July 16th

It is hard to believe that the month of July is half over. In just a few weeks it is back to school and hitting the books. Sorry kids, I'm merely the messenger. I have taught once again this Summer and I've noticed a few things about college students during hot weather. No one wears shoes that lace up. Flip flops and sandals are the chosen footwear during the summer semester. I have students that wear tank tops to show off their tattoos. It is mostly girls. For the life of me, I can't understand a tattoo on the neck or face. I don't have any and if you do, that is ok with me because Tallapoosa has more places to get a tattoo than to buy groceries. I often wonder about guys or gals who engrave someone's name to their bodies and then break up with them. I know Cher has erased some of her markings via laser and from what I understand it hurts more to take off a tattoo than to get one. My daddy came back from World War II with a tattoo of a hula girl on his forearm. He was stationed in the South Pacific and I never did ask him if he knew the hula girl and if alcohol was part of the equation. I remember many of the veterans of World War II and Korea who came back home with souvenirs of a night out on the town in San Diego, Quantico, or Ft. Benning. When I lived in Columbus in the mid 1970s Victory Drive the long boulevard on the way to Ft. Benning was lined with used car lots, fast food joints, pawn shops and tattoo parlors that all catered to soldiers training at Ft. Benning. Columbus is also the home of two unique eating establishments. Top Hat Cafe was on First Avenue and specialized in red hot chicken. If you liked cayenne pepper, this was the place to go. At the Top Hat Cafe, the later in the evening you went to get chicken, the hotter it was. Across the Chattahoochee River in Phenix City was Chicken Comer's Barbecue. It was a modest house in a tough part of Phenix City....actually every part of town was tough back then. They had chopped barbecue, chips and a slice of Dolly Madison Bread that came from the local mega bakery. It was sopped with a mustard based sauce and was out of this world. It was cooked in an open pit on the side of the house and the cooking was supervised by two elderly African-American gentlemen who know the business end of how to cook over open hickory. The pork was slow cooked and as tender as your mama's love. One thing I found ironic was they didn't sell chicken at Chicken Comer's Barbecue. I have fond memories as many of you of Junior and Frances Windom's Smokehouse Restaurant on the west end of town about where Designing Women Hair Salon is located. Junior Windom knew how to do pork barbecue. I'd give $50 dollars for a pork plate from the Smokehouse right now. It guess it is true of children of the south that we love our barbecue. I am glad that I've lived in the south all my life. I've never lived anywhere where pastrami and corned beef are raved over like pork barbecue. A tip of the hat to the great city of Memphis, Tennessee who celebrate barbecued pork during the "Memphis in May" celebration. Rendezvous Barbecue has a smoked beef brisket that is coated with that sweet West Tennessee sauce and is a slice of heaven. Corky's Barbecue is another Memphis epicurean delight. They are so popular you can buy it at Memphis International Airport. Trips to Nashville always include a trip to Corky's in suburban Brentwood to grab an order of dry rub ribs.I was told that it was a favorite of Waylon Jennings. You could put a dry rub rib on the top of my head and my tongue would give me a concussion trying to get to it. I am told that you should never mention barbecue pork in Texas because the Lone Star State only recognizes the bovine as barbecue. Is it true that barbecue in St. Louis and Kansas City is "all that?" I hear it is as great as the blues from those two cities. If you want to get a fight started between a person from Chicago and one from New York, mention pizza or hotdogs and who has the best of the American staples. From watching the Food Channel I learned that chow mein was not a dish from China. It was purely an American creation. I love Sy's Chinese/Thai cuisine in the former location of Onabelle Farmer's Tri Mi Grill. Do any of you remember the Southern Cafe? My mother ran it a couple of years back when I was in the 6th and 7th grade. She got up every morning at 4 a.m. to open up for breakfast at 5. She locked the doors to the establishement that had a great chili spread and a meat and three lunch. She had two great cooks. Burt and Aileen were two sweet women who could cook circles around about anyone back in the day. Aileen's son in law Hershell Kirkland said she could fry chicken and make biscuits that were world class for family Sunday dinners. Do you all remember a time when folks came home from church to a long and leisurly Sunday dinner of fried chicken, mustard potato salad, fried okra, sliced tomatoes, fried green tomatoes, corn bread made with Perkerson's Corn Meal, peach cobbler, blackberry pie, and sweet tea? When the we gathered up the dirty dishes, Mamanier would put a cotton table cloth over the food still remaining. Those were the days my friends, I thought they'd never end.

Rhubarb Jones is a Tallapoosa native and a member of the administrative faculty at Kennesaw State University. Comments can be sent to P. O. Box 1001, Tallapoosa, GA 30176 or via email at rhubarbjones@aol.com or professorrhubarb@gmail.com Commentaries can be heard weekdays at 11:05 a.m. on WKNG, 1060.