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View From The Porch » In what has rapidly become a weekend tradition...
Posted 10 minutes ago
...I'm sporting a blister on my trigger finger from several hundred rounds of double-action revolver work. Soon the callous there will return.I shot a little over 100 rounds of .22LR through my Model 34, and put probably 200 rounds or more of .38 Spl downrange. Some of it was shot through my Model 64 snubbie, but the vast majority was ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Images from Middle Tennessee
Posted 29 minutes ago
So the western part of middle Tennessee would be considered only barely on the fringes of Appalachia by any definition, however I thought I'd share these photos of home that I took last time I made it down. Anyway, isn't Appalachia more a state of mind than an actual geographic boundary? Okay, maybe it is an actual geographic boundary, but ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Pucker up, it's persimmon time in Tennessee!
Posted 29 minutes ago
While driving to church yesterday morning, I spotted my first sign that fall was here. Lying in the middle of the road was an old familiar sight. Dozens of little orange berries, some smashed, some round and waiting to be run over. When I was a kid growing up here in East, TN, persimmons brought both pleasure and aggravation to ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Religious signs in West Virginia
Posted 29 minutes ago
Some religious signs from a recent highly bumpercropulous swing through southeastern West Virginia.There was a great, raucous Holiness service going on in this church, and the doors were open, so I parked and listened. Some folks came out of the church and invited in. I wish I could have joined them, but I had a dog in the car with ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Review: CMT's Outsiders Inn
Posted 29 minutes ago
Exactly what part of "Country Music Television" did you not understand?Everyone here in Cocke County, TN has their knickers in a twist about Outsiders Inn, CMT's new reality(which they define loosely as staged and scripted scenes with ad libs and non-actors) spin-off of Gone Country. There has been outrage over how the series portrayed our local people, or rather how ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Summertime Reward
Posted 29 minutes ago
Swimming under the Cascades of Giles County, Virginia provides instant relief from the two mile hike in the summer heat. Save This Page [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Blue Ridge Outdoors
Posted 29 minutes ago
Photo by Hazel Crabtree, Saltville, VA 1928It was astonishing and exciting to hear about the new publication from Blue Ridge Outdoors about some deep issues in our present Appalachian backyards. The two main articles this month brings about more awareness to the environmental and social strains applied to the mountains of West Virginia and Virginia. Thank you so much Blue ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » The June beetle - capturing a living music box
Posted 29 minutes ago
"From some long-forgotten source, I heard that June beetles made a sweet sound while flying around. I loved music, and the method to acquire this living music box was to fasten a long thread to one of the bug's hind legs."Now, June beetles are about half an inch across and three quarters of an inch long. The ones in the ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Review: Railroad Earth's "Amen Corner"
Posted 29 minutes ago
Railroad EarthAmen Corner I first heard Railroad Earth a few years back, soon after the release of the band’s quasi-demo, The Black Bear Sessions. Having no clue what to expect, I popped the disc in my car’s CD player. It scarcely left that spot for an entire summer. Subsequent releases and relentless touring since then has earned Railroad Earth critical ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » The Earl Brothers Impress Again
Posted 29 minutes ago
The Earl BrothersMoonshineWhen the Earl Brothers released their first album in 2004, the superbly-titled Whiskey, Women and Death, it was a shot of antique-sounding bluegrass in decidedly dark tones, as the recording’s name might suggest. Included on that debut disc were perhaps two of the finest original drinking songs ever recorded in the genre (“Been Sittin’ Here Drinkin” and “Bender”), ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Podcast Appalachia: "Appalachian Abolitionism"
Posted 29 minutes ago
The latest episode of Podcast Appalachia is now available! It's a little known fact that Appalachians, both in the North and the South, played a major role in the early movement to abolish slavery. In this episode I look at this history and examine the role Appalachians played in expanding human liberty. You can listen here or view a transcript ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » God shines on Appalachia
Posted 29 minutes ago
A few pictures from a Memorial Day trek into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.The rest of the set will be up at the Our Appalachia photo group at Flickr. Save This Page [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » University of Appalachia School of Pharmacy Awards Degrees
Posted 29 minutes ago
Robin M. Absher, Raven Virginiabecomes the first graduate fromthe Unversity of AppalachiaCollege of PharmacyOn May 18, 2008 the University of Appalachia College of Pharmacy awarded its first degree to Robin M. Absher of Raven, Virginia. Ms. Absher received her doctorate of pharmacy degree from Frank M. Kilgore, Chairman of the University's Board of Trustees, and Dr. Eleanor Sue Cantrell, President ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Busted not for selling babies, but for the abortion clinic
Posted 29 minutes ago
From 1951 to 1965 Dr. Thomas Jugarthy Hicks began to quietly offer babies for adoption from his Hicks Community Clinic in McCaysville, GA. Quietly, because the clinic he’d been running since the mid-1940s was not a licensed adoption agency. Hicks cared for the mundane health issues of local farmers and townspeople in the front of the clinic, while performing abortions, ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Redistilled
Posted 29 minutes ago
In the current edition of Knoxville Voice, Lisa Slade takes a look at the current state of moonshine in Appalachia. There's a lot of pretty well-known history, especially for those familiar with the region, but the assessments of moonshine's current cultural role is worth a quick read.Meanwhile, I want to bring your attention to a home brew of a different ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Cherokee, NC
Posted 29 minutes ago
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Hillbilly Savants » Shooting on the Appalachian Trail
Posted 29 minutes ago
Wapiti Shelter, Giles County, VirginiaLuckily for two men in Southwestern Virginia, history did not repeat itself.The Giles County Sheriff's Office conducted an investigation today into a double shooting that occurred Tuesday night. Both men survived the shooting despite wounds to the face and chest of one, and the back and neck of the second. The shooting occurred along the Appalachian ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Podcast Appalachia: "King Coal"
Posted 29 minutes ago
The latest episode of Podcast Appalachia is now available! In this episode I look at coal. No rock has been more influential or more controversial in Appalachian society than coal; while helping fuel unprecedented economic growth in America and employment for generations of mountain people, it is also very dangerous to mine and has done much damage to the environment. ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Mountaintop Removal Bill Dies
Posted 29 minutes ago
This is a real shame. Jeff Woods puts it in perspective:With a coal company essentially promising to mine by blowing off the tops of Tennessee mountains, lawmakers inexplicably refused to act and all but guaranteed great swaths of ecologically important woodlands will be laid to waste.The National Coal Corp. threatened to shut down in Tennessee if mountaintop mining were banned. ... [Link]

Hillbilly Savants » Coming Back Home
Posted 29 minutes ago
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