Charm of the Carolines

Matchless

Middle Tennessee is never short on charitable events and fund-raisers. Some are quite ordinary, raffles, golf tournaments and wine-tastings, and some are exceptional and distinctive. All benefit worthy recipients, and all contribute to living a charmed life in middle Tennessee by offering the opportunity to get involved in the community and giving back from our abundance of blessings.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to join friends at the 13th Annual Chukkers for Charity Polo Match at the home of Lee Ann and Orrin Ingram, Riverview Farm. Besides the Ralph Lauren logo, I didn’t know very much about Polo before the event. Now I can brag I‘m as good a divot stomper as any spectator!

The day was gorgeous, sunny and bright with a slight breeze from the northwest. The crowds were friendly, gracious and welcoming, proudly displaying their cabana decorations, sharing fried chicken and brioche, and offering iced libations to any thirsty soul. The field was immense, 10 acres of beautifully cared for lawn, zoysia I believe. The “ponies” were exquisite (and so many of them, a minimum of 24 per team). The players were skillful at the game, riding, strategy and anticipation. The speed and athletic abilities of both the rider and horse were spectacular. It was fast-paced, dangerous, and exciting all at the same time.

Make your plans now to attend next year, and don't forget to pack a lawn chair, cold water and your check book. Besides admission, there is a silent auction and other vendors. The event proceeds benefited the Rochelle Center and Saddle Up, both highly regarded organizations established to support developmentally challenged children and adults.

Inspiration for your Belles Lettres:

1. Tennessee is home to 5 polo clubs, with 2 being in middle Tennessee, Franklin and Nashville. Everyone is invited to come play or take lessons. Check out the website www.franklinpoloclub.com.

2. For 30 years the Rochelle Center has served persons with developmental disabilities and their families, creating opportunities to develop new skills, enhance independence and increase acceptance as valued members of our community. For more information or to donate, check out www.rochellecenter.org.

3. Saddle Up is a non-profit recreational therapeutic riding program for children with disabilities. For more information or to donate, check out www.saddleupnashville.org.

4. For more information on Tennessee’s premier Polo event, check out www.chuckersforcharity.net.

Mister Country

If there is anything I know for sure it is this, you are who you hang out with. This is one reason why I love middle Tennessee. You can’t help but befriend successful and talented people every where you turn. This area of the country is brimming with countless men and women gifted in every background and industry, especially music, and especially country music.

The first celebrity I can remember encountering from my hometown was the country music artist, Carl Smith. In fact, he and his family lived just down the road, off Berry's Chapel, on the prettiest piece of property that is now Lynnwood Downs. As kids we would ride our bikes back to Carl Smith‘s ranch and up "Carl Smith Hill" to make for ourselves a cool breeze on a hot summer‘s day. Many, many years have passed and the Smith’s have long since moved, but we still call it "Carl Smith Hill."

Most people probably never heard of Carl Smith unless they were listening very carefully to Reese Witherspoon’s dialogue in the 2005 movie Walk the Line. Carl Smith was June Carter Cash’s first husband from around 1952-57. He was also one of the country’s most successful male artists during the 50s, with 30 Top 10 hits, mostly with Columbia Records, and 5 #1 singles. After his marriage to June Carter ended, Mr. Smith married another country music artist Goldie Hill.

I knew the Smith children because we rode the bus together to Grassland Elementary. Pokie Reed was the bus driver on #57, and the route went as far as the Smith’s ranch to pick up Lori Lynn, a few years older than me, and Dean, a few year’s younger. They also have an older brother, Carl Jr., and a half-sister named Rebecca Smith who now goes by Carlene Carter and is also a successful artist.

Several years ago the Smith’s sold their ranch and moved further out in the county for reasons unknown to me. I can only imagine it had something to do with the ever encroaching urban sprawl. But for several years we were proud to be neighbors with and a little star-struck by “Mister Country.”

And even though she deserves her own post on this blog, I must mention Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon is a native of middle Tennessee, graduating from Nashville’s Harpeth Hall Academy in 1994. In 2006 she was awarded the Best Actress Academy Award for her role as June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash story Walk the Line.

Not to overlook Carl Smith's awards, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2003.

January 17, 2010... Country Music Hall of Fame member, beloved father, neighbor, friend, Carl Smith was one of the genre's most successful singers and entertainers during the 1950's. He died Saturday, Jan. 16, at his home in Franklin, Tenn. He was 82.

Hydrangeas

Mophead, Lacecap, Oakleaf, Annabelle, that which we call a hydrangea by any other name would still smell as sweet. You guessed it! The hydrangea is my all-time favorite flower, specifically the blue hydrangea. I love them! In the Mophead variety, acid added to the soil produces a rich blue to blue-violet color blossom. Alkaline turns the blossom pink to pinkish-purple. A neutral soil gives a pale cream color. Annabelles are pure white, and the color can only be changed by their divinely created innate intelligence. No amount of ph tampering with the soil will change their white blossoms. The Oakleaf hydrangea is indigenous to the US and is also known as a native or wild hydrangea. They thrive with little or no attention or water, great for middle Tennessee where the oppressive heat already hitting triple digits in June makes it impossible to keep moisture in the soil. If you grow hydrangeas and want to harvest the blossoms for drying, allow them to dry slightly on the shrub before picking, anytime between August and October. The leaves will take on a green patina for a vintage look. Hydrangeas are easy to dry, simply pick and put in a vase with no water. It is not necessary to hang them upside down unless you just want to. Deadheading the spent blossoms will make the appearance of the shrub more attractive, but it does not promote the growth of new blossoms. In her book Creating a Charmed Life, Victoria Moran challenges her readers to “Collaborate with nature. Value beauty. Respect your intuitive inklings about colors, shapes, textures, and patterns that populate your personal world. Create an environment that entices fortune.” She never mentions hydrangeas, but that is exactly what I see when I read this passage. Inspiration for your Belles Lettres: 1. What is your favorite flower? Why? 2. How do you collaborate with nature and create an environment to entice fortune?

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Charm of the Carolines is participating in some linky love today. Join the fun!

Bloomin' Tuesdays

Tootsie Time

As seen on TV...

In the late 1960’s my family owned one television set, and it was a black and white model proudly displayed in the living room. I loved to watch Lassie and Dark Shadows which came on every afternoon after the soap opera The Edge of Night. What I found very frustrating as a 3 or 4 year old girl was Elizabeth Montgomery inviting us all to stay tuned to watch Bewitched… in color. She tricked me every time.

Now my dad has his own stories to tell about TV when he was a young boy growing up in a small town in the 1940's, how when TV first came to Milan and how the townspeople were so excited. Let me let him tell you how it was.

"With the recent completion of the digital television conversion along with the concurrent development of flat screen high definition television receivers, we have entered into a truly exciting era for home entertainment. The merger of technologies of cable systems and satellites can deliver several hundred high definition channels to the home TV set. The development of Digital Video Recorders allows the automatic recording of desired programs for viewing at a more convenient time. As exciting as is all this new technology, it can't compare with the excitement of an eight year old boy who read in the MILAN EXCHANGE newspaper “Something new in Milan... TELEVISION!”

The year was 1948 and Rayburn Appliance on Main Street had the town's first TV set. Unfortunately, the nearest TV station was in St. Louis, Missouri, several hundred miles away. The event was still exciting and townsfolk lined the sidewalk to get a glimpse of the new device with a small, softly glowing screen depicting a snow storm.

My mom and dad visited the 1939 World's Fair in New York where TV was first demonstrated to the public. The ensuing war slowed the implementation of this electronic marvel, but Dad had told us of this marvelous invention and truly, I had waited my entire life to see it! As a child, I would curl up in the easy chair by our large Philco console radio and imagine that, if this were TV, I could look in the dial (screen) and actually see the radio actors reading their lines into the microphones!

The next giant step came when WMCT in Memphis came on the air in December of 1948. We actually had a TV station we could see, occasionally! Of course, we were in the “fringe area” and a tall external antenna was required, but we could actually see a picture. For the first few weeks, it was a “test pattern” at random times as the station was being installed. Dad had stocked his first TV for the Spurgeon R. Jones Co., a 7 inch Motorola, and we left it on constantly, hoping for a glimpse of something. Occasionally someone would shout “It's on!” and we would all run to see the test pattern and marvel at the concept of a picture being sent through the air!

Soon the Memphis station began programming. In these early days, there were no networks and all programs were either local, live productions or film. Evidently, this station bought all the old Hopalong Cassidy western movies because this was the bulk of their early programming. They also added a weekly children's talent program, Steps to Stardom and The Un-Handy Handyman, a local announcer who would demonstrate new gadgets that never worked. The next big step came when the Memphis station was able to run a live remote, and they began to broadcast live wrestling on Monday night from Ellis Auditorium. Word of this spread rapidly, and folks began to congregate on Monday afternoon, asking if they could stay and watch. Dad soon borrowed (or bought) old folding chairs from the funeral home, set them up in front of the TV, and stayed open on Monday nights. The crowds grew as “rasslin'” gained popularity. Folks quickly adopted favorites, such as Farmer Jones who carried a pet pig to the ring and wrestled barefoot wearing bib overalls. A favorite trick of his was to retrieve his “brogan” shoe from his corner and beat his opponent over the head while the referee always seemed to be looking the other direction. In hindsight this was obviously fake, but it seemed real to a small-town eight-year-old boy.

For the next ten years or so, television was a big part of my dad's business and a big part of my life, as I worked after school helping to deliver TV sets, installing antennas, and riding with the TV technicians in case large console TV's needed returning to the shop for repairs. TV reception improved as TV stations increased in number and power. The coaxial cable reached Memphis, permitting live network programming. In the early 1950's I even saw a demonstration of color TV at the Mid-South Fair in Memphis, much as my parents had seen the first television demonstrated at the World's Fair. Even with all the improvements to TV over the past sixty years, and there have been many, nothing can match the thrill of first seeing a picture magically received out of the air!”

Sweet Tea, table wine of the South

It's different eating here than it is at the house. Ain’t got no sweet tea. Ain't got no fried chicken."
             —Boo Weekley, PGA golfer interviewed at the British Open, 2007

Southern-style sweet iced tea is the perfect drink for a hot, sunny day. It's never really caught on in the UK, probably because the last time we had a hot, sunny day was back in 1957.    —Tom Holt

Tough girls come from NY. Sweet girls, they’re from GA. But us KY girls, we have fire and ice in our blood. We can ride horses, be a debutante, throw left hooks, and drink with the boys, all the while making sweet tea, darlin’. And if we have an opinion, you know you’re gonna hear it.
            —Ashley Judd, resident of Leiper’s Fork, TN, for the past 30+ years, but home is KY

I was named after it. —Mr. T

I’m not sure how old I was before I realized tea wasn’t always served sweet.

Growing up in middle Tennessee we drank sweet tea all day long, every day. Mom would put the water on to boil, meanwhile adding a family-sized tea bag to a pitcher filled with several cups of sugar. The hot water was added to the pitcher and left to steep. Then the teabag was pulled from the pitcher and discarded, water was added to the pitcher and stirred.

If the tea was still hot when dinner was served, Mom would put a spoon in the glass with ice so the tea glass wouldn’t break.

Sweet tea has been an exceptional southern staple since the beginning of time, or so I thought. Actually sweet tea’s rise in popularity understandably follows the development of refrigeration, from the early “ice houses” and “ice boxes” to the commercial manufacturing of pure ice beginning in the mid 1800’s. But only in the past 60 years has it become what it is today.

Research shows early tea drinking in the south was from green tea, usually spiked with lots of wine or liquor, more similar to a mint julep than iced tea, however during prohibition liquor was hard to come by.

Then during WWII green tea wasn’t available at all, so black tea from British-controlled India became the popular choice it is today. I don’t know what I like more about sweet tea, the ice or the sugar. On a day like today when the thermometer outside is kissing the 100 degree mark in the shade, one could assume it’s the ice.

In Eating, Drinking, and Visiting in the South: An Informal History, the author Joe Gray Taylor suggests electrification, and consequently refrigeration, supplied by the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s was "probably more appreciated for the ice cubes it provided than for any of its other services." Mr. Taylor has a point, but this southerner can’t imagine life before air conditioning. The TVA gets my vote for all their services. However I’ve had iced unsweetened tea and it just misses the mark. Even doctored up with pink and blue and yellow packages, the unsweetened variety is only a pale image of the sweet variety.

Mom’s sweet tea had the color and consistency of new motor oil… a rich, dark amber color and sweetened thick with Dixie crystals. If the tea is brewed strong enough, and it should be to counter the release of water when the ice melts, the astringency can only be balanced by lots of sugar to make it palatable. The only thing I can think of that’s sweeter is Coca-cola and some days I’m not so sure.

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