Kingfisher Trail Today

We both toted coffee with us as we crossed the Charles Graves bridge toward the Kingfisher Trail.

Sheila is a member of Rome's League of Women Voters. I have so admired her dedication in being an observer of the elections process here in our hometown. She attends almost every meeting of the Elections Board, takes careful notes, and shares that info with the LWV.

Sheila is also rarely wrong. She isa careful person. As a high school newspaper editor, college newspaper editor, daily news reporter at the Rome News, and one of the editors of Broadside newspaper she checks nd double checks facts. Whenever I start ranting about the latest Trump or MTG outrage she always asks where I got my info. 

During our 53 years together, I am the one who has most often had to apologize for jumping to conclusion, for forgetting or overlooking some detail, or just being a dummy.

So on those rare occasions when my beloved bride goofs, I notice.

She had mentioned to me a couple of times a guided walk that the LWV would take during their sate meeting here in Rome this weekend. She was not involved in the meeting but wanted to take the walk along downtown Rome's interesting Kingfisher Trail. I was game.

BUT I of course found an opportunity to goof up. When we arrived at a parking space on Broad and exited Sheila's car to make our way to the Hawthorn Suites meeting place for the walk, I realized I'd left my walking stick at home. Sheila, my ever patient companion, encouraged me to drive the few blocks home to get it while she signed us in to the walk. As I arrived at our driveway a few minutes later I got a call from Sheila. She had made a mistake! The walk was yesterday! We were 24 hours late!

Well, we quickly decided we'd just go ahead and have our own walk. 

Here's some photographic evidence.

The trail begins under the South Broad (Charles Graves) bridge. The several elevated sewer stacks have been decorated with paintings about some of the critters in and around our rivers. This one notes the Lake Sturgeon, once extirpated from the Coosa Basin, but with help from a restoration project by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources is making a comeback.

Another stack celebrates the endangered Interrupted Rocksnail.

Still another stack features the Eastern Box Turtle.

Soon we reach the mouth of Silver Creek and an old railroad bridge over the Etowah River that is now a pedestrian bridge and part of Rome trail system.

Silver Creek and Butterweed

A connecting trail leads up to Lookout Circle and the South Rome neighborhood.

I have been fascinated with this large outcropping of geology along the bank of Silver Creek... 

... where ancient layers of rock have been upended by geologic forces.

Eastern Gray Beardtongue [Penstemon canescens] near ... 

...the the old railroad bridge

Just next to the existing bridge are the remaining supports of an older bridge. See the Canada goose atop one?

Looking upstream from the bridge... 

...and downstream.

At this point on a Saturday morning we'd only met three other walkers, but just as we left the bridge that was to change.

Turns out there was a walk today, not the LWV walk, but a regularly scheduled walk of Rome's wonderful TRED group. So we reversed direction and joined them.

Whenever I walk the section between the river and the Health Department we pass this giant pyramid of a building. I wonder how it was used, who owns it, and it there is any potential for an events venue there. It's gigantic.

Ugh! I despise this invasive plant that crowds out native species wherever it grows: Chinese privet [Ligustrum sineense].

Multiflora Rose [Rosa multiflora]

Several of the folks in the group, especially the kids, were interested in tasting the not-quite-ripe fruit of the Red Mulberry trees. They produce copious amounts of edible fruit that is beloved by many birds. 

The leaders for this walk were from a physical therapy group Shift Therapy & Wellness

. Here we were given instruction on gauging our susceptibility to falls.

Julie Smith the executive director of TRED was the leader of the walk.

Photo from TRED Facebook page

 

Happy Birthday Papa.

Today is the 165th birthday of my grandfather, Benjamin Wilson Baird. He was an interesting man. Born while James Buchanan was president of the United States he was the youngest son of Lt. William Baird. William, as a father of several children did not join the Confederate army, the 53rd Georgia Infantry, until 1863. He was wounded badly in the shoulder as he crossed a fence at the horrific Battle of the Wilderness on May 4, 1864. After a long stay in hospitals in Richmond during the war he made it home to his family in Georgia, but was an invalid for the rest of his life. Wilse was the son who eventually stayed home to care for the farm. In 1902, at 42 years of age Wilse finally got around to getting married -- to my 18-year-old future grandmother. Together they would have eleven children. The eleventh, Ruth, would grow up to become my mother. 

Other than my maternal cousins and my siblings I know of only one of my friends who can claim a pre-Civil War grandparent (George Barton) -- are there others?

One of my favorite stories about Papa, who died 15 years before I was born: As a lay Methodist pastor he was sought out for advice by a young nephew who was feeling a call to ministry. He told my cousin: "Son, remember, you can't scare folks into the kingdom, you have to love 'em into it." I wish more present-day evangelicals would follow that admonition

What process is due

 "To say the administration must observe 'due process' is to beg the question: what process is due is a function of our resources, the public interest, the status of the accused, the proposed punishment, and so many other factors."

The above is an actual quote from the Vice President of the United States. Folks we are in a Constitutional crisis. If you support this fascism you are not merely my political opponent; you are my enemy as surely as a Putin or a Kim or a bin Laden.

What process is due, Mr. Vance, if the accused is your wife or child? Your boss? Your friend or neighbor? For God's sake, your regime, Mr. Vance, has sent letters to Christian refugees, fleeing the Taliban, saying they have a week to get out of the US.

No, Mr. Vance, due process is a foundational principle. I am certain that among those illegally deported folks in the El Salvador concentration camp there are some truly evil guys. Pick the worst one; under the jurisdiction of the United States even he is entitled to due process. That is foundational. That, you unAmerican sellout, is one of the basics that my Daddy risked his life for in the Pacific in 1944 and 45. Your führer, with a decades long record of fraud and sexual predation got HIS day(s) in court.

Our Broadside Sign

 Y'all know what a sentimental ol' fool I can be. We have recently refurbished all four of our porches and repainted the exterior here at our 155-year-old house on the banks of the Oostanaula. This blank wall on one back porch was crying out for some decoration. This five by three foot sign used to hang in front of the building on Maple street where we spent way too many hours once upon a time. It had been stored for decades in a barn a Mike Burton's place till about three years ago. Now it hangs next to our back door.

From very early in 1975 until late spring 1977 we planned and reported and wrote and typeset and laid out and pasted-up and published and delivered and sold ads for and agonized over our weekly newspaper --- often working all night on Wednesdays to get Broadside to the printer on Thursday morning. Financially we lost our shirts but we remain proud of much of the work we did and the stories we told. We started with a slew of partners but in the end it was just Steve & Laurie Craw (still two of our dearest friends) and me & Sheila.

The sign is two sided and sports the original design used as the flag on our the newspaper's front page. The name was an effort to capitalize on the bicentennial celebrations of the era -- the first newspapers in America were call "broadsides".

The stress and financial worries were severe at times, but the decades have made those things fade a bit in my memory. So I'll remember good friends and interesting times from 1975-1977 every time I come in the house - the Craws, Debbie Reece (now Grigsby), Tim Poor, Dick Pierce, Chris Frazier, John Richardson, Candice Tolbert, Tim Shiflett, Marguerite Plank, Steve Myers, Yolanda McGee, Joe Helbing, -- all involved in the newspaper. Then there are the community supporters like Herb McCartney at the phone company, and advertisers like John Schulz, and the big stories - assorted scandals in law enforcement, a prostitution ring, the big tornado of 77, the strange modern Broad Street redevelopment that fell apart before it got going good, lots of politics including a presidential campaign right here in Georgia.

Type "Broadside" into the search box above and you'll find lots of other pictures and bits of info about Broadside.

Hands Off Social Security!

I was in and out in just a minute or so. I got lots of smiles from the staff and also from the clients. Americans like Social Security! Shame on anyone who tries to weaken Social Security. Instead we should require the wealthy to pay their share!

I visited our local Social Security office today. I asked the security guard if I could show my sign to the workers to thank them. He said as long as I stayed out of their glassed in work areas. What a lot of smiles! I am indeed thankful for the public servants who take care of important jobs like helping old geezers like 78-year-old me deal with paperwork and regulations -- not just in Social Security but a myriad of other programs and services that We the People have created. Thank you all!

I had a different message on the other side of my sign. It is intended for a different audience and a much less productive one: Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Those three lowlifes want to wreck the great advances made through bipartisan legislation under FDR,Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, and Biden. Hands Off Our Social Security!

Even Donald Trump Should Have Due Process

(Note: This post includes crude language that I rarely use. I believe it is needed here.)

Here is section one of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The emphasis is mine:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

In America everyone gets due process. That’s right there in the Constitution. We make sure those accused of crimes — murder, rape, child abuse, treason, even terrorism, or ANY other crime — are accorded opportunity to defend their innocence. 

Every human being under the jurisdiction of We the People of the United States has a Constitutional right to due process. That even includes that most despicable man who occupies our presidency.

Yes, even Donald Trump. We know Donald Trump is a criminal. He was found guilty of 34 felonies and was found liable for many frauds and even a sexual assault. I am personally convinced that most of the MANY allegations of Trump’s frauds, sexual abuses, and other crimes are true. They fit with the behavior patterns we have watched play out in public over the last half-century or more. But EVEN Donald Trump gets due process in America. He has gotten and will get his day in court for defending himself against criminal allegations. To deny even the loathsome Mr. Trump his due process would be untrue to the pledges I have made nearly every morning of my teaching career. You know the ones to the republic for which our flag stands. It would be unAmerican.

So it is also unAmerican to support the arrests of other people without due process and their rendition to a concentration camp in El Salvador. This is intended to terrorize refugees and immigrants. This is a fascist tactic. This is unConstitutional. This is wrong on every level.

This scene is not from a gulag in the Soviet Union or a concentration camp in Nazi Germany; this is a scene staged by the President of the United States acting, supposedly, on the behalf of We the People of the "The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave,"  

To see uncharged, unconvicted, people — who have had no legal representation, no hearing before a judge or jury, no due process — shackled, shaved, bent, prodded, shoved, slapped by representatives of We the People of the United States is nauseating. Are some or even most of them guilty in Venezuela and/or the US of some crime? Probably so. But do we know that? No we don’t. And I’ll bet my next Social Security check that there’s at least one absolutely innocent person in the hell that Donald Trump and the assholes who support this infernal tactic have established. (I do not use crude language often, but sometimes it is demanded by the magnitude of evil needing description.) 

If there is a literal hell and if anyone could actually deserve it, few would come closer to deserving it than those who support this outrage. But even though I believe that, I STILL would demand, even for those I have labeled “assholes," due process.

 

Georgia Magazine

What a nice spread on my storytelling by Laura Berrios in the March 2025 edition of Georgia Magazine.  Georgia Magazine is produced by the Georgia Electric Membership Association and goes to over a half-million Georgia homes every month.  Full disclosure: Laura is my first cousin, once removed. I had to chuckle when I saw in the article a name that I have not used since sometime in the sixties. Like a lot of my relatives Laura knows me by my childhood nickname "Terry". 

Here is a link the online edition of the magazine: 

https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/gemc/georgia_202503/index.php?startid=25#/p/36

 Sheila's first cousin Gail was buried today. We drove down to Decatur and spent Friday night with our daughter Lillian and her husband Jordan, then drove on to Tallahassee to attend Gail's graveside service. We only stayed the one night with Sheila's brother Jimmy and wife Sally. 

OBITUARY

Jean "Gail" Shuman

SEPTEMBER 7, 1933 – FEBRUARY 12, 2025

IN THE CARE OF

Culley's MeadowWood Funeral Home

Jean Gail was born to Carlton and Dorothy Peebles on September 7, 1933. She graduated Leon High school in 1951. She attended Charity Hospital where she earned her register nursing degree. She was the OR head nurse for W. T. Edwards Tuberculosis Hospital. She worked for Dr. Merritt Clements at his OB/GYN practice until she retired.

She was blessed with a wonderful love of her first husband Mayo Davis. They had two children, Carl Davis (Rhonda) and Lisa Revell. Mayo brought with him a sister for Carl and Lisa from a previous marriage Candie Garner (Charles). After Mayo's passing a few years later Gail was married to Clifford "Tippy" Shuman. Her family grew with Tippy's kids Sally (Lynn) Jordan, Tom (Penny) Shuman, and Ruthie Lyle. She has nine grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren. She is survived by her sister Mary Morgan. Thank you Mary, for being there for your older sister. We as a family are so grateful for your love and care for your sister.

She loved doing God's work. She taught a Sunday school class for five year olds at Parkway Baptist church. She was a founding member of Parkway. She later loved serving at Morningside church. In previous months Gail enjoyed getting to see classmates from high school once a month at The Egg restaurant.

The family is so grateful to the Villas at Killearn Lakes. The Care Givers are special people and helped mom get through these last few months with dignity. 

A graveside service for Gail will be held Saturday, February 15, 2025 from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM at Roselawn Cemetery, 843 Piedmont Drive, Tallahassee, Florida 32312.

In lieu of flowers please donate to the Big Bend Hospice or your preferred charity.

Here are some pictures I took at the cemetery:

Jimmy Matthews with Gail's daughter Lisa Revell

Sheila Matthews Shaw with Lauren