My Sunday Feeling

They own it.  I suppose that they can change the name if they want to.  Yesterday, Gayle Benson, widow of Tom Benson and owner of the Saints, the Pelicans, numerous car dealerships  and Dixie Beer announced that they had decided to change “Dixie” to a less racially tinged brand name.

Anybody that knows me and has followed this blog-all 10 of you-knows that I am sympathetic to those who wish to erase Confederate iconography from public places.  Especially that iconography that was funded and maintained by tax money.  And I get that the song “Dixie” is associated with the Confederacy, mistrel shows (which were mercifully before my time), white supremacy and, worst of all, Ole Miss.  This despite the fact that Abraham Lincoln thought it to be a pretty snappy tune.

But to paraphrase Mr. Justice Kavanaugh, “I like Dixie Beer.”  When I was at Tulane, Dixie practically flowed from the drinking fountains.  You could get it for a quarter a glass at most of the bars around campus.  On Fridays in the spring Dixie would send a truck with about 5 taps per side.  We would sit in the Quad and drink free Dixie and eat free crawfish.  Granted, Dixie is not the best beer ever brewed.  Indeed, some would say it is an acquired taste.  But it was ubiquitous in nature in Orleans Parish and I have fond memories of it and those times.

The old brewery on Tulane Avenue over by the med school downtown looked like something  out of “Bride of Frankenstein.”  A friend of mine in Covington, where I last bought a case of it, told me that her Dad’s first job as a 13 year old boy was to shine the silver dome at the top of the tower of the old brewery.  Things were different then.  

Back in the day, New Orleans had 2 or three breweries.  Jax and Falstaff were brewed there as well.  When I was in school you could see the smokestack of the old Jax brewery from the top floors of the grad school dorm.  At night the word “JAX” was illuminated.  One of the letters was always burned out.  The brewery was empty back then.  It’s highest and best use was to give the bums a place to sleep.  Now it is a shopping mall and aquarium.  

And despite it being the lone survivor of New Orleans brewery history, Dixie was not the brew of choice for New Orleanians of a certain age and station.  As was described to me by a semi-reliable informant classmate who was raised in the Ninth Ward, there was the infamous “bad batch” of Dixie that got past what was euphemistically referred to as “quality control.” 

Seems all commercial brewers inject gas into their products to give it that nice foamy head when you pour it into a glass. Not to get too technical on you.  But this is referred to as “good” gas.  There is also a gas that is a byproduct of the brewing art that they bleed out of the mash.  This is called-guess what?-“bad” gas.  Well one fateful day, somebody screwed up and took the good gas out and injected the bad gas in.   

Anyway, the infamous “bad batch” that escaped the brewery up and killed some folks before they could get it all back.  And just like that a generation of your basic Yat types became Miller drinkers.  

What’s a “yat” you ask?  In some places in town you are not greeted with “Hello! How are you?” Instead they call out “Hey! Where ya at?”  I have heard this. These sorts of indigenous people are referred to as “Yats.” 

Anyway, Katrina destroyed the old brewery.  The old owners sold it to Miller if I am remembering correctly under some other brand name.  The Bensons bought it back and Dixie was reborn with a new brewery out in New Orleans East.  Old Tom said he bought it so he could drink on the job.  Your average Saints fan could be excused for wondering whether Tom had tipped the bottle a time or two during his tenure as owner.  

So, as you can see, me and Dixie go back a long ways.  I can scarcely conceive of New Orleans without Dixie.  And now, just when you can buy it here in Little Rock -and not at a stick up price-they are going to change the brand name.  

I say you have to draw the line somewhere.  As far as I’m concerned they can knock down every Confederate soldier in every courthouse square  in, well, Dixie.  They can disinterr Nathan Bedford Forrest and re-bury him in Forrest City.  They can set fire to the State Flag of Mississippi. They can rebrand Rebel Yell because I don’t drink it anyway.  And speaking of whiskey, they can change the name of the University of the South to Jack Daniels University if for no other reason than the distillery is down the road from “the Domain” and the streets on its property aren’t named for Confederate officers. And while we’re at it, for God’s sake get rid of the Redskins, the Indians and the Braves.  

But leave Dixie alone.

You can’t change my history.