Good morning, it's Friday, July 13, 2018. Yes, Friday the 13th, an ominous-sounding day-and-date that I've written about in the past. But in 1950, the year I'm thinking of today, July 13 fell on a Thursday. Nothing superstitious about that day. Remember the old “Monday's Child” nursery rhyme: Thursday's child “has far to go”? So it was with the boy, their second son, born on this date to Doris and James Cromartie in Charlotte, N.C.
His mother was a North Carolina power company executive and local area Democratic Party official. His father worked in the regional office of the Federal Highway Administration. They named the boy Michael Lewis Cromartie.
The Cromartie family moved to Atlanta, where Michael attended high school, played sports, and went through the motions in his church youth group. Paradoxically perhaps, it was only after his parents divorced that the young man truly embraced his family's religious tradition.
