Friday, October 30, 2020

Gleaning Facebook: Down to Just a Few Days


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Six hours of phone banking for Joe & Kamala today. Thanks to a generous friend who let me use his office since we still have no electricity at our house. Georgia is a battleground state, can you believe it!?

Comments:

Laura Lagow Leathrum: I wish Alabama was. I’m proudly displaying my Biden/Harris sign surrounded by my neighbors with Trump signs.

Sandy Ingram: You asked for each of us to bring in 5 blue votes....I have 7 -- One coming from Boston (emmie)

Terrell: Sandy Ingram give that girl and her sister hugs for me!

Jaki Day: So excited for GA..I too have put in my hours on the call crew.

Vincent Mendes: Way to go Terrel!

Renata Carlin: I cant believe Trump will be there. Where are they going to land that plane?

Terrell: Renata Carlin we have a small airport but it once had commercial service so maybe its relatively long runway works for a Trump SuperSpreader?

Christie Hufstetter Boyd: They flew the 757 instead of the 747 so they could land on a shorter runway. Too bad it was long enough for any of them.

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50,000 more Americans have died of Covid since this video was made and 100,000 more will likely die this year as the infection rate is soaring here in Georgia and in most other states. Vote TODAY if you haven’t already and then rally your friends and families to the polls. Restore decency. Restore the soul of our nation. Elect a patriot, Joe Biden, to our presidency.

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Our power is out till Sunday. If you haven't voted yet, time's a-wastin'! Y'all have today to early vote at four locations in Rome and the final election day at your regular precinct. The Great Narcissist is coming to Rome in a last desperate attempt to hang on in Georgia. We can restore the soul of America by voting for Joe Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot here in Georgia! Think of that! GEORGIA is a battleground state. WE Georgians can step into the breech and save our republic.

Will a little ol' tropical storm and power outages stop Americans? Georgians? Romans?
Vote blue! Vote America! Vote Biden!

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This was quite the moment from last night's Georgia Senate debate, in which Jon Ossoff calls Sen. David Perdue a crook.


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Today’s headlines in my hometown paper proclaim:
1. Trump super-spreader event
2. Covid soars
Great combo, huh?
Vote for a return to American values. Vote for a decent, good, sane, patriotic president. Vote for Joe Biden.

Thursday, October 29, 2020

Gleaning Facebook: Excitement on Avenue A






Early morning excitement on Avenue A... the transformer on the pole out front blew with startling noise and flash and with such force that it came off the pole and is lying in the street . The firefighters are here in the winds of Zeta guarding things till the power folks can get here. Our first responders are deserving of every penny they earn and more.

Comments:

Melanie Butch New: Wow

Terrell Shaw: his is a real emergency: I have no way to make coffee. Whatever shall I do?! Nanci McNeil Hicks we’ll survive even this! 

Andrea Battles: have a gas grill?

Sandy Ingram: Terrell Shaw that was my biggest concern. How do I make it with no coffee Glad you all are safe

Trudy Sansbury: Same here!

Amy Durham Mendes: Terrell Shaw Vinnie heated water in a kettle on our gas grill to make coffee and tea!

Stephanie Wright: Amy, smart. I have no grill. I used hot water from the tap for tea. It wasn’t great but could’ve been so much worse.

Donald Murdock: Terrell, cowboy coffee

Julianne Reeves: Terrell Shaw I was at my in-laws and they were not home. Coffee was my first thought. Then their lovely neighbor knocked on the door and said "want coffee? I have a French press" ...people are so good!

Katie Kinbrough: That’s a mess! Stay safe!

Laura L. Adams: I can't believe these winds!!

Karen Lagow: God Bless our First Responders!

Wendy Davis: Be safe

John Paul Schulz: Mercy

Ralph Noble: Wow

Clare Lacey Gilliland: Count your blessings. This is my neighbor’s house. Corner of house damaged and car deMolished 


Anita Stewart: It was quite a mess when we left your house, bet last night was frightening.

J. Chris Lawler: Wow! Glad y’all are safe.

Gleaning Facebook: Dramatic Clouds

 


I had to snap this picture. Sheila was driving and I took this out the car window with my iPhone. I decided it was something I'd like to see occasionally so I have posted it here. 

Comments:

Gail Edwards: I saw that

Joan Ledbetter: Looks like a big man standing on the starship size cloud under him 

Ralph Davis: Wow!! Momma Nature!

Terrell: And I took this from a moving Camry with Sheila at the wheel.

Jeri Carter: Looks a bit like a map of Scotland, lol

Marilyn Ringstaff: No. You can clearly see the eyes & ears of a monster coughing into his hand. Covid.

Gleaning Facebook: What's a Little Wind and Rain?



Would patriots be stopped by the remnants of a hurricane? Grab an umbrella, drive carefully, and get to the polls!

It's Thursday. We only have today and Friday left to vote early. It's easy, pretty quick, and safe if you wear a mask and stay physically distanced from those around you. With the rain the lines will be shorter today, I'll bet.
Vote for Joe Biden, Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, and Democrats all the way down the ballot.
IF YOU ARE VOTING BY ABSENTEE BALLOT DO NOT MAIL!!!!
IT IS TOO LATE TO SAFELY MAIL YOUR BALLOT. Instead take your ballot to one of the official drop boxes. Ballots that are received after polls close on Tuesday Novemebr 3, 2020 will be NOT BE COUNTED!!!!! Please remind your friends and family.
Avoid long lines and germy crowds; Secure your ballot TODAY.
8 a.m.- 5 p.m.
Voting is happening at FOUR convenient locations here in Floyd County.
• Rome Civic Center
400 Civic Center Dr.
• Garden Lakes Baptist Church
2200 Redmond Cir.
• Floyd County Administration Building
12 East 4th Ave.
• Floyd County Health Dept.
16 East 12th Street

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Gleaning Facebook: Five Days to go...

 (From a Facebook post to Joe Biden for Georgia)


I am a hopelessly sentimental old fool. I know that. 
But I love this country. 

I learned to revere our founders and our founding documents as a youngster. I read every one of those blue back and brown back childhood biographies of great Americans that I could get my hands on in fourth and fifth grade. 

I heard my Daddy's stories of the war (WWII) and wondered how the Germans and Italians and the Japanese could ever have acquiesced to those autocratic rulers. I knew our land was different. 
Then came 2016. 
I have wept many times the last four years for the plight of our republic in the hands of a wannabe autocrat and criminal. So from the very beginning of this race, I have been the one rooting for Joe Biden, the "old" "white" candidate. 

Why? 
Because I knew he was someone who shares my deep love and commitment to the ideals of the Declaration and the Preamble and the Gettysburg Address and the expansion of our republic toward the "perfecting" of liberty and the common good. 
I pray that come November Fourth this good man's name will be in all the headlines as our president-elect. I pray for the overwhelming victory of honesty, patriotism, kindness, small-r republican norms, American values at the polls as Joseph R. Biden is elected to our unitary executive.
We have had other presidents younger certainly, more eloquent too, but we have had no president of more heart or more love for America and Americans than Joe Biden.
I am so proud to have cast my one presidential vote for Joe Biden and I will do my very best to find other votes for him on each of the five Election Days remaining in this Election Season. Please vote. Restore our republic. Give us all a president we can look up to, a president we can hold before our children as a role model.

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Gleaning Facebook: Raphael Warnock visits Rome....

 Y’all come join us at the levee near the Marriott to hear our soon-to-be (please!!!) US Senator Raphael Warnock!

It’s a drive-in rally so come walk up socially distanced or sit in you car and tune in to 88.9 FM and honk when you’re happy!




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Raphael Warnock is an eloquent speaker. All -ALL- Georgians will be well-represented in the Senate if we can elect this good man as our U.S. Senator. Vote! Let’s return decency, honor, respect for all, American values to our federal government.

Here he signs my Warnock poster.


Saturday, October 24, 2020

Gleaning Facebook: Osage Orange

I love this huge Osage Orange tree that stands on the campus of Trinity United Methodist Church. Sheila and I just rang the church bell at 7:14 a.m. and I thought I’d take this pic


Comments:
John Schulz: It is a strange tree

Terrell: It's one of those trees that have staminate and pistillate flowers on separate specimens. This'n's a boy I think. I don't remember seeing any fruit on it.

Christine Reinolds Kozelle: Wow!! The one I found is by the Berry dairy tangled in pine trees.

Leslie Rainey Shelley: I’d love to have one

Monica Shepherd: I’m surprised I’ve never noticed this tree!

Sherri Harrington: I knew there were a few Osage orange trees around Rome - this is a beautiful one! When I lived in Nashville, where there were many of these trees, they were often called “hedge apple” and I could fill a bowl every year year with their beautiful, weird fruit.

Nina K. Pettis: In Texas, they're called "horse apples" and horses love to eat them. They can also deter insects from entering your house; cut them in half and toss them under the house.

John Schulz: The fruit is a curse.

Angela Greear: Beautiful




 

Friday, October 23, 2020

Gleaning Facebook: Restoring the Soul of America

Working to restore the soul of the republic on the streets of Rome Georgia...

It is important to remember that every vote we get above 26.6% in Floyd is moving Georgia bluer --- that if we can get just 30% of the vote in Floyd County we should win Georgia! We can do this! I personally know of several folks who have changed from Trump or third party in 2016 to Biden in 2020. We need a combination of those folks and new voters to tilt us blue just a few points. The chaos and lies and deaths and economic recession have moved lots of Georgians; I pray it will be enough. 538 [fivethirtyeight.com] has had Georgia the closest race among all the states for the last several days -- literally tied at 49.6% to 49.6%!


Today I was thrilled at the support we got from the passing motorists most folks were polite and many honked and gave thumbs up and shouts of encouragement. True a couple of immature older teens showed up with Trumpist attitudes and Trumpist flags. The police came and got 'em to move across the street. We had a permit and they didn't. And we were honored with a middle-finger salute every few minutes from others who have taken their lead from the Great Child. One thing that is evident is that Donald Trump poisons all he touches.


Again most folks were polite and encouraging numbers showed enthusiastic support!

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Political Opponents vs. Moral Enemies


Above is the first book that I remember being given me by my parents. It is a 1944 biography of Dwight Eisenhower written before World War Two had even ended. The final sentence reads: "We leave the last chapter to be written by future historians." Ha! There was more than a chapter left for Dwight David Eisenhower.  In 1956 I was a fourth-grader in Miss Matilda Brown's class at Fourth Ward Elementary School in Griffin, Georgia and my hero was running for a second term as president. I was his unofficial fourth grade campaign manager. When the votes were counted I was not "alone on a limb"; there was one other kid who cast his vote for Ike. Everyone else in Miss Brown's class voted for Adlai Stevenson.

Sometime in the early sixties I switched parties and became a Democrat. My siblings and parents pretty much stuck with the Republicans even as the GOP adopted a "Southern Strategy". And I found myself "Alone On a Limb" politically-speaking, among the seven siblings. We have often joked about it, sometimes discussed it dispassionately, sometimes even argued angrily. Still I have admired and loved my beloved political opponents.

2016 was different. It is a difficult line to draw. I try to love unconditionally. It is a basic life principle of mine that love is a commitment not simply an emotion. 
Since my childhood fascination with American biography and history, I have promised that same sacred fealty to the Declaration's inspiring statement of natural rights and the Preamble's clear statement of the purposes of a people's government. 
There are some I love who vote for, actively support, cheer for, praise what I truly abhor and consider unAmerican and unequivocally evil. How do I maintain my integrity lovingly? 
It is just tough.
- after #gtbtp
- during #TrumpRecession
- after #MartinGugino
Etc. Etc. Etc.

My love is no less. But while I honor everyone's right to choose I cannot in good conscience honor every choice. My opposition to Mr. Trump is primarily, in my mind, a matter of morals and ethics and Americanism.

In other words, I primarily oppose him "ad hominem" --- I oppose him because of who he is. Ad hominem arguments are usually fallacious arguments, of course, but not always. An extreme example would be opposing an Adolph Hitler despite his supposed skill at developing his country's infrastructure and "keeping the trains on time". In 2020 Mr. Trump, while not yet a "Hitler" is such an odious person that, even if he were managing Covid, or the economy, or border protection, or relations with allies, or confrontations with adversaries [He is doing none of those things well] --- regardless of any specific policies he espouses --- he should be removed from our unitary executive as surely as a fecal stain should be removed from the Oval Office carpet. It is repulsive that such an ignorant, narcissistic, cruel, unprincipled, mendacious, and unAmerican life-long conman should succeed George Washington and the other flawed but patriotic men who have previously served as president.

My love is no less for those who make a choice I cannot respect. I will still respect many things about each of them.  I will certainly defend their freedom to believe what they will and their right to make even this choice. But I can not pretend to respect the choice of a plainly damaged and unAmerican man to be our president. 

Monday, October 19, 2020

Mildred's 100th Birthday!

Sheila and I drove up to Helen yesterday to help celebrate our dear friend Mildred Greear's 100th birthday! Wow. It was a drive-through celebration. For two hours cars filled with well-wishers drove up and down quiet Carrie Cox Drive honking horns, shouting, and waving posters and balloons along the Chattahoochee River (really just a big creek at that point) just a few hundred yards from the bustle of Helen's Fall tourists and just across the pasture from Mildred's "Pine Tree Cottage".

Sheila stood through our sunroof waving our Happy Birthday poster and a 42 year old "Mildred Greear for State Senate" poster. We were invited to park and greet Mildred from a closer proximity (masked of course). Mildred was kind enough to inscribe the poster and two copies of her major volume of poetry, Moving Gone Dancing, for Lillian and Brannon. If you haven't read any of Mildred's poetry, find a copy.

Mildred has been my teaching mentor and friend since the early seventies when she organized and helped teach an outdoor learning workshop at Floyd County's (then) Outdoor Classroom on Texas Valley Road near Huffacre Road. My students will remember my "Apple lesson" that opened each school year in my classes from 1999 till 2013. A recap and review of the Apple lesson on the last day of the school year were added a year or two later. Though the lesson developed and changed and grew over the years, it was inspired by a similar lesson that Mildred invented.

I could spend a while extolling the ingenuity, creativity, and integrity that is Mildred Greear and the love and joy she and Philip have given Sheila and me and our daughters. Type Greear into the search bar at the top of this page to see more about these friends.
















 

Monday, October 12, 2020

Gleaning Facebook: Signs of the Times

 ****Be sure to read the update at the bottom!****

Driving up through Floyd Springs I saw someone had torn down the big Biden banner that’s been gracing that road for months. 

The picture is I took of his sign in June.

Well, I had a couple of regular ol’ signs in the back of my Rav 4, so I stopped and knocked at the farmhouse door. What ensued was a delightful half-hour of conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Wallace House. They said the Biden banner on the next property belonged to their son, but his is behind a fence and harder to get to and is the only one still standing in the area. One had also been taken from the yard of the Cash family up the road. I got to see the two vehicles Mr. House displays in area car shows— a ‘23 Ford hotrod and a ‘72 Chevy long bed pickup.
Mr.House says the vandals won’t stop him. He plans to bolt a thick piece of plywood to the frame and paint his own sign. In the meantime he was glad to have the little substitute I supplied.
Here Mr. House poses in front of what’s left of the old banner and behind the yard sign I put up.

Later Note: Wendy Davis has found me a 4' x 4' sign to take to Mr. House! I'll deliver it tomorrow. Can't wait to see what he thinks of that!

Even Later note: Mr. House was thrilled to get the new even bigger sign, but he wouldn't let me help him put it up; he wants to attach it to some plywood to make it harder to destroy! I've added a picture of his "Thumbs-up" with the new sign.
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And finally I have added a picture of the final rresult. Mr. House attached the big sign to plywood and framed it with 2x4s and erected a flag pole to accompany the sign. Yay!



Saturday, October 10, 2020

Gleaning Facebook: Floyd Springs For Democracy

I was thrilled to see a few Biden signs along Floyd Springs Road as far back as June. This one was the most prominent:

Driving up through Floyd Springs more recently I saw someone had torn down that big Biden banner that had been gracing the road for months. Well, I had a couple of regular ol’ signs in the back of my Rav 4, so I stopped and knocked at the farmhouse door. What ensued was a delightful half-hour of conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Wallace House. They said the Biden banner on the next property belonged to their son, but his is behind a fence and harder to get to and is the only one still standing in the area. One had also been taken from the yard of the Cash family up the road. 

I got a mini-tour to see the two vehicles Mr. House displays in area car shows— a ‘23 Ford hotrod and a ‘72 Chevy long bed pickup.

Mr.House says the vandals won’t stop him. He plans to bolt a thick piece of plywood to the frame and paint his own sign. In the meantime he was glad to have the little substitute I supplied.
Here Mr. House poses in front of what’s left of the old banner and behind the yard sign I put up. 

Later Note: Wendy Davis has found me a 4' x 4' sign to take to Mr. House! I'll deliver it tomorrow. Can't wait to see what he thinks of that!
Even Later note: Mr. House was thrilled to get the new even bigger sign, but he wouldn't let me help him put it up; he wants to attach it to some plywood to make it harder to destroy! I've added a picture of his "Thumbs-up" with the new sign.
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And finally I have added a picture of the final rresult. Mr. House attached the big sign to plywood and framed it with 2x4s and erected a flag pole to accompany the sign. Yay!




Thursday, October 08, 2020

Gleaning Facebook: Peggy

 Back downtown for Hauntings on Broad for a third night. Here is Rome’s famous Peggy....


George Dean
Legendary for sure...


David Matheny
Looks like a BLESSED Madam!


Betty Smith Franklin
Her real life sister was in one of my first college classes at FJC.

Donald Murdock
On a bet, Bob Davis and I hung out in her front parlor one day. That's as far s it went. Honest! Peggy was a sweetheart.

Terrell Shaw
Donald Murdock likely story. 


Donald Murdock
Yeah, I'm full of 'em.

John Vick
Yea, you are on a roll!!

Charles Graves
I often delivered packages from Miller Brothers. Peggy was very polite and soft spoken to me. 17 years old at the time.

Richard Marable
Charles you need to write a book! Title “ All The Things I Didn’t Do But Was Guiltily Off! 


Lindia Moore
I have never heard of the famous Peggy.

Terrell Shaw
Lindia Moore Peggy’s in Rome was one of the most famous brothels in the south.

Janet Behnke
When we were kids we used to call her phone and ask, “Is my daddy there?”

Beau Gordon
Not the way I remember her, wait, I mean not the way she was described to me.
Janet Behnke
She had a rival named Mabel, who was the Avis of the market.

Oil and Water

My brave, beautiful, brilliant, talented youngest daughter sings and brings tears again to her father’s eyes. Lillian sang this in the Atlanta Musical Theatre Festival in 2019.

From the notes on the musical Closing Doors:

"Oil and Water" was written as a product of Ali Ramsaier leaving an abusive relationship. A year after she left and two and half year relationship, she spent time traveling and pursuing music. In that year, she wrote a book reflecting on her experience in a domestic violence relationship, but also got so emotional that she wrote songs to release the pain. 60 songs later and two years, a musical was born: "Closing Doors." "Closing Doors" was selected at the Atlanta Musical Theatre Festival in 2019.

Here is one of the many songs from the show.

"If I stay, I"ll never grow."



The Ghost With One Black Eye

 The Rome-Floyd County Library invited me to entertain again at Fright Night. Unfortunately this year it was via video. We recorded a couple of stories in the little children's theater there with no one in the room except myself and Chuck Meeks the library's outstanding videographer.

The first of those stories is an easy formulaic story that is easy to tell and, as far as I know, is in the public domain. (Please give me info if you know differently!)  Give it a try. Choose your own characters and setting and tell it to some kids in your life. They'll get a kick out of it and so will you.

The Ghost With One Black Eye



Exiled From Light

Spooky, rainy, night for the final Haunted on Broad of 2020. Here a written version of the story I told...


Exiled From Light


Don’t you love our Town Green? Have you ever walked through here late at night or even real early before sunrise? Did you hear or see anything ...unusual? 


Late on quiet nights, when traffic noise is gone or distant, especially those new moon nights when the artificial lighting spreads a dome of twilight above and casts eerie shadows around the riverbank, sometimes weeping is heard here, ... and sometimes, some say sarcastic laughs. They say furtive figures can be glimsped slipping along the riverbank as if hiding from the light. 


Perhaps it is as Shakespeare discribed them:


... “Ghosts, wandering here and there,

Troop(ing) home to churchyards. Damnèd spirits all,

That in crossways and floods have burial,

Already to their wormy beds are gone,

For fear lest day should look their shames upon.

They willfully themselves exiled from light,

And must forever consort with black-browed night. 

- Robin, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 3.2


Some say you might see Bertha Jones, or hear her grieving her loss, others declere she more likely will be celebrating her revenge and-- forever consorting with “black-browed night”.


Now y’all know the Rome Shakespeare Festival has been performing here on the Town Green the last few years. Rome folks are right proud of it. Sheila and I have really enjoyed seeing some of those open air plays right here in the heart of our little city including A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Our daughter Lillian played the fiece little Hermia. Shakespeare uses spirits of the dead in his plays and the excerpt I read is from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.


But live open air theater is not new to Rome and certainly not to this location. And Shakespeare’s ghosts are not the only ones that have made themselves visible and made themselves heard hereabouts.


Bertha Jones' daddy, John, was a man with an entreprenurial spirit. You’ll find his name in the city directories all the way back to the 1880s first as a clerk living and working on Broad Street. Later a traveling salesman, married to Lizzie raising kids over my way on Avenue A. Then on Rome’s classiest street, Fourth Avenue, and managing the Novelty Gum Co. on Broad.

But for our story let me take you back just 110 years to 1910 when John already runs the Elite Theater on Broad -- with the whole family pitching in --Lizzie, Little John Jr. and the teenagers Cecil and Bertha, and opens a grand new companion theater right here; The Airdome. And what a theater: 1200 seats, the largest in town. A raked -- slanted -- floor and at the low river end, raised four feet off the floor, a large stage. The building looks a lot like a camp meeting tabernacle with a high roof and a long center raised ridge with high windows to expel the heat. The sides of the building were open half way up to provode maximum ventilation. Canvas curtains along the sides could be raised or lowered against the elements. 


Comedy and musical vaudeville shows came and went all that first late spring and summer like the locally popular Alley Comedy Club. There was special entertainment between acts and sometimes a couple of reels of silent movies. John’s beautiful and talented teenaged daughter Bertha played the piano for the movies, and sometimes for the vaudeville song and dance acts that performed there.


One of those troupes in late summer included Sam Newman, a dapper twenty-year-old who commanded the stage whenever he stepped on to it. He had a strong baritone singing voice and was a master of the scandalous new ragtime dances like the Texas Tommy and the Turkey Trot. Bertha from her seat on the piano bench, was stricken by his good looks and the attention he gave her as she played the piano for rehearsals. It wasn’t long before he had found time to teach the dances to his new young friend, and not much longer before he had stolen some kisses back stage, and they had taken a few walks right along here... where the steam donkey hoisted cargo from the riverboat wharf up the ramp cut into the steep bank of the river to the waiting railroad cars. Bertha was head over heels for Sam. Sam was head over heels , too --- for anyone in a skirt. That included several of the dancers in the troupe, like wild and wildly popular Eva Erwin. 


Some folks say Bertha caught Sam and Eva in a passionate embrace back stage just before the final performance and claim that as a motive for what happened next. Later that September evening, when the stage had been struck and most of the vaudeville troupe had headed up Broad to the Choice House Hotel --- where the Forrest is now --- before leaving Rome for the next town on their tour. There was Bertha again, walking across the tracks with Sam and along the boardwalk above the steam donkey chute. Bertha later explained that Sam was demonstrating some dance steps when he tripped; others believed he might have been dancing but they doubted he tripped. Somehow he ended up with his head cracked open on a skid of the Steam Donkey 15 feet below that boardwalk.


Well, John Jones was no longer associated with the Airdome by the time the 1913 city directory came out. He had moved on to automobile sales. Bertha never married. And folks say she often walked this riverbank, even into old age, crying say some, other say she was laughing. And though she’s buried on Myrtle Hill now, walk this way after midnight or before dawn on a quiet night and maybe you’ll see a figure here, and maybe you’ll hear the weeping... or a maybe your hear the cruel laugh of a spirit exiled from light.... 


(Copyright 2020, Terrell Shaw)