Memoirs: Three-Score and 10 Blessed Years

I discovered this viewpoint on my 11th climb on Mount Le Conte, Aug. 10, 2024. Daredevils sometimes pose on the ledge me.

My daring friends,
Dewey and Bernie

 Having completed my 70th year, I'm dwelling on the 90th Psalm, a prayer of Moses, where the 10th verse declares, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their boast is only labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."
 Moses finished strong, and at age 120 he climbed Mount Pisgah, where the Lord showed him the Promised Land and then laid him to rest.
 At 70, I haven't had much toil or trouble—never a headache nor a heartache, even my heart attacks were painless—but the years are rolling up on my odometer. After 25 years in the newspaper business and 26 years at Samaritan's Purse, I'm contemplating retirement at the end of 2025.

 Lest all my tales, adventures, Dad jokes, and lessons pass away with me, I've jotted down these memories, on the chance that someone someday might wish they had asked me.

 Before we get into the chronology, I should deal with eternity and share my Christian testimony. When I was growing up, I wasn't sure where I stood with God. I knew that some of my friends had been baptized as babies, and I didn't know if that applied to me, and I was too terribly shy to ask.
 When I was about 11 years old, my Sunday School class made a field trip to the Anderson County jail. While we were there, in a bleak chapel with wooden benches, a preacher gave a scared-straight sermon, and I remember being terrified by the prospect of hell. I remember that someone led me in the sinner's prayer, then told me to tell my parents when I got home. I assume my Sunday School teacher told them, but shy Tommy never did.
 Our family regularly attended Sunday School, though we didn't often stay for "big church." One night in November 1972, we went to a revival service at Concord Baptist Church, where the evangelist warned us that this might be our last chance. He used the illustration of a mountain climber who had reached an overhanging ledge, only to see his rope swing away from him. As it swung back, he knew he would have to make the leap, because the lifeline would never get any closer. (Of course it took a mountain-climbing example to move my heart.)
 I didn't have a load of sins to confess, but on the last stanza of Just As I Am (No. 240 in the Baptist Hymnal) I walked the aisle to "join the church," as we described it back then. Nov. 15, 1972, was my born-again birthday. My little sister Martha Ann also came forward at that revival, and we were baptized on the same day.

 If you are like I was, and not sure where you stand with God, I want you to know how dearly He loves you (John 3:16), and how you can know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Here is how Billy Graham explained it. 

How about that Olde English typewriter font?

1955: I was expected in 1954 but tarried until Jan. 18—costing my parents a tax deduction. I was 20 inches long, although Grandmama Essie (who worked at the hospital) proudly told everyone I measured 20 feet. We Layton kids were among 10,509 babies delivered by Dr. Anne Young, who was one of the first female doctors in South Carolina. Mama's baby book says I was adventurous: "Walked out the back door at 9½ months, received bad bump, skinned place, and a scare!" At age four, I fell and knocked out my two front teeth. I'm told my first words were "Mama" at 7½ months, followed by "Da-Da," "Bye-bye," and "Patty-cake." 

A book! And a library of friends

 For years, I said I didn't have a book in me, but along came the centennial of LeConte Lodge, which my colleague Mike Hembree recognized as a fine story-in-waiting. We collected the tales and photos, found a publisher (McFarland Books), and jumped through the editorial and licensing hoops. 

My only previous book

 On Jan. 10, just before my 70th birthday, I received my "author copies"—just in time for the Lodge centennial in this summer. (If you bought a 100th season T-shirt last year, then you should read how the 100th birthday comes after the 100th season.) We're planning to put books on the 2025 airlift in March, so that lodge guests will be able to buy a copy. 

 I've been blessed to know dozens of authors in my journalism career. Off the top of Google's head, I came up with close to 200 books written or edited by friends and acquaintances. 

 Following is a catalogue of authors whose paths I have crossed. The bibliography says a lot about me and my circle of friends. My little library has shelves for baseball, biography, the Civil War, Clemson, history, Jesus, mountains, and NASCAR, not necessarily in that order. It includes two books titled Rebel With A Cause, as well as the synonymous Intangiball and The Intangibles.

 If I have overlooked your book, please let me know so I can add it. One good thing about a blog is the ink never dries.
 Here they are, arranged alphabetically by author:

JERRY ALEXANDER (1937-2018): Jerry manned our Oconee-Pickens bureau at the Anderson Independent and knew those storied hills better than anybody else.

• 2004: The Cateechee Story
• 2006: Where Have All Our Moonshiners Gone? 
• 2008: Antebellum: Old Pickens District S.C., 1828-1868
• 2009: Blood Red Runs the Sacred Keowee

DR. FRANK AYCOCK: Frank teaches electronic communications at Appalachian State University. If you wonder why your TV won't function like a wall-sized iPhone, join us on Wednesday morning for bagels, and Doc can explain it to you.

• 2012: 21st Century Television: The Players, the Viewers, the Money 
• 2014: Television in the Cloud 

 
BILLY BAKER: We share a deep appreciation for high school sports in South Carolina. I burned out after a decade of statewide coverage for The Greenville News, but Billy's High School Sports Report is about to turn 30 and still thriving. He wrote the book on the granddaddy of them all:

• 1993: John McKissick: Called to Coach

PETER BARR: I had the honor of welcoming Peter to the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain in Rutherford County, N.C., when he became just the second man to reach the highest point in all 100 counties in North Carolina; and he was on Mount Guyot to welcome me when I became the fourth member of the club:

• 2008: Hiking North Carolina's Lookout Towers
• 2021: Exploring North Carolina's Lookout Towers

Elk Knob in Bloom

Last Gray's lily of the season (6/26/2024)

Same plant (2023)

 Elk Knob is a mile-high mountain in Watauga County, North Carolina, just 15 miles from my doorstep in Boone. It's been a state park since 2003, and for several years in my 50s I volunteered to help build the hiking trail to the summit. I try to hike at least once a month, often after work on summer evenings.

 The masthead of this blog shows the sun rising over Elk Knob, with a photo taken from adjacent Snake Mountain.  

 In 2024, my 70th year, my goal was to "hike my age"—70 trips to the summit. I was on pace to make it until Hurricane Helene struck and closed the state park for six weeks. In December, I hit 65, but the mountain and I were under the weather for the rest of my 70th year.

 This goal put me on the trail several times a week, so to keep the trips from getting tedious, I given them a purpose—this wildflower journal. I'm no authority on wildflowers, just learning on the way.

 The big show on Elk Knob is in June. In 2024, flame azalea bloomed June 6-20 and Gray's lilies June 8-26. These quickly dried up, and by the end of the month, pollinators were grazing on the drooping leftovers.

 Turk's Cap lilies were in bloom through July, along with coneflowers and turtleheads and the relentless purple Angelica. 

 Elk Knob is one of the few places in the world where you can see Gray's lily. They are named for Harvard botanist Asa Gray, who happened to be on Roan Mountain when they bloomed in 1840. 

 My experience is that if you're a day early or a day late, you may miss them. These perennials are also ephemerals. 

 For the past three years, I've taken an informal census of the Gray's lilies on Elk Knob. This year, I found 17 plants and 18 blossoms (plus more than a dozen lilies that never blossomed). Last year, 10 plants and 17 blossoms. In 2022, I did not count plants but found 12 blossoms. These are just plants I find along the trail, plus a couple of off-trail locations that I know. Certainly, there are many more elsewhere on the mountain, but this trailside sample gives me an indication that the population on Elk Knob is stable.

 As perennials, Gray's lilies can be found in the same place year after year. Also, wildlife scatter the seed to new locations. We evidently lost one lily, which had six blossoms last year but did not reappear in 2024. It was in the midst of the blighted beech forest, so it might have been crushed by a falling tree or nibbled by a deer. 

 Almost all these lilies were above 5,000 feet in elevation. There is one outlier at 4,600 feet, but it is too close to the trail and lost its bud to a broken stem for the second year in a row.

June 2024 was unusually cool and dry, though we were in the clouds on 6/17.

Seed capsule from the above flower (7/23/2024, later mowed down by trail workers)

What ESPN missed in Boone

 When ESPN brought their #GameDay show to Boone on September 17, 2022, we were suddenly the center of the college football solar system. 

 Welcome to the Town of Boone, as the signs say. We are incorporated as a town (kinda like Clemson) because we're not comfortable being a city. (Gameday was in Clemson Oct. 1, so ESPN may need an alternate version of their theme song: "We're coming ... to your cit-ay!") We are home to 20,000 students and roughly the same number of townies and snowbirds. We ain't as quaint as we used to be, but we're more than a craft brewery with a vexxing football team.

 Clemson has Howard's Rock. Boone has Howards Knob (which would have amused the not-so-bashful baron of Barlow Bend). Clemson had Chase Brice. Now, we do.

 As ESPN sought flights to Boone (you're not from around here, are you?), GameDay commissioned an introductory video essay by Wright Thompson, a sportswriter who graduated from the Missouri J-school a generation after me. It went like this:

 Welcome to Boone, North Carolina.
 Welcome to a post-card, hippy, outdoorsy, football town.
 Welcome to, "This town is nuts." My kind of place—I don't ever want to leave town, "I need a miracle" ... mountain-bike, parking lot, French-bread pizza town.
 Eric Church Town, Class of 2000.
 Welcome to Giant-Slayer Town. Cold-beer, thin-air, Gameday town. Cameron Peoples' town.
 Ask Michigan about the real victors? [Clip from 2007: "The Mountaineers of Appalachian State have just beaten the Michigan Wolverines!"]
 Ask the Aggies? [Clip from last week: "Appalachian State has done it again!"]
 Have you ever seen the Blue Ridge Mountains, boy? And the Chattahoochee? And the honeysuckle blue?"
 Welcome to Boone, North Carolina. Upset town, USA.

 I don't know Wright Thompson. He was born in 1976, the same year I enrolled at Mizzou. Wikipedia tells me that he grew up in Clarksdale, Mississippi (home of the Delta blues), was a sportswriter for the Kansas City Star and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and is a senior writer for ESPN.com. Folks in Ireland criticized him for stereotyping Dublin in a story on fighter Conner McGregor.
 I enjoyed his book, The Barn, which deals the lynching of Emmett Till and the birth of the Civil Rights movement. Growing up nearby in the Mississippi Delta, Thompson went to a white-flight segregation academy.
 I'll extend him some grace, just as he writes of how Till experienced God's grace. In this case he demonstrates only a superficial acquaintance with the town of Boone (as opposed to Boone County, where we both went to college).
 Fact-check: The Chattahoochee is a river in Atlanta, far-far from Boone. Thompson may have been thinking of the Chattooga, based on the video clip of whitewater rafters, but that's another remote corner of the North Carolina mountains, a long drive from Boone. The next-to-last paragraph is a verse from a Drivin' N' Cryin' song called Honeysuckle Blue. Jason Isbell once performed the song in Boone, but otherwise it doesn't speak for us.
 Here's how this Mizzou writer might have put it:

 Welcome to Boone, NC, 3333.
 Welcome to a town that's been center-stage before. Have you forgotten that we had our own Super Bowl commercial? We're the home of Foggy Pine Books: "Between the Baptist Church and the Boone Saloon." Thanks, Tom Hanks, Stephen Colbert, and Sam Elliott!*
 Did you assume we had an airport? You're not from around here, are you? Looking for a Home Depot, the sponsor of GameDay? Sorry, but you'll have to go off the mountain. Looking for a Pizza Hut, the official pie of GameDay? We lived without a hut for years, but we opened a take-out location just in time for GameDay. Nor do we have a Target, nor a corporate steakhouse.
 We're glad we put in the four-lane highway a few years ago, so the GameDay bus could get here.
 Stop by the Chamber of Commerce. The director is the guy who brought you the call from the Big House. Moonlighting for ESPN3, he was also on the call for the Miracle on the Mountain II.
 You do remember the original Miracle on the Mountain, don't you? It involved a goof-up by the current Florida coach, Billy Napier, the lead singer for Needtobreathe, Bear Rinehart (named for Bear Bryant), and a little overthinking by Furman coach Bobby Lamb (who was raising a future Appalachian quarterback, Taylor Lamb, who nearly slayed Tennessee).
 We're not just a beer-swilling hippy town, boy. This is God's country. We're home to world-changing charities: Samaritan's Purse, World Medical Mission, and Wine to Water. GameDay actually had a campfire sound-byte from the co-founder of World Medical Mission, but they seemed not to realize that his world is far bigger than football.
 The real miracle on the mountain is that about 200 million children worldwide have gotten Christmas gifts via Operation Christmas Child from right here in Boone.
 You do know the riddle of 3333, right? At the top step of the Watauga County Courthouse, the elevation above sea level is 3,333. The altitude of the field at Kidd Brewer Stadium is actually about 3,250, which gives us the highest football field in the east (except for Avery County High School, 3,760). That accounts for the thin air Thompson mentioned. We put up the 3333 signs to intimidate our short-winded guests. Bobby Cremins, who used to coach basketball up here, once brought a team from Charleston to Boone and told his players not to worry about the thin air, since they were playing indoors!
 As you leave the mountain today, please choose and cut your own Christmas trees.
 If you call us App-Elation, mean it like this.

*Appalachian State also had a video of infamy back in 2005, back when Armanti Edwards was just a twinkle in our eye. He could have been a defensive back at South Carolina, but instead he chose a place that was HOT-HOT-HOT!

 Here's a list of Gameday locations since the show premiered in 1993 at South Bend, Indiana. Notable campuses that have never hosted GameDay: Illinois, Maryland, Rutgers, Virginia, and Syracuse. Back in 1869, Rutgers staged the very first college football game, but ESPN wasn't around then.
 Duke missed its chance in 1942, when the Rose Bowl was played in Durham, but marked GameDay off its bucket list in 2023. Other Johnnies-come-lately are Kansas and Montana State in 2022, James Madison in 2023, and Cal in 2025.

The postman rings 100!

Tom Griffin carrying his RFD route

 Dec. 27, 2022, marks the 100th anniversary of my grandparents' wedding. Thomas Jackson Griffin and Macie Sherard were married Wednesday, Dec. 27, 1922, at the parsonage of the First Baptist Church in Anderson.
 He was 37 and she was 35. They were late to the courtship, because they were both busy taking care of elderly parents. They were married 29 years before he died of a heart attack.
 Tom and Macie met when he delivered mail to the office of Dr. J.O. Sanders, where she worked. Dr. Sanders delivered my mom on Sept. 8, 1925.
 Mom and Dad also had a Christmas wedding at First Baptist on Saturday, Dec. 26, 1953. Dr. Anne Young expected me to be born around Christmas 1954, but I tarried until Jan. 18, 1955. Mom and Dad were married 63 years before his death in 2017.

William Sherard was my
 third great grandfather

 I come from a long line of postmen. Macie's uncle, great-uncle, and great-grandfather were postmasters of the Moffettsville Post Office near Iva in southern Anderson County. Tom Griffin's dad, Pierce Butler Griffin, also served as the postmaster of the Crayton post office in the Craytonville community. Tom Griffin carried one of Anderson's early RFD routes in the Hopewell community north of Anderson.

 William Bratton, my fourth great-uncle, was postmaster at Brattonsville, S.C. His father, my fifth great-grandfather, Col. William Bratton, was a hero in the American Revolution. 

 Warren Harding was serving as the 29th president when Macie and Tom were married.

My grandfather's pocket watch, monogrammed TGJ on the back (Thomas Jackson Griffin). It still runs!

Best is the standard ... right?

 The old sportswriter in me erupted when I heard Dabo Swinney describing Clemson’s gritty but clumsy victory Saturday against Florida State as one of the top five of his career. 

 With greatest respect for what Dabo has done in Clemson: C’mon, man!  You're the one who always preaches, "The best is the standard."

 We can assume that the two “natties” vs. Alabama would be top-2 on Dabo's list. But those two plus Florida State would leave room for only two other victories in his Top Five.

 Off the top of my head, with a little help from Wikipedia, I came up with this list of Dabo's greatest wins, as ranked in order of consequence from my perspective. Which ones would you omit to make room for Florida State?

1. 2018: 44-16 vs. #2 Alabama. Bougie like natty #2.
   
2. 2016: 35-31 vs. #1 Alabama. The night DeShaun Watson declared, "Let's be legendary."
3. 2008: 31-14 vs. South Carolina. Without this victory, the Dabo era probably ends with “interim.”
4. 2016: 31-0 vs. #3 Ohio State. Can’t spell Ohio without a zero."First team from the state of South Carolina to win a BCS game," Dabo reminded us.
   
5. 2012: 25-24 vs. #8 LSU. Anything is possible, even fourth-and-16. Thanks, Tajh Boyd and Nuk Hopkins.
6. 2013: 36-35 vs. #5 Georgia. Ask a Clemson fan—would you rather beat Georgia or South Carolina?
   
7. 2014: 34-17 vs. South Carolina. Exorcising five years of Steve Spurrier.
   
8. 2018: 30-3 vs. #3 Notre Dame in a playoff semifinal.
9. 2011: 38-10 vs. Virginia Tech, the first ACC championship in 20 years. That one was probably wiped from the memory banks by what happened in the Orange Bowl against West Virginia.
10. 2011: 38-24 vs. Auburn, dethroning the national champs and atoning for the "snap infraction" of 2010.
11. 2015: 37-17 vs.Oklahoma. Two straight wins vs. a benchmark program.
12. 2016: 56-7 vs. South Carolina.
13. 2020: 34-10 vs. Notre Dame, sixth straight ACC championship.

 Sorry, but I don't see a place on that list for Saturday against Florida State. This is a team that lost to the other Gamecocks (Jacksonville State, whose quarterback Zerrick Cooper, is a former Dabo recruit. He's had a nice season, but he threw a couple of pick-sixes Saturday against Central Arkansas). 

 The one possible explanation for Dabo's comment is that there was something going on behind the scenes that we don't know. Was there an ultimatum to win or fire somebody? That doesn't sound like Clemson, and as feebly as the team has played, it's not like the season is lost. This isn't Florida. 

 By the way, give Dabo and Clemson credit for a nice tribute to Bobby Bowden in Death Valley, including a long-deserved welcome home for Tommy Bowden. I watched every punt with anticipation that somebody might run an honorary puntrooskie.

 Speaking of Tommy Bowden, I'm reminded of the upcoming home game Nov. 20 against undefeated Wake Forest. It was a Thursday night loss to Wake Forest in 2008 that doomed Bowden's tenure at Clemson and opened the door for Dabo. And it was a home loss to Wake in 1993 that sent the dominoes tumbling for Ken Hatfield. 

 In fact, the last four Clemson coaches who lost to Wake Forest have not survived. Dabo, to his credit, is 12-0 against Wake Forest. 

Once Upon a Time, Fake News Was Fun

 Friends know how nostalgic I am about newspapers and how sorry I am about what has become of them. I am a proud heir of the Fourth Estate, an ink-stained wretch who had a hand in writing the first draft of history in my corner of South Carolina.

 Back then, we could trust newspaper editors to filter out "fake news."

Asheville Citizen, March 27, 1911

  Nowadays, I get my newspaper fix from newspapers.com. It's not cheap, but it's no more expensive than an online subscription to my old newspaper. There's almost no local news in The Greenville News anymore—so either way, I'm missing last night's scores, the obituaries, and any news I can use. If I'm going to get outdated news either way, give me the classic version.

 Newspapers.com is an electronic archive of newspapers going back more than a century. It's way deeper than Google. Newspapers.com was a fountain of information when I was publishing The Stoneman Gazette, and was a rich resource for my centennial history on LeConte Lodge.

 And it occasionally reminds me of days when newspapering was fun. Such as this "Prize Lie of the Year" recently posted by my friend Terry Harmon.

 Sounds like a mountain yarn spun by by our beloved Ray Hicks. As much as I enjoy tales of old Boone, what caught my eye was the reference to the Mendacity Medal. Mendacity is one of my favorite words. Call someone mendacious, and there's a chance they might feel flattered. So what if they don't know that mendacity is lying? 

 I had never heard of the Mendacity Medal, so I looked it up on newspapers.com. The award was given tongue-in-cheek by the North Carolina Press Association to recognize creative fiction that was published as news. Evidently, it was intended to be presented over 10 years, but the only references I could find were in 1910 and 1911. The award medal, appropriately, included a "lyre."

 The Boone story was evidently written in response to the original Mendacity Medal winner: 

Durham Herald-Sun, June 11, 1910

 Here's another nominee from the Oxford (N.C.) Banner, July 29, 1911:

 I was glad to see the name Grit. When I was a kid, I remember ads for a national newspaper called Grit, "America's Greatest Family Newspaper," which thrived on far-fetched stories. I have to presume the Siler City Grit was born of the same spirit. Though that paper died long before Andy Griffith made Siler City famous, it was ahead of its time in terms of reporting fake news.

 The Siler City Grit won the 1911 medal for this story, which somehow defeated the Boone windpipes story. Evidently, the Grit editor, Isaac London, was the son of the Chatham Record editor.

 The Grit editor deserves bonus points for the clever line about pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6), though he missed an opportunity to invoke honey-glazed ham:

  Here's a 1910 clipping from The Greensboro Record. Who knows if the second item about the Wilkesboro man is mendacious? I think it is healthy to encourage readers to be skeptical. 

 These dubious stories appeared on the same page. The first of these might even have been a wink at the competing paper, the Greensboro Sun: 

Looking homeward through the eyes of Wolfe

 My brother-in-law Greg Gambrell wrote a fine story in the Electric City News that described our hometown of Anderson through the words of Thomas Wolfe, the author of Look Homeward, Angel.

 Wolfe (1900-1938) was raised in Asheville, N.C., and his older sister Effie married Fred Gambrell, a grocer in Anderson, S.C. Effie (1887-1950) and Fred (1884-1952), portrayed as Daisy and Joe in the book, were Greg's grandparents. Anderson is named Henderson in the book, and Asheville is Altamont. 

 Wolfe evidently made several trips to Anderson, at a time when it was becoming known as The Electric City, thanks to the genius of William C. Whitner, an electrical pioneer associated with inventor Nikola Tesla. By the time Wolfe visited, our forefathers had electric streetcars and other conveniences. 

 Yet Wolfe did not see Anderson as a shining city on a hill. In his book, he described "Henderson" as:

"a haven of enervation, red clay, ignorance, slander, and superstition,
in whose effluent rays he (Fred) has been reared."

 I had to look up enervation. I hoped it was a deferential compliment to Mr. Whitner's energy and innovations. Instead, Mr. Webster defines enervate as a verb that means "to reduce mental or moral vigor."

 Ouch! That's my homefolks you're talking about, mister!

 On the other hand, I knew Wolfe didn't mind stepping on toes of those who recognized themselves in his thinly veiled fiction. In Look Homeward, Angel, he also insulted some of his old neighbors in Asheville—to the point that the city library banned his book for several years.

The Electric City (described by Wolfe as enervated) was enlightened through power generated by this hydroelectric plant that William Whitner built at Portman Shoals in 1897. As a boy, I remember visiting this dam and watching as it was inundated by Lake Hartwell.

 After learning that my hometown had caught the harsh gaze of Thomas Wolfe, I started to wonder: What other writers have left us impressions of primordial Anderson?

 The first who came to mind was Hannibal Johnson (1841-1913), who commanded the Union troops who occupied Anderson in 1865 and 1866. In 1905, Lt. Johnson returned to Anderson, which he described warmly in his memoir, The Sword of Honor. I encountered his book while researching my Civil War newspaper, The Stoneman Gazette. 

 With a 40-year perspective, Lt. Johnson described Anderson as "an obscure village ... grown into a thriving city." Johnson solicited the governor of Maine to support an Anderson teacher named Lenora Hubbard, who graciously tended for the graves of three Union soldiers in Anderson. Johnson's book includes letters from Miss Hubbard where she describes the hardships of life in Anderson in the Reconstruction era. 

 I will be on the lookout for other authors' impressions of Anderson. One I need to re-read is Clemson native Ben Robertson (1903-1943), author of Red Hills and Cotton: An Upcountry Memory. Robertson was a contemporary of Wolfe and wrote a sympathy letter to his mother, Julia Wolfe, after Tom died of tuberculosis at age 38. Robertson (a journalism graduate of Missouri like yours truly) died in a plane crash in Portugal while serving as a World War II correspondent. 

 Robertson's family homeplace is the Bowen House on Ireland Road, between Pickens and Easley, 30 miles north of Anderson. In an online search of his book, I found a passage referring to an 1876 parade in Anderson by the Red Shirts (a militant white supremacist group associated with Gov. Wade Hampton): "My father rode in the Red Shirts parade at Anderson in 1876, sitting in the same saddle with my Great-Uncle Alf, and ever since that time we have been very positive about the subject of the white and colored races."

 Atlanta author Lewis Grizzard visited Anderson in 1983 to speak to the Touchdown Club. I can't find any record of his comments, though he might have been in a sour mood, considering that he was going through a divorce from his third wife. Grizzard called Clemson "Auburn with a lake," so it would have been up his alley to describe Anderson as "Clemson without a college."

 If you know of other authors who have written of Anderson's formative years, please leave a comment. 

Remembering Radio

A sweet portrait of Radio and Coach Harold Jones
Photo credit: Ken Ruinard, Independent-Mail

 I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, but my tenth-grade year at T.L. Hanna High School was a historic time. That was the year that the Anderson schools were integrated, and an amazing athlete that the world knows as Jim Rice (we called him Ed) was gerrymandered from Westside to Hanna. As the scorekeeper for the Hanna baseball team in the spring of 1971, I had the opportunity to behold our own version of Jackie Robinson, a future Hall of Famer breaking the local color line. 
 That same spring was when I met a 35-year-old fellow known as Radio who never missed Hanna baseball games at dinky old Nardin Field. There were no grandstands, so the fans and scouts sat on the field behind the chicken-wire backstop or milled around behind our bench. I didn't know Radio well, but over the years I came to appreciate him and his story.
 In fact, the greatest regrets of my sportswriting career were that I never wrote the stories of Jim Rice and Radio. An Anderson sportswriter named Josh Peter told their stories instead, and did them justice.  Josh's story about Radio inspired Gary Smith to write the story for Sports Illustrated, which prompted the 2003 movie, Radio.

Radio's shoebox gift in Sudan

 I've kept up with Radio over the years, and in 2003 he and Coach Harold Jones packed shoebox gifts for Operation Christmas Child. In my travels with Samaritan's Purse, I had the opportunity to deliver one of Radio's gift boxes to a little girl in Sudan. Of course, his box included a minature yellow T.L. Hanna football (which unfortunately was turned the wrong way for the photograph).
 My years at Hanna were before Radio started attending class and became a perpetual 11th-grader. He was a fixture on the sidelines at hundreds of football games spanning more than 50 years. The last time I saw him was a rainy playoff game in 2018. This year, as his health declined, he was able to attend only one football game. This past weekend, he was admitted to the same hospice facility where my father died three years ago. On Dec. 15, 2019, a Sunday morning, Radio finally graduated from this life at age 73. (On June 5, 2020, he graduated posthumously from Hanna). Anderson won't be the same without him.
 I've collected some tributes from those who knew him well. Jacky Newton was a classmate of mine who is now a pastor in Kentucky. Last week, when Radio was gravely ill, Jacky wrote this devotional:

“WE CALL HIM RADIO“

 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!" (Matthew 25:23)
 If I asked you to pray for James Robert Kennedy, would you have any idea who I was referring too? Probably not. But if I called this man by his more common name, just about everybody in America would know who I was talking about. Yes, Mr. Kennedy is none other than RADIO!
 I first met, or shall I say noticed, Radio when I was sitting in my 9th grade English class. You couldn’t mistake that laugh and the sound of his transistor radio as he would push and then ride his grocery cart down the hill beside McCants Junior High. He was there again after school chasing down the foul balls during batting practice; running and hiding from the baseball team. When football practice began on those hot July days, here was this shy, young black man watching us practice at Narden Field. If a football would find its way off the practice field, Radio would run like lightening to retrieve it and hesitantly pitch it back to one of the players.
 It wasn’t long before Coaches Harold Jones and Dennis Patterson were able to gain Radio’s friendship and he became part of the Yellow Jacket “B Team” back in 1970. He drank from the same Gatorade bucket as we did, and pretended to do calisthenics. I’ll never forget the day down in that old field-house in the end zone of McCants Stadium when the coaches yelled down at a few of us in the shower, “Y’all put Radio in there with you and give him a bath!” LOL
 Talk about trying to corral a wildcat! Radio wasn’t sure about us big boys, soap and water. But after a few minutes he liked standing under that hot water. My Senior year I couldn’t play football because of knee surgery so I helped tape ankles, make Gatorade, etc. But my main job during practice and on Friday nights was to watch after Radio. It was then I got to know him best. I could tell you a million Radio stories; like when he would stir the 5-gallon Gatorade bucket with his dirty hands and arm. Then there was the time that before the team could board the bus for the ride back home after an away game, Radio had already been on the bus and taken a bite out of each of their sandwiches.
 I could go on and on but I’ll stop because everyone who has ever met Radio has a “Radio Story.” Even my mom called last month, she had met Radio and Coach Jones in rehab and of course she had a “Radio Story.” It’s amazing that a man with everything in the world against him has become a household name all across America and one of the most beloved persons to ever live.
 This man who has never shot, thrown or caught a ball, or never competed in one single athletic event in high school, is in the TL Hanna High Athletic Hall of Fame. Yes, and he deserves to be there and will be remembered when most others are forgotten. A young black man who grew up in poverty, who could neither read, write or barely talk became a Hollywood Star. He roamed the halls of TL Hanna for 50 years but refused to be “promoted “ from the 11th grade. Why? Because if he ever became a Senior it would mean graduating and having to leave Hanna! lol
 Yes, for almost 50 years, James Robert Kennedy, has led the Yellow Jackets onto the football field. He was present for every sporting event possible, men’s & women’s, as long as his health would allow.
 I got a call a few days ago to let me know that it seems that Radio could be approaching that final end zone. My heart is heavy, tears flow from my eyes. My ol’ buddy, an institution, may soon cross over that goal line of life. I also cry tears of joy because I know Radio is going to a far better place. A place where he can have a new body, a new mind; where he can run, dance and be like everyone else. Where he can be with his mother again. I’m sure Jesus is waiting to say, “Welcome home Radio!” And I’m sure one day, no doubt about it, I’ll hear Radio say, “Glad to see you Jacky. Wait til you taste the Gatorade up here!”

 Don Miller is a retired coach in Greenville. His story references a couple of other local characters. (Read Gary Smith's SI story if you are wondering who they are.) Here is Don's tribute:

THE BELL RINGER

 A local icon has passed. I think everyone is familiar with the Radio story, at least if you are from the South. A book and movie chronicled the story of a mentally challenged young man who was befriended by a coach, school and community. Radio went on to be what I call the “Bell Ringer” for his school.
 If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s worth the rental with Cuba Gooding playing James “Radio” Kennedy and Ed Harris playing Coach Harold Jones. I was lucky enough to have met both Radio and Coach Jones as we squared off against each other on many fields of athletic endeavor. It was always a joy, win or lose, to meet up with Radio.
 Many small towns, even some larger ones, have bell ringers like Radio. I call them bell ringers because of one special man who rang the victory bell at a local high school’s football field. Some were flag bearers as they led their football team onto the field, through the goal post and hopefully on to victory. One, after growing old in age but not spirit, was buried in the local Legion baseball uniform. Undying loyalty even in death.
 Young men who grew old but never quite grew up. For some reason, God chose them to be both challenged and special. They were folks who in addition to being challenged, were special to their schools and were their school’s number one fan and “Bell Ringer.” They all possessed the wide-eyed wonderment and innocence associated with the young every time their teams took the field.
 Radio passed last night at seventy-three. He had been in bad health, in and out of the hospital will complications due to diabetes and kidney function. His hugs and smiles will be missed by the school and community.
 Last year the CBN network and 700 Club aired an interview and article on Radio’s and Coach Jones’s fifty-year friendship. I cannot improve upon it so I will simply share it. You should take the time to watch the interview or read the article. It not Coach Jones’s final quote is “People with special needs, you know, they give us more love than we can actually return.”
 Radio certainly provided a lot of love.

 Longtime Hanna principal Sheila Hilton shared her memories:

 Life is full of ironies. One would think that most high schools have at least one famous student who has brought great recognition to the institution. Maybe it is a student who graduated from Harvard, maybe one who won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, maybe a famous professional football player. T. L. Hanna has had all of these, but none can come close to their most famous “student.” James “Radio” Kennedy, a 73-year-old, mentally challenged man, showed up on football field in the mid-1960s and has been an integral part of the school ever since. At that time, he was a teenager, with a transistor radio seemingly attached to his ear, who could barely speak and had never learned to read or write. He was nicknamed “Radio” by the coaches and players. He became a fixture at football practices, standing passively and watching, until one day when he began to mimic the coaches’ signals and tried his hand at yelling out commands. At that point, he could have been labeled a distraction and sent away. But he was not. The coaches embraced him, and as coaches came and went, someone would always take over in caring for him. Eventually, Harold Jones took the job and has been his “daddy” ever since.
 Generations of Hanna students and faculty had an opportunity to know Radio. Everyone has a story to tell, some of them priceless — his eating a cooler full of sandwiches that had been made for the team and stored safely on the bus; his pass-kick-and-throw half-time shows; his permanent status as a junior, with no threat of graduation; and his astounding ability to name the mascot of any team in the state. The stories could fill the pages of a lengthy book, each showing the child-like innocence and loving heart that existed within him.
 It would be easy to talk about all the school did for Radio, but the miraculous thing about this story is what Radio did for the school. It is perhaps a lesson of which all of us need to be reminded. Because he was embraced by caring people, he was stimulated to learn. Because he was loved, he found his place in the world. Because people looked past his disabilities and imperfections, he found a way to make his own unique contribution to the world. What a lesson there is to be learned here. How many lost souls could be saved with a little care and attention? The thousands of students who have made their way through the halls of T. L. Hanna over the years have seen the results of the love and caring given to Radio. He had a permanent smile on his face. He was never without his ability to shake hands and hug necks. He returned exponentially whatever love was given to him. And here the irony rests. He gave back much more than he received.
 In our small town of Anderson, SC, Sports Illustrated, Readers’ Digest, ESPN, CBS News, and even Hollywood have told his story, one about a disabled child in a grocery cart riding the hills behind the old McCants, arguably the most famous person to come out of Anderson.
 It was destiny that he arrived on that football field some fifty years ago. He was without a Harvard degree or Pulitzer Prize or professional football contract, but his fame surpassed all of these accolades. And the story is simple: love and compassion can change lives. It has changed his, and, in return, he has changed ours, and we are better people for having known him.

 Mark Hamrick is a former Furman University athlete who was a high school basketball referee when he met Radio.  

 I was saddened to learn of the death of James "Radio" Kennedy. He was a kind and pleasant man who shared happiness with many during his lifetime. I first met "Radio" back in the late 1980's while officiating basketball at T.L.Hanna High School in Anderson,S.C. That was a few years before Hollywood discovered him.

 During my first assignment there, "Radio" met me with a big smile and the key to the dressing room. He asked me what else I would need and he seemed disappointed when I answered, nothing. So I told him that some water would be great. During my years as a basketball official I never asked for anything extra at a high school or small college assignment because I appreciated that most of them had tight budgets that certainly did not include funds for basketball official extras.

 However, on that night I soon realized that we were operating by "Radio" rules, so after a brief discussion we decided, or more accurately "Radio" decided, that I would get a Snickers candy bar with my water. After that night I never again spoke of a candy bar to "Radio".

 Over the next few basketball seasons I worked several T.L. Hanna games. On many of those nights "Radio" met me with a big smile, the key to the dressing room and a promise to return with MY water and MY Snickers. As the years passed and I moved on from high school officiating I left probably owing T.L.Hanna for more than a dozen candy bars thanks to the persistent generosity of "Radio". I should write them a reimbursement check in memory of "Radio" but instead this one last time I will play by "Radio" rules and just remember the times that I shared with those candy bars and "Radio".

 His laugh, his kindness and his happy approach to life serve as a memory of one of the good guys. James "Radio" Kennedy will be missed.

Anderson honored Radio with a statue in 2006

Fringe benefits of an 8-team college football playoff

 Occasionally, I wake up and feel like a sports columnist. Let me try to make the case for an expanded college football playoff. 
 1. You know you'd watch. 
 2. Why do we have a four-team playoff? Because the folks who designed it knew they could never get eight approved. They assumed that once they gave us a flawed four-team playoff, we would demand more.
 3. In an eight-team playoff, the winners of the Power 5 conferences would get automatic bids. Not only would each team controls its own fate (regardless of committee opinions), but there would be so many fringe benefits. It would no longer be necessary to run up the score to impress the committee. And it could do wonders for non-conference scheduling. Teams like Baylor wouldn't need cupcake schedules. If you can get into the playoff by winning your conference, then there's no penalty for risking defeat with ambitious non-conference schedules. For instance, Baylor could have played Oregon this year, just for fun, without dire implications other than green and yellow stains on our TV screens. 
 4. The September schedule would be so much better. Clemson might play Georgia, Auburn, or Tennessee instead of Charlotte. Why not, as long as the Tigers know they can qualify for the playoff by winning the Sisters of the ACC?
 5. To the previous point, Oregon would be in the playoff picture today if they hadn't gone out of their way to play Auburn in the opener. If the Ducks had played South Dakota (like Oklahoma did) instead of Auburn, they would have one loss today, and both the O's would be circling Georgia like vultures.
 6. Yes, the season is too long already. So cut the fall schedule to 11 games and play the FCS games (Clemson-Furman, for example) in the spring, instead of a split-squad scrimmage. (To make it more equitable, you could even let the FCS team play its graduating seniors, and give them a last audition for pro scouts.) That way, the big boys still have seven home dates, to keep the local motels and tailgaters happy. 
 7. Play the quarterfinals at the home fields of the top seeds, maybe on Thanksgiving weekend. No more embarrassingly empty upper decks like we saw in the 49ers stadium for last night's Pac-12 game. 
 8. In the spirit of inclusion, its hard to argue against offering a playoff invitation to the best of the Group of 5 champions. As proud as I am of what Appalachian State has accomplished this year, I don't know that beating North Carolina and South Carolina qualifies you to compete with Clemson. But Central Florida and Boise State have risen to that level, so make room for them.
 9. Some naysayers worry that in an eight-team playoff, a bottom seed might get hot and win an undeserved title. Quarterfinal home games would make that unlikely, but if it happened, you know you'd watch.
 10. It would be okay if Alabama got in. Most of you are convinced they don't deserve to be in the playoff, so you'd watch just to see them lose. 
 11. Play the semifinals the Saturday after Christmas and the national championship in the vacant week before the Super Bowl. Yep, you know you'd watch.