Saturday, June 24, 2006

My Sunday Feeling

Greetings, my peeps! Today's offering will be short and sweet as I am preparing the F Street Sports Bar for an out-of-town guest. My buddy Jim from Baton Rouge should be here around noon or so. He is driving to Little Rock from Lake Providence where his folks live. He is coming to play golf with me in the Hendrix Warriors Booster Club tournament in Conway.

Jim is a rabid LSU fan. Come to think of it, that is the only kind of LSU fan that exists. Anyway, I think it is good for him to hang around an organization that doesn't pay guys under the table. Hell, Hendrix is Division III. It doesn't pay guys period. It is good for him to actually see real student-athletes. It is a good thing all the way around.

Summer job: My goddaughter Audrey broke it to me that she has crossed over and is working for a law firm in Chicago.

"That's ok." I said. " You will be able to rationalize it in later years by reminding yourself that you were young and that you needed the money."

She actually likes it. She says that one of the lawyers she is working for is defending an "alienation of affection" lawsuit. She asked me if I had ever heard of such. Heard of it? One of my associates has practically made it an art form if one were to believe the scurrilous accusations leveled by the attorney that wrote him concerning these matters. For the uninitiated, alienation of affection is the tort of changing the affections of the spouse of a (generally enraged) plaintiff.

We need not trouble ourselves with discussing this much further as Arkansas the Progressive abolished the cause of action back about 1982. And who was the Governor who swiftly signed the bill doing away with the statute? William Jefferson Clinton, who may or may not have had a personal motivation to sign it in addition to a "good government" reason.

Anyway, Audrey is enjoying her job. She got to serve a subpoena the other day. This was a great idea BTW. Send a cute girl out to hit a recalcitrant male witness. He probably never saw past her big brown eyes. The law firm picked up her cab fare back to Wilmette. She seemed to be greatly impressed by this. Ah! To be young again.

I worked in factories when I was her age. Working in a law office may imperil her soul but it is easier than hanging metal doors on a paint line 8 hours a day. I will give her that much.

Sula's latest blog: You may remember my friend Sula, who last graced these pages with her blog about all of the hookers running around Destin during tourist season. She is from Forrest City, Arkansas which is a fair sized city out in the Delta. It is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, who drove the Yankees crazy during the Civil War. He also founded the Ku Klux Klan. I would like to think that his brave exploits in the service of the Great Cause inspired the locals to name the place after him but I wouldn't bet on it.

I'm not crazy about the place, having lived there for a year after law school. But then again, I didn't grow up there, so I don't have memories of friends and family as does Sula. I love Sula so I will not say anything derogatory about her happy childhood home. Which was named after Nathan Bedford Forrest. If you want to go to her blog, you can check it out at http://forrestcitymemories.blogspot.com .

One of the more amusing stories you will find there is about the local theatre that was called the Imperial back in Sula's day. I don't remember what it was called back in 1982 when I was working there. But by then, it had been reduced to showing black exploitation movies. I remember distinctly when the marquee announced that it was showing an epic "women behind bars" thriller entitled "Black Bitch, White Bitch." The poster depicted 2 women in ripped up prison clothes hauling ass across an open field. The black woman had a Billy Preston level fro. The white chick looked like Daisy Mae. Their wrists were chained together. They both had enormous breasts by most state prison standards.

Joe Bob Briggs would have said, "Check it out." I did not.

And that's all I remember about the Imperial. And I don't remember much about Forrest City except I learned much from one of the state's best trial lawyers while I was there. That and I was told some primo dirt (at least it was primo at the time) about a woman who lived there. This was waaaaaaaaay before I had met Sula and I didn't really realize who this person was until the forrestcitymemories blog got put up. This blogging stuff can sometimes produce unforeseen results, non? Talk about forrestcitymemories!

But don't worry Sula. I can be bribed.

Mats, you little bitch you: Three time French Open champion on # 1 ranked Roger Federer's inability to beat # 2 ranked Rafael Nadal on clay which played itself out again last week when Federer lost to Nadal in 4 at this year's French Open after taking the first set 6-1: "Federer has no balls and Nadal has 3."

Me-OWWW! You rarely hear this kind of smack coming out of any tennis player not named Williams or Hingis. I think that this is a sign of growth for the ATP. But that's just one man's opinion.

It's not too hard to prepare for guy company. About all you got to do is clear a path, throw out some papers, that kind of stuff. I've got plenty of Community brand Dark Roast coffee. I went and got a bottle of Knob Creek bourbon which he had never had until his trip up here for last year's tournament. Prior to his first sip of Knob on my front porch in the Spring of 05, he drank Canadian whiskey. To this day, he is the first white person I know that ever drank that stuff.

But the scales have fallen from his eyes. I called him yesterday morning. He was almost to Lake Providence the Beautiful. I told him that I had purchased the ceremonial bottle of Knob Creek. He told me he was bringing one too.

Looks like we are set. I think this will be a good trip. Somebody needs to show the young men and women athletes of Hendrix College how to play through hangovers and it might as well be us.










2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the mention, Paul. I left Forrest City in 1968 so it was interesting to hear another perspective. Scandals & characters abound in the history of the town which tends to make the place unforgettable. The connection to Nathan Bedford Forrest wasn't the Klan. Forrest built the railroad cut through there during the War. I haven't verified it but legend says it was from this RR building camp that Forrest led a rebel raid to Memphis, rode his horse up the steps and inside the Gayoso Hotel, temporarily unseating Yankee occupation of that city. Madison was actually the main settlement in St Francis County, the county seat. Later the railroad depot caused F.C. to blossum & the county seat was moved when river travel gave way to railroads. During the Civil War F.C.was nothing but woods. If you haven't read the fabulous collection of Slave Narratives from the Old State House Museum online --please check it out. www.oldstatehouse.com/
exhibits/virtual/slave_narratives.asp


Here's part of one from a former slave who settled in Madison after helping Forrest build the road. His former master was cousin of President Harrison & he was invited to stay at the White Houses where he played the fiddle.

Narrative:
William H. Harrison (Forrest City)

“After the War, I come to Madison. It was a thriving little river town surrounded on all sides by wilderness….There was nothing but wooded hills where Forrest City now stands.

“When General Nathan Bedford Forrest built the cut between Forrest City and Madison for the road, I was his cook and the first fireman to make the run through the cut. I used to drive a stagecoach over the Old Military Road through Pine Tree on the stage run from Memphis to Little Rock."

Anonymous said...

Oops--it was after the war that he built the railroad. Col Izard planned the city. I lived on Izard St as a kid.

(Wikipedia:)
Nathan Bedford Forrest,famous Confederate general, became interested in the area around Crowley's Ridge during the American Civil War. After the war, he contracted with railroad companies in Memphis and Little Rock to cut through the rough ridge and succeeded in linking the two cities by rail. The first trains came through in 1868.

General Forrest later built a commissary located on Front St. and Colonel V.B. Izard began the task of designing the town. Most citizens were calling the area "Forrest's Town," thus the evolution of the name Forrest City.

General Forrest's camp was incorporated May 11, 1870.