| Dear Readers:
I had been watching the dogwoods
because our spring has been so late and they always know to bloom
before Easter. When I was seven we lived in the mountains of
southwest Virginia, where I first learned about dogwoods. The four
petalled blossom is shaped like the cross. The red tips on the
blossoms stand for the wounds in Christ’s hands and feet, and the
red center for the spear wound in his side. Later I heard the legend
that the cross had been made from dogwood, and the tree had been so
ashamed that it had begged God that it would never again grow big
enough to be used for such terrible work. That’s why now dogwoods
all grow crooked and small.
Every spring I watch for the dogwoods
to bloom. You can always spy them in the woods, their blossoms
floating like clouds among the naked trees.
Last week we had friends from Kansas
visiting. They had hoped to see the dogwoods blooming, but alas!
By the time they left on Friday, no blooms.
Now mind you, we have dogwoods all
around our house. I have been scrutinising them for weeks, searching
for buds and signs of blooming, but nothing.
I promise, the day after our friends
left, Saturday, I looked out my kitchen window and leaves were
greening out everywhere. They had exploded overnight. Sunday
the blossoms, too, had begun to open, and by Monday they had popped
out everywhere.
This morning I looked out my bedroom
window -- three stories high right there because the hill falls away
toward the back of the house – and there our most glorious dogwood,
more than 30 feet tall, was heavy with blooms.
Now I’ve waited all this time for the
dogwoods to bloom, searched their limbs diligently for buds without
encouragement, and all at once, blossoms everywhere.
If I rummage around in here long
enough, I’m pretty sure I’ll find some hidden meaning. It just feels
that way, doesn’t it?
NATIONALSKI PROLETARIAN
RADIOSKI
It’s National Nag Time on NPR, you
know, the 50 weeks of the year when they gather hundreds of sadistic
volunteers to guilt manipulate money out of listeners. Now it ought
to be sufficiently infuriating that the Artz Commissars in the
federal government stick their hands in our pockets to subsidise
these socialist nuts, but no. To infuriation they must add
whining and nagging – for hours on end, dangling before you impaled
ears useless trinkets like an All Things Distorted Souvenir Tire
Tool.
The most infuriating thing is,
as abysmal and tiresome as NPR is, it’s still better than almost
all other radio.
Can’t a nation that can send a
refrigerator/freezer to the moon program a decent radio
station?
CELEBRATE SENIOR CITIZENS
Tomorrow is Susan’s birthday and she
probably thinks I’ve forgotten. Most likely, she is so sure she
won’t even notice this when she lays out this letter, but I got the
jump on her this year. Thanks to timely reminders from my children,
I have already done my birthday shopping. I decided to stick with
Sentimental Stuff– a new cover for her steering wheel first, the
kind made out of that shiny pink synthetic fur with a matching set
of furry sponge rubber dice to hang from her rear-view mirror.
That’ll look great in her Volvo. She also needed a good .22 rifle,
and a new asbestos oven mitt, and a good square-tipped
shovel.
I never stint on presents or good
tools. WalMart was glad to see me coming.
ON THE FARM
The clover is coming up – not
everywhere, but strong where it is. Best of all, it came up
gangbusters where I planted last year and had thought my
effort vain.
That brings up a point my friend
Charlie Ritch made the other day. People like us – trained in
chemistry and math and living in an urban industrial world -- expect
things to work "scientifically.," You put X inputs in, and get Y
outputs out, world without end.
If you’re farming or gardening or
raising animals or doing anything at all with real life,
forget all that. Mystery overtakes science and leaves it in the
dust. One year you throw out five times the recommended dose of
clover per acre, and only Johnson grass comes up. The next year you
spill gasoline on the ground and the clover pushes your feet out
from under you. "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs
his steps." Proverbs 16:9.
MAY IN MONROE
Southern Heritage Society sponsors
11th Annual Confederate Heritage Conference, May 24-26,
2001 at the West Monroe (Louisiana) Convention Center. Speakers are
Dr. Morton Smith (author, theologian, professor of theology at the
Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary), Dr. Marshall DeRosa
(author, associate professor of political science at Florida
Atlantic University), and me. (I’d appreciate it if you’d
forbear any remarks wondering how I landed in that
company). Events include a Patron’s Banquet on Thursday evening, the
annual Southern Family Cook Out on Friday, presentations Friday
evening and Saturday, and of course, the Annual Confederate Heritage
Ball Saturday evening. Tickets for everything are $55 per family if
you buy before May 10, $75 per family afterwards (individuals $30
before May 10, $45 after.)
As wonderful as the speakers and
events usually are at this event, spending the weekend with the
wonderful folks at Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church is the greatest
delight. For reservations, call or write, The Southern Heritage
Society, 109 Auburn Avenue, Monroe, LA 71201 or call (318)
323-3061.
JUNE IN TENNESSEE
Justin walked in a couple of months
ago and threw down a magazine on the table. "What’s the matter?" I
asked.
"Nothing," he answered, "I’ve just
been reading an interview with George Grant about agrarianism, and I
feel sorry for people who never get to experience an agrarian
lifestyle. Doing it changes the way you think."
That precipitated a discussion about
how we could share our experience, and that and drew in Susan and
Liberty and Ellen and all of us. That’s how we hatched "Agrarian
Challenge I."
From Thursday evening, June 21 (for
homemade dessert and plan for the weekend) through Sunday dinner
after church, June 23, we will open our lives to seven (7) people
age 15 to 30. They will eat what we eat & work where we work,
whether we’re hauling hay or picking blackberries, and we’ll share
all our experience with them, including church on Sunday morning.
One hundred bucks covers room and board. Nashville is the nearest
airport, so we’ll run a car up there on Thursday afternoon to pick
up anybody who needs it. We’re announcing Agrarian Challenge I
through The Moneychanger, League of the South, and the
Agrarian Foundation, so reservations are on on a first come, first
served basis. For more information call us at (888) 218-9226 or send
reservation with payment to Agrarian Challenge I, % The
Moneychanger, P.O. Box 178, Westpoint, Tennessee 38486.
JULY IN THE FIELD
In our family we always celebrate July
ninth as a high holiday. July 9, 1991 was the day God delivered
Susan and me and 14 other friends with an acquittal in federal court
(See, "The Most Dangerous Man in the Mid-South" on our website.)
This year marks the tenth anniversary of that Great Deliverance, and
this year we are going to celebrate with a bodacious big
party, the BOGIT Hoedown on July 14, 2001. We have convinced the
12th Louisiana Band to come up and play War Between the
States Period music. Belinda Massengale, who comes with the band, is
the greatest encouragess and dance mistress I’ve ever met. The dance
will begin in the evening, but other events will last most of the
day. We will kill the fatted hogs, our own homegrown hogs, and serve
barbecue dinner with all the trimmings and blackberry cobbler.
Somehow we’ve got to pay for all this, so we’ll ask an entrance
donation of $20 per individual or $50 per family (limited to
relatives of the first degree, please – no eighth cousins twice
removed).
NO LONGER STUMPED
The contest for naming our new
Percheron fillies is over, the comittee has sat and judged, and a
winner has been chosen. There were some great names, but only
one pair could be chosen. The winner, Mary Jo Gibson from Front
Royal, Virginia chose names from Isaiah 62, Buelah
("Married") and Hephzibah ("My delight is in her"). Mary
Jo, you can claim your prize whenever you’re ready!
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