I bought some jalapeños and tomatoes so we’ll see where this gardening thing goes.
I don’t think I ever mention this but my Pa had this massively successful garden. This was back during the 1940s-50s and so his family wasn’t allowed on the white side of the community let alone allowed purchase any food from the stores. He had maybe a quarter acre of land but grew enough to help feed his family and extended family and continued working in the garden into his 80s. We used to go there on the weekends to have lunch with him and my Granny and everything they had on the table was hunted/farmed on the property or home grown and leave with jars of green beans and corn they had preserved for later. He passed away several years ago but my dad and my brother still have jars on his green beans stored away as a kind of family heirloom.
My dad still grows various pepper plants and tomatoes in his backyard. So I wanted to start with those and work my way up to doing a little more each year <3
What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
On this day, 19 May 1920, a shootout took place in the town of Matewan, West Virginia between striking miners and the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who had arrived in town to evict miners’ families from their mountain encampment, in what would become known as the infamous Battle of Matewan.
What made the situation in Matewan so unique was that the sheriff, Sid Hatfield (pictured, left), supported the miners rather than the coal companies. So the detectives brought along a fake warrant for the arrest of Hatfield, which he refused to respect, and shooting broke out. Seven Baldwin-Felts detectives were killed, including two of the Felts brothers themselves, as were two miners – Bob Mullins, and Tot Tinsley, an unarmed bystander – as well as the mayor Cabell Testermen.
Hatfield and 22 other people, mostly miners, were subsequently arrested and put on trial for murder in what was at that time the lengthy murder trial in West Virginia history. But they were all eventually acquitted by a pro-union jury.
Having been unable to secure a conviction, Baldwin-Felts agents would later murder Hatfield alongside his deputy, Ed Chambers, on the steps of a nearby courthouse. None of the killers were convicted of any crime.
More info in our podcast episode 7 about the WV mine wars: https://workingclasshistory.com/2018/06/09/wch-e7-the-west-virginia-mine-wars-1902-1922/https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1720422058142937/?type=3
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
If you don't like Left Wing political thought and philosophy, all things related to horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, guns or the strange, then get the fuck out. I just warned you.
