The Pearl River Reservoir

I don't use the phrase "Ross Barnett Reservoir."  I don't use it because Ross Barnett was an asshole, and I"m embarrassed of him.  It's difficult to convince people Mississippi is changed and evolved beyond our racist past when they hear the largest body of water in central Mississippi is still named for our most famous racist.

Ross Barnett wasn't a great man and certainly no great leader.  What did he ever accomplish as governor other than fighting to keep Mississippi segregated?  The only reason I can imagine that anyone would want to name anything after him is that there must have been some guys in the legislature who were still pissed off about Washington forcing Mississippi to integrate, and this was their "fuck you" to the Kennedys.

Barnett approved the plan to send Freedom Riders to Parchment, ordering them strip-searched to humiliate them and taking their beds away to intimidate them for the crime of sitting in a bus station. Barnett hated the black-and-tan Republicans and fought any development of a two-party system in Mississippi.

Barnett would have you believe he fought integration with every fiber of his being. If you listen to the recordings of him and John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy's recollections of the Meredith affair after the fact, it's clear that Barnet knew he couldn't win.  He hoped to use the whole matter to ingratiate himself with the anti-integration factions in Mississippi.

It might be a legend, but the story goes that after the court order to admit James Meridith to the University of Mississippi, Barnett stood at the door to the registrar's office at Ole Miss, with scores of white protestors and even more white national guard troops beyond.  Meridith ascended the steps to complete his court-ordered registration, flanked by white guards and white lawyers.  When he reached the door, Barnett reportedly said, "Which one of you gentlemen is James Meridith?"

Showboat, all of it was a showboat.  Barnett had no intention of leading Mississippi; he only wanted to ride the wave of our hate and cultural shortcomings to enrich himself and inflate his legacy.  

After his term as governor, Barnett sought to rebuild his previously successful plaintiff's law practice.  He sued my dad when a fella ran into a truck making deliveries to the Crystal Springs furniture plant.  We made a fair offer to settle, but Barnett refused.  "While I was serving the great state of Mississippi, my law partners stole every bit of my practice, and I need a big victory to restore my reputation," Barnett told the judge.  The judge advised Barnett to reconsider and settle because Bill Goodman was making a fool of him in court.  Barnett settled.

I've heard noises through the years of re-naming the reservoir, but nothing ever came of it.  I don't know if there was ever a bill to rename it.   None are pending now.  I've heard the opinion that the Pearl River Valley Water Supply District board could rename the reservoir without legislative action, but I have no idea if that's accurate.  If they can do it, they should just do it quietly one day and let that be that.  Until someone makes an official name change, I will continue to call it "The Pearl River Reservoir" because it's accurate, and there's no adverse history associated with that name.  

Tarzan Not Talk Like Frankenstein

 Tarzan not stupid.  Tarzan learn English and French from book before Tarzan meet Jane.  Movie Tarzan very different from book Tarzan.

Seriously, I don't know how Johnny Weismuller became so popular.  Besides the jungle setting, Weismuller's Tarzan is nothing like the character in the books.  Come to think of it, the creature in Shelly's Frankenstein didn't talk like that either.  Maybe audiences in the 30s had a thing for mute strongmen.  

Tarzan of the novels was very articulate and possessed almost super-human intelligence.  He learned to read and write from the books in his father's treehouse, without any other human interactions.   When Tarzan visits America in the first novel, he behaves like an exemplary English gentleman, a far cry from Weismuller's nearly wordless interpretation.

Besides the fake ears they made for the Indian Elephants to make them look African, the best thing about Weismuller's first Tarzan film is Maureen O'Sullivan in her 1932 costume.  (Much more leather was added to her buckskin bikini by the next film.)  Subsequent films ended up almost a parody of the character from the first film.

Weissmuller's Tarzan introduced the trope of the chimpanzee sidekick, which actually isn't in the novels.  Although several chimpanzees have been reported as the original Cheetah through the years, they likely used several throughout the different films, as chimps get pretty dangerous to work with as they mature. The Cheetah you see on screen never seems to grow, even though sometimes a few years pass between productions.  Chimps are notorious poop-throwers and biters.  Many trained chimps had their canine teeth removed to make them slightly less dangerous.  Training methods often involved dramatic beatings and occasional drugs.  They solved this problem for 1984's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, by having Rick Baker create all the apes using human actors.  Even today, Baker remains Hollywood's greatest gorilla man.

 Tall, attractive, and an Olympic athlete, Weismuller looked the part, but any resemblance to the Tarzan in the books ends there.  Much has been made of the lengths MGM sound designers went through to develop Weismuller's famous Tarzan yell, but Weismuller insisted it was his own voice, and in later life, he was able to perform it live.  It can't be too much of a stretch to believe it was his own voice; after all, even Carol Burnett could imitate it. 

I'm not sure what I would have thought of Tarzan if Weismuller was my first exposure.  Willis O'Brien's Skull Island certainly made an impression on me, so maybe the MGM jungle would have been as memorable.  My first Tarzan, however, was Ron Ely.

Ely's Tarzan was in color.  He was articulate and educated like the Tarzan of the novels.  He's why I picked up my brother's copy of Tarzan and the Leopard Men (1932) and never looked back.  

Ely's Tarzan was set in the modern-day (the 1960s) and sometimes featured very modern concepts.  One episode even had computers.  There was no Jane for his Tarzan, (but I was six, so who cares?) He did have a son character, who was written as an orphaned Mexican boy.  They never explained how a Mexican orphan ended up in Africa.  Manuel Padilla Jr. played several television roles before Jai on Tarzan.  He could deliver his lines, and child actors you could work with were pretty hard to find, so he got the job I guess.

There were 57 episodes of Ron Ely's Tarzan.  He performed most of his own stunts, and he had the scars to prove it, including more than one lion bite.  After the initial run, they played in a re-run every Saturday afternoon until I was twelve or thirteen.  By the time I did see a Weismuller Tarzan, I was already under the spell of King Kong and obsessed with 1930s adventure cinema, so I soon saw all of them.  (Thank you, Ted Turner) 

After Tarzan, Ely was never out of work very long.  The next time he caught my eye was George Pal's, Doc Savage.  I loved the Doc Savage novels and had about ten of them.  Pal intended to do a straight version of Savage like in the books, but the finished product was pretty campy and did poorly with audiences.

Pal originally wanted Steve Reeves to play Doc Savage, but he was too old and unavailable.  Ron Ely was only too happy to get the role. Initially, Pal and Ely hoped to make several Doc Savage films and end Pal's storied career on a high note.  Fate had different plans, though. Doc Savage was released in 1975 and bombed.  It never played a first-run theater in Jackson, so I had to get someone to take me to the drive-in to see it.  

Ely never stopped, though.  He even ended up taking over the job of hosting the Miss America Pagent in 1980 when Bert Parks retired.  

There would be many more Tarzans after Ron Ely, but he was my first, and when I read the novels now, it's his voice I hear.

What Is The Mississippi Delta

The good Lord made some people to heal us.  My new friend Jennifer gave me a copy of Delta Hot Tamales by Anne Martin.  Jennifer's mom runs Sollys in Vicksburg, so she knows a thing or two about Tamales.

You have to be careful with Delta girls.  They'll steal your heart, and you'll never get it back.  Lord knows, there are pieces of mine from Memphis to Natchez. I don't regret a minute of it.  Lightning can strike the same spot many, many times.

It begs the question, though, what exactly is "The Delta."   In season six, episode one of Andrew Zimmerman's Bizarre Foods about Delta cuisine, he covers Sollys in Vicksburg, but he also includes Jackson and reviews The Big Apple Inn and Walker's Drive-in.  Lord knows I love Big Apple Inn and Walkers, but is Jackson The Delta?  I never heard such, but The Food Network seems to think so.   

A geologist will tell you the Mississippi Alluvial Plain includes parts of Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.  Flooding the Mississippi River as it goes into the Gulf of Mexico creates it.  It only looks like a triangular delta when it gets to New Orleans.  Is New Orleans The Delta?

Fay Wray with Debbie Reynolds
Tammy and the Bachelor (1957)

You've probably heard that The Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and runs to Catfish Row in Vicksburg.  Sometimes, it's the duck-pond fountain in the Peabody to Under the Hill in Natchez.  These definitions have been used so long that I"m struggling to find out who said it first.  It's often attributed to Twain, but I'm not ready to plant my flag there just yet.  

Fay Wray once told me she made a movie about The Delta with Leslie Nielson set in Natchez, so as far as I'm concerned, Natchez is in The Delta.  I'll take Fay Wray's side on anything. The film was based on the book Tammy Out of Time, written by Cid Ricketts Sumner, a Millsaps Alumni, and produced the hit Tammy's In Love, sung by Debbie Reynolds.  

Why the Peabody Hotel, though?  Before cotton was king, The Delta primarily grew tobacco.  Cotton was easy to grow but difficult to process. Ely Whitney changed all that with his Cotton Gin.  Once Mississippi started growing cotton, they had to get it to market.  The river flows north to south, so all our cotton and tobacco went downstream to New Orleans for many years, with growers cashing in there and making their way home with the profits as best they could by the Natchez trace.  

When the steam engine came to the Mississippi,  up-river was as easy as down-river, so the Cotton Exchange in Memphis became the financial center of the Delta economy, with the Peabody just scant blocks away.  Planters traded their cotton for coupons at the Cotton Exchange and spent them at Beal Street and the Peabody.  Don't ask what they spent it on.

So, does cotton define The Delta?  My great-grandfather grew an awful lot of cotton and corn outside of Kosciusko in Hesterville.  Is Attala county The Delta?  Many farms in The Delta don't even grow cotton anymore; soybeans are easier on the soil and often more profitable. What about catfish and rice?  India and China grow almost twice as much cotton as the United States. Are they The Delta?

Maybe The Delta is political.  Despite being yellow-dog Democrat for many years, the Mississippi Delta was one of the most conservative places in the United States.  Florida passed them years ago, and now the Mississippi Gulf Coast is far more conservative than The Delta.  

What about culture?  If you go by country of origin, Mississippi Delta citizens include African, American Native, French, Spanish, English, Scottish,  Irish, and Italian.  Toward the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, Jewish, Hispanic, Chinese, Indian, and East Asian peoples started populating The Delta.  Religiously, you'll find Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Methodists (united and independent), and don't forget about the Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, and Buddhist congregations.  

Shelby Foote is from Greenville, but some of the most famous writers about The Delta aren't even from there.  Eudora Welty is from Jackson, and William Faulkner is from New Albany. Is that The Delta?

If you're from here, you know many parts of Mississippi aren't The Delta if you're from here. There's The Coast, The Piney Woods, The Golden Triangle, and more.   But, If you're not from Mississippi, you probably think it's all Delta.

Maybe, The Delta is what you say it is.  Andrew Zimmerman and his producers seem to think so.  Try telling people not from here that Elvis was born in Lee County, not The Delta.    I don't want to start any arguments, and I'm not one to tell you how to think, but if you're from here, you really should have an opinion on this.

The Kidnapping of Annie Laurie Hearin

 This story is pretty hard for me to tell.  Those are the stories worth telling though, so bear with me.

July 1988.  I still worked for my dad at Missco and lived at Pebble Creek Apartments in Jackson.  I opened the mail with my dad at six-thirty that morning.  He was uncharacteristically silent. It was the busy season, and the company was doing well.  Usually, I'd have coffee and chat with Mrs. Jeffreys, Mrs. Noel, and him after finishing the mail until eight am when the workday started, but he went straight to his office that day.  I began to suspect something was up.

Three or four times during the day, he asked his secretary to close the door to his office.  That rarely happened.    I knew something was up, but what?  That night, I brought laundry to my mom's house.  There were machines at Pebble Creek, but I had a bad feeling, so I used hers.  My brothers were at their homes, and my sister was with her college friends.  

My dad watched television in the den without making a sound.  I made a fried egg sandwich in the kitchen while my laundry cycled.  Mom sat in the kitchen, watching her little television and drinking her scotch and tab (I know that sounds gross, but it was her drink of choice).  She held the plastic glass in her hand but didn't sip it while the ice melted.  She didn't want a sandwich.  My dad didn't either.  

The doorbell rang.  It was Leon Lewis.  Leon Lewis in the middle of the night, without Mrs. Lewis.  Something was up.  Dad and Mr. Lewis retired to the living room, not the den.  The living room we never used. They spoke quietly.  I began to worry in earnest.  Dad came to the kitchen and gave me a ten-dollar bill.  "Get me a couple packs of Viceroy, buddy."  My dad wanted two packs of cigarettes in the middle of the night.  That had never happened before.

I went to the gas station next door to what used to be the Tote-Sum at Maywood Mart, now converted into one of Jackson's first Subway franchises.  I got the two packs of Viceroy and added one pack of Merit Ultra Lights and a pickle in a napkin for me.  I put his smokes in a bag with the change and ate my pickle on the drive home.

Brum Day joined dad and Mr. Lewis in the living room when I got home. Whatever was going on, Trustmark was involved.  I loved Brum, but his appearances carried weight.  I was very worried and gave my mother a look.  She said she'd tell me later.  After delivering the bag with the Viceroys, all three men left silently but together.  I still don't know where they went.  They looked horrible.

That night, Mayor Dale Danks went on television to say that Annie Laurie Hearin, wife of Bob Hearin, Trustmark Chairman, had been kidnapped the day before.  Danks was a pretty good lawyer in his own right and often took a leading role in bigger police affairs.   The FBI took over the case from JPD.  It was that big of a deal. 

The press agreed to a 24-hour news blackout while the FBI began its investigation.  My dad agreed to a 24-hour don't-tell-Boyd blackout for reasons I completely understood.  That's why he behaved so strangely at work.  After the news, my Mom went to bed.  I waited for daddy to come home.  "Can I do anything for you?" I asked.  "There's really nothing you can do," he said, "I wish there were," and went to bed.   Seeing my dad that sad and that powerless shifted the foundations of the universe for me.  

Bob Hearin was my dad's mentor, and my dad loved him.  He was the principal stockholder for Trustmark National Bank, Mississippi Valley Gas, Lamar Life insurance company, and Yazoo Big Wheel Mower Company.  As I understand it, Yazoo made the best mowers in the world but couldn't compete with the less expensive Snapper versions.  Besides Trustmark, Mr. Hearin got my dad involved in MP&L, Bell South, Lamar Life, and The PineyWoods Country Life School.   He also could tell you about every barbeque place in central Mississippi.  For Mr. Hearin, the best was near Pocahontas, where he had a farm.  He was friendly and spoke kindly, but he still terrified me.

The first time I ever met Bob Hearin was at the Trustmark/Deposit Guarantee joint Christmas party.  Every business person in Jackson filed through these parties as a strictly held tradition.  We started at Trustmark, then used a (semi) secret passage between The Trustmark building and the new Deposit Guarantee building (now Regions).  I wonder if it's still there.

In his office, Mr. Hearin smoked a cigar the size of a big carrot.  His still dark hair was arranged neatly with pomade.  Everyone else was doing Christmas party things, but he was working.  I was nineteen at best, maybe eighteen.  "You were named for somebody," he said to me.  I'd heard that about a million times before.  By "somebody," he meant my Uncle Boyd.  I was flattered but dumbfounded.  He knew who I was.  Twenty years before, my uncle died at the Walthal Hotel across the street.  They used to say, "the only thing separating Trustmark from Lamar Life was Capitol street.  Eventually, the feds stepped in and made Trustmark divest most of its Lamar Life stock, but the boards were still tangled as a bird's nest.  

Some Saturdays, Mr. Hearin came by Missco to visit with my dad.  "Tell Mr. Hearin the story about the gorilla," My dad said.  I honestly cannot tell you the story about the gorilla here.  It was filthy, and I stole it from a Redd Foxx album.  Pretty funny, though.  Mr. Hearin laughed, my dad laughed, and the pattern was set.  From then on, I had to have an equally inappropriate joke for Mr. Hearin every time he visited.

Mrs. Hearin was in her seventies.  She was very involved in Jackson becoming a vital patron of the arts, especially the symphony.  The Hearins lived humbly but well in Woodland Hills.  Despite their vast wealth, the Hearin's never led what you would call a flashy life.  They maintained their membership at their Capitol Street church long after everyone else in town moved to the one on North State Street.  He was a fan of West Capitol Street, maintaining the Mississippi Vally Gas offices there long after everyone else moved northeast.

Everyone loved Mrs. Hearin; she was friendly and very much a lady.  The day she disappeared, she had a bridge party at her house.  The idea that anyone might do her any harm that way is still disturbing.  

In the late sixties, Mr. Hearin purchased a company called School Pictures Inc.  They sold franchises to photographers who took student portraits and then sold the prints to the parents.  If you're my age from the South East, you probably had your pictures taken by a School Pictures franchise.  I still think it was a pretty good business model.  Considering how much gross profit they made on the photos, it should have made a mint.  My dad had stock; lots of people in Jackson did.  The franchisees took the photos, School Pictures developed the negatives, made the prints, and packaged them for parents.  It was slick.

The company ran into problems when some of the franchisees weren't paying the company their processing fees.  Hearin sued the franchisees that were in arrears.  That proved fatal.  The ransom note for Mrs. Hearin demanded Mr. Hearin repay the people he sued.  

The FBI soon made a case that Newton Alfred Winn, a School Pictures franchisee in Florida, conspired to kidnap Mrs. Hearon.  Two of his co-conspirators made a deal to testify against him.  At trial, he was convicted of conspiracy, but not murder.  Mrs. Hearin's body was never found, and Winn never confessed or gave any information on what happened to her.  Winn left prison in 2006 and died six years later.  After the kidnapping, School Pictures collapsed in on itself.

Before the kidnapping, Mr. Hearin seemed like Agamemnon, vital and legendary to me.  After the abduction, he was a broken man.  He continued to visit some Saturdays.  I continued to tell questionable jokes, but it wasn't the same.  He lost weight, making his suits hang on him.  His eyes lost that fire that paralyzed me on our first meeting.  

Two years after the kidnapping, Robert Hearin died, never knowing what ultimately befell his beloved wife.  The courts declared her legally dead the next year to help settle his estate.  Her fate is still a mystery and an FBI open case.

The Easter Flood Taught Me To Drink Coffee

Easter weekend, 1979: I get a phone call to help John Robinson because his house flooded.   That made no sense to me.  Flooded?  How bad could it be?  It was late afternoon, so I took my old Ford to John's house.  I met Johnny Kroeze at the top of the street.  I had to park there because the rest of the road was under three feet of water.

This was a bad dream.  I knew some of these people, and their houses were knee-deep in water.  In the Robinson house, water was already two feet deep.  They had a second story, so we moved as much of the furniture as we could up the stairs to wait out the water.  Surely it wouldn't get any higher.  

After we moved as much as we could, Mr. Robinson asked if we would help his neighbors.  One neighbor was out of town, and the water was up to his car's engine, and no one had a key.  I met Joe and Johnny Iupe, sports rivals from St. Joe.  Seeing them hip-deep in flood water instead of the sports field was surreal.  Joe strapped a four by eight sheet of plywood over two canoes which we dubbed the "flood barge," and moved as much furniture to high ground as we could.  

One man gave us bottles from his bar as payment for saving his grandmother's piano.  In the dark, in the water, boys our size probably didn't look sixteen.  We worked into the night, not knowing any of these people but doing our best to help.

Each time we landed the barge, women we didn't know gave us hot coffee to help counteract the chilling, brown Pearl River water.  I wasn't a coffee drinker before that, it was for old people, but  I learned to appreciate it.  To this day, I associate hot coffee with kind strangers trying to warm a very cold and very frightened Boyd.   

I knew exactly where the river was.  In better times, we camped and fished and rode the rope swing four or five hundred yards away through the woods.  All of that was underwater now.  Nothing was familiar anymore.

Around ten o'clock, the national guard said we had to go home.  They were afraid of looting.  The water covered the wheels of my old Ford.  When I parked, it was dry.  I drove by Mayor Dank's house on the way home.  All his lights were on, and many cars were in the driveway, but he was at city hall, on television.  I don't know if he slept or even came home that night.

Once home, I got a hot shower and dry clothes.  Some of us met at Mr. Gatti's for hot pizza and maybe sneak a beer.  The staff at Mr. Gatti's was pretty understanding that way, as we were all underage.  They had the first big-screen TV I ever saw; it was tuned to the news.  Burt Case came on.  Mayor Danks made an announcement.   The levee and spillway to the Ross Barnett Reservoir were in imminent danger of breaking.  They had to open the spillway and release pressure.  John Robinson's face fell.  We thought the worst of the flood was over. With the spillway open, it got much worse.

We went home confused and afraid.  There was a pretty tall hill between my house and the river, but were we in any danger?  Nobody knew.  Once home, I learned that Mississippi Power and Light came to my brother's dorm at Millsaps, looking for volunteers to sandbag their facility downtown to preserve electricity to the city as long as possible.  They worked all night.  It kept their communications center and computers working, and Jackson never lost power.  My dad was at Trustmark with Brum Day and Bob Herron. I have no idea what they talked about. He was silent when he got home.

Just about dawn the next day, I get another phone call.  Stuart Speed's house was in pretty big trouble.  Off I go again.  Johnny Kroeze brought his dad's johnboat.  We needed it.  Mr. Speed was organized and focused, and very intense.  He had a look in his eye I seldom saw in anyone.  Mrs. Speed was crying.  We rescued what we could, but their beautiful home was in bad shape.  When we'd done all we could, someone asked if we could help Mr. Palmer down the street.  

John Palmer said he cared nothing for the furniture, but could we rescue some clothes for his daughters.  They were my age, and I knew them.  The idea of girls from my school with no clean clothes to wear made all this shockingly real.  I have no idea whose room I was in, but I got as big an armload of closet clothes as possible and made my way to the waiting johnboat.  After dumping off the load, I made my way back for another.  The water was just below my chest now.  We made jokes about alligators and snakes in the water, only in the days after did I learn how real that threat was.

I don't know if it was Mr. Palmer's house or one of his neighbors, but somebody had a pool. I had no way of seeing it walking through unfamiliar yards in chocolate-colored water up to my nipples.  Suddenly the world went away.  Water that was four and a half feet deep was suddenly six feet over my head.  It took a few moments for my brain to comprehend what had happened.  I swam to the surface and continued my work, giving the hidden pool a wide berth.  

We had a makeshift harbor on Eastover drive where the water ended.  Again, mothers, I still don't know the names of, had coffee, some even had donuts, but I couldn't eat.  The higher the water got, the more frantic and frightened the homeowners became. I continued on.  

The National Guard let us work through the night that night.  Before dawn, I rested in some stranger's yard, only for a moment, I thought, but exhaustion set in, and I slept in the grass.  A few hours later, I woke with the sun, still in someone's front yard but wearing clean pants and a clean shirt.  They were my clothes.  I have no idea who dressed me or who got the clothes.  My mother swore it wasn't her. 

I began work again.  Some people had given up.  Their homes were in eight feet of water by then. At three o'clock that afternoon, the radio said the floodwaters crested.  I went home exhausted and unbearably sad.  A hot shower and another set of clean clothes later, my Mom asked if I wanted anything.  "Coffee," I said.  She never questioned it.

Many of my friends lived in hotels, fishing cabins, or whatever they could find and rebuilt their homes in the days that followed.  People with flood insurance were the lucky ones.  Most didn't.  The rest took out second mortgages and lived with them.  

Workers stripped the carpets and drywall from their homes, leaving great piles of mud-smelling debris on every flooded street for the city to remove while Jackson rebuilt.  My friends were sad but alive.  Eventually, life got back to normal again.  

Shortly before my birthday that year, I got a letter from John Palmer, thanking me for rescuing his daughter's clothes from the alligators in his living room.  I still have it.  Southerners often respond to tragedy with comedy.  Outsiders say it's an attempt to mask our feelings, but sometimes it's the only thing that makes any sense.   I still drink coffee.  To me, it means someone's love, despite adversity.  

Flooding Downton

What I'm Reading - May 10

Greenlights 

My dear friend (and former football trainer) gave me a copy of Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey.  I met McConaughey briefly when they were shooting A Time To Kill and had no clue he would be such a powerful and charming writer.  

Part autobiography and part philosophy, McConaughey gives a very frank and candid review of his life and how he managed and interpreted it all.  Greenlights is a very Southern book, both in his experiences and attitude.

Although I primarily use kindle to read now (mostly a matter of storage), some of you may know I'm something of a bibliophile snob, especially when it comes to the physical book.  This first edition of Greenlights (my copy came from the fabled Square Books) is a joy to touch and leaf through.  They use heavy rag paper, almost like expensive drawing paper with a substantial tooth.  It switches between different colors of ink and shades of paper so often that I wonder if this book was printed on a web press at all.  Some of the signatures may be from a sheet-fed press, which is unusual.  

Greenlights earns its spot on the best-seller list, primarily on the strength of the writing alone.  This is a book of life, not your typical Hollywood expose.  It's a book that speaks especially to Southern men in a voice they'll find familiar.

The Screwtape Letters.

I tell people that I"m an agnostic because I am, and I believe everyone is; no matter if they claim absolute belief or absolute disbelief, everyone has questions and doubts.  I've read many Christian apologists through the years, and I can only call Lewis beloved, at least by me.  This is my third time through on Screwtape and probably not the last.  

Written before he lost (and ultimately regained) his faith, Lewis dedicates Screwtape to his dear friend and fellow scribbler, J.R.R. Tolkien.  It's a fictitious series of letters written from a supervisor daemon to his nephew, advising his efforts to collect the soul of an English "client" recently converted to Christianity.  

In this and other works, Lewis makes Christian apology entertaining and digestible.  Lewis has a pragmatic opinion on Christian practices and philosophies, which come through almost effortlessly here.

Like the Narnia books, The Screwtape Letters is a quick read and a staple of English-speaking Christianity.  

Meeting Big Bird and Kermit The Person

 Mine was a very loving mother.  She often found humor in taking advantage of our naivete,  "fooling" us, and getting us into more than a few adventures.

Using a congressional grant, the Public Broadcasting System went on air in 1969, bringing several local public stations into a national network.  Mississippi Public Broadcasting went on air the following year, with their studios located on 16th section land off Ridgewood Road in North East Jackson.  

My father had a Missco Employee come and install UHF antennas on the massive VHF antenna hidden in our attic.  Seven-year-old Boyd could then see the new hit show on PBS called Sesame Street.

Although Sesame Street utilized a generous grant from the Carnegie and Ford Foundations, they still needed money, so by 1972, they began doing roadshows featuring some of the show's cast.  Somehow they picked Jackson for a stop, and it was the biggest event for the short-pants set that year.  Bob, Gordon, Susan, Mr. Looper, and Big Bird were slated to appear.

I think the adults were more excited than the kids.  Somehow my mother had the job of picking up some of the cast at the Jackson airport.   I suspect it had something to do with the Junior League because other mothers had a similar task, and the Junior League was always up to something. 

Mom's task was to pick up two men from the cast in our Ford station wagon and deliver them to their hotel near the Coliseum. I saw the circus, the rodeo, and the Harlem Globetrotters at the Coliseum, so that was pretty much hollowed ground for little guys.

At the airport, we waited and waited.  Eventually, two bearded men hopped in the car.  One was older than the other and carried a large, oblong bag.  Mother introduced them to me.  One was Carrol, and one was Kermit.  "Kermit, the frog?" I asked.  "No, no," he said, "I'm Kermit the Person.  I make muppets like Big Bird and Oscar." 

Kermit Love was a Broadway designer and a long-time collaborator with Jim Henson.  He fabricated Big Bird, Oscar, Mr. Snuffleupagus, and Cookie Monster.  A gentle creature with a Santa-sized beard, he explained how "Snuffy" operated with two men inside.  The bag in his lap contained Big Bird's head!  He undid the zipper and showed me how to work Big Bird's eyes with the pinky of one hand. 

"Carrol is Big Bird!" Mother said.  Mother fooled me before, so I was dubious.  I wasn't rude enough to say it, but this fellow was clearly a young hippie and NOT Big Bird.   He must have met this reaction before because he raised one hand above his head, moved his fingers like a mouth, and said, "Hi!"  Suddenly Big Bird appeared before me.  I was a believer.

I wanted that drive to last forever, but it didn't.  We dropped the men off at their hotel, and that was the last I ever saw of Kermit The Person.  The show was great, featuring a few skits and songs with human characters, and Big Bird was the star.

After the show, I saw a cluster of even littler kids crowded around Carrol Spinney at the door to the Coliseum Green Room.  My sister and Lee Kroeze, her childhood companion and neighbor, were among the pint-sized fans. Spinney must have taken the heavy bird body off and only wore the Big Bird legs 

Carrol Spinney and Kermit Love
 on the set of Sesame Street.

working the puppet head above his own. Talking to his young fans in Big Bird's voice, I don't think they noticed his body was missing.  

My sister got his autograph and saved one of the dyed-yellow turkey feathers constantly falling off Big Bird's costume.  She displayed her Sesame Street autographs and her Big Bird feather in a frame in her room for many years. Hopefully, she still has it somewhere.  

Spinney and Love Shoot an outdoor scene.

Godzilla and Perry Mason

 In 1954, Japanese studio Toho, released Gojira, a copy of America's Beast From 20,000 fathoms, remade with political and strong anti-nuclear overtones.  It quickly became the most attended, highest-grossing release in Japanese film history.  

The uncut film in Japanese found a limited release in the USA, almost exclusively in Japanese neighborhoods.  In 1956, American producer Joseph E. Levine paid Toho $25,000 for the American rights to distribute Gojira.  Gojira was a made-up word with no English equivalent, so Levine sounded it out phonetically and came up with "Godzilla."

Afraid American audiences wouldn't appreciate the film's political overtones, Levine trimmed out almost twenty minutes.  He then injected scenes shot in Los Angeles with American actor Raymond Burr with body doubles of Japanese characters in the original footage to try and match the existing Japanese footage.  He randomly picked Steve Martin's name for Burr's character many years before the banjo-playing comedian became famous for his song "King Tut".  

Adding the subtitle "King Of The Monsters", Godzilla was released to American Audiences in 1956 to the same baby boomer, drive-in audiences that fueled the 50's sci-fi craze and rivaled the success of many home-grown films.  

The original Japanese version was hard to come by in the US.  As monster obsessed as I was, I never saw it myself until bootleg versions became available on VHS in the 90s.  

In 1957, CBS hired Burr to play Perry Mason, one year after Godzilla King Of The Monsters.  Mason was a pulp novel character featured in over eighty novels beginning in the 1930s.  He appeared in films and radio with other actors before television.  

Perry Mason flipped the typical pulp novel detective formula by making the title character a defense lawyer rather than a policeman or a private eye.  Perry Mason never really defended anyone as we know it. His clients were never guilty.  He used detective skills rivaling Hercule Poirot and invariably proved his clients never committed the crimes they were accused of. Often he exposed the true culprit in the courtroom itself! 

Burr's original run as Perry Mason ran from 1957 to 1966, revived in the seventies, and several made-for-tv movies in the eighties.  Burr was tall, steely-eyed, and wore impossibly angular suits.  He had the looks of a matinee hero, and he was also quite gay, in a time when American men were being arrested just for being gay.

Burr had a short-lived, studio-arranged marriage to a woman he hardly met.  Following that, he simply lied and made up two more wives, both of which he invented melodramatic deaths for, making him a grieving widower in the public's eye.  

Burr's actual life partner was actor Robert Benevides.  They were together from 1960 until Burr's death in 1993.  Benevides was not a terribly successful contract actor who had small parts in The Outer Limits and The Monster That Challenged The World.  He gave up acting to do production work on Burr's projects, including executive producer of all the Perry Mason TV movies. 

After 1975's Terror Of Mecha Godzilla, the fifteenth Gojira film, Toho Studios put the character in abeyance for nine years.  In 1984, Toho considered reviving the character for its thirtieth anniversary.  Koji Hashimoto took over the reins as director, with the working title: Gojira Returns.  Hashimoto took the bold step of making his film a direct sequel to the 1954 original, ignoring all the intervening fifteen films.  

Roger Corman's New World Pictures purchased the rights to distribute Gojira Returns in the US.  Renamed Godzilla 1985, they again reached out to Raymond Burr to shoot American sequences to cut into the Japanese footage.  Burr was delighted to comply, expressing a fondness for the monster.  In the thirty years since Godzilla King of The Monsters, comedian Steve Martin became a star, so Burr's character was renamed just Mr. Martin.

Corman negotiated a deal with Dr. Pepper for product placement in the American shots.  Burr refused to comply, so another actor was shot constantly holding a Dr. Pepper can
.  Burr's scenes took a little over a day to shoot.  He reportedly wrote Godzilla's epilogue himself.  

Gojira Returns gave new life to the series and new Japanese and American Godzilla films continue to this day.  Perry Mason returns to television without Burr and both franchises thrive into the twenty-first century.

Terror and the Symphony Ball

I'm reprinting this for my Sister who was only three at the time, and I found out yesterday she doesn't remember any of it.

When I was a kid, there was such a thing as the Jackson Carnival Ball, put on by the Jackson Junior League. It was a really big deal. Patterned after the New Orleans Mardi Gras Krewes.  They had a king with a court and pages, costumes, and dancing, and the whole thing was held in the Jackson Coliseum.

The idea was to make money for the Jackson Symphony (now the Mississippi Symphony). I don't know if it didn't actually raise any money or if it was too much trouble or what, but they haven't had a Carnival Ball that big in a long time. 

My mother wasn't the kind of person to join a volunteer organization like the Junior League without doing any actual volunteer work so one year, she ended up in charge of all the costumes for the Carnival Ball, and my brother was enlisted as a page boy. I remember racks and racks of costumes filling the living room and the dining room of our house and strangers in and out to try them on. 

That year, the King of the ball was the governor of Mississippi, John Bell Williams. Williams was a World War II hero and lost one arm in battle when his bomber crashed. Sometimes he wore a mechanical prosthetic arm that ended in two curved metal prongs. 

Williams was an old-style Democrat and previously served in Congress in Washington. He supported segregation, but, as governor, he didn't fight the court order when it came down to desegregating Mississippi public schools.

Arrangements were made for the Governor to come by our house and try on his king costume before the ball. My dad supported Williams' opponent in the governor's race, so this was a slightly delicate moment. 

 My mother pulled us kids aside to tell us that a very important man was coming to the house, and we were to be on our best behavior and be very polite and say "yes, sir" and especially not to stare because he had only one arm. 

Determined to be a good boy, I spent the next day and a half preparing myself to meet this important man with one arm. I wasn't going to stare, and I wasn't going to say anything stupid like, "Nice to meet you, we voted for William Winter." or "Hey mister, where's your arm?". 

The big day came, and a nicely dressed older man came to the door in a dark suit with a hat. I was six years old. Now, my mother was wise to warn us about meeting a man with one arm, and I was ready for that, even though I'd never met a man with one arm before. What she didn't tell us was that he had replaced that arm with what looked to me like a gleaming metal HOOK like Captain Hook from Peter Pan! Captain Hook was a bad guy, so I ran and hid, not to come out until after the Governor had left.

And that was my first awkward experience with politicians.

HBO's Julia, Episode 7 Foie Gras

I've remarked before how much I'm enjoying this program.  This week's episode is especially good.  

If you enjoyed the banter of David Hyde Pierce and Bebe Neuwirth on "Fraiser" you'll find this episode a treat.  Later in the episode, Julia encounters Betty Freidan, author of "The Feminine Mystique", a foundational book involving the burgeoning feminist movement, for a powerful tet-a-tet about Julia's program and its influence on the role of American Women.

Toward the end of the episode, Julia has a moving encounter with someone most of you will recognize.  I have no idea if it's based on a real-life encounter, but I'd like to think so.

HBO hasn't yet decided about a season two of "Julia".  Let's hope they pick it up.  

Flowers In The Ponder Heart

If you ever visited Eudora Welty's home, you'll know she loved gardening and flowers, so it's not surprising she often mentions them in her books.  

In her 1953 novella, The Ponder Heart, she mentions several varieties of flowers and plants well-known to Southern Gardners, including: 

• Railroad lilies (orange daylilies) (Hemerocallis fulva)
• Narcissus Nasturtiums (Tropaeolum majus)
• Red Nasturtium (Tropaeolum minus)
• Verbina (Verbena officinalis)
• Chinaberries (Melia azedarach)
• Althea (Hibiscus syriacus)
• Salvia (Salvia officinalis)
• Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora)
• Etoile Rose (Etoile de Hollande)
• Fig Tree (Ficus carica 'Celeste')

These little touches really help create a mental image of the scenes she describes if you're from the South.  As I re-read her other works, I might make similar posts about them.  I suspect this aspect of her work has been covered many times before, but it will still be fun.   

Miss Eudora Tending Her Garden (1940s)

View Our Eudora Welty Collection

The Offer Episode One

 

I watched the first episode of "The Offer" on Paramount Plus, and here's the review I promised.

It begins in the late sixties, an exciting time in the American movie business, on the rubicon of the early seventies, one of the greatest eras for Cinema.  It's a show made by Paramount, about a Paramount picture, with many scenes in the famous Gower Street Paramount studios, telling the story of how "The Godfather" came to be.  

Many people, myself included, consider "The Godfather" one of the greatest films ever made.  With all this rich material, the show is off to a good start.  First episodes are always awkward because you have to fit in a lot of basic character introductions and exposition. 

I felt the writers were struggling to fit it all in here.  They have to introduce the producers, Albert Ruddy and Robert Evans, the writers Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, and real-life gangster Joe Columbo and set up the story's basic premise.  That's a lot to accomplish in an hour.  

The cast so far is competent but not bowling me over. It's too early to tell, though.  I did find Matthew Goode, playing Robert Evans, a bit annoying, but let's see how it goes.  The sets and costumes are also competent, and the cinematography is very good.

There are dozens of easter eggs strewn throughout this episode, both to movie fans of the era and Coppola fans.  One I enjoyed was seeing Coppola handling his wind-up 16mm camera.  His "home movies" shot on set are pretty well known to Godfather fans.

So far, I'm definitely in for another episode.  The show moves along pretty quickly and does not pull punches on some of the known issues associated with "The Godfather," like how Frank Sinatra reacted to the book.

The series is ten episodes, released every Thursday night on Paramount Plus.

Mississippi Mummy

In the 1920s, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History purchased an extensive collection of Native American artifacts from Colonel Brevoort Butler.

Included in these artifacts was one item that was clearly not of Native origin, an Egyptian mummy said to be a princess.

For decades the mummy was displayed in the Old State Capitol Building, becoming a much-loved attraction and source of local pride that Mississippi should have such an exotic item.

In 1969, Gentry Yeatman, a local medical student interested in archeology, asked the museum for the "human remains" to study for evidence of disease.

Permission was granted to remove the mummy and send it to the University of Mississippi Medical Center for an autopsy, where radiological examination showed quite a surprise!  

Inside the mummy were a few animal ribs and several square nails holding together a wooden frame. He discovered the "mummy" primarily consisted of paper-mâché, including German newsprint and pages from an 1898 issue of the Milwaukee Journal.  Our prized artifact was a forgery!

The fake mummy is 

The Mummy and the X-Ray

more famous now than ever and considered a prized possession as an artifact of Mississippi Folklore.  The Old Capitol Museum often displays the Dummy Mummy around Halloween.

Links:

The Case of the Dummy Mummy 

The Dummy Mummy

Monkey Island Jackson Zoo

 The Jackson Zoo opened on a 79-acre tract of land purchased by the city from Samuel Livingston in 1921.  In the 1930s, the city began constructing a series of exhibits, including a Sealion pool, Aligator Pond, Monkey Island, and two Duck Ponds.  Water flowed from the Sealion pond downhill through each of the other exhibits and overflowed into the sewer from the second Duck Pond.

All of the exhibits had sandstone walls quarried here in Mississippi.  The Monkey Island pond featured an island in the center where they constructed a red limestone castle quarried near Raymond Ms.

The exhibit housed around a dozen macaque monkeys.  There were cages inside the castle structure where the monkeys slept, and keepers could feed and care for them.  Keepers used a tunnel from the down-hill duckpond under the ramada and the Monkey Island pond and came up inside the castle.  Around the castle were wood and concrete Christmas Village houses crafted by Jackson Firemen a decade before when the zoo was at the Central Fire Station.

By the 1980s, shifting soil made the access tunnel unsafe, so the exhibit was switched from monkeys to flamingos.  Stories floated around that the switch was due to tuberculosis, but that was incorrect.

Today the exhibit holds the zoo's alligator collection
but remains a picturesque and popular spot in the zoo.

Color Postcard From the 1940s

Monkey Island In the Snow

The Real Carfax Abbey

 In Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, we are told that Harker procures a Carfax Abbey in Whitby, London, England, for his client, Count Dracula, to reside.  Carfax Abby is an imaginary creation of Stoker but based on Whitby Abbey, an actual structure in the same location.

The initial construction of Whitby Abbey began in the 7th century.  It housed Benedictine monks until it was confiscated at the orders of Henry VIII in his battles with Rome in his efforts toward the dissolution of the monasteries (1536-1541).  It was abandoned after this and remains a ruin to this day.   

Stoker visited Whitby in 1890 and found the gothic ruins the perfect setting for a story. 

Henry Irving

At the time, Stoker worked as an agent for Henry Irving, the actor.  His first thought was to make his vampire story a play for Irving, but when Irving decided he had no interest in the part, Stoker used Irving's likeness and personality to create his vampire, Dracula.

There are other real-life locations used in the novel, but I thought you might enjoy a photograph as this one was so remarkable visually.

Learn more about Stoker's visit to Whitby and how it gave him the idea to create Dracula

The Empathic Life

I'm not psychic by any means, but I am empathetic. It's not that I can always tell what other people feel, but I almost always feel what they feel to some level. I think we're all born with this ability, but learn to tune it out as we get older. If you watch small children, they laugh when other children laugh and they cry when other children cry, even if they don't know what they're laughing at or crying about. As we get older, these empathetic feelings get in the way of whatever we're trying to do or whatever we're trying to feel so we learn to block them out. They're still there though, always there. The problem is that most of the time other people feel angry or annoyed or frightened or distracted and almost always lonely. Feeling those emotions of your own is bad enough, but when you share them from the people you encounter, it can become quite a burden. It can be such a burden, that sometimes I prefer not to be around anyone at all. Feeling nothing but my own thoughts and my own emotions, although quite lonesome at times, is often better than sharing the suffering from the rest of the world. A friend once suggested that I surround myself with happy, successful people and then I wouldn't mind sharing their empathetic experience. There problem there is that most happy, successful people don't usually feel that way, and if they do, they're often almost completely empty inside. There is a payoff though. People do sometimes feel joy, love, laughter and beauty. Sharing these emotions with them can be a privilege. These things are valuable though because they're rare, and sometimes it can be a long dry patch between bright moments. Sometimes I meet people whose need to share what they're experiencing is so great, that being around them almost crushes me. I let them do it though because I can feel how badly they need to share their experience, but it's pretty draining, and afterward I usually need sometime alone to recharge. John Donne said "No man is an island", but he's wrong. All men are an island. We're close enough to signal each other and exchange goods, but ultimately we have to isolate ourselves to keep any identity at all.

West Capitol Historic District

Application for Inclusion in the
National Register of Historic Places
Oct. 30, 1979
West Capitol Historic District
Jackson MS

 
Original can be seen here http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/80002248.pdf

The West Capitol Street Historic District is primarily commercial in character, but includes as well a railroad depot, parking garage, and two office buildings. Almost all buildings are brick. Architectural styles include Queen Anne, Sullivanesque, Colonial Revival, Art Deco, and Spanish Colonial Revival. Party-wall commercial structures line the north side of West Capitol Street for one block and the south side for one-and-one-half blocks. The majority of buildings on the north side of Capitol Street which is the main, east-west thoroughfare in Jackson, were constructed by 1900 and form a unified row of low-scale structures in sharp contrast to the adjacent new Federal Building. Unique architectural features of these low-scale buildings include the Palladian facade treatment as well as the original storefront and interior of Bourgeois Jewelry Store at 220 W. Capitol St., the Queen Anne-style facade and original cast-iron columns of 218 W. Capitol St., the intact Colonial Revival facade with multipaned transom incorporating the Cohen Brothers store name at 224 W. Capitol St., and the pilastered facade treatment of three other "buildings In'the row. Buildings on the south side of Capitol Street were constructed later, the earliest ca. 1895 with the majority between 1904 and 1923. These structures retain a higher scale, ranging from three to twelve stories. Architecturally outstanding structures on this side of Capitol Street include the Dennery Building, with corbeled drip molds and Queen Annestyle cornice, the Sullivanesque McCleland Hardware Building, and the Colonial Revival King Edward Hotel (entered on the National Register in 1976). Completing a square block on the south side of Capitol Street is the Standard Life Tower, a sixteen-story Art Deco skyscraper constructed in 1929, together with a one-story Art Deco commercial row and a two-story parking garage constructed in 1926. Extending north to Mill Street, the district includes several significant Colonial Revival-style buildings: the two-story train depot constructed in 1925, when the elevated railroad tracks which form the western boundary of the district were built, the Noble Hotel, ca. 1908, a three-story building located on Mill Street across from the depot, and a one-story commercial building, ca. 1915, originally constructed as a car showroom. Interesting street features of the district include three sidewalk decorations, a mosaic walkway with "Bon-Ton" spelled in tiles at 209-211 W. Capitol Strand two Art Deco sidewalk motifs in front of the two entrances to the Standard Life Tower, which match decorative panels of the building's exterior.

The most obvious architectural changes to the district include the loss of decorative parapets at 226-230 W. Capitol St. and the Bon-Ton Building, 209-211 W. Capitol St., and the loss of architectural features on other buildings in the district from cladding or infilling of facades. Original wooden canopies have been removed or replaced with aluminum. The Millsaps building, constructed in 1913, was originally six stories high but was raised to nine stories in 1945. Despite these changes the district retains much of its former character, especially when contrasted with the surrounding area, which is currently undergoing demolition and new construction.

The West Capitol Street Historic District contains the earliest intact commercial facades in Jackson and some of the finest Art Deco architecture in the state of Mississippi. Reflecting the earlier importance of West Capitol Street as a turn-of-the-century commercial center and the subsequent growth and development of the capital city in the 1920s, the district is vitally important as a visual record of the commercial history of Jackson.

Prior to 1885 there was little commercial activity on West Capitol Street, the main business center being located near the Old Capitol on State Street and extending down East Capitol Street only as far as President Street. Only a few commercial establishments served the old railroad depot located where the present one stands, two hotels, a drug store, and a dry-goods store. Of these early commercial structures only the dry-goods store, at 232 W. Capitol St., retains a resemblance to its original appearance. By 1890 Jackson seemed to have recovered from the Reconstruction period. The population had increased and new houses were being built northwest and south of the old section of town. A newly established board of trade had begun to attract new industry to the city. In 1899 Jackson got its first electric street car. Thus new markets and improved transportation contributed to the new business activity on West Capitol Street so that by 1900 brick commercial blocks ha.d been constructed on the north side of the street as far east as 214, and the 200 block entirely completed by 1925.

Alfred Bourgeois first located his jewelry store in 1886 on South State Street. Several years later he moved his business to West Capitol Street and by 1900 had built the brick building at 220, just west of his shop's relocation. This store has remained in the Bourgeois family for almost eighty years and according to the owners is the oldest continuously owned family business in the state. Containing its original cherry display cases and ceiling of German steel pressed in a floral pattern, it was the first completely fireproof building to be constructed in the area and the floor is said to be the first tile floor in the state (Jackson: Bourgeois Building, Hinds County, Statewide Survey of Historic Sites, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson). S. P. McRae located his first store at 216 W. Capitol St. in 1902. McRae's is now the largest locally owned department-store chain in Mississippi. By the 1920s he had moved east on the same block to 200-202, where the store remained for more than thirty years. Also located on this block, at 232, were the law offices of prominent black attorneys Beadle and Howard. Perry Howard later moved to WasM'ngEon and became leader of Mississippi 1 s "Black and Tan" Republicans (Carroll Brinson, Jackson/A Special Kind of Place [Jackson, Miss.: City of Jackson, 1977], p. 211).

Development of the south side of West Capitol Street was slower, with construction not being completed until 1929. The commercial block which now incorporates 209-215 W. Capitol St. was one of the first commercial blocks on the south side of the street and housed a bank, dry-goods store, and grocery. Part of the building later became the Bon-Ton Cafe, one of Jackson's fanciest restaurants. The Dennery Building, constructed by 1900, is outstanding for its upper floors, articulated in the Queen Anne commercial style, and its first floor, which has been compatibly modernized. The four-story McCleland Hardware Building at 217 W. Capitol St., one of the few Sullivanesque structures remaining in Jackson, was built in 1904. It remained the home of the McCleland Hardware Company until 1926, when the building became the Montgomery Ward Department Store. Constructed in 1913, the Millsaps Building, at 200-205 W. Capitol St., was the first home of the Jackson State National Bank. Rapid development of the remainder of the block began in 1923 with the completion of the King Edward Hotel, considered at the time to be the "most modern in the country" ("The New Edwards Hotel to be Opened Saturday; Most Modern in Country," Clarion-Ledger, [Jackson, Miss.], Dec. 28, 1923).

In 1925 the present depot was constructed and the hazardous tracks which crossed Capitol Street at ground level were elevated. In 1926 the classically detailed garage on the corner of South Mill and Roach streets was built for the R. E. Hines Motor Company as a Chrysler dealer showroom, and in 1929 the Art Deco Tower Building was constructed by the Enochs, who owned the King Edward Hotel. Constructed as a monument to the family who had acquired wealth in the lumber industry, the Tower was built in five and one half months, with twenty-four hour shifts stopping only on Sundays (Stephen Rassenfoss, "Construction Raises Capitol (Property Values," Clarion-Ledger [Jackson, Miss.], real estate section, July 29, 1979, p. 1).

Designed by Jackson architect, Claude Lindsley, the Tower Building is one of only three Art Deco skyscrapers in the state and is outstanding for both its interior and exterior detailing. Utilizing the typical set-back design the building also displays decorative panels with geometric motifs which are highlighted with 14K gold leaf. This motif is replicated (minus gold leaf) in the sidewalks in front of both entrances. The interior hallway is particularly lavish utilizing a variety of materials and geometric forms. Linking the skyscraper with some of the lower scale buildings in the district is the 1-story building just north of the Tower which employs a different Art-Deco motif in each bay. Visually, the transition from low-scale to high-rise is not abrupt. Buildings on the south side of West Capital Street which vary from two to nine stories make the transition between the 2-story buildings on the north side of West Capitol and the Standard Life Tower on Pearl Street.

Structures Within the District

Abbreviations at the end of each entry are "P. S." for Primary Significance, "C. S." for Contributing Significance, "M" for Marginal Signifiance, and "I" for Intrusion.

1: Smith-Pate Auto Company Building
(126 N. Mill St.)
Ca. 1915
Colonial Revival style. One-story three-bay brick commercial building. Modillioned cornice of concrete. Concrete diamond-shaped frieze ornamentation. (P. S.)

2: Commercial Building
(118 N. Mill St.)
Ca. 1930
One-story 2xl-bay brick commercial building with hinged brick corners and original corrugated metal canopy. (C. S.)

3. Noble Hotel
(108-114 N. Mill St.)
Ca. 1908
Colonial Revival. Three-story 4x2-bay brick building with metal block cornice. Concrete cornice at first-floor level. (P. S.)

4. Union Depot
(W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1925
Colonial Revival. Two-story 5x6-bay brick building with classical ornamentation in concrete. Round-arched windows with radiating muntins. One-story addition on west side above which is constructed elevated railroad tracks. One-story gable-roofed building attached at rear. (P. S.)

5. Gulf Finance
(236 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1940
Two-story 2x10-bay commercial building clad with concrete. Enamels-paneled first floor. Casement windows. (M.)

6. Capitol News
(232-234 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1928
Spanish Colonial Revival. Two story four-bay commercial building of concrete block. Tile roof. Round-arched windows. Urns and corbel table detail. Storefronts altered but one rope-turned column still visible. (C. S.)

7. Commercial Block
(226-230 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1885, altered ca. 1910 and 1945
Two story ten-bay commercial building with concrete-clad pilastered second floor and horizontal band of marbelized glass between floors. (C. S.)

8. Cohen Brothers
(224 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1895, altered ca. 1918
Colonial Revival. Two-story two-bay brick commercial block. Modillioned cornice on first and second floors. Raised brick rectangular enrichment with concrete corner blocks. Multipaned transom with "Cohen Brothers" in center. (P. S.)

9. Commercial Block
(222 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1895 with later alterations
Two-story two-bay brick commercial building with patterned brick frieze to match 220 W. Capitol St. Recessed rectangular panels above windows. Rosette tie-rod caps. Aluminum panel covers transom area. (C. S.)

10. Bourgeois Jewelers
(220 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1900
Colonial Revival. Two-story three-bay brick commercial block with Palladian facade treatment and patterned brick facade decoration. Leaded glass transoms. Original interior. (P. S.)

11. Commercial Block
(218 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1897
Queen Anne. Two-story four-bay brick building with bracketed iron frieze and bracketed window lintels. Rectangular ventilator panels with metal grates. Original cast-iron columns. Date 1897 in frieze. (P. S.)

12. Lott Furniture Co.
(216 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1895, altered 1951
Two-story six bay brick commercial building with glass block windows. Original openings altered. Original decorative grates remain. (C. S.)

13. Commercial Block
(210-212 W. Capitol St.)
Before 1885, storefront ca. 1945
Two story four-bay commercial building. Concrete infilled facade, but shape of original cornice still apparent. Ornate cast-iron lintels visible. Original rosette tie-rod caps. (P. S.)

14. Commercial Block
(206-208 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1910
Classical Revival. Two story six-bay brick building with pilastered upper story. Metal modillioned and denticulated cornice. Corbeled brick above pilasters. (P. S.)

15. Commercial Block
(200-204 W. Capitol St.)
Constructed as two buildings: 202-204 (western section), four bays constructed ca. 1910; 200 (eastern section), two bays constructed ca. 1915. This building,now clad with concrete, once matched 206-208 W. Capitol St. Pilasters remain but cornice has been removed. (C. S.)

16. Dennery Building
(113-117 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1898
Queen Anne. Two-story 5x5- bay brick commercial block. Bracketed cornice. Windows set in recessed bays. Raised brick drip molds with corbeled ends. (P. S.)

17. Commercial Block
(119 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1925
One-story former Spanish Colonial style recently remodeled to "Old Town" appearance with brick veneer facade, round arched windows, and metal grill work. (I.)

18. Mayflower Cafe and Thomas 1 Great M. Store
(121 W. Capitol St.)
East section of building ca. 1898, west section ca. 1901. Two-story 4xll-bay brick building with stucco front ca. 1945. Original windows with segmental-arched heads and raised brick drip molds as well as corbeled cornice remain on west elevation. Art Moderne canopy with neon enrichment. Art Deco neon sign. (C. S.)

19. Millsaps Building
(203 W. Capitol St.)
First through six floors constructed 1913. Seventh through ninth floor added 1945. Nine-story 3x7-bay brick commercial building with paired windows recessed between pilasters. Corbeled cornice. Original classical feeling of building altered more toward Art Deco when building raised. Original rusticated concrete and console keystone remain visible on one section of the first floor. (C. S.)

20. Boston Investment Co.
(207 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1913.
One-story two-bay commercial building with stepped parapet roofline clad with marble panels. Original facade treatment was probably same as first floor of the Millsaps Building. (M.)

21. Bon-Ton Cafe
(209-211 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1890, later alterations
Two-story brick commercial building. Upper stories covered with enamel panel. Tile sidewalk reads "Bon-Ton Cafe" (I.)

22. Liberty Loans
(215 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1890, later alterations
Two-story commercial building with concrete-clad upper story, enamel paneled first floor. (I.) 23. McCleland Hardware Building (217 W. Capitol St.): Ca. 1904. Sullivanesque four story eight-bay brick commercial building with corbeled cornice and curved, stepped parapet. Windows recessed in four-story arcaded bays. (P. S.)

24. King Edward Hall
(221 W. Capitol St.)
Ca. 1960
One-story three-bay building with recessed entrances at end bays. Mosaic tile on first floor. Concrete solar screen on second floor. (I.)

25. King Edward Hotel
(Capitol at Mill Sts.)
Ca. 1923
Colonial Revival. Entered on the National Register in 1976. (P.S.)

26. Garage
corner of Mill and Roach Sts.: 1526
Classical detailing. Three story brick and concrete garage with large rear addition. Central bay decorated with pilasters, topped with curved parapet. Scrolled ornament adorns doorway. Corner pilasters with geometric designed. Horizontal bands of concrete divide the floors. (P. S.)

27. Standard Life Tower
(127 S. Roach St.)
Ca. 1929
Art Deco sixteen-story 5x8-bay skyscraper of concrete and brick. First two floors are designed in low scale with setback battlements and stepped window openings. The main block of the building rises from center of the two-story section. Setback design. Enamel spandrel panels on twelveth and thirteenth floors, which utilize Art Deco motif and match sidewalk pattern at entrances. Art Deco lobby intact. (P. S.)

28. Commercial Block
(111-121 S. Roach St.)
Ca. 1929
Art Deco one-story six-bay commercial block. Each bay recessed between pilasters and decorated in a different Art Deco motif. Parapeted roofline of each bay also articulated in an individual Art Deco design. (P. S.)

9 - MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

Jackson City Directory. Jackson, Miss.: Tucker Printing Co., 1922, 1925.

McCain, William D. The Story of Jackson. Jackson, Miss.: J. F. Hyer Publishing Co., 1953.

Maloney, T. J. Maloney's Jackson, Mississippi, City Directory. Memphis: Interstate Publishing Co., 1904, 1907.

Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Jackson. Statewide Survey of Historic Sites. Hinds County. Jackson: Bourgeois Building, Street scenes.

Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Jackson. Subject File. Jackson: Capitol St.
Rassenfoss, Stephen. "Construction Raises Capitol Property Values," Clarion Ledger [Jackson, Miss. ], real estate section, July 29, 1979.

Sanborn Insurance Maps of Jackson, Miss., for the years 1895, 1900, 1904, 1909, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1948. New York: Sanborn Map Co. Originals located at Mississippi State University Library, Special Collections, Starkville, Miss.

Movie Nicknames For Jackson Buildings

Ghostbusters Building

For years, Jacksonians nicknamed the Standard Life Building, the "Ghostbusters Building" after the 1984 comedy.  In the film, they used a real apartment building at 55 Central Park West, NY, that does have a reasonal resemblance to the Jackson structure, mainly because they both utilize the same architectural style and were built the same year (1929). 

The "Real" Ghostbusters Building

The Jackson Ghostbusters Building

I always thought the SLB looked more like the Empire State building, with a less elaborate finial.

Darth Vader Buildings

Some locals have taken to calling the City Centre development on Lamar St. (formerly the Milner and Petroleum Buildings) the "Darth Vader" buildings for their black glass and chrome exteriors.

Darth Vader Buildings

Vintage View of Downtown Jackson

This image is from a post card circa 1940 showing a good view of Capitol and Pearl streets with the Heidelberg Hotel in the lower right in tan, the King Edward Hotel in the top right in red and the Standard Life building to the left.

The Heidelberg Hotel was torn down in 1977, but many of these other structures still exist.

These post cards generally begin with black and white photographs with colors added in the re-printing process.