Displaced Appalachian Relatives In The Industrial Midwest

My wife, Candice, and I have just returned from a long weekend of visiting some of my urban Appalachian relatives in Kendallville, Indiana.  Specifically, we went to visit my 96 year old half sister, Lucy Hicks Moore, who lives with her daughter and son-in-law, Ollie and Jeannie Shepherd.  Lucy is recuperating from her second broken hip in the past several years. That, in and of itself, is amazing in a person of such advanced age.  She is back home, not walking, but doing some physical therapy, managing to crack a few jokes, and complaining about not being able to do any work.  And for those of you who ask what work  can a woman that age do, she spent much of last winter tacking about a dozen homemade quilts to give to various members of her family. She didn't sew the quilts.  Jeannie did the sewing and Lucy put the string tacking in all of them.  She also did a few small lap quilts for what she referred to as "the old people in the nursing home". 

While I was there, I also got to see my niece, Doris "Sissie" Hicks Lawson, from Sturgis, Michigan, who gave me a copy of the 2010 Minutes of the Northern New Salem Association of Old Regular Baptists.  I was particularly glad to see this copy since it contains one of the finest comments about the influence of Appalachian culture on the industrial north and one particular individual that I have ever seen.  In the obituary of Doy Riffle, the author, whose name I cannot determine, makes the following disclosure about his personal response to Appalachian culture:

I came here from Rhode Island 27 years ago and drove the road outside this very church on my first trip to Ohio as I started the courtship of my wife, one of Uncle Doy's nieces Samantha.  I walked into a new relationship, a new family, very different people, and a very new culture to me...And a whole new life that over the years has continued to broaden my understanding of people, family relationships, and love.  Sam and I married 25 years ago this July 28th in this very church and I married not only the love of my life but into a family, history and culture that I now treasure as my very own. (Obituary of Doy Riffel-Author Unknown--Minutes of the Fifty-Third Session of the Northern New Salem Association of Old Regular Baptist of Jesus Christ--2010)

I have noticed for many years the influences Appalachian culture has had on individuals, family, communities, and institutions in the industrial north in the geographic area of the Appalachian migration which followed World War II.  Obviously, the best literary depiction of this phenomenon is "The Dollmaker" by Harriette Arnow.  But others have written about it and continue to do so.  Loyal Jones makes brief mention of it in his classic work, "Appalachian Values".  He speaks of how northern plant managers struggled to deal with the close knit nature of Appalachian families at times when plant workers would take time off to come back home for the funerals of relatives other than first level kin. 

In the area of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois, the Northern New Salem Association has more than 20 churches and about 550 members.  They also have one church each in northern Kentucky and Florida. Additionally, a few of the churches in the New Salem Association also are in northern states.  As with any other area in which the Old Regular Baptists practice, the circle of cultural and religious influence is much wider than the reported membership numbers.  Most members do not join the church until they are at least middle aged and in most Old Regular Baptist families one person might be a baptized member of the church while several more attend services on at least an irregular basis without ever being baptized or joining the church.  This leads to a significant expansion of the area of cultural and religious influence.  It is also worthy of note that it was communion weekend at the Little Flossie Church of the Old Regular Baptists that weekend.  This was the reason my niece had driven from Sturgis to Kendallville.  I did not attend church services that weekend and was unaware that it was communion at the church which was actually co-founded by and named for another of my half-sisters, Flossie Hicks Wicker, who passed away about forty years ago.  The experience of attending communion services in an Old Regular Baptist Church is well worth the time for anyone who is interested in Appalachian culture and religion. The Old Regular Baptists practice closed communion, meaning the actual communion event is open only to baptized members of the church.  But anyone is always welcome at an Old Regular Baptist service.  I would recommend that attendees who have never been in an Old Regular Baptist church dress conservatively with women wearing dresses and men in shirts with sleeves although they don't have to be long sleeves. The communion service will include the distribution of the bread and non-alcoholic grape juice since Old Regular Baptists never consume alcohol.  It will also include foot washing which rarely occurs in churches today.  Male members wash the feet of other male members and female members wash the feet of other female members.  Everyone whom I have heard talk of participating in foot washing describes it as a humbling experience. Its purpose is generally conceded to be an attempt to teach humility and to bring the believers closer to understanding the state of mind of Jesus and the apostles just prior to the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  Even for an observer, the practice of foot washing is a moving experience.

The last time I actually attended an Old Regular Baptist service was at Little Bethlehem Church on Carr Creek in Knott County about three years ago.  I was doing research for a staff training I was scheduled to provide for a human services organization in Marietta, Ohio, and Rev. Bob Amburgey was the moderator of that church  at the time.  He graciously invited me to come to church on the evening they were baking the bread for their communion service the next day and also loaned me a large collection of Minutes from several different Regular Baptist Associations.  The service was brief but very moving and included the blessing of the ingredients to make the bread. That kind of welcoming kindness is what I expect when I go to an Old Regular Baptist Church. I wish I had known in advance it was communion at the Little Flossie while I was in Kendallville.  For those of you who know nothing about the Old Regular Baptists, Howard Dorgan wrote a very good book about them called "The Old Regular Baptists of Central Appalachia: Brothers And Sisters In Hope".  He also wrote about them in another book called "Giving Glory To God In Appalachia: Worship Practices Of Six Baptist Subdenominations". Any of his books on Appalachian Religion are well worth reading. 

There are also churches in several other primarily Appalachian denominations such as the United Baptists, Primitive Baptists, and other less prominent denominations in the industrial north. I know of at least three serpent handling congregations in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, area which were founded and are now primarily attended by members of the displaced Appalachian community.  At least one of the founders of the largest of those churches was also a significant political force in the Fort Wayne area for many years.  He owned several businesses in the city and often acted as a negotiator or go between in interactions between Appalachians and city hall.  This type of influence in the community as a whole is exercised on a regular basis throughout the industrial north.  Very rarely today, do displaced Appalachians take the quiet, shadowed existence characterized by Gertie Nevels in "The Dollmaker".

On a regular basis when I visit native Appalachians in the industrial north, I see them practicing beliefs, folkways, and cultural traditions which sprang up in the hills and valleys of Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas.  I know hundreds of displaced Appalachians who tend a garden every year even if it is a corner of a small yard in the middle of a city. Or it might be one stand of bees on top of a garage. They hunt, fish, can, freeze, and dry their catches.  They make and sell quilts, homemade chairs, honey, sorghum, and dozens of other products whose roots are in Appalachia. They often keep bees and raise their own pork and beef.  They practice self sufficiency to a degree that is uncommon in the dominant industrial culture. Very few minority cultures manage to resist total assimilation when they are exposed for decades to a dominant local culture. In general, minority cultures might manage to hang on to a few key elements of their cultural life but assimilate to a degree that individuals are nearly impossible to differentiate from citizens of the dominant culture.  But in many of the factory towns of the north, the Appalachian culture has thriven and nearly become dominant. 

A few years ago, I was in Kendallville for the funeral of my sister-in-law, Hattie Hicks, and stopped in the South Side Market for a Coke and a snack.  I still had my suit on from the church service and the clerk, with a pronounced local, northern Indiana accent said, "I bet you just came from Hattie's funeral."  Even though her ancestry for several generations was rooted in Indiana, she had been influenced enough by Appalachian culture that she paid attention to her Appalachian neighbors and knew who was being buried that day.  Appalachian accents are accepted in much of the north and many Appalachians refuse to lose theirs.  More noteworthy is the fact that they do not seem to face a great deal of pressure to conform and alter their accent.  Churches spring up and survive of the same denominations and beliefs that stand in Appalachia.  Funeral directors have made adjustments to adhere to idiosyncrasies of Appalachian burial practices.  Foods, folkways, folk songs, bluegrass music, Southern Gospel, gravelling for catfish, and dozens of other primarily Appalachian practices survive in the towns where Appalachians work. 

Ollie Shepherd, his daughter Tiffany, two of her friends, and me all went on Saturday morning to the Wolf Swap Meet just north of Albion, Indiana.  I saw people from all over Appalachia mixed in with the local Amish population.  They were trading knives, hunting dogs, produce, and livestock in a manner very similar to that at the Paintsville Livestock Market or the Bull Creek Flea Market. I was wearing a University of Kentucky basketball shirt and a vendor commented that if  "he is a Kentucky fan he must be all right." It turned out he was from Morehead, Kentucky.  I noticed that for many of the vendors and customers it was a time to socialize and catch up on recent events.  People interacted to a degree that is generally uncommon in the north.  I felt at home and, I am sure, so did most of them.  These kinds of events happen on nearly a daily basis in towns all over the Midwest and industrial north wherever Appalachians have congregated.  It was also common in the early days of the Great Migration for natives of a particular area to induce their relatives and friends to move to the same town and, often, to work in the same factory.  Many small towns in the industrial north have Appalachian populations which are primarily rooted in one county or small geographic area in Appalachia. 

"Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy" Edited by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll--Book Review

This is a book which I should have immediately bought, read, and written about as soon as it was released in March 2019.  I'm only 13months late which is pretty good for me at times in my effort to keep up with my "To Be Read List".  The book was created as a response to the horribly defamatory "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis" which I have written about in this blog a little over two years ago.  Since I mentioned "Hillbilly Elegy..." let me append the opening and concluding sentence of review of that drivel here: First and foremost, let me say unequivocally that the fact that I chose to read this book (Hillbilly Elegy...) and write about it on this blog should never be considered a recommendation that anyone read it."  No one, whether or not they consider themselves to be Appalachian, should ever read that book without first having read "Appalachian Values" by my friend Loyal Jones.  Although I am not totally pleased with "Appalachian Reckoning...", I will say also that it would be a good idea to read this book as well before entering the intellectual wasteland of J. D. Vance.  

And, since I have mentioned that piece of garbage, I have appended above the sentence with which I began and ended my thoughts on J. D. Vance's screed about the region of which he knows little and cares nothing: "Appalachian Reckoning..." was conceived and edited to be a response to Vance's diatribe in the form of essays, poetry, and a few photos and photo essays by various writers who perceive themselves to be native to and writing in the best interests of Appalachia.  It is a lengthy work of slightly over 400 pages and I read it, as I often do collections by numerous authors, in fits and starts because I prefer to allow one writer's work to congeal in my mind before I further muddy the water with more on the same topic(s) by other authors.  That is both an advantage and a disadvantage with a work of this size.  It greatly enhances the reader's ability to fully grasp the writing in a single essay and the collective total but simultaneously lengthens the time involved from start to finish in completing a book of this size.  But it a technique which I have utilized in my reading for many years, one to which I am long accustomed, and one which I believe makes me a better reader in the long run.

The list of authors in this book ranges from the editors themselves to established experts on the region such as Dwight Billings to others whose existence was relatively unknown and unheralded until the publication of this book.  They range in their areas of expertise across the spectrum of the written word including academics, essayists, novelists, photographers, and poets.  On the face of it all, they can be argued to have been a broadly based and well selected group of authors.  But, the number of genuine, proven experts on the sociology, history, and economics of the region is a bit thin.  While I found a few essays to be well reasoned, well written, and solidly grounded in knowledge of the region, I found at least one or two to be works which I doubt most other professional Appalachian editors would have included in a work intended to dispute, disprove, and de-legitimize Vance's misbegotten best seller.  At least one of the essays is at best an apology for Vance, and at worst, an attempt to justify his illogical conclusions and should never have been included in the book. Most of the poetry is above average, reasonably well written, and acceptable.  But I question the use of artistic works in general in an expository work intended to be a disputation of another which was mislabeled, based in a plethora of misconceptions, and  often accepted as being accurate in its conclusions.  I love poetry and even have one friend, Dale Marie Prenatt, who has an excellent poem in the book; but, I do not love poetry as a form of academic argumentation.  Let me go further and say that my argument about this aspect of the book is not against the poets or their poetry.  It is against the inclusion of that poetry in such a book with such a stated purpose.  

I have been aware for many years that there are three different definitions of Appalachia, which I have stated in this blog in other places.  While the Appalachian Mountain Range extends from Central Alabama to Newfoundland and Labrador in the maritime provinces of Canada   that definition is purely geographic and used primarily by the US Geologic Survey and other federal government agencies.

The Broad Geographical Map of The Appalachian Mountains--Photo by Thomas's Legion

 The definition of Appalachia which the US Congress and the Appalachian Regional Commission uses extends from Mississippi to Upstate New York and includes 35 counties in Alabama, 32 in Ohio, 52 of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania, and is purely a political and economic definition which came about over the years in congress as the need for votes to approve various pieces of pending legislation caused this mythical region to spread much like a fungus solely in the interest of pork barrel politics.

Appalachian Regional Commission Map by the ARC

The definition of Appalachia I use is purely cultural and is rooted in the work of early Appalachian scholars including John C. Campbell and Horace Kephart.  That definition does not cross the Ohio River and does not extend into the northeastern US beyond Western Maryland and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia.  It only includes a small number of Alabama counties in the Sand Mountain area and does not remotely include any portion of Mississippi or Ohio.  For those who would belabor this definition, I urge you to go stand in the middle of the Ohio River and convince that little puddle that it does not constitute both a geographical and a cultural barrier. This final map which I have appended below is very close to my definition of the cultural region of Appalachia although, in my opinion, those counties of Pennsylvania which are included are not truly culturally Appalachian.  I also state for the record that for a more than three years I worked for a Pennsylvania based human services company and performed home visits all over the state while living for a year in Venango County Pennsylvania which is not remotely Appalachian but is included in the political and pork barrel definition of the region which is used by the Appalachian Regional Commission.  I also spent a year living in the Mid-Hudson region of New York State, some of which is included in the ARC map which is far too inclusive in terms of cultural accuracy.

Map of Cultural Appalachia by Medium.com

I freely admit that hundreds of thousands of native Appalachians left the region of Central and Southern Appalachia and moved into the midwest and industrial north.  Some of them remain there as displaced Appalachians but their descendants are not Appalachian in any way other than heritage. Moving to Appalachia or Watts or Harlem does not make a non-native of any of these areas a legitimate Appalachian, African American, or Hispanic.

Now, let's get back to my discussion of the book in question, "Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy".  In conclusion, it is a generally readable and enjoyable book.  But I do not remotely believe that the book has yet been published which will serve as the best, most logical, most accurate response to "Hillbilly Elegy..." I do hope that someone, someday writes and publishes that book.  If you read "Appalachian Reckoning..." I would suggest that you read it with a jaundiced eye, scan every essay closely the truths you know about the Appalachia which you know, use your critical thinking skills to examine it, find what truths you can in it, but do not blindly accept it as the authoritative response to "Hillbilly Elegy...". 

Will You Allow TRAITOR Trump To Murder You?

As the death toll from the Corona Virus pandemic has crossed the 30,000 mark in the USA, as of this writing on April 16, 2020, TRAITOR Trump continues to run his mouth, spout ignorant propaganda, and attempt to reopen the United States long before the pandemic is likely to have run its course and well before most of the governors in the country agree on a reasonable date to loosen pandemic restrictions.  So the question becomes "Are you willing to bet your life on decisions being made by the worst TRAITOR in the history of the world?  Will you allow TRAITOR Trump to murder you?"  I realize the use of the word murder is strong.  But none of these deaths had to happen if the TRAITOR had simply done the job he was never elected to do.  But since he has always acted against the best interests of the United States ever since the day he illegally and TREASONOUSLY waltzed into the White House at the urging and due to the assistance of Vladimir Putin, TRAITOR Trump wants to ignore all aspects of science and medicine and tell the American people to take their lives in their own hands and go back to living life as if there is not a deadly virus wreaking the worst havoc in this country since at least the polio epidemic of the early twentieth century.

At least eleven governors in the United States and the mayor of the Washington, DC, know better and have updated their stay at home orders to at least May 15, 2020, which is still a decidedly optimistic time frame to reopen the country when the virus has killed at least 6,000 people in nursing homes, 33,000 nationwide and is now equal to 50% of the total US deaths during the Viet Nam War and rapidly approaching the total of all US deaths during the Korean War.  Just today we learned that the largest nursing home in New Jersey was just caught storing 17 bodies in a morgue intended for a maximum of 4 in an apparent attempt to delay or cover up knowledge of all those deaths since that facility had recently received the lowest possible state inspection rating which would allow them to remain open.  Even in decidedly rural Jackson County Kentucky, a county in which I worked for 2+ years as a mental health therapist in a juvenile facility, a nursing home is fighting a major outbreak with multiple cases and multiple deaths. Refrigerated trucks are in use as morgues in New York and New Jersey.  Funeral homes in both those states are overloaded and the unclaimed dead are being buried in trenches in a pauper's field in New York.  An official of the Centers For Disease Control has just publicly stated that the publicly accepted death toll of 33,000 as of this writing is probably "just the tip of the iceberg" and that actual number are probably much higher due to the criminally inadequate testing numbers nation wide due to the a lack of testing equipment and laboratories. The overall testing issue is also exacerbated by inaccurate, overdue, and undone reporting by many private labs. In his daily propaganda spiel on this date, TRAITOR Trump backed off his TREASONOUS disputation of the US Constitution that he has "total power" and admitted that the calls to reopen states must come from the governors.  But he is still the most dangerous man in the world and working daily to destroy the country.

Yet, in the face of all these governors and their actions, we are saddled with the TREASONOUS occupant of the White House blatantly and daily insisting that the most important aspect of this pandemic is the question of when the restrictions will be lifted and the country reopened.  This recipient of the electoral espionage and manipulation of Russia and Vladimir Putin does not care one iota about you, the reader, or any other citizen, state, city, or other jurisdiction in the country.  He does not care if you live or die and he is willing to allow all of us to die in order to get his way and avoid responsibility for his TREASONOUS inaction for two months from January until March as the virus was spreading all over this nation.  I repeat myself, WILL YOU ALLOW TRAITOR Trump TO MURDER YOU?

Random Thoughts On Having 100 Followers!

 

 

Sometime early this morning, April 12, 2020, this blog had its 100th person sign up to follow the blog and it only took nine years, almost to the day, from April 15, 2011, when I wrote and posted the initial blog post entitled "A Brief Introduction To My Appalachian Life".  I realize that neither nine years to achieve the milestone of 100 followers, or that number of followers themselves approaches anything like a record.  But I have been writing and posting more frequently and steadily for about three and a half years since I have retired from my full time occupation as a mental health and substance abuse therapist and my part time occupation over the last ten years as a self-employed auctioneer.  But I will say that 100 followers on any blog is above average and most bloggers and blogs never achieve that level.  It can be assumed that at some time over the last nine years that number of people have read something at least once on this blog which left them interested enough in my writing to try to come back and read more of it.  In the spirit of total honesty, I will also say that having 100 followers listed on any blog does not mean that all of those 100 people are actively reading the blog which they are reputed to be following.  Some of them might have died, decided they are no longer interested in that blog but are too lazy to delete it from their list of followed blogs, or they might have simply stopped reading anyone's blog. 

Roger D. Hicks & Loyal Jones, Photo by Candice M. Hicks

But I remember how long it took for this blog to achieve even fifty followers and that was most of these first nine years.  Over the last four years as I have written more steadily on the blog, I have seen a surge in followers which is also linked to the fact that I have also begun to more frequently post links to my posts on Facebook both on my own Facebook page and on several group pages devoted to some aspect of Appalachian Studies.  As the title clearly implies, the main focus of the blog is Appalachia and Appalachian Studies.  But over the last four years, I have also written more and more frequently about American politics.  I suspect that most of my followers are interested primarily in Appalachia and Appalachian Studies.  But I also believe that my political writing has attracted a few of the people over the last four years.  I also realize that some of both groups of followers are not particularly interested in the other aspect of the blog.  I know that some of my followers who are interested in Appalachian Studies might dislike my politics and my political writing.  Tough shit if you are one of those!  With the fate of the country I love lying in the hands of a Russian Owned TRAITOR, you can bet your ass I will continue to write about American politics, and I will continue to push for the indictment, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment of that TRAITOR until the day one of us dies and I sincerely hope it is him because I would love to piss on his grave so long as he dies, as he should, in a federal prison cell after having been held legally responsible for his many crimes against this country, the remainder of the civilized world, and the entire human race.  I also know that an equal percentage of the followers who have joined this blog over the last four years because of my political writing wish I would stop wasting their time with more articles about Appalachia, the place of my birth, my education, my culture, and my life.  Tough shit if you are one of those!  I will never stop writing about Appalachia as long as my mind and my typing fingers work.  And since I follow at least one blog written by a woman who is a quadriplegic who must write with adaptive software using eye blinks, you can bet that I would not quit writing about Appalachia so long as I live.  I do sincerely hope that I can someday devote far less of my writing time to American politics. But that will not happen until we are blessed with an actual legally and duly elected president which I look forward to on January 20, 2021.  I hope all of you join me in supporting that effort to elect a president who has not committed TREASON in order to illegally occupy the White House.  If that happens, I will probably write very little about politics and most of you politically interested followers can smile and go home with peace in your heart which I am certain has been absent every day since January 20, 2017.  I realize that no matter who occupies the White House for the remainder of all our lives that there will be other crises which will crop up.  But you can bet your ass those crises will be much less stressful on us, less dangerous to the country, and far more quickly, ethically, morally, and legally dealt with when we have removed, via a legally conducted election, the current scourge from his TREASONOUS occupation of the White House.  

But I would like to thank each one of you who is actively following this blog for your interest in my work.  I know a few of you personally, some of whom I knew before I started this blog, and several I have come to know because of this blog.  I actually got to come to know one of my literary and Appalachian Studies heroes because of this blog.  I will always treasure the day the great Appalachian scholar Loyal Jones, the founder of the Appalachian Studies Program at Berea College left a message on my phone inviting me to lunch because he had read some of my work based on some of his work.  I also treasure the day Bill Best, another professor emeritus at Berea College and I became friends because we both write about and love Appalachia and despise the current illegal occupant of the White House.  Because of this blog, I have also come to know Frank Barnett and his sister, Mary Marguerite Barnett-Price, who along with me, grew up on the waters of Beaver Creek.  Frank is a noted expert, along with Bill Best, in the field of saving, preserving, and propagating heritage food crops in Appalachia.  They have taught me a lot about the crops my ancestors grew and I am appreciative of them both.  John D. Shelton and I connected because his wife is a descendant of a few of my common ancestors and John also agrees with most of my politics.  Jay Shuck was known to me for several years before I began this blog.  He and I have completed a graduate school program together and worked for the same institution for a few years.  Marie Manilla, a noted Appalachian author whose work I appreciate, decided to join this blog sometime after we were introduced by our friends Edwina Pendarvis and P. J. Laska, both of whom are noted Appalachian poets.  I do not know all of you followers but can rest assured that I appreciate your interest in my work.  If you are remotely interested in Appalachian Fiction, you might consider going to the section at the bottom of the front page of this blog which is labeled "Links To Other Sites About Appalachia" and read one or two of my fiction pieces on various websites around the country.  If you do that, always feel free to send me an e-mail with your honest opinions of that aspect of my writing.  Be honest!  I can take it.  My work has been rejected by experts and yet a few of them have enjoyed it.  

If you choose to continue to read this blog, know that I will always tell you the truth.  I will not lie to you either in print or to your face.  If you want to know my unvarnished opinion of anything or anybody, just ask me.  I will not wait to determine what you believe before I tell you.  I will answer you immediately based on my honest opinion and to the best of my knowledge.  You can take me at my word.  If you ever desire to contact me, feel free either on the comments section of the blog or on one of my listed e-mail addresses.  My telephone has never been unlisted and it will never be.  Call me if you feel the need.  Maybe we can have lunch together some day and actually learn if we like each other.  Once again, Thanks To All Of You who follow this blog.  

Photo of Freeway Carpets Marquee, El Paso, TX, photo by Roger D. Hicks

Governor Andy Beshear, Franklin D. Roosevelt, And The Fireside Chats!

As the Corona Virus disaster has steadily devoured the health and the lives of everyday Americans, I have felt blessed on a daily basis to live in Kentucky where Andy Beshear is our governor and is doing an incredible job of intervening in the crisis on a statewide basis, of remaining calm and thereby keeping Kentuckians calm, and of steadily being a leader of whom we can be proud and in whom we can unflinchingly place our trust. 

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear

Every day at 5pm, Governor Beshear steps up the podium in the press room at the state capitol in Frankfort and begins a daily briefing on the situation with the Corona Virus.  Each of those briefings begins with a postive affirmation: "We Will Get Through This!  We Will Get Through This Together!"  That might sound a bit trite or old fashioned but, By God, it works!  It is a major part of how Governor Beshear joins with the electorate including those who made the near tragic mistake of voting against him when he was running against an opponent who had already proven himself unfit to be elected dogcatcher in a poor, poverty stricken district.  That affirmation is a major influence in a campaign that has made Kentuckians feel respected, protected, and cared for by their governor in a manner that is not the standard artificial pablum we hear from ordinary politicians in America today.

After that affirmation, Governor Beshear will speak for a few minutes about some positive aspects of the battle against the Corona Virus in Kentucky.  He will generally show some combination of well organized, realistic graphs and videos which he explains in a straightforward and honest manner.  He pulls no punches.  He tells no lies.  He never denigrates anyone including those who are making the disaster worse in the country as a whole or in specific jurisdictions. He will almost always repeat the words "In this crisis, there are no Republicans, there are no Democrats".  He will not rise to the bait when reporters ask loaded questions in their attempts to induce him to denigrate others.  He will often speak of his religious faith without making it seem contrived, self serving, or hypocritical.   Yet, while he serves as a deacon in his church and states it openly, I cannot even tell you the name of the church he attends.  He is simply a man of deep religious faith who is not ashamed to speak about it while simultaneously not using it as a rod with which to chastise others.

Governor Beshear will then move on to some positive news about the crisis including a listing of the actions which he and his management team have taken to minimize the crisis in Kentucky.  Then, in the middle of his presentation, he will give a straightforward and honest accounting of the number of new cases of Corona Virus in Kentucky, the total number of cases in the state, any new deaths in the previous 24 hours, and the total number of deaths in the state.  Then he will go over some more brief, positive news before taking questions both from the limited number of reporters in the room and from a selection either e-mailed, telephoned, or placed on social media by the general public.  This method of organizing his press conferences is a classic example of what mental health therapists, and perhaps lawyers such as the governor call "sandwiching" in oral presentations either in the therapy or court room settings.  "Sandwiching" is a technique for placing negative, distasteful, or harmful information in the middle of a presentation preceded and followed by more positive information.  This combination has been steadily proven to be most effective in both mental health therapy and other oral presentations when the presenter is working to lead the recipient to make positive decisions.  It works!  Governor Andy Beshear led all fifty national governors in approval ratings in a recent nationwide poll with an 86% approval rating.  In my opinion, he deserves that much approval and more.  He is doing an excellent job on a daily basis in one of the most destructive times in the history of the nation.


A few days ago, it suddenly occurred to me that the way Governor Beshear is handling the Corona Virus crisis is very similar to the way President Franklin D. Roosevelt handled the Great Depression and World War II.  They both have used truth, (cold hard truth) backed up with facts, constructive actions, intelligent and intelligible plans, compassion, excellent teamwork and team building, and the development of mutual respect with their audiences. The great country music singer Del Reeves and the classic Bluegrass Music singer Del McCoury were both named after Franklin D. Roosevel and so was I.  My middle name is Delano just as are the first names of those two famous musicians.  I have not, and I do not believe they ever have regretted having that unusual name as a part of our own.  In my opinion, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the greatest president in American History, and I have never favorably compared anyone to FDR.  Furthermore, I never thought that I ever would.  But I gladly compare Governor Andy Beshear to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.   He has earned that comparison. 

FDR, Photo by Market Watch

During the Great Depression and World War II, FDR used what became known as Fireside Chats to comfort, console, lead, inform, advise, and solidify the country.  They are the best and most famous use of mass media, especially radio, by a president to achieve success for the nation.  When FDR first began making his Fireside Chats, reporter wrote the words below:

"The president wants to come into your home and sit at your fireside for a little fireside chat,” announced Robert Trout on the airwaves of CBS in March 1933. It was the first of ’President Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous radio talks addressing the problems and successes, of  {the} Great Depression, and later, World War II. President Roosevelt had not originally planned a title for these broadcasts, but the name “Fireside Chat,” coined by CBS station manager Harold Butcher in reference to the president’s conversational speaking style, stuck. Over Franklin D. Roosevelt’s twelve years in office, the Fireside Chats would connect the White House to ordinary American homes as never before. https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-fireside-chats-roosevelts-radio-talks

I have no idea whether Governor Andy Beshear deliberately models his daily press conferences and televised visits with the citizens of Kentucky after the Fireside Chats.  But I suspect he might have.  Whether or not he did, it is a wonderful thing for the state that they turned out that way.  He has progressed from an election which he won by only a little over 5,000 votes over an incredibly stupid,  unethical, and unlikable opponent into the most popular governor in the nation and he has earned every iota of appreciation he receives.  I sincerely hope the entire country survives this crisis and I know that Governor Andy Beshear does also.  I also hope that after he has completed his service of eight years as governor that he is chosen to a higher office such as United States Senator or President.  I cannot think of anyone in the country I would trust more in the White House in this time when we have no one in that building in which to place trust.  

"Voices In The House" by Pearl Buck (John Sedges)--Book Review

This is the second of Pearl S. Buck's five pseudonymous novels which she published under the pen name John Sedges.  This novel is also included in the "American Triptych" edition of three of the John Sedges novels and is best bought that way if you intend to buy and read it.  This is a fascinating novel which is completely uncharacteristic of anything else I have ever read by Buck.  The book is set in Manchester, Vermont, in the home of an attorney and his wife who live in a spacious, multi-wing mansion with three servants.  The novel is a story of several conflicts: the conflict between the classes of the rich and their servants; the conflict between immigrants and natural born citizens; the conflict between the rich and the poor in general; the conflict between attorneys and the criminals they represent; and, most importantly, the conflict between men and women, husbands and wives, about their different expectations, desires, and needs regarding their sexual relationships.  The book is considerably shorter than the first John Sedges novel I read and wrote about on this blog, "The Townsman".  This novel, and the other John Sedges novel I just mentioned are completely different in nature from Buck's better Asian novels such as "The Good Earth Trilogy" and "The Living Reed" which is set in Korea.  But it is well worth reading and its complexity of issues are dealt with really well in the roughly 130 pages which she used to tell the story of the wealthy Asher family and their servants, a mother, daughter, and son-in-law of German immigrants.  

The Asher family is composed of the attorney, William Asher, his wife Elinor, and their three children, two sons and a daughter, along with their spouses and the children of one of the sons.  The servants are composed of Bertha, the German immigrant mother who has been with the family for forty years; her daughter Jessica, who grew up in the Asher home except for the period she spent in a Canadian convent when Bertha shipped her there as a young girl due to conflicts between the two of them which is also a major theme in the novel; and Herbert, who is eventually Jessica's husband and serves as the butler and chauffeur for the family.  Jessica's relationships with everyone in her life are contentious and she lives in a fantasy world in which she is naturally entitled to be a part of the rich family and to live in the palatial house of her own right.  Her conflicts with her mother and the Asher's are rooted in this fantasy.  Her conflict with Herbert is rooted in his belief that he is entitled to "my rights" as a married man to have sex at his whim.  A second cousin of Mrs. Asher, Cousin Emma, is eventually the victim of a horrendous murder by having darning needles driven through her eyes into her brain.  After that disclosure, I don't wish to ruin the book by telling you more.  It is well worth reading.  Try to find a copy of the "American Triptych" edition, which I have been told was originally a book club edition, and read all three of the novels it contains. The "American Triptych" edition can usually be located on the major used book websites at a reasonable price. You will not be disappointed. 

Uncle Tim Hicks And The Paw Paw Trees

Yesterday, while I was mowing my grass, I finally realized for certain that a tree I had left standing for several years on the edge of my lawn is a paw paw.  It is actually blooming with those beautiful rust colored, bell shaped flowers which mean that if I am lucky I will be able to eat paw paws again this fall. 

Uncle Tim & Aunt Ida Hicks

  Instantly, I was reminded of my Uncle Tim Hicks, my father Ballard Hicks' youngest brother.  Uncle Tim lived most of his life in the head of Bear Fork near Mousie, Kentucky, on a small head of the hollow farm.  He made the best "laid hoes" in the area and I would kill to have one of his "laid hoes" in my possession today.  For those of you who don't know what they are, to make a "laid hoe", a blacksmith or welder would take an old garden hoe which had either been broken or worn down beyond usefulness and shape a piece of steel, usually from an old saw blade, and weld it, or "lay" it to the remaining small piece of metal and crook of the worn out hoe.  Tim also loved paw paws with a passion. 

When I was growing up, my parents, Ballard and Mellie Hicks, would sometimes hire a driver on Sunday and take us to the home of some of his siblings for a visit.  Uncle Tim's house was my favorite although I also enjoyed going to my Uncle William and Aunt Liza Hicks', my Uncle Earnest and Aunt Liza Moore's, or my Aunt Ida Hicks Rice's homes but Tim and Aunt Ida's house was my favorite.  Aunt Ida cooked on an old wood burning step stove and her food was awesome.  She could fry chicken and make chicken and dumplings that would melt in your mouth.  Her big fluffy cat head biscuits were also wonderful.  Sometimes, you might see a small black speck of suet in the food but that didn't matter a bit. 

Paw Paws

Uncle Tim was also a rhymer, a writer of rhyming couplets and loved to recite his poems to willing listeners.  I do not have a single preserved copy of his writing and I regret that horribly.  I remember that he wrote one about the Great Society work program known as The Happy Pappy's and I would love to have copies if any of my distant relatives still have copies and would be willing to share them with me.  Uncle Tim was also very funny as was my father and they could have you rolling in the floor when they were together.  They were telling old stories about life in the mountains, riddles, big yarns, and making jokes at each others' expense and it was great stuff for a young boy to see and hear. 

But, getting back to Uncle Tim and paw paws, he loved paw paws so much that when he began to get older he went out and dug up several young paw paw trees from the woods and placed them in a line behind the back fence of his yard. He said that he never wanted to unable to have paw paws to eat.  He even wrapped paw paws in aluminum foil or put them in plastic bags and froze them for the winter.  Early in the day, if he wanted a paw paw, he would take one out of the freezer and let it thaw on the sideboard of the sink so it would be ready for supper. 

Ballard Hicks

Even though I love paw paws, I never really cared for the frozen kind because they were too fragile flesh wise to stand up to the freezing into crystals.  They always went a bit too mushy when they were thawed out.  But is still very pleasant to remember Uncle Tim and how much he loved paw paws just as do I.  It is also very pleasant that I know I can look forward to paw paws in my yard also.  Rest in peace, Uncle Tim.  I hope they have paw paws in Heaven.