Momma and the Atlanta Constitution

  Vaguely I remember my Momma reading Ralph McGill in the Atlanta Constitution as early as 1960. We lived in Hayesville, N.C. then and subscribed. She read the paper all along, kept up. In the late 60's we had pilgrimmed over to Gaffney, S.C. where she was an avid reader of the Spartanburg paper. She got upset with their columnist The Stroller cause she felt he caricatured Baptist preachers too often; of not much more consequence  they suggested, than the fried chicken they were known to indulge. She thought that thoughtless and unfair.
  Daddy was a Baptist preacher.
  So by the late 70s I got the urge to express myself. Had a few things in the Gaffney Ledger, caused a stir in some circles and developed an audience of seven or so 18 year olds, a following. So I spread it around here and there, in the Knoxville Sentinel, Rome News; even got a letter in the Ga Baptist Paper.
    But I couldn't crack the Constitution, couldn't get noticed. Over the 20 years or so Momma was takin all this in.
     One mornin, Sept 84 or so, about ten am I was sittin on the back porch at my Grandmother's home deep in thought and Momma comes out and says: "Got my name in the Atlanta Constitution!"

   Sure enough she had. On front page of Section B, the Living section there she was in a column by the great Celestine Sibley. Bout halfway down Cee says and this in from Louise Fox of Euharlee, who had been deep in the throes of packing down in Pike County for a move back to NW Georgia. She took to my piece on passing the songs she sang with her mother on down to her daughter Marsha.....

     So there I was. Momma trumped me.

      Momma passed March 17, 1988. July 6 she woulda been 90 years old.

     Happy Birthday Momma, The Grandest Yankee Doodle Dandy I've ever known!