Humorous anecdotes, stories of the dark woods, and country commentary
Author Archives: Mike K
Turned 66 in August of 2019, a little over a year into retirement. Now live on my farm in southern Missouri Ozarks. At this point I have 4 daughters and 8 grandchildren and 3 dogs.
Early spring in the Ozarks. I’ve finally found the place in the world I’ve been looking for all of my life. It’s a place where you can walk outside and as soon as you get through the door, you’re in the early springtime woods. You take a deep breath of late winter and watch spring songbirds starting to show up, they’re tuning their whistles and chirps getting ready to find mates to help build summer homes somewhere among the thickets. Twigs and branches already have swollen nodes waiting to bloom, slight tinges of ochre-green and light brown are beginning to paint the hardwood forest patiently waiting for the last frost to pass away north. Sometimes if the timing and temperature is right, fogs can appear on the land and it can be pretty with bright sunshine above glinting off trees and twigs and sun rays stabbing through to shine on remnants of frost on the ground.
Out in the wild parts, black bear cubs will soon take their first tentative steps behind sleepy and hungry mamas out of the darkness and into a bright world of things that need to be explored and climbed. Feathered mothers-to-be are already negotiating with nature’s realtors for prime locations to build and deposit this year’s egglings, all the while cheerfully singing and checking grocery locations for places to find fare to cram into little open beaks surely to be hissing and squawking for attention soon.
We’re getting plenty of late winter rains and the wet-weather creeks have been running aplenty, which is good news for a nice dogwood bloom to follow in April. They will complement the forest décor of red bud (which is actually beautiful pink, but pink bud just doesn’t sound as catchy as red bud). I’ve heard those red bud blossoms make a tasty jelly, but haven’t tried it yet. The dogwoods are especially pretty if the timing is right and they bloom just before the greenery gets going, because if they are late, they’re harder to see for all the new green leaves. If they do their thing nice and early, the woods can resemble rivers of white and it’s spectacular – one of my favorite sights that occurs in the woods.
A lot of people don’t pay it much attention, but if you look carefully at the oaks as they begin to put on new leaves, the new shoots can be as red as black gums in the fall, they’re just not as big and showy as fall colors. We have a tree or shrub around here, I think they’re called autumn olives, they put on tiny white flowers that smell close to the same as gardenia, just not nearly as loud, but if you get close enough, they’re a real treat to sniff. That’ll be a bit later though. In late summer those little trees put on a red fruit about the size of a bb that’s really tart but sweet.
Before long, there’ll be flocks of high-flying snow geese in endless v patterns – thousands of tiny white honking specks flowing across an indigo ocean, itself a beautiful marvel to behold. They know where they are headed – to fields away north. When they come through this area, they are usually so high up you can barely see them, but it’s worth the squint to watch and hear their show.
It won’t be long now and there’ll be several little spotted white-tail fawns wobbling around the woods, chasing mom for a bit of milk here and there, and curiously nibbling at new grass shoots. Daffodils and dandelions are already showing off – along with forsythia they are the first colors to appear in the spring.
Lots of trouble going on in the world of people these days, and I write about it, but there’s always a balance with good things created by God for us to enjoy, and I would be remiss not to mention the things for which we should be thankful. Spring is almost here. Get outside and breathe.
Things are happening in the world these days over which we have little control, and if my recent posts reflect my concern with all the goings on, well I have mixed thoughts – on the one hand I don’t want to depress readers with posts about things like our impending destruction, but on the other hand, I like to do my part to help to awaken folks as to some of the things the media doesn’t talk much about that’s actually going on. When I say what’s actually happening, of course it’s how I interpret world affairs, but I try to remind people that there’s a perfectly reasonable and believable course of action we can take to avoid getting caught up and losing our bearings and becoming lost on our life’s roadmap. Getting to know Jesus is the panacea for all the world’s ills.
Anyways, for those who are comfortable with their own direction in this world that’s going insane, I’m determined to try and use my love of God’s creation to write more about those things which prompted me to start this website, at least once in a while. For those who are tired of my total desecration of the practice of writing prose, I’d like to update y’all on our life out here in the Ozarks and the things we see and do that a lot of folks in other places might not get to experience. Oh, and I’m working on part II of the Duff Mill story, so if you’re interested in how it turns out, please be patient, Earl will finish his hunt (maybe).
This morning broke with a silent and beautiful dawn sky with singing birds out trying to convince each other that spring is just around the corner. A lot of them don’t sound so sure, but they’re tuning up their whistles just the same. I heard a ladder-backed woodpecker yesterday and the crows seem to make different noises this time of year – maybe they’re getting ready for some green out there, too.
One of my neighbors up the road is having a new fence put in, and in order to do it right, the contractor had to cut and doze a bunch of trees, so the neighbor invited me to help myself to all the firewood I need. Guess that means getting my old carcass back in shape a bit so I can do some wood. This part of the Ozarks is blessed with abundant hardwood forests, which in turn is blessed with animals that eat acorns and hickory and walnuts. The place is crawling with deer, squirrels, and turkeys. There are a few black bears about too, but most of them are still asleep here in February. We have groundhogs, raccoons, possums, chipmunks, and bobcats. There are mountain lions about too, but not very many. I heard one scream – well it was between a scream and a growl, but it was definitely a cougar – I got a game cam picture of it that was taken around that same day I heard it.
We had an ice storm a week or so back, and when the ground gets covered with snow and ice, our wild birds have a rough time finding enough to eat, so during ice and snow, I try and keep bird seed out for them. Seeing the numbers of those little critters gathering to feed, I think they sort of expect to find it around the house here. There are several pairs of cardinals that hang around – maybe humans could learn something about being faithful from them because they mate for life. When you see one, there’s always a mate close by. And like other birds, they always lift my spirit with their songs. I think that’s why God gave them to us.
When I first moved here five years ago, there were birds everywhere. Lots more than we have now. Blue birds, indigo buntings, and goldfinches, and many others, always flitting about and singing – it was amazing. Well there is an old pond basin out back that never did hold much water, but it was boggy and overgrown with briars, willow trees, and wild rose so that it was impossible to walk through. I decided to clear it out and spent a full summer working to make it accessible – for people. Now you’d think in 65 years a person would have learned something about ecosystems and animal habitat, and sure enough, not long after the clearing project, I began to notice there were fewer goldfinches, and it didn’t take too long for me to realize I had inadvertently evicted my beloved little feathered friends. To make a long story short, my pond basin is recovering now and I have a healthy start of briars and willow saplings again. Maybe this year we’ll see more finches and buntings – I really hope so. The pond basin has now become our environmental habitat recovery project I call “The Fen”. A unique Ozark protected game sanctuary.
Well, spring is indeed right around the corner and I so look forward to the annual dogwood show. Last year it wasn’t very showy, but the year before it was absolutely spectacular – the best dogwood bloom I’ve ever been blessed to behold. I really don’t expect to ever see that again, but who knows? God isn’t shy about showing us what He can do, He proved it again last fall with the colors. Look through some of the pages on my site for fall pictures. The maples! Wow! There can be a hundred trees in fall colors in a stand, but if there’s one maple in there, it steals the show – every time. But the hickories and black gum also take on some really pretty colors. And last year even the normally drab oaks put on an unusually colorful show.
Springtime also ushers in some nasty weather around here, so we have to keep an eye out for those late cold fronts.
All the same, y’all enjoy the spring and I’ll try to keep posting while I’m here. Vaya con Dios.
How did we get here? What kind of map did we use? Can we get back? If we could get back, exactly where would we be getting back to? To yesterday, last week, or last year – when north winds brought coolness and raucous flocks of geese headed south and we at least thought we could watch those peaceful migrations content in the belief that our government had everything under control? We now stare across a void of brooding time and distance into the daunting challenges to our own sanity, itself a threat, but for the empire these days everything is a threat; existential, no less. Especially notions of sanity derived from foreign shores; possibly even (gasp!) China. Yes, especially China; or Russia! Oh mercy; we’ve come undone! And look! Balloons!!! We can only dream in nightmares, our world is no longer gift wrapped with red, white, and blue ribbons, no there is much more to try and digest today. Uncle Sam has taken on a sinister bearing. The geese in Washington are honking ever louder nowadays as the only things they seem to be able to accomplish anymore is to completely alienate European friends, stoke the flames of war throughout the world, and sacrifice (albeit undeserved), influence in Africa, South America, and the Middle East. Full-spectrum dominance, anyone?
I write as an American veteran of those years when we actually believed there was a damnable domino in southeast Asia that would succumb to some tenet of gravity known only to our leaders, and would surely and inexorably deprive all western people of someone’s unhinged iteration of freedom. The French back then had become unable to sustain mastery of a rebellious colony, and in order to stanch the flow of communism and with it the absolute larceny of freedom everywhere, the mighty US injected itself into a conflict that could have easily died a peaceful death without peddlers of stars and stripes getting involved in the murder of innocents.
I am now an old man and have seen all of the requisite variations of defending freedom, including helping nation after nation into whatever version of democratic paradise US leaders deemed appropriate and to be honest (which is absolutely forbidden), I’m kind of tired of it. Smedley Butler was a US Marine general who finally caught on to what is happening in the world, and actually tried to warn us, but from the time he spoke up until now, the government has taken over the media, (google Operation Mockingbird – itself another indication of a dying empire). The thrust of Butler’s warning actually had nothing to do with dominoes or freedom, but that he’d come to the realization that all wars are fought for the rich man. Wealthy bankers drive the bloodshed, and that is both to protect their wealth, and amass more. And buy shiny new yachts, jets, and governments (like ours), and of course, souls of men.
There are always people who are willing, for a price, to bring misery to the lives of, even to kill, other people. Some call them whores, a comparison which is grossly unfair fair to ladies of the night. Many are beckoned, be they generals, congress persons, alphabet soup organizations, and now days they even seem to be able to find scientists and medical doctors willing to sell themselves into treachery. Mostly though, they engage normal people like you and me, give them a gun and a fancy pair of sunglasses and feed them tidbits of whatever “secret” dishonesty is playing so they feel important – like they are part of something bigger than themselves, so they dare not allow something as mundane as their conscience to interfere with their assignments. The wealthy are always able to recruit people from whatever walk of life necessary to do their bidding. The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. It only follows that if one encounters a man that cannot be bought – in other words if his principles are more important to him than riches – one has found a rare gem in this world. This is the type of person of which our country is in dire need for leadership. We have none. We find ourselves at a (the) seminal moment in human history, and we have no leadership! Not one actual stand-up leader in all of the government of the USA. How sad is that? I personally believe there are honorable men who could do the job, but they are necessarily barred from any position where they could make a difference, even in the unlikely event that such men might be willing to operate in the government cesspit.
Our dilemma is based in large part on society’s definition of “success”. Think about it, if we say a man is successful, we automatically think of his wealth, and I’m not going to beat around the bush – wealthy people are evil by nature. That’s why Jesus said that for all intents and purposes, they won’t go to heaven. A man’s financial status has sadly and inexplicably become one of the fundamental attributes that allow him to be considered for public office – which means we get the exact opposite kind of person we need running our country. We end up with the most execrable creatures possible in the very positions where they can inflict the most damage to the citizenry. These “successful” types are invariably the least qualified to perform public service, but here they are, and here we are – trying to make sense of the insanity that passes for leadership nowadays in America.
Long ago, some good men were able to wrest power from an earlier version of evil wealthy elites and build this nation. Sure, they had faults, but such was their dedication to this republic, they were willing to die to establish it. Incrementally since those days, the quality of individuals that staff our high offices diminished until we find ourselves where we are today – completely bereft of any hint of leadership and the stench is overwhelming. The cream did not rise to the top. None of the people in today’s US government care one iota about the citizens, nor do they care for the nation, their concerns are strictly about their (typically offshore) bank accounts. Easily purchasable for the highest bidder. Thanks to unconstitutional outrages like Citizens United. And if money can’t buy them, they can meet with misfortune on the streets of Dallas or get Epsteined.
Our intelligence agencies have no oversight or accountability. They are so free to do as they will, they could probably bomb some big city buildings with airplanes in full view of millions of people and completely get away with it. Or maybe destroy some ally’s underwater pipeline. Or operate illegal bio-weapons labs or torture sites. Oh, wait… When I was young, the America I knew, or thought I knew, would not have been suspected of such things – especially torturing POWs. Now US leaders in an endless embarrassing public spectacle, openly brag about this kind of behavior. A dying empire indeed!
Well, we’ve gotten ourselves into a pickle, for sure. I’m just concerned that all the people in other countries of the world might believe a majority of Americans support such depravity, and I’m here to assure one and all that is not the case. I speak for a considerable part of our population, veterans especially, when I say I have nothing against Russia. In fact, for my part, I envy the Russian people for having such admirable men of distinction as Putin, Peskov, and Lavrov running and speaking for their country. Men of intelligence and integrity, and how about their director of the Information and Press, Maria Zakharova instead of the screeching sophomoric crones like Thomas-Greenfield, Albright, Nikky Haley, Victoria Nuland, and Hillary Clinton? Seriously, are these overt insults to decency and sensibility the best people we can field to represent our nation to the world? I’m not even going to talk about Blinken or his underling in the white house.
The US is surely a dying empire, and if this is the best we can do for leadership, maybe it’s best we go quietly into the night instead of putting up such an embarrassing spectacle. The whole world watches our every move. They hear the lies. They know the US government is lying every time they say anything, and are aghast that, incredibly, our leaders act as though they deserve to be believed when they say something. Now, figure that one out! It would be interesting to keep a running list of all the lies that have been told both from the mouths of politicians, and from the mainstream media (talk about embarrassing) on our foreign policy. Especially the reactions of our esteemed UN reps when confronted with the accusation of an obvious action like Nord Stream. “Preposterous!” – in bold headlines. It’s sad, but I couldn’t hold back a chuckle. Seriously, what good is it to have such a stable of expert liars if people have already decided not to believe anything they say even before they start talking? We have a credibility starved government; ergo no one is listening – nor should they. “Agreement incapable” is such a polite, apt, and typically Russian, description of the incompetent behavior. And the folks in the RoW shake their heads in dismay to watch and hear this blatant insanity and dishonesty from leaders of a nation once respected by the world.
Meanwhile, in the empire’s death throes and at the behest of wealthy American Elites, young men, and now women and old men too, are dying by the hundreds of thousands in another faraway place where the US has no strategic interest, and even if we did, there are countless other ways to accomplish foreign policy without all the death and destruction; but then death and destruction is dutifully performed in servitude to their real master, the source of their wealth who wouldn’t have it any other way.
Again – it ain’t us average Americans that are pushing this murderous travesty in Ukraine. In fact, most of us don’t support it at all. If you have a (perfectly reasonable) suspicion of warmongering by Americans, remember it’s just a small percentage of our “successful” men, abetted by with the simplest among us who still suffer from the ever-dishonest and ever-dwindling media influence. The evil doers are so well entrenched by now that there is little us commoners can do except to try and let God and the world know that we do not stand with them. They have declared war on us too.
Speaking of success, my definition is at odds with the accepted notion; my idea of true success is standing before the judgement seat of Jesus Christ and hearing “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” That, my friend, will be the pinnacle of success; of His grace. When that day gets here, you’ll see. I hope to be too caught up with all of my brothers and sisters in Christ enjoying the rapture of His company to remember to say I told you so.
If we continue blindly walking down this path we’re on, there is likely to be a major catastrophic war, from which only a few (or none) of us might survive. Then it won’t matter if you agree with this post or not. Not much will matter if that happens, other than where you stand with Jesus. That will make all the difference in this world and the next, for you. If you aren’t right with Jesus, you’d best get right. Not a lot of time left to attend to it either. Free bibles can be found and Jesus patiently awaits to welcome you into His kingdom. There are lots of good Christian preachers around who’ll be glad to show you what you need to do. Find one today. When you take a good look at the state of evil in the world right now, especially in this Empire of Lies, Jesus becomes remarkably easy to believe.
Then let’s bow out of this tragic mistake and let the miserable ghost of this miserable empire join those of all the earlier ones to haunt what’s left of this miserable world.
Revelation 18:20 (After modern Babylon (the US?) has been destroyed) “Rejoice over her, you heavens! Rejoice you people of God! Rejoice, apostles and prophets! For God has judged her with the judgement she imposed on you.”
Let your mind take you somewhere special. Maybe a place where tall oak trees gently and silently stroke a placid rivulet with shadows as a cool summer breeze whispers a symphony of blue serenity; of yesterday’s innocence come now but memory. Perhaps old soldiers and sailors consider, as is fitting, thoughts and former notions in this serene woodland of wisdom that yesterday’s briars and paths of tragic confusion were only obstacles to overcome; and at last, amid sylvan wonders of reverent and Godly peace, they have opportunity to reflect.
Indeed, the cannon yet speaks in a strange and morbid tongue little known to those of peaceful intent, yet many too, only yesterday were deceived to think they could comprehend a grievance offered, some beckoning, yet deceitful cause brought forth by those of no substance, so are all conflicts. As wild songbirds dart among greenery of an understanding wood, he watches, hears the songs, comes to see the futility as if it were a long-embarked sailing ship slowly emerged from a hazy ocean, the error of such deceit. Fields stained of darkening blood look to the azure heaven and cry, of sorrow and earnest no less than that of Abel, for justice, for truth, which a covenant has promised. It awaits an appointed time.
Convinced now of darkest betrayal, amid the rapacious clamor and echoes of another war, a grey cloud descends upon youthful hearts as at last, on wings of understanding they depart; yet those who send them, those who burden them with instruments of destruction, will not reconcile. Damn them! Green leaves are not meant to fall! The infernos of hell await and shall torment forever those of pernicious bearing on whom final judgement fall, who value not tears of mothers or children, nor precious blood spilled to purchase another hour of decadence.
A day will come for a great and wrathful wind sent forth to scour the land. Savagery of evil shall succumb to His judgement, and knees shall bend. Belated regret shall avail not the guilty. No, for that day, the glory of Him who came from heaven and stood in the form of man upon His creation among His brethren shall be revealed and require that the evil soul be denied forevermore a place with Him. Only on that day will the man of perdition realize the depth of his loss. He who seeks redemption, be it sought belatedly in some peaceful forest of old age, or in a forsaken trench filled with blood, tears, and agony – will find it.
A day of peace in the serenity of a wooded hillside, a day of meditation when the simple wonder of creation strikes the heart of the old warrior who has long-since repurposed his sword, shall reveal to him the futility of war and death and the inestimable value of that knowledge. He shall cry on that day for those not blessed to see it and wonder that destiny was shaped for him to seek a wooded solitude where he finds the heart to shed tears for those taken in youth.
They dance wildly outside the den, torches blazing in the darkness. They make noises, many unintelligible vocal intonations that no sensible one hears; no one listens because like the wild maniacs they are, the sounds they make have no substance, no meaning, and never a semblance of integrity. They behave as beasts, devoid of morals or conscience, dancing to a never-ending chorus of garbled nonsense, as they try their utmost to show onlookers, and each other, of their confidence for it is the onlookers, those who the madmen have pretentiously convinced are their allies, who must now be convinced it is their duty to enter the den and face the horror that those who dance and scream outside are afraid to confront. Some allies are even willing to try, such is their misplaced confidence of support from the insane ones. The lack of confidence of the madmen, never acknowledged, is nevertheless palpable to those of discernment. The allies are expected to be initiators of the insanity, and some of these have second thoughts, although they have pledged themselves to the service of the chanters who write the songs, and who have since become completely insane.
The allies of the mad ones finally begin to understand the reality that it is they who will be expected to sharpen their puny sticks and face the onslaught of the monstrosity inside the den. But why? They have all seen these types of dramas before. These same madmen, once they have stirred the hornet’s nest, have repeatedly been known to cut and run, and leave their vassals to their own devices. Although there are a few who plaintively mumble as the insanity of the chant reaches fever pitch, tragically they cannot muster the collective will to refuse to be part of the madness. Indeed, they all have very good reasons to refuse, their families will be in danger due to their cowardice, their nations may well be destroyed, yet they cannot bring themselves to entertain any notion of refusal to participate, such is their absolute dishonor and obeisance to the evil that commands them.
The great bear in the den is no longer in hibernation. He has made his demands quite clear. The idiots chanting outside his lair are too close for his comfort, but they continue to encroach, in the erroneous and arrogant assumption that the bear will not strike, or will only strike those who enter his lair, and that he will defer peacefully to those who wrest the unfortunate vassals in to aggrieve him. Each of the instigators, cowards in their own right, try and convince each other that the bear will retreat further into his lair and avoid conflict with those who cause his discomfit, at least with those who promote the madness from afar. They pretend to ignore the utter plain truth that the hackles of the bear are now on display for all to see, he stands at the entrance, great menacing teeth bared and with blood in his eyes, yet still willing to allow the crazies to retreat were they to come to their senses, but all of sound mind who witness the impending tragedy realize that the utter madness of the instigators has overtaken their sensibilities, and they will not back off.
Some of the addle-pated vassals try to keep up the pretense of subservience, for until the bear unleashes his fury, there are many who call themselves leaders, who stand to personally benefit for their perceived loyalty. For these ones, their love of pecuniary largesse dictates their unquestioning obedience. They have allowed the mad ones to convince them of their security, and have no notion of the wrath of the great bear, nor of how quickly and utterly his ferocity can destroy them; may God have mercy on all when the bear comes out of his den.
I am a great bald eagle. I’ve soared through the heavens for countless ages, over landscapes carefully arranged and placed by the Creator, landscapes once pristine, peaceful, and of magnificent beauty. I watched as strangers arrived here and tried to possess land that did not, could not, belong to them. I saw them slay the inhabitants, people who had learned to live in harmony with the mountains, rivers, great animal herds in a way so as to preserve the creation over which they held stewardship.
Intruders arrogated to themselves control of this nation over which I fly, and slaughtered any who opposed them. Those who could not, did not contest them were sent to arid dungeons of deserts; places that were of no attraction; of no wealth. I’ve soared over countless swathes of prairie where bleached bones lay desiccated among ancient and rotted remains of native settlements. Men do not know that even the majestic eagle dares to weep.
Somewhere in the Distance
Somewhere in the distance, on this bleak and lonely plain
‘Neath midnight skies of silver stars, a lone coyote’s refrain
Drifts along the prairie breeze in melancholy notes
Heard by none but ranch hands lying watchful ‘neath their coats.
A tumbleweed soon pauses from his trek which knows no end
And sighs the softest whisper to the chilly prairie wind
Perhaps a new direction on the lonely breeze to go
He’s roamed this land and knows of all its secrets high and low.
A full moon rises into view as ancient ghosts appear
Of weathered buildings, once a town, now dead for scores of years
Rusted hinges moan their tales as doors swing to and fro,
The gallows rots to dust as did her victims long ago.
The piercing call of Navajo is heard here nevermore
His tepee warm no longer stands, his woman at the door.
But why has man since disappeared where once such life abound’?
And why is no one living on this prairie to be found?
Perhaps if we could learn the song the coyote sadly sings
Or secrets told by tumbleweeds, or rotted doors that swing
Perhaps we might then understand why only ghosts remain
To ever haunt ‘neath midnight moon this bleak and lonely plain.
Mike Kitchens
So it began. The birth of a monstrosity that would grow to devour the world over which we great birds fly. They had the temerity to appoint me to occupy a position I did not seek. My image adorns every significant representation of their claims of ownership. They shame me. They own nothing. When they pass through that portal, the land they had claimed is still beneath me. Had they truly owned the land of this nation I watch, they would have taken it with them. They did not; they could not. They own nothing.
(This post, like the Eulogy to the Fallen Soldier, is to try and bring home the reality of what it’s got to be like on the cold battlefields of Eastern Europe and is published in the hope of getting enough people to understand that this slaughter needs to stop.)
I’m cold, hungry and so tired. Naught to see but ravaged land and the frozen earth of this ditch in which I have suffered for too long. Naught to see but the remains of my friends, some mostly whole, many more no longer anything but shredded body parts and bloodied limbs, bones and more blood than I ever dreamed could be shed. Those of us who are still alive might as well be dead, too. There is no hope here.
I imagine the guys who are firing on our positions are cold too. They don’t know us, whether or not we hate them; most of us don’t, and they probably don’t hate us either, although there are some units in the rear that hate everyone on the field. Those psychopaths even kill their own people, ostensibly to get them to fight, but some especially evil men simply kill for the pleasure of killing, doesn’t matter whom. Everyone knows of them – and they relish the notion that they are feared. There is a special place in hell for them. There’s also a special place in hell for the people who profit, in any way, from this murderous undertaking. Even the “bible believing” stockholders of the many “defense” contractors of the countries responsible for this.
If someone were to ask why we are here, there wouldn’t be many of us who could say. I have my own notions, but not for sure. We don’t get paid to know the politics; we simply get coordinates and fire our weapons. We don’t know if we hit our target, or who we kill. Did our bullets find young men who were alive – just beginning their lives, with the hopes and aspirations of all young men? Were they killed instantly, or do they lie suffering in pain and horror, as they succumb to that eternal sleep?
Even in these damnable trenches, we hear of the destruction wreaked all around this country. Many civilian people who have nothing to do with this war suffer immensely. Mothers continually pray to God that their sons might survive; heartbroken, realizing that in all likelihood they will never see them again on this side. I’ve been praying ever since I arrived at this corner of hell that God will see fit to spare my life, but I don’t hold much hope for that – there’s just too much death here for me to actually believe I’ll survive. Maybe I won’t – I’d just like to get it over with, one way or another. This abominable waiting for the end is another hell of its own, and no one but us guys in the trenches know what it’s like. Maybe if more regular people knew; someone, somewhere, would help get this madness stopped before all of us die.
The ice-cold dark water in these holes is unbearable. It’s filthy, with blood and waste, and we wade in it, freezing our feet. Our clothes are wet, most of us are bleeding from untreated wounds, which will no doubt become infected. What a dismal situation we are in, when we consider ourselves fortunate, even though we lose our feet to frostbite, just to remain alive. We keep our eyes and ears open for incoming rounds and it’s exhausting, the drugs help to keep us awake, but after a while, we become zombified, mindlessly pursuing and performing our mission of death. Of course, that’s what the leaders want. As much death as evil men can bring about.
It’s the ultimate conundrum when a man gets so tired of trying to survive, he starts to pray for death.
I told this story in a post on my old website, but alas, it went the way of the dodo when I did the big site revamp. I will attempt to tell it again here – for those who remember the earlier version, please understand that some of the details may be a bit different.
It was beautiful day in the summer, so I decided to check out the local golf course for a few rounds. Was playing the seventh, and not doing remarkably well, when a sudden thunderstorm came up and the few of us out on the course hurried off to the clubhouse and tried to wait it out, but as it seemed to be setting in, some of the guys started talking and even though I wasn’t exactly eavesdropping, I overheard a strange conversation. One of the fellows was talking about a local legend of a long-gone sawmill in a remote area out several miles northeast of town. As a relatively new resident of this neck of the woods, I didn’t know of any mill that had been up there, but as he related the tale, I became fascinated and eventually stopped pretending to ignore what he was saying and listened overtly and intently.
There was a fellow, I’ll call him Earl, who lived just outside of town, who spent a lot of time riding the back roads in the county. He went all over, mostly looking for tracts of land with timber that might be available, as he worked with logging contractors who operated in the area. In his travels he met lots of folks, one widow in particular from whom he had once bought timber, caught his attention, and he made trips out to her place once in a while for coffee and company and to help her with firewood and such. He had to go through some remote back country to and from her house, and there were places on the dirt roads where the woods were thick, dark, and foreboding, but as an outdoorsman with considerable experience in the woods, he didn’t really pay attention to the general spookiness of the countryside. So it was that one evening in late summer as he was going home from her place, he saw a magnificent buck cross the dirt road ahead of him, and it sported an incredible set of antlers. Such was that rack that he could hardly believe his eyes, and from that point on, he was hooked.
He drove around the area looking for a property owner’s residence so he might try and get permission to hunt in those woods, and about dusky dark, he came across a rusty mailbox beside what might pass for a driveway, mostly overgrown with weeds and brush, going back into the woods, probably to an unseen house. Since he had caught an instant case of acute buck fever, he decided to give it a shot. Even making an uninvited visit to some reclusive hillbilly’s house in the darkening evening didn’t seem to be an unreasonable risk, as long as he might end up with a chance of trying to bag that big buck.
Earl drove down the winding rutted roadway through woods that were so thick and dark, he began to wonder if anyone actually lived out there and even if this was a good idea. Just about the time he decided to start looking for a place to turn around to get out of this creepy place, he saw a dim light through the brush ahead. He slowly drove up and as he got closer, he could make out an ancient cabin back in the gloom; the light was coming from a kerosene lamp inside a mold-crusted window on the front side of the house. Tendrils of smoke wound from a homemade chimney. A very old dog, maybe part lab, began to sound off as Earl shut off his engine, and the front door opened, revealing a silhouetted old man with an ancient shotgun stepping out to meet the intruder. Earl could make out that the dim road kept winding through the woods past the homestead, but he couldn’t tell what might be down there in the almost unnatural darkness.
Earl was taken somewhat aback, he’d heard tales of anti-social fellows in these parts who didn’t like being bothered. Sometimes they were moonshiners or poachers, and it wasn’t the best idea to intrude on them. Earl stepped from his truck and approached the old man who must have been closing in on ninety, or maybe even older, but he seemed to still be able to get around okay. Earl quickly introduced himself and told the old fellow of his business, as the owner slowly lowered his gun. He explained seeing the big buck out on the road, and asked if the ancient resident owned the property, and if so, would he allow someone to hunt on it. Earl was prepared to offer him a decent tip if he’d consider giving him permission.
Until now the old timer hadn’t said anything, but Earl noticed an odd look on the old man’s face when he spoke of wanting to hunt in those woods. The old grandpa fellow asked Earl if he knew anything of the history of that part of the country, something Earl hadn’t given any thought at all, and furthermore, he wasn’t the slightest bit curious about prior goings-on there, he just wanted to try for that buck. The old fellow sort of shook his head, as if in disbelief, but curiously told Earl that if it was anybody’s property, it was his, and if he was sure he wanted to hunt there, he would allow it and there would be no charge. As Earl climbed back into his truck to start the engine, the old man mumbled something Earl couldn’t make out, but he did catch something about being careful not to allow the sun to go down on him in those woods! The old man seemed adamant about that part of what he said. Even the intrepid Earl, hunter and outdoorsman extraordinaire, was a bit rattled at the behavior of the old timer when they spoke of the woods. What could it mean?
A long time ago, in the late 1800’s and early 1900s, people were settling in this part of the Ozarks. Most folks built cabins, but some more affluent people opted to build regular houses using sawed lumber from the plentiful old-growth hardwood, but lumber required sawmills, and sure enough, sawmills started cropping up all around the country. Some of the early mills grew into sizeable operations, one in particular was the Duff Mill.
After the civil war, there was one Major Duff, retired and settled with his family on a large tract of property in Southern Missouri. He bequeathed land to his big family to build on, and even leased a few acres to a sawmill operator from Springfield who set up a mill there, and as time went by, the mill grew to a big operation, so big in fact, that a small mill town was established with a few hundred folks living there. Of course, a “company store” was established for the townsfolk. Several cabins sprang up on hillsides and in ravines and the townsfolk located springs in the nearby woods.
Flower beds and small vegetable gardens were planted and tended by family members of the mill workers to supplement the wild game and store provender for their survival. A company doctor came out from the city once a week to attend to the various ailments of the townspeople and such injuries sustained at the mill that didn’t require a trip to the hospital in Saint Louis; or burial in the small cemetery behind the mill. Like most early manufacturing facilities in those days, industrial safety wasn’t a thing, and that meant lots of people got hurt; many injuries were serious, and fatalities were more or less normal occurrences. In this regard, Duff Mill was notorious. The grisly accidents started early – one of the first wagon loads of logs to arrive at the mill somehow came unchained and logs fell off and landed on an unfortunate mill hand and crushed him. Some of the other employees retrieved his body and unceremoniously carried/dragged him to the area behind the mill and buried him in a shallow trench and covered him with the damp earth and pieces of the plentiful limestone from a nearby ravine. This was the first “grave” in the new cemetery.
As time passed, and the operation grew, the company brought in a foreman, a lanky, cantankerous middle aged fellow from somewhere in Eastern Europe . He spoke with a thick accent, he was abrasive, rude, and no one on the site liked him. The only thing of any interest to him whatsoever was the board footage the mill turned out, and he treated all of the workers like slaves. No one knew what his real name was, everybody referred to him as Jackson. He walked around with a piece of hickory limb about the size of an axe handle, and was known to fly into a rage and hammer guys with that club. At first some of the mill workers would stand up to him, and as was his wont, he’d weasel out of a confrontation, but the company would invariably send down some goons, who would accompany Jackson to terminate that unfortunate fellow, and as times were very hard back then, those guys got to where they would put up with almost anything to keep their jobs.
When a fatal accident happened in the mill, Jackson would send a worker to fill water buckets and wash the blood away, and immediately get everyone back to work. He seemed to relish going to the poor worker’s cabin to inform his wife and children of the tragedy and give them notice that they had to move out so the cabin would be available for the next employee. He would give a couple of hands a few minutes to bury the fatality and get back to work. No matter the severity of the situation, no matter how many coworkers needed a few minutes to deal with their grief, Jackson was only concerned with board feet. If they wanted to have a memorial service, they could do it after hours in the dark.
One accident in particular was especially tragic for the townspeople. One of the older guys was impaled by a long piece of wood that flew out of a big saw when the blade shattered. His wife was near the area where it happened, and when she learned of it, she ran to the scene of the accident where her husband of several years lay dead. Despondent at her loss and knowing Jackson would soon evict her from the cabin and having nowhere to go, she took a piece of the saw blade and sliced deep into her wrist and quickly bled to death. Several of the workers and their families wept over losing them, but mostly for her, for she’d helped a lot of families in their gardens and shared her own produce with those in need.
In spite of the low morale, the mill prospered, and word of its success spread around the countryside, even up to White River, where several unemployed guys heard there was a place to work a few miles away. A half dozen of them packed a few belongings and bedrolls and hiked through the log roads and open woods to Duff Mill, where they were immediately hired. Three of them were brothers, the Broomfield boys. Chad, George, and Ronnie. They all three took an instant dislike of Jackson, and he would find them somewhat different than most of the hands he intimidated.
Before the brothers had been on site very long, the older ones, Chad and George, were soon known to be excellent hunters, and they were often called on to provide wild game for the mill workers. Sometimes they’d be out in the woods for a few days, hunting and netting fish for camp meat. Of course, Jackson always took the choicest cuts of tenderloin and backstrap from the deer.
One rainy day, Ronnie, the youngest of the Broomfields, a lean and lanky young fellow not quite full grown, was carrying an arm load of firewood to feed the boiler when he slipped on the muddy hillside. Jackson was nearby and when he saw Ronnie fall down, he walked over and savagely kicked him in the ribs and screamed at him. The poor kid was helpless and in severe pain, so there was little he could do at the time, his older brothers were out hunting game, and by the time they got back a few days later and heard about it, they knew there would be a reckoning; the right time hadn’t come yet, but it was etched in stone.
Sawmills in those days were limited in the amount of business they could do. The limit was shipping. Some mills in or near towns where there were railroads did better than mills like Duff, out in the middle of nowhere with nothing but wagons to haul in logs and haul out lumber. As the mills in the towns grew, they could produce and ship lumber cheaper than Duff, and most of the nearby woods had been harvested requiring longer trips for the wagons, so eventually business started declining. This decrease in profits seemed to aggravate their living conditions and of course, going out of business made Jackson crazier and meaner than ever. The man was evil, and to the few hands who were still working there, he had become intolerable.
One day the expected notice came from the owners in the city. The mill would cease operations. Most of the workers and families had already packed their belongings as by now the impending shutdown was no surprise to anyone. As everyone was leaving, George Broomfield decided it was finally time to square up with Jackson, so he walked over to the foreman’s house – a fairly decent home apart from the hovels of the workers, it was the only two-story house in the town, and Jackson lived there by himself – the extra room was for company big shots on the infrequent occasions when they came to see the operation.
When George arrived at the foreman’s lodgings, he thought it odd that the door was partly open, so he didn’t bother to knock and walked in. Good manners were the furthest thing from his mind. The first thing he noticed was blood – spattered all over the living area and trailing up the stairs. When he mounted the staircase, he was surprised to see his younger brother, no longer a skinny kid, Ronnie had grown by now into a big muscular man. Holding a familiar hickory club the size of an axe handle, itself smeared with blood. He looked down the staircase and shook his head as he told his brother he wouldn’t have to bother with his errand – the bloodied club was evidence that Ronnie had already taken care of it.
Before the mill town completely emptied, a few of the hands drug Jackson’s carcass out to the cemetery and buried it under large pieces of limestone, which they were none too gentle about putting over it. As far as anyone was concerned, his fate was a result of the last mill “accident”.
Years passed, and all of the buildings slowly rotted away. The only things left of the former bustling town were the dilapidated foreman’s house and a few concrete walls, mostly from the drying kiln. Vines, briars, trees, and nature in general reclaimed the place until a person wouldn’t even know a mill had existed there. Except for the dark and foreboding shell of the foreman’s house. It would be on this very acreage that Earl, who had no idea of the days of the old mill and its history, would come to hunt his trophy buck.
Think tanks. That’s what they call them. They have important sounding names. They do important work. You don’t know what a think tank is? Think of a septic tank, only one that works backwards. These are institutions of magnificently knowledgeable people who, among many other very wise abilities, can see into the future and prognosticate – such as an opponent’s next move if one moves the queen to the knight’s third row and so forth. Such prescience concentrated within a relatively small bandwidth should at the very least warp time and space; of course, government leaders know this and bend their collective wills accordingly and apply whatever dictates that result from these esteemed academicians’ well-considered formulations and strategies. Especially when it involves US foreign policy. This level of wisdom cannot be contained by any known means and kept within the bounds of their group psyche, so it must by virtue of its virtuousness, be disseminated as the wisest of any available wisdom and it is therefore sought and unquestioningly applied in all profound decision making. And all their products come with the caveat that any strategic failure is to be blamed on the decision maker (conveniently neglecting to mention that the decision was based on their advice).
It was from these very founts of effusive omniscience that there were determined to be horrific threats of dominoes falling in southeast Asia and the existential challenges to freedom and the American way of life those damnable falling dominoes would surely bring upon us. All-prescient determinations were made with the certainty of these deemed threats in mind, and as always in avoidance of (and with the obligatory contravention to) common sense and/or any evidence of human compassion, they directed the government to apply military might in such a way as to avert the falling domino catastrophe, while befriending the locals’ hearts and minds by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of them, and with generous donations of napalm and agent orange onto their villages and the surrounding countryside. What could possibly go wrong? Beginning with the Gulf of Tonkin, this was one of the signature achievements of our academic caliphates, and by April of 1975, it had demonstrated to the world the effectiveness of the American think tank. (The tragedy that was the Vietnam war was/is no laughing matter, please do not read this as an attempt to make light of that – what is important is to realize what an unnecessary and complete failure it became).
There are countless examples of the value of think tanks to foreign policy. Due to their unparalleled genius, advice from outside-the-box thinkers like Brzezinski and Kissinger heavily influenced courses of action such as the partial destruction of southeast Asia, the complete destruction of select European countries, and the entire Middle East. Why, these efforts might have never been undertaken, much less accomplished with such thoroughness and rigor if not for the prescient instigation by such wise and learned groups of men and women. These types invariably advise the application of conflict and death in scenarios for which their impeccable wisdom is sought and most of the time these tidbits of proverbial insight have the unexpected (and surely unintended) result of a boon of massive profits for various contractors and arms suppliers.
We’ve reached a point in history where leaders hardly make a move without going to one or more of such gaggles of wisdom for consultation with their resident oracles, always gathered at the gates to guide their steps. After all, when a leader takes advantage such veritable fountains of profound academic and strategic thought always at his disposal, how could he possibly make a wrong decision? We might not have arrived at the opportunity to show the world how rapidly American forces could vacate the Kabul airport, if it had not been for the omniscient think tanks who doubtless inculcated the notion that we should be there in the first place. The decision to recognize that Guano character as president of Venezuela has got to rank among the most embarrassing (to us American citizens most of all) foreign policy decisions in our relatively short history. Seriously. Wonder which think tank got bonuses for that one?
Here in the US, there are many places and issues that don’t involve mass murder which beg for attention. For instance, the western United States sits beside the largest known body of water in the solar system – the Pacific Ocean, yet there is very little potable water to sustain approximately 40 million people of the Southwestern US. I don’t know what the cost might be of desalinization plants to rectify the water shortage, but I do know that (at the behest think tank(s)), the US government is once more sending tens of billions of dollars to finance a war that has nothing to do with our country. Wonder how much desalinization Americans could get for 20 or 30 billion dollars? Someone should put that question before the resident geniuses. Or maybe they’ve already considered it and decreed that our contribution to people dying by the hundreds of thousands in a faraway land (once more) is vastly more critical to American interests than drinking water. And don’t even get me started talking about the homeless and drug problems.
At this writing, and in what is sure to be remembered as one of the most stellar of all state department achievements possibly in history, our country staggers as it begins to suffer the effects of ill-advised sanctions, undoubtedly instituted at the behest of think tanks; the state department then convinced European allies to also implement the same on a perceived adversary. Leaders of European nations promptly started clawing and scratching over each other to be recognized as the most subservient to their beloved Uncle (and his infallible panels of magi). The effects of this monstrosity of foreign policy action are yet to be completely felt but suffice it to say they are not looking good. Energy structures worldwide are what a spinning reel looks like after a bad cast. Europe, our supposed allies, are bleeding on the economic ropes. We in the US aren’t far behind. I’m sure the think tanks responsible for this fiasco will be handsomely rewarded – and if they could know about such a well-financed cognitive mediocrity lurking in, and actually directing, the highest decision centers of the planet, Dunning and Kruger would probably give up and go rock hunting.
Just in case the aforementioned sanctions do not win the think tank golden award for monumental foreign policy blunders, these same people have gone forward with a back-up plan to put a price cap on oil from aforementioned perceived adversary, an initiative which makes the incredible assumption that said adversary would be willing to sell its oil to such states as attempt put this ingenuity into practice while there are states in the East queued in line to buy the oil at market prices.
If there was a way to communicate with goldfish, maybe we could ask for policy guidance from them. I’d bet good money that the fish tanks could be at least as (maybe more) capable advisors than the “think” tanks. And a heck of a lot cheaper.
