Deep Fried Kudzu

The next place we stopped was Columbus, Mississippi, where The W is - the Mississippi College for Women:

...and since Eudora Welty attended college there in the '20s, guess what!?:
The big going-on over there right now is about changing the school's name. Since 1982, the W hasn't been an exclusively female university, so the current administration, after all this time, is championing a name change. No more W.

The three names currently being considered are:
* Reneau University (Sallie Reneau lobbied for Mississippi to establish a college for women so that they would have equal educational opportunity. If the administration wants to diminish the association of being an all-female school, why tether the new name with someone whose goal was to establish an all-female school?)
* Waverley University (which, to figure out why this is even being considered, you have to read this. It seems a *real* stretch. Somebody is in love with Sir Walter Scott.)
* Welty-Reneau University (see above for the Reneau explanation, and we all know who the "Welty" is for)

The W is the oldest publicly supported university for women in the United States, and this year marks its 125th anniversary. It seems that the current administration is determined to change the name of the school in the hopes that the title itself will market the university in such a way that it will bring in additional students. In fact, they're running a survey right now - it's here - where if you vote, keeping the current name isn't even an option.

And making things ugly is the mandate from the Mississippi Supreme Court about how the Alumni Association can be affiliated with the school it benefits. This is from their newsletter:

As a result of a ruling by the Mississippi Supreme Court, the historic MUWAeA is no longer formally affiliated with Mississippi University for Women. What this means is that the association no longer receives recognition and support from the university. It does not mean that the Association is disbanded or defunct. On the contrary, according to Association president Kym Gore, "the organization is carrying on its efforts to represent alumnae/I and continuing its good work and service to our beloved W."

While we would have preferred a court ruling that allowed the association to remain affiliated, "the organization remains a viable, successful organization committed to serving Mississippi University for Women," Gore said ."Our organization has dedicated itself to MUW for 119 years, and we will continue to work for the benefit of MUW for at least the next 119 years."

Wow, going after the alumni association can't be good PR for general goodwill, support, donations, and so forth, even if the alumni decide to try to take the high road and say that they'll overlook it.

I didn't go to The W, but especially in this economic climate, it just seems as though this is a battle that shouldn't have been waged to begin with. Everybody loves the W just as it is.

Yesterday, the Globe and Mail (it's a national newspaper in Canada) ran a story about the Swallowed Anchor, a one-of-a-kind house in Esquimalt, British Columbia that is going to be destroyed to make room for new development. Here are some excerpts:

Anchors litter the yard. A small cannon guards the pathway. A metal seahorse graces an exterior wall, as does a ship's wheel. A stork nests in the rear chimney. Two characters keep watch from a crow's nest. The front yard is shared by a mermaid, a frolicking pair of Dall's porpoises, and a trident-wielding King Neptune.

Atop the house, a peg-legged pirate in a red jacket scans the horizon through a spyglass, a cutlass on his hip and a parrot on his elbow.

The adjacent garage looks like a pirate's treasure chest.

The small home at 464 Head St. in Esquimalt is known as the Swallowed Anchor, a name chosen by the man who spent his final quarter-century indulging his passion for the sea. The result, still standing almost a decade after his own death, is a folk-art masterpiece.

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He flourished on his own, becoming a character in a one-man play of his own creation. When tour buses stopped at his front door, he greeted passengers in an old sea captain's jacket, expounding on the sea he loved with long recitations he had memorized.

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Only as a widower did he indulge his eccentricities. For the annual Swiftsure boat race, he dressed as a mermaid and greeted fellow sailers from aboard his dinghy. He helped the local Thermopylae Club build cairns marking the naval history of what once had been a far-flung outpost of the British Empire.

And he turned an ordinary home into a tourist attraction.

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The new owner is Westbay Investments Ltd., which operates the marina across the street and also owns adjacent sites on land zoned as residential. The long-term plan is to develop the block with a mix of residential and commercial units.

The house will not survive, but Westbay development manager Mark Lindholm says he wants to salvage much of the handiwork for inclusion in a folk-art park. Hope so. Lest he wants to be thought a scurvy dog.

There are pics of the house on Flickr here and here.

On our way to Kosciusko, we went through Carrollton and stopped at the Pickens County Courthouse there. The first county courthouse was burned in 1865 by troops of Union General John T. Croxton. The second was burned on November 16, 1876. This one was built in 1877-78:

See that arrow, pointing to the bottom quadrant of the window at the top of the courthouse?

It points to a window that has a lightning-etched "photograph" of a Henry Wells. This is how my WPA book from the 1930s describes the story:

In a window of the courthouse is the Ghost's Face. Old residents claim that the face is an exact likeness of Henry Wells, Negro, who was accused of helping to burn the old courthouse. Another Negro, Bill Burkhalter, charged with being Wells' accomplice, was arrested and sentenced to the penitentiary, was located on a plantation near Fairfield. He was captured and brought back to Carrollton, where a mob gathered on the main street. The sheriff, realizing that the small jail was too weak to protect his prisoner, hurried him to the new courthouse and confined him to the garret. Meantime, a torrential downpour began lashing the mob and they yelled madly for admittance to the building. As they surged toward the entrance, the terrified Negro in the garret watched from a small window. Suddenly, an unusually bright flash of lightning illuminated the courthouse square and the mob, frustrated by the storm, slowly dispersed. When the sheriff returned to the garret, he found his prisoner slumped beneath the window, dead.

A picture of the face in the window is here (mine didn't turn out so great).
The post office across the street has a 1943 mural by Stuart R. Purser, called "Farm Scene with Senator Bankhead":

Next, we went to Pickensville to see the Tom Bevill Visitor's Center. On the Tenn-Tom there is the U.S. Snagboat Montgomery, which is steam-powered and is a National Historic Landmark. This is actually as close as I could get to it, because the center is closed on weekends(!!). Why would the state close a visitor's center on the weekend when people traditionally travel for leisure? Anyway.

The visitor's center is actually this really pretty building, which is a replica of a Greek Revival mansion:

Going back to Pickensville, we saw this gorgeous church that didn't have a sign anywhere around it to tell its name:




Av walked up to one of the tall side windows and took these pictures through the glass:

So pretty.

Our Whole Foods had their Mardi Gras celebration and the boys had a great time! I kept trying to get Shug to say "throw me somethin', mister!". I think I did get a "woo-hoo!", though.

The baby was racking up on throws too!

The first place we went in Gordo was Amos Kennedy's shop, right downtown. There's a small sign outside, "Studio 150" and a Dr. Bob "Be Nice or Leave" in the window, plus one of Amos' "The More I Learn About Politicians, The More I Like Mules" posters - so I knew this had to be his workspace/studio/office:

I walked in and saw him talking with some other people in the back - it was the weekend so I wasn't certain if the shop was "open" - so I asked if I could come in and everyone introduced themselves...so nice! Besides Amos, a couple of people were there working with him on a small book project (the book is small, not the project. It is inspired by the Italian gentleman whose name escapes me at the moment, but who is mentioned in the Proceed and Be Bold documentary dvd. A lovely idea.).

Amos keeps his posters for sale in these bins up front:

Shug was taking it all in:

We left with four posters - here are two that we put up in the baby's room:

Today, Av and I are celebrating our ten year anniversary.  It has been the best decision I've ever made!

On February 8th, Pup McCarty passed away.

She had been married to Lee for 58 years, and together they were the couple behind McCarty Pottery in Merigold, Mississippi. They began the business in 1954; early on, William Faulkner even gave them a clay pit on his property to use.

For the last several years, Pup and Lee had overseen aspects of the business, but their godsons Stephen and Jamie have really been in charge of the day-to-day operations for some time, including making the pieces.

The pottery studio will no doubt go on. But Pup will be greatly missed.

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(BTW, if you're not familiar with McCarty's Pottery, the best way to get acquainted is to visit their studio in Merigold; the easiest way to find them is to just park at the water tower (you can see if from all over town) - turn around, and they are behind a huge stand of bamboo there. Oxford Floral also has a large selection.)

We were planning on going to Kosciusko to visit Miss Hull's house (I'll post that either later this week or early next) and on the way went through Gordo, Alabama. When we were going through town, I realized that we should stop for a minute.

Ah, we had the most terrific time! Okay - first of all, we drove into downtown Gordo and here's what's on one street corner - a bench advertising "Outhouse Bar-B-Q":

I know Av's thinking of that Smucker's commercial, except...: "with a name like 'Outhouse', it has to be good".
I love it when people have a sense of humor.

So, one of the first businesses downtown is this pretty building with the metal sculptures - this is the studio/gallery of Barbara Lee Black. Her photographs are limited edition of Ilfochrome prints, and she assembles her own unique frames. Her story is really interesting and includes Ma'Cille, and Ma'Cille's son Glenn House, Sr. who we also met that day.

Ma'Cille, Glenn House Sr's mother, ran her own museum called Ma'Cille's Museum of Miscellanea and it housed one of everything, including a pair of possums playing checkers (taxidermy possums), more dolls that you could count, a chewing gum jar, a mummy, bottles, fossils, and no-telling-what-else. It's gone now, but people still talk about what a wonderful collection of...well...what a wonderful Museum of Miscellanea...it really was.

I'm putting a post from our visit with Amos Kennedy (Kennedy Prints!) in the next post - but after we got together, Amos walked us over to Glenn House Sr.'s gallery that he runs with his wife, Kathy Fetters. It's housed in this NAPA Auto Parts store, 'Studio 121' at 121 North Main (205.364.1500):

I don't know *why* I didn't take a pic of Glenn. He's one of these people that the minute you meet, you just know you're going to be fast friends. So warm. He had Shug go around and turn on the gallery lights and a ceiling fan (which is one of Shug's favorite things to do...I mean, his first word ever was "light"!).

Amos picked Shug up, but you can tell from this picture that Shug was thinking, "it would be a lot more fun to run around in here and explore than be held by mommy or daddy or Amos!":

This is inside Glenn and Kathy's gallery:

A wall of Kathy's photography - but really you *have* to see it here best:
This is one of Kathy's pics of Glenn.

Also available in the gallery are metalwork sculptures by Glenn's son, who created the giant fire ant in Northport. He has some armadillos here and an Elvis pig:

...and Glenn House Sr. is no artistic slouch, either. He is a printer, calligrapher, sculptor, was the first full-time staff artist for University of Alabama Publications, and he is probably best known as the designer of the Moon Winx sign in Alberta City (outside Tuscaloosa):

This sign has been featured all over. Just iconic. Beautiful...

Last week I made what is probably one of our most quintessential examples of being Southern and Jewish: collards and matzoh balls as a side dish. It's really a two-way dish because you can have it all together or you can drain the pot likker (or pot liquor, however you like to spell it) off the greens and use it as a soup base for your matzoh balls.

Ingredients:
* 1 package beef bacon (or, you could use regular pork bacon if you're not going kosher-style), each slice cut into thirds
* 1 big bunch collard greens, torn into pieces - you could use any kind of greens, though...mustard, turnip...
* 64 oz (two boxes) Organic chicken broth
* Matzoh ball mix (I make **everything** by scratch in our house...except matzoh balls.)

Directions:
Over low heat in a stockpot, add the bacon, increase the heat, turn and cook until crispy. The bacon will go back to limp once you add the stock, but you want to be sure the bacon cooks through and will give all that good flavor to the greens first:

Add the washed and torn collards, then the chicken stock:

Bring to a boil, then let simmer for at least an hour. In the meantime, make the matzoh balls and when the collards have cooked to your liking, roll pieces of the matzoh ball mix to the size of a pecan and add them to the pot. Bring the heat up to high so everything comes up to a boil, then cover and put the heat on simmer. I usually let the matzoh balls cook for at least thirty minutes. Here they are all plumped up:

*So* good!
There aren't many things better than pot likker-infused matzoh balls with collards...

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I was watching some show the other day about people who enter eating contests, and looked it up, and the International Federation of Competitive Eating has a listing for matzoh ball champion. Eric Booker ate 21 baseball-sized matzo balls in 5 minutes, 25 seconds. The same man is on the list for eating 50 hamentaschen in six minutes! Yeah. I will not be trying that!

Happy Valentine's Day!

The historic marker mentions that it was designed by Edwin H. Oliver of New Orleans in the Arts and Crafts style and was inspired by the design of a 10th-century chapel in Amiens, France. The church that everyone thinks of in Amiens is the huge gothic Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens so it must be another.

The historic marker reads: "It has a cruciform plan with a bellcote at the juncture of the cross gables. The lateral walls are reinforced by small buttresses, while shed and gable dormers enliven the roof line. Stained glass windows memorialize prominent parish families. The triple-arched chancel window above the altar is a Tiffany window designed by noted Selma artist Clara Weaver Parrish."

Here is a star of David window:

...and how many churches do you know with a Confederate Battle Flag window?:

If you stand at the Church of the Holy Cross, you can see a home called Co-Nita Manor. This is a pic of it from 2006:
...and from 2007 - it isn't getting any better-looking:
Here it is in December of 2008. One of my friends who grew up in Selma was telling me the history of this home. It was built in 1906 by S.L. Coleman. Ohmystars, just look at this one picture of the stairway inside. There's some discussion if this home was furnished throughout with Greene and Greene-designed furniture (besides architectural style, Greene and Greene was known for Arts and Crafts-style pieces). I can't imagine that style of furnishings inside this home, but maybe...