First Saturday Civil War Programs For 2011

The J. E. B. Stuart Regional Civil War Commission is pleased to announce programs for the upcoming year. The commission formed by Historian Thomas D. “Tom” Perry started programs in 2010 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War in Patrick and Henry Counties in Virginia and Stokes and Surry Counties in North Carolina forming partnerships with groups that are involved in serious study of history and the War Between The States that began in April 1861. These programs will center at the Bassett Historical Center over the course of the four year commemoration of the war that was fought from 1861-65.

The J. E. B. Stuart Regional Civil War Commission will host First Saturday Programs at the Bassett Historical Center beginning on February 5, 2011. These programs will be on the first Saturday of each month going from February through May to start. All programs are from at 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. Library is open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

February 5, J. E. B. Stuart and His Brothers Go To War.

March 5, Civil War Genealogy Workshop

April 2, Stoneman’s Raid with Tom Perry and Chris Hartley

May 7, Patrick County Virginia in the Civil War

Tom Perry, a leading authority on J. E. B. Stuart and the Civil War will lead all programs Perry is the author of over a dozen books on regional history and J. E. B. Stuart. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in History from Virginia Tech, where he studied under noted historian James I. Robertson, Jr.

The first program will concern Confederate Major General J. E. B. Stuart and his brothers William Alexander and John Dabney Stuart, who all served in the war effort in different ways. William ran the saltworks in Saltville Virginia during the war, one of the few sources for the vital element of salt for the Confederacy. John served as a physician in the 54th Virginia Infantry mainly in the Army of Tennessee.

The second program will be the annual Civil War Genealogy Workshop conducted by Perry every year at the Bassett Historical Center concentrating on how to find an ancestor in the war using Perry’s research on Patrick County Virginia as an example.

The third program will concentrate on George Stoneman’s 1865 Raid, which came through all four counties covered by the regional commission in April 1861. Author Christopher James Hartley will join Perry to discuss his new book Stoneman’s Raid 1865 published in 2010 by John Blair Publishing of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Hartley, a graduate of the UNC-Chapel Hill is the author of Stuart’s Tarheels: James B. Gordon and the First North Carolina Cavalry and works in marketing for Blue Rhino Natural Gas.

The fourth program will cover Patrick County Virginia throughout the war concentrating on the home front, the various regiments from the county that served and J. E. B. Stuart, the most famous person from the county in the war. Perry presents this program each year to the 11th graders at Patrick County High School.

The J. E. B. Stuart Regional Civil War Commission will began scanning material from the Civil War such as letters and photos from the four counties. This material will be placed at the Bassett Historical Center. Anyone with materials they wish to share should contact Tom Perry to set an appointment at freestateofpatrick@yahoo.com.

The J. E. B. Stuart Regional Civil War Commission is not associated with any other Civil War Commission. The sole purpose of the group is to promote serious history of the time period by giving educational programs and preserving the material from the war in the regional history library, the Bassett Historical Center in Bassett, Virginia, a branch of the Blue Ridge Regional Library.

Visit www.freestateofpatrick.com or www.bassetthistoricalcenter.com for more information.

Gee Whiz Pal Fellows

Fred Smith passed this week and I wonder if Ararat, Virginia, will ever be the same or if the people in Ararat really know who they lost this week. I am sure there are many stories shared this week about Fred Smith. I will tell two that show that his community was never far from his mind.

When I was a teenager there was a basketball goal at the Ararat Ruritan Club and it was the only paved surface to shoot hoops on. We played many games on the dirt behind Zeb Scales’ house, but for many years we played at the Ararat Ruritan Club. The goal came down due some others drinking, breaking glass and cursing loudly. I went to Fred and told him that it was not us doing it and that the basketball goal gave us a place to have some fun. The goal was back up within a week. That was the kind of man Fred Smith was. He listened and he got things done.

Twenty years ago when I started raising money to save the J. E. B. Stuart’s Birthplace, many people in Ararat scoffed at the idea of trying to preserve the site, but not Fred Smith. He put his money where his mouth was giving as much as any one individual donor except maybe for Lucy Pannill Sale or her brother William Letcher Pannill, but in Ararat no one gave more to save the site than Fred Smith. He did not stop there. I went around to most of the Ruritan Clubs in Patrick County getting $1,000 from each except for Patrick Springs that never invited me and never gave a dime to preserve the site. Ararat was the last to give, which should not surprise anyone (Luke 4:24) and there were members who did not want to give to the effort. I am told that Fred Smith got up at a meeting and lectured them about community service and supporting what I was trying to do. Fred never told me he did that, but many others did and I never forgot it.

Fred was the son of Davis Reid Smith and brother of Davis Reid Smith, Jr. along with the sister of Jean Smith Cooke, all great characters in their own right. A lifelong Democrat, who took up golf in his later years. I would say after he retired, but Fred Smith never retired. Fred was a great putter of the golf ball and he could talk trash as good as anyone. I know this. I don’t think I heard Fred ever swear, but he would say “Gee Whiz Pal Fellows” and for many of us that is what when we thought of Fred Smith. I know I smiled everytime I said it.

I have never known anyone in Ararat, Virginia, where I grew up, who did more for his community or thought more about his community than Fred Smith. I do not think any of us realize who we have lost or what that loss will mean for the future of the community.

Images of Mount Airy North Carolina

With the 125th anniversary of the founding of the city and the 50th anniversary of the Andy Griffith Show, Historian Thomas D. “Tom” Perry is pleased to announce release of his book Images of Mount Airy North Carolina. This 220-page book contains black and white photos celebrating the history and the memories of the “Granite City,” where the author was born after his family came from Tennessee in the 1940s. In fourteen chapters and over 200 photos, Perry gives a snapshot of the town his father, Erie Meredith Perry came of age in with a chapter on his family along with covering many aspects of the history of the town so associated today with the mythical town of Mayberry from the Andy Griffith Show.

Using personal relationships and his knowledge of the regional history Perry developed the book over the last few years not necessarily to be the definitive history of Mount Airy, but to give residents and visitors a good read with interesting images from the past and present. Perry received help from Emmett Forrest supplying images of Andy Griffith while he lived in Mount Airy. Donna Fargo personally worked with Perry for a chapter on her life. The Surry County Historical Society and Mount Airy Museum of Regional History both worked with the author on this book. Other organizations that supplied images were Mount Airy High School and the Gilmer-Smith Foundation along with many private individuals especially Burke Robertson and Steve Talley.

Mount Airy Mayor Deborah Cochran penned the Foreword in the book titled “What Mount Airy Means To Me” where she tells, poignantly and honestly, about her life in the city she now leads and how during tough times the people of Mount Airy rose up to help her family. She speaks about her dreams and how the place she called home made her dreams come true.

The cover image is the James Hadley House on Pine Street, one of the oldest and best examples of granite and Victorian architecture in Mount Airy. In Chapter Thirteen, Perry tells his personal reasons for placing the home on the cover as his grandparents lived directly across from the home and he would as a youth often sit in the window and read and look at the giant house. The Mount Airy Public Library was just a few feet up Pine Street, so it was this area that the author read books.

Chapters in Images of Mount Airy North Carolina with index and selected bibliography include Andy Griffith, Donna Fargo, the Dinky Railroad, Granite Quarry, Folks from Mount Airy, White Sulphur Springs, Main Street, Ararat River, Schools, Downtown area, Granite structures, Civil War, Reasons to Visit, and a chapter on the author’s family.

Images of Mount Airy North Carolina $19.99

ISBN 1449971733

ISBN-13 9781449971731


Available for order here Images of Mount Airy North Carolina
https://www.createspace.com/3418738


Visit Tom Perry's Amazon Page
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002F4UJGE

New Book Folklore of the Blue Ridge Foothills

See all titles available from Laurel Hill Publishing
www.freestateofpatrick.com/lhpcatalog201011wo.pdf

Laurel Hill Publishing is pleased to announce the release of Folklore of the Blue Ridge Foothills edited by Doug Belcher. The book will be available at the Bassett Heritage Festival on September 11, 2010, and at the Bassett Historical Center until then. ALL PROFIT from this book will go to the Building Fund of the Bassett Public Library Association. This is the first book published by Laurel Hill Publishing not written by Tom Perry and begins a new series of books called the Bassett Historical Center Series, which will benefit the library from the sale of this series.

This book originally published in 1969 from stories submitted by students at Samuel H. Hairston School in Henry County, Virginia, takes tales, superstitions, and traditions to weave a story about the folklore of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in piedmont Virginia. See a list of student contributors below.

Edited by the student’s teacher from 1969, Douglas G. Belcher, who holds degrees from Appalachian State University and UNC-Chapel Hill. He edited these stories from his students in 1969. Proceeds from this book will go to the Building Fund of the Bassett Historical Center. Mr. Belcher, a very private man will not do book signings or public relations for this book, but he is donating ALL profit to the Bassett Historical Center from the sale of this book.

Chapters in Folklore of the Blue Ridge Foothills are about Weather Signs, Household Superstitions, Animal Superstitions, and Country Medicine. The book includes student illustrations from 1969 and his indexed. At sixty pages, this book is a labor of love from a teacher wanting to remember his students and help our regional history library at the same time.

Student Contributors were Wayne Ashley, Jill Baily, Jerry Belcher, Debra Boardwifle, Ronnie Bryant, Doug Campbell, Debbie Cassell, Perry Cassell, Terilda Clark, Ann Clement, Danny Cline, Kathy Coleman, Debra Craig, Kirk Craig, Mary Craig, Roger Craig, Sandra Craig, Herbert Dellinger, Deborah Dillon, Lisa Draper, Richard Fitzgerald, Sharon Foley, Delairie Fretwell, Wanda George, Robin Gilley, Karen Gray, Ann Grogan, Harriet Grogan, Mickey Grogan, Joe Hairstoll, Paulette Hairston, William Hairston, Wanda Harbour, Jimmy Hearl, James Hendricks, Darryl Holland, Patricia Hughes, Tony Hutchens, Patricia Hylton, Sandra Hylton, Paul Johnson, Deborah Jordan, Michael Joyce, Charlotte Kellam, Steve Kendrick, Ray Lawrence, Judy Marshall, Jerry Martin, Sammy Martin, Debbie McAlexander, Marsh Merriman, Susan Milton, Susan Morris, Debbie Mullins, Ronnie Mullins, Darlene Murphy, Leon Nelson, Donna Nester, Owen Overby, Doretha Penn, Doris Penn, Richard Penn, Willie Penn, Tim Philpott, Dianne Rakes, Dean Randall, Vanessa Redd, Valerie Reed, Charlene Reid, Elbert Robertson, Michael Scales, Linda Shively, Paula Shough, Lee Smith, Linda Smith, Brenda Spencer, Jacob Spencer, Pamela Spencer, Pansy Spencer, Roger Spencer, Cindy Stone, Debris Stone, Philip Stone, Sandy Stone, Susan Stone, Cheryl Strader, Gail Taylor, Renniette Thomas, Velma Thomas, Janice Thompson, Vickie Tolbert, Linda Townsend, Telisa Triplett, Alonzb Turner, Edward Turner, David Vaughn, Dennis Via, Charlotte Ward, Carolyn Watkins, Howard Wigington, Wanda Wood, and Barbara Yates.

ISBN 1452871299 EAN-13 9781452871295 60 pages $9.99

Available from Laurel Hill Publishing at https://www.createspace.com/3454350

Available from Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Folklore-Ridge-Foothills-Douglas-Belcher/dp/1452871299/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282163730&sr=8-1

Visit www.freestateofpatrick.com to learn more about Tom Perry and Laurel Hill Publishing.

Ringo Rocks Durham

Ringo Rocks Durham With A Little Help From His Friends. On Sunday, July 11, 2010, I found myself alone in the company of several thousand fans in the company of Mr. Richard Starkey, the former drummer of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. You might know him as Ringo Starr, the drummer of The Beatles. The new Durham Performing Arts Center beside the new Durham Bulls Baseball Stadium was the site of the concert. This time last year I found myself in the baseball stadium listening to Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Bob Dylan outdoors. I call this my annual July visit with 1960s icons tour. Ringo and his All Star Band have been touring in eleven different versions since 1989. The 2010 group includes Ringo Starr, Rick Derringer, Richard Page of Mr. Mister, Edgar Winter, Gary Wright, Wally Palmar of The Romantics and on drums Gregg Bissonette.

Set List From July 11, 2010
It Don't Come Easy (Ringo Starr)
Honey Don't (Ringo Starr)
Choose Love (Ringo Starr)
Hang On Sloopy (Rick Derringer)
Free Ride (Edgar Winter)
Talking In Your Sleep (Wally Palmar)
I Wanna Be Your Man (Ringo Starr)
Dream Weaver (Gary Wright)
Kyrie (Richard Page)
The Other Side of Liverpool (Starr)
Yellow Submarine (Ringo Starr)
Frankenstein [Edgar Winter]
Peace Dream (Ringo Starr)
Back Off Boogaloo (Ringo Starr)
What I Like About You ( Wally Palmar)
Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo/Eruption (Derringer)
Boys (Ringo Starr)
Love Is Alive (Gary Wright)
Broken Wings (Richard Page)
Photograph (Ringo Starr)
Act Naturally (Ringo Starr)
With a Little Help From My Friends/Give Peace a Chance (Ringo Starr)

What surprised me about this show that I went too almost as a lark as how tight a band these guys were and how they played as a team showing the same enthusiasm for the other guys music as they did for their own. The energy level was high considering the age of the musicians. Ringo just turned 70 and was/is the oldest Beatle, then John, Paul, and George in age. During the show the crowd spontaneously sang Happy Birthday to Ringo, who quipped he was still looking for the present. He interacted with the crowd often making jokes about few CDs his new Y-Not album had sold doing a head count of the audience with copies.

I learned that Hang On Sloopy was the state Rock and Roll Song for the state of Ohio, but I did not realize that Rick Derringer sang it. He was a great guitar player including an almost perfect rendition of Van Halen’s Eruption at the end of his own Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo. Edgar Winter, who I listened to as a teenager, was also an amazing musician going from sax, to drums, to keyboards and that was just on Frankenstein. His song Autumn was one of my favorite ballads from the 1970s. Palmar had high energy and probably the weakest musician in this band playing rhythm guitar, but he kept everyone out of their seats singing two of The Romantics big hits with the audience yelling “Hey” on almost every line of What I Like About You. Richard Page held down bass duties and delivered two strong vocals on Mr. Mister songs Kyrie and Broken Wings that were hits in the mid-1980s.

Gary Wright sang a remarkable version of Dream Weaver that allowed most to sit down along with his Love Is Alive, but that was not because he was not good, just perfect timing in a show that most people stood for two hours. Wright’s voice was strong and he told the story that he played on George Harrison’s first solo album All Things Must Pass along with Ringo and that he went with George to India. Harrison gave Wright a copy of a book about Indian Philosophy and that there was a passage about weaving of dreams that led to Wright’s most popular song.

Ringo joked that, “George Harrison never gave me a damn book.” Implying his song writing might have been stronger. The fact is that two of Starr’s most popular songs Photograph and It Don’t Come Easy were co-written with Harrison. It makes one wonder that if this song writing duo had worked together more what might have happened. While they would never be Lennon-McCartney, they did make some beautiful music together.

Of course, the reason for the show sold out show was Ringo. He did Boys, which he noted he did with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes before joining that other band. He never once mentioned Beatles in the show or Paul McCartney. His later solo work mostly about Peace and Love, where repeats of the 1960s mantra of All You Need Is Love and even mentioned John Lennon in a song about Imagining a Peace Dream. While the naïve worldview is a bit outdated in the cynical times we live, there is no doubt that Ringo still believes it.

There were songs that you might have wanted from Ringo especially more from his wildly popular 1973 Ringo Album or Octopus’s Garden. When I was learning to play the guitar about 1973 after spending all summer in Theodore Guynn’s tobacco field making enough money to buy an FG-75 Yamaha acoustic, my teacher Sam Dobyns and I learned most of the songs from Ringo as they were not very difficult to follow the chords and gave us common ground to play together.

It is not every day you get to spend time with a living Beatle and these guys were very good and very professional, who enjoyed each other’s company and the energy from the crowd. It is not every show that you hear a former Beatle sing Carl Perkin’s Honey Don’t, which The Beatles covered or Buck Owens’s Act Naturally. Starr loved the former Hee Haw star and all musicians of Ringo’s age loved Carl Perkins. Starr brought the house down when he sang Yellow Submarine and I Wanna Be Your Man, but a more fitting finale for the show could not have been that With A Little Help From My Friends, the Lennon-McCartney song penned for Starr’s baritone from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Raleigh News and Observer Story
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/beat/ringo-plays-durham-with-a-little-help-from-his-friends#storylink=misearch

Photos from the concert
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/07/11/577083/first-look-ringo-starr-071110.html

Durham Herald Sun Story
http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/8728546/article-Ringo-rocks-DPAC-stage--excited-crowd?instance=homesecondleft

Paul McCartney showed up for Ringo’s Birthday Concert at Radio City in New York
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emily-singer/ringo-starr-and-his-all-s_b_640302.html

Jeb Visits GrahamFest

Christmas in July came to me this past weekend at GrahamFest 2010 in Major David Graham’s home in Wythe County, Virginia. For the second year in a row I took my J. E. B. Stuart photo exhibit to the mansion once visited by James Ewell Brown Stuart and set up in the Christmas Room. J. E. B. Stuart visited the home just before his fourteenth birthday walking through snow up to his knees. This year performers included Jeanette and Buddy Williams among others. I was happy to see Tracey Puckett Stump and her historically named sons along with Denise Coalson, who told me that she and her sister Deb Goodrich found the Graham Mansion over two decades ago. Denise wanted me to make sure we called Deb in Kansas to tell her we were there. I visited the house searching for everywhere Stuart visited over two decades ago myself. In this year, I celebrate the twentieth anniversary of raising money to save Stuart’s Birthplace. Thanks to Josiah Weaver and Mary Lin Brewer for having me again. This is a truly an interesting home with the history and a ghost investigation by the Virginia Paranormal Society.

To Alexander Stuart Brown

Draper’s Valley, Virginia
January 17, 1847


It is now dear cousin almost a month since I wrote to you last and I resume my seat hoping that you will—

View this not with a scornful eye
But pass its imperfections by

Although I have but little new to write yet I hope that I will have something that will interest you.

I was disappointed in getting a horse here. So I set out on foot on Tuesday morning for Uncle Brown’s I crossed the mountain and went up the back road by Graham’s, where I dined upon quite a fine dinner, and then set out on my journey the snow being about half leg deep and I tell you that I had a tough time of it, for I had to break the road nearly all the way.

I got to Cobbler Springs about sundown where I found Cousins T. and F., also Miss Mary McKee and Miss Maria S. Crockett who was as fat and pretty as ever. I had the pleasure of riding home with her next morning and in the conversation I brought up your name, and I talked about a good many different things concerning you and found them to be o. k. but away with this trash.

When I got there I found that I could not get a horse (I mean at Uncle Brown’s) until he arrived home which he did not until Thursday night following. I thought it was not worth my while to go to Patrick County until Spring at which time I intend to go or burst a gut.

I stayed there enjoying myself most remarkably well, until Tuesday making a stay of just two weeks when accompanied with Miss Maria Young I came down to the Valley where I have been ever since jogging away at old Caesar

I suppose you’ve heard of the wedding etc. The Colonel has gone with a carriage to Roanoke after his children. Things are going on about as usual. I received a letter from Sister Columbia the other day. They were all well and she requested me to send her love to you when I wrote to you. My school will be out the last of March. I want to go home then and stay until May and then go to Mr. Buckingham.

Yours,
J. E. B. Stuart

J. E. B. Stuart Papers, Virginia Historical Society.

My Mother Raised A Christian

Two times in the last two years I have heard my mother’s voice crack and seen tears in her eyes relating to her flowers destroyed and her years of work disrespected at the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace by the board of directors charged with preserving the site. Last time was in 2009 when azaleas she planted at the entrance were dug up and thrown away after she asked them to be brought to her as she caught members of the organization doing just that. These flowers were very personal to her because she brought them from her father’s garden in Augusta, Georgia, and planted them at the entrance to Stuart’s Birthplace. In fact, she tended the entrance for TWO DECADES. She and my father spent THOUSANDS of dollars at the site and this is how they are treated.

My mother raised me as a Christian. Something many people in Patrick County should be thankful for this week especially two specific boards of directors. On Tuesday, June 1, 2010, the forsythia planted by mother at the entrance to the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace was dug up and destroyed.

My mother’s reaction this time was similar as her voice cracked and tears welled up in her eyes, she said, “They are just flowers and they are not worth the trouble. Just let it be.” Now some people talk about being Christians and some people are. My mother is the latter. My mother planted yellow forsythia “Yellow for the cavalry” she said to honor J. E. B. Stuart and his men. It was the first cover of my book on Stuart’s Birthplace and the way I ended my talks for nearly two decades promoting the site and Patrick County.

While this may seem like a small "Petty” thing, but it is the motivation that I question. This is the second time this occurred. Both times when I was leveling criticism at members of the Stuart clique. These people will not come at me, but instead go after a nearly 80-year-old woman to get back at me. I guess they did not like me bringing a better J. E. B. Stuart living historian than they ever have to Ararat in recent weeks.

Over the last year, the tailgate of my truck was keyed (a long scratch down the entire width) during the Free State Of Patrick Festival in April at the Ruritan building in Ararat as many people with Highland Game T-shirts wandered around. Someone vandalized my booth at the Just Plain Country Store (not while the present owners have been there, but when the “Dix” owned the place and he did NOTHING about it). I had multiple business relationships sabotaged where people worked with me, then suddenly stopped, only to become a chamber member or show up at another festival in Ararat. I received harassing phone calls in 2009 from a number (276-930-4359) in Woolwine that originated from the textile plant where at least one employee was a board member of the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace. Recently, I received a threatening phone call from 276-694-6012, not hard to figure out where that number comes from.

I have seen with my own eyes a person parked behind my truck at the Stuart Wal-Mart, who is married to a member of the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace Board of Directors. They parked not in a parking stop, but blocked the lane for several minutes. I hoped he would get out of the truck because I had my cell phone set to 911 and I was getting ready to have him arrested. I caught this same person peaking around a tent taking a photo of me at the Ararat Festival a couple of weeks ago for what possible reason I cannot imagine. I do not believe any of this is a coincidence.

As you can see there are things at the Laurel Hill Farm that need attention such as replacing the Virginia Civil War Trail Marker shown here that is water damaged. Instead making a 78 year old woman cry is a priority. Here is the reason I believe this happened. Just three weeks ago at the Ararat Festival a representative of the Patrick County Chamber of Commerce told a business associate of mine that in order to work with the chamber the business associate would have to “Distance himself from Tom Perry” in order to work with them. When I complained, I received harassing calls that I asked stopped and one threatening voice mail message and my mother’s forsythia disappeared. Coincidence? I do not think so.

This should be a lesson to the sellouts from Ararat as to what their fates will be if they do not follow the line set by the clique in Stuart. I am from Ararat and not a member of the Stuart clique or a sell out like some of my parent’s neighbors. When you stand up for what it is right, there is a cost, but I would rather pay it than be a hypocrite. What does it gain a person to gain the world and lose his immortal soul.

Last year J. E. B. Stuart IV (shown here with me in 1991 when I raised the money to save his ancestral home) wrote a letter supporting these people and I assume their actions in an obvious dig at me for criticizing the organization I started, but more importantly disrespected my family. I think everyone involved or who support the Patrick County Chamber and the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace need to take a long hard look in the mirror and think about their behavior. I am use to the pettiness and jealousy aimed at me, but when you go after someone’s mother, who has done more than all those mentioned combined to preserve Patrick County’s and J. E. B. Stuart’s history there is something very “rotten in the Free State Of Patrick” to paraphrase Shakespeare.

Every time someone comes at me I think about the roof going on the Bassett Historical Center, something I am very proud of or the person who stopped me in Pandowdy’s Restaurant two days ago and congratulated me for what a great job I did at Stuart’s Birthplace. You can dig up all the flowers you want and bad mouth me all you want, but I know what I did and I don’t need the clique in Stuart to get my satisfaction. I get it every time I ride by Stuart’s Birthplace. I will follow my mother’s sage advice and “Let It Be.” My mother raised me as a Christian. It is a shame that the mothers of those in question did not do the same.

Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again. I'll follow it.