements will be permanent. None of them give a tinker's damn what you think or how their actions might affect you, your family, your family business, your aged parents and grandparents, your child with multiple medical issues,or your neighbor next door who is battling cancer or heart disease. They are happy now! They were happy the day they passed each of these highly damaging pieces of legislation! They will still be happy when your local hospital closes, or your local general practitioner decides to move to a state with a state legislauture and federal elected representatives who give a damn about their constituents, hospitals, medical providers, and citizens! Get used to it! Or get up off your ass and fight to remove every one of those Right Wing Radical Repugnicans from office for life! You have to learn to Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out! You have to learn to defend yourself, your family, your neighbors, your state, and your nation. No matter how much you are hurt they will not come to your aid. The sources of their incomes and their happiness are not the same as yours. They have protected themselves and abandoned you! What are you going to do about it? Your only option is to vote, not just to vote, you have to vote the way you should have been voting all along, STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC, Every Election, Every Race!

Ned Pillersdorf Appearance At The Mountain Arts Center, July 4, 2026

Yesterday, July 4t, 2026, my wife Candice and I attended a meeting at the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, in support of the campaign of Ned Pillersdorf for the US House in Kentucky's 5th district. The event was smaller than I had hoped for but it was attended by somewhere between 75 and 100 people on a very hot day which I am sure kept others away due to the extreme heat even though the event was held indoors. Tommy Webb, one of the best voices in Bluegrass, was also featured at this event, sang a few songs, and delivered somoe of his political wisdom. The event was smaller than I had hoped for but still fairly well attended on a day hot enough to keep many from traveling. I would say that most of the attendees at the event are politically involved people who attend at least a few such events each year. However, this is no ordinary year! We are facing a concerted effort by TRAITOR Trump and the Criminal Syndicate which supports his TREASON while posing as a "cabinet" to destroy America and American Democracy. There were close to dozen there whom I have known, at least superficially, for anywhere from a year or so to fifty or more years. Three members of my extended family were there, Jack Terry, and Ed and Judy McGuire who live only a mile or two away from the MAC as the Mountain Arts Center is known. I was particularly pleased to see famed AppalShop filmmaker Herbie Smith and his son Attorney Evan Smith who works for AppalRed Legal Defense and Research Fund in Prestonsburg. I had known or known of Herbie Smith and his work literally since the days of the inception of AppalShop in the late 1960's or early 1970's. I had met Evan at the Memorial Day event at the home of Ned Pillersdorf and his wife, Retired Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Janet Stumbo. Retired Big Sandy Community and Technical College History Professor Tom Matajasic was also there and spoke to Candice and I briefly. I had also initially met Tom at that same Memorial Day event. Famed barbecue cook James Butler served the food as he does at many events in which Ned is involved. His food was excellent as always. But James is much more than a barbecue cook. He is also a local minister and serves on the board of the Floyd County Animal Shelter. Ned's daugher, Sarah Pillersdorf, was there as she is at most of her father's campaign events, and also works as a child support enforcement worker in Louisville. Naturally, her mother Janet Stumbo was there and we spoke briefly about a few issues. Tommy Webb and I were able to have two conversations during the afternoon, one just as he arrived in which we laughed about a lunch we had almost two years ago in which I had attempted to induce him to begin supporting some Democratic candidates publicly since he has often quietly expressed some liberal views. But like most Bluegrass musicians, he has rarely appeared publicly at such events, if ever, since many fans of Bluegrass have historically been to one degree or another conservative. But I firmly believe that is changing rapidly as it is with most previously conservative people in America. Due to the actions of TRAITOR Trump and the Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet", America and Americans have suffered in a multitude of ways over the last 11 or so years since the tragic day TRAITOR Trump rode down that gold escalator and began to promote the farce that he was fit to be the leader of the free world. The time is long past for all Americans to do our duty and put an end to his TREASON. We must elect a Democratic president in 2028, and we must elect Democratic majorities in both houses of congress. This nation and our Democracy cannot survive if that does not happen.

July 4th 2026, After 250 Years America And American Democracy Are Under Attack From Within!

Today, July 4th, 2026, is the 250th anniversary of American Democracy and America and American Democracy are more endangered today than we have ever been. That danger is centered in the White House, being directed by Fascists inside the White House. Let's just look at a few recent headline stories from across the country. The American Civil Liberties Union has worked to defend and protect American Democracy every day since its founding in 1920, 106 years. Almost ten months ago,that organization posted this story on their website. While a headline which screams "How Trump's Attacks On Our Democracy Put America At Risk" should be shocking, rare, and terrifying, headlines and stories about the danger which TRAITOR Trump and the Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet" pose for us and our Democracy, they are so commonplace since June 16, 2015, that millions of Americans ignore them totally. This so-called "second administration" of TRAITOR Trump is doing a great deal of things which previous FASCISTS and would be dictators have been doing since atleast 250 years ago, and millions of Americans insist on claiming that all they do is in the best interest of the country. The ACLU story in particular is and should be chilling to any lover of this country and our Democracy. Early in the story it states "There is now a coordinated assault on the constitutional architecture that has sustained American democracy. This assault should alarm anyone who values constitutional governance and the personal freedoms we so often take for granted." That should terrify every citizen in this country and it does not. The formerly sacred institutions of American government are now being utilized to install FASCISM in the country and most people do not understand that fact. The article moves on to state that Federal agents have repeatedly detained or arrested public officials conducting legitimate oversight, including Newark, New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka, Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, and Senator Alex Padilla, who was tackled and detained for asking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem questions. Students, including green card holders, have been detained and threatened with deportation for writing op-eds or expressing views that deviate from what the administration deems acceptable.

In some ways, the facts in this previous quotation from the ACLU article are now old hat since the article is more than 8 months old. We have seen ICE agents murder two people who were peaceful protestors in Minnesota and little or no outrage has been seen in the general populace. We are now seeing several Americans charged with vandalism and other crimes for touching a $16million dollar disaster at the Reflecting Pool literally in sight of one of our nation's most hallowed shrines to Democracy, the Lincoln Memorial. An Olympian who once epitomized American values to the watching world has been charged in an overt act of domestic terrorism in order to silence opposition to TRAITOR Trump and his TREASONOUS enforcers who, after giving a multi-million dollar secret and unvetted contract to one of his supporters, to repair the reflecting pool did a damn fine job of gravely damaging that symbol of American Democracy. And nobody seems to care.

An active duty American Air Force Major was arrested on July 2, 2026, in his full uniform for using his constitutional right to free speech to openly criticize TRAITOR Trump's actions in Venezuela. That was a direct violation of the US Constitution for anyone, whether in uniform or not, to be arrested for utilizing free speech to question what are clearly two totally unjustified wars against two countries with the basic intent to steal their assets such as oil, gas, rare earth minerals, and other valuable possessions of two sovereign nations. Major Jason Watson knew full well that he had chosen to end his military career before he opened his mouth that day. It should be a shock to every living American of sound mind when such a career military officer finds it necessary to willingly give up a career in which he has volunteered to literally place his life on the line to defend this nation. But it has not been seen as a shock to most people in this country. Most people are either to uneducated, uncaring, or ignorant to understand that such a person would find it necessary to place his life on the line, as he swore to do when he was inducted into the US Air Force, in such a manner contrary to the publicly stated intent of the people who have disastrously found themselves in charge of this country's military. Major Jason Watson is much more an American Hero today than he has ever been before when he willing complying with orders to participate in war crimes and international terrorism against Venezuela and Iran. The former Olympian David Hearn is now much more an American Hero than he ever was as an Olympic canoeist. Both these men, both those murdered citizens in Minnesota, and every other American who has simpley stood up in a No Kings Day Protest is much more a loyal American patriot than any of the hired thugs who arrested or murdered them.

Today, July 4th, 2026, America and American Democracy are far more endangered than they ever were in any of our previous wars. Democracy is being attacked in ways it never was by Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, or Emperor Hirohito of Japan. We are under attack from those who are allowed to walk freely every day into the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the US Supreme Court and all of our government departments to pretend they are "making America great again". Those people, TRAITOR Trump and his many minions, are the most dangerous enemies America has ever faced. It is long past time for every American citizen to Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out in defense of our Democracy or it will be lost forever long before November 2028.

Two Separate, But Connected Visits To Two State Capitols, West Virginia And Alabama

On two separate, but politically interconnected visits to the capitols of West Virginia and Alabama, I saw two things, one in each capitol, which showed me a great deal about the thought processes and actions of the political leaders in both states. What I saw in each capitol was connected to the sight I saw in the other in a way which was very educational for me and should have been so for anyone else who saw what I saw. The headline in this story from the Los Angeles Times tells succinctly what had happened in West Virginia. Former three term governor Arch Moore had been found guilty and sentenced of mail fraud, extortion, obstruction of justice and filing false income taxes during his 1984 and 1988 campaigns and during his third term, from 1985-89. On July 11, 1990, he was sentenced to a term of five years and ten months in prison and fined $170,000. He was ordered to serve his time in the Federal Correctional Instution in Petersburg, Virginia. I don't remember the exact date on which I subsequently made a visit to Charleston, West Virginia, and visited the West Virginia Cultural Center near the Capitol building which I have done nearly ever time I take a trip to Charleston. But I believe that visit was probably sometime late in 1990 not long after his sentencing. Arch Moore was depicted for several years in alarger than life marble bust which had sat since its original installation in the mezzanine level of the grand entrance to the Cultural Center. The bust sat against the rear wall of the mezzanine until some time after this visit, and I had seen it many times on other visits to the Capitol. As I climbed the stairs to the mezzanine and turned the corner to face the site of the bust, I saw a three sided box made of sheets of white painted plywood surrounding the area at the center of the rear wall where the bust had always been displayed. I thought "well, they removed his bust..but what have they put in its place". I walked over to the plywood box and saw that a thin crack had been left where two sheets of the plywood joined. I put my face close to that crack, and lo and behold there in the space which the plywood box surrounded was the bust still on scene after his incarceration. I laughed and walked away to finish my tour of the facility. Some months later, I returned to the Cultural Center and found that the bust was no longer there and neither was the plywood box. I have alway assumed that considering the size and weight of the huge bust, the management of the Cultural Center must have had the bust hidden until they could acquire a fork lift to lower it to the ground level of the grand entrance. The entire rear wall of the mezzanine has been used as a small art gallery ever since the removal. Google AI claims that the bust is still in the Cultural Center but I know better. I have never seen it since that sight of it hidden behind the plywood box.

In the late summer or early fall of 1993, my wife and I took a vacation to Montgomery, Alabama, where we toured three major historic sites: the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Alabama State Capitol, and the graves of Hank and Audrey Williams. Inside the Capitol, along a couple of walls was a portrait gallery of the governors of the state. This visit was shortly after former Governor Guy Hunt had been found guilty in April 1993 of misusing inaugural funds in a criminal case which bore some similarity to the Arch Moore case. Guy Hunt was sentenced by a Montgomery judge to five years of probation, 1,000 hours of community service, and ordered to pay a $211,000 fine. Naturally, he appealed his sentence. The eventual outcome of that appeals process will be discussed shortly. Hunt had been indicted on December 28, 1992, Hunt on 13 felony charges, and wound up having most of them eventually dropped. He was eventually convicted on one charge in which the prosecution claimed he had taken $200,000 out of his 1987 inaugural fund which all consisted of private or corporate political donations intended to be spent on the inaugural festivities. The charge claimed that he had stolen the money for his own personal use. When we visited the Capitol and walked along viewing the portraits of all the governors of Alabama, we came upon an empty spot on the wall between the portraits of his immediate predecessor and successor. The wall around this space was still visibly more stained by time than the rectangular area which had previously held Hunt's portrait. I have no idea where the portrait had been taken, and I have never been back in the Alabama Capitol since that single visit. The following section of Guy Hunt's biography on the internet based "Encyclopedia of Alabama" describes the ultimate actions which followed his initial conviction and sentencing:

In June 1997, Hunt won his first victory in the matter when the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles approved a pardon for him on grounds of innocence. For the pardon to be valid, however, it needed to be signed by a judge or district attorney, but no one willing could be found. Even the recently elected Republican attorney general, Bill Pryor, refused to sign the pardon, arguing that he did not believe his office held that right or power. Then in a stunning defeat, when Hunt requested that probation be terminated shortly before it was due to expire in 1998, circuit judge Sally Greenhaw extended it for five more years because Hunt had been able to pay only $4,200 of the fine and court costs assessed against him. On March 30, 1998, however, Hunt's probation was lifted when his attorney presented a check to the court for the entire balance. Sympathetic Alabamians, both Democrats and Republicans, had helped Hunt raise the needed funds. The next day, the Board of Pardons and Paroles again pardoned Hunt on grounds of innocence, and because probation had been terminated, no affirming signature was needed. The following day, Hunt qualified to run for the Republican nomination for governor.

I cannot fully decide just how similar and how different these two cases and their ultimate handling by the powers that be in West Virginia and Alabma are, but both have been forever imprinted in my memory, and both are forever connected in my mind. Two state governors from two politically (now) similar states were charged and convicted of political corruption in their states during their terms of office. The outcomes were somewhat different despite the convictions. You can make up your own minds whether either or both of these cases was/were handled appropriately. If there are political lessons to be learned from these two men and their criminal convictions, I sincerely hope all of us can figure out what those lessons are.

Closure of The Federal Medical Center Prison In Lexington--How Many Jobs Will Be Lost

On July 1, 2026, WKYT-27 announced that the Federal Bureau of Prisons had announced in a press release that they were planning to close the Federal Medical Center or at least a portion of it called the Satelitte Camp on Leestown Road in Lexington. The press release from the Bureau of Prisons refers to the facility as a satellite camp which is a minimization of the history and the ongoing importance of this prison. It was one of six facilities on a list of six proposed closures. This facility has been in Lexington and Fayette County since 1935 and is one of the most well known prisons in the nation. It began as a federal drug treatment facility and was also a leading research facility in the effort to successfullly treat alcohol and drug addictions for most of its long and productive life. During the 1940's to 1980's, the facility was frequently the point of incarceration and treatment for many famous people. During the period when heroine was widely connected to the jazz music scene, numerous famous musicians who had become addicted,eventually arrested on federal drug charges, and convicted.

In the 1970's, I used to be a regular visitor to the facility along with other members of the substance abuse treatment community in Lexington and as part of my commitment to the treatment of addictive behaviors. I met several interesting people during those visits although I have to admit that I never met any of the more famous people who were incarcerated there over the years. But I did meet a man who claimed to have been the prisoner at Walpole, Massachusetts, who picked up and carried the firearms to their eventual user which were key to the Walpole prison riot,one of the worst prison riots in the history of the country. I also met one of the early American airline hijackers who told a fascinating story about his crime and incarceration. He was a traveling salesman at the time he committed the hijacking and also a chronic alcoholic. He said that he took a flight for business reasons at a time when he was drunk and in a blackout. Shortly after the plane gained cruising altitude, he said the stewardess came down the aisle taking drink orders, and he told her "This is a hijacking. I want to go to Cuba." He said shortly afterward, one of the crew told him the pilots said they were not carrying enough fuel to make the trip to Cuba and would need to stop somewhere and refuel. He said "OK!" since he was a well mannered alcoholic. The plane landed in Atlanta and a crew member told him "These other passengers don't want to go to Cuba. Would you be willing to let them get off here?" Being a well mannered alcoholic, he said, "Sure, they can get off." When the steps were lowered and the passengers left the plane, a team of FBI agents boarded, arrested him, and took him to the local federal prison to be held for the police and court processes. He said that he came to full consciousness at about 6pm that evening, realized he was in jail, and that the place didn't seem like any ordinary jail he had ever seen before. He always swore that the first thing he could consciously remember about the events was that when he came out of his blackout there was a televison on the wall at the end of the cell block and the 6pm news was on. He said he saw himself being led off the plane between two FBI agents. His family had some money and got him a good defense attorney and a psychiatrist who hypnotized him to probe his memory of knowledge of the events. He and the psychiatrist both testified that he had no organic memory of the hijacking. He eventuall was able to either get a plea deal or was simply convicted and given a fairly light sentence.

These two men were not typical of all the prisoners at FMC and they stood out in a place where it was hard to stand out. The Lexington Herald Leader published a story on February 16, 2024, which contained a lenghty list of former famous musicians who had been incarcerated and treated at the facility when it was called The Narco Farm. That list included the names of Jazz musicians including Chet Baker, Howard McGhee, Benny Green, Red Rodney, Sonny Rollins, Tadd Dameron and Jackie McLean. It also mentioned William S. Burroughs, Sr., a member of the Beat Writers whose book "Junkie" mentioned what might have been a slightly sanitized version of his time there. His son, William S. Burroughs, Jr. also spent time at the facility and wrote his own book primarily about his incarceration and treatment. But for my money, which was simply $1.59 spent at a Goodwill store, the best book about FMC is "The Narcotic Farm" by Nancy D. Campbell, JP Olsen, and Luke Walden which was published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in 2008. It was a fantastic reasearch job and contains hundreds of historical photographs from the facility along with an excellent historical account of the life of the prison since 1935. In addition to the William S. Burroughs, Sr. book which was originally published in an Ace Double, it also mentions William S. Burroughs, Jr's book "Kentucky Ham" which contains a more lengthy story of his time at FMC. Two other books about life at FMC when it was known as The Narco Farm, are also discussed in "The Narcotic Farm". Those two books are "The Fantastic Lodge: The Autobiography Of A Girl Drug Addict" edited by Helen McGill Hughes and "The Farm" by Clarence L. Cooper, Jr. who was also incarcerated and treated in Lexington before being released and dying as a homeless addict.

Research done at FMC Lexington on consenting prisoners has been instrumental for many years in affecting how substance abuse treatment has been done and the production and approval of several drug therapies both moderately successful and unsuccessful. The long, productive, and incredibly interesting life of FMC Lexington deserves to be told and the facility deserves to be preserved. At a time when the current treaonous administration is destroying much of what is productive in America, and simultaneously creating and wasting billions of dollars on asinine failures such as Alligator Alcatraz, and two totally unjustified wars of aggression, FMC Lexington needs to be preserved and maintained as an active institution in the Bureau of Prisons. Why in the face of potentially several hundred good jobs being lost aren't the Right Wing Radical Repugnican majority in the Kentucky state legislature fighting this proposed closure?

Tommy Webb Plays Bluegrass For Free On July 4th 2026, at Mountain Arts Center In Prestonsburg, KY, Free Barbecue by James Butler

On July 4th, 2026, Tommy Webb, one of the best voices in all of Bluegrass music will be playing a free concert at the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, in support of the congressional campaign of Ned Pillersdorf in Kentucky's 5th Congressional District. James Butler, one of the best barbecue cooks in Kentucky will also be providing free barbecue. I'm sure Ned Pillersdorf will say a few words at some point and try to keep it short in light of the quality of the entertainment and food. Come on out! Bring a friend! Enjoy the music and food! Leave the show with a firm commitment to vote for Ned Pillersdorf in November in Kentucky's 5th Congressional District! We'll see you there!

And be sure not to forget to eat some of James Butler's famous barbecue while you can get a full stomach for free!

"Welcome The Traveler Home" by Jim Garland, Edited by Julia S. Ardery

Jim Garland (1905-1978), the author of this book, was born in Bell County Kentucky and grew up, like several others of his family, to become an underground coal miner. He was also a well known labor leader, union organizer, and folk singer who also happened to be the brother of Aunt Molly Jackson and Sarah Ogan Gunning both of whom were also folk singers and active in support of trade unionism and worker's rights. He organized and was a member of both the United Mine Workers of America and the National Miners Union. His organizing work was primarily in Harlan and Bell counties in Kentucky where he had worked at various times in several mines. He wrote this book, or at least, wrote most of the manuscript well before his death in 1978 but never published the book himself. At some point, his wife Hazel seems to have passed the manuscript on to the Kentucky writer Julia S. Ardery (1889-1977) who edite the work but also failed to get it published in her lifetime. Ardery wrote one other major book, " The Temptation: Edgar Tolson and the Genesis of Twentieth-Century Folk Art", which is a masterful biography and work of art criticism which was also not published in her lifetme. I have written about the Tolson biography at this link.When we consider that "Welcome The Traveler Home" was not published in the lifetimes of either the author or editor, it is a miracle that the book was ever published at all. However, Ardery was from a prominent Bourbon County Kentucky political family and the mother of a US Army Major General; a second son who worked for a time in Washington, DC, as a journalist before joining the University of Kentucky which published this book; and a third son who was an accountant who died by suicide four years before his mother's death. It seems likely that one of her sons was instrumental in the effort to have this book by Jim Garland published as well as Julia Ardery's book about Edgar Tolson. Rarely in the world of book publishing do manuscripts survive long enough to published after the death of the author. Yes, I acknowledge that it does sometimes happen, but it is as rare as hen's teeth. Garland's style of writing was exemplary of his lack of education but still strong writing. Ardery said in her Introduction that she had done as little as possible to alter Garland's original work with only minor edits for clarity of meaning, some organizational work since his manuscripts appears to have been less than well organized. But the content of the book is what makes it more than well worth reading. While I do believe it has some significant historical inaccuracies in it, it is still a fine first person discussion of the effort to unionize the Kentucky coalfields in the 1920's and 1930's. It also provides some interesting glimpses into the lived of he two famous folk singing sisters of Garland. But, sadly, it is devoted almost entirely to the time he spent in Eastern Kentucky as a coal miner and union organizer with minimal discussion of his life as a folk singer afer he was forced to leave the coal fields because he believed he had been targeted for death by coal operators. Two absolutely minimal references are made to two other very important figures in the effort to unionize the coalfields, Don West and Sam Reece. in the case of Don West whom Garaland says replaced him in the organizing effort when he was forced to leave Eastern Kentucky, the reference is only one sentence long. In the case of Sam Reece who was the husband of Florence Reece who wrote the classic labor ballad "Which Side Are You On?", Garland uses about three sentences to say that at some point in the union effort, he had borrowed Sam Reece's car to make a trip out of town. Both Don West and Sam Reece were major figures in the effort to organize the coalfields. I knew Don West quite well from about 1974 until his death in 1992 but never heard him mention Jim Garland in any of the many discussions I heard him give of his life as an organizer, miner,labor activist, and educator. I was also able to spend two days in the company of Florence and Sam Reece at Highlander Center in New Market, Tennessee, which Don West and Myles Horton founded. I spent roughly a year living at the Appalachian South Folklife Center in Pipestem, West Virginia, which was founded by Don and Connie West. It would have been very educational if I had been able to hear and cross reference all those people's memories of the organizing efforts Harland and Bell counties including their discussions about each other. Such complete knowledge from all of them would have vastly improved my knowledge about Jim Garland and his work. The book is full of references to Appalachian social customs, mores, and history as Jim Garland chose to describe it all. It is a fairly well written book, extremely well edited by Julia S. Ardery, and well worth the time to read by any student of American Labor History, Appalachian Studies, or Kentucky History. It is very minimal in its discussion of folk songs despite the addition of the lyrics of several songs across the length of the text. My particular copy which I bought at a Goodwill Store for $1.59 plus tax is also inscribed by Suzy Roy and Betty Garland Roy, the daughter of Jim and Hazel Garland. A third signature is signed simply "Mrs. Jim Garland". It appears that all three signatures were made with the same red fine point marker. Due to the length of Betty's inscription which refers to Jim Garland as "Daddy" and to Sarah Ogan Gunning as "Aunt Sarah", I believe the signatures are authentic. I have added a scan of the inscription page below. I hope you can find and read your own copy of the book if you are a student of Appalachian Studies, Union Organizing and History, or Kentucky History. It is a fascinating read!

"Soupbean: An Anthology of Contemporary Appalachian Literature" by Bob Snyder, P. J. Laska, et. al.

After thirty or more years of periodic searches on used book websites, I finally located a copy of "Soupbean: An Anthology of Contemporary Appalachian Literature" by Bob Snyder, P. J. Laska, et. al, a group of Appalachian writers connected to The Soupbean Poets Collective of Antioch College/Appalachia. The book was published by Mountain Union Books of Beckley, WV, in 1977. Mountain Union Books was an imprint which was briefly operated by Antioch College Appalachia, which was a branch of Antioch College of Yellow Springs, Ohio. This branch campus was created by Antioch College in the early 1970's, initially opening in Huntington, WV, and after a couple of years relocated to Beckley. The branch was operated for roughly 8 years before being shuttered by the mother institution which had created a group of such campuses in California, Alaska, West Virginia, and one or two other locations. The campus in Beckley was never large with an annual enrollment which was generally less than 100 students. But Antioch Appalachia, which also operated briefly as The Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College, was staffed by several of the best writers in all of Appalachian Studies including Robert "Bob" Snyder, P. J. Laska, Don West, Bill Blizzard, Rod Harless, and Yvonne Snyder Farley. The campus also produced several well known authors of Appalachian Literature most of whom are still writing and publishing today. During the brief life of the campus, four of its female students were featured in an issue of "MS Magazine" as "Women Writers of Appalachia". Those four women were Gail Amburgey; Pauletta Hansel who eventually became the first Poet Laureate of Cincinatti, Ohio; Peggy Dotson Hall, now deceased; and Sylvia Evans. I ahve to admit that I have never met either Evans or Hall and know little about any subsequent work they did. But I have known both Gail Amburgey and Pauletta Hansel for years and read a great deal of both women's work. Other published student writers who attended or graduated from Antioch included the late Joseph Barrett who has two published books as the product of his brief life; Bob Henry Baber, the eventual mayor of Richwood, West Virginia, and the author or editor of several books. I am proud to say that I was briefly a student at Antioch Appalachia but didn't complete a degree there. I have published fiction and nonfiction in a dozen states and one foreign country. My first collection of short stories is pending publication at this time in late June 2026. I always have and always will say that being exposed to the faculty and students at Antioch Appalachia and the high level of education they provided was the greatest influence on my writing. Antioch Appalachia was a wellspring of and for writers and writing in Central and Southern Appalachia. In addition to the Appaachian writers who were produced by the campus, two other students achieved success in divergent fields. Sam Farley, a Vietnam veteran and eventual social worker who in 2007 was in 2007 recognized by The National Association of Social Workers, West Virginia Chapter, with the Catalyst Award for Direct Social Work Practice. Barbara Placier Ervin, another graduate of Antioch Appalachia became a professor at Lander University in South Carolina and served as Director of Montessori Education at that institution where she earned the Mary Frances Poole Alston Award, which is presented to a faculty or staff member who has provided "visibility for Lander University throughout the state of South Carolina, the United States and the world" which was a recognition of her internationally recognized work in her field. By percentage of the student body, this group of highly successful individuals stand out very favorably in comparison to nearly any other college in the nation. The book being reviewed here contains writing from several members of that group including Pauletta Hansel, Gail Amburgey, Mary Joan Coleman, Bob Henry Baber, and Joseph Barrett. It also includes work by Bob Snyder, P.J. Laska, and Yvonne Snyder Farley who all served as faculty of Antioch Appalachia. This little book contains the powerful and sometimes biting poetry of Gail Amburgey who was a survivor of the Buffalo Creek Flood and one of two Antioch Appalachia products who went on to be among the early female coal miners in Appalachia. Gail's writing is frequently colored by her exposure to that flood which was a glaring example of everything that can go wrong when an American industry is underregulated and its actions go awry. It also contains contributions from Joseph Barrett who published poetry in numerous journals around the world before his untimely death at only 39. There is also some fine writing by former student David Chaffins who became a career Navy noncom. Jim Wayne Miller, who was a professor of German at Western Kentucky University and a well recognized writer of literature in Appalachia, also contributed to this book which must be considered a complement to the little college that could. This is a generally difficult little book to find for sale since it was issued in a small edition in 1977. But if you can locate a copy, buy it, read it, come to enjoy one of the most productive institutions to ever exist in Appalachia and Appalachian Literature. You won't be disappointed.!