Janis Owens

To those of you who have asked, the official premier of the Great Southern Cracker Roadshow was a rocking fun time and great success. It sold-out so early that our friends Tricia and Bob were turned away at the door. Tricia had gone to the trouble of securing a babysitter for the evening, and being a wily red-headed New Orleans Cracker, sneaked in a side door; proving that the overweening Cracker urge to self-celebrate cannot be denied.

I was writer in-residence at Flagler for part of the week, and hadn’t given much consideration to my performance, which was just as well, as it was a rowdy, laughing, constantly shifting proposition, played out against a set of the Scrambletown General Store, and an outhouse. My partner in crime, Dana Ste. Claire, has (between us) a hint of Mr. Wendel’s OCD, and tried to impose a little order on the chaos. He had a smartly printed schedule affixed to the stage wall that was pretty much ignored the moment he affixed it. We had a few meetings to discuss the order of the evening, but I kept getting sidetracked by all the things I get sidetracked by (Lily Pickle stories; my DNA; how cold it was; whether Iz might go to Flagler.) So the meetings weren’t altogether productive, though they were fun. Dana is tall and dark and intense, and (like me) tends to stoop forward when he walks. It was so cold he wore a big over coat, and as we walked back to our cars at night, down those narrow cobblestoned streets of the Old City, discussing the availability of live chickens and skunks, it was a curious sensation; like stalking along side a Medici prince, plotting to overtake the State.

By Friday night, the official cast had swollen to a cast of thousands: me, Dana, a traveling Medicine Man, a whip-cracker, a live rooster, a live skunk, a snuff-dipping lay-about (played in a pinch by Mr. Wendel) and a visit by the mayor (the real one, of St. Augustine, who entered the stage via the outhouse, proving that you can’t keep a good politician down.) Last but not least, was a bluegrass band, the Dunehoppers, who kept our feet tapping all night with some good fiddle-playing tunes. We were all strangers when we met in the green room, where Dana, boy-genius that he is, had cornbread and iced tea to refresh us - but left sure we were all kin. He also had a costume for me from one of his museums (or maybe he has a costume closet at home; the man lives a world of unending surprise.) He was worried it was “too colonial” and worried that there were no shoes to go with it, but there were no worries on that account: I went barefoot. I go barefoot most of the time anyway, and for the first half of the show, while Dana gave his history lesson and the fiddlers sawed out front, I sat scrunched backstage under a tiny slant of light, feet to the wall in front of me, and read Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae.  I found it at Anastasia Books the day before (great bookstore, just across street from Flagler) and couldn’t put it down. All around me, the bustle of a live performance churned; the wall pounding with the tempo of the bass fiddle. At one point, Dana’s assistance, Jamie, paused to talk to me. She is an adorable Cuban Cracker love, as OCD as Dana. She was holding a Blackberry as she talked, that gave a little beep. When she checked the text, a smile lit her face.

“The skunk has arrived,” she announced with great joy, then scurried off to meet it.  Apparently, she and her boss had a bet riding on her ability to score a live skunk. She won the bet.

The whip cracker was naught but a youngun, still in high school, and came out, whip in each hand, blaring. It was so loud I’m sure the police got complaints of gunfire, but that’s the real sound of whip cracking. It isn’t intended to hurt – to pop flesh - but to intimidate, and believe me when I say: it does. All that noise had the poor old rooster on edge. I took him out to the stage when my time came to talk. I am the opposite of OCD and at the last minute, in one of those reversals that give perfectionists ulcers, decided I wanted to sit in a rocker while I talked. Dana complied (we were more or less live on stage; wasn’t like he had a choice) and for half an hour or so, I sat there in a rocker and told family stories. I remember not a word of them, but do remember the old rooster wasn’t so happy to be sitting in a cage with an iron frying pan next to him. He knew where this story ended – or thought he did, and played a great straight man, kicking up his straw and making a lot of insulted faces and noises of protest. He and I could take Broadway by storm.

Half way through my talk, I saw Abby and John out there and that was nice; gave them a little wave. Then I saw Tricia (smug at having sneaked in) and Bob and grinned at them. Then I saw Stetson Kennedy in the front row and was taken aback; he is a hero in Florida anthropology and folklore and general heroism. I’m glad Dana didn’t tell me beforehand he’d be there or I’d have been too intimidated to speak. But I managed to rattle on a while, then showed the real way to make cornbread and was serenaded by the band with Peas & Cornbread (the song, not the supper.) After thanks and acknowledgements and bows by the cast, the band broke out in a fast Boggy Mountain-like break down and I have an uneasy memory of buck dancing barefoot with the medicine man in front of 800 people (and Stetson Kennedy.) It was purely spontaneous, in the moment, but the presence of cameras and (urg) a film-crew may make me regret being so fully in the moment.

Well, that’s the update. I did Savannah after that, and Amelia after that, and it’s all kind of run together in my brain. Here’s a picture from Amelia, of a great line up of Southern yarn-spinners: me, Sonny Brewer, Jack Riggs, Dickie Anderson, Pat Conroy and Sandra, looking like she’s holding a bottle of Jack Daniels, though it’s really her umbrella. It was rainy everywhere, and so cold I never really got warm, for six weeks.

More pictures to follow, and film footage of the Roadshow. If the buck dance ever makes it to Youtube, be kind when you post your comments.

Oh – and the best part of all was at the end of the Roadshow, when the vice-mayor of St. Augustine came up to the stage, and with great sincerity and radiating waves of love, awarded me a medal of honor from the city. I tell you what: it was a sweet little moment. He is a black man and I am a Cracker and St. Augustine has had what you might call an uneven racial history. But right there, for love of cornbread and Mama; fiddle and buck dancing, we not only achieved harmony, we achieved great and golden love.  

More sincerely than ever do I say: Viva. La Cracker.

Tags: Amelia Island Book Festival, Blue Grass, Cassandra King, Dana Ste. Claire, Dickie Anderson, Flagler College, Great Southern Cracker Roadshow, Jack Riggs, Pat Conroy, Sonny Brewer, St. Augustine, Whip Cracking