Tag Archives: Alabama

Murder Point: Here We Rest

Leave a reply

Lane Zirlott thinks he has the best oyster in Alabama. And I agree.

Lane Zirlott thinks he has the best oyster on the Gulf of Mexico. And I agree.

Lane Zirlott thinks he has the best oyster in the United States. And I’m inclined to agree on that, too (although I’ve not had them all).

Lane Zirlott thinks he might have the best oyster. Period. Full stop. And I’m not going to argue.

Lane Zirlott

Lane Zirlott thinks being on the water, being an oyster farmer, is his destiny. And after sitting in his office in his shop at Bayou La Batre for a while, listening to him tell the origin story of his family business, Murder Point Oysters, I think he is a man who could sell anything he believes in – especially if it comes from the saltwaters of Alabama’s Gulf coast. He talks about his love of working on the water, the adventure of “finding something you can’t see.”

______________________________

“Here We Rest” was Alabama’s first official state motto. It was adopted during Reconstruction so, of course, the people down in Montgomery decided to change it to something more combative during Jim Crow. Audemus jura nostra defendere is the state motto today – “We Dare Defend Our Rights” (both real and imagined rights, I’m afraid). I prefer “Here We Rest” and have an old habit of saying that phrase whenever I discover something to which I will instantly commit. The first time I tasted Murder Point oysters, I said, “Here We Rest.”

In fact, if I go to a restaurant and see Murder Points among the oyster offerings, I don’t need to look further. If Murder Points aren’t on the menu, I’ll pass. If I’m offered a plate with a variety of oysters, I will stick to the Murder Points, thank you. It’s the first oyster I don’t really want to add anything to. I might use a dab of mignonette and a sprinkle of lemon, but the buttery smooth one-bite oyster is fine just to slurp on its own.

Murder Points have a well-deserved national following now. They even ship them to Canada, which has previously been unheard of for an oyster from the Gulf of Mexico. The Zirlotts are a five-generation shrimping family and their oysters have only been on the market since 2012. When Auburn University’s Dauphin Island Sea Lab offered training to Alabama Gulf coast locals on off-bottom oyster farming, Lane Zirlott’s mother, Rosa, was the only person to attend the first session. She talked her husband, Blake, into taking the course with her. When Lane, who was shrimping full-time, returned from a shrimping trip, his parents encouraged him to explore the oyster aquaculture; the lure of still being on the water but being able to stay home with his wife and kids was all it took to make him a convert. An enthusiastic one.

There’s a well-known local tale about two oystermen a century ago in Alabama’s Myrtle Point who got into a dispute over oyster beds. The dispute accelerated until one of the men murdered the other on his front porch and “Myrtle Point” became popularly known as “Murder Point.” That inspired the Zirlotts to brand their product as “Murder Point Oysters,” with the catchy slogan, “Oysters Worth Killing For.” The oysters’ taste can sell itself, but I think the name and the slogan make it easier to remember and ask for by name.

Lane shares stories about the hustle to get his oysters in restaurants at the beginning, starting in New Orleans. It was a few years after Katrina, the event that changed the food scene in the city. He and his brother would go into the back door of the establishment with oysters and a shank. He said the back door of the restaurant would always be open – for deliveries, smoke breaks, fresh air. They’d give oysters to the kitchen staff – dishwashers, line cooks, sous chefs, pastry, cold station – until the chef would come to see what was going on. The staff would rave about the oysters, and the chef would taste, agree, and order them.

Lane has a scrappy smile and a twinkle in his eyes when he talks about the time in Charleston when the back door wasn’t open and he and his brother went through the front door and made their way to the bar during service. The manager chased them down and caused a scene, accusing them of being unprofessional, ordering them to get out. Lane slammed a bag of Murder Points down at the bar, yelled “Roll Tide” (“We’d just beat Clemson for the second year in a row”), and left. His brother had the presence of mind to slap a business card down with the bag before leaving.

About a year later, at a food and wine event, the chef of that same restaurant sought Lane out and wanted to start ordering Murder Points. “We still talk about that Alabama redneck and his oysters,” the chef said. It was obvious that Lane tells this story often. And with pride.

Lane contends that the Murder Point oyster “changed the perception of a Southern oyster.” Lane often refers to Murder Points as “the oyster of Alabama,” stressing that by discussing “broodstock,” the mature oysters that are used for breeding. While other Alabama oyster growers use broodstock from other states, he says, Murder Point only uses Alabama oysters, including Alabama broodstock. “A true Alabama oyster,” he says, “has to be a Murder Point.” The aquaculture method Murder Point uses to cultivate its oysters forces the oyster to close by bringing it out of the water daily. It builds the bivalve’s muscle and helps develop the deep cup that makes the oyster so appealing to eat raw. Referring to outdated perceptions of what a Gulf oyster is, he says, “don’t let people define you because of where you’re from.” At the end of that course at the Sea Lab, Rosa Zirlott was given 20,000 oysters to farm. Lane told me, before he went back to work, that they have “fourteen million planted today.”

Lane went out to start shipping oysters and TJ Lundy, who left a career in education to work with Murder Point, drove me out to the farm at Sandy Bay, Murder Point’s merroir. Leaving the main road, we traveled down an arrow straight dirt road for seven miles through protected freshwater marshland. I learned that it was the combination of the fresh water of the wooded marshes mixing with the saltwater of the bay that was partly responsible for the creamy buttery aftertaste of the Murder Point oyster.

Each piece is an oyster.

TJ introduced me to marine biologist Eric Stewart, Murder Point’s director of operations and the manager of the hatchery, while we examined the sprawling operation right in front of me and out across the bay. Eric explained the process in the hatchery filled with baby oysters at various stages of being ready to take down to the bay. He showed me buckets filled with what looked like tiny pieces of briny gravel. He took up a handful and separated one out for inspection. It was miniscule, but it was already clearly an oyster. Next he showed me others that were slightly larger and still perfectly shaped. By the time you get Murder Points in a restaurant, they are typically 2.25 to 2.75 inches across. The careful control that the tide tumbling aquaculture provides gives these oysters their reliable consistency and taste. After learning more than I ever thought I’d know about oyster cultivation, TJ took me down to the water and the long pier that provided a view of the operation in the bay and the baskets full of growing oysters.

We left the bay and headed back through the marshlands to the Murder Point store. After my tour, I had plenty of questions for TJ. I commented on how intense and time-consuming the farming of oysters is and that I had no idea until that day. TJ agreed that the people at Murder Point worked hard, but added, “It’s a lot easier to work hard if you’re having fun, too.” We briefly went to the building out back where the staff, including Lane, were busy preparing and packing oysters for a new shipment to go out across North America. And then I headed back through the hardworking fishing village of Bayou La Batre on the way to Birmingham.

Later, on the interstate, I remembered that I didn’t do one thing I always hoped to do if I ever made it down to Murder Point: I didn’t get to eat an oyster straight out of the water in the place where it was born.

Not to worry, though. Next time.

Review: Work Lunch, Poems by Lee Bains

Leave a reply

Here’s a part of my review of Lee Bains’s debut book of poetry, Work Lunch, which was released today (10/13/2026):

To read these poems is to be regaled with tastes, to savor pulled pork that has “the texture of the ropy sawdust that unspools when a dull blade / chews up a rained-on board.” It is to learn more than you ever dreamed there was to know about the Greek-owned hot dog stands in Birmingham, and that Grandmama – even when given the chance to go “to the Bright Star / or the Red Lobster, she’d usually just / rather a good hot dog and some potato chips.” It is to learn how Birmingham’s early Greek immigrants managed to “transform wieners on whitebread into a cornerstone / of a blue-collar city’s unlikely culinary cathedral.” It is to remind us of the diversity of the hot dog stand clientele and to remind us that the word “Mediterranean” translates to “Middle of the Earth.”

But food is just a touchstone for Work Lunch. It’s a passionate consideration of our world and our individual places in it. Read the full review here: Work Lunch – Alabama Writers’ Forum

Growing Up with Atticus

Leave a reply

Birmingham’s Virginia Samford Theatre is celebrating its centennial in the 2026-2027 season. In 1927, it was founded as The Little Theatre, home to Birmingham’s community theatre. By the time I was growing up in the city, it was Clark Memorial Theatre, home to Town and Gown Theatre. When Town and Gown was dissolved at the turn of the century, the building was purchased and restored, renamed Virginia Samford Theatre, and continues to be a home for local live theatre.

The building has a rich history beyond the theatre and its shows. Writer and actor Fannie Flagg, as a shy fifteen-year-old, found her “tribe” at Town and Gown after volunteering to be a spotlight operator for a show and eventually became an actor on its stage. In the 1960s, Town and Gown gained a reputation for hosting successful auditions for major films looking for juvenile actors. Auditions for the film adaptation of Carson McCullers’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, to be filmed in Selma, were held there and a young Sondra Locke lied about her age and landed the lead. I auditioned there for the juvenile lead in The Reivers, the film adaptation of William Faulkner’s last novel, starring Steve McQueen. I only got one callback but one of my classmates was flown to Los Angeles to audition with McQueen. Even so, a Hollywood kid was cast in that one. But Town and Gown’s most notable coup in film casting is the fact that Philip Alford and Mary Badham – neither of whom had previous acting experience – were cast as Jem and Scout Finch in the acclaimed and enduring film adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, starring Gregory Peck in his Oscar-winning role as Atticus Finch.

That history gives added luster to the fact that Virginia Samford Theatre opened its centennial season with the world premiere of Growing Up with Atticus, starring Mary Badham – “Scout” from the movie, and Cecilia Peck – Gregory Peck’s daughter. Growing Up with Atticus, directed by David Strickland, is presented as a conversation between two life-long friends, amplified by clips from To Kill a Mockingbird, photos, scrapbook images, and footage from various projects by Mary Badham and Cecilia and Gregory Peck.

Mary and Cecilia have known each other since childhood and have remained close ever since. That bond is evident in the comfort they share with each other onstage, sitting in chairs with a pitcher of tea, as they reminisce about the filming of To Kill a Mockingbird. Mary was eight years old when she was cast in Mockingbird and was ten when she was nominated for an Academy Award as Supporting Actress in the film; she is still the youngest Supporting Actress nominee in Academy history. The supporting actress Oscar that year went to Patty Duke, another juvenile actor, for her role as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker, still another film adaptation of an Alabama-set literary work. Growing Up with Atticus incorporates video from the 1963 Oscar ceremony, including Gregory Peck’s acceptance speech, with Mary Badham’s explanation of why the cameras couldn’t find her when her name was called as a nominee.

It is those kinds of personal, intimate revelations that make the two-woman stage presentation so captivating. The show is a lovefest – from the haunting film score by Elmer Bernstein that plays as the audience is seated to the testimonials of the audience during a second act Q&A. The Q&A makes each performance a unique and singular experience. At the matinee I attended, a woman in the audience recounted how her father was imprisoned for his political activism and was inspired by the example of Atticus Finch standing up for what is right. A young girl who asked a question was named “Scout” to honor the book and movie’s influence on her parents. Audience members spoke of traveling from Arkansas, Louisiana, Virginia – just to see the show.

The performance includes content about the Civil Rights movement and the 1963 “Birmingham Campaign” in particular. Mary Badham recounts her chilling first encounter with racism on a Birmingham city bus with her nanny when the driver stopped the bus and separated her from her nanny so they would each be sitting in the racially “correct” seats.

During the Q&A that I attended, it was revealed that Sephira Shuttlesworth, the widow of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, was in the audience. Rev. Shuttlesworth was a guiding force in the Birmingham civil rights movement and Mrs. Shuttlesworth spoke briefly to the audience with words that were powerful, moving, and hopeful. After Mrs. Shuttlesworth was recognized, one audience member spoke up to say that Dr. King “got the credit” for the Birmingham Campaign, but Rev. Shuttlesworth “did the work.”

After I attended Growing Up with Atticus, I was asked if I enjoyed “the play.” I’m not sure how to respond since it isn’t really a play; it’s an event, an experience, and, at times, it feels like a revival meeting. There is one scene in the performance, however, that is theatrical in a way that elicits chills in the recounting. Cecilia and Mary discuss the pivotal nighttime scene when Atticus is sitting and reading in front of the courthouse, keeping vigil while Tom Robinson is imprisoned inside. On the screen above them, that scene from the movie is shown: A lynch mob arrives and confronts Atticus. Soon after, Jem, Scout, and their friend Dill arrive to check on Atticus. In the confusion that ensues, Scout recognizes Mr. Cunningham – the father of her classmate, Walter – and says “hey’’ to him. As Scout’s monologue continues, it is picked up by present-day Mary standing at the front of the stage. Another light comes up on Cecilia Peck standing beside the lamp, in the place her own father stood in the movie. As the filmed scene ends, Cecilia Peck and Mary Badham stand together, reflecting that powerful father-daughter moment on screen almost sixty-five years ago.

The magnificent performance and inspirational life-long influence of Gregory Peck is a focus of Growing Up with Atticus, but Harper Lee, Alabama, the Badham family, “the Book,” and “the Movie” also are prominently featured throughout. Ultimately, it seems, the conversation and interaction with Ms. Badham and Ms. Peck is about Family – the one we’re born into and the ones we choose. Cecilia Peck talks about the powerful bond her parents had with Harper Lee throughout their lives and her family’s annual visits to Lee in New York and, later, Monroeville. She introduced her husband, son, and the son’s girlfriend in the audience at that matinee. The son’s name – Harper Peck.

For their performance coda, Badham and Peck chose the words that Gregory Peck wrote in his notes at the end of his script for To Kill a Mockingbird – words that guide his portrayal of Atticus and words we’re urged to remember and live by: “Fairness, Courage, Stubbornness, Love.”

Why I Go: Notes on Sidewalk 2026

Leave a reply

Friday O, me of little faith. I approached the 28th edition of Birmingham’s Sidewalk Film Festival with no small amount of trepidation. After studying the schedule and the synopses of films, watching some trailers, and second-guessing the wisdom of buying a VIP pass for a festival that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy much – not to mention booking a hotel room in the midst of the festival so that I could park and walk for three days on a still-healing broken ankle, I entered the festivities with a grim attitude. It has been a rough year and I wasn’t expecting to be pulled out of my doldrums sitting in dark movie theatres on the last weekend in August.  But then, there was the cinephile temptation of a few hundred moving picture titles spread out over ten screens within walking distance of each other in the course of fifty hours. A doldrum-buster, perhaps?

So I parked my car for the weekend, checked in to the Elyton, walked around downtown for a while to loosen up my feet, got a really good bowl of gumbo from a food truck, and walked back to the Alabama Theatre for Opening Night. At some point in years past, the Sidewalk powers-that-be decided that the opening night was more about feel-good films and the party – before and after – than it was about serious movie-making. In recent years I have often opted to skip the opening night screening altogether. This year, though, I decided to give the Opening Night film, John Wilson’s debut feature documentary, The History of Concrete, a chance. It was funny for a while – an entertaining short was in there somewhere – but at some point it was tiring and ultimately I found it depressing and walked out of the screening. No offense to Wilson and his loyal fanbase – it’s not you, it’s me I’m sure. It has a really good trailer, by the way.

I was glad I walked out because everybody was in the theatre watching the doc and the streets were quiet and relatively empty. People were quietly preparing in anticipation of the block party. I have always felt invigorated walking the streets of downtown Birmingham – even in the bleak years before the downtown rebirth. The theatre marquees looked good up and down the street. I still miss the neon. I’m feeling old.

Saturday In the early years of Sidewalk, I tried to see how many screenings I could squeeze into a weekend. With 250-300 titles to choose from, depending on how many programs of short documentary and narrative films I worked in among the features, I could sometimes get in about three dozen titles. I was careful in selecting my programming, but it used to be a source of pride that I had the stamina for such an undertaking – and I realized even then that I still had only seen maybe ten percent of what was on offer.

I don’t do that anymore.

So on Saturday, after a good breakfast, I headed to the Carver Theatre for a double-feature of documentaries about the city of Birmingham. “As Goes the South,” directed by Brian “B+” Cross and Eric Coleman, is an enjoyable, booster-ish look at Birmingham personalities and success stories; “Birmingham’s Front Lawn,” directed by Michele Forman, is a deep dive into the genesis and evolution of Birmingham’s Railroad Park, a sprawling park in the middle of the central city that occupies once desolate land along the phalanx of railroad tracks that bisect downtown.

With my civic responsibilities fulfilled, it was off to Birmingham Museum of Art and the Polish film, Glorious Summer, directed by Bartosz Szpak and Helena Ganjalyan. It’s a dystopian enigma about three women, living a cloistered existence in a crumbling palatial pile, with all of their earthly needs fulfilled so long as they remain within the geographic boundaries set for them by disembodied voices and mysteriously appearing texts. The outside world’s presence is an occasional explosion or flames in the far distance. Two of the women employ ways of communicating through touch as they play, exercise, follow directions, contemplate their plight, practice their deaths, plot their escape. The film is cryptic, perplexing – beautiful to behold and baffling to contemplate. It lingers long after the closing credits and I’m still trying to come to grips with what it’s saying. In short, it’s why I go to film festivals.

Or maybe the reason I go to film festivals is the episodic situational comedies like Human Theories, directed by Jess Zeidman, with a cast of dozens that played at the Sidewalk Cinema in the afternoon. The New York of Human Theories is bleak, dark, and grimy – the antithesis of the crisp and glistening New York of Woody Allen’s best comedies. Warhol said that in the future everybody would be famous for fifteen minutes; the actors in Human Theories typically get only two or three minutes before it’s off to the next thing. It’s very funny and uncomfortably real.

It had been a lot of walking between screenings and my ankle was beginning to feel it. I decided to do something I used to never do at Sidewalk: Quit while I was ahead, have a good late lunch, go back to the Elyton, take a nap. Those were smart decisions. After the nap, I took a nighttime walk around the theatre district and decided not to take in any more movies that night. I realize that another of the reasons I go to the festival is for the opportunity to walk aimlessly around the city and feel its pulse, and mine.

Sunday After checking out of the hotel and retrieving my car, I found a perfect place to park in front of Sidewalk Cinema where I expected my weekend of movie-going to end. Then I walked the few blocks to the Carver Theatre to get in line early for my next program of short documentaries. There weren’t many people waiting yet and I quipped to a waiting couple that “I arrive early so I can get a seat in the back.” Old habits are hard to relinquish and I have been most comfortable in the back row of a theatre since my days directing plays, taking notes inconspicuously in the back. As we were taking our seats in the theatre, the couple from the lobby passed me settling in to my back row seat on the aisle.

“You really meant it,” the man said. “I thought you were joking. I thought people got here early to sit in the front.”

Gesturing to the whole room, as more people began to come in, I said, “It’s all yours.”

A woman seated near the front said, “I love watching films at Sidewalk on a Sunday morning.” I have said the same thing over the years; some of the Sidewalk films that stick most vividly with me were viewed on a Sunday morning (Family Portrait, 45365, and Icepick to the Moon come immediately to mind from past Sidewalk Sunday mornings).

I initially chose this set of nine short documentaries because of the film, “The Chukker: Nation of Misfits.” The Chukker was a seedy and superlative watering hole in downtown Tuscaloosa for almost half a century. Every strata of society was welcome – except perhaps for the strata that was embarrassed to be in such a diverse and rich smorgasbord of people. University of Alabama students Nate Billings and Charlotte Gale, who were probably born right around the time the Chukker went away to be replaced by a fountain in a public square, gathered up footage to create a history of the bar and its ongoing cultural legacy. Since I first went to the Chukker as a toddler in 1957, the year after it opened, when it also served food as a grill during the day, I have always had a soft spot for the place and its history.

Another short film in the program, “Adi,” directed by Sukanya Subramaniyan, was recommended to me by my physician, who is also a musician. It features the musical trio Vishnu, Davis, & Haleigh, who have forged a distinctive and ethereal sound from musical traditions of Appalachia and India. Following doctor’s orders, I introduced myself to Davis and Haleigh in the lobby and found another group of musicians I plan to follow. Theirs is a lovely sound.

By noon, morning had passed, but the film The Birds Tell Me All There Is to Know, the debut feature by director Aidan Cronin, will no doubt remain in my mind in my personal pantheon of “Sunday morning films at Sidewalk.” It provided a needed balm in a challenging year. Using outdated video cameras, non-professional actors, and an analog point-of-view, Cronin has crafted a moving and beautiful film about memory, loss, youth, and aging. Cronin is a patient director and his film demands a patient and attentive viewer. He lingers, his cast lingers, and the audience must linger to get the full benefit of what this deliberate film has to offer. Its quiet power is a challenge to achieve and I hope to see more from Cronin in the future.

The Ark, a documentary by Viacheslav Rakivskyi and Jeremy Chilnick, is urgent and topical, taking place during Russia’s current incursion in Ukraine. A Ukrainian family, in the process of establishing a place for healing, is asked by a soldier to care for his goats while he is away in combat. The floodgates are opened and the family finds itself the caregiver for hundreds of animals displaced by the Russian invasion, including a donkey amputee who becomes the heartbeat of the film. Against all odds, the film is inspirational and uplifting and a call for all to fight oppression in its many forms.

I left The Ark screening with another “must see” on my list and a couple of others that I might try to get into. A quick survey of the rivulet of lines coming out of the Sidewalk Cinema entrance convinced me that I wouldn’t get in, so I dashed to my prime parking spot and went on my way. As always, it was a great weekend.

Why do I go to Sidewalk? To see films and meet artists that I may not have discovered otherwise. I am rarely disappointed.

Dura and Houston McCarn

Leave a reply

I recently reviewed The Ballad of Fiddling Tom Freeman: Music, Moonshine & Murder in Bug Tussle, Alabama, by Joyce H. Cauthen with Robin Sterling, for Alabama Writers’ Forum and First Draft magazine. I was compelled to add the following note to my author bio: [Journey] was pleased to find that his great-grandparents, John Houston McCarn and Dura Evelyn Graves McCarn, are a part of Fiddling Tom’s story; he is quick to point out that they appear in the context of music – not moonshine and murder.

The Ballad of Fiddling Tom Freeman includes generous excerpts from an autobiographical book Freeman wrote that was never published. Cauthen took his manuscript, her own research and information on historical contexts, and Robin Sterling’s extensive research to bring Freeman’s story and the story of his community to light. She contacted me just before the book’s publication to tell me that she had found my family connection to a part of Freeman’s story.

I chose not to include the family connection in my review. The book has so many fascinating anecdotes and information that it was a challenge to figure out what to leave out. But this is my essay about my great-grandparents so I will feel free to focus on my kin.

(L-R) Houston, Jewel, and Dura McCarn

I have written about my great grandfather, John Houston McCarn, who was a schoolteacher in and around Cullman County. He was born in 1865 and didn’t die until 1959, so I have vague memories of him from when I was very young. As I grew older, it dawned on me that this old man that I had first-hand memories of was born the year the Civil War ended. Houston married Dura Evelyn Graves, who was fifteen years his junior, and they had seven children together. Their first-born daughter, Jewel, died in childhood in 1909, the year my grandmother, Eula, was born. Dura died an early death in the 1920s. Houston and Dura raised their family in a dogtrot-style house, always referred to as “the homeplace,” on a large farm in the community of Bremen. That house is long gone but I remember it, too. When I knew it, the dogtrot had been closed in and my grandmother’s sister, Bessie, lived there.

I’m writing now about things that happened in the late-19th and early-20th centuries before electricity and mass media changed the dynamics of how neighbors interacted with and entertained each other. Grandpa Houston played the fiddle, as did his daughter Nadine. Son Burnett played guitar and Eula played the piano. I assume Bessie, Ray, and Zell played instruments, also, and I seem to remember my grandmother saying that Dura played the piano. I imagine the family gathering on the wide porch or in front of the fireplace and playing music together. I’m told that Grandpa had a lot of books, so perhaps they read or told stories together, too. Family histories are derived from stitching together the bits and pieces of stories that come down through the years.

Bremen was up the mountain from the community of Wilburn, which over time came to be called “Bug Tussle.” According to Cauthen, “Bug Tussle” was the informal designation not just for Wilburn, but for parts of the communities that surround it. Bremen was close so some might have placed Grandpa’s farm in Bug Tussle. Either way, Bremen’s proximity to Bug Tussle is how my ancestors became a part of Freeman’s story.

The most satisfying part of the book’s comments about my great-grandparents is that they confirm stories about the two that I have heard all my life. Tom Freeman calls my great-grandfather “Uncle Houston McCarn.” He writes that “Uncle Houston” would drive his horse and buggy down Brushy Pond Mountain and say, “Fiddling Tom, go home with me & fiddle some for me tonight.” Houston had the first car in his community, according to my grandmother, but never bothered to learn to drive himself. Tom and his fiddle would hop in the buggy and go to Bremen, play well into the next morning, and after going to bed around 3:00 AM, Dura would wake them for breakfast at 4:00. On another visit to play at Houston’s house, Tom claims, “I played 63 hours with only four hours out to sleep.” Tom challenges any doubters of the veracity of his claim to contact J.H. McCarn.

Houston taught at one and two-room schools through the years and often went to college in the summers to augment his already impressive education. While he was away, he’d leave his children to toil with the sharecroppers to tend to the farm. He used his education to be a good teacher, but a stern taskmaster. Tom calls Houston “one of the best old-timer school teachers I ever saw.” Tom’s son had “Uncle Houston” as a teacher and Tom writes that he “learned my boy more in one day than he had ever learned in 5 years of going to school.”

Tom’s grandson Donald Freeman shared another Houston McCarn teaching story with Joyce Cauthen. He heard it from his grandfather: A group of parents went to the local school commission asking for a teacher who could control the unruly boys who kept running teachers off from the McKinley Chapel school. The commission told the parents, “Yes, we have one, but you might not want him.” The parents wanted him anyway and Houston McCarn arrived at the school on the first day with “a six-foot hickory limb and a double barrel shotgun. Within two days you could hear a pin drop.”

My great-grandmother Dura McCarn died when my grandmother was a young girl so we only knew her through the fond memories of Grandmother and her siblings. Tom, though, also knew Dura (he calls her “Dewey”) and he can back up her children’s affectionate words. She was, he writes, “one of the best women I ever met in my life.”

Cicero is given credit for saying that “the life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living” in the 1st Century BC. That idea persists today in the idea of the “second death” – when there is no living memory of those who have passed on to “the next thing,” as my parents’ friend Phoebe Barr used to say. I must say I’m grateful to Fiddling Tom Freeman and his chronicler, Joyce Cauthen, for helping to extend the living memory of Houston and Dura McCarn.

Bayt Al-Qahwah

Leave a reply

Bayt Al-Qahwah means “House of Coffee” if you didn’t know. I didn’t know until I dropped into the newish coffee shop in a strip shopping center in Birmingham’s Homewood suburb (baytalqahwah1.wixsite.com). I was glad I dropped in.

Bayt Al-Qahwah features coffee from Yemen and sports a sleek and comfortable vibe with pillows on the seats and lots of shiny surfaces. An artpiece hanging near the entrance is a 3-D map of Yemen. There are conference rooms to the side, and a prayer room tucked in, too. When I was there, a World Cup match was being live-streamed on a large but unobtrusive screen. It was a pleasant way to spend part of a hot Saturday afternoon in June. I was pleased to see that Bayt Al-Qahwah (I’m trying to figure out a shorter name to call it) is open until 10:00 every night and until 11:00 on Friday and Saturday. Too often, coffee shops are closing right around the time I’m getting the urge, so it’s good to find a nighttime option.

For my less sophisticated coffee palate, Arabic coffee can be a little harsh, but there are plenty of options on the large beverage menu and a case full of enticing pastries. I played it safe with a latte but explored the menu for more adventurous options on future visits. There will be future visits.

It was a diverse and subdued crowd; even people watching the World Cup kept it under control. A family ranging from small kids to grandparents trooped in to get refreshment and catch some futbol action; they wore the shirts of their favorite American college football team. A man wearing a Knicks jersey walked in the door. A couple near me was on a first date; I tried not to eavesdrop, but the conversation was animated at times. Well-behaved dogs were welcome and foreign languages were scattered around. Several of the very friendly women behind the counter wore hijabs and one of them engaged me in conversation about my black eye and bandaged forehead from a recent accident. I had camouflaged both with sunglasses and a cap, but there they were. I would rather answer questions about my wounds than have people stare and then look away when I look back.

I finished a chapter in the book I’m reading and finished my latte. I was relaxed and wanted to linger but responsibilities called. There hasn’t been much time to explore of late, so I was glad to wander forth into a fresh experience so close to home. I wasn’t at Bayt Al-Qahwah for long, but I felt refreshed and adventurous going back into the parking lot of an outwardly bland strip mall.

Book Review: Be Not Afraid by Jack Drake

Leave a reply

Progressive Alabama attorney Jack Drake has written his memoir, Be Not Afraid. In it, he carries his readers through decades of activism and litigation for civil and human rights causes. I recently reviewed Be Not Afraid for Alabama Writers’ Forum. My review states that “Drake was a force during a pivotal time in the story of the United States, and particularly of Alabama. His awakening and action should strike a chord with those who lived through those turbulent times, and ring alarms for the turbulent times we face today.” You can read the review at the link below:

Be Not Afraid

 

 

 

Fear Not

Leave a reply

My favorite Birmingham neighborhoods are Five Points South and, adjoining it, Highland Park. Five Points is primarily an entertainment district that was a streetcar junction back in the early days of the city. Highland Park was an early Birmingham suburb dotted with parks and going up the mountain, centered around the meandering Highland Avenue. When I lived on Birmingham’s Southside for four years in the 90s, I lived on Red Mountain near Vulcan and could see Five Points and Highland Park from my apartment balcony. They are great walking neighborhoods. The area also satisfies my interest in ecclesiastical architecture with its scattering of historic churches.

I recently went for coffee at a shop in Five Points and, while circling the block looking for a parking place, I went past one of the neighborhood’s great nineteenth century church buildings, St. Mary’s on the Highlands. St. Mary’s was formed in 1887 when parishioners at the Episcopal Church of the Advent downtown started their own parish on the mountain, overlooking the growing city and serving the growing Highlands suburb. The imposing English Revival church was completed in 1891. There have been expansions since, handsomely complementing the original structure.

I have always admired the church and have passed it many times. I guess I hadn’t passed it in a while, though, because as I was circling the block I was gobsmacked to see a formidable metal angel on a façade over an arched passageway leading to a meditation garden. If the angel was there on past visits, I somehow didn’t notice it; now, I don’t know how I could have missed it. I did a little research and found that the angel sculpture, by Birmingham sculptor Cordray Parker (1934-2007), is called “Fear Not.”

The banner flowing from the angel’s left hand says “FEAR NOT.” I read that those words appear in the King James Bible over seventy times and “be not afraid” shows up almost thirty. The Biblical passage that comes immediately to mind is in the gospel, Luke 2:10, when the angel announces the birth of Jesus to the shepherds in the field.

“Fear not” is a powerful piece of advice, don’t you think? It definitely applies when one sees a spectral gathering in the night sky … runs across a copperhead on a wooded trail … jumps into water over your head … watches an approaching storm … stops by woods on a snowy evening … cares for an ailing parent … feels helpless watching one’s country rapidly decline into an uncertain future …

Yes, “fear not” can adapt to many applications. I try to remember to pair it with the Persian adage “This too shall pass.” In both cases, the words are simple and forceful and might provide a flash of hope and peace in troubled times. I don’t know about you, but that’s the message I want to get from a church … even in passing while searching for a parking spot.

American Surrealist

5 Replies

On a visit to the local indie cinema to see The Christophers, Steven Soderbergh’s newest film (which I highly recommend for those of us who enjoy grown-up movies), I had stuffed a well-used 1958 paperback copy of Flowers of Evil (Fleurs du Mal), Charles Baudelaire’s transgressive poetry, in my back pocket. I stuffed it in the pocket backwards so it wouldn’t look pretentious. I did not realize that the title was more prominent on the back cover than on the ominous front.

On the way out of the theatre, a man behind me said, “Is that a copy of Flowers of Evil in your back pocket?”

I replied, “Yeah it is. It was given to me by a surrealist painter years ago and I decided to give it another look.” I shuddered that I had just shattered any attempt at non-pretension. The man was unperturbed, chatted in the lobby for a minute about Soderbergh movies, and moved on.

The surrealist painter was Mitchell Cashion (1953-2015), a stalwart of Tuscaloosa’s alternative art scene in the ‘70s and ‘80s. His unathletic lanky build, Prince Valiant haircut, Coke bottle glasses, and high-pitched voice were a memorable presence. I think he had regular employment, but the only job I was aware of was that he delivered Bama-Bino’s pizza on his bicycle. He was brilliant, I think, but it was the kind of brilliance that many might mistake for madness. If you paid close attention, he often made sense. When he didn’t seem to make sense, it was clear he made sense to himself. He spoke in exclamations.

He was part of the local Raudelunas art collective, a group of talented musicians and artists who challenged local tradition and ingrained notions of civility by staging performances that thumbed a nose at what may have been expected. As an undergrad, I was slow to appreciate what Raudelunas was up to; with my very traditional and very Baptist upbringing, I couldn’t always decipher what they were doing and how serious they were about doing it.

Over time, my appreciation grew. I may not have understood it, but their annual marching in the University of Alabama homecoming parade thrilled me. Dressed as vegetables and blowing into instruments not all of them could play, they provided an alternative to homecoming tradition that pleased me much more than any of the traditional accoutrements of the occasion. If you can find Icepick to the Moon, Skizz Cyzyk’s feature-length documentary about surrealist singer Rev. Fred Lane and Raudelunas, you must look at it. Mitchell Cashion is interviewed, among others, and it will eat away any previous conceptions you may have about 1970s Tuscaloosa. Cashion was always around the Raudelunas happenings, either as a participant or a cheerleader.

Try this link for the trailer: ICEPICK TO THE MOON trailer | Videos & Movies on Vimeo.

In my life as a theatre director, Cashion provided my favorite and most memorable review. I directed Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in grad school because I was afraid I would never get another chance to direct it in the real world. I knew of Beckett’s admiration for vaudeville-style comedy and incorporated that breezy style into the two act play in which nothing happens. Mitchell caught me in the Chukker after he saw a performance. Mitchell had seen someone else’s Godot years earlier and described it as slow-paced, grim, and dark – with a running time of over three hours. My Godot came in at around two hours, was fast-paced and often funny. Mitchell had approved of both productions and, after breathlessly describing both to me in great detail, he proclaimed, “I wondered why I like them both even though they were both completely different! I figured it out – the first one was Baroque and yours was Rococo!”

Like the great Alabamian Eugene Walter, Mitchell Cashion was probably more appreciated abroad than he was at home. Mitchell was thrilled to be one of the only Americans included in L’universe surrealiste, French author Jose Pierre’s exhaustive 1983 surrealist compendium. That inclusion was the reason I went to Mitchell’s house my one and only time. He told me about the honor but he wanted me to see it for myself so he invited me to stop by. His house was chock-full of his art and other treasures, arranged haphazardly but making a sort of sense. Or maybe, by that point, I had known Mitchell long enough that his sense of the absurd had begun to make sense to me, too. He opened the book to the citations about him. It seemed that the honor became more real for him by seeing it through the eyes of others. As I left his house, Mitchell grabbed a copy of Flowers of Evil and handed it to me. “I need you to read this!” he said.

I never saw Mitchell after I left Tuscaloosa. I only learned of his death when I caught a screening of Icepick to the Moon at a film festival. He came to mind a few days ago and I decided to grab that copy of Baudelaire on my way out the door. I believe that our spirits live on this earth as long as someone remembers our name. Mitchell Cashion is hard to forget.

I heard that Mitchell was blind when he died. His last words were “Something weird happened!”

Fairhope + Point Clear: Part 2, Old Favorites

Leave a reply

Hesitant to leave the tranquil environment of the French Quarter Chateau in downtown Fairhope, it was time to move on to the next stop – the Grand Hotel, a few miles down the bay in Point Clear. But there were a few hours to fill prior to check-in and I started at the Warehouse, an eatery I wasn’t aware of until Allison’s enthusiastic recommendation. It’s a big room, crowded and friendly, with a big menu, serving breakfast all day and lunch. I ordered a memorable shrimp and grits, with Conecuh sausage added, that I wanted to reorder as soon as I finished my first serving. It became a new “must-go” on my already crowded list of essential Eastern Shore dining rooms (Warehouse Bakery & Donuts).

Warehouse, Fairhope

There was an urge to stay and sample more of the Warehouse menus, but I had promised myself a drive around Baldwin County before returning to the already familiar Grand. Silverhill is a small town a few miles out of Fairhope; I have enjoyed the short drive to Silverhill past pecan orchards and farmland in the past and pegged it as a good place to start. When I arrived at the main intersection in Silverhill, a woman was standing on a park bench doing what looked like modern interpretive dance. Perhaps it was modern dance – or maybe it was a very Westernized and dramatic version of tai chi. Whatever it was, it was a momentary distraction on a slow chilly morning and the woman looked content.

Moving past Silverhill, I realized that I have not been to the southernmost point of Baldwin County at the Gulf of Mexico in about fourteen years and headed south through towns I have passed through and occasionally stopped at throughout my life. Crossing into Gulf Shores, I headed east toward Gulf State Park and parked near the beach. The deserted beach was a pleasant place for a brief, bracing walk.

After a drive past the dunes, trails, and waterways of the park, it was time to head back toward Fairhope and Point Clear. The back roads took me to Bon Secour, Magnolia Springs, and Weeks Bay – places I have lingered before and will linger again. Along the way, I saw a couple of satsuma trees so loaded with the fruit that the branches were sagging to the ground. It was a good reminder that I had not yet stopped for a bag of satsumas at my regular place, Harrison Farms on Highway 98 (not to be confused with Harrison Fruit Farm in Chilton County – my peach source).

As usual, the Harrisons had the truck parked on the highway with the big SATSUMAS NOW! sign and bags of fruit lining the truck bed. It is on the honor system so I picked my sack of fruit, put money in the box, and went on my way. Because of unusually warm temperatures, the outside was greener than usual, but the fruit inside was as orange, juicy, and tasty as always. Down the road, a stop at B&B Pecan Company and then it was on to the Grand.

As I get older, I am more and more a creature of ritual and tradition. In my first days in Fairhope, I intentionally steered clear of Point Clear where the Grand Hotel Spa and Resort is located. I did not want to spoil the moment of arrival at the Grand’s gates. Finally, satsumas and pecans in tow, it was time to check in. Normally, when I make my December trip to the Grand, it is very quiet. On this arrival, the place was packed as people took in the Christmas decorations on the grounds, the gingerbread village in the lobby, and all the things the Grand has to offer for the holidays. My peace and quiet came when I got to my preferred room (I have been staying in the same room for years) and caught the last color of the recent sunset off to the west from my balcony.

I dressed for a dinner reservation at Southern Roots, the Grand’s more formal dining room. When I got there, there was a course of Murder Point oysters calling my name. My preferences from a year ago had been noted by the attentive manager, Susan Margaretha; this is one of many reasons that I must stay at the Grand every December. When I ordered the grouper dish, the server explained that the sauce had changed from when I had the dish a year ago and that she suspected I would like the change; she was right.

After a sumptuous meal at Southern Roots and a walk through the lagoon gardens back to my room, I sat for a while on the balcony, read for a while in the room, and went to sleep early. This Mobile Bay trip had been designated for pure rest and relaxation. My balconies got a workout.

The next morning was my annual morning massage at the Grand spa with Claudia. She and I tried to figure out how many years this December ritual – a morning warm stone massage with Claudia – has been going on. We settled on fifteen years, at least. I look forward to it all year.

I usually linger in the spa’s Quiet Room after the massage, but this year I had an inspiration. After my eager consumption of Murder Points over the past few years – and singing their praises to anyone who might listen – I should go to the source since it was only about an hour away. So, I scuttled my plan for a quiet day of reading at the Grand, ate the West Indies Salad I had taken out from Southern Roots the night before (perfect lunch after a massage), set the GPS for Murder Point Oysters in Bayou La Batre, and headed across the causeway toward Mobile.

Over the years I have travelled through Bayou La Batre a couple of times; I have heard of it most of my life, mainly because of the annual Blessing of the Fleet every spring. As a traveler at the Grand reminded me, it was also the home of Bubba Gump Shrimp. When I reached the fishing village about an hour before sunset, the Murder Point Oysters shop was the target. Set just off the bayou, the store is full of oyster and seafood-themed products and you can buy oysters on the half-shell – even just a single one – for a fresh taste. Click this: Murder Point Oyster Company. Now, if that doesn’t inspire you to go out and eat a dozen oysters, I guess you’re not an oyster lover (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

I had hoped to go in search of those oyster beds. Whenever I am dining out at a seafood place, I request Murder Points. It is not just that they are an Alabama family-grown product, but they are quite simply the best-tasting oysters I have ever had – buttery and clean, with a nice pop of salt at the end. But it was getting late in the Bayou and time to head back to Point Clear. The oyster beds will still be there next time.

Bayou La Batre

Back at Point Clear and a mile down the road from the Grand, the Wash House has been a special place for a great dinner since I began this annual pilgrimage. I usually save it for the final night of the trip and have had memorable Wash House meals with friends many times over the years. There were no Murder Point oysters, but a silky she-crab soup was a delicious starter to a final dinner of this edition of my December respite.

Early enough the next morning – after a good sleep and coffee on the balcony, watching groundskeepers at the lagoon, guests heading over for breakfast, and children feeding ducks made it hard to leave. But leave I did, with festive thoughts of another restful getaway to the coast and ready to brave the busy highway north.

A refreshing trip to Mobile Bay. I highly recommend it – even, and maybe especially — in December.