By Tallulah Marie Sheepshead

Summer in south Alabama often seems like it is never going to end and then one day, fall shows up for one morning and you experience the turning of the season.  I love that first feeling of fall, and while the boys are out preparing their deer fields, I have found myself thinking about…now don’t judge me….but I am thinking of Mardi Gras!!  It is the best cure for me to survive those last lingering days of hot and humid weather!  

I simply love daydreaming about Mardi Gras while it is less humid outside!  I turned the ceiling fan off on the porch because all it does is blow hot air on my head.  The beauty parlor costs too much to go to more often.  Miss Nellie has done my hair so long now she remembers back when I could be a blonde.  I gave up the sexy blonde gal look that one day for some reason the coloring turned my hair green.  

Yes, you know how busy the beauty parlor is and they had to just wrap my head a little to cover it best they could, but basically, I had to go home with green hair.  I was sure I could get home without being noticed, but of course, there was Mr. Danny Frazer at the stop light next to me and he looked over and nodded, then stared.   

I melted into the seat of the Dodge I was driving at the time.  Dodge had a better reputation back then, and I loved the relatively easy steering.  Power steering was not invented then, so we just had to muscle the steering wheel to get the car to turn and the Dodge was easier, at least it seemed that way.  As soon as that light turned green, me and my green hair turned that Dodge sedan quickly out of the eyesight of that handsome Danny Frazer.  

There is something deviously delicious about reading the messages on the floats as the Comic Cowboy Parade goes by.  I often would be invited to join friends in the viewing stands of the Athelstan Club, right on Mobile’s beautiful Bienville Square.  Well, seems to me the square never recovered completely from Hurricane Frederick, but it is still beautiful.  

This goofy Comic Cowboy parade is a must-view even if you have something better to do on Mardi Gras day.  They make their political voice heard telling a story on the float built with no budget.  Don’t confuse no budget with an unlimited budget.  No budget means virtually nothing is spent but time and some cheap paint.  

And no matter how much you paid attention to the mischievous goings on in Mobile and Baldwin Counties over the past year (even the State is not immune from ridicule), there is always something especially for you and plenty that you will just not completely understand.   You laugh anyway.  They do a marvelous job jabbing the right people and when I must know precisely what a particular reference meant, well just earshot away, one of the McSure boys would gladly chime in and enlighten me!  

I must admit to enjoying seeing some of my acquaintance’s names strung out on those floats for doing something controversial during the year.  Of course, proper Southern ladies refrain from gossip and such for problems people get themselves into, even when deserved!  So, you can see why we relish the opportunity those Comic Cowboys provide us to enjoy the gossip on this one marvelous day each year!  

We still relish the occasional news of a Jubilee from friends on the bay and this summer was no exception.  In the old days, Jack Galilee had the best predictions.  If he said conditions were good that night for a Jubilee, almost everyone that had a connection to him and lived on the bay stayed up late or woke up early to listen for neighbors shouting ‘Jubilee’!!  He somehow documented the conditions over the years summering at their Point Clear boardwalk cottage and came up with a formula that over time proved worthy of paying attention to. He was smart; everyone knew that much.  Their cottage was not too far from the Hotel….a simple bay cottage with a fantastic porch.  I’ve lost touch with the children but am sure they are doing quite well wherever they are!

Mobile area children quite often never come home after college.  It is a drain really, but this city has changed and the opportunity to make it here is probably somewhat limited for all of our college graduates.  Don’t take this the wrong way as there are quite successful locally-born people still here.  My daddy was one of those, and his technology is now being used in shipyards all over the world.  He might have missed an opportunity to license the idea, but we just didn’t know much about that stuff. Nevertheless, I sold daddy’s welding technology company probably for less than it might have been worth, but I was quite content.  

I was acquaintances with friends that worked at ADDSCO with daddy.  One couple at the yard had a son that did well recording and selling records.  I had a friend that heard Jimmy Buffett play at the Admiral Semmes Hotel many years before he was known.  His fame that night was that he was Peet’s (that’s his mother) son. I actually heard him sing once; one night at Judge Roy Bean, a fantastic homegrown place on Scenic 98.  Jack West built it and kept adding and changing it as long as it was there.  I got a double secret cross your heart and promise to only tell one person or two at most that he was in town and planning to play there that Friday night.  My friend Suey and I got there early!  It was so much fun!  

The exact future of this wonderful city is evolving.  We grew up thinking about the stores downtown and how they would expand.  There would be more great restaurants, the candy store would thrive, and we felt sure just how vibrant it would remain.  The idea that the city we knew would change so much after WW2 and after Brookley AFB closed, was never talked about.  Maybe someone did, but no one listened.  My generation watched the city decline in slow motion, and while we might not remember much of that old Mobile, I believe in the future.  

This city is a unique place.  I have traveled well after daddy died.  If you have read this far, maybe you will hear this last point before I get a glass of sherry, my book, and I climb into bed.  There is no place I have been that has the unique offering as does the City of Mobile and the surrounding areas.   So, that is why I write to this wonderful Coastal publication that helps me remember why this area is so special.  I just visited the new Greer’s on St Louis Street.  Wentzell’s is ready when your out-of-town in-laws visit and possibly stay at the lovely Inn at Fort Conde.  Oh, and the renovated old Merchant Bank Building is beautiful from what I hear.  Maybe one day I would love to consider having an apartment there myself! 

Yours, 

Tallulah Marie Sheepshead

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