She Comes In Colors
Hurricane Lane’s Silver Linings
During the day on Friday, Lane rapidly weakened from hurricane to tropical storm as the storm encountered increased wind shear as it approached the Hawaiian Islands. In addition to weakening the storm, these shearing winds will steer the storm westward over the weekend. You can look at the 5 p.m. HST forecast track for more information. Hawaiians, especially on the windward sides of the mountains, are not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination. Heavy rainfall will continue to fall for at least the next 24 to 48 hours as the storm makes its turn and continues to weaken to a tropical depression. As I poked around looking for interesting information on this storm, I came across the NOAA Twitter feed, which included some really cool footage of a hurricane hunter aircraft entering the eye of then-Hurricane Lane (at Category 5 intensity) on August 22.
Time lapse of the landing as #NOAA42 made a safe returned from Hurricane #Lane. Next mission is scheduled to take off in 2.5 hour! pic.twitter.com/yZSrsDxEmp
— HRD/AOML/NOAA (@HRD_AOML_NOAA) August 20, 2018
As I mentioned in my previous post, Lane has me reliving some meteorological memories. The video above made me think of my friend, Buzz Bernard. Buzz used to be a forecaster at The Weather Channel, and I would speak to him frequently when I was working at USA TODAY (The Weather Channel provided the data for our full-color weather map). After Buzz retired, he took up writing full-time. His first novel? Eyewall It’s a thriller that involves a hurricane hunter aircraft damaged on its way into a tremendously strong hurricane — the question is, will the crew be able to fly the wounded craft out of the storm? If you are inclined to pick up a copy (it really is a good read), you may notice a character named Robbie McSwanson. Wonder where Buzz got the name for him?
Hurricane Lane Churns Up Meteorological Memories
Hurricane Lane, currently bearing down on Hawaii, is rightfully grabbing the weather headlines and reminded me that I promised to write a blog entry about weather – hopefully to become a regular feature on OurTupelo.com.
My own experience with hurricanes takes me all the way back to before I even have memories. I was born in 1970 in Harrisburg, PA – my first home was just blocks from the Susquehanna River. The slow-moving remnants of 1972’s Hurricane Agnes dropped 15 inches of rainfall on Harrisburg from June 20 through June 24, 1972 (https://www.weather.gov/ctp/Agnes), flooded the first floor of the Governor’s Mansion (also just blocks away from our home on Logan Street) and forced my parents to evacuate and stay with family in New England.
It is tough to wrap my mind around the potential of the 30 to 40 inches of localized rainfall that will fall across parts of the Hawaiian Islands as a result of Lane’s similar slow motion.
Long after my experience with Agnes, I wound up studying meteorology (my master’s degree is from Penn State University) and making a career of it (6 years as a TV weatherman and 4 years as assistant weather editor at USA TODAY). I was relatively new at the paper in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina (which made its first landfall in South Florida on August 25 and its second devastating landfall along the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coasts) grabbed national headlines.
A few years later in 2008, with Hurricane Gustav (https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL072008_Gustav.pdf) churning in the Gulf and bearing down on New Orleans, I was assigned to cover the storm (https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-31-gustav-sunday_N.htm). The day I arrived in New Orleans, I attended a press conference in which the city’s mayor, Ray Nagin, determined to prevent the chaos that occurred during Katrina, said the following, “Tonight you need to be scared; you need to get out of New Orleans now.”
It was a surreal experience driving my rental car through the deserted streets of the French Quarter. The one hotel that was still operating housed mostly journalists and armed private security guards hired by banks downtown. One restaurant remained open in the French Quarter and most grocery stores were closed. Looking back, I realize that I was woefully underprepared had the storm made a direct hit on the city. Fortunately, the storm jogged to the west and produced minimal damage for New Orleans, making landfall near Cocodrie, Louisiana on Sept. 1.
Whether fleeing Agnes with my family or making the choice to cover Gustav, I’ve always been fortunate to have a place to go in the face of these storms – evacuation was always be a possibility. Riding out a storm has got to have a different feel on an island – whether it be Puerto Rico during last year’s Hurricane Maria or the current situation in Hawaii — especially for those living in flood-prone areas and unable to evacuate to safer locales. The danger simply cannot be overstated and perhaps the wording in the forecast discussion from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center says it all – “Excessive rainfall associated with this slow moving hurricane will continue to impact the Hawaiian Islands into the weekend, leading to catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding and landslides.” Here’s hoping that loss of life and damage to property can be held to a minimum.
Do you have some experiences with hurricanes or other tropical weather to share? Feel free to comment.
Elvis may have left Tupelo, but his soul stayed there
This story is our weekly ‘Sip of Culture, a partnership between Mississippi Today and The ‘Sip Magazine. For more stories like this or to learn more about The ‘Sip, visit thesipmag.com.
Even when a glitzy career carried Elvis Presley in private jets all over the world granting him access to virtually any vacation spot he could imagine, his Mississippi roots had the power to call him home.
“Tupelo is the soul of Elvis. It really is,” said actress Allyson Adams, daughter of late Academy Award-nominated actor Nick Adams. Allyson, in Tupelo for the 19th Annual Elvis Festival June 3, reminisced about her father’s friendship with Elvis. Nick Adams also starred in ABC’s late-1950s television series The Rebel.
“The birthplace and the people here really portray that and share that with people from all over the world,” Adams said.
Her father and Presley struck up a friendship in Hollywood after Presley recognized Nick, despite his minuscule role in Rebel Without a Cause (1955).
“Elvis could make you feel like a million bucks,” Allyson Adams said during a panel discussion at the festival led by Tupelo native Tom Brown of Turner Classic Movies.
Adams did not realize the extent of that friendship until decades after her father’s death when she uncovered a manuscript he had written, The Rebel and the King. A first-person account of their friendship, the book recounts eight days Presley spent in Memphis with Nick Adams just before Elvis’ 1956 Homecoming Concert at the Tupelo Fairgrounds. Forty-five years later, Adams published her father’s work.
“The people here are very generous with their love of Elvis and sharing stories and making people feel really comfortable,” said Adams, who signed copies of the book as part of the festivities.
Jim Beane is one of those generous people. A lifelong Tupelo citizen, owner of BBQ by Jim and an Elvis Festival volunteer since its inaugural year in 1998 Beane has a few Elvis stories of his own.
“I saw Elvis when I was growing up here in Tupelo. He would come in and out of the Lee Drive-In,” Beane said.
The drive-in movie theater, then owned by the Heard family, was located on Robert E. Lee Drive and operated from the 1960s until the 1990s. According to Julian Riley, historian and author of The Roots of Elvis Presley, the King visited the drive-in not to catch the latest blockbuster, but for another — very secretive — reason.
“This was in the ’70s,” Riley said. “After Janelle McComb met Elvis, she kind of mothered him.”
McComb, a native of Tupelo and eventual chairperson of the Elvis Presley Memorial Foundation, was a lifelong family friend of the Presleys. And, though Presley was in his 30s at the time, his lifestyle in the early 1970s warranted a trustworthy and protective mother figure. His own mother, Gladys, had died in 1958.
After Elvis won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 1971 — the first rock and roll singer to do so — the following years were a roller coaster. His divorce from Priscilla Presley was finalized in October 1973, the same year Elvis performed 168 concerts — his busiest schedule ever. Three albums recorded between 1975 and 1977 — Promised Land, From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee and Moody Blue — reached No. 1 on the country chart. For his gospel recordings, Presley won a second and third Grammy in the category for best inspirational performance for He Touched Me (1972) and How Great Thou Art (1974) .
In the midst of all this, Presley knew he could call on McComb, who knew the Heards well.
“They had a house out at Lake Piomingo,” Riley said of the Heards. “If (Elvis) wanted to spend some time alone, he would call Mrs. McComb, who would get the key from Mr. Heard, and Elvis would come by and pick it up.”
Lake Piomingo, named for Chickasaw Chief Piomingo, is northeast of Tupelo fewer than 10 miles from the Elvis Presley Birthplace, now a museum for visitors to learn about Elvis’ early life in Tupelo. In addition to being a recreational hot spot, Lake Piomingo is home to a private, residential community.
“We’d see his F-150 white Ford pickup and two guys pull up to the front, and that was the advance security,” Beane said. “Then you see three Cadillacs go in, then maybe a pickup or two with bags, and we’d say, ‘Well, Elvis is in town.’”
According to Riley, Elvis wouldn’t go many places without that entourage — not even out to the lake for a getaway.
“Usually he didn’t go anywhere without that group of friends of his. They were kind of bodyguards and there to make sure nothing would happen to him,” he said. “When he needed some time alone, that’s where they’d go. They’d go out there and spend time fishing and water skiing, swimming and just hanging out. And nobody would even know they were there.”
No one except for, on occasion, people like Beane.
“People didn’t see him a lot in Tupelo, but I know he was here,” he said. “A lot of the times, you’d know after the fact that he had been here. He’d come in on Monday and stay until about Friday before everybody got back.”
Though the Heards are no longer living, their lakefront cabin still stands.
“He used to come out here to get away sometimes,” said Wayne Fitzner of the Lake Piomingo Residents Association and owner of the house since 2006. “And he’d go over to our neighbors’ house on either side, and he’d borrow their pontoon boat.”
But, according to Fitzner, the house has become unrecognizable from its original form over the decades.
“It’s completely different from when Elvis stayed here,” he said. “In some areas, there were like four layers of linoleum, so that tells you how many times it’s been remodeled.”
Though the neighbors Elvis would have been in contact with have died over the years, stories of the King in his hometown live on through people like Beane and fellow Tupelo citizens. And, to Adams, that’s the real magic of the Elvis Festival.
“There’s pictures of my dad with Elvis on this Harley, and I’ve literally met the woman in the background of the picture. So you meet the actual people. That’s what’s so incredible,” Adams said. “It’s much different than Graceland in that way. It’s like two sides of Elvis. So the Tupelo side, I always say, is the soul.”
And that connection to people and place — which brought Elvis home for refuge in the 1970s — still lures hoards of fans to the North Mississippi town in early June of each year.
“I think he’s done a lot for Tupelo,” Beane said. “I think the thing is that he came from nothing and built up to what he was — a great entertainer. I think that’s a big thing.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Tupelo’s Paul Thorn Returns to His Roots
Thirty years ago last month, Tupelo songwriter/singer Paul Thorn climbed into a boxing ring in Atlantic City to fight his childhood idol, Roberto Duran, he of the famed Hands of Stone.
It was a seminal moment for Thorn, one he does not regret – despite all the blood.
“Duran whupped me,” Thorn said before a recent appearance in Meridian. “He whupped me good. He was a better man.”
The fight went six rounds before Thorn’s corner threw in the towel. Both fighters were taken to the hospital for stitches and treatment. They rode together, side by side, in an ambulance.
Inside Thorn’s bloodied head, a light went off. “That showed me I wasn’t going to become a champion,” he said. “I was a good fighter at a certain level. I won at the state and regional levels in Golden Gloves. I had skills but I didn’t have that super skill it takes to be a world champion.”
Thorn fought three more fights, won them all, but he knew – Duran had showed him – he had no real future in the fight game.
So he went back home to Tupelo, went to work in a furniture factory and began writing songs and learning to perform them. The son of a Pentecostal preacher, he had grown up in a house where the devil’s music – rock and roll, rhythm and blues, etc. – was taboo. His music was the gospel music he sang and played in his daddy’s churches, both black and white. As a child, he hid his two rock and roll albums from his parents. Now, the devil’s music was becoming his life.
That life has come full circle recently. Thorn and his band have recorded their first gospel album – “Don’t Let the Devil Ride” – and you can see how it happened in the documentary “Paul Thorn: The Making of …” on Mississippi Public Broadcasting at 8 p.m Monday night, May 7.
This isn’t just any gospel album. Thorn and his band are joined by the Blind Boys of Alabama, the McCrary Sisters, Bonnie Bishop, and the horns section of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The album was made at famed Sam Phillips Studios in Memphis, FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., and Preservation Hall in New Orleans.
“I always wanted to do a gospel record,” Thorn said. “It’s an homage to my upbringing. Growing up, I sang gospel music and played the tambourine in my daddy’s churches and listened to gospel music at home. Going to church, singing with black people, singing with white people, I learned how to play music. It’s in my heart. It’s my roots and my foundation, and it had to be done.”
Thorn has dedicated the album to his mother and father. Yes, he said, they approve.
Thorn, now 53, has grown a huge fan base around the country, recording 11 albums over the past 21 years. His lyrics often have been compared to those of his musical hero, John Prine.
Of Prine, Thorn says, “He’s the best of the best. He’s a sweetheart. He’s my favorite songwriter. His songs are so powerful. He is so tuned into human feelings. That’s why his fans stay with him for life. He’s the Muhammad Ali of song writing.”
Thorn’s not bad either. You go to one of his concerts and you quickly learn that the audience knows all the words and doesn’t mind singing along. And Thorn, who still looks like he could go six or seven rounds, always regales his fans with stories that relate to his songs.
Recently, he told the story about writing the song “Viagra” with some help from his father, the Pentecostal preacher.
His father, he said, came up with the idea of rhyming Viagra with Niagara.
“My father is a wonderful man of God, but he is not a fully developed song writer like me,” Thorn said, smiling.
In the song, Thorn rhymes the words “failure” and “genitalia.”
“Now, see, that was me,” he said. “Failure and genitalia. That’s song writin’.”
There’s much humor in Thorn’s songs. There’s also no shortage of strippers, desire, lust, sin and salvation. Thorn has lived it all. And lived to write and sing about it.
And, yes, he said, he still loves boxing.
“Watch it every chance I get,” he said. “I love the sport. I wasn’t able to become a champion, but I fully understand the skill and courage that it takes.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Fitness Friday With Chelsea Chapman
Welcome to Fitness Friday on OurTupelo! My name is Chelsea Chapman, otherwise known as StaxFitness. I have been a Personal Trainer for nearly six years now and have loved every second of it.
As a trainer, my philosophy for training is simple: I train you for life.
Why, you ask? There are so many limits the human mind puts on what we think we are capable to do and to not do with our bodies. We also live in a society where you are to do and not to do certain things when it comes to being “healthy” — most of which are extreme and unnecessary.
Not everyone can Intermittent Fast, not everyone can Keto, not everyone can make it to the gym for 2 hours, not everybody likes to run, not everybody wants to lift a house — but that’s great, because that means we are our own individuals. But we can all take simple steps to simplify our life and create the best and healthiest versions of ourselves!
When asked to do these Fitness Friday articles, I was thrilled, because I’m about to give you my insight on simplifying Health and Fitness — by using the KISS method (Keep It Simple, Silly).
Over the next few weeks, we will cover several different topics that I will poll from each week from my Facebook Page, so feel free to come give your opinion in the upcoming polls! I look forward to hearing from you!
Chelsea Stacks
StaxFitness - Formulated to be different Personal Trainer Services: Individual, Small Group, Bootcamp
Ok, here is a crazy, and hopefully fun question. You have the ability to alter s
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Ok, here is a crazy, and hopefully fun question. You have the ability to alter something about our area. Nothing practical or business/money related. Landscape, climate, and geography related (I’ll allow things like moving the mall or streets) Me? I’d add mountains. How about you?
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Today is Friday, December 22nd. There are only 3 days until Christmas, and 10 ti
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Today is Friday, December 22nd. There are only 3 days until Christmas, and 10 till 2018 begins. Sorry for posting the list so late today, I’ve taken the day off to hang out with the family and we all got so busy we lost track of time.
The current temp is 71° and allow me to say, “Mississippi weather, right?” The temperature will begin to fall as the day goes on, but will only get down to around 66°. Rain is going to roll in, with a chance of thunderstorms overnight. We will continue to see the temp drop tomorrow all day long.
Food Trucks:
Sorry, I’m late guys.
Today:
Public Ice Skating is happening at @bancorpsouth arena 1:00-6:00
Come meet the Grinch at Oren Dunn City Museum museum 8:00-5:00 Photos are $5 While you are there, check out their annual Toy Exhibit: His & Hers
Santa’s Last Stroll, an extended shopping experience to help you check off your last minute Christmas list. We will be open for two extended hours on Friday and Saturday before Christmas from 5:00-7:00 PM. Participating businesses will have deals and activities in the store. Santa Claus will even take a break from packing his sleigh to visit us!
Tonight:
WordPlay Writing Workshop Link Centre. The workshop is free, but donations are appreciated. 6:00-8:00
Michael Thomas is at @forklift 7:00-9:00
At Steele's Dive Trevor McKay, Andy Dixon & Derrick Young will all be performing 8:30-12:00
Blue Canoe has Flow Tribe 9:30-12:00
Again, sorry for the late post, was too busy having fun with the family. Along with the normal posts, I’m also working on a list of who is open on Christmas day and when and where the New Year’s events are. If you know about either, please send me a message and I’ll get it added to my lists.
Thanks, everyone, and have an awesome day!
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*ATTN TUPELO* Artist meet & greet Spring Street Cigars along with their Chri
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*ATTN TUPELO* Artist meet & greet Spring Street Cigars along with their Christmas party! Artwork by Missihippi Belle and Cosmic Charles Morrison is priced to sell (**LAST MIN GIFT IDEAS**) and we can’t wait to show you our installation! #tupeloartist #artinms #tupelorocks #artrockstupelo #msartist #mytupelo #downtowntupelo
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