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[Shma]

likethedew.com/2013/01/27/boom-along-baby-boome...


Unvarnished History
Boom Along Baby Boomers
by Tom Poland | 1, Add your Comment | Jan 27, 2013

Who We Come From … What We Truthfully Remember

A Note To Baby Boomers: My daughter, Beth, is building a family tree using Ancestry.com in part. The other part involves questions to family members and independent research. She seeks to better know family members from the past. Her work will be of great worth to those who follow.

She emailed me. “Can you tell me the birth dates, full names, and death dates of your grandparents? Her request sent me back to when my grandparents walked this green earth, a time when one grandparent took the time to write some of his memories down.

Some of the information she needed I knew; some I had forgotten. Thus began a quest for knowledge as deceased grandparents lived again in my mind.

As I made notes of the information Beth needed a vivid sense of history came to me. My grandparents—just like yours—lived through an era of tremendous change. Let’s take my grandparents in order of birth years looking at a few key events.

Benjamin Cleborn Walker came into the world in 1896. Grover Cleveland was president but William McKinley would be elected president before 1896 ended. The Ford quadricycle paved the way that year for Henry Ford to put American in cars. F. Scott Fitzgerald of The Great Gatsby Fame was born. In Georgia the first electric lights appeared at Brumby’s Drugstore in Athens.

Lillian Walker was born in 1898. That’s the year Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders fought in Cuba in the Spanish-American War. The rallying cry “Remember the Maine” went up when 216 seamen die in the explosion that sunk the battleship Maine in Havana harbor. The United States annexed the independent republic of Hawaii. In Georgia the first batch of Brunswick Stew was made on St. Simons Island, and down in Richland, Georgia, a lady by the name of Lillian Carter was born August 15.

John M. Poland Sr. was born in 1903. That’s the year Coca-Cola removed cocaine from its popular drink and the first box of Crayola crayons sold for five cents. The first cross-country trip by car took place from New York to San Francisco, taking 71 days. Wilbur and Orville Wright made their first sustained airplane flight at Kill Devil Hill, North Carolina. In Georgia a strong earthquake shook Savannah.

Thelma Poland was born in 1904, the year the ice cream cone was invented at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The United States acquired the Panama Canal and a fellow by the name of J. Robert Oppenheimer was born in New York City, where something called a subway opened. In Georgia the statue of Elijah Clark was dedicated at the corner of College and Hancock in Athens.

I can imagine the conversations my grandparents’ parents had about these events, some major some minor. During buggy rides to church and sitting around the dinner table no doubt these things entered their everyday talk. As for my grandparents they would grow up to see the world go from horse and buggies to cars to airplanes and outer space. They came in around the Spanish-American War and lived through World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam. They lived to see the day when we lost the will to win wars as politicians handcuffed generals.

As for my daughters’ descendants what might they dig up about my times and me? I suspect future keepers of ancestral bios might write, “He was a baby boomer, born between 1946 and 1964. He belonged to a generation who were the most active and most physically fit generation up to that time; the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time.” Well I’m not so sure about that. Key events from my life portray dark times.

Some cultural highlights for me include the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and Vietnam War protests. I remember the Beatles and Armstrong’s walk on the moon as bright notes. Going back to the year of my birth, 1949, we lost an iconic writer. Margaret Mitchell enjoyed a few drinks at the Atlanta Women’s Club. Then she and her husband John crossed Peachtree Street at 13th Street to a movie theater to see “Canterbury Tales.” A speeding taxi driver, drunk, hit her. She died five days later. A few moments from my life so far pale compared to the birth of children and grandchildren.

You can do this too. Dredge up the big stage events as your birth year and life go. Then recall your life’s truly meaningful moments … births, deaths, and times of pure joy and crushing sorrow. A true life consists of meaningful-to-you moments the world be damned stitched together by the fragile thread we call life. Short for many; long for a few.

Recently the country’s oldest person died. Just across the Savannah Mamie Rearden of Edgefield died January 2. She was 114, the same age my Grandmom Walker would be were she alive. What times these two ladies could have recalled over tea but alas they are no more. All that they remembered; all that they clung to, newspaper clippings, photos, and letters—whatever records they left—are in the hands of their relatives. Maybe.

That’s why it is really important that someone like Beth digs up history and build that family tree using all the documentation and photos she can find. The task is always harder because too few people take the time to write down things. Some of us do however. Take my columns for instance. As trivial as they often are many years from now they will provide a record of how things were.

In December 1978 my Granddad Walker took the time to write a letter to the editor of the The News- Reporter up Wilkes County way. I didn’t discover his memoir of sorts until after he passed but were he alive today I’d thank him for leaving this record for Beth and me. Here, then, are a few Civil War stories his grandmother told him, a lady he referred to as “the jolliest person I ever knew. I loved her and her visits.”

—Cleborn (C.B.) Walker: “Once when my grandfather was in battle in Richmond, Virginia, for three days and nights he couldn’t get any water to drink because it was bloody, but after it was over, he found a clear spring and drank so much he didn’t get far until he had a heart attack and subsequently he was subject to heart attacks until he died.

She related to me that she was a great horse-rider before she and grandfather married. She was Margaret Stevenson. Her brother, Henry, who later became a preacher, bet her she wouldn’t ride the young stallion their father owned. She took the dare and told him to catch him and she’d ride him. The stallion was caught and she rode him down the lane, circled the pasture, came back up the lane holding the horse’s mane, without even a bridle and rein! He’d never been broken! He was thereafter.”

She said once when the Yankees came through, her father sent her brother deep into the woods with all their horses including the stallion to keep him from whinnying to give away their whereabouts. Her father would hide his meat and lard in the branch, to keep the Yankees from finding it. He would dam up the branch, bury the meat and lard below the dam with dirt and brush over it, then break the dam and let it cover the meat. He would kill 25 to 30 hogs each year. He owned many slaves and he had to save food for them.

Once he left one ham in the meathouse on purpose and when the Yankees came and examined the meathouse, they were heard to say, ‘This poor devil has just one ham. We won’t take his,’ and left it. There were all the hams and meat, lard of 25 to 30 hogs buried in the branch!”

There. You just read unvarnished history free of political correctness, something we call the truth. Using the word “Yankee” and owning up to owning slaves—how insensitive to say that today! I hear many people today confess that they are afraid to research their ancestors’ lives because they’re afraid to learn if their ancestors had slaves. Well why? That was the way life was back then. It was another time. It had nothing to do with you. All parties involved were dead and gone before you came along. But let’s pretend it really didn’t happen.

Sure you can write up the records of your life and parents and grandparents and sanitize things. You can delete or gloss over things that prick you but that falls into the realm of revisionist history. In other words you become a professional liar. So here’s some advice for my fellow boomers: make records of your life and family and make them true. Don’t write around sensitive matters; don’t delete things. Don’t gloss over. If your granddad made moonshine, say so. If Uncle Horace served time in prison say so and why. The grandchildren of your children’s children will respect you for that and so will something called history.

Meanwhile live your life to the fullest. Boom on fellow boomers and leave truthful records. Boom on until you’re all boomed out and hope that a century later someone will see how things changed far more than you or anyone could and would have imagined.


###

Tom Poland

A Southern writer, Tom Poland’s work has appeared in magazines throughout the South. He’s published five books and more than 800 columns and magazine features. In 1996, Reckon magazine published his literary feature, "Deliver Me from Leviathan," on James Dickey. Excerpts were published in The World As A Lie–James Dickey, the Dickey biography by Henry Hart. The University of South Carolina Press has published three of his books, most recently, Reflections of South Carolina, now in its third printing. For six years, Tom worked as a scriptwriter and cinematographer, working primarily along the South Carolina Lowcountry and its barrier islands. While filming on a primitive barrier island one evening, fog rolled in trapping him overnight. That experience led to his novel, Forbidden Island, and the mythical Georgialina. Currently, he’s working on two nonfiction books. A Lincolnton, Georgia, native and University of Georgia graduate, he lives in Columbia, South Carolina. Read more at www.tompoland.net Favorite Quotes On Writing and Creativity: Writing is a kind of smoke, seized and put on paper. —James Salter I never wanted to be well rounded, and I do not admire well-rounded people nor their work. So far as I can see, nothing good in the world has ever been done by well-rounded people. The good work is done by people with jagged, broken edges, because those edges cut things and leave an imprint, a design. —Harry Crews
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[Shma]

likethedew.com/2013/01/22/ghost-towns-petersbur...

Ghost Towns

Swallowing History
Ghost Towns: Petersburg, Lisbon, & Vienna
by Tom Poland | 2, Add your Comment | Jan 22, 2013
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Lake Waters Bury An Unparalleled Political Record

Growing up I watched old cowboy movies about ghost towns out West and even went to Ghost Town in the Sky up in Maggie Valley, North Carolina. Tumbleweeds rolling through Dodge City kept me glued to the television. Well, I was a clueless lad. Little did I know that if you grew up in Lincoln County you lived in an area with ghost towns nearby and they were real, and what politics and history once lived there.


Upper Savannah River in 1795 (wikipedia.org)

Three vanquished towns, two barely outside the county and one within, sprang up here long, long ago. And then the fates conspired to do them in. Petersburg was in Wilkes County (later Elbert). Lisbon was in Lincoln County, and Vienna was near Mt. Carmel, South Carolina. Look at an old map and you’ll see these towns weren’t far apart. The New Georgia Encyclopedia says residents of Lisbon, Petersburg, and Vienna could all see each other’s town. No doubt, only water lay between them. The Broad River separated Petersburg from Lisbon. The Savannah River set Vienna apart.

Suppose these three towns had prospered and grown over the many decades into one “rivertropolis” or “River City” let’s christen it. Imagine a Georgia-South Carolina version of Venice, Italy, where waterways connect two states’ shining cities. Think of the tourism sure to come. Suppose, as a result, the lake had never been created or at least designed not to inundate this area at the tip of Clark Hill Reservoir’s watery grasp? (No Georgian in his right mind will ever refer to Clark Hill as Lake Thurmond; nor should any South Carolinian easily swallow “Lake Russell.” At least Lake Hartwell is named for a woman, and a woman who was a Revolutionary War heroine.)

It’s tempting to speculate how Lincoln County and the immediate region might be today had fate left a few things alone. One, suppose destiny had not changed the routes people followed back in the late 1700s. Two, what if providence had not changed the region’s economy back then? (Farmers gave up tobacco for cotton, and cotton unlike tobacco didn’t have to be inspected. Thus did cotton farmers bypass Petersburg, toppling shaky economic dominoes that began the area’s demise.) Third, outbreaks of Western and Yellow Fever caused folks to flee Petersburg for good.

Had the stars not made ghost towns of Petersburg, Lisbon, and Vienna would Lincolnton exist today? Would the lake have been allowed to swallow prosperous places that expanded into one city over 170 years or so?


Clark Hill Reservoir aka Lake Thurmond (wikipedia.org)

All we know is that Petersburg got all the attention as the three vanquished villages go. Petersburg isn’t quite in Lincoln County but it’s close. Very close. Petersburg sprang up in the forks of the Savannah and Broad Rivers. For ten years, it ranked as Georgia’s third-largest city behind Savannah and Augusta. Petersburg rose to prominence as a tobacco inspection site and had a post office and newspaper. Entertainment in the form of plays, balls, promenades, picnics, and community celebrations made life interesting. Doctors, lawyers, and politicians lived there. Petersburg alone can claim a slice of political history: it clings to the distinguished honor of being the only town in the nation’s history to produce two U.S. senators, William Bibb and Charles Tait, who served at the same time.

Petersburg and the Broad River valley served as a breeding ground for political alignments in Georgia during the early national period, especially between factions claiming Virginian ancestry and others connected with North Carolina families.

A series of bad things happened to this good place of powerful politics. Cotton replaced tobacco as a cash crop, the steamboat’s arrival robbed Petersburg of commerce beyond the fall line, and the Savannah and Broad Rivers prevented railroads from reaching it. New land to the West lured people away and Western Fever caused many remaining residents to abandon the area.

Until all this misery arrived two sister towns had helped Petersburg grow. Tiny Lisbon, founded by Virginian Zachariah Lamar in 1786, sat just across the Broad River in Lincoln County. Vienna was founded around 1795 across the Savannah in South Carolina. Lisbon and Vienna competed with Petersburg for trade, but neither town achieved Petersburg’s success.

The trio of towns shared connections: a ferry service regularly connected all three and it’s only natural that commerce flowed among them. As long as tobacco remained an important staple crop in the Broad River valley, Petersburg flourished and one would imagine the prosperity spilled into Lisbon and Vienna. After being inspected in Lisbon or Petersburg, tobacco boats (They were called Petersburg boats) made their way to Augusta and back, a trip that took about a week.

Lisbon was a spot. Just a spot. Vienna surpassed Lisbon in everything wrote the president of Emory College, the verbose Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, pointing out that, “Lisbon we believe could never boast of more than two stores and a groggery, and as many dwellings. Vienna surpassed Lisbon in everything, but exactly how far, and in what we are not able to say, except in John Glover’s house and store, which had no match in Lisbon.”

Vienna was a lumber town, but research uncovers the fact that it also had an exclusive academy founded by Dr. Moses Waddell. At one time he was South Carolina’s foremost educator, and he would become the fifth president of the University of Georgia. Without doubt the vicinity of Petersburg, Lisbon, and Vienna held enough intellectuals, leaders, and people of distinction to survive most anything and yet they didn’t.

Lisbon, Petersburg, and Vienna suffered similar fates. When new people quit coming residents left. In time a massive wall of concrete and steel would rise and Clarks Hill Lake would give all three a watery grave. The very water that birthed and separated them and connected them would bring the final insult but not without moments of fame.

Vienna made the New York Times way back in 1851. The subject was dueling, that chivalrous-if-deadly custom gentlemen used to settle their differences long ago. (At least you knew who was shooting whom unlike a drive-by shooting. Even when it comes to shooting a fellow man how far we’ve fallen.) Dueling was long legal in South Carolina, but apparently it wasn’t legal in Georgia. That’s the conclusion I draw from the October 1, 1851, article in the New York Times. It’s short and to the point.

The headline reads, “Duel at Vienna, South Carolina.” The article carries a Charleston, Tuesday, September 30 dateline. The story reads: “A duel was fought on Saturday between Mr. Smyth, an associate editor of The Augusta Constitutionalist, and Dr. Thomas, of Augusta, at Vienna, S.C. The cause of the duel was an article signed, “Doctor,” in The Chronicle and Sentinel, offensive to Smyth, of which Thomas avowed himself to be the author. Upon the third fire the ball passed through Smyth’s right thigh, and nearly through the left, but the wound is not considered mortal. He reached Augusta on Sunday night and is doing well. Thomas was not touched.”

Well okay, two Georgia boys crossed the Savannah to duel. No one died and I suppose Smyth regained his honor. I suppose too people talked excitedly of this settling of accounts as they traveled the ferry from Vienna to Lisbon to Petersburg. Dueling would not be part of Vienna’s future because it didn’t have a future. Nor did Petersburg or Lisbon. As Petersburg declined its post office moved to Lisbon in 1844 and closed in 1855. Vienna disappeared.

One summer several years back when the lake was way down, I went there by water. I saw streets, sidewalks, and foundations where homes once stood, where businesses once thrived. But now they were ghosts, relics of another time. I saw much flotsam, evidence of man’s presence. I came away with a near-perfect milk glass disk. Held in the light just so, you can read “Genuine Boyd Cap For Mason Jars.” Some long ago dutiful woman stored tomatoes with it perhaps. Whatever it preserved, it wasn’t Petersburg.

Petersburg I’d like to think could have and should have survived. Not only did it have river transportation but it was also part of the stagecoach route that ran south to Augusta. Another line ran from Milledgeville, Georgia, all the way to Washington, D.C. The future sure looked bright. And then a rapid decline and outright collapse ended everything.

[Shma]

One of my Christmas gifts is the book on Lincoln County by Beatrice Kovacs Mitchum and Dianne Morgan Poteat. The first thing I did when I got home was read it from cover to cover. I came across references to Lisbon and Petersburg. I enjoyed the photos of the old Petersburg Road, noting how the Lisbon Ferry connected it with Petersburg. On page 39 is a photo of more modern-day ferry in action. A nervous driver stands holding onto his car door as he watches the ferry approach the other bank. (Wilson Edwards and his wife ran the ferry though others contend this wasn’t the case.) On page 45 of Mitchum and Poteat’s book you will see a photo of Wilson Edward’s store with an old car out front. Soon, pent-up water will come calling.

I’ll leave it to history to decide whether the lake was and is a good thing for the county but we sure lost a lot of history when that lake covered the land. Big things like towns and natural gems like an old oak tree my Mom remembers up near Lisbon. “It was so big,” she said, “five men could not link hands and reach around it.”

Ferries, ancient towns, and massive oaks: they’re all gone now. Spots across the Savannah where Georgians paced, turned, and fired to settle their differences? They’re gone too. I’m glad writers don’t have to fret over offending some fellow who will challenge them to a duel. I’m grateful that less savage manner of salvaging one’s honor is passé. Perchance a spiteful letter to the editor will suffice or possibly the hurled rock-shattering glass. Still, I’ll choose my topics and words with care. And I like to think that when I write about places that once lived in glory no harm’s done and no thin-skinned pill-popping descendant will take offense.

And still I wonder. What might Lincoln County, Lincolnton, and even the Central Savannah River Area be like today had three settlements prospered? What if these places with memorable European names—Petersburg, Lisbon, and Vienna—had not just survived but forged a regional focal point? Would that achievement been enough to discourage politicians from building a lake they could one day plaster their name on after the waters have buried a once-proud history?

Without doubt the answer is “no.” Flood control and hydroelectric power would be rationale enough in their view to inundate Paris.
###

[Shma]

likethedew.com/2012/12/20/jingle-bells/

Jingle Bells

North v. South
Jingle Bells
by Tom Poland | 4, Add your Comment | Dec 20, 2012
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The Song That Started A Feud

It’s one of the more popular Christmas songs. It’s also a song that lends itself to all sorts of versions and lyrics. Back in my boyhood school days, classmate Carl Ivey would sing “Jingle Bells” come Christmas time. He’d alter the lyrics to go “Jingle bells, shotgun shells,” and from there memory fails me. Carl, however, was not the first fellow in Georgia to experiment with the words of this popular Christmas song.

Savannah resident James L. Pierpont composed the song and when he did he sowed the seeds for a controversy a century and a half later. Pierpont wrote his Christmas classic in the autumn of 1857. We know the song as “Jingle Bells,” but “One Horse Open Sleigh” was its original title. Pierpont, incidentally, wrote it as a Thanksgiving song and we thank him.

We can also thank Charlie Smith of Wrightsville for this Christmas column of sorts. Charlie does a great job when it comes to column ideas. Charlie emailed me a link to a story and the following note: “Tom, this is a story from ten or so years ago and M.H. Rahn has since passed away. M.H. was married to my first cousin on the Smith side of the family. Not only was he interested in history, mainly Savannah’s, but he also was a self-made millionaire. Started with a fruit stand on the old Bay Street road.”

Well M.H. riled up the folks in Medford, Massachusetts. Once upon a time “Jingle Bells” belonged exclusively to their city, until 1969 that is. That was when Medford, just outside of Boston, could claim the carol outright. And then M.H. Rahn linked the song’s composer to Savannah. ‘Twas a discovery that would set Medford and Savannah to feuding.

When the snow settled here’s what we know. James Pierpont served as the organist at Savannah’s Unitarian Church in 1857. Flash forward now. Rahn’s daughter is playing “Jingle Bells” in Savannah on the piano decades later. Rahn glances at the sheet music and sees a familiar name, Composer: J. Pierpont. Rahn knew of two J. Pierponts—a preacher and a fellow with musical inclinations and both lived in Savannah. The name on the sheet music, was it a mere coincidence?

Rahn had read letters John Pierpont Jr., pastor at Savannah’s Unitarian Church, had written from 1852 to 1858. The letters to Medford said brother James had come to Savannah as an organist and music teacher. Further research revealed James settled in Savannah.

As for making his discovery known, M.H. Rahn said, “I saw this as something to help us get publicity for the church.” Well it did that and a whole lot more. It started a controversy and oh what fun it was not. Savannah claimed it had originated this dashing Christmas classic. Up went a marker. The next time you are in Savannah go to the historic district. Across from Troupe Square where Habersham and Macon Streets intersect you’ll find a historic marker:

James L. Pierpont (1822-1893), composer of “Jingle Bells,” served as music director of this church in the 1850s when it was a Unitarian Church located on Oglethorpe Square. Son of the noted Boston reformer, Rev. John Pierpont, he was the brother of Rev. John Pierpont, Jr. minister of this church, and uncle of financier John Pierpont Morgan. He married Eliza Jane Purse, daughter of Savannah mayor Thomas Purse, and served with a Confederate cavalry regiment. He is buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery. A prolific songwriter, his best-known “Jingle Bells” is world famous.

But hold on a minute. Nine hundred miles north up North they’re not laughing all the way. The Medford Historical Society claims that the town’s popular sleigh races inspired the song. (I suppose they were one-horse open sleighs.) In Medford, Massachusetts, you’ll find a plaque at 19 High Street in Medford Square. This plaque marks the birthplace of “Jingle Bells,” and claims Pierpont wrote the song there in 1850 at the Simpson Tavern.

Pierpont copyrighted the song in 1857, and the copyright date sits at the heart of the controversy. That casts doubt on the possibility that Pierpont wrote the song in Medford. By 1850 Pierpont served as the organist and music director of the Unitarian Church in Savannah. In August that same year, James Pierpont married the mayor of Savannah’s daughter. (How many Southern mayors’ daughters do you think will marry and move up North? How about maybe two in the history of mankind.)

An article (MSN.com December 2003) on this controversy posed a question: “Did Pierpont write it in Savannah as a piece of homesick, holiday nostalgia? Or did he compose it years before in Medford, not seeing the tune as a moneymaker until he drifted south?”

In 1985 Savannah erected a “Jingle Bells” marker across from the church and then-Mayor John Rousakis declared the tune a Savannah song. That didn’t sit well with the folks in Medford. Ill-tempered letters flew back and forth. “In the words of Shakespeare, it is our intention to keep our ‘honor from corruption,”’ Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn wrote in a 1989 letter to Rousakis. “We unequivocally state that ‘Jingle Bells’ was composed … in the Town of Medford during the year 1850!”

Quicker than bells on bobtail ring Rousakis fired back. “James L. Pierpont is still here with us,” noting the composer’s Savannah burial. “I am sure (Pierpont) will join us in spirit when we finally and formally proclaim Savannah, Georgia, as the birthplace of ‘Jingle Bells.’ ”

Ace Collins, author of the 2001 book Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas, says he found more proof of Medford being the rightful birthplace while researching his chapter on “Jingle Bells.”

Collins found a New England newspaper from the early 1840s that mentioned “One Horse Open Sleigh” debuting in Medford at a Thanksgiving church service. Pierpont gave a repeat performance of the popular song at Christmas.

When it comes to which city deserves bragging rights, Collins does nothing to make spirits bright. He stays neutral. Pierpont may have written his song in Medford, said Collins, but Savannah made him realize its universal appeal. “Savannah was the key. If it can play in Savannah, where snow was a novelty, it can play anywhere.”

No one knows the definitive answer to this Christmas Carol mystery. The one person who can set us straight is no longer with us. Pierpont walked this green earth from 1822 to 1893. He ran away to sea at fourteen and later went to California during the Gold Rush and o’er the gold fields he went. During the Civil War, he joined a Confederate cavalry regiment in Savannah, an act in opposition to his family’s staunch abolitionist views.

James L. Pierpont apparently was a self-made Southerner and for sure a nomad but his one popular song would wander farther than he ever could. “Jingle Bells” you may recall was the first song broadcast from space by Gemini Six astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra. On December 16, 1965, they sent this report to Mission Control: “We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, probably in polar orbit. I see a command module and eight smaller modules in front. The pilot of the command module is wearing a red suit.” The astronauts then produced a smuggled harmonica and sleigh bells and broadcast a rendition of “Jingle Bells.”

So, is Jingle Bells a song that’s out of this world actually a song of the South? Why not? Let’s lay claim to it and thank M.H. Rahn for his diligent research. As for James L. Pierpont he met a fate common to other songwriters. Among the many composers of songs walk those lonely souls known as one-hit wonders. Add James L. Pierpont’s name to the list. Pierpont passed away long ago and his song has since passed into public domain. The controversy, however, remains alive as it dashes through the snow up North and dashes through sunshine, pines, and oaks down South.

Pierpont’s song gets changed every now and then and I for one am not a fan of the singing dogs’ version of “Jingle Bells”—a sleighing song tonight that is not nor do I like hijacking Christmas carols and converting them to advertising jingles. But that’s a jingle of another sort and a column for another day.
###

[Shma]

www.historyonesong.com/2009/10/jingle_bells_1/
www.historyonesong.com/2009/10/jingle_bells_2/
www.historyonesong.com/2009/10/jingle_bells_3/

[Shma]

likethedew.com/2012/12/17/mamas-cooking/

Mama’s Cooking

Growin' Up Southern
Mama’s Cooking
by Roger Gregory | 1, Add your Comment | Dec 17, 2012
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There are many days, while I’m prepping at the cutting board, preheating our oven or rattling them pots and pans around the stovetop, I stop and think about Mama’s cooking.

How I love the thousands of dinners, breakfasts, sack lunches, snacks and treats she tirelessly assembled, not only for me, but for our whole family. The sheer volume of food she prepared, the ingenious use of the ingredients available to her, leaves me awestruck. Putting it mildly, the butchers, green grocers and shelf merchants were good, but limited, so mom had to improvise like a jazz soloist. Dad worked hard to provide, and mom’s economy did him justice. Not a scrap was wasted. She shopped the sales, gathered and stored from the kitchen garden, used the fish and game we found the mountains and fields..

I recall, for you, the momentous purchase of our first deep freezer. We were living next to some Cajuns out on a rural route in Westlake, Louisiana. It was 1957. Inspired by these neighbors, daddy started raising chickens. Dudley was a little baby, but you and I just loved having those yard birds out back. When the fowls’ days were coming to an end, mama would have to rent locker space for their storage. One day, daddy packed us down to the Western Auto Store and bought her a brand new Wizard Deep Freeze — man oh man, welcome to the modern world. I can’t count how many times we moved that appliance – back to Houston, out west to New Mexico – before it retired itself back down on the bayous in Slidell. Like everything else, mama made the most from that purchase.

I remember Mama’s fried chicken, meatloaf, venison breakfast steaks, green chili stew, her mustard greens, mashed potatoes, black eyed peas, string beans, apple pies, chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies, Rice Crispy Treats, those endless menus in her various kitchens. And how about her camp cooking? She fried fresh caught trout over a wood smoke campfire to die for – the best I’ve ever tasted!

There are so many days – every time I put on a pot of coffee or scramble an egg – I am transported back through time to that most special, intimate place: Our mother’s kitchen, where she shone like the sun while we revolved around her.
###
Illustration by the author, Roger Gregory.

Roger Gregory

Roger was born and raised on the Gulf Coast and came to Atlanta in the '70s to pursue a career in music. He's recorded several albums and is the founding owner of Blind Willies on North Highland Avenue, where he plays bass for the Shadows.

[Shma]

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www.star-telegram.com/2010/02/09/1958393/dallas...

High school musicals in DFW becoming ever more elaborate

High school musicals in DFW becoming ever more elaborate
By JESSAMY BROWN
[email protected]
Extra Credit: More news in our education blog

Buckley nominees

High school theater productions competing in the 2009-10 Betty Lynn Buckley Awards. The ceremony will be May 20 at Casa Mañana Theatre.


Productions already staged

Birdville High School, Bye Bye Birdie

Boswell High School, The Wedding Singer

Carroll Senior High School, White Christmas

Central High School, Keller district, Flight of the Lawnchair Man

Colleyville Heritage High School, Footloose

Crowley High School, The Wedding Singer

Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts, She Loves Me

Grapevine High School, Les Miserables

Haltom High School, The Music Man

Keller High School, Peter Pan

Mansfield High School, Annie

North Crowley High School, Little Women

Richland High School, Hello, Dolly!

Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, White Christmas

Summit High School, Mansfield district, Fame


Upcoming productions

Southwest Christian School, Fort Worth, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Feb. 18-20

Fort Worth Country Day School, West Side Story, Feb. 26-28

The Oakridge School, Arlington, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, March 4-7

Nolan Catholic High School, Fort Worth, All Shook Up, March 5-6, 12-13

Each year for the past decade, students from Tarrant County's finest theater programs have competed in the Betty Lynn Buckley Awards, given annually for outstanding performances in high school musicals.

While the individual winners in a variety of categories get $500 in scholarships, the awards also give instant credibility and prestige to theater programs -- something akin to district championships in football.

Theater directors and students fully understand what's at stake. Directors are choosing to tackle more difficult shows, spending tens of thousands of dollars on productions that include intricate choreography, labor-intensive sets and complex lighting sequences. Serious-minded students spend hours practicing, some using voice and dance coaches, to give them a leg up during auditions.

Offstage, booster clubs sell corporate sponsorships, produce glossy programs -- complete with student photos and bios -- and peddle a variety of merchandise at performances.

The bar has definitely been raised, theater watchers say.

"The caliber of the shows has gone out the roof," said Norma Burks, Buckley head judge and program coordinator. "If you go to some of these shows, you would think you'd seen something on Broadway."

Stacie Martinsen, theater director at Carroll Senior High School in Southlake, said the Buckleys have "had a huge effect on high school theater. Knowing we are going to be adjudicated, I think everyone knows we're going to take it up a notch because we are going to be looked at."

Even Buckley, a Tony Award-winning actress, has taken notice: "The qualities of the productions are getting better and better."

Lots of people, lots of time

When students audition for high school musicals, they are committing to weeks of practices that can be highly regimented and include time on the weekend, especially as performances draw near. And it's not just actors: Dozens of students get involved building sets, working lights, making costumes and playing in the orchestra.

It's the same scenario -- minus the orchestra -- for one-act plays, a separate competition that is sanctioned by the University Interscholastic League.

Birdville High School performed the 1950s-era Bye Bye Birdie in January, an endeavor that included a 60-member cast and 30-member orchestra. The cast rehearsed about two hours every day after school, on Saturdays and during winter break before performing to sold-out crowds, theater director Christopher Williamson said.

In addition to building sets, learning songs and memorizing lines, some in the Carroll cast of White Christmas had to learn to tap dance.

At Central High School in the Keller district, where students are rehearsing the one-act play Glory Days, boys in the cast arrive before school for conditioning exercises -- so they can better look the part of steelworkers. Central finished second in the Class 5A state competition last year.

"Competitions breed success," said David Stevens, the Keller district's fine arts director. "When you know there's a prize at the end, you're going to work harder, make things better and put out quality theater and musical theater. It's that recognition, exposure and positive PR that everyone hopes to achieve."

The Buckleys also fuel a spirit of competition among the schools. Students often go see shows at other schools to find out what others are up to, theater directors said.

"We want to see how it ranks -- how is it being viewed by someone other than your mom and dad," said Carroll's Martinsen.

The Buckleys are not, however, the sole inspiration for theater programs.

"Getting nominated for a Buckley is a byproduct from doing a fantastic show," said Kim Blann, theater director at Central. "I tell them, 'We don't do the show because we want to win a trophy.'"

Directors want students to remember that musicals are a learning activity. And they encourage students to earn scholarships in drama and related fields. At Central, for example, a class has been started to help students prepare for college auditions, Blann said.

Thousands of dollars

Because high school theater programs vary widely, the Buckleys split certain categories based on budgets each year. This year's budget categories for student-designed lighting, costumes and sets haven't been set since not all schools have finished staging their musicals.

Carroll brought in a 600-pound chandelier from Germany when it became the first high school theater to stage The Phantom of the Opera in December 2007.

Fresh from winning the best-musical Buckley Award for The Pajama Game in spring 2007, Carroll was chosen as one of six schools in the nation to stage Phantom to provide feedback on whether the sсript and score are too difficult for student theater. Carroll spent $75,000 on the production, mostly on expensive costumes and elaborate period-based stages.

But because it was a pilot, Carroll's production of Phantom was not eligible to participate in the 2008 Buckleys.

"This is where I'll be perceived as some type of over-spender, but the truth is, with a production like Phantom, we had 17 different scene locations and a sсript that mandated that a chandelier fly over the audience," Martinsen said.

It cost Carroll $20,000 to $25,000 to stage White Christmas, which included renting 13 snow machines that turned the auditorium into a winter wonderland.

Central staged Flight of the Lawnchair Man in December for about $8,000, Blann said. That included $3,000 to rent equipment to fly lead actor Travis Threlkeld across the stage in a lawn chair.

"I was up there for roughly 45 minutes," said Threlkeld, 17, a senior. "It was really, really cool."

Schools contribute some money for productions, but much of the cost is covered by fundraisers -- including selling corporate sponsorships -- ticket sales, concessions and playbill ads, directors and boosters say.

The costs also keep some schools from entering the Buckleys. Michael Ryan, executive director of fine arts for the Fort Worth district, said its high schools generally don't have the budgets or facilities to compete in the Buckleys but are working with community theater groups to strengthen their programs.

Yet, while high-dollar special effects certainly add entertainment value, productions don't have to load up with bells and whistles to win a Buckley.

"No matter what the budget is, no matter what fancy props you have, it all comes down to good theater," said Stephen Madrid, Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts spokesman. The academy, home to the Texas Boys Choir, won the 2005 Buckley for best musical for its production of Singin' in the Rain.

The junior Tonys

For this year's Buckley contest, 19 public and private schools have signed up to participate. Nine judges with theater expertise will attend the performances and review video clips before voting in 16 award categories, including best musical, best male and female actor and excellence in choreography.

Students dress in formalwear for the ceremony and give speeches if they win. Some casts, typically nominees for best musical, get to perform a number for their peers, scrambling to re-create it months after originally staging the show. Award presenters have included well-known actors such as Lou Diamond Phillips and Jensen Ackles.

"It's exactly like a junior version of the Tonys," said Joe Sturgeon, Casa Mañana's director of theatre for youth.

Birdville High School won best musical for The Boyfriend last year and has entered its January production of Bye Bye Birdie in this year's contest.

"It does make a big difference to say, 'Hey, they won best high school musical.' The theater begins to get that reputation that it's a good show," said Gena Foster, president of the Birdville High School theater boosters. "More people are becoming aware of it, and more people are going to support the arts. There is a prestige when your school wins a Buckley -- they obviously do good shows."
JESSAMY BROWN, 817-390-7326
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Read more here: www.star-telegram.com/2010/02/09/1958393/dallas...

[Shma]

likethedew.com/2010/10/17/something-wicked-this...

Something Wicked...

Something Wicked This Way Comes
by Ray Bearfield | 3, Add your Comment | Oct 17, 2010

Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana

In the Spring of 1968, something wicked came to my hometown and killed more than 40 people with no warning at all.

A stream of natural gas, like the green mist in the Ray Bradbury film, gathered in the basement of the sporting goods store where I often spent my Saturday afternoons. When it ignited, it set off the cases of ammunition, the cans of gunpowder and the blasting caps stored there. Military surplus rifles – M1s and Mausers and Enfields – rained down on the roof of the library several blocks away. The explosion left a giant hole where the building once stood. It blew the engine out of a parked car and sent it screaming across Main Street, where it killed the kid brother of an elementary school classmate.

And it set the stage for a redevelopment project that did as much to destroy “downtown” as any explosion could. Among its victims was the public library, erected in 1864 but expanded, refaced with stone and converted into a Richardsonian Romanesque castle in 1892.

I spent hours inside that building as a boy. The main reading room had stone floors, vaulted ceilings, a mezzazine lined with wrought-iron rails, and oak-cased walls of volumes behind glass-paneled doors. A spiral iron staircase led up to a second level with its floor of filigreed iron we could see through. So unique and so popular were the old building’s details that many of them were salvaged and incorporated into its replacement in an earnest, if futile, effort to capture the magic of something now gone.

I was reminded of that old building while watching Something Wicked This Way Comes, with its haunting message about the longing we feel for the past, for our youth, for a world in which small boys could lose themselves in places that managed to be at once overwhelming and comforting. Memories came rushing back as I watched Charles Halloway replace volumes on a familiar mezzanine, and his son Will race down stairs like the ones I once knew.


The Main reading room at the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana

The library in my hometown was a gift from a wealthy merchant. Its expansion was the result of a later bequest. Midway between those two events, the town adopted a tax to support the facility; prior to that it depended on overdue fines and the rent paid by the librarian for her living quarters in the building’s south end. Today, like most libraries, it gratefully accepts gifts but pays its bills with taxes, the dues we pay to live in a civilized world.

Something Wicked This Way Comes was Bradbury’s allegory about temptation, as illustrated by Mr. Dark’s carousel, which would transport the young ahead in time or let the aged return to the strength and glory and beauty of their youth. Those who succumbed to its lure found themselves trapped in the surreal nightmare of the mysterious carnival, a netherworld populated by shapeshifters, the blind, and the unconscious. We never learn the source of the grand library Charles Halloway tended. Was it the gift of a wealthy merchant, or the product of a community’s decision to tax itself in order to hold something grand in its midst?

The evil in the movie is portended by the angry black sky behind Tom Fury, who sells lightning rods to those who need “special protection” from what is coming. “Some folks,” he warns “draw lightning to ‘em like a cat draws a baby’s breath.” When the evil shows up, it rides a dark train, seems to appear out of nowhere, and promises something few townspeople can resist.

Those who surrender to its temptation and ride the carousel damn themselves forever. Their desire to recapture the strength, health and beauty they seek, or remember having once had, reduces them to writhing figures in the tattoos covering Mr. Dark.

The evil that comes our way today carries no such portents. Instead of black skies, we see flags wave. Instead of roiling clouds full of lightning and thunder, we hear an incessant call to turn back time, to return to an America that was young, healthy and beautiful. It doesn’t matter that we were never as pure and strong as we’d like to imagine. Those who want to ride the Tea Party carousel won’t leave the hall of mirrors that reflects only what they choose to see. They ignore the racism, the inequities, the hard times that made up the dark side of an America without organized labor or regulatory agencies or laws to extend basic rights to the most vulnerable among us. They ignore history that tells us that group has included black slaves, Mexican migrants, homosexuals and even middle-class women. Those yearning to ride the carousel backwards want that history ignored, even if that means destroying the education necessary to keep our democracy alive.

They say they want to shrink government, to reward initiative, to banish the moochers and deadbeats and the powerless. But in their shrill cries I hear the sound of a mystery train bearing down on our world, a ghost train hurtling toward us in the night, ready to transform all we’ve accomplished into something we won’t recognize. Given their way, they will starve our schools, our libraries, and our art. They will cut the safety nets from under the vulnerable and redesign our economic engine to devour the victims of the poverty it creates. They will drag us all through the gates of Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show in their craven rush toward the magic carousel that leads to a world that never was.

Something wicked truly does come. And we don’t need Tom Fury to tell us what awaits us if we give in to its false promise.



Library scene from Something Wicked This Way Comes
###

Ray Bearfield

Ray Bearfield went to Florida as a newspaper editor, but left that job for a life on the water. He developed environmental education programs for the state Department of Natural Resources, earned a captain’s license and became a fishing guide in the Ten Thousand Islands region of the Everglades, and wrote stories and articles about the coastal environment for national and regional publications. He now lives in Atlanta, where he is at work on his first novel.

[Shma]

likethedew.com/2009/04/10/stirring-straight-fro...

Stirring Straight from the Heart

Stirring Straight from the Heart
by Terri Evans | 3, Add your Comment | Apr 10, 2009

Good Grief: Southern Funeral Foods continues with more recipes and stories.

“Now several electric fans are whirring in the downstairs room and hallways, and a buffet lunch is being served. The food at a Southern funeral is usually good, but this food is splendid: turkey and country ham and stuffed tomatoes, loaves of delectable soft homemade bread and gallons of strong iced tea.”

He Lay Dead, a Bitter Grief :“When they put Bill Faulkner in the ground.” William Styron, Life Magazine 1962

Southern funeral food is just good food, prepared by condolence cooks who instinctively know the food and stir straight from their hearts. While people of all regions, cultures, and religions have their own funeral food customs or etiquette, it is a sacrilege (to me) to believe that any recipe created above the Mason-Dixon line could possibly compare to the way we Southerners can pity with pork, or comfort with a casserole.

A well-chosen funeral food offering has passed the test of time, made by mothers and grandmothers for Sunday dinners over generations and decades. We taste this food through our memory. In fact, these tastes have been distinguished by our very memory. Sometimes, depending on the ingredients, one can taste the real origin of the dish: the land, or the sea, or the fields and orchards. Try it. Close your eyes and remember a vision of the feathery stalks of silver corn gently blowing in the breeze in the fields of Kentucky, and later, how sweet it tasted, and now again in your memory. These flavors are in the collective conscience of generations of Southerners. The Southern soil and sun, waters and pastures bear our fruits of compassion, so fitting a send-off to those who rest in the Southern soil.

Although the funeral food culinary categories may be few, the nuances of preparation that individualize each dish are many. Special touches, family secrets and expressions of personality permeate the varieties of fried chicken, sweet potatoes, and pecan pies. Community pride and states rights stew in the barbecue; religion and beliefs bake up in the breads and pound cakes, and history reveals itself in the recipes influenced by ancestry, race, education, and wealth or poverty.

“I suppose one of the reasons for the traditions of making food for the family is so that they don’t have to deal with the everydayness of life during this time.

The Very Reverend Harry Pritchett, The Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, GA

Suspending the “everydayness” burdens of life for the grieving is a gift that has long been delivered by Southerners, whether it’s food, an offer to drop off dry cleaning, or help to craft an obituary, but if food is your choice, then a few fundamental guidelines should be considered:
Don’t take anything that requires work on the spot. This is an already overloaded kitchen brimming with life and death. At once.
Yes, ease is part of the offering in funeral food, but the ease is for the family: not you. This is the time to make something real. The Colonel is not invited. If it’s a ham, it’s already sliced; the biscuits need only be warmed; the casseroles warmed briefly in the microwave, or frozen for the future when the bourbon and sedatives wear off. No last minute sauces. No individual dishes plated just off the stove. This is the time to provide food that can be eaten immediately, or weeks from now from the freezer.
The foods can still be varied, despite the “ease” limitations. Best of all, this is no time to count calories or cholesterol. It is a time for indulgences. Deviled eggs – and lots of them. Macaroni and cheese. Potato salad. Most any casserole with a Cream of Mushroom Soup base, especially the infamous green bean casserole.
Pies and cakes should be abundant. Pre-slice cakes, sheet cakes, pies and brownies. The bereaved should be holding hands, not pie knives.
For the freezer: Be sure to label with thawing and baking instructions if your dish is for the future.
Organize the friends, neighbors and support system. How many hams can one family endure? Ensure variety with vegetables, fruits, salads, rice and potatoes. In the midst of the casseroles, all would appreciate some straight up fresh pole beans.
Blessed are those who bring breakfast. Egg casseroles, grits casseroles, sausage and biscuit, muffins, banana bread and fruit.
Finger sandwiches. Thin, soft, white bread, please. Sounds like a Baptist wedding or a Chi Omega rush tea, but the truth is these bite-sized blessings allow for variety and are an effortless offering to guests calling on the family. As to variety: pimento cheese, egg salad, tuna salad, turkey salad, cream cheese assortments and more. (Stay away from the ham salad; it will be made eventually from the leftover sliced hams.) Just squares, rectangles and triangles. Save your daisy cookie-cutter for the PTA supper.
Tea-totaling or not, these people need liquids: bottles of water, jugs of sweet tea, soft drinks (make that Coke in the South), and coffee and cream. You decide if alcohol is appropriate. Scotch, bourbon, vodka, mixers and wine. Maybe even beer. If you don’t know them well enough to be confident of the answer, you probably should not be around at this time.
Mourning and the mundane: “Everydayness” requires we address the burdens of the banal. A basket of foil, plastic wrap, Kleenex, toilet tissue, Tupperware, trash bags, paper plates, and more are in order and will save some soul from a trip to the store, unless they are anxious to escape for a breath of fresh air.
Rooms and rides relief: Offer your guest room to out of town friends and family. Pick up people at the airport. Offer to simply be on call for anything the family needs.
Kids need love, attention, food they will eat, babysitting and, sadly, sometimes their first funeral suit. Perfect for the friend who can’t cook, but loves to shop.
“Working the funeral.” That’s what my Aunt Millie always called it. She was gifted at it. Greet people at the family home. Serve coffee. Set up the buffet. There will be dishes to be done, too. Count on it.

Some Notable Quotes: Famous and Infamous:

Moments after Addie Bundren’s death. “Git up now, and put supper on,” pa says. “We got to keep our strength up.” As I Lay Dying: William Faulkner

“‘Wanda Fay you got enough stuff in sight to last one lone woman forever,’ said Bubba Chisom, both his hands around a ham sandwich.” The Optimist’s Daughter: Eudora Welty

“Fore I could get the kids piled back in that car and git on, the food started a gatherin. That side porch was like a parade of Sunday dinners for about an hour.” One Side of a Conversation Between Gracie Dwiggers and Rosetta Bunch About Edna Raoe’s Wake and Funeral, Over the Phone: Ernest Mathew Mickles

“As I drove in she was walking into the house with eggs for breakfast and homemade biscuits ready for baking. Somehow in rural Southern culture, food is always the first thought of neighbors when there is trouble. That is something they can do and not feel uncomfortable. It is something they do not have to explain or discuss or feel self-conscious about. ‘Here, I brought you some fresh eggs for your breakfast. And here’s a cake. And some potato salad. ‘ It means, ‘I love you. And I am sorry for what you are going through and I will share as much of your burden as I can.’ And maybe potato salad is a better way of saying it.” Brother to a Dragonfly: Will D. Campbell

[Shma]

“Where but in the South, I wondered, is such an honorable and enduring tradition still followed so faithfully? Who else says, ‘I’m sorry’ with a cake or a casserole? Some people do, no doubt, for such a fitting and practical tribute could hardly be confined to one region. Still, Southerners have a special knack for tea and sympathy” Side Orders: John Egerton

“There’s something about the closeness of death which has the paradoxical effect of making life fresh and valuable and available.” Parting the Curtains: Interviews with Southern Writers: Walker Percy

“Now hopping-john was F. Jasmine’s very favorite food. She had always warned them to wave a plate of rice and peas before her nose when was in the coffin, to make certain there was no mistake; for if a breath of life was left in her, she would sit up and eat, but if she smelled the hoppin-john, and did not stir, then they could just nail down the coffin and be certain she was truly dead.” The Member of the Wedding: Carson McCullers

“Casseroles particularly seem to suit this time. There is something about rich, cheesy dishes, such as macaroni and cheese, or cheese grits or potato salad, that soothe anxious hearts and gnawing stomachs.

“It is helpful when some food that has been brought can be frozen. There may be an abundance of food the day of the funeral, but out-of-town family and friends may need to be there for several days, and it is a blessed relief to be able to pull something out of the freezer and heat it up.” Food Eases Funeral Reunions:The Atlanta Journal and Constitution: Natalie Dupree

“I been eating leftover funeral food all week. I don’t ever want to see a platter of turkey or ham again,” said Edna. Homemade Sin: Kathy Hogan Trocheck

“I remember when my Daddy died, everybody started vacuuming.” Rhonda Farmer, Providence, KY

“Nothin says lovin’ like something from the oven and…” Pillsbury Advertising slogan

“My family is always on the verge of a funeral.” Anonymous

“My daddy died and I didn’t get no supper that night.” Louise Leonard, Linden, VA

“Well, we call it workin’ a funeral. You know, when 3 or 4 of ‘ya get together and take turns being at the house. One of us would work of the morning, another in the afternoon and at night so there’d always be somebody there to greet people.” Millie Baird, Sturgis, KY

“I have a very vivid memory of something someone brought me when I lost a loved one. I was alone and the doorbell rang. Before I even opened the door, I smelled freshly baked bread and it always lingered with me. The aroma was straight out of the oven and it smelled like they cared.” Lucy Richardson, Atlanta, GA

Mom Barr’s Pound Cake

This recipe was given to me by son-in-law’s mother, Ellie Barr of Charleston, SC. She got it from her mother-in-law, whom the family called, Mom Barr. The story has it that Mom Barr got the recipe decades ago from a woman in Georgetown, SC who was married to a funeral home director. Enough said.

Sour Cream Pound Cake
3 cups of sugar
2 sticks of softened butter*
6 large eggs
1 tbsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. soda
1-cup sour cream
1/4 tsp. salt
3 cups, sifted cake flour


Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cream sugar and butter with an electric mixer – until light. Add eggs, one at a time, creaming after each addition. Add vanilla. Dissolve soda into the sour cream. Then fold sour cream, by hand into the creamed mixture. Add salt to the sifted flour. Fold flour, by hand, into the creamed mixture. Pour into a greased and floured tube, bundt or loaf pan. Bake for one hour and 15 minutes or until done. Cool and turn out.

Believe it or not, this cake actually improves in the freezer, which makes it the perfect cake to keep around for unexpected guests, or to send to friends in need of cheering. To freeze: Wrap first in wax paper and place inside a freezer bag or plastic wrap. Freeze for up to 6 months.

*If you know you’re going to make the cake, try to remember to take the butter to soften in advance. The eggs are better for baking if they are at room temperature, but I have found a safer method. Fill a bowl with the eggs and run hot tap water over them. Let them sit for a few minutes and they will come up to room temp.



###

Terri Evans

Terri Evans is 25+year marketing communications professional, a partner at LeslieEvansCreative and Bcauz marketing (cause-related). She has been a food columnist for Atlanta Intown and Atlanta Buckhead newspapers, and a contributing writer for Georgia Magazine, the Atlanta Business Chronicle and other publications. Evans was also a finalist in a Southern Living cooking competition. She is (and has long been) at work on a novel set in the South (of Georgia) and the South (of France). She's always cookin' up somethin'.

[Shma]

likethedew.com/2009/03/19/lets-play-the-game/

Let’s play the game

Let’s play the game
by Jack Wilkinson | 1, Add your Comment | Mar 19, 2009

The name of the game was “Nickname.” It was the name game within the game, born 30 years ago during the most magical, maddening, heartbreaking and exhilarating month of the year: March.

Specifically, March of 1979, during the grandest of all our American sporting
events. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

It was conceived, as greatness invariably is, by sportswriters on the road. Guys with too much time on their hands, then-generous per diems and, in post-game hospitality rooms across the country, ample quantities of the sportswriter’s two favorite beers: Free, and Free Lite.

The Nickname concept was simple, and simply brilliant: Give sports nicknames to non-sports celebrities. And so today, on this greatest of days, the start of another NCAA Tournament, let us genuflect in honor of …

Elizabeth “Fatty” Taylor.

And Jonas “Dr. J” Salk.

Jack “The Shot” Ruby.

Pearl “The Earl” Bailey.

And, of course, Walt “No Neck” Whitman.

What began as beer-fueled fun on the road (imagine that) evolved into
near-obsession. Hacks would, uh, brainstorm after games and over Buds,
trying to one-up each other, and … voila! Ulysses S. “Mudcat” Grant.

Or Richard “Digger” Nixon.

Abby “Night Train” Lane. Ahhhhhhh …

Emile “The Cat” Zola.

And, of course, Ed “Too Tall” Koch.

One morning, one writer awoke in a Heineken-induced haze and found a note slipped under his hotel room door. Seems another scribe had a pre-dawn, early-morning flight to catch, but not before making another contribution: Tom “The Bomb” Hayden.

Or was it Marilyn “Cornbread” Maxwell?

This March, uh, madness (sorry) continued right on to Salt Lake City, right through the Final Four and one of the most historically significant NCAA title games: The Indiana State-Michigan State final.

Larry Joe Bird vs. one Earvin Jr. Which, naturally, begat …

Andrew “Magic” Johnson.

And don’t forget …

Neville “The Stilt” Chamberlain.

And Bernie “Boom Boom” Goetz.

So in honor of the 30th anniversary of Nickname, we here at the home office of likethedew.com, in an effort to be 21st-century reader-friendly, encourage you to submit sports nicknames for contemporary or posthumous non-sports celebrities.

As in …

Shirley “Cha Cha” Franklin.

Or Glenn “Sugar Ray” Richardson.

Marilyn “The Pearl” Monroe.

Or Etta “Queen” James.

Somewhere, Dean “The Dream” Rusk is smiling. Now excuse me, but Black Jack Wilkinson ([email protected]) has to give a last-minute tweak to my brackets. Can you say Western Kentucky over Illinois? I can.
###

Jack Wilkinson

Jack Wilkinson has written about sports professionally for 37 years, but his career began in his hometown of Lynbrook, N.Y., on Long Island. His elementary school paper, the Marion Street Chatterbox, is the coolest-named paper he's ever worked for. Thank you, Mrs. Roseanne Waldstein, the school librarian and Chatterbox advisor. Jack worked at Newsday while a senior at Hofstra University, and later for the Miami News, Chicago Daily News, New York Daily News and, after moving to Atlanta in 1983, the local rag. A three-time Georgia Sportswriter of the Year, he gleefully took a buyout in June, 2007. Jack's written six books. The latest, "Of Mikes and Men -- A Lifetime of Braves Baseball," is the recently-released autobiography of co-author Pete Van Wieren. Published by Triumph Books of Chicago, "Of Mikes and Men" is now available at Borders, Barnes & Noble, Manuel's Tavern and other fine book outlets everywhere.