Muscadine and Scuppernong

Sometimes I think CNN covers news, and blows it up using fancy jargon that it sometimes feels like I’m listening to another language. And I always find it ironic when someone explains a difficult concept through the same method of explaining it to a child. Plenty of reading articles and watching the news on T.V. couldn’t explain the oil spill and it’s clean up process like the demonstration at the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center in downtown Mobile, Alabama. Colin Makamson, the education presenter, demonstrated to a small group of kids how oil is leaked, spread, and the methods used to clean it up. He showed photos, and let the kids try to clean up vegetable oil that floated atop of water in a container as a small replica of the gulf coast. The interactive, visual, and simplicity of the 20 minute presentation taught me what articles assumed I knew. Maybe it was because I needed someone physically there explaining, and giving examples, but even then, the kids knew why they no longer could go to the beach this summer. One was even deeply concerned not about the short-term, but the long-term effect. It just surprised me that this thirteen year old, was really worried about the after effects. The only thing I was worrying about when I was eighteen was soccer. .To be honest, I barely started caring about the world, I was really selfish. Actually, I’m still pretty ignorant to the world, so its a gradual process.

You know what else is a gradual process? Katrina’s rebuilding, that is a gradual process. Yesterday in Louisiana, it was really hard to comprehend the many parts of that were still undeveloped. I mean, there were houses beautifully remodeled standing right next to a lot that was abandoned, boarded up, and even more haunting, having those marks that rescue crews made on the houses. Yeah, the ones that told the date, crew number and name, number of family members (including pets), and the causalities. That was frightening. After talking to some people, I can only imagine trying to rebuild their lives emotionally, and still having to physically live in the withered remains of the past. The progress is there, its apparent, but its gradual. And gradual can sometimes be more hurtful than beneficial. I know there’s no one person or organization to blame, but I still wish more could be done. But maybe that’s the effect that happens when truth is discovered. I want everyone to see it, and feel it, but reality is often unkinder, and life must go on.

The one thing I love about the South, is the the “southern hospitality” I encountered everywhere. There were so many sweet people all across Louisiana, Mississippi (which I like to pronounce Mi’sippi in an exaggerated twang), and Alabama. Mainly every person addresses me as “ma’am” or “baby,” and it completely throws me off, and I absolutely love it. I like hearing the affection from complete strangers, and most of them don’t try to run me off when I try to talk to them after shooting.

Like today, we stopped at Gloria’s Produce, which was a family run fruit and vegetable stand famous for its boiled peanuts. Boiled peanuts… I know. Who really eats that? Evidently, people in Dauphin, Alabama, and who knows where else. And surprisingly, its the one thing I am craving at one in the morning, and its the one thing I will not get to have again. Now that, is the saddest story ever heard. Alright, maybe a little melodramatic, but imagine a peanut with its shell still boiled in a secret family recipe filled with spices and amazingness. The shell itself is incredibly spicy, hot spicy, not herb spicy, and then the actual peanut inside is as soft as eating cooked beans. I was really nervous about it at first, but it was one of the new things I ate.

The next thing Bubba (the owner’s son) said I could try was the Mascadine and Scuppernong. It’s basically like a grape, but with thicker skin, chewier inside, and more seeds. But still small enough to be the same size of grapes. I also loved the names, they seem so William Shakespeare-esque. And I’ll probably name my future camera I invest in after it.

Oh, and Laura just came up and brought me her memory card and asked me to charge it. . . thinking it was the battery. The best way to end this blog. Goodnight.

(Left)Scuppernong, and (right) Muscadine fruit at Gloria's Produce in Dauphin Island, Alabama.