From the Mobil East Wing, On the Road Again, Corn Fields and Windmills, Louisville When She Sparkles, The Goats of Roswell, Chicken With The Colonel

Greetings To All and Welcome New Friends to The East Wing,

Me and Johnny, on the road again. Not gona be cowboys this time, gona be cotton pickers, if we find some cotton. We’re on our way to Georgia, Roswell GA that is. Roswell is a northern suburb of Atlanta. We’re taking my Sister Barbara home from an extended visit to Indiana. And don’t really expect to see any cotton, but will pick some if the opportunity presents itself. Ya gota remember some hillbillies from Starke County have been known to pick stuff from time to time.

Barbara lives in a really neat community in Roswell, it’s not a gated community. But one house does have some real nice goats in the yard. Back in January, I had Johnny take my pictures with the goats. They’re pretty classy goats, some black, some white and some just plain goat colored. One of Barbara’s neighbors is the current president of UPS. Barbara’s late husband, Ed Lopez spent his whole working career doing computer research type work at UPS. Ed died much too soon last January. Me and Ed, we stargazed. My stargazing is not nearly as much fun with Ed gone, but I still do, some.

It’s Sunday early afternoon as we leave the East Wing in bright sunshine, turn south and look forward to a fun four day adventure, me and Johnny and Sister Barbara. With the trip only being in relatively sort segments, I don’t expect to do much if any driving ‘cause Johnny likes to drive and I like to gawk a lot, in fact that is one of my better skills, I’ve honed that skill over years of practice. And now I can gawk with the best of ‘em.

I wonder if I could go back over to that little college in central Ohio and get my PhD in gawking. I already know the paper I’d write. “Gawking in a Foreign Language” by BobbyRay. That would be so cool, I’d learn to gawk in Spanish or maybe Russian or even Chinese . Now I can only gawk in Hillbilly, but am truly good at it. It must be really easy to learn a foreign language, ‘cause just this past Sunday morning at the 11 o’clock mass there was a little baby crying in Spanish. It’s so amazing to think that pretty little baby girl learned to cry in Spanish and she’s not even 6 months old. Now if ya don’t believe in miracles, then you’ve just never seen a pretty little Spanish Angel crying in church. A miracle before your eyes, if there ever was one, that little Spanish Angel.

What’s really cool ‘bout gawking is acting like a tourist and being obnoxious and acting stupid and everybody cuts ya some slack ‘cause they know you’re from out of town, and when they go out of town, they too act stupid. Gawking sure is fun.

The speed at which the corn and soy bean crops have disappeared from the flat lands of northern Indiana ya’d think a magician was at work. Not so, just a combination of early planting, early rain, August drought and September heat make for early picking, and unusual early drying of the crops.

Interestingly enough, ya’d think being able to harvest the crop early makes for happy farmers. That’s not always the case, there are several issues the farmers are dealing with this harvest season. A few days ago I had a farmer in my office who produces seed corn. Now for you non-farmers, that’s the stuff that is used to plant next year’s corn crop. (really it’s more than a year down the road, but to illustrate the point, it easier to just say next year’s crop)

Producing seed corn is a highly specialized type of farming. Without getting into too much detail, suffice to say it takes extra effort to produce seed corn. I first became aware of seed corn farming when I was a little hillbilly boy pulling the tassels from the top of corn stalks.

The problem my farmer client has to deal with this year is the seed corn has dried too much in the field. Regular corn is picked at an ideal moister content of 15%. Seed corn needs to be picked at 20%. Then a very slow dry down process to control the quality of the seed, and to allow the seed to germinate when placed back into the ground.

The test plot to determine if the seed corn was ready to harvest, tested out at 14% moisture it needed to be at least 20%. Samples of the crop have been sent to the Ag Research Labs at Purdue University to determine how best to handle the situation.

The windmill farms north of Lafayette IN now seem pale compared to those seen a few weeks ago when Johnny and I were cowboys. Now that’s not to say that the Brookston Windmills are not impressive, they are. But the sheer volume of the windmills out west is staggering.

As the windmills of northern Indiana blend into the background behind us, we blend into the Federal Interstate Highway System, I-65, southbound toward Indianapolis. Not even 10 miles on I-65 and guess what pops up? Right! A Cracker Barrel. Right there in front of God and everybody, on the east side of I-65. Happy Days Are Here Again!

Ya don’t eat fast at Cracker Barrels, and that’s the way God intended people to eat, slow and enjoying the taste of Cracker Barrel. I’ve even heard that the Cracker Barrel may have catered the Last Supper, but I don’t know that for a fact. I do know they have some really old recipes there.

From the Cracker Barrel to downtown Indianapolis in an hour, with Lebanon thrown in there just to break up the flat land Indiana corn fields with no corn left, only memories of corn gone by this October Sunday. Indianapolis is such a pretty big town. One of my favorite things ‘bout Indianapolis, it don’t smell. Can’t say that ‘bout many cities in the world. And the sad thing ‘bout many of the people who live in those cities that smell, they don’t even know it smells.

Had a conversation the other day with a lady who has just moved to North Judson a few years ago, and dearly loves to live here. She was telling me ‘bout a conversation she overheard when some friends she had invited to her new home in the country were talking with one of her neighbors. The city fellow asked “how’s them outside toilets working for ya?” and the neighbor says “works ok, and oh, by the way, how’s them drive by shooting working out for ya in your neighborhood?” City people AGGH!

One good thing ‘bout traveling with Sister Barbara, she wants to stop a lot, and so we do whatever catches somebody’s eye along the way, we all get to see it when we stop. If I had to pick my least favorite part of the Indiana interstate system, it’s Indianapolis to Louisville I-65 South. Don’t know why, maybe I’ve just rode this concrete ribbon of steel too many times. We stopped twice between Indianapolis and Louisville, once to pee and once to gawk.

Louisville KY at the very edge of the start of the nighttime, a pretty town to behold, tall buildings with pretty lights. Twinkling lights dancing on the waters of the Ohio River makes for a pretty crossing on the big bridge. Traffic delays don’t exist in Louisville on Sunday evening. The same can’t be said for tomorrow morning when the world wakes up to go to work. And tomorrow we’ll still be playing, Johnny and me. For us, tomorrow is the day no work will be done.

Franklin KY is two miles north of Tennessee and a good place to sleep after a fun seven hours of jerking ‘round thru both Indiana and Kentucky. Up with the sun on Monday and off to Georgia, not quite so fast, I’m up with the sun, Sister Barbara don’t do early sun. In fact Sister Barbara don’t do early anything, so Johnny and I go for the free breakfast at the Hampton Inn. A most pleasant surprise, that breakfast at the Hampton Inn. A real breakfast, not one of those coffee and roll deals with old brown bananas and other fruit past its prime. Ya could even make your own waffle, and Johnny did so. I don’t do waffle any more, but that’s another story for another time.

A quick 4 hour run down I-65 to I-24 to I-75 and just like that, we find ourselves in Roswell GA. The goats are inside their goat house when I go by, but I waved just to let ‘em know I’m back. We kick back and relax for a few hours visit with family, sleep a little and up and at ‘em early Tuesday morning, really running early Tuesday morning. Leaving Sister Barbara in Roswell still asleep, means Johnny and I can get started before noon, and we did.

The last time I was at Sister Barbara’s house, back in January, on the way leaving, I stole a stone chicken from one of her gardens. This morning as Johnny drove out the courtyard I asked him to stop and steal one of the stone frogs. I don’t know if that Georgia Frog can stand the cold of Indiana winters, if not guess he’ll have to live in the East Wing. Come to think ‘bout it I’m just gona put him in the East Wing right up, ‘cause Pup Baby sure likes frogs anyways. And besides of all the East Wing stuff, I don’t have a frog, or at least a Georgia Frog, until now.

Did ya ever eat frog legs? I don’t do that, eat frog legs, but the she does. Regina eats every frog leg she comes across. Me, well, I’ve just handled to many frogs in my life to eat ‘em. But I’ve seen some big ones from time to time.

It’s noon on Tuesday and Johnny and I find ourselves in Lake City Tennessee just get gas, pee and go. We’re on a mission this Tuesday as we find our way back home from way down upon the Suwannee River, and the mission is to locate some land I purchased a while back. The land is located somewhere in Magoffin County Kentucky, we just don’t know where yet. But expect to know before the sun sets on this beautiful early fall day in Appalachia. We’re on our way to meet a fellow by the name of Bob Allen, and Bob’s gona show us, what my Mama told me was my “ personal pig in a poke” when I told her I’d bought land sight unseen in Magoffin County KY. But we’ll see.

By 1:30 this afternoon we are looking for somewhere to eat lunch when Johnny spots a sign advertising the original home of Col. Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken. This house of chicken is on the list of historical landmarks identified by the Federal Department of the Interior. Located in Corbin KY a little town with no other special interests to anyone other than the locals. A little town much like a million others except that Col. Sanders happened to live there. We gawked, ate the chicken, gawked some more, took our pictures with the Col. Sanders statue and it’s back on the road again looking for our land that time forgot somewhere in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky.

We’re two - three weeks too early to see the best of the pretty mountains is all the fall colors, the idea of changing colors has just started to be thought of by the trees here, ya can just tell by the way they hold their leaves. But the green, green mountains of southeastern Kentucky are pretty all the time, year ‘round, just sometimes they’re more spectacular than others. Now when the earth tone colors paint the mountain sides, well, that’s one of the “others” I’s talking ‘bout.

As we drive thru these beautiful mountains, Johnny and I develop a plan to allow us to return in three weeks to see the Annual Fall Color Show of Appalachia, starring in the lead role, Mother Nature herself and co-starring various creatures of the forest including, but not limited to, Bambi, Yoga Bear, Woody Woodpecker, Old Yeller, Pinto the Wonder Horse, and a cast of thousands. It’s always a sellout performance, that Fall Color Show of Appalachia. And everybody that comes to the show gets a front row seat. There are no bad seats in the Kentucky Mountains in the Autumn time of the year .

5:00 PM finds us setting in Jackson KY talking with Bob Allen by cell phone. Yes he knows where our real estate is located, yes he can take us to it, if we can make it before dark. Turns out Bob Allen is 40 miles away and in a part of Kentucky not adjacent to or easily accessible by the interstate highway system. Now when ya got 40 miles to go in the mountains and you’re a flat land driver like Johnny, well, it’s gona take time, ya just know it’s gona take lots of time. Bob Allen tells us we need to take State Road 30 from Jackson to Salyersville, and turn on road 1392, ‘bout 25 miles or so from Jackson.

Now I’ve been on that road before, that State Road 30 from Jackson to Salyersville. On that 30+ miles of road from Jackson to Salyersville there’s not a single stretch of road in a straight line ¼ mile long. The road has curves, lots and lots of curves, and many are more than 180° Now for us non engineers, if a whole circle is 360° that means those curves on State Road 30 are tight, they’re not only tight but often, seems every time ya see the end of the curve ya see the start of the next curve. And so it went as we slowly traversed Road 30, forever climbing to altitude and finally reaching the mountain peak at the Magoffin / Breathitt County Line. We pull over to take our pictures beside the Magoffin County Sign, think better of the idea and just take a picture of the sign, before we start down the other side of the mountain.

Stay Safe in Afghanistan

From the Mobil East Wing, On the Road Again, Corn Fields and Windmills, Louisville When She Sparkles, The Goats of Roswell, Eating Chicken With The Colonel

I wish you well,
BobbyRay