The Confederate Memorial Park at Mountain Creek, Alabama was the setting for an old-fashioned Southern picnic organized for 80 members of the Maxwell Air Force Base Air Command and Staff College and their families.

The picnic followed a demonstration of antique infantry and cavalry weaponry and equipment by authentically uniformed soldiers. Col Bill Rambo of the 33rd Alabama Infantry Civil War Re-enactors presided over the demonstration, which included cannon firing. Capt Paul Whaley and Privates Jon Proctor, Jeff Black, and Stan Hutson assisted Col Rambo.

The lunch featured Southern favorites from historian Annie Crenshaw's family cookbook: Southern Traditions: Recipes and Reminiscences from Seven Generations of the Crenshaw Family. Annie, dressed in an antebellum costume, prepared and served fried chicken, sweet-pickle potato salad, watermelon wedges, bread-and-butter pickles, and a mouth-watering assortment of cakes and cookies. Carol and Jesse Barksdale, Pat Mills, Jeanne Hall Ashley, Mary Crenshaw Bates, and Luci and John Daniell assisted Annie. The unusual turkey-pecan salad sandwiches (see recipe at right) were a particular favorite of the crowd.

Fresh-cut daffodils, contributed by Jeanne Ashley, adorned the table. These gorgeous spring blooms came from the gardens of Ellerslie, the plantation home of Jeanne's great-great-great-grandparents.

The children particularly enjoyed the Park's log cabin museum of military artifacts. The Park covers over a hundred acres of rolling wooded countryside with nature trials and self-guided walking-tours inviting visitors, young and old, to explore. The Park is also the site of Alabama's only Confederate Veterans' Home. A new state-of-the art museum building is to be under construction this summer.

For young and old alike, it was an opportunity to enjoy an old-fashioned outdoor meal such as our ancestors might have enjoyed. Only this one was served in a comfortable Park Pavilion (running water and electricity!) rather than out of a wooden trunk from the back of a buggy.

If you would like your civic club, family, or church group to enjoy an Old-Fashioned Southern Picnic, contact Annie Crenshaw at Southern Traditions (334) 567-5078 or e-mail her at: southern.traditions@mindspring.com