September 28, 2012

• Pinkhoneysuckle In Santa Rosa

  Hello everyone from Xangans near and Xangans far: From South America to Asia, From England, Spain, and to France — With a great leap to Asian brothers and sisters near and to far.  If I had to tell you about the America from which I came, I am certain there would be similarities to the third world farmers who inhabit the great lands of Asia, especially as in China and India as they begin to come in to a somewhat more open world where their grains and foods, their animals and modest hovels as they enter the third millenium are beginning to understand that subsistence farming — with some planning, can feed a family, and if brought together– then perhaps a village.

  In my age of growing up; No, we did not have oxen — Daddy had mules when I was a little girl.  We did not go to the river or dirty streams to drink our water, to wash our bodies and our clothes,  we either had some water from a dirty cistern which might be useful for clothes washing and washing our bodies in a tin tub, but for drinking water which was pure and clean, we had to carry it from one of two springs, even as little children in buckets up high hills, so crisp and clean water was never taken for granted, and our primary source of protein were dried beans and bread baked from corn meal and flour — and I know what clothing we had was given to us, though, for a while, my sisters learned to sew earlier than I, for Mama could sometimes have enough milk and egg money to buy fabric from a general store. And my sisters could sew beautifully for young girls, and not one piece of fabric or clothing bought or given to us was ever thrown away, for that would go in to making quilt pieces.

  It may sound as if I am telling you the stories from the late 1800s, but this was the lot of many families of the southern most tip of The Appalachian mountains of The United States of America, and I think of three major things which made life different from peasant farmers of our poorest countries of this age where we have moved along since the 1800s, and these are the ideals which saved us from total isolation.  Public health had taken giant leaps due to the Polio epidemics which had spread over the nation and the world, and America had already learned to vaccinate it’s people from the many diseases such as diptheria and typhoid, smallpox, then very soon the Salk vaccine would bring a close to the epidemic of polio where lives were saved with hospitals having wards of iron lungs, so in America;  Polio killed, but more lives were spared because of what was known as, The Iron Lung, which helped the lungs to expand and deflate with the understanding of breathing controlled by the positve and negative pressures needed for the exchange of oxygen and the breathing out of carbon dioxide –thus modern medicine brought vaccines even to the mountains and valleys, to the farthest villages and towns to eliminate much which had killed children by age two, or that crippled them later on. 

  Treatment for tuberculosis kept increasing to the point that we would see an end  to the age old killer which was probably best known in colonial times as consumption, though the lungs would be in for a new assault from the cigarette industry, for even women began to smoke thinking it was a glamorous thing to do and good for the digestive, and the deaths from cigarettes across the world was definitely something the Colonials learned from The American Indians and the number of deaths related from cigarette smoking in all ages would probably exceed that of any wars man to man — woman to woman on our planet.  I will make a side note here to say that now we have managed to get third worlds so hooked on cigarettes that the sale of tobacco goes on killing new populations, for citizens of even modern countries have not net counted the deaths which lie before them, or people just do not care.  In areas where pollution is so great that lungs are so damaged from environmental issues are not addressed — Then tobacco is placed on a level of lesser concern.  I cannot say enough about how the advancement of public health moved America ahead in decreasing premature death and damage from disease.  Once no one was ahead of America in these fields.

  Public education opened eyes to the possibility of how people could live, not how they lived from day to day in their home lives of farm labor, and the industrialization of America which began in the 1800s would change the world as the almighty cars and trucks, and modern farm machinery changed everything about how much line could be utilized and how those who did not want to work the land saw the factories of the north as the saving grace from the family farm. 

  In no manner could we discount what happened as rados, telephones, and televisions gave all people the power to be informed,  so people learned what could be bought, and sold, what houses could be built, and how quickly the idealic mother and father family homes were all supposedly governed by rules of etiquette, and religion which the founding fathers brought to the country just kept building rules and more rules for, “The American Way Of Life,” but that is where we run in to problems — That it was presumed that we were all living and learning in the same way, but so many of us were left behind, for without a class of people without; then who was going to be the dirt farmers, house keepers, cotton pickers, and the tobacco workers.  Big dairy and egg farms were run by individuals and not by companies, so farm workers often worked on these greater agrarian systems just so they could feed a family to feed a dream that one day, they too, could be great land owners, or at the most self sufficient.

  Among the longest trails of the poor were along the Appalachian Mountains, the valleys and trails, and what would be called America’s greatest walking trail by John Muir, for these mountains began as far south as The Cumberlands, but even further south into Alabama’s Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountains, and mountains which were more like foothills from Sewanee in Tennessee and the great valleys of Tennessee and Alabama, North Georgia, and all the way to the state of Maine.  Walking it for pleasure was one thing which would come after it became a national park, but  thousands — More like millions of us were just citizens no one saw or cared much about.  We were the poor kids in school, the cotton pickers in the fall, and the tobacco strippers as autumn moved on, and it may come as a surpise to some that until I was in about the fifth grade, I more or less thought Thanksgiving was just in a story book.  For those of us with Christian backgrounds, we knew some people had Christmas tress and presents in mid-century, but just not us, and I was always told about Santa Claus, as were my brothers and sisters, and so until we finally got the picture of St Nick, we just thought we were not good enough, had not loved God enough, and had not worked enough for anything.  We lived, we worked, and we existed in a world where children were born for that one purpose.

  Thus, when I hear about the little starving children in other countries;  I wonder if they ever are taught that from The Appalachian Mountains and valleys until this very day, there are some people about as poor as they are.  Our churches had no baskets for the poor, and we would have been ashamed to take them, even if they did, for we were always taught that we were greedy, and our poverty was our fate, because we had not been good enough servants in our homes and churches.  Your heart would break to see all the little towns which simply died out as the farmers went elsewhere, and one big chain store could knock out an entire town’s industry.  All of America is not clean and beautiful, for it would take the Army to go along the back roads once a year to pick up trash, for many people would not use a trash bin if the counties left one there.  Something has been taken, so broken, so disturbing, and it is that people have lost the ability to be community, and the old rules of faith of, “Love your neighbor as you would yourn self,” meaning;  See to others needs has disappeared to words like, “You all better get a double bolt lock on here,” for drugs have so over taken America, and I mean illegal drugs.  Instead of legalizing and making them worth nothing, we keep building prisons and spending federal dollars on s earching out drug cartels.  We are not safe in America, for no one holds parents responsible for teaching their children rules of life, so if you feel like third world any where else, then know that our wealthy nation has built larger and larger prisons to incarcerate the younger and poorer of society instead of taking those dollars  theand seeing that parents are caring for their children instead of taking the last food dime to get one more chemical in their bodies, for they are just living as they were taught.

  Now and then I write about my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” on Amazon and Kindle by Barbara Everett Heintz, so this is the evening I have chosen to write about it now.  Pinkhoneysuckle is more than the name of a book; It is the story of a people, born in the Appalachians and raised in the valley below.  I am one of them, and no one cared to write about us or to know that we existed, so I tell you the whole story through my eyes, and I will tell it to the world now, for people need to know that most countries still have a ruling class — The rich and the poor, and there is no shame in poverty;  The shame is what you are endeavoring to do to help all citizens have what all human beings need.  “Pinkhoneysuckle,” tells you about the life of one woman who is just many women through my own eyes, what I have lived, who I have met, and the women gone before me along The Appalachian Trail. When I write about the book, I learn even more, and I am learning as many Americans that we need to go back to public health and not jails to treat the drug addicted.

  Legalizing drugs such as marijana would be a step in the right  direction, and just knowing that all citizens know that meth amphetamines, crack cocaine, gasoline, and whatever God forsaken substances kids are taking in now to be super bad adds up to super sadness and death.  For those who trade and deal in such material to make money, for you want the glitter for some moment in time, then ask yourselves; “Is it worth the fear of losing your own life, your brothers’, the little babies you have produced, and have you ever dreamt of being a hero instead?  The profit motive is going to go away, and when it does then do you understand that what makes you a valuable human being is the gift of your own labor.  We our out here praying for the perpetrators, for you were once an innocent child as well.

  “Pinkhoneysuckle,” has won awards in San Francisco and in Hollywood, for I finally had to write what has gone on in our country, for through us; You may know that we are citizens of a world, and I feel so proud to say that I won a first place in Hollywood for a good book in a category all of its own.  The book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” calls to America to atone for its own sins.  I have not heard one child yet say they want to grow up to be a murderer, a thief, to destroy the planet with chemicals, and to steal when you do not even need.  Something happened to you, to us, and to a universe where we have lost our way.  Please consider reading, “Pinkhoneysuckle,”  for we were all innocent together, and some were so broken they could not find a way home.  Barbara Everett Heintz – Author, “Pinkhoneysuckle”

   

   

   

   

   

  • 5:26 am
  • 1 Comment