Let's Get Together (And Do It Right)

There is too much noise in the world right now that is producing a level of adrenalin rush never before seen in my lifetime, and most likely yours. Raised blood pressures, accelerated heart rates, stressed out to the max, hypertension overload that is increasing the risk of strokes and heart attacks. What are we doing?

If ever there was a moment for an awakening, it is now. It happened once before, you know, and it could happen again.

It was in the spring of 1966, when a group known as The Youngbloods signed with RCA Records. Later that year they recorded their self-titled debut album. One of the songs on it had been discovered several months earlier after singer and bass player Jesse Colin Young had gone out looking for a place to rehearse. As he entered a club in New York City, folk singer Buzzy Linhart was on stage rehearsing a song. He was filled with emotion by what he heard.

“Love is but a song we sing, fear’s the way we die, you can make the mountains ring or make the angels cry, Though the bird is on the wing and you may not know why, Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now"

It was in that moment that Young had an awakening. He ran backstage and asked Linhart who had written the song. The answer was Dino Valenti, whose real name was Chet Powers. He had written the song in 1963.

“Get Together” had been so tightly arranged during The Youngbloods' rehearsals that in the studio no one with RCA dared to do anything to it. It was a pure and self-contained piece of art, whose sacred nature was apparent.

But in New York the song didn't go over very well. It wasn't until the band took it's tour to San Francisco that it's popularity began to rise. It was 1967 and the "Summer of Love."

People then actually wanted to learn to love one another. Imagine, today, a world where peace and love are the counterculture to what we have become, a place where everyone gets along. We need that awakening.

"Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now"

J.H. McKinley was Bozo Texino

Pleasanton City Cemetery in Atascosa County, Texas is where Clinton County, Kentucky native J.H. McKinley lies buried. Born at Cartwright on March 25, 1893, he was an early-20th-century train man who was also a railroad car graffiti artist, someone who marked up freight cars with pictures and messages in text.

For a long time the identity of Bozo Texino remained at least semi-anonymous. The mythical character McKinley created began leaving his hobo chalk-drawn graffiti/artwork on the sides of boxcars from Maine to California as early as 1919. In the photo you can see his graphic signature and the simple bust of a pipe-smoking character in a peaked hat with an infinity-shaped brim. In 1939, he told a reporter he had adorned a quarter-million or so boxcars since bringing Bozo Texino.

James Herbert McKinley worked for Missouri Pacific, first as a fireman then later as a locomotive engineer. He was known to sometimes wear a checkered shirt, a bow-tie and a derby hat with his denim railroad overalls and is remembered by his peers as one of the wildest engineers who ever worked for Missouri-Pacific.

As I mentioned, Bozo Texino's identity wasn’t exactly a secret. For more than 25 years he wrote a humor column called “Bozo Texino Sez” for Missouri-Pacific magazine and occasionally would write a piece in Albany's New Era newspaper.

"When I was a teenager," he wrote in 1953, "and used to climb the steep grade from the foot of the 76 Falls, I didn't know that some day I'd go to the top of the falls in a boat. When I used to swiim in the 7-foot swimming hole on Ind­ian Creek I didn't know that some day it would be a 77-foot swimming hole. No one could have ever made me believe that some day I'd catch a fish 100-foot above Aunt Ann Ellen Grider's chimney.

Born March 25, 1893, McKinley left Clinton County when he was barely 17 and moved to San Antonio. In 1914 he was hired to work on the San Antonio, Uvaloe and Gulf Railroad, then two years later on the IGN. Both of those railroad companies were eventually bought by Missouri-Pacific. McKinley was promoted to engineer in 1928, but it was his penchant for humor that made him well known and admired through­out that part of the country.

"I remember when very few people trusted a bank and buried their money under the hearth in front of an open fire­place or under a haystack," he wrote in 1954. "Ev­erybody trusted and loved one another and nobody would tell a lie until they started trading coon dogs."

James Herbert McKinley was the son of Charles Ellis and Rachel Neathery McKinkey. He died in Pleasanton, Texas, just outside San Antonio, on February 26, 1967. Several of his relatives live in Clinton County.

The Day the Civil War Came to Albany, pt. 4, "Blessed are the Peacemakers"

It was during the late winter and early spring of 1862, as the civil war was now in full swing, that the Union and Confederate factions of the Upper Cumberland attempted to reach a peaceful compromise in order to prevent the raids that were occuring in Fentress and Overton counties in Tennessee, and Clinton County in Kentucky.

Murder, theft and arson had become commonplace during the absence of regular soldiers who had gone off to fight in the war. It was decided that a peace conference should be held in hopes a solution might be reached that would end the senseless acts of guerilla warfare. It was agreed the meeting would be held at Monroe in Overton County.

The Northern side was represented by men from Fentress and Clinton counties. The Southern side was represented by men from Overton County. Since confederate guerilla Champ Ferguson was committing the largest number of atrocities, he was invited to the conference to represent the Confederate interests of Clinton County. It would prove to be a big mistake.

Even though the parties agreed to stop the raids into adjoining counties, on the way back to Clinton County, Ferguson and his men killed four Overton County men. Before the wars' end, most of the Union men who had participated in the peace conference were killed, while others were pursued but only terrorized. Those killed were James Zachary, Thomas Wood, William Johnson, Robert Martin, Joseph Stover, Louis Pierce, Eli Hatfield, Parson Joseph Dalton, John McDonald and a Mr. Taylor. Another was my third great-grandfather, Elisha Koger.

Elisha had been a member of the home guard in Clinton County. On the morning of Sunday, June 1, 1862, just as the sun was starting to rise, he rose from his bed and headed out to the spring that ran beside his home at Oak Grove, with his wife, Nancy, by his side. Shots rang out as a band of men appeared suddenly out of nowhere. Nancy screamed for him to run, but it was too late as Champ Ferguson overtook him and shot him. Elisha threw up his arms and said something, but Nancy couldn't make out his words because the couple's children were screaming.

As shots continued to ring out, he ran toward a fence some fifty yards away. He reached the fence and tried to cross it, but Ferguson and nine other men rode up to him and continued shooting. By the time Nancy reached the fence, the couple's 11-year-old daughter, Sarah, was holding her daddy in her arms, covered in his blood. Elisha gasped once, but never spoke. He had been shot more than 30 times. Nancy knelt beside her dead husband's body as Ferguson and his outlaw gang ransacked the Koger home.

Seven months earlier, on Nov. 1, 1861, Ferguson had killed Nancy Koger's brother, William Frogge, as his wife Esther, also watched in horror.

On October 20, 1865, Ferguson was hanged for the brutal murder of 53 people. Nancy and Esther were two of those who testified against him at his trial.

The historical significance of the peace conference rests upon the premise of what might have been, a story of reasonable men who searched for solace during unreasonable times.

For the record, I had family members on both sides of the Civil War conflict who were both persecuted and harmed over what they believed in.

A Tale From Caney Gap, KY

There once was a wealthy farmer who lived at Caney Gap in Clinton County and his name was Bill Burchett. He always had something to sell. He didn't count his money, he measured it in a cedar water bucket that held a peck. When he'd get this bucket four or five times full he'd have a bushel. He also had an earthen crock to measure gold that held $3,000 worth when it was full. Sid Burchett, an old African-American who was born a slave, always lived with Bill or some of his children. Sid couldn't read or write and he stuttered, but when he finally got the words out of his mouth they were words of wisdom. Sid could lean on a hoe handle in a cornfield and smell the atmosphere and tell within thirty minutes when it was going to rain. No deal or business transaction was ever made without consulting Sid, and his decision about anything was seldom wrong. If he told them to sell a hog and they didn't sell it, it would die of the cholera the next week. - J. H. McKinley, The New Era, April 12, 1951

Hymns of Hope: Faith is the Victory!

Rev. John H. Yates was born in Batavia, New York on Nov. 31, 1837. He was licensed as a Methodist preacher after high school, but instead was forced to get a job to help maintain his aged parents. His father had been a shoemaker, so John's first job was in a shoe store. For thirty years he worked at different retail jobs, including a hardware store and a department store, eventually becoming the editor of the local newspaper.

All through his years of working Yates still managed to preach here and there, sharing his faith in Jesus Christ. Before his death in 1900, he switched from a Methodist to a Free Will Baptist and in 1897 began pastoring at a church near Batavia.

He also had another way of serving the Lord. His mother had been a school teacher who loved poetry and literature, and it was at her beckoning that Yates became a writer of poetry and songs. It wasn't long before hymns he had written were being sung all over the land.

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” - 1 John 5:4

John's faith was severely tested when his wife and two sons all died within the space of one week from an outbreak of diphtheria. He eventually remarried and kept going, giving living illustration that our faith in the promises of God and in our Lord Jesus gives us overcoming victory.

His success as a hymn writer led the famous singer and musician, Ira D. Sankey, to ask Yates to write hymns for him. Perhaps the deaths of his wife and children, and the testing of his faith, is what led him to write his most famous hymn, "Faith is the Victory."

Encamped along the hills of light
Ye Christian soldiers rise
  And press the battle ere the night
  Shall veil the glowing skies
Against the foe in vales below
  Let all our strength be hurled
Faith is the victory we know
That overcomes the world

Faith is the victory!
Faith is the victory!
Oh glorious victory
That overcomes the world

The Day Aeronauts Fell From the Sky in Kentucky

Metcalfe County, Kentucky has been known for a lot of different things over the years: The Kentucky Headhunters, Black Stone Cherry, UK basketball star J.P. Blevins and the natural gas pipeline explosion at Beaumont in 1985, but in 1910 it was known as the place where a hot air balloon fell from the sky.

On May 8, 1910, Viking, said to be the largest hot air balloon in the world with a gas capacity of 85,000 cubic feet, left Quincey, Illinois on a journey to set a long-distance record. The balloon, piloted by A. Holland Forbes of New York, President of Forbes Publishing Company, sailed over Missouri, Indiana and then Kentucky. At 16,000 feet they encountered a thunderstorm which caused their virtually uncontrollable aircraft to shoot up to an altitude of 20,600 feet, which was a new altitude record.

As the balloon approached Tennessee, Forbes and his crewman, J. C. Yates, also of New York, almost passed out from the effects of the high altitude. Forbes later said the air pressure at that moment was no more than four pounds. The trauma caused both men to lose their ability to function properly. Forbes panicked and pulled the rip cord too hard in a rush to slow his descent. The two men were forced to discard all ballast and provisions to check their descent when suddenly, at a distance of almost 500 feet above ground, the rip cord tore Forbes' new balloon open and, like a piece of lead, it dropped straight to the ground in the Center community in Metcalfe County. Residents there arrived to find both men unconscious and seriously injured, Yates' injuries were more severe. The two men might have been killed had it not been for a pneumatic mattress that was laying on the basket floor. When they began their journey in Illinois, thirty-three bags of sand were onboard the Viking. There was only one left when it hit ground.

Forbes was internationally known as a balloonist. There was not another balloonist in the United States, and probably in the world, who had more enthusiasm about the sport than he did. He had made so many trips skyward that newspapers and magazines dubbed him the "Cowboy of the Air." A year earlier he won a trophy for the longest flight made in the United States during the year after his balloon, The New York, covered 731 miles in 19 1/4 hours. The accident in Metcalfe County wasn't his first narrow escape. At the Berlin races in 1908, his balloon, The Conqueror, caught fire and fell rapidly. Fortunately, the torn bag formed a sort of parachute that enabled Forbes to escape serious injury.

After the ordeal in Metcalfe County, Forbes continued to be an active member of the Aero Club of America, retaining his keen interest in all forms of aviation until his death on Dec. 23, 1927.

Hymns of Hope: How Long Has It Been?

In Southern Gospel music circles, songwriter Mosie Lister was a legend. His best known songs include “Where No One Stands Alone,” “Till the Storm Passes By,” “Then I Met the Master” and “How Long Has It Been?” Born into a musical family in Georgia, at an early age it appeared he was tone-deaf. Although he gradually learned to distinguish pitches, he wanted to do more than that...he wanted to write songs.

He came to fame as he began to work with southern gospel quartets; singing, arranging, writing and producing. One day he thinking about how people can drift away from the Lord. "Once upon a time, they had told God they loved Him, but they hadn’t given Him much thought in recent years," he said. Sound familiar? All of a sudden the lyrics came and he started writing as fast as he could. In ten minutes he had written "How Long Has it Been?"

"How long has it been since you talked with the Lord
and told him your hearts hidden secrets
How long since you prayed, how long since you stayed
on your knees’till the light shone through

How long has it been since your mind felt at ease
How long since your heart knew no burden
Can you call him your friend, how long has it been
since you knew that he cared for you"
Within five years, more than a million sheet music copies had been sold. Jimmy Davis was the first to release the song on record in 1956. The Blackwood Brothers released it later that same year. Jim Reeves followed in 1959, Jimmy Dean in 1960, The Statesman Quartet in 1964 and The Cathedral Quartet in 1966. Mosie said he stopped counting in the 600's.

Albert Brumley, who wrote “I’ll Fly Away,” once declared “How Long Has It Been” to be greatest gospel song ever written. When asked, “What about your song?” he replied, “It’s not in the same class.” Billy Graham’s soloist, George Beverly Shea, often closed his concerts by singing this song.

"How long has it been since you knelt by your bed
and prayed to the Lord up in Heaven
How long since you knew that He’d answer you
and would keep you the long night through

How long has it been since you woke with the dawn
and felt this day is worth living
Can you call Him your friend, How long has it been
since you knew that He cared for you"
My favorite recording of this song has to be the version Jimmy Dean recorded in 1960 and released on his album "Hymns" (Columbia Records).

Hymns of Hope: Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

Helen Lemmel, the daughter of a Methodist minister, was born in 1863 in Wardle, England. Her family migrated to America when she was 12, first to Mississippi then to Wisconsin. A gifted singer, she traveled and sang on the Chautauqua circuit, eventually, becoming a vocal music teacher at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Among her works was a hymnal used by evangelist Billy Sunday for over a decade. She and a women’s choral group she directed were part of his evangelistic crusades at the peak of his career. Lemmel died in Seattle, Washington in 1961.

Originally known as "The Heavenly Vision," "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" (the first line of the chorus) was inspired by a missionary's tract Lemmel had read. First published as a pamphlet in England in 1918, she included it in a collection of hymns, called "Glad Songs," in 1922, and then in an American collection, entitled "Gospel Truth in Song," in 1924. Today the hymn, especially the chorus, is widely known and has become a standard reprinted in many hymnals.

O soul, are you weary and troubled
No light in the darkness you see
There’s light for a look at the Savior
And life more abundant and free

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth
will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace

His Word shall not fail you
He promised
Believe Him and all will be well
Then go to a world that is dying
His perfect salvation to tell

Alvin Bertram Preached for 54 years

On July 21, 1926 the Wayne County Outlook wrote, "Bro. Alvin Bertram of Albany died at the home of his son, Senator Elza Bertram, on North Main Street in Monticello last Wednesday afternoon after a short illness. Bro. Bertram had stopped by his sons home on his way to visit his daughter, Lena Denney, in Spiceland, Indiana, but became sick and only lived a few days. His children and their families accompanied the body back to Albany for his funeral and burial."

His tombstone at Albany Cemetery says he was a Baptist preacher for 54 years. "Few assocations can put forth a more faithful record than the one made by Bro. Bertram," wrote the newspaper. He had been a member of the Stockton Valley Assocation for fifty-seven years and had just recently been re-elected moderator for the twenty-sixth time.

Bro. Bertram was the fourth official pastor in 123 years at Clear Fork Baptist Church. Isaac Denton, the first pastor, served 46 years, 1802 to 1848, Daniel Hancock and James Abston then shared the pulpit until 1852, when Abston agreed to be the full-time pastor for the next two years. Isaac Denton's son, Joseph, served as pastor church for the next 32 years, from 1854 until 1886.

Following his death, Bro. Bertram, who had been ordained to preach in 1872, was elected Pastor and served from November 1887 until April 1889. He was elected pastor again in November of 1889 and this time remained in the pulpit for the next 36 years, preaching his last regular sermon on July 24, 1924. Upon his death, he had served as pastor for a little over thirty eight years.

Preaching the gospel ran in the Bertram family. Alvin's grandfather, William, was a Baptist preacher. So was Alvin's father, Jonathan. Alvin did more than preach. From 1893 to 1902 he served in the Kentucky legislature as State Representative of Clinton and Wayne counties.

Alvin was born at Sunnybrook in Wayne County on Aug. 22, 1846. He married Rosa Young of Clinton County in 1864 and lived in Albany the remainder of his life. Rosa died in 1919. Besides his daughter in Indiana, he was survived by five sons, Printis of Albany, William of Cartwright and Elza, Oscar and Joe, all of Monticello.

Like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, Printis also became a preacher. As a matter of fact, he served as Clear Fork's tenth pastor, from May 1932 to May 1933. Elza and Oscar practiced law in Albany for nearly 25 years as Bertram & Bertram before moving the practice to Monticello. Elza was elected to the Kentucky State Senate in 1910, and in 1933 became a Judge with the Kentucky Court of Appeals.

Rainbow Valley Will Never Be The Same

Lester Moran & his Cadillac Cowboys spent their entire career performing each and every Saturday night at the Johnny Mack Brown High School there at Rainbow Valley. That's the same dance that use to be held in the Volunteer Fire Hall before it burnt down.

"The Old Roadhog," along with Red and Wesley, the two young country singers, and ol' Wichita, Roadhogs right hand man, kept a strain of country music alive in the valley long after most people thought it had died, or should have died.

We thought the invention of the guitar tuner might kill off Lester's style of music, but unfortunately, I mean fortunately, tuners never made it into the culturally isolated Rainbow Valley, and when his record company tried to buy him one he rejected it, saying only "I never did like seafood much."

For years, Lester and the boys did a radio show on WEAK radio, where they spent fifteen minutes playing good ol' country music. They also did a lot of pickin' and grinnin' for some of their good friends over in Hogan County at Moose Lodge #13.

Ain't nobody gonna miss Old Roadhog more than his good friend Burford down at Burford's Barber Shop, that's B-u-r-f-o-r-d, and also Ernie at Ernie's Egg Mart, where you can always get cracked eggs half price at 8pm. That was a yoke!

We asked Old Roadhog of he'd like to say something and after he'd pulled his self together he said, "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.” So long until next time Old Roadhog, Lester Moran. Take it away Wichita!

RIP Harold Reid of the Statler Brothers. The class of '57 had its dreams. You changed the world and made it a better place to live.

Influential Albums: Let it Be

"Let It Be" was the twelfth and final studio album by the Beatles. It was released on May 8, 1970. I fell in love with the title track the moment I first heard it and, even though I was only nine years old, I desired to learn how to play the title track on the piano. After I worked it up I talked two of my classmates, who lived on the same street, into singing it in Margaret Cook's music class at school.

The next day, I uncharacteristically raised my hand and asked if we could do the song. I don't remember ever going out on a limb like that again, hahaha. She surely had to be curious about my forthrightness because, normally in that classroom I was happy with playing the sticks or, if I was lucky enough to be chosen, shake the tambourine. I didn't have any sort of music or chord arrangement written down in front of me. It strictly by ear. The only thing we did have were the lyrics, which I had written on a piece of paper that had been folded into a small square and stuffed inside my pants pocket.

We were midway through the second verse when I caught a glimpse of this cute little girl, with long black hair in pigtails, walking toward us. I thought she was coming to help my buddies sing, but instead she stopped in front of the piano and leaned over to watch me play. It was at that very moment that I realized what I wanted to do the rest of my life. I had discovered a way to pick up girls. Later, people actually started giving me money to play. That really threw me for a loop, but I went along with it.

"When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

And in my hour of darkness
she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be"