Foster Falls Iron Furnace

My bike and I came here today. 

This structure at Foster Falls is called a cold blast iron furnace. Everything in the area was dependent on its use. It was the center of the area's economy.

Here's how it worked: In order to turn iron ore into iron (and later steel) the raw material had to be heated to melting temperature. To heat the ore timber was turned into charcoal* and was then used to stoke the furnace to 500 degrees centigrade (today plants use coke and "hot blast" to smelt iron ore; it's cheaper and far less labor intensive).

Required for production were (a) iron ore (hematite - iron oxide), (b) limestone, ** (c) heat (charcoal or coke), (d) water, and (e) air.

The water (diverted from the New River) was needed to turn a wheel that operated a huge bellows that forced air into the lower unit of the furnace.

Train car loads of iron ore were hauled in on tracks above and behind the furnace. Workers then wheelbarrowed the ore - mixed with limestone - to the stack at the top and shoveled the mixture in. Generally when the furnace was started it ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

At melting temperature the iron ore (Fe2O3) separated into iron (Fe), carbon dioxide (CO2)*** and refuse (slag).

The melted iron flowed into molds that were located on the lower left side of the furnace, the slag flowed into a catch basin to the lower right.****

The iron ingots cooled and were put on railroad flatcars going to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and points beyond, where manufacturers used them for their various purposes.

This gives an indication as to why so many employees were needed in order to produce iron back in the day. Miners, limestone quarry workers (the quarries were mostly in nearby Austinville), lumberjacks, teamsters for the draft horses, railroad workers, and iron workers. That's not counting the auxiliary personnel - supervisors, mill workers where the timber was cut into logs ( the mill is still there and its interior is in such condition that it looks like the workers had just quit for the day.), distillery workers (they knew what kept the worker bees happy), general store employees (it's still there; I didn't get a photo), and hotel staff.

- - - - - - - - - 

This is an old photo of the Foster Falls Mining and Manufacturing Company's iron furnace in its heyday.

In the foreground can be seen piles of timber hauled in to heat the furnace.

At its peak the furnace employed 90 men.

- - - - - - - - - -

* The process that turned trees into charcoal was an elaborate process in itself. Trees were hauled in, sawed into logs, piled high and set on fire. Once the fire was going the logs were covered up with dirt and left to burn (airless) for up to a week. Charcoal was the end product. It required 2.5 tons of ore and 140.9 bushels of charcoal to produce one ton of iron. At its peak the furnace produced 12 tons of pig iron a day.

** Limestone was used in the process to bind with the impurities that were in the raw ore.

*** The bound byproduct - slag - was later used to line railroad beds (in lieu of gravel).

***** I'm sure you all remember your chemistry from high school. The balanced equation: 2Fe2O3 + 3C → 4Fe + 3CO2. The 3C being the charcoal or carbon. Fe being iron and O being oxygen.

  ***** The cold blast process was found, over time, to be less effective than the hot blast smelting process that is in use today. Thus, all cold blast furnaces in the U.S. were gone by the 1920's.

****** The end product - pig iron - a poorer quality product, was used in the manufacture of such things as railroad car wheels. During the Civil War it was attempted to use pig iron for artillery tubes (cannon) by the Confederate government but testing proved that the barrels kept failing.

This photo gives a clue as to when the Foster Falls economy finally collapsed. It's a bridge abutment. In the 19th century the Foster Falls Mining and Manufacturing Company operated an iron furnace on the south shore of New River in Wythe County, Virginia. Most of the iron mines were to be found in the Red Hills area on the north side of the river. In order to get the raw product from Point A to Point B the mining company needed a bridge. Each day a train transported ore on flatbed cars to the furnace across this bridge just downriver from its smelting operation. In 1916 a horrendous flood swept away the center span of the bridge and operations ceased. 

They were never started up again. 

The Setting Can Be Beautiful

If it weren't for the fact that Paula and I were without electricity for five days ...

We received more snowfall yesterday here on Big Walker Mountain - thirteen inches - IN MARCH - than we did in December, January and February combined.

Without power I would once a day run the tractor to the creek toward the back of our property to obtain water for the horses and cats (and once for a "shower" that I took outdoors in 30 degree weather, buck naked; a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do). We used the LP gas grill for cooking and for coffee and we had our fireplace insert (sans electric fan) for keeping the house's pipes from bursting. 

We survived.

Now You Know

[This is my personal favorite of all the articles I wrote for the Roanoke Times.]

Did you know that in the seminal battle of the Civil War, Southwest Virginians were instrumental in bringing victory to the Confederacy?

As Southern troops were retreating from the battlefield of Manassas (1st Bull Run) on the afternoon of July 21, 1861, a colonel who would after the battle and for all time be remembered by the nickname he gained there – “Stonewall” – stood with his 1st Virginia Brigade and refused to yield. Among the troops he commanded that day and who made up the center of his line of infantry at the climactic moment of the conflict were boys from Grayson, Montgomery, Wythe, Carroll, Pulaski, Smyth, Floyd, Alleghany, and Giles Counties. At the order to charge, the volunteers from Southwest Virginia, as part of the 4th Virginia Infantry Regiment, and with the other troops of Stonewall Jackson’s brigade, moved forward and sent the Union soldiers into headlong retreat toward Washington. The first major battle of the Civil War was won, in large part, by soldiers from Southwest Virginia.

Did you know that Wytheville, Virginia can boast of having a Civil War legacy that no other town in America has?

The last two commanders of the famed Stonewall Brigade, Generals James A. Walker and William Terry, died there. The two settled in Wytheville after the war and are buried near one another in the town’s East End Cemetery.

Interestingly, General Terry sustained three wounds in the war but managed to survive, only to fall from his horse as he tried to cross a swollen Reed Creek and drowned, 23 years after the war ended.

Did you know that the most famous cavalry commander in the Civil War was born in Patrick County?

James Ewell Brown Stuart, known more famously as Jeb, was born there in 1833. He spent several of his summers with two of his aunts who lived in Wytheville (their home, on Withers Street, is still there), and attended Emory and Henry College in Washington County before moving on to West Point – and the history books.

Did you know that, despite the average estimated age of a Civil War regimental drummer boy to be sixteen, Pulaski County’s Company C, 4th Virginia Infantry Regiment enlisted the services of a “mature adult.” Private David Scantlon, regimental drummer “boy,” was 57.

Did you know that on the field of battle known as Carnifex Ferry near Summersville, Virginia (now West Virginia), there is maintained but one grave of a Civil War soldier?

Granville Blevins of Grayson County, enlisted at the age of 20 in Company C, 45th Virginia Infantry in May of 1861. Just before the battle began, on September 9th of that year, he died of “fever” and was buried on the field. The battlefield is a state park today and Blevins’ grave – the only one in the park - is maintained by the park service.

Did you know that there is a tragic story of lost love and lives cut short to be found on two grave markers in the cemetery of the Old Glade Spring Presbyterian Church in Washington County?

William E. Jones was a young cavalry officer in 1852, when, having recently married and having received a new military assignment out west, he and his new bride were en route to his new post aboard a ship that sailed into a horrific storm. The ship sank and, although he survived, she was swept from his grasp to her death. The tragedy is said to have destroyed him. And to have brought about a change in attitude that subsequently earned Jones his Civil War nickname – “Grumble.”

In 1864, now-General Jones, CSA, led his army into the Battle of Piedmont, near present-day Waynesboro. There, on June 5, as he was rallying his troops, he was shot and killed. His body was returned to Washington County and he was buried in the Presbyterian cemetery. If you stop by the graveyard in Glade Spring today, you’ll find two markers, side-by-side, in the southern shadows of the church. One marker identifies the mortal remains of General William E. “Grumble” Jones and the other his wife of just a few months.

Did you know that Roanoke, Southwest Virginia’s largest city, played no part in the Civil War?

It didn’t exist. Originally known as Big Lick, the town of Roanoke wasn’t founded until 1882 and didn’t become a city until two years later, fully nineteen years after the Civil War came to an end.

Now you know.

Urinating On a CRJ700*

[This originally appeared on March 21, 2005. Over time it proved to be the most popular post of the twenty thousand that I published on the weblog.]

Canada has given humankind, in all its history, only one gift. No, Shania Twain doesn't count. Had she stuck with country music, she'd qualify, but she decided to go off into popular music and soft porn videos. And we can't include the Toronto Maple Leafs because they have sucked since before I was born (and what does it say about a country that can't get the plural of the word "leaf" right?). Maple syrup might measure up but it's my understanding the Canucks stole the idea (and secret processing plan) from Vermont. 

No. The only thing good ever to come out of Canada is the Bombardier CRJ700 Canadair Regional Jet Airliner. I have some considerable familiarity with commercial aircraft and I can attest to the fact that the Canadair jet is the smoothest, quietest aircraft in its size range in use today. There are a few Saabs that come close but no other plane compares to the CRJ700.

Yeah, it was built for midgets. When walking down the aisleway, one has to stoop. No, make that crawl. And when you're seated, your knees are smashed against the seat in front of you (and that's in "first class"). And there is only enough overhead luggage space on the plane for one carry-on, the size of which cannot exceed a shoebox. But other than that, the CRJ700 is a traveler's dream.

Oh, then there's the bathroom. Or lavatory, as they prefer to call it (why I don't know; it must be one of those arcane FAA regulations).

I'm at cruising altitude. 29,000 feet. I have to use the john ... er, lavatory. I stoop/crawl to the back of my Bombardier CRJ700 Canadair Regional Jet Airliner, where a flight attendant is stationed to ... pick her distressed passengers up from the floor when they finally claw their way to her, and to hand out the in-flight meal consisting of six miniature pretzels and three ounces of water - and to kick open the bi-fold door to the lavatory. Which she did for me, with an admonition to watch my head as I entered (she saw me stooped over as I made my way down the aisle so her warning was an indication to me that her other job was at Chicago's famed Second City comedy club).

I ducked my head and entered the lav (as us flyers have come to affectionately call the crapper). I was immediately met with a rather serious dilemma. In order to begin the process of relieving myself, I thought it proper to close the door behind me. Makes sense, right? 

Well, the Canadian who designed this aircraft was either a very tiny person or he/she also moonlighted at Chicago's famous 2nd City comedy club because there was no way that bi-fold door was going to close with my butt still protruding into the aisleway. This lav was so small, I would have had to stand on the tiny toilet seat - which is a subject in itself - in order to get the door closed behind me. You've heard of the Mile High Club, the membership of which consists of really odd people who have found it somehow enjoyable to have sex on a plane while in flight? Well, they need to have a Six Cubic Feet Club for people who can do the same in a space the size of the back of your Honda Civic.

Anyway I somehow managed, with herculean effort, to close the door. Now it's at this point that I'm going to lose you women reading this. You're not faced with the task of aiming. At 29,000 feet. In moderate turbulence. At a toilet bowl opening no larger than that of a 2 litre bottle of Coke. I often brag at how adept I am at hitting my target (I attribute it to my many years of practice). And even on most planes, I've become pretty darn good at avoiding peeing on the walls of the lav - with only the occasional mishap (I usually blame it on wind shear). But as good as I may be - on target all the time - there ain't nobody on God's earth can hit the tiny toilet - standing up in a stooped position - on the CRJ700.

The thought struck me - since I'm about to embarrass myself (and probably violate some FAA/TSA/HSA regulation) I'm going to sit down and do this the way you women (who we all know are smarter; this is just another example of that) would have approached this problem in the first place.

Great plan.

But in order to sit down, I had to turn around and drop my drawers. In this Bombardier CRJ700 Canadair Regional Jet Airliner lavatory. Obviously the Canadians have perfected some physical manipulation of the human body with which we Americans are unfamiliar. There was no way I could make a turn in that half-phone booth sized bathroom.

I therefore decided to do it the old-fashioned way, and throw caution to the wind ... so to speak.

I'll bring this saga to a close with a word of warning. Next time you find yourself on a Bombardier CRJ700 Canadair Regional Jet Airliner and find yourself crawling into the lav, don't look too closely at the walls and mirror. Some things are better left unnoticed.

And sit back and enjoy your flight. It's still the greatest plane in the air today.

* Grammatically speaking, I've never peed on a plane. I have, however, peed into toilets in lavs on planes.

The Pembroke Public Library

As the crow flies, Pembroke, Giles County, Virginia is about seven miles from West Virginia. If you've never been there, it's no surprise. Pembroke doesn't even get a dot on most maps, it's so small and so far removed from the world. And, like the rest of Appalachia, the people there make do ... because nobody is going to make do for them.

Pictured above is the Pembroke Public Library. I'd take you on a guided pictorial tour of the stacks inside but the library is closed on Fridays (I was there yesterday) and I wasn't able to get inside. My guess is the town is working with a rather tight budget. Can you tell?

I took this picture not to poke fun at my neighbors but to make two points that I think are worth making.

First, and most important, there is a public library in tiny Pembroke, Virginia. It may not look like much, but, by God, they've got a library for the inhabitants there.

A library connotes a desire on the part of (many?) locals to gain knowledge, which implies their collective desire to achieve. To prosper. To make for their children a life better than the one provided them by their ancestors. The American Dream.This little library - in need of repair and another coat of white paint (how many layers of paint are lathered on those clapboards already?) - signifies to the local populace and to the outside world that Pembroke's young people are every bit as important as the offspring of the rich down in Palm Beach and those on the upper west side of Manhattan. The road to success may be a whole lot longer and more treacherous - figuratively and literally - (try driving Route 460 out of Pembroke through the mountains toward The Narrows in a driving snow storm) but the Pembroke Public Library is clear and convincing evidence that the road to success runs right through Giles County, Virginia.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that, in order for young people around here to succeed, they'll eventually need to pack their bags and move up north, like so many other area residents around here have done. There is little opportunity for them in Southwest Virginia and it's been decided by our political leadership that Giles and Wythe and Pulaski and Tazewell and Bland and Washington and Smyth Counties are to become nothing more than a scenic tourist attraction and the natives to be entertainers made up in blackface, strumming banjos, and singing Old Black Joe for the tourists' amusement.

So it is that the children of Pembroke make their way to this library - one hopes - and learn. Learn to succeed. While on my journey over that way yesterday, I met a young man who was holding down a summer job, sweating in the noonday sun but not seeming to mind it. He's actually from a small town over on the West Virginia side and commutes to Pearisburg each day. He's a college student at West Virginia University way up in Morgantown. He had the demeanor of one who knows where he's headed. And its not back to southern West Virginia. He'll be moving on ... and moving up. Good luck to him.

My second point has less to do with the library itself and more to do with libraries in general and the state of technological advancement in the world today. Did you know that all the printed information currently being warehoused in the Library of Congress (10 terabytes) can be stored in Pembroke's tiny library? I guess in this regard, the people of Pembroke are ahead of their time. They knew it wasn't necessary to build a massive structure (pictured is the Library of Congress) to house hundreds of thousands of dead trees. They need only enough space to mount a Broadberry Data Systems 10 terabyte server and they're in business. How cool will it be when a resident of Pembroke can pull up to their library's drive-up window, order a copy of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, or a copy of the budget of the United States Government, or today's edition of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, be handed a disposable CD, and drive off to work?

Life in these United States. Wonders to behold.  

Hiking the Appalachian Trail

Me. On top of the world. Appalachian Trail. November 3, 2017. 

On The Beach

Paula warned me to not expose my skin to the harmful rays of the sun when I'm on the beach. So ...

Kayaking the New River

The New River provides areas of gently flowing pools as well as hard-charging rapids, up to what are called Class V rapids. Pictured below are Class III, as much as we were willing to take on yesterday. What I've determined is, anyone who willingly goes into a Class V rapids has a death wish. We had to pull ashore three times to drain the water out of our kayaks! 

Dismal Falls

Hiking with my son, Jarrod.

In Recovery Mode

Paula pulled out some photos from 2002. This is one of me with our grandson, Kaid Fuhrman. I had just recovered from a bout of leukemia (and a nastier bout of chemotherapy). That's why I have that Obama look - weak and skinny. I'm not one to get into that whole "survivor" thing so I don't ever mention it. But it came; the wonders of a then-great heath care system made it go away; I survived; that and Wheaties made me the man that I am today. 

Hiking On Top of Big Walker Mountain

Jefferson National Forest, October 2016. 

Roanoke's Finest

The alarm sounds. Conversation abruptly ceases. A scramble ensues. Controlled mayhem. Followed closely on by disciplined, practiced, unhesitating, focused preparation.

Preparing to do what they do best. What they're trained to do. What's expected of them. What they demand of themselves. Roanoke's finest.

Lives are at stake. In every case. On every run. Civilians' lives most importantly. Firefighters' lives always.

Not to mention exhaustion. Dehydration. The potential for smoke inhalation. Injury. Worse.

Every day.
It comes with the territory. It's all part of a firefighter's accepted job duties and responsibilities: Be prepared to save lives and in the attempt, be prepared to risk your own. While most of us complain if the company coffee maker is broken or the wastepaper basket wasn't emptied overnight, firefighters hope their oxygen masks don't fail them. We want our work environment to be comfortable, air conditioned, and brightly lit. Firefighters hope theirs doesn't include combustible materials or explosives or toxic chemicals. Projectiles. A good day for most of us is one in which the boss doesn't give us a whole lot to do. For a firefighter, it's being able to go home at the end of the day. To be able to spend time with the children. To look in their little eyes and resolve to never let them know of or to witness the horrific sights they've seen. The anguish. The grief. The heartbreak. The mangled bodies. On this particular day, a fire erupted in a maintenance garage when a can full of gasoline ignited and set a bus on fire. When the fire department arrived, smoke was pouring from the windows and doors.

I've been witness to some building fires in the past. I remember one in particular, many years ago, that engulfed a faculty office building at the university I was attending. It was very cool. Exciting. Fun.

But I could stand at a distance with my classmates and watch the drama from afar. The smoke billowing up. The flames shooting through the roof.

I could stand by and take pictures of the raging inferno. Firefighters are trained to run into its midst. Selflessly. Without hesitation. Without regard to the many hazards in store. Lives deemed more important than their own - somehow - are at stake. They act.

I'm not sure I'm capable of such things. I doubt that most of us are. Sure, we all dream of performing an heroic act. Of saving a life. Of dragging the unconscious victim of that car wreck to safety. And of living to tell the tale on Larry King Live.

These guys risk everything every day. And Larry King pays no notice. But they do it anyway. With pride. Determination. It's a calling.

They deserve our everlasting and heartfelt thanks for being there and for protecting our loved ones - our children and grandchildren - from harm.

The firefighter, by the way, pictured above with axe in hand heading into the flames is my son, Jarrod Fuhrman, Station # 3, Roanoke Fire/EMS.

A Soldier's Story

Andrew Jackson Grayson was a miller by trade. He built and operated his place of business along Little Walker Creek here in Bland County, Virginia back before there was a Bland County. This area was sparsely settled and life was "hardscrabble," as it were. It is probably because his mill was frequented by all the farmers in the area who came to him to have their meager harvest ground into meal and he was, therefore, a familiar figure to everyone in the area, that when the Civil War broke out, Andrew Jackson Grayson was elected by the Confederacy's new recruits to the cause to be captain of the newly formed "Bland County Sharpshooters."

The victory at Fort Sumter had occurred only a month before and the South was a'risin'. All over the country the call went out for recruits to join the army and defend against northern aggression. Young men from the area packed what little they had and made the journey over the mountain to Wytheville, the only town in the area, and to Narrows in Giles County to enlist. When the company had enough recruits, its official designation became Company F, 45th Regiment, Virginia Volunteers. What an adventure it must have been for these boys, most of whom had probably never been far from home, to be given weapons and "accoutrements" (and an expansion of their vocabulary) and to find themselves on the parade ground in Wytheville learning how to conduct themselves in battle, and about "Hardee's Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics." For the first time in their lives they were not only playing a part in something important, they were making history.

And then they went to war. Their first encounter with the enemy was on a hilltop in Nicholas County in what was about to become, as a result of the South having seceded, the state of West Virginia in a place called Carnifex Ferry. Here they learned the word retreat. For after inflicting serious casualties on the advancing northern force, the Confederate army under General John Floyd slipped away and moved south. There is no record of the company sustaining any casualties but here the company of Bland boys got their first experience with that which killed the greatest number of soldiers north and south - sickness and disease. Though the company of recruits wasn't there long, when they left Nicholas County, they left behind a freshly dug grave containing the mortal remains of their first fatality, a young man who succumbed to a nameless illness, who died, and was buried - alone and with but a stone to mark his grave.

Over the next four years the company of Bland boys saw war in far away locations in Tennessee, West Virginia, and finally in "the big show," in Virginia as a part of the Army of the Valley. They fought in many places that today don't even warrant mention in the history books. Places like Wolf Creek, White Sulfur Springs, Diamond Hill, Mossy Creek, and Talbot's Station. They also participated in many of the war's larger engagements at Winchester, Opequon Creek, Cloyd's Mountain, Monocacy, Fishers Hill, and Piedmont.

With each encounter, the Bland Sharpshooters counted more dead. Upon leaving each encampment, Company F, 45th Virginia Volunteers left behind sick, wounded, and dying youth. For four years the boys from Bland County endured unspeakable hardship and privation. They lacked proper clothing in winter, were denied proper nutrition throughout, and often went days without food of any kind at all. In most of their encounters with the enemy, they were outnumbered by an army much better equipped and armed.

But they endured. In the end, the company of Bland boys didn't go through the formal surrender ceremony that one reads about in history books or sees in famous paintings. When notified of Lee's surrender at Appomattox, the regiment simply disbanded - and what remained of the Bland Sharpshooters went home.

Andrew Jackson Grayson enlisted in Company F on May 31, 1861 and became the company's captain shortly thereafter. When the company disbanded, "Captain Jack" was still the commander of the Sharpshooters. One wonders what history he made. In a war that saw so much attrition, it was not unusual for a private soldier to find himself being chosen for the rank of an officer and, as superior officers were killed off or died or went home maimed or broken, to be promoted again. And yet Andrew Grayson was Captain of Company F for all four years of the war. 

One wants to think that it was his decision to stay with "his boys" and that he chose not to take on greater rank. It could be though that his performance was recognized as being adequate enough to supervise the company but he was not considered capable of taking on greater responsibility. Or, as was the case with many officers in both armies, he may have been sick and in hospital too often to be considered for promotion. Or it is possible that Capt. Grayson and the 45th were, as was the case with many of the mountain regiments, inclined to be a bit too "independent" and could be counted on to fight like devils when called upon, but were impossible to control otherwise. 

We'll never know. As for me, I prefer to think he simply and honorably wanted to fulfill his obligation to "his Bland boys" and remained with Company F throughout. Even with all the diaries, memoirs, and regimental histories that were written about the period, nobody took the time to chronicle the life of Andrew Jackson Grayson. All we know is that when the war ended, he dismissed the troops and went back to his mill along Little Walker Creek.

There is one story, though, that is told in these parts about Captain Jack and his mill. In July 1863, while Capt. Grayson was "down the valley" fighting Yankees (and incidentally while Robert E Lee was retreating from a tiny town in Pennsylvania by the name of Gettysburg), a Union army was moving through Bland County on its way to burn the train station and railroad bridge in Wytheville. As became the norm in this horrific conflict, the Union troops wreaked destruction on the local economy and Confederate war-making capability as it moved south by burning barns and any manufactory along its route that could be used for making war material. This happened to include grain mills in that they often provided corn meal to the Southern army.

In this instance, though, luck was on Andrew Grayson's side. When the Union army came upon his mill and Yankee soldiers were about to set it afire, the Union commander ordered the soldiers to cease. As it turns out, he was a miller too and, despite the animosities and hostilities that had grown between the two sides, he decided to spare Grayson's property.

There is another instance where Captain Jack's property in Bland County became part of the war. In May of 1864 a battle was fought over in Wythe County called the Battle of the Cove. A badly outnumbered Union cavalry force of about 2,100 troops was mauled by a Confederate brigade under the command of General John Hunt Morgan. The Union commander - General William Averell - decided to retreat north over Big Walker Mountain by following the Raleigh Grayson Turnpike, the road that ran past A.J. Grayson's home (and, incidentally, is partly owned by me these days) (see photo). Some 2,000 demoralized, exhausted soldiers came down this road and retreated into the new state of West Virginia some twenty miles north.

There exist remnants of Grayson's mill and dam along the creek today. Though Captain Jack Grayson's home is long gone. I can look out my window - and often do - at his homestead and think about Andrew Jackson Grayson and the boys of '61. What they went through. What part of history they wrote. What memories they had and shared in reunions in later years when they got together in town and reminisced about the war years. 

I have seen three photographs of Captain Grayson. One was taken when he became a member of the Virginia House of Delegates nine years after the war had ended. Another when he was elderly and soon to die in 1910.

But there was a third. It was taken at a reunion of Bland veterans some time in the late 19th century. It was an assemblage of about fifteen elderly men, gray, bearded and bowed. There in the center of the group was Captain Jack. Try as I might to get a good look at him and to try to gain an understanding of his person, the photo was too unclear and was taken from too far away. He was just a small figure among small figures on a big hillside. I can only guess that their conversations about great battles and many triumphs were tinged with profound sadness - for most of the Bland boys who marched off to war in 1861 never returned. As was customary, many perished without even a marker to identify their remains. They vanished.

Captain Andrew Jackson Grayson was, in that sense, luckier. On a hillock that gently rises above Little Walker Creek that would have been a short walk for him from his home, on land that now includes my home, there is a solitary grave in a grass pasture overlooking his mill. There Captain Jack - miller, warrior, citizen - rests.

His obituary in the Richmond Times Dispatch:

* Originally published on August 11, 2004

Kaid Becomes a Man

Two-year-old Kaid Fuhrman climbed up to my tree house this evening and, in the course of things, decided to relieve himself. He dropped his drawers and peed on the countryside below. Kaid is now a man. It brought tears to my eyes. Today peeing out of the tree house, tomorrow telling lies to some large-breasted woman in a smoke-filled honky-tonk. How quickly they grow up.

* Originally published on August 12, 2004.

Chaos and the Morning Feeding

"For the love of God. Make them stop!" Terror set in as I tried to escape the churning mass of feline savagery. There have been few moments in my long life when I felt that I was in great danger but this was one of them. A feeling of impending doom swept over me and caused me to retreat to the corner of the kitchen - until I felt the microwave countertop against my back and I realized that my escape route was cut off. It was at this point that I cried out for God's mercy and for the Bland County Rescue Squad to save me from what was assuredly certain death.

It was cat feeding time at the Fuhrman house.

I know. You think of them as fuzzy, cuddly, purring little darlings curled up in front of the fireplace. Step into my kitchen at 6:05 in the morning and you'll step back with a bloody stump where your foot was attached only a moment before. These little monsters have a schedule and, by damn, you'd better adhere to it or there's all hell to pay.

It's all my wife's fault. Paula thinks she is doing the world a favor by bringing stray cats into the home and providing for them in a manner that all the children of Sub-Saharan Africa would envy. She doesn't just feed them and wipe their tiny butts (OK. I'm exaggerating a bit).
She has a schedule.

And they know it.

I should probably take the time to introduce the individuals who have turned our loving, nurturing home into San Diego Zoo East. I'm not sure I know all their names and Paula, being the sinister person that she is, sometimes sneaks new cats into the pile without telling me. If it weren't for the fact that I can now recognize each individual shriek they emit, starting at 5:55am, I wouldn't be able to tell one from another. That plus the fact that each has a discernable butt (I learned the hard way. If the shriek didn't work at 5:55, they do this odd butt rub in my face at about 6:00). 

But the ones I know of are named Tigger (Yes, I know. And the names only get worse), Lucky, Phobie, Mosby, Wheezer, Pippin, and Frodo (you'll never guess where those last two names came from; they were recommended by my daughter, another human hating cat loving she-devil who only brings cats home so as to bring torment to my poor son-in-law). If she were reading this, Paula would criticize me for misspellings. Fine. And for forgetting some cats. (No. I'll save the discussion regarding the BARN CATS for another day.)

Now you would think that the stampede - and I do not exaggerate - don't be in their path - that runs from our bed to the kitchen at 6:05 would ease up AFTER A FEW YEARS once the little bundles of burning love come to realize that breakfast will be served on time - just as it is every other freaking day of every year. But no. They gallop. You'd also think, based on their velocity and over-all-obstacles trajectory, that they are starved for sustenance. Please. It's just that the TUBS of Kibbles and Bits and Kit and Kaboodle that are filled throughout the day are only cat meal. At 6:05am it's MEAT. See how the bloody stump comes in to the story? They want MEAT. They'll accept any one of your appendages.

There was a point in time not long ago that Paula decided to go to Louisville to see her mother and sisters. She was going to be away - I swear - for a few days. The storage capacity on my Compaq computer is 80 gigobytes. All books ever written could be stored on 80 gigs. By the time she was done composing my instructions (I prefer to call it a treatise) on the proper-feeding-and-care-of-my-cats-while-I'm-gone, the hard-drive was exhausted. Leo Tolstoy would have been in awe of this document. NASA scientists who wrote the instructions on how to build Apollo IX would have bowed before her out of respect for her detail and clarity.

You see, you don't just feed the cats. You can't just slop meat into a bowl. Each cat has a personality and, more importantly, a disposition. Some, like Phobie, will wait impatiently. Others (Lucky!) will climb your leg to get to their MEAT. So the instructions outline the proper method of positioning the seven bowls (You didn't think they would actually eat from the same container!), and correspondingly, positioning their little writhing bodies (Why try? That's my question. Trying to set a cat in a special position is like trying to organize popping popcorn) before the first spoonful of MEAT is dished out. The instructions also define carefully the order in which each cat is fed. Lucky and Wheezer go first and...on down the line.

It all sounds so reasonable. Me? I scooped out the first glop of MEAT, set it in front of Lucky, and as quickly as lightning there were six faces in the bowl (Phobie always keeps her distance. She says, "I'm not getting in the middle of that."). I grabbed a cat, tossed him toward what is designated as being his bowl (trying to follow my instructions like a good husband) only to find that same cat leap back in the middle of the swarming mass before I could turn around. Then I had a dilemma. Each cat is supposed to get an equal amount of MEAT in the morning. At this point, I couldn't see the bowl. I couldn't tell if the MEAT I tossed toward it ever even made it into the bowl. I certainly didn't know who ate it. All I knew was that I could hear this loud hummmmmm emanating from the heap. Somebody got it because the purr was unmistakeable. That's a good sign, I thought. At least one of her cats won't have starved to death before Paula returns (She tells me that they will truly starve if they have to survive on only six pounds of Kit and Kaboodle each day.). The one saving grace, I found, was that if you can get a small amount of MEAT in each stomach, this teeming gang of hell's spawn calms down enough to organize the group and to get each cat to work from their assigned station.

Then the real problem arose. My instructions called for me to dish out a half can of MEAT to seven cats. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. It was gone in less than a minute. But I still had the other half of the can (officially designated to go to the BARN CATS - another set of instructions) but Paula wasn't there and I was desperate. So I tossed the other half at the them, thinking - like a beanbrain - that this would placate them. It did - for just one more minute. Then their little bowls were empty. And they turned on me.

I have a dog. I could beat her with a stick and she would look at me and say, "Thank you, sir. May I have another?" Dogs can be trained. Dogs are civilized. Cats only allow you to coexist so that you are there to provide MEAT - and to clean up their frequent cat-urps.

So now I found myself out of MEAT and backed up against the microwave countertop. If I hadn't whistled for the dog, I can only imagine what would have happened next. Oh, dogs have one other attribute. They hate cats. Beezer - short for Beelzabub the Hound From Hell - came bounding into the kitchen in response. What those cats did to poor Beezer next was the kind of thing you see in your nightmares. But no matter. The distraction gave me the time to make my exit. Beezer was expendable. And if she took down a few cats with her, well, that would be okay too.

That was the one thing I was counting on as Paula's car pulled up outside. I figured if I couldn't keep track of the army of felines in my house, maybe she couldn't either.

Fat chance.

* Originally published on August 9, 2004

Slipping the Surly Bonds

While I'm on the subject of flying, I wanted to mention the experience I had at 35,000 feet above the earth last night. Our plane had taken off from Greensboro, headed toward Atlanta. The sun had set by the time we had reached altitude but the western horizon was still aglow. The skies were clear except for a slight haze barely detectable off in the distance. It was a wondrous sight. One you can only find when you're soaring high above the earth.

A poem came to mind that I had seen displayed many years ago at the Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio. It is entitled, "High Flight," and was made famous by President Reagan in a speech to a grieving nation after the Challenger disaster in 1986.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. 

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

The author, John Gillespie Magee, Jr., a pilot, was killed - at the age of 19 - during World War II.

* Originally published on September 1, 2004

Sorrow

I wrote a few weeks ago about the bond that exists between a man and his tractor. I likened the relationship to that which existed between a cowboy and his horse back in the days of the wild west. In my effort to wax poetic about my beloved farm machinery, I failed to mention another bond that exists - that between a man and his dog. In this case, my little sidekick, Beazer. She came to us via the local dog pound probably 14 years ago as best Paula and I can remember. And she has been at my side - in spirit if not in body - every day for those many years. Until today.

I buried Beazer this evening.

Beazer is short for Beelzabub, the hound from hell. She was built like a pit bull - only she was smaller - and had the look of a bird dog. She was mostly black with a few white splotches and a white tip on her tail. We called her pedigree "All American Shorthair," which means, translated, that she was a mix of about every breed imaginable. She got her name because of her attitude toward strangers, and her obstinacy. She had a particular hatred for the UPS man, and, in her younger years, I had to pull her away from him many times. Beazer didn't care for the vultures that soared past our windows here on the mountain either. Or the raccoons. Or possums. Or stray cats, chipmunks, squirrels...

Beazer and I had a special relationship. I can't explain why. I was always tougher on her than either my wife or my daughter ever were. And Paula often accused me of ignoring her when Beazer came looking for some attention. But Beazer always came. If a number of us entered the house together, after having been away for a period of time, here Beazer would come to greet us. She had this annoying, ear-splitting yelp, yelp, yelp when she came up to people she knew - well, perhaps not so annoying anymore. But she would always come looking for me. She would work her way through the crowd, even as others were calling out to her, to greet me first. Only then did she devote time to the others.

And there was another bond that Beazer and I had, although I'll not be able to explain it. She and I could go up the mountain together and, as dogs often do, she would disappear into the forest. I would lose track of her but keep on going. It was fascinating that, no matter in which direction I went, she would always find me. She was always there with me. When I sat here at my computer, she would come in and lay on the carpet next to me. If I moved into the living room, she would get up and move with me.

There came a point several months ago when Beazer was no longer able to make it up the mountain. She got too feeble. Truth be known, I quit going up the mountain too. As you could imagine, it was because I couldn't leave ol' Beaz behind, knowing how much she enjoyed the adventure and knowing that she knew where I would have been heading. She always knew. And I couldn't disappoint her. Her health began to fail recently, and we knew the end was coming.

I think this will be the last time I ever think of Beazer in her final years. From this point on, I'm going to remember her when she was young and in perfect health. When she could easily outrun me. When she ran in the yard in circles as I pretended to try to catch her. How she loved the attention. That, I guess, when you come down to it, is what cements the bond between a man and his dog. I appreciated her companionship; she craved my attention. I am struggling with that thought as I write this.

It's easy at this point to say something like, "Well, life goes on." But that doesn't quite work for me tonight. A part of my life is - forever - buried on Big Walker Mountain.

* Originally published on July 18, 2004

Twistin' To Toby's Toe-Tappin' Tunes

Paula and I were doing a little Texas Two-Step the other day with our twin two-year-old grandchildren, Jayla and Kaid. They were having a blast swayin' to the poundin' sound of Toby Keith and his Easy Money Band playing "I Love This Bar." I'd like to think they were laughing hysterically out of sheer delight but it may have had more to do with seeing their "Jeramps" (that would be me) mixing a few country moves with some disco that John Travolta and I perfected a number of years ago. But they did have great fun. To the point where they wouldn't let me quit. So we danced until I was finally completely out of breath.

I had thought for a moment that we should have gotten out the video camera and recorded the moment. But then that age-old adage came back to me and I decided that maybe it was best if we didn't. "White boys can't dance."

"We got winners, we got losers/chain smokers and boozers/And we got yuppies, we got bikers/We got thirsty hitchhikers/And the girls next door dress up like movie stars/Hmm, hmm, hmm, I love this bar."

* Originally published on September 13, 2004