GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

Wade Peebles
Nov 13
3 min read

Welcome once more to a Friday in America! Some sad folks might not see that America can be a wonderful place to have been planted, but we know that the Lord made us Americans and loved us enough to plant us in the soil of the deep south. And I am busy pouring on the fertilizer! Now, follow the directions and just add water! Our climate is changing certainly, it has for all of history, man is not driving climate change, nature is.

Nature is what we call the system God set into motion to make the world operate. These changes are why animals have migrated into our region that were not here in the past. The same goes not just for the fauna, but the flora as well. We have citrus growers in Georgia, and commercial olive growers, never before would our climate have accommodated them.

Speaking of olive production, I really like olives, green ones, black ones, big ones, small ones, stuffed with pimentos, garlic, or bleu cheese, etc., etc., etcetera. Now, to show you that I do not know everything, I was wondering what fresh olives tasted like, since all I have ever seen were pickled in brine. I researched it. I learned that olives are not eaten fresh, ripe from the trees.

They contain a bitter compound called oleuropein, that has to be ameliorated before they are edible, to remove its bitterness. This is done by soaking in brine, water with lye, or plain water for an extended period, with several changes of water. It is one of those things that make me wonder how mankind learned some things were edible but only after processing them in some way, and this was done in ancient times.

I saw a reference recently to fallout shelters, and how they are a thing of the past. In our youth, it was seen as very important to have fallout shelters and other ways to cope with a nuclear attack. Note that I did not say, survive a nuclear attack, nope just coping with it. Of course I told y'all recently about mama and daddy leaving me, just a toddler, alone in a house while they went down and made love...if you can call it that...in the bomb shelter.

But, there were serious efforts to prepare folks to not die alone in a nuclear blast. That was the purpose of fallout shelters. It was so millions did not have to die in agony by themselves, they could share the experience with others. In Swainsboro, the courthouse basement was our official fallout shelter. It could hold a great many dead bodies, especially if those near the doorway were vaporized and made room for the others pounding on the door to be let in.

As school kids, we were shown films of how to deal with nuclear devastation by hiding under our desks, with our heads between our knees so we could kiss our butts goodbye. I was speaking with a friend about how country music had gone to the dogs, and how it had been in flux since its inception. Country western music developed in the years just before WWII, became a distinct genre in the 1950s, and matured in the 1960s to its adult, "trashy" stage.

Loretta and Kitty, Patsy and Skeeter, and friends, sang songs about low-rent white folks' doin's. The men were not to be outdone so they recorded some truly tearjerking ones like, "Ruby." Others on the list, "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," "She's Got You," "Still," "Hello Walls," "What Made Milwaukee Famous," "Mama Tried," "Don't Come Home A Drinking," and of course the biggest hit trashy white folk doings song of all time, "Harper Valley PTA!"

There were many others, songs we loved that made us drink and squall now and again. Okay, we covered a heap of rocky ground this time, and I appreciate you coming to see us here.

..... NUMBERS 6: 24-26, KJV

..... we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me