Give Me Liberty (And Give Me Stars)

A Patrick Henry Nighthawk

Vol. 150, April 29th, 2025 Published a day early online

Give Me Liberty

And Give Me Stars: Red Hill Cosmonauts

An empty coal train rolled west with a clatter and a clang on the old Virginian mainline, like it had since 1907. Good thing the old man wasn’t alive when the railroad cut through his back yard.

Patrick Henry had been dead for a good century before they built the line by historic Red Hill. I walked up with a whoop. “Trains and stars–does it get any better?”

As the sun sank low, I set up the telescope next to some pals with theirs, and the stargazing at the old Henry museum commenced. Spring is galaxy season. Summer and winter blaze with the light (and obscuring stardust) of the Milky Way, but this season affords us a view away from the stellar bustle as we peer into intergalactic space. I piloted the scope towards Leo, picking up dozens of tiny blurs of light in the eyepiece. My grandma was born the year they realized those smudges weren’t part of our own galaxy, but new ones, far away. We had a “big bang of understanding”: instead of the universe being one galaxy, it’s possibly a trillion of them (and all the space between).

On a breezy evening at Patrick Henry’s Red Hill, I looked at a few. They sure are beautiful.

Setting up at Patrick Henry’s Red Hill. Photo courtesy of Kim Kenny.

Carol’s Appalachian Word of the Week

Oncet (once): “ I done tole you oncet to stand still. Don’t make me tell you again!”

Happy Birthday, Duke Ellington

B.1899 in Washington, DC, this founding father of jazz went pro at age 17. We’re so grateful for him.

Song of the Week: “Take The A Train”

Songwriter Billy Strayhorn was inspired first line of Duke Ellington’s directions for an NYC visit: Take the A train.

Quotes for the Soul

“Spring in the world! And all things are made new!”

–Richard Hovey

The First Rose of the New Porch

Transplanted with the help of buddies at Guggenheimer Lynchburg, the rose is gracing spring. Anyone have gardening hints? Let me know!

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. #230)

Appearing in the Altavista Journal, etc: Field Notes

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the show! I forget sometimes. But the buttercups are optimists, and help me out. They turned a thousand shiny faces skyward this morning, never minding the lawn mower. The cutting of two days ago didn’t seem to dent the crop. I stopped, mid-stride, and looked at them. Yellow spangled the green grass. Hope and buttercups spring eternal.

The news and the TV and the politics and the battles to fight and views to form spin me up. The glare of screens, the hunched check-my-phone-again posture, and the cares of the world make my feet leave the earth. Before I know it, it’s like a strange dream, floating ten thousand feet in the sky, hurling opinions down on the people. A friend usually acts the alarm clock, waking me to reality. “What are you saying, man?”

So I like to take walks. Then I remember the ground. And stay planted for a bit. You should have seen it this morning. The path wound through the growing hay, along the fence, down the hill. All the birds in the world seemed to gather in the trees and the fields. A wild turkey watched me back. That migrating Louisiana water-thrush sang again, a ghost by the creek. Ten minutes of looking last week couldn’t find him. But today, the slightest flash of white feathers gave him away. He sang a sad sweet spring song, something about crawfish, being free, and needing to move on tomorrow. (Lynyrd Skynyrd should raise an eyebrow.)

The leaves are mostly out with a misty green, but a blue jay found a bare sycamore branch. He kept the neighborhood watch as the crows chased a red-tailed hawk away. “And stay out!” But she won’t, and they’ll yell again tomorrow. I crunched along through the fescue, down to the culvert.

The stream worked the bank busily, chipping away in the morning. I watched it, working harder than me, and looked for The Point: something worldly, a fable to pull out of the water. It wasn’t there.

When I was a teenager, I helped save one woodlot from destruction (and lost all the other fights). The line was to put a price tag on what trees and birds and minnows brought to the economy. It worked, but sounds thin even now.

Points and reasons and money are all human things, why I look at my phone, or watch TV. I get glued to it again, hunch over, and forget where I am. The ground floats away, the trouble starts–because I forget. It would be nice to have a bottle of mountain air in an emergency case, like a fire extinguisher. IN CASE OF ARGUEMENT, BREAK GLASS.

I wandered back up the hill, picked some mint, and went home for fresh tea, feet planted. The morning had reminded me.

So take a look out the window or duck outside, and stay one step ahead of me. The TV will wait. Don’t forget.

Catch you on the flip side,

Josh