So,
I just finished perusing People magazine’s
annual “Sexiest Man Alive!” issue which has inspired me to reveal to you my celebrity
crush. I’ll bet you a million trillion dollars that you won’t guess who it is. Are
taking the bet? Good. I’ll give you three guesses. No, he’s not cover-boy Adam
Levine. No, he’s not on page 114. He’s not on page 124, either - though that
guy is mighty cute. Okay, I’ll be generous – one more guess. No, he wasn’t on
last year’s cover, either. Please contact me directly for my bank account
number and routing number so that you may pay up on our bet. But before you
begin liquidating your assets, I’ll tell you who he is.
Though
you won’t find him in the current “Sexiest” issue, or any past issue either, you
will find him every month in one particular magazine. He writes a regular piece
for Southern Living. His name is ….. Rick
Bragg. I hope you didn’t just say, “Who?” If so, shame on you. To save you the
trouble of looking up his Wikipedia entry, I’ll summarize. He was born in
Piedmont, Alabama and grew up in Possum Trot (don’t you just love that?). He
won the Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for his work at the New York Times. He’s the author of five books plus a compilation of
his newspaper stories and is a writing professor in the University of Alabama’s
journalism department. He’s received over 50 writing awards.
I
developed my crush on him as a result of his article on the last page of each
month’s Southern Living. I've been reading the magazine for 30+ years (yikes!). In recent times, I've enjoyed M. Lindsay
Bierman’s editor’s column at the beginning. He often writes about decorating
and has taught me that window shutters on a house should always be capable of
closing, or at least look like they can. And I always know that Rick Bragg is waiting for me at
the end of the magazine. His words are definitely the best part. I never skip
ahead to it – I like to get there when I’m there.
Now,
I should first explain that my crush is not creepy. I don’t want to tie him up like
Kathy Bates did to hapless James Caan in Misery.
I’m not hoping to have his baby - I understand that he’s happily married. No,
I’d just be content to sit on a stool at his side while he types. Maybe get an
autograph. Possibly a picture for my Twitter. I’d call him “Mr. Bragg” out of
respect, though he’s less than a decade older than me. I’d tell him I’ve seen
the Fairhope roses, too (you see, he wrote an article about taking his mother
and two elderly aunts to see them on a two-day trip in which they lived on 250
barbecued chicken thighs and all the fixins packed by his Aunt Edna.) I’d let
him know that I agree with him wholeheartedly about the value of books – the
bound kind, not the kind you stare at on an electronic screen. And, if I was
feeling bold enough, I’d tell him that I, too, am a Southern author, because I
have killed mules.
Okay,
now you’re probably thinking that this is
creepy. But it’s not. It’s a Southern Writer Thing. Rick Bragg explained it to
me in his essay, “The Southern Journal: The Quill and the Mule.” The
commonality between all Southern writers’ work is a dead mule. William Faulkner and Larry McMurtry have
killed mules. Cormac McCarthy even beheaded one at the hands of an unhinged
opera singer. Mr. Bragg provided quite a list with examples to back his
assertion that the mark of a true Southern writer is a dead mule. Rick Bragg
has killed two mules, himself.
I
read his essay in the midst of writing the first draft of my as-yet-unpublished
novel of historical fiction. And so the quest began to kill a mule. Being a
historian, my mule killing couldn’t just happen randomly. I had to find a
historical account of a mule dying to weave seamlessly into my narrative. While
writing about miners in Wyoming who used mules to bring up their daily haul, my
hopes soared. I poured over my research, certain that someone must have recounted
a mule’s death. But sadly, I had to conclude that chapter of my story with the
mules all returning from the mines unscathed.
And
then, deep into my story, out-of-the-blue, not one, not two, not three or four
or five, but SIX mules died. A whole team. I wrote the lines about the mules’
death with a big smile on my face. (Okay, that may be a little creepy.) I won’t share the details, so as not to spoil your
enjoyment of that as-yet-unpublished historical novel I mentioned, but, suffice
it to say, the chapter is dramatic. And, I am proud to say, historically
accurate.
So,
I wonder if I have the nerve to contact my crush and tell him that I, too, am a
Southern Writer. I have his email address at the University. But perhaps my crush is best maintained from
afar. If I contacted him, I might make a mess of things or catch him on a “curmudgeony”
day (he proudly claims to be a curmudgeon), and then I’d be disappointed.
If
you would like to join me in fan-girling or fan-guying over Rick Bragg (and I
highly recommend you do), then here’s the link to his on-line articles:
Don’t be afraid to
click on it – no viruses. The link is to part of Southern Living magazine’s site, or you can go there yourself and type
Rick Bragg in the search box. His raconteur videos are on the left and at the
bottom of the page are the links to his columns. He talks
and writes about cafeterias, gospel music, strange things Southerners eat (in
fact he writes about food a lot), Southern traiteurs, Southern places, the value
of books, home, the blessing of family – both the ones who begat us and those
we’ve begat. If you’re a Southerner, you’ll find things that bring back
memories. And even if you hail from somewhere else, his writing will touch your
heart. Perhaps then we can form a fan club and call ourselves a cutesy name,
like the Bragg Bunnies. No? How about the Bragg Sheets? Well, maybe I am
getting a little carried away.
But even if I never encounter Mr.
Bragg in this life, I already know him through and through, because he’s a
Southerner – with a capital “S.” And I know that every month, when my magazine
comes in the mail, he’ll be waiting for me on the last page. And I adore him
for that.
May
your tea be sweet and your cotton high,
Leigh
Ann Thornton
No comments:
Post a Comment