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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.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Sidney Rice and MLKing, Jr.

I think the Vikings/Saints game yesterday mighta been hexxed by the Greenville News. On Sunday of the game they're above the fold top headline was a story on Sidney Rice and Pickens County, SC which the day of the game claimed him cause he was born there.
Sidney Rice ain't from Pickens, he's from Gaffney as everybody, even Brett Favre knows.
I don't know what was in Favre's mind on that last play; I guess it had worked so many times before and he gets a glimpse of Gaffney's Sidney Rice and it is the promised Land; except this time it was not.
The Greenville News set the tone with a bad headline.

I have been thinking lot about some aspects of Civil Rights era. I have not parked my life on that time, but incidents and insights keep poppin up. Have had recent conversations with a white man who was in Selma on Bloddy Sunday, but was not aware anything of signficance was going on.


And then got word from some friends in Gaffney, it was some of my information that propelled a series of conversations that has the Great Marian Wright Edelman coming to Gaffney next year for the MLKing Weekend Celebration.
It is a great honor for me to have been a part of that process. I hope it registers with some folks in Collinsville who were present for the disaster of January 24 or 26, 2006, whatever the date of that infamous Tuesday was.

I find it fascinating and look forward to the conversation that has come to light recently about a goodfellow a key force for good in South Carolina being the nephew of Lester Maddox.
Baxter Wynn, longtime staffer at FBC Greenville, is brother of former chair of SC GOP.
Given the history of Harry Dent, Lee Atwater, and Karl Rove in SC, Wynn's pilgrimage when it comes to the legacy of Civil Rights should as a White Baptist be up there with Charles Marsh; maybe even rank with the Methodist Tim Tyson.

Here is my friend John Pierce's latest blog. See my comment there, on one my best days in 20 years and counting in Alabama.
I will go on record to say if by chance you are reading this and claim to be a Baptist, you aren't much of one if you don't subscribe to Baptists Today.

I hope to have the link to the Gville News awful hexxed headline story on Sidney Rice soon.

http://bteditor.blogspot.com/2010/01/living-legacy.html

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

A Twofer: Parham and the book of Eli; Obama One Year In

Couple links here on the Tuesday after the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Holiday

First my friend Robert Parham has gotten great endorsement from The Book of Eli's Denzel Washington.
I feel like I know Denzel, having a lifelong friend who has known Denzel since early 80's. And that preacher's kid stuff gives you a way of looking at the world, allthem Stories from the Bible growing up never leave you.
Here is a great tribute to not only to Denzel but to Robert Parham and his effort on www.differentbookscommonword.com

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=15479

And Religion dispatches has great piece up today, strong piece on the Obama Presidency One Year End in the framework of the Mass Senate Race between Coakley and Scott

Takes strong measure of the United States at this point as well.
We are all in this thing together, and I hope that registers with Mary Anne Cole, Lowell Barron, the Morgan family and other forces in Northeast Alabama and your region as well.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/2200/coakley_v._brown%3A_democrats_search_%28for%29_their_souls/

Mark Morgan, Casey Mattox, Mart Gray, Annie Lucas Brown and others may want to read the latest David Maraniss collection of essays on Roberto Clemente, Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi and the relationship between MLKing, Jr., and Jesse Jackson.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Gaffney's Sidney Rice has glorious Day

Dallas Who???

Gaffney is the Center of the NFL on this day.
And don't miss Gaffney's Donald Simms, now at Appy State having a 40 point game against Davidson last weekend.
Number two in the nation in free throw percentages.

Three TD Receptions

For the record

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=300117016

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Heisman, Tide Glory and What it Really Means to be a Christian in Alabama

How do you reconcile the genuine nobility of the LA Times piece on Mark Ingram with Robert Parham's reservations about what it is to be a Christian in Alabama and how that falls short for some of the best reformists in the state including the folks at www.alarise.org, FBC Auburn Pastor Jim Evans and the late Tom Corts, President at Samford.
When and how do their ideals filter down to the deacon board at Collinsville Baptist Church; or First Fort Payne and Guntersville or Dawson Memorial for that matter; not to mention their sister social and civic club friends among the Methodists, Presbyterians and Catholics.

Here is the great opinion piece my friend Robert Parham has written.
Study on it. What is wrong with the Tea Parties; and what role can Mark Ingram and Nick Sabah play in showing them the error of their ways?
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=15452


Here is the great and deserving story from the LA Times; link with excerpt to follow.
There is truth in the movie the Blind Side; but Parham may speak a bigger truth.


http://xml.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-plaschke5-2010jan05,0,4363215.column
The wrong guy won the Heisman.That's what I thought. That's what I screamed. The bronze man had been mugged by Good Ol' Boy bias, leaving reality rolling in a gravy-lined gutter.
It should have been Toby Gerhart.. The Stanford running back was the best college football player in the country. He was the most dominating running back, the most compelling offensive presence, the biggest creator of moments.

The Heisman went to the wrong man.Then, on Monday morning, I met that man - stocky running back from Alabama. Decent stats, lots of wins, familiar football name, Mark Ingram.During his acceptance speech last month, he was so genuinely surprised and touched, he wept, reportedly the first time in history that a college student has wept in appreciation of anything that wasn't gas money.During later interviews, he openly, painfully talked about his jailed father and, again, when is the last time your college-age son revealed anything that couldn't be explained in a grunt, a sigh or a syllable?He is only a sophomore, but his honesty and grace outstretched that, so I schlepped down to Newport Beach on Monday morning to meet him."I've learned just to be a good man," he said, looking small and thick in a dark, tight-fitting sweat suit. "Treat people like you want to be treated. Be the best man you can be. Better yourself as a person."

He was doing a group interview in advance of Thursday's Bowl Championship Series title game at the Rose Bowl between Alabama and Texas. The questions stalked. But the answers sang.He was asked about his father, former NFL star Mark Ingram, who is in jail for money laundering, bank fraud and failure to surrender."Just the fact I can bring that joy to him is real important to me," he said. He was asked what he misses about his dad, a former wide receiver who played 10 years for four pro teams and won a Super Bowl ring with the New York Giants. He said he talks to his father several times a week on the phone, when his father calls him collect, but it is obviously not the same.

"Him just not being there," Ingram said softy. "Not playing around. Not joking around. Him just not being there." He was asked about the failure-to-surrender charge, which resulted from his father's refusal to report to jail last year so he could watch Mark play in the Sugar Bowl against Utah. Just minutes before that game, his father had been arrested in a hotel room in his hometown of Flint,Mich. "It just shows what type of relationship we have, what type of bond we have, that he sacrificed so much for me," he said. "You've got to appreciate that."Ingram answered the tough questions, he answered the silly questions, and he even explained the important questions, such as how he deals with everyone who now greets him in the famous Heisman Trophy pose.

"With older guys, it's kind of funny seeing them do it," he said. "I've seen girls do it, little kids do it, grown men do it, some people put up the wrong leg . . . people put up two wrong legs, the wrong arm."He smiled. "I help them out," he said with a laugh.
I could imagine him doing that in some airport lounge or mall breezeway, showing somebody how Heisman hangs, this unassuming sophomore with the easy grin and humble embrace of the moment. And it was then I realized, you know, it was the closest vote ever, and Gerhart was still deserving, but, hey, the Heisman is in good hands. Or, at least,on a good table.That's the last place Mark Ingram saw his.

"At my mom's house, it was on the kitchen table, on the middle of the kitchen table," he said, smiling. "She said she was going to buy something for it. . . ."So much for the laugh. Now, about those acceptance-speech tears. . . . Ingram said he couldn't remember the last time he cried."Probably, like, when I got a whupping," he said. He said he barely remembers this time, even when he watches video clips of his emotional speech."I just remember [the presenter] reading the card and my heart beating out of my chest," he said. "I'm looking at [the video], I can't believe that happened, I can't believe I was crying. I don't remember it, I was in the moment. It's a feeling you can't really explain."You know what's really cool? His teammates felt it with him.
Nick Saban can preach all he wants about coaching his guys to be robots, but when it comes to supporting Ingram, the Alabama players seem wonderfully human, all of them celebrating the school's first Heisman winner -- amazing, huh? -- as if it were their own."When he won it, my mom and dad were breaking out crying, and I'm not much of a crier, but I was holding my bottom lip," quarterback Greg McElroy said. "To see a guy that grateful, how can you not admire it?" Colin Peek, the Crimson Tide's tight end, couldn't help himself either. "I actually sent him a text message and I was like, 'I don't want to admit this, but I actually shed some tears with you up on that stage,' " Peek said, later adding, "It was almost a shock. It was someone showingsuch raw, genuine emotion that you almost loved the presentation even more because of that feature.

Click on link for rest of Ingram piece

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Bama GOP Gube Candidate does Not Believe the WordaGod

http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2010/01/08/the-bible-and-the-alabama-race-for-governor/

What this means for Nick Saban and the Tide in re Howell Raines easily googled piece on Bear and Wallace at http://www.tnr.com/article/goodbye-the-bear; I'm not sure yet.

What's your preacher's view of the Bible; is it Up to Snuff????

This story with more links is even better. Seems the Piggly Wiggly has endorsed Byrne which may mean the eggs and bananas and milk and blue berry muffins I buy there are not God Fearing food, I don't know.

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/01/gop_gubernatorial_candidate_br_2.html

Friday, January 08, 2010

Will Anybody in Collinsville, Al watch this documentary

Comes on early in the morning 5 Am Sunday on WAAY out of Huntsville, ABC.

Lot of excuses to forget it can be made, lot of excuses not to tape it.

Good folks there, lot of em who even appreciate the thought of a Pulitzer like Marilyn Robinson

http://www.one-eternal-day.com/2009/12/are-never-at-home.html

But point is my friend Matthew when at UVA once brought a Muslim to Sunday School, woulda been about the year 2000 or so.

Will he and his brothers risk coming in sometime and leading a discussion of this remarkable video.

www.differentbookscommonword.com

And who will watch in Ft. Payne, Fyffe, Guntersville, Bucks Pocket, Dogtown, even Speake where my friend Lucas Black was raised.

Later we can discuss his Film Get Low--see the Trailer--whose concerns I have also entertained as of late.
Kinda similar to that of Preacher McIntyre of Ron Rash's Serena which I have blogged about here if you want to look it up.

Hope all yall are otherwise well and Two Ten is going good for you to date.

It is cold, I give you that; Real Cold

Monday, January 04, 2010

Suttree as Jesus in Barefoot

Maybe it's the cold weather or hard times or what not but this morning one of my first waking thoughts was about Emil Acuff, my Dad's friend in Knoxville 78-81 and my friend too.
Emil was Roy Acuff's first cousin so heard a lot of East Tennessee stories there; kinda sat me up for what I was to come to know of Knoxville's most famous son, Cormac McCarthy of the Oscars and the Road and No Country for Old Men and you can google the rest.
I was born in Newport. so I knew some of the territory before then, and my Grandfather said he put the first water spigot in Gatlinburg in 1905.
That and a glossy mag story in Blue Ridge about the renovation of the S and W Cafeteria in Knoxville got me thinking about Sutree again and I came across this grand review

http://tomconoboy.blogspot.com/2009/03/suttree-by-cormac-mccarthy.html

I can't add much to it

And if I can find it will link the S and W renovation

I liked the Blue Ridge Story better but couldn't find it. This one is pretty thorough however:

http://www.knoxville.com/news/2009/dec/17/knoxville-one-few-cities-saved-and-restored-their-/