RRN Online Volume 304

April 20 '02

Volume 304

Fish Dinner Jackson's Visit

It so happened that I decided Fish Plate to stay in Pontotoc on Tuesday to do the work I might otherwise have done at my office in Indianola. I have my calls transferred to my cell phone, but that's both a blessing and a curse. I was in Indianola on Monday and only received two phone calls all day. Tuesday the phone rang "off my hip" in a manner of speaking of cell phones versus "off the wall" for a land-based phone.

When the phone rang at ten after five, I was in the living room, taking a well-deserved break from a long day's work. Barbara Anne had just dozed off on the love seat, and I sat in the accessory chair with my legs propped up on the ottoman. I try not to answer the phone unless I'm expecting a call without checking the caller ID. Unfortunately, our only phone that displays caller ID was in the kitchen. I thought Barbara might hear the living room phone ringing, so I prepared to toss the receiver to her. She didn't rouse from her slumber, so I reluctantly answered the phone.

"Wayne Carter," a voice quizzed. "What are your plans for this evening?"

Even before he said, "This is Bob Jackson," I recognized his voice.

Bob and I worked together for Sunflower Food Store in Tupelo in 1963. He was the market manager and I was his second man. Basically that means he did the managing of the meat department, and I did all the work. Actually, Bob did his fair share of cutting meat, because it took three of us to cut enough meat to keep the case filled in the days of "swinging beef."

"Well, Barbara has to go to a meeting at the church tonight, and I don't have any plans," I replied. "What's going on?

"Mitzi and I are going over to Malone's Fish House for dinner. We'll meet there at six o'clock, and we want y'all to come too. All of my family will be there," Bob continued.

I calculated the length of time I'd need to get ready and drive the twelve miles to the fish house and replied, "I can make it, but I don't know about Barbara. I'll check with her, but either way, I'll see if I can't make it."

Bob explained that he and Mitzi would be flying back to Gig Harbor, WA, the next morning. I knew it might be the last time I'd get to visit with them for quite some time if I couldn't work it out to meet them at the fish house.

After a number of years in the grocery business, Bob began working for Frito-Lay and retired a couple of years ago. To my amazement, he and his wife left Mississippi to follow their son and his family to Minnesota. I'm more familiar with kids moving back in with their parents than I am with the reverse. I am also a little envious of an extended family that can all live under the same roof.

By the time I hung up the phone Barbara was awake enough to think how she might rearrange her schedule to allow her to go with me to the fish house.

"I can make up the GROW team meeting next month," she reasoned. "So, I'll go with you."

We hastened to get ready then stopped by Sarah Sue's on the way and talked her into going along with us.

I was a little surprised when we arrived at the fish house earlier than the folks who had invited us, but I had no trouble finding the party room that had been reserved in the Jackson's name. Bob was a groomsman in my wedding of almost thirty-five years ago and Sarah Sue was a bridesmaid. I took a couple of our wedding pictures along, figuring everyone would enjoy seeing how thin we once were. Bob's three brothers, Bill, Ken, and Joe, were present and they had no trouble spotting Bob but weren't sure which bridesmaid was Sarah.

In all about fifteen members of Bob's family and five of his friends were on hand for the festivities culminating a week of activity in Mississippi for Bob, Mitzi and their children and grandchildren consisting of Rob and his wife Renee and their two children, Robert, Mary.

Laughter filled the room more often than silence, as most everyone forsook dietary concern and gorged themselves on fried catfish, hushpuppies, coleslaw, and potatoes. Sounding as Southern as ever, Mitzi asked me if I could tell she had picked up an accent.

"No, I can't!" I laughed.

"I get so tired of people saying we talk funny, and I told Bob, 'When we get back to friends and family in Mississippi, I'm going to tell them that they sound funny.'" She related. "I heard so many people ask, 'You're not from around here are you,' that I've got a pat answer. I just ask them, 'What gave it away?'"

Mitzi's brother-in-law, Joe Jackson had a suggestion, "Tell them you're glad you're not. That'll fix 'em."

My wife, my sister, and I enjoyed the evening visiting with good friends we seldom see. I asked Mitzi about getting her picture holding a copy of Ridge Rider News and she said she would get one made and sent to me. Somehow, I have the feeling it'll have the grandkids in it, too.

Organ Music Sheila Hess Presents

If the current trend of music in our nation's churches continues, the pipe organ is destined to become a relic, a curiosity, a nostalgic artifact that once held a commanding presence as an essential to the music ministry of a church. It would be a shame for pipe organs to suffer such a fate, but it most certainly will happen unless we come to our senses and stem the tide of non-traditional and contemporary music in the church.

There's a generation of young ministers who believe the glorious refrains of the pipe organ serve no purpose in modern worship, and if the masses are to be reached by the church, the organ must give way to guitars, drums, tambourines, and the like. I believe their thinking is flawed and wouldn't mind incorporating a few bits and pieces of non-traditional music into a regular worship service, but I fear it will be as ill-fated as giving land to the Palestinians whose ultimate goal is to occupy all the land of Israel.

I won't give up the fight to retain organ music in my church as long as I have strength to resist, but the organ's destiny lies not in my hands alone. Thus, I figure to enjoy the organ as long as it's available and avail my soul to be enriched by events such as that which Barbara and I attended in Vicksburg last weekend.

Jim Hess is Minister of Music at FBC, Vicksburg and his wife Sheila is organist. A few weeks ago, Jim told me Sheila was having a recital in April. That was on or about the time Sheila sent an email to me asking for my help. It was a joke, because she knows I'm no pianist, let alone an organist. Knowing she would be out for a few Sunday's, Sheila had worried over finding someone to substitute for her. Apparently she told her daughter Courtney Loving who dreamed up a solution, literally.

Courtney's husband Alan tells that one night while sleeping Courtney sat straight up in bed and clearly stated, "Wayne Carter will play for you!" then lay back down.

I imagine all the Hess family members had a good laugh at that one. I surely did. Sheila is a good friend and I'd do most anything I could to help her, but playing the organ is not something I'm qualified to do.

When an invitation to the recital arrived in our Pontotoc mail, Barbara was amused when she opened the envelope, thinking the invitation might be a continuation of the joke asking me to play. It wasn't a joke and we made plans to attend Sheila's recital.

A few years ago, Sheila, who is an excellent pianist, decided to learn more about the organ and enrolled in a course of study for that purpose. Her professor, Billy Trotter, has since retired from teaching music at Mississippi College, but I believe Sheila remains one of his organ students.

The organ at FBC, Vicksburg had recently been renovated, so the program was really a celebration of the finished work as well as the opportunity for Sheila to demonstrate her skills. The console of the organ was upgraded from an electro-pneumatic system to one that is solid state. Jim explained the difficulty in finding replacement parts for the organ that was first installed in 1960.

The new organ console performed flawlessly as did the organist. Sheila chose a variety of musical selections, twelve in all, from classical composers including Brahms, Schumann, and Bach, as well as arrangements of familiar hymns such as Praise to the Lord, The Almighty, Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, and How Firm a Foundation. The chosen selections made for a well-rounded presentation of the various components of the organ including bone-rattling bass, chimes, and bells.

I thought the Bach piece, Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541, was great, and I enjoyed the hymn arrangements because I knew the melodies. Jim told me afterwards that Sheila played Litanies by Jehan Alain as well as it could be played.

Both my wife and Lee Gordon (Minister of Music, FBC, West Point, MS) were drawn particularly to Prelude on "Golden Bells" arranged by Billy Trotter. Mr. Trotter had arranged the tune and played it at the dedication of the Moller Organ in Provine Chapel at Mississippi College in 1970.

One does not need to be a patron of the arts to enjoy good music, though such persons have an advantage over folks like me in that they are exposed to more good music by their patronage. I look forward to hearing Sheila play again and if I get enough advance notice, I'll inform readers of the date.

Mississippi Pride Little Known Facts About Mississippi

We Mississippians usually find ourselves on the butt end of a joke by folks in other states who know little about us, so we find solace in exposing their ignorance. Our Southern struggle pertaining to the Civil Rights movement garnered more attention than was truly deserved, as the liberal media sought to assign societal ills to others while paying no attention to civil wrongs committed in Northern states. Mississippi became the nation's whipping boy and has labored under the stigma of such for all of my adulthood.

As a lifelong resident of Mississippi, I'm grateful for the "greatness" of Mississippi and her citizenry. Every once in a while it behooves us to reflect upon that which has contributed to our pride. My cousin, Bing Crausby, sent an email to me that contained a number of little known facts concerning Mississippi. These are but a few of our accomplishments of note.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast, from Biloxi to Henderson Point, is the largest and longest manmade beach.

The world's only cactus plantation is located in Edwards with more than 3,000 varieties of cacti.

Mississippi has more tree farms than any other state.

Mississippi has more churches per capita than any other state.

Norris Bookbinding Company in Greenwood is the largest Bible rebinding plant in the nation.

Dr. Tichenor created Dr. Tichenor's Antiseptic in Liberty, MS.

Four cities in the world have been sanctioned by the International Theatre/Dance Committee to host the International Ballet Competition: Moscow, Russia; Varna, Bulgaria; Helsinki, Finland; and Jackson, Mississippi.

David Harrison of Columbus owns the patent on the "Soft Toilet Seat." Over one million are sold every year.

The first football player on a Wheaties box was Walter Payton of Columbia.

The Teddy Bear's name originated after a bear hunt in Mississippi with President Theodore Roosevelt. President Roosevelt refused to shoot an exhausted and possibly lame bear. News of this spread across the country, and a New York merchant capitalized on this publicity by creating a stuffed bear called Teddy's Bear."

H. T. Merrill of Iuka flew the first round-trip transoceanic flight in 1928. The flight to England was made in a plane loaded with Ping-Pong balls.

The birthplace of Elvis in Tupelo includes a museum, a chapel, and the two-room house in which Elvis was born.

The world's oldest Holiday Inn is in Clarksdale.

Blazon-Flexible Flyer, Inc., in West Point, manufactures the best snow sled in the country, the Flexible Flyer.

Emil and Kelly Mitchell, the King and Queen of Gypsies are buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Meridian. Since 1915, people from all over the world have left gifts of fruit and juice at their gravesites.

Note: The above are taken from a long list of little known facts about Mississippi. More will be published in the coming weeks.

Bodock Beau Bless Your Heart

A few years back George Rutledge contributed an article on the phrase "Bless his (or her) heart." This time Dena Kimbrell found a similar one that tickled our fancy all over again.

Someone once noted that a Southerner can get away with the most awful kind of insult just as long as it's prefaced with the words, "Bless her heart" or "Bless his heart." As in, "Bless his heart, if they put his brain on the head of a pin, it'd roll around like a BB on a six lane highway."

Or, "Bless her heart, she's so bucktoothed, she could eat an apple through a picket fence."

There are also the sneakier ones that I remember from tongue clucking types of my childhood: "You know, it's amazing that even though she had that baby 7 months after they got married, bless her heart, it weighed 10 pounds!"

As long as the heart is sufficiently blessed, the insult can't be all that bad, at least that's what my Great Aunt Tiny (bless her heart, she was anything but tiny) used to say.

I was thinking about this the other day when a friend was telling me about her new Northern friend who was upset because her toddler is just beginning to talk and he has a Southern accent. My friend, who is very kind and, bless her heart, cannot do a thing about those thighs of hers, was justifiably miffed about this. After all, this woman had CHOSEN to move to the South a couple of years ago. "Can you believe it?" said my friend. "A child of mine is going to be taaaallllkkin liiiike thiiiissss."

Now, don't get me wrong. Some of my dearest friends are from the North, bless their hearts. I welcome their perspective, their friendships and their recipes for authentic Northern Italian food. I've even gotten past their endless complaints that you can't find good bagels down here.

The ones who really gore my ox are the native Southerners who have begun to act almost embarrassed about their speech. It's as if they want to bury it in the "Hee Haw" cornfield. We've already lost too much.

I was raised to swanee, not swear, but you hardly ever hear anyone say that anymore, I swanee you don't. And I've caught myself thinking twice before saying something is "right much"; "right close" or "right good" because non-natives think this is right funny indeed.

I have a friend from Bawston who thinks it's hilarious when I say I've got to "carry" my daughter to the doctor or "cut off" the light. She also gets a giggle every time I am fixin to do somethin'.

My personal favorite was uttered by my aunt who said, "Bless her heart, she can't help being ugly, but she could've stayed home."

To those of you who're still a little embarrassed by your Southernness: take two tent revivals and a dose of redeye gravy and call me in the morning. Bless your heart!

And to those of you who are still having a hard time understanding all this Southern stuff, bless your hearts, I hear they are fixin' to have classes on Southernese as a second language!

Bye Bye Y'all! Bless your hearts.

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