Is this a headline from the 1930s?
NO, this is 2009 America. A census worker, walking in the hills of the Daniel Boone forest in KY, was murdered by hanging, and the word, “FED” scrawled across his chest somehow. The details are not yet released.
The man was in his mid-50s, white, and walking around trying to reach rural people in the hills of Kentucky, to fill out their census forms. You know, help the govt. have a more accurate count of who lives where.
They think maybe he walked onto a meth lab, or something to do w/ drugs. 1920s they might have had an illegal still and making alcohol. Today, it’s meth. And people on meth are MEAN and totally CRAZY. I hate what drugs do to people – especially ones like METH.
But something about the death by hanging in a forest in a southern state, just turns my stomach. Too much history of violence and hangings in this part of the country.
This brings a whole new understanding to talking about the census in class. I was at a local fair and stopped at a booth hosted by the US census. They were handing out free forms and encouraging people to fill it out when it comes in the mail. Turns out, South Carolina is at the bottom of the list for people who actually send it back in, and this hurts the SC economy. Less accurate info., less $$ from the US govt.
And I wonder, is this what I’m seeing from my great-grandfather, when he told lies to the census takers who came to his door, regarding his parents’ origins? One year he said both his parents were born in England. Another census he says one in Germany, one in England. He gives his exact birthdate and the state of Ohio. I have no idea who his parents are or when they were born. Was he just making something up, off the top of his head, because he thought it wasn’t the government’s business where his parents were born? WHO KNOWS. Makes it dang hard to trace family history. Too many James Agnews out there. It’s one of the more common names in the Agnew line. All I can bank on is that one James Agnew was born on his exact birthdate in some county of Ohio.
I do know there is more distrust of the govt. in the south than there is in the north. Americans in general don’t trust their government. But southernors have a tradition of being “rebels” and against the national government, and they are proud of that identity. I am just very sad for this man who was murdered for no reason by some ignorant idiot or crackhead. I can’t imagine his last moments, and would like to think we are beyond such senseless violence. But we are not.
Doctor Grandma 
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