Franklin Graham to be interviewed tonight on NC PBS

 Side by Side series by Nido Cobain the Presidnet of High Point University. . Will do my best to bring it to the attention of the several, three channels of UNC PBS comparing to what I imagine the late Bill Friday, chancellor of the UNC system would think. And a touch of Marshall Frady, Randall Balmer and the PBS documentary on Billy Graham which is definitive for my tastes.

    I  saw the interview Tuesday. It will be repeating and I think it is online. As expected it was a puff piece softball interview. Foxcues mostly on the logistics of Samartian's Purse which I commend Franklin for.

     Frank only metnioned two presidents, Bush 41 and Trump. Said he went with his father to the inauguration of 43 for Gov of Texas which woulda been early 90s. Sat by 41 at the meal and Georege Herbert Walker pointed around the table to his big family and told Franklin who those family members were. As you know it is a big family.

    Franklin said he wrote a note to Trump about his vulgarities, his speech, and Trump often made mention of the note publicly saying he was trying to do better.

    Nothing mentioned to compared Trump to Bonhoeffer or Lincoln or Alabama's Judge Frank Johnson, even Eisenhower.

       Nido is president of High Point University. Obviously ill prepared for this matter he should arrange to have some of the scholars on the PBS Doc to campus, in particular Randall Balmer of Dartmouth to discuss Frankling and his politics.

    Talk about the invitations Franklin made for Billy's 95th birthday which included Trump and Rogers Ailes and a couple other politics.

      In the early 90s Bill Friday a UNC PBS personality told Cecil Sherman, the pastor then of the FBC of Asheville the biggest event for the decade on the 1980s in NC was the fundamentalist takeover of the Baptist seminary in to the town of Wake Forest, Southeastern Seminary. Friday said Jesse Helms operatives led by Sam Currin knew that in SEBTS they could get in the heads of the next generation of Southern Baptist pastors and bend them toward the Right. That is a big part of the Trump base now across the SE and Franklin Graham is at the core of the movement. See Katherine Stewart Money Lies and Power. Also google Robert Jones, Shutting Down CRT debatle, Religion news.

      Billy Graham told Al Mohler an SBC fundamentalist leader that he sided with the fundamentalist in the SBC takeover

     That is what PBS NC should be reporting about the legacy of Billy and Franklin Graham and every graduate of High Point should know it too.

    

A serendipitous Friday March 21 , 2025

    Come back to this blog as I hope to give it some shine with today just something of an outline

    Some days hold unexpected charm and today was one of them. This year has had more drama than I could have imagined on January One, but today was some relief. Perfect weather and well rested I pulled the trigger and made the trip  to a quartly class of 71 Reunion in Gaffney. Charles Edwards was at the table at the door, a Furman classmate in addition to GHS, but I talk to him often and sat with Barry Denton . Lewis Hiuskey and Donnie Clary Table. Next table up was Joe Hartzog, Bobby Littlejohn and Mike Hammett. Hammett and I may have been only folks in the room who voted Biden.

   Emily McCraw was there for a routine exchange about girls basketball. I made a motion nxt gathering be held at the cracker barrel at one pm but that failed due to prior arrangements.  I said something else but it failed as well.

       I barely had a chance to eat half my spaghetti  before class mates started leaving. They were there for a good forty minutes after I got there. but told one of the waiters a good joke he liked. He was an international from Algeria who got a masters at Limestone College and decided tohang around Gaffney for a while. Then talked to a woman whose Uncle married Phyllis Arial, a great friend of the actree Andie McDowell.

     Went about a quarter mile out to Bethany Baptist where my Dad was pastor from 62 to 78 and sat in parking lot and reminisced. Then decided to go down the Union HWY which was further than I remembers. Went out to Midway BBQ to get some of their famous hash to go. Got three house weiners as well for dollar 28. Furman's George Singleton the writer has made MID way with a mention in his collection Asides.

      Traffic as bad on 85 and it was further up the Buffalo hwy to Roebuck than I thought and the lights were interminable and I caught every one of them.

     85 at Pelham road was atrocious even at three in the afternoon but finally got to chick fil a in Powedersville where I told some hs exchange students from Europe and Brazil who had settled in Winston Salem my unsoliocited life story. They were kind to indulge me. Hit the high points of margins of the film adaptation of Ron Rash's One Foot in Eden and Brett Morgen's six minute standing ovation at Cannes.

    When I pick this up will name the 71 starting line up for the Gaffney Indian baseball team as remembered by their legendary raconteur Barry Denton.

     Denton who was  big bat played centerfield. He said Mike Johnson was beside him in left. Ronnie Smiley was the shortstop. He got strong look from Kansas City after graduation. Danny Parker was the pitcher and could paint the plate. But for a knee injury as football QB our Freshman year, most are convinced he coulda been starting pitcher for Clemson.

     Now it looks like Drew Medley at COC is taking up the Gaffney legend as a reliever. He was a great receiver for the state champion football team couple years ago as they upset Dutch Fork.

    Denton said Lee Smith was the catcher and Donnie Ray Littlejohn a year before Donnie Ray had a big bat and With Ulysses Dawkins legends of the 60s transitional years of integration.

     Webb Pierce and Robb Sartor were outstanding Denton's jr year 69 70.

 I am not aware of records for these teams as they played spring and the High School year book was sparse on information as same for track and tennis team.

     I hope to get more information from Denton and others. Dewitt Price legend has it was among top five to ever play High school baseball at Gaffney

     

Baylor oral history of Stewart A. Newman

  I stumbled on the oral history of Baptist great Stewart A Newman, an easy google. Newman and my correspondence of the nineties is in the Baptist archives at Duke University. Duke's Curtis Freeman has a splendid article Dead From the Neck Up of the Day WA Criswell spoke to a joint session of the SC legislature in 1956 at the invitation of Strom Thurmond and gave a race baiting speech with such trash as you wouldnt call a Chigger a Chiggerow now would ya. He had given the same speech the previous day to the hoots and howls of a state wide gathering of SC Southern Baptist Pastors.

       Newman followed Criswell, next speaker up for the Preachers. Newman said : WA Criswell doesn't speak for me"

   About five years later Newman and the president of South EasternBaptist seminary in the small town of Wake Forest  stopped by our home in Hayesville NC where George W Truett was born. He told his group to go on to Nashville, he thought he would just stay with Billy.

   In 1977 Newman gave two days of guest lectures at Limestone College in Gaffney SC. My Dad had late supper with him at Shoneys and talked for about an hour and a half. That's when I heard the Criswell story for the first time. In the Oral Histoy Newman talks about a train trip he took from Dallas to Memphis. Coincidentally in the late 30s George W. Truett himself was on board. They talked for a good three hours. Newman said it didn't take long for Truett to start talking about what a nuisance Frank Norris was to his ministry. For larger context of Norris, the Jerry Falwell of his day, see Jill Lepore grand history of America, These Truths.

   Newman was a mentor to the great Baptist of the 80s James Dunn and SEBTS President Randall Lolley, the President of SEBTS the fundy led Charles Stanley, Jerry Vines, Jim Deloach and Adrian Rogers removed from office.

      Gifted story teller and jokester He told my Dad and Lolley a joke that had both of them bent over belly laughing. Said an old fellow was reminiscing got to thinking he'd never seen a flying Saucer. Then thought come to think of it he'd never goosed a waitress either.

     I called him once and he answered the phone. He said  I know how both of us loved to talk but before we get going have you heard the latest on our new Southern Baptist President Charles Stanley. Newman said he went out to walk his duck the other day and got his head all cut up by an outboard motor