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

Staff

Published Saturday, September 6, 2008

By Mrs. C.R. Grundy

Peeping through my Venetian blind, I saw signs of the approaching fall – yellow butterflies among the abelia, the morning glory twining about posts, grapes on rustic fences, the golden ginkgo, scuppernongs turning bronze or black on arbors, beautyberries bending branches, and the roadsides lined with yellow bitterweed. September’s favorite color seems to be yellow. Summer is almost over.

I hear tell that JoAnn Jones is known about town as “The Pound-Cake Lady,” who, just last week, baked eight to give away. An obituary once stated of a lady that “she baked pound cakes and took one to anyone she thought might want one.” That could be said of our JoAnn.

Jo Mosdell and Lenora Johnson are off on another adventure, exploring the West, headed to Seattle!

Seen at Off the Square Cafe for lunch were Judge Jerry Stokes, Raymond and Shirley Harrelson, Debbie Maraman, and Bob and Mike O’Neal, first cousins and members of the young set.

Congratulations to Zelmer and Katherine Jones upon their 60th wedding anniversary.

I am sorry to hear that the Presbyterian minister here, Jerry Long, plans a move to Valdosta, Georgia. He has been greatly appreciated here and will be missed.

The Portly Gentleman tells me that he did a study for a whole year about keeping one’s word. It turned out that only one of twenty people ever does what he says he will do. The Portly One concluded, “Instead of losing faith in people, just take what they say ‘with a grain of salt.’ Give others a chance but be ready to step in and do it yourself.”

Danny and Barbara Posey and Dr. Wayne and Lenora Johnson have returned from a holiday in Highlands, North Carolina, where the group attended several plays and the ladies went a-shopping.

If my memory serves, Howard and Betty Ham favored Highlands, spending their honeymoon there and yearly vacations thereafter.

Seen having breakfast at the Huddle House were Shelli (Cotton) Smith and her son Laeton Reid Smith, Debbie Stuckey, John Shreve, and Steve Odom.

The Alabama Department of Archives and History invites the public to attend a program at noon on September 25 in the archives in Montgomery. Val L. McGee will speak about his research that resulted in his new book, Selma: A Novel of the Civil War.

Shannon and Wynne Glenn took two of their little shavers, Hampton and Steadman, to Atlanta for the Alabama-Clemson football game. Besides the game, the Dimpletonian family visited the CNN Center, Centennial Park, and World of Coke, as well as family friends, the Mellowns. Being tired, Wynne and Steadman “scalped” their tickets to the game and went back to their hotel, The Twelve, and ordered up two hamburgers, a mere $29. It must be nice!

The Covington County Education Retirees Association met for the first time this academic year in David’s Catfish House September 3.

Otis Brunson of Mobile, a membership coordinator working with the Alabama Education Retirees Association, presented a program on the importance of membership for retired educators. He emphasized that their continued medical insurance and any future increases in retirement checks depended almost entirely on the retirees themselves. Mrs. Brunson accompanied her husband.

Following the meeting, retirees and their guests remained for lunch.

Past President Geraldine Boothe of Opp worded the invocation and prayer. Elaine Chavers of Opp read two sets of minutes. Harriet Scofield of Opp made the treasurer’s report. Vice-President Allen Miller of Opp spoke of future programs and introduced Mr. Brunson. Committee reports were presented by Kim Dyess (membership), Carolyn Davis (legislative), Mavis Smith (community service), Janice Hudson (information and protective services), Dean Morris (social), Evelyn Larigan (publicity), Martha Chisolm (public relations), and Jerri Stroud (nominations).

Joe Wingard, president, presided.

The next meeting is set for October l6 at 6:30 p.m. at David’s Catfish again to hear Seth Hammett and Jimmy Holley speak.

Gertrude (Edson) Nelson entertained her brother Wallace, his son “Skip,” and Skip’s son Will in her home Labor Day. Skip and Will had flown in from California for a family reunion. Gertrude’s menu included fried pork chops, cornbread muffins, onions, bell pepper, tomatoes from her own vines, butter beans, peas, fried okra, fried eggplant, potato salad, macaroni and cheese, and lemonade. For dessert caramel cake, cocoanut cake, butternut cake, and cherry crunch cake were served. Gertrude is one of the best cooks in Covington County; her potato salad is delicious, and her lemonade is without equal.

I had heard so much lately about a restaurant in Dozier called Amazing Grace that I just had to drive up and try it. It was well worth the trip.

Run by Charles and Patricia (Richburg) Grace, the tidy, neat, attractive eatery featured a cafe-buffet last Sunday with superb fried bread, dressing, cranberry sauce, ham, sweet potatoes, turnips, collards, fried chicken, roast, cream peas and butter beans, baked chicken, fried okra (from scratch), dumplings, creamed corn, tomatoes, potatoes, potato salad, and an assortment of desserts, including delectable fried apple or peach tarts.

Seen enjoying the bounty were Jerry and Sally Hall, Amy Williams, Jurell and Pat Davis, their son Ronnie, Pat’s sister, Dan and Virginia Frasher, the youthful Ed and Judy Buck, Turner and Frances (Hogg) Johnson, Charles (“Dr. Domino”) and Mary Margaret Tomberlin, Doris Tyler, Dorcas Williamson, Jewell Curry, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Meeks, Pam Brannon, Jo Mosdell, and a passel of Episcopalians.

Martha Givhan, organist, and John Beasley, pianist, played a beautiful duet of “When They Ring the Golden Bells” Sunday night at First Baptist. Mrs. Givhan used the Louise (Bozeman) Barrow Memorial Chimes during the song; Mrs. Barrow was Mrs. Givhan’s organ teacher and long-time organist at First Baptist. A time of singing favorite hymns was enjoyed by the congregation. Dr. Fred Karthaus warned against false gods in his sermon based on Daniel 3: l5-27.

Bren Sharpe was baptised by Dr. Karthaus in First Baptist August 3l during the morning worship service.

Mark and Shelly Dooley and their five children delightfully welcomed guests that same morning.

I have enjoyed reading a series of essays about England by Randall Curb, a citizen of Greensboro and an Anglophile, who spent his summer abroad in the United Kingdom, sending essays about his experiences home for publication in the Greensboro Watchman. In one of his essays he quotes a citizen of Winchester, England, as describing a local church there as one of the “happy-clappy” congregations, which testifies to the popularity of clapping in church even “across the pond” and probably around the world.

In Montgomery on an advertising sign of the Beacon of Hope Church of God is the following: “Jesus knows me; this I love.”

On the advertising sign of the Cold Springs Church of Christ in Elmore County is the following: “We are too blessed to be depressed.”

The roadwork south of the conjunction at I-65 and I-85 in Montgomery is coming along nicely. The workers are to be congratulated!

The new Georgiana School is going up stoutly.

Mrs. Gotrocks of Greenville told me that she stopped on her way to the “Dimple of Dixie” at Styles Peanuts along 55 and bought some fine, hot, salted, boiled, green peanuts, one of the great joys of fall in the South.

Miss Priscilla Primme, the English teacher, and I drove by Mark Everage’s field at Stanley and Easley the other day and admired the beauty of the harvested, golden acres and the rolled hay.

This coming September 8 is the birthday of Anton Dvorak (l84l – l904), the Czech composer, whose New World Symphony features that plaintive section known as “Going Home.”

The Portly Gentleman took tea with Miss Cora, Miss Dora, and Miss Flora Covington, Miss Primme, Miss Birdie, and me recently and told us of Jefferson Davis Day in Montgomery, which he had attended June l4, Flag Day.

The celebration to honor Davis’s 200th birthday (born June 3, l808) began with a parade up Dexter Avenue (Market Street in Davis’s day) from the Fountain to the state capitol with re-enactors of Confederate soldiers (Sons of the Confederate Veterans), flags, bagpipes, buggies and wagons, horses, the United Daughters of the Confederacy in gowns, the Order of the Confederate Rose, the Tallassee Dixie Belles, Tallassee Armory Guards, and Prattville Dragoons.

A program followed in the new, modern auditorium of the Capitol.

Kim Evans and Keith Murphy led those assembled in old, Southern songs. Tyrone Crowley of the Prattville Dragoons welcomed guests and presided. Dr. Charles Estell Baker, a former SCV chaplain from Birmingham, offered the invocation. Ellen Williams of Leroy, a lady known throughout Alabama for her brave defense of the Confederacy, the author of many letters to editors, sang “God Save the South.” Colors were posted by the l5th Alabama Infantry. A procession of UDC ladies from the various, Southern states marched in with their state flags, in the order of the secession of each state. When the flag of Alabama was presented, those present stood and cheered.

Bobby Bright, mayor of Montgomery, who had ridden up Dexter in a carriage with “General Lee,” spoke.

Montgomery has long been known as “the Cradle of the Confederacy,” and Alabama has long been called “the Heart of Dixie.”

The Confederate States of America was organized in Alabama’s Capitol; Davis was elected president in the Capitol and inaugurated on its portico (a bronze star marks the spot). The Davis family lived in the “First White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery” and were residents of Montgomery until their move to Richmond, Virginia, the new capital of the CSA. The Davises worshipped in St. John’s Episcopal Church, still standing in Montgomery. Davis later returned and laid the cornerstone of the Confederate Monument at one side of the Capitol and placed wreaths on Confederate graves in Oakwood Cemetery. His body lay in state in Alabama’s capitol on its way to burial in Richmond. For the above reasons a celebration of Davis’s 200th birthday in Montgomery was most appropriate.

During the program greetings were received from various dignitaries.

A proclamation by Governor Riley, honoring Davis, was read.

The keynote speaker, John Weaver, a former chaplain of the SCV in Fitzgerald, Georgia, said, “Principles don’t have funerals” and “A dead statesman is better than a live politician.”

At the end all stood for “Dixie.”

Afterwards, at the star on the portico where Davis took office, one of his kinsmen, Philip Davis, spoke. A number of wreaths from various states and organizations were placed at the statue of Davis on the Capitol lawn. Cannon and guns fired a salute, echoed over downtown Montgomery. Dr. Teresa Gordon, bagpiper, ended the program with “Amazing Grace.”

Afternoon tours were offered to Oakwood Cemetery, the White House, Old Alabama Town, and the Capitol.

That night the Jefferson Finis Davis Bicentennial Birthday Ball, sponsored by the Order of the Confederate Rose, was attended in the Old Archives Room on the second floor of the Capitol, a large, two-story, grand ballroom unseen by most Alabamians.

The Portly Gentleman entered a room that night filled with several hundred belles and beaux; almost everyone wore the finest period clothing. Handsome officers in Confederate uniforms and lovely ladies in beautiful, Victorian gowns, dance cards in hand, swayed to the music of the Unreconstructed Band. It was like being in the l860’s again. The scene looked like the benefit ball in Atlanta in Gone with the Wind, the one where Aunt Pittypat Hamilton of Peachtree Street faints. (By the way, Aunt Pittypat sent her regards to our own Curtis Hampton Thomasson.)

The ball began with a grand march, “The Bonnie Blue Flag.” Couples entered and were announced by Philip Davis. Each couple went before the host and hostess and bowed or curtsied.

The Portly Gentleman was honored by a young lady’s hand in the first waltz.

Two beautiful sisters from South Carolina, Cynthia Hayes and Stephanie (Bush) Mayfield, presented a gown they had worked on for a year in honor of Davis’s bicentennial to Cameron Napier, curator of the White House of the Confederacy, to be housed there.

The Portly Gentleman just stood and stared at the beautiful sisters – curls, lace, ribbons, long dresses, ladies of the Old South!

An invocation, gifts, and awards were presented.

There followed many dances, the Virginia reel (just like the scene in Gone with the Wind), polkas, waltzes, the “hat dance,” the Carolina promenade, and on and on.

The Portly Gentleman struck up a conversation with Donivan and Kay Johnson, who had come all the way from Gulfport for the grand occasion. He noted the Napiers, Confederate aristocracy.

The Portly Gentleman couldn’t believe his eyes. The Old South was alive again, at least for a few hours. He went home, wrapped in a cloak of dreams.

Now, gentle reader, fare thee well, as I close my blinds for yet another week.