{"id":2479,"date":"2018-01-13T21:18:55","date_gmt":"2018-01-13T21:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/?p=2479"},"modified":"2018-01-17T01:36:58","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T01:36:58","slug":"music-and-old-time-morals-in-swamp-east-missouri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/?p=2479","title":{"rendered":"Music and Social Mores in Swamp-east Missouri"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eighteenth\u00a0in a Series<\/em><\/p>\n

By Matt Chaney, for ChaneysBlog.com<\/p>\n

Posted Saturday, January 13, 2018<\/p>\n

Copyright\u00a0\u00a92018 for historical arrangement by Matthew L. Chaney<\/p>\n

Flat, soggy southeastern Missouri was a reputed no-man\u2019s-land in 1860, with scant population across 4,000 square miles: \u201cFinancially a dead country,\u201d described W.B. Wood of Sikeston settlement, west of the Mississippi River.<\/p>\n

The Missouri delta, of little elevation and comprised largely of the state\u2019s Bootheel corner, stood as \u201ctangled wildwood whose grounds seldom or never saw the light, being covered in summer with the growth peculiar to swamps, and in winter with water from 6-inches to 6-feet deep,\u201d Wood wrote. Quinine with coffee or food was the daily dose to prevent malaria in this region, \u201cone of the most unhealthy climates in the United States\u2026 with many physical difficulties to meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurely no country could have been much worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

But settlers came, nonetheless, struggling mightily to clear forests for the rich alluvium underneath, sediments washed-in from the continent over time. American \u201cSwamp-east Missouri\u201d developed slowly for habitation and commerce. Modest farms and communities congregated along higher points of sand ridges arcing north-south through the plain.<\/p>\n

Sikeston occupied Big Ridge, sandy bank of legend spanning a few miles wide, a hundred long in southeast Missouri, standing perhaps 20 feet above water in driest conditions. The fertile uplift carried south from Cape Girardeau through Scott and New Madrid counties, to the Mississippi River, then in broken segments through Pemiscot County into Arkansas.<\/p>\n

Big Ridge had been traversed for thousands of years, by beings running, walking, crawling, slithering.\u00a0 Wildlife forged trails and humans followed, bringing their wheeled contraptions. In 1541 explorer Hernando De Soto followed the sand bridge and Spaniards later named its trace path \u201cEl Camino Real.\u201d Ultimately, this \u201cKing\u2019s Highway\u201d became delta roadbed for U.S. Highway 61 through southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas.<\/p>\n

Railroad tracks pushed into the great delta jungle at outset of the Civil War. The line from Bird\u2019s Point, Mo., river landing opposite Cairo, Ill., was laid 12 miles westward to Charleston settlement then 14 more to Sikeston. Cairo was river-and-rail hub of the American West, at mouth of the Ohio, and transfer steamers ferried train cars across the Mississippi to and from Bird\u2019s Point.<\/p>\n

By 1880 Charleston and Sikeston were established railroad towns, humming on agribusiness, if just clinging to parallel sand ridges, yet imperiled of riverine wilderness and human elements.<\/p>\n

John B. Huffman arrived at Sikeston as a child in 1884, when his family relocated from Kentucky. The term Swamp-east Missouri was accurate, Huffman later affirmed. \u201cThere was that old saying, as [the climate] was very unhealthy then\u2014chills and fever and malaria so prevalent\u2014[that] \u2018It required two bull frogs to exist during one summer, and one must be a doctor.\u2019\u00a0 There were no good roads [and] almost impassable streets when there was rain, snow or sleet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sikeston was industrious though, maintaining population around 500 despite frequent flooding, Huffman recalled. The railroad levee and rickety bridges, linking the outside world,\u00a0sometimes washed away. But rail bed, bridge and track were always replaced and commerce continued at Sikeston, led by shipments of corn and lumber.<\/p>\n

Extra trains were required to haul corn from \u201cSikeston Ridge,\u201d as the area was increasingly known, and sawmills processed an array of hardwoods, including white oak, beech and cypress in premium demand. Other local business included banking, medicine, newspapering, butchering, bakery, dry goods, poultry, general merchandise, millinery, furs and hides, blacksmithing, saddle and harness, livery and stable, and hostelry.<\/p>\n

Most Sikeston youths attended church regularly while the school prepped them for higher education, according to Huffman. \u201cBoys and girls did not graduate in baseball, football and basketball in the [1880s],\u201d he wrote decades later, chronicling local history and families\u00a0for\u00a0The Sikeston Standard<\/em>. \u201cThere was such strict discipline at school, they were compelled to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

For fun boys did play baseball, filling vacant lots, among activities, and girls joined them at the local roller-skating rink. Sikeston youths enjoyed milkshakes, lemonade, candy, and churned ice cream at the drug store. But adults forbade them to enter a saloon or pool hall, unlike at bustling Cairo. Sikeston parents kept watch on anyone\u2019s kid, in a place \u201cso small that everybody knew everyone\u2014and his dog,\u201d Huffman recalled.<\/p>\n

Unforgiving nature loomed everywhere about the sand ridge. Bears and panthers stalked people in the timber, where a big cat chased a woman to her home. Chicken coops on Sikeston\u2019s fringes were raided by wolves, coyotes, cats and minks. \u201cThe woods were from Main Street near the Methodist Church building and ran north\u2026 I was bitten by a snake in the woods in 1884 or 1885,\u201d Huffman wrote, adding the story of his brother\u2019s brush with a serpent.<\/p>\n

The carpenter brother was roused from sleep one night, while working on a \u201cswamper house\u201d out of town at water’s edge. The young man felt contact by something: \u201che struck a light and found that a big water moccasin had crawled in bed with him,\u201d Huffman recounted. \u201cSnakes were trying to creep into swampers\u2019 homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In boyhood Huffman and pals spied clusters of snakes along the railroad levee and likewise at their favorite lake to swim. \u201cA snake den of at least 75 reptiles was on one side near the bank. We were in the channel, 200 feet [away],\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Standing water was constant at Sikeston Ridge. \u201cThe swamps just below the hill east [of town] were so dense, and the water stood so deep on either side, it didn\u2019t look like the land could ever be drained,\u201d Huffman wrote. \u00a0\u201cOne could drive a pump [in earth] by hand in 30 minutes. Just a sledge and drive the pipe in about eight feet, [and] there was an ample stream of swamp water so foul that it was not fit for a hog to drink.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing but swamps north and south, except just a few cleared patches of land ranging from 40 to 160 acres. None near the railroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The water bred a billion flying insects, giant mosquitoes in particular. When Morehouse sprang up along the railroad, a sawmill stop west of Sikeston, its namesake governor made a cursory appearance, drawing a crowd from miles around. But the celebration featuring Gov. Albert P. Morehouse didn\u2019t go well because of swarming mosquitoes and itchy stings.\u00a0 \u201cMorehouse [settlement] was\u2026 just a wide swath cut out of the swamps,\u201d Huffman recalled. The governor spoke but everyone \u201chad to fight the mosquitoes all the time. It was difficult to eat the barbecue dinner on account of the mosquitoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Human threats were dreaded most at Sikeston Ridge, amidst the delta outback. The violent Wild West began in Missouri, as America understood, and the Swamp-east sector was notorious, \u201ca favorite hiding place for criminals and desperadoes,\u201d per one account.<\/p>\n

Anarchy reigned during the Civil War, with the region invaded by clashing armies under Union Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Confederates like Jeff \u201cSwamp Fox\u201d Thompson. Guerrillas attacked the founding family of Sikeston, robbing and lynching John Sikes. His wife cut down the rope as the hangmen departed, saving Sikes, but he was murdered in the postwar, late 1867, after a fight between drunks in his store.<\/p>\n

Occasionally the James Gang rode down into southeast Missouri, committing robbery, ducking undercover in the hills and marshes. But while law and order were strengthened in northern Missouri, and Jesse James eventually assassinated, southeastern Missouri remained sanctuary for villains.<\/p>\n

In May 1881 a band of marauders terrorized Big Ridge from New Madrid to Sikeston, on rampage some 20 miles. They shot multiple citizens, including a child and a sheriff\u2019s deputy who died of wounds. Posses pursued the gang through swamps into the Ozark foothills, where another lawman succumbed to gunfire. The publicized manhunt attracted a thousand armed riders, and the rogues were finally cornered near Piedmont town. Gunshots killed two gang members while one was hung by vigilantes.<\/p>\n

Police apprehended two surviving suspects and secreted them to St. Louis to avoid lynch mobs. The pair ended up hanging, anyway, executed by the state before a Bootheel crowd of 5,000 in July 1881, according to news reports.<\/p>\n

Swamp-east Missouri continued to be regarded as \u201cuninviting, ugly and defiant\u2026 with few to praise it and fewer optimistic enough to believe that its future might hold something of promise,\u201d observed writer Louis La Cross. But closer consideration could teach differently, revealing beauty and bounty in a forsaken frontier. Conspicuous signs\u00a0were giant trees, bright flowers and juicy berries in the wild, and crops of 90-pound watermelons, thick corn ears, and huge cotton bolls.<\/p>\n

Aesthetics of nature shone in the Missouri delta, inspiring those who got beyond initial impression or shock. John James Audubon never forgot his unplanned indoctrination to Swamp-east topography during winter of 1810-11.<\/p>\n

Ice buildup on the Mississippi halted Audubon’s keel-boat group on the Missouri shore between Cape Girardeau and future site of Cairo. Audubon, budding naturalist and painter, pitched camp with a dozen French Canadians in Missouri\u2019s Tywappity Bottom, a formidable timberland interspersed with water, prairie and pathways.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything around us seemed dreary and dismal,\u201d Audubon recorded in journal, \u201cand had we not been endowed with the faculty of deriving pleasure from the examination of nature, we should have made up our minds to pass the time in\u2026 hibernation.\u201d The party found abundant game and wood supply, and unbridled land to explore.<\/p>\n

Young Audubon was enchanted by the delta in snow cover\u2014tree lines, surface contours bared in grey winter\u2014and he spent six weeks \u201cvery pleasantly,\u201d observed latter historian Louis Houck, for his account of the famed ornithologist in Tywapitty. \u201cNo white man\u2019s cabin was within 20 miles of this camp. But for Audubon this was a delightful place,\u201d Houck reported. \u201cHe rambled around in the woods, found the Indian trails and the lakes of the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Audubon studied \u201chabits of wild animals, the deer, the bears, cougars, raccoons, and turkeys and many other animals,” Houck noted, “and he also drew [illustrations] by the side of the great campfires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Audubon made music at fireside, too, playing flute in accompaniment of a comrade on violin, and men danced. Thereafter, on occasion, Audubon fondly mentioned \u201cTawapatee\u201d and his winter sojourn in southeast Missouri.<\/p>\n

Seventy years after Audubon at Tywappity Bottom, Maud Rittenhouse was a precocious teenager nearby at Cairo, river port that fostered arts and entertainment. Young Maud reveled in the Cairo environment of 6,000 residents, thousands of visitors weekly. She scoffed at critics of her flatland home. \u201cEvery rickety old house looks familiar and sweet, every tree an old friend,\u201d Rittenhouse wrote in diary, 1881. \u201cI was born here and have lived here and can never do ought but love our dear ugly Cairo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rittenhouse, someday to be a best-selling author, was touched by delta beauty in her youth. Even when the rivers flooded, threatening levees circling Cairo, forcing groundwater up into homes, the adolescent Maud saw positives. Cairo, for her, covered in seep water by day, assumed Venetian romance under moonlight. \u201cI can scarcely express to you the lovely time we had last night. The moon full, the water just rippling lightly, the skiff large and light,\u201d Maud recorded for a boat ride over submerged streets in March 1882.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a barge of musicians floating, too, and the clear notes of the guitar and cithern [harp] rang dreamily over the water, and the singing was very sweet. It was delicious floating off under the locust trees, past the new white church with its tall spire reflected in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVerily, we are a modern Venice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cairo certainly verified human progress in the postwar delta, serving as commercial model and flagship for regional upstarts Charleston and Sikeston. \u201cThe rapid strides Cairo is now making towards her ultimate destiny\u2014the vast central emporium of the United States\u2014irresistibly enhances the importance of this part of the state,\u201d a commentator declared in The Charleston Courier<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And Missouri folks heard sweet musical sounds same as Maud, none better in America, emanating from Cairo and the great rivers. The anti-rants of church preachers and congregations, condemning devilish melody and body movement, were often ineffective.<\/p>\n

Mississippi County, Mo., embraced song and dance, especially the young people. Music performances began at river shoreline across from Cairo, a stretch of landings, ferry boats, railroads and structures collectively known as Bird\u2019s Point, or Birdville, among names since the Europeans. Bird\u2019s Point hosted huge gatherings with music, having done so since circus showboats and floating theaters prior to the war.<\/p>\n

“There will be a barbecue and picnic at Bird\u2019s Point today,\u201d the Cairo paper announced Friday morning, July 2, 1869. \u201cThe Missouri belles and beaux will be there in force, and wherever they assemble there is going to be first-class enjoyment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Big parties occurred regularly in Mississippi County from Bird\u2019s Point west to Charleston, Mo., across bottoms like Tywappity of Audubon yore. People from multiple states were drawn to Deal\u2019s Grove at Charleston, where publicized picnics and barbecues featured sport, music, dancing and alcohol. Excursion steamboats and trains transported crowds to and from the Swamp-east wilds, for shindigs in clearings like Deal\u2019s. Revelers heard touted \u201cparty music\u201d and\u00a0\u201ccharms for the savage ear” from exceptional local players, white and black, on cornet, fiddle (violin), banjo, guitar, piano and more. The vocal talent, so good, could startle listeners.<\/p>\n

Indoor music venues increased around southeast Missouri during the latter 19th<\/sup> century, across hills and flatland. The trend was so-called opera houses, opening in various form at communities such as Cape Girardeau, Commerce, Benton, Sikeston, Charleston, New Madrid, Malden, Caruthersville, Kennett, Poplar Bluff and Doniphan.<\/p>\n

Expansion of saloons and dance halls in Charleston spurred rise in illicit gambling and alcohol-related problems, including peace disturbance, injurious accidents, and murder. Sikeston saw similar developments, farther west on the railroad and further isolated than Charleston. And thus a pious Sikeston government, national evangelism and temperance movement converged to stamp out local sin in the 1880s.<\/p>\n

Revivalist fervor swept the town, led by \u201cshouting Sikeston Methodists,\u201d Huffman recalled. \u201cAbout 11 or 11:30 o\u2019clock one night they made such a terrible noise, shouting, screaming and hollering, that this writer, the little 6- or 7-year-old boy, fell out of bed, scared almost out of [my] senses, and my father had to dress and take me over to see the sights.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOld-time Methodist women and men were shouting and rejoicing and turning over benches, and [the church] looked like a battlefield. Two women fell out of the screen-less windows. They got hold of my younger sister Hattie… they beat her in the back so much, she was afraid to go back for two months.\u201d<\/p>\n

The debate led to merciless violence, typical of tempest in Swamp-east Missouri. In 1886 a saloon keeper at Sikeston, enraged over exorbitant tax on his business, beat-down a Methodist pastor in public. Angry citizens pondered \u201cmob law\u201d for the perpetrator, according to news reports and Huffman\u2019s account. The hapless bar owner\u00a0fled from Sikeston Ridge, returning home to Cairo.<\/p>\n

John B. Huffman became a popular evangelist in the 20th<\/sup> century, speaking at Christian revivals, traveling worldwide from home in southeast Missouri. Huffman didn\u2019t approve of sexy dancing and alcohol for anyone, much less young people, convinced these produced negative outcome.<\/p>\n

But in 1946\u2014about the time a boy named Elvis Presley began visiting relatives at Sikeston\u2014the pastor known as Elder Huffman didn’t join modern crusaders against \u201clewd\u201d music and dance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never danced in my life\u2026 but I am just living my own life, and realize this is a big world, populated by all kinds of people,\u201d Huffman wrote for the Sikeston paper, \u201cand [Americans] have a right under the Constitution to live the kind of life they want. What any man or woman does is not my business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI must attend to my own business, and let all others pursue their uneven tenor through this veil of tears.\u201d<\/p>\n

Select References<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Good Show. (1894, Sept. 1). Cape Girardeau Democrat<\/em> MO, p. 5.<\/p>\n

A Grand Moonlight Excursion. (1872, June 16). Cairo Bulletin<\/em> IL, p. 4.<\/p>\n

A New Madrid Sensation. (1881, May 13). St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/em> MO, p. 8.<\/p>\n

A Prominent Sikeston Citizen. (1883, Aug. 23). Ironton County Register<\/em>, Ironton MO, p. 4.<\/p>\n

A Tragedy in Charleston. (1869, March 1). Cairo Bulletin<\/em> IL, p. 1.<\/p>\n

A Waste of Water. (1890, March 9). St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/em> MO, p. 20.<\/p>\n

An Expedition from Cairo! (1861, Nov. 8). Cleveland Daily Leader<\/em> OH, p. 3.<\/p>\n

Barbecue and Pic-Nic. (1869, July 2). Cairo Bulletin<\/em> IL, p. 3.<\/p>\n

Bill Lake\u2019s Hippo-Olympiad. (1869, June 18). Charleston Courier<\/em> MO, p. 3.<\/p>\n

Bishop Faude. (1886, Aug. 25). Fort Wayne Daily News <\/em>IN, p. 2.<\/p>\n

Blaise, H.V. (1947, April 25). Sikeston, Mo.\u2014Famous for Bulging Money Bags. Sikeston Standard<\/em> MO, p. 1.<\/p>\n

Boulder to Mark King\u2019s Highway. (1916, March 28). Caruthersville Democrat-Argus<\/em> MO, p. 2.<\/p>\n

Briggs, Harold E. (1954, Autumn). Entertainment and Amusement in Cairo, 1848-1858. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society<\/em>, 47, pp. 231-251.<\/p>\n

Brevities. (1876, March 30). Cairo Bulletin<\/em> IL, p. 3.<\/p>\n

Cairo Branch of the Iron Mountain Railroad. (1871, May 4). Cairo Bulletin<\/em> IL, p. 3.<\/p>\n

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Completion of the Cairo, Arkansas and Texas Railroad. (1873, Sept. 28). Galveston Daily News<\/em> TX, p. 1.<\/p>\n

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For the Louisiana Gazette. (1811, Feb. 14). Missouri Gazette and Public Advertiser<\/em>, St. Louis MO, p. 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlint\u2019s Recollections.\u201d (1826, May 29). New York Post<\/em>, p. 1.<\/p>\n

From Cairo. (1861, July 30). Cleveland Daily Leader<\/em> OH, p. 2.<\/p>\n

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General Local Items. (1882, Feb. 22). Cairo Bulletin<\/em> IL, p. 4.<\/p>\n

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Huffman, J.B. (1945, Dec. 14). Pioneer Days of Sikeston, Mo. Sikeston Standard<\/em> MO, pp. 16-18<\/p>\n

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Huffman, J.B. (1946, Jan. 4). Pioneer Days of Sikeston, Mo. Sikeston Standard<\/em> MO, pp. 9, 12.<\/p>\n

Huffman, J.B. (1946, Jan. 18). Pioneer Days of Sikeston, Mo. Sikeston Standard<\/em> MO, pp. 10-11.<\/p>\n

Huffman, J.B. (1946, Feb. 1). Pioneer Days of Sikeston. Sikeston Standard<\/em> MO, pp. 12-13.<\/p>\n

Huffman, J.B. (1946, March 1). Pioneer Days of Sikeston. Sikeston Standard<\/em> MO, pp. 17-18.<\/p>\n

Huffman, J.B. (1946, March 29). Pioneer Days of Sikeston. Sikeston Standard<\/em> MO, pp. 19-21.<\/p>\n

Huffman, J.B. (1946, April 30). Pioneer Days of Sikeston. Sikeston Standard<\/em> MO, p. 9.<\/p>\n

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Huffman, J.B. (1949, July 25). Pioneer Days of Sikeston. Sikeston Standard<\/em> MO, p. 12.<\/p>\n

Huffman, J.B. (1950, March 30). Pioneer Days of Sikeston. Sikeston Standard<\/em> MO, pp. 9, 15.<\/p>\n

It Is Stated. (1881, July 15). Hickman Courier<\/em> KY, p. 4.<\/p>\n

Kelley, M.I. (1930, June 6). Southeast Missouri Conquered by Years of Toil. Blytheville Courier News<\/em> AR, p. 3.<\/p>\n

La Cross, L. (1924, Nov. 14). Reclamation Project Drains 1,800 Square Miles of Land. Caruthersville Democrat-Argus<\/em> MO, p. 1.<\/p>\n

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Sadler, P. (1947, March 28). Phil Sadler Writes of Early History of Sikeston. Sikeston Standard<\/em> MO, p. 17.<\/p>\n

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Select Basket Picnic at Greenfield\u2019s Landing. (1870, July 23).\u00a0Charleston Courier<\/em> MO, p. 3.<\/p>\n

Sikeston Herself Again. (1873, May 1). Ste. Genevieve Fair Play MO<\/em>, p. 2.<\/p>\n

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Matt Chaney is a writer and consultant in Missouri, USA. For more information visit\u00a0<\/em>www.fourwallspublishing.com.\u00a0Email:\u00a0<\/em>mattchaney@fourwallspublishing.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eighteenth\u00a0in a Series By Matt Chaney, for ChaneysBlog.com Posted Saturday, January 13, 2018 Copyright\u00a0\u00a92018 for historical arrangement by Matthew L. Chaney Flat, soggy southeastern Missouri was a reputed no-man\u2019s-land in 1860, with scant population across 4,000 square miles: \u201cFinancially a dead country,\u201d described W.B. Wood of Sikeston settlement, west of the Mississippi River. The Missouri … Continue reading Music and Social Mores in Swamp-east Missouri<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[283,374],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ywFp-DZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2479"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2479"}],"version-history":[{"count":53,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3140,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2479\/revisions\/3140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}