Blue Ridge Parkway Story of the Origin of the word Hootenanny and The Word Man gets Published Again!

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The White Vase    Original 14"x10" Oil Painting   $295

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Spring Roses   Original 24"x 20" Oil Painting   $980

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Two of my favorite florals!

Blue Ridge Sunrise   Original Painting has been Sold

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The Story of Boojum and Hootin' Annie

Eagle Nest Mountain stands at the southern edge of the Balsam mountain range and was once home to the luxurious Eagle Nest Hotel. Guests at the hotel soon began to hear the story of a strange creature who lived in the area. The thing was not quite a man and not quite an animal — it stood about eight feet tall and every inch of its body was covered with shaggy grey hair, except for its human face. The creature was named Boojum, and he seemed to be harmless enough, but he did have two all-too human habits.

The first of these was the Boojum was greedy and he loved to hoard gems. Rubies and emeralds are found naturally throughout the mountains of North Carolina, and Boojum loved to hunt for these pretty, precious stones and hide them away in his own treasure hoards.  He would then bury them in one of the secret caves on the mountain

Boojum's second habit  was that he loved to look at pretty girls. Back in those days, a young woman who wanted to have a bath might head off into the woods to find a secluded pond at the base of a waterfall. There, safe from human eyes, she could strip down and bathe. A young woman enjoying herself in the water would often hear a rustle in the bushes and look up to see his hairy face peering down at her.

Now, most of these girls would quickly gather up their clothes and run off back home as soon as they saw him. But one young woman named Annie was braver than most, and one day when she was bathing in a stream deep in the balsam groves on Eagle Nest, she looked up and saw Boojum staring down at her. But Annie didn't run, in fact, she looked into Boojum's sorrowful eyes and saw that above all else he was just another lonely soul living on the mountain. Annie fell in love with those sad eyes, and she fell in love with Boojum, and she left her home and her family to go and live with Boojum deep in the mountain woods as his wife.

As much as Boojum loved Annie, and as much as Annie loved Boojum, Boojum still hung on to his love of jewels. On certain nights, he would leave his bride alone and go searching for jewels on the mountain. Annie, growing lonely, would go out in search of Boojum, and she developed a peculiar holler, something that sounded like a cross between a monkey and a hooting owl, that she would use to call out to Boojum. Boojum would use the same cry to call back to her, and eventually the two calls would come closer together until they came together on the hills.

Annie and Boojum calling to each other was often heard by guests at the Eagle Nest Hotel. Folklorist John Parris has said that Annie's owl-like holler was the source of the term "Hootenanny," which appeared in the language around the turn of the twentieth century and meant any kind of party or get-together. In the 1960's the term was expanded by pop artists to mean a gathering of folk musicians.

Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

The Word Man really is tearing up the Publishing Turf these days!  He was notified last night of four more accepted poems!

Editor Vanessa Eccles accepted four poems for the Fall Issue of Belle Rêve Literary Journal: A Southern Experience. That is scheduled for November 2014.

 

Poems are “Distances”, “Everything Is A Wager”, “Snow Frogs” and “Talking”.

 

The title of the magazine is from Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire. Belle Rêve is the name of the plantation home of Blanche & Stella.

 

 

Here is this magazine’s web page:

 

http://www.bellerevejournal.com/