my people!

from Scrutiny Hooligans, a Tar Heel blogger

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Today in history: Sherman heads to Georgia

On January 21, 1844, Lt. William T. Sherman, then stationed at Charleston, S.C., received orders to report to Marietta, Ga.

For the next six weeks, Sherman helped take depositions in Georgia and Alabama with respect to personal loses of horses and equipment by militia members from the two states that had fought in the Second Seminole War in Florida. During this assignment, the young 23-year-old officer had a chance to familiarize himself with the area of northwest Georgia that he would visit again 20 years later under vastly different circumstances.

"This Day in Georgia History" is a wonderful service from the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government. Georgia readers (and others), check it out!

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Today in History: Georgia Secedes

On January 19, 1861, delegates to a statewide convention in Milledgeville, Georgia, by a vote of 208-89, approved an ordinance "that the Union now subsisting between the State of Georgia and other States, under the name of the United States of America, Is Hereby Dissolved."

White Georgians at the time were pretty evenly split on the question of secession; in the popular vote for delegates to the convention, the immediate secessionists won by the thin margin of 44,152 to 41,632. (discussion here).

Five years later, Alexander H. Stephens, a member of the convention (and then vice-president of the Confederate States of America), talked about support for secession in the state:

In some of the mountain counties the Union sentiment was generally prevalent. The cities, towns, and villages were generally for secession. The anti-secession sentiment was more general in the rural districts and in the mountain portions of the State. Yet the people of some of the upper counties were very active and decided secessionists. There was nothing like a sectional division of the State at all. For instance, the delegation from Floyd county, situated in the upper portion of the State, was an able one, and strong for secession; while the county of Jefferson, down in the interior of the cotton belt, sent one of the most prominent delegations for the Union. I could designate particular counties in that way throughout the State, showing there was nothing like a sectional or geographical division of the State on the question.

In the Civil War, of course, secession lost big time.

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Carnival time!

Two new carnivals!

Southern Fried Carnival is brand spanking new, making its first appearance over at Cass Knits.

And Georgia on My Mind has the second edition of the Georgia Carnival; just two weeks old, it's still quite new.

Good reading on Georgia and southern topics!

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Day 46: 6th Inning Slump

My lack of posting does not necessarily equate to my lack of training. Or maybe I am just fooling myself. The last couple of weeks have been incredibly difficult. It has been hard to get out of bed; I have no motivation to shop, run, hang out, do laundry or go to work. I am doing all these things, but I am dragging along as I do it.

What causes this? Is it because it is winter and dark all the time? In Physiology class we learned that light produces Melatonin, which in turn produces Serotonin, which is what makes you happy. If there is not enough light, your Serotonin levels drop, causing one to be tired, unhappy, bored and unmotivated.

As a runner, this dark also forces one to run inside a lot of the time, which for me just is not as fun as running outside. The track in the gym is small; 11 laps equals one mile. So if you are running any more that one mile, you have to run around and around the track for what seems like millions of times sometimes. I get tired of looking at the same walls, the same people's backs and the same boring brown track.

So what is it - the dark, the boring track, or just my own complete lack of motivation? Perhaps it is a combination of all three… It is difficult but I am pushing through and ignoring all the voices in my head that are telling me to just go home and crawl into bed and skip the boring workout. I have to escape the 6th inning slump and make it to the 7th inning stretch.

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Wildlife Bits

Current Location: Southport - Surfer’s Paradise, Gold Coast, Australia

Current Position: 27º56.81' S 153º25.39' E
Next Destination: Land travel

If it isn’t obvious (by the fact that we are still here), we quite like Southport and the surrounding area. It is a terrific spot: the anchorage is well protected, calm and usually quiet; we are near the city; steps away from an amazing beach; surrounded by attractions; bus transportation is excellent; we have wireless internet on the boat; and have made quite a few friends. Chris is especially liking that he doesn’t have to keep a serious watch on the weather. Partly due to our prolonged stay here and an offer of a free berth from some friends, it is looking like we will land travel from this area to Sydney (and probably as far as Melbourne & Tasmania), instead of taking the boat south. To a non-sailor (me), this sounds like a fantastic idea!

Last week we bussed it to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. After goggling over the cute koalas, we went to check out the kangaroos and wallabies. We had no idea that we’d be able to walk through a huge field area, where the ‘roos and wallabies would greet us (looking to be fed of course). There were hundreds of them just milling around. It was an amazing experience to feed and pet some of the bigger kangaroos, whose forearm muscles were bigger than my calves! The joey’s (baby kangaroos), were adorable. It was fascinating to watch them climb in and out of their mother’s pouches, and entertaining to watch them flop about as their mother hopped along!

Chris was taken up with the ‘bits’. The ‘bits’, if you haven’t guessed, are the male’s “boys” or, more anatomically correct, the balls. He was actually quite concerned for the poor guys, whose ‘bits’ hung like a pendulum, ready to swing at the slightest movement and getting quite an arc should the guy actually hop somewhere. “They should have a pouch for them, like the female’s have for the joeys”, he told me. He proceeded to redesign the kangaroo’s anatomy, allowing for better support for the ‘boys’! If you ask me the kangaroos didn’t really seem to mind, actually the pendulum-like design allowed them easy access with their short arms, so they could proceed to grab, scratch, and play (in fact we saw one using his like a punching bag; swatting it back and forth)!!! And then there was their ‘members’. I was feeding one kangaroo, when Chris says, “oh look this one has a joey”. I looked and said, “uh no, honey, that’s something else”. “Whoa you mean that’s his ….”, “Shhh, there are kids around!”. In all honesty it really had looked like a joey’s tale (see the joey’s didn’t tend to hang in the pouches head up, all proper and cute like in the pictures, rather they just hopped in, and tails, feet, ears would be sticking out, while the head might remain hidden). Perhaps Chris should’ve been a veterinarian, as he was soon discussing the shape and size of the members along with the pendulum designed bits. Ahhh yes, it was an interesting day indeed!!!

Since cruising I’ve become kind of a snob about seeing animals in the wild versus contained … but this wildlife sanctuary was terrific. Plus some things are better seen behind bars and in cages .. like 10 of the top 10 poisonous snakes and gigantic crocodiles!

On the personal news front, the other big event of the past week was (is) that Chris and I are now “officially” engaged! He finally proposed! We still don’t want to get married until we can be home with family and friends, but it is exciting to be ‘official’!

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Hobbits in Kentucky

Today at Cliopatria, Ralph Luker mentions an essay by the late Guy Davenport on an interesting connection between J.R.R. Tolkien's Hobbits and the people of central Kentucky. "Possible" connection, I should say, but still very cool. Be sure to follow the links in Ralph's piece.

From Davenport's essay:

I began plying questions as soon as I knew that I was talking to a man who had been at Oxford as a classmate of Ronald Tolkien's. He was a history teacher, Allen Barnett. He had never read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. Indeed, he was astonished and pleased to know that his friend of so many years ago had made a name for himself as a writer.

"Imagine that! You know, he used to have the most extraordinary interest in the people here in Kentucky. He could never get enough of my tales of Kentucky folk. He used to make me repeat family names like Barefoot and Boffin and Baggins and good country names like that."

And out the window I could see tobacco barns. The charming anachronism of the hobbits' pipes suddenly made sense in a new way. As a Kentuckian, that excerpt that Holbo quoted interested me enough to go looking for more....

Practically all the names of Tolkien's hobbits are listed in my Lexington phone book, and those that aren't can be found over in Shelbyville. Like as not, they grow and cure pipe-weed for a living. Talk with them, and their turns of phrase are pure hobbit: "I hear tell," "right agin," "so Mr. Frodo is his first and second cousin, once removed either way," "this very month as is." These are English locutions, of course, but ones that are heard oftener now in Kentucky than in England.

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John Edwardses

Yes, "Edwardses" is the plural of "Edwards."

I thought I'd post something on John Edwards's speech at Riverside Church this afternoon (especially since I wrote a couple days ago about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech there in 1967), but I haven't been able to find a full transcript yet.

So I had a great idea: Why not dash off a quick piece about the various John Edwardses in history?

There's the Democratic presidential candidate, of course, and there was Jonathan Edwards, the preacher whose sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741) epitomized certain aspects of the Great Awakening.... sorry, I started to sound like a teacher there, didn't I?

There was Jonathan Edwards, a singer whose anti-Establishment song "Sunshine" was a hit back when I was a kid. The song was about some man (THE MAN, I guess) who was trying to run his life. "He can't even run his own, I'll be damned if he'll run mine." Since I was a kid, the "damn" was the neatest part of the song; I was too young to be firmly anti-Establishment at the time.

And of course there's John Edward (no "s"), who talks to dead people in Crossing Over.

A fun little blog posting, I thought, but I wanted to be sure to be complete. According to Wikipedia (do NOT tell my students you heard me say that):
..........................................................

John Edwards may refer to:

Politicians

• John Edwards (born 1953), U.S. Senator from North Carolina, candidate for U.S. Vice President in 2004, candidate for U.S. President in 2008
• John Edwards (Kentucky) (1748–1837), U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1792 to 1795
• John Edwards (Pennsylvania), Congressman from Pennsylvania from 1837 to 1842
• John C. Edwards, former Governor of Missouri
• John P. Edwards, executive director of the State Bar of Texas since 2005
• Lewis John Edwards (1904–1959), Labour Member of Parliament and junior Minister

Sports

• John Edwards (basketball) (born 1981), NBA basketball player
• Johnny Edwards (baseball player) (born 1938)
• John Edwards (cricketer) (1860–1911)

Others

• John Edwards (Technology Writer)
• John Edwards (American Civil War sailor) (born 1831), Medal of Honor recipient
• John Edwards (sailor) (1795–1893), sailor at the Battle of Trafalgar
• John H. Edwards, British medical geneticist
• John Edwards (musician), a musician of the band the Status Quo
• John Edwards (businessman), one quarter of the infamous Phoenix Four, who were involved in the MG Rover buyout
• John Edwards (academic), Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy 1638-1648

See also:

• Jonathan Edwards (disambiguation)
• John Edward (born 1969), psychic medium television show host
• John Edward, European Parliament representative in Scotland

[and when you disambiguate Jonathan Edwards:]

Jonathan Edwards is the name of a number of people:

• Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), an American theologian.
• Jonathan Edwards (the younger) (1745–1801), also a theologian
• Jonathan Edwards (athlete) (born 1966), British triple jumper
• Jonathan Edwards (journalism), radio reporter
• Jonathan Edwards (music) (born 1946), American musician
• Jonathan Edwards (rugby player), Welsh rugby player
• Jonathan Edwards (comics artist), Welsh comics artist and illustrator

Jonathan Edwards may also refer to:

• Jonathan Edwards College, Yale University residential college

..........................................................

So never mind. My fun little blog posting bites the dust. It looks like every Tom, Dick, and Harry has been named John Edwards.

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The 46th History Carnival

Investigations of a Dog has just posted the 46th History Carnival, with pieces on the history of tea, Tim Abbott's grandmother (a figure in the 1934 World Disarmament Conference), and darned near everything else. Gerald Ford avoiding World War III over a tree in Korea! The origins of both human speech and drive-through banking! Coal shortages in Los Angeles! All this and more. Check it out.

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Saving Tammy's Soul

Yesterday a student reminded me of an essay I wrote a few years ago. With all that's been in the news (and on Another History Blog) lately, perhaps folks won't mind if I share the essay with a larger audience. It's a personal statement that touches on what I think are some pretty big issues.

I titled it "Saving Tammy's Soul."
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I went to Woodlief Elementary School when I was in sixth grade. Woodlief was a little farming community in piedmont North Carolina. My father was the Methodist preacher there. The people of Woodlief were conservative folks, in their politics, in their social outlook, and in their religion.

We had Bible study once a week at school. The teacher was Miss Brazil, a retired missionary. Miss Brazil conducted the class like she would Sunday School. It wasn’t “The Bible as Literature” or “Christianity in a Comparative Perspective”; the class was unapologetically evangelical, proselytizing, beginning and ending with prayer, full of the Lord’s sacrifice on the cross and the promise of God’s grace.

The son of a minister who had always preached in rural North Carolina churches, I saw nothing wrong with the class. And I liked Miss Brazil, a sweet and gentle soul.

Bible study was not required. Students could (with their parents’ permission, I suppose) leave the classroom and spend the hour in the library. In my class, all the students stayed, except one. Tammy was a pretty girl, smart and pleasant. I could never figure out why she left the classroom when Miss Brazil came in.

Tammy always wore nice clothes. I didn’t know her parents. Perhaps they were professionals, maybe doctors or lawyers. I assumed they weren’t church-goers.

I wasn’t sweet on Tammy or anything like that, but I sure did hate knowing that she was going to Hell.

That was 1968. We moved away that summer, when my father was appointed to a church up in the mountains of North Carolina. I haven’t seen Tammy since, but I think of her from time to time.

I thought of her this morning, during my Georgia History class at Kennesaw State. The students and I were discussing Cherokee creation myths--how the earth was formed, the origins of suffering and disease, where the corn came from, that sort of thing.

According to Cherokee myth, the earth is an island floating in a huge sea. Hills and valleys were formed when the Great Buzzard, flying low over the earth when the ground was still soft, became tired and let his wings strike the ground. The first people were a sister and brother, who were alone until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply. Animals developed diseases, which they aimed especially at hunters who failed to ask for pardon from the spirits of the deer they killed. Plants, more sympathetic to man, provided remedies for the diseases. And so on.

"What’s the purpose of myths?” I asked.

One student said, “To explain the inexplicable.” (She really said that. I have some sharp students.) We talked about Greek and Roman myths and how they helped people understand their place in the universe and how the world functioned--explaining the inexplicable.

Someone brought up the creation story from Genesis--Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the serpent and the apple, why women now suffer in childbirth--and pointed out the similarities and differences between that and the Cherokee version of creation.

And that’s when I thought of Tammy.

The “liberal” in “liberal arts education” means “broad”--both a broad education (in the arts and humanities, rather than a narrowly focused vocational or professional education) and one that results in a more broad-minded perspective.

A liberal arts education teaches us that the people we study were the product of their time and place. In a very real and significant sense, and in ways they probably never realized, their culture dictated who they were and what they believed.

Once students understand that, I hope they take the next step and realize that the same thing applies to us: we too are the product of our time and place.

That’s a big step, and not always an easy one. The idea that we are tied to our culture just as much as were the people we study--well, it can be unsettling.

But it’s an important idea, one I wish I could go back thirty-five years and teach that boy at Woodlief Elementary School, the one who was worried about Tammy’s soul.
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See, it wasn't Tammy's soul that needed saving ....

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