Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 23, 1995 TAG: 9511220035
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS HENSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
I was in second or third grade. Our teacher thought it might be fun to dress us up like Indians and Pilgrims. Maybe we could learn some history, or gain some appreciation for the different cultures. I was disappointed when I was chosen for the Pilgrim group.
Being a Pilgrim was easy. If you were a boy you made a hat out of black and white construction paper. You cut it up all hat-like and stapled at it a while. Before you knew it you were Mayflower fresh. If you were a girl you made a bonnet and a sort of yoke for your dress. Black and white again.
But the Indians got to use the deluxe rainbow pack of paper. Red and green, orange, brown, yellow, pink and blue. Feathers made of every color you could think of. These were the same colors we used to make the leaves for the autumn bulletin board, or flowers in April.
If you were an Indian you mixed up a batch of paints out of powder and water, like real Indians did. You smeared it on with your fingers. The paint felt cool against your cheeks and it cracked when it dried.
At home we watched TV. We sat in our pajamas until noon, staring at the incredible motorcade, marching bands and a huge Underdog balloon bobbing along in the Macy's parade. We ate waffles and gawked at the floats made up like gargantuan turkeys, and ships, and storybook settings, all rolling down the street with beauty queens and movie stars perched high and waving.
By that time every other family in our town had a color TV. We had a black-and-white Zenith that snowed up every time a car drove by our house. It was probably the same set the original Pilgrims watched their football games on.
I remember last Thanksgiving, too. We spent it with Southern Culture on the Skids at the Iroquois on Salem Avenue. It had been a tradition years running.
Mary Ann Huff, mother of Skids bassist Mary Huff of Roanoke, says it won't happen this year. ``They've been on the road since September,'' she says. ``She might be home for Christmas.''
You see, Southern Culture has hit it pretty close to big since last year. It's got an album on Geffen Records that is firmly planted on the college radio charts. It has gained much more than its original cult following. The album, ``Dirt Track Date,'' is even getting airplay here in town, on WROV-FM.
A week ago today the band played its song, ``Fried Chicken and Gasoline,'' on ``Good Morning America'' ... nationwide. Huff says the band had to fly from San Francisco to Durham, N.C., and then set up at 3 a.m. They performed outside on the Duke campus. Huff could tell by looking that her daughter was cold.
There's a big article about the band in this month's Rolling Stone.
``Mary called me up to tell me about it,'' says Huff. ``She said, `Mom, you have to take a Magic Marker and mark out all the curse words before Dad sees it.'''
Mom doesn't mind. ``I liked it because they talked about Mary for a change,'' she says.
If Mary Ann Huff worries at all about her daughter touring the world in a hillbilly rock 'n' roll band, you'd never know it.
``I live vicariously through all the stuff she's doing,'' Huff says. And she's glad the band is making it. ``It's been eight long, hard years,'' she says. ``They've earned the recognition.''
Still, Momma Huff wishes the band could keep its Thanksgiving date here at home. ``Ten or 12 people have called here to see if they're going to be playing this year,'' says Huff. Then she slyly adds that her son, Juddy, and his band Load will be at Awful Arthur's tonight.
The Iroquois, meanwhile, will hardly be quiet. Two regional rockabilly bands, the Glenwood Popes and the Derailers, have volunteered to play a benefit tonight. The bands will ask for donations at the door to help Iroquois owner Shirley Thomas pay for damages to her house in Old Southwest.
A suspicious fire in early September did $50,000 worth of damage there, according to Thomas. ``It's been the worst nightmare of my life,'' she says.
Then she changes the subject. ``You know, Thanksgiving is always kind of low-key with us.'' She explains that her husband of forty-some years, Ronald Thomas, is a Mohawk Indian, a member of the Sixth Nation.
``Now, I love money,'' says Shirley. ``But Ronald, he doesn't care a thing about it. All he cares about in this world are his children and his grandchildren. He's got such a respect for life. That's how Indians are.
``And do you know what?'' she adds. ``In all our years together, we have never fought about money.''
Shirley pops open the cash register and fishes out a laminated card with her picture on it. It's her Certificate of Indian Status. She's number A4456. It means she has married into the Indian Nation. She fetches an English/Mohawk lexicon booklet from the kitchen and flips open the pages to show me how hard the Indian language is.
|n n| These days Indians don't wear construction paper feathers. And settlers seldom have yokes or bonnets anymore. We're all grown up. I think Zenith went out of business.
Today some of us will worship the turkey while it walks around, pecking and gobbling. Others will wait until the turkey's skin is a golden brown and the plastic temperature gauge in its breast pops up to say it's done.
And some of us have to work today, or play a benefit gig tonight, or open a movie theater, or fly people home. It's just another Thursday. If you run into one of these people, maybe when you're buying some last-minute instant potatoes, I think it'd be a good idea, a nice gesture, to tell them ``thanks.''
by CNB