GUMBO WEATHER AND BLUE DOG ART

Sunday morning dawned, or almost didn’t dawn, cool and foggy. To someone like me who has a bit of Cajun blood in her veins, the vision of a large black gumbo pot appeared in the mist—it was perfect gumbo weather! However, I reminded myself that I was on The Mountain at Sewanee and more than likely I’d be eating beef and potatoes for lunch following church services at Convent of St. Mary.

After church, we gathered in the refectory for light breakfast —coffee cake, biscuits, freshly cut melon and coffee, not to mention the ubiquitous pistachios in cups placed on the ends of two long tables. Forget the weather that should have inspired gumbo; we engaged in the Sunday pistachio eating contest, sometimes won by Dr. Victoria Sullivan; other times won by Fr. Clark. Both of them always sit with Faye Walter at what we call “the Politics Table,” the place where inveterate Democrats take turns preaching the second sermon of the day about feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and taking care of the disenfranchised.

I still had gumbo on my mind when my good friend, Kathy Hamman, appeared. Kathy has traveled the world with her husband Henry and stirs a tasty pot of international cuisine, frequently treating me to Iranian fare because she and Henry once lived in Tehran, as I did back in the 70’s. But on Sunday Kathy appeared with a copy of Talk About Good II, Le Livre de Cuisine des Acadiens underarm and held it out to me. “Here,” she said, “you told me that your son-in-law is interested in cooking, and I unearthed this while we were opening some of our storage boxes.”

“Eh la bas,” I said. “This is an old edition (1979) of Cajun cuisine, and it has a dozen or so of George Rodrigue’s paintings.”

“Don’t believe I know him. Is he French—and, as you say, who’s his mama, does he make that thing you call a roux?”

George, of course, was a native New Iberian and died in 2013. His works were featured in the Bayou Teche Museum in New Iberia for months in an exhibit entitled “Rodrigue Comes Home: Under Iberia’s Live Oaks with George Rodrigue and His Blue Dog,” and some of his art resides in the Public Collection of the President of France, the Louisiana Governor’s Mansion, Brockton Museum, Everson Museum, Fine Arts Museum of the South, Art Center at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, the Slater Museum, Butler Institute of American Art, and in other international galleries.

Rodrigue’s “blue dog paintings” are scattered throughout the world, and if anyone knew good cuisine, George did. He established the Blue Dog Restaurant in Lafayette, Louisiana where pungent, rich gumbos are still served up daily. I don’t own the particular edition of Talk About Good that features Rodrigue’s art, and when Kathy handed it to me, I promptly claimed it for my own.

“Forget about my son-in-law,” I said. “This keepsake is my keepsake. Are you sure you want to give it up?”

“Well, with your cultural background and outlook, how could I not? It’s yours.”

If the Convent had possessed a black iron pot, I would have gone into the kitchen and stirred up a roux (or so I told myself), but I just held the Talk About Good to my heart and scurried out before some other Cajun suddenly materialized and got into a “meet me in the street” confrontation in an attempt to carry the book away.

When I arrived home, I went to the computer and googled the World Championship Gumbo Cookoff hosted by the Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce in New Iberia. Mais jamais d’ la vie, I discovered it was gumbo time in Teche country—October 9, 10, 11 where 100 teams will compete for the crown of champion of the best gumbo in the world. It’s a time when a “Cajun Creole Foodfest” will be held and a “Meanest Beans and Youth Gumbo Cook-Off” will be going on, as well as a family movie night under the Pavilion in Bouligny Plaza, downtown New Iberia. There’ll be dancing in the streets and feasting a’ plenty, and directions to the Plaza include: “Inhale and follow your nose to downtown New Iberia. The aroma should get stronger as you get closer.”

By the way, the famous gumbo dish emblematic of Louisiana was enriched by immigrants to the area during the 18^th century—French, Spanish, Germans, Irish, African-American and Anglo-Americans who came and tasted bayou water and added their own seasonings to the cultural mix.

COLD SNAP #2

It's one thing to write about a cold place you're slated to visit and another to arrive and experience the icy breath of winter on The Mountain at Sewanee. Although we missed the three-degree temps Sewaneeans experienced the week preceding our return to The Mountain, we've been deprived of sunlight for at least three days. However, the worst aspect of the weather is heavy fog, fog that surpasses any mist hanging over the Louisiana swamps.

We went out to St. Mary's Convent at 7 a.m. yesterday to attend Eucharist, and the Subaru crawled down the road leading to the Convent in dense mists that I can only describe as "unsafe." However, after breakfast with the Sisters, I found a copy of May Sarton's Journal of A Solitude (order below), and settled in a rocker before the wood-stove in the Common Room. I actually began to feel safe and cozy. I had unconsciously selected a book that contained many chapters describing a winter in New Hampshire, where Sarton lived and wrote in her late years. At least we didn't have to cope with the fifteen inches of snow she described in a journal entry, "February 8," I thought, as I warmed my feet before the fire.

Although Sarton wanted her novels and poetry to be recognized and acclaimed as best sellers, her journals and memoirs gained the greater readership. I've almost finished this book of observations on the inner and outer worlds of the writer. Chapters about books, people, and Sarton's spiritual journey fascinate me, and I was ready to go out in the fog again after reading during the morning at the Convent and the afternoon at home when the woods were shrouded in heavy fog.

One journal entry that resonated with me: "Simone Weil says, 'Absolute attention is prayer.' The more I have thought about this over the years, the truer it is for me. I have used the sentence often in talking about poetry to students, to suggest that if one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, grass, snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place. Something is 'given' and perhaps that something is always a reality outside the self."

After reading this, I surmised that even when a writer sits and stares at fog, something happens because a few moments after reading this, I added another poem to the book of poetry I'm writing entitled The Lonely Grandmother. A few hours later, I needed that inspiration when we again set out in the fog, bound for the Hamman's place, "Tick Farm," aka "The Bat Cave" as both ticks, and, lately, bats have been discovered in residence on their property. This time, we set out at night, and missed numerous turns off the highway, as well as the narrow lane leading into the Hamman quarters.

The drive through the fog was harrowing, but inside the Hammans' cottage, Kathy's gourmet cooking made up for the pall of the weather. The Rev. Francis Walter and his wife Faye arrived a half hour later and announced that they had lost their way several times before finally turning into the drive at Tick Farm. The Hammans have lived in London, Iran, India, and other exotic places, and good food and conversation helped us forget that we had to travel back through pea soup. Usually, when the six of us get together, we dive headlong into conversation about politics, religion, books not-so-conservative, and other unsafe topics and emerge invigorated by talk that other people often find taboo table talk.

When I arrived home, I found that I had dropped my cell phone somewhere along the way and panic overtook me—panic worse than that I had experienced going through the fog, I'm ashamed to admit. Fortunately, the Hammans found the phone in the yard, the only thing to be victimized by the fog, and they're bringing it to me today. Meanwhile, I welcome the silence and Journal of A Solitude (order below), glancing out the window now and then to check on the ubiquitous fog. It's still overhanging us, and we are, as Sewaneeans say, "socked in." However, we should be back in Teche country by Saturday afternoon!

Photographs by Victoria Sullivan

EVERYTHING IS PEACHY AGAIN

These excursions to buy peaches fresh from orchards seem to have become an obsession with me! Friends here at Sewanee gave us a tip about the best fruit in the area, and Saturday we set out for an orchard that we thought was in Tennessee but turned out to be in an adjoining state! We drove toward Winchester and veered onto Hwy. 16, which originated in the valley and led to Hwy. 79, where we began to climb, passing by granite cliffs and densely wooded areas that are characteristic of the Cumberlands. Although the highway was wide and in good condition, we had the entire road to ourselves. I began to feel we had driven onto the set of Deliverance and expected mountain men to come out of the woods to attack us at any moment. 

Several signs advertised the Walls of Jericho, and I wondered if we had driven into a time warp. I discovered later that the signs referred to Tennessee and Alabama trailheads that are part of the Skyline Wildlife Management area, which had once been the property of a Texas oil magnate who bought 60,000 acres of the land in Franklin County, Tennessee and Jackson County, Alabama during the 40's. The Nature Conservancy now owns 12,000 acres in Alabama and 8900 acres in Tennessee.

The road seemed endless, and I thought we were on a wild goose chase when we passed from Tennessee into Alabama. We turned around and after fifteen minutes and numerous attempts, I was able to get cell service and connect with the friend who had sent us peach hunting. She revealed that she had forgotten to tell us the orchard was in Alabama. Again, we turned around and retraced our route.

"We are in holy country," I told my friend Victoria who was driving. "We've passed at least three Holiness churches—the Free Holiness Church, The Holiness 79 Church, and some church with an acronym before the Holiness..."

"We can always get churched if we don't find any fruit," she said drily. I could tell that she was annoyed because even the GPS had ceased to register a speed limit for the area, which meant we were in uncharted territory.

When we had reached an elevation of 1700 feet, a sign appeared at the head of a small country road.

"Voila—Crow Mountain Orchards!" I exclaimed.

"Your favorite bird has come to the rescue," she said. "Only 7 1/2 miles more to travel... as the crow flies."

When we turned off on another lane, we began to see peach and green apple orchards and blackberry bushes growing by the roadside. We parked alongside six or seven cars and could see that the farm store didn't lack for customers—'though we wondered what highway they had traversed as no cars had passed us enroute. Inside, we found cartons of  peaches, blackberries, plums, and green apples and were given a taste of the fresh fruit. After sampling the delicious fruit, we bought peaches, blackberries, and plums and departed.

Bob Deutscher, the owner of Crow Mountain Orchards, was born and raised in Indiana and once had an active fruit operation there, but because he was forced to pick the fruit before it ripened in order to make a profit, he traveled south to find land suitable for an orchard so he could capture the early northern market. He purchased the 126-acre site on Crow Mountain in the early 70's and had plans to ship his fruit out in an effort to corner the northern wholesale market; however, the quality of his fruit actually brought people to his door. Today, most Crow Mountain produce is sold locally...even if goose girls like us have to get a bit lost before they locate the orchards. Apples from the Crow Mountain Orchards have been touted as the apples having the best color in the state and are among the tastiest, according to an Auburn horticulturist quoted on The Crow Mountain Orchards internet site.

The drive home seemed shorter, and when we brought the fruit to the Hammans, our friends who had sent us into the hinterlands, they invited us to sit a spell on their porch. We ate the plums for an appetizer and were lucky enough to be invited for supper and a rock music concert via Henry's streaming device. 

The trip reminded me of the years I spent in Iran when expatriates had to devote an entire morning to shopping for fruit and vegetables in the bazaar, but none of the Iranians' fresh produce equaled the quality of the fruit we brought back from Crow Mountain. The Hammans, who lived in Tehran several years, agreed with me, and Kathy described how ecstatic she felt when she entered a Kroger's market and found a gleaming display of delicious fresh fruit and vegetables the year they returned to the States. Her feelings resembled my own when I discovered a bottle of Louisiana hot sauce displayed on a shelf in the Ahwaz Super Store in Iran. "Hay la bas," I exclaimed when I saw the bottle of flaming sauce in a green bottle...then burst into tears!

HIGHLANDER FOLK SCHOOL

Last week, we hosted dinner for Henry and Kathy Hamman, owners of Plateau Press here on the Mountain in honor of a visit from Dr. Mary Ann Wilson, professor of English, University of Louisiana at Lafayette. After dinner, we enjoyed a lively discussion about a school on the Cumberland Plateau that I had never heard mentioned during the five years I’ve spent at Sewanee. The Highlander Folk School, once located between Monteagle and Tracy City, Tennessee, not more then ten miles away, no longer functions but it has evolved into the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee.

Henry informed us that we could still see the old Highlander Folk School structure in Grundy County, so the next day we went on a field trip to search for one of our regional historic sites. We located the plaque commemorating the school but never found the old structure. However, some time in the near future the Hammans have promised to take us to the location of the school that was established to “provide training for rural and industrial leaders and for the conservation and enrichment of the indigenous cultural values of the mountains.”

The Highlander Folk School was an amazing venture established in 1932 by Myles Horton, an activist; Don West, an educator; and James A. Dombrowski, a Methodist minister. During the 1930’s and 1940’s, the school focused on labor education and the training of labor organizers, but the staff later developed a literacy program for Blacks who couldn’t vote because they were illiterate. This program at Highlander Folk School later transferred to the Southern Christian School because the State of Tennessee threatened to close the Highlander’s doors.

The school played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement and such notable leaders as Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Septima Clark, visited the school and were involved in its trainings. During the 1950’s, southern newspapers attacked the Highlander Folk School, accusing its staff of causing racial strife. The State of Tennessee forced the school to close its doors in 1961 after moonshine mysteriously appeared on its property, and the staff was falsely accused of being a communist training center.

An interesting account about the attacks on the Highlander Folk School by white supremacists appeared in 2003 in a senior thesis by Laura Grantmyre. It detailed white supremacist responses to anti-racist activities. The thesis reveals how white supremacy is interwoven with systems of gender and is embedded in certain cultures. “Charges of communism, atheism, and interracial immorality were used by white political elite of the South in their attacks,” Grantmyre wrote.

The Highlander Folk School closed its doors and moved to New Market following the adverse reaction to its mission, and during the 1960’s and 1970’s, it focused on worker health and safety in the coalfields of Appalachia and helped initiate the Southern Appalachian Leadership Training Program.

Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the notables who visited the school in its infancy, became interested in the Highlander Folk School’s objectives related to economic justice and equality. We look forward to the search for the site of a school that addressed issues of national and international importance – once located approximately eight miles away in a small rural community near Sewanee, Tennessee.