The End of the Trail, sculpture by James Earle Fraser (1894) The year of Albert’s birth
Note~ This poem has been modified from an original poem, “Lonesome Land”, by my uncle Albert Pendergraft (1894–1944). See the brief commentary on Albert’s life and the original composition following the poem. (Rewritten, revised, expanded and edited by Lloyd Albert Williams.)
Dedicated to Albert and his Lonesome Land with love and hope . . .
You’re a Lonesome Land a virgin land Beautifully exposed free and bare You’re an untamed still wild Lonesome Land But a proud land demanding yet fair
When I pause on some sun-blistered hill And gaze far o’er your broad boundless range Where the brisk restless winds never still And swift sunlight and cloud shadows change
There’s a song in my heart and an ache A longing indefinitely sad With contentment that sorrow can’t take And my troubles seem gone and I’m glad
In the night while the hours slowly pass When the wolves wail their long lonely cry And the wind whispers low in the grass As the stars circle silently by
Your feminine spirit holds me fast In a spell that cannot be undone While the days of my lifetime shall last You have blessed me and made me your son
Then softly to me drifts your sweet voice When I’m so weary and far away Faintly I hear you and I rejoice For you are calling me home to stay
More often now I hear your calm call While I so long but sated do roam And my eyes fill with tears that might fall Were it not that you’re calling me home
Your voice promises comfort and peace When I rest on your nurturing breast Then all my cares and sorrows shall cease And my somnolent soul shall find rest
Give me strength till my battles are won While along life’s lonely trails I plod Then at last when my journey is done Let me sleep for all time ‘neath your sod
Let my spirit roam free in your hills And keep watch as the ages pass by Till the clamor of humankind stills When mere men and their follies shall die
Till the heavens and earth have grown old And the endless dark night has drawn on When the sun in your path has grown cold And the days of creation are gone
###
(The original 1944 poem has been privately retained for posterity)
About Albert and the original poem:
Albert Pendergraft was one of my several uncles, and I was given his given name as my middle name, but I remember meeting him only once, when I was just two or three years old on the main street of Worland, Wyoming. I remember he gave my older brother and me each a silver dollar and he bought us a wagon to share.
At the time he was a ditch rider for some of Wyoming’s Big Horn River basin counties. Albert committed suicide in 1944, leaving behind a poem he called “Lonesome Land”, presumably as a self-penned epitaph, although it was written in more of a lyrical ballad kind of song-writing, repeating the title “Lonesome Land” every other line in each verse. A ditch rider’s life is a lonely life, so the original poem, or ballad, may have been generated over time by singing it along the trails he rode, which, if so, made it a much simpler poem than this recent rewritten revision, although the meaning of the original poem and a few phrases of the more memorable lines have not been changed, but all of the stanzas have been altered for length, meter and the rhyming scheme, including four new stanzas that I have added. ~llaw
When I was drafted into the U.S. Army in the spring of 1961 at age 19, I, having grown up in Wyoming, had maybe laid eyes on a black person a half dozen times in my entire life, and certainly I’d never had occasion to speak with one with the exception of a couple of black kids from Rock Springs, Wyoming, who were also involved in the state’s competitive high school sports programs.
The Army sent me to Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, for basic training. There I met a few black recruits and got to know and befriend some of them who were assigned to the Post’s baseball team as I was, plus a couple of barracks-mates. After basic training I was sent to “Advanced Infantry Training” in Ft. Gordon, Georgia, where I found some “gung-ho” blood in me and decided I wanted to join the “Special Forces Rangers”, and was soon scheduled to be transferred to Ft. Benning for that training.
One day at Ft. Gordon I walked over to the base PX alone, entered, and saw two uniformed young black men sitting together at a table enjoying a beer. I thought about grabbing a beer and sitting down at their table with them, since the three of us were the only visitors to the PX at the moment. But then I noticed their name tags, and that they both had the same last name as I did, plainly printed in black letters on a white background on their uniform shirts. I was shocked, to say the least, and I had no idea what to do. Obviously they had seen my very rare northern British Isles’ name as well, and they were staring at me, too, probably much like I was at them. I don’t know how long the staring contest went on, but I sensed that there was no animosity between us, yet I still was at a total loss about what to do next — like introduce myself? Go grab that beer and then introduce myself? I was embarrassed beyond words at my silent and staring behavior, and eventually I just turned around and walked out of the PX, shaken beyond sensibility, realizing somewhere in my distracted mental confusion that somewhere, sometime, the heritage of my related family must have included southern American slave owners.
From the personal shame of that moment, as I came to understand later, was what it was that caused my confusion of that accidental meeting and my thoughtless decision to walk away without so much as a hand-wave or even an acknowledgement of their presence. That feeling of embarrassment over a racial issue that should never have occurred has never left me, and, given my age today, never will. But, during the long span of my life, I have always honored and appreciated all the minorities who became intertwined with me during my lifetime and all of its adventures, and many of them (black, brown, yellow, and red) became very good and close friends, even though after my military days, back in Wyoming there weren’t many of any minority to choose from. But as I moved on in life and met minorities in more motley surroundings around the country, my cordiality, comfort with, and love for minorities has never waivered.
EUSA 4th Cav Division (Korea)
It turned out that I never went to Ft. Benning because the Korean War was winding down, essentially over, and my administrative talents and other white-collar abilities, even at nineteen, where I had already worked for a couple of years at a Wyoming bank during high school and after graduation, the Army decided I was more urgently needed in Korea to specialize in the interviewing and evaluating process of rotating all kinds of Army military personnel back to posts and bases in the United States, and that after a year-long tour in Korea, I could go back to Ft. Benning if I wanted to. I never went back.
But, far more importantly, at the headquarters company of the 4th Cavalry division in Korea, I met a balding black Army administrator who I thought of in those days as my personal “Uncle Remus”, a gentle man perhaps twice my age, who constantly smoked an old bent briar-root pipe. He would eloquently fill me with a plethora of valuable axioms of life that personally benefitted me throughout my personal and professional life for years later. Every evening after work he and I would meet at the bar for a welcome beer or two, or even three, and we would discuss the world-wide subject of human life and how to bear it. I knew him, and only remember him today, as “Smitty”.
South Korea, 1961, just South of DMZ with North Korea
To this day I think Smitty was, in many ways, the best friend I’ve ever had, even though I only knew him for that one long year in South Korea, just a couple of miles south of the North Korean border. Also to this day, I know he is the only man (or woman, I believe) until now who I ever told about my thankfully short, but awkward, meeting up with two black brothers who bore my own exact surname. Smitty was the guy who made me realize and reconcile in my mind that I simply was not yet mentally prepared in my young life to understand the momentous shock of that uniquely rare and strange experience. Smitty was right. Yet, still, I wish I had had the courageous wherewithal to get that beer, another round for them, and walk over to their table, introduce myself, and have a friendly conversation. ~llaw
This final update will be my last regarding my long-promised “Up in the Night: My Cancer Story”. It’s not going to happen! Due to potential legal problems caused by particularly unique and serious incidents and events during my hospitalization associated with certain doctors, nurses, and hospital staff that are controversial, and, in some cases, descriptions of my hallucinatory state of mind during the early stages of my cancer, I have been summarily advised by my attorney in this matter to absolutely refrain from publishing this story in any form to public, or even personal friends and any other potential readers. I certainly understand this, and will comply with my lawyer’s legal advice.
Just know that this dreadful cancer, a fibrous lymphoma-like series of tumors in my stomach lining and pelvis are long gone, and I am on a lengthy but straight and steady highway to full physical and mental recovery from the extremely debilitating affects of both the monstrous cancer and the chemotherapy, blood transfusions, and other medical treatments, not the least of which was recovering my lost memory. For a few long weeks early on, I had little or no recall of time, locations, names, or just plain reality, although I unsuccessfully insisted and pretended that I did. But I could not answer the simplest of queries when doctors asked me questions like where I was, what city or state did I live in, and the name of the U.S. president whom I had spent years writing negatively about.
All of that is behind me now, but I am sorry that I cannot divulge my full story to others, even if it could only help one other person to successfully win his or her war against this most aggressive and horrible of diseases. I am so sad and sorry my tale and its telling concluded this way. ~llaw
Your patience is most appreciated! Several issues have set me back a couple of months or so, but I hope to have the first installment posted by or very soon after the 1st of March. I have had some setbacks, both physically and mentally, as a broken back accompanied by some kind of remorse or even self-pity, but mostly the problem with the delay has been gathering necessary data and information to corroborate some facets of my story. Things like dates and times have been somewhat elusive unless I have them documented myself, which is not always the case.
My health is finally improving rapidly and I am gaining strength and confidence every day. I have mothballed my wheelchair, my walker, and very recently, even my cane.
I also had a broken back of unknown origin discovered from excruciating pain just before CAT scans and PET scans in late November helped diagnose that I was finally cancer-free, and my pain and inability to get around easily while my back healed has now substantially subsided.
So now that I am once again feeling well and strong and in good health, I should be able to begin the monthly episodes of my horrific cancer experience in earnest. My notes are also, finally, essentially complete.
Again, I apologize for the couple of month’s delay, but it was unavoidable. My sincere hope is that the long siege that I have had with my personal health is now behind me and that I will be able to accomplish all of those hopes and dreams, endeavors and projects, that I have for so long been set back from. Bless you all for your patience! ~llaw
The End of the Trail, by James Earle Fraser (1894)
It has been more than a year since I have made a post, other than updating an existing Page occasionally. The reasons are several, including a long nasty battle with cancer, and I apologize to all of you who follow my posts and me on this website for what I may have to say about the state of the world and its many controversial facets.
For nearly the entire year I have been fighting cancer, and, finally, after many months of chemotherapy and other treatment, as of late November, I have been pronounced cancer-free, but it has left me mentally and physically exhausted with weaknesses of my heart and in my soul that I am now rapidly overcoming. I staked my life against the disease and after many battles, I won the war. I need to tell the story, both for my own benefit and for those who want or need to know more about the true darkness and destruction cancer causes even if it is somehow sometimes defeated over time.
I am presently writing an account of my battles with this monstrous terrifying disease that covered many months (some before I knew I had it, but I did know there was something seriously wrong). I will publish the story here in the form of episodes broken down in time and issue, There are so many of us, including me until I experienced its deadly malicious forcible ability to take over your own body and mind for its own purposes and use you for its sole desires and reasons. Cancer is a war of wills, and without the proper medical care and personal determination to never give in to its murderous physical and, yes, mental attacks on you, you will lose the war. I was lucky enough to have the excellent oncological and other medical care that was necessary, along with a personal constitution to never let it defeat me.
In a few days I will be publishing the initial post to my website. I invite your comments, insights and any corroboration you may have from your own experience or any related or associated connection to this insidious disease that kills so many of us, including helpless innocent children who’ve never had a chance to know what life is like without it.
I hope you all have enjoyed a merry Christmas and are blessed with a happy New Year in 2021! ~llaw
This is an update to my original post in September concerning critical questions about the future of America and the world, which is now looking more perilous today than ever before. Bolton is gone now, but he is not silenced, and Trump, along with Pompeo, and probably Pence and Barr as well, have implicated themselves in one of the most incredible political scandals in the history, not only of America, but world history. Even Shakespeare’s tales pale in comparison.
So what will the “Stable Genius” with his “great and unmatched wisdom” do next now that he is solely responsible for Syrian genocide, betraying our Kurdish allies, allowing the Turkish invasion of territory they want to steal from northern Syria, and, yes, freeing ISIS, leaving our American and Kurdish troops suddenly caught between two enemies? Not to mention that his bonehead order includes the possibility of America’s military losing control of fifty nuclear bombs located at a military base in Turkey.
Russia and Turkey are the only two countries on the planet who are pleased with Trump’s traitorous act of sedition against America’s Democracy, but both Syria and Iran are smiling. So I have to ask Republican Americans one more time: Whose side do you believe our mentally ill and dimwitted American President is on? Former Secretary of State Tillerson was absolutely correct when he called Trump a “fucking moron.” Trump must be forcibly removed from office NOW!
The attached hyperlinked interview by the highly respected think tank “Foreign Policy in Focus” of Lawrence Wilkerson, (the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, and currently the Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Government and Public Policy in the Government Department of the College of William and Mary) by Emanuel Pastreich, (who is the director of the Asia Institute (asia-institute.org) and a senior scholar at FPIF, is a detailed and desperate warning to America and the world about what has already happened to our great experiment of living in a democratic republic and what the rapid chameleon-like metamorphosis of our government into a fascist empire led, for now, by a moronic sociopathic amoral and cruel narcissist who is supported by the lazy and apathetic incompetent and compliant political leaders in other branches of our government who have have enabled Trump and, to some degree, several presidents going back to and including Reagan, gradually consolidating power around the sitting president and his executive branch. Trump is taking full advantage of this deplorable situation during his presidency, leaving the power of the congress and the judiciary reduced to soggy milquetoast at this stage. Yet Trump, if allowed to remain in office, still has nearly a year and a half to completely seal his autocratic deal.
We are faced at this very moment with the disturbing concept of changing the meaning of a “dystopian world” from one of the fictional fantasy of novels into a catastrophic world-ending reality. Reading this clearly spoken, straightforward and pointedly honest interview will explain exactly why the future of global death and destruction of authors’ imaginations today, may become the horrible reality of tomorrow.
Nuclear energy and bombs are not subjects for the faint of heart, nor are they to be discussed lightly as if we are discussing the results of the last NFL football game on Monday night. The very idea of world-wide nuclear proliferation is like a sixth extinction death wish.
The United States, China, and Russia already have enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on this planet, and then there are the stationary but prolific nuclear power plants around the world that can easily be turned into in-place weapons of mass destruction through little more than cyber attacks among warring nations. Like all powerful human concepts and inventions once believed to be eternally used for good and beneficial objectives, nuclear power plants (and even their waste depositories) can easily be used for catastrophic evil destructive purposes in times of human dissension. Those times are staring us right in our faces right now.
Three men in the present White House have taken control of our war powers, which were once constitutionally controlled by congress. These men do not have America’s–nor the world’s–best interests at heart, and they also despise the concept of diplomacy and policy agreements among nations, removing America from almost every international pact designed to protect and preserve the sovereignty among our allies around the world.
These three men, Donald Trump, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo, (who lead our nation’s entire national security operation) are busy making unilateral decisions that affect our military strategy throughout the world, and they are all three incompetent, capitalistic, war mongering fanatics who would like nothing better than to start a war with Iran as soon as tomorrow. But in lieu of that, until the time is right, they are in league with every major defense contractor in our country to expand our already bulging nuclear arsenal.
What this maniacal approach to our national security does is panic the rest of the world’s nations and shoves down our collective throats a new and unimaginatively colossal international nuclear arms race among world powers as well as every nation on earth that has never felt they needed nuclear bombs before because the concept of “nuclear restraint” was protection enough. That concept has now been shot all to hell by America and Russia.
There is historical archaeological evidence that humans may have blown up the world once before with nuclear power, and of course, we never learn from our past mistakes, but even if that never happened before, we ought to understand that once is once too often.
H. L. Mencken on electing a moron for president (1920)
Quoting H.L. Mencken from way back in 1920, “Downright fools and complete narcissistic morons,” like Trump, et al, just don’t get it. How long are we going to allow this insanity to continue? Because if we don’t stop it today it will be too late tomorrow. ~llaw.
To understand what Trump is in the process of doing to America and the world, read the referenced must-read article here.
The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California.
I have begun serious research on my first extensive work of journalistic non-fiction, disguised as fiction until it is published, about the immense dangers of nuclear energy production and those plants related to the reality of adversarial cyber attacks to the power grids where nuclear energy is produced and distributed, especially as weapons of mass destruction in times of war. I have recently posted a blog article here, concerning my fears about this vital problem with nuclear energy and its vulnerability to such lethal attacks, titled “Nuclear Power Plants and Their Relevance to Nuclear War“. The draft title of the book is fittingly called “El Diablo”. ~llaw
A child walks past graffiti depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on the walls of a bar in the old town in Vilnius, Lithuania, Saturday, May 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
The more we allow Trump to get away with Constitutional non-compliance (like with the emoluments clause ignoring court orders and subpoenas, and violating his oath of office every day) and continues to run roughshod over everything else in our American way, the less chance we have of saving our democracy. Congress must quit dragging its feet NOW, before it’s too late. Trump’s stonewalling, refusing to comply with congressional and court subpoenas, creating inane frivolous lawsuits, all serve to intentionally extend Congress’s foot-dragging and we are fast running out of time to get rid of him.
By the time the 2020 election rolls around, just a short year-and-a-half away, he may well have broken so many laws and violated the Constitution so successfully that he will be in a position to not even allow an election, or just as bad, refuse to leave office if he is defeated at the polls, and uses his authoritarian “presidential” powers to force America into a civil war and WWIII at the same time. He is already searching for a conflict with Iran in the Middle East, which could be only a bombing run away from starting a global war.
Of course that’s a worst case scenario, but looking back at the severe damage he’s already wrought upon our country and got off scot-free with over the past two-and-a-half years, and with the complicit Justice Department saying he cannot be indicted for his crimes, no doubt gives him and Putin, the GOP, et al, the power to simply bully their way into entirely destroying our American way of life within the next year-and-a-half.
I, for one, personally refuse to live under the shadow of a dictator, and life in Trump’s version of America is more than bad enough already. ~llaw
The remains of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The radiation leakage has now been covered by a stainless steel roof, but the city of Chernobyl will essentially remain a ghost town for thousands of years.
If you missed the first three episodes of “Chernobyl” on HBO, at least try to find a way to watch the last one, which aired tonight. I am sure it will be replayed for several days or weeks. Watch it if you can.
And then you will know that nuclear power is not safe, contrary to what the industry and our government would have you believe. Humans, intentionally or not, can interfere, mistakenly or deliberately, with anything that has lethal power, whether for good or for evil, and all nuclear plants are as dangerous and life-threatening as any nuclear bomb. They are a part of America’s power grid system and grid systems can be tampered with and attacked by ideologically or politically opposed foes in today’s cyber warfare world. It’s not just elections we have to worry about.
The midwest and eastern United States are dangerously infested with nuclear power plants.
Having spent nearly two decades as an administrator in the production end of the nuclear industry–uranium mining and milling, including a knowledge of enrichment fundamentals–I recently began writing a critical book about the serious international problem the world has with nuclear power plants and their strategic relationship to nuclear bombs, especially as the problem applies to the possibility of imminent nuclear war. I hope to finish it and find a worthy publisher before the crucial year of 2020 begins. ~llaw
Mueller needs to personally explain to the American people why his report came to the conclusions it did and exactly what its intended purpose was, if not to indict Trump, either via the judicial system or through congress, what the hell is its objective?.
I, for one, would also like to know if he was ordered by Barr (through Trump) to conclude his report prematurely, what is missing from the report (eg the counter intelligence information and conclusions), and why an unredacted report is not being given to congress as they have demanded. ~llaw
