History, Tales and Traditions

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George Takei is Okay with Molesting Teenagers, "as long as they're attractive"

George Takei is Okay with Molesting Teenagers, “as long as they’re attractive”

Oh, My! Relating his own experience at summer camp as a nubile 13 year old, George Takei, former star of Star Trek and current Internet Meme, Takei doesn’t feel as if being molested by his camp counselor was a crime because his abuser was blonde and attractive. Filed under, “Stuff so strange you can’t make it up” and “topics so disgusting, I’m just linking the audio so you can make up your own…

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Here’s a Real Woman’s March for You.

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A Little About Love

A Little About Love

“Desperado” lyrics courtesy of The Eagles. It’s said a girl’s first love is her father.  I find that to be true.  A girl’s father sets the stage for every male relationship she will have in her life and mine was no different.  My first memory in fact, is standing on my grandmother’s couch looking out the window at every set of headlights that passed hoping it was my daddy.  It never was. “Knight…

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Five kidnapped western tourists, taken during their detention by the militant group Al-Faran, the Kashmir valley, 1995 [800 × 547] • /r/HistoryPorn

24 points and 1 comments so far on reddit

People think I’m lying when I say Islam has been killing Americans my whole life.  Here’s one 21 year old example.  

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The Lobster Lady - In Which I Out Another Activist Freak Gets Outted.

The Lobster Lady – In Which I Out Another Activist Freak Gets Outted.

Remember the lady profanely shouting for violence against police and conservative speaker, Gavin McInnes? Refresh your memory.  Remember how we were all shocked to learn she was a teacher?  Well, kittens, it gets better.  The woman videoed at an Antifa rally, identified herself as a professor and it didn’t take long for the internet to track her down and identify her as Rebecca Goyette, adjunct…

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Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Night and Fog with music of Fred Vogels

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In Which I Am Obligated to Mention "The March"

In Which I Am Obligated to Mention “The March”

I didn’t march on Washington this weekend.  I didn’t march in my hometown.  I did my own march.  Marched to the bank, to visit a friend, to the car wash and grocery store and then marched home to be with my husband. I didn’t shout at anyone, set anyone’s hair on fire, or scream The P Word at the top of my lungs. I don’t have to do those things.  Because I haven’t bought into the irrational fear…

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TARENTUM, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania mall that was foreclosed on after its owners failed to repay $143 million has been auctioned off for $100. Whoa!  Talk about your bargain basement pricing!  

#economy #jobs #WellsFargo #nottheonion

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Dr. Mary King Long

This week I planned a series of articles about Ozark gunfighters and gunfights.  In light of recent events in Orlando and elsewhere, I find myself less enthusiastic about the subject this week.  So we’ll set our gunfights aside for a week or so and talk about something else.  

Anything else. Because the din of blame throwing and politicking taking place around this tragedy are painful to my eyes and ears.

My beloved Ozarks produced many good people.  Simple people.  Kind people. Honest people.  People who educated themselves in one room school houses or by lantern light and then went on to do good things for their community and our country like Dr. Mary Long.

Dr. Mary King Long, was born November 4, 1913 in Lemons, Missouri, to Cleta and George E. Williamson. She was raised on that family farm and continued her education at the Kansas City College of Osteopathic Medicine, where she graduated in 1936.  She interned at Conley Clinical Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri. In 1937, she married Dr. Charles A. King. Between 1938 and 1948, Dr. Mary was a general practitioner in Springville, Utah.

In 1950, she relocated to Springfield, Missouri, where she was house physician at Springfield Osteopathic Hospital until 1955.  In that year she established Lakeview Nursing Home (the first in three counties) in Forsyth, Missouri where she served as the administrator, house physician and maintained a general medical practice.

In 1963, she married Phil A. Long and continued her career as a general practitioner/nursing home physician. Between 1972 and 1990, she served the Taney County Health Department Well Baby Clinic/Family Planning until she retired in 1991.  

She is best known for her service to rural poor women in Taney County and the surrounding area.  When Dr. Mary (as she is known locally) opened her clinic in 1955, abortion was illegal in this country and family planning clinics did not exist.  Even if a town had a doctor, he was not the man a young woman wanted to go to for birth control or family planning advice.  There was no birth control (until the 1960’s) and even when it became available, most of the rural poor in Southwest Missouri wouldn’t have been able to afford it.  Furthermore, licensed and trained doctors were hard to come by in the rural Ozarks. Few doctors wanted to practice in rural areas at all, much less specialize.  The people were poor, without health insurance and what hospitals existed lacked quality facilities.  

And here’s where Dr. Mary steps in.  She focused her practice on the sexual education of young women and obstetric care in a part of the country where it was unavailable and largely unknown.  It is likely, although never confirmed, that Dr. Mary would have been the person a girl in trouble sought out if she needed to end an unwanted pregnancy.

In rural Missouri in 1955, most girls were educated about sex and their bodies at home.  From the Bible.  Another physician relays a story about a young Missouri woman he counseled after her third child was born out of wedlock.  He asked, “Sue, how do you keep getting pregnant?”  She replied, “I don’t know!  The only person I sleep with is my brother.”  

Thankfully, most young women in the Ozarks weren’t that ignorant, nor was the practice of incest as widespread as pop culture would have one believe.  But it is true that sexual education for women at that time was confined to whispered conversations with one’s mother or grandmother and young ladies learned about pregnancy and childbirth on the farm or from watching their mother or grandmother assist a home birth.

Although public schools did host classes on sex education, these course were not federally mandated and almost exclusively centered on establishing and maintaining the “traditional” heterosexual marriage where the husband works and the wife cares for the home and children.  Girls were encouraged and educated on homemaking and childcare along with the basics of reproduction and pregnancy.  There was no discussion about alternate lifestyles, homosexuality or masturbation.

In 1950 there were approximately 3,400 households in Taney County, Missouri and one hospital – Skagg’s Community Hospital, a 25 bed facility gifted to the community by M.B. and Estella Skagg’s, Missouri natives and founders of Safeway food stores.  The population of the county was in decline until the construction of Bull Shoals Dam on the White River created Bull Shoals lake.  The resulting tourist and retiree boom made Taney County one of the fastest growing counties in the state between 1960 and 1970.  With the tourists and retirees came new businesses and thankfully, more doctors.

But it all started with Dr. Mary.  She saw a need and she devoted her life and medical practice to meeting it.  So, this week, we salute Dr. Mary King Long and her legacy of quality education and health care in the Ozarks.

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Love Your Gay Neighbor

“Mom will you still love me if I’m gay?”

“But you aren’t gay?”

“But what if I was?”

“We won’t have to worry about that.”  

And subject change.  

Classic mom tactic. Carefully step around the ugly elephant in the room.  Don’t dare tell your child something that might conflict with the strict Pentecostal philosophy you’ve held them to their entire life.  

So many rules. All Don’ts. Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t use bad language.  Don’t miss church, don’t wear a skirt above your knee.  Don’t drink. Don’t wear makeup.

No smoking, no boys, no dancing. No, no, no!  The slightest violation of any of these rules bought you a one-way ticket straight to the fiery pit of Hell.

It was difficult enough to comply with the thousand or so commandments set forth by the church and my parents. I definitely didn’t want to be gay.   I didn’t think I was gay then.  I know I’m not gay now.  At the time this conversation took place, I’m not even sure I knew what “being gay” meant.  I probably had some idea.  I’d seen gay people on television, I’m sure.  I vaguely remember a sitcom staring Tony Randall as a gay man and that for some reason that made him different and that was supposed to be funny.

Love Sidney starred Swoosie Kurtz and Tony Randall and  ran on NBC from October 1981 until June 1983.

If I’m being honest, despite all the fire and brimstone and hellfire and damnation in my upbringing, I never cared about anyone else’s sexuality.  My mother will tell you it’s because I was/am oblivious to my surroundings.  I’ll tell you it just never mattered to me.  Over the course of my life I’ve failed at nearly all of those commandments. I’m reasonably sure I’ve never killed anyone.  Perfectly certain I’ve never committed murder, but the all the laws about not sitting on a bed while menstruating and eating pork and shellfish? Shattered.  

My anxiety over the fate of my eternal soul has lessened over the years as I learned more about God’s word and began to concentrate on the one commandment Jesus gave us as the most important: “Love God with all your heart and mind and Love your neighbor”. Somehow, the commandment to love got overlooked among all the Shalt Nots in our religious instruction.  And I know I’m not alone in this because there are at least two other people raised in the same house as me.  

So because I can’t keep from coveting things or wearing two different weaves of cloth in the same garment, I choose love to be the commandment I try hardest to follow. It’s not always easy.  Frankly, it gets pretty difficult, particularly around the 11th day of each September, but I do try.  

So when I read last week about Trey Pearson, the Christian music artist who came out as homosexual, I was particularly sympathetic to how difficult this admission must have been for him.  He’s lived most of his life with the cloud of doubt over his salvation placed there by an inflexible dogma created by the Church – not by God – Thou Shalt Not Be Gay.

Trey Pearson’s photo courtesy of the Washington Post

The New Testament says a bit about not taking part in homosexuality and those who do being condemned to hell, although the actual meaning of these verses in translation and historical context are widely debated.  

In context, those references are more like warnings to not take part in activities that the heathens or pagans practice. Homosexual sex, is just one of those practices.  At the time the books of the Apostles were written, Christians were struggling with the strict requirements of the Old Testament Laws and the temptation of the pagan practices of their Greek or Roman rulers.  Then along came Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice, saying “I am not here to overthrow the old law, but to fulfill it.” And he made his commandment that we Love God and each other.  Then he sent out his apostles to spread the word of his resurrection and his message – Love God.  Love Each other as I have loved you.  

So before we break out the pitchforks and begin burning Trey Pearson’s music, let’s remember what our Lord said.  “Love your neighbor.” And there are no qualifiers to that.  We are commanded to love Trey Pearson.  It is our obligation as followers of Christ to love him.  We are not to judge, condemn, shun or abuse him. Those things are not acts of love. 1st Corinthians Chapter 13 perfectly describes love and the love we should show each other.  

“13:1. If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

What Trey Pearson does is between him and God.  It is none of our business.  And none of our sins are greater or smaller than his.  If we love Trey, we rejoice with the truth of his testimony as a gay Christian.  We should not be angry with him, dishonor him or allow others to do so because LOVE PROTECTS.

Before you give your opinion, Christians, read Corinthians 13 and ask yourself if what you are saying is said with love.  Because if it isn’t, you are nothing more than a clanging cymbal making racket without meaning and harming the ears of those who will listen.  

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The Mad Tale of Captain Leeper

An Ozarks’ Ghost Story

In 1857, W.T. Leeper purchased 225 acres of property encompassing Mill Spring and (as it came to be known) Leeper, Missouri.  A native of Kentucky, Leeper was a staunch Unionist and at the dawn of the Civil War raised a company of men (Company D, 12th Missouri Militia) and went on the hunt for Southern sympathizers.  

Captain Leeper’s methods of ferreting out and interrogating men to determine their loyalties were not at all subtle.  He was known to shoot anything that moved and burn anything that would light.  In February 1864, Leeper and the 12th Missouri Militia participated in what was called by some “The Battle of Mingo Swamp” and by others as the “Mingo Swamp Massacre.”  The McGee boys had just left the confederate army and returned home; ironically, to protect their home from Captain Leeper’s reign of terror.  The McGee’s and Catos were set upon in the early hours of February 4, 1863 and 29 of them gunned down. Captain Leeper’s report differs somewhat in that he reports engaging a Union camp on this date. 

No matter.  The result was the same.  29 men lay dead, the most recent, but not the last victims of a bloody series of guerilla attacks in Ripley and St. Francis County, Missouri that began with the Christmas Massacre of 1862 in Ripley County where Maj. Wilson (Leeper’s superior) killed 35 confederates and 62 civilians.  

Maj. Wilson, in correspondence to Leeper, directed him to take a company of men dressed in butternut (confederate) and see what could be learned about the Confederates camped near the White River.  The orders to Capt Leeper were to “burn every barn, mill and haystack” on his way back once he had determined their intentions and the letter ends with the cryptic “and you know I have no fondness for prisoners.”   

It was said one of the victims of Mingo Swamp, Thomas McGee, had been shot so many times his torso was nearly cut in half.  And Captain Leeper’s harassment of the McGees did not end at Mingo Swamp.  He carried on for months until August 1864 when Thomas McGee (aged 64) was murdered and his body hidden.  Three days later, Blair McGee was killed in front of his 12 year old daughter and his home burned to the ground in classic Leeper fashion.  When Hugh McGee and six of his men tried to surrender, they were put to death by firing squad in revenge for Wilson’s death.  

Eventually, Leeper’s own farm was attacked and burned.  Leeper vowed revenge and personally hunted down the men involved and wrote long letters home detailing in macabre prose the killing of each casualty.  Leeper was eventually found incompetent to serve in the Army and was returned home to his farm.  Leeper did not retire quietly though.  He continued his “hunt” for confederates and eventually helped organize the burning of Doniphan, Missouri.  In 1872, he and his son were responsible for bringing the railroad through Leeper, by then a bustling berg boasting a posh hotel, four stores and a post office.  Once the railroad came through, the town boomed for a short while, due in no small part to the perseverance and efforts of Captain Leeper. Evidently, Leeper’s bloodthirsty past and military incompetence did not prevent him from politics.  Leeper eventually served as a congressman in the 25th Gen. Assembly of the state of Missouri.  

In 1912, Captain Leeper was 89 years old. He died at home in his bed but not peacefully.  In his last days, he had to be tied to his bed as he thrashed and shouted at figures and demons visible only to him.  Did he suffer from dementia brought on by old age, or was Captain Leeper greeted at his death bed by the souls of the men he murdered?   His spirit does not rest.  Lights and noises come from his bedroom and his specter is seen walking around Leeper Hollow to this day.