I wanted to let you know about a new petition I created on We the People,
a new feature on WhiteHouse.gov, and ask for your support. Will you add your
name to mine? If this petition gets 100,000 signatures by April 09, 2014,
the White House will review it and respond!
Here's some more information about this petition:
Cease the practice of Daylight Savings Time and go to Standard
Time all year long.
We need to move to Standard Time year round. Every November and March we change the clocks backwards and forwards. Studies have shown each time we move the clocks backwards or forwards there is an increase in car accidents, workplace accidents, and heart attacks in the two or three days that follow.
It has been shown that Daylight Savings Time does not save energy as it was supposed to do, and costs millions in lost revenue. Many children have to get up and go to school in the dark in March when clocks are moved forward, and then again in the early Fall months as days get shorter. Going to Standard Time year round would prevent the increased risk of accidents and health issues as well as allow children and workers to travel to school or work when it is light outside.
You can view and sign the petition here:
http://wh.gov/lyePA
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
The Many Benefits of Hemp and What it Could Mean to Missouri
Long ridiculed and called "ditch weed" by marijuana users for its low THC content, and yet still banned by the government due to essentially being a variety of the same plant marijuana is, hemp seems to get no love. Hemp is banned as it is simply another variety of cannabis, the same plant marijuana is a variety of. Yet it has many, many uses in industry. The one most historians may be familiar with is in making rope. At one time Missouri was one of the top producers of industrial hemp, and with that production of hemp came rope factories. In the small town of Huntsville, Missouri where I live in there were actually two rope factories and the same was true of other small towns around Missouri in the 1900s. It was a big industry, and could be once again. Even George Washington grew hemp.
Unlike its more well known cousin marijuana, hemp is a hearty plant that is easy to grow. It does not need any special care. Indeed, you basically plant it and it grows until you harvest it. There are fields of it here in my county that have grown wild for over 150 years. This despite being routinely cut down and burned by law enforcement officers to show that they were waging a war on drugs. The fact is hemp has only 1% THC, the active ingredient in marijuana that gets one high. It therefore cannot be used as a recreational drug. Hemp is a plant that does not harm its environment by needing fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides. It therefore has very little impact on its environment. In essence, industrial hemp is easy to grow, and at the same time gives high yields in a little space. It is therefore a desirable cash crop to grow from an economic standpoint when one considers what it can be used for.
Its uses are many, in addition to rope, industrial hemp can be used to make textiles for clothing among other things. Cloth made from it is very durable and it can be used to make jeans, coats, T-shirts, suits, shoes and yet it can also be mixed with other fibers like silk to make lingerie. It is so durable it can be used to make heavy canvas of the variety you use to cover your car or boat. Industrial hemp's potential for use in the garment industry alone are reason enough to permit its being grown and used in manufacturing. However, it has many other uses. One is in the manufacture of plastic. Many plastics today are made from petroleum which has a negative impact on the environment in their production. Plastic made from hemp though would have much less of an impact on the environment and would be cheaper to produce as well given the price of petroleum these days. And the plastic from hemp is very durable. In 1941 Henry Ford had a car made that had doors and fenders made of hemp and soy plastic. He demonstrated its durability by using a sledge hammer on it. Unfortunately, the car never made it out of the stage of being a prototype. Now though many automakers are moving to using hemp plastics in their cars. Ford, GM, Honda, and Mercedes are all manufacturing door panels and dashboards molded from hemp plastic. Currently, most of the hemp used to make this plastic is grown overseas, but it could be grown here if the ban on industrial hemp were to be lifted. In addition to car parts hemp plastic can be used to make plastic bags, water bottles, computer parts, nearly anything and everything currently made out of plastic from petrochemicals. Hemp can also be used to manufacture such building materials as insulation, fiberboard, floor tiles, floor boards caulking, shingles, and more. There is even a form of concrete called hempcrete which is a mixture of hemp hurds and lime and sometimes additional ingredients like sand. It is not brittle like regular concrete and therefore has the advantage of not needing expansion joints when used in construction. One of the oldest uses for hemp is to make paper, and this was done as early as 2,000 years ago. Most paper today is made of wood pulp, and the trees to get the wood pulp from take years to grow. Hemp on the other hand can be harvested every year. By using hemp for paper we would be saving our forests, and our forests help fight global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the air. Finally, hemp oil can be used to manufacture biodiesel much like vegetable oil is used now. With dwindling petroleum supplies, the price of diesel is only going to go up, and a cheaper alternative needs to be found. Hemp oil can provide one of those alternatives.
Given all of hemp's uses the legalization of industrial hempcould mean an economic boon for stagnating rural. economies where it could be grown. With all its uses, its growth and use in manufacturing could bring billions of dollars into rural areas with struggling economies like the one I live in. The county I live in, Randolph County, Missouri was once one of the biggest producers of hemp in the nation. There were four rope factories alone. Now imagine what a county like the one I live in could have with the legalization of hemp now we know even more uses for it? In addition to hemp farms, there could be clothing factories, rope factories, plastic factories, places that produce fiberboard and insulation, bio-fuel plants, to name a few things. It only makes sense to place these plants near where hemp is grown, and Missouri is ideal for growing hemp. With Missouri towns suffering from the loss of industries to places overseas, the railroads ceasing passenger service and closing lines, hemp could serve to revive ailing economies. There is no reason to be against the legalization of hemp with its many uses in manufacturing. Even marijuana has many medical uses that could benefit the economy.
But alas those wanting marijuana legalized for recreational and medical use drown out those that may present the more logical argument that the legalization of marijuana will also mean legalizing industrial hemp with all its economic benefits. Politicians love money, and tell them their backers can make a lot of money growing and using hemp in manufacturing, and they might be more behind lifting bans on both varieties of cannabis. Right now according to a recent poll 51% of Missouri voters are against lifting the ban on the growth and sale of cannabis. The reason perhaps is that all these voters think the legalizing of the growth and sale of cannabis would mean is that potheads would have the legal right to get stoned. Their minds shift to the dangers of people driving cars and operating heavy equipment while high from smoking marijuana. But lifting the ban on the growth and sale of cannabis could mean much more than that. It could mean bringing a lot of money into rural economies that badly need it. As for the dangers of people driving or operating heavy equipment while high from smoking cannabis we have the same problem with folks doing such while drunk, and no one is suggesting we go back to the prohibition of alcohol. Even though I have pointed out the benefits of hemp here, there are many reasons for marijuana to be legal as well with its many uses in medicine as a potential way to fight cancer. Even recreational use can benefit the economy. Colorado is expected to make over one billion dollars off of taxes on marijuana sold for recreational use. Such an influx of tax money for the state government to use could mean better schools and better roads that would benefit all. The reasons for keeping the ban on the growing and sale of cannabis are dwindling. There simply are too many reasons to make it legal, and rural Missouri economies need it. With the legalization of cannabis we could see a new era of prosperity for small Missouri towns. If you wish, by all means share this post to Facebook, Google+, or tweet it on Twitter. And write your State Legislators. Tell them you want it to be legal to grow industrial hemp and use it in manufacturing. I could care less myself whether marijuana is ever made legal, but I feel passionate about making it legal to grow industrial hemp, and to use it in manufacturing in Missouri. However, if marijuana has to be legalized for industrial hemp to be grown, so be it. You can get your State Legislator's addresses by going to the State Senate website. Just enter your address in the Legislator Lookup form and it will give you all the contact information for your State Senator and State Representative. The State Senate website is at: http://www.senate.mo.gov/
Unlike its more well known cousin marijuana, hemp is a hearty plant that is easy to grow. It does not need any special care. Indeed, you basically plant it and it grows until you harvest it. There are fields of it here in my county that have grown wild for over 150 years. This despite being routinely cut down and burned by law enforcement officers to show that they were waging a war on drugs. The fact is hemp has only 1% THC, the active ingredient in marijuana that gets one high. It therefore cannot be used as a recreational drug. Hemp is a plant that does not harm its environment by needing fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides. It therefore has very little impact on its environment. In essence, industrial hemp is easy to grow, and at the same time gives high yields in a little space. It is therefore a desirable cash crop to grow from an economic standpoint when one considers what it can be used for.
Its uses are many, in addition to rope, industrial hemp can be used to make textiles for clothing among other things. Cloth made from it is very durable and it can be used to make jeans, coats, T-shirts, suits, shoes and yet it can also be mixed with other fibers like silk to make lingerie. It is so durable it can be used to make heavy canvas of the variety you use to cover your car or boat. Industrial hemp's potential for use in the garment industry alone are reason enough to permit its being grown and used in manufacturing. However, it has many other uses. One is in the manufacture of plastic. Many plastics today are made from petroleum which has a negative impact on the environment in their production. Plastic made from hemp though would have much less of an impact on the environment and would be cheaper to produce as well given the price of petroleum these days. And the plastic from hemp is very durable. In 1941 Henry Ford had a car made that had doors and fenders made of hemp and soy plastic. He demonstrated its durability by using a sledge hammer on it. Unfortunately, the car never made it out of the stage of being a prototype. Now though many automakers are moving to using hemp plastics in their cars. Ford, GM, Honda, and Mercedes are all manufacturing door panels and dashboards molded from hemp plastic. Currently, most of the hemp used to make this plastic is grown overseas, but it could be grown here if the ban on industrial hemp were to be lifted. In addition to car parts hemp plastic can be used to make plastic bags, water bottles, computer parts, nearly anything and everything currently made out of plastic from petrochemicals. Hemp can also be used to manufacture such building materials as insulation, fiberboard, floor tiles, floor boards caulking, shingles, and more. There is even a form of concrete called hempcrete which is a mixture of hemp hurds and lime and sometimes additional ingredients like sand. It is not brittle like regular concrete and therefore has the advantage of not needing expansion joints when used in construction. One of the oldest uses for hemp is to make paper, and this was done as early as 2,000 years ago. Most paper today is made of wood pulp, and the trees to get the wood pulp from take years to grow. Hemp on the other hand can be harvested every year. By using hemp for paper we would be saving our forests, and our forests help fight global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the air. Finally, hemp oil can be used to manufacture biodiesel much like vegetable oil is used now. With dwindling petroleum supplies, the price of diesel is only going to go up, and a cheaper alternative needs to be found. Hemp oil can provide one of those alternatives.
Given all of hemp's uses the legalization of industrial hempcould mean an economic boon for stagnating rural. economies where it could be grown. With all its uses, its growth and use in manufacturing could bring billions of dollars into rural areas with struggling economies like the one I live in. The county I live in, Randolph County, Missouri was once one of the biggest producers of hemp in the nation. There were four rope factories alone. Now imagine what a county like the one I live in could have with the legalization of hemp now we know even more uses for it? In addition to hemp farms, there could be clothing factories, rope factories, plastic factories, places that produce fiberboard and insulation, bio-fuel plants, to name a few things. It only makes sense to place these plants near where hemp is grown, and Missouri is ideal for growing hemp. With Missouri towns suffering from the loss of industries to places overseas, the railroads ceasing passenger service and closing lines, hemp could serve to revive ailing economies. There is no reason to be against the legalization of hemp with its many uses in manufacturing. Even marijuana has many medical uses that could benefit the economy.
But alas those wanting marijuana legalized for recreational and medical use drown out those that may present the more logical argument that the legalization of marijuana will also mean legalizing industrial hemp with all its economic benefits. Politicians love money, and tell them their backers can make a lot of money growing and using hemp in manufacturing, and they might be more behind lifting bans on both varieties of cannabis. Right now according to a recent poll 51% of Missouri voters are against lifting the ban on the growth and sale of cannabis. The reason perhaps is that all these voters think the legalizing of the growth and sale of cannabis would mean is that potheads would have the legal right to get stoned. Their minds shift to the dangers of people driving cars and operating heavy equipment while high from smoking marijuana. But lifting the ban on the growth and sale of cannabis could mean much more than that. It could mean bringing a lot of money into rural economies that badly need it. As for the dangers of people driving or operating heavy equipment while high from smoking cannabis we have the same problem with folks doing such while drunk, and no one is suggesting we go back to the prohibition of alcohol. Even though I have pointed out the benefits of hemp here, there are many reasons for marijuana to be legal as well with its many uses in medicine as a potential way to fight cancer. Even recreational use can benefit the economy. Colorado is expected to make over one billion dollars off of taxes on marijuana sold for recreational use. Such an influx of tax money for the state government to use could mean better schools and better roads that would benefit all. The reasons for keeping the ban on the growing and sale of cannabis are dwindling. There simply are too many reasons to make it legal, and rural Missouri economies need it. With the legalization of cannabis we could see a new era of prosperity for small Missouri towns. If you wish, by all means share this post to Facebook, Google+, or tweet it on Twitter. And write your State Legislators. Tell them you want it to be legal to grow industrial hemp and use it in manufacturing. I could care less myself whether marijuana is ever made legal, but I feel passionate about making it legal to grow industrial hemp, and to use it in manufacturing in Missouri. However, if marijuana has to be legalized for industrial hemp to be grown, so be it. You can get your State Legislator's addresses by going to the State Senate website. Just enter your address in the Legislator Lookup form and it will give you all the contact information for your State Senator and State Representative. The State Senate website is at: http://www.senate.mo.gov/
Saturday, February 22, 2014
The Forgotten Village of Smithland, Randolph County, Missouri
On many maps of the State of Missouri dating between the years 1844 and 1875 there appears a place called "Smithland" located in the Southern part of Randolph County. Often it may be the only place shown in the county besides Huntsville and Mount Airy, places still remembered today. Smithland though has been largely forgotten. Many that have lived their entire lives in and around the town of Higbee, Missouri but two or three miles away have never heard of it. Its name does not appear once in the numerous county histories written as early as 1884. I, myself did not recall ever hearing of it, and would have been blissfully unaware of Smithland had I not noticed the name on so many maps of the period. I therefore went on a quest to learn more about it. The only place I found detailed information on it was from a pamphlet entitled Higbee Centennial 1872-1972: Higbee Through the Years compiled and edited by Emily F. Patison now deceased. I presume the information in the pamphlet was compiled from early editions of the Higbee News (sadly for many years a defunct newspaper) about the history of the area many years before at a time when folks remembered Smithland. While what information there was was enlightening, it did not answer the one question I had, exactly where was Smithland? The early maps clearly show it in the Southern part of Randolph County in the general area of the towns and villages of Higbee, Roanoke, and Yates. That is a very large area though. Too, I had many other questions about it. While the piece from the Centennial pamphlet was interesting, it really did not provide much information. So I went searching.
Here is what I learned. Smithland was an active community roughly between 1830 and 1871 founded by prominent landowner Joel Smith. It served as a stage coach stop on a line from Hannibal, Missouri to Fayette, Missouri, and had a post office that served between 1838 and 1858 (it was only one of five in the county at the time). In 1833, State Representative George Frederick Burckhardt of Randolph County was going to introduce a bill declaring the stage road from Paris, Missouri via Smithland to Fayette, Missouri a state road. I could not find out whether he did or did not do so. According to Esther Leech's Master's Thesis published in 1933 Place Names Of Six East Central Counties Of Missouri the stage line stopped operation when the Western Branch of the North Missouri Railroad began operation which would have been in 1866. The biography of William Smith, son of Joel Smith found in Randolph County, Missouri, Cemetery Records and Histories says much the same thing. I also learned from Missouri As It Is in 1867 by Nathan Parker that in 1867 Smithland had a population of only 50. The last State of Missouri map I can find that it appears on is from 1875. As early as 1885 it was being called "Old Smithland" in obituaries. In this part of the country a town or village is only called "Old" if it has ceased to exist. However, in its heyday Smithland boasted a post office, a small inn, a blacksmith shop, a general store, a tavern, and even a horse race track. It was large enough that political rallies were sometimes held there according to old stories told by old timers of their parents found in editions of the Moberly Monitor-Index from the 1930s.
What caused its decline is anyone's guess. Its post office ceased operation in 1858, the same year the Renick post office in Randolph County opened. Indeed, it is said in such sources as Ester Leech's thesis that Smithland was displaced by Renick. The Civil War may have done it no good either as the Battle of Roan's Tan Yard was fought within a couple of miles of Joel Smith's land. According to Guerrilla Warfare in Civil War Missouri, Volume III Joel Smith was pistol whipped and had two horses taken from him by some of Bloody Bill Anderson's men as they traveled through the area from their raid on Huntsville, Missouri in July of 1864. It could be the guerrilla activity in the area seriously hurt the business that kept Smithland alive. Finally, it is known that Joel Smith was a slave holder from government records (Descriptive Recruitment Lists of Volunteers for the United States Colored Troops for the State of Missouri, 1863-1865) that show he sent two slaves to fight for the Union army during the war. Many slave owners suffered economically due to the loss of income from the labor of the slaves after the war. The final blow was perhaps the stage line ceasing operation in 1866. It had continued to appear on maps though throughout the Civil War, but it may have already have been in decline by then. Its days would have been numbered anyhow. In 1872 Higbee was founded not three or four miles away to the Southeast to be followed by Yates not many miles to the Southwest. The Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad went through Higbee in 1874, and Yates got a railroad in 1879 when the Chicago and Alton Railroad built through both it and Higbee. Later the mining town of Elliot would spring up not far away as well as the town of Harkes. All these towns were in about a six mile radius of what had been Smithland. Joel Smith moved to Moberly, Missouri in 1880, and died two years later though his daughter Sarah remained living on the original farm. Any number of factors could have lead to Smithland's demise. Most likely it was due to accumulation of many things. All that is known is by 1885 it was being called "Old Smithland" a clear indicator it was no more. My brother Terry has suggested that perhaps it was like a "company town" that declined with the fortunes of its owner. I cannot discount that idea.
I have compiled a list of people that lived in and around Smithland from sources on the internet. First off there is Joel Smith's family. Joel Smith was originally from Kentucky. His wife was Dorcas Smith nee Tureman. They reportedly had nine children, but I can only find the names of six. He had one son William Smith who married Florence Head daughter of Doctor Walter Head of Huntsville, Missouri. He operated the stage line between Allen and Fayette and between Paris and Huntsville all in Missouri during the years of the Civil War and built and operated the Grand Central Hotel in Moberly, Missouri in 1880. The rest of Joel and Dorcas Smith's children were daughters and they are listed in no particular order. One of his daughters was Mary who married William James, William James was through his sister, Susan, brother in law of Doctor James Marion Walker who owned land beside some of Joel Smith's properties. Then there was Sarah Catherine who married James Edwin Rucker. According to her obituary in the Higbee News she lived on the farm she was born on her entire life and died there in 1924. The Smiths' daughter Elizabeth married John Tunstall Coates who would become a Circuit Judge and was influential in the early days of Moberly (he has one of the streets in Downtown Moberly named for him). Elizabeth died young. and after her death her sister Amanda married Judge Coates. Finally their daughter Annie married George Bradford. George became a prominent farmer Southeast of Columbia, Missouri.
There are others that may have lived in or around Smithland. I say, "may have lived" because some of these names are from genealogy pages which do not always have correct information. Smithland produced one famous or should I say infamous son. According to the Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography Thomas F.M. McLean also known as "Bison" McLean was born in Smithland. He attended the University of Missouri and was recommended for an appointment to West Point by W.W. Hudson Professor of Mathematics as well as University President John Hiram Lathrop. He was admitted to West Point in July of 1844, but was dismissed in August of 1848 for being "deficient in conduct." He then traveled to California where he took up life with Native Americans and took to raiding. It could be he is related to Doctor William B. McLean whose estate was listed for sale near Smithland in a January 24, 1846 edition of the Boon's Lick Times, a paper out of Fayette, Missouri. A Mary McLean according to the 1876 plat map of Randolph County Missouri owned land adjacent to Joel's Smith's property. I cannot help but think they are all somehow related. Abiel Leonard who was at one time Secretary of State of Missouri and lived in Fayette apparently stayed in or near Smithland at some point. He received a letter there in 1855 from a Mrs. Terrell according to The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 58. Also according to that volume Fleming Terrell lived in Smithland or nearby. According to postal records Reubon Watts was Postmaster of Smithland in 1856. Other people are mere names, and they are Thomas H. Withers, his wife Susan nee Shackleford, William Fleming Boulware, Peter Bass, Susan E. Creason nee Robb, Henderson D, Wilcox founder of the village of Harkes, Missouri owned property adjacent to Joel Smith's property.
Now to the question of locating Smithland. To do so I started first by checking the An Illustrated Historical Atlas of Randolph County, Missouri, 1876. Despite its glorified name it is essentially a plat map showing where people owned property within the county along with the acreage they owned. Through this I was able to locate where Joel Smith owned property in 1876. However, this is long after Smithland's heyday, and he may have sold or bought property in the intervening years. It would be of little use in locating Smithland. I then decided to check for the purchase of land patents by Joel Smith at the Bureau of Land Management website. He obtained land from the government in 1833, 1835, 1837, 1843, 1856, and 1859. The largest patent was the one in 1833 for 160 acres, though he obtained more acreage in another year by buying two patents. The 1833 patent was the largest one at one time. As the township, range, and section are given on the documents I could then locate them on a present day county map. With this information, I set about making my own map. I first drew in the land grants up until 1843. We know Smithland existed in 1838 as that is when the post office was opened, but I figured the later grants may be near to his original holdings. I then went back to the 1876 plat map, and drew in the properties he held in 1876. Amazingly he only sold one of his original land grants that being the 40 acre one in Section 35. Now to the map itself. Sections where he may have owned property between 1832 and 1876 are outlined in red and white. His land patents up until 1843 are outlined in blue and white with the dates of the grants given. Land he owned in 1876 in addition to the land patents are outlined in heavy red lines. As can be seen nearly all the properties run along present day Randolph County Road 2480 or close by. Only two of the properties had residences on them in 1876 (that are marked on the plat map anyway), and I have marked these on my map. In the Higbee Centennial pamphlet it is stated the settlement was near the main house. For that reason I think Smithland was in most likely Section 31, the location of the 1833 land patent. It is possible it was in Section 32 as we have no idea when he obtained that property, but I find that unlikely. It is possible there were other residences on the properties that were torn down before 1876, or that simply were missed in the making of the map. We have no way of knowing. So for now I think the best bet is that Smithland was in Section 31. It would be nice someday, if the present land owners were to allow it to explore Section 31 with a metal detector to find the exact location. Perhaps still there may be those that know the exact location.
Here is what I learned. Smithland was an active community roughly between 1830 and 1871 founded by prominent landowner Joel Smith. It served as a stage coach stop on a line from Hannibal, Missouri to Fayette, Missouri, and had a post office that served between 1838 and 1858 (it was only one of five in the county at the time). In 1833, State Representative George Frederick Burckhardt of Randolph County was going to introduce a bill declaring the stage road from Paris, Missouri via Smithland to Fayette, Missouri a state road. I could not find out whether he did or did not do so. According to Esther Leech's Master's Thesis published in 1933 Place Names Of Six East Central Counties Of Missouri the stage line stopped operation when the Western Branch of the North Missouri Railroad began operation which would have been in 1866. The biography of William Smith, son of Joel Smith found in Randolph County, Missouri, Cemetery Records and Histories says much the same thing. I also learned from Missouri As It Is in 1867 by Nathan Parker that in 1867 Smithland had a population of only 50. The last State of Missouri map I can find that it appears on is from 1875. As early as 1885 it was being called "Old Smithland" in obituaries. In this part of the country a town or village is only called "Old" if it has ceased to exist. However, in its heyday Smithland boasted a post office, a small inn, a blacksmith shop, a general store, a tavern, and even a horse race track. It was large enough that political rallies were sometimes held there according to old stories told by old timers of their parents found in editions of the Moberly Monitor-Index from the 1930s.
What caused its decline is anyone's guess. Its post office ceased operation in 1858, the same year the Renick post office in Randolph County opened. Indeed, it is said in such sources as Ester Leech's thesis that Smithland was displaced by Renick. The Civil War may have done it no good either as the Battle of Roan's Tan Yard was fought within a couple of miles of Joel Smith's land. According to Guerrilla Warfare in Civil War Missouri, Volume III Joel Smith was pistol whipped and had two horses taken from him by some of Bloody Bill Anderson's men as they traveled through the area from their raid on Huntsville, Missouri in July of 1864. It could be the guerrilla activity in the area seriously hurt the business that kept Smithland alive. Finally, it is known that Joel Smith was a slave holder from government records (Descriptive Recruitment Lists of Volunteers for the United States Colored Troops for the State of Missouri, 1863-1865) that show he sent two slaves to fight for the Union army during the war. Many slave owners suffered economically due to the loss of income from the labor of the slaves after the war. The final blow was perhaps the stage line ceasing operation in 1866. It had continued to appear on maps though throughout the Civil War, but it may have already have been in decline by then. Its days would have been numbered anyhow. In 1872 Higbee was founded not three or four miles away to the Southeast to be followed by Yates not many miles to the Southwest. The Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad went through Higbee in 1874, and Yates got a railroad in 1879 when the Chicago and Alton Railroad built through both it and Higbee. Later the mining town of Elliot would spring up not far away as well as the town of Harkes. All these towns were in about a six mile radius of what had been Smithland. Joel Smith moved to Moberly, Missouri in 1880, and died two years later though his daughter Sarah remained living on the original farm. Any number of factors could have lead to Smithland's demise. Most likely it was due to accumulation of many things. All that is known is by 1885 it was being called "Old Smithland" a clear indicator it was no more. My brother Terry has suggested that perhaps it was like a "company town" that declined with the fortunes of its owner. I cannot discount that idea.
I have compiled a list of people that lived in and around Smithland from sources on the internet. First off there is Joel Smith's family. Joel Smith was originally from Kentucky. His wife was Dorcas Smith nee Tureman. They reportedly had nine children, but I can only find the names of six. He had one son William Smith who married Florence Head daughter of Doctor Walter Head of Huntsville, Missouri. He operated the stage line between Allen and Fayette and between Paris and Huntsville all in Missouri during the years of the Civil War and built and operated the Grand Central Hotel in Moberly, Missouri in 1880. The rest of Joel and Dorcas Smith's children were daughters and they are listed in no particular order. One of his daughters was Mary who married William James, William James was through his sister, Susan, brother in law of Doctor James Marion Walker who owned land beside some of Joel Smith's properties. Then there was Sarah Catherine who married James Edwin Rucker. According to her obituary in the Higbee News she lived on the farm she was born on her entire life and died there in 1924. The Smiths' daughter Elizabeth married John Tunstall Coates who would become a Circuit Judge and was influential in the early days of Moberly (he has one of the streets in Downtown Moberly named for him). Elizabeth died young. and after her death her sister Amanda married Judge Coates. Finally their daughter Annie married George Bradford. George became a prominent farmer Southeast of Columbia, Missouri.
There are others that may have lived in or around Smithland. I say, "may have lived" because some of these names are from genealogy pages which do not always have correct information. Smithland produced one famous or should I say infamous son. According to the Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography Thomas F.M. McLean also known as "Bison" McLean was born in Smithland. He attended the University of Missouri and was recommended for an appointment to West Point by W.W. Hudson Professor of Mathematics as well as University President John Hiram Lathrop. He was admitted to West Point in July of 1844, but was dismissed in August of 1848 for being "deficient in conduct." He then traveled to California where he took up life with Native Americans and took to raiding. It could be he is related to Doctor William B. McLean whose estate was listed for sale near Smithland in a January 24, 1846 edition of the Boon's Lick Times, a paper out of Fayette, Missouri. A Mary McLean according to the 1876 plat map of Randolph County Missouri owned land adjacent to Joel's Smith's property. I cannot help but think they are all somehow related. Abiel Leonard who was at one time Secretary of State of Missouri and lived in Fayette apparently stayed in or near Smithland at some point. He received a letter there in 1855 from a Mrs. Terrell according to The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 58. Also according to that volume Fleming Terrell lived in Smithland or nearby. According to postal records Reubon Watts was Postmaster of Smithland in 1856. Other people are mere names, and they are Thomas H. Withers, his wife Susan nee Shackleford, William Fleming Boulware, Peter Bass, Susan E. Creason nee Robb, Henderson D, Wilcox founder of the village of Harkes, Missouri owned property adjacent to Joel Smith's property.
Now to the question of locating Smithland. To do so I started first by checking the An Illustrated Historical Atlas of Randolph County, Missouri, 1876. Despite its glorified name it is essentially a plat map showing where people owned property within the county along with the acreage they owned. Through this I was able to locate where Joel Smith owned property in 1876. However, this is long after Smithland's heyday, and he may have sold or bought property in the intervening years. It would be of little use in locating Smithland. I then decided to check for the purchase of land patents by Joel Smith at the Bureau of Land Management website. He obtained land from the government in 1833, 1835, 1837, 1843, 1856, and 1859. The largest patent was the one in 1833 for 160 acres, though he obtained more acreage in another year by buying two patents. The 1833 patent was the largest one at one time. As the township, range, and section are given on the documents I could then locate them on a present day county map. With this information, I set about making my own map. I first drew in the land grants up until 1843. We know Smithland existed in 1838 as that is when the post office was opened, but I figured the later grants may be near to his original holdings. I then went back to the 1876 plat map, and drew in the properties he held in 1876. Amazingly he only sold one of his original land grants that being the 40 acre one in Section 35. Now to the map itself. Sections where he may have owned property between 1832 and 1876 are outlined in red and white. His land patents up until 1843 are outlined in blue and white with the dates of the grants given. Land he owned in 1876 in addition to the land patents are outlined in heavy red lines. As can be seen nearly all the properties run along present day Randolph County Road 2480 or close by. Only two of the properties had residences on them in 1876 (that are marked on the plat map anyway), and I have marked these on my map. In the Higbee Centennial pamphlet it is stated the settlement was near the main house. For that reason I think Smithland was in most likely Section 31, the location of the 1833 land patent. It is possible it was in Section 32 as we have no idea when he obtained that property, but I find that unlikely. It is possible there were other residences on the properties that were torn down before 1876, or that simply were missed in the making of the map. We have no way of knowing. So for now I think the best bet is that Smithland was in Section 31. It would be nice someday, if the present land owners were to allow it to explore Section 31 with a metal detector to find the exact location. Perhaps still there may be those that know the exact location.
Update February 25 2014: I emailed Randolph County Commissioner Jerry Crutchfield who someone said is very knowledgeable about county history. He said he did not know, but he asked County Commissioner Wayne Wilcox (Great, great, great grandson of H.D. Wilcox who founded Harkes) who lives very close to there. According to Mr. Wilcox, Smithland is South of the County Road 2530 and County Road 2520 intersection. It lies West and slightly South of a low water crossing on County Road 2520. Joel Smith did indeed own 80 acres there a little to the South in 1876 in Section 9 Northeast of Higbee shown on the map above. And his son William Smith owned 80 acres catty corner to the Northwest of this property in Section 4. This is a little West of where County Commissioner Wilcox says it is, and far from where I thought it was. However, the Smiths may have owned more property in that area and sold it by 1876. I have no doubt Commissioner Wilcox is probably right and this is the general location of Smithland. It is very near Route A which is a state road, and we know Representative Burkhardt was trying to have the road from Paris to Fayette via Smithland declared such. If that is the case Smithland is probably in Section 3 directly West of Renick. This would be in keeping with old accounts that put it West of Renick. Part of the problem has always been is Joel Smith owned so much land in the area, and referred to all of it as Smithland making locating the village difficult. I owe the Commissioners a great deal of thanks for their help! I cannot thank them enough!
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Making Windows 8 a Desktop User's Dream
It has been 3 weeks since I first started using Windows 8. And to be fair I have not fully explored it, shying away from the Metro Screen after playing with it a bit. What little experience I had of it helped me figure out it is not for me. I am not saying it is a bad thing, some users may actually like it. I am saying I could not find anything that any of its apps could do that could not also be done on the Desktop, often times better. I have therefore spent almost all my time since those first few days on the Desktop. For a Desktop user Windows 8 is a fantastic system, but you have to work to make that so. What follows is how I made it so I almost never see the Metro screen on my laptop with Windows 8.1 installed unless I choose to see it.
Step 1: Go to Microsoft and upgrade to Windows 8.1. Windows 8.1 introduces some features that help make the OS more bearable to Desktop users like booting to the Desktop instead of the Metro Screen. The download and installation will take several hours (it took about three hours on my machine), so you need to set aside some time for it as you may be prompted to restart at a couple of points. My install went flawlessly. I have however heard of installs that have not gone well. At the same time I have heard that Microsoft Support is more than willing to help, and when they do they can usually manage to get Windows 8.1 installed on your machine. The tutorial on updating to Windows 8.1 from Windows 8 is at: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/update-from-windows-8-tutorial
Step 2: Once Windows 8.1 has installed you will want to make it so your machine boots to the Desktop. This ability was introduced with 8.1 and you cannot do it in Windows 8. Once you have Windows 8.1 installed, booted up your machine, and gone to the Metro screen click on the Desktop icon and go to the Desktop. Anywhere on the Taskbar in an open area right click. Then click on Properties when the little menu pops up. When the Properties window opens you will want to click on the Navigation tab. You will then want to check the box next to "Go to the desktop instead of Start when I sign in." While you are there you may also want to disable the hot corners, check off the first two boxes dealing with the corners. There are several other options, and I leave those choices up to you. When you reboot your PC though it should now automatically go to the Desktop.
Step 3: You will then want to download a Start Menu replacement to add a Start Button and Menu like those in Windows 7. There are several Start Menu replacements out there, each with its own merits. Personally, I use Classic Shell. Classic Shell gives you the options of the Classic Start Menu (like the one in XP), Classic with two columns (sort of a cross between the Windows XP and Windows 7 Menus), or the Windows 7 Menu. It is easy to configure and there are plenty of options to get your Start Menu just the way you want it. You can download Classic Shell at: http://www.classicshell.net/
Step 4: Change your file associations. Most all of the most common file extensions used by Windows are associated with Metro Apps. You may be perfectly content in your Desktop home, decide you want to see a jpeg listed in File Manager, click on it, and wham-o you are in the Photo App on the Metro Screen, and then have to navigate back to the Desktop. To avoid this you must set all the file associations to Desktop programs. This is a little time consuming, but well worth it. Assuming you downloaded Classic Shell or similar Start Menu software, in the Search Box on the Start Menu type "file associations." You will be faced with a list of choices. You will want to click on "Change the file type associated with a file extension." A menu will then load listing all the file extensions on your computer and what program they are associated with. If you see simple names like "Music" or "Photo" you can bet the default is a Metro App. You can then highlight the file extension, click on the "Change Program" button in the upper right hand side. A list of available programs for that kind of file will come up and you can choose a Desktop program to open the file. Say you want to make it so Photo Gallery opens jpegs on your Desktop. Scroll down to the extension .jpg and click on it. You can then click "Change Program" and see the list of choices. If you scroll down you will see Photo Gallery. Click on Photo Gallery and your jpeg files are now opened with Photo Gallery when you click on them in File Manager. Like I said, this is time consuming, but well worth the effort if you do not want yourself thrown off the Desktop and into a Metro Screen App.
Step 5: Change Auto-Play options. Like file extensions Auto-Play options generally default to Metro Apps. I learned this the hard way when importing photos from my camera. I hooked up my camera expecting to be asked what to do, and immediately I was in the Metro Screen Photo App. It was not a bad experience, but I still had to navigate back to the Desktop which is time consuming and unnecessary. Unfortunately in some cases with Auto-Play you may have to install third party software. If you import photos from a camera regularly and do not want to use the Photo App, you will have to install third party software like that which came with your camera. You are no longer given the option to use File Explorer or Photo Gallery. Once you have installed any third party software you use go to the Start Menu search box (assuming you downloaded and installed Classic Shell or similar Star Button software) and type "Autoplay." A list of choices will come up and you want to click on "Autoplay." The Autoplay menu will then come up, and you can choose how every sort of media is handled. You may want to have it ask you every time or have a specific program open whatever media you are dealing with, Note, with cameras and other equipment you will have to have had the camera or other equipment connected at some point to your PC to set the Auto-Play options for it. If you have more than one camera each will have to be handled separately.
Step 6: If you are on a laptop with hand gestures for the touch pad you may have to disable gestures. One problem I had was that making a straight line movement with my index finger right to left on the touch pad of my laptop would open the Charms Bar. Since I move rather rapidly on the touch pad it would never fail that I would scroll to the left hand side of the screen to click on something, the Charms Bar would come open, I would click, and next thing I know I would be on the Metro Screen or somewhere else I did not want to be. I went to my touch pad settings to see if I could disable that gesture, and there was no option to do so, so I disabled all gestures. I only used one or two gestures so this was no big deal to me. Hopefully, your machine is different and you can disable just that gesture.
I now have Windows 8.1 where I want it. I have not seen the Metro Screen in a while now without me having chosen to see it. For me it is a glorified Windows 7 and that to me is not a bad thing. I am a Desktop user and have no need for a tablet like experience on a PC. I do like the new File Explorer and Task Manager of Windows 8.1 a great deal and the fact 8.1 is much faster does not bother me either. Overall, once I got it where I wanted it, I am quite happy with Windows 8.1. However, it does take a bit of work to get it where you may want it as a Desktop user. Once you do however I think you will be pleased.
Step 1: Go to Microsoft and upgrade to Windows 8.1. Windows 8.1 introduces some features that help make the OS more bearable to Desktop users like booting to the Desktop instead of the Metro Screen. The download and installation will take several hours (it took about three hours on my machine), so you need to set aside some time for it as you may be prompted to restart at a couple of points. My install went flawlessly. I have however heard of installs that have not gone well. At the same time I have heard that Microsoft Support is more than willing to help, and when they do they can usually manage to get Windows 8.1 installed on your machine. The tutorial on updating to Windows 8.1 from Windows 8 is at: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/update-from-windows-8-tutorial
Step 2: Once Windows 8.1 has installed you will want to make it so your machine boots to the Desktop. This ability was introduced with 8.1 and you cannot do it in Windows 8. Once you have Windows 8.1 installed, booted up your machine, and gone to the Metro screen click on the Desktop icon and go to the Desktop. Anywhere on the Taskbar in an open area right click. Then click on Properties when the little menu pops up. When the Properties window opens you will want to click on the Navigation tab. You will then want to check the box next to "Go to the desktop instead of Start when I sign in." While you are there you may also want to disable the hot corners, check off the first two boxes dealing with the corners. There are several other options, and I leave those choices up to you. When you reboot your PC though it should now automatically go to the Desktop.
Step 3: You will then want to download a Start Menu replacement to add a Start Button and Menu like those in Windows 7. There are several Start Menu replacements out there, each with its own merits. Personally, I use Classic Shell. Classic Shell gives you the options of the Classic Start Menu (like the one in XP), Classic with two columns (sort of a cross between the Windows XP and Windows 7 Menus), or the Windows 7 Menu. It is easy to configure and there are plenty of options to get your Start Menu just the way you want it. You can download Classic Shell at: http://www.classicshell.net/
Step 4: Change your file associations. Most all of the most common file extensions used by Windows are associated with Metro Apps. You may be perfectly content in your Desktop home, decide you want to see a jpeg listed in File Manager, click on it, and wham-o you are in the Photo App on the Metro Screen, and then have to navigate back to the Desktop. To avoid this you must set all the file associations to Desktop programs. This is a little time consuming, but well worth it. Assuming you downloaded Classic Shell or similar Start Menu software, in the Search Box on the Start Menu type "file associations." You will be faced with a list of choices. You will want to click on "Change the file type associated with a file extension." A menu will then load listing all the file extensions on your computer and what program they are associated with. If you see simple names like "Music" or "Photo" you can bet the default is a Metro App. You can then highlight the file extension, click on the "Change Program" button in the upper right hand side. A list of available programs for that kind of file will come up and you can choose a Desktop program to open the file. Say you want to make it so Photo Gallery opens jpegs on your Desktop. Scroll down to the extension .jpg and click on it. You can then click "Change Program" and see the list of choices. If you scroll down you will see Photo Gallery. Click on Photo Gallery and your jpeg files are now opened with Photo Gallery when you click on them in File Manager. Like I said, this is time consuming, but well worth the effort if you do not want yourself thrown off the Desktop and into a Metro Screen App.
Step 5: Change Auto-Play options. Like file extensions Auto-Play options generally default to Metro Apps. I learned this the hard way when importing photos from my camera. I hooked up my camera expecting to be asked what to do, and immediately I was in the Metro Screen Photo App. It was not a bad experience, but I still had to navigate back to the Desktop which is time consuming and unnecessary. Unfortunately in some cases with Auto-Play you may have to install third party software. If you import photos from a camera regularly and do not want to use the Photo App, you will have to install third party software like that which came with your camera. You are no longer given the option to use File Explorer or Photo Gallery. Once you have installed any third party software you use go to the Start Menu search box (assuming you downloaded and installed Classic Shell or similar Star Button software) and type "Autoplay." A list of choices will come up and you want to click on "Autoplay." The Autoplay menu will then come up, and you can choose how every sort of media is handled. You may want to have it ask you every time or have a specific program open whatever media you are dealing with, Note, with cameras and other equipment you will have to have had the camera or other equipment connected at some point to your PC to set the Auto-Play options for it. If you have more than one camera each will have to be handled separately.
Step 6: If you are on a laptop with hand gestures for the touch pad you may have to disable gestures. One problem I had was that making a straight line movement with my index finger right to left on the touch pad of my laptop would open the Charms Bar. Since I move rather rapidly on the touch pad it would never fail that I would scroll to the left hand side of the screen to click on something, the Charms Bar would come open, I would click, and next thing I know I would be on the Metro Screen or somewhere else I did not want to be. I went to my touch pad settings to see if I could disable that gesture, and there was no option to do so, so I disabled all gestures. I only used one or two gestures so this was no big deal to me. Hopefully, your machine is different and you can disable just that gesture.
I now have Windows 8.1 where I want it. I have not seen the Metro Screen in a while now without me having chosen to see it. For me it is a glorified Windows 7 and that to me is not a bad thing. I am a Desktop user and have no need for a tablet like experience on a PC. I do like the new File Explorer and Task Manager of Windows 8.1 a great deal and the fact 8.1 is much faster does not bother me either. Overall, once I got it where I wanted it, I am quite happy with Windows 8.1. However, it does take a bit of work to get it where you may want it as a Desktop user. Once you do however I think you will be pleased.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
A Little Bit of History about Titherow Hills, Randolph County, Missouri
There is a region of Randolph County, Missouri that old timers like my parents (who were born in 1916 and 1917) called Tittterow Hills. Most if not all probably have not heard the name. How much area this name was applied to I do not know. It may have just been a couple of farms or a much larger area. I do know that it was in the area of farms owned once by the Robert D. Towles family between Darksville, Missouri and Cario, Missouri, well north of Huntsville, Missouri. I suspect much of it is in the area of Riley Lake, Thomas Brothers Lake, and Kohl Lake where a coal mining operation was once several years ago. The old Towles farms are described as being near Darksville, Missouri and north of Huntsville in old newspaper articles and this would be in the right vicinity.
I had always thought the name Titterow Hills had come from a dialectical use of Thither "to go to or towards that place" and row and never really could make sense of it. My mother never knew where the name came from, and I never asked other members of the Towles family. So yesterday I was going through old land grants at the Bureau of Land Management website just to see the other grants that were near my great grandfather Robert D. Towles' farms which I suspect he had gotten from his uncle William Payne Towles. The farms were scattered throughout what was then Howard County Missouri and later Randolph County. One land grant was in Macon County, Missouri. I found that my great, great grandfather Ben Eatherton for example owned land near my great, great, great uncle William Payne Towles, and that is probably how my great grandfather and great grandmother met.
As I was looking through the land grants I saw a name that struck me. The grant was to a John Titherow and made in 1833. That would have made him one of the earlier settlers of that part of the county. Apparently he did not stay long in the county as I can find no other trace of him in this region. He nor his family are mentioned in the county histories. There are no newspaper articles or obituaries about any of his family in the area, and no county records like marriage licenses. However, he stayed long enough to give his name to a region of the county. At what point they started calling the area Titherow Hills I do not know. It may have been as early as when he got the land grant. The name persisted until the late 20th century when the grandchildren and great grandchildren of those early settlers in the area began to die off. It may have never went beyond a few families that lived in the neighborhood of the Towles family. I wish my mother and aunts and uncle were still alive so I could pry them for more information. By the way the name Titherow is given in most other documents as Tetherow. The family was quite common once in Clay County Missouri.
Edit: I have since learned the land patent that John Titherow received in 1833 was near Armstrong Missouri in Howard County. This is some distance from the region of Randolph County I am talking about. Never the less he was near the Towles family in Howard County, and could have easily moved to Randolph County. It would only be a matter of moving north 20 miles just as the Towles family did. It would require checking land deeds from the early history of Randolph County many of which were lost in the fires of the various courthouses.
Edit: More research shows it could also be in the area of the Towles farms of the Stokely William Towles family. These were farms owned by my great grandfather's cousin (son of William Payne Towles). The Towles Cemetery where he is buried is on Route DD which is probably the eastern edge of the Towles holdings while Oakland School sometimes called the Towles School was near the intersection of present day Randolph County roads 1645 and 1650. This is east of where I thought Titherow Hills was. However, the Towles farms ran westward towards Daksville, and my sister thought my great grandfather's farms were around the area of the intersection of county roads 1270 and 1275. So Titherow Hills is probably in the general vicinity of where I thought it was although it may be father south and east. It also could cover a much larger area than I previously thought.
Edit: After discussing it with others, one person said they remembered that their grandfather lived on Titterow Creek and his grandfather's farm was on the gravel road which ran north from Route Z, that would be Randolph County Road 1270. I also learned from the Bureau of Land Management website that my great, great grandfather Ben Eatherton's farm was on what is now 1270 on the north side of Route Z. My great grandfather probably had a farm nearby his father in law so I can probably say with some certainty that Titherow Hills was in the general area of county roads 1270 and 1275.
I had always thought the name Titterow Hills had come from a dialectical use of Thither "to go to or towards that place" and row and never really could make sense of it. My mother never knew where the name came from, and I never asked other members of the Towles family. So yesterday I was going through old land grants at the Bureau of Land Management website just to see the other grants that were near my great grandfather Robert D. Towles' farms which I suspect he had gotten from his uncle William Payne Towles. The farms were scattered throughout what was then Howard County Missouri and later Randolph County. One land grant was in Macon County, Missouri. I found that my great, great grandfather Ben Eatherton for example owned land near my great, great, great uncle William Payne Towles, and that is probably how my great grandfather and great grandmother met.
As I was looking through the land grants I saw a name that struck me. The grant was to a John Titherow and made in 1833. That would have made him one of the earlier settlers of that part of the county. Apparently he did not stay long in the county as I can find no other trace of him in this region. He nor his family are mentioned in the county histories. There are no newspaper articles or obituaries about any of his family in the area, and no county records like marriage licenses. However, he stayed long enough to give his name to a region of the county. At what point they started calling the area Titherow Hills I do not know. It may have been as early as when he got the land grant. The name persisted until the late 20th century when the grandchildren and great grandchildren of those early settlers in the area began to die off. It may have never went beyond a few families that lived in the neighborhood of the Towles family. I wish my mother and aunts and uncle were still alive so I could pry them for more information. By the way the name Titherow is given in most other documents as Tetherow. The family was quite common once in Clay County Missouri.
Edit: I have since learned the land patent that John Titherow received in 1833 was near Armstrong Missouri in Howard County. This is some distance from the region of Randolph County I am talking about. Never the less he was near the Towles family in Howard County, and could have easily moved to Randolph County. It would only be a matter of moving north 20 miles just as the Towles family did. It would require checking land deeds from the early history of Randolph County many of which were lost in the fires of the various courthouses.
Edit: More research shows it could also be in the area of the Towles farms of the Stokely William Towles family. These were farms owned by my great grandfather's cousin (son of William Payne Towles). The Towles Cemetery where he is buried is on Route DD which is probably the eastern edge of the Towles holdings while Oakland School sometimes called the Towles School was near the intersection of present day Randolph County roads 1645 and 1650. This is east of where I thought Titherow Hills was. However, the Towles farms ran westward towards Daksville, and my sister thought my great grandfather's farms were around the area of the intersection of county roads 1270 and 1275. So Titherow Hills is probably in the general vicinity of where I thought it was although it may be father south and east. It also could cover a much larger area than I previously thought.
Edit: After discussing it with others, one person said they remembered that their grandfather lived on Titterow Creek and his grandfather's farm was on the gravel road which ran north from Route Z, that would be Randolph County Road 1270. I also learned from the Bureau of Land Management website that my great, great grandfather Ben Eatherton's farm was on what is now 1270 on the north side of Route Z. My great grandfather probably had a farm nearby his father in law so I can probably say with some certainty that Titherow Hills was in the general area of county roads 1270 and 1275.
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| To the Northwest is Darksville, MO,to the South is Huntsvile, MO, to the Southeast is Cairo MO, and Jacksonville is to the Northeast. |
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Remembering Boot Hill a Wild West Role Playing Game
Of all the early role playing games, by far my favorite was Boot Hill. We had a long running campaign for several years in the mid to late '80s with four different judges (what the game master was called in Boot Hill) and a whole bunch of interesting characters. A player character might appear as an NPC in another game. For example at one point I had an outlaw hunted by one of my other player characters who was a Texas Ranger. I had three characters that survived long term during that campaign, and greatly enjoyed playing each of them. I first started playing Boot Hill in 1981 under the first edition. Those games were short and deadly, and never turned into a campaign largely due to player character deaths. I would not return to the game until about 1984 when our gaming group picked up a copy of the second edition. For the next six years we played it off and on going through all of the modules except for the last one, Range War, and a lot of homemade adventures. Many gamers complain that Boot Hill was too deadly, but due to how we played the game our characters survived. For one thing stand in the middle of the street, fast draw your revolver type of gun fights were rare in our games. In those six years of playing Boot Hill only two gunfighters were regularly played and the number of gun fights they fought in could be counted on one hand. Thanks to exceptional stats the two of them never received a mortal wound. They always outdrew their opponents. We also had a Texas Ranger that had a reputation as a gunfighter, but his stats and his reputation were such only a couple of NPCs ever called him out. All other shoot 'em ups our characters were in they dove for cover. We never shot it out at close range, and there was always something to hide behind. Thanks to this, our characters survived. I have to say I had more AD&D characters die than I did Boot Hill characters That is not to say there was not a large number of player character deaths in our Boot Hill campaign. It was Boot Hill after all. It is to say we did have several characters that survived long term. Usually if we retired a character it was because he had reached a point where his goals had been reached or in the case of some characters they went back East or left the country. Part of the reason our characters survived was because we were not playing in the real Wild West. We were playing the Hollywood version where only supporting characters and extras die. The heroes always survive. Too, everyone talks about how easy it was to die in the old West, but the truth is deaths were not as common in shoot outs as one would think. For example at the OK Corral only three of the eight participants died. Now this may sound like a lot, but it is not when you consider it took place at fairly close range with little cover. Our characters never would have let themselves be caught like that.
As I said I only ever played the first and second editions. The second edition is the one I am most familiar with. The rule book was not long. It consisted of only 36 pages, and much of that was combat rules. There really was no background material. You did not need it. There are thousands of hours of Wild West movies and TV shows and probably millions of pages of Westerns to draw on, not to mention history books as well as material from the era. For example, for prices of items one of our GMs obtained a Sears catalog from the 1870s. Another bought a book on guns of the old West complete with statistics. There was no problem in fleshing out our campaign. For setting we started out with the huge map of Promise City and surrounding El Dorado County that came with the boxed set. Later we designed our own settings using historical maps. The four modules further fleshed out our campaign. Smaller adventures published by TSR were also used.
First and second edition relied on percentile dice for much of the game. This was a first as most games of the time used six and twenty siders. Player characters had only six stats and they were, Speed, Gun Accuracy, Throwing Accuracy, Strength, Bravery, and Experience. There were no stats for charisma, intelligence, or wisdom as these would have no bearing on combat, and Boot Hill was about brawling and gun play. These stats were determined by rolling two percentile dice which were further modified by adding a certain number to the stat determined by a special chart. Thanks to this chart a player character was always above average in some way. Characters then received $150 to buy equipment and/or a horse. Character generation was fast and simple. The role player could then flesh out the character as they saw fit. We always developed fairly complex backgrounds for our characters. Some of the more memorable ones were Max Faraday, a Confederate Civil War vet with a PhD who made a living as a medicine show man. Another was an exiled Englishman of noble birth who had stolen the family's valuable signet ring and was being hunted for it. Even our more mundane characters were interesting. My character Tyler was a Kansas farm boy with exceptional strength from pulling a plow as his father could not afford a horse. He once killed a horse just by punching it in the head. His partner was Hammer, a young gunfighter with exceptional speed and gun accuracy trying to make a name for himself. The two had to leave the country when they accidentally blew up a train. The plan had been to blow up the tracks and make the train stop so they could rob it, but Tyler fell asleep and when startled set off the explosives just as the train was crossing them. They quickly became the most wanted duo in the campaign with a very high price on their heads wanted dead or alive.
Combat in the second edition of Boot Hill was deadly. Many role players have complained about how deadly it was. However, I lost as many AD&D characters as I did Boot Hill characters. In Boot Hill it was in all how you played the character. Combat was turn based. A character had a certain number of movement points, and different movements cost different amounts. How many movement points also depended on whether you were walking, running, or crawling. Once movement was done, gun combat took place. Characters fired in the order of their First Shot score and then tried to roll beneath their To Hit number, these numbers being determined by their stats with various modifiers. If a character hit they then rolled percentile dice to determine where they wounded the other character and the severity of the wound. The amount of damage done to a character's Strength depended on severity and where the wound hit the body. A shot to the leg may not mean much of a loss to Strength. A shot to the head could mean death.The final part of a turn was hand to hand combat which was fairly complex. The player character had to decide whether they were going to punch or grapple. A punch could be striking someone with one's fist or with an object like a whiskey bottle or revolver butt. The result of these were determined by a roll of two ten sided dice rolled and added together and checked against a chart, one for punches and one for grappling. These charts determined what kind of strike the character made and what kind of damage was done. In our games we allowed players to state what they were doing like making a right hook or hay maker so we dispensed with that part of the chart. There were also rules for running a campaign which came in handy if one had a long running game.
And that was about all there was to second edition. While I saw copies of the third edition of Boot Hill, and I think one of the gaming group even bought a copy in 1990 when it came out, we never played it. At the time our second edition campaign had reached an end point and for the most part many in the gaming group were getting out of gaming. I stopped playing role playing games for the most part in 1992 and in that last year all I played was Robotech. After 1992 I never played in a campaign of any game again, and only played a handful of stand alone games. That said I recently obtained a copy of the third edition of Boot Hill and have been reading it, acquainting myself with its rules. It is a totally different game. For one thing the rule book is about 130 pages long, much larger than the second edition rule book. The player character stats changed. In third edition they consist of Strength, Coordination, Observation, Stature (basically fame), and Luck. These are determined by rolling two ten sided dice and adding the two numbers together. This is the only time ten siders are used in the game. The result is further modified by a chart. Like the second edition, player characters are average or above. In addition to the change in characteristics skills were added. Player characters have work skills and weapon skills. No more than half of a player character's skills can be weapon skills. How many starting skills you can have are determined by a chart based on the character's characteristics. The most skills a character can start with is ten. Weapon skills start off at 1 point. One can add to this by taking another skill in that weapon. For example, say I want a 3 in knife and I start off with ten skills. When taking knife it takes one of my skills so I now only have nine with a score of 1 in knife. I raise it to 3 and now I only have seven skills I can get. Work skills work differently. One simply chooses the skill and the rolls two ten sided dice adding the results together to get the score. Some skills give an automatic score in another skill. For example if a player character gets Dentistry they get an automatic skill in Medicine of 6. Skill checks are made throughout the game. Simple tasks require no skill check, but more difficult ones do. For example a player character who is a doctor would not have to make a skill check for stitching up a minor cut, but were they to perform major surgery such as to remove a bullet from near the heart they would, and that would probably be with modifiers making it even more difficult to make the roll.Once the skills have been chosen, the player can flesh out the character on their own giving them a background, description, and so on.
One thing I have noted about character generation is that it is harder to say roll up a crack sharpshooter off the bat in third edition. One has to get the right stats which is easy enough if one gets lucky dice rolls, but then they have to invest in weapon skills to get the character's proficiency up as well as take the work skill Fast Draw and hope for a lucky roll with it. Given only ten skills it would be difficult to roll up a gunfighter capable of standing against seasoned NPC gunfighters. I see this as a failing in the third edition. Part of why we enjoyed the second edition so much was having someone with a fast gun hand, known far and wide for their skill. As I said we were playing the Hollywood version of the Wild West.
Another addition to Boot Hill with the third edition was an experience system. Under first and second editions characters did not advance. They pretty much had the same stats at the end of a campaign as when they started the game. In third edition so many points are given for say surviving a gunfight or bringing in an outlaw or other game play activity. When a player character has enough experience points they can use them to increase a characteristic score or increase a skill score. Thus at the start of a game a player character may have a knife/sword skill of 2, but be able to raise it to 3 after a couple of games by investing enough experience points.
Combat is more complicated than second edition in my opinion and relies on 20 sided dice instead of percentile dice. One thing I noted is that it seems a lot harder to get killed in third edition than second edition. Even if a player character gets a mortal wound a Luck roll is made and if successful the wound is reduced to serious. Until I actually judge or play a game though and see the combat system in action I do not know if it is harder or easier to hit a character in combat.
I plan to see if I can get a group of the old role players together, even if it is only two or three of us, and see if we can start a campaign using third edition. One thing that I am disappointed in is I do not have the Promise City map. I only have the third edition rule book. That map was invaluable to our campaign as our characters regularly returned to Promise City.
As I said Boot Hill was one of my favorite early role playing games. In fact the only role playing game I may have liked as much was Daredevils (a game set in the 1930s using the pulp genre of fiction as a backdrop). I truly enjoyed those years I played it, and no doubt had my gaming group not drifted a part we may have continued to play it for several years. I think all totaled I may have played as many games of Boot Hill as I did AD&D. I have very fond memories of it, and recommend it to anyone willing to use a little imagination and careful play in making their characters come alive.
As I said I only ever played the first and second editions. The second edition is the one I am most familiar with. The rule book was not long. It consisted of only 36 pages, and much of that was combat rules. There really was no background material. You did not need it. There are thousands of hours of Wild West movies and TV shows and probably millions of pages of Westerns to draw on, not to mention history books as well as material from the era. For example, for prices of items one of our GMs obtained a Sears catalog from the 1870s. Another bought a book on guns of the old West complete with statistics. There was no problem in fleshing out our campaign. For setting we started out with the huge map of Promise City and surrounding El Dorado County that came with the boxed set. Later we designed our own settings using historical maps. The four modules further fleshed out our campaign. Smaller adventures published by TSR were also used.
First and second edition relied on percentile dice for much of the game. This was a first as most games of the time used six and twenty siders. Player characters had only six stats and they were, Speed, Gun Accuracy, Throwing Accuracy, Strength, Bravery, and Experience. There were no stats for charisma, intelligence, or wisdom as these would have no bearing on combat, and Boot Hill was about brawling and gun play. These stats were determined by rolling two percentile dice which were further modified by adding a certain number to the stat determined by a special chart. Thanks to this chart a player character was always above average in some way. Characters then received $150 to buy equipment and/or a horse. Character generation was fast and simple. The role player could then flesh out the character as they saw fit. We always developed fairly complex backgrounds for our characters. Some of the more memorable ones were Max Faraday, a Confederate Civil War vet with a PhD who made a living as a medicine show man. Another was an exiled Englishman of noble birth who had stolen the family's valuable signet ring and was being hunted for it. Even our more mundane characters were interesting. My character Tyler was a Kansas farm boy with exceptional strength from pulling a plow as his father could not afford a horse. He once killed a horse just by punching it in the head. His partner was Hammer, a young gunfighter with exceptional speed and gun accuracy trying to make a name for himself. The two had to leave the country when they accidentally blew up a train. The plan had been to blow up the tracks and make the train stop so they could rob it, but Tyler fell asleep and when startled set off the explosives just as the train was crossing them. They quickly became the most wanted duo in the campaign with a very high price on their heads wanted dead or alive.
Combat in the second edition of Boot Hill was deadly. Many role players have complained about how deadly it was. However, I lost as many AD&D characters as I did Boot Hill characters. In Boot Hill it was in all how you played the character. Combat was turn based. A character had a certain number of movement points, and different movements cost different amounts. How many movement points also depended on whether you were walking, running, or crawling. Once movement was done, gun combat took place. Characters fired in the order of their First Shot score and then tried to roll beneath their To Hit number, these numbers being determined by their stats with various modifiers. If a character hit they then rolled percentile dice to determine where they wounded the other character and the severity of the wound. The amount of damage done to a character's Strength depended on severity and where the wound hit the body. A shot to the leg may not mean much of a loss to Strength. A shot to the head could mean death.The final part of a turn was hand to hand combat which was fairly complex. The player character had to decide whether they were going to punch or grapple. A punch could be striking someone with one's fist or with an object like a whiskey bottle or revolver butt. The result of these were determined by a roll of two ten sided dice rolled and added together and checked against a chart, one for punches and one for grappling. These charts determined what kind of strike the character made and what kind of damage was done. In our games we allowed players to state what they were doing like making a right hook or hay maker so we dispensed with that part of the chart. There were also rules for running a campaign which came in handy if one had a long running game.
And that was about all there was to second edition. While I saw copies of the third edition of Boot Hill, and I think one of the gaming group even bought a copy in 1990 when it came out, we never played it. At the time our second edition campaign had reached an end point and for the most part many in the gaming group were getting out of gaming. I stopped playing role playing games for the most part in 1992 and in that last year all I played was Robotech. After 1992 I never played in a campaign of any game again, and only played a handful of stand alone games. That said I recently obtained a copy of the third edition of Boot Hill and have been reading it, acquainting myself with its rules. It is a totally different game. For one thing the rule book is about 130 pages long, much larger than the second edition rule book. The player character stats changed. In third edition they consist of Strength, Coordination, Observation, Stature (basically fame), and Luck. These are determined by rolling two ten sided dice and adding the two numbers together. This is the only time ten siders are used in the game. The result is further modified by a chart. Like the second edition, player characters are average or above. In addition to the change in characteristics skills were added. Player characters have work skills and weapon skills. No more than half of a player character's skills can be weapon skills. How many starting skills you can have are determined by a chart based on the character's characteristics. The most skills a character can start with is ten. Weapon skills start off at 1 point. One can add to this by taking another skill in that weapon. For example, say I want a 3 in knife and I start off with ten skills. When taking knife it takes one of my skills so I now only have nine with a score of 1 in knife. I raise it to 3 and now I only have seven skills I can get. Work skills work differently. One simply chooses the skill and the rolls two ten sided dice adding the results together to get the score. Some skills give an automatic score in another skill. For example if a player character gets Dentistry they get an automatic skill in Medicine of 6. Skill checks are made throughout the game. Simple tasks require no skill check, but more difficult ones do. For example a player character who is a doctor would not have to make a skill check for stitching up a minor cut, but were they to perform major surgery such as to remove a bullet from near the heart they would, and that would probably be with modifiers making it even more difficult to make the roll.Once the skills have been chosen, the player can flesh out the character on their own giving them a background, description, and so on.
One thing I have noted about character generation is that it is harder to say roll up a crack sharpshooter off the bat in third edition. One has to get the right stats which is easy enough if one gets lucky dice rolls, but then they have to invest in weapon skills to get the character's proficiency up as well as take the work skill Fast Draw and hope for a lucky roll with it. Given only ten skills it would be difficult to roll up a gunfighter capable of standing against seasoned NPC gunfighters. I see this as a failing in the third edition. Part of why we enjoyed the second edition so much was having someone with a fast gun hand, known far and wide for their skill. As I said we were playing the Hollywood version of the Wild West.
Another addition to Boot Hill with the third edition was an experience system. Under first and second editions characters did not advance. They pretty much had the same stats at the end of a campaign as when they started the game. In third edition so many points are given for say surviving a gunfight or bringing in an outlaw or other game play activity. When a player character has enough experience points they can use them to increase a characteristic score or increase a skill score. Thus at the start of a game a player character may have a knife/sword skill of 2, but be able to raise it to 3 after a couple of games by investing enough experience points.
Combat is more complicated than second edition in my opinion and relies on 20 sided dice instead of percentile dice. One thing I noted is that it seems a lot harder to get killed in third edition than second edition. Even if a player character gets a mortal wound a Luck roll is made and if successful the wound is reduced to serious. Until I actually judge or play a game though and see the combat system in action I do not know if it is harder or easier to hit a character in combat.
I plan to see if I can get a group of the old role players together, even if it is only two or three of us, and see if we can start a campaign using third edition. One thing that I am disappointed in is I do not have the Promise City map. I only have the third edition rule book. That map was invaluable to our campaign as our characters regularly returned to Promise City.
As I said Boot Hill was one of my favorite early role playing games. In fact the only role playing game I may have liked as much was Daredevils (a game set in the 1930s using the pulp genre of fiction as a backdrop). I truly enjoyed those years I played it, and no doubt had my gaming group not drifted a part we may have continued to play it for several years. I think all totaled I may have played as many games of Boot Hill as I did AD&D. I have very fond memories of it, and recommend it to anyone willing to use a little imagination and careful play in making their characters come alive.
Monday, October 28, 2013
The Birth of Oswin Edward Canote
I wrote this last year for one of my other blogs. It was ten years ago today that my son Oswin was born. I can still remember that day like it was yesterday. I had went to work at the Federal Building in Dallas that day. I was doing courtroom intelligence on the Harris vs. Ericsson case. It was a patent infringement case. I was on my last day as the trial was to end that day. We had just come off recess about ten in the morning when the judge asked if there was a Mister Berry Canote present. I answered, "yes." She then asked me to step outside into the hallway. I was wondering what I had done wrong, and was expecting US Marshals to greet me in the hallway. Instead a young law clerk asked if I was Berry Canote. I said yes, and he handed me a note and said "congratulations." The note said Tee was in labor. I was to meet the office manager of Teresa's office out front. We had just driven the one car that day so I needed a ride to her office.
Tee's office was only 10 to 20 blocks from the courthouse, but the drive seemed a lifetime. We got lost at one point. We got to the office, and I got Tee loaded into the car. Our hospital in Denton was some thirty miles away, and I drove the fastest I ever have on an interstate highway. I was hoping to get pulled over so I could have an escort, but wouldn't you know it, I never saw a patrolman or police officer the whole way. At one point a pickup who I guess realized what I was doing ran interference by passing cars and then slowing down so I could pass. Whoever that stranger was has always had my thanks. No sooner than we reached the hospital doors than Teresa's water broke. I got her inside, got her in a wheelchair, and got her up to the maternity ward. We had already done the pre-checkin sometime before so we would not have to fill out paperwork upon arrival.
Then came the waiting. I called her parents, and made some other calls. We had to arrange to make sure someone was at the house for when my stepson got out of school. Once that was done, I spent the afternoon comforting Teresa. I cannot remember when the delivery began, but it was in the evening. It was not an easy delivery. Her pain medications wore off, and it was so close to the birth they could not give her more. She had to have the birth totally natural. It took a while. Tee's nurse was a petite woman so the midwife had me hold one of Tee's legs while the surgeon who was on standby in case they had to do a cesarean got on the other. Just as the surgeon stated she wanted to do a cesarean, the midwife said no, and encouraged Tee to push harder. And out came Oswin. I still remember that moment. By then I was no longer holding Tee's left leg, and had come around to her right side. I was only a few inches from Oswin when he was born. His little chin bumped the bed when he was born which did not hurt him thanks to the cushioning. I cut his chord, and then the midwife handed him to me. It was the proudest moment of my life. It was probably about 8:00 pm at that time.
Tee had done all the work, but I was there, and got to witness the most amazing thing of my life. I held him for a moment and then handed him to his grandfather Red who was just as happy as I was. Oswin weighed in at 6 lbs. 12 oz. and was 19 inches long. They then took Oswin to the nursery to get cleaned up, and wheeled Teresa out of the delivery room to a recovery room. I went with Oswin to the nursery and watched them clean him up. I then went to spend time with Tee, and then they brought Oswin in to nurse for the first time. That was another amazing moment. About one in the morning I went home. I had to run back to the hospital as I did not have the house keys with me. We had left them in Tee's purse. I went back home and got up early the next day to go in to be with Tee and Oswin. The photographer came in and arranged to have Oswin's picture taken. Other than that Tee and I just talked and took care of Oswin when he would come in to nurse. I spent nearly all my time at the hospital the next couple of days. After three days, Oswin and Tee came home, and his life at home began. I had to care for Tee the next few weeks as the birth had been so difficult and taken so much out of her. She was bed ridden for a good deal of the time for several weeks. During that time I had full care of Oswin, and got adjusted to being a new father. He seemed so tiny and fragile. Still he wound up sleeping with us in our bed part of the time, and in the bassinet the rest of the time. He was well behaved for a newborn. He did not cry often, and keeping us awake at night was at a minimum. I have very fond memories of those first weeks of his life.
Even though Oswin is a growing boy now, and no doubt will grow to be taller than me (he takes after his maternal grandfather in that); a part of me will always think of him as that little baby. I miss him living so far away, but I am very proud of him. I could not ask for a better son. His mother is raising him well. I only wish I could be a better father. I feel I have let him down in so many ways. I have missed so much of his life with the distance. But I love him more than I have anyone in my life. Happy birthday Oswin!
Here is a poem I wrote for him a few years ago:
What did your parents do,
To make one as beautiful as you,
Not the stars in the sky,
Not the birds that fly,
Are as beautiful as you.
What did your parents do,
To make one as intelligent as you,
Not the gods high above,
Not the crows and the doves,
Are as intelligent as you.
What did your parents do,
To make one as sweet and gentle as you,
Not angels in heaven,
Nor the great elven kin,
Are as sweet and gentle as you.
You are the gods’ greatest creation,
Nothing they made can match you,
You are the gods; greatest creation,
Perfect in all you do.
Tee's office was only 10 to 20 blocks from the courthouse, but the drive seemed a lifetime. We got lost at one point. We got to the office, and I got Tee loaded into the car. Our hospital in Denton was some thirty miles away, and I drove the fastest I ever have on an interstate highway. I was hoping to get pulled over so I could have an escort, but wouldn't you know it, I never saw a patrolman or police officer the whole way. At one point a pickup who I guess realized what I was doing ran interference by passing cars and then slowing down so I could pass. Whoever that stranger was has always had my thanks. No sooner than we reached the hospital doors than Teresa's water broke. I got her inside, got her in a wheelchair, and got her up to the maternity ward. We had already done the pre-checkin sometime before so we would not have to fill out paperwork upon arrival.
Then came the waiting. I called her parents, and made some other calls. We had to arrange to make sure someone was at the house for when my stepson got out of school. Once that was done, I spent the afternoon comforting Teresa. I cannot remember when the delivery began, but it was in the evening. It was not an easy delivery. Her pain medications wore off, and it was so close to the birth they could not give her more. She had to have the birth totally natural. It took a while. Tee's nurse was a petite woman so the midwife had me hold one of Tee's legs while the surgeon who was on standby in case they had to do a cesarean got on the other. Just as the surgeon stated she wanted to do a cesarean, the midwife said no, and encouraged Tee to push harder. And out came Oswin. I still remember that moment. By then I was no longer holding Tee's left leg, and had come around to her right side. I was only a few inches from Oswin when he was born. His little chin bumped the bed when he was born which did not hurt him thanks to the cushioning. I cut his chord, and then the midwife handed him to me. It was the proudest moment of my life. It was probably about 8:00 pm at that time.
Tee had done all the work, but I was there, and got to witness the most amazing thing of my life. I held him for a moment and then handed him to his grandfather Red who was just as happy as I was. Oswin weighed in at 6 lbs. 12 oz. and was 19 inches long. They then took Oswin to the nursery to get cleaned up, and wheeled Teresa out of the delivery room to a recovery room. I went with Oswin to the nursery and watched them clean him up. I then went to spend time with Tee, and then they brought Oswin in to nurse for the first time. That was another amazing moment. About one in the morning I went home. I had to run back to the hospital as I did not have the house keys with me. We had left them in Tee's purse. I went back home and got up early the next day to go in to be with Tee and Oswin. The photographer came in and arranged to have Oswin's picture taken. Other than that Tee and I just talked and took care of Oswin when he would come in to nurse. I spent nearly all my time at the hospital the next couple of days. After three days, Oswin and Tee came home, and his life at home began. I had to care for Tee the next few weeks as the birth had been so difficult and taken so much out of her. She was bed ridden for a good deal of the time for several weeks. During that time I had full care of Oswin, and got adjusted to being a new father. He seemed so tiny and fragile. Still he wound up sleeping with us in our bed part of the time, and in the bassinet the rest of the time. He was well behaved for a newborn. He did not cry often, and keeping us awake at night was at a minimum. I have very fond memories of those first weeks of his life.
Even though Oswin is a growing boy now, and no doubt will grow to be taller than me (he takes after his maternal grandfather in that); a part of me will always think of him as that little baby. I miss him living so far away, but I am very proud of him. I could not ask for a better son. His mother is raising him well. I only wish I could be a better father. I feel I have let him down in so many ways. I have missed so much of his life with the distance. But I love him more than I have anyone in my life. Happy birthday Oswin!
Here is a poem I wrote for him a few years ago:
What did your parents do,
To make one as beautiful as you,
Not the stars in the sky,
Not the birds that fly,
Are as beautiful as you.
What did your parents do,
To make one as intelligent as you,
Not the gods high above,
Not the crows and the doves,
Are as intelligent as you.
What did your parents do,
To make one as sweet and gentle as you,
Not angels in heaven,
Nor the great elven kin,
Are as sweet and gentle as you.
You are the gods’ greatest creation,
Nothing they made can match you,
You are the gods; greatest creation,
Perfect in all you do.
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