January 4, 2016
Ridge
Spring News
Harriet
Householder
Sometimes the Ridge Spring News seems to be a
repeat of what was in the column the week before. That does happen for I want to make sure you
heard about the event. It is really amazing what all is going on in our small
town.
I also take the month of January off and have
a guest columnist. Thanks to David James
for this help.
Friends of Ridge Spring will have their first of the year
meeting January 21st at 5:00 PM at the Ridge Spring Library.
The Art Association of
Ridge Spring will be offering a
beginning drawing class starting January 16th at the Art
Center. Marilyn Smith, a former school art teacher, of Aiken will teach
each Saturday morning at 11 o'clock for $12.00 per
hour. She will have the class each Saturday starting January
16 -February 27. 2016. for ages 16 and up. All the supplies you will need
is 12x18 drawing pad. If interested, please call Barbara Yon at 685-5386 or
Joanne Crouch at 685 5577. The Ridge Spring Art Gallery sponsored by AARS will be
closed for the month of January except for classes.
I took our grandchildren to Juniper
Restaurant for lunch on Saturday. As we
left I saw some friends and stopped to speak.
As we left my grandson Carter said “Mammie, you always know someone in
Juniper and stop to talk.” I could not
help but smile for it was true. It is
the small town atmosphere where the old and the new people are welcomed.
Did you know that you can get breakfast at
Watsonia’s Peaches and Such each morning at 7:00 AM? It is a nice start for the day.
On Saturday, January 9Th 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
The Social Ministry Committee is hosting A PAINT AND PACK PARTY FOR ICARE : “I
CARE Ministries” is a local ministry that is helping to transform the lives of
young women and children who have fallen victim to human/sex trafficking
through rescue, rehabilitation, and God’s love. We will be “painting and
packing” canvas bags to give to the rescued women and children.
The bags are packed with personal care items,
clothing, stuffed animals, age appropriate devotional material, and personal
notes from the individual packing the bag. The cost of each bag is $15 or 2
bags for $25 (The second bag may be kept or donated)
Watercolor
Classes: Jan.
7 - Feb.11, Thurs.-6 week, $75. Instructor, Judy Adamick at Barn Studio, Ward, SC Call 803 685.5814
Harriet’s Garden will not have regular hours for the rest of December and
January. This is a semi vacation. Plants and seeds do not take a vacation so I
will be around and can be reached by my business phone or cell phone. Regular
business hours will begin February first just in time for Valentine’s Day. I will also have guest writers for the month
of January.
Subbing
for Harriet Householder, from David Marshall James: Two literary milestones—one from this past
September, one upcoming in February 2016—to note: The first was the 50th anniversary
of the publication of Truman Capote’s “nonfiction novel,” “In Cold Blood,” in
which he recounted the murders of four members of a rural Kansas household,
through to the execution, by hanging, of the two perpetrators.
Capote’s images seep into “the pit of your fears,” as Rod Serling would
put it, and the six years he spent on the book extracted a death-knelling toll
on his future literary career, as well as on his sense of well-being. The story behind the rise of Capote’s
masterwork vis a vis his personal disintegration has been captured in two
films, including “Capote” (2005), for which the late Philip Seymour Hoffman received
a Best Actor Oscar.
The anniversary is of note not only because of Capote’s exceptional
reportage, crafted into
the stylistic form of a novel, but also
because of his being ahead of the curve with his topic. That is, he focused on a tragic event—multiple
murders—that has become pandemic in our society, with no “cure” in sight. One understands, on a certain level, crimes
of passion and/or avarice. But what of
en-masse murders, which are utterly senseless?
His immersion in this case turned Capote into an active spokesman for
capital punishment.
To read more of Capote’s fascinating life--
from his birth in New Orleans to his early years in Monroeville, Alabama, to
his landing in New York City at age 10 with his increasingly abusive mother and
her second husband—look no further than Gerald Clarke’s superlatively
researched and written biography, “Capote” (1988).
This February marks another anniversary, the 50th year since
Jacqueline Susann’s “Valley of the Dolls” was first published. “Valley” held the no. 1 spot on The New York
Times Bestsellers list for a phenomenal 29 weeks, but Susann’s success scarcely
ends there. Moreover, she became the first writer to have three successive
novels—“Valley,” “The Love Machine,” and “Once Is Not Enough”—attain that no. 1
place on The Times Bestsellers list.
Barbara Seaman’s excellent biography of the author, “Lovely Me”(1987),
pulls the reader in much deeper than any of Susann’s novels. For all Susann’s unorthodox paths to glory,
her veritable “knock-up” of the literary milieu of the late 1960s and early
1970s, her ultimate success—following lukewarm careers as a Broadway actress
and a TV spokeswoman—proved short-lived, as she knew it would be, as she was
diagnosed with cancer before “Valley” was published.
Susann also received cinematic treatment, although not in as serious a
vein as the Capote accounts, in 2000’s “Isn’t She Great?” with Bette Midler as
the novelist and Nathan Lane as her producer/agent husband, Irving
Mansfield. Beyond her impact on popular
culture, many would dismiss Susann, although she, too, was writing ahead of the
curve. That is, her pill-popping career
women fit in rather snugly in today’s America, which has embraced
pharmaceuticals far more ardently than firearms.
It’s not surprising that two figures who rocked 1960s pop culture as
rollickingly as Capote and Susann did would eventually collide, particularly
given their carte-blanche access to TV talk shows in an era that had yet to see
the medium carved up by cable offerings.
Truman, who became increasingly mean-spirited as he lapsed into his own
alcohol- and pill-induced (there ya go, Jackie!) wonderland, announced on
Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” that Susann looked like “a truck driver in
drag,” which prompted her to prompt her attorney to fire off threats of
reprisal to Capote.
Capote had a saying: “When you
start messing with a f-g, you’re in trouble.
But, when you start messing with a Southern f-g, you’ve had it.” Thus, it’s fascinating to read his responses
to
the numerous attorneys who were compelled to
compose such letters for their various and sundry clients, as detailed in the
Clarke biography. Susann’s lawyer successfully
urged her to back down from the not-to-be-intimidated Capote.
Capote’s brushes with the law included an outstanding warrant, issued by
a California judge,
for the writer’s refusal to reveal a source
from Capote’s interviews for a murder case. Capote, who was somewhat unlikely friends with
Ronald and Nancy Reagan, phoned up then-governor Reagan, seeking help with
removal of the warrant. Gov. Reagan
replied, “No problem,” until he heard the Orange County judge’s name: “He’s a Democrat, and he hates me!”
How does the story conclude? With
Truman dressed as a chorus boy, obscured in Pearl Bailey’s mink coat, on a
plane bound from Los Angeles to New York City.
You can read about it in his story, “Derring-Do,” in the realization
that truth, often stranger than fiction, can serve double-duty as the
latter.
Reminders:
Ridge
Spring Library hours: Mon/Tues 8:30 am - 12 pm; Wed.,
12:30 – 4:30; Thurs 8:30 am - 12:00 pm; Fri 8:30 pm -4:30 pm
Ridge
Spring Library Toddler Time Mondays at 10:30
3rd
Thursday: FORS at Ridge Spring Library 5:00 pm
1st
Tuesday of the Month:
AARS meets at 6:30, 685-5783
Wednesday:
AA meets at Recovery Works
Monday & Friday: Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings 7 pm at Recovery Works (enter on Ponderosa Drive;
park in Visitor Parking Area)
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