NPR did a piece called "This I Believe" a few years back. Listeners were invited to recite their core beliefs about anything they chose; love, life, children, work, recovery, and the like. The encapsulations were recorded for all of posterity. I remember posting my own account, which dealt with my recovery, as they say, from the ravages of drugs and alcohol. I wrote that "I believe that there was hope in the passing air of a free fall." I was wrong. There isn't.
Anyway, selected entries were broadcast by NPR. I had heard a range of "beliefs" during the programmings. All were positive and full of "hope" of some kind of another. However, Newt Gingrich was invited to recite his core feelings. I was startled to hear his opening statement: "I believe the world is a dangerous place." Newt, who is dangerous in and of himself, then expounded well upon his radical thesis. It got my attention. It was the truth. From the God-damnedest people of all we oftentimes hear the truth. I've learned this the hard way.
April 6 is the anniversary of the Lillelid murders.
The world is a very dangerous place indeed. Apparently Vidar Lillelid either did not know this, consciously chose to ignore it, or, more likely, had fallen under the influence of a very recent indoctrination from the Jehovah's Witness Church. Vidar and his wife, Delfina, and their two children Tabatha and Peter, were en route from a Jehovah's Witness convention in upper east Tennessee when they opted to stop at the rest area, accessible from the southbound lane of Interstate 81, near Exit 36.
Vidar was inebriated with the dogma that had been broadcast to and absorbed by the sheepish congregants at the Jehoviah Witness convention. So, when he saw a group of teenagers, who appeared "lost" in their Gothic appearances and sullen countenances, he foolishly opted to "witness to them," and in so doing put his family in mortal danger. He ignored the safety of his family by approaching six strangers who appeared, as Newt Gingrich would agree, to be "dangerous." His sense of judgment had been impaired through the dangerous amalgam created when the weak minded, sheepish congregants are drawn into the vortex of a powerful cult, such as Jehoviah's Witness.
These possible converts ended up kidnapping Vidar Lillelid and his family in order to steal their van so they could continue on their ill-conceived exodus from Appalachia to Mexico.
The six youths fled from eastern Kentucky, where they had been indoctrinated with fatuous Biblical chapter and verse from time immemorial. Which was, in fact, the enabling force-field behind their flight from Appalachian Ennui.
Little blond Tabitha was shot behind the ear. Peter was shot in the face. Delfina was shot multiple times after witnessing the murders of her husband and daughter, and assassination attempt of her baby boy, and then run over with an automobile.
This may seem sexist, even misogynistic, but I hold firm to the belief that the man is primarily responsible for the safety of his family. Vidar Lillelid failed in his duty to protect his family. His sense of discretion had been fatally retarded by the cult of religious fanaticism at a coalition of Jehovah's Witness followers. "The world is a dangerous place." It is indeed.
This is Appalachian American Ennui.
