Month: February 2023

Hokus Pokus Liquor
Alexandria LA, 2013.

In G-d We Trust Small Engine Repair
Guin AL, 2019.

We had THE most fun earlier this month at an Elvis tribute artist show. OMG. We first saw this performer, Terry Padgett, at a holiday event at The Club, then I looked to see where he’d be performing just a couple of weeks ago, and found him at a restaurant that has all kinds of performers (heavy on the gospel side) in rural Walker County, Alabama. We had just the best cheesy fun before and I was all about doing something like this again.

at The Club, December 2022

I mean we laughed, we sang…it was just sweet and funny. I’ll put some random Elvis pics at the bottom of this post, but first, this performance in Walker County:

Haaaa I was “scarfed” by Elvis and we both look crazy goofy in this pic!

Just the best, sweetest fun. We laughed so hard! Okay, now let’s really talk Elvis. I’m not a huge fan, but he certainly occupies a certain amount of space and respect in my consciousness as a southerner who started out small and captured the attention of the world. Okay, I do love some Elvis.

We’ve been to Tupelo to the Birthplace Museum; his home:

The museum’s chapel:

Tupelo Hardware, where Gladys famously bought her son his first guitar:

…and the story isn’t exactly as many people know it:

Johnnie’s in Tupelo, where Elvis would frequent (and they have an Elvis booth):

Graceland:

The Arcade in Memphis, where you can still order a peanut butter and banana sandwich, just as he did

And LAWD, Graceland Too in Holly Springs, Mississippi, where Leslie and I toured/survived, and Paul MacLeod gave me a membership card

Elvis in Israel:

A Ned Berry Elvis face jug:

Stereo Jack’s in Cambridge MA:

Clyde Broadway’s Trinity at the Ogden:

At Square Books in Oxford:

A 1991 Howard Finster of Elvis in Army Uniform at the High

Elvis at Corky’s in Memphis

Elayne Goodman’s Altar to Elvis at the Ogden

My fave, from the Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioing Art from Paper exhibit at Dixon Garden & Gallery in Memphis, from a visit in 2017

Isabella United Methodist Church
Isabella AL, 2020.

Pizza Bar
Carbon Hill AL, 2019.

Orange Squeeze, New Orleans, 2017

George Wallace’s daughter Peggy wrote The Broken Road (here on Bookshop, here on Amazon) about her experience growing up in that family, and one of the lighter bits (there’s plenty of serious, so the more comical parts are very welcome) is about how one Christmas, George’s second wife Cornelia decided to do an orange-themed holiday.

Gibeau Orange Julep, Montreal, from a 2005 visit

“Cornelia imported a chef to assist the kitchen staff with the preperation of our ‘Christmas a l’Orange’ extravaganza. Two large candelabra holding orange-scented candles sat amid orange blossom bouquets in the middle of the mansion dining room table.

Orange rolls, The Club, Birmingham AL

Orange Rolls, The All Steak, Cullman AL

We sipped fresh-squeezed orange juice in the First Lady’s Room and then sat down to a dinner of duck a l’orange, creamed sweet potato orange cups, orange-glazed squash, orange bread pudding, and ambrosia. Daddy surveyed the Christmas feast.”

Mark Rothko: Orange, Red and Red, at the Dallas Museum of Art, from a 2014 visit

Anyway, George asks Cornelia what’s going on, she explains the obvious, he says the only time he got an orange growing up was at Christmas when what he really wanted was a bicycle, and at that point, he pushed a buzzer that alerted the kitchen and asked them to bring him some barbecue. Ha!

Get the FO — Frosted Orange, from a 2014 visit to The Varsity in Atlanta

Vincent Van Gogh, Still Life of Oranges and Lemons wiht Blue Gloves, National Gallery of Art in DC, from a 2019 visit

Ellsworth Kelly, Oranges, LaGrange Art Museum in LaGrange GA from a 2022 visit

Golden Orange dispenser at Candlelight Antiques, Elkmont AL, from a 2022 visit

And now for the bell peppers part:

When the Washington Post reported about marital trouble between the Gov and Cornelia, they wrote MRS WALLACE MOVES OUT OF THE MANSION: A dark-haired mystery woman went around Montgomery at night, distributing photocopies of a divorce petition to newspapers, TV, and radio stations. One local TV reporter received a call from a woman who instructed him to go to a supermarket to the produce section and look beneath a pile of bell peppers. And there, among the peppers, was a petition for divorce.

The dark-haired woman was Cornelia, and the masthead of the petition read “In the Matter of Cornelia Wallace v. George Corley Wallace.”