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

Staff

Published Friday, October 3, 2008

Peeping through my Venetian blind, I saw an autumnal, golden world – a field of goldenrods across the way at the Covingtons’, bitterweed along the roadways, and yellow butterflies among the abelia. Fall and golden October are here.

In the fall issue of the alumni magazine for the University of Alabama, on page 2, is a half-page picture of little Ada, youngest child of Lex and Susan (Jones) Short of Andalusia. The photograph was taken before the president’s mansion at the University by Ada’s Aunt Karen Jones and submitted by Ada’s Uncle John Jones. Ada had been at Alabama’s homecoming and had marched onto the field with the Alumni Band, her mother, and aunt, both former Crimsonettes. Karen was in the Class of l978; Susan, l983. Also featured in the same magazine is little Anthony Falke in an elephant outfit. He is the youngest grandson of Terry DuBose, a l967 football player for the Tide.

Bobby C. King, the Hollywood stuntman, came by my desk this week. It was interesting, hearing of his adventures in the movies. He has been around the world and has rubbed shoulders with the stars of our time. He said his favorite stars are William H. Macy, Ed Begley, and Steve Zahn and that he resembles Treat Williams most, physically. He is currently visiting relatives in Andalusia while awaiting his next feature.

Seen at Off the Square Cafe were Andy Wiggins, Micah Blair, Jim Locklier, Lee and Getty Sullivan, Lee and Debbie Williams, Gordon and Trudy Vickers, Russell McGlamory, Steve Bozeman, Ivan Bishop, Jessie Sirmon, Harry Hinson, Judge Bill and Betty Baldwin, Michele Wilson, Joe Kyser, and Judy Buck, dining with her daughter Kathy Nall. It was good to see Trudy out and about again; she looks ten years younger!

Joann “the Pound-Cake Lady” Jones treated me to one of her pound cakes lately. Oh, but it was good, moist, texturifarous, tastilicious! Thank you, Joann “Journalette” Jones!

I ran into a sight-for-sore-eyes the other day while eating at the Huddle House. There sat Dewayne and Rita Scroggins, who run Tabby D.’s (named for their daughter, in case you didn’t know). I’m so used to seeing Dewayne and Rita, eating at their own Tabby D.’s, that I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. They were dining with their friends, Sonny and Sueann Helms. Nearby were Curtis and June (Grimes) Simpson.

Gentle reader, please put on your calendar January 29 – February l for the Florida Chautauqua Center weekend in DeFuniak Springs. I try to go every year and wish you would.

Seen at the hospital cafeteria for Sunday lunch last weekend were John and Mary “the Belle of Excel” Hill, Gene and Tera Jones, Dr. Jim and Holly Krudop, Betty Bass, Paul and Judy Armstrong, Betty Greene, Dan and Virginia Frasher, Bob Reid, Scott and LeAnn Riley and their children, Mere-Katherine, Ridge, and Erin.

I enjoyed a pleasant visit in the beautiful home of John and Mary “Spouse” Hill this week. Mary donated eight framed samples of cross-stitch by the late Miss Mildred Hart, one-time, home-economics teacher at the Andalusia High School, to the school’s Heritage Room. Cross-stitching was one of the many accomplishments of Miss Hart; many samples of her work remain in the homes of Andalusia.

The Portly Gentleman promised me to continue his account of traveling in Georgia, Lord willing. Here are his words:

“I arrived in Athens, Georgia, to attend a three-day symposium on William Gilmore Simms, the most prominent writer in the South prior to the War Between the States. The symposium is sponsored by the Simms Society, of which I am a member, and ‘symns’ every two years.

“We met in the recently renovated T.R.R. Cobb House.

“This beautifully restored, two-story, pink, wooden, clapboard, ante-bellum house with two double, octagonal bays on each side and a porch with Doric columns and pilasters between the bays, featured a balcony with iron-wrought railings, white trim, and green shutters, set in extensive, attractive landscaping.

“The house, long ago, had been sold to Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta and moved there for a bed and breakfast. It sat, a ruin, undeveloped, however, some twenty years, until purchased by the wealthy Watson-Brown Foundation around 2004 and returned to its old home of Athens and renovated last year. It is rented now for public and private functions.

“Thomas ‘Tom’ Reade Rootes Cobb was a graduate of the University of Georgia in Athens and a co-founder of its law school, a Confederate Brigadier General, and the principal author of the Confederate Constitution. He died for the South in l862 at Fredericksburg. His body lay in state in the Cobb House. ‘Tom’ was a younger brother to Howell Cobb, governor of Georgia, who swore in Jefferson Davis as first and only president of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Alabama. Two ante-bellum homes of Howell Cobb stand nearby.

“Arriving early, I explored the Cobb House and grounds. I ran into Dr. James Kibler, president of the Simms Society and editor of its twice-a-year Simms magazine, an author himself of essays, poetry, novels, and history, and a teacher at the UGA.

“Dr. Kibler had prepared from his own Simms collection the first-ever exhibition devoted solely to the poetry of Simms. I used a catalogue prepared by Dr. Kibler to study rare copies of the works of Simms on display, including books from Simms’s own library at Woodlands in South Carolina, his home later burned by the Yankees. Some of Simms’s books, stolen by Yankees, have made their way back south.

“I also ran into Nicholas Meriwether, oral historian at the South Caroliniana Library on the campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina, and Ron Bridwell, who sells rare books; Ron even had two autographs of Simms for sale. We three lunched nearby in the Siri Thai Restaurant. I enjoyed duck.

“Back at the Cobb House, I found my cousin, Miss Jo Driggers, also a member of the Simms Society, who had driven down from Lexington, South Carolina, for the Simms Symposium. We joined a tour of the house by Sam Thomas, the curator.

“That evening Dr. Masahiro Nakamura of Aichi University in Japan spoke on the literary status of Simms in Japan. Dr. Nakamura is the first scholar to translate Simms into Japanese. He chose Simms’s best-known novel, The Yemassee, for that honor.

“The next day I listened to twelve papers on Simms read by scholars from Indiana State University (Dr. Matthew Brennan), the University of South Carolina (Nicholas Meriwether, reading a paper by his late father, Dr. James B. Meriwether), the University of Georgia (Dr. Carl Rapp, Matt Elder, and Dr. James E. Kibler, Jr.), Southwest Oklahoma State University (Corey Mingura and Dr. Kevin Collins), Rostock University in Germany (Doreen Thierauf), College of William and Mary (John Miller), College of Charleston (Dr. David Aiken), Midlands Tech in Columbia (Dr. Paul C. Graham), and North Georgia College (Dr. David W. Newton).

“During breaks I met Beverley Simms, a professional pianist, wife of Dr. Brennan, and great-granddaughter of Simms himself. Beverley, a beautiful lady, studied in Alabama at Montevallo. For nine years of her childhood she lived in the old St. John Hotel on Meeting Street, the main drive in Charleston. Her father managed the St. John before it was replaced by the new Mills Hotel, a replica of the old Mills Hotel on Meeting Street.

“I also met Bill Cawthon, whose great-great-great uncle was none other than a former resident of Andalusia, S.I.S. Cawthon, ‘Uncle Simon,’ buried in our Magnolia Cemetery behind the courthouse. Bill and I discovered, too, that we were both born in St. Margaret’s Hospital in Montgomery. Bill told me that he has bought an old family plantation at Eufaula and that Dothan was once named Cawthon’s Cowpens.

“Lunch and a buffet supper were provided. Supper included a fine shrimps-grits casserole.

“Mint juleps were also served (no, I did not).

“Two new poems on Simms, written for the occasion, were read.

“After supper Miss Deborah Brinson, 22 and home-schooled, a singer-harpist with curls as soft as silk, dressed in ante-bellum garb, sang for us. Her music on the celtic (folk) harp was as pretty as she was, a mere slip of a girl, light as a feather, with a voice like a crystal pendant in the candlelight. She sang a dozen songs for us, including a lovely version of ‘Dixie.’ At ‘Dixie’ we stood respectfully. Then we sang along the second time. Three of her songs were set to lyrics by Simms. One set of lyrics had been written by Dr. Kibler. A third was composed entirely by Deborah herself. From North Carolina, Deborah arranges nearly all the music she performs, and teaches voice, harp, and piano. One song by Simms that Deborah played had not been heard in a hundred years.

“That evening at the concert I met Val Green, the great-great-grandson of William L. Yancey, the famous Alabama orator and secessionist.

“It was while I was in Athens that Hurricane Ike, as big as the Gulf of Mexico, hit Texas and that I paid over four dollars a gallon for gasoline for the first time in my life.

“The last morning of the ‘Simms-posium’ Dr. Sean Busick of Athens State University served as moderator as scholars reported on Simms publications and scholarship since 2006.

“Miss Deborah Brinson also played her harp and sang “It’s a Long, Long Way to Alabama,” her first effort at musical composition, set to a poem about a Confederate boy who dies and is buried along the way, on his way home after the War to Alabama, a true story. There were tears in the eyes of the listeners.

“Bill Cawthon brought me a copy of an l890 letter to his ancestors from S.I.S. Cawthon of Andalusia.

“Dr. Kibler quoted two sentences I liked, ‘The task of the civilized intelligence is perpetual salvage’ and ‘If in making progress, you destroy beauty, it is not progress.’

“After the adjournment at midday Jo and I drove through downtown Athens on Broad and ate at an old, Italian restaurant, DePalma’s. I liked the look of the dark, wooden, old-fashioned eatery.

“Jo and I spent the afternoon exploring Athens: the many ante-bellum houses, the first Howell Cobb house on Pope (being renovated), Prince Street with the Taylor-Grady House (there was a wedding underway; Henry W. Grady once lived there; he wrote the famous editorial about the ‘New South’ and edited for the Atlanta Constitution), the ante-bellum home of the president of the UGA, the welcome center (once the home of two presidents of the UGA), City Hall with its double-barreled cannon, the courthouse, post office, First Presbyterian, First Baptist, and a statue of Athena (the goddess of wisdom for whom Athens is named). One could spend a lifetime in Athens; it’s a large and beautiful city.

“Jo and I parked on Broad near the main gates of the oldest ‘quad’ of the UGA, the oldest state university in America, once called Franklin College after old Ben. We ‘circled’ the Quad. I enjoyed lingering on campus, reading plaques, sitting and resting in the peace and quiet and in the shade of old trees.

“We saw the main arch, the Academic Building with its Corinthian columns, the Demosthenian Literary Society building, New College (which is old), chapel (where I sat on its steps), Old College (first permanent building on campus where Alexander H. Stephens and Crawford W. Long were roommates; Stephens became vice-president of the Confederacy), Phi Kappa Hall (another literary society; these used to be popular, debating groups on college campuses), Moore Hall, and the new library.

“Later in the cool of the evening Jo and I explored the Seney-Stovall Chapel of l885 next to the Lucy Cobb Institute of l858. The Lucy Cobb Institute is a very large building in the Italianate style, built originally for educating girls. T.R.R. Cobb, mentioned above, established it in honor of one of his daughters, who had died at l3. The chapel, said to have the only truly Elizabethan theatre in the Southeast, was added later. It is of quaint, Victorian style, reminding me of buildings in both Rugby, Tennessee, and Rugby, England. Both now belong to the UGA.

“Next to the Lucy Cobb Institute stands a modern ‘hamburger joint,’ the Varsity, a branch, I was told, of the famous Varsity in Atlanta. Jo and I ate hotdogs and drank milk shakes and ‘varsity orange’ there.”

There is more to be heard from the Portly One, Lord willing; but we should save that for another peeping through the Venetian blind.

October l was the l00th anniversary of the Model T Ford. Also born this week was William C. Gorgas, the American physician who helped control Yellow Fever and malaria. Next week’s birthdays include those of Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” who sang so beautifully to all the world (her picture hangs on many a wall); James Whitcomb Riley, the Indiana poet who wrote “Little Orphant Annie,” which led to Harold Gray’s cartoon strip of the same name and the musical Annie with its optimistic “Tomorrow”; Edward W. Bok, the editor whose aim was to make the world a bit better and more beautiful because he had been in it (so should we all); and Verdi, the Italian opera composer.

Fare thee well, gentle reader.