Born May 18, 1953; got saved at Truett Memorial BC in Hayesville, NC 1959.
On rigged ballot which I did not rig got Most Intellectual class of 71, Gaffney High School.
Furman Grad, Sociology major but it was little tougher than Auburn football players had
Had three dates with beautiful women the summer of 1978. Did not marry any of em. Never married anybody cause what was available was undesirable and what was desirable was unaffordable.
Unlucky in love as they say and even still it is sometimes heartbreaking.
Had a Pakistani Jr. Davis Cupper on the Ropes the summer of 84, City Courts, Rome Georgia
I've a baby sitter, watched peoples homes while they were away on Vacation.
Freelance writer, local consultant, screenwriter, and the best damn substitute teacher of Floyd County Georgia in mid 80's according to an anonymous kid passed me on main street a few years later when I went back to get a sandwich at Schroeders.
Had some good moments in Collinsville as well.
Ask Casey Mattox at www.clsnet.org if he will be honest about it.
I try my best to make it to Bridges BBQ in Shelby NC at least four times a year.
Gaffney's J Paul Beam and Todd Heifner's fourth grade teacher
Todd Heifner salutes his fourth grade teacher today on his facebook site. He writes well like Mark Morgan of Collinsville and Ft OPayne . Ft Payne native Randy Owen once told me "Writin's hard".
But it has seemed to make a good living for the likes of George Singleton which the late Willard Pate, a great English proff at Furman seemed to appreciate. She had a cat named Flannery and onother named Faulkner.
I wish I had auditted her Faulkner course and Crabtree's legendary Shakespeare course.
I woulda been too intimidated to have taken them for a grade. But my Furman friends Bob Carr, Sam Hodges and Charles Edwards all took the Shakespeare course and me a B
But I digress. Tod and his brother Kevin, an Arkansad kidney doctor with a good business model, have their idiosyncies but don't we all. Walking on eggshells here in case the code is misunderstood but here is my reply to Todd.
I have told this story before but it deserves retlling like ML King address in Montgomery at the end of the Selma march deserves an annual listen. I am proud to have memorized the Lowell poem
My senior year at Gaffney High a few weeks before a lte snow that toook the lives on Mr. Beam and his wife and daughter I was sharpening my pencils in Ms. Beams's advanced Match class in which did miserable, Ms Beam comes over and says: Stephen congratulations on your scholarship to Furman. Paul and I think you are a fine young man. We know how much Furman costs and how much your Father makes at a small Baptist church. Paul has a lot of friends there, so don't be shy about coming to us if money b becomes a problem.
She and Dr. Beam, school superintendent and an ordained Baptist minister would;ve been of my recent effort platformed at Good faith media on good Baptists of the 20th century
It's not much but it's something.
The grandson was also in the car. David Youngblood surivived and became a German and Math teacher at Greer High School. He played tuba in the Furman band. I need to look him up and have lunch.
Ms Clayton poasses for a historian in Collinsville Alabama. She has no formal trining that I am aware of but is chrage of the Historiacl Association facebook page where she deletes discussion of the Civil War. She takes great pride in being the last descendant of the Brindleys. She is a good woman and there is considerable intelligence in the family but she is stubborn in the worst aspects of the Daughters of the Confederacy mentality which for fifty years now have been discreditted.
So here is a primer for her and the former Mayor Jimmy Carter on the matter
Her Aunt was in a key scene a favorite of Brett Morgen who did a doc on Collinsville in 92. Three years ago Brett got a six minute standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival for his doc on david Bowie. See his impressing Wiki page
One of his favorite scenes in the Collinsville Blessings of Liberty was of Ms Ollie Brindley in her living room with a Grandfather clock ticking loudly talking about here colored help who would practically bow to the ground in the presence of white people
The New Yorker has covered the "inevitability" of the Civil War through book reviews, like one for Jay Winik's "1861: The Lost Peace", suggesting the war wasn't inevitable but a result of missed compromises, with Lincoln initially seeking to preserve the Union through containment rather than immediate abolition, while also highlighting Lincoln's ultimate refusal to yield on the expansion of slavery, a stance that forced the nation's hand, leading to conflict over irreconcilable differences. The debate often centers on whether the war was an unavoidable clash of systems or a preventable tragedy due to political failures, with many historians arguing that the core issue of slavery's expansion made peaceful resolution impossible by 1861.
Key Perspectives from The New Yorker & Related Discussions:
Missed Opportunities: A review of Jay Winik's book argues that while many sought peace, the sides talked past each other, and no truly plausible compromise emerged to avert war, showing a failure to connect on core issues.
Lincoln's Stance: Lincoln, initially a moderate focused on containing slavery, eventually found his position on its expansion irreconcilable with Southern demands, pushing the conflict toward war, as detailed in discussions around Lincoln's evolving views.
Slavery as the Root: The election of Lincoln on an anti-slavery expansion platform was the final trigger for secession, making the conflict over slavery's future the central, unsolvable problem, notes a Facebook post linked to The New Yorker's discussions.
Alternative Paths: Some suggest allowing secession might have led to a weaker Confederacy, but the prevailing view in these discussions is that the fundamental disagreement over slavery made a violent clash likely.
The Consensus (Within These Sources): By 1861, the conflict over slavery's expansion had become so entrenched that many historians, as reflected in these discussions, view the war as a tragic but logical outcome of deep-seated, irreconcilable differences, even if specific moments could have played out differently. The issue wasn't just slavery's existence but its future, which the political system couldn't resolve peacefully.
Was the Civil War Inevitable? | The New Yorker
Apr 20, 2025 — In “1861: The Lost Peace” (Grand Central), Jay Winik—the author of several fine works about American history—takes up ...
The New Yorker
The Civil War was inevitable due to slavery. - Facebook
Nov 28, 2018 — By 1861 when the war started there were over 4 million enslaved black people in the South. The final blow which led to...
Facebook
Was the Civil War Inevitable? — Bunk History
Apr 20, 2025 — In *The New Yorker*, Adam Gopnik wrote about Lincoln's attempts to end slavery in America before he turned the idea of...
Bunk History
The Civil War Shouldn't Have Happened | Newswise
Oct 9, 2002 — The authors of *This Terrible War: the Civil War and its Aftermath* suggest that Lincoln may have been right that the w...
Newswise
What's striking about the new literature on Abraham Lincoln ...
Apr 24, 2025 — The Civil War as it was fought and when it was fought was not inevitable. An alternative would have been to allow the ...
Facebook
Was the Civil War Inevitable? | The New Yorker
Apr 20, 2025 — In “1861: The Lost Peace” (Grand Central), Jay Winik—the author of several fine works about American history—takes up ...
The New Yorker
The Civil War was inevitable due to slavery. - Facebook
Nov 28, 2018 — By 1861 when the war started there were over 4 million enslaved black people in the South. The final blow which led to...
Facebook
Was the Civil War Inevitable? — Bunk History
Apr 20, 2025 — In *The New Yorker*, Adam Gopnik wrote about Lincoln's attempts to end slavery in America before he turned the idea of...
Bunk History
The Civil War Shouldn't Have Happened | Newswise
Oct 9, 2002 — The authors of *This Terrible War: the Civil War and its Aftermath* suggest that Lincoln may have been right that the w...
