Here She Is

For the price of a ticket ($1) you might be the lucky person to win this
beautiful row quilt made by members of
Loose Threads Quilters.  Proceeds go to the
Comfort Quilt Project that provides lap quilts for cancer patients
at West Clinic in Southaven.
Quilt hanging at Cotton Treasures in Senatobia.  Tickets available
at Cotton Treasures, Tin Roof Market, both in Senatobia; and at Sit and Rock in Oxford. 

Wrapped in Comfort

If you have never been a cancer patient, never had a friend or relative who is a cancer patient, never been to a cancer treatment center, you cannot image the reaction of Wings Coordinator Karen Sudduth at West Clinic in Southaven, when Loose Threads delivers their bi-annual shipment of quilts.

Karen cries every time.

Treatment rooms are cold sometimes.  Many patients come without someone to hold their hands unless it by one of the wonderful volunteers at the clinic.  Karen says when she gives a patient one of our quilts, she is rewarded with a huge smile, sometimes a tear.  What makes someone feel more loved than being covered in a hand-made quilt?  

President Virginia Rhynes (left) and Elinor Baker
present Karen Sudduth (center) with
a recent quilt shipment.

I hope they spend their treatment time looking at each fabric in their quilt.  Many will be reminded of quilts long ago made by their grandmothers, quilts found in attics, quilts still on their beds.

Loose Threads quilters in Senatobia have been making Comfort Quilt, little lap size quilts, for the patients at West Clinic for three years now.

While we have had many donations of fabric, our "stash" is running low.  Last spring while on our quilting retreat in Alabama, we saw a row quilt and were inspired.  That's a quilt where each member donates a row.
No rules except in the width of the row.

Members show off some of the quilts in the last shipment

We came home and looked through our stash and decided to make a row quilt to raffle.  Funds will be used to replenish our "stash" of fabric or to buy batting and other supplies to make our quilts.   Many members bring their own fabric from home.

Yellows, grays and reds are the colors of our quilt.  If you can imaging turning these ladies loose to do their own thing, you can imagine that the rows were all different. Yet when we put them together and Chantay Rhone at Cotton Treasurers quilted it……..we have pure magic.

Row quilt in progress.  It could be yours!

Yes, this is a plea to support our Comfort Quilt raffle. You can purchase tickets at Cotton Treasures where you can see and touch the quilt and at Tin Roof Market, both in Senatobia.  We hope to add other merchants to the list soon.

The patients may have received the gift of the quilt, but the real gift is ours.


Chances $1 • 6 for $5 • 24 for $20
             

Young journalist will be missed

T.J. Jernigan was a guy that made you sit up and take notice. I have been in a state of disbelief since hearing of his death on Sunday. TJ served as the editor of Northwest’s Ranger Rocket, the student newspaper, in 2008-09.  

When he walked in my office to ask about the editor’s slot, he already had bylines under his belt, from weekly newspapers in the state. He was serious about journalism, but always smiling.

That smile didn’t always hide his grief, having lost his sister not too long before coming to Northwest. 

When we talked to TJ about his newspaper experience, he told us, “Jim Prince owns three newspaper companies here in Mississippi: Kemper County Messenger; Neshoba Democrat and Madison County Journal.  After working for him, I realized that journalism is something I really love.”

While at Northwest TJ was named outstanding student in Journalism and was the recipient of the CPRAM (College Public Relations Association of Mississippi) Scholarship.  He traveled with the PR staff to that state conference and spoke eloquently to a room full of seasoned journalists.

TJ wrote for the student newspaper, the yearbook, and his stories were sent out through the college’s Public Relations Department.  

On the day his first newspaper came back, he jumped right in with delivery.  Not long afterward I got a call from College President, Dr. Gary Lee Spears.  “I was eating my lunch in the President’s home, and looked up and this guy with a dew rag on his head was standing in the foyer,” said Spears.  “Can I help you,” Dr. Spears asked.

“Oh hey, Dr. Spears.  What are you doing in here?”

“Well, I live here TJ.  What are you doing in here?”

“Oh man, I thought I was in the education building.  Oops.”

His byline gained national attention when he covered the story of Elvis’ John Deere tractor, which had been restored by Northwest Agricultural Technology students.

Over the years I have captured my share of awards—for writing, photography, service—but I was never as honored as I was when TJ chose me for the subject of his tribute speech—part of a final grade in speech. He said whenever he felt homesick, he would pull up a chair and talk to one of his PR Mamas, meaning LaJuan Tallo, Julie Bauer, Renate Ferreira and me.

After leaving Northwest he went on to study journalism and electronics at the University of Memphis.

The spring after he left us at Northwest, TJ sent us a message saying he had gotten his hand caught in the garbage disposal.  We all shrieked.  He even sent a picture of the gory, mangled fingers.  It was April 1.  “NOT funny, TJ,” we said.  “PR mamas are faint at heart.”

I will miss my friend—sweet soul, beautiful boy, picker, singer, writer. 

Rediscovery

I have never paid for quilting on a piece that I did not do….until yesterday. I stopped at Chantay Rhone's Cotton Treasures shop in Senatobia and paid for this beautiful elongated hexagon quilt.
I did not make it.

Last year I found this beautiful quilt top, and another one still to be quilted, at the estate sale of Janie Mortimer of Senatobia as she prepared to move to Winona.

Elongated Hexagon Quilt

As I searched through the old linens that were in the sale, I found two that I thought needed saving.

     According to Janie, it could have been pieced by her mother and her sisters, and her great grandmother.  

     “My mother and aunt went back to the farm after their jobs ended to wait for their soldier husbands to return from overseas.  My mother and her sisters had been bomb inspectors at a bomb plant in Monroe County,” says Janie. “They all were talented needle women and enjoyed quilting together.” 

    

I found some random old blocks in grandmother's flower garden pattern and appliquéd them to the quilt back which was made of muslin and reproduction 1930s fabric.  Chantay quilted it in the Baptist Fan pattern with a light gray-blue thread.  It was hand-pieced nearly 65 years ago.  There is not a tear or stain, thought the fabric is getting a little fragile. 

I know I can't save every old building, every stray dog, every mistreated horse, but I saved this quilt!

Baptist Fan pattern and quilt label. 

Rotten Tomatoes rerun

As most writers do from time to time, we pull from the files a column, or in this case a blog entry, that warrants repeating.

Even though tomato "putting up" time is not here yet, it's just around the corner.  So I'm reposting Rotten Tomatoes from last July.  Hope you like it.

Rotten Tomatoes

It's starting. The tomatoes are coming in....into my kitchen, that is. With the cool spring, moderate weather and rain, I was thinking maybe I would be spared the agony of the tomato adventure this year. When I think about last summer, I remember that every flat surface in my kitchen was covered in tomatoes.  I stewed them, canned them, mixed them with okra and onion for soup, made homemade Rotel and frozen little Roma tomatoes whole. They were on my table for every meal, sliced on a plate.

Every time I saw that man—my husband—coming in the house with another bucket, I cringed. My back ached from standing on my little gel mat peeling, slicing, stewing tomatoes.  What makes all this work unbearable is that I don’t like tomatoes!

Every summer of my childhood, I watched as my mother, father, grandmother and great aunt made a big fuss about summer tomatoes.  They squealed with joy when the first tomatoes were brought home by my daddy, a farmer, and placed on the kitchen windowsill to ripen to the perfect shade of red—brighter than barn red but not crimson.

Mother had a special knife she used to peel tomatoes, the only way to serve them in our house.  No one was allowed to use the long serrated knife for any other purpose. Her tomatoes were to be peeled and cold.

Grandmother and Aunt Ruth would pile sliced tomatoes on a big white platter and place it on the table with a look of accomplishment like they had just presented a delicacy to an honored guest. 

 “Don’t you want to at least try to like a tomato?” my mother asked me every summer of my life until she died the year I turned 39. 

“No, thank you,” I would reply on my first refusal.

“Oh, come on and try one,” Aunt Ruth would say.  “You like ketchup. You should like tomatoes.  You like soup and spaghetti sauce, so you should like tomatoes.”

“But I don’t like raw ones,” I replied.  They were never convinced.

The next day at lunch they (my mother, grandmother and great aunt) would again place a big plate of sliced tomatoes, bacon and lettuce for BLTs on our 1960-style kitchen table. The ritual would begin all over again.

It was as if I were a family embarrassment. We would go out to eat or to someone’s home and they would pass the tomatoes, and as taught, I would politely say, “No thank you.” My mother would look up over her bifocals and say, “Nancy doesn’t eat tomatoes.” The hostess would give her a nodding sympathetic look. 

Since I was an only child living in a household with four adults, I was outnumbered. I never gave in.  I ate bacon sandwiches—just bacon and mustard.

How could anyone who loves being Southern as much as I do, not like tomatoes? 

I endured all this questioning at home and thought it would stop there.  What did I do but marry a tomato-loving man from a family of tomato lovers?  Same scenario plays out every time there is a family gathering.

It also happens with my friends. We go to a restaurant and I order the salad without tomatoes. One says, “You don’t like tomatoes?” with that squinty look of disbelief.  I might get a taco and say, “Please hold the tomatoes.”

“Hold the tomatoes?  It’s not a taco without diced tomatoes."

It sounds like a broken record that will not stop playing, like the movie Groundhog Day where Bill Murray wakes up to the same day over and over. 

I must admit that I do like fried green tomatoes. That’s just because they are in the same fried family as a French fry, and you can put ketchup on them. Maybe that gets me back in the good graces of my family, friends and in-laws. If I lived in the Mid-West or the North and didn’t like tomatoes, would it be such a big deal?

So, I'll say it again. I don’t like tomatoes! Furthermore, I don’t like turnip greens or anything else that looks like dandelion leaves. And while we’re confessing Southern sin, I don’t enjoy or think I would have liked William Faulkner at all.  So there!

Five Star City Fest kicks off this coming weekend in Senatobia

After months of planning, our week is finally here!  The first annual Five Star City Fest is set for this Friday, May 9; and Saturday, May 10 in Downtown Senatobia.  When the festival committee gathered in January and began thinking about this new two-day, much-expanded festival, we all glazed over with a look of disbelief.

Penny Hawks Frazier, festival chair, and Don Embry, director of Parks and Recreation,  discuss banner placement for the Kid's Fest area.

Why would this group meet hours on end, make phone calls, send texts, check email, organize food vendors, map out logistics of downtown, design banners and ads, make almost daily posts to our Facebook page; talk to bands, talk to beverage companies, talk to arts and crafts vendors; recruit sponsors and volunteers, deliver posters to merchants, book entertainment for Friday and all day Saturday on two stages?  I'm sure I left out something. It was more than you can imagine.

The Festival Committee begins work in January. 

Why, I asked?  Because it is obvious that we love Senatobia. Our Facebook page last week reached 3,700 people, with 548 of them actively engaged in the posts.  Not only are native Senatobians interested in the Revitalization and Restoration of Downtown, but also newcomers to the area.

Response from the community has been unbelievable.  Sponsors were proud to be a part of this new effort. Volunteers, almost 100 of them, signed up for the many jobs required for a festival of this type.

One of the many vendors, Frugal Frocks, from Senatobia.

Nothing would make me happier than to see this festival blow a breeze of renewal into our community. From here, there are so many possibilities.

Come out Friday night for the Downtown Dash, crawfish and shrimp boil and other great food, and entertainment by Mark "Mule Man" Massey, The Burning Magnolias, and Dr. Zarr's Amazing Funk Monster.

Saturday you can visit nearly 75 arts and crafts vendors, listen to more great entertainment, go to the car show, check out the food court, and see the vastly-improved Kid's Fest activities.  It's gonna be great!  Rain or shine.

Lane and Susan Tutor at the 2012 May Fair. Tutor has been the
longest participating arts and crafts vendor since the original festival began 20 years ago. 

Senatobia's Mark "Mule Man" Massey will kick off entertainment Friday night at 6 p.m. followed by Burning Magnolias and featuring Dr. Zarr's Amazing Funk Monster. Tickets are $5, and children under 12 when accompanied by an adult, will be admitted free.

Glenda Neal, TCEDF, and Volunteer Kay Minton, sort directional signs. 

Copeland, a giant in more ways than one

Do you ever just wake up thinking of someone?  I did today. I've been thinking about my friend Paul W. Copeland who was the engineer for college radio station at Northwest where I worked from 1978-1988, and before as a student in the 1973-'74 school years.

Paul Copeland
Brightleaf Amateur Radio Club, Greenville, NC

So I did a google search, and found that Paul had died in 2011.  I didn't even know.  He and his family had left Senatobia in 1984 when he took a job as a field engineer in Greenville, North Carolina.

I felt a mixture of sadness and richness. Not everyone has the chance to know someone like Paul.

A commanding figure at 6'4" and weighing an estimated 350, wore his black hair combed back and sported a long beard. You could usually find him clad in a long-sleeved shirt with overalls—year-round.

As a student, I was afraid to even ask him a question.  Soon after I got to know him, that gruffness disappeared. He taught me a little about refinishing antiques, and even talked me into doing some tombstone rubbings.

Paul Copeland Rocketeer Photo 1975

Gruff, you say?  There was no bigger heart around. Paul and his wife Charlotte were foster parents to more than 21 children. They loved and cared for them, and when they left, they were sad.  He was also a former Boy Scout leader.  He looked so spiffy in his uniform.

Paul grew up in Memphis. He got his communications training in his ten years with the U.S. Navy.  While he was at Northwest he was instrumental in writing and receiving numerous telecommunications grants. He kept the equipment fine tuned and was willing to work on air, weekends, sign on at 6 a.m. or sign off at midnight.

His little shop at the end of our hall was always a mess.  Test equipment hummed and lights blinked.When Paul talked about amps and meters and frequencies, his eyes would light up the way most men do when they talk about women! We knew we better not go in that shop to straighten up.

A classically trained pianist, Paul's musical passion was playing with The Dixie Bluegrass Boys, and he was a member of the Memphis Area Bluegrass Association.  He did a few vocals and played the dobro.  In case you don't know what that is, it is a guitar shaped instrument with reflective metal in its body. When it was inverted with its concave surface facing up, it resonated.

One of my favorite memories involving Paul was going to hear him play at the Lucy Opera in Lucy, Tenn.  This was back in the mid-1970's.  When you drove up to what looked like an old school building, you saw people collected in small groups—picking'.  Some were old guys, some young (with long hair…it was the '70s), different music, different techniques.  Then you could go inside and hear the groups take the stage.

Since Paul went there every Saturday night, he recorded the sessions and we broadcast them on our public radio station.  How cool!

Another lifelong hobby for Paul was being a HAM radio operator. For more than 56 years he used the call sign K4KCS.

All of us who worked with Paul were enriched by his many interests. He left his wife Charlotte, three children and one grandchild.

"73 to you all, this is K4KCS signing off.

Paul Copeland drove in from North Carolina for a reunion of the Dixie Bluegrass Boys in recent years.
Commercial Appeal photo

The parking lot at Homestead Farms in Coldwater was packed today as shoppers celebrated the late arrival of spring.  The view in the Easter Lily house was breathtaking.  Let us celebrate as we go into Easter week.

I want sandcastles

In this winter and gray spring that just won't turn loose, I found myself thinking about sandcastles lately.  Understand, I've never been a real beach-loving person, but sand structures bring back some great childhood memories.

My first sand building started in my backyard, nowhere near a beach.  You know you are a true Southerner if you have a tractor tire sandbox in your backyard. Since my daddy was a farmer, he provided a tractor tire for my sandbox and one for my friend Wayne.  We spent endless hours in the sand.

My first sand structures were frog houses.  That particular structure is made by covering your feet with moist sand and packing it down.  They you remove your foot and you have an igloo-type house.  Problem—I have really high arches in my feet, so when I tried to pull my foot out, my frog house usually collapsed.

Wayne, who had flatter feet, was able to pull his foot out and start the process of breaking off little sticks to cover the opening, making it look like a fort.  I just dug my foot deeper in the sand and tried again.


As a teenager I spent a good bit of time at Sardis Lake.  While baking myself in the sun, my friends and I built sandcastles.  Some built elaborate, multi-towered masterpieces. I was content to scoop up wet sand in my hand and drizzle it into abstract sand towers.  When it dried, it was pretty impressive.

No artistic Neptune sculptures for me.  Just give me wet sand to drizzle and frog houses and I'm happy. Just thinking about this makes this gray day tolerable.

Wayne and me about the time of our sandbox days.  Here we are with his daddy, W.R. Gulledge, who is sporting a beard for Senataobia's centennial celebration in 1960.  Mr. Gulledge portrayed Abe Lincoln in the centennial pageant. 

The sound of quilting

If you listen to the group of women talking as they worked on quilt projects, you heard a mix of accents—Chicago, New York, and the room was thick with the various accents of Mississippi—from Vicksburg to Senatobia.

What brings a random group of women together for a week to do nothing but sew, eat, sleep, sew more and shop for fabric?  The common passion for quilting.  The women were as varied as the colors of their quilts.  They varied in age, economic status, level of quilting knowledge, just to name a few of the differences.

Their quilts reflected those differences.  One woman had done a beautiful quilt as a memorial to her dear boy who had lived the hobo lifestyle.  She chose the symbols of hobo living to work into her quilt.  When she showed it to us, along with photos of her son, she smiled and tears sparkled in her eyes.

Some did traditional blocks, some were scrappy with favorite pieces of fabric and dresses worn long ago.

All this creativity took place at the top of an Alabama hillside in a three-story home and retreat for crafters.  We were summoned to three delicious meals a day by the ring of a silver bell.






We shared rooms and stories.  We talked about childbirth, the heartbreak of some of our children, we complained about men, and we learned from each other—lessons in life, lessons in quilting. The facility owner shared an aging Buddy to sit at our feet and watch us as we sewed. And then we told dog stories.

When we left for home we stopped and bought more quilt fabric and ate lunch.  We were hoarse from five days of talking when we returned to our respective homes.  Fabric, newly-bought, was unpacked and touched and inspected before our suitcases were sorted.

I can't wait to take my finished quilt, that looks like something you would find in a VW bus in 1969, to one of my long-arm quilter-friends.