Mary Alice Helton on NPR

   Mary Alice Helton of Walland Creek outside Pigeon Forge, Tennessee became Mrs. W.D. "Shorty" Fox in 1916 when she was 16 years old. She told me once she always knew how old she was if she knew what year it was cause she was born in 1900.

      She was my grandmother. She and her generation came to mind yesterday as I was listening to a panel on NPR discuss Alice McDermott's new novel Someone. I called in about the 35th minute. You can listen online. Put Nanny in good company with Flannery OConnor, Ron Rash and the great transcendents of her time

      http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-08-27/readers-review-someone-alice-mcdermott

Ivy League on Outskirts of Collinsville/ Jonathan Edwards

Yesterday at the Pine Grove Annual two day Sacred Harp Convention--4th Sunday in August and the Saturday before--had a great lunch conversation with two students who had come down from the Northeast, one a Geology major, Senior at Yale and the other incoming Freshman at Brown. The young female Yalie was a direct descendant of Jonathan Edward's predecessor of the Northbridge Church made famous for the Great Awakening and Edwards dismissal from Same. I had been rereading an anthology of critical essays on Edwards and reminded Rev Stoddard was Edwards predecessor and two days later talking to a direct descendant.

Just last week read a piece for the first time by Molly Worthen on decline in SBC after the fundamentalist takeover. Peter Gay in late 60's found Jonathan Edwards in some ways to be just as tragic a figure compared to the Enlightenment as Molly Worthen consensus found fundy leadership in SBC  compared to the trajectory of President Carter's faith pilgrimage as explained by Randall Balmer.


Footnote, we sang David's Lamentation; last song before lunch. 268 on the top.


Here is some background reading on this great American figure of the Great Awakening


 http://meganslit201.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/what-was-the-reason-for-jonathan-edwards-dismissal-from-the-church/

Top Twenty Collinsville Athaleets of All Time; The Official List

 You morph Kevin Pup Simpson, Cody McAteer and Clay Gifford into a Composite and you got a Solid Number Twenty.

   19. Ernie Willingham

    18. Chucky Dutton

     17.George Mayne

     16. Danny Chandler

     15. Ross Orr AND Mike McElrath tie. Ross said he was best. McElrath said he was better than Ross and Charles Carter would back him up on that. Still a fourth party said they were about even given Orr was a better basketball player and Carter a better baseball player than a judge of talent. So I just tied em up as an equalizer.

     14. Adam Morales and Jorge Segura--took Collinsville to state Championship in soccer 2013

     13. Billy Wayne Clanton The Last of the Great White Centers

      12. Jay Bird

       11. Travis Jackson


      10. Scott Roberts. He and his Brother Todd played in Alabama All Star game with Cornelius Bennett

       9.  Open, given the McElrath, Orr tie



       8. Solomon Stanton

        7.tie, Harold Bobo and Charlie Hood

        6. Robert Gray

         5. Deshawn Moore

         4.Sonny Jones

         3. Irby Cash; played four sports at Jacksonville University and consensus Randy Taylor nominee


         2. Wellington Hope. Mr. Hope called in the WTWX Friday Night Scoreboard October 31 and talked to his Collinsville Coach Raymond Weaver. Weaver told Hope on the air he was the best HS football player ever in DeKalb County, Alabama and reminded Wellington of the night he scored five touchdowns and rand for 320 plus yards.
      This year Weaver was named to the All Century team in Marshall County. Legend is Weaver could stand on the steps of the National City Bank in Downtown Guntersville and hit the marquee of the Theatre 100 yards down the street with a forward pass!

         One. Joe Williams. Played baseball in Birmingham with Willie Mayes in the Negro League.

Mike Hubbard Bleaching Alabama

   Mike Hubbard's debating opponent in High School in NE Georgia was Ralph Reed formerly of the Christian Coalition. Hubbard's son Clayte is enrolling in my and Marshall Frady's alma mater, Furman, this fall.

     Echol Nix of Montgomery, Alabama now has tenure in the Furman Religion Department. His debating opponent in High School was Eric Motley who graduated from Samford, worked in the Bush 43 White House and summers at the Aspen Institute.

    I am hoping Clayte takes some religion classes with Dr. Nix and has discussions with his Father when he goes home to visit.

    Here is a letter I just submitted to the Ft. Payne, Alabama Times Journal:


   Letters for Publication

Times-Journal

The Editors:

    A few years ago I had a conversation with former Auburn President Bill  Muse at Samford University about Lowell Barron's role in his resignation from Auburn. While there are some things to applaud about Barron in the recent New Republic article, the definitive piece on his days in the Bama legislature where he rose to second most powerful man in the state is yet to be written.

     The key point in the New Republic is not about Barron or how he cut deals with Hank Sanders, but Mike Hubbard 's attempt to "bleach" voting districts in the state; making as many as he could sure bets for the GOP by weakening black votes in majority/minority districts. The experiment has now come in Jesus name--Phil Williams, the GOP candidate is wearing his 7 year stint with Young Life on his sleeve-- to Collinsville, home of the most dense black population in the county now close to having an equal percentage of Hispanics. I am waiting for Williams to explain in a Town Hall Meeting how the Bama immigration Bill a few years ago that woulda deported half the Collinsville Soccer team is the politics of Jesus. At least former United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon didn't think it was and said as much at the time.

     Folks need to read the article in full for easy google search, New Republic, the New Racism.

     Christians in the public schools, or Sunday School or Vacation Bible School who know in their heart Jesus loves Brown and Black children as much as white, have to ask themselves some gut questions when they go in the voting booth now in Alabama.

     Lot of Pharisees using the abortion issue or the Genesis account of Creation to do injustice to people of color;  and the poor and I know, and Jesus Knows and their open Bible should convict them to have more discernment as well.

     ALEC did not write the New Testament though reports are ALEC is now writing the legislation for Mike Hubbard's Alabama. If you are ignorant about ALEC, then maybe something is wrong in your Sunday School class.

     Trading Lowell Barron for Pharoah is unwise, Un American; at same time we should have much better choices, and much wiser voters!

     Stephen M. Fox

Chat with Congressman Aderholt Staffer

   I had an interesting chat with an Aderholt staffer this morning, young fellow from Walker county who says he's been with the Congressman 7 years or more.

  He was shallow on the legacy of Judge Frank Johnson from Winston County, though patient with my call even when it got testy for a few seconds.

   I was lamenting my Rep's failure to have a town hall meeting the last 5 years or so. I realize it's a tough district, but a conversation, open Q and A is good for Democracy. Immigration reform in light of the crisis with the Honduran refugees and the recent viral utube of Congressman King and some Dreamers call for leadership with the number of Hispanics in our district.

   I asked for leadership, not just kowtowing to the consensus lowest common denominator of the status quo. What do you expect from White Christians whose basic political diet is Fox News.

    I asked the staffer to get Aderholt to reach out to UMC Bishop Wallace Padgett whose offices are on campus of Robert's alma mater. Gave him an easy google for Willimon repents, ethicsdaily, about the experience of the former Bishop.

      My Dad's friend Colin Harris has some recent pieces about the GOP and the dog whistle on immigration reform and other matters.

       Robert Aderholt is no Judge Frank Johnson. Neither am I. But these times call for better than Laura Ingraham coming to the Bama/ Tex A and M game for hoopla rather than a visit with Nick Saban's priest at St. Francis.

   While near at hand here is a link for Congressman Aderholt and his staff. We must escape the fog of the 70's, 40 years ago:

  http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/11/uses-division