Deep Fried Kudzu

Yay! Bethanne Hill made this little bottle tree painting (with all the great cotton stalks at the bottom!) for me and I'm completely in love with it. She finished it this week and it's so perfect.

She always has this fantastic perspective on her art. So many times you feel as though you're looking at things from above but not hovering (does that make sense?) and sometimes as though you can see with some kind of X-ray vision. Here's Victoryland and Mud Mama as a couple of examples.

Ah, I can't even say "Victoryland" without thinking of that commercial on tv where the guy says at the end "Come JOIN us...at Victra-lan! You can be a winna too.". I talk the same way though, so what am I even saying!? ha. Okay, back to what we were talking about here...

ANYway...Bethanne is in a show right now at Jeanine Taylor Folk Art in Florida (love her Family Entanglement there plus the art of Lucy Hunnicutt, Karen Newgard, and Lila Graves). She's got a solo show at the Hoover Public Library in September and October plus she's included in the Sierra Club Show at Red Dot Gallery from 9/19 to 10/17 and will be at Bluff Park Art Show and Kentuck.

There's an art show this weekend in Asheville - the 37th Annual Village Art & Craft Fair, with 125 artists - and Bethanne was commissioned to do their promotional poster. Take a look!

I think Bethanne has a couple extra posters that she would like to share, so if you'd like to have one (free!) just email me at: ginger ---at--- deepfriedkudzu ...dot... com First come, first served!

Getting older! We had a family supper at The Club to celebrate Shug turning two a few days after his birthday so everyone could be there:

After we left Florence, we went up to Pulaski, Tennessee. Their downtown is nice because it's still being used - people still shop there. Plus of course this great sign of the drugstore with the soda fountain:

The front of the memorial reads: "Born October 6, 1842 near Smyrna, Rutherford County Tennessee. Though a Confederate soldier in the line of duty, he was executed as a spy by the Federals at Pulaski, Nov. 27, 1863. Let come what must, I keep my trust." Another side reads: "Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends."

There are actually four different memorials to Sam Davis here. His home in Smyrna is a museum.

And there are *all* kinds of gorgeous homes in town. This one is a bank!

This is the former law office of Judge T.M. Jones, who organized a certain organization back in the 1800s. My WPA book says that it was originally intended as a social club. Ah, well, you know where it went from there. Here's the funny part, though. See the metal plaque on the shutter to the left of the door?

That's a commemorative marker, letting people know what started here. Only...the owner of the building had it *turned around* so that the words are facing the brick! Apparently there isn't anything saying that you have to have the marker facing where people can actually read it. I imagine that the visitors' bureau of Pulaski doesn't promote that little piece of history very much. For good reason.

The owners of Kirkwood in Eutaw have sold the home, which has also been a B&B in the past, and on September 5 they will hold an auction of interior furnishings. The Tuscaloosa News' article reads in part:

For almost 150 years, a tall secretary desk made of rosewood and bird’s-eye maple has been at home in the Kirkwood mansion in Eutaw.

It was purchased new by Kirkwood’s original owner, cotton mogul Foster Mark Kirksey, shipped from New York to Mobile and likely sent upriver to Eutaw.

But in September, the desk by Thomas Brooks — estimated to be worth $20,000 to $40,000 or more — will be put up for auction along with about 400 other pieces of mint 19th-century furniture, oil paintings, Limoges porcelain, Waterford chandeliers and rugs that decorate Kirkwood. A few pieces of furniture, light fixtures and at least one piece of artwork are original to the antebellum house.

“This auction is one of more monumental proportion because of the collection and quality of pieces,” said Hal Hunt, owner of Hal Hunt auctions. “These are museum-quality pieces. It will draw people in from all over the U.S.”

Antique furniture styles include Empire, Classical and Federal by famous makers including John Henry Belter, Joseph Meeks and Prudence Mallard.

More than 30 oil paintings from the 19th century will be auctioned, including an 1863 signed portrait by artist Nicola Marschall. Marschall also designed the first Confederate flag and Confederate uniform.

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Norris and Rebecca Sears, who also own the Freemount antebellum home in Eutaw, bought Kirkwood last month. They plan to move most of their current antique collection from Freemount to Kirkwood after the auction.

“We are still going to have tours of Kirkwood, but we probably won’t tour until after Thanksgiving once things get settled,” said Norris Sears.

The auction of the furnishings will take place on the Kirkwood grounds at 10 a.m. Sept. 5, with a public preview of the items from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 4. To view the furnishings online, go to www.halhunt.com.

..."It's the ugliest old hill in the world," said (Oxford mayor) Smith, who has overseen a mushrooming of big-box stores in this east Alabama city of 15,000 during his seven terms as mayor.

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Brown said the state lacks the power to halt the project, and petitions and protests haven't done anything to stop the work.

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City project manager Fred Denney said officials plan to remove the top of the hill eventually to create an elevated, eight-acre site that will overlook the Choccolocco Valley and the city of Oxford.

"It would be a beautiful view," said the mayor, who envisions a motel or restaurant atop the hill.

Indian historian Robert Thrower is aghast at what he sees as the city's lack of concern for the historical importance of the site, which he said is similar to others along the East Coast. Groups have saved rock mounds in Montague, Mass., North Smithfield, R.I., and elsewhere.

How do we know if the Oxford mound is prehistoric and not historic? First, it fits the geographical profile of many proven prehistoric stone mound sites, which is a man-made pile of cobbles and/or boulders sitting atop a narrow hilltop, which would be impossible to farm. Second, the stone mound is within sight of a major prehistoric Woodland and Mississippian town along Choccolocco Creek. In all likelihood, the residents of this town constructed the stone mound. Third, the University of Alabama's test excavation in April 2009 confirmed there are prehistoric Woodland artifacts under the structure, including a piece of Bangor chert that could have only been obtained by the builders from the Tennessee River drainage. Finally, common sense would say that a pile of rocks 42 feet long by 18 feet wide by six feet in height would have taken considerable time and effort to gather up and pile atop that rugged, stony hill. Settlers had no cultural motivation for such pursuits.

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In addition, when the massive, earth-moving bulldozers begin to push thousands of pounds of boulders over the edge of the hill, any fragile human remains that may have survived hundreds of years in the ground will, in all likelihood, be crushed into powder and impossible to discern by any nearby observer of the mound removal.

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We wrote in our final report to the city that the stone mound sat adjacent to the prehistoric town and that it was archaeologically significant. We were verbally assured the stone mound would not be disturbed. And to those who have said the Native American protestors should stay "in their own hometowns," how little you know, or maybe how little you care, about your Alabama history.

Until the 1830s, the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw and other Native American groups were in their hometown — present-day Oxford, Anniston, Jacksonville and for that matter all of Alabama until they were forced from their homeland at the end of a gun to make way for what American settlers looked to as 19th-century progress. It's a shame we forcibly removed the people in the 19th century, and today Oxford is purposefully trying to remove one of the few cultural, sacred, stone monuments they left behind. All in the name of progress.

...thank you so much for contacting me and sending me the letter from Sam's Club. Just as you offered, I would like to speak with someone there at Corporate. Can you please forward these questions to them? I would love to speak with someone on the phone, but because it would be easier to misinterpret, misunderstand, or just not catch something over the phone, I think that email communication would be better.

I will be very happy to publish their responses on my website for everyone to see as it should absolutely be fair that Sam's is heard from as well.

1. Thank you for clearing up the notion that Sam's currently owns property in Oxford, as it does not currently. It's the city of Oxford, in particular the city's Commercial Development Authority, that is taking dirt to use as "fill" for the future Sam's on their own. This is the same hill that everyone - including the University of Alabama study and various archaeologists - agrees has a 1000 to 1500 year-old stone mound (and this is very likely the largest stone mound in Alabama). It is not agreed upon whether the stone mound was ever used by Native Americans for burials, but just by virtue that this mound is by definition a cultural, historic landmark, what does Sam's have to say about these actions being done on their behalf? Even if not expressly by Sam's?



RESPONSE: The city has assured us (and we have requested) that they are not using any of this material for the initial preparation of the site that we are considering.



2. I do understand that Sam's did contact the city of Oxford requesting information as to whether a burial mound had been disturbed in this effort. And I do understand that their response to your corporate office was that nothing of that mound had been used in preparation for the Sam's site. I think it's fairly clear, though, from photographs one can take with standard-issue camera, that the area all around the mound, if not the mound itself, has been disturbed. Please reference this photograph I took late last week, in which it's obvious that chunks of the hill have been taken from just that area: http://www.deepfriedkudzu.com/uploaded_images/DSC00040-726990.JPG . In fact, the Anniston Star has reported that city officials will not allow journalists to go up and view firsthand what kind of condition the mound is in. Does that give Sam's pause?


RESPONSE: This is an issue that the city is best suited to answer as there have been developments prior to the proposed Sam’s Club. Sam’s Club does not currently own the site, so we do not have any influence on the decisions made in this area. Sam’s Club does understand the liability issues that exist for all property owners.



3. This entire issue, I would imagine, has been nothing short of a public relations disaster for Sam's. Has Sam's communicated this to Oxford city officials, that their lone actions are making Sam's appear to be some cold corporate entity with no regard to local sensitivities?


RESPONSE: The city is aware that Sam’s Club is concerned about the situation, and they are aware of our processes for evaluating potential sites for future club locations.


4. Has this controversy altered Sam's relationship with the city, given that the city's actions have cast a negative light on Sam's?


RESPONSE: The city is aware that Sam’s is concerned about the situation. We continue to work closely with the city and independent geotechnical engineers to help us make informed decisions about this site.



5. Given this issue with the Indian mound in Oxford and the contention regarding Wal-Mart building on the edge of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park in Virginia (just one article here: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/072009/07102009/478811), wouldn't corporate be well-advised to publicly come forward with a statement that they do not condone the destruction of historical sites on their behalf and that specifically what Oxford is doing is damaging not only to them as a company, but to future generations who might only hear stories of "some mound that used to be there until Sam's came around"?


RESPONSE: We would never knowingly choose a historical site as a location for the construction of a new Sam's Club. The preservation of cultural and historical sites is important to us, and I can assure you that we exercise the highest degree of caution in the construction of our facilities to ensure that such cultural and historical sites are not improperly disturbed. The potential site in Oxford is no exception; we have been assured the site we are considering is not of historical significance and that no materials have been used from such sites to prepare for potential tracts for future development.



...again, thank you for the opportunity. I do want Sam's to be heard - I've gotten so much response from this and I want everyone to hear ALL sides. I hope to hear from you / Sam's Corporate very soon. I know there is another protest planned for this weekend so hopefully we can quickly get the word out about what's really going on.

Best regards,
Ginger

I'm thinking about little ladylike summer lunches. These look good, don't they!?

Bake the puff pastry shells according to the directions on the box. When they're done, remove the tops so the shells are ready to be filled.

While the shells are cooking, mix together the 1/4 c. mayonnaise and the 1/4 c. parmesan:

In the bottom of each cooked shell, place a spoonful of the mayonnaise/parm and spread:

Next, fill the shell with one slice of tomato, then a 1/2 round of mozzarella, then another slice of tomato and another 1/2 round of mozzarella:

Give each filled shell a splash of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and freshly ground pepper, and tuck in a couple of basil leaves:

Can't even say how delicious these turned out!

We got to visit again with Tom Hendrix, who built (and is still building on to - it's been about 30 years now) Te-Lah-Nay's Wall around Florence, right by the Natchez Trace. The first time we had met Tom was in 2006 and that visit, with several pics and short movies of the wall, is here.

Shug turned two! This past month, he spent a couple of weeks at a daytime (3 hr/day) summer camp - and *loved* it. His teachers were in love with him, too. And a great thing about it is all the fab refrigerator art we've got now!

We had actually gone to Tuscumbia to see the Helen Keller Festival of the Arts and specifically my friend, artist Martha Beadle. She won an award and the museum there even bought one of her pieces for their permanent collection.

Downtown is this fantastic neon sign:

...and closeby are all these gorgeous homes:

One home a little further from downtown had a scarecrow in the garden with a ski mask on. "You tomatoes do exactly as I say, and nobody gets hurt"...

One of the other places we went downtown in Florence was to the new Billy Reid location at 114 N. Court Street. It is just *lovely* inside:

After we left the Oakman mounds, we drove to Florence and outside a house found a few sculptures - here's just one: