by Ward, Sela
And for every holdout like Harry Mayer’s, there are countless other Meridian institutions that are lying fallow. Take the old Opera House, for example. Back in the heyday of the railroad, I’m told, Meridian rivaled Birmingham and even Atlanta for sophistication. The city was prosperous, and cosmopolitan, enough to support a small opera house, which hosted performances by some of the greatest artists and entertainers of their time. The great Sarah Bernhardt sang there, and George Gershwin left his signature on his dressing room wall. You can still see it there today—but only if you’re lucky enough to know someone who’ll unlock the front door and let you in. Like so many others, the gorgeous, old-world jewel-box building now stands abandoned at the center of town.
Once we started returning to Meridian more often, I began thinking about ideas to help revive the old downtown of my childhood. Despite the weedlike spread of strip malls across America, after all, you can still visit neighborhoods in our older cities—Georgetown in Washington, the West Village and Brooklyn Heights in New York, Beacon Hill in Boston, among others—that retain (or have recaptured) that sense of thriving community space. It’s hard to walk among the cobblestone streets and redbrick town houses of such places, their sidewalks and cafés bustling throughout the day, without swooning. There isn’t a shopping mall on earth that’s ever made me swoon.
So now I’m working with a handful of interested souls to raise money to restore the Opera House, hoping that a hint of revival in the downtown Meridian air might someday prove contagious. It’s a dream of mine to help establish a performing-arts school behind that old brick façade, and I’m taking a real measure of care with it—in part because of an unnerving experience I’ve had recently in connection with another Meridian landmark: Weidmann’s.
Last year, when I learned that the owner of my favorite childhood restaurant was looking to sell, I went in with a group of interested locals to save the place. Our dream was to restore its kitchen to its former glory as one of the most celebrated in the South, while preserving the creaky charm of the interior space. But I’m learning a sobering lesson in the process: once you’ve made the decision to touch something old and dear with the magic wand of progress, you can’t always predict what’s going to happen. Modern building codes have already required more alterations in the interior than I’d have liked, and food-service regulations are going to prevent the managers from returning those old homemade peanut-butter jars to their rightful place atop every table. I’m still excited about the new Weidmann’s; when it opens up again late this year, I’m hoping its upgraded menu and first-class service will help bring people back downtown again. But inside I’ll be waving a guilty goodbye to a little slice of my past.
It seems like ages ago now, but when I think of the best times Howard and I have had down South, my mind turns immediately to the summer of 2001. I remember the weekend as if time had preserved it in amber: the Mississippi heat suddenly turned less humid, the sweet scent of red earth lingering on the air.
The road from town out to our farm is framed with a canopy of gallant oaks; Howard and I drive past a cow pasture and an old white dairy barn; then it’s one quick right turn and we’re rolling up to the gates of the farm.
As we follow the little gravel drive that leads to the Rose Cottage, the sun shining lower now, I see up the road the figure of my towheaded son. Austin’s going on eight, and his hair is growing longer in the back, like his father’s. And somehow he’s already talking a little like Howard, too—thoughtful and innocent, but with the glint of Howard’s cleverness. I can’t look at him without awe.
We slow down. “You want a ride?”
He smiles, through a mouthful of scrambled teeth. (If only there were an orthodontist in the family.) “No, I want to walk.” He turns on his heel and sets off running, with a beckoning wave. “You follow.”
He runs about a hundred yards, then flags, and steps over to the bank of our pond. We pull up alongside him again. He is transfixed by something sticking up out of the water. It’s a broken old stump, one he’s taken to calling the Turtle Camp. On the stump is a hand-sized creature, its head reaching out of its shell at the end of a long pencil neck. Austin’s been spotting turtles for about a week now, and he can’t get enough.
“It’s the turtle, Mom.” He’s fixed it with a stare; I think he’s wondering if it’s the same one he’s seen before. He’s just had a good long sprint, but he’s hardly winded. Then, just as he’s trying to figure out whether he can coax the turtle to the shore with a stick, the little guy dives off the stump back into the water.
“Never mind,” Austin says happily, and starts walking again. There’ll be another one down the road.
Anabella is waiting when we arrive, with a gaggle of long-haired cousins and the rest of the family. Her cheeks are rosy with the afternoon’s excitement. We give her hugs in turn.
“What are you wearing, honey?” She appears to be wearing both a dress and a little pair of pants. I seem to recall that being a fashion trend a few years ago among teenage girls, but I can’t imagine it’s trickled down to my four-year-old daughter.
“It’s for the bugs,” she answers. Aha. That’s my husband’s resourceful mind at work: long-sleeve dress to cover the arms, three-quarter-length pants to cover the legs. Plus—I pick up a whiff of it—a nice new spray of insect repellent. It’s about five o’clock, and about this time every day Howard worries that his daughter is going to become an all-you-can-eat Early Bird Special for the Mississippi mosquitoes. What amazes me is that Howard’s been away all afternoon; apparently Anabella’s learned to follow his lead.
The festivities are already under way at the cottage: drinks on the bank of the pond, beneath the weeping willows. The sun has gone down behind the trees, and the bullfrogs are chirping away at the prospect of dusk. The sweet smell of barbecue is in the air; the blades of the ceiling fans on the front porch spread the aroma like tangy sauce on white bread. Soon there’ll be plates piled high with succulent beef ribs, chicken, snap beans, cornbread, and sweet-potato casserole.
It’s my birthday.
We collect the kids and head on up to my brother Berry’s place, where we’ll gather with the rest of my family on his brick patio for a special performance. A men’s barbershop chorus I’ve grown acquainted with has been kind enough to offer a miniconcert for me and my guests. They’re rolling up the driveway in church vans just as we get there; we all shake hands, and they take their places at the edge of the patio, the sun setting over the fields, lighting them from behind.
It’s still hot, and nobody would have begrudged the singers the mercy of shirtsleeves. But they all wore coats, ties, and church pants—all twenty or so. Southerners dress up as a matter of respect: respect for the occasion, for others, and for themselves. Those robust, red-cheeked fellows cut loose with some sweet old barbershop harmonies, but they really got the crowd going with a set of old-time gospel tunes like “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder.”
We stood and cheered after every number. “I just know y’all are Baptists!” yelped Becky, my pal from Birmingham. “Only Baptists can sing like that.” The sound is exhilarating, and not least because these fellows are true gentlemen as well as artists. Their soft faces and kind eyes nearly make me cry. There’s something so rare and beautiful about the face of a man who sings
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see
. . . and means every word. There’s no guile in these men’s faces, and no pride—though their talent would earn them any pride they wanted to claim. I see only humility, warmth, and generosity.
Mama has come to hear them, too. Bill and Mark, two of the Birmingham Brigade, have taken places on either side of her, and they small talk with her between numbers. After the concert, those fine singers lean over to talk to her in her wheelchair. I sat on the steps watching this, just trying to imagine anything similar happeni
ng in L.A. No, I thought. But down here, out of common decency and respect for an elderly woman, these gentlemen keep my ailing mother company as I watch, quiet and warm.
That’s a Southern man for you. After the chorus departs, we head back down to the cottage. My favorite cooks, Mr. and Mrs. Davis, bring out the barbecue spread, complete with hush puppies and spicy bread-and-butter pickles. We all pile our plates high, and retire to the long tables on the porch to eat, drink cold beer, and carry on.
Uncle Joe and Aunt Nancy are here. I listen quietly, never tiring of Uncle Joe’s childhood stories; like Daddy’s, they seem to come from a place and time impossibly out of reach. “There was a guy had a junk company right on the other side of the railroad track,” he’s saying. “We’d go down the railroad track, pick up a piece of scrap iron, put it in our wagon. And then, on our way downtown to go to the double feature, we’d go down to see that junkman, and he’d say, ‘Oh, I’ll give ‘leven cents for it,’ you know. Big old piece of iron, and all he’d give us was ‘leven cents.
“So he’d take it and throw it in a pile back there, and we’d watch where he put it. Then after we went to the movies—it was just ten cents, you know, to get in the show—we’d come back at night and jump the fence, and steal that iron, and bring it back and sell it to him again. Get twenty-two cents out of it.
“And he thought he’s messing us over, you know?”
When Uncle Joe chuckles, it comes from deep in his broad chest. Joe is a big, hearty man, over six feet tall, a baseball and football player in his prime, and still strong today at the age of seventy. I ask him about his grandfather, Grandaddy Joe Boswell, for whom he was named. “Didn’t you say he was the only tall person in the family, before you?”
“Yeah,” he says. “He came to our house one time. I must have been nine or ten. Rain, cold as hell, and everything. I went to open the door, and it was stormy and cold. And here’s this big old guy, had on a damn black overcoat, and these damn black boots come up to his knees, and a big old black hat, and a gray beard. Look like something out of the movies, you see somebody like that, you know.”
And he puts a low whiskey growl into his voice, recalling what that tall black-coated man said. “ ‘Hey, there—where’s your daddy?’ ”
He looks back at us. “Scared me to death.”
As supper carries on, the Birmingham Brigade—Becky; her husband, Bill; her best friend Liz; and Liz’s husband, Mark—keep us rolling with their tales of life among their social circuit back home. Liz was recently installed as president of the Birmingham Junior League, and Becky regales us with an account of the tribute Liz paid to her predecessor.
“It was wonderful!” Becky says. “I was all choked up. It was like Nixon’s Checkers speech!”
Becky’s exaggerating, of course—but among my hometown friends, you have to understand, exaggeration comes hand in hand with sincere praise. A Southern woman will carry on about a friend’s marigolds as if they were the most exquisite blossoms on God’s green earth.
I turn my head and catch a glimpse of Howard when he’s not looking. He’s always the sly spectator in these gatherings, hanging back and waiting for his moment to leap in with a clever jibe. He loves baiting Becky and Liz over questions of Southern manners and tradition. I don’t know how it happens, but a few minutes later they start getting into it over the proper pan to use for pound cake.
“You make a pound cake in a Bundt pan,” Becky is saying. “You don’t make it in a loaf pan. That’s what you do!” That last word gets stretched out to three syllables. “And you have monogrammed linens. I have that. My mother has that.”
Poor Howard, bless his heart. I’m not sure he’ll ever appreciate the difference between a Bundt cake and a loaf cake. But I think he’s slowly absorbing the greater fact, which is that Southern life follows not the rules of logic, but the whims of poetry. The ways of Southern womanhood have always been distinct. After all, nobody’s filming Steel Magnolias about the women of North Dakota, and a Ya-Ya Sisterhood has yet to be discovered in Rhode Island.
“I do think Southern women are caring,” Liz offers. “You’re caring to the point of never wanting your husband not to look good in a situation. You’ll do all kinds of things to make sure nothing comes off wrong. And if another woman is getting ready to walk into a situation where she won’t look good, you’ll go out of your way to cover up for her, to avoid unpleasantries.
“But you have to be careful to look ahead, and anticipate these things, which is why it’s so important to know all about people’s history, and their families.” She looks over at my husband. “Howard over there never talks about his family. I’ll ask him, ‘Now, Howard, who are your people? Where were you raised?’ which is another way of asking, ‘Who are you?’ Nothing. With Sela, we know it all—all about her brothers and sisters, everything. When you go to New York or other places, people don’t want you to know about them or their families. Down here, we’re just dying to know. People are fine with their families, even if folks didn’t turn out. You just say, ‘Oh, he’s going to turn out one day.’ ”
“Exactly!” says Becky. “If you don’t have one or two characters in your family, you’re hiding something big.”
“My Aunt Gracie, she was a character,” Liz says. “She would take to the bed for days. She was married forever, and during her whole marriage, she would never let her husband see her without makeup on. She would go to bed with it on, and get up early in the morning, greet her husband, then go into the bathroom, and not come out for hours. She’d be in there putting that makeup on.”
She was a character—where I come from, that’s a statement of pride. People in other parts of the country hide their eccentric relatives; Southerners put them on the front porch. And sometimes we put stranger things there, too. True story: A friend of mine had this uncle down in Louisiana, known to one and all as Big Guy. Big Guy won a tombstone off an unlucky undertaker in a poker game. He told the loser what he wanted as his epitaph, and had the final product delivered to the edge of his front porch. Every night for twenty years or so, Big Guy would go out and relieve himself before bedtime—on his own tombstone. It was his way of mocking death.
When Big Guy finally died, his children knew better than to second-guess his wishes. That’s why today, if you visit Big Guy’s grave, you can read his premeditated report on living conditions six feet under: THIS AIN’T BAD, ONCE YOU GET USED TO IT.
Wait—back up a minute, says one of the non-Southerners. What do you mean by “not turning out”?
“I can explain that,” Becky says. “You know when you’re cutting out cookies, and most of them turn out fine, but there’s one that won’t hold its shape? In a family, ‘not turning out’ means not living up to potential. If you come from humble circumstances, and you end up the manager of a truck-stop casino, then you turned out, for what you were raised to. But if you had a good mama and daddy, like Sela and Howard, but you still can’t hold a job, or you’re married five times, or you didn’t marry right, then you didn’t turn out.”
But why are Southerners so concerned about family, anyway?
“If you know who somebody’s family is, then you understand a lot about them,” says Sam.
“It’s the way we socialize,” Becky agrees. “You’ll meet a stranger in a social situation and ask her name and where she’s from. It goes like this: ‘A Calhoun from Jackson? My mama was sorority sisters with a Calhoun from Jackson. She married into the Memphis Simmonses—I’m related to them on my daddy’s side.’ And so forth.”
I try to explain what it’s like to be on the outside of their lifestyle, looking in. “Y’all have about fifty couples you’re linked to,” I say, “couples you socialize with in Birmingham. You have a history together, and you do things together, and you create a kind of comfort zone for yourselves.” I tell them how much trouble we Hollywood types have developing social bonds, how the atmosphere’s just a little too competitive. “You find yourself basing your social life on where
you stand in the showbiz food chain. You don’t really know who your friends are, and you can’t always be sure you really have that many.”
Liz knows what I mean; she’s got friends on the West Coast. “Sometimes they go all weekend without seeing anybody they know,” she says. “Honey, we can’t go to the mailbox without seeing somebody we know. When somebody dies here, the first thing you do is take a casserole over. Even if it’s somebody’s aunt and you’ve never met her, you go, because you have to do the right thing.”
Like I said, Howard knows how to spot an opening.
“You keep saying, ‘Do the right thing, do the right thing.’ “ He grins. “But from what I hear, down here you’ve got more people sleeping around on their spouses than we do on the West Coast, where the rule isn’t ‘do the right thing’ but ‘do what works for you.’ How is all that adultery ‘doing the right thing’?”
Have you ever seen a porchful of people roll their eyes in unison? Howard has. We all call out together: “They’re not doing the right thing!”
The point of all our customs and social rules, Becky reminds us, is to make sure everyone is taken care of—despite the transgressions we all know will occur. “Going to the funeral of somebody you don’t care for, but who’s a member of your family—well, you go out of respect to your family. Even if they did go crazy and shoot out all the plates; even if they had all kinds of scandalous affairs—good Lord, they’re still your family. You go.”