Birney Imes: Namaste from a hep cat

Just finished John Dufresne’s “Love Warps the Mind a Little,” a lively and humorous exploration of love and death. The book is almost too clever, but the longer you read the more you get drawn in. By the time I finished, I felt like a friend of the protagonist, Lafayette Proulx (Laf as he’s called in the book) and was sad to part company.

Birney Imes: Cooking from the soul

“You have a Mr. Beauregard R. here to see you.” It was Felicia in the front office. Beauregard or “Beau” was in town visiting a friend and I’d invited them for lunch on Thursday. He lives in St. Augustine, Fla., and is a painter.

Birney Imes: A call for unity

Our Wednesday editorial on name change at Mississippi University for Women has drawn a flurry of online responses from many of the usual suspects. In that editorial, we again urged lawmakers and the public to proceed with a name change and to go with Reneau University, the name chosen through a long and painstaking process.

Birney Imes: Three encounters

Two sisters

Sunday a week ago in front of the Catholic Church in the drizzling rain two Korean women were gathering the fruit from the Ginkgo trees lining College Street. The women are sisters. They live in Tuscaloosa. The older one is wearing gloves; the younger one is using tongs. They have just come from Reese Orchards in Sessums where they have been picking persimmons, a fruit popular with Asians.

Birney Imes: Buxton has left the building

The man for whom a cliché was invented died last week in Las Vegas. His name was Buxton Williams, and not once in his 62 years did he meet a stranger.

Birney Imes: Market conversations

Saturday morning Gordon Parker leaned against a battered blue pickup truck loaded with Vardaman sweet potatoes. Parker, a truck farmer who lives in Hamilton, grows peas, tomatoes, okra, corn, butter beans and two types of pole beans, Louisiana purple pod and rattlesnake, which he sells at the Hitching Lot Farmers’ Market.

Birney Imes: Another step closer

Saturday, after the rains, Patricia McKinley sat on the porch of her house listening to music and visiting with her daughter and a handful of friends. McKinley has lived in the house all her 48 years. It belongs to her 84-year-old grandmother, who still lives there. Located at the corner of Coretta and Seventh Avenue North, the house is among a sprinkling of structures in this forgotten corner of the city that may give way for the proposed city park/soccer complex.

Birney Imes: Listening to Olympia tell stories in Brenda’s parlor

Olympia Dukakis says she only saw her father cry three times. When she was a teenager she asked him if she could get a job at the Dairy Queen. “No,” her father said, tears welling in his eyes. “Right now I want you to enjoy your youth. Don’t worry, you’ll work.”

Birney Imes: Tan Yard Park

Sometimes all it takes is a picture.

The most eagerly anticipated question of the just completed Columbus charrette was the recommendation on where to put the soccer complex the city and county want to build.

Birney Imes: We were all cool and beautiful

This past weekend mine and Beth’s high school class — S.D. Lee High’s “Mighty Class of ‘69” — held its 40th reunion. We observed the usual roster of events: a Friday night gathering at Grahams’ Camphouse and Local History Museum (Jimmy and Jo Ann Graham are due much gratitude for sharing with the community this remarkable setting they’ve created.), a memorial service for classmates who have died and a Saturday night dance featuring Big Ben Atkins at the Country Club.

Birney Imes: Embracing name change

Tomorrow on the campus of Mississippi University for Women an unveiling of sorts will take place. At a convocation service Monday morning MUW President Claudia Limbert is going to announce the school’s new name. Well, sort of, more like the hoped-for new name.

The name Limbert will offer — decided after innumerable campus meetings, focus groups, marketing studies and much spirited debate in these and other opinion pages — is being touted as the choice of the campus community. But, as Limbert has said, this is a state issue, not a campus issue.

Birney Imes: Finishing touch

Friday afternoon Raymond Griggs sits on an empty five-gallon lacquer thinner can under twin 100-year-old red oaks. The trees shade a corner of the Quonset hut where he has refinished and repaired antique furniture for more than a quarter of a century.

Birney Imes: Words, plain and fancy

As a rule, I try to get going on this column by Friday night. I can sleep easier knowing it’s at least underway. This past Friday, though, I succumbed to the siren call of a rented movie and went to bed without having written a word.

Birney Imes: Prickly ash bark, bear traps and Martha Stewart

Years ago, on a walk in the woods with Kerry Pittman, we came upon a tree with spikey knotty bark. Kerry pulled out a large folding knife, expertly cut a piece of the bark and handed it to me.  ”Here, chew this,” he said. As I did, I felt my mouth go numb. “Toothache tree,” he said.

Birney Imes: A Friday evening in July

Pick an evening, say a Friday in July. Call a friend at 6 and ask him if he wants to meet you and your wife for Mexican food. He’s single, an empty nester of sorts and is delighted. On the way in the restaurant, you run into a couple who is there for the 89th birthday of an uncle. (Happy birthday, Jim Ford).

Birney Imes: The quest for unity

Someone said the huge flag came from the Marble Works. It made a fine backdrop for the swearing in of seven men we’ve chosen to guide our city these next four years.

Birney Imes: Higher ground

Back in high school I had a couple of friends who found the sound of an ambulance siren irresistible. They loved the thrill of the chase and the sight of carnage. Morbid, I know. Not surprisingly, they both ended up working for funeral homes.

Birney Imes: Our own Central Park

Yes, I suppose we’ve all heard more than enough about Burns Bottom and the six soccer fields that seem destined to go there. Many have expressed outrage at the idea, and all I can say is let your supervisor and councilman know. Write us a letter or comment on a story or column on the subject — many of you have done that already.

Birney Imes: Harry, this is a terrible idea

Soccer moms and dads, before it’s too late — and it might already be too late — drive down to Burns Bottom. That’s the area just down the hill from Riverhill Chevron, the gas station/convenience store operated by Sanders Oil. At the station, turn off Main Street and go down the hill in the direction of the Hitching Lot, site of the Farmers’ Market.

Birney Imes: Burns Bottom, come hell or high water

Ever know anyone who when they make up their mind, it’s all over? End of discussion. Don’t confuse the issue with facts or logical arguments. I’ve made up my mind and that’s that.