Here, there and everywhere: My column on the antebellum home Carnton in Franklin, the Confederate cemetery there and the feelings it evoked for me, drew a surprising and most welcome response.
Damani Keene emailed to say his great-grandmother Mariah Reddick had been a slave held on the plantation.
“Given your feelings while visiting the cemetery at Carnton,” Keene wrote, “I suppose you might imagine my own feelings of ‘Ancestral Presence’ walking the land Mariah tread in bondage and standing in The Quarters where Mariah might have slept on a pallet on the floor.”
Mariah was a main character in “The Widow of the South,” the novel by Robert Hicks that fictionalized Carnton’s inhabitants and their roles during and after the Battle of Franklin in 1864. Hicks followed that with “The Orphan Mother,” with Mariah as the main protagonist.
Keene and his wife, Ife, added to the canon with a historical novel of their own about Mariah, “Clandestine.” From his description:
“An enslaved Black girl – ripped from her mother’s embrace and given away as a wedding gift – is emboldened by memories of her freedom-fighting ancestors and grows up to become a spy for the Union.”
Lots of Nashville connections, too, he adds. Available through Parnassus and Amazon, but not, it appears, the Nashville library.
• Did you see the news item about the guy who tried to break into the rear of a parked car near Sixth Avenue and Monroe Street in Nashville? He made a couple of tactical errors:
1. It was an unmarked police car.
2. There was a (perhaps unmarked) police detective sitting in the front seat. The guy bolted when he discovered No. 2 but was soon caught.
I suggest he look into a new line of work.
• Owing to some rather unpleasant gastrointestinal issues with one of our cats in particular, we’ve been using prescription food, which seems pretty effective. But on the vet’s advice that there might be a psychological component, as well, we’re also employing a diffuser that plugs into an outlet to spread healing scents and vibes.
“Feliway Classic mimics the natural calming messages known as pheromones that your cat produces to help your cat feel more comfortable and secure to reduce signs of stress,” an ad for it says. I’m wishing there were a version for humans.
• I recently started a Jonathan Franzen novel despite having bailed on a book of his some years ago after growing weary of its quarrelsome, annoying characters. Which is to say, all the characters.
I soon realized the new book is the same one I’d bailed on before: “Freedom.” The characters have not improved over the course of time. Reading it is like taking a cross-country drive with nice scenery in a car filled with jerks. I’ve decided to punt it again. Life’s too short.
• A Facebook ad recently introduced me to something I’d never heard of: The Microplane SwiftStrip. Intrigued by the photo, I checked it out.
“Make quick work of stripping leafy greens of all shapes and sizes – from hearty kale to delicate herbs.”
I’m not a heavy kale user, but as one who has spent a fair amount of time stripping delicate herbs – cilantro comes to mind – it seemed intriguing. And only $9.95, “or 4 interest-free payments of $2.49 with afterpay.”
I’m thinking that if you have to stretch a $9.95 purchase out into four payments, you probably have more pressing issues than leafy greens.
• A recent column bemoaned the large number of candidates on the ballot for the May 3 primary election, including a bunch of people running for various clerk and judge positions. How to choose?
The Nashville Scene has since run the results of a poll of Nashville Bar Association members that I found helpful. Of particular value are the “Do Not Recommend” percentages. And there was a high (and also telling) rate of “Do Not Know Candidate.” If lawyers don’t know the judge candidates, who does?
Oh, and nobody got even 50% of the bar’s “Highly Recommend” rating. That doesn’t sound good.
• An update on my guitar-learning efforts: Some months in, my fretting hand knows (but sometimes forgets) most of the open chords. My fingertips no longer feel like they’re being asked to tap dance on thumbtacks.
And it’s fun to sing along as I slowly strum the basics to some of my ’60s favorites. But it’s hard to imagine ever reaching the stage of putting it on display for anyone not matrimonially bound to me.
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville. He can be reached at [email protected]