feedest: read this: The Ant Hill

They also decorated many of the rock walls of Capitol Reef National Park to the east, but here the Freemont people carved into the cliff faces rather than painting upon them and created
“petroglyphs.” *

Capitol Reef National Park, Utah; Freemont petroglyphs 4

The Freemont culture farmed and hunted the Capitol Reef area from around 700 AD to 1250 AD. Their primitive art electrified our imaginations and created questions that can never be answered completely. Questions about ancient motivations and joys… about the death of a culture and the interpretation of its fragmented traces from centuries beyond.

*An easy way to remember the difference is to think: “paint a picture” for pictograph.

To talk about my book on my blog is one thing, but to do it here … well I’ve not done it so far. I didn’t want to put something here that felt like spam or a sales pitch.

What I do want to put here is how excited I am that those that have read it so far, are really loving it. I feel like Sally Field during her speech. You love me?

Now I know there will be some critics who will not love Finding Kylie, but with only 2 1/2 weeks under it’s belt it’s doing well as far as feedback. You can read a couple reviews here.

To put yourself out there, for all to read is intimidating. To allow your heart’s song to be read and sung by who knows how many is a little crazy to me. This story line is so personal to me, and the characters have been my babies. To let it all out there for everyone to critique has been a little scary, but having people call me and email me or text me with their thoughts on it have been worth it.

So thank you to all of you who have bought it so far, and reached out to let me know how much you’ve enjoyed it. To those that have no idea I even had a book, with a sequel following soon, I hope that if you’re a reader you check this book out. Here’s the synopsis with a review that follows. This site has my contact info if you want to reach out after reading it to give me your input.

What if… after laying your mother to rest, the mother who has been the only real family you’ve ever known, you discover her secretive past in a set of hidden journals? What would you do if she was the only link to the father you never knew? A father you’d been told was dead, but was indeed very much alive…

Twenty-five year old Chastity searches through her mother’s belongings in hopes of finding any shred of evidence that leads to her father. A man, she’d always felt was out there…somewhere. Any glimmer of hope is dashed when she reads one tiny line scrawled across the back page of her mother’s notebook. One traumatic sentence is all it takes to unravel her life long desire in a matter of seconds.

Chastity uncovers the sordid truth, a truth that her mom, Kylie, tried to hide at all costs. This newfound information plunges Chastity into a new world of control, power, and hurt. With the help of her mother’s best friend, Cheryl, and Timothy, a handsome attorney hired before her mother’s death, Chastity sorts her way through her new found family ties and the costs that come with it.

“After reading the trailer for Finding Kylie I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the novel. I knew I was in for a good story and the manuscript exceeded my expectations. Using a combination of intrigue and gentle suspense, Kimberly McKay leads the reader down a trail of self-discovery. Her spunky heroine, Chastity Wayne, not only survives the premature loss of her mother, Kylie, due to cancer, she “finds” her again in the pages of the journal she left behind and in the memories of her best friend, Cheryl Jenkins. In the process, Chastity also finds herself, and the confidence she needs to pursue relationships with an openness that her mother never felt. I look forward to more good story-telling from Kimberly McKay.”
~ Charlene A. Derby, author and storyteller

I would just like to put a view on the American election result from a back water in darkest Yorkshire. That a black person should win would have been unthinkable as little as 5 years ago when you look at America’s history. If somebody had asked me five years ago whether I thought there would be a black president of the USA in the next 50 years and I would have said, ‘ very unlikely’ in fact I would have probably said, ‘not a hope in hell!’ because of America’s history. I still find it difficult to believe that this has actually happened.

“Strange Fruit” began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish high-school teacher from the Bronx, about the lynching of two black men.

I in a deluded sort of way still consider myself quite young but I remember how things were like in America in the 1960s and it wasn’t so long ago that somebody was brought to justice by the American courts for a murder he committed back then.

I know the United Kingdom has had a woman prime minister but this is in a different league. I believe Margaret Thatcher was really a man! Well she showed plenty of male traits anyway. I believed there was an inherent racism in the American people. I know there is in Britain. I didn’t think that America was ready to have a black president.

So how the hell did Barack Abama manage to do it? He is definitely an eloquent speaker but it’s what comes out of his mouth that matters. He has definitely captured the mood of the nation. Media stars decided to back him, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young to name but two. Neil Young came out with an album called, ‘ Living with the War’ in 2006. In it there was a song called ‘ Lookin’ for a leader’ with the line ‘maybe it’s a woman or a black man after all?’. Prophetic or inspirational? http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ioQqUwuN4N4

The American election seems to have been going on for an age. His epic contest with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination just seemed to go on and on. At one point she offered him vice president but only because he was winning and unsurprisingly he refused.

Next he came up against John McCain for the presidency. To me John McCain seems a nice chap but he made a mistake nominating Sarah Palin for vice president. She energised already committed republican voters but pushed any people sitting on the fence over to the Democratic side. He was also from the same party as a very unpopular president which didn’t help him.

Then there was the collapse of the banks weeks before the election, the credit crunch. Everything conspired to make the impossible possible!

I know that in America socialism is a dirty word but my head has always been on the side of socialism. Compassionate socialism has always been the ideal for me. Barack Abama is the closest thing to a socialist there has ever been in the United States so I had always wanted him to win. Even if he had been white I would have wanted him to win so I am happy!

He even made George W. Bush sound gracious when talking about the transferal of power which is something I thought would never happen.

Listening to him speak for the first time in many years I actually believe things could be on the up. For the first time in a long time I am optimistic. Maybe in time I will be disillusioned but at least I am allowing myself the opportunity to be disillusioned. Let us hope he is well protected and doesn’t go the same way of other charismatic leaders.

In the past my older brother, Frank, and I have never been close. This goes back to when we were both very small. I was a twin but unfortunately my twin brother died when a few weeks old. Frank didn’t want me he wanted the other one! According to my mother he would take me down the cellar and cover me with newspaper! He presumably reasoned that if he couldn’t see me I didn’t exist. Looking back it’s a wonder I’ve finished up the sensible levelheaded chap I am today!

We had a fierce sibling rivalry and were continually fighting but because he was three years older he usually came off best. When Frank reached 14 years old he shot up and became several inches taller than me and from then on I was fighting a losing battle.

As we got older our friendship didn’t improve. In the mid-1960s Frank became a singer in a blues band which got up my nose. I suppose I thought of him as good-looking, well better looking than me anyway. He looked a bit like Paul Jones out of Manfred Mann and was always bringing home nice looking girls. I myself was terrified of females. I didn’t know any of them apart from my mother. I was one of three brothers and all my schooling took place at Catholic Boys Schools.

In his early twenties Frank became a devout Catholic whilst I myself chose the happy hippy road! We lived about 30 miles apart and there was very little reason for us to see each other and in 25 years we only met twice, once at Frank’s wedding and again at my father’s funeral.

As I have mentioned in a previous story during the year 2000 I had a serious relapse and finished up living in a bungalow at Cowling on the Lancashire Yorkshire border. After this happened it became apparent to Frank that I was pretty unwell, and if we were going to have any sort of relationship we had better start now. He telephoned saying he would like to come over to see me the next weekend. The problem now was how was he going to organise this visit. Frank has never driven a car but he wasn’t going to let this stop him. He bought a map, figured out the shortest route between Manchester and Cowling then extracted his trusty old bicycle from the shed at the bottom of his garden.

On the day of the visit the weather was glorious. The forecast said that it was going to be the hottest day of the year. Frank had told me that according to his calculations he should arrive about midday so when it got around to two o’clock and he hadn’t shown I thought that a phone call to his wife, Fay, would be in order. She said he had set off at eight o’clock that morning and on hearing he was yet to arrive became quite worried. I tried to reassure her but must admit to feeling a little concerned myself because the weather was so hot. As soon as I replaced the receiver the telephone rang. This time it was my mother wondering how things were going. When I told her that Frank hadn’t arrived yet she said that she thought he had been mad to even attempt the journey. “The trouble with Frank is that he still thinks he’s a teenager not someone in his fifties.” After that my mum and Fay took it in turns to telephone every 15 minutes.

We were all getting very worried when about six o’clock the telephone rang and this time it was Frank. He had arrived in Colne, about 6 miles away, really dehydrated. He told me that he had bought two cans of beer and wouldn’t be going another inch until he had drunk them! I telephoned the news of Frank’s imminent arrival to the others then awaited his appearance.

When he did arrive he was in a terrible condition. As he came in I said, “Aren’t you going to put a lock on your bike? This maybe the countryside but there are still thieves about.” He replied grumpily, “I couldn’t care less if anybody takes it. They can have it as far as I’m concerned. It only has three gears and it’s been stuck in the lowest one ever since I set off!” He then proceeded to tell me about his adventures. How the journey had seemed so easy when he had looked at it on the map. Unfortunately his map had no contours and since leaving home he had done nothing but go up and down hills.

His complexion is similar to mine; we were both redheads, only Frank has been bald for a long time. He was wearing a cloth cap ala Andy Capp and when he took it off he looked ever so funny, a bright red face and a shiny white head. As he recounted the tales of the mishaps that had befallen him it was all I could do to stop myself from laughing!

He asked if I wanted a cup of tea because he could certainly do with one. I told him to help himself; all he needed was in the kitchen. He went into the kitchen and the sound of water boiling could be heard then suddenly all the lights went out. Frank hadn’t put enough water into the kettle!

I had only been living in the house for a few weeks and had no idea where the fuse box was so we spent the next 30 minutes trying to find it. At the time I found it easiest to get about by crawling and as I crawled my mind went back 50 years and it seemed like we were little boys again who had done something wrong and were desperately trying to put things right. Eventually it became too dark to carry on looking. I gazed across to Frank and he seemed so guilty but there was no way I could be angry with him. He had just cycled all day under a blazing sun on a clapped-out bicycle to see his little brother who was poorly sick. I said smiling, “Let’s go to bed and we’ll see how things look in the morning.”

I settled down in the bed and Frank lay in a sleeping bag on the floor. As I lay there I thought about how much my expectations for a Saturday night had changed in the past few years. Tonight was a new low, not even a radio!
I am not a very observant person but because there was nothing else happening I absent mindedly began to look around the room. In the gathering gloom a few feet from my head I could just make out the words ON and OFF in a box attached to the wall. I shouted to Frank that I had found the fuse box and soon all the lights were back on again.

Frank left early the next morning. I received a phone call from him late that afternoon. Apparently he had reached Blackburn exhausted and absolutely sick to death with that “bloody bike”! So he’d given it away to a stranger then caught a train home!

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My friend Kathleen (Beany) from So Grateful to be Mormon, and a fellow Buzzer, has been missing for four days. Her family says that she never reported to work on Monday. The authorities have been notified, but her family is asking anyone who may have heard from her to contact them here. You can also leave a comment here and I will pass it on to her family, or e-mail or leave a message with Sue at Beggar’s Shot Glass. Please keep her and her family in your prayers.

Old Age, I decided, is a gift
I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my father!), but I don’t agonize over those things for long..

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I’ve aged, I’ve become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend.

I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon ?

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60 & 70’s, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love .. I will.

I know I am sometimes forgetful.. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore.. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it)

I think you will know by my picture that I am disabled. There were only two things on my body that I think work rather well. One was my hair and the other my teeth the rest of me is rubbish. I say was because my statement is now out of date. I use an electric toothbrush and try if I remember to brush my teeth twice a day. I noticed a video the other day on cre8buzz of a comedian having a joke about electric toothbrushes. How the people who use one must be incredibly lazy but for me they are a wonderful invention. I nearly wrote a comment about the video but decided it wasn’t worth explaining how the electric toothbrush was essential for me so I just kept quiet.

Considering that when my parents reach my age they already had false teeth I think I am doing quite well but for the last three or four days they have been giving me jip as they say around here, so much so that I have booked myself in for an appointment tomorrow. For me going to the dentist is a big thing not because I am particularly fearful of having dental work done but for me it is quite an expedition.

I have a special car for traveling and I go in to the back in my wheelchair because it is no longer possible for me to get into the passenger seat. I am not the greatest of drivers and even when I was fit I wouldn’t drive a car because I was afraid of causing injury or even death because of my absentmindedness. The chances are it would be my death that I caused rather than anybody else and that is something I wouldn’t be keen on. I am always surprised that drivers even though they have trouble putting a sentence together they still manage to keep a car on the road. Then when you have to look at what other people are doing! Coming from the side coming from behind not to mention gears and brakes. I had to drive I’m sure I would just panic. I was always happy being a passenger and told I was a very good passenger because I didn’t tell people how to drive. I just kept my head down when they were turning right because I would always wait until there was nothing in sight before I thought it was safe to come out. I just thought it would be turning left any other place than Britain but you understand what I mean.

I have had a motorised wheelchair in the house for the last three years but have never used it because I damaged the paintwork. I used to call it the electric chair until I realised it was the wrong terminology. It sounds like a place of execution rather than transportation. For the last few months I have found it has been impossible to use the manual chair and been using it out of necessity. What has surprised me is that I Have been managing quite well. My special friend Renee isn’t going to paint the skirting board again though until I have managed not to have any accidents for a least six months.

Well I am going to the dentist tomorrow and believe it or not I’m quite looking forward to it. The dentist is in a hospital about 10 miles away and it is the drive through some nice countryside. The hospital is in the town that has about 50,000 population and also a supermarket so Renee is going to double up and do some shopping because of the credit crunch. You have to think about these things now don’t you.

Dear Friends, A few months ago I was asked for my perspective on Obama, I sent out an email with a few points. With the election just around the corner I decided to complete my perspective. Those of you on my e-list have seen some of this before but it’s worth repeating…

First I must say whoever wins the election will have my prayer support. Obama needs to be commended for his accomplishments but I need to explain why I will not be voting for him.

Many of my friends process their identity through their blackness. I process my identity through Christ. Being a Christian (a Christ follower) means He leads I follow. I can’t dictate the terms He does because He is the leader.

I can’t vote black because I am black; I have to vote Christian because that’s who I am. Christian first, black second. Neither should anyone from the other ethnic groups vote because of ethnicity. 200 years from now I won’t be asked if I was black or white. I will be asked if I knew Jesus and accepted Him as Lord and Savior.

In an election there are many issues to consider but when a society gets abortion, same-sex marriage, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning to name a few, wrong economic concerns will soon not matter.

We need to follow Martin Luther King’s words, don’t judge someone by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I don’t know Obama so all I can go off is his voting record. His voting record earned him the title of the most liberal senator in the US Senate in 2007.

To beat Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton as the most liberal senator, takes some doing. Obama accomplished this feat in 2 short years. I wonder what would happen to America if he had four years to work with.

There is a reason Planned Parenthood gives him a 100 % rating. There is a reason the homosexual community supports him. There is a reason Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Castro, Hamas etc. love him. There is a reason he said he would nominate liberal judges to the Supreme Court. There is a reason he voted against the infanticide bill. There is a reason he voted No on the constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. There is a reason he voted No on banning partial birth abortion. There is a reason he voted No on confirming Justices Roberts and Alito. These two judges are conservatives and they have since overturned partial birth abortion. The same practice Obama wanted to continue.

A. Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grabs the baby’s leg with forceps. (Remember this is a live baby)
B. The baby’s leg is pulled out into the birth canal.
C. The abortionist delivers the baby’s entire body, except for the head.
D. The abortionist jams scissors into the baby’s skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the hole.
E. The scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted. The child’s brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is then removed.

Think about this: You can’t give a kid an aspirin without parental notification but that same kid can have an abortion without parental notification. This is insane.

Obama tells us he has good judgment but he sat under Jeremiah Wright teaching for 20 years. Now he is condemning Wright’s sermons. I wonder why now?

Obama said Jeremiah Wright led him to the Lord and discipled him. A disciple is one in training. Jesus told us in Matthew 28:19 - 20 ‘Go and make disciples of all nations.’ This means reproduce yourself. Teach people to think like you, walk like you; talk like you believe what you believe etc. The question I have is what did Jeremiah Wright teach him?

Would you support a White President who went to a church which has tenets that said they have a …

1. Commitment to the White Community
2. Commitment to the White Family
3. Adherence to the White Work Ethic
4. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the White Community.
5. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting White Institutions
6. Pledge allegiance to all White leadership who espouse and embrace the White Value System
7. Personal commitment to embracement of the White Value System.

Just change the word from white to black and you have the tenets of Obama’s former church. If President Bush was a member of a church like this, he would be called a racist. Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton would have been marching outside.

This kind of church is a racist church. Obama did not wake up after 20 years and just discovered he went to a racist church. The church can’t be about race. Jesus did not come for any particular race. He came for the whole world.

A church can’t have a value system based on race. The churches value system has to be based on biblical mandate. It does not matter if it’s a white church or a black church it’s still wrong. Anyone from either race that attends a church like this would never get my vote.

Obama’s former Pastor Jeremiah Wright is a disciple of liberal theologian James Cone, author of the 1970 book A Black Theology of Liberation. Cone once wrote: ‘Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him.

In the past when the Lord brought someone with the beliefs of Obama to lead a nation it meant one thing - judgment.

Read 1 Samuel 8 when Israel asked for a king. First God says in 1 Samuel 1:9 ‘Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.’

1 Samuel 1:18 ‘ When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.’ 19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. ‘No!’ they said. ‘We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.’ 21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. 22 The LORD answered, ‘Listen to them and give them a king.’

He would not tell one person to vote for Obama and one to vote for McCain. As the scripture says, a city divided against itself cannot stand, so obviously many people are not hearing from God.

Maybe I am the one not hearing but I know God does not change and Obama contradicts many things I read in scripture so I doubt it.

For all my friends who are voting for Obama can you really look God in the face and say; Father based on your word, I am voting for Obama even though I know he will continue the genocidal practice of partial birth abortion. He might have to nominate three or four Supreme Court justices, and I am sure he will be nominating liberal judges who will be making laws that are against you. I also know he will continue to push for homosexual rights, even though you destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for this. I know I can look the other way because of the economy.

I could not see Jesus agreeing with many of Obama’s positions. Finally I have two questions for all my liberal friends.

Within my own lifetime it was once illegal for a couple of mixed races to marry. Today that concept is almost unheard of. No state or federal law would challenge, based solely on race, whether two adults ~ one white, one African American, or Asian, or Hispanic ~ could marry, and become husband and wife.

During November’s general election, Florida voters are being asked to decide whether a similar restriction should be made a permanent amendment to the State Constitution, limiting who can be legal spouses to ‘one man, one woman,’ effectively disenfranchising hundreds, if not thousands, of committed couples in the state.

I do not believe it should be the purview of the state, or even federal government to put prerequisites on who someone can love, who can be named as a beneficiary, who has the right to make life-sustaining decisions, or who can be domestic partners in the eyes of the law ~ with all the rights inherent in such a partnership, including adoption. It most certainly should not be a line item in the State Constitution.

The semantics of the word ‘marriage’ should be taken out of the equation. If ‘marriage’ is to be considered a religious rite between ‘one man, one woman’, let it remain as such. But, two adults in a loving, nurturing, mutually beneficial relationship should be able to have their domestic union legally recognized as much as mine is, regardless of sexual orientation.

I voted ‘No’ against No. 2 Constitutional Amendment, Article 1, New Section.

The Ant Hill

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