Billy Ivey has written a book; I have suggestions for him and the Heifners

I was thinking about Billy Ivey and his Heifner fans this morning before it registered with me he has written a book to be released soon. Check the website A Sea Between Us.

    So what follows is coincidental and in no way meant to diminish his moment of first publication. I intend to read the book eventually, the topic is just not at the high end of my interests. From what I have read about the book I do wish he could follow up with as much scrutiny on Alabama, the likes of Will Ainsworth and Katie Britt etc cause Joey Kennedy,John Archibald, Kyle Whitmire  and others need all the help they can get with the ignorance, the fundamentalism the chasm between the Bama Honors program and the mediocrity of the rest of the state where the SEC doesnt mean much at all except for the underbelly of the Trump Base.

   Saban does try on occasion to say something

     Here is why Billy and the Heifner boys entourage are on my mind. Billy's Dad played Baseball at Vanderbilt, and Billy has this napkinism thing going on buttressed by his time with Chic Fil A. I think Billy flew in with Dan Cathy to Jasper Missouri a year after the F 5 tornado eviscerated the town to open a brand new Unit. I always thought that was a high point for Chic Fil A's Americana, a great touch to help revive good American people who had faced tragedy, a God Mom and Apple pie kind of day.

     I am satisfied Billy and the Heifner boys made higher than I did on certified tests along the way from ninth grade assessment to SAT and ACT and tests for Grad school. I am not worried about it and applaud them. Marshall Frady wrote better though all of them write well.

   What I want them to do, where I feel lonely, is talent like this, especially ones who like to pontificate in a playful sort of way need to read better books. Here is a list I don't think they have touched: Denis Johnson, Train Dreams; The Saddest Words , latest on Faulkner; Tyll, novel by Kehlmann with James Wood Review in the Guardian; Azar Nafisi, This Republic of Imagination; Jill Lepore magisterial history of America, These Truths--Todd owns a copy but hasnt read it yet; Joe Crespino's Strom Thurmond's America; Steve Oney, a Man's World, collection of essays of the 70s and 80s. And Frye Gaillard and Cynthia Tucker on The South and American Politics.

    Dan Cathy needs to read the last one especially, come to Samford with Billy and discuss it. God Bless America as a refuge for Cuba and other dark places in the world, but lets see if we can be a little more prophetic with Bama and our back yards.

     Congrats to Billy. I still think his bass fishing eldest ought to go to Charleston in a couple years and have a nice evening with Sarah of Callie's Biscuits third generation. And Billy and Dan come up to Furman for an evening with Billy Graham's Grand daughter and a representative of Trey Gowdy's FBC Spartanburg, maybe Trey himself and lets work on the nuances of the Trump Base. 

   Michael Gorra, The Saddest Words, William Faulkner's Civil War.