(From "Skinning Your Knees on God," manuscript in progress)

I couldn’t move my head. Such a simple thing, moving it to the left or to the right. But I couldn’t, even with the elbow coming straight at my face.

Football practice. High school. A night like a hundred… Read full post »

A nation that continues year after year
to spend more money on military defense
than on programs of social uplift
is approaching spiritual doom.
-MLK

The above quote put me in mind of something that has and will continue to be even more fervently discussed, parsed, debated,… Read full post »

The night was one of those autumn nights that is cool enough for a jacket or sweater, but not so cold as to render a person incapable of walking leisurely home after a football game. There was just that scent of seasons about to change, leaves falling and dry enough to… Read full post »

 

 

 

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

 

Foodie Tuesday: Stephen's Hot Damn Great Southern BLT

 

Some of you know that I grew up in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, which is east of Lexington and right at the edge of the Appalachian Mountains. This sweet little burg was founded in 1792, and was originally called Little… Read full post »

 

I'm Hungry. Care to Join Me for Dinner?

 

I love good food. It not only nourishes and comforts, it tastes good and has qualities of fine art, which I was taught to appreciate at a young age by a mother who cared that her… Read full post »

 

This post is the last in this series of four pieces concerning the Tampa Energy Company, or TECO, as it is better-known. Of course, if and when I have more information, I'll write about it again. I do very much want to thank Rod Emmons, who has been helpful in… Read full post »