Garden & Gun

asheville calling

In the autumn of 2001, I gave myself an enviable assignment. I hit the road for four months to follow the fall migration of the striped bass from Maine to North Carolina. The migration is a natural spectacle (and a fisherman’s dream), as tens of millions of stripers course down the coast to their wintering grounds, accompanied by whales, freewheeling birds, and baitfish on the run. I left New York City, where I lived at the time, in an SUV loaded with fishing gear, a tent, waders, a wet suit (for free diving), a kayak on the rack, and a notebook filled with names and numbers of folks I planned to meet with along the way. Soon I was setting my alarm clock to the rhythm of the tides and…

contributors

Robert Earl Keen WRITER “Fans always want to know the backstory”—Robert Earl Keen on the true tale behind his song “Gringo Honeymoon” “People start clapping as soon as it starts and sing along with every chorus,” says the Texas-born singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen of his 1994 hit “Gringo Honeymoon.” “Fans always want to know the backstory.” He delivers the goods on the song’s origins in “Southern Roads” (p. 103). As a touring musician with nineteen records, Keen is a road-trip authority. His favorite parts? “The first hour on the road and the first hour after arriving at the destination—anything and everything is possible.” This summer, he’s rereleasing Western Chill, an hour-long behind-the-scenes video recorded last year at his Snake Barn Movie Ranch Studios in Medina, Texas. Pam Houston WRITER New Orleans was a worthy starting point…

letters

“I found Barbara Howar’s book when I was a teenager in the 1980s, and it spoke and sang to me” ME AT-AND -THREE I was so excited to read about my high school hangout, Valle’s—formerly the Italian Rebel—in Memphis (“Fork in the Road,” April/May 2021). This place holds many fond memories for me and is run by the sweetest family ever. Laura Ruth Collierville, Tennessee I enjoyed reading “There’s the Rub” (Books, April/May 2021). When I was in college in the early seventies in DeLand, Florida, the only place you could get anything smoked was at a little place on the outskirts of town that had a takeout window. That article got me thinking, and I can’t remember any barbecue places in Central Florida that weren’t Black owned. They are still some of the…

social chatter

WE ASKED... It’s not a Southern road trip without… On Facebook and Twitter, readers told us what completes the perfect summertime adventure. A pecan log roll from Stuckey’s and a stop at a fireworks stand. David Lantrip SEE ROCK CITY signs. Cindy Thurman Locklear The Allman Brothers, Chris Stapleton, Alabama Shakes, and Patsy Cline. Dena Corbin Yoder A fried clam dinner at Howard Johnson. @trecoal Seeing the rocket at the Alabama welcome center. Samson Katz Boiled peanuts from a Crock-Pot in the back of a gas station. Holly C S Broyles A stop at the Piggly Wiggly—whether we need anything or not. Theresa Rivera Rousseau Coke and a pack of Nabs. @Owlsforinda A Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie warming on the dashboard. Lawana Adcock-Downey…

standing tall

The most indelible moments in music come when a song raises the hair on the back of your neck and makes you put your fist in the air and stomp your feet. From classics such as Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” to more current numbers such as “Sweeter” by Leon Bridges and Tyler Childers’s “Long Violent History,” some of the most powerful tunes can also soundtrack a movement and become a force for change. “Black Myself,” by the East Tennessee singer-songwriter Amythyst Kiah, is one of those songs. ¶ Over a throbbing drumbeat and a crunchy blues guitar riff, Kiah sings—with an occasional snarl—a thrilling song that reclaims Black identity, something that has consistently been degraded for four hundred years. “Black Myself” is an anthem…

down east beacon

It’s a curious item to cause a stir, amid the canvas paintings, the boat models, and the astonishing collection of antique and contemporary hand-carved decoys from the Core Sound region of Eastern North Carolina. But causing a little stir is what Joel Hancock’s great-great-great-grandfather’s whale harpoons are doing. Hancock, a retired insurance executive, and his wife, Susan, crowd around a table with Karen Amspacher, director of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center, and Pam Morris, the museum’s collections manager, as Hancock hands over a pair of forged-iron harpoon spikes, pitted with age. The soaring twenty-thousand-square-foot museum on the “east’ard end” of Harkers Island, as locals would say, is a home-away-from-the-workshop for local and visiting decoy carvers. Through the spring and summer, guests from the nearby Crystal Coast beaches head…