Saturday, April 05, 2008

These are some pictures I wanted to use to illustrate my post but they wouldn't go through so I'm trying
ONE MO' TIME AGIN!

Jim Lancaster at the controls of Playground Recording Studio




Old Rhett from Pensacola a Couple of Days after his boat was demasted out in the Gulf.


Rhett's Boat With Both Sails Blown Out Along With The Loss of the Rear Mast


Rhett Celebrating That I Made Him The Recipient of My Christian Mission Work


Rhett's Rear Mast After It Crashed Into His Dingy


LITTLE DOTHAN ON ST. ANDREWS BAY


A Northern Loon in the Foreground & A Helicopter Towing A Coast Guard Boat & High Speed!


A Typical Pioneer Cabin From ZERO, NORTHWEST FLORIDA





Hey y'all~

I am madder than a wet hen!

google & this crappy ass blogger f*cked up my post & I worked my ass off on it!

I actually tore up the paper the post came from because
I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA BE ABLE TO POST IT!

DUHHHHHHHHHHH?!!!!


Anywayzzzzzzzzzzz...

The air was thick with heavy rumors of my demise before my trip to the beach...

"Robert's not supposed to take off this weekend!"

"M. wants him fired & Lee's ready to hire G. at twice the salary!"

Heh! Hey, hey!

ESCAPE!

I escaped! I escaped! I escaped!

Me & THE EXPLODER...

Oh so kewl- just like Daddy on THE REBEL in Corsica!

Small flocks of at least 5 mockingbirds fighting over a mate!

Signs of spring everywhere...
Domestic yellow jessamine on the mailboxes and the wild variety in the trees!

Saw a wild turkey near Swift Creek above Prattville.

Saw so many deer on this trip up close it was ridiculous.

Now I try to upload photos of my trip & everything goes to hell!

So forget the images!

What a wonderful quest!

Always love the churches & dis time saw church signs that ranged from GLORY CHASERS to SEX PIT! (ed. note. just don't mention the R-word around Wild Man!)

I'm always on the lookout for flags.

The sorriest Confederate Flag I saw was above Prattville flying from a pole beside a camper located beside a dumpster used to empty the burned out trailer.

Saw numerous American flags flown above Confederate and/or Alabama or Florida flags.

I saw a Confederate Flag in PCB on the back of a pickup with Wisconsin plates.
DAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' 'BOUT!
Get them Yankee's mindzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz rite!

But the best one was a Confederate Flag on the entire rear window of this truck on Thomas Drive & then suddenly this gorgeous blonde with no helmet on a motorsickle starts checking me out & follows me all the way down to Ms. Newbys.
I KNEW THERE WAS A REASON I CHECKED OUT CONFEDERATE FLAGZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!

OVER $15 for a beer & a fish sammich on PCB.
Hmmm,hmm, hm...
WHEW!
A little steep PEOPLESIZZZZZZZZZ!
Us Po' Folks Got Po' Folks Wayzzzzzzzzzz!!!!

Florida is the pits~

Stupid Yankees cussing everywhere...

It's been about four years & the OLD PASS ain't been opened up yet!

Illegal to feed the dolphins!

Ready to wring my neck just 'cause I pick up pottery on the seashore!

Jesus gives me strength so I can put up with you bunch of left wing kooks!

EVERY TIME I TALK TO THESE BASTARDS THEY TELL ME THEY WANT ME ARRESTED!

I WANT THEY MO' FO' ARROGANT SH-THEAD ASSES ARRESTED or
SHIPPED NORTH!

THE SOLUTION TO POLLUTION IS DILUTION!
MAKE MASSACHUSETTS THE NATIVE HOMELAND FOR ALL OF THE DEEP SOUTH'S LEFT WING KOOKS!!!

best,
rr

bb:

Went to Jr.'s Confederate Day deal at the Museum today.

He sponsored breakfast, coffee break, three lectures & lunch for well over 300 people.

During coffee break I walked up to him and asked him if he had a new office.
He said he'd moved into his new bank building.
So I asked, "Do you still have all that nice stuff up on the wall?"

"Yes," he replied.

I was fishing for an invitation for a tour so his silence pissed me off.
I turned away from him while looking over my shoulder and said,"Anyway, good seeing ya."

During lunch, I walked over to him and we talked about Lee.

After lunch the couple sitting next to me had left so Jr. sat down next to me.

During the applause after the last lecture, I told Jr.that the song you wrote about his Daddy was the theme music on the CD that comes with the reissue of his Daddy's autobiography.
He nodded.
Then I said, "Next Sunday, Wilbur Walton Jr. IS RETURNING TO THE STAGE
& Buddy Buie's gonna be one of his backup singers!!!!"

Jr.'s eyes bugged out, he turned red in the face & his jaw dropped.

The last lecturer responded to questions and after the last applause died down,
I asked Jr. if he'd listened to the CD that came with the latest reissue of his Daddy's autobiography.

He said,"No."

"Well, if you ever want to listen to your Daddy talk, you oughtta play it some time."

Jr. said,
"I offered Wilbur jobs two or three times and every time he'd always say,
'Oh, I'm in the music business & the music business has it's ups and downs.'
He wouldn't ever take a job from me!"

"Yeah, that's Wilbur but he's back now!"

We both laughed and then said goodbye.

I thought you'd like that story.

best,
rr

Friday, April 04, 2008

THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2008
COMING UP THIS SATURDAY IN PORTLAND OREGON





Robert

Glad to have talked with you. I am Basil Manly's great great grandson and over a period of some time have researched Basil. A couple of years ago, I found the plantation on which he was born in Pittsboro, North Carolina and have been on an "on again and off again" quest to find his plantation Walnut Bluff which I now know was in Tuscaloosa County. I ran across your series of emails with Brophy in 2004 and found you with your having identified in the emails that you are associated with Pake Realty. They gave me your cell phone.

Last summer I read parts of the Manly diaries that the University holds and then this week checked the probate court to find the legal descriptions of the plantation. For some reason I had first thought the plantation was in Wilcox County and then in Greene County but those probate courts did not prove that to be true. The records in Tuscaloosa are hand written of course and I am having them typed so I can read the descriptions. Then I will get back with the probate court and see where they are. He purchased 587 acres in 1852, 427 acres in 1859 and some more land in 1860. The land purchases were contiguous on the River it looks like near something called Fosters Loop Road around sections 22 and 26. My poor eyes can't read the descriptions but I will have it "translated" for me next week.

When I learn where things are, I will contact you again. It was good to talk with you.

Richard Manly Adams

Thursday, April 03, 2008

El Roberto----You ought to plan on being at Cowboys in Dothan, April 13, starting at 4 PM, for the benefit for Norman Andrews, who passed away some weeks ago and had a lot of medical bills left for Pam, his wife, to pay. All the old-time Dothan musicians will be there on stage performing.

Wilbur Walton will be performing, doing his songs The Right String Baby But the Wrong Yo Yo, Georgia Pines, and two songs he wrote for his new CD, recorded in January and to be released in May.

I'll be picking bass (the first time I've been on stage with Wilbur Jr. since 1970), with David Adkins on keyboard, Frank Tanton, Richard Burke and Larry Coe on guitar, and Sidney White on drums.

Buddy Buie, who wrote Georgia Pines, will be onstage with us to sing his original harmony part with Wilbur on Georgia Pines, just like the record. That has never happened before. Jim Lancaster and his folks from Playground Recording Studio in Florida will be on stage to sing their backup parts for Wilbur's new tunes.

There'll be a host of folks onstage to make some great old time music. We rehearsed tonight, and everything is coming together and sounding great. Mitch Goodson, Jimmy Watford, and all the other Dothan musicians
will be there to perform.

This won't happen again, so anybody who lived through those old times around here and liked them might want to plan to attend. Heck, I may look for work picking bass again. This is more fun than I can stand-----

Jimmy Dean

DUDESDAY, APRIL FIRST, 2008

Our good friend, her prankster name is Mountain Girl, was a speaker at the World Psychedelic Forum in Switzerland, hosted by Albert Hoffman, age 102. In an unprecedented psychedelic breakthrough, it was announced at the Forum that LSD could be transmitted via the internet and for a few weeks, in order to make the breakthrough accessible to as many people as possible, they issued instructions for acquiring the LSD, a pure form produced in the Sandoz laboratories.

CLICK:

BREAKTHROUGH

On the left of the screen there is the word, speakers. Click on that and Look, there is Albert Hoffman, himself. Lick his picture. Not a printed copy of the picture. LICK THE SCREEN, dumbkof. Not anywhere on the screen. Lick Hoffman's face. Be sure you took the time and effort to make yourself comfortable in a peaceful surrounding for the next twelve hours.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Hey y'all~
I'm back & I'm a learning!

Had a glorious, supreme & wonderful APRIL'S FOOL DAY VACATION!


D. & K. got a new motorcycle!

Make sure this cat gets the sign....
















Jimmy Dean to Jim Lancaster:

Y'all really have to come up here to sing your backup parts. This is going to be special. Buddy Buie called me tonight and said he was going to show up to sing his harmony part on Georgia Pines. Wilbur and I both had thought about calling him to do it but didn't think he would, so hadn't called him. It was a real surprise that he wants to do it, but he does. He said if we don't watch out we'll all croak without having the fun we ought to have remembering the past times. Georgia Pines wouldn't sound right without his harmony part, so this is gonna be great. There'll be a good crowd on stage for Wilbur, but we'll need it for the hand-clapping on the YoYo song.

From Jim Lancaster To Jimmy Dean:
It's fantastic that Buddy is going to appear. We are definitely planning on being there. One thing you have to consider is that over the past few years.. all of this material and much more has become a part of our lives... not just mine and Jill's but all my boys and my close friends like Warren as well. You can imagine my surprise when we finally got BMI to recognize us as the administrators of Finley's publishing companies, that many of these songs, including Georgia Pines and Everybody Knows are part of the catalogs. I guess we owe all of this to John Rainey. Robert Register stopped by the other to day to listen to the Wilbur material.. and I believe he was truly moved and amazed.



RR....
Andy Anderson,lead singer for ARS,has suffered a heart attack and is having bypass surgery in Nashville.
The band was in Las Vegas awaiting his arrival when he was stricken. Andy took Ronnie Hammonds place about
ten years ago and was doing a great job.

Rodney Justo has graciously answered the call for help and will join the
band on the road doing vocals until Andy gets well. I think Rodney is a real gentleman for dropping everything
and coming to the rescue. He was in rehearsals with the Mystics, the band he was playing with when I first heard him,
getting ready to re-introduce them to his fans. Please keep Andy and Rodney in your thoughts and prayers.
Keep Rockin'........BB

Buddy Buie





Russian Soldiers singing Sweet Home Alabama


You gotta see this one to believe it...



New Music! BRIGHT STAR by John Hamilton and Doris Allen a MINARET Classic.. it's almost a theme song around here!

This week's new additions include a couple of demos.. one cut in 1980 and one cut in 2007. We aren't saying who the artists are because we want you to guess. For all you Soul folks... HONEY'S LOVE should be easy.. although the band is not all that great there's no doubt who the singer is...I'm just curious to see how fast someone is able to identify the vocal.. Garry Cape... you can play to!

FLY OFF TO THE MOON will be a bit more difficult.. but you'll be mad at yourself for not knowing who this artist is...Just a demo remember.. I am curious to see the wrong choices

FEEL LIKE A STEEL is a mystery artist also but mainly for the Playground Country fans.. however.. you soul folks should like the fiddles after all it is Johnny Gimble

IF I HAD A LOVE is THE TRUTHS from 1973 for our northern British folks

RIGHT STRING BUT THE WRONG YO YO

by Wilbur Walton and the James gang is an alternative cut for our Dothan and Wilbur folks.. Robert Register calls it the "Swingin Medaliion" version.. You can tell that this cut is different from the 45 because rather than harmonica playing those crazy intro notes... there's a Farfisa playing them.

Enjoy!

We'll have a new 4 song CD by Wilbur Walton on Playground Records available towards the 3rd week of April.. limited edition

Best

Yo Friends at Playground

this advertisement is approved by Chief BigWater and the Janitor




Ansley,

I appreciate your suggestion & I hope something comes out of our work.

The Land Marks Park could have a zenith sector astronomical observatory reconstructed INSIDE THE PLANETARIUM
just as it was constructed on top of a tree stump at the eastern end of the St. Stephens Base Line near the river on the Fitch Place in August of 1799;
( where you & I have been to together a couple uv times before )
BUT THESE JOKERS' SKULLS ARE SO THICK THE PENTAGON OUGHTA TEST 'EM
AS A MODEL FOR THE NEW HELMETS IN IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN!!!!

Best,
rr

P.S.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Mr. ELLICOTT'S WASHERWOMAN
by Robert Register

Le Bouf
August 1st, 1794
"My Dear Sally,
...We live here like a parcel of Monks, or Hermits, and have not a woman of any complexion among us-our linnen is dirty, our faces, and hands brown, and to complete the picture, our beards are generally long-
O sweet Woman!
without thee man is a Brute,
& society a blank:
thou shapest man into a valuable being, and directeth his ambition to useful pursuits.
Can that man be possessed of rational sensibility who adoreth not a woman?
no...
I am Dear Sally your
Affectionate Husband."
[Andrew Ellicott]


In our present age in which political expediency and twisted syntax replace legal proof and Biblical morality, it's almost refreshing to hear the old axiom, "There's nothin' new under the sun."

As one contemplates the following story, the self-evident truth of this old maxim applies once more to the unwavering foibles of the condition that goes by the title, "Human Nature."

As we contemplate more than 200 years of American dominion over this land we call "home",
we can find comfort in knowing that our ancestors had ample opportunity to witness the shortcomings of their leaders. So it was with the 1811 court martial of General James Wilkinson, Commanding General of the U.S. Army and, arguably, the most greedy, deceitful and devious rascal to ever walk across the stage of West Alabama history.

General Wilkinson's career in West Alabama was brief, but consequential. Under orders of President Thomas Jefferson, Wilkinson traveled during the summer of 1802 to the ruins of the old Spanish Fort Confederation near present-day Epes in Sumter County. By October he had produced a treaty that proved that in the future his powers of salesmanship would never be equalled by any slick selling cars or trailers on Skyland Blvd.

The ink on the yellowed paper of the treaty sez it all:

"...the said Choctaw Nation, for, and in consideration of one dollar, to them in hand paid, by the said United States, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, do hereby release to the said United States, and quit claim forever, to all that tract of land..."

In other words, with language lifted from an Alabama used car sale before the title law, Wilkinson picked up one-and-a-half-million acres in present-day Southwest Alabama, "in consideration of one dollar."

Almost nine years later, on April 10th, 1811, General Wilkinson took the offensive in one of the greatest feuds between men who shaped Alabama history. His legal arguments bore strange fruit in a federal courtroom in Frederick, Maryland. General Wilkinson, commander of the U.S. Army for seventeen years (1796-1813) was on trial for being the notorious secret agent "Number 13" for the King of Spain. Wilkinson, who would later claim Mobile for the U.S. from Spain in 1813, had spent more than two decades taking Spanish money in exchange for privileged information and now he was about to be convicted of treason. Options were of the essence so Wilkinson played "his ace in the hole."

Wilkinson's hidden ace was Thomas Freeman, Surveyor General of Mississippi Territory and the namesake of the Freeman Line passing east to west through Montevallo which separates North & South Alabama to this day.

The entire case for the government hinged on the testimony of Major Andrew Ellicott, the former commissioner for the United States during the first American survey of Alabama soil in 1799. During the survey of this first Southern Boundary of the U.S., Ellicott had intercepted a letter which proved Wilkinson was on the take.

Freeman, the man who established the Huntsville Meridian upon which every North Alabama property line is now based (including the lines which keep my neighbors off uv me here in Tuscaloosa as I type),
had a grudge to pick with Ellicott. Ellicott had fired Freeman during the U.S. Southern Boundary survey so the court martial was an opportunity for Freeman to get some payback.

Freeman testified that during the entire 1796-1800 survey of the first southern boundary of the United States, Andrew Ellicott and his son, Andrew Jr., employed
"a prostitute of the lowest grade" to share their camp cot during their trip through the wilderness. This testimony produced "the utter demolition of the character of the eminent astronomer."

It didn't matter that Ellicott could prove that Wilkinson was on the take. All the jury heard were salacious tales of the government's chief prosecution witness having "a beastly, criminal and disgraceful intercourse with a harlot."

What follows are excerpts from Thomas Freeman's sworn deposition:

Question: Did you know a woman called Betsy who sat at Mr. Ellicott's table?
What station did she appear to occupy in Mr. Ellicott's family, and what was her known character?

Answer: I did know the woman called Betsy who sat at Mr. Ellicott's table. She appeared to occupy the position of washerwoman to the party. Her known character was that of a prostitute,
and of the lowest grade.

Question: Did you observe and particular familiarity and attentions, in the intercourses of the said prostitute, with Ellicott and his son, and what was the age of the boy? Be particular in time, place and circumstances.

Answer: I did observe frequent, particular familiarities and attentions in the intercourse of Ellicott and his son and said prostitute. I cannot now, from recollection, be very particular in
time, place and circumstance. The boy appeared to be nearly full grown, of about nineteen years of age. I recollect that Ellicott introduced the woman, Betsy, to Governor Gayoso, on his first visit to the barge after we landed at Natchez [February 24, 1797: ed.];
and, as far as their conduct (Ellicott & son) came within my observation afterward, they continued to pay mutual friendly and familiar attentions to her.
It was said and generally believed that extraordinary trio:
father, son and washerwoman,
slept in the same bed at the same time-
I did not see,
but I believed it.
I was even pressed by the old sinner, Ellicott, to take part of his bed with himself and the washerwoman, for the night.

Question: Was it not your opinion and that of all the other gentlemen of the party, that Ellicott, the father, and son held criminal intercourse with the said harlot, Betsy.

Answer: It was my opinion, and I understand it to be the opinion of every gentleman of both parties, American and Spanish, that the Ellicott's, both father and son,held, and continued a beastly, criminal and disgraceful intercourse, with the said harlot Betsy.

J.F.H. Claiborne in his 1880 history of Mississippi makes this statement about Thomas Freeman's testimony:

"As Mr. Ellicott, in his journal and official correspondence traduced many worthy persons living and dead, and did not hesitate to break open private letters, surreptitiously obtained, and represents himself as pure and immaculate, it is but justice to show what manner of man he was. This can be seen by reference to the deposition of Major Thomas Freeman before the court-martial at Frederick, convened September 1, 1811, for the trial of Major-General James Wilkinson. The witness was a man of the highest character, then and until his death holding a responsible position under government, and he charges Ellicott, under oath, with untruthfulness and official corruption, and with conduct personally and most degrading, indecent and beastly."

So the next time you look at an Alabama property deed or drive down by the Florida line, the demarcation between the Anglo-Saxon civilization of the U.S. and the Latin civilization of Florida in 1799, think about Betsy- Mr. Ellicott's washerwoman. She was probably the first woman from the United States to see the 381 miles of impenetrable wilderness between the Mississippi and the Chattahoochee Rivers. By cleaning Ellicott's linen, Betsy added a civilizing touch to the survey party, but her place in history is assured because Betsy was the first of a legion of American "ladies of the evening" who followed the almighty dollar down the Mississippi River to the rowdier sections of Natchez, New Orleans, Mobile and Pensacola.

She survived the Ellicotts, Indian attacks, a voyage around the peninsula of Florida, a trip up the St. Mary's River to Okefenokee Swamp
& when her story was used in court,
she allowed Major General James Wilkinson, a clever scoundrel whose reputation is rivaled only by Benedict Arnold,
to get away with 23 years of espionage.