the courthouse in New Castle, KY
The best journey always begins with, “I got off the interstate on a two-lane road….” On that road there is not a gas station or convenience store or Arby’s to clutter the view. Instead, the road is among the more hopeful of exits from our sameness. It takes us away from our desire to cut through and over, from our need to engineer our way from point A to point B with the greatest of efficiencies.
That there was nothing at this particular exit was something, an overlooked something. A lane that weaves among old trees, old homes, small towns, small and large farms, herds of cattle, and the ghosts of tobacco fields. A road that leads eventually to New Castle, county seat of Henry County, Kentucky.
Its rural roots still in evidence with its barns and tidy farmhouses, Henry County is threatened on the west by a consuming yellow growth on the map. The name doesn’t matter, but for our purposes we will call it the “true nothing.” There, a horde of our species exists, locust-like, devouring the land and its resources, imagining itself, as it navigates between Costco and Starbucks, to be the center of the universe.
That we have reconfigured the particles present at the creation into a geegaw landscape is our true sacrilege. Offered up now is an asylum for those fearful of the dirt. It’s a place where the inmates, swaddled and cocooned safely away from the open windows, are allowed to conceive that they were not fashioned from that very same soil that lies, bricked and paved over, under their feet. Where, in their cells at night, they conjure that their atomized consumer ways are the definition of culture and community. Where not knowing is confused with knowing. Where “nothing” is mislabeled as “something.”
In New Castle, I stopped at the diner around the corner from the courthouse. Over a plate of turnip greens, beans, country-fried steak, and cornbread, I felt that I was somewhere knowable. Somewhere small enough that you not only knew your neighbors, but that there was a good chance you’d gone to school with them years before and that you would attend their funeral years in the future. To me, that’s a hopeful way to live.
My turnip greens now polished off with the last crumbs of cornbread, I stepped outside. A group of farmers had set up produce tables on the courthouse lawn, in the shade of a colony of massive white oaks. A Walmart tractor-trailer nudged up to the intersection. From its open windows blared rap music, the sound of nothing in a vehicle containing nothing. The perfect summation for what we lose when we surrender our something, forget that we came from dirt and are dirt in the making.
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Reading this weekend: Tobacco Harvest: an elegy, by Wendell Berry
Another very deeply thought expression, Cousin!… it reminds me of a little saying that hung in several prominent locations of the halls of my high school:
“Freshmen know not and know not that they know not; Sophomores know not and know that they know not;
Juniors know and know not that they know;
Seniors know and know that they know.”
Seems to me like we are not producing too many seniors when it comes to understanding our proper place in this world.
‘
Thanks, Rusty. Great recall on the old high school quote. I might quibble and say we need more who accept they know not. But, clearly knowing that your place in the world is not the center, that you are part of a larger tapestry…eh, forget it. That would me our species would have to embrace humility. Ain’t going to happen.
The weeds in my garden are busy turning nothing into something, especially as O. landlordii meant that I gave them a month’s headstart.
The monstrosity that is this year’s weather has my experimental chickpea beds jump with excitement about all the mediterranean heat and drought they’re getting to grow in.
Hogweed and burdock are this season’s most enthusiastic weeds, and the first figs and quinces are well on their way.
Thank goodness I am not alone! Cold spring, hot summer, dry when it should be wet. Wet when it should be dry. And, when it does rain…all at once.
You aren’t alone for sure – 29°C in northern Norway at the moment…
Our spring on the other hand, unlike last year’s which didn’t want to ever end, was nonexistent. I could have sown cucumbers outside in March.
Right now even a thunderstorm would be welcome but they’re all disintegrating before reaching us.
My unmowed meadow is full of dock taller than me; I think the grasshoppers have developed faith in me not mowing their little tails off by now.
Tony Hillerman novel-weather.
Nice – but where’s the part about the log cabin??
And why do chickpea pods look like soy pods, yet their foliage like a vetch’s?
Because nature.
Vetch pods look like soy pods in their own way. There are soy lines that have foliage one could imagine being somewhat vetch-like. Honey locusts, Gleditsia triacanthos have pods as well – though much larger than soy – still serving the same purpose… yet borne on a deciduous tree. Nature is a marvelous beast.
Are you growing chickpeas?
Thank you; chickpea seed is available in yellow and brown colour here, and I’m trialling both. I’m sure the Italian vendors have a bit more variety of varieties, but it is not really a traditional crop here.
The brown one is a lot more voluminous and has a wonderfully uniform stand, and with us going into our fifth week of drought and high heat, I might just get enough of them to actually have a few meals off of less than a hundred seeds (yes, that’s the package size for two varieties).
Well, this was clearly a piece about visiting the Berry Center. But strangely enough, I didn’t feel the center or the building fit with the pacing. These posts tend to not run longer than a page. So…
BTW I was disappointed that they didn’t do a better job of explaining the center when visiting the bookstore.
On Center explanation at the bookstore –
On recent outing to see kin in Owensboro KY we passed close enough to New Castle to warrant a side trip. With smart phone ever at arm’s reach I had a peek to get the exact address and noticed their hours. We didn’t expect to make it before their close, but thought a change of roadway scenery might still be pleasant enough. And from doing so I can attest to the accuracy of your first three paragraphs above.
Even though the posted hours suggested they’d been closed for half an hour when we pulled up there were still two employees there visiting at the front door of the Center as they pulled out the keys to lock up. We said hello and asked about the Center and the bookstore. They were both kind enough to reopen the Center and give us a personal tour. My knowing that Wendell’s father was a lawyer and his Grandfather a tobacco farmer got things off to a fine start and we were warmly treated for the next 45 minutes or more.
We were invited over to the bookstore, made a few purchases, and learned about the annual get together where Wendell will attend and sign books. Heard about a guy from north central Indiana who is a big fan and the first year they held the get together he drove down with his whole W Berry collection. Apparently this guy makes it an annual pilgrimage.
Because we were so warmly treated given the fact we shouldn’t have even been able to get in in the first place made this special – and perhaps the only thing better might have been for Wendell himself to have stopped by.
The beef branding business that I heard about during the Center tour got my attention. I didn’t bother our guide for too many details (for time consideration, and a hint that asking too much might get beyond her familiarity). I did gather that the beef sold is essentially a veal of grass fed 600 pound critters.
We managed to miss the WalMart tractor trailer blaring rap music part of the New Castle experience. Maybe next time.
Well, you got more out of the experience than me. I couldn’t get two words out of the woman running the bookstore. she seemed genuinely afraid of conversation. I really wanted to learn more about the Berry Center.
You know of course that you can get more than 2 words out of me… what would you like to know?? 🙂
After you enter the front door turn to your right and on the wall near a front window is a painted portrait of Wendell’s father. Offer that you know he was a lawyer and you should get a gentle smile. Straight ahead of you is a finely appointed room which I only cursorily observed – feeling an imposition for having the guide stay well beyond her normal hours (and it being a Friday afternoon as well – so we are cutting into her weekend).
Behind you across the entryway is a library like room – perhaps the living room in the original situation. Waist high shelving filled with agrarian works – many of which I’ll suppose rest on the shelves of a certain Roane County TN farm we know of – work their way around the room. I could have spent a couple hours in there without the slightest difficulty.
There is a stairway to a lower level at the rear of the entry foyer. Along the walls on the main level and continuing down into the lower level are illustrations of a hog roast at various stages. Catching the guest of honor, killing, butchering, preparing, and so forth. I’m guessing there are at least 20 of these and with the text at each, one could spend at least a half hour soaking up the whole of that story. Country conviviality at its finest. With your own years of experience you might well judge whether they had done it justice. [ed. note; if they’d have a bluegrass banjo tune playing softly in the background the effect would swell].
There is more there, we didn’t want to keep the guide too long. My sense is we didn’t miss an awful lot however. I had a certain expectation that there would be more about Wendell himself – perhaps a biographical display, perhaps a timeline illustrating when some of his major writings came out. A table top display centering on The Unsettling of America would have been a nice touch in my opinion. Maybe someday.
I recall seeing a series of three or four texts on display… one by Gene Logsdon, another by Wes Jackson, and another a compilation with essays by Wendell and his buddies I believe. These may have been in the book store, or they may have been in the room of the Center described above.
The Center publishes a newsletter (quarterly?? I’ll check… and if you are interested I have a form you can send in to get on their mailing list).
Ah, Clem held to two words? Never! That would be like asking C.S. to post a blog under six pages. Actually, I did pop over to the the center to use the head. But, as I was not asked any questions or invited to do other than the necessary, I left. I did however hear a distinctive rumble of a voice from the conference room. So, WB was in residence. Wish I had seen the hog pictures, though. Or, browsed the library. Perhaps I’ll save that latter experience for winter, when I can wear a voluminous coat (named for it’s ability to hold volumes).
Kidding, he is kidding.
I hadnt thought of this before – but Chris and I both have written a Dissertation which we had to defend before a jury of other PhDs. Perhaps that is why our casual writing is so voluminous. ☹️
That explains volumes.