HEY YA'LL:
Kelly Ferguson grew up in Tuscaloosa has a DELUXE blog entitled Charm School Reject. I like it and I think ya'll will too.

http://www.charmschoolreject.com/bio.html

http://aquat1.ifas.ufl.edu/gallery3.html

Hey Ya'll:
Toadman [a.k.a. Toadacious Man Fellow, Mayor of Fat City] wuz so wired and inspired by my last post on Spanish dictionaries he sent this in:


Subject:
RE: MY LATEST SCAM PLUS DEE DEE'S SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSOUPUH!!!!! story!
Date:
Fri, 22 Apr 2005 00:33:15 -0500

never had a cross-ref...dicitionary, but when i worked in texas...
mexicans
and english speaking employees, learned a few key words, and then used
in-house hand signals to communicate the food orders......it was the
americans, the mexicans, and the vietnamese... we made it work. .
.big
kitchen.....several radio stations playing all the time, but when radar
love
came on... every radio went to that station. ... . THEN THE KITCHEN
ROCKED..... thanks for letting me have flash back from 22 or years
ago.....
tode

Well, it got me going too. If I live until next Friday, I will be the first man in the Register family to have celebrated his 55th birthday since my Granddaddy Will Young did so on January 11, 1949!

In anticipation of this unusual event, I have begun to dredge up some of the better episodes in my life of crime.

In the spring of 1968, I did not go to Panama City Beach. I went to The Backwater. That's what we called Lake Seminole. I didn't even know it was named Lake Seminole until I was a grown boy. It was a library page at Houston Memorial Library and on one or two mornings a week I unloaded trucks at Long Mile Rubber Company. Long Mile's warehouse was right across from the high school so I could shower, change clothes and make it to class before the tardy bell.

As soon as I got the the lake I met this cute little 15 year old girl who was staying at a cottage next door. Not only did I have the money from my jobs, I also was receiving my graduation presents, many of which came in the form of cold hard KA$H! I had more money than I'd ever had in my life so I made damn sure Miss Doll Baby of AEA '68 had everything she wanted when she went riding each morning in my '58 Chevy to shop for snacks at the bait shop in Reynoldsville.

One of my graduation presents was a blue heavy terrycloth bathrobe and I took to wearing it all the time. I guess it gave me kinduv an exotic look so Miss Doll Baby of AEA '68 started calling me "The Sheik". Boy, I took to that role right off the bat!

We had a little 16 foot john boat powered by an old purple 3 horse Johnson. I went into all the neighboring boat houses and plundered every life jacket, life vest and seat cushion I could find. I filled the entire boat with 'em and , not only that, lined the rails with cushions, covered the seats with cushions and put blankets and sleeping bags over everything but making sure there was room for my ice chest full of Coors and the transistor radio. THE TRANSISTOR RADIO WAS SACRED! [especially when Bama's own Wilson Pickett came on the air singing "Midnight Hour"]

The john boat became "The Skeik's Lair" and I got Little J, a 15 year old kid who's parents owned the cottage where I was staying to be my pilot. Little J was an excellent pilot. He kept his mouth shut and tooled us all over Fish Pond Drain and Ray's Lake. {Ironically, years later, Little J married my Miss Doll Baby of AEA '68 and another one of my childhood friends married the little girl I'm about the write about}

Well there was another little 14 year old girl staying in her parents cottage by us that week. Her Daddy was a very successful country music DJ and she already had a taste for the fast lane and knew more about the facts of life than me, Little J and Miss Doll Baby put together!Talking about being ON TOP OF THE WORLD! Cruising around paradise day and night with each arm around a cute little teenie bopper, I was in Hog Heaven!

Many important experiments were performed that week and as I look forward to my 55th birthday next week, I celebrate the fact that I remember and cherish my memories of AEA holidays in 1968 more than most of the crap that happened last week!
best,
ka$h http://snakedoctor.blogspot.com/

HEY YA'LL:
I gotta new scam & I need all of your help.


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0194343553/qid=/sr=/ref=cm_lm_asin/104-2829443-9347916?v=glance&s=books


I want to put together a power point sales show/seminar on how employers can learn to use the Spanish language in their business.

I am interested in purchasing used [and I mean really used] The New Oxford Picture Dictionary: English/Spanish books and CD-ROMs.

I am also interested in purchasing used and reconditioned blackberries and blackberry programs that translate Spanish.

I am also interested in putting together a 15 minute power point show that supports the delivery of the books, CD ROM & blackberry.
best,
ka$h http://snakedoctor.blogspot.com

P.S. Ya'll were so sweet to send the stuff on PC. Here's the best from DEE DEE:

(P.S. You are right about the GTO that Mrs. Jackson bought. I think that she actually bought it for herself originally and she wanted a "cooler" car than a Ford Fairlane from Malone Motor Co. that they had ALWAYS owned, so at Edward's urging, she bought the GTO which Edward charmed away from her ultimately. It was so hilarious watching her TRY to drive the 5 in-the-floor or whatever it was. I'll never forget it. Thanks again for the memory.)

HEY YA'LL:
Nobody's gonna beat Johnny Townsend's Clapton/Miles/Beck/Hendrix story, however, I thought of one this morning that might jog a few memories.

Remember back when the only thing on the eastern Bay County side of Phillips Inlet was an old house on top of the dune with a radio antennae next to it and one sandy road went there off 98 & at the most, you might see either one or two other cars parked down by the dunes?

Brothah, if any place was paradise for me between '66 and '72, it was Phillips Inlet. It was so perfect you knew the condo towers were going up even though noone had ever built a tower on Panama City Beach. It was so perfect you knew it was gonna be lost and lost soon so you held on to every memory like it was pure gold!
What a cool place to hang out! HOW LUCKY WE WERE TO BE YOUNG IN THOSE DAYS!
While growing up in Dothan in the late sixties and going to Bama in the early seventies, I didn't know any rock stars although I did get to spend one afternoon riding around Northport drinking beer in my '62 Chevy Impala with Joe Cocker & the late Felix "Flaco" Falcon.
The stars in my world were those cute little teenage girls from Dothan, Enterprise and New Brockton who I dearly worshipped. In the words of my Daddy Earl, "Son, there's a little girl at the front door who wants to talk to you and she is about as cute as a little speckledy pup under a collard leaf!"

I'm not gonna get into any more details about Phillips Inlet adventures right now but if my old J.C. Higgins sleeping bag could talk, MAN!, it would bring back some pleasant memories!!!!

Hey pahdnuh, do old REG a favor and write something for me to post. Remember back when you first realized you had sand in your shoes, and no matter what, you were gonna return to Panama City Beach, Florida every chance you got for the rest of your life!

Oh yeah, and when I think about those Saturdays and Sundays at Phillips Inlet, I also remember the music: "Sunshine of Your Love" by Cream; "Baby Love" by The Supremes and "Solitary Man" by Neil Diamond.
Think about it and if ya get wired & inspired, turn up the juice & let the damn thang loose. Let me hear your beach stories.
best,
ka$h http://snakedoctor.blogspot.com




INLET BEACH- BAY COUNTY/WALTON COUNTY LINE, FLORIDA

http://www.cleanbeaches.com/bluewave/fl-inlet.cfm



http://www.connollyco.com/discography/cream/best.html


http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gary.hart/lyricss/supremes.html
'Cause baby love, my baby love
Been missing ya, miss kissing ya
Instead of breaking up
Let's do some kissing and making up
Don't throw our love away
In my arms why don't you stay
Need ya, need ya
Baby love, ooh, baby love

Subject :
Please Choose The Forbes Purchase Articles You Want Me to Copy and Mail

Jim:
Here's what I can copy and send:

1) excerpts from History of Decatur County Georgia which was indexed by Anne Gometz

2)excerpts from Guide To The Materials for American History In Cuban Archives by Luis Marino Perez, July 1907

3) Copies from the microfilm of Papers of Panton Leslie & Co. This includes the original English and Spanish manuscripts of The Forbes Purchase with the marks of the 22 chiefs.

4) Excerpts from Outposts on the Gulf by William Warren Rogers including details about Popham's 1923 case against the State of Florida arguing that the Forbes Purchase allowed him to sell the bottom of Apalachicola Bay. This includes a map of Pophams oyster farms.

5)May, 1944 The Journal of Southern History article," The Public Domain in Territorial Florida" by Sidney Walter Martin

6) The FHQ transcription of the Forbes Purchase letter from James Innerarity to William Simpson, September 24, 1804

7)From Hispanic American Essays: "Diplomatic Missions of the United States to Cuba to Secure the Spanish Archives of Florida" by A.J. Hanna;" Florida- Frontier Outpost of New Spain" by Isaac Joslin Cox; "The Odyssey of the Spanish Archives of Florida" by Irene A. Wright

8) The August, 1944 The Journal of Southern History article "A Chapter of Panton, Leslie and Company" by R.S. Cotterill which covers the entire debt collection campaign including the Forbes Purchase

9) Excellent maps for the layout of the town of Colinton at the site of Fort Gadsden along with a map of Apalachicola Bay.

10) FHQ October '69 article by John C. Upchurch, "Aspects of the Development and Exploration of the Forbes Purchase" This article describes the 1808 Hartfield Survey on the Wakulla, the 1811 Daniel Blue Survey, the 1821 Sweet Water Creek Survey, the 1822 Little River Survey, the 1831 Survey for Live Oak[protecting ship building material from British and other plundering] , the 1836 United States Survey, Baltzell's Report of 1838, the 1837 Shell Point Survey, the 1838 Hopkins' Survey, the 1838 Wiltse's Survey and the 1855 McIver and Williams' Survey.

Please let me know which ones you want me to copy and mail.
best,
Robert http://robertoreg.blogspot.com

HEY YA'LL:
I found a lot of stuff today on those" famous freedom fighters", "THE SECRET SIX": Samuel Girdley Howe[Brown, 1821. Harvard Med,1824], Franklin B. Sanborn[Harvard, 1855], Theodore Parker[Harvard Divinity,1836], Thomas Wentworth Higginson[Harvard, 1841],Gerrit Smith[Hamilton College, 1838- gave John Brown land in upstate NY in 1848] and George Luther Stearns.
I enjoyed this link provided by the Georgia Sons of Confederate Veterans
http://www.scv674.org/SH-3.htm
best,
roberto http://cottonkingdom.blogspot.com

Abolitionists' museum proposed for CNY
http://www.syracuse.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-18/1109497146113260.xml?syrnemad
Hall of Fame would be built in Peterboro, home of abolitionist Gerrit Smith.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
By Alaina Potrikus Staff writer
A tiny Madison County hamlet will open its doors to the world this week as planners launch an initiative they hope will make Peterboro a living history destination and boost the region's lagging economy.
This Saturday, organizers will announce the first class of inductees to the Abolition Hall of Fame, an attraction they hope will draw tourists from hundreds of miles to the hometown of famed abolitionist Gerrit Smith.
Great names in history, such as Harriet Tubman, John Brown and Frederick Douglass, stopped in Peterboro on their reform tours in the mid-19th century.
"We have to take advantage of the opportunities we do have," said Jill Tiefenthaler,
who heads the Upstate Institute, an economic development think tank at Colgate University, and sits on the hall of fame's board.
"We are the right place for things like this," she said. "There is important history here; we can build on that strength."
Taking a page from the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, which now draws 15,000 tourists a year, Abolition Hall of Fame organizers envision creating a place where the history can come to life. Interactive exhibits on the anti-slavery movement and re-enactments are in the plans, along with an annual symposium on the life and times of Smith.
Peterboro, a quietcommunity of 200 residents in central Madison County, once was the hotbed of political abolitionism in the Northeast. An honor roll of reformers converged on Smith's mansion to plan activities, making the spot an important station in the Underground Railroad connections.
"Peterboro was a model integrated community," said John Stauffer, a professor at Harvard University who wrote "The Black Hearts of Men," a collective biography of abolitionists that centers around Smith. Stauffer also is on the Abolition Hall of Fame board.
"The landscape is comparatively unchanged," he said. "It almost recalls 19th century life when you go there. The memory of abolitionism is stronger in Upstate New York."
Indeed, the Central New York region is rich with sites along the Underground Railroad, where local abolitionists hid slaves attempting the perilous escape to freedom. But the region - and the country - lacks a site to tell the entire story of the movement, organizers say.
"It's a drive-by situation," said Jim Walter, executive director of Madison County Tourism. "Plaques say, 'This happened here.' "
Before the tourists can come, there's much work to be done. Home base will be the second-floor assembly hall of the Smithfield Community Center - the site of the inaugural meeting of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society - until a permanent home can be found for the museum's exhibits.

Even the temporary home needs work. That's the first objective for organizers: finding funds for construction.
Moving at a measured pace isn't something new for historians. The National Women's Hall of Fame was created in 1969 by the people of Seneca Falls who believed that the contributions of American women should be recognized.
It took 10 years before the idea had a permanent home. Organizers raised $166,000 to purchase the historic Seneca Falls Savings Bank in 1979, and renovated it to house the museum's exhibits and offices. To date, the hall has inducted 207 women. It has 3,000 square feet of exhibition space, leases another 1,500 square feet for a gift shop and is busting at the seams.
"We've outgrown our space," said Executive Director Billie Luis-Potts.
They'll fill the space fast in Peterboro as well. Portraits and plaques would highlight the lives of hall of fame inductees, the first round of which will be selected this weekend.
Abolition Hall of Fame organizers envision busloads of tourists converging on the village green and touring a collection of sites: including the Gerrit Smith land office and the Smithfield Community Center, which were named last June as stops along the New York State Underground Railroad Heritage Trail.
Colgate educatorshope to use the museum, about 18 miles away, to help students appreciate their new neighborhood.
"So many kids who come here from cities think this is a boring place," said Jaime Nolan, director of the university's Alana Cultural Center. "But there are amazing stories that come with this territory.
Colgate's Upstate Institute has taken a major role in the hall of fame effort, assigning an intern to create a museum Web site and a presentation for potential donors.
It will cost upward of $200,000 to upgrade the hall's temporary home and outfit the exhibits. The board hopes to cover the costs through grants and donations, a process that will take some time.
"The tourists won't be here next summer," said Dot Willsey, chairwoman of the Abolition Hall of Fame. "We want it to be well thought out and correct."

Historic Home to Anti-Slavery Movement
By WILLIAM KATES Associated Press Writer
http://www.newswatch50.com/news/state/story.aspx?content_id=0B611629-D089-46D4-96F7-CA8D81220559
PETERBORO, N.Y. (AP) - Squeezed between swamp and rolling pastureland, little more than a convergence of roundabout country roads, this tiny upstate New York hamlet seems an unlikely home for a National Abolitionist Hall of Fame and Museum. But Peterboro was a hotbed for the anti-slavery movement in the mid-19th century when famous freedom-fighter Gerrit Smith lived here. "Political abolitionism got its start in upstate New York, and the events there were more significant in ultimately ending slavery, and in establishing the tradition of protest and reform in American history," said John Stauffer, a professor of American Civilization at Harvard University, who wrote, "The Black Hearts of Men," a collective biography on abolitionism. As the National Park Service noted when it designated the Gerrit Smith Estate as a National Historic Landmark, a list of guests to Smith's home in Peterboro reads like a "Who's Who" honor roll of American history: Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (a cousin). "It's thrilling to walk across the village green and think about all the great Americans who have walked the same steps," said Dorothy Willsey, who chairs the local Abolition Hall of Fame Committee. Located 30 miles east of Syracuse, in the rolling hills of Madison County, the hamlet of 200 is clustered around a large community square. Smith's home was destroyed by fire in 1936, but his land office remains. A short distance away is the Smithfield Community Center, where the New York State Anti-slavery Society held its inaugural meeting in October 1835, and where the museum will go. The building, also a national historic landmark, is included on the newly created New York State Underground Railroad Heritage Trail. "This isn't one of those places where somebody was just passing through," said Cordell Reaves, the state coordinator for the Underground Railroad trail, which connects 25 sites. "The anti-slavery movement was really sustained by the people who came there, and the events that took place there," Reaves said. "New York's role in the abolitionist movement is a story that needs to be told. It's a great thing if they can help tell it to a wider audience." For more than three decades, Smith's two-story country mansion was an important station in the network of Underground Railroad connections. Smith dedicated the use of his personal fortune, his home and his work in the political arena to the abolishment of slavery. "He regarded the slaves as free men. They ate at his table. He did not hide his opposition to slavery," said Norman Dann, a retired state college sociology professor who is on the Peterboro committee and has written extensively about Smith. "There was a famous black minister (Henry Highland Garnet, the first black person to deliver a sermon before the U.S. House of Representatives) who said there were two places slaveholders could never come - Heaven and Peterboro," said Dann. Gerrit's father, Peter Smith, made his fortune as a partner with John Jacob Astor in the fur trading business in the late 1700s. The elder Smith took his wealth to amass land holdings across upstate New York and the frontier. Gerrit Smith gave away 120,000 acres to 3,000 former slaves so they could meet property requirements for voting. He did the same for as many as 500 poor, landless whites. It is estimated that Smith gave away more than $8 million over his lifetime. Peterboro became an ethnically diverse crossroads and a model of integration for other American communities, said Stauffer. There are a number of historical sites and museums across the country already dedicated to the anti-slavery movement and the Underground Railroad, including the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, which opened last summer. The Peterboro site will be a living history museum, Willsey said. There will be interactive exhibits on the anti-slavery movement and re-enactments, along with an annual symposium on Smith's life. The museum also will include a historical research center. The Peterboro committee recently received a state grant to begin renovations on the building. The community has been raising money for the project for the past 13 years through its annual Civil War Weekend, a popular summer festival featuring a skirmish re-enactment. A panel of 33 scholars and historians in March selected the museum's inaugural induction class - Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucretia Mott, Tubman and Smith. The Peterboro committee is hoping to mimic the success of the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, a village of 9,300 about 40 miles west of Syracuse. In 1848, more than 300 women gathered there for the first Women's Rights Convention. In 1969, residents there banded together to create the National Women's Hall of Fame, which draws about 15,000 visitors a year. "There's a period of historical recovery under way," said Billie Luisi-Potts, executive director of the women's hall of fame. "There has been so much new scholarship during the past 15 years about the Underground Railroad and the anti-slavery movement. I think their idea is very timely."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/brown/index.html



The Secret Six
One night in May, 1858, Franklin Sanborn called for a meeting at the American House Hotel in Boston. John Brown was in town; it was time to go over the plan. Much had changed in the year since Sanborn first met Brown. At that time the 26-year-old Harvard grad had been acting as secretary for the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. It was in his austere office that Brown arrived one day, searching for money and guns to help continue his free-state battles in Kansas. Brown had regaled Sanborn with stories of his larger-than-life adventures on the frontier. Sanborn was so impressed that, by the end of their meeting, he agreed to get Brown whatever he needed. Through Sanborn, Brown had been introduced to the elite of Boston. He was not unknown; stories of his adventures in Kansas had been widely published in the New England press. Brown’s appearance at a dinner party -- with his disheveled hair and old corduroy suit -- stirred excitement. Fellow abolitionists were able to meet a true freedom fighter, fresh from the front lines. To them, Brown seemed like a fantastic frontier hero, straight out of a romantic novel. One by one, Brown drew a small, select group of radical abolitionists, six men in all, who agreed to fund his ongoing fight against slavery:
Thomas Wentworth Higginson -- a minister and amateur boxer, Higginson was from one of the oldest families in New England. He had little tolerance for hesitation or weakness. Gerrit Smith -- a nervous, eccentric, and very wealthy man, he was already Brown’s benefactor, having given him land on which to live in the Adirondacks. Reverend Theodore Parker -- an eloquent and controversial Unitarian minister. Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe -- a highly respected pioneer of educational reforms for the blind, insane and feeble-minded. George Luther Stearns -- one of the chief financiers of Emigrant Aid Company, which facilitated the settlement of Kansas by anti-slavery homesteaders. Franklin Sanborn -- a young, idealistic Concord schoolmaster, and friend of Thoreau and Emerson. Initially, Brown focused his activities on Kansas, but now he had a more ambitious plan; he wanted to invade Virginia and incite a slave insurrection. Sanborn felt that Brown's plan was doomed to failure. He argued against it, but Brown was determined to see it through. Sanborn would later reflect: "[It was] an amazing proposition, -- desperate in its character, seemingly inadequate in its provision of means, and of very uncertain results.... But no argument could prevail against his settled purpose, with many or with few, -- and he left us only the alternatives of betrayal, desertion, or support. We chose the last." Whether the members of the group were initially against it or not, they soon were excited by the prospect of action. They set about raising money for Brown. Fundraising was the chief function of the "Secret Six." Brown needed money to supply his men, buy guns and "pikes" (spear-like weapons), which were to be given to the newly liberated slaves. They called on friends and family, and dug deep into their own pockets, but an economic downturn had all but dried up donations. Then Sanborn received a letter from a man who had served with Brown in Kansas. He claimed the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee owed him money for his work with Brown, and that if he didn’t get paid, he would expose the plot to attack Harpers Ferry and he knew the men behind it. Gerrit Smith called a meeting. He wanted to cut off all connections with Brown. "I never was convinced of the wisdom of this scheme.… It seems to me it would be madness to attempt to execute it." Others in the group tried to console Smith, suggesting that they only postpone the raid. Higginson was vehemently opposed to a delay. Smith was, in Higginson’s opinion, a coward, and too nervous for the work at hand. "I regard any postponement as simply abandoning the project." But the group voted to delay the raid. They went on to formulate a new "blind" arrangement with Brown, in which he would not provide the members any future information of his plans; if criminal charges were ever filed, they would have the protection of plausible deniability. Another crisis occurred when, five months before the raid, journalist James Redpath published a book calling for free-state allies to instigate a black insurrection. Redpath knew Brown -- had ridden with him in Kansas -- and had been told of the raid. To teh alarm of the group, he dedicated the book to John Brown. "You, Old Hero!" wrote Redpath, "believe that the slave should be aided and urged to insurrection and hence do I lay this tribute at your feet." Month after month, delays pushed the raid back, and pressure within the group continued to build. Then, on October 16, 1859, John Brown made his attack. Brown’s supporters must have been saddened - but not surprised - by Brown’s failure; happy that he was alive, and happier yet that he was refusing to name his backers. But documents were found in Brown’s hideout, letters of correspondence between Brown and the men. Suddenly, the identities of the Secret Six wasn’t so secret. In the following weeks, the group waited for the fallout. At any moment they expected to be hauled off to Virginia to stand trial. They sent high-dollar lawyers to represent Brown in court, hatched plots to break him out of jail, but the real question was whether to stay or run. Gerrit Smith suffered a breakdown. He was led off to an asylum, "waving his arms and calling out that he was going to Virginia to suffer with John Brown." Howe and Sterns took off for Canada and remained there until after the execution. Sanborn twice fled to Canada, fearing his arrest was imminent. On April 3, 1860, federal marshals did attempt to capture Sanborn, but the townspeople of Concord turned out to protect him. Higginson didn’t run. He considered a last minute plan to save Brown by kidnapping Governor Wise of Virginia, but it was never attempted. He would always feel responsible for Brown’s demise. "I...should have realized the need to protect John Brown from himself." Reverend Theodore Parker was in Rome, dying from tuberculosis. He hailed Brown as an American saint and, on news of his death, said; "The road to heaven is as short from the gallows as from the throne."

MUSEUM DEDICATION
APRIL 16-19, 2005
http://www.alplm.org/museum/telegraph.html