Below the Line - October/November 2010

Alabama
BEACH MUSIC
Longtime patrons of the Flora-Bama, the famed beachside bar that straddles the Florida-Alabama state line, may remember the late Frank Brown, the bar’s night watchman who kept trouble in check with his courteous manner (and the matched pair of pistols worn at his waist). At his retirement in 1984, at the age of ninety-one, many of the visiting musicians he had befriended over the years gathered to play in his honor. Twenty-six years later, the event has grown into the Frank Brown International Songwriters’ Festival (November 11–21). Head down to the beach to catch performances by some two hundred songwriters, including Sonny Throckmorton, who has had more than a thousand of his tunes recorded by the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis and Merle Haggard, and the Grammy-winning Larry Butler, who has played with just about every Nashville great, from Johnny Cash to Loretta Lynn. fbisf.com

Arkansas
QUACK ADDICTS
What’s that quacking sound? It’s a duck call, and no doubt it’s coming from Stuttgart, where duck hunting is darn near a religion. Come late November, duck-calling maestros will flock here for the 75th annual World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest (November 27), culminating a weeklong celebration devoted to the town’s beloved waterfowl. The first champion, a Mississippi native, won without the use of a call, earning nothing but a boatload of bragging rights. Now, regional and state champions from across the United States and Canada compete for more than $15,000 in prizes. This year’s contest will also include the prestigious Champion of Champions event, a showdown among past winners to see who is truly top duck. stuttgartarkansas.org

Florida
HOMAGE TO THE SILVER KING
Florida writer Randy Wayne White knows tarpon. He guided for thirteen years in Tarpon Bay before landing himself on the best-seller list for his Florida-set mystery novels. But fishing remains his true love, and in his new tome, Randy Wayne White’s Ultimate Tarpon Book: The Birth of Big Game Fishing (University Press of Florida), he recounts the history of Florida tarpon through a collection of fish tales from some of the greatest outdoor writers and sportsmen to ever wet a line—think Ernest Hemingway, Teddy Roosevelt, Zane Grey, and even Thomas Edison. As Hemingway wrote of chasing this most hallowed game fish: “You ought to be in good condition. If you are not, two or three fish will put you in good condition.”

Georgia
SCOUT’S HONOR
Not that you really need a reason to enjoy a few rounds of sporting clays and a little camaraderie this fall, but Georgia shooters will have some extra incentive. This year’s Sporting Clays Classic at Barnsley Gardens Resort in Adairsville will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts, with proceeds benefiting the Boy Scouts of the Atlanta Area Council. The event kicks off with a gala and benefit auction on November 10, held at Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, followed by a day of friendly competition at the resort’s sixteen-station course on November 12. “Be prepared” for a good time. atlantabsa.org/sportingclays

Kentucky
OUT OF THE BARN
The Bluegrass State inevitably conjures notions of Southern gentility—the white-bearded colonel, the julep, and, of course, the Kentucky Derby. But it hasn’t always been that way. In How Kentucky Became Southern: A Tale of Outlaws, Horse Thieves, Gamblers, and Breeders (University Press of Kentucky), veteran turf writer Maryjean Wall offers an inside look at the evolution of the state’s identity, most notably its horse breeding and racing industry. As the book’s subtitle suggests, it’s a colorful history to say the least, and had it not been for a particular set of circumstances and maybe a little luck, the Derby might well have wound up in New Jersey. The horror!