Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins (14 page)

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MUSIC FREQUENTLY ACCOMPANIED MOLLY
and me when we worked in the kitchen. My tastes ran to classic folk, traditional jazz, '60s/'70s rock, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and, until she changed the station, whatever was on the Metropolitan Opera broadcast on Saturdays.

Molly was seriously into bluegrass, ethnic music, rockabilly, a few classics, and whatever was local. To her credit, she never lost patience with the fact that I consistently confused the Melancholy Ramblers, a popular Austin musical ensemble, with the New Lost City Ramblers, a folksy string band that periodically appeared on campus at my alma mater, Antioch College.

I once gave her a CD of the NLCR just for the heck of it. She pronounced them okay, smiled, and decided to “listen to the rest of it later,” which I interpreted to be roughly somewhere between never and never ever, although she was willing to cut them some slack on account of how cofounder Mike Seeger was a half brother to Pete Seeger. Thematic music often accompanied meal prep, although not even
Aida
made it past the Act I Triumphal March. She tolerated
La Bohème
. Ever the romantic, she said it had a good storyline.

One Saturday Molly consented to listen to that Puccini favorite and we listened to Marcello sing his heart out to Mimi as we discussed plans for a turducken Thanksgiving. It was one in an endless series of dinners, lunches, and brunches we concocted. Many were themed—an Academy Award evening of food from various nominated movies; a brunch of only seasonal vegetables; a potluck dinner made from authentic Julia Child recipes (no cheating); a gourmet Super Bowl party; a brunch of only green food—or was it red?

The real fun started when “Chef Ellen” had to divine a way to stretch food for four into a meal for six—or sometimes eight or ten—by the time Miz Molly extended spontaneous invites at a quarter past the last minute.

Numbers became more controlled once Molly commissioned that round table, because it worked as long as seatings were kept to eight, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners excepted.

Mood and the guest list determined the menu. It might be beef tenderloin with leeks and pureed potatoes or a bowl o' red topped with chopped onion, cheese, and Molly's jalapeño cornbread. Depending on the season it might be standard summer fare—ribs, hot dogs, chicken, potato salad, and her perennial favorite, asparagus. Christmas dinner might yield a standing rib roast with mushrooms, Yorkshire pudding, fingerling potatoes, and baby vegetables.

Although she favored salmon in later years, Molly was a dedicated carnivore early on. She especially loved old-fashioned dishes, so a frosty winter's Saturday dinner might demand pot roast, potatoes, carrots, and peas as the main attraction. Until illness laid her low, as you probably guess by now, Molly was a certified meat-and-potatoes girl.

Seasonal music was de rigueur. Voices emanating from her boom box might be anything—Donna Summer, Bing Crosby, Aaron Neville, the Chipmunks, or Elvis. One year Molly managed to find something called
Yodeling the Classics
. If there was ever anything with the power to make gums itch, this CD was it. She couldn't stop playing the damned thing. With each successive yodeling of Mozart's “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” she'd dissolve in laughter. God help us if three or four people arrived solo instead of together. We'd have to hear it again and again and again with each successive arrival. She couldn't even stop reading the liner notes aloud: “Not since Spike Jones gargled the ‘William Tell Overture' has there been a recording to compare with this.”

Amen.

Smothered pork chops were another favorite, as was
poulet
Dijon, actually nothing more than a gussied-up variation on that chicken recipe calling for forty cloves of garlic.

Although we couldn't always agree on what constituted good music, we were in sync on the value of good food—two of life's more satisfying components. So it was not unusual from time to time to have the Melancholy Ramblers—Frances Barton, Brady Coleman, Marco Perella, and Blackie White—
jamming away in Molly's living room, on her patio, or on her CD player.

All are accomplished in their own right, but Frances represents the kind of woman Molly liked to have around. Frances, of the rich contralto voice, was the lone distaff member of the Melancholy Ramblers. She met Molly in the 1970s, through Ronnie Dugger, founding editor of the
Texas Observer
, and business manager Cliff Olofson.

(As will become increasingly obvious, Molly stories can't be told without recurring mention of the
Texas Observer
, where she wrote for six years before heading off to the big time in New York City.)

Just knowing Molly's friends helps you know the real Molly, and Frances lends insight to those whom Molly viewed with trust and respect. Frances's husband, physician and sculptor Richard Leverich, was among Austin's comparatively few physicians in private practice who accepted Medicare patients, before he retired in 2010.

Molly and Frances didn't know each other well at first, but they had many mutual friends. Frances started working at the
Observer
as business manager in 1981, when Olofson, who retired continually right up to the day he really did once and for all, asked Frances to work with him with a view toward replacing him. She lasted only a couple of years but had a great time in those twenty-four months. Olofson never left the
Observer
until he died in 1995.

At the time the
Observer
shared space on the second floor of a two-story house that Dave Richards had bought when he and Ann were still married. Although he bought the building to house the law firm he and Sam Houston Clinton shared, the
Observer
shared the second floor with the Texas Civil Liberties Union. Dorothy Browne, who was the TCLU assistant director, remembers those wild and woolly days. She went on to become administrative assistant to Elliott Naishtat, arguably the most liberal member of the Texas Legislature, who keeps getting reelected in spite of his progressive politics.

“It was quite an assembly,” Dorothy said. “It was so completely crazy. Molly had that raggedy dog called Shit, the place looked like it was falling down, and the toilet was on the back porch. Heaven help you if you wanted to use it in cold weather—I remember one time Hazel Clinton came and poured anti-freeze in it because the water had frozen solid.”

Minor inconveniences aside, the building's second-floor veranda was a perfect place to unwind after a long day of trying to publish a political journal,
defend civil rights, and seek justice for the downtrodden. Design appointments for the veranda featured a tattered overstuffed sofa, mismatched chairs, and a small refrigerator perpetually filled with beer.

If you're beginning to sense a pattern related to the role of hops and barley in sustaining Austin's progressives, well, nicely done. There was a decidedly
laissez les bon temps rouler
air about it all. When this crew worked, they worked; and when they didn't, stand back. It was a heady time, especially for Frances, who grew up cradled in the arms of the church.

“Molly was a huge celebrity in my eyes, and I was a little intimidated, although I felt closer to her later on,” Frances said, recalling a family photo of a different kind. “My niece Lisa had come to stay with me. She was sixteen or seventeen at the time and I took her to one of the parties Dave Richards used to throw at the office. This was a Halloween party, held in the back parking lot. Lisa and I went dressed as hookers. She knew all kind of tricks with makeup and managed to give us a pretty believable look for our roles. Somebody snapped a photo and gave it to me later. Dick scanned it, cleaned it up, and I have it hanging on the wall in my bathroom. Reminds me of those good times.”

Like several of Molly's friends, Frances came to the city of Austin from somewhere else. In this instance, Nelsonville, a small Czech and German community in Austin County. (When she was twelve, her family moved to Taylor.)

Her ancestors emigrated from Moravia, one of the provinces of what is now the Czech Republic. Her grandfather and father were both ministers in the old Hussite church, called the Unitas Fratrum (Unity of the Brethren). It has a long religious as well as political history in Bohemia and Moravia and was one of the inspirations for the democratic uprisings there, including the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

Her parents both attended the University of Texas in the 1930s, where they belonged to a club called the Hot Czechs. Her mother, who didn't speak English until Frances was five, went on to become a high school English teacher. Her father, who received his theological degree from Oberlin College, was a passionate FDR Democrat.

“He preached in Czech and English,” Frances said. “He had a beautiful bass voice. When my brother and I were old enough, we formed a family quartet: Mother sang soprano, I sang alto, my brother sang tenor, and my father sang bass. I loved it and count it as one of the joys of my life.”

The family sang together at churches, funerals, revivals, rest homes, and hospitals. Her father was eventually drummed out of the church for his anti–Vietnam War sermons and for supporting VISTA volunteers working in the Taylor area. Working for VISTA was a legal alternative to participating in the Vietnam conflict for some, but not for others, and that included lots of folk in Taylor.

“I held a grudge against Taylor for a long time but have made my peace with the place. After all, the Ramblers do get paid [when performing there].”

Thank goodness for that; Taylor has some of the best barbecue in Texas.

Like many old-school Austinites rotating through Molly's vast circle of contacts, Frances has led an eclectic life—choir and Sunday school pianist, waitress, Volkswagen mechanic, VISTA trainer, library clerk, substitute funeral home organist, legal secretary, proofreader, writer, campaign manager, fund-raiser, and accomplished gardener.

The Barton-Leverich duo have a daughter, Jubilee Rose, completing a fellowship in pediatric intensive care, and a son, Jacob Barton Leverich, born on the bathroom floor of the family home. He has risen above that inglorious start to earn a PhD in computer science from Stanford. Friends thought they should commemorate the physical place of his birth and name him John. Mercifully his parents thought otherwise.

So now we have Dorothy Browne's progressive politics and invaluable organizational skills paired with Elliott Naishtat's populist politics, Frances on the board of the
Texas Observer
, and Dave Richards practicing law on behalf of the downtrodden. If a chorus of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” is starting to reverberate as background music for identifying the cast of characters in Molly's life, there's a reason for that.

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