My friends - Today, in addition to an update on the possible 2006 JP genealogical conference update, I am sending along another of the little essays written by Dr. Gordon Wilson in his little book entitled, "Fidelity Folks". He was born and grew up in Fidelity, better known to us as New Concord, in Calloway County. He was a well known writer and storyteller and was head of the Department of English at Western Kentucky University for a number of years. The title of today's piece is 'Over the Hills & Far Away'. Moving now to an update on the possible 2006 JP conference that may be held in Paducah in the late July time frame based in Paducah, I have received 78 expressions of interest and desire to attend such a conference, which is moving closer to the minimum number of 100 that will be needed to proceed. January 10 has been set(but not necessarily in concrete) as the date by which the goal of 100 needs to be met, so that planning can begin immediately. I will be posting an announcement of this possible conference on several other regional lists that cover central KY and the KY counties just east of the Tennessee River, as I know that we have folks there who have family connections in the 1800's in JP counties. In addition, I may also send announcements to the Massac and Pope County, IL lists, given the fact that crossover traffic was so great between McCracken County and those two IL counties, especially Massac. I will continue to keep the lists posted on a daily basis concerning the progress on conference numbers. -B +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY -Dr. A. Gordon Wilson "Fidelity Folks" "In spite of the barriers at Fidelity, we sometimes went beyond them as a splurge, risking a fearful working of horseflesh. When I was a small boy, I went with Father on one of his calls across the state line in Tennessee, my first journey outside my native state. Though Tennessee was only four miles away, we had no business in that direction, that is, none of us but Father, who took in some sixty square miles in his practice. I was excited as we neared the line, for I expected it to be a bold one, as it was pictured in my geography book. I may have expected a line fence or, as sometimes occurred in our neighborhood, two line fences between farms where the owners could not agree. To my surprise, I did not know when we crossed the imaginary line, for the poor farms seemed the same, the same mud holes were duplicated in the road, the same stolid people greeted the doctor. But the thrill of having been out of the state made me feel big for days; I was a sort of Marco Polo, who had traveled far and seen much. When I was big enough to drive the family buggy, my older sister and I decided to spend a weekend with one of our cousins, who lived in a Tennessee village all of twelve miles from our house. We stopped nearly everybody we met after we got out of our own neighborhood and carefully asked the way, receiving as many answers as there were people. In those days there were no markers on any road, big or little; you had to depend on what you could learn from people along the way. We finally arrived at our destination, elated at being bright enough to interpret all the directions we had received. While at the foreign village we visited a brick works; attended church and Sunday School in the strange church, where I saw my first pair of pressed trousers; asked innumerable questions about the odd manners of the people so far away and in another state; and came away feeling that it was queer how people who did not live at Fidelity had some likable characteristics. I determined then and there that I would grow up to be a rich man so I could travel even farther and see the big world. About once every two years I went with Mother to the west side of the county to visit the relatives on both sides of the house. Usually we had a hard time getting Mother to leave home, for she hated to be away enjoying herself when Father could have no vacation. Doctors did not have vacations then; neither did sickness. We hitched up the old family nag to the roomy old buggy, and away we went for four or five days, our clothes packed in the telescope. We were received royally wherever we went, and we should have been, for all the rest of the time we entertained every weekend some of the numerous Wilsons and Robertsons and their in-laws. I was put through my paces as a reader and singer of ballads, we ate enormous quantities of good plain food, and then we turned back to Fidelity and its humdrum life, away back in the hills. Ulysses, you remember, returned to Ithaca after his marvelous adventures in the Trojan War. Now "up the creek" was not so far, but a journey in that direction seemed an adventure to us all. The slightly different neighborhood up Beechy Fork and Blood River had its own ways of doing things; some of the ladies could cook things that tasted vastly better than our customary fare; family relics may not have been any better, but they seemed finer, up the creek. And some of our young bucks, including two of my brothers, went courting up the creek and married there, bringing their wives back to Fidelity and Beechy Fork. When the services up the creek at some church seemed particularly attractive, we would organize a party and go in a wagon, with our own private dinner on the ground. Church, as I have said, was our one chance of going somewhere, not because of our religious nature but because of our desire to go "over the hills and far away." When you consider that in winter the high-wheeled buggies of the time mired to the hub out in the flatwoods on the only road between Fidelity and the county seat[Murray], you can see why we did not make many long journeys in that direction. On two occasions I mired my mule down in the public road, not far from Sulphur Springs Church at that. We called such places quick­sand, but they were really just plain clay, the crawfishy kind of the bottoms or the red fire clay of the hills. In the many years since Father died, I have often thought of the bravery that he had to show by going everywhere on those trails and roads in all sorts of weather. We all think that his hard life ended when it did because of the strain on him; how he lasted forty-four years as a country doctor is still a puzzle to us who knew and loved him. Mud could not daunt him and his old yellow horse; not even the three-foot snow of 1886 kept him from going to the limits of his big practice area. What was for us younger people a pleasure jaunt in summer had to be for him an area to be covered to reach those in distress." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++