1" Snow, Two Puppies and Party Puppets

I've got an inch of snow in the yard. Not all of the last one is gone. There's puppy tracks in the yard, laid there by two little brindle pups wondering aroundin the night.

Tonight's the night, tomorrow is the new beginning. Poor Baby New Year, he goes on over the months and nobody loves him. NPR this morning is talking about the "Decade of Scandal". No one is making a big deal of it, the New Year that is. No one seems excited. It's like everyone is going through the motions. Party Puppets laughing and smiling on cue.

Maybe folks will perk up soon.

Happy New Years!
The Appalachainist

Christmas Music

Before I get going, let me complain about the Government. It's sad. Real sad. It's ridiculous. Senators rushing into Capital Hill, conveniently on the weekend, much as the House did, to pass a so called "health care reform bill", over 2000 pages long...I'm sure they read it carefully...Cutting drug deals for their home states that are practically criminal. You know, if they don't hurry up and pass this thing little obese children are going to starve. In the mean time, we're sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and we don't have a signed Defense Budget yet. The economy sucks. It's going to keep on sucking. Borrowing money from China...Government Motors...It's silly and don't let it ruin your Christmas.

Christmas. The thing I don't like about Christmas, other than the hectic shopping, the tension amongst family, some stressed out woman...How in the hell do you'll live longer?...Is Christmas Music. Jingle Bells...Baghhumbug!

Here is my list of cool Christmas songs. Just three.

Mark Sanford likes this one.
I think Tiger Woods is wishing he got something else for Christmas.

I never knew an Emily. Merry Christmas to who ever she is.

I still think about you...Women always have a way of showing back up on me...Answers that question.

And, what's Christmas without Santa Claus?
I like Bob Dylan, does what he pleases. Wheres a mullet if he feels like it.

But, what I heard this morning, coming from the sleepy mouth of Garrison Keeler, what we should all know best at Christmas was said in this poem by Anne Porter, titled Susanna.

Nobody in the hospital
Could tell the age
Of the old woman who
Was called Susanna

I knew she spoke some English
And that she was an immigrant
Out of a little country
Trampled by armies

Because she had no visitors
I would stop by to see her
But she was always sleeping

All I could do
Was to get out her comb
And carefully untangle
The tangles in her hair

One day I was beside her
When she woke up
Opening small dark eyes
Of a surprising clearness

She looked at me and said
You want to know the truth?
I answered Yes

She said it's something that
My mother told me

There's not a single inch
Of our whole body
That the Lord does not love

She then went back to sleep.

Merry Christmas. The Truth shall set you free...
The Appalachainist

Year Of The red Neck Mama

Just a little Cracker to get your blood pumping, this isn't about Redneck Mamas.

Push Play and go on.


You can say I've had Bloggers Block...Maybe.

Once upon a time I lay nearly on my back between two downed logs covered by some small Hemlocks. I was watching a Wildlife field on the Davidson River in what light was left after work. I heard something rustling next to me. I've learned to be careful, I had a Bobcat come up behind me once. He's in my den mounted on a piece of drift wood now, but, this is not about that Bobcat. It's about a Raccoon, that's what I saw over my shoulder. It was preoccupied with the ground and didn't notice me. I stared wondering if it was going to notice me for a few seconds, which it did. And once it did things quickly got in motion as it screeched a squeaky sound at me. as it was squeaking it propped up on it's hind legs throwing it's hands in the air in what to this day I'm not sure was a gesture of surprise or surrender.It looked like the Hamburgler from the old Hardees commercials, now they have a beautiful woman choking down a burger as if it was the fountain of youth. But, this isn't about Carls Juniours Cuties, it's about a Raccoon, that's what had its hands in the air in astonishment that it had walked on top of a human. Once it got over it's intitial astonishment it scurried a couple of feet grabbing a sapling and swung around it the way that brown haired Girl did that pole years ago at Ft. Benning. It swung around and peeked at me as if it was looking around a corner and let out another screech, leaped from the sapling and ran a few feet, looked back at me and R U N O F T!
I never saw it again...

Then last month I pulled into the Naval Supply Corps School (NSCS Athens), where I happen to be at the moment, and the gate guards pointed across my truck. "You're not going to believe this, but there is a raccoon over there that just beat a cat up over some pizza", she said. I looked over and the thing was defiently standing guard against some shadow over something.

Raccoons, you gotta love them...

Before you ask, yes, it snowed back home. I drove through it on into South Carolina where it was all rain. It fell real quick and got white in a hurry. Tomorrow, I go back to watch it go away...

So, if that was too much for you, this will settle you down.


So, this wasn't about Red Neck Mamas. It was about Raccoons...Bandits of the Forest. But, someones going to be checking the sky at 3AM...

The Appalachianist

Change is Inevitable

What would they think? So much has changed since then. Change is inevitable. Some of it for the better, and some of it for the worse and still, some of it is just change. Not black, not white, just gray. People preach change, and then resist it, others stand back and watch. In the end nothing changes...But change itself. But, what would they think if they could see everything today? Would they be impressed, worry or would they say that not much has really changed? They saw so much in their life times, one born before first flight to see men on the moon and a shuttle in space. Once every road they knew was dirt, Live stock ran free and electricity occurred in town. They knew life when radio was rare and before television made it's way into peoples homes. We say that...Made it's way, but it was invited, not nearly the invasion we make it to be. They saw the Chestnuts die out. They saw the farms, the logging and the pulp mill. They saw allot change. Change is inevitable, some of it for the better and some of it for the worse. What would they think? What would they think of change that changes how we define who we are?

The Appalachianist