| December 16 '06 |
|
| Volume 550 |
|
Christmas
Program Littlest Christmas Tree
At Felicia’s invitation,
Sara Sue, Barbara, and I attended a short Christmas program presented by
the second grade classes of Lawhon Elementary in Tupelo on December
12th. Lawhon, pronounced Law-horn, is the same school that Elvis
Presley attended, and the stage used by the second-graders is the same one
Elvis stood on to sing before fellow students more than fifty years ago.
"You shouldn’t park here," Sara cautioned as I parallel parked on the
street beside the school. "You ought to use the parking lot. This is a high
crime area! I hope you have good insurance…"
I quit listening about then and interrupted, "I don’t see a parking
place over there, and if I can see to get straightened up, we’re parking
right here. Anyway, SUPERVALU only carries liability insurance on these cars."
My sister worries sometimes just for the mental exercises it provides and
is like our mother, God rest her soul, in that she worries if she doesn’t
have something to worry about. Sara was still talking as we got out of the
car and began to make our way toward the auditorium.
"We could go in right here, if we knew the door would be unlocked," she stated
as we approached a darkened walkway between buildings that surely hid muggers
and slashers behind each nook and cranny, though I didn’t mention such
to Sara.
Instead we proceeded along the street to the opposite end of the building
where we had seen others walking. There were lights behind the first door
Sara tried to open, but the door was locked, so we walked further and found
the next door opened just outside the auditorium.
Standing at the back of the auditorium and scouting for seats, we soon saw
Felicia walking our way. She took us to meet someone seated on the back row
whom I presumed to be a coworker. Sara was introduced first, and then I politely
shook the woman’s hand without understanding her name and introduced
myself.
"I met you at the Bodock festival," she exclaimed, and when I greeted her
husband, it came to me that the couple were the Pollards, parents of
Felicia’s boyfriend, who live in Tupelo.
We managed to find seating several rows from the rear of the auditorium.
There were roughly one hundred children comprising the cast, all in the second
grade. They filled the entire stage and spilled onto risers in front of the
stage. I didn’t know any of them, but I’d heard Felicia talk about
several of them.
"I think the one with pigtails on the second row of those onstage is J.P."
Barbara stated, trying to show me on of Felicia's special students.
I never did decide which one Barbara meant, because I could see two children
with hair that appeared to have pigtails. The only child I was sure of was
Lamarcus, the diminutive black boy who is blind. He’s only in
Felicia’s classroom one period each day, but that’s been sufficient
to steal her heart. Lamarcus loves to sing and recently got a keyboard to
play. Who knows, he may be the next Ray Charles?
The Christmas program, The Littlest Christmas Tree, told a tale of Santa
Claus choosing a Christmas Tree. The musical consisted of seven songs, skits
with a scattering of dialogue, and several solos.
I sat in amazement as the children sang song after song loudly and
enthusiastically. At times they were animated, rhythmically swaying and/or
performing motions with their arms and hands. They lacked the precision of
a chorus line, but for seven-year olds they did great.
I tried to remember the play or performance that I was in when I was their
age, but I decided that may have been the only grade of my primary and secondary
education in which I didn’t have to appear on a stage. Midway through
the second grade, my family moved from Iuka to Starkville, and I don’t
remember being in a production at either place.
In my estimation, Lamarcus was the show-stealer. He had a vocal solo, and
he played "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" on the keyboard.
After the program, parents were told to go to their child’s classroom
to pickup their children. Felicia wanted us to see her classroom, which required
our walking down a hallway, jam-packed with adults and kids, to the other
end of the building. Trust me, getting there is NOT half the fun.
I can’t say that elementary classrooms have changed that much over the
years. Oh, the furniture looks different, and the slate blackboards have
long gone the way of desks with inkwells, but bulletin boards are still around,
and the teacher’s desk is still recognizable as a teacher’s desk.
The obligatory alphabet is still prominently displayed, in this instance,
above the main marker board, and artwork abounds.
From my childhood, I don’t recall posters containing rules of conduct
or lists of expectations. We surely didn’t have a framed picture of
Elvis. However, it was obvious that all the elements surrounding me were
there to aid or challenge the learner. Felicia’s second-graders are
fortunate in that they have yet to loose their enthusiasm for knowledge in
a classroom setting and in having a teacher who is equally enthusiastic about
teaching them.
As far as I could tell, Elvis wasn’t among the members of the audience,
though I wondered if he might have once sat in the same seat I chose for
the evening. For some strange reason, ever since that night, I’ve had
a twitch in my leg and a strong urge to belt a few bars of "Blue Christmas."
Tuscaloosa Trip
Pennington Oaks II
fter locating the keys to the Lincoln Navigator (they were in the ignition),
Richard and Jane carried us to lunch. Based on plans Richard and I had made
earlier in the week, we expected to dine at the Cypress Inn overlooking the
Black Warrior River, but upon arrival we found it was closed for Thanksgiving
and the weekend.
"How does barbecue sound to y’all?" Richard asked. "We can go to Dreamland
Bar-B-Q. Jane and I eat there a lot. Or, if you want seafood, there’s
a new place called Steamers and the food is really good there."
"Barbecue’s what I wanted, anyway," Barbara revealed.
I agreed, but after seeing the crowd of folks at Steamers, I figured it might
be the better of our choices. Someone once told me that when picking an eatery
in an unfamiliar area, one should always select the restaurant with the most
cars on the parking lot. But, our crowd seemed hungrier for barbecue than
for seafood.
According to Richard, the original Dreamland Bar-B-Q was in a section of
town not noted as the high rent district, and the overall ambience there
would be less aesthetically appealing to our group. The Dreamland where we
dined was nice enough and, having opened in June of 2005, was relatively
new. We had hardly stepped inside when the aroma of smoke and barbecued pork
overwhelmed our senses. I actually believed, that given a half-hour or so,
the smells would have been sufficient to fool my stomach into thinking I’d
already eaten, but it didn’t take a half-hour for us to be served.
Dreamland Bar-B-Q doesn’t cater to everyone’s whimsical palate.
It’s a barbecue place where barbecued meat is the principal offering.
One can buy a burger, but not much else is available except barbecue, beans,
slaw, and fries.
Some restaurants
have signature appetizers such a fried mushrooms, blooming onions, fried
jalapenos, or cheese sticks. Dreamland offers a unique appetizer. They serve
slices of Sunbeam white bread with their homemade barbecue sauce. It sounds
pretty awful, it looks pretty awful, but it tastes pretty good. The tangy
sauce had enough heat in it to keep my taste buds asking for more.
Jane ordered a slab of pork ribs, but the rest of us ordered a barbecue pork
sandwich and a side or two of fries, beans, and slaw. The portions of beans
and slaw were about normal, but the sandwiches and fries were quite large.
Had I known how large they were, I believe Barbara and I could have split
a sandwich and an order of fries and still have had plenty to eat.
Richard and Jane told us, as did the waiter, not to order a barbecue sandwich
with sauce on it, but to ask for "sauce on the side." They said it was too
messy. I chose the messy route, anyway. For the past decade or so, I've had
a problem with my esophagus that sometimes restricts the flow of food from
my mouth to my stomach. So, to avoid surgery or the horrific procedure used
to stretch ones esophagus, I've simply learned to eat more slowly and chew
my food more thoroughly, which, due to my having less teeth than I once had,
is more of a chore than a savory means to extract the last bit of goodness
from each bite. Thus, I seldom eat a barbecue sandwich by lifting it to my
mouth as I would a regular sandwich. Instead, I use a fork to eat it after
the fashion of eating an open-faced sandwich.
When our barbecues were served, it was apparent why I was cautioned about
ordering a sauce-on barbecue. The buns were huge and the meat portion would
fill an average cereal bowl. In fact, it looked as though the barbecue had
been packed into some sort of bowl and dumped upside down on the bottom of
the bun. However it was prepared, the portion must have weighed a pound.
And, as expected the sandwich was delicious. I would have preferred pulled
pork as opposed to chopped pork and I would have preferred a more finely
chopped portion, but I trust Dreamland Bar-B-Q has a good thing going and
nobody's going to mess with their proven methods.
Upon leaving the restaurant, Richard drove us to see the campus of the University
of Alabama. He's a lifelong Alabama football fan. Naturally, he wanted to
show us Bryant-Denny Stadium and the entrance that's lined with bronze statues
of notable coaches and gridiron greats from Alabama's storied past. The stadium
was huge, with a capacity second only to Tennessee's in the SEC, but I didn't
see any large parking lots nearby capable of hosting thousands of vehicles.
"Where do folks park on game days?" I asked.
"They run busses from offsite parking lots at several different locations,
so a lot of people ride the busses," he explained. "Plus, all these houses
and businesses around here sell parking spaces. For years, I leased a parking
space right there, next to that business."
Upon leaving the campus, I asked, "Are we going to see the Niña?"
Well, it's been a few weeks back, and I might have phrased my question as
a statement, and stated, "Now, let's go see the Niña."
Richard had told us about the full-sized replica of Columbus's sailing ship
being anchored for tourist to visit, shortly after our arrival in Tuscaloosa
and had offered to take us to see it if we were interested. Of course, we
were interested; excited might be a better word. I was surprised at how small
the ship appeared by today's standards. That sailors might once have boarded
a similar vessel to cross the Atlantic in search of a new passage to India,
was cause for me to ponder the courage and determination of those who lived
the "Age of Exploration."
The Niña, her sails furled, was moored adjacent to a park that is
a portion of the expansive Tuscaloosa Riverwalk that stretches for miles
along the Black Warrior River. We parked nearby and walked downhill to gain
a better view of the ship. We could have signed up for a tour but didn’t,
choosing instead to make several pictures from a comfortable distance.
After enjoying the sites around Tuscaloosa, we returned to Pennington Oaks,
where our families visited and shared stories that had long lain dormant,
as we had not visited each other in several years. We listened as Jane described
the family circumstances that prompted the sale of her share of the family
property to her older brother and how a patriarchal element of ownership
had permeated both sides of her family for several generations. While she
and Richard would have loved living out their days at Pennington Oaks in
Tuscaloosa, they now look forward to one more move.
"What do you think of us, at our age, taking out a thirty year mortgage?"
Richard asked, rhetorically. "We'll have enough to live on comfortably without
paying a big monthly mortgage. We'd love to buy one of the antebellum homes
in Eufaula, but the ones for sale start at $300,000. Instead, the home we're
buying is near downtown, so we'll be within walking distance of the shops,
and there are big beautiful homes on both sides of the street that we'll
be able to walk by and admire."
Richard informed me that my fishing buddies and I should come to Eufaula
this spring for the great bass fishing in the area. He and Jane are actually
looking forward to living in Eufaula, as they will be closer to all of their
children. Richard has no plans to seek employment in Eufaula, but we told
him if a position with the Chamber of Commerce opens, he should apply. He's
that enthusiastic about Eufaula.
We had spent a great afternoon visiting with the Penningtons, but darkness
was quickly falling, so we said our goodbyes and spoke of a time, perhaps
next year, when we'd get together again.
Bodock Beau The
Purina Diet
For those considering dieting, the following sent our way by Ed Dandridge
is not our recommendation:
The Purina Diet
I was in Wal-Mart buying a large bag of Purina for my dog, Lola, and was
in line to check out. A woman behind me asked if I had a dog......Duh! I
was feeling a bit crabby so on impulse, I told her NO. I was starting The
Purina Diet again, although I probably shouldn't because I'd ended up in
the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in
an intensive care unit with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IV's
in both arms. Her eyes about bugged out of her head.
I went on and on with the bogus diet story and she was totally buying it.
I told her that it was an easy, inexpensive diet and that the way it works
is to load your pockets or purse with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or
two every time you feel hungry. The package said the food is nutritionally
complete so I was going to try it again.
I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now
enthralled with my story, particularly a tall guy behind her. Horrified,
she asked if something in the dog food had poisoned me and was that why I
ended up in the hospital. I said no...I'd been sitting in the middle of the
street licking myself when a car hit me. I thought the tall guy was going
to need to be carried out of the door.
Thank You Notes
One Christmas, Mom decreed that she was no longer going to remind her children
of their thank-you note duties. As a result, their grandmother never received
acknowledgments of the generous checks she had given. The next year things
were different, however.
"The children came over in person to thank me," the grandparent told a friend
triumphantly.
"How wonderful!" the friend exclaimed. "What do you think caused the change
in behavior?"
"Oh, that's easy," the grandmother replied. "This year I didn't sign the
checks."
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