Being in the newspaper business is not always easy in terms of covering the news and writing opinion pieces about what's going on in our community, state or nation.
Relationships can sometimes be strained by things I print in the newspaper – whether its an actual news story or some of my opinions.
People get mad. My wife's been mad at me and some of my best friends have been mad at me. Sometimes I think my wife is still mad.
But the relationship between a reporter or editor and an elected official can sometimes be difficult.
I remember when David Stokes first told me he was running for the county commission. I was working at the Brewton Standard at the time and we had known each other since college. I told him that if he got elected there may be times I would write something disagreeing with actions or votes he took and asked him if our friendship could survive those issues.
I remember I wrote a column one time that upset Stokes. He called, we talked and we settled things. Then his mother called. I think she was more upset than David.
As I talked to people about former East Brewton Mayor and former County Commissioner Lovelace Parker this week some of those love-hate relationship stories came back to me. There were times he would yell at me, I'd yell back and then we shook hands.
Everybody I talked to this week had the same sentiments about Lovelace that I did – he had a big heart and wanted to help people. The one thing none of them told me was about seeing Lovelace mad. Joey Shell came the closest when he said Lovelace did get 'irate' and few times at a council meeting.
I've seen Lovelace mad. Sometimes he was mad at me and other times he was mad at other people.
I may be wrong but I think when Lovelace was mayor of East Brewton the city received its first Community Development Block Grant to rehabilitate houses that were in need of repair. It was about $500,000 but came with strings, a lot of strings. The city was limited on how much it could spend on each house so it could spread the free money and free help around. Something tells me it was in the $20,000 to $30,000 range.
I happened to walk into Lovelace's office just after he got off the telephone with a woman who had cussed him out because she wasn't satisfied with the job done at her house. The fact that she hadn't spent a dime and the city had spent about $30,000 wasn't the issue. The paint they used to paint the exterior of her house was too thin.
I can hear him like it was yesterday. He looked at me and said 'Joe Thomas, if I ever apply for another grant to fix houses I want you print that I'm an idiot'.
Lovelace was simply trying to help the people of East Brewton but that old saying of no good deed goes unpunished reared its head.
While he was on the county commission I wrote a column that he didn't agree with at all. I was in Flomaton at the time and he called me, yelled and said I was banned from Big Bear. So, I got in my truck and drove to East Brewton and walked into Big Bear. We had a 'conversation' that he moved to the back of the store, but we settled our differences.
I knew Lovelace was a big quail hunter. While he was on the county commission we were talking one time after the meeting when I slipped up and told him that I always stumbled into a covey or two while deer hunting on a lease in Appleton. The property line for my lease property was what they called the 'bird reserve'. The only time I'd ever gone quail hunting was when I lived in Andalusia and the father and grandfather of a girl I was going out with invited me. It was cold. We started walking at 6 a.m. and didn't stop walking until it got took dark to shoot. I wasn't impressed.
But the more we talked the more Lovelace wanted me to take him to the 'Joe Thomas Hunting Club' and quail hunt. I explained that we had some wild coveys and some of the tame birds Guy Sawyer turned loose on the reserve. He wanted to go and I was regretting it. But we entered the gate off of Mason Mill Pond Road in Lovelace's truck and he had two dogs in the back. Lovelace stopped the truck, let the dogs out and we got back in the truck and followed the dogs up the power line. If his dogs pointed, we got out and shot and then we got back in the truck and moved on. That was my kind of quail hunting.
Talking to people this week brought back a lot of good memories of Lovelace; some I knew, some I didn't. But those conversations also reinforced my thoughts that he really cared about helping people. We lost a good man in Lovelace Parker, but we will always have the memories.
