Miss Birdie and the Story of High Rock-- a repost

    

 

She had to knock several times to get Miss Birdie’s attention over the loud drone of the special news program. But at last, the little woman heard her, picked up the remote, muted the television, and waved her in.

“Come right in and git you a chair, honey. You’re a bright spot in a dark day. You know, sometimes I wish I didn’t have this plagued TV—the news is always so bad and now that crazy feller in Russia is trying to start another world war. And it looks like there’s some in this very country is all for it.

“Don’t they remember about old Hitler, how he got started—just taking a little bit here and a little bit there? You ain’t old enough to remember what that was like but I am. Sons and fathers and brothers going off to war and so many not coming back—or coming back awful changed. But it had to be done to stop them Nazis from spreading all over.

“I just don’t know . . . Here it is another Spring almost upon us and the daffydils beginning to show—it always makes me want to sing and dance, though I can’t hardly do neither one no more. And it seems like we’re going back to bad times.

                                                                     

“But you didn’t come here to listen to me carry on about the news. You look like you got a question.

“What do I know about High Rock? Is there some story about that place?

“Law, I ain’t thought about that story in the awfullest long time. . . Hit’s an awful sad story, most as bad as what’s there on the TV this moment. But if you’re set on hearing it. . .

“You know where High Rock is, don’t you—you go up Upper Brush creek a ways, and you’ll come to the road that leads to it. I reckon there's new people living up there these days.

"Now back most two hundred years there was a Cherokee village around there and, lower down, where the new middle school is, was where they did their farming. It was good rich flat land and there was good hunting all around. The Cherokees was peaceable folk, tending their crops–beans and corn and squash mostly – and getting along fine with what few settlers there was back. They likely had some peach trees too for the Cherokee always loved peaches, would dry them to keep through the winter. Like we still do. Law, I mind how Granny Beck used to say that biting into a dried peach hand pie in winter was like biting into a summer day.

“I’m rambling, ain’t I? So, there was these peaceable folk—the Cherokee -- living where they’d been time out of mind. But as more and more settlers started moving into the Indian lands—not just the Cherokee, but other tribes all over the South, things got kindly rambunctious when some of the settlers took a notion to have all that good land for themselves. And what happened then was that old Andy Jackson who was the president of the United States, put out an order to round up all them southern Indians and march them out west. I already told you how my great great grandfather John Goingsnake run away from that march after his wife died—run away with their little baby girl what grew up to be my great grandmother. 

“It was along about this time, eighteen and thirty-some that the soldiers swooped down on the village, tore up the houses, and rounded up the Cherokees to march them off. Can you feature it—taken away from your home and everything you owned? Turned out just like that because someone else wants your land?

“But the story goes that on the day the soldiers came, there was three young women—girls, really--that was off on a high hill, looking for things to eat. They had their babies with them and when they heard the commotion below, they hid till the soldiers was gone, watching as the whole village, young and old was rounded up and drove off like they was cattle.

“Them three was in a fix. How could they make it – three women with bitty babies and young uns? They stayed hid up on the mountain till the soldiers was long gone. And when they didn’t see nobody, they crept down to see what was left of their village. There was some food hidden away but not near enough to see them through a winter. There was nothing for it to go down to the fields every day and try to make a crop. But their little uns was just at that creeping, crawling age where they couldn’t stay out of trouble and it would take all three of them, working long and late to bring in the corn that was near ripe. So, they made them a plan.

“They took them young uns up the mountain to High Rock, for they knowed there was some places in the rock--pits, kindly, just deep enough the babes couldn’t clamber out. A kind of playpen, like. So that was what they done. Every morning they’d feed the little uns good then take them to the High Rock and leave them there so they could get their work done. I reckon they must of left them something to gnaw on to keep them satisfied but that part of the story ain’t come down.

“Time went by, the corn ripened, and the three young women had most half of the crop picked and laid by when some evil soul come along and seen them. It must have been him told the government and afore long, here come a band of soldiers. They caught the girls working in the field, tied them up, and threw them acrost their pack horses like they was sacks of meal, to haul them off to Bryson City where they was holding the Indians before marching them out west.

“Those girls wept and begged and tried to make the soldiers understand about their children up in High Rock, but they couldn’t speak English and the soldiers just laughed at their signing. And off they went . . .

“The story don’t tell did them three make it to Oklahoma. There was a many that didn’t.

“The young uns? Well, the story didn’t tell about them neither. I’d like to believe someone found them and they was taken in by kind folks. Maybe they was. But there’s folks living down on Brush Creek who swear that of a summer evening, if the wind is setting right, you can still hear them babes a-crying for their mamas. . .

“Here’s you a Kleenex, honey. I done told you it was a sad story. But it’s long past and might not be true. This here, though, this on the tv—hit’s a-going on right now.

                                                                          

In Progress

 

A Road Not Taken

                                                                 

                                        

When I was a junior in high school, my mother began to despair of ever getting me off her hands. My grades were A's and B's--not good enough to make Honor Society, maybe, in my mother's opinion, not good enough for college. I had dated a bit but wasn't one of the "popular" girls. I was okay looking but never enough to suit my mother, who was something of a beauty. I was happy--but she wasn't.

So, at the time my friends and I were beginning to think about college choices, my mother sent off for a catalog for Katharine Gibbs--a famous school in New York known to turn out girls headed for careers as executive secretaries or, perhaps, secretaries who married wealthy bosses.

Katie Gibbs required their students to dress properly. In the Fifties this meant dresses, stockings and heels, hats, and white gloves. Along with typing, shorthand, and office management, Gibbs girls were coached in deportment and taught "proper" styling-- hair, dress, makeup.  and they were housed at The Barbizon Hotel for Women where, along with a curfew and a no men beyond the lobby rule, they could enjoy a number of amenities.

My mother, who loved New York and was bored with her own life, thought it would be wonderful for me. Maybe her ugly duckling would become a swan. I balked at the white gloves. Besides, I didn't want to be a secretary. Maybe an archaeologist? Or a veterinarian? But no white gloves.

The Katherine Gibbs application never got filled out. And in my senior year, I surprised everyone, including myself by being one of four National Merit Scholarship semi-finalists in our class of around 900. (The other three were straight A students.) Now college seemed to be where I should go.

That year too I fell in love with John, who I'd known since we were in kindergarten and who is now my husband of 62 years. And my life has been far removed from New York and white gloves. Though over the course of seven novels, I got pretty good at typing.

All this came back to me when I read The Barbizon-The Hotel That Set Women Free. It tells the story of The Barbizon and the women who lived there--some Katie Gibbs students; some Guest Editors at Mademoiselle magazine (Joan Didion, Sylvia Plath, Gael Greene, to name a few;) and an assortment of would-be actors and artists, hoping for a break (Grace Kelly, Ali McGraw. Betsey Johnson.)

It's a fascinating study of women's quest for freedom and self-fulfillment that covers about seventy years. The Barbizon finally ceased its women-only policy when it came apparent that women no longer wanted the curfews and sorority house ambiance.

It's a fascinating look at times past from the female point of view. 

HERE is an excellent review.

A Perfect Balance

    

Spring Equinox-- and the day and night are of equal lengths.`We don't have a stone circle to note the sun's progress, but there is a notch in the jagged silhouette of the Blue Ridge Mountains that serves as a marker.

Though the cold blast on Monday and Tuesday crisped the forsythia and star magnolia blooms, some hardy daffodils and a lone tulip are saluting spring. 

                                       

                                      As am I.

                                       

Morning Light

                                                                   

 

A Nice Discovery

 In the course of the ongoing task of purging my shelves of books I can bear to let go of (donating to the library book sale,) I came across Ellen Gilchrist's Victory Over Japan. I couldn't remember where it came from but I was pretty sure I'd not read it.

But now I have. And I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite having almost nothing in common with the characters-- beyond being "Southern" (whatever that means.)

In this collection of 14 short stories, some following the same characters, Gilchrist "depicts a group of Southern women, enchanted and enchanting, who cavort through life, in and out of bars, marriages, and divorces,through the world of art and culture, drug busts, their lovers' arms, and even earthquakes in an attempt to find, if not happiness, at least some satisfaction." (from the book jacket, but I couldn't put it better.)

I thought it was an excellent piece of work--and that was even before I discovered it had won the National Book Award for Fiction, kind of a big deal. 

Dear Sirs

                                     

When your president and his head of the FCC threaten journalists who dare to report facts about his ill-considered war on Iran, rather than the inflated and often bogus claims of the administration, they are ignoring the First Amendment.

Freedom of the press is essential to a democracy. Your president is moving toward state control of the media, reducing it to a propaganda outlet for the regime--not unlike all other totalitarian governments.

I call on you to oppose this unconstitutional power grab and stand up for freedom of the press. Do your job and rein in this madman before he destroys our country.

Random

Moving Toward the Equinox

Another week and the sun will rise dead center of our eastern horizon. We cheered when it stopped rising behind the trees on the right. Now it's moving inexorably towards the trees on the left.

The recent low temps left the blooms unharmed--but even lower are predicted for next week. So we're enjoying it while it lasts.

Corycat is taking advantage of the mild temperatures to do a little exploring.

Jenny explores every morning, regardless of temperatures. This is the path she's worn from our house down to the branch (creek) and beyond.

 

Blue Bench, Red Bud, Green Grass, Yellow Explosion

 

Where Do Nails Come From? a re-post

I had a lot of fun writing this years ago, in response to a picture prompt.

It all began that night at the Workbench -- yeah, I know, the regulars are a bunch of tools but, hey, it's handy, man.

Me and some of the other fellas were drinking Rusty Nails -- it'd been that kind of a week and I was ready to get hammered.

Nine-Inch Nails was playing and the pounding beat was really getting to me when all of a sudden Brad says, 'Hey, hey, hey, look at that hot-dipped, galvanized little number. How'd you like to nail that one?"

And I see her over there, all shiny-slim and sharp-looking.  She's with a couple of tacky losers, you know, the kind they always say has a terrific personality, but this one, well, she can ride in my nail belt any time!

Me, I'm a big galoot, tough as nails, and I stand out in this crowd of common nails. I can see she's looking me over, but playing it cool, you know what I'm sayin'?

 So I sort of meander on over to where she is and offer her a coffin-nail. We stand there smoking for a while, just kind of getting to know one another. I ask does she come here for the music and she says yeah, I hit the nail on the head -- it sure wasn't for the company.

Turns out her name's Penny and she's got a boyfriend named Spike but I know this Spike --thinks he's a big stud when he's nothing but a common framing nail --I could chew him up and spit out carpet tacks.

One thing leads to another and I ask can I drive her home. She wants to know am I hitting on her but than she says yeah and ditches the girlfriends and once we're at her place, it doesn't take long for us to get to the point, if you know what I mean. 

++++++++++

I didn't see her again - months went by  and one night I'm on the computer, checking out exotic fasteners and then watching a video called 'Nailin' Palin.' when I get a call.

It's the hot number from the bar. She has to remind me and then-- well, not to put too fine a point on it, she tells me I'm a daddy --  says there's all these little nails and they're crowding her out of the house and she wants me to do something.

I think I'll go get hammered.

Doomed?

Yesterday the temperature was in the low eighties. Tomorrow is predicted to be much cooler and there is a likelihood of a freeze in the coming days.

All these lovelies (except the hellebores) may be toast.

March is tricky that way.

There are even a few butterflies out. Fingers crossed that the weatherman is wrong.

Dear Sirs

 

It is time and past time to impeach the incompetent madman who has dragged our country into a costly war of his own provocation, killing soldiers and little girls, sending prices rising and further lowering worldwide trust in and respect for the USA.

His money-mad corruption and self- aggrandizement have befouled the once respected office of the president. His choice of Cabinet and other officials based on loyalty rather than qualifications has weakened our government. His willful ignorance endangers us all. And his constant, costly golf trips as Americans die in his war are a slap in the face of true patriots.

History will remember those who put country above party--and those who didn't.