Friday morning started out with a small crisis. We were out of coffee and I had a gathering to attend before 7. The downtown shop I frequent doesn’t open until 7:30, so I headed out 45 for a national coffee chain that takes its name from a character in Moby Dick. (The company, I learned on the Internet, was almost named for the whaling ship in the story, Pequod.)
One can start reading about this stuff on-line and quickly disappear down a rabbit hole. You could end up on Starbuck Island, an uninhabited atoll in the middle of the Pacific about halfway between Australia and Mexico. The island was thought to be discovered by either Valentine Starbuck or his cousin Obed, also a Starbuck. Both were whalers and one would assume the inspiration for the Herman Melville character, who came along about a quarter century after the cousins’ discovery.
Devoid of humans, the island is home to sooty terns, Polynesian rats, feral cats, green turtles and about 15 other species of seabirds. Starbuck Island, according to Wikipedia, is noted for the “unbearable screaming of seabirds, extreme heat and blinding sunlight.” Maybe I won’t book my ticket just yet.
Friday morning the Starbucks on 45 was considerably more hospitable — and quieter — a couple of female joggers were waiting for their coffee while two businessmen talked quietly at a table.
As I rode back toward town at 6:40, coffee in hand, I witnessed one of the more sublime sunrises I’ve seen in awhile.
In sharp contrast to the mishmash of gas stations, chain food outlets and pawn shops below.
Passing Magnolia Bowl, I noticed how much better it looks in its partially demolished state. Not to besmirch the legacy of Coach Willie B. Saunders, but those facilities — the dressing rooms anyway — were barely usable almost half a century ago during my high school days. Unless the night was exceedingly cold, football teams of my era more often than not forsook those crumbling facilities for the shadows of the east end-zone during half-time.
Another fabled Lee High coach was in town last week. (Saunders coached Lee in 1936 when the team traveled to Memphis to defeat a team from Chicago in a game billed as the national championship.) Billy Brewer spoke to the Columbus Kiwanis Club on Wednesday.
And while we’re on the subject of coaches and Magnolia Bowl, if you will indulge me a Warren “Oop” Swoope memory. Oop, who coached everything but basketball (Otho Brown) at Joe Cook Junior High, was a great believer in running. Anyone who played football for Oop will tell you about taking laps round that huge field behind Joe Cook.
I ran track during my junior high years at Cook. When we weren’t circling the field behind the school, we would train on the cinder track at the Bowl. And, how would we get to the Bowl, you ask? We would run there, of course (1.5 miles each way). It was difficult to complain; Oop ran with us.
Vivid mentors providing rich experience. We were fortunate.
Saturday evening at sunset I stood at the top of the Bowl. There’s no wall, no fence now, just rubble. Only a crumbling pressbox and the stone gate remain. With the old stadium spread out before me and the lights of 45 blinking in the distance, I looked down at a willow trying to establish itself in a crack in the concrete stands. Dark comes early now and a soft breeze hinted of rain.
It’s easy to see the crumbling stadium as a metaphor for the town itself. Possessed of a glorious and storied past, it sits poised and expectant, brimming with potential.
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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