Newsy Post
Dear reader,
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to return to Substack. I had plans to post another longform essay at the end of June or early July, but those plans got wrecked when I was diagnosed with another blood clot in my left leg. For those of you who have been reading and supporting this newsletter for several years, you may know that I had one such episode two years ago. Doctors thought the first one was “provoked,” meaning that my sitting in the car for twelve hours by myself with limited range of motion likely caused the clot. This time they’re not so sure. I was on vacation at the beach with my extended family, and while I did plenty of relaxing I was active the whole time. Tests for anticoagulant disorders were negative. We’re all a little stumped.
Some think it might be my body’s response to having COVID. Several studies have demonstrated a risk for clotting in some patients infected with the virus. Who knows? Maybe that’s me. I’m otherwise healthy, and there aren’t too many other things it could be. The family was sick earlier in June. We didn’t test for COVID–what we came down with felt like having a common cold, and we’d never had a severe reaction to the virus–but it seems plausible that the virus caused it.
All this is to say that it’s been a disruptive and costly July. I’m very lucky to have a supportive family and to have brilliant doctors I can number among my friends. Thanks for hanging in there with me, and thanks, too, for your patience.
On to other news.
In early July I had a feature essay, “The Age of Shit,” published in Issue 14 of the Bitter Southerner magazine. The essay is about bird crap, plantation agriculture, and the rise of American agribusiness. I would tell you to go and buy a copy, but the magazine’s editor, Kyle Tibbs-Jones, announced last week that Issue 14 sold out in record time. I’m told there are still a few copies left at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, and a handful of other local, independent bookstores scattered around the country. If you don’t subscribe to BS, then you’ll have to wait till the essay goes online. I’ll post a link here when it does.
I’ve signed up to do some longform journalism for the Assembly. In August, I’ll be covering the congressional race in North Carolina’s 11th district, which is shaping up to be one of the most competitive and interesting races in the country. The Assembly does some fantastic reporting in North Carolina. If you don’t follow them already, perhaps you should.
I’ve also written a pair of essays I’ll be working to place this fall. But never fear, dear reader of the BFM. I’ll return here very soon.
Jack
PS I recently did some trenching on the farm, and I found this old piece of a plough in the dirt. On the bottom bar it is stamped with the words “FOR DIXIE.” After doing some snooping around on the internet, it appears to have been manufactured by the Starke Dixie Plow Works, a company founded in 1860 and based in Richmond, Virginia. Because it’s so small, I suspect it was meant to be pulled by a horse.
