November is National Diabetes Month

By Amy Morgan

As someone who has had Type 1 Diabetes for over 21 years, I thought I should mention that November is National Diabetes Month. This is a campaign sponsored by the American Diabetes Association, The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and several other groups to raise awareness about the condition. 

Though some people may not know it, there are actually multiple types of Diabetes. According to the American Diabetes Association’s website, “every 17 seconds, someone is diagnosed with Diabetes,” and there are approximately “26 million children and adults living around the world with Diabetes.”

While many people have Diabetes, there are different types of the condition, each of which is very different and require their own treatments. If you would like to learn more, you can stop by the library to check out our collection of Diabetes books, or go on the web. Three of my favorite websites include www.diabetes.org, which is the official website of the American Diabetes Association; www.jdrf.org, the official page for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation; and www.sixuntilme.com, which is a blog by Kerri Morrone Sparling, who not only grew up with Type 1 Diabetes, but is also a freelance writer and Diabetes Advocate. 

If you would like to know more, feel free to ask. I am by no means a professional, but I can share my experiences.

Local Players on the House of David Basketball Team

            Last week we learned what happened to the religious organization, House of David. Today we will find out what happened to the three young men from Spencer, Ollie troth, Red Johnson and Wayne Payton, who played on the House of David barnstorming basketball team.

            We first find mention of Red Johnson, whose given name was Floyd, in a 1932 newspaper article headlined Shot By Father. The story reads:

            Floyd (Red) Johnson was accidentally shot Monday by his father, Otis Johnson, while hunting southwest of Spencer. The two were about 75 feet apart and two of the shot penetrated the body, one entering just above the heart and the other in one hip. The doctor probed for the shot in the breast but failed to locate it. Young Johnson was up town Monday night, still very nervous from the shock. 

            The next and last mention we find of Red Johnson is in his father’s 1948 obituary where he is listed as living in Clinton, Illinois.

            Oliver “Ollie” Jerome Troth died in Jasper, Indiana on December 12, 2009. He was born November 7, 1921 and graduated from Spencer High School where he was a member of the Indiana All-Star basketball team which beat Kentucky in 1940. He must have joined the House of David basketball team shortly thereafter because he served as a Marine during World War II.

            In 1945 Ollie Troth married Mary Jane Corson and went to work at the Joy Manufacturing Company in Michigan City, Indiana which manufactured various types of mining equipment. Ollie retired from Joy Manufacturing, which has since closed its Michigan City plant. In 1994, private developers took over the 600,000 square foot property, located in a residential neighborhood. The developers invested over $5 million in the facility and recruited six companies that employed 600 people before it was sold. Today the largest employer in Michigan City is the Blue Chip Hotel and Casino.

            After retirement, Ollie and Mary Troth became Florida snowbirds before moving to Jasper in 2008 to be near his daughter, Jayne, and her family.

            Wayne Payton’s story is the one we know the most about.

            Wayne Payton had been a standout player for the Spencer High School “Cops.” He was a member of the 1939 Indiana All-Stars team that beat Kentucky that year; Kentucky being the arch-nemesis to Hoosiers everywhere.

            After graduation Wayne worked at the Collier Brothers Creamery and the Bell Telephone Company before hooking up with the House of David basketball team.

            He couldn’t have played with them long. On December 7, 1941, Wayne was in Spencer with another local boy, Robert “LeRoy” Long who played semi-pro basketball with the Delco Brake Company of Dayton, Ohio, when they heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. They decided to enlist.

            Wayne Payton was twenty-one years old when he traveled to Indianapolis and enlisted at Fort Benjamin Harrison on January 28, 1942. After basic training at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, Fort Benning, Georgia and Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, Wayne Payton was assigned to the 1^st Infantry Division as part of the anti-tank regiment. He landed in England in August, 1942 as part of the first large convoy of American soldiers to land overseas. From there he was ordered to North Africa to fight in the Battle of Tunisia.

            On August 27, 1943, Wayne Payton’s parents received a telegram from the “Commanding General of the North African area” that Wayne had been missing in action since July 11^th. The Payton’s worry was alleviated somewhat when they received a telegram August 31^st from a Miss Mary Jane Royer who reported that she had heard word from LeRoy Johnson that Wayne was alright and for her to “keep her chin up.” Unfortunately LeRoy Johnson was mistaken.

            On Tuesday, September 14, 1943, Mr. and Mrs. Payton received another telegram. This one informed them that their son had been killed in action on July 11, 1943 while serving in North Africa.

            Robert “LeRoy” Long also ended up being reported as missing in action but was found gravely injured with gunshot wounds, “from one side of his body to the other.”

            “They had big, long wooden prongs that ran right through where that shrapnel went through,” Long recalled, “They made a tunnel. The only way to clean it out was to put some sulphur on it and jam it through.”

            In recalling hearing that fateful announcement with his friend Wayne Payton back in Spencer on December 7, 1941 Long reminisces in an interview given to the Spencer Evening World, “Little did we realize what this tragic news would mean to our lives.”

~ Laura Wilkerson
   Genealogy Department; OCPL 

Revisiting the House of David

In organizing the School Folders in the Information Files recently I came across an intriguing photograph of a House of David barnstorming basketball team. The photo dates from approximately 1940 and shows five muscular young men in tank tops and short shorts. Three are bearded and three are from Spencer. All of them are originally from Indiana. The five men were a Mr. Jefferies of Lyons, Indiana, first name unrecorded; Dutch Leonard of Bloomington and the three men from Spencer; Ollie Troth, Red Johnson and Wayne Payton.

            The House of David Commune was famous in its day. It was founded by Benjamin Franklin Purnell and his wife Mary in Benton Harbor, Michigan in March, 1903. Benjamin Purnell had been born in March 27, 1861 in Esculapia, Kentucky. He was the seventh of nine children born to farmers Madison and Sarah Purnell. Benjamin learned to read from the New Testament and when a tent preacher passed through town Madison invited him home so little Benjamin could preach for him.

            Benjamin Purnell loved to preach and became a child evangelist, travelling across the country delivering sermons. At the age of sixteen Benjamin married Angeline Brown in Virginia. The couple settled in Richmond, Indiana where Benjamin found work as a broom maker. The marriage did not last and by the time Benjamin was nineteen he was back in the road and unattached.

            It was in Aberdeen, Ohio where he met and married Mary Stallard on August 29, 1880. They had two children together.  In 1888 they learned from a group of preachers about a man said to be the Sixth Messenger, James Jershom Jezreel. Jezreel had written a trilogy known as the Extracts of the Flying Roll which prophesized that Eden would be restored and the 144,000 children of Israel would gather in a new Eden in America. Michigan to be exact. Jezreel wrote, “O blessed Michigan, for out of thee shall come a star.”

            Jezreel was following in the footsteps of the First Messenger, Joanna Southcott of Devonshire, England. Born in 1750, Southcott had received “communications of the spirit” in 1792 and pronounced herself the woman spoken of in Revelations, “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.”

            Over the next twelve years Joanne Southcott received revelations that foretold Christ’s return to Earth, the restoration of the Garden of Eden and eternal life for God’s 144,000 elect. At the height of her popularity Southcott attracted over 150,000 follows but in 1814 the 64-year-old virgin announced she was pregnant with the prophesied child, the new Messiah, Shiloh of Genesis, who would rule with the iron scepter. Her due date of October 14, 1814 came and went with no child and it was announced Southcott had fallen into a “trance.” On December 26^th or 27^th, 1814, Joanna Southcott died though her believers lived on.

            In the mid-1880s the Fifth Messenger, John Wroe, instituted Mosaic law and also a custom known as the “Cleansing of the Blood” where the Messenger had the responsibility of de-flowering every female member of the religion before their marriages. When word of this ritual leaked out in Britain they were chased off that island and disbursed to Australia, Canada and the United States.

            By 1890 the largest group of Southcottians was based at the Flying Rolls colony Detroit Michigan led by Michael Mills who proclaimed he was the Seventh Messenger, the Sixth being recognized as James Zerell who had collected all the prophecies of the previous five Messengers into one volume known as the Flying Roll. It was here that Benjamin and Mary Parnell travelled in 1895. The Southcottians of Detroit gave all of their worldly goods to Michael Mills and lived communally in “God’s House” on the grounds of the Colony. In 1894 Michael Mills had a vision that from that point forward that all the wives were to be shared communally with all of the men of the Colony. This was too much for Benjamin Parnell who encouraged Mills’ outraged wife to file for divorce. The resulting scandal ended with Michael Mills barely escaping a lynch mob and in Michigan filing morals charges against him leading to a five year prison term for the former prophet.

            During this period of turmoil Benjamin Purnell announced that he had received a Revelation that Michael Mills was a fraud and, in fact, he, Benjamin Purnell, was the true Seventh Messenger. He and Mary were run out of Detroit by Southcottians still loyal to Michael Mills and spent the next several years as itinerant preachers.

            In 1902, while the Purnell’s were in Fostoria, Ohio, their daughter Hettie was killed in an explosion of a fireworks factory during her first day at work there. She had just turned sixteen. The explosion leveled the factory and killed everyone inside. Hettie was so badly burned that she was only able to be identified by the ring given to her by a friend for her birthday less than two weeks before. The actions of Benjamin and Mary Purnell caused outrage in some segments of the Fostoria population because they did not believe in death and so refused to bury their daughter but upon leaving the place three weeks later they published a notice in the local newspaper thanking everyone for, “the kindness, gifts and support,” shown to them by the Citizens of Fostoria.

            Benjamin and Mary then moved along with five followers to Benton Harbor, Michigan which reported came to Mary in a dream. Once in Benton Harbor they incorporated the Israelite House of David. A wealthy supporter donated land to the group and they soon hooked up with about 200 members of the ‘Flying Rollers’ who had become disenchanted with Michael Mills and the Detroit group. Most of the Purnell’s original followers were from Indiana and Ohio but their ranks expanded dramatically after Benjamin Purnell made a recruiting trip to Australia in 1904-05 among the followers of Messenger James Jezreel.

            From here the House of David prospered. It was a communal society and all of its members assigned all their worldly possessions to Benjamin Purnell who added vegetarianism and celibacy to the list of religious requirements. The House of David built three impressive buildings, one of which, Shiloh, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They generated their own electricity and ran their own printing press. They purchased Michigan’s 3,400 acre High Island where they grew fruits and vegetables they later sold at their fruit and vegetable market which was said to be the largest in the world; as was their state-of-the-art cold storage facility. They opened their own amusement park complete with a miniature railroad along with hotels and vegetarian restaurants. In 1912 they published a vegetarian cookbook. They had a zoo, mineral springs and botanical gardens on their 1,000 acre property. They built an auditorium where Biblical plays were performed. They ran a shipping line and cruise ships, patenting the first cross propeller technology making it harder for waves to tip over cruise ships. They invested in logging. They invented a synthetic stone known as Hydro-stone and the Waffle cone. The invented the automatic pinsetter for use in bowling alleys. At the behest of Welch’s Grape Juice Company they invented a way that grape juice could be stored in cans and in the 1970s their cold storage facility was instrumental in inventing dehydrated Space Meals for use by astronauts. They invented a portable lighting system that allowed sports teams to play outside at night. They sponsored two orchestras and three brass bands that traveled the country playing instruments manufactured at the Colony and they were famous for their semi-pro baseball that barnstormed the country and, to a lesser extent, their basketball teams. Players on these teams were not required to be members of the religion.

            Prospering, the House of David was estimated to be worth over $10 million dollars by the 1920s. Despite the vows of celibacy, the House of David was scrutinized by the police on the look-out for immoral practices. Benjamin Purnell was arrested on morals charges in 1910, 1914, 1920 and 1922. In 1923, the Detroit Free Press published a sensational expose of the sect prompting the State’s Attorney General to Act. The Colony was raided but Benjamin wasn’t found. It was assumed he had fled to Canada but in 1926 a disaffected member, Bessie Daniels, went to the police and reported Benjamin Purnell had been hiding in plain sight. He was arrested in his bedroom at the Colony and 13 women swore under oath that they had sexual relations with the Messenger when they were still minors. Benjamin Purnell was placed on trial and convicted of fraud but died on November 16, 1927 before the charges of sexual impropriety could be heard in Court.

            After Benjamin’s death the House of David split into two factions with about 200 members supporting Judge Harry Thomas Dewhirst, a one-time jurist from California, and Benjamin’s widow, Mary, who soon proclaimed herself “Co-Seventh Messenger.” They managed to reach a settlement with Mary receiving $60,000 and Dewhirst’s faction retaining Shiloh and the rest of the House of David’s assets. Mary bought land directly across the street, naming it the Israelite House of David, or, more simply, Mary’s City of David. Both Houses maintained baseball teams but the Dewhirst team disbanded in the 1930s while the Israelite House of David’s teams played well into the 1950s.

            Mary Purnell died August 19, 1953 at the age of 90. After her death her grandson, Samuel Coy Purnell, sued, claiming Mary owned all the assets of the City of David. A judge ruled that the assets were held communally but still awarded Samuel $700,000 as Mary’s share.

            For a while things still prospered. The House of David added a cannery and a couple of Olds dealerships to its holdings and Mary Purnell built a vacation complex called Paradise Park that attracted so many Jewish visitors that a Synagogue was built on-site.  However, celibacy took its toll. Numbers dwindled and the House of David stopped actively recruiting new members after Benjamin’s death. The zoo disbanded in the 1940s with the animals sent to Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. The industries and amusement park closed by the 1970s and by 2010 only three members remained living, supported in nursing homes by the profits from the House of David’s real estate holdings and the money raised from selling blueberries. Traveling down East Briton Road in Benton Harbor today there is barely a trace of the thriving commune. The tourist courts, the vegetarian restaurant, the athletic fields, the beer garden, the Synagogue, all gone though a museum dedicated to the House of David was opened in Benton Harbor in 1997.

            All may not be lost, however. Mary Purnell prophesized that the gathering of 144,000 elect, 12,000 from each of the Tribes of Israel, would happen when people drive by and say, “Look, there’s where the House of David used to be,” and when the number of members remaining could fit into her closet. It looks like that time might be at hand.

~ Laura Wilkerson
    Genealogy Department

Shared Reads: True Crime: An American Anthology

True Crime: An American Anthology (Library of America, 2008) is a magnificent achievement and a revelatory read. Editor Harold Schechter, noted for his own contributions to the literature of true crime, displays a deft hand and remarkable depth of knowledge in assembling a panorama of American crime writing dating back to the 1630 hanging of pilgrim John Billington as reported by William Bradford through the trials of the Menendez brothers and the impact on real estate as interpreted by Dominick Dunne.

Throughout, Schechter presents us with amazing writing from authors famous, forgotten and anonymous. We have a remarkable, rare, account of true crime reporting by Benjamin Franklin in a case as fresh and relevant today as it was in 1734. We accompany Nathaniel Hawthorne as he visits a wax museum, “consisting almost wholly of murderers and their victims,” that will stay with the Reader long after the book is finished. We find Abraham Lincoln relating the case of Archibald Fisher's alleged murder and the man Lincoln defended up until the trial's improbable denouement.

             We encounter Cotton Mather's deliciously plummy account of infanticide in early New England and Ambrose Bierce's survey of Crime in post-Civil War California. The Table of Contents read like a Who's Who of Master Wordsmiths: Mark Twain relating the state of lawlessness in the Old West, Frank Norris observes the capture of a fugitive on the docks of New York City, Edmund Pearson on the 'Bloody Benders' of Kansas, Damon Runyan's sparkling, cynical take of the Snyder-Gray murder trial, Alexander Woollcott considers Nan Patterson, H. L. Mencken's dyspeptic views on forensic psychology, Theodore Dreiser's reflections on the Robert Allen Edwards case, a case that strongly resembled the one that inspired An American Tragedy, while the incomparable Dorothy Killgallen covers the same case with a completely different aesthetic. We have Edna Ferber covering the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for the kidnap-murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr., Jim Thompson weighing in with Oklahoma noir and James Thurber attending the Hall-Mills trials. A.J. Liebling reports on the frenetic, cut-throat newspaper wars raging in New York at the turn of the 20^th Century through the lens of the torso murder of Turkish Bath Attendant, William Gildensupper while Zora Neale Hurston absorbs the atmosphere of racial tension in Live Oak, Florida surrounding the 1952 killing of Dr. Clifford Leroy by Ruby McCollum. Jack Webb writes about the Black Dahlia in a piece that inspires a young James Ellroy whose own contribution appears later in the volume. Robert Bloch adds a touch of American Gothic with his reporting on the crimes of Wisconsin's Ed Gein and Calvin Trillin brilliantly intertwines two separate worlds when writing about a murder in Harlan County, Kentucky. Gay Talese has a look around the the former Manson Family homestead and Truman Capote refracts another angle on the Manson case with his fascinating interview with convicted killer, Bobby Beausoleil and Jimmy Breslin relates his personal involvement in the Son of Sam. Jay Robert Nash takes a look at the Lana Turner – Johnny Sompanato affair while Ann Rule represents what's current and popular in the true crime field.

             We also have authors whose name may not be as well known as those presented above but, judging from the selections presented here should be. Celia Thaxter arrives first at Smutty Nose to get first-hand accounts for Atlantic Monthly. José Martí reports on the trial of assassin Charles Giteau. Elizabeth Hardwick considers the ordeal of Caryl Chessman. Miriam Allen deFord delivers a penetrating dissection of the murder of Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb that would surely have risen the eminently risible hackles of H. L. Mencken, while W. T. Brannon's account of Richard Speck's murders of eight nurses in the city of Chicago remains a masterpiece of the genre.

             The fifty selections chosen by Mr. Schechter each capture the unique feel of the individual eras in which the crimes occurred and together they form a fascinating overview of the progression of crime in America and, by extension, the progress of America ourselves. The quality of the work itself is represented beautifully in this perfectly proportioned book. The cover graphics are elegant and effective. The paper, including endpapers, is of high quality and pleasing to the touch. The construction of this book is impeccable and it should be noted that it was printed in The United States of America in contrast to the many shoddily bound books currently produced and imported from Communist China.

             True Crime: An American Anthology is certainly the best book of its type in well over a decade. It is one of the best books I have read of any genre, period. I would highly recommend this work without any hesitation to anyone who enjoys reading about true crime, human behavior, the history of the United States or who just enjoys reading excellent selections of exceptional writing. Exceedingly well done.

              True Crime: An American Anthology is available at the Owen County Public Library. Check it out!

~ Laura M. Wilkerson

    Genealogy Department, OCPL

Children's and Teens' Summer Reading Program 2011 Review

Well, Summer Reading has come and gone for another year.  Our themes, "One World, Many Stories" and "You Are Here" took us around the world and back again.  We looked at a variety of countries, cultures past and present, and had a wide variety of programs.  We had 268 participants this year.  Average attendance at our Fantastic Friday programs was 95.  [Not too shabby.]  Hopefully everyone had as much fun as we did!

There are lots of photos on the library's website.  (Scroll down to see the Photo Gallery button.)

For those of you that are interested, we are planning to have the steel drum guys come back and do an outdoor concert for us. 

We did a few things different this year.  Most notably, we did not ask participants to count pages.  We only asked that they read at least one book/comic/magazine/cereal box/etc. per week and write down the title in their reading "passport".  At the end of the program participants were given a special sticker in place of a certificate.   Feedback so far has been pretty positive.  If you have feedback about SRP, or anything else at the library, we hope you'll share with us. 

This is YOUR Owen County Public Library, and letting us know things like requests for materials, feedback on programs, etc. that we already offer, or suggestions and ideas for any aspect of the library is always helpful.  

Shared Reads: Wanton West: by Lael Morgan

            Wanton West: Madams, Money, Murder, and the Wild Women of Montana’s Frontier by Lael Morgan (Chicago Review Press, Inc., 2011) is a book whose parts are greater than the whole.

            Morgan introduces the reader to the pioneers of the Montana frontier both famous and infamous. She focuses largely on prostitutes in early Montana, drawing largely on real estate and census records to chart their declare and fall, or success and upward mobility as the case may be, and shows how many of Montana’s most respectable citizens financially backed various red-light districts in Montana. The book starts off reading like fiction which is a bit disconcerting to the Reader until we find that these passages are taken from a book, Madeleine: An Autobiography whose author is to this day Anonymous but who scholars believe was an experienced prostitute working in that era and who some believe went on to marry into a prominent Canadian family.

            It is somewhat surprising how many frontier prostitutes eventually went on to marry, some very well, and lead respectable lives, but choices were fewer on the frontier and the profession did not engender the stigma it later acquired. Many of the prostitutes mentioned in this book slip completely from the record at a time when it was easier to lose oneself than it is now and there are harrowing tales of suicide among the soiled doves of Montana.

            A particularly interesting section deals with the situation of Chinese prostitutes. At a time when authorities were concerned with both an alleged “yellow peril” and a presumed epidemic of “white slavery” the appalling abuse of Chinese women trafficked to the United States for purposes of prostitution were studiously ignored. Like the United States perception of the plight of women in fundamentalist groups or cultures is a matter of “culture” rather than of human rights, officials took a hands-off approach to the issue of the sexual slavery of Chinese women. The author admits because this was considered a matter for the Chinese to deal with official records are scanty but the author unearths some records that demonstrate the horror to which these women were subjected.

            Ms. Morgan also recounts early movers-and-shakers of the era, men who made their fortunes in mining and ranching and the women associated with them. Readers may be familiar with the factoid that Montana had the only Congressperson to vote against the United States’ entry into both World War I and World War II. What isn’t as well known is that this woman, Jeanette Rankin, only held two terms, widely separated, that resulted in her being in a position to cast those two career-ending votes. It is also surprising, and instructional for those following current political arguments concerning Original Intent, that the New York Times published an article arguing that Ms. Rankin’s election was clearly illegal as the U.S. Constitution clearly uses the pronoun “he” when putting forth the qualifications needed in order to hold elected office.

 This controversy echoes the controversy over the book, Madeline: An Autobiography, which resulted in the 1919 arrest of the then President of Harper & Brothers publishers, Clinton Tyler Brainard, upon a complaint from The Society for the Prevention of Vice. The complaint wasn’t based on any salacious details contained in the book, rather, The Society for the Prevention of Vice, objected to the fact that our anonymous Madeline showed no remorse over her former life of sin. Brainard, who rejected a plea deal that would have required him to divulge the author’s true identity, was initially convicted and fined $1,000, though that conviction was later reversed.

Another interesting story concerns Tom Cruse who made his fortune from gold mines and the tragic story of his daughter, Mary, a subject that fully warrants a full-length treatment. Also making an appearance is Huguette Clark, daughter of “Copper King,” William Clark. Hugette was still alive when this book went to press but she died two weeks shy of her 105 birthday in New York City on May 24, 2011. Huguette, who had been a something of a recluse since the 1930s and hospital bound since 1988, left a $30 million dollar bequest to her longtime nurse and caregiver while leaving the bulk of her estate, $300 million, to charity. She left a Water Lily painting by Charles Monet that she had purchased in 1930 to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. Indeed, it is curious to read how many of the people who made their money in Montana left it to institutions in Washington, D.C., New York, California, anywhere, it seems, but Montana.

There are also famous people who pop up along the narrative thread, most notably the artist Charles Russell. The boxer Stanley Ketchel takes up quite a bit of space and Calamity Jane spent some time on the Montana frontier. There is a charming, and tantalizing, appearance by Charlie Chaplin.     

The author helpfully provides a list of “major players” as well as a timeline of events in the back of the book. The author gives us well sourced footnotes but inexplicably omits a separate bibliography. The book does contain an index and some quite interesting photographs.  

Although the subject matter is interesting the book suffers from a lack of depth and writing that falls somewhat flat. Still, it is a diverting read and not unworthy of attention. Wanton West: Madams, Money, Murder, and the Wild Women of Montana’s Frontier is available at the Owen County Public Library. Check it out!

~ Laura Wilkerson, Genealogy Department, OCPL

Good advice for everyone to remember.

What are your thoughts on this?