Overheard, out and about, Mrs. Grundy sees all, tells all

Staff

Published Friday, November 7, 2008

Peeping through my Venetian blind, I saw the flag, flying across the way at Covington Hall, and thought of Veterans’ Day this coming Tuesday, November ll. My very next thought was of John Givhan, who has given and still gives so much of himself to our country and community, especially to remember and honor his fellow veterans. John is truly an amazing man, an amazing story, an amazing life; and he lives in the shadow of the Cross of Christ in all that he does. God bless you, John, and all your fellow veterans.

First Baptist had its big homecoming last Sunday. Guest preacher was Joe McKeever, known for his cartoon work. After his sermon, he drew sketches of members in the congregation for fun. Folks brought dishes for a buffet in Fellowship Hall. Tents were provided on the lawn for seating and eating. The event ended with a concert in the auditorium. Children’s choirs, the Glory Singers (older folks), Adult Choir, Baraca Quartet (oldest in Andalusia), One Accord (the excellent ladies’ group), and Student Choir participated, with hymns between each group, led by Dwight Crigger, minister of music, who, with his wife Sonia, the new choral director for the Andalusia City Schools, sang a duet.

John Beasley, the ever-cooperative math instructor at the Andalusia High School, served as pianist; Jeanice Kirkland, a popular, creative, and motivational teacher of English at the middle school, as organist.

In the Sunday-School assembly of the Baraca Class that morning, two pupils of Mary Clyde “the Peach of Chilton County” Merrill, Edy Alexander, a sixth grader and daughter of Gary and Cathy (King), and Jeremy Boyd, a fifth grader and son of Sandy and Stephanie, played piano solos for the distinguished gentlemen. Since it was homecoming, the men sang “The Great Homecoming,” music by S. Daniel Shehan, lyrics by Joseph C. Wingard. Mrs. Kirkland accompanied at the Ann Martin Memorial Piano.

One of the outstanding moments during the morning worship was a prelude by the church’s new orchestra, composed mainly of youth who attend First Baptist. Lynn Twitty, violinist, played with the youth and with the congregational singing. Sonia Crigger accompanied at the piano. Jason Tucker, bandmaster at the middle school, directed. A trumpet solo by Josh Hugghins, a senior at the Andalusia High School, was particularly inspirational. Others in the orchestra were Callie Marie Crigger, clarinetist; Shelby Strong, clarinetist; Catherine Grace Searcy, clarinetist; Devin Williamson, flutist; Chris Riley, trombonist; Courey Hopkins, trombonist; Brady Sharp, saxophonist; Alex Ward, saxophonist; Will Parker, tuba player; and Hunter Dendy, baritone player.

John and Mary “the Belle of Excel” Hill had as their houseguests last week, Ann Cushing and two of her daughters, Connie Cushing and Jama Webb. Ann, the wife of Harrell Cushing, former pastor of First Baptist, was in “the Dimple of Dixie” to speak on “Love” at the ladies’ luncheon, arranged beautifully by Cathy (Lee) Harry.

Voting Day last Tuesday I took lunch in Off the Square Cafe and ran into Lee and Debbie Williams, Esker and Ann Thomasson, Wayne and Judy Holmes, and Billy and Marie White. The fried chicken was delicious!

For years the Portly Gentleman and a small circle of his friends have gathered on Halloween for a “Halloweiner” supper with hotdogs, baked beans, grapes, and apples. Gertrude Nelson takes her unbeatable potato salad and the best lemonade in the world! Of course, there are candies, cookies, and cupcakes, Halloween plates, cups, and napkins, and a real pumpkin, cut into a jack-o-lantern, aglow with candlelight. The old group has dwindled down to Gertrude, the One Who Waddles, and Myrtle Ruth (Everage) Welch, who met in Myrtle’s room in Andalusia Manor this year.

The group spoke of one thing and another, but Myrtle had the quote of the evening. Said she, “A home is something you don’t pass around. You keep it till your toes turn up!” Amen.

I enjoyed my first visit to the new C.J.’s Grille this past week. It’s located where Murray’s was housed along East Three-Notch.

Casey Jones is the “C.J.” He’s closed his restaurant, M.D.’s, in Opp and also given up managing the country club over there in order to concentrate on his new eatery.

The interior is very nice. There are daily specials written on chalkboards. These sell out fast, so go early. There is a fine menu for lunch and another for dinner.

I was served a basket of homemade, fried, potato chips. These are quite tasty and rare in these parts. The first ones I ever tasted were in the famous Mills House along Meeting Street in Charleston. (Let me pause here and recommend the she-crab soup there to John Givhan.)

At C.J.’s for lunch I ran into Larry and Vicki Popwell and Vicki’s mother, the gentle, kind, refined, graceful, beautiful, and saintly Mary “Ninny” Evers. Larry was going on and on about some baby that had just been born October 24, a boy, whom he described as “the most handsome grandson ever born in the history of the world, sure to be a starting quarterback for the University of Alabama, a potential Shakespearean actor, the best English professor since Wingard.”

The baby turned out to be his first grandson, Grover Jay Wells, the son of his daughter Laura and her husband Daniel Wells. I gathered the baby was also Vicki’s first grandson and Ninny’s second great-grandchild, but Larry didn’t waste much time on such unimportant details.

He said that Baby Grover had already watched his first Alabama football game at the age of one day, safe in the arms of his father.

Also seen at C.J.’s were Blaine Wilson, Joy Tway, Jo Mosdell, Tom and Margaret Goodspeed, and Nortense Church.

At C.J.’s for dinner I sat with Randy and Mamie Wahl and spoke with Mike and Donna Cauley and her mother, Sibyl (Rodgers) Jacobs. Seen also were Ashton and Kendra Wells and their three children, Alden, Griffin, and Brenna, and a group of ladies whom I shall call “the Wednesday Club” because they meet each Wednesday to eat and talk – Sherry (Whiddon) Pouncey, her daughter Tambri Pouncey, Debbie Smith, Kay Fagerstrom and her daughter Miriam, Barbara (Patterson) Eiland, and Angie (Henderson) Cofield.

Also seen that night were Harry and Joyce Hugghins, celebrating their 57th wedding anniversary and surrounded by family, their daughters Kay Hugghins and Denise Brooks, Denise’s husband Bob Brooks, his mother Dorothy Brooks, and the grandchildren, Emily Brooks, Evan Brooks, and Tally Morrow.

The Hugghinses were married October 28 in Birmingham.

Seen at C.J.’s for lunch on another day were Jerry and Sally Hall, celebrating their first wedding anniversary (November 3), the ever-youthful and boyish Mike Jones (the retired, A.H.S., reading teacher, to separate him from all the other Mike Joneses in town), Sandy Myrick, Larry and Vicki Popwell (still rejoicing over the birth of their grandson), Donna (Grissett) Raines, and Michael Tyler, a senior at A.H.S. and the son of the famous Mike Tyler.

Mary Kyzar has donated a copy of The Bulldog Growl, Vol. I, No. 2, published by the Andalusia High School Feb. l5, l929, to the school’s Heritage Room. Thank you, Mrs. Kyzar.

One of our own, Terry (Shaw) Patko, a graduate of A.H.S. and the eldest daughter of the late Carl and Mildred (Dixon) Shaw, long-time pillars in our First Baptist Church, has been featured in the October 30 issue of the Alabama Baptist because of her being named Layperson of the Year by Samford University. Terry, a member of Lakeside Baptist of Birmingham, was honored with a ceremony in her own church where she is in her 25th year as piano accompanist for the senior-adult choir, the New Life Singers. She has also accompanied other groups and plays the French horn in her church orchestra. She has used her sewing skills to make baby shirts for Children’s Hospital, items for migrant workers, Christmas stockings for the Birmingham Baptist Association, and robes for Lakeside’s kindergarten graduates. Her activities also include Woman’s Missionary Union (3l years), Carpenters for Christ, Bible Drill classes, Sunday School, and Vacation Bible School.

Terry, who plays the piano brilliantly, has composed several religious pieces for the piano.

The Portly Gentleman has agreed to share a trip he made to Natchez, Mississippi, with his friend, S. Daniel Shehan, back in September.

“Mr. Shehan lost his only sibling, Pat, to cancer earlier this year. The body was cremated, and a memorial service was planned for later. I rode over to Natchez with Dan for the ceremony.

“Dan has lived in Savannah for the past seven years. It’s a long and tiring drive for him to Andalusia, where he spends the night before going on. His Aunt Myrtle Ruth (Everage) Welch, 97, is in Andalusia Manor; so, Dan always visits her on his way to Natchez and on his way back to Savannah. Mrs. Welch is a sister to Dan’s late mother, Helen, and the only one of ten siblings still living.

“On the way to Natchez we ate in Prentiss in a large, modern restaurant along 84 called the Country Fisherman. The owners offered a buffet of country cooking; the salad bar was uniquely set into a fishing boat. It was a fine place.

“In Natchez we stayed two nights in the Briars, a bed and breakfast in an ante-bellum home on a bluff above the Mississippi River, the highest point on the river between New Orleans and St. Louis.

“The Briars was built between l8l4 and l8l8 as a town house to escape mosquitoes in the delta. It was built of plantation brick covered with cypress, with floors of heart of pine.

“The Briars was once the home of the William Burr Howell family. Varina Howell, his eldest child, was married in its front parlor February 26, l845, to Jefferson Davis, who would later become the first and only president of the Confederate States of America.

“My room was upstairs where the ballroom once existed, where the Davises had their wedding breakfast and reception. The ballroom has since been divided into bedrooms, one of which I occupied.

“Since Dan and I both belong to the Sons of Confederate Veterans and are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Davis in 2008, we thought a stay at the Briars would be appropriate.

“Because of his frail health, Mr. Shehan must rest frequently; while he napped, I explored the complex. There were a guest house, plantation school house, carriage house, lily pool, greenhouse, azalias, rose gardens, topiary, hollys, tree-shaded and sun-dappled lawns, tea olives, poplars, screened swimming pool, parking lots, live oaks with resurrection ferns, camellias, magnolias, flowerbeds, Greek statuary and urns, a wisteria arbor, trellis, frog pond, St. Augustine grass, a fenced patio with seating and jardinieres on brick columns, a two-story dining hall built to match the main house, a quaint, brick office resembling a tiny chapel, walks, shrubs, a fountain, two gazebos, and boxwoods.

“Gentle breezes blew and birds sang in this lovely setting.

“One enters the estate through a gateway with a guard house. He drives up a circular drive to the main house, fronting a tree-dotted lawn with a grand view of the Mississippi spanned by a bridge into Louisiana on the other shore.

“The two-story front of the Briars features a wide gallery (porch) with ten, one-story, Doric columns. The rear features a wide gallery (balcony) and a sunny span of large windows. Inside, rooms are spacious and filled with antiques.

“That afternoon Dan and I drove all about Natchez, admiring the ante-bellum homes for which Natchez is known, the City Cemetery, the National Cemetery where Pat is buried, parks, the mighty Mississippi, depot, hotels, churches, city hall, and the federal building. In the cemetery I was stunned by the number of stones with “unknown” on them. A heavy sadness sank upon my heart. Death is bad enough; but to die unknown, forgotten by Time, seems tragic.

“Dan and I ate breakfast the next morning in the separate building known as the Dining Pavilion. Our waiter was Henry Mayberry, dressed in a winged collar and black tie, famous in culinary circles, who has been at the Briars ‘forever.’ He has been featured in national magazines.

“We dined upon coffee, orange juice, scrambled eggs, bacon, grits with turkey gravy, biscuit and butter, muffins, and muscadine jelly.

“Our table was laid with a white cloth and matching napkins. We ate from Spode china (Marlborough Spray pattern). The room was all sunshine with many windows and a view of the river below.

“While Dan was preparing for the day, I climbed the covered, wooden steps to an observation point next to Briarvue, the owners’ home on the bluff. Before me lay the Mississippi, the Miss-Lou Bridge, and Vidalia, Louisiana, on the other side. I enjoyed the shade, the early morning breeze, and birdsong.

“The new owners of the Briars are constructing below it the Grand Soleil, a modern hotel.

“We drove to the Natchez National Cemetery for the l0:30 service in honor of Dan’s brother, Pat. The cemetery is atop a bluff overlooking the Mississippi, a beautiful area shaded by old trees, made pleasant with a morning breeze.

“Attending were Toni Smith, whom Pat, a professional photographer, trained to help his wife Linda after his death; Ray Powell from Houma, Louisiana, Pat’s uncle and husband to Pat’s late Aunt Carolyn (Everage), his mother’s sister; David Powell, Ray’s son and Pat’s first cousin; Lisa Parker, David’s date; Dan Shehan, Pat’s only sibling and the last of his immediate family, formerly of Andalusia; Selma Everage from Pensacola, Pat’s aunt; Donya King, Pat’s daughter from Superior, Wisconsin; Mike King, Donya’s husband; Mylie King, their daughter; Suzette (Everage) Miller and Lynda (Everage) Ward, Selma’s daughters from Pensacola, Pat’s first cousins; Allen Terrell, a SCV friend in Natchez (Pat belonged to the Covington Rifles Camp of the SCV in Andalusia first; then, the Gen. W. T. Martin Camp 590 in Natchez); Sandy Terrell, Allen’s wife; Kaycie Walters, the Terrells’ daughter; Evan ‘Buddy’ Emerick, SCV friend and camp chaplain; Jason Blaney, SCV friend; James Young, SCV bugler; Bennie and Bobbye Buckles, next-door neighbors; Jeffery Larkin, a friend from Superior who drove all the way down for the ceremony; Donna Lindley, a friend; Karen Hammons, a friend; and I.

“The ceremony was conducted in a shaded corner of the cemetery, under a small shelter with two benches and a lectern, before which were two pictures of Pat, his banjo, and a spray of red and white carnations and red roses.

“There was a printed program with two pictures of Pat, one as a youth in the military; one in his busker’s outfit.

“At the first we listened to a tape of Pat’s daughter, Donya, singing ‘Amazing Grace.’ She has a lovely voice.

“Allen Terrell worded the eulogy, weeping throughout, speaking of Pat’s CD of banjo music, completed not long before his death, his job as photographer, his paintings, his love of the SCV, and his pride in his Southern heritage. Allen said, ‘His heart was in the South.’

“Evan Emerick prayed and spoke briefly.

“Linda then spoke of her husband, faltering only once.

“Donya spoke tearfully of her father.

“All stood as two U.S. soldiers folded and presented Old Glory to Linda. Pat was a veteran.

“James Young, under a live oak on a nearby hill, played ‘Taps.’

“Still standing, we heard a tape of Pat himself, playing and singing a slow version of ‘Dixie.’

“It was one of the most beautiful and peaceful moments of my life, too perfect for words.

“Dan and I drove across the road to Pat’s grave to take pictures of his stone, which reads as follows: ‘J. Patton Shehan, Sgt., U.S. Air Force, Vietnam, Dec. 8, l944, July 24, 2008, Music, Art, Love, Carry on for me.’

“A bouquet of flowers stood next the stone.

“Later Linda told me that she and Donya were the only ones at the site when Pat’s ashes were buried July 29.

“Linda, assisted by her friends, provided a buffet lunch in her home.

“Linda showed me the last painting Pat was trying to complete before his death; it’s a Confederate battle scene at a church where one of Pat’s ancestors fought.

“Dan later gave me a CD of Pat’s banjo playing and singing, called The Busker of Natchez. Pat used to dress as a busker and sing and play his banjo to welcome travelers on the Mississippi to Natchez. Near the end of the tape is Dan himself, playing “Steamboat’s A-coming,” a piece composed by Dan for the organ. It sounds just like a steamboat coming down the river. Both brothers composed and played and were musically gifted.

“Later in the cool of the afternoon Dan and I rented a carriage to ride about Natchez and see more of the sights. We took dinner in Julep’s Restaurant in the Eola Hotel. At seven stories, it is the largest and tallest building in Natchez. I took yeast rolls, green salad, the best French fries I have ever tasted, and catfish filet smothered in crawfish sauce, one of the best dishes I’ve ever tasted.

“Breakfast next morning included sausage, grits, crepes with ham, egg, and cheese, fig muffins, chutney, biscuits, and coffee.

“Henry described every dish as he served it. He’s a chipper, cheerful man with a strong voice and personality plus, a Southern treasure of the old school.

“Before we left Natchez, we went by Mammy’s, just for my sake. This is a large, molded figure of a mammy, big as a house – a figure such as one would see at a miniature golf course – built to house a small restaurant. The main entrance is housed in Mammy’s long dress. My dad had taken my brothers and me to see Mammy’s when we were boys; naturally, we were fascinated. I had sentimental memories of the old place and wanted to see it again. I was glad to see it still standing and prospering. Pat had told me it was his favorite place to eat in Natchez, and he and Linda had taken me there for lunch on a previous visit.”

The two old friends then drove back to Andalusia; the next day Mr. Shehan returned to Savannah.

Birthdays next week include those of Martin Luther, the famous German Christian who stirred up the Protestant Reformation; Oliver Goldsmith, the English poet who wrote “Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain” (I’m still waiting for some loyal Auburnite to erect a statue of Goldsmith in Auburn and take the responsibility of placing flowers on his grave November l0 of each year in London); Johann Schiller, German poet who wrote William Tell; Thomas Bailey Aldrich, American author; and Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish poet, novelist, essayist, short-story writer, and author of Treasure Island, a book every boy should read.

Enjoy these days of Indian summer, gentle reader; they will all too soon be gone.