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I've a story in this week's paper about Jo Anne Frederick and her world-class, made from scratch biscuits. For those who don't have access to the latest issue of The Itawamba County Times or are, perhaps, reading this on a fancy-dancy electronic reading device, the words can be found here: http://www.itawamba360.com/view/full_story/12769758/article-Baking-the-best-biscuits?instance=home_news_1st_left.
People like Frederick astound me. Once, when I was younger and more idealistic, I fancied myself a budding chef. I bought several books on the subject of food-making — instructional tomes with names that began with "Easy..." and ended with "...for Dummies" or something similar. I would scribble the easiest recipes from among those printed within onto a small piece of notebook paper and head out to the store, purchase the necessary ingredients and struggle for hours to prepare them as instructed. The evening would inevitably end with yours truly pouring himself a bowl of Lucky Charms...or, possibly, Coco Puffs.
Alas, even though I managed to make it through six years of band — during which time I could march forwards and backwards through a precise series of locations spread across an entire football field while playing ten minutes of memorized music on a thirty-pound tuba — I find myself unable to either cook two things simultaneously or prepare a single dish that requires more than three steps to create. I don’t know what sort of mental blockage exists in my brain to give me such troubles, but it’s most definitely there and it most definitely mocks me every time I step into the kitchen on dinner duty.
For people like me, “homemade biscuits” literally translates into “from a can biscuits,” and “made from scratch” specifically refers to the gashes received while trying to pry those damn tubes apart so I can get at the gooey stuff within. Mandy tells me a biscuit can be made with little effort. She demonstrates by tossing some flour and milk together in a bowl, shoving them in the oven and then, some time later, yanking out something edible. It’s like magic. I know there’s a trick to it, but my brain just can’t grasp it. Abracadabra, everything’s burned.
Thankfully, magicians surround me. If there’s one thing the Southern portion of the United States has in abundance, it’s cooks with abilities that far surpass my own. Wonderful people like Jo Anne Frederick are everywhere, which is not a knock against her, just a compliment to the culinary prowess of the area. For people like me, it’s a Godsend. Let the biscuits shower down like delicious, buttery hail.
No need to worry about me: Like a toothless man sitting swimming in a sea of mashed potatoes, there’s no way I’ll ever starve.
Just in case you haven’t picked up your copy of the March 16 issue of The Itawamba County Times, Fulton Mayor Paul Walker recently announced that the city collected the largest sales tax check in its history last December, and that sales tax collections for the current fiscal year are far outpacing those of last. Good news all around; good news always gets me to thinking.
Now that the city is rolling in it, I have a few suggestions — changes I feel would benefit the town as a whole. First up, it seems pretty obvious to me that the money would be well spent by sprucing things up a bit. The city can’t roll like a rock star if it has regular old asphalt streets. That ain’t “bling.” I suggest marbleizing those bad boys. Nothing says “classy” like marble...except perhaps a parrot trained to say the word “classy” over and over again. I suppose that would say “classy” more, but marble comes pretty close.
The city’s streetlights could use a little fancying up as well. I’m thinking purple neon ought to make downtown look pretty “banging.” Really light up Playgarden Park, you know. Oh, speaking of which, why aren’t those characters featured so prominently in the heart of the park encrusted in diamonds? Cost you say? Not an issue. Oh, and marbleize those, too. You can never have enough marble…or gold. Plate them in gold after marbleizing them.
Ooo, ooo, and what could be more “balling” than replacing all the water flowing through the Tombigbee Waterway with Cristal? Nothing, that’s what. I don’t know the logistics of that one, but the city’s rich, now. Rich folks can do anything.
You know, the more I think about it, city officials should really just lower a huge dome over the city to protect from the grubby little hands of lesser communities. When your pockets are lined, everybody wants in. We can’t let that happen. I say seal us off. We’ll be sitting pretty — sliding down our marble streets or drinking from our liqueur river — while the rest of the world flounders in economic turmoil. It’ll slowly rot away while we, the people of Fulton, thrive like fruit in spring.
…Oh, wait. I live in Tupelo. Crap. I’m screwed.
Well, I guess in theory my bribes should be a little bit healthier, now. Right? That’ll be comfort, I guess.
Adam Armour writes for The Itawamba County Times. He can be also be found online at http://adamarmour.wordpress.com.
I used to hate coffee. Used to.
I’m not exactly sure why, all those years ago, I had such a distaste for the stuff. I remember going on trips with the Boy Scouts and marveling as some of my fellow Scouts woke every morning to a fresh cup of brew. They seemed so sophisticated, these middle-schoolers with steaming mugs or Styrofoam cups in hand, slowly slipping at the black brew. Me? I couldn’t do it. Each bitter drink burned the throat and sent the taste buds screaming for mercy. Sophistication be damned, I wouldn’t have it.
But then, my lovely wife began working at a coffee shop, and as if I had made a deal with devil himself my soul slowly began shifting into blackness. It started with a cup here or there, one or two every other day or so while I sat at the coffee bar and dutifully distracted her from actual work. Slowly and imperceptible as the climb into old age, I eventually became a full-blown coffeeholic.
Upon first waking every morning, I drink a cup or two. Then, sure as clockwork, I partake of the full pot Gaynell brews here at the office every morning. That’s three down. Come mid-afternoon, Charlotte starts getting restless and decides to brew another pot for herself. Well, can’t let that go to waste, time for a fourth cup, or fifth. Sometimes a sixth.
I can stop. I just know it. I don’t want to, though. Don’t talk to me about it.
I’m not claiming java expertise or anything, but I do feel my little habit of drinking half a dozen cups of the stuff every single day of the week gives me the right to defend it like a knight would his king. So, when I see some little Johnny-Come-Latelys like this Five Hour Energy crap bashing my favorite vice, I tend to bristle.
For those who don’t know, Five Hour Energy is one of these new-fangled energy drinks that purportedly help get you through that “2:30 feeling.” Apparently, if the drink’s advertising department is to be believed, 2:30 p.m. is the time of day in which we all just drop over dead asleep. I’m surprised there aren’t more mid-afternoon vehicular accidents.
Well, now they have this line of commercials directly attacking my beverage of choice. Since I can’t embed videos here, here’s a link for your copy and pasting pleasure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLdBOTuX1GI&NR=1
Now, if this commercial is to be believed, drinking a cup of coffee is apparently akin to working the most complex of algorithms or operating heavy machinery while drunk, a surefire way to make your head explode and destroy the world around you. The very act of trying to pour sugar into a cup leads to more of a powdery mess than a baker with a cold. Walking while holding a cup in your hand is nigh impossible. Also, apparently brewing a cup of coffee — something I normally do while dressing or, if I’m feeling especially clever, set the coffeemaker to do before I even wake up, is the most time-consuming thing in the entire world.
Ah, but Five Hour Energy is here to save us from the problem we didn’t even know we had. Look at that guy at the end, so content to have slurped down his disgusting beverage with such speed that he has time to sit and read his newspaper instead of sitting and reading his newspaper while reading his newspaper like everybody else. Never mind that one little drink cost $3 whereas a cup of homebrewed coffee costs around four cents. That kind of thinking won’t give you the extra time you need to read that newspaper before heading to work. Just think about how miserable you’ll be dragging around work without the knowledge of yesterday’s events, while everybody else will be full of information and hopped up on Five Hour Energy. You’ll be so jealous.
I realize, of course, that I’m putting too much into this. The advertising department’s job is to make a product as appealing as possible, destroying all enemies in the process. They target those individuals they feel are gullible enough to bite the hook they’ve dipped in the water, I’m just pissed they think it’s me.
God, I need another cup.
On my way to work today, I had to stop and put a few drops of gas in my car so that it wouldn't sputter to a stop on the middle of the highway. In truth, I needed more than just those few measly drops, but apparently I'll have to sell some organs before I can fill up again.
Much like the resurgence in clothing styles from the 1980s, the return of high gas prices is completely unwelcome and a little bit nauseating. As a person who both commutes to work daily and is required to do quite a bit of traveling as part of his job, it pains me to see those numbers creeping upward, ready to strike at the heavens. It's like I can actually feel my paychecks disappearing.
Now, I'm not one to toss around blame or anything, and I know good and well that there are many different factors that contribute to determining the cost of fuel — overseas markets, demand, weather and whatnot — but I'm just going to go ahead and say its the government’s fault things are this way today. They're trying to keep us down, man.
Laugh if you want, but deep down in the recesses of your mind you know I speak the truth. The poor are easy to control. If we, the American people, are always broke we will have little choice but to turn to our government for help. As I've learned through my various dealings with organized crime, you ask for any little inconsequential favor — say living off of welfare for the rest of your natural life — and then BOOM, suddenly those cutting the checks expect a little something in return. In this case, it's complete and total subservience to the upper echelon of American society, i.e. our political leaders. Also i.e. the super-rich. They get all their gas for free anyway because they're all buddy-buddy with both official and terrorist leaders in the Middle East, so what do they care? Doesn't affect them.
Then, when we're all worn down like old sandpaper, we'll be forced to receive health care through government clinics, wherein we'll have microchips pumped into our bloodstreams through some random vaccination they'll say we need, and we'll all be too hungry and poor and internet disabled to know any better. Then, they'll be able to track our movements and monitor us while we sleep and read our thoughts and everything we don't want them to be able to do. Today it's a little gas hike and tomorrow its complete physical and mental control. You just wait and see.
Of course, I suppose they could just keep monitoring us via our cell phones. That would work, too.
I'm not going to beat around the bush here: Sometimes, not always but occasionally, if you catch me at just the right moment and I happened to be in just the right kind of mood, which doesn't occur very often, I might be inclined to maybe admit that deep within the recesses of my mind where exists all of my unspoken honesties I can rarely find my job to be a smidgen bit dull at times.
It's not that I don't love what I do, because I do; it's just I've been writing stuff and photographing things here at The Itawamba County Times for nearly six years now and there's only so many times a person can cover a county or city board meeting or write about a student's academic excellence without the topics wearing a bit thin. Sorry, guys. It's the truth.
That said, days like today remind me of why I love this job. Later today, I will be traveling to Fairview to interview a little girl who talked two of her fellow, elementary-aged classmates through a gunshot injury. That's right, one of her ten year old buddies accidentally shot another of her ten year old buddies and instead of calling 911 or their parents like you or I or most anyone else on the planet would have done, they called this little girl. And, she knew what to do. What are the odds?
As a person who begins to panic when the brakes in his car begin squeaking uncharacteristically, I can't imagine what I'd do if one of my friends called asking for "Oh crap, I'm bleeding, what do I do?" type advice. I'd probably cry.
This girl must be a real badass. I've never seen her, but I picture short-cropped hair, a couple of tats and perhaps a grizzled beard. She'll have a cigar tucked between her lips, of course, and will speak with the kind of stone-hewn voice that suggests the sound of boulders passing each other in the night. Likely, she'll see me as the weak, cowering individual I am and immediately spit on my face, which will only serve to make me tougher after I've stopped crying.
I'm really looking forward to this. The story should make the March 9 paper.
I regularly attend the meetings of the Mantachie Board of Aldermen, wherein lie some of the most interesting political confrontations in our county. Sometimes, this job can be pretty intriguing.
The town really is on the cusp of great change; or, perhaps more accurately is on the cusp of possibly being on the cusp of great change. With the giant Toyota Boshoku moving in next door, the small town has the chance to capitalize and profit on the growth it will likely bring. During a recent meeting, which you can read about in the Jan. 19 edition of The Itawamba County Times, the board entered a heated debate on whether or not to annex a portion of Fawn Grove that, in the wake of TB’s opening, has the potential to sprout a gas station or motel or small restaurant or brothel. I made that last one up. Sorry perverts. Absorbing the land is an investment — it will cost money, but it also might make money…perhaps a lot of money. Increased revenue means the town can do more for its citizens and possibly attract even more new business, which in turn brings in more revenue and so on and so on until the end of all time.
The question is, does the town even want to grow? To me, Mantachie always seemed to be the kind of place that reveled in being small; that its people clung steadfastly to the mythology of the small Southern town — quaint, quiet and quite satisfied to remain that way. Doors can be left unlocked and everybody knows your name. There’s nothing wrong with that.
But some, not all, of the board members feel that if the town does not grow it will simply stagnate. To survive, they argue, the town must grow. Others say they are happy with Mantachie remaining a small town: That’s part of its identity and charm.
Both sides, in a way, are right, putting the board in an interesting dilemma. Do they dare take that first step when they don’t even know if the destination is where they want to be? Or, should Mantachie simply sit quietly and enjoy what it is as the world changes around it? As one of mankind’s laziest humans, I can tell you there’s a lot to be said about contentment.
For certain, it will be interesting watching the ways in which that small Itawamba County town grows and changes in the coming years. Or doesn’t.
I just finished off a story about Fulton resident Jerry Stubblefield's 30-year tradition of decorating his house with enough Christmas lights to make up for the sun’s nightly disappearance. Seriously, thanks to Mr. Stubblefield, we can all get a lot more outside work done. Thanks.
Be sure to pick up the Dec. 8 issue of "The Itawamba County Times" to read the story.
Stubblefield's a nice guy. He’s got a kind of frank, no-nonsense demeanor that I find totally refreshing because it’s completely unlike my own. I mean, honestly, I peddle BS like street vendors peddle knock-off sunglasses. But Stubblefield just kind of up and says exactly what he thinks, and it’s awesome.
“So, why exactly do you go through the trouble of setting up all these lights each year,” I asked him.
He laughed and rubbed his forehead and replied, " I don’t know. That’s a good question.”
Nobody ever tells me my questions are good. Points for the man for admitting he’s as baffled by the tradition as I am.
Not that I can say much anyway. I don’t ever go big for Christmas.
Anyway, during our conversation, he happened to mention he had a whopping total of eight Christmas trees in his house. Eight. I’ll be doing well to set up one, and this man has an entire fir stand set up in his home. Geez. I wish I had that kind of gusto when it came to doing anything…anything at all. If something requires even a modicum of effort, Adam Armour ain’t gonna do it, and setting up Christmas trees requires slightly more than a modicum.
Still, I’m glad Stubblefield goes through all this trouble each year. There’s definitely this special feeling that only this time of year can conjure — as if staring into those little lights somehow transports you back to childhood, before you knew about Black Friday tramplings and massive credit card debt, to a time when Christmas was still the most magical part of the year.
Just don’t stare at those lights for too long or you’ll go blind.
Sometimes, being an adult, I like to write things that adults can read. Well, I guess that's most anything, but my latest blog post, while related to Itawamba County, is best read in a site not directly related to the newspaper. Kids, look away; adults, please click and read on. Also enjoy.
http://adamarmour.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/tapping-into-the-force/
I attended a picnic for Itawamba Attendance Center's kindergarten classes last week, snapping pictures of restless youngsters who were supposed to be sitting and eating lunch but were pretty much doing anything but. It was everything you would imagine it to be: little kids laughing and screaming and jumping around. Admittedly, when I show up to such events I exacerbate the situation, turning up the heat until the water boils out of control. There's just something so fun about little kids and the way they rattle incessantly about anything and everything. It's like looking in a mirror. I can't help but encourage that kind of behavior.
Anyway, so I'm yapping with these kids about Iron Man and Doritos and whether or not any of them like salt and vinegar potato chips, which I have now been informed are “gross,” and there's this one little boy who's stockpiling animal crackers. He beckons for me with a single finger.
“Hey. Look at all my crackers.”
“Whoa...where did you get all those?” I like to act genuinely amazed as it tends to make kids really excitable.
“From my friends. They gave them to me.”
“Awesome,” I said, earnestly. There's something to be learned from kids. As cliché as it sounds, they have an innocence that simply falls away with age, as if each year chinks a little piece off until there's nothing left. Seeing a kid so full of excitement for simple things like a collection of animal crackers donated by his classmates made me smile.
Even as I stood there, another classmate — a young girls with wispy blonde hair — approached with her pack of animal crackers in hand. She held these out to the little boy.
“Do you want my pack, too,” she asked, extending them as far as her little arm could reach.
“Yeah,” the boy practically shouted, reaching out to grab the pack. She snatched it back.
“Well, you can't have them.” Her tone suggested offense, as if he shouldn't have agreed to take them despite her offer. She stormed away, back to her seat on the grass, opened her animal crackers and enjoyed them one at a time.
It was the most ruthless thing I've ever seen.
AUTHOR'S NOTE/DISCLAIMER: The following article was written in parody. As far as the author knows, there is not some secret organization devoted to preserving the "Institution of Prom." Also, the author's editor has always been supportive of any ideas which he has ever nurtured, no matter how hideous or ghastly they may have been. In other words, what follows is just a joke. Sorry for any confusion
Since the beginning of this the Constance McMillen vs. the Itawamba County School Board fiasco, I have been working on an investigative report that would enable people to point their fingers at exactly who or what is to blame for the whole mess. Although I wrote my expose in the typical story format, it was denied publication in the pages of The Itawamba County Times.
"This is too hot-button a topic," my editor told me, tossing the story in the trash. "I want you to back off it."
Alas, I won't be deterred. Presented here is the story in full. I hope you read it, and are enlightened. Thank you.
Prom: Dance of death or delight?
ADAM ARMOUR
It was a single shot that started The Great War — a bullet which pierced Ferdinand’s jugular and was said to be “heard around the world.” This spark ignited the European powder keg and caused the world to explode into war.
Likewise, there has been a similar shot fired here in Itawamba County — an invisible bullet that has pierced the heart of the nation. When Itawamba Agricultural High School reportedly denied openly gay student Constance McMillen permission to bring her girlfriend to the prom and she subsequently filed a complaint with the ACLU, it was the start of what would become a national controversy. Who was blame for this fight? The school? The county board? McMillen herself? No one can say.
Some experts, however, have a potentially startling theory — one that has been summarily dismissed by most of the mainstream media due to its controversial claims:
The prom itself is at fault.
“Proms might just be the most negative force in the history of mankind,” said Dr. Phillip Haskell, a sociologist who specializes in gala studies. According to Haskell, history has proven the prom to be a largely detrimental influence on mankind, one that promotes a kind of carelessness that may end up as the downfall of civilization. Beneath the posh exterior of formal tuxes and frilly dresses beats the heart of a monster.
“Think about the problems caused by proms,” Haskell said. “Who’s taking out whom; ‘oh, what should I wear?’; ‘does this dress make me look fat?’; the repeatedly reported criminal operations of the corsage industry. These are the kinds of things consistently associated with high school proms, and are, frankly, senseless. There’s a way to stop all of this.”
Haskell, who has fought for years to put an end to what he calls the “Institution of Prom,” said that many more enlightened cultures have abandoned the concept long ago. He called its continual practice on these shores “barbaric.”
“Eastern civilizations such as Japan and China abolished proms decades ago, blaming them for massive explosions in population and those country’s current struggles with overcrowding,” Haskell said. “One look at the U.S. statistics shows that these issues could very well be facing our country in the near future. We have to be very careful.”
National studies by the World Prom Institute have repeatedly shown great population spikes in nearly every community nine months after a prom has been held in that area. In fact, some believe that 90 percent of all pregnancies stem from the practice of attending proms, or “promming” is it’s often called by experts.
“If continued, promming will, without a doubt, result in massive food shortages in the United States. Make no mistake, it will kill us all,” Haskell said.
Financial expert S.R. Wigginton claims proms have actually caused the economic crisis currently facing the United States.
“U.S. teens spend approximately $100-billion each year on attending proms. That’s enough to feed every other country in the world other than our own for the rest of all time,” Wigginton said. “That’s not including the medical costs of the hundreds of thousands of children born each year due to Prom. All combined, the numbers would simply be too staggering to comprehend.”
Wigginton suggested a more economically sound solution for the parents of teens looking for a prom-like activity without the prom-like expense.
“For heaven’s sake, parents, just leave your teen at home alone for 30 minutes. Heck, even 15 or five minutes would make a tremendous difference. Although your teen may be upset at first that he or she cannot attend the event, he or she will find a way to adapt. Trust me, those grandkids will come soon enough.”
Despite all of the negative evidence, others have taken a different, more positive view of the “Institution of Prom.” Dr. Olen Puffles, for example, believes man has Prom to thank for the continuation of its species.
“Prom has singlehandedly perpetuated the human race,” Puffles said. “I can say without hyperbole that if proms had been in existence 65-million years ago, I would have come to work this morning on the back of a T-Rex, or perhaps a brachiosaur, rather than in a four-door Kia.”
Puffles added that he believes pregnancy can still occur outside of the prom setting and that, despite her claims to the contrary, if John doesn’t ask Tina to go with him, she will indeed survive.
“There have been no concrete links between prom-related rejections and teen ‘dramacide,’” Puffles said. “The fact is, proms serve a very real, very positive function in our society. If properly controlled, these social events can continue to have a constructive influence on mankind and everybody will have a really, really nice time.”
But, while experts may continue to debate on its merits and flaws, one thing is for certain: Prom is here to stay — always lurking in the shadows; always ready to strike; always ready to fire that first shot.
I remarked, "If that were so, the stove would only have two settings-On and Off.