Eudorigins

Though I was really rooting for her, Eudora Welty couldn't hold my attention. Sitting on the bench at Fiesta Laundry, Welty's musings on the history of the Natchez Trace lost out to a mosquito hawk that seem to be stalking an older black lady in a big hat. The lady never looked up from the pile of clean clothes she was folding, but I swear that mosquito hawk saw her as a big, juicy bloodsucker. That's how I saw it, anyway.

I can remember the first I ever heard about Eudora Welty. It was that episode of "The Simpsons" that has Jay Sherman, the critic from "The Critic." It's also the episode Matt Groening had his name removed from, because he felt FOX shouldn't use his show as a tool to boost the popularity of "The Critic." ("Simpsons" fanboys, by the way, hate the episode. Most hold at as the second worst episode ever, the first being with the one with the racing horse and the jockey gnomes.) Anyway, Jay Sherman lets loose this wall-shuddering burp at the Simpsons' dinner table in an effort to further trump all of Homer's skills. "How many Pulitzer Prize winners can do that?" Lisa asks. Sherman responds, "Just me and Eudora Welty. (Later, I think, we hear the burp again and Krusty makes a remark about meeting Welty for a date.)

And with that memory, it strikes me as funny that I have to read her for a class. She's quite good, really, but my mind is other places.