Gleaning Facebook: Enhancing Heritage

One of my basic beliefs is that each generation has a sacred obligation to pass on to future generations an enhanced heritage -- art, infrastructure, environment, greater equality of opportunity, a more perfect union, etc. 

Thanks to my iPhone 11's ability to capture more accurate views in low light, I get to share Ellen Axson Wilson's western view at dusk across the Oostanaula. She seems so transfixed by the magnificent panorama that she has not made a bit of progress on her painting since I last visited her here! 

Thanks to all involved in creating our Town Green, the John Ross bridge, the sculpture of First Lady Wilson, the tradition of One Table (on the bridge), the Riverwalk, and a cleaner Oostanaula. My generation has done a few good things, and these gifts to future generations of Romans are examples.

Gleaning Facebook: Portraits of Me

by Becky Sprague

By Nancy Sutton

 Going through a battered old box of sixties mementos I came upon these two sketches made of me by college friends over half a century ago. One by Becky Sprague and the other by Nancy Sutton. I post 'em here remind me of the kids who drew them and that I once was young.

Both artists seemed to see me as rather pensive or even melancholy! I think Nancy may have added the tear after I said something to that effect.

Gleaning Facebook: Mathew

One of the great kids from 2006-7, who has moved far away, called a couple of weeks ago to say he would be in town this week and invited me to meet him to catch up. So this morning I'm looking through old pictures on FB. There's a lot of my heart in this picture. Parents and siblings come to mind. A great science fair. Our days at camp. Walks in the woods and at Arrowhead. A few I still see now and then.

The class picture from 2007.

Just a few days ago I attended the funeral of cheerful, kind, creative Shayne. Only 23. Heartbreaking. (Shayne is right in the middle of the class picture -- the curly headed boy with a light blue shirt emblazoned with a dark blue Armuchee "A".)

My fellow teachers will appreciate that sometimes you have a group of kids who just sort of jell. This was one of those groups. From big ol' Tyler Camp to little ol' Lauren Hooper, they were wonderful kids and as a whole an enthusiastic, cooperative bunch. I love 'em all and it'll be great to catch up with Mathew today. (Mathew is in a dark blue polo just in front of Shayne.)

And don't worry, we'll guard against Covid with masks and/or physical distance.

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Later note:

I had a great lunch and visit with Mathew and his mom at Sam's Burgers. We talked about many of the kids in that class and reminisced about his good friend Shayne who we just lost to Covid a few days ago. We talked about Split Rock at Nature's Classroom, and jabberwocky and The Lion's Paw. A great afternoon for this ol' teacher. Thanks, Mathew Chance Padgett!

We shed our masks and held our breaths while Mathew's mom a couple of photos this afternoon.

We shed our masks and held our breaths while Mathew's mom made a couple of photos this afternoon.

Mathew climbing through the famous "Split Rock" at Nature's Classroom on Lookout Mountain in 2007.

Gleaning Facebook: July 27, 1988

From my Facebook account from this date in 2020. 

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I love you, yes I do, I love you… beyond words.

On this day in 1988 a great blessing entered my life. Lillian Shaw you were and are a great joy to your ol’ man. I am so happy for the person you have become. You are thoughtful, talented, kind, and loving. You are wonderful writer, an amazing actress and singer, and, dadgum it, a doggone good dancer too!

I learned that day that the human heart is greatly expandable. My heart was bulging with love for the bookends in the picture below just a few minutes before, then like magic it expanded to love the bundle in the middle no less than the other two.

On the phone with Granny and Granddaddy -- Jay & Mavis Matthews.

That Devil Forrest

My position has changed on the issue of Confederate statues/memorials/monuments. Please read to the end before jumping me. :-)

History is history. 

Some of my ancestors held people of color in bondage. My mother's father was born in 1860 and lived during a time when his father, William Baird, worked as an overseer on farms, in charge of enslaved men. Here he is; handsome fella, huh?

As an older man with lots of kids he did not get into the war till late, but once he was in he saw some vicious action and ended up being wounded in the shoulder as he climbed over a fence during the horrible Battle of the Wilderness in May of 1964.

That was the first meeting of Grant and Lee and Grant shocked the South by, instead of retreating to lick his wounds after that defeat as previous Union generals had tended to do, he turned his troops toward Richmond. Lincoln had found a general who would fight.

But William was out of it now. He was listed as AWOL, but in fact was in a Richmond hospital with injuries that would disable him for the rest of his life, necessitating his youngest son, Wilson, being left as the years passed to manage the farm. He postponed marriage till 1902. My mother (now 97), the youngest of his eleven children, was born when he was 63.

William was hardly my only ancestor in the fray. Nathan Wood was only 16 when he lied about his age and enlisted in the First Georgia Cavalry. I remember his daughter Minnie, my Great-Grandma Shaw.

Forrest existed and was revered enough by many in Rome to spur them to finance that fancy statue and place it in the middle of Broad Street. That statue and the one to the "Women of the Confeeracy" were moved from Broad Street to Myrtle Hill cemetery over sixty years ago. I am that rare liberal who thinks statues generally should not be taken down but instead signage should put them in context. It is just too similar to the Taliban blasting historic carvings off mountains to have historic monuments destroyed. Moving them to more appropriate places is probably a good idea for those on public streets or courthouse lawns.

I have been glad that Rome's three Confederate memorials are each situated in the cemetery that holds rows and rows of Confederate graves. A cemetery seemed to me an appropriate place to memorialize that dead rebellion that so significantly affected my family's history and, I contend, made my existence possible. That last is a hard truth to internalize.

Tearing down statues seems a distraction from more important things to me. I would rather us spend our efforts fighting 21st Century racism and hate and leave Forrest and Lee and Desoto and Columbus and Washington and Jefferson to history.

Forrest was an important historical figure with a special relationship to Rome having stopped Streight's raid. [A year later Sherman captured Rome anyway and burned much of it.] Forrest was an amazing cavalry officer and one of the great generals of that war. He was also was in command of troops who committed wartime atrocities (read about the massacre at Fort Pillow) and after the war he was associated with the early Klan. All of that should be on the signage. If the statue were still on Broad Street I would approve of moving it to the cemetery, but it is in a cemetery now, near Confederate graves, to me an appropriate location for such historic outdoor relics of the 1800s. However, that location has become the focal point for area Veterans Day celebrations and so, I support moving the Forrest statue, the Women of the Confederacy statue, and the already vandalized Confederate memorial at the summit of Myrtle Hill. One suggestion is to move them to a special location at Jackson Hill (also a Civil War site). I have thought there might be a way to include them in the nearby Confederate section of the cemetery with the several hundred graves of CSA soldiers.

DeSoto and Columbus were also vicious racists and murderers. Should we tear down the many statues of these two men? Should we change the name of our local theater and the many places in America named for these two? Washington and Jefferson kept other human beings in lifelong bondage. That makes me nauseous since I have revered these men all my life. That information is important for historians to note and for public displays about those figures to relate along with the things they did that influenced history. But should we destroy the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial?

What we DO need are monuments to those who helped to change our society for the better. I'd like to see a more prominent display to honor those who "sat-in" on Broad Street to further human rights, to those who died locally in race crimes, etc. (Thank you to those who built the Freedom Garden outside the old Carnegie building.)

This was written too quickly and needs editing but I'm busy otherwise today and will let this stand for now. 　

Gleaning Facebook: John Lewis

We lost a great American tonight. Rest in peace John Lewis.

From President Obama when he presented John Lewis the Medal of Freedom:

“And generations from now, when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind – an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time; whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now.”

Gleaning Facebook: Belated Celebration

Belated Sheila birthday celebration in Summerhill with Lil at Big Softie... yum!

 

Gleaning Facebook: Hydrangeas for Mother

From Janice Shaw Crouse's Facebook:

Beautiful hydrangeas from my brother and sister-in-love from their yard for my mother! Gorgeous in this vase. (Earlier this week it was blue hydrangeas in an antique blue patterned vase!).

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Annie Scarbrough
Beautiful. I especially love the pale green ones. Janice Shaw Crouse, how long will you be in Ga?

Andrea Shaw Hayes
Beautiful!

Janice Shaw Crouse
I’ll be at mother’s til Sunday. Rode down with Gil and Naomi and Lewis who are at Indian Springs! Annie Scarbrough

 

By their fruits

Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? - Matthew 7:16

One expects to notice fruits of the Spirit in someone who professes a Christian faith. You have not seen love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control in Donald John Trump. He has shown love only for himself. There has been not a hint of confession, repentance, reverence, or forgiveness. My faith tradition believes in redemption and I sincerely hope the man finds personal rebirth. But confession and repentance precede redemption.

At 74, Donald John Trump, in my opinion, has forfeited the right to be redeemed in his public life. His selfishness, vanity, ignorance, xenophobia, racism, dishonesty, weakness, and cruelty have cost America way too much in his three and a half years in office... including for starters lost respect in the world, millions of lost jobs, and thousands of lost lives.

On this Independence Day when we celebrate the ideals of the Declaration, I rededicate myself, as I do every year, to the pledge those guys solemnly swore when they signed that document. I cannot do that, by my lights, without standing up against the unAmerican Trump administration.

I "...hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [humans] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

And to secure these rights I pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor.