The Sting

One sunny afternoon last week I sent my two children out on the back deck to play with their toys for a little while while I washed dishes and watched them from the window. It was one of those rare moments when my eight-year-old daughter and four-year-old son were both playing nicely, and I enjoyed watching them. Every now and then they had to run down and grab a toy that had fallen through the rails of the deck. I was scrubbing a pot when I heard a horrendous scream, followed by my daughter yelling, "Daddy!"

Well, I just knew my daughter had done something mean and my son was running in to tattle on her, until I recognized the pitch of my son's crying as a "pain" cry, not "I got my feelings hurt" cry (There's a difference, and parents out there know what I'm talking about!). My daughter said there were a bunch of flies buzzing around under the deck and he started crying and swatting at them. She yanked him away and pushed him to the back door, she said. I looked at his lip and noticed a white spot encircling a small red dot. A bee sting. I hollered for my wife, who immediately gave him a shot of both children's Tylenol and Benadryl while I investigated.

More precisely, it was a Yellow Jacket. The nest, about the size of a softball, was right under the deck where my kids were playing. I tried looking for an angle so I could squirt the little devils with my wasp and hornet spray, but it was under the low end of the deck. It would require me to climb under it to get at them, and I wasn't about to be trapped under there squirting spray and them swarming all around me. I then remembered what my dad once did.

When my sister was four she got stung several times by a hornet's nest that was built under a piece of playground equipment in our neighborhood, one of those old animal rockers on the giant spring. I remember her rocking back and forth and crying as they swarmed around her. My father, being an aficionado and master of fire as a means to solve all pest problems (you should see him work on voles), made a torch out of old dust rags, then doused it in gasoline. He waited until dark when all the hornets returned to the nest and them ambushed them. I was told to stay in the car, but I remember an unknowing neighbor coming out on their front porch and yelling at my dad, wondering if he was an arsonist setting fire to the playground. No, just teaching them "damn bees" not to mess with his little girl.

I made my torch with a bamboo stick and an old towel, then liberally sprayed it with WD40 (less explosive and lower combustion temperature, I thought) and waited until dusk. My wife's chief concern was that I was going to set the wooden deck on fire, so I assured her by stretching the garden hose around and having an extra bucket of water to put out the torch. The kids watched from the kitchen window, my son's upper lip swollen and puffy like one of the cast members of Cats. Boy, those yellow jackets didn't know what was going on! Their little wings were just singeing right off as they dropped to the ground. The few that initially got away tried attacking the torch, flying into it like moths to a flame, literally. When I saw charred wasp paper falling from under the deck, I decided my job was done. I then shot the deck for a few minutes with the water hose.

My son, thank goodness, was not allergic. After a few hours the swelling went down, and we kept asking him to breath deeply for us just in case he had an asthmatic reaction. And just to let you know, I don't normally derive pleasure from torturing animals by setting them on fire. But when it comes to my family, I will avenge!*

* This is where my wife would roll her eyes and give me the "You've got to be kidding" look. I would then have to refer to the time I saved her from the grub-eating skunk, but that's another story.

Television Show's Depiction of Kentucky Un"Justified"

Though I'm not from Eastern Kentucky, I've visited and passed through enough times that I was interested in seeing how FX's new show Justified portrayed the area and its people. I felt like I was watching an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard meets The Rifleman. Though filmed in Western Pennsylvania rather than the scrub hills of southern California, it still has that flavor of Appalachia run through a Hollywood filter: the stubborn, drunken, "aw, shucks" drawling hillbilly vs. the savvy, smug outsiders. You might as well brew a pot of raspberry truffle coffee with Maker's Mark; that's about the taste it left in my mouth.

Does it make for good television? I suppose. The storyline is well-written enough. It's about as accurate to Kentucky, though, as any wild-west trope was for 1950s television. No, you won't see tumbleweeds blowing down Main Street, nor will you see people sitting around a moonshine still listening to bluegrass music and waiting to fill their mason jar (we keep our stills hidden pretty good). So, no offense to fans of the show, but I hope that people aren't watching it and thinking, "Those Appalachians are crazy." Try watching an episode of Jersey Shore and see if you can say the same thing about The Garden State. I would hope not every resident acted like Snooki or The Situation.

A Poem by Kevin Young

I took my Poets & Writers Club to Lenoir Rhyne University last month on a field trip to tour the campus and see a poetry reading by Kevin Young. What a lively performance! My high school students were much more engrossed in Young's choice of topic and style than even when we saw W.S. Merwin (the U.S. Poet Laureate) last semester. I now have a new favorite.

"Ode to Chicken"

You are everything
to me. Frog legs,
rattlesnake, almost any
thing I put my mouth to
reminds me of you.
Folks always try
getting you to act
like you someone else --
nuggets, or tenders, fingers
you don't have -- but even
your unmanicured feet
taste sweet. Too loud
in the yard, segregated
dark & light, you are
like a day self-contained --
your sunset skin puckers
like a kiss. Let others
put on airs -- pigs graduate
to pork, bread
become toast, even beef
was once just bull
before it got them degrees --
but, even dead,
you keep your name
& head. You can make
anything of yourself,
you know -- but prefer
to wake me early
in the cold, fix me breakfast
& dinner too, leave me
to fly for you.

from Dear Darkness (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008)

Mightier Than the Sword, But Still Dependant on Who Wields It

Quill, n. An implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly wielded by an ass. This use of the quill is now obsolete, but its modern equivalent, the steel pen, is wielded by the same everlasting Presence.

Ink, n. A villanous compound of tanno-gallate of iron, gum-arabic and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime .... most generally and acceptably employed as a mortar to bind together the stones in an edifice of fame, and as a whitewash to conceal afterward the rascal quality of the material.

from Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary

Toast on a Heel

My wife prides herself in speaking properly, being an elementary school librarian and teacher. I also make it a point to speak clearly and correctly, especially when teaching. However, I am a firm believer in "code-switching," the ability to speak appropriately depending on the social situation. When I'm not at work, or giving a reading or presentation, I allow my speech to relax and fall back on the Southwestern Virginia dialect I grew up on. My wife notices it even more when we drive up to Woodlawn, Virginia, to visit my parents. Though she won't admit it, my wife has a bit of her own Burke County, NC, dialect when she's at home. I thought I caught her the other day using it, but was humorously mistaken.

We were with her parents one weekend, when talk turned to breakfast. I already knew she didn't like eggs, but when she said she didn't like making "toast on a heel," I thought she meant "hill," because she pronounced it more like "heeyuhl."

"What do mean? Do you think it toasts differently at higher elevations? Are you afraid it's going to slide off your plate and roll to the bottom?" I asked. She just gave me that look she normally does when I make completely no sense, which is quite often sometimes. "You said you didn't like making toast on a 'heeyuhl.'"

"No, I said 'heel.'" I then immediately got what she meant, but just to be funny I kept yanking her chain.

"Fill in the blank for me -- 'Jack and Jill went up the _______.'" I swear she said it the same way at first, then corrected herself when she realized I was making fun of her.

To be fair, she always teases me whenever I talk about "strawburries" and "blackburries," or when I say I have a load of clothes in the "warsh," so I can't really tease her too much about it, but the running joke continues.

By the way, I like eating toast on a "heeyuhl," but not on a "heel." Those end pieces always taste like the plastic bag they came in to me.

A Poem by Charles Wright

Christmas East of the Blue Ridge

So autumn comes to an end with these few wet sad stains
Stuck to the landscape,
-----------------------December dark
Running its hands through the lank hair of late afternoon,
Little tongues of the rain holding forth
--------------------------------------under the eaves,
Such wash, such watery words...

So autumn comes to this end,
And winter's vocabulary, downsized and distanced,
Drop by drop
Captures the conversation with its monosyllabic gutturals
And tin music,
---------------gravelly consonants, scratched vowels.

Soon the came drivers will light up their fires, soon the stars
Will start on their brief dip down from the back of heaven,
Down to the desert's dispensation
And night reaches, the gall and first birth,
The second only one word from now,
--------------------------------one word and its death from right now.

Meanwhile, in Charlottesville, the half-moon
Hums like a Hottentot
----------------------high over Monticello,
Clouds dishevel and rag out,
The alphabet of our discontent
Keeps on with its lettering,
-------------------------------gold on the black walls of our hearts...

from Locales: Poems from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, edited by Fred Chappell

"Daddy, He's on My Side Again!"

“Daddy, he’s on my side again!” my sister would say as I inched my finger closer to the back seat stitching that designated the line that we were not to cross.

“No I’m not,” I would say teasingly, wiggling my finger to within a millimeter of the line.

My dad would groan and grip the steering wheel a little tighter. “If you two don’t stop fighting, I’m turning this car around and going home, and we’ll never go to Disney World again!”

"I'm not fighting, she started it!" I would say. It's a wonder my dad didn't turn the car around. We didn't deserve those Mickey Mouse ears. Later, I think Dad pacified us with buying us each one of those Yes & No Invisible Ink Game books he probably picked up at a gas station.

This morning I read the headlines that fighting broke out between North and South Korea on an island near their disputed border. Though I am by no means making light of this situation, as casualties on both sides were suffered, I can’t help but be reminded of how two siblings taunt and fight with each other when they aren’t getting along.

Pyongyang, a high military commander of the North, warned the South to stop their military drills on the island of Yeonpyeong. This island sits on the edge of disputed waters. “Don’t taunt us!” he seemed to be saying.

What does South Korea do? “You can’t tell us what to do!” Not only did they disregard the North’s commandment, but they fired artillery into disputed waters. Though far from the shores of North Korea, the South basically stuck their thumbs in their ears, wiggled their hands, and gave the North a raspberry. “Nyeh, nyeh, nyeh-nyeh-nyeh!”

Well, that infuriated the North, so they decided to wipe the smart-alecky smirk off South Korea’s face by throwing a sucker punch. The South got back on their feet and the fight ensued – for an hour! There hasn’t been fighting like this since the end of the Korean War.

When it was all over, the news reported casualties on both sides, though it sounds like the North got roughed up a little more. They’re still running their mouth, though, saying they’ll do it again if the South comes even within 0.001 millimeter of their border. “Yeah, try it again, I dare you!”

The problem is, if the North and South are squabbling siblings, who’s going to turn the car around and not take them to Disney World? “Daddy, he’s touching me again!” I sure hope they don’t come running to Uncle Sam for help. We’ve been Daddy to enough countries who haven’t been playing fair lately (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran) that I don’t think there are enough corners in the world to set some of these red-headed step children in “Time Out.” And there are only so many times you can “warm” a child’s rear end before they get used to the spanking.

from “North, South Korea exchange fire; 2 marines killed” by HYUNG-JIN KIM and KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press, November 23, 2010

A Bone To Pick With Blake Shelton

It's not an uncommon topic in Country music. Heck, you could say Country music helped perpetuate the image. Marty Stuart sang "Hillbilly Rock." Dwight Yokum sang about "guitars, cadillacs, hillbilly music." Go back to the early days of American music in the 1920s and 1930s and you will see that Country music was originally called Hillbilly music. Carrying on the tradition, Blake Shelton's "Hillbilly Bone," brings the old tropes back to life.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Blake Shelton. This song, however, has more to do in my opinion with just being an all-aroung good ol' redneck than being a hillbilly. Perhaps the term "redneck" has been overused in country music lately. Trucks and mud, hollerin' Yeehaw!, grits, and firearms -- check. But is this an original song? Hardly. It starts out with a contrast of "I got a friend in New York City/ He's never heard of Conway Twitty." Hank Williams, Jr. used that already in "A Country Boy Can Survive" -- "I got a friend in New York City/ He never calls me by my name, just Hillbilly."

You might think I'm not a fan of country music, but Blake Shelton's song is an example of everything that's wrong with country music these days. Trace Adkins, who brought us such "gems" as "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk," joins Shelton in the chorus of his song, "Hillbilly bone -da-bone-da-bone -bone." Now, Trace Adkins could kick my ass for sure and not raise his boot very high, but I don't think Trace Adkins has put out anything worthy to be called country music since his debut album "Dreamin' Out Loud."

Maybe I'm thinking too much about the poetics of a country song, when most folks want something to raise hell to or crank up on their radio on the way to work. But if I could play the guitar, I think I could write me some Country songs, and maybe do Hillbilly right for a change. But that's just me.

More Emily Dickinson Parodies

It's that time of year again, as my American Lit. students study Emily Dickinson. Here is another round of imitation and parodies of the great poet recluse. There are the usual, but great, standbys of fart humor, but also some newly-delved topics of gaming "noobs" and the Youtube sensation Ray William Johnson. Enjoy (or not)!


My life sucks, and here's why
I sit in my room
and make myself cry.

My poems are sad and full of despair
It's too bad
No one cares.

I live by myself
with my 40 cats
and we all indulge
in their tuna packs.

I live alone
I have no friends
and this is how
my story ends.

--Caitlin, Logan, and Jhamil


Heart! We will destroy him!
You and I -- tonight!
You will bring the shovel for the grave --
We will be free by morning light!

When we are done, we need to flee --
Or else on a noose we will be.
Haste! Time is running short.
We will soon forget him.

-- Kasey, Angel, and Caleb


I heard a guy Fart When I Died
The smell in the room
was like the smell in the air
between the passes of gasses.

The noses around -- had pinched them closed
And breaths, were being held
for that last rip -- when the big one
was smelled -- in the room --

I willed my nostrils -- closed them up --
How powerful that smell be
Fresh air -- how I longed for --
and I loathed that darn guy.

And shoo -- loud and rumbling fast --
between the stench and me
And then I breathed my last breath --
--as I cried sweet liberty!

-- Garrett, Brandon, and Mary


This is my letter to the Noobs
Who don't play MLG --
Those worthless noobs and scrubs--
Those not as good as me.

My skills, they are the greatest
You will ever see--
For my skills in Halo--
They come from MLG!

--Matt W.


Tribute to Ray William Johnson

The creepy guy-- stares back at us --
with a look that wants too much --
And a deer that's never felt the run
of a nice -- failure -- Drunk

He speaks with lips that make us laugh
But never have ended squaids
And talks with careful seriousness
that has never been dissed

The Youtube man is straight and forward
Great enough to feel
But who is to say, on the other side,
He's not the one who's trollin'?

Ray William is a wonderful thing
That sometimes shows Fatty Spins
But while we try not to crack
The two camels is what breaks us

-- Andrea and Aimee

A Poem by David T. Manning

Hankie

That fresh white linen hankie
your wife pressed & folded
with such love fits nice
in your clean shirt pocket.

Then you hachoo!!
You blow & fold it neat.
You blow & fold, blow & fold,
blow & fold again -- then

you wad the damn thing up
into something useful, so
it's ready for that
water-cannon sneeze, for those

green giant ropes of snot
that rattle out of your skull
like log-chains over a F-150 tailgate.
Yes sir! That's a good big whitish

rag now you can roll a man-size
cold up in and stuff it
in the ass pocket of your Levis
until it's too wet to sit on.

from Detained by the Authorities (Pudding House Publications 2007)

WV Governor Sues the EPA -- It Must Be Election Time

"West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D) on Wednesday announced the state is suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its crackdown on mountaintop-removal practices by the coal mining industry.

"Manchin, at a morning news conference at the state capitol, said the lawsuit had been in the works long before the death of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) — a staunch defender of the state's mining industry — in June, according to The Associated Press. Manchin spoke of Byrd’s legacy and pulled out a copy of the U.S. Constitution, as Byrd often did on the Senate floor, and quoted the 10th Amendment, which deals with states' powers, the AP reported."

"Manchin’s announcement comes as he finds himself in a dead heat with Republican John Raese for Byrd’s seat. Manchin’s troubles for that seat — despite his high approval rating as governor — have been used to illustrate the problem some Democrats are having in being linked to President Obama and national Democratic leaders. Raese has steadily improved in the head-to-head race, and edged ahead in a recent Rasmussen poll."

It must be election time. Is it just me, or does anybody else see the connection between West Virginia Governor Manchin's announcement to sue the EPA with his race against Raese for Sen. Byrd's seat in Congress? What was he thinking? -- "Here's a sure way to get those fence-sitting voters and fat cats to vote for me instead of voting Republican, attack the very organization that's looking out for the interests of the little man, the EPA." It's a shame that politicians use their power to promote themselves at the expense of everyone else. And so many folks (Republicans) are making the EPA out to be some organization that throws its weight around, sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. What about Big Coal? Hasn't he been doing that for over 70 years to the residents of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia? How have they fared as a result?

"EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement when they were released that the “people of Appalachia shouldn't have to choose between a clean, 
healthy environment in which to raise their families and the jobs they need to support them.”

It must be election time. The lines are being drawn -- and polarized. Republicans are swarming like buzzards around Obama and the Democrats, ready to swoop in for the kill. And it's not going to be a pretty sight. There won't be any winners in this election, I'm afraid. We're all going to lose.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said in his essay "Nature" that someone may own the land, but no one will ever own the landscape. It belongs to everyone who gazes upon it. That's not really true anymore, as coal companies are removing the landscape, the very horizon that Emerson said we needed. "The health of the eye demands a horizon," he said. So what's going to happen to us when that landscape is gone, and is replaced by valley fill, flat land not good for anything but scrub grass. We've got cheap energy, but we are living along a Martian landscape.

from "W.Va. Gov. Manchin sues EPA over mountaintop removal" By Darren Goode, in The Hill

Dueling Frequencies

I took my family to Beech Mountain this weekend for Autumn at Oz, the one time of the year they re-open the 1970s theme park Land of Oz (see my previous blog entry on this). They had a great time, of course. My daughter dressed as Glinda the Good Witch and my son the Tin Man.

The weather was great. It was a clear, blue-sky day with not a cloud in site. We were about to leave when I decided to take a scenic drive around the north side of Beech Mountain (my wife would claim I took a wrong turn). I was listening to my usual radio station, WNCW 88.7, which always has a great program called "Going Across the Mountain" on Saturday afternoons, the best and longest bluegrass program you can find on the radio. I wasn't paying close attention to the music, though, as I was driving around looking for the way down, er... I mean looking around. The DJ came on the radio and announced "You are listening to 88.7 WMMT in Whitesburg, Kentucky...." I had one of those "What the?!" moments like I had heard it wrong, but I hadn't.

Here I was on top of Beech Mountain, North Carolina, listening to a radio station broadcasting from Whitesburg, Kentucky, where my good friend Wiley Quixote (Jim Webb) DJs. I was just there this past July on the radio myself (see previous post). By the time I stopped saying, "Cool!" over and over the frequency started switching between WNCW and WMMT to the point that my daughter started laughing. It was Alison Krauss and Union Station vs. Gary Stewart singing "She's Acting Single, and I'm Drinking Doubles."

I was told by my friend Jim Web that at one time many folks could listen to WMMT in NC, but when WNCW started broadcasting in 1989 their frequency overpowered all of the listening range for WMMT in NC. I guess at this altitude, and being on the north side of the mountain, there are still pockets that are shadowed and still within range.

"Hey, Honey! It's 'Dueling Frequencies!'" I laughed. My wife wasn't as impressed. It would've been really funny if Eric Weissburg had started picking against Arlo Guthrie or something like that.

She wryly responded, "Let's just hope Jeb and Zeke don't jump out of the woods and see your 'purty' teeth."

"Jenny, we're on Beech Mountain. We're more likely to see Mr. Moneybags step out of his million-dollar chalet walking his Pomeranian on a Gucci dog leash. I'm more likely to be labelled 'deranged hillbilly' in this neighborhood!"