Birney Imes: Watermelons on Independence Day

Everywhere you go there is the South. The woman at the motel desk this morning in Effingham grew up in New Orleans. Her late husband was from Alabama. Her great granddad was governor of the state of Louisiana, Gov. Nicholls. Julia Street, where you find many of New Orleans’ art galleries, was named after her grandmother. (There is a Gov. Nicholls Street — and wharf — at the downriver end of the French Quarter.)

Birney Imes: The constant gardener

When Melchie Koonce was growing up in Stuttgart, Arkansas, he worked summers with his brother-in-law opening and closing floodgates in rice patties. The mosquitoes were so thick the boys wore nets over their heads while they worked. To combat boredom one of them came up with the idea of seeing who could catch the most snakes. They would grab the snakes and throw them into croaker sacks.

Birney Imes: Times that try men’s (and women’s) souls

“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”

–Thomas Paine

In case you missed it …

This past week our city council did something utterly stupid and repressive. It placed onerous restrictions on its public-input policy. Before Tuesday evening any citizen who wished to address the council on any topic simply had to show up and put his name on the list to speak.

Birney Imes: A new pickup truck

A friend, who by day is a buttoned-down lawyer, has for years driven a pickup truck. He’s not the only person in that line of work to do so. Last time I checked, our D.A. drove a Toyota Tacoma. I suspect the truck for these guys is an antidote for long hours reading tedious legal briefs or time spent in the bowels of the courthouse doing title searches.

Birney Imes: Local gardeners put on the dog

In the spring Columbus residents quietly and with little fanfare transform their town into an oversized botanical garden.

Birney Imes: Aretha’s garden

Elbert came in the back door shaking his head. “You ought to go see that cabbage; it’s as big as a tire.” Elbert Ellis is the maintenance person here at The Dispatch. He doesn’t get excited easily.

“Down at the Shell station,” he said, pointing east.

Birney Imes: A Japanese maple for Lee

Some stories are so tender, so close to the bone, so rich in human emotion, the teller entrusted with them feels daunted by the responsibility that goes with the retelling. This is one such story.

By any measure Lee Frederick was a brilliant child. Brilliance, in most cases, comes with obsessiveness. Lee had plenty of that too.

Birney Imes: When a tornado touches down

On a dark and wet Wednesday afternoon my grandson and I were headed to Richard Fleming’s to go fishing. As we rode down Watson Road

Birney Imes: Celebrating Emancipation Day

Thursday afternoon son John and I attended the Eighth of May observance at Historic Sandfield Cemetery. There Chuck Yarborough and his Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science students presented a Tales-from-the-Crypt-style performance, complete with gospel music and visitations by the African American luminaries buried there.

Partial to Home: The morning after, talk turns to the night before

By 10 o’clock Tuesday morning Bobby Ray had almost finished picking up storm debris in his yard on Tabernacle Road when neighbor Ricky Ward showed up. The two are old friends, their friendship rooted in their shared passion for dirt-track racing.

Storm journal: Residents rally in the storm’s aftermath

Maybe there is something to that old saying, “The good guys wear white hats.”

Birney Imes: An afternoon with beekeepers

On a recent Saturday about 40 beekeepers stood in the twilight on a cement pad outside a metal farm building in south Noxubee County.

Birney Imes: Sweetness and light on a Friday afternoon

Friday afternoon at 6:30 I was standing in front of Shattuck Hall on The W campus watching honeybees fly in and out of a Corinthian column.

Birney Imes: Spring arrives

Kenny Lang, who pedals his bicycle around Southside relentlessly and who could do voice-overs for Disney’s “Song of the South,” was watering his garden on Thursday, the first day of spring. Kenny is cultivating a sliver of earth near the intersection of South Fifth Street and 16th Avenue. He was using two plastic soft drink bottles to sprinkle his Georgia collards, kale and onions.

Birney Imes: On the road with Louie and Sprocket

On March 1 Louie Little left Germantown, Tenn., on a bicycle pulling a trailer filled with musical equipment and a Jack Russell terrier named Sprocket.

Birney Imes: To wake a sleeping bear

Not everyday do you run up on someone who has crawled into a bear’s den, roused its hibernating inhabitant, jabbed him with a sharp stick … and lived to tell about it. Craig Jamison is one such person, and if you were among the 800 or so folks at the wild game dinner at Fairview Baptist Thursday night, you heard his story.

Birney Imes: Random notes

As Jeff Shepherd was pulling out of the parking lot of Columbus Inn and Suites Friday, he stopped his red Ford F-150, rolled down the window and shook his head. “You better be careful what you ask for,” he said. “I told Lou Anne I wanted a red-hot Valentine, and I got this.”

Remembering Joe Ray

Joe Ray Roberson, longtime Dispatch photographer, was one of those people so well known around town, the use of a surname was superfluous, if not confusing; he was simply “Joe Ray.” Roberson died early Sunday morning after a long illness.

Birney Imes: Passage to India

Thursday afternoon while eating Indian food, I thought about Leo Spatz. A bit of history: A native of Germany, Leo came to Columbus in 1935 to manage the restaurant and coffee shop of the Gilmer Hotel, a four-story, Civil-War era brick building where the Gilmer Inn is now. Leo’s father ran the kitchen and his wife Florence was hostess. For my mother’s generation, the Gilmer was the fashionable place to go.

Birney Imes: Hand on heart for Pete Seeger

Tuesday morning I turned on the radio and was greeted by the news of Pete Seeger’s death. “Impossible,” I thought, stunned.