Although Andy takes great pride in his culinary skills, he would like it known that he does not do all the cooking on his own. Last night Maryse put a great deal of effort into making eggplant Parmesan for dinner.
Signs
We usually take a half day off during the week and explore the local area or something, so that is what we are going to do today. We also put up a sign celebrating another year.
The dorm is covered with signs, t-shirts, and all sorts of assorted paraphernalia memorializing their visit. For groups who show up repeatedly, or annually as we do, they can start to take up a good amount of space. The largest one is probably about 3′ x 4′ and takes up a considerable amount of the ceiling. The group from Urbanna High School has also been showing up for years, and has added another two-foot letter to the ceiling every year.
We long ago took over the wall adjacent to the bathroom and had to move to another wall. This required us to move a sign or two, specifically the ones from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, but we were nice and reinstalled it on the ceiling around a number of their other signs.
In recent years, (well actually not all that recent, as it is about the past ten or so,) the multitalented Andy Thomas has designed and made our signs. Often they reflect what kind of work we have done during the week, so we have signs made of vinyl siding, dry wall, lumber, floor tile, and whatever else we might have used, or they reflect events of the week, like the one with a picture of Noah’s ark to commemorate the year it rained all week and we slogged through mud all week.
Last year, Andy came up with a special creation in honor of our 20th year down here, but he didn’t finish it before we left, so we all signed it before we left and he took it home to complete.
It has now been properly installed.
So now it is time to work on this year which will contain a blade from one of the ceiling fans.
Today in morning devotion, Charlotte made reference to both Moze Allison and the Muppetts. Not a bad way to start the day.
We will be working on mudding and taping today, as well as finishing the woodwork, which includes louvered doors. I hate louvered doors! I will try and stick to mudding and taping.
As of noon, there has not been a lot of mudding and taping, but quite a lot of progress in the woodwork, including the dreaded louvered doors.
As is often the case, we are working on a couple different houses, though in this case, most of the work is going on in one and the other is being used for storage and as a workspace. Here is the soon-to-be owner of the latest house, accompanied by her mother and grandmother.
Ariel will be moving in shortly. Her mother Yolanda on the left and grandmother Emma on the right live in other Habitat houses in the subdivision.
By this point, just about all the cabinets have been hung. Dino and Maryse are doing some touching up on the ones in the kitchen.
The staining crew has been busy. Jim and Charlotte have been working on closet doors.
Lorenzo and Kristin have been moving shelves and doors and whatever else all morning.
Meanwhile, Jon, Ed and Andy have been hooking up all the electrical connections.
Here is a ceiling fan installed by Jon without an H. I understand that it wil play an important part in the sign we post at the end of the week.
JD predicts that the house should be done soon, perhaps by next week. Appliances need to be delivered and installed, a gas line needs to be connected, and the city will have to approve everything, but Ariel should be able to move in soon.
Today will be a bit tricky. It is raining. It has been raining a lot around here lately. The problem is that the water table is high here, so when the rain falls, it tends to collect in puddles and take a long time to sink in. When we arrived Sunday night, I stepped out of Andy’s van and straight into a puddle. One of the neighbors stopped by while we were unloading to suggest finding a different place to park , or it might be tough to get out in the morning.
When it rains around here, you have to be careful walking from one place to another because you are likely to walk into a puddle. The city is moving all the culverts to try and improve drainage, but it will be a long process. It is supposed to rain more this afternoon, so we have moved just about everything inside.
These houses are not very big, so it can get a little crowded.
But we are managing to get stuff done.
Maryse is our rookie of the year. Lorenzo is offering some tips on the use of a sander before using it on one of the bedroom doors to get it to close properly.
Meanwhile, Andy is working on the fixture in the livingroom .
and we have gotten most of the cabinets finishedEd is getting the bathroom vanity togetherThis is Jon, informally known as “Jon without an H” adding ceiling fixtures
Jon without an H is a true Renaissance man. He served in the Peace Corps, organized and ran credit unions, and worked as an electrician. He has been drooling for an opportunity to start installing fixtures.
Now, time for lunch. We eat really well down here.
Alot got done during the afternoon, but I had a headache and fell asleep, so we will have to count on the rest of the crew to provide the details.
Dinner
Like I said, we eat really well down here. Andy Thomas is an accomplished chef and relishes the opportunity to demonstrate his culinary skills. So last night it was barbecued ribs and chicken, cowboy beans, greens appropriate for the locale, and a few things I do not remember. Tonight it is Thai curry with peanuts, Thai basil, sesame oil, and limes served over fluffy rice.
Then the chef typically sits down and weatches the rest of the crew admire his work while he rests after toiling over a hot stove.
We got just about all the cabinets stained today. Tomorrow we start working on the trim and the like.
Ed and Mike cutting trimJim, Dino and Charlotte staining cabinetsAndy and Jon man the saw
And here is a completed cabinet.
That cabinet represents most of my contribution for the day at the house. I was toiling over a hot computer most of the day, getting this blog up. More difficult than you think. Computers are animated by the souls of the damned.
The end of the day usually consists of people coming in, sipping a beverage of their choice, and deciding when they want to get in line for the shower. There is not much point in showering in the morning and then going out and getting hot and sweaty and covered with saw dust, wood stain, and assorted building detritus.
Time to get started. Everybody was up and moving early this morning. Breakfast was great. There is a certain comfort in waking up and and finding a familiar breakfast – Dino’s sausage and peppers, (Actually, I think Kristin made them, but they were Dino’s idea) Kristin making scrambled eggs to order, (I would add a picture of Kristin, but she would get mad at me,) Dino’s coffee cake, (Really his this time) and most importantly, the appearance of a couple longtime friends.
Lorenzo has been coming to join us every year since I have started coming along. I even gave him a call earlier this year to talk to a bunch of third-graders when I was telling them about our trip. He got here early enough for breakfast this morning.
JD has been the contractor for Habitat since I started showing up. He knows me well enough that the first thing he did was make fun of my hair. JD’s last words as we departed last year were “Y’all are family.”
Fair enough. I see more of the people down here than I do with some family members. It is good to come back to where the people there think you are family.
Sherri has been the Habitat coordinator for several years. She arrived later today after most of the crew had left for the worksite. After we finish House #49, it looks like we will have one more to work on in Tutwiler, a couple blocks away.
We are on our way. As always, we stopped at Niemerg’s in Effingham, IL. We always stop at Niemerg’s. Effingham is far enough from Chicago that we get down here just about lunch time. I am not going to shoot another picture of Niemerg’s. Every year I shoot a picture of Niemerg’s. Niemerg’s has pretty good food and a fantastic salad bar, so it is a good place to stop. It is also one of the more popular and accessible restaurants in the area, so it is not unusual to find yourself surrounded by a dozen youth baseball teams or this year, a Christian motorcycle club. These bikers did not look at all threatening, sporting large crosses and larger American flags on their leather vests. I am not one to equate faith and nationalism, but we just got a new American pope, so maybe they are celebrating that.
Effingham, both the city and county were named after Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham, who resigned his commission in the British Army rather than take up arms against the North American colonists during the American Revolution. It seems the closest he ever got to Illinois was Jamaica, where he died while serving as the royal governor. Or else it was named for the guy who originally surveyed the area. Wikipedia splits the difference and says it was named after General Effingham, a local surveyor. Take your pick. This is definitely Southern Illinois. The town is probably best known for the Cross at the Crossroads, a 198 foot white steel structure. At 198 feet, it is just short of the height at which it would have to have a light on top for navigational purposes. A couple major highways intersect here, giving rise to the Crossroads name, (not to be confused with the more famous Crossroads in Clarksdale, MS, where Robert Johnson purportedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for becoming the original blues legend.)
This is definitely Southern Illinois. Effingham was a Sundown Town until the 60’s, and reportedly black people were not welcome there for some years thereafter. The motorcycle club group was friendly enough, but I am left with the impression that my MANEA baseball cap would not be greeted warmly. Most of our journey down will be in the state of Illinois before we pass through Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee, but we are already effectively in the South.
Our good friend and sometime team member Tony Del Gallo generously paid for lunch. Geez, Tony! If you told me that, I would have ordered a steak!
BOOMLAND!!!
Ah, how to describe the wonder that is Boomland? It seems that every time we stop there, I have to add a piece about this amazing cultural/commercial/pyrotechnical establishment. I fear I run out of words after once describing it as the zenith of Southern kitch, but Boomland is remarkable that every visit merits its own account. Located off the interstate in Charleston, MO and stretching the length of a city block, it is a combination of a U.S. Army armory, an exotic grocery, and a Turkish bazaar. It seems as if all of the fireworks from which the establishment gets its name went of at once and scattered every piece of patriotic/religious and tacky merchandise one can imagine, with some actual quality items mixed in.
Want to buy a skull with an American flag on it?Free puppies! Will soon be big enough to ride.
Outside the store, a young couple were giving away puppies. They are cute! Of course they are. They are puppies. But at the age of eleven weeks, these offspring of a Grand Pyrenees and White German Shepard are already as big or bigger than most dog you might find strolling the streets of Chicago. When someone asked who big they would grow, I said, “Think ponies.” The lady giving them away replied, “That’s about right. About up to my hip.” Like the people giving them away, the puppies appear calm and gentle, but I would not want to be an intruder in whatever home they wind up in. The couple managed to find four of the six they brought there is a little over an hour. They are keeping two others. Kindhearted souls, no doubt, but no surprise that at Boomland, even the things you can get for free are big!
As you enter the store, you encounter what appears to be the world’s largest rocking chair, dedicated the late Mr. Land, for whom the store is presumably named. I always thought “Boomtown” sounded better, but if that was the guy’s name, I guess what they came up with is a better choice. And then before your eyes, wonders to behold! First baseball caps, most honoring the military, guns, or Jesus in no particular order. Then racks of clothing. Polynesian dresses, kids stuff, and of course t-shirts. Beyond that are row upon row of figurines – angels, devils, skulls, dragons, bears, and whatever else you might think someone might purchase.
The food section is big enough to fill a small grocery store with all kinds of tempting concoctions. Canned and pickled and preserved just about anything that grows from the ground. I ended up with three jars I found in the reduced-price-beyond-expiration-date section. I could load up on these. The last time we visited, I bought a few. They were good. They were cheap. And where else are you going to find pickled black-eyed pea relish?
As always, my favorite part is the hot sauce section. No idea what they taste like, but names to race the heart and numb the mind. I noticed that there remained only two bottles of Screw the Republicans, and apparently Screw the Democrats was sold out. Well, that is no surprise in our current political environment, and Missouri is not much of a swing state in recent years. The list of names promising violence and destruction is virtually endless. I understand that the really powerful stuff is kept behind the sales counter. I chose something gentler sounding: Hippy Dippy Green. Its label displays a turtle in an apparently altered state of consciousness, with a peace sign on his shell. Seems harmless enough. Of course, it was produced by the Angry Goat Pepper Company.
Then of course there are the fireworks. Behind a separate set of doors on the far end of the building, a good distance from the gas pumps, are the fireworks in a space about the size of your typical grocery store. Unless you are an expert on such things, it is difficult to tell exactly what it is they do, besides shooting high in the air and going boom, but again, my favorite part is the names.
The apocalyptic ones: A series entitled Atomic Bomb, Hydrogen Bomb, Neutron Bomb, and Cobalt Bomb, (Is there such a thing as a Cobalt Bomb? I don’t think I want to know.) Last Man Standing, Atomic Rain, Day Zero
The mysogynistic ones: One Bad Mother-in-Law, Trophy Wife, Alpha Male
The ones intended to appeal to a certain demographic: Baby Boomers! , Psychodelic
The ones that are just plain weird: Psycho Circus, Loyal to None, Western Green Mamba, Dirty Little Secret (It is not likely to remain secret for too long if it lights up the sky and goes boom!)
Kristin contributed some photos that she shot during the week. They will provide a different perspective of the week.
I am decidedly not a morning person, but Kristin is, so she got this beautiful sunrise picture because she was the only one up early enough to see it.
She also got this one of the sunset. Nice wide agle shot.
Here are pics of the Sumner courthouse where the Emmett Till trial was held. The courthouse is still in use until they finish building a new one, at which time it will be operated by the National Park Service. The courtroom is basically unchanged since the Till trial.
Here are some pictures of the crew and family at work.
I am not sure exactly what is going on here, but it is near the railroad tracks that run through Tutwiler, though the trains rarely come through town now.
Tutwiler was at one point, if not a booming town, at least a bigger and more active one. The story is that W.C. Handy discovered the blues while sitting in the Tutwiler depot waiting for a train and listening to an old man play a guitar while running a bottle neck up and down the strings. He was singing about where the Southern crosses the dog, referring to where the Southern Railroad crossed the Yazoo and Delta, known informally as the Yellow Dog. There are pictures in the community center of Tutwiler in its heyday and some of the buildings from that era are still standing – barely. The interiors have mostly fallen in.
I already posted a version of this picture, but this one is better.
After years of these trips, we inevitably find ourselves repeating certain themes. Enroute to our destination, we pass a truly remarkable center of commerce, BOOMLAND!
Yes, it deserves those capital letters. In an earlier blog post, I described it as the acme of Southern kitsch. Perhaps I was unfair. Well, no I wasn’t. It is that. But that fails to do it justice. It is difficult to describe the sheer scale of the place, dedicated as it is to the American ethos that too much of everything is just not enough.
The building stretches to for about what in Chicago would be a city block. Inside there are wonders to behold! At the main entrance, there is an enormous rocking chair big enough to hold at least two people dedicated to G. Leon Land. I presume he is the founder of this enterprise, and that is why it is called Boomland and not Boomtown.
The outside promises Specialty Food! (Mostly pizza and hamburgers,)Gifts and Collectibles! (depends on what you want to collect, I guess.) Home Decor! (If you want to do your home in contemporary American tacky.) And of course, FIREWORKS!!!
We visited the one in Charleston, MO (up to this point, I was never sure which location we were visiting. There are two of them, because one just is not enough.) Just beyond the rocking chair, one is greeted with a huge variety of baseball caps. One of the employees greeted me with enthusiasm when I walked in the door. I had forgotten that I was wearing one that I had purchased a few years ago. This is decidedly red territory, so unsurprisingly, the hats tend to celebrate religion, conservative politics, or both. I do not know if I would have been as cheerfully greeted if I wore my “Make America Not Embarrassing Again” hat. A couple years back, Andy purchased a “Bikers for Jesus” hat, but it is a pretty good guess that the locals are not attuned to irony.
Beyond that, there is just loads and loads of STUFF! I am no arbiter of women’s fashion, but a woman could purchase an entire wardrobe here. Then there are the knickknacks and the like. It is like if you gathered every truck stop and tourist trap in the state, loaded it up with fireworks, then just set the whole thing off. STUFF EVERYWHERE!
Bears, trolls, dragons, angels, just about any other kind of figurine you can figure, a selection of children-sized t-shirts big enough to outfit several kindergartens and a section of junk food big enough to keep them all on a sugar high for weeks, signs, crosses, an entire section of furniture.
Who doesn’t love elephants? Well, Democrats maybe.
Almost inevitably with all that stuff, some of it is actually pretty nice. There is a lovely antique amoire for sale, and a beautiful antique piano in the dining area. Even the enormous rocking chair, though too big for anyone to comfortably sit in is a fine piece of furniture. Unfortunately that stuff gets lost in ocean of merchandise.
But my favorite section is always the hot sauce! I do not know what these different concoctions taste like, and I am not brave enough to try and find out, but the names are just amazing. There is an entire brand of varieties named after uncomfortable bodily functions. Butt Pucker, Sphincter Shrinker, Anal Angst, Flaming Flatulence! The theme is carried on by other producers as well. Blow Out, Backfire, Colon Cleaner, Xtreme Regret! Wait, this is supposed to make you want to buy the stuff?
Beyond the ones promising gastrointestinal suffering are others promising destruction of one kind or another. Vicious Viper, Widow No Survivors, Lethal Gator, Bad to the Bone, Extreme Damage, A Little Nuke, Hellfire, Lucifer’s Last Blast, Road Kill, Mustard Gas.
Lunch, served in a dining room/airplane hanger and featuring a menagerie of deceased animals, was tolerable, if not outstanding. There are plenty of alternatives. The pork cutlet sandwich that I had was pretty good. Jim reports the cornbread muffin he had was terrible. I did not try any of the hot sauce.
I do NOT want to eat with this creature staring down at me!
I did pick up a couple jars of freshly canned stuff because it looked interesting and it was on sale. This is the kind of thinking pursuades one to purchase a two-pound bag of ground glass because it’s cheap and is bound to come in handy some day, but jars of tomato preserves and blackeyed pea relish sound interesting , and did not require much of an investment.
But the drawing card of course is the fireworks.
Again, the sheer scale of the place is intimidating. It is the size of a large supermarket with lots of signs proclaiming “No Smoking,” (to which I want to reply, “No $#1+”)
And once again, the most interesting thing is not the product being offered as much as the names. The names of the various products do not much descibe what they do, exactly. Presumably purchasers have the idea that you light them and they are going to send a lot of flaming stuff in the air and make noise.
Here are a couple of my favorites. Dance in the Rain seems positively pleasant, but would seem to create some problems if you want to set off fireworks. I have no idea where Pickled Parrot came from.
The names seem to change from year to year, though some themes seem to be constant. Lots of reference to patriotism and the military of course. And then various provocative names. Sexually suggestive names seem to be in vogue this year. Sassy with a label of long feminine legs, Sexy Rider, Trophy Wife, Dirty Little Secret, and one with a pirate on it called Chasing Booty. (Booty! Get it?)
There is no subtlety in what this one is trying to appeal to, now is there?
Can someone explain this one to me?
Certainly no shortage of things that make bright sparks and go boom. But when we were last here, things were just opening up again after the Covid Pandemic, supplies of lots of things were short, and Boomland’s shelves were half empty. For better or worse, it is good to see the country return to something resembling normal. It might even make the idea of exploding poop seem like a good idea.
We cannot put up a picture of us installing the end-of-the-week plaque this year Andy did not start on it until Friday and nobody pushed him, so by Friday, he had a rough idea of what he wanted to do. He got a board, blocked out a small portion of it on the bottom for all of us to sign, and will take it home and finish it, then send it to JD. JD has promised to install it on the below the other ones we have on that wall. Watch this space for a picture of how it looks when it gets put up.
We usually have a list of jobs for people to sign up for all week. This week we pretty much skipped that. A few of us signed up for morning devotions. Andy provided more than his share of meals, as he typically does. Everybody else just sort of filled in as needed. We were a relatively small group this year and we did not make much of a mess. Dino started the week by making his traditional Italian sausage and peppers for breakfast and we ate leftovers of those for much of the week. Kristin made eggs to order for breakfast. People pretty much stepped in to wash dishes.
Now it is time to pack up and go home. There is a little bit of cleaning to be done, but in recent years, Habitat has hired someone to come in and clean after groups leave, so we do not need to leave the place spotless like we used to. Getting all the stuff we brought back into the cars we came in can be a bit more challenging, especially when people have bought all kinds of stuff to take home, but there was not too much of that this year. Still we have some items of business to transact. JD, Sherri, and Lorenzo all came by to see us off. Goodbyes and hugs can take a while.
Dave buys a t-shirtJim bids JD goodbye
So we have completed our work for another year. In twelve years, I have worked on thirteen houses, helped put a roof on the Bargain Barn, and spent a day or two making improvements and repairs on the house where the sisters lived, and written thousands of words, some of them wise. Our group has probably worked on about twenty. We have seen lots of historical and cultural sites and gained an understanding of the people and the places around here. We have built a community of friends here in Mississippi and surely among our group. In addition to our long time regulars, dozens of people have joined us for a year or two.
All of this began when one newly graduated medical student came looking for a place to work. Thousands have followed her over the years. Some of those have died, retired, or otherwise moved on, and some have proven impossible to replace. Progress in Tutwiler can be painfully slow, often short lived, the setbacks can be tragic. But in those years, houses have been built. Many people are healthier and happier, lots of children have been given chances to learn and grow.
In her devotion Friday, Nicole spoke about how we have just celebrated Pentecost and that the Holy Spirit has endowed all of us with different gifts. We have seen the Spirit working in this community and in our own. We hope to be a blessing to the people we have served here in Tutwiler. Surely we have been blessed in the process.
I have written many times about this lovely couple who bought and rehabbed the scary run down bar across from the community center and turned it into High Cotton Gallery.
They run Art classes for kids, planted a community garden, and High Cotton serves as a place for kids and adults to drop in and hang out. But right now, they are busy taking care of a couple of foster kids. The five-year-old girl takes a break from games on her tablet to look at my camera. I ask her if she wants to try it out and she shyly runs and hides behind Jay, grabbing one of his legs.
Stephanie works as a nurse for a number of schools in the area. One of the teachers asked her to take a look at one of the kids. Underneath the mask she wore she found bruises. An physical examination revealed some more. “I’ve worked in a prison. Most of my career I spent working in emergency rooms. I have worked in a lot of schools. I have never seen anything that disturbed me as much as that.”
The two children wound up with the couple. “We just took them on an emergency basis. There was no place else for them to go,” said Stephanie.” Jay laughs, “I was telling her, ‘Steph, they’re not puppies. You can’t just take them home with you.’ ” That was in February. The couple is still trying to get licensed as foster parents, but until then, they are receiving nothing from the state. Once they get licensed, the state is not going to pay anything for the past three months. Their big concern is whether the court will move the kids now that they are settled. “She’s little. She’s just five.” Referring to slightly older brother, she said, “He’s quiet. He stops and thinks about things a lot. They have settled in. They just know that they are safe and clean.”
“I was planning of retiring,” said Stephanie. “We were not planning on raising kids at our age.” I reminded he of the joke about How to Make God Laugh – Make plans.
While we talked, I did a little editing to this blog and used their wifi connection. Like most straight out of the box routers, the network has an entirely unrecognizable name and the password is a bunch of random numbers. I told Jay I could set it up for them so that the network was easier to find and the password was easier to remember. “No, I don’t want it to be easy to find. The drug dealers are always looking for stuff like that.”
We had our community dinner at a former house/restaurant right behind the community center. We finished dinner just before sunset, at which time sleepy little Tutwiler was becoming a whole lot more lively. Directly across the street from the community center are two nondescript cinderblock buildings with no windows. They look like they may be abandoned. They are not. They are booming businesses. Those are two of the town bars, right next door to each other, both directly across the street from the police station. It is getting dark, and parts of Tutwiler come to life. Wise people find somewhere else to be.
Next to the police station there is a crumbling wall and a burned spot from what was once a gas station and more recently a liquor store. It burned down. Tutwiler has a volunteer fire department and a truck, but the only person who had a key was in Greenwood, about an hour away. The one fireman in town did his best to settle things down and then informed the police station that the roof of the building next to them was on fire. The police said they thought that was out already.
Tutwiler has 2400 people and more than its share of ones who are up to no good. It has thieves, gangbangers, drug dealers, and other miscreants, as well as some people who are just unhappy with life.
Hammerin' In the Delta 