An Asterisk on Furman's Timmons Arena

     The morning of November 14 I had a fourteen minute conversation with Congressman William Timmons of SC 3rd District. Just elected to his third term he has pledged to step down in four years if reelected twice more.

      His grandfather loved basketball and gave the key gift to build Furman's Basketball arena on campus after a glorious run in Greenville's Downtown arena where Frank Selvy scored his hundred and Clyde Mayes led a great decade in the seventies. 

    I am concerned about the Current William Timmons embrace of Turmp and  the fundamentalist christian nationalist politics of North Greenville Tony Beam and his so called "christian" world view. Marty Cohen's book Moral Congress is great look at how the third got this way from Liz Patterson to Trey Gowdy and now Timmons.

     Timmons family runs in the blue blood circles of old Greenville and Christ Church Episcopal Congregation and Prep School.

     In a delightful but times charged conversation Timmons wanted to know why a "crazy old man would want to disparage" his grandfather's love of Basketball.

    I said it was not about his grandfather, but about him and his current extended family that may embrace the mendacity of Trump. I said there seemed to be a big disconnect between Furman's Seeking Abraham initiative of 2017 and his embraced of the CRT Debate, silence on Project 2025 and the mendacity of Trump politics.

     He said he thought the Abraham initiative was a "piece of revisionist history Furman would come to regret". His father resigned from the Board of Trustees over the initiative and it appears most of his current extended family shares the view of the father Rick Timmons.

     Seeking Abraham is a strong look at the slaveholding of Furman's founders. Many of the names that once adorned the campus have been diminished and names of their slaves or other people of color during Jim Crow replacing them

  Come back Tuesday and WEdnesday for the conclusion of this blog

  Part two will include examination of Timmons relationship with Trump DOJ nominee Gaetz and a look at the Atwater N Word memo as a foundation for CRT politics Billy Tee has embraced not to mention Project 2025 and the politics, the mendacity of his politics of abortion, guns etcs and the dumbing down of History education 

    Part two

      In 1988 the Timmons family made a four million dollar gift to Furman for an on campus basketball arena in honor of their grandfather who got a degree from Furman right after WWI. He loved Basketball. You can google on article on the Timmons family generosity to Furman and the Greenville community the last half of the 20th Century searching for Keep on Trucking, Timmons and Greenville.

     Lee Atwater got Greenville native Carroll Campbell to US Congress in late seventies with a campaign One Of Us spotlighting Campbell opponent Max Heller as a Jew. The President of Furman, a Baptist preacher's son Gordon Blackwell endorsed Heller and publicly campaigned for him

     Early 80s Atwater was a rising star with the National GOP and wrote a memo where he said you can't say "Nigger Nigger Nigger" anymore so we have to adopt some other impassioned issues to replace race baiting. Thus ushered in the mendacity of the politics of abortion, CRT, prayer in schools and Guns. My friend at Dartmouth Randall Balmer has done scorching research on Paul Weyrich spotlight on abortion to replace race baiting. You can google Robert Jones, Shutting down CRT Debate, religion news to see how nefarious this campaign is.

     So here we are with the mendacity of the GOP that was key to the reelection of Trump with the endorsement of Timmons and the super Trumper activism of folks like super Trumper Eric Metaxas and his ideologue friends at FBC Spartanburg SC inparticular in the heart of Timmons land.

      Balmer has also written about basketball with his stellar chapter quote by Kareem Abdul Jabbar "When it is played the way it is supposed to be played, Basketball happens in the Air. Flying Floating. elevated  above the floor; Levitating the way it has always been in the dreams of the oppressed people of the earth"   

    When the talk was thick nationally a few years ago about Stone Mtn, noted Clemson historian and Furman grad (69) Vernon Burton suggested a carving beside General Lee etc with  some context. PBS Iconic America series has done an excellent job on the context of Stone Mtn.

     Maybe a similar statement, an asterisk of sorts is now appropriate for Timmons arena

      Kareem's vision of basketball is  quite a different vision from the current willie Timmons who has perverted his grandfather's love into the darkness the evolution of Race Baiting. When the arena opens this fall listen as you walk in the Foyer of Timmons arena, hear a rising valence as you pass the plaque endorsing the family and hear the faint echoes, whispers of Atwater's N Word Memo

Rough accounting of my voting history

   I cast my first Presidential ballot in 1972 at the National Guard in Gaffney SC just down from the High school. Fall of my sophomore year I was inspired by Albert Blackwell who set a big McGovern Shriver Table outside the cafeteria of the Dining Hall at Furman just three years out of Harvard Divinity School. There is a picture in the 1973 Bonhomie the Furman yearbook.

    The Fourth Sunday in August of 1983 McGovern joined us for the Helton Reunion at the Waldens Creek UMC just outside Pigeon Forge Tn. I think that was the year MLB HOF Todd Helton, a distant cousin; his Mother was there also. McGovern stayed around for lunch.

   I voted at the Alice Bell elementary school east Knoxville school in 80 againsnt Ronald Reagan. Remember Bruce Bowen at the polls and a girld visiting from Kentucky. I think Cormac McCarthy had just left town when I got there.

     Eighty four I think my polling place was on Kingston hwy where I voted for Mondale. I talked about him a lot while subbing in the schools. A few years later a kid walked by the tennis courts downtown Rome and was haiving a hard time placing my face and finally said "Walter Mondale"

     The Legion House out ut near the Rck Store on the Kingston highway was once visited by Lester Mattox or it was the most solid percentage vote for him of any precinct in the state. Uncle Nolan Richey was active rural pol. Were he still alive I'm certain he would be a solid Trump vote, may even Marge Taylor Greene.

   For thirty years voted at the National Guard up from the Shed just off 68 in Collinsville Alabama. Poll workers there were usually the Preacher John Morgan, now deacon Ronnie McReynolds who is Mark Petty's father in law,  Marie Wilson now deceased a former homecoming queen who only dated boys in the backfield in the forties and former Mayor Willingham's wife who has a picture of relative on first name basis with FDR himself.

   Somebody should do a national piece on the shed. A founding member says they are hundred per cent Trump this year. Its where the class of 83 hangs and all the local decisions are made there; the city council etc are just a front.

     Voted here in Upstate sC at nearby Library. Another Library in Pendleton closer to a Zabys and a scenic ride to Culvers on 81 outside Anderson that refuses to get their Television fixed; the Pendleton Library had long sometimes donstentious lines for early voting.

    Sadly the Cherokee Chronicle of Gaffney has an outrageous endorsement of Trump in Nov 4 issue.  A lot of folks there no better but the Know Nothings have captured the mindset, its in the water. Maybe Joe Dean Spencer won after all

     This year I voted the Sanity Party, the One NOT chocked full of Mendacity; I voted with the US Olympic Team, Nick Saban, the Baptist Fellowship and the Alliance, Dawn Staley, the Girl Scouts, Trevor Lawrence, Neal Thrash, Peggy and Susan Weaver and the Auburn Democracy Project and Dave Matthews Center for Civic Virtue. And Randlall Balmer and the legacy of Marshall Frady

    My brother's son just called from Greer South Carolina, the heart of Trump land whose former congressman was Trey Gowdy. He stood in line for two hours at a church even after Early voting in the Upstate for ten days. The region is eaten up by Trump world and right wing radio and Tony Beam and his so called Christian World view at North Greenville College which has along with FBC Spartanburg SC embraced Super Trumper Eric Metaxas, a garbage collector. My parts of the family who vote Trump are not Garbage. But Trump is Bastard Garbage and it is sad a Lot of Jack Leg Preachers have been complicit in the Trump era

     

Civics education, Strange Dreams and Imaginary Numbers

This blog is random. Several topics many of which I have considered for full blown blog but by time I get to computer the passion has waned

    Had a strange dream last night. On Furman campus I didnt recognize feeling completely out of place and unmoored . didnt recognize anybody and couldnt find a way to get home aware Momma and Daddy were no longer there when I would get there and now my brother.

   That was about 3 pm but the rest of the night was relatively peaceful given undiagnosed arthritis and other maladies.

     Havent seen a good movie in a while but leaning toward Conclave and a recommend from the New Yorker about Jenny and time fog. Hope to see Slingblade with Cal and Mac and a Series game with Tilman and Eva but time is short for the Yankees. 

    Want them to know about Bucky Dent and the fall of 78 when I ended up in Knoxville tn

     Tried to get to Finebaum yesterday to talk about Nick Saban as an enemy from Within according to Thump. I hope the Puerto Rican fiasco is the end of the SOBeach. Pennsylvania should do it to him. He aint NO Eisenhower and the Nazi Ralley he held in the Garden; well PBS got that right with footage from the Original in the Forties.

      Still Franklin Graham and FBC Spartanburg have their collective heads up their asses and cant't distinguish to a Hole in the Ground.

     Is it the fault of the Fundy takeover of the SBC, HS Football coaches moonlighting as civics teachers in Greer SC; Jack leg preachers. Who TF knows

   Among several compelling pieces for Harris at this moment is maybe the definitive piece in the New Yorker by Adam Gopnik.

    One thing rings true for me. Harris if nothing else will bring an administraion to govern with her with extremely more virtue and wisdom than Thump, who will not even listen to the SOBS he brings in which will be the bottom of shit tub worse than last time.

    But Franklin Graham and the SBC will be there eager to Pray Over the SOBS while the other half of US hold our Breath. 

Is Nick Saban one of Trump's enemies from within; Snyder Memorial and Trump appeal to "faith leaders" in North Carolina

Like I speculated in an earlier blog on Trevor Lawrence, I dont think Nick Saban is gonna vote Trump. Best I could tell Saban avoided Trump when he came to Tuscaloosa for the Georgia game and Nick wasnt happy when eight years ago Trump called two of his his Heismann trophy winners Mark Ingram and Derrick Henry Sons a bitches for not kissing Trump ass over the Kaepernick matter.

   As I blog earlier in a conversation with me 2020 Trevor Lawrence was not happy with Trump either. Trevor sided with Drew Brees in that dust up

     Saban gave a million dollars a few years ago to the Student Ministry at St Francis Catholic Church. in Maga world that certified Saban as an Enemy of the People. Katie Britt should investigate along with a look at the Honors Program and her FUMC in Montgomery. It is a face Trump thinks the United Methodist Church is an Enemy of the People as is the Alliance of Baptists and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. So look out FBC Rome, Dalton, Gainesville, Athens Macon, Americus. Maranatha in Plains, Northside Atlanta and Vineville BC in Macon you are on the watch list. Stand up now and tell your neighbors to vote against the Bastard Trump

    Outside Charlotte the heart of Billy Graham land Trump make an appeal to so called "faith leaders" to stand with him. Churches Like Snyder memorial in Fayetteville NC and their Reited military constituency know better. Hopefully they will resist the Trump bull sheet informed by New Yorker article by Gopnik and the earlier one on Evangelicals for Harris including Billy Graham grand daughter Jerushah tchvidjian Duford. For me Shaine Claiborne of Maryville Tn seals the deal

     And there is the Baptist News Global piece on super trumper Eric Metaxas and the distortion of the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Metaxas has been embraced by FBC Spartanburg and Tony Beam, the home church of Trey Gowdy and his Mother Ovalene. Franklin Graham is hard wired to that congregation. they have some expleaining to do.

   

 

Mommas neapolitan milk shake and Sweet Billy in the Big Tub

It appears to be the case as our time is nigh--I figger I got about seven years left--the genetic program kicks in and we become our parents. Lately all the things I scoffed as simpleton are becoming Precious. Momma was happy on saturday evening with the Lawrence Welk hour and scraping a half gallon Neapolitan ice cream box and stirring it down to milkshake, a litte buttermilk didnt hurt.

  However I still dont care for Lawrence Welk other than an occasional trombone solo

   And my dad in the nineties in his last few years especially in the fall would come over and cut some grass--he told Wayne Whiteside I wasnt at worthlesss as it appeared he liked to cut some grass on the plot left to me in Alabama-- and get in the big tub on the old place that had been in Momma's family for seventy years. He couldnt sing worth a darn but he would spend 45 minutes to an hour with every door in the house open to catch the breeze. He's double down on George Beverly Shea Billy Graham specials especially I'd rahter Have Jesus than silver or Gold.

     I'm not a fan of the Gaither Hour but they had Bev Shea on for the hour yesterday and It brought tears to my eyes. Seveal including Rather have Jessus and OUt of the Ivory Palaces

       Shaved ice or snowballs are special again. There is a great place in Powdersville SC that moonlights at Furman home football games. I missed them all summer but got one last week at Furman game. Gonna catch them the rest of the home games as they are closed for the summer in Powdersville.

     Mike Francis locked Ole Man Hill in his stand up from the little league park, Irene Park in 66. Francis a bonified character is gone now. Hill moved his stand to the Mill Village down from the old High School. Lime was my favorite and grape and orange.

     In the early 50s  the great Shoelesss joe Jackson came over from greenville. He had a belly on him but he hit a home run at Irene Park,. Ive seen the picture.

    I think the end of Eight Men Out is one of the greatest scenes in American Cinema. As his former teammate says; that aint him, all those guys are gone now.

Trevor Lawrence will vote Harris Walz; Tim Tebow Eagle Forum Momma for Trump

Gene Frenette of USA Today and the Jacksonvile Florida Times Union had an exhaustive piece on the Faith Foundations of Trevor Lawrence about ten days ago. Dabo Swinney's church Dan Lian of Anderson SC is a major force in the the faith development of Trevor, it turns out.

     Four years ago during the Black Lives Matter event at Clemson I had a brief conversation with Trevor, and later with his Mother. On that Day Trevor confessed he came down with Drew Brees against Donald Trump on the matter of the Kaepernick affair saying in effect the President of the US shouldn't attempt to bully free speech.

     In the presence of Richard Shelby in 2016 Trump implied two of Nick Saban's Heisman Trophy winners were in his words Sons of Bitches for not kissing his ass on the matter of Kaepernick.

    This is not to say Trevor or Brees were in favor of Everything Kaepernick represented, they just didnt think Trump should go unchallenged on the matter.

     Given the evolving depth of Lawrence faith as magnified in the article and given the close relationship he has with his brother and sister in law and their faith I think Lawrence will not be voting Trump. And his sister in law is Jamaican and we know what Trump thinks of that.

    I have flirted with these notions with a couple calls to Paul Finebaum With Greg McElroy about seven years ago we talked about Howell Raines piece on Bear Bryant and Wallace , one of the best pieces ever written about the bear Finebaum conceded. With his new book Silent Cavalry who Finebaum had on air about three months ago, Finebaum talked about his concern Bama Senator Katie Britt faces with her endorsement of Trump and the implications Project 2025 has for people of color. Without people of color Bama wouldn't have much of a football team.

   Last week I called Finebaum to ask among other things if he thaink Katie Britt should call on Trump to apologize to the Bama Football Program and Ingram and Henry in particular. We had a bad connection and he dismissed me like he often does Charles from Reeltown as having his head in a mason jar too long. 

      Trevor grew up down the Kington HWY from my Grandmother's place on Dykes Creek. I think my first cousing by marriage was for a time the Lawrence family interim pastor at Tabernacle in Cartersville Ga about the time Trevor was in 7th grade.

     Tim Tebow mother Pam under the Tutelage of the John Birch Society's great friend Jerry Vines of West Rome and Jacksonville Florida; Pam Tebow was Eagle Forum woman of the year 2018. Consider that in the context of Jill Lepore focus on the Eagle Forum in her majestic recent history of America, These Truths.

     So the Truth is out there for ACC and SEC Football not to mention the NFL whats at stake in this election. I hope it breaks Trevor 's Way over Tebow 

"This is Wrong": Collinsville and Calvinsim and the 1946 Boston Red Sox

 This is Wrong is a quote from John Morgan recently retired after 40 plus years as pastor of /Collinsville Baptist Church where my Mother was baptized in 1936 and I lived for thirty years up until January 30 of 2020. I was voted out of the congregation on May 28 2006 by a vote of 32 to 20. I wrote that episode up for U Tenn Press, Exiled Generation, my essay titled Churchin in Alabama.

      The  former pastor owns a home in town about two football fields down Main Street from the church. He remains a member

     His full throated comment came during a business meeting August 31 where the former Mayor of the town and his son made a motion to change the bylaws of the church from  75 percent vote to a simple majority to rail road a Calvinist into the pulpit as Morgan's successor

      What disturbs Morgan and many others in the church is the Mayor and friends lost the first vote by two votes and called for a second which they lost. Now they are seeking to change the bylaws. The bylaw change is not sitting well with the dissenters

    Most of this year the Mayor took the Calvinist Bible Study leader to lunch every Sunday. I'm sure they talked about a lot of things including national politics 

     The mayor's father in law was a great fishing friend in South Florida with the Great Ted Williams and his wife played on the public tennis courts in Ft. Lauderdale alongside Chrissy Evert. Small World.

      But the Mayor s roots are in Collinsville where he has been most of his life. If you ask him the right  questions I think he would fit the definition of a Super Trumper and a Christian Nationalist. That is speculation is there. He reminds me of the leader of Home guard in Ron Rash Novel The Cove. He is very proud of creating a park between the library and RR in Town for veterans though he never served in the military to my Knowledge

     I have to give him credit, He did a good job putting together an event about six years ago dedicating the Memorial. He did most ot the talking so it kinda smelled of Trump's recent event at Arlington, still he brought up a civic band from Anniston and they did a great job.

       So its another get out the vote day in Collinsville. MorNee to come as this plays out including embellishement of the Bosox Angle and opportunities for recondcliation with a touch from my friend Randall Balmer at Dartmouth who is aware of the situation.

    If you live in Collinsville or are fascinated by Baptist drama find Mayor Carter at Cooks Barber Shop or somewhere around town and have him read ASAP, Urgent, Why a Calvinist may be coming to your Pulpit at Baptist News Global, published late May