Wednesday Oct 20, 1999
2:35p
It's been such a boring walk around the old cow path I lost track of the days. Yesterday was Tuesday but it was the 19th, today is the 20th. Least I think that's right. Maybe it just doesn't matter anymore.
These Journal files are getting up to the 50K mark quicker and quicker. I really didnt realize that I've been writing all that much. It use to take me a year or two years to fill up one of the old spiral books. And they typed up to a lot less than 50K.
There's not any reasonable logic left in the world, especially the political world. A few politicians with a grudge against the president get an important piece of legislation defeated in the senate. It's now apparently more important to get back at the president than it is to reduce the probablity of nuclear poliferiation. That's sad.
It's more important to have an economic boycott and the personal hardships it will bring about than to just ignore some flag into non-existence if it bothers you. I'm beginning to wonder if there might actually be a net increase in the state's economy. There's always others who will bring business into the state just because someone else is trying to take it away. And there is always the probability of the boycotters being boycotted. Just like in the political world, nothing ever makes any sense anymore.
Except that it will be a bunch of us common folk to loose. People with familys loose their jobs, have to move to another state, go on welfare rolls, business owners who employ others loose their business and all the other bad things that will happen. All because some few politicans and few of a group just have to have their way. That's what's really, really sad.
What kind of bad images and symbolism is within this issue? Do what we want or else? Make an offer they can't refuse? Apeasement as in the 30's in Europe? It will all end a bad legacy for the future generations.
Friday Oct 22, 1999
11:00a
It was thirty year ago today that I left home to ride the bus down to Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina to be inducted into the Navy. The next day, October 23, 1969 I did all those things down there.
I guess there's really not much else I want to write about what happened then. Well, what it really is, I just don't feel good when remember what happened 30 years ago.
1:50p
I don't feel all that good about what's happening these days. I'm mostly just sitting here wasting away time, the one thing I've become an expert at, while waiting for time to pass so I can go to the pizza place, just to have something to do.
It's been interesting how I could write and post everything I have at this website. Yet I'm sure it's made little difference. What worth are my thoughts about anything? It's all just one of millions. But it's something to do. Everyone needs something to do.
A couple of days ago I finally got the sand from Sliding Rock #11 on the Little Eastatoe dried out. Did what I should have done the first try, spread it out real thin on the front porch. So now I've got dry sand in a bucket sitting in the kitchen. I've even made a couple, no it's been three, designs in the miniture rock garden. The first was just the rocks randomly laid out, ... , well actually, the very first one was divided into sections and the rocks grouped by size. Then I made one with the rocks laid out on sand. The present one is divided into two parts, one with the bones I found at Lake Jocassee laid on sand and the other part is the charred wood in a pile like a campfire on the grit size rocks. There's two of the larger, flat rocks in it too. It's not so much what the design ends up looking like, it's the process of making one that's important. It's just relaxing.
Yesterday the REA people had some contractor come by and clear away the brush and bush near the road. It had even grown up to sappling size trees. I had thought of haveing to do that myself this winter, last winter too but never did. So now there's not much left for me to finish the job, just up near and on the bank in front of the house. If I could just get in the habit of keeping it cut back before it gets too tall it wouldn't become such a hard chore and become ignored. This is the first year, by the way, that I didn't do any weed cutting around the house. It had been so dry and didn't grow thick, so I just let it go. The area up behind the house needs to be cut back again. I would say I'll do that this year, but I know I'll just let it slide by like all the past years.
Went down to seen DM and Micky yesterday too. Dennis was there, he's finished his job up in Rochester. Learned that he has found where Benjamin Hayes is buried, one of the battle sites or near there. Saunton VA, Fisher's Hill or Fisherville. He's learned a lot from the confederate records, even the surgeon's report. Benjamin had a really bad time those last days, arm nearly blown off, the surgeon finished cutting it off, gangrane set in and that's what killed him. His company took the worst of the battle too, they didn't have a chance from the very start of the fighting.
Wednesday Oct 27, 1999
5:45a
It's a 3:30 wakeup this morning. Of course I went on to bed earlier last night too, my regular haunts on the internet have become a bore. What's there is so predictable now, the news, the livecams, the mail, it's always the same.
Monday morning was a wee bit of excitement. I got the second old heater out of the middle backroom where it had been since Spring. Plugged it into the yellow extension cord from the study room outlet and turned it on. Then I went back to sit in front of this computer and continue on with my morning ritual of looking at the same old familiar places. I don't remember how long it had been on, 30 minutes to an hour I guess. Then there was a pop and arc and flash. I looked around and down at the connection, it was smoking. I got up and unplugged it, it arc again and flamed up, that's when I kind of gave it a flip and it went out. Then the fire alarm went off, at least I know that works, but I should change the batteries in it now. I dont remember when I changed them last. I unplugged the extension cord and took the heater, cord and all out to the back porch. Then went to the switch box, the breaker had flipped off, so that's was good. I reset it then turned it off again. Then whole episode just spoiled the morning, well almost. I've become so accustomed to expecting the worst to happen that it doesn't bother me much anymore. I actually knew that connection had been loose and getting warm if not set right, but I just didn't check on it this first time. We all program ourselves to our expectations. It'd be nice if my expectations were for only the good things to happen in my life.
One of Mom's heaters had a bad plug on it too. She had mentioned it over the weekend. So Monday and Tuesday I got parts for them both. I put a heavier plug on the one at Mom's house. Started to replace the one on the extension cord here, but it's a molded cord and I didnt like the way it was splitting when trying to get to the bare wire to connect to the new plug. So I tossed it in the backroom. I started to fix the heater at Mom's on Sunday, she had found a package with a plug in it. But when I got it apart it just fell apart. I think it was bought in the early 80's, there wasn't any date on the package but it did met the "new" 1978 electricial code. She thought Dad may have bought it too.
I know it's mostly a habit, to go to the same chatrooms and websites and discussion boards. And I always end up seeing the same attitudes too. People are just mean to each other. There's always some doubt as to whether or not it is all a put-on, just to stir up troubles. But then again, those with a bad attitude may really and truely believe what they say, and do it to really cause hurt and sorrow in others. Of course they are those who try and reason with them, fight back the darkness, but it never does any good.
Last night in one of the chatrooms where all this was going on, I asked a question to the room, it turned to a reasonable dialogue, the flaming died away, then most of the people in the room left. One can not reason with un-reasonable people, but reasonable talk does drive them away. Along with those who jsut sit and watch the hatred happen, their entertainment I suppose. So between those who do the hating, and those who come to watch it happen, there's not much hope for the few who turn it away.
If the sampling of exchanges in internet chatrooms is any indication of what it's really like in the real world, there's just no hope left that we will ever learn to just get along with each other.
The school violence thing is eirely quiet. I think there's been only a couple of three incidents reported so far this year. But I suspect there's been the normal number. In the aftercolumbine club at yahoo, one of them has noted the same too. I think they even cited a report that the news media has decided to limit their coverage of these events, so as to not suggestively lead someone else to do them.
I've not really talked with any kids either to see if they have sensed an new and better attitude in Youth World. Don't really know if they even pay such any attention around here. It all feels like just another school year. I'm not even sure anyone sits down and really talks with them to learn what they think. It's usually some poll or simple survey questions with limited options for answers. There's never one with just an open ended query, "So, tell me what you think, what you see going on in your world? Seen any signs of changing?"
Friday Oct 29, 1999
9:55a
This morning I got out and started cutting back the small trees, brush, bush and weeds that have been growing the last two years, or three, or four. I really wasn't feeling good after getting up, thinking does that to my head in recent months. So I went out to warm up the truck. Then the people who were trimming along the road were back again. And there was just two things I had been wanting to cut down too, it's the same two that get cut every year. So anyway, one thing lead to another after I got started. I actually started when wearing my nicer clothes, then I came in and changed into the jeans and sweat shirt. After I decided to quit for the morning, I sat on the back porch and looked it over, what little I did anyway. It's really kind of interesting how some activity outside clears the head. I know I'm not getting enough fresh air while sitting in my room, not getting enough real exercise outside either. It's just that I'm at a marginal state now, the oxygen getting to the brain cells is tetter-tattaring between getting getting enough to make me feel halfway decent and not getting enough to make me feel halfway bad.
I went down to Walmart to get some coffee yesterday, they usually have the best price, but as with my usual life, they were out of it. I did find another brand that cost 50 cents more so I got three cans of it. Met Dennis there too, he looked in the cart and saw the cans, asked how much coffee do you need. I told him I am still living in the old pioneer days when the common folk in the hills and mountains made a trip to the big towns to get 6 months worth of supplies, then disappear back into the hills and hallows.
Monday Nov 1, 1999
8:20a
Leander drove up to Mom's yesterday and we ate lunch together, then sat on the porch some, then went for a ride through Eastatoe valley and across Highway 11 and back down Pumpkintown Highway.
I had thought I'd get out and cut down more of the small saplings and brush around the house yesterday. But that didn't happen and it's raining, or at least wet today. Maybe I'll just get out and do that anyway.
It's becoming more and more difficult to sit in this space, in front of this computer, going to the same places on the internet. It's like solitary confinement in a prison. I can't find any joy in doing this anymore.
I caught the last bit of an interview with one of the president canidates on one of the political interview shows yesterday. He was talking about South Carolina and the flag thing. He made the same comparisons with symbols being ill-used as I did. I suppose that just means there are still reasonable people out there somewhere who see this flag issue for what it really is, making something bad out of something that is or can be both bad and good.
I've also come to the conclusion that more can be revealed about a person according to how they see things than how those things are being ill-used. Does seeing a symbol as a sign of racism reveal the rasism within their own mind?
I guess I'll try writing some more, about something, somewhere else now. But I'm really just not enthusied about it.
3:30p
The backyard is done, as much as it will get done, I'm just going to let the trimmings and saplings lay where the fell. It started drizzle some but I kept on going then it stopped. After an hour and half I quit, enough is enough. Now I've bathed again and by the time I finished that, it started to rain again. So I don't have to feel guilty about not doing more outside today. Besides, it's not going anywhere, just get bigger till I get it cut down next time around.
I suppose I could go sit on the back porch and watch it rain. That's something I haven't done in a while. It all actually made me think of the few times I was at Whitewater Falls and Whiteside Mountain when the rains and storms came. I would just sit under the overhang, or under an umbrella and just enjoy being outdoors in the wet weather. I was on top of Whiteside during one, there was group of three standing down the way. It started to rain and I got my yellow umbrella out and just sat there. One of the young ladies got up and behind me, made a picture. It seems like I don't draw attention like that anymore. Of course, I don't get out and do such anymore either.
Thursday Nov 4, 1999
10:10a
My throat is irritated, sniffing, extra aches but it's the dread of it developing into something worst that is the worst. I really can't tolerate the thought of being sick. I started to drink fluids yesterday, a quart of orange juice, working on raspberry-cranberry mix today. So I've just not felt like doing much of anything the last couple of days.
It's gotten cold enough to run the heaters all the time now. This morning I put up the cardboard over the windows. The plastic over the screens for the den windows need to be replaced this year too. It's hibernation time. I'll end up just messing around and not do anything for better heat this year too.
There's been a couple more work place shootings recently, so I guess the Adult World will lead the Youth World down that dark path again. Some adults can be so pathetic to think killing solves anything. They've been programmed just like robots, get mad, get upset, go kill somebody, or just go try to out do the last event. None of them think, they just don't think, they do what american society has trained them to do. They see, or imagine somebody did them wrong, so they just kill them. They don't think of who else they're going be hurting too, not just the victim's family and friends, but their own family and friends too.
But all that's been said before and it doesn't make a diff, so there's no need for me to waste time saying it again here. Besides, this site is just a random link among millions, it might as well not be at all most of the time. Obscurity, obliviion, just by hiding out in the open. Ha, if anyone finds a solution to any of the woes in society, don't post them on a website, it'll never be discovered.
Tuesday Nov 9, 1999
4:10p
One of the presidential candidates stopped up town late morning. I had gone up to the cafe to eat my bacon and egg sandwich, parked in the usual place across from the church. Before I had even got parked some elderly man pulled into the space next to me. He was asking about the Legacy Square corner of that parking lot. He was really looking for the new veterans memorial behind the courthouse. We talked a minute about those two places, then I went on to main street.
There was a city policeman at the first corner, then I saw all the activity in front of the courthouse. It wasnt much, the scaffordling for the news people, a few dozen people standing and wandering around. I went to cross main street but the traffic was spaced out so that I couldnt get all the way. While I was waiting, the same man asked where I was going to eat. He parked there on main street. I walked down to the crosswalk and started across so they would have to stop. I think he got into the cafe before I did.
In the cafe I waited around while others were getting their food. Then the lady who usually cooks went into the back. I had about decided I was forgotten about again. I learned then what all the activity was about. Bush was to be in Easley at another restaurant, I remembered that, but no one had said anything about him coming to Pickens. After I eat my sandwich, I went out to wander around like most of the other people.
I spent most of the time across from the courthouse, watching the people, thinking about all the other political things that had happened up there. The only thing I really got interested in was picking out the Secret Service men. They really do talk into their coat sleeves. All the same color and style suits too, except for two or three, but they could have been state people. The high school band came marching in line up the sidewalk. Then a little later most of the high school students started showing up too.
Mr Brock saw me and asked about the business history project, I told him I had abandoned it. What he really wanted to know was who owned the parking area behind the stores, the city is planning to pave that and make somekind of circle from Griffin St to the ally way. We went into his store and he showed me part of the tax maps for that block. There really is no reference number for that middle area, just the stores and lots along Griffin St, it's gotten lost in all the transferrs over the decades. I really hadnt noticed that before, not that I could remember. After I got back home, I looked through my data and made a guess who the last known owner was, that was in 1972. I called him and told him about what I had.
But anyway, the crowd up town was mostly students, guess someone wanted a big showing. Bush arrived and the press buss too, I wander around some more, stood in front of the Morris building, it's the oldest store building on that block, thought about who and all else had stood there listening to some politician on the courthouse steps. Went over to the courthouse side and walked around and stood around, mostly just getting a feel of the event. There really wasnt anything politicly about it for me, my mind is always in the past uptown now.
Wednesday Nov 10, 1999
7:30a
I did walk behind the courthouse to see the work going on there with the new veterans memorial. They were putting in the statue of Andrew Pickens. Sheriff Stone was back there too, we greeted each other and shook hands, but that was all. I think I should have made more effort to talk some with him. He didn't stay around very long after that. Allen was there too but he was talking with someone else.
The satalite uplink was on Court St, I stood there a while and looked inside at the monitors. It was a communications company out of Charalotte and I really couldnt tell which local station hired it.
During the afternoon I rode up to sit in front of Table Rock and rode back through Sunset and down the Little Eastatoe. So that was my afternoon outting, which didn't do much for me. It's still the same places and same roads I follow. I think about going somewhere different but those places are just too far away. Besides, they wouldn't be really different because I'd just go where I haven't been in a long time. It's the nothing makes me really happy anymore attitude.
Later today I think I'll finally do the critical date test on the computer, change the date time to near midnight Dec 31, 1999 and watch it roll over into 2000. If it crashes, it crashes. I've been thinking of reformatting the hard drive anyway and start all over, the windows system has deterriated like before and doesn't boot up as quickly and like it use to. I should find a wind95 cd first so I would have a real copy instead of what came on the hard drive. But what diff does it make if I can't get the computer back up? My interent connection experience hasn't been all that great recently ... if you can call the last 2 years recently.
So if those of you who have been following the journal entries don't see any new ones for a really long time, you'll know why I'm off the internet. Ha, there's been only one or two regular visitors to this site anyway. I learned last evening that someone else I gave the url to couldn't get into to my website. There's always been something about my life and that's pretty much it, too few could get into it and I could never get out of banishment.
1. What a person sees in a flag symbol reveals more about that person's attitude and character than what the flag symbol means in reality.
2. How a person uses a flag symbol reveals more about that person's attitude and character than what the flag symbol means in reality.
3. Boycott has been reduced in value and usefullness for correcting social injustices to "Do what we want or else." It's equivalent in Crime World is, "Make them an offer they can't refuse."
4. Those companies, organizations and community groups who fall in behind a boycott do not really believe in the cause for which the boycott was started. Their only concern is avoiding the harm it does.
5. Boycott backlash, there's an implied counter effect to boycotts. It automatically suggests supporting the affected economy to the opposing political groups, and/or, boycotting the companies, organizations and communties who support the boycott.
6. History's lessons are lost to those who can re-write it for their own, present day desires.
7. When That Flag is lowered and That Other One remains, the symbology thus done is: What the united states did to the Native Americans was justified, acceptable, and still ignorable ... along with all the other bad things done under it's authority. Also ignored is That Other One's ill-use alongside That Flag, see #2 above.
8. The news media makes the issues. They choose what, why and how things are reported. It's their business, contraversy sells. They chose NOT to paint bad images of all the bad deeds done by those under authority of That Other Flag.
9. Too few understand that racism, hatred, bigotry comes from people's minds and hearts. It's learned and passed around among all by their actions. It's not in That Flag or That Other Flag or That Flaming Crucifix or any other symbol. It's in the mind and heart of the people looking at the symbol as well as in the mind and hearts of those who are ill-using that symbol.
Wednesday Nov 10, 1999
3:40p
I've become weary of everything that has happened on the internet. There was never any real signs of hope there either. This will be my last entry for a long time. LoneHawk is returning to his bannishment from all worlds.
E O T. C T.
Tuesday Nov 16, 1999
4:45p
Where to begin?
Last Thursday, went up to eat breakfast at the Cafe and go on to the Memorial dedication. Learned that it was going to be that afternoon at 3:00 so all I did was eat and go back home. That afternoon I go back up and stayed till 3:30 then left to go get ready for work. It was the usual stuff for Veterans Day things, speeches and crowds. A man with That Flag was standing on the Court Street side too, he was there for all those names on the plaque for the WBTS, which had the most names by the way. I saw JC, Sheriff Stone, and a couple of others there too, and learned later that Bob and Leander were there too. All I did was walk around and stand around then leave.
On the way home I saw Mom going uptown to have her hair done, and wondered if she would manage the crowd and traffic up there ok. Learned later it took more than 2 hours to get her hair done, which was the second time since it wasn't done right a week before. DM, Bob, Leander started calling Mom's home right after she left. They kept calling and was beginning to wonder if everything was ok. They were about to come down to the pizza place and ask me but called one more time at her house. She was back then and it was after 6:00. So all that caused some confusion.
Friday I went down to the store and got a card and small flower for her for her birthday and went on over to her house at lunch time. Leander had spent the night and that's when I learned about what happened the night before. We go up to Lejuans and eat lunch for her birthday and then ride over to the memorial. We walked around and looked and talked about the names they knew. Mom went back to sit in the car first. I spend most of the day and evening at Mom's. I went home for a while. Bob was there later when I returned but left right after I got there, which is what usually happens, I show up and people leave. Leandar spends the night again.
Saturday, washed clothes that morning, spent the afternoon doing something which I've fogotten now. I was to take Leander back home but she called Susan and they decided she would come up and get her. It was after 6:30 when she got there and they left about 8:00 I guess. So I sit around with Mom like I usually do in the evenings and go home.
Sunday, did most of the usual Sunday morning routine, then I started working on some cardboard for the windows and cleaning up some of the clutter from the last few weeks and months. Mom called just as I was to go over to her house. She said she had been sick since 3:00 that morning. I go to the store and get some chicken soup and then to her house.
She in bed. She said she had throwup up a couple of times that morning. Mentioned it being some kind of virus that Nancy Stewart had had and waiting around at the hospital for fours and then being sent home. So she wanted to jsut wait longer before decided to go to the hospital herself. I go to start fixing the soup and then hear her in the bedroom and go back.
She had thrown up again. I hold the pan for her and then go to empty it. When I get back she was on the way to the bathroom. She had direaha too. I took the sheets off the bed and out to the porch then the matteress too. I get the one off the other bed in the middle room and put on her bed, then make it up with new sheets along with a plastic trash bag between the matteress and sheets. Later that afternoon I go up town for some of them adult size diapers.
I called and cancelled work for that night and spend the rest of the day with her and spent the night too. Made some jello for her and crushed ice. That's all she ate that day and she was able to keep it down.
Wednesday Nov 17, 1999
10:00a
Continuing .... I went to bed in the front bedroom about 10:00 and hadn't been laying there long when I heard her. I get up and see what she needed, she had spilled a glass of water while trying to wet a cloth to keep over her throat. I get that cleaned up and get her a second cloth and wet them both. Nothing else happened that night.
I woke up about 4:30 and lay in bed till 6:00, fixed coffee which I had brought from my house along with some cereal. Sat out on the back porch and smoked and drank coffee till I fixed a bowl of cereal later. She wakes up later, I've forgotten when but it was about her normal time I guess. She eats a bowl of her cereal and drinks a cup of coffee and takes her medicine. Not much else happened that morning, I did wash my hair and shave in the laundry room there. I went back home later that morning for while and bath.
I spend the rest of the day over there till I left to get ready for work. She didn't want anyone to stay with her. She ate a normal lunch for her and I fixed a frozen dinner which I bought on the way back over there. Spent some time raking leaves and picking up pecans while she was in bed. She did get up and wash while I was out. After work and got back home I called to check on her, she was stilling doing ok and hadn't been sick again. So I went on to bed at my house.
Tuesday was much the same as Monday. I spent a little time dusting and dust mopping her house so I'd feel like I was doing something. Took the kitchen rugs out and shook them and damp mopped the floor. I mentioned putting up the storm windows in her room since it was suppose to get cold for a few days but like always she just wants to let everything go on as it is.
I guess things are about like normal now, not that that is much better. I sent email off to Dan and Robert to let them know what had been happening. Dan only replied just thanking for me for the info. Robert hasn't sent anything but he never did email anyway.
Sunday afternoon I was laying on the couch in the den, looking at the pictures on the wall and the other things in the room. I got to thinking about the money I gave Roger when he had to go to Germany about his son. I saw him at the pizza place a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned something about my name being know around and that money is still being used to help people. I guess that's right, he said something like that a long time ago too. So anyway I get to feeling sorry for myself and how that was the only good thing I ever did for someone and that was 10 or 11 years ago too. It's just another aspect of never knowing whether or not I ever do anything worth while. And I suppose I wonder if anyone would ever help me when I really need it, should say will help because those days are coming.
It's been one of those cold morning type feelings, winter comes and brings the lonely glumming days with it. I think I'll be cancelling internet service in the near future too, January would be 3 years and a good odd number to just quit. I've pretty much spilled my guts out in these Journal entries since last year. Wrote a bunch of other stuff for the website too. Tried doing email with people but that never carried on for long either. As one of the Ferringias would ask, "Where's the profit?" So I might as well just dump it all and go back to less than zero contacts. I haven't even heard form Elizabeth about the Redmond story I sent out, but maybe that's only been a couple or three weeks too and still too earlier. Ha, not that anything will ever develope from that either.
Thursday Nov 18, 1999
8:10a
Part of yesterday afternoon I went through the genealogy box and the books, folders, papers on the desk and put them all back in some kind of order. Some one over in Greer responsed to a posting I did at one of the genealogy websites, so that's why I was looking though all that stuff again. Didnt find exactly what was needed, but that's normal, seldom find that one document to prove a name or relationship. Anyway I made another posting and sent him a email too, gave him a couple of websites to look at and that was all.
After that I went down to the store to get a few things Mom wanted and then went on to her house. It was later than I had planned to be there to fix supper and she had already started and finished most of it by the time I got there. At least she what up and in the kitchen some so that's a good sign. Things are getting more like normal now. I do wish she would see her doctor about a better weight lost and doing more activity. She would probably eat better and feel better. Even I can tell the difference between sitting around all the time in front of this computer and doing some simple activity or working at the pizza place.
The Leonoid meters happened last night. I went out on the back porch once about 8:30 and stood there for a few seconds. One moved from north to south and that was the only one I saw even though I went back out later and stood around behind the truck for several minutes. It was a quarter moon and the street light washed out most of the sky. I went out over at Mom's too before coming back home but didn't see anything then either, except the lights over in Greenville lighting up the one, long cloud. Of course there's more lights around her house on that hill too now. When we first moved up there I guess the Vickery's had the only outside light on their hill. It's never going be the same again at night.
I suppose I'll try and get something else done around the house today. I started to do that Sunday but then that's when the other stuff started to happen too.
Friday Nov 19, 1999
3:05p
A man over in Greer replied about this time last week to a posting I made at one of the geneaology websites weeks ago. That got me started sorting through that box of stuff, actually sorting through to put most of it back in that box. I've got the last writeup into a plain text file now, it was a Wordstar file, even got an html file too for the website. I guess I'll eventually get around to posting it. I've been re-visiting some of the Old Pendleton District websites too. I really don't know how anyone can figure out who's whose. Some of them got serveral different families tied together that shouldn't be. But I guess that's geneaology, lots of guess work before the 1850s.
There's other stuff I should be working on too, I don't need to get back into that. There're leaves around my house that needs raking away. I did get that job done over at Mom's yesterday and hauled over to the spot beside the my driveway. Inside of the house needs painting, the outside needs washing, the weeds cut back, Town Creek sand, grit, pebbles and rocks done, that wind and seismic loading program that I started months ago finished, the Jerry's Dead file done, new tires on the truck, blah, blah, blah, .... But what I do best now is do exactly only what needs to be done when it needs to be done and then sit around and wait around till something else absolutely has to be done.
The mornings are the only times I feel half right. Get woke up, drink coffee and smoke cigs, check email (ha, yeah sure something besides junk mail will be there), check the website visitors, and then the news sites. Then maybe I'll get started on something till time to go to Mom's. Then after lunch there and doing an errand or two, the afternoon is spent waiting for work time or time to go back to Mom's for the early evening visit.
There's been a couple of observations about the world. The mass media thing really doesn't make much sense, or even less sense now. There's all the talk about how bad the entertainment programs are. How it's all bad news on the news programs. And the mass media is supported by all those advertisers. But I've come to realize what some of those ads are for: expensive cars, big money investments, products and services for businesses, those sort of things. Like, do the rich and powerful people who can afford those things or upper management people who would use those business services really watch tv and those programs? Maybe that's one of the fundmental problems in society, the people who can make a diff really need to be out and doing something instead of watching tv.
There's a brief article in this month's Sci-Am mag too. Some group has done a study which correlates violence in society to abortion. After abortion was legalized in '73 the number of abortions went up. About 18 years later the crime rates start to go down. Why? Those un-wanted kids weren't born and all that is associated with an unwanted child which leads to runaways, drug abuse, and crime aren't around during the peak criminal years, 16-26. It's one of those, "Oh yeah, that makes sense, why didn't someone discover that a lot earlier?"
You drive out Gravely Rd northwest of Pickens. On a hill on the right of a long wide curve you see a wood frame, yellow house with a front porch and side porch and the windows have white shutters. There's a small, stone, retaining wall in front too. What color is the house?
Thursday Nov 25, 1999
9:15a
Tuesday ... Delivered pizzas to a business down toward Liberty, made 3 trips. Monday ... Cut grass at Mom's house. Past week ... collected some geneaology data from some of the websites; raked leaves and cut back some of the weeds in front of my house. Yesterday ... got new tires and alignment for truck at the place on Easley Hwy. Still haven't decided about what to do with the internet connection ... or computer for that matter.
Friday Nov 26, 1999
9:25a
It's those last days, holiday season days, of the year type feelings, again. I went down to the store by the creek and bought two turkey and dressing dinners, that was Mom and mines holiday meal. I stayed over there till about mid afternoon. We watched a PBS show about the early part of the century, mostly New York and the stock market crash in 1929. Then I came home; watch that James Stewart Christmas movie; laid down for the hour; got back up and drove up to Glassy Mountain; then back over to Mom's. Everything is such a repeat of all the previous years.
Every year it's the same; the same televison programming; the same talk on the news; the same shopping stories; the same turkey talk; the same everything. Reality is on the blink again, the same blink at that; stuck in a time freeze from decades and centuries ago.
I've checked in on yahoo chat some these last few days; nothing has change there either; the same topics with the same arguements by the same people. There are some of the familiar chatnames there, but there's more new ones too. I begun to think the chat is the same because there's a continious change of new people who bring the same old talk and arguements with them.
Haven't heard anything from my brothers in a week, not since I keep them informed with the news about Mom being sick. Sent an email to Susan and asked her about the geneaology links I sent. She, or maybe it was Chris, just resent an attachment, which I never bother to open again. I just don't understand why I can't keep up an email correspondance and feel like I'm really talking to anyone. I send stuff out, get a response or two, then I keep sending stuff out and get no response.
Saturday Nov 27, 1999
4:25p
I have successfully wasted away another day ... well almost, I did rake leaves off the rockfalls next to the driveway.
Monday Nov 29, 1999
7:50a
Another sign of insanity is when I get out in the woods with a broom and whisk broom to sweep leaves off the rocks. Yep, did that yesterday afternoon.
The droopy, baggy pants hip-hop style: 1) Worn by those who have zero-gravphobia and need extra assurance that gravity is working. 2) A potential cause of repetitive motion physical disorder from hitching up one's pants. 3) After the multi-billion dollar gravity wave detectors failed it's the government's replacement for measuring very low frequency gravity waves. 4) Undercover advertising agents for boxer short manufacturers. 5) "I paid $25 for these designer boxers and for sure I WILL let the girls see them." 6) The school district's latest budget cut by elminating the need for janitors to spend time sweeping the floors. 7) The coaches method for training their athletes to catch a falling ball and improving quick reflexes. 8) A student's science fair project on the minimum frictional force between pants and boxers required to keep the pants up. 9) An adolescent indicator for those with extra-large jean genes in their DNA. 10) A biology class assignment on the inverse relationship between falling pants and rising attention of girls. 11) The clothing manufacturer's durablity test for friction wear on floors, streets and sidewalks. 12) Originated in the early 1990's when one kid hurriedly got dressed for school, forgot his belt, and eventually evolved into an automatic version of the de-pantsing pratical joke of the same era. 13) A pants designer messed up and didn't convert the size dimensions from meteric to English. 14) A teenage boy's attempt to keep his pants up by shear will power. 15) A teenage boy's Freudian subconscious attempt to be a nudist among the girls. 16) "Hey look! No suspenders, no belt, no hands, ... oops, no pants." 17) "All I want for Christmas are my older brother's bigger pants." 18) Said the mother to the son, "Don't worry, you'll grow into them." 19) Said the father to the mother, "Don't worry, it's just a phase, he'll grow out of it."
Wednesday Dec 1, 1999
3:35p
I haven't heard back from Susan yet, she and Chris are working on a website at AOL and asked for some help. So I wrote some step-by-step instructions and sent it to her. That was yesterday or Monday.
Anyway I did the Hughes passenger and immigration list this morning, changed it from Wordstar to a text file, fixed it all in one file and posted it to the my website, posted a notice at the geneaology site, so it's all just another drop into the gravity well of info I put out, never hear anything about it now.
While I was uploading files I went ahead and added the Hughes book too, that's the biggest file at the website now, 125K.
When I tried using the ftp to get to the talkcity site I learned I have been removed from there. Guess the ssss types are closing in for the kill now. They've become more and more obvious about what they are doing recently. It all ties in with the email stuff now too.
Twenty-one year ago today was when Dad died. That thought has come to mind a few times today but I haven't done anything special to really remember it. Life is just waiting for my turn now.
I've thought some about how all the internet and computer records will eventually be lost. None of these internet servers will be in business 25, 50, 100 years from now and all that is the internet today will be history, lost history. Anyway I been thinking of burying my stuff under the campsite, get it all printed out and bury it. But even paper wont last long. No matter what I think of to stash it away somewhere, it will all eventually be lost.
Monday Dec 6, 1999
9:50a
I was looking at a calendar and saw that the Winters Solistice and a Full Moon happen together this year. I'm not sure how often, or rare, that is; I suppose I could try and figure it out but I'd just get confused counting days. Anyway I guess it's significant that such would happen for the last year of the 1900s. I might have been more so it it was next year though; the changeing of the centuries and milleniums. I already know it will be cloudy those three nights anyway; when has it not been cloudy on a celestiral event? I'll try to do something special for the occassion anyway. Be more reflective of the 'twist and 'tween days this year.
Yesterday I drove down toward Pendleton and visited the Ashtabula plantition house. That's the place I learned was there when I was going to Tri-County-Tec back in 1975. It only took me 24 years to drive through the gates and up that winding driveway to the house. There was a young lady who gave the tour and talked about what was in the different rooms. Typical two story, 4 rooms on each, with a scuttle walk on the very top style. Typical rich people's home too. I've often wondered why a common folk's homestead is ever the subject of historical presevation? She told about one of the lady's diary and the day Stoneman's Raiders came. I closed my eyes in some of the rooms and at the windows and the well house to try and visualize the history better.
Over the last couple or three weeks that thought about time-lapsed photography has come back from years ago. It wasn't too long after I came back to Pickens, during the crusing days if I rememeber right, that I thought of setting up a camera at one end of Main Street and take a picture every few minutes to record the day's activity. It was also then that I thought about why someone hasn't done that over decades and centuries yet. Make a record of a town's history every hour on the hour for years. Maybe someone has, it's just one of those film festival type movies that never make it into the public domain.
Even with these webcams all around the world, I bet no one is saving the images. They are just being thrown away because there's no storage space for them. It will all just be snapshots, or short film clips of a few minutes of one event or another, like when a building is being constructed it's just for the duration of construction only, never it's complete history over the decades. Now the past 25 years of Pickens town history is gone too, since I first thought of recording it.
It's going to be a nice sunny but cool day. I really should get out and make myself do something outside. The winter cabin days will be here soon enough.
Wednesday Dec 8, 1999
7:25a
Fifty KB already and 23 days left for this part of the Journal. I could re-do the Journal Contents again, but I'm tired of that. At this rate I'll have to re-do it later anyway, I should have never planned on a file per season. I think I'll just let it go and finish out the year with this one, then start a monthly file next year.
I went down to DM and Mickys Monday, so that was my outside excursion. I had lost my house key the last time I was there and DM found it in the yard where I parked. I knew that was the mostly likely place it would be after he didn't find in the chair.
I still haven't got anything else started to use up my time, it's all the same, going to the same old places on the internet, sitting watching other people talk in the chat rooms. Nothing really changes there either, the same talk and ideas from 2 1/2 year ago. Just like all the news talk, except that's the same from 2 1/2 decades ago.
I'm thinking this 'twist and 'tween days it will be a really deep reflection of the emptiness within. Like, "What diff has absolutely anything I've done and not done made?" George Bailey I'm not, that's for sure. My passage through life will be as anonymous as those blanks in my ancestory; even less so since there will not be any descendants from me to even have a blank in theirs. My thoughts and words are as meaningless as ... as the repetitiveness as the news, the same pattern decade after decade.
The end of the driveway is messed up again. Monday afternoon the water people dug up the line next to it. They tore up part of the turn in and now I have to make more of a right turn to get in. I knew when I cleaned up the gas line cut across it, after waiting months to make sure they were finished, that it would get messed up again. Such things are what make my life so predictable and why I see little use in trying to accomplish anything.
What diff does it make? I've resolved most of religous conflicts others see in and among the Faiths. But the ones who do the most talking still see only the conflicts. It's the same in other society aspects too, politics, violence, economics, and all. Maybe it's all just a general lose of reasonablity. Like a greater majority of people have been lead to believe the millenium begins January 1, 2000; all because the advertising segment of business wanted to build their campaigns around that. It's so un-reasonable to promote a lie.
There are a couple of put downs frequently used in religion chat, brainwashed believers and lack of education. But we're all brainwashed according our own design, we believe what we believe because we've lead ourselves that way by being educated that way. The more formal education one has the more one is being brainwashed into that one line of thinking. ....
Oh well, I've lost thoughts again, the words just are coming forth.
Wednesday Dec 15, 1999
10:25a
It's really the un-reasonability and un-sensiability of things that trouble me.
Some issue will begin based on some superficial principle, it developes into a contraversy over some fundamental principle, which leads to more and more principles becoming intangled, then it deteroriates into a childlish "is too" "is not" arguement that has little to do with more fundamental principles which were never considered to begin with.
Oh forget it, I'm tired of thinking about the stupid flag flap. It's all going to lead to a bad end anyway and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
Thursday Dec 16, 1999
6:25a
It's been a long while since I've woke up at 3:30, something that use to happen on a regular bases. I'll be doing the morning and afternoon semi-commotose, streched out on a morgue slab state today too, I guess. But that's become the regular thing anyway.
Sunday I went down to Scott's to get his Windows disk. He suggested another program that let's you tweak on some of the windows stuff. I downloaded it and used it and it did help the boot-up process, mostly the icons on the desktop. Most of the stuff it does I don't understand, but it's been that way all along anyway, just a mysterious black box that no one really knows how it works. I still haven't reformatted the hard drive and reloaded all the software either. It's that doubt that anything I would do would really improve things and more likely make things worst. Oh well.
Yesterday was one of the bad days when I felt like what's the use in doing anything days. I did ride up to Sliding Rock and walked up and down the rock once, then I left. One of the round-outs had tadpoles in it, I thought that odd for this time of year. I don't really think that's right, mutated because of some chemical change in the water or something, I guess.
During most of time I spend laying on the couch, see the first paragraph, I just think about things I have no control, influence, over. Like the general state of society, news media, religious thinking, all the stuff like that. What it amounts to is me laying there debating with myself about everything.
We now live in a world where deceptition is the rule, or perhaps that's always been the rule. This millenium thing is the best example, probably qualifies as the scam of the millenium. The fact is the milleniums change at the beginning of the an "01" year. But the advertising agencies wanted to make a big deal out of the "00" year and call that the beginning. It's all become a propagation of a lie and the vast majority of the people accepted it.
And there's the Y2K thing as well. In one of the Scientific American issues this year they was an article about this. It cited one individual who saw the potential for this problem way back in the '70s. He even went to his bosses about it and suggested ways to solve it then. But the thinking then was that everything would be different in 25 years and nothing was done. I really think the thinking was that the programming companies foresaw a multi-billion dollar business in the future re-writing all the old software too. Now the news media has created a virtual panic among the people. Fear sells newspapers just as well as bad news and contraversies.
Brother Robert sent a tape, two actually, about his experiences in Seattle with all the WTO stuff that happened there. When I first heard about it on the news, there was a group of the riot leaders in an abandoned building and the news people were interviewing them. That gave me the impression they were the organizers on the streets for the rioting. The thought occurred that they were probably working for the WTO with the plan to create the riot and violence to discredit the protesters' groups. It was all just another deception ploy.
I really think it's been a combination of all these things that makes the flag flap so seem important to me. It's really just another indicator of how the general citizenery is being deceived. Is there really some other reason for making this a major issue? Or is it all just because a very few legislators have gotten in each other's face over it? I can see a couple of them passing in the halls of the statehouse and snipping to each other, "It's still up there," "It's coming down."
It was reported recently that the flag was put up there as part of the WBTS or CW centennial celebration in 1961 or 1962. The legislature session back then just forgot to take it down. But by 1964 all the civil rights thing was going on along with all the riots and demonstration and federal government passing down rules about what the states were to do. So, I guess that was the underlying reason why it was forgotten to be taken down. It was pretty much just plain forgotten about for 30 years too. At least by me. Then about 1994 someone decided to make it an issue and 5 years later it's still an issue.
It was ok to put it up there to begin with, at least as part of the centennial. The reason for forgotting to take it down was probably wrong, in retrospect of the current events forsure. But taking it down now under the current circumstance sure is wrong.
If I had any influence, and my rathers, I'd make everyone, absolutely everyone, connected with this issue line up and march to the podium one at a time to make apologies for their involvement. Imagies of unrulely school children standing at the front of the class apologizing for their behavior come to mind. The legislators and governors from 1961 to now, the individuals who ill-used other peoples' symbols, the news media who hyped up a minor issue, and anyone else, myself included, for even voicing my opinion.
Tuesday Dec 21, 1999
9:55a
Might as well consider the 'twist and 'tween days begun. They are usually those days after Christmas and before New Year's days; but the Winter Solistice is nigh along with the Full Moon, and this beginning of the end of the Twentith Century and Second Millenium thing, so might as well consider them begun.
Still havent planned anything special, I'll just let the time flow by. I did clean off the world this morning, got the shower curtain down, with it's map image of the world, and cleaned off the stains. Too bad the real world can't be clean as easily.
It's raining some today, it's been cloudy for a couple of days now, it'll clear up after tomorrow and turn cold again. But I knew that a couple of weeks ago, a celestrial event and clouds to hide it are more apt to happen together than not. Maybe the Moonset tomorrow will be visible after it's all begun.
I suppose there's somewhere on the internet to view some of the events; I'll try some of the stonehenge sites I guess. I don't have a current almanac either and don't know when the exact time will be; but I guess that's on the internet too, somewhere. Like most everything else with me, it's all just a very low probability of finding what I want, when I need it.
Come the end of January it wll have been 3 years of this internet connection. It's consumed me; hours into days into weeks, months and years; just sitting here at this old table in front of the computer; looking for something worth learning. I've spent most of that time in chat rooms, a little be of email and one news group. It's been my social contact with others, just so I wouldn't be alone. I still haven't decided about the end of January either; cut myself off or just let it slide on by.
I've started and stopped, many times, to write my thoughts about this and that. I'll get a sentence or two, a paragraph or two, but then I loose the direction of what I'm trying to write. Actually thought about just lumping them all together and call it the Incomplete Section; just like my life has been for years, one big Incomplete Section.
Saturday Dec 25, 1999
3:20p
It was 4:00 this morning when I woke up, and got up. Spent 2 hours on the internet then did the usually morning grooming ritiuals. I did have the tv on some but it was the usual old movies and ad shows. I did spend some time at the Western Wall site and the Vatican site but that's all the religious stuff I did for this morning. Got some season greetings email off to some people too. Then it was go sit out in the truck and let it warm up. It was in the mid twentities again I guess, I didn't look at the thermometer on the back porch. Came back in and sat a while then left to drive over to Mom's.
I've seldom seen other cars on Christmas morning, didn't see anything this time either. I got to Mom's house and it was still dark, in the house that is, it was early dawn by the sun. I got inside and she was still in bed then I looked at the clock in the kitchen and saw it was about six thirty. When I left home I thought it was already after seven. I went ahead and started getting coffee and breakfast ready, already drank a pot at my house. She woke up and got to the kitchen when it was all about half done. We had our usual Christmas morning breakfast, sausage and eggs mixed together, toast and coffee. Then we opened the present in the living room.
We sat in the living room and talked after the presents thing. She it was mostly about when different things happened in past years. Like when Dan was out here in '77 or '78, when Dad did his gardening, when I got out of the navy and got my own place. I stayed over there all morning this time, I usually leave about mid morning then go back at noontime. I cracked a bowl of pecans, she fixed food for lunch. I didn't make the usual ride up to Glassy or by the old homeplace either this year. Susan called about 10:30 and talked with Mom a little. Then later Dan called, he spent his Christmas alone, without his white cotten scarf either. So that's how the last Christmas of the 19xx somethings went.
So the rest of the day will be the more normal evening time routine, supper at Mom's then come back home and go to bed. The 'twixt and 'tween days start in the morning. I haven't added anymore to the Musings for those days either. The writing spirit just isnt what it use to be, except for these Journal entries. No new profound thoughts or insights; not that anyone finds or pays attention to them anyway. Life is just a bottle drifting with the currents out in the middle of some ocean ... waiting for the cork to pop out and sink to the bottom.
Tuesday Dec 28, 1999
8:45a
I realized one good reason to get out and really celebrate the New Year. The morning news programs were blabbing about the Y2K thing, putting the fear of imminent disaster into the people's minds. Thank God all that will be over with come the first of the new year and they can get on with something else for a change. Maybe there'll be a small blessing and more of the people will realize how hyped up the news media will get on something and it really means nothing at all. Put another nail in the media's reliability coffin.
So far it's been just another week. Nothing special to think about or do for the last week of the 19xx's and the beginnig of the 20xx's. I suppose it's all just that too, like youth celebrating the last of being a teen and becoming twenty-something.
Frances came over to Mom's Sunday. Scott, Christie, Seth, Haydon, Jason, Racheal came up too later that afternoon. It was mostly just sitting around and talk. At least they all got to see each other, I left to go to work before they got there.
I've lapsed into blank-mind mode again. Guess I'll go meditate on the blankness of rationality in the world to come. Later.
Wednesday Dec 29, 1999
4:00p
The kitchen sink has been slow to drain for weeks, but I ignored it. Should have keep on ignoring it. I got the plunger and plunged it, that loosened all the gook and slim. It drained better then. I plunged some more just to make it better, that clogged it up fersur then. Oh well. Started poking at the trap and it crumbled. Oh well. So I spent the early afternoon running out and back to the store by the creek to get pipe and a wrench. I finally got it put back together. I even used the hose and pumped water down the pipe going into the wall. I back up once and squirted back at me. Oh well. That job is done for another decade or two I guess.
I had thought about going down to Clemson earlier that morning, just to see that place while it's still 19xx something. The plumbing work delayed me getting there but I did go. I thought, as I drove, some about all the trips I had made on the Six Mile road getting to and from Clemson. Parked in front of the old history building but decided to moved down to the library instead, it was a work day and figured I'd get ticketed if I didn't park in a visitor place.
I walked around the west edge of the reflecting pool and over to the EOMP buildings (English, Offices, Math, Physics). Looked at the pendilum. Walked up the the student union building and the old quad area. Nothing is the same there anymore. The dorm buildings that replaced the tin cans look nice, don't think I had seen them from the quad before, haven't been there since they were built. Walked back up and around Tillman hall, looked at the big field, then made my way back down through the park to the library.
I was just going to go back to the truck and leave but didn't. I turned and went to the edge of the reflecting pool in front of the library. Stood there with my hands in front of me, fingers intertwined, except for the thumbs and little fingers, they were pressed together. I stood there and thought, and felt, and sensed, and pondered, eyes closed sometimes then opened. Then I made a proper Japanese bow. "Releasing of a Spirit," one I should have never kept, it and that place belongs to them now, it always has been that way.
I walked back to the truck and drove over to the car park behind the old archeiture building, the place where I spent most of my time, sitting in that green volkswagen, eating sandwiches, staring at books, making the first entries in the first book of the first Journal.
Drove back through the main campus and through town. At the traffic light at 123 a car was beside me, a young girl was driving, her boyfriend in the passenger seat, a leafy plant in the back seat. On their way back to a shared apartment? Just driving around? It's never been any of my business, but I see, and I ponder about what might have been with me some three decades past. Then there's that "it" in the woods at the Twelve Mile beach, or at the edge of the pratice field below the stadium, such is not what might have been but was.
"Let go Luke!" "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you!" "Capri deium! Cease the Day!" "Make today fond memories for tomorrow!" "Capture the Spirit of the here and now!" "Release the Spirit just as quickly!"
Friday Dec 31, 1999
4:00a
It's begun, somewhere out in the South Pacific.
Fare-Thee-Well to the last of the 19xx somethings, Greetings and welcome to the beginning of the last year of the Second Millenium, to the beginning of the last year of the Twentifth Century, to the beginning of the 20xx somethings millenium. Three hundred sixty-six days left to get your to-do list done before the end of this century and millenium. Fare-Thee-Well to the 20xx somethings.
Happy New Year!
Woke up at 3:30 this morning, started watching the tv coverage and spent a bit of time on the internet too. PBS will probably have the better coverage, I don't remember them ever being on all night, all day, and into the next night as well. So it's begun. Millenium Madness begins it trek around, no that's not quite right, the Earth turns beneath the beginning of Millenium Madness in the darkness away from the Sun and brightness.
It's into the second third hour now. About 6:00 I went outside to stand and walk about a bit. I stood near the NE corner of the turnaround and peed, whatever symbolic meaning that might have, beginning of the return to the wilds of nature after civilization collapses during the coming millenium, pissing on the last of the Twentith Century and all that it means. But anyway, I stood around some, looking up into the woods, down the driveway, up at the moon, clouds and stars. Then I walked down to the campfire area, rang the chimes that have been hanging from that limb for a decade or two, it was midnight in Fuji, New Zealand then, so I rang in the New Year with them. Stood around and looked around at the same things down there too, then walked back up the hill. There was a shortcut road, a turn off to get up to the old ridge road behind the house, that was in the 1800s, people and horses and wagons cutting up through my woods. Such is what I see in places, during the first of the 20xx somethings.
I was almost back in the house, just had got on the porch, when I thought of doing a little more while I was outside. Went back to the top of the driveway between the two trees, did some Shinto, Buddha, Hindu, Judean-Christianity-Islam ritual, with the clapping of hands, prayerful thought, pondering, then the proper Japanese bow. My mood outside in the dark is so different than inside, sitting here, in this room, in front of the computer, typing. It's more of a life and living outside, than inside. Oh, it's dawning out there now, better go Zen out on that. ... Back. Earlier, when I was out the first time, doing the ritual, a neighboorhood dog was howling and rooster was crowing, that adding to the mood as well.
The walk through the woods was nice, cool but not windy cold. Went up by the old road to the farthest corner and back down the ridge. In recent weeks I've begun to think about doing a Stonehenge somewhere there, not that one can see the Sun or Moon on the horizon, but just to have one setup there, blindly pointing the directions of the celestrial events, calculated faith. Maybe it'll happen one day, the same as the Japanese style doorway to my Shinto Shrine, my woods.
Time to get on with the day, later. Thank you God for PBS commercial free coverage. Oh yeah, I've got the old 50s globe out, I'll try and following the turn of the planet with it.