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Wed 04/28/2010 13:24 Audrey Madyun
Hi Eb! Neat! Your photo of the yucca flower inspired a meditation on how nature teaches a nurturer. It's amazing how spring turns one's thought structure around. After lunch today — just about an hour ago — I sat in my car outside of the office here, enjoying the feel of the sun on my skin, listening to a singer doing her interpretation of Billie Holiday songs, and watching two robins perched on the car next to mine. Despite the noise of my car as I drove up and parked, the robins were too intent on their mission to move. As I sat listening to music and watching the robins for ten or more minutes, I surmised they were staking out their territory. With his magnificent orange-kissed chest, the male was pecking like mad at the image of himself in the side-view mirror on the car. The female was perched on top of the mirror, chirping "instructions" while remaining very intent on his progress. I thought the poor male, whom I dubbed "Papa," would break his beak. He went from every angle he could at the image he believed to be a predator, even running his beak around the perimeter of the mirror! Occasionally Mama, in her brownish gray attire, jumped off her perch to rub beaks with Papa. She, too, began attacking the image of herself. So passionate was her attack that she fell off the side of the car several times and was saved only by being able to fly before she hit the ground. They duplicated this dance again and again, although I could see they were tiring. "Dumb birds," I thought. "Now I know where the term 'bird-brain' comes from." Then, in a flash, I realized they weren’t dumb at all. I generally park my car near our shipping warehouse, which has all kinds of nooks and crannies. These birds were probably building a nest and wanted to make the safest environment for their young. Despite the noise of my car, the fork-lift motors, and voices of the guys nearby sneaking a cigarette break, they were determined to defend their place on God's Earth for themselves and their future. These two robins were like most of us two-legged animals in that they were trying to make our Earth a happier home for kith and kin. When I got out of my car, they flew to higher ground, but watched me as I slowly walked into the building. I bet they are still there now. I don't remember the singer's name. I don't remember the particular Billie Holiday songs that were playing on the radio. But I do hope I will remember this scene and the valuable lessons I gleaned from these two determined birds — even the most difficult and formidable obstacles can be attacked and eventually overcome by working together for a greater cause. And I hope to remember that everyone, even a tiny bird, has a lesson to teach if one only listens. Audrey Madyun
 
Fri 3/12/2010 06:49 Jimmy Peacock
Joe: I visited the site and read about your friend and his visit to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, to learn more about Edgar Cayce. It so happens that back in 1993 I copyedited a 415-page history of parapsychology titled The Roots of Consciousness. It was written by Jeffrey Mishlove, who held a PhD in this field, and was an update of an earlier version from 1975. I found it fascinating and felt that the author was not only presenting the history of all aspects of paranormal activities, movements, and practitioners (including Edgar Cayce), but was also providing a scientific analysis of them — in essence debunking many if not all of them. A table of contents of the book can be found at: http://www.williamjames.com/Intro/CONTENTS.htm Jimmy Peacock, Copyeditor
J I M M Y ' S P O S T S C R I P T : They look for character, not charisma, fruit not gifts. Like God, they search for truth in the inward parts, because they know that it is truth — and not money, power, fame, or success — that sets men free. If you are dishonest, stay away from a copyeditor, because he will see through you like a piece of wet toilet paper and will be on your case like ugly on an ape. If you don’t want to hear the truth, then don’t ask a copyeditor because he is going to tell it like it is even if he knows it will harelip both you and him. But if you are honest, if you have no ulterior motives or hidden agendas, if you really want to know the truth so you can face it and do it, then you have nothing to fear from the copyeditor, because to him integrity is the ultimate virtue — and either you have it or you don’t. It’s just that simple. 
Fri 03/05/2010 08:13 Pat O'Brien
Hello Eb, I like the wasp nest on the door. Keeps a person aware of their journey from one world to the other. The photo of the Gem is interesting. Looks like someone spent a lot of time and energy to get the façade looking good. Funny to see it tacked onto a pre-fab structure. What do they call those things that look like a tube cut in half? They remind me of the barracks that Gomer stayed in on the Gomer Pyle show. Your stories remind me of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Visiting places, trying to make connections and draw some meaning and understanding out of it. Keep up the good work. Your kindred spirit, Pat O'Brien E D I T O R ' S N O T E : The Gem looks like a modified Quonset Hut. The U.S. Navy built about 150,000 of them in World War II. After the war was over, the surplus huts were sold for a thousand dollars each. You see them everywhere. The one in the photo looks like it has been covered with some sort of exterior plaster. 
Tue 01/26/2010 10:42 Karen Steele
Ebenezer, I had to reply after reading about the three puppies. We lost our dog of nine years the week before Christmas. Her name was Jane and looked very similar to Isis. Miss her terribly. On January 6th my youngest son and daughter ventured to the animal shelter. We spotted a very shy little border collie that someone had thrown over the shelter fence. We decided she would be the perfect puppy. We were able to pick her up January 12th and as of today, her shyness is long gone. What a handful. We miss Jane but have welcomed Lexi. Thank you for the newsletter. Enjoyed the story. Karen
Tue 01/05/2010 08:40 Cindy Williams
Hi Eb, Taking pictures is one of those things I really love to do, but I don’t have the time to spend trying to get better — it’s just fun. Anyway, these are some of my favorites because there are stories in the imagery . . . . but I guess if one really looks, he can find a story somewhere in the veins of just about any picture. Since I have no experience, what kind of pictures make cool pictures? I have plans for most of these; so, you’ve inspired me to share. I love to take close-up pictures of flowers, too. Odd, but they make great décor. The black and white is my four sons. This was un-posed, unplanned; same with my little grandkids. I really liked the story about Pomona. Thanks for sharing and for letting me share. Cindy
P.S. Yes, life is good! 
Brother's Guiding Hand 
Christmas Flower 
'Making Chicken' 
Sons and Brothers 
Sat 10/10/2009 10:34 Jeremiah Estes
Dear Ebenezer, Thanks for the post about the fat tax. I agree that such a "tax" should be viewed as an assault on what few liberties we have left. It’s a poor politician’s short-term solution to long-term problems that aren't being addressed. Everyone is looking for any dime they can dig up in this latest economic downturn to help ease the contraction pains of a bloated society. With this particular approach, they bring to the spotlight an issue, obesity, that most of us understand to be a real dilemma, but they approach the issue as all good capitalists do — with the pocketbook in mind. I believe something needs to be done about obesity in this country. It’s rare when I look to the government as the entity to best "do" anything, but in this case there are steps it could take. How about health classes in school that teach children about industrial farming practices and the suspect quality of food they provide? What about a 30-35 hour work week so people actually have time to cook dinner? What about preventative health care to catch obesity in the youth? What about tax incentives for buying local foods? Oh, wait we couldn't have that. It would hurt shipping revenues, tire makers, gas pumpers .... THE ECONOMY? Heavens, what was I thinking. But wait, maybe that’s what we need: an even worse economy, so that people simply can't afford enough food to become obese. Problem solved. What I'm really trying to get at here is that we can't expect great ideas to come from government, politicians, aristocrats. Just to be a member of one of the aforementioned classes, one is often little more than a servant to one corporate lobbyist after another. Thus, any "great ideas" they put forth will be marred with the earmarks of wealth redistribution and protection of the stock holder. Great ideas must come from the people, the private sector, the not-for-profit. Great ideas must be pressed for, hollered for, cried for, and at times bled for, so that the populace as a whole can hear the call to righteousness, a call that rises above American Idol and Monday Night Football. It’s a call that inspires people to spring into action. Only then, when people act, will the government be receptive to doing what is good for all. Jeremiah
 Sat 07/18/2009 22:25 Ted Mead
In my declining few years (nay, months) I too become fascinated with the complexity of life. I can sit on the back porch and gaze at trees in the sunlight doing what I, a fairly competent chemist, could never dream of doing — synthesizing carbohydrates from two of the most stable and unreactive compounds in the environment, carbon dioxide and water. That, I can assure you, is going way, way uphill thermodynamically. It seems that if energy, like sunlight, impinges on inert matter, organization of that matter to some higher form often obtains. Kind of the reverse of the revered second law of thermodynamics. I think this impinges on the second super ultimate question*: how did life originate? We know it started about four billion years ago, not long after the earth cooled and solidified. The British WWI poet Wilfred Owens alludes to this in his short poem “Futility,” which I commend to the attention of all. While I reflect on this, I note a tiny, tiny critter, about the size of a dot a well-sharpened pencil might make, scurrying across the back of my hand on an errand of some urgency. I know there are zillions of microscopic creatures, but this chap is on the very edge of the macroscopic. A perfect entity which, I presume, eats, eliminates, copulates and perhaps dreams. He certainly has purpose, else why the mad rush between my thumb and forefinger? There are more things between heaven and earth, Ebenezer, than are** dreamt of in your philosophies. *The first super ultimate is, “Why is there something rather than nothing?" **My spell check insists this “are” should be an “is.” The help that you get these days. Ted Mead
 Fri 06/19/2009 09:51 Jim Foster
Dear Joseph, This week's photo struck a familiar nerve. My paternal grandfather and members of our family lived in a similar structure back before I was a tricycle motor and even up through my early teen years. It was located in Utica, Mississippi, which is located a short distance south of Jackson, the state capitol. To get there took an eternity of winding gravel roads, especially to a small boy crammed into a back seat with four siblings. What you called shotgun entrance, we knew it as a "dogtrot" house. The family sleeping quarters were on the right and the living area on the left where the parlor was. The kitchen was at the back left of the house where my aunt, who died last week at 96, cooked all the family meals on a wood-burning stove, a big cast-iron job that she harnessed and from which she wrangled some of the best biscuits ever — not to mention mounds of fresh game, chicken, stews and vegetables cooked to perfection in bacon fat. It was on my grampa's lap I first tasted fried squirrel. He tempted me with a fried squirrel eye so the story goes, and I eagerly popped the little orb into my mouth to gales of family laughter — slightly tinged, I suspect, with a sadistic hint.... Of course, grampa and my father tried to teach me me to swim by throwing me into the creek, where I proceeded to do a better job of swallowing mud than anything else. The dogtrot served its purpose not just for dogs; it also was a convenient and protected spot to store watermelons out of the sun before they were delivered to grocery stores in Jackson. My grampa and uncle were "truck" farmers, specializing in watermelons, peanuts, and corn. They dabbled in cotton, too, but apparently not that much in acreage or enthusiasm. A note on watermelons stacked in the dogtrot: There may be no more comfortable pallet for a small boy's nap than to scale a melon mountain cooled by the shade and wedge himself into a crevice. The house was without electricity until the late 50s and also was without indoor plumbing. Grampa would warn us kids not to take the path to the outhouse in the morning until he checked it for snakes. And, I still remember the coal oil lamps in the parlor, which were rarely used since most of the conversations took place along the dining bench or sitting on the front porch. Evening conversations commenced right after supper and lasted until the mosquitoes drove everyone inside to bed. On the downside of the dogtrot, it was the cause of my grandmother's death. Because grampa put foodstuffs within the dogtrot, it became a rare attraction for black bears that roamed that area back then. So grampa kept a shotgun underneath the bed just in case a bear came calling. One morning after grampa and the boys had gone to the fields, my grandma was changing the linens on the bed when she accidentally tripped over the shotgun. It discharged and ended her life. My father was 17. Until the day he died, grampa never forgave himself for grandma's death and took to drink to ease his remorse, the first one of the Foster boys to succumb to that tactic, I'm told, but certainly not the last. My dad was forced to quit school when grandma died to prevent grampa from taking his own life, so deep was his grief. When my aunt and her husband moved back to the home place, my father departed the dogtrot in Utica for the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) camp in Vicksburg, where he would one day spy the lovely young woman that would become his wife and my mother. Jim Foster
 Sun, 26 Apr 2009 John Matviko
Christian, Thanks for the kind comments about PCA/ACA — as a long-time member I'm always excited to hear from those who have discovered us. I signed up for your newsletter. I am in my 40th year of teaching, and your website reminded me of my early days of teaching high school English. In particular, it reminded me of the early seventies when I used Phil Ochs (a sixties folksinger/protest rocker) in my 10th grade English class. I used his musical versions of Noyes "The Highwayman" and Poe's "The Bells." Not coincidentally, my second paper at PCA in 1989 was an analysis of Ochs and the '68 March on Washington. John Matviko
  Mon 02/09/2009 16:55 Tony Foster
Not too far southwest of our beloved Western Yell County High School in the beautiful Ouachita Mountains is a locally famous swimming hole called Kirkwood. I’m sure some wise old soul knows the origin of the name of the place . . . but I confess I am not that aged. This punch-bowl pool is fed by a cool, clean mountain creek that often slows to a trickle in the drier months. Sadly, the area is often littered with bottles, cans, and the occasional discarded refrigerator. Littering ticks me off to the highest of ticktivity. When the water is right, not too soon after a rain, nor too long since, there flows a wonderful waterfall down along a large boulder into the cool blue-green pool of Kirkwood. A lovely sight, a delightful sound indeed. This, however, is not the only wonder of this little creek. Not more than a quarter mile upstream is another pool near equal to Kirkwood and churned by its own stair-step waterfall. But wait, wait — there’s more. Take another little hike upstream from the second hole and you will come upon a third pool with an eight-foot waterfall pouring over a thin ledge with steep rock cliffs rising on both sides. I absolutely love taking the drive up to these waterfalls. Not only for the serenity of the place, but also for my familial connection to the area. The Fosters came to Yell County in the 1840s and set down roots in the area southwest of Havana in the 1850s. The drive south on Walnut Grove Road takes me past the farm where I grew up and spent countless hours roaming around and helping to raise the crops. Further along the road in a southwesterly direction I pass the Foster Homestead where my granddad, and his dad, raised their families. It just feels like home — and I feel like I’m here to stay. A little about the photos: The shots of “Upper Kirkwood” and “Upper-er Kirkwood” were taken on a partly cloudy January day with ISO 100, a polarizing filter, and the highest f-stop my lens would allow — around f32 or higher. The shot of the waterfall at Kirkwood was taken the night before at just before midnight by the light of a nearly full moon. No flash. No artificial light. It is a 3-minute exposure with f1.7 on an old 50 mm manual focus lens. All three shots were taken on a Pentax K20.    Thu 01/29/2009 14:50 Vicki Souza
Once upon a boring morning, while I studied, yawning, poring
Ah vaguely I can distinguish, it was in fourth-hour English
And the thoughts of Little Debbies, Nutter Butters, and pink Zingers
Presently, though, my mind remembered that somewhere, sometime
Deep into the drawer staring, long I sat there, cursing, swearing,
“Lord, I really need a cupcake, or a couple of those no-bakes
“You say you’re on a diet, eating foods you claim are light,
And the Monster, talons clawing, still is gnawing, Still is gnawing  Tue 01/27/2009 10:05 Michael Schaefer
I found your essay more than readable, Eb; I found it multilayered, carefully modulated — in short, controlled without being rigid, a nice play on the issues of control and free will it addresses. As we both sit under the lowering gloom of ice storm and financial meltdown, I suppose the need of relinquishing control of all the things that lie beyond our individual wills weighs strongly on our minds. I very much like your point about the link between leisure — true leisure, to think and create — and austerity; you and I are both very much in accord with Mr. Thoreau on that one, I think. With regard to our new president, unlike you, I wasn't sure we'd ever elect a man of color in my lifetime (kudos to you for your certainty in that respect), but I'm hopeful — hopeful that a thoughtful and principled pragmatism will now supplant an ignorant and destructive ideological rigidity. . . . . I try, with varying degrees of success, to keep uppermost in mind through all my endeavors — teaching, writing, working with the guitar, and generally living — the wise words of Mr. Nabokov: In art as in science there is no delight without the detail, and it is on detail that I have tried to fix the reader’s attention. Let me repeat that unless these are thoroughly understood and remembered, all ‘general ideas’ (so easily acquired, so profitably resold) must necessarily remain but worn passports allowing their bearers shortcuts from one area of ignorance to another. All good things to you, Mike
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CornDancer.com is the personal website of Dr. Freddie A. Bowles and Ebenezer Baldwin Bowles.
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