Page Two

This morning in The New York Times there was an article on how Blenheim ginger ale had become a new Southern trendy drink. I was stopped in my tracks.

In late '72, I lived in an old decaying plantation house a few miles outside McColl, South Carolina, somewhat north of the town of Blenheim. The house we were living in was being slowly restored, room by room, by the occupants, a group of students from a nearby college in Laurinberg, North Carolina. One student was the relative of a friend, so we ended up living there for several months and then visiting a couple of times a year for a few more years.

The house was in the middle of a cotton field. We'd get drunk and try to start the cotton picker machines, those big, lumbering harvesters. We'd get drunk and sit on the porch all day into the night. We'd crank the ice cream maker for what seemed like hours, and sip rum and Cokes.

Looking out from the second floor balcony, all you could see was the white of cotton fields broken by lines of trees. A month later, standing on the same balcony, all you could see was rows of stripped cotton plants, acres of scrawny, naked branches with little bits of cotton stuck to them. On a warm day, we'd wake in the completely unrestored room, walk out onto the balcony and piss into the yard; there was no one around for miles. On cold days, the first one up would have to light the coal in the stove downstairs and get it going. Over the years a modern, downstairs bathroom was added (there used to only be an outhouse out back); the kitchen, dining room, and front study would also be lovingly restored.

Through this all, we drank Blenheim ginger ale, brewed in Blenheim. This was wicked stuff and had quite a kick; on your first swig your head flew back. Blenheim was then a rinky-dink operation - different batches tasted different. It was often hard to find, distribution uneven at best. Sometimes, you would get a real potent batch and it would lift the lid, so to speak. I drank it sparingly but had friends who were more devoted, sort of like Moxie freaks in New England.

At some point, Crawford Fitch, one of the house's residents, got hooked up with the latest head of Blenheim and for a while was in the soda business. I thought it was pretty exotic, the image of Crawford racing those South Carolina backroads in a truck loaded with cases and cases of lethal bottled ginger ale.

I thought the business would have long faded, but recently a friend saw an ad in the New Yorker for cases of Blenheim ginger ale - I figured it was a fluke. Now this NYTimes article appears: It seems a few years back the South of the Border folks bought it. South of the Border is a huge sprawling tourist complex with a Mexican theme that is just south of the North Carolina border. They upgraded the operation and added a new more drinker-friendly ale, which is now chic in the South.

A few weeks ago I wrote about a newspaperman I'd known in Florida over 20 years ago. It turns out his brother is a longtime reader of the Chronicle. The reader called to say his newspaperman brother, George Lane, Jr., is still in Florida. The past keeps sneaking up.

When we did the first Austin Musicians Register, the Chronicle was still located in the lower half of a house on 12th Street, around the corner from Austin Community College, and one of our main food sources was the eggroll wagon on campus. There were maybe a dozen of us staffers then, and about 180 bands listed. Now, Kate Messer heads up a team that probably numbers close to 12 just to collect, enter, edit, proof, and collate all those entries, the Musicians Register. Today, the register numbers over 1,000 bands.

The first SXSW was two days and 700 people. In two weeks, SXSW 98 begins: nine days, a film conference and festival, an interactive conference and a music conference and festivals, dozens of movies, hundreds of bands, and thousands and thousands of people later it will be over.

Next week, the Chronicle will begin its serious SXSW coverage. That issue will feature a special interactive/games section. The week after that there will be a heavy emphasis on film, and the week after that will be the annual Austin Music Awards with our traditional SXSW Picks and Sleepers section. SXSW 98 begins with its Film Festival Friday, March 13, and the Interactive and Film Conference beginning the next day. Look for details on the Music Festival and Awards show next issue.