You are probably curious about why a retired Alabama circuit judge established a website!
Here is your answer:My Ideas
The felt need to publish the ideas and writings described on the Home page and this page inspired the creation of this website. But to explain how these ideas developed, I needed also to tell my story, and describe the things that caused the ideas to develop. Publishing the website enabled me the ideas several ways, including opinion editorials, laity talks and other writings and ideas that developed during my career.
My Story
In an earlier era, I would likely have written a book of memoirs. But we are into a new age. I can preserve memories electronically. My ideas are inseparable from my story, and this website allows me to describe the environment in which the ideas contained in my books developed, and the writings found on this website help to present a complete picture.
Dale's Ideas and Story
The ideas presented on this website arose in the experience of rich and full life: a birth into a two room shack in rural Macon County, Alabama at the outset of US participation in World War II, a childhood in depression-like conditions in rural Alabama; education in a very small white public school in a mostly Black county, Huntingdon College, the University of Alabama Law School; election as a Circuit Judge in a rural Alabama Circuit; strong participation in judicial education, both as student and presenter; lifelong participation in United Methodist Church activity, many opportunities as a UM Lay Speaker, service as Lay Leader of the Alabama West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church; Alumni work and service as a Trustee, including chairing the board of trustees for Huntingdon College; and intense reading in philosophy, theology, psychology, sociology and history all the while.
A Work in Progress
Please understand that this website is a work in progress. It will never be finished! None of the work is necessarily complete. In this accordion I will briefly describe and the various categories.
Human Faith Within a Conscious Biosphere
This collection of essays containing my most current ideas has been published by Bookbaby. https://store.bookbaby.com/…/human-faith-within-a…
Conscience and Command,
The original was published in 1994. https://store.bookbaby.com/…/human-faith-within-a...
The second edition, or Conscious and Command, Revisited, is a work in progress that I hope to publish. It will be both a good prologue and a good epilogue to Human Faith Within a Conscious Biosphere. It will show how my thinking has developed, and also provide an example of one of the social systems that I describe in FWCB. It will, suggest the plateau that I had reached in 1994.
My Story
I have only begun this project. I have tried to suggest the beginning of the story, and have outlined the narrative, but I hope to add much more. In summary, I was born in abject poverty, among impoverished people. They bore the poverty without complaint and enjoyed life life was good. In 1944, a school bus came to the front of our two room house, where there was no water, plumbing, electricity or telephone and picked up my older brother Wade and carried him to the public school in Shorter, Macon County Alabama. I caught the same bus to the first grade in the same school in 1948. I try to catch something of the spirit of the community in the episodes that I relate. That is the school to which Mary Christine DeBardeleben returned in about 1945. The missionary work that I describe in telling her story had not ended. The work of the Shorter Public School was excellent, and the story is worth telling, and I include that story. We got an excellent education, but in the 1960’s the little school white school in a predominantly Black county was caught up in the controversies of Civil Rights, while I was at Huntingdon College, and the University of Alabama Law School. It did not survive. But I returned to the County that gave me that education, and that is the environment that gave rise to my ideas. Its all a matter of trying to understand. And being understood. I also tell the story of my work in the United Methodist Church.
Mary Christine DeBardeleben
A work in progress. I am seeking additional information, and hope to publish a formal biography later.
Opinion Essays
Over 30 opinion essays are included. They deal with Law and Race, as well as opinions about the legal system itself and other miscellaneous topics. Most of these were originally published in the Alabama Gazette, but I am likely to add too the collection.
Laity Talks
I served as a lay speaker in the United Methodist Church for over forty years. During that time, I served as Conference Lay Leader of the Alabama West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. I had many opportunities for lay speaking. Not nearly all were written out or recorded, but a fair sampling is included here. It is possible that more will be added as I review my records. If anyone remembers a talk that I made and will remind me of if, I will look, or even reconstruct!
The following posts are samples from the various types of writing found in the menu.
44) The Richardson Family
Daddy, Uncle Earl, and Uncle Jody were the youngest siblings in their family. Their best friends, growing up were the “Richardson boys”: Will, John Henry, and Floyd. They hunted, fished and played together, and many stories were generated. I think all three were...
45) The Sheppard Family
The Sheppard family had moved into our Milstead Community a good many years before I was born. There were 13 siblings in the Sheppard family, and some of them were already adults before the family moved into the community. Ruby, one of the siblings had married Mr....
46) The Ledbetter Boys
In the essay about the Sheppard family, I mentioned the Jewell was one of the thirteen siblings. She and her husband moved into the community close to Mr. Albert Reynolds and her sister Ruby, and also close to her parents and younger siblings. She raised six sons. ...
47) The Mailman
Mr. Charlie Shaw was the Milstead mailman. He delivered mail on a rural route for fifty years or more. He drove his own car, I think. He knew everyone on his route. Our mailbox was Rt. One Box 45, Milstead, Alabama. I never heard of a route two. The mail was...
48) The Rolling Store
In the Little House days, there was a “rolling store.” A large truck carried a supply of merchandise and circulated through rural communities selling the things that the poor country people needed. The rolling store came as far as Uncle Earl’s house, and most of the...
49) My Black Doll
When I was about 4 years old, I acquired a doll. It was not just any doll. The way I remember it may Aunt Willie Butler was involved. She carried us to a store, I think in Tallassee, AL. It must have been Christmas, but all that was a long time ago. She was...
MJS Thesis
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1.00 The Origin of the Essays
This essay was originally written as thank you to the editors of the Alabama Gazette as a final Article, concluding a series of opinion editorials in that monthly newspaper that was published in Montgomery, Alabama. It adapts easily to an introduction of to the...
1.01 Family Meltdown
Family is the primal unit of society. Men and women have obviously always met and produced offspring. Successful marriages conserved energy and allowed the marriage partners to pursue other activities that are necessary for human advancement. Maslow identified sex...
1.02 The Humpty Dumpty Problem
In the essay on Family Meltdown, I described the meltdown of family that resulted from our nation’s movement from an agrarian, small town economy to a technological economy. Men and women have more contact with members of the opposite sex who are not their spouses...