G.V. “Sonny” Montgomery’s funeral was the first funeral to be held at the Temple Theatre. It was a beautiful and dignified event. Many people probably are not aware that Sonny had been a Hamasa Shriner since November 1953.

Benny Eggler, Recorder of the Hamasa Shriners, said former President George H.W. Bush admired the theatre while he was here for his dear friend’s funeral. While Barbara Bush spoke about Sonny because it was just too tough for the former president to do so, Bush-41 did tell Eggler while admiring the beautiful theatre on his way out of the Temple, “I would love to do a speech here.”

And kudos to Greer Goldman who provided the beautiful music.



A lifesaver



My first interview with G.V. “Sonny” Montgomery was on Sept. 11, 2001. We spoke over the phone as he gazed out the window of the office he still had at that time in Washington, D.C., watching the Pentagon burn after being the target of a terrorist attack.

Long before that, however, in 1992 while he was still in Congress, Sonny Montgomery might very well have saved my life.

I was being interviewed for a job in Mississippi after having been born, raised and educated in Arkansas, where I’d also worked for 10 years in radio and newspapers.

I won’t mention any names, but I was riding shotgun in a little convertible with the owner of some weekly newspapers here in Mississippi along with one of his editors. The top was down and we were shooting the breeze.

I was being considered for editor of one of this guy’s little newspapers in the Delta when the conversation turned to politics.

It was about three months away from that year’s presidential election, pitting then Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, a Democrat, against President George H.W. Bush, a Republican.

The newspaper owner and publisher said: “You’re not a Clinton supporter are you?”

I said that I was.

He slammed on the brakes so hard I nearly flew out of the open car. We almost skidded off the road and when we finally stopped, these guys threatened to throw me into Deer Creek if I didn’t take it back.

Of course I didn’t.

“We don’t like Democrats,” the editor said. The owner/publisher was a little more diplomatic.

“Well some of them are OK,” he said. “Sonny Montgomery’s our friend.”

They didn’t throw me in Deer Creek. In fact, they hired me and even tolerated me while I wrote pro-Clinton columns that summer.



A day at the beach



There’s a guy I spoke with from New York this week who used to be called a “lifesaver” by Sonny Montgomery. Dr. Edward Kush, an engineering consultant, said he got Sonny to shore on the beach at Southampton after Sonny had been hit by a wave and took a pretty terrific spill on the Fourth of July weekend in 1975.

He was then taken to Bethesda Hospital in Maryland. Kush said he didn’t really do much but Sonny always called him his buddy after that and the two men remained friends ever since. Kush said he last Spoke with Sonny about six months ago and hadn’t seen him for two years.

It was all kept pretty quiet according to Kush but somehow the incident did make it into Maxine Cheshire’s column “Washington Hotline” on July 15, 1975, but she mistakenly identified Sonny as being from Alabama. Here’s the notice Kush sent me.

“The very social Rep. Gillespie V. (Sonny) Montgomery (D-Ala.), visiting the Countess de Rochambeau in Southampton over the Fourth of July weekend, nearly broke his neck body-surfing and is in Bethesda Naval Hospital. An aide said last week that the injured vertebrae have caused a 10 per cent loss of movement in Montgomery’s right arm. He can shave and eat, but he cannot play tennis.”