Brother James Relocates
...according to my hometown paper, The Lovely County Citizen in Eureka Springs. How I wish I had known before now. Knowing James Coiner was one of the most pleasant parts of my early life. Along with his obit [ known in heavily zen buddhist populated Eureka Springs as a 'transition notice'] I'm bumping up the story of our biscuit making days together, so long ago.
Sorry for the ensuing length of this post.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Dubbed Haulin' James shortly after he arrived in Eureka Springs in 1970, James would haul anything for anybody in his 1951 Chevy pickup, Blue Corrina. Coiner's arrival coincided with the second renaissance of Eureka Springs, when writers, poets and artists started buying and cleaning up abandoned houses. James would haul trash for $2 a pickup load, arranging long branches decoratively over the tailgate to conceal Corrina's perpetually expired license plate.
In his early days in town James opened a soup kitchen to feed the indigent, and after being shut down for lack of proper paperwork, he went to work as a cook at several restaurants.
James, who was shy and modest, led a simple countryman's life although he was exceptionally talented as a painter and sculptor.
On July 2, 1976, he was baptized at St. Elizabeth's Catholic Church, Crescent Grade, Eureka Springs. "It was a big thing in his life," said a close friend. "He was intimately involved with the church from that moment on."
James later became a Third Order Secular Franciscan, a lay order of Franciscans who do not live in community but rather live their everyday lives in a typical setting, striving to perfect charity in their own secular surroundings. From that time on, he was known as Brother James.
He died shortly after receiving Extreme Unction, or last rites, of the Catholic Church.
"Losing James is as though a whole species has gone extinct," one friend said. "He was a rare and wonderful person."...
...many nieces, nephews, friends and extended family who will miss his lovely, smiling face.
A memorial celebration of Brother James' life will be held in Eureka Springs at a later
date. -Lovely County Citizen
Below is one of my favourite James Coiner
stories.
I'm not fond of what [in my mind] I've come to think of as 'The Crucifixion of Kermit' ...last week the current Pope condemned an exhibit of a green ceramic frog hanging on a cross, which is being presented as art.
But I have to tell on myself here, and this is something I'd almost forgotten about.
Years ago, I lived in a small mountain town where one of the main employers of locals and drawer -of -tourists was The Great Passion Play. There is also a giant statue of Christ on the large campus, which we locals had always secretly felt looked like a giant milk carton rather than the God of the universe. It had been created by one of the men who helped design and sculpt Mount Rushmore, which, thankfully -doesn't seem to resemble the Passion Play statue in any way. This unfortunate creation had further been rendered questionable by having it's height adjusted some several dozen feet by the aviation board. The sheer height of the project, it appeared, violated federal aviation code. If the Smith Foundation didn't lower the proposed statue by several dozen feet, the structure would be forced to have a blinking red aviation light installed on top of it's head.
[wiki link]
Naturally, the involved parties decided that maybe height wasn't everything in life, after all and decided to crop their specs a bit, but apparently lacked time [ or maybe artistic judgement] to adjust it's proportions...hence the visually disturbing 'milk carton effect' I mentioned earlier.
At this time, I worked the 5:00 am shift as backup cook for the Basin Park Hotel. My head cook was Brother J - a young Franciscan monk with a keen sense of humour.
He and I were tired of stamping out the same old round biscuits every morning. But after discovering that a dropped raw biscuit on the kitchen floor strongly resembled the statue on the edge of town, J enlisted my help in designing a biscuit cutter. We then began serving our special Statue Biscuits and gravy... a tall oblisk of wheaty goodness surrounded by a sea of shining liquid, lined with bushes of parsley.
This continued for the better part of a week, until our kindly boss got wind of the project and put an astonished stop to it. He knew both of us to be decent people -especially J, who after all, lived in what amounted to a monastery. He somehow knew we weren't trying to be
sacreligious. We were just bored fry cooks in a town where nothing much happens.
The tourists and business owners took a different view, however and before long the newspaper got wind of it. There were rumours of witchcraft and cult activity.
After the initial flutter died down, though,things got back to normal and J and I were once more cranking out round biscuits before dawn...no entertaining shapes, no funny business. Just a paycheck.
4 Comments:
I remembered your post about the biscuits,I have seen the "milk" carton statue and agree with you.
Sorry about Brother James,but you are right,I think,he just relocated.
(wish I could have had one of your biscuits :)
By Joybaby, Apr 27 09 5:52 PM
What a wonderful thing that you got to know him. Its folks like him that make life worth living. He was a blessing.
By garrysouders, Apr 27 09 9:05 PM
What a beautiful post, and no, it wasn't long at all!
The most surprising bit was that the "soup kitchen to feed the indigent" was shut down for lack of "proper" paperwork. Quite right too. We have to protect vulnerable people from unacceptable soup. They'll be much safer if we let them go hungry.
Loved the article too. I think I've seen it before but it was a better read for being prefaced with some background. Please send biscuits.
By lesley153, Apr 28 09 7:31 AM
I would most certainly send biscuits, if I know they wouldn't be absolute mortar by the time they reached their destination.
The funny thing is -I saw James again right around Christmas, while I was in Barnes and Noble looking for books. He was dressed in his traditional monk garb, and had let his once black hair grow long and silver, curling a bit at the ends. He was a Gandalf of a man, standing regal and tall in the middle of the cookbook section. We talked for a little while and I remember thinking he needed to sit down on one of the many sofas scattered around the store. Apparently I was right to think he didn't look well. I'm so pleased I got to see him one more time.
By ktstew, Apr 28 09 8:16 AM