Smokey Mountain Breakdown

I haven't done any embedding into the blog before, since it takes so long for me to upload the blog with video. Anyway, I finally found something I couldn't resist. Jimmy is on You Tube! Handling serpents!

Enjoy--I also found their web site. It doesn't come up on the first page of google, but I'm going to link to it and see if we can get their ranking up a bit.

The Edwina Church of God in Jesus' Name

So, once again, I've missed a program that I was supposed to watch. I was wondering where all the hits for Pastor Jimmy and Popcorn Sutton were coming from. And why a production company out of the Midwest was caching the entire blog.

But a new reader filled me in.

This past Sunday the History Channel aired "Hillbilly The Real Story".

The two-hour special, hosted by celebrity Billy Ray Cyrus, brings these mythic people to life through stories that span 300 years. Outcast immigrants, war heroes, isolated backwoodsmen, hard working miners, fast moving moon shiners, religious warriors, musicians and statesmen make up the rugged cast of characters.

I assume this is the program that they were filming all day during Pastor Jimmy's homecoming celebration. Popcorn Sutton is evidently in it. Hopefully my mug will not be getting in any shots, but it would be nice if they got Friend Scott singing.

But not to worry...they are re-airing it tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. and at 2:00pm.

I've heard some mixed reviews about whether or not they got it "right" or not.... but will reserve comment until I've actually seen it. Not sure about the use of his Achey-Brakey-ness for a narrator. I guess Wilford Brimley was booked.

(All works shown are in the Archives of the Edwina Church of God in Jesus' Name and are presented here by express permission of the artist. All rights reserved.)

I'm really excited to present to you a taste of Pastor Morrow's artwork today for "Happy Sunday". I know when I first saw his paintings that I was completely blown away by them. I've long been a fan of outsider art. Jimmy's work is some of the most exciting that I've seen.

He works on a relatively small scale for most of his work. He has 600 paintings kept in loose leaf notebooks in the Church Archives. Some are historical in nature, given Jimmy's keen interest in history, so there are secular works. But for the most part they deal with the subject closest to his heart, The Pentecostal Church Serpent Handlers and The Signs Followers.

I asked Pastor Morrow if there was a reason that he did 600 of the paintings. I think I was perhaps hoping there was some story like Howard Finster's about the blob of paint speaking to him and saying, "Make Sacred Art!"

But Jimmy just shrugged and said, "No, my arms sort of started to cramp up and I don't like to get too involved with anything that takes me away from the Gospel."

I do think his art is very important. I hope you will see what I see in it. The passion of his convictions and his faith. And the beauty and sweetness that is the Pentecostal Church Serpent Handlers.

















If you would like to view the entire collection you will have to make the pilgrimage to the church to do so. I'd suggest writing before you come.

The address of the church is:

The storms have been crashing across the mountain on and off today and I haven't been up to much. I walked up to the goat shelter to refill the water and feed the goats during a rare break in the storms. Not much in the way of rain, but lots of rumblings and rushing to yank the the phone cables out of the modem.

Friend Scott relayed a rumor to me that they were getting ready to put new phone lines in. I'll believe it when I see it. It may be much like the now stale 5 year old rumor of proposed DSL. In the meantime...the phones keep exploding.

In other Friend Scott news, he was hanging out his laundry at the pink house in the holler and was stung by a wasp. Normally this would not be interesting at all. But the pink house in the holler is visible to no one because of its secluded location, so Friend Scott often will dash outside completely nekkid to do chores like hanging laundry. He was doing this when the wasp landed on his nether regions. Unfortunately, he made the situation...and pain... much worse by energetically swatting said nether regions with great force and ended up moaning on the grass in the fetal position. He's okay. It was, as usual, perhaps more than I wanted to know.

My netflix movies arrived and I curled up on the couch for my once weekly anime otaku-rama. I've just started D.N.Angel. The dogs go crazy and I see that someone is coming up the driveway.

It's Pastor Jimmy come a callin'! I was really happy to see him and Pam. They are two of my favorite people! I meant to make it to church this past weekend but just didn't seem to make it. I feel a bit guilty since I was in the middle of my book reading orgy with the new Harry Potter book and that is certainly not a good excuse.

He and Pam were out hunting for serpents, but weren't having any luck. So they decided to stop by and see me.

We had a really nice visit and he enjoyed seeing all of my stuff. He really liked my Peruvian grave dolls and is going to make some like them. We compared the versions of stories that we both knew. He asked me about the Green boy who used to live here, way back when, who shot Jimmy's great grandmother. I told him the version I knew and that the family had to leave the area after it happened. It was a really sad story. The boy was only 11, which was much younger than I thought he was.

When they left Jimmy told me he was calling me his "cousin".

I consider that to be a huge honor. I'd be very proud to be Pastor Jimmy's cousin.