Little Billy said "fox"

  Little Billy is my brother's second grandson, officially William Calhoun Chastain. But I call him little Billy. He'll be two in February. Thanksgiving night I was trying to read him a book without my reading glasses and when I would say an animal he would punch a button that made the animal sound. The sounds were new for me and I asked what that was and he said "fox".  My Dad and his Dad WD Shorty Fox would be so proud. Others say they'd heard him say it before but how can we know for sure.

    Well I heard it my own ears. Was a highlight of my 2016 Thanksgiving. Truly enjoyed the family even though some of em, well hell, most of em voted the wrong way; but we didn't talk about it. My sister laid out the ground rules in a ride through North Georgia Saturday. At one point we were just 40 miles from Hayesville NC birthplace of George W. Truett great friend of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson had some faults as Patrick Phillips points out in Blood at the Root but I have to believe Truett leaned a little further forward than Wilson. Else Stewart Newman woulda told me and Newman said "WA Criswell doesn't speak for me!!!""

   And strom Thurmond heard him.

    Marsha and I clipped a little of Forsyth too. The lynchings of 1912 Phillips talks about.

    At Thanksgiving we played Rook, gin rummy and Sorry. My sister in law Melissa poisoned the Sorry game with whispers to lil mac about who to send back to start but Melissa and I are getting along better than ever and that's good news. Little Parks and I threw the ball some. They're all solid and Marsue Clary liked their picture on the swing on the front porch on facebook.

   She knew My Momma and Daddy in Gaffney.

   Sunday Morning I went to church and sang on a pew with my sister. Saw Ms. Jo Cobb who went to Agnes Scott. She understands things.

    The right Rev John Adams of Shelby NC, earned doctorate from Baylor, one of Furman's most adept products in the pulpit of the 80s classes used as his text the opening chapters of the life of Martin England. That brought tears to my eyes as I know the story well. There is a picture of me and Martin and 24 odd other people in prayer in a circle in the dining hall at Furman in the 1972 Bonhomie. Jim Pitts, the son of Nixon's barber, longtime Chaplain at Furman is in that picture too. He was in church Sunday. He didn't know I was there. I texted him "I know that Man Martin England".

   Pitts texted back: "This morning John Adams told Jasper England rescue from the Wahalla Depot by a black man, a freed slave right after the Civil War. That's a story with roots and relevance"

     We are now in the Age of Trump. Pitts knew some of the same folks Ive come to know. LD Johnson, Will Campbell, Marshall Frady, Jesse Jackson, James Dunn, Stewart Newman.

   I love my family. I am not afraid. I don't want to be an asshole but I'm not gonna be quiet. God Bless the United States of America.

    PS. Today on facebook  I told Clyde Mayes, Furman basketball great and  Kay Brumbach whose Dad's name adorns the legendary football stadium at Gaffney High School about the new book on Martin England, By Love and by Faith. If your church library don't have a well read copy then your church and its lyberry as we say it in Alabama aint worth a damn. Google Wipf and Stock, Martin England. Read the blurbs and endorsements. I'm calling Senator Jeff Sessions office Monday and whispering a few prayers in his staffers ears.