A man and his dog

It is often the small pleasures in life that matter the most. One of the small pleasures and conveniences of owning a few secluded acres in the country is that you can pee anywhere. I think this is more of a guy thing than a girl thing.

I’ve been trying to figure out why men take such great pleasure in being able to whiz in the great outdoors whenever the urge overtakes them. One thought is that it’s a regressive canine gene telling us that we need to mark our territory. Another theory is that we find it so much easier to hit the ground than the inside of a toilet bowl. I’m pretty sure women’s rooms don’t have signs saying, “We aim to please. You aim too, please.”

But when you get right down to it, I think the reason men appreciate being able to relieve themselves wherever they are standing is because most men are lazy, slovenly creatures at heart. An unmade bed or dishes piled in the sink doesn’t bother us, particularly if there is something else important we have to do like watch the big game on TV or grab a cold beer or take a nap on the couch. We’re not offended that there is pee on a particular patch of ground behind our workshop particularly when it’s a whole lot easier to walk around the corner of the workshop than it is to trudge to the nearest bathroom.

Which brings me to the main subject of this post—farm dogs. You’re probably wondering what the connection is between men peeing outdoors and farm dogs. I believe there is one, and I’ll get to it in a minute.

I’ve never had a farm dog before. There are several reasons for that but the biggest reason is because I’ve never lived on anything remotely resembling a farm. Now I live on a large property with fields and woods. The nearest neighbor is hundreds of yards away. Farm dog territory, you might say. So it is entirely appropriate and propitious—some might say providential—that Recon, our farm dog, walked into our lives about a year and a half ago.

It happened like this. I was working in the lower pasture when this skinny, flea-ridden, black and white puppy came up to me looking for company. I scratched him for a few minutes, then finished my work. He followed me back to the house. Meredith took pity on him and got him some food and water. My first thought was “don’t do that, he’ll start hanging around here,” but then he ran around the side of the house and returned in three minutes with a mole in his teeth. If you’ll recall, I was waging a one man all-out war against a mole in my garden at the time. That did it for me. Any dog that can catch a mole in three minutes is okay by me. One thing led to another, and the dog became a permanent fixture at Fort Yacavone.

The next issue was what to name him. Mike supplied the answer to that. He is in the 2cd Light Armored Recon Battalion of the U.S. Marines. He suggested we call him Recon. Perfect. Instant fit.

Over the last year or so I have had an opportunity to observe Recon, and I think I understand now what a farm dog is as compared to your usual household pet canine. Here is what I have observed:

• There is nothing prim, proper, pristine or prissy about a farm dog. A farm dog will lay down on dirt, grass, mud, gravel or cow shit when the urge hits it. The corollary to this is that a farm dog takes great delight in rolling in things that stink to high heaven and then acting surprised and offended when you have to give it a bath.
• A farm dog would rather be outside than inside unless it’s very cold or raining heavily.
• A farm dog thinks there’s nothing better than hanging around you when you’re out working in the field or woods. A farm dog gets excited when you fire up the tractor because it knows you’re going to be outside doing something for a while. In short, a farm dog is a man's outdoor companion.
• A farm dog likes to roam through field and wood, sniffing every leaf, stalk, bush and tree trunk in hopes of catching the spoor of some animal that has dared to venture onto its territory. In the same vein, a farm dog will sit outside for hours watching its surroundings in hopes that something interesting shows up.
• A farm dog will take off after deer, rabbits, turkeys, and other woodland creatures like a bat out of hell in the vain hope that it will actually be able to catch something.
• Farm dogs are not fussy about what they eat and will eat or try to eat any dead thing it encounters unless it’s absolutely putrid or a dead possum.
• A farm dog will find the bones of dead animals and bring them back to its home base to chew on contentedly for hours under a tree.

I’m not saying that Recon is the perfect farm dog. I think most farm dogs know where their home territory is and can find their way home. Recon seems to have an issue with this. I think the problem is that he’s a friendly dog, still young and likes to play. So every now and then he hears children, other dogs or people in the distance and takes off to investigate. Hours later we get a call from someone who lives a half mile away telling us that he or she has our dog.

The reason people know that Recon is our dog is because we put a tag on him that reads, “I’m a dumbass and I’m lost. Please call these numbers,” and it gives our phone numbers. At this point most of the people in the neighborhood think Recon’s name is Dumbass. I think some even believe my last name is Dumbass. It's not. It's only my occasional nickname. I’ve gotten phone calls that go like this:

Caller: “Are you Mr. Dumbass?”

Me: “Uh, yes, that would be me.”

Caller: “I’ve got your dog. Want to come get him?”

We’re hoping that as he gets older Recon loses the habit of wandering off or, at the very least, develops a sense of direction so he can find his way home like any other self-respecting dog.

So, anyway, what does owning farm dog have to do with men liking to pee outdoors aside from the obvious fact that farm dogs also pee outdoors? Well, it occurs to me that most men are a lot like farm dogs. They don’t mind getting stinky and dirty, will eat disgusting food, like to roam and sometimes have a hard time finding their way home. And, like farm dogs, they are happy if you feed ‘em regularly, rub their belly every now and then, let them do the human equivalent of sniffing branches and twigs and chasing after game they will never catch and give them a comfortable corner to sleep in at the end of the day.

The way I see it, much of human behavior is a lot less complicated than Freud, Jung and all the famous psychiatrists make it out to be. But what the hell do I know? I’m just a man trying to keep up with his dog.

Is America great or what?

You can tell you are in the land of God, Guns and Trump when you run across an ad in the local newspaper for the 3rd Annual North Georgia Men’s Conference sponsored by the North Georgia Baptist Men and the Georgia Baptist Men’s Ministry which features shotguns as door prizes. Even though I am not Baptist I’m tempted to attend to hear the “inspiring music” and “message of hope” and maybe win a shotgun.

I’ll say one thing— the North Georgia Baptist Men and the Georgia Baptist Men’s Ministry certainly know their target audience. Most men in these parts think that the Second Amendment is one of the Ten Commandments. Odds are you will not find any pantywaist MoveOn.org members at the conference, and it’s for damn sure that neither George Soros or Michael Bloomberg are guest speakers.

Boy, I love this place.

On an entirely different subject, I drove Meredith to the Chattanooga Airport the other day so she could fly to Camp Lejeune, N.C., to bring Mike’s truck back here while he is on his overseas deployment. The drive to Chattanooga from here is picturesque to say the least. We go north on Georgia State Road 60 and pick up U.S. Highway 64 West near Ducktown, Tenn. U.S. 64 is mostly two lane, and it winds through the Ocoee National Forest along the Ocoee River past the Ocoee Whitewater Center, the site of the whitewater kayaking events during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

On the way I noticed a sign in Polk County, Tenn., proudly claiming that it was the birthplace of Nancy Ward. I googled the name and discovered that Nancy Ward was a famous “Beloved Woman” of the Cherokee. Among her accomplishments, she introduced the Cherokee to loom weaving, farming and dairy production which helped transform Cherokee society from a communal agricultural society into a society very similar to that of their European-American neighbors.

She is also credited with introducing chattel slavery to the Cherokee and was one of the first Cherokees to own African slaves. Oops. I guess if you haven’t got anything better to boast about then you have to go with what you got.

That made me wonder whether there are other towns and counties in the country that have to claim credit for some infamous person or event for lack of anything better to brag about. Is there a sign in West Allis, Wisc, saying that it’s the birthplace of Jeffrey Dahmer? Does Henning, Tenn, have a sign proudly boasting that it’s the home of the Fort Pillow Massacre where 277 Federal black troops were killed by Confederate soldiers after surrendering? 

This got me thinking about how towns and counties struggle to find some attribute or historical fact to set themselves off from other towns and counties. For instance, Fannin County, Ga., where I live, doesn’t have any famous or infamous person to boast about so it touts itself as the trout capital of Georgia.

The slogan of Cherokee County which is just north of Atlanta is “Where metro meets the mountains.” Pickens County, which is just north of Cherokee County, calls itself the marble capital of Georgia for the obvious reason that they mine a lot of good quality marble there. If it weren’t for that I imagine that Pickens County’s slogan might have been “Even further from Atlanta and closer to the mountains than Cherokee County.”

I couldn’t find a list of county slogans on the internet but I did find a list of city slogans. Some pretty silly. I’m pretty sure some of these slogans are not official ones adopted by the city fathers or the local chamber of commerce.

Here’s my analysis:

Cities that do not sound very interesting. There are a lot of these.

Albany, Ore. - Grass Seed Capital of the World.

Albertville, Ala. - Fire Hydrant Capital of the World.

Anchorage, Alaska – Hanging Basket Capital of the World.

Artesia, Miss. - Johnston Grass Capital of the World.

Austin, Minn. - Spamtown

Bakersfield, Cal. - The Armpit of California

Bertram, Tex. - Home of the Oatmeal Festival

Berrien Springs, Mich. - Christmas Pickle Capital of the World

Cheshire, Conn. - Bedding Plant Capital of Connecticut

Concord, N.H. - The City In A Coma

DeKalb, Ill. - Barbed Wire Capital of the World

Dove Creek, Col. - Pinto Bean Capital of the World

Forestville, Cal. - Poison Oak Capital of the World

Fort Payne, Ala. - Sock Capital of the World

Gordo, Ala. - Fat City

Hastings, Neb. - Birthplace of Kool-Aid

Rumney, N.H. - Crutch Capital of the World

Warsaw, Ind. - Orthopedic Capital of the World

Cities I want to visit just to say I’ve been there.

Beaver, Okla. - Cow Chip Capital of the World

Bishop, Cal. - Mule Packer Capital of the World

Brunswick, Mo. - Home of the World’s Largest Pecan

Cawker City, Kan. - Home of the World's Largest Ball of Twine

Chester, Ill. - The Home of Popeye

Cut Bank, Mont. - Coldest Spot in the Nation

Cities I want to visit to find out what it’s all about:

Dumas, Ark. - Home of the Ding Dong Daddy

Freewater, Ore. - Muddy Frogwater Country

Fruita, Col. - Home of Mike the Headless Chicken

Nederland, Col. - Home of the Frozen Dead Guy

Severance, Col, - Where the Geese Fly And the Bulls Cry

Merseilles, Ill. - Best Little City By A Dam Site

Cities I want to avoid.

Fayetteville, N.C. - Torture Town

Gallup, N.M. - Drunk Driving Capital of America

Huntsville, Tex - Execution Capital of the World

Santa Monica, Cal. - Home of the Homeless

Cities that sound like fun.

Elgin, S.C. - Home of the Catfish Stomp

Genoa, Nev. - Home of the Candy Dance

Gonzales, La. - Jambalaya Capital of the World

Cities that are on the top of my list to visit.

Muskegon, Mich. - The Beer Tent Capital of the World

Peoria, Ill. – Whiskeytown

Roselawn, Ind. - Naked City

Totally politically incorrect cities.

Lake Oswego, Ore. - Lake No-Negro

Medfield, Mass. - The Whitest Town On Earth

All I can say is: Is America great or what?

Mike Comes for a Visit

Pardon the delay in getting out this post but I was spending the last eight days with my son, Mike. Mike, as many of you know, is a Marine, and this is the last time he will be able to visit us for at least eight months because is he being deployed on the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU) at the end of this month.

By way of explanation, an MEU is the smallest Marine air-ground task force in the United States Fleet Marine Force. Each MEU is an expeditionary quick reaction force. It is normally composed of a reinforced Marine infantry battalion (designated as a Battalion Landing Team) plus some other elements. Troop strength is about 2,200, and it is deployed from amphibious assault ships. So he will be spending much of the next eight months crammed into a Navy ship with a bunch of Marines or, as Mike describes them, creatures.

His ultimate destination is the Persian Gulf. On the way there the MEU will stop at other places. One of them is the country of Djibouti. Djibouti is pronounced Jeh-booty. I had never heard of the place, and when Mike first told us that he was going to Je-booty my initial reaction was “Jeh my ass.” My second reaction was that maybe it was in South Florida around Miami.

Once he convinced me that Djibouti is a real place, I did a little research. What a shit hole. Djibouti is a small country on the east coast of Africa between Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea and across the Gulf of Aden in the Red Sea from Yemen. Not exactly prime real estate in my book and probably in the estimation of any rational human being on the planet. It may not be the asshole of the world but it is certainly on the left butt cheek and within striking distance.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Djibouti is a poor, predominantly urban country, characterized by high rates of illiteracy, unemployment, and childhood malnutrition. The official unemployment rate is nearly 50 percent. Just for good measure, Djibouti is a transit, source, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking

The total area of Djibouti is about 9,000 square miles which makes it slightly larger the Vermont. Its population is just under 850,000, and 94 percent of them are Muslims. About 40% of population is under age 15, and only 15% is over age 40. In fact, less than 4 percent of the population is over 64. One reason for that may be the “nearly universal practice of female genital cutting” which is “a major contributor to obstetrical complications and its high rates of maternal and infant mortality.” (CIA World Factbook.) It truly is no country for old men (or women). I presume that Djibouti doesn’t have a problem with Medicare—no one lives that long.

Djibouti has one TV station and two radio stations. Mean daily maximum temperatures range from 90 to 106 °F. Less than one percent of the land is forested; the rest looks like an atomic bomb test site in the Nevada desert. The slogan of the National Tourism Office of Djibouti is “Djibeauty.” Really? Hearing that, it wouldn’t surprise me if the country’s national anthem was written by K.C. and the Sunshine Band.

To the ancient Egyptians, Djibouti was known as the Land of Punt as in punt if you ever have the opportunity to go there. The photograph at the top of this post shows Queen Ati of Punt as depicted in a wall carving on some obscure pharaoh’s tomb. I guess arm fat and thunder thighs were quite the vogue in Punt.

So, you might ask, why in the hell are 2,200 Marines going to Djibouti? It might have something to do with Camp Lemonnier, a United States Naval Expeditionary Base, located at Djibouti's international airport. It is home to the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa of the U.S. Africa Command and is the only permanent US military base in Africa. In addition, France’s largest military foreign presence, a demi-brigade of the French Foreign Legion, is based there, and it is also the site Japan’s only foreign military base. To top it all off, China is building its first overseas base ever in the country. From an international military perspective Djibouti is a happening place. I guess the real estate prices were reasonable.

Mike doesn’t think his particular unit (a light armored recon company) will actually disembark in Djibouti which makes me a happy camper though I was looking forward to getting a t-shirt from the place. I can think of a lot of clever things you could put on a t-shirt from Djibouti ranging from “Shake Djibouti” to “My son visited Djibouti and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

It’s just as well that he will not disembark in Djibouti. Meredith and I have been considering visiting him if he gets any leave time overseas but we were thinking of places like Spain, Italy or Greece. You know, places that don’t feature genital mutilation, sex trafficking and malnutrition. Much as I want to see Mike there is no way I am setting foot in Djibouti.

Anyway, it was great to spend eight days with Mike before his deployment. I imagine he will have some good stories when he comes back.

I Attend a Meeting of the Local NRA Chapter

In my quest to experience all that is great and good in my adopted home, I recently attended my first meeting of the local National Rifle Association chapter. The fact there is an NRA chapter around here is not surprising. This is the land of God, guns, Trump and property rights. North Georgia is one of those places where, in the infamous words of our former President, people unashamedly cling to their guns and their religion. There are probably as many guns per capita in Fannin County as you’re going to find any place. I bet there are more guns here than there are people.

That’s not to say that everyone owns a gun but many do, and many of them own multiple guns on the theory that you can never have too much firepower. Actually, I think the real reason people own multiple guns is that they like them. Duh. In that sense they are like electric guitarists and bass players. I have never met a guitarist or bass player who did not want to own every electric guitar or bass ever made. The same with gun aficionados.

Given the number of gun owners in Fannin County you would expect that there would be a lot of NRA members in the county. While I don’t have the numbers, I see a lot of NRA bumper stickers and window decals as I drive around. They are usually located next to the “Make America Great Again” and “Trump/Pence” stickers. So the real surprise to me is that this area did not have an NRA chapter until six months ago.

The local NRA chapter meets once a month on a Saturday morning in the big back room of Pat’s Kountry Kitchen. I don’t think I need to describe what Pat’s Kountry Kitchen is like; the name says it all. I’ll bet there is a Pat’s Country Kitchen or something just like it in every small town in America. It’s like being in a Norman Rockwell painting.

The drill for the meeting, as I learned, is to get to Pat’s around 8:30, order breakfast and then conduct the meeting after the plates are cleared and everyone has consumed enough coffee to be bright-eyed and bushytailed.

About 30 people attended the meeting. Almost all of them were older white men though there were a couple of older white women there. The median age of the room was probably in the 60’s. If you’re of the liberal bent, you’re probably going to say that there is something stereotypical about an NRA chapter consisting of aging white men, and you’ll probably leap to the conclusion that they are angry white men at that. That’s the popular liberal stereotype of pro-gun NRA members. Hillary supporters would likely say that it was a room full of deplorables.  

As to the first point, I don’t know what the demographics are of a typical NRA chapter but I can tell you that the composition of the room reflected the demographics of Fannin County. According to 2015 census data, 26.3 percent of Fannin County is 65 and over. That’s a greater percentage of people 65 and over than in Pinellas County, Florida, and way more than in St. Petersburg, Florida, traditionally considered the elephant graveyard of retirees. Like Florida, older people retire to this area and young people move away for excitement, adventure and decent jobs.

It’s also no surprise that everyone in the room was white—96.7 percent of Fannin County is white. There’s a good reason for that, and it’s not rooted in racism or prejudice. Appalachia was settled by white people. There were few slaveholders mainly because the area was poor and is not conducive to farming with slaves. Through the Great Depression most people in Appalachia were dirt poor and lived a marginal, hardscrabble existence. There was no industry then just as there is little industry now. Jobs were scarce and remain so. Thus, there was little incentive for people, black or white, to move here. The pattern was for people to move away from Appalachia, not to it. In 1900 the population was 11,214. In 1950 it was only 15,192. In the same period of time the population of the United States almost doubled.

Population growth remained slow through of the second half of the 20th century. In fact, the 1960 census saw a 10.3 percent decline in population. In 1990 there were 15,992 residents in Fannin County, just 800 more than in 1950. Then the trend changed, and since 1990 the population has increased dramatically. In 2010 Fannin County boasted 23,682 residents. I attribute this growth to retirees moving to this area.

My point is that North Georgia remains predominantly white because other ethnic groups—at least those seeking employment—have not settled here. Thus, it is no surprise that everyone at the NRA meeting was white. I’m absolutely positive that they would have welcomed anyone, whatever his or her race, creed or national origin, as long as he or she was a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment. Gee, does that mean that belief in the right to bear arms is something that can bring us all together as a people? Wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass for the liberal, anti-gun lobby?

As to the second point—that is was a room full of deplorables—I’m afraid that’s absolutely correct. It’s safe to assume that most, if not all, the people in the room were Trump supporters. After all, 80 percent of Fannin County voted for Trump, and the room was filled with people who own guns and saw Hillary as an existential threat to the Second Amendment. Though the people in the room did not seem particularly angry, it’s fair to say that the majority of them were not very pleased with direction of the country under President Obama.

The meeting started with a prayer. That is not unusual around here—remember the “cling to their guns and religion” part? As prayers go, this one was better than most probably due to the fact it was delivered by one of the two ministers at the meeting. I don’t know whether it is worthy of note or not that there were two ministers at the meeting; it was just unexpected. I’d like to sit down one day and explore their interpretation of “turn the other cheek.”

Following the prayer, we all recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Thankfully, someone had enough foresight to bring an American Flag; otherwise we would have pledged allegiance facing a chalkboard with the day’s specials written on it. While some may disagree, I would argue that pledging allegiance to meatloaf and chicken fried steak is just as American and patriotic as pledging allegiance to the flag. Not so much for falafel, hummus and tofu.

After the pledge, they voted on new officers for the coming year. It soon became obvious that the guy they elected to be president is hard of hearing and utterly unfamiliar with Robert’s Rules of Order. The people in the room kept shouting directions to him on how to run the meeting. This only seemed to confuse him more. I predict it’s going to a long year for the local NRA chapter.

The main topic of discussion was when and where to hold an annual banquet. After several minutes of confused discussion where everyone had to throw in their two cents it was decided to form a committee to explore the options and make a recommendation. It was like just about every other informal meeting I have ever attended—disorganized and undirected—but that’s just the way people are.

For me the highlight of the meeting, and the reason I will keep attending, was the opportunity to participate in a raffle drawing where the winner gets to pick a weapon from the NRA’s wall of guns. There’s something about the phrase “wall of guns” that warms the cockles of my heart.

I plan on joining the local NRA chapter and attending regularly. What do I have to lose? At the very least I get a breakfast out of the deal and more opportunities to take a chance on winning a gun. That ain’t all bad.

Saints and a Snow Day

This post has little to do with life in Georgia but it has a lot to do with being retired. When you’re retired you have time to follow your whims and fancies. This is particularly true when you live in a place that has an occasional snowfall followed by black ice that causes every organized activity within 100 miles to be cancelled and strands you at home for two or three days.

With that as background, during the last snowfall I started researching the lives of several Christian saints. My research was not entirely random. The church I go to has 16 chairs which bear the names of 16 saints in needlepoint. We’re talking some really obscure saints with names like Anselm, Cuthbert, Swithun, Etheldreda, Chad, Botulph, and Alpherge. I was curious about what these saints did that led them to be needlepointed on the back of chairs in a small Episcopal church in the middle of southern Appalachia. One thing led to another, and I decided to write a little booklet on these saints just in case someone else wonders who these saints are.

As I did my research I noticed that many saints are patron saints meaning that they are recognized as protectors or guiding spirits of certain nations, places, crafts, activities, occupations, animals and even natural phenomena. Some of the things that saints are patrons of are curious, humorous or downright bizarre. For instance, St. Alphege is the patron saint of kidnap victims, and St. Edmund is the patron saint of torture victims, pandemics and wolves. Pandemics? Wolves? Since when do wolves and pandemics need a guiding spirit? The lawyer in me wondered whether there was a possible heavenly jurisdictional conflict between Alphege and Edmund in the case of a kidnap victim who is tortured.

This piqued my interest, and I started to explore all the things that one could be the patron saint of.

There is a large category of patron saints who oversee occupations, activities or situations. Some of these have fairly narrow areas of responsibility. For instance there are patron saints for charcoal-burners (St. Alexander of Comana), arms dealers (St. Adrian of Nicomedia), fireworks makers (St. Barbara), flight attendants (St. Bona of Pisa), brush makers and basket makers (St. Anthony), bird dealers (St. John), bar tenders (St. Amand), ice skaters (St. Lidwina) and medical record librarians (St. Raymond of Penyafort). Even pawnbrokers have a saint—St. Nicholas of Myra.

Accountants and bankers have a saint (St. Matthew). So do astronomers (St. Dominic and St. Chad), doctors (St. Luke), pharmacists (St. James the Less, St. Cosmas and St. Damian), engineers (St. Joseph), journalists (St. Francis de Sales), librarians (St. Jerome), nurses (St. John, St. Agatha, and St. Raphael), philosophers (St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Justin), radiologists (St. Michael), scientists (St. Albert the Great) and writers (St. Lucy). But there are not, apparently, any saints for politicians, stockbrokers or IRS employees.

St. Cecilia watches over organ builders. I guess piano makers are out of luck. St. Paul takes care of tent makers. When’s the last time you met a tent maker? St. Giles is the patron saint of spur makers. How’s that for a narrow niche? What are there, eight spur makers in the world?

Then there is St. Malo, the patron saint of pig-keepers. For the life of me I cannot find the connection between pig-keeping and St. Malo but if you’re a pig-keeper I suppose it’s comforting to know that you have a patron saint. Imagine Malo’s reaction when he received his job assignment after passing the pearly gates? “Pig-keeper? You got to be kidding me. That’s how I’m rewarded for all my saintly efforts on earth?”

Servicemen of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces have a patron saint (St. Barbara) as do soldiers of the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers (St. Eligius) and Italian prison officers (St. Basilides). Those are pretty darn specific saint assigments. I was almost expecting to find a patron saint for left-handed fast food workers who work at the Dairy Queen in Blue Ridge.

Saints Barbara and Eligious, by the way, are multi-talented saints. Barbara is also the patron saint of miners, artillerymen, military engineers and firemen, Italian marines, architects, builders, foundry workers, mathematicians, geoscientists and stonemasons. Eligiusis is also the patron saint of metal-workers, jewelers, mechanics, taxi drivers, farriers, harness makers, numismatists, veterinarians, farmers, farmhands, and husbandry. Barbara and Eligious are the utility infielders of sainthood—they can play any position and protect any cause or occupation. If I’m ever in trouble and can’t remember the name of the saint for my exact predicament, I’m going with Barbara and Eligious.

I find it interesting and gratifying that brewers have at least six patron saints: Amand, Arnold of Soissons, Augustine of Hippo, Boniface, Luke and Dorothea of Caesarea. With all those patron saints looking over brewers, how can you explain a beer like Old Milwaukee?

The legal arena is well represented with St. Yves (lawyers), St. Thomas More (lawyers and court clerks), St. Nicholas of Myra (judges and lawyers in Paris bar; also pawnbrokers and archers—go figure), St. Genesius (attorneys, barristers and lawyers), St. Ivo of Kermartin (judges), St. John of Capistrano (judges) and St. Catherine of Siena (jurors). Genesius, incidentally, is also the patron saint of actors, comedians, clowns and theatrical performers of all kinds, which kind of makes sense.

It’s good to know that there is a patron saint for difficult marriages and separated spouses (St. Edward). I best he’s a busy little saint. On the more positive side there are also saints for engaged couples (St. Agnes), married women (St. Monica), mothers (St. Anne and St. Monica), fathers (St. Joseph), housewives (St. Anne and St. Martha), widows (St. Frances of Rome), singles (St. Andrew) and old maids (St. Andrew). Alas, I could not find a saint for desperate bachelors needing a date or middle-aged men having a midlife crisis.

Health issues are well represented: cancer patients (St. Peregrine Laziosi), eye disorders (St. Clare of Assisi), eye trouble (St. Lucy), headaches (St. Theresa of Avila), poisoning (St. Benedict), rheumatism (St. James), skin diseases (St. Anthony), snake bites (St. Hilary of Poitiers), sore throats (St. Blaise), stomach disorders (St. Timothy), abdominal pain and appendicitis (St. Erasmus), angina sufferers (St. Swithbert), heart ailments (St. John), arm pain (St. Amalburga) and bacterial disease and infection (St. Agrippina). St. Scholastica is the patron saint of convulsion in children (but not convulsions in adults?). It strikes me that there are a whole lot of ailments, like irritable bowel syndrome, persistent sexual arousal syndrome and restless leg syndrome, that don’t have a patron saint. Whoever hands out the saint assignments better get busy.

I was happy to learn there is a saint for desperate situations (St. Jude Thaddeus). I wish I had known that long ago. There is a saint for lost articles (St. Anthony of Padua). Good to know the next time I lose my keys.

Believe it or not, there are three saints whose job it is to provide protection against mice: St. Gertrude, St. Servatus and St. Ulric.

As far as I can tell, while there are procedures for determining whether a person is a saint in the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches (not true in the Anglican Church), there is no official process for designating a saint’s patronage. It appears that a saint become the patron saint of something by popular acclaim and tradition. So it seems to me that if you’re feeling left out because your occupation, ailment, situation or status has no patron saint, you can simply pick a saint and make him or her your patron saint.

If that’s the case, then I’m torn between St. David and St. Swithun. David is the patron saint of Wales. His symbol is a leek which is also the national symbol of Wales. His best-known miracle is report­ed to have taken place when the ground on which he stood rose up to form a small hill when he was preaching to a large crowd. One commentator observed that it is difficult to "con­ceive of any miracle more superfluous" in that part of Wales than the creation of a new hill. I like leeks, and I find the concept of superfluous miracles interesting.

St. Swithun lived in the ninth century in England. His best known miracle was restoring a basket of eggs that workmen had maliciously broken. He appeals to me because as a trial attorney it often occurred to me that my job was to put the eggs back together after someone else had broken them. A long-held superstition declares it will rain for forty days if it rains on his feast day. I guess he was the Punxsutawney Phil of his day.

There you have it—patron saints in a nutshell. I bet you can’t wait until the next snow day when I have time to research some other arcane subject.

The New Year

Well, the holidays are over here at Fort Yacavone, and a good time was had by all. Both boys managed to make it here for prolonged periods. Jake's girlfriend flew up from Orlando the day after Christmas and stayed with us for several days.
 

We did the types of things that we usually do on the property when given enough time:

• Jake figured out how to bolt stout steel bars to the front loader of the tractor so we now have forklift capacity. This was used immediately to carry some six feet long, two feet wide logs down to the lower pasture to be added to the backstop of the handgun range I am constructing.

•  I found some old scrap iron and made iron targets to shoot at. Jake and Mike helped me weld the chains on them.

• The boys helped me build an enclosed and covered bench that is eight feet long, four feet wide and five feet high complete with a shingled roof to be used for sitting, laying or sleeping in front of the outdoor fire when it’s windy and cold. Think of a fancy lean-to. It was immediately christened the rack shack a/k/a the love shack.

• The boys and I along with Jake’s girlfriend spent a day shooting the arsenal in the lower pasture. We discovered that copper-jacketed .308 and 30-06 rounds will punch a clean hole in quarter inch iron plate but .223 ammo does not. Now I need to find some more scrap iron to remake my iron targets.

• We hiked up to a couple of local waterfalls one day. We brought a chunk of salami, some big wedges of cheese, a long baguette of French bread and a bota bag full of red wine and ate a simple lunch sitting on a large rock near one of the falls using my hunting knife as a cutting/serving tool. It was tres chic though I need to practice on my aim with the bota bag.

• Just for entertainment’s sake, the boys made a mortar out of an old pipe and some tubing capable of shooting a sand filled soda can 200 feet. I think they used my patch of kale as a target. They used up all my black powder in the process. Fortunately it’s easy to buy black powder in these parts.

We also did the traditional things we do for Christmas.

• Mike gathered mistletoe and holly from the property to decorate the house. Unlike last year he did not have to shoot the mistletoe out of the upper branches of an oak tree with his 12 gauge. The boys found some low lying mistletoe that they were able to reach by Jake lifting Mike in the tractor bucket.

• As we always do, we put up and decorated the Christmas tree the afternoon of Christmas Eve while consuming multiple eggnogs that contained more bourbon than eggnog. It’s never a problem going to bed early on Christmas Eve in this house.

• The traditional Christmas day dinner of ravioli and braciole was prepared and eaten and then agonized over as the heartburn set in afterwards. It’s the combination of rich tomato sauce and hearty red wine (Chianti and Spanish Rioja) that gets to you. I wouldn’t have it any other way—it’s part of the Christmas tradition.

Unlike the last two years, the boys did not have time for their annual squirrel hunt. The weather did not cooperate. That’s good because there are still two unskinned squirrel carcasses in our freezer from last year’s hunt. The boys were supposed to skin them this year but never got around to it. I think they plan on making squirrel skin coozies or maybe a squirrel skin hat. Does anyone know how long a dead squirrel will last in a freezer?

Now the new year is upon us, and immediately we’re facing a winter storm warning with the threat of up to five inches of snow, black ice, temperatures in the teens and twenties and 15 mile an hour winds gusting up to 30. Whether it actually gets that bad remains to be seen. After the poorly forecast 2015 Atlanta snow storm that stranded hundreds of thousands of motorists the weather channels and government agencies are not taking any chances and are forecasting the worst. I’ve already received email alerts that activities are being cancelled.

Mind you, only two and a half inches of snow fell in the 2015 snow storm and some in these parts refer to is as a blizzard. Imagine what would happen if the area got a real blizzard with significant accumulations of snow. The more fundamental churches probably would see it as a sign that the Apocalypse is upon us.

Whatever happens, I’m prepared. I’ve got gallons of gas in reserve for the generator, diesel for the tractor, three tanks full of propane for the gas grill, over a chord of wood for the wood stove, a can of white gas for the camping stoves, two freezers full of food, eight months of dried food in the basement and plenty of ammunition. And that’s just the standard emergency reserves here at Fort Yacavone. I’ve also got some good books to read, writing I need to do and some projects in the workshop. So let the storm come. I’m ready to ride it out.

Christmas in Fannin County

Well, it’s Christmas in North Georgia. There is a festive feeling in the air. The local radio stations are playing Christmas carols. The town of Blue Ridge has had its Christmas decorations up since Thanksgiving. The Blue Ridge train (quite a tourist attraction) is decorated with Christmas lights and features Santa Claus as a conductor. The parking lot at Walmart has been busy for the last few weeks. The local churches have had their Christmas concerts. Manger scenes sit in front of many of the churches, and Christmas lights decorate many houses, even those along country lanes. You see your fair share of ugly Christmas sweaters and cars decorated with reindeer antlers and Christmas wreaths.

Christmas reveals how charitable and giving folks are around here while at the same time revealing how much poverty there is in this area. The local chapter of the Marine Corps League had its gift drive for Toys for Tots, and the response was overwhelming. The League is now busy distributing gifts out of the same building that houses the food pantry—and believe me, there are plenty of kids in Fannin County who would not have much of a Christmas if it weren’t for the efforts of the League and the amazing generosity of the more fortunate around here. As for the food pantry, it has been unusually busy for the last couple of weeks as needy folks and families come in to get food for the holidays. Churches, businesses, civic groups, schools and just plain people come by almost daily to drop off food donations to replenish the larder. Even the local bowling alley had a food drive for the pantry. Thanks to some generous contributions, needy families and individuals will receive a ham for Christmas dinner.

As I have noted before, Christmas is celebrated around here more traditionally and less secularly than what I was used to in Pinellas County. People wish other “Merry Christmas” more freely. The local radio stations do not hesitate to play religious Christmas carols, and local businesses do not mind putting a reference to Jesus’s birth in their advertisements for fear of offending someone. That’s only true for the local businesses. The Christmas displays and ads for the big grocery stores and national chain stores convey the same bland “happy holiday” message that we have become used to in this politically correct, God forbid we should offend anyone, do you need a safe zone? world.

I wish someone would explain to me how we got to be this way. We talk about diversity so much in this country but I question whether we truly practice it. It doesn’t seem very diverse to me to suppress references to Christmas, Kwanza, Ramadan, Hanukah and other seasonal celebrations by religious and ethnic groups for fear of offending other groups. It seems to me that makes us less diverse and more vanilla.

My first thought was that the reason Christmas is celebrated more traditionally here is because this is the Bible Belt, and we have more Christians in Fannin County. As it tunes out, that’s not true. According to 2010 census data, 63.1 percent of the folks in Fannin County self-identify as Christians and 36.9 percent are in the category “None” which includes atheists, agnostics, and “nothing in particular.” (Interestingly, there are only 6 people in Fannin County out of a population of 23,753 who said they belonged to some religion other than Christian.) Nationally, 70.6 percent of people identify themselves as Christian, 5.9 percent as belonging to a non-Christian faith, and 22.8 percent fall in the None category according to the Pew Research Center. 

That means we have less self-identified Christians and more self-identified non-Christians in Fannin County than the national average. And yet religion is more open and obvious here, and there is a greater religious undertone to the Christmas season than I experienced in Florida. Perhaps local Christians are more emboldened or maybe those in the None category more tolerant.

Whatever the reason, I find that I enjoy the Christmas experience here more than I did in Florida. It may have something to do with the fact that it’s cold outside and there always is a possibility of snow around this time of year. Having grown up in the north and spent five years living in Germany, I associate Christmas with cold and snow and chestnuts roasting over an open fire. But more than that, it also has to do with the fact that it feels more like the traditional Christmases of my youth when I was less jaded and cynical.

With that observation I will close the way I have done in my past Christmas posts:

“Christmas in Dixie” by Alabama

By now in New York City, there's snow on the ground
And out in California, the sunshine's falling down.
And, maybe down in Memphis, Graceland's all in lights
And in Atlanta, Georgia, there's peace on earth tonight.

Christmas in Dixie, it's snowin' in the pines.

Merry Christmas from Dixie, to everyone tonight.

It's windy in Chicago, the kids are out of school.
There's magic in Motown, the city's on the move.
In Jackson, Mississippi, to Charlotte, Caroline
And all across the nation, it's the peaceful Christmas time.

Christmas in Dixie, it's snowin' in the pines
Merry Christmas from Dixie, to everyone tonight.

And from Fort Payne, Alabama
God bless y'all, we love ya.
Happy New Year, good night,
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas tonight.

To which I would add:

And from Mineral Bluff, Georgia
God bless y'all, we love ya.
Happy New Year, good night,
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas tonight.