The corn don’t grow so good around the edges, so this year, I ain’t planting any edges. Eighty-year-old Connecticut farmer, as reported by Mark Winne, 2008

 

 

Let us suppose, for a moment, that we are apples. Of course, we could just as… Read full post »

Home, Vulnerability, and a Spiritual Journey

Part 1

 

So. I am home now from the hospital, after nearly a month of being confined there after a stroke on May 28. I wrote about that in a blog I posted last week, and which I actually wrote… Read full post »

Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example--
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.

---------“On Living”  Nazim Hikmet, 1948

 

     I wa… Read full post »

When I was married the second time—I know that makes it sound like I am a serial husband, but I have only been married twice (I know I could say “in my last marriage,” but that has no better traction with purists)—my wife and I decided that we needed a bigger… Read full post »

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) defines Appalachian counties and states in socioeconomic terms. In total, there are in Appalachia 420 counties, of which 84 are in the “Economically Distressed” category. These counties have three-year average unemployment rates at least one and a… Read full post »

We are the people of the mountains.

     Though our ways and talking

      may seem strange to you,

      they are our ways, and in that

      we take pride.

 

We are the people of the mountains… Read full post »

Pick a number at random. Any number will do.

So you pick a number, say, 6,487. What do I know?

Well, I can tell you that the number wasn’t chosen at random. It is impossible to choose a number at random, except by a random number generator.… Read full post »

Since this time yesterday, I’ve traveled 3 million miles. So have you, more or less.

I’ve never been in the same place twice. Neither have you. Neither has anyone who’s ever lived.

In nature, there is no status quo.

The Earth we live on rotates on its… Read full post »

Our lives are like quilts - bits and pieces, joy and sorrow, stitched with love.

Anon.

 

Her fingers were stiff with rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatiz, the adults called it back then. I watched her moving the needle in and out of the fabric, like her fingers… Read full post »

His name was William Werdna Hill. Dr. Hill to his students. A slight man with great red hair and a flaming beard, and a delicately waxed handlebar mustache that curled up along his cheeks. As a country boy, I’d never seen the like, and giggled upon entering his classroom for the… Read full post »

The day after Thanksgiving in 1969 was a remarkable day. Star Trek was still an original series then. That summer we had gone to the moon. Richard Nixon was president, and Vietnam was in full swing. I was a senior in high school, trying to figure out where to go to… Read full post »

As some of you are aware, I am presently engaged, among other things, in writing a novel about the consequences and devastation of coal mining in the southern Appalachians. I have known for a long time that fiction is a powerful tool for telling the truth… Read full post »

 

 

To stunt the body and dull the brains of boys in breakers is to rob them of the mental equipment which is essential to enhance their social worth and enable them to adjust themselves to the requirements of modern life. The  Ohio State University Department of History Historical Document &nb… Read full post »

I am going to change things around a bit this morning. I am working on another mining post for tomorrow, for both here and NRDC. Because of that, I have not had the time to do a typical foodie post, and I’m sure that some of you are probably relieved about… Read full post »

I’ve learned some things this week. Aside from the September 11 posts, which were gentle in nature, for the most part, the wild crazy political and religious stuff here on OS and in the media just took my breath away. I have witnessed unimaginable stupidity, classless buffoons in congress, clas… Read full post »

September 11, 2001: A Memory of Muslim Tears

September 11, 2001 was just another ordinary day for me, relatively speaking. I was then living in Istanbul, Turkey, and was an English teacher in a private Turkish high school there. I had finished my classes…

Read full post »

 

Whoever takes the empire and wishes to do anything to it I see will have no respite.
The empire is a sacred vessel and nothing should be done to it.
Whoever does anything to it will ruin it;
whoever lays hold of it will lose it.

Hence some things lead and some follow;
Some breathe gently… Read full post »

Facebook has developed a somewhat odious reputation of late, but for me it’s a good thing. I can keep up with my 82 year old Mom there, one of my sisters, both my daughters, cousins, nieces and nephews, and old friends from my childhood. That is the extent of my participation… Read full post »

 

I have some really great news, and I want to share it with you.

As most of you know, I write often about the real struggles of the people of Southern Appalachia with the way coal mining is practiced there and the absolute destruction of the mountains by the process known… Read full post »

Stephen’s Wet-Your-Knickers Mountain Vinegar Pie

Living, Loving, Fear and Dying

 

Finding My Inner Tree

So.

I've decided to do it. Really do it.

Those of you who know me here know that I write a lot about the plight of Appalachian Mountain people and their ongoing struggle… Read full post »

 

Aunt Wivvie's Cure

   Of a summer, hit gets so hot here in these mountains that birds have to use potholders to get worms outen the ground. That's what I heard tell, anyhow, but I'm a-thinkin' hits a lie-tale. Hain't never seen it myself.

 … Read full post »