Dinner in the Field and other stories
I find you can discover your strengths at any age. For example, I find I’m a better writer than I am an editor. I have a full-length draft of a memoir that I’ve devoted countless hours to, and it’s finally finished. I’m anxious to move on to new material. But finishing the book is not the same as completing the project. Doing it right, I’m told, entails a less than...
Dinner at The Shack
WARNING-This is the longest blog entry I’ve ever posted. Don’t start it late at night. It’s a composite of lots or conversations I had throughout the South. I took the liberty of putting all those words in the mouths of a real couple I actually met at a very good restaurant. It took a while to write and I couldn’t figure out how to shorten it or break it in...
Catching up to 2019
Let’s wind up this long trip through American history. It’s not pretty, but it’s ours. Though he survived impeachment and remained in the White House, Andrew Johnson would not be elected to a second term in 1868 , would not even be nominated by either party. Johnson lost his political base. Popular Union General Ulysses S. Grant, a moderate Republican, not a radical, won the Republican nomination for president, and...
A Buick Reverie on Kindness and Cruelty
At the little town of Old Texas, Alabama I turned onto Route 29. I picked it because it was nothing but a thin gray line on the atlas with no towns. Somewhere around Evergreen I would have to get on a bigger highway, thick red on the map, to take me to the Florida state line above Pensacola but for now I wanted peace and quiet. Boredom can be a...
Heading Out
My road trip plan, such that it was, was completed. 1. Get to Alabama 2. Visit Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma 3. Take notes The rest of the trip was free form. The atlas was telling me the best road straight south was 41. To get to it I had to backtrack a little east on U.S. 80. I was anxious to drive a road I’d never been on before. Sort...
Selma
The things you see as you approach a town can inform you about the place. I hadn’t done any prior research on Selma, or any of the cities I planned to visit, but after Birmingham and Montgomery, I had a feeling Selma was going to be very different. It was. Little announces the upcoming town of Selma on U.S. Route 80: billboards, businesses on the fringe, lanes added to the...
The Road to Selma
It’s the first week of June and I’m still writing about a trip I took in the Buick on the back roads of Alabama in February. My apologies. I learned too much, both on the trip and in doing research back in the shack, not to tell the whole story. I’m sure there is a lot going on in Montgomery. I mean, it’s the capitol of Alabama, a city of...
More Lessons Learned in Montgomery
The recently opened Legacy Museum, eight blocks away from the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (Lynching museum), is on Coosa Street. Coosa Street is close to the riverfront, and that area of Montgomery enjoying a revival. Someone built a minor league baseball stadium down there, home to the Montgomery Biscuits, an AA Southern League affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. Lots of trendy places are popping up downtown. In...
The Civil War and its Aftermath
The Civil War was fought over slavery. It was the burning moral issue of its time for most Americans, but in the South it was also an economic issue. Should it be expanded? Should it be allowed to exist but contained? Should it be abolished? The presidential election of 1860 tipped the scales towards an answer to those questions. The policy debate was whether new states being formed and admitted...
Montgomery, Alabama-the back story
I left the Waffle house and drove downtown. Montgomery had a different feel than Birmingham. It felt older, steeped in more tradition, a city with a long past. Turns out that’s true. Birmingham’s story is about a steel industry that evolved after the Civil War. Montgomery’s history is about cotton and was shaped before that war. Here’s the short story on Montgomery. Let’s see if I can sum up a...
Waffle House Revisited
Uncharacteristically, the mood in the Montgomery, Alabama Waffle House the next morning was tense. The small yellow and black building, with its two cooks and four waitresses, was crammed with hungry people. I like to sit at the counter in front of the grill and watch the cooks, but all those stools were taken. I found one remaining seat on the side counter, where waitresses make up to go orders...