I bet Bascom Lamar Lunsford was a Republican.

Actually, it seems to me he was a Democrat. A Southern Democrat, mark you. Which is not all that far from Republican, on some issues.

He was a lawyer, for God's sake! The only work he ever did with his hands was sticking them in someone else's pockets.

That's an invidious misapprehension, and I think you should be abashed to say it. Despite fashionable and cynical popular beliefs, lawyers are all over the lot, Some fall in the lawyer-shark category you seem to be referring to, and some are purely technicians who do office-type things like write wills and contracts, and some are save-the-world types who devote their lives to low-paid jobs for charities and community organizations, just to illustrate the range.

And as to Bascom Lamar Lunsford, he put in what must have been thousands and thousands of unpaid hours toward the organization and running of the famous folk music organization he started (whose name escapes me just at the moment).

Dave Oesterreich