Comments on: The legendary Bill Emerson: ‘Exactly how I planned it’

By: super

super — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:41:01 +0000

What did i do wrong? If i broke your blog i’m so sorry, i hope i didn’t ruin anything or i’d feel really bad

By: Sue Williams

Sue Williams — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:55:44 +0000

Doug, Neil and I can’t thank you enough for this tribute. We had to miss the service for Bill, and you have provided the overwhelming sense of gratitude that we would have received there for the life of this trombonist who never played a sour note. We all derive energy and purpose from such a life – and from your reporting of it.

By: peter applebome

peter applebome — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:11:57 +0000

Wow. Truly Emersonian. And you didn’t even have to shout it.
Perfect piece.

Peter

By: jackie yancey

jackie yancey — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:29:26 +0000

doug, never posted a commment before, but have to tell you…wow…i feel like bill was sitting by me at the computer!! thank you for a great story and memory!! jackie

By: Keith Graham

Keith Graham — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 06:45:48 +0000

Just for the un-initiated, Mac Secrest who just commented on this site is honored in the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame. He also shared the prestigious Sidney Hillman Foundation prize for journalism with Harry Ashmore of the Arkansas Gazette in 1957, the year before Ralph McGill won the prize. Mac is a journalistic legend in his own right.

By: A. M. (Mac)Secrest

A. M. (Mac)Secrest — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 02:48:19 +0000

Great job Doug. You’re Boswell to Emerson’s Johnson! Eloquent, factual, insightful,gracious sentiment without sentimentality, generous but truthful. If you teach as well as you write, you’re turning out some good journalists at W and L, and maybe journalism isn’t dying afterall. I knew all of those journalistic titans you mentioned and worked with several, and yep, they, like the misnomed greatest generation”( we were the greatest spenders and consumers and good at leaving the Boomers to clean up the mess) are passing on, and if one is of that age, the Passing Parade ain’t that great to be a part of. Friend Calvin Kytle joined it last year.

My niece, Bella English, has carved quite a career for herself at the Boston Globe and as senior reporter there, conceived a lot of and wrote many chapters and edited others on the Globe’s recent book on Edward Kennedy, The Last Lion. Bella first and best friend in journlism after she graduated from UNC was Bill Emerson’s daughter, who I thought was also named Lucy. They met at their first job on the Greenvile News, I think. I hope I have got that straight. She’s been out of town and country for awhilel but I suppos she heard about Emerson’s death tho’ I confess I missed it till I saw this entry on Keith Graham’s Face Book. Bit I am a recent escapee from UNC hopsitals myself and guess that’s why. Fondest regards to all,

Mac

By: Doug Cumming

Doug Cumming — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:32:23 +0000

Thanks, y’all, for every comment, which I have read, each one, with the deep feelings I had hearing that brass band (literally, a band of brothers, Bo, and high school buddies Tommy Dean and Jonny Hibbert) play “Just a Closer Walk” and “When the Saints.”

Now I know what “going viral” on the Internet means. When the editorial director of Time Inc. told me half of America had sent him the link, including Howell Raines, I realize I’d achieved that online nirvana of hits and comments.

I’d be embarrassed if this was anything but Bill Emerson’s spirit having another hoot and fling. I was just reporting. I sat there thinking about Bill, my heart and memories welling up. But nothing would’ve come unless I’d done some reporting – reviewing some video clips of Bill from the old Popham Seminars, finding the transcript of the interview my student Alex Battey did, reading Daddy’s column on Bill (from an AJC column of exactly 30 years ago today), and reading the page of my journal from my last visit with Bill at Tate. So yeah, the Internet’s great, but not without reporting. No one-source stories, as I tell my students.

By: Tom Eblen

Tom Eblen — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:21:51 +0000

Doug, What a beautiful tribute. It’s sad to see the passing of another legend of Southern journalism. We’re a richer place and people for their lives and words. My thoughts are with Bo and Maureen.

By: Terry Adamson

Terry Adamson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:35:00 +0000

Doug, thank you for this wonderful tribute to Bill Emerson, who, like your father, was a muse for so many of us youngsters trying to cope with printers’ ink in the late sixties. Best regards. Terry Adamson

By: Lisa Loudermilk deGolian

Lisa Loudermilk deGolian — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:50:12 +0000

Doug, Your remembrance of Bill Emerson accomplished a near impossible task…corraling his larger-than-life presence into a succinct tribute. As I read it, I was taken back to the mountain. Each summer my mother and Mif Rolader would pile us into the station wagons on the last day of school , and we would live on the mountain until school started again in September. One of the big events of the summer was “The Arrival of the Emersons” from up north. Our house was “down the hill” from the Emersons. On a random morning, we would start hearing their screen door slamming, loud directives being given, and of course Bill’s “GOD DAMN” echoing over the mountain. We would announce at breakfast that “the Emersons have arrived!!!”. As I get ready for the funeral , I look forward to seeing all of the people that he loved, and hearing wonderful stories of his wonderful life. My thought and prayers are with all of the Emersons.

By: mary emerson-smith

mary emerson-smith — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:05:20 +0000

Bill was my father’s first cousin (their fathers were brothers). You have captured his lightening in a bottle. When I applied for my first job as a family therapist, the (rather mr magoo like) psychiatrist asked me about my family. I told him about the two sides, the Yankee side (my mother’s) and the Southern side (my father’s). He peered across his enormous desk and asked me “Are you related to ‘The’ Bill Emerson?” Completely amazed, I knew it had to be the same Bill and of course I said yes – and of course I got the job. Only in the South.

By: Jonny Hibbert

Jonny Hibbert — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:03:07 +0000

Thank you for this fine remembrance of Bill Emerson. A mighty oak of a man with a sense of humor possessed only by those blessed with great intelligence and courage. He always made me feel welcome and, somehow, seemed to know me, to get me. Emerson celebrated life and its inhabitants. Long may we celebrate him with our stories and our work. Thanks, Doug.

By: Bob Triggs

Bob Triggs — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:27:04 +0000

This was a wonderful read, a good tribute to a great man. Mr Emerson was so much larger than life to me, a giant really. I always felt like I was in the presence of greatness with him; even when he was just hanging around in the kitchen over a cup of coffee he could make your hair stand on end with a sharp quip or a pithy story. The man radiated warmth and looked evil right in the eye. I know I am a better man for knowing him, and Lucy and the whole family, than I ever would have been had I not known them. I carry a pocket full of riches with my thoughts of Bill Emerson. He loved life, and Life loved him. “Into the hands of the giver the gift is given”.

By: David Hibbert

David Hibbert — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:49:30 +0000

Wonderfully stated, Doug. I remember my first meeting with Bill Emerson , back in the ’60’s at your house for some long forgotten occasion. And the last on my back porch, for Dad’s 86th birthday party. Thank you for putting the words together. A fitting tribute to a great man.

By: Lawson Shadburn

Lawson Shadburn — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:52:02 +0000

My earliest memories of Bill Emerson emanate from my childhood, when his family would arrive in Atlanta each Christmas like a tornado, swirling fun, verbiage and ideas around them and leaving us energized in their wake.

After a considerable hiatus (heading north to college, marrying a Yankee and failing to move back again) my wife Sue and I developed the pleasurable practice – and privilege – of an annual visit with Lucy and Bill with the roles reversed – now we were the New Yorkers and they were the Atlantans.

Bill was always warm and open, eager to discuss new ideas and current events. He lived as a participant, observer and critic in the midst of a world I had fled. I relished his delightful invective for those who sat in judgment of others, oblivious to their own faults. The exterior that some perceived as bombastic was careful packaging of a heart of gold – deeply caring about humanity and intellectual honesty.

I am thrilled with the accuracy of the accolades to Bill that are appearing across the country, and am particularly thankful for Doug’s, which completely hit the nail on the head. I regret that I am unable to make it to Atlanta for the funeral, but Susan and I send our condolences and warm wishes to all our Emerson cousins.