Paddles up

 Paddle up

John Clare Stokes

It’s again about that time 

The current should be slowing

the shoals less roiling

a day or even two to find.

Helene

Finally after having to go to several places to find the dryer plugs, Mr Davis got the cord built and plugged in.

Now to see is power goes and it works. 

 So another hurricane is coming our way. As usual, still the generator isnt ready. Mr Davis is coming today with a homemade cord to hook it up. I am still not happy with the setup. I should have just taken the plunge and got a whole house. Melanie has bugged the stew out of me. And when it’s hooked up i will still need to flip switches and worry about running out of gas.So frustrating.

Pray the power stays on! Though it’s doubtful. We have a squirrel who regularly trips it. 

Mr Davis came and wouldn't you know the plug he got was wrong, so hes gone to get the right one!

Daughter Day

 Daughter day

In 2002 we had a daughter Brittany Nixon for about a year. At the time Melanie and I were foster parents and we had Brittany, whose father and mother were in prison for the murder of her step sister, then 8 months old. We were going through the adoption process when a relative showed up from Daytona to claim custody of her. It was a tough day when we handed her over to Dept of Family Services. We left a photo book for her to remember us but we felt the relative would never show her as she had such a negative view of fostering.

We never saw Brittany again. So we actually have two children we hold hope for someday seeing again.

Got Gas

 Melanie said where could she get gas? She thought she would have to come and get the cans for the generator. I had to tell her Roscoe and I drove down and got it this morning. One station was already out. I’m not supposed to be driving. 

Trump

 What a shame in 2020 we were in the pandemic lie wearing masks. Taking deadly vaccines. Allison is seen behind Trump wearing a Trump mask. 

Up the holler

 Up the holler 

John Clare Stokes

So grateful in the fall of twenty twelve

We were able to take mamma to see

The old holler where she came to be

As we rode to Crumpler she would tell

now that was where Evelyn and I 

took that poor snake and burnt it

And there is where we paid with script

Where up Crumpler Mountain we’d slip

There’s the Methodist Church where Rev Looney

first suggested I should attend Asbury

Where Luke and I were later married

Where Gerald always held in my heart a tune

The old whistle post just beyond the church

Still towered rusting, once calling miners home

Out from the Pocahontas hills into the stucco homes

Or roused at night, the wailing telling that deep down something

had gone terribly wrong

Turning to return to Bluefield then Princeton

Rounding slowly another steep switch back

In my imagination I could clearly see

Her daddy’s bus full of miners and one

found kitty named Black Daisy

Bringing it home for his sweet Clara Jean.

Old Joe

 Now, with his son and daughters long grown and gone, and with his wife sick and away, Joe Griffis, living in the drafty weathered clapboard house he had inhabited for nearly 40 years, was thinking that he could do all that he knew how to do--all that he had always done--and it came out in frustration, thoughts of time passing like a river flowing, and harsh words for the black men who were working the waste wood. Ray Washington Cracker Florida, some lives and times

Kaintuckbrakes

 Kaintuckbrakes

Deep in the wild never glade

Where moccasins and bull gators stayed

And even Seminoles dared not wade

We came upon this lair of despair

Where in the oaken trees hung effigies 

To which these padded blueskins prayed

O give us great Ruppking a victory

To prove we do not follow Thee vainly

But the Ruppking was tauntingly silent

And into extinction went the Kaintuckbrakes

While Gators and moccasins mocked their fate.

Dish Washer

 Today Rick Davis my electrician came over to help install the dishwasher we had to buy. The old ones motor burned up due to the polarity being reversed in the outlet. It turned out to be quite the task as nothing wanted to go easy. By 2 we had it in. 

Time to grind

 In the sweet 

Johnclarestokes 

Soon comes the time

To grind the cane

Strip the stalks

Standing in the field

Gather the strainers

Sharpen the machete 

Scrub the kettle clean

Grease the rollers

Stack the bottles 

Teach again the oxen

The routine of

clockwise circling

Pleasant Hill

Kentucky

We hung the summer

 We hung the summer

Johnclarestokes 

In the loft above the straw strewn

in the cool dim air pungent with

the fields yield of toiling long

fading to the muted hues once

we knew vibrant to the light reaching

through the autumn 

through the winter 

to the spring returning

In lofts we hung the dying 

to the fields of summer giving life.

Pleasant Hill

Kentucky

Three days

 But for just three

I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days-three such days with you I would fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain. 

John Keats