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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.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Oct 2 update: Mayor Carter, Mike Rogers; Lowell Barron, Quilt Walk and REEform in Bama

Oct2, MOnday:
Here are several sighting and thoughts on this years QW, pretty random.
Friday was beautiful weather; due to extenuating problems, more car problems I hit the walk this year entertaining myself with a little theatre of the absurd, which amounted to a shirt selection. Caught the prayer right there on Main Street about kickoff time Friday noon with the organizer and the librarian holding hands with about three constables, wherein the organizer asked Jesus to help her hold her tongue during the event.
I kinda wish the librarian had held hers during the three strikes, the Kangaroo Court and the Mercer phone call; but all that is a matter of local history.
Other than about three women involved in the QW phenomenon though, I have to give them credit, it is evolving into quite a civic event, even if patronized by 93 %(estimate) women.
Some of my "Sponsors" were had promised to put up the 6 bucks for the ticket, but when I looked in the bldg to see on Sat from whom I would have to purchase and it happened to be the chief culprits in the Mercer affair, I just couldn't do it.
I did however kinda want to see how the story teller named in a Gadsden Times article treated the Underground railway and wove it into Collinsville's peculiar circumstances in Dekalb County. Was particulary interested to see if anybody in that civic function housed in Collinsville's historic Baptist Church made any connections to then and the dilemmas facing the Hispanic influx today; to see if the "White Folk" had learned anything about justice work when it made a difference, or were they still keying on History and a treat, a day out for the "ladies".
I did in fact have a conversation with two nice women from Texas. They were visting Bham and came up for the day.
One of my black friends did allow he was favorably impressed with the talk at the Baptist--I think it was every hour on the hour--and I heard several favorable reviews the next morning at Jack's from participants.
My friend Charles Payton, took the walk. He was one of my Grandfather JOrdan's students.
Had a cordial conversation with a young woman and her mother who is pursuing post graduate study at JSU, having done work at Florida State and Miss St., in psychology.
Did notice the librarian and a city councilman deacon doing some post walk civic work last Sat afternoon as I was getting some guacamole in the establishment across the street; great guacamole I recommend for all the natives and any travelers who come through; last establishment on the right before the RR track going east.
Bobby Welch's boyhood friend did a good job with his tramway toating the women about town.
And another plus was the diversity of locations this year, including a black church and the new community center in a black neighborhood.
Would be interested to know if any of the walkers or folks associated with the library or sponsoring organizations including the STudy Club and Aunt Mary know anything about Pearl, the remarkable character in Doctorow's The March. Page 240 is good place to start; beautiful remembrance there.
Wanted to ask the brought in story teller if she was familiar with Pearl.
Carol Mockenhaupt was the storyteller according to the GAdsden Times. You can read that story online with registration.
Bout forgot, I understand they got prepublicity in Tuscaloosa News, Gadsdentime, FPayne Times Journal and Chatt Times. Great line in in TJ from Ms Wilkins, one of her best to the effect there would be hot dogs, hamburgers, quilts and chips, the food provided by "Baptist" men. What could be better, she mused.
So if you take out my recent experience with the Librarian and some other key folks in this event, I give the weekend a B Minus; which if they take the chip off their shoulder is a pretty good grade, I thought.
On another matter I have a letter published in today's www.postpaper.com ; not up online yet, but should be in a few to ten days.
Oct 2, a Monday


Sept 25, a Tuesday if I am not mistaken
www.postpaper.com/rogersborder06.htm That article from yesterday's free weekly in the Collinsivlle area--you can get a copy at the Pig; the sentiments of US Bama 3rd District Congresmman Mike Rogers do not square with the sentiments of www.collinsvillealabama.net Mayor Jimm Carter, the mayor of the most ethnically diverse town in the state www.alabamatv.org/collinsville
The goood Mayor who I have previously called a blowhard on this board for his eggregious role in the Kangaroo Court of January 24 where I understand Donna Jones to have said--she told me herself the evening of April 1, after the Reception, after the Multitude was fed--this time by Raymond Weaver--and the soul slipped fourth and the truth started coming out--see Mary Oliver's poem Maybe
It was that evening Ms. Jones a member of the Collinsville Library board told me she said Jan 24: I know Fox, more than likely he was just teasing.
Susan Weaver was there Jan 20, that was her take.
Russ Beene was there for the Yale Deadline letter on Behalf of getting Matthew Morgan into Divinity School and he witnessed nothing that came close to a building block for getting somebody permanently banned from a public library.
My Friend Mary Berry witnessed a similar nothing incident in the fall of 2003, couple days after Ms. Wilkins was losing ground in a church disucssion of the role of women in a Baptist Church.
As Annie Ruth Brown and Rebecca Mitchell said in a statement quoted in a certificate Martha Barksdale presented to Jennifer Wilkins in the presence of Congresman Aderholt April 9 in the Presbyterian Church in Collinsille, it is indeed the case Ms. Wilkins "can do so much with so little."
But I digressed here at the outset.
The Link above stands in contrast to a remark Mayor Carter made a few days ago to me on Main street just about 40 yards east of the newly named Chambers Street intersection.
Mayor Carter said he was proud of me for the remarks he had heard I made in the Guatemalan Church matter before the zoning board. He said he tells Lowell Barron and Congressamn Aderholt, for whom Jojo Morgan, the local pastor's 4th and some would say most notorious offspring interned, Carter tells them he is not so much worried about the border as he is with assimilating local immigrant population into Collinsville's basic ways of citizenship.
I don't think the Mayor had the behavior of two city councilmen on the day of Feb 23rd in mind; god I hope not cause I don't have enough money to buy that many bicycles.
Point is both the Mayor and Rogers, if in their heart they are truly vituous, and here I would reprimand the local Pastor's association for a less than a prophetic, progressive stand on immigrant issues--both have a lot to learn from Miguel DeLaTorre at www.ethicsdaily.com and my good friend David Ostendorff of www.newcomm.org
Bishop Willimon has in the last year taken issue with Senator Sessions on Immigration reform. I have done every thing I know to do to encourage Lori and Peggy at www.collinsvillealabama.net to make copies of White Heat at www.thenation.com ; bobMoser's article available to the Collinsville city Council
For sure I say Rich Lowry's column in today's Gadsden times, you can read online from Spet 22 at www.nationalreview.com
But I think the Bishop, and the Christian Community, the one I understand Matthew Morgan, John and Susan Weaver, Becky Kennedy and Bishop Willimon to be flourishing in; that community has no stomach for the political calculations and hubris of Mike Rogers. He is playing a classic Lee Atwater, karl Rove Card and there is no word from the local Baptist cooperative program funded Richard Lnad's ERLC to quicken their conscience about it.
JR bobo told me at breakfast couple weeks ago, nobody cares about my Poop. Said he would rather talk football. Go ahead and talk football till you are blue in the face, I like it too, to paraphrase REd Etheredge's maid in the opening sequences of Blessings of Liberty;
Just if you get there first Joseph R, get Jesus to telegraph me a message and let me know how your sentiment plays in Heaven. Let me know and I will do my best to get word to Jojo Morgan and Tyler Coker, cause best i can figure they are bettin on football.
Even so, Gaffney's Sidney Rice and Spurrier's Cocks in a major upset of Auburn nationally Thursday night; a historic event, and then October 19, a national event, Gaffney takes on #4 Byrnes on Nike's Game of the week on FoxSportsNet.
More later when I take up the quilt walk and the Underground RWay theme with Annie Lucas Brown.

Sat 23rd: In my take on Senator Barron of yesterday, I failed to mention some of my reservations about his response to the Constitutional Reform question I posed to him when he had a Town Hall Meeting June 13 in Collinsville.
The way the state embraced Bama Gov Riley's appointment of former Samford President Tom Corts to clean up the state's two year college system is easily interpretted favorably for Constitutional Reform in the State. Corts has been a leader in that movement and is supported by the best and brightest including the broader www.alarise.org network which UMC Bishop Willimon has smiled on.
Barron resists engaging the idea of Constitutional Reform. He says the people are not interested in it. AT the town Hall meeting, he said I was the only person in several meetings across the region who had brought the issue up, that he considers himself a servant of the people, in Montgomery only to push issues that are of concern and benefit his region.
He began his talk with the standard lament of NOrth Alabama, that the Big Mules of George Wallace's Black Belt once controlled the state, but through folks like Barron and other wiley politicians of North Alabama we have been able to bring power and money back up this way.
What Barron fails to mention, and it is sad folks the likes of several deacons, a leader in the Quilt Walk and so called downtown revitalization movement, is that Bama lights like Wayne Flynt of Auburn and Hardy Jackson of JSU, not to mention the editorial boards of leading papers in the state, look at the same tea leaves and see that folks like Barron are now the Big Mules, and it is their resistance to Const Reform that shackles the state. And it is regrettable retired asst. School Supe's, Women's Federated STudy Clubs and the like don't push Barron on the issue. So the charming Lowell gets away with the Hipoppalorum and LoPoppahiram Huey Long made famous and is celebrated once again in the Great All the King's Men that opened nationwide yesterday, James Carville, himself as one of the three producers.
As I say below, Barron has enormous political capital. He could use that in the next few years to bring Corts, Flynt, Stephen Black and others to Martha and Donzella's STudy clubs the next few years, have a bipartisan panel in places with Todd Greeson and let's take a good look at the latter day Big Mules, name them and talk unflinchingly about what is good for our region and the entire state.
Stephen Fox
Senator, Thanks for working with me to get Edsall's book to NACC. I've already let him know both of us are itching to get at it.


Sept 22:Collinsville Homecoming today that always reminds me of some of the great parade scenes on film, Mystic River and Paris Trout. Had to lean a little toward PT today as saw one of my favorite city Councilmen coming down the street. Looks like he bought him a new truck; a reminder of the Feb 23 dance downtown on the streets. Saw his compadre Saturday at Trade Day.
Talked to a lot of folks. Some were kind of mum, others including the former Mayor quite gregarious. A school board member was there, former HS football coach, and then I looked to my left and here comes the 2nd most powerful man in the state, Lowell Barron, campaigning. He autographed one of his brochures for me and I will cherish it, up there along with my autograph from Lucas Black, in the higher eschelons, just below the top tier of Will Campbell and Bill Moyers.
Recommended Tom Edsall's latest book to Senator Barron, saying he and Joe Turnham and myself; we could all learn from it. It is excerpted in Sept 25 print issue of www.trn.com
Barron's opposition this time around is active FBC Ft. Payne church member Don Stout, Collinsville Deacon Chair Brad Barksdale's boss at the Gas House in Ft. Payne. For God's sake I hope Stout knows more about his denomination and church policy procedure and ethics than Brad does. Brad is not a bad guy, just too enamored, too trustful and take him at his word of the pastor than a good baptist should be. Randall Balmer, Tom Edsall, George Truett; the perspicacity of Tom Corts, those are all foreign names and ideologies to Brad, and would not be surprised if same for Stout.
Here is the faultline in that race to date www.times-journal.com/report.lasso?WCD=6140
I don't see Barron losing. But as I have emailed him campaigns are a teachable moment for us all. I hope Barron will learn something from Tom Edsall, admit some mistakes of the past, join the Const Reform bandwagon, apologize to former Auburn President William Muse if need be; embrace a bipartisan review of his son in law Coy Murray's housing operation across from the frog pond, and embrace the justice politics of Miquel De La Torre and help square the ill will in Bob Moser's report White Heat in www.thenation.com
Barron has some great deal of political capital. In serious conversation with www.alarise.org he may be able to remedy aspects of his legacy in his remaining terms of his office and answer some of the current outstanding questions about his leadership.
However he fares in this latest round of his political pilgrimage, I wish him well.

Quilt walk is next weekend. I understand the theme is the Underground Railroad. AT one point I understood there was an attempt to bring in the famous quilters of Gees Bend. Don't know if that materialized or not. Will be quite fascinating if they pull that off. Would love to have some of the Gees Bend quilters sit down for a town forum to discuss the legacy of some of the folks that moved me out of the Collinsville Baptist Church.
Sfox
PS www.baptistlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3290 Lowell, you and Mary Anne may want to navigate this discussion on Chic Fil A's Truett Cathy. Do read the links, especially the one on the Christian Coalition endorsement of CFA's former corporate attorney Perry McGuire for Atty gen of Georgia. Question is how does Perry and CFA compare and contrast with Bama's on Troy King, especially along the baptist faultline of the Baptist World Alliance.
And where does the quilt walk CEO's come down on the BWA with Mr. Fortner, or do they and Brad even have a clue as to its significance.


Original bipartisan post welcoming Mary Anne Cole to viewing this blog. Talked to her on the phone this morning. She said she is lurking here, and did confirm the late August lunch in Ft. Payne with Uncle Prentice and Roger McDonald.
Here is the link that sets this post up
www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=7879
And here is a staff waiting to help if you go forward and fall prostate on the altar
www.snydermbc.com



Had a message on my machine this morning from BAma GOP Committeewoman Mary Anne Cole who has taken an interest in this blog. Her Uncle Houston Cole is former president of Jax St. University which has played Furman football opening game and lost both times.
Mary Anne's family grew up in church with my Dad's family at Calvary in Rome, Georgia, and her brother Fowler and My recently deceased Uncle Fremont were lifelong friends.
Fowler has been active in Jerry Vines WEst Rome BC and was active with the Birch Society for a while. But he also sings a great bass, and I remain open to singing with him again at a family reunion or some such if he is willing.
Mary Anne is an interesting bird. She campaigned for Judge Roy Moore for governor, but is a member of the FBC Ft. Payne, a congregation that supports the Baptist World Alliance. Mary Anne herself is of the opinion God can indeed call Women to senior pastorate.
So Mary Anne, in addition to getting a new computer and finding an email service you can settle on, I suggest you set up a blog. Folks at Collinsville Library will be more than happy to assist you, folks in the quiltwalk where you can join the sewing circle there. They are always looking for another avenue to Congressman Aderholt in addition to Jojo, and you certainly fit the bill.
To get the ball rolling keep an eye on the chat going on at www.baptistlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3276

The Owner of the Baptist moderate publishing house Cecil Staton had a photo op at their offices endorsing the GOP slate for Ga offices, including the corporate attorney for Chic Fil A.
Interesting indeed, as you see my thoughts there.
As long as you and me and John Killian and John Screws can keep talking without packing, there is hope for peace and civility in Alabama.

Stephen Fox

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Guatemalan church appeal in Collinsville

Last night I attended one of the more interesting public hearings I have ever attended in Collinsville. This zoning ordinance meeting easily ranks with the Feb 21 remarks of Deacon David Ryan, Martha's presentation to Jennifer Wilkins in the presence of Congressman Aderholt April 9, and Casey Mattox graduation ceremony for civic moments in Collinsville. Let me be clear, I was not in the Presbyterian church when Ms. Wilkins got the certificate, but I was in the barbershop April 4 when I was served notice, and I was at Samford the evening of Jan 24 when they were having the kangaroo court in the Lyberry.
But I digressed. Last night by a vote of 4-1, four Christians voted against a glossalaic 40 member Guatemalan dialect Church of God Congregation appeal to establish a place or worship in a residential neighborhood in Collinsville. Munsey Box, a Methodist who was a stomping ground friend of none other than Bobby Welch, recent president of the Southern Baptist Convention was one of the first folks to speak against the church appeal.
Two ministers on the the panel voted against the request, along with a member of Judge Roy Moore's base church in Gadsden, Joey Poe. A Republican Methodist layman, Bobby Elrod was the sole zoning board member who answered the question in the negative: Would this church adversely affect the community as a whole? Elrod allowed it may lower property values in that neighborhood, and the streets were a little narrow to swallow the likely traffic for a growing congregation, but for the town as a whole he could not convince himself it was an adverse proposition.
Quite frankly, I can not say how I woulda voted on this matter. It was a matter of grace Rev ATkins, a retired Church of God pastor chaired the committee. His reputatiion in the town and Christian character is impeccable. So I am not demonizing these people.
It was interesting one woman there in the audience who works in close association with the Ministerial Association on many projects was silent in the matter; least publicly last night.
I do think the Minister's Association should be open to working with the Alabama Baptist STate board of Missions-- www.alsbom.org --, The CBF www.thefellowship.info and Bishop Willimon at www.northalabamaumc.org should they take interest to be an advocate for these Guatemalan Christians as they seek a place to build their house of worship.
Speaking in tongues is not my tradition. But I do understand it to be the fastest growing church of Latin America, a joyful worship that serves much the same need as Black churches did when they were oppressed in the South, a Home away from Hope that gives Hope that Someday we will all be together as one in the Kingdom of God.
It would be hard for me to say No to That and look at Jesus straight in the face; though I am no idiot when it comes to property values.
I had a conversation with Collinsville Carter on Main Street today, very near a street that I understand is to become "Chambers" Street soon. From there I went to City Hall to report that Congressman Aderholt and Senator Barron, as well as Barron's son in law Coy Murray all need to context this discussion in the analysis of Bob Moser easily googled up entering White Heat in Nation Magazine; or searching for same at www.thenation.com
May God give us all wisdom for the facing of this hour, especially in the most ethnically diverse town in the state, which as I have said before, was the subject of a state wide television documentary shown again as recently at April 9 and 11 www.alabamatv.org Coming To a Crossroad.

Stephen Fox
Now it is on to Volleyball tonight and Let's Win There

"Alert the Amphibious Squadron"

Monday, September 11, 2006

"I'll Fight Him with Words"

I heard one of the better stories, quite colorful, about a Collinsville personality I have heard in some time over the weekend. Key phrase was "I'll fight him with Words" when the local jockacracy thought a brawl was about to break out over a suspected Diss of the Eagles. Coulda been a scene, or a deleted scene of the move DAzed and Confused.
I like sports but was not born an athlete. I have taken great delight in being a loud mouth fan, and I do like the great sports books of David Halberstam. He wrote about my almost Uncle Leon Culberson who goes in for Joe Dimaggio's brother Dom in the 46 World Series, 6th game of the BoSox against the Cards in St. Louis; wrote about it in his sweet baseball book, The Teammates.
I have taken delight in kicking some football players tail in a couple tennis matches. Both times were hilarious. Not lookin to get my ass kicked for reminding them cause I have great deal of respect for all the parties as football players, it is just funny to see them get serious about playing tennis and knowing it is bad manner to jump over the fence and beat your ass just cause they are losin a sport they can't play that well.
Dr. Rajesh Mehra and I did it in mid 70's in the Gaffney peach festival tourney against a High School All American who became a runnin back at USC. He was my brother's hero, and married a good lookin girl in my Dad's church in Gaffney; good guy, but Rajesh and I had to give him and the head football coach that year a lesson there at Irene Park.
And then there were the scenes in the mid 90's right out of a George Singleton novel playing with the good sports in their round robin summer Friday night extravaganza's here in Collinsville. If the ball bounced off the light pole and stayed in play, it was still in play. I didn't argue with them cause they were born here and I was relative newcomer and they were usually about 5 of a six pack in if it got close to a tie breaker, and Jesus forgive me, but I usually went home with the six or so dollars wagered, that is if Ricky Myers game was holdin up as my dbls partner.
So turns out one of them is an Eagle's fan and that is where the story came from but it is theirs to tale.
I hope to cut and paste something I got published in the Gaffney Ledger earlier this year, hoping they will appreciate it.
Also, great opening to get them to get the local lyberrian to get another decent book in the lyberry cause I really think they may like this one; Mark Kemp's Dixie Lullaby.
It waxxes eloquent in his tribute chapters to the Allman Brothers and Lynnard Skynard with this prose on the genius of REM and how they brought it all together:
page 179...."REM had taken Southern music beyond the moody blues of the Allman Brothers or the angry honky tonk swagger of Lynyrd Skynyrd. The South or REM had an artistic and intellectually detached quality, its landscapes painted with the colors and hues of textured guitar tones and vocal nuances rahter than emotionally reactive, blow by blow narratives. The gand's sound captured the pastoral ambiance of southern life without all the social baggage. Stipe's impressionistic lyrics and garbled vocal delivery didn't reveal much about the singer's specific feelings. It wasn't that he lacked emotion--in fact, in some songs, such as the delicate, "Camera", his voice positively bled--it's just that his enunciation was so vauge that the songs offered only glipmses of his pain."
And this about a concenrt experience in Greensboro NC in 84: "Stipe seemed to be expressing emotions I was having in a way that made me feel completely understood for the first time--more understood that I'd felt listening to the Allmans or Skynyrd. I felt understood on an intellectual as well as an emotional level. He stripped away all the crap that comes along with being southern, and the only thing left was pure humanness. The artist in Stipe seemed to have an understanding of humanity that transcended the burdens of our shared southern heritage."
For jocks, Baptist deacons and others who don't have the time to read Faulkner, Marshall Frady or Cormac McCarthy, this may be the one they read this decade in addition to the collection of Finebaum or Fly Jamma Flamma or the latest devotional book on the Life of Paul the Bear Bryant.
As the cover says this is a good one: "Kemp offers a lyrical, thought provoking searingly intimate and utterly original journey through the South of the 50's-90's viewed through the prism of rocknroll. With brilliant insight, he reveals the curative and unifying impact of rock on southerners who came of age under its influence in the chaotic years following desegregation. Dixie Lullaby fairly resonates with redemption."


Published in the Cherokee Chronicke, Gaffney South Carolina; April this year
Letters for Publication
The Cherokee Chronicle
Gaffney South Carolina

Last July I road up with my sister and her family to Washington DC to bury my Dad's Brother Fremont at Arlington National Cemetery. Coincidentally that weekend a friend from Birmingham was in town doing some progressive Baptist work and he asked me to go to church with him on a Sunday morning to hear a good preacher, native of Arkansas. I went. Preacher's topic was Kingdom of God is like a High School Reunion and he finds a text and tells the story of his 40th in Arkansas and how almost all of them turned out all right.
I went to my Furman 30th in October and got to thinking about it all and decided it was my time to speak at the Gaffney 35th this fall. So I ruminated and called several folks and finally somebody risked their caller ID and Tommy Jones, our President picked up the phone. I told him I had decided it was my time to speak and I always thought I could do a better job than him or Jeff Pettit. He agreed but said the bad news was as often happened when we were in High school I would be talking to myself cause 71 didn't do the fives they only did the tens and there were no plans this year.
But it was great talking to him anyway. I had forgotten one of his brother's names and called my brother to tell him and he remembered. Been thinking about Gaffney anyway as I had put Sidney Rice clippings around several places here in Momma's small hometown in NE Alabama and was irritating a few folks and that was the point anyway.
Then I see where the good preacher Donnie Padgett is having a Revival in May 31 years after Dad chaired the Bill Glass Crusade. And I talked to Rajesh Mehra on the phone when I went up To DC and was gonna go see him but missed the metro line out to his part of town. Also have become acquainted with the works of Ron Rash the poet, and novelist who was raised in Boiling Springs and graduated Gardner Webb in 75 and made a big splash with the LA Times and other book reviews with his 2002 One Foot in Eden. Good chance a friend and I here in Bama may splash with him with the screen adaptation.
But I digressed. I'm thinking about Gaffney and reading RAsh's poem on textile mills, the Hub City project Textile Town about Spartanburg County and the passing of an era and wanted to share Rash's poem from Eureka Mill with yall since I was taken with the whole thing last few years I lived in Gaffney in mid 70's.


Rash from Eureka Mill

The Last Interview

That's an early portrait on the wall,
painted the year I graduated from
Princeton University, the year
I took my first trip to the continent,
a disappointment, except for the wines.
But I digress. You spoke of exploitation,
the working man's abuse by men like me.
If they were so abused why don't they go
back to the farms they flee to work in mills,
become Vanderbilt Agrarians
quoting Cicero as they slop their hogs.
In thirty-four when the Union leaders came
and promised everything they could, then more,
my workers stuck with me. My workers knew
I'd take care of them. Eureka ran
when other mills shut down. I took a loss
so they could have some work. Noblesse oblige
is an idea we still live by in the South.
All Men Created Equal? Yes, perhaps
but see how soon we sort the top ones out.
Watch any group of children, they have leaders,
followers and stragglers. It does not change
as they grow older. No one questions rank
in war or politics so why not business.
Don't think that I am stupid. I see your pen
hasn't moved since this interview began.
You'll slant what I have said to fit your needs.
I know how writers work, their luxury
of always being outside looking in,
passing easy judgments while they risk
nothing of their own, mere dilettantes.
Your words mean nothing to me. I know the truth.
I gave them more than they ever had before.

Out of nowhere pretty much Rash is profiled in current issue of Oxford American Magazine with Tim Tyson, and Daniel Alarcon. Alarcon is a native of Peru, but prep schooled in Birmingham and kinda getting to know him also with another project I'm working on with a prescient here in Bama.
But it is Tyson I close with. Tyson is a United Methodist minister's son, and his experience in Oxford, North Carolina, about 30 miles above Duke University and 20 miles sideways from where my Dad went to seminary; while rawer, mirrors my family's waning days in Gaffney. No vendetta here; Momma forgave everybody the last three months or her life in 1988, and if it was good for Paul and Silas and my Momma, it is good enough for me.
But, to any of you truth seekers out there in Cherokee County, find his book and read it. I may not have the moxey he has nor the gift, but the revenants he brings back from the early 70's is much of the story I always wanted to share with loved ones with whom I wrestled there in Gaffney. I do not mock when I say that, just in a version of My beloved Dad, Billy Fox making another appeal, come again to the truth the fountain of life and drink from the water freely.



Near the end of Tyson's book is a chapter "Go Back to the Last Place Where you Knew Who You Were." For me that coulda been the fall of 1969, Miss Youngblood's 4th period Algerbra II class. Down the hall is Charles Foster waiting on graduation day May 1971, about five people in front of me and it is passed time to start and he hollers back at me: "Fox Get this show on the road, I'm Hurdlin out of this town." Down the Hall his cousin Schuyler is waiting on the future and her career with BMW, who in the 90's will send her to send her to South Africa at the end of apartheid, and it is Sky, of Gaffney, South Carolina who will go in a plant there and tell management: "Get these pictures off the wall; My People Can Read."
And in another room is Fletcher Smith, who just a few years later will be in law school at USC and President Ford comes to town and Fletcher asks several sterling questions. Later Ford asks the President of the SC Bar Association, his host for the Day, who the black student was asking all the great questions and the Lawyer says: "That was the irrepressible Fletcher Smith."
And then in another room Johnny Dawkins is toying with ideas, thinking about how he may dodge a linebacker in the Lancaster game, bout 15 years shy of the day he will be in a room with Quincy Jones, as one of the five finalists to adapt The Color Purple.
But on that day in 69, I am in the back of the room of 4th Period laughing with Gary Jones and Mary Jane Pettit, and we're trying to figure out our place in the scheme of things and the late bell rings and 30 seconds later in walks the Charming Jimmy Baker,--see the 1997 National Book Award Winner Charming Billy by Alice McDermott-- heavily pain medicated cause he broke his arm, and he's carrying a five pound weight cause that is what the doctor told him to do to get the bones to heal in place; and Ms. Youngblood says something to the effect: Jimmy, there aren't any special people in here, the tardy bell has rung and let this be a warning football game isn't till Friday night.
At which point Webb Pierce says: Cut him some slack Ms. Youngblood, my boys a star and we got to get that arm healed so we can go all the way this year.
Jimmy Baker is gone now. And time passes and we are in our early 50's and the generation between us and the great beyond is passing everyday and there is no cushion, no partition between us and the Sweet hereafter. It was only yesterday, clicheish as it is, I was talking to my Dad there on Dogwood Drive about James Dickey and his poem Looking for The Buckhead Boys. Now it is Our Time for the great Reminiscing stage and the Next Chapter.
But most of us were on our way to knowing who we were then and in memory we know Now.

I'm from Gaffney, couldn't be prouder
And if you can't hear me I'll say it a little louder.

Stephen Fox, GHS '71


Does Baptist matter in Collinsville Alabama /914Update for Martha, Brad and Butch

Thursday Sept 14 Update from the Berry Library:
As the great evangelist T Perry Brannon with whom my Grandfather WD Shorty Fox was deeply enamored in the great Revivals of Rome Georgia and Lindale in the 30's and 40's; as T Perry Would Say: Dearly Beloved
But this is fox talking now to the church where myMother was baptized. If Dr. Morgan, if what he is telling you on Sunday night the next several weeks in Bible Study does not for the most part mirror what I have just read Carolyn Crumpler of the WMU and Sam Hill who himself and his father both have degrees from Southern Seminary before it became a branch of Karl Rove's political machinations
If what Morgan is telling you does not mirror the testimony of Sam Hill and Crumpler in the UTenn Published book by Carl Kell Exiled; then he wittingly or un is LYING to you.
I know that is a strong word by the testimonies in this book are strong. Balmer's book is available. Kell is there. By several copies and pass them around. Engage the pastor and local bullies on this matter. Do something your grandchildren will be proud of you for doing, as Jon Templeton's will be of him and Jeffers of Him and Grissom of him, as I am of my Mother for walking out on Charles Stanley's convention sermon in 1986 cause she knew it was a bunch of hogwash.
Donnie Myers asked a good question of David Currie and company when the good baptists came to town in Feb of 02: "Why Bring it Here?"
Kell's book answers that question in stronger ways in my experience than Dr. Morgan could even begin to imagine, even if he had the guts to tell you if he did imagine the truth in this matter.
This ain't Kansas anymore and hasn't been for about 25 years now.
John and Susan are finding it out in Americus, Matthew had to learn a few things at Yale; Becky knows out there in Waco, and about time somebody told Donnie Myers and many others of you who ought to know better the same.
Stephen.
Don't worry about me. I'll be home soon.
Alert the amphibious squadron.

Martha: Others beside you and your deacon Son Brad and Dr. Morgan are key to keeping Collinsville Baptist Church in the Honest Baptist column, but I name you as Instructive.
As I think I have told you before I found the Dekalb Advertiser profile of the Collinsville Study Clubs interesting in one particular area this last year; that is where it said back in the 30's I think it was, your study clubs became less about books and ideas and more about flowers.
I think it can be read into that, whatever other virtues some of you may bring to the table, the kabballah on that sentiment is you become a club about status and who had money in town and who wanted it and who wanted little touch of aristocracy.
So towhatever merit you and your family may bring to the table, it is all for nought if you can't buck up to the forces that are rapidly putting the nails in the coffin on whatever was good and pure and true about the legacy of Grissom, Jeffers, Appleton, and the best of the Jordans, a consensus of which I gather would be any of the offspring but me.
So as you said in the Hardware a few days ago, you are busy. I believe you, especially here near Quiltwalk time and the street name change that may go with it this year. It may be more than just a street, because it may be the end of the neighborhood symbollically as far as Baptist goes.
That is why I consider your Bible Study important, and challenge you and Donnie Myers, and Brad and Sherrie Pruett and Buddy Acker to do a little outside reading.
Off campus, I am hoping Susan Weaver Morgan and her husband--they are becoming quite enamored of President Carter and weekly becoming more intune with his views of what it means to be a Baptist, and that should scare the beejeesus out of the Fortner crowd back at the home church, where it was recently brought to my attention by a new blogging friend at Baylor, the Christian Coalition is now linked on the website of the church where my Momma was baptized. Becky Kennedy is a little peeved at me in all this, but it would be interesting for you and Donnie to get a statement from her if it really matters what a Baptist is in Collinsville, Alabama anymore.
I am in the Berry College Library now, where they have a copy of Carl Kell's book Exiled. This collection of essays includes one by Paul Simmons, the man whose name I broached earlier this year in Sunday School; the conversation ensuing that so outraged your Son and Dr. Morgan.
It gets pretty close to exhausting the questions I have for Morgan and Gloria and Casey Mattox in their annual emphasis on abortion.
In all kindness and candor, not much aristocracy to your Study Clubs and or leadership in the religious and civic life of the community if you and Brad cannot influence the church and local library to get a copy of this book, and use your considerable intelligence to ask your pastor appropriate questions PUBLICLY, in this study of what it means to be a Baptist in Collinsville Alabama.
I am more than happy to do what I Can to help bring Jon Appleton to town to help shed some light on the matter. I have to believe he has more insight into the discussion than Bill Fortner and or the woman who got a quickie aside torpedo remark at the close of choir practice just a short time ago saying, no denominations don't really matter at all.
If not, why don't she and Fortner start a nondenominational church out on the INterstate and yall let me back in the local babdiss and see if we can't refire some creative thinking about Baptist Christian Ministry.
Rae or Joey Bobo can help you fast access Kell's Book published by the University of Tennessee.
Or you can go on business as usual with certificates to the Librarian in the Presence on Congressman Aderholt.
Uncle Bill thought a lot of you and I think you know in your heart I do not hold you in as low esteem as some of my detractors may try to spin this straightforward dissent in the church community.
I think I can speak for Appleton and Grissom that a lot is at stake in these matters.
I hope you and Brad can do a better job on these matters than you have done in the last several years as the town ideology has taken a decided dive. In the end it may not be the magnificent STevie after all that fumbled the ball.
Read Kell, Read Russ Beene's Friend Balmer.
Ask tougher questions in Bible STudy.
Demand the goofiness stop by 15 after the hour so you may have time for serious study.
Go for it Martha. Your namesake in the Holy Bible is calling you out.

Stephen Fox
Berry Library
Rome Georgia
Justabout Supper time Sept 14
two miles from the Flower Garden in my Dad's Honor at the Floyd Baptist Associational offices, the site of his elementary school.



And here is another article that really matters if anyone in collinsville really cares what really matters in this discussion. Hugo Black, lead paragraph of this article; his grandson spoke in collinsville April of this year, but casey mattox goes blindly on doing his thing with www.clsnet.org
Here is an article that matters; and if it only matters to me and Big Daddy Weave and the like then so be it.
www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2349


Tuesday Sept 12 update:
The pastor has made at least two, maybe three trips to Israel. To my knowledge he continues to refuse to read Charles Kimball's great book When Religion Becomes Evil, whose author one of his travelers on the last trip to Israel was invited to meet when Kimball was in Montgomery April 03.
The church needs to ask itself squarely in the face Is this the kind of Baptist they want to be
www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=7879
The pastor differs with his own sister in law Mary about the end times. I heard him in person when she was in the room in Sunday School about two years ago shortly after they left Smyth and Helwys literature to take up Tim LaHaye. Mary pretty much bought it, while the preacher, his 1st son and daughter in law did not.
To Mary's credit however, she has raised a son, Troy, who had the Al Pacino part in The Merchant of Venice in one of Atlanta's Better theatres recently. Would be great if Troy would come over and do a standup for the Collinsville City Council, the Part "hath a Jew not eyes, dimensions"; as some of them are crestfallen they can no longer use the N word at will, and now they hold Hispanics as less than. Troy could accent a teachable moment in Gloria and her sister will get on the program in this matter.
And you will want to all see Big Daddy Weave's comment in the Fight him with Words post. He is interfacing with Collinsville products at Baylor, the pastor's #1 son is going to hear President Carter this Sunday; and as a lot of you know Carter has written a recent book on the mindset of the takeover artists and Richard Land, the counterfeit, that Collinsville Baptist church now supports with its cooperative program dollars.
You would have to expect that a church chocked full of public school teachers, a profession, the SBC seems hell bent on eviscerating, would have the competence to deal with this question the preacher is addressing on the next several Sunday nights.
The preacher has asked a timely question, finally. Pray to God Martha and the Study clubs will have the gumption to prevail in this discussion, and the legacy of John Bulow Appleton, Fred Grissom and John Jeffers; not to mention Truett, Roy Honeycutt, Bill Hull, Bill Leonard, Molly Marshall, Paul Simmons and others that taught or Morgan went to school with; Pray it all was not for naught in the church and community where my Mother was baptized.


Original Post
And here is a great link to set Dr. Morgan's study course off in the right direction, a conversation that includes Russ Beene's good friend Randall Balmer


http://blog.faithinpubliclife.org/2006/08/faith_in_public_live_mainstrea.html




The newsletter link at www.collinsvillebaptist.com says that during the next few weeks the church that voted off the property May 28 by a vote of 32-20 a free lance writer routinely published in Baptists Today during the 90's, a man who was the driving force in Bringing David Currie, Kat Allen and Mark Bagget to the church where his mother was baptized; this church will be having a series of talks on does the Baptist denomination matter in the 21st Century.
Just three years or so ago, a woman who some believe has become the most influential force in the church and the community answered the question in the negative, Denominations don't matter. It is her concern that with the local ministerial association sponsored a a free weenie deal the Sat before Labor Day this year; just a few month after April 4 when she told me I was not invited to any function her concerns had anything to do with. which raises the question is that the view of the local minister's association. More specifically, if a Christian group uses her services and that Christian group invites me to be a part of their get together, can she ban me; and if she can what part of the Minister's Association or their various outreaches is in fact Christian if they deal with such an exclusivist as her.
But back to Baptists. I am indeed fascinated they are having this discussion, since it was announced in Sunday School this year, there would be no discussion of baptist politics or the takeover of the SBc in that church. The pastor said so, and the head deacon was right there when he said it.
So looks like the reading list for this study course will be narrow indeed.
Even so if any body in the church actually gives a damn, here are a few unsolicited suggestions for the pastor and his wife and their church.
Stricklin's Geneaology of Dissent.
Barry Hankins: Uneasy in Babylon; hint a copy is in the Ft. Payne Library and it was written by a man who teaches where Becky is on staff
Buddy Shurden's pamphlet How We Got That Way. Ms. Wilkins has the phone number or you can get in touch with him and or read the pamphlet clickin around at www.baptistlife.com > I know some folks know the site cause almost every week during the spring they were copying stuff off there and puttin it on the bulletin board at the Post oFFICE ON post office stree.t
And here is one written by Lynn Gilbreath Beene's Son Russ's friend Randall Balmer: Thy Kingdom Come. Has a chapter Where Have All the Baptists Gone?
Short answer is we know not many of them went to Collinsville Baptist Church and joined there and the one that did got voted off the property May 28.
Last night Curtis said he got voted off too. We both laughed.
So if you live in the area, or Lamar, not far for you to drive over from Rockmart, drop in this discussion on Sunday evenings at 6 Bama time and see if you can make any sense of this deal that has every bit of the makings of another whitewash.
The pastor can blog, can respond to this post as he made daily dispatches from Israel back in the summer. Would love to hear him justify his syllabus whatever it is. I have reported before two sons went to UVA, one to Duke and one interned for Congressman Aderholt.
One son and his significant other I got word today will be at FBC Americus Ga this Sunday to hear President Carter. If they have a sense of humor, I may join them.
I have contacted Big Daddy Weave to see if he can get the Baylor Collinsville connection on the record about all this. With Big Daddy, at least two former interns for the Baptist Joint Committee know about this study course in Collinsville.
And of course I will be letting Jon Appleton know.
Which direction is this local congregation gonna go. Great case study for Hankins class out there at Baylor, Big Daddy, if yall are paying attention.
Church phone number is 256-524-2367 but it is unlikely you can get the preacher during Wednesday night Prayer meeting as he is usually playing volleyball during that hour.

Sfox
If you can make it over on the night they talk about Baptist history of dissent; please bring a tape recorder. Love to hear how they deal with that one; and whether or not somebody with the Historical Association will print up a copy of the discourse for the local lyberry.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Bl.com,Mercer and me /Karen Smith is NOT a Twit

Thursday, August 7
This week I got a note looped to the monitors of www.baptistlife.com from Bruce Gourley, Buddy Shurden's assistant at the Center for Baptist STudies at Mercer University. The missive was linke to to Tim Bonney, an ABC pastor in Iowa, David Flick of Oklahoma and the middle anchor personage in the photo that accompanies this blog; Ed Pettibone with links to Newport, Tenn where I was born, and the fundamentalist, William Thornton, my friend of Statum Georgia just up the road on HWY 29 from the graveyard for the Richard Russell family and about 150 miles down the road from Gaffney, South Carolina.
I hope to cut and paste the letter here in this post later today.
Let me say I consider all these folks my friends. I saw everyone of them save Bonney, June 30 in Atlanta, had lunch with them. Flick picked up my check and I appreciate it. Hope to return the favor within two years. I have made repeated references to his very good review of the Carl Kell book Exiled here and in comments on other blogs. I hope John Morgan, the pastor of the Collinsville Baptist Chruch has the integrity to get a copy for the church library and have his son Mark, daughter in law, Susan and Deacon chair Brad and his Mother, the chief Revenator read it. Chapter in there by Paul Simmons, his former proff discussion of which early this year in Sunday School led to my silencing and May 28 ouster from the church property.
While I appreciate Gourley and am pained by the alienating relations between me and him, the suspicion of motives set in motion by an outright prevarication by Jennifer Wilkins, the lightly credentialed Lyberrian in Collinsville, Alabama, in concert with her board chair Bonnie Payne; I feel this set up he has constructed for my return is fraught with catch 22's just waiting to happen.
For one I do not trust the judgment of Pettibone, Bonney and Flick to the degreee I trust Gourley and Thornton, even those Willie is a fundy whose ideology I oppose. Ironically though frequent poster on the board Norm, is quite eloquent espousing positions I wish I had his gifts to articulate, Willie and I with our affinity for Yates Frady and his offspring, not to mention JOnathan Edwards; what I am saying is Hell, Gaffney and Winder ain't all that differunt and we understand each other preternaturally.
I like Pettibone but he has the wet hen something about him. Jane Adibhatla picked up on it long time before I did. And the testimony of my fundy friend here in Bama, the right Rev John Killian who would give Big Daddy Weave a run for the Bid Daddy part; Killian has said Pettibone's pettiness and prickliness is such a fly in the ointment, Pettibone is the reason Killian doesn't engage the discussion more often.
I like Flick and apologize to him when he got bitter saying I called him an old man. All I was saying was he is obviously the oldest man in the picture. He is irascible and I admire that in him; but even David Currie had to lead him away from the microphone at Charlotte Mainstream 4 years ago if I heard the story right.
But I have deep admiration for Flick for having lunch with Webb and Burleson in Enid couple months ago. Very proud to know two folks in the room on that one, if Webb only by email and these boards.
Rev. Bonney crushed a 30 minute post of mine, or Pettibone back this year for what he considered two offending sentences. That was heartbreaking, took lot of my morale for several days. I Had sliced and diced Mark Morgan very well; then to see it disappear into a cyberspace black hole. I was crestfallen.
I am sure Bonney is a suave preacher. But lot of his reputation came to nothing in my eyes, when I was convinced he coulda made a prophetic witness difference in the Iowa primary couple years ago and he pipsqueaked through the thicket in my view.
But even larger, my detractors here in Collinsville take too much sport in seeing Sweet Stevie getting his knuckles rapped in any quarters. That gives them more room to believe in their small minds I am the problem and not their refusal to deal with their Baptist ID and the direction of the church in that regard.
That is why all of this is serious business, Dr. Gourley. Here I am in grass roots baptist life, flas of my personality and all trying to make a statement for Jesus and Martin and Marney and Will Campbell that Buddy loves to quote from the safety of his ivory tower there inMakin; fightin the good fight and you want to weigh my down on the suspect word of Wilkins and Payne who you never met.
Here is the invitation. Collinsville has a turkey trot you can date at www.collinsvillealabama.net . It is a big day for Martha and the Baptist Men and the lyberry.
You and Thornton make plans to come over that morning with the family and enjoy one of the largest most celebrated flea markets in the Southeast, and then cakewalk and Turkey trot that afternoon.
I will do my best to get Dr. Butch Morgan, his Lawrence Welk wife Gloria( Momma and Uncle Bill adored Welk also), Ms Wilkins, Ms. Payne, Martha and Brad and Donnie Myers, even Jeff Bailey to have supper with us at the China House. My sister loves the rangoons there.
Hades, maybe the Prince and shooger booger will fly in from President Carter's SS class and grace our presence.
Love to have you.
In meantime cut me some slack. If you and Thornton get your panties wadded from some aside of mine in the future on Bl.com let me know. Please do not let Pettibone, Bonney and my friend Flick bludgeon one of my illustrious posts just cause they find an offending phrase. More than likely I will be open to editting the phrase out.
Otherwise, for calling Karl Rove a bastard I do not apologize. New Yorker did a feature on him few years ago and you and Richard Land know it, where the point was accented.
Our beloved Marilyn Hillyers knew well the report of Bill Rauch in his book about the SC 2000 primary, aided and abetted most likely by folks who tried to put Furman in the fundy camp in 1990, Chip Campsen in particular. My 1992, January Century article touched on Campsen and his cabal.
With my Dad and Clarence Drummond I heard Will Campbell call Ronald Reagan a Goddamn Liar in the chapel of Emory University in 83.
I do not take the phrase GD nor the word bastard lightly. And I am no Will Campbell. Just like John the Baptist was not the Messiah, I am not Campbell nor Marshall Frady.
But I do not enjoy being bound and shackled, castrated, muted and muffled, fearful of the next word on any board especially when precipitated by the machinations of some of the locals whose reps have been well trafficked in your education of things Collinsville since June3 and some before.
God Bless you All and stay tuned for clarifications and refinement of these thoughts.
STephen Fox
Saved, Sanctified and On the Way to Glory



Original post

Today is the day I was scheduled to go back up at www.baptistlife.com/forums . I have been in email discussion with the revenators there and an understanding is about to be worked out, God Willing.
Whatever happens, I did enjoy lunch with some of the chiefs and other erstwhile Christians of that board June 30 or so at the good fish place just down the street from Celestine Sibley and Ralph what's his face old haunt.
As is often the case at the www.nybooks.com a reviewer will review lot of books in one shot and weave tapestry out of it. My effort here may be pastry instead of tapestry, but from one revenant to another, here is the cloth I will be weaving; not books but essays and such online.
www.baptistlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3062
www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2303
www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2263

What that is supposed to be is a link to Fox and his blog post by William of Statum, Ga where my friend Jane Adibhatla of Cincy, also a mutual friend of Carolyn W. Crumpler called KarenSmith of Collinsville a "Twit"; Martin Marty of the Century where I was published in Jan 92, his article Headcase about Presidents and Saints; and Century review of Phillip Roth's Everyman, about Death. Roth has written about it all, The Professor of Desire which I read in 78 or so in Gaffney; boobs, Masturbation, madness, caring for a dying Father, Monica Lewinsky roughly in the Human Stain, and now his own impending death, in this novel Everyman.
So context that all in my new friend David Jasper of Scotland and his Theology of the Desert, and counseling sessions with a local revenant who shows up unexpected usually after 11 on the front porch--we talk about film in the yard--and a blown engine, then a blown alternator in the hottest summer after lightnin took out the air conditioner August 5 03 and it has been an interesting three months since Ms.Wilkins and Bonnie Payne went to the clinic on me--see Paris Trout for the clinic and the coke bottle: One character said: "Jesus will be here soon and cover us both with a blanket". One of the most beautiful lines in American film in my book.
But ADhibhatla called Karen a "twit."
I dissent.
Of the three sisters, Karen is my favorite. She is a little different, a little peculiar, but aren't we all--See Martin Marty on the headcase of the saints.
My Momma was a little different. She played the tuba and her first cousin who was a racist of the first order, who lived in the house the MOrgans live in now, loved her like a sister.
My Momma was in the Band with Karen's Dad, so Adibhatla, be careful when you talk about my homies, even if I never say another word to them the rest of my life.
They got a good man in their Uncle. He spoke to me at the American Cafe about ten days ago. He was there with the wife. I think they got some bad information and voted against me May 28, but I forgive em. That Mr. Smith could easily swap out with Uncle Bill, or Floyd Gray as the good man in Robert Penn Warren's A Place To Come To.
You know RPW, don't you. His All the King's Men Comes out a 2nd time Sept 22 and I'm gonna be on the front row. Sometime this fall I'm gonna talk to James Carville about it, cause he is one of the three producers.
Done seen him once. Ginny Willis and the booger were with us and Red Myers. Saw him and Matalin at Kennesaw College where Newt Gingrich ended up for a while. This woulda been about 95 or so. Ate supper at a Cracker Barrel best I rememb er not far from where they strung up Leo Frank.
And another good thing about Karen Smith. She is a Bama fan and proud of it. Put's her banners on her car late August; rides all over the place in it.
She has read All Over but The Shoutin by Rick Bragg, one of her heros. I know cause I was in the room with her when this PUlitzer prize winner came out to Snead. I kinda got the impression Karen was in a room with somebody she felt understood.
Johnny Hamiter loves Karen Smith as a sister in Christ Jesus. I got no doubt in my mind about it. They worked the vestibule together during the Sunday Morning Worship services for a good long while in the tradition of her Father, who was in the Band with My Mother, and who also happens to be named on the cornerstone of the local Babdiss church with Floyd Gray and Andy's grandfather.
Johnny Hamiter's Dad was in a room with Cecil Sherman and me in Gadsden in 93 or so as a friend of the CBF.
So Jane Adibhatla, thanks for reading the script me and Proverbs 8:8 sent up couple years ago.
And I appreciate you takin up for me at bl.com while Karen's sister prevaricated and got me exiled.
But Karen is no twit. She is not my best friend, as our chilly passing at the American Cafe today confirms.
But Jesus loves her; she is strong in her own way, she is no twit.
However, and here is the conundrum that has now infected Mercer University's Center for Baptist Studies. Just because Karen is no twit, does that make her sister a librarian? And what of the June 3 and April 4 incidents, not to mention the Kangaroo Court of Jan 24. What do we make of all that?


More on all this and how it nuances Mercer, Balmer, Baptist ID, the quiltwalk, Spring Street, street name changes, Foxali etc as it all continues to unfold.
But on the eve of my return, wanted to get started at my relatively new blog with a STrong setup, an establishing shot as it were.

Foxali, he is another matter,cause he got breaks, if he's who I think he is; breaks karen never got. He reads if he is who I think he is. His problem is he is a faker. I don't think he is ready to do what Abraham did with Isaac, turn the son over on the Altar, ready to offer him up for a sacrifice. He has a Biblical name; does he have a Biblical Father?
If there is no willingness to sacrifice then you mock the Old Testament story. Sponger or a mocker, which is more grave. No sacrifice no trust in God like Will Campbell's Nashville minister did in the reference in Cradle of Freedom, Frye Galliard's book about Alabama; doesn't trust Jahweh to provide a Lamb, doesnt't trust the ram's horns to be long and the thicket to be dense.
Tyler Coker was there on the stage with Vivee and Will Campbell. Where were you???
Foxali called me a sponge. Sacrifice the son, and then get back in touch with me or you are an impostor with as much virtue as the Duke Whores in the Big Four Sororities. Read the New Yorker article about Coach K, Foxali. Let me know what you think about that one.
My Dad in Hayesville, North Carolina in the early 60's preached the funeral for the town drunk. Had a big turn out to see what the preacher would say about the town drunk. He preached to the grocers who stocked their shelves with sugar on Thursday in the most corrupt county in Western North Carolina. He came by it natural, my Dad did, like Tim Tyson's Momma. Who are you Foxali, as the Who say in their famous song that made the soundtrack that Art Garfunkel was in 1980. Tell me Foxali, Who, Who Who Who????? I really want to know
Have you and Raymond ever been to Ben's to see a neighbor in the neighborhood????

I am the WICKER MAN/ CL and CHA

Changed the title on this one cause it is pretty much a catch all anyway, discussin Jordan family History in the Town, Street Name Changes, the Collinsville Lyberry and Historical Association.
Got a new context, new insight into my predicament with prevaricating lyberrians and board chairs, the Council of Shadows and Various Women in the region who have spun my reputation and character right out of town and the Library.
Tragically hilarious I guess was my take on the Nicholas Cage movie Wicker man I saw most of last night. Was about to bore me to tears, but there was just enough to keep me from walking out, especially when Nurse Ratchet, Louise Fletcher, came on the screen. Been a while since I had seen her, and was wondering what happenned to her. Even more curious cause it registered about a year ago she allegedy is from nearby, Guntersville or florence or somewhere.
So I hung around this campy movie cause it was strange enough to be interesting. Then low and behold it grabs me, the last ten minutes. IT IS AN ALLEGORY TO MY STORY OF THE LAST FOUR YEARS HERE IN COLLINSVILLE, EVERYTHING FROM THE PREACHER'S WIFE TO THE BULLIES AND WHAT PASSES FOR MATRIARCHAL SAINTS WHO WILL STAB YOU IN THE BACK ALL THE TIME PUTTIN YOUR NAME ON THE PRAYER LIST.
That is when you know they are serious, when they vote you off the property and then go for the most public humiliation, put you in the newsletter prayerlist.
Talk about getting burned, see the Movie for the pun.
Don't walk out on this one. I predict word is gonna get around in Collinsville and it is gonna hop off the shelves at the Video Hut when it comes out on DVD. But don't wait.
However, if you must choose on the big screen in the next couple weeks, I would go in this order.
All the King's Men
Black Dahlia
Wicker Man
Crank
And there was another very much worth seeing but didn't get any closer than Trussville. See the comments. Will let you know what it was soon as I think of it.


Earlier blog
Was gonna put this in the FaSoLa blog I had started, but it got sabotaged. Somehow somebody wrote Spanish in it; so I have taken down that post and the great response I got from BigDaddyWeave of his on blog.
Was a catchall blog with reference to President Carter's Sunday School class and its relevance for the direction of Collinsville Baptist Church.
May pick up on that later.
Did meet Dan Thoma of Portland Oregon, a UCC minister's son couple weeks ago at the singing about three miles from my house. Do look this fall on national PBS for a documentary www.awakemysoul.com . The documentarians were on site at the Piney Grove singing. Their effort will be part of the lineup of several film festivals this fall, including the Sidewalk Film Festival in Bham and likely the www.riff.tv festival this weekend in Rome Georgia.

But here, from a letter I received May 16, casey mattox's birthday; the quarterly report from the local lyberry.
First there was a major mistake. John and Susan Weaver Morgan were married April 1, not April 2 as the report lists. Maybe Jeff Bailey can clear up for us if in fact Ms. Payne and Ms Wilkins went to Boston for the Rural Library Sustainability workshop sponsored by the Gates, or were they just invited and decided not to go. The report is unclear.
I think the public would also like to know the dollar amount of money that came in from the Weaver Morgan wedding. A reference was made in a board meeting I attended back in the Spring, but I never heard a dollar amount.
I did hear one version just today of how the building came to be in the libraries hands from some conversations between Oliver Harris Hall, II and John MOrgan II; maybe more on that later.

But what I found most fascinating in this four page report was the copy of the remarks Martha Barksdale made in front of Congressman Aderholt April 9, when the Library was presented a commendation.
Here is the interesting first paragraph, especially interesting in light of official upcoming street name changes to be made in Collinsville, I would imagine long about Quiltwalk weeekend or Turkey Trot day, when Aderholt graced our presence last year.
Enough of me, next words are Martha's from April 9:

" 106 years ago much of Collinsville Burned. Only 3 Main Street buildings were left standing after that day of uncontrollable devastation--and these 3 buildings still remain as Main Street Landmarks in 2006. Mabel Brindley in "A History of Collinsville" names the G.W. Roberts building, C.C.JORDAN STORE AND H.R.JORDAN AND SON (all caps mine) as surviving the fire.. According to the Collinsville Clipper, dated Feb 7, 1900, five days after the fire, "The following were among the principal sufferers of the fire...GW Rbts, , stock and bldg, loss $4500, insurance $2500." The FPayne TJ included in its list of damaged buldgs, "GW RBTS brick bldg occupied by GW RBTS, general merchandise and the post office." GW. Roberts sold groceries, hardware, and farm supplies....June 28, 1946....Mr. Charles C Hall purchased the building....Collinsville purchased the GW Roberts building and an adjoining lot from the Hall family in 2003...End of Martha's remarks at the Presbyterian church April 9 2006 in the presence of Congressman Aderholt.

More later.