Ozarkian Rearview

You can’t stop progress: Ozarkian Rearview

By K. H. Ackroyd

Lake of the Ozarks in Midwest Missouri is changed. One way roads of Highways 54 East and 54 West dizzies me. Backtracks and left turns brakes the 65 mph speed limit. Exits and merge redefine the trek with names of;

“Passover,” “Parkway” and “New.”

The old stillrunner’s directions preambles and prompts some not so distant Ozarkian memories.

“Just go down the road a piece, past the widder’s (widow’s) place and hang a right at the “T.” The big ol’ elm will point the way.”

Directed down meandering gravel roads, no map nor GPS, the destination; a given.

Now, the “big ol’ elm” has fallen. The “widder’s place,” a paint-peeling, tin-roofed, wood-slat home, has in its stead, a modular prefab of cookie cutter ilk. Lost is the craftsmanship enabled by pride in gentle non clear-cutting harvest. Select wood, once home and shelter to generations of an Ozarkian family, becomes crumbled kindle.

The blackberry patch, with supportive weathered, lean-to fencing;  dual sacrifices to a perfectly manicured, invisible fenced lawn. Small saplings punctuate a groomed landscape. Evidence magnificent is this homage to a commercialized channel of  Gardening Nouveau.

The Barn Owl calls tree his new home; he is a reluctant hunter. No field, hence, no field mice. And the rat eating black snake is banished and garners no eco-understanding.

The bend of tree still points to water. Her purpose expires. She sloughs her bark in obsolescent surrender.

Honeysuckle, fresh mown hay and rain before the rumble, blows trace faint. Wafting Whisper newly names usurped abundance. Fading is the odoriferous reminder.

Faster now. Highway 54 tracks faster. All is small in rear viewed Ozarkian memory.


Image Credits:

Lake of the Ozarks - Missouri's Premier Lake Destination
Flickr Creative Commons - Jo Naylor
Flickr Creative Commons - derekGavey

Baptized on Merovingian Ground

My Oma, were she alive today, would be 93. She was born nine months and some odd days after Armistice Day or what we know as Veterans Day. When Mom told me that she had been Baptized in the historical Frankfurt Cathedral; I just had to know more.

Helen Mayenfels (1919-1999)

Oakland Tribune, September 7, 1919, Page 1

NewspaperARCHIVE

Frankfurt Dom Abend

"Treaty To Be Ratified By Wilson" shouted the Oakland Tribune headline on September 7, 1919. Approximately six weeks after her birth, Oma did some shouting of her own.

Oma was Baptized in the Frankfurter Dom. The official name is Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäus; Emperor Cathedral of Saint Bartholomew.  "St. Bartholomew's is the main church of Frankfurt and was constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries on the foundation of an earlier church from the Merovingian time."

Much ado is recently made by conspiracy theorists about Satanic and political bloodlines and popular focus is also garnered by Dan Brown's books.

The Main Divisions of the Frankish Kingdoms under the Merovingian Kings.
But "Merovingian society...was clearly a Christian society..., and one cannot ignore the vital and central part that was played by Christianity in its cultural life (Hen). Dark Age Christianity echoes still barbaric bloodshed in stories of quests for World Domination.

Frankfurt Dom Querschiff

Oma, as Family Lore goes, "...hat die ganzen Kirche ausgebrult." In English, and not a literal translation, screamed her head off [at her Baptism.] Did Oma, as a new Soul, know what type of ground she was being Baptized upon? Or was it more the 'in the air buzz' of  The Red Scare and Hitler's eminent rise to power?

The Germany my Family was raised in, is one I can scarcely imagine. Harder still is extracting bits and pieces of Oral Family History. Scars of suppression, depression, bombings and annihilation show not only in the German landscape. These scars, they show in my Family's soul.


Sources

The Merovingians by Professor Robert Sewell

Culture & Tradition in Merovingian Gaul AD 481-751 by Yitzhak Hen

Modern History Germany Timeline 1918-1945

Frankfurt Cathedral and Photos Wikipedia and Wikimedia

Historical Frankfurt

 Would you like to know more about your Family History? 
Contact Bob Nix on Facebook and be sure to visit his shop   House of Names

Implosion: An Ode to Gilman's Wallpaper

by K. H. Ackroyd

Peeling, peeling ever peeling, your tattered sickness has me reeling
Look quick, Did you see?
I think that woman is looking at me
Can't you see her, she's just right there, why I see my face reflected in her hair
There



Hush now, do you hear?
Oh have no fear.
It's only the Dr. clomp, clomp, clomping up the steps with my cure
and I'm sure
or am I?
My nails they scratch me, no not me, I meant, the nails, they hold the bed down for me
or is it against?
Last night I laid on the FOR/AGAINST bed
and what was dancing to the right of my head?
or in it?



It moved I tell you! I touched it - it's true!
My, but this room has a lovely view
A baby is crying - I guess I should feed it  (look at watch) is it time?
or is there?
But work, work, work, work, work. I must write, as I hide, as I write
Rest, oh I should rest. But doing nothing is harder than doing something.
But I must rest
He said so
He



What is that smell? It smells like piss! It smells like stain. It smells yellow
fellow
Look!
I have the key! I won't be interrupted, I won't be interrupted
Hahahhahahhahhahhaha
Did you see? The Key! I threw it out the window!
Now, it's just me and this rope, and that woman
Did you see her?
she's just right there, why I hear my voice reflected in her hair

Somebody's knocking at the door, somebody's ringin' the bell, somebody's knockin' at the door, somebody's ringin' the bell, Do me a favor, open the door, let em in   Just ignore it 

That's only him, the Dr., John
That's  only
An axe? An AXE? A Shining Axe?
hahahhahhahahha

This room looks different
It's bare

Oh, I remember, it was that woman and me,

Did you see her?

we peeled, and peeled and peeled
Yes, we did, just her and I
Did I tell you? She broke the pattern?

She did!

Sources and References

The Morgan Library and Museum
One Hundred Years of American Women Writing, 1848-1948 An Annotated Bio-Bibliography by Jane Missner Barstow
The Charlotte Perkins Gillman Society
Women's Intellectual Contribution to the Study of Mind and Society
Norton Anthologies
Gilman's Authority with Subversive Commentary in "The Yellow Wall Paper" by K.H. Ackroyd 


IMPLOSION: An Ode to Gilman's Wallpaper by K.H. Ackroyd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at KHAckroydPermissions@gmail.com.