Matt Gore - Publishing, Faith, and the Flair for Collecting
You're listening to the Cumberland Road, and I'm your host, TJ Malinovsky. The following is a faith conversation with Matt Gore, a British journalist, historian, pop culturalist, author, and an enthusiast for all things collectible. He is the editor and publications manager of one of the longest running magazines in North America, the Cumberland Presbyterian, a magazine whose motto reflects its church's namesake, in essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, and in all things charity. Enjoy this faith conversation with Matt Gore.
T.J.:Matt, you are the editor and publications manager of the Cumberland Presbyterian, a publication that has been in circulation for a 194 years, focusing on faith based articles and news of the church. A question for you is, what are the challenges and joys of being responsible for a magazine with such a long history and legacy?
Matt:I think the primary challenge is probably securing material to include in the magazine.
T.J.:I figured you would say hitting the deadline.
Matt:No. Generally, we've hit the deadline. During the pandemic, we had a long period of not hitting the deadline Mhmm. Which was made even worse by a long period of the postal service taking up to 3 months to actually circulate an issue of our magazine. But more often than not, we hit the deadline.
Matt:I can't recall an instance where we have missed the drop dead deadline, which is where you throw up your hands and and give up all hope of having the magazine out on time. But, yeah, I'd still say the the main problem, main problem, main challenge is getting material to put in the magazine.
T.J.:When you talk about material, do you mean, you know, contributions from writers, journalists, churches? Are you talking about your own writings, all the above?
Matt:Well, I'm, I guess, trapped here. So having my contribution is not all that difficult because I'm here every day and I'm gonna do that. What's difficult is getting the material that the General Assembly has said we have to cover. The things that General Assembly's dictated are supposed to be in the magazine, and that is the news from presbytery's and synods. And it's like pulling teeth to get that information sometimes, and and from some people.
Matt:Mhmm. You know, some people
T.J.:are
Matt:very rapid and send a synopsis of their actions of their judicatory just automatically, and some have to be reminded over and over again. And then we have some presbyteries that just never do report, and that is despite general assembly telling them they have to.
T.J.:Walk me through I'm in a unique position because we work in the same building. But walk me through kind of the process of magazine of an issue from start to finish? For those who don't know of what that entails from your perspective as an editor and publications
Matt:manager? Well, the process really starts or can start months in advance. I currently have on my computer, folders for each month of the year, going into at this point, going into 2020 5. And as material occurs that should be included in a specific issue, because we have a map of content over the course of a year. So if I have something for a specific issue, it could be a year from now.
Matt:We'll go ahead I'll go ahead and drop that into the folder for for that specific month. But really what occurs, like, 2 months before an issue is due, I'll start gathering short subjects and obituaries, the kind of thing that we run every month, and start dedicating them to that issue and, you know specific folders for the issue. And as time progresses, hopefully, people in the church, presbyteries, synods, you know, congregations, whoever wants to submit material will send something during that time period. So in theory, when it's actually time to gather information for a specific issue, already have some things in the bank that are ready to be fleshed out and ready to run-in that issue. Also, works the same way with letters to the editor or op ed pieces.
Matt:An op ed piece is simply a longer than normal letter to the editor usually. We do not solicit any of that material, but we have not yet failed to run anything that has been submitted
T.J.:Yet.
Matt:Yet. I'm not saying it's not possible. In fact, there are I have 2 very similar letters that would theoretically go in the April issue, and I will probably push one of them back till May rather than have just an overabundance of the same opinion in that issue. I'm often asked why, still on the editorial content, why we don't run letters or op ads supporting or attacking one position or another. And the reason for that is we run what we get.
Matt:And if everyone is on everything that's submitted is on the same side of an issue, then that's what we run. We're not going out looking for people to take the counterpoint.
T.J.:What is it like to edit the material as it comes in? Because I've been on the writing side, but I haven't been on the editorial side where you may get utter grammatical garbage, speaking specifically of my own submissions. But but how do you keep the integrity of the article and the writer's intent? And can you always determine what the writer's intent is?
Matt:No. No. Can't always be determine what the writer's intent is. And in which case, we'll go back to the writer and say, hey, is this what you mean? Or this is what you wrote.
Matt:I think it means this. Is that what you really mean? And then give the writer an opportunity to come back and change what they've written, correct what they've written, so that there isn't any room for misinterpretation. I've done that numerous times, and I've done that numerous times trying to correct something that seems to be fallacious. Only to have the writer insist that that is their intent.
Matt:And then at that point, it's out of my hands because I'm not interested in changing anyone's intent.
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:I want their message to come through. Now we will check. We will fix grammar, spelling errors, things like that, but not the intent of what the writer's trying to express.
T.J.:Right. I'm notorious for having tremendously long string on sentences. Has a has a verb, has a noun, and
Matt:Yes. You are.
T.J.:But they can go on and on and on. And, I know that about and I try to do better. However, what about there's also tones in writing, like many of us write the way we speak. Is that a challenge that you face as an editor? Because writing an article or does it matter about the content?
T.J.:Maybe that that tone is appropriate for the content. Or maybe it's just me just kind of reflecting back on my own writings that sometimes we do write the way that we speak, and yet it doesn't look as polished when you go back and read the material. Again, I'm speaking from my own perspective, but how do you is that an issue that you have faced as an editor? Is it is it that big of a deal?
Matt:It's it's it is a it's an it's an issue. It's not a large issue. Some people do write in an incredibly conversational style. But when you say people write how they speak, they don't really write how they speak. Because when they're writing something, they have time to think about it, to clean it up, and you don't tumble over jumbled thoughts, whereas in a an actual conversation, you do.
Matt:So, you know, peep people tend to express themselves better even if they don't think they do in a written form than in a spoken form.
T.J.:How about the joys? We've talked about some of the challenges. What are the joys of being responsible for the Cumberland Presbyterian Magazine?
Matt:I think probably the greatest joy is the occasions where someone really appreciates an issue of the magazine or an article in the magazine. And look, can't wait to tell you how wonderful they thought a specific article was, how delighted they were that we mentioned, excuse me, that we mentioned their church in an article, how delighted they were that we ran a picture of their Boy Scout troop or or whatever. But that's really a lot of fun when someone does that. Another thing that and this is gonna sound strange, but another thing that really makes me happy is when a subscriber renews their subscription for an absurdly long period of time. And I think the current the current record is 12 years.
T.J.:Wow.
Matt:Yeah. 12 year subscription renewal, which and that that shows a lot of confidence in the publication.
T.J.:Right.
Matt:That they're willing to invest well, it's not a great deal of money because we're fairly inexpensive, but still 12 years worth of it.
T.J.:Yeah.
Matt:I got a kick out of that.
T.J.:Yeah. From a print publication, the cost of the magazine is not that much. But going back to the challenges for a minute, you know, most of people's consuming of news and information and faith based articles is moving online. It's digital. It's not the paper.
T.J.:How is that or has that affected the Cumberland Presbyterian as a publication?
Matt:Well, of course it has. I mean, that you know, that is just the way publishing is at the moment. It's probably affected us less, because Cumberland Presbyterian tends to have both an older and more traditional demographic.
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:That is we have young we have young subscribers, but I would say our our young subscribers tend to be old souls, who probably would be just as happy living 50 years ago as they are today. So while we we, like everyone else, are declining in circulation slowly, it's probably less apparent in our little niche than it is just in a general publication.
T.J.:Alright. We've talked about your role in the church. Let's talk about Matt when he was younger. Did you dream of being an editor of a magazine
Matt:Yes.
T.J.:When you
Matt:were a kid? Absolutely.
T.J.:How far back?
Matt:When I was in my, oh, early teens. And I wasn't necessarily an editor of a magazine, but an editor of a periodical of some kind. This is about the time that the, Lou Grant TV show was airing.
T.J.:Well, tell me more.
Matt:Okay. You familiar with the Mary Tyler Moore Show? Young fellow.
T.J.:Yeah. I've heard of it.
Matt:Yes. You've heard of it. Okay. Mary Tyler Moore Show was a vastly popular sitcom starring Mary Mary Tylenolore as a producer in a newsroom in Minneapolis. Her boss was the crotchety, cranky Lou Grant, who was an old newspaper man who just happened to be running a television newsroom.
Matt:When that series went off the air after, I think, 12 years, they spun Lou Grant off into his own series. Now I'm not just positive, but I believe Lou Grant ran as a hour long drama for 3 years, 3 seasons, in which Lou Grant became the city editor of a fictional Los Angeles newspaper. And that was about the time that I was thinking journalism was really cool. And I was lucky that I have went to a high school that offered journalism classes, had a journalism oh, not a an entire curriculum, but at least had a series of journalism classes, which I was able to take. And I I thought that was just the neatest thing and I always or I thought anyway that I wanted to be a print journalist, preferably in a Metropolitan Daily Newspaper.
Matt:Now that part the Metropolitan part never really happened. Although I did work for the Glasgow Daily Times
T.J.:In Kentucky.
Matt:In Kentucky. Glasgow, Kentucky, and the Park City Daily News, and that's the Bowling Green Paper, is the Park City because of the downtown park. So they call it the Park City, Not to be confused with Park City, which is about 20 miles further up the road.
T.J.:Really?
Matt:Yeah. So, yeah, that and that was off on a point of confusion. But, yes, I wrote for Park City Daily News, wrote for the Glasgow Daily Times, and I think I had one article in the Barron County progress.
T.J.:What is the attraction then and now to the journal journalism aspect of of this role, of this career that you have?
Matt:I wish I could single that out. And I've often really wondered what it is that attracts me, you know, to that. I, yeah, I used to think that it would be really neat to be a war correspondent, to be on, like, a on the front lines reporting the news. And then I think about that situation and, you know, in any other circumstance, that would fill me with dread.
T.J.:Right.
Matt:But to be reporting on it, somehow, I don't know. It's just it's sort of a different feeling. So I went through I mean, when I was graduating from high school, I looked around for schools that were good at journalism. There were really two criteria. Are do they have a good journalism department, and what kind of scholarship will they give me?
T.J.:These are very crucial to a young person.
Matt:These are extremely crucial. Because my my parents sort of left me alone. It's like, yeah, go to college. You figure out how you're gonna do that. So, you know, I'm not not saying they didn't help me, but it was always understood that I would be dependent upon scholarships and work my way through school.
Matt:So the schools that had the best journalism departments at the time I guess I was just lucky in that I was living in Glasgow, Kentucky when I graduated from high school, and Western Kentucky University at that time had one of the 2 best journalism departments in the country.
T.J.:Wow.
Matt:And they also offered me an academic scholarship. So there you go. There that's went to journalism school at Western Kentucky University and then graduated with a journalism degree.
T.J.:What happened next? Did you did you do the war correspondent? Did you find yourself in a combat situation? Did you leave the confines of the state of Kentucky? Where did where did Matt go after graduation?
Matt:Well, after oh, this is kind of a this is a convoluted tale. After graduation, I looked for a job. Now I was looking in multiple fields because by the time I graduated, I'd picked up a second major, which I had a second major in history, and I had enough hours for although you you couldn't declare 2 majors and multiple minors, But I had enough hours to have multiple minors, which is ridiculous.
T.J.:I can see history and journalism overlapping.
Matt:History and journalism go together well. I had also enough hours for a computer science minor. Had enough hours for an English minor. And and then How long
T.J.:were you in
Matt:school? In a normal a normal 4 years in college.
T.J.:Okay.
Matt:Of course, I I was never a freshman. I started as a sophomore because I had enough test or CLEP credit. I don't know if CLEP is still around, but I had another enough college level equivalency placement, I think, to skip my 1st year of college. Still took me 4 years to graduate. And somewhere around, I think in my 2nd semester, it dawned on me that where 3 classes were considered a a full course load.
Matt:Most people took 4 or maybe 5, but there weren't actually, at that time, any limit in the number of classes you could take, and it was all for the same fee. Really? Yes. So you once you had paid your my first semester, I think it was tuition was a $139. So okay.
Matt:So once you had paid your your money, you could take as many classes as you could talk your academic advisor into letting you take. And you look at a course catalog for a, you know, I went to Western Kentucky University and it's a pretty diverse institution, and they've got some cool stuff in that course catalog. It's like, how do you not take supernatural folklore? I don't know how you don't take that. I mean, I had to take that.
Matt:They offered classes in the art of film Okay. Which was essentially a movie appreciation class. Well, that's really cool. So
T.J.:It's amazing that you graduated. That you're
Matt:It's amazing I'm not still there.
T.J.:That's what I mean.
Matt:I'm just still taking stuff. Yeah. So I had as many as, 27 hours in 1 semester, which is considered, you know, ridiculous. Yeah. I'm glad that I had an academic adviser that I don't know that he had my best interests at heart.
Matt:What he was interested in was getting me out of his office as quickly as possible. Mhmm. So we would signed off on everything that I ever wanted to take, which is how I ended up with a history major. Because where was, somewhere late in my college career, maybe like 1st semester senior, And one of my professors says that he needed to talk to all the history majors, so if all the history majors would stay, everyone else could go. Well, I want a history major, so I stood up to go.
Matt:And he turned to the limo mister Gore, aren't you a history major? I said, no. He said, you've taken every class I teach. I said, well, yeah. Had you thought about picking up a history major?
Matt:No. But so after that, I explored it, and I did. I dropped the my second, the major I was working on at the time and picked up a history major. So so I ended up with a double degree. But, oh, I I graduated with many more hours than we're required to graduate.
Matt:And when I finally put together my degree program, when I finally had to file it, again, with a diff a different academic adviser at that point, We we struggled a little trying to figure out where in the world to fit things in, you know, my degree program. It was fun though. I had I had an absolute blast in college. I took some really weird stuff.
T.J.:How has it helped you in where you are in your career now?
Matt:Having taken all kinds of weird stuff?
T.J.:Yeah.
Matt:I was gonna a great background knowledge in things that I'm interested in.
T.J.:Yeah.
Matt:I'm completely lost in things that I'm not interested in. But in lots of areas, I have fairly good grounding in in the basics, at least. I think I think that helps anyone.
T.J.:You've amazed me over the years. I can ask you obscure questions about usually, it's pop culture. Even to the point where I can give you a partial lyric. I'm like, hey. I have this lyric stuck in my head, but I don't remember who sings it or I don't know who sings it.
T.J.:And and I'll, text it to you or ask you about it, and you're like, oh, yeah. That's the Bee Gees or Nina Simone or, you know, whoever it is.
Matt:Yeah.
T.J.:I don't know how you do that.
Matt:Music was has always been a big deal to me. I mean, I can't make music. I, you know, gave up on the idea of being, you know, a guitar player in a rock band a long time ago, because I that's not my talent, and I can't sing. And I think 7th grade chorus, they they just told me to shut up. Up.
Matt:But I've always appreciated popular music.
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:I guess as a kid, I listened to a lot of top 40 radio. And somewhere along the line, I started collecting music that interested me Mhmm. Which was primarily at that time British invasion driven by The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, The Who, bands like that that I really, really loved. So all through high school, I was discovering music from it seems like it it seemed at the time like it was old, but it was really, you know, 5 to 10 years old.
T.J.:Right.
Matt:And I don't know. I just have seem to have a a way of remembering lyrics.
T.J.:It was music that was new to you.
Matt:It was it was new to me generally. I remember the most probably the most embarrassing thing, most embarrassing argument I ever had in high school was when I tried to tell someone that Elton John wrote Pinball Wizard.
T.J.:Did he?
Matt:No. Pete Pete Townsend wrote
T.J.:Pinball. Okay.
Matt:But by golly, as a 15 year old, I insisted it was Elton John.
T.J.:And you're still carrying it to this day.
Matt:Yeah. Because I'm still in touch with the guy that I had the argument with, and every now and then he brings it up.
T.J.:Well, I also want to bring up that you were born in England. I thought maybe we could kinda walk through the early parts of your life and Sure. How you came to the United States, where you lived in the United States, and, you know, the relationship with your parents and your family and that sort of thing. So I'll let you take over. One day in the past, not too far away, little Matthew Gore was born in England.
Matt:I was born in Preston, Lancashire in 1962. Preston is the nearest big town to where my parents lived at the time, which was Leyland, Lancashire. Leyland, Lancashire is best known for its trucks and buses, British Leyland, Leyland Motors, which became an umbrella that encompassed most of the important British automobile Marquise. That is before the British auto industry fell apart in the seventies. So my dad was an engineer for British Leyland in Leyland.
Matt:My mom was from the seaside resort town of Blackpool, which is, you know, 25 or 30 miles away. It's not, it's not far at all. They met because my mother, after World War 2, worked in a tailor shop. And my dad and his friends used to go to that tailor shop to get suits made, and, you know, that's how they were introduced to each other. Mom was the office girl and Jackson's the tailor in Blackpool, Lancashire, where my dad liked to shop for his better quality clothes.
Matt:Dad had, immediately after World War 2, had been in Canada. The company he worked for, British Leyland, sent him to Canada right after World War 2 to basically get some of their production facilities going in Canada. He while in Canada or on while he was living in Canada, he also toured in the United States. And he said, so in the early fifties, he decided if the opportunity ever came up, he would be willing to relocate preferably to the United States or to Canada, but he wasn't he didn't weren't really ruling anywhere out because he thought that's where the future was. Then have you heard of the brain drain?
Matt:No. Okay. The brain drain, took place in Europe after World War 2. So when American colleges and universities couldn't turn out engineers and technically educated people fast enough for American industry. American industry was expanding so rapidly.
Matt:So American companies went around the world essentially searching for qualified engineers. And England was a favorite target for them, Because you hire a British engineer, chances are you're going to be able to make yourself understood with them. But I mean, they also recruited from from Europe as well, from South America. Technical people, anyway, came to the United States in in great numbers. And in 1968, dad was recruited by a company called Safeguard Industries, which was a manufacturer.
Matt:They hired him to come and work in their factory in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Okay. And they made gearboxes and engine blocks for the automotive industry. So in 1968, we uprooted from England and moved to South Dakota. Dad came first.
Matt:He came in, I think, March of 68. Then my mom and I didn't come until June or so.
T.J.:So 68, you're 6 years old?
Matt:Yeah. 6 years old.
T.J.:So you you were old enough to have memories, make memories in England.
Matt:I mean, yeah. There are things that I remember about England.
T.J.:Looking back on that time, were you excited about the move? Dreading it?
Matt:I don't know. I think it was just an adventure at the time. Mhmm.
T.J.:Because it was permanent. Well, it was permanently permanent.
Matt:After moving to the United States, and all all my relatives were in England, or well, almost all my relatives were in England. Mhmm. So we went back once or twice a year for, gosh, until I was probably and I was in college and we were still going back once or twice a year.
T.J.:Oh, wow.
Matt:And sometimes for extended periods of time. Like, we might go and spend 2 months. Mhmm. So okay. You're kind of there.
Matt:It's not really a vacation. It's just kind of like the other place you live.
T.J.:Okay.
Matt:So it wasn't really like being gone. Yep. So we were in South Dakota, and my dad liked to say that we moved around chasing dollars. And after a short fairly short period, about a year, he took a job with a company in Wisconsin, so we moved to Wisconsin. Then the company that had hired him in South Dakota in the first place decided they really needed him back, so we moved back to South Dakota.
T.J.:Wow. Did you attend the same schools? In When you moved back?
Matt:Yeah. Same school that I left. How was that? Well, that was at when I when I came back, it was for the start of 2nd grade, and that was when people asked me what happened to my accent. Interesting.
Matt:So somewhere between leaving South Dakota and going to Wisconsin and then coming back to South Dakota, my accent went away.
T.J.:Interesting.
Matt:Which was absolutely not a conscious thing.
T.J.:How long were you
Matt:gone? Just about a year.
T.J.:Wow. That quick.
Matt:Yeah. And then we came back to came back to Aberdeen, South Dakota, which actually Aberdeen, South Dakota was a great place to grow up. It was it was a great place to be a kid. We lived there until, gosh, sometime in the early seventies and then moved to North Dakota, then to South Carolina, then to Glasgow, Kentucky, then my parent then we moved to Cave City, Kentucky. And then when my dad retired, my dad and mom moved back to South Dakota, and I stayed in Kentucky.
T.J.:Because of the school?
Matt:Yeah. And I was currently in school. I was about a sophomore. Tell I wasn't either. Would've been a junior.
Matt:Never mind.
T.J.:Tell as just as a side story, tell the story of when you would go over to England for a month or 2 and how you got around as a form of transportation. The story, what your dad would do as opposed to using public transportation or a rental car. Because can you imagine the rental fees if you had a rental car for a month or 2 at a time? I I don't know why, but this story amazes me.
Matt:Sometime, I guess, sometime in the early seventies, my dad decided that rental car fees were ridiculous. And I'm sure they were nothing compared to what they are today. Mhmm. But to him, they were just crazy. So what we would do and again, we were going to England for an extended period of time, like weeks, not just, you know, 2 weeks of a vacation, but, you know, I'm sure a a short trip would probably have been a month.
Matt:Okay. So my dad would the first thing we would do when we got there well, first, we'd we'd fly to, no. We fly to London. But then when it became possible, we'd fly to Manchester because that's an easy easy trip to the part of England I'm from. And once we were situated, like on day 2, dad would go looking for a car to buy.
Matt:We would go to, like, used car lots and he knew people and look at cars. And dad will be looking for a car, which in England they call it an MOT. The MOT certificate is the Ministry of Transport, and each year you have to have your car inspected, and the Ministry of Transport gives you a certificate saying this car is good for. And we wanted a car with a 12 month MOT because it meant you had a decent car, it was gonna last a year, and I guess the other criteria was that we were looking for a cheap car. So he would buy a car, and we would use that car while we were in England.
Matt:And then, like, the day before we left, he would find someone to sell it to. I'm sure he lined up buyers before the last day. But what it seemed like to me was that it was like all of a sudden, well, here's this guy. He's gonna buy the car. And, yeah, we did that many times.
Matt:And he it was particularly pleasing to my dad when he made money. Because sometimes he would sell the car for more and he paid for it. Mhmm. So it's like, basically, you got paid to drive around.
T.J.:Right. I just think it was a creative way and really genius of I don't wanna play pay the the rental fees, which would be quite a bit if you're driving around for a month or 2. And so you just buy a car, use it like a rental, and then right before you return, he'd sell it.
Matt:Yep. That was exactly what he did. We had some interesting cars. I remember a variety of Fords we had. One, the speedometer didn't work, So we would just sort of guess how fast we were going.
Matt:No. Yeah.
T.J.:As you were growing up in the States, you had several moves, you know, to different locations. Did that bother you as a kid? I mean, you you get established in one area. You make your friends. You know, you got your bike route.
T.J.:You've got the places you wanna play. You're involved in different things, and then you're relocating because of work. How did you Did you adjust well to that? Was that
Matt:Apparently, I never really thought about it much because it's just sort of the way it was. Okay. It's like you're gonna move. And I under I hear the same thing out of, PKs. Mhmm.
T.J.:That Preacher kids.
Matt:Preacher's kids. That, you know, their dad's gonna move. So, you know, don't get too used to where you're living. I think that does something to you psychologically. I have very few friends that I've maintained from much.
Matt:Although, I have a few.
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:But people are a lot easier to somehow to give up that way. It's like you move on, you never see them again, and you kinda really don't worry about it
T.J.:Yeah.
Matt:Because it happens, you know, over and over. Think that cycle is probably damaging, but I didn't know I didn't think about it at the time. I least liked leaving Fargo, North Dakota. I really enjoyed Fargo. It's a great place.
Matt:We moved there or moved from there to Charleston, South Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina sucked. Well, at the time, the at the time, North Dakota had one of the highest rated school systems in the country. And I Fargo North High School was, like, the 2nd highest rated school in North Dakota. So in, like, one of the best school systems, you're in one of the best schools. I moved to Charleston, South Carolina, which was one of the worst school systems in the country.
Matt:And the contrast between the two was it's like night and day. It was like, where the heck have we gone? So after a fairly short period of time or my parents had actually discussed it and decided that they didn't wanna move me again. So they were gonna stay there until I graduated from high school. And my dad just happened to ask.
Matt:He said, you know, would you care? Would you be upset if we move from here? He's like, no. No. Please get me out of this place.
Matt:I don't care where we go. Sorry, Charleston. Charleston was a great place to visit.
T.J.:Mhmm. Wasn't great to live in for you.
Matt:It wasn't great to live in for me. That's exactly right. Best thing about Charleston was there was an Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips close to our house, and I really like that. But otherwise, not so great.
T.J.:Where was your faith or did you have any faith in these growing up years in different parts of the country?
Matt:We were fairly consistent. We were everyone people usually think I'm gonna be Church of England. It was not. We were Congregationalists. My grandmother on my dad's side was one of the stalwarts in the Church of England church in Leland, Lancashire.
Matt:So, you know, there there was no not going to church. You know, every Sunday, I go to church, wear my little my little shirt and tie and go to Sunday school. We, like, marched in a church marched in church parades and it was it's it's different.
T.J.:Yeah. It's hard.
Matt:It's hard. It's not America. Yeah. So when we came to the United States, we found the a congregational church, Plymouth Congregational Church in Aberdeen, South Dakota. It's a UCC congregation.
Matt:We went to that church. I I went to that church for years, and I've met some some really, really good people in it. The friends that I still have from that time period were people who were in that church. We went to North Dakota. I I don't remember what we did in Wisconsin.
Matt:I have no memory of going to church in Wisconsin, which is weird because we were very church going. But then I was 7, so Yeah.
T.J.:And you lost your accent.
Matt:And I lost my accent and learned to swim and got my first action figure all all while in Wisconsin. Then we went to North Dakota, and again, Congregational Church. When we moved from there to South Carolina, we visited around. There were no congregational churches in South Carolina. Been there during the American Revolution, the Congregationalists attended to be Tories, and they'd run them all out of South Carolina after the American Revolution.
Matt:So that was kind of odd. And then the Kentucky, and again, sort of shopped around churches. Again, there was no UCC congregational church there. We visited churches of Christ, but they were not the kind of church of Christ that we were used for.
T.J.:I bet not.
Matt:Don't but and it's odd because that's Glasgow, Kentucky, when we lived there, is the first place I ever became aware of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. It's not because of anything to do with their services. They were on top of a great hill to sled. So if there was any snow, that's where you went to go sledding was by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
T.J.:That was your first introduction.
Matt:To the we used to park in the CP church parking lot to go sledding. Yeah. And I knew people in, high school who went to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Have friends now who are still in that church.
T.J.:So you used the church for pleasure, enjoyment during the winter months there in Kentucky.
Matt:Yep. Never went to a service there, though.
T.J.:That's great. So even in your teenage years, your your mother and father dragged you to worship services?
Matt:I wasn't really dragged.
T.J.:Okay.
Matt:I mean, I was not unwilling to go to church at that time. And here okay. I'll tell you why. And and this is this is ridiculous, but it was the thing that attracted me about going to going to to church was Sunday school. The church we went to was using David c Cook curriculum.
T.J.:Alright.
Matt:And David c Cook it's, you know, it's not just highbrow curriculum, but, you know, it's it's solid, and you're not gonna get anything outrageous one way or the other in in Davidson Cook curriculum. But between, oh, about 2nd grade and 6th grade, the curriculum piece, or one of the curriculum pieces for children was a comic book. So we're gonna go to church on Sundays and I got a comic book. Well, okay, it was typically a Bible story comic, or they also had a character, probably more than you want to know, called Tullus, who was a Christian boy in Roman times. And Tullus had some pretty interesting adventures.
Matt:It's all kind of a a Ben Hur kinda thing going on.
T.J.:Okay. Alright.
Matt:And so each Sunday, I got one of my I got a comic, and that was great. Absolutely loved that.
T.J.:Were they color strips, or or was it just black and white?
Matt:No. They're color. They were color.
T.J.:Alright.
Matt:David c Cook still publishes it.
T.J.:I imagine you have a vast collection.
Matt:I don't have a vast collection, but I have a collection. They you know, Richard McGrill, who used to be the executive of the Board of Stewardship, says that's how he passed Old Testament in seminary, was from David c Cook's Bible Comics.
T.J.:Interesting.
Matt:And now we just put that out there for the whole world to know.
T.J.:So instead of being, like, repulsed or dragged to, worship service, You actually look forward to it. But how about your when did you feel that your faith was deepening in terms of a relationship, with God where it was just be it was more than just showing up for the comic books or showing up for the girls, or showing up for the meals, or all the
Matt:different incentives. All the reasons you go to church that have anything to do with going to church.
T.J.:Yeah. All the different reasons and incentives that we go.
Matt:Somewhere around, let's say, sophomore year of high school, my best friend and I, at the time, decided we were gonna read the Bible. It's just one of those things like, have you ever read this? No. Have you ever read it? No.
Matt:So Scott Breivold and I, and we're still friends today, Scott Brivaled and I decided we were gonna read the Bible, and we did. Okay. So, it's like, you know, 2 15 year olds having a an unguided Bible discussion.
T.J.:Okay. So was this like a challenge? Or would you read sections and then converse on it?
Matt:It it wasn't a stated challenge, but it was kind of a challenge because we would like it's like, well, what'd you read? And and it's like, oh, I read up through, you know, 2nd Samuel. And I said, oh, well, now now one of us is behind. You gotta catch up. Right.
T.J.:And
Matt:you can't just catch up, then you gotta read, you know, some more. So so it wasn't a challenge, except we did, like, kinda race each other. As and we talked about stuff that was in the Bible. And we talked about probably the things that caught the attention of teenage boys. Right.
Matt:Which wasn't necessarily the key theological point at on anything. It's just like, man, can you believe that's in there? And there seemed to be quite a few things like that. Can you believe that's in there? So we we read through it.
Matt:We we discussed it. And and, I guess, at about the time we went to Kentucky and church shopped and didn't really find anywhere to go, I just kinda gave up on it. And I guess I decided that I wasn't sure God was active in the world anymore. I said, I didn't know the words for it. I didn't know the what to describe at the time.
Matt:I guess I was a deist and didn't know that I was a deist. And stayed that way through college, and into into graduate school. And it was actually one of my roommates that shook me out of the whole thing, John Hudson, who one of my roommates. And and John's a Christian. He's we're still friends today.
Matt:Lives in Nashville. See him every now and then, always by accident. But John made a statement that I thought was profound. It was profound for our circle of friends at the time then. And basically, what he said was, like, you can believe in the Loch Ness Monster and UFOs and Bigfoot, but why is Jesus such a big deal for you?
Matt:Yeah. Why is he? But that conversation that we had probably when we were both, like, 22 started me thinking more on an adult level about religion, about the Bible, about Jesus, the church, the whole the whole everything. But then it wasn't until because I married, you know, Susan Knight, and marrying Susan Knight meant you would be a Cumberland Presbyterian. It wasn't optional.
T.J.:Give, just some brief background on Susan and her connection to the CP church and and, of course, how the 2 of you met.
Matt:Alright. First, we'll start with the way we met, which is which is relatively easy. We met when I was in graduate school. We probably had actually encountered each other before I was in graduate school. Mhmm.
Matt:But we really met when I was in graduate school, because my graduate advisor, who was doctor Lowell Harrison at Western Kentucky University, while I was working on a master's degree in his excuse me, a master's degree in history. Doctor Harrison said that in order to get through graduate school, you really needed to make good friends with the interlibrary loan librarian. And Susan was the interlibrary loan librarian.
T.J.:Now this was a blanket statement to everybody.
Matt:Yes. This was through a class.
T.J.:Okay.
Matt:Yeah. I can't remember what the name of the class was. Something about it was basically an an introduction to doing serious research. And he said, you need to make good friends with the interlibrary loan librarian. So I made good friends with the interlibrary loan librarian.
T.J.:Apparently, you did. So how did the 2 of you meet? Was it over a book? Was it
Matt:I went went into her office and asked her to find something for me, and she did.
T.J.:Alright.
Matt:She's been doing that now our entire married life, and she's been finding me things. So here's some ridiculous citation to a journal that was published in 18/62. Can you find that? And then she does, which I I think it's an incredible talent. And it served me well in grad school because I had several times when a professor said, how in the world did you ever find a copy of that?
Matt:It's like, I made really good friends with the interlibrary loan librarian.
T.J.:Was it love at first sight?
Matt:It was friendship at first sight. We had musical interests involved. Susan's background was in before she became a librarian and started collecting library degrees, she, she'd been a music major. She was very into music. Mhmm.
Matt:And not just all not just like she was particularly into church music, but not only church music. So we had like the Beatles and Bruce Springsteen in common. So, I guess when we started really, really we kinda fell into dating, I guess. And, like, started going, hey. Do you wanna go see Bob Dylan?
Matt:And I go, yeah. So we go to Bob Dylan. Was that a date? Well, I guess it was. I didn't necessarily know it at the time.
Matt:But so over a period of because we had known each other I guess, we'd known each other for at least 6 years before we got married.
T.J.:Okay. So you shared common interests.
Matt:We shared common interests. And I don't know. The common interests are music and bibliography, which are not people's usual common interests, but it works for us.
T.J.:How long have the 2 of you been married?
Matt:Carrie 300 years Carrie? Since we get married. We got married in 1989. So we've been married 35 years.
T.J.:Alright. Congratulations. Or you were gonna tell me the connection of Susan Knight.
Matt:Oh, Susan to to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Yeah. Well, I first knew her.
T.J.:Yeah. What did you marry into?
Matt:When we first knew her, I knew she was very involved in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Bowling Green.
T.J.:The church on the hill with a good sled ramp.
Matt:No. This is that was Glasgow. Church in Bowling Green is the church that puts on the bodacious Christmas light show.
T.J.:Okay.
Matt:And I knew of that church because of the Christmas light show, although I'd never set foot inside it.
T.J.:So arch Cumberland Presbyterian churches gather reputations for not just being churches, but also places of enjoyment, whether it's Christmas
Matt:lights I suppose
T.J.:so. Sledding ramps.
Matt:See, by that time though, by the time that Susan and I were involved, I had been to a Cumberland Presbyterian church because another friend of mine was a Cumberland Presbyterian. Mhmm. Jim Woosley, a Cumberland Presbyterian out of the Caney Fork Cumberland Presbyterian Church, who is a, you know, a relative of by marriage of Louisa Weasley. I'd been to his church and we had, for an event we put on in college, we went and borrowed the tables from the church, where his dad was an elder. So, okay, I knew a little bit more about the Cumberland Presbyterian Church by that time.
Matt:Susan was very involved in Bowling Green. I didn't realize to what degree, but as we became more involved, you know, it turned out her dad, James Knight, was the executive presbyter or I'm sorry, the synodic executive of Kentucky Senate.
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:And this is just before the middle judicatory realignment Yeah. When Kentucky Synod went away.
T.J.:88, 89.
Matt:Yeah. A little before that. Mhmm. So so there was that. I went to the Bowling Green Church.
Matt:Cordell Smith was a pastor at Bowling Green. Bowling Green was, from my background in a congregational church, Bowling Green was I kind of fit right in. Bowling Green CP fit right in with my church experience. It wasn't any of the crazy stuff I'd experienced. It was sort of what I thought of as normal church.
T.J.:In terms of worship?
Matt:In terms of worship. Yes. Yeah. It was it was normal church. Yeah.
Matt:And it was a very welcoming church. Had I not been with Susan, I don't know how if it would have been as welcoming. I kinda think it would have. But, you know, it was an excellent play place to land. So her dad was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, and her brother was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister.
Matt:And her mom was the or the daughter of a Cumberland Presbyterian minister. And her uncles at least how many of them? Several of her uncles were Cumberland Presbyterian ministers. And
T.J.:If you were with Susan
Matt:cousins were Cumberland Presbyterian ministers.
T.J.:If you were with Susan, you were attending and expected to be active in a Cumberland Presbyterian congregation somewhere
Matt:Absolutely. Or
T.J.:you weren't gonna make the
Matt:cut. Exactly. And this became apparent very quickly.
T.J.:Immediately. Yeah.
Matt:That's the requirement.
T.J.:I can hear the conversation now. I'll find you this book, but are you a Cumberland Presbyterian? And you'd be like, no. I've sled on your hills, and I've gone to your light shows. And she goes, you will be a Cumberland Presbyterian.
Matt:That's what that that's yep. That's it.
T.J.:Let's talk about the the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, today. Matt, from your perspective as an editor, as a a long time member of the denomination, what are some of the greatest gifts we offer to the local communities that we're attached to and really to the world as a denomination?
Matt:Well, in general, with a couple of exceptions, I've found the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination to be extremely friendly and extremely welcoming and not particularly judgmental, which I've enjoyed and I probably needed at various times in my life. Also, and this is something that I've heard people criticize, and that is that the Cumberland Presbyterian Church is a lot like a family.
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:And, that's true. And I think a lot of that has to do with the relatively small size of the Cumberland Church, the fact that there's only 1 Cumberland Presbyterian College, and that in the past, a lot of Cumberland Presbyterians have sent their kids to Bethel College, now University. And that we've mixed them, jumbled them up, mixed them together, and as you as you would with young people together, then these kids are marrying each other. And, I mean, and so that family thing, it's not it's like a family. It is a family.
Matt:I know on one occasion, a denominational employee was saying something about 1 of the elders in one of our churches. And after a minute or 2, I just turned and said, you know that Susan's cousin, don't you? And the response, well, well, of course he is.
T.J.:That sounds like something I would do.
Matt:So there is that element of it, and I think that's what has in the past given us our, like, live and let live attitude is. You get all these people, you're at you're friends. You went to college together. You're a circle of friends. And you might have differences of opinion on theology or politics or whatever, but that doesn't overcome the fact that you were friends in the first place
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:And that he married your sister or that Right. Yeah. So that family feel, and I particularly enjoy that, and I think it's something that is a a large positive in our favor.
T.J.:Yeah. If you think about it, generally speaking, one of the human needs is to be part of a family. You know, to be part of a larger group, something beyond yourself that you can connect to. And that would take an interest in you as well as you take an interest in a body that is larger than just you as an individual. And at the same time, the drawbacks to a family, and you've kind of alluded to this, at least from a denominational perspective, it can be very incestuous where, you know, you end up going to school and you meet, and you've married somebody's cousin or somebody's dad is a minister and mother is a minister and, you know, brother is an elder and so forth and so on.
T.J.:It it's just there's potential to to all just be related from, you know, like a marriage or bloodline. But but at the same time, for a denomination that continues to strive to to grow, that's difficult to the family changes. And so there isn't just like 1 or 2 or 3 names that spread out among the church. I'd say that's even more so today than maybe 50 years ago or 80 years ago where you just had these family names that, were movers and shakers within the denomination. So I think it's a both and.
T.J.:There's blessings to be kind of the family oriented, but those blessings also come with, you know, warnings not to only be inwardly and only to care for your family as well. Yeah. You can look inwardly and completely ignore the outside world
Matt:True.
T.J.:And become very tribalistic. Yeah.
Matt:And I I don't think we've done that. I think well, we certainly haven't done that entirely. There are some churches that basically are, well, typically rural, but are just a family church.
T.J.:Yeah.
Matt:Where if you visit, they kind of look at you funny and wonder
T.J.:Why are you here?
Matt:Why are you here? What kind of cousin are you? Who are you related? Who are you related to? Nobody.
Matt:Well, then why are you here?
T.J.:And then they see a name like Milanovsky and they automatically know that you're not part of the tribe. Outsider. Yes. I'm chuckling because it's happened more than once.
Matt:There are gores in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church besides me, and I have been asked on numerous occasions if I'm related to those gores. Mhmm. And I always have to say no. I'm sorry. I don't know your gores.
T.J.:What are your hopes, aspirations, dreams for this denomination looking into the future?
Matt:I hope that we can continue to appreciate each other despite our theological and political differences. It seems to be becoming be become it seems to be becoming harder and harder to do. But even given that, as I visit Cumberland Presbyterian churches, that strife that we feel on sort of in the judicatories doesn't seem to exist or at least I haven't seen it reflected in the congregations. I don't think anyone's looked at me askance as I visited the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and wondered if I'm there for if I have some sort of agenda, which I don't. If I show up at a church, I'm there to worship at that church, and that just typically just happened to be the closest Cumberland church on that given Sunday.
T.J.:You don't have a, press pass that you wear when you walk into worship?
Matt:I have a press pass that I wear on occasion when I go to meetings of judicatories. And not so much, because I think most people know I'm in the press. I'm the Cumberland Presbyterian. But I hope it serves to remind people that I'm there as an an unbiased observer. Not the only thing if I show up at a presbytery, only thing I'm really after is I would like to increase the number of subscribers to the magazine.
Matt:That's the extent of, you know, my politicking at your presbytery. Because if you would subscribe, I'd greatly appreciate it.
T.J.:There's your agenda then.
Matt:That's my agenda. Hi. I'm from Memphis. Hand your wallets in now.
T.J.:Okay. You've made your agenda public. So it's no longer here.
Matt:I don't wanna sell subscriptions. It's like when you were a kid and selling grit or something. I don't guess that's something that anyone does anymore.
T.J.:No. The only grit I know is showing, that you have gumption, and then grits, plural, is something that you actually eat.
Matt:Grit used to be a newspaper.
T.J.:Oh, okay. Yeah. That was the actual name of it?
Matt:It was called grit. There was often ads in the back of comic books that you could raise you could earn extra money by selling grit. I think it was weekly. I'm not sure. I never never had the urge to sell grit.
T.J.:See these are the kinds of things that I was alluding to earlier. You just have these pop culture, these little snippets of history that you patiently go, okay, well, let me explain to you who Mary Tyler Moore is. Let me let me tell you about a newspaper that was called Grit. It's one of the things that fascinates me. I can always walk away feeling a little bit smarter.
T.J.:Although it pushes out, like, what I think more important information in my head with the the trivia that you were able to talk about.
Matt:Imagine what it's keeping out of my head? You mean how much what I might accomplish if all that crap, you know, if I didn't know Charo had been on Love Boat 6 times? I mean, if that stuff wasn't in there. I know.
T.J.:You could have the, you know, some great engineering feat that was pushed out at the age of 23.
Matt:Gone.
T.J.:That is gone. Well, speaking of tidbits of information, you are a historian and have relished in in all types of different histories, including the Cumberland Presbyterian history. So for fun, what is some little tidbit of information that you've discovered about the church that amused you, that, humored you, that, is unique?
Matt:Oh, gosh. All the things that are really fun are Scandalous? Yeah. Scandalous, horrible. They're, you know, the machine gun preacher in Oklahoma.
Matt:I still have to write an article about him at some point.
T.J.:Well, pick pick a couple that just kind of stick out to you.
Matt:I was really fascinated when I found out that Roxy Hart, made well known by the musical Chicago, was a Cumberland Presbyterian.
T.J.:Really?
Matt:Yeah. That was that was fascinating. Although her name wasn't actually Roxy Hart, but the character was based on a Cumberland Presbyterian woman. The when I watched True Grit
T.J.:the first one
Matt:the first one with John Wayne, the real one, for, I don't know, probably the third time, because I'd seen it a couple times as a kid, probably was about the 3rd viewing where I caught the line about being a Cumberland Presbyterian and proud of it, and actually knowing what she was talking about.
T.J.:So you understood the movie reference.
Matt:I understood the reference in the movie.
T.J.:Which is gone in a blink of an eye.
Matt:It is gone in the blink of an eye. And they didn't see fit to put it in the in the remake. Although the remake is much truer to the book.
T.J.:Except for that part.
Matt:Except for that part.
T.J.:Because the Cumberland Presbyterian reference is in the book. It's in the novel. Right?
Matt:It's in the oh, yes. It's in the novel. It's clear in the novel that, she is a Cumberland Presbyterian girl from, Gum Springs, Arkansas, which makes that book a lot cooler if you're CP and then you know Right. Yeah. That, you know, they're talking about Yale County, Arkansas.
Matt:They're talking about real churches and not too unreal people.
T.J.:Well, it would be a mistake on my part if I didn't ask you about, collecting stuff. You are a, you have quite an eye and an ear for collecting items, memorabilia from every genre, every aspect of that is something that is tangible and can be displayed or enjoyed in some form or fashion, from comic books, to music, to just so much. So I'm gonna ask you probably the most difficult question of the day is, what is your favorite thing to collect that brings you the most joy when you find it on the shelf, find it on a display?
Matt:See that that's just that's an impossible question to answer. It's like asking which one of your kids is your favorite.
T.J.:Right. Because you're
Matt:not supposed to have one.
T.J.:I've given you these softball questions on your face.
Matt:I appreciate that too.
T.J.:And then but I stumped you with
Matt:With what do you what's the most fun? And that the answer to that is, like, depends on my frame of mind at any given moment. Because it it's I really don't know how to describe it. It's for want of a better term, let's call it object acquisition syndrome.
T.J.:Is it a real thing? Are you making that up?
Matt:It might be.
T.J.:It is now?
Matt:It might be, but I I don't know that it is. But it'll be a reference to something, or something in passing, or something that you see out of in the background in a frame on a television program or something, and you start I mean, the way I work anyway, you start thinking, I wonder if those are out there.
T.J.:I
Matt:wonder if I could find one of those. And then it's sort of not exactly an obsession, but become driven to a degree to find that object. I'll give you an example.
T.J.:Alright.
Matt:Something that I really, that intrigued me, that I really wanted for years years years, and that is, there was a 19 forties comic strip called the Spirit. The Spirit was an adventure hero. He appeared in the Sunday comics and a lot of American newspapers for years years years. Well in one of the stories of the spirit, there's a song. It's called, Every Little Bug's Got His Baby TO Hug.
Matt:And, okay, that that's fine. And then I found out that the sheet music to that song from the comic strip had been published back in the forties. Alright. Well that's intriguing, and it's not something you can easily find. So for years after that, going into used bookstores or antique malls, antique stores, places that had old sheet music.
Matt:I would always flip through the sheet music hoping to find this really obscure sheet music for every little bug's got his baby to hug. And then finally, after looking for it for probably 40 years, a couple of years ago at an antique mall in Goodlettsville, I found a copy of
T.J.:it. Wow.
Matt:And there was a a moment of elation. Didn't doesn't last terribly long, but, like, wow, I found it. Score. And now that's something that my daughter is gonna have to deal with when something happens to me, and she won't have any idea.
T.J.:And to give those who are listening perspective, Matt has, in his office, collectibles covering the spectrum from science fiction to music to movies to military memorabilia, sports.
Matt:Cumberlandia.
T.J.:And and absolutely, Cumberland. And, house beautifully decorated, with similar stuff. And, recently opened up a, antique booth to sell, but also I think as is your friend, sort of display some of your collective stuff.
Matt:To a degree. Yeah. I think, yeah, that's right.
T.J.:I've never asked you this before, but how do you you know, you're you're always on a hunt because, you know, I'd bump into you throughout the week, and you'd be like, oh, did you know that I found this? Or look what I found. And so what how do you do that? I mean, do you have what are you looking for when you are in your travels and when you're going shopping and things like that? Is it very intentional?
T.J.:Or is it do you just have a or is there a mental catalog of, like, a wish list of
Matt:I I think that's it. I think there is kind of a mental catalog. And I've been doing this long enough now that I mean, I started really collecting things in, you know, when I was about 8 years old. So like 1970, I've started I started accumulating things. And a lot of the things that I've wanted, I've got.
Matt:It's like the comic book. There aren't very many comic books that I'm actually looking for anymore. I mean, there's plenty I'll take if they come along, but I'm not seeking out very many specific things. And it's sort of a I don't know, because I collect so much stuff from stamps and coins and postcards, military, all kinds of things, I can go into a antique mall, and it's hard not to find something that I collect. Does happen occasionally, though.
Matt:I can't find anything at all. But I kind of have a heightened awareness of collectibles, and I also will buy things that are for resale. Because now for since 1998, I've been selling collectibles online, and I've sold all kinds of things online. And, like, one of the best one of the best finds I had was at a yard sale not more than 200 yards from where we're sitting right now. They had a lot of records.
Matt:They were in nice shape. They were a quarter a piece, which, you know, that's great to start with. But what I found was the Barbara Eden Sings. And Barbara Eden, if you're aware, is Genie, and I dream of Genie. One side of the album has a picture well, the sleeve that is, has a picture of Barbara Eden as Jeanie in the Jeanie costume.
Matt:And on the other side, it's just normal normal people clothes. And I really had not that much interest in that as an album.
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:I don't I'm sure it was, like, easy listening, and I really just didn't care. But it was a quarter and it was in beautiful condition, and I bought it for my quarter and sold it on eBay to a guy in Japan for a $125. And he then paid, like, half that much again in shipping to get it to Japan.
T.J.:Wow.
Matt:That's fun. It's just kinda fun to do that. Now for each thing that I've done like that, I've done something else that was stupid, where it's like, hey. Oh, I I I bought some a roll of, Indianapolis Street Railway tokens.
T.J.:Okay.
Matt:Well, doesn't that sound like it ought to be something that's kinda cool?
T.J.:Yeah. I guess so.
Matt:Well, I mean, if Yeah. Okay. Because it's a that's exonemia, by the way. That's the collecting of things that look like coins but aren't really coins.
T.J.:Like a token.
Matt:Like a token. So I bought a roll of the things, and I can't well, I probably shouldn't even say what I paid for it. But I thought it was a really good deal until I realized and found out later that the owners of the Indianapolis Street Railway had, after they quit using tokens, had sold them all. So there are probably millions of those tokens out there. They have very little value whatsoever.
Matt:Aw. So I was delighted to find my role, only to discover, yeah, I probably overpaid for that by about 10 times what it was worth.
T.J.:I'm glad you said this earlier. I was gonna give kind of a disclaimer, at least an explanation that your collectibles, you kinda have 2 pairs of eyes. One is these are things that Matt likes, enjoys, but you're also looking from a resale. Now you where you have no emotional attachment whatsoever, except that maybe you could flip it, and then the proceeds from that or the the, profit that you made just helps you to continue to shop for something else.
Matt:Exactly. And that's my goal is to have what I sell, fund what I buy. And I think another thing is
T.J.:I I just didn't want listeners to think that, you know, Matt Gore is this hoarder and you can't open the front door of the house, kind of
Matt:Well, that's almost true. But
T.J.:no. No. No. No.
Matt:That would never go on in Susan Knight Gore's household. But something else that's fun about it, it's an awful lot of fun to find something that you if you have a friend who you know will really appreciate an object, and you could find it for him.
T.J.:Yes.
Matt:Yeah. That that gives me a big jolly. And then you doesn't have it's not about making anything or getting any compensation. It's just like, I know my friend is really gonna like this.
T.J.:Yes. And you're able to find it, whatever it is, usually not for the asking, like, retail price, as in you know, full price, I should say. You know, it'd be like, hey, I know you were willing to spend $28, but I found this for 11.
Matt:Yep. Yeah. And that's fun.
T.J.:Yeah. Yeah. Matt, what books would you recommend to listeners of Cumberland Road that, you think would give him a pretty good idea of who are Cumberland Presbyterians, what they believe, and a little bit about the history. Just to if you were an outsider looking in and going, man, I run across this podcast, and they keep talking about this church, and I've seen it or I know a little bit about it. I know nothing about it.
T.J.:What would be some good intros to to and and for those who have been Cumberland all their life, what are what are some books that, you would recommend?
Matt:Well, I'm gonna put my college professor hat on.
T.J.:Okay.
Matt:I think, like, about the first five chapters of my book are excellent for that. And that's, you know, the history of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Kentucky to 1988. And why I say that's sort of holistic is because all of our adjudicatories were based out of Kentucky in the first period of our founding. So it deals a lot with that. I like Mac McDonald's history of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church is, I think, a lot of fun to read.
Matt:Although you have to take it with a grain of salt, and it's a good idea to check to see if the stories BW McDonald is telling you are actually true or not Mhmm. Or completely true. Oh, that is great for that. There's a book by Portis. It's actually a collection of novellas.
Matt:And one of the stories in the book is a conversation on the porch between 3 ministers. And one of the ministers is the Cumberland Presbyterian minister.
T.J.:Interesting.
Matt:I'm struggling to remember what Portis' first name is right now, and it's it's escaped me. It's He is the man who wrote True Grit, and he was a Cumberland Presbyterian.
T.J.:Okay.
Matt:And and that's an excellent book. It's been out of print since, like, 5 minutes after it was published. But if you could find a copy of it, then I I'm sorry. I can't even tell you what the title of the book is.
T.J.:Charles Portis.
Matt:Yeah. Thank you very much. Charles Portis. He just died within the last few years. And that's when it was finally revealed that he actually was Cumberland Presbyterian.
T.J.:It had to be revealed after his death?
Matt:Well, I don't know why. But, you know, in this day I
T.J.:say that comically, but
Matt:okay. In this in our these days of the Internet, he was a guy who was, I guess, a traditional recluse. The importance didn't talk to people. He didn't do interviews. When he was a journalist, the paper he worked for had to insist that he get a telephone because he didn't wanna have a telephone.
T.J.:How did they communicate? Telegram?
Matt:Well, that was the thing. I had to insist that he got a telephone. So he he was kind of guarded. But then when when he when he passed and there was a little information came out in his various obituaries, and it's like, well, yeah. This guy, he was the, I think I think his grandfather was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister.
Matt:And of course, his book True Grits, one of the classics of modern American literature. Oh, the 5th Chinese daughter is also if you have any interest at all in missions, the history of missions, Chinese immigration, Chinese culture in general, book by Jade Snow Wong. And in it, it retell tells her faith story, and that she was that she was brought to Christ by a missionary. Never mentioning who the missionary is, but the missionary was Gaem Saen Qua, who is, you know, should be well known to all Cumberland Presbyterians.
T.J.:That's a pretty good list. That keeps somebody busy for a little while. So I keep trying to
Matt:think of how to recommend to people call Cumberland Presbyterians, which is is drier than it needs to be. It's an excellent book, but it it's all it's not as easy to read as McDonald. I've in my opinion, anyway.
T.J.:Yeah. Don't jump from McDonald to the Campbell book. Yeah. Because one is colorful, you know, folksy on purpose.
Matt:Yes.
T.J.:And then the other one is almost academic.
Matt:The other one is just the facts, ma'am.
T.J.:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. I have another fun question for you.
T.J.:Let's, let's take a couple minutes. You and I have never done this before. Let's walk through all the different jobs you've had. Because you've had some interesting ones. Like one time you you worked for RadioShack for a while.
T.J.:I did. But that was on the reason I bring that one up, that is right as the home computer is becoming accessible to to the nation and to the world. So the timing that you worked for RadioShack was kind of like this well, the pinnacle of RadioShack and also the pinnacle of the home computer.
Matt:Yeah. That would be like 1978 to 1980, and they just had introduced the TRS 80 computer. And that's how I got the job working at RadioShack, was by going into RadioShack in Glasgow, Kentucky after school and learning how their TRS 80 computer worked to the point where I knew as well as anybody who worked there how the computer worked.
T.J.:That's how you got the job.
Matt:And the managers said, one day I was in there showing a customer all the things that this computer could do. And after I think they bought 1. And but after the customer left, the manager said, do you want a job? So I worked there for a couple of years. And it's the same time I was working at McDonald's.
Matt:Wow. So there's a, yeah, it's kind of diverse. And I work for McDonald's in Glasgow as well.
T.J.:Where else have you worked? What about teenage years?
Matt:Teen oh, well, those were teenage years.
T.J.:Okay.
Matt:But, before that well, first thing I ever did, I had a paper route, which kind of fits in with
T.J.:Yeah.
Matt:My other stuff. Then I was given another one of those strange backhanded jobs. When I was underage, I worked for the FM News Company in Fargo, North Dakota. FM stood for Fargo Moorhead. Immediately across the Red River from Fargo is Moorhead, Minnesota.
Matt:So Fargo FM News, Fargo Moorhead. They were an independent news distributor in in that area. And, well, I got the job there by going in on Wednesdays, which were new comic book day. And one of the store's employees asked me if I wanted to help put out the comic books. So, you know, you know, you help me put these out, I'll give you some.
Matt:How
T.J.:old how old were you?
Matt:14.
T.J.:Okay. So Oh, wow. Put out a few comics, get a free comic.
Matt:Yeah. I can't remember how the comics were 20ยข or a quarter then. So, you know, for a couple of bucks, that's that's 10 comic books or 8 comic books. So I I started doing that, going in on Wednesdays, helping put out the comics, got paid in comics. They that particular store's manager decided that I was pretty good at that, or he was really disinterested in doing that.
Matt:And I moved on from putting out the new comics to putting out the new magazines completely. And I was getting paid out of the cash drawer, which was great. And then one day, on one Wednesday, I went, and the owner of the company's son was the person who was at the desk. He was the clerk in the store that day. And I went I'm thinking to myself, oh, man.
Matt:I'm not getting anything for this. And I'm I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna be able to do this today. And I walked in and he says, hey, Aren't you the guy who puts out all the new magazines? Uh-huh. He's, well, what do they usually pay you for that?
Matt:So I told him, well, that's not enough. Wow. Okay. So it was still, you know, it was still in North Dakota at that time. You supposedly, unless it was a family business, you were supposed to be 16 before you could work.
Matt:So I I got the fun of putting out all the new magazines and comics and books and got actually got paid for it. It was awesome.
T.J.:Something tangible about the printed paper.
Matt:Yes. Ink Love it.
T.J.:Photos, drawings, letters, words, numbers. And putting them all together or even mixing them up. They can say many different things to different people. It's pretty neat.
Matt:And and that was awesome and completely, you know, off the books, they gave me a plaque when I left.
T.J.:My goodness.
Matt:The plaque said to Matthew Gore, the favorite underground employee of the FM News Company.
T.J.:I like that. Sounds nefarious.
Matt:Yeah. Just just slightly nefarious.
T.J.:Right. Right.
Matt:In fact, while doing my little my book gig, we got snowed in in that shopping mall. Had to spend the night there once. It was it was on a I think it was on a Saturday. Mhmm. And about, oh, 1 o'clock, the one of the employees from the Hickory Farm store came to us and said, have you had a customer in a while?
Matt:I was like, no. Well, I wanna so we walked to the door of the mall and looked outside. There was like 3 feet of snow drifted up against it. We couldn't open the doors. We we were stuck in the mall.
T.J.:Oh, wow. But you had electricity?
Matt:I had electricity.
T.J.:Okay. So you had Hickory Farms Cheese and Sausages. Yes.
Matt:There was no food court in that mall, which was a pity.
T.J.:Okay. So you weren't gonna go hungry and you had entertainment.
Matt:Yeah. And the other end of the mall, one of the anchor stores was at Woolworths.
T.J.:Oh, okay.
Matt:And while Woolworths had had the sense, the Woolworths people figured out that we were getting snowed in and sent their employees home and closed. But everybody else, like, the people on the inside of the mall Right, because
T.J.:we couldn't see out doors.
Matt:We couldn't say we had outside doors. We did. So we were stuck. It's kind of fun, actually. Spending the night in the mall.
T.J.:Yeah. I mean, like I said, you had you had food. Yeah. You had stuff to read. You had entertainment.
Matt:Well, it was great.
T.J.:Was there a music store in the building?
Matt:There was.
T.J.:We'll see. You had music?
Matt:Yep. And electricity. Yeah. There it was kinda fun. Worked there.
Matt:Let's see. Where else did I work?
T.J.:You worked at a bank.
Matt:I did. I worked for for
T.J.:a bank.
Matt:I worked for Citizens Bank in Glasgow, Kentucky, which was one of the butcher banks. Are you familiar with the butchers?
T.J.:You know, you even told me this the other day, but I have since forgotten. So what's a Butcher Bank?
Matt:CH and Jake Butcher brothers who were big, Tennessee financial people. They were in the, oh gosh, I guess seventies. They were the guys who tried to corner the silver market, which apparent which turned out to be too big for them to manage to do it. But it was one of their banks, Mhmm. And that was another great place to work.
Matt:Went in at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and ran the computer until about 1 o'clock in the morning when it had done all its processing.
T.J.:How big were the computers back in that time?
Matt:It's an IBM System 3, was about half the size of this office that we're sitting in now. Pretty good sized thing. It was
T.J.:Just for that branch.
Matt:Just well, actually, we did the we did the data for I don't know how many. I guess that was the main we were the main bank and there were 2 others
T.J.:Okay.
Matt:In the Citizens family. Okay. So we did their processing too.
T.J.:Alright. And this is in the seventies, eighties?
Matt:This would be starting, like, 1980.
T.J.:Okay. So, I mean, computers were as big as a car.
Matt:Yeah. The computer was huge. It, backed up its data on, we called them data packs, but they were essentially a plastic container that had 10 floppy disks in it. 10 10 inch floppy disks. You would slide them into slots on the on the computer and use those those were our backups.
Matt:We made a backup of all the data on the computer every night. Mhmm. We, you know, applied checks to people's accounts by using optical character readers.
T.J.:Cutting edge at the time.
Matt:It was cutting edge. It was great. It was funny because when they first you know, they were very proud of that IBM System 3. It's like and this was the bank building on the Square in downtown Glasgow. It had been remodeled, but the bank itself, I think, had been built in, like, the 18 eighties originally.
Matt:So this new computer is installed in the new addition to the building, and they put it in, and we're there running because that's when I got hired was when they had this new computer, and they needed people to do it. And they came to Western Kentucky University when I was in my 1st year looking for computer students who would do this, and I'm sure also with everything, you would do this and do this relatively cheaply. Mhmm. But we were still I think we were making something like 5 times minimum wage, which, you know, when you're when you're 18, 19 years old, that that's great. Mhmm.
Matt:So we were in there and running a thing, and there's a, a thunderstorm is rolling in. And previously, whenever there had been a thunderstorm, they didn't start you had to shut the computer down completely, disconnect it from power. But this new system was secure, and that wasn't supposed to be an issue. So we were in there running running the computer. I've got me and a guy named Mike Clay.
Matt:And there's this giant clap of lightning and huge thunder, and it was, like, right on top of us. And the computer went off, and we looked over, and there's smoke coming out of it. Oh, no. Which is like, that can't be good.
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:Well, obviously, that wasn't good. But, you know, IBM replaced it. And their people came in to try to figure out why this has happened. They came in to replace the thing and got it all up and running. And again, and a few months later, another thunderstorm, same result, Blew another computer.
Matt:And these things were they were like $3,000,000 a piece. These are not cheap computers. So apparently, but the second time one of their computers is blowing up, we got the smart guys.
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:It's like the top of the class all came in to figure out why. And it turned out that when they had grounded the thing, they'd found this, like, copper wire or copper cable, like as thick as your arm, that was earthed perfectly.
T.J.:Alright.
Matt:And that is what they had grounded the computer to, was that cable, because they got a perfect ground on the thing. They found it was in the wall. It turned out on that old 18 eighties building, the other end of that was on the going to the lightning rod on the roof. So they grounded the computer to the lightning rod.
T.J.:Oh, my goodness.
Matt:Yeah. Well, they fixed that after the second time they blew up a $3,000,000 machine. Right. Right.
T.J.:You also worked you you should be telling these stories. You also worked at the Cumberland Presbyterian Resource Center.
Matt:I did.
T.J.:Oh, for a while.
Matt:Yeah. Starting in 92. 1992.
T.J.:If you're looking at me, I I
Matt:don't know. You were there. No. I was hired. I took a a temporary job.
Matt:I was teaching computer classes. We had moved to Memphis so Susan could take the job as the director of the historical foundation. And so I was essentially job hunting, but I found I had a job teaching computer classes.
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:Teaching people how to use WordPerfect and the basics of a DOS operating system and and such like.
T.J.:Mhmm.
Matt:Which was actually kind of fun, but had no insurance. It was just like, you might teach one class this week and then 4 classes next week. And it was actually it was pretty decent money, but the no insurance part was kind of, you know, kind of harrowing. And a position came up at the center. I was working in the, warehouse for CP Resources.
Matt:So after, you know, well, I won't make as much money, but this comes with insurance. So that's better. And there was a retirement plan, and that's better. So I applied for and got the job working for CP Resources, as, you know, a clerk in in the warehouse. And you haven't left?
Matt:Working with Greg Miller.
T.J.:And you haven't left since?
Matt:I have not left since. I went from that to being, warehouse manager, to being manager of CP Resources, and then the editor of the Cumberland Presbyterian.
T.J.:You graduated?
Matt:Sort of. Yeah. So the job I took temporarily in the early nineties turned into a career working for the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination.
T.J.:Full circle. That childhood dream. Yeah.
Matt:Yeah. I've and I've said many times, there's really there's no up from my job here. The the thing that I most would want to do at the center is
T.J.:What you're doing.
Matt:What I'm doing. It's fun.
T.J.:Matt, I've enjoyed our time. And I've enjoyed hearing your faith journey. And I didn't know the your your background growing up in terms of faith and the Congregationalist. And I didn't know the story of of how you came to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. I hadn't heard you tell it.
T.J.:And, so thank you for giving me your afternoon and sharing your faith and taking me on the interesting journey that we'll call Matt Gore's life.
Matt:Thank you, TJ.
T.J.:Thank you for listening to this episode of Cumberland Road. I close with an editorial from the Cumberland Presbyterian Magazine dated 18/83. There is nothing that so truly represents the mind and spirit of a church to the outside world as its publications. These go where preachers and teachers cannot. Thanks for listening.
