Unexpected Altercation Creates Turmoil at Local Karaoke Night

The debris field of torn seersucker and carnation petals in the bar

area of Los Pampas after Tuesday's fisticuffs between two patrons

GREENSBORO, AL—What started as a genteel conversation about British royalty between two rival Anglophiles ended in an uncharacteristic bout on the karaoke stage at Los Pampas Tuesday evening. This reporter, who visited the scene after the melee, witnessed the resulting debris field of seersucker, shredded pocket squares, and lapel carnations. Involved in the so-called fight were well known young men Newell Dale and Blayne Morissey , both 38. Witnesses report that the confrontation started while Morissey passed by the table where Dale delighted his companions with tales of his sublime summer trip to England highlighted by a glimpse of the queen's corgis at Windsor Castle and a tour of the Cotswolds as the designated "Best Patron" of the Wixingham Boys Choir.

Everyone is aware that Dale and Morissey have been rivals since their public fall-out over the "Hello, Dolly!" costuming incident while they were both students at Southern Academy 20 years ago. Nora Baird, who was at Dale's table, recounted what happened at the restaurant. "Well, Blayne deliberately passed by the table on his way to the bathroom, just so he could butt in and say how much he loved the queen mother. Well, that just got Newell's goat, and he said that he loved her more and could prove it because he had been buying his mother clothes based on the queen mother's outfits for years. So then Blayne said that Newell was obviously lying because they don't sell tweed suits at Super Dollar and scoots off. Newell was really mad then, but I didn't think this would happen."

Based on the police report filed, the pair then spent the rest of their time in the restaurant exchanging heated glares, interspersed by eye rolls and head tosses.The one part of this story on which witnesses all agree is that the confrontation came to its breaking point when Dale began an a rousing karaoke rendition of "God Save the Queen", which was interrupted when Morrissey unplugged the machine. The ensuing melee was short-lived, thanks to the efforts of patron Wheylon Batz, who is in town from California on a home building mission.

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Roscoe Pippin to Move Truck

LINDEN, AL—In a surprise move no less remarkable than the delivery of a lost letter after thirty years in the dead letter office, Roscoe Pippin has apparently decided to try to crank the Ford pickup truck he parked in his front yard six feet from the side walk in 1978 and move it around back. The curiosity of area residents was stirred recently when Pippin was seen with the hood propped up, a gas can and a new Wal-Mart battery sitting on the tail gate of the rusted-out eye sore, which according to his neighbors has become an area landmark and source of irritation since the disco era. Pippin told The Vidalia he really couldn’t remember why he had parked the truck in his front yard back then, and added, “If it’ll crank I’ll go on and move it to the back if I can get that tree out”, referring to a four inch diameter twenty foot tall water oak growing through a large rust hole in the truck bed. As Pippin poked at one of the flat tires with his screw driver, he took a drag on his cigarette and joked, "I guess it’s gone make it hard to tell people looking for the new high school where the turn is on High Dairy Road when I move the old buggy.”—Clement P. Tate

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Personals Page

Compiled by Tootsy McAlpine

Mrs. Monroe Bay (nee Mackenzie Miller) has some extra needlepoint patterns of the county court house available at her house for a donation of $5 each. Proceeds go toward Greensboro Ladies' Committee to Clean-Up Our Courthouse Square Fund.

Reward! $25 for return of the O and the R from the Country Market Marlboro sign.

Bobby Gee wants to thank everybody who prayed for him after his rope swing accident. He is resting well at home in Sprott and will be back at work next week with his dad at Gee's Tire and Radiator.

Minnie Williams just celebrated 60 years with the Bay family. Congratulations, Minnie!

Over the weekend, Bobo Foster spotted some special visitors moving in with that Mormon family. She says they were nice-looking, clean-cut young men and may be knocking on your door very soon. She hopes that the good citizens of Greensboro will be polite and remember to offer uninvited house guests a glass of sherry if it's after lunch.

Found: A gold tooth was found in the parking lot of the Dollar General last Wednesday after closing. To identify and claim, see the daytime manager.

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Dayton Beneficiaries Receive Unexpected Inheritance

Examples of items from the hoard include decades-old K-Mart model cement that may
be priced in Confederate dollars and an ancient coupon for a long-defunct brand of soap.

DAYTON, AL—When the Black Belt’s oldest living resident, Mrs. Verna Pinson Penson died last month at the age of 113, she left behind a bewildering, if ultimately worthless, collection of hoarded refuse for her descendents. Within Penson’s modest Victorian cottage, her heirs, including children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, were amazed to find every drawer, cabinet, and even chair cushions bursting at the seams with items today’s wasteful young folks would consider garbage. The most common items included bread bags, scraps of used aluminum foil, plastic rings from the lids of milk jugs, and long-expired coupons for canned peas and frozen pie shells.

While the utility of saving some of the items eluded younger generations of Mrs. Penson’s descendants, her son and next-door neighbor, Eustace Pinson Penson, aged 93 explained, “Her mother told her about the blockade and Reconstruction, and she lived through the Great Depression and two World Wars. Of course, so did I.” Mr. Penson further explained, “All of this supposed garbage could be used again. Those bread bags could be used to store leftovers, or as booties or a hat to keep out rain. Sometimes the Piggly Wiggly girl doesn’t look, and she’ll take an expired coupon. It’s a small victory.” All descendants were clueless, however, as to the purpose of saving milk jug rings.

Penson’s grandchildren were decidedly less understanding. Linda Penson Cortez, a 61 year-old Sedona, AZ resident, found her grandmother’s behavior exhausting. “She once came behind me and took a hunk of moldy cheese and pile of potato peels I was throwing away out of the garbage, saying she would eat them later.” Nearby family members nodded in assent, since few of them could suppress the haunting memories of that fateful 1995 Thanksgiving when Mrs. Penson gave half her family food poisoning after serving an inadequately reheated, half eaten turkey leftover from the previous year’s meal and then refused to allow any family members to seek medical treatment, instead foisting expired pink bismuth down their throats.

The younger generations of the Penson family reacted to the collection with amusement, astonishment, and horror. “I mean, some of this stuff is old. I think some of these prices are actually in Confederate dollars,” noted great-great-granddaughter Elyse Cortez, a history student at Radford College. Since she has never lived in and seldom visited the area, Miss Cortez is likely unaware that the Black Belt was slow to accept that Alabama had in fact rejoined the Union, and Confederate dollars were considered legal tender in Marengo County until their value collapsed when President Richard M. Nixon abolished the American gold standard in 1971.

Family members are expected to remain in Dayton until the house is emptied of trash. Provided they can sustain 12-hour work days, the task should be completed in roughly 10 days. The final destination of the Mrs. Penson’s hoard is currently being kept a secret, primarily to prevent Eustace from scavenging the materials.

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Restaurant Review | The Free-Zee Spot

A Rainbow of Fruit Flavors, Revived

reviewed by Lutius Quintus Cincinattus Tait

** (Very Good)

For owner and executive ice shaver Christie Vickers, the journey to create the Free-Zee Spot has been long, arduous, and fraught with tension. Everyone who spent any time at the intersection of Hale County Road 34 and Alabama Highway 25 knows the story of Vickers’ contentious split with former partner Wanda Tift, after she refused to allow Tift to use profits from their joint venture, The Eskimo Hut, to bail her brother out of jail. After their bitter argument, local snow cone aficionados worried that the ensuing small claims court battle might rob Vickers of the urge to create sugary, colorful masterpieces for which she has become renowned during the hot summer months. Fellow gourmands, it is time to rejoice, because Vickers has rejoined the ranks of the shaved ice masters with her daring new snow cone stand, the Free-Zee Spot.

Let’s start with the location, which in the snow cone stand business is everything. The Free-Zee spot is nestled in a cozy corner of the Buddy’s Parade gas station parking lot in Moundville, where it attracts traffic from both Alabama Highway 69 South and Centerville Street. The fluorescent blue exterior of the small storage shed attracts the eye with its garishness and evokes the cool feel of the ice that is central to the snow cone. Despite its gaudy, humble storage shed exterior, the stand draws in crowds of Moundville’s most celebrated residents. On one afternoon visit, I spied the local deputy police chief and the Employee of the Month from Hinson’s Grocery.

It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that the stand seems like a one-woman show. On a recent Wednesday night where temperatures climbed to nearly 98 degrees, I was forced to wait in line nearly 15 minutes while numerous families cycled through on their way home from church. The line was held up considerably while Vickers combed the crowd in search of change for a $10 bill. Other days, the stand was inexplicably closed, with handmade signs pasted to the front stating things like, “Temporarily Closed. Will open following Carrie Underwood’s appearance on Oprah”, and “Gone to Dollar Gen. Back n 15 min.” The casual diner is advised to call the Buddy’s Parade and ensure the Free-Zee Spot is open before riding up the road for snow cones.

For the most part, Vickers’ stays true to her training at the Eskimo Hut in her flavor combinations. The stand offers some 42 single flavors, which can be ordered from a list of pre-defined combinations or selected at will by the customer. Selecting more than 3 flavors will incur an additional $.25 charge per flavor. Some choices, such as the Auburn Tiger special, consisting of stripes of blue raspberry and orange flavor syrup are so dull they seem like they were copied directly from the standard industry textbook, Snow Cones for Dummies. In some cases, sticking with what seems like a basic standard pays off in spades for Vickers. It doesn’t matter that the Hale County Wildcat salute is a rehashing of the old standard banana and grape mixture; the flavor combination was so sugary, cold, and delicious on a hot day that I forgot I was in an asphalt parking lot and imagined instead I was a child wandering the dirt lots of the county fair, still nauseous from the motion of the tilt-a-whirl and stench of livestock.

With new flavors, like mojito, which tastes suspiciously like lemon-lime soda syrup, and mango, Vickers’ stretches the boundaries of typical snow cone flavors to their limits. However, the selection of flavors is not all dreams of sugary syrup in ice. I found the flavor of the peach/bubblegum combination to be cloyingly sweet and the color palette of orange and pink clashed badly. The rainbow of flavors is overly ambitious, and in combination the cherry, orange, lemon, apple, and blue raspberry flavors become muddled and indistinguishable. Depending on which night I visited, portions of syrup dispensed varied wildly from stingy to excessive.

Even with these few stumbles, the Free-Zee Spot makes a valuable contribution to Moundville’s culinary landscape. Vickers has stepped admirably into the void created by the demise of the Eskimo Hut, and has started to build her own shaved ice castle.

* *

Corner of AL Hwy 69 and Centerville Street, Moundville

ATMOSPHERE: A dusty, garbage strewn asphalt parking lot, surrounded by clouds of exhaust
SOUND LEVEL: Loud during morning and afternoon rush hours. Expect to hear jake brakes,
sirens, car stereos, and engine noise.
RECOMMENDED DISHES: Hale County Wildcat Special (banana and grape), mojito, mango, red
WINE LIST: Numerous flavors of Boone’s Farm available at the nearby Buddy’s Parade
Convenience Store.
PRICE RANGE: Small $1.50, Medium $2.25, Large $3.00, Jumbo, $4.25.
HOURS: Sporadic, typically closed during local airings of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and Dollar
General clearance events.
RESERVATIONS: Call Buddy’s Parade for priority space in line.
CREDIT CARDS: Cash only, no rolls of pennies accepted.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: Accessible
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