Day 204/365 And then there were three....

Lucky Muncy, son of Maximillian Magruder Muncy and the late Millicent MacGregor Muncy, passed away this morning, at the age of eleven and one-half years, almost a year to the day after his mother.

Lucky was one of three pups, including his brothers Whiny and Shy (of West Virginia), and his younger adopted brother, Chewy.

Of his entire family, Lucky was the adventuresome one, the Indiana Jones of puppies, the one who would roll with the flow,go anywhere, try anything.

Lucky was the one who chewed through the refrigerator power cord, when it was plugged in, and astounded the vet by still being alive. Lucky was the one who went camping, and rode in the front of the boat showing no fear.

He was the heart of both his puppy family and his human family .


Lucky was the easy-going one when it came to grooming, and his favorite spot was sleeping in mom's lap while she trimmed mats, and tidied up his beard.

His second favorite spot was under mom's desk, in front of the little heater.




Lucky Muncy

November 11, 1998-May 5, 2010

Now sleeping with the butterflies, and sorely missed by his family.

Day 202/365 The Past Isn't Really Past

This post is dedicated to the current governor of Virginia, who lives in the land of cotton and wishful yearning. After reading the local paper today, I can almost forgive the governor for his poorly worded procalamation of Virginia's Confederate History Month.

After all the governor is suppose to be in touch with his constituency, no matter how backward they are.

Today's paper has a half page article with two large photos providing complete coverage of a burial of a local war veteran, complete with full military honors, invocation by a USAF Chaplain, local pillars of the community, a Cross of Honor installation, a large funeral wreath, a salute by military riflemen, multi-generations of the deceased family in attendance, and several speakers that attested to the worthiness of the deceased.

Was this a service for a recent casualty of the conflict in Afghanistan or Iraq? Gulf War? Vietnam? Korea? World War II? World War I?

No.

This was a re-burial of a Confederate Private who died in 1916. The Confederate Cross of Honor was unveiled ovcr his grave, various members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy attended in full Civil War dress and the military salute was provided by riflemen from the local branchof the Sons of Confederate Veterans (also in period dress). One of the Historical Society ladies sprinkled dirt on the grave from the last place of residence of the deceased, and another portrayed the grieving Southern widow. The great-great-grandchildren presented the family funeral wreath to the gravesite, flanked on either side by large floral wreaths from the UDC and SCV. Military "Taps" were played, and a haunting version of "Shenandoah" was played. Then the Confederate States National flag was presented (folded) to the granddaughter of the deceased soldier.

This is normal in the South.

They cannot let go. It is a melancholy addiction to the fading past, a yearning for a life they never experienced, a mass display of a all-encompassing post-traumatic stress disorder. The only explanation I can imagine is that the Civil War was such a devastatingly traumatic event, that it still leaves its psychic scars on the children of the South. The effects were so widespread, the memories and loss so deep, that even now, four generations later, these descendants still feel the need to support, to validate, and to justify.

So it seems our governor is, in fact, totally in touch with some of his constituents. They, in turn, are the ones not in touch with present-day reality, preferring instead to bury themselves in 1864.

Lest my readers think me a transplanted Yankee, I offer my Southern "pedigree": a great-great-grandfather who fought next to Stonewall Jackson from the start of the "War Between the States" until Jackson fell at the Wilderness; another great-great-grandfather who led the local militia during the mountain skirmishes in southwestern Virginia; a great-great-grandmother who hid in the woods while her home was being burned by Yankees (and who managed to shoot a couple of them); a great-great uncle who died as a prisoner of war at Camp Chase,Ohio; and numerous long-dead family members, any one of which would qualify for one of these Confederate burial ceremonies.

My point is: I would never have one. They are my family, my history, and my heritage. Like any person in any time period during any national event, each of them had an opinion and a reason for what they did, or didn't, do. Their time period is not mine. There is no need to explain or justify their actions. They were there, and did the best they could.

And I refuse to pretend that I have the slightest idea of how they managed to live through the horrific events of the Civil War, or to cheapen it with reenactments of devastating bereavment.

I'll leave that to the governor.

Day 201/365 Holding Our Breath

Tonight there's a mining disaster over in our neighbor state. News reports are spotty, with seven miners dead so far, and nineteen unaccounted for. We can only hope that the safe rooms were accessible, and the oxygen holds out. Right now, there is a small white mountain church full of wives and children, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, all waiting.

This isn't the first time. It won't be the last. Coal is the backbone of West Virginia. Generations of Appalachian families have worked the mines. And generations of Appalachian men have died in them.

This is my granddaddy, Charlie, on his wedding day. He is seventeen years old, and employed as a moonshine runner. Meaning he drives cars loaded with illegal whiskey along dark mountain roads, without headlights, sometimes at high speeds. Sometime before his nineteenth birthday, he will go to work in a mine. And within a couple years he will almost die in a mine fire, taking months to recouperate with first and second degree burns all over his body. He was one of the few who were carried out.

Charlie left the mine after that, refusing to go back. Running moonshine is safer. Anything is safer.

Appalachian history, especially in West Virginia, sometimes seems to be nothing but one mining disaster after another.


But right now, the only one that matters is this one.

Our thoughts are with those wives and families, waiting in the church, and those miners, down deep in the dark.

Day 200/365 Tonight.....

The "hopey-changey thing" is working out pretty damn well.

Thank you to President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and 219 brave Democrats!

Day 198/365 It's Our Day!

Happy International Women's Day!

In honor of that, here's a collection of some of the women in my life that have influenced me....

Josephine Ellen Green Muncy ....my great-grandmother. In a time when women were not even actual legal entities, and were expected to stay at home and wait for a husband...she took off across the country, traveling through what was then the edge of the American frontier.

Jess Muncy Bounds.....my great-aunt, daughter of Josephine. After seeing Katherine Hepburn wearing pants in a film, she immediately got rid of her dresses and never wore another one. That came in handy while training her championship Tennessee Walkers ( in this photo that's Kentucky on the left and Prince on the right).

Leona Adeline Muncy Newton.... another great-aunt, sister to Jess, and keeper of the family sense of ironic humor. She passed on her love of history and politics to me. One of nine English teachers in my immediate family. Leona (Onie to family) married later than most, shared her wedding with family in the homeplace parlor, and immediately set out with her husband driving across Virginia to their new home on the coast. Enroute, they were involved in a horrific car accident that cost her new husband his life, and caused her to walk with a pronounced lameness and pain for the remainder of her life (40 years). After being brought home to recouperate, she never mentioned the accident again, and never regarded it as an excuse or justification for not achieving her goals.

Inez America Hazelwood Muncy.....my grandmother on my Dad's side. Don't let that angelic pose fool you. My grandmother was one of the toughest women I ever met. She graduated from teacher's college, and skipped graduation to get to her first assignment, across the state,in a remote rural county where she would teach in a one-room schoolhouse, and travel to work on a horse-drawn sled in the winter. During her life she would raise four sons, watch them serve in World War II and Korea, start a business with her husband, build their first home by hand, and buy a deep sea fishing boat she loved to pilot on the Gulf of Mexico, all while playing the accordion, harmonica, organ and ukelele, debating religion with her preacher and authoring two books of poetry.

Sadie Gusler Anderson.....my great-aunt on my mother's side. I'm not sure there are words to describe Sadie. Everyone in her county knew her. Literally. And she knew everyone, and everything that was going on. Somehow, no matter what happened, Aunt Sadie had the inside scoop, the who-what-where-when and why. She loved yard sales, made beautiful quilts, drank moonshine and did not suffer fools. More than one person has a clear memory of hearing Sadie's opinion.

Mary Lee Carper Hodge.......my beloved grandmother on my mother's side, older sister to Sadie. I think of her as the one who was shortchanged. She was a product of rape, and grew up with the rapist in her immediate family. Raised with the idea that it was her and her mother's fault (in the 1920's it was always the woman's fault), she struggled with depression and what today is called "lack of self-esteem". Nevertheless, she married a moonshine runner, lost her first baby to spinal meningitis, lived in log cabins and cooked over an open hearth, helped her husband and three daughters build their first home by hand and worked in the fields till she was 80 years old. She was 73 before she traveled outside her county. She never learned to drive, never voted, never learned to swim, and had few outside interests outside of her family. I always wonder what sort of life she might have had without the mental abuse she suffered as a child.

And, of course, my mom. Raised on a rural Appalachian farm, so poor that shoes were only for wearing to school, and dresses were made from flour feedsacks. She was the first in the family to be educated past high school. The first woman in the family to move across the country. The first woman to travel to another country. And definitely the first to catch a giant fish. Mom takes after her aunt, Sadie, and is much more outspoken and confident than her mom. Like most of the women in our family, my mother has no shortage of opinons. This is a good thing. I've always thought people without opinions must lack the ability to reason and think.

Dr. Lois Tiffany.......sometimes your BFF's mom is just as important as your own mom. I met Dr. Tiffany when her daughter and I were in the same sixth-grade class. Her mom did mushrooms, my dad did fish and they both taught at the university. My own mom was a housewife, but my friend's mom *worked*, making her ten times more exciting to me than my own mother. She was the first mom I ever knew who had a *real job*. In some bizarre twist of the universe, her daughter ended up being a stay-at-home mom, while I, the daughter of the housewife, ended up being the corporate slave. Years later, in another twist, about the time I quit my job to homeschool my daughter, my stay-at-home mom BFF started working outside the home.

And speaking of daughter's......mine. The reason I celebrate International Women's Day.

The hope for the future. The reason I expect and demand equal pay for equal work, equal access, equal funding, equal opportunity, an equal education and an end to gender discrimination.

Anything else would disappoint all those women that came before her.

Day 197/365 I Am Angry

Reprinting this article from Reader Supporter News, because.......well, just 'cause it's perfect in every way.


I Am Angry
By John Cory, Reader Supported News
06 March 2010



I am angry.

I'm tired of pundits and know-nothing media gasbags. I'm tired of snarky "inside politics" programming. I am sick of the bigotry and hatred of "birthers" and faux patriotic cranks and their GOP puppet masters. And I'm really pissed at the Democratic Party that confuses having a plate of limp noodles with having a spine.

I'm going to vomit if I hear the word "bipartisanship" one more time.

It was "bipartisanship" that gave us this activist conservative Supreme Court. A Supreme Court that says money is free speech and corporations are persons except when real people try to hold them accountable for their greed and poisonous ways.

"Bipartisanship" gave us the Patriot Act and FISA and illegal wiretaps and two wars and "free speech zones" and "no fly" lists. God bless bipartisan America.

I get nauseated every time the Senate explains how it takes a super majority to do anything for the American people. Tell you what Senate Bozos, if it takes 60 votes to pass legislation than it should take 60% of the popular vote to get you elected.

When some Tea Party crank says, "I want my country back," I respond, "No madam, you want your country backward."

When a deficit-mongering politician says, "How do we pay for this?" Why not ask, "What did you Republicans do with the surplus we Democrats left you?"

When a compassionate conservative says, "Healthcare reform is socialism," why not answer, "No, sir it is the moral and American way to care for people."

Yes, I can hear it now: "You are naïve and simplistic. These are complicated matters and require sophisticated solutions. Democrats are a big tent and strive for balance. But Republicans block our path at every turn. We are thinking and considering new ways to work in harmony with everyone."

Bite me.

The only thing you get with "harmony" is a Barbershop Quartet.

Democrats stop being Republican Lite. Stop whining about that mean GOP and their nasty messaging. Grow a pair, get a message, get a bumper sticker and hang it out there. Get some strong vivid talking points.

G-O-P = Greed Over People.

Greed Kills - jobs, people and the economy.

Terrorism is Viagra for Republicans: The more fear - the more excited they get.

When a soldier dies for America, who dares ask if they were gay or straight?

Don't act so shocked, Democratic Party. Have you looked around lately?

You're losing the young vote that showed up to elect Obama. You're losing those old enough to remember real Democrats. Why? Because you don't talk to them any more than you talk to me. You talk at me. You talk around me. You talk down to me. You talk about me. You don't talk with me. And you don't inspire and you don't champion and without that you are nothing more than an arbitrator of compromise and abdication.

You are facing a bully. Deal with it!

Republicans want the country backwards. They champion superstition over science because it entrenches ignorance and bigotry and captures the easily frightened.

Republicans treat the Constitution the way they treat the Bible, with selective interpretation and selective application to others while exempting themselves from judgment and accountability.

Republicans preach the gospel of fear because fear is darkness and darkness covers their theft of civil liberties and Constitutional principles.

For thirty years the Republican Party has claimed the mantel of law and order but now quake in dread of the American judicial system when putting terrorists on trial. How criminal is that?

Torture is illegal. Period. John Wayne and Jack Bauer were not our Founding Fathers - only in the make-believe world of Republican drugstore-patriots.

DADT needs to be repealed. Now. It is unconscionable, immoral, and disgusting.

Empathy, compassion and equality are not pejoratives. They are American values proven again and again throughout our history.

Republicans believe that bake-sales and cookies for chemotherapy best determine the value of life and healthcare because life is a pre-existing condition and the "free market" should not have to take on such a high risk - after all, no one gets out alive, so why should the corporation be left holding the bag? Unless of course the price is right.

Republicans believe that government should keep its hands off healthcare but should put its hands inside a woman's body.

Republicans believe in small government - small enough to hold the "right" people and small enough to be owned and operated by the "right" people. And who are the "right" people? Them. Not you.

Democratic Party, DNC, DLCC, DSCC or whatever your acronym - I have only one question for you: Really?

You can't win against these guys? You can't get your message out against these guys? You can't give America leadership against these guys?

Really?

Day 196/365 Winter, 1962

On October 1, 1962, James Meredith became the first black student at the University of Mississippi. Violence and riots erupted in response and President Kennedy sent 5,000 armed federal troops into the South to keep order.

It was the height of the Civil Rights struggle and most of the major cities in the Deep South had enforced curfews. In our city there were not only curfews, but checkpoints going into and out of black neighborhoods.

Just after Christmas 1962, I was taken to my first grown-up movie by my parents. We passed through a checkpoint, next to a large searchlight. We sat in the balcony in reverse segregation, since it was a black theater. None of the downtown theaters would show that movie - yet.

That was the first time I met Atticus, and Scout, and Jem and Dill. To this day, I can feel the summer heat and dust rolling off the screen. Watching the film is like revisiting my childhood.

I remember thinking Atticus was just like my dad, an opinion I still hold some 48 years later.

I also remember dad having to talk to an armed police officer when we passed back through the checkpoint, returning to our white neighborhood, the one without curfews and blinding searchlights.

A couple months later in April 1963 Martin Luther King was confined in Alabama, writing "Letter from Birmingham Jail" which argues that individuals have the moral duty to disobey unjust laws.

That's something I also still agree with 48 years later. Probably a result of a southern childhood in the early 1960s. I'd like to think so.



More from To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.