Thursday, September 4, 2014
forum
5A
Tombstones tell tales at the very end
MOULTRIE — For some people, an out-of-town trip is not complete without a visit to a museum or art gallery. For me, it could easily be a visit to a cemetery. The truth is, a cemetery is part art gallery and part museum. You can look around and learn something about a place. Sometimes it is a reminder of how short the average life span was a century ago. It tells you about young men who went off to war and returned home to a spot in a graveyard. But tombstones tell you much more. Historians use the term “funerary art” to describe tombstones. Our own Alta Vista Cemetery has some great examples of funerary art. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A self-guided tour is available with a very nice brochure. My favorite tombstone in all of Georgia is a sculpture of a gal named Nancy. She stands guard over the grave of William Duggan in the Pleasant Grove Primitive Baptist Church cemetery on the edge of Moultrie. Nancy is an elephant, a white elephant. To be more specific, she is a white marble elephant sculpted out of marble from the quarries of Tate. She is said to weigh about 10,000 pounds. If William Duggan is resurrected, as many Christians believe, Nancy will have to be moved. If you are anywhere near Pleasant Grove on resurrection morning, you might want to steer clear of the Duggan grave. Nancy is a big girl. William Duggan ran away from home when he was 12 to work in the circus. In 1950, he bought his first circus. While the circus was wintering in Florida, Duggan died. He bought the real Nancy for his new circus, but never lived to see her perform. His son commissioned the tombstone, believed to be the only full-size elephant tombstone in the whole world. Some other interesting grave markers are in this
Harris Blackwood world. Herschel Scott of Monroe was a devoted fan of the Georgia Bulldogs and attended 471 consecutive games. His tombstone has a doggone tribute: “A Bulldog born, Bulldog bred, here I lie, a Bulldog dead.” A woman in Kentucky listed the birth and death date of her departed husband. On her side, she had the stonecutter put an arrow to her husband’s death date with the inscription, “Happy since.” That’s a bitter editorial. I knew a woman who had the words “Together Forever” placed on their combined stone when her husband died. She remarried and later chose to be buried with her second husband. Oops. The tombstone of rock legend Duane Allman in Macon is a rather simple one. But folks who visit leave an assortment of mementos ranging from full cans of beer, marijuana cigarettes and guitar picks. At the Lexington, Va., grave of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson, visitors leave lemons. Look it up, it’s a good story. At the grave of William Duggan, there is a pair of eyeglasses. I don’t know if they are meant for Duggan or Nancy. At times, I ponder what I want to be the remembrance of me. I have asked my wife to take me to a taxidermist and prop me up in the living room. She says no to that, as well as my desire to have an oil painting of me over the fireplace. I think I’ll just have a nice tombstone with a memorable quote from me. “I told y’all I wasn’t feeling good.” Harris Blackwood is a Gainesville resident whose columns appear weekly.
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‘My’ Grant Tinker marks 88 years It happened a few months back. My father-inlaw celebrated, to our great joy, his 88th birthday. There was no pomp or circumstance involved. He abhors that. Because he is among the most beautifully well-mannered people I have ever encountered, he politely took all the calls. Though he really wished we would just treat it as another day and leave him alone to watch the news channel. He’s not just 88. He is the best 88 possible. He is healthy, in possession of a good mind and still a regular weekly golfer at his country club where he plays with his longtime pal Mike Connors (who, I might add, I had an enormous crush on at the age of 8 when he played the detective Mannix on television). In honor of the occasion, which we were pleased to note, I asked for and received a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol on his birthday in recognition of this remarkable man. The flag arrived with the commemorative statement: “Flown over the United States capitol on January 11, 2014, for
Ronda Rich Grant A. Tinker, in celebration of 88 years of service to America and her people.” This is no overstatement or embellishment. If anything, it is understated. I know because many people approach me or Tink to ask after this man I presumptively call “my Grant Tinker.” And, without fail, each one will say, “Please say ‘hello’ for me. He was always so kind to me.” At least half of them will say, “He gave me my first job.” We laugh about the fact that he gave first jobs to many people who yearned to work in television, some who were children of his friends. But he never gave a first job, or a job of any kind, to his own sons. They, he believed, should make it on their own. And that they did. Tink and his brother, Mark, with great bravado, stepped up
to the plate, coming back to bat until they hammered it out of the ballpark. Both have been nominated for countless Emmys with Tink winning one for best drama writing and Mark toting home three for best directing. That is something that will make a father smile with pride as well as the knowledge that his rule of “no nepotism” was right. “I really admire that,” I said to my Grant Tinker one day while visiting. “You could have made it so easy for them, but yet you didn’t. Because of that, you made better men out of them. You allowed them to have self-earned pride in their accomplishments.” He shrugged the way he always does when a compliment is lobbed toward him. He is a modest, humble man, the likes of which Hollywood has rarely seen. “Well, I don’t know about that,” a comment to be expected because acknowledging he was right would be, in his estimate, a brag on himself. “But I thought it was how it should be.” And it worked out. Though my dear Grant
Tinker staunchly believes pride should be avoided at all costs, I see a flicker of it in his eyes or hear it in his voice whenever he engages in conversation with one of those two sons and their current television shows. I call him to check in and, unfailingly, we talk of Tink’s work which often leads to Mark’s, as well. He is the recipient of the Emmy and Peabody awards for Lifetime Achievement though he shrugs those off, too, saying, “All I did was hire good people who did the work.” Awards aside, what makes me the proudest are all the people — some are stars but most aren’t, most are just hard-working common people — who credit him for their first chance in a business that is so difficult to crack. Admittedly, that makes me realize he isn’t “my” Grant Tinker. He belongs to many. Ronda Rich is the bestselling author of several books. Sign up for her newsletter at www.ronda rich.com. Her column appears weekly.
No text is worth risking our lives It is a potential killer whose numbers rival the deadly Ebola virus and it doesn’t get near the attention it should. Unlike the dreaded illness currently ravaging West Africa, this is one with a quick cure. This killer? Texting while driving. The cure? Don’t do it. There is no text so urgent as to distract you in a machine weighing 2 tons that takes half a football field to stop if you are driving only 55 mph. And who drives 55 mph anymore? Studies from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, the Centers for Disease Control and the Information Institute for Highway Safety put the number of annual deaths from texting while driving at somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000. Do the math. That’s roughly 10 or more deaths per day in the United States. Georgia has had a law
Dick Yarbrough on the books since 2010 that prohibits texting while driving. It is known as Caleb’s Law, named for Caleb Sorohan of Rutledge, a young man who lost his life a few days before Christmas in 2009. It was determined that texting while driving was the cause. Caleb’s family was a prime force in the passage of the law. But sadly, it is a tough law to enforce. Law enforcement officers pretty much have to catch someone in the act. The result is that too many times they are dealing with the tragic aftermath of someone’s poor decision to text and drive.
Your government officials Hall County Board of Commissioners: 2875 Browns Bridge Road, Gainesville, P.O. Drawer 1435, Gainesville 30503, 770-535-8288, www.hallcounty. org.
Jackson County Board of Commissioners: County Administrative Building, 67 Athens St., Jefferson, 706-367-6312, www. jacksoncountygov.com. Jefferson: City Hall, 147 Athens St.,
Merritt Levitan of Boston was a vivacious 18-year-old scholarathlete soon to enter Colgate University. Her life ended July 3 last year while on a cross-country cycling trip from Charleston, S.C., to California with a group of friends. In Arkansas, they were struck from behind by a 21-year-old man in a pickup truck who was — you guessed it — texting. Six of the young riders were seriously injured. Merritt died from brain injuries. Merritt’s parents Anna and Richard Levitan have recently moved to St. Simons Island from the Boston area, and like the Sorohans are doing their part to turn their personal tragedy into an opportunity to save other young lives — and ours — from similar tragedies. Following her death, a group of Merritt Levitan’s classmates at Milton
Jefferson, 30549, 706-367-5121, www.cityofjeffersonga.com Braselton: Town Hall, 4982 Ga. 53, P.O. Box 306, Braselton, 706-6543915, www.braselton.net. Hoschton: City Hall, 79 City Square, Hoschton, 706-654-3034, www. cityofhoschton.com
U.S. government President Barack Obama, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20500, 202-456-1111, 202-4561414; www.whitehouse.gov Sen. Saxby Chambliss, 416 Russell Senate Office Building,
Academy in Massachusetts founded the “TextLess Live More” campaign in her honor. Their mission is to decrease excessive phone use and organize “text-free” phone days. One of the young organizers said, “We want to change behavior. We want people to start texting less in their daily lives.” On the first TextLess day in October 2013, 500 individuals signed up. We may never find a cure for Ebola, but surely we can cure this idiotic obsession with texting while behind the wheel of a car. The world is dangerous enough as it is. It is time we text less and live more. Dick Yarbrough is a North Georgia resident whose columns appear regularly in The Times, sister publication of The Paper. Contact him at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139.
Washington, DC 20510, 202-2243521, 770-763-9090; chambliss. senate.gov Sen. Johnny Isakson, 131 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510, 202-2243643, 770-661-0999; isakson. senate.gov U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, 513 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-225-9893, 770-2973388; dougcollins.house.gov U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, 2437 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-225-4101, 706-5499588; broun.house.gov