Another page from my research on Robert Sparks Walker
1910 – 1917 Walker, Robert Sparks, Southern Fruit Grower Scrapbook, Archival Materials.
 
Either Walker or someone close to him was a meticulous keeper of scrapbooks. The Tennessee State Library and Archives holds the Southern Fruit Grower Scrapbook, a collection of correspondence Walker received between 1910 and 1917 as publisher and editor of said magazine. The Chattanooga Public Library has two scrapbooks of articles on the Brainerd Mission. Mary Bell Fisher mentions having examined “The Walker Scrapbooks,” in her Thesis for the Master of Arts Degree at Peabody College of Education. 
 
On October 13, 2019 the author examined the only copy of the Southern Fruit Grower Scrapbook in a restricted area at the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville, Tennessee. A guard provided the author with a key to a locker for storage since no pens, cameras, cell phones or extraneous items are permitted in the archival portion of the library. The author was permitted to bring in a mechanical pencil. The archivist provided a pair of white cotton gloves to wear while examining the document and loose-leaf paper for notes, one sheet at a time.
 
The scrapbook consists of correspondence Robert Sparks Walker received relevant to his role as editor and publisher of the Southern Fruit Grower magazine. The letters offered thanks for copies received as well as accolades stating how the magazine had benefited the recipients in business. A few included subscription renewals. Many from government agencies stated the value of the magazine for agriculture and horticulture in their respective states. Those from academic institutions stated its value for their students. Most were typed on letterhead stationery. A few were handwritten on stationery and some on lined paper.
 
Walker acquired 50% ownership of the magazine in 1900 and served as editor and publisher until he sold his interest in 1921. For further information on the years Walker spent editing Southern Fruit Grower, consult the early chapters of Robert Sparks Walker: The Unconventional life of an East Tennessee Naturalist by Alexandra Walker Clark.
 
A list of just a few of the correspondents whose letters are preserved in this scrapbook follows:
U. S. Department of Agriculture, C.B. Bracket, Pomologist
Luther Burbank
South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station
The Commonwealth of Virginia, State Crop Pest Commission
The University of Kentucky, Agricultural Experiment Station
The University of Tennessee, Experiment Station
Georgia Experiment Station
The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institution
 
 

For the Last Carolina Parakeet
As published in the literary magazine Number One, Gallatin, Tennessee.

I imagine the loneliness of your aviary
there at the Cincinnati Zoo where your
predecessor, the last Passenger Pigeon,
flew off to oblivion just a few years earlier.
One voice is not a choir.
 
You were part of a social species,
descending by the thousands,
on fields to consume cockleburs,
or orchards for luscious fruits.
One voice is not a choir.
 
Some labeled you a pest
and pursued you with shotguns.
Audubon noticed your species
in decline even in his bygone days.
One voice is not a choir.
 
No welcoming song of your fellows
greeted your waning days. Does your
skin adorn a museum, just as your
ancestors’ feathers adorned ladys’ hats?
On voice is not a choir.
 
It saddens me to think my adopted home
of Tennessee once knew the calls and colors
of a native parrot. One scientist titled
an article about your species “Forever Gone.”
No voices remain in the choir. 

Erosion: Essays of Undoing
Terry Tempest Williams
Reviewed by Ray Zimmerman

5 Star Review - The book is well written in a literary nonfiction style
Terry Tempest Williams is devoted to the preservation of public lands. She mourns the recent undoing of their protection. In the final section tells us that the time for anger is past, it is time for healing. She sees healing as restoration. She reveals a few bright spots of healing the landscape near the end of the book.

Family plays a part of this book, as is true for most of her books. She mourns the death of her brother Dan. He relationship with her father and deceased mother and grandmothers are also significant factors in the narrative. She speaks of her Mormon upbringing and her response to the Church's views and policies toward women, as well as non-white, and non-binary persons.

Bears Ears National Monument appears periodically in the book, but is ever present in the subtext. She documents efforts to preserve the area going back to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes (Served 1933 to 1946). Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall picked up the mission. President Obama finally preserved it as a National Monument in the final days of his administration. Donald Trump gutted the monument early in his administration. Williams mocks Trump's statement that he was giving the land back to the American people, stating that they are public lands and one cannot give us what is already ours.

AS Published in the literary journal Number One, Gallatin, TN
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Wall
Copyright Ray Zimmerman, 2019
​
1.Robert frost and his neighbor repair their stone wall boundary.
The neighbor declares the results good.
Frost contemplates a new poem.
 
2.  Migrating Red-winged Blackbirds impale themselves
on slats erected along the U.S – Mexico border.
The Department of Homeland Security
declares the nation safe from blackbirds.
 
3. Manchu invaders encounter the Great Wall of China;
proceed with their war of conquest.
 
4. Thanks to the popular band, Pink Floyd,
we are all just bricks in the wall.
 
5. President Ronald Reagan stands on Berlin Soil,
says, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
 
6. President Thomas Jefferson assures
the Baptist committee of Danbury, Connecticut
that they will be free to worship as they see fit
and not subject to regulation by the Calvinist majority.
He proclaims a wall of separation between church and state.
 
7.  Presidential candidate Donald Trump promises
to build a wall along the Mexican border;
fails to mention that construction began years ago.
 
8. Three Little Pigs build walls of straw, sticks, and brick.
Big Bad Wolf holds barbeque.
The third pig declines the invitation.
 
9. The Speaker of the House refuses to let the President
address the nation from the house chambers,
There must be a wall enforcing the separation of powers.
 
10. Jesus extols the value of building walls on rock foundations
advises against building on sand.
 
11. The descendants of Isaac gather at the Western Wall;
offer prayers and lamentations:
hope for the rebuilding of the Temple.
 
12. Followers of Mohammed gather within the walls
of the Dome of the Rock;
Pray for preservation of the mosque. 
 
13. Hacker interface penetrates firewalls at will,
takes down Fortune 500 web sites.