What is your house?  I’m a dog so I think of our house as being our Den.  It’s a place that is safe and comfortable.  It smells right.  I have my favorite spot.  We canines like to lie next to one another and bask in one another’s energy.  Our children are born in our Dens.  We go in our Dens to escape the elements.  Our Dens are our comfort.

We don’t spend a lot of time building our Dens.  Mostly we find a small cave or indentation in a natural setting.  Sometimes we find a hollowed out tree.  Well now, I’m not talking about us dog-type canines – I’m more referring to our cousins the wolves.

We dogs make our Dens wherever we are.  Some of us are privileged enough to make our Dens in our peoples house.  Others of us have a dog house, or crawl under the house (a favorite place for having puppies), or maybe we get a safe place in the garage.  For many of us, our crate is our safe place, our den.

I guess you know where my Den is.  It is anywhere I want it to be.  So I have a few favorite spaces.  One is under my assistant’s computer desk.  The other is beside the couch under her feet.  The third is in the bed.  So you can maybe make your Den anywhere that you feel comfortable.

Now you humans go way out of your way to make your homes comfortable.  You all really excel in the use of conveniences.  Whereas you used to cook your food on a fire, you now have microwave ovens.  And they ain’t even a new convenience.

How many of you have plasma televisions?  How many of you want plasma TV?  I can’t even watch TV much because it’s in color and we canines don’t see much color.  Scientists speculate that we see ain’t totally colorblind.  We see a little of the reds and greens of the spectrum. 

Despite our inability to enjoy the full color spectrum, some dogs and cats really do seem to enjoy watching TV.  But it ain’t fer me.  But I hear it makes you all feel content and that is the important part. Our homes and dens are places where we feel comfortable, content, and happy.

But just the other day we had a fella visiting us who really riled up my assistant.  I wasn’t payin’ too much attention until I recognized that his here fella had just said somethin’ that made my assistant madder than a hornet.  I heard her raising her voice and sayin’ “Pile of sticks!  Pile of sticks!  What do you mean; my house is a pile of sticks!”  Then she went on this here tirade about how her house was begun in 1907 and was built by real people with the sweat of their brow with the materials they had available and how she could feel the spirits of the people who had lived here and contributed to the making of the Homestead where she now lived.  Man was she riled.

So the discussion continued for a while.  Seems this here gentleman had insinuated that she could bulldoze down her house because after all it was just a pile of sticks.  He seemed to feel most houses were just piles of sticks, not just hers.  He went on to say that he thought that some buildings had enough historical significance to preserve – such as those in Wilmington, Virginia.  But most houses were just piles of sticks.  Ours included.

So now I got to thinkin’ about this.  And believe me, things like history and value are not easy concepts for a dog to consider.

But I got to thinkin’ anyway.  This seemed to me to be really disrespectful of the people who settled this mountain.  Like, why would their history be any less significant than them folks who built Williamsburg?  Do you think it might be because they were poor compared to them other folks?  What makes one peoples’ history more important than another’s?

Seems like you humans have a rather nasty habit.  Those of you in power just ignore or even worse, belittle or oppress, the culture and history of those less fortunate.  So that people like the Cherokees and then later the Mountain Folk left over after the Trail of Tears were regarded as less than those in political power.  And to this day those of you from the dominant culture (a term used by sociologists to define the ruling culture) look down upon those who are “native” to the mountains.

Now don’t go tying’ to deny it cause we done heard a lot of you disrespecting the local culture.  But hey, you know, the local culture in power done been taking advantage of those less fortunate for a long time so it ain’t nothin’ new.

I know the reason behind all this.  It’s because you humans, just like us dogs, want to get all you can get when you can get it.  You all ain’t gonna quit eating until you is full.  Then when you is full, you just might step back and let the others eat.  But then some of you have the same things that us dogs share.  It is called resource guarding in dog training literature.

Resource guarding refers to not letting anyone else have anything cause you afraid to let someone have something that you ain't even using.  I wonder about people who have millions of dollars.  Like how many millions of dollars you gotta have before you let go of some of it.  Like ain’t it immoral or sumpin to pay more for a car than most people can pay for their house?

Think about it like this.  Who needs a $500 tax cut?  Someone who can buy their first washer and dryer with that $500 or someone who already has a washer and dryer and every other appliance?  So they buy a $500 cappuccino machine?  Things in your world just ain’t fair.  Then again, I guess they ain’t fair in the dog world neither.  Can’t get too upset waxing philosophic if you’re just a dog.

But let me return to that “pile of sticks” thing.  I bet most of you think your house is a home.  It reflects your hard work, your creativity, your sense of family and your safety.  To say it ain’t more than a pile of sticks just negates every human emotion that ever went into your home.

So it might rile you up to hear this fella say your house is a pile of sticks.  Now we gotta give this here fella a little slack.  He might defend himself and say that he meant that the actual structure of the house is a pile of sticks but that the home is more than a pile of sticks.

But that comment about Williamsburg being worth saving but our little farmhouse not being worth saving makes me mad. That just riles us up one way and down another. It riles us down to our eastern Ohio/Kentucky Coal Mining Town Nelsonville Roots.  What makes a culture worth saving?  Who decides what is valuable and what is not?   I think you all ought to realize that your history is worth saving. I would think anyone would want to respect and save their families history.  So how do you think my assistant felt being told her history weren’t worth saving?

One of the problems is that many folk only want to remember the good feeling history.  Still others think that only the history of the ruling class is worth documenting.

How many of you watched “The Gangs of New York”?  Well we learned a lot from that movie.  If you ain’t rented it yet, you should.  It will open your mind to another culture, a culture other than the South that was exploited during the Civil War.  But then isn't war just the ultimate exploitation of everyone except the money makers?

Oh I have gotten way too philosophical and mired up in human thought and emotion.  I’m going fishing and I’ll get back to you all later.  But if you don’t hear nothing else from this mangled discussion hear this: Be proud of Your Appalachian History.  Study it to see who you are and who you might be.  For those of you who ain’t from Appalachia, listen to the gospel songs, open your heart to our culture, we have a lot to share.

Your  Favorite Bulldog,

Elwood