Politics from Gaffney to Sand Mtn, Alabama

Its rare that I post two blogs in one day, but been pretty active on facebook today talking politics. Two friends from Gaffney 40 years ago, Cathy Hall (Binky) Littlejohn now in Wyoming and Lee Ramsey still in Gaffney. Thinking about it all as beautiful sunset over Rainsville where I could see where the F5 Tornado came through April 27, 2011 and took 38 lives in the county. Thinking also of the novel Train Dreams and the heavy lyrics to the Sacred Harp songs I sang over the weekend on Lookout Mtn.
    So what else do you do between computer stations when Isaac is threatening HushPuppy and the Big WashTub and Nikki Haley is about to go on stage in Tampa and one of your good friends from Gaffney is in the audience; Of Course you stop in Mack Donald's as they say it here in North Alabama. So that is what I did. Politics on my mind I ask these two kids who they were votin for. One said he already voted. I said you in the military? He didn't want to say who he voted for but finally came out and said Obama; rare for a Caucasian in Dekalb County, Bama where Obama only got 20 percent of the vote in 08; we're talkin the reddest of the red.
      I asked his friend. Kid said I'm only 16. I said if you could vote who would you vote for. He said I don't know; we don't even have cable.
    Which I thought in hysterical way might get to this moment in America.
    But kid said he did know who the Scottsboro boys were, even had talked about it in class.
    Turns out he was from Scottsboro.
    Then again in Gaffney, I had no idea who W.J. Cash was till two years back in town after I graduated from Furman. But it didn't take me long to figure out who Marshall Frady was.
    And I guess that is why I'm voting for Obama.
    P.S. also made a few comments on Andie Macdowell's facebook wall. Shared a link with her to Marilynne Robinson. Maybe between her and Ron Rash Upstate Carolinas and Western North Carolina will vote authentic Christian for some Abraham Lincoln like Candidate in 2032.
    Then again we may all be Mormon Ayn Randites by then!!!!

Bill Walton, Larry Bird and the Pine Grove Sacred Harp

Please come back to this post for revisions as it will be written in some haste.

   Had a delightful two days of Sacred Harp Singing this fourth Sunday and the Sat before at Pine Grove in Collinsville, bout two miles as the crow flies from my front porch. As always the food was outstanding, in the realm of the reputed Alcenia's.
     Talked to a fellow from Indiana who was down with his family. They come about every year but first time I talked to him. Turns out my Furman classmate, Baron Hill was his former congressman. From there he told me a great Larry Bird Story I will share later.
    And after talking to him talked to a woman who flew in with a friend from Portland Oregon. She said in the 70's Bill Walton often road his bicycle in the community parade she organized. She was also a fan of Bob Dylan and I told her my Sam Dylan Story.
   Delightful people far removed from the CBC imbroglio of May 28, 2006 and just three or four miles removed.
    Also wanted to make notice of number 78 song. Told the fellow who requested it had strong resonance with the language of my Grandfather W.D Shorty Fox: "Mine's an urgent and pressing case."   A plea for the Lord's Mercy......

Mary Sue Bennett and Joseph Morgan

Mary Sue is the Executive Director to Rick Lance, the EX Director of Alabama Baptists in Montgomery. She is longtime friend of Gov Bentley as they worshipped together at FBC Tuscaloosa where Lance was pastor. Now they are all in Montgomery.

  Mary Sue has been quite hospitable and patient with my several calls the last few weeks on immigration reform, Kris Kobach and  Eunie Smith; and David Barton. I think she has a conscience. I think she and My Mother woulda been friends in the WMU had their paths crossed. I would not be surprised if Mary Sue knew Mary Katherine Reed of Collinsville whe MKat was on faculty at University of Alabama.
    Joseph Morgan is the fourth son of the Morgans of Collinsville. They have been here for 30 years; about 145 less than my Mother's family. They were present in Feb 2002 when Lottie Moon's biographer was on panel at Collinsville, Baptist Church.

  The Morgan's Fifth son may be Casey Mattox, not biologically but ideologically. I don't know if they have discussed Mike Hubbard's Republican Handshake or not. Joseph works with the GOP now in Bham. We have a share memory of Trade Day about Christmas 95 when my Dad tried to pass some flowers off on a fellow whose car was dented. Luke Griggs was laughin too, almost crampin.

   But I can't understand when the Morgans are gonna have the family conversation about the Tea Party. I don't talk to them as much as I did before May 28, 2006; but Yale and Duke and UVA has to come to something. Meanwhile between Charles Pickering and Barton and Kobach Bama is languishing and the Morgan fog is dense. Least Im not hearing of much clearing.

Collinsville Baptist 175th, Part Two

  I posted a blog last week on the Aug 12 175th Anniversary of the 1837 founding of CBC. My Mom and Dad were in the photo for the 150th. They have since gone on to be with the Lord. Their graves are in the Collinsville Cemetery. My Mother's family goes back to to 1844 in the area.
    I took the first blog down for revision. May bring it back up later time.
   William Fortner and his family to my knowledge don't go back that far but you can read his blog by clicking on his name at the website for the church. He is a deacon now and had a long letter published in the Centre Post Paper Feb 27, 2006.
   To my knowledge his blog never came up before the deacon board nor as a matter of conversation in the Mary Katherine Reed Sunday School class at the church. As an indicator of the future direction of the church, maybe that conversation is at least 7 years overdue.

     I have seen the Church History distributed August 12. They mentioned Cecil Etheredge as guest speaker in May 1988. I was there that Sunday and remember being impressed by his sermon. He talked about status in small towns, and though I don't think he mentioned it, his remarks were in the vein of Flannery OcConnor's story about the kid who got baptized in South Georgia in the 40's point being; "You coun't now."
   Collinsville still seems to have a different calculus. Cecil's Brother Red got at it in his comment on the Brett Morgen documentary to the effect you need two sets of Great Grandparents in the local cemetery before you can be fully accepted in a town like Collinsville. That was an underlying haint, in my view in the deliberations of the church on May 28, 2006.

   Cecil's Granddaughter is in the picture on this blog. Young woman in the left of the picture taken at a CBF event in Atlanta June 2006. 16 years earlier I had a serendipitous conversation with Fred Grissom an earlier pastor of CBC when CBF met in Atlanta in 1990. Best of my Memory same meeting I invited Doug Cumming, son of 60's Atlanta Bureau of Newsweek to the event. We were and continue to be fans of Marshall Frady.
   You don't have to read much of Fortner's blog to figure he don't know much about Frady or what he was about.
   As the fellow said on the Simpson's a Spider Pig does what Spider Pigs Do.

    God Bless Yall and look for further updates.

     With Doyle Hargraves, I play cards with J.D. Shellnutt.

Albert Blackwell, Mars Hill and Hardware store on Poinsett

   Gonna quote a paragraph from my fall 72 Furman Religion proff Albert Blackwell October 8, 1990 lecture at Furman in the LD Johnson What Really Matters series. Dr. Blackwell introduced me to Schleiermacher. I did some serious thinking just a year after intro to religion class with Chick Fil A's Dan Cathy.
    In 76 or so I went up to visit my sister at Mars Hill College and had the good fortune to have a conversation with Albert's Mom and Dad. I think my friend Ron Rash will like this paragraph, as Mars Hill is the setting for his recent novel The Cove.
   Few years ago I had some email exchanges with Dr. Blackwell on Rash's first novel One Foot in Eden. Albert is a fan, found One Foot in Eden elemental. I hope to hear his thoughts on the Cove soon.

     From What Really Matters:

      {Blackwell earlier talked about "prodigious amount of time trying to remedy mechanical ills"}

     If anyone is interested, you can find a clue to this compulsive behavior on my part in Auld Hardware, that wonderful relic of another century at the joining of Rutherford Road and Poinsett Highway. Ask the proprietor, Al, to show you the octagonal rotating bolt case at the back of the store--the one with a small brass nameplate reading "A. R. Brown, Erwin, Tennessee, Patented May 7, 1901." Albert Rosecrans Brown was my grandfather. He spent his early career as a traveling salesman, driving his buggy over Eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, taking orders for W.W. Woodruff & Company, Wholesale Hardware, of Knoxville. Later, he established and operated a general store in Erwin., A.R. Brown and Company. My mother, Olive, worked fin the family store office and tells me that my grandfather's favorite department was always hardware. And so, as we say, I come by my compulsion naturally.

  End of Quote.

   If you are fond of such good anecdotes, you should google Blackwell on Isacc Watts and Science. This little paragraph is a gem. I felt compelled to share.