So called torture

is much in the news now-a-days. To listen to the talking heads you'd think that American intelligence agents were not only next in line to succeed Satan but that he was seriously worried about a coup in Hell.

Ann Coulter puts it in Perspective.

Personally I think the Russians might have a more effective Method.

Also personally.......if I was allowed to do to some of the people in washington, DC as I'd like to.......even the Ruskies would be appalled.

Do you think I need to be on a higher dosage??

Life's a Bitch.....

.....so they say....

...and who am I to disagree with them.

We're pushed wailing and crying into the light and cold, experiencing our first rejection by the host that mostly formed us.

It sometimes doesn't get any better from there.

.....and then we die.

An almost Rainy night

9:10 pm

All the old folks have been in the bed for 45 minutes and I sitting here wondering if it's too early in the year to turn the air conditioner on.

The windows are open and the ceiling fans are whirring around and around but it's stuffy and warm her at the kudzu grotto.

I just walked out on the back deck. Lightning is playing silently around in the clouds to the northeast. They had a bit of bad weather up around the V-man homestead a bit ago. All north of us except for an occasional sprinkle that patters on the deck boards like the slow drip of a leaky shower head. Not nearly enough to rush out in with a bar of soap and startle the neighbors. Although the sight of my lily white arse dancing around in the back yard would be a serious incongruity in this neighborhood, let me tell you.

Nothing much going on.....The Taliban is going to overthrow Pakistan. (You knew this was coming when the US basically pulled the rug out from under our old ally Mousharaf. Sorta reminds one of the brilliant decision to abandon the Shah of Iran in the late 70's. Hey, he might have been an asshole...but at least he was our asshole, and the Iranians were living in at least a semblance of civilization. (when they say you can't go back again....look at Iran to see a rush backwards to the 12th century)

Sometimes I have to wonder if any of the bureaucrats in the State department have any loyalty to "Truth, Justice, and the American Way".

While searching for anything interesting to read on the blogs tonight I found this that made me laugh. First time I'd read Goldbloom’s Padded Cell. I'll be sure to return from time to time. I sure hope those tales are not true.....but, I suspect they are. Just damn.

Well the silent lightning has moved closer and there may actually be a little air stirring outside.

I think I'll go out and listen to the tree frogs sing love songs to one another.

May sing a few myself.

Time in a bottle

Time......

Too little...too much....not enough......where did it go.....how much is left....I don't have any...when will it be...

Damned if I know. All these are questions asked thousands of times a day, week in and week out.

We....that is mankind has been measuring it in some fashion for as long as we've had any cognitive thought processes at all. Whether it's making marks on the cell wall counting the days left or the days spent, we all in some form or another tend to keep up with time.

Why???.....good question, and I don't have a good answer for it that will do the subject justice.....there's just so many reasons...all of them related and all specific to our particular situation at the moment. Moment.....once defined as

A moment is actually a medieval unit of time equal to 1/40 hour or 1.5 minutes or 90 seconds. Of course now it means a short period of time

Source here

As a youngster I used to love to spring that definition on someone. It's funny sometimes the things that stick in your brain.

Anyway....I've always loved keeping time... every first my first Timex watch when a teenager. Of course back then you had to wind the mainspring every morning....
but I enjoyed being able to keep up with the passage of time...to be able to show up at the allotted hour.

Of course while I was in the Army flying fling wings it was important to know the time accurately. Take offs were set for a specific time......missions started at a specific time...... Instrument landings were timed after the crossing of a beacon..you started your descent at a specific time.....and of course you had to log your flight time in the log book accurately.

But, beyond all those things I just like being able to measure time. I like clocks and watches.....especially wrist watches and pocket watches.

I still have the Omega Speedmaster Chronograph I bought in 1972 because it was the same kind of watch the astronauts that went to the moon wore. It still keeps great time although mostly now it is regulated to an occasional wearing just for old times sake.

I have work watches...dress watches and even one that was give to the UGA Bulldog staff for being in the SEC championship game that they lost to LSU several years ago. Got it from a pawnshop here in Athens. I wish I still had the watch they got the year before when they won the SEC championship. In a moment of weakness I sold it to a friend who had attended UGA. I later learned he'd traded it to someone else. Mostly my watches are not expensive. I after all cannot afford a Rolex or some of the big name watches. Bulova is about my price range and I don't mean the really nice ones.

But occasionally even a blind hog turns up and acorn or two.

I picked up from my jeweler buddy in Toccoa today (also got a glimpse of the Portuguese beauty) a couple of watches I had him send off to be cleaned and adjusted. Got them with a bunch of scrap a couple weeks ago. I bought them for the gold cases. 18 kt gold both of them....one a Lucien Piccard (a quartz movement, but at least a Swiss movement and not one from China).....the other a Girard Perreagaux with a self winding movement (maybe 50 years old?).

In a day and time when Walmart is the king of retailers and China makes everything it seems, it's nice to see precision timepieces and remember that there is still quality in the world.

Both in watches, and people.

I'm thankful to know some of both. It's difficult to part from either.

Ya'll pray

I came in a little after lunch today to find the wife in the car about to take off to the Vet's. It seems that our little pooch was feeling a bit under the weather and, being the talented dog whisperer she is and noting that he wouldn't eat a piece of ham lovingly cut into bite sized pieces and given piece by piece from her hand, knew immediately that something was wrong.

Hence the trip to the Vet.

It seems that poochy has eaten something that caused blisters within his little esophagus causing much distress. What it might have been is a mystery to us, but the Vet said that certain grasses or weeds might have been the culprit.

Of course the first thing we thought of was that he might have taste tested some of my refining supplies. But, no, when checked they were found to be stored properly and out of his reach. Soooo.... at this point we have no smoking gun.....only a poor little distressed pooch who doesn't even fight when we squirt the medication down his little goozle.

So you all keep Toby Boy in your thoughts and send up good intentions to the universe, that he might have a quick recovery and get back to eating much more than is good for him.......sorta like I am want to do if given half a chance

Tilling the land

Once upon a time....a long time ago...I was a farmer. A dairy farmer it's true, but a dairy farmer especially a small one as we were, has to be many things.

1. a guy with Popeye forearms from squeezing all those teats. Yes we had milking machines, but after washing and drying the udders you have to squirt a few squirts from each teat to insure that the milk is OK. Looking for abnormalities and testing a small amount to check for a bacteria presence. You may know that fresh milk from a healthy cows udder is free from bacteria....and if properly handled will mostly stay that way until consumed. Hence the need for constant cleaning of milkers, pipelines, tanks and ensuring that the milk is rapidly cooled to about 36 degrees F and kept that way through the process from cow to consumer.

Another thing is that sometimes due to circumstances it becomes necessary to milk a cow away from the barn. If you don't have a small portable electric powered milker pump with either a generator or long electric cord, you wind up milking out all her milk by hand. Try that on a cow that produces 5 gallons in the morning and 5 gallons in the afternoon. Thats about 85 pounds and I've had cows that produced as much as 140 pounds a day.

2. A husbandman of not only the cows and young stock but of crops like corn and hay, pastures in the summer and winter, winter wheat, spring rye, sorghum cane....you name it.

3. A mechanic to work on all the equipment that it takes to till, harvest, fertilize. Tractors, manure spreaders, silo loaders and un-loaders, hay cutters, hay balers, silage wagons, feeding wagons and all the electrical equipment that controls so much of the dairy process.

4. A fence post setter and wire stretcher.

5. A driver of trucks, tractors, earth movers and smoothers and most importantly of men (hopefully done by leading and example) and animals.


But that life is long in the past. Years and the added burden of too much weight has about brought me low.

What causes all this moaning and groaning you may ask.

Well you may.

I was tasked with getting the garden tiller cranked this morning and tilling up a small plot for the wife to set some daisy plants out.

Well the tiller doesn't want to crank easily today so I'm off to the auto parts for some oil and starting fluid.
We're soon in business finding roots and rocks enough to fill a wheel barrow. (this for a single tiller wide patch eight feet long). All the jostling, wrenching, bouncing and lifting of rock of various sizes up to 30 pounds soon had my lower back screaming for a little relief.

A trip to CVS for a back brace, and then a return to CVS to get a larger size since my pants size does not in any way resemble my actual belly size.. Just Damn! I've got to get rid of a 3 or 4 year old kid who has somehow grown inside me. My first goal has to be to lose 30 lbs...the next to lose at least 10 more while doing enough exercise to keep the belly from hanging down around my......well...

The process started at lunch where I had two hot dogs...no bun...with a bit of mustard and 16 oz of water. Tonight limiting the portion size and making myself stay away from the pound cake lurking enticingly under the cake plate cover on yonder table.

Well at least the back pain has eased and soon I'll take it to bed. We'll see what the morrow brings. Hopefully something nice.

See you in the morning.

Git on th' wagon

Did you ever take a dump in an outhouse?

Did you ever use a page out of an old Sears and Roebuck catalog to wipe your butt?

Did you ever go into that outhouse on a summer day and have the heat inside start sweat running down your back like you'd just finished a marathon and the smell be almost enough to gag a maggot?

I'm old enough to remember the old privy, or as we called it, the 'outhouse' at my grandfathers house.

It wasn't there too long. I think they started building their house just a hundred yards up from the dairy barn in the year I was born. They'd been living in an older house down the road from the dairy for quite a while.

The outhouse may have been there before they started building the house, because I can't remember the house not having a bathroom in my first memories, but I can remember using the outhouse there as well as at other old homeplaces and our little country church which has a two sided double holer. One side was for the men and boys and the other for the women and girls. Not a lot of privacy as far as the sounds of bowel movements were concerned, there not being a separate pit for either side.....in fact the one at the church didn't have a pit. It just had an opening in the back so the by-products of church 'homecomings' and 'dinners on the ground' could slide slowly down the hill in the back.

Grandpa's out house was eventually removed...lingering only in memory and thankfulness that we've got indoor plumbing now.

All that long in the past except for trips to the woods, where we just have to squat behind a bush, or a port-a-potty at the fairgrounds now and then.

I can remember the old mule drawn wagon stored down in the shed beside the corn crib also....although by the time I came along it had been retired to a slow death from dust, cobwebs and neglect in favor of more efficient methods of hauling crops in rubber-tired wagons pulled by McCormick Farmall and Ford 8N tractors. So I never got to ride behind a pair of mules plodding steadily between the fields and the barns, dust puffing from under each huge iron shod hoof at each step, the only noise the clopping of the hoofs and the creaking of the wooden wagon and the occasional passing of gas from under their course tails.

But, I know what it means when somebody says "Git on th' wagon".

It means that if you don't hurry and get in the back of the truck and hang on, your daddy was gonna grab an ear and apply the side of his brogan to your scrawny backside in an effort to make you see the light.

I've not posted for almost a week. Mostly because I've watched in amazement as the media for the most part tried to marginalize, minimize and ridicule the TEA Party activities of tax day. Their words quite at odds with the impression I came away with that day.
And partly because I've been busy seeking, finding and moving the small treasures I fool with. Also partly because we spent Sunday traveling in the NE Georgia mountains visiting some gold mining sites and taking in the still full stream beds of the Etowah and Tesnatee rivers and Yahoola Creek.

There were a few rain clouds around washing the pollen from the air and causing the flowers on the dogwoods to shine as white as freshly starched shirts from the laundry. Azaleas bloomed in pink, red and white profusion, making a delightful colored salad for the eyes. It filled our hearts with gladness.....a restful respite from the cares of these days, which, depending on who is reporting, is either the worst of times, or the beginning of the end times.

Git on th' wagon is a phrase that we could well heed I think. I invite you to click Here and watch the two short videos. The Ol’ Guy doing the talking may sound a little country preacherish, but don't be fooled.....you don't become the CEO of Godfathers' Pizza and turn it from an almost failure in to a most successful company by being stupid. It takes a pretty intelligent thinker to accomplish that. It could be that we'll need more intelligent thinkers to keep this county from becoming just another foot note in the future history books.

Exercising

I actually got out and exercised a little this afternoon.

I walked about 3 blocks from my parking space (cursing the fact that I'm old and out of shape and that I should have worn my other shoes) to the TEA Party in front of the Arches in downtown Athens that mark the entrance to the University of Georgia.

But that's not the exercise I'm writing about tonight.

I'm talking about the fact that I exercised my rights under The Constitution of the United States as enumerated in The Bill of Rights.

First...Amendment I;

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I used my freedom of speech to communicate with the people around me and express my opinions. We did assemble peaceably...and even allowed the communist workers party to exercise their right after they showed up across the street about the time the TEA Party was over. Which lead myself and many of the others to hang around and make fun of them. I also..along with other availed myself of the privilege of petitioning my elected representatives (some of whom were present and participating themselves) for a redress of grievances.

Second....Amendment II;

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Nothing really needs to be said here, except that I did so lawfully and safely. No one was harmed in my exercising of this right.


Third....Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I felt perfectly secure, even though the officers in law were observed riding past in their vehicles and even moved the aforementioned idiots off of the island in the middle of the street. Apparently they had no permit for a street protest and had to move back to the opposite sidewalk where they didn't impede traffic.

Forth.....Amendment X;

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

I reminded myself that The People rights do not come from the government...rather the government has powers granted to it by THE PEOPLE whose rights come from their Creator.

It felt good.

I estimate the crown there to be about 250 or so. Not too bad for a demonstration in the heart of possibly the second most liberal city in Georgia.

There was (gratifyingly) a large percentage of young people there. It is after all a college town. But there were also octogenarians and I saw children as young as about six. There were businessmen, I recognized a lawyer or two. Rednecked farmers and their wives as well as young couples who looked like they may have (or still are) served in our military.

There was no violence (unless you call a little good natured heckling of the workers party crowd), no attempts to deny anyone their free exercise of any of their rights, just good people on both sides of the issue doing what more of us should have been doing all along.

I took a lot of pictures but will only post a couple picked at random. (clicky-click if you want to see them bigger.





There may be something to the advice to get out and exercise...I just might try to do a bit more of it.

True love

Scammers seem to be coming out of the woodworks and Washington, DC by the thousands these days.

Why just this morning I received an invitation to a relationship by a very nice young lady.

Here...I'll just post her lovely letter to me so you can judge for yourself....

--- On Wed, 4/15/09, helen akubia wrote:


From: helen akubia
Subject: Best regard,
To: concealed to protect the not so innocent, and not so niave
Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2009, 5:08 AM

Dearest,
How are you today?
i am very happy to your respond to the email i sent to you in your address at the site.
I am miss Helen akubia.
Age 24 ft 5/6 wt 59,I from Ivory coast,and live in senegal now.
I grew up in a Respected family with my grandma, mom, and two brothers.I learned early to love and respect mens and to respect family values.
I love music both listening and singing myself. I love sports and movies. I want a partner,

I am not joking i'm just a lonely woman looking for true love and family. I love children.I love ethenic men because you seem so fresh and real.
I am a very loving, honest, fun loving, caring, and passionate attentive lady. I am honest and trustworthy.

I am a one woman lady looking for a one woman man. I am a helpless romantic and in need to marry anyone with true love between us.
I enjoy the outdoors, the beach, active lifestyle, martial arts, swimming, snorkeling, reading, music, dancing and fine dining.

I know we can make future from here,and tell me what you think about this,i will like you to tell me more about your self and send me your picture ok,
i will sending you love tonight and in my dreams as you lay sleeping I drift down softly kiss your lips and lie down beside you and drift away in your arms.And i will like to know more about you,
i will send my picture i will sent to you,awaiting for your reply
Sincerely,
My Prince
Yours,
Helen.


As you might imagine I was most interested in the potentialities that might lie lurking in such a letter. Especially the opportunities to have a big ol' belly laugh at someone else expense.

Please.....any of you lonely people out there feel free to communicate with this young lady. I'm sure the possible comic benefits will be obvious to you.

Herewith: My reply

Miss Helen,
You sound like a very delightful and pleasant lady, and any lonely man would be proud to know you. However, I must tell you that in my experience long distance relationships do not work our for the lonely man because of the distance to which his member must be stretched, as well as his gullibility. Which I am sure you know can be stretched a long way, but what would happen if a band of Somali Pirates attacked while it was strung out that far. It would be difficult to reel it in fast enough to avoid potentially serious damage.

Additionally I am from an older generation than you and it is customary for the brides parents and family to pay the groom a dowry of 2 kilograms of fine gold before the nuptial planning can take place. This is not a thing to be taken lightly and no relationship can proceed unless it has been paid in hand in the grooms country of origin.

Of course all of us here would be very anxious to meet you and your cousins, and if you are ever going to be in the neighborhood, please to let me know so as I can make a trip down to Franklins to stock up for the visit.

Looking forward to your next most excellent reply princess.
Sincerely

Kdzu


By the way....she had responded to an advertisement on craigslist.com where I was advertising a 5 cttw 14kt tennis bracelet.

And she was not the first scammer....just the first to offer to marry me.

Well there was the one woman at the flea market who offered to marry me for a little while in exchange.

I still have the bracelet.

It's time

My friends,

I awoke at 4:36 am this morning convinced in my very soul that we have to do something now...each of us...individually and together to reach out to like minded individuals and groups (even if only a group of 2) to change the direction that our society and especially our beloved country of The United States of America is heading.

For too long We the PEOPLE have been dumbed down by those who would attempt to wield power and authority against us.

The latest outrage of our own Dept. of Homeland Security warning local LEO's against God Fearing, Constitution believing, Patriotic, law abiding Americans...even Veterens....has me to the point that I must act.

No longer will I remain on the sidelines....hoping against hope that the majority of Americans will wake up.

I intend to use what little resources and time I have available, to speak out...hopefully with a clear voice (and I know you have all heard and read me rant, at times incoherently) against injustice, oppression, criminality by any who would deny to anyone the rights and protections given to us as individuals by a benevolent Creater (whoever and whatever you chose to think that means) and guaranteed to us under The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.

I suggest and urge that you get involved. Do SOMETHING to bequeath to our children...and generations to follow...the rights and freedoms that our forebears and ourselves served, fought and, yes, sometimes even died to protect.

I may not have the answers (if you know me at all you know that even though I might bluster and pontificate for all I'm worth sometimes) but I know that together we can make a difference.

You don't have to individually make much of a difference...just do something.... but together we can change the world.

For the better is my prayer.

Get involved...don't wait... we live in a time now where we can no longer wait, hoping that a divine providence will miraculously take care of things. It's truly said that GOD helps those who help themselves.

May we be Divinely Blessed in our efforts.

Consider the following actions.

1. Join NOW American Solutions
2. Add your voice to the movement to pass the Fair Fair Tax as a replacement to an unfair present tax code and the IRS.
3. Don't be afraid to make suggestion about how things can be made better.

Let's do something.

To you and this Great Country I pledge my Life, my Fortune, my Sacred Honor.

Remember the Alamo

I may just move to Texas.

I might pass out too..

Especially if I was just hearing it put this way.





It's said that there need to be watchmen on the wall, but, what do you do if you're a watchman and no one will heed your warnings. Do you pull an Alamo.....or do you head for the Gulch?

PS. Read some of the comments to this video.

Did you hear this??

It's over a year old......16 months old.

Did you hear it then? Does it put today's events a little bit more in perspective?




What are you going to do about it?

Better stock up. I don't care what you stock up on..........just stock up. Use care.

More evidence....

.....That I'm slipping into my second childhood.

The thinker

I don't remember who the blogger was (perhaps it was the acidman) who said there were three kinds of bloggers........Stinkers, Linkers and Thinkers.

I'm pretty sure I fall in the first category.....and I'm fine with that. A man must, after all, have some idea about his limitations else he is want to delude himself.

But today I chose to be a Linker.....to a Thinker. And not only to a Thinker, but also a man of words. Words crafted carefully to cause you to think more deeply about things you know already.......or feel instinctively at your core.

Go Here. You most likely won't regret it. And if you do regret it......let me know..
.. I'd like to identify you so we're not likely to meet face-to-face in this life.

Hick-um-ups

Just double damn.

It seems lately that all I do is complain about my feet or strange dreams.

Last night was even worse. I developed a case of the hick-ups about the time I got home from a hard day of treasure hunting, and they lasted 'til this morning.

With the exception of a couple of hours sleep during times when they abated a bit, it was an up and down night. My diaphragm would jerk up and down on the order of once every 15 seconds. I thought when I got up for good about 7am this morning that maybe they were over, but that notion was quickly dispelled by a new fit.

Right now they've calmed. I came and drank a glass of ice water in small sips while holding my breath and they seem to be gone. I'll sneak down a few bites of scrambled eggs and a bit of buttered toast and hope for the best.

The good news is that the worst of the thunderstorms missed us to the north last night. We did have some good hard rain and a bit of thunder and lightning, but nothing like our neighbors to the west and north got.

Springtime in the South......don't you just love it.

Polar Bears and Southern Boys

I suspect that when a polar bear stands bear (he he) footed upon an ice flo he considers it just another spring like day.

On the other foot....when this southern boy sits with his feet on an ice bag, two things are happening....his feet are hurtin' and now they are hurtin' and cold.

Damnation! I think I'll take two tylenol PM and put my feet to bed. Call me in the morning.

I'll let ya know if I have anymore weird dreams.

'Pon th' Dun @ 3:30am

There be more silver atop the ol' noggin now, than blond. My dearly departed mother used to describe the colour of it, in my youth, as dishwater blond. Hopefully referring more to the hue of it, than the fact that at the end of th' day it was full of dirt, grime and sweat from a day of play and work in th' barns and fields of a small (as most were then) dairy, where we lived, and worked, and loved, and fought when I was but a boy.

It sometimes seems that it's easier to sleep in the daylight hours, than th' dark these days. Much dreaming of odd and disturbing dreams of late...possibly due to weaning off of some of the meds.....possibly due to some message being sent, as I've come to believe.

Hopefully not a portend of evil to come, but of good.

More likely due to the influence of the full moon this night than anything else perhaps, for she shines halfway down the western night sky so brightly as to cast a shadow from the trees outside the window.

I thought I'd been prompted to rise and write down the images that were so much more than real in my head a short time ago.

At first I was haunted by a vision of having my truck stalled in the North Georgia Mountains while my children (still small and unruly in my dream, fully grown with families of their own in reality) were running about engaging in all kinds of mischief that I seems unable to keep them from.

Then a shift to a group tour of an ancestral home...perhaps in Ireland.....by myself and relatives both familiar and unknown. A royal place, full of tradition and items of history from many Generations. A royal welcome from occupants whose prestige and glory might have been behind them, but not forgotten.....but embraced, as might befit a house having seen better times, but determined not to forget a heritage proud.

Articles there were, from other times.....small and large. Histories and places of importance to none but family now, as succeeding generations, properly, place more emphasis on the here and now.

I've always been proud of my mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, for they seemed to be people of accomplishment and success, tho' they were but people of the soil for the most part. But then.......by necessity back then....most people were. While not, perhaps rich in money they were rich in land and cattle and a work ethic that provided for the need of them and their families... with a bit left over for neighbors and friends.

Dun

Scroll down to Dun here

Down, Dun, Don These prefixes all evolved from the Gaelic word 'Dun', meaning a fortified place. As Ireland has always had wars, there are many examples of fortified places. Donegal [Fortress of the Foreigners] (county Donegal), Dungannon (county Tyrone), Portadown [Port of the fortress] (county Armagh), Dungarvan (county Waterford), Downpatrick [Fortress of Patrick] (county Down).

Perhaps there is something to my night time wanderings....certainly it means a bit to me....what exactly, is hard to define. Perhaps nothing more than a memory of an e-mail to our family yahoo-group a few years back....


Mike Dunigan,
Pampa, TX
----- Original Message -----
From: Lee
To: Dunagans@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Dunagans] Digest Number 347

I used to go to Europe frequently my close friends who were researching their family history in England and Scotland. We spent many days walking through cemeteries and touring old libraries and homes. One year, we decided to make a trip to Ireland since none of us had ever been there. We visited several cemeteries, mostly as a joke, and to my surprise -- and theirs -- we never saw the Dunagan name or any of its many variants.

My friends began to seriously question my "Irish" heritage when we went to the National Heraldry Museum in Dublin and no where did we see the family name on its many displays. Disappointed and confused, I ask the security guard manning a information desk during the lunch hour where I might begin the quest. Something was wrong, and I wanted to find out the truth. Was Dunagan an Irish name or not?

The guard directed me to the National Library just up the street. While my friend and his wife went shopping, I went on a card catalogue hunt. Much to my surprise, an hour or so into my quest, I found a reference to an unpublished manuscript from the 1940's. I asked to see it and after going through the security procedures expected in such a place, I found my self in a small area with a microfilm to read. The original, I was told, could not be viewed.

After reading for an hour or more, I found it was far more than I could digest in one sitting. The writer, a Dunagan of one faction or another, had set forth a rough outline of the Dunagan family (Dunagan is one of the official spellings of the name recognized by the Irish government and Heraldry office; there are many variants as has been discussed in this forum). The author had traced the family to its earliest origins which lay in the fertile soils of four separate corners of Ireland. The earliest known patriarch of the family being Heremon, the 19th King of Ireland, the first of the Milesian line, who ruled for 15 years and 5 months from the "year of the World 2933" (approximately 888 A.D.).

I immediately went to the Library's main desk and inquired as to how I could obtain a copy of this intriguing document. The Head Librarian frowned. "I'm afraid that's almost impossible, " she said. "This is an original manuscript that was commissioned by the Irish Government and without the express consent of the Chief Herald of Ireland, I'm afraid it can't be copied or published. And, unfortunately," she added, "Permission is seldom granted in such matters."

"How do I try and get permission?" I persisted.

"You must file a formal petition with the Chief Herald's Office, just down the street. It could take months to get turned down." she replied smiling.

Back down the street I trudged to the same museum I had left with disappointment earlier that day. As I approached the same guard who had been there earlier, I calmly explained to him my situation. He listened intently and then, without saying a word, rose and departed through a door behind his station. Paperwork, I thought, He's gone to get mounds of paperwork. A few moments later a man comes through the door followed by a herd of others who are primping and pampering him -- one applying make-up. The man introduces himself as the Chief Herald of Ireland and explains that he is about to start a BBC filming but that when he heard my request, he wanted to meet with me.

Taking me upstairs to his office, where his staff had already assembled a flurry of maps and documents, the Chief Herald explained to me that the Dunagan family was all but extinct in Ireland even though it was one of the country's oldest families. Four clans had ruled Ireland as Princes in the early Celtic days. He pointed to maps and showed me where to visit. He outlined Abbeys and ruined castle sites, churches and battlefields. Dunagans are still buried in the walls of the ruined Cathedral of Limerick dating from the rule of Mary, Queen of Scots and Cromwell.

Many early writings give the family history, or parts of it:
The poems of O'Huidrin in the early 1400's praises the family:

Of the race of Conaire [an early Dunagan] the hero
Let us speak, of the Chiefs of Muscraighe (600)
A hoast whose seat is the fine land,
The land of Mairtine of Munster.

Muscraighe Mitine (602) the great
O'Floinn obtained, just in his battle host;
A valiant array who obtain away,
O'Maolfabhail is over it.

Oh Aadna (603) who bestowed cows has got
The wide Muscraighe Luchra; (604)
A tribe of fine and high renown
about the salmon-fall Abhain Mor.

The territory of O'Donnagain, certainly
is the great Muscraighe of the Three Plains (605)
with the host of the flock abounding Iaraam (606)
Host of the sunny land of vowed deeds.

Muscraighe Theithirne (609) the Mighty
Is hereditary to O'Cuirc, as a just man;
O'Maoilbloghain (610) important in the territory
Has tilled the land of fine sods.

Over Muscraighe Tire (615) the warm
Are two dynasts of best nobility;
O'Donghalaigh (614) and O'Fuire also (615)
Of the flesh plain of the flowery smooth border.

Almost every quatrain of this poem has a reference to one of the four clans of Dunagans who forged early Ireland. Muscraighe of the Three Plains was a territory that King John granted from the lands of Muskerry Donegan to William de Barry. Muscraighe Tire comprises the present Barony of Lower Ormond and a part of that of Upper Ormond in the County Tipperary. The Chiefs of the clans of Tipperary and Waterford were O'Donegan or Dongan, Princes of Aradh, of the race of Heremon. And it goes on and on..

The family has a rich history, no matter how we spell the name today. The earliest known spelling was MacDonnegain or MacDonnegain, angelized to Donagan or Dungan, from the ancient Chiefs of the County of Limerick.

Happy Hunting!1

H. Lee Dunagan, AIA
Architect
Mineral Bluff, GA USA
----- Original Message -----
From: gfdunigan@aol.com
To: Dunagans@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Dunagans] Digest Number 347

Hey Dick
Maybe we should all change the spelling to the correct way.. DUNIGAN..

My family name is spelled the same back 5 generations. On my gg grand father who came over from Ireland spelled it Dunigan. His death cert had his father Edward listed with the same spelling. If the name was changed it was changed in Ireland. We think they lived in County West Meath, which is in the heart of the country.
Im told there are no Dunigans spelled our way left in Ireland. I also have a old registry of Dunigans from all over the USA by state and by other countries and there are none listed in Ireland.

Just a FYI

George

George Dunigan
George Dunigan Sr
John Jr
John Sr
Bernard
Edward.
Dick,

I also ditto "Learning something new each time you
post"

When I first started to research my Donegan/Dunnagan
roots, I ran into the same problem. My mother said
that my GGrandmother Pennina spelled it Dunnegan, I
couldn't find her anywhere. The line seemed to stop
there...till I discovered my GGGrandfather George
Washington Donegan, was the father of Pennina. Well
after a brief period of happiness, I was 'stuck'
again. Eventually I found out that George had changed
it from his father's spelling. George's father being
James Henderson Dunnagan. I too have rode the
Dunnegan/Donegan/Dunnagan merry-go-round!

We need to be reminded of where we came from ......from time to time....to keep us humble sometimes, and sometimes, to lift us back up.

I prefer @ this early hour (4:47 am) to think on the later.

An so....back to sleep for a bit......in the smaller brown rocking recliner, with my Georgia Cattleman's wall rug pulled up over me....for if I sneak back into the bed the wife...sensing my return, will, no doubt, get up at her usual very early hour... and she needs her rest.

Soon, a new dawn will break.

Need a bowel movement??

Then This ought to scare the shit out of you.

Then make you get off your arses and pick up a loaded gun.

Heaven's Booty Call

The world is certainly full of strange, weird people. So much so that sometimes you just have to wonder if earth is the insane asylum for the rest of the universe.

This story out of New York certainly doesn't lead one to think any differently.

"We're missing one person. Nobody can replace that hole," Fausto Rodriguez said.

While I'm sure that her family will miss her...........I'm not so sure that the world in general is any worse off without her.

What do you think was missing in either her brain, or her life that would cause her to do something so stupid??

The sad thing is, that there are others out there, doing the same thing.

Refiners Fire

Some few years ago I stood in front of the congregation of the Ward I was a member of at the time and related a incident that had touched me greatly.

One of the ladies of the Ward and I were talking, and she, knowing of my interest in precious metals and refining, gave me a paper with the following story on it.

There was a group of women in a Bible study on the book of Malachi. As they were studying chapter three, they came across verse three which says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." (Malachi 3:3) This verse puzzled the women and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.

One of the women offered to find out about the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible study. That week this woman called up a silver smith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest in silver beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silver smith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot--then she thought again about the verse, that he sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.

She asked the silver smith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left even a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed. The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silver smith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?"

He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy--when I see my image in it."


I was reminded of that today as I was looking over some Silver Eagles I'd picked up a few days ago.

One of the coins was a Proof coin, and as I looked at it under my loupe, I was impressed by the slick reflectivity of the surface of the silver. Like a mirror it reflected whatever was in front of it....no distortions...only a perfect image looking back at me.



I had to wonder...are these the times that will try us like a refining fire?? Will the image that is eventually cast back at us resemble in any way the vision our founders had for the country they pledged their lives....their fortunes.....and their sacred honor for.

We can only wait and see.

Afternoon thoughts

It's been another rainy day in the 'hood. I'm sure the lakes and streams still need the water....but the contractor who built this house didn't make allowances for the water that runs downhill from the neighbors gutters and right down against the foundation blocks at the end of our house. No sloping of the dirt to keep the water away and running around.......just right up against the house where it pools and seeps underneath to the crawl space.

I'll have to dig up one half the yard to pile it up on the other half. Just damn.

On the other hand, the rainy weather makes for some fine sleeping during the day.

I had to carry a package over to Fedex this morning and then went by Academy Sports to find some decent shoes to walk in. This foot pain from the plantar facisiatis is a true bitch.

I found some New Balance shoes that fit pretty well, but will have to add an arch support to get some support under the middle of my feet.

At least I don't have flat feet.....although then I could go snow skiing with out having to rent skies.

I spent part of the afternoon posting a few things on eBay to start this weekend. Mostly junk but then there are plenty of people who buy junk. They don't pay much for it.....but then I got nothing in it but some time.

I don't want to get to selling too much.....the gov't might force me to take a bailout and then fire me. Of course if I had a $20 million golden parachute that might not hurt so bad.