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Stumpage Reports
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Friday, January 30, 2004 :::
Funny Names
I'm sitting here at work going through a statewide index to Marriage Bonds, 1741-1868 . Amidst all the Hezekiahs, Enochs, and Temperances, I have to find some weird names to give me some giggles. Here's a few I've run across today:
Albort Going
Truitt Saxagoth
Noey Waddle
Frankling Comes
Vestal Kivett
Fanny Zuinny
Heston Preston
::: posted by tom at 2:54 PM
Wednesday, January 28, 2004 :::
Yippee! A Non-Snow Day!
Today I ventured into work. Its funny, the governor is all over the television begging people to stay off the roads. Oh, excuse me, state employees are expected to report to work or else make the time up or take vacation time.
One other person showed up, and luckily it was my immediate supervisor, who is also the person I get along with best at work. We had four whole customers so I spent the day photocopying estate records from Mecklenburg county for someone and also some court case from 1797.
We also found time to talk about Reconstruction historiography and Lost Cause apologists. It was probably the most productive day I've had at work in a week.
I was able to get some laundry done yesterday and have spent the rest of the last few days happily curled up on the couch under an afgahn reading Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America by Kirk Savage.
Quotes of the Day: Tough Guys
"If they move, kill 'em."
--- William Holden, in The Wild Bunch, 1969.
"We deal in lead, my friend. "
--- Steve McQueen, in The Magnificent Seven, 1960.
"I've broke my back once, and my hip twice. And on my worst day I could still beat the hell out of you. "
--- John Wayne, in The Cowboys, 1972.
::: posted by tom at 8:18 AM
Monday, January 26, 2004 :::
Random Thoughts:
Mars Landing: Friday night I was up around midnight reading, and realized that latest Mars rover deal was supposed to land shortly after midnight. I bemoaned the fact my level of cable service does not have CNN or I'd be able to watch some news vixen breathlessly report on events. But I remembered that of the 15 or so channels I do have, one of them is NASA TV. As I watched the events in the control room, I was struck by how incredibly awkward all the mission control nerds looked hugging and trying to high-five each other. They looked even more uncomfortable than the dweebs in those terrible Microsoft Office ads. It was kind of weird seeing Al Gore standing off the the side with seemingly no fanfare. Then to make it even more surreal, Arnold Schwarznegger showed up and started schmoozing. He and Gore acted like they were not even in the same room.
I know some people bitch and moan about spending money exploring space when there are so many needs here on earth, and they do have some valid points. But I figure as long as George Bush is president, this country, the world's opinion of it, and our budget are all going to hell, so why not. Rather than have Bush's first (and only I pray) term being remembered as a time of rampant corporate corruption, ballooning federal deficits, an erosion of our most basic civil rights, the most arrogant foreign policy since The Mexican War, and the continued rape and pillage of our national resources for the benefit of his rich friends. Instead, we could have Bush's term as president remembered as a time of rampant corporate corruption, ballooning federal deficits, an erosion of our most basic civil rights, the most arrogant foreign policy since The Mexican War, , the continued rape and pillage of our national resources for the benefit of his rich friends, and the time we landed a couple probes on Mars.
I Love Shitty Weather, For a Little While ...
It was nice being snowed in yesterday. I didn't have anywhere I needed to be, and enjoyed a guilt-free day of doing nothing but eating, drinking coffee, and reading The Wolves of Calla.
Today the fun has stopped. I have a couple things I really need to be doing on what would normally be my day off anyways. I ventured out this morning to the grocery store, not for any real necessities, more from cabin fever than anything else. The roads are still pretty bad in this part of the world. If the freezing rain they are forecasting happens today it will be worse. Today I have to do something around the house, at least clean up some, or I won't be able to live with myself. Plus, if I do something useful, I can enjoy some more guilt-free fucking off later this afternoon.
Quote of the Day:
He was in the changeless, legend-haunted city of Arkham, with its clustering gambrel roofs that sway and sag over attics where witches hid from the King's men in the dark, olden days of the Province. Nor was any spot in that city more steeped in macabre memory than the gable room which harbored him -- for it was this house and this room which had likewise harbored old Keziah Mason, whose flight from the Salem Gaol at the last no one was ever able to explain. That was in 1692 -- the gaoler had gone mad and babbled of a small white-fanged furry thing which scuttled out of Keziah's cell, and not even Cotton Mather could explain the curves and angles smeared on the gray, stone walls with some red, sticky fluid.
--- H.P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch-House, 1932.
::: posted by tom at 11:08 AM
Thursday, January 22, 2004 :::
Bonus Post: Confederate Pensioner Wound of the Day
"The applicant states that he received wounds as follows: at Gettysburg he rec'd two gunshot wounds one above and one below the elbow in the right arm also rec'd a wound above elbow in left arm. At Gaines Mill he rec'd a wound in the head (chin). At Spotsylvania C.H. he received a gunshot wound right thigh. He receives great pain from these wounds and is unable to perform manual labor because of them."
::: posted by tom at 1:56 PM
Instructions to Red Shirts in South Carolina, 1876
I ran across this at work today and could not resist posting a few of them. The Red Shirts were a political / vigilante force active in the Carolinas during reconstruction. Lets just say they wore red shirts instead of white hoods. They have been referred to as "the terrorist arm of the democratic party." Here's a few of their instructions to their followers:
12. Every Democrat must feel honor bound to control the vote of at least one Negro, by intimidation, purchase, keeping him away or as each individual may determine, how best to accomplish it.
16. Never threaten a man individually. If he deserves to be threatened, the necessities of the times require that he should die.
::: posted by tom at 10:24 AM
Wednesday, January 21, 2004 :::
Another Weird Newspaper Story: (I Don't Know How I'll Top This One ... )
HORRIBLE AFFAIR. -- At Columbus, Ohio, last week, a lunatic whose insanity was of a wild type, killed a comrade who roomed with him, cut him up into small pieces, ornamented them with bits of ribbon, and then proceeded to dispose of them to the other occupants of the wards as "Christmas beef." When the terror stricken keeper entered the room, several of the lunatics were eating the remains, and the butcher told him with a leer that the next time he killed he should reserve him a choice cut.
--- North Carolina Standard, April 27, 1859.
Well, I'm Back.
Thats the last line of The Return of the King, the last volume in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I finished it yesterday. I probably could have done a lot more useful things than read those books for the third time, but the hell with it. I think that is a damn fine closing line for an epic fantasy trilogy. Most decent stories and movies, when boiled down to their essence, have a three-word plot: Get Back Home. The Odyssey, King Kong, The Searchers, and The Wizard of Oz to name a few.
::: posted by tom at 10:40 AM
Tuesday, January 20, 2004 :::
Quiz Time: Band Names From the Psychedelic Sixties, OR: Titles of Richard Brautigan Poems? Answers below.
1. The Crab Cometh Forth
2. The Electric Rectum
3. The Octopus Frontier
4. The Charging Tyrannosaurus of Despair
5. Affectionate Light Bulb
6. The Potato House of Julius Ceasar
7. The Peanut Butter Conspiracy
8. Private Eye Lettuce
9. Automatic Anthole
10. Ultimate Spinach
Answers:
1. The Crab Cometh Forth: Band
2. The Electric Rectum: Band
3. The Octopus Frontier: Poem
4. The Charging Tyrannosaurus of Despair: Band
5. Affectionate Light Bulb: Poem
6. The Potato House of Julius Ceasar: Poem
7. The Peanut Butter Conspiracy: Band (Their first album was called "The Peanut Butter Conspiracy is Spreading")
8. Private Eye Lettuce: Poem
9. Automatic Anthole: Poem
10. Ultimate Spinach: Band
Appendix A: Some Brautigan Poem Titles That Did Not Make Into the Quiz:
The Sidney Greenstreet Blues
Horse Child Breakfast
General Custer versus the Titanic
Lyrical Want, an Endocrine Gland Fancy
Alarm-Colored Shadow of a Frightened Ant
Curiously Young Like a Fresh-Dug Grave
(I could go on like this all day, I love this guy's titles, his poems are good too.)
Appendix B: Some Bands That Didn't Make the Cut:
The Electric Prunes
Strawberry Alarm Clock
Moby Grape
Quote of the Day: (keeping with the rock-n-roll mood)
Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards on country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons:
"Gram knew songs that I'd forgotten or had never known. He introduced me to a lot of players, and he showed me the difference between the way country would be played in Nashville and in Bakersfield -- the two schools -- with a completely different sound and attitude. But apart from that he was just a very special guy. He was my mate, and I wish he'd remained my mate for a lot longer. It's not often you can lie around on bed with a guy having cold turkey, in tandem, and still get along."
--- According to the Rolling Stones, p.155.
::: posted by tom at 11:20 AM
Friday, January 16, 2004 :::
Don't Know But Its Funny ...
I don't know what the context is, but this blog entry cracked me up like nothing has in a long time.
(Overheard) Spiritual Nugget of the Day:
"Its just like puking, it only hurts when you try not to do it."
As Promised ...
FEARFUL ACCIDENT -- A HORSE DRAGGING A DEAD BODY THREE WEEKS. -- Early in August, John Bawle, a lad of 16 years, living in Volcano, Amador county, Cal., who had vainly been endeavoring to obtain his father's consent to go to Frazier River, disappeared, taking with him a valuable horse belonging to the family. It was supposed he had started for Frazier River, and no little anxiety was felt in regard to him. On the 15th of August his body was found in the Butte Ditch, a few miles East of Jackson, attached by a "lariat" to a half-dead horse.
From appearance, the boy, on the night after leaving home, lay down to sleep, with the horse tied to his person, to prevent his escape. The animal, becoming unmanageable through fright during the night, had run off, and dragging his master by the rope until the boy's life was extinct. Afterwards the horse had continued to graze around, dragging the body along for three weeks. Finally, the corpse had been dragged into a ditch, where it became entangled beyond the horse's strength to extricate it. In his efforts to pull loose, the horse had cut his neck to the bone with the rope. The boy's remains were horribly mutilated. Most of his limbs were broken and the flesh rubbed bare from the bone.
--- The North Carolina Standard, September 25, 1858.
::: posted by tom at 10:28 AM
Thursday, January 15, 2004 :::
Another Weird-Ass Newspaper Story: (complete with a totally lame attempt to justify slavery)
DIED OF LOCK-JAW. -- A small colored boy, the property of Wm. P. Moore, Esq., aged about 10 years, died in this town, on Wednesday last, from lock jaw. He was a very sprightly little fellow, very intelligent, and quite a favorite in Mr. Moore's family. His death resulted from a small splinter entering the foot. It was not known until a very short time before his death that anything was the matter. After his condition was discovered, everything was done that it was possible to do, but to no purpose.
The boys remains were deposited in their last resting place on Thursday evening, and if Harriet Beecher Stowe and her pious brother, Henry, could have arrived at the Gaston House at 7 o'clock, as we did, and have seen Mr. Moore's servants returning from the burial and enter the house in procession, they would possibly have , in future, more sympathy for the white servants in Northern latitudes, and less for the poor slaves of the South. We have never seen such a respectable looking procession attend the remains of a white servant to their last resting place, in the North.
--- North Carolina Standard, Raleigh, August 11, 1858, reprinted from the New Bern Daily Progress.
Coming Soon ...
"Poisonous Properties of Guano" and "Fearful Accident - A Horse Dragging a Dead Body Three Weeks."
Quote of the Day:
I'm well into the third volume of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I finally noticed something worthy of a "Quote of the Day":
"But the next day there came no dawn, and the Grey Company passed on into the darkness of the Storm of Mordor and were lost to mortal sight; but the Dead followed them."
::: posted by tom at 10:09 AM
Tuesday, January 13, 2004 :::
Where's Those Bastardy Bonds?: or, Inventory Time at Work
We are closed for three days this week for our annual inventory. This consists of getting in teams of two and checking finding aids and card files against what is actually on the shelf. I am on the microfilm room team and paired up with my immediate supervisor. That is good because we laugh at the same stupid shit. All day we took turns either reading from the card catalog (yes, we still have card catalogs there), or checking the microfilm box labels against what was being read off. My day consisted of exchanges like this:
Me: "075.50002.3, Cross-index to Wills, Devisor and Devisee, 1802-1803."
Boss: affirmative grunt
Me: "075.67501.1, Births, Marriages, Deaths, Brands and Flesh Marks, 1691-1822."
Boss: "Yeah."
Me: "Brands and Flesh Marks? Are those on people?"
Boss: "Cows, you idiot."
And so on like that ... by the afternoon we were trying to relate everything Warner Brothers' Cartoons or The Civil War. Monday we completed Onlsow through Person counties.
It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This ...
I've mentioned here before I like collecting ashtrays that are shaped like states. Not those tacky metal ones, but ashtrays made from pottery or ceramic. I also like tacky ceramic tourist stuff in general. I have an Arizona mug with a cactus for the handle, and Florida leaping-dolphin-thermometer. I also have a Florida ashtray that is shaped like a log with a little statue of an alligator on it, and a similiar Great Smoky Mountains ashtray with a bear statue. Today I received in the mail a recent Ebay purchase. Its an ashtray shaped like Texas, plus it has a statue of an armadillo on it. Like I said, it doesn't get much better than that. I will pay high dollar for a North Carolina ashtray with a possum on it.
Click on this ...
I'm not sure when or why, but this person gave me a link, give BrykMantra some hits on me.
::: posted by tom at 8:21 AM
Saturday, January 10, 2004 :::
But Its Fun Chasing Footnotes ...
Thursday a couple of eighth graders came into my workplace to work on their Civil War projects. Of course they had not done their research in secondary sources like we told them to when we gave a presentation at their school last month.
They were interested in the Confederate Prisoner of War Camp in Salisbury, North Carolina. I found them a reference in an index to a journal and turned to the journal article. The article was transcriptions of same senator's letter from 1866, complete with extensive annotations. The pages were about 1/3 letter and about 2/3 footnotes, I loved the sight of it. In one of the letters the guy mentioned someone from the camp was on trial for mistreating prisoners. Excitedly showing the kind the footnote, I pointed out how it gave a thumbnail sketch of the situation and used as its source a book about North Carolina during Reconstruction. I excitedly pointed out to them if they could get this book and if the author did the footnotes correct, it should lead them to some primary sources.
They could've cared less. Fuck 'em. I handed them the index and told them to look for more articles and walked away. It was the second time I'd showed them how to do the work. I didn't even get into the fact the book cited was from the 1940's, and probably written by some lost cause apologist from "Birth of a Nation" school of historiography.
Reading:
"A Stong Force of Ladies: Women, Politics, and Confederate Memorial Associations in Nineteenth-Century Raleigh," by Catherine Bishir, in Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory.
"Landmarks of Power: Building a Southern Past in Raleigh and Wilmington, North Carolina, 1885-1915", by Catherine Bishir, in Where These Memories Grow: History, Memory, and Southern Identity
Also almost done with The Two Towers and ready to start on The Return of the King. I couldn't be happier.
Also on deck, books I hope to get to in the next couple weeks:
Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson.
According to the Rolling Stones by the Rolling Stones.
As you may have guessed from the above articles, I'm getting cranked up about my Confederate Monument research and may actually start some production on the project. I hope to revisit these books soon also: Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865-1913 by Gaines Foster
Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America by Kirk Savage .
::: posted by tom at 8:32 AM
Wednesday, January 07, 2004 :::
More Weird Newspaper Stories
Between feeling uncreative and seemingly spending all my free time looking at old newspapers for the railroad company, all you folks seem to have to look forward to are weird and disgusting newspaper stories:
From the December 30, 1857 North Carolina Standard:
THE VEGETABLE SERPENT -- A new organization of nature, being pronounced by naturalists the connecting link between animal and vegetable life, has been found in the interior of Africa, in the form of a serpent with a flower for a head. This singular freak of nature is spotted in the body, drags itself along, and the flower forming its head is bell-shaped, and contains a viscid fluid. Flies and other insects, attracted by the smell of the juice, enter into the flower, where they are caught by adhesive matter. The flower then closes, and remains shut until the prisoners are transformed into chyle. The indigestible portion, such as heads and wings, are thrown out by aspiral opening. The vegetable serpent has a skin resembling leaves, a white and soft flesh, and instead of a bony skeleton and cartilaguous frame, filled with yellow marrow. The natives consider it a delicious food.
::: posted by tom at 11:39 AM
Tuesday, January 06, 2004 :::
Then He Started Into Dealing With Slaves ...
MURDERED BY SLAVES. -- W.H. Harvey, Esq., residing in the vicinity of Lake Providence, La., was brutally butchered by his own slaves, on Saturday, the 21st of March. The prime mover in this tragedy, strange to say, was an old negro woman who had nursed Mr. H. in his infancy, and who had ever received from her master's hands the kindest treatment. The greatest excitement prevailed in the neighborhood, and Wednesday last was appointed as the day on which to burn the negroes.
--- North Carolina Standard, April 11, 1857.
Still Reading...
The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien.
I took a fantasy literature class as an undergrad. I remember the professor said, "If you're doing a paper on the relationship between Tolkien and Led Zeppelin, it better be really good, because I'm sick of reading about it." I shouldn't be surprised, but some yahoo has a web site all about it.
Last Listened To:
The Kinks Greatest Hits
::: posted by tom at 10:43 AM
Monday, January 05, 2004 :::
Master of the Space Time Continuum: or, Storming Iwo With the Duke
Two of the things I hate doing the most are my laundry and getting my hair cut. Another pain in the butt on my days off is going to the railroad company and getting my time sheet and expense report signed. Today I managed to combine these tasks. I went to the Laundromat and threw my clothes in the washer and then went to the railroad company. I came back threw my clothes in the dryer, and went next door to get my hair cut. I have blogged before about getting my hair cut at this old-timey place and I went back there today.
The barber and I were talking about hair (surprise surprise) and he mentioned his hair started turning grey when he was 18 in the 1940's. I asked if he was in WWII and he answered in the affirmative. Navy, both Atlantic and Pacific. We agreed dropping the atom bomb on Japan was the best choice. He has a big poster in his shop with a picture of John Wayne (in a coat and tie?) superimposed over an american flag with a picture of some modern army helicopter. The posters says "Defender of our Nation." I'm a big John Wayne fan, but since he was never in the armed forces, I'm not sure about the whole "Defender of our Nation" thing. I said nothing to the man that owned the poster and was holding a pair of scissors inches from my neck.
All of this efficient planning and errand-running has given me a couple hours to fuck off, then go work on the railroad for a couple hours, hopefully have dinner with hippie chick, and have coffee tonight with weird friends. Not a bad day off, and I got to sleep in until 9:30.
Movie Update:
I'm always way behind on movies. Last night I finally watched Pirates of the Caribbean. It was good fun, Johnny Depp did a great job as did the supporting cast. I felt it could of been a little shorter, but I feel that way about most movies these days. It makes me wish someone would do a real pirate movie.
This Just In:
Coming home from above errands, I saw my Great Smoky Mountain National Park ashtray came in the mail. I bought it on Ebay. It is ceramic and has a little statue of a bear on it. I goes very well with my Florida ashtray, which of course has an alligator statue on it.
::: posted by tom at 12:32 PM
Sunday, January 04, 2004 :::
Slave Price Update
From the July 12, 1856 North Carolina Standard:
SALE OF NEGROES. -- We learn that the negroes belonging to the estate of Daniel Ward, dec'd of Martin county, N.C., were sold at public sale at Hamilton, on the 27th ult., and brought the following prices:
Woman, 35 years old, and child, $895; woman, 29 and two children, $1400; girl, 17, $860; boy, 15, $1221; girl, 11, $606; boy, 6, $405; man, 27, $1275; man, 46, $600; man, 22, $1287; man, 30, $1300; woman, 20, and child, $830; boy, 17, $1401; boy, 7, $705; boy, 5, $300.
------
A couple comments: I think this kind of thing is interesting as hell. People have gone through old newspapers and done big-ass studies on slave prices and what the fluctuations might mean. Just a couple guesses here - the woman being sold with the children, maybe they were making an attempt to keep some families together. You notice the men get a lot higher prices. The 17-year old was the most expensive: $1401. I guess he was in his prime, already trained at whatever he did, and had a lot of good years left in him, same with the $1221 15-year old. Of course, we don't know what skills these people had, blacksmiths sold for a lot more than field hands. I just kind of guessed and made all that up. I'm going to check and see if these estate papers are at work. Maybe they'll tell us what "man, 30"'s name was. They did have names.
A nice kick in the butt for the purchasers, some of these people, particularly the young ones, were probably purchased with an eye toward the future when they'd become more productive or start having children. Unless the slaves took matters into their own hands sooner, they'd be free in seven years.
Quote of the Day:
Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day. . . I have spoken too long for a writer. A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it. Again I thank you.
--- from Ernest Hemingway's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, December 10, 1954.
::: posted by tom at 12:22 PM
Friday, January 02, 2004 :::
Bonus Big-Ass Quote of the Day:
This is from a story on underreported news stories. From the website Working For Change.
Africa, Africa, Africa. So much is flying under U.S. media radar, it's hard to know where to start - from Mugabe's terrorizing of Zimbabwe to AIDS to the renewed national and regional depredations of Nigeria, a country effectively run by the likes of Shell and Chevron, and whichever local generals have the franchise this week. But as always the place to start is Central Africa - where a brutal, decade-long war has now killed a staggering four million or more people, replete with atrocities, civilian massacres, torture, sexual slavery, and lots and lots of U.S.-made weaponry. The war's raison d'etre? The mineral wealth of the eastern Congo, which includes several rare minerals used in the production of computer screens, keyboards, and chips. Prominent among the numerous American companies getting rich by paying "rebel" armies to take over mining regions are - surprise - Halliburton and Bechtel. This should be a scandal rocking the globe - but it's sub-Saharan Africa, where they don't value life the way we do [sic].
See the whole list of overhyped and underreported stories here.
::: posted by tom at 4:04 PM
Happy Fucking New Year
bitchbitchbitch. My feet hurt, I can't keep my shoes tied, everytime I go to look for something at work I can't find it. Today just sucks.
I've got to things I oughta do tonight. I could do either one and feel okay with myself, I could even do both. Want I really want to do is sit at home and do nothing. I have to work tomorrow, I'll be happy when I'm off this working every Saturday crap.
On the lighter side at work, a co-worker was looking at some family bible records here, and in one of them someone had put some tombstone transcriptions. On person had emblazoned on their tombstone "She survived drowning by hanging on the an overturned boat with her fingers and teeth." I don't know what the story was behind that, she was only 19. Did she survive the drowning, only to die later of something else? I understand that would be a significant event in your life, but kinda weird to put on the tombstone.
::: posted by tom at 2:41 PM
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