Them Good Ole Boys

 Lately, some of the good ole boys got waylaid and diverted from the straight and narrow. The straight and narrow Way says we’re only made righteous by the blood of the Lamb who was slain for us on Calvary’s hill.

But some of us got the notion that our peace and safety was somehow depending on some high and mighty principalities and powers in high places on this earth. 

It reminded me of what ole Paul wrote to the believers in Galatia, way back in the day, when he posed the question of who had bewitched them! 

Boys, we gotta remember that the shield of faith protects us from the schemes and the wiles of the devil. It ain’t no AR-15 that’s gonna be our security, even in these perilous days. And there ain’t gonna be no saving grace flowing from the latest joker who thought he was in charge of things. No sirree.

I mean, its sure enough pretty obvious that times are bad and all hell’s a-break-in’ loose and maybe even the seven seals breaking loose and all that.

But this ain’t the first time that times got so bad that God had to bring judgement. 

Remember Noah, way back in the early days. I mean, as bad as people had gotten, God counted Noah as righteous. And he didn’t have no AR-15, didn’t have no connections to the prood hooligans nor the qanon crowd nor the racist rabble nor even the Republican Party. 

All Noah had was his own two hands, a few tools, and some helpful young’uns that he and his wife had raised, and enough faith to believe what God was a-tellin’ him, and then the faith and the courage to act on what God said to do. 

I mean, Noah knew things were goin downhill but he didn’t let it waylay him from doing what he had to do

He just stayed busy, kept his nose to the Arkstone, doing what the Lord told him to do and sure ’nuff when the Big One came, he and family and all them animals rose above all the destruction.

I heard this song from Tom Pittman on WNCW. It's about Noah, a man who found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Some of the good ole boys, Dailey & Vincent and friends. . . they got it right in this rendition . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqdNATGR2Yg

And while that is some mighty fine singin', I thought I’d toss in my two cents worth, because since the days of Noah, we’ve gone high tech and now we have trains! 

So here’s my version of  a train-song update that a few  good ole boys and three gals helped me sing back in the day, 1978. Because we believers today are a little bit like Noah insofar as we can also find grace in the eyes of the Lord

Life’s Railway to Heaven

King of Soul

King of Soul 

Infrastructure 1930's style

 In Search for Blue, my current novel project, here's a recently composed passage from chapter ?. The time period is 1935; the place is Blue Ridge Parkway under construction in North Carolina:

            Meanwhile up in Washington Secretary of Interior Ickes was organizing work crews with picks and shovels a-flailing all across the nation, to get all the public lands whipped into shape: trees and shrubs and grasses gettin' planted to stabilize dirt banks, which are, these days, likely more stable the banks on Main Street. But wait a minute, shut my mouth, those money banks have come a long way toward stabilizin' since Mr. Roosevelt slapped a nationwide bank holiday on 'em back in 'thirty-three, to stop the run on the banks, which had caused a whole slew of 'em to run out of money. I mean, what good is a bank if it ain't got no money in it!
           Hard times ever'where back then, boys; I'm a-tellin' you. Even the Town of Boone went broke back in 'thirty-one, on account of folks not payin' taxes on account of not havin' enough business and income and money a-circulatin' to keep the wheels of progress a'rollin'.

            But after Mr. Roosevelt and his New Dealers got the banking system near'bouts shut down, after a while they got it cranked up again; it was pretty much from the bottom up, as much as I can tell. The Feds rolled out a whole slew of work programs; they all had alphabet names. The main ones 'round these parts were  CCC and WPA. Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's man in charge of the WPA, said North C'lina would get its share of funds for puttin' people to work, and sure 'nuff it happened. After a while they had local boys out there a-cuttin' a trail all along the Blue Ridge. They started up at the Virginia line. The Virginia crews started there near Cumberland Knob--not Cumberland Gap, mind you--that's  way over at Kentucky, where Dan'l's first trail took him to.              Anyway, the plan was for the Virginia crews to work northward while the North  C'lina crews got things a-goin' and worked to the south. After a while the CCC and the WPA had the Scenic project pret'well cranked up and hummin' along blazin' a trail, kinda like Ole Dan'l did back in the day . . .seventeen-hundreds . . . with workers from the unemployment and relief rolls. After the State got the right-of-way and the land acquisitions prett'much squared away, they turned it over to the Feds, which meant Secretary of Interior Ickes handed it off to the new National Parks Service, headed by a fella named Demaray, with Roosevelt's man Harry Hopkins headin' up the WPA to get the workers lined up and swingin' their axes and shovels and whatnot to blaze a trail, kinda like Ole Dan'l Boone did back in the day, you know, seventeen hundreds.

Glass half-Full

the Day of Broken Glass

 If any Citizens are wondering why Congressional Democrats still strive to impeach Trump after his authority has already been deleted by the American people, it’s because we Americans need to know and comprehend how he tried to destroy our Republic during the closing days of his presidency.

Today, Congressional Democrats are re-presenting the story of January 6, 2021.

Their arguments are presented under the official proceedings of impeachment, but really they’re just trying to make sure American citizens understand how close we came to disaster on January 6.

Because of Donald Trump’s treasonous incitement to riot.

So now, a month later, the Trumpian rump of the Republican party are trying their damnedest to ignore the impeachment. 

But for those Americans who still care about the rule of Law and Justice and preservation of domestic tranquility, the criminality of Trump’s treasonous call for January6 insurrection is being laid out for all the nation to see and understand.

It looked to me like the Day of broken glass.

It was a fatefully destructive day not unlike the riotous assault that the upsurging Nazis inflicted on Germany during the night of November 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht. 

My prayer for the peace and safety and justice of America is that our January 6 Day of Broken Glass is not a bad omen like Kristallnacht turned out to be for the German Republic in 1938.

Accordingly, I urge my fellow Americans to pay attention to the impeachment proceedings. Not because Congress will succeed in impeaching Trump (it won’t happen), but because we need to see the handwriting on the wall.

Mene, mene, Trump’ll incite ‘em.

Don't let happen to America what happened to Germany in the 1930's.

Glass half-Full