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Last night, lured by thoughts of mouth-watering cheeseless pizza and the chance to participate in a legendary event, I found myself making the trek from the baseball field straight to Maw Finn’s house.
And so it happened. And if you missed it, shame on you. Maw Finn, Henrietta and I put on THE cornshuck doll making party of the century.
Armed with shucks, thread, scissors, mucho patience and a ton of pure silly giddiness, we set out to make our special dolls and, under the tutelage and guidance of Maw Finn, who, at times, must have wanted to smack our hands with a ruler, Henrietta and I successfully completed the dolls and were ecstatic (and blue-fingered) with the results.
Mexican, anyone? Wetting the shucks is the first step to making sure the doll gets off on the right foot. Bro. Finn and I joked that it seemed we were getting ready to prepare multi-colored tamales.
A little farther along, the foundation of the doll is formed, starting with its head and progressing with the arms. Anyone remember the little ghost suckers someone always brought to the Halloween parties in school? This step reminded me of those.
Important rule of thumb and a bit of reverse psychology from Maw Finn: When making the dolls, it’s not what’s on the inside that counts.
Skipping to the end, we have three different dolls with three different personalities. Whew! What a workout, but definitely worth it. And now, the dolls will go into a sealed vault never to be touched by the hands of children or people with A.D.D. for all of eternity.
A big thank you goes to Maw Finn (who still needs her own blog as doll making is only one of her many talents) and Bro. Finn for keeping our giddiness up and to Paw Finn for keeping us in line when things got a bit too hairy.
Oh, and since I’ve mentioned the entire Finn family, I must give a post-anniversary shout out to Finn herself who celebrated her anniversary with The Accountant yesterday. Also, a shoutout to my new nephew Cooper.
Monroeville. Located in what is known to most natives as L.A. or to out-of-staters as Lower Alabama. It lies seemingly within shouting distance of Mobile which, in turn, lies a hop, skip and a jump from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.Finn and I, on our nearly 400-mile journey to the official Literary Capital of the Iron State, encountered numerous interesting road signs announcing the presence of some unusual landmarks and even revealing that the route once handled people escaping from Hurricane Katrina. The terrain was decidedly confused as it insisted on switching from steep mountains to flat, treeless plains at a moment’s notice.
Even though it seemed like Monroeville was trying its hardest to scoot away from our visit and land itself on the coast to remain undiscovered by us two terrible Tennesseans, we finally located the little ’burg late Friday night and settled down to rest up for Saturday’s big adventures.
The next morning, through absolutely no fault of my own (or unintentionally), I gave Finn the biggest kick out of the fact that one half of my bed remained completely untouched by the aftermath of tossing and turning. I had to explain to her that I normally do my slumbering on a couch and if I’d gone to the other side of the bed it would be as if I’d fallen off the couch.
Talk about true Southern hospitality. As soon as we walked out the front door, the Alabama humidity greeted us with a bear hug and wouldn’t let go. Think it’s humid in Tennessee? Just go to lower Alabama. At 9:30 in the morning the temperature was already nearly as high as it gets at its peak on a humid day in the Volunteer State. Unbearable. Finn and I would literally walk a block until we’d begin to resemble dying snow cones and trudge back to the air-conditioned car and cold drinks. And we thought we could take it, as true Tennesseans.
Monroeville is classified as a small town, but it doesn’t really fit my definition. My hometown has just under 3,000 people in it and Finn’s hometown is considerably smaller, but the population of Monroeville, the county seat of Monroe County, hovers in the lower 20,000s and is able to fluctuate considerably thanks in large part to the tourists who flock to see the hometown of Harper Lee and Truman Capote.
And now, I think the rest of the story would be better told through pictures.
Before we entered “the most famous courthouse in America,” we stopped in front to snap a few pictures.
Had to stay a while in this room. Was made to look exactly like the courtroom scene in the movie To Kill a Mockingbird from the perfect placement of Atticus’ bag to the jury seats. Nearly cried at the sight of this. Unless you’ve been here, you cannot imagine how magical it feels to be inside this room. Pictures do not do it justice. Justice, heh.
Remains of Truman Capote’s house. Nelle Harper Lee’s house, once next door, was replaced with a small dairy bar. The school is located about a block away.
Wonderful story. Long trip. If any of you are ever thinking about going, pack the grocery store, take plenty of money for gas and be sure you take a good friend along the way because if you don’t like the person you’re with you’re very liable to beat the poor person up long before you finish the trip. Luckily, I had all three of the items needed to make a successful trip. Next time, however, I am going to try my hardest to see the reclusive author. Thank her for writing.
Which is the state of our agriculture around here…..well, up until it rained (hallelujah!) yesterday.
Because of its name and because it was deemed as one of Truman Capote’s favorite little communities around the area, Finn and I simply had to go check it out. With Finn as a navigator, we set sail for the area and (for the most part) made it there without a hitch, restoring my confidence somewhat in Finn’s navigational skills.
Burnt Corn turned out to be the town that once was but no longer is and only remnants of its former self remained for photographing, but they really made for some nice pictures anyway.
Oh, and the corn really is burnt. Saw some in stray gardens along the paths and it was only about knee high to a grasshopper and completely brown.
Old post office. We parked the car in front of this building. It looked quite haunted but very interesting.
Methodist Church. Was tempted to try to go in, but I’ve set off church alarms before. Long story…
Former general store. I must admit, this is one of my favorite pictures I took and I don’t know why. Just a Coke fan, I suppose.
Heading back home right now with a lovely pizza pie in my backseat, sans queso, of course. Let me tell you, it smells wonderful without the mozerella gooping things up.
Ready to get on the road tomorrow and put this week behind me never to think of it or remember it again. Hopefully, the distance will help loosen the bolts in my long term memory and ever so gently kick out this week’s worth of disbelief, fear and confusion.
Not a good week for me. Not at all. I’ll leave it at that, admit that I now question why I can be so trusting of people at times and look to the next few days to bring me back up again.
Off I go! I’ll send ya a postcard.
My answering machine on the cell phone was bursting at the seams this morning with not one but two church invites from my relatives and to my great delight, I took on the new day with my pick of the litter of the Baptist churches in the area. It seems that, as my family left for Florida and left me behind, everyone suddenly became convinced I was doomed to become unchurched and rushed to invite me to services.
First Baptist and its on fire preacher was quite tempting, but in the end, I chose Oak Grove, because not only is it my home church, but today was the day of our annual homecoming.
After the uplifting sermon on Father’s Day, we all made like the good Baptists that we are and crammed the fellowship hall doors nearly knocking them off their hinges in an attempt to get to the enormous spread.
I’ve already devoted two posts to my experience at an Episcopalian homecoming, but if I were going to paraphrase a typical Baptist homecoming in one word while comparing it to the one at Old Trinity it would be this: milder.
Okay. Picture it. The scene is set. All the players are in place along with a few extras who are suffering from grumbling tummies. The tables (all good Baptists put two extra long tables together so that it’s impossible to get all you want from one side and you must go down the other side too) pulsate with barbecue flanked by second in command, fried chicken, and followed by a bloated battalion of five kinds of green bean casseroles, hash brown casseroles, raisin salads, an assortment of garden veggies drowning in bacon fat, chicken and dumplings (in the crock pot and not in the crock pot) and a whole other table of cakes, cookies and fried pies and a whole other table of drinks (sorry, Episcopals, no cooler of alcohol here).
Conversations are much cooler as no one’s gotten silly off the wine (a downer I must say) and then the inevitable happens and I’m questioned to death about why I might have killed off the other members of my family and where in the world are they and what I planned on doing with my life. Calmly and sarcastically, I answered each one while shoveling Mt. Dew into my mouth and getting silly off caffeine as a substitute for the hard stuff.
And then it happened. In mid sentence of catching up with my kindergarten Sunday School teacher, the urge to go to the bathroom (thanks to the Dew) had me up and pushing myself through the crowd to the trusty old wood panel-walled restroom. The same one that had been there ever since I spit up split peas in the nursery, graduated into the big kids class and one day mysteriously found myself in with the 18-30 year olds.
Everything else in the church had undergone a renovation at some point. The sanctuary had received new carpet to replace the day-glo ’80s looking garb I’d grown up with. The pews had been repadded. The nursery and Sunday School rooms had been revamped.
Ye olden water closet had been the only thing to remain untouched.
Until today.
Opening up the door to the women’s restroom, I did a double take, a triple take and nearly wet myself before I could walk the final two steps to the toilet. Gone was the wood paneling. Gone were the wooden partitions. Gone was the mirror and sink, the plastic Dixie cups, the pictures of faded and dusty daffodils……replaced with white painted walls, a decidedly modernistic off-white tile floor, purply pictures of grapes and flowers on the walls behind double toilets (with partitions gone, so the people can watch each other go at it, I suppose) and an overall cold feeling. After 25 years, the bathroom had received a facelift and I immediately forgot the food as I gazed in wonder at the last piece of my childhood church memories gone, well, down the toilet.
So, now, for next year‘s homecoming, I must suggest…..If my fellow Baptists are going to completely revitalize and modernize the bathroom that worked perfectly fine for all my 25 years of living…..might as well add in the wine!
Just look what has stemmed from the searches I have been garnering when people have just happened upon this site by accident or mistake or some weird twist of fate.
A few of the searches include:
Barbecue bologna in Dresden, Tennessee
Painful dog hysterectomies
Church homecomings from hell
Snap bean pods that refuse to fill out
Sounds like a very interesting list for a Jeopardy game if you ask me.
For the next few days and nights (about a week, to be exact) I will make like Kevin McAllister and have the entire house to myself as the family has gone off to Florida and seems to have forgotten me.
No worries. It’ll be great fun! I have no scary furnace to worry about and I’m pretty sure there’s no snow plow killer lurking about due to the inherent lack of the white stuff right now.
Wish me luck. Send good vibes that I won’t burn the place down or have to face any mean burglars!
As the family was packing off and on all night and I drifted from sleep to wake at the drop of a hat as they seemed to make as much noise as they possibly could to keep me from slumber, I had the following crazy dreams. So, brace yourself and read on, if you dare.
1. Newscoma had written me at least 50 notes on post its and crammed them into my mailbox at home as she masqueraded as the mailman for a day. When I opened up the mailbox to read the notes, they were written completely illegibly and in another language, no less.
2. While the family had gone on their vacation, I went up to Lansing, Michigan to visit with relatives on my dad’s side of the family. They were all very happy to see me, except the minute I got up there, it began to snow and wouldn’t stop and on top of everything, I had to stay in a haunted house in Wisconsin because they had no room for me to stay at their house. The house was supposedly frequented by the Bell Witch.
3. The two zits I now wear on my face kept growing larger and larger until they completely took over and I had no face anymore. I could still see, hear and talk for some reason, but…..nothing on me that resembled a face in the least bit.
4. I had a job interview in Nashville again, but when I got there, for some odd reason, Nashville looked exactly like Memphis. My interview was, in fact, on Beale Street and for the exact same company (which is extremely funny if you know the company I interviewed for….they’re the least likely company you’d find on a street like Beale). I showed up completely naked for the interview, but no one noticed and they put me straight to work folding pizza boxes.
So, there you go. Have me committed.
Ah, yes, it’s quite a drive. According to Yahoo maps, it’s around an eight to ten hour traverse, but so what? That bright red area….that’s where I’m headed next weekend.
Sick of hearing about it? Don’t really care. Staring at it and thinking about it helps take my mind off a quite curt rejection letter I received today in my email from a company I’d applied to. ‘Bama, here I come!
Okay, I have to admit. I’ve been more than a bit hesitant to share any information relating to what happened this past Monday as far as my job interview for fear of jinxing my chances for employment, so I’ll keep this post to a minimum and keep you guessing about the rest.
Very nervously, very hesitantly, I entered my very large, very tall, very upscale looking possible place of employment for the interview and felt as if I’d just been the first person to set foot on a new planet. I related to Maw Finn yesterday that I supposed leaving a comfort zone was a bit akin to entering a new planet. Strange and exciting and undiscovered….at least in the eyes of the band new explorer leaving on his or her first mission.
The interview went very well. Know how you can sometimes get lucky and use nervous energy to your advantage? That’s pretty much what happened in the interview. My nervous energy made me come off as a very enthusiastic, talkative and ougoing person. YIKES! Go me!
Afterwards, my aunt had to go for a routine doctor’s appointment at Vandy for a consultation on her mammogram and I was dropped off at Bosco’s in the Village to meet up with the one and only Finn for a quick lunch meeting (only my nervous energy was still hanging around and that, coupled with my excitement in being finished with the interview and having made a good impression, would simply not allow me to eat, so I downed about three glasses of water and watched Finn eat pizza strung with gooey mozerella).
Now the waiting begins. And for now, I’ll just keep plugging along and keep thinking about next weekend when Finn, H. and I will head down to Monroeville, AL.
For all plant, animal, vitamin, mineral and vegetable kind living in the green leafy agricultural wonder known as Villa Vegetation, today is a sad day indeed.
Despite much aqua rehabilitation, praying and all out hugging and kissing, all four resident squash plants have perished due to severe heat stroke and dehydration.
However, there has been much rejoicing to go along with the tears as the pepper plants have suddenly given birth to some mighty nice little bells, softening the blow somewhat. Other than that, Villa Vegetation is thriving through record rates of drought and more births are expected in the coming days. Stay tuned.
Dixie didn’t take to the new flea collar I bought as she immediately ran outside to roll in the dirt after I’d put it on her. Such a dainty little princess.
Yet another nod to Broadway…. Ah, well…
Funny. Within the span of just a few days, it feels like I’ve aged about five years. And tomorrow, it seems that the melting pot of mixed emotions will materialize into a visit here. We’ll see what happens, but why do these lyrics to this Michael W. Smith song keep resonating in my head when I haven’t even heard the tune since high school?
For the time being, I can’t really decide how to feel except that I’d like success to be at the end of the long and somewhat scary yet enticing and exciting tunnel I’m about to venture down .
Hopefully, within the time constraints of the day tomorrow, I’ll be able to make a stop here and at some point, give a shout out to this person. To me, if those two items alone work out, the trip will be well worth the time and, as I said before, we’ll just have to see about the other part.
Despite what my screwed up time might say for this post, it is officially 3:11 a.m. on Friday, June 8 and I cannot sleep to save my life. Too many thoughts and nothing to do with them at this hour. Somebody knock me out. I’m going to be so nonproductive later today….I can feel it.
Here are some silly random pictures taken of a crazy kid at Wilson Park in Dresden….just kidding. It’s Henrietta. And again, these were taken with the Chocolate.
Happy birthday to a very special person…..Pshaw. Mr. Pshaw is 25 years young now. Have a wonderful day, J.C.!
Sifting through some newspapers today at The Press office, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a strong sense of nostalgia and I couldn’t figure out why until I really sat down and reflected on it.
This day, three years ago, June 7, 2007, at approximately 6 p.m. I somewhat nervously walked into the Dresden City Hall, afraid to even breathe wrong. Immediately, I sat down in the large board room and began recording everyone’s name and title until the meeting began and for the first time, I pushed the record button, proceeded to listen to every item of business as the minutes rolled on and later, wrote my first story for the Weakley County Press. My very first newspaper story. Three years ago. I still remember everything.
I’ve been tagged by Newscoma to come up with eight random facts/frights/stories/anecdotes/etc about me, so I must accept the challenge. Read on if you dare.
1. I love sentence diagramming. Yes, it’s that little aspect of English class that was so annoying for most people and involved taking the sentence apart and putting each individual subject, verb, direct object, indirect object, adjective, adverb, gerund, participle, predicate adjective or noun and other parts of the sentence into its correct place on the lines. For me, the more compound and complex, the better.
2. Call me Annie Oakley. Last summer, I was involved in the county sheriff’s department’s Civilian Sheriff’s Institute and, every week, we’d learn more about law enforcement. At the end of the last class, we were allowed to go to the shooting range and fire off the gun of our choice. I chose an AK47 and one of the investigators assisted me in firing the weapon at the target until he stepped back and ordered me to fire at will. I wish I had a picture because I must have looked like a mad person as I finished out the round. From now on, whenever I run into any of the department members, they refer to me by a nickname one of the bail bondsmen gave me — Annie Oakley.
3. Dresden Elementary School cafeteria had these tiles plastered to the ceiling and when they’d fall off, they’d leave behind cardboard circles which, for years, we all thought were chocolate chip cookies. In the third grade, I brought my lunch to school one day and right in the middle of my chowing down, one of the tiles slipped from the ceiling and landed in my red Mickey Mouse lunchbox. I quickly learned that the ceiling wasn’t exactly a holding facility for the school’s dessert supply.
4. More school days. In first grade, it was the tradition for the entire grade to rehearse Halloween songs for a special program held every year. All the students in the first grade dressed up in costume and stood on terribly uncomfortable wooden risers on the stage singing the same songs every year. Well, I wanted to be a witch, but not just any witch, I wanted to be the best witch, so I made my parents buy me some green hair spray and blood red long fingernails which I ended up taping to my fingers. In the middle of belting out “Witches Brew” along with the other witches, I blasted out a ginormous sneeze and shot my fingernails all over the stage and for the rest of the song, I meandered around the other singers, collecting my fallen nails.
5. Put me in a taffy stretcher. I’ve always wanted to be taller, but short parents equal a short kid, I suppose. Sometimes I will wear heels, no matter how uncomfortable they might be or how many blisters I might collect, just so for one moment I can pretend I’m much taller. One of my fondest wishes: to spend one day being six feet tall and view the world from the eyes of a taller person.
6. My one and only time to go deer hunting with my dad, I slipped on the very top step of the stand, reached to grab at something but only came up with fistfuls of air and fell 15 feet from the stand all the way to the ground. Luckily, it was a bone-chillingly cold day and I had on so many layer of clothing, I was well cushioned when I hit the ground and may have even bounced a bit on contact.
7. I once saw Michael Jordan play basketball. When he first came back from retirement, the Bulls came to the Pyramid in Memphis to play an exhibition game and I got tickets. Everyone told me he wouldn’t come because it was just an exhibition game, but when the announcer at the game called out his name and I heard absolutely the loudest roar from a crowd I’ve ever heard in my life, that was the most star struck I’ve ever been. I literally shook with excitement, awe and amazement.
8. DeBussy for me. I took piano lessons from first grade up through high school and initially hated them, but now I’m glad I did because sometimes nothing beats sitting down on the old piano bench and pinging out some Beethoven, church hymns or whatever strikes my fancy at the moment.
And now, tag, you’re it:
This past weekend was one for the books as, on Friday, I got my first taste of alligator and, then Sunday, I headed back to my favorite church homecoming to eat, drink and be merry with the lovely Episcopalians again.
Friday night’s festivities began with a visit to Redbone’s in Jackson for some alligator supplemented, of course, with some crawfish and believe it or not, I hate to play slave to clichés, but the gator did taste like chicken and I gobbled it right down. Faster than the crawfish as a matter of fact. After the Cajun, I headed over to the Shannon Street Blues Festival which I’ve never heard of before, but which turned out to be quite entertaining. Think I’ll head back next year.
The church was packed on Sunday and I brought the only thing I’ve been proven successful in cooking — Mexican cornbread. It turned out to be a hit, though I didn’t eat any myself because I loaded it with cheddar. Someone brought homemade blueberry ice cream and the line seemed to never decline for it. I checked all the coolers and, yes indeedy, someone brought beer and wine again. People were freely popping the tops and draining down the liquid as fast as they could get it while chatting with the priest about the morning’s sermon. Old Trinity was beautiful. Unfortunately, recently, some people committed some extensive vandalism on the property, but everything was cleared up in time for the homecoming. If any of you get the chance, travel out for a visit.
What is it with me and my Broadway kick?
This weekend, I will traverse back to Mason and Old Trinity to that wonderful and one of a kind Episcopal church homecoming. May even take pictures this time.
Next Monday, my friend H will be coming up here for the duration of the month to attend a class at the university and during that time, every weekend we can, we’ll be visiting the homes of writers across the South. And other people are invited too. Stop number one will most definitely be Monroeville, Alabama — the home of Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Pictures are a definite and if I do happen to spot the elusive Ms. Lee, if I manage not to faint, I’ll post that too.
Let the adventures begin!
What do you say?