The McCollumn - 6/15: "Pat Hamby, the Queen of Chicken Salad"

You’d be surprised what hard work making chicken salad is.

I realize that seems to be an odd non-sequitur, but follow me, folks.

For more than 12 years, my family has been one of four owners of the Cottage Cafe, the downtown sandwich eatery open only for lunch and known for its crowd-pleasing chicken salad.

And, for eight of those years, the chicken salad so many of you have come to love has been made by one woman - Ms. Patricia Hamby.

She got up almost every morning, came to work and ground down the chicken, added the mayo and mixed in the grapes and almonds -all by hand, all by herself.

And not just small batches, mind you - pounds upon pounds upon pounds, day after day. She got to where she could tell if a batch was right not by looks, but by the way it felt when as she mixed it with her glove-clad hands.

She came to us the summer of 2004, straight from the bakery at Winn Dixie, where we knew her as the kind, helpful bakery lady who made our croissants and kaiser rolls.

She hit the ground running and was a quick learner, mainly because she soon discovered that doing the opposite of whatever I said would be the best way to go.

She arrived early, stayed late and even came in on weekends, just to make sure the job was done both right and up to her standard - which are two separate and unequal things.

She was the force that kept the restaurant going, making sure spoons and knives were stocked, checking and rechecking bank deposits and doing only God knows what else to make sure everything was present and accounted for at all times.

And, dear readers, she had to do all of this while putting up with me. No easy task, indeed.

Ms. Pat, thank you for everything you’ve done for the “Cottage Walk family.”

I’m sure we annoyed you at times (me especially), but I hope you know how much love and respect each and every one of us have for you.

I grew up working with you in that tiny cafe, learning how to mix and mingle with customers, learning the proper portions for the chicken salad plate, and, most importantly, learning that the most important things in life are faith and family - two things that I know Pat Hamby will always hold dear.

I’ll treasure the memories I have with you forever, and I hope you continue to be a frequent visitor and guest whenever you choose to venture this way.

Enjoy your retirement, though I know you’ll probably be busier now than you ever were here in downtown.

There’s grandbabies to take care of, remodeling to be done, and Mr. Van will undoubtedly need supervision - he’s been tinkering away by himself all day for far too long, and that’s never good.

We love you, Ms. Pat. Be well.

I salute and thank you, Ms. Pat - nay, Patricia, Queen of Chicken Salad.

She’s a sight better than your average “chicken salad chick,” and she always will be.

God bless and keep you, madame.

Though your reign has ended, your legend never will.

The McCollumn - 6/1: Conecuh Snake Hunting Trip, Part Two: Electric Boogaloo

Two weeks ago, I had the joy of spending the weekend in the middle of the Conecuh National Forest hunting for snakes, frogs and other reptiles and amphibians with Drs. Cooner and Gentry on our second annual Snake Hunting Weekend.

Our time was spent hiking long-forgotten trails and lurking about God-forsaken watering holes and minor ponds searching for any forms of herpetological life.

Pickings were slim this year, as we only managed to find a few amphibians in addition to the three snakes we managed to come across.

The youngish copperhead was our first find.

Though a common species, we looked at it as a sign from the gods of snake hunting that they were looking down on us with favor, meaning sundry varieties of snakes to come.

(Sadly, this was not the case, and I’m beginning to doubt the validity of the claim that an Auburn DVM is also dually qualified in the Serpentine Priesthood.)

We did manage to find two life-listers for my doctor friends, so they didn’t count the trip as a complete waste.

A mud snake was procured from his afternoon resting place of a hollowed-out log, courtesy of the hunting tactics of Dr. Gentry. Mud snakes lack a powerful bite, so he spent most of his time coiling up his head into his body and trying to trick us into thinking his tail was his head.

(While he only visited with us a short time, his musk remained as a all-too potent reminder of our wonderful times together.)

Dr. Cooner’s scarlet kingsnake was an equally interesting find, as one minute, he was peeking behind the bark of a stump, and, within the next, had a red and black snake firmly affixed to his index finger with its small but effective fangs.

Bitey IV, hereditary King of the Stump, stayed latched to Dr. Cooner’s hand for a few good minutes, and I tried to get him to explain the level of pain to me so that I could attempt to explain it to you, dear readers.

His answer was something akin to jabbing your finger with a safety pin and having it get stuck in there. “Not bad, but you are aware of it,” he said.

(While I love you all dearly, I sure as hell wasn’t about to go anywhere near that thing’s mouth. Some experiences are best lived vicariously.)

We road-cruised the back roads of Covington and Escambia counties, even venturing forth into Florida’s untamed Blackwater state park.

(Perhaps a full expedition, complete with elephant guns and sherpas, will be warranted next year.)

All in all, it was a wonderful time spent with friends I probably won’t get to see much from now on, as Dr. Cooner has taken a job in small town Indiana (although, sadly, not Gary of “The Music Man” fame) and Dr. Gentry soon starts his multiple-year residency at Texas A&M.

While I may not be embarking to any state parks to “herp” by myself any time soon, I will continue to find areas around here that could prove a good habitat for herpetological expeditions, and I encourage all of you to get out and do so as well.

You all have an open invitation to help me track Eastern kingsnakes, ringneck snakes and other sundry species at McCollum Cottage any time.

Just call, and remember to bring your own snake hook.

The McCollumn - 5/18: "A 'Cliff Note'"

I suppose this is not so much a column, as it is an attempted explanation for the last few weeks’ lack of columns.

Contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t banned from these pages for saying or doing anything controversial, nor was it a phenomenal bout of writer’s block.

“Alien abduction,” “a sudden vacation to the Bermuda Triangle” and “a rehab visit for addiction to stamp adhesive” have also been ruled out as possible causes.

Instead, we made the decision to temporarily pull my column to run the excellent letters to the editor you’ve seen recently, a number of them pertaining to the county’s upcoming fire fee vote.

The issues those citizens wanted to discuss and highlight were important, much more so than my weekly talking at all of you.

I can assure you my column will always be the first one pulled to make room for letters from our community - to make sure this paper remains a voice for the people of this area.

And if I never write another column again because so many of you decide to start pouring in letters every week – so be it.

The opinions of the members of our community are important to us and need an outlet. We came into being, in large part, to serve as your outlet.

You’ve been kind enough to put up with me, but without all of you, we wouldn’t exist, so, please, keep writing. We need your voices, too.

The McCollumn - 4/20: 'Happy as a herper'

An oddly cooperative Graptemys ernsti.

More Nerodia fasciata than you could shake a stick at (and I literally did at one point).

And, of course, the Drymarchon couperi, the most impressive specimen we came across all weekend.

Confused? Don’t worry; I was, too; just blame Carolus Linnaeus, that Swedish lothario.

For most of this last weekend, I listened to field herpetologists banter back and forth during the group’s trek into the Conecuh National Forest.

More than a dozen “herpers,” as they call themselves, descended upon the Conecuh area, and spent the better part of the weekend walking creek beds, pondsides and abandoned trails, turning up underbrush and logs, all in search of various rare or hard-to-find reptiles and amphibians.

Several had lists of creatures they “had” to see while on the trip, composing of relatively common yet still unseen animals like the barking tree frog to “lifer” finds like a coral snake or a rainbow snake.

Me ... well, I was there just to take it all in, really.

While this trip would be my second annual sojourn into the Conecuh Forest in search of snakes, I was not an official member of the group, made ever more apparent by my lack of understanding simple binomial nomenclature for any of the specimens found.

Folks would be rattling off statistics, distribution maps and behavioral patterns of various animals as if they were speaking about their only daily habits, and I was left to practice my “smile and nod” technique for most, if not almost all of the weekend.

These people not only knew their stuff, but could discuss in such a way to where only they truly knew to what they were referring, content area experts whose language barrier was nearly impenetrable, even to a vigilant English major like myself.

Were you there, you might have heard me call out “I think I found a frog,” only to have another group member call out a cry of “Bufo terrestris,” indicating both a Southern toad and the fact I lack the ability to differentiate between frogs and toads.

They were professionals; I, the very definition of amateur.

I spent most of my weekend watching and observing, taking in the masters as they practiced their hobby, and I was struck by one major thing:

I wish I enjoyed anything as much as these folks enjoy looking for reptiles and amphibians.

To see the joy and elation on people’s faces as they found their prey and began snapping dozens of photos to post to “the forum,” was to see a joy so pure, as one seldom sees it outside of children on the morning of any major gift-giving holiday.

It might have been just the small sight of a salamander, but these folks reacted as if they had just seen a movie star or a space alien.

While it sounds silly to say, I was almost jealous of their joy, angry that there was no similar stimulus to bring me happiness.

I should have known to wait for joy to come to me.

10:45 p.m., Saturday evening.

Standing in the middle of a series of small ponds, watching one of the young members of our group, clad in khaki shorts and sandals, wade into a pond where cottonmouths had been sighted a night before and begin pulling up banded water snake after banded water snake.

I look up to a moonless sky of bounteous, gleaming stars.

I hear a hectic cacophony of various frogs and toads surrounding me, putting Aristophanes’ croaking chorus to shame. Breke-kek-kek, my ax.

A slight breeze touches my face, cooling the beads of sweat attempting to escape down my forehead.

In that moment, there was some inexplicable feeling, a sense that all was right with the world and my place within it, however insignificant that role may be, a bit player in a cast of billions upon billions.

It was a moment that seemed to last a lifetime as I took in the spectacle of natural wonder and beauty around me.

I pick up my left foot to begin walking again, bringing it down with an unforeseen squoosh into mud and water that saturated my shoe and sock, breaking the thought and ending the cosmic moment.

Ah, well. Worth it, says I.

Opelika Observer Staff Editorial - 4/13: Why we can 'never forget'

Next Thursday, April 19, marks National Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time when as a nation we are supposed to come together to memorialize and remember the lives of the more than six million Jews (and five million others) who died in the terrible murders enacted by Germany’s Nazi regime.

Here in East Alabama, we have only one living Holocaust survivor: Opelika Observer editorial board member and longtime Opelikan Henry J. Stern.

Stern and his immediate family immigrated to the U.S. legally in 1937. While he and few others escaped the horrible fate of the concentration camps, other family members were not so lucky.

Stern searched for 60 years to locate any family members he could, sometimes flipping through phone books and calling any Sterns he might see in his journeys throughout the country.

Finally, thanks to the help of a website, Stern located a living relative, a cousin, Fred Hertz, living in Durham, North Carolina.

Stern and Hertz were able to meet and reminisce with one another, before Hertz sadly lost his life.

Now, there is one less person left to tell the tale of an eyewitness, one less one who was there.

We do an excellent job of educating the public about the Holocaust as a historical event, framing it through facts and figures and painting it as a major part of the effects of World War II and the Nazi regime.

Middle school and high school classes read pieces of literature like “The Diary of Anne Frank” or Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” providing narrative accounts of some of the atrocities committed on European Jews by the Nazis.

While this education is admirable, we feel nothing best resonates with people more than anecdotal evidence - having something happen to someone they know.

With his visit to Opelika Middle School this week, Henry Stern has insured another group of students will spend the rest of their lives knowing they knew East Alabama’s last Holocaust survivor.

They’ve heard his story, shook his hand and had him sign a memento.

Thanks to Stern’s generous donation of a DVD of his various interviews and other artistic materials, Stern has insured that future generations of Opelika students will have the same opportunity to “meet” Henry Stern, even if the man himself has passed on.

With each passing year, we lose more Holocaust survivors, finding fewer and fewer people left to tell the first-hand tales people so desperately need to hear.

There will be those who will attempt to deny the Holocaust, saying that such an evil would be unthinkable for man to commit upon man.

While such acts are inhumanely evil, they did happen, and six million Jewish lives lost can not and will not ever be denied.

If we are ever allowed to forget or deny those events happened, they might be allowed to happen again.

God forbid we ever forget. Never again.

We must fight prejudice and intolerance where we find it, and snuff out ignorance with knowledge.

We all feel blessed to know and work with Henry Stern, as many of you do, too.

He’s an Opelika institution, a friend and generous benefactor to numerous causes and charities.

He’s a self-named “good ol’ redneck from Alabama,” which ain’t bad for a boy born Heinz Julius Stern in Germany.

He’s a Holocaust survivor, one whose story will continue to ring out and be told long after he is gone.

We owe it to him and so many others who didn’t make it out to make sure such horrors will never reoccur.

Six million lives lost, and countless others irrevocably damaged by the loss of kin.

Never forget.

Never again.

Opelika Observer Staff Editorial - 3/30: 'Lessons to be learned from recent teenage deaths'

What began as a dispute over a relatively small amount of money ended with one young man being forced to pay the ultimate cost.

Late last week, 17-year-old Opelika High student Martin Frazier was  killed tragically in an alleged stabbing during a dispute over money with another teenager, Darnell McCurdy.

It’s the second time this month our area has seen the untimely death of a young person, as 15-year-old Jamon Baker of Auburn was the victim of an apparent accidental gunshot on March 16.

In situations where young lives are lost, there are often many questions, but seldom any answers.

We seek guidance and solace in prayer and quiet reflection, asking a loving God to bring peace and comfort.

Peace to a family who had their smiling, youthful son snatched from them all-too-soon.

Comfort to friends who will now be forced to remember the young man who was.

One often hears phrases like “What a waste” tossed around in situations like these, but that idiom doesn’t really hold true.

While these deaths are heartbreaking and tragic, they serve as a warning to those of us still here, a reminder to be watchful and respectful of one another.

There is no argument so great that the end answer must be death.

Passions may become heated and tempers may flare, but we cannot let rage take hold and end a life. To do so would be a lessening of our own humanity.

We must remind our children that violence only brings more violence and hate with it, that compromise and mutual respect are the tools we use to interact with one another.

No argument or conflict should ever escalate to a level at which a life is taken. We all know this to be so, and we have to urge our children to see it, too.

We may never fully be able to prevent terrible events like this from happening again, but we must at least try.

For the families of Martin Frazier and Jamon Baker, we send our sincerest condolences and our prayers and thoughts are with you.

We know there is little we can say to bring you solace, but know that He is with you and that they are now safe in His eternal kingdom.

The McCollumn - 3/23: "A full circle reflection"

Several weeks ago, during a high-stakes assessment of our school system from its accrediting body, the accreditation committee’s chairwoman took time to explain the school system’s rating to the school board members.

In one area, stakeholder communications, she commended Opelika City Schools’ for “turning around in a complete 360 from where you were,” praising us for doing better in that area.

Or did she?

If the school system did a complete 360, as she suggested, we would have undoubtedly ended exactly right back where we had started. We wouldn’t have improved a bit.

Why she would commend our system for standing in one place and completing one full rotation, I couldn’t immediately ascertain, but, being from such an august and admirable reviewing body, how could I hope to quibble with her response?

Well, madame, I may have gone through a school system you reviewed as simply adequate in some performance areas, but even I know that 180 degrees gives you an opposing change in direction.

You may be in charge of accrediting us, but you did a severe discredit to yourself by not remembering basic math principles. A pity.