• Atlanta,  Life Stories

    Time Is on Our Side

    Everyone talks about how old the Rolling Stones are getting, but nobody does anything about it. Except, that is for a few friends of mine – we choose to relive a time when the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band and we were all gathering no moss.

    The year was 1975. The four of us were in colleges spread across the South, but our bonds had been forged in high school and in our love for rock ‘n’ roll music played at a decibel level high enough to un-nerve our parents and later to enrich our audiologists.

    The best tickets to the Stones concert at the Omni that summer were being distributed to people who had lots of money or who had been in town when the seats went on sale. Falling in neither category, we were shut out of the Atlanta event, so we employed a recently-learned tactic in college: the midnight road trip!

    Having learned Mick & Co. were playing the next night in Greensboro and, even more important, to a general admission audience, we knew we could rely on our youth to gain advantage.

    Charging up I-85 and arriving shortly before 5 a.m. the day of the concert, Mike Egan, Charles Driebe and George Long and I attached ourselves to the front gate of the Greensboro Coliseum and held on for dear life the rest of the day as 15,000 more gathered behind us and tried every tactic to move up in line.

    Rolling_stones_greensboro_nc

    The four of us were already practicing our future careers: lawyers Mike and Charles spent the day deposing police, security and coliseum officials to map out the shortest route to the coliseum floor. I brought my reporter’s notebook and camera to record the event for posterity. George, already pre-med, was using his broken leg and hefty cast to deter others from entering our exclusive waiting area at the gate’s opening.

    When the gates opened at 6 p.m., three of us sprinted through doorways, between railings, down stairs and over a six foot drop to land on the arena floor, where we locked our arms on the wooden barricade at the foot of the elevated stage. Catching our breaths, we turned around and were stunned to see an empty arena.

    Suddenly we saw our Sympathy for the Devil strategy had worked: the next person to enter was Jumping Jack George, hobbling with his cast, with hundreds of impatient fans at his back. He jumped down the six foot drop as if he had a flexible cast and joined us at the front. We watched as within minutes the coliseum filled from bottom to top. Then I went to work with my camera, snapping close-up shots of the concert the four of us will never forget. Partly because we often get together, review the photos and relive the drama.

    A few months ago, Charles called me to propose another Carolina road trip. This time to catch the Stones in Charlotte at the new outdoor stadium. Realizing we have grown old with the Stones, we relied on newer skills: weaseling. We were among the last to arrive at the stadium and negotiated our way to the photographers’ check-in. Charles flashed his cameras and his music editor’s credentials and I showed my publisher’s card. Charles approached the “bench.” “If you have any extra tickets …” he said to a media-herder, who shouted back, “There are no extra tickets.”

    A few minutes later, a Stones official who heard us quietly and respectfully arguing our case walked up and offered us two tickets. They were on the second row. Just a slight step down from the seats in Greensboro 22 years earlier, but certainly a lot easier to attain.

    Photo: Photo of Mick Jagger and Ron Wood, from our front row seat in Greensboro, NC in 1975.

  • Atlanta,  Media

    Re-selling the Paper

    Working downtown, I get approached by people asking me for money. They often call me “Sir,” and will say “Thank you” after I decline to give but instead wish them the best of luck.

    I quit giving money after a couple of experiences of trying to help. One time a guy approached me in a parking lot with a story about not being able to get his wife and child back to Marietta on the bus. They were waiting for him at the MARTA station. Could I give him seven bucks? My gut said he was possibly telling the truth. I gave him a ride to MARTA and said if he could produce his wife and child, I would give them the seven bucks. He couldn’t. So I wished him the best of luck and drove on.

    One night I was locked out of my car downtown. It was nice out, so I walked home. Along the Freedom Parkway, some guy said he needed money to stay at the shelter. I told him that if he would follow me he could sleep in my extra bedroom. He said he didn’t want to walk that far.

    I don’t want to be callous and I know that as a struggling entrepreneur, I’m just a step or two away from joining these comrades on the street. But I don’t think giving them money is the answer.
    The other night, I was standing outside our office building on Peachtree Street and saw a guy open up one of our Atlanta Downtown newspaper boxes and pick up about 50 of our papers.

    “Hey,” I said. “Why are you taking so many of my papers?”

    “They’re free, aren’t they?” he said.

    “Well, yes, but each one of those costs me money.”

    “Man, I homeless,” he said. “And these are my pillow.”

    “But why my papers?” I asked, pointing to the other boxes of free newspapers lined up together.

    “Okay,” he said. “This may get me in trouble, but I’m gonna level with you.” He had no smell of alcohol on his breath and he spoke intelligently. “I lost my job, I’m HIV-positive and my disability hasn’t kicked in yet. This is how I support myself. I walk up to cars or pedestrians, tell them that this is a free paper about downtown and hand them one. Now, this is where I become a fraud. I tell them that this paper is published by a nonprofit organization to benefit the homeless and I ask for a donation.”

    I laughed out loud. “So far, I think you’re still telling the truth, about the nonprofit part. You’ve probably made more money this year than I have.”

    “I distribute 50 or 60 of these a day,” he said.

    “That’s great,” I said. “But I’d rather you pass out these other papers. Why do you always clean out my boxes?”

    “I’ve tried using those other papers, but they don’t move as well. People pay more for yours.”
    I laughed again. Here I’ve been struggling for three years trying to sell enough advertising to pay for nearly 100,000 free papers and I hear from this one-man-research-and-development-department that I could have been charging for them all along.

    “Man,” he said. “You should hire me to distribute your papers. Why don’t you give me a job?”
    “I think I already have,” I laughed. “You’re working now. I’ve got to go, but why don’t you call me tomorrow.”

    We shook hands in the warm Atlanta evening and wished each other luck. I never heard from him again, but I’m glad I met him. Entrepreneurs get ideas from everywhere. You never know when one will make you money.

  • Life Stories

    Letters to the President

    I’ve been writing a lot of letters lately, some to people I’ve never met and others I’ve known in my travels through the newspaper industry. I’m looking for potential investors in my company. Things have been tight recently and, after three years, it might be time to look for some real live capital. These letters are a challenge for me to write.

    I haven’t been good about writing letters to my friends or family the past few years, but I have been sending them copies of my newspaper. When I see them, they say they feel like they have kept up with me through my (sometimes too) personal columns. So I usually let them do all the talking about what’s been going on in their lives.

    When I was a child, I loved to explore. One time I was rummaging through the attic and found a box of old love letters my mother had written my father before they were married and some after their wedding when he was overseas during World War II. I grabbed my brothers and sisters and we squealed with delight as we read through the more sappy passages. Apparently, dad had kept these hidden for years and mom didn’t know it. When we began peering into their youth, it must have embarrassed them because the next day, I caught dad looking over them one last time before he tossed them one by one into our outdoor trash incinerator. I was sorry I stumbled upon them.

    I’ve kept letters all my life. Some stupid ones from grade school, some from old flames in high school when I was at boarding school. And all the ones from my own courtship. I keep them in case my children or ex-wife have any interest in reading them someday.

    When I was eight or nine I began writing President Lyndon Johnson. I wish I had copies of those letters today. They would serve as a diary of sorts. I can’t remember all that I wrote him, but I do remember discussing important subjects such as my cats and my goldfish. I talked about my family and school. I don’t believe I addressed any political subjects. Vietnam was not on the front pages yet.

    I remember one day sitting at my kitchen table writing in pencil on legal pads. I had written six or seven pages when my dad came home from work.

    “What are you writing?” he asked.

    “Oh, a letter to the president,” I replied, matter of factly. I didn’t even look up to see what must have been a puzzled smile on his face.

    The amazing thing is that I got letters back. They were written by the president’s “personal” secretary and she assured me that President Johnson enjoyed reading about my cats and my family. She even sent along some autographed photographs of LBJ holding up his famous beagles by the ears.

    One time, when I was at summer camp in Tennessee, my dad forwarded a letter from the White House to me. I’ll never forget that day at lunch, when the counselor handed out the day’s mail. When he got to mine, his face turned ashen. He got up and walked around the table and pointed to the return address with the White House logo. He looked puzzled.

    “Oh,” I said. “It’s just another letter from President Johnson. He and I have been writing each other for a while.” My cabin mates were not very impressed, but my counselor treated me with a lot more respect after that.

  • Fatherhood

    Love Lessons

    Five years ago this month, a Fulton County Superior Court judge I never met signed a document hurriedly thrust before him and, with a stroke of his pen, dissolved my marriage. It was a relationship that had consumed half my life. I’m only now getting my bearings back.

    Since then, I’ve watched other friends and relatives marry and divorce. I’ve witnessed the “blending,” of any number of combinations of family units. My children’s friends talk of ex-step-brothers or previous step-parents. They witness all sorts of creative couple alternatives.

    I’ve always thought it ironic that society prepares us least for the two most important roles we will ever play: that of parent and that of partner.

    If I were asked to teach a college course on the realities of those two life paths, I would include the following lessons about relationships with a partner and with kids that I’ve learned the hard way:

    What you see is what you get. A friend of mine likes to comment that people don’t change that much over a lifetime, they just become more and more like themselves. Entering into relationships thinking others will change is fatal. Learning to accept others just as they are is vital.

    Expect to be disappointed. At some point in your relationships, you will be greatly disappointed. Probably hurt in a way you never thought possible. It hurts a lot less if you anticipate it. The chances of your relationships with your partners or your kids surviving the injury greatly increase if you prepare ahead of time a coupon entitling them to at least one “free forgiving.” We all make stupid mistakes at some point. There was only one person who was perfect and He begged the rest of us to learn to forgive.

    Just get through the bad times. A couple of times each decade, people enter what author Gail Sheehy called a “passage.” Passage means a way through to the other side. Let them get there on their own. If you think your partner or kids are all of a sudden acting crazy, focus on something else. Take long walks. Increase your exercise regimen. Join a class or a support group. At some point, they will return to the path. It may take months or even years, but the wait will be worth it.

    Give up control. You cannot control anyone except yourself – and that is enough of a challenge. Let your partner or your kids (above age 14) do what they have to do to learn their own lessons. Trying to prevent others from pursuing their own friends or hobbies or bad habits will only make the pursuit seem more enticing. Let them go. Try to control them and they will quickly forget why they loved you in the first place.

    Silence is golden, listening is divine. So much of the bad stuff that goes on in today’s households is the result of not paying attention. We don’t listen but want others to listen to us! They won’t – until you’ve demonstrated that you really understand them. Then, they will signal you when they are ready to listen to you. Usually by asking for your opinion. Until then, they are not ready. Be patient.

    One of my favorite lines about life or relationships is from “A Song for Life,” by singer Rodney Crowell: “I’ve learned how to listen to a sound like the sun going down.” If you can do that, you’ll be the best parent or best partner you can be – until you mess up. And that leads to the final lesson I’m still learning five years later:

    Forgive yourself, learn the lessons and move on.

  • Uncategorized

    Goodbye to My Heroes

    I don’t have many heroes. I’m rather strict with my requirements. A single heroic act is not enough; they must be dogged in pursuit of a dream and be sincere in their professional demeanor and approachable and friendly in their personal lives.

    I was saddened when two of them died last month, within a day of each other.

    I was driving my kids to the beach when we heard on the radio that Jimmy Stewart had died. Jimmy_stewart It felt as if someone I had actually known had died. He was in some great movies, but it was his character that drew me into them. I explained to my kids how much a part of my childhood he had been, how I had been totally absorbed by the suspense in his Alfred Hitchcock films.

    My favorite was “Rear Window.” When I saw it again as an adult, my life had changed considerably. The plot was secondary, it was the character that I identified with now. A photojournalist given to wanderlust; when confined to his home, he finds intrigue when he turns an eye on his own neighborhood. He was resistant to involvement in a relationship, even one with the beautiful and charming Grace Kelly.

    The next day, we listened on the radio as they announced the death of Charles Kuralt. An unlikely hero, you might think. He was bald, overweight and talked slowly. But it was his perception that was so piercing. Talk about wanderlust! He wandered for years in a CBS Winnebago and during the harsh times of the ’60s and ’70s, presented a softer side of America that it seemed only he could find. He was a hero in part because he found the heroic in everyone else: the man who had a lending library of bicycles for a poor side of town, the sharecropping Mississippi couple who picked cotton for 50 cents a day, but sent seven children off to earn college and advanced degrees.

    Charles_kuralt_2

    I so admired Charles Kuralt that when I worked for The Charlotte Observer  I invited him back to his childhood home to speak as part of a newspaper centennial celebration. I spent a day driving him around his hometown. When I brought him in the newspaper’s lobby, he immediately ambled over to an old linotype machine. He remembered how it used to work.

    CBS was sending him the following month to Moscow as part of a summit conference. Not to cover the presidents, but to cover something much more significant: the return after a 60-year-absence of native son and concert pianist Vladamir Horowitz who was to play in the same concert hall he had last played in before his defection. Charles later said it was the “Sunday Morning” broadcast of which he was most proud.

    But this day in Charlotte, Charles needed a typewriter to take to Moscow. He was going to cover the triumphant return of pianist Vladimir Horowitz. Vladimir_horowitz He wasn’t sure of what electronic accommodations he would encounter and he wanted something he could count on. Laptop computers had just been introduced, but we were in pursuit of something much simpler.

    He directed me to an old business machine store he had frequented. After chatting with several employees he remembered, we walked the aisles of the store, carefully looking over all their old, retired models. In the corner, he found it. A typewriter that needed no electricity, that was dark with age and character and came with its own hinged cover. Charles had found what he was always able to find: the simple item, unadorned by life’s counterproductive distractions, focused on and able to do what it was always meant to do and to do it the best of any of its kind.

    The same qualities that I look for in a hero.

    Photos: Jimmy Stewart, Charles Kuralt and Vladamir Horowitz.

  • Atlanta,  Media

    Interview with the Editor

    Over the past few weeks, I’ve been interviewing a lot of folks for sales positions. Some managers take the interview process very seriously.

    They will sit the candidates in the same chair, ask the same questions and stare them down with the same steely eye. There are legendary stories about interview nightmares, like the one about the U.S. president who took a cabinet candidate out for lunch. When the prospect salted his food before tasting it, the president nixed him for making a decision not based on facts.

    Me – I’m about as far away from that as can be. Of the people I hired, one I interviewed over the phone long distance. Another walked into my office without an appointment (which is how I like to sell to my advertisers), one interviewed with another employee and never even gave me a résumé until a week after starting the job. Another I met at the bar at Atkins Park in Virginia-Highland. I asked her if she wanted a beer. She later confided to fellow employees that she wondered if it was a test. Would be better to drink a soft drink or to drink a beer as I did? On Fridays at 6 p.m., Atkins Park traditionally passes out complimentary shots of Jaegermeister. She was perplexed. What was the right thing to do?

    I guess we learn from our role models. My first job interview was in New Orleans, where I drove in my junior year of college to meet Philip Carter, an editor of a French Quarter weekly and the Delta Democrat-Times in Greenville, Miss. I took all my college articles, a nice résumé and the clearest head I could muster for such an auspicious occasion. When Philip showed up for my interview, he had some friends in tow.

    Philip’s wife, Lynn, suggested we all go to their house in the quarter and start the interview there. Upon arrival, as is the tradition in New Orleans, a party started. Somewhere between rounds, Philip suggested he take a look at my articles. We talked a little about journalism, his paper, the job, etc. Then as we shook hands on Bourbon Street, he said I could start my reporter’s job upon graduation the next May.

    I was the envy of my college class. Most of the seniors spent the year agonizing over whether they could get a job interview, and here I was with a full-time job in my chosen profession lined up already. On graduation weekend, I decided to join some friends backpacking in Europe that summer, so I called Philip, as I had every few months, to see if I could delay my job start until August.

    “August,” he said. “But it will be over then.”

    “Over,” I said. “What will be over?”

    “Your summer internship.”

    I nearly dropped the phone. My whole life flashed before me. No job. No money. No trip to Europe. Here all my friends had spent all year fighting for jobs and I had not given it a thought. Now I would have to start all over again.

    “Philip,” I said. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You hired me for a full-time job.”

    “I don’t have a full-time job open. How did we get this messed up? We’ve been talking all year since the interview.”

    “Well, Philip,” I said. “You remember the interview. Your friends came over and … ”

    “Oh, yeah,” he said, laughing. “Let me see what I can do.” He talked to his managing editor. Fortunately, a reporter had just announced she was pregnant and had given notice.

    So my career as a newspaperman was safe. My skills as an interviewer, however, may have been permanently impaired.

  • Atlanta,  Life Stories

    The Secret Formula

    My friend Charles Driebe Jr. was born a lawyer. The first time I met him, when he joined our eighth grade class, he would argue about anything and would stick to his positions – whether they were right or wrong – like a pit bulldog.

    Although Charles has mellowed a bit in the past few years, he still exemplifies the old quote, “Often wrong, but never in doubt.” He is a fine lawyer and serves his clients well.

    But as for his friends, well that’s another matter. It is a rare day indeed that one of Charles’ friends ever wins acknowledgment that we won an argument with him. If we do, we lord it over him for years and brag about it in front of others – to his great consternation.

    One thing Charles won’t argue about is mayonnaise. He hates it. Back in high school, we started doing grown-up things like having dinner parties and guests would bring dishes. and before dinner could be served, he would carefully check each dish. If someone had made a casserole of questionable origin, he would lean down and sniff the concoction two or three times. Then he would squint his eyes, crinkle his nose, look skeptically at the maker of the dish and ask in his most prosecutorial voice, “Does this have any my-nez in it?” If a mayonnaise jar had so much as been opened in the same room while the dish was being prepared, Charles wouldn’t touch it, much to the dismay of the cook.

    When it came to dinner parties, I was a one-trick pony. I always brought my family’s secret blue cheese salad. It is no ordinary blue cheese salad. The lettuce and vegetable medley might vary slightly, but the recipe for the dressing was brought 120 years ago from Kentucky by my great-grandmother and I proudly maintain the purity of the original formula. It has an oil and vinegar base, with a strong kick. It has always passed the Charles test and he was one of my salad’s biggest fans.

    When Charles was engaged, he sent his fiancée to my house with orders to find out my secret formula so she could make the salad for him on a weekly basis when they got married. I don’t give out this recipe to anybody, but I was flattered with the level of honor Charles gave my concoction and I took her into my confidence. “There is one secret ingredient that I’ve never told anyone,” I told her very seriously. “And if I tell you, you have to promise never to tell anyone – and especially you can never, ever tell Charles.” Her eyes widened with excitement. “You don’t mean …” she said. “Yes,” I whispered. “Mayonnaise.”

    After their first meal she called me to tell me that our secret was safe. At one point, she told me that she had decided to tinker with the formula by adding even more mayonnaise. The more she put in the more Charles liked the salad. One night she dumped in what she was afraid was a detectable amount of the secret ingredient, but after Charles had had seconds and thirds, he leaned back and announced that she could now make the salad better than I ever could.

    For 25 years now, Charles has been eating this salad. I’ve let a few others in on the secret, usually after a few glasses of wine at Charles’ dinner parties, when he’s in the next room. Even my kids will lean over before meals at which Charles is a guest and ask in whispered tones, “Does Charles know yet?”

    “No,” I’d assure them. And he never knew.

    Until now.

  • Media,  Spirituality

    Friends Indeed

    It was 6 a.m. on Good Friday. Our staff had spent most of Thursday stuffing newspapers and personally addressed letters into envelopes and paper bags to be delivered by hand to hundreds of business prospects around the city. We were launching our newest paper, Atlanta Downtown.

    Associate Publisher Jan Butsch and I had drawn the predawn duty of pulling the newspapers hot off the press and putting them into the bags along with bagels from Highland Bagel. We had 45 minutes before the courier showed up. Despite our optimistic spirit (which had brought us downtown in the first place), it seemed doubtful we would make it.

    Usually on Friday mornings you will find me at a bar near Lenox Square. I meet with a group of men to drink orange juice and coffee. We talk about spiritual issues and whatever other topics arise during the hour we spend together. Mostly it’s a bunch of guys looking for more meaning in life.

    I found the group during a rather dark period in my life. I’d suffered a series of setbacks that affected my personal life, job and health. I was in the north Georgia mountains with my two children in a state of shock when the phone rang. My college roommate (with whom I hadn’t spoken in several years) was calling from Hong Kong. I had no clue how he got my number. During the course of the discussion he said he wanted me to meet his brother-in-law, who lived in Atlanta. I did and his brother-in-law asked me to join him for breakfast at the bar near Lenox.

    The guys at the bar talked about the inspiration they found in the Bible, a book I hadn’t looked at in years. They wanted me to come back every Friday. I did and found some much-needed support, both from exploring spirituality, as well as from the fellowship with the other men.

    A couple of years later, I started working for myself. People that do that have to spend time looking inward, searching for more energy, creativity, direction. Sometimes it just isn’t there and doubt creeps in. We begin to feel depleted and don’t know where to turn.

    That Friday morning, Jan and I stood outside the door to the Flatiron building as I struggled with my keys, our arms full of newspapers and our bodies feeling the bone-wearying fatigue of the past few months of frantic preparation for this first issue. Neither one of us said anything, but I think we both felt our energy declining.

    Just then a car pulled up and a voice called out, “Looks like you two could use some help.” I turned and saw a guy from my Friday morning group. Then two more came. These three men had gotten up early and had driven downtown to help us put newspapers and bagels in bags. I have no idea how they found me. I hadn’t even told them where I would be – just that I couldn’t make the meeting. Somehow, they figured it out from there.

    Jan and I looked at each other in amazement. We knew angels when we saw them. And that they had been sent by a God who has a great sense of timing. We made the deadline.

    Some people think angels only come in life-or-death situations. And putting bagels in bags or even putting out the first issue of a newspaper doesn’t qualify. But once again I received support from an unexpected place, and once again my spirit was renewed.

  • Family,  Fatherhood

    Shirts Off My Back

    A few weeks ago, my daughter brought a friend home for the weekend. They’re both 14, the age when friends – and what they think of you – are more important than anything else in the world.

    I don’t get to see my daughter and son enough: every other weekend, a few weeks scattered across traditional vacation times, including summer, Christmas, Thanksgiving and spring holidays. We’ve been divorced for nearly five years now. At first, I saw my kids on Wednesday nights, at school plays, soccer games, midweek birthdays and the like. But when their mother remarried and moved to Charlotte about the time I published my first issue of Atlanta 30306, our paths parted more than we had expected. Had these newspapers not taken off so quickly, I might have taken off for Charlotte myself, to be nearer to them. But life had a different script.

    When Sally called to say she wanted to bring a friend from Charlotte, I was conflicted. It meant I wouldn’t spend as much time alone with her, but when I did see her, she wouldn’t be pining away to be somewhere else, such as with a friend. As it turned out, we had fun driving around to the “cool” parts of Atlanta, trying to rent the cool videos, watching the cool TV shows and listening to the cool radio songs. Cool is the driving factor with kids that age and what exactly is cool is constantly up for redefinition, based on a set of ever-shifting criteria. What is cool one weekend my not be in the least two weeks later.

    I’m like a lot of guys in that I usually hate shopping, but I’ve learned to enjoy it with Sally. It gives me a chance to share in a project with her and I get a little peek into her 14-year-old lifestyle. That age was not a great one for me. I remember adolescence as full of awkwardness, rebellion and feeling distant from everything and everyone except my closest friends. I was so happy to emerge from that valley when I turned 17. And I worry about Sally as she faces the same sorts of demons. Today’s school hallways are more intense, the battle between good and evil much more apparent. So shopping is a neutral ground, a place where we talk about gathering resources to face the demons.

    Sally’s friend had lost her own father to death at an early age. She seemed to appreciate my presence in Sally’s life. Somewhere on the road between the retro T shirt racks in Little Five Points, Virginia-Highland and Buckhead, Sally and her friend asked if I had any old T shirts from previous decades. I told them I had an old box of shirts up in my attic that I hadn’t seen for years. When we got home, they asked that I get down the box.

    The top few shirts were from running events or various newspaper promotions from the 1980s. Some of these shirts made it into the girls’ take-home pile. Others went back into the box. A few layers down, they uncovered a 1983 shirt promoting the child development center she attended when she was a baby. That shirt was given a top grade. So was one with a running baked potato. Shirts promoting football or basketball teams went back in the box.

    Here they were looking for fashion finds, and I found was reminiscing about landmark events in my life. History as told by T shirts. Digging deeper, she found a 1975 beach T shirt given to me by her mother when we first started dating in college. It was pink and it was deemed cool.

    At the bottom of the box were two striped shirts from 1970, screen printed with the name of Georgetown Prep, tbe boarding school I attended when I was 14. Immediately I was flooded with memories of those years. How I felt so displaced in a cold dorm room in the faceless suburbs of Washington, D.C. As Sally looked over the shirts with a skeptical eye, her friend encouraged her to take those shirts to school. They made it into Sally’s suitcase.

    Now, when I think about Sally wandering the hills and valleys of her own adolescense – and my own frustration at being two states away from her – I take some comfort in knowing that a piece of me is snuggled tight against her, acting as a shield of sorts against the threats to life I can only imagine.

  • Atlanta,  Media

    The Big Dinner of Chitlins

    When I was just a cub reporter on the Delta Democrat-Times in Greenville, Miss., I was assigned the police and courts beat. My favorite stop on my way to work every morning was the county jail, a popular place for legal hangers-on like me. Lawyers, probation officers, bail bondsmen, deputies and reporters would all stop off at the jail and say their howdy-dos to Sheriff Harvey Tackett.

    Now, the sheriff, Harvey Tackett, was a fine man and all and we were always happy to see him, but if the truth be told, he wasn’t the main attraction. It was the kitchen, which was run by prisoners that had become trusties and happened to be great cooks.

    Every morning, we’d stop in and pull a hot biscuit off the stove, stuff it full of ham or bacon or sausage, grab a hot cup of coffee and wander back to the sheriff’s office for a little talk. When the talk went a little dry, we’d wander back down the hall to the kitchen and grab some grits or maybe some cornbread. Sometimes, when the talk went on for a couple of hours, we’d check on how lunch was proceeding.

    After a few months, everyone started talking about the sheriff’s Annual Chitlin Dinner, comparable in importance in Greenville to a state dinner at the White House.

    “You coming to the Big Dinner?” a county commissioner asked me over biscuits one day.

    “Sure, wouldn’t miss it,” I said.

    “Ever eat a chitlin’, son?” he asked, looking at me skeptically.

    “Why sure,” I said. “I am from the South, you know.”

    “Whereabouts?”

    “Georgia,” I say proudly.

    “Georgia? Where in Georgia?”

    “Atlanta.”

    The commissioner put his coffee down and looked me in the eye. “Son, I thought you said you were from the South.”

    Actually, I wasn’t quite positive I had ever eaten a chitlin. In fact, I was a little afraid to admit I didn’t even know what one was.

    One day, I walked in the jail and things were all askew. First of all, it stunk to hog heaven. Secondly, there was a lot of noise coming from the second floor, where the inmates were kept in cells. I walked in the kitchen to get my biscuit and I saw Sheriff Tackett standing over several big pots boiling on the stove. He was stirring one pot and he didn’t look happy. Upstairs, I could hear cups being rattled against the prison bars. The prisoners were yelling. The cook, a trusty – or a prisoner who had earned the sheriff’s trust – was standing by the door behind the sheriff. Behind him was a woman who served as the sheriff’s records manager. She had red hair, was young and sassy.

    “It’s bad,” Sheriff said. “It’s a bad batch of chitlins.”

    “How do you know a bad batch from a good batch?” the woman kidded the sheriff. “All chitlins smell bad to me!”

    “It’s a bad batch, I’m telling you,” the sheriff said. “We’ll have to put off the dinner until next week.” So the word went out throughout the county, the sheriff’s dinner was postponed.

    A week later, the day of the big dinner arrived. I arrived late, on purpose. The room was full and loud. I loaded up my plate with french fries, cole slaw and chitlins, both boiled and fried. I sat down with the fire chief, a lawyer and two county commissioners. We all chatted as I finished off my fries and cole slaw. Then it got real quiet as they stopped talking to watch me take my first bite of chitlins.

    Unfortunately, I tried a boiled one first. It was so tough I could barely chew it, and as I bit into it a strong pork flavor exploded in my mouth, emitting an odor reminiscent in its intensity and repulsiveness of foul odors from my past – my fraternity house the night after a big party or the showers at summer camp. Now I had eaten all parts of various animals, but that chitlin tasted like nothing I’d ever put in my mouth before or since. As I quickly downed a gallon of iced tea, the whole table laughed uproariously.

    Others wandered over to goad me into eating more. Just as I was pouring ketchup all over the fried chitlins, which I hoped would prove to be more edible, a new reporter from the Memphis Commercial-Appeal walked in the door. Spotting a new victim, everybody at my table got up and wandered over to watch him try the chitlins for the first time.

    I escaped out the back door. My pride was intact. My Southern heritage was defended. My stomach – well, let’s just say it was a week or two before I returned to get a biscuit from the sheriff’s kitchen, which smelled like chitlins for a long time after the big dinner.