Separated at birth?

Something I noticed a short while ago...

On the left is Paul Krugman, columnist for The New York Times. On the right is The Most Interesting Man in the World, spokesman for Dos Equis beer.

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Watch MOONSHINERS on Discovery Channel tonight! So sayeth Popcorn Sutton's widow!

Recent events in my personal life have kept me from watching Discovery Channel's new hit series Moonshiners, but many have told me that it's a most excellent reality series about those free souls who make likker in true Appalachian style!

I shall however be tuned in tonight (as well as having my DVR set to record) as I have just received word straight from Pam Sutton, the lovely and vivacious widow of moonshining legend Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton, that tonight's episode is supposed to feature Popcorn rather heavily.

I can attest that interest in Popcorn Sutton is soaring of late, as this blog is getting slammed with visits from people Google-ing about Popcorn and his trade. But I should also note that nowhere on The Knight Shift (so far that I know of) can there be found plans to build a moonshine still of one's own. And trust me: people are looking around here :-P

Incidentally, I have also received word that the Third Annual Popcorn Sutton Tribute is set for the first weekend of this coming August! I was able to attend the one this past summer and... well let's just say if last year's second one is any indication, the town of Maggie Valley has a huge, huge thing on its hands that is primed to become a major regular regional event. Will post more as we get closer to summer.

In the meantime, Moonshiners runs at 10 p.m. tonight on Discovery Channel!

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We can go no further on this side of Jordan...

The array of flowers that were placed atop Mom's casket. The two pink ones are meant to represent her two children...

The teddy bear that my sister Anita placed inside Mom's casket on the morning of the funeral. I enclosed a letter: the last piece of writing that I ever did for my mother.

The casket at the graveside, immediately following the service...

The final resting place of Mom's earthly body, after the grave had been filled...

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Southern hospitality

A representative sample of all the food that friends and family brought to our house last week following Mom's death. I swear, we had enough fried chicken alone to run the Colonel out of business!

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Mom's memorial video from the funeral service

Three days ago we laid Mom's body to rest. I keep saying "Mom's body" because that wasn't Mom at all, not really. Everything that made Ruby Knight the wonderful, amazing and deeply beautiful woman that she was, God brought into His presence last Wednesday morning and out of that room at the hospice. All that we did two days later was to commit her earthly remains to the cemetery. It was as far as we are able to go in this world.

I am still recovering from it, although I'm sincerely shocked at how well I've been able to maintain myself through it all. Have there been tears? Absolutely. But... my girlfriend keeps telling me that I'm stronger than I was a year or so ago, when this would have completely devastated me. Probably to the point of needing severe medication. But this past week has seen me the furthest thing from that. Maybe the most composed in the face of tragedy that I've ever been. And I really don't know how that could come to be, except by the grace of God.

I am going to be writing a more fitting memorial to Mom on this blog in the next few days, as my thoughts are able to more clearly coalesce. But until then, thought I'd share this with all two of The Knight Shift's faithful readers. Wilkerson Funeral Service was extremely helpful to our family in this time of need, going above and beyond the call of a mortuary firm. But then, it's Wilkerson: I would have expected no less from such a fine, established company. I wish we could have had time to find more photos, but they did a terrific job in assembling the following video which played in the chapel during visitation. I just uploaded it to YouTube a short while ago, mostly so that family who couldn't make it to the funeral can get to view it. Thought I'd share it with this blog's readership as well...

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"Every one I know goes away in the end..."

Maybe the greatest music video ever made. Filmed shortly before June's passing and Johnny's a few months later. Trent Reznor wrote the song, but Cash made it all his own.

And also the song most on my mind this night.

Here is Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt"...

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It's a new year!

Here's praying that 2012 will be a better one for each of us.

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Mom is gone

At 8:26 a.m. this morning, my mother, Ruby Roberts Knight, went Home.

Thank you to everyone who has been keeping our family in thoughts and prayers.

I'm going to be away for awhile. Will try to return to this blog sometime soon.

EDIT 1:21 a.m. 12/29/2011: This has been the longest day that I can remember, from Tuesday evening on through the phone call early yesterday morning asking me to return to the hospice and then, less than an hour and a half later, Mom's passing. Between then and now have been our family making arrangements at the funeral home, a stream of visitors to our home, and many many phone calls and text messages (my sister Anita swears that her iPhone is going to explode from all the traffic!).

Some will no doubt be wondering how I'm doing in light of my disclosure on this blog that I have bipolar disorder. To be honest: better than I thought I would be. But I couldn't have gone through this were I still the person that I was a year ago. What happened that made the difference? I can only say this: in our tribulations, God makes us stronger. This morning Dad and I held Mom's hands as she passed away, not letting go for some time after the nurse called the time and told us that Mom had gone. And, well... I just can't imagine being able to do that before.

I'm only taking my regular medication for bipolar right now. There are some stronger meds available within my grasp, but I didn't want to go on them. Not for this. Just, had to be there, all there, for her. For my family. I'll write more about that later though.

But if I'm strong at all through this, it's only because God does grant peace. It is to Him that I cling right now. Just as I cling to the promise that this is not the end. That I will see Mom again someday.

As soon as I came back home from the hospice I began to write Mom's obituary. It was something I told Dad the morning before that I wanted to do, for her. Didn't have much time to compose it before it was due, and it came during the most exhaustive stretch that I've yet experienced (have had not more than 10 hours of solid sleep during the past two weeks).

Here it is.

Ruby Roberts Knight

REIDSVILLE — At 8:26 on the morning of December 28 2011, surrounded by family and with her husband and son holding her hands, Ruby Roberts Knight was let slip from the circles of this broken world, away at last from her pain and suffering and into the comforting presence of her Lord.

Funeral services will be held 3 p.m. Friday, December 30, 2011 at Midway United Methodist Church with Rev. Larry Scott, Rev. George Roberson and Rev. Sandy Brown. The burial will follow in the church cemetery. Pallbearers at her funeral: Craig Roberts of Clemmons, Kenneth Roberts of Reidsville, Jesse Roberts of Reidsville, Frankie Stiers of Palm Bay, Florida, Walter Joyce of Reidsville, and Chad Austin of Raleigh. Honorary pallbearers: Richard Wright of Reidsville, John Ashe of Reidsville, Lee Patterson of Reidsville, and Ed Woody of Waynesville.

Born on December 3, 1937, Ruby was the daughter of Elsie Wimbush Roberts and James "Duck" Roberts. In addition to her parents, Ruby grew up in a rambunctious household with six brothers and one sister. From her family she learned the value of love, of laughter, of devotion to those cared for and of faithfulness to God. She was a woman of great generosity, of formidable temerity when roiled to stand for good cause, and always a figure of inspiring courage. Ruby did not complete high school but was later proud of achieving her G.E.D. In 1970 she married and in the years following gave birth to two children: each of whom she encouraged to pursue education and to never stop learning. In 1977 Ruby was one of the first to be employed at the new Miller Brewery in Eden: she worked as a labeler operator until her retirement in 2001. In her spare time Ruby enjoyed traveling, hosting visitors (many of which over the years came to her house from distant countries), sewing, sharpening her keen mind with crossword puzzles, and especially cooking: a skill that she inherited from her mother. She was a member of Midway United Methodist Church and maintained strong ties with Evangelical Methodist Church, both in Reidsville. She was preceded in death by her mother, her father, her brother Franklin Stiers, her brother Michael Stiers, her brother Wayne Roberts, and many others who had gone on before into the presence of the Lord.

She is survived by husband of 41 years Robert Rankin Knight of the home, son Robert Christopher Knight of the home, and daughter Anita Christine Knight of Dunn, North Carolina. She is also survived by sister Glendora Roberts, brother Kenneth "Nub" Roberts, brother R.A. "Snooks" Roberts, and brother Jesse James Roberts, all of Reidsville. Ruby is also survived by a very special friend of the immediate family, Kristen Lee Bradford of Roanoke, Virginia. She is also survived by many, many nephews and nieces, several cousins, and a lifetime's worth of friends and co-workers, many of whom lovingly referred to her with the childhood nickname that she carried throughout her life: "Sister".

The family will receive friends Thursday, December 29 at Wilkerson Funeral Home from 7 to 9 p.m. and other times at the residence.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Hospice of Rockingham County, PO Box 281, Wentworth, North Carolina 27375.

Condolences may be sent to the family at www.wilkersonfuneral.com

Published in News Record on December 29, 2011

There will be more but for now, I need to take care of my family. Expect some new blogging after we have finished doing what we need to do. And again, for all who have sent condolences, on behalf of Dad and Anita and the rest of our family, I thank you.

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Our first Christmas together

Still on my traditional holiday break but I couldn't resist sharing this photo from yesterday of Kristen and I on our first Christmas as boyfriend/girlfriend! :-)

Incidentally, plans had to be changed and so we weren't able to watch this year's Doctor Who Christmas special, "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" together. But since we'll be together again tomorrow (for our six-month anniversary, yay!!) we're gonna catch it from DVR then and I'll post a review soon after.

In the meantime, hope y'all are still enjoying some Christmas :-)

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Merry Christmas 2011!

Since the Muppets have roared back in style, here's this immortal rendition of them singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" with John Denver!

I think that's like thirty years old, but timeless as ever. I figured it would be good to depart from blogging for the time being with something we could all smile about.

Longtime readers know that there is a tradition on The Knight Shift but last year there was a break from it, for reasons which were beyond my control. I had been looking forward to continuing that tradition again this holiday season but with each passing hour, well...

I am going to take a break from blogging for the next several days, as has been my usual custom at this time of year. There might be a review of this year's Doctor Who Christmas special (which if I get to watch it, will be in far better circumstance than I have seen any of the previous ones). But along with everything else, that is something very much up in the air at the moment.

There is more that I could say about the situation in my personal life right now. The best I can say for now is: we have given it to God. But if last Christmas was the very best one of my life to date (as I wrote about in Part 1 of Being Bipolar earlier this year) then what I am facing now, I am able to do so with an incredible peace in my heart... and that peace is only because of the One this holiday celebrates the birth of.

This could be the last time that I get to write on this blog for a good while. But until then, whenever I can return, I wish you and yours only the very best this Christmas! And also a very Happy Hanukkah for our Jewish friends and brethren :-)

And now, as always happens whenever I leave for the holidays, there is something that I wrote when I was a columnist for our student newspaper at Elon. Thirteen years later, it's still one of my all-time favorite pieces. I always look forward to re-posting this, so here 'tis once again.

---

Originally published in The Pendulum, Elon University, 12/03/1998

Celebrating the Christmas season means celebrating the memories
Chris Knight
Columnist

     Some of the best memories that we take through life are about the times we cherish the most. And sometimes, it doesn’t take much to bring back the joy.
     Last Friday as I was driving around Greensboro, the all-time coolest Christmas song ever came over the speakers.
     Who knows what this genius recording artist’s name is? Does it really matter? Whoever he is, he’ll forever be remembered as giving us the immortal sound of “Dogs Singing Jingle Bells”:

Arf arf arf,
Arf arf arf,
Arf Arf Whoof Whoof Whuf…

     Ahh... you know how it goes.
     And there’s the ever-beuh-beuh-beauh-beautiful rendition of Porky Pig singing “Blue Christmas” and the Chipmunks and of course “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Christmas at Ground Zero,” but hearing those dogs singing “Jingle Bells...” ahhhhh.
     It brought me back to the very first time I heard that: on the radio coming back from school just before Christmas in 1982. I was in third grade at the time. And it brought back memories of the Christmas we had.
     It was cold and very cloudy. I remember that because Santa had brought me a telescope and I didn’t get to use it that night. Which wasn’t too big a worry, ‘cause me and my sister had our brand-new Atari 2600 to play with!
     Another Christmas memory: To this day, I’ll never forgive Anita for the pounding she gave me in “Combat.” I don’t care how fancy Sega or the Playstation get... they’ll never touch the 4-bit pleasures of the Atari!
     There have been many a Christmas since then, and I remember each one well, for all the little things they had with them.
     I’ll never forget Mom and Dad taking me and my sister to see Santa Claus at the mall in ‘84. That morning Dad asked if I’d come with him to cut firewood, so we rode the tractor into the woods. There had been snow earlier in the week, which lay around us in the crisp, cold morning.
     Dad also brought his 30-30 rifle, why I still don’t know. After we had the wood loaded, Dad asked if I wanted to try shootin’ the gun.
     There I was, a ten-year old kid, holding what looked like an anti-aircraft cannon in my tiny hands. Well, I aimed at this tree like Dad told me to, and pulled the trigger.
     To this day I cannot describe the colors that flashed before my eyes, or the sound in my ears. When my existence finally returned, I was flat on my back in the snow, and blood was gushing from between my eyes where the scope had hit my nose from the backfire.
     That night Santa saw the bandages and said “Ho ho hoooo, and what happened to you, little fellow?”
     “I got shot, Santa,” was the only thing I knew to say.
     Hey, was I gonna lie to the Big Man? Uh-uh, no way was I gonna lose all that loot!
     The following year’s Christmas I remember for many things, but especially feeding the young calves on our farm. It would be the last year our family would be running a dairy farm, and I had started helping with some of the work around the barn.
     Dad set up a Christmas tree in the milking room, with wrapped-up boxes beneath it.
     Tinsel hung from the front doors of the barn. And there was something about the feel of the place there, that has always held a special place in my heart, as if we knew that there would not be another Christmas like this one.
     I wish there had been another Christmas on the farm, because there’s something I wish I could have seen. And as silly as some people might find this, I really believe that it happens.
     You see, if you go out at midnight on Christmas Eve, you will see all the animals in the farmyard, and in the fields, and in the forests, and wherever else they may be, stop where they are.
     And then they kneel.
     They kneel in remembrance for another night, long ago. It was Christmas, but how many people could know it then?
     Nothing remarkable, to be sure: Caesar had decreed a census through the land, and each man went with his family to his town.
     One man in particular took his wife, a young woman quick with child. But there was no room for them at the inn. So that night, in a dirty and filthy stable and surrounded by animals, a child was born.
     You see, it’s easy for us to forget. At this time of the year, we are too overwhelmed by the consumption and the material and the glitter /and all the customs that come with Christmas.
     And it’s too easy for us to forget that Christmas is, before everything else, a birthday.
     But the animals, who watched over Him as He lay as a newborn babe, two millenia ago... the animals have not forgotten.
     And so they kneel every Christmas and give glory to the newborn king, and in awe that God would send His Son to live among us in the greatest act of love.
     And to teach us many things, but especially to “love one another”. And to bridge the gap between man and God.
     The birth of Jesus Christ: the greatest Christmas present there will ever be. His birth, which would give mankind the greatest present it could ever ask for.
     Who in the world on that night could know the price that this present would someday have?
     Heaven and Earth sang praises to His glory on that night. The animals have always remembered that night. And Heaven and Earth still praise and sing unto Him.
     And if you only take a little time out from how busy things become at this part of the year, you can hear the singing, too. And it is a great temptation to join in that chorus.
     And perhaps in hearing, we will not forget the real meaning of Christmas, either.
     This Christmas Eve night I plan to be outside, with the same telescope that I got for Christmas all those years ago, and trying to envision a bright star over Bethlehem. Around midnight, I’m going to take a walk over to my aunt’s farm.
     Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth, and goodwill toward men.

Dedicated to the memory of W.C. “Mutt” Burton, for whom Christmas was always “In My Bones.”

---

From our house to yours, Merry Christmas! y'all! :-)

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"Peace on Earth" and "Good Will to Men"

The 1939 classic and still heartbreaking animated short, "Peace on Earth"...

The 1955 "remake" produced by none other than William Hana and Joseph Barbera, "Good Will to Men"...

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Do the Georgia mountains harbor Mayan ruins?

Found this curious lil' article by one Richard Thornton at Examiner.com, as it was cited a number of times throughout this past day. If there's anything of merit to this thesis, there exists the possibility that the Maya civilization once stretched from the Yucatan as far north as Blairsville, Georgia!

From the article...

Archaeological zone 9UN367 at Track Rock Gap, near Georgia’s highest mountain, Brasstown Bald, is a half mile (800 m) square and rises 700 feet (213 m) in elevation up a steep mountainside. Visible are at least 154 stone masonry walls for agricultural terraces, plus evidence of a sophisticated irrigation system and ruins of several other stone structures. Much more may be hidden underground. It is possibly the site of the fabled city of Yupaha, which Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto failed to find in 1540, and certainly one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent times.

According to the theory presented here, the age of these structures discovered in the Georgia wilderness corresponds to the sharp drop in the Mayan population of Mexico and Central America. Given how the Georgia sites bear striking similarities to Mayan irrigation canals and other constructs, along with some cultural and lingual evidence, it is the belief of some that there could have been a migration of Maya to the southern Appalachian region.

Wow!! VERY interesting, if there's any substance at all to this. It would go neatly hand-in-hand with a lot of the other stories that pervade this part of the country, like the massive Stonehenge-like megalith circle that once sat atop Stone Mountain (the Ku Klux Klan got ride of 'em about a hundred years ago when the likenesses of the Confederate generals were being carved into the rock face) and the local Native Americans said they had no idea who erected those boulders to begin with. Then there are the odd mounds and carvings here and there from South Carolina on up to the Ohio Valley.

Gonna be keeping a keen eye on this one. Stuff like this, it's practically like porn to me! :-P

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First trailer for Ridley Scott's PROMETHEUS

Did you know that next year will be thirty years since Blade Runner: the last time that Ridley Scott gave us a science-fiction movie?

Based on this much-awaited first trailer for Prometheus, I'm praying that it won't be another thirty years before Scott delves into the genre again!

So if you don't know already, Prometheus is sort-of a prequel to Ridley's 1979 Alien (and by extension also a prequel to James Cameron's Aliens from 1986). It just won't have those chest-bursting xenomorphs, allegedly. Ummmm confused by that? Yeah me too, a bit. Still gonna see this on opening day though :-)

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Time for some classic Christmas music

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Looks at the first THE HOBBIT trailer, my Precious!

It was ten years ago this week that The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring came out and last night on the way out of town for the evening I had that movie's score soundtrack playin' good and epicly loud from my car's stereo... and I found myself thinking then "I wonder when we'll see that first trailer for The Hobbit?".

Lookee what was already several hours online when I got home a few hours ago!

Ohmigoshohmigoshohmigosh...!!!!!!!!!!!!

That. Is. One. Hell. Of. A. Toad-strangler. Of. A. Trailer.

Heck, it is insanely better looking than anything I had expected of The Hobbit movie, now a decade after Peter Jackson and his crew delivered The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Yeah I didn't know if The Hobbit was gonna work at all...

Color me persuaded with extra portions of giddy!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey comes out next Christmas season, with Part 2 of the story following in 2013.

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Iraq: Well, THAT didn't take long...

I hate to say "I told you so" buuuuuuut...

For quite a long time now and most recently five days ago, I have argued that going to war in Iraq would have disastrous long-term consequences and chief among those is that without a "strongman" to hold that country together, Iraq will tear itself apart into sectarian strife. The classic model for my thesis is Yugoslavia: a "nation" that much like Iraq was cobbled together from leftover realms in the aftermath of World War I. And just as Marshal Tito kept the various factions like the Croats, the Bosnians, the Serbs etc. from killing each other, so did Saddam Hussein put a lid on the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Kurds and everyone else from destroying Iraq from within.

That's NOT any justification for Saddam Hussein, mind you. The man was an evil bastard. It's just the peculiar dynamic of any artificial nation like Iraq that it has to have a powerful central figure wielding exorbitant military force to keep the peace among the various ethnic and religious factions. That central figure was Saddam but when the United States deposed him, we took responsibility for Iraq!

(Okay, not the American people per se, but our government certainly did... and for the moment I'll let it remain an exercise for the reader as to whether our government is beholden to We the People anymore. But I digress...)

So with the United States military not even 24 hours departed from Iraq, that country's Shiite-controlled government has put out an arrest warrant for Iraq's vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi, who is a Sunni.

Expect this sort of thing to continue to happen.

Incidentally, it was former president George W. Bush who had the "genius" idea of putting the Shiites in charge of Iraq. Some will try to blame Barack Obama for that, but there's no basis for it. And I ain't an Obama supporter by any means either. I'm just an American citizen who expects better of his elected representatives. Including a greater than basic grasp of history and culture of the places we muck ourselves up in.

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THE DARK KNIGHT RISES first real trailer is out right now!!

"When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die."

Click here to visit the official site for The Dark Knight Rises and watch Bane unleash unholy terror on Gotham City.

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