No? I knew him, not so well, some forty years ago…he was a habitue, a devotee, of the Phoenix neon night life, searching for parts of himself he lost along a long emotional road from the hills of Appalachia: lost in an abusive and disoriented childhood; lost in a flawed and impetuous marriage; lost in the glittering promise of booze and women. Yes, I knew him, not so well, as he made all his stumbles along the way, losing not only himself but the connections to family and friends, to the people who loved him.
Yes, of course, I’m the man in the photo, and there’s a lot more to the story…hope you’ll read THE CRACKED MIRROR, Reflections of an Appalachian Son, by Billy Ray Chitwood.
In the end, my story must be like so many others, a story of a simple kid who grew up eating emotional soup and spending a lifetime trying to digest it. There are no spectacular or heroic moments. I’ve been in the United States Navy, but I’ve never fought a war—except the one I’ve declared within myself. So I know not the pain of holding a bleeding comrade to my bosom as he or she gasps the final breaths. I know not the anguish of a parent losing a child in an accident, or, in war—unless losing a child to drugs can be comparable. I’ve loved and been in love, but I’ve never stepped far enough from myself to know the true and natural profundity of its happiness and joy. I’ve been born but never died—unless the demon of the past is segmented death. The prospect of dying scares the hell out of me—not so much the prospect itself, but the pitiful legacy that is left behind. I’ve known insecurity and fear, along with self-confidence, loyalty, and pride. There have been the sins, small enough, I hope, to keep me at least somewhere in the thoughts of those I’ve loved. At times I’ve longed for ‘Nepenthe,’ the drug mentioned in ‘The Odyssey’ as a remedy for grief, the potion used by the ancients to induce forgetfulness of pain and sorrow. But, then, without some pain, can the soul truly seek refuge when the long journey is over?
***
The jail cell brought back sobriety and a stark reality. Sitting on a hard dirty ‘bed thing’ in the dimly lit, tiny barred enclosure, the demon thoughts came and possessed me. My world was disintegrating around me! The claustrophobic cell was my coffin of contriteness, a veritable symbol of my languishing life. There again was the ‘dark closet’ feeling within me, an anxious and suffocating hell! Grabbing at the bars I pitifully called out to the jailer, but no one came. Within the limited space I paced, stopped at the ugly stained wall, splayed my body against it, and tapped my forehead against its roughness. The jailer eventually came. He showed me a smile of compassion and told me that morning would come soon; then, I would be arraigned. The fitful night would pass.
***
It is Time that wears down the acts and deeds of man into something forgettable, mundane, heroic, noble, historical, and unforgettable. It is Time that leads us warily toward the greatest secret of all: That which lies beyond the dark veil!
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“…There are men like you in the world, Prentice, through whatever kind of intervention, divine or otherwise, who must make us cry and laugh, who record for us the stirrings of the soul which we might otherwise never know.”
…
BR Chitwood
Okay, here I am today, no longer chasing those windmills, still trying to figure out this ‘one foot in front of the other’ thing. There are times when it seems I’m pretty close to figuring out this grand production, but those times are little teaser moments to stir something in the soul — sort of like a dreaded visit to a doctor or dentist, getting the car repaired – feels great when you find out the blood pressure is normal (thanks to a little round pill taken each day), the teeth cleaning and exam present no new cavities, and the car now carries no shameful dent.
All in all, living for some years on the rolling bluegrass hills of lovely Kentucky, a good wife, an aging, lovable cat, great daughters and sons, have given me happiness and joy. Back in Arizona the past still gets in my way at times in inscrutable ways, like a misty longing for something valuable I’ve left behind. I’ve never abandoned my faith, though fragile it might be, and there are many more good days than bad,
With all this said, I’m still writing, still searching…guess that only stops when mortal time gives up on me…
BR Chitwood – April 6, 2022
If you like books of mystery, suspense, action, romance, many of which are inspired by true events, please visit my website at https://www.brchitwood.com – after a short bio, just scroll down the ‘home’ page to preview the books and synopses of each.
Nine of the author’s 20 books shown below… Go to https://www.brchitwood – Website with synopses of all 20 books, over 375 blog posts, short stories, poetry, songs, author info, and BUY SITES AT YOUR AMAZON SITE…
Please visit! You will find some good reading with ‘BUY SITES’, book reviews, et al!
BR Chitwood – Author
April 6, 2022
NOTE:
All books below have 5-STAR REVIEWS on AMAZON!
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If you like books of mystery, suspense, action, romance, many of which are inspired by true events, please visit my website at https://www.brchitwood.com – after a short bio, just scroll down the ‘home’ page to preview the books and synopses of each.
Nine of the author’s 20 books shown above… Go to https://www.brchitwood – Website with synopses of all 20 books, over 375 blog posts, short stories, poetry, songs, author info, and BUY SITES…
Please visit! You will find some good reading with ‘BUY SITES’, book reviews, et al!
My mother was a gentle, generous, and kind woman from a large loving family of four boys and four girls, the matriarch of the brood fervently involved in her Protestant Faith. The father was a quiet, gentle, corpulent man, a railroad foreman for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, a most pleasant person who seldom interfered with the demands of his pious wife who each day offered a loud, long, tearful, prayer to her Father in Heaven, with all present kneeling for her long wailing wishes for blessings and forgiveness of sins committed by her and her brood. Despite the parental toughness of her ways and the seriousness of her moods, she was a kind and gentle person.
Two of the four boys would serve their country in World War Two, one ferrying our brave warriors to the shore at Omaha Beach. The youngest of the brothers was murdered as he was closing down his ‘Filling Station’ late at night in Knoxville, Tennessee. Stanley was his name and a most wonderful Uncle. Uncle Stanley saw me through some difficult times in my early life. I loved this good man and think of him often through all these years.
Uncle Stanley and my mother were so much alike, both holy of heart, soul, and honorable in their daily living…
My Mom was a boarding house cook and a Bell Telephone Operator/Supervisor. Because of economic conditions at the time my mother had to rely on the state of Tennessee and my grandparents for boarding and financial help – it was a necessary procedure for many families at the time.
My most memorable years came when my mother brought my sister and me to live in a lovely home across from a beautiful college where I played tennis with some of the students and attended elementary school. Times got better for our small family. My sister blossomed early and wanted all that went with a pretty face and desirable body…problems, yes, but the family worked through it.
Much of my life was molded from those early days, still given to thoughts of a past with too little good and a lot of ugliness. I served my country, got through college, taught writing to high school seniors, did some acting, commercials and film, married a few times, sired three beautiful kids who constantly amaze me with their goodness, settled at last with a lovely lady who is all a man could possibly want.
Oh, and I have written twenty books, many based on true crimes, mystery and romance, a couple of memoirs, some 375 blog posts, many ‘flash fiction’ pieces, short stories, and poetry.
Okay, had this quiet afternoon of reflection, felt like writing some of it down, and I feel better…and, I just felt like sharing it with people who might be reading my posts.
A better person than I can parse and understandthe confounding natureof our world, how we arrive at a multitude of decisions as a disjointed group of politicians handle affairs of our nation from a position of power, personal goals, anger, and disassociation from a particular item of high importance to the people for whom they represent.
It is my belief that our government handlers are anything but centered to their life-long political biases and hatred for their counter-parts, many so paralyzed by their animosity they would deny their nation responsible representation.
An Appalachian transplant, who am I to have such thoughts?
I saw it at recess on the grounds of my elementary and high schools, in the classrooms, in the halls stalked by bullies… Unlike today, we young people were taught ‘Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic’ so we were spared today’s wide-spread indoctrination of blame, of how and who to hate for society’s slide into racial issues, kept alive and more viable to our youth by an almighty ‘National Association of Teachers Union’.
Okay, sure, we must allow for environmental differences, low IQs, high IQs, parental inability to carefully cultivate and fine-tune tolerance and care for a multitude of beliefs. We are built in our early years and that inculcation en masse make for the world we build.
So, we migrate, spread our selective fine-tuning to other cities, other countries, and the centuries roll on with our human sacrifices, wars, famine, and ultimate destruction and re-building…until!
What?
Our ‘Religions’ speak in different tongues, views that see ‘life and death, heaven, hell’ in totally sharp contrast…
Life goes on.
Death goes on.
Zealots go on.
Will freedom and liberty go on?
Can love conquer all?
Can a ‘Cosmic Wave’ pass over the world, instilling in each of us a predominant theme for living?
Does this ‘Cosmic Wave’ erase all of the frailties of the world?
Does Jesus return to make all things right?
Does another planet in another Solar System come to create a true Eloi?
Are we a ‘Lab Experiment’ that has gone wildly awry?
There is so much good in the world – can it not be an unbreakable bond for humanity?
Since my mobile and turbulent childhood my head fills with the events and movements of the days, the emotions that come and stay with me until I write about them from some subliminal heart/mind connection the words flow onto the screen of my laptop. I accept them and allow them entry on the page – as though they were destined to be there, an outlet for the subtle joy and pain of the soul…it is my belief that all artistic endeavors come from that similar sort of tingling.
As some subscribers to my blog posts might allow, most of my writing has a ‘Romantic’ cant, from my murder mysteries (some taken from actual crimes) to genres with historical essence, love, poetry, murder, and current events. My writing heroes of the past are many – …Hemingway, Steinbeck, Crane, DeMille, Grisham, to name a few. For Poetry, my favorite is an ex-Priest named James Kavanaugh.
I have written twenty books, their ‘buy sites’, 375 blog posts written over the years, plus poetry and tribute pieces to Arnold Palmer and other notables. That Website/Blog site address is:
A time to weigh our time against the time of Jesus!
Where we have been!
Where we are going with our lives!
With so much confusion and hostility!
World governments flexing their muscles!
Brutal mayhem in our streets!
Weak words that cannot encourage the masses!
Countries flexing their might and muscle!
Something noxious tearing at our souls!
Jesus and his churches seek kindness and unity!
Freedom, Liberty no longer has clear meaning!
Cunning, selfish forces cause mad disarray!
We seem to be near some ‘tipping point’!
Will Jesus save the world?
Will Satan steal our days and nights?
Will Jesus yet guide his people home?
Should this time not be for good will and Joy?
For family happiness and joyful days and nights?
For little children happily playing with their Santa gifts?
Is the money and power of the deceitful elite in control?
Christmas Thoughts should be grateful and humane!
Instead, we wear masks and get vaccines!
Good and merciful God, PLEASE TURN THIS TIDE!
How can we happily wish a MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR to those we love and cherish?
Surely, we can do so, and, must do so, for the sake of
All that should be righteous and all that should be good!
During these days that celebrate the Birth of Jesus we can hope and pray that the miracle of giving and loving can deliver to the world a golden age of peace, of good will, of prosperity for all…
In the day when Philosophy might have had a more urgent importance and significance, I wonder if Descartes’ singular ‘Cogito’ utterance and treatise would be one of the most recognized phrases in school rooms around the world, particularly those rooms where hungry minds were more inquisitive about their world and their existence in it.
In my Appalachian world of youth, it would never have occurred to me to question my existence…there were enough ‘negatives’ in my early life to keep my mind swirling with confusion and doubts – no intention to gain sympathy, just depicting my early life when our country was going through some ‘trying times’…well, kind of like, NOW!
I can say with certainty that my mind has no problem accepting the fact that I ‘think’ and I ‘exist’! Those days still linger, still bring occasional thought-demons and over-think. Decisions, mistakes have been made in my life, but, overall, there has been happiness and love to offset the bad stuff.
Descartes had some important influence in my college education, made me more aware of my lack of knowledge.
The tiny thesis I am putting forth in this post is that my
problem these days is that I ‘think’ too much in lieu of looking at the beautiful Arizona sky, writing, enjoying life with wife, home, and our wonderful children. So, Descartes brought back to me some simplicity to my life.
Hopefully, I can pass on some of this trivial verbiage to those who can embrace this sequitur nonsense.
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BR Chitwood – December 2, 2021
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Please read synopses of my 20 books, read my over 375 blog posts, short stories, flash fiction, and poetry…
It seems we’re on slippery slopes in every direction.
There are no genius genes within the confines of my mind to suggest solutions to the bewildering directions our current government is taking, except, maybe – some remarkable Supreme Court event that gets our political sanity back. The brainless big money moguls in partnership with clueless government officials have created a one-way driveway to hell for the sensible Americans who still believe in our ‘written in blood’ Constitution – Freedom, Religious and otherwise, Liberty, Rule of Law, rights every American has the right to practice without Bureaucratic/Government Interference.
Even the NEA – National Education Association – a titan of power wish to create a ‘CRT’ – ‘Critical Race Theory’, that would have our children taught with the center-piece notion that the United States is a Racist Nation – written and codified – defying the historical truth that we are not. Blood was spilled and truth prevailed. Most rational Americans believe schools should teach our history, teach reading, mathematics, geography, and science.
We have a current government that is allowing illegal aliens to cross our southern borders by the tens of thousands, our own good border agents taunted and shot at by Cartel members.
We have a President who will not answer questions and has great difficulty in verbal communication, surely destined to be our worst president in history. His drill in Afghanistan was a debacle with death of our citizens and abandonment of so many more Americans and Afghan partners who worked with our government.
We have a president who gave away our own reliable Independent Energy process to Russia. Prices for gas and food products are rapidly rising. Our Police departments are depleted. Criminals run rampant in our streets, children killed, old people knocked to the sidewalks, brazen robberies in our stores without consequence. Riots in the streets. Chicago and New York are cities under siege.
We have a vice-president who is rarely seen, who has a dubious history in politics and has little awareness of what is happening around her.
Where does it go from here – this government? We have people serving in our congress who migrated to our country and are now working to turn our democracy into a free depository for people coming to the USA – free health, free college, free hand-outs of all kinds.
Maybe this is our destiny, but this country-boy from Appalachia will never quite comprehend how this poison came to be in our halls of government.
We survived a ‘Civil War’, a ‘Great Depression’, and several wars.
We hope and we pray for better days in our beautiful country.
We desperately need new Leadership…
Just a citizen getting ‘stuff’ off his chest – Again!
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