Shrinkflation From Zesta Saltines Owned By Kellogs!

 

I was raised with Zesta Saltine Crackers, have eaten them all my life, and we always sold them in our country store when I was growing up.  I had always thought they were the best saltine crackers I had ever eaten and nearly always bought them unless a store I was in had none of that brand.  But this week, I got a serious surprise and another example of what is known as "Shrinkflation" and/or "Skimpflation" since major corporations began cutting back during and after the Covid pandemic on the goods and services they provide.  What happens is that packages get smaller, less comes in a container, prices go up, and the end stage customer is always the one who loses in the long run.  I have previously written about "Skimpflation" and "Shrinkflation" on this blog.  But I got a real surprise this week when I bought Zesta Saltine Crackers which are owned and produced by Kellog's.  

I brought home two boxes of the crackers and opened one last night to have a few as a snack before bedtime.  The boxes are the same size they have always been.  But when I opened the box, I was somewhere between surprised and shocked to see two and one half inches of free space between the ends of the sleeves of crackers and the end of the box.  Yes, I actually got out my tape measure and measured the empty space in the box.  I even opened the second box of crackers today to verify that it was also short on crackers and big on air.  It is!  The company didn't change the size of the box.  They just stopped filling it up to capacity with crackers.  The boxes are 9" x 4" x 4" for a total of 144 cubic inches of crackers.  When you multiply the missing 2 1/2" of free space at the end of 4 sleeves of crackers you find that you are paying for 40 cubic inches of crackers which you are not getting.  You are actually paying for 40 cubic inches of air which you can normally breath for free in most places in the world.  Believe it or not, that is 27.7% of a box of crackers which does not contain any crackers.  

This is, perhaps, the worst example of "Skimpflation" and "Shrinkflation" I have seen since the pandemic began.  It is definitely a shining example of what those two new aspects of corporate greed are all about.  Since the pandemic began, many major store chains, including Kroger, Wal Mart, Dollar General and others have decided to make their customers work for them without pay by installing self checkout lanes, getting rid of many of the employees who needed their  jobs the worst, and making record profits.  Gasoline companies and the store chains which sell their fuel have artificially driven up the price of gasoline products to rates never before seen in America.  And, you can bet your ass, they are already working on other ways to charge you more, give you less, and induce you to work for them for nothing while trying to convince you they are doing you a favor every time they use "Skimpflation" and "Shrinkflation" to steal money out of your pockets.  Anytime you see one of these things happening to you and every other customer in America, make a phone call, send an e-mail, tell your friends, confront corporate greed which is what all of this is about. 

Spot

During a major reorganization of my basement in preparation for the installation of a new heat pump, I discovered a large stash of old writing I had done many years ago, some of it actually from my days as an undergrad at Morehead State University.  Part of it good enough, in my opinion, to be used on this blog and one or two pieces, with some major edits or additional work, could probably be fit to submit to actual literary journals.  This is one of the pieces which I think fits into this blog. It is both about the first good dog I ever had and about my development as a human being. 

 

I always loved my dogs.  My youngest sibling was nearly nine years my elder.  Therefore, I grew up virtually as an only child and found much of my companionship with animals.  When I was about ten, my dog Spot was killed by a car driven by the local barber and magistrate.  Unlike most people who run over dogs, the individual who ran over Spot stopped.  

At the time, my mother and I were the only ones home.  The culprit came into our little country store, for his first visit since his last campaign, to inform me my dog was dead.  I ran to the corner of our property where Spot lay bleeding profusely under an apple tree.  The area surrounding my dog was covered with recently fallen apple blossoms, spattered with coagulating blood.  Even I could not deny that my dog was dying.  

Crying uncontrollably, I ran back to my mother for help.  But even she, who usually solved my problems, could not change the situations.  Before leaving, the man apologized and promised faithfully he would find me another puppy.  For reasons which I still cannot fathom, I chose to believe him.  

In an effort to help me deal with my grief, my mother suggested that we make fudge.  She insisted that I do much of the work.  Somehow during this process, I was able to ignore my pain.  I don't remember the taste of the candy.  But I do remember the experience and the lessons I learned from it.

I never became an inveterate candy maker and the man never returned with another dog.  His memories of the incident were probably short lived; mine are indelible.  I have never forgotten how a child feels when told a lie.  I will always remember the caring way my mother helped me deal with the loss.  On many subsequent occasions, I have been able to emulate her ability to heal.  At every opportunity, I strive to avoid repeating that man's mistake.  Without having known, he taught me a lesson for life.  

I am convinced he could never have made an equal impact on me through conscious effort.  I am equally convinced he would have never made that effort.  Yet he stands in my life as proof of the fact that many of our values are learned through experience not observation.  And many of our best teachers never intended to be.  Finally, after thirty-five  years, I am able to thank him for the experience. 

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

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

 

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

 

Crossing the Bar

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

 

 

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury--Reflections On A Science Fiction Classic

 

When I was in my high school years, I used to read a lot of science fiction, and westerns, at least for a few years, and have read most of the early classics.  For some reason or other, I missed out on "Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury but read and loved his other classic novel, "Fahrenheit 451" which is actually solidly in the field of dystopian literature and less of a pure science fiction novel.  In fact, I had reread "Fahrenheit 451" with my wife in April of 2019 and wrote about it in the post linked above.  At that time, I was reading a lot dystopian literature because of the terrible political disaster which had been unfolding in America since June 16, 2015, and which is still unfolding before our eyes.  But somehow, I never had taken up Bradbury's other classic, "Something Wicked...".  

 

A few weeks ago, I decided to correct that error in my reading and ordered a copy of the 2017 Special Edition whose cover is pictured above.  I am truly glad I did.  I also read this one with my wife in a practice we have carried on for several years now in which I read out loud to her each day as she washes the dishes.  In addition to the original text, this edition of the book also has a roughly 70 page section of "History, Context, and Criticism" at the back of the novel.  It is well worth reading, both for the classic work itself and for the section of "History, Context, and Criticism".  The book apparently took Bradbury several years to bring it to fruition, first as a short story, and then as a novel in which he greatly expanded the text, renamed key characters, merged at least one character into another already in the text, and turned what must have been a pretty nice short story into one of the best known and loved novels in all of science fiction.  The novel does have some detractors who primarily quibble about the style which is unique.  But, in my opinion, that style is one of the best aspects of the book.  Most of the chapters are very short with only a few exceptions, usually in the later sections of the book.  The writing style is very crisp, short sentences, rapid interchanges between characters, and little extraneous narration or description.  But it is a wonderful book.  I do remember in the first few chapters that I also questioned the style but as I began to fully understand what Bradbury was accomplishing with the style I came to love the book.  It is every bit as good as any other classic science fiction or fantasy novel I have ever read.  It is better than most.  In fact, I will go so far as to say this novel is better than many highly praised novels in the greater body of what we sometimes droolingly call "great literature".  

The three protagonists are two twelve year old boys and the father of one of those boys who is 53 or 54 years old and, to his son, seems to be incredibly old and unlikely to be understood.  I laughed when I saw the writing about this age difference in light of the fact that my own father, whom I loved dearly and still do, was 64 when I was born but saw me grown before he died and will always be a major influence on everything I do, or have ever done.  The boys, on a forbidden midnight jaunt in the neighborhood, see a carnival hauled by an ancient train, pull into and set up in a meadow near an abandoned railroad crossing at the edge of their sleepy little Midwestern town.  They become fascinated by the carnival and its owners Cooger and Dark, who are, naturally, the villains in the novel.  As the story progresses, the boys realize that the carnival is evil and on a mission to destroy them and anyone else with whom it comes into contact.  Finally, Will's somewhat aged father, Charles Halloway, joins the boys in their effort to save themselves and the town from the carnival and its evil proprietors.  Two mechanical portions of the carnival also play heavily into the suspense of the story.  The merry go round and the hall of mirrors are tools which the proprietors use to practice their evil on their unsuspecting victims.  Charles Halloway, his son Will, and Wills' best friend Jim learn the truth about the carnival and manage to snatch their collective bacon out of the fire just in time.  Bradbury builds the suspense throughout the novel in a way that is slow, methodical, relentless, and terrifying.  It is a masterful piece of work.  I won't spoil it for you by divulging too much of the plot.  But take my word for it, it is well worth your time and money. 

The Death Of Janet Lee Messersmith & Its Connection To The Ashland Sanitary Milk Company

 

A few days ago, I stopped at a small yard sale one of my neighbors was having and the only thing I found to buy was an antique milk bottle from a company called Ashland Sanitary Milk Company in Ashland, Kentucky.  I had grown up in a country store in Knott County within and hour of Ashland but I had never heard of the company.  I got home and dug into the internet to see what I could learn about the company.  The only thing I could find other than one or two other such bottles which had already been sold on E-bay or Amazon and this story about a judgment from the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1930 which involved the death of a young girl, about 11 years old, named Janet Lee Messersmith.  I read the judgement of the court and I was touched by the story of the needless death of the little girl.  Next I went to the wonderful website Find A Grave, where I regularly do volunteer work and research and quickly found the grave of Janet Lee Messersmith.  But she has no obituary on the website and her memorial there does not list her parents by name.  Oddly, their names are not listed in the judgement of the court of appeals either. I have also been unable to locate an obituary in the newspaper archives of the Big Sandy region. It all makes the kind of interesting story which you find if you do research into the lives and deaths of people who have been long dead.  It is a shame for stories like this one about Janet Lee Messersmith to be lost forever.  Please help me remember it and pass it on into the future. 

The gist of the story told in the Court of Appeals judgment is that Janet Lee Messersmith had gone shopping with her mother who was driving a car and returned to their home on Blackburn Avenue in the city limits of Ashland.  The mother parked the car with "the right wheels of her machine over the curb so as to leave it parked with as little of the machine out in the avenue as possible. According to Mrs. Messersmith, she alighted from the car by the door at her left and stepped into the street, and then assisted her daughter to alight through the same door."  The mother said she started across the street toward the house and her daughter was standing on the sidewalk when the truck struck her.  Oddly, the driver of the truck is named in the court's judgment despite neither parent being named.  Claude Ireson, the driver of the truck, had stated in the courts in Boyd County that "When he got within 10 or 11 feet of where they were, the child darted across the street. Her mother screamed, and he tried to avoid hitting the child by cutting his car to the right, thinking the child would go back. If he had been 6 inches further over he would have missed her. His left front fender struck the child."  Regardless of what the truth was, Janet Lee Messersmith had been killed brutally and suddenly literally in front of her mother.  Elwood Blair, a neighbor, had testifed that he heard the noise of the trucks brakes and went to his window where he saw the truck approaching and he corroborated the mother's testimony that the truck was going about 40 miles an hour which Claude Ireson, the driver, had disputed.  In any case, the Boyd County court rendered a judgment of $15,000 in favor of the family.  The judgment of $15,000 was, in the middle of the Great Depression, a very sizable award in any sort of civil suit regardless of the circumstances.  The Ashland Sanitary Milk Company appealed the ruling of the court to the Kentucky Court of Appeals.  It could be surmised, that even in 1930, the legal fees could have cost the company a large portion of any judgment, $15,000 or otherwise.  Thus the case of Janet Lee Messersmith came before the Kentucky Court of Appeals.  The court ruled in favor of the family due to what it determined to have been two technical errors by the court and upheld the judgment of the Boyd Court.  

But, from my point of view, the story is the real issue of interest.  A little girl, about 11 years old, having what can be assumed to have been a happy day shopping with her mother was suddenly killed in a somewhat unusual way by being hit by a milk truck owned by a company whose products this mother most likely used on a daily  basis.  It is likely that the last glass of milk Janet Lee Messersmith ever drank, probably within a few hours of her death, was sold by the company who truck would kill her later that day. What I would most like to see come of this story is the following: 1) that someone who reads this can tell me who Janet's parents were; 2) that we can find their memorials on Find A Grave and edit all three so her parents are connected to her memorial; and 3) that the name and horrible death of Janet Lee Messersmith will not be forgottn.

 Below, I have cut and pasted the entire judgment of the Court of Appeals.  

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Decided November 18, 1930.

Appeal from Boyd Circuit Court.

R.D. DAVIS and WAUGH HOWERTON for appellant.

GEORGE B. MARTIN and MARTIN SMITH for appellee.

OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUDGE CLAY

Affirming.

On June 29, 1929, Janet Lee Messersmith, a girl about ten and a half years of age, was struck and killed by a Dodge motor delivery truck belonging to the Ashland Sanitary Milk Company, and driven by one of its employees. This action by her administrator to recover damages for her death resulted in a verdict and judgment in his favor for $15,000. The Ashland Sanitary Milk Company appeals.

Janet Lee Messersmitn lived with her parents on the south side of Blackburn avenue in the city of Ashland. Blackburn avenue runs east and west, is a paved street, and is about 20 feet in width from curb to curb. It has no sidewalks, but a level space of about 5 feet has been left on either side for that purpose. The Messersmith lot is 40 feet in width and is higher than Blackburn avenue. The entrance to the house, which is about the center of the lot, is by means of a concrete walk about 5 feet in width. Traveling from the west on Blackburn avenue toward the Messersmith residence there is a descending grade for a considerable distance. The accident happened about 4 o'clock on a bright afternoon. Accompanied by her daughter, Janet Lee, Mrs. Messersmith had driven her Dodge sedan car downtown to do some shopping. On her return she had a lot of groceries and provisions in the machine. On reaching a point in the street opposite her residence, she ran the right wheels of her machine over the curb so as to leave it parked with as little of the machine out in the avenue as possible. According to Mrs. Messersmith, she alighted from the car by the door at her left and stepped into the street, and then assisted her daughter to alight through the same door. She then started across the street. When she got to the middle of the street she saw the truck coming about 200 feet away. She had driven an automobile for nine years, could look at a car and tell at what speed it was going, and she judged that the truck was going between 40 and 45 miles an hour. Her daughter was standing on the sidewalk when she was struck by the truck. At the time she was struck the truck was going pretty fast, but. the driver had his foot on the brake and had probably reduced the speed to some extent. Elwood Blair, a mechanic who worked for the American Rolling Mills, was in bed at the time, and his attention was attracted by the noise of the brakes on the truck. He then went to the window, and in his opinion the truck was running about 40 miles an hour after the brakes had been applied. On the other hand, Claude Ireson, the driver of the truck, testified as follows: He first saw the little Messersmith girl and her mother when about 150 feet away. The mother was standing at the car, seemed to be getting something out of it, and the child was standing just slanting back from the mother. They were both on the north side of the street and on his left. When he saw them he raised his toe off the accelerator. At that time they were making no effort to cross the street. When he got within 10 or 11 feet of where they were, the child darted across the street. Her mother screamed, and he tried to avoid hitting the child by cutting his car to the right, thinking the child would go back. If he had been 6 inches further over he would have missed her. His left front fender struck the child. When within about 30 feet of the child he put his foot on the brakes. At that time he was going between 18 and 20 miles an hour. He did not know that the child was going across the street. At the time of the accident the car was slowed down to about 15 miles an hour. The reason he took his foot off the accelerator about 150 feet back was that he was afraid they might start across the street, and there might be danger of hurting some one. He could see the child and he thought that they would see him. At the time he put on the brakes he was between 10 and 15 feet of where Mrs. Messersmith was standing. Running at 15 miles an hour he could stop within 20 or 25 feet. He cut in toward the telephone pole for the purpose of stopping. His main purpose was not to hit the child. Russell Rose testified as follows: He and some other children were playing in an open field about 100 feet north of the point of accident. When Mrs. Messersmith drove up, she got out, started up the steps, looked back and told Janet to stay there. Janet came right on. He then looked over at the milk truck and it hit her. The front fender struck her first. Janet was in the street and was carrying groceries across the street. The truck ran about 20 feet after it struck her. The witness concluded his direct examination as follows:

"Q. 40. Did you see the little girl get out? A. Yes, Sir.

"Q. 41. Which side did she (decedent) get out? A. She got out on — the opposite side her mother did.

"Q. 42. When the little girl first got out where did she go? A. She went around back of the car.

"Q. 43. Back of their car? A. Yes, Sir.

"Q. 44. After she came around behind the car, how soon was she struck by this car. A. I just don't know how long it was — just."

The first error relied on was the failure of the court to give an offered instruction presenting the sudden appearance doctrine. In this connection it is insisted that appellant was entitled to such instruction not only on the evidence of Ireson, the driver, but on the evidence of witness Russell Rose. Whatever may have been the view of the court in years past, we have been inclined in recent years to confine the sudden appearance, in so far as infants are concerned, to cases where the injured infant leaves the sidewalk or emerges from behind another vehicle or other obstruction, and appears on the highway in the path of the on-coming vehicle so suddenly that the driver thereof in the exercise of ordinary care could not have prevented the collision with the means at hand if he had been running at a reasonable rate of speed. Metts' Adm'r v. Louisville Gas Electric Co., 222 Ky. 551, 1 S.W.2d 985. Whether, in view of the driver's evidence that he saw the child standing by her mother in the street when 150 feet away, we would hold that the sudden appearance instruction should have been given if the witness Rose had actually testified that the child came from behind her mother's machine and rushed suddenly in front of the approaching truck, we need not determine. As a matter of fact, he did not say how long it was after the child came from behind the car before it started across the street. Thus there was no evidence tending to show that she was not standing by her mother in full view of the driver, as he repeatedly testified, when she started across the street. Clearly the circumstances were not such as to call for a sudden appearance instruction. The street was only 20 feet in width. The mother and child were standing in the street on the south side of the car in plain view of the driver of the truck, and only a short distance away from the path of the truck. The situation was such that the child might be expected to move in the pathway of the truck at any time. Notwithstanding this fact, no warning of the approach of the truck was given, and just before the accident the speed of the truck was about 15 miles an hour according to the driver of the truck, and from 40 to 45 miles an hour according to other witnesses. It would be a harsh rule were we to hold, in the face of such clear evidence of negligence, that appellant could escape liability on the theory that the child appeared so suddenly in the pathway of the truck that the driver could not have avoided injuring her if he had been running at a reasonable rate of speed.

Another error relied on is the alleged misconduct of counsel on the voir dire examination of the jurors. The facts disclosed by the bill of exceptions are these: Norman Berry, who was on the list, was asked to state his occupation. He answered that he was in the real estate business. Thereupon counsel for plaintiff inquired of him in the presence of the remaining members of the panel whether he wrote any insurance in connection with the real estate business, and he answered that he did not. John S. Hager, another member of the list, was asked if he had any connection with the Ashland Sanitary Milk Company. He answered that he had no connection with the company other than it was a customer of his, and he bought milk from them. He was then asked by counsel for plaintiff what kind of a customer it was of his, and he answered, "Insurance." Counsel inquired what kind of insurance he wrote for the defendant, and he answered, "Fire, theft and casualty." Thereupon counsel for plaintiff called counsel for defendant, and also the prospective juror, John S. Hager, to the desk of the court, and there privately, and not in a tone to be heard by other jurors, inquired of Hager if he was on this particular risk through any policy of insurance in any of his companies. Thereupon counsel for the defendant moved the court to discharge the entire panel of eighteen because of counsel's reference to insurance in the interrogation of the two jurors, which motion was overruled. In the case where we condemned the practice of interrogating prospective jurors with reference to accident insurance, the jurors were asked whether any of them owned any stock in the insurance company which carried the indemnity policy on defendant's mine, and on objection the attorney for plaintiff stated that he had been informed that the coal company carried insurance in a company that would pay any loss that might result to the defendant on the trial of the case. W. G. Duncan Coal Co. v. Thompson's Adm'r, 157 Ky. 304, 162 S.W. 1139. It will thus be seen that counsel for plaintiff in that case not only brought directly to the attention of the prospective jurors the fact that defendant carried accident insurance and that the loss would fall on someone else, but inquired whether or not any of them owned any stock in the insurance company which carried the indemnity policy on defendant's mine when it was wholly improbable that such was the case, thus evincing a lack of good faith in propounding the question. A different situation is presented in the case under consideration. Naturally counsel for plaintiff would not want on a jury any one who had written indemnity insurance for the defendant, or any other insurance that would place him under obligation to the defendant. As real estate agents generally conduct an insurance business, it was not improper to ask Berry if he wrote insurance, and so far as he was concerned the matter ended with his answer in the negative. As Hager conducted an insurance business in the city where defendant's plant was located, the preliminary questions were not out of place, and as counsel for plaintiff was careful not to ask in the presence of the other jurors whether he carried the particular risk, we see no reason to doubt counsel's good faith in the matter. We therefore hold that the trial court did not err in refusing to discharge the entire panel.

Another contention is that the court erred in admitting the photograph of the deceased. It is insisted that its admission was prejudicial, in that it presented to the jury a very beautiful young girl, and was thus calculated to excite their sympathy and prejudice. It may be conceded that the admission of the photograph without proof of its accuracy by the photographer was technical error, but in view of the fact that the health, strength, mental capacity, and personal appearance of the child were fully discussed and presented to the jury by other witnesses, we are not inclined to hold that the admission of the photograph was prejudicial.

Still another contention is that the court erred in not granting a continuance on account of the absence of the witnesses, Hobart, and Aderine Pope, for whom subpoenas had been issued and returned, "Not executed," with the notation that they had gone to Arizona. In the affidavit it was stated that if the witnesses were present they would testify that they lived on Blackburn avenue across the street from the home of the deceased and within a few yards of the scene of the accident; that at the time of the accident they were playing in a field about 100 feet north of the point of accident where defendant's truck struck deceased, that they heard the brakes of the truck go on and that they looked up immediately and saw the truck, and that it stopped almost immediately after the brakes went on; that it went only a few feet after the brakes were applied; and that the deceased was struck while she was in the street and not on the curb. It was further alleged that defendant had had no opportunity to take the depositions of the witnesses because he did not know that the witnesses had left the jurisdiction of the court; that if the case were continued to the next term of the court defendant could either have them present in court or take their depositions as it desires one or the other to be done. There was the further allegation that the true and proper effect of the testimony of the witnesses could not be had without their personal presence in court. It being alleged in the alternative that defendant could either have the witnesses present at the next term of the court, or take their depositions, it is at once apparent that there is no showing that their actual presence could be had. That being true, the only way to secure their evidence was by deposition. Rarely, if ever, is the evidence of an absent witness taken by deposition as strong as that contained in an affidavit for continuance. In view of these considerations, and of the fact that the affidavit for a continuance was permitted to be read as the depositions of the absent witnesses, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse a sound discretion in refusing the continuance.

Lastly, it is insisted with great earnestness that the verdict is excessive. The case is not to be determined by decisions of the long ago. Within recent years the purchasing power of money has decreased, and the courts are inclined to uphold larger verdicts than they were accustomed to approve years ago. The deceased was sound in health and of fine mental attainments, with all the opportunities that are now open to the members of her sex. In a case of this kind it is the province of the jury to assess the damages, and our duty to give effect to its finding unless we can say the verdict is so excessive as to strike us at first blush as being the result of prejudice or passion. This we cannot do.

Judgment affirmed.

Whole court sitting.

Ashland Sanitary Milk Co. v. Messersmith's Administrator, 236 Ky. 91, (Ky. Ct. App. 1930)

 

 

The Danger Of "Imposter Christianity" In America Today

I received an e-mail this morning with a link from my cousin, more like a brother, Jack Terry which had a link to a news story from CNN on it with the title "An Imposter Christianity" Is Threatening American Democracy".  I opened the link, read about two paragraphs and hit "Reply All" since Jack had also sent the message to some other family members, at least one of which has been a member or a fairly right wing radical church with a twisted interpretation of the Bible.  The message below is what I said to those people including the family member who has been sorely mislead by her church and its minister.

I read the first paragraph of this article and realized I didn’t need to read the rest, not because I don’t agree with what it says but because I knew several years ago what it says and that one of the greatest dangers to democracy in the United States is posed by people who cloak themselves in a distorted, hateful, and evil misrepresentation of what they lie to the world and call Christianity.  These same people supported the TRAITOR Trump, his many co-conspirators who are also running for all levels of offices across the country, and making a well organized attempt to destroy the country under their twisted, criminal, and evil lies which they shield with blatant misrepresentations of the Bible, or at least their selected portions of the Bible.  They are charlatans, criminals, traitors, and enemies of the United States Of America, the US Constitution, and all they represent.  This was already beginning before Putin and Russia stole the US Presidential Election in 2016 in order to install a Russian Owned TRAITOR in the White House.  But Putin and his hackers who managed to steal an 80,000 vote total lead in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania where smart enough to realize they could use TRAITOR Trump to further mislead these pseudo-Christians into helping them destroy America.  Yes, an American election has been stolen, in 2016, not in 2020 when President Biden became the first duly, legally elected President in four years.  Putin stole that election for a TRAITOR he and Russia had owned for at least 40 years.  And today, especially since the TREASON, insurrection, and domestic terrorism of January 6^th, America is facing the greatest threat to Democracy in our history and it is being driven by these TRAITORS who shield themselves behind their blatant misrepresentations of the Bible. 

Let me give you who claim to be Christians a little reading assignment.  Take a Bible, preferably a red letter edition of the King James Bible which has the words attributed to Jesus in red print, and do the following. 

1. Begin in the New Testament with the Gospel attributed to the Apostles of Jesus and read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and Revelation.
2. Every time you come to one of the sections which is attributed to Jesus or one of the Apostles as a direction to their followers, the real Christians, and ask yourself, did TRAITOR Trump ever do that?  The answer will always be NO. 
3. When you get to Revelation and find those areas of the text which are purported to be the signs of the coming of the Anti-Christ, read it carefully and ask yourself could that apply to the TRIATOR Trump.  The answer will always be YES. 
4. When you have figured this out and realized I am correct, if you still believe you are a Christian or want to be a Christian, take yourself as far away from these charlatans as possible, find a church which does not support TRAITOR Trump and his many co-conspirators and does not engage in politics, and firmly supports the Separation Of Church And State and follow what the Bible actually says.
5. If you ever falter in doing that and need a refresher course in what I have just told you, go to the link below and read it again and doe exactly what it says. 

 

http://myappalachianlife.blogspot.com/2020/09/a-reading-assignment-for-self-professed.html

 

Roger

I'd like to invite all of my readers to do the same thing.