Luther C. Mckinnon
Luther Campbell McKinnon Sr. was born February 22, 1916, on a farm in Rowland, North Carolina. Europe was stuck in a war that would change the world, and not until The United States got involved. This didn’t happen for another year.
Luke was the youngest of four children. After life as a farm boy, he went to Wake Forest University, and then came back when his Daddy died. He ran a family dairy for a few years, and went to live in New Jersey. He lived near a prison, and saw the lights dim when the electric chair was used.
In the early fifties, he came to Atlanta to live. This was where his sister Sarah stayed, with her husband and two daughters. One day he went into the C&S bank on 10th street, and took notice of one of the tellers. On October 6, 1951, he married Jean Dunaway. She was with him the rest of his life.
At some point in this era he started selling shoes. He would go to warehouses, gas stations, and wherever barefoot men needed shoes. He was “The Shoe Man” .
Before long there were two boys, and he bought a house, then another. The second house is the current residence of my brother and myself, and is probably worth 15 times what he paid for it. He had the good fortune to not buy in an area that was “blockbusted,’ as many neighborhoods were.
And this was his life. He tended a garden, went to the gym, and was in the Lions Club for many years. When he met Mom, she let him know that going to church with her was part of the deal. They found a church that was good for their needs, and made many friends there. The Pastor at Briarcliff Baptist, Glen Waldrop, was his friend.
When I think of the character of this man, there is one night, which stands out. My brother was away at the time. The day before, Mom had discovered she had a detached retina, and was in the hospital awaiting surgery. Her job had arranged a “leaf tour” by train in North Georgia, and she got one of her friends at work to take me. There was some mechanical trouble on the train, and it did not get back into town until 3am Monday morning. And yet, Daddy stayed at home, did not panic, and had faith that all of us would be back soon, which we were.
Through all the struggles of his life, Dad was cheerful, laughed a lot, and was good company. He left me with a rich repertoire of country sayings, and had many stories to tell. He was surprising mellow about black people, if a bit old fashioned. (In the south when I grew up, this was highly unusual).
Dad was always in good, vigorous health, and I thought he would be with us for a long time. Well, that is not how things work. A cancer developed in his liver, and spread to his lungs (he did not smoke). After a mercifully brief illness, we lost him on February 7, 1992. This is a repost.
Memorial Day
Memorial Day started as Decoration Day. During the War Between the States, people started to go out to graveyards, and put flowers on the soldiers. It is tough to say whether the custom started in the south. or the north. Waterloo NY is considered the official birthplace of Memorial Day. This is not what Abba was singing about.
WBTS was by far the most costly war in American history. There were more casualties in WBTS than in World Wars I, II, Korea, and Vietnam combined. Americans were not used to this carnage on this scale. Decoration Day was one of the results.
It was also, literally, a divisive war. The causes of the conflict are debated to this day. More men died of disease than in combat. Shitting yourself to death is not glory.
An important cause of the war was the desire, of some, to maintain their investment in slaves. In other words, the hundreds of thousands of Southern deaths were to insure that African Americans cannot be free. The lofty rhetoric of Memorial Day does not always reflect the squalid reality.
The legend is that May 30 was chosen because it was not the anniversary of any major battles. For many years after WBTS, the southern states had a separate day of remembrance. Confederate Memorial Day is still observed, though not on as large a scale as before.
The next major killing session for the United States was World War I. After this conflict, May 30 evolved into a day to remember all soldiers who died. The south began to embrace the unified holiday.
The United States lost at least 116,516 men in World War I. Almost all of these casualties were in 1918, the last year of the war. The other countries lost far more men. Not one person in a thousand can tell you today why World War I was fought. All it did was provide the causes of World War II, which was even more costly.
There is a bit of polemic on the internet now, The revolutionary origins of Memorial Day and its political hijacking. It tells the story of an incident in Charleston SC, where newly freed slaves buried some Union soldiers who died in a prison camp. The incident is described as the first Decoration Day, which later evolved into Memorial Day. As the article tells it, this Holiday was intended as a revolutionary statement about Black freedom, and was whitewashed into an all caucasian affair. This is not a good summary of the article, but should do for now. You can read it for yourself.
PG read the article, and started to get a headache. While researching a Memorial Day. post, he came across the Charleston incident. Apparently, it did happen. There were also numerous other remembrances of the fallen soldiers. The War Between the States was an incredibly bloody affair, with many families losing someone. The urge to remember these fallen soldiers was overwhelming. The custom of Decoration Day would probably have happened with, or without, the Charleston incident. It is incorrect to say that those former slaves invented Decoration Day.
There was an exchange of messages. PG left a comment, “That article is not completely true.”
Lendon Sadler Thank you for your comment concerning the historical roots of Memorial day, but could you be so kind as to explain a bit more the inaccuracy contained in the posting.For my sake, and that of my friends, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. And please feel comfortable saying whatever is on your mind in my pages. Sincere regards, Lendon
Luther Mckinnon I will have to think about it some. Also, I am not sure that I have an interest in exploring this issue. I did some research about the celebration in Charleston. It apparently did take place. However, there were other people decorating graves before that. After the carnage of the War Between the States, there seemed to be a lot of activity towards remembering the dead. The slaves in Charleston definitely did not “invent” decoration day. That they had one of the earliest celebrations is notable, but they should not take sole credit. As to the rest of the article… i would have to think about it some, and to tell you the truth I don’t know if I am particularly interested. One of the pieces I read about the evolution of Memorial Day mentioned World War One, which was the next major war the US was involved in after WBTS. Here again, there was a lot of dead soldiers to remember. This was when the holiday evolved into a remembrance of soldiers from all wars. Anyway, I hope this is helpful, and maybe we can explore some of the other issues of that article.
The article in question is at a site called Liberation, “Newspaper of the Party for Socialism and Liberation at LiberationNews.org.” There is a some historic revisionism, with statements like this. “In 1877, the Northern capitalist establishment decisively turned their backs on Reconstruction, striking a deal with the old slavocracy to return the South to white supremacist rule in exchange for the South’s acceptance of capitalist expansion.” Whatever, dude. The article is no longer online.
The custom of Decoration/Memorial Day is pretty much what it says it is… to remember the fallen soldiers of our wars, especially the ones with lots of casualties. According to this source, it was World War I that facilitated the transition from Decoration Day, focused on WBTS, to a Memorial Day that honored the dead of all wars. It almost certainly was not done as a gesture of white supremacy.
The so-called lessons of history are very versatile. You can find whatever facts are convenient for your agenda, and if you don’t get what you need you can make some up. After all, there is nobody alive today that can remember 1877. We have to take the word of whoever tells the tale of a “deal with the old slavocracy.” Sometimes, these stories are more plausible than others.
Sometimes, things just don’t ring true. “The concept that the population must “remember the sacrifice” of U.S. service members, without a critical reflection on the wars themselves, did not emerge by accident. It came about in the Jim Crow period as the Northern and Southern ruling classes sought to reunite the country around apolitical mourning, which required erasing the “divisive” issues of slavery and Black citizenship.”
This is a repost. Notes about the Charleston parade are showing up on facebook. This incident almost certainly took place, and is worth noting. However, it was not the “invention” of Memorial Day. Gentlemen, start your engines. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
HBD Bob Dylan
This is a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Yesterday was Bob Dylan’s seventy eighth birthday. This chamblee 54 birthday tribute is composed primarily of three previously published pieces of work.
This compendium was assembled in 2016. On David Bowie’s in 2016, PG created a computer playlist, and assembled a few blog posts into a birthday celebration. Three days later, David Bowie was dead. PG decided to do the same thing to Bob Dylan on his birthday. Instead of dying, Bob Dylan won the Nobel prize. A similar effort on RuPaul’s birthday had no effect on the performer.
It was a late may morning in Atlanta GA, and a slack blogger was searching his archives. Yes, Issac Asinov never got writers block, and when he wasn’t going to the bathroom he was typing, but that is a lifestyle choice. Easy writing makes tough reading. So, anyway, in the may archive for 2011 there was a post about Bob Dylan’s seventieth birthday. People were taking bets on whether he would make it to thirty, and here he is at seventy seven.
Hibbing MN is a cold place. At least it can claim to be the birthplace of Robert Allen Zimmerman. That’s Allen ,with an e, and double L, just like hell. The original initials were RAZ, which might be a good trivia question, or, with a silent W in front, radio station call letters. The problem is, he legally changed his name to Bob Dylan, with no known middle name. Those initial are BD.
On May 24, 1941, the curly haired wonder boi arrived. The world was a different place. Europe was in flames, and eyeing the young men of America as fresh cannon fodder. This was twelve years, eleven months, and eighteen days before PG graced the planet. A twelve year old in Hibbing MN would have no reason to think of a newborn baby in Atlanta GA.
These days, not everyone knows who Bob Dylan is. Auto tuned automated canned music is the next big thing. If auto tune had been around in 1963, we would never had known how badly Mr. Dylan sings. In an age where rappers pay ghost writers to compose their tweets, being able to write songs is not valued. There is just no telling. And so it goes.
A.J. Weberman has made a life out of going through Bob Dylan’s garbage. He wrote a book, “The Devil and Bob Dylan”. “THIS BOOK CHALLENGES ALL PREVIOUS CONVENTIONAL THINKING ABOUT BOB DYLAN. DYLAN IS JUST THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU BELIEVE HIM TO BE. BUT WHAT PURPOSE DOES IT SERVE EXPOSING HIM AS A RACIST, HIV POSITIVE EX-JUNKIE AND HOLOCAUST DENIER? NONE EXCEPT THAT OF TRUTH, AND THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE. $17 INCLUDING POSTAGE! THE BOOK IS 500 PAGES AND FULLY ILLUSTRATED.
There was a comment on the Bob Dylan webpage… Everybody knows by now that there’s a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I’m encouraging anybody who’s ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them. PG doesn’t write books. He did grow up in America, and has a few opinions about Bob Dylan. It ought to be good for a few hundred words here. (HT to dangerous minds ) (Chamblee54 has posted about Mr. Dylan before.)
The first time PG heard of Bob Dylan was probably at the record rack of Zippy’s dime store in Cherokee Plaza. There was an album of his greatest hits, and it came with a poster. The poster had a drawing of the man, with psychedelic waves of hair cascading in multi colored glory to the edges. PG never did buy the LP.
The former Mr. Zimmerman was never big on top 40 am radio. Somebody somewhere was getting a headache over those lyrics, but Atlanta GA was not somewhere in those days. By this time, Mr. Dylan had crashed his motorcycle, and gone into hiding. As the counter culture exploded (if only someone had disinfected that counter) the curly haired poet was in hiding, the subject of much speculation. At one point, people were stealing his garbage, and claiming to find evidence of investment in munitions firms. The neoscience of Dylanology continues to this day.
As PG got older and stupider, he heard more and more Bob Dylan music. In the summer of 1972, there was a performance at the Concert for Bangladesh. A couple of albums released during this era sucked, and some people stopped caring about Bob Dylan.
At the start of 1974, a tour was announced. The Band was to be the backing group. The circus came to the Omni, and PG got some of the mail order tickets. He couldn’t find anyone to use the second ticket, and sold it to a stranger outside the arena.
The show was nothing special. Bob Dylan excels at writing, is ok in the studio, and blah on stage. Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter was at the show, and was said to look bored. Mr. Dylan was invited to the Governor’s mansion after the show, and talked to the Governor. A lot of people in Georgia were surprised that Jimmy would want to run for President.
As the Seventies went me me meing into sex and drugs oblivion, Bob Dylan regained both his writing touch, and love of the spotlight. The Rolling Thunder tour happened, he got back together with Joan Baez, divorced his wife, became born again, became more Jewish, counted money, and generally lived the life. PG did his own version of all that, without Joan Baez or being circumcised again.
In the winter of 1991, America was consumed by war fever. Saddam Hussein had been elevated to next Hitler status, and had to be taught a lesson. One night, Bob Dylan played on a music awards show, and performed “Masters of War”. He played a discordant version of that ditty, with the result that few understood what he had said. By this time, Mr. Dylan had assembled a band, and gone out on the “Never Ending Tour”. A Bob Dylan concert had gone from being a special event, to being another name on the festival roster. Overexposure will do that.
On the last night of the Olympics in 1996, Bob Dylan played the House of Blues downtown. PG won a pair of the $80 tickets in a radio station contest. It was his only trip downtown during the games, and had to wait in a security line to get into Centennial Olympic Park.
The only celebrity, other than Mr. Dylan, seen at the House of Blues that night was Bill Walton. The band was competent…they impressed PG as being like a bar band that did a lot of Dylan songs, with a strangely authentic lead vocalist. The sound in the room was not good, at least in the spot where PG stood. The only song he recognized was “All along the Watchtower”, the Jimi Hendrix classic. Mr. Dylan got a cheer when he put his harmonica appliance on.
The aptly named dangerousminds has a link to a story about the recording of Blonde on Blonde, by Bob Dylan. It only happened once.
Bob Dylan was 24 years old, newly married, and had “sold out” i.e. started to play electric guitar. A bunch of Canadians known as The Hawks (later The Band) was touring with him. Barely a month after the release of “Highway 61 Revisited”, sessions started at a New York studio.
The New York sessions did not work, so a decision was made to go to Nashville. Al Kooper played organ, and served as a music director. A crew of Nashville players was recruited. A bass player named Joseph Souter, Jr. would become famous a few years later using the name Joe South. Kris Kristofferson was the janitor at the studio.
Most studios have bafflers, or sound proof room dividers, splitting the studio into cubicles. For these sessions, the bafflers were taken down, and the band played together as a unit.
The second session in Nashville started at 6pm and lasted until 530 the next morning. Mr. Dylan was working on the lyrics to “Sad eyed lady of the lowlands”, and the recording could not start until he was ready. The musicians played ping pong and waited. At 4am, the song was ready, and the record was finished in two takes.
PG had marginal encounters with two of the players on this album. He met a lady once, who worked in an insurance office. One of the customers was Joe South. His driving record file was an inch thick.
Al Kooper had a prosperous career after his association with Bob Dylan. The former Alan Peter Kuperschmidt produced the first three Lynyrd Skynyrd albums, sold that contract for a nice piece of change, and lived happily ever after.
One night, Mr. Kooper was playing a show at the Great Southeast Music Hall, and PG sat in front of the stage. During a break between songs, PG asked his friend “what time is it?”. Mr. Kooper heard him on stage, and said it was 11:30.
If it ever quits raining, PG is going to walk to the Chamblee library and return a book, and a cd. The cd is by Bob Dylan, and is a work of genius. The book is about the former Mr. Zimmerman, and is a piece of garbage. (BTW, Dylan is not the only Zimmerman to hit the big time. Ethel Merman was born Ethel Agnes Zimmerman.The Zimmerman telegram got us into World War I. The less said about George Zimmerman, the better)
When returning cd’s to a library, you need to get a check in receipt. Once, PG returned a stack of cd’s to the Brookhaven library. When checking them in, one was missed by the scanner. A few days later, there was a note in the mail about an overdue cd.
The good news was, the cd was on the shelf when PG went back to investigate, and the matter was quickly settled. It did not help that the cd was a collection of disco music called “Shake your booty”.
“The freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” was released in the early sixties, when the man was barely old enough to buy a drink. There is not a bad song on it, and several are classic rock staples. At a time when mindless pop dominated pop music, here were thoughtful, moving lyrics.
In 1991, with America in a war frenzy, Mr. Dylan appeared on a music awards show. He performed “Masters of War”, at a time when the majority would be appalled if they could understand what he was singing. Mr. Dylan has been reinvented many times, and often the lyrics get gargled.
Five years later, PG won tickets to a Bob Dylan concert. It was the last night of the Olympics, and the man was appearing at the House of Blues. (Tickets were $80, so the radio contest is the only reason PG went). It was like hearing a good bar band, that did nothing but Dylan songs, with the man as the vocalist. Due to the mix of the sound, PG could not recognize many of the songs.
The book is Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet by Seth Rogovoy. It tells the Dylan tale as a story of Jewish prophecy. PG got to page 16, where the author claims that “Like a Rolling Stone” “almost single handedly revolutionized rock’n roll music”. Huh?
PG was eating dinner, and did not have anything else to read. He got to page 38. Nothing in the next 22 pages changed his mind away from ditching the book. How does nonsense like this get published?
Jean D. McKinnon
The first picture in this episode is a family portrait of the Quin family in Washington Georgia. The nine surviving children of Hugh Pharr Quin are sitting for the camera. Mr. Quin had joined the Georgia State Troops of the Army of the Confederacy at the age of 16, and after the war went to Washington to live with his sister. Mr. Quin was in the church choir of the First Methodist Church when he met the organist, Betty Lou DuBose. They were married January 22, 1879.
The original name of Mrs. Quin was Louisa Toombs DuBose. She was the daughter of James Rembert DuBose. His brother in law was Robert Toombs, the Secretary of State of the Confederacy, and a man of whom many stories are told.
In this picture, Mrs. Quin is holding the hand of her second youngest daughter so she will not run away. This is Mattie Vance Quin. She is my grandmother.
After the Great War, Mattie Vance Quin was living in Memphis Tennessee, where she met Arthur Dunaway. Mr. Dunaway was a veteran of the war, and was from Paragould, Arkansas. On July 23, 1922 her first Daughter, Jean, was born. This is my mother.
Mr. Dunaway died in 1930, shortly after the birth of his son Arthur. There were hard times and upheaval after this, with the family settling in Atlanta. There her third child Helen Ann Moffat was born on December 12, 1933. This is my Aunt Helen and my mother’s best friend.
Jean lived for many years with her mother and sister at 939 Piedmont, among other locations. She joined the First Baptist Church and sang in the choir. She got a job with the C&S bank, and was working at the Tenth Street Branch when she met Luther McKinnon. He was a native of Rowland, North Carolina. They were married October 6, 1951.
They moved into the Skyland Apartments, which in those days was out in the country. Mom told a story about Dad taking her home from Choir practice, and going home on the two lane Buford Hiway. There was a man who went to the restaurants to get scraps to feed his pigs, and his truck was always in front of them. This was a serious matter in the summer without air conditioning.
Soon, they moved into a house, and Luther junior was born on May 6, 1954. This is me. Malcolm was born May 10, 1956, which did it for the children.
The fifties were spent on Wimberly Road, a street of always pregnant women just outside Brookhaven. It was a great place to be a little kid.
In 1960, we moved to Parkridge Drive, to the house where my brother and I stay today. The note payment was $88 a month. Ashford Park School is a short walk away…the lady who sold us the house said “you slap you kid on the fanny and he is at school”.
In 1962, our family followed the choir director from First Baptist to Briarcliff Baptist, which is where my parents remained.
In 1964, Mom went back to work. She ran the drive in window at Lenox Square for the Trust Company of Georgia until it was time to retire. She became a talk radio fan when RING radio started, and was a friend of her customer Ludlow Porch. She gave dog biscuits to customers with dogs.
During this era of change, Mom taught me that all people were good people, be they black or white. This was rare in the south. She later became disgusted with the War in Vietnam, and liked to quote a man she heard on the radio. “How will we get out of Vietnam?””By ship and by plane”.
Eventually, it was time to retire. Her and Dad did the requisite traveling, until Dad got sick and passed away February 7, 1992. Mom stuck around for a few more years, until her time came December 18, 1998. This is a repost.
May 6, 2019
May 6is a day in spring, with 35% of the year gone by. It has it’s fair share of history, some of which did not turn out well. In 1861, the Confederate Congress declared war on the United States. In 1937, a German zeppelin named “Hindenburg” exploded while trying to land in New Jersey. In 1940, Bob Hope did his first show for the USO, somewhere in California.
Roger Bannister ran the first sub four minute mile, on May 6, 1954. The current record is 3:43.13 by Hicham El Guerrouj on July 7, 1999, with a party with Prince to celebrate. Since most track meets now use 1500 meters, the mile record is obsolete.
On this day, Georgia executed two notable prisoners. In 2003, Carl Isaacs was put to death. Mr. Isaacs was the ringleader in the 1973 Alday family killing, in Donalsonville GA. Five years later, in 2008, William Earl Lynd was poisoned by the state. This was the first condemned man to die after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that execution by poisoning was constitutional.
Taurus is the sign for those whose blood starts to pump May 6. Included are:
Maximilien Robespierre (1758) Sigmund Freud (1856) Rudolph Valentino (1895)
Orson Welles (1915) Willie Mays (1931) Rubin Carter (1937)
Bob Seger (1945) Tony Blair (1953) PG (1954) George Clooney(1961)
To make room for these folks, someone has to die. For May 6 this would mean:
Henry David Thoreau (1862) L. Frank Baum (1919) Marlene Dietrich (1992)
This repost, written like H.P. Lovecraft, has pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Crazy Owl
It started as a rumor, and was quickly confirmed. Crazy Owl…a.k.a. Charles Emerson Hall…passed away April 4, 2011. He was my friend for many years. Many stories could be told, and here are a few. Here is the biography from his website, Crazy Owls Perch. This is a repost.
These few lines will introduce you to Crazy Owl, the author of this website. His life began August 5 1927 at 6:02 AM in Akron Ohio, USA. His mother named him Charles Emerson Hall.
In 1960 The University of Wisconsin awarded him a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree, He pursued a career in mathematical statistics and research methodology until 1975 when he predicted that a cancer epidemic would engulf one-third of the population by 1985. Thereupon he “dropped out” and went into the community lifestyle and ate organic food. In summer of 1987 he took the name Crazy Owl and accepted the Barred Owl (the original “Crazy Owl”) as his totem.
Sometime during these years he became interested in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM for short). In 1980 he started studying acupressure at the Acupressure Institute in Berkley California. Since that time he has been a Healer with TCM as the core of his practice. From 1985 to 1997 Crazy Owl taught TCM in The School For Gentle Hands in Atlanta Georgia. He had a clientele in Healing and a business in herbalism as well as students.
The School for Gentle Hands was in an old horse farm on Flat Shoals Road, just off I20 and Gresham Road. There is a subdivision there now, and the K mart is a Walmart. This space is a mile away from East Atlanta Village, and is an up and coming neighborhood now. When Owl moved there in 1985, it was run down. He had a beat up barn, a dirt driveway, and a pipe bringing county water in. Some government agency made him get a porta potty, a bright green facility with a lot of nicknames.
The School For Gentle Hands was about nine miles due south from my attic apartment. One of the events was the friday night sweat lodge. You drove down, found a place to park in the weeds, and walked down a hill to the lodge. Owl would start the fire, put the rocks in, and hope that someone was there to join him. I sometimes served as the helper, balancing the glowing rocks, on a pitchfork, while Owl held open the door to the lodge.
One friday, the sweaters were talking about the things they were grateful for. The previous friday night, I had been in a tacky bar in Tucker GA. Everyone except me chain smoked, while the band played “Melancholy Baby”. Seven days later, I was naked in a makeshift hut. I was grateful for the variety in my life. All my relations
In those days, AIDS was on a rampage, and there was little that industrial medicine could do. Crazy Owl helped quite a few people. Some did well with his treatment, and are thriving today. He taught that AIDS was not a disease, but a condition, and that it could be reversed.
Crazy Owl was a traveling companion of mine in those days. For a while, it seemed like every time we went anywhere, it would pour down rain the entire time. On a pre Thanksgiving Wednesday, this turned into ice when we arrived at the valley in North Carolina. We woke up the next day to find ourselves in an ice crystal wonderland.
He is not on this plane of existence any more. As for what he expected, I honestly don’t know. Not everyone is obsessed with life after death. I suspect that Crazy Owl is going to be all right.
Update: Here is the story of his final days. The story of the Memorial Service is here.
The jury found James Arthur Ray guilty of manslaughter , or the ending of a life. He conducted a sweat lodge ritual in Arizona, and apparently had the room too hot and too crowded. People were not encouraged to leave before the end. Three people died as a result. (James Arthur Ray is a different person than James Earl Ray, the convicted killer of Martin Luther King. This is one time when the custom of referring to perps by all three names is valuable.)
PG used to attend sweat lodges hosted by Crazy Owl. These were much smaller, and gentler, than the fatal affair in Arizona. There was always plenty of water, and an onion tea was drank before entering the lodge. As you entered, you said “all my relations”, which did not mean you looked forward to being with them for eternity.
Friday night at Crazy Owl’s was an informal affair. Once inside, prayers were offered, and songs were sung. One of the favorites was “Amazing Grace”. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a life like me . That was the version that Crazy Owl favored. Some of the others rebelled, and sang the traditional version, which saved a wretch like me. One night, Crazy Owl said that he would preferred that we sing “Amazing Grace” with life instead of wretch. PG thought he was a crazy old man, and went on saying wretch.
A few years later, after Crazy Owl’s life had ended, PG understood what he meant. You are not a wretch, you are a life. You were made by G-d in her image. She does not make junk. Many religions do not give their flock credit for being worth very much. You are a wretch, bound for hell, and only marginally better if you adopt the correct opinions and go to heaven. To say that you are a LIFE, a sacred creation with G-d in your soul, is a much better way to see things.
Last night, PG went to a celebration of life. (Pictures are from the Midsummer Night’s Dream.) While riding down Buford Hiway, he saw a huge rainbow. Ryans steak house was the pot of gold at the end. The summer solstice had been a few days earlier, the longest day, the height of the growth cycle. How sweet the sound, that saved a life like me. This is a repost.
Anita Aretha and Elton
In the early nineties, PG had too much free time. On March 25 of one year, he looked in the fishwrapper, and found a list of famous people with birthdays.
There was an unlikely trio celebrating that day. This would be (in order of appearance) Anita Bryant (1940), Aretha Franklin (1942), and Elton John (1947). All three have been paid for singing. The three have a total of five husbands, with Miss Bryant and Mr. John currently attached (Not to each other). Miss Franklin has good taste in hats.
Several other people have arrived on planet earth on March 25. They include , in 1911, Jack Ruby, the killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d. 1967) (They don’t say alleged when it was on live TV). 1918 produced Howard Cosell, American sports reporter (d. 1995). Flannery O’Connor (d. 1964) arrived in 1925. 1934 gave us Gloria Steinem. To make room for all this talent, Buck Owens died March 25, 2006. On August 16, 2018, Aretha Franklin was heaven bound.
March 25 is after the spring equinox, and has been Easter. A few noteworthy events have gone down on this day. In 1894, Coxey’s Army departed Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 garment workers in New York City. In 1939 Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII, to the delight of Adolph Hitler. 1955 saw the United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” as obscene. In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono began their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
HT and applause to wikipedia. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
π Day
Today is 3-14. It is a tuesday, and 314 are the first three digits of pi (affectionately known as π ). It is a math thing, the number you multiply a diameter by to get the circumference. When your grammar school math teacher told you about π, she probably used 3.14, or 3 1/7. (PG went to school when Hewlett and Packard were still in the garage.)
You might also have heard the formula for the area of a circle, the racy π r squared . This means that you multiply π by the radius (half the diameter, a line from the border to the center point), and then multiply the whole contraption by the radius again. The formula has a funny sound to it. Pie are not square, cornbread is square, pie are round. Like Sly Stone says, all the squares go home.
According to wikipedia, π seems to have been known as early as 1900 b.c. The pyramids of Egypt have a π based feature. The Greek letter π is the first letter of the Greek word περίμετρος (perimeter) . This was determined OTP.
The pyramid- π function is fairly simple. The total length of the four sides, at the base, will be the same as the height of the pyramid, times two, times π. PG likes to make model pyramids. They are 6″ tall, and the base sides are 9 3/8″. The combination of these four sides is 37 1/2″. If you multiply 6x2x3.14, you get 37.68″ The .18″ is because of a measuring error.
A lady named Eve Astrid Andersson has a page of her website dedicated to π. The only trivia question that PG understood was the first one…1. What is the formal definition of pi? …the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter // 3.14159 // the radius of a unit circle // the surface area of a sphere of diameter 22/7 // a delicious dessert, especially if it contains cherries.
There is the football cheer from M.I.T. ” Cosine, secant, tangent, sine 3.14159 // Integral, radical, u dv, slipstick, slide rule, MIT!”
In 1998 a movie titled π was released. It caused brain damage in 3.14% of those who saw it. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that 1998 = 666 x 3.
π has been calculated to over five million digits. The second part of this feature are a few of those numbers. There are 82 characters in each line. This feature shows π extended to 10,165 digits. This is .02% of five million. This is a repost, with pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899
8628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284
1027019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712
0190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152
0920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609433057270
3657595919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381
8301194912983367336244065664308602139494639522473719070217986094370277053921717629
3176752384674818467669405132000568127145263560827785771342757789609173637178721468
4409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235420199561121290219608640344181598136
2977477130996051870721134999999837297804995105973173281609631859502445945534690830
2642522308253344685035261931188171010003137838752886587533208381420617177669147303
5982534904287554687311595628638823537875937519577818577805321712268066130019278766
1119590921642019893809525720106548586327886593615338182796823030195203530185296899
5773622599413891249721775283479131515574857242454150695950829533116861727855889075
0983817546374649393192550604009277016711390098488240128583616035637076601047101819
4295559619894676783744944825537977472684710404753464620804668425906949129331367702
8989152104752162056966024058038150193511253382430035587640247496473263914199272604
2699227967823547816360093417216412199245863150302861829745557067498385054945885869
2699569092721079750930295532116534498720275596023648066549911988183479775356636980
7426542527862551818417574672890977772793800081647060016145249192173217214772350141
4419735685481613611573525521334757418494684385233239073941433345477624168625189835 6948556209921922218427255025425688767179049460165346680498862723279178608578438382
7967976681454100953883786360950680064225125205117392984896084128488626945604241965
2850222106611863067442786220391949450471237137869609563643719172874677646575739624
1389086583264599581339047802759009946576407895126946839835259570982582262052248940
7726719478268482601476990902640136394437455305068203496252451749399651431429809190
6592509372216964615157098583874105978859597729754989301617539284681382686838689427
7415599185592524595395943104997252468084598727364469584865383673622262609912460805
1243884390451244136549762780797715691435997700129616089441694868555848406353422072
2258284886481584560285060168427394522674676788952521385225499546667278239864565961
1635488623057745649803559363456817432411251507606947945109659609402522887971089314
5669136867228748940560101503308617928680920874760917824938589009714909675985261365
5497818931297848216829989487226588048575640142704775551323796414515237462343645428
5844479526586782105114135473573952311342716610213596953623144295248493718711014576
5403590279934403742007310578539062198387447808478489683321445713868751943506430218
4531910484810053706146806749192781911979399520614196634287544406437451237181921799
9839101591956181467514269123974894090718649423196156794520809514655022523160388193
0142093762137855956638937787083039069792077346722182562599661501421503068038447734
5492026054146659252014974428507325186660021324340881907104863317346496514539057962
6856100550810665879699816357473638405257145910289706414011097120628043903975951567
7157700420337869936007230558763176359421873125147120532928191826186125867321579198
4148488291644706095752706957220917567116722910981690915280173506712748583222871835
2093539657251210835791513698820914442100675103346711031412671113699086585163983150
1970165151168517143765761835155650884909989859982387345528331635507647918535893226
1854896321329330898570642046752590709154814165498594616371802709819943099244889575
7128289059232332609729971208443357326548938239119325974636673058360414281388303203
8249037589852437441702913276561809377344403070746921120191302033038019762110110044
9293215160842444859637669838952286847831235526582131449576857262433441893039686426
2434107732269780280731891544110104468232527162010526522721116603966655730925471105
5785376346682065310989652691862056476931257058635662018558100729360659876486117910
4533488503461136576867532494416680396265797877185560845529654126654085306143444318
5867697514566140680070023787765913440171274947042056223053899456131407112700040785
4733269939081454664645880797270826683063432858785698305235808933065757406795457163
7752542021149557615814002501262285941302164715509792592309907965473761255176567513
5751782966645477917450112996148903046399471329621073404375189573596145890193897131
1179042978285647503203198691514028708085990480109412147221317947647772622414254854
5403321571853061422881375850430633217518297986622371721591607716692547487389866549
4945011465406284336639379003976926567214638530673609657120918076383271664162748888
0078692560290228472104031721186082041900042296617119637792133757511495950156604963
1862947265473642523081770367515906735023507283540567040386743513622224771589150495
3098444893330963408780769325993978054193414473774418426312986080998886874132604721
5695162396586457302163159819319516735381297416772947867242292465436680098067692823
8280689964004824354037014163149658979409243237896907069779422362508221688957383798
6230015937764716512289357860158816175578297352334460428151262720373431465319777741
6031990665541876397929334419521541341899485444734567383162499341913181480927777103
8638773431772075456545322077709212019051660962804909263601975988281613323166636528
6193266863360627356763035447762803504507772355471058595487027908143562401451718062
4643626794561275318134078330336254232783944975382437205835311477119926063813346776
8796959703098339130771098704085913374641442822772634659470474587847787201927715280
7317679077071572134447306057007334924369311383504931631284042512192565179806941135
2801314701304781643788518529092854520116583934196562134914341595625865865570552690
4965209858033850722426482939728584783163057777560688876446248246857926039535277348
0304802900587607582510474709164396136267604492562742042083208566119062545433721315
3595845068772460290161876679524061634252257719542916299193064553779914037340432875
2628889639958794757291746426357455254079091451357111369410911939325191076020825202
6187985318877058429725916778131496990090192116971737278476847268608490033770242429
1651300500516832336435038951702989392233451722013812806965011784408745196012122859
9371623130171144484640903890644954440061986907548516026327505298349187407866808818
3385102283345085048608250393021332197155184306354550076682829493041377655279397517
5461395398468339363830474611996653858153842056853386218672523340283087112328278921
2507712629463229563989898935821167456270102183564622013496715188190973038119800497
3407239610368540664319395097901906996395524530054505806855019567302292191393391856
8034490398205955100226353536192041994745538593810234395544959778377902374216172711
1723643435439478221818528624085140066604433258885698670543154706965747458550332323
3421073015459405165537906866273337995851156257843229882737231989875714159578111963
5833005940873068121602876496286744604774649159950549737425626901049037781986835938
1465741268049256487985561453723478673303904688383436346553794986419270563872931748
7233208376011230299113679386270894387993620162951541337142489283072201269014754668
4765357616477379467520049075715552781965362132392640616013635815590742202020318727
7605277219005561484255518792530343513984425322341576233610642506390497500865627109
5359194658975141310348227693062474353632569160781547818115284366795706110861533150
4452127473924544945423682886061340841486377670096120715124914043027253860764823634
1433462351897576645216413767969031495019108575984423919862916421939949072362346468
4411739403265918404437805133389452574239950829659122850855582157250310712570126683
0240292952522011872676756220415420516184163484756516999811614101002996078386909291
6030288400269104140792886215078424516709087000699282120660418371806535567252532567
5328612910424877618258297651579598470356222629348600341587229805349896502262917487
8820273420922224533985626476691490556284250391275771028402799806636582548892648802
5456610172967026640765590429099456815065265305371829412703369313785178609040708667
1149655834343476933857817113864558736781230145876871266034891390956200993936103102
9161615288138437909904231747336394804575931493140529763475748119356709110137751721
0080315590248530906692037671922033229094334676851422144773793937517034436619910403
3751117354719185504644902636551281622882446257591633303910722538374218214088350865
7391771509682887478265699599574490661758344137522397096834080053559849175417381883
9994469748676265516582765848358845314277568790029095170283529716344562129640435231
1760066510124120065975585127617858382920419748442360800719304576189323492292796501
9875187212726750798125547095890455635792122103334669749923563025494780249011419521
2382815309114079073860251522742995818072471625916685451333123948049470791191532673
4302824418604142636395480004480026704962482017928964766975831832713142517029692348
8962766844032326092752496035799646925650493681836090032380929345958897069536534940
6034021665443755890045632882250545255640564482465151875471196218443965825337543885
6909411303150952617937800297412076651479394259029896959469955657612186561967337862
3625612521632086286922210327488921865436480229678070576561514463204692790682120738
8377814233562823608963208068222468012248261177185896381409183903673672220888321513
7556003727983940041529700287830766709444745601345564172543709069793961225714298946
7154357846878861444581231459357198492252847160504922124247014121478057345510500801
9086996033027634787081081754501193071412233908663938339529425786905076431006383519
8343893415961318543475464955697810382930971646514384070070736041123735998434522516
1050702705623526601276484830840761183013052793205427462865403603674532865105706587
4882256981579367897669742205750596834408697350201410206723585020072452256326513410
5592401902742162484391403599895353945909440704691209140938700126456001623742880210
9276457931065792295524988727584610126483699989225695968815920560010165525637567856
6722796619885782794848855834397518744545512965634434803966420557982936804352202770
984294232533022576341807039476994159791594530069752148293366555661567873640053666
David And Elton
On page 327 of David Bowie: A Life, the Live Aid show goes down. “There wasn’t much love lost between David and Elton–perhaps they’d fallen out at some point in the past…”
Elton John says he fell out with David Bowie over ‘token queen’ remark “David and I were not the best of friends towards the end. We started out being really good friends. We used to hang out together with Marc Bolan, going to gay clubs, but I think we just drifted apart…. He once called me “rock’n’roll’s token queen” in an interview with Rolling Stone, which I thought was a bit snooty. He wasn’t my cup of tea. No; I wasn’t his cup of tea”.
1975 was a different time. David Bowie was moving out of Ziggy Stardust, and became the Thin White Duke. At some point he starting doing lots of cocaine. On page 196 of DB:AL, Jayne County has stories. “It was pretty obvious the David was taking coke. He became very skeletal in his appearance and began rattling off speeches that sounded meaningless to the rest of us–strange things about witchcraft, demons, and sexual prostitution in ancient times … weird things that made everyone nervous. He began to get paranoid and accusing people of ripping him off and stealing his drugs…. He had to have cartilage removed from one part of his body and put in his nose because the coke had eaten his nose cartilage away.”
While David was popular in 1975, and had a certain aesthetic aroma, Elton John was a phenomenon. Everything Elton touched went to Number One. Elton was one of the most popular solo acts the market ever sold. Maybe David was jealous of Elton’s success.
By all accounts, Elton did his share of “hooverizing.” In 1975, Elton was officially in the closet, although a lot of people knew otherwise. In one impossible to confirm story, a friend of PG was working in an Atlanta club called Encore, later known as Backstreet. One busy night, he was in a hurry to get somewhere, and bumped into someone. The person he knocked over was Elton John.
The infamous Rolling Stone interview was part of the damage. “Rock & roll has been really bringing me down lately. It’s in great danger of becoming an immobile, sterile fascist that constantly spews its propaganda on every arm of the media. …. I mean, disco music is great. I used disco to get my first Number One single [“Fame”] but it’s an escapist’s way out. It’s musical soma. Rock & roll too — it will occupy and destroy you that way. It lets in lower elements and shadows that I don’t think are necessary. Rock has always been the devil’s music. You can’t convince me that it isn’t.”
Cameron Crowe How about specifics? Is Mick Jagger evil? David Bowie “Mick himself? Oh Lord no. He’s not unlike Elton John, who represents the token queen — like Liberace used to. No, I don’t think Mick is evil at all. He represents the sort of harmless, bourgeois kind of evil that one can accept with a shrug…. Actually, I wonder … I think I might have been a bloody good Hitler. I’d be an excellent dictator. Very eccentric and quite mad.”
Playboy Magazine gave David another chance to talk about Hitler. “I’d love to enter politics. I will one day. I’d adore to be Prime Minister. And, yes, I believe very strongly in fascism.” “Rock stars are fascists, too. Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars.” “#54: PLAYBOY: How so?” BOWIE: “Think about it. Look at some of his films and see how he moved. I think he was quite as good as Jagger. It’s astounding. And, boy, when he hit that stage, he worked an audience. Good God! He was no politician. He was a media artist himself. He used politics and theatrics and created this thing that governed and controlled the show for those 12 years. The world will never see his like.”
#77: PLAYBOY: “Last question. Do you believe and stand by everything you’ve said?” BOWIE: “Everything but the inflammatory remarks.” We don’t know whether a jab at Elton was inflammatory. “I consider myself responsible for a whole new school of pretensions–they know who they are. Don’t you, Elton? Just kidding. No, I’m not.”
Seven daily grams of coke (DB:AL, p.223) did not kill David Bowie. He soon moved on to make The Man Who Fell to Earth. People magazine helped out with the publicity. “No role could have suited David Bowie better in his first major movie than that of an inscrutable interplanetary traveler outfitted with human skin, sex organs, Ronald Reagan hair and humanoid pupils to slip in over his horizontal, mismatched feline slits.” Forty years before Donald Trump made the tangerine toupee cool, Ronald Reagan was prematurely orange. Pictures for this deplorable dive into hissyfit history are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Mardi Gras
It is fat tuesday again. For someone who lived most of his life in Georgia, it is just another day.
In 1990, PG went to carnival. He rented sleeping bag space in a house on Marigny Street, just outside the quarter. It was like nothing he had ever seen.
This was 14 months after PG quit drinking. If he had life to do over, he would have gone to Mardi Gras first. He did feel good about going through that much drinking without being tempted to participate.
By the end of the Rex Parade, PG was getting tired of the whole shebang, Mob scenes of drunks, in costume, can get old. PG has not been back.
Two years later, the Grateful Dead was playing at the Omni, and the camp followers were in the parking lot. PG would go on his lunch hour and observe. A young lady walked by, and PG said Happy Mardi Gras. She gave him a string of beads.
Five years after that, PG had a boss from New Orleans. He looked like the Grinch who stole Christmas. He also hated Mardi Gras. PG did not know this, and greeted him Tuesday morning with a cheerful Happy Mardi Gras. If looks could kill, PG would have dropped dead. This is a repost, with pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Bowel Games
The story below is a repost from 2013. The Dawgs® had a good year, and are in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. The pictures are from The Library of Congress .
The Georgia Bulldogs beat somebody’s Aggies in Shreveport, Louisiana last night. The affair is something called the Independence Bowl. The Fishwrapper has an ad for a casino-hotel-spa. The link no longer works. Athens can go back to creating a school the football team can be proud of.
This is the season of bowl games. A few years ago, any town with a stadium, and a chamber of commerce, could get a bowl game. Any school with .500 season could go to a bowl, many of whom now had grafted on corporate names. There was, literally, the poulon weedeater bowl holiday classic.
What follows is a story PG read in Sports Illustrated when he was a kid. There is no source, and there is a slight possibility that it is not true.
In the sixties, NBC had a new years day triple header of bowl games. The sugar bowl was followed by the rose bowl was followed by the orange bowl. Hangovers and national championships were fixed in one day. NBC made handsome profits.
An Olympic committee had a meeting one day, to determine who would telecast the upcoming games. The man from NBC went in, with charts, and promises of money for the amateur athletes. The presentation from NBC centered on the january first triple header, the sugar bowl, the rose bowl, and the orange bowl.
Another network won the bid to telecast the games. After the meeting, an Olympics official had a private conversation with the NBC man. The committee felt that their emphasis on the bowel games was in bad taste.
Thank You Note
12/27/18 Brookhaven GA I haven’t written a traditional letter in a while. This year, instead of making a phone call, I am going to send a USPS letter. The immediate objective to say thank you for the calendar. This will be typed. As someone who has had to read my handwriting, you probably appreciate this. Maybe it is not so traditional after all.
The calendar cover is lovely. Seven sheep, with one sporting fur of color. January is a picture of waves crashing in. While the ocean happens in cold weather, inland people associate the sea with warm weather. This reminder of warmer days to come is welcome in january. The shore makes another appearance in june, when the temperatures climb back into beach season.
The January holiday is Elvis’s birthday. This is also David Bowie’s birthday. A few years ago, I re-posted everything I had ever written about Mr. Bowie, and ripped a pile of cd’s into a play list. Three days later, Mr. Bowie was dead. In may of that year, I tried the same thing for Bob Dylan. He not only lived, he went on to win the Nobel Prize.
February is a rainbow picture, and four holidays. My father had the same birthday as Abraham Lincoln. He would be 102 now, but nature had other plans.
March has a very cool picture. It is a rendering of two goats, on a white brick wall. The goats are well balanced and centered, unlike most real life goats I have met. Whenever I try to take a picture of a flat object, I have a tough time getting all the parts to line up at flat angles. Then I discovered GIMP, the photo processing program. This enables me to arrange things in a more pleasing manner. If you can take a camera shot, and get it to come out that perfect, then you are better than me. If you use tools to get it right, then you are using what you have available. After a while, I wonder what is the “real” image… the one that the camera/computer sees, or the one on the wall?
April is a spider web, once again geometrically arranged. The drops of dew on the web, the white face on the left side of the page… these add up to a great image. The may quilt is another terrific presentation. May contains my birthday, so this is a big month for me. This year I am going to be officially old. May day, aka beltane, is another underappreciated holiday to most of America, which is just as well. May 1, 1987, was the last time I took LSD. There is no telling when that will happen again.
July has an image of an electric meter, in the upper left corner of an old log cabin. The stripes of the cabin wall look like the red and white stripes of the US flag, with the electric meter replacing the stars. August has a dog enjoying life. Dogs are great to take pictures of. On many sunday afternoons, I go walk around places, and take pictures of random dogs. These pictures form the background of graphic poems. I tell people that I work for Cruella DeVille, and only the dalmatian owners are worried, or need to be. Being a puppy-razzi is one of the joys of my old age, and progressing decrepitude.
September and November are a curious pair. September was shot at Mowsomemore Acres, TN. November was shot at Mosomemore Acres, Triune TN. Maybe one of George Bugg’s daughters married Mr. Mosomemore, and bought land in TN. After the success of Bugg Acres GA, creating Mowsomemore Acres TN would be a natural step.
December features a sky full of Air Force created contrails. I hope that you were not affected by those contrails… many people say contrails are a damaging force in the ecosystem. The back cover is a tasteful white page, with the appropriate logo above the nail hole. The back cover is often overlooked in these production, but plays a vital role. If it were not for the back cover, then december would not have any days, and John Lennon would still be alive.
That should be enough for one year. Have a good year, and I will try to do likewise. I may recycle this letter on my blog, with historic pictures from the library of congress. The pictures are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States. Maybe this will be the year when I forgive them.
Chamblee54 
leave a comment