Then and Now

  Then and Now

Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA), Oct. 8, 2022

            It is good when the past can be linked with the present.

            At the recent unveiling of the portrait of Cobb Superior Court Judge Grant Brantley, an event highlighted by the Marietta Daily Journal, I was reminded of a thought that has flitted across my brain many times for the past 51 years. It was the thought of how similar in spirit Cobb County is to the county in which I grew up.

            My hometown is Forest, Mississippi, a small but lively haven beautified still by its stately pines, its good people, and excellent community leaders. Forest lies almost smack in the middle of the state on Interstate 20. “Hometown” doesn’t mean I actually grew up there. It means that Forest was the nearest incorporated town where we bought groceries and went to school. In other words we lived out in the country.

            Of course, the town, county, and state were all Democrat. Forest and the surrounding area had only one Republican that we knew of. His name was Robert McDonald. He drove a shiny, new Oldsmobile that looked mighty odd because it was tubular and balloon-looking. A good man with a great family, McDonald blew his horn and waved every time he passed by our house. We always wondered why he was a Republican. He was far too nice and friendly to have come from the North. Maybe his parents had come from up there but he had finished drying off. At any rate, McDonald and all the Democrats got along well. In fact the wealthiest of Forest never met a stranger.

            In August of 1971 at age 27 I became a proud Georgian. Landing in Marietta my wife, our two-year-old daughter and I got our first glimpse of Georgian hospitality at Roswell Street Baptist Church. It was a large, growing church with a conservative theological message and a genuine heart for all people. The Cobb County School System for which I worked had excellent leadership. There was tension on the school board at the time but none that deterred the school system’s progress. Lockheed was popping, its C-5A having recently been delivered to the military. Vietnam was waning. Watergate was looming. Whether the best of times or the worst of times, they were marked by vision and optimism.

             Throughout the next four decades I observed superb community leadership like that which my father had appreciated back in Mississippi. In Cobb, Republican numbers were increasing but that didn’t kill off civility amongst Cobb’s community and political leaders. Commissioner Ernest Barrett was never ambiguous about where he stood on any issue but was not known as a divider. The rising Democrat native and legislator Roy Barnes didn’t seem to be bothered by Republican advances. As is his habit he simply plowed on confidently and joyfully. Laden with collegiate and law school honors that would have caused many politicians to feel self-important, Barnes remained himself.

             At the unveiling of Judge Brantley’s painting it was Barnes the walking encyclopedia who cast my mind back to Forest and its non-elitist elites who treated each other and all the surrounding country folks with dignity and respect. Chronicling Judge Brantley’s career path to the courtroom, the former governor informed and entertained the crowd of Democrats, Republicans, and probably every other political stripe that lives in Cobb. Cobb GOP chair Salleigh Grubbs was present as was Democrat turned Republican Mike Bowers, Georgia’s former attorney general. Former Congressman Buddy Darden did his part in showing respect for Judge Brantley and humorously recounting his own defeat by Bob Barr in 1994. The event bespoke the spirit of the county in which I had grown up and of the county in which I have lived for the last half century.

            The reason for all the unity, of course, was Brigadier General Judge Brantley himself. Deservedly praised by all speakers as a great man and an exemplary leader, Brantley personified in my mind the goodness of Scott County, MS and Cobb County, GA. Cobb has its Brantley; Scott Co. had its Roy Noble Lee. Cobb had its Ernest Barrett; Scott County had its Hobson Harvey. Other examples and parallels abound. 

            Cobb County may be changing but we can hope that the spirit that has guided her for decades will not cease. If so, then we can agree with Shakespeare that the past is prologue or better still with Mississippi’s William Faulkner that the past is not over yet. It is outstanding figures like Brantley, plus those who praised him, who have made Cobb County the good place that it is today.

           

Roger Hines

October 6, 2022