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knoxcotn-digest Thursday, April 5 2001 Volume 01 : Number 142
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2001 14:31:42 -0400 From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org> Subject: [KnoxCoTN] 01 April 2001 Sunday Afternoon Rocking Sunday Afternoon Rocking Beneath the Surface (from the "Sunday Afternoon Rocking" series) For all of my childhood, I remember a small nondescript table placed along side a wall in the kitchen at Pa's. No one would notice it unless one needed to use it. It wasn't much to look at, but being a necessary part of our lives, got a fresh coat of white paint every spring, without the previous year's coat being removed. Thus one could not tell what shape or form the legs of it had ever had, if any. The operative word was not "beauty", but "clean", and this was assured with the annual coat of paint and the linoleum tacked to the top that it might be scrubbed with a vengeance. It was the "wash up" table. Not having indoor plumbing, the table was where bowl and pitcher were kept for the "washing up" before cooking or meal-taking. It was not a fancy china bowl and pitcher either, as once again function reigned over beauty, but a simple tin set that served the purpose. I do not remember that they matched. When the time of Pa's sale came, his children removed this or that they thought should go to auction, and this or that they wished for purposes of nostalgia to keep. And my father asked my mama what she would like. As an in-law she had the last pick and not that much left. Looking about, she thought of the days she had spent in that kitchen, sweating over an old iron stove, cooking meals for family or farm hands. She thought about all the springs when she and the "girls" came in to attack the old house with scrub rags and buckets. She remembered stuffing feather pillows anew and dashing paint on any surface that looked as though it might need it. She wound up choosing the small nondescript table. Months later, after a good deal of time had been spent with paint remover, steel wool and sandpaper, the table was no longer recognizable as the same one we were all so familiar with, and the family gasped that it was the same. The tall legs of the table had assumed a shapely form, with spindles and graceful knobs. Paint peeled and sanded away had revealed a warm and glowing cherry wood. And the drawer, stuck for years, now opened to reveal that the beautiful little table was put together not with glue or nails, but with wooden pegs. How many generations ago the table had been a beautiful piece, no one knew. Just when it became the "wash up table", complete with annual layer of fresh white paint and a linoleum top, no one was quite sure. How and when the table, so old that it had been put together with wooden pegs, entered the family, no one quite remembered. The only certainty was that underneath the layers so thick it had hidden even the shape, was a beautiful graceful little table. Its warm cherry wood gleamed in reward for the time spent lovingly restoring it. I think about that table a lot as I do family history. It seems as though a hundred stories uncovered are a bit like that table, and people too. We become accustomed to things, and so do our elders. We ask elders about something of the past and their answers, golden nuggets to us, seem so familiar and taken for granted by them. "But you never told me that!", I have exclaimed over and over, and received a surprised reaction in answer. And I find myself doing the same. One of my adult children asks me something I have known so long I take for granted, and I hear, "But you never told me that!" I am surprised. I never thought to mention it. I think about that table a lot as I live. I wonder how many "wash up tables" in life I take for granted, because they are so much a part of things. And I wonder if a warm beautiful treasure might gleam in reward, if I can only recognize "what is there" beneath the surface of that which I see every day. For me there is a tangible reminder. The table graces my own home, and is as meaningful in its symbolism as it is in its beautiful form. But, if we but consider it, most all of us have such a "table", don't we? Just a thought, jan Copyright ©2001JanPhilpot ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be shared...simply share though e-mail as written without alterations...and in entirety. If planned for a publication, permission must be granted by the author. Please forward sufficient information concerning the nature and intent of the publication. Thanks, jan) Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday Rocking. This is not a "reply to" list, and normally only one message per week will come across it, that being the column. To subscribe send email to Sundayrocking-subscribe@topica.com Comments about the content of these messages can be sent to unicorn@sun-spot.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2001 21:38:22 -0400 From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org> Subject: [KnoxCoTN] TN Land Books If you can get by the funky Tripod advertising mess on his pages, A. B. Pruitt has put some really good information on-line. He is the reigning expert on the Glasgow Land Fraud Scheme and North Carolina military land grants in Tennessee. His books are a standard resource for me. I relied heavily on them for my book, Tennesse Land: Its Early History and Laws (info at http://www.public.usit.net/mcnamara/brmbooks.htm). Check out Mr. Pruitt's work at http://members.tripod.com/abpruitt/index.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 10:32:48 -0400 From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org> Subject: [KnoxCoTN] Interesting on-line articles Backing up your research. http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/compass/compass.asp Who uses the Internet and why? http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/digital/digital.asp ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 10:33:48 -0400 From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org> Subject: [KnoxCoTN] Fraternal organizations reference source Abbreviations associated with Fraternal Organizations. http://www.exonumia.com/art/society.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 11:33:34 -0400 From: "J. C. Tumblin, OD" <sleepy6@icx.net> Subject: [KnoxCoTN] 136th Anniversary of the Sultana Disaster 136th Anniversary of the Sultana Disaster: Just to let everyone know that our annual Sultana Reunion will be held this year on Saturday, April 28th at the Mt. Olive Baptist Church on Maryville Pike in South Knoxville. All are invited. Our next Sultana newsletter will soon be out which will include a map and directions to find your way to the church. We will commence our activities at 11:00 a. m. at the Sultana monument in the cemetery behind the church. I hope to have several reenactors at the monument who will join us in our following ceremonies. We will have a fingerfood/snack lunch. For questions or more information e-mail me at shawpan@msn.com or Pam Newhouse at CW1865@aol.com. Norman Shaw
Remember the 136th Anniversary of the Sultana Disaster (April 27, 1865) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 17:29:24 -0400 From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org> Subject: [KnoxCoTN] Virus Alert - W32.Magistr.24876@mm Forwarded from Symantec. I'm wondering how long it will take this one to become my 5-a-day visitor...I'd venture that at least 50% of the people doing genealogy on-line don't have a virus scanner installed...or else they don't have the common sense to keep their definitions updated. Virus Alert - W32.Magistr.24876@mm Due to the increased number of submissions, SARC has updated the threat level of this virus from 3 to 4. Norton Anti-Virus definitions dated March 13, 2001 or later will detect this virus. W32.Magistr.24876@mm is a virus that has email worm capability. It is also network aware. It infects Windows Portable Executable (PE) files, with the exception of .dll system files. It sends email messages to addresses that it gathers from the Outlook/Outlook Express mail folders (.dbx, .mbx), the sent items file from Netscape, and Windows address books (.wab), which are used by mail clients, such as Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express. The email message may have up to two attachments, and it has a randomly- generated subject line and message body. For detailed information about this virus, visit the following Internet address: http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/vURL.cgi/nav97 ------------------------------ End of knoxcotn-digest V1 #142 ******************************
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