Tag Archives: Fairhope

Fairhope + Point Clear: Part 2, Old Favorites

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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. 

Fairhope + Point Clear: Part One, New Angles

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My annual December respite to Mobile Bay got off to an amazing start as I stayed at a new place above downtown Fairhope’s French Quarter alley of quaint shops and a popular eatery. The French Quarter Chateau is a spacious one-bedroom apartment with a huge balcony overlooking the French Quarter and one of Fairhope’s main streets. The balcony wraps around two sides of the apartment and, due to Fairhope’s mild climate, is comfortable throughout the year. There are multiple places to sit outside and, depending on your selection, you can sit and watch the foot and motor traffic on Section Street or watch people come and go at the French Quarter or both from my favorite nook beside a trickling fountain amid wisteria vines.

The chateau became an instant special place; for me, it is made even more special by its location – in the middle of a bustling small town at Christmas time – and its peace and solitude. The host, Allison, has furnished and equipped the place to charming perfection and I am content just to stay there and read, or people watch, or occasionally doze off. You, too, can be content there: French Quarter Chateau in Lovely Downtown Fairhope – Apartments for Rent in Fairhope, Alabama, United States – Airbnb.

The location makes it possible to park the car and walk to whatever is needed. Greer’s, a local market, is just across the street; as soon as I arrived, I crossed the street for basics for the refrigerator before dashing down the street for a dinner reservation.

In the morning, after coffee in the apartment, I walk down the spiral staircase through lush greenery for more coffee and beignets at Panini Pete’s in the French Quarter courtyard, beside the fountain among the specialty shops. It was raining, but plastic enclosures shielded the outdoor tables from the soft December trickle.

“Marble,” one of the French Quarter cats, stood outside the kitchen door begging for treats. “Are you waiting for some turkey?” asked a server. “Let’s see what I can find.” Marble patiently took a seat at a nearby table and waited for the treats that another server soon sprinkled in a corner of the patio, eating quietly as other morning diners gathered and rain trailed down clear plastic. Finally, brushing the dusting of powdered sugar off my shirt and pants, I head back up to the apartment, stopping to give Miss Fancy, the dowager of the French Quarter cats, a rub on the head and chin (no stomach rubs, please). Do not mistake Fancy for homeless and take her back to Birmingham as some “well-meaning” tourists did not long ago (it made the news).

As the rain stopped, I headed back down the stairs and casually browsed some of the shops, picking up some Christmas presents along the way. My first stop in downtown Fairhope (after Greer’s) is usually Page and Palette, a bookstore and community gathering place since 1968, with a coffee shop, Latte Da, and Book Cellar bar attached. Just down De La Mare Avenue from Page and Palette is Happy Olive, a go-to place for specialty olive oils and vinegars. Other shops a block over along Fairhope Avenue yield other pleasures and gift ideas.

The pull of the chateau balcony is strong, however, and I spend the bulk of the afternoon out there – reading, finishing a book review, napping. I rouse myself long enough to go out for my first plate of raw oysters of the trip at Sunset Pointe. Of course, it’s Murder Point oysters from across the Bay near Bayou La Batre, a storied fishing village.

With the oyster urge satisfied for a while, it’s back to the apartment. It is my long-time habit to read Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” sometime during the holiday season, usually somewhere near Alabama’s Eastern Shore. After running across a newspaper article about the filming of the 1966 television version of the short story, I decided to watch the television “special” – my first exposure to the story when I was a boy. It is a wondrous thing. Filmed in Alabama, starring Geraldine Page as “Sook,” directed by Frank Perry, and narrated by Capote himself – the very definition of “bittersweet.” You can watch the full film here: Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory (1966 Emmy Winner) – DVD Color.

One of my favorite casual dining spots in downtown Fairhope was Dragonfly foodbar. I read earlier in the year that Dragonfly had left its downtown location for a spot farther south. Wandering around before the rains moved in on my last full day at the apartment, I happened to pass the old location and was pleased to see that it is now occupied by one of my favorite places up the highway in Daphne. Market by the Bay has just moved into the Dragonfly location and I was pleased to have the opportunity to have one of their unbeatable shrimp po’boys.

That night, I enjoyed dinner at Dragonfly with friends Allison and Richard. Doug Kerr’s creative menu, heavy on tacos and bowls, was as enticing as ever in the expansive and noisy new digs. By the time Allison and Richard dropped me off at the apartment, the rain was getting harder. The rest of the evening was spent on the balcony watching the rain. Distant lightning was visible from the Gulf. Sounds of people chattering and laughing as they left the Book Cellar and hopped puddles to their cars mixed with the sounds of the rain.

It was hard to leave the balcony and go to bed. But tomorrow is moving day and I need to pack and leave my downtown oasis for the bay views of the Grand Hotel down at Point Clear.

Tolstoy Park

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 I have long suspected that readers often find the right book at just the right time. I was aware of The Poet of Tolstoy Park (Ballantine Books, 2005) by Sonny Brewer from the time of its publication and just never got around to reading it. I finally read it recently and found it the perfect read at this stage of life. I might not have appreciated it quite as much back in 2005.

The Poet of Tolstoy Park is a contemplative and philosophical novel. In the mid-1920s, a man named Henry Stuart, living in Idaho, learns that he has a short time to live. His doctor tells him that he suffers from an advanced state of non-contagious tuberculosis, suggesting that his final days might be easier if he moves to a more hospitable climate. After considering a move to California, Stuart hears about the utopian single-tax colony of Fairhope, Alabama, divests himself of most of his possessions – including his shoes, and moves sight unseen to ten acres in Montrose, a small community just up the road from Fairhope. His two sons and best friend, left behind in Idaho, think he’s crazy.

Stuart, dying, in his mid-sixties, and alone, embarks on a stoic existence and finds the Fairhope community to be kind and willing to assist. His ten acres have no house, only a barn in disrepair, and Stuart and his new-found Fairhope friend, Peter Stedman, create a suitable room in a corner of the barn. Stuart, inspired by the abodes of Native Americans and the nests of birds, plans to build a small round hut – a masonry dome, really – as his final home. The novel painstakingly describes Stuart’s method of building his house – he insists on doing it alone – as he pours concrete blocks and scavenges bricks from a ruin on the bay.

Brewer’s narrative excels in the quiet moments and the details of a life in nature. His descriptions of Henry Stuart’s methodical thought and process in the construction of his hurricane-proof abode make for reflection and calm, as do the minute details of Stuart’s life. The narrative is deliberate, but I found myself eager to keep reading – to see what would come next. The very decent people that Stuart meets and befriends along the way are finely and distinctly drawn; I hope they are based on real people, each one.

A former seminarian who eschews organized churchgoing, Stuart follows the philosophy of Henry George, who was an influence on many in the early twentieth century, including the founders of Fairhope and the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Stuart is an acolyte of the writings of Tolstoy, especially his nonfiction essays, and names his Montrose home “Tolstoy Park” in his honor.

Henry Stuart’s aim is to keep his terminal illness a secret from the Fairhope community, but secrets are hard to keep in a small tight-knit town – especially if the subject is a disheveled, unshaven, barefoot newcomer in his sixties. When Stuart admits to his friend Peter that “I am supposed to die,” Peter’s response is “Well, hell, I reckon so! Me, too.” Henry Stuart has chosen his place and way of dying and living and local gossip makes him withdraw into increased solitude to complete his tasks with minimal intrusion.

Suffice it to say, Mr. Stuart does not die on the doctor’s schedule.

As we used to say in third grade book reports, “If you want to know more, you’ll have to read the book.” I hope you will; it’s a very good one, with valuable lessons for living.

__________________________________________________

Henry Stuart was a real person and the basics of Sonny Brewer’s fictional narrative are essentially true. During his time in Fairhope, the retired professor became a fixture in the area, occasionally giving talks to the community – barefoot and sharing his far-reaching interests and philosophies. He welcomed visitors to his “hermit house” over the years; his guest book had well over a thousand signatures. The great civil liberties attorney Clarence Darrow, a regular visitor to Fairhope, reportedly signed the book half a dozen times.

Present-day visitors are still able to sign a guest book in the house that Henry built. The house is still there. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places now, and is surrounded by a parking lot in a nondescript office complex off a busy highway. The rest of Stuart’s ten acres have been developed, but the hut at Tolstoy Park is always open to visitors. Author Sonny Brewer leased the space from the current owner of the property and did repairs. He stayed there while he was writing part of the novel.

It is a strangely efficient round house, fourteen feet in diameter, with an ancient tree standing beside it still, and with no corners to gather clutter. The house is built slightly into the ground and there are a door and six windows. Two skylights are at the top of the dome. The furnishings are simple, with places for writing, reading, and contemplation. There’s a wood stove. To save space, Henry Stuart hung his bed off the ground and used a ladder to crawl up and in. Today, there are mementoes of the original owner scattered about.

It is still a quiet, calm, and spiritual place, despite the encroachment of the growing community around it. When you visit, stand in the middle of the room and hum, or sing, or just say Hallelujah, to take advantage of the sublime acoustics. Take a moment to honor Henry Stuart, and to thank Sonny Brewer for bringing him and his story to a larger audience.

Fresh Books

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Alabama Writers’ Forum has just published a new crop of reviews. I review Ayana Mathis’s new novel, The Unsettled, and a packed collection of short stories, The Best of the Shortest, that grew out of the legendary “literary slugfest” Southern Writers Reading in Fairhope, Alabama. And while you’re there, enjoy Susie Paul’s lively review of Jacqueline Allen Trimble’s How to Survive the Apocalypse, a new book of poetry. Check them out here:

Reviews

Sense | Memory

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Grand Hotel Sunset, December 2022

Point Clear, Alabama. Alabama State Route 225 in Baldwin County connects the towns of Stockton and Spanish Fort. On my annual trip to the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, just south of Fairhope, I leave I-65 to travel 225 to its southern terminus at U.S. 31. Just before arriving in Spanish Fort, there is a bridge at a fish camp and, if one looks to the right across the brackish waters that mark the start of Mobile Bay, the Mobile skyline appears – dream-like and fuzzy in the distance on a foggy day.

Sense memory is an acting technique that I taught through the years. It basically requires the actor to store up personal emotions that can be triggered to create an authentic emotional response onstage. I have taken this trip to Point Clear so many times that I have sensory triggers practically every mile of the way. I have written about this trip so many times that I realize there’s not much else to say. I have documented the sights and smells, the sunsets and fog horns, flora and fauna, my favorite culinary haunts (food memory is a very powerful tool), the churches and vernacular architecture to the point that the archived essays pretty much tell the story.

I started making this annual escape to Mobile Bay in 2003. In 2004, the resort was still recovering from Hurricane Ivan and services were severely curtailed. The property was closed in 2005 in the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the COVID pandemic forced me to regretfully cancel my 2020 reservation. This year’s trip was iffy due to personal demands, but family members rallied to the cause and I was able to make the trip.

I suspect that if I had started coming here when I was younger, I would have found the place a little staid and boring. But coming here at a time when I craved a respite and a more relaxing pace made me a fan forever and I will probably continue the December tradition for as long as I am able.

It has become a standing tradition that never gets old, providing memories that see me through challenging days. When I was teaching, I would have to sit through endless faculty meetings and faculty-staff convocations – ask almost any teacher and you’ll learn that faculty meetings are the worst thing about the job. At one particularly grueling convocation, as the university president was droning on with an acrostic, a colleague leaned to me and said, “How are you staying so calm and content during this?” I leaned back to her and said, “Oh, I’m replaying my last trip to Point Clear and just got to the warm stone massage. I haven’t heard a word he’s saying.”

A college friend, tiring of my natural skepticism, once demanded, “I insist that you become sentimental.” He didn’t realize that I harbored sentiment all along – the skeptical cynic I presented myself as was, I’m sure, a defense mechanism, forged in my teenage years when I was the perennial “new kid” in a succession of schools. A school bully in Nashville, impressed, I guess, by my riposte to an insult he hurled, warned me that I was a “small man with a big voice” and that I better watch out as that mouth would get me in a lot of trouble one day. My dad gave me the same warning back then. He didn’t realize what the Nashville bully did – the smart mouth was there to waylay abuse.

I wonder if people who knew me back then remember the cynicism I used to affect and if that’s how they think I’ve turned out (if they even remember me). I was hosting a small get-together at an apartment in another city many years ago and remember overhearing someone who knew me in my college days tell another guest, who had complimented my apartment, that “You should’ve seen where he lived while he was in grad school – it was a dump.”

She was right. But I wonder if people who haven’t seen me since grad school envision me still living in a hovel in some student ghetto somewhere.

My reflective driving soundtrack on this holiday trip is always George Winston’s classic piano solo recording, December. I only listen to it in its titular month – another sentimental habit stretching back over decades, and it inevitably conjures a memory of a cold December midnight, sitting on a dock in New London, Connecticut. It had been a challenging day on a theatre tour of A Christmas Carol; we had to let a technician go that day and I needed a chilly late-night walk and George Winston’s calming music to fortify myself for the next days to come.

These are some of the memories that come to me every December on my trip to Point Clear. The Grand Hotel was an aspirational goal for me when I first heard about it as a teenager from a neighbor in Jackson, Mississippi. She and her husband had been there for a business conference and her photographs of the place were spectacular. I vowed to go there one day, but I never envisioned its necessity in my life.

It’s a place where I still feel compelled to dress for dinner, even though the dress code has loosened and almost anything goes. That hovel-dwelling cynic that some may remember from my college days would have sneered at the idea of being required to dress up for dinner, and probably would have avoided any place that enforced a code. More recently, however, having dinner at Arnaud’s in New Orleans, I bristled when a party came in with one of their number wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts; they let him in and I was appalled.

So, I still dress for dinner (but, alas, no tie) at the Grand’s fine Southern Roots dining room as a sign of respect and as a nod to the tradition of a resort that has existed in this same spot on Mobile Bay for 175 years.  When I first started coming to the Grand, each room still had a valet stand – a handy piece of furniture for setting out your day’s wardrobe. I used it even if it was just for jeans, a tee-shirt, and sneakers, and I miss it in these spiffily updated rooms now. A piece of furniture called a “valet stand” – these are the kinds of things that those who never learned cursive writing will never even know to miss. But it’s their loss, I reckon.

This trip is so tradition-bound for me that I always stay in the same room in the spa building. When I arrived at my building a few days ago, I unwittingly parked next to a couple misbehaving in a Corvette in the parking deck under the building. I noticed and then made a great effort not to look their way as I unloaded the car. Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed a different state of deshabille each time I returned to gather my things from the car. On my last trip down, they were walking toward me in the corridor on my floor. I glanced back as I turned the corner, hoping that they would not be in the room next to mine. To my relief, they continued down the hallway past my room. On the elevator down, I wondered If they had a room, why were they compelled to utilize the Corvette for playtime?

I’ll never know, but that’s one memory of this place that I’d rather not trigger in the future.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Christmas at the Grand

The Poetry of Charlie Brown

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The Grand Hotel – December 2021

Point Clear, Alabama. I drive down I-65 this week, renewing my annual holiday trip to the Grand Hotel, the venerable resort at Point Clear, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. It’s my first attempt at a vacation in two years.

On the drive down, somebody on the radio plays an audio clip from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965), the first and best of the animated specials based on Charles Schultz’s “Peanuts” cartoon strip. You know the scene: Charlie Brown, in frustration, asks if anybody knows the true meaning of Christmas. This is Linus’s cue to step into the spotlight and recite the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke.

What strikes me in this listening is the simple, forthright performance of the script by the child actors. Charlie Brown (Peter Robbins) asks, “Doesn’t anybody / know / what Christmas / is all about?” and the line has a haiku-like cadence that captures the wistful innocence of youth.

At Point Clear, the massive live oaks seem untouched by pandemic and recent hurricanes; Christmas lights around the lagoon are as profusely tasteful and satisfying as ever and the Civil War cannon is fired in the distance, maintaining a daily ritual. Ancient branches of live oaks drape over the pathways, belighted as natural arches for the season.

This trip – after a longer than usual absence and the factors that delayed it – is more reflective. A CD of George Winston’s classic album, December, found under a stack of CDs in the car, becomes the soundtrack for the trip. In the room, I stream podcasts by my friend, Lily Miceli, who hosts “InBetween the Music” for Wisconsin Public Radio. She recently shared two Christmas-themed programs:

www.podcasts.com/inbetween-the-music-9c45b7b5a/episode/IBM-Music-Dickens-ee75

www.podcasts.com/inbetween-the-music-9c45b7b5a/episode/IBM-Music-Christmas-d31d

Libby Rich, who ran an amazing garden shop called Plant Odyssey in Birmingham’s Lakeview neighborhood for years, now shares her expertise on Libbyrich’s Blog https://libbyrich.wordpress.com/2021/12/13/a-roll-of-quarters.  My gardening inspiration growing up was my Granddaddy Harbison, but it was in Libby’s Lakeview shop that I honed my knowledge of plants and gardens. She is a formidable presence with a kind heart and voluminous knowledge of growing things. Libby’s Christmas-themed essay, “A Roll of Quarters,” is about a customer who always bought his Christmas poinsettias at Plant Odyssey, leaving a roll of quarters for her to treat her staff. My dad collected coins, mainly quarters, in his retirement and often gifted special people with a roll. Libby’s post, read on my balcony overlooking the lagoon and Mobile Bay beyond, is especially poignant in this season of remembrance.

Along for the ride, also, are a well-worn copy of Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” and a brand-new copy of the first novel by artist Julyan Davis, whom I have known for many years. Davis’s A History of Saints is a jaunty satire set in Asheville, North Carolina. It reminds me, in ways, of the Alabama author Eugene Walter, who thought parenthetically and found the joy in eccentricity all around him. I won’t quite finish Julyan’s book on this trip, but I’m enjoying the ride https://smpbooks.com/product/a-history-of-saints.

On the first full day here, I go out in search of old churches I haven’t yet photographed in the area. After photographing a promising prospect near the town of Foley, I have car trouble in Summerdale and call AAA for a tow. The first AAA dispatcher I talk to (who I later learned was talking to me from California) is rude when I tell her I am in an unfamiliar place and don’t know where my car should be towed. She tells me that she can’t assist me until I tell her where I want my car to be towed; I respond, “I don’t know – isn’t that your job?” and she disconnects me.

“… a promising prospect near Foley”

On the next try, I reach a more helpful AAA dispatcher who connects me with a local towing company and auto mechanics in Foley who couldn’t be nicer. The unexpected adventure turns out fine in the end and introduces me to a helpful cab driver, a charming hotel shuttle driver, concerned workers at the Summerdale Civic Complex, and Gelato Joe’s Italian Restaurant and Tiki Bar (www.gelato-joes.com).

My car spent the night in Foley but I can’t be unhappy to be “stranded” at the Grand and enjoy catching up with familiar and new faces among the resort staff, while noting that some favorite faces have moved on in the two years since I was last here.

I usually make the trip alone and enjoy it; occasionally, I am able to rendezvous with old friends, and that is pleasant, too. This trip has been a solo experience, so I have had plenty of opportunity to observe and chat with new people.

On the first night here, while dining at Southern Roots at the resort, I notice a party of four. A couple of nights later, at a restaurant in downtown Fairhope, I spot the same foursome at a table across the room.  Back at the hotel, waiting for the elevator, one of the women of the group emerges with a motorized scooter. “Were you just at Camellia Café?” I ask.

“Are you the guy who was eating at the end of the bar?” she responds. “We were talking about you.”

“Why?” I ask. She says that I was an interesting looking person dining alone at the bar and they wondered what my story was.

“My story was that I was having dinner.”

I explain that this trip is my annual pre-Christmas escape and that I usually travel solo. This leads to an interesting conversation and I ask my new acquaintance (who is now on my Christmas card list) if that’s her mother waiting for her at the car. Indeed, the second lady of the foursome, my new acquaintance’s mother, stands patiently in the parking lot, waiting for her transport.

I may have seemed alone to the party of four, but I feel surrounded by friends down here. I have been to the Grand so many times that it feels like a kind of “home” to me (I even manage to stay in the same room each visit). I have caught up with people I see on every trip, had my annual massage in the spa, and grabbed a meal at some favorite places.

The Hope Farm

I have felt the presence of friends – Lily, Libby, Julyan, and others – as I relax in my room. It’s my final night and I try a place that’s new, that wasn’t here on my last trip, before the world shifted in March 2020. The Hope Farm (www.thehopefarm.com) is a sprawling urban farm complex off Fairhope’s main drag with a restaurant and wine bar and a steadfast commitment to local, fresh, and sustainable nourishment. After failing to find fresh oysters on the half-shell in my first few meals down here, I am pleased to find fresh Murder Point oysters, my favorite from Bayou La Batre across the bay, at The Hope Farm restaurant, which instantly becomes another of my favorite places to eat in Fairhope. I make a note to return often on regular sojourns to Baldwin County.

In the morning, I will drive back home to Birmingham after stopping for relishes at Punta Clara Kitchen, a bag of satsumas at Harrison Farms roadside stand, and pecans for Christmas and New Year’s dinners. I will pick up a Po’Boy at Market by the Bay in Daphne to eat along the way. I have a list of historic churches for photos on detours heading north. Like Charlie Brown and Linus, I will continue to find poetry in the season and remain hopeful for better days in the year ahead.

Sunset at the Grand

Happy Holidays.

Cancelled

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Based on years past, I should be a couple of hours away from my annual December getaway to Point Clear on Mobile Bay as I type this sentence. A couple of months ago, I optimistically booked a room at the Grand Hotel for December 13 through 18. I knew I might have to cancel, but I wanted to be ready just in case things had changed by now.

When I booked my room, the resort was still dealing with damage from Hurricane Sally in September. I have been exceptionally conscious and careful during the pandemic and was impressed with the safety protocols the resort has in place. My plan was to stay close to my room, reading and writing, to take regular walks around the grounds and community, and to have room service and takeout. It seemed to me to be a responsible way to get a break and finally to celebrate my retirement.

As the dates got closer and the news reports grew more grim, I realized that the responsible thing is to cancel for the time being. The world around us and people depending on us make it feel imperative to take a stand. And, as my friend Deborah says, now that I’m retired, I can go down any time I please … once the health crisis has passed, anyway.

It will be the first time I have missed the December escape since 2005 – the year of Hurricane Katrina and its extensive damage to Mobile and Baldwin Counties.

Even as I entered my cancellation, the music and memories of Baldwin County and Mobile Bay invaded my thoughts. I think about downtown Fairhope, the intersection of Section Street and Fairhope Avenue, and the light-bedecked trees along the sidewalks. The planters, hanging from the light posts, complement the plantings of poinsettias and pansies in the ground-level beds.

I think of the Camellia Café, Dragonfly, Panini Pete’s, the Wash House, and other places to grab a great meal. I think of Market by the Bay and its abundance of fresh catch seafood.

I think of drives to lonely overlooks across the bay, to Magnolia Springs, and to the search for bags of fresh local pecans and satsumas.

At the Grand, the gentle surf grazes the docks and, beyond the marina, the lights of Mobile, across the bay, glisten beyond the traffic of the causeway.

The Grand sunset, usually spectacular, will still be there when I return. And, upon that return, I think I will cherish the place more than ever.

For now, I slowly and surely prepare my house to sell and keep my eyes and ears open for possible places to move in Birmingham.

To stay grounded, I read as much as possible. After reading stacks of magazines, a few books, and news articles, I have found comfort and solace in reading a couple of very good cookbooks. Sean Brock’s second book, South: Essential Recipes and New Explorations, is as thoughtful and thorough a consideration of Southern foodways and contemporary thought on the subject as one might find. Kelly Fields’s chatty The Good Book of Southern Baking: A Revival of Biscuits, Cakes, and Cornbread is as inspiring as one might expect from the dedicated and well-travelled James Beard Award-winning pastry chef.

I feel grateful, as I read these books on food, to have spoken with and experienced meals prepared by both of these chefs. I first had Brock’s food at an unforgettable dinner at Alabama Chanin’s factory in Florence. I met and broke bread with Fields at two dinners at the same place. Her New Orleans bakery and restaurant, Willa Jean, is a singular New Orleans experience.

I am also, grudgingly perhaps, becoming more susceptible to the necessity of streaming video. I have even fallen prey to the New Age-y call of calm.com, and especially its hypnotic video series, “The World of Calm.” My most frequent stream, however, has been the Spike Lee-directed concert movie, David Byrne’s American Utopia, which is a most hopeful document of our country and its current situation. I have lost touch with how many times I’ve watched it already.

To satisfy my former habit to watch a movie in an honest-to-goodness cinema, I have been able to venture to Sidewalk Cinema + Film Center in the basement of the Pizitz building in downtown Birmingham. The not-for-profit indie theatre limits each screening to twelve patrons in well-spaced seats in a 100-seat theatre and I have enjoyed welcome escapes there to view films like On the Rocks and Mank. Each visit to Sidewalk Cinema makes me more anxious to move back home to Birmingham when the time is right.

Holiday season 2020 is a unique and memorable one. Perhaps it has made us a little more aware of the pleasures of the simple things. Be safe as we move into a promising new year.

Notes from the Point – 2017

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Point Clear, Alabama. The long etymology of the word “vacation” seems to suggest that it’s more about what you’re leaving behind than where you’re going.

That works for me.

I have been making an annual pre-Christmas getaway to the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Alabama, just down the eastern shore of Mobile Bay from Fairhope, for about fifteen years (www.marriottgrand.com). There is a time on the trip down from north Alabama when I forget that I have a job and that is one of the rewards, for me, of any sort of vacation time.

The first time I came to the Grand there was a rare hard freeze and it was miserable outside during my short stay. Even so, I wandered the resort grounds, explored the public walkway that runs between the bay-front houses and the water, ate some great meals in area restaurants, and decided that a December tradition had instantly begun.

Most Decembers the weather is milder; occasionally it’s tee-shirt and shorts weather. This time it’s somewhere in between – slightly chilly with a warm front threatening to bring some rain before my visit is over.

The drive down seemed better than usual; traffic was just right and my spirits were heightened by the results of the recent special election for an Alabama U.S. Senate seat. For a change, Alabama voters came through; I will be embarrassed again by Alabama politicians and Alabama voters – and soon, probably – but for the holidays I am going to cherish and savor the current hopeful moment. Everything looked brighter and more beautiful on the drive down. I always love my home state, but this week it looks brighter than usual. Maybe it’s my imagination, but people seemed friendlier.

Near the end of the drive, at a traffic light in Fairhope on a Friday afternoon, two women shoppers burst into spontaneous dance to the holiday pop music piped in from a street speaker. When they got their signal to walk, they beamed brightly and continued to dance across the street, doubling over with laughter as they reached the sidewalk.

It’s easy to forget that the 2017 hurricane season was brutal but I was reminded as I drove down Scenic 98 and saw that every pier along the waterfront was damaged by Hurricane Nate, including a public pier that I have photographed many times.

The Grand itself is undergoing a massive (non-hurricane-related) property-wide renovation and upon arrival I passed barricaded construction sites. The main building is completely closed. Upon check-in I was told that my usual room on the top floor of the Spa Building was not available. After some searching and discussion, a manager determined that it was available and, if I’m not mistaken, I am the first guest in that room post-renovation.

After staying all over the Grand property in my first years coming here, I honed in on my favorite room and I have vowed to stick with it. It is on the top floor of the tallest building and faces out over the lagoon and property. From the balcony, one can view the property with the bonus feature that one can also see over the live oaks and across the wide part of the Bay past Gulf Shores to the open gulf. Looking to the west, one can see across the pool to Mobile Bay just before it widens significantly at the place that gives Point Clear its name.

The footprint of my favorite room is the same but the re-model has made it seem more spacious, more luxurious, and much more contemporary. It is perfectly curated with less furniture – but what is there is more practical. In my king room, the reclining sofa against one wall with a movable tabletop is a welcome addition and one I spent hours using for rest as well as more productive activities.

The room still includes the ubiquitous Nall print – common, it seems, to all properties that are part of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, but the new selection is less dense and more easily lived with.

Since the main building is closed, the Jubilee Poolside Grill in the pool pavilion has been tasked with all of the dining service for the property. The dining staff is doing a really good job with limited kitchen and dining space and I ate well there – from gumbo on arrival to a plate of peel-and-eat Gulf shrimp for my final dinner there.

After my first night’s sleep, I had an appointment for a warm stone massage at the Grand Spa at 9:00 a.m. The Spa, too, is undergoing massive renovation like the rest of the property but the attendant, J.C., who has been taking care of me since my first spa visit, and my favorite massage therapist, Claudia, are still on hand to make me feel as welcome and pampered as ever. I am not a man who indulges in many luxuries but the annual warm stone massage has become an essential part of my December holiday and I will feel no guilt for that particular indulgence.

As I drive back to the hotel after a dinner at Camellia Café (www.camelliacafe.com) in downtown Fairhope at 9-something on a Saturday night, I see a figure walking hurriedly along the sidewalk on Scenic 98. As I get closer, I realize it is Jesus in full white robe, blue under-garment, sandals, and a flowing mane. He clearly has a purpose, looking straight ahead with a determined stride. I’m not sure why Jesus would be walking quickly down Scenic 98 on a Saturday night nine days before Christmas, but the image sticks with me.

I’m sure it wasn’t really Jesus, but he definitely had something. I probably should’ve taken a picture but He didn’t look like he wanted to be disturbed.

The next morning I attended an Anglican Advent service at St. Francis at the Point (www.stfrancisatthepoint.org), a stunning modern white church building full of rich wood tones and light streaming through towering clear glass windows. The windows are decorated with magnolia leaves and white candles and a towering Christmas tree fills the arched window of the church façade. The tiny old chapel at the corner of this same church property was my Christmas card image a few years back.

I always return from Baldwin County with bags of satsumas – the efficient little citrus fruit that thrives along Mobile Bay. I heard several rumors that there was a smaller than usual satsuma crop this year and that I might not be able to find any.

The search for satsumas took me on a drizzly drive over to Silverhill, a Baldwin County town founded as a settlement by Scandinavians in the 1890s. Silverhill was a charming place – new to me – but there were no satsumas to be found.

That night, I had a rude encounter with political reality as I dined at the Wash House (www.washhouserestaurant.com), my favorite Point Clear restaurant. A loud and bitter Republican, unfortunately within earshot, was spouting excuses for his candidate’s recent loss in the Senate election. Inevitably his vitriol settled on the various accusers in the various current political and celebrity sexual misconduct scandals.

“I’m sorry they decided they didn’t have fun forty years later,” he snorted. “I’ll bet they enjoyed it back then!” He then felt the need to recount to his relatively silent male dining companion the women who could come forward to accuse himself of previous encounters; he seemed to believe there were quite a few. “I’d tell them they seemed to enjoy it at the time …” he bragged, and more.

Unfortunately, I had no volume control, but I felt privy to a new strategy of excuses for sexual misconduct. Nevertheless, my Wash House meal was still excellent, despite the abrasive live vocal soundtrack interfering with the more pleasant holiday music.

On my final full day on the bay, I visited with my friend Richard to deliver cheese straws to him and his family at their inviting home overlooking Mobile Bay. I mentioned my satsuma search and he pointed me to an orange tree full of fruit on the edge of his property, near the house of his recently deceased aunt-in-law, Bessie Montgomery – doyenne of Fairhope’s popular French Quarter shopping district. He filled me a bag of Bessie’s oranges for the road.

Thus armed, I headed over to B&B Pecan Co. on the main highway. Just before I got to B&B, a sign proclaiming “SATSUMAS Now” beckoned me to a truck bed with bags of fresh satsumas and an honor box with instructions for paying. Finally…

So our Christmas ambrosia will again be graced with Baldwin County citrus and pecans. 

After a lunch of a wild ostrich burger at Locals (www.localsburger.com), a new downtown Fairhope eatery, I headed back to the Grand and a final walk along the grounds and the Bay before a cloudy, foggy sunset. My walk coincided with the Resort’s daily military history lesson and firing of the Civil War cannon. On this particular afternoon, a boat full of rowdy boys emerged from the fog to observe the cannon firing and to play, loudly, the national anthem at the conclusion of the observance.

My final night at the Point was quiet, foggy, and peaceful. I safely harbored on the sofa, catching up on reading, with a streaming soundtrack from the “Peace, Be Still” channel on the Hearts of Space website playing in the background.

It was a good night of rest with a wet day of driving to follow, buoyed by pleasant memories of another blissful respite at Point Clear.

Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth. 

Satsumas for the New Year

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DSCN0046 Few food-related experiences please me more than buying a bag of just-picked satsumas off the back of a pick-up truck on the edge of a pecan orchard in Baldwin County on Christmas week.

Some of the most distinctive icons of nature in the American South – magnolias, camellias, and azaleas come to mind – came over from Asia. Satsuma oranges have Asian origins too and are a part of the mandarin orange family. Mobile and Baldwin Counties on the Alabama Gulf Coast are part of a Southern “Satsuma Belt” that stretches from Texas to Florida and there is pretty specific history about how the tasty fruit got its start in Alabama. The Mobile County town of Satsuma gets its evocative name from the fruit. “Satsuma” ranks right up there with “Sipsey” among my favorite Alabama place names.

Satsumas are a medium-sized, mostly seedless, orange citrus with a distinctive skin that easily pulls away from the fruit, making it simple to peel and eat without much mess or trouble. Satsuma season starts in the fall just before the holidays commence. The fruit gets sweeter as the season progresses and its rich sweetness peaks right around the time Christmas comes around.

I always grab a few bags of satsumas when I am in Baldwin County before Christmas. Last year the weather was uncooperative and satsumas were hard to find. In years past, I usually bought my satsumas from a lady whose truck was often parked on the corner of Fairhope Avenue and Church Street in downtown Fairhope. This year there was a good crop and an abundance of stands, pick-up trucks, and signs on the side of the road alerting the public that there were satsumas to be had. The recent deluge of rain may have put a slightly early end to the season, I hear, but three days before Christmas I saw a man with a tent, a parka, and a large umbrella selling baskets of satsumas during a pounding rainstorm (with distant thunder) on a Fairhope side street.

While satsumas are a tasty treat to just peel and eat, I also usually make an ambrosia with satsumas as the citrus component. This year, between frequent visits to the hospital, my mother and I only had time to grab a satsuma in lieu of a meal on a few occasions. Mother would usually pack a couple of satsumas in her bag of provisions before a day spent by my father’s bedside but just as often she would give them away to a nurse or respiratory therapist.

I had to get to Huntsville to take care of some end of month duties at the house and the satsuma rations at Mother’s house in Birmingham were getting low when I left. Fortunately, in Huntsville today, I saw a sign advertising “Mobile County Satsumas” outside a store and dashed in to grab the last two bags they had for the season.

That should get us into a new year, perhaps into an ambrosia, and tide us over for a few days until the next crop of satsumas makes its appearance before Thanksgiving of 2016.

Happy New Year (and, oh yeah, Roll Tide).

Leaving Point Clear: December 2015

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DSCN0037 On my last day in Point Clear I was awakened early by a tornado warning. I walked out onto my balcony to watch the storm system move from Mobile over the bay to the Eastern Shore. The wind picked up; the ancient live oaks around the lagoon shook fiercely as a single white ibis took flight from the water, startling white against the dark grey clouds. The storm was clearly moving to the north of me, toward Daphne and Spanish Fort. Most of the worst of the weather system had moved still farther to the north when I pulled away from the resort a few hours later and began to drive toward ominous skies.

I finagled an abbreviated version of my annual pre-Christmas retreat to the Grand Hotel in Point Clear on Mobile Bay this year despite plenty of concern; my calls back and forth to Mother and the hospital were frequent.

DSCN0041It was a shortened stay with welcome warm temperatures (despite the less than ideal weather threat) and I was able to find time to do some of the things that make this annual holiday season visit so essential to my mental well-being. Shortly after arrival on Sunday afternoon it was time to meet a contingent of the Brunson family for afternoon tea in the Grand lobby. The holiday crowd was large and festive. We adjourned from the Grand to Allison and Richard Brunson’s inviting bayside home where their oldest son John had been inspired to make a Chicago-style deep dish pizza which was savory, rich, and delicious and which seemed to exceed everybody’s positive expectations – including John’s and the brothers who assisted him. At least four other pizzas in delicious combinations were baked to accompany John’s masterpiece and we all overindulged – except for family friend Kenneth who sensibly made a salad for himself from unused pizza toppings.

On Monday, time was spent resting and reading, walking around the grounds, and exploring Fairhope and environs in search of fresh satsumas, a juicy citrus that makes its appearance in Baldwin County right around Christmas and may often be found in my New Year’s Day ambrosia. A massage was scheduled for Tuesday and it was a pleasure to catch up with Judy at the front desk; the massage therapist, Claudia; and the wonderful attendants in the quiet room, J.C. and Al. All of them provide a comforting and stress-free escape from the tension beyond the spa’s peaceful walls.

My good friend Kitty from graduate school and, later, from professional theatre gigs, was visiting with her family in Spanish Fort and met me for dinner in Fairhope on my final night. Dragonfly foodbar was the destination as we savored foodsmith Doug Kerr and staff’s always creative concoctions.

On that drizzling final morning before the trip back to Birmingham, I swung by Punta Clara Candy Kitchen to grab the requisite pralines.

St. Francis on the Point church sits across the road from Punta Clara Kitchen and the Wash House restaurant. Leaving Punta Clara, there was a sign in front of the tiny St. Francis chapel that said “CHAPEL OPEN FOR PRAYER.” I have photographed that chapel many times and have used it on my annual Christmas card but the doors have always been locked on those previous visits. I have tried to photograph the interior through the windows in the past so it was a treat this time to be able to go and sit quietly inside.

The warm and peaceful chapel provided meditation, shelter, and comfort from the various storms I faced on the drive home to Birmingham and, later, farther north to Huntsville and my house north of the Tennessee River. I was grateful for all the people who are “lifting us up” as my family faces the day to day of serious illness. “Lifting up” is my friend Judy Prince’s phrase for prayer.

As I compose this, I am sitting once again in my father’s Birmingham hospital room looking across Shades Valley at the foggy but brightly lit visage of Vulcan standing sentry over this valley and downtown Birmingham beyond Red Mountain. I will still be sitting here in a few minutes when midnight comes and it is Christmas Day. Somehow, with Dad sleeping peacefully at the moment, the twinkling lights of Homewood in the distance, and the stained glass windows of a church down below, this seems a good refuge to sit out the remains of a Christmas Eve. I will be here still when the sun of a fresh Christmas morning glimmers over the mountain to the east.

Merry Christmas. May you find comfort and joy with those you love.DSCN0040