The Lemon Drop Martini Shakeup

Photo courtesy of PDPhoto.org

My neighbor Judy and I tried a new product last night -- The Lemon Drop Martini Shaker that I found at Target. The martinis are deelish; however, there is one slight problem. It comes with this little container of really pretty yellow sugar that you're supposed to line the rim of the glass with. It's friggin' impossible to get it open! So Judy wanted to write a letter of complaint to the company that makes it.

"Well, okay," I said, "But lemme have a couple of these dranks first. I'm a MUCH better writer when I'm in my cups."

So we had a drank or three. They taste like kamikazes, by the way. I dashed this off and sent it, post haste, to the complaint desk at El Paso Chile Company last night. No reply so far, but it IS the weekend. I'll let you know if I become famous.

Dear Shir,

I am writing to ask you a favor, please. I NEVER buy edible products at Target Stores, but your Lemon Drop Martini shaker looked downright delectible, particularlyarrly the beautiful yellow crystals of sugar sitting tauntingly on top of the shaker. They teased me. They beckoned to me, the light winking off those golden candy crystals under the department store lights, postioned just so, to take advantage of my compulsive nature. And even though I was on my way back to the office, I simply had to answer that call.

Thus armed with shaker, sugar, and Kirkland brand vodka (bought on the run at Piggly Wiggly) I returned to work via the ladies room. With my assistant keeping careful lookout at the door, I proceeded to mix the most delicioush lemon drop martini I have ever seen. All it needed now was the amber-colored crystalized sugar to crown the glass, which had been lovingly kept in my office freezer behind my desk for just such an occasion. I was so excited you would've thought I was drinking absinthe! But I could not allow myself one taste until my creation was complete. I needed to add the sugar to the rim of that glass.

I twisted the top. I turned it. I pulled on it. Heck, I even tried pushing it further inside. However, even with all the industrial-strength office supplies at hand -- staple removers, Swiss army knife, cuticle scissors, tweezers, tampons, etc., it was impenetrablebleble. I was unable to crack that sugar case.

Twisting it hurt my wrist. Banging on the desk caused my boss to look up and ask what was going on.

"Oh, nothing, sir. Just a spider! I've taken care of it."

Next, I tried the tweezers. They broke. Dammit. Finally to add insult to injury the jewels from the tips of my newly applied Lee Press-On Nails flew across the room, striking my boss's pet parakeet, Piccolo, in his cage. I think his vision is permanently damaged, and he's been making a strange croaking noise ever since.

Needless to say, I was desperate. I tried again, pulling out the heavy artillery -- the black onyx Scorpion Fantasy letter opener from Lord of the Rings my mother in law gave me for Christmas last year. Nada. Nothing. I looked at my trusty assistant and said, "Jephrey, stop playing with my mascara and get over here. I need help with this sugar."

Jephrey's eyes flashed. "Don't call me sugah, sugah."

The next thing I knew I'd been slapped, not only on the face, but also with a sexual harrassment lawsuit. Hmph! If he thinks I'm getting him tickets for that Barbra Streisand concert that's coming up, he's got another think coming. I don't care if Judy Garland, Cher, Lisa Minelli and Marilyn Monroe are returning from the dead....oh, wait. Lisa's not dead. Well, anyway....I am now unemployed and awaiting my arbitration hearing.

Please advise if you plan to make your package more user friendly, as I've had an offer for employment at McDonald's, and their bathrooms have swinging stall doors. I must be able to work more quickly in the future.

Thank you for your earliest attention to this matter. Unless this problem is rectified, I won't be drinking tee many more of your wonderful-but-difficult martoonis.

Shincerely yours,

E. me

Matters Familias - Balls of Steel

Okay...so last night I was all freaked out and complaining about that damned Murphy whose law just plains sucks eggs.  You know, the one that says if it can go wrong it will?

I was visiting the boyfriend in town and called my dad to see what was going on.

"Dee, Versace is gone.  I've looked everywhere."

Versace, for those of you who don't know, is my daughter's precious little puggle (cross between a pug and a beagle).  The ex-husband decided he didn't want to deal with her anymore after my daughter got an apartment, so I went over to the house on my last visit to Los Angeles and got her and brought her home.  My daughter loves that dog more than anything or anyone else.  So on the few occasions something's happened where we thought we'd have to make that dreaded call and tell her something awful has happened have been truly horrifying times.

Last night was one of them.

My dad lives on 400 acres in the country.  There's a fellow who lives  behind us who raises cows, and he and my dad have an arrangement.  If he'll come and cut the pasture and make it look all pretty like a golf course, he can keep the hay and use it for his cattle.

But Versace loves to chase cars.  So we have to keep her inside if anyone's driving around outside.  So back to the story.

"I'd waited until I was sure Robert had left and then I let her out," he said.  "But a little while later I heard the other dogs making a big racket, and went out to see what it was."

Turns out all the dogs were frantically barking at a big-as-all-get-out water mocassin.  My 85-year-old father, who cut down a pecan tree all by himself last year, got a stick.  Not even a big stick.  Just a stick.  And beat that three-foot-long, four-inch-diameter, mean-ass water mocassin to death.  A little stick maybe two feet long.

"I felt bad for the poor snake," he said.  "But I had to do it."

The closer he gets to his own mortality, the more he hates taking a life -- any life.

I'd have been scared silly.

Then he noticed Versace was gone.  And that's when I called.  We both knew what had happened.  She'd been bitten and run off to die somewhere.

"I'll be right out," I said, along with a few rather horrible profanities under my breath, and drove pell-mell out to Daddy's.  We called and called and called.  Nothing.

I was supposed to have taken her to the vet this week for all her shots, her worming, and her rattlesnake vaccine.  This was a water mocassin...but still.

I was heartbroken.  And exhausted.  I went to bed.  I ranted about Murphy's Law on Facebook for a bit and then turned off the light and went to bed.  I was in that twilight where you're not really asleep but not awake either, when I heard something running into the room and jumping onto the bed.

"Versace?"

She waggled her butt and smiled and licked my face.

Am I dreaming?  I stumbled out of bed and went downstairs.  I crept into Daddy's room.

"Daddy?"

"She came to the door a few minutes ago.  I was so glad to see her I gave her a whole can of cat food."

Canned cat food is Versace's guilty pleasure.  He usually curses at her and kicks her out of the way when she tries to horn in on the kitties' food.

I took her today to get those shots.

How do you spell relief?  W-o-o-f!

Matters Familias - Road Trip

Last Friday I was at the gallery, not working but waiting on customers who mostly didn't come.  I'd had visitors all morning and late into the afternoon. I'd been wanting to work on an article, but there was just no doing it that day.

At about 3 p.m. my father dropped in, and as I was talking to him I looked down and noticed my computer's battery was running down and I only had about eight minutes' time left. My power cord had died.

I have a story due this week, so I freaked.  I jumped up and announced that I had to go to Baton Rouge, a two-hours' drive away.  I had to get there, pronto, and pick up a power cord.  There was no time to call and wait for another cord to arrive in four days' time.

My father has this fear of me traveling alone.  And even though I know it was the very last thing he wanted to do, he insisted on driving to Baton Rouge with me.  It was the first time in many months that we were enclosed alone together, and forced to keep each other pleasant company.

In his old age, my father has started to obsess about certain things -- the river and its floods being paramount on the list.  He's worried about climate change and tells me on a daily basis that all the birds have disappeared.

"I've only got four hummingbirds this year," he says.  I never see anything in the sky anymore.  Look!  Do you see a single bird?  Where have they all gone?  And the toads.  We used to have scores of them at the house.  I never see them anymore."

I looked into the sky as we drove down Highway 61 at 70 miles an hour, and I had to admit I didn't see a single bird.  But the weather was threatening to storm, and I thought perhaps that was the reason.

Then after a few minutes, I saw a single, large buzzard flying across the road ahead of us.

"Look, I said.  "A buzzard. See?   The birds aren't gone."

And then my dad -- the atheist, the cynic -- said, "Look at that. So it is.  A buzzard. Bless his little heart."

A buzzard?  Bless his little heart?  Who ever uses the terms "buzzard" and "bless his little heart" together?

It was one of those tender things that he says so infrequently that it made my heart ache for him.

A little while later, he spied a crow flying over the field.

"Look at that crow," he exclaimed.  "God love him."

And I suddenly had a lump in my throat that I couldn't seem to swallow.

When we got to Baton Rouge, I realized I took a wrong turn and was lost.  This is one of my dad's biggest fears, and I kept waiting for  him to blow up while I called Tommy on the phone and asked him to get directions.  It was rush hour in Baton Rouge, and I found myself reverting to my Los Angeles driving skills where a half-second's delay would enable me to dart into other lanes of traffic.

"Am I making you nervous?" I asked my father.

"No," he replied.  "As long as you're the one driving, I'm fine.  There is no way I could do this," he added.  "Getting old is hard.  I couldn't drive like that for the world.  You're a good driver, Elodie," he said, and I felt good in the way I felt good as a child and he told me I was pretty.  A warm sense of nostalgia came over me.

We made it through Baton Rouge and I traded in the old cord for a new one.  On the way back to Natchez, I detoured off the road and took him to see the shining, golden spectacle that is now a bridge joining St. Francisville to New Roads, built in a panicked rush ahead of the flood.  Before the flood -- for years before -- the only way to get across that river was by ferry.

He loved it.  He loved the bridge; he loved the scenery; he loved remembering what had changed and what had stayed the same.

And I loved him for it.  Fiercely.  It was a good day.  I'm thinking I might need to destroy this new power cord.  Just for  love.

Prince Among Slaves - Our History; Our Culture; Ourselves

[Communicated for the National Republican}

Natchez, April 7, 1828

“This letter will be handed to you by a very extraordinary personage — no less than your old acquaintance Prince, (or Ibrahim,) who is now free, and on his way to his own country; where he was captured in battle, nearly forty years ago, and has been in slavery nearly the whole of that period, upon the plantation of Mr. Thomas Foster, of this county.  I am much gratified to have been the instrument of his emancipation — although from his advanced age (sixty-six years) he can but possess merely a glimpse of the blessings to which he was entitled from his birth.”

Thus begins an article in a national newspaper dated 1828, describing the fight for the freedom by Abdul-Rahman Ibrahim ibn Sori, an educated African prince who spent the majority of his life as a slave on Thomas Foster’s Plantation north of Natchez.

The man writing it (probably local newspaperman Andrew Marschalk) clearly thinks of Abdul Rahman not as chattel, but as a person, a man in his own right.  Ask anyone in the South about race and they'll tell you it's complicated.  Seems as though it was complicated in the 1700s as well.

Here was an African slave, sold into slavery by rival Africans; yet he had powerful white allies fighting to gain his freedom while ignoring the fact that there were millions more for whom there was no fight, no hope for freedom.

Born in 1762 in Timbo, West Africa (present day Guinea, Fouta Djallon), Abdul-Rahman was educated in Mali at Timbuktu, and served as a leader of one of his father's army divisions.  In 1788, after winning a battle against a warring tribe, he and a handful of soldiers who had left to report back to his father were ambushed, captured and sold to slave traders, who brought him to America and sold him to Natchez plantation owner, Thomas Foster.  He was 26 years old.

After a couple of escape attempts from Foster's plantation, Abdul-Rahman became resigned to his fate and worked for Foster. Because of his knowledge about growing cotton in Fouja Djallon and his ability to read and cipher numbers, he proved a valuable asset to Foster, becoming the plantation's de facto foreman, allowed to travel and make purchases and sales.  In 1794 he married another Foster slave, Isabella, with whom he had five sons and four daughters.

One day about 20 years later, he ran into someone whose life he and his family had saved many years before in Fouta Djallon -- Dr. John Cox, an Irish surgeon who had served on an English ship that had become marooned off the coast of Africa.  Badly injured and ill, Cox was taken in by Abdul-Rahman's family, who nursed him back to health.  

Abdul-Rahman was walking down the street one day when Cox happened along and recognized him.  When he learned that his old benefactor was a slave, he vowed to see to it that he would be given his freedom and returned to his native land.  But Foster would have none of it.  Abdul-Rahman was too valuable an asset, and he refused to release him for any price.  Cox worked to gain his friend's freedom until his death in 1816.

In 1826, Abdul-Rahman wrote a letter to his relatives in Africa. A local newspaperman, Andrew Marschalk sent a copy of the letter to Senator Thomas Reed in Washington, who took it to the US Consulate in Morocco. The Sultan of Morocco then asked President Adams and Secretary of State Henry Clay to give Adbul-Rahman his freedom.  Finally, in 1828, Foster agreed to free Abdul-Rahman with the stipulation that he return to Africa and not live as a free man in America.

Before leaving the country Abdul-Rahman and his wife went to Washington and tried to raise enough money to buy their children and take them with them. They were unable to raise enough funds before Foster found out about it and said it was a breach of their agreement.  So he and Isabella left America and sailed to Liberia.  He was an old man, and had been a slave for more than 40 years.  He died of a fever four months after arriving in Liberia, never seeing Fouta Djallon or his children again.

Although the capture and enslavement of the prince robbed him of his potential kingship of his home country, his descendants think of him not only as royalty but as a family patriarch who gives a specific identity to otherwise innumerable faceless African ancestors.

One of those descendants, Adams County resident, Beverly Adams, says, “It is a bittersweet tale, which contrasts his identity with the injustice done to him.  His faith brings honor and nobility from his native country, Futa Jallon, to Natchez, like jewels dug out of the muddy water of the Mississippi.”

She adds, “It is ironic that the indignity and suffering of slavery created such a rich history for my own African-American family, as portrayed by Dr. Terry Alford’s book, Prince Among Slaves.”

The final paragraph in the article from 1828 reflects this bittersweet story.

"Prince called to see us yesterday, with his wife and sons, who are really the finest looking young men I have seen.  They were all genteely drest; and although they expressed themselves pleased with the freedom of their parents, there was a look of silent agony in their eyes I could not bear to witness."

(Many thanks to Beverly Adams and David Dreyer for their help in writing this story)
Engraving of Abdul-Rahman courtesy of Library of Congress 

For further information, see the PBS documentary Prince Among Slaves based on the book Prince Among Slaves by Terry Alford.

Prince Among Slaves - Screening and Discussion June 5

Click on Photo to enlarge

A Lovin' Spoonful: A troubadour's journey leads her back home

Not long before I moved back to Natchez from Los Angeles, I kept hearing about this fellow, Jack Kelly. It seemed as though his name was on everybody’s lips, and I thought he must be quite popular.

So imagine my surprise when I was introduced to Jack—late fiftyish; five foot, one; a stylishly coiffed mass of red curls; and a set of green, Irish eyes that twinkled with intelligence and the kind of seasoned humor that hinted at a life filled with joy and pain and everything in between.

“How do you do?” she asked, smiling, her eyes searching mine for an honest answer.

Yes, you heard right. I’ve never met a boy named Sue but I’ve met a girl named Jack. We were waiting to hear a band play at The Corner in Natchez. I was married at the time, and my husband had been invited to play saxophone. The band started up and we listened and chatted awhile. I learned she was a Natchez native who had recently returned home after an extended absence—something I was longing to do, myself.

As we talked, a tune began playing and Jack hopped off her stool and ran over to the band, pulling on what looked like a medieval knight’s armor. Suddenly, she had a set of spoons and was scraping them across that “armor”—a kind of refashioned washboard, making the most incredible sounds. It was almost like a rapper spinning a vinyl, only earthier, more low-tech. The music took on a whole new dimension with Jack punctuating the beat the way drums and snares simply couldn’t. A smile spanned her face; her eyes invited you to dance.

“Wow,” I gushed. “I had no idea you could make that kind of sound with a washboard. You’re really good.”

“Thank you,” she replied.  Then she tilted her head, her eyes focused on some distant memory, and said, “Yes, I feel as though I finally have credibility as a musician in my own right.”

And I could tell from her reply that it had been a journey. I was right.

Music played a part in Jack’s life from the start, with jam sessions at home between her father, a saxophonist; his sisters, all pianists; and one of his brothers, also a saxophonist.

She was nine when she experienced her own musical epiphany. One night, her big sister, Jemmy Sue, who’d been assigned babysitting duties, dragged little Jackie along to a party in town. On an upstairs back-porch veranda, Mississippi Blues legend Papa George played the guitar and harmonica, and sang the Blues. A man pulled up a chair and put a washboard on his knee and started scratching it with a brush.

“And I saw my future,” she said.

She got her own washboard and experimented with different techniques—thimbles on her fingers, bottle caps, wire whisks. She finally settled on spoons.

After she’d finished school, life took Jack through nine states, three marriages and three careers, during which time music fell to the wayside.

In 1987, she moved to New England, where she earned a master’s degree in communications and became a writer for corporate public relations.

And then in 1987 while she was living in New England, music reentered her life.

“Every year they had the Great Connecticut Traditional Jazz Festival. I worked as a volunteer so I could hear the music.”

One night after several years as a volunteer, she finally mustered the courage to sit in on a jam session.

“I pulled out my little washboard and my heart was beating, like, 50,000 miles an hour. I got onstage and I was the only washboard. There was a piano player and a horn. Oh, my God…and it was Dixieland jazz. And I just played my little washboard like nobody was looking and the crowd roared. It was great!”

It was also in Connecticut where she saw her first frottoir —the washboard worn over the shoulders like an apron. Clifton Chenier, the king of Zydeco, had come to play with his Red Hot Louisiana Band. Chenier invented and designed the frottoir (Cajun for musical rub board). He drew a picture of it in the dirt and asked a metalworker if he could make one for him. According to the Smithsonian Institute, it is the only musical instrument ever invented in America.

“I knew I had to have one,” she said. “But nobody had ever heard of it.”

She finally found a welder in Louisiana to make one for her. That’s when she became a troubadour, sitting in with Reggae and other bands on the weekends. Sometimes they let her and sometimes not, but she wasn’t afraid of rejection.

“There’s nothing more joyful than when you jump up onstage and you’re playing, and you look around and the musicians are giving you a thumbs up. When you get endorsed by fellow musicians, you’ve made it.”

When she turned fifty, she took a rainbow buyout from her company, divorced, and decided to go see her parents in Mississippi. And she finally found home.

“I got here on a weekend, a Friday. I stopped in Washington [Mississippi, just north of Natchez] to get some gas, and I walked in to pay for it and somebody said, ‘You’re one of the Garraway girls.’  I’d been gone thirty years. It started happening everywhere I went. I knew I was home.

“I’ve lived all over the place. Nine states. DC, Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana…”  Her voice trails off.  “Everywhere I went I’d go on a trip and get back home and it never felt like, ‘Ahh.  I’m home now.’ Until I got back to Natchez.”

She hadn’t been home a full weekend when someone told her about the Under-the-Hill Saloon.

“When I left town, people didn’t go Under the Hill. The Blue Cat had been shut down. It was a no-no.”

It was a Sunday evening. Her face lights up at the memory.

“It was packed with old and young and rich and poor and black and white and gay and straight and foreigners and locals,” her voice rising in crescendo.  “And there was a Blues band playing!

“And I thought why did I stay away so long? I’d never gotten that anywhere. Not the Blues. Not that diverse crowd.

“And people were dancing where they were standing. Oh, God,” she said. “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”

Through her sister, Jemmy Sue, she found a Reggae band in Baton Rouge—Henry Turner, Jr. He invited her to sit in. After Katrina, he called and asked if she’d join the band as a paid member.

“I’m now hugging sixty. So here I am. These young, black men with their dreadlocks, and this little white lady.”

A year after Katrina, they performed a showcase on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans during the Cutting Edge Music Trade Show. A scout from Jazz Fest was there, and four or five months later they were invited to play the 2007 New Orleans Jazz Festival.

She played at The House of Blues in New Orleans in the year 2000, when she snuck up onto the stage and started playing. The crowd went crazy. The band noticed it and turned around. When the song was over she ran off the stage, but the band came back and got her and brought her back out.

This year she played onstage at the Natchez Balloon Festival with Terence Simian & the Zydeco Experience, who won an Oscar for the music in Disney's animated film, The Princess and the Frog.

“I stood by his washboard player and we jammed together,” she recalls. “You know, washboards are kind of like the stepchildren of music. I think we’re coming into our own. But we take a lot of backtalk.”

I thought back to that first meeting when she talked about becoming a musician in her own right, and I began to understand what she meant.

“But it’s a down-home, informal thing,” she says, adding that she’s always wanted to form a jug band.

“It’s a fun thing. You can’t take it too seriously.”

She also has a clave, a cabasa, and a tambourine.

“I bring them and put them out so the audience will feel free to pick them up and join in.

“One of the most fun things is when I jump off the stage and little girls want to come up and play it. If only one kid could find more joy in their life, and saw it, you know, and said, ‘There’s something I can do,’ wouldn’t that be cool?

“And let’s don’t say that just because we’ve turned fifty, it doesn’t mean we can’t still be in a traveling band.”  She cackles, delighted.

“I’ve come full circle,” she says at last. “In March of 2007 I decided to quit drinking. It was the best decision of my life. In my first year of sobriety I played at the Jazz Festival and the Balloon Festival. It was a highlight of my life.

“I had a lot of failures in my life, in love. I didn’t get lucky in love. Now that I’m sober, I know I brought every damned bit of it on myself. But now I’m just happy to be home.”

Having found my anchor here, myself, I know just how she feels.  Joyful.


Story and 1 photo by Elodie Pritchartt © 2011

The Murder Trial of the Century

Perched on a gentle hill at Duncan Park is one of Natchez's architectural gems -- Auburn. The house was built in 1811 for a wealthy Natchezian, Lyman Harding, the first attorney general of Mississippi.

Auburn was the first home to be built in Natchez using an architectural design.  One of the home's most beautiful and unusual features is the lovely freestanding spiral staircase in the foyer.

But what makes this staircase even more interesting than its delicate, airy grace is the tale of Levi Weeks, the architect Lyman hired to design his beautiful home. The tale of Levi Weeks is mysterious and violent and fraught with drama and involved the most sensational murder trial of the 19th Century. 

Following a not-guilty verdict in the murder of his sweetheart, Elma Sands, Weeks left New York because of public sentiment against him.  He move to Deerfield, Massachussetts; then Cincinnati, Ohio; then to Lexington Kentucky.  The story followed him until he finally landed in Natchez, and became a successful architect.

The story has twists and turns that rival his beautiful staircase.  I could not tell it any better than it's told on the blog Murder by Gaslight.  Click on the link to read it.


staircase photos by Elodie Pritchartt © 2011

The Other Wedding Dance

Picture this: 1978. LSU. Sigma Chi house. Frat boy writhing and sweating, prostrate on the dance floor encircled by cheering boys and giggling girls; me, age sixteen, peering over my freshman date’s shoulder in abject horror.

“What’s wrong with him?” I ask.

“Wha? Ha!”

My date dives in and begins seizing beside his seizing friend.

Oh.

My high-school boyfriends never had the gumption to try that at our homecoming dances. And the Hotty Toddy cheering crowd only wished they’d invented “The Gator,” in which the entire fraternity squirmed, flopped, humped, and flipped like a floor full of -- well…alligators. Make that drunken alligators.

My introduction to the Gator was almost as puzzling as the first time I watched someone suck a crawfish-head. Looks like they are enjoying the hell out of what they’re doing…still…I think I’ll just watch.

As my hometown Natchez, Mississippi, is only ten miles from Ferriday, Louisiana (birthplace of Jerry Lee Lewis), I have seen quite a bit of both crawfish-head sucking and gatoring. (Yes, “gator” conjugates in these parts.) I’ve watched guys gator in upscale clubs, dive bars, Cajun restaurants, at Mardi Gras balls, holiday country-club dances, 21st-birthday celebrations, 60th-birthday celebrations and wedding receptions.

Sad to say, the Gator is not as compulsory at celebrations in other parts of the country. Even sadder, some people don’t know how to gator or even to which song they should hit the floor.

To enlighten the uninitiated, I sought the clarity of a professional. If anyone can give you the skinny on the alligator and entree into the gator inner circle, it’s Glen McGlothin. Mayor of Ferriday on and off for the last 14 years and a professional musician for 47 years (his pedigree includes cousins Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley), McGlothin has gatored his way from Plaquemine to Memphis and back again.

“The first time I saw it done was to Louie Louie at a club in Breaux Bridge in the '60s” he said, making a slow rocking movement with his shoulders.

Theoretically, the diaspora of gatorers is thought to have begun with African American bands who played for white frat houses as depicted in the movie, Animal House. McGlothin, however, has a more realistic and culturally integrated take.

“Cajuns are a whole different ball of wax,” he explained. “They weren’t as uptight. Blacks and whites partied together; white bands had black members; black bands had white members. Who knows who did it first—but I think it came from those juke joints down in south Louisiana like the Purple Peacock in Eunice and the Pelican Club in Ville Platte.”

The original dance he described as getting down on all fours, like you might if getting ready to do push-ups, and crawling forward and backward to the reggae beat of Louie Louie.

“I still do that version, but you have to be careful how you move your rear-end or you might look like you’re doing something you ought not be.”

The movie Animal House changed the gator, he explained. “Now they like to gator to Shout by the Isley Brothers, and they dive in, flop over on their backs and do what I call the dying cockroach—it’s all your own interpretation now. They do the worm and pile on top of each other.”

Wild party boys willing to chug-a-lug and moon anything carried forth the primordial dance for five decades and have never pretended to get down on the floor and crawl around with one another for anything more than a laugh.

“Third set out of four—people are ready to party. That’s when they gator. They get loose and have fun,” said McGlothin.

But I sense a deeper reason lurking beneath the sweat-stained tuxes and booze soaked laughter. With dance, they seize the moment of party crescendo guaranteeing an uninhibited and appreciative audience and offering up their own kind of performance art, an interpretive “King of the Mountain” horizontal victory prance coupled with a daredevil challenge.

The gator stirs up man’s urge to climb and paint water towers, dangle their rears from speeding car windows, water ski barefoot, show-off, and laugh at fear.

“I’ve seen guys slide up into the drums. I’ve seen middle-aged guys dive in to start the gator, get the breath knocked out of them and just lay there,” said McGlothin. “I’ve seen guys start it at their own weddings and it becomes a ‘gator-off.’ The daddies jump in, then the uncles, then the old grandpas. Then there’re the people who forget they’re at a wedding and do the X-rated version…”

McGlothin’s band, Easy Eddie and the Party Rockers, plays at least 15 weddings a year at which, he says, gatoring is guaranteed.

“If it’s around here, they’re gonna do the alligator. It’s a participation dance. Mothers of the bride and groom, grandmas and aunts gather around to watch. It can make the party.”

Women watch. Make that ladies watch.

“If a girl gators, she’s…um…less inhibited than the other ladies,” said McGlothin, “She’s not a debutant…um…she’s more fun.”

At 63, McGlothin is more of an instigator than a gatorer.

“Hell, I wish I could still do it. I can get down but I can’t get back up. I look more like a turtle. It’s embarrassing to waller around on the floor.”

Unless you mean to wallow around on the floor. Then you’re doing the gator.

Courtney Taylor is a freelance writer and dance floor commentator living in Natchez, Mississippi.

Stanton Hall

Detail of Cornelius gasolier in dining room

Sunday evening at Natchez Under-the-Hill

Photo by Elodie Pritchartt

Natchez Court Records 1767-1805: Horse Trading

This case surprised and pleased me greatly.  I really didn't think slaves would be given any consideration, whatsoever, but this case clearly shows that much consideration was given to a sense of fairness to this one, a woman, to boot.

p. 356.  Negress Amy versus the heirs of Asahel Lewis.

Petitioner represents that her former master gave her, in recompense of her service one horse which she has in her possession but finding that the heirs of her sd master intend to deprive her of the said horse, begs that Mr. William Collins and Mr. Abner Phipps give their declaration before Mr. Ezekiel Forman, Esq. of what they know of the right to the said horse, to the end that title to the horse may be confirmed.


She signed with a mark.  April 23, 1794.

Ezekiel Forman will take declaration on same.

Owing to the illness of Mr. Forman, this is transferred before G. Benoist, Esq.

This is to certify that I went to trade with Mr. Lewis for his black horse but he said I must apply to Amy for him for he had given her the said horse.


Sig:  Wm. Collins.  Pine Ridge, 24, Apr. 1794.  Before me, Gabriel Benoist.


Personally appeared Abner Pipes, Jr. who, on oath, declared that he once heard the late Asahel Lewis, speaking to the negro woman, Amy, refer to the black horse as hers.  Signed.

The King versus James Armstrong, Part II

 

(Fort Rosalie)

p. 108.  A letter from Don Manuel de Texada.


Sir:  I have to inform you that last night at twelve o'clock, Armstrong and five white men, well-armed, invested my house, robbed me of two horses which they were tying when, hearing a noise, I went out and accosted them mildly, being alone and unarmed, represented to them that it was grievous to see my horses taken before my face, to which Armstrong answered that he had ordered them to be taken and if any person said a word he would take his heart out, and at the same time told his companions to examine the house for a saddle and take it also, as likewise any firearms they might find, and not finding any firearms, they took my saddle and bridle, a great coat, a yard and a half of cloth and a handkerchief, from whence they went to the house  of Stephan de Alva, where finding nothing that suited them but one gun, they took that and went away, uttering two thousand bravados, Armstrong saying that it was he who commanded at Cole's Creek and he expected in a fortnight to have men to take to the fort.



From thence they came to the house of James Cable and finding only his wife at home, they ransacked the house and finding nothing that suited them but a rifle, two blankets and a saddle and bridle, they took these articles and went away, swearing they would have Cable's life.  It is my opinion that if Your Excellency should not take some effective means, Armstrong will soon have troops strong enough to ruin all the settlers on this creek.


I should have waited on Your Excellency in person but at present am somewhat lame, etc.  God Preserve you Many years.


Cole's Creek August 10, 1786.  Signed, Manuel Texada.  To His Excellency, Don Carlos de Grand-Pre.

See also:

The King versus James Armstrong

The King versus James Armstrong, Part III

Zooey's Tale

One of the most amazing and wonderful memories of childhood was watching a cat have kittens.  It's a learning opportunity no child should miss, and ranks right up there with memories of sending notes to Santa up the chimney on cold, winter nights or chasing the fogging machine on sultry summer days when white noise drowned out all other sounds except for our childish squeals and laughter.

So when my daughter was in the third grade, I decided it was time for her to experience the excitement of seeing kittens being born.  Only one problem:  both my cats had been spayed.  I had worked at an animal shelter in high school, and remembered that unless I took the pregnant mother cats home, they were put to sleep as a matter of course.  I think at one time I had more than 16 cats at home.  I would bring them all back to the shelter to be put up for adoption when the kittens reached about six weeks of age.

With that in mind, I called the shelter in California where we were living and told them that if they would call me the next time someone brought in a pregnant cat, I'd see to it that all the kittens would find homes and that I would keep the mother cat.

The very next day they called.  I went down to the shelter and found the most beautiful, long-haired, polydactyl-pawed, pastel calico kitty I've ever seen.  They said she was probably about two years old.  She was sweet as could be, and her feet were so huge they looked like snow shoes.

"Wow!  She's gorgeous," I remember saying.  "Who brought her in?  Where'd she come from?"

"A man from Castaic," the attendant said.  "He didn't say anything else."

They were so glad someone was taking a pregnant cat, they didn't even charge me the usual fee for adopting her.  We named her Zooey and brought her home.  Three weeks later, we all watched as she gave birth to five little polydactyl kittens, one of which we kept and named Oreo.

Zooey was a love of the first order.  Except for those feet and a bony little bump halfway down her tail, she was perfect.

After the kittens were weaned and adopted out, we had her spayed.  She was fat and fine and happy with us.

That was...gosh....15 years ago?  We lost Oreo last summer, but Zooey's still with us.  That would make her about 17 years old now.  Lately she's gotten painfully thin and her coat seems to have lost its luster.  A couple of weeks ago, I found bloody diarrhea in the litter pan and took her in.  Irritable bowel syndrome, the vet informed me, and gave me some medicine for it.  She's also got a pretty severe case of arthritis in her hips, which -- like mine -- seems to flare up in rainy weather.

Then I felt a suspcious bump on her back, not encapsulated like a cyst but with fingers that shot off in different directions.  So back to the vet we went.  She had surgery to remove the lump yesterday.

"Oh, yeah," I told the vet, remembering the little bony protruberance on her tail.  "She's got this bump about halfway down her tail.  Been there forever.  As long as you've got her sedated, why don't you check and see what it is."

I figured it was a birth defect.  Any cat with that many toes could easily have a defect someplace else.  But it seemed like maybe it was a bit bigger lately.

So yesterday the vet called to tell me Zooey was out of surgery and doing fine.  Turns out it was just some kind of fatty tumor that I shouldn't be too concerned about.

"But you know that bump on her tail?" he added.

"Yeah?"

"It was a BB."

A BB!!! As in BB gun.  Someone had shot that beautiful cat back in California all those many years ago.  Although she's been fine all this time and with no apparent pain from it, I was furious.  I just don't understand people.  I wondered anew at the man from Castaic who brought her in and had had her for two years, only to give her away when she got pregnant.

The only photo I can lay my hands on at the moment is a photo of Zooey after she'd been clipped for the first time.  It doesn't do her justice.  She was a magnificent-looking feline.  I'm so glad she's okay.  And so sad she had such a rough start in life.

Please remember your local, state and national shelters and humane societies this holiday season.

The Journey

I spent the day enfolded
in the car, searching for reasons
not to go back to the house,
yearning for something
I couldn't name.

I left the inland desert,
traversed the valley and listened to
the songs of my youth.

A young Neil Young sang
to the old man I'd become
and I was struck with such
a sudden sadness it shocked
me from my reverie.

I looked around at other drivers,
their faces expressionless, 
resigned.

No one saw the difference.

The car rode the crest
of the Sepulveda Pass and eased
into its descent like rolling off
a bed mid-dream. Before you know it
you've hit the floor, slightly hurt
and wondering how you'd not
seen it coming.

The Getty loomed like Mount Zion
in the sky, all angles and white.
The trolley sidled up the canyon wall
like a magician delivering
the sinners to Saint Peter.

The City of the Angels crouched like a cat
below, and the air suddenly changed.

I exited on Santa Monica Boulevard,
and waited at the light. 
The bums are back.
It's like it was in the '80s, 
and everything new is old again. 

The blush of dusk hung
like a dirty persimmon 
on the horizon.

Numb with anonymity, 
I followed the stream
of lights that curled 
back into the valley.

This is all there is. 
No rhyme. No reason.
Just this. 

And more of this.

I stopped at Circle K for milk,
and when I turned the corner
onto Copperhill, I braked.

A coyote.

In the sweep
of the headlights, he was
beautiful and lithe and seemed
right at home, even here.

I wanted to tell him so.

He trotted easily and crossed the street.
Unafraid. 
He stopped at the edge
of the brush and turned to watch me, 
as if to tell me something.

Go home.

And I cried because home is
so very far away.
 
~~ Elodie Pritchartt


Photo by Jeff Ackerman

Big Pink Guesthouse Featured in Blog

Travel photographer and writer Gayle Harper is presently working on a project about life along the Mississippi Great River Road, the national scenic byway that accompanies the Mississippi River from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.

Ms. Harper's collection of photographs along the Great River Road was nominated for the Santa Fe Prize for Photography in 2009.   Upon completion of her trip down the river, Ms. Harper plans to publish a coffee-table book with the images and stories she gathers along the way.

Her decision to make a 90-day trip down the Great River Road is the result of a little factoid put out by the National Park Service that states  that it takes a drop of water about 90 days to make its journey from the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota to its destination at the mouth of the river in the Gulf of Mexico.  To read her blog about this trip, called Surrendering to Serendipity, and Ms. Harper, go to http://gayleharper.wordpress.com.

Last week found Ms. Harper at Shantybellum's sister guesthouse -- The Big Pink Guesthouse in Clarksdale, Mississippi.  You can read all about Clarksdale, its local color and the characters and sights she discovered there at http://gayleharper.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/in-the-presence-of-greatness/.

We look forward to hosting Gayle at Shantybellum next week, and trust that Natchez will enchant her as much as Clarksdale, albeit in its own unique style.


Photo by Elodie Pritchartt

Balloon Festival, 2010

Halloween 2010 An Old Lost Camera; a New Found Friend

Who knew that losing a camera could turn into such a feelgood moment?

Tommy and I went down to St. Francisville last night for the Faux Blood Music Festival with True Blood soundtrackers Jace Everett, et al, and Chuck Prophet and his band from San Francisco, who played at Magnolia Cafe.



The music was awesome, and I was awestruck at meeting the guy who wrote that song for the opening credits of True Blood.  To meet the person and be able to tell him how much you love it is something special.



(Apologies for the image that video shows up with.)

If you're not familiar with it, Magnolia Cafe was the winner of Country Roads Magazine's Favorite Small Town Dining Destination" and Favorite Venue for a Live Performance.

Knowing we'd be having cocktails, Tommy and I did the responsible thang and took a taxi to the restaurant, asking the driver if he'd be so kind as to return and pick us up later that night.  The driver's name is Mark Armstrong, a 70-something-year-old man with his own taxi and tour service.  He promised he would come back, but said he had to get up this morning to go see his wife, who is in a nursing home with cancer.

After we got out of the cab, I realized I'd left my camera in the back, and called.  Told Mark just to hang onto it and bring it when he came back.  Alas, we were having such a fine time, I didn't hear my cell phone when he called at 11 p.m. to say he just couldn't stay awake any longer and he'd bring it by the hotel in the morning.

The noise was so loud I couldn't quite make out what he was saying, though, and thought he'd said he would bring it by last night and leave it at the desk.  So when we got to the hotel and discovered it wasn't there, and tried to call, I must admit I suspected I'd seen the last of my camera.  Now, you can get these cameras for a lot less today than you could ten years ago, but when I bought it, it was a pretty pricey item.  And I make my living with my camera and my 'puter, both of which I hope to never lose.

I was having murderous thoughts:  "I wanna do bad things to you."

When he showed up at the hotel this morning, he emerged from the taxi with his little dog -- same kind of dog as Toto in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  The two came up to the room to deliver the camera in person, and I felt downright ashamed.  We talked about Muffin, his dog, and he said he was taking her to see his wife, whom he informed me, he still adores 25 years after he married her.  Muffin, he said, really cheers her up.

"I hope she gets better," I sympathized.

"Oh, honey, she's not gonna get any better.  This is it."

"I'm so sorry," I said, quite honestly.

"We've been together 25 years," he said, and it's been really hard being at the house alone.  If it weren't for Muffin here, and my little cat," he continued, "I don't know what I'd do."

He told us about his place in the woods, and the deer he feeds daily -- just like my own father -- corn that he pours out dutifully every evening.

And he started getting choked up.  Before you knew it, the three of us were crying, and Mark and I were hugging each other.

"You know," he said later as he was about to leave, "I gave three sisters a drive up to Natchez a few years back.  They were taking a cruise.  They were staying at the Eola.  That's just about the prettiest hotel I've ever seen.  And Natchez is pretty, too," he said.  "I think of St. Francisville as a little Natchez."

I quickly agreed.  St. Francisville is a jewel.

"Well, next time you want a vacation, drive on up.  We've got a little B&B you can stay in."

"Why, that sounds just fine," he said, and we parted ways.

We drove through Centreville on our way back to Natchez, and had lunch.  On our way out of town, I noticed I had several missed calls on my phone.  It was Mark.

"Can I get your names, please?" he asked.  "I really enjoyed meeting y'all.  You're nice folks."

Guilt about the camera sticking in my craw.

"Next time y'all come down, I want you to call me," he said.  "I give tours, and I'd be proud to take you on a tour.  I told my wife about you, and it was just real nice talking to someone.  I don't have any family.  No children.  Just my wife and my pets.  I haven't talked to anyone like that in a long time."

I felt that old familiar lump in my throat.

Then he told me to Google him.

"I've driven everybody from George Clooney and Bob Hope to The Rolling Stones and AC/DC.  Just a whole bunch of people.  Look it up.  You'll see."

So I did.  And you know, he wasn't kidding.

So for all my readers, please call Mark Armstrong at Tiger Taxi and Tours the next time you're in the St. Francisville/Zachary/Baton Rouge area.  You'll get a ride with a real character -- one who knows all the haunts and stories and the heart to tell them.

Maybe I should lose my camera more often.

Tiger Taxi and Tours

"Always on the Prowl"

Mark Armstrong, owner
Cell Phone:  225-921-9199                 Home Phone:  225-635-4641