2006 photo
My great grandfather Leopold Bashinsky left his Jewish family in Prussia or Poland, depending on whose family account is believed, and ended up in Troy, Alabama, where he married a Southern Baptist daughter of a Confederate officer. They raised their children in the Baptist church in Troy. Leopold’s brother Ely, I think was his name, joined them. The rest of their family remained in Europe and were killed by the Nazis according to all family accounts.
It was said of Leopold, that the people in and near Troy used him to settle their disputes, instead of the local lawyers, because they trusted Leopold to do what was fair. I told what else I was told about Leopold in the “He Was a Noble Creation” chapter of A FEW REMARKABLE ALABAMA PEOPLE I HAVE KNOW, which is a free read at the internet library: https://archive.org/details/a-few-remarkable-alabama-people-i-have-known_202210/page/n25/mode/2up
I was raised in Southside Baptist Church, in Birmingham, and then in Mountain Brook Baptist Church, in the Crestline part of Mountain Brook, and then in Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church, in Crestline. I eventually left churches behind and got to where I didn’t know when I ever was not in church. Along the way, I wrote the book above, in which is the "He Was a Parish Priest" chapter about Lee Graham, who founded St. Luke's Episcopal church in an old farm house in Crestline, across from the Mountain Brook police and fire stations.
Crestline was the “poor’ section of all-white Mountain Book, if you didn’t count the live-in black servants and the black day servants who came over the mountain each day on Birmingham city transit buses to Mountain Brook. Eventually, Lee had to tell his Vestrymen, if they didn’t allow black people to worship at St. Lukes, he would close the church. Not long after, Lee moved to north Florida to pastor a small rural Episcopal church.
The “She Works Behind the Scenes” chapter of the book is about Charlotte Washington, the daughter of Confederate slaves, who came looking for work in my parents’ home on the day I was born in Hillman Hospital, in Birmingham. "Cha" loved and raised me as one of her own children. During “the time of troubles’’ in Birmingham, Sister Washington counseled her people to be patient with and tolerant of their white brothers and sisters.
My father’s older brother Leo was the greatest fisherman in the world and maybe the best pediatrician, who treated babies and not mommas. is wished he was my father, because he loved to fish and my father didn’t. I tell more about Leo in the “He Called a Spade a Spade" chapter of that book.
I clerked for U.S. District Judge Clarence W. Allgood after graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1968. At age 15, Clarence lost both of his legs above the knee when he jumped off a freight train in Avondale. A graduate of the Birmingham Night School of Law. Later, he piloted the Federal Debtors Court in Birmingham, which got him appointed to the Federal Bench. From his Judge’s Chambers, he ran the Democratic Party in Alabama behind the scenes, except for the George Wallace faction. I tell more about the most godly man I ever knew in the “He Used to Drink Moonshine, Cussed and Didn’t Attend Church” chapter of the book.
The “What You Saw Was What You Got" chapter is about my father’s attorney, John Gillon, a crusty, devout Christian and Bible scholar, maybe the smartest, shrewdest lawyer who ever lived. John told me what it’s like to live in a small town: drive around the country club golf course on Saturday night and find out whose fucking whose wife; and I would never be happy until I found God.
A FEW REMARKABLE ALABAMA PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN fell out of me in the fall of 2004, after I had blown a major work assignment given to me by God, which left me feeling fractured. Oceans of tears and snot gush out of my eyes and nose as I wrote that book and was stitched back together somewhat.
I was given more work assignments, which I gave my best shot. I wasn’t perfect. I made mistakes and was corrected and redirected by angels known in the Bible. I kept moving, and kept giving it my best shot, and I kept making mistakes, and I kept being corrected and redirected by those angels.
Some of that can be seen at this blogspot, and in my books at archive.org, which are free reads. Those books are not for the faint of heart. Autobiographical THE GOLDEN FLAKE CLOWN’S TALE, far and away, was the most emotionally difficult of those books for me to write.
https://archive.org/details/goldenflakeclownstale
If someone asks me today how I feel about America and its government and political parties and religions, I say, putting “In God We Trust” on American currency and “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance” invited God to show America just how separated it is from God, which is in plain view inside America today, and in America pulling away from helping Ukraine defend the Russian invasion, and in America going whole hog helping Israel destroy Gaza.
I think the leaders of Israel and Hamas should be hanged.
Well-known and respected American war correspondent Chris Hedges has put his life at risk many times on the front lines of foreign wars. No fan of Israel, Chris claims to have been a good friend of the man who started Hamas, which, according to its Charter, was founded to destroy Israel.
Yesterday, Chris posted yet another Israel bash at his Substack newsletter:
The Death of Israel
Settler colonial states have a terminal shelf life. Israel is no exception.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-death-of-israel
I posted this comment.
Sloan Bashinsky
I am convinced Hamas hoped the Oct 7 attack would provoke Israel to do what is doing in Gaza, and I am convinced Hamas hopes Israel will continue laying waste to Gaza and killing Gaza civilians, and in that way Israel becomes its nemesis, Nazi Germany. I am not convinced Israel can defeat Hamas in Gaza, nor can Hamas defeat Israel. I see no way the Republicans or the Democrats will abandon Israel, because that is Christendom’s so-called holy land. I see no way Islam will abandon Hamas. I see no way the UN can intervene militarily. I can imagine, if Israel gets backed into a corner where it feels it has no other choice, it will use its nuclear weapons where it thinks will get the best results for Israel.
The October 7 attack reminds me of the 9/11 attack in America.
Three nights before 9/11, a familiar voice asked me in my sleep, “Will you make a prayer for a Divine Intervention for all of humanity?” I woke up, startled, made the prayer, and went back to sleep.
On 9/11, I worried that America would start another foreign war it could not win. It would start two such wars. Afghanistan and Iraq.
A few days after 9/11, as I walked out of a U.S. Post Office, the familiar voice told me, “America needs to get out of the Middle East altogether, and let Islam and Israel fight it out, or work it out, and in that way learn, which, if either, are God’s chosen people."
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
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