Champ Ferguson

At the end of the Civil War there was a general amnesty for those who took an oath of loyalty. However, there were two people for which this did not apply . . . the commander of the infamous Andersonville prison camp and Champ Ferguson. After the war, Ferguson was tried for 53 murders (he admitted to personally killing over 100). He was not a man you would want to cross paths with. Ferguson was sort of akin to the Anton Chigurh character in No Country For Old Men, in that he was a psychopath with an odd sense of honor. This marker is located in Albany, Ky. Ferguson was born just a few miles from here.

November Round-Up

November has been a very busy month for me. I want to inform you about Super Saturdays Forest Fun which just ended last week, and I am still thinking about trees. I made several things: a bird's nest, a squirrel footprint in plaster, tree slime, and recycled paper.

Thursday night I went to the Cub Scouts' telescope viewing at WKU. At first before we went to the roof other Cub Scouts thought there was a ghost in the dean's office. When we went to the fourth floor, we had to climb scary stairs which looked unstable but actually were stable, which led us to the roof.

When we were on the roof we saw the moon: it looked orange. When you look at the moon or sunset close to the horizon it can look orange or red because you're looking through more dust in the atmosphere. First we looked at Jupiter and three of its moons through a refracting telescope. Then we looked through the big telescope which was a reflector. We saw Jupiter and its moons then the Andromeda galaxy which is a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way.

On Friday we went to the Nashville zoo for one of its homeschool events. This one was about animal wrappings like: fur, scales, skin, exoskeletons, and feathers. When we went to see the lorikeets, they were pleased to see us. They chewed my sweater, combed my hair with their beaks, and untied my shoes.

We went to the Frist and saw exhibits about "Thomas Hart Benton in Story and Song" and "Georgia O'Keefe and Her Times." Most of the Thomas Hart Benton artwork was taken from his illustrations of Mark Twain stories and pictures of songs like "Frankie and Johnny." Then we went to Artquest where I made a watercolor painting of a train which I called "Train of the Imagination." And I worked on some animations. Several had turkeys being run over, and dinosaurs coming out of the sky over temples. The first one I did was funny because dinosaurs were all around the screen and a cow came and the dinosaurs all ran away.

On the way home we stopped at Cracker Barrel in Franklin and met Kenny Perry and shook his hand. He's one of the top golfers in the world.

We went to the Frazier Museum in Louisville Saturday and saw an interpretation of John Wilkes Booth, his sister, and other people like Major Rathbone and Boston Corbett. After that we went to a play of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow with one tall person who made a great Ichabod Crane. In front of the interpretive stage I saw a model of the USS Louisville which was new to the Frazier.

I'm heading to Wartburg, Tennessee (isn't that a funny name?) for Thanksgiving and will report back afterwards.

Dudeboy has had his photograph taken with 4 or 5 Lincolns. So, here he is posed with John Wilkes Booth and his sister Asia.

Dudeboy with Ichabod Crane.

Titanic Exhibit

On Thursday two weeks ago, we went to the Louisville Science Center to see an artifact exhibit on the Titanic. There were plates from a cupboard that had rotted away in the ocean. Then we saw perfume bottles which you could still smell the perfume. You could see egg cups that did not break.

They also had recreations of third class rooms and an iceberg which was made of real ice! A museum guide told stories about people on the Titanic. John Jacob Astor IV was the richest passenger on the voyage. He let the dogs out of their kennels so that they could survive. It was a great exhibit!

Halloween '09

Sir Dudeboy returns from the Crusades with his spoils of victory.