The contenders in the Old Dominion’s governor’s race are a leftist female from New Jersey and a conservative, Christian woman from Jamaica—the latter being a legal immigrant. A bona fide Virginian who runs for, let alone wins, political office in the state is a rare bird these days. Fifty-one percent of the members of the Virginia House of Delegates and 49% of the state’s senators were born outside the commonwealth, and many of those who were born in Virginia have Northern roots. They are Virginians in name only. While the birthplace of the current occupant of the governor’s mansion, Republican Glenn Youngkin, was indeed Richmond, his great grandfather, who bore the unfortunate name Ulysses Grant Youngkin, was an Iowan. In short, there isn’t much Virginia to be found in the state government of the Old Dominion. Increasingly, Yankees seem to be running the show in the land of Washington and Lee.


That said, the so-called moderate Youngkin is far better than his predecessor, the deracinated native Virginian Ralph Northam. Youngkin’s Lt. Governor, Winsome Sears hopes to win the election on November 4th making her his successor. She is not a paleoconservative as some would hope for, but her victory on that Tuesday would postpone the complete ruination of the commonwealth for a while longer. No matter which candidate wins, Virginians will have to endure the off-putting and endless talk about the first woman to be elected to the highest office in the Old Dominion. Still, it would be better if the better woman Winsome Sears prevails. Unlike her opponent, Sears has taken a stand against the currently proposed amendment to the Virginia Constitution that would legalize what is in effect infanticide.


When confronted with this enormity at the October 9th debate between Sears and Spanberger, the latter, employing one of the de rigueur diversionary tactics of the leftwinger, smirked and prattled on about women’s healthcare and other irrelevancies. Spanberger also believes that illegal immigrants should not be deported. And, to say the least, her views on transgenderism are disturbing. In short, the Jersey Girl is not right for Old Virginny even if Old Virginny ain’t what she used to be. 

A while back, I was “googling” a particular type of business in the area where I was born and raised, and lived until very recently, when I abruptly ended my search and made an appointment with a local firm. I hadn’t bothered with looking for five-star reviews on Yelp before contacting this establishment because one of the surnames associated with it was also that of a man who had always been remembered and well-respected by my people. That man was a country doctor who answered a knock at his door just before dawn on an Easter Saturday 160 years ago.



The only thing that Dr. Samuel Mudd was likely “guilty” of would be an involvement in the Confederate underground during the North’s occupation of Maryland. In spite of what the rewriters of the past would have us believe, those who resided in the Union-held areas of the Upper South had a right to defend their homeland by covert means. The same historians who praise France’s La Résistance, will villainize the Southern resistance during the War Between the States.


But though rumors concerning his role as a Confederate operative did not help Dr. Mudd as the tumultuous events in the aftermath of the Lincoln assassination played out, his biggest problem would certainly have been his acquaintance with John Wilkes Booth, having been introduced to him on a November Sunday in 1864 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Bryantown, Maryland. Booth would, also, around that time, make a visit to Mudd’s plantation in connection with buying a horse, and the two would meet once again—by chance, according to Mudd—on a Washington, D.C. street in late December.


Regarding what happened in the hours after the injured Booth fled from Ford’s Theater and made his way across the Anacostia River and southward into Maryland, there are two questions to be answered: Did Dr. Mudd provide medical treatment to a man he knew to be Booth? And even if he did recognize Booth, who was wearing a false beard and a scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face, did he know he was setting the leg of an assassin? Dr. Mudd insisted that he had not recognized the actor and that he had not known at that time what Booth had done.


But the cards, in the form of circumstantial evidence, were stacked against Mudd. His defense counsel, General Thomas Ewing (USA), however, was determined to clear his name, shaming the illicitly convened military tribunal which passed judgement on Mudd. Inveighing against the many irregularities of the proceedings, General Ewing made the case that there was no evidence to prove that Booth’s stopover at Mudd’s house was prearranged. With his pursuers breathing down his neck, Booth, Ewing argued, had he not been in need of a doctor, would have taken a more direct route to the banks of the Potomac and from there over to Virginia. He would have known that there were many people in that part of Maryland who would have helped him to evade the Yankees, whom they despised. Booth only needed to involve Mudd, Ewing put to the judges, because Booth caught his leg in some bunting as he was jumping from the balcony onto the stage after shooting Lincoln.



Ewing’s astute arguments for the most part fell on deaf ears, but they, at least, influenced one of the tribunal judges to vote against hanging Mudd, sparing the doctor the walk up the thirteen steps to the gallows just outside the courtroom at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary. He would live but he would spend four years at Fort Jefferson Prison in Florida until pardoned by Andrew Johnson in February of 1869 for his heroism in saving so many lives at the risk of his own during an outbreak of yellow fever at Fort Jefferson. Thus ended the ordeal that had begun for Mudd that early spring morning when two horsemen emerged from a copperhead snake-infested bog known as Devil’s Nest and headed for his farm.



Johnson’s pardon, though it freed Mudd, was meaningless. There was nothing to pardon. Had Mudd not been denied a legal trial when civil courts at that time, in the words of General Ewing, were “open, unobstructed, without a single impediment to the full and perfect administration of justice,” he would have been found not guilty just as John Surratt was two years later.


Some defenders of Dr. Mudd have been more comfortable with a “respectably” Northern version of the “Prisoner of Shark Island.” The truth is that the real Samuel Mudd said of Yankees that they had “caused the destruction of one of the most glorious nations upon the face of the earth.” Mudd was a “union man” only in one respect: He, just as Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, loved the old, Calhounian union, not the coercive one Lincoln had in mind.

There are some Mudd descendants who, unfortunately, choose not to speak of their ancestry at all, but, one of his kinsmen, Mrs. Louise Mudd Arehart, a true Southern lady, for years happily greeted visitors and conducted tours at Dr. Mudd’s old homeplace-turned-museum. Speaking in what the Weekly Standard’s Andrew Ferguson once called “a soft drawl,” Mrs. Earhart would proudly introduce herself as Dr. Mudd’s granddaughter and would tell “Grandpa’s” story, avowing his innocence. What can be said with certainty is that her grandfather, a highly regarded citizen of occupied Maryland, in the blink of an eye, found himself the victim of a miscarriage of justice, the scapegoat of a vengeful and highhanded regime contemptuous of constitutional niceties.

​Person of Color, Man of Color, Woman of Color. A colored person, a colored man, a colored woman.


The Enslaved. Slaves


Gender. Correctly applies only to pronouns, but used by leftists improperly in place of the word sex. The truth is, however, that one is of the male or female sex not gender.


Extremist. This word is used by liberals to describe someone who is schooled in Jeffersonian principles, who has read the Constitution, who is an advocate of rule by the lesser magistrate.


Racist. According to leftwingers anyone who votes against Democrats, anyone who thinks a sovereign nation has the right to defend its borders.


Xenophobe. See definition above.


Educated. In the estimation of the lefty, a word that describes one who votes for Democrats no matter how ignorant he is, anyone who graduated from college even if he cannot complete a coherent sentence or tell you what happened on April 12, 1861 or June 6, 1944.


Uneducated. A word that leftists use to describe anyone who votes for conservatives.


Hater. In the opinion of liberals, one who judges each individual by his or her character and nothing else, one who thinks affirmative action and DEI are evil and destroy the very people they purport to help.


Asian. Oriental, Far Eastern. For some reason, neo-Marxists do not consider Asian a racist term, but they would never utter the word Oriental. Don’t try to make sense of political correctness. There is no rhyme or reason to it.


Woke. If a liberal calls you “woke,” it is meant to be a compliment. But someone who is “woke” is, in reality, unschooled, infantile and illogical….and extremely obnoxious.


​Truth. For leftwingers, one’s perception is reality. They think that everyone has his or her own truth, that we cannot know for certain what is true. They believe that truth changes over time.

It could rightly be said that I am presumptuous in taking on a critique of John Crowe Ransom’s “Blue Girls,” a poem I never tire of reading. As an adult returning to finish her college studies a while back, I was told by one of my professors that I didn’t quite seem to “get” poetry—and I certainly did not “get” the likes of Edward Estlin Cummings. On the other hand, I am confident that I do understand Donald Davidson and Poe. Though Ransom is, I believe, much more of a challenge than they, I attempted this short review anyway with a little help from Robert Penn Warren.


Ransom’s Blue Girls are “innocent doves,” those who are, in the words of Warren, “the victims of the world, who suffer without knowledge, without philosophy, in the world.”(2) This poem is much more than an admonition to “gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” as I have heard it suggested. It is isn’t trite, mawkish. And neither is the narrator, in my opinion, a man as some have said. The speaker is referring to herself in the third person when she tells the girls, “I know a lady with a terrible tongue….Blear eyes fallen from blue.” She is an aging woman with “loud lips,” that is, garishly painted to mask the effects of time but also a woman shrilly reminding those pretty and self-assured coeds that their day is, sure enough, coming.


I believe that Ransom’s young ladies—silly as jay birds—would have been well advised to have listened to their teachers though “old and contrary”—the latter word having two meanings: in one sense ornery, in another, at odds with ephemera. The professors, had the carefree coeds heeded them, would have imparted some wisdom which might have sustained them when they were no longer secure in their beauty and youth, which even as they twirled their skirts and giggled in their coteries, were fading fast.


I once posted some lines from “Blue Girls” in the chatroom of a radio talk show hosted by a British mystery writer for the most part unacquainted with Southern culture. She was, however, fascinated by what some of her American listeners had to say on the subject. Normally sedate, self-possessed, after she read my post out loud, her voice indicated that Ransom’s words had caught her off guard, had greatly affected her. JCR’s not lapsing into treacly sentimentality concerning the coeds or the crone observing them, makes the poem all the more moving.

​
Warren called Ransom “a master of the withheld effect that unleashes a power at the very end….” And regarding “Blue Girls” and JCR’s “Janet Waking,” RPW vowed that “it would be hard to think of a poem superior to these in perfection of control and clarity of emotional outline.” There is much more to say about Ransom’s poetry, but I will leave that to the likes of Warren and other Southern literary greats.

​Originally named Augusta Carolina, St. Mary’s County is seventy miles southeast of Leesburg, Virginia.  Just as settlers from above the Mason Dixon have colonized that Southern city and surrounding—and now notorious—Loudon County, they, since the early days of World War II, have been descending on St. Mary’s by the tens of thousands. The newest arrivals and those of Yankee stock born in St. Mary’s never seem to want to leave though they hate it because it is the sticks and because they find that “there’s nothing to do” here. While they have contempt for the locals in general, they have a particularly low regard for those who work in the trades—the pickup-driving, toxically mannish rednecks[1] of The County.

Preferring to keep to themselves, these country “throwbacks” live in remote areas such as Scotland and Ridge at the southernmost reaches of St. Mary’s.  They can also be found in the “infamous” Seventh Election District farther to the north. A sparsely populated pinewood neck, it is avoided by the carpetbagger element because they have heard the legend that victims of foul play and private justice have been discovered, from time to time, mouldering in the Seventh District swamp.  The transplants have also heard that the “crazy” rednecks in The Seventh all have guns.  And as the head of his family, the redneck does take seriously the obligation to protect his home.  He is often at target practice or in the woods hunting.  In his rural domain, however, no one pays any attention to gunfire.   

The St. Mary’s “inbreds,” as they are known, are easily spotted by the “come-heres” because they drive Ford 150s and 250s or old GMC and Chevy trucks.  Showroom perfect or rusting and in need of paint, their pickups are a point of pride.  And, unlike feminized hybrid drivers, they under no circumstances would ever own a Chartreuse Prius. 

And neither would a redneck wear a man bun. Rather than getting his hair styled at a unisex boutique, he gets it cut at places like Tom’s Barber Shop.   

A “backwoods” patois is another indicator of inbreeding and ignorance to the new people.  Ignorant himself of the provenance of the ancient and beautiful dialect of the British Isles that the redneck speaks, the carpetbagger, like the London toff who mocks the speech of the Cornishman, believes that the Celticisms of the country boy in the Borderland South are in need of remediation.  But the inbred reckons that it is the transplant’s talk that needs the correcting.    

As pleasant as the redneck’s speech are his manners. Rednecks reflexively say “Ma’am” and “Sir” and hold doors for others. They pull their trucks off to the side of the road when meeting a funeral procession. Their courtesy is not, however, the affectation of the metrosexual waiter looking for a more generous gratuity at a niche market restaurant. It isn’t something put on when it suits him but a heart-felt politeness, a connaturality.      

The redneck can be sentimental at times, but he is not treacly. He gives very generous and practical gifts on special occasions:  In honor of Mother’s Day, he will take Mama’s car to Big Ed’s for new tires and a high-dollar synthetic oil change.  

The musical taste of the rednecks runs to Creed Fisher not to Garth Brooks, the latter a favourite of the transplants because he is woke and not too “hillbilly.”  These, on the other hand, are the reasons why the rednecks dislike Brooks as much as they do the new NASCAR.

Years back they were such fans of this once great Southern pastime that, when Earnhardt’s car hit that fatal wall in 2001, they mourned as if he were kin and attended the memorial service held for him at a local funeral home.  But even before The Intimidator’s untimely death at Daytona Beach, the bell had already begun to toll for NASCAR.   And twenty years later, many in the St. Mary’s “redneck nation” no longer bother to watch the races on TV or to drive over to the Richmond track. 

As NASCAR has become more political—banning Battle Flags and absurdly and cravenly making a fuss over garage door pulls—so have many of the formerly disaffected rednecks.  A surprising number of them had not bothered with voting until more recently because they believed the ballot box made little difference in their lives (or worse, they had blindly voted Democrat out of a misplaced reverence for a tradition that goes back to the 1860s).  Then Obama had shaken their complacency while Trump, in spite of the fact that he is a crude New Yorker, had impressed them with his stance on the defense of the border and his seemingly noninterventionistic inclinations.    

As a result of Biden’s “victory,” however, for a lot of rednecks, cynicism has returned. For others, who, though they honour their Confederate ancestors and believe that the South was right, had not given present day secessionist movements much thought, dissolution is no longer such a far-fetched notion. They know that their beleaguered county, their occupied state of Maryland are not likely to exit the union, however, so they think about leaving for somewhere more welcoming to their people. But unsure of where to go, many are reluctant to pull up 400 hundred-year-old roots.[2]  So they wait and see.

For now, they live peacefully among themselves, hunting, fishing and preparing for any eventuality.  They throw themselves into their back-breaking work, the jobs from which they come home with dirty faces and mud-caked tee shirts.  But they are also getting away more often to go four wheeling in West Virginia and Kentucky. And all spring and summer long, and down into November, they spend a lot of time at a campground across the river in Virginia.  Not very far from St. Mary’s as the crow flies, it’s a family retreat where they can relax in the company of fellow rednecks from The County and from places like Mechanicsville just outside Virginia’s ever more unrecognizable capital city.  On Saturdays, they put “the pig in the ground [and] the beer on ice,” and have what they call trailer crawls—making the rounds and visiting with these kindred souls from sister states. 

When not over in the Old Dominion, St. Mary’s rednecks get together at Bob Boy’s, one door up the state road from Tom’s Barber Shop.  Rumoured to be collateral kin to a famous Southern general, Bob Boy runs a respectable tavern where coarse language is not permitted.  It is St. Mary’s County’s version of the village pub though far humbler than a Garland Ox or a Golden Lion.  A plywood paneled redneck social centre, Bob Boy’s is an oasis with “a jukebox and a country song” just a stone’s throw away from the Seventh District swamp.

Jenna, McKenzie, and Carly live in the “backwoods.”  No hint of vocal fry or urban up-speech in their voices, they say “y’all” not “you guys.”  Though fashionable, they are not fans of tattoos, nose piercings or the pink or purple hair of their fellow Gen Zs.  All three are pretty and feminine young ladies—and all three are deadly shots.

Because of the Covid-19 lockdown, Jenna, Carly’s best friend, is at home “learning” virtually.  But this has given her, at least, more time to hunt.  Even when she actually attended public school, she would step off the school bus each afternoon, change into her camo and hurry out to her the deer stand on the family farm.   She hunts all three seasons—crossbow, black powder, shotgun—and usually gets her legal limit, though, as Jenna explains it, she bides her time waiting for the bigger game like the eight-point buck she shot recently.  She not only hunts but can help with field dressing her kills.  And she has an excellent recipe for venison jerky.     

McKenzie is a new bride, an outfielder on a local women’s softball team and a recent college graduate—she worked her way through school.  With her husband, she crabs and fishes in the local estuaries keeping the freezer stocked.  A petite blond with delicate features, she like Jenna, is equally skilled with the crossbow, muzzleloader and shotgun.  And she is also a patient hunter looking for the right deer to come along.  And he did.  

McKenzie’s best trophy had been a seven-point buck.  No rag horn, it was something she was proud of.  But what made her a local legend and set a county record was the one she got a year later. That day started out on a sour note.  Discouraged because she hadn’t seen anything other than some does, she resigned herself to taking one of them and succeeded in doing so.  Then a huge buck—a monster in the words of one hunting association—stepped into view a hundred yards away and McKenzie fired.  It had rack with a twenty-six-inch spread and thirteen points—actually fourteen but what appeared to have been the largest point had been broken off probably in combat with another buck.  It was the kill of a lifetime and prissy little McKenzie was the centre of attention, having earned the respect of many an old hunter.

Like McKenzie, Carly is also a new graduate—from high school in this case.  Unlike McKenzie, hunting is something she has only recently taken up in earnest.  Up to now, she has proven her marksmanship mainly on the shooting range over at a neighboring farm, her prey just some metal coyote cutouts.  That all changed on a late fall Saturday, when the lawns were still green, the leaves just beginning to cover them. 

In the morning, Carly put on her hunting gear (which included camo Crocks) and headed for the woods.  She took up her spot in the ground blind and, ignoring all the noise that the squirrels, for such small creatures, always seem to make, listened hard for the snap of a twig.  Her sharp young eyes fringed with false lashes, Carly watched and held a beautifully manicured finger on the trigger of a CenterPoint.  When she heard that unmistakable snap, her hunting companion calling out a sound that makes a deer freeze, she got the kill—a young buck.  It wasn’t Sissy’s legendary monster, but it was her first deer and it was a perfect shot—the arrow went straight through its heart.   Fortunately, Carly didn’t have to track down a wounded and suffering animal deep into the swamp.  She knew right away that she had a clean kill because the buck tucked his tail down.  When a deer’s tail is up it means he is likely going to run.  

In Carly’s circle of friends, that first deer is a special event.  She, McKenzie and Jenna are country girls whose sweethearts are country boys.  There are Battle Flag decals and mud splatters on their four wheelers; there are mostly country songs on their digital playlists.  Keeping to their remote corner of the county as much as they can, they are unimpressed with places like New York City, preferring their own rural world.  They understand that their culture and way of life are under attack and that in the present day there are those who do not wish to leave them in peace. Intuitively Constitutional originalists with a basic grasp of history, they also know, avid hunters though they might be, that the Second Amendment is not about hunting.

Not generally a fan of post-1990s country, I have to acknowledge that not all the more contemporary songs are bad and not all the old ones are good---in fact some classic country is maudlin and uninspired, and some of the more recent chart toppers are excellent even if not very country in many cases. The other problem with the newer country is that it is often politically correct and, worse, in the words of the Confederate Railroad song, “a little on the trashy side.”

Because there was a renaissance of sorts in the 1980s and 90s in country music, songs of this period have a nostalgic sound. I have included a few of them in the following list of what I consider the twenty best country songs of all time. The list is not based on Billboard ratings but purely on my own preferences. The songs are in no particular order.

Hello Walls, 1965, Faron Young. This one should be near the top of any list of the all-time greatest country songs. It tells the story of a man who has been abandoned by his “darlin’.” There is an ingeniously controlled quiver in Faron Young’s voice as he sings, “We must all stick together, or else I’ll lose my mind. It looks like she’ll be gone a long, long time.” It is obvious that he has already slipped the bonds of sanity as he is addressing, poor soul, the walls, the window and the ceiling.

Bubba Shot the Jukebox, 1992, Mark Chestnutt. This hilarious hit single pokes fun at social worker psychobabble. Chestnutt is also an extraordinary singer of “sad old country songs.”

If We Make It Through December, 1973, Merle Haggard. Haggard knew what it was like to be poor, to have a hard candy Christmas. New country singers couldn’t duplicate the pain in his voice.

A Place to Fall Apart, 1984, Merle Haggard with Janie Fricke. The harmony, soft instrumentation and the Spanish guitar style bridge in this song make it a country masterpiece. It’s a good one to listen to if you are feeling sorry for yourself.

Mind Your Own Business, 1949, Hank Williams. A song that is very relevant today.

Hey, Good Lookin’, 1951, Hank Williams. One of the songs I remember listening to in the fifties on a Bakelite radio in my mother’s kitchen, this is Hank at his best.

Stand by Your Man, 1968, Tammy Wynette. Tammy was a feminist’s worst nightmare.

Miller’s Cave, 1960, Hank Snow. Born in Nova Scotia, Snow was known as the Singing Ranger. His is a distinctive voice, nasal but deep and pleasant at the same time. You can clearly hear, however, the murderous rage in that pleasant voice as he sings about killing a woman who had unfaithful, “low down ways.”

Wanted: One Good Hearted Woman, 1990, Alan Jackson. This touching song is about forgiveness. Alan Jackson has one of the finest voices in country, a voice also made for singing gospel hymns.

The South’s Gonna Do It Again, 1974, Charlie Daniels. While most people, it seems, think “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” is Charlie Daniel’s greatest hit—and it is first rate—I consider this one his best. The fiddling and the piano playing are incomparable and so are the lyrics—“Elvin Bishop sitting on a bale of hay; he ain’t good looking but he sure can play.”

Jackson, 1967, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. “Yeah, go to Jackson, you big-talking man, and I’ll be waiting there in Jackson behind my Japan fan.” My favorite Johnny Cash song.

I’m a Honky Tonk Girl, 1960, Loretta Lynn. The earliest hit for Loretta—she was 28 at the time—Honky Tonk Girl calls to mind Kitty Wells’ “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.”

Amarillo by Morning, 1982, George Strait. “I ain’t got a dime but what I got is mine. I ain’t rich but Lord I’m free.” George Strait with few exceptions during his career remained true to the tradition of Music Row.

Coat of Many Colours, 1971, Dolly Parton. This beautiful tune was recorded when Dolly was still country, in the days before her “Islands in the Stream” and “Nine to Five” phase. Pop culture’s gain was country’s loss. My mother recalled how Dolly, pre-superstardom, and Porter Wagner used to appear at the fairgrounds in our county. They would do their show from a flatbed trailer and would sign autographs and chat with the fans after the show. Mama got to meet them.

I’d Be Better Off in a Pine Box, 1990, Doug Stone. One of the genre’s under-rated singers, Stone has a voice perfectly suited for singing old style country songs. This one’s theme is similar to that of “Miller’s Cave.”

Hello Darlin’, 1971, Conway Twitty. This soulful love song is a far cry from Twitty’s later hits which were, unfortunately, in my opinion, a little coarse.

You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma, 1980, Shelley West and David Frizzell. This duet is about a country girl who goes to Los Angeles but realizes it may be time to go back home. In many country songs, LA represents the cold, heartless city which proves to be no place for people rooted in the soil as Southerners are. Frizzell and West, with their old school harmonizing, personify real country music.

‘Til a Tear Becomes a Rose, 1990, Keith Whitely with Lorrie Morgan. Whitley, who tragically died of alcoholism at 33, was part of that revival of the classic sound in the 1980s and 90s. His voice was vintage country.

Pass Me by if You’re Only Passing Through, 1980, Janie Fricke. This song tells the story of a good-looking stranger who has the air of “the traveling kind,” and a girl who is determined not to be a “stepping stone among the other hearts that [he has] walked on.” The libertine and the trusting young girl is also a popular theme in country songs.

I Sang Dixie, 1988, Dwight Yoakam. No one but Yoakam could have done justice to this song. His is the perfect hillbilly voice. “Dixie” is about a man from the South who dies homeless on a “damned old LA street.” To really appreciate this song search YouTube for Yoakam’s live performance of it accompanied by Buck Owens on the guitar. If it makes you cry, then you are still true to your Southern heritage. “I sang Dixie as he died; people just walked on by as I cried; the bottle had robbed him of all his Rebel pride; so I sang Dixie as he died.”