Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.

Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.

-- Emily Dickinson

Good evening, Missouri Mule.

At 7:51 p.m. on February 23, blackdog called me. According to my phone log, we spoke for 40 minutes and 41 seconds.

We talked about classic muscle cars, supersonic fighter jets, economics, his parents, his health, and other subjects.

We also discussed your backside in passing. (The obligatory survey of women was always brief: 'dog was of a southern gentleman's breeding in that regard. Let it be enough to say that, where we come from, there's no such thing as an ugly lady.)

I told him of my plan to have him as a regular guest on my upcoming Internet radio talk show. He seemed a bit mystified that I would want his presence and participation in such an endeavor, just like the way he had been embarrassed and surprised that I had personally told him I wanted him to be a contributing writer at Big Brass Blog.

He never quite understood why I was so glad to hear from him when he called, although he finally had gotten over apologizing for "bothering" me. I think he finally took me at my word when I told him, "You don't have to be blood to be kin."

He was from Arkansas, and I'm from Kentucky.

In the wasteland of an otherwise cold, empty eternity, that's not even a stone's throw, really.

Not when it comes to visiting time with kin, anyway.

The Dark Wraith has now said what he had to say about Brad Turner.

I've thought about you all week, and hope you're hanging in there. I never had the pleasure of speaking with Blackdog, but greatly enjoyed his posts. Some left me lightheaded from laughing; a string of posts about farting comes to mind...

P.S. On my mother's side, a number of my kin are from Kentucky, particularly the areas in and around Whitely and Cumberland counties. Some of them also migrated to Tennessee, and North Carolina, long ago. But thanks to General fucking Sherman, many of these records are gone forever. Fortunately, there's been a lot of word-of-mouth history handed down in the south.

Good morning, Anna Van Z.

Resource extraordinarily informative for me were old census records. I actually wrote in a comment to konagod over at Big Brass Blog about finding records referencing a long-dead relative. What has amazed me in such old information is the enduring traits of my family that are revealed, along with confirmation of stories passed down through the generations, some of them rather scandalous.

I do not know if you have ever read it, but here is an article I published over at Big Brass Blog about a year-and-a-half ago: "A Hill People Story for Sunday Night"

I think I should write more stories like that. Many of the people who read my articles are probably the kind of folks who would appreciate traveling roads long since left behind.

Driving down country roads is where we might get to see places and people we should never forget.

Sometimes, we might even see the occasional black dog still walking from one farm house to the next, making his nightly visits with friends.

The Dark Wraith always keeps the porch light on.

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
~Thomas Gray

RIP, Blackdog.

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownéd be thy grave!


shakespeare (funeral march from cymbeline)

yeah. damn. i talked with blackdog (brad, we used real names on the phone) around the same time. he didn't mention feeling out of sorts or anything like that.

i miss him.

Fr. Pablo Neruda, "A Dog Has Died":

Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.

There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.

So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.

Why do the good ones seem to always go too soon? He had good people as friends, a good indicator of the person themselves.

I'm glad I got to read him here.