Lu’s
Views Travel Notes – Summer 2022 – Southern Surprises – Part One, Tennessee
and Alabama
It
had been 10 years since I’d attended a Cambridge High School Class of 1972
class reunion, and longer than that since I’d seen some of my former
classmates. The reunion was held on June
10, 2022 in a beautiful restored, historic barn on the property of a
classmate. It was really good to see
many people looking well and pretty much the way they used to look. There were 31 out of 54 original class
members present, and some others could not make it but sent messages. Of course some have passed on through the
years. Though there were some people I
didn’t get to talk to, for the most part I felt like I connected with quite a
few. Last time I saw them we were mostly
all talking about our kids, but now we’re retired and some people have numerous
grandkids. The highlight for LCR was
talking with one of my classmates whose husband had become friends with him
over the years. They bonded over being
quite a bit older than the CHS classmates.
The husband passed away a while ago, but he had urged his wife to talk
with LCR next time she went to a reunion.
It was sad to know he is gone but nice to know he thought of LCR and remembered
the talks they had with fondness.
The evening ended
with fireworks. Our host drove a flatbed
truck loaded with fireworks wired in sequence out into the middle of a field,
lit the first and simply walked away, toward the hillside where we all stood watching
from a distance. The fireworks went off
one by one as dusk fell on a clear evening.
It was a magical display, professional quality really, though we were
told it was nothing compared to what he does on the Fourth of July.
The
next day, we went to Mom’s in Madison, ate lunch out, napped, looked at the
photos from the reunion and generally just chilled out. After dinner at the house we returned to our
campsite in a small nearby town.
There
was some work to be done on the trailer, so we returned to Chicago, where we
stayed the night and then headed south after the work was completed.
From
this point on, we were traveling in a record-breaking heat wave. So let me just get this out there: Yes, it was hot. Very hot.
Hot all the time. For weeks. It seemed wherever we went, the front was
moving with us, as we traveled south and east, through Illinois, Tennessee,
Alabama, into Florida. I’m not usually
one to complain about the weather. We
have AC in the car and in the trailer, though we don’t run it all the time and usually
do not run it at all during the night, because it gets so cold. But still the heat puts a crimp in the
outdoor lifestyle. It was too hot to
ride bikes, go for walks or do other exercise, or eat outside any time after 10
a.m., and I don’t even like to stand outdoors talking when it’s in the upper
90s with the sun blazing down. It was an
event every morning to find shade to do my yoga outdoors. Sometimes I just couldn’t find any. Now I won’t complain about this anymore
except to say, yeah, the whole time, hot.
Another
thing I should say up front is, despite my misgivings about the South, people
were nice, friendly, welcoming and chatty everywhere we went. This could just be because as campers, we
interact with people in service businesses who are supposed to be nice, and
we’ve noticed before that when you’re in Vacationland everyone wants to be
there and has a positive attitude, but still, given some dire warnings we
received before setting out, it was a pleasant surprise. I am not naïve enough to suppose racism has
disappeared or even gone underground. I
am merely reporting that on this trip, we did not experience it.
While
still in southern Illinois, we noticed our gas mileage was very low. We stopped at a Toyota dealership to get the
car looked at. To get the car in first
thing the next morning, it was suggested that we park for the night in their
lot. They even directed us to an
electrical hookup. In the morning there
was already a line at 8 a.m., so getting service took most of the day. There was a dispute over the cause of the
problem; some work was done and it was believed that we may have gotten a tank
of the wrong gas. Because of this, in an
attempt to burn off the offending gas, we drove until we ran out. We made it to a freeway exit. LCR had to walk to get gas in a can. It was 95 degrees and steamy and I don’t mind
saying I was a bit worried about him being dehydrated when he got back. He did get a partial ride to the station from
a Good Samaritan but, for reasons best known to himself, declined a similar
ride back. We were thankful for sweet
tea, which on that day and for the trip in general, we drank often.
The
first time I was able to exercise, other than daily yoga, was in Nashville on Friday,
June 17, when a thunderstorm caused a temporary drop in temperature. I had a brisk half-hour walk in the
campground. We stayed in Nashville for
several days, getting some legal work and writing done as well as a little
shopping.
Monday,
June 20, 2022
We
arrived at LCR’s sister Madi’s in Huntingdon, TN. We were waiting for a package to be
delivered. Spent some time with Madi and
her granddaughter Kayla, eating together and talking about family matters.
The
main attraction in the small town of Jackson, TN is the Casey Jones
Museum. Casey Jones was a train conductor
who was famous for saving the lives of the crew and passengers of a train, by
staying aboard and holding the brake down, knowing the train was going to crash
into another and at the cost of his own life.
The museum had lots of information and artifacts about Casey Jones,
railroad commerce and life in general, and Sim Webb, the train’s fireman, who
jumped off in time at Casey’s insistence, and lived to tell everyone of Jones’
heroism. Webb was Black – on the railroad,
Blacks and whites worked together. Webb
had previously been a teacher, but took a railroad job because the pay was
better. Both Webb and Jones’ wife lived
long lives and remained celebrity symbols of the brotherhood of railway
workers. There was an old locomotive at
the museum, and also Casey Jones’ restored house. Railroad work must have paid well because the
house seemed luxurious to us by 1900 standards, with elaborate indoor plumbing,
featuring a wood-paneled bathroom with copper piping.
On
Friday, the package LCR needed arrived, and we left for points south.
Saturday,
June 25, 2023
Florence, Alabama area: The Muscle Shoals Sound Studio has been restored to the way it was in the late 1960s. Our knowledgeable Stones-fan guide told many stories about artists who recorded there, some very famous and some who became so later, sometimes almost by accident. The original piano and sound board are there, as well as the bathroom where Mick Jagger composed “Wild Horses.” No one is allowed to actually use this historic bathroom! The glass around the south booth is original, as is some vinyl furniture that visitors are not allowed to sit on. There is a tiny porch at the back called the “listening porch.” Our guide said she was a fan of much of the music recorded there and grew up not knowing the studio was within a few blocks of her home, and that she may have passed by it while stars whose work she knew well were standing out on the porch listening to the results of their recording sessions. She used an iPad to pull up excerpts of certain songs to show the musical trends and innovations that were a part of the Muscle Shoals Swamper sound, a combination of Southern gospel, soul and R&B – a truly biracial creation.
Also
in the area, the W.C. Handy Home and Museum was a very different experience due
to material that would have been on a tour now being presented on video. There are pros and cons to that. The narrator on the videos is not the
greatest. There are many artifacts
showing Handy’s long life and association with many musical greats of the time. Eventually he lost his sight, and they have a
Braille music book that he used. His
wife died relatively young and he married his secretary when she was 51 and he
was 80. He died at 85. The museum has examples of his music and some
of his instruments.
Handy started playing music at a young age and followed his dream of
being a musician in spite of parental disapproval.
The wood cabin in which he grew up was moved
to this site and has been integrated into the building. You can step right from the museum into the
cabin. It is a very well preserved
two-room cabin with some original furniture and artifacts. The museum’s curator seemed enthusiastic, but
mostly on the phone and not very available to visitors. Handy was a champion not just of Black music
but of education
for his people in general. He was the
first to bring authentic African and Caribbean elements into mainstream music. Before him, what we now call the blues was
considered low-class and unimportant. Sunday,
June 26, 2022
Everything closes
up here on Sundays. One of the things
that was open was the Florence Indian Mound and Museum. This museum of very early Native American
artifacts and history is across the road from the mound. I climbed the mound and a thunderstorm
promptly broke out.
We
also visited the Frank Lloyd Wright Rosenbaum House. Though it is doubtful we would consider the
house a residence of ordinary people, it did offer a glimpse into Wright’s
vision of a house that would actually be lived in by a family. It features rooms with platforms that could
be used for sleeping quarters for quite a few people. One quirk of the architecture is that the
doorways seem very narrow, almost requiring visitors to turn slightly sideways
to enter.
We
looked for a local fish place and found a big, warehouse-looking building
outside of town. Curtis’ Fish featured
no-nonsense, local fare. LCR had whole
catfish, which he’d never had before, and it was so good he ordered
another. On the way there we drove
through a serious thunderstorm, which made a tremendous noise on the metal roof
of the restaurant. Fortunately, it
cleared before we left.
Monday,
June 27, 2022
On
Monday we went to the Helen Keller House and Museum. The family home, possessions, and
outbuildings are the originals. There is
a Braille garden and an open-air theater, set for the play “The Miracle
Worker,” which has been put on every summer for 61 years. The original pump where Helen Keller first
learned the word “water” is still there.
We
camped at an RV spot in a quiet trailer park in Montgomery. The SmartJack was not working and this
trailer is difficult to crank manually, so we called around for RV dealerships,
but no one in area seemed to know what a SmartJack was, let alone be able to
troubleshoot and repair, so we made a side trip to Norcross GA (suburb of
Atlanta) to Southland RV, the dealership where we bought the trailer. We camped in their parking lot at night. They have several electrical hookups for this
purpose. It seemed a nice courtesy to
me, but some have remarked that it suggests they expect a lot of repair
work!
At
the dealership, we discovered that the jack and several other small issues were
easily resolved. The staff at Southland
were most accommodating when we explained we had made the long side trip just
to be there, and we were on our way by late morning. Back at the same trailer park, we spent time seeking
out propane to refill the tanks and waiting for a package to be delivered at an
Amazon hub which turned out to be an African wear store.
The
next stop, near Dismals Canyon, found us at an equestrian campground. All the other campgrounds were full but this
one was nearly empty. Though we saw
horse trailers, we saw few horses. I
don’t think they kept the horses outside.
I did not hear them. Maybe it was
because of the heat. The horse trailers
appeared to have AC. We did see people
riding in the morning, as well as dogs on the loose and deer at the campsite
around 9 a.m.
We just
made it to Dismals Canyon before cutoff for afternoon hikes. There was no guide at this time; we were on
our own because daylight tours were finished for the day. Surprise, surprise – the trail map was not
accurate. There were places with names
on the map but no signs on the trail, and signs for things not on the map. There was no one else out there and often
paths seemed to go in several directions.
It is a very dark, damp, spooky, canyon with moss-covered huge (est.
15-20 ft tall) rocks. We ended up going
in a circle and seeing about 1/3 of the trail, but did not want to go back so we
just waited at the office/gift shop for the evening tour.
These
insects spend 6 months as larvae and then live for one day. As larvae, which is the glowing stage, they
eat mosquitos. They must do their job
well because we saw no mosquitos in the canyon or indeed in the area. I had seen one man applying insect repellent
spray before the hike, but though incredibly damp and spooky, the canyon was
not buggy, not with flying bugs anyway.
We definitely needed the flashlights.
Some people used phones, which was annoying because they never managed
to turn them off when asked; it always took a while. We were told red light was better because
your eyes do not adjust to it as well and you can see better at night, but I
tried it, having a flashlight with a red option, and I did not notice a
difference. The tour covered some of the
areas we had seen earlier on our own, but they looked much different in the
dark.
Sunday,
July 3, 2022
National
Memorial for Peace and Justice and Legacy Museum
This
memorial is beautiful and terrible, haunting, really an intense
experience. When you look at a map it is
hard to see how it was managed, to have such an expansive park literally in the
middle of town. Hundreds of hanging
steel pillars represent counties where lynchings took place. They are engraved with the names of the known
victims. There is also sand in jars,
from those places. The park covers a
hilly area. We were told that in case of
any storm activity we would have to evacuate, and that actually happened. The staff took the storm warning very
seriously and went through the halls of the structure and threw everyone
out. I can see where the amount of steel
there, combined with the hilly ground, might make the place a lightning rod.
Besides
the memorial, there is a museum you can take a bus to which is some distance
away, not far but not a comfortable walk either. The museum has photos, recordings, and
displays covering the period of slavery up to the present. It’s overwhelming and exhausting. Not surprisingly, when visitors have
completed the tour, we found they were mostly discussing going somewhere to
eat. I think it’s not only the physical
exhaustion but the need for comfort.
At
an oil change station, a talkative man recommended we visit Selma, which was
only about an hour west of Montgomery.
Before
leaving, we visited the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. It has a sizable collection of American art,
a sculpture garden, many fine paintings and wonderful photos. There is a sculpture garden with a lifelike
bronze of several people talking under a street sign. It was so eerily lifelike I found myself
wanting to look into their eyes. There
was a striking, life-size display of bronze horses, not in the sculpture garden
but in another area, like an open field at the back of the museum. There was a small marble by Epimonia
Lewis. She was a Black and Native
American female sculptor who mostly worked in Rome in the late 1800s, very
unusual in many ways including that she did her own chiseling instead of
leaving it to assistants as was the custom.
Some of her work has been lost but there are several pieces in the
Smithsonian. She was put on a U.S.
postage stamp, and when I got the stamps, I did not know who she was. Now I do.
Wednesday,
July 6, 2022
At Selma we saw
the Civil Rights Park. There is also a
small Voting Rights Museum. We
photographed the famous Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Selma itself seems stuck in time, shabby and sleepy. We also visited the small Civil Rights Park,
which is on land adjacent to one side of the bridge. There is a gate to a short hiking trail that
winds around and then right under the bridge.
The park seems rundown, as though it is maintained by volunteers but
they have left. However, the staff members
at the Voting Rights Museum, who were younger than I would have expected, seem
committed to keeping the story of Selma alive.
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