Season 2 Episode 17

On December 23, 1969, Reverend Loyce Estes with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church addressed the congregation at the funeral services. "The dignified First Lady of the Louisiana Presbytery is dead. Vibrantly alive are the articles of faith that constitute our legacy. May her mantle fall on us prayerfully."

Reverend Mrs. Ada Caston Slaton Bonds is one of the most colorful ministers produced by the great Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Beyond a doubt, she overcame more difficulties and passed through more heartaches than any minister ever known to preach the 'Whosoever Will' gospel. Miss Ada, as all affectionately called her, possessed countless prodigies. By way of the corridors of her ministerial career, she helped shape the lives and mold the character of a great number of young ministers, who, today, rise up and call her 'blessed.'

God sent her His Divine calling to preach. She then learned to preach. She carved out a place for herself among the clergy that was unique, without comparison. With bottomless emotion, genuine poise, and true dignity, Miss Ada became the First Lady of the Cloth in the Louisiana Presbytery and had the highest honor bestowed upon her, the title of Mother of All Presbyteries.

Brother Kerans finished the Sunday morning services by calling on Reverend Paul Covey Johnson, standing by her frail and physical body awaiting its final resting place in the Old Bethany Cumberland Presbyterian Church cemetery outside Coushatta, Louisiana.

He began her final epitaph. "I'm walking along the seashore. A ship is floating near to me, spreading her white sails as it begins a voyage that takes Miss Ada further and further out into the ocean. She's a powerful vessel, one of beauty and strength. I watch her until she looks like a disappearing speck of a fluffy cloud where the horizon of the sea and sky intermingle with one another.

Then I realized her diminished size was in me, not in her. 'Look there...She is gone!' Nelson, along with Ada's brother Lilburn were standing together with eager eyes watching from one of the twelve gates to heaven. There are beautiful angels stationed at each of the entrances. Looking more closely, she sees her mother and father standing near Lilburn. There are smiles on all their faces and a happy and content look to their demeanor, standing and waiting there to take up the welcomed shout: 'HERE SHE COMES!'

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SEASON 2 EPISODE 15

The Significance of a High School to a Rural Community

Today, most of America’s population now resides in either the urban or suburban areas, and consequently, most Americans don’t struggle with the big question of whether their community can maintain its own high school. Nevertheless, this question continued to confront many rural dwellers in all states, one of these was the folks living in Eagle Lake, Texas. Before undertaking my writing career in full gear, I wrote three books. Book 1 and then Book 2 and 3 of Eagle Lake High School, A Pictorial History. While researching the writing of these books, I came to the 1968 Eagle Lake Headlight, where it showed the town’s people voting to consolidate all the schools in the county. However, this research demonstrated that Weimar and Columbus, Texas elected to keep their schools.

During my research, I decided to examine the consequences of the cities in our counties that voted to close down their respective schools. This included those who voted to keep theirs. What follows is an action research project intended to examine the consequences of keeping or removing a school from a rural community, particularly Eagle Lake High School. The subjects in this study are Garwood and Sheridan towns that exist a mere ten miles from one another, and Columbus and Weimar that exist about the same distance from one another. The towns that kept their school today continue to sustain themselves, while the towns that lost their school have almost disappeared, or at least the downtown areas have. Garwood, Sheridan, and Eagle Lake are three small communities that have existed over a hundred and fifty years just a few miles apart along rural Highways 71 and Alt 90. They are relatively typical for rural communities in Texas. They all serve as hubs for area rice farmers for many years, and each had its own schools, banks, churches, department stores, doctors, auto and tractor repair businesses, and other similar kinds of enterprise. The two towns were established by hearty pioneers when five miles was a tiring distance on horseback and a lengthy journey by carriage. It didn’t seem unusual for two cities to exist so close together in the last half of the nineteenth century. The circumstances that make an examination of these two tiny communities so interesting now is that one has declined in population to the point that almost all its businesses and services are gone, at least in the entire downtown districts. Worse yet, it has lost both of its high schools. Nevertheless, it is clinging to existence with the steadfast commitment of a handful of proud citizens who don’t want to lose their town.

Dave Henry of the country western singing duo, popular at the Backroom in Austin Texas in the 70s and 80s has made a guest appearance. He will sing a song about small towns disappearing from rural Texas. Steven Fromholz’s “Texas Trilogy” is one of the best works ever written about life in rural Texas. Like all great songs, “Daybreak,” “Trainride,” and “Bosque County Romance” stand the test of time and the perpetual recycling of popular culture. They seem to take on greater meaning as the decades slip by and our modern world explodes with growing conflict and confusion, including what happens to small towns when they lose something so important to them like a High School or a Railroad. Unlike the song, Eagle Lake continues to hang on, but its decayed, in the author's opinion, due to the loss of Eagle Lake High School which has now become Rice Consolidated!

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Season 2

Episode 13

VALENTINE’S DAY 2022

How to Stay in Love for 50 Years!

Walking together with a good friend in the darkness is far better than walking all alone in the light!

Theoretically, you cannot define LOVE and the trueness in it!

You don't have to do many sacrifices to prove that your love is true for that one special person. Because what if life hasn't given you any chances to make any.

So, even a simple feeling of extreme care for someone makes you aware that you are all drenched in the rain of true love.

Valentine’s Day, like Christmas, has become a commercial celebration with a dozen roses that cost over a hundred bucks, increased pressure on couples to make the day perfect, and most of the time, a heightened desire to “show love” to one another since many (not all) don’t seem to take the time to do that every other day, unlike what my wife and I do.

Jules Verne loaned me his time machine. Let’s all hop in and follow me back 48 years. I know that what I will be presenting will no doubt fall in line with many of you listening to my podcast today. I am madly in love with my wedding on the horizon in Austin, Texas. My whole life together is ahead of me. Now Zoom back towards the present several years. After several years of marriage, it can be tough sometimes to remember those head-over-heels feelings you once had. Take off some of my secrets from someone who has been happy and madly in love for years (and years) I am sure is still to come.

We keep our love alive by wanting to keep our love alive. We are conscious of what doesn't align with our goal of a loving, happy, and drama-free marriage, and we eliminate that as much as possible.

Our secret to staying in love after all these years is knowing what we have in each other—knowing the value that we bring to each other's lives and that we would be less without it. We have so many years of history that talking about old times and doing things from the past brings back fond memories.

If you want the top three selling romances from my bookshelves go to:

I Am Woman (Part I and II)

True Love Ways and the Sequel to True Love Ways, I Go to Pieces - Part 2: Sequel to True Love Ways

The Winds of Destiny

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As we wait on my Music Man to come by the recording studio to put the finishing touches on this Episode, I thought I would drop by for just a short and record a 5-Minute Soundbite about what the Show is all about. I hope you will return in the next ten days to hear the complete episode.

Thanks for joining me. 

Sidney St. James

Sam Bass - A Texas Outlaw

A Dead Man's Hand, Aces and Eights

SEASON 2 EPISODE 14

ALERT! $5,000 REWARD. Wanted Dead or Alive. Notorious Badman. SAM BASS, alias Sam Bushon, and Honest Eph. If sighted, immediately call the nearest U. S. Marshall's Office... The Round Rock Shootout in 1878

Hello Everyone. Welcome to my show today. After a month of moving BeeBop Publishing Group to Georgetown, Texas, from Brenham, Texas, I took a ride south on IH-35 from Georgetown to Austin. I couldn't help but notice a large green and white highway sign that said Sam Bass Road. I became interested in where in the world this road went. So I exited and followed it to a road sign for A. W. Grimes Boulevard.

I'm not sure why, but I needed to find out who these people were just like I did when I wrote a story about the Runaway Scrape in Texas and discovered Three-Legged Willie's statue, a man who played a part in this novel, on the downtown square in Georgetown. Or captured the memoirs of Dilue Rose Harris in the Runaway Scrape or Mary Elizabeth Surratt in the Lincoln Assassination.

I always read all the old newspapers and read the memoirs before writing my stories. I will leave it to you when you read my novel, Sam Bass and his Horse Marines, and decide for yourself if he was a Robin Hood or a Murderer! And, stay with us, and at the end of this podcast, Dave Henry of the 1980s country duo group, Dan and Dave, will join us to sing the famous Ballad of Sam Bass. Now, let our story begin.

Sam Bass - A Dead Man's Hand, Aces and Eights

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SEASON 2 EPISODE 1 - THE DAN & DAVE COUNTRY DUO GROUP FROM AUSTIN TEXAS IN THE 1970S AND 1980s

An entertaining evening with Dave Henry on the Sidney St. James Show!

First, let me tell all the folks out there that it appears almost impossible to talk with people who have ever heard of Dan & Dave (Part I), although they played in front of thousands of people at the Backroom in Austin, Texas, during the late 70s and early 80s.

For many years, his partner in crime was no other than Dan Burke, who left us last April 2021. Except for playing at the Aqua Festival once a year, their venue was the Backroom every Friday and many Saturday nights.

Dan and Dave (Part II) both were like me when I worked for KOOL99 Radio on the weekend all around Central Texas with the KOOL99 Oldies Road Show. Work 8-5 downtown Monday thru Friday and do gigs all weekend and on Sunday nights, having my own show, Fifties Fun on Sunday Nights.

Dan & Dave had a faithful accompanist by the name of Doctor Hans Langshon, who had to drive all the way down from Temple, Texas, where he was a physician at Scott and White Hospital. He played Bass guitar. And then there was Arty Passes, who played the steel guitar. He was with Channel 36 News during the week and on stage on Friday nights with Dan & Dave.

About 6 years ago, a steel guitar player named Colm Chomicky from all the way up in Kansas was looking to find Arty and asked if anyone recalled a young steel guitar player who played with Dan & Dave in 1980. Wow, believe it or not, he got his answer when no other than ARTY replied,

“Colm… you just made my day. Yes, a young steel player was with Dan & Dave at the Backroom. I’m now an old steel player with Kevin Fowler. That was the most fun I ever had at a gig. I still remember one of their bouncers by the name of Tiny. Yep, on Friday nites was always the Dan & Dave night, and it was always a full house.”

Another fellow by the name of Larry Coombs was also young back then and used to walk down to see Dan & Dave every Friday night in 1980. He said, “I’ve got an album by them, a live one. Last we heard, he has moved up the road to Lockhart, Texas."

Larry Coombs continued. Now back to just who Dan & Dave were in the Music Capital of Texas. They were best described by a Steel Guitar player from Prairie Village, Kansas. “For those who do not know about Dan & Dave, they have been described as a country “Smothers Brothers.” They played and sang their music between corny jokes about Furr’s Cafeteria. I remember once there was a ceiling fan up on the ceiling behind them on stage, and after each Lone Star longneck, they would flip the empty back over their shoulders, often hitting the rotating ceiling fan.”

VISIT THE SIDNEY ST. JAMES SHOW EPISODES AT HIS PODCAST WEBSITE... HAPPY LISTENING

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Season 2

Episode 11

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN by ROBERT FROST

LIFE IS ABOUT THE PATHS YOU

CHOOSE TO WALK THROUGH

Walking together with a good friend in the darkness is far better than walking all alone in the light!

Did I ever tell you I am a packrat? I never throw anything away. I still got the four-letter jackets I won in high school in football. And, I still have the dried flowers from the Powder Puff Football Game when I was runner-up for Homecoming King. William Brunner won the title. Wow, did my mind whirl around for a moment, and I found myself sitting in the back of the classroom at Eagle Lake High School when Mrs. Elizabeth Booth said she needed one boy and one girl to represent the class in the Regional UIL Meet for Poetry Interpretation. Only one hand went up, and it was the prettiest of all my classmates, and I didn't waste a minute… up went my hand. Gosh, I didn't even know how to spell "Interpretation," much less compete in Poetry Interpretation, but off I went to Victoria, Texas, to compete in the regional competition of Poetry Interpretation. The Poem… The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. It was and probably still is quite a famous poem; unfortunately, its popularity comes mainly from the simple act of misreading the poetry, like I did when I had to first memorize it. I didn't know that I had no idea what I was doing at the first of getting prepared to compete in something. I was like a fish out of water. With this poem, Robert Frost gave the world a piece of writing that every individual can relate to, especially when making choices and opportunities presented to them in life.

This poem is often quoted and used with an interpretation that is not precisely "correct." The popular belief is that Frost meant for this poem to be about hope, success, and defying the odds by choosing a path, or a path that was "less traveled by." On the other hand, if the poem is reviewed, it is pretty apparent that it has fairly the opposite connotation.

It is Robert Frost's first poem in his book "Mountain Interval" that he wrote in 1916. A popular pleasantly misconstrued poem since its release, its simplicity and way with words demonstrate the skill of this poet's fountain pen.

Some Great Novels Available from James:

I Am Woman - I Am Invincible

I Am Woman - Hear Me Roar

The novels above are two parts in a romance series that follows four brave young women through their young life as they all fall in love with four men who fought for both sides in the Civil War. They are available wherever ebooks, paperbacks and audio books are sold.

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I have never published a podcast that deals with politics and it will be a while again before I will do another. I do not like politics. I leave that to the news channels. But this is one I had to stand up and have my say!

Season 2

Special Report

Make a Choice: President Jefferson Davis or President Abraham Lincoln?

President Joseph Biden Asked Who I would rather be for, President Jefferson Davis or Abraham Lincoln? That question alone got me riled up because I lost two of my great-great-grandfathers who answered the call of the South to fight for Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy. Hello, Everyone. I am Sidney St. James, and so many times, history is written by the victors… well, that stops right here, President Joe Biden. I make my choice because I am proud of the job Jefferson Davis did and proud of the man he was!

Why is it that we know George Washington so well? Probably because he was the founding father of this here United States of America! Why do we know Abraham Lincoln? Because he was assassinated by John Wilkes Boothe. But did you know that an entire team tried to sneak into the South and assassinate Jefferson Davis first but were unsuccessful?

Never mind that. Your answer is probably no that you didn't know that because our history books were written by the victors…

In the case of the War Between the States, I found far more books in my writing of the Lincoln Assassination Series on Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and Abraham Lincoln than those written about Jefferson Davis. So I am here to support why my answer is what it is, President Joe Biden.

Let me begin by focusing on the President of the Confederacy, President Jefferson Davis. I am sure, if you are young, you probably said when you heard President Biden ask us to make a choice between Jefferson Davis or Abraham Lincoln, he pretty much was almost begging the South to take its leave and become a Confederacy once more. Heck, he won't even help protect our borders in the South against the Mexican Cartel, making our lives much less secure. But that's not why I’m here. I am here to demonstrate to Joe Biden why I made my choice what it is.

Why is Jefferson Davis disliked by so many in the North? Who is he… the leader of the bad guys if you listen to our President today?

Let's propose another question. How many know a lot, other than historical scholars, about Hitler, Stalin or Santa Anna… or even Jefferson Davis? Jefferson Davis would love to have a chair at the same table as Joe Biden. Before the War broke out, he knew and was good friends with so many people of the North before the states split and formed the Confederacy.

Two Novels Written by Sidney St. James

The Lost Cause - The Story of Jefferson Davis

Mary Elizabeth Surratt - The First Woman Executed by the Federal Government

The Rose of Brays Bayou - The Runaway Scrape

Season 2

Episode 10

Jesus – The Greatest Storyteller of All Time

PODCAST INTRODUCTION

(0-30) Every day should be a day of Thanksgiving, and what better way to celebrate than to recognize the greatest storyteller of all time. No, it’s not Sidney St. James. It’s not Steve Jobs either or Martin Luther King Jr.

(2:30-3:07) It’s Jesus Christ, of course. So today my friends, I will be demonstrating how Jesus uses analogies, or more commonly known as parables, to tell his stories. So, sit back and enjoy the ride as we will kick off this episode with one of the most famous analogies that Jesus used in his story telling, The Prodigal Son. Thanks for dropping by today.

MAIN SHOW

Two weeks ago, I talked about Forgiveness and last week a story about What Does Heaven Look Like from my knowledge of some of the stories of our Bible. This was in hopes of enabling my listeners to tell them to others if the context was right for them to participate or when teaching at Sunday School Class or a Bible Group.

Something always spurs me on a subject matter for my podcasts. This one is no different. I was in Kohl's Department Store shopping for my wife, a new University of Texas Sweatshirt. When I walked up to the clerk to pay, I noticed that the checkout lady had a donations bucket on the counter for a charity that I really cared about. I put the $5 bill I received back in the change into the container.  Almost right away, a person behind me, not paying any attention to social distancing, had the nerve to say aloud in front of everyone, "Why in the world would you waste good money on those folks?  It could buy you an entire meal up the street at Chic-Filet!"  I turned around, smiled, and quickly replied, "As a Christian, Jesus taught us that we are to help others."  At that point, if I knew well enough all the 40+ parables by Jesus, I could have summarized one of the parables, the Good Samaritan, to the scoundrel behind me or told him about the poor widow lady who gave her last 2 cents to God's ministry here on earth.  Or, I suppose I could have paraphrased that story into something we can all understand today yet cannot say aloud on my podcast today.  You can’t tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan or the one about the poor widow or even paraphrase one of those if you have never learned those stories from church services, Sunday School lessons, or Bible Study Groups to understand how to best utilize them in real life the next time someone in your shopping line says that you are wasting money trying to help people in need. Then, I will be better ready the next time, stop the line, and not be embarrassed whatsoever and TELL MY STORY!  The person behind me might very well say, "I’m sorry I asked!” Maybe, just maybe, a seed will get planted, although you’ll never know for sure! God Will!

Related Podcasts

The Making of the Novel FAITH - Seventy Times Seven

Jonah and the Whale - You Can't Run Away from God

Seeing the Power of God

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SEASON 2 EPISODE 9

HAVE YOU EVER IMAGINED HEAVEN?

Hello Everyone. This morning on our way to Pickleball at the Georgetown Rec Center, my wife and I were talking and trying to imagine just what Heaven is like? What brought up our conversation was a song played by a group known as Mercy Me. It was a song that filled her heart from a movie we saw, “I Can Only Imagine.” Then we talked about whether we will have a house there and asked so many more questions, one after another.

So, let’s get started. And, Oh, by the way, thanks for dropping by today!

Heaven is a subject of wild guesswork. Christians around the world draw up what they think Heaven will be like. What it will be like to live there. Heaven is a real place where we, the people of God, will go after we die. So, it's not a shock that, as Christians, we wish to learn as much as we can about what it will be like. Will there be homes? What will it look like? Will we still have sin? All these questions and many more are answered directly from God’s Word, the Bible.

When we go to Heaven, we shall see the Lord face-to-face. The fact that our all-knowing, all-powerful Creator will dwell with us, and we shall know him in an even more intimate way should be sufficient for we Christians to rest assured that we will be satisfied there.

When people imagine Heaven, they sometimes picture ethereal images like angels lounging on the clouds or chubby cherubs picking the strings on their golden harps. However, to be motivated to live for the values of Heaven, maintaining a biblical mindset about eternal realities is vital.

But maintaining this perspective is difficult when we are bombarded with numerous misconceptions about Heaven in popular culture. Here are three of the most common ideas about Heaven and what the Bible says about them.

LISTEN TO THE SIDNEY ST. JAMES SHOW ON SPOTIFY!

Great Novels from Sidney St. James

Genesis - Stepping Onto the Shore and Finding It is Heaven

Hallelujah - He is not Here; He Has Risen (Luke 24: 6)

Adversity - Keeping the Faith

Seeing the Power of God

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