this summer I shut the tv and computer off because the buzz was interfering with clear thinking as concerns real/unreal perception.
read some Allan Eckert books on the Indian/White transition of SW Pa and have been visiting the watersheds that determined location before roads and towns became the reference points.
Pittsburgh gets a lot of the attention, but it was never more than a meeting place/baggage depot pre-steel. The real story was Wheeling with it's Fort Henry (named after "give me liberty or give me death")...and the real stand out guy was Lewis Wetzel...a young impressionable lad who grew up under Indian attacks and became THE mercenary/Indian commando...the Indians called him "Death Wind" ...which I translate as "Tornado Insane Motherfucker"
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/spring97/wetzel.html
now here's a guy you can sink your teeth into...tho more popular during the era than in our PC version of history.
I run down these factory waste site stream courses and see juat what the white folk pigs have done in 200 years of conquest and have to side with the Indians whilst I shed a tear for the pristine of what once was.
one of the day trips I did was to Wheeling to see the cliff Sam McCullough rode off to save his ass...and yes, he was a geniune maniac...his horse hated him...the spot is the last hill a spit before the original Rt 40 crests and drops into Wheeling...and the cliff was a "I'd rather die now than be captured by Indians" sort of thing...when he was spotted riding off up the creek at the bottom, the Indians just cheered the sheer balls from the top of the hill...I had to applaud it myself...all in all, an impressive display of insanity...tho a few years later they caught him and ate his heart...hoping some of it would rub off.
http://www.wvculture.org/hiStory/journa ... vh1-2.html
on the bad side...the word leaked out I can fix and biker folks with no hands have been hanging around with pouty faces and poor running bikes wishing I would save them and make them look good.
on the good side, after 6 years of a hatchet in my back and dead legs, my wife fixed that in a surprise miracle...so life is good.
it's nice to dress like a bad biker type...or a Power Ranger if that's your gig...but them guys who preceded us were the unvarnished real "Bad to the Bone" deal.
I don't know beyond written history what happened on the east side of the mountains (Bennington, Green Mountain Boys, polite European style war) circa 1776-ish, but I'm pretty sure the lunitics over here (Ohio Valley) were not dabbling in polite society and getting press...tho there were reputations being made that you wouldn't want to get on the bad side of...even if you fancied yourself grande macho by common standards.
...so this summer, I've been immersing myself in education and letting the art flow over me...I hope everyone else has been similarly productively employed.
I think every now and then you have to shut off the hype and do a little soul searching for good mental health and perspective...the gem is always inside...not external.
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:54 pm
