Edith Ethel Frazier, Bobert. That was her name.   She was a Frazier ere she married, but she and her husband were not kin unless you went way back. She was one of the Frazier's Bottom Fraziers.   You know, over there on the Kanawha where the road comes down off of Red House Hill by the mouth of Armor Creek?   Her husband, Claude O. Frazier, was one of the Poca River Fraziers. His granddaddy owned that big farm that used to be there at the bridge over Poca River where Doc Bailey Rd. ran into Poca River Road. His granddaddy and her granddaddy were either 4th cousins or 2nd cousins twice removed. Can't quite recall which. So weren't no problem with these two Fraziers marring.

Anyway, it was her that came up with the Wes Ginny slide rule. I'm not sure of the date, but it had to have been after tie wire and elastic were invented. Of course, alder branches have been around for a long time.   

I can show you her grave sometime, if you want. It is in the Frazier family cemetery (the Frazier's Bottom Fraziers, that is), right there at the very top of Red House Ridge. You know how, if you're comin' from the Poca River end of Red House Rd, just after you cross the ridge and start heading down for the Kanawha, there is that big old barn hard by the road? When I was a teenager, you could still make out the "Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco" on the side facing the road. Remember? Anyways, look straight up the hill from the barn as you drive past, and you can make out the fence around the cemetery, there at almost the very top of the ridge. My cousin Hilda tells me women still stop along the road and walk up through the pasture to the cemetery to leave little tokens on Edith Ethel's gravestone, though not as often as they once did.   Myself, I ain't been out that road since I was in my mid-twenties. Randall was drivin' and Tom, having had a little too much beer and acid, climbed out the rear window of the car, over the roof, and onto the hood. But that's a whole nuther story for a whole nuther time.

So, as I was about to say, Edith Ethel is more or less the sacred saint of the Secret and Sacred Order of the Ladies of the Hills and Hollers. Once a year, usually the day deer season opens, since all the men are gone then, we gather for our annual ceremony at some one's home, usually consisting of a combined Tupper Ware and Lingerie Party, followed by a male stripper.   I have heard that in tonier areas, like South Hills up in Charleston, they are more likely to have Mary Kaye and Pampered Chef, but that is an unconfirmed rumor. Almost always, after a few bottles of Chablis, (Pinot Grigio in South Hills), some one starts channeling Edith Ethel.   I thought it was only at these annual ceremonies that she spoke through one or more of her intermediaries.

That is why I was so surprised, and more than a little scared to realize she was sharing space in my brain last night. It was clear she had somehow got wind of this thread, and was wanting be to convey a message to you, Bobert.   "I want you to convey a message to that skinny-assed hillbilly of the male persuasion who started this thread. The one with the Wes Ginny slide rule who is using the slide rule figure out how womenz are wired" she just kept repeating over and over again.

I was afraid. Afraid for you, my dear friend, and I tried to push her out of my mind. I knew if I received the message I was honor bound to deliver it. I wrestled with her most of the night, but at last she prevailed. I am ashamed I did not trust her from the start. There was clearly nothing for you or I to fear.

What she said was, "Tell him to go figger."