Senator Tim Scott, Chic Fil A and Christian Nationalism

  Rick Pidcock is a graduate of Bob Jones University, free lance writer whose pilgrimage has taken him into some scorching articles published at Baptist News Global. His most recent is an unflinching look at the christian nationalist leanings of Black SC Senator Tim Scott and his presidential bid.

    What he said was spot on but he couldve looked deeper into Scott's entanglements, connection to Chic Fil and that brand of evangelical Christianity.

      Scott wears that part of his religious and political pilgrimage on his sleeve so I think it fair game.

     Truett Cathy founded Chic Fil A and was named by likely greatest Baptist of the first half of the twentieth Century, George W. Truett, with whom Cathy's North Georgia Mother was familiar as Truett was born in 1867 in Hayesville NC where I was baptized.

     Truett was a strong Baptist laymen who at one point was influenced by the John Birch Society, but on the whole strong conservative middle of the road Southern Baptist of his time. At one point as a trustee of Mercer University he did stand up for the President Kirby Godsey when Godsey was under attack by takeover Fundamentalist.

     But lets focus on George Truett who was adored by the Cathy family. George W Truett gave a famous speech on the steps of the US Capitol in 1920 on Church State Separation. The Baptist Joint Committee in Washington DC is a direct legacy of Truett's church state stance. 

   A few months ago Amanda Tyler now head of BJC spoke before Congress on Christian nationalism. Congressman Rasmin, understood her, SC's Nancy Mace of the Citadel was kind of foggy on the presentation.

    Chic Fil A leadership may be a little naive on BJC insights on Christian nationalism but that begs the point. The point is the authentic Baptist Tradition on the guts of the MAGA Base, the Base Scott has to navigate if he is to get the nomination is with the BJC of which Scott apparently doesnt have a clue.

    So with Pidcock's piece as reference point, lets have this conversation with Scott and also with Nikki Haley. Haley is further afield as she flirts with Charlie Kirk and Turning point USA who question the patriotism of Chic Fil A. I heard Kirk say as much at Clemson Nov of 2021.

    So lets wade into the fog of these two South Carolinians. Wofford is a historically Methodist school, and Furman is historically Baptist where I was in religion class with Chic Fil A CEO Dan CAthy, Truett's son fall of 71.

      Wuthnow's Rough country chapter on Truett and race is informative and enlightening on George W. Truett's bend in the right direction hostage to the white Baptist world of the 1920s to 1940s.

    Lets get at this teachable moment in earnest. 

Early thoughts on Gaffney History Museum New Montgomery Wing

   Two days after my 70th birthday I drove to Gaffney to see the new wing of the History Museum located at what was my Elementary School Central. At the time I was there early 60s  it was one of the best Elementary schools in the state with a strong faculty and maybe even stronger one through six grade student body.

    Very Proud of what Pam and Matt and Dinah and other staff have done there. Was great to talk to Pams Mother and sister at some length as their family early on was active at my Dad's church, Bethany, especially Vacation Bible Schools. Pam and Kathy Jo's Mother was a niece of a Deacon at Bethany, Mr. E T Moss and it was delightful hearing her stories of that generation of nine brothers and two sisters one of which was her father. There is not a bad looking female in the entire bunch of the extended family of cousins that I am aware of including at least one classic beauty and a Miss South Carolinian of the third generation.

     Got to visit my third grade classroom of Miss Mattie Mae. The tiny bathroom is still there and the one way mirror where the teachers could observe from the faculty room. First time back in that room in sixty years my first class in the third grade when our family moved in 62 from Hayesville, NC.

        Was great to talk to Gaffney's legendary Golfer Stan Littlejohn, boxer and my classmate Terry Medley who kept our little league team in 65 the Lions respectable, Abbie Sossamon of the Ledger and my friend Matt on staff who helped get some bricks placed properly.

       I was surprised but delighted to see a fairly honest and transparent depiction of the Civil Rights era in Gaffney, even a plaque about the 1957 bombing of Dr. Sanders home on College Drive. However the display suggests it was all on the Klan and does not mention Tim Tyson of Duke and his work in Jumpn Jim Crow collection about how for the most part the so called good people of Gaffney in 57 were struck mute on the matter even to the point of complicity with the bombing.

  His essay Dynamite and the Silent South is an easy google. His research was on site in Gaffney in the early nineties. 

    I am hoping a professional examination of the Textile Mill Strike in Gaffney in the late forties is soon in the Museum. In a summer school class at Furman in 1976, Political science proff and upstate civil rights activist Ernie Harrill a native of Rutherfordton said the Gaffney Strike was one of the most notorious and undereported episodes of all the strikes in the Piedmont Carolinas from 1929 to 1950. Same was said by GC Waldrep who has written strongly about the strike at the Converse Mill outside Cowpens just ten miles away.

      Interesting to note that is the Sanders  home Governor Riley spent the night in while running for Governor in 76. By that time it was the home of his good childhood friend from Greenville Don Gantt who was in business in Gaffney. Gannt the grandfather of Socon basketball player of the year a decade ago, App State Donald Simms. His Uncles were our neighbors out on Wilkinsville Road and part of some family drama our last years there.

      I was talking a good bit and didn't take careful notice of every exhibit in the Sports Room,   seeing a  nice display on Gaffney's Olympic Hurdler Charles Foster. In fact you can see Foster plaque in the picture behind golfer Stan Littlejohn in today's Gaffney Ledger.  Would be proper for  Tim Montgomery, at one time the fastest human in the world according to Sports Illustrated deserves notice. 

    On the whole great work with the museum with Dee Gee McElveen's landscaping yet to come. I hope to go back soon and give it more  attention it deserves.

On being seventy years old

  Well here it is May 18, 2003 seventy years old for those of us born in 1953. I was waxxing eloquent on this day earlier but now I fear may not do it all justice. Truth is according to Momma I didnt get here till about noon in Newport Tn on the day, qa Monday,  a difficult delivery she says it was. Uncle Prentice said when they stood me up at two years I was about five past six.

   To celebrate Ive gone back and watched Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces for the first time in forty years or so. Too much despair and alienation but it did remind me of similar episodes in my own experience.  1977 was tough and milder shorter episodes in the 80s and nineties but in the last twenty years the mantra has been a quote from Road to Perdition by Connor who later became James Bond: "It's All so eff bombing hysterical."

    I mean look around at what happened to the Southern Baptist Convention and the rise of Donald Trump and MAGA.

     Recently Ive read New Yorker Review about the English Revolution of the 1600s, Cromwell etc. A Good bit is explained there, enough I couldve exempted Whiteford Smith's Western Civilization class at Gaffney High school with an A with a mastery of this one essay.

    I hope some of you read my story on facebook site last few days where I have shared some random aspects of my pilgrimage.

    Sometimes I wish I hadda married even if for a couple years, but I never coulda afford what I was looking for. So enough about that arena though I do hope I was a little more special in romance than the ordinary Alice McDermott made famous in Charming Billy.

   Well the plan was to go to Gaffney and see some classmates coincidentally at the quarterly luncheon, but I have opted for Catfish in Lavonia Ga. And maybe Saturday to Gaffney for the History Museum new wing cause if I am anything now, it's pretty much history.

     One of the cooler May 18th s in my memory hovering in the sixties and low seventies, but then again I'm pretty much a low seventies kind of guy. The decade Lewis Grizzard said and it was the eighties for me, the decade in which he became no longer a promising young man.

    Then again Ive had some very promising moments but none made me as famous as I thought i woulda been by now.

   You know what Hank Jr. said, I have seen my name at the top of the page, sometimes a misprint.

    So thanks to all of you who read this, hoping your May 18, 2003 is special in some way.

     

Random memories countdown to Seventy

Friends, my seventieth birthday is just a few days away.  I have been sharing random memories on my facebook storyline last few days but this one with names and all deserves a bigger platform.

   It was late spring of 92 best recollection and Brett Morgen the Oscar winning later to be documentarian had just left town. Going away party was on my back porch by the woodstove cause most of em were smokers while I kept the rest of house chilly and smoke free  to save money. On that porch early Feb 92 was a later tour manager for the Rolling Stones Karen Krattinger, and Morgen who had just done a student piece on Collinsville Titled Blessings of Liberty. In 2015 he did Crossfire Hurricane for the Stones and was Nat Geo producer director for the chimp woman. Re his collinsville doc  Rather he had shot about a hundred hours over the course of 5 weeks and was headed back to LA to edit with Bob Dylan's son, Sam.

    I was Morgen's local consultant. 

     Building on that notoriety, children who two years earlier had been my charges as a substitute teacher, began showing up in my front yard at two am. One such earlier experience they shined the lights , bright lights all through house cause they knew I slept in the front room, horns a blowing. I went out and they said get in the car. John Morgan was driving and Susan Weaver the Football coaches daughter and her friend andrea, the daughter of the county deputy sheriff was in Back Seat. Morgan was on way to UVA as an architecture student.

    Andrea or Susan one said hold on as we went back toward town, half a mile , I thank it was, and took a left hauling out through a pasture. I said My God what have I done.

    We crossed a a cow pasture out through Momma's cousin Didymus old place  lickety split bouncing around on what I found next day to be an actual gullied dirt road, and headed up a ridge and down, under the interstate through c creek underpass and was in Andy Myer's back yard. There were cinderblock steps up to his front door. His mom and dad were up smoking themselves and andy got in the car. Maybe we then took in Rip Shin that night but it was all new territory for me. A month later I still couldn't find a way to Andy's trailer on a normal route.

     That Thanksgiving or the next one my sister was in town and went with us. Musta been eight or nine in the vehicle that night with Weaver cousins from Greenville SC, one of which was Furman Coach Scarpa's sons tennis player in the 14 and unders. Scarpa s wife was one of the real girl friends of Kenny Stabler in the sixties.

    True story one of the more unforgettable and there were many my 30 years in Bama.

     But as Denis Johnson says at the end of Train Dreams after a Grand wrap up sentence you have to read "And that time was gone forever."

Clemson's Nikki Haley versus Pickens County Library system

   Turning Point USA great friend, Clemson trustee Nikki Haley is now set for a show down. Clemson is in Pickens County SC home of the lynching of Willie Earle and LBJ's Great Friend Bobby Baker ...The Pickens county school board has backed down to pressure of Moms of Liberty and the MAGA Base disrupting school boards across the country and removed Jason Reynolds book Stamped.

    Last night Reynolds spoke to a packed house at the Easley SC branch of Pickens Library system. Our Friend Four, the NBC affiliate was there to cover the event. Nikki was in Greer the night before

      Clemson integrity is called into question coddling a woman who opposes the local library system. Nikki is not very well read on things that matter including no eyes on Galliard and Tucker Southernization of American Politics; Joe Crespino Strom Thurmond's America; Robert Jones easily googled, religion news, shutting down crt debate; nor the investigation of Dartmouth's Randall Balmer on the mendacity of abortion politics she has embraced. Jill Lepore, These Truths, a lot of folks in her camp could learn something from that one.

   TPUSA questions the patriotism of Chic fil A. And Gun politics are all of one cloth with abortion and CRT where Haley distances herself from the good people at the Cap Kimberly Library last night in Easly.

    Lets bring New Zealand Prime Minister to town to talk to Nikki and Dabo Swinney's congressman Jeff Duncan, founding member of the gun lobby's second amendment caucus. Or the Rhodes scholar from Clemson last year to have a public chat with Nikki.

      Who knows if Nikki saw Oh Brother where art thou a few years ago. If she did she missed the part about Mah Fybah, moral fibre.