Gleaning Facebook: Heading to Floyd

Sunday update: Physically Mother has continued to improve. Her brain is still injured from the stroke, of course, so we pray the physical healing continues and leads to her recovering more memory. She is cleared for transport to Floyd Hospital for Inpatient Rehab as soon as arrangements can be made. Yay!

This is a photo of my mother and father early in their marriage. They cleaned up pretty well for a coupla late-thirties/early-forties milltown "linthead" kids, huh?

When I posted the black and white original (above) of this on Facebook my fellow political collector Herb Shemwell generously took the time to colorize it for me. Thanks, Herb!

Comments

Ellice Curry-Tucker
Excellent news! Continuing 

George Nix
Continued prayers

Frank Norris
Thanks for the good update, Terrell.

Danny Loyd
Great news praying for her

Claudia Kennedy
Good news. Floyd Rehab is a good place to be.

Buddy Childers
Your Mom is in my prayers.

Lynne Crothers Williams
Continued daily prayer for your Mom.

Tim Shiflett
Wonderful news!

Tersi Bendiburg
Will continue to pray. Thank you for the update, dear Terrell. 

Herb Shemwell
Terrell - My Mother had a stroke as well - I know just how you feel. Hang in there.

Terrell Shaw
Thanks so much for the pic Herb! Prayers for your Mom as well.

Angela Greear
Whoo Hoo

Gwendolyn Phipps
Those "lint head" parents, in their day, raised some good patriotic, hard-working, God worshipping and responsible children of whom I proudly am one.

Martin Penland Teem
Prayers for continued healing. 

Sandra Caruso
Continued prayers !! God is great.

Barbara Carlin McKinney
Wonderful news, continued prayers

Ralph Davis

Jean Filson Linos
That is good news she is continuing to improve.

Dagmar D. Schmitz Carlton

Lydia Trimble Peters
A wonderful update!! And your parents were a beautiful couple.

Teresa A Ware
Great News ! !

David Alan Hicks
Wonderful news Terrell, FMC really treated me well back in January when I was in for mine.

Terrell Shaw
David Alan Hicks I have heard nothing but good about Floyd’s stroke rehab

Lizabeth Jolly
What wonderful Sunday news to hear

Juanita Mull
Glad to hear your Mom is better. Thank you Jesus

John Countryman
That's reassuring.

Danny Shaw
God is good. Hope the transfer goes well and that she recovers well.

Betty Smith Franklin
got that verve!

Nelda Myers Hartline
So glad she is improving! Will continue to pray! Will she be able to have visitors and receive flowers once she gets to Floyd?

Terrell Shaw
I know their policies are a little less restrictive ... but still limited, probably just family. especially with the current spike in covid

Terrell Shaw
Floyd Rehab patients are allowed two visitors a day between 8:00 am and 8:00 pm. So likely you will have to wait till she gets home to to whatever living arrangement she can handle. I don't know about flowers. I've been wondering about that myself... she loves my Hydrangeas and I want to take her some as soon as she gets here if they'll let me.

Nelda Myers Hartline

Terrell Shaw please let me know about the flowers! I want her to know that I am thinking about her and that I love her! She Was like a 2nd Mom to me!

Anita Stewart
Mrs. Ruth always amazes me. Blessings for her rehab.

Sandy Doughty
Continuing to pray for a full recovery.

Leatrice Michelle Carter
That is wonderful news and she continues to be in our prayers! (:-0>) [Art and Michelle]

Mimi Shepherd
Such a handsome couple! So glad to hear your Mom has improved.

Michael J. Burton
-progress

Jo Ann Thompson
Praying

Mike Bock
Great picture. A handsome couple. Your mom has always been beautiful 

The Grand Imagineer

I am so saddened by this news. Gary was one of my closest storyteller friends. We appeared together on Nelle Reagan’s Talk of the Town many times. He and Debby Brown first talked with me about trying to establish a storytelling festival in Rome when we shared a storytelling gig about 2010 or so. He was a winner of the Big Fibbers Contest in its very first year and appeared in every contest since then. He was a key part of the Ridge & Valley Storytelling Guild and the Big Fibbers Storytelling Festival from their inception. He invited me to join him for storytelling at Etowah Mounds and allowed me to stand in for him when illness kept him away from the Mounds storytelling events. How I will miss Gary Greene, the Grand Imagineer.

Gary's obituary.

On stage at Rome City Auditorium during the 2019 festival.

That's Gary on the front row at Andy and Bil's storytelling workshop at Rome City Auditorium during the 2019 festival.

Probably at WRGA for Talk of the Town with Nelle Reagan.

At the 2017 Big Fibbers Festival, with ASL interpreter Michael Burton.

Gary had a spotlight performance at the 2017 Big Fibbers Festival held at Trinity United Methodist Church. I specifically asked him to perform his wonderful song, "Cherokee Names". Click this picture to hear the song. 

Gary was a contestant in the Big Fibbers Contest year after year. Here is an article in the Rome News about the 2019 contest.

This photo of Gary is by Tony Pope. I think it was taken at Etowah Mounds on one of the Torchlight Tours storytelling nights there.
Click this link to hear Gary talking about the Cherokees.

K-I-S-S and amazing Grace

Mother and Me about 1949.

Dear friends and family,

My heart abounds with love and joy at the outpourling of prayers, love and concern for my Mother today. I am sleep deprived and tired but would like to update you. She is 98 years old and just had a stroke and I am trying to be realistic; I know that things can change very quickly at this point for anyone at mother's age, or anyone with her assortment of illnesses and injuries, especially a stroke. BUT the improvement today seems at this point almost miraculous.

As I drove home from Erlanger Hospital in the wee hours of this morning I never expected to again hear a recognizable version of the voice that I have heard and loved, I suppose, since hearing it muffled by amniotic fluid. But after a successful thrombectomy - a procedure just introduced in 2015 - mother this afternoon recorded, with my sister Joan's help, a very brief, but cogent message to her friends and loved ones, somewhat hoarse and strained, IN THAT BELOVED VOICE. She tired quickly and went back to sleep soon after --- but she SPOKE PLAINLY.

Out of yesterday's stress and fear and indecision and chaos came two stories that I will cherish for whatever time I have left on this earth:

In the ER at Floyd Hospital my sister Joan and I stood at Mother's right side and tried to comfort and reassure her. She was restrained to protect the connections of her body to the necessary protective and diagnostic devices. Mother was very agitated. She grabbed at our hands. She pulled - HARD - on my shirt as I leaned over to caress her hair. She started repeating a single very slurred word. We new she desperately wanted us to understand her but we couldn't. "ussh" "ussh" "ussh" "ussh". We could not understand her! Finally she said , hoarsely but plainly, "K - I - S - S, ussh!" She wanted to kiss and be kissed. We obliged.

A good bit later she had once again gotten very frantic. It was absolutely heart-breaking to see her so distraught and unable to communicate. Suddenly I remembered that it is said that sometimes folks who can't respond to spoken words CAN respond to music, so I just started singing "Amazing Grace". Mother immediately. in a coarse and slurred voice I would never have recognized as the sweet voice of my mother, began singing WITH me. ALL five verses (including my favorite that folks often skip "The Lord has promised good to me, his word my hope secures. He will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures." Joan and Lyn and Steve and Sheila joined with some harmony. Then we sang "Love Lifted Me". Then "How Great Thou Art". Then "Great Is Thy Faithfulness". When the EMTs came to take her off in an ambulance for the trip to Chattanooga (weather precluded the preferred Life-Flight) she was still reciting that song's wonderful words "...there is no shadow of turning with Thee..." (The phrase is based on James 1:17.)

I would have given $1000 on the spot to have gotten to ride in that ambulance to provide a loving hand for her to hold, but I am thankful that my wonderful wife reminded her that God would be in the ambulance with her. I hope that eased the wild ride that followed for her.

Thank you all again for your friendship and for your love and concern for my Mother and for me and our family.

-Terrell

Gleaning Facebook: Gary Greene

Many of my friends will know the Grand Imagineer, Gary Greene. Gary is a wonderful storyteller and songwriter friend. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

He is one of the folks who not only inpires me with his storytelling and songwriting (I love his song "Cherokee Names") but has encouraged my storytelling by inviting me to join him for storytelling at the Etowah Mounds and doing some joint gigs with me. A great guy!

From Karen Lyn Dobson's Facebook:

Please pray for Gary! Moving him out of ICU. He's been put on Hospice. He's been such a WARRIOR for the past 2 years. One of MY BEST FRIENDS IN THE WHOLE WORLD. Gary is the first one to accept me as a SERIOUS MUSICIAN in Rome. I had already established myself in Cartersvlle. HE welcomed me with LOVING ARMS & we've done so many projects together. My favorite song we do is by John Prine "In SPite of ourselves" It's so good especially when I mimic Iris Dement. I LOVE YOU!!! We WILL SIT ON THAT RAINBOW together one day! Until then, sit with Gammy & ya'll wait on me!

Happy birthday, Sheila!

 I had a quiet birthday celebration for Sheila with dinner at the Harvest Moon on Broad Street.

News Clip: Arrowhead Loses Floyd County Schools Grant

From the Rome News-Tribune, July 6, 2021

Article and photos by Doug Walker

---------------------------

Arrowhead Environmental Education Center 

status in limbo

By Doug Walker DWalker@RN-T.com 

Jul 6, 2021

Viva with Fiona and Terrell with Lucky

 

Fiona and Lucky, the Gopher Tortoises

Terrell holds Lucky, so-named because he survived the gunshot wound evident in his shell.

After a longtime partnership agreement with the county school system was ended, the regional Department of Natural Resources is working to find funding for the Arrowhead Environmental Education Center.

The facility opened in 1994 as a partnership between the DNR and Floyd County Schools. This year the school system decided to reassign its director, Vivian Davis, to a classroom position for the 2021-2022 term.

Located on the grounds of the DNR Region One complex in Floyd Springs, the center has operated for the past 28 years with the director’s post funded by the county schools.

The center functions in two ways: hosting field trips from the schools on one hand, then taking animals from the center out into the schools at the request of teachers.

Floyd County Board of Education Chairman Tony Daniel said the decision was based on a recommendation from Superintendent Glenn White.

Tony Daniel

“He’s been doing a great job of finding ways to conserve taxpayer money,” Daniel said of the superintendent. “We felt like that position would be better used in the classroom.”

The Floyd County school system continues to face a financial dilemma stemming from declining enrollment and has been consolidating schools for several years. Signs went up just this week promoting an absolute auction sale of the former McHenry Primary School property on July 29.

“This has been a good relationship for 28 years but our focus is on the classroom,” White said.

Region One Game Management Supervisor Brent Womack said Tuesday they want to keep the facility open even without the partnership.

Daniel said the community has other resources, such as the Rome-Floyd County ECO Center in Ridge Ferry Park, where students can go to learn about nature.

Brent Womack

Doug Walker

The partnership was set up for the school system to fund the director position, including benefits, and DNR grants taking care of the building and grounds as well as transportation.

The local chapter of Trout Unlimited has contributed close to $100,000 to the center through grants over the past 20 years.

“Getting children interested in any natural science coincides with our mission,” said Robert Bold, president of the Coosa Valley TU Chapter.

The DNR nongame program has also contributed a $26,000 grant, which helps fund a part-time position at the center.

Terrell Shaw is a retired Floyd County teacher who has served as a part-time storyteller and naturalist at the center. He said he will still be available for programming on a limited basis.

“Learning in the context of the real world around us sticks, and there’s good research for that,” Shaw said. “When you have kids getting out into the real world around them and they are observing, they are measuring ... They want to write about what they’ve done, they want to research about what they’ve seen. That’s learning that sticks.”

An example of that approach to education occurred with Armuchee Elementary School’s green tree frog project.

“That was born out of Arrowhead and Armuchee Elementary working together,” Shaw said.

The kids were out at Arrowhead learning that Georgia had a state bird, a state reptile and so forth. A child asked what the state amphibian was and they discovered there wasn’t one.

The students worked to get support from then state senator Preston Smith and, after three years of work, Gov. Sonny Perdue signed legislation creating the green tree frog as the state amphibian in 2005.

“They researched amphibians. Then they had to research how a bill becomes state law,” Shaw said. “Those kids learned so much from that.”

During the COVID-19 shutdown of schools, the center provided some digital learning programs to students all over the county. The center was able to reach more than 4,700 students during the fiscal year that ended June 30.

“The main thing I want everybody to understand is that DNR is committed to maintaining the environmental educational opportunities here,” Womack said.