"Artisans Harvest" At Morgan County Wellness Center, August 2, 2025

Yesterday, my wife and I attended Articans Harvest at the Morgan County Wellness Center in West Liberty, Kentucky, which was originally called "Art In The Park" and held at Old Mill Park. But a few years ago, the location was changed due to rainy weather and it has been held at the Wellness Center gym ever since. When it began in the park, it was more a folk art show and sale than what it has become since the move. It is now heavily oriented toward crafts rather and folk art. Minnie Adkins, the famous Elliott County folk artist still attends and Brent Collinsworth from Wolfe County was there last year but did not attend this year. Steve Sargent, who makes nice lamps from whiskey bottles had attended last year but was there only as a spectator this year. There also is a small number of local vegetable farmers who attend to sell a few vegetables. It is not what it used to be. I do understand that since it is organized by the local Agricultural Extension Service office that their funding source probably requires that it include the vegetable farmers and some others such as users of the Extension Service food preparation trainings they sometimes do. But I go primarily to see, and sometimes buy, folk art, and I prefer to see it more heavily oriented in that direction which I am afraid might not happen again. This also reminds me of what used to be called Morgan County Farm, Home, and Family Day which was more oriented toward individual presenters who taught small groups in a classroom setting about a wide variety of topics oriented to life in a rural community. It hasn't been held in several years. But this event now known as Artisans Harvest is a great place to go to meet a few people in the community whom we don't get to see on a regular basis. We ran into Steve Sargent whom I've known for years; Minnie Adkins who is one of my favorite folk artists, and whom I had seen two weeks ago at Minnie Adkins Day in Sandy Hook; Sarah Fannin, the local Extension Agent who was there no doubt in her official capacity; Danny Joe Gevedon, who is a retired banker and friendly acquaintance who also plays Bluegrass bass; Austin and Kathy Shaw, from whom I buy farm fresh eggs; and several others whom I might have forgotten to mention. Since there was only marginal interest in Minnie's somewhat expensive folk art, I was able to spend some time talking to her and got Steve Sargent to take a photo of us. I try to always get a photo with Minnie when we run into each other. Minnie was in a generous mood yesterday and offered to give one of her famous roosters to a female who said she makes handmade brooms. But she declined and insisted on buying one of Minnie's unpainted roosters, staing that getting the rooster was the only reason she had attended the event. Just before we left, Candice happened to drive her wheelchair past Minnie's table, and Minnie promptly stood up and carried Candice a hand carved and painted cardinal which she gave her. It is proudly displayed on a shelf with my two hand painted and carved Evening Grosbeaks from Minnie's cousin Tim Lewis. It was a very community oriented event for us since we saw so many of our friends and acquaintances, got to look at some good crafts work, visit with Minnie, Steve, and Danny. We left the event and chose to drive to the Minor E. Clark Fish Hatchery near Morehead so I could hike. But I will discuss that in a separate post.

Market In The Park, West Liberty, Kentucky, August 3, 2024

 

My wife Candice and I attended Market In The Park today, August 3, 2024, in our hometown of West Liberty, Kentucky.  However, today's event was not held in the park as it has been in several years in the past.  Due to an unpredictable forecast with a lot of possible rain, the event was moved to the Morgan County Wellness and Youth Center which sits on a piece of property which is outside town proper by about a half mile but still within the city limits.  The building has a gymnasium, bowling alley, and exercise equipment with a large paved, but poorly engineered, parking area which has too many parking spaces which are too small and make parking difficult in a well attended event, especially when the lot is filled with oversized pickup trucks.  Cars and trucks were parked along the grassy edges of the lot and in an unpaved area across from the main entrance.  But it all seemed to work out well in general.  

 

The attendance was even larger than I had anticipated.  I have no idea how many vendors were present but it must have been somewhere between 75 and 100. There were also a few local musicians, none of which struck as particularly talented. I had decided to attend this year because the renowned folk artist Minnie Adkins, whom I know slightly was listed as a vendor.  I had just seen Minnie on July 20, 2024, at the annual Minnie Adkins Day in her hometown of Sandy Hook in adjoining Elliott County.  But she is now 90 years old and I treasure every  minute I can spend in her company.  The first person I saw when I entered the building was Minnie who was involved in a warm hug with Danny Gevedon, a retired banker and used car dealer from West Liberty whom I have known and had an acquaintanceship with for about twenty years since the bank he was working for had some business with us.  Danny is also a pretty good woodworker and has been a vendor at this event in the past. But he was not selling any craft works today.  I walked toward them saying, "the next hug is mine" meaning a hug from Minnie. But both stepped toward me and we wound up in a three way hug which was a nice surprise.  Then I quickly encountered a local retired prison captain who, along with his wife, I had sold several loads of good collectible glass for when I was still running my auction house.  We engaged in a fairly long catching up conversation when we were approached by our former Commonwealth Attorney who did my taxes for several years.  I had not seen either of these men in several years and had long conversations with both.  Then I went to Minnie's table and had a brief conversation with her and she surprised me by giving me a small painting of a bird, pictured above, which I will treasure for the rest of my life. It is only a 4" x 4" canvas on a small wooden easel. It is not the only Minnie Adkins piece I have in my collection but this one is different since it was a gift from the artist and I bought the others.  Minnie and I also caught up on the recent serious health problems of her cousin Tim Lewis who has had another brief hospitalization at the VA Hospital in Huntington, West Virginia.  Tim is also a Kentucky folk artist who has a few pieces in the Smithsonian Museum where Minnie also has pieces.  My wife then told me that our friend Steve Sargent was selling shade lamps which he makes using empty whiskey bottles and I moved to his booth where Candice had selected a lamp she wanted to buy.  But I wasn't carrying my check book.  No Problem!  He sold it to me on credit.  I am a regular at a grocery store which his father-in-law and wife operated near my house. We actually went to the store for lunch after we left Market In The Park.  

Most of the vendors were selling more craft works than art works and I wasn't interested in buying any of those.  We did buy a few cucumbers, miniature tomatoes, and banana peppers from a woman who remembered Candice from her days long ago working at the local food stamp office.  We also had brief conversations with a few others who we knew for a variety of reasons.  There was a couple who used to attend my auctions, our local county extension agent who was also present at Minnie Adkins day last month in Sandy Hook, a local school board member whom we have known for several years, and one or two others who had known us for a variety of reasons in the past.  Events like this are always fun to attend in West Liberty since this community and county has actually done a wonderful job of maintaining a variety of rapidly disappearing aspects of a tight knit community which many other places of roughly the same size have long lost.  I have always felt that the West Liberty tornado in 2012 which destroyed a great deal of the town and killed 6 people had a lot to do with the continued cohesiveness of our  community.  Another event, now cancelled, which helped to keep that sense of community intact was the annual summer event which used to be held to raise money for the American Cancer Society.  Known as the Morgan County Cancer Walk, it was well attended and supported by a variety of people in the community and, for a few years, actually had the highest per capita donations in the state.  This has always been a very supportive community for such events and they have also molded the community into a deeply connected and caring place to live.

Thoughts On Having Survived A Bad Winter Storm

 

Yesterday, Saturday, February 19, 2021, at about 4pm our electricity was restored after having been off since Monday, February 15, 2021, at about 6pm for a total time of about 94 hours.  The outage was due to a combination of 3 sequential winter storms or, if you prefer, 1 long winter storm with about 12 to 15 hours time off in the middle.  The first onslaught began as freezing rain which eventually turned to snow to leave us with about 4 or 5 inches of snow on top of an inch of solid ice.  We live on a hill with a markedly steep blacktop driveway which is about 130 feet long with a large paved parking area beside our house.  I have an emergency generator which I have had since our last major ice storm in 2009.  It is free standing and is not wired into the main electrical service as the best standby generators are.  I had some trouble with it earlier in the fall when I attempted to test run it as I have always  done about once every three months.  I got it out several months ago on schedule and it would not start.  So I finally got it repaired after having it worked on by two different other people who failed to do the job.  I had test started it on Sunday, the day before the storm was due to hit.  I chose to not run the generator on Monday night since it was already dark and I did not want to go through the effort to drag it, the power cord, my bevy of extension cords, etc. out of the storage building and basement. We used candles and a Coleman lantern to get by until bedtime on the first night.  On Tuesday morning when I got squared away I dragged it out, started it on the second pull which was a relief and set it up as I usually do with cords running to one lamp and the television in the family room, the refrigerator and microwave in the kitchen, and the big 21 cubic foot freezer in the basement.  We would eat breakfast and supper with the generator on, watch about 3 hours of television morning and night, and ascertain that the freezer was still staying sufficiently frozen since we have several hundred dollars worth of pasture raised chickens, two boxes of wild caught frozen fish, a bushel of frozen peaches, and a passel of other frozen fruits and vegetables.  That is far too much to allow to thaw and go to waste no matter how good your home insurance may be.  I also took the contents of the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and placed it in a large Styrofoam ice chest, carried it outside and leaned it against the rear wall of the house, covered it about a foot deep with snow and left it to wait for the return of power.  If you have your own power outage problems in the future, this is a great way to save what you have in the refrigerator if you don't own a generator.  Just put a tight lid on the food in a solid ice chest, cover it with snow outside your home in a safe spot, and uncover it as you need items until the electricity comes back on.  It never fails. 

But my biggest personal issue in such a disaster is that my wife, Candice, is in a power wheelchair and sleeps on an alternating air mattress due to a long term neurological disability.  The main power on her wheelchair only has to be charged every few days unless she is going outside a lot which she had no intentions of doing.  But she also uses an alternating air cushion in the chair which has to be charged every day as does our cell phone.  I had neglected to get all my gasoline cans filled before winter hit and only had about five gallons of gas.  We also do not have city water and our driveway is long and steep  as is the state highway from our driveway to US 460 about 100 yards away. Our water pump is 220 volts which makes it impossible to run both the pump and the 110 volt outlets at the same time on the generator so we never run the pump during a power outage. But we are planning to buy and install a propane powered standby type generator this coming fall and have it wired directly in the electrical system of our house by a licensed electrician for all the obvious safety and legal reasons. YOU SHOULD NEVER WIRE A GENERATOR INTO YOUR HOMES ELECTRICAL BOXES UNLESS YOU ARE A LICENSED ELECTRICIAN!  THEY CAN KILL A LINEMAN IF THEY ARE RUNNING IN AN OUTAGE!  I keep commode flushing water in jugs in the basement for any possible emergency and we always have lots of staple foods in the freezer and in canned goods.  We also have a set of propane logs in the family room which heat the family room and kitchen area and keep the rest of the house warm enough to be able to stay safe in most winter weather. Food was not an issue but Candice's needs are always primary.

I got out early on Tuesday morning after firing up the generator and walked to the bottom of our driveway to try to begin the job of clearing a road to the highway.  I realized when I saw the state road that it was not at all likely to thaw that day since the temperature was not projected to rise above freezing.  But I started working on the driveway immediately since I knew it was going to be a big job.  But I did not figure out just how big the job was until I started shoveling.  What I found was that aforesaid several inches of snow on top of an inch of solid ice.  A heavy duty plastic snow shovel will not begin to deal with that kind of ice.  Also, due to the steepness of the driveway, in a rain there has always been a lot of runoff down the driveway.  In the freezing rain, it froze in a thin layer on the surface of the blacktop and later the remainder made that hard inch layer which makes it very hard to break completely free since that first little layer bonds the whole thing to any small openings in the blacktop.  

As I was shoveling at the edge of the highway, I spotted our mail woman driving past and being followed by a sheriff's cruiser with two deputies inside.  I stopped the deputies who were out making visits to the known ill and elderly although we have never been on that list since I am able bodied.  I inquired if they knew anyone who could bring me some gasoline and drinking water which I made clear I was willing to pay for.  They told me they would contact the local disaster services and see what they could do.  A couple of hours later as I was eating lunch, one of them called me and said, "We are on the way with two cases of water and ten gallons of gasoline.  Meet us at the highway."  They came to the house with the supplies and I paid them the reimbursement.  They refused to allow me to buy their lunch.  We now had enough generator gas and drinking water to last us about three days at our rate of use.  

On Monday night, about 8 o'clock, my good friend Aquila Derstine, a conservative Mennonite who lives about thirty miles away had called me as he sometimes does on a Monday which is not a church night for him.  We laughed and joked a bit and he asked me if I needed anything.  I said "no not really but I will need to come to your sister-in-law's bulk food store in a few days to buy some oatmeal."  I never thought another thing about that comment until Friday about noon when we heard a knock on the door.  I opened the door and found Aquila standing outside with a box of oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies, and dried mango which I buy to eat as a snack.  He had driven thirty miles from home to bring me that food because he said, "it is Anna's (his wife) birthday and I wanted to do something nice for her birthday."  He refused to let me reimburse him but we will take that up again in the near future.  If he and his sister-in-law both refuse the money, I will lay it down in front of them with the suggestion that they put it in the Mennonite disaster relief fund or some such charity.  To say the least, Aquila is a great friend and we have known each other nearly twenty years.  He also offered to shovel my driveway and I refused to allow him to do it since I am able bodied and had no reason to leave until I ran out of gasoline.  Aquila is very serious about his religion and has even adopted two small children in his fifties after having raised 8 of his own to adulthood.  In fact, Aquila and Anna have several grandchildren as old or a bit older than their two adopted children. Their oldest son Asa, his wife, and their three small children including one daughter only a few months old are living in a Mennonite missionary operation in Ghana and will be there for at least three years.  The youngest daughter was actually born in Ghana.  I have known Asa since he was a small boy and he practices his religion just as strictly as his father which is why he agreed to take his family to Ghana in the face of the Covid 19 pandemic. There are several posts on this blog about my Mennonite friends, their lifestyle, and a young female Mennonite author, Emily Steiner, who is also a friend of mine.  Each of these previous links goes to a different post about Mennonites, their lifestyle, and my friend Emily's books.  I am truly grateful to live in a community with people like the Derstine family and my numerous other Mennonite friends.  

 

I have left one of the most interesting stories from our power outage for last.  I called our electricity provider, Kentucky Power, almost as soon as our power went out because in our area we had serious advance warning that the freezing rain was coming, and we also have had several periods of multiple day power outages in the 28 years we have lived here.  It was rapidly growing dark, the rain was pouring and freezing as it hit the ground, and I knew we were in for trouble.  When I was connected to a live human at the power company, he was a very nice young sounding man who said he was working from a call center in Ohio.  We went through the usual questions an answers which are standard when you report a power outage and I was standing in front of the picture window where this computer sits watching the freezing rain and rapidly falling darkness as I talked to the man.  Suddenly, I saw a rabbit, which appeared to be about three quarters grown, come running around the corner of our house on the blacktop driveway and cross into the front yard out of sight.  Then what I first thought was a ground hog came running along the same area from the corner of the house into the front yard.  Even though we get lots of wildlife in our yard and in our sights year round where we live, this event was so unusual that i mentioned it to the young man at the power company.  My first guess was that it was due to the freezing rain having flooded the burrows the two animals were living in and said so the young man before I hung up.  He agreed with me that it was unusual.  But before I walked away from the window, the second animal returned from the front of house, where it was out of sight, carrying the rabbit in its mouth.  That was when I realized it was a mink and had been chasing the rabbit as prey.  It carried the rabbit back across the blacktop farther from the house than the original chase, crossed below a large maple at the edge of the parking area and disappeared out of sight presumably toward its den nearer the creek about fifty yards below our house.  In 28 years of living in this house, we have had fawns raised in our yard including five in one year by 3 different does; wild turkeys both being raised in and around our yard and eating bird seed in winter off the blacktop; a red tailed hawk making a kill on another bird in the front yard; raccoons, opossums, and skunks traveling to our front porch when we used to feed outdoor cats there; several red foxes crossing our property; baby snapping turtles being hatched from eggs buried in the outer reaches of our yard; and a large male coyote crossing the edge of our yard in broad daylight.  But we had never seen a mink in our yard and definitely had not seen a mink making a kill there.  Actually, I never saw the moment of the kill because the mink and rabbit were out of sight.  But I did see part of the chase and the end result of the mink carrying the dead rabbit back to its den.  I love being in a place where so much wildlife exists within my field of vision.  There are only three species which are common in our area that I have not seen in our one acre which happens to be in the middle of several large farms: bobcats, and I am certain they do pass through at night; bear which have been spotted within a few miles; and elk which have also passed by within a few miles.  I have also seen one bald eagle eating a road killed opossum in a country road about 2 miles from our house.  It is great to live in a very rural area even in a power outage with the exception that it takes a long time to get the power back on.  

Memorial Meeting, Elijah Smith Cemetery, Dingus, Kentucky, September 29, 2019

Yesterday, my wife Candice and I attended a memorial meeting on the Elijah Smith Cemetery in Dingus, Kentucky, in Morgan County.  The cemetery is located on Kentucky 437 on White Oak Branch in a very rural part of Morgan county near the Johnson county line and not far from Crockett.  The cemetery is a classic old Appalachian mountain cemetery on a high point of land with a pretty fair view and lots of large old trees.  It still has an area set aside for church services in the upper corner with about six rows of benches made of 2 x 12's set on concrete blocks.  The cemetery is fenced with a good chain link fence and has a gravel road up the hill from the highway. There is even a pulpit built out of a wooden post with a slanted board top on which a preacher can place a Bible or song book and there is a flat platform attached to a tree which fits one of those large orange water jugs.  But the road does tend to wash out and become rough at times.  It was in pretty good shape yesterday but several people still managed to become temporarily stuck due to driving too slow and having only rear wheel drive.  There is a one seat outdoor toilet about a hundred feet further up the ridge above the cemetery which does not have a hole dug but is simply set on the edge of a bank near the edge of the timber.  I realize that this is probably not acceptable to most health departments today but since the toilet is generally used only for the memorial meeting or an occasional burial, it gets the job done and a combination of weather and insects does the disposal work.  

This is the second time Candice and I have attended this memorial service  at the cemetery.  We were there two years ago and one was not held last year due to heavy rain.  There are 114 memorials documented for the cemetery on Find A Grave but there are also several with only sand stone markers which are not documented and so far as I know the identities of the people buried in them is no longer remembered by anyone. Several of the graves have tombstones dated in the late 19the century and it is likely that it may extend back somewhere close to 150 years.  There seems to be a large number of graves from the Great Depression era, especially graves of young children.  I wonder how many of those Great Depression deaths were attributable to poverty and starvation.  There is also one row of children's graves with ten graves which one of the attendees told me were all the children of one set of parents who lost all their children in early childhood or childbirth except one  son who lived to adulthood.  There are four or five families represented with several members in the cemetery  and it appears to have always been a genuine Appalachian cemetery where no one would have been denied burial.

We know two people who are buried there, Clint Howard and his wife Ella Howard, who were the parents of Shirley Howard Robbins who is a friend of Candice and cleans our house.  But, due to our 27 years in this county, we generally know quite a few people who attend this service.  There are numerous members of Shirley's extended family including her children, grandchildren, brothers, and cousins.  We also know one woman and her daughter from the time when Candice was using physical therapy at our local ARH hospital and that woman was a physical therapy assistant.  We have also come to know a couple of the preachers who usually come to this service. There was one babe in arms, several people in their twenties, and nearly every decade in age represented by at least one person including one man who is past 90. Due to the size of the attendance and the representation of a multitude of age groups, this memorial meeting gives me hope that such memorial services are not totally gone from the current Appalachian culture. The denomination in charge has always been Enterprise Baptist.  They are one of the offshoots of the Old Regular Baptists who split off nearly a hundred years ago and became more liberal with instrumental music in their churches although there are never any instruments at this service.

The service usually starts with a song or two which are started by one of the preachers but not sung in traditional Appalachian lined hymnody which is a shame.  Lined hymnody is the method which the traditional Old Regular Baptist churches still use and what I grew up around.  I rarely hear it anymore since I rarely attend an Old Regular Baptist service.  The Elijah Smith Cemetery service is usually begun, as I said, with a couple of songs and then a prayer and opening short sermon by one of the preachers.  At some point, one of the usual preachers will offer an opportunity for anyone in the congregation to either give a testimony, sing a song, or voice a prayer request.  Another of Clint and Ella Howard's children, son Jimmy Howard almost always sings a song or two and he is a wonderful singer in the manner most often seen in Enterprise Baptist congregations.  But this year, Jimmy sang with another of the preachers and it just did not stand up to his solo singing from the previous occasions I have seen him sing.  The preachers who preached were John Ed Howard, a descendant of some of the people buried there; Ben Smith, also a descendant of some of the people buried there; Lonnie B. Wright, also related to some of the people buried there; and a fairly young preacher whose name I do not remember who, I believe, is actually from Pike County. 

When the service ended, approximately forty or so people, many of whom are related to Shirley Howard Robbins and her husband Russell Robbins, went to their home just up the creek for a wonderful dinner and conversation for two or three hours. For me, one of the best parts of the dinner and conversation is that Lonnie B. Wright always attends the dinner, is a wonderfully funny man who can talk about anything and has a broad history of working as a heavy equipment operator, knows everybody in the area, and loves to talk, make jokes, and become the center of attention.  Also, he and I know each other pretty well and are passing friends without being bosom buddies and we love to play off each other's jokes.  It makes for a fun time and one or two others who attend can also hold their own in a room with Lonnie B. and me. Candice and I also went there as we have done on other occasions.  The food was awesome and we all enjoyed it a great deal since Shirley and several members of her extended family are wonderful cooks.  There was ham, turkey, fried chicken strips, and chicken and dumplings along with green beans, baked beans, rolls, cole slaw, corn, and quite a few desserts such as a great fruit salad, chocolate pie, and a few other temptations for the sweet tooth.  We stayed until about 4pm before we left for home and enjoyed the entire experience a great deal.  This really is a throwback to old cemetery memorial meetings extending all the way back to the time which James Still wrote about in "River of Earth".  This meeting is always held on the last Sunday in September and anyone is welcome whether or not you have ever been there, whether or not you are related to one of the dead, or whether or not you are even an Appalachian.  If you are a student of Appalachian Culture, religion, or genealogy and have not seen a cemetery memorial service or just haven't seen one in a long while, just show up next year at about 10am on the last Sunday of September and you will have time to make friends before the service starts.  I am also willing to bet that you will also be invited to the dinner afterward. 

Hiking At The Twenty-Six Boat Ramp, Daniel Boone National Forest--August 29, 2019

Today, August 29, 2019, my wife Candice and I took a long drive in the country and I took two side trips to hike in the Daniel Boone National Forest and/or Cave Run Lake.  First I spent a half hour or so at the Twenty-Six Boat Ramp which is located just off Kentucky 772 about a mile or less from Kentucky 519 just about a mile from the Morgan/Rowan County Line in Morgan County.  Even though I have lived in the area for more than twenty-five years, I had never been to the boat ramp area in question.  I had actually arrived there by the long way around through the Kentucky State Tree Nursery and Woodsbend Youth Development Center in the Woodsbend area on Lower Grassy Creek.  It is a beautiful drive along that route through some of the best farm land in all of Morgan County.  There are numerous well maintained farms, the Tree Nursery and the Youth Development Center as well as three major, well maintained and photogenic cemeteries along the way.  The most interesting of those cemeteries is the Bear Wallow Cemetery. With a name like that, how could you avoid taking a drive along this wonderful scenic route?  

But once you arrive at the Twenty-Six Boat Ramp, a great deal of the beauty is lost due to abuses of the site by what seems to be a group of partiers from time to time combined with an overloaded Corps of Engineers who probably do not have the time or staff to adequately maintain all the public use facilities in the Daniel Boone National Forest.  The drive off Kentucky 772 to the boat ramp is tree shaded, scenic, and inviting.  It has a large gravel parking area, a concrete boat ramp, and lies on a tributary of Cave Run Lake.  All of this should have combined to make a wonderful location to hike, fish, kayak, launch boats, and simply eat a leisurely lunch on a work day.  But the ramp was poorly situated and is pointed upstream which means that a lot of debris ends up in the ramp launching area and at least one large log was visible in the water on one side of the ramp directly in front of the incoming boats which I suspect are few and far between since a far better situated and maintained ramp is located only a couple of miles away just across the line in Rowan County.  Between the parking lot and the water, there is an area which is about four feet lower than the parking lot and probably two feet above the normal water line.  But it is subject to periodic flooding when the Corps of Engineers is holding large amounts of water in the lake.  The normal amount of debris which would end up in area like that would be expected and workable.  But the people who have been using and abusing the boat ramp area have made a workable situation both disgusting and infuriating.  I hiked this area for quite some distance downstream along the waterside and found it littered from one end to the other with all sorts of garbage.  I usually carry a plastic grocery bag with me when I hike and pick up whatever litter I find in the locations I utilize no matter where they are, whether I have ever been there or not, and whether or not I ever likely to return.  But if I had the assistance and time today, I and a couple of friends could have easily filled the bed of my Ford Ranger with garbage which had been thrown about by the users of the area.  I actually found the remains of several camp fires and two them had the remnants of automobile tires in the ashes.  One had the steel belt wires from a large tire combined with beer and soft drink bottles, Styrofoam live bait containers, and general garbage.  And this particular camp fire was not the worst of the lot.  Another had not only the steel belt wires from a tire combined with its bushel of garbage.  It also had the steel rim from a large automobile tire.  In addition to these camp fires, the entire area was randomly littered with what were obviously fresh bottles and cans which showed no evidence of ever having floated in on the waters.  This entire area is a disgrace to every human who has ever helped to damage it.  

This area is tree shaded, quiet, inviting, and on the edge of the water.  It could be a wonderful site to use in a variety of ways.  But in its current condition, I am certain that it drives potential users away on a regular basis.  It is in dire need of a major clean up and regular policing from the Corps of Engineers and local law enforcement and yet I know that all these agencies are understaffed and overloaded.  The bottom line is that it is a damn shame and in desperate need of change on a major level. 

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After I left the Twenty-Six Boat Ramp area, I crossed the county line into Rowan County and turned right up the first paved road into an area which is part of the upstream lake and is used as a camping and hiking site.  I do not recall the particular name or number which is assigned to this road but it is the last left turn off Kentucky 519 in Rowan County before the bridge at the Morgan County line.  At about a half mile, you find several camp sites with rudimentary launching for small boats.  Then there is a locked gate across the road which is obviously the old state highway along the Licking River before it became a part of the lake.  The road is only a couple of feet above the water line and still in acceptable condition.  There area a plethora of spots along this road which could be used as lake shore fishing spots.  It is quiet, tree shaded, flat at least on the area I hiked, and a wonderful place to hike, fish, ride a bike, etc.  It is closed to vehicular traffic beyond the aforementioned gate. During my hike, I encountered a nice lady who was riding a vintage bicycle along the road and camping with her family at one of the camp sites.  She advised me that the road extends for roughly five miles or more along the lake shore and connects with another old road which climbs the mountain side to cross out of the Daniel Boone National Forest.  She also told me of a rumor that is rampant among users of the area that the Corps of Engineers is planning to lease that area to a vendor who is already renting kayaks on the lake for use as a paid camping, hiking, and multi-use area.  I tend to doubt the rumor but I will admit that it could be possible.  I hope to return to this area and spend more time and distance hiking it to see as much of it as I can.  When I do, of course, I will post about it on this blog.  

These two areas which I hiked today are well worth the time to utilize if you are in the general area.  I would also encourage all of you to contact the Army Corps of Engineers Office in Morehead and discuss the need to clean up and enforce civilized practises on the users of the Twenty-Six Boat Ramp.  If you utilize it, please take a camera along, which I did not do today, and shoot some photos of the egregious garbage, campfires with evidence of burnt tires, and pass them along to the Corps of Engineers. 

Baptism In The Creek, Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012

These photos were shot at a baptism in Indian Creek in Morgan County Kentucky on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012.  I posted them on my Facebook account at that time but, for some unknown reason, I never posted them on this blog or wrote about it.  Sadly, I didn't write down the names of the participants and do not remember them. I will do some checking with my sources in the community and see what I can learn about their identities.  The baptism was being conducted by the Lick  Branch Enterprise Baptist Church in West Liberty, Kentucky.  When I was growing up, nearly every baptism in Knott County Kentucky and the surrounding counties all across Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia was done in the creek and the time of the year usually did not matter.  I have heard numerous stories of ice being broken on creeks in order to conduct a baptism.  But most churches and most denominations all over Appalachia have now installed baptismal fonts and no longer conduct them in the creek.  I have actually attended one other baptism in the creek on Flat Fork in Morgan County where someone I knew was being baptized a couple of years ago and I neglected to take a camera. Sometime in the neighborhood of twenty-five years ago, I also attended another baptism in the creek which was being conducted by the White Oak Christian Church of the Disciples of Christ in Morgan County which is generally considered to be one of the more liberal denominations in this area.  The person being baptized was the son of a deacon who sometimes served as a lay minister and the church had no baptistry at that time. To return to the discussion of the particular baptism depicted in these photographs, the Enterprise Baptist Association is a member of the Kentucky Baptist Convention and is one of the more liberal associations which trace their historical lineage to the Old Regular Baptists or simply the Regular Baptists.  As these baptisms grow more and more rare in the creeks of Appalachia, I urge all of my readers to attend them when you are aware of them and be absolutely certain to take photographs and preserve and disseminate those photographs in a manner which will make them available to historians, researchers, and religious scholars. All photographs in this blog post were shot by Roger D. Hicks and are fully protected under US copyright law.  Do not use these photographs in any manner without express written permission from Roger D. Hicks.

The religious scholar Emma Bell Miles stated that baptisms "...always take place in a pool of water, or the deepest part of a creek, or in a small river, no matter what the season of the year.  Even today it is not uncommon for ice to be cut through.  ...Most of the converts [the newly baptized] are shouting by the time they gain the bank, and nearly run amuck in the crowd before they can be persuaded to retire to a hastily erected brush shelter and change to dry clothing.  No attempt is ever made to check the excitement."  (Quoted in "Appalachian Mountain Religion A History" by Deborah Vansau McCauley, p. 86-87). I cannot state that this particular baptism portrayed in my photographs was that exciting or excitable.  I do recall that both women who were baptized were crying both as they entered and left the water.  But there was no shouting and any expressions of overt excitement quickly died down and the crowd dispersed quickly.  I must also say, in response to the quotation above that I have never seen a "hastily erected brush shelter" at any baptism I was ever witness to and I can remember attending baptisms for about sixty years in Appalachia.  I have seen shouting, crying, spontaneous preaching from individuals other than the preachers conducting the ceremony, and large flurries of hugging, kissing, and hand shaking from members of the crowd.  And while I am on the subject of spontaneous expressions of emotion in church services, I remember how much shouting I used to see in Old Regular Baptist church services when I was a child.  I have always remembered one old woman whose name I forgot long ago but clearly remember her appearance and her shouting in church.  She had a stock phrase which she used when she began shouting.  "Praise the Lord!  Praise His high and holy name!"  I can remember dozens of occasions when I saw this woman move around the church shouting, crying, clapping her hands, shaking hands, hugging other female church members, and repeatedly using that two sentence signature exclamation.

In a section of his book, "Faith and Meaning in the Southern Uplands",  my friend Loyal Jones wrote extensively on "The Importance of Baptism".  In that writing he said several important things about baptism which have doubtless led the research and writing of numerous Appalachian religious scholars ever since.  First and foremost, he discussed the symbolism of baptism and its history within the Christians churches.

"Water is necessary to life, and it is also a cleanser.  In the religious context, water is the universal metaphor for cleansing, renewal, regeneration and rebirth...The symbolism is twofold: first, the burial from the old life and the resurrection to the new; and second, the cleansing from sin."  (Jones, pp. 147-148)   

But for anyone who knows Loyal Jones and his work, you know that he could not discuss many subjects without a dose of humor.  On that same page 148, he tells the story of an old Baptist preacher who was being castigated by his church members and deacons about his belief in total immersion baptism.

"The preacher said he would preach in the old tradition of letting the Bible fall open wherever it would, and take the first passage his eye lighted on as evidence that the Lord wanted him to preach on that text.  So on the next Sunday, he let the Bible fall open, and he read, "The voice of the turtle is heard in our land."  He studied a minute on the text and commenced, "This morning as I was a-crossing the creek on the way to church, I saw an old mud turtle a-sunning hisself.  When he saw me, he went kerplunk into the water.  Now, he didn't reach down there and get a little bit of water and sprinkle on his forehead.  No!  When he went in, he went all the way in, and there you have your doctrine of total immersion." (Jones, p. 148)

That anecdote from Loyal Jones does an excellent job of two things.  First, it explains succinctly the belief that most traditional Appalachian churches and their ministers hold about baptism and total immersion.  Second, it proves once again that Loyal Jones is one of the funniest and most accurate writers in all of Appalachia especially when he is writing about culture, religion, or humor. 

David Kimbrough, in his book "Taking Up Serpents Snake Handlers of Eastern Kentucky, describes total immersion in slightly different but concurring words: "If individuals experienced conversion, they were later baptized in a creek or river.  Converts at Forrester's Creek were baptized by total immersion in a public ceremony.  Baptism was a transformative indication of release from 'the old status order' to a 'new status order'." (Kimbrough, p. 75.) It has been my experience in attending numerous churches from numerous denominations all across Appalachia that most Appalachian believers see the public act of baptism by total immersion in freely flowing water as both a symbolic cleansing and a confirmation of their public admission of the acceptance of faith and their belief that their sins have been forgiven.  Or to put it in a slightly more colloquial manner, they believe they have "been washed as white as snow". 

In conclusion, I would state that baptism by total immersion in freely flowing water is a vanishing practice in Appalachia.  But it is still deeply woven into the religious life of the region.  Many small, more traditional churches still practice some form of total immersion baptism in freely flowing water while also bending to suit the individual beliefs of some of their incoming converts by allowing total immersion in a baptismal font or tank.  Just as many other core Appalachian beliefs are being assimilated out of existence, so is baptism by total immersion in freely flowing water. 

The Benefits Of Regular Exercise

Today marks two consecutive months in which I have not missed a single day of getting at least 30 minutes of fairly strenuous exercise with an hour on most of those days.  On several of those days I have done both an hour of walking at some site or other within driving distance of my home and at least 30 minutes of time on my stationary bike at home.  During the two previous months, October and November 2018, I had missed several days and become rather inconsistent despite having known for years that even two or three days of non-exercise results in a loss of previous progress in physical conditioning.  But for two complete months, I have now gotten up every day and made certain that I got exercise.  I have exercised somewhat regularly for nearly a year but this is my most consistent period. 

Today, I received what I consider to have been a reward for that consistency.  As I was walking in Old Mill Park in my hometown of West Liberty, KY, I suddenly heard another man who was walking near me yell "there is a bald eagle".  Sure enough circling about 200 to 300 feet over our heads and directly over the park which sits near the Licking River was a bald eagle with its white head and tail both clearly visible.  It circled above us for a couple of loops and flew away to the northeast in the general direction of Cave Run Lake where I have had one other sighting of an eagle several years ago.  This eagle was also only about ten miles from my home and about 8 or 9 miles from a site where I had seen another eagle eating  a road killed opossum just over two years ago.  The man who first saw this eagle today and I shared our stories of eagle sightings in the past and moved on just as the eagle had.  But, if there is such a thing as Karma, I thought that my sighting of an eagle on this two month anniversary of daily exercise was my reward for putting in that time.  If I had been sitting at home avoiding exercise, I would have had no chance to see an eagle in the city limits of West Liberty. It is also another verification that bald eagles are reproducing successfully in Eastern Kentucky and their numbers are growing and their territory is expanding.  I have now had three total eagle sightings within 30 miles of my home, 2 of them in my home county and 1 in my own neighborhood.  That is exciting. 

Morgan County Kentucky Court House Annex--WPA Construction

Morgan County Courthouse Annex Front (East) Photo by Roger D. Hicks

The Morgan County Kentucky Courthouse Annex is for all intents and purposes the actual Morgan County Courthouse since what is known as the courthouse is actually leased to the Appalachian Regional Healthcare System.  It holds the offices of the County Judge Executive, the County Clerk, the Sheriff, the Property Valuation Administrator, and meeting rooms for the Fiscal Court composed of the County Judge Executive and the Magistrates.  There is also a gymnasium on the ground floor and the basement is leased to a day care program.  This building is the most historic building in the county.  It was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the heart of the Great Depression and originally served as the local high school.  It was dedicated by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Kentucky Governor Happy Chandler.  There is a large bronze plaque in the main hallway discussing this historic building and its history.  I will add photos of the interior and the information on the plaque in a few days.  I shot these exterior photos on Sunday, November 18, 2018, in order to do it at a time when there were not large numbers of cars in the parking lots or heavy passing traffic.  The photos are not perfect and I apologize for that.  When I can locate better photographs by other people and gain permission to use them, I will add those.

Morgan County Courthouse Annex (Northeast Corner View) Photo by Roger D. Hicks

The building is an excellent example of Depression Era stone work by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) which was one of the many New Deal programs instituted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in order to bring the country out of the Great Depression which had been caused by the economic mismanagement of the Hoover administration.  These WPA stone buildings were built all over the southeastern United States where local stone was available of acceptable quality.  They are rapidly disappearing and all of them which are still in useful condition need to be restored and saved.  Thanks to some interesting circumstances and the high quality of the stone work this wonderful building has survived and remained in productive use almost every day since the day it was opened.  

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt Photo by Yousuf Karsh

President Roosevelt issued an executive order on May 6, 1935, which established the Works Progress Administration (WPA) at a time when the national unemployment rate was 20%.  The WPA was the greatest infrastructure operation in the history of the country.  It employed several million  previously unemployed people and in the eight years of its existence it built more than 4,000 new school buildings, 130 new hospitals, 9,000 miles of storm drains and sewer lines, 29,000 new bridges, 150 new airfields, paved and repaired more than a quarter million miles of roads and planted 24 million trees.  Many of those schools, hospitals, sewer lines, bridges, airports, and roads were in areas which had not had such infrastructure previously and many of them are still in daily operation today in one capacity or another whether or not they are being used for their original purposes.  The Morgan County High School, now known as the Morgan County Court House Annex was simply one small project among thousands of others nationwide which the WPA was building at the time.  In June of 1943, the WPA was disbanded after national unemployment had  dropped to less than 5% as a result of the economic recovery and the effort to build war time armaments.  But it will always be one of the most important economic and infrastructure programs in the history of the country. 

Photo of Kentucky Governor Albert B. "Happy" Chandler Photo by Murat Shrine

On March 2, 2012, the town of West Liberty, Kentucky, was literally destroyed by a major tornado but the Court House Annex withstood the blast which killed six people in the county and destroyed nearly every other major public building within the city limits.  I am adding two photos from the aftermath of the tornado to show just how clearly the town was destroyed around this magnificent building.  But the WPA stonework withstood the tornado with some damage to roof and windows which was easily repaired as the effort to rebuild the town began.

Downtown West Liberty After The Tornado Photo by CNN

Gas Station Across Street From Courthouse Annex After Tornado Photo by Flickr

The two photos immediately above were taken by professional photographers in the next few days after the West Liberty Tornado in early March 2012.  So far, I have been unable to locate a photo of the Court House Annex taken immediately after the tornado and will continue to search for one and post it when I can. It appears that since the building withstood the tornado with little damage the professionals were looking for "real disaster" photos and did not focus on the Court House Annex But the first photo immediately above of the gas station directly across the street from the Court House Annex shows some of the damage in the immediate area.  The sidewalk visible in the foreground of the photo is directly in front of the Court House Annex.  The photographer would have been standing in the edge of the small parking lot beside the Court House Annex.  The old wood sided Morgan County Board of Education building which stood directly to the south of the Court House Annex was immediately destroyed as was the John F. Kennedy Public Library which stood directly to the north side of the parking lot from which the photograph above was shot.  Diagonally across the street to the northeast, the building in which a physical therapy facility was operated and had originally been an automobile dealership was also completely destroyed.  Diagonally across the street to the southeast, a Dollar General store was totally destroyed.  Without the high quality stonework of the WPA, the Court House Annex would not exist today.   

Morgan County Courthouse Annex (North View) Photo By Roger D. Hicks

This historic WPA building still functions perfectly well as the primary site of Morgan County Kentucky government operations and is likely to continue to do so for many years in the future. It deserves to be added to the National Register of Historic Places and I will begin to work in the near future to see if I can facilitate that along with help from as many citizens of Morgan County and the general public as can make a phone call, sign a petition, write a letter, or send an e-mail to the appropriate agencies and people to support the effort.  Placement on the National Register would further guarantee for the foreseeable future that this wonderful, iconic, and historic WPA project would be protected, honored, and preserved as it should. 

Morgan County Courthouse Annex (Northwest Corner View) Photo By Roger D. Hicks

Morgan County Courthouse Annex (West/Rear View) Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Morgan County Courthouse Annex (South West Corner View) Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Morgan County Courthouse Annex (South View) Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Morgan County Courthouse Annex (Southeast Corner View) Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Morgan County Courthouse Annex (East/Front View) Photo by Roger D. Hicks