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Abbeville, Missississippi: Home of the Gillom Sisters

Photo By HottyToddy.com

Abbeville, Mississippi, is proud of its most famous native citizens –– Peggie and Jennifer Gillom. In fact, a prominently place sign in the city located just north of Oxford tells the world that Abbeville is the home of the nationally and internationally renowned sports legends.

What the Manning family is to football at Ole Miss, the Gillom sisters are to basketball at their University of Mississippi alma mater. Both Peggie and Jennifer Gillom earned places in the Ole Miss sports record books while playing for the Lady Rebels, both went on to careers in the WBA –– Jennifer as a player and Peggie as a coach –– and both have the distinction of being inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, the Ole Miss Athletics Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

Peggie Gillom / Photo Courtesy of Ole Miss Athletics

The Gillom sports legend, recognized in 2009 when the University named its new sports center the “Gillom Sports Center” in their honor, began with Peggie Gillom-Granderson. The senior of the two sisters remains the highest scorer and rebounder in Ole Miss basketball history, scoring 2,486 points and grabbing 1,271 rebounds in her years on the team. Peggie helped lead the team to a 103-23 record, three SEC West titles and four NCAA Tournament appearances.

Jennifer Gillom / Photo Courtesy of Ole Miss Athletics

Sister Jennifer “Grandmama” Gillom also made the sports record books as a Lady Rebel in the mid-1980s, scoring 2,186 points to become the second highest scorer in Ole Miss women’s basketball history, and the third highest overall, behind sister Peggie and Ole Miss men’s basketball legend John Straud, who scored 2,328 total points. Jennifer Gillon also helped to lead the United States Basketball Team to a gold medal in women’s basketball in the 1988 Summer Olympics.

Today, basketball fans throughout the county recognize Abbeville, Mississippi, as the home of the Gilloms –– a fact that makes the city a true Hotty Toddy hometown.

Abbeville Town Hall / Photo By HottyToddy.com

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Meet The Rebels Day Highlights Preseason, Set For August 17

Image courtesy of Ole Miss Sports

OXFORD, Miss. – As preseason camp begins for Ole Miss’ fall sports, fans should make their plans for “Meet The Rebels Day” Presented By Community Trust Bank set for August 17 at the Indoor Practice Facility on campus.

Doors will open at 11:30 a.m. with two entrances available. Fans may park in the Coliseum lot and enter through the garage door at the south end of the IPF, or for those interested in seeing some of the recent renovations to the facility, fans can park in the West lot of the Stadium, enter through Gate 31 and walk through the team’s gameday tunnel into the complex.

As the IPF opens, the Rebel soccer, volleyball, rifle and spirit squads will be greeting fans and signing autographs. Chick-fil-A will be providing concessions, and official team jerseys, media guides and other merchandise will be on sale.

New team posters will be handed out to fans, and a kids zone will be set up with inflatables and other games. In addition, representatives from Community Trust Bank will be on hand to interact with fans and promote their Community Hero of the Week program for this football season.

SuperTalk Mississippi, which will air locally on 93.7 and 105.5 FM, will broadcast live from the stage beginning at noon with an on-air team led by the “Voice of the Rebels” David Kellum.

Several Ole Miss coaches and administrators will be interviewed, beginning with Head Football Coach Hugh Freeze at 12:15 p.m. Other guests include Athletics Director Ross Bjork, Head Soccer Coach Matthew Mott, Head Volleyball Coach Joe Getzin, Head Rifle Coach Valerie Boothe and others.

Football coaches and players will be signing autographs and visiting with fans from 12:30 until 2:30 p.m., when the event comes to a close. Fans tweeting about their “Meet The Rebels Day” experience should use the hashtag #MTR13.

Unlike previous years, football practice will not be open to fans on “Meet The Rebels Day.” Ole Miss is supporting area high schools by hosting a jamboree in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium that weekend, and with construction limiting access, the practice areas are unable to safely host the expected MTR crowd on the sidelines. Ole Miss is in the midst of a $14 million renovation and expansion of its football facilities, which is being completed in phases with conclusion by early 2014.

Football practices will be open to the public from Monday, August 5 through Saturday, August 10, and times are listed below. Follow @OleMissFB on twitter for daily updates on practice locations.

Monday, August 5, 9:45 a.m.

Tuesday, August 6, 9:45 a.m.

Wednesday, August 7, 9:45 a.m. and 5:15 p.m.

Thursday, August 8, 10 a.m.

Friday, August 9, 9:45 a.m. and 5:15 p.m.

Saturday, August 10, 10 a.m.

— Ole Miss Sports Information

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Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Induction

Langston Rogers

Photo courtesy of Ole Miss Athletics

Two Ole Miss Rebels are going into the 51st class of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.

The 51st annual BanCorpSouth Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Induction Weekend is slated for August 2-3, highlighted by the induction banquet at the Jackson Hilton on Friday night, August 2, and also including activities at the Hall of Fame Museum on Saturday.

There will be a reception on Friday night at the Hilton beginning at 5:30 p.m., followed by the banquet at 7 p.m. Saturday’s activities include a meet and greet with Hall of Famers (9:30-11) and the annual Drawdown of Champions, sponsored by Wells Moore Simmons & Hubbard and Puckett Machinery. There will also be a silent auction of sports memorabilia and other items.

The Class of 2013 includes (in alphabetical order):

• Bill Buckner: Buckner, a native of Starkville, has the unique distinction of being selected his football team’s MVP four times in five years — at three different schools. Those schools included Starkville High, East Mississippi Junior College (where he played for Hall of Famer Bull Sullivan) and Delta State where he was an All American. Buckner also played one season at Mississippi State (1965), when he threw the first two touchdown passes in the Houston Astrodome against the University of Houston. Buckner, the state director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for 25 years, already has been inducted to the Mississippi Community College Hall of Fame, the Delta State Hall of Fame and the East Mississippi Community College Hall of Fame.

• Jimmy Giles: Giles, a native of Greenville and a former standout for Hall of Famer Marino Casem at Alcorn State, was inducted into the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Ring of Honor in 2011. He was named to the All-Time Tampa Bay Buccaneer team in 2004 and to the All-Time NFC Central Division team in 2001. Giles, a tight end played in 188 NFL games, caught 350 passes for 5,084 yards and 41 touchdowns. He played in four Pro Bowls. Giles was All-SWAC in football and baseball at Alcorn for two seasons.

• Gerald Glass: Glass, a native of Greenwood, was named to the Ole Miss basketball All-Century Team in 2009. After graduating for Amanda Elzy at age 16, Glass starred first at Delta State where he was All-Gulf South Conference in both 1986 and 1987 and the league’s MVP in 1987. He led DSU to two NCAA Division II Tournament appearances and scored 1,249 points in just two seasons. He followed Coach Ed Murphy to Ole Miss, where he was a two-time All-SEC player who averaged 24 points per game as a senior. He was a first-round draft choice of the Minnesota Timberwolves of the NBA. Glass has returned to his high school alma mater, where he coached Amanda Elzy to a state championship in the 2011-12 season.

• Earnest Larry “Doc” Harrington: Harrington, a Hattiesburg native, served Southern Miss as head athletic trainer for 39 years and as the head tennis coach 27 years. He also served as a trainer in the Senior Bowl for 25 years. Doc served as trainer for U.S. Olympic teams and has lectured in athletic trainer clinics around the world. This will be Doc’s fifth Hall of Fame induction, following his induction into the Southeast Trainers Association Hall of Fame (2007), the Mississippi Athletic Trainer Association Hall of Fame (2003), the national Athletic Traner Association Hall of Fame (1987) and the Southern Miss Athletic Hall of Fame (1987). His USM tennis teams compiled a match record of 407-179-2.

• Langston Rogers: One of the nation’s most decorated and award-winning sports information directors, Rogers is a native of Calhoun City and a graduate of Delta State where he played baseball for Hall of Famer Boo Ferriss. Rogers has received every honor that can be bestowed upon an active or past member of CoSIDA, the national sports information directors association, including induction into the organization’s Hall of Fame. He also played baseball for Hall of Famer Bull Sullivan at East Mississippi Community College. He has been inducted into East Mississippi, CoSIDA, Delta State, Mississippi Sports Writers Association and Ole Miss Halls of Fame. He won CoSIDA’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 and served as the organization’s national president in 1980-81.

• Michael Rubenstein: The late Michael Rubenstein, a native of Booneville, was one of the founders of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum and the museum’s only executive director until his death in December, 2011. Rube, as he was known, helped create the Conerly, Howell, Gillom and Ferriss trophies. The Vanderbilt honors graduate was the sports director of WLBT in Jackson from 1974 until 1991 and is generally considered the most popular and most highly rated sports anchor in Mississippi TV history. He pioneered TV coverage of Mississippi’s SWAC schools and won numerous broadcasting and reporting awards. In 2012, Boo Ferriss was named the first-ever winner of the The Rube, an award established in Rubenstein’s honor to celebrate contributions to Mississippi sports.

–– Rick Cleveland, Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame

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Courtyard Marriott Will Add 129 Rooms Just Feet From Campus

A rendering of the new Courtyard Marriott now under construction in Oxford

An upscale Courtyard Marriott incorporating Marriott’s latest design is going up on West Jackson Avenue, on the east side of the walking path.

The hotel is expected to open in August 2014, just prior to the start of football season.

“The hotel will include a garden roof, complete with grass lawn, trees and plantings creating a unique setting for receptions, weddings and other events that will overlook the campus,” said James L. (Lee) Stafford of West Point, chairman of Oxford Lodging LLC.

Bruce Patel, president of Oxford Lodging, LLC, and Mr. Stafford are involved in numerous other hotels in north Mississippi.

Mr. Stafford, owner of Fusion Hospitality, will oversee construction and management of the hotel.

The hotel will be a 121-room Courtyard by Marriott, featuring eight, two story loft suites and an indoor pool –– Jim Roberts, staff writer, HottyToddy.com

Email Jim Roberts at hottytoddynews@gmail.com

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Falkner House

Photograph By Susan Foust Photography

A block south on Lamar sits the home of author and historian Larry Wells. The house was the home of Larry and his late wife, Dean Faulkner Wells. The house was built in 1931, and it has the look of a house inhabited by generations of Faulkners.

Outside, it is marked by an engraved sign that notes its place on the National Register of Historic Places, albeit a privately occupied one. That doesn’t stop people from knocking on the Wells’ door, asking whether the house is open. “It’s never open,” Dean would tell them. They look surprised. She would point them toward Faulkner’s other house. “Down the street and take a right.”

This city block was the site of “The Big Place,” the house built by William Faulkner’s grandfather J.W.T. Falkner, also known as the “Young Colonel.” After he sold a portion of the lot on University Ave. to the Standard Oil Company, another house was built in 1932 by Murry Falkner, William’s father.

Photo By Susan Foust Photography

This was the home for William’s mother, Maud Butler Falkner. Today, a concrete block at the bottom of the steps down to the street has the name “Falkner” carved on the blocks with the “N” turned backward. The blocks and the house lot are all that is left of the Colonel’s estate.

Photo by Susan Foust @ Susan Foust Photography https://www.facebook.com/SusanFoustPhotography

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Big Bad Breakfast Makes Zagat ‘50 Plates of Bacon’ List

Shrimp and grits recognized among the best in bacon.

Big surprise: A John Currence restaurant made a list of the best of something, and bacon is involved.

It’s no shock to Oxford’s Big Bad Breakfast faithful that Zagat’s has identified Big Bad Breakfast’s version of shrimp and grits among the best plates of food involving bacon.

It’s further evidence that two trends rage on unabated: The bacon craze that hit manic status a few years ago won’t go away, because, after all, it’s bacon. And Oxford keeps rolling off the tongues of the nation’s foodies.

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OxFilm Challenge Screening Tonight at Lyric

Leadership Lafayette service project presents submitted films.

A screening and reception of the films submitted for the OxFilm Challenge is tonight at the Lyric Theater in Oxford. A panel of judges will decide the winner for Best Film, who will receive $500. The audience at the screening can vote for their favorites, and the People’s Choice Film award is $100. This event is free and open to the public.

Leadership Lafayette has partnered with the Oxford Police Department, OxFilm Society, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council for the OxFilm Challenge. This community service project has a long-term goal of creating jobs and developing relationships with filmmakers that can stimulate the local economy.

The OxFilm Challenge is intended to encourage filmmakers to produce works that will provide new voices and the vision to give back to the community. The Oxford Police Department will use these films as educational tools when visiting kids in local schools. Students have the opportunity to learn the dangers of texting and driving, the importance in sharing the road with cyclists, and the protocol when being pulled over.

OxFilm Society is a community-wide effort to enhance film as a cultural, artistic, and economic driver for the Lafayette County-Oxford and University population. OxFilm seeks to promote education and provide tools to support local filmmakers while encouraging films to be made in the Oxford community. OxFilm also seeks to enhance existing film screenings with an ongoing series celebrating a range of film experiences. Proceeds from this event will go to providing film equipment, programming, and job training for local filmmakers.

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Anthony Kennedy: Henderson Doing What He’s Been Asked to Do

Photo By Seph Anderson

In remarks delivered last Thursday on ESPN, Ole Miss Basketball Coach Anthony Kennedy reports that Marshall Henderson is doing what he has been asked to do since his indefinite suspension from the team earlier this month.

“He is suspended indefinitely,” Kennedy said on ESPN. “We don’t start back school until the end of August. There is a plan put in place from my administration through Marshall. Marshall’s been compliant to is point of taking care of some things off the court so that he can hopefully join us when the fall term begins at the end of August. And then we’ll start working through the process to get him back on the court.”

Henderson has allegedly failed drug tests and trace amounts of marijuana and cocaine were allegedly found in his car after he was stopped by the Oxford police last spring.

The Ole Miss Guard was not charged in the incident.

In the ESPN interview and in a story posted on the Clarion-Ledger website, Kennedy added, “We don’t condone everything Marshall has done, he’s certainly made some mistakes but we’re working through this as a family.”

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Blog: Trayvon Martin, the Verdict, and Black America

By Ronnie Agnew, HT.com blogger

The Travon Martin story is every black man’s story.

That there is surprise at Black America’s reaction to the Trayvon Martin verdict is indicative of the racial divide that continues to hurt this great country. Black America’s battle to control its collective rage right now is perfectly understandable and justified. There is shock. There is anger. There is frustration with a Florida legal system with restrictions that essentially allowed a wannabe cop to walk free after shooting to death an unarmed teenager holding a bag of Skittles.

While some in America feel it’s time to move on, they won’t get that chance. Nor should they. The Trayvon Martin case is in indictment on America’s constitutionally protected right to come and go as one pleases.

The teenager’s story is every black man’s story, from the professor at the Ivy League school who looked suspicious, to the shopper perusing the tie rack in a shopping mall, followed by an overzealous store clerk. It is impossible for those in the dominant culture to comprehend the feeling that, as a black man, successful or not, there is always the threat of unfair treatment.

It is a feeling that is always there. It is not to suggest that black men consider themselves victims, but in this environment that is exactly how they are sometimes made to feel.

God help us if a teenager wearing a hoodie, or whatever today’s fashion-conscious kids want to wear, can’t go to the store for snacks without fear of being followed and profiled. If George Zimmerman had not played the uninvited role of police officer, Trayvon Martin would have made it home and this would never have become a story.

The incredibly insensitive defense attorneys, who embarrassed themselves in their news conference after the verdict with open displays of arrogance and cockiness, used Florida technicalities to win the case. They won a case, but in their legal victory, there is also defeat.

They successfully defended a man with an inability to let the police do their job after he called 911 to report the emergency of a black teen simply walking down the street. He inserted himself into Martin’s life, and that very fact led to the teenager’s death.

If the teen did fight back, how is he different from anyone facing a similar threat? Who among us would not have reacted in a defensive posture when we clearly see that some stranger is following us? That makes the question of which person was the aggressor moot and irrelevant. Scared and cornered, who could blame the kid if he believed he was in danger?

The Justice Department’s decision to reopen the case is a wise one regardless of outcome. The Florida jury made its decision based on tight guidelines its members were allowed to consider. I will never fault a jury for making a tough decision. But this story will live on because of America’s continuing struggle to make sense of race, and citizens who feel they are targets based on unfounded biases.

Ronnie Agnew, a former executive editor of The Clarion-Ledger, is the executive director of Mississippi Public Broadcasting. He is a 1984 journalism graduate of Ole Miss. In 2008, Ronnie was named the 50th recipient of the Silver Em award presented by the journalism school. In 2003, he was inducted into the University of Mississippi’s Alumni Hall-of-Fame. Among many honors, Ronnie is a four-time judge for the Pulitzer Prize, and a champion for diversity in America’s newsrooms.

Ronnie.Agnew@mpbonline.org

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The House That Would Not Die

Cedar Oaks was built ca. 1857 by architect and builder William Turner. After surviving the Union occupation of Oxford during the Civil War, the house was moved to this site in 1963 by local club women after the house was threatened by development. Cedar Oaks is known locally as ‘the house that would not die.

The Greek Revival structure serves as a testament to survival. Union troops seized Cedar Oaks, occupied it as their headquarters, and set fire to the home following their occupation. Molly Turner Orr, William Turner’s daughter, saved the home by organizing a fire brigade.

Threatened by development and demolition nearly 100 years later, Cedar Oaks was cut in half and relocated to Murray Drive, approximately two miles from its original location on North Lamar (where the Oxford Downtown Inn is currently located). The home serves today as a venue for receptions, weddings, tours, and more.

*Photo by Susan Mann Foust. Oxford has attracted or produced a long list of the very creative artists. Photographers from Oxford are known worldwide. But even with the high tech, high dollar cameras today, in the end, it still comes down to lighting and composition. And in Susan’s work you’ll find that she has ‘it’. She works a good lens.

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Blog: Southerners Standing Up to Right-Wing Corporate Agenda

By Joe Atkins, HT.com blogger

The lingering image of the happy-go-lucky Southerner, content with his lot, happy to get a pat on the head from the local patriarch, is being shaken to its core. Across the U.S. South, workers, activists and regular citizens are standing up to GOP right-wingers, the Koch Brothers and next-of-kin plutocrats like Art Pope, and privatizing, corporate-driven organizations like ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council).

Let’s take a look:

North Carolina:

The “Moral Monday” protests in North Carolina against the draconian, anti-poor and anti-worker actions of the GOP-controlled General Assembly and Republican governor have led to hundreds of arrests but also a growing national awareness of the right-wing coup d’etat in a state that historian V.O. Key called a “progressive plutocracy” back in 1949 in his classic Southern Politics.

In their 1976 political history of the South, The Transformation of Southern Politics, authors Jack Bass and Walter De Vries updated Key with a reality check on what they called the “progressive myth” of North Carolina. Yes, this is the state that gave us comparatively progressive pols like Terry Sanford, but it also gave us Jesse Helms, the original “Senator No” whose Neanderthal-like progeny now fill the halls of Congress and legislatures across the region.

Nevertheless, this has been a state looked to as a beacon of hope by progressives in the deeper South. That is until GOP leaders took over and began their assault on unemployment benefits, collective bargaining, voter rights, Medicaid and education.

Progressive North Carolinians didn’t take it lying down. They took to the streets with their “Moral Monday” protests, weathering attacks and name-calling from the right, and bringing a public spotlight to what is happening.

On the frontlines covering the protests and the issues behind them, of course, are my friends at the North Carolina-based Institute for Southern Studies in their web magazine, Facing South http://www.southernstudies.org.

Mississippi and Louisiana

Voters in Jackson, Miss., last month elected a mayor who may be the most radical and left-wing elected politician in the South: Chokwe Lumumba, an admirer of Malcolm X and slain Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, a founder of the Republic of New Afrika and once a defense attorney for rapper Tupac Shakur.

Chokwe Lumumba, who’d previously served on the city council, overcame a veteran incumbent and a Republican-backed African-American businessman to take leadership of Mississippi’s capital and largest city. In a city that’s 80 percent African-American and largely Democrat, Lumumba oversees a comparatively forward-thinking island in what seems to be a Republican-dominated sea, and, believe me, his election sent shock waves across that body of water. However, his election may also point to a changing Mississippi where black and brown minorities, women, and young people are showing signs of increasing restlessness with the old ways.

Lumumba won election as a Democrat but he’s indicated no strong allegiance to the Democratic Party. That allegiance, instead, reaches beyond a two-party system where both parties often seem indistinguishable to the actual people themselves. Sounds pretty radical, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, members of Pipeliners Local 798 are continuing their protest of the Kinder Morgan company’s decision to award the non-union Loutex company a contract to build a pipeline stretching across south Mississippi into Louisiana.

The protest, reported in Labor South back in April, has involved hundreds of workers, and the center of it has now shifted from Columbia, Miss., to the new major warehouse location in Bogalusa, La., says Local 798 member Brian Anderson. “They’re still walking the picket line,” he says.

Georgia

Workers are definitely standing up to their bosses in Georgia. In Savannah, port truck drivers, civil rights activists, faith advocates, and residents have joined a coalition that calls itself “Stand Up for Savannah” to protest what they consider unjust conditions at the Port of Savannah. A forum sponsored by Georgia Local 728 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters several weeks ago attracted some 300 truckers who came and told their stories.

In Atlanta, both union leaders and UPS Freight got a wake-up call last month when the rank-and-file membership of the Teamsters’ union rejected a five-year contract proposal that the leadership and management had both approved. It was a 4,244-to-1,897 vote that left little doubt it was time to go back to the drawing board. The current contract expires July 31.

The vote also was indicative of divisions within the Teamsters’ union, where General President James P. Hoffa and the dissident Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) are often at odds.

Among the issues are the workers’ health care plan, pensions, and other benefits, and subcontracting by the company.

COMING SOON: A look at Walmart and its troubles in D.C., California, Missouri, and Bangladesh. Minimum wage versus living wage disputes, the illegal dumping of hazardous wastes, and the horrible conditions in subcontractors’ factories that have contributed to hundreds of deaths — these are among the issues haunting the Arkansas giant, and they don’t seem to be going away any time soon.

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Getting Comfortable with the Uncomfortable

Bill Stark playing piano

For years I have had a great desire to play the piano.

So, a couple of years ago I finally decided to do something about it and take lessons. Soon after I started lessons, my wise teacher asked me what favorite song I’d like to learn. My saving grace, through the difficulty of lessons, was hearing parts of my favorite song come to life each week.

But, I experienced many uncomfortable moments while learning to play the piano:

- I was uncomfortable actually taking the first step. 4th graders do this all the time and many grow to be great pianists – what if I fail?

- Early in the lessons, I was uncomfortable repeating the simplistic notes and songs over and over. I wanted to skip past the easy part.

- I was uncomfortable with my new student peers being a bunch of 9, 10 and 11 year old elementary grade girls and boys. I kind of felt out of place.

- I was sort of uncomfortable being the only piano student who could drive to the lesson or the only one able to pay via credit card.

I’m over-dramatizing a bit, but parts of the process were, in fact, very uncomfortable for me.

I am convinced that God allows us to walk in uncomfortable places and uncomfortable circumstances for a reason. In fact, I think at various moments in our spiritual growth we must walk through uncomfortable situations. God wants to stretch us and form us into something new (becoming Christ-like) and if we resist uncomfortable events we are likely to stagnate in our spiritual journey.

He also wants to draw us to Him during the uncertain and uncomfortable times, so we learn to be dependent on Him, not on our own brilliant (but, often faulty) wisdom.

Author C.S. Lewis says “pain is God’s megaphone”. I believe the pain of uncomfortableness is also a megaphone God uses.

What are some of the uncomfortable moments you’ve experienced in your spiritual life?

Here are a few examples that come to mind for me, and perhaps some of you.

• Deciding to attend a Bible Study.

• Praying before you eat dinner at Chili’s.

• Opening your Bible to see what God’s word has to say about a struggle you may be having.

• Giving $500 of your $5,000 bonus to a charity.

• Deciding to open up some “off limit” part of your life to God.

• Agreeing to lead a Bible study with mostly people you don’t know.

• Speaking genuinely to people at church as though you may actually want to be their friend.

• Asking God for help when you’re sure you’ve disappointed Him yet again.

• Accepting, but not being able to understand, some difficult aspect of God.

• Speaking up against having sports practice or games on Sunday mornings so you could go to church.

• Asking a co-worker if you could pray for them after learning that their Mom just passed away.

• Deciding to dedicate time to volunteering at church or at a faith ministry.

While I am not a very good piano player, I do know a few songs and I really, really enjoy playing. Playing piano is a great stress reducer for me, and it’s really fun improvising and creating new songs. I want to take more lessons later this summer, and yet I know it will be uncomfortable re-entering that unknown world again, but it will definitely be worth it.

Surely Beethoven was uncomfortable as he became deaf in his 20s. What if he had stopped composing music because of his uncomfortableness with being unable to hear. What if Stevie Wonder had resisted the uncomfortable moments as he learned to play the piano blind.

If you believe that God is good, and that He has a great spiritual journey planned for you, then you should move forward spiritually right away –– in confidence.

It will be worth it to get to the other side of any uneasiness. Get comfortable now with being uncomfortable and trust God. It’s how you and I learn, grow and develop into the people God desires us to be.

Jeremiah 29:11 tells us why breaking through uncomfortable situations spiritually is worth it:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

With some degree of uncomfortableness, below I’ve posted a short video of me playing the piano. Prepare for the sounds of fingernails on chalkboard.

http://youtu.be/tXzF3JBgd1Y

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Summer Is The Season Of The Tomato

In the heat of summer, it doesn’t get much better than this. Photo courtesy of Virginia Willis

News From Southern Foodways Alliance

In this series for the SFA I am examining iconic Southern foods that define summer. I’m sharing a little history and a recipe or two that I hope you will enjoy. We kicked off the series with homemade ice cream and then I went crazy for corn! Coming up, we’ll feature squash, peas & beans, okra, peaches, and finish up right before Labor Day with a low and slow barbecued Boston butt. Ah, but this week, it’s all about tomatoes.

Fresh tomatoes are only ever good in summer. There is nothing as wonderful as the full, rich, almost wine-like flavor of a vine ripe tomato—just as there is nothing as disappointing as the dull, insipid, lifeless flavor of a cold storage tomato shipped from halfway around the world. I don’t eat those and strongly suggest that you don’t, either. So, when it’s tomato season, I heartily endorse eating those glorious ripe ones as often as possible.

Heirlooms are great for many things—just not sandwiches, says Willis. Photo courtesy of Virginia Willis.

Tomatoes are a member of the nightshade family, along with eggplant and peppers. There’s something a bit sexy about those nightshades; maybe it’s the deadly, yet beautiful part…Tomatoes are, in fact, a fruit, but their affinity for other savory ingredients means that they are usually classed as a vegetable. This was actually determined by a court of law. It wasn’t a group of grumpy gardeners; like many legal cases, it was all about the money.

In March of 1883, a tariff was imposed on imported vegetables, but not on fruit. Four years later, the Nix family of New York state filed a cased against Edward L. Hedden, Collector of the Port of New York. The Nixes claimed they were owed taxes that were paid to the Port of New York under protest. Their argument was that the tomatoes they were importing were not vegetables, but fruits and therefore should not be taxed. (It’s one of those Jeopardy questions that you can argue about with your uncle.)

According to the Texas A & M school of agriculture, tomatoes originated in western South America, crossed the Atlantic to Spain with the conquistadors in the 16th century, but only caught on in northern Europe in the 19th century. In the U.S., it was not until after the Declaration of Independence that there was any record of the tomato being grown by folks of European descent.

It was (who else?) über farmer and statesman Thomas Jefferson who meticulously recorded growing tomatoes in 1781. (He’s the Catherine de Medici of North America; without TJ, who knows what we’d be eating and drinking!)

Tomatoes were in New Orleans as early as 1812, doubtlessly through French influence, but it was at least another 20 years before they were grown for food in the northeastern part of the country. When did the tomato become such a mainstay of a Southern summer?

Here’s the deal: I don’t know how they came to be an iconic Southern summer food, but I sure am glad they did. And here’s my second, somewhat revelatory admission about tomatoes: my hands-down, absolute favorite way of eating a tomato in summer is served sliced on white bread with mayonnaise. No chiffonade of basil or tender leaves of oregano. No artisan sourdough bread. No extra virgin olive oil. No hand-pounded garlic aioli. No hand-harvested sea salt. No lemon zest. Not even a slice of crisp, applewood-smoked bacon. Out, out, damn spots of cracked Tellicherry pepper!

Move over, heirlooms: for a sandwich, Virginia Willis is all about the classic red tomato. Photo courtesy of Virginia Willis.

This, my friends, is what I crave. I plan it like a mission. It starts with choosing the perfectly imperfect loaf of squishy white bread in the aisle of the grocery store. I will not deny it. I am greedy. As I assemble the sandwich, I feel my mouth water. My throat and stomach tingle. I want.

To hell with gourmet. I want cheap and cheerful. I want old school. I never saw nor tasted an heirloom tomato in my whole entire life until I was fully-grown. Green tomatoes? Purple tomatoes? What the heck? (At least where a tomato sandwich is concerned.)

Tomatoes are red. I want cheap, off the grocery store shelf, white bread that sticks to the roof of your mouth. I want it slathered—really, really slathered—with store-bought mayonnaise out of a jar, paired with meaty, thick, juicy slices of tomato. I cut the sandwich in half and eat it over the kitchen sink to best catch the juices dripping down my chin. I sigh blissfully.

If you haven’t had this combination, I suggest you try it as soon as possible. If you have had it, I think you’ve already stopped reading because you’ve raced out to buy that bread you haven’t bought in ages so that you, too, can really taste summer.

Bon Appétit, Y’all!

—Virginia Willis

Tomato Sandwich

Serves 1

2 slices white bread

1 to 4 tablespoons store-bought mayonnaise, depending on your mayonnaise proclivity

1 medium tomato, cored and thickly sliced

Coarse kosher salt, for seasoning

Spread the mayonnaise mixture on the top of 2 slices of bread. Place the sliced tomato on top of one bread slice. Place the remaining slice of bread, mayonnaise side down, on top of the tomato. Season the tomatoes with salt. Cut the sandwich in half and eat.

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Oxford School District Board Recognizes Citizen of the Year

Local Attorney Honored for Gift of Vision for Oxford Students

Oxford School District Citizen of the Year Jack Dunbar (left) with Oxford School District Superintendent Brian Harvey (right). Photo is courtesy of the Oxford School District

Oxford, Mississippi –Oxford school students will soon struggle less with reading assignments and completing homework, thanks to Oxford School District’s 2012-2013 Citizen of the Year.

Oxford attorney Jack Dunbar was recently honored as the 2012-2013 Oxford School District’s Citizen of the Year for an act of kindness that will give school students access to appropriate eye care opportunities. Dunbar’s gift to the school district will in turn be an overall gift of improved vision for all Oxford District school children, according to Superintendent Brian Harvey.

“Mr. Dunbar has done much for this community, but none stands out more than his $25,000 donation to the district to set up a system to identify students who need to be screened by an eye doctor,” said Harvey. “This new system will provide eye exams, along with transportation to and from those eye exams.”

Harvey added Dunbar’s vision offers students an opportunity for the procurement of glasses and chances for medical follow-up. Dunbar was prompted to take action and make a difference after watching a television news story about the obstacles that children were facing in school because of undetected, or unknown eyesight problems.

“Maybe we can get a Nobel Prize winner from Oxford schools because they could see to learn in first grade,” said Dunbar. “I have two grandsons who attended school here and know that their educational foundation was set here for their course of learning.”

Dunbar, who has been listed in all editions of “The Best Lawyers in America,” has held numerous honorable positions such as Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and President of the Southern Bar Conference, as well as named as one of the top 50 lawyers in Mississippi by the Mid-South Super Lawyers. He practices in the areas of Litigation, Arbitration and Mediation. For more information on the Oxford School District, visit www.oxfordsd.org [1] online or call 662-234-3541. — From Oxford City Schools

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LARRY & BARRY

For one semester, Larry Brown taught as a writer-in-residence in the creative writing program at the University of Mississippi, temporarily taking over the position held by his friend Barry Hannah. Brown was awarded the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction. He was the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for Fiction, which he won in 1992 for his novel, Joe and again in 1997 for his novel Father and Son.

In 1998, he received a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Award, which granted him $35,000 per year for three years to write. In 2000, the state of Mississippi granted him a Governor’s Award For Excellence in the Arts. He later served as visiting writer at the University of Montana in Missoula. He taught briefly at other colleges throughout the United States.

Barry Hannah was director of the MFA program at the University of Mississippi, in Oxford, where he taught creative writing for 28 years. His first novel, Geronimo Rex (1972), won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was nominated for the National Book Award. Airships, his 1978 collection of short stories about the Vietnam War, the American Civil War, and the modern South, won the Arnold Gingrich Short Fiction Award.

The following year, Hannah received the prestigious Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Hannah won a Guggenheim, the Robert Penn Warren Lifetime Achievement Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the art of the short story. He was awarded the Fiction Prize of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters twice and received Mississippi’s prestigious Governor’s Award in 1989 for distinguished representation of the state of Mississippi in artistic and cultural matters.

Photo by N. Jacobs from website http://mswritersandmusicians.com/writers/larry-brown.html

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