Christmas in Moccasin Gap

It was Christmas Eve 1962 when Mom’s family had their Christmas party at our house. The reason was because mom had a broken ankle from an automobile wreck and was in a wheel chair. Before that we always had it at Aunt Odell’s house. I don’t know why, she didn’t live in the biggest house; she just had the most children. Aunt Odell had ten children and, also baby sat about half of Moccasin Gap. Uncle Clyde loved Aunt Odell and apparently he stayed out of work a lot.
The Christmas at our house was the best ever. Everyone was there except Uncle Nelson. We didn’t know where he was. Nobody knew. We figured he was on one of his drinking binges and out partying with his friends.
Grandma Carver was there too. She was old, like ninety seven, and very religious. She once claimed she saw the face of Christ in a Domino’s Pizza. She had it hanging on her living room wall and it was really strange. I was noticing one day that no matter where you stand in that room those two pepperonis were staring right at you. It will freak you out.
Uncle Mike always played Santa Clause because he had the biggest belly. It came from drinking all that beer. There’s nothing better than a Santa Claus with alcohol on his breath. And instead of “ho, ho, ho” he always went “he, he, he.” I don’t know to this day why he did that.
It was Christmas at our house that Uncle Gerald showed up with fireworks. Believe me, there is nothing more fun than a redneck with fireworks at Christmas time. Of course, Uncle Gerald used to drink like a fish too, he drinked moonshine. In fact, he got so drunk at our house that Christmas Eve he accidentally ate a whole box of Roman Candles. Then he lit a cigarette and shot off for about two hours. Parts of him went all over the back yard - a finger here, a toe there, we still haven’t found his nose. We think it flew into the dog house and the dog ate it. We pieced him back together the best way we could. He looks sort of like a Picasso now. We hung him on the living room wall at Grandma Carver’s house next to that Domino’s Pizza. Grandma Carver’s living room is becoming quite the art museum.
And we found out what happened to Uncle Nelson. The night before Christmas he got drunk, laid down, passed out, fell out of bed and rolled up under it. And he lay there all Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, sleeping like a baby.
The lesson to be learned here is, don’t drink on Christmas or any other day for that matter. And always remember, alcohol and fireworks don’t go together.

Moccasin Gap at Thanksgiving Time by Brad (BC) Carver

Greetings from Moccasin Gap where the weather is refined the women are alluring, the men are wholesome and the “children are so endearing you could just eat them, and about twelve to fifteen years later you will wish you had.” I remember hearing that old joke a long time ago, back when the Dead Sea was only sick. Yes, it’s been that long. Then I had my little boys, now nine and five years old, and I love them so much. Oh, my lord, I’m so glad I didn’t eat them. And I miss not being with them every day. You see, I’m going through hymeneal problems right now. And the future doesn’t look too bright. In situations like this, everything always falls in favor of the woman. In my case it was worth it, but I know of several good daddies who cannot see their children because of conjugal problems. It isn’t fair. Believe it or not, we daddies really do miss our children’s soccer games and scout meetings. We miss not hearing them say they love us and hug us good night every night, and we miss just watching them sleep. You have the luxury of that, we don’t. Just give us a break, that’s all I’m saying.
There’s not much action around here, at least not for someone my age. I’m 61-years old. And I’m living in a little one horse town called Moccasin Gap - for the second time. Why twice, you may ask? Well, the first time I was here is when I was born until I was eighteen. The hospital I was born in later became a hotel and then a shelter for the homeless and now it’s all boarded and about to be torn down, another landmark in Moccasin Gap gone with the wind.
I graduated in 1968 and immediately moved away. I couldn’t wait to get out of this little one horse town. Besides, I found out that the main road went beyond the county line. It’s amazing how we think when we’re young and how our thoughts change as we grow older. When I was eighteen, I wanted to absquatulate this place, couldn’t wait to get out. When I was fifty I couldn’t wait to move back. This is God’s Country, who knew? In between I spent fifteen years in radio and twenty-five years as a stand-up comic. It was a wild ride but I survived it.
Moccasin Gap is a political little town, and there are only a handful of last names. Gentry’s and Long’s take up about half the phone book. There are a lot of Carver’s in the Moccasin Gap Phone book, too, both black and white, and I’m related to both, and proud of it. They all show up for Thanksgiving Dinner and we all sit around that big ol’ kitchen table full of fat, unhealthy foods cooked in 100% pure animal fat and butter, and we give thanks that we all have one another and that we’re all still alive after eating this way for so long. “All for one and one for all”, said Uncle Leroy as we all turned up our shot glasses filled with “shine”.
Thanksgiving food is my favorite kind of food, the turkey, the dressing, the green beans, the cornbread, the biscuits, the punkin’ pie, the pickled pig’s feet – everything but the cranberry sauce. I never cared too much for the cranberry sauce. It looked kind of weird, like it was trying to pass itself off as jello, but it couldn’t quite make it. It couldn’t get the jello jiggle right. Then you taste it and realize it’s not Jello, it’s a devious impression of the famous Bill Cosby tasty treat, and that somewhat astringent taste sticks with you for awhile, oh, I loathe that. Cranberries aren’t made to be sauce. That’s kind of like fried Twinkies. It just don’t seem right. I cogitate the pilgrims thought of cranberry sauce. The Native Americans would never eat anything so repugnant. To us cranberry sauce ranks up there, or - down there - with Es Cargo, and Caviar; oh yeah, snails and fish eggs; yum, yum. May I please have a second helping of snail and pita bread? Those French know how to eat, don’t they? And they call us crazy for eating mountain oysters; the nerve of those French. I once knew a French guy who wouldn’t eat mountain oysters until he found out what they were. Then he couldn’t wait to try them. Now he’s hooked on mountain oysters. We gave him a new nickname; Jean Luc LaNut. (I’m sorry for that, folks. It’s all I could think of. Believe me, I’m a safe distance from genius here.)
Besides, the only sauce we ever cared about ‘round here is the kind we just drank that dear ol’ Uncle Clyde made. Everybody knows of Uncle Clyde’s “silly shine moonshine-mine-mine-mine, make me whine, down the line, I’m cryin’, made way back in the hills above the ever greens, by Uncle Clyde Carver in his bib-all jeans.” Drinking’ that stuff will make you talk like that. It’s called redneck rapping. Uncle Clyde is a legend, kind of like Rufus the catfish down in Carver’s Creek; quite an honor to be that kind of legend in these parts. And Uncle Clyde’s wife Aunt Pearl has a green thumb. In fact she has an entirely green hand. Or was it gangrene? I don’t remember. Those two are the reason things are so pleasant all the time here in Moccasin Gap. Here is to Uncle Clyde and Aunt Pearl. Thank you, thank you so much for all that you have done to keep me alive, stress free, happy, and laughing as my life became inferior. Thank you for all the good times that I will never remember and some that I’d like to forget. Thank you for all the times I woke up and asked, “What happened?” Thanks to you I now realize I can actually sleep with my head in the toilet bowl – or in the hole at the outhouse, which is really gross, but enough about that. Let’s move on.
And now, my political rant. Remember, election time is soon. Don’t forget to vote, and vote right or we will all be inferior. Uncle Clyde and Aunt Pearl can’t produce enough medication for everybody. By the way, I was wonderin’ how many zeros are there in one trillion dollars, anybody know? I’m guessing it’s a lot. We’d better find out how many there are, because at present owe about twelve of them, and us, our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, and probably children beyond that will be paying for it. And it’s only going to get worse if we don’t change it. I’ll bet the Chinese know zeroes there are; just something to think about while the Democrats are in control. Ya’ll come see us here in Moccasin Gap now, you hear? We’re about five-hundred miles from nowhere right on the state line.

Facts on Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson
There are two parts. Be sure to read the 2nd part (in RED ]



Thomas Jefferson was a very remarkable man who started learning very early in life and never stopped.

� At 5, began studying under his cousin's tutor.

� At 9, studied Latin, Greek and French.

� At 14, studied classical literature and additional languages.

� At 16, entered the College of William and Mary.

� At 19, studied Law for 5 years starting under George Wythe.

� At 23, started his own law practice.

� At 25, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses.

� At 31, wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America " and retired from his law practice.

� At 32, was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress.

� At 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence .

� At 33, took three years to revise Virginia ’s legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom.

� At 36, was elected the second Governor of Virginia succeeding Patrick Henry.

� At 40, served in Congress for two years.

� At 41, was the American minister to France and negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben Franklin and John Adams.

� At 46, served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington.

� At 53, served as Vice President and was elected president of the American Philosophical Society.

� At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of Republican Party.

� At 57, was elected the third president of the United States

� At 60, obtained the Louisiana Purchase doubling the nation’s size.

� At 61, was elected to a second term as President.

� At 65, retired to Monticello .

� At 80, helped President Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.

� At 81, almost single-handedly created the University of Virginia and served as its first president.

� At 83, died on the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence along with John Adams

Thomas Jefferson knew because he himself studied the previous failed attempts at government. He understood actual history, the nature of God, his laws and the nature of man. That happens to be way more than what most understand today. Jefferson really knew his stuff. A voice from the past to lead us in the future:

John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

Moccasin Gap - July 2011

Uncle Ralph was married to my daddy’s sister Emma. He owned the general store in Moccasin Gap and I used to work there when I got out of elementary school which was right across the street. It was a beautiful school, looked like the old schools of the 40’s and 50’s looked and it was owned by John Long who also owned the cotton mill in Moccasin Gap. I always got paid with an oatmeal cookie, never money, but I was happy, that’s all that mattered.
Next to the general store was the pharmacy. I don’t know why they called it that, Alvin Clayton who ran it didn’t have a pharmaceutical license and all he sold was aspirin. We just called it the Drug Store. It was more like a hangout for the school kids and the old guys to sit around and gossip and play checkers. I used to go with my dad there when he had a night off. It was usually open until around 8:30 PM which is late for Moccasin Gap. There was a pool table in the back room and that’s where the school kids hung out. The drug store was sort of like a poor man’s country club.
I used to buy donuts and long john’s and a fountain drink. I remember every time I’d buy a donut, Alvin would tell me, “Save the hole and you will get a free donut.” I’d eat all around the hole and take it back to him. He’d say, “There’s still donut around the hole. All I want is the hole, not the donut.” I’d eat a little more and take it back to him, but still too much donut around the hole. I finally figured out, there is no way you can save the hole, because if you eat all the donut around it you won’t be able to see it. So I gave up and started eating honey buns instead.
A lot times during recess me and a couple of other mischievous little boys like Ronnie Dixon would sneak across the street and get a fountain drink. We weren’t supposed to do it, but that’s what made it so cool. We were doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing and getting away with it. That’s gold to a twelve year old.
Once during recess me and Ronnie ran across the street to get a drink and when we came out of the drug store we saw the principle, Mr. Weldon, a huge man with an angry look of his face all the time, standing on the front porch of the school staring right across the street. We didn’t want him to see us, so we ducked behind a car and squatted down so we could be hidden from his view. We were squatting there, giggling, thinking we were getting away with something when the guy who drove the car got in it and pulled away. And there we were, squatting with drinks in hand and in plain view for everyone at school to see. Kids on the playground were laughing and pointing at us. It was humiliating.
What we got away with was a spanking. We didn’t get expelled. Actually we got two spankings, one from the principle and one from our parents. Back then it was okay for teachers to spank the children if they got out of hand. Try that today and you will get slapped with a lawsuit. My how times have changed? And you wonder what is wrong with children today. We never went across the street during recess again after that. Instead, my dad would bring the drinks across the street to us.
Uncle Ralph was a pretty cool guy. He never had much to say and he was always nice to the kids. I remember women used to come in the general store with a list of groceries. They would give it to Uncle Ralph and he would get the groceries off the shelf, bag them and give them to the ladies while they patiently waited.
One Sunday afternoon after church, Uncle Ralph took me and my cousin Lee to the Moccasin Gap Airport. Actually, it was just and old deserted cow pasture where small cub planes would take off and land. They had a couple of old wooden hangars there and Uncle Ralph knew one of the pilots. He asked him if he would mind taking all of us up in the plane.
I had never been in a plane before so this was a treat for me and Lee too. We went up in the air flying around and I asked Uncle Ralph, “What’s that small village down there?” Uncle Ralph said, “That’s Moccasin Gap.” I had no idea my hometown was so small. And what’s amazing is if you fly over it today it looks even smaller. My hometown, jjust like the old people in it, is actually shrinking.

Nazi Saboteurs' Spectacular Failure Detailed In Newly Released Spy Files

LONDON — The four men wading ashore on a Florida beach wearing nothing but bathing trunks and German army hats looked like an unlikely invading force.

Declassified British intelligence files describe how the men were part of Nazi sabotage teams sent to the U.S. in June 1942 to undermine the American war effort.

They were trained in bomb-making, supplied with explosives and instructed in how to make timers from "easily obtainable commodities such as dried peas, lumps of sugar and razor blades."

Fortunately for the U.S., they were also spectacularly unsuccessful.

"It was not brilliantly planned," said Edward Hampshire, a historian at Britain's National Archives, which released the wartime intelligence documents Monday. "The Germans picked the leader for this very, very poorly. He immediately wanted to give himself up."

A detailed new account of the mission – code-named Pastorius after an early German settler in the U.S. – is provided in a report written in 1943 by MI5 intelligence officer Victor Rothschild. It is one of a trove of previously secret documents which shed light on the Nazis' desire to use sabotage, subterfuge and even poisoned sausages to fight the war.

Pastorius was a mixture of elaborate planning, bad luck and human error.

Eight Germans who had lived in the U.S. were dropped along the Eastern seaboard – four on Long Island, the rest south of Jacksonville, Florida. They were to go ashore, blend in, then begin a campaign of sabotage against factories, railways and canals, as well as launching "small acts of terrorism" including suitcase bombs aimed at Jewish-owned shops.

But the plan started to go wrong almost as soon as the men left their "sabotage camp" in Germany.

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They went to Paris, where one of the team got drunk at the hotel bar and "told everyone that he was a secret agent" – something, the MI5 report notes, that may "have contributed to the failure of the undertaking."

The submarine dropping half the group on Long Island ran aground, and MI5 noted that "it was only owing to the laziness or stupidity of the American coast guards that this submarine was not attacked by U.S. forces."

The Germans were stopped by a coast guard, who – to the evident astonishment of the British – did not detain them. He told his superiors, who were slow to contact the FBI.

The others in Florida also made it ashore, despite their attention-grabbing attire of "bathing trunks and army forage caps."

Unfortunately for the team, their leader, George John Dasch, had decided to surrender. The report describes Dasch "ringing up the FBI in Washington from the Mayfair Hotel and saying that he was a saboteur and wished to tell his story to Mr. Hoover" – FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI was initially skeptical, but Dasch was soon giving a full confession, and the whole gang was rounded up.

Within months, the saboteurs had been tried and sentenced to death. All were executed except Dasch and another who had also backed out. They were deported to Germany after the war.

For the U.S. it was a lucky escape. In World War I, German saboteurs blew up an arms dump in New York harbor, killing several people and injuring hundreds.

The newly declassified files give a glimpse of the Nazis' desperate determination to fight a covert campaign against the Allies, even as they knew the war was lost.

One captured French Nazi intelligence agent told his interrogators he had attended a conference in the final weeks of the war to plan a violent campaign that would sow chaos across Western Europe and "eventually lead to a state of civil war in which Fourth Reich would re-emerge."

The campaign was to involve sabotage, assassinations and even chemical weapons.

One file chronicles German attempts to use poison as a postwar weapon. Intelligence from captured Nazi agents indicated there were plans to contaminate alcoholic drinks with methanol, inject sausages with poison and prepare "poisoned Nescafe, sugar, German cigarettes and German chocolate."

Another elaborate plan involved supplying agents with special headache-inducing cigarettes, which could be given to an assassination target. When the person complained of a headache, they would be offered an aspirin – which had been laced with poison.

The files suggest British agents were unsure how much credence to give some of the more fanciful claims, though a memo was drawn up advising that Allied soldiers should not eat German food or smoke German cigarettes "under pain of severe penalties."

"Nowadays, it's easy to regard such schemes as impossibly far-fetched," said Christopher Andrew, the official historian of MI5. "But at the time it was reasonable to believe that after the Allied victory there would remain a dangerous postwar Nazi underground which would continue a secret war."

Civil War, 150 Years Later, Still Divides Our Nation

Civil War, 150 Years Later, Still Divides Our Nation

Laura Parker

MANASSAS, Va. – When National Park Service rangers fired a New Year's cannon shot at this Civil War battleground to hail the arrival of 2011, they also ushered in the start of a four-year commemoration of the war's 150th anniversary.

The events include a multitude of battle re-enactments, lecture series, readings, concerts and plays that will be held on the battle fields tended to by the Park Service and in private estates from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico to New York.

But the slate of commemorations is also fraught with political peril. Deep divisions over why the war was fought persist, especially in the South. The debate still roils over slavery's role as the principle cause of the war. The first commemoration, a private "secession gala" organized by the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Charleston on Dec. 20, did not signal an auspicious start to the upcoming calendar of events.


The date marked the 150th anniversary of the day South Carolina became the first of 11 states to secede. Inside the ballroom, elected officials and others in period costume celebrated the courage of their fore-bearers to stand up for their state's right to leave the Union. Outside, on the sidewalk, the NAACP led 100 demonstrators who viewed the event as a celebration of a treasonous act against the federal government in order to protect the institution of slavery.

"They called their parents patriots," said Lonnie Randolph, president of the state branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "Was Timothy McVeigh a patriot? He disagreed with America."

Mark Simpson, the commander of South Carolina's division of Sons of Confederate Veterans, defended the gala, saying it was not about denying slavery as "an issue" in the war, but honoring South Carolina's rights.

"We recognize and stated in all the media interviews that slavery was an issue in the war," Simpson said. "But this would be like taking a book that has 10 or 15 chapters and tearing all the chapters out except one. While slavery was an issue, it was by no means what brought about the war."


Robert Sutton, the Park Service historian, just sighs. He watched the states' rights-versus-slavery debate rage in the dozen years he spent as superintendent of the Manassas National Battlefield Park. He doesn't see any sign that anyone's going to change their mind.

"One hundred and fifty years later, it is hard to come to grips with the fact that we had four million people enslaved," he said. "They have a difficult time accepting that their ancestors were fighting to protect the institution of slavery. Yes, there were social factors. Yes, there were economic factors. Yes, there were political factors. But when you boil it all down, slavery was the major factor."

Most of the events scheduled for the next four years are educational, such as the roster of historians who will speak in July at a ceremony in Manassas, scene of the first big battle of the war. Or, the event in Washington in September, where volunteers will gather with candles to represent the forts set up to protect the Washington Monument.


Some states are looking to attract tourists instead of controversy. Virginia, where 60 percent of the civil war battles were fought, is busy promoting "civil war history hotel packages" in hopes of making up for drop in tourism dollars during the recession. (Although Virginia Gov. Bob McConnell found himself in hot water last spring after he issued a proclamation designating April as Confederate History Month that did not mention slavery. He rewrote it, both condemning slavery and spelling out that it had prompted the war.)

But two developments could give the commemoration a bumpy roll out. One, the 150th anniversary approached as the tea party movement drove the recent elections, and states' rights gained new luster.

"Look at the way the elections have just gone," said Simpson. "There were two dozen states that passed sovereignty resolutions. South Carolina passed it, and it stems from an unconstitutional mandate from Congress over the health care bill. There's been a lot of change. I'm not a secessionist, but I'm asking a question: What does it mean? It means something."

The other factor that may affect the remembrances is that for the first time, African Americans are involved with a major Civil War anniversary on more equal footing. The centennial of the Civil War in 1961 occurred as the civil rights movement gained momentum. But segregation still dominated the South. Many events – including the 1961 secessionist gala – were held in segregated hotels, where blacks were not allowed to stay.

"At the 100th, the African Americans who did come were not allowed to participate," Randolph said.

Elsewhere, NAACP leaders also have expressed unhappiness with other upcoming events they say would glorify the Confederacy and all that it stood for. That includes plans by a private group in Montgomery, Ala. to stage a mock swearing in ceremony of Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederacy.

"From a free speech point of view, I understand their right to put that on," said Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama NAACP. "But the only thing it's going to do is incite divisiveness among people and there are much better things to spend money on than to re-enact the Civil War."

Even the Park Service may find itself targeted over its plan to commemorate the first shot fired in the war on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Randolph said he plans to contact Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar over plans for a ceremony in which a lone blank mortar round will be fired at the fort on April 12.

"It recreates a terrorist act," Randolph said. "I can't imagine the Park Service being involved in that."

That event, said the Fort Sumter National Monument historian Rick Hatcher, also involves a dramatic star burst propelled into the sky that splits in two, symbolizing the nation divided.

Bob Reynolds, a Park Service spokesman said he will reserve comment until after Randolph's complaint is received.

For most historians, the question of what caused the war was settled long ago. The United States had the largest slave population in the world. By 1860, 60 percent of South Carolina's population were slaves.

"Historians don't fight this battle anymore about what caused the war. It's slavery," said James Marten, president of the Society of Civil War Historians and chairman of the history department at Marquette University in Wisconsin.

"The constitutional issues would not have caused the Civil War unless slavery had been attached to those debates," he continued. "It was an extraordinarily important institution economically, historically, and politically. Without slavery, you wouldn't have had a civil war. Maybe we've done a bad job of communicating this."

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Marten sees the 150th anniversary as a teaching moment, but laments he sees "no grand narrative" about the war and its legacy that's been drawn up a national scale.

"It's become so localized and so politicized. Given whom the president is, and what just happened in the election, with the tea party and the debate over health care, I don't think much will change in how we understand the Civil War as a country," he said. "That's the nature of popular history and memory versus history. Memory is something that is really hard to change."