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In my last post, I was attempting to get Doc and Marilyn and Big Dave to discuss the end of the world, the Mayan calendar and survival. You can read how far we didn‘t get in that attempt. This segment is from a few minutes later in that same conversation, such as it was.

I was trying to explain to Doc, Marilyn and Big Dave how unsettling it will be, according to all the scare mongers, when the next disaster strikes. I didn’t get too far.

Tondeleo: OK, Doc, I understand that you don’t want to buy the Mayan calendar. And, like I said, there really isn’t a Mayan calendar for you or anyone else to buy. It just was like a prediction or something… but the point is that there are a lot of people saying that people ought to be ready for a disaster or for a zombie invasion…

Doc: Aint no ZOMBIES gonna invade nobody, Tondy! Don’t get your panties in a bunch…

Marilyn: I ain’t scared of zombies, Tondy! I have anointing oil that I got at the church and I would pour it on them and rebuke them in the name of Jesus! A zombie ain’t nothin’ but a demon livin’ in a corpse. I’d cast that demon out of that zombie and command it go to back to hell and the zombie would just be a dead person again…

Doc: Yeah, one more thing for me to bury around here.

Tondeleo: Well, what about being’ PREPARED, Doc? I read you about the “37 Foods You Must Have in a Disaster.” What do you think about that?

Doc: Well, Tondy, it’s a scam pure an’ simple. There ain’t no secret foods. That guy ain’t got no special secrets. OK: you gotta have water. We got a well, so we’re ok. Then you need to have things you can store. But we live like that anyway. You been out here in the winter. When it snows, ain’t no snowplows comin’ down here. We can’t get to the store.

We have sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, carrots, turnips and such down in the root cellar. They keep as long as you need ‘em. Why it’s called a root cellar.

Then we got salt cured ham and deer jerky. We even got some catfish jerky that Big Dave makes. We’re good for meat. We do that every winter and been doin’ that since I was a boy.

Plus, we got guns and ammo and plenty of deer, rabbits, squirrels and possums. We got fresh meat year round – all we have to go is take a walk in the woods.

When we ain’t got no electricity, we play the acoustic guitars… and Marilyn don’t need no electric to play her harp.

We got blankets and a woodstove, and kerosene lamps. That ain’t no disaster Tondy! It’s how all us live out here! Poor people been livin’ like that since the world began!

And you city boys think it’s the end of the world if you cain’t get your Starbucks and the interweb! You better man up, Tondy!

Big Dave: Well, if it IS the end of the world, you’re not gonna make it anyway. You’ll be dead. The world ended, remember?

Marilyn: The Bible says all this stuff is gonna happen in the last days. Tondy, what you need is the Holy Ghost. Then you wouldn’t be scared all the time. Do you want me to cast that spirit of fear off of you? I can do it if you want…

Tondy: No thank you Marilyn. I’ll be all right. I have some freeze dried food and other supplies coming from Amazon.

Tondeleo: It’s been several weeks since I’ve been able to post. Work has been interfering with my life. Currently I am back in America for at least a fortnight, and I hope to be able to record some interesting interviews with Doc and Marilyn and their friends.

I printed out some of the emails I’ve received from Americans trying to profit from the general fear that is in the world. Many of them are transparently selling fear, and then selling products that should alleviate those fears.

With many people deciding that the world will come to an end in May of this year, because the Mayans said it would, the intensity of the emails and product sales for survival is in quite a flurry.

I figured this would be a good topic to talk with Doc and Marilyn about. It turned out to be pretty much what I expected, with them interjecting their thoughts and questions every few seconds, and derailing any train of thought before it even got going.

Here we go:

Tondeleo: Doc, now that I’ve read to you all these emails about the world coming to an end in May, which is only a few weeks away, what do you think?

Doc: Who said it was coming to an end next month, Tondy? What was those peoples’ names?

Tondeleo: The Mayans. They said so. They had it on their calendar that the end of the world was coming in May 2012.

Marilyn: Well WHO is the Mayans? I ain’t never heard of them…

Tondeleo: The Mayans were a group of people who lived in Central America…

Doc: Ohio?

Tondeleo: No, Central America is down south of Mexico…

Doc: South of Mexico… and they call it central America? Ohio and Indiana and Detroit is central America, Tondy.

Tondeleo: OK, well, the Mayans lived there a long time ago, like in 2500 B.C. They were brilliant and had a highly developed civilisation. They…

Big Dave: I know who those people were. Buncha white trash. Learned about ‘em in eighth grade, Tondy.

Those S.O.B.’s would play football usin’ the head of someone they killed.Used it for a football!

They sacrificed virgins to their gods. That ain’t civilised. You’re s’posed to protect virgins, not kill ‘em.

Doc: You can’t kill virgins! They’re an endangered species! Other n’ Marilyn and some of the girls down at the church, I ain’t even SEEN a virgin in what… maybe ten years!

Marilyn: Tondy, those people killed VIRGINS??? That ain’t right!

Doc: Well, that’s it. I ain’t buyin’ it.

Tondeleo: You’re not buying WHAT, Doc?

Doc: Their calendar. I ain’t buyin’ their calendar. What’s it got, only five pages? January, February, March… uhh, April, then May. And that’s it? I ain’t buyin’ it. I got plans for the Summer. We got a lot of gigs this Summer.

Big Dave: Yeah, I don’t want their calendar either, Tondy.

Tondeleo: But, it isn’t like that… not at all…

Marilyn: Tondy, you ought to buy Doc’s calendar. He’s got the whole year on his, and there are a lot of gigs we’re playin’, and they’re all marked on his calendar…

Doc: I ain’t sellin’ my calendar, Marilyn. Then we’d miss all our gigs.

Big Dave: Yeah, forget the Mayans. The Mexicans killed ‘em all. They had it wrong, anyway, Tondy.

Tondeleo: You can’t know that, Big Dave.

Doc: Well, I can. The end of the world already came for them folks, and they wasn’t expectin’ it! And now they’re all dead and in hell.

Hmph! …Playin’ football with a man’s head. Killin’ virgins… That’s a bunch of sinner mess, right there. Nothin’ but sinner mess. 

Tondeleo: One thing that I have learnt about the rural Americans that I have gotten acquainted with is that their poverty and their distance from shops makes them very resourceful.

This is not an American trait per se, but it is a trait of people without resources the world over. A difference in America is that the rural Americans have access to the castoff items that are thrown away by others and sometimes those things are in fact worth repairing or using the bits from to make other things.

In the posts about the home made guitars that Doc has, you can read about how he made his own guitars from cast off bits from other guitars. He took them and put them together and assembled them on a plank, or in a box, and then set them thing up as a guitars.They are not pretty and definitely look home made, but they make noise and get the job done.

Buying guitar strings is another area that is a struggle for many rural Americans. Many of them live an hour or more from a music store, so there is the economic factor of being able to afford transport, along with the price of the strings. As a result, they have to learn to make their guitar strings last longer.

I have seen Doc take the strings off of his guitars and boil them, to get the dirt out of them, and then watch him run a little olive oil on them as he runs them between his fingers before restringing the guitar. He says this makes them play a little better and keeps  the rust off.

Doc: Yeah, Tondy, I always dip my finger and thumb in olive oil and then pull the strings between them before putting them back on. Then I wipe them off on a rag. Treating the strings makes them last a lot longer and makes the strings play easier.

People make all sorts of fuss about the old mountain musicians and old blues musicians, and they try to get that same kind of sound that they hear on them old records.

Well, first of all you are listenin’ to the music of POOR people. They ain’t had no fancy ‘quipment. They had old cheap guitars and cheap strings that was years old! They had to make things last.

These new guys can go out an’ pay a thousand dollars for a guitar and another thousand for a amp and put new stings on his guitar every month and then wonder why he don’t sound like the poor people whose music he likes! Well it ain’t gonna happen on a rich man’s guitar and amp!

Another thing to do to make your strings last is this: Instead of just pushing the strings through the hole in the tuning peg, you want to first wrap the string AROUND the tuning peg four or five times, and then push it through the hole and tighten it up.

You end up with the peg havin’ four or five turns of the string, then the part where the string goes through the hole in the peg, and then the rest of the turns where it is being tightened as you tune it. It makes your strings last at least twice as long.

It helps your guitar to stay in tune longer, and keeps the strings from breakin’ so easy. Strings is ‘spensive an’ if you live out here in the country, it takes you half a day to run up to Waldorf an’ get ‘em and then get home. Plus the gas costs more than the strings. We got to make our strings last longer out here.

Tondeleo: During the course of our discussion on how the rich people expect the poor to support them – and how for some reason many poor feel compelled to defend the rich, the topic turned to the TV preachers. I asked Doc if he ever sent money to the TV preachers. I know he and Marilyn and some of their friends go to church. I have never seen them watching any TV preachers, but I wondered if they sent money to them. Many of the American TV preachers promise that God will make you wealthy if you send them money. And many of the poorest of people do send them money. I have read that the richest ministries in America are supported primarily by the poor and the elderly. People who can least afford it. That is where this conversation begins.

“So, Doc, why is it that poor people feel compelled to send money to these obviously rich TV preachers? These TV preachers, both men and women boast about their wealth and their luxury cars, and their mansions and private jet planes. Yet, these things and that lifestyle came from the gifts of their donors, many of whom are poor and elderly. How is it that people give to them? I don’t get it.”

Doc: You’re right. You’re right, Tondy. But you gotta understand this. You ain’t never been poor. I ain’t never been nothing but poor.

When you’re poor, you know you can’t do nothing to ever have much money. Ain’t nobody want to pay a poor person more than minimum wage. They know you’re hurtin’ and they know you’ll take it. And they know that ain’t nobody else gonna pay you more than that, so you GOTTA take it.

So all you got left is two things.Either play the numbers [buy lottery tickets] or give to the TV preachers and hope that they is tellin’ the truth, that God’ll give you a hundredfold return. That means if I send them ten dollars, somehow God will let me get a hold of… of… of… uh.. ummm…

Doc reaches for a pencil and an envelope to add it up… 10 plus 10 plus 10 plus 10. I don’t want to wait for him to add it a hundred times.

Tondeleo: A hundredfold means you would get a hundred times ten dollars, Doc. That would be a thousand dollars for every ten dollars you send in.

Doc: Yeah, I was gettin' there. The TV preacher tell you the truth in one part. That is that if you plant a seed into good soil, it will grow and multiply. That is true, anyone knows that. If I plant a tomato seed and it grows, it will produce more than a hundred seeds from the tomatoes what grows on the plant. Maybe a thousand seeds. No argument there. That is the truth and you don’t even need to believe the Bible to know that.

But then they tell you that THEY is the good soil! That is like a rat tellin’ you if you plant your corn in good soil you will be eatin’ corn on the cob an’ then have a lot of seed left to plant more corn, which is true, but then that rat tells you that HE is the good soil!

If you give your corn to the rat, Tondy, it ain’t gonna multiply! You ain’t gonna have corn on the cob! All you gonna have is rat turds.That rat so’t want you to plant your seed in good soil, he wants you to plant it in him so he can eat it! If you give your seed to the rat, you ain’t getting’ nothin’ back but turds.

God don’t nowhere in the Bible tell you to give your money to rich folks. He says to give your money to poor folks and needy folks. But not all needy folks is good soil neither. He ain’t tell you to give your money to crackheads and drug dealers an’ folks that is doin’ wrong or folks what hates God.

He says to give to the poor folks what you know. An’ widows an’ orphans – what is kids who ain’t got they parent lookin’ out for ‘em. Their parent may be alive but maybe their daddy is in jail and they mama is a crack head. Somebody got to look out for those kids.

He tells you to look out for the immigrants too, Tondy. He says help them. He don’t tell you nowhere to hate the immigrants. 

My preacher down at the church says if you give to help a person who is needy and can’t help themselves, the Lord will bless you for it. The good book says that. He says that the person what gives to the poor lends to the Lord and the Lord will repay you. You got to give to poor folks and help out those what needs helping. I marked it in my Bible right here so I could find it again. Got a piece of paper stuck in it.

[Reading slowly and deliberately] “He that has pity upon the poor lends unto the LORD; and that which he has given the Lord will pay him back.” That is real clear. The good Lord wants us to give to the poor, not to the rich. And that is when God will bless you for helpin’ someone. When you give to the poor.

Tondeleo: And where is that in the Bible, Doc?

Doc: Let me find it again… that’s Proverbs chapter 19 and verse 17.

But God don’t bless you for givin’ to the rich. He said and I got it marked in my Bible… it’s right here. It is Proverbs chapter 22 and verse16. “He that oppresses the poor to increase his riches, and he that gives to the rich, shall certainly come to poverty.”

Now guess who that first part is about? It is about the rich people, including those rich preachers who take money from the poor so they can get richer. Those TV preachers tell the poor people that they will get a hundredfold return if the poor people send money to them.

But God says if you give to rich people, whether it is rich preachers or rich politicians, you’re definitely gonna stay poor.

You can’t be on TV every day unless you’re rich. It costs millions! And you can’t get to be a politician on any kind of level unless you’re rich. All them people runnin’ for President is multi-millionaires. Every one of them. And God says if you give them money, you’ll end up goin’ broke.

My mama use to send 10 dollars a month to her favorite tv preacher for more than 30 years. And she ain’t never got not even a one fold return, let alone no hundredfold return. That’s because she was givin’ to the rich. You ain’t supposed to give to the rich. You’re supposed to give to the poor. That’s what Jesus said. She shoulda been givin’ that money to help ohter folks that was havin’ money problems.

These TV preachers mostly is livin’ like kings on the money what poor folks send in. They is livin’ in mansions and flyin’ around in their jet airplanes. They ain’t givin’ money, they are spendin’ money on themselves. When is the last time you heard of a rich preacher or politician givin’ to the poor? I mean giving their own money to help the poor? It ain’t happenin’ Tondy.

If you’re givin’ to them, you’re not plantin’ your seed in good soil, you’re feedin’ a rat or a pig. If you feed your seed to a pig, you don’t get a return. Well, what you DO get ain’t nothin’ you want to eat.

An’ Jesus said don’t cast your pearls before swine. That means don’t give your money to pigs. He said they will turn on you trample you. After you helped them, they will not help you, and you will end up worse than if you gave them nothing.

If you read that Bible, it’ll keep you from sendin’ the money to the rich an’ it will get you to helpin’ the poor, no matter where they come from. That’s what me an’ Marilyn tries to do. Help people.

Tondeleo: Whilst talking with Doc about the Occupy movement and the world’s economy, we got on the topic of the poor and how they for some reason feel compelled to support the rich, and those who are making their millions off of poor people.

I was surprised at some of Doc’s opinions on this. Even after knowing him for years I tend to think of him and his friends as socially naïve and uninformed. And, even though they do tend to be uninformed and naïve in some things, they still are able to come up with some basic wisdom and clear thinking on a lot of the current issues.

Here are some excerpts from one of our conversations about this: 

Doc: OK, Tondy, here is what don’t make sense first of all. You got these rich politicians and the rich bankers and heads of the big companies who is all billionaires, an’ they also own the newspapers and TV and radio. They ain’t want to be taxed like the rest of us. So they tell us how we are communists if we ain’t want to pay more taxes than them.

Well, guess what? I ain’t no communist. But if I gotta pay 30% taxes on what little money I make, and then try to live on the rest, why shouldn’t  a billionaire pay the same thing and live on the rest? This is America where we is all supposed to be equal. Aint supposed to be nobody better than the rest.

And then you got all these old people an’ poor people what believes everything these billionaire vultures tells ‘em and they start sayin’ the same thing! That s jacked up, Tondy! Jacked up.

Like a hound dog goin’ around supportin’ blood ticks. Even my dog, Dale Junior will pull off a tick if he can. He is smarter than a lot of these people what is livin’ on social security and sayin’ we need to give the billionaires a tax break.

Them billionaires and their litle brothers the millionaires has been blessed. More blessed than we’ll ever be. They ought to count it as part of their thanks to the good Lord what blessed them to give to the poor and the old folks. I mean ain’t that why the Lord blesses a person for? So that person can help those in need? God ain’t blessed no one so they can hoard it for themselves. I ain’t that smart, but I can read the Bible.

I know that the Lord’ll bless them even more if they help the poor folks and the immigrants. But these folks hate immigrants! That ain’t right neither, Tondy. The Lord tells you to look out for the strangers and the aliens – not space aliens from outer space, but aliens and strangers is what they was called in Bible days. The Lord says be good to them an’ he will bless you.

But these folks says you should hate the aliens and immigrants an’ send them back where they came from. Well guess what? Most of these folks what is sayin’ it ain’t exactly American Indians! They all  came from immigrants themselves! Maybe they need to go back to where they came from too!

What is it all about? I can tell you. It is about the love of money and greed, like the Lord said. He said it was really bad when you love money more than you love people.