Howdy Alex, great to hear from you and glad you’re keeping warm and dry.
I hope you forgive me for sending you the excerpts from “The Lonely Long Distance Dream Runner, running across America trying to find justice and finding it at the end of the trail.” As usual whenever I contact anyone I wind up writing to them about what I have just been writing about, and in this case it was about trying to tie the running in with the Pamphlet writing, and since the Pamphlet writing began with helping all of Eastern Carolina, and marrying or marinating the two together to tell the tale, but it was hastily written, like the first draft of the old version that I called “Letter to a Businessman” and sent to you decades ago, and you were kind and said you liked the fast healthy food takeout/restaurant idea.
I’m not sure I could marry the two pieces anyway. I only tried to write a “business letter” because it was the only way I knew to try to help my people here, our people. I do know whereof I speak re poisoned fields, poisoned field workers, poisoned farmers. Did you know that farmers lead the nation in death by suicide? And the ancient Greeks considered farming the noblest profession. But you know I was a log and hog hauler, only trucking jobs available here, and I worked for years, when the work was available, on the poisoned land here, even sprayed with poisons while working in the fields, and worked with the migrant laborers from Mexico and El Salvador, and made lasting friendships with them, the men, women and children. I have a lot of notebooks full of that time but live with the thought that none of it will live.
Coupla incidents: A fellow name José from El Salvador had taken off his shoes after a farmer friend had “split the middles” which means running a splitting plow between the rows to turn up fresh cool earth (counterproductive because that dries out the land even more) but when José saw the cool earth he took off his and walked in the damp ground a long while (here I must interrupt to say I wasn’t here when that happened or it wouldn’t have happened) and that night his feet began burning and the next morning he was in such agony that the farmer took him to the hospital and they didn’t know what to do but told José he might lose his feet, and José ran away back to Texas where he had some friends, and it was later learned that he went back into Mexico.
I used to use my limited knowledge and wild mint and wild clover blossoms and other natural remedies to “doctor” my friends and it always worked and once a woman worker from Salvador dubbed me “Doktor Jake” and rubbed her stomach and said “bien, bien” all the while smiling to show me the plant medicine had worked.
Another: Black fellow named Thunder was working in hog houses and accidentally vaccinated himself with a witch’s brew of steroids, antibiotics, etc., and the vaccine turned him “purple” but again I wasn’t here when that happened, friends told me when I got back on the swamp.
And this: One day I borrowed my grandma’s phone to call the Pitt County extension office and ask the director there to please send me a list of the vaccines NCDA recommended for hog parlor hogs and even I couldn’t believe the count. It went on and on and on–in fact, I still have the extensive lists in my desk. I must stop here and decide on whether I should hit Send. Any road, sorry I rattled on, but in my defense I believe it’s because you will understand, just as I believe you would understand how and why it all happened.
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Jake
