Cars

[This post is a work in progress]

Our family cars I remember (or know of):

Mid- Twenties, Model T Ford. This was taken in Milstead Georgia. Driving is my great-grandfather Columbus Turner Shaw accompanied by my great-grandmother Minnie Ziporah Wood Shaw. The little boy (with the dog) is my uncle James Edward Shaw (my daddy's brother. James was born in 1920.

1950 Chevy, black.

1954 Chevy Bel Air, blue

1956 Chevy, silver and white (became "my" car in 1963)

1960 Chevy, Suntan Copper and Fawn Beige, 9-passenger wagon

1962? Chevy, white

1961? VW Beetle, light blue

1964 Dodge -- Daddy Shaw (Grady Columbus Shaw, Sr.) bought this car just the year before his death. This is a picture of it parked in front of his barber shop in the community building on Main Street in Milstead, Georgia. You can see Elm Street beyond the car. The building on the corner of Elm and Main was the hotel. The house where my family lived my first three years was on Elm -- a bit of it may be visible in this picture.

1964 Mercury Comet, black, This was the first car I actually owned... very briefly! Here's my birthday card from my wonderful Daddy anouncing the gift. I'm not sure he understood how much I appreciated it, especially after he borrowed it and TOTALLED it! Poor Daddy. He was snakebit when it came to cars and major events like my 21st Birthday and his own marriage. He wore a bandage on his chin at his own wedding in 1938 and a prominent scar on that chin the rest of his life from the auto accident when he totaled his father's car that he had planned to use to drive his bride home in. They ended up riding to Milstead with Rev. Kilpatrick after the ceremony.

1969 Opel Kadette, blue with black top.(First car I bought myself)

1973 Chevy Blazer, (First car Sheila and I bought together, and the last "new" car I have owned.)

1972 VW Squareback, light blue

1965 Chevy pick-up, Red

19?? Subaru

19?? Honda Accord

19?? Dodge Aspen, burgandy

19?? Ford Aerostar minivan, silver & black

19?? Buick Lasabre

19?? Oldsmobile ??

19?? Pontiac Grand Am

1992 GMC Sierra

The Sierra gets loaded with pea gravel at Basic Concrete

1998 Ford Taurus

2001 Toyota Rav 4

The Rav4 gets a new back window after the lawn mower sent a bit of pea gravel through it.

2010 Toyota Camry

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.

---

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. 

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

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.

Precise Words

Lifelong Republican Steve Schmidt on MSNBC:

"Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And I don't say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness.

"When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don't use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We've never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities.

"It's just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he's the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he's brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale. And let's be clear. This isn't happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you're the most likely to die from this disease. We're the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk."

(Hat tip to Carl Wolfson.)

Gleaning Facebook: Haircut

I finally broke down and allowed my baby girl to sculpt my wild head of hair... she conferred with youTube and got a five-minute cosmetology degree and ta-dah! Photographic evidence shows my life was endangered only briefly.

Susan Barnes Babb

That look of sheer terror!

Alice Jeffries Keel
Good job!

Susan Barnes Babb
You know, just a little more combing the sweepover to the right, some orange hair dye, and you'll look kinda like your favorite President! Oh, please don't delete me from your friends! Couldn't help it. I'm going to hell for this one!

Susan Barnes Babb
In case you're not sure how to maintain the look! (You really are one of my favorite people!)

Claudia Kennedy
Looks great! I hope you tipped her well! My husband hasn’t gone to a barber since we met in 1993. I think I outta send him a bill. I also do my own hair and have since I was 17.

Susan Barnes Babb

I'm impressed! Great job, Lillian!

Robin Haynes McCullough

Nice haircut!  I am getting ready to give Andy a trim. I cut my own last month.

Cindy Smith

Way to go Lillian!!!! 

Gleaning Facebook: Rome's "Central Park" Illustrated

It will come as no surprise to my friends that I love the centerfold of the new Chamber of Commerce magazine Bridges. It is a beautiful panoramic view of Rome from an unusual perspective - probably a camera on a drone over the flag atop Jackson Hill. Fully half of the photograph is a section of what I like to call Rome's "Central Park". I wish we'd had this photo during our battle to save "Central Park" five years ago and before. How thankful I am that that battle was eventually won, and ALL that greenspace you see here in the very heart of our city is now preserved for our posterity in this river city.

What I call Rome's Central Park is

• the Riverwalk and RidgeFerry Park along the Oostanaula River,

• the Jackson Hill and Blossom Hill public property along Dogwood Drive, Vaughn Road, and Reservoir Street.

• and the 80 acres of Burwell Creek, Burwell Forest, and the City Duck Pond.

Together those properties give Rome an amazing greenspace full of wildlife and botanical beauty just blocks from Broad Street and along the Turner McCall and Riverside Parkway thoroughfares.

We the People of Rome are the stewards of this property during our lifetimes and through our city commissioners must direct its careful development for educational, recreational, and environmental use by ourselves and those who come after us. I hope I live to see well-designed bike and pedestrian boardwalks, trails, and observation stations/platforms connecting Jackson Hill to Ridge Ferry through the Burwell area. 

Comments

Howard Smith
I call it Terrell Territory

Betty Smith Franklin
done.

Michael J. Burton
Oh me of little faith. Didn’t think this was possible since big money wanted to develop this. Ya da man well worth your fight 

Joe Cook
Terrell Shaw, thank you for leading this effort. Last weekend, I cycled the PATH Foundation's South River and Arabia Mountain trails which included several boardwalks over wetlands. WoW! What great trails those are! We need to get serious about developing similar trails through the Burwell Creek wetlands. Here's some video of one of the boardwalks!

(Terrell: Sorry - I couldn't get the video to work from Blogger.)

Rosemary Chubb Shropshire
Awesome 

Ann Gore
Thank you Terrell and Sheila for working so hard to save this beautiful green space!! Love Rome!!

Terrell Shaw
It took a crowd of folks — thanks to the scores of folks who stepped up on short notice to make a big difference.

Gleaning Facebook: We Need Comprehensive Police Reform

Sheila and I reminding folks on Turner McCall Boulevard of the
names of some of the recent victims of racism.

I know this is just a minor part of my neighbor Russell's excellent post, but it is a long time firm belief of mine so just a note of emphasis: There should be NO PRIVATE PRISONS EVER!!!! Making it PROFITABLE to lock someone up in a republic is obscene. There are politicians who get campaign donations from prison companies--- [https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php...] --- VOMIT!!!! The stupidity and immorality of Capital-R-Republican fondness for privatizing basic governmental functions is plain.

 From Russell Cook's Facebook:

Alright y’all. I haven’t been on social media much lately, and certainly haven’t thought that my voice was the one thing missing from a national conversation on race and police violence. However, judging from what’s coming out of the keyboards of some folks I see on here, there might be a use in hearing it from as many people as possible, as often as possible. After all of the upheaval of the past couple of weeks, a police officer in Atlanta saw fit, in the moment, to shoot a man twice in the back as he ran away. Shooting someone in the back is murder, no matter how you try to justify it. They knew who he was. They had his car. They had run his ID and talked to him for half an hour. Whatever happened, he was no mortal danger to the officer or to anyone else, even if he did grab and discharge a non-lethal taser in his struggle to get away.

But police work is dangerous, right? Every car pulled over is a potential cop killer, right? But how many actually are? It’s easy to find out. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, police work is in the top 20 or so for dangerous jobs in the U.S., at 108 fatalities last year. That’s 6 or 7 fatalities per 100,000 officers. But that’s a fraction of the fatalities of another public servant: Sanitation Workers have 35 or so fatalities per 100,000. Read that again. You are three or four times as likely to be killed in the line of duty as a Garbageman than as a Cop. Farmers, Truck Drivers, even Landscapers are much more likely to die in the line of duty than the Police. And roughly half of those on-the-job police deaths come from traffic accidents, not from a bad guy with a gun.

There is a significant danger associated with police work though: Police violence, that is, violence by the police, is a leading cause of death of young American men, and black men are roughly twice as likely as white men to be killed by the police. Over the course of a lifetime, roughly 1 in 1000 black men can expect to be killed by law enforcement. This data comes from the National Academy of Sciences. 1 in 1000 is 100 in 100,000, which is a higher rate of death than the most dangerous occupations, Logging and Commercial Fishing. So, if being a black man in the United States were a chosen occupation, it would be among the most dangerous occupations one could choose, with this danger solely based on your chance of being killed by law enforcement. Think about that. When a policeman shoots to kill, (and they are not trained to shoot in any other way) is that fear reasonable and justified? Oftentimes not, based on the numbers. If you are a black man, do you have reason to fear for your life when the police show up, no matter your situation? Absolutely.

None of this is opinion. This is all fact, easily found in govt. data. So, here's the opinion: does the police force as we know it really protect and serve? If so, what are they protecting? Who are they serving? In my very limited, and mostly benign experience with law enforcement, there seems to be too much emphasis on enforcement, with not enough emphasis on the actual law. The assumption seems to be that if the officer is wrong, it’ll come out in court…months later, after thousands spent on legal fees, assuming you can afford it, and many cannot. That may have something to do with the fact that we have only 5% of the world’s population, but 20% of the world’s prison population. California is doing the right thing by ending for-profit prisons. We need comprehensive police reform to go with it.

Comment

Keith M. Padgett
When I was doing my MS in Florida, we toured GEO Groups headquarters. Just being in that building made me sick to my stomach and so angry. And the dismissive answers they gave to questions just infuriated me.