I Want to Say This, Go Braves!

Last Fall in September, the Atlanta Braves were in first place in the National League Eastern Division. Hopes ran high that the Braves were going to once again bring a title home to the “Big A.”
All the time the ever dangerous Philadelphia Phillies were beginning to cut the Braves lead and it began to look like it would be a run to the last day of the season when the two teams would meet and they it happened. Greed! Mighty Fox Network began to fuss at Dish Network and demanded an increase from the satellite company. Dish bucked and the Braves fans were the real losers.
With three games left in Atlanta between the two teams, supposedly to be televised by Fox Sports Network or Sports South and brought into my home on Dish Network, the screen told it all when it said the broadcast would not be made until there was a settlement. October first through October third my television sat idle as I bemoaned the greed of the millionaires. To express my anger is an understatement!
I have been a baseball fan for over sixty years, and I’ve been an Atlanta Braves fan since they moved south from Milwaukee in the mid 1960s. I’ve seen good, bad and ugly teams in the city where the Atlanta Crackers minor league team formerly played. I’ve even seen great teams which went on to win fourteen straight Division titles and one World Series in 1995. There is no question of my fandom nor my loyalty. Hope springs eternal every March when the teams of the majors move to Florida for spring training.
When I was a young boy around ten, I invented my own baseball game, using a cardboard box, ice cream sticks and buttons borrowed from my mothers sewing materials. If I had known it could have been done, I would have been able to patent the game and today people might be comparing my wealth with that of Bill Gates, however suffice I to say the game gave me endless joy as I played for hours at a time entertaining myself and keeping statistics of how the games came out.

To say that I was irritated at the greed of the billionaires who owned those two companies would not be sufficient. I was livid! I began searching other ways to watch the games, all to no avail. I could only strike back at them by cutting them off at the knees—reducing their service in my home to the barest level of channels—and hoping many others would do the same. My Dish bill went down to nearly half what it had previously been, and I hoped other Braves fans were doing likewise. Amazingly enough, we suffered only a small amount as we returned to watching programs like the Andy Griffith Show and All in the Family. Shoot! Remember some of my previous Cotton Patch columns where we used to get only one fuzzy station out of Macon when we first purchased this old house forty years ago, and if I wanted to try for one out of Albany, I had to take a pipe wrench outside the house and try to turn my antenna enough to get a very fuzzy program. Mess with me!
Well, without my support, the Braves lost all three games in October to the Phillies, but made the playoffs as a Wild Card team losing to eventual World Series winner San Francisco Giants. However, as I said previously Spring Training has begun and I am thinking again about baseball. First on my agenda was to contact Dish Network to find out if the argument had been settled with Fox. Yes, I was told and if I wanted to increase my coverage to include the stations which broadcast the Braves games, it would only cost me five dollars. “I’ll think about it,” I said as I secretly planned on calling a rival satellite company to see what their cost and coverage would amount to. Ain’t free enterprise wonderful?
So what will happen to the Braves this year? I think their chances of competing for the Division title against the Phillies are very good. It should be said that the Phillies made a couple of moves which give them four pitchers who may be unequaled in the majors this season, however our Braves have a pretty good staff as well. We’ll throw out Comeback player of the year, Tim Hudson, veteran Derek Lowe who has steadily improved each year of his contract, third year pitcher Tommy Hanson, and Jair Jurgenns who went down last year with some unexpected injuries. A couple of Rookies, Mike Minor and Brandon Beachy will compete for the fifth spot on the pitching roster.

Our home team acquired a home run hitting Dan Uggla from Florida over the winter and Chipper Jones is trying for a comeback after being injured at the end of last season. Last year’s all-round player, Martin Prado will move to the outfield and the minor league player Freddie Freeman will move into the lineup as first baseman to add hitting and fielding support to a team which was led last year by runner-up Rookie of the Year, Jason Heyward and perennial All-Star catcher Brian McCann in the power department.
The Atlanta Braves already are looking to be improved over last year’s team which won 91 games while finishing second to the Phillies in the Eastern Division.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that future Hall of Fame Manager, Bobby Cox hung up his uniform and retired with over 2000 wins in his career. He has managed the Braves for a long time, including every major league game future Hall of Fame player, Chipper Jones has been in the lineup. Not to worry, his longtime coach, Fredi Gonzalez was hired over the winter and I think he will step right in and continue the winning ways for the Braves organization.
We’ll have to put our murder shows—Dateline and 48 Hours—Andy and Barney and All in the Family on the back burner by the time the end of March when the call will once again go out to “Play Ball!”
Go Braves!

Hawkinsville Writer Profiles Pulaski People & History

Scott Echols Tragic Accident

In a fleeting moment a couple of weeks ago in Blakely, Georgia, Scott Echols of Bleckley County was involved in a traffic accident that could have snuffed out his life. As it is, he will be hospitalized for “months, not weeks” in an attempt to recover.
How tenuous life’s journey can be! On Sunday evening November 7th, Echols, a 51-year-old Broker in the Alaskan Fishing Industry, started out for Enterprise, Alabama to check on his uncle who was in the hospital in serious condition. His journey took him through a route to Blakely where he was t-boned in his small automobile by a much larger SUV leaving him in critical condition—fighting for his life—in the blink of an eye.
Scott, the husband of Cherie Thompson Echols and the father of a daughter, Morgan who is a sophomore at Middle Georgia College, and a son, Jacob who placed seventh in the state in pole vaulting on the track team and also plays on the Bleckley Royals football team as a place-kicker, finds himself in the biggest battle of his life.
After Echols graduated from college, he traveled to Alaska to become a commercial fisherman in the rough seas of the 49th state. He fell in love twice—once with the fishing industry—and secondly with Cherie Thompson of Cochran. As Scott moved around the world fishing on boats, his new wife followed him and they eventually had two additions to their family.
After years away from home in Cochran, the couple agreed to move back and settle down where they grew up, giving their two children the hometown stability they felt they needed, and as a result of the Internet, Scott could continue his brokerage of the Alaskan Fishing Industry.
Echols father-in-law, Ron Thompson said one of the EMT professionals told him that “Mister Echols was as strong as an ox,” as they worked with him to get him onto the stretcher and immobilize his arm for the purpose of giving him IV fluids. “He was striving hard to free himself from their grip as he clung to the desire to survive,” one of the medical specialists said.
As they began the journey from Blakely to Dothan, Alabama which was the nearest Trauma hospital, someone called his wife in Cochran to inform her that Scott had been in an accident and they were now en route to Dothan.
Immediately, Cherie Echols made plans to drive to lower Alabama, uncertain of the directions or the seriousness of her husband’s injuries. Stopped in her tracks by her father, Mrs. Echols was told that he would drive her to Dothan, an area with which he was familiar. When they were an hour from their destination, Echols received a cell call informing her that they were going to move her husband to Birmingham where there was a larger and better equipped Trauma unit. Nevertheless they continued onward and arrived before the move was made.
Upon the action to move Scott to Birmingham, the family members continued their trek northward through Alabama.
In serious accidents of life or death, there are many quick decisions to make—giving doctors and medical teams permission to operate and further examine the injured party, locating a place where the family can stay, and determining visiting hours, etc.—and Cherie Echols had plenty to make. Through the worst of times cool heads and blessings sometime take over. A member of a Birmingham church arrived after a couple of days and offered Echols the use of a church-owned apartment for up to three months. Doctors continued working on her husband to save his life. Scott has suffered both lungs collapsing, ribs broken, legs broken, a ruptured spleen and many more serious injuries that will take a long time from which to recover.
Of course, one of the most serious problems the family is facing is tremendous medical and doctor bills and a very long time with no family income while Scott is no longer able to work. Cherie is in nursing school and has no income. A fund has been opened at the State Bank in Cochran, 112 Beech Street, Cochran, GA 31014 and it is entitled the Scott Echols Fund for those who can and will donate funds to help a worthy family in time of great need. Donations can be made in your name so the family can acknowledge their thanks to you, or donations may be made anonymously.
Contact Crenshaw at samsam3125@yahoo.com

Pulaski Rivers Alive 2010

Lance Cpl. Christopher Blake Rodgers

Almost everyone can remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11, 2001, the day of the worst attack on American soil in history which took over 3000 lives. The day almost immediately became known as 9/11 which remains ingrained in the minds of Americans everywhere.
Blake Rodgers of Griffin, Georgia was ten years old (shown above) when he witnessed the giant planes crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. He was so shocked that he cried. He also told his parents that he wanted to become a Marine, and he wanted to help fight against those who were involved in killing so many of his fellow Americans.
His father is Chris Rodgers, his mother is Jane, and his younger sister is Emily. Blake has a connection to the city by the muddy river. Many people will remember Mary Nell Barlow who, along with her brother Gene were raised by their aunt and uncle, Julia and Reeves Gilbert. Still others will remember C. W. “Chuck” Barlow who was raised by William “Bud” Barlow and who recently passed away after a long illness.
Perhaps not so well remembered would be their sister, Velma Barlow who was raised by her aunt and uncle, Estelle and G. W. Beeland in Griffin. The reason this family of children, all of whom are this writer’s first cousins, were raised by uncles and aunts was because their mother and father had separated and the father, Vance Barlow, (shown below right) at the age of 39 was later tragically killed in an electrical accident. The mother had disappeared. Three families who raised the children were aunts and uncles, children of William Right and Prezzie Wynne Barlow of Hartford, on the eastern side of the Ocmulgee River. The Barlow family—large, (shown below left) but no larger than many others in the turn of the Twentieth Century era—had twelve children of which ten survived to adulthood.
Velma Barlow Pierce shown above with her husband Paul are grandparents to Blake Rodgers.
As a child, Blake enjoyed building—anything his youthful imagination could conjure up — houses, buildings, ships, and planes. Blake built them with his Lego set. As he grew older, Blake played baseball on several youth league teams. He enjoyed camping, hunting, fishing, paintball, airsoft, shooting and just hanging out with his friends. He was a highly accomplished artist. Blake was also an authority on aircraft, a passion he indulged through reading, building models, drawing aircraft, visiting airports and attending air shows. It wouldn’t have been difficult to imagine him as a fighter pilot or aeronautical engineer.
On 9/11 all that changed! Blake, the 11-year-old, witnessed with horror and disbelief as airplanes were used as weapons to attack his people and his country. It was on that day Blake decided to be a Marine. Having made that decision, even at such an early age, Blake set out to make himself as knowledgeable about being a Marine as he had done with his beloved aircraft. He read, studied and played video game simulations in an attempt to glean information about weapons, strategy and tactics. He learned to shoot and became extremely proficient at it.

After graduation, Blake (shown here with sister, Emily and Mother) enlisted in the Marine Corps in July. In October 2008, he left home for the first time, en route to The Marine Recruit Depot at Parris Island, S.C., and Marine boot camp. Almost immediately, Blake began to excel, culminating with his selection as his recruit platoon’s distinguished high scoring marksman. As one might imagine, in a branch of the military service wherein all Marines are riflemen first and anything else secondarily, earning the Expert Rifleman Badge is an accomplishment truly worthy of praise. Blake wore his with pride. (Blake Rodgers achieved his goal of becoming a Marine)

His acknowledged marksmanship prowess notwithstanding, no one, no matter how fit, how smart or how gifted with a rifle, ever becomes a United States Marine without first having endured a 54 hour marathon of fatigue, sleep deprivation and limited rations designed to push recruits far beyond their personal limits of performance and thereby expose the true “don’t quit, never give up” attitude and Marine spirit within them. Coupled with the running, forced road marches with heavy packs, constant barrage of simulated attacks, field problem solving and team and leadership building exercises are put to the test. It is there, in those seemingly unending hours of hell on earth, that the recruit proves, not so much to the instructors, but much more importantly, to himself, that he is worthy of being a United States Marine. That vital self affirmation was memorialized in the small, desert camouflage New Testament that Blake carried during boot camp; where the quote, “I will never give up, never give in, take it as it comes and grow stronger,” was written in his hand, on its inside front cover. The meaning and the rewards that phrase portended were forever etched into Blake’s mind when, on a cold Saturday morning in January 2009, he heard from his drill instructor the words, “Congratulations, Marine.”
At that moment in time, Christopher Blake Rodgers had achieved his goal, a goal he had harbored and single-mindedly pursued since that fateful day in 2001 — he had become a United States Marine.
Upon graduating from boot camp on January 16, 2009, with the rank of private first class, Blake moved on to the School of Infantry at Camp Geiger, N.C. While there, he was recognized for his use of novel strategies and tactics in leading his assault team in overtaking a position held by members of the instructor cadre. Upon being overrun by Blake’s team, the surprised and dumbfounded instructors asked where he had learned those techniques. Blake’s reply was that he had devised them during his days of playing paintball and “Navy Squeals,” a takeoff on the movie “Navy SEALS,” with his cousins and friends. So impressed with his methods were the staff that Blake’s techniques are now taught to other

Marines as part of the curriculum there. (shown below left are some of the thousands who lined the highways to show their gratitude to the fallen Marine, and shown right are the Marine Pall Bearers)

Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher Blake Rodgers died doing what he loved, for those he loved, with those he loved as brothers at his side, in harm’s way, in a land far away. We can never and will never forget his sacrifice.
Blake Rodgers was killed in action Wednesday September 1, 2010 in the Helmand Providence of Afghanistan, hardly a worthy place to claim the life of such a warrior. Helmand is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan.

(Below is the presentation of the United States Flag to Blake's Mother who is accompanied by his sister and father)

It is in the southwest of the country. Helmand is the world's largest opium-producing region, responsible for 42% of the world's total production. He was laid to rest Saturday, Sept. 11, 2010, a date chosen to commemorate that seminal moment in history wherein the course of our nation was forever changed in the blink of an eye, a date that so affected an eleven-year-old boy from Griffin, Ga., that he dedicated his young life to service and to righting that horrific wrong, a date that irrevocably altered his life, our lives and through his sacrifice, the lives of people he never knew.

Semper Fi Marine

Picture Show Thompson's Theater

During my childhood, my friends and I would walk south on Jackson Street on our way to the magical display on the wide expanse of the green lawn in front of the home of Picture Show Thompson. It was indeed magical to our youthful eyes. It was the most decorated yard we had ever seen.
Unlike today when everyone seems to be able to decorate their homes and yards for the Christmas Season, people were either too poor or lacked the imagination to turn their home and property into fantasy. After we got there, the equivalent of four blocks from where we lived, we stood in awe at the manger scene, the wise men, the shepherds abiding their flocks and even Jolly Saint Nick in his sleigh following the reindeer—minus the now famous Rudolph who had not yet been created. I remember it passionately, wishing the characters could move around and greet all of us. In reality, they were cut-outs from wood—painted and decorated to celebrate the season—but all the wishing would not turn them into a live scene.
Just when we thought it could get no better, Picture Show Thompson did the same thing by bringing all the Joel Chandler Harris characters from “Song of the South” a wonderful movie about Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear, Brer Fox and especially our beloved Uncle Remus to his lawn—probably in the Spring—while promoting the great movie. If he had never done anything other than to thrill the residents of the city by the muddy river with his wonderful lawn decorations, he would have put himself in the minds and hearts of many young people. But that wasn’t all he did for us. Through his movies, we learned how to go on adventures with the Durango Kid, Roy Rogers, Lash LaRue and of course he taught us to laugh at the likes of the funny sidekicks, Smiley Burnette, Gabby Hayes and Fuzzy St. John. He brought us a weekly villain to teach us how to cheer for the good guys—cowboys with white hats—each week and to learn right from wrong by showing us that the bad guys might get away with evil deeds, for awhile, but not in the end.

Who was this man we called Picture Show Thompson and where did he come from to enter into our lives with his magic?
He was born on the cusp of the Twentieth Century, 1896, in a small village in Alabama named Detroit. He was educated in Amory, Mississippi and took his first job in Memphis, Tennessee as a messenger boy for Western Union before relocating to Dallas, Texas where he and the movie business got acquainted. He became an usher, and later a doorman, for the Old Mill Theater. That was in 1917-18.
Afterwards, he entered the selling business and his product was theater advertising, which he did for several years.
Later, he began to sell films for Fox Corporation in Atlanta.
His son-in-law, Guerry Boone Stribling, now deceased, who married Thompson’s first-born daughter, Sandra, remembers some of the humorous stories about the man who brought the merriment into our lives through the talking pictures. “During those days of selling films,” Stribling said, “Pappy, as our children lovingly called him, told of an incident which showed his ability to create a reason for people to purchase films from him. He drove a truck in those days loaded with films. He parked in front of the local theater, got out and put up a display telling about a film he had concerning a man named Floyd Collins who had become national news when he got stuck and lost in a cave in Kentucky. After putting up the display, Pappy walked down the street to have a cup of coffee. He told me when he returned there were at least a hundred people standing around the display clamoring for a way to see the film. The theater owner came out to him and pulled him aside to make a deal to get the film. He was a hustler and a showman. He really enjoyed dressing up in a cowboy outfit.”

His daughter, Sandra believes that he was a frustrated actor who would have loved being a movie star—probably a cowboy actor.

In 1931, he made a life altering move when he purchased a small theater in the tiny town of Hawkinsville. The theater was named the Princess, and his career kicked into overdrive when he later purchased the Princess in Eastman, the Princess in Baxley and the Auditorium Theater in Cochran. With the growing company, he decided to incorporate and named the business, All-Amusement, Inc. The early years—1931-1933 were not all business as he met and married a beauty named Ernestine Milam. The couple had their first child, Sandra Faith Thompson in 1934 and the next year he merged his business with a Columbus man named Roy E. Martin and the name of the corporation changed to Martin and Thompson Theaters, Inc. with Thompson serving as President in 1935.
The man we called Picture Show Thompson had the unlikely name of John Herman Thompson, but was known by associates and friends as Tommy Thompson. Although he was heavily involved in his chosen profession as Vice president of the Georgia Southeastern Theater Owners Association, Thompson never was shy about participating in civic affairs of his new community, having served for two years as president of the Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce, and as Vice-president of the Pulaski County Fair Association. Perhaps it was his high energy level that got him appointed as the Chairman of the one hundred year Centennial Celebration of Hawkinsville garnering headlines in the Atlanta Journal Constitution
Newspaper for the successful festivities.
As a credit to his business sense and/or his desire to keep his adopted hometown in the loop with movies, he apparently took a deep breath and moved ahead with a plan after a tragic fire demolished the beloved Princess Theater in downtown Hawkinsville in the 1940s. This writer remembers seeing the theater after it was destroyed and wondering what our lives would be like without Roy and Dale, Gene Autry, Charles Starrett, Alan “Rocky” Lane, Lash LaRue and Sunset Carson.
Picture Show Thompson, the man we had come to depend on for our Saturday entertainment did not miss a beat. He immediately arranged for some temporary building changes to the old City Auditorium—now known as the Old Opera House—and suddenly we had movies again until the re-building of the new theater complete with a new name, The Thompson Theater became part of our lives.
In another move, during the 1950s, we were introduced to a new medium by Picture Show Thompson. Movies underneath the stars—the M&T Drive-in Theater! I remember clearly the opening movie being Ma & Pa Kettle, a hilarious couple with a large family, a bossy mother and a sedentary father who all made us laugh.
At the Thompson, he had on stage such cowboys as Lash LaRue and the bad guy, Jack O’Shea, Tex Ritter who sat on stage singing his hit song, “Rye Whiskey.”

Dan Duryea who played Black Bart in the film with the same name came to our town and paraded throughout the city in Thompson’s Cadillac while many of us chased the car on our bicycles.
But in the early 1950s even in the heyday of movies, a new phenomenon was lurking in the background that would change everything for the dynamic showman who brought many movie stars to our small community. It was something called television, but the great movie showman was not worried. He even rejected the offer from his partner Roy Martin to get into the television business, thinking it would not last.
“Pappy said that three things would save his movie business,” his son-in-law said. “They were Bill Haley’s movie “Rock Around the Clock,” Elvis Presley and popcorn. He really didn’t believe TV would amount to anything.”
Today, the vacant shells of old theaters sit empty in small towns across America, a sad reminder of a great past and the great owners of local entertainment. The newspaper which prints this article stands now in the same location of the old Princess and later the Thomson Theater. A cemetery is now located in the spot where Ma & Pa Kettle made us laugh.
As the famous movie star, Bob Hope would say, “Thanks for the Memories.” Picture Show Thompson will always be in our wonderful thoughts of what used to be.

Hall! Office! Zero!

I was still young, albeit by most standards—with the exception of older brothers and sisters who for some reason thought they should be able to tell me what I could do by virtue of being the youngest of seven children—over 25 years-old and with a family of five or six of us. I lose count. (Shown to the right are my wife, Sheila, my parents, Ellis and Lola and four of our children in 1972. L-R Beth, Sheri, and Julie and in my ever-loving arms, Sam, Jr.)
It should be noted that my favorite comeback to my elder siblings was, “I put the grits on my table; I’ll make the decision, sans your advice.”
I was about to embark on a college career thanks to the GI Bill for veterans. At the time, we were living in Warner Robins. I decided to attend Middle Georgia College and to seek a degree in Business Administration. I arrived at the college and went to the assigned testing area to take my College Entrance exam. There were quite a few people, mostly freshly graduated from high school and one or two my age or in that vicinity.
I could not believe it when I looked up to the front of the room and spotted a very familiar face, one I had not seen perhaps since my days in high school.
My mind immediately drifted back some ten or twelve years and into my high school math class. As the teacher scanned the role, she called out the names of my classmates and she paused only slightly when she came to one name. She called out my name with an edge of bitterness to it. “Crenshaw!” To my credit, I answered promptly with either a here or present which seemed to rankle her. Was it just my imagination or did she growl slightly?
Well, the answer came instantly! She did growl! “Mister, I had your brother in my class for two years, and you can just forget acting like him. Do you understand me? He didn’t get away with it and neither will you! Are we clear? Do you understand me?” she asked without leaving room for an answer. (Sam at age 17 looking truly innocent, don't you agree)
That was the beginning of a tumultuous couple of years in which her weapon was bullying me and others whom she had reason to suspect she needed to bully. I should explain that the nature of a “brilliant teenager” is one in which he seeks an opening for a laughter-induced remark. Inevitably, it probably wasn’t worth it, because she would pullout her grade book and say, that’s it! You get a zero!
In time, she put up with any rebellion even less and shortened it to something that I recall as, “Hup! Hup! Hall! Office! Zero!” while folding her arms across her ample bosom and pointing toward the door. As the man said when the Hindenburg crashed and burned, “Oh the humanity of it!”
Somehow, I managed a C+ for my four years of high school, but when I looked at the familiar face supervising the College Entrance Exam, I shook with humiliation and fear from my strange high school days. There is little doubt that she had looked over the last of names of those of us who were scheduled to take the test, because, when I raised my hand in an attempt to ask where I should put my name on the test sheet, she flew into a rage and went directly into her past life.
“No sir! Not in here, Mister! This is college! You will not be allowed to disrupt this test!”
“I just want to know where----.” She cut me off and looked around the room at all of the nervous little kids from high school for their approval of how she had just handled her former student.
I raised the white flag of surrender and just printed my name on the paper where I thought it should go.
Oh the trauma I suffered!
Purchase my book "Stories From the Cotton Patch" by ordering from Sam Crenshaw, 966 Barlow Road, Hawkinsville, GA 31036. $10 plus $3 S & H.