Sherry Chandler

Photo from David Taylor’s tribute page.

Ramar of the Jungle was a half-hour television adventure, starring Jon Hall and Ray Montgomery, that ran for 52 episodes in 1953 and 1954. It was set in Africa and India. IMDb commenters have written some nice reviews of the series. It was entirely too Rudyard Kipling but I was only nine years old. What did I know about the White Man’s Burden and the evils of colonialism? Although it was filmed in Hollywood, it seemed exotic and I loved the exotic. None of that urbanite Nancy Drew for me. I read Tarzan of the Apes and Zane Grey westerns.

I think this is probably Geronimo, certainly not Tecumseh.

Tecumseh (Jay Silverheels) vies with Stephen Ruddle (Jon Hall) for the love of Laura (Christine Larson) in the 1952 film Brave Warrior. The triangle is resolved at the Battle of Tippecanoe. I think we may safely conclude that this movie, which nets 4.3 stars on the IMDb, has little connection to reality but it might be of interest to watch, just to hear Jay Silverheels say more than “unh.” The NYTimes says the role is “well-played.” It might be fun, too, to see Michael Ansara as Tecumseh’s villainous brother, The Prophet. I loved Jon Hall as Ramar of the Jungle.

The sons of Isaac Ruddle who assimilated with the Shawnee after the fall of Ruddles Station were Stephen, who was 12 at the time, and Abraham, who was 6. Stephen “returned to civilization” and became a minister and a missionary to the native people. Abraham appears to have lived his life with divided loyalty. It’s hard to gauge the truth of some of these accounts as they are somewhat jingoistic.

[Abraham] was an adept in the use of a tomahawk, though his white blood restrained him from its more barbarous uses.

Both brothers were reputed to be tight with Tecumseh.

After the Revolutionary War, Isaac Ruddle was able to overcome his reputation as a surrender monkey. The decision to surrender had rankled some of his cohort. Ruddle returned to Kentucky and established a mill town a few miles upstream from the station he lost to Captain Henry Byrd and the Shawnee. Nestled in a valley at the confluence of Stoner and Hinkston Creeks, Ruddles Mills is still going, though in reduced circumstances. Other settlers didn’t fare so well. Some 200 were held at Chilicothe for 15 years. Two of Ruddle’s sons were adopted by the Shawnee and took native wives.

Sweet gum buds with view of Ruddles Mill Road.

Ruddles Station, a fortified settlement on the South Fork of the Licking River near the Bourbon/Harrison County line, was established in 1775 as Hinkston’s Station, by John Hinkston who has left his name on Hinkston Creek. Hinkston traversed a game trail from Blue Licks to establish this settlement with help from the likes of Simon Kenton. Hinkston abandoned the station, and it was re-established in 1779 by Isaac Ruddle. Ruddles Station was surrendered to the British and Indians in 1780 under conditions of considerable animosity. Surviving settlers were marched to Detroit and held for the duration of the Revolutionary War.

The lake is receding, the rain has stopped, though skies remain gray. And the gray stray stands its ground, much to the chagrin of our Black Bert. Bertie, who spent a winter under the house with Ursula the raccoon before he convinced us he was our cat, isn’t about to welcome another waif. I can’t get a good look at the other guy, but Bert has spent the winter nursing abscessed face wounds. He’s bleeding again this morning. Alas, his forays to protect the homestead aren’t moving the big tabby who likes the easy food at the raccoon feeding station.

Twigs bend, branches break. I don’t remember seeing a robin in the trees’ topmost canopy. Or in high flight. They stick close to the ground. I wonder how they migrate south. I guess it can be done one short hop at a time. They seemed to enjoy yesterday’s downpour. I watched them splashing around in the shallow pond that once was our yard. You can see water drops on the window. We are in a state of “moderate flooding.” Stoner Creek is at 23.5 feet, the height of me above its flood stage. Much of Paris has become a lake.

Winter-weary eyes love these banks of forsythia that bloom so abundantly yellow after months of gray on brown. We didn’t plant this forsythia. I suppose it was the gift of a passing bird or critter, though the gardening books say this deciduous shrub is propagated by stem cuttings and such activity doesn’t seem to suit the purposes of any raccoon or jaybird I ever saw. Nor have we pruned it, the first blooming stems having appeared in a sort of wilderness area beside a tipsy old outbuilding. So, in about five years, this mass has grown from one spontaneously-generated twig.

Out in the fresh air, away from the basement’s blue electronic glow, spring progresses apace. Although we are under flood watch again and the wind blows easterly with highs in the mid fifties, still we have achieved forsythia and daffodils. Flowering pears are busting out all over. Robins and blackbirds have replaced sparrows under the feeders, and we’ve stopped putting out suet. Blackbirds are big and greedy. Goldfinches are molting into their summer colors. Nature, having lost its early purple, has turned all green and gold. The slant of buttery sun on spring grass is a balm to winter-weary eyes.

By 1903, 40,000 poor whites had been disenfranchised in Alabama. By 1941, about 600,000 whites and 500,000 African Americans had lost the right to vote, mostly as a result of poll taxes. The choice of the name “Redeemers” was a cynical ploy to conflate religiosity with racism and exploitation. The disenfranchising of poor whites was deliberate as was the move to alienate whites from blacks. If you could convince a man that his white skin made him better than his brown neighbor, then you could control that white man. It isn’t race, it’s class. We still haven’t figured that out.