The local HVAC company we use puts out a newsletter with company news (like employee of the month) and a community calendar. It’s hokey and awesome. And, of course, the September issue has a persimmon pudding recipe.
Posts in: local
Sometimes you’re so excited that it’s persimmon season in Lawrence County you eat persimmon pudding for breakfast.
We are now the proud owners of two burial plots in our town’s historic cemetery. Through a series of events, we actually got them for free. The cemetery holds some of my favorite examples of limestone carving. It was definitely the place we wanted to go. Bonus: the Owenses are there.
A word in favor of sticking
Marco Ament recently wrote something I have thought so many times over the years: If I learn today that my neighbors have political views that my “side” considers unacceptable and unforgivable, should I be able to have dinner at their house, shovel their snow, or even greet them outside? … Maybe we were better off before we knew everyone’s hot takes on everything It also reminds me of this passage from Wendell Berry’s The Need to Be Whole.
We went to a ceremony dedicating a new grave marker for Rebecca Dillingham Dewey (1788-1826), the first burial in what is now Green Hill Cemetery. Two hundred years ago. I’m grateful there are still people around for whom this stuff still matters.
Dividing the year
We’re in a heat wave right when the Abel house wants to start feeling spooky, so I’m thinking about seasons again. Here in southern Indiana, we have a relatively balanced year. Our summers are hotter than our winters are cold but such is the world at this point. I divide up the year in the following way, based on natural patterns rather than holidays or equinoxes/solstices. Spring March through May
I still really like this post from three years ago, in which I did some investigating/speculating into the impact “new” highway 37 had on our town.
Emilee Hackney:
To this day, I’ve never been to an Appalachian funeral where there wasn’t a preacher and a sermon.
It’s the same around here. I keep hearing that cremation is now the majority practice but I can count on one hand the number of services or memorials I’ve attended that involved a cremated body. Here, the body is almost always in an open casket and the funeral service always has a preacher, who preaches a sermon well more than half the time. Elsewhere funerals may have changed a lot over the years but my experience of them is essentially unchanged since childhood.
I mentioned last month going to an old time music jam where Steve and Nancy Dickey were present. I went again tonight and recorded him playing. He’s about to turn 82.
First day of school around here. It’s nice to see the buzz of activity again. Kids walking in their first day of school outfits. Big yellow buses rolling around town. I love these cycles of life. Even the neighborhood cat Ralph was enjoying it as she sat with some kids waiting for their bus.