Spring 2001
By Daniel Boone
They’re all night scenes. Streetlights are reflected harshly from weathered walls with
paint peeling so exuberantly it casts shadows.
The lights within the buildings glow warmly, but we can’t see anything
inside. In the theater, spotlights
indicate importance, but what could be important about these old things?
A barbecue joint, a Gulf station, a Hot Tamale vendor, a “Chinese”
grocery…all caught in pools of manmade light with long shadows blotting out
any details in the background. These
are images of a town in the South as seen by a night owl – no sunlight, hardly
any people: just aging colorful buildings, neon signs, silent cars and
trucks. My town:
Vicksburg, Mississippi.
I started this series of photoserigraphs in 1979.
I borrowed a 35mm camera from my boss and a pickup truck from my brother
and headed into the night to see what would happen.
I didn’t really know much about photography (or driving a stick shift,
for that matter). I must have had
some idea of something I wanted to capture.
I drove to Goldie’s Bar-B-Q, which overlooked the river near the old
bridge. There were cars and trucks
filling the parking lot that October night.
This frustrated me a little, because I wanted to get a picture of the
restaurant – not cars and trucks. I
tried every angle, but couldn’t get a clear shot.
Oh well, you take what you can get.
I was just too dumb to realize how the two pickups (a Ford and a Chevy)
would give life and depth to the shot. Sometimes
it’s good we can’t get what we want.
I was new to the craft of silkscreen printing.
Goldie’s was my second attempt. My
first was of the Delta Queen steamboat. I
had decided it would be a good subject – something tourists might be
interested in. I had been stalking
the boat for a few weeks trying to catch it.
They don’t exactly pose for you. One
afternoon I was framing pictures in the Attic Gallery in its original location
on Washington Street downtown. It
was maybe 3:00 p.m. when I heard the whistle down at the waterfront. Usually the boat left about 5:30. I grabbed the camera, which had a big zoom on it and ran
downstairs, out to the street, to the top of one of the parking garages.
I got some quick shots before the boat escaped out of sight.
I’d been interested in silkscreen printing for a
while, but the books I read on the subject made it seem too complicated.
Ron Alexander, a professor from Louisiana, demonstrated the process of
photoserigraphy (making colorful silkscreened images from black and white
negatives) at an Art Association meeting. He
must have done a good job, because I got all the equipment and materials and
didn’t stop until I had that print of the Delta Queen.
A few tourists did like the steamboat print, but the one that got me
excited was Goldie’s. Why?
I guess because it caught the place in a way that seemed familiar to me.
And that’s what I’ve found to be the test for me.
Sometimes people suggest subjects for the series, but unless I have a
personal relationship with the subject, I can’t get much enthusiasm for it.
I guess these pictures represent how I feel about my town.
Most of the buildings, businesses, and people
depicted in the prints are no longer here.
We joke about how my photographing a subject is the kiss of death for it.
I hope not. I usually pick
things that are from another era; so, we shouldn’t be too surprised when they
don’t last much longer. I choose
them because of my affection for restaurants where the food doesn’t always
come out the same; for gas stations and groceries where people spend hours
talking to acquaintances they might only see in that place; for small
businesses, where visiting seemed more important than selling.
Is it any wonder these places are disappearing?
More than twenty years later, I still go out at night
with a camera. It might be a
digital camera now. I’ve even
made prints with digital transfer technique substituting for the silkscreening.
But the purpose is the same: to
find something important. I know
when I find it, because there’s always a bright light shining right on it.
Winter 2000-2001
Spotlight on Southern Culture
Fresh Bread Nippin' at Your Nose
by Daniel Boone
Like many towns in the south, Vicksburg is well acquainted with historic preservation and restoration. Many a landmark home and public building here is under protection for its unique architecture. Keeping our buildings and streets looking a certain way is important to us. But there are other senses than visual, and sometimes I think we are forgetting how important they can be. There is something our town has lost in the last half of the twentieth century. Something that disappeared one day from the landscape of all our senses: the overpowering fragrance of freshly baked bread.
There was a time in the ‘50s and ‘60s when a drive down Clay Street could be a heavenly experience. Visitors from the East would enter our town by driving through a beautiful stone arch which spanned Clay Street (just about where the new Pizza Hut is going up.) Within a few blocks a wonderful yeasty odor would envelope them as they approached Koestler’s Bakery on the corner of Clay and Hosseley Street (now known as Mission 66). If you were here then, you can smell that bread now. I know I can.
If you never smelled the freshly baked bread from a city bakery, you probably can’t imagine how intense and exquisite it was. There are certainly businesses around today that emit smells, but not many will be so fondly recalled. During the holiday season, Koestler’s Bakery is fondly recalled by most of my generation for another reason.
Our parents would round us up on a December night, and we’d park at the Rose Oil station across the street from Koestler’s. As soon as we’d open the car door, we’d hear Jimmy Boyd singing “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” or maybe Gene Autry’s “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” blasting from concealed speakers. The first thing we would see was snow! A blanket, or maybe more literally a quilt, of white, padded “snow” covered the low terrace that the building was situated on, and the genuine evergreen trees that grew against the walls of the bakery enhanced the illusion. It was breathtaking. And there he was, the man himself: Santa with his sleigh full of wrapped packages being pulled by the full complement of reindeer.
It was that way from my earliest memory, but it seemed to get bigger and better each year. Eventually a giant Frosty the Snowman was added at the corner of the building. And another Santa was added who actually handed out stockings filled with toys, candy, and fruit to all who were brave enough to sit in the man’s lap for a few moments while he asked us one simple question. Back then we usually had an answer when asked what we wanted.
The questions and answers are less simple today. Where did the bakeries go? Where does the bread come from now? What happened to Santa and Frosty and the “snow?” I’ve been told that the unimpressive, painted plywood Santa and reindeer on the terrace at City Hall are the very same ones. I’m not buying that story. It just doesn’t smell right.
Seemingly some people don’t think of Clay Street as a beautiful place today. And maybe there were those who thought the brightly lit Christmas display at the bakery was gaudy or tacky. But we kids knew it for what it was. A recent movie entitled After Life (I didn’t see it) had as its premise the intriguing concept that somehow a person could create their own Heaven by choosing a memory from their past and reliving it for eternity. In the running for mine would have to be the moment when I was about halfway across Clay Street, holding my mother’s hand, walking towards a winter wonderland. Breathing deeply.
Summer 2000
Spotlight on Southern Culture:
Mediocre Crawfish? Never!
By Daniel Boone
We southerners have a reputation for politeness, and I think it’s deserved, but maybe not understood.
The other day, my lunch companion and I were lingering over po’ boys at Toot’s grocery, and comparing our jobs (the ones we were avoiding by pushing the lunch “hour” envelope). “One thing I’ve noticed,” my friend allowed, “is how some people will listen to me so politely, but somehow, I find it hard to be friends with them.”
“Ah,” I nodded sagely, “that’s because politeness and friendliness don’t have anything to do with one another.”
I figured this out one day a few years back. I was avoiding work, bypassing the time in conversation with a fellow worker who was “not from around here.” (Notice how I politely avoid using the “Y” word.) She was telling me how she had trouble dealing with some locals. She wanted to know what it meant to “act like a Yankee” (oops, I said it).
“Well, uh,” I stammered, “some people think of Yankees as well, maybe too forthright, uh, abrupt, or, uh, well, rude.”
“Well,” she says, “Southerners are polite, but they’re insincere.”
“We think that’s better.” As soon as I heard myself say it, I knew it was Truth. Sincerity is not what we’re looking for. Non-confrontation is what it’s all about. For us politeness is a tool, if not a weapon to just get past an encounter intact.
And it can cause some communication problems between us and some of those non-southerners. I heard a story about a local woman who took a friend from “somewhere else” out to eat at a place she thought was typically southern: catfish or crawfish or something exotic. After the meal was served, the owner/cook stopped by the table to inquire how the food was. The guest offered her opinion in an honest and forthright way: “Mediocre,” she said. I cringed when I heard this.
You and I both know if your food was good, you would answer, “excellent, great, best I ever had,” or some polite exaggeration. If your food was pretty bad, the correct answer would be, “it’s just fine.” If you don’t know that, then you must not be from around here.
Anyway, the woman who thought “mediocre” was an appropriate reply found out different. The stunned owner retreated to the kitchen for a few minutes, and then he came back to the table and “went off on her” (as they say). Many of the things he said to this forthright woman were, well, not polite. And definitely not friendly.
Spring 2000
Spotlight on Southern Culture:
The Face of the South - Regular or Sandwich Style?
By Daniel Boone
I overheard the child of a friend asking my wife how Vicksburg had changed the most during the time she had been here. The question was asked for some school project, and even though nobody was asking me, I knew my answer.
I remember the day it started. I think it was a Sunday afternoon in about 1961. I was standing in one of two long lines of people waiting for something exciting. Among those waiting with me and my parents were merchants, professional people, judges...it seemed the whole town had turned out for the opening of a new business: the Burger Chef, our first fast food franchise. Why were we there? I can only imagine the attraction was to the plastic and metal glitter of the place. The food was cheap, and there weren't many choices to make. Burgers, fries, and Cokes were fifteen cents each. The so-called "milk shakes" were twenty.
Until that day Vicksburg, like most Mississippi towns, had dozens of places to eat. They were all locally owned, and although they weren't exactly gourmet restaurants, they had their own charm. The burgers were usually about a quarter. If you wanted yours "sandwich style," it might cost another nickel or dime. This "sandwich style" thing seems to be a uniquely Vicksburgian burger idiom. Most outsiders assumed it must mean you got your burger on sliced bread. Who would want that? A burger comes on a bun. No, "sandwich style" meant it would be served with lettuce, tomato, and mayo as opposed to "regular," which came with mustard, pickle, and maybe onion. If you wanted your burger some other way, you probably weren't from around here.
But the local places served more than burgers. At places like The Glass Kitchen, Johnny's, The Beechwood, Jack's Village Inn, Tuminello's, Cassino's, The Old Southern Tea Room, Aunt Minnie's, Tasty Food, and Knapp's Pastry, you could find what passed for good Southern cooking. Some were drive-ins, some were full scale restaurants, some were what we called "cafes." But as the Sixties progressed, more and more fast food places sprung up to tempt us with their modern, predictable, paper-wrapped fare. We must have felt that because these places were just like the ones in big cities somewhere else, they must be somehow superior.
The face of our town changed. The face of all towns changed. The South became less Southern. Streets lined with fast-food logos look the same everywhere. Of the dozens of "cafes" and restaurants of my youth, only the Beechwood remains. You can still get a good burger there...probably even "sandwich style." It's more than a quarter, though.
Oh, I forgot about another survivor: Goldie’s Barbecue. See, barbecue is just too Southern. There are barbecue franchises, but unlike burgers, barbecue hasn't been reduced to a unit that will appeal equally to people all over the country. Every barbecue sauce is unique, and which one is the best offers Southerners a fit subject to argue about (in lieu of politics or religion.) So, I guess there's some hope for Southern culture. In fact, I revisited the site of the Burger Chef this week...it's a new (strictly local) barbecue place.
Spotlight on Southern Culture:
The Forest of the Wang Dang Doodle
By Daniel Boone
Can’t see the forest for the trees. That’s what they say, but for my generation it’s not so much the trees but the TVs. With the steady diet of pop culture we’ve been fed by television and all mass media, sometimes we don’t see the magic forest growing around us.
For us teenagers in the 1960s, our musical tastes included such "new" recording artists as the Doors, the Rolling Stones, Steppenwolf, Eric Clapton, and Led Zeppelin. When Jim Morrison bragged about being a "Backdoor Man;" Mick Jagger crowed about the "Little Red Rooster;" Clapton philosophized about a "Spoonful," and John Kay of Steppenwolf claimed to be the "Hoochie Cootchie Man," this was powerful stuff. They were more than just our musical heroes; they were icons of our time. Something special.
The Doors and Steppenwolf were based in California, and the Stones and Zeppelin did their work across the Atlantic in London, and we assumed the exotic images from these songs must come from those faraway, glamorous places. We were just too young to know all these songs had first been recorded in Chicago by musicians who were, almost without exception, from just up the road in the Mississippi Delta, including Muddy Waters of Clarksdale, and Howlin’ Wolf of West Point, Mississippi.
But the real revelation to me was Willie Dixon. Early on I noticed his name credited as the writer of more than one song on several Doors albums. It was years before someone pointed out to me that he was from just up the street - literally. Born in my hometown of Vicksburg in 1915, Willie Dixon wrote all those songs mentioned above and hundreds more. He played string bass on many of the original records, and eventually became a longtime producer for Chess Records in Chicago. Not only did he put the words into the mouths of real bluesmen (and those other guys), but his work helped define the sound of hundreds of classic blues recordings.
Mr. Dixon was a cornerstone of the blues and all those wild lyrics he wrote were indeed exotic, but the inspiration for all that imagery was here all around us. Without being able to see it, this forest we were living in was the natural habitat of the Backdoor Men, Little Red Roosters, Hoochie Cootchie Men, and even the Wang Dang Doodle (whatever that is). To us, Vicksburg and the South seemed an ordinary place, but to our musician-heroes, it was a place of magic and dreams. And, I guess they were right.
Daniel Boone, an artist and amateur percussionist, is
a native of Vicksburg. His wife,
Lesley Silver, and he own and operate the Attic Gallery on Washington Street.