Well, I DID IT, Folksizzz! I completely INTELLECTUALLY DISSECTED the first chapter of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD. Fifty-two footnotes and that's only for the "antiquated phrases and colloquialisms"! (I'd already done all the characters and scenes ~ ONLY 32 MORE CHAPTERS TO GO!) What really shows you just how DEEP Duggie Bailey made his novel DEVIL MAKE A THIRD is when he ENDS the first chapter with two references to CUSH, a loving tribute to his Uncle Dan Baker. I'd never heard of CUSH in my life and I was brought up in Dothan but CUSH was the old-timey name for CORNBREAD DRESSING. Dan Baker, the model for the character of JEFF BANNON in the novel was the promoter of the DOTHAN CUSH CONTEST from 1933 up until his death in 1954.

"I'll tell you this town's got enough of music now to kill a body; we got Pianos, organs, fiddles, harps, babies, fiste dogs and such like. The whole thing is in an uproar. Our town jail has been well occupied this week."

Ya know, if you were raised in Dothan, you have in incredible "inheritance." You might not EVER be aware of it but it's just as REAL as the laughs John Boy and Billy get with they use "Dothan" as a punchline. What I'm calling an inheritance is DOTHAN'S STORY, a story that's not very long. One of the most intriguing characters in THE DOTHAN STORY is 4-time Dothan Mayor Buck Baker. In the words of Rodney Dangerfield, "Buck Baker don't get no respect." He is supposedly depicted on a mural. What a JOKE! Anyway, I'm proposing a BUCK BAKER DINNER somewhere in town next March and all we'll do is get acquainted, talk all things BUCK (this cat is an anti-hero in the same class as Randall P. McMurphy or Cool Hand Luke) and maybe set up a little portable TV studio and interview folks who have some "BAKER FAMILY MEMORIES" along with all the family heirlooms we can put together. Maybe we'll even meet that weekend @ First Methodist and listen to Buck's chimes once more.(might even find out if we can play "DIXIE" on them...)

Back in 1908, if you sat down in the pew of any prominent Dothan church and heard a preacher's sermon which was "without reason, abusive and bigoted", it'd probably have been best, then as now, to simply ignore the tirade from the pulpit. One Sunday in April of 1908, the preacher @ Foster Street Methodist tore into the vaudeville shows and their "giddy girls" who were performing @ the Elite Theater, 104 W. Main, located on the second story of a building located about where Denny Optical now stands. Jelks Thrasher, an actor on the stage, happened to be in a pew that day because he was back home in Dothan visiting family. Well, Jelks wrote a LETTER TO THE EDITOR denouncing the preacher's criticism of vaudeville and a 20 year-old Grover C. Hall, editor of the DOTHAN SIFTINGS, published it. That was the end of Grover C. Hall's journalistic career in Dothan and produced the bankruptcy of his paper. (Grover Hall would later take over as editor of THE MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER upon the retirement of my good friend Tom Sheehan's grandfather, Captain W. T. Sheehan. In 1927, Grover won the Pulitzer Prize for BEST EDITORIAL WRITING OF 1927 with his Advertiser editorial entitled "UNMASK!")     [clipping from the May 9, 1928 DOTHAN EAGLE]

"Upon careful inquiry I find that, of the whole number of vessels loaded at this port during last year 53 vessels, with a tonnage of 62,574 tons, were unable to come up to the wharves of the city, and were compelled to load in the lower bay at a heavy increase of expense. The total exports of cotton at this port during the last season amounted to 371,618 bales of average weight of 500 pounds each; and of this quantity, I learn that about 224,000 BALES HAD TO BE LOADED AT THE LOWER ANCHORAGE because the vessels on which they were shipped could not reach the wharves of the city." (AND THIS INDUSTRY EXISTED HERE FOR THE PREVIOUS 65 YEARS OF THE AMERICAN REGIME AND HAD ALREADY EXISTED FOR 124 YEARS BEFORE THAT...)

1876 STATS FOR THE LOWER ANCHORAGE https://books.google.com/books?id=2Z9h_ojUIewC&pg=PA362&lpg=PA362&dq=%22Lower%20anchorage%22%20%22Mobile%20Bay%22&source=bl&ots=2wkycd7UdG&sig=ACfU3U2HqT1lWCsitugrVRrgh6iYC9BGQw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiznq3VqdLiAhWImeAKHbkKDgIQ6AEwAnoECAQQAQ&fbclid=IwAR2b_mtFWFyhFIdsHf0ASqopratlD1c8HRFl1cagU5H9y5dPE7Fwyne0JPw#v=onepage&q=%22Lower%20anchorage%22%20%22Mobile%20Bay%22&f=false

Scarpath today is an awarded winning carver of birds. We met him a few months after I had failed to find anyone @ THE BALTIMORE SUN or THE WASHINGTON POST who wanted to cover the 100th anniversary of Coach Bryant's birth. Scarpath maintains that the foundation that Coach Bryant laid @ Maryland in '46 was in a way responsible for the Maryland National Championship team of 1951.
Scarpath told us that the first time he took a shower with his Maryland team, he looked over and saw one guy with scars from two WWII/Korea bullet wounds and another with a scar from a bayonet wound and he thought, "HOW IN THE HELL AM I GONNA CONTROL THIS HUDDLE?" He went to Coach Tatum (who took over for COACH BRYANT @ Maryland) and told him his concern. Tatum had a team meeting and told them that Jack was THE BOSS. Jack said he never heard a peep in the huddle.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Scarbath?fbclid=IwAR1IiR4AWfaG3f-CPdMv1Nxl5gveNzXzuoAPZD_BakLRQzMOuwV-LZP_q4U