Hardshell political history 101

It may seem incredible to many young Primitive Baptists that so many of their forebears within the faith have an alliance to the Democratic Party. A quick summary of political history among our people may help explain it somewhat. Until recent years, Primitive Baptists (even since before the split) have been largely favorable toward the more liberal of the political parties as measured by economic philosophies. For example, they generally supported Jefferson against Hamilton, and Andrew Jackson against his opponents. In other words, they generally supported the candidates who favored the common people as opposed to those who favored the privileged classes.

Those who are under 50 years of age may not realize that it was only with the election of Ronald Reagan that the social conservatism and fiscal conservatism were united in the same party. With the exception of Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson, the political landscape from the War Between the States until the Depression was controlled by the Republican Party, and the Republican Party was the Wall Street (Rockefeller) party. Business tycoons were not overly concerned with moral issues. Social conservatism was, until Reagan, found largely in the old-style Southern Democrats. There was a fairly abrupt change in that reality about the time of the Vietnam conflict, but it has taken a much longer time for many people to realize it.

Further, those who did not live through the Depression cannot possibly imagine what a devastating thing it was. Thousands of men would have been glad to have worked for 50 cents a day if they would have found such jobs. President Roosevelt's policies may not have been (and probably were not) good economics, but men whose families are starving are not overly concerned with the niceties of economic theory. Mr. Roosevelt gave them hope, and told them, in effect, "We are not going to let you starve." As a result, he had a huge amount of good will among the common people, some of whom are now found among the older generation of Old Baptists.

Manuel Labor today

That is one of my Mexican friends, of course. It is an inside joke. Years ago when I worked at the toy company in Booneville, one of the girls in our department typed up some procedures, one of which was how to handle "manuel invoices."

I apologize in advance

Is someone who buys votes bipolar?

(buy -poll - er. Get it?)

I am so proud!

My wife let me buy a new cell phone. I are now high-tech (or something).

When you marry a mean woman

you had better be light on your feet.

Old age and infirmity

They go together. You expect one with the other. It is sad, though, when the second comes before the first. May God have mercy on those.

Old

I'll let you in on a secret: the reason old men act old is because they feel old. The reason they feel old is because they are old.

Eat your hearts out!

all you wage slaves that are having to work today. I am enjoying flaky biscuits with Canadian bacon and eggs in the middle. And getting to look at a cute lady, to boot.

And when we finally get to retire

and have time to do all that stuff, our bodies are so worn out that we can't do a lot of them.

Speaking of leisurely coffee

It certainly will be fun to be at home, under foot, in the way - in other words, wall to wall husband.

Old writings

One great value of reading old writings (as opposed to more recent productions) is not that there may not be value in the recent writings, but that time has allowed the merit and demerit of old writings to settle out so that they are more readily evident today. With new writings we are perpetually mining. With old writings we already know where the gold is hidden.

Enjoying leisurely coffee with my wife at home

I certainly am looking forward to retirement!

How you say it

That which is not particularly noteworthy may be accounted wisdom if it is expressed in the right manner.

It's OK

I am married to a mean old woman, but fortunately her aim is not very good.




(I am, of course, speaking in jest.)

The bard got it right on this one.

"Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care." Give a man a good night's sleep, and all his problems are a little smaller.

Minority

Standing for principle is rarely a difficult thing when one is in the majority. And when one is in the minority but is in the right, the majority will almost always try to make it appear that theirs is the holy course. And because the majority controls the pen or the press, they have an easy time winning the battle for popular opinion. However, truth never has counted on popular opinion for its veracity. "That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God."

Here's a job for you blog/Facebook picture mavens

My granddaughter Lillie somewhat resembles actress Marsha Hunt, and my granddaughter Audrey, from certain angles, resembles the legendary Dorothy Lamour. Now find pictures of each of them that illustrate the resemblance.

Simple is best

The best way to make a real, lasting impact upon anyone's life is to live in a godly, upright way. As the apostle put it, "we should live sober, righteously and godly in his present world." Anyone who has the self-discipline to do that is capable of great things. Most people in whom the grace of God lies are able to understand and recognize that.

How about this cool weather!

Feels great!

How did they do it?

When someone was making dog noise sound effects on one of the old radio shows, how did the other actors keep a straight face? Maybe they didn't.

Old-fashioned

I know it is old-fashioned and reactionary, but I still try to write letters to our overseas servicemen. I may communicate electronically, also, but I think there is something very positive about a tangible letter. Just my opinion.

Connected

There may be cases in which it is true, but my experience and observation is that being more electronically "connected" does not result in more holiness, but usually just the opposite.

Yard salesmanship

You have never been to a yard sale until you have been to one where super-salesman Eli Wayne Jones is plying his trade.

Nice present

My grandsons gave me a present of a DVD of Boris and Natasha cartoons. Wonderful! Some of the cleverest cartoons ever made. Incidentally, the talented radio actor, William Conrad, was the narrator of the carton. He played Matt Dillon and many other roles on radio, and the detective Cannon on TV.

Too late

It is a pity that wisdom usually comes at such a late age that there is no energy left to support it.

Sounds and smells

My wife and daughter are in the kitchen this morning, arguing (discussing) about various points of whatever it is they are cooking. Nice sounds and nice smells. Home.

Childhood memories

When I was in early grade school, my father taught music in the school system and often he would have to stay after school to teach voice lessons. At the time his older brother lived about two blocks from the school house, and I would walk there to wait until Daddy got through. We did not have a television at that time, so it was great fun to be able to watch The Three Stooges at Uncle Garvin's house. I also remember watching Peter Gunn, the detective series. Interesting memories.

Fixing by formula

The average Primitive Baptist today gets to attend church several times more per year than the average member a hundred years ago. Yet all my experience and research indicate that the average member today is much more ignorant of the content of the Bible than his grandfathers. We came up with our nice, neat formula that meeting more often would produce better results - that greater quantity would produce better quality. If I am correct in my assumptions, once again the best calculations of men failed to produce what we aimed at.

Towels

One ability that women seem to acquire at a fairly early age is to wrap towels neatly around their heads.

Speaking of eternal things

We often use analogies from natural things to illustrate the spiritual. But to use the fads and fashions of the world in such a way seems to me to trivialize those things - things that ought to be most holy to us.

Too much laughing

There is far too much levity in our worship services, and I am as guilty as any. Way too much laughing going on - and it is not laughing for joy, but laughing at humor. Folks, we are in the Lord's presence!

My wife has chosen new carpet

for our bedroom. Now, only a complete fool of a man gets involved in that decision, as long as it is within the budget.

Young couples, remember

You can never have "too much" storage space.

Rocky Jordan and Capt. Sam Sabaaya

Jack Moyles as Rocky Jordan and Jay Novello as Capt. Sam Sabaaya played off each other exceptionally well in the Rocky Jordan radio show. Really well done and enjoyable program.

HERE is more about Jack Moyles.

Cost of cars

I saw a billboard today with a car costing over $31,000. It reminded me that that is more than what we paid for our house originally. Time have indeed changed. Of course, I think Mom and Dad paid about $8500 for theirs.

Leichtenstein

This is a principality bordering Switzerland and Austria. Its area is about 62 square miles. (That is about 7.9 miles square.) The current monarch is Hans-Adam II Fürst von und zu Liechtenstein.

valuable DNE notable

That which is valuable in life almost always is not that which is notable. That which garners the headlines is not  that which has the real merit in life. Those who do the truly important things rarely get noticed by the media.

Time

Old guys don't necessarily know more, but they have had time to come to grips with what they do not know.

Matches up

Conservative dress usually indicates a conservative philosophy. Not always, but usually.

Very bad, but not as bad

There is nothing to recommend being a sheep in wolf's clothing. That is a most reprehensible situation; but it is not as grievous as that of a wolf in sheep's clothing.

$ Gen

The only thing that keeps Dollar General from completely blowing Walmart out of the water is that they are too cheap to keep enough checkout clerks working. Penny wise and pound foolish. But it is typical of the short-sighted methods management many times adopts.

Which rule?

Management generally treats employees as they are required to by the law. But there is a higher law that says, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." It generally gets ignored.

Back and forth

The banter back and forth between Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, and between Fred Allen and Jack Benny provided some of the funniest material in radio history. If you haven't heard them, you are missing something.

Become a UALR fan

http://michaelspappysualrblog.blogspot.com/

(We don't oink.)

Thanks, Rebekah

for helping to spruce up my  blogs.

Solace

"Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease" (Ps. 85.4). I continually find myself coming back to this psalm for comfort - not for the country, but for myself.

Andy Devine

He appeared in over 400 films. Andy and his wife, Dorothy House were married on October 28, 1933, in Las Vegas, Nevada, and remained united until his death on February 18, 1977.

Hickock, according to Wikipedia

On July 21, 1865, in the town square of Springfield, Hickok met and killed Davis Tutt in a "quick draw duel" –the first of its kind. Fiction later popularized Hickok's "quick draw gunfight" as typical, but Hickok's is the first one on record to fit the portrayal. During the duel, rather than the face-to-face fast-draw as is commonly shown in movies, the two men faced each other sideways in the historic dueling stance, drawing and aiming their weapons before firing.

^{I cannot verify the accuracy of this, but it is interesting.}

Almost everything worth eating

is fried in lard.

Enjoying Barney's favorite food

Good food, that is. Better than bad food any old day.

One day at a time

Divine wisdom is fully illustrated in the scripture, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Life's burdens would be unbearable if we took them all at once - and often that is just what we try to do. Each day has its full weight. No need to buy trouble on credit.

No case made

The stupidest argument against voting for third parties is that "they have no chance to win." If that argument is true, then you should not have voted for Barry Goldwater against Lyndon Johnson, for her certainly had no realistic chance to win. Besides, until just before the War the Whig party was the other party, and the Republican party as we know it today did not exist; they were a "third party."

What percentage?

I wonder what percentage of the words in the English language I actually know. Given how thick dictionaries are, I suspect it is a very small number. Of course, both numbers are constantly changing, so it would be hard to pin down even if you could determine the numbers.

Tough questions

Zero once asked Sgt. Snorkel why we wash up but we scrub down. He didn't even know how to look up the answer.

While we are on the subject of tough questions, a fellow I used to work with would ask what chairs would look like if our legs bent the other direction. Meditate on that one a while.

I like cold weather better than hot weather

except when it gets really cold. Then I like hot weather better than I like cold weather.

Another Digger quote

from Digby O'Dell, the Friendly Undertaker: "You may not like flowers now, but eventually they will grow on you."

Retirement

It gets harder and harder to get back up after I have to squat down to get something out of a file here at the office. When it gets to the point that I have to use a come-along to get back up, I think I will need to retire.

Secretary

If I could have my wife as my secretary, I might want to be a radio private eye. (All private eyes had cute secretaries, of course.) On the other hand, I might not want to get knocked out once a week, come to think of it.

Bad accents

Of the affected foreign accents on old radio shows, the French was undoubtedly the worst. Actors just couldn't pull it off convincingly.

Not common

Dignity is a characteristic not frequently seen in modern-day Arkansas society.

Overtalk

Some people just cannot seem to stop talking. They are always monotonizing the conversation.

Just today

This is my assignment for today, and I am not going to worry about tomorrow.

Philo Vance

This was a pretty fair radio detective show. The plots and characterizations were interesting, if not always exactly realistic. However, the organ music is terribly irritating. I cannot imagine why they possibly wanted it on the show. Organ music was always a less-than-satisfactory background for radio shows, but the way this guy plays is obnoxious.

Proverbs

The process of an old sloganeer like me is to observe and encapsulate or generalize. Admittedly this involves a great deal of oversimplification, but it is a rule of life that you must understand the basic principles before you can comprehend those that are more complex.

Shutting it down

As we do most nights, my sweetheart of over 40 years (wife of almost that long) are going to bed long before we have everything done that needs to be done, snuggling up on the bed, and watching a movie that is older than we are (which is going some). Scandalously irresponsible, but one of the few luxuries a man of modest means can provide to his wife for her decades of toil.

Just flesh

My voice is very tired this week, after a long weekend of meetings. I am reminded that we are but flesh, and that our strength has it limits.

Routine

I work much better in a pattern.

In reality

Young men need to learn that if they are indeed the heads of their households, everyone will know it, and they do not have to make a big production about it. Young women need to learn that if their husbands feel the need to let it be known, then maybe they need to work harder at making it be the truth.

My new office looks very nice

Thanks to all my womenfolks.

Richard Diamond: Mrs. X's husband

One of the funniest and cutest episodes of the Richard Diamond radio program was the one entitled, "Mrs. X's Missing Husband. A women comes to Diamond, looking for her husband. She won't give her name, but everyone in the program says, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" It turns out the she and the husand went to see a doctor, and what he told them gave the husband such a shock that he had temporary amnesia. The long and short of it was that the woman was June Allyson, Dick Powell's real-life wife, who had just found out she was expecting and evidently was taking off from show business until after the baby came. A unique way of announcing a baby.

Listen to it HERE

Spread the word

I am telling you - old radio shows are a wonderful resource for entertaining children, helping adults go to sleep at night, making long trips shorter - all without the objectionable content so common today (if you do a little screening). Absolutely a great resource in this degenerate age.

I am too old for this

For what? It doesn't really matter. Mention what you will, I there is a good chance I qualify. (Makes life a lot simpler, though.)

Grandfather's birth

Generally speaking (at least since the Industrial Revolution), going back to the birth of your grandfather will mean the things people experienced at that time will be somewhat foreign to you. That makes me stop and consider.

Casablanca - Jordan

If you like the movie "Casablanca," you might also like the old radio show "Rockie Jordan." He owned a cafe in Cairo called The Tambourine.

Keep after it

Perseverance is a greatly underrated trait. Great things have been accomplished by men of meager talents who kept after their tasks until they were accomplished.

In case you hadn't noticed

The king at the end of The Road to Bali is Leon Askin (General Burkhalter from Hogan's Heroes).

The "older" Crosby

Bob Hope is always razzing Crosby in the "Road To" movies as being elderly. How much older was he? Crosby was born May 3, 1903. Hope was born May 29, 1903. So Crosby was 26 days older.

Aunt Emma, our chaperone

Bob Hope's name for Crosby in The Road to Bali.

Road To

The Hope/Crosby "Road To" movies were perfectly awful movies - and hugely entertaining. Just pure fun. Not intended to be anything else.

Sir Thomas Nathaniel Edwards

If any of you ever figure out for certain that I am kin to this gentleman, please let me know.

Scootledyboot

You remember Scootledyboot, don't you? That canine hero of the cartoon series? At least that is how Mr. Eli Wayne Jones once pronounced it.

Wild eglantine

In the hymn "Bower of Prayer," the plant wild eglantine is mentioned. I have wondered for years what that was, so I finally looked it up.

These are hybrids of Rosa eglanteria, the old 'Sweet Brier' of Shakespeare. They share with the wild European parent handsome small foliage that is scented of green apples. On humid mornings the air around them is heavily perfumed, and when the passer-by brushes them or crushes their leaves, the scent appears. A crop of bright red hips in the fall provides a winter bonus. At the turn of the century Lord Penzance bred a number of fine hybrids, all in the classic mold of the wild Eglantine. 

Little things, huge things

My youngest grandchild is discovering her hands. It is a wonderful thing watching little human beings to whom little things are such huge things. Learning is taking place at a high rate of speed at that age.

Their place

I feel sure that the vast majority of famous people much more pleasant to talk about than actually to know. Being catered to brings out the worst in most of us.

Opportunities

If it takes a man to admit he is wrong, just think how many opportunities I have for manliness!

Fits me

One expression from a hymn that I find fitting my case; "I am tired, I am weak, I am worn."

At least something

I am not good for much, but at least I am good for something, because I suppose I can read my own handwriting better than anyone else.

Faith

Does faith, in its truest definition, require that that which is believed be true? Mull that over for a while. Sincere belief concerning something which is false may be a genuine sentiment, but does it fully qualify in the absolute sense?

Not original with me, but . . .

A friend of mine had a business card given him that had this motto on it, which I thought pretty well describes a lot of folks: "Frequently wrong, but never in doubt." The "frequently wrong" part applies to me, but I fear I have many doubts about my understanding.

Hmmph!

Specs on your glasses are so irritating!

Unanswered question

Among the many unanswered questions we encounter in life is this one: what are those "cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse" alluded to in Gilbert's libretto for Pirates of Penzance?

How to write a mystery?

I have long been hugely impressed by mystery writers. How do they concoct such complicated plots, which they strategically open to us as they go along? I have no idea, of course, but here is one possibility: perhaps they are as mystified about the outcome as we are. Maybe they make up the plot as they go along, without the outcome already having been decided, so that they "discover" what happened as we do. I wonder.

Visiting doctor - Doc Gamble in another spot

I just heard Arthur Q. Bryan (who played Doc Gamble on Fibber) as the family physician on the Father Knows Best radio show.

Speaking of same

It has been a sad fact that most of the beauty that man has produced has been at the hands of degenerate individuals. Not all of it, but a large portion of it.

How Can I Be Sure

Amid all the sorry excuses for music that emerged out of the 1960's were a few really nice songs. One of these was How Can I Be Sure? by the Rascals. Listen to it on Youtube if you are not familiar with it. Really pretty.

My feet hurt!

Is that a sign of old age, too?

Pa Kettle

One the last of the Ma and Pa Kettle movies, Percy Kilbride was replaced as Pa by Parker Fennelly. Kilbride’s character was much more unperturbed and even-tempered, taking everything in stride. Fennelly’s Pa appeared to be a little more cowed down by the domineering Ma. One thing Fennelly did have was another classic New England accent. In fact, on Fred Allen’s radio show, Fennelly played Titus Moody, a regular character on Allen’s Alley.

Benny's suit

One of the funniest of Jack Benny's TV shows was where he was playing a violin duet with a girl. He had been bragging earlier about getting some new suits very cheaply in Hong Kong. As he played, pieces of the suit kept tearing loose. It is hilarious.

Diamond trumpet

One of the things I like about the old Richard Diamond radio detective program is the jazz trumpet that they feature at the opening  and at other spots in the program.

Youthful sentimentality

The first car I remember our family having was a Plymouth. We traded it in for a black Ford. I remember crying when they drove the old car away. Strange that a young child would be sentimental about a car.