John Hartford
Something was needed to listen to, while downloading pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. (where today’s images come from) This is how things work. The tv set has not been turned on since the super bowl. Entertainment is what you make it.
The ear candy for that afternoon was a broadcast with John Hartford. That’s him in the embedded video. He is singing about vinyl records, and one of the problems they face. Vinyl is supposedly making a comeback. It was always high maintenance. This is not the case with John Hartford, who was a treasure of American music. In 1967, Glen Campbell had a summer replacement series in the Smothers Brothers time spot. During the intro, Mr. Campbell would be in the audience, singing “Gentle on my mind”. John Hartford would stand up, and start playing his banjo. Mr. Hartford wrote the song.
The show Mr. Hartford was on is Wired For Books. The appearance was promoting a book, Steamboat in a Cornfield. A boat got caught in a flood, and wound up in a cornfield. It became a tourist attraction. In addition to picking and grinning, Mr. Hartford liked to pilot river boats. Yes, there is a reason for the past tense. John Hartford went to that bluegrass festival in the sky on June 4, 2001.
PG saw John Hartford one night. It was a saturday night without much happening, and PG walked over to the Great Southeast Music Hall. It was after the formal show was over. John Hartford was playing with Lester Flatt and Benny Martin. Six weeks later, Lester Flatt died.
Blue Tail Fly
Q: What does “Jimmy crack corn” mean, and why does he not care?—Matt, Columbus, Ohio
PG was trolling “stupidquestion.net” when there was a convergence of stupidity. (The site does not exist in 2012.) All his life he had heard “Blue Tail Fly”, and been embarrassed. And there, in (pardon the expression) black and white, was someone who wondered the same thing.
It seems as though “Blue Tail Fly” started out as a minstrel song. For those who don’t know, minstrel shows were white people putting on black makeup, and imitating African Americans. Minstrelsy is not well thought of these days.
The story of BTF involves a slave named Jim. A fly bit the pony the old massa was riding, the pony was offended, and threw the old massa off. He was hurt landing, and died. Jim still has to crack corn, but he doesn’t care anymore, because old massa has gone away.
Dave Barry took a poll once to find out the stupidest song of all time. The overwhelming winner/loser was “MacArthur Park”. The combination of over the top show stopping, while singing about a cake left out in the rain, makes this ditty a duh classic.
In the spirit of corny convergence, the video is a karaoke version featuring Donna Summer . Miss Summer is a talented singer, who happened to connect with Giorgio Moroder. There are lots of singers who would have hit the big time if they had fronted those records, but Donna Summer hit the jackpot.
For a proper post, there needs to be a third stupid song. This is not about stupid bands, singing about being D U M B. Even though they totally don’t belong, there is a video of the Ramones included. PG saw the Ramones at the Agora Ballroom in 1983. This was after their prime, and before a homeless man caught the Ballroom on fire.
We still need a third stupid song, and PG wants to get this posted with as little research as possible. Just like some writer was once given twenty minutes to write a song, and he decided to do the worst song he could think of. The result was “Wild Thing”. PG used to have a 45 of someone who sounded like Bobby Kennedy singing “Wild Thing”.
This is a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. This was downtown Atlanta in 1941.
The Rainbow Flag
On June 19, artist Gilbert Baker, who created the rainbow flag in 1978, shared his memories of that period and the flag’s creation in a discussion at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco with longtime activist and friend, Cleve Jones. The rainbow flag is so iconic, so ubiquitous, so universally recognized, that there is a habitual tendency to think that it has always flown to represent queer Pride. Yet it is not so: it was created and consciously adopted in the streets of San Francisco, when activists spoke of gay liberation rather than LGBT acceptance in the after-fires of the political fires of the late 1970s. And no, it wasn’t created because we’re all friends of Dorothy.
“1977 — that was a pivotal year,” Baker said. “That was the year of Anita Bryant. That was he year Harvey (Milk) was elected. That was the year we became galvanized.” It was also the year after the American Bicentennial Celebration, a period that Baker said made him more flag conscious as he cranked out hundreds of banners and signs for the endless parades that activists were busily organizing. “I thought, You know, we ought to have a flag,’” Baker said. “A flag is something you can’t disarm. What makes a flag a flag is that people own it. It connects to their souls. It belongs to them.” Baker said he did not want to work with the symbols of oppression that had been adopted in the early victim politics. “The Lambda was a little obscure,” he said, “and the triangles were given to us by the Nazis.”
He began researching rainbows and their uses in the Bible, in Native cultures and in the psychedelic hippy peace and freedom culture of the Sixties. “It represents all the colors, all the genders, all the humanity,” Baker said. “I wanted to expand on the use of visual images that would not depend on language.” Baker said the first two flags were made using all-natural materials and dyes in the fashion of the day. But the colors ran when they got wet. In addition, the flag started off with eight colors, not the six it has now, and each color stood for something different: pink (sex), red (life), orange (healing), yellow (sun), green (nature), turquoise (magic), blue (serenity) and lavender (spirit). “Eight is a very magical number,” said Baker. “It’s symmetrical, and allowed me to split them into hot and cold colors. It gave me a way to incorporate pink. Of course, it was a fuchsia hot pink. And it allowed me to bring in turquoise, connecting to Native island cultures.” But, in the long run, the eight color flag was too complicated and costly to reproduce in the pre-digital age of four-color printing. So he dropped pink and turquoise. “I felt strange because I was giving up sex and magic,” Baker said with a laugh.
Jones said there was a lot of community conversation at the time about the need for a unifying symbol. “When that went up the flag pole, all conversation on it stopped,” Jones said. “Everybody just embraced it.” It seemed, Baker and Jones said, that just about everyone wanted the gay flags except the flag industry: world of flag-makers and vexilographers. “It took about 10 years,” Baker said, recounting how he cut his hair and dressed in business attire in order to try to fit in at the flag industry conventions. “They pretty much decide on what a flag is. They would not even entertain a motion that there even was such a thing as a gay flag. A lot of good old boy flag companies down in Texas didn’t want to know anything about a gay flag.” But when one took a chance and made 5,000 little flags for Baker, they sold out in two hours. Game over, battle won. Now they are everywhere, and the rainbow is incorporated in knick-knacks and collectibles. Jones teased Baker about not having patented the symbol. “How do you feel when you see all this rainbow crap and you don’t stand to make a penny off it?” Jones asked. “It’s not about money,” Baker teased back. “It’s about power.”
There have been some iconic world record moments for the flag since then, such as the Stonewall 25 flag in New York City in 1994, and the sea-to-sea rainbow flag in Key West in 2003 on the 25th anniversary of the flag. And there have been the grim reminders of why the flag was needed, as when a parade of the flag in a celebration in Stockholm drew 300,000 spectators, and then was disrupted when gangs of young neo-Nazis grabbed and brutally beat some of the spectators. “It blew my mind,” Baker said. “There is this resistance that comes to us in the form of violence. We’re lucky to be in America. I think about those gay people in China who can’t come out making those rainbow tchotchkes and they can never come out. Or Uganda: there wasn’t any ’Will and Grace’ in Uganda. Our liberation is an ongoing struggle. It was before us and it will be in the generations after us. It’s more than the colors we can see: It’s the colors that we can’t see, the thing that go past our own lives.”
The text for this feature is borrowed from Creator of Rainbow Flag Shares His Memories of the Movement. Pictures are from The Library of Congress This is a repost. Out in the bay has a wonderful radio interview with Gilbert Baker.
Founding Babydaddies
People often try to justify their opinions by saying that the “founding fathers” agree with them. They often are guilty of selective use of history. A good place to start would be to define what we mean by the phrase founding fathers.
The FF word was not used before 1916. A senator from Ohio named Warren Harding used the phrase in the keynote address of the 1916 Republican convention. Mr. Harding was elected President in 1920, and is regarded as perhaps the most corrupt man to ever hold the office.
There are two groups of men who could be considered the founding fathers. (The fathers part is correct. Both groups are 100% white male.) The Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, which cut the ties to England. Eleven years later, the Constitutional Convention wrote the Constitution that governs America today. While the Continental Congress was braver, the Constitution is the document that tells our government how to function. For the purposes of this feature, the men of the Constitutional Convention are the founding fathers.
Before moving on, we should remember eight men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and later attended the Constitutional Convention. Both documents were signed by George Clymer, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, George Read, Roger Sherman, and James Wilson. George Wythe left the Convention without signing the new document. Elbridge Gerry (the namesake of gerrymandering) refused to sign the Constitution because it did not have a Bill of Rights.
The original topic of this discussion was about whether the founding fathers owned slaves. Many people wonder about this. If you go to google, and type in “did the founding fathers”, the first four answers are owned slaves, believed in G-d, have a death wish, and smoke weed.
The answer, to the obvious question, is an obvious answer. Yes, many of the founding fathers owned slaves. A name by name rundown of the 39 signatories of the Constitution was not done for this blogpost. There is this revealing comment at wiki answers about the prevalence of slave ownership. “John Adams, his second cousin Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine were the only men who are traditionally known as founding fathers who did not own slaves.
Benjamin Franklin was indeed a founder of the Abolitionist Society, but he owned two slaves, named King and George. Franklin’s newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette routinely ran ads for sale or purchase of slaves.
Patrick Henry is another founding father who owned slaves, although his speeches would make one think otherwise. Despite his “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech, he had up to 70 slaves at a time. He did apologize from time to time. He knew it was wrong, he was accountable to his God, and bemoaned the “general inconvenience of living without them.”
Patrick Henry was a star of the Revolution, but not present at the Constitutional Convention. The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, was in Europe during the convention. Mr. Jefferson not only owned slaves, he took one to be his mistress, and kidsmama.
One of the more controversial features of the Constitution is the 3/5 rule. Here are the original words “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.” In other words, a slave was only considered to be 60% of a person.
That seems rather harsh. The truth is, it was a compromise. The agricultural southern states did not want to give up their slaves. The northern states did not want to give up Congressional representation. This was the first of many compromises made about slavery, ending with the War between the States. This webpage goes into more detail about the nature of slavery.
The research for this feature turned up a rather cynical document called The myth of the “Founding Fathers” . It is written by Adolph Nixon. He asks : “most rational persons realize that such political mythology is sheer nonsense, but it begs the question, who were the Founding Fathers and what makes them so great that they’re wiser than you are?”
Mr. Nixon reviews the 39 white men who signed the Constitution. He does not follow the rule, if you can’t say anything nice about someone, then don’t say anything at all. Of the 39, 12 were specified as slave owners, with many tagged as “slave breeders”.
The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, have served America well. However it was intended, it was written so that it could be amended, and to grow with the young republic. It has on occasion been ignored (when was the last time Congress declared war?). However fine a document it is, it was created by men. These were men of their time, who could not have foreseen the changes that America has gone through. Those who talk the most about the founding fathers know the least about them.
A big thank you goes to wikipedia This is a repost.
Patriotism For Skeptics
This is a double repost from July 2008. It was repeated in 2012. They were originally posted in a red, white, and blue font. This is one mistake which will not be repeated, at least not today.
Both features are on the theme of patriotism for skeptics. America has given me a good life, and I appreciate this. The problem is crooks and liars who make patriotic noise while robbing you blind. They think that waving the flag will distract you from their thievery, and often they are right.
These features were originally posted sixty months ago. A few things have happened in that time. The economy has gone from bad to horrific. Lots of carbon dioxide has been pumped into the atmosphere, which may not affect us for a while, but probably will. The Gulf of Mexico has been poisoned. Israel killed women and children in Gaza, and is threatening to do the same in Iran. Meanwhile, Iran had a crooked election, and the people fought back. This is similar to what is going on in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Syria.
The US dollar, with all its problems, is still the preferred currency of the world. There was speculation a while back that the Euro would replace the dollar in this role. The Euro is in worse shape than the dollar these days. All is not hopeless.
The U S of A elected a dark skinned man POTUS. Many said that race relations would be different, but that has not worked out very well. The combat troops were withdrawn from Iraq, but Babylon is still in a world of hurt. The new POTUS discovered the wonders of robomurder eight time zones away, and has wasted many women and children. Nuclear armed Pakistan gets more edgy every day. Maybe the best thing to do is live in the past, and enjoy some repeat posts. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These images are Union Soldiers from the War Between The States.
The following is a repost . It was originally published in a red, white, and blue font. As a service to the readers, today’s posting will be in green. Yellowdoggrannie is going strong, and has not forgiven W.
I read an item at yellowdoggrannie’s place this morning. It was a link to a video about the writing of the Star Spangled Banner. (The link does not work anymore. The video is probably available somewhere.) YDG said it made her cry. It set off my BS detector. I am not a history buff. I do know that the War of 1812 was not the most glorious part of American History.
In 1812, Napoleon was on a rampage, but about to screw up. He invaded Russia on June 24, just six days after the U.S. Congress gave approval to “Mr. Madison’s War”. According to St. Wikipedia, the declaration passed by the smallest margin of any war declaration in American History.
The War was caused by several things. The British were “impressing” sailors for duty in their Navy. Among the deserters and British subjects were some Americans. The British were supporting the Native Americans who were fighting the white man. There was also some talk (in Washington) about annexing territory in Canada, either to keep, or to use as a bargaining chip with the British.
On the East side of the Atlantic, England had a change of government at this time, towards a regime that wanted peace with America. This being the early nineteenth century, word of this development did not make it to America in time to stop the War.
The War went on for a couple of years. It distracted the British from fighting Napoleon, and was a strain on the young American republic. In the Summer of 1814, negotiations were underway to end the conflict. The British launched a few military campaigns to put pressure on the U.S.A. Washington D.C. was captured and burned. The next move was the capture of Baltimore.
This is where the video begins its tale. Where the video said hundreds of British ships, Wikipedia says 19. An attorney, Francis Scott Key, was negotiating the release of an American POW. He secured his release, but they could not leave until the bombardment of Fort McHenry was complete.Here is an account of the story:At Fort McHenry, some 1,000 soldiers under the command of Major George Armistead awaited the British naval bombardment…. The attack began in the evening of September 13, as the British fleet of some nineteen ships began pounding the fort with Congreve rockets (from rocket vessel HMS Erebus) and mortar shells (from bomb vessels HMS Terror, HMS Volcano, HMS Meteor, HMS Devastation, and HMS Aetna). After an initial exchange of fire, the British fleet withdrew to just beyond the range of Fort McHenry’s cannons and continued to bombard the American redoubts for the next 25 hours.Although 1,500 to 1,800 cannonballs were launched at the fort, damage was minimal.
After nightfall, Cochrane ordered a landing to be made by medium boats to the shore just west of the fort, away from the harbor opening on which the fort’s defense was concentrated….Operating in darkness and in foul weather, the diversionary attack failed. On the morning of September 14, the 30 ft (9.1 m) × 42 ft oversized American flag, which had been made a few months before by local flagmaker Mary Pickersgill and her 13 year old daughter, flew over Fort McHenry, and Cochrane and Brooke knew that victory had eluded them
Mr. Key saw the flag the next day. He wrote a poem to the tune of a British drinking song, “To Anacreon in Heaven”. The song was made the National Anthem in 1931, and has been (badly) sung ever since. Two extra words, “Play Ball”, were added later.
On September 24, the Treaty of Ghent ended the conflict. The verdict was “status quo ante bellum”. In other words, nothing was changed by the death of those men. The war was, in effect, over when the Battle of Baltimore was fought. The word of the treaty did not reach America for a few weeks. (The Battle of New Orleans was fought after the end of the War.)
The video said the Flag at Fort McHenry was held up through the night by men, many of whom died. This might be true. It is also true that the negotiations were about to yield fruit. It would take a few weeks for word of the Battle of Baltimore to reach Europe, at which point the War was already over. Status Quo Ante Bellum.
Patriotism is one of the games that almost everyone plays. The rules seem to vary.
In 1967, JSM was flying planes in Nam, I was in the eighth grade, and BHO was in the first grade. He was in Hawaii, which might have been where JSM went for R&R if Hanoi did not have other ideas. America was about to hit a turning point about the Vietnam War. At first people were supportive, albeit without much enthusiasm. Opposition started to arise, and was frequently confused with treason. As the war dragged on, the homefront began to see things differently.
To this reporter, many of the patriots of 1967 were the ones who opposed the war. The conflict in Indochina was to cause many problems for the United States. Eventually, Richard Nixon got a fig leaf treaty that he called Peace with Honor. The early opposition was heard, but not after losing more than fifty eight thousand fine men.
That is the first way to be a patriot…to keep an eye on the government, and speak out in opposition when it is needed. Another way is to keep the United States strong and healthy. One way to do this is work hard and pay taxes. Now, the conservative windbags whine loudly about paying taxes. They want to pay for the current war by cutting taxes to make the economy grow. If we had no taxes at all the economy would grow even more.
The war in Babylon was an experiment in war without sacrifice. There was a tax cut when it was apparent we were planning an invasion. The national debt has gone out of control, and the federal reserve bank has cut the interest rates. The result is that the dollar is not worth as much as it once was. The oil market is based on the dollar. Oil is just as valuable as ever. The dollar is not, and it takes more dollars to buy a barrel of oil. This is an important factor in the rise of gas prices.
The way to keep America strong is to follow the three basic rules of the workplace: show up, stay awake, don’t kill anyone The citizens of the United States are a remarkable group of people. One way to be a patriot is to show respect for these people, and for yourself.
Another way to help America is to quit consuming so much. If we drove smarter, we would not need as much gasoline. We would not be so big if we didn’t eat as much. Maybe you can put a sweater on in the winter instead of turning up the thermostat. We are heading in this direction, but have a way to go.
Much of what you hear and read is not true. The so called conservatives are just as guilty as the so called mainstream media. Think for yourself. The freedom to think is a part of America that you are sometimes discouraged from exercising, but it is important.
This is a dangerous world, and we have a military to keep them away from our borders. We are also involved in a tough war of our own choosing. It is to be hoped that our next President will find an acceptable conclusion to this conflict.
Meanwhile, this is the fourth of july. It is a day to enjoy the good life we have here. America is a fine country. It has given me a good life. While I am not blind to the problems, there is no where else I would rather be. 2013 UPDATE The economy is marginally better today, although many people have not benefited. The American troops are out of Iraq, and that country is having problems. BHO was reelected in 2012, despite the best efforts of the Republican party. Race relations in America are no better, and in some ways worse. Some things have changed, some remain the same.
How Am I Doing Mama?
November 17, 1963, Liza Minnelli was on “The Judy Garland Show”. The former Frances Gumm was looking rusty from years of hard living. Five days later, President Kennedy made a trip to Dallas. Six years later, Judy Garland left the building. Liza Minelli is still with us, fifty years later. She has been every bit as wild as her mother, but lived to see another day. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
The Last Night Of Judy Garland
In march of 1969, Judy married her fifth husband, Mickey Devinko, better known as Mickey Deans, a gay night-club promoter. Judy had an unfortunate habit of marrying gay men. They lived together in a tiny mews house in Chelsea, London. The evening of Saturday June 21 1969, Judy and Mickey were watching a documentary, The Royal Family, on television, when they had an argument. Judy ran out the door screaming into the street, waking the neighbors.
Several versions of what happened next exist, but the fact remains that a phone call for Judy woke him at 10:40 the next morning, and she was not sleeping in the bed. He searched for her, only to find the bathroom door locked. After no response, he climbed outside to the bathroom window and entered to find Judy, sitting on the toilet. Rigor Mortis had set in. Judy Garland was dead at the age of 47.
The press was already aware of the news before the body could be removed. In an effort to prevent pictures being taken of the corpse, she was apparently draped over someone’s arm like a folded coat, covered with a blanket, and removed from the house with the photographers left none the wiser.
The day Judy died there was a tornado in Kansas…. in Saline County,KS, a rather large F3 tornado (injuring 60, but causing no deaths) did hit at 10:40 pm on June 21st, that would be 4:40 am, June 22nd, London time, the morning she died. I know the time of death has never been firmly established, but since Rigor Mortis had already set in, I think this tornado may very much be in the ballpark in terms of coinciding with time of death…. Other news articles suggest the tornado struck Salina “late at night” which could certainly also mean after midnight on June 22, or roughly 6:00 am London time.
The Toledo Blade for June 24th, also in an article located right next to a picture of Garland, in a write-up on the Salina tornado noted that “Late Saturday [June 21] and early Sunday [June 22, another batch of tornadoes struck in central Kansas.” So it seems the legend seems confirmed.
The text for this story comes from Findadeath. You can spend hours at this site. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
101 Ways To Say Death Part Two
In 2008, a blogger started a series, 101 Ways to Say “Died”. It focused on epitaphs from New England cemeteries. Most of the headstones used were carved before 1825. The series has gone past 101, and is up to 118 now. If you look at the site, you see links to the individual parts. That is the number before the epitaph. Some have been skipped. The VPI site has photographs of many of the headstones used here. HT to Twenty Two Words. Pictures by Chamblee54. Part one has been published.
31 Martha H. Locke Passed to the Summer Land Sept. 13, 1817 Et. 31 yrs —- is no death[?]
32By the Church of Christ in Chelmsford. In Testimony of their Esteem and Veneration this sepulchral Stone was erected, to stand as a sacred Memorial of their late worthy Pastor, the Reverend Ebenezer Bridge, who after having officiated among them, in the Service of the Sanctuary, for more than a year above half a Century, the Strength of Nature being exhausted sunk under the Burden of Age, and joined the Congregation of the Dead, Oct. 1 1792. Age, 78 yrs.
33In Memory of HULDAH Wife of STEPHEN TILTON, who exchanged Worlds, Augst 29th 1793; in the 26th year of her age. Also MARY, her Infant, who died Sept. 14th 1793, aged 8 Months. Ye Angels guard this sleeping Clay, Till comes the great decisive day; When in their SAVIOUR’S Image drest, They’ll wake to be completely blest.
34 Here darkness dwells — Fit contemplation for proud human thought. Under this mournful Stone lie the remains of ANNA, Wife of TIMOTHY PALMER who changed this mortal life for that of immortality on the 21st of JULY AD 1786. In the 32d Year of her age. O the soft commerce! O the tender ties, Close twisted with the Fibres of the Heart! Which broken, break them; and drain off the soul Of human joy; and make it pain to live — And is it then to live? When such Friends part, Tis the Survivor dies — my Heart! no more!
35 Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. MERCY TAPPAN the mournfull but resign’d relict of Mr. RICHARD TAPPAN who sleeps in dust beside her to Religion she was an ornament to the neglect of it a Reproof. After a long confinement by a languishing disease which yet could never draw her to a discontented moan nor quench the ardor of incessant prayer, Her SAVIOUR whisper’d rise and come away and at the welcome sound her longing spirit sprung with joyfull assurance from the eager arms of lov’d and loving friends to the far more lov’d and loving arms of her LORD On the 17th of May 1790 AEt 80.
38SACRED to the Memory of Mr. Ralph Cross Who served God & the Presbyterian Church as a ruling Eder in this town more than XI years being a faithfull reprover of vice both in public and private Finish’d a Life of Examplary Piety in a well Grounded hope of eternal glory Janr. the 4th 1788 in the 82nd year of his Age.
39 Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. MARY McHARD the virtuous & amiable Consort of CAPt. WILLIAM McHARD of NewburyPort who amidst the laudable exertions of a very useful & desireable Life in which her Christian Profession was well adorned and a fair copy of every social vir- tue displayed was in a state of health suddenly summoned to the Skies and snatched from ye eager embraces of her friends (and the throbbing hearts of her disconso- late family confessed their fairest prospects of sublunary bliss were in one moment dashed) by swal- lowing a pea at her own table, whence in a few hours she sweetly breathed her Soul away into her SAVIOUR’S arms on the 8th day of March A.D. 1780 AEtatis 47.
41 Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. Ann Cumings Consort of the Revd. Henry Cumings Who quitted this Stage of Mortality and passed into the world of Spirits Jan 5, 1784 in ye 45th Year of her Age supported by lively Hopes of ent’ring into the Joys of her Lord. My flesh shall slumber in the ground Til the last trumpet’s joyful sound, Then burst the grave, with sweet surprize, And in my Saviour’s image rise. Cease then my friends to mourn, Bid earth adieu, Loosen from hence the grasp of fond desire, Weigh anchor and some happier clime explore.
42 Here lie interred Mrs. Lydia Beadle Age 32 Years Ansell Lothrop Elizabeth Lydia & Mary Beadle her Children: the eldest aged 11 and the youngest 6 years Who on the morning of the 11th day of Decr AD 1782 Fell by the hands of William Beadle an infatuated Man who closed the horrid sacrifice of his Wife & Children with his own destruction. Pale round their grassy tombs bedew’s with tears, Flit the thin forms of sorrow and of fears; Soft sighs responsive swell to plaintive chords, And Indignations half unsheath their swords.
43 In Memory of MARGARETT CUMINGS Consort to the Revd. HENRY CUMINGS who expired in the faith of Christ June 2d. 1790 In the 54th Year Of Her age This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.
44 Here lies the Body of the amiable ELIZABETH Wife of Mr. STEPHEN PAINE and Daughter of NATHL. FEALS Esq. of Bristol who ended all her Cares in quiet Death January 17th A.D. 1777 In the 23d. Year of her Age.
45 In Memory of Miss AMEY SESSIONS, the amiable daughter of the Hon. Darius Sessions & Sarah his wife; who though suddenly called, met her dissolution with great composure, yeilding up her spirit into the hands of her Creator in full confidence of His power and mercy, on the 22d. day of Oct. 1829, in the 60th year of her age.
46 In this Silent Mansion are deposited the Remains of JEREMIAH KNOWLES Youngest Son of Edward and Molly Knowles, who clos’d this Earthly scene on the 22 of Jany, 1810, in the 35th Year of his Age. Such was the Virtuous Life, of this beloved Youth, that his final hour sweet peace and Heavenly hope, Devinely beam’d on his Exalted Soul. Could greatful love recall the fleeting breath, Or fond affection sooth relentless Death, Then had this stone never Claimed a tear, Nor read to thoughtless man a lesson here.
48 Here lies ye Body of Sarah Antram, Daughter of Major Thomas Fenner & Wife of William Antram; by whom he had 7 Children 4 of which surviv’d her, & rise up & bless her Memory. Proverbs, Chap. 31, Verse 23 28. She was a Careful Loving Mother; A Desirable Neighbour; And a Prudent Wife. She rested from ye Pains & Sorrows of this Life April 17th 1736, in ye 39th Year of her Age. He hath destroyed me on every side, & I am gone: & mine Hope hath he removed like a Tree. Job Chap 19, Verse 10.
49 IN MEMORY of Silvanus Son of Stephen Hopkins Esqr & Sarah his Wife, Was Cast away on Cape Breton Shore & inhumanly Murdered by Cruel Savages on the 23 of April 1753. aged 18 Years 5 Months and 23 Days. Think not by this, My Grave is Shown Hard Fate Decreed, I should have none.
50 Here lies Interred the Body of SAMUEL PACKARD Junr. Son of Capt. Samuel Packard, and Abigail his Wife: Suddenly snatch’d by the hand of his Heavenly Parent, from the evil of this transitory life, He on Feby. 25th A.D. 1799 entered the regions of immortal felicity, Aged 1 Year, 5 Months & 17 Days. Beneath a sleeping Infant lies, To earth his body’s lent; More glorious he’ll hereafter be, Though not more innocent. When the Arch-angel’s trumpet shall blow And souls to bodies Join, Millions will wish their lives below Had been as short as thine.
51 ALLEN WARDWELL son of Mr. Peleg Pitman & Mary his wife; who lost his life by a fall from a tree April 13th 1799, in the 11th Year of his age.
While on the tree The summons came And call’d me to my GOD.
52 In Memory of Mr. Obediah Brown Junr. who fell bravely fighting for the Liberties of his Country on Rhode-Island, Aug. 29th, 1778 in the 26th Year of his Age.
53 Sacred To the memory of Mr. SANDArS PITMAN Goldsmith, who finished a long and useful life on the 15th day of August, AD 1804 in the 74th year of his age. His works were useful standard weight & pure, But still his virtues were applauded more.
54 In Memory of Mr. EDWARD Son of Mr. EDWARD and Mrs. ELIZABETH ALLEN who by Missfortune was shot by a Negroe Soldier April the 10th 1781 in the 23d Year of his Age.
The Death Of Jimi Hendrix
The current episode of WTF podcast features Marshall Crenshaw, who is a Jimi Hendrix fan. He discusses reports that Mr. Hendrix was murdered by Michael Jeffrey, his manager.
“The rock legend Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager, who stood to collect millions of dollars on the star’s life insurance policy, a former roadie has claimed in a new book. James “Tappy” Wright says that Hendrix’s manager, Michael Jeffrey, drunkenly confessed to killing him by stuffing pills into his mouth and washing them down with several bottles of red wine because he feared Hendrix intended to dump him for a new manager, according to a report in the Mail on Sunday. In his book, Rock Roadie, Mr Wright says Jeffrey told him in 1971 that Hendrix had been “worth more to him dead than alive” as he had taken out a life insurance policy on the musician worth $2m (about £1.2m at the time), with himself as the beneficiary. Two years later, Jeffrey was killed in a plane crash.
These rumors have been around for years. Whenever someone famous dies under mysterious circumstances, people wonder why. If you google the phrase “was Jimi Hendrix…” the suggested searches are left handed, a hippie, black, and murdered.
Mr. Wright’s story is denied by Bob Levine, the United States manager of Mr. Hendrix. He says Mr. Wright waited until 2009 to tell this tale, and he did it to increase book sales. Mr. Levine is legally blind after suffering a stroke. There seems to be a bit of conflict between Bob Levine and Tappy Wright.
“The Orlando-based Wright says the ex-manager (Levine) “wanted me to baby-sit him” because Levine’s alienated his family and staff. “Levine used to say, ‘If you don’t come through, I’m going to slag your book,'” claims Wright, who adds that he has a “signed and notarized” statement from Levine saying that “it’s about time somebody wrote the truth about Jimi’s death. He also did a video interview.” Levine denies Wright’s claims. Levine says he is legally blind from his stroke but has “people taking care of me.” Levine adds that he didn’t discuss Hendrix’s death in the video and has no recollection of signing the notarized statement. Asked why he chose to speak out about the book now, Levine says: “Tappy dared me. He said, ‘There’s no one left to challenge me.'” Adds Wright, “I’m just correcting the story.”
There is a story from an physician who was at the hospital when Jimi Hendrix was brought in.
“John Bannister the on-call registrar at the now closed St Mary Abbots Hospital in Kensington, said in an interview that the patient seemed to have “drowned” in a large amount of red wine.” The last paragraph of the Telegraph story is an amusing post script. “Bannister now lives in Sydney and worked as a doctor until 1992 when he was deregistered for fraudulent conduct.”
Everyone in this story is either dead or sketchy. Michael Jeffrey seems to have been a nasty piece of work. He was a former intelligence agent for Britain’s MI6 agency. There are reports of stolen money, numbered bank accounts, and gangster business tactics. Reportedly, Mr. Hendrix was busy getting new management. The last paragraph of the blog critics story is perhaps the most intriguing.
“Michael Jeffery reportedly perished in a plane crash over France in 1973. But his remains were never found. Eric Burdon, Noel Redding, and others believe he may have checked luggage but slipped away during the boarding process. Jeffery was due in London court the very next day to defend himself in several huge lawsuits relating to his embezzlement, money laundering, and fraud.”
Luther C. McKinnon
Luther Campbell McKinnon Sr. was born February 22, 1916, on a farm in Rowland, North Carolina. Europe was stuck in a war that would change the world, and not until The United States got involved. This didn’t happen for another year.
Luke was the youngest of four children. After life as a farm boy, he went to Wake Forest University, and then came back when his Daddy died. He ran a family dairy for a few years, and went to live in New Jersey. He lived near a prison, and saw the lights dim when the electric chair was used.
In the early fifties, he came to Atlanta to live. This was where his sister Sarah stayed, with her husband and two daughters. One day he went into the C&S bank on 10th street, and took notice of one of the tellers. On October 6, 1951, he married her. Jean Dunaway was his devoted wife for the rest of his life.
At some point in this era he started selling shoes. He would go to warehouses, gas stations, and wherever barefoot men needed shoes. He was “The Shoe Man” .
Before long there were two boys, and he bought a house, then another. The second house is the current residence of my brother and myself, and is probably worth 15 times what he paid for it. He had the good fortune to not buy in an area that was “blockbusted”, as many neighborhoods were.
And this was his life. He tended a garden, went to the gym, and was in the Lions Club for many years. When he met Mom, she let him know that going to church with her was part of the deal. They found a church that was good for their needs, and made many friends there. The Pastor at Briarcliff Baptist, Glen Waldrop, was his friend.
When I think of the character of this man, there is one night, which stands out. My brother was away at the time. The day before, Mom had discovered she had a detached retina, and was in the hospital awaiting surgery. Her job had arranged a “leaf tour” by train in North Georgia, and she got one of her friends at work to take me. There was some mechanical trouble on the train, and it did not get back into town until 3am Monday morning. And yet, Daddy stayed at home, did not panic, and had faith that all of us would be back soon, which we were.
Through all the struggles of his life, Dad was cheerful, laughed a lot, and was good company. He left me with a rich repertoire of country sayings, and had many stories to tell. He was surprising mellow about black people, if a bit old fashioned. (In the south when I grew up, this was highly unusual).
Dad was always in good, vigorous health, and I thought he would be with us for a long time. Well, that is not how things work. A cancer developed in his liver, and spread to his lungs (he did not smoke). After a mercifully brief illness, we lost him on February 7, 1992. This is a repost.
The Eleven Rules
You have probably heard about “The speech Bill Gates gave at a High School”. PG saw an image on facebook, and the BS detector went off. When did he make the speech? What high school, in what location? Was this the same speech we heard about a few years ago, when Microsoft was being sued for antitrust violations? Are these questions fair? Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!
These days, the answer is easy to find. Snopes is a friend of Mr. Google. The authoritative word is “misappropriated”. Bill Gates did not make a speech to a high school. Nor did Kurt Vonnegut. The eleven rules came from a newspaper column written by Charles J. Sykes. The column was published in the San Diego Union Tribune on September 19, 1996. The fourteen rules in that column were taken from a book, 50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education.
“Charles J. Sykes is senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and a talk show host at WTMJ radio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.” “The Institute is guided by a belief that competitive free markets, limited government, private initiative, and personal responsibility are essential to our democratic way of life.” Mr. Sykes is probably not a liberal.
The eleven rules have been floating from one email address to another since the Clinton administration. Ann Landers has printed them several times. They have been the rest of the story for Paul Harvey. “The prize for misattribution, however, has to go to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, which published the list twice in the space of three weeks in mid-2000, the first time crediting it to “Duluth state Rep. Brooks Coleman of Duluth,” and the second time to Bill Gates.” The footnotes say “Brack, Elliott. “Legislator Offers Teens No-Nonsense Advice.” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 14 June 2000 (p. J3).” and ” “Advice from the Experts.” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 2 July 2000 (p. R1).”
The book has fifty rules. The column has fourteen. These are the three rules left out of the emails.
Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you’re out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That’s what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for “expressing yourself” with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.
Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven’t seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.
Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school’s a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now.
Maybe someone should take a critical look at these rules. If you get tired, and think this is negative, then you are free to skip ahead and look at the pictures, from The Library of Congress. The LOC is part of the big government in Washington. It is an very valuable resource. 
Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase “It’s not fair” 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever.
No argument here. This is a catch 22 whenever you find a contradiction in the rest of the rules.
Rule No. 2: The real world won’t care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it’s not fair. (See Rule No. 1)
If you start to feel good about yourself, don’t worry. Between the church, radio talk shows, and back stabbing co workers, someone is sure to bring you down.
Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won’t make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label.
Conservative rules for living do not age well. Today, everybody eating solid food has a cell phone.
Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait ’til you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he’s not going to ask you how you feel about it.
This is the rule that set off the BS detector. In the “real world”, it is not what you produce that counts. It is how well you kiss ass. If the boss is impressed by you, you can screw up from now until bankruptcy. Ditto if you are a minority, and the company is recovering from a lawsuit. LINF
Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.
Your grandparents had a different word for your dark skinned co worker.
Rule No. 6: It’s not your parents’ fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of “It’s my life,” and “You’re not the boss of me,” and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it’s on your dime. Don’t whine about it, or you’ll sound like a baby boomer.
Fifty years ago, the parents of baby boomers said things like this. The younger generation is always going to hell, and somehow they manage to get it together. The baby boomers are the generation who was ordered to go to Vietnam and kill Asians. They said “hell no we won’t go”.
Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.
Your parents got to be boring by listening to motivational speeches.
Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn’t. In some schools, they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone’s feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rules 1, 2 and 4.)
Teachers have a tough job. They are an easy target for criticism. Some of this whining is fair, even if life isn’t. Mr. Sykes has written several books lambasting the education system. There is a saying, those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Maybe this could be amended to say: those who can’t teach, whine about education.
Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don’t get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we’re at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)
If you are the buddy of management, you sometimes take the afternoon off to play golf with a client. You go to conventions, while someone else works to produce. LINF
Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.
Life is not a motivational speech. Those after dinner platitudes are entertaining, and make you feel good about yourself. They have little to do with real life.
Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.
One more time, LINF. Regarding Rule No. 14:, this sounds like privilege speaking. If parents are human, they are possibly doing some very dirty things to their kids. This includes abusive religion, alcoholism, drug abuse, and conservative politics. The other kids can be pretty rough. Your preacher says you are going to hell. Since the real world does not care about your self esteem, you may be tempted to end your life. A smarmy list of rules is probably not going to help. This is a repost.
101 Ways To Say Death Part One
In 2008, a blogger started a series, 101 Ways to Say “Died”. It focused on epitaphs from New England cemeteries. Most of the headstones used were carved before 1825. The series has gone past 101, and is up to 118 now. If you look at the site, you see links to the individual parts. That is the number before the epitaph. Some have been skipped. The VPI site has photographs of many of the headstones used here. HT to Twenty Two Words. Pictures by Chamblee54.
4 HERE LYES BURIED ye BODY OF THAT FAITHFULL SERUANT OF JESUS CHRIST ye REUEREND MR MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH PASTOUR OF ye CHURCH OF CHRIST AT MAULDEN YEARS WHO FINNISHED HIS WORK AND ENTRED APON AN ETERNAL SABBATH OF REST ON ye LORDS DAY, IUNE ye 10th 1705 IN ye 74th YEAR OF HIS AGE HERE LIES INTERD IN SILENT GRAUE BELOW MAULDENS PHYSICIAN FOR SOUL AND BODY TWO
5 Here rest The remains of Samuel Kelton who in the midst of his usefulness and activity with the fairest hopes & most sanguine prospects fell a victim to an untimely disease on the 31 of July 1805 AEt. 40
7 Erected In Memory of CAPT. THOMAS STETSON who was killed by the fall of a tree Nov. 28, 1820, AEt. 68. Nearly 30 years he was master of a vessel and left that employment at the age of 48 for the less hazardous one of cultivating his farm. Reader, remember that man is never secure from the arrest of Death. “Watch ye therefore for the son of man cometh in an hour when ye look not for him.”
8 NANCY. left us Feb. 19, 1858, I am happy.
12 HERE LYES THE BODY OF DEACON JOHN STONE WHOSE LIFE WAS MUCH DESIRED & WHOSE DEATH IS MUCH LAMENTED AGED ABOUT 55 YEARS HE WENT REJOYCING OUT OF THIS WORLD IN- TO THE OTHER THE 26 DAY OF MARCH 1691
13 MARTHA JUE WIFE TO MIELES JUE AGED 77 YRS DYED IN Ye FAITH IN PATIENCE MEEK LOUING SUBMITING HER SELF TO Ye WILL OF GOD
IN LIFE OR DEATH Ye 15 OF SEPTEMBER 1683
14 In Memory of PETER COOLLIDGE Son of Mr. DAVID & Mrs. DOROTHY COOLLIDG who fell asleep Oct. 30th 1784 in ye 15th Year of his Age.
Within this Grave here one doth lie who saw God’s glory & did die.
15 Sacred to the MEMORY of Mr. William Goger who changed a fleeting World for an immortal rest the __ of March A.D. 1771 In the 33d Year of his Age.
16 In MEMORY of the well beloved Mr. Richard Lyman who after he had served God & his generation many years in this Life by the will of God fell asleep in the Cradle of Death on the 3d day of June AD 1746 in the 67th year of his age.
17 Here lies ye Body of that Graciou [sic] Saint of Christ Mrs. Elizebth Huntington Wife to Capt. Thomas Huntington Esqr. & after She had liued Apios life fell Aslep in jesus Decembr 29 1729 Ageed 59 yr
18 In Memory of a Daughter (of the Rev. Mr. John Payson and Mrs. Anna his wife,)
who was still born Augt. 16th 1775.
19 HERE LIES THE BODY OF THEODORE PARSONS AN INFANT SON OF THEOPHILUS PARSONS, ESQR. AND MRS. ELISABETH PARSONS. HE ENTERED THE THEATRE OF LIFE AUGUST XIITH MDCCLXXXVI, AND INNOCENTLY RETIRED FROM IT FEBRUARY XVIII MDCCLXXXVII.
20 HERE LYES INTERRED ye BODY OF JOHN SON TO JOHN & MARY EMERSON MINISTER OF ye GOSPEL AT PORTSMOUTH AGED ABOUT 2 MONTHS WHO EXPIRED JAN ye 7TH 1713 Psalm ye 90: vrs ye 6th In the morning it flourisheth & groweth up in the evenig it is cut down & withereth.
21 Sacred to the memory of CAPT. JOSEPH MELCHER youngest son of MR. JOSEPH & MRS MARY MELCHER of Brunswick who perished in a storm Nov. 7th 1802 on Ipswich Bar In the 21st year of his age. Amidst the raging billows drove, My life to save in vain I strove; And soon my strength began to flee, I perish’d in the Cruel sea. My weeping friends, your silence keep, When to my Grave you come to weep; Prepare to follow me you must And mingle with your native dust.
22 In Memory of MRS. MEHETABEL TREADWELL, the amiable consort & for a few fleeting years the kind & prudent partner the pleasing & consoling companion of the HON. JOHN TREADWELL ESQr. she departed from this in hope of a better life July 2, 1786 AEt. 44 The fashion of this world passeth away. Set your affections on things above not on things on the earth.
23 Sacred To the memory of DANIEL PUTNAM TYLER Son of DANIEL TYLER Junr, And MEHITABEL his wife Who having gone thro’ His Collegiate Studies And qualify’d himself For the Profession of the LAW on the 18th of Janr, AD. 1798 Was summon’d to appear Before his JUDGE AEtatis 21 In life’s and nature’s freshest bloom Death came remorseless on and sunk him in the tomb.
24 In Memory of 2 Infants, sons of Mr. Daniel & Mrs. Lydia C—— they was born March 17th 1791 one liv’d about 2 hours the other about 24 Sleep on my babes and take your rest,
God call’d you home he saw it best.
25 OMINEM crede Diem tibi diluxisse supremum Sacred to the Memory of the pious Mrs. ANNA BARNARD The worthy & examplary Consort of the late Venerable REVERAND JOHN BARNARD, Who for many years was the faithful Pastor of the first Church of Christ, in Marblehead. In all the Virtues of a Life of Faith and Holiness, She shone below, respected and belov’d; Until matur’d for higher Spheres. She set to Earth, rever’d & lamented; But rose upon the Horizon of perfect endless day on the 24th of August 1774: AEt. 78. The holy Triumph of her soul, Did Death itself out-brave. Left dull mortality behind And flew beyond the Grave.
28 Mr. JASON RUSSELL was barbarously murdered in his own House by GAGES bloody Troops on ye 19 of April 1775 AEtats. 59. His body is quietly resting in this Grave with Eleven of our friends who in Like manner with many others were cruelly Slain on that fatal day. Blessed are ye dead who die in ye Lord. ~ ~ Here lies ye Body of the Widow LYDIA DYAR of BOSTON; the Place of her Nativity where She left a good Estate & came into ye Country May 22d. 1775 to escape ye abuce of ye Ministerial Troops sent by GEORGE ye 3d to subject North-America to Slavery. She died July 28th 1776, Aged 80 Years. The sweet Remembrance of the Just shall flourish when they Sleep in dust. ~ ~ Here lies the Body of Mrs. REBECCA WHITE Widow of Mr. ISAAC WHITE late of Boston. When the British Troops took possession of the Town of Boston, she went to her Son JOHN WHITE Esq. of Charlestown and continued in his Family ’til She died at Billerica, Sept. 13th 1782 Aged 94 Years. ~ ~ Here lies buried the Body of Miss Faith Durant Who was driven by the hand of tyranny from BOSTON the place of her Nativity She departed this life Octr. 7th Anno 1775 Aged 56 Years.
30 In memory of CHARLES A. FROST. son of Jonathan & Sibil Frost
who was killed by a waggon Sept. 11, 1837
Chamblee54 
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