They say don’t go on Wolverton Mountain / If you’re looking for a wife
’cause Clifton Clowers has a pretty young daughter / He’s mighty handy with a gun and a knife
During the late summer and early fall of 1962, Claude King had a genuine Country hit on his hands. Written by Merle Kilgore (who also gave us “Ring of Fire”), “Wolverton Mountain” spent nine weeks at #1, even making crossover waves on the pop charts.
I remember that song from my childhood, but only yesterday did I learn that the place and the characters (if not the whole story) were real. Clifton Clowers, who had two daughters, lived on Woolverton Mountain (the correct spelling), several miles north of Center Ridge, Arkansas, until his death in 1994 at the age of 102.
Woolverton Mountain lies just outside the physiographic boundaries of the Ozark uplift, technically speaking, but the people and the culture there are typical of Ozarkansas. And it happens to be 50 miles due south of The Mountain, a two-hour drive away.
I’m thinkin’ that calls for a visit. Arkansas boasts quite the Country music heritage, and a pilgrimage to Woolverton Mountain Cemetery to see the Clowers family plot now joins a personal road-trip list that includes Johnny Cash’s birthplace monument (in Kingsland, Arkansas) and boyhood home (Dyess Colony), as well as the “singing grave” of one Glen Campbell (Billstown).
I quoted a YouTuber by the name of Chadd Wright a couple of months back, a guy whose 3 of 7 Project channel has become a daily watch for Deb and me. Yesterday’s “truck talk” video touched on a subject I’ve been talking about for years.
When I was a kid, very rarely did Americans fly the flag at half-staff (that’s half-mast for you Navy guys). The death of a president. On Memorial Day, always. Back then it was a national gesture of respect for significant persons and events.
No longer. The practice nowadays is pathetically common, driven by political agendas. It confers national importance where it isn’t deserved.
I mean, I’ll be driving along, see a flag at half-staff and, despite being pretty plugged-in to current events, ask myself, “Who died?”
The answer almost always is either a person being granted honor in death that they didn’t earn while they were breathing, or an event (like a “mass” killing) that those in power want the populace to consider important.
What once was a symbol of a nation in mourning has become a virtue signal.
Chadd Wright takes it a step further, calling the practice a “PSYOP,” or psychological operation, the most sinister form of propaganda.
I agree — it’s intentional manipulation of public perception of what’s significant and what’s not. In short, every lowering of the American flag for some transient cause is an attempt not merely to condition us to be in a perpetual state of mourning, but to instruct us on what should make us sad and, as a direct result, weak.
It’s working, by the way. The evidence is all over media and popular culture.
Individually, we have to use the brains we were born with and resist the PSYOP. Personally, I reject what’s been done to this tradition (and so many others).
Wise up, People.
About today’s header image… I snapped that panorama and several other cell-phone shots around 2:30pm while working on the west (down-slope) side of the RV. I was struck by the vista and the angle of the sun, as well as my great good fortune to have that kind of view while dumping the poop tank.
I’m totally serious — there I was, watching waste water course out of the camper and into the Stinky Slinky on its way to the septic tank, when I looked up and realized (once again) how truly lucky I am.
This, dear readers, is why I’m happy. This is why I have no bad days. This is why I tell you ad nauseum how perfect The Mountain is, how wonderful the people are ’round these parts, how ideal the culture of Ozarkansas is for Deb and me.
And I’m gonna keep tellin’ you. The world can (and probably will) go to hell around us, but this is our American Life — and it’s good.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB