Joe Hartzog eclipses my career on PBS and Cable Television

   Friends, the family of Joe Hartzog of my Gaffney High class of 71 Tomorrow night, Thursday May 13, will eclipse my standing as a leader from Gaffney on Public television. His older sister Callie, a Gaffney Beauty of the Class of 68; her daughter Carrie Morley will begin a prime time PBS series How She Rolls based on her Callie's Hot Biscuit empire which has been up and running for ten years and more now with stores in Charleston (home base), Charlotte and Atlanta.

   Joe and Callie have a younger sister, Dr. Emily Hartzog. 

    I thought I was the Gaffney big dog on cable with my history of four statewide appearances on Bama PBS and national vignettes on Restaurant Impossible and a response to PBS Doc the Uprisin of 32 aired back in the 90s. I was on a roll myself in the nineties with a July 22, 92 live broadcast statewide from Montgomery on the troubles in the SBC and a year with several appearances and a consultant listing for the Brett Morgen doc Blessings of Liberty. Again in 2001 or so in a statewide doc on the Hispanic Influx into Collinville Alabama you can google for Coming to a Crossroad, and the latest that I can think of, Restaurant Impossible in the late winter of 2014 out of Valley Head/Hammondville Alabama. I broached the word "treacle" on that one.

    Morgen was later to gain fame as an Oscar nominee for his On the Ropes, boxing among the poor on NYC, and then a few years ago as Mick Jaggers best friend with the documentary Crossfire Hurricane. You can google Brett and Mick and the Boys on the red carpet for the London Premiere. Still hard to believe on the back porch of the farm house in Alabama end of shoot party late January 91, Brett and crew were present with a woman who at that time had been a tour manager for the Stones, and later for the Dixie Chicks.

    But this is the Hartzog/Morley show and I'm happy for them and looking forward to the series, again you can see anywhere online. Obvious comparisons will be made to Vivian Howard and her restaurant and longtime show from Eastern NC, but lot of cooking/human interest shows out there and Carrie and Callie have rich culture to plow in Charleston. Previews say one episode is going to center around Carrie's friendship with the BBQ pitmaster of the Charleston Region, as well as her parenting three girls from 11 to 17 or so. You can even see a Little of Joe in the oldest which is better than a resemblance to his friend Danny McClain. Just humoring you there buddies from way back.

    Though named Callies Biscuits, it seems to be the recipe of Callie's Mother Caroline, Bill Hartzog's wife. I always thought they were Presbyterians in Gaffney but it appears Caroline was active in the Episcopalian Congregation with the Mother of Actress Andie Macdowell and her three sisters. Callie and the Macdowell girls ran in same circles. My input into the margins of this show and conversations to follow as they intersect Gaffney is to point out to Carrie and her girls some history of the church and their Grandmother and Great Grandmother's time with the 1956 bombing on College Drive of the Dr Sanders Home. Just quarter mile up College Drive from the Church, the Doctor's wife, Claudia Thomas Sanders, a native of Charleston,  was active in the congregation with Ms Hartzog and the Macdowells. You can find the story by Duke's Tim Tyson online for Dynamite and the Silent South, also included in the collection of essays Jumpn Jim Crow.

   Looking forward to the show tomorrow night. Soon within a week or two will follow up.

   Oh, here was my episode of Restaurant Impossible, But alas I can't find any video clips out there.  Well, looks like you will have to google for Writing on the Wall, Hammondville, Restaurant Impossible.