Quick hits: USDA plans fertilizer production in U.S.; farmers' 'stops' that aren't seasonal; curiosity builds community

Brooke Rollins

The Department of Agriculture plans to use tariff dollars and trade renegotiation resources to help fertilizer production in the United States. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the "USDA is focused on helping move fertilizer supplies more quickly, but cautioned it will take time for crop nutrient prices to begin falling," reports Kim Chipman of AgriPulse. "Rollins said she hosted a meeting with executives of four top fertilizer companies and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett." The Trump administration hopes to roll out its full plan to move fertilizer production back to the U.S. sometime this week.

The University of Maine's Fort Kent campus will provide dorms,
 a lounge and a cafeteria for recovering teens. (UofM photo)

Just like some adults, preteens and adolescents can end up with severe drug and alcohol addictions that can end in an overdose or many failed recovery attempts. Recovery advocates in the tiny town of Fort Kent, Maine, will "use new funding to try a novel solution to the problem: a public boarding school for high schoolers in recovery," writes Lanan Cohen for The Hechinger Report. The new approach will "focus on abstinence and mental health to help students overcome their substance abuse problems." Educators hope the boarding school structure will allow students time to solidify new choices and coping strategies while remaining in school.

Graphic by A. Dixon, Offrange

It's not a farmers market. It's a farmers "stop," and it's open all year long. Farming advocates hope the concept continues to catch on. "The Argus Farm Stop model is built on a consignment basis with a 70/30 split: Farmers set their own prices and keep 70% of every sale, while Argus retains 30% to cover operating costs," reports Heidi Roth for Offrange. "A café inside each location accounts for roughly a third of sales but about half the profit, effectively subsidizing higher farmer payouts while creating a community hub where farmers can gather, and customers can meet producers." Not all farmer stops have the same elements, but all aim to support local farmers while fostering community spirit.

Musical talent from far-flung places often took center stage at the Big Ears festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. "The festival is rich with rural tradition, pulling in rural musicians from across the states and every continent except Antarctica (as far as I know)," reports Phillip Norman of The Daily Yonder. "I caught an ambient country jam by Setting in the backroom of Boyd’s Jig and Reel Scottish Pub, and hit the Knoxville Art Museum to witness the electric saxophone wizardry of Sam Gendel. . . . Big Ears is a festival for music nerds who are interested not only in how a concert sounds, but also how it reflects the lived experiences of the people making the music."

Beth Howard (Illustration by N. Nichols)

As an activist and community organizer for Appalachia and the broader South, Beth Howard hopes her memoir, Song for a Hard-Hit People: A Memoir of Anti-Racist Solidarity From a Coal Miner’s Daughter, helps readers see Southern differences through a lens of curiosity that they can apply to their daily interactions with other people, writes Nhatt Nichols of Rural Assembly. Howard said, "I think one of the biggest lessons for me when I was learning to organize is the importance of listening and asking really good, open-ended questions." Nichols adds, "Howard advocates for getting out into your community and finding other people who are doing organizing work that resonates with you, and offering to lend a hand, to learn more about your community without centering your own ideas."

Quick hits: Using a pay phone; hated Halloween candy; oral health is part of overall health; dude ranches for all

Finding and using a pay phone is a modern curiosity.
(Photo by Darin Epperly, Flatwater Free Press)

Smartphones may be the way of today, but pay phones still exist, and a call can cost a mere quarter. "Lane Handke called his wife to tell her he was bringing home the shelves they needed to finish their cabinet. The call cost him 25 cents," reports of Kevin Warneke of Flatwater Free Press. "Then, he phoned a friend just to say hello. . . . Handke made his calls from a pay telephone standing outside the Pierce Telephone Co. building. He felt drawn to this pay phone by curiosity. Pulled toward it by nostalgia." He told Warneke, “I hadn’t used a pay phone in decades. People were looking and wondering what I was doing. I thought it was kind of cool.”

While wind, solar, nuclear and fossil fuels are all part of the U.S. energy grid, geothermal power may be the next source to enter the mix. "The promise of new engineering techniques for geothermal energy – heat from the Earth itself – has attracted rising levels of investment to this reliable, low-emission power source that can provide continuous electricity almost anywhere on the planet," writes geophysicist Moones Alamooti for The Conversation. "That includes ways to harness geothermal energy from idle or abandoned oil and gas wells. . . . In the first quarter of 2025, North American geothermal installations attracted $1.7 billion in public funding – compared with $2 billion for all of 2024."

Do you know which Halloween candies are the most
disliked? (Adobe Stock photo)

As Halloween gets closer, adults and kids out shopping are met with store shelves packed with chewy eyeballs, glow-in-the-dark worms, bat-shaped candy bars, corn that's not real corn, and festive fall packaging. But some people find the  sweet, sticky world of Oct. 31 candy disgusting -- so much so, there's a list of the 10 most despised Halloween candies. Guesses go here.

Oral health and overall health are closely linked, and some "practitioners think dentistry should no longer be siloed," reports Lola Butcher for Knowable magazine. "Dentistry and medicine have operated as parallel fields: Dentists take care of the mouth, physicians the rest of the body. That is starting to change. . . . Dental hygienists have started working in medical clinics; physicians and dentists have started a professional association to promote working together; and a new kind of clinic — with dentists and doctors under one roof — is emerging. . . . The list of connections between oral health and systemic health — conditions that affect the entire body — is remarkable."

Triangle X Ranch, inside Grand Teton National Park, has been in the Turner family for nearly a century. 
(Triangle X Ranch photo via The New York Times)

Saddle up or relax at one of these six dude ranches. "All-inclusive guest ranches let you connect with nature, as well as your inner cowpoke, on the trail, around the campfire and under the starry skies," reports Ruffin Prevost for The New York Times. Whether honing horse skills, seeking majestic views, or simply wanting to leave technology and stress behind by heading out to the American West, Prevost's list offers suggestions and resources for a rural getaway.

Here a seed, there a seed, everywhere a company selling or consolidating to sell seeds. "Keeping track of [seed] brands — especially corn and soybeans — can be daunting," reports of Chris Torres of Farm Progress. "Knowing who owns what can provide crucial insights into what companies are behind the brands you buy, how they source and develop genetics, and what sorts of technology may be available to you." A compact seed chart and a listing of university variety seed trials are found here.

Each piano was tuned slightly differently to produce 11,000 Strings.
(Photo by Stephanie Berg via the Smithsonian)

When 100 pianos at the Hailun piano factory in China were all played together to test their performance before being shipped out, conductor Peter Paul Kainrath was there to experience the "massive sound," reports Ella Feldman for Smithsonian magazine. "The cacophonic scene left Kainrath so inspired that he called Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas to discuss its potential. . . .The next morning, Haas told Kainrath that if he brought him 50 pianos, he would compose a piece. The resulting composition is Haas’ 11,000 Strings."

Ozarks duo share vocals and instruments that 'reflects layers of history ... and the recognition that rural voices are important'

Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu perform at the Library of Congress in August.
(Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell, The Daily Yonder)

Since the 1800s, music from the American Ozarks has combined instrumentation and vocals from northern Europe, West Africa and German traditions. The region's rugged topography and relative isolation helped its music develop a distinct and often haunting musical style.

While the Ozarks are no longer as isolated as they were more than 200 years ago, its talented musical artists, including the married duo of Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu, known as The Creek Rocks, are determined to keep the musical heritage alive, reports Kaitlyn McConnell for The Daily Yonder.

When The Creek Rocks play, their music draws from "folk tunes and ballads, passed down from other continents and cultures before finding their way to the Ozarks," McConnell writes. The duo's sound ultimately reflects "layers of history... and the recognition that rural voices are important. . . .They are the voices of lived experience, linking generations and stories."

When the couple performed at the Library of Congress in August, the "echoes of generations of Ozarkers reverberated through the auditorium," McConnell adds. The Creek Rocks were "chosen as the library’s American Folklife Center’s inaugural Artists in Resonance, a fellowship founded to 'support artists in creating new musical works inspired by and sourced from collection materials in the Center’s archives.'"

The artists have dedicated part of their life's work to "research and document local folk culture," McConnell explains. "As part of the fellowship, Bilyeu and Woolf traveled to D.C., where they conducted research in the library’s archives."

As part of their fellowship, they focused on a musical collection by Sidney Robertson Cowell, who "visited the Ozarks in the mid-1930s," McConnell reports. Cowell's collection includes recordings from "local musicians in Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina."

The Cowell collection helped Bilyeu and Woolf hear and feel the distinct difference in Ozark music from this time period. McConnell writes, "'Ozarks folk music, as revealed by these collections, is all about the voice,' Bilyeu said – a key difference is in the way the songs sound. The tunes Cowell collected seemed even more 'ancient,' as Woolf put it, due to their musical structure."

Hear The Creek Rocks perform at The Library of Congress here.

Quick hits: He's not Santa, he's Belsnickel; 'phantom' towns; how music can reframe memories; going out for a walk

A local constabulary lends the town's Belsnickel
a hand. (Photo via Lancaster Farming)

Belsnickel may not be as famous as Santa (or as clean), but he gives Christmas gifts to children in Manheim, Pennsylvania. A Belsnickel is "a crotchety, fur-clad gift giver related to other companions of St. Nicholas in the folklore of southwestern Germany," reports Dan Sullivan of Lancaster Farming. A Belsnickel is tasked "to carry out duties somewhat similar to Santa, ferreting out the naughty and nice and dispensing just punishment or reward. Traditionally, Belsnickel carried a switch in one hand as corporal punishment for the bad kids and a pocketful of treats for the good ones."

When financial times are tight, not as many Americans buy new cars or repair the vehicles they have. "Pinched by inflation, higher interest rates, and supply-chain woes, Americans just haven’t been buying as many new vehicles lately," reports Spencer Jakob of The Wall Street Journal. U.S. consumers choosing to keep aging autos may sound "like great news for auto parts and repair companies. . . . [but] there are some surprising signs that Americans are choosing cheaper options or even deferring purchases of the goods and services that keep them running. . . . Skimping has rarely made less sense, though. . ."

Cartographic 'phantoms' are mapped towns where there isn't a town. (Illustration by Piper Olsen, L&S)

Most mapped towns exist but not all. "The Wisconsin state map is full of phantoms," reports Alli Watters of Letters & Science at the University of Wisconsin. Cartographer Howard Veregin spends his days scouting possible phantom towns, which includes exploring some of the state's most rural places. On one phantom sleuthing day, Veregin works to verify a mapped town called "Walker." He comes upon a friendly cranberry truck driver and this conversation ensues:

Truck driver: Good morning. Looking for something in particular?
Veregin: Well, I’m looking for cartographic phantoms.
Truck driver: What’s a cartographic phantom?
Veregin: It’s a community that is listed on a map, but it doesn’t exist on the ground.
Truck driver: This place exists.
Veregin: Sure, but it doesn’t really look like a community. What is it?
Truck driver: Well, this is our family cranberry farm. We’ve been farming cranberries here for 125 years. I’m a fifth-generation cranberry grower. Most of this area is private property. . .

"Veregin’s suspicions were confirmed. . . . He had found yet another cartographic phantom."

Beginning the new year a little wiser never hurts. In simplest terms, surviving 2025 is the first goal. Field & Stream experts "weighed in on four survival myths that could get you killed," reports Jim Baird. Many people think humans can live off nature's food and survive -- that's not true. "The myth here is that you can survive off them for an extended length of time. But the reality is if you are only eating 'survival foods,' you’ll start feeling sick and weak after a day or two." Another myth is if you kill large game "you're set" because you'll have all the protein you need. Not true, you can also get sick and die from eating too much protein without adequate fat. Read four debunked survival myths here.

Music may subtly shift emotional memories.
(Adobe Stock photo)

As a new year begins, people often reflect on how life has gone over the past year or years. Sometimes there are memories people wish they could change, and while history isn't alterable, music can help shift how people feel about past experiences. "Listening to music can change how you feel about what you remember – potentially offering new ways to help people cope with difficult memories, writes Yiren Ren, a cognitive brain science researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology for The Conversation. "Our [research] results suggest that music acts as an emotional lure, becoming intertwined with memories and subtly altering their emotional tone. Memories may also be more flexible than previously thought and could be influenced by external auditory cues during recall."

Walking alone or with a buddy can be great exercise. 
(Adobe Stock photo)

Ernest Tubb twanged about "Walking the Floor over You." Johnny Cash confessed, "I Walk the Line." Aerosmith cranked the amps to "Walk this Way." Besides belting out catchy tracks, these musicians were onto something -- walking is an outstanding activity. "Walking can help meet the U.S. surgeon general’s recommendation that adults get at least 2 1/2 hours of moderate-intensity physical activity every week," reports Laura Ungar of The Associated Press. "This helps lower the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, dementia, depression and many types of cancer. . . .While it’s not the only sort of exercise people should do, it’s a great first step toward a healthy life."

Quick hits: Growing local rye for bourbon; winter's delights; farm radio plays on; a new way to support local journalism

Rye from thousands of miles away is used in many KY 
bourbons. (Graphic by Adam Dixon, Ambrook Research)

Bourbon's ingredients are relatively simple and most can be locally grown. But as history tells it, grain farmers in Kentucky, where 95% of the world's bourbon is produced, quit growing rye, reports Daniel Walton of Ambrook Research. "While its water is drawn from limestone-filtered springs, and its corn from nearby farms, the ingredient that gives good bourbon its distinctive pepper and herbal notes is shipped in from thousands of miles away. . . . In the interests of sustainability, supply chain resilience, and good old-fashioned local pride, the bourbon industry now wants to bring rye back to Kentucky."

Squirrels can provide winter
entertainment. (Unsplash photo)

Is it too soon to start planning springtime projects? For people who would like to build a chicken coop, heading into winter is a great time to learn what's required and start gathering supplies. If you're lucky enough to have any indoor building space, getting started now is ideal. Lisa Foust Prater of Successful Farming provides a step-by-step primer on building an idyllic home for your spring chicken flock.

The days of winter darkness are coming. Some call it dreary, others get ready to hibernate, and still, others continue to wear shorts in what appears to be a total denial of summer's end. "It’s not all dark mornings and bulky coats," writes Jancee Dunn of The New York Times. From making lists of books you want to read to exploring "slow hobbies" experts shared with Dunn how to "open yourself up to the delights of the season. . . .Take note of the birds and squirrels as you take a walk, or look at the moon or the changing sky outside your window."

Farmers love to "tune in from their tractors" to their ever-reliable and ever-useful farm radio station, reports Sarah Murphy of Ambrook Research. In fact, "83% of farmers with at least $100,000 of gross farm income listened to farm radio five days per week or more in 2023, according to a National Association of Farm Broadcasters survey. But even as the medium faces changes from podcasts to streaming services, farm radio's "staying power is impressive."

Journalism comes in many forms, but reporting on music may be one of the most challenging. Enter in NPR's "From the Top," which lets music do the reporting and highlights young musical talent from around the country, including students from rural America. In this episode, a 15-year-old violinist from the small coastal community of Damariscotta, Maine, and a talented young banjo player from the foothills of Leicester, North Carolina, are shared.

Photo by Max Kabat via The Daily Yonder

To help sustain local journalism, the small town of Marfa, Texas, created a place for community residents, tourists and local news to come together in a shared space, which they named "The Sentinel." The Sentinel's renovated, adobe-style building houses The Big Bend Sentinel and the Presidio International, which provide independent news to area counties, reports Kim Kobersmith of The Daily Yonder. The Sentinel's kitchen serves local food favorites, specialty coffee drinks and regional cocktails. All in all, the space supports independent journalism, while providing a friendly, reliable and delicious restaurant for the community to share.

Music archive of more than 90 million physical tracks needs a new home, but moving will cost $10 million

At one time, most music lived somewhere tangible -- on a record, 8-track, cassette or CD, and while Spotify and Apple Music may make that storage seem like history, lots of music still needs a place to live. "The ARChive Of Contemporary Music is looking for a new, permanent home. The not-for-profit music library holds over 90 million physical tracks, making it the world's largest physical archive of contemporary music," reports Rachel Roberts for Music Tech. "ARC is in need of financial support to find a new home for its recordings." The property ARC is currently occupying is no longer zoned for commercial offices.

Founded in 1985 by B. George and David Wheeler (1957-1997), ARC "preserves copies of each version of every recording, in all known formats, and has electronically cataloged more than 700,000 sound recordings and digitized 400,000," Roberts writes. "ARC also houses more than three million pieces of attendant support material including photographs, videos, DVDs, books, magazines, press kits, sheet music, ephemera and memorabilia."

ARC's current home in Duchess County, N.Y. is "on land that hotelier Andre Balazs donated," reports Melissa Newman of Billboard. B. George told Newman, "We could be forced to move at any time. Without a new home, more than three million recordings and millions of historic materials spanning all cultures and races could disappear forever."

"Over the decades, ARC, whose board members have included the late David Bowie, Nile Rodgers, Martin Scorsese and Q-Tip, has proved an invaluable resource," Newman adds. "It provided research and music for such films as Goodfellas, That Thing You Do, Philadelphia and Ken Burns' Baseball documentary, as well as supplying publishing information to BMI and the Harry Fox Agency. In recent years, ARC has focused on digitizing its collection."

With all that history, moving ARC will be a costly undertaking. "George estimates it needs $10 million to relocate, and he would like to stay in the area as 'access is important,'" Roberts reports. "It has already received an anonymous donation of $1 million to fund the move."

'White Christmas' is a carol all Americans can enjoy; its history has lessons about overcoming sad times

'May your days be merry and bright.'
(Photo by Chandler Cruttenden, Unsplash)

Dreaming of a White Christmas? Many people do -- even 80 years after the song's debut. With a "new kind of Christmas carol" Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby helped make Christmas a holiday all Americans could celebrate, writes Ray Rast for The Conversation, a journalistic platform for academics. In 1940, Irving Berlin, a Jewish immigrant, wrote "the quintessential American song, White Christmas, which the popular entertainer Bing Crosby eventually made famous."

But the 1940s was a "profoundly sad time for humanity. World War II – what would become the deadliest war in human history – had begun in Europe and Asia, just as Americans were starting to pick up the pieces from the Great Depression," Rast explains. "Today, it can seem like humanity is at another tipping point: political polarization, war in the Middle East and Europe, a global climate crisis. Yet, like other historians, I've long thought that the study of the past can help point the way forward. White Christmas has resonated for more than 80 years, and I think the reasons why are worth understanding."

Part of the song's lasting charm is its melodic nostalgia for what Americans hope for during the holidays. "The Christmases that Berlin and Crosby 'used to know' were those of the 1910s and 1920s, when the season expanded to include the nation's first public Christmas tree lighting ceremony and the appearance of Santa Claus at the end of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade."

Berlin's inspiration for the song came in 1937 when he spent Christmas alone. "Berlin had connected his lonesome Christmas to the broader turmoil of the time, including the outbreak of World War II and fraught debates about America's role in the world," Rast explains. "This new song reflected his response: a dream of better times and places. It evoked a small town of yesteryear in which horse-drawn sleighs crossed freshly fallen snow. It also imagined a future in which dark days would be 'merry and bright' once again. . . .This was a new kind of Christmas carol. It did not mention the birth of Jesus, angels or wise men – and it was a song that all Americans, including Jewish immigrants, could embrace."

Bing Crosby was already an American favorite. When 'Holiday Inn' premiered in August 1942, "reviewers barely mentioned the song, but ordinary Americans couldn't get enough of it," Rast writes. "By December, it was on every radio, in every jukebox. . . . The key reason was the nation's entry into World War II. . . . White Christmas was not overtly patriotic, but it made Americans think about why they fought, sacrificed and endured separation from their loved ones. As an editorial in the Buffalo Courier-Express concluded, the song 'provided a forcible reminder that we are fighting for the right to dream and for memories to dream about.'. . . This made it a song all Americans could embrace, including those not always treated like Americans."

To read Rast's entire essay, click here.

Listening to holiday music can help runners improve their mood and speed; even non-runners benefit from music

Maybe Santa is a runner.
(Photo by Artem Maltsev, Unsplash)

Running with holiday tunes crooning in your ears can improve your mood and your stride. "It's the most wonderful time of the year for 'music doping,'" reports Mallory Arnold of Outsider. "One study had 20 male participants perform two six-minute running tests, one with and one without music. Researchers measured mean running speed, blood lactate, total distance covered, heart rate, and rate of perceived exertion. The results concluded that runners who listened to their music of choice were significantly faster and had lower blood-lactate concentrations."

No wonder Santa can get so much done in one night -- he's obviously knee-deep in snow and Dean Martin. Erin Hannon, director of the University of Nevada Las Vegas Music Lab, told Arnold, "You may not realize this, but when you listen to music, the part of your brain you're using doesn't just process sound. It's also the part that controls movement, so you're actually engaging the motor system of the body when you listen to music."

It makes sense that Santa would need to be fit.
(Photo by RawKim, Unsplash)

It's true that an individual has to enjoy holiday music for their run to improve while listening. "Those who have positive feelings around the holiday season will benefit from listening to carols while running, as the brain becomes stimulated (or aroused), hyper-focused, and releases endorphins that can not only create that 'runner's high,' but can promote short-term psychoactive effects like feelings of calm and elevated mood," Arnold explains. "Excess endorphin release has also been studied for its pain-relieving properties, which can be extremely beneficial during a run, like a natural ibuprofen."

Of course, listening to carols after the holiday may not have the same impact. Then, what's a person to do after Dec. 25? Keep listening to music -- even if you're not running or listening to holiday tunes. As Henkjan Honing points out in her report for The MIT Press Reader, a study showed "newborns possess the ability to discern a regular pulse – the beat – in music. It's a skill that might seem trivial to most of us, but that's fundamental to the creation and appreciation of music," Honing writes. "The discovery sparked a profound curiosity in me, leading to an exploration of the biological underpinnings of our innate capacity for music, commonly referred to as 'musicality.'"

Newborn babies participating in a listening experiment.
(Courtesy Eszter Rozgonyiné Lányi, MIT Reader)

"Alongside psychology and neuroscience, the realms of biology and genomics now offer effective toolkits for empirically testing theories on the origins of music in the present day," Honing reports. "Consequently, musicality research is gaining scientific respectability, coherence, and maturity. The once-speculative nature of the origins of musicality research is giving way to a more concrete and scientifically rigorous approach, making it an exciting and promising avenue" for discovery.

The world is full of lonely people -- part of the antidote is changing how people react to this universal emotion

Loneliness is a human experience and an internal
message. (Photo by Kristina Tripkovic, Unsplash)

Being lonely has become so widespread that globally, one in four adults report feeling sad and alone. Medically, continued loneliness can take a severe toll on people's health, yet "pangs of loneliness aren't catastrophic. In fact, they're nearly universal. What's critical is how people respond to these feelings when they arise," reports Allison Aubrey of NPR. Commenting on the best way to respond to feeling lonely, Dr. Jeremy Nobel, a primary care physician and author of the new book Project UnLonely, told Aubrey, "Just like thirst is a signal you need hydration, loneliness is a signal that you need human connection."

Nobel's book creates a path to "using creative expression as a means to communicate," Aubrey writes. "When there's not a prescribed way to 'belong,' finding connection can be tough. Many people are hesitant to put themselves out there, or they have a hard time communicating what's on their minds. 'This is where the arts can be very powerful because they act as a catalyst to make it easier,' Nobel says. . . . Drawing a picture may seem like a solitary act, but it can be a bridge to connection, a way to express what's on your mind."

Viewing or creating art can improve mood.
(Photo by Jill Dimond, Unsplash)

Nobel has long believed in creative expression as a natural partner to medicinal treatment. "Some of his earliest work was with active-duty service members and veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress," Aubrey explains. "They gathered in small groups to engage in artistic expression and mindfulness activities." Nobel told her, "People began telling us that not only were they less stressed out, but they felt more connected to each other, something I later realized was addressing a certain kind of loneliness."

From culinary arts to poetry to gardening, there are ways humans can use curiosity and creative discovery as a way to connect. "Project UnLonely now partners with community-based organizations to develop evidence-based creative expression programs, which can include music, painting, drawing and beyond," Aubrey adds. "Research shows making art or even viewing the work of other people reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol. It also increases levels of the feel-good hormones, including dopamine, endorphins and oxytocin."

While it's hard for loneliness to prevail in the face of curiosity and encouragement, people may struggle to get started. Click here for five ideas that will help overcome those fears.

Quick hits: Chris Stapleton; the first hydrogen-powered ferry; Stephen King's library; was Paul Bunyan a real man?

Chris Stapleton is one of the most famous men in country
music and beyond. (Photo by Stacy Kranitz, GQ)

The holidays mean getting together with relatives, but those gatherings can lead to heated discussions. As an antidote to arguing with Uncle Alan over religion, there is one topic everyone might be able to enjoy: Chris Stapleton and all his general awesomeness. Brett Martin of Gentlemen's Quarterly went road-tripping with the musical icon and asks, "Is Chris Stapleton the One Thing That America Can Agree On?"

Farm accidents happen, from tractor mishaps to pumpkin harvesting cuts. Each year, nonfatal injuries occur to about 33% of the farming population in the United States. One way to prevent accidents from becoming fatal is to be trained on how to slow blood loss until help can arrive. "Stop the Bleed is a nationally recognized, 90-minute certification program providing participants with hands-on opportunities to recognize life-threatening bleeding and intervene effectively by properly using a tourniquet in the event of blood loss caused by an injury," reports Jenny Schlect of AgWeek. Many 4-H extensions and rural nursing programs offer the training.

The "Sea Change" hydrogen ferry
(Switch Maritime photo via Canary Media)

While some of America is going all-in on electric, hydrogen power is also a renewable energy option. "America's first hydrogen-fueled ferry is set to launch in San Francisco early next year after more than five years in development," reports Maria Gallucci of Canary Media. "As the milestone nears, the vessel's owner says it's already looking to deploy more zero-emissions ferries nationwide — particularly in places where aging, polluting diesel boats still ply rivers, sounds and coastlines.

Remember when your phone stayed in your house or workplace? Many younger Americans don't remember when phones were tied to a landline. "My tween will never know the sound of me calling her name from another room after the phone rings. She'll never sit on our kitchen floor, refrigerator humming in the background, twisting a cord around her finger while talking to her best friend," writes Julia Cho for The Atlantic. "'We don't even have a landline anymore,' people began to say proudly as the new millennium progressed. But this came with a quieter, secondary loss — the loss of the shared social space of the family landline."

From the redwood forests to Maine islands, 
Paul Bunyan stories live on. (NG photo)

Famed lumberjack Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox Babe are the stuff of some superbly American tall tales. But as history tells it, those stories "were spun from ever more ridiculous yarns," reports Josh Keefe of National Geographic. "But there's much more to his story. . . . In Bangor, Maine, a framed birth certificate of Paul Bunyan hangs in the city clerk's office. . . . Despite Paul Bunyan's 'birth certificate' and the many children's books that place his birthplace in Maine, evidence suggests that Bunyan was invented sometime after logging operations moved west and began clearing almost all of the old-growth forests in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, says Michael Edmonds, a historian and author of Out of the Northwoods: The Many Lives of Paul Bunyan."

Well, maybe Paul Bunyan never lived in Bangor, Maine, but Stephen King and his wife Tabitha did. King shared a tour of their Bangor home, now their library, with John Williams of The Washington Post. "Fear not, the king of chills serves as a friendly guide to his library," Williams reports. King told him: "The house has been here since 1845; we've been here since 1976. . . . But we don't really live here anymore, and it's kind of a time capsule."

The 'rock-and-roll president' may surprise you

Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and Gregg Allman, Feb. 2, 1976.
(Photo by Jerome McClendon, Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

Which president loved rock and roll the most? Bill Clinton? Barack Obama? Some say it was Jimmy Carter.

"Before Bill Clinton wailed on a saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show or Barack Obama invited Stevie Wonder and Prince for a private show at the White House, Jimmy Carter stood in a field, hands on his hips, clad in a T-shirt promoting the Allman Brothers Band's Win, Lose or Draw album," recalls Melissa Ruggieri for Oxford American. "It was July 1976, and Carter, feathered hair blowing in the wind, was gunning for the presidency. But there he was supporting a quintessential Southern rock band, one of his favorites, in front of the traveling national press corps."

Carter was an original diehard fan. Ruggieri writes, "Prior to a 1975 Allman Brothers benefit concert for Carter's campaign, the presidential hopeful introduced the band to a crowd in Rhode Island by remarking, 'Anybody who wants a president who doesn't like music like this, and who doesn't like people who make music like this, should just simply vote for another man,'" Ruggieri writes. "So much about this peanut farmer from teeny Plains, Georgia, was an anomaly from the start: Georgia had never produced a successful presidential candidate, and the humble Carter had never held a national office, making him a mystery to much of the country. . . . Publicly embracing the sweet and sour songs of a group of long-haired Southern firebrands wasn't a typical move for a politician.

"Maybe it wasn't apparent at the time, but Carter was positioning himself as the rock-and-roll president, the one history will remember as not only a connoisseur of the rock music of his home state, but also as a student of Bob Dylan's lyrics, a devotee of Willie Nelson's warble, an admirer of Aretha Franklin's searing soul, and a scholar of Dizzy Gillespie's mesmerizing bebop," Ruggieri writes. "While the Allmans and Carter shared an everlasting mutual affection, the band wasn't the only Southern mainstay to play at the White House. In 1978, the Atlanta Rhythm Section, the soft-rock toe-tappers 'Imaginary Lover' and 'So Into You,' performed at a cookout on the South Lawn. Johnny Cash and his family visited frequently."

"Carter's affiliation with musicians was never about a photo opportunity or a cynical underground ploy to court voters. . . . His allegiance was born out of devotion to the art," Ruggieri writes. "Carter, the Allmans, and others were small-town Southern men bringing their messages to the national stage. America took notice. . . . At the end of the Rock & Roll President documentary, Carter sits pensively in his home in Plains, circa 2018, while Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Simple Man' plays in the background. It's a fitting coda. . . . 'Music,' he says, 'is the best proof that people have one thing in common.'"

Quick hits: Family pickle canning; rural trilogy-inspired songs; pandemic gun buyers; hearing aids; Dutch farming

Hannah Klitz visits her herd. (Photo by Chris Simpson, Successful Farming)

Where's the beef? Some of it's with Hannah Klitz. "She started her direct-to-consumer beef business as a college sophomore. Now, she sells premium products across the United States," reports Courtney Leeper-Girgis for Successful Farming. "Klitz started Oak Barn Beef, offering Nebraska-raised, dry-aged beef from cattle DNA-tested for premium carcass traits, such as marbling, tenderness, and ribeye size."

August is a month for canning, catching up with and enjoying family, writes Lovina Eicher for AgWeek. "Yesterday, I helped sister Verena (and daughter) with the pickles. We canned 40 quarts of sweet dills and made 20 quarts into freezer pickles. They are still in the refrigerator, and then tomorrow, they will be ready to pack into containers for the freezer. A very easy way to put up pickles if you have freezer space. They taste very crisp."

The "power of the ring" has captured many a musician.
(Photo by Davidsonluna, Unsplash)

Celebrating J.R.R. Tolkien's very rural trilogy, The Lord of the Rings can bring many precious things to bear, including a litany of musical delights that only magical travels through wide open spaces can create. Ellen Gutoskey of Mental Floss gives us clippings of these adventurous tunes.

The pandemic was full of "firsts" for remote work, touchless delivery and for some people, gun ownership. In 2020, "Some 22 million guns were sold that year, 64 percent more than in 2019. More than eight million of them went to novices who had never owned a firearm, according to the firearm industry's trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation," reports Roni Caryn Rabin of The New York Times. "Self-defense is the top reason Americans purchase handguns." Rabin reviews studies with more definition on who bought firearms and why.

Would you like a four-day workweek? If you said "yes," you're not alone. "More than half of American employers offer a four-day workweek, or plan to, according to a survey released Tuesday," reports Daniel de Visé of The Hill. "A poll of 976 business leaders by ResumeBuilder.com, the job-seekers website, found that 20 percent of employers already have a four-day workweek. Another 41 percent said they plan to implement a four-day week, at least on a trial basis."

Hearing aids help people listen to nature's sounds again--
like barking tree frogs. (Photo by Gary Tresize, Unsplash)

Being able to hear the world around you is a gift. "Birdsongs. Chorus frogs. Children's voices. . . . . Sheets flapping on the clothesline. . . .The rustle of corn stalks. The low rumble of thunder in the distance," writes Donna Kallner of The Daily Yonder. But as we age, hearing becomes more challenging. "I chose a Medicare Advantage plan that includes hearing aid coverage. We're hoping for a bulk discount since my husband's hearing is also now more impaired than selective."

Checking out what's going on "across the pond" isn't limited to getting British insights; it's good to see what other European countries are up to, such as the Netherlands' commitment to sustainable farming. "Almost two decades ago, the Dutch made a national commitment to sustainable agriculture under the rallying cry 'Twice as much food using half as many resources," reports Frank Viviano of National Geographic. "Since 2000, farmers have reduced dependence on water for key crops by as much as 90 percent. They’ve almost completely eliminated the use of chemical pesticides on plants in greenhouses."

J. R. 'Robbie' Robertson, who 'turned old American folklore into modern myths' with The Band and others, dies at 80

Robertson at his Santa Monica studio in 2019. (Photo by Carolyn Cole, L.A. Times)

Robbie Robertson, a native Canadian who helped create the muscal genre Americana or "roots music," did Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 80.

James Royal Robertson was lead songwriter and guitarist of The Band, which started out as The Hawks, often a backup group for rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan, and "ended up as The Band — a conceit their fans would say they earned — because people would point to them when they were with Dylan and refer to them as 'the band'," writes Hillel Italie of The Associated Press. "The Band profoundly influenced popular music in the 1960s and ‘70s, first by literally amplifying Dylan’s polarizing transition from folk artist to rock star and then by absorbing the works of Dylan and Dylan’s influences as they fashioned a new sound immersed in the American past. . . . They remain defined by their first two albums, 'Music from Big Pink' and 'The Band,' both released in the late 1960s." Robertson's works "offered a rustic vision of America that seemed at once mythic and authentic," writes Jim Farber of The New York Times.

Robertson "had the knack of making everything he recorded sound fashioned by hand, produced in a barn and played from the heart," Ty Burr writes for The Washington Post. "But his influences and inspirations came from all over the map: the lost colony of Acadia and Louisiana’s Cajun diaspora, deep-blues juke joints in the Mississippi Delta and rockabilly rave-ups at a Midwest county fair. There was jazz in there, and folk music and country; there was a lot of backwoods front-porch hootenanny. There were the atmospheric orchestrations of modern film scoring, too, and underneath it all and increasingly on the surface there was Robertson’s birthright: the sounds of Ontario’s Six Nations people and, by extension, the indigenous tribes of an entire continent — the roots music whose roots go deepest of all. Robbie Robertson didn’t make Americana. He made North American music."

The Band's songs, sung by drummer Levon Helm, keyboardist Richard Manuel and bassist Rick Danko, "were unlike anything on the AM or FM dial — older, wiser, sadder and friskier, with bones that went back to a time before electricity," Burr writes. "Parables like 'The Weight,' which straddled the Bible and the tall tale; 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,' which sounded like it really was sung by a defeated Confederate soldier in 1865; ''King Harvest Has Surely Come', a busted Depression-era farmer’s lament; 'Up On Cripple Creek,' a truck driver coming home to Bessie in 'Lake Charles, Looozeyana'. . . . Like Dylan, Robertson was a self-taught musicologist and storyteller influenced by everything American from the novels of William Faulkner to the scorching blues of Howlin’ Wolf to the gospel harmonies of the Swan Silvertones." Farber says Robertson's lyrics "conjured a wild place, often centered in the South, peopled by rough-hewed characters," such as "the shady creatures in 'Life Is a Carnival'."

In death, Robertson has a final hit: His 2017 memoir Testimony "has returned to the top of the bestseller lists," Variety reports. Here are "15 essential Robbie Robertson songs," from the Los Angeles Times, whose Stephen Thomas Erlewine says "Robertson turned old American folklore into modern myths" and "acted as the ringleader in 'The Last Waltz,' widely regarded as one of the greatest concert films ever made." Erlewine reports on Robertson's later work and notes, "In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to the Six Nations of the Grand River to support a new Woodland Cultural Center."

Tyler Childers and Silas House break new ground, telling an Appalachian LGBTQ+ love story with song and video

Tyler Childers performs at the Railbird Music
Festival in Lexington, Ky. (Photo by Silas Walker, Herald-Leader)

Appalachian LGBTQ+ love stories are just as real as other love stories, and Tyler Childers' "In Your Love" song and video, a collaboration with Silas House, tells that story, reports Monica Kast of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Actors Colton Haynes and James Scully play two men in rural Appalachia who meet and fall in love while working as coal miners in the 1950s." Despite hostility from other miners and community members, the couple stays together, farming and loving one another. House posted on Instagram, "To our knowledge, it is the first-ever country music video with a gay storyline to be released by a major label."

Silas House (Berea College photo)

Childers and House, both Kentuckians, "wanted to tell a love story set in Appalachia. Childers pitched the idea for the music video to House and asked him to work on developing the story. Jason Kyle Howard, House's husband, wrote and provided creative direction for the video. He came up with the idea for the two main characters to be coal miners," Kast writes. "There are personal touches in the video, too. House, Howard and Childers used family photographs as inspiration for outfits in the video, making sure they were true to the period but also true to what people really wore. The cast is also made up of Appalachians and Kentuckians who represented the region."

House told Kast, "There are all kinds of different people in Appalachia and rural America, and they very rarely see themselves in the media, in film or TV, or especially in country music videos. . . . It's a gay love story, yes, but more than that, it's a love story. It's about gay people who love where they're from, and they don't want to leave it. Those men could have left not only the coal mines but they could have left the area. They chose to stay. A whole lot of people have done that, despite discrimination, because they love where they're from."

"At a time when Kentucky has seen an increase in anti-LGBTQ legislation and sentiments, House said he hopes the video will be 'a balm' for people who are hurting," Kast reports. House told Kast: "We just wanted to tell a human story that is rarely seen. Tyler Childers is one of the great storytellers of our time, especially in rural stories. This is another rural story that needs to be seen." Kast adds that Childers' album "Rustin' In the Rain" will be released Sept. 8."

'Try that in a Small Town' a missed opportunity, small-towner writes; W. Post writer calls it 'a fantasy of violent retribution'

Jason Aldean in 'Try That in a Small Town' (YouTube)

Either from their lyrics, curious catchiness or infectious beat, some songs and accompanying videos can bring people together. Jason Aldean's latest song 'Try That in a Small Town" isn't that sort of tune, writes Skylar Baker-Jordan in an opinion piece for The Daily Yonder.

"Jason Aldean broke onto the country scene in 2005 with his top 10 hit 'Hicktown.' Subsequent songs, such as 'Amarillo Sky' (about the plight of farmers) and 'Flyover States' (an ode to the heartland) cemented his reputation as a preeminent troubadour for rural America," Bakr-Jordan writes. "So how did his latest offering, 'Try That in a Small Town,' get it so wrong?"

The song dropped quietly enough in May. The video followed on July 14. "The backlash was swift and severe, with Country Music Television pulling the video mere days after it debuted. . . . Lyrics like 'cuss out a cop, spit in his face/stomp on the flag and light it up, Yeah, ya think you're tough,' Aldean and the songwriters position big cities as crime-ridden hellholes where people 'Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store.' In a small town, though, you can 'see how far ya make it down the road' because 'round here, we take care of our own.'" (The gun angle is explored here.)

Taking care of neighbors is great, but the lyric implies that rural areas are more kind, Baker-Jordan writes: "By pitting urban versus rural, he is not so much extolling the values he grew up with as he is exacerbating the divide already present in our nation. Rather than acknowledging that crime – which happens in rural communities too – is the problem, he blames cities." (Republican presidential candidates are playing the song at events, NBC News reports.)

The video's major location is "a courthouse where an infamous lynching occurred in 1927," but "the production company behind the video denies this was intentional," Baker-Jordan reports. But it "only adds to the problematic nature of the song," which "excludes people of color. . . . Black people live in small towns. Gay people live in small towns. Progressives live in small towns. They have never been the sole purview of conservative white men like Aldean." UPDATE, July 25: Black Lives Matter images in the video have been removed.

Columnist Paul Waldman of The Washington Post calls the video "a fantasy of violent retribution against outsiders — those who would bring the supposed lawlessness of the city to the small town. . . . Were it not for Aldean’s recent political feuds with other artists and the provocation in the video, the song might have simply been cast on the gigantic pile of country songs about small towns. There might be no theme more ubiquitous in the genre: what makes rural life worthwhile, what people in rural areas enjoy and how they live their lives. Some of this music is earnest — even sentimental — about finding pride and meaning in the place where you come from."

That's the sort of song Baker-Jordan wishes Aldean would write. She calls the song "a missed opportunity. . . . Aldean could have produced an anthem that extolled the values of neighborliness and collectivism, which I would agree our nation needs to return to. . . . [Instead] Aldean recorded an anthem dripping with disdain for half the country and filmed a music video at a site of a racist hate crime. . . . I don’t come away from that song feeling like he cares about me. I come away from it feeling like he’s attacking me. And I’m from a small town, too."