Month: October 2006

My friend Suzanne (who is an incredible pottery artist) and I went to the “Alabama Folk Pottery” exhibit at the Birmingham Museum of Art today. We’ve really been looking forward to it and had all kinds of ideas about what might be included in the show.

The museum doesn’t allow pictures to be taken in their special exhibits, but included were Bowl, Shop of John Alexander Rogers, (1857-1936), Mark: “J.A. Rogers / Oak Level, Ala.” ca. 1890, 6.5×8.25×8.25 inches, Loan from Ron Countryman and Large jug, Attributed to the Joel Falkner shop, Sterrett (Shelby County), ca. 1870, 18 X 11 X 11 inches, Anonymous loan.

I was so happy to see so many examples of older Alabama pottery – the pottery done by John Frederick Lehman, who moved to Alabama from Germany, was *very* interesting.

The exhibit included pieces from the 1800s through mostly the mid-1900s. We saw Jerry Brown pieces, and a piece or two from the Miller family, but I don’t remember seeing much more than those two more contemporary artists. I have pieces by both of those potters, but I think Suzanne and I both were hoping that since it was a folk pottery exhibit, the museum would have found some other family somewhere in Alabama who had been doing this for generations and generations, more or less undiscovered, that was still going. Well, we loved the exhibit anyway! There’s also a book that goes along with the exhibit, written by Joey Brackner, and I ordered it too.

Right next to the pottery exhibit was the “William Christenberry Photographs, 1961-2005” exhibit, and that was excellent, too.

Ohmygoodness – did we *ever* have the best time at the Ole Miss game Saturday night! We started off in the Grove where everybody was tailgating:

Some of the setups were nice…

…and some of them were *amazing* with nice chandeliers, china, etc. and multiple flat-screen televisions showing the pregame and some of the other SEC games that day! Av and I have tailgated before – but never with the good china and linen. We are definitely going to have to step it up next time!

We got in the line to the walk where all the players go through…Colonel Reb starts the walk, and then all the players go through – it was so much fun!

After the Rebel Walk, we went over and watched the band play…OHmygoodness was that ever great! Everybody was singing and cheering along to all the songs and it got everybody worked up for the game! Soooo much fun…

The game was SO GOOD! We were expected to lose to Georgia by a huge margin – but it was a great game and was really close until the 4th quarter. The referees had some really bad calls against us and missed some really important calls that would have gone against Georgia. I know there are always mistakes made by referees, but this game was one of those where everybody was saying to each other (over & over again), “what are they thinking!?!?”. Anyway, we did a lot better than I think most people expected and it really was a good, close game. LOTS of fun!

We love Ole Miss! I kind-of have a thing for Ole Miss anyway, because I’ve considered going there to get my Masters in Southern Studies. I’ve got my BBS (business) and my BA (liberal arts), but I’d love to have my Masters and be a folklorist! How neat would that be?! I think it would give me a great background to one day be able to collect stories and such, and write a book!

Anyway, we did lose the game (14-9) but it was *such* a great time!

Hotty Toddy!

On the way to the Ole Miss game, we stopped in Winfield at the Boar’s Butt (update: it’s since closed again)

It burned down a couple of years ago, I think, and now they have this firetruck parked on the front, with the Boar’s Butt logo on the door.

We actually found out about it when we saw the “A Taste of Hog Heaven” documentary on APT.

Here’s the inside:

This is their ribs plate…it was really, really good.

Before we left Tupelo, we went to the Buffalo Park and Zoo. I’m not really a zoo-lover, because I don’t really like to see animals in cages.Much of it is like a petting zoo: we fed miniature horses and pygmy goats, an eland (which looks like a cross between a Brahma and a…I don’t know, but it’s a huge antelope), and a giraffe.

Every hour there is a trolly ride around the buffalo park, so we got to see lots of buffalo. The big one is named “Elvis” – he’s *huge*:

The star at the park is a white buffalo, which is very, very rare.