Cheezy Poofs

Perennial candidate Karen Handel wants to be the U.S. Senator from Georgia. PG didn’t have anything good to say, so he made a comment at Peach Pundit. “I typed Karen Handel into google. The suggested search that came up was “is an idiot” Bless her heart, Karen Handel has the charisma of a doorknob. When she appeared on the same show as Sarah Palin, this became obvious. Even with the expensive endorsement of Mama Grizzly, Mrs. Handel lost to a politician with a reputation for corruption.”
This was the edited version. The original comment included “During the Komen meltdown, I put up a post with that title. I put the link up on Red State, and got a 601 Database redigestation error. I had to take the machine to the shop, and get the hard drive scrubbed.” Sometimes, it is best to pull your punches. Having to take the machine to the shop is a lot of trouble for discussing a white trash politician. She tells on herself anyway.
Chamblee54 has written about Karen Handel one, two, three, four, five times. More posts were written about Troy Davis. We all know how that one turned out. Maybe a future Occupy camp will rename a city facility “Handel Park”.
The required website is up and running. Once again, Mrs. Handel does not mention her maiden name (Walker) in her biography. Conservatives like to talk about family values. It is curious to see a woman, who screams conservative every chance she gets, not mention the name of her birth family.
Getting back to Peach Pundit, there was a reaction to the comment. TheEiger May 17, 2013 at 5:51 pm You post this same comment every time a Karen Handel post comes up. Please go back to eating cheesy poofs in your mom’s basement.
Ghost of William F Buckley May 18, 2013 at 8:20 am “Please go back to eating cheesy poofs in your mom’s basement.” You say that like it is a bad thing…. Like it or not, chamblee54 makes an valid point – The lady obviously performs a quick pol calculation of who you are and how you might help her somewhere between “Hi, I’m ….” and “Glad to meet you.” Karen is a walking dust-up and will spend her days trying to right windmills, drain swamps, etc. instead of effectively developing sound policy.
UpHere May 18, 2013 at 9:45 am Best description of her I have read and spot on.
Just for the record, the house PG lives in does not have a basement. It does have a crawl space, where PG has spent quality time making various repairs. Pictures today are from Gwinnett County.

Brookhaven Bolt

Someone had the idea to have a road race in Ashford Park. While intown folk are used to crowds and roadblocks, this is a novelty to the genteel peeps here. At least the rain stopped before the race.
The original BB started at the school. (Proceeds from the race benefit Ashford Park Elementary School. To donate, go here.) This meant that racers parked in front of houses a block away, which is too close for comfort. Now, the start/finish line is on highrise happy Dresden Drive. The place where these pics happened is roughly halfway through the course.
This a a participation event. The winner gets an attaboy. The front runner was slightly behind the pace car, and a good bit ahead of number two. The first lady was fourth overall, and wore pink shoes. It was a mostly caucasian event. The POC running seemed to fit in without any problems.
PG used to run. Many times it was the only decent part of the day. That was long ago. The L5S1 disc, torn meniscus, gout, and general decrepitude have taken a toll. Being able to walk and bike is enough.
After the runners came the walkers, strollers, and dogs. The waistlines were a bit bigger. The house PG was working near had a little statue of a dog, with the word NO. Dogowners who clean up are appreciated here. None of the dogs at this stage of the race were caught making deliveries.
The enthusiasm for taking pictures declined, as the pace of the walkers got slower. Finally, the lure of fresh coffee could not be ignored. This part of the race was over.

Gene Talmadge

There is a quote making the rounds from Jack Murtha. It seems like some of his nephews have been profiting from the family ties. The verbatim is “If I’m corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district.” This appearance of impropriety is a gift to supporters of military adventure in Babylon. Mr. Murtha…a decorated Vietnam Vet…has been a vocal critic of the wars. His apparent ethical issues give war fans a convenient diversion.
This comment brings to mind a former Governor of Georgia, Eugene Talmadge. He was famous for saying, to cheering crowds, “Sure I stole, but I stole for you”. PG suspected an urban legend, and decided to see what Mr. Google had to say.
Eugene Talmadge was Agriculture Commissioner before he was Governor. He had some relatives on the state payroll. There was something funky going on with fertilizer. He bought a bunch of hogs, and sent them to Chicago, where he thought he could make more money. After a while, some people started to ask questions. His answer was “If I stole, it was for farmers like yourselves”. (This is on page 59 of “The Wild Man from Sugar Creek”.
This was in 1931. The depression hit Georgia hard. The wool hat boys were in a world of fertilizer. Mr. Talmadge set himself up as the champion of the dirt farmers, and the enemy of the lyin’ Atlanta newspapers. In 1932 he was elected Governor. He was re elected three times, but died in 1946, before he could serve again. He was replaced by two Governors.
Mr. Talmadge was elected because of the county unit system. Each of Georgia’s 159 counties got a certain number of votes. Three rural counties were the equivalent of winning Fulton County. Mr. Talmadge boasted that he never won a county with street cars.
Mr. Talmadge’s campaigns were legendary. He would speak at the county courthouse, and plants in the crowd would scream questions, like “what about those lyin Atlanta newspapers?”. One of his favorite lines was “Yeah, it’s true. I stole, but I stole for you, the dirt farmer”.
PG’s aunt went to work at the Trust Company of Georgia in the early fifties. There was a story that the new employees were told. It seems as though Governor Talmadge was in the lobby of the Trust Company, after having a happy lunch. He had to use the restroom, and went to the corner of the lobby to relieve himself.
There is a statue of Gene Talmadge in front of the State Capitol. The plate at the base reads “I may surprise you, but I shall not deceive you”. It remains to be seen what will be carved underneath a statue of Jack Murtha.
This is a repost. Jack Murtha died February 8, 2010. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

Watering Hole Story

PG and his neighbor DA went out to drink beer and shoot pool. The destination was a place called the Watering Hole. The Watering Hole used to be a VFW. There was a TV repair store next door. When the county legalized bars, the VFW went somewhere else. The TV repair store became the game room. You could see on the floor where the counter used to be.
This was a weeknight. The other customer was past his limit. The drunk was fussing at the bartender when PG and DA walked in.
PG got lucky and hit a good shot on the pool table. He got a bit cocky, and said “and now for my next trick”. The drunk staggered into the game room, and lay down on an empty pool table. DA replied, “Is that your next trick?”
Before long, it was time to go home. As PG and DA were leaving, the drunk was arguing with the bartender. He wanted to buy a twelve pack to take home. The drunk won the argument, and started walking up Clairmont Road with his prize.
PG got a block or so away from the Watering Hole. He saw the drunk sitting in front of a seven eleven store. The drunk was sitting on the curb, drinking a beer. PG drove in front of him, and stopped the car. DA got out, and walked over to the curb. She picked up the eleven pack, and walked over to the car. Her pace was deliberate. The drunk stood up and yelled obscenities. The car drove away. off. This is a repost.

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. Neither of us had children, so that is where that ends.
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.

The Revenge Of The Freedom Parkway

At about three o’clock sunday afternoon, the sun came out. It had rained cats, dogs, and snakes, with the occasional octopus thrown in for political correction. PG and Uzi needed to get out, but were wary of getting caught in a storm. More precipitation was predicted.
The opportunity to get out was overwhelming, and Uzi made his way to PG’s place. Going down Clairmont Road, the conversation touched on the usual forbidden subjects, to the peril of everyone’s mental health. PG had decided that the beltline was the place to be, and soon found a familiar parking spot. The beltline still has lots of parking, if you are sure to lock your door.
Uzi did not want to get too far away. The first stop was a restroom. Of course, the beltline does not have these, nor any hidden shrubbery. At the North Avenue end, the troops went down Angier Springs, toward Shasta’s place. PG was reluctant to go on private property, and found a pair of 53 foot trailers. They provided enough discretion to deliver the merchandise.
There was a band playing at the Masquerade. Whether it would be worth paying to see was a moot point, as it was more than sufficient for background sounds. There were dark clouds on the southern horizon, and Uzi wanted to get back to the vehicle.
Things went well until the Freedom Parkway. PG had opposed the construction of the highway, but that was long ago. Evidently, the highway wanted some revenge. As PG walked underneath it, he was taking pictures, and not looking at the ground. His feet got caught in a section of old roots, and into the gravel he fell. The camera got the worst of it. It is probably not good for very much any more.
As he got up, and examined his body for anything broken, some small drops of rain fell. A decision was made to walk faster. The vehicle was on Irwin Street, and was reached just when the raindrops got too big to ignore. It could have been worse.

Boston Atlanta Bombs

As you may have heard, there was an explosives incident at the Boston Marathon. The innertubes have been full of support for Boston. It is a contrast from the reaction to the Centennial Park bombing during the Atlanta Olympics.
It is nearly seventeen years since that July evening. After nine eleven, things are different, or so people say. With the rise of the intercom, the balance of message to medium has been oven more lopsided. There are billions of people looking for expression, and only so many cat videos. When a horrible event happens, you can show your solidarity with those affected.
The Boston Marathon is a longstanding tradition, and will continue. The Atlanta Olympics was a one time deal, which is just fine. While people rush in to support Boston, there was a lot of I-told-you-so going on the Saturday morning after the Atlanta blast. A lot of people were expecting the Atlanta Olympics to be a disaster. The bombing was confirmation that picking Atlanta was a bad idea.
The reaction of authorities is a bit different this time. There are surveillance cameras everywhere now, and suspects were found. Hopefully there will be sufficient evidence to convict Mr. Tsarnaev, if indeed he is guilty. (Spell check suggestion for Tsarnaev: Tsarina)
By contrast, a security guard was found to blame the Atlanta bombings on. PG lived near the Buford Highway apartment residence of Richard Jewell, and saw the dozens of TV camera trucks in the parking lot. (That was one of the few Olympic events that PG saw.) Mr. Jewell was cleared, but had his life ruined. He died in 2007.

Lewis Grizzard

In the time between 1980 and 1994, if you lived in Atlanta you heard about Lewis Grizzard. Some people loved him. Some did not. He told good old boy stories about growing up in rural Georgia. Many of them were enjoyable. He also made social and political commentaries, which upset a few people.
PG had mixed feelings about Lewis. The stories about Kathy Sue Loudermilk and Catfish were funny. His opinions about gays, feminists, and anything non redneck could get on your nerves. His column for the fishwrapper upset PG at least twice a week.
In 1982, Lewis (he reached the level of celebrity where he was known by his first name only) wrote a column about John Lennon. Lewis did not understand why Mr. Ono was such a big deal. PG cut the column out of the fishwrapper, and put it in a box. Every few years, PG would be looking for something, find that column, and get mad all over again.
The New Georgia Encyclopedia has a page about Lewis, which expresses some of these contradictions. If Grizzard’s humor revealed the ambivalence amid affluence of the Sunbelt South, it reflected its conservative and increasingly angry politics as well. He was fond of reminding fault-finding Yankee immigrants that “Delta is ready when you are,” and, tired of assaults on the Confederate flag, he suggested sarcastically that white southerners should destroy every relic and reminder of the Civil War (1861-65), swear off molasses and grits, drop all references to the South, and begin instead to refer to their region as the “Lower East.” Grizzard also wore his homophobia and hatred for feminists on his sleeve, and one of the last of his books summed up his reaction to contemporary trends in its title, Haven’t Understood Anything since 1962 and Other Nekkid Truths (1992).
In the end, which came in 1994, when he was only forty-seven, the lonely, insecure, oft-divorced, hard-drinking Grizzard proved to be the archetypal comic who could make everyone laugh but himself. He chronicled this decline and his various heart surgeries in I Took a Lickin’ and Kept on Tickin’, and Now I Believe in Miracles (1993), published just before his final, fatal heart failure.
As you may have discerned, Lewis McDonald Grizzard Jr. met his maker on March 20, 1994. He was 47. There was a valve in his heart that wasn’t right. The good news is that he stayed out of the army. At the time, Vietnam was the destination for most enlistees. The bad news is that his heart problems got worse and worse, until it finally killed him.
Sixteen years later, PG found a website, Wired for Books. It is a collection of author interviews by Don Swaim, who ran many of them on a CBS radio show called Book Beat. There are two interviews with Lewis Grizzard. The first one was done to promote My Daddy Was a Pistol and I’m a Son of A Gun. This was the story of Lewis Grizzard Senior, who was another mixed bag.
PG found himself listening to this chat, and wondered what he had been missing all those years. The stories and one liners came flowing out like the Chattahoochee going under the perimeter highway. Daddy Grizzard was a soldier, who went to war in Europe and Korea. The second one did something to his mind, and he took to drinking. He was never quite right the rest of his life. His son from adored him anyway. When you put yourself in those loafers for a while, you began to taste the ingredients in that stew we called Lewis Grizzard.
PG still remembers the anger that those columns caused … he has his own story, and knows when his toes are stepped on. The thing is, after listening to this show, PG has an idea of why Lewis Grizzard wrote the things that he did. Maybe PG and Lewis aren’t all that different after all.
The pictures for this feature are from The Library of Congress. While picking out the pictures, PG listened to the other Lewis Grizzard show with Don Swaim. They both have last names that are often mispronounced. When Lewis wondered where Klansmen get those pointy hats… at the KKK mart, perhaps… PG had to stop the broadcast and write a postscript. This is a repost.

Monty Python

Chamblee54 left a comment
Promoting his poorly-read blog
The ALL-CAPS whiner calls it SPAM
The next day saw a politically-correct omission
If remembering Confederate Memorial Day is SPAM
Then Chamblee54 is Monty Python.

Confederate Memorial Day

Today is Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia. It is an ancient question…how to honor the soldiers from the side that lost. They were just as valiant as the Union Soldiers. Considering the shortages of the Confederate Armies, the Rebels may have been just a bit braver.
The issue of Federalism is a defining conflict of the American experience. What powers do we give the Federal Government, and what powers do we cede to the States? The Confederacy was the product of this conflict. The Confederate States were a collection of individual states, with separate armies. This is one reason why the war turned out the way it did.
This is not a defense for slavery. The “Peculiar institution” was a moral horror. The after effects of slavery affect us today. Any remembrance of the Confederacy should know that. This does not make the men who fought any less brave.
It is tough to see the War Between the States through the modern eye. It was a different time, before many of the modern conveniences that are now considered necessities. Many say that the United States were divided from the start, and the fact the union lasted as long as it did was remarkable. When a conflict becomes us against them, the “causes” become unimportant.
The War was a horror, with no pain medicine, and little that could be done for the wounded. It took the south many, many years to recover. The healing continues in many ways today. Remembering the sacrifices made by our ancestors helps.
This is a repost from CMD 2010. Pictures are from the Library of Congress.

Atlanta Rising

Atlanta Rising: The Invention of an International City 1946-1996 is on the shelf at the Chamblee library. It is a history of Atlanta in the modern era, written by former fishwrapper scribe Frederick Allen.
The story begins in 1948. AR is weighted more to the older part of the story. The main text is 248 pages. On page 124, Ivan Allen has just built a controversial roadblock on Peyton Road, which would be in 1962. The further along in the story, the fewer details are included. The first big story is when Georgia had two governors. This is one of the best descriptions of the two Governors controversy around, and does not mention Ben Fortson’s wheelchair cushion.
The mayor at the start of the story is William B. Hartsfield. “Willie B” was a leader in creating the Atlanta Airport, and in building it into the powerhouse it is today. He was mayor until 1961, when Ivan Allen Jr. moved into the office.
AR has many moments of unintentional irony. When you read a book 18 years after it was written, and fifty years after the events in the book, you see things that could not have been imagined before. In 1960, many of the political-business elite thought it was time for Mr. Hartsfield to retire. Among his shortcomings was an indifference to sports. Mr. Hartsfield thought that a new stadium would be too great a drain on the city’s taxpayers. Fifty four years, and three stadiums later, the new power elite is apparently going to build another stadium. Atlanta Stadium cost eighteen million dollars. The Blank bowl will cost over a billion.
One of the big stories here is civil rights. Atlanta came out of that struggle looking pretty good. It was a combination of image conscious businessmen, enlightened black leadership, and a huge helping of dumb luck. In 1961, the city was under federal pressure to integrate the schools. The state was firm in opposition, and the city wasn’t crazy about the idea anyway. Then, another federal court ordered the integration of the University of Georgia. Since the people would not stand for messing with their beloved University, the state laws forbidding integration were quietly repealed. The city schools were integrated with a minimum of fuss. (The book tells this story much better than a slack blogger.)
The controversy about the 1956 model state flag was going full steam when AR was written. The book has some legislative records, which for some reason never made it into the fishwrapper. There is no clear cut answer as to why the legislature changed the state flag. It was mentioned that at the national political conventions, you could not have a written sign, but you could wave a state flag. This controversy provided a diversion from gold dome crookedness, and hopefully has been laid to rest.
A man named Lester Maddox sold fried chicken, and ran for public office. AR describes Lester as looking a bit like an angry chicken. Through a series of constitutional convulsions, Lester was elected Governor in 1966. The state survived his tenure. In the seventies, when Jimmy Carter was running for President, Lester said a lot of rude things about Jimmy, helping the smiling peanut farmer get elected. In another turn of fate, Lester Maddox died June 25, 2003. This was two days after the eternal departure of Maynard Jackson, the first black Mayor of Atlanta.
The book ends with the 1996 Olympics looming over the city. Billy Payne led a smart campaign to secure the games for Atlanta. One of his moves was to keep Jimmy Carter and Ted Turner out of the action. After the 1980 boycott, and the Goodwill Games, neither person was popular with the I.O.C. The book was published before the games were played. It was a blast.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

420 Festival

The third sunday in april is the start of the warm weather festival season. When PG called Uzi, at twelve noon on the dot, the only question was which festival to go to. Both Candler park and Piedmont park are notorious parking disasters. Uzi speculated that they should go earlier, rather than later, and PG agreed.
Since PG had not bathed since friday, a shower was in order. The idea of showering before going to hang with hippies is a bit esoteric, but this is PG we are talking about. While waiting for the hot water to reach his back, a cosmic thought plowed through his head.
There are two questions that many people face these days. Are you a racist? Do you believe in G-d? These questions are very similar. Both are nobody else’s business. Both concepts are dependent on the definition of key terms. Whereas the concept of G-d seems to be shrinking, the boundaries of racism grow larger every day. PG has long questioned whether belief is the proper venue for knowing G-d. Maybe having a yes/no opinion on racism is similar. Being honest is a dangerous business.
So Uzi arrives at PG’s place at one pm, exactly one hour later. It was no surprise when the side street by the park had no parking, and you had to go three streets west to find a place. There is a entrance gate to the festival, with wristbands enabling beer consumption on sale. PG asked for a non drinker discount, which is tough to facilitate with free admission.
The 420 festival is set up different in 2013. The main stage has moved a hundred yards south. There is a VIP area in front of the stage, with an admission charge. The concept of a VIP area in Candler Park is …. WRONG. It should be noted that few people paid the VIP surcharge.
There was something called the Silent Disco. People were wearing headphones, and dancing to the canned music. Some of the people seemed to be having fun, so it must be ok.
A proposal was made to go by Piedmont Park, and see what the parking looked like. Just driving down Piedmont Avenue in front of the park was a gridlock nightmare. At three pm, it was too early to go for dinner. Ordinarily, this would be the time for getting started. Some things you have to try once, just so you will know not to do it again.