Monday was a treat in Americana. It was Norman Rockwell type Americana. The setting was rural and small town America, the neighborhood diner and the local boy who ‘made good’.
It was the small southern, laid back hometown known across America for producing the ‘son of a millworker’... John Edwards. As part of his Rural Recovery Act, John Edwards visited the local diner in the town of his birth, Seneca, South Carolina. There amid the grits and coffee, it was virtually a love fest. Seneca is so close to the ‘Clemson Tigers’ that you could hear the roar if you were the fan of an opposing team. Yet, they would have had to roar pretty loudly to overshadow the event at Jimmy’s Diner and everyone pretended not to notice that he is an avid Tarheel Fan.
Senator Edwards with his mother Bobbi (far left), father Wallace (to her right)and talking with Aunt Rita. I'm not sure who the other gentleman with them might be.
Senator Edwards is traveling across the country this week to talk about the challenges facing Americans living in rural communities and to discuss his rural recovery agenda, which would restore economic fairness and create new jobs and businesses in rural America, help struggling counties and towns and protect rural people and their way of life.
Edwards' Rural Recovery Act would:
• Restore economic fairness to rural America by helping small businesses thrive and grow. Edwards will create the Rural Economic Advancement Challenge (REACH) Fund to bring capital and management expertise to small town America.
• Create a new energy economy in rural America by establishing the New Energy Economy Fund to jumpstart renewable energies. Edwards will create new markets for ethanol, invest in renewable energy research, support locally owned biorefineries and require 25 percent of electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2025.
• Create fairness for family farmers by supporting strong antitrust enforcement, capping farm subsidies for corporate farms and supporting the packer ban and a national moratorium on new and expanded hog lagoons.
• Strengthen rural schools by improving pay for teachers in rural and other hard-to-staff schools to help attract quality new and experienced teachers, and by creating digital learning opportunities.
• Improve health care in rural America by rewriting the unfair Medicare and Medicaid funding formulas that punish rural states and communities, and supporting investments in telemedicine. Additionally, Edwards' plan for universal health care will cover the 9 million rural Americans that lack insurance and establish a nationwide network of safety net clinics and public hospitals.
• Rid rural America of methamphetamines by investing in the enforcement of drug laws in rural areas, help states make meth ingredients more difficult to get and expand programs that successfully treat addicts.
click here for the full proposal
As I entered the diner, a friend whispered to me that there are "Edwards’ everywhere today". Before long, I learned what he was talking about. As I walked through the diner and it was a very large one, I recognized Bobbi and Wallace Edwards, John Edwards’ parents. Theirs is the sort of ‘southern charm’ that books are written about. They are just plain charming. I know Wallace Edwards ‘charmed’ me when he told me that he had read my writings on JohnEdwards.com and said he knew me. When you’re talking to Bobbi, you are sure you’ve met the rock of that family. Then, you talk to Wallace and again you know you’ve met the rock of that family. Both are so genteel, yet so down to earth. You know right away there has never been a ‘mean bone in either of their bodies’ and there certainly isn’t now. They make it easy to see where John Edwards got his charm...and he does have charm. As you look at them chatting among themselves, you see their adoration and respect, each for the other.
A reporter spoke briefly with the Edwards’ and asked about their son as he was growing up. Wallace Edwards told about how his son worked in the mill during the summer as a teenager and how the young men were given the jobs of cleaning the machinery which was always dirty. He said one day Senator Edwards came home and said ‘I am not going to be doing this all of my life.’ When asked how they felt about that, both Edwards calmly said ‘I liked it.’
As I was there a few minutes early, I spoke briefly with Mr. and Mrs. Edwards though trying not to be rude as they were with family members. I then walked over to another table where the people were very nice and friendly, too, and they gave me a little insight into why they support John Edwards. You will see them in my video. Then, I asked their names. When I got to the last person, he squirmed a little and said ‘I’m not related, but my name is John Edwards.’ It did appear there were Edwards everywhere, and all of them were nice.
Okay, so this was a ‘real’ working diner and I learned quickly that the trays were huge, so stay out of the way. Oh, the waitresses were very nice and always asked to be excused if they bumped you or needed through, but trays of grits and eggs and coffee MUST get through. So, I just wiped the grits off my camera lens and went on.
A local historian Louisa Matheson Bell gave him a copy of her book, "Seneca: Visions of Yesterday" and expressed the town’s pride in him. He accepted with graciousness and went to the next table to greet other supporters and friends.
One group of high school students waited patiently as a group for a photo with Senator Edwards. I heard them say their group got one outing a year and they elected to come to see Senator Edwards for that one trip. What an honor.
One reporter became a bit overwhelmed and pulled out his personal camera and started taking a ‘self-portrait’ with the Senator to everyone’s amusement. There were lots of various media reporters covering the ‘diner’, even Fox had a camera there. AP did too. Story Here While Senator Edwards didn’t ‘speak formally’ today at the diner, he spoke volumes with his presence.
This event was well attended by law enforcement too and I don’t really think it was just the food. It looked like the entire department might just be on this detail. There were ‘no problems’ at the diner though as everyone just seemed happy to see him.
Senator Edwards then came over to the table where his relatives sat and said that when he learned he was spending the night last night, that he immediately knew he wanted some of his aunt Rita’s fried chicken, pinto beans and corn bread. Now, there’s a man who knows how to eat. I’ll bet he had grits for breakfast and he knows how to eat grits 'right'. Maybe we’ll have a ‘National Grits Day’ when he becomes president...
A self portrait..