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I stopped by Back Forty Bear Company this afternoon. I didn't have time to enjoy the free BBQ they were about to serve. I did have the time to sample their Truck Stop Honey. It's very smooth and very good. I had a bottle of Naked Pig about a year ago that Tommy offered me from his fridge. It was good, but I think I enjoy the Truck Stop more. I have yet to try their other crafted brews, Kudzu & Freckle Belly, but plan on doing so in the very near future.
I'm glad these guys have brought their business into town. I've run into Jason Wilson a few times around town and he recently gave me a quick tour of the place a few weeks back. I wish those guys much success. They serve up an excellent product.
I got home Saturday in time for Jon Guthrey to come over to my house to work on worship set for Sunday morning. It was the first time I ever played with Jon and I had been looking forward to Saturday night so I could get to know him and jam some. Good times!
Sunday I rolled out of bed and got down to the Gadsden Vineyard by 9:00. The worship band consisted of Jon Guthrey (lead guitar), LeNola Bagley (bass), Liz Wood (Hammond), and Tim Rolfe (drums). Richard Moon manned the board. We had a blast - having a nice wall of sound going. I love it when God shows up.
This photo came from an old box of keepsakes from my South Carolina relatives. This is Mr. Burruss Finlayson who died back in June 4, 1950. He's my grandfather. I've heard how Mr. Finlayson like smoking cigars, but this is the first photo I recall ever seeing him smoking one. Though I never met him, I like this fellow.This image was taken in front of his home in Cheraw, South Carolina on Market Street. The Burruss Finlayson place was located directly across the U.S. Post Office on Hwy 1 in old Cheraw.
This is my grandmother Jennie Wait Foster Finlayson. I found this image among old photos from Columbia. It wasn't in very good condition so I did some minor restoration in Photo Shop this morning.
Born 3 November 1880 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Died 24 October 1969. Jennie Wait Foster was born into a large family but the children were scattered when her parents James Turner and Rebecca Wofford Foster died. She and a brother Louie Eugene Foster were raised by her relatives, Rev. Washington Lafayette Wait and Mrs. Jane Wofford Wait who also lived in Spartanburg, SC.
Jennie Wait Finlayson is the grand-niece of Dr. Benjamin Wofford who founded Wofford College. Jennie was a 1901 graduate of Columbia College. She married Burruss Finlayson and they started their family in Cheraw, SC. Burruss ran a dry goods store and Jennie taught music and piano from her home. She is buried next to Burruss at the Finlayson section of the Old Saint David Episcopal Church in Cheraw South Carolina.
I have only faint recollections of her. I remember her gentleness and her soft sweet smile.
Mother, Brooky and Cindy and I drove up in one car. Irene and Carrie in another car. We arrived Thursday night at Jennie's house in Rock Hill, SC and met up with other family members.
We all caravaned to Cheraw, SC for Jennie Llew's funeral at the old Saint David's Church. There we laid to rest the last Burruss and Jennie's children. I know that we were all thinking to ourselves that it was the end of an era. Before the trip I had been a little melancholy. I hadn't felt that way when Pat and Murdoch had previously passed on. I told Gina that I knew it was because Jennie Llew was the last one - they were all gone.
The Finlayson kin spent the rest of the day after the funeral roaming around the cemetary, the old church, the old town, as well as the vacant lot where the Burruss Finlayson home once stood. The trip wasn't a sad one in the least.
I knew that Jennie Llew was experiencing a grand eternal reunion with her family. Her husband 'Guytie' had died 50 years ago. I know that she is one joyful being - reunited with loved-ones. So my trip to Carolina washed away any sad mood that had briefly shadowed my spirits. We all had a wonderful day time last week - not a tear - not a frown. We all enjoyed our time with each other and celebrated some wonderful kinfolk who have gone on.
It might be the last time we all meet in Cheraw, some of my siblings may never go back there. I know I will. I'll go back with my immediate family and retrace with them the steps of my grandparents and their children.
My Uncle Wofford Finlayson was an artist. He earned his living making signs in Columbia, South Carolina. I sure wish he were around today, I would love to learn from him. He once told me that as a freelance artist, he took on every job that came his way. Uncle Wofford would paint the front of theaters for movies like Gone With The Wind. He designed company logos, banners for grocery store windows and he'd even paint flag poles. If it had to do with paint, he said he'd take on the job. To be a commercial artist in those days meant you did anything and everything.
The above watercolor is of the old Saint David Episcopal Church. Wofford wasn't hired to do this job. He created various paintings of his old Pee Dee River hometown, Cheraw, South Carolina. His paintings resurrect Cheraw from a century ago. This particular painting once hung on the wall of our house on Scenic Hwy here in Gadsden, AL. I am very familiar with it. This is hanging on a wall at my sister's house in Rock Hill, SC.
I snapped a photo of it while visiting Don and Jennie last May. It's a beautiful piece of work. The paintings I've seen of Uncle Wofford's are not realistic - they were not meant to be. His work is unrealistic like Thomas Kinkade's are not realistic. Both Wofford and Thomas capture something in the heart.
Wofford's colors are ancient, and always ventured back to capture the old South. Though the people seem a little on the cartoonish/caricature side in his paintings, the atmosphere is always alluring to me. Wofford had the ability to resurrect the essence and atmosphere of a time lost. This is a painting that I would love to step into - take a stroll down that old dirt road beneath the shade of the mossy trees.
Martha Lucinda Pate was Murdoch Uriah Finlayson's wife. I know nothing about her. There is no story to tell about her but who you see in this photo and what can be found by looking at dates. I looked at the birth dates of their children and noticed when Murdoch had enlisted into the Confederate Army. She was left to raise five young children during her husband's absence. I can't imagine what it was like to be raising children during a war that was being fought on southern soil. There's something I have learned about warfare. When men march off to defend their country, their families sacrifice as well. Martha must've been a strong woman to have handled such hardships at home while her young husband was off fighting. She had her own daily battles to fight - keeping her family safe in perilous times. I know nothing about my great grandmother. Just by looking at her face and the dates I have - I know that she must've been an incredibly strong woman, a good wife, a good mother.
My sister Jennie called Friday afternoon and said that she was in town and had a box of photos for me from Columbia, SC. I drove over to mothers to see my great father's face for the very first time.
Murdoch Uriah Finlayson married Martha Lucinda Pate on January 10, 1854. Murdoch had left his wife and children to fight in the War of Northern Aggression. He enlisted on May 7th of 1862, at the age of 27. He marched among the men of Company G, 55th Infantry Regiment of North Carolina (pg.18-20 of URL link). He fought in numerous campaigns including Gettysburg. At the time, he was a resident of Wayne County. I ran across some information regarding the 55th Infantry Regiment online that you can read about here.
Murdoch Uriah Finlayson enlistment information states that he was a merchant before the war. I have posted advertisements in the past of his store in Wilmington. He eventually moved to Cheraw, South Carolina when my grandfather was very young and set up shop. My grandfather Burruss and his older brother Henry Wright Finlayson eventually became merchants and had stores of their own. My father and his siblings were born in Cheraw.
Both Murdoch & Martha Lucinda are buried in the old St. David's cemetery in Cheraw, SC. Their graves are not in the Finlayson section, but only a short stroll from that area. I am very glad to have a picture of my great-grandfather - to now be able to put a face with the name. I hope my siblings take time to visit the links I've provided here and find out a little more about the their ancestor.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
-Benjamin Franklin
Last night I attended a Veteran's Day presentation at my daughter's high school. Many times the word 'freedom' was mentioned and I couldn't help but feel saddened each time the word was spoken. I wonder if folks truly understand the freedom that we have and the freedom that we are loosing and have lost as a nation. I wonder if twenty years from now, if people will still be singing about America's freedom, but not noticing that they have been stripped of it all together.
I am deeply concerned for my country. I am not an old man, but this isn't the place I once knew. What will America be a decade from now? I want my children to truly know freedom - to have what we had. I don't want them to grow up wards of the state.
True our freedom is from God. It is true a multitude of troops have sacrificed to pay a terrible price to preserve our freedoms. It is true that freedom isn't free...so why do we trade it so easily?
I am thinking of the story about Jacob and Esau, how Esau was so willing to swap his birthright for a bowl of lintel soup. I feel like that's what the American people are allowing our government to do - swap liberties for securities. Esau was foolish to give away something so precious as his birthright just to sate his belly for a few hours. The more we let a government is allowed to do for the people, the less people are allowed to do for themselves. Eventually we will be left without any choice but what a bureaucracy deems best for us. Government wants the people to think the idea of entitlement as a good thing, but it's just a link in a chain to bondage. We do not need to feel entitled, we should need to be FREE!
A powerful and overreaching government leads to totalitarianism, and that is where we are quickly heading. We must demand LIMITED GOVERNMENT for our nation to survive. No way did our founding father's intend for government to turn into what it has become today. Our founding documents were made not to restrain the people, but rather to restrain government!
"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity."
-Thomas Jefferson
I have been deeply troubled these days about the state of our nation and her people. I turn on the television and see a president trying to seduce the people with a bowl of soup. I see too many of us clamoring for it. All we have to do is give up a little liberty here and there and we'll be safe, warm, and fed. I see America's young people angry in the streets protesting - demanding that they are entitled to something. I hear the term freedom spoken so freely, but do we all know of that of which we speak? I think of all the blood that has been spilled down through the years to preserve that freedom. And I see too many American's too willing to trade away what was paid for so dearly.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."
-Ronald Reagan
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
I never really understood the rolling yards thing. We had A LOT of trees in our front yard on 2624 Scenic Hwy. Back then toilet paper cost a dollar for five gazillion rolls. A kid could do some real yard decorating back then.
I remember my yard got rolled back when Gina and I were youth directors of Fountain Square Free Methodist Church in Bowling Green, KY. We don't know who did it, but we were pretty sure is was a collaborative effort of the youth department. The church didn't have many youth, and any one of them could have easily have been a culprit. When it came to toilet paper, we decided to turn the other cheek.
Gina and I didn't say anything about our yard being rolled. It was a blessing in disguise. We simply went outside with a couple of large Hefty bags and retrieved as much as we could from the trees. We had harvested so much toilet paper that day that we didn't have to buy toilet paper for three months. That's saying a lot because Gina really uses a surprising amount of bathroom tissue.
I don't see as many yards rolled these days. I can only guess that it's because we are living in difficult financial times. Kids today really have to count the cost of committing such an expensive prank.
I have only a few trees in my front yard. I'm waiting for someone to come along and roll what little yard I have so I don't have to buy toilet paper for a while. If you're up for the task, but feeling a little lazy, just leave the paper in the package at my front door. I'll take it from there.
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