Haley when I raced dirt bikes I used to come down to TX to race, some of the guys I raced with saw some news about my granddad and how long he served, they asked me are you the Gov of Tn or something!
I said yeah, but I love to come down and kick some TX ass, and I did! LOL! After that they would call me Tn or Governor! LOL!
I can remember our family getting death threats cause my granddad marched with the blacks during school de-segregation in the late 60s.
He had a much thicker skin than I do, cause no matter what he did, someone didnt like it and the local press just ate him alive, I would say how do you handle that, he would just say that he was doing what he thought was right for the majority of the people in his district, he must have known something to last as long as he did in politics.
He was a democrat, but he supported bi-partisanship, even put may Republicans on important committees at the state level, I asked him many times why, he would just say, this persons background quailifys them more than a Democratic for that position.
The thing that hurt him the most, was the closing of some small airports in his district for development purposes, during the 60s and 70s he championed small airports for major towns in his district, to bring in manufacturing type jobs. Many of these got shut down thru the years, it just burned him alive cause he was an avid aviator, flew his own plane til he was 82. Often 2-3 times a day, his landing strip went over my drive way, I miss hearing "Jaybird" taking off and landing.
He also rode bicycles into his 80s, he would ride around 12-16 miles in the morning and afternoon, his last couple of years he had a indoor bike he rode, but he said he preferred being outside and riding. They put these rumble strips on the edge of the highways in our area and it drove him nuts trying to ride his bike, of course the smart ass side of me would always say if there is any man in TN that can get them eliminated Im sure you can do it! He would get quiet when I said that.
"A winks as good as nod to a blind man"