Jehossee Rides Again: Part One

So lately, I've been doing a lot of body dismemberment and relocation. This requires the use of black trash bags and a can-do attitude.

Come with us, Alison.... it's just on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge...

The curator of a local historic home invited me to bring the Jehossee exhibit to roost for a while to coincide with their annual celebration of The Last Meeting of the Confederate Cabinet. (Yes, the capital letters are necessary. I live in the South.) She felt that it would lend a bit of intimacy and social context to the event, which is largely militaristic and political in its modern re-creation.

And I felt like it would be fun to hang out in such a classy joint without being asked to leave by the police.

The house, called the White Homestead, is lovely. Like many gracious old homes, it has lived many lives and boasts several additions which were added under the auspices of various generations since the late 1830s. The center of the home is generally fashioned like a Victorian parlor and dining room, with four bedrooms above.

You can practically hear your grandmother crow "WIPE YOUR FEET!!" can't you?

I decided to set the clothed mannequins up as though they were inhabitants of the home. This required actually finding mannequins. And this is where my dress-form/mannequin/stuffed corpse luck turned around. The family that owned this home for much of its existence are also the local mill owners from years gone by. And business is still good. Their current operation is locally based and boasts a "creative" facility which doubles as an archive for the family business.


And did I mention? They have mannequins. NICE mannequins. With hands and feet and improbably huge boobs. Which I guess they need for "creative" purposes back at the factory.

  She's got leeeegggggsssss! And she knows how to uuuusssse them!

Having the mannequins was amazing. Putting the d@$* things together was a different story. They were delivered to me in three contractor-size trash bags with various, unlabeled body parts grouped together. I said many a silent prayer of thanks for the years I wasted  spent playing Tetris on the family IBM Compatible. Assembling the new Team Jehossee would have been much easier had I not been terrified that I would make one false move and accidentally destroy the irreplaceable French gaming table, or whatever.

And did I destroy it? No!

It was like that when I got there.

Slowly bringing the house down to my personal standards of cleanliness...

Despite a healthy amount of anxiety and pretty much no clue how I was going to do what I wanted to do, set-up went astonishingly fast. I was motivated by the assurance that it had to be done that day, no matter what and that children would throw rocks at me if I failed. 

So basically, it was Middle School all over again. 

Coming up: Part Two! And more of this: