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.