Check out my “Favorite images” collection on Google: https://www.google.com/save/s/list/pf6Yt4uyNxCjyQKKJomi_Q

The frontier of the Maryland colony was a desperate place inhabited by violent people.  The ancient forests hid predators unlike anything we can imagine today.   Behind every tree eyes peered toward intruders.  Wild animals were the least of your fears.  Arrows and tomahawks could fly toward you with deadly accuracy.  Only the bravest of men slipped into this hellish battlefield.  Without one such man, the frontier would have taken much longer to conquer.  His reputation was fierce.  A warrior without peer.  Even his wife carried a battle axe and swung it with great effect from her horse.  His name was Thomas Cresap.   Some of his fellow American colonist feared him.  He waged a one man war against Pennsylvania along the border with Maryland.  They called him the Maryland Monster.   Because of or despite his reputation, he engendered intense loyalty from those that soldiered under his command.  In one famous case, a slave who served him died on a remote mountain far to the West of any established fort.

The slave in question fought off attacking Indians and helped to save the entire Cresap party.  His name was not recorded but his sacrifice was memorialized by Cresap in legend and deed.  Even today, in the far West of Maryland there is an official sign atop a lonely mountain that quizzical motorists scratch their heads at.  It bears an odd title; Negro Mountain.   The Maryland Monster still lives.

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Remember the beginning quote from the Lord of the Rings:

History became legend, legend became myth

When you search “The Maryland Monster” these wild images of creatures roaming the woods of Maryland emerge from the internet.   What if I told you there was a real “Maryland Monster” that existed once upon a time in the violent frontier of colonial Maryland.   Would you believe me?  Would you be as interested?

I have been very busy over the last couple of weeks.   Sorry for neglecting my followers.  I am in the middle of a big transition in my life.  Adventures are just around the corner.  So close that I can smell it.

The dark wood is calling and I will be there soon.  In the meantime, I am running, drinking and gawking.   I managed all 3 in one day recently.

Chapter 2

An impatient and curious crowd of shoppers shuffled uneasily under the bright neon lights.  They were impatiently waiting in the checkout line for a disheveled young man to count out the exact coins to pay for his meager bundle of goods.   An excited boy tugged on his mom’s hand and pointed to the pitiful figure leaning over the cash register whose scratched hands  streaked dark red towards dirt rimmed fingernails.  “He smells really bad.”

“Shush.  That’s unchristian.  Obviously, he is down on his luck.”  She whispered.

“Or, he is one of those thru hikers.”  Chirped an old farmer behind the mother and son.  “I pick em up every year as they hitchhike into town from Snickers gap.  Lord knows they come out of those woods looking half wild.  I think my hunting dogs smell better after chasing raccoons all night in a rainstorm.”

“Either that or the Grateful Dead are on the road again” mumbled a white- haired grandmother wistfully staring at the scruffy young man.

Pocketing his receipt into a greasy pair of pants he mumbled a barely audible response.  “Thank you, ma’am.”  Casting a grateful and apologetic glance back at the line of impatient shoppers, he was desperate to escape the unwanted attention and hurried away from the cash register.   His muddied boots left a trail of dirt across the linoleum floor.  To his relief, the doors opened automatically upon his detection.  He quickly stashed his purchased items into a threadbare backpack without breaking stride.   He pulled up the  hood over his eccentric head wear.

“Don’t cover it up.”  The boy yelled breaking free from his mother’s grip.   “I like your hat.”

Tucking his long hair inside the hood, the young man paused, stroked his scrubby beard and looked back at the approaching boy.  “Well, thank you very much.  It was a gift that I got on night just like tonight.”

“Come back here.”  The mother demanded impatiently.

“Can I have your hat mister?”

“That would depend on your last name son.”

“Get your ass back here right now.”  The mother screamed at the boy.

Feeling uncomfortable with the unfolding drama, the scruffy shopper exited the store entrance into the rainstorm.  A young couple rushing headlong from their car bumped into him.  A gust of wind pushed his hood off revealing a pith helmet.

“DB!  exclaimed the male companion.  “Is that you?”

The incredulous man looked intently into the face hidden by the shadows cast by the faint yellow parking lot lamps.

“You got the wrong guy.”

 

“Dude, where have you been?

The female companion pulled on her partner’s arm.  “Let’s go honey.  Wasn’t there an arrest warrant or something for him?

“DB, why did you just disappear?  You never came back for your last year in college.  We all graduated without you.”

Pulling his hood back up and tightening the straps of the backpack, the accused man nervously glanced around the storefront for CCTV cameras.   “I am not the person you think I am.”   He walked away quickly into the darkness of the stormy night.

The young couple stood under the canopy of the store and watched him disappear.  “I swear that was DB Cooper.”  The man said.

“Well, don’t tell anyone.  I think his picture is still up at the Post Office in Charles town.”  The woman replied nervously.

“He looked different though.  Almost like he has aged ten years or more.”

“Living on the run will do that to you, I guess.”  She pulled his arm and lead him into the neon light of the grocery store.

David Bartholomew Cooper started running as soon as he was beyond the illumination of the parking lot.  His back pack was light and securely strapped.  He made his way along back alleys of the rural Virginia town.

 

The Great Trail was less than two miles away.  He hoped his old college friend was uncertain about his identity.   Maybe he would just forget the encounter altogether.   DB could not take any chances.  He never should have broken protocol.  The Kindred would be upset.  They gave him explicit instructions about maneuvering the 2,100 miles trail.  He was not to leave it without their help.  Even though DB was sure the small towns along the Appalachian Mountains were safe, he knew spies of the Authority were everywhere.  He walked in darkness until arriving back to where he exited the woods a few hours ago.  He quickly passed by the familiar blue blaze trail sign at the edge of road.  It signaled he was close to safety.

He began hiking the trail beyond it.  His anxiety eased as the sound of car engines became less and less loud until they faded away entirely.  He had another hour of climbing up the ridge before seeing the White Blaze of the Great Trail.  Reaching into the pocket of waist belt of his backpack, he pulled out a large chocolate bar to give him some energy.  Unwrapping his favorite treat, he bit into the prize.  Resupply was always dangerous.  That was why The Kindred put protocols in place.  His hunger and laziness almost cost him everything.  As the mist enveloped him, he began to feel one with the woods.  Soon, he would he would once again be invisible.

 

You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians.  They hated Russians.  They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. It cannot be overstated.  Bolshevism committed the greatest human slaughter of all time.  The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators.  

                                                                                                                    Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 

 

 

This quote made me think.   If truth is like a lion, what are truth tellers in an age of deception?  Are they the ones who let lose the lion or do they become the lion?   Also, it made me understand why Jesus Christ is often depicted as a lion.  Was he the truth let loose in the world?  Alexander Solzhenitsyn told the truth didn’t he?  John Brown acted upon the truth didn’t he?

Who was Augustine of Hippo exactly?  Wikipedia has the following:

Saint Augustine of Hippo was a Roman African, early Christian theologian and philosopher from Numidia whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in north Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Period. Among his most important works are The City of God, De doctrina Christiana and Confessions.  He lived  from 354 to 430 AD. 

Fast forward to today and think upon how far we have strayed from these teachings.   Everyone has their own truth according to social justice thinking.  Augustine of Hippo would blink incredulously at the poor intellect.  Like many of my heroes, he is a stranger to the modern mind.   Yet, his words are easily found on the internet.  Here are a few more.

“God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.”

“The world is a book, and those who don’t travel only read one page.”

“The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.”

“God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail.”

 

Was 1776!  

 

Artist John Trumbull (1756–1843) was in the colonial army camp at Roxbury, Massachusetts on June 17, 1775, the day of the Battle of Bunker Hill. He watched the battle unfold through field glasses, and later decided to depict one of its central events.[3] Joseph Warren, a Massachusetts politician and member of the colony’s Committee of Safety, volunteered to serve under Colonel William Prescott in the defense of the redoubt which the colonists had constructed on top of Breed’s Hill. This redoubt was the target of three British attacks, of which the first two were repulsed. The third attack succeeded, in part because the defenders had run out of ammunition. Warren was struck by a musket or pistol ball during the evacuation of the redoubt, and killed instantly.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Compare the sacrifice made by patriots like Joseph Warren with the current collection of socialist creeping onto the political scene today.    Our Revolution was for all citizens not just “working class families.”  I think that was the Russian Revolution right?  Didn’t go so well as I recall.  Today’s progressive types should go to Venezuela.  Pack some food for your trip.   I hear the working class families are hungry down there.  Oh yeah, leave your pets here.

 

“In this wonderful teaching, we find the whole of life and death presented together as a series of constantly changing transitional realities known as bardos.  The word “bardo” is commonly used to denote the intermediate state between death and rebirth, but in reality bardos are occurring continuously throughout both life and death, and are junctures when the possibility of liberation, or enlightenment, is heightened.

Sogyal Rinpoche – The Tibetan Book of Living and

 

 

“There is no place on earth where death cannot find us–

even if we constantly twist our heads about in all directions as in a dubious and suspect land…If there were any way of sheltering from death’s blows–I am not the man to recoil from it…But it is madness to think that you can succeed…

Men come and they go and they trot and they dance, and never a word about death.  All well and good.  Yet when death does come–to them, their wives, their children, their friends–catching them unawares and unprepared, then what storms of passion overwhelm them, what cries, what fury, what despair!…

To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it… We do not know where death awaits us:  so let us wait for it everywhere.  To practice death is to practice freedom.  A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.”

Michel de Montaigne

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Sods_Wilderness

The Dolly Sods area was first encountered by whites when Peter Jefferson, Thomas Lewis and others surveyed in 1746 to find the limits of Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron’s land grant from the British Crown. The famous Fairfax Line grazes the northern margin of the Wilderness near Bear Rocks. This area was generally avoided as too impenetrable to easily traverse until the late 19th century. David Hunter Strother wrote an early and somewhat breathless travelogue of the area, published in Harper’s Monthly magazine in 1852:
In Randolph County, Virginia, is a tract of country containing from seven to nine hundred square miles, entirely uninhabited, and so savage and inaccessible that it has rarely been penetrated even by the most adventurous. The settlers on its borders speak of it with a sort of dread, and regard it as an ill-omened region, filled with bears, panthers, impassable laurel-brakes, and dangerous precipices. Stories are told of hunters having ventured too far, becoming entangled, and perishing in its intricate labyrinths. The desire of daring the unknown dangers of this mysterious region, stimulated a party of gentlemen . . . to undertake it in June, 1851. They did actually penetrate the country as far as the Falls of the Blackwater, and returned with marvelous accounts of its savage grandeur, and the quantities of game and fish to be found there.

 

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Try this for yourself.  I used one of the common search engines for information on the Russia Subway system and slave labor.  What I got back today, 2/16/2019, sitting on my couch in a suburb of Washington DC was amazing.  The prioritized search return of articles was basically a diversion to articles either not mentioning slave labor or excusing communist excesses.  Also, quite bizarrely, I searched for images of Soviet Slave Labor Camps which resulted in a signifciant amount of images depicting Nazi concentration camps.  Why jewish prisoners in Nazi camps would be the search result of  “Soviet Union Labor camps” is beyond me.  It is not like there is a dearth of Gulag prison camp images in historical records.  Also, only a single image of alexander solzhenitsyn was produced (at least after scrolling through multiple screen pages).  Didn’t he win the Nobel Prize for Literature writing about this very topic?

I was left with the realization that the tech giants of Silicon Vallery are carrying on the great American tradition of covering up the ills of communism.

Don’t believe me.  Read the following articles that appeared in the top search results.

The first result for a search on Soviet Subway Slave Labor returned the following:  Soviet Subway

This is an odd choice sense there is no mention of the slave labor that built the subway system included in any of the 18 interesting facts of the subway system.

Another search for Soviet Slave Labor camps returned this article as a top result:  It all depends on what you mean by slave labor…

I am going to play a little game with this internet cognitive dissonance.   I am matching quotations from the above article with images found under very specific search queries where I explicitly requested, for example,  “kids starving during the Ukraine famine Union.”   If you don’t mention communism or Soviet Union in your search query, the results are more revealing.  So, lets begin, from excerpts from the article and corresponding images from separate queries.  Again, these were never combined in one search result.  I couldn’t make up the following bullshit excuses and rationalizations in my wildest imagination.

“It depends on what is actually classified as slave labor. Russia under Joseph Stalin, had a vast population of not only workers in Gulag’s but also workers who had no choice but to work on large infrastructure projects. If those workers who worked on the Canal projects, Military Ordinance Factories and the building of cities, were actually viewed in a proper sense than a really staggering statistic arises of what forced labor actually produced.”

“One most overlooked fact is that, the Soviet State would make it a right to receive health care. It can only be stated that workers in the Soviet Union were definitely treated better than those in Czarist Russia, and they built a majority the infrastructure. For Prisoners in the Soviet Union not much improved. They also built much of the Soviet Union, but they did not build more than 15% of the over all infrastructure or industry.”

“For most Soviet Workers the conditions which they found themselves in after the 1917 Revolution were actually better from the perspective of work hours, shelter and weekly schedule. As the concept of an 8 hour work day became standard. Cost controls also came into place, and even though food production actually fell, the feeling of being able to buy more basic things was better. The Soviet System did not have to deliver much, as the system it replaced had simply not provided even basic necessities to average people. Thus, when Soviet infrastructure was built by masses of struggling people, this perspective should be looked at. For there were set hours of work and limitations of how much they were expected to do.”

“If a person was not politically oriented and did not speak out about the government, than from 1924 on wards the economy of the Soviet Union would actually triple the wages earned for an average Soviet Citizen compared to the Czarist Era, in only a matter of 15 years.”

“For most Soviet Workers the conditions which they found themselves in after the 1917 Revolution were actually better from the perspective of work hours, shelter and weekly schedule. As the concept of an 8 hour work day became standard. Cost controls also came into place, and even though food production actually fell, the feeling of being able to buy more basic things was better. The Soviet System did not have to deliver much, as the system it replaced had simply not provided even basic necessities to average people. Thus, when Soviet infrastructure was built by masses of struggling people, this perspective should be looked at. For t

“The fact that forced labor was used by Stalin before and after World War II, is a fact which really is not a good indicator of human rights nor any concern for the vulnerable in society. This comparison, however only seems to work with comparison to certain free nations.“

Why, on earth, would this article be in the top 5 results of searching for “Slave Labor in the Soviet Union”?  What algorithm is making this possible?  Do you believe now that there is a concerted effort to cover up the crimes of communism?

 

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying describes the soul experience immediately after death.  It wanders through the Bardo.  Wrathful entities confront the dazed and confused soul complicating its reincarnation.  These monsters are really just projections of the deceased’s worst fears.  If not overcome, the soul cannot reincarnate into a higher self in the next life.  My book imagines a fear project run by a totalitarian government that implants subconscious fears in its citizens only to have them released during the Bardo journey.

This is why it is so important to strengthen your inner fortifications.  You will need strong redoubts.  If these are overrun, retreat to your bunker and hold tight.   Do not quit in despair.  There is a Bardo Patrol that will attack the monsters from behind.  Rescue is  possible.   Never settle for less.  Rescue is possible.  Always resist.  Pray.

I am in a race to retire before becoming too old to thru hike the Appalachian Trail.  Could it happen soon?  Preparations are being made even now.  If everything falls into place, it will be transformative in a very unique way.  I will literally step onto the pages of my book and become one of its characters.  The sights, sounds and smells of the forest, the strange company I keep and the experience of letting go will all become words and sentences in the 2nd book of my trilogy.  My reasons for hiking are not unlike the diverse characters in my 1st book.   One seeks redemption, one flees for safety, one searches for lost love while others wage moral war.   They all, however, have one thing in common: A renunciation of self.  Stepping foot onto the trail, they begin a journey toward to a place that they already are.   Mysteriously, they never return to the time and place they left.  There is no arrival or departure.  No here or there.  Just being.

Have you ever wondered what lies deep inside of us?   I read that most Europeans have some evidence of Neanderthal ancestry.  If so, how deeply buried in our DNA are these traits?   I surmise they lay dormant and only appear should we face extreme violence.  The wild man awakes when we are fighting for our lives.  A recent news article caught my eye last week.  Maybe you heard about.  A man was running a remote trail in California when he was attacked by a mountain lion.  To everyone’s disbelief, this man killed the predator with his bare hands.  Reading the article, one thing came through the words written.  Authorities, reporters and experts not only seemed incredulous at the story but also uncomfortable.  The story telling was awkward.  Clearly, the sheer violence unleashed on the mountain lion by this trail runner was unimaginable to most.    How can a modern man overcome and kill such an awesome creature.  What greater beast must lie inside all of us?  Pondering this internal violence can be scary.  I find it comforting.  There is a wild man laying deep within my DNA that I can call upon in my most dire need.  The vast majority of us will never discover this inner entity until we face that life or death situation and even then we may just succumb.   A few may become conscious of this internal wild and bring him forward preemptively.   Intense eyes suddenly glower in the mirror.  Strained chains are released.   Cage doors thrown open.  Dark forest denizens fall silent in mid growl and howl as the screaming wild man acknowledges the new moon.  The Kindred raise their eyes from the flames of their winter fire.  They peer into the black woods in anticipation.  A new member will join their ranks soon.  They make room around the fire and add another log.

There is a scene in my first book that describes the paranormal plasma that rises from countless graves, burial sites and killing fields of the early American frontier.  Instead of skeletons, the land pushes up the strife, grief, despair and fear of those interred.  It materializes above ground like glowing bluish plasma.  Wherever blood seeped into the land or bones lay smoldering within, it emerges each night.  Flowing down mountain ridges into dismal hollows, it forms countless tributaries that eventually swell over the banks of the Shenandoah river.  This spiritual flood courses above the river like a specter down towards Harpers Ferry and the mountain gap just beyond.  Instead of passing through with the newly combined waters of the Potomac, it eddies and flows into a subterranean cavern deep within the surrounding mountains.   Not sure why I got this haunting vision, or what it means but I am sure it is not articulated as well as I would like.   Basically, I want to say that all the people who exercised their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness often met a violent end as they clashed with native people.  There was misery on both sides.  While you can bury bones, I wonder how you can bury the emotional trauma that surely resulted.   What happens to it, where does it go?

Then I came across a poem which does a pretty damn good job of describing the forgotten desperate plight of these historical figures.  It is linked below.

The Old Pioneer

Despite the obvious Marxist influence focusing on economics and other dimensions of power, I find this poem really interesting.   While critical of America, it clearly believes in America!  What America exactly I ask?  This is interesting because I assume that the author means that America has some intrinsic good qualities or potential stemming from the US Constitution.  After all, what else does America have uniquely that makes its potential great?  Why write a poem about the greatness of America?  If we owe nothing else to the founders of the United States of America, it is the potential for greatness inherit in our system of government.   Ironically, the author travelled to the Soviet Union during the height of Stalin’s purges but refused to denounce them.  So, I guess he didn’t think Russia or Communism had potential to be any better than that?

I really enjoy this poem for its ability to offer another perspective on the MAGA hat controversy.  It explains why some may find the slogan offensive.  Clearly, America was never all that great for some.  However, I believe it supports the underlying theme that America has a unique potential for greatness, you could even say it affirms America’s exceptionalism.  That the poet did achieve great success during his lifetime in the literary, political and economic fields despite capitalism and bigotry way beyond anything exemplified by the characters of his poems, I wonder if America was better than he realized.   Its not like he was one the millions murdered in Stalin’s purges.

 

Let America Be America Again
Langston Hughes, 1902 – 1967
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!