There's not much to say... I come from a long line of Appalachian folk that landed in America long before flipping off the King was even a twinkle in the eyes of our founding fathers. We have been Carpenters and coal miners... Soldiers & Sailors and pig farmers and Sunday morning circuit-riding preachers. Hell, I'm told we have even been fairly decent bootleggers too.
The oldest of my family elders I met as a child were the sons and daughters of farmers across whose red rocky fields the North and South marched and died at Antietam. I am quite sure that my ancestors had more wisdom in the palms of their crooked calloused hands than the whole lot of high-minded and over-educated White Collar class will ever acquire across the entirety of their collective lifetimes.
It is my hope that, in the midst of so many lost and self-unaware souls, I might pay forward - even a little bit - of what was handed down to me before it is my turn to swan-dive off this mortal coil.
Before there were Kings, there was order and cooperation in pursuit of the shared goal of survival; small groups formed to sustain themselves, undertaking...
When the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia in 1776, the American population at the time was approximately 2.5 million people occupying land...
It's interesting how seemingly casual, light-hearted conversations can sometimes take on lives of their own and wind up in places that were never intended....
Please do take note of my lack of remorse for using such stark terms; your right to terminate an inconvenient life ends where my right to oppose you begins.