Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Hugh Morton’s funeral was held earlier this week with hundreds of friends, family and North Carolina state officials saying goodbye to the legendary mountain man. We’ll say goodbye with this little story, told to me by a longtime friend of ours:
I thought of you the other night. I was flipping through channels, and WUNC was rebroadcasting an interview from about 10 years ago with Hugh Morton. He told an amazing story about his insight as a political observer and marketer.
In the early ’60s, when the Park Service was trying to screw him over on the route of the Parkway, he was supposed to testify before a state commission. WRAL called him and asked if he would participate in a TV debate live with the head of the Park Service from D.C., some pinhead bureaucrat moron.
Morton agreed, and it was to be the night before the hearing before the legislative commission on the state granting a right-of-way for the road. The feds would build it, but the state had to grant the right-of-way.
At the last minute, WRAL said the Park SErvice wanted to bring a hot-shot engineer to debate with the head of the Park Service. They asked Morton if he wanted to bring his engineer. Of course, he didn’t have one. So they said, “How about your advisor or attorney?” He didn’t have one of those, either.
So they said, “Well, you can bring someone if you want.”
Morton instantly called Arthur Smith, the great early TV evangelist who helped start Singing on the Mountain. Unbeknownst to the bureaucrats at the Park Service, Smith had the most popular early Sunday morning TV show in the South before folks went to church.
So they do the debate, and the Park Service head and the engineer go first and drone on and on in boring fashion. Then Morton takes his shot, but quickly turns to Smith. In his evangelical voice and presentation, Smith says that he can’t believe the federal government bureaucracy is picking on
a poor, good Christian man like Hugh Morton.
As Morton said, “The WRAL phone bank lit up like a Christmas tree.” The same thing happened at the governor’s office and every g.d. politician in North Carolina.
At the hearing the next day, the politicians just mercilessly berated the Park Service folks. And after that, the debate about where the parkway would go around Grandfather was essentially over.
As Morton said, “Those Park Service people never really figured out what hit them.”
I’m afraid Hugh Morton’s off-the-cuff brilliance might not be seen again.
submitted by Paul
