Mississippi 1950's, where I was living

(excerpt from chapter 4 of

King of Soul)

By 'n by many of the black folks down south, inspired by the legality of recent innovative challenges, got busy as bees while the whites, unfortunately, got mad as hornets. But the times they were sho'nuff a'changin'.

Heretofore, the sleepy ole antebellum way of honky life would lay low and submit to a new master, whose visage was was darker, with features more universal and inclusive, and whose newly renovated integrity would ultimately endow the good old boys and gals with a rectified blend of African charm, and a revolutionary new testament of grace. But the racist honkies had not yet figured this part out, so they were in for a long, hard lesson. Black folks knew the lesson would be hard, because they'd been living it for over 200 years, but it took them awhile to figure just how stubborn and contrary the whites could be when they got that deer-in-the-headlights look in their eyes. But that's neither here nor there. Things got serious after Brother Medgar Evers was assassinated in his own front yard.  King of Soul

Blue Ridge Mountain Home

Well it’s been a quiet week at Appalachian, my chosen home. Long ago and far away, I left Dixie, traipsed out of the hot sunshine and declared my homestead in the high country. Here in the car this evening, traveling with my lifetime mountain home companion, mother of our three young’uns. They’re all grown, up now, having left the nest, flew off to Duke and Carolina. . . flown the coop. We’re driving home from Charlotte, after visiting kin folk in the Queen City where American independence was first declared, back in the day. . . 1775, I think it was. A car dealer on our route displays a super flagpole. Old Glory ripples largely in the evening breeze, assuring us that our flag is still there. We need not ask “Oh say, does that star spangled yet wave in the land of the free and the home of the brave?” In other old news, our North Carolina forests thrive, now in their bare golden winter glory, along these miles between our towns. Cruising Booneward on the highway, we’re slightly enlightened as red sails on the sunset, while gold enlightens the skyline of them there hills, up ahead, glowing brilliantly in the distance as we approach our home in dusky glory. We roll into our little town, where Daniel Boone had stopped for a spell, back in the frontier days, where visitors will visit Mast’s old general store, and they’ll stock up with vittles from Lowe’s pretty good grocery, maybe chomp a donut at the Local Lion, or sip vino at. Venture, on King Street downtown. . . maybe buy a book there too, maybe one of my novels (just sayin’). . . they might even set a spell on ole Mrs. Jones’ front porch and watch the visitors down on King Street. Maybe sit on a bench with local music legend, Doc Watson.

Just a block or two south of King Street, some pioneer, Yosef, started a university back in the day, to enlighten folks in them there Appalachian hills. Nowadays young whipper-snappers come from all over the state, and even from places far away, to learn readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic, and maybe a little coding along the way, since now in our 21st-century glory, we’re living in cyberspace. When America was new, and frontier land was free, or so we thought. Eventually, we honkies made peace with the native Cherokee folks and the Chippewas, the Mohicans, Hurons. . . and the rest is history. And so I pause to peck these purloined phrases from old memories of old friends sitting on the porch like bookends. Newspaper blown through the grass, disappears in the web, into cyber space, and falls on the old glows of the high peaks of this old friend’s memories. King of Soul

Greenland Fare Well

When I was a young lad, I'd listen to Judy Collins singing an old song, originally sung in the 1800's, by a Norwegian fisherman Fare well to Tarwathie

When I was a young lad, I'd listen, on the old 33 rpm LP player, to Judy Collins singing

Farewell to Tarwathie, old song, originally sung in the 1800's, by a Norwegian fisherman, Fare well to Tarwathie /media/ff58282818e81c16de4413ef739c9961 The cold land of Greenland is barren and bare; No productivity nor comfort is ever known there. North winds blow freezing; so humans beware! So there’s no sense for donald to blow bluster there. Ya, Denmark and Finland don’t like donald’s grab His covetous clutching’s as stupid as ole Cap’n Ahab. Finland, Norway condemn donald’s presumption Germany, France, reject his art of assumption trump brandishes tariffs like a whaler’s harpoon. he’d slap them on the Euros as if he hung the moon he’s mad at Norway cuz he didn’t get a peace prize. Integrity of the Nobel Committee he doesn’t realize. The cold land of Greenland is barren and bare; No productivity nor comfort is ever known there. North winds blow freezing; so humans beware! So there’s no sense for donald to blow bluster there. Glass half-Full

Paris 1937

We have here an excerpt from my historical novel, Smoke, an excerpt from chapter 15. The year is 1937. Philip, a young American, is talking to Lili, who has just e fled Nazi Germany. They are standing on a Bridge that overlooks the Seine River and an international exposition. “Paris is closer than you think, to Berlin.” said Lili. Philip considered this. Then he pointed to the west, and said, “Over there, between us and where the sun will set, is Versailles, where the treaty was agreed to and signed after the war. The treaty should ensure peace and security, n’est que ce pas?” “That doesn’t mean a thing to Adolph Hitler.” Her eyes, stern with the memory of where they had just come from, were cast down upon the Seine. “Germans know. That treaty means nothing to the Nazis.” “Do they? Do Germans know?” “Some of them do, though they will not say it. There is a lot they will not say. We have neighbors in Munich who will not say that they have done business with my father for many years. Instead, they pretend to not know us. These last few months when we were at home, near the shop, when I would walk on the streets, I felt at times that I must have some horrible sign on my head, something like a mark of shame, a big. . .yellow patch of verboten, or something. Even people my own age would act as if they had never known me. What akes people so such thing? What compels them to change their attitude toward others whom they have known all their lives, people they grew up with?” “They must be scared as hell of the Nazis,” said Philip. https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B002YNZQ5U?ccs_id=8bd6c7a9-3c3d-4e80-a530-5cbae2add5ca

First They Came

First they came for Congress, as insurrectionists' cast their spell. They attacked our Capitol guards as they raised unholy hell.

January 6 2021 at our US CapitolBut then trump let those rebels off the hook, so he could occupy our Oval , by hook or by crook. Now in the land of the free and the home of the brave Washington and Jefferson are turning over in their graves. Then they came for the immigrants, as if for them we have no room. Now's the time to call Emma Lazarus' out of her harbor'd tomb

Now innocents are beaten in an ICEy Minneapolis fray Magamaniacs just wanna Made America Go Away. If America's the land of the free and the home of the brave Will we just stand by and watch these ICE guys misbehave?

Jesus said: "I was a stranger and you took me in." So let us follow Jesus and just let these poor folk in. What beating you've done to the least of these  you've done it unto to Him. Glass half-full

Flying Fickle Finger of f****up Fate

Flying Fickle Finger of Fate F***up You never know what human beings are going to do. We are quite prone, when reacting to trouble, to do things that turn bad to worse, and when performed collectively on a continental scale, human folly can lead to serious, widespread human f***up. Consider, for instance, what rich and powerful people did to toss an entire continent into war; back in 1914. One smart-alek kid: 

 with a gun in his hand assassinated the heir to the Austrian throne. The kid's name was gavrilo princep. That gives you a clue: he might have been acting, without even knowing it, on behalf of the person who is referred to in the Bible as the "prince of the power of the air." In gavrilo's case he aimed a lethal weapon at a very important person, the heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand. 

After that murderous act, all hell broke loose. Germany declared war on France. Germany invaded Belgium. Britain declared war on Germany. Austria declared war on Belgium. Russia declared war on Turkey. France and Britain declared war on Turkey. Russians invaded Germany. When the Germans sank the Lusitania in 1915, our United States got dragged into it. The whole damned war got amped up for four years, and didn't stop until Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany decided, in spite of their great Prussian passion for war, to throw in the armistice towel, November 1914. So that was war, with four years of blood and destruction, all for naught. the Kaiser who thought he could outshoot all the other Euros finally saw the writing on the wall, and gave up, once and for all, the ghost of German/prussian superiority. And after November 1014, the ghost stayed in his grave until a little corporal with a weird moustache came along and cranked up the whole damn kraut wermacht again , only to shoot himself in a Berlin bunker when our Allied soldiers knocked the nazis back down into their holes. The clusterf**** of world wars one and two ought to be seen as a warning signal of just how deep is the depravity and destruction that human warfare can descend into.  In an age of nukes, Vlad the Mad and trump the vlad-fan ought to remind themselves of the destructability of those terrible atomic bombs that our Enola Gay dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to put an end to war in 1945.  About nine years ago, we visited the Schonnbrun palace, home of the Hapsburgs, whose legacy had begun and ended world war one.

Emperor Carl's domain, where he signed off. . .While there, we were shown to the room where the last Hapsburg emperor, Carl, had signed off on trying to drag the world into ancient, obsolete kingdoms and empires. This is the room where it happened: the end of world war one, and, we hope, the end of rich monarchs and moguls destroying the peace of mankind.  Smoke

Fire and Water

About five years ago, I was strolling along, with my son, on a beach near St. Andrews, Scotland. 

We had been on that sea strand for a little while when Micah stopped, fixed his gaze in the forward direction, and asked me, "Don't you recognize it?" In the distance ahead. . . I beheld the town of St. Andrews. It seemed to be up on a bluff. I was puzzled. I had never been to this place before today. What was I supposed to recognize here? "Chariots of Fire, the movie" he said. . . this was the beach where British Olympic runners, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, were training for the 1924 Olympics. 

Recently recalling this experience, I was wondering about the chariots. I remember there was a biblical reference, so I did a little digging in my Bible and found this passage, from the second book of Kings: "As they were going along and talking, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire which separated Elijah from Elisha, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven." As biblical history continued to roll through the ages, The Lord sent Elijah back to this world, a second time, to fulfill an important prophetic role. His return is previewed in the prophecy of Malachi, last words of the Old testament: "Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers". . . The Lord God, Creator of the universe, is sovereign. He doesn't do things because they are right. It's the other way around. They are "right" because He does them. But in some ways, it's a matter of timing, and symbols. In the case of Elijah's apparent reincarnation as John the Baptist, the Lord shifted the prophet's symbolic element from fire to water. . . which is to say, from fiery judgement to water baptism. This represents the shift from Old Testament Law to New Testament Grace. When Harold and Eric were running on that St. Andrews beach in 1924, ocean water was in the background. But in the foreground of their hearts and minds, they were fired up to represent Britain in the Paris Olympics in 1924. As it all turned out, they were victors. They were fired up enough to perform as gold medalists. Representing Great Britain with skill, endurance and speed, they rode their Chariot of Fire to victory, so to speak. In so doing they were inspired by the prophetic vision of William Blake, who, in 1804, linked Britain's aspiration to become, as it were, a new Jerusalem, "in England's green and pleasant land." I was privileged, in 2021, to be guided by my son, to that St. Andrews beach strand where Harold and Eric had run, 102 years ago. It was a providential moment. Now, at age 74, I am beginning to anticipate that chariot that will, at the Lord's appropriate time, transport me to the Lord's eternal shore, where I will discover what the apostle John witnessed when he arrived there. 

Songs of Rowland