In a Foxhole: The Exorcist Appetizer

Rwy'n gobeithio y byddwn ni'n gweithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio y byddwn ni'n gweithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio y byddwn ni'n gweithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio y byddwn ni'n gweithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio y byddwn ni'n gweithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio y byddwn ni'n gweithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio y byddwn ni'n gweithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio y byddwn ni'n gweithio' iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, ond rwy'n gobeithio'n fawr iawn, other community members. We're going to learn a lot about what happened behind closed doors, lots of closed doors. I started out by looking into archival information of all kinds, and there's so much that exists for the area because of the discovery of the Anacostia, because of the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, because of the tobacco farming and the coal mining, because of the railroad, because the community was the first African-American incorporated community in the United States. And all of those characteristics are significant because they're so unique and so concentrated in an unsuspecting little town. So my first field trip was to the Anacostia waterfront, which has been upgraded in the last decade, and revitalization attempts have been happening. When I went, there was a lot of construction going on. There was a lot of pedestrian and bike traffic and leisure activities happening. It was a welcoming community, although the grounds were a little intimidating because they had all the construction signage, and to be honest, it didn't look like I was entering a waterfront park. It looked like I was entering a staging area for a construction zone. I mean, it was just not visually user-friendly, and I wondered if I was in the right place and if I'd be able to turn around. You do have to wonder that in Prince George's County. You do. You have to know where you're going and have an exit plan. That's just the way it goes. Anyway, it was a lovely day. It was like a 70-degree day in February, and there were lots of people out. It was sunny. I took lots of pictures. I took a walk. I got pictures of the Anacostia River from both sides in bridge pictures, and I visited the dueling grounds, which are within eyesight of the trail that I was on, maybe a couple blocks away. It was less than a mile as a crow flies, and so I drove to the dueling grounds, and the dueling grounds were a place in the 1800s where mostly prominent politicians from the capital area would come to settle their manly disputes, and they would shoot each other. It was called the dueling grounds. It was also called the dark and bloody grounds and lots of other horrible names. It's been described in just grueling terms, and the irony is that the town is disparaged a lot more than the duelists are disparaged. It's often that they're tusked. What is the word? Tusked. That's what it is. They're tusked. But the fact that the community members would come to watch or would be observed in their cultural engagement, that was different from those of a dueling politician who was just coming across state lines because where they lived in the capital, it was illegal to have a duel. So our politicians who made these rules about it being illegal to have duels crossed over to state lines where it was legal to have duels and convenient and had their duels, and over 50 people were shot or over 50 duels were held, and I went to visit that place, and it was a playing field now owned by the Parks and Rec Department. It's just a manicured lawn. There's a giant tree in the middle of it. There's what appears to be some original remnants of foliage and underbrush, as I've been reading in descriptions from archival data, that the terrain that I was able to get captured on video is a bit of something similar to what was described in archival material. I actually took a couple trips down to the area, Cottage City, Colmar Manor, Bladensburg, and it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. I need to go back probably once a week at least, but what I'm finding is that there's so much material, I don't know where to go first. On top of the dueling grounds, I guess what I was planning to do is have some sort of chronological organization, which means that I ought not start with the dueling grounds because it's kind of the middle chronology, but that's where I started, so maybe I'll at least report on that. The next big topic that I've discovered is going to be important to cover, that I'm going to be researching heavily next, is the lobotomy trend of the 1940s and 50s and 60s. I did not know this. I don't know how this information was never as prominent as the information about the exorcist situation, but Walter Freeman was a psychiatrist, a famous instructor also. He worked out of GW University, and he also worked at an asylum that was run by the Seventh-day Adventist community and located in Cottage City, and this is where lobotomies were performed. This is where lobotomy experimentation occurred and where procedures were fine-tuned and where people had ice picks nailed through their eye sockets and jiggled in their brain. Severing connections is basically what happened. People were pissed, and it helped some people, and it destroyed some people, and ultimately was outlawed federally and in general. I think a lot of bad publicity came of it, rightfully so, because it was a barbaric thing to do, but not everybody feels that it was worthless. So it's interesting to hear both sides, but the archives at GW contain his artifacts and notes and stories and records and pictures, and so I'm going to do my next field trip down there, and it's apparently seven linear feet, I think, of information, and I will try and update people little by little, I think, as I make little discoveries. Ultimately, I want to put this together into a visual presentation also. But anyway, I will try and post more regularly. Thanks for listening.