Family history

   About two weeks ago my first cousin on mommas's  side sent out a facebook notice with a letter his Dad my Uncle James sent from Germany during the Big war with some thoughts on fascism. He tried to suggest our grandfather, a Lincoln Republican born in 1881 woulda been antifa. I cant go that far but I get his point. Pat is the most radical of all of us, been a member of the sanctuary for thirty years now with several trips to central America from his station in New Mexiso. His sister's has a daughter who is ordained Baptist Preacher and my sister led a church group from Greenville SC to take the civil rights tour in Selma and Montgomery over last weekend. I crossed the Selma bridge with John Lewis and Ethel Kennedy in 2012 and went back to see Obama and Bush 43 in 2015. since Furman have been a fan of Will Campbell and Marshall Frady.

   Some classmates from Gaffney SC think I am a communist, but they didnt elect me most intellectual for nothing.

   Joke on me.

    That said some families are in earnest over the Holidays to share history. I may publish cousin Pat letter of his father soon.

   Fox side is interesting too, but they are not as thoughtfull in the aggregate as the Jordan sides Grandfather Jordan ran as Lincoln Republican 110 years in for school superintendent and was soundly defeated. His wife Aurrie Lula Vanzant three brothers were all medical doctors.

    My grandfather WD Shorty Fox had brother 20 year's younger than him who became a vice President of Reynolds aluminum. My oldest cousin Harold Brannon Simmons rose high with Sears and Roebuck and cousin Timm Wood married the niece of the long time treasurer of South Carolina Grady Patterson. His brother in law spoke at the funeral of the founder of Chic Fil A, Truett Cathy who I put in the bigger picture of the Baptist tradition in a recent blog.

   Roger Milliken Jr was great friend the summer of 1979 as was Brett Morgen January of 1992. He got a six minute standing ovation at Cannes Film festival three years ago for his documentary on David Bowie. 

   Late jan 1992 on back porch was Morgen and Karen Krattinger who became a tour manager fr the rollng stones, as Brett docked in 2012 with Crossfire Hurricane.

   Whcih brings me to bill Wyman in Muscle Shoals Alabama in the early seventies. As they were leaving the Holiday Inn this young woman custodian asked Wyman if his group was one of the rock groups that had been coming through a lot in those days . He siad Yes: Martha and the Vandellas

   Which brings me to one of Billy Graham's better anecdotes. This one about the mule who ran in the Kentucky derby. Mule and rider were askes why subject themselves to that kind of humiliation where they said they just wanted to be in good company.

   But not as good as Stewart Newman on Charles Stanley  the President of the Southern Baptist Convention in the eighties. Word got out that he went out to walk his Duck and got his head all cut up by an outboard motor

Furman's embarassing Criminal Trespass Policy

  Furman criminal trespass policy and its random implementation on whims of some faculty is beneath the good reptation of the University. A Mr. Suttles in 2019 discovered that and became of some notoriety in a column easbily googled at the Furman Paladin Newspaper.

   I was told if I appealed my case I would charged with harassment.  A few weeks ago I discovered the Furman Thrive committee and  am seeking some sensibility from them to overule the decision so far by John Milby of campus security.  He is a nice fellow trained to be a Swat officer; He is just doing what his handlers tell him to do.

    So I hope the Thrivers will overrule him immediately as I desperately want to attend by 50th Homecoming celebration with outstanding lectures, Homecoming Day and the Sunday to follow when Alabama comes to the renovated Timmons  arena to play Furman in an exhibition. My last five years back in the Upstate I have attended many games and revived some of the passion of the mid seventies with Clyde Mayes and Bruce Grimm

    Furman stand to lose a quarter of a million dollars in the next few years from friends of mine who will no longer consider Furman in their wills. They think I have been mistreated and the word will spread.

  On top of that several of us are pledging cumulatively a thousand dollars in the next decade if this outragesous and  ridiculous charge is not  overturned for homecoming

     This is not Trone money, but a quarter million here and a thousand there and after a while we're talking real money.

   Here is just a short list of Furman folks Ive become acuainted with over the last fifty years, classmates and the greater community I am convinced a Fair searing of my predicament would join my cause

    Tomiko Brown Nagin of Harvard and Ratcliffe

    Ainsley Quiros of UNA and Vandy PHD. I reviewed her book on MLK and Americus Ga for Christian Ethics Today whose editor in Furman class of 65

  Historians Vernon Burton of Clemson and Ed Bridges who wrote the bicentennial history of Alabama. On my invitation he come to Collinsville Alabama in 2019 for a Presentation  

Doug Cumming retired journalism proff at Wash Lee whose father Joe hired Marshall Frady in 1965 to work out of the Atlanta bureau of Newsweek

    Classmates John Baker of Charleston, and Bob Carr. Bob was an English Major and made a B in Crabtree's Shakespeare class. Baker was on the engineering team that renovated and did the addon  dining area  the Dining Hall

    Dwight Smith who has stayed around Greenville and acitve in the Furman community the last 50 years.

    Vic Greene longtime Chaplain. As noted in an earlier blog, Jim Pitts said he would nominate for a Furman chapter of the Order of the Palmetto.

   And John Adams pastor of fbc Easley SC Furman grad with Baylor PHD who has come to know President Davis of Furman fairly well in her seven year presidency of Furman.

 Kathy Sharpe whose Mother was English   teacher at Furman and husband Mark Stone just reitred from the  Philosophy Department. And Kathy friend from Triune Mercy Center Elaine Nocks retired from Furman faculty

  And I think if you asked him the right question Alec Taylor, trustee and benefactor would come down on my side. He was on my Intramural softball team.  About 15 years ago he came to Collinsville where I had arranged for Hugo Black's Grandson Stepehn to have lunch with us

   Sam Hodges the acclaimed Journalist of FU 77 is aware of my situation. We talked October16

     I am open after Homecoming to meet off campus or wherever with the The Thrive folks or their representatitives to iron this matter out. Longtime Greenville asttorney and state senator Fletcher Smith who was SC campaign manager for Joe Lieberman and in 2008 a hot aommodity for Hillary Clinton and Obamahas told me his open to meeting with us. We have been friends since the days of integration in Gaffney

  I mentioned this to Jane Robelot of WYFF this morning in a call to encourage her to go see the grand movie One Battle after Another. 

    

       

Collinsville Panthers owned the Dekalb county basketball tourney in the nineties

 A 1 A school halfway between Birmingham and Chattanooga was the best basketball team in North Alabama in the nineties. They won the county tourney four years in a row and were in the finall two more years. Starting in the fall of 93 with Billy Wayne Clanton they estableished some glory years as the Dutton brothers Mark and Chuckie then Solomon Stanton and Luke Griggs and Delvin George came along. Neal Thrash of Fyffe Alabama was their coach who sidelined in teaching Shakespeare.. 

    What follows was first dictated so it has some flaws but the substance is strong and will be revised and edited. The upshot of it all is the School should honor these players and teams thirty years out, and the county tourney should feature them mid January during the break of the semifinals which historically is a Friday night

      They won the tournament for those six years and they were the semifinals The last couple of years of that decade prominent during that era was Billy Wayne Clinton, Mark Dutton and his brother Chucky, Solomon Stanton and Luke Griggs other notables off the bench Mark Morgan, who went to Duke university academically,Of course Delvin Delvin George, who was a great player himself, but was tempted every time he crossed the half court strike to think he was Kobe Bryant, and would throw it throw it up in room them out more often than a pass,  He became a standout baseball player at Tuskegee where his sister before him was a Homecoming Queen.   Solomon Stanton had great COURT  presence probably the best player of that era and the glue that held evrything together. . He  was a beautiful player with the shot and drive toward the basket he would give the ball up. He was probably the best of all, though he and Dutton for sure could’ve probably played small college basketball and even football along with his brother Chucky two of the fastest white guys the brothers in the county at the time

   Mark Dutton was in telligience in the Iraq war and became fluent in Farsi.  

 Sadly, Luke Griggs became a traitor, and in his coaching days a decade later went to Plainview, where he coached the girls and he took his son with him who could’ve been a benefit the last few years for the Collinsville Panthers of Billy Wayne went to work with the Cherokee county electric company, where his family was prominent. He was a nephew of the former principal at Collinsville, high school Sammy Clanton, who was a basketball a stand out at sand rock high school in the 60s in the class of 67 . We’re in Collinsville was still significant in the finals off the bench with Russ Beeene,. In  circa 2004  he became a screenwriter did did  adaptation of the internationally known novelist, Ron rashes novel, One  foot in Eden who’s in the film adaptation at one point had Jeff Bridges himself attached and a few years earlier Alicia VIKANDER herself and Oscar winner, but The producers were working on a $40 million budget and can only erase 20. I talked to Russ almost every day, working on the first draft of that effort, other notables Brett Gifford, also in the tail end of that phenomenal set of teams silky, which is move to the basket And and also a pretty good baseball player so there were others.

   Stephen Justice was promising in 94 but got injured and gimped through the last of his senior year.  Those are the ones that come to mind at the moment the Dutton boys’s father I think won  state tournament in 74 and he was a big fan of Bill Russell. I thought one day he was gonna fight me in the parking lot of the piggly Wiggly because I dare to say that a healthy Bill Walton was a better all-around player than Bill Russell. He won’t buy it Michael Jordan or David Thompson anybody he was a Bill Russell guy hundred percent 

     There are  a couple of stories that Mark Dutton told me that I’ll try to work in to this blog on a revision, particularly, he said they beat halftime of a Plainview game who was a three a team in the late 90s the coach for Plainview kept his team on the court. Then at halftime and when Collinsville came back out, he told his boys look over there at your Daddy which I thought was a great story so Collins will beat the Plainview the bad ass Plainview true blue and then beat the favorite Sylvania in the finals so that was a great tournament story so it was just a great run and here’s to the hopes that Kyle has a good sense to celebrate this team. This coming winner of 20  26 have them all there and even better. I think they should be given a presentation during a halftime of a semi semifinal game of the DeKalb county Tournament which is often the third week of January one quick note about Coach trash who these boys love, Mark, who went to Duke and Mark got the one on one game with Shane Battier while he was there after the season and he didn’t score any points in a 15 one point Exercise but Marcus is senior year in Collinsville high school English teacher was out with a pregnancy and coach  Thrash in to teach Shakespeare and Mark says he was as good as teachers he ever had anywhere Collinsville or Duke so that says something for Coach THrash h even though I think Coach Willingham‘s ACT score might’ve been a little higher 27 which is phenomenal for a high school coach.  The wife of  Raymond  Weaver the football coach wife had perfect on math in 65 on ACT  so just a little side there to this up so here’s hoping there is a recognition of this great era and teams come back and get the recognition 30 years later that they deserve

              

Furman criminal trespass and the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

  This will begin a series of blogs on my drama with Furman and its criminal trespass policy of which I am the latest victim. Until January of this year I was convinced Furman was a grand place even with the unfortunate decision on Baseball during covid. At Furman I was an Argonaut for two years, in the Band a year and the Furman singers for several months. The fall of 1973 with Dicky Wilson of New Jersey I was co emcee for the Furman Homecoming production the Furman Follies.  McAslister auditorium was packed out with Vince Perone present and Herman Lay of potato chips and Pepsi fame. We did a grand job.

    My friend Jim Pitts recently deceased longtime Chaplain at Furman ssaid I was worthy of Furman's e    uivalent of the order of the Palmetto for my piece in the Christian Century in the early nineties about Furman's dilemma with SC Baptists. Dr. Johns snet me a note of thanks. President David Shi for several years was a reader of this blog, teasuingly calling it "illustrious" at one point. With Shi and Sam Hodges FU 77 and Coug Cumming, son of Joe who hired Marshall Frady at Newswek in 75l we consider ourselves the Marshall Frady fan club of Furman

     But I sent to a gahtering of the Furman faculty in January in late January, the dean of students rudely and arrogantly called out behind me to get to the point reading a Lee Atwater, quoting an Atwater memo interrupted me. When the meting was over I approached Dr. Kolb of the Sociology department and he said you weren't supposed top be here. I replied I'm kinda glad I was , and he said I'm glad you were here too!!

   Five days later I was notifed by Furman security I was charged with criminal trespass and if back on campus wiothin the year could be charge with 200 dollar fine and possibility of jail. And If I made appeals to anybody at Furman could be charged with Harassment.

    I Think all of this is a fiasco, a ridiculous over reaction and friends and classmates will be appealing to the Furman Thrive Committee in hopes I will be allowed on campus for the three day 50 Homecoming celebration including Homecoming Saturday and the next day Basketball exhibition in Renovated Timmons against Alabama

       Again this begins a series of blogs the first now about Monday and the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

        January 31, 2009. I was present at the 16th St., Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama.  on the October 6 of Monday  I went to the Berea Public Library but it was closed . Time to kill before Henry's BBQ i sucker punched myself and rode through the Furman campus. Never stopped but couple hundres yars outside the back fence near Dr. Huff's home I was pulled over by three Furman security including Lieutenant Johnson and Captian Smith   made it down to Henry’s on Wade Hampton for barbecue, but after that, I Visited the Judson bookstore on Main Street and read a few chapters of the new book by Butler Gallie 12 churches that have exemplified an era in Christian development since the time of Jesus. The 12th church is on the 11th church is the 16th St., Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama. I was there on January 31, 2009 and it was it was it was packed house I was standing under a window and when President Carter was speaking, he directed everybody’s attention to the window that I was standing beneath and he says look at that window. That’s the face of Christ that was blown out in the bombing of this church to kill the four little girls in 1963 To  my left two people down was Wayne Flynt, the Auburn professor the conscience of the state of Alabama and a few people down from him was the former governor Siegelman of Alabama 

   So  I was in good company that day Kate Campbell, the singer who open for Emmylou Harris in 2000 in Europe, sang some songs among us she is does a great cover of Kris Kristofferson‘s tribute to Martin Luther King and Gandhi my God they killed him and then later on the front steps, I talked to Marion right Edelman to great civil rights worker from Mississippi that was a great friend of Bobby Kennedy and set up a situation for her to come speak at limestone college in Gaffney, South Carolina my hometown a year later for the Martin Luther King weekend celebration.  She   spoke about a mile from my father‘s church when we were there in the in the 60s, so are the book doubles down on the murder of the girls it fails to mention the pastor there in the 30s whose son was at Union seminary with Dietrich Bon Hoffer. They were great friends in Bon Hoffer himself drove up old Highway 11 from New Orleans to upstate New York in 31 right in front of my mother’s home. She would’ve been seven years old eight years old at the time and and then later for 30 years, I live across the street from where I could see the highway that Bon Hoffer drove up so it’s a remarkable story 

   I didnt recognize anybody else from Furman in the audience that day but did have a great friend from Samfod, SGA Presidnet Todd Heifner who was acquainted then with Cherington Shucker now in development at Furman and member of the Thrive Committee

     More later so keep checking in the next three weeks as more unfolds

    

    

Authentic Baptists as identified by Randall Balmer and the threat of the legacy of Charlie Kirk

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 In 1959 and I was baptized at the Truett memorial Baptist Church in Hayesville, North Carolina the birthplace of George W Truett.  my father was the pastor there and it registered with me early the historical marker on Highway 64 on the sidewalk right in front of the Baptist Church.  This  historical markers said something to the effect-- and you can find it online --George W Truett, great Baptist who was 40 years to pastor the first Baptist Church Dallas, Texas was born 3 miles west of here.  There is a camp in Haysville still there in Truett‘s honor and in fact, oh one of my daddy‘s good scrabble playing friends Hershey Miller was in the 10th grade in high school in those days. His father was the association of missionary and he slept in the room in George W Truett‘s bedroom at his house there at the camp in 1960. The  great Baptist Stewart a Newman Came through Haysville with the president of Southeastern seminary, Sid Stealey  and another fella on the way to Nashville in the early days of the Elliott controversy, mom made a good meal for them and when it was over Newman, who really wasn’t enthusiastic about what he knew he would face in Nashville told Olin Binkley said you fellas just go ahead. I think I’ll stay here with Billy. Newman I was later to find out was a mentor to James Dunn DUNN himself.Newman  taught at Southeastern seminary was a teacher, not only for my dad, but his classmates Randall, lolley and Bill Self.  

   1960 would’ve been about four years after he followed WA Criswell  while at the pastors conference in South Carolina after Criswell  would’ve given a race speeding speech. Newman said W Criswell doesn't speak for me.   See Duke's Curtis Freeman Dead from the Neck up on That  telling piece of American history.   The late 30s it turns out from a oral tradition interview with Newman in archives at Baylor,  Newman was on a Train with George Truett  from Fort Worth to Memphis and they talked a good four hours on that trip and Newman said it wasn’t long before Truett was talking about his entanglement with Jay Frank Norris.   Norris did everything he could to be little Truett and to diminish his great legacy at first Baptist Dallas. In  bigger context in what is to follow the great historian Jill  LEPORE missions in her grand history of America These Truths;, she smart enough to see how Norris and his way of thinking was to poison America’s politics in the 20th centurycom that through the fundamentals take over the southern Baptist convention and it’s part with Bushes the guy he called the third and then perfected in what became the MAGA movement of fundamentalism is the key role plays the key part so much so that when Lepore gets to the 70s, she emphasizes the role of the eagle forum played in slowing down America’s Grudging advanced towards progressive thought in the presidency of Clinton and Obama

  

This coincides with her October cover story in the Atlantic on the Constitution. There is a parallel to the the inerantist mindset on Scripture to Originalist version of the Constitution. That came together in the great Baptist of Alabama in the mid 20th Twentieth Century Judge Frank HJonson. He saw the Constitution as a living breathing document and was certainl inerrantist. About him Bill Moyers said had Lincoln lived in Alabama in the mid 1960s he wouldve been Frank Johnson and had Johnson lived during the Civil War he woulda been Abraham Lincoln.

  

   Jill Lepore in her recent history of America These Truths put the Truett Newman Conversation on the train ride in larger perspective. She has the savvy to make note of the legacy of J Frank Norris and the political evolution of his fundamentalism in her segment on the Scopes Monkey trial. By the end of the 20th Century Karl Rove was perfecting the strategy of molesting religious convictions that have given us the MAGA Base. Lepore doubles down on the Eagle Forum, a sister the John Birch Society and umbrella groups Paul Pressler, Patterson and Jesse Helms were energetic about. It is of some note that Tim Tebow's Mother, a member of Jerry Vines FBC Jacksonville Florida, was the Eagle Forum woman of the year in 2018  

   Harold Bloom in the 93 American Religiion asserts the tragedy in the Southern Baptist Convention is the reslut of purely political machinations masquerading as religious conviction.

    

     Balmer does not mention of the 1500's Edict of Torda in the Catholic Lutheran Calvinist tensions of the Transylvanion region of Europe where relative peace and religious toleration was established two hundred years before the creation of the United States. I could not find if the founders were aware of Torda or not as they founded the Second Amendmant which Balmer calls America's greatest idea.

      Little disjointed segueway here but this blog has good chance of publication in the upcoming quarterly winter issue of Dhristian Ethics Today . Balmer has fourteen or so chapters in this book featuring aspects of the the Second Amendment and its interpretation and development of the last 200 years. Baptist Joint Committee's Holly Hollman says  this book is an "antidote to the persistent threat of christian nationalism". Balmer conver the Blaine's amendment, the case of the Mormons, Kennedy and School Prayer and LBJ as well as several insightful chapters on the origin of the second.  In his Chapter on Roy Moore and the Ten Commandments in Alabama twenty years ago he doulbed down on the great Baptist George W. Truett to make a distinction of just how far astray Roy had gone.

    Citing George Truett great speech on the separation of church and state May 16, 1920 Balmer,  an expert witness in the case,  concludes his chapter on Roy Moore thusly:  As for Roy Moore's Graven image, that was precisely Roger Williams point about protecting the faith from trivialization from too close an association from politics and the state. And Balmer suspects Williams would have something to say about parents screeching their piety at a school board meeting in Florida.

    Baptists have one consistent record theroughout their long and eventful history George W Truett declard from the Capitol Steps in 1920 "They have never been a party to the suppression of conscience"

     America needs more Baptists!

    End Balmer quote

      

       

    

 Thisd is the set up for review of Balmer new book on separation of church and state. Evey authentic Baptist church should have ten copies of this jewel of a reminder of just how significant Baptists are in a very distinctive part of the greatness of America now under threat of the legacy of Charlie Kirck and Christian nationalists forces.

    Balmer recently names Kirk and is compadre David Barton " charlatans" 

   

Charlie Kirk in perspective, Legacy, Stuckey and what not

 Check her next week for a review of Randall Balmer book on church state separation. On Tuesday Balmer one of the leading scholars on evangelical politics in America at Good Faith Media named Kirk a "Charlatan" . As it is also with Eric Metaxas and david Barton. Somebody please tell FBC Spartanburg and Trey Gowdy, his Mommo Ovalene and Nikkiei Haley on the Clemson Trustee board and her friend the Management Bien Milstead a wayward Wesleyan with the voice of Clemson athletics: The ROAR 

Saints in Newport Tenn and Bethany in Gaffney; Bethel and Bethany

   Come back to this next week as it will need some edits and refinement.

       Couple weeks ago I turned up the obituary for Paul Rufus James of Newport Tenn. Goodgle it up for background of this blog. He was a choir director for 70 years, four of thos at my dad's first church in the Baltimore community of Parrotsville and Newport Tennessee. I was born there in 1953 when Steve Spurrier was in the fourth grade on the Hill at Newport Grammar School. James was a lifelong friend of my dad coming to his birthday party in 1997. My Dad 's first baptism was his son Freddy who became principal of Cosby High School, made famous in Cormac McCarthy;;s last novel, the Passenger where the protagonist Bobby Western toys with going off the grid to Cosby. 

    INez Thompson,  served Kool-Aid for 10 years or more vacation Bible school at Bethany Baptist on Wilkinsville Road in Gaffney where my Dad was pastor from 1962 to 1978.   we had this two week 10 day vacation Bible school. This memory celebration of two saints   is provoked in part by the cook the goose  ecumenical conference in NE cranny of North Carolina of Virginia and Tenn in the New River vicinity annually for the last seven years  on a farm. Kevin Heffner, the Kidney doctor in Arkansas who has a pine forest and a nice home . His father of Plain Dealing LA father work for the Sunday school board is Todd‘s brother. They’re big fans of Justin Cox, a preacher who interned with Jack Causey in Statesville so there’s that connection to Gaffney though it’s a little bit of a reach 

    I went by the Thompson house last Friday on KNOT T St.. It’s hard to find it. It was closed off two different ways and you can’t get to Jackie Simmons and Chip Sheffield. Can’t get on that street anymore. It’s got a bit tough hill, but it was in that yard my fourth grade , a Sunday,  the fifth grade they invite us over for a very modest charitably, house on that street they invited us over for lunch and we get there and some of their extended families cause of such a big spread. We’re invited up from Pacolet. They hadn’t gone to church that morning when I one of their cousins in law  smoking his Marlboro with his cigarettes wrapped up it is His sleeve and his T-shirt. First time I heard the word politics registered with me as it was an earnest conversation. and then I became enamored with upstate politics with Roger Milliken and his Gaffney associate  John Hamrick and textile Mill workers 

   Paul James  came over to Newport from Warren Wilson school learned that in the obituary in . Later moved his letter from  Bethel Church to  English Creek, he was choir  director song leader for 70 some ideas. He was a good man. He got into local politics on the county commission and his obituary speaks for itself.   Carlyle Marney, the great Baptist Wiseman and intellect came down to Gaffney from Charlotte in 1978 two years two months before he died to speak to ministers and I crashed it and I think Mike Hammett was there but somebody was talking about integrity just a few years after Watergate and he was talking about all the scandals in church life in here and there and somebody ask him so where is integrity in America these days.   and he said he said you preachers see it every Sunday morning when you look out in the congregation, all your churches have five or six people, families that hold it together that tithe give 10% of their income they show up for the services. They have a prayer life. They read their Bible. He said that’s where it is And so it was with Paul James and Inez Thompson, James Broome and Esther Dawkins, and there’s all kinds of others in mom’s hometown I don’t know if he does his daily Bible reading or not but Thomas Barksdale is a good man in the mold of Paul James and Jeff Graves. is a good man and and my friend on the water board in Momma's Hometown of Collinsville Alabama where I lived for thirty years. Peggy Weaver the good Methodist wife of a high school All American quarterback is in the Lamb's Book of life as well

Uncle Herschel and Furman's Confederate commencement speaker

I Have recently blogged about Mary Beth Stuckey commencement speaker at Furman for her class of 2013 also a product of Prestonwood Baptist church in Dallas a Flaming christian nationalist congregation in Dallas Texas.

    Like the Randy Newman song,Rednecks, Aliie Beth came in dumb and come out dumb too. Now she has embraced with Lara Trump and others the Trump line on Cracker Barrel. See great piece at Baptist News Global on the same subject, a site that recently named Allie Beth and her straight arrow opposition empathy.

    As the line goes in Road to Perdition, It's all so effing hystrrical. Witness the dance yesterday online of Uncle Herschel and Trump dancing to YMCA making the Barrell Americna again.

    This opinion is much more substantive if you read the BNGlobal piece.

    I was in the Cracker Barrel yesterday. I called on the manager. He said it was mcuh overblown and like the two transgender if there are that many in South Carolina, He was not aware of any Barrels getting the work over. Still dark with Mallo cups in the merchandise area and a fireplace.

   On occasion Cracker Barrel has been a sacred place for me.A few years ago at the Ft Payne Barrel I had a brief but delightful conversation with Alabama's Randy Owen on the writer Ron Rash . And in the mid nineties my Dad and I stopped in the Cracker Barrell in Kennesaw Ga after a CBF gathering in Atlanta. I t was registering with me his Baptist witness and his friendship with the great ones Randall Lolley, Bill Sell Self and Stewart A Newman. I started crying. I said Daddy, I'm Messed up. He said I know, but not so loud.  

    My Grandfather Jordan on Mommas's  side  was  a Lincoln Republican and his Father skirmished for the Union in North Alabama. See Howell Raines on the North Alabama Union fighters and also see my blog about the home guard threatening to kill a distant ancestor on Lookout Mtn. He hid out over a bluff you could see from the family front porch I lived in for thirty years on Hwy 11 where Dietrich Bonhoeffer came up the road in 1931