Daily Mississippian reports arrest near in suspicious vandalism of Meredith statue

    The Daily Mississippian reports that an arrest in imminent regarding the vandalism of the James Meredith statue between the Lyceum and the library on the Ole Miss campus.
    There is a chance, of course, that the person or persons who did this will be drunk, racist fraternity boys. I don't think this will be the case. I think it was either non-students or else a good old-fashioned race-hoax.
    We'll see. There are a number of things about this that seem very suspicious to me, including the use of the former Georgia flag. I'll post more after an arrest is made.
    But no matter what, whoever did this needs to be punished. It gives the school a black eye and causes untold turmoil. The university cannot afford to simply ignore this.

Emptying of Dad's office desk yields unknown "Old Family Recipe" for Seafood Lasagne

    We finally got around to cleaning out my Dad's desk yesterday and found the following recipe. It's marked in his handwriting "Old Family Recipe Sidney L. Hurdle," but I don't recognize it. The recipe itself is a xerographic copy in someone else's hand. I sure wish Dad had provided us with a few additional words about this recipe!

    If a cousin or friend should recognize the handwriting or the recipe, please let me know where this came from. Below is the page I found, and below that is the recipe typed out. I've made a couple of notes, as a couple of words are missing from the recipe.

    I haven't tried this yet. I may cook it tonight and sample it on the children. If it is fit to eat I will give a report, and would appreciate any reports from any of my three dozen readers!

___________________

    Like many old-fashioned recipes, this one calls for Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, which is a magical elixir. Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup usually goes on deep discount at Thanksgiving or Christmas, although this year both Kroger and Wal-Mart held the line at a dollar a can. It's regular price is $1.49 at Kroger or $1.19 at Wal-Mart.

    Several years ago I bought 50 cans at 50-cents per can and they lasted a year. I repeated this for several years. This year the best price I could find was 65 cents per can at a Memphis Target store. I only bought 10 cans in the hope that someone would drop the price to 50 cents but it never happened. This is going to prove to be a very costly mistake this year.

Seafood Lasagna (use large casserole dish)

6-8 Lasagna Noodles

BLEND THE FOLLOWING

1 c. onion that has been sauteed in 2 T. butter

8 oz. cream cheese

1/2 cup cottage cheese

1 beaten egg

1/2 t. salt

1/8 t. pepper

COMBINE THE FOLLOWING

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

1/3 cup milk

1/3 cup dry white wine

1 7 1/2 oz. can crab meat (or fresh, see note one)

1 lb. shrimp (see note two)

1/4 cup Parmesan  cheese

1/2 ? grated sharp cheddar cheese (one-half cup? see note three)

Put 3-4 Noodles in a long casserole. Spread 1/2 onion and cream cheese mixture on noodles. Spread 1/2 soup and shrimp mixture over cheese layer. Then repeat layers. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Then add cheddar cheese. Bake for 3-4 minutes more (see note four). Let Stand 15 minutes before serving.

My Dad has written at the bottom (in his own hand) "Use Extra Large Casserole Dish."

Note One: In the margin is written 1/2 lb. fresh crab meat, barely visible. I'm guessing that is to replace and not in addition to the canned crab. The canned refrigerated crab from Costco or Sam's Club or from the fish section at the supermarket would probably be great, but not the tuna-fish type of crab in the 7.5 oz. can.

Note Two: The recipe does not specify whether the shrimp is cooked or not. I would assume the shrimp should be cooked. Also, I really don't see why the shrimp couldn't be sauteed with the onion and then spread with the cream cheese mixture.

Note Three: The recipe does not specify whether the "1/2" of cheddar cheese is a 1/2 cup or 1/2 lb. I think it is a 1/2 cup. I also think extra sharp would be better than merely sharp.

Note Four: The recipe calls for four minutes of cooking after sprinkling with the cheddar cheese. I'm not sure this is long enough to get the cheese nice and brown.

Note Five: This recipe calls for cottage cheese vs. ricotta cheese. I'm not sure which would be best. I would think you could use either.

Snake-handling pastor seemed to think his only death options were snake bite or car wreck

    A snake handler by the name of Jamie Coots has died from -- drum roll please -- handling snakes.
    The Kentucky pastor, presumably Eastern Kentucky pastor, had been featured in a year-long National Geographic series on the snake-handling splinter of Pentecostalism. He had repeatedly said he would never seek medical attention for a snake bite, and was true to his word.
    I just saw a clip of him on television, and he had the following words of wisdom: "I'd rather die from a serpent bite with folks around me praying then die from a car wreck with everybody around me cussing."
    The chance of dying in a auto accident during one's lifetime is less than one-in-100 (Source: The Odds of Dying). About a third of the people who die in car wrecks have been drinking, so by not drinking and wearing a safety belt one can reduce this to perhaps one-in-150 or less.
    The chance of the average person dying from a Snake, Bee or other Venomous Bite or Sting is approximately one-in-100,000. This presumes, of course, that one doesn't play with snakes. I would guess the chance of an accidental snake-bite death for an average citizen to be one-in-500,000 or less.
    Rev. Coots decided to take two long-shot ways of dying and to treat them as if they were the only way to go out of this world. Option one, death by serpent bite with congregants praying. Option two, death by car wreck with bystanders cussing. (Do people always cuss at car wrecks?). So he essentially chose death by snake bite, basing his choice on an obviously false dichotomy.
    He had other options. He could have lived a nice, long life and died of old age. Our lives are in the hands of God, but I believe it to be His will that we strive to avoid death by all of life's longshots and instead die of old age.
    With Coots's death, America's collective IQ has gone up. Unfortunately he had already bred, so there is no eugenic effect.

It's been a day of industry, with house cleaning, office building, and Mardi Gras wreath making

    Today has been a day of industry at the Col. Reb household.
    Jinny and I started out our day cleaning. I pitched in without even being asked to or yelled at.

    After a while her dad showed up. He's been helping us to convert an attic space into an office. When we bought our house this attic space didn't even have a floor. We immediately floored it, but later decided it would make a good office space. We made good progress today on our attic conversion.
    Of course, we've now lost storage space. But we have some more unfloored attic space that I am in the process of flooring. So we'll again have about 125 sq. ft. of floored attic storage space, plus our garage.
    Jinny decided to undertake the making of a few Mardi Gras wreaths and bought the supplies a week or two ago. Or some of the supplies. I decided we needed the happy-sad faces and the feather masks and ordered them off Amazon for a buck each. Lucy was in charge of the glitter. Glitter, by the way, if very difficult to get out of a kitchen once it gains a good foothold. So the wreaths were a family affair.
    Our attic office will be finished in a few days. Our Mardi Gras wreaths are finished, and one is hanging on our front door. And our house is, if not clean, at least cleaner than it was this morning.
    Now if I could just get the garage cleaned up!

Today's travel tip: If you are going to make a mistake booking a flight, don't do it during snowstorm

    Here's a travel tip for you. Although most airline tickets come with big cancellation fees, most airlines also give customers 24 hours to cancel a booking without penalty. So if in doubt, go ahead and book the flight -- you can cancel later if you need to.
    Jinny recently made an airline booking for the wrong week. All she had to do was call Egencia, the business version of Expedia, and ask them to cancel her flight.
    Of course, she picked a day when airlines were cancelling thousands of flights due to weather, with even more expected to be cancelled. After three or four hours she got someone on the phone and they cancelled her flight with no penalty save for the loss of her time.
    So if you are going to make an error booking a flight, don't do it during a major winter snow storm.

Million Dollar Quartet was a great show and the Ford Performing Arts Center is a great showcase

I snapped this photo of the Ford Center from the orchestra pit area a few minutes before Tuesday night's performance of Million Dollar Quartet. I didn't think I would ever see this type of facility at Ole Miss!

    I took the family to see Million Dollar Quartet at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts at Ole Miss last night. It was a great show and a reminder of how lucky we are in Oxford to have the Ford Center.
    The musical centers on the night in 1956 that Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis got together at the Sun Recording Studio in Memphis. Their impromptu session was recorded and they were dubbed the "Million Dollar Quartet" in a Memphis Press-Scimitar new article the next day.
    My father-in-law went with us. As a young man he was a member of a Nashville band that tried to make it in the music business. I think they had one song that made it into the Top 100 for one week. Although the events showcased by Million Dollar Quartet were a little before his time he loves the music and singers from this era. (And after the show he shared a story of his band opening a show for Conway Twitty and Jerry Lee Lewis in Birmingham. Lewis was most displeased with the fact that Twitty was getting top billing for the show and made his displeasure known. The promoters ended up closing the curtain on Lewis after four songs).
    I'm not going to write a review of the musical except to say that I enjoyed it. You can read that elsewhere. I will say I agree with the Lexington Herald-Leader's view that John Countryman as Jerry Lee Lewis looks the least like the star he is portraying but does the best job of acting and sounding like him.
    I have been lucky in getting theatre seats lately, and somehow managed to get front-row seats for last night's show. I bought them fairly late, and I must have gotten online at exactly the right time as some Orchestra Pit seats were released.
    Yet the Ford Center is full of good seats. I never go in it that I am not amazed that the second-smallest university in the SEC in the smallest college town in the SEC has a performing arts center that is among the very best to be found not only at any SEC school, but at any university, period. I'm sure there are bigger and better, but when the size of our university and our town are taken into account the Ford Center is just as good as it gets.
    The Ford Center seats 1,250. By way of comparison the Orpheum in Memphis seats 2,500. But 1,250 seats is enough to bring in some good shows, and as much as I like the Orpheum I'd rather see a show at the Ford Center.
    Tuesday night's performance was a sell-out, although there were a few empty seats due to bad weather. Tonight there is a performance by Widespread Panic's "JoJo" Herman in the studio theatre. It, too, is sold out. A look at the Ford Center's upcoming events calendar shows that the facility will be put to good use over the next few months for campus events, concerts, and even a high school musical.
    If you haven't been to an event at the Ford Center, I suggest you put it on your "bucket list." You'll enjoy the show, and just as important you'll enjoy the facility.

The Rebel Deli lives -- at least in my kitchen

    Back in my student days I spent a year to 18 months working at the Rebel Deli, which was located on Jackson Ave., at the end of Fraternity Row, just west of Tidwell's Grocery and Service Station.
    The Rebel Deli's menu was about as simple as can be. They (or we) served steamed sandwiches on white, wheat, or onion roll. A variety of cheeses were available. There were no tomatoes, onions, green peppers, or any of that nonsense. Just bread, meat, and cheese steamed, put on a square of tinfoil which you then carried to your table to eat. Many of us absolutely loved them, and because I worked there I got to eat for half price.
    Grey Sellers, the owner of the Rebel Deli, wrote a little bit about the history of his restaurant on the Restaurant History of Oxford Facebook page:

   I opened the Rebel Deli in September of 1979 and served the last sandwich on May 31, 1985. It was a sad day. George Kakales, the owner of Dino's on the square, bought the property from Mr. McMillan in order to open the new Dino's. He decided that he didn't need any additional competition and would not renew my lease. I looked for other locations to move the deli to but I could not find anyone willing to lease to a restaurant.
   When we first opened, there were only a handful of places selling food after 10:30pm. (Mr. Quick, Kiami's Bowling Alley, Pizza Den, and Quick Shop). We were open 14 hours a day and would typically do half of our sales in the 2 hour period from 11:00pm to 1:00am. The drunk to sober ratio during this time slot was about 10-1. It was rare that anyone would pay with cash. We would take between 70 and 90 checks on an average day with the average check total approximately $3.50. The best thing I can say about Rebel Deli customers is that after 6 years, we closed the doors with only 7 checks that bounced and were never paid.
   I saved 1 of the steamers and we break it out 2-3 times/year. It brings back a lot of good memories.

    The video that I've posted above just shows me making some steamed sandwiches and talking a little bit to my kids about the Rebel Deli. I will note that the Pepperidge Farm onion rolls did not steam well at all. The Cobblestone Mill bread did quite well. The video is almost 15 minutes long, so please be assured that you won't hurt my feelings if you skip through parts of it!
    After the failure of the Pepperidge Farm bread I bought some much firmer onion rolls from Kroger and made a sandwich using Boar's Head oven roasted turkey and Cracker Barrel Extra Sharp white cheddar. After steaming it I topped the sandwich with a couple of pieces of crisp bacon. It was a joint tribute, to both the Rebel Deli and the Hoka Theatre, which used to sell a sandwich called the "Love at First Bite" made with turkey, cheddar, and bacon. Yes, my sandwich was good.
    The steamer is good for more than just making sandwiches. It's supposedly great for cooking shellfish and for reheating a variety of foods. I'll have to play around with it some, but my reason for getting it was to make sandwiches.
    If our group's generator will handle it I think I'll bring the steamer to the Grove for one of the football games. Something tells me I won't lack for company.