A TikTok Nighthawk

Vol. 140, February 18th, 2025 Published a day early online

The Original TikTok

Once upon a time, my great grandmother found an old French clock at a yard sale. Somehow, it ended up in my garage, her shaky hand immortalized in “improved” painted numbers on the face. It sat silently for years, until one night, with a raging fever and insomnia that Nyquil couldn’t dent, I decided to fix it. Maybe it’s how Poe felt writing The Raven. Maybe a clear head would have procrastinated.

My hands felt as jittery as Great Grandma’s, but son of a gun, it worked, ticking to life in the wee hours.

More years past, but the clock keeps ticking, continuing its run from 1896. Don’t make ‘em like they used to.

I hear it on my new shelf now, bookended by a volume on the universe and another on woodcarving. Another hangs in the next room, made in 1883, when German steel wasn’t something to dread and a teenage Scott Joplin grew serious about his piano studies.

They bring back the sound of a childhood clock. Tick tock, keeping watch through the long nights and sunny days, world wars and new eras of hope. They seem eternal, indoor lighthouses, almost alive with unblinking faces, comforting somehow, cozy on this rainy evening.

The original TikTok.

Happy Birthday, Pluto

Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto today, 1930. It would be “demoted” to dwarf planet status in 2006. (Lame!)

Carol’s Appalachian Word of the Week

Arsh (Irish). “I’m fixin a big ole pot of arsh taters for dinner.”

Not Headline News (but should be)

Dig this little family of loblolly pines. They look good in the snow, don’t they?

The news won’t report on ‘em, but I will. Take a look outside, you might see one.

Book(s) of the Week

Foxfire Series

Eliot Wiggington started this treasury of Appalachian lore as a class project in 1966. It’s now a famous series.

Quote of the Week

“Learn to read slow: all other graces will follow in their proper places.”

–William Walker

Write to Us!

The Nighthawk is a new old-fashioned way to connect, published weekly. You’re invited to write back, or just enjoy reading. Let’s have some fun! It’s a social paper! Send stories, etc to: PO Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588 or Joshurban@protonmail.com

Letters from Josh

(A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #221)

Appearing in the Altavista Journal, etc: The Snooze Button

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the show! Mother Nature must be sleeping in. Maybe she knows there’s a busy Spring ahead. Maybe she heard about the groundhog. The wintry mix has settled in like a blanket on a Sunday morning, and it seems she’s dozed off again.

My boots scrunched through the fresh powder yesterday as I roamed the fields and woods. A few deer left their prints, and a turkey, too. He didn’t bother with the persimmon tree. I checked. It’s empty. The possums must have finished off the shriveled orange fruit. It’s time for spring. Almost.

The cold hasn’t been that stern kind we had with the last storm. I stood by the forest edge, watching a solitary song sparrow watch me back. He bobbed under a half-fallen limb, and scratched in the leaves with a cheep or two.

Still, it’s chilly enough to turn the rain into crystal. The morning found even the barbed wire cased in ice, along with the reeds by the pond, and every twig on every tree. Now the snow crashes as I stomp through it, trying not to slide back down the hill.

This is more than the groundhog’s fault. Maybe I started spring cleaning too early. A few brush piles had to go in the backyard, so I borrowed the excavator from my folks last week. Those things are tricky, kind of like using chopsticks while walking on stilts. After a terrific roar and cloud of diesel fumes, I wrenched up: one stick. Then I dropped it. Phooey. (The next time you see someone using equipment, tip your hat to ‘em. The next time you see me using it, run.)

Finally, a burn pile stood ready, and the match struck. Woof. Then the fire went out. Double phooey.

The next day worked better (with only one minor incident of a spark and hair slightly on fire). The flames crackled in the warm February evening, the day before snowfall. The nearby pond brooded in a wintry silence, the frogs still asleep in the mud. A waxing moon hung in the deep blue east, mingling a silver light with the warm glow of the blaze. There’s something special about the February stillness.

I dusted my hands, surveying the clean(er) yard. “All ready for spring.” Maybe I jinxed it. Now the power’s out, but the view is nice. The mountain is frosted again.

I know the boys will be back out with their line trucks in a jiffy. So stay tough, and dig the last hurrah of Winter, with it’s silences and icy crackles, strange ice patterns and new constellations rising. We’re nearly at Spring.

Catch you on the flip side,

Josh

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