“Georgia On My Mind”

This Week’s Focus of the United States’ Polarized Politics
Five Georgia Resident Classmates Offer Their Perspectives

By Al Chambers

As the Georgia Senate dual run-offs grew in importance, Yale 62.org sought out classmates living in the Peach State, inviting each to submit a short point of view about any subject of their choice having to do with Georgia or living in the state. Civility and brevity were the only requirements.

For the record, there has never in U.S. history been a double run-off in one state for national office. This was not something that was ever supposed to happen, but now the outcomes of January 5’s voting will determine party control of the U.S. Senate. More than $800M dollars have been spent on the David Perdue/John Ossoff and Kelly Loeffler/Raphael Warnock races.

Thanks to Georgians Terry Croft and Ellery McLanahan for leading the classmate search. (See further details below.). We are pleased to share the words of five wise classmates, printed in order from the most recently submitted to the earliest. All were completed a few days before the dramatic and highly controversial actions and behavior of President Trump, in his increasingly desperate and seemingly doomed-to-fail efforts to reverse the will of the five million voters in Georgia and the approximately 160 million total voters in the November Presidential election.

Although Presidents and challengers have always grumbled about process and results, none has ever attempted or seemingly contemplated what Donald Trump has been doing since November, while at the same time all but withdrawing from the official responsibilities of his office.

Comments are welcome in response to each classmate’s viewpoint or about the American political situation at the bottom of our ‘Georgia on My Mind” report. Thanks also to Hoagy Carmichael (1930) for writing and performing the song whose title we borrowed for this report, and to Ray Charles (1960) taking it to his first #1 Billboard hit — making it famous forever and such an appropriate reference for this feature.

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Roscoe Sandlin (Macon)

 

When Georgia became a colony in 1733, slavery was banned, then allowed 16 years later after protests about labor shortage. The colony had rival governments during the revolutionary war. The state was a founding member of the Confederate States of America; a hundred years later it was the core of the “New South.” It produced a staunch segregationist governor (Lester Maddox), a peanut farmer president (Jimmy Carter), an iconic civil rights leader (MLK), and rock music stars (Allman Brothers & Little Richard). Solidly Democratic until 2002, Georgians elected Sonny Perdue as the first Republican governor since reconstruction. With a current Republican governor, Georgians narrowly favored Biden over Trump in the 2020 election.

With the impending runoff election for its Senate seats, Georgia voters will determine the balance of power in Washington. Whatever happens, we will still have our lovely mountain views, fantastic seascapes, tasty pecans, the juiciest peaches, sweet onions, the worst traffic and the nicest people – many of whom still say “bless your heart” no matter what.

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James Keaten (Rome)

I am a native Georgian. Many of my ancestors were also native Georgians, including among others my great-grandfather, who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. I was born and raised in Atlanta during a period of strictly enforced racial segregation. There were no Black students in the schools I attended. There were no Black congregants in the church I attended. No Black persons were permitted in the restaurants I patronized or the parks and swimming pools where I played and swam. At public facilities, such as the Atlanta airport, there were separate restrooms and water fountains for “White” and “Colored.” There were no Black civic leaders in local government. I did not object to this state of affairs because it seemed to be normal.

When I returned to Atlanta after law school, the situation was changing, but ever so slowly. I joined a law firm with no Black lawyers (and no women). Under the leadership of another native Georgian, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., along with such other giants of the civil rights movement as John Lewis and Andrew Young, progress toward racial justice inched forward.

Fast forward to 2021. My wife Helen and I now live in Rome, Georgia, a lovely town in the heart of a very conservative Congressional district. Helen and I have participated in marches and demonstrations with other Georgians, Black and White, in protests against the murder of George Floyd and in support of Black Lives Matter. Diversity is blooming in Georgia like our beautiful dogwoods and azaleas in spring. Outstanding leaders such as Stacey Abrams (Yale Law, 1999) have brought that diversity to the voting booths.

And now, we have two wonderful candidates for the United States Senate in a rare double run-off — the Reverend Raphael Warnock, an African-American pastor from Dr. King’s church in Atlanta, and Jon Ossoff, the son of a Jewish father and an Australian immigrant mother.

Whatever the results in the election, Helen and I are optimistic for our State (and our children and our grandchildren). In the words of Bob Dylan, “The times they are a-changin’.”

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Normand “Norm” Allen (Savannah)

Having lived in Connecticut my entire life, following retirement in 2003, my wife Gail and I moved from Avon, Connecticut to Savannah, Georgia. We live on Skidaway Island, southeast of Savannah. Our gated community, with 6 golf courses, 36 tennis courts, 2 marinas, and 4 dining clubs, is a destination for retirees from across the country, as well as local professionals. With this varied population and the available cultural, educational, and historic amenities of Savannah, our very comfortable lifestyle is not representative of the entire state, but rather like Atlanta, is a distinct bubble of diversity as demonstrated in the recent presidential election.

The climate allows us to pursue a year-round active outdoor life, focused on tennis. My main hobby, other than tennis, is watercolor painting. I enjoy painting Georgia coastal landscapes and marine scenes. Lecturing on art topics and attending lectures and classes at the excellent local Senior Center has facilitated lifelong learning. During the pandemic, we’ve been fortunate to have a place of natural beauty so we can enjoy the outdoors while quarantined. I’ve spent much time reading classic literature, enjoying especially the works of Dickens and watching film noir. These activities have been a welcome distraction to the political circus of the past years.

It was great to see record-breaking numbers of voters turn out in Georgia for the primary election, and to have the Governor and Secretary of State stand up to extreme outside pressure to uphold the responsibilities of their offices. The unusual upcoming run-off election for two senators, which will determine control of the Senate, has brought the nation’s focus to Georgia. As residents, we have been bombarded with constant negative television ads and daily mailings.

Our take-away from all of this is the need for election reform, to limit the length of campaigns and contributions to candidates. It has been sad to witness the huge amounts of money pouring into this run-off election in Georgia, at a time when there is so much need, due to the loss of businesses and jobs during the Covid pandemic. But we are also heartened to see evidence that many are ready to really deal with systemic racism in this country.

We’re hoping for another record-breaking voter turn-out on January 5th, and proud that whatever the election results, Georgia will help to preserve our democracy.

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Ellery McLanahan (Atlanta)

(Editor’s Note: Ellery is teaching a series of classes for seniors at Emory University Extension in Atlanta starting January 7, where he contrasts the work of two different famous authors that he likes. This week’s duo is Herman Melville and Ernest Hemingway.)

I am reminded today here in Georgia of my Yale classes years ago about Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dick.

Was the story about the Ahab who loaded the Pequod with sailors eager to work for their share of the whale oil catch?

Or about the Ahab whose real intent was on finding and killing the white whale Moby Dick, his carnal nemesis?

The sailors and Ismael thought it was the former, and were unwitting victims of Ahab’s true intent to use the voyage to avenge the loss of his leg in his previous encounter with Moby Dick.

So I feel many of Trump’s followers were victims of his dream to lead the country while in fact instead his real actvity was to fulfill some overwhelming, personal, inner need.

In the novel only Ismael lived to tell the story. We are lucky here in Georgia, as we, like Ismael, have lived to tell the story and to live the dream.

Lux et Veritas!

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Terrence “Terry” Croft (Atlanta)

Fifty-one years ago, when I first came to Georgia to practice law in Atlanta, there were two distinct Georgias, metropolitan Atlanta (the City too busy to hate) and the rest of the State, which was not too busy. Both Georgias viewed me as a Yankee, even though I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, where your high school was more important than your college.

As a civil trial lawyer, I have tried cases to juries in both Georgias, and as a mediator and arbitrator with JAMS (a large, private provider of ADR services), I have resolved disputes with lawyers throughout Georgia. I have experienced local and geographic prejudices and biases that impacted on my personal, vocational efforts as a lawyer and a neutral. This was an eye-opening experience for me. The Civil War (sometimes called the War of Northern Aggression) has not been forgotten in either Georgia, even though most Atlantans, like me, came from somewhere else.

When our Governor appointed a wealthy, female Atlantan to succeed a longtime and well-respected Senator, he probably was influenced by her ability to self-fund her own campaign for re-election and her ability to attract affluent, north-side female voters. In a few days, we will see how that worked. Maybe it won’t matter in the face of all the outsider dollars funding the incessant, daily barrage of robo-calls, TV/radio/internet ads, and multiple mailers, but that excessive surplus of (dis)information is certainly unpleasant and disrespectful to all Georgians.

As with the pandemic, I will be glad when it’s over. Regardless of the outcome, Georgia needs to overcome its historical biases and prejudices and become a leader in equality. It is a geographically pleasant place to live. Atlanta is bustling, and our second home, a little cabin in the woods of North Georgia, is a tranquil delight. Come visit, but wear your mask!

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Postscript A Sad Note: When Terry Croft called the home of Frederick “Spike” Burns (Jonesboro) on December 22, his wife answered and said that he had died the previous day. She explained that he had been ill for some time with various comorbidities and quite probably Covid19 in the final days. Bob Oliver was advised and will prepare an obituary for the website.

On a far happier note, classmate Frederick Meine (Columbus) chose not to write for the posting. His family has a long association with Yale and he and his wife, also named Freddie, were proud to share that their grandson had just been admitted Early Application to the Class of 2025.

Donald Banks (Atlanta) said it was a busy time and that he could not participate.

Our team was disappointed that in the short time we had, we connected only with eight of the fifteen affiliated members of Yale’62. What was surprising was that the email addresses and phone numbers for several on the Yale Alumni Association list were no longer active or in service. Our classmates were widely disbursed around this large and increasingly dynamic state and, with a couple of exceptions, did not know each other.

Another noteworthy and troubling item was that a few classmates were not receiving Yale or Yale62 communications, apparently because of active spam collectors. Please check to be certain that Yale62.org is not on your blocked list — that is unless you want it to be!

If any of you is in contact with or has information about the seven classmates that we did not reach, we would be grateful if you let them know that we had hoped they could be part of this Georgia posting.

Those seven are Garrett Brass (Roswell), Henry Childs (Blue Ridge), J. Timothy Heames (Rome), Rodney Hunter (Decatur), Burton Metzger (Savannah), John Minneman (Peachtree City) and David Mohr (Dalton).
 

We invite your comments below.