The Southerner - A MAGAZINE ONLINE - Fall 1999 Contents Vol. 1, No. 4 Editor's Note .......................... 3 Thanksgiving's upon us. Reader Forum ......................... 7 Tell us what you think. Features Cover Story: A Reprieve for the Okefenokee? David R. Osier ......................... 8 DuPont Looting and Plundering: A Cartoon The Okefenokee Sam Rawls ............................. 12 Flag-Waving in the Palmetto State Barry Martin ........................... 16 Fiction: "Two Talks: Many Moons of Weeping," an excerpt from Tehano, a novel. Allen Wier ............................... 18 Thank You, Thank You Very Much: A Virtual Short Story ........... 30 Help us write the book on the first communiqué from extraterrestrial life. What is Elvis doing . in outerspace? Departments Essays....................... 32 Bottom Line .............. 36 R & R ........... 64 Slippery South Family Farm Drought Southern Belles Tackle Football Secret Vistas........... 40 Southern Culture ......46 WoooOOO, PiG SOOIE On Monarch's Wings Beale St. Culture Blues Politics of Pigskin Fishing Rock Creek Dixie Notes Love and Football Lab & Field .............. 57 Thrill of the Game Walking the Bog Eco Front ................. 60 Bar & Gril ................ 74 Environmental Briefs Off the French Quarter In Passing ................ 82 Jonny Moeller 3 Celestine Sibley Neely Tries Chitlins Daisy Bates Southern Sounds .... 88 Books...................... 86 Copyright © The Southerner 1999. The Southerner Fall 1999 The South may be a slippery concept, in Editor’s Note the words of John Brummett, and some may From too much love of living, not agree with his Arkansas assessment. But From hope and fear set free, it’s a thought worth pondering in Essays. We thank with brief thanksgiving Myself, I’ve been thinking about how I Whatever gods may be miss being in the midst of the migrating That no life lives forever; Monarchs on the Gulf Coast this time of year. That dead men rise up never; In Secret Vistas, Andre Bergeron would rather That even the weariest river be chasing trout on Rock Creek, and you can’t Winds somewhere safe to sea. blame him. It matters not whether the fish — Algernon Charles Swinburne, Félise,1866 are biting. But there is serious business to attend to By Glynn Wilson on Beale Street, and on the family farms of Sometimes there is no accounting for hope. Tennessee, Kentucky Thanksgiving is upon us, and what do we in and Virginia. John the South have to be thankful for? Elkington, the man who Alabama voters rejected a lottery to fund is largely responsible for education in a statewide referendum in bringing the people and October, meaning bold proposals are dead in dollars back to my home state for the next 10 years at least. downtown Memphis, We didn’t even bother to cover the Alabama now wants to kick Judy lottery vote failure in this issue, since the Peiser and the Center newspapers tell a sad enough tale. for Southern Folklore But we couldn’t resist David R. Osier’s off Beale Street. It’s a cover piece on the Okefenokee swamp, his sad state of affairs. Read sidebar on Walking the Bog in Lab & Field, the entire tale in-depth in Southern Culture. or the cartoon from Sam Rawls. DuPont And the drought in the South’s center is wants to mine the Okefenokee swamp in reaping the worst soybean harvest in 30 years. Georgia, but they will desist if the taxpayers That’s the Bottom Line. agree to pay them some percentage of what But then there’s always the diversion of they would have made off the titanium mine. football, practically a religion in the South. The Fifth Amendment not withstanding, this In R&R, some Southern women speak out on looks like corporate welfare at least, extortion the game as a social institution, and admit it’s at worst, and even the major national not a bad way to spend a Saturday in the fall. environmental groups are in on the If you want to know where to hang and settlement. DuPont needs to take a hike. But escape the tourists and their prices in New if it saves some important upland habitat in Orleans, listen to the local French Quarter the Okefenokee, more power to the wisdom of Lee Dresselhaus. Then find out the stakeholders in this fight. best place to hear Texas blues and get Tabasco In South Carolina, David Duke says he in your ribs in East Tennessee. Shhhh. Don’t loves the people and promises to move his tell anyone about Sassy Ann’s at Fourth & Gill family there, if only officials will keep the in Knoxville. We like it the way it is. While Confederate Battle Flag atop the Statehouse. you’re at the Bar & Grill, Jack Neely’s tryin’ Meanwhile, the NAACP is threatening a chitlins. Not so sure he likes ‘em. tourism boycott if the flag stays up. In some We all know no party’s worth a damn quarters, people can’t seem to figure out how without good tunes, so Ron Sitron gives us to win for losing. the lowdown on the hard times of Wilson www.southerner.net Fall 1999 “Wicked” Pickett and more blues than you can space after all. It turns out Elvis is alive and listen to all at one time in Southern Sounds. well, at least if you believe Thomas David R. Mark helps us introduce a Fortenberry and the lead-in to our first virtual section on Books in this issue, and we mourn short story. Play along and help us flesh out the passing of another great Southern this conundrum on the eve of the new columnist this time around. Carole Ashkinaze millennium. gives the Atlanta Journal-Constitutions’s Y’all come back now after the first of the Celestine Sibley her due in another new year, when the Y2K thing blows over. We will section, In Passing. be cookin’ up some superb fiction in the With any luck, you will help us figure out special issue featuring the winners of the how to take the news that there is life in outer Robert Penn Warren Prize for Fiction. The Southerner Fall 1999 Reader’s Forum Editor: Editor: Here are some general impressions of I accessed your site expecting to find an The Southerner: e-zine illustrating all the South has to offer First off, it’s a sharp looking online — past and present, young and old, black mag. It’s easy to navigate and there are no and white, conservative, moderate and crazy clashing colours that dazzle my eye. liberal. I was sorely disappointed. This doesn’t seem too important maybe, but In the first article I read, I realized your I’ve been to some sites where the text was view of the New South is a lottery-funded, unreadable because of violent background planned unit development governed by Ivy colors and clashes. League liberals, whom you call Y’all chose well, the mag is very tasteful, “progressives”, (sic) You stereotype and right down to the cartoon images of the staff hurl epithets at conservative Southern here and there. governors — labeling them “Bible-thump- The tone is very friendly and down-to- ing”, (sic) “do-nothing,” “recalcitrants” — earth, very Southern. Being a displaced giving away your political leanings. The Yankee, Southern is a little foreign to me, so article refers to civil rights being “set back I recognize it when I see it, and the mag by Reaganism,” when in fact the rise of the “feels” Southern. That’s kinda abstract, Black middle class was a hallmark achieve- maybe a bit intangible I know, but these are ment of the Reagan Era. general impressions. You play up the fact that that in South I especially like the coverage of music, Carolina, liberal Democrat Governor Jim and the perceived openness for bands to Hodges defeated conservative Republican submit their stuff for review. That’s a class David Beasley by championing a state act, in my opinion. What kind of guitar did lottery. You conveniently failed to mention they give away at the throwing contest? that the hottest issue in that race was that Might have to go next year if it’s a Strat! “progressive” Hodges pledged to keep the Keep on talking up the older blues Rebel flag flying atop the state capitol but musicians! They are getting up there and “Bible thumping” Beasley campaigned to people NEED to know about them, even if remove it for the sake of racial harmony. they don’t KNOW they need to know! Ev- You have an obvious agenda for the erything else seemed really relevant to the South, and all the kudzu from Richmond to tastes and mores etc. of people in the South, Birmingham won’t cover up the fact that at least the cross-section that I’m familiar The Southerner’s view of the South is Bos- with. ton baked beans under a thin veneer of barbecue sauce. Take care, Brian Spencer Sincerely, [email protected] Will Haynie Editorial columnist for the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times and the Hendersonville (N.C.) Times-News [email protected] A Reprieve for the Okefenokee Swamp? By David R. Osier C ynthia Loftin was walking through the tangle of lily pads and bladderworts in the warm, shallow water that covers the peat bog of Chesser Prairie on the eastern side of the Okefenokee Swamp one August day, about three years ago, when she suddenly encountered a spring. Loftin was a Ph.D. candidate in wildlife biology at the University of Florida at the time; she was studying the surface hydrology of the swamp PHOTO/DAVID R. OSIER under contract to the Minnies Lake on the Suwannee River in the western swamp, a favorite with Okefenokee National canoeists.