Heartbroken Hillbilly ISO a Little Piece of Land

 I have never gotten over the sale of my grandfather's property on Polish Mountain. I couldn't afford to buy my cousins out. And the house would have needed upkeep. I'm no starry-eyed romantic when it comes to unattended homes in the middle of nowhere.

Still I have grieved. That's the Land of My People -- seven, eight generations -- and I've felt adrift since the property passed out of my life.

I've been looking at the real estate listings in that neck of the woods, and the prices are astonishing. I had pretty much given up ever buying even a little shard of ground in the zip code where I grew up. (It's about 100 miles from DC and Baltimore, which explains everything.)

But now I spy a glimmer of hope. It is just a glimmer.

There's a slip of land for sale by owner. Sitting right smack dab in Land of My People Central. A really small lot covered with rock and hardwood saplings, bordered by a wildlife refuge.

If I am able to acquire this land, I don't plan to build on it. I'll just take a folding chair and go sit in the woods there. It'll be the largest ancestor shrine in the region, but no one will know because I don't intend to disturb one single rock. I'm not going to hang one shiny bauble from a tree limb. I'm not going to pester the bears or the rattlesnakes. It's woods now, it'll stay woods. But it will be my woods.

Well, y'all know that buying and selling even the simplest piece of ground is a mammoth undertaking. So I'm not putting a lot of emotional investment in this. I'll go up and see it this summer, if it's still available, and then I'll decide.

Did you know that one cannot build a good ol' outhouse in PA anymore? What is the world coming to?

I'm not a huge or even medium Woody Allen fan, but this clip is short and apropos of the situation.

Say a little prayer for me to the deity of your choice. It would be wonderful to be a card-carrying hillbilly again.

Artemis Brauronia Reports for Duty

 I've interviewed quite a number of bored deities over the 15 year span of "The Gods Are Bored." I've had chats with my great-great-grandmother and heard stories from Anansi the Spider. But never have I ever needed a Goddess more than at this present time.

Funny thing is, when I need a Goddess to perform a specific task, I often get help from the Graeco-Roman deities. And that is what has happened just now.

Some people have ecstatic religious experiences where a God or Goddess reveal themselves after long periods of preparation, devotion and study.

Me, I open my monthly Patreon mailing from Thalia Took.

For a very modest donation, the talented Ms. Took will send you a Goddess card every month in the mail. I have amassed quite a stack.

Last week I came home from the first day of school, and there sat an envelope that was clearly from Ms. Took. Being a super religious and deeply studied individual, I said to myself, "Whatever Goddess is in this envelope will be my protector in the COVID trenches."

Wouldn't you know, there were three cards in the envelope! I think Thalia missed a few monthly messages.

Thank all the bored deities of all the pantheons I already had Thalia's Hel card! Because there was another Hel card in there -- I would have curled up in a ball and cried. But since I already had a Hel card, I could pass Her along to the stack. Whew!

The second Goddess was Korean. I wasn't feeling Her. Now that I've said that, I'm determined to have Her in for an interview, because I don't want to feel like I'm discriminating against Asian deities.

The third Goddess was Artemis Brauronia.

EXHIBIT A: ARTEMIS BRAURONIA, BY THALIA TOOK

Artemis Brauronia is the Goddess Artemis as She was worshiped in the ancient Greek city of Brauronia. In that city's festivals, young girls would go through stages in a ritual that at times required them to dress like bear cubs and at other times required them to wear saffron-colored robes. It was a coming-of-age thing, so to speak.

The minute I laid eyes on Artemis Brauronia, I knew She was the perfect Goddess for my current needs. I mean, look at that intense gaze, that saffron robe, that gentle cradling of a baby creature! And wowsa, is She ever bored! Her chunk of the Acropolis is all that's left of Her influence. She's keen for an assignment as challenging as keeping an older school teacher safe from a novel plague!

I have taken my image of Artemis Brauronia in to my school and installed her at my right hand, literally. I even went to the thrift store and got a beautiful jeweled frame so She will be protected from the mice and the elements.

In the past I have called on Queen Brighid the Bright in times of need. But there's something so much more intense and fierce about Artemis. Right now I feel like I need a fighter in my corner. Here's another Thalia Took image of Artemis that I just love:

EXHIBIT B: ARTEMIS, BY THALIA TOOK

Nobody's going to mess with this Goddess. Nope.

Now, for those of you who Take Your Religion Seriously Thank You Very Much, don't look askance at me. It's a grand hillbilly tradition to stick your hand into a deck of cards and draw one out as an omen. It's just the way mountain people do things. You get an envelope and you need some help? Might be something in the envelope, if you intend it to be so.

I intended it to be so, and Artemis Brauronia has arrived to help me through these troubled times.

The Elvis of Fairy Artists

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" They're immortal. They're bored. Invite them to your next chic soiree!

Oh by damn, there's the Mister Softee guy again. BE STRONG, ANNE!

Okay. Woman of steel, don'tcha know.

Those of you who are into faerie art will recognize this handsome fellow immediately. The wackadoo woman with him is surely bound for a long stay in a ward presided over by Nurse Ratchet.

Seriously, I got to meet Brian Froud! He is the Elvis Presley of faerie paintings and sketches. He signed my book on the page that has the faerie who used to be my childhood friend. We even chatted about these types of guardian faeries. (He has one too.) He got a kick out of my costume (pictured above, inspired by one of his paintings). He also LOLed when I told him I dragged a Froud print to the house paint store so that I could match my bedroom wall paint to it.

I didn't bother him with the significant fact that a signed and numbered Brian Froud print of Queen Brighid the Bright hangs above my altar to same (QBTB, not BF). It's the first thing you see when you come into my double-wide.

The poor guy was so dead tired, and he did at least two more signings Sunday afternoon, and still people got turned away. I was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time to get my favorite little Froud faerie embellished by Froud.

You may ask how Anne got lucky when other faerie fans were thwarted in their desire to meet the master?

Suddenly my two worlds collided. That's how.

As I strolled through the streets of Philadelphia dressed as above (true dat!), I happened upon a harvest festival at Reading Terminal Market. The festival had a bluegrass band. And it was a gorgeous day, too pretty to be inside a stuffy convention hall that still reeks of the 2000 Republican National Convention. So I watched the bluegrass band for a whole set, and the pickers loved it.

There's nothing quite like clogging in a wimple and bodice, with a wreath of leaves on your head.

This unexpected detour led me to the Faerie Con late. And when I bought my copy of The Secret Sketchbook of Brian Froud, I asked when his next signing would be. The lady told me she thought he might stop by the booth for a minute or two. And he did, and I met him, and it's all because I like bluegrass.

My pal Bibi was there, and she snapped the photo above. If you look closely you can see Puck (dark blue) and Princess hanging from my headpiece.

Now picture me riding mass transit in that gear. I did.

Mountain music makes you free, and faeries make you immortal. Not a bad combination, all in all.

It's Hard Out There for a Hillbilly

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your foul-weather friend! Through storms large and small, we'll entertain y'all!

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy:

You know you're a hillbilly when you don't need a sled. You've got a car!

(Now, don't forget the rule. If you are a hillbilly, you can use the word "hillbilly." If you aren't and you say it in the wrong company, you must not value your teeth too much.)

We had a bruiser of a sleet storm here where I live on Friday night. Actually the sleet started around noon and kept pelting everything until about 10:00 at night. It never did change to snow.

The storm left behind three inches of white concrete, slippery as a mortgage banker. But hey. If it's white, a hillbilly will drive on it.

I learnt to drive in the mountains. In those parts, you don't drive in snow you're pretty much housebound for three or four months of the year.

Okay, yes, it's tom foolishness. I've got a cousin, for instance, who got his Ford Bronco stuck in a snowdrift on an untraveled road in the wake of a blizzard. He had gone out for a quart of ice cream. That's it. A quart of ice cream.

It's hillbilly thinking like this that leads to 50 mile backups on interstate highways, like the one on I-80 in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago. Gridlock on a massive scale, through the Poconos and beyond.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the morning after the sleet storm I scraped off my fabulous 1994 Ford Escort (no snow tires) in order to go pet cats at the animal shelter. My daughter and I volunteer. What's a little weather, eh?

So today I thought nothing of driving to Ridley Creek State Park for my Druid group's equinox celebration. Off I tootle, proudly displaying my "Appalachian Pride" and "I Love Turkey Vultures" bumper stickers.

There was only one problem. The celebration had been cancelled. The cancellation was there, plain to see on the message board, but heck. I'm a hillbilly. I think like a hillbilly. I didn't check the message board. I drove the 45 miles to the state park and was surprised when no one else showed up.

Once I got there, did it matter to me that all but one road in the park had been blocked by orange cones? Naaah. I figured my fellow Druids would find me by the visitor's center.

By the way, the park was sheathed in ice to the plimsol line. And there were people out jogging in it. They just weren't Druids.

So, after figuring out that I'd been foxed by my hillbilly brain, I gunned the Escort for the trip home. After a few spectacular skids and a spinning tire or three, my Escort and I returned across the Delaware to hearth and home. At which time I checked the Llyn Hydd Grove message board. Wiser urban heads prevailed.

All was not lost on the day. I watched a perfectly spectacular turkey vulture do its aerial thing over the woods in the park. Who could ask for anything more?

In closing I will let my readers know that if they ever need a quart of ice cream during a sleet storm, they need only call upon someone who grew up in Appalachia or who has lived there through one winter. White precipitation is part of the package, you let it slow you down a little. Not a lot.

FROM ANNE

STAR 14 APPALACHIAN