There was a misprint in Professor Hamilton’s pocket diary, repeating the pages for April 18-30. Maybe this threw him off, or maybe he was just busy with his research, but he doesn’t pick up writing again until April 21.
Currently, I am enjoying a three-week artist-in-residency in Newnan, Georgia. I am focusing on a new book and doing some public speaking. Newnan is a charming place that calls itself “The City of Homes,” about 40 miles south of Atlanta.
If you have read my book Methodists and Moonshiners: Another Prohibition Expedition Through the South…with Cocktail Recipes, you may recognize Newnan as the birthplace of the bone-dry congressman W.D. Upshaw (he’s on the book cover with his crutches) and the site of a notorious murder trial that was dramatized in the 1983 TV movie Murder in Coweta County, starring Johnny Cash and Andy Griffith. (If you haven’t read M&M, what are you waiting for?! It’s a great read, if I do say so myself!)
Here are a couple of vintage postcards of the city, which retains much of its Southern charm.
This postcard dates from 1943. First Methodist is a stalwart among the protestant churches in Newnan.
Built as the Newnan Hospital, this stately redbrick building is now home to the branch campus of the University of West Georgia, with about 800 students. Undated postcard.
This 1941 postcard, accessed from Wikimedia Commons, shows the courthouse that still dominates downtown Newnan. Used as a hospital during the Civil War, it was the site of the ‘Murder in Coweta County’ trial in 1948. It now houses the Coweta County Probate Court.
I will be back with more from Professor Hamilton on April 21. Maybe by then they will have caught the “fiend” who attacked the poor cows!
I think the voters felt the same way! They threw him out of office after eight years. His own party turned on him!
I don't think I would have liked Upshaw, but I do think I would like Newnan!