MT. HERMON WEB-TV

In my leisure time back in the late 50’s, I loved to fish and spend Saturdays floating the Bogue Chitto River with my former husband and his brother-in-law, fly fishing in eddies of the river near the forested swamp around Franklinton, Louisiana. A neophyte at fly fishing, I was fortunate enough to catch many bluegill and sunfish in this wonderful river with its many gravel and sand bars, but my major job, when not fishing, was to watch for logs, which we very often ran over since I was distracted by the other fishermen’s catches.

The Bogue Chitto River arises around Brookhaven, Mississippi and flows southward to Louisiana, through Washington Parish and into the west Pearl River Canal at Bogalusa, Louisiana. Our fishing party would launch a green aluminum “joe boat” in the river near Franklinton and fish the waters all the way to the site of the old “Tavern,” which had a landing near Mt. Hermon, Louisiana. At the time of our fishing expeditions, Mt. Hermon, Louisiana, which is still unincorporated, was a small rural community that probably had half its present population of 2,600.

Last week, I was surprised to get an e-mail from David Miller, the enterprising owner of Mt. Hermon Web- TV based in this small community where we emerged from our all-day fishing trips. David wanted permission to embed my blogs in his website. I searched online and discovered that the site not only covers news in Washington parish, it includes state and national news, international news, TV picks of westerns, cartoons, documentaries; farm programs, daily crosswords, “Chef’s Kitchen,” and now has three blog contributors.

I asked David if he’d tell me more about the establishment of this website based in the hill country of southeast Louisiana near the Bogue Chitto River and to discuss his plans for the site’s future. He agreed to the following interview.

Moore: First, I think that readers would like to understand the concept of Web-TV. Would you explain this concept?

Miller: Web-TV or Internet TV or Online TV (although distinctions can be made between the terms) is simply the distribution of television content via the Internet.

Moore: Did you develop an early interest in communications? And did you major in this subject at a university?

Miller: No, I developed an early interest in business thanks to Mrs. Mary Margaret Burris, who taught at Franklinton High School, and I went on to major in Business Administration at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana.

Moore: What is your main focus or mission for this site?

Miller: I started with a mission to provide more information about local government. When the parish government began considering land-use ordinances, I and many others felt we should have been better informed. And then I realized it was my fault – I hadn’t kept up with what was going on. So, my first focus was to video (and make available on my site) the meetings of parish government, town of Franklinton council, city of Bogalusa council, and parish school board. Once started, I added other content: farm programs, military programs, a news page (News Right Now), links, and much more. We invite your readers to check us out at www.mthermonwebtv.com and send us comments through the contact page.

Moore: Where do you house the equipment for this venture?

Miller: The Mt. Hermon Web-TV studio is located in downtown Mt. Hermon in what was Armett Wascom’s Grocery when I was a teenager. However, the building has over the years been a milk distribution facility (in the 1940’s and early 1950’s), a used clothing store, and a beauty shop.

Moore: How do you get your ads?

Miller: I am terrible at selling ads and need help with this part of the venture. I have made personal contact with some businesses and others have called, wanting to advertise. If someone is running for public office and stops by – he or she doesn’t get away without buying an ad!

Moore: Why did you choose to base your operations at Mt. Hermon?

Miller: We live only a mile from the studio. Plus, while broadband Internet service is not widely available in rural Washington Parish, the studio is located in an area where high speed Internet service is provided by AT&T.

Moore: Were you born at Mt. Hermon and schooled there prior to college? Were your parents interested in the field of communications?

Miller: Yes, I am a native of Mt. Hermon and attended Mt. Hermon School until age 13. Our family moved to Franklinton in 1963, and I graduated from FHS in 1968. My parents, Carruth and Junie Miller, had a dairy at Mt. Hermon but after moving to Franklinton, Dad worked for the Town of Franklinton Police Department where he served as Chief for over 20 years. I returned to Mt. Hermon in 1986 and bought the old home place, including the house where I now live and where my Dad was born in 1921.

Moore: Is this web site your sole business? And what did you do prior to establishing the site?

Miller: Yes, this is my only business. I am devoting most of my time (too much of my time) to Mt. Hermon Web-TV. I retired a few years ago from the State of Louisiana, Probation and Parole Division where I served as Director of the Training Academy.

Moore: As a person who obviously has an interest in the growth of Washington Parish, what do you think the parish has to offer retirees and tourists?

Miller: I do have an interest in the growth of Washington Parish in many ways. For instance, I want residents to have job opportunities, improved access to broadband Internet service, and the infrastructure to be maintained. But I resist some change. I find that the first thing some people want to do when they move to Washington Parish is change it! You know, it’s pretty good like it is. Retirees will find Washington Parish to be well-governed, friendly, blessed with beautiful natural resources, and to have many leisure activities. Tourists are welcomed. The Cassidy Park Museums in Bogalusa, The Varnado Museum in Franklinton, and the Washington Parish Tourism Commission are great places for tourists to start as they check out Washington Parish.

Moore: Do you ever fish the Bogue Chitto waters as I mentioned doing in the introduction to this blog? If not, what are your hobbies?

Miller: No, I’m more of a pond fisherman. I did often “tube” down the Bogue Chitto when I was younger. I have a son and granddaughter who kayak and camp overnight on the river. They love it! My most enjoyable pursuit now is being grandpa to Judith, Gabe, Johnny Lynn, and Piper.

Moore: Any plans for other communications enterprises?

Miller: No.

Moore: What do you think of the idea that modern communications and technology are replacing books, concerts, museum visits, and other cultural pursuits that have entertained us in the past?

Miller: It would be a shame if we allowed those cultural pursuits to be replaced. The Internet can be used instead to enhance the things we value. For instance, the Cassidy Park Museums (http://www.museumsofcassidypark.com/about.html ) offer numerous programs, such as “My Story” which features the personal stories from people of our own area to give unique perspective and very local flavor to the times in which they lived. However, those who cannot attend (living out of state/country, for instance) can view the video on our Internet TV site, thereby enhancing the program. Similarly, we should not let attending church services be replaced by watching a church service on television. Watching on television (or on the Internet) is a “next best” alternative to attending a concert, museum or church service in person.

Moore: Thanks for including my blogs on your site and may your “tribe” increase. Speaking of tribes, tell me about your family.

Miller: One of my many blessings is Jo Ann, my wife and partner. Together, we have a blended family of six children and four grandchildren. Thank you very much for allowing me to embed your blog on my site. I enjoy reading it, and I know our readers will also.

MAKING THE MOST OF BLANK SPACES…

Many people who’re classified as “hobbyists” are authentic artists and artisans who care more about their art or craft than they do about high-powered marketing. Marilyn (“Toni”) Blackwell is one of those gifted artists. While in Florida last week, I visited with her several times and toured what she calls her “comfort zone” in Babson Park, Florida. Toni was featured on one of my blogs a few years ago, but after touring her home the other day, I decided that her skills weren’t confined to decorating the note cards, glassware, vases, candles, and terra cotta pots that I had written about -- she even has a penchant for organizing personal objects, like jewelry, clothing, and scarves, in an artistic way.

Some of the photographs here show how she uses her organizational talents to arrange closets, shelves, and racks that reflect her appreciation for beautiful objects.

Toni also uses her decorative art skills by dressing in unique clothing and wearing bright jewelry that she has inherited, collected, or designed. She creates many of her earrings and bracelets, sometimes decorating dress sandals, and wears all of them with more flair than less artistic people would exhibit.


Toni is a native “Yankee” from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and a transplanted Floridian who graduated from Webber International University in Babson Park and worked as an administrative assistant to executives at Florida Power Corporation (now Progress Energy) for thirty five years before retiring in 2002.

After taking an art course that taught her “one stroke painting,” Toni began working on terra cotta pottery; however, she now uses her technique on most any blank surfaces she finds while scouring for objects at flea markets and crafts stores – glasses, pitchers, trays...she even eyes blank walls that might be made brighter with murals and has painted several in Florida homes. Her primary subjects are flowers and plants, which she paints using acrylics, but she has become interested in a technique similar to watercolor technique that utilizes acrylics on larger canvasses than her glassware and pottery.


We enjoyed the tour that shows Toni’s decorative talents and brought home a pitcher to add to our collection of a flower pot, a breakfast tray, and a Florida palm painted on a wood surface that we have in our Sewanee home. We’ve used the breakfast tray to transfer food from the kitchen down to the dining area for several years, and the colors haven’t diminished from cleaning. The vivid red, yellow, and purple flowers are a better wake-up call than a cup of Louisiana coffee!


This blog’s photographs are included because they may be helpful as a “how-to” visual for people who have trouble making the most of space in their closets and on shelves. One of the closets occupies the space that was a former bedroom, but I didn’t photograph the closet, so readers can’t see how many changes of clothing Toni owns!


Toni attributes her love of beautiful things and her sense of color to her paternal grandmother, “Gacky” Thomas, who nurtured Toni’s (her first grandchild) interest in aesthetics, flamboyant clothing and jewelry.

BANNER BOOK COVERS

Most grandparents are inordinately proud of their grandchildren, and I’m no exception. A few days ago when I posted a blog about Margaret Simon’s exceptional new YA book, Blessen, I felt a twinge of pride because my grandson, Martin Romero, designed the cover for Border Press, the independent press that publishes some of my books.

Martin has a degree in Landscape Architecture from Louisiana State University School of Design in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and has always had a penchant for art and design, beginning at the age of nine when he drew a perfect picture of his shoe while riding in a van to California with his Godmother Vickie and me. Later, he scheduled art classes at the Episcopal School of Acadiana, but decided against enrolling in Art at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas because he knew he had to earn a living! He pleased all of his family by completing the five-year curriculum in Landscape Design at LSU, sans debt, as he had a scholarship and worked eight-hour shifts, at times, in the evenings and nights while he attended college.

While at LSU, Martin illustrated a story I had written for him about a red, double-decker British bus marooned in a field near Opelousas, Louisiana.  The book was entitled The Cajun Express, and following graduation, he began designing book covers for Border Press in his leisure time, after working all day as a landscape architect in Madisonville, Louisiana. His efforts, from the beginning, have shown his eye for color and design, and the back covers of the books he designs are as interesting as the front ones, including small details rendered from front cover motifs.

Martin’s biggest job right now is as father of a little dynamo, one-year old Alexander Charles, whose greatest accomplishment is that of throwing his arms into the air to signify a touchdown for LSU, a video of which is on Facebook. Martin’s wife, Kristin, who has a job in advertising, also does consummate design work, so the family has a penchant for artistic renderings.

Here are a few of the book covers Martin has executed during the past ten years. Vickie Sullivan usually suggests components to be included in the design, and many of them are copies of wonderful paintings done by my brother, Paul, so the operation is a “family operation.” I just thought it was time to recognize those who do the “faces” of my books, as well as other titles in the Border Press collection. Merci and another c'est magnifique for Border Press’s eye-catching covers!

All of Martin's covers can be seen at the Border Press website. Border Press offers fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoirs, essays, young adult and children's books. 

PART II. GARDENING HIGH UP



Susan's "plant-mobile"

 This is the second part of a blog featuring Susan Elliott, artist and designer for Pinyon Publishing in Montrose, Colorado, who did the cover art for Chant of Death, a mystery written by me and Isabel Anders. Susan is a consummate gardener and during this season of Spring planting, Susan has been preparing the ground for a new garden. She agreed to an interview with me about her gardening on the Uncompaghre Plateau in the southern Rocky Mountains where she lives with Gary Entsminger, editor and publisher of Pinyon Publishing. Readers with real green thumbs will enjoy her comments in this second blog about the art of gardening.
Moore: Although my grandfather and my father had gardens, and my father planted a patch of mint in every place we ever lived, I have a black thumb and have had numerous failures with my “crops.” Do you have many failures?

Elliott: Yes, I have many failures! Each time we work through a “problem,” that’s one new skill we have for a better season next year: spring deer, bunnies, over-fertilizing container plants, salts, evaporation, squirrels, too much sun, too little sun, fungal diseases, carelessness, wind … It’s all a learning experience.

Moore: Does your garden attract many birds? The deer here on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee destroyed my first season of home-grown tomatoes, and I’ve refused to replant. Do animals eat your produce?

Elliott: We have a lot of birds here (about 75 species come through each year), but none have bothered our garden. Some are helpful (like bluebirds, which eat insects). The goldfinches enjoy our sunflowers. Hummingbirds visit the tomato flowers (though I’m not sure if they’re effectively pollinating). Turkeys come through in the spring before plants are out of the ground. In the summer many birds move to higher elevations. Deer also move to higher elevations, or else they would really be hard to control. All we need for bunnies is a two and a half foot high chicken wire fence. No digging under fences around here because the ground is too hard and rocky! We share occasional tomatoes with chipmunks; they’re too hard to control (and they’re awfully cute). It’s too dry for slugs or snails, but I demolish a lot of tomato hornworms and the like (so much for being an entirely ethical vegetarian…); ying-yang.

Moore: I know that one summer Gary wrote to me about preparing sauces and other products from tomatoes. What foods or preserves do you can or bottle?

Elliott: All varieties of tomato sauces/salsas, though my favorite it just plain cooked tomatoes (like Gary’s mom used to make). Also peaches (big chunks, in a light sugar-water solution). The valley farms have GREAT roasted chilies (heavenly!!), which we freeze and can. Pickles and ketchup are favorites, too. When we make it to Virginia in the fall, Gary’s family hauls out the 30-gallon copper kettle and cooks down about 10 bushels of apples into apple butter. Gary is the king of canning. His mom canned her whole life, and Gary learned from her. Gary is very good about making sure sauces are good and boiling, and he makes sure the jars boil for extra time to kill any potential bad guys. We also bottle homebrew Imperial Pale Ales, but that’s a different story.

Moore: Do you have an herb garden?



Spring planting

Elliott: In my dream world, I have a garden/farm devoted entirely to basil (perhaps basil and lavender). If I had a son, I think I’d name him Basil. Fresh basil is intoxicating. They don’t call holy basil holy for nothing. But alas, we’re a bit too cool (especially the summer nights) for basil (or lavender) to flourish. We had one basil plant going all winter indoors this year. Instead of the prolific sweet basil varieties, we grow smaller-leaved Thai and Greek varieties. They do better when we keep them in containers next to the cabin with a window propped up next to them to insulate them at night. We treasure every sprig we harvest. I snip it and take it over to Gary for a “smell” before I add it to a dish. We savor it. And yes, we grow parsley, rosemary, chives, mint, and oregano; they all do fine. The mint overwinters each year; it loves its spot under the eaves, picking up lots of rain and snowmelt.
Moore: Gardening is known to be an activity that not only nourishes the body, in terms of exercise, and in produce received, it nurtures the soul. Would you speak to this idea?

Elliott: I find gardening extremely therapeutic. When gardening, I forget my (imaginary) troubles and feel like a kid. Yes, it’s a good work-out (especially hoeing hard dirt and hauling water in five-gallon buckets). And yes, the produce is yummy. But I’d do it all even if I didn’t get anything “tangible” from it. Even container gardening indoors, we’re connecting with earth. I’d even venture to say hydroponic gardening would connect you with something totally intangible, a life force—even if it’s the life force of garden “pests.” Just like reading connects us with a creative literary force, and that feels good. I think there’s something deep inside us that explodes into pure joy when we connect with that greater force, that connective tissue of animal and plant and mineral. Smelling freshly watered dirt will do it for me. I’m thankful. Gardening restores my connection and thankfulness. In a troubled world, it’s good to find life.

Photography courtesy of Gary Entsminger and Susan Elliott.




Susan's sunflower


Susan Elliott has a B.S. in Botany, a B.A. in French from Humboldt State University, and a Ph.D. in Biology from Dartmouth College. She has studied ecology, evolution, and conservation of plant-pollinator mutualisms. She has lived in Mariposa, California, southern France, Georgia, and New Hampshire. She moved to Colorado to do pollination research at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab in Crested Butte (the official Wildflower Capitol of Colorado), and is a gifted scientist and artist.

GARDENING HIGH UP…



Susan the gardener

 Today, I spent a quiet afternoon reading the poetry of Marge Piercy and discovered a poem entitled “Six underrated pleasures,” in which she extols the virtues of picking pole beans and ends with these lines: “Then comes the minor zest/of nipping the ends off with your nails/and snapping them in pieces,/their retorts like soft pistolry./Then eat the littlest raw.” Piercy is a master at creating sensuous poems which inspire appetite for food, and I began to hanker after a mess of pole beans. I immediately felt this pining to plant a vegetable garden.

A few minutes following this poetry reading and my subsequent desire for fresh pole beans, Gary Entsminger, editor of Pinyon Publishing, sent me photographs of Susan Elliott, his partner, preparing ground for a new garden. I know that Gary keeps Susan busy designing books, marketing, and creating paintings for them, but some time during the day or week, she devotes a few hours to playing musical instruments, hiking, cooking (whew) and gardening year round up there on the Uncompaghre Plateau in the southern Rocky Mountains.

The photographs piqued my interest in this small enterprise, so I fired off an e-mail, requesting that Susan submit to the second interview I’ve had with her during the past two years and to tell me about her plateau gardening at 7,000 feet. Susan has been engaged in designing and formatting an upcoming issue of the Pinyon Review, a new literary magazine Gary is putting together, as well as drawing and painting pictures of plants for Why Water Plants Don’t Drown, a book she is co-authoring with Dr. Victoria Sullivan, but she agreed to talk with me about her garden.

Moore: When do you begin planting your summer garden?

Harvest

Elliott: I work the ground as soon as the ground thaws, before it dries and hardens. In March, we plant cover crops and cool-weather crops (peas, rye grass, greens, radishes, onions…). Then in late May, we plant warm-weather crops (tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, squash, flowers…).

Moore: What about your winter garden?

Elliott: We grow winter greens in 5-gallon cloth pots. While working on Why Water Plants Don’t Drown with Victoria Sullivan, I started to think more about oxygen supply to roots. I mix potting soil with coconut husks for soil aeration. And the cloth pots also encourage aeration and root branching. It’s practically impossible to over-water cloth pots because surplus water will drip out the sides. Our south-facing windows get a lot of sun, but we supplement light supply with energy-efficient full-spectrum fluorescent bulbs.

Moore: I understand that you do elaborate soil preparation for your gardens. What is the soil like on the plateau and what do you add to it to get maximum production and nutritional value from the products?

Elliott: The soil up here can get very hard and fairly salty (though there’s local variation; our neighbors a couple of miles down the road have sandier soil…). There are very few deciduous trees or herbaceous plants to add organic matter to the soil. So we compost throughout the year, producing about 30 gallons of compost to add each spring. I’ve also tried “sheet mulching,” layering straw, alfalfa, compost, manure, and the like to build up a garden bed. We mulch with straw to reduce water loss in the summer and to protect perennials from the winter cold. We fertilize only very lightly with organic “Age Old” brand liquid fertilizer. We don’t have huge robust plants, but they do well enough for the environment they (and we) live in, and they seem happy enough.



July in the garden

 Moore: Are you a vegetarian? Why?

Elliott: I’m a vegetarian, for several reasons. Nutritionally, there are many great alternative ways to get proteins, and high meat consumption (particularly red meat) has been correlated with many health problems. Also, many studies show we need more vegetables in our diet. When we remove one (meat) dish from our plate, that creates more room for more vegetables. Environmentally, raising animals for consumption uses a lot of resources (water in particular, but also feed: corn, etc.). The conversion of resources through animals to our plate is less efficient than the conversion of resources through plants to our plate. So by not eating meat, I can help preserve a little of the precious clean water that’s becoming harder and harder to come by. Ethically, many animals raised for meat production are not treated very well. And of course, I love my vegetables…! Brian Wilson (creative force and lead singer in the Beach Boys) wrote a great song about eating your vegetables on his “Smile” album; the song is called “Vega-Tables.” Listen to it, and you’ll just want to sing and dance and laugh and eat vegetables. It will at least make you smile.

Moore: Do you attempt to supply all the vegetables for your table?

Elliott: Goodness, no. Maybe if we lived in a more productive climate with a longer growing season, but we eat a LOT of vegetables!! Fortunately, there are some very productive local farms in our area. Off the plateau, in the Uncompaghre Valley (and the Colorado “West Slope,” in general), there are many small farms that treat their plants well and avoid the over-use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. We U-pick tomatoes, and get boxes of chili peppers, cucumbers, and peaches for canning. We usually can close to a hundred quarts each fall. The local natural grocery carries organic Colorado produce when it’s available. When it’s not, they carry organic produce from California.

Moore: How much time do you allow for gardening during a day? Or week?



Layout of the garden

 Elliott: My work, play, music, gardening, yoga, running, hiking, etc. are all “as the spirit moves me.” Or as the plants need me… (Okay, or if the books “need” me, but all of this is relative…) Some days or weeks get more time devoted to one or the other. This morning, I was feeling tight, so it was yoga. Yesterday I knew there was a storm coming, so I worked on rain catchment repairs. A couple of weeks ago, the ground was in danger of drying out and getting hard, so I hoed away at it. I LOVE playing outside, “putsing” you might say. If it were up to me, I’d spend the better part of every day hoeing, digging, potting, watering, mulching, pruning, harvesting, weeding, exploring “my” plants… In reality, I probably get an average of 2-3 hours/day in the summer and 2-3 hours/week in the winter.

Moore: The design of your garden is intriguing. Is there a history associated with the design, and what are the advantages of the design?

Elliott: This year I laid out the garden plots so that many paths lead to the center (or so that many paths radiated out of the center, depending on how you look at it). It’s a convenient way to get around the garden. And it’s aesthetically pleasing to see something a more than just rectangles.

Moore: Do you plant primarily from seed or do you grow seedlings in a greenhouse and transplant them in the soil?

Elliott: In the early spring, I plant seeds (cover crops and cool-weather crops). I also plant native wildflower and grass seeds. In the late spring, I plant veggie and flower starts from our local nursery. The past few years, we traveled during the spring, so we didn’t have time to start plants indoors. However, a few years ago, I started many trays of plants when I was living on the East Coast. I then rigged my Subaru Impreza into a “plant mobile,” (double decker, including a grow light for the lower shelf) and drove the seedlings out to plant in Colorado. And this year, we’ll transplant the greens outside that we started indoors. But really, down in the valley, the local nurseries do a great job of getting plants going early (tomatoes, peppers, squash, and the like). We have a short growing season, so we take advantage of the local greenhouses getting a head start.

Moore: Is there sufficient rainfall to water the garden on the plateau? Or do you have a system of irrigation?

Elliott: We definitely have to supplement the rainfall water. In the summer, we can count on a good monsoon rain at least once a week, but that’s not enough for the garden. And in June, when the plants are very young, rains are infrequent. We have two hand-me-down 300-gallon tanks that are fed by rain gutters. The tanks (continually refilled by monsoons during the summer and snowmelt during the winter) store close to all the water we need for watering summer and winter gardens. We haul water manually (in 5-gallon buckets and gallon jugs); good for the upper body strength. We also prefer to water plants with rainwater because it is free of the salts that are prevalent in our soil and well-water. The salts tie up essential plant nutrients; so the plants are much happier with rainwater. And it’s collected passively; so we don’t have to use electricity to haul water 400 feet out of the ground.

Tune in to Part II of Gardening High Up on tomorrow's blog.

COWAN, TENNESSEE #2

After visiting the Smithsonian Exhibit, “The Way We Worked,” at Cowan, Tennessee Sunday afternoon, we walked up the main street of town, stopping often to peer in at closed shops. At the “Book Brake,” a bookstore owned by Tom McGee, two men beckoned for us to come in, and we entered the extremely long room that houses used and collectable books. Although we didn’t buy any books, we spent almost an hour talking with proprietor Tom McGee and Tom Wagner, editor of a publication “not affiliated with any group” entitled Cowan Comment. The latter is published six times a year, “one about every other month,” and provides interesting subjects to Cowan citizens and people who visit the community. Wagner’s mission is to encourage people to visit Cowan and to open businesses that will help revive life on Cumberland Street in Cowan. He asked me to contribute guest articles, so I plan to make more forays into the community to find fodder for blogs and informal essays.

McGee gave us free tickets to the Tennessee Antiquarian Book Fair which is held in the Monterrey Station in Cowan each year. Cowan claims the distinction of being the only small town in America with a national book fair. Most of the time these annual antiquarian book fairs are week-end events held in cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Denver, and San Francisco. Last year, over fifty booksellers from more than twelve states participated in the Antiquarian Book Fair in Cowan, and more than a thousand book collectors and readers from throughout the North American continent attended the event. Lectures included Children’s Literacy, the Civil War in Tennessee, and “Book Collecting 101.” Nicholas Basbanes related tales from his book, A Gentle Madness, which included stories about book collectors from antiquity to the 1980’s.

The Monterrey Station that houses the Book Fair was built in the 1920’s and is touted as being one of the largest indoor event complexes in southeastern Middle Tennessee. It was formerly used as a shoe factory and a yarn mill and contains 20,000 sq. ft. This year’s Fair will be held July 21 and 22, prior to the opening of the Sewanee Writer’s Conference here on the campus of the University of the South. Documents concerning the Civil War, the American Revolution, and both World Wars will be showcased, as well as many collectable and rare books, first editions of mysteries, science fiction, and literature. The event will offer a real book feast for bibliophiles! (A copy of the ticket for this event appears at the beginning of this blog.)

Cowan gained its fame as a railroad town, as mentioned in my last blog, but the first settlers were farmers in search of new land and a new life – Scots/Irish immigrants from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina who came to the area during the 1800’s. During the early 19th century, Cowan was a stage coach stop between Chattanooga and Nashville. Farmers sent their produce to markets by road to the Elk River at Estill Springs, Tennessee where it was shipped by river to ports on the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers, notably the port at New Orleans. The town was named for Dr. J.B. Cowan, a medical officer on General Forrest’s staff during the Civil War, who is reputed to have given a large area of land to the town. Cowan became a rail center prior to the Civil War when rails were laid from Nashville through the Cumberland Tunnel two and one miles east of the town.

Cowan residents have seen various industries come and go – the Sewanee Furnace which produced 70 tons of pig iron per day at its zenith; the Davis, Hicks and Greene Timber Company that built a railroad over the mountain into Alabama and shipped logs by locomotive; a pusher terminal where special engines helped heavy freights of 125 cars and passenger trains through a tunnel in the Cumberland Mountains so that the cars could start down the opposite side; and farming operations that produced corn and cotton.

I obtained a bit of this information from an article by Dr. Andrew Rittenberry in an issue of the Franklin County Historical Review. He wrote “The City of Cowan has risen from the depths of the backwoods into a prosperous small town with industries and businesses. She possesses a great many hopes for the future: and a love and fondness of her past.” Cowan is a town whose time has come and is poised for revitalization. This Cumberland Valley town resembles many small towns in America that are gaining notice for their uniqueness and for their contributions to American culture and industry.

P.S. Thanks to my good friend and reader, Dr. Mary Ann Wilson, professor of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, for yesterday’s comments regarding the first blog about Cowan: “You have such a generous, appreciative voice in your blogs and make the worlds you create so real…”

“NOTHING WILL WORK UNLESS YOU DO”...Maya Angelou

Jarod's grandmother remembers

Sunday afternoons on The Mountain here at Sewanee are desultory, particularly during the Spring break on the University of the South campus where we live in a modest cottage. The solution to ennui usually takes the form of a “field trip,” and yesterday we drove down the Mountain to the valley where the town of Cowan has been offering a unique Smithsonian exhibit entitled “The Way We Worked” at the Cowan Center for the Arts.

Cowan is a city with a population of 1737 people, and its claim to fame is as a railroad town, the site where the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway formerly employed 600 people from the area. It was the last stop before a steep uphill climb onto the Cumberland Plateau, and pusher locomotive engines were required to help the trains make the ascent, a 2228 ft. grade which had to be mounted before reaching a tunnel which ran through the Cumberland Mountains two miles from the town.

St. Mary's Station on the railway route

As a companion exhibit to the Smithsonian, the Cowan Railroad Museum offers a display showing railroad tools, methods of train travel, as well as photographs of Cowan’s largest employer between 1916 and 1928: the Davidson, Hicks, and Green Lumber Company which operated three sawmills and 25 miles of railroad. The coal and iron industries near Cowan are also featured in this exhibit.

The Smithsonian Exhibit includes kiosks with photographic essays of The Way We Worked, Where We Worked, How We Worked, Who Works, and Why We Work, including an interesting study of “Women Against the Odds,” documenting the war effort of women at work during WWII. An interesting statistic from the 20th Century: 37 percent of the workforce in 1975 involved women, and 63% were involved by the year 2000.

Jarod Pearson on board of Cowan RR Museum

One hundred eighty six photographs, with accompanying text comprise the exhibit, along with flip books, audio clips, and video screens. While we enjoyed the exhibit, we renewed our friendship with Jarod Pearson, proprietor of Sernicola’s Restaurant and the Franklin-Pearson House, a Bed and Breakfast facility. Jarod is on the Board for the Cowan Railroad Museum and told us that he helped write the proposal for the grant funding the exhibit. “We were pleasantly surprised when we received word that our proposal was the best proposal submitted,” he said. “I wrote the texts describing photographs and was told to put the stories in language that could be understood by fifth graders as school children would be primary attenders. I had to scan the photographs in high resolution for presentation, and create the stories that feature Cowan industries.”

In addition to the Smithsonian Exhibit and the Cowan Railroad Museum Companion Exhibit, an Arnold Air Force Base Display, Falls Mill Display, University of the South Display comprise exhibits in the Cowan Center for the Arts Theater. Next door in the Training Center, displays from the Crow Creek Heritage Preservation Society show how people of the Crow Creek Valley made a living as miners, railroad workers, farmers, brick makers, and as workers in the logging and tanbark industry. Photographs from The Grundy County Historical Society Heritage Center are featured, the latter showing photographs of the Swiss Colony at Gruetli, the Sam Werner Lumber Company, and a display about Dr. Lilian W. Johnson, Advocate for Agricultural Cooperatives. Franklin County Historical Society and Kokomo Grain Company also carried out the theme of how workers form the backbone of Franklin County.

I know the work ethic is strong in Franklin County as we have had carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and housekeepers working on the cottage during the past four years, and while they have been sometimes sporadic about showing up to do the work, when they appear, they crawl under the cottage, climb on the roof, remove windows for cleaning, working in teams of four or five, sometimes in blazing August temperatures that would fell a Louisianan.

I was amused last week when I bought groceries in Kroger's at Winchester, Tennessee and as I was checking out, an eighteen-year old man struck up a conversation (another facet of Tennessee workers-- garrulousness. They make you a part of their lives immediately). “How are you?” he asked. When I replied that I was doing well and how was he, he was off and running. “I’m so glad to be working,” he said. “Everyone should be glad to be working. I graduated from high school this summer and was sitting on the couch doing nothing and thought to myself, ‘Man, you are poor; what are you doing sitting on the couch?’ So I got up and came down here and got this job bagging groceries. I’m glad to have a job.”

No, I didn’t ask for the story, but such accounts are characteristic of the workers around these parts, and I applaud them for their work ethic. “The Way We Worked” display at Cowan illustrates the strength and endurance of workers in middle Tennessee who have kept our society and economy running despite downturns, politicians who make false promises, bank crashes, inflation, and wars.

“The Way We Worked” exhibit, offered in partnership with Humanities Tennessee, Museums on Main Street, the Smithsonian Institution, Cowan Railroad Museum, and State Humanities Councils nationwide, will be open until April 21. Lectures will be offered Sundays and Thursdays every week until April 19. The exhibits are free, but donations help support ongoing work of these organizations.

THOUGHTS ABOUT CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION

Last week, I came across an article about an Iranian Christian pastor who had been found guilty of apostasy and sentenced to death for his unwillingness to denounce Christianity. The pastor, Youcef Nadarkhari, has been a Christian since he was a teenager and claims that he has never practiced Islam although he was born to Muslim parents. According to the Christian Post, he has been a Christian pastor for ten years and may be executed by the Iranian government for his beliefs.

This Huffington Post news alert awakened my memory of another Christian clergy-person who was nearly murdered in 1979, four years after I had returned to the U.S. after a two-year sojourn in Ahwaz, Iran. On October 26, 1979, The Rt. Rev. Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, the first Iranian born Bishop of the Episcopal Church of Iran, awakened to see the barrel of a revolver pointed at his head. He hardly hears the shots when they are fired. His wife, her left hand bleeding from a gunshot wound, pursues the fleeing attackers, and Dehqani-Tafti looks at his pillow – four small holes surround the place where his head has lain. I read this account years ago in The Hard Awakening, written by the Bishop, a book in which he also describes his experiences after the Shah was deposed. At that time church property had been confiscated, offices broken into and clergy and staff arrested. Following the attack on the Bishop, he and his wife fled to Great Britain. However, the greatest personal tragedy occurred when his son Bahram was murdered by thugs on the streets of Tehran.

I didn’t know the Bishop personally, but during my sojourn in Iran, I spent a few weeks in the summer of 1974 at a church camp in Tehran that was sponsored by the Episcopal Church in Iran and one of my roommates was the Bishop Dehqani-Tafti’s British mother-in-law, Mrs. William Thompson. She was a hardy woman who decided that the cabin in which three of us were housed was too hot, and on the first night moved her cot outdoors to sleep in the open. She spoke about her daughter marrying the Persian-born Bishop in a unique Persian/Anglican wedding and told me that he had worked with her husband, Anglican Bishop William Thompson, adding that her husband had inspired Hassan Dehqani-Tafti to become an Anglican priest.

Tehran

Our camp, built by Presbyterian missionaries, was a compound of rustic military-like barracks named “The Garden of Evangelism” and was located near muezzin calls with which we competed for listeners. Our British minister, The Rev. Phillip Saywell, played a guitar and incited us to sing loudly during the time that Muslim chants, via loudspeaker, drifted across the walls of the Garden. At the time, I had no idea that the Revolution was fomenting and that members and clergy of the Episcopal Church and Christians, in general, were an endangered species. I left Iran before the Revolution, but I remember clearly the dismay I felt when I heard that Khomeini had become the political power in this country in which I had lived and worshiped in a Christian congregation. The thought that flashed into my mind was a line from W. B. Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming:” Things fall apart/the center will not hold/mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” The center of Iranian government had collapsed, and the country that had been making great strides toward emerging from a medieval-like culture had been halted in its progress.

Bishop Hassan Dehqani-Tafti stood his ground as an advocate for Christianity and the Episcopal Church in Iran for awhile, but the assassination attempt caused him to write, “Sometimes I feel so small, so weak, so near to non-entity; and the task is so gigantic and full of awe that I am tempted to regard the whole thing as unreal. But then I hear the voice of God telling me that it is his work. The weaker you are, the stronger his power; and miracles the more possible…” Following the attempted murder, the standing committee of his Diocese finally convinced him to go into exile in Great Britain.

During his tenure as Bishop, Hassan Dehqani-Tafti brought about the reorganization of an Archbishopric in Jerusalem into the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East and became the first Presiding Bishop of this organization. After he fled to England, he became Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Winchester. He abrogated vengeance against Islam for the death of his son and became known as an advocate of peace and compassion. He often wrote about his vision for cultural unity and ecumenism. He’s noted for his poetry and watercolor renderings and was renowned as a scholar of Persian mystical poetry. From Bishop Dehqani-Tafti’s mother-in-law, I learned that while I worshiped in the Diocese, the Bishop and his wife traveled the roads of Iran, establishing boarding schools for boys and girls and expanding the church’s work with the blind – one of the schools was located near Ahwaz where I lived.

An interesting article about Iran’s decades of Christian persecution, published by the Assyrian International News Agency, can be found on the Net. After reading this article, I placed an order with Amazon for Bishop Dehqani-Tafti’s autobiography, The Unfolding Design of My World.

NOTES ABOUT A LEGENDARY JAZZ MUSICIAN

Be Bop, Be Bop

There must be thousands of Internet users who have experienced the fleeting memory of an old friend and gone to the Net to search for news of that long-forgotten person. Yesterday, I saw the word “scarlet” on my screen and remembered Billy Scarlett, a musician friend with whose wife I worked at Agricultural Extension Service, Louisiana State University, during the mid fifties. I was shocked to find Billy had died of cancer but pleased to read that he had gained fame as “a jazz legend in Tennessee” (according to the many tributes on the Net) during the past fifty years.

I met Billy, this handsome, black-haired man who resembled a melancholy Italian, when Katy, his first wife, and I were candidates for our Ph.T’s (Putting Husband Through). At the time of our meeting, Billy was working toward his Master’s in Music Theory and playing jazz gigs at night. My husband was working on his first degree in Geology. Sometimes in the evenings, I’d visit the Scarletts in their garage apartment near the campus where we’d play Scrabble and listen to progressive jazz or “bop,” as it’s now called. I knew nothing about bop at the time, but I grew familiar with the sounds of Charlie (Bird) Parker’s alto sax and the trumpets of Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis and became hooked on progressive jazz, enjoying the many stories Billy told about the improvisations of Bird Parker, who was regarded as the music symbol of the Beat Generation. Billy’s favorite story was about hearing the recording featuring some of Bird’s flubs during recordings of “Be Bop” when he actually shook the sax to get the right note out of the horn. “Minnie,” (Billy’s name for me, and I still don’t know why he called me by this name) he’d say, “you don’t know zilch about music,” and I’d try to defend myself, declaring that I had played a clarinet in a high school band five years. “Kindergarten,” he’d say, putting on another record and tuning me out. It was the day of “hi-fi’s,” and although the Scarletts struggled to make ends meet, Billy owned expensive hi-fi equipment, including speakers on several walls in the small apartment. The overpowering sounds of jazz frequently incited comments from the neighbors and sometimes caused the floppy ears of the Scarlett’s blonde cocker spaniel, Sandy, to stand up.

Within a year after I met the Scarletts, Billy and Katy moved to Knoxville where Billy became a professor of Music Theory at the University of Tennessee and played in jazz groups on the week-ends. I flew to Knoxville three consecutive years to spend Thanksgiving with them. I had no idea that I’d one day move to Sewanee, Tennessee, only three and one-half hours from Knoxville, or that I’d one day read Billy’s obituary announcing that he was a jazz legend in Tennessee. In the late 1950’s, during those visits to Knoxville, we roamed around to gigs and jam sessions, one particular gig being near Gatlinburg, Tennessee somewhere in the boonies. En route to this gig, we drove in a blinding rain through the mountains, stopping in Asheville to stand on the porch of “Dixieland,” one-time home of the writer Thomas Wolfe, peering through the front windows at the parlor furniture because the house wasn’t open to the public that day. Katy and I were disappointed because we were fans of Wolfe’s work and once in awhile, we got in a few words about literature in the “mostly-music” conversations. We spent all day getting to our destination, and Billy played his sax with an obscure group whose name I can’t remember, then traveled the rest of the night to arrive back in Knoxville during the early morning hours of the following day. My flight to New Orleans was scheduled for 11 that morning!

On several visits, I attended concerts of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra as Billy, classically trained, played clarinet with this group. In the articles I read on the Internet, I discovered that he was acknowledged as the “principal clarinetist” in this symphony for forty years and that he became renowned as a teacher of Music Theory at the University of Tennessee, teaching there for fifty years. However, his forte’ was the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra.

In an Internet article, Rocky Wynder, a black jazz musician who became one of the cornerstones of Knoxville jazz, paid tribute to Billy for being courageous enough to schedule gigs in places that barred black musicians.   After the jazz group arrived at the club and unpacked their equipment, Billy would talk to the owner of the club, then tell the musicians to repack the equipment and head home because the black member of his group – Rocky – was told he couldn’t come in. Billy worked for civil rights before the days of marches for integration.

Billy knew the value of daily practice, and I observed his drivenness when he and Katy stayed with me for six weeks one summer while my husband was at Geology camp in Colorado. Although Billy had received his Master’s, he spent every day at LSU, studying clarinet privately with a professor and playing his sax in the evenings. When the Scarletts left Baton Rouge, Billy flew to New York City, alone, to take private clarinet lessons, living in an apartment on Bleecker Street and playing his sax at night in the Village.

Billy was intense about music and intolerant of poor performance, especially when he performed badly. The first night of the six weeks Billy and Katy visited me, he packed up his sax and went off to jam for a few hours. At midnight, he returned with a broken sax in his hands. “What happened?” Katy asked, thinking the sax had been run over by a vehicle of some kind. Billy hung his head, admitting to having done the damage himself. “I wasn’t playing well. Haven’t practiced enough. I couldn’t get the right sounds out, so I got mad and smashed it.” That evening I had to leave the “hut” (G.I. housing in which we lived) while Katy and Billy argued about his behavior and whether he deserved to own another sax. The following day, they went downtown and bought a new sax, and Billy resumed his jam sessions, playing gigs around Baton Rouge wherever he could find them. At the time, I thought he was a spoiled brat, but I knew nothing about his ideas of perfection and how much he abhorred sloppy performance – or that he’d become a jazz legend.

I lost touch with the Scarletts during the 60’s and talked with Katy via telephone when my second book, Their Adventurous Will, was published in 1984. During the 90’s, I discovered that she had died of heart disease from her daughter Holly when I tried to reach Katy by telephone. Every time I’ve passed through Knoxville since 2006 when I moved to Sewanee to live part of each year, I’ve thought about contacting Billy but have been rushing toward some vacation destination in North Carolina and have whizzed on through the city. Although I lost touch with Billy, my music collection includes significant reminders of him – the music of Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck…and I could claim status as one of Billy’s “lay musicians” who doesn’t play music but appreciates the sounds of progressive jazz because of him.

Billy Scarlett was inducted into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame in 2008, launched the University of Tennessee’s Jazz Giants Band, and has been touted as the mentor of every student now playing in the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra. He played with greats like Woody Herman and Duke Ellington, often opening for them when they came to the UT campus. In 1994 he made the recordings “Jazz from the University of Tennessee” and “Tenors and Satin.”

I wish that I had contacted Billy Scarlett before he died, but I’m proud to have enjoyed his friendship back when “bop” was coming into its own.

THE FRAGILITY OF ART

The art of Karen Bourque

Last month, Drs. Mary Ann Wilson and Vickie Sullivan, accompanied me to lunch with former poet laureate Darrell Bourque and his wife Karen, a glass artist, in their home near Churchpoint, Louisiana. At a feast featuring pork roast, a la Darrell, and flour-less chocolate cake a la Karen, we talked about Karen’s latest glass art, the depiction of the four seasons for glass panes in the windows fronting their home. After we had decided on the season we liked best (and which was not for sale), we discussed the glass piece Karen had created for the opening of the Ernest Gaines Center at University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL) last year.  She related how the first rendering of the piece had been a “casualty.” When I returned home that evening of the visit, I wrote this prose piece to illustrate her story:

“THE FRAGILITY OF ART
She and her poet husband were moving the center panel of “Just Like A tree,” a beautiful glass piece, 23”x72,” depicting an oak tree and the river, two motifs often appearing in the work of Ernest Gaines. She had made the piece to define the entrance way of a writing center named after her husband’s mentor and friend. The glass piece was something that reflected the mentor “leading us to the in-habitation of our better selves,” she had written to describe his influence on her art.

But as they carried the glass together, the “center would not hold.” The panel broke into pieces and separated the tree from the river. It was one of those things she’d rather not have experienced but knew she would accept, although the palms of her hands felt as if they had been pierced, although her heart bled into the pool beside the cottage. She bent double to stay the flow, finally raising her head to look into the shocked eyes of her husband.

“Glass breaks,” she said simply. It was her summary of suffering that she voiced for her Buddhist husband. But he fled as if pursued by djinns to make his three-mile walk – to ponder the fracture of this creation.

She picked up the pieces – the stones, agates, and gems that represented “insight and strength,” pausing before a Buddha who smiled as if urging her to dignify the break. “There’s more than one way. The memory is whole. Nothing is that sacred,” she heard the Buddha say, his smile widening.

So she saved the glass. That much she knew to do from watching her husband, who never discarded any of the drafts of his poetry, never wadded and tossed the first expression of special words into a wastebasket.

Later, when the poet had summoned enough courage to return to the scene of broken art and what he perceived would be her broken spirit, he found her putting the tree beside the river again. In her mind, she had returned the panel to its dimensionality. “I told you that glass breaks,” she said. “A fragile and beautiful thing is worth recreating.”

A most extravagant hope, the poet thought. But she is like me and my poems, making many drafts, trying to bring something into eternity. “My beloved,” he said, embracing her. “You are a better Buddhist than I.”"

HONORING A BOTANIST

Most people who know Dr.Victoria Sullivan (otherwise known as Vickie) recognize that she is a gifted person in many fields, and it’s not surprising to those of us who know her that yesterday she received an e-mail informing her the most recent edition of Systematic Botany names a new species of Eupatorium (the genus of plants that Vickie studied and wrote about for many years), Eupatorium sullivaniae, in honor of her research work. In the article entitled “Systematics of the Eupatorium album Complex (Asteraceae) from Eastern North America” by Edward E. Schilling, who is with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Schilling writes that “the name E. sullivaniae honors Dr. Victoria Sullivan, whose extensive work has led to significant advances in our understanding of Eupatorium.”

I’ve always teased Vickie about studying “a dirty white weed that can be collected only when the sun is beaming white hot on collectors’ backs and the soil is parched dry to make digging impossible,” because I’ve accompanied her on many field trips throughout the South during the summer when temps were at their hottest peak, but she has always diverted my attention to joe pye weed, a close relative of Eupatorium with lovely lavender hues, to try to incite more sentiment in me for her chosen plant of study. I remember accompanying Vickie and a Japanese botanist, Dr. T. Yahara, on a collecting trip during a rainstorm preceding Hurricane Elena, which followed us all the way to St. Augustine, Florida and then turned and followed us back to Lafayette, Louisiana. These two botanists’ idea of a good time included climbing fences posted “No trespassing,” backing up the van on the interstate highway at 60 mph to study a plant they spied as we sped past, and running through fields in sheets of rain that fell steadily for the three days they collected. Such are the activities of those who study the plant world, and I did my part by documenting the trip in an article that appeared in Skylight, a literary magazine published in Florida!

Vickie, who received her Ph.D. in Biology from Florida State University, has a formidable background in the teaching profession, having taught biology and botany at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for twenty years and biology, environmental studies, and physical science to students at both Teurlings Catholic High School and Episcopal School of Acadiana in Louisiana for a four year stint. She was also a naturalist with the U.S. National Park Service in the Everglades National Park, worked in Fairchild Tropical Garden, Miami, Florida and has authored at least 25 papers about Eupatorium, thistles, and other plants. At one point during her career, she, along with several colleagues, obtained a grant from EPSCOR for over one and one-half million dollars to do work on molecular evolution. Vickie has worked with the Louisiana Nature Conservancy, the Ecology Branch of the U.S. Army, and as a botanist with the Trustees for Internal Improvement Trust Fund, State of Florida.

She has published flash fiction on the Internet, authored non-fiction articles in non-scientific periodicals and has written an outstanding article identifying the plant life in the murals of the famous Gulf Coast painter, Walter Anderson, which appeared in Interdisciplinary Humanities. In 2009, she translated her grandmother’s letters for a book she entitled Granny’s Letters: A Georgia Wiregrass Pioneer Woman’s Tragedy that has been enjoying a “run” on Kindle. This past year, Pinyon Publishing published Vickie’s speculative fiction book, Adoption, in which her heroine is featured as a superhuman, a character who was created by Vickie using her research on the genetics of polyploidy plants that have multiple sets of chromosomes. As owner, publisher, and editor of Border Press, an independent press she established several years ago, she also publishes quality fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Boards of profit and non-profit organizations seek Vickie out for her financial expertise, and she has served as Treasurer of Solomon House, an outreach mission, as CFO for her family company, Central Ridge in Frostproof, Florida, as treasurer of the Episcopal Church of Epiphany, New Iberia where she also did stints as Senior Warden and served on the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana. She served as president of the Epiphany Day School in New Iberia, Louisiana, as treasurer of Bayou Girl Scout Council and was a member of its five-year strategic planning committee, chairing the Fund Development committee of this same organization. Recently, members of the board of St. Mary’s Convent in Sewanee, Tennessee recognized Vickie’s wise oversight of financial matters and appointed her to the board of St. Mary’s Convent in Sewanee, Tennessee where she lives eight months of the year (and resides in New Iberia, Louisiana the other part). She’s an active Associate of the Order of St. Mary and several days of the week can be found at early morning Eucharist at St. Mary’s chapel on the bluff where she worships regularly.

In her leisure time, Vickie travels in all the states adjoining Tennessee where she sees a lot of Eupatorium but refrains from collecting as I am usually along for the ride. She has traveled in the Dominican, Europe, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, the Caribbean, and Jamaica. She enjoys a daily game of Scrabble, does extensive reading of philosophy, religion, and psychology, exercises daily, studies the latest tomes on Nutrition, and keeps up with research through readings in science magazines, of course. Back in the 80’s when the Rice Festival marathon was scheduled in Crowley, Louisiana, Vickie put on her running shoes and ran eighteen miles before running out of steam. She has medals from many 5K and 10K races in the Acadiana area. Vickie's a great proponent of natural food and has a heavy hand with exotic seasonings, having authored two microwave cookbooks featuring international recipes.

A true Renaissance woman, Vickie is deserving of honors in many fields as her interests are eclectic, and we look forward to reading her next book, soon to be published by Pinyon Publishing. Why Water Plants Don’t Drown, a nature enthusiast’s guide to aquatic plants, will feature the delightful paintings of Susan Elliott, a fellow botanist and artist on Pinyon’s staff.

Brava, Vickie! I know that the hybrid apomictic species named Eupatorium sullivaniae is glad to finally be named after a gifted woman of diverse talents who has entered her seventh decade with such energy and vision.

ABOUT “THE MOUNTAIN” PRESSES

Today, we plan to lunch with our good friends, Henry and Kathy Hamman, a couple who owns one of The Mountain’s small presses called Plateau Books. Henry and Kathy, who’re world travelers, have formidable credentials in the editorial and publishing field, and my friend, Vickie Sullivan, who owns Border Press, often compares notes with them about the complicated job of marketing.

The Hammans lived in Iran and India – places that offer delicious Eastern cuisine – and as I lived in Iran during the 70’s, we have a common interest in exotic cuisine. Today’s menu for the luncheon includes curry, roasted vegetables, dal (yellow lentils), and raita (yoghurt with cucumber and dill). Kathy is a chef magnifique and has a deft hand with seasonings and unusual ingredients.

Kathy, editor-in-chief of Plateau Books (at Sewanee, Tennessee), formerly served as editorial director of a press at the University of Miami where she captured the “Choice” award for two of the books she edited. She has been recognized in the journals Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. Henry, the publisher, has edited numerous scholarly monographs, published fiction and nonfiction books, and is a former university faculty member. He’s also recognized for his excellent investigative reporting and articles in Financial Times.

The Hammans live in a cottage on Jumpoff Mountain Road at “Tick Farm,” where their offices are located. They’re assisted in their work by “Lucky,” an ancient Rhodesian Ridgeback dog that pretty much owns the place and joins us at mealtimes when we visit the farm. Lucky’s manner of getting acquainted is to approach a guest, stick his wet nose in her face, and if the guest blows her breath on his face, he retreats and lies down, signaling his approval of the visitor by curling up in a corner to listen to the repartee'.

Plateau Books advertises as a publisher of “lasting significance for discriminating readers” and is committed to publishing books that “value wisdom, knowledge, passion, and personal experience.” This year, the Hammans produced Swimming Solo, a book that recounts the story of a courageous daughter who dealt with aging parents suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Swimming Solo has been touted as “a fascinating personal story, painstakingly told, with no unflattering or awkward details spared in the interest of wholeness – and that is the triumph.” (Isabel Anders, author of Becoming Flame). I reviewed the poignant story in a former blog when the book first appeared on the market. This account about “parenting our parents,” carries out Plateau Books’ mission statement of publishing volumes that “value wisdom, knowledge, passion, and personal experience.”

As a former editor for an academic publishing house, Kathy knows the special requirements for academic publications, including the importance of peer review. Presently in the slot for publication by Plateau Books is a theological work entitled Getting Your Sermon Heard, by William Hethcock, professor emeritus of homiletics, The School of Theology at Sewanee: The University of the South. Hethcock, the “preaching guru” at Sewanee, has authored a work that will be a significant contribution to theological seminaries throughout the U.S. and abroad.

We were told to come to lunch at 1 p.m. as the Hammans had to pick up their Mennonite milk delivery (which they use to make yogurt) at 12:30 from Dagmar Gundersen, and I’m sure the raita will contain some of the Gundersen pick-up. Although rain has begun to fall and Sewanee is shrouded in grey, we anticipate having a good time – the conversation is usually lively and eclectic, and we laugh a lot when we get together. As four people interested in the art of writing, we also have weighty conversations about religion and books, particularly those volumes that both presses have produced. Border Press publishes many of my young adult fiction and poetry books, but Vickie takes notes about non-fiction possibilities as the Hammans have considerable background and experience in editing and publishing in this genre. Their press also supports independent booksellers and offers special pricing for direct sales to independent bookstores.

We plan to return to Teche country on Saturday, and I know this brief encounter with the Hammans will be another highpoint in visits to The Mountain – that is, if we get past the rain now falling in heavy sheets and coloring the landscape a gunmetal gray, a hue that often inspires me to refer to Sewanee as Grayburg. It’s a perfect day for sharing a meal and talking about books!

A LOUISIANA FURNITURE ARTIST

A few months ago, the photograph of a reproduction of a Louisiana Creole table crafted by my son-in-law, Brad Romero, appeared in an article about an old home featured in Country Living, a national magazine. I know about the table’s beauty firsthand because I also have a reproduction of this table in my living room here at Sewanee. I was dismayed to see, however, that Brad’s name appeared nowhere in the article as the artisan who had built this handsome table. I’m publishing a photograph of the table and its creator, along with this puff about Brad’s artistic abilities.

I published a blog about Brad several years ago, and this is a second acknowledgement about my handsome son-in-law of Spanish/Italian descent who owns a furniture restoration business in New Iberia, Louisiana. In addition to the complete restoration of broken furniture, Brad has been turning out reproductions, carefully crafted and refined, that now stand in the rooms of several old plantation homes in Louisiana and more humble cottages like my own. His work fashioning furniture of cypress, pine, oak, walnut, cherry, and Philippine mahogany is a labor of love. Show him a piece of wood and he’s enthralled – long boards of scavenged wood are stacked from floor to ceiling in his shop, aptly named Restorit.

My daughter, Stephanie, gave Brad a wonderful book last Christmas entitled Furnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian Furniture, 1735-1835, which is a study of early eighteenth-mid-nineteenth century Louisiana furniture, during a time when mass production wasn’t on the horizon, and furniture making involved artisans of French, Anglo-American, Caribbean, Canadian and African descent who hand-crafted their work. Brad particularly admires and reproduces furniture of Creole and Acadian design, and while we celebrated Christmas, he scrutinized the photographs of armoires, tables, and beds in Furnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian Furniture, noting dimensions and other facets of the furniture. He has extraordinary visual perception and can look at a photograph of a piece of furniture, then reproduce it faithfully, finishing the furniture so that it appears as a finer piece than the photograph.

Regarding the Acadian furniture that Brad also loves, the early Acadians furnished their homes minimally with a few beds, storage chests, one table, two or three chairs and constructed it of a wood that he particularly likes to use – cherry wood. Later, the Acadians used cypress, which was a more available and softer wood, in their furniture making, and only the very wealthy Acadians had cherry wood, according to Carl Brasseaux, noted Louisiana historian. Some of these finer pieces of Louisiana Creole furniture are found in old plantation homes and in museums in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Brad also builds armoires, including miniature armoires after the style of construction in the early nineteenth century. He researches books and magazines and visits old plantation homes to view these pieces before designing them. In Furnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian Furniture, an interesting note on armoires and their durability reveals that a cypress armoire actually survived the 1927 Mississippi River flood which inundated many homes in south Louisiana. Brad achieves the same kind of sturdiness in his armoires.

Other products of Brad’s work include the beautiful wood jewelry boxes he constructs and frequently donates to auctions at Solomon House and other charitable and business organizations around New Iberia. The boxes, constructed of mahogany, cherry, whatever wood attracts Brad at the time, have auctioned for $500-$700. Many of them have become part of a private collection owned by an Avery Island resident.

I often tell the story about how Brad can spot authentic antiques in stalls of flea markets or furniture stores that advertise antiques. When he accompanied me on a foray for antique pieces to furnish our Sewanee cottage, I pointed out an old china closet in a Cowan furniture store, and he said firmly, “just leave that right where it is.” Most of the time his discerning eyes see more “leavings” than “findings,” and we discover very few pieces that satisfy his refined taste. He’s definitely a purist when we're antique hunting.

In his spare time (?), Brad restores old guitar and violin cases, patches up broken furniture that takes on an expensive appearance once his expert hands have restored it, and has a waiting list of work to be done which projects through a year at a time. He’s the sole proprietor, craftsman, and advertisement for Restorit, and I look forward to seeing what kind of Louisiana piece he has built when I return to New Iberia next month.

If you want a glimpse of the work of an artist and craftsman who restores fine furniture and creates reproductions of unique furniture representing Louisiana traditions, Brad’s shop is located on St. Peter Street in New Iberia, Louisiana. His work, c’est magnifique!