This is my worship today August 9, 2020

God’s own Holy Cathedral today
As I prayed this morning I was thinking of my sons. I would want them to know what I know of their heritage. No Bravo Sierra, but memory fails and dates are for forgetting.
If I recall the names of the brothers in the picture I will post an update. The one with his face haloed with a black hat is Uncle Grade, he taught me there is nothing to fear in the forest but ignorance. He taught me to love hunting dogs and hunting. Grade hunted all year round, he was a semi pro alcoholic who was later on pain meds, he died of lung cancer begging me for to get him a cigarette. The tall stern man with the white boater is Uncle Bidge who worked as Carroll County tax collector and lived with his oldest sister; Aunt Minne, who raised me, as a bachelor, never married , never ate a tomato, He modeled integrity, yet strange habits. The young man on the end on the left I don’t recall, Lee died falling from a water tower he was building for the city, he may be Lee. All attended the local Church in the Sand Hill neighborhood. All as farmers and hunters almost all would survive the depression for the better, especially the man who would adopt me. This was the WW1 Generation, they were the “New Deal” forgotten men.
Daddy George was the owner of a paid for; no bank mortgages for this tight fisted ruler of the farm, a well worn 180 acre tract of the original land grants from the Cherokee/Creek debacle. This was a farm that had fertile creek bottoms and good land that had been ruined by “King Cotton” George was paid for his 1926 cotton crop in gold coin that he refused to place in the many failing banks during the depression. When I watch the old movie with Andy Griffith as the rich land owner bad man and Johnny Cash as Sheriff of Coweta County I feel closer to this generation. “Murder in Coweta County”
Bidge was stern, a strict teacher, a strong influence and power among his brothers after the death of George. Daddy George gave the gold coins, $2600. to Bidge and told him to bury it in a new dug fence post hole near the barn. No one has found it yet? George died in the farm model T trying to take him to a doctor in town of a heart attack.

Bidge worked the farm with “Field Hands” Black and White people who would work during the seasons, some would live on the farm in shacks of rough sawn boards, tar paper made to look like brick, tin roofs, privy out back. With the exception of a few, most were “poor as snakes” without running water, indoor plumbing, electrical power until the REA got going in West Georgia. Uncle Grade would hunt all year round and what ever he and his dogs brought He would sell the excess to the tenets for cash to spend on drink. Few had running water even in the 60s. Uncle Grade never had running water in his house. Field Hands were the closest thing to slaves one could get and still claim freedom to take off or not work. The Brothers would work the land as there was never enough help or cleared land. One time during a clearing of a creek bottom overgrown with brush the brothers discovered a circle of stones within a circle of stones inside of the big circle with a slight mound. Returning for help and more shovels the boys discovered Uncle Bidge with some “field hands” had scattered all the stones in the creek and forbid them to waste time on digging for “Chief Wm. McIntosh Indian Gold” He also never told anyone where the fence post gold was even after the barn burned and the house later collapsed and burned. Bidge told Lester, later in the 1960s the barn moved after it burned and he had forgotten which post.

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Sonny

Warrior, scholar, teacher, preacher, minister, foot washer, bilge coolie, slave of Jesus and "Huckleberry" to Jean. Wondering what did I ever do to deserve loving you two?