Christmas Now

It is hard to believe how fast Christmas comes around these days. When I was a child, it was 10 years from one Christmas to the next, or at least if felt like it in my perception. Now it comes every 3 months in ripe adulthood. I do my best to make it last. I have the same idea as the local retailers –start in October and keep on ‘til January. That is the only way I have enough time to notice it in my busy, overflowing life. Anybody who thinks that we who live in the rural world don’t have a fast paced life has never been here. The living is easy – but only when we can slow down enough to enjoy it. The way we live life comes from the inside out, it is not dictated by geography. Geography is like the stage set, the players determine the dialogue.
It is not the shopping that causes the bustle in my life, it is the socializing. You’d think that people who live in places like rural southwest Alabama would have limited activities available. Again, this is a misconception. We learned two hundred years age that if we were going to have fun, we‘d have to make so. We learned to share the joy of living by entertaining ourselves and each other. It may be a vibration thing, but those of us who love a good party stick together. We have a code of honor that what happens when we get together is never told outside the group. We only talk about it when we look back on it with the other participants and reminisce. It’s not that we do anything illicit or illegal, but we just don’t want everybody knowing all our business. Knowing people’s business is entertainment in itself. It is for those who choose to live vicariously, rather than actually participate. If there’s a good entertainment, I want to attend it, not hear about it secondhand.
Food is a central part of all celebrations here. This is the co9mmon thread that runs through it all. Libations occur at many gatherings, some up front and some on the sly. We recently had a wet/dry vote in our town. I know that even contemplating a place where liquor is not available is unbelievable for most of the world. It is a hold over from the time when we were either too Christian (according to the narrowest interpretation) or too drunk to be responsible. It also has a lot to do with our ancestry. Our Irish and Indian ancestors did not handle liquor very well. The families of the affected thought they could control intake by making it illegal, and theoretically harder to get. Also, it became a control factor for those who didn’t drink and didn’t care to have others do so.
Consequently, drinking went underground as a group social activity. There was this petition in the paper that listed a whole slew of men from one church who said they morally opposed the legal sale of liquor. The whole town enjoyed looking at the list and telling which of those upright men they had shared a drink with. One man said “Old So and So (One of the signers of the declaration of moral temperance) better not come down to my camp looking for a bottle of whiskey anymore.” Consequently, to avoid further sinning on the part of the signing drinkers, we keep our libatiounary entertainments to ourselves.
Drink divides us, food unites us. Each family has its own traditions of what to serve, but there are certain foods to be found on every holiday table. One is dressing. That is a southern term for stuffing, which we in the south do no put in the turkey, but along side it. Even vegetarians know it’s not Christmas or Thanksgiving or maybe even Easter without dressing. We always make it out of cornbread, too. No soggy white bread stuffing will suit us. It also has lots of celery and onions in it. Some people add a bit of bell pepper to flavor up the broth. If we put in sage, it is only a pinch. We don’t like to taste it, rather have it as a subtle underpinning.
We must also have sweet potatoes. They can be mashed with various things in them. They can be topped with a praline/pecan topping (my personal favorite) or have marshmallows on top. My grandmother went through a couple of trendy sweet potato phases. One was orange rind cups with marshmallows on top. That was handy when you used the orange sections in ambrosia. The other was to mash the sweet potatoes, mold them around a marshmallow and then roll in cornflake crumbs and bake the balls.
No holiday table is ever complete without pecan pies and most have the aforementioned ambrosia. It is a dish made with orange sections and fresh grated coconut. Some people add crushed pineapple. It is not as popular now as it once was because for some reason, children no longer eat coconut. It seems to be a generational thing. That also eliminates Japanese fruitcake, once a dessert staple, from many tables, I’ve always wondered if it was invented during WWII when candied fruit was hard to get. It may have been called Japanese fruit cake as a derogatory term. Anyway, now it seems to be as ancient as WWII.
If you have access to them, butterbeans also seem to show up on most holiday tables. They are fresh tomatoes, rare and valuable when you don’t have a garden. If freezers have one package left, they go on the holiday table.
Presents are part of the holiday celebration, but entirely secondary to the foods/ entertainment aspect of the holiday. In fact, as we age, many of us treasure food as a suitable gift. My aunt told me that when a person reaches 60, there is a good rule to follow in gift giving, “If you can’t eat it, can’t wear it, and can’t spend it – don’t give it.”
Foods are the first in order with that rule. My requests for gifts include pound cakes from my relatives who are good cake bakers. I have learned to make peppermint bark for gifts this year. One of my friends makes wonderful fruitcake cookies that I look forward to receiving. One of everybody’s favorite gifts is a quart of shelle4 picked out pecans. We consider pecans to be the nut of choice in rural southwest Alabama. Now that Christmas comes every three months, we have plenty of them in a good crop year. May this be a good crop year for all of you whether in rural southwest Alabama or the world at large. Christmas is now. Merry Christmas!

CHARLIE LUCAS OPENING

Charlie Lucas is a famous outsider artist who lives in Selma. Alabama. His is a story that is stuff movies are made of. There is a book being written about him right now. Ben Windham, the editor of the Tuscaloosa News, is working on one with Charlie. I will leave the whole story to them to tell. I have seen a sample chapter of the book. Ben’s mother is the famous storyteller and NPR commentator, Kathryn Tucker Windham, who lives next door to Charlie. Her whole family calls Charlie “brother”. He really is a member of the family. Kathryn lives in what can kindly be described as a declining neighborhood. Her children wanted her to move out of the house that has been her home where she raised her family. Kathryn refused and found her own solution to the problem. She bought the house next door and moved Charlie into it. They had become friends when both were appearing at Kentuck, an arts exhibition festival in Northport. Charlie was completing a messy divorce and needed a pace to live. Kathryn needed a reliable neighbor.
The two watch out for each other. They have a signal morning ritual. When Kathryn gets up, she opens the blinds in her kitchen window to let Charlie know she’s all right. Kathryn is in her late 80s, so the ritual is useful, but does not invade her privacy. Charlie, like all artists, has periods of feast or famine. Kathryn has vowed he will never go hungry. She is a famous writer whose works include books on southern cooking, so Charlie eats well whether art is selling or not.
This past Saturday night, Charlie had an art opening in his new gallery next to Holly’s Feed and Seed in downtown Selma. He shares the building with the Everyman bookstore and antique shop. His side makes the perfect gallery to showcase his sculptures and paintings. His work needs a place with the patina of age to show it best.
His sculptures are metal, made of found objects welded together. His paintings are framed with boards salvaged from abandoned buildings he tears down. He also does art on ironing boards and other interesting things. He has a series of masks that he makes from old tin roof shingles. He also does metal wall hangings. All of the pieces look well against the damp stained plaster walls of the warehouse space. The light is dim, which works well with his bright colors.
Some of Charlie’s work is simple and childlike. I bought one of these when I was previewing the show. The one I bought is called “50 Foot Woman”, a study in bright pastels with the woman surrounded by small buildings. It is so powerful in its message, that with Charlie’s permission, I plan to have prints made for all my powerful women friends. Charlie painted it after he had a dream about the Woman. All Charlie’s work is based on mystical and philosophical principles. He is a deep thinker who spends a lot of time contemplating how the world and the human minds in it work. When you point to any work in the gallery, he will tell you its story. Each and every piece has a story. There are no pieces that he just throws together for the sake of seeking a sale. One piece that particularly spoke to me was one called “The Teacher”. It was an abstract with a face mask surrounded by smaller descending faces. It was the teacher with her students. On the back of the sculpture were wires tying the lives together. He told me the story as I looked at the sculpture, pointing out the various aspects of the work. Half the fun of owning a Lucas work is knowing the story behind it. Coming to see the artist and his work, in my opinion, is the only way to buy from him.
I had reserved another piece of his, in addition to the one I bought, but it was expensive for my budget, so I put it on layaway. It was a metal wall hanging on a red wooden board called “Lug Wrench”. It told the story of divorce – How love had put the two together and divorce had wrenched them apart. He told how he wished to see divorce be gentler between the people involved without the pain of the wrench. I wonder if the person who bought it understood Charlie’s message. Charlie regretfully informed me that before he got to the opening, it sold. He was much better off. It would have been months before I could have paid it off, and he was able to get his money on the spot. He is going to do me another piece, so I’ll have months to save up for it.
I may even opt for another piece I saw. I had trouble deciding not to buy one of her newer pieces which looked quite Picassoesque. The reason I bought the “50 Foot Woman” is that it reminds me of one he did for Kathryn’s birthday of her as a dancing woman. It captured her essence as a joyful figure. The “50 Foot Woman” has the same air of carefree abandon. Charlie has a knack for distilling the essence of life.
Charlie’s phone number is (334) 872-3956. If he’s around, he will answer his phone and meet you at his gallery.

CHRISTMAS PLAY IN GILBERTOWN

I am always amazed when I attend a play put on by the locals in Choctaw County at the Ballet and Theater Arts School in Gilbertown. Fred and Svetlana Kimbrough came back from New York City where they had been performers to raise their family in rural Southwest Alabama. To make a living, they founded a non-profit organization to teach and do performances with local people. The talent they find and bring out in the locals is truly amazing. Their daytime work is with children in the schools and in after school programs. Their plays are extra.
Last weekend, I went to see “A Sanders Family Christmas” – the Christmas sequel to “Smoke on the Mountain” which they had presented to sell out audiences earlier this year. It is set in 1941 at the beginning of World War ll. It is a religious musical comedy, if you can imagine. It involves a cast of 9, with three musicians extra. I have rarely heard better harmony on the musical numbers.
I never like to enjoy plays or eating out by myself. I like to celebrate good things with friends. I took three of my favorite culture buffs along with me. As I have told you before, I am like an army, I travel on my stomach. We had choices of good places to eat along the way. It is hard to believe that there are a number of places scattered through the woods of such a rural area. The largest town is around 300. We could have had catfish as Bobby’s fish camp, seafood at DeDoc’s, a train wreck loaded potato at J&K Junction, or authentic homemade pizza at Bimbo’s. I opted for Bimbo’s because I am partial to their shrimp, mushroom and bacon pizza on a homemade crust as well as the interesting things on their salad bar like pepperoni.
I have attended plays in Gilbertown for years. One Christmas, I went to see Amahl and the Night Visitors. Believe it or not, in rural Southwest Alabama, it was an opera. It was beautifully done! At the end, Fred came out and said “Ah, fooled you didn’t we?” How many of you enjoyed the opera?” Everybody clapped and raised their hands. Then he asked “how many of you would have come if you had known it was an opera?” About three hands went up. Sometimes in rural Southwest Alabama we have to be fooled into culture, but we enjoy it when we get there.


I am always amazed when I attend a play put on by the locals in Choctaw County at the Ballet and Theater Arts School in Gilbertown. Fred and Svetlana Kimbrough came back from New York City where they had been performers to raise their family in rural Southwest Alabama. To make a living, they founded a non-profit organization to teach and do performances with local people. The talent they find and bring out in the locals is truly amazing. Their daytime work is with children in the schools and in after school programs. Their plays are extra.
Last weekend, I went to see “A Sanders Family Christmas” – the Christmas sequel to “Smoke on the Mountain” which they had presented to sell out audiences earlier this year. It is set in 1941 at the beginning of World War ll. It is a religious musical comedy, if you can imagine. It involves a cast of 9, with three musicians extra. I have rarely heard better harmony on the musical numbers.
I never like to enjoy plays or eating out by myself. I like to celebrate good things with friends. I took three of my favorite culture buffs along with me. As I have told you before, I am like an army, I travel on my stomach. We had choices of good places to eat along the way. It is hard to believe that there are a number of places scattered through the woods of such a rural area. The largest town is around 300. We could have had catfish as Bobby’s fish camp, seafood at DeDoc’s, a train wreck loaded potato at J&K Junction, or authentic homemade pizza at Bimbo’s. I opted for Bimbo’s because I am partial to their shrimp, mushroom and bacon pizza on a homemade crust as well as the interesting things on their salad bar like pepperoni.
I have attended plays in Gilbertown for years. One Christmas, I went to see Amahl and the Night Visitors. Believe it or not, in rural Southwest Alabama, it was an opera. It was beautifully done! At the end, Fred came out and said “Ah, fooled you didn’t we?” How many of you enjoyed the opera?” Everybody clapped and raised their hands. Then he asked “how many of you would have come if you had known it was an opera?” About three hands went up. Sometimes in rural Southwest Alabama we have to be fooled into culture, but we enjoy it when we get there.