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Thompson's hometown remembers a less stately Fred
They wouldn't have predicted it, but they say the presidency might suit him.
By BRAD SCHRADE
Staff Writer
LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. — The Latin teacher at Lawrence County High School had a warning for Bob Buckner’s mother: Your son is hanging around with that troublemaker Freddie Thompson.
With his cut-up personality, Freddie was a persistent disrupter of Miss Desda Garner’s ninth-grade Latin — and Bob, the teacher warned, was his cohort.
“Mom told me I was going to be forbidden to associate with him,” Buckner told The Tennessean. “That was when we were freshmen. It went downhill from there.”
The life of the man now known as Fred Thompson has twisted and turned like the country roads of the rural Lawrence County where he grew up: A used car salesman’s son, a kid who by all accounts was an unimpressive student and who married before he graduated high school after getting his girlfriend pregnant, but who followed the winding road to Nashville, the U.S. Capitol, Hollywood, and now, possibly, the White House.
In sleepy Lawrenceburg, few claim to have predicted the fame and stature that lay ahead of him. They remember Freddie as the class clown — he was likeable and smart, though not studious.
They also say he matured quickly and deeply after becoming a young husband and father. They describe him as a genuine and decent man with a knack for being in the right place at the right time.
“He had a way of making you like what he was saying even if you didn’t agree with him at first,” said childhood friend Jan Clifton, gesturing toward a lamppost on the square. “He had a way, if I didn’t think I could climb that pole, of convincing me I could do it.”
As for the presidency, Lawrenceburg folks think this is Fred’s right time.
“He comes across as so sincere,” said Tommy Beurlein, one of Thompson’s high school classmates. “He’s not trying to answer some way to be popular at the minute.”
Read more of this hometown profile of Fred Thompson at Tennessean.com on Sunday and in The Tennessean on Sunday.
They wouldn't have predicted it, but they say the presidency might suit him.
By BRAD SCHRADE
Staff Writer
LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. — The Latin teacher at Lawrence County High School had a warning for Bob Buckner’s mother: Your son is hanging around with that troublemaker Freddie Thompson.
With his cut-up personality, Freddie was a persistent disrupter of Miss Desda Garner’s ninth-grade Latin — and Bob, the teacher warned, was his cohort.
“Mom told me I was going to be forbidden to associate with him,” Buckner told The Tennessean. “That was when we were freshmen. It went downhill from there.”
The life of the man now known as Fred Thompson has twisted and turned like the country roads of the rural Lawrence County where he grew up: A used car salesman’s son, a kid who by all accounts was an unimpressive student and who married before he graduated high school after getting his girlfriend pregnant, but who followed the winding road to Nashville, the U.S. Capitol, Hollywood, and now, possibly, the White House.
In sleepy Lawrenceburg, few claim to have predicted the fame and stature that lay ahead of him. They remember Freddie as the class clown — he was likeable and smart, though not studious.
They also say he matured quickly and deeply after becoming a young husband and father. They describe him as a genuine and decent man with a knack for being in the right place at the right time.
“He had a way of making you like what he was saying even if you didn’t agree with him at first,” said childhood friend Jan Clifton, gesturing toward a lamppost on the square. “He had a way, if I didn’t think I could climb that pole, of convincing me I could do it.”
As for the presidency, Lawrenceburg folks think this is Fred’s right time.
“He comes across as so sincere,” said Tommy Beurlein, one of Thompson’s high school classmates. “He’s not trying to answer some way to be popular at the minute.”
Read more of this hometown profile of Fred Thompson at Tennessean.com on Sunday and in The Tennessean on Sunday.
Heck, what red-blood, all-American boy doesn't like girls?! 
Oh, yeah, the ol' Don't ask; don't tell mentality of liberalism. Well, that's just plain stupid! If that were proper criteria, Bill (the little blue dress) Clinton never would have been elected. I would have to see/hear/read of something significantly more critical than this to turn my opinion against him.