Urban Poverty Law Center Takes a New Look

Friends,

Where has the time gone? In a tizzy here in Cedar Grove with the temperature below freezing daily for two and a half weeks. Chopping ice for the cows at the pond and watering the chickens twice daily has taken up all my time. Me and Junior decided to second pick our cotton field and we spent the last two weeks looking for a nice older model two row cotton picker to do the job. We got help from Kenneth Cox, a nice fellow who had the One Shot Duck Hunt on his momma's place over in Humboldt, found us a nice one owned by Jeff Hudson, who farms out in Central. It is about 40 miles from here.

The picker was reworked in 2001 by a fellow in Missoura who specializes in the older John Deere pickers. It is a model 9930 and he wanted $7500 for it but since the advent of larger pickers, the market has fallen out for the 2 row types and we got it for $6500. It sports a 135 horsepower turbocharged six cylinder diesel engine, and the basket holds a bale and a half of cotton. Me and Larry went over and picked it up last Wednesday. Larry drove it 40 miles home and I followed in my pickup truck. Top speed is 17 mph. It was a long trip. We have picked for about 16 hrs on the farm and have collected about 4 bales of cotton. Jason Luckey, the cotton farmer, did not leave as much cotton in the field as we thought. We think we will get about 8 to 10 more bales in the 80 acres we have left to pick. Jason came over yesterday to check the picker out and we could see he liked what he seen. Said he would probably buy it from us for a profit, that is if he could get his daddy to go for it. We are going to pick with them next year if they plant cotton on us again. A cotton picker is a beautiful thing.

I am not sure Jr and I will ever sell it. It is paid for and I like looking at it and soon it will be a novelty as all the other 9930's get sold to the cotton farmers overseas. We can drive it in the annual parade celebrating the Cedar Grove Hemp and Methamphetamine Festival, which acknowledges our rich Carroll County heritage of illegal substances, both production and use.

I am going to send out an add for a fund razer for Detroit, but the recent unpleasantness in Haiti has got me thinking they need our money more.

Last thought: Am I the only one who noticed the deep artic freeze over here corresponded with the Climate Summit in Denmark? God is still in charge!

Jack Maybolt, PhD

Cotton Farmer Emeritus, The Urban Poverty Law Center

"You ain't nobody unless you got a cotton picker. People with cotton pickers is folks!"

Mother Maybolt, 1926-2008

Urban Poverty Law Center New Year Notes

Friends,

A lot has happened here in Cedar Grove over the past two weeks. We lost one of our neighbors to a tragic car accident just down the road from us. Mrs. Blunderdoss's cat, Charlotte, had three kittens and one stillborn, and Ned Lightner lost his leg below the knee to diabetes complications.

Add the Christmas celebration and New Year's Day and we have had a terrible lot of things going on for such a small community. The celebration of Christ's birth gives all hope that we have not lived pious lives in vain and that each will be rewarded with a glorious afterlife filled with joy and happiness to be reunited with family members who passed this way before us.

Detroit dozer fund razer update: Charlie Savery, the Caterpillar salesman, said he would work with us on the purchase of the dozer and offered to sell us a lease back dozer for $30,000 less than a new one. This essentially gets us $30,000 closer to our dream. The machine did easy work at the landfill in Newbern Tn. Charlie said he would see to it that it came with a carton of those air fresheners you hang up that look like little evergreen trees. With the bad economy around here we have decided to go national for the bulk of our fund razing, and have hired a public relations firm out of Jackson TN to help us get this thing off the ground. Becky Sue Taylor's granddaughter, Shirley Findlayson, works for the firm as an executive secretary. She said they have handled some big accounts like Scooter Timble and the Timeless Singing Boatmen, which is a barbershop quartet, the Timeless Singing Boatmen, with Scooter accompanying them on the accordion. I saw them once at the Jackson Metropolitan Grand Ole Opry Center after eating with Mother at the Cracker Barrel. Scooter Timble was hot that night!

Not a dry eye in the house when they did that rendition of Swing Low Sweet Chariot!

We have had some terrible cold weather here of late. Down to 9 at night with highs of mid 20's. I had to get daddy's old down hunting jacket out of the attic and wear it to keep warm when I go over and feed the chickens. Blasted cold makes taking water out to the chickens a daily proposition! I find if I take a gallon of hot water and pour it on the ice in the bowl it melts the ice and they seem to enjoy drinking the warmer water. My 17 birds have dropped to 15 as another dropped dead over the holidays. Bobby Woodard, the local poultry expert, said it was probably a heart attack. He's seen it before. Let me tell you it does not make it any easier to loose one, those chickens were just like chickens to me. I can see I will have to buy some more chickens when the weather gets nicer. I like to get them at about 5 months and feed them up to about 9 months when they become mature enough to lay eggs. I like the eggs. Only got four eggs yesterday. I think the cold shuts the egg-maker off. I will have to ask Bobby about this next time I see him.

I don't know about you but I am grateful the holidays are over and we had no more trouble around here than we did. The two weeks from mid December to Jan 2, have historically proved tumultuous for my community and this past one was not an exception. I pray we and you are headed for normalcy in the year to come. Is it too much to expect, Global Normal Temperatures, World Peace, terrorists ridding their undergarments of explosives and renouncing their ways, honest politicians, beautiful women, smart children who are polite and do their homework, chickens with healthy hearts, lower taxes, honesty from our federal reserve bank, gold under a thousand dollars an ounce and $40 dollar a barrel oil.

Next I will tell you about Coxville's First Annual New Years Day One Shot Duck Hunt. I was privy to participate as Kenneth Cox, has a handicapped accessible duck blind down in the bottom. I will save the particulars for later. Suffice it to say everybody had a good time!

Jackson Delano Maybolt, PhD

President, Urban Poverty Law Center

When politicians are leaving in droves without being voted out it is time to count the silverware! Mother Maybolt 1925-2008

Urban Poetry Law Center

Friends,

Two Weak Absence

The Poem

By Jack D. Maybolt

Away in a manger no computer for to write

My mentor and hero his chest did get tight

Scaring us all and giving such a great fright

Praying each evening that he'd be all right

Hoping against hope that he would rush back

to the microphone which is golden and black

where he leads us to think our country is sacked

by the left and the right who is mostly whacked

The poetry is not poverty but this poem sucks

I am going to quit it and buy some new trucks

Jackson D Maybolt Poet Enematus

The Urban Poverty Law Center

Where we are into poverty, other peoples, that is.

"Never take a cat to a dog fight." Mother Maybolt 1922-2008