My friend Joe Watts is always photographing neat places in the Black Belt for an Alabama's Front Porches initiative website focusing on the area. Joe, being from Octagon, smack in the heart of the Belt, knows the land fairly well, and is always showing me pictures he's taken there.
"Next time you go, I wanna go," I told him.
He readily agreed. "I'll pack some beef jerky and we'll go. When?"
Usually at this, point, I would tend to become vague and say something like, "We'll get right on that." But this time I said, "Anytime in the next two weeks."
Before long, he had clawed out the time to go and said, "How about next Thursday?"
I secured the proper permissions (Margriet, queen and high priestess of DavisDenny, and Jean, my wife). It was set and nobody was mad that I was going! I could taste that beef jerky already. Joe said he'd take his car, too. I couldn't refuse, knowing that before long I'd have my feet on his dashboard.
That morning, he arrived five minutes after our appointed time of 6:30, but seeing as he was driving and all, I didn't call him on it. "Have you had any coffee?" I asked him.
"No, but I sure could use some." He said this just as we were fixing to turn onto the Red Mountain Expressway.
"Well, there's a McDonald's," I said, pointing to the one by St. Vincent's.
"Uhh, well, I'd kinda like to go ahead and get on out of here," Joe said antsily.
That was fine with me. "Well, you're right. The thought of navigating THAT cluster would be fun." Which was true. But feeling like a dick for bashing one of my beloved food sources, I countered with, "You know, I'm a threat to wake up from my nap and go there to get lunch. You know what I get?"
"What?" Joe asked, with genuine interest.
"Two regular hamburgers. It's only $2.05. The Depression Special, I call it."
"Uh huh," he replied enthusiastically. "I like me one every now and then. But there's something kind of WRONG about it all. Oh, I don't know. . . ." He drove on.
Being so early, we easily navigated the expressway junction to I-59/20 where it splits left and right--a great Bham Bottleneck.
"There's a Petro at the first exit after all the Bessemer stuff," I offered. "We can get some coffee and probably a biscuit of some kind." I had never been to this Petro, but had seen it thousands of times. I also pronounced it "Pee Trow," like the Petro family that I've known all my life. It's probably "Pet Trow," being as they sell gas, but that's too bad. I'm 55 and things like that take too much away from my remaining grey matter to change.
"That sounds just fine and dandy," Joe said. " I could go for some kind of biscuit."
He then began to tell a hilarious story about a trip he and a friend had taken out West right after graduating from Bham Southern. They had stopped at some truck stop in Wyoming or one of those states. When Joe went in to "wash his hands," he was puzzled by a hole that he saw in the wall. Just as he was looking at it, a finger poked out at him! Of course, this prompted a speedy, hilarity-filled exit for Joe and his friend.
"I've heard of those things," I said, using the "street name" for it. "I always thought they were kind of an urban myth."
"Uh, no," Joe said. "I don't think so."
"Well, thanks for the heads up," I said, which led to a ribald dissection of the event that ended just as we pulled in at the Petro.
The place was packed with everything your trucker, roadster, gad-about, family, or rock and roll band could possibly need. To the right was the Iron Skillet, serving up obligatory delicious truck stop food. The special was a giant steak with all the trimmings. It didn't say how much. That's special.
Meanwhile, Joe and I snaked our way to the left where the coffee and snack sandwich bar were. There were two big thermoses of coffee, one called "Columbian" and the other "House Blend." I asked the cashier how the house blend was. He looked at me as if I were holding a handful of buggers and said, "I don't know."
"Oh," I said, a tad embarrassed. "Well, I'll just get the House Blend, then." The cashier, whose name was Lance, never changed expressions. At least Joe was on the same page with me.
The heated box contained one sausage & biscuit. I was floored, until I noticed a refrigerator case full of other stuff. I pulled out a couple of sausage, egg & cheese biscuits.
"I can't eat eggs," Joe said.
"Well, there are some plain sausage biscuits here," I offered. He got one and we turned to find the microwave. Joe watched while the stuff heated up, so I decided not to pass up the bathroom.
The facilities were lined in old wood, and it looked like it had antique-style or recycled sinks. Everywhere one looked, there were signs for the steak special. Gag! Who wants to see menu items in the gol-durned BATHROOM?
Our biscuits still weren't fully done by the time I got back, so I tagged Joe and he headed off down the aisle of smart thinking.
By the time he returned the food was done, so we paid sullen Lance and headed out to the car.
I tore into my first biscuit, then carefully threw the other one into the back seat, telling Joe "I'm gonna save that one till later." He turned to look at me, then busted out laughing.
"You don't really think you're gonna save that one, do you?"
"Well, probably not," I admitted sheepishly. "But I was hungry."
"Obviously," he sneered. "When I saw you getting two biscuits out of the case, I thought 'How nice, he's getting ME a biscuit, too.' That was obviously NOT the case."
All this talk of the food prompted me to take an evidentiary shot, the first of the trip.
The drive through Tuscaloosa was a snap, and before we knew it, we were debating on which Eutaw exit we would take to get to the good stuff in town.
"I think the first exit is the one that goes by Greenetrack," I said, then followed it with a lusty version of "Greenetrack pays you MUN-NEY!"
"Well, my Garmin [GPS] says Eutaw is the next exit," he said.
"I could definitely be wrong," I said. "I'm old." We continued on to the next exit, and upon turning off, discovered that Greenetrack wasn't gonna pay anybody ANYTHING on THAT road. "I thought it was the last one," I said triumphantly, as if just spotting Greenetrack would be tantamount to seeing Halley's Comet or something. "But hey, you're driving. It sure doesn't matter to me."
We spent the next five minutes singing the Greenetrack jingle and talking about gambling in Alabama. It was a lively exchange, peppered with vitriol, disgust and pomposity. A cool old house appeared on the left. "Ooh, neat," I said. "Wanna stop?"
"Well sure," Joe said. "I'll stop anywhere. You just say so." He started to pull off the right side of the road, precariously perched over a swampy ditch of water. That seeming inappropriate, he swerved left and pulled into the driveway.
"Hey man, what if somebody's there?" I asked anxiously, hopping out of the car at the same time.
"Well, just keep your eyes open for somebody with a shotgun," Joe suggested as we spread out to shoot the house. Log trucks whizzed past us leaving a chilly draft and little flecks of wood, but we managed to get several great pictures of this house. Joe speculated it was turn of the century.
It was a neat place, and I particularly liked the little jonquils coming up for the umpteen-thousandth year.
We got back in the car heading toward Eutaw. I noticed we were on Mesopotamia Street. Wow! What a great hifalutin' name for a street. On the left we saw Eutaw's cemetery, and we pulled in eagerly. Nothing like a cemetery and a camera together.
As we were driving up the hill to park, I mentioned Mesopotamia Street to Joe. He was as perplexed at the name as I was. "You know They Might Be Giants has a song called 'The Mesopotamians.'" I followed up with the hook line: "We're the Mesopotamians: Sargon, Hamarabi, Ashavanna, Hal and Gilgamesh."
Just in time to hop out and see a rather unusual floral decoration in the "newer section." It amazed me that though the cemetery was small, the newer area was gridded off into blocks.
The ribbon-wrapped cedar stood out like a giant alien. Right near it were the dried remains of an homage to what was obviously an avid fisherman.
It was time to leave the new section and get to the old part. Joe got in the car.
"Well that's certainly a great idea," I said to him. "Why would we want to walk down there and have to walk all the way back?"
"Indeed," he agreed.
The old section was more typical of your historic small town cemeteries. We were struck by the elaborate headstones and family plots, all sullied by time and neglect. At one time, when Eutaw was a thriving antebellum city full of wealthy citizens, they were buried in style.
We saw several headstones that referred to dead women as "consort of So Andso." It actually refers to a gentleman's wife who pre-deceases him, but at first glance it seemed more like a grave for some local doxie. Eutaw's version of the Scarlet Letter, only carved in granite.
The day was totally clear with a gorgeous blue sky, but the chill and all the tromping around on the spongy, rain-bloated grass had caused my nose to run. I'm sure I looked really reverent as I blew snot rockets into the crisp air. I meant no disrespect. I just couldn't be the guy from Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" any longer.
The ironwork was beautiful, as was the stone. The centerpiece of the whole cemetery was the Webb monument--a demure virgin Mary, her graceful right hand dropping a lilly blossom, her left holding an olive branch like a flute at rest, with a complexion marred by the vitiligo of time.
Surely these Webbs are related to the many Webbs that constitue the Belt. But that's just my speculation--the same kind all Alabamians employ when they're trying to connect up the families that make up the state.
Who were these people with the wooden fence around their family plot? Probably the worst kind of social climbers back in the day, and surely the laughingstock of Mesopotamia Street. Could have made it big in some unsavory trade, or come from above the Mason-Dixon Line. There were so many scenarios to ponder!
The verticalness and uniqueness of this plot made it my number one. The corn stalk lashed to the post was unbelievable. I loved the irony of the rough cut wood being emulated by metal, although I'm sure it never occurred to anyone making it. The craftsmanship was stellar.
After exhausting possibilities at the cemetery, we headed down Mesopotamia Street into Eutaw. Interesting post-bellum houses lined the high side of the road on the right.
"There's an antebellum mansion here on the left," Joe said, just as Kirkwood appeared.
"Let's go in." The sign at the entrance said something about tours and days of operation.
"Somebody lives here, you know," Joe told me. We pulled into the main road to the house and stopped at the brick-lined drive that did a semi-circle by the lawn. I was fine to get out there (not really), but Joe pulled into the semi-circle a little ways and then said, "This is far enough. I don't wanna get stuck down there or something." Like making a quick getaway by backing out of a circular brick drive was gonna be any better.
We got out just in time to see a car pull up on the main road. The driver, a woman, rolled down the window just as Joe said, "Hey, we were just taking some pictures of the house."
"Sure, that's fine," she said. "Would you like to see the inside?"
"Uh, yeah," Joe said, more enthusiastically than I felt. I feared having a hard time being able to zoom through there and give thorough yet cursory attention to everything. Now we were going to have the proud owner take us through. Politeness dictates that you must go at the host's pace.
"Let me park and I'll be right out," she said.
"Okay," Joe replied. We then set to taking exterior pictures of this gorgeous structure.
Before long we heard the clatter of the front door being opened. The woman stuck her head out and we headed up the stairs to go in.
She was very attractive, in her 50's, maybe, and said her name was Daiadflahasdk Bla;lakhsd. The first name was unusual. The last name more recognizable.
We followed her into the foyer, which featured a massive ceiling and gorgeous colored glass panels left and right of the door. The light coming through the red pane was shining on a pot sitting on the floor, which was striking. There were beautiful antiques and paintings everywhere.
"Thank you SO much for letting us see your house," Joe gushed. "It is really beautiful."
"Yeah, it's incredible," I added, trying to put the proper amount of awe into my voice.
"Well thank you," she said matter-of-factly. "That'll be 6 dollars each."
I reached in my pocket and handed her the twelve dollars that I knew were in there since I had gotten change from Lance.
Once she had pocketed the cash, she immediately launched into an even-toned, allegro spiel about the house, with parenthetical information about how she had to leave soon, but how her husband would take over.
Crap! A tag-team? We didn't have all day! There were several things to do before lunch, and we just COULDN'T delay that. Though the biscuit concoctions and gigantic House Blend coffee were satisfying, being on the road is a sure hunger-inducer, and I knew that neither one of us would want to put lunch off for too long.
During her portion of the program, we learned that the mantle in the parlor was made of Carerra marble, and that there were two pieces down there original to the house. The colored glass in the foyer represents the four seasons, as do the figures on the mantle. The rest of the furnishings belonged to her and her husband, who suddenly shuffled into the room wearing Topsiders (or equivalent), shorts, a long-sleeved shirt untucked, a baseball hat and sporting a little greying mustache. His name was Al Blanton. His father was a congressman from Jasper.
I immediately launched into my Jasper routine: Adcocks; Cannons; parents used to party up there more in a dry county than in wet Birmingham; Musgrove Country Club was the place to be; etc. etc. He was all over it.
Meanwhile, Joe had begun to explain why we were here: for the Alabama's Front Porches website; and dropped his names, one of which was met with a snort from Mr. Blanton. "Here's who you need to get in touch with for anything Black Belt," he said. "Me and [somebody else]. And you also need to call [that woman from Channel 13] who is doing a book about all the antebellum homes in the Black Belt."
He asked me what I did and what I was doing there, and I gave him my list of occupations, including singing in a band. Somehow later on, he circuitously figured out that I was with Chevy 6. He hollered to his wife, who was in the bedroom making up the bed, "Hey Danky! (So THAT was her name.) This guy out here's the singer for Chevy 6! You know them!"
"Oh, um hmm," she said from the bedroom. The only thing she could have added would have been "How nice for you."
He then asked me if I ever sang any gospel.
"No, just oldies," I said, then added "But I like the gospel tunes! [Lie--I don't know enough to like, just didn't want him to think me a heathen] Especially 'Sweet Beulah Land." [True-but I've only heard it twice]
"You like 'Beulah Land'? Can you sing it? Sing it with me."
"Well, uh, no, I don't do that very well." And then, with a comic shrug, "Besides, I'm off [stage]. I don't sing when I'm off." I started to edge toward another room to get the tour on the road.
"Hold on there," he said to me. "You're gettin' ahead of yourself." I obediently whisked back to my original position in the parlor as if he had put tape on my mark.
After telling Joe more things about this and that "Black Belt," and hearing his take on the mantle in the parlor: "probably the finest mantle in the United States. We get calls about it just about every day," we finally made it into the bedroom and began to hear the story of the all-American furnishings in the house. They were stunning, every piece. And mind-blowingly expensive, I'm sure. "You know, you don't own a house like this. It owns you. You kinda have to be crazy."
At this point, he shifted from the house and the furnishings and latched onto the project Joe was working on, I guess figuring he was kind of an insider. This freed us up somewhat from the standard tour.
"Go on upstairs," he told us. We complied immediately, feeling a little momentum coming to the tour. The second story hall was fantastic, with more stained glass and exquisite antiques.
Al leaned on one of the banisters and told us more. Not about the house. About everything but the house. We found out that Marc Phillips had grown up across the street from him and how Al had known him since a child. He then began to name all the groups Marc had been in. "Hotel, Split the Dark. . . ."
"Wasn't he in Crimson Tide?" I asked him. He showed no recognition. Probably because Marc wasn't in Crimson Tide. It was Wayne Perkins. In retrospect, I think he was looking for the Calton-Phillips Band.
"Hotel, Split the Dark. . . ." he continued. "Who was in Hotel? Lee Bargeron?" He named a couple of others, and knew it all well. I wish I had known the Calton-Phillips answer then.
By this time, Mr. Blanton had just about completely abandoned the house as a topic, and we wandered into all four rooms on the second floor with complete freedom while he played pinball with the topic list.
I mentioned that I was fascinated with Tallullah Bankhead, who is a Jasperite. He scoffed and said, "She wasn't anything but the daughter of a senator. Hell, she only did two movies: Lifeboat and The Little Foxes."
"Well, I like her," I protested. "Maybe she was famous for just being famous. Kind of like a prototype Paris Hilton."
"Ahhh," he dismissed her. I failed to mention that her being the resident slut of the Algonquin Roundtable was also quite an accomplishment.
Al motioned for us to go up to the third floor, which was accessed by a steep set of stairs. It was a main room with a bathroom. "The family probably used this for a small ballroom or meeting room," he said. "Small ballroom" was right. And a "ballroom" only if they had very few friends.
"Y'all can go up to the cupola if you want to, since you're special," he said. "We don't usually let people up there on the tour. It's 84 steps. I'm not going with you." Well, I wasn't that crazy about going up 84 steps either, but had to see the cupola, arthritis be damned.
It turns out that it's probably 84 steps TOTAL to the cupola from all floors. This was a cakewalk, and before we knew it, we had emerged at the top.
From the floor below, we could hear Mr. Blanton hollering, "That's as high as a seven-story building up there. Just don't open that door." Vertiginous Ben Burford wasn't opening anything. There was a small ornate chandelier hanging from the ceiling, but otherwise the cupola was bare of furnishings. But the view was nice. And there was Mesopotamia Street! Time to go.
Easier said than done.
As we were descending the stairs, Joe said, "Well, the house is beautiful. Thanks so much for letting us see it. We'll be getting stuff for the website and. . . ."
"Hold on. Y'all come into the kitchen. I'm gonna call [that guy] and tell him you're here and what you're doing."
Criminey! It was time to go! And the kitchen was hot. Combined with the 84 steps I had hauled my big ass up, I had broken a "glisten." Mr. Blanton walked into his office off the kitchen and began to call. He had no success in getting [the guy] but assured Joe, "He's the man you need to talk to. Him or me. And don't forget to call [the Channel 13 lady] who's doing the book. I'll get you her card."
"Great," Joe said. "Thanks so much. Well, we've gotta be going."
"Hold on. Y'all going to Everhope?" He was referring to Everhope Plantation, which would have been reached by taking a right turn off the Interstate instead of a left into Eutaw.
"Well, we were going to Gainesville," Joe said, "and it's that way. I'm sure we'll pass it."
"Well hold on, then. I'm gonna call [the owner] and tell him you're coming. As soon as you go out of here, take a right and go about [several] miles. It's on the right. I'm calling him now."
While he successfully got hold of [the owner] and talked to him, I paced around the kitchen. It was a large room, reached by a hall lined with counters, culminating in an eat-in space with fireplace. Two office rooms were off the main room. It was oddly laid out, but this was surely due to historical factors. Mr. Blanton got off the phone and joined us as we were heading out the door. "Get me one of your cards," he told Joe. He didn't ask for mine.
"I haven't got one on me. It's in the car," Joe said. "I'll go get it."
This action propelled us out the front door with a minimum of obsequious appreciation for the house. I jumped in my side of the car and waited on Joe to take Mr. Blanton the card and get the last drops of conversation.
When he finally got in and we crept successfully around the rest of the semi-circle and made it to the main drive, Joe said, "Let's go into Eutaw some more. While we're here."
"But the guy at Everhope is expecting us!" I protested, pointing to the right.
We both laughed as Joe turned left onto Mesopotamia Street.
"Next time you go, I wanna go," I told him.
He readily agreed. "I'll pack some beef jerky and we'll go. When?"
Usually at this, point, I would tend to become vague and say something like, "We'll get right on that." But this time I said, "Anytime in the next two weeks."
Before long, he had clawed out the time to go and said, "How about next Thursday?"
I secured the proper permissions (Margriet, queen and high priestess of DavisDenny, and Jean, my wife). It was set and nobody was mad that I was going! I could taste that beef jerky already. Joe said he'd take his car, too. I couldn't refuse, knowing that before long I'd have my feet on his dashboard.
That morning, he arrived five minutes after our appointed time of 6:30, but seeing as he was driving and all, I didn't call him on it. "Have you had any coffee?" I asked him.
"No, but I sure could use some." He said this just as we were fixing to turn onto the Red Mountain Expressway.
"Well, there's a McDonald's," I said, pointing to the one by St. Vincent's.
"Uhh, well, I'd kinda like to go ahead and get on out of here," Joe said antsily.
That was fine with me. "Well, you're right. The thought of navigating THAT cluster would be fun." Which was true. But feeling like a dick for bashing one of my beloved food sources, I countered with, "You know, I'm a threat to wake up from my nap and go there to get lunch. You know what I get?"
"What?" Joe asked, with genuine interest.
"Two regular hamburgers. It's only $2.05. The Depression Special, I call it."
"Uh huh," he replied enthusiastically. "I like me one every now and then. But there's something kind of WRONG about it all. Oh, I don't know. . . ." He drove on.
Being so early, we easily navigated the expressway junction to I-59/20 where it splits left and right--a great Bham Bottleneck.
"There's a Petro at the first exit after all the Bessemer stuff," I offered. "We can get some coffee and probably a biscuit of some kind." I had never been to this Petro, but had seen it thousands of times. I also pronounced it "Pee Trow," like the Petro family that I've known all my life. It's probably "Pet Trow," being as they sell gas, but that's too bad. I'm 55 and things like that take too much away from my remaining grey matter to change.
"That sounds just fine and dandy," Joe said. " I could go for some kind of biscuit."
He then began to tell a hilarious story about a trip he and a friend had taken out West right after graduating from Bham Southern. They had stopped at some truck stop in Wyoming or one of those states. When Joe went in to "wash his hands," he was puzzled by a hole that he saw in the wall. Just as he was looking at it, a finger poked out at him! Of course, this prompted a speedy, hilarity-filled exit for Joe and his friend.
"I've heard of those things," I said, using the "street name" for it. "I always thought they were kind of an urban myth."
"Uh, no," Joe said. "I don't think so."
"Well, thanks for the heads up," I said, which led to a ribald dissection of the event that ended just as we pulled in at the Petro.
The place was packed with everything your trucker, roadster, gad-about, family, or rock and roll band could possibly need. To the right was the Iron Skillet, serving up obligatory delicious truck stop food. The special was a giant steak with all the trimmings. It didn't say how much. That's special.
Meanwhile, Joe and I snaked our way to the left where the coffee and snack sandwich bar were. There were two big thermoses of coffee, one called "Columbian" and the other "House Blend." I asked the cashier how the house blend was. He looked at me as if I were holding a handful of buggers and said, "I don't know."
"Oh," I said, a tad embarrassed. "Well, I'll just get the House Blend, then." The cashier, whose name was Lance, never changed expressions. At least Joe was on the same page with me.
The heated box contained one sausage & biscuit. I was floored, until I noticed a refrigerator case full of other stuff. I pulled out a couple of sausage, egg & cheese biscuits.
"I can't eat eggs," Joe said.
"Well, there are some plain sausage biscuits here," I offered. He got one and we turned to find the microwave. Joe watched while the stuff heated up, so I decided not to pass up the bathroom.
The facilities were lined in old wood, and it looked like it had antique-style or recycled sinks. Everywhere one looked, there were signs for the steak special. Gag! Who wants to see menu items in the gol-durned BATHROOM?
Our biscuits still weren't fully done by the time I got back, so I tagged Joe and he headed off down the aisle of smart thinking.
By the time he returned the food was done, so we paid sullen Lance and headed out to the car.
I tore into my first biscuit, then carefully threw the other one into the back seat, telling Joe "I'm gonna save that one till later." He turned to look at me, then busted out laughing.
"You don't really think you're gonna save that one, do you?"
"Well, probably not," I admitted sheepishly. "But I was hungry."
"Obviously," he sneered. "When I saw you getting two biscuits out of the case, I thought 'How nice, he's getting ME a biscuit, too.' That was obviously NOT the case."
All this talk of the food prompted me to take an evidentiary shot, the first of the trip.
The drive through Tuscaloosa was a snap, and before we knew it, we were debating on which Eutaw exit we would take to get to the good stuff in town."I think the first exit is the one that goes by Greenetrack," I said, then followed it with a lusty version of "Greenetrack pays you MUN-NEY!"
"Well, my Garmin [GPS] says Eutaw is the next exit," he said.
"I could definitely be wrong," I said. "I'm old." We continued on to the next exit, and upon turning off, discovered that Greenetrack wasn't gonna pay anybody ANYTHING on THAT road. "I thought it was the last one," I said triumphantly, as if just spotting Greenetrack would be tantamount to seeing Halley's Comet or something. "But hey, you're driving. It sure doesn't matter to me."
We spent the next five minutes singing the Greenetrack jingle and talking about gambling in Alabama. It was a lively exchange, peppered with vitriol, disgust and pomposity. A cool old house appeared on the left. "Ooh, neat," I said. "Wanna stop?"
"Well sure," Joe said. "I'll stop anywhere. You just say so." He started to pull off the right side of the road, precariously perched over a swampy ditch of water. That seeming inappropriate, he swerved left and pulled into the driveway.
"Hey man, what if somebody's there?" I asked anxiously, hopping out of the car at the same time."Well, just keep your eyes open for somebody with a shotgun," Joe suggested as we spread out to shoot the house. Log trucks whizzed past us leaving a chilly draft and little flecks of wood, but we managed to get several great pictures of this house. Joe speculated it was turn of the century.
It was a neat place, and I particularly liked the little jonquils coming up for the umpteen-thousandth year.We got back in the car heading toward Eutaw. I noticed we were on Mesopotamia Street. Wow! What a great hifalutin' name for a street. On the left we saw Eutaw's cemetery, and we pulled in eagerly. Nothing like a cemetery and a camera together.
As we were driving up the hill to park, I mentioned Mesopotamia Street to Joe. He was as perplexed at the name as I was. "You know They Might Be Giants has a song called 'The Mesopotamians.'" I followed up with the hook line: "We're the Mesopotamians: Sargon, Hamarabi, Ashavanna, Hal and Gilgamesh."
Just in time to hop out and see a rather unusual floral decoration in the "newer section." It amazed me that though the cemetery was small, the newer area was gridded off into blocks.
The ribbon-wrapped cedar stood out like a giant alien. Right near it were the dried remains of an homage to what was obviously an avid fisherman.
It was time to leave the new section and get to the old part. Joe got in the car."Well that's certainly a great idea," I said to him. "Why would we want to walk down there and have to walk all the way back?"
"Indeed," he agreed.
The old section was more typical of your historic small town cemeteries. We were struck by the elaborate headstones and family plots, all sullied by time and neglect. At one time, when Eutaw was a thriving antebellum city full of wealthy citizens, they were buried in style.
We saw several headstones that referred to dead women as "consort of So Andso." It actually refers to a gentleman's wife who pre-deceases him, but at first glance it seemed more like a grave for some local doxie. Eutaw's version of the Scarlet Letter, only carved in granite.
The day was totally clear with a gorgeous blue sky, but the chill and all the tromping around on the spongy, rain-bloated grass had caused my nose to run. I'm sure I looked really reverent as I blew snot rockets into the crisp air. I meant no disrespect. I just couldn't be the guy from Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" any longer.
The ironwork was beautiful, as was the stone. The centerpiece of the whole cemetery was the Webb monument--a demure virgin Mary, her graceful right hand dropping a lilly blossom, her left holding an olive branch like a flute at rest, with a complexion marred by the vitiligo of time.
Surely these Webbs are related to the many Webbs that constitue the Belt. But that's just my speculation--the same kind all Alabamians employ when they're trying to connect up the families that make up the state.
Who were these people with the wooden fence around their family plot? Probably the worst kind of social climbers back in the day, and surely the laughingstock of Mesopotamia Street. Could have made it big in some unsavory trade, or come from above the Mason-Dixon Line. There were so many scenarios to ponder!
The verticalness and uniqueness of this plot made it my number one. The corn stalk lashed to the post was unbelievable. I loved the irony of the rough cut wood being emulated by metal, although I'm sure it never occurred to anyone making it. The craftsmanship was stellar.After exhausting possibilities at the cemetery, we headed down Mesopotamia Street into Eutaw. Interesting post-bellum houses lined the high side of the road on the right.
"There's an antebellum mansion here on the left," Joe said, just as Kirkwood appeared.
"Let's go in." The sign at the entrance said something about tours and days of operation.
"Somebody lives here, you know," Joe told me. We pulled into the main road to the house and stopped at the brick-lined drive that did a semi-circle by the lawn. I was fine to get out there (not really), but Joe pulled into the semi-circle a little ways and then said, "This is far enough. I don't wanna get stuck down there or something." Like making a quick getaway by backing out of a circular brick drive was gonna be any better.
We got out just in time to see a car pull up on the main road. The driver, a woman, rolled down the window just as Joe said, "Hey, we were just taking some pictures of the house."
"Sure, that's fine," she said. "Would you like to see the inside?"
"Uh, yeah," Joe said, more enthusiastically than I felt. I feared having a hard time being able to zoom through there and give thorough yet cursory attention to everything. Now we were going to have the proud owner take us through. Politeness dictates that you must go at the host's pace.
"Let me park and I'll be right out," she said.
"Okay," Joe replied. We then set to taking exterior pictures of this gorgeous structure.
Before long we heard the clatter of the front door being opened. The woman stuck her head out and we headed up the stairs to go in.She was very attractive, in her 50's, maybe, and said her name was Daiadflahasdk Bla;lakhsd. The first name was unusual. The last name more recognizable.
We followed her into the foyer, which featured a massive ceiling and gorgeous colored glass panels left and right of the door. The light coming through the red pane was shining on a pot sitting on the floor, which was striking. There were beautiful antiques and paintings everywhere.
"Thank you SO much for letting us see your house," Joe gushed. "It is really beautiful.""Yeah, it's incredible," I added, trying to put the proper amount of awe into my voice.
"Well thank you," she said matter-of-factly. "That'll be 6 dollars each."
I reached in my pocket and handed her the twelve dollars that I knew were in there since I had gotten change from Lance.
Once she had pocketed the cash, she immediately launched into an even-toned, allegro spiel about the house, with parenthetical information about how she had to leave soon, but how her husband would take over.
Crap! A tag-team? We didn't have all day! There were several things to do before lunch, and we just COULDN'T delay that. Though the biscuit concoctions and gigantic House Blend coffee were satisfying, being on the road is a sure hunger-inducer, and I knew that neither one of us would want to put lunch off for too long.
During her portion of the program, we learned that the mantle in the parlor was made of Carerra marble, and that there were two pieces down there original to the house. The colored glass in the foyer represents the four seasons, as do the figures on the mantle. The rest of the furnishings belonged to her and her husband, who suddenly shuffled into the room wearing Topsiders (or equivalent), shorts, a long-sleeved shirt untucked, a baseball hat and sporting a little greying mustache. His name was Al Blanton. His father was a congressman from Jasper.
I immediately launched into my Jasper routine: Adcocks; Cannons; parents used to party up there more in a dry county than in wet Birmingham; Musgrove Country Club was the place to be; etc. etc. He was all over it.
Meanwhile, Joe had begun to explain why we were here: for the Alabama's Front Porches website; and dropped his names, one of which was met with a snort from Mr. Blanton. "Here's who you need to get in touch with for anything Black Belt," he said. "Me and [somebody else]. And you also need to call [that woman from Channel 13] who is doing a book about all the antebellum homes in the Black Belt."He asked me what I did and what I was doing there, and I gave him my list of occupations, including singing in a band. Somehow later on, he circuitously figured out that I was with Chevy 6. He hollered to his wife, who was in the bedroom making up the bed, "Hey Danky! (So THAT was her name.) This guy out here's the singer for Chevy 6! You know them!"
"Oh, um hmm," she said from the bedroom. The only thing she could have added would have been "How nice for you."
He then asked me if I ever sang any gospel.
"No, just oldies," I said, then added "But I like the gospel tunes! [Lie--I don't know enough to like, just didn't want him to think me a heathen] Especially 'Sweet Beulah Land." [True-but I've only heard it twice]
"You like 'Beulah Land'? Can you sing it? Sing it with me."
"Well, uh, no, I don't do that very well." And then, with a comic shrug, "Besides, I'm off [stage]. I don't sing when I'm off." I started to edge toward another room to get the tour on the road.
"Hold on there," he said to me. "You're gettin' ahead of yourself." I obediently whisked back to my original position in the parlor as if he had put tape on my mark.
After telling Joe more things about this and that "Black Belt," and hearing his take on the mantle in the parlor: "probably the finest mantle in the United States. We get calls about it just about every day," we finally made it into the bedroom and began to hear the story of the all-American furnishings in the house. They were stunning, every piece. And mind-blowingly expensive, I'm sure. "You know, you don't own a house like this. It owns you. You kinda have to be crazy."
At this point, he shifted from the house and the furnishings and latched onto the project Joe was working on, I guess figuring he was kind of an insider. This freed us up somewhat from the standard tour.
"Go on upstairs," he told us. We complied immediately, feeling a little momentum coming to the tour. The second story hall was fantastic, with more stained glass and exquisite antiques.
Al leaned on one of the banisters and told us more. Not about the house. About everything but the house. We found out that Marc Phillips had grown up across the street from him and how Al had known him since a child. He then began to name all the groups Marc had been in. "Hotel, Split the Dark. . . .""Wasn't he in Crimson Tide?" I asked him. He showed no recognition. Probably because Marc wasn't in Crimson Tide. It was Wayne Perkins. In retrospect, I think he was looking for the Calton-Phillips Band.
"Hotel, Split the Dark. . . ." he continued. "Who was in Hotel? Lee Bargeron?" He named a couple of others, and knew it all well. I wish I had known the Calton-Phillips answer then.
By this time, Mr. Blanton had just about completely abandoned the house as a topic, and we wandered into all four rooms on the second floor with complete freedom while he played pinball with the topic list.
I mentioned that I was fascinated with Tallullah Bankhead, who is a Jasperite. He scoffed and said, "She wasn't anything but the daughter of a senator. Hell, she only did two movies: Lifeboat and The Little Foxes."
"Well, I like her," I protested. "Maybe she was famous for just being famous. Kind of like a prototype Paris Hilton."
"Ahhh," he dismissed her. I failed to mention that her being the resident slut of the Algonquin Roundtable was also quite an accomplishment.
Al motioned for us to go up to the third floor, which was accessed by a steep set of stairs. It was a main room with a bathroom. "The family probably used this for a small ballroom or meeting room," he said. "Small ballroom" was right. And a "ballroom" only if they had very few friends.
"Y'all can go up to the cupola if you want to, since you're special," he said. "We don't usually let people up there on the tour. It's 84 steps. I'm not going with you." Well, I wasn't that crazy about going up 84 steps either, but had to see the cupola, arthritis be damned.
It turns out that it's probably 84 steps TOTAL to the cupola from all floors. This was a cakewalk, and before we knew it, we had emerged at the top.
From the floor below, we could hear Mr. Blanton hollering, "That's as high as a seven-story building up there. Just don't open that door." Vertiginous Ben Burford wasn't opening anything. There was a small ornate chandelier hanging from the ceiling, but otherwise the cupola was bare of furnishings. But the view was nice. And there was Mesopotamia Street! Time to go.Easier said than done.
As we were descending the stairs, Joe said, "Well, the house is beautiful. Thanks so much for letting us see it. We'll be getting stuff for the website and. . . .""Hold on. Y'all come into the kitchen. I'm gonna call [that guy] and tell him you're here and what you're doing."
Criminey! It was time to go! And the kitchen was hot. Combined with the 84 steps I had hauled my big ass up, I had broken a "glisten." Mr. Blanton walked into his office off the kitchen and began to call. He had no success in getting [the guy] but assured Joe, "He's the man you need to talk to. Him or me. And don't forget to call [the Channel 13 lady] who's doing the book. I'll get you her card."
"Great," Joe said. "Thanks so much. Well, we've gotta be going."
"Hold on. Y'all going to Everhope?" He was referring to Everhope Plantation, which would have been reached by taking a right turn off the Interstate instead of a left into Eutaw.
"Well, we were going to Gainesville," Joe said, "and it's that way. I'm sure we'll pass it."
"Well hold on, then. I'm gonna call [the owner] and tell him you're coming. As soon as you go out of here, take a right and go about [several] miles. It's on the right. I'm calling him now."
While he successfully got hold of [the owner] and talked to him, I paced around the kitchen. It was a large room, reached by a hall lined with counters, culminating in an eat-in space with fireplace. Two office rooms were off the main room. It was oddly laid out, but this was surely due to historical factors. Mr. Blanton got off the phone and joined us as we were heading out the door. "Get me one of your cards," he told Joe. He didn't ask for mine.
"I haven't got one on me. It's in the car," Joe said. "I'll go get it."
This action propelled us out the front door with a minimum of obsequious appreciation for the house. I jumped in my side of the car and waited on Joe to take Mr. Blanton the card and get the last drops of conversation.
When he finally got in and we crept successfully around the rest of the semi-circle and made it to the main drive, Joe said, "Let's go into Eutaw some more. While we're here."
"But the guy at Everhope is expecting us!" I protested, pointing to the right.
We both laughed as Joe turned left onto Mesopotamia Street.
