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This is a story about time. The georgia general assembly's time this year is winding down.
Backs are being slapped arms are being twisted laws are being made. Soon it'll all be a memory
but there was one memory about the Georgia General Assembly and it has an augusta angle.
It was the last day of a session on reapportionment the hour was late and the forces of Gov. Carl
Sanders appeared to be on he verge of winning the day. In fact, a capital workman had stopped
the clock in the chamber so the governor, an Augustan, could address the assembly and
make his points before the clock and the day and the session ran out. But state representative
Denmark Groover was having none of that. The Macon lawmaker who had seen action WWII with
the famous Black Sheep Squadron raced to the house balcony hooked a leg and arm over the
railing and reached for the clock to try his own hand at political time management. He
failed. But groover's efforts actually dislodged the
clock from the nail that it was sitting on. He tried he said later to grab the cord but
that slipped too. It crashed to the floor startling everybody - the governor, the lawmakers,
reporters, everybody with a great crash. Bob Cohn, Atlanta bureau chief for the Augusta
Chronicle, took a photograph that showed Mr. Groover stretched horizontally over the balcony
rail reaching for the clock and looking like someone posing for Michael Angelo. The Sistine
Chapel meets the Three Stooges. When Denmark Groover died a couple of years ago he was
not remembered for the clock incident. He was remembered for the years of legislation
that he put through the Georgia General Assembly. denmark groove could easily disable the weaker
efforts of legislators who crossed his path while crafting legislation of his own that
needed little defending. When he decided to put these considerable talents into a piece
of legislation his colleagues said the bill had been "Grooverized" When a politician's
name becomes a verb form we may assume he has arrived. and then he passed.
Like many lawmakers Denmark Groover lives on, not only in the laws that he helped craft
but also for a very famous photo taken by an Augusta reporter. Maybe he shows us that
you can't stop time but if you're a good enough lawmaker you can affect the future.