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DEL.ICIO.USBecause what you don’t know about a politician can’t hurt you
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Savannah — The first thing to remember is that Bob Holmes is a thin fellow, bald and bespectacled.
The state House member from Atlanta has a doctorate in political science, and taught college for 30 years or so. He’s the epitome of a quiet, tweed-jacketed academic — mid-sixties, and newly retired.
In other words, sweet and harmless and boring.
Holmes was was one of three African-American lawmakers honored for their 34 years of service on Saturday.
This has been mentioned before. The other two were Calvin Smyre of Columbus and David Lucas of Macon. The presenter of the award on Saturday was Tyrone Brooks, the long-time head of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials.
The occasion was naturally biographical, and encouraged a review of how one came to arrive from a distant There to a close-on Here, all in the nanosecond of four or five decades.
Holmes told of his birth on the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, and a youth spent learning the ways of Harlem and its gangland politics. A brother who manufactured zip guns. A best friend who OD’d on heroin.
And the time a rival grabbed Holmes from behind in high school. Holmes gave him his right elbow in the belly, crooked an arm around the miscreant’s head when he doubled over, and rammed him through the principal’s glass door.
Holmes’ education was suspended by two months.
Perhaps, Holmes theorized, this is why he never joined the Freedom Riders on their non-violent tour of the segregated South in the ‘60s. He didn’t have the temperament.
Such are the confessions of a man who no longer intends to run for office.
There was, of course, the question of how Holmes evolved from a gang-banger to a Phd. But he had little time to explain things.
Evening was approaching. He had a plane to catch. The former denizen of rough-edged Harlem, you see, had promised to accompany his wife to an AARP gala in downtown Atlanta.
Photo credit: Associated Press
Comments
By Analchord
June 22, 2008 12:38 PM | Link to this
He put a child’s head through the window? That HAD to hurt. What a wild man! You sure you’re not talkin’ ‘bout Larry Holmes? This other Holmes sure was a tough guy. So much for the meek inheriting the earth…..
By stateselectwaterheatercori
August 19, 2008 6:39 PM | Link to this
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