Longleaf - Fall 2009

Fall 2009

MYTHS

www.longleafstyle.com $3.95

Alabama Myths • New Fiction • Classical Myths

Stringfellow Memorial Hospital

Where Everyone Comes 1st www.SMHhealth.com (256) 235-8900

Honda accord now... built in your own backyard

along with Odyssey, Pilot and Ridgeline

in Lincoln, Alabama

Sunny King Honda 2580 US Hwy 78 East • Anniston, AL (256) 835-1000 • 1-800-423-4074 • www.sunnykinghonda.com

{Fall Contents} 4

Editor’s Note

6

New to Longleaf

8

Birth: A Myth

By Daniel Wallace

10

Grimm’s Fairy Tales

By Sherry Kughn

14

Native American Myths

By Lisa Worsham Berryhill

18

Hal: King of the run away slaves

By Harvey H. Jackson

22

Gypsies and Red Panties

By Becky Browder

28

Mobile Myth Buster

36

By Josephine E. Ayers

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 23

22 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Gods & Goddesses

46

Hit & Myth

By Martin Platt

48

Magic Rings

By Mike Stedham

52

Zodiac Farmer

By Loyd McIntosh

58

Wine Myths

By Pat Kettles

22

The Order of Myths

By Sherry Kughn

62

18

By John Fleming

42

Myths

28

Kathryn Stoockett

By Lisa Berryhill Worsham

70

Ink & Blood

By Mary Eloise H. Leake

70 Fall 2009

76

(be)Scene

88

Summer Events

96

Last Leaf MYTHS

www.longleafstyle.com $3.95

AlAbAmA myths • New FictioN • clAssicAl myths

Longleaf Style Fall 2009

On the cover: Illustration by Lauren Castor

“Better Technology For Better Healthcare”

ADVANCED IMAGING 1WT 0COG 5C[U +V #NN 1699 Golden Springs Rd. (256) 835-0835 • MRI – Latest Technology, 1.5T Open • CT – 3D & Vascular • High Definition Ultrasound • Digital X-Ray • Bone Density • Digital Mammography with CAD Advanced Imaging is a full service outpatient diagnostic testing center.Our Staff are all trained, certified, and registered through the American Society of Radiological Technologists.

Life is full of choices. Tell your healthcare provider that you choose Advanced Imaging.

After all…… You DO have a CHOICE.

It’s Just Plain Better……… Ask For It! Fall 2009 Longleaf Style

photo by David Walters

{Editor’s Note}

Myths

s I write this I am enjoying extraordinary views of the Rockies from my friend’s home in Snowmass, Colorado. These mountains are forbidding in their “jaggedness” but so beautiful with the lush green of their covering and the vivid color of the wildflower carpet.

I can’t help but compare this landscape to our own longleaf region. The Rockies are “new” mountains, uplifted only about 100 million years ago. The Appalachians are older by at least 300 million years, more worn down and gentle, as they roll their way up from Alabama to Newfoundland.

Two kinds of trees dominate the forests here–the stately lodgepole pine and the lovely Aspen with its silvery, rustling leaves. In the fall this combination makes for a spectacular display of golden yellow spilled across the deep green background of the pines. Then, there are those ubiquitous wildflowers, indicative of an ecosystem so different from ours that it’s hard to believe we’re on the same continent.

In the Appalachian forests, home to the longleaf pine, there is an amazing variety of hardwood trees mixed in with the evergreens, providing us with even more spectacular fall color which we shall soon enjoy. We can’t claim that our landscape is superior but it is certainly a beautiful and comforting blanket surrounding our lives and sheltering many of our myths and legends.

There are things we have in common though, as I was reminded when I visited the Aspen Music Festival. Hundreds of music lovers gathering in a beautiful pastoral setting, picnicking and visiting with their friends and families, enjoying a killer performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto– this could’ve been Music at McClellan! Or, more accurately, it could be Music at McClellan.

Aspen’s festival celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, having grown from a single-subject lecture series to a blockbuster schedule of 350 performances in 6 weeks. Just as important as the performances is the other piece of the mission, which is to educate and nurture young musicians to bring them to the highest level of professionalism. These students from all over the world gravitate to the Aspen Music School to learn from the distinguished resident faculty as well as from the most celebrated musicians of the day–YoYo Ma, Gil Shahan, Deborah Voight, Misha Dichter, Vladimer Feltsman, Jessye Norman, and dozens more.

Why can’t we do this? Aspen is a town of only 6000, though it does have the advantage of those ski slopes to swell its population in winter. In the longleaf region there are more than 100,000 people–no sking but practically year round outdoor recreation, amid the beauty of our Appalachian mountains. Within shouting distance of the beautiful surroundings at McClellan which our own music festival has called home for 6 years, is the distinguished Music Department of Jacksonville State University. What better core faculty for the McClellan Music School?

And, we have a good start: the Knox Concert Series (3 years older than Aspen, by the way!) has a long history of bringing the world’s most well-known artists to this area, and Music at McClellan has established the tradition of a popular summer festival.

It seems all the elements are in place; all that is needed now is determination and persistence! If a little peanut town in the middle of nowhere Colorado can dream a big dream, then we can too!

And let’s don’t take 60 years to do it-I don’t know about you, but I’d like to be around to enjoy it!

With this challenge in mind and the intriguing assortment of myths and legends this issue offers, we look forward to the beautiful fall of the longleaf forests in the foothills of the ancient Appalachian chain.

Josephine E. Ayers Editor in Chief Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Volume 4, No. 3 Fall 2009 Longleaf Style Josephine E. Ayers, Editor-in-Chief Theresa Shadrix, Managing Editor Patrick Stokesberry, Art Director Kristy Farmer, Editorial Assistant Sherry Kughn, Copy Editor Hervey Folsom, (be)Scene Coordinator Lauren Castor, Graphics Designer Ashley Bass, Graphics Designer Les Johnson, Graphics Designer Sandy Fields, Ad Layout Dollie Robinson, Advertising Manager Dennis Dunn, Circulation Director Justin Thurman, Multi Media Director Contributing Writers Becky Browder John Fleming Hardy Jackson Pat Kettles Sherry Kughn Mary Elosie H. Leake Loyd McIntosh Martin Platt Mike Stedham Daniel Wallace Lisa Berryhill Worsham Contributing Photographers Patrick Stokesberry Bill Wilson Consolidated Publishing Co. H. Brandt Ayers, Chairman and Publisher P.A. Sanguinetti, President Ed Fowler, VP for Operations Robert Jackson, VP for Sales Longleaf Style is a quarterly publication of the Consolidated Publishing Company 4305 McClellan Boulevard.

Anniston, AL 36206 Address correspondence to: Longleaf Style P.O. Box 189 Anniston, AL 36202 Editorial queries: (256) 235-3539 Advertising: (256) 235-9222 Subscriptions: (256) 235-9253 www.longleafstyle.com Copyright 2009 The Consolidated Publishing Company Printed in USA. All rights reserved.

starting at

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style

{New to Longleaf}

Daniel Wallace

Martin Platt

Lisa Berryhill Worsham

Becky Browder

Daniel Wallace is author of four novels, including Big Fish (1998), Ray in Reverse (2000), The Watermelon King (2003) and most recently Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician (2007). He has written one book for children, Elynora, and, in 2008, it was published in Italy, with illustrations by Daniela Tordi. O Great Rosenfeld!, the only book both written and illustrated by the author, has been released in France and Korea and is forthcoming in Italy, but there are not, at this writing, any plans for an American edition. In 2003, Tim Burton released the film adaptation of Big Fish and Wallace played the part of a professor at Auburn University. He is, in fact, the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which is also his alma mater. Though born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, he has lived in Chapel Hill longer than he has lived anywhere else, and he has no plans to leave.

His wife, Laura, is a social worker, and his son, Henry, a student at East Chapel Hill High. His daughter, Lillian Bayley Hoover, is a working artist and teacher in Baltimore, Maryland.

More information about him, his writing, and his illustrations can be found at www.danielwallace.org and www.ogreatrosenfeld.com.

Globe-trotting and multi-tasking, Martin Platt has traveled a long way since the start of his career in Anniston in 1971.

First as director of the Anniston Little Theater, then as founder of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Platt worked and lived in Anniston until the Festival moved to Montgomery in 1984.

Founder and Artistic Director of two other theaters, Birmingham Repertory, and Santa Fe Stages, he has directed and/or produced productions and tours in the UK and Europe as well as Australia, New Zealand, and several countries in Africa.

Theater is not Platt’s only interest; he is a tireless traveler, having most recently explored China, and his favorite spectator sports are ice hockey and opera.

As a director, he is currently working on Maurine Watkins’s So Help Me God with Kristine Johnston. He is producing Lend me a Tenor, The Musical in London and co-producing and directing Breaker Morant, also in London. His company, Perry Street Theatricals, is general managing a new play, Ikens Perversion by Diana Amsterdam for Broadway or Off- Broadway.

Lisa loves all things Southern and she considers herself to be as Southern as sweet potato pie. She has happily never lived north of the Mason-Dixon Line having spent time in Houston, Texas, Birmingham, Anniston, and Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

She is a freelance writer and owner of Literal Impact, a marketing, advertising, and public relations firm with clients in Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee. Lisa grew up in Oxford, Alabama, graduated from Oxford High School and earned a degree in Communications from Auburn University. An avid Auburn Tiger fan, she claims to actually bleed orange and blue.

An accomplished actor, Lisa often appeared onstage and worked backstage at Anniston’s ACTheater and, more recently, a member of the Act4Murder acting group in the Florida panhandle. Lisa’s latest creative venture is writing songs and collaborating with other songwriters in Nashville, Tennessee.

What could be more Southern than that?

Becky Browder’s work has appeared in the Clackamas Literary Review and is forthcoming in the South Carolina Review. She has won firsts and has placed in writing competitions from Alaska, California, and across the continent and ocean to Ireland.

Becky has an MPA from Jacksonville State University and is hard at work on an MFA in the Creative Writing Program at Spalding University in Kentucky.

She and her husband, the former congressman Glenn Browder, have traveled to many places in the world–including Russia, Greenland, Iceland, North Africa, and Bulgaria–where she met all sorts of people–little old ladies in mountain villages of Bulgaria selling their crochet work, fishermen, and even people like Mikhail Gorbachev.

Maybe the origins of her awardwinning writing are in her background: Becky says she had the two best parents in the world. She grew up on a cotton mill village in South Carolina and the gypsies did come to town the summer she turned six.

Longleaf Style Fall 2009

s k r u in? o y h t i w Who would you trust Ask yourself these questions: • Is your provider a skin specialist?

• How many years of experience do they offer in cosmetic procedures?

• Do they offer a full complement of services, and in what environment?

Shelley h. Ray, M.D. Board Certified Dermatologist

American Society of Cosmetic Dermatology and Surgery 11 years experience injecting Botox, Dermal Fillers, and Laser Techniques

Expertise, Experience, Effectiveness, Elegance Medical Spa Treatments

Traditional Spa Treatments

Laser Hair Removal Skin Resurfacing Smooth Shapes Cellulite Reduction Chemical Peels Silk Peel Dermalinfusion Sclerotherapy Photofacial Botox® Cosmetic Restylane® Juvéderm™ Radiesse®

Safe Manicures and Pedicures Massages Body Wraps Facials Makeup Tutorials Eyelash Extensions Waxing True Mineral Makeup Pharmaceutical Grade Skin Care

Gift Certificates Available

256 241-MSPA(6772) prestigemedicalspa.com

World class services that work at affordable pricing in your own backyard!

Bonne Santé Building • Highway 78 East • Oxford, AL Fall 2009 Longleaf Style

Birth: A Myth

By Daniel Wallace

Longleaf Style Fall 2009

I was born on the beach. At least, that’s where it all began. One night the woman who would become my mother and the man I would one day know as Dad came together to create me–beneath the dark velvet sky, the moon and the stars–and on top of a really itchy blanket they’d smuggled out of their motel guestroom.

Romantic? Of course. Accidental? No doubt. But I don’t let that part spoil the beauty. As my mother says, there are good accidents, and there are bad ones.

I am one of the good ones.

On exactly which beach all of this took place, I don’t know. The location always changes, is fudged, uncertain. They traveled. Florida? Maybe it was Florida.

Or Spain. Or California, or Mexico. I like to believe it happened in Gulf Shores.

So I imagine it was like this: The sand.

Light brown, as fine as dust. The surface of it warm, but dig just beneath it and there’s a surprising coolness, a secret relief. Merely walking here is a sensuous activity.

Wearing shoes is an insult to the sand and to the bottoms of your feet as well.

The ocean.

Clear, blue and full of the most colorful little fish.

Water: bracing. Good for jumping into when it gets too hot. The constant motion of the lapping waves and the water slipping up to cool their ankles reminds my future parents that the ocean has been doing this for a long time, and will be doing it for a long time to come.

Before, during and after.

The moon.

The moon bathes their bodies in a soft blue light.

They both appear to glow from the inside out.

Palm trees. Not really sure if there are palm trees.

Sometimes there are, sometimes not.

The town near the beach. Small, hidden away, forgotten by time and travel guides, they find it turning left when they mean to turn right. A place where you can buy fresh fruit and vegetables from roadside stands roofed with tin from a guy with not many teeth.

The wind.

It’s always blowing, but just a little, as if the world were constantly whispering secrets people are just barely unable to hear.

The night.

The night. Here, finally, is where we meet them–on the beach, at night, on a red, yellow and orange bed cover my father grabbed at the last minute as they were walking out the door.

It’s late. At this time of night, the beach is completely deserted; in fact, it’s so empty, with no

sound but the ocean, no lights but the stars–they fool themselves into believing that not only are they alone, but that they have discovered this place.

No one has ever been here before.

The surface of the water is phosphorescent with life.

My father is in his boxers, and my mother is draped in a sheet. They are, both of them, beautiful and young.

The apogee of their lives.

They lie there, holding themselves up with their elbows, staring at each other, at the stars, and the infinite water. And then, for the first time in their lives, they each think the exact same thought at the exact same time: that this is a night they will remember for the rest of their lives, even if they don’t make another move, never say another word, if they remain just like this for hours.

But then, the sand beside my father begins to sift, and the small beaky nose of a baby sea turtle, hatching only now, sticks out, followed by the rest of its immensely tiny self.

The turtle, seconds old, looks a hundred.

It glances at my mom, my dad, and then, relying on its ancient memory, begins the journey to the sea.

Only it goes the wrong direction, and after what seems like minutes and a thousand little steps, walks right into my mother’s toes (the nails of which are painted Crimson Passion)–where the turtle stops, unsure of how to proceed. And in an act predicting the maternal talents which will come into play nine months later, my mother gently lifts the baby sea turtle and turns it in the other direction–where it goes, disappearing into the shimmering surf.

That’s when they look at each other, my childless parents, and know what it is they have to do.

The beach is the place to be. It always has been, even before the first footprint made it to dry land.

Because it’s not just me: one way or another, all of us come from the ocean. This is why we’re drawn there year after year after year.

We remember…

Daniel Wallace is author of four novels, including Big Fish (1998), Ray in Reverse (2000), The Watermelon King (2003) and Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician (2007). Visit him online at www.danielwallace.org

Spring 2009 Longleaf Style

The Magic Spell of Grimm’s Fairy Tales Compiled by Sherry Kughn

Grimm’s Fairy Tales by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm of Germany was first published in 1812, 210 stories in all. Since then, the tales have been repeated to children of all generations in a multitude of formats.

Regardless of whether the brothers wrote the tales for entertainment or for instruction, they are used for both purposes.

10 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Presented here is a collection of some of the tales, re-told by young contributors. These stories prove that truth often comes out of the mouth of babes.

Little Red Riding Hood

By Jayden Hendrick, 5 Once upon a time a little girl went to her Grandma’s house, and the big bad wolf was dressed up in her grandma’s suit, and she said, “What a big nose you have, Grandma.” And he said, “The better to smell you with, my dear!” And she said, “What big teeth you have, Grandma.” And the wolf said, “The better to eat you with my dear!” And the big bad wolf took off his clothes and said, “It’s me!” He was bad and a stranger. And she said, “Uh Oh! It’s the big bad wolf!” She ran as fast as she could to the closet, and she wanted to run as fast as she could until the big bad wolf could rest. (He needed rest because he was panting.) And she ran to Grandma who said, ”What happened, dear?” And she said, “The big bad wolf was dressed in your clothes, and he wanted to trick me. I ran and opened the door as fast as I could and locked it so he couldn’t get me. That big bad wolf was trying to catch me, Grandma.” Red Riding Hood should have gotten a knife and cut his hair off if he kept bothering Grandma. The end.

Baba-Yaga A classic Russian Witch….

By Pasha Volf, 5 Once upon a time there lived a boy and a girl. Once they went out for a walk in the woods and met a grey wolf. He led them to a little hut-on-chicken-legs, where the evil witch Baba-Yaga lived. She was not at home because she was in the woods picking mushrooms.

So the wolf left the children in the hut and ran into the woods to tell her that he had brought her some children to eat. And Baba-Yaga rushed home. But in the meantime the children took the hut-on-chicken-legs by the halter and led it back to where they lived. So when Baba-Yaga came, both the hut and the children were gone. Oh, and the wolf really got it! The end.

Cinderella

By Gracie Lee McCombs, 7 First Cinderella had a dad; then he died. When she grew older, she had to be a servant in her own house.

She found a dress when she got an invitation to the ball.

Every young maiden had to go, and the prince would fall in love with one, and that was Cinderella. She was

happy to go. Cinderella didn’t have time to finish the dress, but the mice and birds helped. The mice and birds surprised Cinderella. She went downstairs and Anastasia and Drusilla tore up the dress because they saw Cinderella had stolen their beads and sash. It wasn’t really her, it was the mice. She went in to the garden and cried a lot. This is sad because the sisters did not like her. Then the fairy godmother showed up. Cinderella’s friends, the mice, changed into white horses. She got a pumpkin and the fairy godmother turned the pumpkin into a carriage. The fairy godmother turned the dogs into a coachman and a driver. Cinderella went to the ball and the prince fell in love with Cinderella; and when the clock struck 12, Cinderella had to go home, and she lost one of her slippers on the steps. Everything changed back to the way it was, and Cinderella had only one slipper left that didn’t change back. The grand Duke showed up to the house, and he let all the girls try on the slipper, but Cinderella was locked in her room.

The mice got the key and unlocked the door. Then she tried on the slipper, and it fit, and she went to the palace again to get married to the Prince. Cinderella and the Prince got married. Her happiness was worth the trouble. That’s it.

Snow White

By Juliette Arevalo, 7 A long time ago, there lived a king and a queen. The queen died, and the king got married again. The new queen hated Snow White and treated her like a servant because she was more beautifuller than the queen. The queen’s men were ordered to kill Snow White. The men had a nice heart and told Snow White to run away. They liked her because she was nice and not evil, like her stepmother. The queen found out where Snow White was living. The Seven Dwarfs took care of Snow White.

They gave her food and shelter, and they let her guard their house. Snow White, as well, took care of them.

The prince found Snow White and leaned over to kiss her. The prince took Snow White to his palace where they got married and lived happily ever after. The drawfs missed her because they loved her and they thought she was going to stay with them forever. The end.

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 11

Rapunzel

The Frog Prince

By Simeon Shadrix, 8 yrs.

By Tanner Kughn, 9 years

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Rapunzel, and she lived in a house that had a window. She could see beautiful flowers, and one day her mom and dad said they would trade Rapunzel to a maid, and they did.

But one day she sends Rapunzel to a tower because she was bad. One day a prince came by the tower, and he heard her crying; so he came to her every day. He saw a woman and she said to bring down her hair. So, next time he saw Rapunzel, he told her to bring down her hair. She saw the prince, and they lived happily ever after. I like Rapunzel because they live happily and because they get married. I like it because it is exciting, but I don’t think a prince could crawl up a girl’s hair.

Once upon a time there was a King and a Princess.

She was the prettiest princess of all. Her favorite hobby was tossing a gold ball into the air and catching it. One day the ball rolled into a fountain. The Princess cried a lot. Right then a frog popped out and said, “Why are you crying?” She said, “I dropped my gold ball and can’t get it back.” She made promises to the frog. He popped in and out of the water with the ball in his mouth. She got the ball and ran home to the King. The frog found her and was pushy. He tried to make her keep her promises. She didn’t want to. When the frog turned into a handsome prince, she changed her mind. The end.

The Princess and the Pea

Sleeping Beauty

By Shelley Philllips, 8

By Libby Davis, age 10

Once upon a time there was a prince who was looking for a beautiful, kind princess, but she had to be a real princess. I would not like to be a princess because it would be too much work to get up every morning and greet my people, and I would not have enough time to play and have fun.

Now the prince searched all over the world, but none of the princesses were beautiful, kind, and real. One night the prince heard a knock on the castle door, so he opened it, and in came a beautiful and kind princess.

But was she real?

“Now it is time for the test,” said the queen. So the queen ordered the maid to take all the sheets off the bed and the mattress and put a pea there. They put twenty mattresses on top and that will be where the princess sleeps.

The next morning she was asked how she slept. She said, “Horribly! Something under the mattresses kept me awake all night.” (I don’t think I would be able to feel a pea, so it probably wouldn’t bother me.)

“She passed the test,” said the queen.

So the prince and the princess got married and lived happily ever after. I think the princess probably checked under her mattress for peas before she went to bed every night.

A princess was born! Her name was Rose Marie. A party was held, and princes came from all over the land.

Each brought a wrapped gift for the princess, things like beauty or obedience. But one mean prince shouted out, “When Rose Marie is 15 she will prick her finger on a rose bush and fall dead instantly!!” The mean prince left abruptly. A good prince came up. “I can’t take away the curse, but I can ease it. Rose Marie will only fall asleep for 100 years. She will grow old. The only thing that can make her young again is to dance.”

Fifteen years later, Rose Marie was walking far from the castle. She knew nothing of the curse on her. She walked near a rose bush and pricked her finger. She fell to the ground.

The hundred years slowly ticked away. Finally, Rose Marie awoke. She was confused. Her parents had never told her about the curse. She wondered what had happened to her. She was an old woman. She was tired.

The princess found a cabin. She made herself a thick cloak and a cane. She wore a scarf around her long, white hair.

One day she was out picking berries when a boy named Alex passed by. He stopped to help her up, and she started to dance. As they danced, Rose Marie’s thick cloak fell off. Her old dress reconstructed itself. Her hair turned golden. When they stopped dancing, Alex realized the woman was no older than himself.

They traveled back to the kingdom. The king and queen had managed to live so long they got to see Rose Marie again. They were very happy to see their little girl again. They told her about the curse. The princess told them Alex had broken the curse. The princess and Alex got married and lived happily ever after.

12 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Rumpelstiltskin

By Trey Huggins, 10 This fairy tale is based on lies, greed, pride, evil and deceit. There was a girl named Ethel. Her father wanted her to marry the king. Every time the king passed by, the father told him good things about Ethel. The king would just ignore him. When the father told the king that his daughter could make gold out of straw, the king took her to the palace.

The king put Ethel in a small, cold, damp, and smelly room which was full with straw. He said to her, “Make this straw into gold or I will kill your father for lying.” Ethel started to cry. Suddenly, a little man came into the room. Ethel told him why she was crying. Then he took her necklace and started to spin the straw into gold.

The next day the king was impressed with her and took her into a bigger room full of straw and told her to spin it into gold or he would kill her father.

Ethel started to cry. The little man showed up again. This time he took her ring and started to spin the straw into gold.

The next day the king danced her through the palace into a large ballroom full of straw and told her to turn it into gold. Ethel started to cry. The little man showed up again. Since Ethel didn’t have anything else to give him, he told her to give him her baby. She agreed.

The king was so happy that Ethel made so much gold, he married her.

Now, this king is very greedy. This guy is never satisfied, you probably can’t imagine being his servant, he always wanted more and this is the only reason he married Ethel. Evil breeds evil and Ethel’s father lies just so Ethel could marry the king. What kind of father is this? The father only wanted her to marry the king to esteem himself. Ethel’s father wanted to boast to his friends on how his daughter is now the Queen. The king only married Ethel so he would have more gold.

Now, here comes this little ugly man, who wants to take Ethel’s baby, not to raise the baby, but to eat the baby. When her first baby was born, the little man showed up and told her to hand him over.

Ethel refused.

The little man told her if you can figure out my name, I will let you keep the baby. Ethel tried all night to guess his name but couldn’t figure it out.

The little man told her that he will come back tomorrow to get the baby.

One of her servants knew she was trying to figure

out a name. She told her about the strange man singing in the woods. He was dancing around a fire singing that he would have the queen’s baby to eat because she would never guess his name, Rumpelstiltskin.

The next day when the man came back to get the baby Ethel told him his name. He was so angry that he stomped himself into the ground.

The story said that the king and Ethel live happily ever after, but I doubt it. How could they live happy ever after, when the marriage is based on greed instead of love?

Faithful John

By Mateen Ibrahim, 11 In a kingdom by the sea and after the king’s death, Faithful John was made responsible for Prince Crispin who was still young. He was the most loyal servant and friend of the king and was given the responsibility of opening all the king’s chambers, which included one with the portrait of Princess Esther of The Golden Roof. It was doubly enchanted--with good magic, but also with a curse.

As soon as Prince Crispin saw the picture he fell in love and dropped unconscious to the floor.

He and Faithful John posed as Gold merchants and set sail across the Land of the Golden Roof.

Although Faithful John knew it will be a difficult journey, he wanted to keep the promise he had made with the king of taking care of the prince even at the cost of his own life. Inspired by the gold carvings, it did not take princess long to accept his proposal. At this happy moment three ravens were overheard by Faithful John. They were talking about the three dangers of the painting and how to overcome them. With John’s wisdom, the King stayed safe from the spell of the ruby horse and the vest. On the wedding day, John was able to bring her back to life when she fell unconscious on the dance floor. This act of his led him to the dungeon where, because of the spell, he turned into a marble figure. To undo their injustice the king and queen agreed on sacrificing their own kids, and it was just then that the spell broke. John came back to life.

Faithful John was happy not only because he was able to keep his promise but also because he was still loved and cared for even after the King’s death.

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 13

Native American Myths

By Lisa Berryhill Worsham Illustration by Laurne Castor

Native people who lived in North America centuries before Europeans sailed here to “discover” the New World had no written language. Their oral tradition of myths and legends connected them to their past, provided guidance on the proper way to live, and served as a cultural and historical record.

Chris Hill, who teaches classes in Southern Heritage and Archaeology at Sacred Heart Catholic School at McClellan, says Native Americans used myths and legends to explain their place in the universe. “Some myths provided a sense of the world they lived in. Others were told to teach the people, especially young people, life lessons. By listening to a story about good versus evil, children learned the importance of doing the right thing and the consequences of bad behavior.”

The oral myths, or sacred stories, were passed down through countless generations over thousands of years. As the elders shared the myths and sacred formulas around the council fire, they were preserving the history and the spiritual values of their people as the ancient ones had before them. In many tribes, these myth keepers were shamans or medicine men that must have had a flair for the dramatic. They probably understood that the best stories, the ones most easily recalled, entertain as much as instruct.

Most native people viewed the world as a place where humans were simply a part of the whole of nature, not the masters of it. Some stories gave human qualities to animals and it was commonly believed that all living things–people, plants and animals–had souls.

This myth, part of the Cherokee Creation story, explains how plants and animals were given special characteristics by the Creator as a reward, while others were punished for their behavior.

When the animals and plants were first made by the Creator, they were told to watch and keep awake for seven nights, just as our young men now fast and keep awake when they pray to their medicine. Only a few animals managed to do this. On the seventh night, only the owl, the panther, and one or two more remained awake.

To these the Creator gave the power to see and move about in the dark, and to make

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 15

We can Take care Of all The needS

For The Cyclist or Skater In Your family!

Patrick Wigley Owner, Cyclist, Skater, USA Cycling Certified Mechanic

Electra Townie (pictured)

Upright seating for less back pain and a clear view of the road feet flat on the ground for more stability anytime you have to start or stop your ride.

relaxed arm position for more control and less hand fatigue forward pedaling for proper leg extension and better torque

wigswheels.com 237-WIGS (9447) 16 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

prey of the birds and animals that sleep at night. Of the trees, only the cedar, the pine, the spruce, the holly, and the laurel were awake to the end. To them it was given to be always green and to provide the best medicine. To the others the Creator said, “Because you have not endured to the end, you shall lose your hair every winter.� Man was made after the animals and plants. At first there was only a brother and sister, until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was. In seven days a child was born to her, and thereafter every seven days another, and their numbers increased very fast until there was danger that the world would not contain them. Then it was made that a woman should have only one child in a year, and it has been so ever since.

Ethnographers John Swanton and James Mooney collected and recorded the myths of the native people of the Southeast. Both collections feature stories with enough sex, betrayal, violence, and melodrama to rival today’s soap operas and reality television.

A myth common to several Southeastern tribes describes how tobacco came to the people. Tobacco, considered sacred by many native groups, is still used in ceremonies as a way to send prayers and give thanks to the Great Spirit. This version is from the Muskogee (Creek) mythology.

A young man very much wanted to marry a certain girl, but she paid him no attention. One day the two of them were in the woods and they became separated from their party. The man took a chance and told her he wanted her and would take her home if she would marry him. They lay together in the woods before returning to camp. The next year the man went hunting and passed by the same spot. To his surprise a beautiful plant was growing where he had first lain with his wife. He returned several times and began to care for it. When it grew to be a foot high, he picked a few leaves and threw them into the fire. It smelled so good and made him feel a great peace. Tobacco was gotten in this manner, and since this man and woman were very happy when they were there and were very peacefully inclined toward each other tobacco has ever since been used in concluding peace and friendship among the Indian tribes.

Storyteller Grayhawk Perkins, a member of the United Houma Nation in Louisiana, tells traditional myths and legends as well as newer stories. He says both are important. “The old stories tell how things were. The elders gave them to us so that we could understand our past. The new stories are for the future generations so they can understand Native American culture as it is today.”

When the Southeastern Native Americans were forcibly removed to present day Oklahoma, four thousand Cherokee people died along the way. The Cherokee called this forced relocation “The Trail Where They Cried.” The Legend of the Cherokee Rose describes the difficult journey and how the flower symbolizes their loss and pain.

When gold was discovered in Georgia, the government forgot its treaties and drove the Cherokees to Oklahoma.

One fourth of them died on the journey west. When the Trail of Tears started in 1838, the mothers of the Cherokee were grieving and crying so much, they were unable to help their children survive the journey. The elders prayed for a sign that would lift the mother’s spirits to give them strength. The Creator decided to commemorate the brave Cherokees and so, as the blood of the braves and the tears of the maidens dropped to the ground, he turned them into stone in the shape of a Cherokee Rose. The next day a beautiful rose began to grow where each of the mother’s tears fell. The rose is white for their tears; a gold center represents the gold taken from Cherokee lands, and the seven leaves on each stem for the seven Cherokee clans. No better symbol of the pain and suffering on the “Trail Where They Cried” exists. You will find the wild Cherokee Rose growing along the route of the Trail of Tears into eastern Oklahoma today.

The stories, myths and legends of the Native Americans do much more than convey information. They offer us a glimpse into a rich and diverse tradition and heritage that was never reduced to the black and white world of words.

Lisa Berryhill Worsham is a freelance writer who lives in Oxford.

(256) 831-3044 Thursday, Friday, & Saturday 10:30 – 6:00

Your Local Source for Seafood Fresh From The Gulf

1322 Greenbrier Road Anniston, Alabama Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 17

Hal: King of the Runaways

By Harvey H. Jackson Photo By Bill Wilson

18 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

In July of 1827, the National Gazette and Literary Register of Philadelphia reported how “a nest of runaway negroes . . . in the fork of the Alabama and Tombeckbe Rivers . . . were attacked and after a severe action they were conquered.”

The fugitives had built “two cabins and were about to build a fort,” and though they “fought desperately” they were “broken up entirely.” And according to the report, “three negroes were shot, viz: Bust, Hector and Hal.” That might have been the end of it. But it was only the beginning.

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 19

Soon word spread, whispered in the slave cabins, in the quarters, and in the houses where white folks lived, that one of the wounded had survived and was down there still.

So began the myth of Hal. According to a writer who heard the stories halfa-century later, Hal was “a large colored man, six feet and a half in height, who ran away from his master,” settled in the swamps and thickets down near the fork, “and built, in that lonely retreat, a stockade.”

“Others joined him,” the story went, and soon he commanded a settlement of “twenty-five or thirty” fugitives–it was his kingdom. He was “King Hal.” Then, just as the newspaper said, “a party of armed men . . . penetrated the canebrake, surrounding the stockade” and attacked. The settlement was broken up and “Hal was killed.”

Only, according to the later account, it wasn’t 1827.

It was “about the year 1846.”

Now it would be easy enough to dismiss this discrepancy between dates. In the decades of oral tradition that follow events, time often gets confused.

If there is one thing that myths have in common it is a lack of consistency.

But whether Hal survived the 1827 onslaught or was killed is not important (except perhaps to Hal).

His story survived, told and retold, embellished until Hal was transformed, in myth and legend, into a figure that transcended reality and became, for both blacks and whites, slaves and free, a symbol for their own aspirations and fears.

The land had a lot to do with it.

Hard to get to today, even harder then, where the rivers join, is a jungle broken only by an occasional lake created and left when the streams changed course.

By all accounts, Hal claimed one of these and on it built what those doing the telling called his kingdom–“King Hal” on “Hal’s Lake.”

Still the story grew.

To the account of how Hal escaped from a Mississippi plantation, found refuge between the rivers, and gathered around him other runaways, was added the tale of how he returned to his former home, “retrieved” his family, and brought them back to live

20 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

with him, safe and secure. Then tellers told of how the word went out to those in bondage that freedom lay in the forks, if they could just get to it.

Whites also heard and on the same story built their own myth, created their own “King Hal” who first stole himself from this owner, then stole his family, then lured others to his lake where he “exacted obedience from those seeking shelter with him.” Some even suggested that Hal kept a harem there–fuel for the sexual fantasies of the masters.

But then the stories came together to tell of how another runaway, a slave of “mixed blood” who (according to conventional wisdom of the time) could not be trusted by either race, challenged Hal’s leadership, lost, returned to his former master, and for his thirty-pieces-of-silver handed over the keys to Hal’s kingdom.

The end came quickly, and the victorious invaders reported how “Hal was killed, the others were either killed, captured, or scattered, and the dangerous lurking place was broken up.”

But two Hals remained.

One, the Christ-figure, offering freedom to the enslaved, handed over by one of his own to those who would keep his people in bondage.

The other, a renegade, an outlaw, a dictator, whose insatiable lust for power (and sexual gratification) led him to his inevitable, whites would also say just, end.

He could have been either, or both, or neither.

And which we choose to believe tells us more about ourselves than it does about the man named Hal. Today, down in the forks, all that remains of Hal is the long, meandering body of water that bears his name, and the stories that are still told.

Which ones are true?

Who knows?

But in a land like that, a land where the earth moves under your feet, where there are still more deer and bear and hogs than humans, where you can catch fish that look Jurassic, and where, as you sit in a boat waiting for a bite, a bush can suddenly erupt with bright birds that, to this day, cannot be identified. In a land like that, anything is possible.

Harvey H. (“Hardy”) Jackson is Eminent Scholar of History at Jacksonville State University and a columnist for The Anniston Star.

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 21

Gypsies and

Red Panties

By Becky Browder Photo by Patrick Stokesberry

22 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

The gypsies came to town the summer I turned seven.

They rolled in on a flatbed truck, women and girls hanging over the sides playing tambourines.

Loretta Ledbetter–one of Mama’s friends–was there when it happened. She told the rest of us about it that night after we watched Gunsmoke in Charley Lawson’s yard. Mr. Lawson was the only man on the mill village with a television set. On Saturday nights, he invited all the neighbors to sit in his back yard and watch TV, weather permitting. He and his son Doodle put the set on the back porch facing the yard then turned the volume as loud as it would go. I thought he was a wonderful man for letting us watch Gunsmoke because I was fascinated with Miss Kitty’s beauty mark and the dresses she wore.

I kept hoping my mother would see enough shows to come to her senses and buy my sisters and me dresses like the ones Miss Kitty had. At Easter and Christmas we got dresses with big lace collars and sashes that tied in the back. Daddy said Charley Lawson wasn’t a nice man at all–in fact, Daddy said he worked side-by-side with Charley Lawson in the cotton mill and knew for a fact he was an SOB who just wanted to act like a big shot.

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 23

A few people brought kitchen chairs to sit on but most of us spread out on the grass. Once the music started and the announcer said the word Gunsmoke, no one in the crowd said another word, not even during the commercials for cigarettes. People didn’t start talking again until after Mr. Lawson ordered Doodle to turn off the set to save the picture tube.

That was when Loretta Ledbetter–some people called her the town crier behind her back–stood on the porch beside the now silent television and made her announcement. She was 4’10” but had a voice as strong as any man in the crowd. “I’ve got some bad news. A few of you already know about it, but most of you don’t, so here goes.”

Loretta took a deep breath, blew it out hard, and then said: “A bunch of gypsies moved into town this morning. They’re up there in Sam Satterfield’s empty store building, right next to the drug store and the school. Sam said they just broke in his store and set up camp. He’s trying to get in touch with the sheriff to see about running them off.”

Introducing the Newest I

A wave of gasps could be heard going through the crowd. Then Mr. Lawson said, “I guarantee you one thing: Sam Satterfield is getting paid something one way or the other. He didn’t let those gypsies just break in his store.” A few of the men laughed.

Loretta continued, “I was standing on the corner when they got here. There must have been twenty-five women and girls on the back of that truck and at least a dozen gypsy men crammed in the cab. And if that ain’t enough, following behind was an old black Cadillac loaded with gypsy children. A boy–he didn’t look a day over ten–was driving. He was smoking what looked like a stogie and wearing one of those funny looking hats gypsy men like to wear. He could barely see over that steering wheel!” Loretta closed her mouth tight then put her hands on her hips.

A few people said “oh no” as another wave of gasps went through the crowd.

Loretta said, “That was a rude bunch of younguns, too. Some of them stuck their tongues out at me. I was just standing there minding my own business.”

My two sisters and a few other children had wandered

nnova

tion in Sleep Technology.

The

Allura Bed by

Anniston 237-3882 24 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Saks 237-5115

Oxford 831-5357

Gadsden 543-0802

over to the next yard to chase fireflies but something told me to stay and listen.

Loretta continued, “I’ll tell you another thing. You better not leave nothing in your yards or on your porches. Gypsies will steal every thing that’s not nailed down.�

I stood there thinking about all the things in our yard and on our porch that weren’t nailed down. The first thing that came to mind was Mama’s wringer washing machine. It was on the back porch and it wasn’t nailed down. As a matter of fact, I don’t think it could have been nailed down even if somebody tried. Every time Mama did a load of wash, that machine danced all over the porch, sometimes landing out in the yard. Daddy kicked it and called it a no-account bastard on a regular basis, but Mama loved it because it meant she no longer had to wash clothes in the kitchen sink or in the big washtub she kept stored under the house.

My little sister Kathy’s tricycle and the scooter I shared with my older sister Beth were in the back yard. So was the swing set Daddy worked like a dog to put together for us. We had a lot of stuff out in the yard and on the porch, none of it nailed down.

Mr. Lawson’s wife said, “Loretta’s right. Them gypsies steal everything. They’ll steal the clothes right off your clothesline.�

I made a note in my mind not to hang any more of my doll’s clothes out on the line. “Why, those gypsies will even steal your children if you don’t watch out!� Loretta’s final warning.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Is that true, Mama?� I asked, poking at my mother’s arm. “Do the gypsies really steal children?� “They say they do,� Mama said. “Who says they do?� I asked.

Mama ignored me the way she did most of the time. For as long as I could remember, she’d tell her friends that I was sending her to an early grave. According to Mama, I was too nosy for my own good, always asking questions I shouldn’t be asking and always listening in on adult conversations when I should be outside playing with other children.

Whenever Mama told her friends about how I was sending her to an

Now INstallINg IN-grouNd Pools & IN-grouNd rePlacemeNt lINers

(256) 237-2885 QQQ JIIF>I=NIL=OMNIGJIIFM =IG QQQ JIIF>I=NIL=OMNIGJIIFM =IG

\2B? "I=NIL 'M 'H]

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 25

early grave, she usually referred to me as Frank Moore’s middle daughter, as though she had no ownership of me whatsoever. Daddy never referred to me as Audrey Moore’s middle daughter.

I turned to Loretta since she seemed to know everything there was to know about the gypsies. “What do they do with children once they steal them?”

“They put them to work. Stealing, picking pockets, begging. They make them do everything the adult gypsies do. Dance in the street, everything.”

“Take us to see the gypsies, Daddy!” I blurted the words out before I realized it.

A few of the adults laughed at me.

“You don’t want to see those gypsies,” Daddy said.

“Yes I do,” I said. I had heard enough to know that there was one thing certain–I wanted to see the gypsies.

As we walked home that night, I begged my father to take me to see the gypsies, telling him I felt I might die if I never got to see what a gypsy looked like. I guess Daddy got afraid I really might die because he finally agreed.

“Okay, I’ll take you,” he said. “We’ll go to the drugstore tomorrow for an ice cream and you can see them as we walk past. We’re not stopping, just walking by.”

I went to bed that night happier than I could ever remember.

The next day as we walked across Main Street, I spotted them. Gypsy women–wearing flowered skirts and low-cut blouses, with silky red kerchiefs tied on their heads–dancing in the middle of the street, playing tambourines and twirling their skirts so fast and so high we could see their panties–red panties. For a minute I froze in my tracks. Daddy poked me in my shoulder and said, “Keep moving.

I told you not to stop.” My head was like a swivel as we passed by that camp. I couldn’t quit looking at the dancing gypsies wearing red panties. I didn’t care if I ever had another ice cream cone in my life, I wanted to stand and watch. I wanted to see them twirl their skirts and, more than that, I wanted another look at those red panties. It looked like they had ruffles on them. All my panties were plain white–dingy white.

26 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Two of the women stopped dancing long enough to walk over to Daddy. They had dark skin and dark eyes and batted their eyelashes as they talked. They began tugging on his arms. “Tell your fortune, meester,” they spoke at the same time as though they had rehearsed.

Then they moved closer, getting right up in Daddy’s face.

“Come into our parlor, meester,” both girls pointed to a red curtained doorway nearby. “Only fifty cents.”

Daddy kept walking.

“Do it Daddy. Let them tell your fortune. Fifty cents sounds like a fair price to me,” I said.

Daddy didn’t answer, but that didn’t stop me. I kept pleading with him to go into that parlor and get his fortune told.

That night in bed my imagination went on a wild ride.

I thought about the gypsies stealing children and what would happen if they stole me. According to Loretta Ledbetter, I’d have to dance in the street. I figured I’d have to wear a pair of red panties, too. I felt conflicted.

I loved my Mama and Daddy, even if Mama did say I was driving her to an early grave, but I liked the idea of dancing around in the street wearing red panties.

When school started, Mama warned us to be careful: “The gypsies are still up there in Mr. Satterfield’s store building. You girls hold hands walking to school and don’t go anywhere near that gypsy camp when you’re out on the playground at recess.”

I had no choice but to obey the first rule. Both my sisters were known tattletales. But each day during recess when my sisters weren’t around, I wandered over by the shrubs bordering the gypsy camp. Sometimes I could see the gypsy women outside cooking food over an open fire or washing clothes in big black kettles of boiling water.

The men sat around laughing and playing cards. And the children either helped the women or played marbles on the ground. It was then I realized gypsy children didn’t have to go to school. Getting stolen by the gypsies became more appealing.

I began plotting how I might get the gypsies to steal me. I gave up hopscotch and jump rope during recess and stationed myself closer and closer to the shrubs bordering their camp. I sang “This Old Man” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” to the top of my lungs, hoping they would hear me, pull me through the bushes, and force me to join them.

At times, the guilt I felt for wanting to leave my family was hard to take but somehow I managed. I vowed to myself that I’d come back some day and see my family.

Then one Sunday morning, Loretta Ledbetter came tearing through our front door to tell Mama the latest news. “The gypsies are gone!” she shouted. “They had a big fight in the middle of the street late last night–right in the middle of where the gypsy women were dancing.

Two of the men got to fighting over one of the women.”

“Lord have mercy,” Mama said, as she placed her right hand over her heart like she was getting ready to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Loretta said, “Somebody finally got hold of the sheriff and he came out and broke it up. They were about to kill one another. You should have seen the hair and blood and teeth out in the street. The sheriff said it was what they call a bare knuckle fight–the kind of fight gypsies like to have, just going at it with their bare knuckles until they just about beat each other to death.”

“What finally happened?” Mama asked.

“After the sheriff broke up the fight, he told them to get out of town by sun up or else he’d be putting every last one of them in jail and hauling all their stuff off to the dump,” Loretta said.

When Loretta said the word stuff, I remembered all our stuff–the stuff on the porch and in the yard that wasn’t nailed down. I ran out the back door to check on things. Mama’s wringer washing machine was still there.

Kathy’s tricycle and the scooter Beth and I shared were in the yard. It looked like everything we’d left outside was right where we’d left it. The gypsies had not stolen a single thing, including me. The only thing gone was my dream of wearing red panties and dancing in the street.

Becky Browder is a freelance writer who lives in Jacksonville.

Anniston Ophthalmology Clinic

A Timely Eye Exam Could Save Your Life!

Comprehensive Ophthalmology & Diseases of the Vitreous & Retina Routine Eye Examinations for Glasses & Contact lens Specializing in Surgical Eye Care including “No Stitch” Cataract Surgery, Laser & Surgical Treatment for Diabetic Retinopathy, Macular Degeneration, Glaucoma & After Cataract & Pediatric Diseases

Mon- Fri 8 AM - 5 PM We accept Medicare, Medicaid, BCBS & most major Insurance plans

Khalid L. Khan, M.D.

Abdul A. Kazi, M.D.

BOaRD CeRtifieD OphthalmOlOgists 40 Years of Combined Experience

• Only Retina Specialist in the area • Complete Vision & Eye Health Testing for Glaucoma, Diabetes, Cataract, Retinal & Neurological Disorders • Eye injuries, Infection & foreign bodies • Laser & Surgical Treatment for Diabetic Retinopathy, Macular Degeneration, Glaucoma & After-Cataract Membrane • LASIK Surgery Consultation • Latest Technology for Detecting Cancer, Strokes, Tumors & Others

256-237-6769

800-237-6769

Medical Emergency Pager 205-819-9911 1011 Leighton Avenue, Anniston AL 36207

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 27

28 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Mobile’s Myth Buster

By John Fleming Photos by Patrick Stokesberry There is something about the sea and bay as background, the rivers, creeks and lowlands, and the Spanish moss-laden live oaks that make this lively port city a land of perpetual myths. Stories abound in this old town. They leap from the cemeteries, they stroll down the broad shady boulevards, they saunter through the back alleys, and down by the docks.

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 29

The Boyington Oak towers outside of the Church Street Grave Yard.

30 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Like all myths, the ones here are partly a reflection of the culture and history that has created them. All communities have them; it’s just that some, like the ones found in Mobile, seem richer and more vivid and more numerous.

Amy Beach likes a good rip-roaring Mobile story, and she knows plenty of them, inside and out. For years at her position at the Local History and Genealogy Division of the Mobile Public Library, she has known of some odd cases. There was Handsome Ewing, an actor murdered on stage in the 1840s.

Then there was the execution of Charles Boyington in the 1830s for murder and his promise, bellowed moments before he fell from the gallows, that a giant oak would grow from his tomb as a constant reminder of his innocence.

Finally there was the tale of an old lady from the 1930s known only as “The Floating Island,� who, with her broken heart, drifted to the docks like clockwork every morning to ask the men there the same question day after day after day, “What news of ships lost at sea?� (Otherwise, it makes it sound like the heart is a floating island.)

Crazy stuff that’s a lot of fun to tell at a dinner party, but Beach began to wonder how much of these Mobile yarns were simply the product of vivid imaginations that have grown even more fantastic over the years. “I started giving this some thought awhile back,� says Beach at her office on Government Street in downtown Mobile, “after I had a look at one of our vertical files, marked ‘Myths.’ At first I though this might make a Halloween program. But then I started wondering if they were really true, or how much of them were true.�

The more she read, the more fascinated she became and the bigger the program became. Since that day last October, Beach has given her presentation to clubs and organizations across the Mobile metro area to hundreds of people.

Her conclusion? Truth can be strange indeed.

Handsome Ewing Take for example the case of the troubadour Handsome Ewing. As the story is commonly told in Mobile, Ewing was performing in the 1840s on stage with his wife when the two got into a real life scrap that ended when the missus stabbed her man with a dagger, which also happened to be part of her costume.

She managed to escape by darting off stage without injury–unlike John Wilkes Booth–and made it on to Jamaica where she presumably lived a joyful life until a malady of the mind overtook her causing her to move to Ohio of all places where she, more understandably, took her own life.

The even more macabre continuation of the story goes that a bloodstain from the awful business of Handsome’s killing remained on the dressing room floor of the theater. And for years afterwards, stagehands and actors had their jobs made more difficult because of his bothersome ghost.

#B -HCF9

$9K9@FM ,9D5=F

15H7< ,9D5=F '5BM ::CF856@9

&CCG9 =5ACB8G

-9HH=B;G HC 7<CCG9 :FCA

*5M=B; .CD C@@5F CF !C@8

Diamond Depot

7FCGG :FCA <95<5 5B? =B )L:CF8

C@CBB589 -<CDD=B; 9BH9F -BCK -HF99H -. )L:CF8 &

KKK CL:CF88=5ACB889DCH 7CA 9A5=@ =B:C@CL:CF88=5ACB889DCH 7CA Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 31

The grave of the Floating Island buried between her parents

...The best choice for you www.Autumn-Cove.com Autumn Cove offers...

this beautiful nature trail, roomy apartments, delicious meals in the dining room, fun activities, housekeeping service, nurse monitored medications, health care, and more are available for our residents. Call for details or a tour today.

4425 Greenbrier Dear Road, in Golden Springs

256-831-7474

www.Autumn-Cove.com 32 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Dispensing with the ghost bit was easy for Beach; the rest of it was a little more challenging.

Beach had many tools at her disposal at the public library, but the papers of the day in Mobile proved invaluable.

“I found most of what I was looking for in the newspaper files,” says Beach.

In the March 26, 1842, issue of the Mobile Daily Register, we find that Handsome was indeed stabbed by his wife, referred to only as Mrs. Hamblin, who played the part of Victor in the play, “My Old Woman.”

An altercation occurred, the paper says, but it was after the first act, backstage, when the curtains had fallen. Mr. Ewing was stabbed three times and died instantly. His angry wife escaped though a back window, still in costume.

On June 24, though, the paper reported that Mrs. Hamblin’s escapades to Jamaica seem to have been rumors and nothing more as she turned herself in and was handed over to authorities for prosecution.

“Notwithstanding the various reports of her having committed suicide in Ohio and of being seen in New York, Havana, and Jamaica, it appears that she has been all this time concealed in this city,” wrote the Daily Register.

The rest of the story is that Mrs. Hamblin was acquitted of all charges. The jury, it appears, bought a physician’s testimony that Handsome lost his life not to a bejeweled dagger but to an aneurism.

The widow went on, Beach tells us, to enjoy an acting career in New Orleans.

Charles Boyington Next, the myth buster tackled the story of the scandal that rocked Mobile in the 1830s, the murder of Nathanial Frost by Charles Boyington.

As Beach explains the background of the murder while sitting among the open stacks at the small but bustling library you begin to get a feel for the oddness of the case.

“Boyington was a journeyman printer,” says Beach, “and both men were up and coming in Mobile. They were frequent guests to the drawing rooms of the high society here. They got around.”

The two had a fondness, apparently, for visiting the Church Street Graveyard, a place full of dead from past Yellow Fever epidemics, to, among other things, read poetry aloud to each other.

They were what one might call inseparable. Except, of course, on the day Frost was found stabbed multiple times down by the graveyard.

Boyington, on that occasion, was nowhere to be found.

The town took his death hard, says Beach: “Even though Frost was a Yankee, he was beloved by the people of Mobile. He had this wonderful obit in the Commercial Register. He was very highly thought of.”

Indeed the obit reads in part, “It seldom happens, while treading the rugged path of life, that we link to the chain of our acquaintance, a fellow being, possessing more sweetness of temper and urbanity of

Custom

Gift Baskets availaBle

820-4989 sWeetWater

valley

& amish Cheeses

amish

Canned Goods

Wine Beer imported & loCal

domestiC & imported

Bledsoe’s hours: 10 - 7

across from lenlock shopping plaza next to milestone mill restaurant Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 33

Only known photograph of Floating Island University of South Alabama Photo Archive

manner or high ennobling qualities of mind, than the subject of this brief notice…” One could only hope for such high praise after one’s own demise.

As it turns out, Boyington was convicted for the murder of Frost, but he maintained his innocence to the end. After he was marched outside of the city limits to be executed, he tried to escape at the last moment only to be stopped by the crowd and returned to the platform. Once his fate was sealed, the story goes; he declared on the gallows that a giant oak would grow from his tomb, a sign of his innocence.

You can see the Boyington Oak today in the old potters’ field of the Church Street Cemetery, but as Beach says, you can’t find any mention of the executed man’s prophesy in the historical record. This part, it seems, has been a product of Mobile’s imagination.

Then there is the Floating Island.

The Floating Island In the mind of Mobile anyway, this lady who walked the streets of the city and visited the docks each morning, was the victim of a broken romance, abandoned on the altar. But in her desperation, the story goes, she cast him not as the sorry sapsucker who got cold feet, but as her loving sailor who was lost at sea.

Indeed, as Beach found out, she was something of an island unto herself. Her real name was Mary Eoline Eilands, born in Charleston in 1854, arriving in Mobile with her parents in 1870.

Thanks to Beach’s work, we know at least that she was a laundress and that her father was in the employ of a local newspaper. She came from a well-off family who had a nice house in a nice part of town.

Beach notes that there are accounts of The Island in Jay Higginbotham’s 1968 book, Mobile: City by the Bay. She also found the Floating Island mentioned in the works of Frances Beverly, a writer for the Federal Writers’ Project during the Depression, who interviewed numerous sailors and dockmen in Mobile who told her that she asked every day either: “What news of ships lost?” or “What new ships have arrived?”

But she also found this interview with The Island herself, the only known interview she gave.

On May 25, 1930, the Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist and short story writer Julia Peterkin came to Mobile to do a story on Father Ryan, the Poet Laureate of the Confederacy. In the course of her work, she came across The Island and asked her about her past love and got what was apparently a more prosaic response than Mobile would have expected. Peterkin wrote, “Then there was a man from Spain, who had wanted to marry her, but he was not handsome and she did not love him.”

Still, you have to wonder, why she would go down to the dock every day asking, in more poetic ways, of ships lost at sea. The truth is probably somewhere in between, a place where most myths dwell.

John Fleming is editor-at-large for The Anniston Star.

34 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

.EED A LITTLE OR A ,OT Mulch, sand, straw, soil, Rock, Gravel, stones, Boulders, River Rock, Lava Rock, Flag stones, Bark, Unique Furniture, Decorative iron works and much more!

open Monday - saturday www.millersand.com 2 Locations to serve you!

Anniston 237-5352 Just Right at the end of gReenbRieR Road

sAks 231-2300 on 431

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 35

You are cordially invited to

THE

OrderofMyths

By Sherry Kughn

36 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

F

ilmmaker Margaret Brown grew up in Mobile and, as a young woman, might have been a candidate for one of the town’s highest honors, queen of the Mobile Carnival Association’s Mardi Gras. After all, her mother was once a queen, which greatly pleased Brown’s elderly grandfather, Dwain Luce. He appears frequently throughout her highly acclaimed film released in 2008, The Order of Myths. His eyes sparkle when he talks his memories of Mobile’s Mardi Gras. He represents the kind of heritage that members of the Association (MCA) look for when selecting their king and queen. However, the honor of being chosen queen was not one his granddaughter sought.

“At that point in my life,” said Brown, “... I was not interested [in being queen] because my friends were not doing it.”

To better understand the documentary, one must also understand that each association consists of mystic societies, called orders, that plan and implement the coronations, balls, and parades (two separate events each for black and white citizens). Usually, membership in both MCA and MAMGA orders is by inheritance or by invitation only; and it usually is reserved for Mobilians and their relatives. There is an interview in the film, too, with one of the newer MAMGA orders—one that is integrated.

The documentary takes its name from the oldest order in Mardi Gras history–that is The Order of Myths–the one in which Brown’s family was involved. Mobile’s entire Mardi Gras started in 1703,

13 years before New Orleans became a city.

One issue in the documentary is that Mobile’s Mardi Gras is carried out by two organizations, one black, the Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association (MAMGA), and one white, the MCA. Tradition dictates both organizations stay separate, but a reversal starts taking place in 2007, the year the documentary was filmed.

For the first time in history, MAMGA’s king and queen, Joseph Roberson and Stephanie Lucas, attend the coronation of the MCA’s king and queen, Max Bruckman and Helen Meaher. They are not only greeted by the white attendees but also are introduced publicly and interact with the white king and queen. Mobile’s most elite citizens compliment the couple and invite them to return. Likewise, the MCA king and queen visit some MAMGA activities.

The film presents the idea that perhaps the passage of time has allowed younger generations to relax long-standing traditions of separation.

After all, tradition is broken, but earth continues to turn on its axis. Brown interviews individuals from both races who seem comfortable with the idea of continuing the interaction. She also allows viewers to note the economic disparity between the MCA and the MAMGA, another layer of complexity in the celebration.

“The new orders are a little bit looser,” said Brown, “but that is not the point of The Order of Myths. I was interested in making a film that showed specific people as we followed their journey through Mardi Gras.”

Brown figured if The Order of Myths was nothing more than an explanation of Mobile’s Mardi

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 37

38 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

!" # $% & &

Gras, then only Alabamians would watch it.

Her hunch was right. Its intrigue and beauty have created world-wide interest. It was chosen to compete in the 2008 Sundance Festival, won Best Cinematic Vision at the Silverdocs Festival, and was chosen for inclusion at the South by Southwest Film Festival.

“We also won an Independent Spirit Award from Film Independent, which is like the Academy Awards,” said Brown. “It is the biggest award the film has gotten.”

Also, the film holds the following honors: it was recipient of the Grierson Sheffield Youth Jury Award from the Sheffield DocFest, was a nominee for Best Documentary Award for the Truer Than Fiction Award from the Film Independent Spirit Awards, and won the Documentary Feature Shortlist award by Cinema Eye Honors.

Brown said the film’s success has been surreal.

“When I made the movie, I didn’t know if any-

one would relate to it. For it to succeed on this level is mind blowing.”

Brown’s mother, who is unseen in the film, discouraged her daughter from desiring the title of queen, one reason being she had little to show afterwards for her own involvement. Perhaps she remembered that, besides an obvious investment of time, each year’s participants in Mardi Gras spend high dollars on clothes, costumes, entertainment, food, drink, and parades each year. (The film points out that millions are spent.) Lucas states in the film that she would spend the same as if she had bought a car. A teacher by profession, she said she could not afford other pursuits that year.

Despite Brown’s lack of participation in the social aspects of Mardi Gras, the event and its surrounding issues intrigued her, especially her grandfather’s insights. She decided to express herself in the format of a documentary in order to open discussions of the myth that blacks are content to have a separate celebration. Viewers may wonder if the white Mobilians are placating the black ones, but the issues surround-

The King and Queen of Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama Max Bruckmann and Helen Meaher–and their court, from the documentary ‘Order of Myths’

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 39

The King and Queen of Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama Joseph Roberson and Steffanie Lucas – and their court, in the documentary ‘Order of Myths.’

ing the relaxed traditions are more complex. Feelings about the new boundaries probably vary with each Mardi Gras participant.

Some of the most endearing scenes in The Order of Myths are appearances by black children, one by an elementary-aged girl at an event leading up to the MAMGA coronation. She chats precociously about how the white pageant would probably get more coverage by filmmakers than would the black pageant. Her mannerisms are priceless. Two other black students in Lucas’ and Roberson’s classes read charming essays they have written about moon pies, a soft cookie-andmarshmallow treat thrown, along with bead necklaces, from floats in the parades. Several white children are shown taking part in the MCA pageantry.

Videographer Michael Simmons follows MCA and MAMGA royalty around as they interact with various players from both races in the celebration, such as cooks, designers, seamstresses, and waiters; and Simmons follows the story of one particular white debutante. She is Brittain Youngblood, who Brown says is similar to herself in her liberal views; but, rather than shunning Mardi Gras’ social activities, she has decided to embrace them. After all, one aspect of Mardi Gras is that it is a time when debutantes are presented to society. Youngblood’s mother talks about how important it is for young women to know their roots. Others interviewed in the film echo that point, which gives outsiders another clue, besides entertainment and economic reasons, as to why Mobilians’ are so intrigued by the celebration.

The film ends with Brown’s grandfather saying he wants to speak off camera concerning some of his memories. Viewers are left to guess what truths he reveals. Perhaps he is telling how the true royalty of Mardi Gras is tradition and how bending it too far would wipe out the glory days of generations of Mobilians.

Sherry Kughn is the author of The Heart Tree Book for seniors. Visit www.hearttreebooks.com.

40 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 41

Gods

And

Goddessess!

By Josephine E. Ayers

O

f all the stories we have to relish in this issue, we recognize many, but there are a few so obscure as to be dense to modern readers. Take, for example, Ovid’s story of Pyramus and Thisbee (c.1BC) which has survived a thousand years as well as a many thousands of tellings – there is yet another in Martin Platt’s article Hit and Myth which follows. Stories like this may become so complicated that it’s sometimes hard to find the heart of the tale.

What is a myth, anyway? In classical times, myths grew out of stories embellished from generation to generation. We can assume that many myths, especially the more extreme, grew out of the tall tales told around the campfires of warriors; mysterious accounts of the gods and goddesses, mythic themselves. These campfire ramblings were told with a mixture of fear and fascination and spurred the growth of the kingdom of the gods from imagination to a virtual reality in the classical world.

There they were, these larger-than-life figures, throwing thunderbolts, turning humans into animals, feasting on ambrosia, spawning capricious children who alternately loved and killed each other. Their home was Mt. Olympus, a sort of boundary-less playground ruled by Zeus (a more than capricious figure himself) and surrounded by puffy clouds which apparently provided temporary cover for the most devious activities of the immortals.

The study of classical mythology is no longer a common component of public school curricula, perhaps because the chief characters were entirely too sexy. But besides the scandalous antics of the gods, there are also the wonderful tales of epic wars and valiant heroes, many of which have become familiar through many modern books and films.

It’s maybe a surprise to learn that both O Brother, Where art Thou? and Clash of the Titans are based in classical myth (rent these and dozens of others through Netflix.com.) And among the many historical novels, those of Mary Renault, published in the 1960s and 1970s, paint a clear and gripping picture of Greek mythological figures. Bullfinch’s Mythology encompasses not only Greek and Roman, but also Norse, Celtic, and Oriental mythology. Edith Hamilton’s definitive Mythology is a lively rendering of legends, their origins and characters. All of these books are available at Books-a-Million and online at Amazon.com.

Josephine E. Ayers is Editor in Chief for Longleaf Style.

42 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Pyramus and Thisbee by Gregorio Pagani, 1558-1605

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 43

HIT & MYTH

By Martin Platt

What kind of story would be lively enough to hold the attention of audiences between the first century BC, and the 21st century AD? It must be one with compelling characters, a fantastic location, and a salacious tale of star-crossed lovers whose pitiable state of affairs commands both fascination and sympathy. Little did the Latin poet Ovid dream that his story of ill-fated lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe would live after him; indeed Shakespeare filched it in the 16th century (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet). By the time the tale traveled to the 20th century, it was a hit with audiences and writers from Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story) to Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, who wrote the longest–running musical in history, The Fantasticks.

Now what was Ovid thinking when he invented this timeless fable? We can only imagine that his writing mirrored what he saw around him, love and seduction, clandestine meetings between lovers, parents exasperated by their children, and the children constantly devising plots to fulfill their adolescent dreams. Such stories entered the realm of mythology as they were told over and over, picking up contemporary incidents and issues here and there, but remaining at the core simple reporting on life as it was lived at the time.

Like Ovid, Shakespeare was first a reporter. He chronicled the life of Elizabethan society by using characters from the classics, his personal and political observations masked by the allusions to the myths that were everyday knowledge to his audience. Shakespeare’s own command of classical myth must have been vast; it is hard, if not impossible, to think of any play by Shakespeare (or his contemporaries) not either based on a myth, or stocked full of references to myths, in dialogue, character names, or language.

Taking only the example of ‘mythography’ in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we meet Theseus and Hipployta on page 1 line 1. Theseus was half god, according to the Romans, as his fathers were Aegeus and also Poseidon.

Don’t ask. Theseus was also a famous womanizer, taking Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons (another mythological character), as his lady du jour in Midsummer. But we also hear of two other of his mythic girlfriends in this play, Ariadne and Antiopa. He won Ariadne by slaying the Minotaur (remember the Minotaur?). That’s at least three myths on page 1.

44 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Further on, the mythic pagan spirit Puck arrives to stir the pot. The play’s “humans” knew Puck, whose name could not be spoken aloud for fear he would actually materialize as Robin Goodfellow. The story of the mischievous Puck has origins in Old English, Old Norse, Old Swedish, Icelandic, and Celtic legends.

And so the mythic references go on: Cupid’s bow, Cupid’s Arrow, Venus’ doves, Hercules, Corin and Phylida, Apollo, Daphne, Aurora, Neptune, the three Muses, Centaurs, changelings, and Bacchus, to mention a few that might send one’s eyes darting to the footnotes.

All of these allusions would have immediate connotations for a large portion of Shakespeare’s audience. An example is Helena; wretched as her love Demetrius pursues her friend Hermia in the Athenian wood. Helena, in exasperation, cries out, “Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase.” Shakespeare’s audience would know that this means the world is upside down, for in Ovid, it is Apollo who is chasing Daphne. There’s Ovid again–Shakespeare read him VERY closely.

Myths are essential in the working out of Shakespeare’s stories: They might be a source of the entire story, as in Romeo and Juliet or just of characters and parts of the story, as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but they are always there, important building blocks in the extraordinary thirty-seven (or so) of the greatest plays ever written. Shakespeare’s use of myth and legend was not in the service of poetry or an attempt to show off erudition or cleverness. It acted as shorthand between the author and his audience, allowing them (and us) deeper into his characters and stories through the use of familiar myths and legends that immediately trigger response.

We can thank Ovid and other ancient storytellers for observing the world around them and making up some outlandish tales out of everyday events.

Shakespeare chose to use some of those myths to give context to the everyday life of his contemporaries; this is a key factor in the continuing universality of his characters and his plays. The constant reminder of gods and goddesses and heroes make his characters more, not less human.

As I read over some of the plays to write this article, I marveled again that in the 400 or so years since Shakespeare lived, no writer in any language has come even close to him in the quality and clarity of writing about the human condition.

Martin Platt founded the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 1972. He and Josephine Ayers, ASF Executive Producer, were partners for 12 years in building The Festival to national stature. Josephine Ayers contributed to this article..

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 45

Magic Rings

By Mike Stedham

What is it with rings as symbols of power?

Everyone who achieves greatnessâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;from popes to kings to prime ministersâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;seems to want to wear a symbol of that attainment on a finger. The flashier the ring, the greater the myth of power and strength that surrounds the person who wears it.

46 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

A few months ago, each That’s also the myth that member of the Pittsburg German composer Richard Steelers football team, which Wagner chose to serve as the won this year’s Super Bowl, structure for his master work: received a 3.61-carat gold ring a four-opera cycle, written encrusted with 63 diamonds. over a 26-year period, from That’s a lot of bling and a lot 1848 to 1874, known as The of power.

Ring of the Nibelung.

These modern athletes Wagner was no ordinary are following an ancient composer. Many of the tradition that spans many greatest musicians have been cultures and mythologies. content to let another artist The writer of the biblical write the story and lyrics for book of Esther, for instance, their operas, giving them the tells of a king who set his freedom to concentrate on Richard Wagner (1813-1883) royal seal on documents the music. Wagner decided using his ring; such practices continued to control the entire process from word to note, throughout the Middle Ages and survive to this assuring that his majestic artistic vision would day in some official religious practices. be realized exactly as he wished.

As anyone who saw the movie Angles and He even came up with a grander name Demons this summer knows, the death of a pope for his work than “opera,” which is basically means the destruction of his signet ring so that just the Italian word for a work of art. Wagner his official seal may never be used again. described his cycle as a “gesamtkunstwerk” In contemporary culture, many equate (German for “total artwork”) in which all of the the myth of rings that contain power with the artistic elements worked together to create a popular Lord of the Rings movies that were based single, powerful effect. on the equally famous English novels by J.R.R. Wagner was the archetype for the Tolkien. In his trilogy, Tolkien in many ways was personality we now call “control freak.” creating myths that he thought would be worthy Not content to have his masterpiece of his English roots, and a ring of power was the performed just anywhere, he had a special perfect symbol. theater designed and built for the work.

One of Tolkien’s major sources–and perhaps The Bayreuth Festival Theater in Wagner’s the most famous ancient myth involving a German hometown is still going strong 133 ring–is found in the Elder Edda, a collection of years later, featuring performances of the Norse tales. It includes the story of a ring made Ring cycle each summer. from the Reingold by a magic dwarf, a ring that carried both ultimate power and a deadly curse.

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 47

WOTAN from Sir Arthur Rackham’s illustrations of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

48 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

The four separate operas that comprise the ring cycle are: Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold) Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) Siegfried Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) Wagner intended for his cycle to be performed over a series of four nights with the same orchestra, chorus, and singers taking part. The entire score takes about 15 hours to perform, so it’s a good thing the composer built in plenty of time for the musicians and singers (not to mention the audience) to rest between shows.

The story that unfolds during the cycle begins with an angry dwarf named Alberich, who takes the legendary Rheingold and fashions it into a ring that will give its owner the power to dominate everything on Earth. There’s one hitch, of course: the all-powerful ring owner must renounce love in order to rule.

The mere existence of such a ring is too much for the Norse gods to ignore, so they steal it and bring down Alberich’s curse on the ring. Heroes, maidens, and monsters soon enter into the mix, bringing in love stories and tales of treachery and deceit. Many arias later, the work ends in a major clash of both fire and water as the gods disappear into Valhalla.

It’s powerful stuff, and devoted fans of the work travel around the world to see it performed by companies brave enough to tackle the massive challenge facing any production of this material. Aside from Bayreuth, Germany, where people sometimes wait five years or more to get tickets, other cities regularly offer the work. These cycles are often presented in the summer, when people have more time and opportunity to travel.

In the U.S., big-time productions of the four operas are planned in 2010 in Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York.

If traveling such distances is too much, opera fans who are content to watch the cycle on their big-screen TVs can buy DVD sets of major productions for about $150. A 2002 recording by James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is available on iTunes for $90. That’s a hefty sum, but on a dollar-per-hour-of-music basis, it’s cheaper than the latest Jonas Brothers concert recording.

Mike Stedham of Anniston is a freelance writer who loves to listen to, and write about music.

Brünnhilde from Der Ring des Nibelungen.

The Bayreuth Festival Theater

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 49

The Zodiac Farmer

By Loyd McIntosh Stockbrokers and television meteorologists aside, the vast majority of folks are more content to work in the here and now. Predicting the future as a career choice is for people like Mistress Cleo from those old late-night infomercials by Psychic Friends Network, the Amazing Kreskin, and–if you think about it–farmers.

Consider the facts. A farmer has to be able to predict the effects of weather patterns, soil conditions, disease, pests, and market forces for months–sometimes years in advance–in order to earn a living. If he’s wrong on just one of those factors, the results can be, and often are, disastrous.

It’s no wonder that throughout history, people who work the land often turned to intangible ways to ensure tangible results. Farming is rich in folklore, much of which continues to influence today’s farmers, while others rely on prayer and their own intuition. Still others look toward the moon and stars to predict the mood of Mother Nature. One thing is for certain among almost all farmers–Mother Nature is one finicky old broad.

“When you’re doing this for a living, you need every little bit of help you can get,” said Stanley Edwards, a farmer from Randolph County. Edwards, who operates a small, certified, all-natural farm on five acres, works his land based on astrological signs, coordinating his planting and harvesting based on the alignment of the moon and stars. Edwards, who was a land surveyor by trade before turning to crop farming, started developing an interest in astrological farming about five years ago.

While he initially simply dabbled in the concept, Edwards wasn’t content to rely on chance, testing his theories over time. His conclusion: as weird as it may sound, the stuff works.

“I’ve tested and tested and tested this, and I don’t know why, but it seems to work,” Edwards said.

“For instance, one year I planted a half-acre of peas and got 21-22 bushels,” Edwards added. “I planted the same patch next year and kept everything the same but planted during a different (astrological) sign and only got five or six bushels.

Everything else was the same except the sign I planted in.”

50 Longleaf Style Spring 2009

The illustration for September from Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, (The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry) manuscript illuminated by the Limburg Brothers, c. 1416. Each illustration is surmounted with its appropriate hemisphere showing a solar chariot, the signs and degrees of the zodiac, and numbering the days of the month

Spring 2009 Longleaf Style 51

Edwards consults the lunar planting guide in Llewellyn’s Astrological Calendar, sort of the Farmer’s Almanac for the stars and signs set.

Published annually, Llewellyn’s offers advice on the best times to plant, weed, harvest, and irrigate property. After around five years of farming based on the astrological signs, Edwards says he has a pretty good understanding of when to make certain decisions to get the best results on his farm.

For instance, Edwards said, “Scorpio is the number one most fruitful sign for planting and the soil is very receptive to seeds. Cancer is the next most fruitful sign.”

Edwards says his experience with the astrological method of farming has made such a difference, that his friends and family, many of whom have many more years of agricultural experience than he, are now asking him for advice.

“My dad has started asking me when to plant, and he’s been farming a lot longer than me,” Edwards said. “Recently he asked me ‘when are you putting your peas in,’ and I told him ‘when the sun goes into Cancer Monday and Tuesday.’ He asked, ‘well, can you come by and help me plant these peas?’”

Even with all the assistance of the moon and stars, predicting the many moods of Mother Nature is still tricky business. Sometimes a farmer simply has to trust his instincts, perform the required tasks the best he can, and, perhaps above all else, pray.

“I’ve been doing this a long time, and God sends things my way,” says Harold Smith, a crop farmer from Alexandria. “But, if I do things right and just trust Him, I’ll be alright.”

Even long-time farmers with decades of experience and know-how can be surprised at their results, even under dire circumstances. Take for instance the summer of 2007, one of the hottest and driest in recent memory. Smith says he remembers vividly how amazed he was by how well several acres of corn fared in severe drought conditions, proving that at times help can come from above and below–below the soil, that is.

“The Lord really took care of us that summer. I remember thinking ‘It’s got to rain, it’s just got to rain,” Smith said. “Now I’ve been surprised before, but I was really surprised the year before last.”

52 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 53

“That corn waited on the rain, and waited on the rain, but none came.

But, the roots just kept working their way down into the ground until they found some moisture,” Smith explains.

“I didn’t have any idea that I’d be able to get 85 bushels per acre, which isn’t anything to write home about, but it’s better than the 35 bushels I was expecting.”

Mother Nature has a way of teaching us lessons. Sometimes those lessons are philosophical and spiritual in nature, showing us that even in the toughest of times, God is in control. Other times, those lessons are practical. For Lovana Mickler, the proprietor of 7 Paths Farm in Lincoln and a farming newcomer, the severe drought of 2007 taught her a simple lesson about how to work her land. “It taught me that I needed irrigation,” Mickler said with a laugh.

Mickler not only raises crops on her land, but also earns income breeding rabbits and by raising goats for milk, which she uses to make into other products like cheese and soap.

Mickler says that while she has a lot to learn about farming, she believes it is important for our society to reconnect with our roots and regain our understanding of our natural environment.

“Nature tells you a lot of things,” Mickler said. “We as a society have gotten so disconnected from nature that we have to make an effort to come back to the land.”

October, illuminated manuscript page from Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry by the Limburg brothers, c. 1416

54 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Loyd McIntosh is a freelance writer and a former reporter for The Daily Home in Talladega. He lives in Pell City with his wife Elizabeth, and daughters, Emily Grace and Lily.

Summit Oral & Maxillofacial

Surgery Scott D. Whitaker, D.M.D., M.D.

The Tyler Center 731 Leighton Avenue, Suite 401 Anniston, Alabama 36207 phone 256-365-1422 toll free 888-553-7019 fax 256-365-2057

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 55

Wine Myths

By Pat Kettles

he ancient vine winds its way through history, its importance to man recounted through legend and archeological findings.

But who thought to use its fruit? Was the first wine the result of deliberate action of man or was its discovery mere happenstance?

Where did it all begin?

Scientists believe wild grape vines predate manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existence and that todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vitis Vinifera, wine grapes, owe their existence to a single Eurasian grape species, or mother species, Sylvestris, already in place at the dawn of civilization thousands of years ago. One can only speculate how the ancients turned this fruit to wine. Wild grape vines covered the globe.

Likely, man gathered and ate fruit from these vines. Finding it pleasant, in all probability, man tossed excess seasonal fruit into a receptacle for later consumption. Unknown to our ancient ancestors was the fact that all grapes carry microscopic native yeasts on their skins. Grapes left unattended in a warm spot produced a crude wine mystifying ancient man but imbuing him with a source of euphoria he sought to replicate for enjoyment and medicinal purposes.

Thus, we can speculate that the beginning of deliberate cultivation of grapes explicitly for wine dates to the Neolithic Age (c.10,000 BC) in the Middle East. Around 8500 BC, man ceased to wander and began settling in communities, domesticating animals, and planting crops including vinifera grapes for wine. Patrick E. McGovern, senior research scientist and adjunct associate professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, writes in his book, Ancient Wine, The Search for the Origins of Viniculture, of the carbon dating of an 8,000 year old domesticated grape pip found at a Neolithic site in what used to be Soviet Georgia. Scientists know the pip is from a domesticated grape because of its long narrow shape, but how the

56 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

grape became domesticated is unknown.

Domestication was probably a fluke of nature.

An errant mutant vine sprang up differing from wild vines. Perhaps this vine produced more fruit of better quality, and ancient man sought to protect and replicate the specimen. Scientists and archeologists can substantiate that by 2700 BC in Egypt, 1600 BC in Greece, and 1400 BC in parts of what is now Italy, a thriving commercial wine business existed.

Deliberate fermentation of grape juice into wine is thought by some to have originated in ancient Persia in what is now part of Turkey, Armenia, Iran, and Iraq. Though now much of this land is arid and desert-like, 8,000 years ago this region was a verdant growing area referred to by historians as the Fertile Crescent.

An ancient Persian myth recounts the tale of a beautiful princess who was banished from the Persepolis harem of King Jam-Sheed. In her despair, the princess fled to the king’s storehouse where a toxic poisonous grape liquid was stored.

The beautiful consort consumed the toxic liquid and fell into a deep sleep. Upon awakening her spirit was revived, and she was reenergized. She was restored to the king’s harem. The king in his wisdom recognized the medicinal attributes of this toxic substance and ordered from henceforth grape growing was only for the purpose of making wine.

The Republic of Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, also lays claim to being the birthplace of wine. According to Georgian legend, God took a dinner break while creating the world. He became so engrossed in his meal that he tripped over the Caucasus mountain range, spilling his scraps over what is now Georgia, blessing the area with abundant agriculture. Georgia even maintains proprietorship of the word “wine,” in the Georgian language “gvino.” Indeed evidence of early deliberate

wine production can be attributed to both Georgia and the Fertile Crescent.

From these areas, winemaking spread to ancient Greece whose history is intricately interwoven with the worship of the wine god, Dionysus. In Greek legend, Dionysus brought viticulture to Greece.

Dionysus was a god with a split personality. He brought great joy and courage to his worshippers as they imbibed, but there was also a wrathful brutal nature to this god brought on by over consumption and drunkenness, symbolizing the dual nature of wine. Dionysus’s legendary life parallels that of the life cycle of the grape vine. He died in winter, as does the grape vine; he was tragically ripped apart by the Titans, as pruning rips apart vines. Yet each year, he was reborn as vines are reborn in the spring when they leaf and bud. His followers believed his annual death and resurrection symbolized eternal life.

With the fall of Greece and the ascendancy of Rome, many Greek gods were co-opted by the Romans: Dionysus became the Roman wine god, Bacchus. The cult of Bacchus was a source of concern to Roman authorities. Many viewed the cult as encouraging excessive drinking and sexual orgies. The Roman senate banned such Bacchanalian celebrations in 186 BC, but on the horizon was the emergence of two religions, Judaism and Christianity, for whom wine played an integral part in daily life and held particular significance in religious rituals.

Both Jewish and Christian scripture have numerous references both symbolic and literal to viticulture.

As Roman conquest spread, vines were planted in newly conquered lands that to this day have thriving wine industries. By the time the Roman Empire started to crumble, Christianity had an established foothold and wine properties and winemaking became the province of the church.

While the world outside the monasteries was in shambles due to warring kingdoms and Muslim

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 57

invasions, monks kept winemaking alive.

As the warring factions in Europe got things sorted out, a powerful class evolved consisting of merchants, noblemen, and rulers who were willing and able to fund explorations to the New World, but the church continued to play an important role. Exploratory parties usually included a contingency of monks from the Roman Catholic Church who established missions and planted vines. The Jesuit and Franciscan missions in the American Southwest flourished in the 17th century, but it would be mid twentieth century before the American wine industry took hold and started to develop into the industry we know today.

Much that is known about the origins of wine comes to us via legend and the reading of ancient texts supplemented by the modern day sciences of archaeology, paleontology, and archaeobotany. And what we know of winemaking today seems to have been known by mankind’s earliest oenophiles.

Excavated ancient wine vessels carry information equivalent to today’s wine labels such as vintage date, name of the winemaker, type of wine, and some indication of quality.

Then as now, single vineyard wines seem to have been more prized, especially those that come from hillside vineyards.

We have the ancients to thank for many winemaking practices currently in use such as trellising, pruning, and disease control. The ancients farmed organically, obviously the only farming method available to them. Today’s vintners are retuning to organic and sustainable farming, planting by certain phases of the moon, abstaining from the use of chemicals and letting wines ferment using native, naturally occurring yeasts rather than those created in the laboratory.

58 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Wine played a dual role in ancient man’s life. It was a source of sustenance, but it was also one of the few opiates that could be used to alleviate the pain of childbirth and other ailments. Wine still plays that dual role.

Moderate wine consumption is encouraged for health benefits because it has been proven that societies like those surrounding the Mediterranean whose diets are low in saturated fat and include moderate amounts of red wine have lower incidences of heart disease and other ailments. But today’s wine bottle labels do carry a mandatory government imposed warning against over consumption. Then as now, there was concern about the age of those allowed to consume always accompanied with a caution about over consumption. The Greek philosopher Plato grappled with this. He wrote, “Shall we not pass a law that in the first place, no children under eighteen may touch wine at all teaching that it is wrong to pour fire upon fire either in body or in soul… thus guarding against the excitable disposition of the young? And next, we shall rule that the young man under thirty may take wine in moderation, but that he must entirely abstain from intoxication and heavy drinking. But when a man has reached the age of forty, he may join in the convivial gatherings and invoke Dionysus, above all other gods, inviting his presence at the rite of the elders, which he bestowed on mankind as a medicine potent against the crabbedness of Old Age, that thereby we may renew our youth, and that, through forgetfulness of care, the temper of our souls may lose hardness and become softer and more ductile.”

Pat Kettles is the wine columnist for The Anniston Star.

F c

Mc U

ort c lellan redit nion

Membership in Fort McClellan Credit Union is now available for anyone who lives, works or attends school in the following counties: Calhoun, Cleburne, Etowah, Cherokee, St. Clair, Talladega, Clay, Randolph and Chambers.

Apply At A Nearby Fort McClellan Credit Union Office.

Anniston 1731 Noble St. (256) 237-2113

Jacksonville

1204 Church Ave. SE

(256) 435-5741

Roanoke Hwy. 431 N Bypass (334) 863-8902

Ohatchee Indian Village (256) 892-7129

Your savings federally insured by NCUA to at least $250,000 and backed by the full faith and credit of the US Government

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 59

Kathryn Stockett heir to Eudora Welty?

By Lisa Berryhill Worsham

Kathryn Stockett wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t attempting to set the record straight when she began writing her debut novel, The Help. She had no intention of giving voice to a group of people she was never a part of or in defining a time she never witnessed.

60 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

A

fter graduating from the University of Meredith became the first black student to enroll at Alabama with a degree in creative writing the University of Mississippi. But the ugly reality of she went to work in New York City for daily life in Jackson was one where white women of a magazine publishing company. Like many a means hired black women to do their dirty work for transplanted Southerner, she became homesick, such low wages it bordered on servitude. These black longing for simpler times and the comforting words women cooked in kitchens where they were not of the people who helped shape her life. allowed to eat, cleaned bathrooms they could never The Help grew out of Stockett’s desire to return use, and lovingly raised the white children of their to the days of her childhood in the South. “I had employers as their own. been working for a company that bought and sold Kathryn Stockett didn’t grow up in the 60s—she magazines for several years. So I spent a lot of time was born in 1969—but her family did have a black talking to accountants and working with numbers. It maid. “Demetrie came to cook and clean for my was exhausting. In 2001, I decided to take a month off grandparents when she was only 28 years old and my and just try to recover. My first day off was Monday, father was just 14. I spent a lot of time with her in September 10th. The next day when 9/11 happened, I my Grandmother’s kitchen; we would talk for hours.” was cut off from everyone and everything.

My parents divorced when I was six and Demetrie “Living in Manhattan, I didn’t have a working would often take care of my brother and sister and phone, cell phone, or Internet service. We couldn’t me when my mother was out of town. even let our families know we were okay. That’s when “Growing up with divorced parents…being the I started hearing Demetrie’s voice in my head. I was baby of the family, I often felt left over. Demetrie just so very homesick… would step in and make and I began to write in sure that I knew that no her voice as Aibileen.” matter how rotten I felt, The Help, set in it would be okay. She Stockett’s hometown would stand me in front of Jackson, Mississippi of the mirror and tell me in the early 1960s, how beautiful I was…and examines the complex believe me I was not an relationships that attractive child. I wore existed between black glasses and had stringy domestic servants and brown hair. She’d say the white Southern ‘You are beautiful. You a families who employed beautiful girl,’ when clearly them. It is written I was not.” from the perspective When Stockett first began of three women—two writing in the voices of black maids (Aibileen Aibileen and Minny, she and Minny) and one had no plans to share the recent college graduate story with anyone else. “I (Skeeter) who is white. did it because I wanted to The early 60s were go back to that place with a time of hope and a Demetrie. I wanted to hear time of change. John her voice again.” She gave Kennedy has just been little thought to how it elected president and, sounded or if she “had the in October 1962, James right” to try and express the Kathryn Stockett - photo by Kem Lee Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 61

thoughts and feelings of African American maids.

She realizes now that this approach allowed her the freedom to write without censoring herself.

As others started reading the story and it became apparent The Help would be published, Stockett began to worry that she might have crossed a line.

She candidly says that it’s something that still concerns her. Yet it’s a story she felt she had to tell.

“I really wanted this story told, and I am hopeful that I got some of it right. I must be careful to make people aware that I don’t in any way presume to represent or portray the African-American community’s experience or feelings as a whole. The few black people I have spoken to about The Help are urban and college educated. They have responded quite favorably. But, if you were a black maid during that time, it probably hits a little too close to home. I can’t imagine they want some white girl telling them her version of what it was like.”

The feedback from African-Americans in the media has been mixed. Los Angeles based writer Erin Aubry Kaplan, herself an African-American, wrote about The Help in Ms. Magazine’s Winter 2009 Issue. Kaplan says that Stockett “attempts to work out her own complicated feelings about race relations in her native South… Ultimately, The Help can’t decide if it’s modern Faulkner or pop lit with some racial lessons thrown in for fiber.”

National Public Radio’s Karen Grigsby Bates, also an African-American journalist from LA, has a very different opinion. She says, “As blackwhite race relations go, The Help could be one of the most important pieces of fiction since To Kill a Mockingbird. Stockett masterfully captures both black and white voices with astonishing believability… The author puts us in the shoes of three ordinary women at an extraordinary point in American history. If you read only one book this summer, let this be it.”

Stockett did extensive research for the book, speaking to both African-Americans and whites from the period. “It is a very delicate matter as a white woman to approach someone and ask what it was like to work for a white family in the South during

62 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

the 1960s. It is easy to offend, believe me.”

Susan Tucker’s book Telling Memories Among Southern Women, a collection of oral history narratives that focuses on the relationships between black domestics and their white women employers proved to be an invaluable resource for Stockett.

“Ms. Tucker actually went into the field and interviewed both black and white people about the time period and their experiences and then recorded their dialog verbatim. Using the Tucker book as a source proved to be much less intrusive.

“I did speak to some very helpful people, though, and the stories I heard were heartbreaking and joyful. One black woman from Birmingham told me how she and her friends used to hide in a ditch in their white maid uniforms while they waited for the bus. They were that afraid to stand on the street corner because white men would harass them.

“I found all the black women I spoke with to be very proud of the jobs they’d had and the white children they had raised. They told me where those children are now and what they do for a living. Most said the children they helped raise stay in touch with them, stopping by to visit when they’re in town or calling at Christmas.

“The middle aged ‘children’ I talked to remembered so many details of the impact these black women had on their lives. And as soon as we began talking, they became very emotional. They’d share with me how she taught them to tell time or to iron a shirt. There was a sense that they hadn’t thanked them enough.”

Those feelings are something Stockett can understand. “I regret never asking Demetrie how it felt to be black in Mississippi and work for our white family, but she died when I was just 16. And truthfully, it probably never occurred to any of us to ask because as long as she took care of us and met our needs, we didn’t think much about her life apart from our family. That’s just the way it was.”

As she attempted to capture the feelings and attitudes of the sixties, Stockett spent hours pouring over newspaper archives and perusing local telephone books of the era. That was when she came face-to-face with another type of discrimination that went unquestioned. “It’s amazing how different it was for women in those days. There were no female

7 2 2

4

Y

2&# 2-7-2

4 *-,

*- ',20-"3!',%

4 *-, *3630'-31 +#,'2'#1 5'2&

20 "'2'-, * 2-7-2

/3 *'27 4 *3#

,#5 2-7-2

72

4 * 7-2 , 2

#*#% ,2 ! ', "#!-0 !-,4#,'#,!# .*31

"0'4#0 !-+$-02

5'2& .*#,27 -$ .#. .-*'1& ', $ +'*7 1#" , 2& 2 #63"#1 20 ,/3'*'27 12 '*'27 -, 2&# 0- "

13,,7 )',% 2-7-2 1!'-, On tHE â&#x20AC;&#x153;nEw mOtOr milEâ&#x20AC;? in OxfOrd wHErE tHE cUStOmEr iS king

2560 US Hwy 78 EaSt â&#x20AC;˘ OxfOrd â&#x20AC;˘ 1-800-365-3001 ViSit OUr wEb SitE: SUnnykingtOyOta.cOm â&#x20AC;˘ Or E-mail US: SalES@SUnnykingtOyOta.cOm Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 63

triplett Paint & Decorating center, inc

1800 Wilmer Avenue, Anniston, Al (256) 236-5601

64 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

doctors or dentists. When I looked at the telephone books it was as if women didn’t exist. No ‘John and Susan’ just Mr. John Adams. Women married and lost their identity. It was infuriating.”

“And then, as I began researching a job for Skeeter to have, I became very frustrated with what I found.

The newspaper want ads had separate listings for men and women. Sometimes the same job was offered on both pages but the hourly wage would be a dollar higher on the men’s page.”

In The Help, the main white character Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan has just graduated from Ole Miss having neglected to get the all important ‘MRS’ degree her friends and society doyenne mother view as essential for a woman of her age. No one cares about her desire to become a writer; they just want to see her with a ring on her finger and a maid of her own.

As Skeeter struggles to find a place where she can be herself in Jackson society, she finds herself growing increasingly uncomfortable with the status quo in her hometown. She is first stunned and then appalled when Hilly Holbrook, her best friend from high school and president of the Junior League, starts an initiative urging all white homeowners to add separate bathrooms for the help as a “sanitary” measure.

After a New York editor advises Skeeter to write about “what disturbs you,” she realizes that the indignities the black maids suffer daily top her list. She boldly approaches Aibileen and enlists her help to convince maids to share their stories about working for the white families of Jackson.

“Skeeter was the hardest character for me to write,” says Stockett. “That’s because she always had to give voice to the things I was taught not to discuss. She did things that were not socially acceptable. The reality is that white people couldn’t really approach black people that directly back in 1962 Mississippi.

“My biggest challenge was in not making her seem as if she thought she was saving the world. I had to make sure her character remained naïve, not realizing she kept crossing that hidden line and breaking those unwritten rules between blacks and whites.”

Stockett began writing her novel in 2001 and started shopping for an agent when she was about half way through the book. Even after forty-five agents rejected The Help, she never stopped believing that her story was a worthy one that should be told. “I had to believe that either it had merit or that I was crazy. I followed my instincts and kept sending out letters. My advice to writers is to push, push, push and to never give up.”

“I learned that the main quality you have to have as

Round

Princess

Heart

Marquis

I carat

Diamond Solitaires

Starting

at

1,599

$

Jewelers

Anniston • 237-4628 • 15th E. 10th st. oxford • 831-4628 • oxford Exchange Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 65

a writer is tenacity and you have to use it to the point of being annoying. Luckily, I was born with it. People who know me realize that when I am told “no” I will just push harder. I kept sending letter after letter. I received 45 rejections just from agents alone–not from publishers, just when I was trying to get an agent.”

Among her literary influences is fellow Mississippi writer, Eudora Welty. “I love her work. She is such a pro at capturing the misfit. She finely draws them and then throws them into the mix. Her classic short story Why I Live at the P.O. remains one of my favorites. I remember being in school when the teacher played a recording of it…it may have even been Eudora Welty herself reading it… and all I could think was that this is way too entertaining to be literature!”

When asked what message she would like readers of The Help to remember, Stockett’s answer comes quickly. “No matter whether you’re black or white or rich or poor we’re all just people and, as Aibileen says in the book, ‘Not that much separates us.’ It’s a lesson I work to remind myself every day so that I will be an example for my daughter.”

Relevant quotes from and about Southern Writers: “Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.”

– Flannery O’Connor “Many Southerners of a certain age…have moved beyond the old defensiveness on the one hand, the old guilt on the other. They don’t object to portraying the South warts and all--as long as it’s made clear that Southern warts are more interesting than anyone else’s. ” – John Shelton Reed

Note: Kathryn Stockett currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter where she is working on her second novel.

Lisa Berryhill Worsham is a freelance writer living in Oxford.

Regional Medical Center in Anniston is your community hospital. We strive to provide quality, compassionate care close to home. RMC offers the experience, technology and services that you and your loved ones deserve.

Our physicians have trained at institutions such as UAB, Harvard, Vanderbilt, Cleveland Clinic, Emory, Cornell Medical Center and more. RMC has 185 physicians representing 33 specialties. We are pleased to offer the level of medical expertise that you will find in top-ranked hospitals across the country.

RMC has invested millions to bring state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment options to greater Calhoun County. PET Scanning, CT scanning, Magnetic Resonance Imaging and IMRT/IGRT are all offered at RMC. This caliber of equipment means physicians can view images with improved accuracy and efficiency.

The Tyler Center is conveniently located on the RMC campus and houses many of our outpatient services, such as physical and occupational therapy, wound-care therapy, occupational medicine and advanced-imaging services.

Learn more about the services and care offered at Regional Medical Center.

Visit www.rmccares.org or call Physician Finder at 256-231-8880

www.rmccares.org 66 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Reprinted from THE HELP

by Kathryn Stockett

with permission of Amy Einhorn Books/G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a member of The Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright (c) 2009 by Kathryn Stockett.

AIBILEEN—CHAPTER 1 August 1962 Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960. A church baby we like to call it. Taking care a white babies, that’s what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning.

But I ain’t never seen a baby yell like Mae Mobley Leefolt. First day I walk in the door, there she be, red-hot and hollering with the colic, fighting that bottle like it’s a rotten turnip. Miss Leefolt, she look terrified a her own child. “What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I stop it?”

It? That was my first hint: something is wrong with this situation.

So I took that pink, screaming baby in my arms.

Bounced her on my hip to get the gas moving and it didn’t take two minutes fore Baby Girl stopped her crying, got to smiling up at me like she do. But Miss Leefolt, she don’t pick up her own baby for the rest a the day. I seen plenty a womens get the baby blues after they done birthing. I reckon I thought that’s what it was.

Here’s something about Miss Leefolt: she not just frowning all the time, she skinny. Her legs is so spindly, she look like she done growed em last week. Twentythree years old and she lanky as a fourteen-year-old boy. Even her hair is thin, brown, see-through. She try to tease it up, but it only make it look thinner. Her face be the same shape as that red devil on the redhot candy box, pointy chin and all. Fact, her whole body be so full a sharp knobs and corners, it’s no wonder she can’t soothe that baby. Babies like fat. Like to bury they face up in you armpit and go to sleep. They like big fat legs too. That I know.

By the time she a year old, Mae Mobley following me around everwhere I go. Five o’clock would come round and she’d be hanging on my Dr. Scholl shoe, dragging over the floor, crying like I weren’t never coming back.

Miss Leefolt, she’d narrow up her eyes at me like I done something wrong, unhitch that crying baby off my foot.

I reckon that’s the risk you run, letting somebody else raise you chilluns.

Mae Mobley two years old now. She got big brown eyes and honey-color curls. But the bald spot in the back of her hair kind a throw things off. She get the same wrinkle between her eyebrows when she worried, like her mama. They kind a favor except Mae Mobley so fat.

She ain’t gone be no beauty queen. I think it bother Miss Leefolt, but Mae Mobley my special baby.

I lost my own boy, Treelore, right before I started waiting on Miss Leefolt. He was twenty-four years old. The best part of a person’s life. It just wasn’t enough time living in this world.

He had him a little apartment over on Foley Street.

Seeing a real nice girl name Frances and I spec they was gone get married, but he was slow bout things like that.

Not cause he looking for something better, just cause he the thinking kind. Wore big glasses and reading all the time. He even start writing his own book, bout being a colored man living and working in Mississippi. Law, that made me proud. But one night he working late at the Scanlon-Taylor mill, lugging two-by-fours to the truck, splinters slicing all the way through the glove. He too small for that kind a work, too skinny, but he needed the job. He was tired. It was raining. He slip off the loading dock, fell down on the drive. Tractor trailer didn’t see him and crushed his lungs fore he could move. By the time I found out, he was dead.

That was the day my whole world went black. Air look black, sun look black. I laid up in bed and stared at the black walls a my house. Minny came ever day to make sure I was still breathing, feed me food to keep me living. Took three months fore I even look out the window, see if the world still there. I was surprise to see the world didn’t stop just cause my boy did.

Five months after the funeral, I lifted myself up out a bed. I put on my white uniform and put my little gold cross back around my neck and I went to wait on Miss Leefolt cause she just have her baby girl. But it weren’t too long before I seen something in me had changed. A bitter seed was planted inside a me. And I just didn’t feel so accepting anymore.

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 67

Ink & Blood

Writing, the Bible and the Gutenberg Press

By Mary Eloise H. Leake

68 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

“In the beginning was the Word...” (John 1:1)

wenty-first century people who exchange information in a mindnumbing variety of ways have a hard time imagining what life was like before written communication.

Through October 31, the “Ink & Blood: Dead Sea Scrolls to Gutenberg” exhibit at Gadsden’s Mary G. Hardin Center for Cultural Arts highlights how important writing, the Bible, and the Gutenberg Press were to the development of language and literacy.

Pages from the first Gutenberg Bible, Torah scrolls, Greek texts, Medieval Latin manuscripts, and remarkable printed English Bibles are among more than 100 artifacts included. Coins, medical instruments, cooking utensils, ceramics, and jewelry add insight into each era’s culture.

As you enter the exhibit, you will see a magnificent 18th century Torah--made of parchment from 90 sheepskins--open to the Ten Commandments. Contrast its beautifully handwritten Hebrew text with the nearby pictographic 5,000-yearold proto-cuneiform clay tablets, containing the first attempts at writing in the Babylonian Empire (Iraq). After 1900 B.C., a phonetic Canaanite alphabet was introduced, which used only 30 characters compared to the plethora of cuneiform drawings. Expansive wall texts throughout the galleries detail the progress of language, including information about styluses, inks, papyri, and parchment.

In 1947, when a Bedouin boy casually tossed a rock and broke a jar in a Qumran cave, he changed Biblical scholarship forever. Eleven caves were discovered and explored--though few intact manuscripts were found--more than 18,000 fragments of handwritten scrolls were located. Composed or copied in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic from third century B.C. to 68 A.D., they contain portions of every book in the Old Testament except Esther (plus other religious works) and information on lifestyles and community rules.

The contents of Cave Four include two small Scroll fragments, glass vials, inkwells, and oil lamps. Artifacts are displayed in micro-climate cases, which travel with the exhibit to protect the ancient writings and artifacts.

“Ink & Blood” is divided into segments: 1) early Jewish and Christian culture

Proto-Cuneiform Clay Tablet 3200-3000 B.C. Ancient Sumer (Iraq)

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 69

Torah Scroll Eighteenth century A.D. Origin unknown. Handwritten on parchment contemporary rollers. This large Torah scroll is very similar to the scrolls originally stored in the Dead Sea Scroll caves. texts, 2) the Middle Ages and the Catholic Church’s dominion over Biblical manuscripts, and 3) the invention of printing presses, resulting in the spread of the Bible and education.

When Alexander the Great came to power in the Middle East, he wanted the Hebrew Scriptures translated into Greek--the Septuagint--for his library in Alexandria, Egypt.

Around this junction in history, followers of Jesus of Nazareth came on the scene.

Christian writers began to chronicle his life and ministry. By the end of the second century, some of these scrolls became what is now known as the New Testament.

But the Roman Empire was no friend to emerging Christianity. Not until Emperor Constantine I converted in 312 A.D. did the bloody persecution cease, for a while.

The next upheaval saw the Bishop of Rome take over the Western Roman Empire and proclaim Christianity as the sole religion. The noted scholar, Jerome, represented in the exhibit by an exquisite statue and some letters, was the go-to man who directed the Bible’s translation into Latin–the Vulgate–the accepted text in the area from about the fourth through 14th

70 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

centuries. Its Latin made the Bible internationally accessible.

Some of the most popular Latin manuscripts during this time were the illuminated, colorful Parisian-style Bible and the Book of Hours. Bobby Welch, executive director of the Hardin Center, says the Parisian and Italian works of the period are his favorites because of their distinctive artwork.

When Charlemagne became the Holy Roman Emperor in 800, he--though he had little book learning and couldn’t write--jump-started the rise of universities, which used the Bible as their main textbook.

By the 15th century, only educated people spoke Latin. Using the Latin Vulgate in 1384, John Wycliffe and his followers, the Lollards, produced the first handwritten English (Chaucer’s Middle English) Bible on display. But the Catholic Church regarded this as heresy and Wycliffe, who had taught at England’s Oxford University, had to flee. The Lollards were hunted down and many put to death.

“The printing press with moveable type made many lists of top inventions of the millennium,” says Welch. “Without it, education would not have flourished in Western civilization and the Renaissance and Reformation could not have happened.”

The representative Johann Gutenberg press prints two pages together–one from the Gutenberg Bible and one from the King James version’s first edition–at least three times a day. Often visitors participate in the experience. Do not miss the two pages from the Gutenberg Bible’s original run.

Though Gutenberg didn’t invent the ink, cotton paper, or even the printing process in the West, he put the trio together with his innovation-moveable type. This combo resulted in letterpress printing, leading to the circulation of Martin Luther’s breakthrough German Bible (1522) and the resulting information explosion.

History IS ONLY HALF OUR STORY.

MEMORABLE MUSEUMS, NOSTALGIC SHOPS, COLORFUL FESTIVALS AND RICH HISTORY AWAIT YOU …

• Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center • Corinth National Cemetery • Corinth Coca-Cola Museum • Corinth Black History Museum • Crossroads Museum • Borroum’s Drug Store • Shiloh National Military Park

Call for your FREE Travel Planner

(800) 748-9048 • www.corinth.net Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 71

The Guise Book of Hours c.1415 A.D. Paris, France. This parchment manuscript, handwritten in both Latin and French, includes a full cycle of miniatures directly dependent on designs of the Boucicaut Master, one of the leading Parisian illuminators during the first decades of the fifteenth century.

Ink and Blood: Dead Sea Scrolls to Gutenberg • When: Now through October 31. Monday-Saturday 9 a.m.—8 p.m.

Sunday 1 p.m.—5 p.m.

• Where: Mary G. Hardin Center for Cultural Arts, 501 Broad St., Gadsden • How much: $6 for adults, $4 children and students, free for members. Group discounts (15 or more) are available, call ahead for reservations.

• Contact: (256) 543-2787 for more information.

72 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

William Tyndale’s name is not very familiar, yet his influence on the syntax of today’s English language is immeasurable. His translation of the New Testament was the first printed in English.

A computer analysis of modern English revealed that 83 percent of it comes from the King James Bible (which relied heavily upon Tyndale’s distinct language). Among his familiar phrases are: “eat, drink and be merry,” “the powers that be,” “fight the good fight,” “salt of the earth.”

Betrayed, like Jesus, by a friend for money, Tyndale–still not quite finished with his Old Testament–was burned at the stake in 1536.

Pay close attention to the Geneva Bible (1560), brought by the Pilgrims on the Mayflower. The fledgling American settlement based its beliefs and practices upon its words. The first text to have verse divisions, it was Shakespeare’s Bible, and Tyndale’s syntax comes across loud and clear in the Bard’s many works.

Before you exit this excellent exhibit, take time to peruse a first edition–printed in 1611–of the King James Bible, the most well-known and widely read book in the English language.

Short videos enrich your understanding of objects in several galleries and benches allow you to rest while watching.

Everything you see is real–except the Gutenberg press, which was made eight years ago by Rusty Maisel, an authority on historical printing techniques, Gutenberg, and Biblical manuscripts.

Although no pictures or descriptions of Gutenberg’s press exist, some scholars think Gutenberg adapted a press used for pressing grapes. After traveling to Germany to photograph 15th century grape presses, Maisel made this one, adding printing aspects to the design.

“After building the press,” Maisel says via phone from Weatherford, Texas, “I invited friends over and we crushed grapes.

Using the juice that ran into the bucket for communion, we asked God to bless the ministry of the press. And then we printed two pages. They were perfect.”

In an era when the printed word seems to be an endangered species, this exhibit places millennia of history, art, science, archaeology, and theology squarely in Longleaf country.

Put “Ink & Blood” on your short list.

Mary Elosie H. Leake is an award winning writer and regular contributor to Longleaf Style.

Marie’s

POOL sTOre

IS YOUR POOL COVeR ThIS SAFe?

It is if it’s a LOOP-LOc! Safe, beautiful, and strong enough to hold an elephant.

Ask us about the one Swimming Pool cover built with “No compromises...No Excuses!”

ULTRA-LOC...

It’s Mesh, It’s Solid, It’s A Whole New Breed Of Safety Cover!

BLOCkS 100% of sunlight.

33% LIghTeR in weight than typical solid vinyl cover material, yet ultra-durable!

call or come by for a FREE estimate.

112 M Street Anniston AL 36201

(256) 238-1555 Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 73

{beScene} 1

2

3 4

5

74 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

6

7

8

9

10

31st Annual Sunny King Golf Classic

by Hervey Folsom There was cause for celebration among coordinators of the 31st Annual Sunny King Golf Classic held July 10,11, and 12 because $125,000 was raised for local charities. This pushes the amount of funds taken in over the $2 million mark throughout the history of the event. Besides the competition among the 408 golfers, social events were enjoyed. Locations were the Anniston Country Club, CIder Ridge and Cane Creek Golf Courses. Social events included a meal and dancing, a shrimp boil, and a picnic. Because of the challenges, and the fact that over 30 charities were benefitted, the classic was truly a successful and fun event.

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8)

Jaylon Ellison and Jeremy McGatha

Gerald Joyers

Brad Williams & Patty King Darren Tinkey, Patty King, Phil Webb and Dorothy Veach Shane & Carolyn Dowdey Hank & Lucy Smith Darren & Audrey Tinkey Jenny & Ken Howell Chris Hagen, Tripp Farrell, Michael Hudson,

9) Jason Alderman, Hank Smith and Brad Williams 10) Gary Sanders, Todd Pate, Ryan Beam

and Mike McCartney

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 75

{beScene} 1

2

3

4

5

6

76 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

7

8

10

9 Oxford

1) Members of the Oxford High School class of 1989 2) Kevin Reid, Chris Austin, and Keith McCullough 3) Suzy White Lindblom, Sonya Sims Bedford, and

Ruth Shaw Stewart

4) Tammy Miller Backman, Rusty Roberts, and Beth Rice Scott 5) Patti Bryant Mixon, Vicki McKenzie Kirby, and

Teresa Bailey Harris

6) Warren Reaves and Teresa Bailey Harris Anniston

7) Amy Jenkins Self, Amanda Herport Palmer, and

July 25, 2009 was the night for reuniting as the classes of 1989 for Oxford, Anniston and The Donoho School had separate 20th year celebrations.

Anniston High School celebrated at Anniston City Meeting Center, Oxford High School at the Anniston Country Club and The Donoho School at Classic on Noble.

Jakey Watford Elliott

8) Chandra Westerfield Dempsey, Jakey Watford Elliott, and Anna Hitt Wheeler

9) Beth Robinson Williams, Tina Nicole Dorthard Phillips, Heather Dobbins Winship, Angela Banister Schuessler, Anna Hitt Wheeler, and Amy Jenkins Self The Donoho School

10) David Wingard, Sharon McCord Crandall, Wendy Dingler Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Steen, Shannan Reed Adkins, Frank Allen and Allen Jacobs

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 77

{beScene}

DoDge Journey ‘Best fuel economy in its class’

1

Luxury

affordabiLity VersatiLity

2

Oil Change & Tire Rotation This area’s

24.95

$

*

Saturday Hours: 8-12 am

only Factory Authorized Chrysler, Jeep & Dodge Service Center

expires 10/15/09

*Coupon Code: Longleaf. Must mention at time of service. not valid with any other offer. Includes 5 quarts oil & filter. Some models slightly higher. Does not include diesels or synthetics.

Anniston DoDge

www.annistondodge.com

1229 s. Quintard Ave. 78 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

236-7635

3

4

5

American Red Cross of Calhoun & Cleburne Counties American Red Cross of Calhoun & Cleburne Counties held its 2nd annual Celebrity Luncheon on Friday, August 21, 2009 at the Anniston City Meeting Center. Over 300 people attended and some of the most recognizable impersonators attending were Sophia, Dorothy, Rose and Blanche from the Golden Girls, the Blues Brothers, the three Stooges, Cruella Deville, Pebbles, Wilma and Fred Flintstone, Wicked Witch from Oz, the Ghostbusters, Johnny & June Cash, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, Whoopi Goldberg, Jim Carey, Cousin Eddie from National Lampoon, Smoke Neck Ray, Lucille Ball, and Mr T. Local companies who sponsored tables with the event sponsor being M & H Valve made the event possible. Several Oxford High School FOCIS club students assisted with the event. Over $9,000 was raised for the local Red Cross.

1) Katy Van Meter; Misty Skinner, Audrey Tinkey and Jessica Carter as the Golden Girls

2) Jim Friend, Brandon Glover and Gina Byars as the

Blues Brothers

3) Brian McVeigh, Alex Ference, & Chris Hughes as the

Three Stooges

4) Stacy Engle as Wilma; Mary Barrette as Pebble, and

Chriss Suddeth as Fred

5) Ron & Patricia Ponder as Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 79

TAX CREDIT

on all wood burning fireplaces & stoves that are rated 75% efficient

Anniston Fireplace & Patio

{beScene} 1

2

3815 Leatherwood Plaza, Hwy. 431

(256) 236-1114

Mon. - Fri. 8-5; Sat. 9-12 Kurtnelson@cableone.net • abbybass@cableone.net

The Colonial Cottage Situated in a Victorian house built before 1880 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Seventeen rooms filled with gifts, antiques, reproductions, home decor, gourmet foods, large selection of children’s clothing and much, much more. Located in downtown Heflin, on U. S. Highway 78, across from the First United Methodist church.

Heflin is midway between Birmingham and Atlanta.

Christmas Open House November 7th, 9:00 to 5:00 November 8th, 1:00 to 4:00

Over 40 themed trees!

758 Ross Street Heflin, Alabama 800.813.6792

80 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

3

Donoho The

S C H O O L

AC A D E M I C S

A RT S

AT H L E T I C S

The Donoho School 2501 Henry Road Anniston, AL 36207 Phone (256) 237 - 5477 www.donohoschool.com

1) Dr. Bill Phelps, Pam Dawson, and hosts Tom Roberts and

Brenda Roberts.

2) Seen at the reception were David and Pat Boozer with Mary Eloise Leake.

3) Randy and Jean Harvey chat with Jim Nolen downstairs on the patio after Dr. Phelps’ speech on the remarkable advances in cancer prevention and treatment.

4) Brooke Mann, Lisa Haugen, and Mary Ann Upchurch check the list of attendees at ACS event.

5) Kristy Alderman, Jean Ann Oglesby, and Kelli Roberts.

Alderman represents the Anniston ACS office and Oglesby and Roberts assisted with the cooking for the buffet.

4

5

trinity

custom homes www.trinitycustom.com

The Company you have come to trust!

• 2x6 Exterior Walls

• Custom Wood Cabinets

• 9’ Ceilings

• 5/8“ Roof Decking

• Increased Insulation

American Cancer Society’s Grand Reception August 20, 2009 Photos by Hervey Folsom It was a grand event, indeed. Cancer caregivers, cancer survivors, and people generally interested in the progress of cancer research–about 85 people–gave generously to the cause and gathered in the home of Brenda and Tom Roberts on August 20. On the agenda was a cocktail buffet and instruction about the advances made in cures for cancer from research director Dr. Bill Phelps, who represented the national society of 15 divisions. The group also celebrated Brenda Robert’s appointment as a representative on the grant review committee with a personal stake in cancer research. She will attend meetings at the Atlanta office of ACS.

Exceptional Homes Built On Your Land For Less!!

• Double Hung Windows

• Granite Kitchen Countertops

& Much More....

STOP!

There has never been a better time to build -

• Lowest Interest Rates Ever • Fast Build Out Times • Outstanding Prices It is truly a buyers market!!

Call Now for aN appoiNtmeNt

770-459-3680

or toll Free

866-802-7380 Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 81

{beScene} 1

CA9 5B8 >C=B IG :CF 5 89@=7=CIG A95@ 5B8 F9@5L98 8=B=B; 9LD9F=9B79

'9BI G9@97H=CBG =B7@I89 . .<9 -=@J9F CL =@9H -H @5=F ,=69M9 . =; 588M -<F=AD 5B8 F=98 !F=HG . .<9 ,5NCF657? DCF? 7<CD K=H< '5FG5@5 G5I79 . *=NN5G K=H< ;CIFA9H HCDD=B;G @=?9 ;C5H 7<99G9

5FH=7<C?9 <95FHG ;F=@@98 7<=7?9B 5B8 AI7< AI7< ACF9 . '98=H9FF5B95B H=@5D=5 . %9BHI7?M "CH FCKB . <=7?9B !<=CB9 . F56 I !F5H=B 9GG9FHG A589 :F9G< 85=@M 1=B9 7C@@97H=CB =B7@I89G J5F=9H=9G

'5?9 F9G9FJ5H=CBG 6M 75@@=B;

C;GK9@@ J9 "13 =B *9@@ =HM & $5M 5B8 =B8M CF89G DFCDF=9HCFG

The

Wine Cellar

INC.

WORLD CLASS WINES AT AFFORDABLE PRICES

Check out the biggest little olâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; wine shop in town.

WE NOW We have a large selection of A CARRY great wines from South NE FULL LI S, Africa, Germany, New UOR Zealand, France, Spain, OF LIQ BEERS, Chile, Italy, Portugal, INES, Argentina, as well as Domestic FORTIFIED W S Brands. Come in and taste your & CIGAR way around the world

2

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Good Wine is a necessity of Lifeâ&#x20AC;? - Thomas Jefferson

{ WE DO TASTINGS WEEKLY }

309 A QUINTARD AVENUE ANNISTON, ALABAMA EVERETT PLAZA â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 256-237-5996 ACROSS FROM DOWNTOWNER INN 82 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

1) Allison McElroy and John Benefield at the VAS event 2) Allison McElroy and Lee Manners share ideas of recent and established trends in the visual arts.

3) Jane Greene, art department secretary, welcomes new

VAS members Susan and Jim Ulrey 4) Allison McElroy, and viewers take in the variety of art at the exhibit

When it comes to healthcare you do have a choice…

3

NHC Healthcare

“Caring In a Better Way Day by Day”

4

To meet the Healthcare needs of Calhoun County 2300 Coleman Road, Anniston, Al

256-831-5730 Need to relieve your aches and pains, but never been to

Burgess ChiropraCtiC & aCupunCture CliniC? Don’t know what to expect?

Expect professionalism with a whole body, natural approach Expect different types of treatment, depending on your individual needs Here’s a few: • Spinal Decompression • Chiropractic Adjustments • Acupuncture • Massage by a licensed massage-therapist • A BCBS Participating Provider

Sciatica Herniated Disc Bulging Disc Degenerative Disc Pinched Nerves Dr. Dale Burgess and staff

Visual Arts Society Summer Show

by Hervey Folsom The work of at least 16 artists was displayed to mark this year’s Visual Arts Society Summer Show. Before the opening, VAS members enjoyed a barbecue supper at The Alumni House on campus. The purpose of the VAS is to promote art activities and stimulate community involvement in the visual arts at JSU and support students’ art education through the university’s art department.

If you are experiencing neck, back or radiating pain, you should seriously consider Disc Decompression Therapy.

It is a non-surgical treatment to help in the management of serious low back/leg and neck/arm pain.

Burgess Chiropractic & Acupuncture Clinic Call 237-9251 today!

For more information, visit www.burgesschiropractic.com No everyone qualifies for care, to find out if your condition is one that can be helped, call our office today.

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 83

{beScene} 1

Harris-McKay Realty Each Office Is Independently Owned (256) 236-0377 • (256) 237-8100 123 South Quintard Avenue Anniston, AL 36201 www.harrismckay.com LELA SARRELL ................................................237-1353 BOB ARNOLD .................................................237-5606 EDDIE REAVES ................................................282-6407 KEITH KELLEY .................................................820-2325 WALT FRAZIER ................................................235-0560 DOLORES MILLER..........................................237-0590 RITA SMITH ......................................................237-7423 DEBBIE CARTER .............................................310-3944 RUTH PARK ......................................................831-7126 TOM HARRIS ...................................................237-8214 LANA BURKE..................... ................. 1-256-453-0825 CHRIS OLIVER .................................................310-9656 DEEDEE JONES...............................................282-1835 BRADLEY DIAL ...............................................770-3830

3

The Oxfordfest Committee Invites You to attend saturday, October 3rd Main street Oxford A Weekend You Do Not Want To Miss.You will hear a lot of Good Singing, Good Performances, Beautiful Arts and Crafts, Great Food and a lots Entertainment for the Children and Adults. Bands - Singers • FREE admission / Family Fun • Festival starts at 8:00 a.m.

• Live entertainment starting at 9:00 a.m.

• Drawings throughout the day Prizes donated by area merchants.

• Over 210 arts and crafts booths

• $1,000 GRand PRizE compliments of the Oxfordfest 2009 committee • Lots of special rides and games for the children • The best food selections ever • Take FREE shuttlE from Quintard Mall or the Civic Center

www.oxfordfest.org

84 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

1) Lanelle Willingham, Anniston, with Wendy and Tim

Barstad, look over vegetable choices at Farmers Market July 5. Corn, okra, tomatoes, and beans were at their finest for the picking out as well as homemade relishes and more.

2) Beverly Munn of Jacksonville talks with Patty Pope of Owl’s Hollow Farm, Leesburg 3) Nancy Francisco Stewart of Anniston talks with vendor Grace Klee, of Gadsden 4) Mark Cline, Anniston talks with Cindy Crosby of Mountain View Dairy, Piedmont.

2

Now Offering Latisse™

FDA approved to grow eyelashes longer, thicker, & darker!

Services Include: Botox • Laser Hair Removal • Age Spot Removal Spider Vein Treatment • Medical Weight Loss B12 & Lipotropic Injections • HRT ®

SpeciAl Offer Bring in this ad & receive

00 15 Off every 100 You Spend! $

$

-&-

00

Offer not valid with any other discounts or coupons. This ad must be present at time of purchase to receive special offer.

Expires 10/31/09

Call today to schedule your FREE consultation on any service!

Gift cards & gift packages available.

4

501 Quintard Avenue • 256-237-2029

McNaron Group, Inc. Investment Advisor

1005 Noble Street, Suite B Anniston, AL 36201 (256) 237-5817

Farmer’s Market at Zinn Park

by Hervey Folsom For many people, the Farmers Markets at Zinn Park, became an important part of summer. As the sun crept up through the trees on West Fourteenth Street on Saturday July 5, more and more people strolled in to talk to the vendors. By high noon, the park was alive with buyers from northeast Alabama who had come for bargains on fresh vegetables, plants, and crafts which included handmade soap, dolls, and toys. There were cooking demonstrations on different Saturdays, children’s activities, and one weekend’s feature was a performance by CAST Theatre’s Kool Kids.

If you believe the recent turmoil in the financial markets is presenting us with an historic opportunity not seen in decades, we want to talk with you.

Thomas G. McNaron, III President - a registered investment advisory firm -

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 85

A picture is worth...

{beScene} 1

Lance Johnson Studio

The Perfect Frame!

2

.UNNALLY´S Framing

Custom frame for beauty and preservation.

1014 Noble Street, Anniston • 256-237-5921 • www.downtownanniston.com

Ladies’ Day at the viking classic October 29, 2009 Annandale Golf Club Madison, Mississippi

Longleaf in Aspen Colorado presented by

Ladies Enjoy • Free Admission • Celebrity Culinary Demonstrations • Wine & Cheese Tasting • Ridgeland Tourism Pavilion Register At • www.visitridgeland.com for our prize package featuring the chance to play with a pro, meals and accommodations.

800-468-6078 • www.visitridgeland.com VIKING CLASSIC • OCTOBER 26 - NOVEMBER 1

86 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

1) Longleaf’s Kristy Farmer & Josephine Ayers await

the ascent of the Aspen mountain gondola with Birmingham friends Anne and Mac Greeves

2) View from the gondola over Aspen, Colorado

Making Special Deliveries For Over 40 Years NOW ACCEPTING NEW PATIENTS FOR OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY

1

Now providing the latest diagnostics capabilities with: Digital Mammography – the only one in Calhoun County Bone Densitometry – body fat composition and osteoporosis screening and monitoring 4D Ultrasound – incredible real-time images of your fetus

J. Patrick Stewart, MD, F.A.C.O.G. Lucy K. Ballard, MD, F.A.C.O.G. Jeffrey W. Collins, MD, F.A.C.O.G. Cynthia Cater, MD, F.A.C.O.G. Jacquline Tessen, MD, F.A.C.O.G. And our newest physician Larry Jones, MD, F.A.C.O.G.

2

ANNISTON OB/GYN ASSOCIATES 901 LEIGHTON AVENUE, SUITE 501, ANNISTON, ALABAMA 36207

(256) 237-6755

ACCOUNTING AND AUDITING

1) Joan McKinney receives the silver bowl, the traditional

Including Audited, Reviewed, and Compiled Financial Statement Services, CFO Outsourcing, Payrolls and Payroll Tax, Sales Tax, and Monthly Accounting and General Ledger Services

2) The Randy Award winners are first row, seated: Jennie

Including Personal, Estate, S-Corporations, C-Corporations,Partnerships, Limited Liability Entities, Not-For-Profit and International Taxation Services

Edel Y. Ayers Award from Phil Sanguinetti.

Wall, David Wall, and Hope Miles-Jamison and first row, standing: Dawn Hurst, and Debby Mathews. Second row, all standing: Joan McKinney, Glenn Davenport, Mike Parsons, Mike Crosby, Sumer Buckner, and David Rice.

Not pictured in the Randy winners photo are Lolly Payne and Cody Harrell.

Randy Awards by Hervey Folsom Photos by Angie Ayers Finley The Awards mark the climax of the community theater’s season, and a time for one more round of applause. The event was named in memory of the late Randy Hall, who was founder of CAST, a journalist with The Anniston Star, and author of five plays.

TAXATION

BUSINESS CONSULTING

Including a complete and diversified range of management advisory, business consulting, and value added services, including merger/acquisition assistance and analysis, valuation analysis, profit enhancement/turnaround, cost analysis and stream lining, and other general business services

801 Noble Street 8th Floor Commerce Tower Anniston,AL 36201 ANNISTON, AL P.O.Box 818 Anniston,AL 36202

Phone:(256) 231-9405 Fax:(256) 231-9407 ATLANTA, GA P.O.Box 12198 Atlanta,GA 30355 Phone:(877) 283-0003

Members of American Institute of Certified Public Accountants

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 87

{Fall Events} Museum & Exhibitions Anniston Museum of Natural History Museum Day Saturday, September 12, 2009, 10am-5pm Join Anniston Museum of Natural History and our neighbor, Berman Museum of World History for our annual Museum Day 2009. Admission is free!

Reptiles: The Beautiful and the Deadly September 26 -January 10, 2010 Slithering into Anniston Museum of Natural Hissstory Saturday, September 26, 2009, it’s Reptiles: The Beautiful and the Deadly.

This incredible traveling exhibition introduces visitors to a variety of amazing reptiles, including deadly snakes, colorful lizards, bizarre turtles, alligators and crocodiles, all exhibited in naturalistic habitats. Designed especially for a family audience, it includes 19 living dioramas, more than 15 interactive components and 35 informational panels.

Fall Break 2009: Skins, Scales & Scholars October 10, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

Join Anniston Museum for this annual celebration of some of nature’s most misunderstood creatures - reptiles and amphibians.

This year’s special topic is Native Alabama Reptiles and Amphibians. Hear fascinating and informative lectures, view live species and enjoy natural hisssstory like never before!

Programs are included in price of admission. also includes Museum exhibit halls and the special exhibit Reptiles: The Beautiful and the Deadly.

Gadsden Museum Stitching Across Alabama Statewide Quilt Show September 1 - October 24.

Opening Reception, Friday, September 4: 6 -8 PM www.gadsdenmuseum.com Mary G. Hardin Center for Cultural Arts Ink & Blood: Dead Sea Scrolls to Gutenberg (Gadsden) Through October 31. A once in a lifetime opportunity to see Dead Sea Scrolls and an exhibit spanning over 5,000 years of historical artifacts. ww.culturalarts.org/inkandblood Birmingham Museum of Art Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art October 4th through January 6th 2010 The Yale University Art Gallery offers an unprecedented opportunity to experience American history through more than 230 masterpieces from one of the finest and oldest collections of American art in the world. From the arrival of the first European settlers to the Gilded Age, this major exhibition tells America’s story through paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, furniture, silver, and ceramics from Yale University’s renowned collection.

Huntsville Museum of Art Nature’s Realm August 16 – November 22 The Grisham Gallery will come alive with an exciting display of flora and fauna related subjects in Looking at the Collection: Nature’s Realm. Both historical and contemporary works in a variety of media and styles will be featured, including pieces not publicly displayed for many years.

The Elegant Vessel August 30 – November 8 Since 1998, the Huntsville Museum of art has added over 70 contemporary works of craft to its permanent collection through purchases and gifts from generous artists and patrons.

Berman Museum of World History Mary Lee Bendolph, Gee’s Bend Quilts, and Beyond (Anniston) Berman Museum October 2-January 3, (256) 237-6261. www.bermanmuseum.org.

Celebrate the resonance of the strikingly innovative, abstract quilts made by a group of African American women from Gee’s Bend, Alabama.

88 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Art by American Women: The Sellars Collection Huntsville Premiere September 20- November 8 The Museum is proud to present a first glimpse into its landmark acquisition of outstanding paintings and drawings that celebrates the achievements of over 250 talented women artists active from 1850 to 1940. Varied in terms of subject matter, the Collection encompasses accomplished florals and still-lifes, elegant portraits, engaging genre scenes, and landscapes both intimate and panoramic, reflecting many different regions of the country and world. (256) 535-4350, 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. www.huntsville.org

High Museum of Art (Atlanta)

Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of the Genius October 6, 2009 - February 21, 2010 This first exhibition to showcase Leonardo’s interest in and influence on sculpture will include works from his teachers and students, in addition to numerous sketches and studies for his own sculptural work.

Alec Soth: Black Line of Woods Black Line of Woods comprises twelve large archival pigment prints that explore spiritual and hermetic life in the rural South. These photographs are part of the “Picturing the South” commissioned by the High Museum of Art. Through January 3, 2010 John Portman: Art & Architecture October 17, 2009 through January 3, 2010 This exhibition will feature architectural projects, furniture, paintings and sculpture by Atlanta-based architect and artist John Portman.

Tickets (404)733-HIGH www.high.org Montgomery Museum of Fine Art Patrick Dougherty: Sculpture Installation Lookin’ Good! Lookin’ Good!

A site-specific sculpture near the entrance of the MMFA, constructed March 2-19, 2009.

March 1, 2009 through March 1, 2010 A Century of Retablos: The Janis and Dennis Lyon Collection of Mexican Santos, 1780-1880 October 24 through January 17, 2010 A rich tradition of religious painting flourished in the Southwest in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this era of Spanish Colonial rule, painters and their workshops created wooden panels embellished with images from the lives of the saints and other holy figures. These panels, known as retablos, were visual narratives created for churches and homes as aides to veneration of the Saints.

Movements in Stillness:The Still-Life Paintings of Edgar Soberon October 24, 2009 through January 24, 2010 Edgar Soberon’s classically elegant still-life paintings are grounded in the work of the old as well as the modern masters. A contemporary painter and printmaker now based in San Miquel de Allende, Mexico, Soberon’s works speak to the long tradition of painting still life in the Hispanic world as exemplified by works of Spanish masters such as Francisco de Zurbaran and Francisco de Goya. While in Spain in 1987, it was the masters of the Spanish Golden Age of still-life painting that most deeply struck a responsive chord in his imagination.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Freedom Sisters Exhibition Odessa Woolfolk Gallery Through October 4 (205) 328-9696 ext. 211 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Admission charge. www.bcri.org Exhibitions from the Smithsonian and Cincinnati Museum Center feature African American women who fought for freedom and changed the course of history.

Art Works Reception 5-8 p.m.

November 6 921 Noble Street Historic Downtown Anniston Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Saturday 10 a.m.–3 p.m.

(256) 237-1259 www.artworks-anniston.com Quarterly showing and reception by members of Art Works fine art gallery. Paintings, turned wooden bowls, pens, and decorative pieces, fiber art, gourds, photography, jewelry, and pottery.

Jacksonville State University Hammond Hall Gallery EquiLOBErium Allison McElroy and Anne Wedler Tuesday, September 1 - Wednesday, September 30 Reception: Tuesday, September 1, 7:00 - 9:00 PM Translated Landscapes Brian Taylor Tuesday, October 6 - Wednesday, October 28 Reception: Tuesday, Oct. 6 | 7:00 - 9:00 PM Jacksonville State University Department of Art Faculty Exhibition Tuesday, November 3 - Tuesday, November 24 Reception: Tuesday, November 3, 7:00 - 9:00 PM

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 89

“Exercise your right to choose your Physical Therapy Provider.”

Alabama Physical Rehabilitation Service Jerry L. Klug, P.T. Physical Therapy Aquatic Industrial Manual Neurologic Orthopedic Pediatric Sports Women’s Health Pre & Post Operative

Theater Jacksonville State University Drama Department The man who came to dinner A comedy by Moss Hart & George S. Kaufmann Directed by Wayne H. Clareen October 1-4 Conquistadors A drama by Barry Bradford, winner of 2009’s Southern Playwright’s Competition Directed by Wayne H. Clareen November 19-22 Call 256-782-5648 for more information CAST- Community Actors Studio Theatre Annie Get Your Gun September 10-13, 17,19 & 20 8:00 pm Thur., Fri., Sat.,2:30 pm Saturday & Sunday Tickets: $20 adults $10 students 820-CAST (2278) • castalabam.com

Parade

1475 1 Avenue S.W. Jacksonville, Alabama 36265 (256) 435-9386 st

rehabalabama.com • JLKPT@cableone.net

Southern Union Success starts Here!

Annual Veterans Day Anniston, November 11, 2 p.m.

(256) 236-0996 www.spiritofanniston.org The Anniston 2009 Christmas Un-Parade November 21, 5-8 p.m.

Featuring everything a moving parade has but in a stationary lineup from 900 Noble to 1500 Noble; a line up of floats, art cars, music, live performances, pageant winners, politicians and Santa Claus in a fabulous mosaic chair that will be ideal for photographs with the youngsters. it promises to be a joyful and unique event.

(256) 236-0996, www.spiritofanniston.org

Sports

Wadley 256.395.2211 Valley 334.756.4151 Opelika 334.745.6437 www.suscc.edu

Miller Funeral Home & Crematory “The Perfect Tribute” Locally owned & operated since 1970

millerfuneral@bellsouth.net www.millerfuneralhomeoxford.com

90 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Highway 78 East at Barry Street P.O. Box 3346 Oxford, AL 36203 (256) 831-4611

Race Fever Auction & BBQ (Talladega) October 30, Talladega 256-761-3317. www.racefever.org.

Admission charged. Talledega Superspeedway Speed Channel Dome–Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind charity event featuring a BBQ dinner, opportunity to meet drivers, silent and live auctions, autographed memorabilia, etc.

AMP Energy 500 Weekend at Talladega Superspeedway (Talladega) October 30-November 1, Talladega Talladega Race Weekend 877-Go2-DEGA (462-3342). Admission charged. www. talladegasuperspeedway.com. Talladega Superspeedway-NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series qualifying on Fri., October 30, Mountain Dew 250 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race and NASCAR Sprint Cup qualifying on Sat., October 31 and AMP Energy 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race on Sunday, November 1.

Festivals First Fridays Downtown Gadsden September 4, October 2, November 6, December 4 Downtown Gadsden is the place to be every first Friday of the month! Stores stay open late into the evening and downtown rocks with live entertainment, special events, sales, food, and artists from all over! (256) 547 8696, www. downtowngadsden.com Super Saturdays Historic Downtown Anniston, Noble Street Third Saturday of each Month September 19, October 17, November 21, December 19 Streets will be blocked off at 4:00 pm the day of the event. door prizes, Ddowntown shopping, live music, food vendors, arts & crafts and more! www.downtownanniston. com Sidewalk Moving Picture Downtown Birmingham September 25-27 11 a.m. – 11 p.m., (205)324-0888, www.sidewalkfest.com Since its debut in 1999, filmmakers from around the world have come to Sidewalk to find large, enthusiastic crowds eager to devour new independent cinema. Voted by Time Magazine as one of America’s “Top 10 Film Festivals for the Rest of US.” Mountain Echoes Jacksonville September 26, 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.

(256) 435-9386 The Mountain Echoes Festival is a community-based arts, crafts, entertainment and food festival produced by the Jacksonville Merchants Association. The majority of the proceeds to to local charitable organizations to benefit the citizens of Jacksonville. www.jville.net/jma/ Oxfordfest Oxford, October 2 • www.oxfordalabama.org Food, music and arts and crafts are just some of the things you’ll find at the 2009 Oxfordfest. With attendance reaching almost 20,000 for the past several years, you’ll want to get there early. Shuttle transportation will be provided from the Quintard Mall.

Novel Gifts Unique Gifts Ornaments Design Services Furniture Original Art Come by today and find that special gift for that very special someone...

a reflection of you...

1021 Snow Street in Oxford

256 . 831 . 9173 204 Industrial Park Drive in Pell City

800 . 586 . 1569

webbhomeonline.com A DIVISION OF

WEBB CONCRETE

& BUILDING MATERIALS

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 91

Harvest Festival Attalla • October 10 (256) 538-5452 www.alabamawinetrail.org Alabama Butterbean Festival (Pinson) September 5, 7 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Historic Pinson Main Street 877-691-6088.

One-day outdoor festival on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend to promote the butterbean through an assortment of educational exhibits. The festival includes over 200+ Arts & Crafts and food booths. www.butterbeanfestival.com.

National Shrimp Festival – Gulf Shores Come and see one of the premier events in the South taking place at the beautiful beaches of Gulf Shores. Four funfilled days of continuous music, delicious seafood, over 300 exhibitors offering Fine Arts, Arts & Crafts, a Retail Market Place, Sand Castle Contest and the Children’s Activity Village.

October 8-11 • (251) 968-6904 www.nationalshrimpfestival.com

Sweet Tater Festival Crane Hill September 6-7 Sunday, 1-4 p.m.; Monday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m.

Arts, crafts, games, food, door prizes, live entertainment and plenty of sweet taters. www.sweettaterfestival.com.

256-747-8635 Annual Lobsterfest, benefit for Habitat for Humanity, November 7, 11am-7pm, Grace Episcopal Church, 10th & Leighton, Anniston. Full Meals (includes two-pound lobster, baked potato, cole slaw, bread, tea),$20. Individual lobsters, cooked or crawling, $15. Children’s activities, arts and crafts, live entertainment.Tickets available at the Church. MondayWednesday 9am-3pm. For more info call 256-236-4457.

Bank

Where ConvenienCe Counts

We offer very competitive banking products: everything from Checking, Savings and Time Deposit Accounts to Real Estate, Business and Personal Loans with much more in-between, but the STAFF is what our customers like most about Small Town Bank! We really appreciate your business!

Internet Banking www.smalltownbank.com Telephone Banking 256-357-9774 or Toll-Free 1-866-879-7654 Convenient Lobby Hours Mon.- Fri. 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Wed. 8 a.m.- 1 p.m.

Sat. 8 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Wedowee 256-357-4936 92 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Ranburne 256-568-2265

EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY

“A Real Community Bank” Roanoke 334-863-4151

Heflin 256-463-2790

24 Hours A Day 7 Days A Week

Ole Timey Craft & Bluegrass Festival Scottsboro September 12, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

Admission charged.

Paint Rock Valley Lodge (256) 776-9411.

Leeds Folk Festival & John Henry Celebration Downtown Leeds September 19-20, Free.

Leeds 10 a.m. & 3 p.m. on Saturday and at 3 p.m. on Sunday. Saturday., 9 a.m.- 9p.m.; Sun., noon- 6 p.m.

(205) 699-1892 www.leedsfolkfestival.org.

W. C. Handy Celebration Come wish the “Father of the Blues” a happy birthday and enjoy a musical performance, refreshments, and free admission to the museum. WC Handy Birthplace, Museum and Library November 16 •11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

(256) 760-6434 • www.flo-tour.org Festival on the Farm Albertville September 11-12, (256)561-3908 Admission charged. Call for location--Family-oriented two-day bluegrass gospel festival with no alcohol allowed. Friday 5 p.m. until; Saturday, noon until.www.thegarywaldrepband.com

Music Foggy Hollow Bluegrass Gatherin’ (Wellington) September 25-26 (256)492-3700 www.foggyhollow.com. Admission charged. Foggy Hollow Farm, 439 Ross Lake Rd., between Anniston and Gadsden in Webster’s Chapel Community—Alabama’s largest bluegrass festival takes place in June and September and features local, regional and national acts, parking lot picking, camping.

The CardiovasCular CliniCs, P.C.

vein & vasCular laser insTiTuTe

Varicose & Spider Veins, Ultrasound, Laser Ablation, Sclerotherapy, Medical Compression Stockings

We care for your cardiovascular health from head to toe.

Friendly, knowledgeable, skilled staFF Symptoms or signs of venous insufficiency problems may include: Leg pain, aching, discomfort, restlessness, swelling, phlebitis, ulceration & discoloration of skin.

we Make niCe legs!

Osita A. Onyekwere, MD, FACC • John I. Nwogu, MD, FACC Cardiologists, Board Certified

vein & vasCular insTiTuTe: 1131 Leighton Ave. • Anniston, AL • 256-241-3600 oxford offiCe: 326 Monger St. • Oxford, AL 36203 • 256-835-6060

Clinical Consultation arrhythmia Management nuclear Cardiology • Vascluar Medicine invasive/interventional (Cardiac & Peripheral) Catheterization, angiography angioplasty, stenting & others Pacemakers • defibrillators imaging/diagnostics, stress testing, echocardiography Holter Monitoring, event Monitoring tilt table testing, Ultra sound (Vascular) Hemodynamics, nuclear imaging, Multidetector Ct (MdCt) Miniclinics research/education

Main 1129 Christine Avenue offiCe Anniston, AL • 256-237-0025

“Providing comPrehensive cardiac and vascular care”

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 93

Knox Concert Series, Anniston Sara Evans – Academy of Country Music’s Female Vocalist of the Year Sara Evans is recognized as one of the most successful artists of her generation with accolades including the Academy of Country Music’s Female Vocalist of the Year and the Country Music Association’s Video of the Year for “Born to Fly.” Evans has been celebrated as one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People”, Thursday, October 1, 2009, 7:30 p.m.

Lerner and Loewe’s Musical “Camelot” Rediscover the grandeur of one of history’s greatest love stories in Lerner and Loewe’s timeless masterpiece, Camelot. A sumptuous tale set in a land where honor and chivalry reign, Camelot follows the love triangle of King Arthur, his Queen Guenevere and the young Lancelot. Monday, November 3, 2009, 7:30 p.m. www.knoxconcert.org 8th Ole Timey Craft & Bluegrass Festival (Estillfork) September 19, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

(256) 776-9411

Events 2nd Annual Calhoun County Patriot Day Ride September 12th Starts at Struts of Oxford.

Registration begins at 11:00 AM Donation: $10 per bike / $5 per extra rider.

Meal included at Wingman Clubhouse after run. Donations go to the Fallen Soldiers Scholarship Fund. 256-239-4844

94 Longleaf Style Fall 2009

Tours Buried Treasure: A Historic Calhoun County Cemetery Tour Anniston (256) 237-6261 8:30 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Visit grave sites of Calhoun County’s famous and infamous.

Unusually hysterical and historical tour. Berman Museum Collections Manager Robert Lindley will lead this popular tour of some of the county’s local cemeteries. He will offer up historical and biographical information on some very interesting “late” county residents. www.bermanmuseum.org A Walk Through Time Gadsden Forrest Cemetary October 11, 2-4 pm Come “Walk Through Time” at Forrest Cemetery and learn about the history of Etowah County, through the stories of those buried there. “A Walk Through Time” will be sponsored by Northeast Alabama Genealogical Society and UDC Etowah Chapter 1620 with participation of other service and historical organizations.

No admission charged, but donations will be appreciated.

(256) 442-4529. 2-4 p.m. www.forrestcemetary.com Homes for the Holidays (Anniston) Dec 1- (256) 237-6766. Admission charged.

11 a.m.-7 p.m. www.annistonmuseum.org

{Index of Advertisers} Advanced Imaging....................................................................................................3 Alabama Physical Rehabilitation..............................................................................90 Anniston Dodge......................................................................................................78 Anniston Fireplace...................................................................................................80 Anniston Museum of Natural History.......................................................................94 Anniston OB-GYN Associates...................................................................................87 Association of Bank Institutions...............................................................................35 Autumn Cove..........................................................................................................32 Badcock Furniture...................................................................................................38 Bledsoe’s Discount Market Place..............................................................................33 Burgess Chiropractic Clinic.......................................................................................83 Cardiovascular Clinic...............................................................................................93 Classic Catering.......................................................................................................55 Colonial Cottage.....................................................................................................80 Cotton Companies Group........................................................................................87 Couch’s Jewelers.....................................................................................................67 Diamond Depot......................................................................................................31 Dr. Khalid Khan, M.D. ............................................................................................27 Family Nissan..........................................................................................................41 Ft. McClellan Credit Union.......................................................................................61 Harris McKay Realty.................................................................................................84 Knox Concert Series.................................................................................................54 Marie’s Pool Store...................................................................................................75 Mattress Max..........................................................................................................24 McNaron Group, Inc...............................................................................................85 Medi-Trim...............................................................................................................85 Midtown Outlet........................................................................................................5 Miller Funeral Home................................................................................................90 Miller Sand & Gravel...............................................................................................35 Mississippi Tourism Associations..............................................................................73 NHC Healthcare......................................................................................................83 Nunnally’s Custom Framing.....................................................................................86 Oxfordfest...............................................................................................................84 Pool Doctor.............................................................................................................25 Prestige Medical Spa-Dermatology & Associates........................................................7 Regency Pointe.........................................................................................................IB Ridgeland Tourism Commission...............................................................................86 Regional Medical Center..........................................................................................68 Rousso Facial Plastic Surgery Clinic,PC......................................................................81 Scott D. Whitaker, DMD., M.D. . .............................................................................57 Signature In-Home Care, Inc. .................................................................................61 Small Town Bank/ Wedowee....................................................................................92 Southern Union State Community College...............................................................90 Stringfellow Memorial Hospital................................................................................ IF Sunny King Ford......................................................................................................BC Sunny King Honda....................................................................................................1 Sunny King Toyota..................................................................................................65 The Donoho School.................................................................................................80 The Tavern of St. Clair..............................................................................................82 The Wine Cellar.......................................................................................................82 Three Dudes............................................................................................................17 Trinity Custom Homes, LLC......................................................................................81 Triplett Paint/Decorating..........................................................................................66 Webb Home...........................................................................................................91 Wigs Wheels...........................................................................................................16

Would like to thank its readers and advertisers for

3 years

of success!

To Advertise In Longleaf Style Call

Carol Christopher 235-9226 Deidre Henderson 235-9276 Demetrius Hardy 235-9218 Dollie Robinson 235-9236 Dustin Benitez 235-9217 Janet Miller 235-9225 Ruth Pearl 235-9215

To Subscribe to

LongLeaf StyLe go to www.longleafstyle.com

Fall 2009 Longleaf Style 95

{Last leaf}

Lost Lamb Photo by David Cummings

unabashed & uninhibited Power in its Purest form. Total freedom, revealing your take-a-ride-on-the-wild side. Sights, sounds, smells: simply spectacular.

It’s a whole new world. Where you’re always center stage.

ford sync - developed with Microsoft® – is a voice-activated, customizable media system that integrates your mustang with Bluetooth® enabled phones and digital media players

“Earning customers for life.”

– eddie Holsombeck

“We will beat anybody’s price on any in stock model” – Lane Luker

SuNNY KING FORD 1507 South Quintard • 256-831-5300 • 1-800- 947-7001 www.sunnykingford.com