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Pressing On the Upward Way
This piece from our July/August Poverty issue won the July Sidney award from the Sidney Hillman Foundation. Read an interview with the author about her piece here.
By her second semester of college, in the spring of 2008, Sue Christian was about as tired as she'd ever been in her 40 years. It wasn't that her studies kept her working hard; she was used to long hours. It wasn't that she was missing her salary; she was already good at fretting over bills. It wasn't that the daily trip from her home in Booneville, Kentucky, was more than an hour long, a drive that, when rains washed out a one-lane bridge, took her over the nauseating Hatton Holler Mountain. It was more that, listening to lecture after lecture in crowded classrooms with people half her age, Sue felt her brain was stretched as far as it would go. "I thought, 'I'm so dumb, I'm not good at college,'" she says. "Professors seemed to be more focused toward that age group fresh out of high school. So, if you're past that, it's like, 'Catch up or get out.'"
Going to college was an accident of timing. The previous spring, SourceCorp, the data-entry company where Sue worked, had closed, which had come as a shock. The company had received a five-year contract from the federal government, but a year and a half into it, the company shut down its Booneville office. "It's like these data-entry companies either work you to death or lay you off," Sue told her husband, J.C. Since the age of 15, Sue had used her only marketable skill—typing fast—to get minimum-wage jobs at data-entry companies. They were the only ones around. While her two children, Kody and Ciara, were in elementary school, she often worked the second shift to earn night pay. For most of their adult lives, the Christians have made less than $22,113 a year, the poverty line for a family of four. This makes them like a lot of families in Owsley County, where 40 percent of the population lives in poverty and 30 percent lives just above it. More families rely on food stamps than make the national median household income of $49,445.
Sue describes herself as introverted, but she is so ready to tell you about her shyness that she proves herself wrong. She is private and slow to start a conversation but also slow to stop it. She's quick to a giggly laugh, a happy look that makes her dark eyes disappear. At five feet four inches, she's shorter than her kids, and they tease her for her short arms, which tend to dart up while she talks. Her hair is black as coal next to her pale skin—she straightens it every morning into a neat bob—and it's lined with an increasing number of silver strands.
She might have worked at data entry forever had SourceCorp not laid her off. "I used to do the only thing I thought I could earn money from," she says, "but I was kind of content." Not content in a happy way but content in that she wasn't looking for any other type of work. "It's sometimes easier to stay where you're at, instead of trying to get to someplace else."
For as long as people could remember, the biggest employer in Owsley County has been the school system, and people lucky enough to get hired hold on for life. Beginning teachers start out at $28,000, which makes those jobs some of the most sought after. Senior teachers can earn as much as $55,000, which makes them rich by Owsley County standards. Losing her data-entry job got Sue to thinking about teaching. She had always enjoyed teaching Sunday school and liked working with kids. So when a friend told her about a social-services agency that could help her pay for college, she decided to apply to Eastern Kentucky University, an hour away in Richmond. She decided to major in middle-school education. What she had not taken into account, though, was that she had always been the family's steadiest—and usually biggest—wage earner. Without her money coming in, and with Kody heading to college and Ciara entering high school, the Christians were about to enter four of their toughest years.
Now Sue was stuck in science and math courses, next to students fresh out of high school, talking about meta-this and osmosis-that. She was used to setting to a task and working in a fury until it was done, but maybe going to college was a bad idea, maybe she had reached the limits of her mental ability. If a data-entry company had been hiring on, she would have taken the job. When she'd go home, she'd tell J.C., "I don't think I can do college."
Sue felt like whenever someone from Owsley County went out into the world, the world went out of its way to poke them in the eye. One professor, who spoke at an orientation seminar, encouraged the freshman class to rub out their accents. "It's all right to be from Eastern Kentucky," he told them, "but you don't need to sound like you're from here." Eastern Kentucky University was supposedly in the same region as Owsley County, but as far as Sue was concerned, that hour's drive into the rolling hills of the Bluegrass was on the other side of the country. The limestone runoff from the Appalachians enriched the Bluegrass, making it ideal for tobacco, horses, and bourbon. Even the soil, it seemed, took what it wanted from the mountains and made itself rich.
Then, in her second semester, Sue took a class called "Educational Foundations" from a professor named Roger Cleveland. He had taught in some big city, Louisville or Cincinnati—Sue could never remember—in a school for teenagers who lived in gang-ridden neighborhoods. Part of his job was to go to the kids and say, "Don't look so close at the situation you're in now. Look at where you want to be," and that resonated with Sue. He asked Sue once, "Christian, do you feel like, because you're from Eastern Kentucky, people try to put you in a box?" She said, "Well, yeah, I do." It was weird, but it was this man from the city who seemed to understand her and her people, and that was a way to win Sue over.
Cleveland gave all his students a test that identified their learning styles. For Sue the test was a revelation. It said that she absorbed material better by doing projects with her hands than by listening to lectures or reading textbooks. The learning-styles test became a talisman for Sue to ward against the danger of feeling dumb. She changed the way she studied. By the time she got her degree, in May 2011, she'd won an award for being on the dean's list. She graduated along with about 300 other middle-school education students, who would compete with one another for jobs in Eastern Kentucky. Sue hadn't found a job by graduation, but that didn't matter. "Have you ever impressed your own self with what you're capable of doing?" she says. "That's how I felt when I got my degree."
While most of Appalachia is poor, Southeast Kentucky, where the mountains start turning into hills, is the worst off. There was never enough coal for deep mining that would at least provide well-paying jobs. The ground, mostly black slate, is too rocky for farming, though some families grew tobacco on a few flat bottomland pastures until the government bought them out in the 1990s. Five of the poorest counties in the United States—Owsley, Clay, Lee, Knox, and Wolfe—touch here, huddled along a swath of wilderness, the Daniel Boone National Forest, that divides them from the rest of the state. Owsley County does the rest of these small, poor counties the favor of being a little bit smaller and a little bit poorer. Less than 200 square miles, slightly bigger than the city of New Orleans, it's shaped like a bowl with hills on the edges and the low, slow south fork of the Kentucky River cutting through. It has the distinction of being the poorest county in the United States with a majority-white population.
Kentucky began calling Owsley County a "pauper county" as far back as the 1890s, because it took more state tax revenue than it contributed. Since the federal government began tracking poverty rates in 1959, Owsley has ranked as one of the nation's poorest counties. By the 1960s, when much of the United States had moved into prosperity, Southern Appalachia's shoeless children, living in mountain shacks without electricity or plumbing, seemed like relics—trapped in a sticky poverty that modernity had yet to solve. The people of Owsley County translated all the attention as criticism. They weren't descendents of pioneers. They were a problem.
Sue's was the first generation to live in Owsley County after Lyndon B. Johnson declared his War on Poverty, and this part of Kentucky was Omaha Beach. Do-gooders, ministers, and bureaucrats came and never stopped coming. Grants poured in. Programs were created. The Appalachian Regional Commission. AmeriCorps VISTA. The Community Action Program. The Christian Appalachian Project. The Children's Dental Health Initiative. Endow Kentucky. Head Start got kids into school and free lunches fed them. All these initiatives solved the problem of basic survival, but they didn't solve the problem of an increasingly depopulated region: not enough consumers to support business, old trail roads that kept big trucks out and kept the cost of goods high, companies that only opened their doors because they could pay the populace, hungry for jobs, less than they would have to pay people elsewhere. Because the government programs were the most visible, well-functioning industry in town, many locals set on them with a special brand of ire. They were helping a lot of people—more than anyone wanted to acknowledge—but they also seemed like an attack on a way of life. Sue felt the same way. "I think we've been helped so much," she says, "we're getting helped to death." Government benefits, from welfare to Social Security to the Earned Income Tax Credit, account for 53 percent of all the county's income.
For many years, the way to be successful in Owsley County was to leave—the students who could make it to college stayed away. The population, which in 2010 was 4,755, started to fall seven decades ago. There were few opportunities to keep young people in Owsley County, and the first thing that federal anti-poverty programs did was connect the poor here to opportunities elsewhere. What was good for individuals drained the community as a whole. About 40 miles in any direction there's a bigger town with a Walmart and enough jobs for Owsley County's young to go make their living.
When Sue was born in Owsley County, in 1967, most families lived like hers—up a holler, piecing together work through manual labor and growing most of the food they needed to eat. Her parents, Ruby and Puddin Thomas, had lost their first child to pneumonia before having Sue and her brother. Puddin earned money on his own, going into the logwoods with a small dozer. This sense of self-reliance bred confidence—you'll never go hungry if you grow your own food. When Sue was in first grade, Puddin broke his arm in seven places. That winter a local church brought over food and Christmas presents. Puddin's working life ended when he was 53 after part of a tree fell on his head, a near-fatal injury that kept him in recovery for more than two months, and even then he checked out of a rehabilitation center early. The injury aggravated his body, especially his arm. "If I knew it wouldn't kill me and I wouldn't go to hell," he'd grouse, "I'd cut my own arm off." He's been drawing disability and, later, Social Security ever since.
When Sue was 15, in 1983, she fell for a 25-year-old from the next county north, Lee County, and got married. Maybe the attentions of an older man were too tempting for a bashful teenager to resist, maybe it was because Puddin disapproved, but Sue set at that marriage in a stubborn way. She moved with her husband to a house with no indoor plumbing. He was unemployed. Although she remained in high school, she got her first data-entry job, working nights; most of her paycheck went to the electricity bill. Her husband, without a word to Sue, joined the Navy. When he was transferred to Jacksonville, Florida, she decided to finish school there, but she was used to a rural high school where kids lined up, orderly, for lunch; this new world was too aggressive, and she dropped out. Far from home, in a marriage she stuck to for spite, Sue was conquered and miserable.
Four years after getting married, Sue and her husband divorced. Soon after, Sue met J.C. when she applied for a job at his mom and stepfather's window-installation business in Jacksonville. Tall and slim, J.C.—which stands for James Christian—was six years older than Sue. He had tawny skin and tattoos up and down both arms, but he kept his black hair close-cropped and he dressed neatly for the job. When Sue saw him, she thought: "Clean-cut." J.C. had a girlfriend he fought with all the time, and one day Sue asked, "How serious are you and that girl?" and J.C. said, "Why? Do you want to go out?" In Christian family lore, this means Sue had made the first move. Five months after her divorce, Sue and J.C. married.
In 1988, they moved to a trailer outside Winston--Salem, North Carolina, where Kody was born, and later to West Virginia, to a trailer outside Charleston. When Kody was two, J.C. asked Sue why they didn't just move to Owsley County and be near her parents. J.C. could see life there, quiet, up a holler. Sue's answer was quick: "There are no jobs." J.C. lined up a job with an electrician, and they spent their last $600 getting to town.
Booneville's downtown is only one square, where three state highways meet and wrap around a courthouse. A plaque marks a spot where Daniel Boone might have camped; the town was christened on so slight an honor as passing through. Two cafes, two churches, and five empty storefronts surround the courthouse. Just off the square, there's a Dollar General, a Family Dollar, a Shopwise market, and three gas stations that serve biscuits and gravy. There are three pharmacies, one doctor, one dentist, and a pain-treatment clinic. There's the Owsley County Action Team office, an unofficial, ancillary government and social-services agency paid for by donations and government grants. Down the road sits the husk of a building with brown aluminum siding, covered with graffiti, which was a movie theater when Sue was growing up. By the theater, a Baptist mission operates a food bank out of an old motel, which also provides lodging to volunteers who come to build houses in the summer. In 2005, the drive-in movie theater just south of town closed, leaving the cinder-block projection wall standing by the road that leads toward an empty industrial park built to lure businesses that never came.
By the time Sue and J.C. moved to Booneville, his job had fallen through. The electrician who promised J.C. work said he didn't have enough calls to justify his hire. After that, J.C. held a series of jobs—bagging groceries, clerking at a hardware store, working at a factory one county over—and either quit in a huff or got fired from each. J.C. doesn't talk much about his dad, except to say that he was a mean drunk. J.C. owns that he's inherited a watered-down version of that anger. When he drank or had to take medication because he was injured, he got worse. After five years in Owsley County, he decided to become a handyman. He figured his best boss was his own self—if he got mad, he couldn't storm off and quit. It took years, though, for J.C. to get hired regularly around town. Like a lot of small places, Owsley County is suspicious of outsiders. "J.C.," folks later explained to him, "we didn't know you." That first year in Boone-ville, J.C. brought in $11,000, and for a six-month stretch, the family relied on food stamps. The next year, when Sue started working as a data-entry keyer, their income grew to $17,000.
In July 1993, Sue became pregnant with Ciara. The visits to Sue's doctor took them past one of her favorite spots, a little rock that jutted over the highway west of town like the bow of a ship. It was quiet and removed. Sue would think that if she could just put her family up there, they would be safe. The land, no more than a quarter-acre, belonged to her cousins, who said Sue and J.C. could have it for $4,200. They had hopped from one rent house to another in Owsley County. "I wanted to settle and be still," she says. She also wanted her children to know where home was. The couple borrowed $3,800 from the bank, and J.C. paid off the rest by helping Sue's cousins in their tobacco fields. Sue and J.C. bought their first trailer, rundown and tiny as a cracker box, for $1,000. Puddin lent them the money, a debt that J.C. settled by working on his father-in-law's farm. They gave their kids the bedrooms, one at either end. J.C. and Sue slept in the living room, pushing two blue couches they had together at night and pulling them apart again in the day. "That was pretty rough," Sue says.
Most people will tell you that two kinds of folks live in Owsley County—those who draw and those who work. There are families who receive aid and families who don't, and, because the county has only one grocery store left, everyone knows who they are. There are families who send their children to school neat and clean and fed, and those who don't. It's easy to think appearances don't matter, but country poverty has its own wardrobe, and, sometimes, seeming less poor is about clever costume design.
When nearly everyone in the county is poor, the distinction between have and have-not becomes meaningless. There are have-very-little's, but even they wouldn't always call themselves poor. Neither would the Christians. As far as Sue was concerned, "poor" was the word for giving up. It took drive to make a living in Owsley County—you had to create your own work on your own steam—and Sue had seen plenty of people run out of it before they got anywhere. "They're good kids," people will say about Kody and Ciara. "Their parents both work." Sue and J.C. performed a service for their children that was less tangible than getting the bills paid. They made sure no one in town looked down their noses at them.
Beginning in 2002, things began to improve. Sue had started inputting for SourceCorp a couple of years earlier. At first, it was from home and catch-as-catch-can. There were nights when she underestimated the amount of time it would take her to finish, and she would work until morning to meet deadlines. SourceCorp then hired Sue full time, which meant going into their office and steady pay. J.C. had managed to turn his handyman and electrician services into something that could rightly be called a business. For five years, from 2002 to 2007, they managed to finally make enough money to cover the bills and have a little extra left over for drive-in movies with the kids on Saturdays. They financed a new doublewide, which had a master bedroom and a decent-size kitchen. They set it on their little hill, and J.C. built a porch on the front. Those years they made a touch more than $30,000. That's how much the Christians needed to be comfortable.
Then in 2007, SourceCorp closed, and the Christians were down to J.C.'s bumpy income. The only other decent-paying job Sue was qualified for was to be an aide at the nursing home outside of town. "I'm very squeamish," she says, "and I thought, 'I can't do that.'" Sue decided to go to college. She'd been a bad student in middle and high school, but when Kody and Ciara had started in Owsley County schools, she'd chaperoned trips and parties and eventually become president of the Parent-Teacher-Student Organization. When she thought about where she could work, the school, with its well-paying jobs, seemed like the best bet. She was already there so often. College was just a necessity, something she could work like a job at SourceCorp, steeled with faith that, this time, she'd be a better student.
Still, it was a huge gamble. Sue didn't drive in the snow, so some days, J.C. would have to take her to Richmond and sit, all day, waiting for her to get out of class. She and J.C. knew college would add to their expenses. Even with help from various programs, she would have to pay for some of her gas, lunch, and books. But what they hadn't taken into account was how much they would miss Sue's income. Sue didn't allow herself the title of breadwinner—that would have been too hard on J.C.— but in truth she was. Even in their best years, J.C. had off months—long winters when no one called him for home repairs—and Sue's paycheck had kept them going. Sue had also provided health insurance for the family through her jobs. Her work had pushed them above the poverty line and, now that her work was gone, they had dropped below it again. Like many of America's poor, the Christians had a few tantalizingly good years that set a standard of living they struggle to maintain during the bad ones. What they hadn't known, of course, when they made the decision for Sue to go to college was that the global economy was about to collapse and J.C.'s work was about to dry up.
On top of everything, Kody had quit Asbury College, a religious school near Lexington, after his freshman year and was back home. He had enrolled at the same time Sue started at Eastern Kentucky. Kody had told everyone that he was desperately ready to leave Booneville, but the extent of his rebellion was refusing to come home on weekends. He wanted to become a preacher and was planning to get a degree in theology. Then, during a cross-country meet, he blew out a knee and lost his scholarship. When school ended, he left with a girl he was sure God wanted him to marry. The relationship turned bad after two months, and he returned home. When Kody came back, what Sue saw was her 19-year-old son looking gaunt and baggy-eyed, fresh from a place where no one had cared for him.
For a time, Kody worked with J.C. to save money and maybe go back to college. When the pastor at his Methodist church asked if Kody would be the music leader, though, he decided that God was calling him to stay in Owsley County. He spent all the money he saved on music equipment and a van. Sue was happy to have him home. "College wasn't for Kody," she'd say. He would find his way, she was sure. Still, he was having as much trouble holding a job as J.C. once had. J.C.'s mom likes to say Kody was J.C. made over, with a bit of his temper but without his dark skin. Kody had never quite fit in Owsley County—he was quiet and artistic and liked to spend his free time in church and practice the guitar. "He always was kind of nerdy," Sue says. He straightened his dark hair every morning and wore it spiked or swooped down over his eyes. His favorite shoes were a pair of Converse with a Batman design. In college, he'd made friends with other musicians, and when he was back in Booneville he started to play in Christian rock bands and sell comic fan art online.
Ciara entered high school the year Kody came back home. She was learning to drive and wanting money for gas and clothes. She was beginning to realize her parents couldn't always give money because they didn't have it to give. Ciara's friends were all high-achieving, academic-team, straight-A students, and Ciara started to shine in 4-H contests and on the occasional morning newscast she helped produce for one of her classes. Ciara liked being a star. Bubbly and outgoing, she decided a career as a news anchor would keep her at the center of attention, and she wanted to study broadcasting in college. Ciara was the opposite of what Sue had been as a teenager. Sue teased Ciara and called her their little diva, but she was also protective. Sue knew how the pretty girl in school could be the focus of the wrong kind of attention. Plus, Sue knew that looks faded. She didn't want Ciara to go into the cutthroat world of broadcast, where she would have to lose her accent and live far from her family. Still, Sue saw that Ciara's way of helping the family was to promise that she would win every scholarship she could, finish college, and have a successful career. What Kody heard when Ciara said this was "I'm not going to be like Kody."
Sue had always been what she called a dweller, someone who fretted over things. When her mind got hold of a worry, she couldn't let it go. But she says her real worries didn't start until she became a mother. She met J.C. when she was only 20, and they both liked to party. She would spend a lot of time with people who did things they shouldn't have. She'd ridden in cars with people who liked to drink or get high. Being pregnant, being responsible for someone else, made Sue deeply regret her youth. It hung over her like a penance.
She had been dragged as a child to a Pentecostal church on the few occasions Ruby had decided Puddin needed some religion, but she had never been deeply religious. Then, when Kody was two, Sue watched the 700 Club on TV and heard a born-again Christian testify that being saved had lifted all his burdens, and Sue thought, "I would like that, too." She knelt on the crooked linoleum floor Kody had learned to toddle on and recited the sinner's prayer. Sue's religion was personal, guided by her own interpretation of her relationship with God. She didn't understand denominations—she felt like people were always trying to put God in a box—and for many years she and the kids attended a small nondenominational church far out in the county. It was Kody who inspired them to go to the United Methodist Church in town. The pastor was his track coach, and the church had a popular youth-group service on Wednesday nights that he wanted to join.
Becoming a Christian didn't relieve Sue's problems like she thought it would. She was prone to panic attacks, frozen by overwhelming dread. During the attacks, she told Kody, she felt like she was alone in the world, screaming, without anyone to hear her. Other times, it was like she was pressed into a dark, tight space, held down by a heavy weight. The attacks usually hit when she was by herself, and she'd call J.C., who would stop what he was doing and talk to her until she was calm again.
The attacks became less frequent as she got older, but not because her problems left her. Turning them over still kept her up at night, and most of the time her problems were her bills. Sue liked to say that she didn't want fancy things. Her family had what they needed, and that's all she cared about. While Sue had gotten saved after Kody's birth, J.C. had gotten a Suzuki GS750 motorcycle. Sue always saw it as a childish luxury, a money suck. Sue wanted J.C. to care about paying the bills as much as she did. She'd yell at him to grow up, but J.C. knew what it meant to grow up—it meant to lose your sense of humor, and he wasn't interested. He liked to joke that he didn't need to be born again because he was born a Christian the first time.
Kody remembers his parents fighting over money throughout his childhood. He was close to both of them, but even as a kid he felt that J.C. was the parent he had fun with, and Sue was the parent he spoke about serious things with. Sue was in charge of the bills, the food, and, increasingly, everything else—discipline, getting to places on time, going to church. Kody would pray that his father would get saved. Like Sue, he was zealous. If J.C. became a Christian, Kody thought, he would take more responsibility. Then his parents would talk to each other the way Christian couples should and stop fighting over bills.
By the winter of 2010–2011, Sue's last year in college, the Christians' financial worries began to seep into every conversation. J.C.'s work usually slowed down in the cold months anyway, but this winter was even worse. The weather and the economy were keeping families down to the most necessary repairs. J.C.'s biggest jobs had always been hooking new mobile homes up to electricity. He could make as much as $600 a hookup. But almost no one was buying a new mobile home—that's how the housing crisis came to Owsley County.
Like most of the families they knew, the Christians had become masters at rotating their payments. They could skip a few months of paying on time before their water or electricity would be shut off, but Sue didn't like to be late on bills that people in town could know about. It was better to miss the unnecessary amenities they'd gotten used to in the good years—like their satellite TV. J.C. had to drop his favorite channel, which showed Westerns nonstop. Sue teased him that Westerns were all he liked to watch or read. "How many home-on-the-range things can you read about?" she asked. "They do the same thing every day."
Other things were harder to get rid of. All four family members had gotten cell phones, and it cost them more to cancel their plans than it did to keep paying them for the rest of the contract. J.C. played a game on Xbox called Black Ops and had signed up for an online gaming service that withdrew from their bank account automatically. It often overdrew their account, costing them fees. Their water bill went up. The electric company started adding a surcharge, and it cost nearly $400 a month to heat their trailer in the winter. Sue was driving a rickety Chevy Lumina to school every day, and she knew it wouldn't last long. The grants from the program that helped her pay for school had fallen short, and she'd had to spend more for textbooks. Most years, Sue tried to take care of property taxes by December because she'd get a $100 discount. The Christians had missed that date, and it looked to Sue like they might be late for the final deadline in April, which would mean they'd have to pay even more money. The real penalty, as far as Sue was concerned, was that their names would be listed in the paper. They got the payment in just before it was due.
School was always a means to an end for Sue, but when her last semester started, it started to feel like a luxury. J.C. was working too little and playing Black Ops too much. She talked about quitting and going back to data entry. It was J.C. who didn't want her to. J.C. was the one who went on about how employers always mistreated their workers, but even Sue had to admit that sitting and typing for 12 hours had started to cause her aches and pains. She told J.C. she'd stick it out.
When Owsley County's leaders, official and unofficial, talk about what Owsley County needs, they identify different problems all with the same urgency. For the schools superintendent, Tim Bobrowski, it's essential that the high school prepare students for college, which is difficult to do when you can't recruit physics or chemistry teachers. Molly Turner, who runs the Owsley County Action Team, wants a new highway that will make it easier for folks to live in the county but work outside it. Molly's brother, former county executive Cale Turner, argues that the county needs housing—real, solid houses, ones with foundations. Tim's brother, Nelson, who runs the bank, thinks the town should have more entertainment, like the golf course he helped build, to lure college graduates. (Others in town said that Nelson just likes to golf.) Jamie Brunk, the Methodist minister, believes the town needs a drug-recovery program to halt the rampant use of prescription painkillers. All of them want more young people to stay or, to be more precise, they want more young people to go to college and then come home. They like to say Owsley County needs more energy, and it needs a critical mass of young people to create it.
With that in mind, they ought to have thrown Kody a parade when he decided to stay and take over a business in Booneville. Late in the winter of 2011, the couple who owned a T-shirt printing business in town came to Kody and J.C. and offered to sell it. Kody had worked for them briefly as a graphic artist. They had tried to sell before, but they always wanted too much money. Now they were willing to go down to $30,000, and that seemed like something Kody could do. Kody wanted a job for J.C. where he could be less physical. He'd already seen how his grandfather suffered from a lifetime of hard labor. Looking at his dad's arthritic hands, which J.C. plunged into hot wax every night to ease the pain, Kody thought he could help by going into business with J.C. When they went into the only bank in Booneville to see about a loan, the officer asked, "Where's Sue at?" Even when they tried to run things, Kody and J.C. couldn't escape the notion that Sue was in charge.
Kody renamed the business Robots in Disguise (he's a Transformers fan). He made sure the store could be found on Google Maps and opened Facebook and Twitter accounts. But problems cropped up right away. Another couple had opened a T-shirt-printing business on the square. Booneville was going to have a hard enough time supporting one T-shirt-printing store, but two?
Sue didn't have a job after she graduated that spring and also began working at the shop. Kody needed the free labor, but Sue was good at driving him crazy. Sue says that she doesn't ask anyone to work harder than she worked, and Kody says that's the problem. Sue needs for everything to be perfect. Kody wanted her to understand that, sometimes, you did the best you could do in the time you had. For Kody, that meant occasionally cutting corners in ways that he didn't think people would notice. When Kody had worked for the previous owners, the Owsley County Action Team ordered signs for their drug-and-alcohol-free party after prom. Some signs came in red and white instead of the ordered maroon and white—the high school's colors. The party organizers said Kody's response was "I thought you might want a little bit of variety." It would have been better, they said, if he had just admitted that he ran out of maroon paint.
The biggest problem was that charging people money vexed Kody. He often arrived at a price that factored in the cost of the goods but not much else. When J.C. had to drive an hour to Richmond to pick up a blanket for a last-minute order, Kody didn't take into account the price of gas. More disconcerting, Kody often didn't charge for the time he spent designing the logos and getting them ready for screen-printing. His time, he says, is invaluable. When he thinks about pricing, he's guided by one thing: Would he pay that much? "I don't see it as I need to make one huge lump sum in a sitting," he says. "I see it as if I charge them this amount, they'll eventually come back and order more." Kody didn't always understand that a business is supposed to make a profit. Its first year, the shop covered all its expenses, but Kody himself only made $600 and J.C. $877. With three working adults, the family's income for 2011 was a combined $21,000, right on the poverty line.
In November, six months after she graduated, Sue finally landed a job. She had looked at every middle school within an hour's drive of her home but had found nothing. She had resigned herself to working at Kody's shop until the beginning of the next school year when she heard that Berea College was running a federal initiative called Promise Neighborhoods. With adjacent Jackson and Clay counties, Owsley was one of the few rural areas to receive a grant. Based on the Harlem Children's Zone, the program hired counselors to work with children from cradle to high school and prepare them for college. Sue was hired to help middle school students. Armed with the learning-styles test, she would provide one-on-one counseling to struggling students.
Restless and on a whim, Kody announced that he wanted to drive to New York to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Almost at the last moment, Sue, J.C., and Ciara, in a celebratory mood, decided to go with him. The Christians didn't tell anyone, because they didn't want the town to know that their house would be empty for a few days. They found a cheap hotel in New Jersey and drove the 12 hours in a straight shot.
They hadn't known it would cost $12 in tolls just to get into New York City or $40 for parking. They couldn't really see the parade from their crowded spot along Broadway, except Ciara, who perched on top of a postal box. She held a two-year-old from South Carolina in her lap. They were cold and miserable. They got lost and turned around in traffic and yelled at by a lady police officer they asked for help. The next day, they went to see the Empire State Building, but it cost $23 to go to the top, so they passed. They decided to go to the Statue of Liberty but were, again, put off by the cost. Sue skipped lunch—she said she wasn't hungry—and the rest followed her lead and skipped lunch, too. Kody said that they wouldn't have wanted to be shocked by the check anyway. During the few days they spent in New York, they often didn't eat until 11 at night, when they got back to the New Jersey hotel and picked up food from a nearby Subway. Their first advice to others when they got back to Booneville was "Don't go—stay home and watch it on TV."
By the winter, the Christians had settled into a routine. Sue and Ciara went to school around 7:30 in the morning, J.C. and Kody went to the shop, and they all gathered there late in the afternoon. Sue ran the embroidery machine. After a while, customers started bringing her dresses to hem, broken zippers to fix, and other things to sew. It wasn't really what the shop was supposed to do, but Sue would still do it—she brought her sewing machine into the shop's office and was often perched there, at night, tired. When J.C. and the kids got hungry, they still turned to Sue to ask about dinner. There was a time when she would have rushed home to make chicken and dumplings or beans. She used to never let her kids eat hot dogs or pizza. But Sue was letting go of some of those things she used to have so much control over.
There were other things to worry about, anyway. Sue thought Kody and J.C. spent too much time sitting at the shop, hoping new customers came in. She had gotten into the habit of drawing charts to show J.C. and Kody their progress. She knew the test would be not whether the shop's revenues could cover its expenses but whether the business was growing year over year. Their loan lasted for ten, but if the shop wasn't doing well after two years, they might need to think of a different way to cover that loan than working, as a whole family, on a shop that couldn't make money.
It also bothered Sue that Ciara was so dead set on majoring in broadcasting. Broadcasting would take Ciara far away. Ciara was as ready to leave as Kody had been. By early 2012, she'd settled on Morehead State University, but Sue didn't like Morehead—it was liberal and the kind of place where Ciara would forget who she was—so she worked on Ciara to change her mind. As Ciara moved toward graduation, she decided to go to the University of the Cumberlands, a Christian school near the Tennessee border. She also decided that she'd become a 4-H agent. Ciara had always loved 4-H. Sue liked that, as long as it was what she really wanted to do, because it meant Ciara might work close to home after college.
Sue wasn't so sure about this new job, either. Many days, she had to spend more time doing paperwork to show she was working than actually doing the work with the kids. Worse, Berea officials were butting heads with local school administrators. Sue's work overlapped, her supervisors were starting to see, with an older grant program called Gear Up, which also aimed to get students ready for college. After a few months on the job, everyone started to argue over Sue's head about what her job should be, and they decided that for the following school year, Sue would be in charge of parent outreach for every student in the school system, from Head Start to high school. It was a daunting prospect. Sue had been listening ever since Kody and Ciara were born to how teachers talk, and she knew they talked their own language—a language that it took Sue four years of college to decipher. "No wonder parents are scared of y'all," she thought. "They probably think you'll make them feel dumb if they come. Chances are, you probably will. Not that you mean to." That was the bridge Sue was going to have to build, and she wasn't sure she could do it.
This was also the first salary job Sue had, and it made her nervous. She was used to her pay being tied to results. With this job she never knew, on any given day, whether she was doing enough work to merit her salary, which for 2012 would be $30,000. It was enough, more than enough, Sue knew, to pay the bills. But it wasn't enough to calm her worries. Berea had assured everybody that the grant would last five years. Sue, though, had heard that before.
This article has been amended to better describe Kody's work at the t-shirt printing shop. It has also been corrected to more accurately describe Sue's living situation during her first marriage.
David in Nashville
Tue, 2012-06-12 11:56
Wed, 2012-06-13 11:55
Wed, 2012-06-13 11:49
Thu, 2012-06-14 00:02
Thu, 2012-06-14 05:43
This article affected me deeply - not only as a fellow American who has lived at the poverty line in rural areas, but also as a fellow human being. I too have experienced a similar 'nickled and dimed' narrative where, even when there's "enough", it's still nowhere near adequate; and you have no choice but to keep working as hard as you can in the hopes of something better coming along in the future.
Outside of personal experience though, I was entirely sucked in with this article. The level of journalism and reporting was exceptional, and the quality of writing exceeded my expectations. I felt that the Christian's family story was told with the respect and consideration it deserved.
However, I felt that structurally the article would have benefited from stronger clarity in its narrative chronology. Additionally, I wanted to see more conscientiousness as far as issues unearthed within the article but never brought to bear (i.e. The tension implied between Kody and Ciara with the sentence "What Kody heard when Ciara said this was 'I'm not going to be like Kody.'", among several others). I also felt that the ending was far too abrupt. As is, the closing of the article leaves the reader expecting more of the story, rather than artfully pulling everything together for a more definitive conclusion which, at the same time, reinforces the fact that this crisis is neither unique to the Christian family nor is it close to being solved.
Thu, 2012-06-14 10:32
There is nothing noble about poverty. Poverty does not create moral or spiritual superiority. It's just poverty--and it sucks.
This was a good article. The central message is NOT tht you, the reader, are different from the Christians no matter how hard you may be working to distinguish yourself from them as you read of their travails.
The point is that there, but for grace or chance, go you. And do not believe that, in this sharecropper economy, YOU cannot fall from grace and find yourself living hand-to-mouth just like the Christians.
Fri, 2012-06-15 01:57
There is much to be angry about in this piece. I always thought that who you marry determines your financial future. Sue has been stalwart in trying to better her situation and is constantly dragged down by recalcitrant husband and lazy son. It's interesting though that she puts subtle poverty values onto her daughter, asking her to stay nearby and not pursue a career that would certainly give the daughter a vastly different lifestyle. Mom deep down does not want daughter to succeed it would seem, thus perpetuating the cycle of helplessness. It's nice that she looks after the kids but at what cost to her own ambitions and desires?
Fri, 2012-06-15 17:22
My apologies, but I feel that you read this wrong. There is -not- much to be angry about. And for this I want to respond point by point to your comment, Maddtm. While marriage to an individual many times does determine your financial future, it is not the sole determinant and should not be. I don't feel that any individual can determine who you are or what you do for the rest of your life. And if you'll read the article you'll see that the couple met during a time when the economy was not nearly so bad and they both had secure jobs.
What couple always agrees on everything? JC seems to be more easy going and Sue seems to enjoy work. There's nothing wrong with either. As for her "lazy son" it seems to me that he at least has ambitions that try to further their area in which they live. Granted, he could work a little harder, but who couldn't? Any young person now-a-days has a different work ethic than the baby boomers or generation X's.
Subtle poverty values? HA! Where do you see this? Is it because of the "socio political" values she doesn't want pushed on her daughter? Or the fact that she would rather her succeed in an industry that is booming, rather than television broadcasting - where even the largest news providers are struggling to maintain an audience? What is so wrong with wanting to have your community bettered? If you want to see real change be a part of it. Don't subtract yourself from an equation.
Where is it you see helplessness? These people work. They earn what the have. They're not waiting for a government handout to help them even further into poverty. Even the college education that she helped get funding for, she worked hard to make every bit of that count, even earning a Dean's Award. They seem industrious with many talents and gifts and they have used those to the best of their ability in a county they want to see prosper.
And finally, what ambitions does she have besides seeing her family survive? And if those are her only ambitions, how can you find fault in them? They are selfless and wonderful and I love this woman for that. I think this article shows someone who cares about their family. I don't know where you got your idea of family from but it makes me thankful that all people are not as selfish as yourself.
Fri, 2012-06-15 17:28
Sat, 2012-06-16 13:28
This is an excellent story and this woman deserves kudos for trying to improve the lives of her and her family but I have some concerns.
I don't understand why, during really bad times, she went along with her husband's childish behavior in constantly playing online games that cost significant money, at times overdrawing their bank account. This to me is objectionable when there is not enough money for housing, utilities and food.
There are people in the area where I live who barely get by, with the woman doing day care for mothers working outside the home and doing clothing alterations, but the husband bought a new big, flat-screen TV on credit back in January and he goes off-roading and last month bought new expensive tires for his 4x4 while his oldest child needs significant dental work. The woman complains but either will not sit down with her husband and explain how this is harming the family, saying "since he is out of work, he needs something to cheer him up." This is insane!
When one can't afford to take a child to a dentist (these are permanent teeth) and the husband can go out and blow several hundred dollars on tires for a toy (he has a pickup he uses for work), there is something seriously impaired in his thinking.
The woman in this story should be encouraging her daughter to get out of this stalling situation and make something of her life. She should put her foot down and insist that her husband and son get off their butts and do something positive, instead of sit around in a shop that seems to be going downhill, and contribute to the family well being.
I really have no patience with grown men who behave like children and I really do not understand women who allow it.
Sun, 2012-06-17 10:53
Sun, 2012-06-17 19:51
Lets give the lady a lot of chops... instead of quibbling over a perceived lack of ending to the Christian's story. The point of the article is that they are a family that is a work in progress... like every person on earth is. This woman has done her level best to raise her family from its past circumstances .No one should judge how or why they have made the choices they have in the past. PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES, all the time, even you, Mad tm and AnnLee; how dare you judge these honest, hard working people. And how can you possibly characterize their son as lazy? That is insulting to anyone who's tried to better themselves through the public education system most of this country struggles to offer its children, a system that babysits many kids and drops them into an ultra-competitive culture without the tools to effectively compete. This kid is trying to find some sense of entrepreneurship with little practical business sense or hard practical experience. And yes, the dad may have played video games too much, and was likely duped by some gaming companies lures, not necessarily realizing the ramifications of the debit contract he entered. Way too much judgement of these folks going on by some the comments thus far. Get off your high horses and get down in the trenches and HELP solve the problems, instead of clucking in judgement. As for this family, Onward, Christian Soldiers!
Sun, 2012-06-24 11:08
The story ends abruptly for a reason, The story hasn't ended yet in the real world. in fact it covers things that have happened VERY recently. I live here just a mile from were the Christians live and 5 miles from Kody's shop. in fact i talked to Kody just a day or so ago. my daughter attended High School with Ciera and as a local pastor i have had kody come and lead music at my church on special occasions. (I pastor a church in the area.) The biggest change since the story ended so far has been that Pastor Brunk, (Pastor of their church) has moved to take over another church in another county that lost their building and parsonage in a recent tornado) this county is full of people like the Christians. This is a community with a lot of Heritage and pride. Many people here are trapped in poverty. if they do happent to find work, they lose their government assistance and the work is not enough to make up for the loss of their assistance. they don't leave the county because the cost of moving the family to find work is prohibitive. you have to have the money to move before you can get close enough to the Jobs to even find such work. Depending on the criteria used, the argument that Owsley county is the poorest county in the county is not a dogmatic one but a sound one. It is more than plausible. what does this county need more than anything else? As a local pastor i would have to say that besides Christ, they need jobs, and self Actualization, and a higher self esteem.
Eli R.
Sun, 2012-07-15 03:42
Wonderful article. It's nice to get to read a piece of in-depth journalism like this that illustrates the complexity and challenges of real people. Ironically, the deeper you go, and the more layers you see, even more questions are raised - and there may not be any clear answers. But we all come away better informed and more able to understand our fellow citizens. Bravo, Ms. Potts and the gracious Christian family for sharing their story.
Sat, 2012-09-15 16:56
It's people like Sue who made America possible and who keep America, America. Excellent article. I have no idea what the outside could do to really help Owesley County, but I hope that anything proposed does not demean or disregard the backbone these families have shown that they have!
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The Sports Network
DATE & TIME: Saturday, Nov. 3, 3:30 p.m. (et)
FACTS & STATS: Site: Huskie Stadium (24,000) -- DeKalb, Illinois. Television: None. Home Record: UMass 0-3, NIU 4-0. Away Record: UMass 0-5, NIU 4-0. Neutral Record: UMass 0-0, NIU 0-1. Conference Record: UMass 0-4, NIU 5-0. Series Record: First meeting.
GAME NOTES: Northern Illinois returns to Huskie Stadium looking to defend its 19-game home winning streak as the Massachusetts Minutemen try to pull off a Mid-American Conference upset.
The Minutemen's first season as a member of the FBS has been frustrating as they are still winless after eight games. UMass closed out its non-conference slate last week with a 49-7 loss at Vanderbilt. Six of the team's eight setbacks have been by 24 points or more. First-year head coach Charles Molnar has a tough task this week as he aims to snap his squad's FBS leading 11-game active losing streak.
NIU is one of just three teams left in the MAC without a loss in league action. The Huskies picked up their eighth win in a row by running past Western Michigan for a 48-34 road triumph. NIU is one of just three teams in the FBS, along with Oregon and Alabama, to have won 17 of its last 18 games. Coach Dave Doeren led the program to the MAC Championship last season and now has an 18-4 record as he nears the end of his second year in DeKalb.
This will be the first meeting in history between these programs on the gridiron.
The UMass offense has yet to catch up to the higher level of competition, as it puts up just 268.0 ypg and ranks last in the FBS in scoring (11.2 ppg).
Mike Wegzyn threw all four of his touchdown passes this season a few weeks back in a game versus Ohio University, but otherwise he has found next to no success under center, completing 51.5 percent of his passes for 150.9 passing ypg and seven interceptions. A.J. Doyle has also seen action, but he too has played poorly (21-of-43, 146 yards, four INTs, one TD).
Deion Walker (40 receptions, 475 yards, two TDs) has proven to be a reliable target for Wegzyn, and Alan Williams (21 receptions, 219 yards, three TDs) has been a factor in the red zone.
Michael Cox is the team's lead back, but his production has been rather pedestrian with 128 carries for 488 yards and three touchdowns. As a team, the Minutemen average just 2.9 yards per rush attempt.
While the offense has certainly struggled, the defense has also done little to impress (41.8 ppg, 465.0 ypg). UMass recorded two takeaways last week versus Vanderbilt, but allowed the Commodores to pick up 6.1 yards per run and 12.8 yards per pass completion.
The increased volume of work has made Perry McIntyre one of the top tacklers in the nation (84 tackles, 3.5 TFL). Darren Thellen (50 tackles) has two interceptions, but as a team UMass has created only 10 takeaways in eight games.
The Huskies seem to be unstoppable since their week one loss to Iowa, averaging 40.8 points and nearly 500 yards of total offense in the games since. NIU leads the MAC in rushing yards and points scored.
Jordan Lynch is at the center of NIU's attack and may be the most explosive quarterback in the nation. He is the leader of all FBS players with 3,169 total offensive yards, which is more than 45 FBS programs. While he is clearly a huge threat as a runner with the second most rushing yards (1,185) in the nation, he also has been superb as a passer, completing 61.5 percent of his attempts for 1,984 yards and 17 TDs with only three interceptions.
Although Lynch is the main weapon in the offense, Leighton Settle is a capable back with 453 yards and five TDs on 101 touches.
Martel Moore is Lynch's primary target in the passing game. Moore has roped in 48 passes for 717 yards and seven of the team's 17 touchdown receptions. Tommylee Lewis and Ashford Perez have both managed to tally over 200 receiving yards as well. Jamison Wells and Luke Eakes have a chance to step up this week with Perez questionable due to an ankle injury.
Defensively, NIU allows opponents to gain decent yardage but still manages to keep teams from lighting up the scoreboard. Due to their bend but not break mentality, the Huskies have the second best scoring defense (19.9) in the MAC.
Sean Progar, Joe Windsor, and Alan Baxter have all shown great pass rushing ability this season. Progar has recorded seven sacks and 7.5 total tackles for loss, Windsor has 10 TFLs and 6.5 sacks, Baxter has produced 6.0 sacks and eight TFLs. Jimmie Ward is a key component of the defense with a team-high of 70 tackles and two interceptions.
UMass has been at the mercy of its opponents on multiple occasions this season. The Minutemen allowed Denard Robinson and Michigan to gain six rushing TDs against them earlier in the season. Lynch is not quite the same type of runner as Robinson, but his production is even greater. The Huskies will have no problem with UMass on either side of the football.
Sports Network Predicted Outcome: Northern Illinois 49, Massachusetts 10


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In a rare moment of humor leveled by the GOP that didn't involve them lecturing the country about fiscal responsibility Senator Jim DeMint quipped that the record breaking snow all over the world would continue until Al Gore cried uncle.
It seems that liberals suffer from some strange form of munchausen by proxy where they constanly accuse conservatives of being fascist dictators bringing about the Fourth Reich any day now. Then when they campaign they openly cheer, like in 2008, for majorties that would make any opposition to their policies irrelevant and powerless....aka one-party rule...not to be confused with the iron grip of evil authoritarian dictatorship suffered under Bush before his
refusal to give up being president ending in a military coup peaceful transfer of power to Obama.
The moral of the story is if liberals accuse conservatives of being guilty of something, you can take it to the TARP inflated bank that those same liberals are WAY more guilty of whatever that something is.
For years now the "skeptics" of global warming have been branded as having "declared war on science" by people who have been colluding to "hide the decline" in global temperatures over the last decade. Now we get admissions that there has been no 'statistically significant' warming. for the last 15 years and the evidence that sea levels are rising due to global warming has been deemed unreliable.
These "scientists" are being discredited at a pace that would make President Obama's growing unpopularity get whiplash envy. More and more it is finally being realized that they are what us laymen have known them to be all along, political eco-priests who have declared an actual WAR on SCIENCE and have formed an unholy alliance with liberal policy makers to build up a public cult of global warming.
This cult has been stirring the public into a frenzy to believe that while the governments of the world can't do something simple, like not spend money it doesn't have, they can certainly control the temperature of the world with some magical golden thermostat they thought was first in Kyoto before they thought it was in Copenhagen.
Now, in spite of all this new evidence that the whole thing a is a fraud burried under a global blanket of snow the New York Times is now implying the skeptics are being opportunists, while others suggest this record breaking cold is actually part of the warming.
Look liberals, either the globe is warming or it isn't....but you don't get to play this game where the earth says "I'm a popsicle because I have a fever." That doesn't make sense!
If the earth is getting warmer then when I turn on the Vancouver 2010 Olympics I want to see Lindsey Vonn doing the slalom on grass in a bikini...thats a promise that shouldn't be made unless it can be kept damn it!
Seriously though, I can't be the only one who is wondering why Al Gore has all of a sudden made himself more scarce than an MSNBC viewer. Maybe he's snowed in and trapped inside his energy guzzling Nashville mansion.
Whatever the case may be, its becoming increasingly clear that the worlds climate emperor indeed has no clothes.


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text: Pipe & Fittings Often two, three, or more pipes will be crowded together in a narrow trench. Wiring to the controller may share that limited space as well. Or the PVC pipe is "snaked" and twisted in the trench in such a way that the "top" pipe may actually be in the middle, side-by-side, or even on the bottom, just a few feet down the line. More


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Moderators: Tonyblack, Jason, Toothy
raisindot wrote:I'd like to make a conjecture that perhaps, given Pterry's current situation, that he chose not to feature a character whose mental illness had formerly been used solely for comic purposes. That Ponder Stibbons has seemingly taken over the Bursar's responsibilities may be symbolic for PTerry's admission of his own diminishing capacity.
This same reasoning might explain why none of the beggars appear in the story. After all, in a story about Ankh-Morpork's underclass, you'd have to think that Foul Ole Ron would make an appearance.
Jeff in Boston
poohcarrot wrote:Hi Jeff-in-Boston.There's absolutely nothing wrong with saying you don't like UA.What a boring world it would be if everyone liked the same thing.
poohcarrot wrote:(PS; I'd love to know what your job is!)
Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit wrote:Frankly, I found the Patrician's hangover hilarious, asking Drumknott how much time had elapsed since the drinking and that moment. He said something to the effect of "Oh my, I'm still drunk then." I thought it was a bit of brilliance, he has never shown any human traits before and here he is hanging one on with the "public" and the part where the Leader of one of the teams gets drunk enough to amiably attempt to rough him up, he is nice enough to have some of his mates take him home and makes sure that one of them stays the night to ensure that he doesn't commit suicide in the morning, when he realizes just what he did.
He cannot just kill everyone who inconveniences him, otherwise there would be no Ankh-Morpork.
Jan Van Quirm wrote:...although he was an apprentice assassin, he'd never actually made an official inhumation I think - it's been a while since I read N but he didn't actually assassinate the Patrician either did he? :
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Jun 30, 2015
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TAR20 or TAR23
The roadblock needs to be held at a really difficult country with cultural barriers such as china, Mongolia or Korea to make it more challenging.
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There was a time when the dual-purpose car was the norm rather than the exception. Driving your hot Chevy to work all week and racing on weekends was a way of life for many hot rodders. As the competition got tougher at the racetrack many dual-purpose cars were forced to choose, street or strip. This brought about an onslaught of dedicated race cars. One of the defining reasons for the death of the dual-purpose car was the final drive gear. To be competitive at the track you need a low final gear, while driving to work you were wishing for a tall gear.
Enter the overdrive, a system that was popular in the '30s through the '50s but most overdrive transmissions, including the ancient Columbia two-speed rearend, were not up to the rigors of racing.
When Brent Vandervort of Fatman Fabrications decided to build a tribute car of the old Smokey Yunick '57 Chevrolet, he knew it would be a four-speed car like the original. It's not a faithful reproduction of the famed No. 13, rather a tribute car that embodies the spirit of the original with plenty of horsepower in a relatively basic '57 sedan. Underhood, a potent 427 small-block stroker motor fills that requirement. At first the car was enjoyed on the street, hitting a lot of street rod–style events and local cruise nights and then the autocross challenge came into the picture. Competing at a number of autocross events has become very popular and after a few passes it became obvious the car needed a much lower rear gear.
The problem with changing to a 4.11:1 gear was Vandervort is still an avid enthusiast and that means he drives his hot rods. It was obvious the dual-purpose car was back, but luckily today there are options to allow you to drive a long distance to an event, and then, with the flick of a switch, convert to a race gear. Enter Gear Vendors' Overdrive.
This unit couples to your existing four-speed or automatic transmission and can handle the horsepower and torque of big-horsepower powerplants; interestingly, Vandervort was originally introduced to these units several years ago when he installed one on the company truck for towing. The unit proved to be trouble free, tough, and effective. More recently, a call was made to Gear Vendors and the following week we were at Fatman Fabrications helping to unpack one overdrive unit.
The Gear Vendors unit is compact, well engineered, and relatively simple to install. Other than shortening the driveshaft, fabrication is minor and the installation is well within the abilities of your average enthusiast.
Vandervort builds his hot rods the old-fashioned way; if he has something on hand he uses it, and that explains the Ford Top Loader four-speed mated to the 427ci small-block. Once again, no problem for the team at Gear Vendors, they sent all the right pieces to mate an overdrive to the rear of the Top Loader.


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Bouncy Castle wrote:You should have posted the offending pictures back to the cab company manager(s), with an explanatory note.
He'd have never lived it down with is co-workers!
What a brilliant idea! I had enough trouble finding the taxi firm the next morning without remembering the name of it... then again Bouncy.... I could have just sent them to every taxi company in York!
Oh before the days of internet googling.... damn!


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Tag Archives: earth
Transits of Venus from Times Past
Written by maurita on June 4, 2012 — Leave a Comment
On June 5th a rare transit of Venus will occur that can be seen from most of North America. During the transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black dot moving across the sun. A transit, in which Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, is exceptional in that it occurs […]
Posted in Collections, General, Library, Manuscripts, Photographs | Also tagged American Philosophical Society, astronomy, Basking Ridge, Chatham Island, Edwin Smith, Lord Stirling, sun, Transit of Venus, Venus, William Alexander


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I love the blizzards from Dairy Queen, especially the strawberry cheesecake. My nephews and nieces love all of them as well. The problem is that the small size is still too large for them to finish in one sitting... and expensive. Those small sizes certainly aren't cheap by no stretch of the imagination. Now they came out with the mini blizzard, and the size is absolutely perfect for the youngsters. I loaded 'em all up in the back seat of the truck, and hit the local Dairy Queen. And for only $1.99 each! I'm not sure how long this promotion will last, but I'm glad they have it. Thanks Dairy Queen!
IOWA CITY, IOWA -- New Dairy Queen, opens next to a Wal-Mart on HWY 1 in Iowa City Ia. It's Wednesday the 13th of June. I just finished a 14 hour day at work, and my daughters called me to see if I could bring something home for dinner. I didn't see anything wrong with that. The youngest wanted ice cream and the oldest wanted chili fries. The new Dairy Queen opened late last fall and I had been there two other times. Yes their service was slow and the (16-18yr olds) that work there are most often polite do a good job.
Well until this time. I waited several minutes for the 4 employees to help me and take my order, I waited for them to come out from back 5 to 6 minutes. I ordered 2 burgers,1 chili fry and 2 ice cream treats $21.89.The ice cream treats were done in minutes while I waited another 15 minutes for them to complete the rest (so I thought). One handed me a bag that I thought had everything in it. And drove 15 miles home, my oldest brought it to my attention that there was only chili fries in the bag with napkins.
I grabbed the receipt to call the Dairy Queen, but they did not have their address or phone number on the receipt. At that time I called and ordered a pizza from a nearby pizza shack and gathered everything from Dairy Queen back up got in the car drove 15 miles back into town.
As soon as I walked through the door three of the employees saw me and walked to the back as soon as they could. One other employee came out after waiting 15 minutes for service. Explained the problem to her, she called for her shift supervisor, one of the original four that was working (there no work involved) ** was her name she attempted to play it dumb as she didn't know anything about the order that she just got to work.
I told her to stop, that I knew for a fact she was there and helped with the order and quoted some of the conversation she had with the others while I waited. Then she fed me more of a lie saying she tried to catch me when I left with the burgers but I was already in my car and leaving. So I asked for the burgers then she tells me they threw them out and it would take 14 minutes to recook them. I told her fine and they should redo the rest of the order also.
I was told I would have to repay for everything, Dairy Queen's policy. I told her to refund me my money, I was told "we can't do that." That I needed to talk to the manager. I asked for the manager, and was told I could stop back in the next day and talk to him. I told her to call him and get him in here. "I can't and I don't like your tone, you need to leave," and she just left. The next day I stopped in talked to the manager ** about this ordeal and was told she talked to ** last night. He would stand by her decision as how she handled it. So I'm taking even further action in a lawsuit and running down the Dairy Queen name.
GREELEY, COLORADO -- I don't know if anyone else has to deal with being heavy and wanting an ice cream cone, but I walked into DQ and ordered a small cone. I overheard a group of silly girls in the corner laughing and looking at me. Then I overheard one say, "she's so fat, she shouldn't have anything to eat!" Well, admittedly I am on the heavy side but I shouldn't have to have it pointed out by a bunch of smart ass little girls. Really disappointed in the service, I would have complained to the manager but she was laughing with them.
I know I am opening up to all sorts of ridicule by writing this because there is always someone who feels it's necessary to belittle those of us who are not born perfect, but I have had enough rudeness. I am in the health care field and have never tried to make anyone feel bad about who they are.
BELLEFONTE, PENNSYLVANIA -- I went to Dairy Queen located in Bellefonte, P. A. to get a birthday cake. I found one took it to the counter and paid for it. I asked the girl working if I could get happy birthday ** on it. She said sure. Took the cake and sat it on the counter behind her and walked away. About 20 minutes goes by and my cake is still sitting there. So I asked the guy working the counter about my cake. He said hold on... Comes back with my cake and says very rudely WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO WRITE ON YOUR CAKE. Sets the cake on the counter and walks away.
I would like to have someone take care of this. I should have gotten the cake for free. Now to add to the situation the cake was for my mother in law whose sister passed away on her birthday so we were trying to cheer her with a small party after arriving home.
NOCONA, TEXAS -- I (Asian American) was waiting in line with my wallet in my hand for 3-5 minutes and no one would come to the cash register. Yet when a white woman (my mother-in-law) walked up, she was served immediately and paid from a worker that came out of NOWHERE. As she was getting served, a black couple walked in and was also waiting in line with me. Then the person that served the white lady WALKED AWAY when all three of us was standing there! I saw 6 other people behind the counter and they also did not come to help. I have written to the branch and to corporate, and still have not heard hide nor hair from them for a week now.
ASHLAND, OHIO -- I recently visited the Ashland OH DQ branch. I usually customize my blizzards w/ others stuff, making it really my own form of art. Needless to say, I walked through the poor, immediately smelling the previously familiar cotton candy flavor, & I wanted it in my planned customized banana split, or blizzard. One lady worker in blue confirmed having me cotton candy blizzards. I was trying to plan a usual customization when another lady worker in black came out, lied about the cotton candy. When I actually caught her in that lie, she was trying to cover up after I told her that I know for a fact that yes they do have the cotton candy; I smelled it real strong as I came through the door.
I was ready to pay well for something customize, even had a $10 will ready to pay. I was about to redeem a coupon, but after a brief argument, about her out, I ended up leaving. I simply refuse to settle for less than I bargained for, especially when someone flatly denies that I obviously smelled the cotton candy as i entered. I had the same things before, even had it by itself once when it was new. The smell of the cotton candy flavor was an obviously fresh one, & the lady in black said they didn't have it anymore. I hate lying tongues, & I'm not likely to ever shop there again, & I live right near it on the next street over.
When I visited another ice cream shop, I got what I wanted, in the exact flavor I wanted. I told that shop why I visited them & what just happened to bring me there, & they were disgusted that such a reputable place would deny a customer something available, especially when it can be smelled in the air by all who enter their shop. The new shop I visited across town was happy to help me in any way they could. I'm now warning others about what DQ did. I plan on contributing to the complaint boards as much as I possibly can regarding this issue.
WEST ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA -- I love mint m&m blizzards, and decided to grab a cheeseburger, french fries and blizzard on my way home tonight. So, I pulled into the West Asheville, NC Dairy Queen drive through & placed my order. Up to this point, there was no problem. When I got my mint m&m blizzard, I immediately noticed that it was not green, it was bright white! I politely requested more mint to the young girl at the window. I had had to ask for more mint before in other DQs, and never had a problem.
So, I was shocked when she told me she put the "required designated amount" in, and that she could make another one, but would have to charge me for that new one PLUS an additional charge for the extra mint! I told her 3 times the blizzard was white as snow, and mint is green. When I asked to speak to the manager, this young girl told me she was the manager on call (HUH? She was 19 to 22 years old). I put us both out of our misery by telling her to give me my money back & to cancel the entire order.
She wasn't rude, but she had no customer service, much less manager skills. There was no "I'm sorry", no smile, nothing. Just a young kid testing her authority in the wrong way. DQ lost a sale, plus had to throw the food away, in favor of retaining one extra mint flavored squirt! I don't blame DQ as per se as I have had other locations add additional flavoring when requested with no problem. I do, however, have a problem with any company that thinks a child is worthy of management position. It takes experience and age to understand bottom line profits and common sense.
RESTON, VIRGINIA -- Kudos to the (I assume) manager who was working at the Dairy Queen at Hunters Woods Plaza in Reston, VA on July 21st. A patron came in and ordered some type of Blizzard and attempted to pay with a DQ gift card. The server ran it through the machine, but it was rejected. She politely informed the woman that the card was rejected; the customer began to get a little steamed and then took out her cell phone to call someone (she mentioned something about her daughter), insisting that there was money on the card, offering a receipt as "proof" (I couldn't see what was on the receipt--most likely it was the purchase receipt for the gift card).
The server ran the card through again, and again, it was rejected. Finally, she reached into the register and gave the customer back her change in cash. She didn't exhale sharply or roll her eyes as many would have done (The customer was not exactly appreciative). Sometimes small little things can cause some customers to be inconvenienced; a skilled worker knows when to take the steps required to make things more pleasant for everyone. Good job!
NEWARK, DELAWARE -- DQ has introduced the "mini" blizzard at a cost of $2.49 each. They are just about the size of a juice cup... about half the size of the original small cup. The price is outrageous for the size of the cup that you get and the cup wasn't even full. I've heard of downsizing, but this is ridiculous! The cup is half as big and the price is just a little less than the old small used to be. Now the small is $3.19 each. That is ridiculous also. I bought 6 Klondike bars for $1.99 and one of them would fill the new "mini" cup. Where does DQ get off charging so much money for them? I won't be going to DQ anymore unless they lower their prices and change the portions back to the old way.
MADISON, ALABAMA -- Yesterday afternoon my family and I headed to DQ for some ice cream. We arrived and placed our order with an unfriendly employee who didn't even respond when I said "thank you" as she handed me my receipt. We received our order that consisted of two blizzards, two chocolate dipped cones, and a milkshake. We chose a table in the dining area, then sat down to begin eating. My daughter who is 8 years old started eating her chocolate dipped cone and it broke in half. At this time we discovered the cone hadn't been filled properly and all the ice cream had just been piled on top and hadn't gone down into the cone which was no big deal.
In attempt to salvage her ice cream I approached the counter and took a very small cup from a stack and returned to the table and put my daughter's ice cream into it. The ice cream was salvaged and we continued eating our desserts. About ten minutes later when we were almost finished a female employee approached our table and stood about five feet away. She said "excuse me ma'am but for future reference you cannot just take a cup because we charge .25 for them."
I showed her my daughter's broken cone and tried to explain what happened and said that of course I would pay for the cup, but that the cone was defective. She replies "well you should have stood in line and waited and I would have told you that the cup costs .25." She then accuses me of giving the cashier an "evil" look when I approached the counter. I told her I didn't know what she was talking about, but she kept insisting I gave someone a bad look. At this point I just said I will pay for the cone, I didn't give any look, and I want to speak with a manager.
She informs me that the manager is the owner of the franchise and will be there shortly. I said okay I will wait. So she leaves and comes back with a number on a paper and says the manager won't be in until after 5 (three hours away) and that I should call at that time. I called twice after 5 P.M. and there was never a manager/supervisor on duty. I left a message to be called back and haven't heard from anyone.
This afternoon I called yet again and still no manager. I contacted corporate headquarters and was told the franchise owner/operator who is also the absentee manager can basically do as he pleases. That it is "basically a mom and pop operation". I won't be giving any DQ my business in the near future.


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Tuesday, 10 November 2009
A Christmas Gift Challenge End of Wk 9
6 comments:
- Lynn said...
Have you considered using a leather thimble for quilters. You can get them off Ebay and don't cost too much.
- 10 November 2009 at 14:25
- Robin (rsislandcrafts) said...
Love the table runners. I have been thinking about trying those leather thimbles. I just don't like the way the metal ones feel and they never fit right anyways.
- 10 November 2009 at 14:33
- Melinda Cornish said...
there are jelly' type thimbles too...like a flexible silione...when I worked in a fabric shop, a lot of people loved them! It is so great that your hubby helped you with the runners...they look great!
- 10 November 2009 at 16:08
- bluebird-lyn said...
Hello Janice, I found the leather thimble the best, soft on the finger, easy to use...hugs lyn
- 11 November 2009 at 11:10
- jan said...
Janice, find some leather and I will show you how to make a thimble with it, I make them all the time for my girls. Charity shop leather gloves would do.
Bring your machine on Saturday and the feet for it, and I will show you how to do the binding, I doubt I will have much to do.
I will have to come over to you when we pack up and show you at your home---what say you???
lol Jan
You can do it all by machine, but it looks hand done.....truly
- 11 November 2009 at 22:45
- Micki said...
I use a leather thimble too! Your runners are so nice!
- 12 November 2009 at 13:59


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Type of Physician: Oncologist
What is a Oncologist?
A subspecialty certification by the Board of Internal Medicine; the oncologist specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of all types of cancer and other benign and malignant tumors. These subspecialists decide on and administer chemotherapy as well as consult with surgeons and radiotherapists on other treatment for cancer.
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Paget Disease of the Breast
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SKU:C15.289 | Kelly Green LEATHER
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Every woman needs a way to keep her makeup accessories in order and that's just what our Makeup Brush Pouch is for. No more digging through the bottom of your purse to find what you need!Made from genuine leather with a nylon interior, this Makeup Brush Pouch is designed with plenty of room for all your brushes, pencils, lipstick, nail polish, and other small beautifying accessories. The nylon lining ensures your items have a soft place to rest while the zipper closure on top keeps everything securely inside when it's shut. And thanks to its size, it can easily fit in a purse or tote bag even when it's filled up. Our Makeup Brush Pouch is simple and beautiful - just like how you like to be!
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Moderators: Tonyblack, Jason, Toothy
The Mad Collector wrote:In cases like that Tamar I usually find that
The US Postal System is an Abomination Unto Nuggan
When I track parcels that customers say haven't arrived they are usually going on a grand tour of the States being bounced from one sorting depot to another
=Tamar wrote:Indecisiveness is an Abomination unto Nuggan.
Bouncy Castle wrote:"You are owed "£5,000 in mis-sold PPI" telephone calls are an Abomination unto Nuggan (if not already listed previously).
I love this thread!!
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100% exemption
In November 2007, Maryland enacted legislation creating a sales and use tax "holiday" for certain energy-efficient appliances, beginning in 2011. Under the law, qualifying appliances purchased during a designated period are not subject to the state sales and use tax (6%). The holiday time frame is established as a three-day period running from "the Saturday immediately preceding the third Monday in February through the third Monday in February each year". In 2012, the holiday runs from February 18 to February 20. (It will vary in future years depending on how the designated time frame falls on the calendar.)
In order to qualify for the exemption, qualifying pieces of equipment must be designated as meeting or exceeding the efficiency requirements of the Energy Star program. The law defines eligible Energy Star product types as follows:
* Air conditioners (the Energy Star designation includes both central and room air conditioners)
* Clothes washers*
* Furnaces
* Heat pumps
* Standard size refrigerators
* Compact fluorescent light bulbs
* Dehumidifiers
* Boilers
* Programmable thermostats**
The law also lists solar water heaters and heat pumps (presumably including geothermal heat pumps) as eligible for the exemption. However, a separate law offers a less restrictive year-round [http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=MD27F&re... sales and use tax exemption for renewable energy equipment], including both solar water heaters and geothermal heat pumps.
* While the law also defines clothes dryers as an eligible appliance, the Energy Star program does not currently certify clothes dryers.
**The Energy Star specification for programmable thermostats was suspended December 31, 2009.
Equipment must meet Energy Star criteria


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Is anyone familiar with Fry's Electronis? Well I used to work for them and would get bored on the register and draw the store mascot with different costumes on.
Here he is as Spawn:
er... yeah!
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text: So, I've been doing a lot of traveling in the Middle East and a little in SE Asia and want to find a reliable, free VPN package that will allow me to 1)view US-based content and 2) get around local filters. Most of the ones I've found charge a monthly fee and most of the free ones seem to have either ridiculously restricted speed or serve a ton of ads (doesn't that defeat the point of having the privacy of a VPN?) Anyone have any recommendations?