New Year:The Wheel Goes Round Slowly by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

 

 

New Year, Slow Beginnings

 

New Year:

The Wheel

Goes Round

Slowly

 

Burn The Calendar !

There is an old Ozarks superstition and wives’ tale that says, “Every January 1, you throw away the old year’s calendar.” Usually there was some kind of logic or type of explanation that suggested a common sense approach to Life.

 

I don’t remember my mother or grandmother’s explanation of the logic. They both were simply efficient about getting the calendar off the wall and outside into the trash.

 

January 15, 2013, my old calendar was still on the wall. I needed a photograph for this article, so off the wall and into the yard goes the old calendar. The Year 2012 was not one of my favorite years. Good Riddance, 2012 !

 

One flick of my trusty Zippo lighter and I got to watch 2012 go out in a blaze of glory. Nikon D 200 Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

After New Year’s Day, the theory is that the world is ready to pack away the holidays and get back to work.

 

Have you ever noticed how slowly the world at large usually seems to move ahead in the new year ?

 

You can blame The Twelve Days of Christmas from December 25 to January 5 and celebrate Christmastide and The Twelfth Night on the evening of January 5, but, that does not explain the slow take off for a New Year.

 

The Old Christmas Day is January 6.  The Feast Of The Three Kings, which is the first Sunday of the New Year, can work out to January 6, 7,8, or 9, and depends on if you use a Julian or Gregorian Calendar.

However, The Old Christmas Day and The Feast Of The Three Kings observances are not sufficient reason to explain why the world at large takes a slow stride into the early days of January.

 

Wherever you are in the world, when a New Year starts you can run the celebrations and the observances period about as long as you like and can afford.

 

If you can afford the time off in The Real World of earning a living, you can even postpone getting back into “The Work World” until you observe Candlemas on February 2.

 

Humans throughout history obviously have not been in a hurry to get back to work in the New Year. The world’s major religions accommodate the reluctance by a host of various religious holidays to help the average human to ease into January.

 

Why are people slow to jump feet first into the New Year ?

 

We humans jump up and down for the New Year’s Eve celebration and are anxious for the New Year. Yet, at the stroke of midnight, we seem to ease off and step back.

 

Why is it after January 1, humanity seems slow to move bravely and confidently into January and the New Year ?

 

In my life time, I have noticed people may have to go back to work after January 1, but their heart is not in it.

 

Anyone can sit at a desk, keep the lights on and run the heating or air conditioning, but, to “do work” that accomplishes something requires the initiative to be willing to undertake tasks.

 

I have noticed that it seems to take about the first two weeks of January before people “get down to business” and “get back in the game” of earning a living.

 

It seems there is a cautious need to ease into a New Year like a hot bathtub of water by putting one toe in first.

 

Like an old steam engine, we seem to have a need to build up a head of steam to finally get rushing down the tracks into the present.

 

Perhaps, all of humanity is “A Bunch Of Lazy Bums.”

 

No doubt, everyone will have a theory or come up with a theory.

 

The best theory that I have come up with about the caution of a New Year is : Capricorn.

 

Salute The Goat

 

I applaud the ancient Western astrologers. Sometimes the ancient astrologers were “dead on” when they selected an animal to represent a cross section of humanity. They definitely got it right when they chose The Goat to represent Capricorn and the people born under that sign.

 

“Goats Are God’s Weed Eaters”

 

Capricorn is one of the most reserved signs of the Zodiac.

I grew up around livestock on a farm. My mother, the hog farmer, had hair goats to eat away the brush, sprouts and cedar tree saplings.

“Goats Are God’s Weed Eaters.” If a goat can nibble away at a half inch or inch thick sapling, then, they will eat it down to a stump. They, like their appetizers, which means they start with the the lush green leaves of a bush, vine or sprout first.

 

Goats can be curious. A kid might run up to you in the field and a billy goat might slowly saunter toward you to check you out in the pasture.

 

Ozark farmers in the 1960s took pride in their goats. Goats are not pretty creatures. They have a Minus Sign pupil in their eyeballs, which gives their faces a distinctive character.

 

All goats, billy goats, the kids and the female goats all have “chin whiskers”, which most people call, beards.

 

Wool goats have wavy or ringlet strands of hair that hangs down aound their body. In the winter time, poor old wool goats seem weighed down in a mink coat that seems bulky and heavy to carry and wear.

 

Don’t “kid”, (pun intended – on the farm, a child of a goat is called a, “kid.”) yourself, an old wool billy goat in the heavy wool coat can move and “charge” at you quickly.

You violate an old billy goat’s “personal space” and if he thinks you are a threat, head down and horns “locked” in your direction and he will come at you with the speed of an Olympic sprinter and the strength of a small bulldozer.

 

Ozarks farmers always claimed, “Goats will kill brush.” Goats will nibble saplings and vines down to stumps and roots, but, in time, Mother Nature will bring the brush back.

 

Goats Versus Sheep

 

Goats will eat grass down to the roots. Ozarks farmers never liked sheep because sheep would eat grass and the roots, which meant you always had to reseed and re-sod the pasture.

 

Grass seed is expensive when you have to buy several acres worth plus fresh topsoil and fertilizer.

 

Ozarks farmers know livestock can be “skiddish”, which means they frighten easy. A loud noise will send chickens and turkeys to the four winds. Horses, cattle and goats usually don’t frighten easy.

Early Bible writers obviously weren’t farmers or had a low opinion of humanity, every sheep I ever saw was stupid.

 

Sheep scare easy and you always have to watch them to make sure they don’t do something stupid like wander off a cliff or out of the field into the highway.

 

Wolves, coyotes or packs of wild stray dogs get in sheep, they run and get “mowed down” by the hungry predators. Goats initially run, but, then, some stop, turn and fight the predators.  Battered, beaten and bloodied, sometimes an old billy goat will win and the predator is dinner for the buzzards.

 

Goats Are The Weather Warriors

 

Goats are “sure footed.” Their hooves are designed to allow them to stand and walk in the most challenging terrain.

 

In wintertime in southwest Missouri, horses, cattle and sheep can’t always stand up in the cold, ice and snow.

 

Horses, cattle and sheep have to lay down out in the pasture because they can’t walk in the terrain and weather. Goats can.

 

One winter in my childhood, I witnessed goats unable to stand for a couple of days in the winter.

 

However, Mother Nature had dropped hail and ice mixed with the snow for a couple of days, so that one to two layers or sheets of ice coated the earth underneath the picturesque blanket of snow.

Roads were closed.  Snow plows with their weigh and chains on their tires were carefully trying to break through the sheet or sheets of ice that covered the asphalt under the snow.

 

When a ton-and-a half or two ton dump truck fitted with a blade to act as a snow plow finds it difficult to move along a road without slipping into a ditch, you have to give a goat in the field credit for trying to stand up.

For a couple of days, that winter, even a goat could not stand up.   When the animal tried to rise the hooves slipped and slid on the sheet or sheets of ice beneath the snow. 

The poor goat ended up spread eagle on the ground with his or her legs spread out to the sides.

 

The Dead Of Winter Remains Alive

In The Missouri Ozarks 

 

I believe that the severe winter was either The Winter of 1967 or The Winter of 1968. It was an “Arctic Winter”,  Heavy snowfall all winter long.  Extreme cold temperatures.  And power lines were down two or three times, during that winter.  It was a Frozen Hell. It was masochistic winter that tortured man and beasts in the southwest Missouri Ozarks.

That severe childhood winter of the 1960s is why when “The Experts” talk “Global Warming”, I laugh. 

In situations where “The Experts” talk and try to convince me of “Global Warming” and “Climate Change”, I challenge them to go spend a winter in the southwest Missouri Ozarks. 

 

If “The Experts” still have all their fingers and toes free of “frostbite” and have not “froze to death” out in the woods or the countryside come Spring, then, I might listen.

It does seem that there is a “Climate Change” because the southwest Missouri Ozarks, now, can receive a tornado in January.  However, where winter weather is concerned the temperatures are still bone-chilling and you get heavy snowfall.

Granted from the 1980s through the early 1990s, the winters in the southwest Missouri Ozarks did not seem as severe as in the 1960s.

Check with The Stone County Old Timers and they will tell you Mother Nature has a strange sense of humor about winter weather in the southwest Missouri Ozarks.  There can be two, three or a few years were winter seems almost mild. 

Just when people start to smile positive “Climate Change”, Mother Nature pulls out all the stops and you wonder if any person or animal can survive the cold and snow until spring.

The bright side of that devastating 1960s Winter in the southwest Missouri Ozarks was, in the spring and summer there were less ticks, chiggers and snakes because Mother Nature had “killed them off” with the severe winter.

 

The Naked Goat

 

Sheep farmers always claimed sheep wool was better than goat wool, but, in the 1960s in the Ozarks wool goat farmers had a market for the wool. Wool goats like young boys are not fond of “haircuts.”

 

Of course, in the wool goat’s case the annual “haircut” is more like a “bikini waxing” in that you have to remove all the hair, i.e., wool against the goat’s will.  Electric shears are faster.

Uncle Richard DeLong only had the manual scissor shears, which meant the bawling, moving, fidgeting wool goats would sometimes get their skin nicked by the shears.

 

The end result is poor wool goats with their “nicked shaving cuts” looked comical.

Think of a close friend in full body Long Johns pink underwear that the worn and frayed arms and legs seem at least one size too short.  Then, image the trap door in the back of the clothing, 

The poor goat’s sheared backside would wave the trimmed tail as the sheared animal with the fresh haircut quickly exited the pen to the freedom of the pasture.

If you think the mental picture of a freshly sheared wool goat is funny, then, visit a farm and help a farmer at wool shearing time.

 

Hair goats have the same “work ethic” and eating habits of wool goats, but their hair is more like a windbreaker in the sense that while it keeps them insulated in the winter they can easily move around.

 

In the spring, a hair goat naturally sheds the hair like dogs and cats do at the right times of year.

 

Hair and wool goats were also used to provide milk, cheese and as a source of meat.

 

I am a “picky eater” country boy.  I never drank goat milk, ate goat cheese or goat meat. I have put a big nipple on a bottle and fed baby goats from time to time.

 

Goats Adaptable Livestock

 

Goats are resourceful livestock. They seem to adapt well to almost any terrain, although I would not recommend trying to raise a “pet goat” in a Madison Avenue New York City apartment.

 

Goats love plants. They do not discriminate between briar bushes, orchids and prize roses, so you definitely have to fence goats off away from gardens and flower beds.

 

Goats don’t require gas, electricity or catalytic converters; sorry OPEC.

Goats are environmentally friendly and they provide biodegradable nutrient rich fertilizer for your lawn or pasture.

 

Capricorn Humans

Samuel E. Warren, my father, Uncle Richard, Uncle Hobert and Uncle Joe DeLong were all born under the sun sign of Capricorn. My Rising Sign is Capricorn and I have worked with many Capricorn natives in my life time.

 

The goat is not as pretty a mascot as a ram, bull or eagle. Yet, the goat is a steady, determined, industrious, hard working, resourceful creature that braves terrain and weather to carry out it’s life mission. Goats are curious and have a subtle sense of livestock humor.

 

Talk to a farmer or watch hair or wool goats in a zoo or petting zoo and you will wonder if God has a sly sense of humor because the noble characteristics of goats do seem to be ingrained into Capricorn humans.

 

In my experience Capricorn human are conservative, cautious, curious, deliberate, determined, resourceful, and hard working.

 

If there is a fish or sea aspect to Capricorn, then, I consider it the sense of humor. Capricorn humans have a subtle sense of humor that often flows past their fellow humans.

 

Saturn The Ultimate Foreman

 

A Capricorn human’s biggest challenge is always Saturn, which a person might call Fate. In ancient Roman mythology, Saturn ruled agriculture, liberation and time. In a early 21^st Century sense, then, Saturn is “The Business God, who decides promotions, schedules and time off.” The ancient Romans identified Saturn as a “God Of Wealth.” The ancient Romans had Saturn pegged as “The Work God.”

 

As “The Boss Of Bosses”, the bottom line is the ancient Romans realized that Saturn was not going to “cut them any slack.” Saturn was not going to go out of his way to give anyone “time off” or “promote” a person if they didn’t “earn the promotion.” And, Saturn was  “ A Grade A Rule Book Stickler,” who demanded “by the book, all the time, no exceptions.”

 

Obviously, Saturn had to be a pagan God, because no human would ever want to work for such “A Dictatorial Boss.”

Saturn ruled agriculture, which meant farming and food.  In an early 21st Century perspective Saturn or Fate is the God Of Agribusiness. 

As a God Of Wealth, Saturn signed the paychecks and As the God Of Agriculture, He got to say, who got to Eat and who went Hungry.

 

The only time, the ancient Romans ever “Got to Stick It To The Boss” was once a year at the annual festival of “Saturnalia,”

At Saturnalia, the ancient Romans had free speech, switched jobs, ate like pigs, partied like wild men, got drunk and gave gifts. Sound like an office Christmas party ?

 

Bingo !

Saturnalia was celebrated December 17. Today Saturnalia is celebrated December 25. The “get even with your boss” pagan god party became the Christian Christmas holiday

 

Historians have not discovered why the date moved from December 17 to December 25.

 

Crafty Christians

 

Early Christians however, when they “stole” or “ripped off” pagan ideas liked to “Christianize” them. For instance:  Christian churches were often built on pagan worship sites.

 

If the move to December 25 was to “Christianize” the holiday, early Christians “outsmarted themselves” and did Saturn a favor by moving the holiday from Sagittarius right smack dab into “Capricorn” a Zodiac Sign ruled by Saturn.

 

The W Word : Work

 

Whatever mythological God rules a sign is considered the “ruler” of the sign, so since Saturn rules Capricorn, Capricorn humans are “the employees of Saturn.”

 

If you move the mythological religious god concept to a philosophical and psychological concept then you can swap the name, Saturn, for the word, Fate.

 

Look at your calendar, from December 22 until January 19, during the Zodiac Sign of Capricorn; haven’t tasks seem more time consuming?

Doesn’t it seem to take longer to get even the minor jobs done?

Even if you were able to take time off from work for Christmas and or New Year’s: doesn’t it seem that now your work has piled up and you are paying for the time off ?

 

Time is another trait that the ancient Romans attributed to Saturn. Saturn truly was an “Equal Opportunity God” because He didn’t discriminate. Saturn made “everyone work like a dog.”

 

Regardless, whether you call the ruler of the sign, Saturn or Fate,

 

Capricorn humans always seem to really have to earn their “pay” in Life. They work hard.

 

Capricorn humans don’t seem to get “the breaks” that people born under other sun signs seem to get on the job.

 

However, when a Capricorn human earns a promotion, award or honor; they “earned the recognition through hard work.”

 

Some sun signs can be a boss’ “pet”. In my life time, I have noticed, seldom, if ever, is a Capricorn a “bosses’ pet.”

 

Fate or Saturn keeps a Capricorn human’s “nose to the grind stone.”

 

When you look at the month of January and wonder, “Why does it seem the New Year always seems to get off to such a slow start ?”

 

Consider that Capricorn is the steady sign, which is conservative and steady; not fast and impulsive. Saturn or Fate demands due diligence, hard work, attention to detail, procedures by the book and hard work.

 

Short cuts usually just mean more hard work or going back and fixing the mistakes caused by short cuts. Saturn The Ultimate Foreman is looking over your shoulder.

 

Fate is in charge !

Saturn is in charge !

 

Aquarius En route

 

On the bright side, look at the calendar. A shift change is coming.

 

January 20,Aquarius The Water Bearer reports for duty. Aquarius is more laid back, more flexible, and tends to think “Outside The Box.”

While Capricorn demands rules, regulations, procedures and wants to “Do It The Way It Has Always Been Done”; Aquarius usually takes the risk of tossing or, at least, putting aside the rulebook.

 

Aquarius is an air sign, which means you can breeze back in to the daily responsibilities of Life.

 

Keep in mind, the ancient astrologers chose “Waves Of Water” as the glyph or logo for Aquarius, which should be a subtle reminder to let your emotions ripple along on the job.

 

In the Real World, when Mother Nature adds significant amounts of cold or hot water to air the result is an ice storm or thunderstorm that can grow violent.

 

Violent air creates hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones. Try to learn to heat up and cool down at regular intervals in your work day, so that you don’t let the stress of daily life cloud your judgment and send you thundering in the wrong direction.

 

Best Wishes for Clear Skies and Smooth Sailing !

 

Sam

 

Links

Twelve Days Of Christmas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Days_of_Christmas

Old Christmas Day

http://www.christmas-time.com/cp-old.html

Feast Of The Epiphany Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Epiphany

Candlemas Time and Date.Com

http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/common/candlemas

Capricorn Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricorn_(astrology)

Capricorn Astrology Online

http://www.astrology-online.com/capricrn.htm

Capricorn Sun Sign Zodiac Signs Astrology.com

http://www.astrology.com/capricorn-sun-sign-zodiac-signs/2-d-d-66920

Saturn Mythology Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(mythology)

Zodiac Sign Dates

http://www.whats-your-sign.com/zodiac-sign-dates.html

Star Cats Personal, Relationship, Family Astrology

http://starcats.com/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

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Christmas Cash,Costs,Challenges of The Ozarks 1960s

Christmas Cash,Costs, Challenges

of

The

Ozarks’

1960s

The Old House

Of The Ozarks

This small house beside Missouri State Highway 176 in Stone County, Missouri in The Ozarks can go unnoticed by passing motorists. This Old House served as The DeLong Family Home in the 1960s. Birthday parties, Fourth of July, Halloween Trick or Treat events,Thanksgiving Supper and Christmas Day Dinner celebrations were held in the three – room house, which had a Laundry Room built on in the 1970s. There was no inside plumbing. Uncle Joe built an Outhouse down on the hillside. While the house did not have the social comforts of some 20^th Century homes in The Ozarks; it always felt like “Home” to DeLong family members, who returned to Stone County and the Missouri Ozarks anytime of the year. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

 

by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

 

Home in my childhood was “The Ozarks.”

 

The Ozarks is one of the places in the world, where myth and reality live side by side.

 

You live your life in The Real World and sometimes it seems like you look up and see a wild,white-haired Mark Twain smiling down at you with his pen in hand.

 

The heavy snows of winter fall. The scene looks like a Currier and Ives lithograph on a china plate and then you feel the “bone chilling cold” enter your body. You see your breath. You trudge out of the knee-high snow into the warmth of your home.

 

You “warm” by the large, rectangular, dark brown “Warm Morning” gas stove and realize winter in The Ozarks means Christmas is usually just days away.

 

You get a hot cup of coffee and wonder why people think The Ozarks is “permanently stuck in an 1800s Time Warp.”

 

If you ever watched an episode of “The Beverly Hillbillies” you may believe the fictional characters represent “Life In The Ozarks.”

 

You would be wrong.

 

I grew up in the Ozarks and I never ate possum.

 

I have ate squirrel.

 

Uncle Hobert DeLong was a “dead on shot” with a rifle. Every time he went into the woods, he came back with a “mess of squirrels” and sometimes “a mess of rabbits.”

 

Of course, no one remembers Jed, granny and the rest of the Clampett were supposed to have been from Bugtussel, Tennessee and the characters get associated with The Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks.

 

Cartoonist Al Capp made a large fortune drawing the comic strip of Lil’ Abner for 43 years that reached 60 million readers in more than 900 American newspapers.

 

Capp’s newspaper comic strip was one of my mother’s favorites. Capp put the characters in Dogpatch, Kentucky, but as a kid everyone though if you were from The Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks, then, you must be like Lil’ Abner.

 

I never went to a Sadie Hawkin’s Day dance.

 

Dancing wasn’t allowed at Galena High School in the 1960s. It was an issue that came up with every senior class wanting a “Prom.” The Baptist and Pentecostal churches of the 1960s in Stone County were vocal in their objections and they kept the prom dance out of school.

 

I graduated in 1973 in a “Graduation Exercises” ceremony, but there was “No Prom” because the churches still didn’t allow dancing in school.

 

 

 

The Ozarks Hillbilly Stereotype

 

No matter how incorrect the “hillbilly” stereotype is about The Ozarks. Americans and foreigners seem to cling to the dumb hayseed and lazy cartoon and television stereotypes of “The Ozarks Hillbilly.”

 

The irony is that the Ozarks is pretty close to the center of the United States and it has always seemed like an “undiscovered country” to foreigners and other Americans.

 

My geographical calculations of “The Ozarks” begins from the southern city limits sign of Jefferson City to the southern city limits sign of Little Rock, Arkansas, which is what I always considered to be, “The Ozarks.”

 

Stone County, Missouri is in the southwest section of the state and borders Arkansas, which means, “reckon I grew up one of them thar’ Ozarks’ country boys.”

 

Missourians in the Ozarks joke, “If you don’t like the weather just wait 15 minutes and it will change.” There is truth to that joke. The weather doesn’t always change every 15 minutes, but in a 24-hour day, the weather can change several times in a day.

 

Pen To Paper

 

To put pen to paper and write a story about Christmas in The Ozarks, I will have to set the stage.

 

There are many famous Missourians from United States Army Generals of the Armies John Joseph “Blackjack” Pershing to “The Most Trusted Man In America” Walter Cronkite, but, usually the celebrities are known as Missourians and not necessarily, “Ozarkers.”

 

Neosho, Missouri’s Thomas Hart Benton put his brush strokes on canvas to paint pictures; I will try to paint a word picture of life in The Ozarks in the 1960s.

 

Tom Sawyer Childhood

 

Life in “The Ozarks” in Stone County, Missouri in the 1960s was like “Tom Sawyer on a tractor and in a pickup truck.” Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Midwest buckboards and stagecoaches were replaced by 18-wheelers, Greyhound and Continental Trailways buses.

 

Rose O’Neill’s Kewpie dolls could be still found in toy stores in the Ozarks. Overall, Life in southern Missouri had not changed all that much since the days of Mark Twain, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose O’Neill.

 

“The Tomato Factories” of Reeds Spring, Abesville, and Galena in the 1930s had been replaced with “The Garment Factory” in Reeds Spring and Crane and Crane had a “Casket Factory.”

 

Fasco in Springfield, Missouri employed several people from Stone County. In 1960, Silver Dollar City was just beginning operations. Branson, Missouri in 1960 was “no threat” to country music in Nashville, but, Nashville musicians would begin to head for Branson, during the 1960s. In the area of economics, “times were tough”, in Stone County and southwest Missouri in 1960.

 

Blood Out Of A Turnip

 

Every nation has an economy. Money flows around in the metropolitan and urban areas, but in rural areas the ocean of money flows into a narrow stream that sometimes becomes a dry creek bed. In Stone County, it seemed even the rocks in the creek bed were usually “bone dry.”

 

After The Great Depression and World War II, the United States economy was strengthening. In the rural areas of the Ozarks, being “poor” is still a way of life.

 

In the early 1960s, the local power companies were working hard to provide, stable and reliable electricity.

 

Stone County, Missouri had a reputation of being one of the poorest counties in The Show Me State.

 

Traditionally in Missouri, statistics reveal “Mining” is the major source of manual labor income for the state. Farming comes in second. There were caves in Stone County, but no working mines.

 

Farming is hard work. Even with good weather and the money to buy seeds, livestock and equipment, farming is a full-time job to make a living.

 

Gardening maybe a hobby; Farming is a job.

 

Grandma DeLong like to sum up an economic situation as, “I couldn’t afford to make a down payment on an old settin’ hen with all her eggs rotten.” The purpose of this country statement was to point out that someone was “financially broke.” It was a common financial phrase that you heard in The Ozarks in the 1960s.

 

By 1960s, some farmers in Stone County had had it with “life on the farm.” Some people sold their farms and moved to other states. Some people stayed on their farms, but tried to get a “public job” at Silver Dollar City.

 

When it came to money in Stone County, Missouri and The Ozarks in the 1960s “people minded their Ps and Qs” and sometimes the lack of money was described as “Trying to get blood out of a turnip.”

 

Ozarks Hills And Hollers

 

Corn and tomatoes were the big income producing crops in Stone County, Missouri in my childhood in the 1960s. There were always stories of some of the corn being used to produce “moonshine” and “white lightning.”

 

In the early 1980s, I was “home on leave” from the military and a family friend unscrewed the lid on a Mason jar and asked me if I wanted some of the clear liquid.

 

I thanked him, but decided not to drink the “white lightning.”

 

The geography of Stone County had some cliffs and bluffs in the landscape of the hills and hollers. When the soil was too rough, rocky or poor to raise any other crop, usually the farmer would sew cane and other pasture grasses.

 

Fertilize was not all that expensive, but, the amount needed to nourish the soil and get crops to grow was sometimes too big a chunk of money out of a farmer’s budget.

 

Uncle Richard had one field beside State Highway 176, that the family called, “The Cane Field” because it was too rocky and the soil too poor for any other crop. The cane was used to feed to the cattle in the winter time,

 

Spring and summer usually the crops grew well and there was plenty of pasture to feed the livestock. Farmers didn’t get rich, but they made “the ends meet.”

 

Deep Freeze

 

Winter in southwest Missouri in the 1960s was always Armageddon. Fields were buried under blankets of deep snow. The important contribution of the deep snow and cold temperatures is the weather would kill off chiggers, ticks and snakes as long as farmers burned the brush in their fields and hollers in the early falls.

 

Burning the tree leaves in the hollers that fell kept deep leave beds from filling up the hollers. In the winter time, chigger, ticks and snakes would burrow into the deep leaves to try and wait out the winter until spring.

 

Southwest Missouri’s picture postcard “snows” were efficient in freezing farm ponds, which stayed frozen unless you broke the ice with an ax for the cattle to get a drink.

 

The weight of a Black Angus, Polled Hereford, Jersey or Holstein cow would sometimes shatter the ice and a cow could drown trying to get a drink of water in the winter.

 

Later in the 1960s, someone invented a device to stick in farm ponds in the winter to keep the water from freezing.

 

The deep freeze of the Ozarks in winter would freeze trees. The weight of ice on the limbs would cause the limbs to fall and take down electric lines. If you were lucky, you would be without electricity for a day.

 

On average people usually went without electricity for two to three days usually two to three times,during winter from October through April. The worst case scenario meant you would go without electricity for one to two weeks during the winter.

 

A Country Mile

 

The strength of my childhood came from my family in the Ozarks. Momma, Grandma DeLong, Uncle Richard, Uncle Hobert, Aunt Mary, and Cousin Donna were my family in the Ozarks.

 

In Houston, Texas, I could step out in my front yard. Donna and Debbie Brinkley from the house next door only had to walk out their gate and a few feet to walk into my yard for us to play.

 

In the Ozarks, neighbors always seemed to live a country mile from your front door.

 

Thelma Thomas was my closet neighbor in 1960 and she lived about a tenth of a mile from my front door on top of a hill. Her kids were grown with families of their own.

 

The Galena School District usually included Jenkins and Wheelerville, Missouri, which was only a few miles from Crane, Missouri. And, Crane, Missouri was 10 miles from Galena.The district would extend south to almost Reeds Spring, which was about 15 miles from Galena.

 

Many of my classmates would have to do chores before catching the school bus in the morning. The bus ride for some of the kids meant they were on the school bus for two hours before they arrived at Galena Elementary or Galena High School. After school, they would spend two hours on the bus once it left the school.

 

You would see classmates in school, but the distances and the rural road conditions to their parents’ farms meant that “visits” and social interaction was almost impossible, except for possibly on the weekend.

 

Crane, Missouri was only 10 miles from Galena and we usually only went grocery shopping in Crane on Saturdays.

 

 

 

“Life On Planet Earth Before Electronics”

 

Children of the 21^st Century will think I grew up in The Dark Ages because there was no Internet, no facebook, no twitter, no computers, no X box, no play station and no cell phones.

 

Yes, there was “Life On Planet Earth Before Electronics.”

 

Fire had been discovered. My father always carried his Zippo cigarette lighter.

 

We didn’t have to use stone tablets and chisels because there was an archaic device called, a typewriter that used ribbons, bond paper and carbon paper that helped people put words on paper for future generations.

 

Telephones Come To Stone County

 

Telephones were being installed in homes, near Galena and Abesville, Missouri.

 

In order to have a telephone in your home if you lived near State Highway 176, you had to be willing to be on “a party line”, which meant when your phone rang, your neighbors telephone gave off a jangle sound,

 

There was one public telephone booth in Galena, Missouri. The phone booth was on the sidewalk by the US Post Office, next to Floyd’s Barber shop, which was next to Rose’s beauty shop, which was next to the Hillbilly Cafe and sat across the street from the courthouse. In 2011, that area is now a parking lot for The Stone County Judicial Center.

 

The reason why the telephone was so important in 1960 was it allowed Momma to call Daddy in Texas and he could call her from Texas. Grandma and Uncle Richard never had a telephone. DeLong and Warren family members, who lived in other states could call us and we could call them.

 

In the 21^st Century, when it seems children own a cell phone as soon as they learn to speak; it may be hard to imagine the importance of a telephone in your home, but, imagine for a moment that you lived in the snow and ice of the South Pole and you were trying to make a phone call to your grandparents in the United States.

 

If your grandparents lived in a city like Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles or New York City, it would be easy for them to place a call. But, if you lived in a remote location at the South Pole, there might not be phone lines or cell phone towers, so you might not get the phone call.

Old Missouri Spring

This old spring is on Warren Land in Stone County, Missouri. The Ozarks area of the United States has always been difficult for “people to live off the land” because the soil is poor and rocky. If you need rain; you will get a drought. If you need sunshine;you will get a flood. Nature seems to enjoy working against farmers. Wildlife and insect pest can have a negative effect on crops. The Old Traditional Ozarks Hillbilly concept portrays citizens as dumb and lazy. The truth is an Ozarks Hillbilly is one of the smartest and hard working people, you will ever meet because they use their elbow grease and common sense to work a “Miracle” on stubborn pieces of land to earn a living and raise their families. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

 

 

The Miracle Of Life In The Ozarks

 

When you think of “The Ozarks” in the 1960s; you understand the word, “Miracle” is a reality.

 

The Ozarks’ lunar style geography of cliffs and bluffs, poor soil, an over abundance of rocks, moody weather, predator wildlife like wolves and coyotes as well as insect pests; it is a “Miracle” that people were able to live, earn a living, and sometimes prosper in this section of the United States.

 

When you are a child, you open your toys on Christmas Day. Underneath the Christmas Tree, you begin to play with the toys.

 

As a young man, you can find yourself trying to decide if you want to go “Home For The Holidays.”

 

As a senior citizen you can sit back with a cup of coffee or a glass of egg nog and remember the toys and the celebrations. When you look back long enough at your childhood, you really begin to understand and appreciate the sacrifices that your parents made for you.

 

At last, you can understand, the challenges, costs,hard work and the effort that your parents made to make Christmas seem like a “Magickal Holiday” that simply happens.

Sam

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

EDITORIAL: America’s 1970s Health Craze: Death For Dinner

 Editorial: America’s 1970’s Health Craze: Death For Dinner

America’s

Poison

Food ?

by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

Consider the possibility, for a moment, that Society’s efforts in the 1970s to “get America healthy” may have inadvertently poisoned our food.

Did we create stronger diseases by misunderstanding nature’s processes?

Then, America’s Health Craze of the 1970s becomes a social fad, rather than a movement. And, the issue of changes in farming practices and the preservatives added to extend the lives of fruits, vegetables and meats should make us wonder what we are really eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

America’s Health Craze in the 1970s took off like a brush fire in a high wind. But, America’s Health Craze spread like an infectious disease that could not be stopped. Time and again people were told if they got “healthy” they would live longer.

1960s’ Bad Health Habits

Rewind to the 1960s. In 1960, many adults smoked cigarettes like choo choo trains and they drank like fish. By the 1960s, it was fairly common knowledge that a chemical known as “Red Dye Number 2” was routinely added to meat to give off a color that shoppers expected their fresh meat in the butcher shop to have.

DDT Outlawed

In the 1960s, DDT had been a popular pesticide that was used to kill insect pests in farm crops. By the 1970s, the serious concerns about the after effects of DDT was getting it off the market quickly and farmers would have to rely on pharmaceutical companies to come up with a safer pesticide.

The 1970s arrived and the American Health Franchises sprang up like Texas oil wells belching crude sky high. As the Ecology Movement and the First Earth Day was gearing up in America, the idea of organic farming and gardening was catching on quickly. Americans wanted “natural” methods used to treat the crops and feed the livestock, which would end up in their supermarkets and on their dinner tables.

From The Soil To The Table

Spade and Seeds – Organic Gardening became popular in the 1970s as Americans sought for natural ways to control insect pests in their gardens without running the risk of endangering the vegetables for the supper table. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

While people in the cities were wondering how to “safely” grow their food. Small family farms kept planting their “truck patch” gardens and kept “fattening” up a calf or feeder pig like they had done for generations. The majority of their food came straight from the soil of their gardens to the dinner table.  

Corn in the garden – Home gardeners in Stone County, Missouri use their skill and knowledge of the soil, insects, local wildlife and weather conditions to grow “roasting ears” for the dinner table. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

A farm family’s meat was usually a calf or feeder pig that had been penned up and fed to a given weight. In the fall or the winter, the calf or pig would, then, be “processed” with the pieces of meat being “sugar cured” and hung up in the smokehouse.

Red Angus calf in a pasture on Warren Land – In the 1960s, in Stone County, Missouri, rural farm families would usually select a calf to fatten up and a pig to be a feeder pig for their beef and pork for the winter. By fall or early winter, the animal would be taken to either Crane or Highlandville to the packing plant. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

By the 1960s, in southwest Missouri, the fattened calf or feeder pig would be taken to the Crane or Highlandville packing plants. The meat would be wrapped in paper and readied for families to pick up to put in the freezer until ready for use.

Meanwhile, in American cities in the 1970s, gymnasiums sprouted up like weeds. The enthusiasts were pushing “Running” like carnival barkers at an amusement park. “Jogging” quickly became the fad of the day and by 1973, it seemed everyone in America had a gym membership, polyester headbands, wristbands, jogging suits and sneakers.

Even before critics and legislators went after cigarette smokers and breweries, the health entrepreneurs were churning out everything from powdered health drinks to the “No Pain, No Gain” T Shirts.

The American Health Craze Theory of the 1970s

The theory was America was going to get healthy. Americans would live longer. Some optimists even claimed that most major diseases would be a thing of the past.

In 2011, it seems “America’s Health Craze” was simply a “craze,” that flashed like lightning and disappeared like white shoes, white belts and platform shoes of the 1970s.

American Health Craze Significant Results ?

Americans are still dropping dead of Heart Attacks, Heart Disease and Strokes. Cancer seems even more vicious now than in 1960, or, perhaps, we have felt the need to “segregate” the different types of Cancer into specialized categories

I remember some adults in the 1960s had diabetes, but no one ever said “Type II Diabetes.”

I remember a few overweight people in the 1960s, but, in 2011, it seems “Every American alive has a weight issue from kids to adults.”

Old Timers or Alzheimer ?

In the 1960s, I remember, there were some elderly people who were said to be going senile or had a case of “Old Timers.” The name Alzheimer had not been used yet. I remember very few people who became so stricken that they would be helpless and bed-ridden until death. “Hospice” and “Home Health Care” were unknown terms in the 1960s, especially in southwest Missouri, where rural families looked after one another.

In 2011, Alzheimer seems to have become an accepted step on the road to an elderly death.

If Americans health is getting worse in 2011; what really happened in the 1970s ?

I suspect, two major changes: (1) A Significant Change In Farming Procedures and (2) Preservatives allowed more foods to be stocked on grocery store shelves

In the 1970s, the first heart transplant was performed. It would seem the American Medical Community was on the right track. Where did the American Health Craze Train slam into the mountain?

Why The Change In Farming Procedures ?

The healthy ideas to improve America’s Food Supply may have poisoned it. A farming idea to improve poultry and livestock in the 1970s may have backfired.

Livestock Logic

Livestock gets their nutrients from the soil. Cows eat grass and the nutrients get absorbed into their bodies. Hogs root their noses in the dirt and you can watch them smacking away at insects in the soil. Chickens scratch at the soil and peck their beaks in the dirt. But, the concept of “Confinement Farming of the 1970s” was aimed at changing the traditional approach.

A Red Angus and a Polled Hereford cow in the old tomato field pasture on Warren Land. These cattle are in the pasture that in the 1970s bloomed with “Red Gold of Stone County, Missouri ” – tomatoes. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

Poultry Penitentiaries

The poultry change seemed to happen quickly. Chickens and turkeys were no longer free to roam around outside and peck and scratch in the dirt. Suddenly, they were confined into long poultry houses that became Maximum Security Prisons For Poultry. Rows of cages in a controlled environment of heating and cooling. They either laid eggs or remained in their cages until plump enough to be shipped off for “processing.”

Since chickens and turkeys were no longer free to scratch in the soil and absorb minerals into their bodies that would mean that those minerals would have to be artificially induced, either through feed or vaccinations. Nature quit feeding the chickens and the turkeys, who were being raised in controlled “cradle to the grave” environments with no access to nature.

Confinement Farming

My 1970s Ag Ring. Hand model- Samuel E. Warren Jr. Photo by Christy Warren.

I was in the Future Farmers of America and the vocational agriculture courses in the early 1970s. I remember in 1972 information was everywhere about “Confinement Farming,” especially beef cattle. farmers were being encouraged to “confine” their cattle into new styles of barns to restrict and eventually eliminate the livestock’s movement into the outdoors.

On the surface, the idea seemed logical. Data was being distributed that a single cow could eat X amount of pasture that translated into significant amounts of money in terms of acres of pasture needed to feed a cow.

Plus, in the fall and winter, when pasture dies, farmers had to have the money to supply bales of hay to feed their cattle through the winter. A dry spring or summer in southwest Missouri meant local farmers would try to contact farmers in Arkansas or Texas for hay, which then added the cost of transportation to the cost of the hay.

Thus, Confinement Farming would be cheaper and reap more profits faster if cattle were taken out of the field and imprisoned in these barns. It was a hard sell issue. I remember, farm magazine after farm magazine seemed to applaud the ideology because it was aimed at cutting expenses and increasing profits. The obvious size difference of cattle in comparison to chickens was one of the drawbacks to trying to confine cattle into barns from the cradle to the grave production cycle.

In southwest Missouri, in Stone County, cattle are still allowed to graze in pastures. There are no large cattle beef farms or factory farms in southwest Missouri.  In 2011, the majority of Stone County farmers are part-time farmers, who have to have a “day job” to make a living and supply money for farming.

I’ve heard local farmers complain that it seems the state and federal governments are constantly coming up with new laws to force farmers to increase record keeping and vaccinations of beef cattle. The Mad Cow Scare of the 1990s is the supposed justification for the mandated government changes, but the rise in cattle vaccinations began in the 1970s in Stone County, Missouri.  

My mother, a hog farmer, who had a herd of 25 Hampshire, Yorkshire and Duroc hogs in the 1960s and 1970s had begun to complain in the late 1970s that there were fewer “feeder pig” buyers coming to farms to buy the pigs

And, the rumors of hog farmers being forced by the government to adopt the practices of “confinement farming” for hogs was a persistent rumor and concern in the late 1970s.  By the early 1980s, my mother  had sold off the swine and “gotten out of the hog business.”

“Beefing Up The Beef”

As a kid, a Black Angus bull normally weighed in about 400 to 500 pounds. In 2011, they seem to look more like 800 pounds. That might not be a problem if the cattle are naturally evolving into bigger beef physiques, but if government regulations are forcing the “beefing up” of bulls, then, essentially you may have the “bodybuilder using steroids issue” being forced on cattle through official channels.

The increased weight could also cause a problem for farmers. If the bigger bulls are being used to service the cows then there is the possibility that the cows will be unable to breed.

Like a woman, it takes a cow nine months to deliver. If a farmer has a cow that does not give birth to a calf or the calf dies then that is a year’s time plus a year’s food and water is wasted. In a herd of 25 or more cattle, you multiply the sterile or still births and the outcome is a farmer is facing the real possibility of bankruptcy.

The irony is that Black Angus was always a favored breed among local farmers because the calves were born small and naturally and quickly grew to a respectable size for beef to be taken to the market in a short period of time in comparison to other breeds of cattle.

Pork Prisons

Once the move to imprison turkeys and chickens had caught on and the idea to confine cattle seemed to be catching on , then, the experts focused on hogs. Again, the solution was essentially the same as with cattle. Confine the hogs to a building to reduce the amount of pasture needed and increase profits quickly by fattening up the hogs and getting them processed quicker.

While a cow chews the grass in a pasture, a hog roots their snout deep into the dirt and enthusiastically consumes the minerals in their mouths. Experts may not have realized the importance of the minerals being naturally consumed. Hogs will also find a shade in a hollow and lie on beds of dead leaves or root up the dirt to create a hog wallow, where they can roll in the dirt to refresh themselves.

After a rain, they will wallow in these ruts and cover themselves with mud to stay cool, during a hot day. Since hogs root under fences in search of earthworms, grub worms and plant roots, farmers would put a ring in their noses to keep the swine in their own pastures. Hogs always seemed committed to making a major environmental impact on nature.

Experts’ theory was that hogs could be kept in buildings with concrete floors that would be easy to clean. No longer able to root around over acres of land, the cradle to grave production cycle of hogs would result in savings to farmers who wouldn’t need acres of land to raise herds of hogs.

However, the inability of hogs to root in the ground and wallow in the pasture to interact with nature would mean that the swine would have to receive the minerals artificially in the feed or through shots.

Another benefit of the hog confinement operation over the traditional hog farm was: The Smell. Growing up on a hog farm you learn quickly that hog manure has a distinctive strong odor and if the wind shifts toward your nose, then, you have no doubt you are on a hog farm. Confinement farming of hogs solved the problem of neighbors’ sensitive noses and local planning and zoning regulations.

Vegan Victims ?

Vegans and vegetarians are not immune to the changes in farming. Without livestock in the pasture to continue Nature’s chain of recycling; there has to be a way to replenish the soil. In southwest Missouri in the 1960s, farmers basically relied on the Holy Bible instructions of farming a piece of land for six years and letting it lie “fallow” – unused for the seventh year.

Burning Brush

While the land laid unploughed and unplanted for a year, brush was cut off of the land. Farmers would then choose a calm evening in the fall and stand watch as they burned the brush piles. Burning the brush piles, destroyed winter habitats for snakes, chiggers and ticks, while the burned woods would contribute minerals back into the soil to promote pasture growth in the coming year.

In 2011, in Stone County, Missouri, local farmers haven’t burned any of their brush piles for years. Natural decay of dead leaves and rotting wood takes years to return the minerals to the soil. Spring and Summer of 2011, I have noticed several snakes on the land and the number of ticks seem overwhelming just by walking through the yard.

Without brush being burned to put minerals back into the soil, some local farmers have to resort to buying chemical fertilizers to spread on their pastures to promote the growth of grasses. Thus, minerals have to be artificially replaced into the soil for livestock to consume.

Usually cattle, hogs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, sheep, and goats would digest the nutrients in their bodies and return the digested waste in the form of manure to the pasture, thus, Nature’s fertilizer would break down and naturally feed the plants and grasses.

Once poultry and livestock were taken out of pastures and confined on concrete floor rather than the earth, then, of course, alternative fertilizers had to be added to the soil. Plus, without getting the minerals naturally from nature meant that the poultry and livestock would have to receive the nutrients through either feed or shots.

Vaccinations for Disease not Vitamins

In the 1960s, farmers usually vaccinated their livestock to prevent or quickly stop the spread of a possible disease. In 2011, I’ve noticed that farmers seem to be required to give their cattle a series of seemingly never ending vaccinations.

Danger of Preservatives ?

The real issue of the distances of geography in the United States means that businesses have to have a solution to keep food “fresh” from the pastures to the market. While the government seemed to support the “confinement farming” concept, there would also have to be a way to try and preserve “freshness” in the foods until they reach their destinations.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration is the agency that is charged with trying to figure out what works and doesn’t work when it comes to food and drugs. The fanatic push of health enthusiasts of the 1970s had to have FDA officials and Department of Agriculture inspectors under the gun to get healthy produce on the shelves quickly.

In the 1970s it seemed almost every week there was a new powdered health drink going on the shelves that suggested it could turn 98-pound weaklings into buff bodybuilders and do it healthy. Perhaps, rigorous testing was done, but, the persistent push for healthy foods quickly expanded the ingredients labels on boxes to include a plethora of words that read more like the periodic table of elements rather than natural ingredients.

Personal Conclusion

The claims of the American Health Craze of the 1970s were that by living healthy and eating healthy fruits, meat and vegetables, Americans would live longer and not have the debilitating diseases and health problems of their parents and grandparents.

Yet, in 2011, I notice that virtually every American wrestles with weight issues in their lives. Middle age and senior Americans visit their doctors to be put on diets to control their blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, calories, weight and the amount of salt in their diets. I don’t remember hearing adults in the 1960s routinely going to their doctors for diets.

Vegetables Grow In The Garden – In the 1960s, Stone County farm families usually picked their vegetables straight out of the garden and took them into the kitchen to wash, clean and cook for the evening’s dinner table. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

Personally, my parents and grandmother seemed healthier physically than middle age, senior and, even the younger people that I see on the sidewalk.

Vegetable Row In The Garden – In 2011, Americans and Missourians, who live in major metropolitan cities like Kansas City, St. Louis, Jefferson City, Springfield, Republic,Nixa and Branson may have to rely on supermarkets for fresh fruits, meats and vegetables. In rural communities like Galena, Abesville, Crane and Reeds Spring, southwest Missouri residents can “go to the garden” and pick their produce. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.

There is even news stories in 2011 of how medical officials are suggesting to legislators to pass laws to remove children from their parents because the kids are “obese.” The irony is the issue may be that Society is responsible for the childrens’ weight gain overall and not necessarily the parents.

In the 1900s, arsenic was used to kill pests on tomato plants. A buildup of arsenic in the body leads to death, thus, people quit using arsenic to kill off tomato plant pests.

Buying bottled water, counting calories, watching the cholesterol number, jogging and working out on a regular basis to live longer may not mean much if we are all eating poisoned food on a regular basis that have added preservatives and artificially substituted synthetic minerals rather than natural minerals from the earth.

The irony of America’s Health Craze of the 1970s is in our enthusiasm to get healthy and live longer, we may have created new health problems, increased old ones and essentially “poisoned our own food supply” by trying to take short cuts to produce healthier meat, fruits and vegetables while trying to make more money quicker for businesses within the overall food processing system.

Bon Appetite !

Sam

Story Sources

Confinement Farming – Factory Farming – Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farming

DDT – Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT

Mad Cow Disease – Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy