Grits, Toilets, and Robert E. Lee Elementary

Someone recently asked this question on the American Civil War Forum, an online site that includes discussion about most anything Civil War related:

What southern traditions really are in danger of disappearing as the political and cultural clashes continue over Confederate statues, schools named after Confederate heroes, and display of the battle flag?

One lady wrote in that manners are at great risk, evidenced by Southern children no longer being taught to address adults by “Sir” and “Ma’am.” She also mentioned children addressing adults as “Mr.” Phil or “Miss” Nita, putting an adult’s first name with a “Mr.” or a “Miss” to show respect, and yet not be too formal with an adult who the child knows well. Good reply, I thought.

My answer of a disappearing Southern tradition is grits. That is, grits for breakfast as a side serving.

Twenty years ago, our preacher told a great grits story. A salesman from the North was traveling through Mississippi, well off the interstate highway, and he stopped at a small town café for breakfast. He ordered breakfast eggs and bacon. When the plate arrived the eggs and bacon looked just fine, but a blob of mushy white stuff was on the plate, too.

He called the waitress over and asked what the white pile was. She answered, “Them’s grits.”

He replied, “I didn’t order grits. I don’t even know what they are. And I’m not going to pay for something I didn’t order.”

The waitress jutted out one hip, and patiently explained, probably while chewing gum and scratching her bubble of dyed red hair with her ballpoint pen.

“Honey, you don’t order grits, they just come, and you don’t have to pay for them, neither.”

Our preacher’s point was that God’s grace is like grits. You don’t have to order grace, it just comes. You don’t have to pay for grace, Jesus did that already, for all of us.

I’ve enjoyed retelling that little story for two decades now. I hope it was new to at least a few of you. But my point is not quite the same as our preacher’s.

Sometimes, the way folks behave, I fear that along with breakfast grits, human grace, not to be confused with God’s grace, is also disappearing.

I watch the abrasive political squabbles over silly stuff, like which school restrooms should be open to which kids. As an old high school principal, I have to laugh in dismay at the idea of teenagers showing their birth certificates to a potty-guard in order to gain entry to the approved toilet stall. To the politicians, I say, please, spare us all from this nonsense. Schools have more important matters, matters that actually matter, to impart to our teenagers.

And, in thinking what just happened in Austin, Texas, I shake my head sadly when a school that functioned just fine for sixty years while as known as Robert E. Lee Elementary, is suddenly renamed, banishing public recognition of venerable old General Lee.

I think I’m sensitive to both sides of the debate about how Confederate heroes should be remembered. I do see the huge irony of African-American kids going to schools named for Confederate generals. That’s not hard to recognize as inappropriate.

In the pre-integration years of the early 1960’s, my wife attended John B. Hood Junior High in Dallas, built during the centennial years of the Civil War to serve white kids. I can’t imagine the school board in Dallas, or anywhere, naming a new school built for black kids after General Hood or any other Confederate leader.

But, desegregation and white-flight--the departure of the white middle-class from urban school districts--including Dallas, have changed who is “qualified” to have his or her name over the doors of big city public schools.

That doesn’t really ruffle my feathers in anger. I just regret that so many white parents reacted to public school desegregation by moving to all-white suburbs, so their kids could attend all-white public schools, or all-white private schools. What a sad commentary that has been for fifty years now. What a lost opportunity to show the world that we are still a melting-pot nation, that black and white, they are all our kids, who should be sitting elbow to elbow in the same schools.  

Our wonderful nation would be better if every school was naturally integrated, full of students of all ethnic groups who live near each other in the same communities. Sadly, the white-flight train left the station half a century ago, and I don’t see it coming back.

I freely admit I feel sorry for Robert E. Lee, who is losing his shine as a role model for all Southern children. By all reports, he was an honorable man whose memory deserves better than to be erased off school signs. Nonetheless, if I was an African-American parent, for the obvious reasons, I’d not want my kids to attend a school named after General Lee.

I don’t feel so sorry for General Hood. I’m a student of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, and I’ve not yet forgiven him for the Battle of Franklin. It still breaks my heart to think about that day.

Back to breakfast grits. While the unordered white blob of mush may be on the way of the do-do bird, shrimp-and-grits are surging across the South. I’ve ordered them in nice restaurants from Washington, DC to my little hometown of Lockhart, Texas. Every chef seems to have his own take on how to season and garnish shrimp-and-grits to make his dish memorable.  

For our Mothers Day lunch a couple of weeks ago, Nita and I followed a shrimp-and-grits recipe from Southern Living magazine. Salsa verde, heavy on the basil, much like pesto sauce, was the crowning touch to our crustacean and hominy delight.  That colorful photo is our Mothers Day meal.

And the nap that followed the shrimp-and-grits lunch wasn’t so bad either.